On New Year’s day, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves to be free, but it wasn’t until December 18, 1865, following the conclusion of the Civil War and Lincoln’s death, that the Constitution of the United States made his convictions official with the adoption of the 13th Amendment.
Lincoln believed that signing the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing American slaves, was the most important accomplishment of his presidency.
Slavery was abolished in United States! Tragically, the vast majority of slaves in the U.S., who were free under the law, continued to live as slaves during the reconstruction era. Though free, their lives were unchanged.
What’s equally tragic in the spiritual realm is the choice of some Christians to live as slaves to the law. Even though our Great Emancipator, Christ the Lord, paid the ultimate price, once for all, to overthrow the slavery of sin which was our status under the law; many think and act as though they’re still in bondage. Satan is delighted that so many have bought this lie and are willing to live in the dark shadow of such ignorance. It leaves him free to keep Christians pinned down in shame, guilt, and intimidation, and in short, to render them ineffective in the cause of Christ.
Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” In other words, when people come to faith in Jesus Christ as God’s provision for human sin; they are free from the burden of attempting to earn God’s acceptance through self-effort or personal merit. No more trying to clean ourselves up on the outside in the hopes of disguising the rebel that lives within. No more striving for perfection, since God already knows about our faults and loves us in spite of them. No more bondage to the opinions and expectations of others that so often lies behind our feelings of guilt and shame. The acknowledgment of sin and the acceptance of God’s remedy for sin (the work of Christ) sets us free to relate in new, unhindered ways, not only with God, but also with our fellow man, and even ourselves. In Christ, the believer becomes liberated to be what God wants him to be, and to do what God wants him to do. This sermon based on Galatians 5, a text referred to by scholars as “The Magna Carta of Christianity,” offers practical instruction on how to live in the spiritual freedom Christ provides.
