What holiday is coming up next week? (Fourth of July, Independence Day)
Why do we celebrate the Fourth of July, Independence Day? (Pause.)
Way back, some 230 or so years ago now, there were people living on the east coast of the country we live that today we call the United States. At the time, many of these people were British citizens, and the land that they lived on was part of the British Empire.
At least they thought they were. They were supposed to obey the king and do what he told them to do. The problem though, was the British government, the king, was treating the people in the American colonies differently than the citizens who lived in the British Isles. The Americans felt like they were being treated unfairly, as servants of a king who simply demanded more and more from them. The king and the government thought they could get away with it because the colonists lived so far away and thought that there wasn't a whole lot that the colonists could do about it.
But the American colonists, still British citizens, didn't appreciate the way they were being treated. At least some of them thought the only way to solve the problem was to rebel against the king by declaring themselves independent from the king and the British government. This led to what we call today the Revolutionary War. This war lasted a number of years. In the end, the American colonists won and the new nation of America was born.
This is the reason we celebrate Independence Day on the 4th of July. This was the day, in 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed. This was when the American colonists decided that they no longer wanted to be part of the British Empire and ruled by the British king. This was when the colonists declared that they wanted to decide for themselves how to run the country.
Kids, do you think you have enough freedom in your life? (Pause.) Are there times you wish you had more freedom? (Pause.) Do you think you'd have more freedom if you left home? Declared yourself independent from your mom, dad, or other people that take care of you? (Pause.)
What would happen if you left home? (Pause.)
- Might end up in trouble and in jail... And lose any freedom you might have had.
- You'll have to find a way to get food, clothes, place to live... Which means you'll have to work or spend lots of time gathering, building, and making things. Again you'll probably have less freedom than you have today.
- Ask any adult how much freedom they have to do the things they really want... Probably not as much as they'd like.
Did you know that way back, many thousands of years ago, there was an Independence Day? It didn't involve a lot of fireworks and celebration though. It was in the Garden of Eden. Do you recall the story of Adam and Eve?
Adam and Eve were created by God to be His friends. He gave them everything they would need and want. They weren't made to be God's servants, or God's workers. They were made to be God's friends.
But Adam and Eve were deceived -- by a serpent, a snake. You've probably seen pictures that someone drew of what he or she thought happened -- a big, huge, thick, ugly snake wrapped around a gnarly tree limb, a forked tongue flicking out, hissing to Eve that God was hiding things from them -- that God really wasn't a friend like He was telling them. Perhaps the serpent asked, "Did God really say that He is your friend? You know, He's keeping things from you." Perhaps the snake implied to Adam and Eve that God really wanted them as His servants and even His slaves.
Adam and Eve thought about what the snake said, and began to think that maybe this snake really knew what it was saying to them. They decided to believe what the snake told them, and signed their Declaration of Independence from God.
What they discovered, however, was that by doing so, they cut themselves off from the Source of Freedom, thereby ending up with really, no freedom at all. Things ended up being much worse. They had to work harder, they had to see things die (including their own children), they had to go through pain and suffering, they ended up fighting with one another.
By declaring their independence, they thought they would be more free, but instead, they discovered they became slaves.
But some thousands of years later for them, and two-thousand years before our time, Jesus chose to come into our world. Jesus came to show us how and to help us recover the freedom that was lost back in Eden. Jesus showed and taught that the only way to be really free is to be dependent upon God. Jesus showed us that complete trust upon God gives us complete freedom. Jesus came to repair and heal all of the things that get in the way of people, us, from being able to trust God completely. Every Sabbath can be, if we let it, be a reminder to us that God is always with us and offers us true freedom.
God is with us, not like a boss or a king, demanding that we do things for Him. God is with us as a friend. He wants us to get to know Him, to walk with Him, to talk with Him, to share with Him our lives, to learn to trust Him.
Today, will you let God be your friend? Will you let God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit be your friends?
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