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Welcome to the Southside Church Podcast. Weekly content that inspires all of us to follow Jesus. Join us each week for a message from one of our fantastic communicators that provide practical ways to grow our faith, challenge ourselves, and to love others more. And now, this week's message.

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So a little bit about the video. First, I want to welcome all of our Atlanta area churches who are joining us today, our partner churches from all over the country, more and more all over the world, our friends on down on the south side for sure. So we just they decided to make this cake. And that's literally 250 candles. And then they thought, where are we going to do this? And they thought, what's the safest place? So they called Brenda. Brenda oversees all of HR for the whole organization. And they said, Brenda, we need to shoot this in your kitchen because if we're going to get in trouble, we want the head of HR to be there to witness this. And if it's in your kitchen, and so that's where they shot it. So thank you, Brenda, for allowing us to uh risk your house for that giant cake with literally 250 um candles. So again, this is a big weekend um for our country and for those of you who are born here, and for those of you who live here, maybe from different countries. Um, and because it's again 250th anniversary birthday of the the country, it just seemed like too big of a deal to just kind of rush by and just do a normal um sermon. So um full disclosure as we get started. I'm a huge fan of our country. I am so patriotic. I I cr I get teary-eyed when we the national anthem um have members of our family, extended family especially, uh, who are part of the the military. I I think it's just the greatest um nation on earth. Um and if you're from another country, uh honestly, I hope that you think your country is the greatest nation on earth. It's not a competition, it's not a matter of competition, it's a matter of appreciation. Like I'm sure I've married the most amazing woman on earth, and uh, your husbands, I hope all of you feel that way as well. This would be a good time to go anyway. Anyway, so it's not competition, it's appreciation, and I'm just so extraordinarily grateful. And um, I and we have so much to be grateful for. I know you know that and we take it for granted because you know we live here. Um, I I love the I mean I'm grateful for where we are geographically, and I was when I wrote the message, I wrote, I love where we are geographically as a country because it's not too hot and it's not too cold, but it's actually been too hot. So anyway, it's not normally too hot or too cold, is just right, you know, where we're located. See the shining sea, which gives us, you know, protection and you know, borders, and mean, and then all that's amazing. Um, but this is what I want to talk about for a few minutes, is one of the primary reasons we are who we are as a nation, and I know you know this, but I we gotta stop and think about every once in a while. One of the primary reasons we are who we are as a nation is because our founders set out to do something that was literally, historically, unprecedented to create a system of government, to create a system of government that had as its North Star this term, liberty. They they wanted to create a system of government, and again, so many different things have been tried in ancient times and leading up to the creation of our country. Um, they wanted to create a system of government that created maximum freedom, the maximum amount of freedom, the maximum amount of liberty for our citizens. And when you read their speeches, and when you consider the circumstances that they were responding to, um liberty was clearly their intent. So the form of government they created, and this is so important for us to remember, especially as modern Americans, modern citizens of the United States, um the system of government they created was actually a means to an end, and the end was maximum liberty for citizens. Now, some argue, and I understand this and I appreciate this, so don't tune me out. Some, you know, through the years, not just in modern times, but for a long, long time, have insisted or sort of built a case or argued that actually that they were trying to the founders were trying to create a Christian nation. And this is so important, especially for where we are today. The truth is the founders were actually parting ways with or breaking away from a very, very, very Christian nation. England was an extraordinarily Christian nation. England had a national church, a national Protestant church that used the same Bible that actually many of you were raised on if you were raised in church. Um, in 18th century England, they still held to what they was referred to as the divine right of kings. You probably remember this from school. The divine right of kings believed, or this philosophy was that the king or the monarch received their authority from directly from God, specifically the God of the Bible, and was consequently accountable to God for how they ruled the nation. Uh and speaking of kings and Bibles, this is even more amazing to underscore the point I'm making, which stay with me so I get to the point that I'm actually making, is that in 1604, some of you know this as well, in 1604, England's king, this is amazing. In 1604, the king of England, King James, not to be confused with LeBron James, okay, King James, actually the King James commissioned and funded and finance, commissioned, funded, and financed, which basically the same thing, to the um creation of a Bible. And does anybody know what this Bible is called? Okay, thank you. Just want to make sure you're paying attention. Right, the King James, right, the King James Bible. So think about this. This is a king who's decided, and there's a lot of history around the King James Bible. Some of it, it's all very interesting. I won't go into that. But essentially, there was a there was an English version of the Bible, but it had lots of footnotes and lots of stuff. He wanted a more readable Bible that could be more easily distributed. And so they hired a bunch of scholars. They used the, as the foundation, William Tyndale's English version of the Bible, which was an extraordinary version of the Bible, and created the King James Bible. And he was so involved and so committed to this, the Bible actually bears his name. And eventually, within about 70 to 80 years, this became a textbook in English schools and in the colonies before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, before, during, and after, the King James Bible was the primary primer that teachers and homeschool parents used to teach their children to read. So again, England was a very, very Christian nation. The other kind of sort of ironic thing is that during the Revolutionary War, the preachers that preached for the Revolution, they preached from the King James Bible. So here's my point as we move forward. This is important. The differentiator, the differentiator for our founding fathers was not Christianity versus something else. It's not like we want to get away from this pagan, non-Christian nation and create a Christian nation. They came, in fact, the reason the founders were primarily Christians, and the reason they were primarily Bible readers and church attenders, in fact, George Washington insisted that his soldiers attended church on the Sabbath, the reason the colonies were so Christianized is because they came from a very Christian and Christianized nation. The point is, their point, the reason they broke away, was not trying to do something religious. It was this term. It was all about liberty. Their statement was no more divine right of kings, no theocracy. They knew better. They knew that once a man or once a king or once a party claimed to speak for God, once an individual or a party claimed to speak on behalf of God, they knew it was only a matter of time until citizens lost what was most important to our founders. And again, that was liberty. So they decided to create a form of government that would establish maximum liberty. They decided, this is interesting, they decided that the national leaders, the leaders of our nation, would not answer to God in this life. They would answer to the people. But they definitely believed the national leaders would answer to God in the life to come. But in this world, in their experience, they weren't accountable directly to God. They were accountable to the people. So as Abraham Lincoln famously said in the Gettysburg Address, this would be a government of, by, and for the people. But back to the founders, the founders stated this. In fact, they stated it in the Declaration of Independence. Just a quick review of the Declaration of Independence. They wrote this that governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. In other words, and this was a departure of a view of Christianity and a view of the divine right of kings that they said we're dismissing that. So this wasn't Christian versus anti-Christian. This was liberty versus constriction on the citizens' liberty and expressions of liberty. So as a result of their decision, and I know you know this, but it's just so powerful and it was so different, and we take it for granted. The people would be accountable to one another, we're going to talk about that in a minute, that the people of the nation would be accountable to one another to elect officials who would ensure and protect their liberty, which was brilliant. And again, while it's true that the United States then and now was very, very Christianized because of the influence of Christians and because of the influence of the church, religion was not the founder's North Star. It was definitely liberty, which of course included religious liberty. In fact, our first president said that the cause of liberty, I just found this, I'd never read this before until I was doing the research for the message. That George Washington said that it was liberty, that liberty was the reason he even agreed to lead the Continental Army. He was speaking in a church to a German congregation in New York City. Back then, religion government leaders spoke in churches all the time because churches were the places of assembly in the different communities. And he said this. He said the establishment of civil and religious liberty, there's our word, was the motive which induced me to the field. He said the reason I took the commission to lead the Continental Army was because of my desire to see liberty be infused throughout this brand new nation, even though it meant breaking away from England. Then, from one of the most famous speeches, you've all either read or remember this from school at some point, or especially the one line from this speech, from one of the most famous speeches from that era, Patrick Henry during the second convention in Virginia, he was trying to urge the Virginians to raise a militia to join the Continental Army. And so he was kind of doing a rally, and he said this He said, The millions of people armed in the Holy Cause of Liberty. So there's definitely a religious theme to this, but the goal, again, was ultimately. The millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. In other words, there's no way we can lose. Besides, sir, he says this we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations and who will raise up friends. Hopefully the French. It was like, the French, are you listening? We need a little help here. Who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us? So the implication in this speech was clearly that he believed, and the founders believed, that God was on their side. Of course, back in England, what did they think? They were assumed that God was on their side. It's a little bit like when Georgia plays Alabama in football. And God just sits it out and says, you know, I'm just gonna sit this one on. Anyway, so then Patrick Henry, because again, they're all Christians. This is not Christian versus non-Christian. They're all literally singing off the same piece of music, right? The King James Bible by this time. Anyway, then Patrick Henry concludes his speech with this very famous line. He says, This He says, I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me Jesus? No. Give me, you know this, give me liberty or give me death. Now, as you know as well, the irony of ironies is that in this same speech, he frames the conflict between the colonies in England. He frames the conflict as a conflict between freedom and slavery, that we're enslaved to the king, and we need our freedom, freedom and slavery. But again, he was, as you probably know, he was a slave owner. But little did he or any of the founders know, and this is what's amazing about what they did, little did he or any of the founders know that the nation they were birthing, the nation they were birthing would actually take, would actually take their commitment to liberty more seriously and more literally than some of them did. But it would be about a hundred years before slavery was banned or became illegal in the United States. And another just interesting historical point that slavery became illegal in England and in the English colonies before it became illegal in the United States. And in both continents, it was the influence of Christians that ultimately brought an end to slavery. But in the United States, it would be it would be like decades before women in our country were liberated to vote. The point simply being this the form of government that our founders established was a means to an end. And the end for them was maximum liberty, maximum freedom for the citizens. And the result, as you know, was a democratic republic, our current form of government, where authority is exercised through elected officials, right? Accountable to us, the people, who are sworn, and the elected officials are sworn to uphold and govern according to a document, a piece of paper, some paper, the Constitution, along with the Bill of Rights. And as you know, the Bill of Rights, the Bill of Rights was added what? They were amendments to ensure individual freedom or liberty. Which leads me to ask, and this is the point of today's message, which leads me to ask this question. How are we the people doing? In other words, how well are we stewarding this extraordinary, extraordinary gift that many countries have never experienced? Many countries the citizens are fighting for and hoping for. It's the reason people are poor, want to pour into this country. How are we, those of us who are stewarding this extraordinary gift of liberty, how are we doing? We take it for granted, and of course we take it for granted because it's all we know. And when it's all you know, that's just what you assume, and that's what you expect. And consequently, we aren't as careful with it as we need to be, and consequently, we don't work to protect it the way we should because we just assume it's like air. It's just, it's just always gonna be there. But the founders didn't see it that way because this was brand new. They weren't even sure it was gonna work. This was totally an experiment, so it was precious to them, and they understood how fragile it was. And they knew that this experiment liberty would only work as long as we, the people, chose to work it. Again, they understood how fragile it was, and they understood how carefully it needed to be handled. Okay, and here's how they thought. And here's here's here's the conflict, here was the tension. This is why there was a move to make George Washington a king eventually. You remember that from school as well. And the tension was this: it's like, wait a minute, we're not gonna have a king? Wait, we're not gonna have a single point of human authority, just paper. And they knew and they admitted it would require more than paper to guarantee and to protect liberty. In fact, John Adams, the second president of the United States, was so he was he stated what they were all aware of. This is an extraordinary statement. Here's what he says. Again, it's hard for us to get our heads around this. This is somebody who lived through the revolution, who understood that his life was at risk and eventually became second president of the United States and was there for all of these conversations when they were trying to decide what is it gonna look like, what is it gonna feel like, it can't be what we came from, but at the same time, there have to be guardrails. And listen to what he wrote, talking about our constitution. He said, our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. In other words, at the very beginning, they recognized there was a potentially fatal flaw in the system. Then he says this. It is wholly inadequate. In other words, after all of this work, you're admitting there's an inadequacy built into this. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other that he considered, he considered this masterpiece, the constitution of democracy, to be wholly inadequate for governing if there was no moral consensus among the people. A consensus of conscience, a a moral code anchored to something transcendent. And that's why he uses the term religious, that there has to be a sense of accountability among the people to something beyond what we see and what we know and what we experience in terms of just human behavior. He said there has to be a national sense of ought to and ought not to. George Washington agreed from his farewell address. Hopefully, you've read his farewell address. It's just amazing. Here's a statement from his farewell address. George Washington writes, of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. It's as if he says it's a little bit like a three-legged stool. And there's the Constitution and there's the Bill of Rights, and then there's the people, the morality of the people, a consensus of conscience, a national sense of ought to and ought not to, a national sense of right and wrong. That a self-governing republic required a virtuous governed. And this was the weak link, and this was the potential fatal flaw, and they recognized that on day one. And perhaps, I I love this quote. In fact, I just wanted to throw this in if you've never heard this before. I'm not even sure it has anything to do with the sermon, but I'm gonna try to make it sound like it fits. Perhaps they would have agreed with Winston Churchill when he said this is amazing. Winston Churchill says democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried. And do you know what his point was when you read this in context? That democracy depends on flawed human beings. That the potential weak link, the potential Achilles heel for any system of government is the governed. And that would, and that, and our system of government would be no different. So Washington Adams and all the others were correct. Law and law enforcement, law, constitution, civil law, and law enforcement was not enough to ensure liberty. That something else was required. But here's the catch. That something else that ensures your liberty, and that something else that ensures my liberty can't be mandated. It is a choice that we choose, the United States, we choose how free we intend to be, and we choose how free we intend to stay. And the founders knew this. And I'm not trying to be cute, but essentially the message was liberty, you choose it or you come on, you choose it rhymes with choose, you choose it or you you lose it. They knew that. They knew that as wonderful as the Constitution was, as incredible as the conscience, you know, as as much as they had departed from what they had experienced in the past, they knew there was a potential fatal flaw, and it was the conscience, the morality, and the sense of accountability to the transcendent of those who were being governed. Because liberty requires a variable the government has no control over. The character of the governed. So if we choose, here's here's the tension, here's the tension I live with every day and that you live with every day. If we choose to be as selfish and as self-centered as we have the liberty to be, we erode what we claim to value most. And we take it for granted, and whenever you take, whenever you have an endless supply or a potentially endless supply of something, you take it for granted. You don't appreciate it, you don't treat it with respect, you don't treat it carefully because you think it's always been there and it will always be there. And our founders knew better because they came from a system where there was very little liberty. And they knew this experiment was fragile and it depended on the people, it depended on the citizens, and it would depend on every generation of citizens to maintain the liberty they worked so hard for and resist. Their lives to create for us. So the solution is the solution is ultimately it's me, it's you, and it's us. But more specifically, and this is why we're talking about it in church, more specifically, the solution is Jesus followers. And here's why I say that. The Apostle Paul, reframing the teaching of Jesus for a Gentile audience, a non-Jewish audience, said the following, and we talked about this a little bit last time, if you were here with us last weekend. Here's what he says. And this is again, he's in a talking that's speaking in a different context for sure, but he looks at a universal principle. Here's what he says: He says, You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. In other words, liberty, the essence of liberty was God's idea. In fact, it's so interesting to me, and I mean, this is just fascinating, that in the beginning, for those of you who take the book of Genesis seriously like I do, in the beginning, when God put the first people on planet earth and gave them a system to live by, he only gave them one rule. Not ten, not 630, and not a constitution, one rule. And he gave them that one rule in order to establish his authority over all creation. So Paul says, you were called, those of you who are Jesus' followers, and anybody who has a desire to participate in the kingdom of God, he says, you were called to freedom, you were called to liberty. He says, but you have a responsibility. And then he gives us our marching orders, those of us who are Jesus' followers. He says this. He says, but do not use your freedom that God has given you to indulge yourselves. In other words, use it, don't abuse it. In other words, can do, can do doesn't equate to ought to. Just because I can doesn't mean I should. Just because I have the freedom to doesn't mean I should. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's necessarily permissible. Just because it's legal, just because there's not a law against it, doesn't give me the right to do whatever I want to do. In fact, as a pastor, and every pastor has had this experience through the years, multiple, multiple times. You know, people come to me or to a pastor and say, Does the Bible say there's anything against? Does the Bible say there's anything against? Does the Bible say this is a sin? Does the Bible say this is a sin? And I don't like that question. And I've had multiple different answers to it. So my my my answer for the last probably 20 years has been, that's the wrong question. You're asking, what can I get by with? You're asking, how low can I go? You're asking, is there a way to how low can I get without how can how bad can I be without displeasing God? How sinful can I be without getting God, making God my enemy? That's the wrong question. In fact, the Bible doesn't even answer that question. Jesus never answered that question. Because Jesus came to help us understand how to live a liberated life. And a liberated life isn't asking how low can I go? It's asking the question, how can I leverage my freedom for the benefit of other people? And how can other people leverage their freedom and their liberty for my benefit as well? And when the citizens of a nation, when the members of a community or the members of a family understand that, everything gets better. But it involves something that can't be mandated. So the point is don't confuse liberty with entitlement. You are entitled to do things, and I'm entitled to do things as an American citizen, as a citizen of the United States, that I have all kinds of things I'm entitled to, that if everybody maxed out their entitlements, we would all move in separate directions. In fact, Paul gets to that in a minute. In other words, he says, look, don't ask how low can I go? Don't ask what I can get by with. And here's what he says next, again, points us in the direction that Jesus' followers are to follow. What he says next, and I say this from time to time, you've heard me say this, and you know this to be true. What he says next, if if Jesus' followers in our nation just embrace this one idea, it would change what home feels like for many people. It would change what community feels like for many people. It would change communities for many people. He says, look, don't exploit your liberty, don't exploit your freedom just for your own benefit. He says, rather, rather, he says, serve one another humbly in love, as your savior did. In other words, leverage your free, appreciate and leverage your freedom with others in mine. Not because you have to. It can't be mandated. Not because you have to, because you choose to. You don't have to share ever. The government will never mandate sharing. You choose to. You don't have to tell the truth unless you're in court in this country. You can lie and lie and lie, and you won't be arrested except for a few occasions for lying. You can lie about other people, you can exaggerate. But you choose not to. You don't have to do your best at work. You don't have to remain faithful to your spouse. You choose to. We choose to. And if we don't, he goes there as well. He says, if you're irresponsible with your liberty, here's what you get. In other words, since I don't have to, I won't do. Here's what Paul says. He says, if that's the direction you go, if you bite and devour each other, in other words, this is very graphic. If you act like a bunch of dogs fighting over a bone, if you act like a bunch of animals who have to have your portion, have your fair share, always get your way. If you bite and devour each other, if you demand your way at the expense of others, because you can, because you have every right to, he says, watch out. Or you will be destroyed by each other. You've heard this, in fact, you've said this before. Our greatest enemy as a nation isn't without, it's within. The greatest enemy to your family is not necessarily without, it's the potential selfishness within. The same's communities, the same is true for friendships. And the Apostle Paul simply points out what we have all observed and what many of us have experienced. He says, if you decide you're going to take your liberty and your freedom and run to your corner with it at the expense of other people, he said, eventually you will devour and destroy each other because selfishness always divides and selflessness always unites. But here's the fatal, potential fatal flaw. You can't legislate or mandate selflessness. It must be chosen. And our founders knew that. Now, if there's any good news in this, here's the good news, and I'm I'm always hopeful. The good news is this about 70% of citizens in the United States of America right now, about 70% claim to be some form of Christian. And if Christians would, and I know we talk about this all the time, and we're going to continue to, if the Christians in this nation would embrace the original meaning of the term Christian, let me just a little sidebar real quick, you should always be cautious about somebody using the term Christian as an adjective. Whenever a Christian is a noun, whenever you take a noun that has been defined and you and you make it an adjective, you always lose something from the noun. You all something is always lost. So if the if Christians, those who would embrace the original meaning of the term Christian, the original idea of a Christian was somebody who followed the teaching of Jesus. It wasn't somebody who just believed a bunch of stuff. If we would move from simply belief back to the behaviors that Jesus called us to, again, we talk about that all the time. If we would re-embrace the ideas or if 70% of the population of the United States would re-embrace the idea that as a Christian, they're actually following Jesus, they're partisans of a king. In other words, if Christ-like characterized Christians in this nation, things change. Liberty is preserved. The nation, regardless of who's in office, flourishes. So, as we celebrate this milestone in the history of our very young nation, I want you to remember, and I want us to remember, and I wish every citizen of this country would remember, that liberty that we take for granted because it's all we've ever known, that liberty always rises and falls on the choices of we, that we the people make every single day. So let's choose. Let's choose to be more than simply law-abiding citizens. Let's choose what's just, not what we can justify. Let's do what's responsible, not simply what's permissible. Let's not confuse liberty with entitlement. Let's not confuse liberty with always having to have our way. Let's participate politically and then choose to live responsibly. This experiment in liberty, I mean, you know this. This experiment in liberty is always an experiment. This experiment in liberty will only work if we the people choose to work it. And we, the Jesus people, have been commanded to work it. Because at the center of our theology, and as we follow Jesus through the gospels, leveraging liberty for the benefit of others is the way of Jesus. As he so famously said, for even the Son of Man, speaking of himself, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. But Jesus, you're the king, he says, I'm the king, but I have come to reverse the order of things. I'm not requiring you to die for your king. Your king came to give his life for you, and you are to follow my example. And though on the front end it feels like sacrifice, it is ultimately an investment in the unity of a people, the unity of a family, the unity of a nation, ultimately the unity in the world. So, your liberty, my liberty, it's in our hands. And we will steward it well or we will devour it away. The choice is mine, the choice is yours, the choice is ours, because liberty rises and falls on the choices we the people make every single day. So let's lead the way and let's get this right. I love our country like most of or probably all of you do. I really do. I want to be an example of what an American citizen who follows Jesus looks like. That is the win. That's what we have been called to. And if the Jesus followers in our country will re-embrace what it means to follow Jesus, then we have a bright future ahead. But if we continue to devour one another in an effort to preserve and exploit our liberty, in the end, we will become our own worst enemies. So let's get this right because our liberty as a nation depends upon it. Let's pray together. Father, it's easy to stand up here and talk about. The day after tomorrow or tomorrow when I'm in traffic, not so easy to do. It's that simple. It's those small things. So would you please give each of us wisdom to know what to do with what we just heard? I didn't make any of this up. It's been around forever. Would you give us the courage to step into it? Father, would you raise up leaders nationally, locally in our country, in our cities, our towns, our states that understand this and that would not only preserve our liberty in terms of how it relates to their job, but would model this for us and for the next generation. So give us wisdom again to know what to do. Thank you for our country. Thank you for what we have exported in terms of Christianity and goodness and generosity all over this world for generations. We want to continue to be, to truly be a light on a hill for the rest of the world. Not simply in terms of American values, but the values that really launched this movement. A quest for liberty connected to morality that reflects the transcendence of our Heavenly Father and of our King. So again, we pray that you would do what only you can do, but that in the meantime, each of us would do our part in Jesus' name. Amen.