July 4th is our family’s second favorite holiday of the year. (Christmas is first, if you were wondering.) We love the fireworks, being outside, cornhole, brats, burgers, friends, staying up late, and the occasional close call with a firework or two… or three. Here’s a dirty family secret… We even have some family photos with those USA shirts they sold at Old Navy stores. Remember those? We’ve got multiple summers of those pictures.
Our family has a heritage of service for our country, in the military and as first-responders. Amy has multiple generations of her family who were in the Corp at Texas A&M and served in the military. Both of my dads served in the military, one of them a career fire-fighter. My grandfather was a World War 2 veteran. I served 10 years in the Army.
For whatever reason, the word “served” has stuck out to me this year.
When I think about my time in the military, the word “serving my country” doesn’t immediately come to mind. This is what comes to mind: We woke up when it was dark. We didn’t stop until way past dark again. We trained in the snow and the rain and the blazing heat. In fact, the only acceptable time to train was when the weather was miserable. We got yelled at when we did it right. Got yelled at when we did it wrong. Hurried everywhere. We were reminded that we were never fast enough. Waited forever once we got there. Waited some more. Hurried some more. Got orders that didn’t make sense and we didn’t like. Always tired. Terrible food. Awful accommodations.
So why do it? What is the value of serving like that? Why have a holiday for it?
The answer is a little complicated. I haven’t met a soldier yet that doesn’t complain. As James Garner said in The Great Escape, “It’s a soldier’s right to complain.”
But every soldier also knows that freedom isn’t free. Somebody has to get up in the dark, go to bed way after dark, train in miserable weather, withstand constant yelling, get pushed to the limit, obey orders they don’t like or understand, be constantly tired, eat terrible food, and sleep in awful accommodations so that others can enjoy freedom.
The fastest way to lose freedom is to focus on the freedom and not the responsibility and the cost of it. Soldiers know somebody has to stand at the gate to protect those freedoms from those who wish tyranny on all. Soldiers know somebody has to put themselves between those who want to oppress and take away those freedoms and those who enjoy them.
Soldiers know somebody has to give up their freedom so that others can experience theirs.
There’s more than a few parallels here for the Christ-follower. Our citizenship in God’s Kingdom comes with the most important freedom in history – the freedom from sin and death. That freedom wasn’t free. Nor was that freedom given to us to do what we want to do when we want to do it. Humanity tried that kind of freedom, and it failed miserably.
It was such an expensive failure that it cost the King His own son. Jesus’ death and resurrection paves the way for us to experience grace, forgiveness, redemption, purpose, and unconditional love.
For others to enjoy this freedom, someone else has to serve. Some have to stand in the gap and give up their freedom so that others can experience it. We consider others before ourselves so that some will accept the gospel.
On July 4th, I celebrate the freedom I have as a citizen in the United States. I celebrate it remembering that I and many others purposely give up some of those freedoms so that others may enjoy it.
I remember my other citizenship that has given me the best kind of freedom. And how I have chosen to serve in that Kingdom, to give up some of my freedoms, so that others would know Jesus. There is much more at stake in this Kingdom.
Paul said it best in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23:
Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
For The King,
Grant