Sermon Notes:

A New Day of Independence

Main Scripture References:

• Psalm 22:25-27 – “From You comes my praise in the great assembly… All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.”
• Genesis 3:6 – The story of Adam and Eve’s choice to act independently of God.
• Psalm 113:4 – “The Lord is high above all nations; His glory is above the heavens.”
• Romans 6:19 – “Before you let yourselves be slaves of impurity… now present your members as slaves to righteousness.”
• Matthew 28:18 – Jesus’s declaration of authority: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”

Introduction

• The sermon begins with a reading from Psalm 22 to set the theme of turning to God for guidance and satisfaction.
• Independence Day and national celebrations prompt reflection on the concept of freedom. The message asks what it means for believers to be truly free.

Key Themes and Points

1. What Does True Independence Mean?

• Milestones in life often symbolize independence (graduation, moving out, marriage) but bring responsibility and challenges.
• Real freedom isn’t about independence from authority but choosing dependence on God.
• Independence from God, as seen in Genesis 3:6, led Adam and Eve into separation and sin.

2. Faith and Freedom: Embracing God’s Authority

• True freedom comes when we rely on God’s wisdom rather than personal autonomy.
• Independence from worldly rule doesn’t mean independence from God; it actually requires us to submit further to His authority.
• The concept is captured in Psalm 113:4, where God’s supreme authority is emphasized.

3. Trusting God Amid Uncertain Times

• Independence from worldly structures or authorities does not mean we are free of accountability. Instead, we choose accountability to God.
• Matthew 28:18 reminds us of Christ’s authority, grounding us in a source of stability beyond any earthly power.
• Trusting God during uncertain times, such as elections or personal crises, offers peace that human systems can’t provide.

4. Praying for Leaders and the Nation

• Prayer plays a significant role in expressing dependence on God, especially during national transitions.
• 1 Timothy 2:1-2 (implied by context) emphasizes the importance of praying for those in authority so we can lead peaceful lives.
• Through prayer, we place national and personal concerns in God’s hands, trusting that His plan prevails.

5. Freedom in Christ: Overcoming Fear and Anxiety

• Independence from God often leads to anxiety as we try to control every outcome.
• Freedom in Christ liberates us from this stress, grounding us in His presence and purpose.
• Relying on God, rather than ourselves, allows us to experience peace, even when circumstances feel uncertain.

6. Walking by Faith: Daily Dependence on God

• Romans 6:19 speaks to living as “slaves to righteousness,” showing that true freedom is found in aligning with God’s will.
• Walking by faith involves daily surrender and allows us to see life’s challenges through the lens of God’s wisdom.

7. Declaring Dependence: The Foundation of True Freedom

• True freedom for Christians is found in declaring dependence on God, rather than striving for autonomy.
• This “new day of independence” calls believers to release control over life’s outcomes and to trust God’s direction.
• Dependence on God, rather than self-reliance, becomes the pathway to a life of peace and purpose.

Key Takeaways

• Freedom and faith are interconnected. We are most free when we trust God and submit to His authority.
• Praying for leaders and praying for the nation keeps our focus on God’s sovereignty and reinforces our faith that He controls all things.
• Dependence on God liberates us from fear, self-reliance, and the pressures of the world.
• This message redefines independence for believers, not as self-rule but as a life aligned with and grounded in God’s purpose.

Closing Thought:
As we embrace a new day of independence, let’s remember that true freedom lies not in independence from God but in a life that fully relies on Him. Through trust, prayer, and faith, we experience the peace and purpose that only He can provide.

Psalm 22:25-27

“From You comes my praise in the great assembly; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him. The afflicted will eat and be satisfied; those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before You.”

Genesis 3:6

“When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”

Psalm 113:4

“The Lord is high above all nations; His glory is above the heavens.”

Psalm 117:1

“Praise the Lord, all nations; Laud Him, all peoples!”

Romans 6:19

“I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.”

Matthew 28:18 (referenced in the context of authority)

“And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.’”

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A New Day of Independence

So, I’m going to start out this morning. I’m going to read from Psalm 22. It’s going to be Psalm 22:25-27. So Psalm 22:25 says, “From you comes my praise in the great assembly. I shall pay my vows before those who fear him; the afflicted will eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before you. That is speaking of future days, and it can be speaking of today at the same time.”

So claiming your independence, what does it really mean to be independent? What are some of those milestones? I need a little talkback today. It’s a small group. I feel like I’m in a workshop like we give, so I depend on you. What are some of those milestones of independence that we’ve reached in our lives as individuals? Graduated from high school? Amen. Graduated high school. 16. 16 drivers. Oh yeah. 21. Why 21? Vote? Yes. Okay, job. 25, your car insurance goes down. Okay. 25 car insurance. That’s good. How about some others? Those major events that have passed that kind of raised the flag of independence. Moved out. Marriage. Pardon? Moved out of parents’ house. Right? Bought your own home. Moved out of your own home. Oh, bought your own home. No more house payments. No more house payments. What? Accepted Jesus Christ as Lord. Accepted Jesus Christ. Amen. Children, children. Independence, move out.

Yeah, now you got it. I didn’t finish when they moved out. Yeah, right. Independence. We’re talking independence here. Milestones of independence, college graduation. Sure. Walking. Pardon? Being able to walk. Being able to walk. Yeah, that’s independence for the toddler, but for the parent I was thinking of. Yeah, it’s more bondage. Okay. We have a lot of those that we celebrate, and so as we celebrate Independence Day, a lot of us come to it with a lot of different expectations and a lot of thoughts based on our own experiences and what it really means. What are some of the feelings that go along with a lot of that? Independence?

Fear. Fear. Anxiety. Anxiety. Oh, depression. Joy. Okay, thank you. Pride. Sure. We’re proud of it. Yeah. Anything else? Satan? Yeah. Victory over Satan. Yeah. The joy of the Lord. Yeah. Satisfaction. Satisfaction. Yeah. Where did that independence take you? All over the world. Out of mom and dad’s house. And into what? World wide open. Okay. Pardon? What else? Where else has it taken you to be that independent, those acts of independence? Responsibility. More responsibility, new adventures. Yeah, into trouble. Into trouble. So, for some of us, it probably brought us into a new dependent relationship.

New dependents. Yeah, Mike, I saw that firsthand. Yeah. It also provided limits to independence. Boundaries of where to stop. Okay. So yeah, once again, independence. Is it really independence? On July 4th in 1776, don’t you just wonder what was going through their minds when they signed the Declaration of Independence and what it would really mean and all the feelings that went with it and all the expectations of what it would mean to be truly independent as a nation and whether they really meant it to be independent. See, they declared independence from Great Britain, but at the same time they were declaring dependence on God, and that’s what was important at that time. They wanted to be independent from King George and his rule, but they did not want to get out from under God’s rule. In fact, they wanted to get further under God’s rule, and that was the emphasis behind the Declaration of Independence. So, really, what can you say it means to be independent? Are we ever truly independent? Are we a free agent? No. No. There is really no such thing as true total independence. Does it mean we can do whatever we want?

Does it mean possibly that we can be out from under an unjust authority? At times, that’s what independence brings, and that’s what the early signers of the Declaration of Independence were looking at it, but I think maybe it would be good for us to look at it as our independence is it’s the freedom to choose who we will serve because we’ve all got to serve somebody. If there’s a new day of independence, is there an old day of independence? Well, we can trace that all the way back to Genesis 3:6. When Adam and Eve saw that the forbidden fruit was desirable to make one wise, and they ate of it, that was really for humanity. One of the first days of independence. Independence from God. We know there was another day of independence before that when all the angels rebelled against God, and one-third of ’em fell. Not all the angels but Satan and one-third of the angels rebelled against God, and those represent rebellion. Those are two types of independence. So is independence good, or is it bad, or is it maybe morally neutral?

It’s what we do with it, right? Is independence always equated with freedom? No. I see heads shaking any no in the world. I think it is. Okay. In the world, do you believe it’d be maybe a step into more freedom of some sort? Yeah, it’s a difficult thing to nail down freedom and independence. What’s it free from? And what are we free to do? A lot of people that Raelynn and I talk to are celebrating their freedom from when they claim their independence. They got into addictions, so now they’re claiming their freedom from addictions. You see? Because they went from one thing, from one ruler, into a harsher ruler of their lives. There are a lot of young people who are striving for freedom and sobriety, and they’re not even old enough to legally consume alcohol yet.

So what does freedom mean? What does independence really? Where does it bring us? There are a lot of spouses who are looking to give up on their mates, and while there are other ones who are looking for love in all the wrong places, independence, and then there are people who get their independence and they’re looking for something else to put their dependence into. So it’s a back-and-forth thing. Independence and then being dependent. There’s a lot of confusion. What does it mean to be independent? What does it mean to be free? After the fallen Genesis, God needed to do something to restore the relationship with mankind, and that’s where Jesus’s life, death, burial, and resurrection freed us from the spiritual consequences of sin. Now I say the spiritual; it was there to restore harmony with God and allow us once again to really put our dependence on him. One of the most outstanding characteristics of Jesus’s life was that he was dependent on the Father.

He said I do nothing except what the Father tells me to do. And then he laid down the example for us to follow. See, there’s a certain order of the way we believe life should take place based on our experiences, and we go according to that order to accomplish the basic tasks of life. But when we live by faith, there’s a tension that’s introduced that takes us outside of our limited understanding of how things should work, and it forces us to trust in our unseen savior. So if we’re not being submerged into God’s will and seeking our dependence on him, we’re actually living independently of him then and following a path that’s just going to focus on me. It’s with me in the middle, and what only benefits us? The very essence of independence from God was set up for us in the garden. The very essence of independence from God is sin. Oswald Chambers writes that independence must be blasted and cleaned out. There must be no such thing left, only freedom. That is an interesting way to put it. You get rid of all your independence, and then you’re free. If you get rid of your independence from God, you’ll be truly free.

So living a life of independence means a life that is pursuing God in faith and staying fixed on him. John Adams, who was the second president of the United States, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and he was a major contributor to the Constitution. He said our Constitution was written for moral and religious people, and it is wholly inadequate to govern any other. In other words, independence is totally based on the assumption that we desire to live under God and allow the Almighty to give leadership to our personal lives. And unless we allow God to lead our lives force to give us direction, even our Constitution, he says, won’t do us any good because that’s got to be a key element. However, the United States has not always been faithful to God. We know that we pass laws that are sometimes wrong. People commit a lot of sins.

We can’t claim to be really perfect or pleasing to God all the time, but we still claim so far to be under God. That’s important. We understand God is the supreme ruler of the universe. Our court systems are often being challenged these days with those references to being under God or trusting in God and in God we trust. It’s suggesting that it’s better to trust man than to trust God. And that’s where we’ll start to walk on thin ice. Even though at one time, at certain times, we show more trust in men than we do in God. That’s not the ideal. And as Christians, we’re always shooting to rely on God more and more and on man and on ourselves less and less. And as long as we have that balance, we’re always looking to God, and knowing he is supreme, we’ll experience blessings. So it’s not a new problem that we’re facing today.

In the days of Jesus’ ministry, the Caesars honored no law, nobody higher than themselves. They were the ultimate law. Jesus taught us that we should not be anti-government at that time. In fact, it’s an act of faith to believe in God and to trust the government authorities, which are imperfect. So he calls us to trust them, but at the same time, not worship them. We’re to worship him and trust by faith that God has put them in their place; then, our response is always going to be to God rather than to man. So, we believe in government under God. One of the early church fathers also believed this. His name was Ambrose, and he was a bishop in Italy. In his day, there was a Roman officer who was killed by a mob action in Thessalonica. When the emperor heard of it, he sent out a bunch of soldiers, all his troops, to start killing people in Thessaloniki, and they killed more than 7,000 men, women, and children, with no regard for whether they were innocent or guilty.

Then, the next Sunday, the emperor, whose name was Theodosius, went to church, and on his way into the church, expecting to receive communion, Ambrose stopped him at the door. And this is what he said, how will you lift up your hands still dripping with the blood of the murdered? How can such hands receive the body and blood of the Lord get away and do not heap crime upon crime? The emperor was shocked. He was offended. He was the emperor; he was the ruler. His word was law. He could do as he pleased. So he thought, how dare anybody talk to him that way? He said the church of God is open to slaves and beggars, but it’s closed to me. Well, at last, he humbled himself. He acknowledged his sin, repented, and came before God humbly, and he said, Ambrose is the first man who ever told me the truth.

Ambrose could have been killed on the spot. But that day, the ruler realized that God was above man and above all rulers. So it is in our life. There are a lot of misguided people who say, well, we can keep in God we trust as being constitutional. It’s okay because it’s just a patriotic platitude. It doesn’t really mean anything. Well, if that’s the case, we might as well get rid of it. The 10 Commandments say that we are not to use God’s name in vain. This is what vain means. Vain means empty, useless ineffectively, and fruitfully worthless. See, we also take God’s name in vain as Christians. Sometimes, when we say we’re a Christian, that means taking on his name, taking on his identity, but then we don’t live like a child of God. We claim to have the power of God within our lives, but it just doesn’t show that’s taking God’s name in vain.

But there are a lot of people who do live under God in the United States, and we thank God for that, and we need to believe that as a result of that, God continues to bless. As long as he’s reigning supreme over this nation, we’ll experience his guidance and his blessing. In Psalm 1:13, it says, for the Lord is high above the nations. His glory is far greater than the heavens. So if God’s over all the nations, that means all the governments are under God, whether they affirm it or not, all governments are under God. In Psalm 17, it says, praise the Lord. All you nations praise him. All the people of the earth, nations that recognize God, are better off than nations that don’t. We need to be careful, though, not to believe that the government is the answer to all the problems in the United States. It’s not Jesus is the answer. It’s Jesus who saves, not the government. And so we’re not to rely heavenly on go. We pray for our government. See, the government won’t save. Only Jesus saves. It doesn’t really do any good. And we found this in past years that it doesn’t do any good to legislate morality. But there again, it doesn’t do any good to legislate immorality either.

What we need to do is recognize Jesus as the divine authority of our country. After he rose from the dead, he said, I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth. See, no system of human government is perfect. So, we can’t expect it to be a system that holds Christian values. Only Christ, when he returns, will the nations be governed perfectly. God has directed us to be his ambassadors to a lost world, one at a time, one heart at a time. So, as God rules the nations, do you trust him to rule in your heart? That’s the question. That’s what God’s after; he’s after one heart at a time, and he’s not looking for a Christian nation. What God is looking for is Christians within the nation, people who live for him. So, if God is sovereign over all the affairs of government, doesn’t it seem logical that we can trust him with our life for who he says he is and what he says he’ll do?

Really, the theological word for this is holiness being set apart for God. That’s what he’s called us to do as individuals, to live a holy life, a life that’s set apart for him. That means that we’re independent from the principles of this world and the degenerating values of this world, focusing on the principles of God and seeking life from God’s perspective. So, as you grow in your understanding that this life is not all there is to it, then we see that we’re preparing for eternity. So, as you grow in that understanding, we’ll see that God is a lot bigger than the government. God is a lot bigger than anything we can come up with, and we’ll rely on him. More and more, Christian maturity is character development, not just always doing the right thing. For instance, if something happens to us and we don’t understand why or how, or this could happen to us and we start to hold a grudge against God, that’s an indication that we’re still living by the old day of Independence, the same one Adam and Eve lived under.

It’s telling you that God’s got your attention, but he hasn’t got your heart. But God has chosen to reveal his plan to us one step at a time, and we don’t understand each step. But to those who will trust and follow him and are committed to doing his will, he will reveal his plan one step at a time. A lot of believers seem to live as though the Christian life is just an impromptu free-for-all. We just do whatever we want, and we’re content to make the same awkward mistakes and errors over and over again without giving thought to really being dependent on God. Our new independence has got to be seen as a life of faith that shows up in every area of our lives, especially our decision-making. Rational thinking alone is not enough because we don’t see the whole picture.

We know that there’s a God and that there’s a higher level to every issue. Every circumstance that we’re in decisions will be bathed in prayer. They’ll be based on biblical concepts, and they’ll bounce off other people who have spiritual discernment. Then, what will be developed is our character, not necessarily accomplishing a task or a program, and that’s what God’s most interested in. He’s not interested that we follow the rules as much as He is that we develop Christ-like character. So when you’re living by the new day of Independence, you discover that your first inclination is seldom. God’s best for you is seldom God’s will.

So we’ve got to seek God to see what it is he wants us to do. God says that we’re to endure. Hardships do not run. God says that we’re to love those who hate us. He says it’s better to give than to receive, to submit, and not to claim our rights. See, all these things are not our natural inclination. So, being under the dominion of God does not eliminate your responsibility to choose. You still get to choose. We have the capacity to present ourselves to a master. Which one will we present ourselves to in Romans six 19? It says I speak this way using the illustration of slaves and masters because it’s easy to understand before you let yourselves be slaves of impurity and lawlessness. Now, you must choose to be slaves of righteousness so that you’ll become holy. See, we cannot eliminate the dominance of a master.

We will be dominated by some master, whatever master we put ourselves under. But for the believer, that’s good news; we have a choice of which master will follow. So, if we identify with Christ and his death and his resurrection, then that means there’s an internal change for us. We just don’t start adding new rules to our lives, but something changes internally, and we begin to see the world from God’s eyes. It involves a transformation. The very depths of our souls are being transformed. Our heart is becoming Christ’s heart. We’re changed to embrace the life of Christ. The life of Christ was one that said, I do nothing on my own, but only what the Father shows me to do. It’s a life of growing personally close to God. That’s what should happen. Every time we take communion, it should be a reminder. It’s one of those times that we’re saying, Lord, I choose you as master. It is a time of reflection, not to see if you’re worthy because you’re not.

None of us are worthy, but Christ is, and that’s the reminder that we can come to God through Jesus Christ, through his worthiness, to remember that he first chose us, and now we choose him. By this act, we’re saying that we are under God and want to remain there, that there’s no freedom in being independent from him, and that we don’t want to try to do it on our own anymore. It’s a time of reflection. So as we take communion, guys can come up, take some time, and say, can I trust this man, this one that’s represented here, with my life? 

Original Sermon Date: July 3, 2005

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