6/15/08 - Pentecost 5 - Romans 5:12-15

LIFE, LIBERTY, & HAPPINESS
- We were born without rights
- Jesus gave up his rights for us
- We have been given full rights

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These familiar words are found in the Declaration of Independence, and they were adopted by the founding fathers of this country on July 4th, 1776. In less than three weeks we will celebrate that day along with these words that summarize the ideals on which this nation is based. But, at the risk of sounding unpatriotic, these “unalienable rights” of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that we in this country pride ourselves in, are actually not our rights at all. Because the reality is: we were all born without rights.
You do not have the right to live. You do not have the right to liberty. You do not have even the right to happiness. Because you were born - you were actually conceived - as a sinner. And because you were conceived in sin, the only right you have is the right to suffer the consequences of sin: death. The Holy Spirit clearly tells us today, “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin… in this way death came to all men.” The one man was Adam. The one sin was the mistake he made with that fruit in the Garden of Eden. And the one who has to pay for it is you. You have to suffer for Adam’s sin because once Adam sinned, sin tainted everything in every way. Including you, the offspring of Adam. Sin penetrated every child who was born of sinful parents from the time of Adam until now. And so from the time you were conceived you did not have the right to live, the right to liberty, or the right to happiness. You only had the right to die.
Of course, this concept is completely foreign to our way of thinking in this country. Because we are proud of our “rights” here, aren’t we? We stand up for our rights, we vote for our rights, we will even fight for our rights if it comes to that. We have it in our minds that we are owed basic rights. And we deserve those rights for just being a living human being in this land. That’s what the Declaration of Independence 1776 proclaimed. But that’s not what Scripture says. The Lord tells us through his holy Word that we are automatically condemned to die because of Adam’s first sin. His sin has ruined it for us all. There are no exceptions. There are going to be no policy changes or loopholes. Adam sinned; we die. And that makes us mad. We don’t want to believe it. We don’t want to hear that we have to pay for someone else’s mistake. We don’t want to accept the fact that we don’t even have a chance, that we are doomed before we ever take our first breath. We don’t like it because that’s not what America is all about. The United States of America is the “land of opportunity.” It’s a place of no limits or boundaries, classes or ranks. It’s a country where life, liberty, and happiness come standard for any citizen - regardless of age or gender or race or social status. The overriding thought here is: “Life, liberty, and happiness are mine! I am owed these things and no one should be able to take them away from me.”
But these things were never yours in the first place. Life, liberty, and happiness were never yours in the first place. The only thing that was yours by nature was the consequence of Adam’s sin: and that’s death. And don’t tell me that you don’t like it because I don’t like it either! I’m not happy that death is what we deserve. I’m not happy that before I ever sinned I was held responsible for the sin I was conceived with anyway. But that is what Scripture says. Whether we like it or not, that’s the way it is.
Of course, our Lord didn’t like it either. He wasn’t satisfied that we were sentenced from our mother’s womb. He wasn’t happy that we had no rights. And so he did something about it: he gave up his rights for us.
If there is anyone who has the right to do anything, if there is anyone who has the right to have anything, it is the Lord himself. He created this universe after all! He deserves to do anything he wants or to have anything he’d like at any time in any way because he is God. He has always had those rights. And he always will. But because we had no rights, our God decided to give his up for us. Our God, who has the right to live in the perfection of his heaven for all eternity, decided to give up that right and be delivered out of the womb of a sinful woman, and then set in an unsanitary feeding trough in the middle of a sin-filled world. Our God, who has the right to be respected and honored by all, gave up that right to be dishonored and disrespected and mocked and ridiculed by his subjects on this earth. Our God, who has the right to banish all evil from his presence, gave up that right to personally be tempted by the devil. Our God, who has the right to do anything he wants, gave up that right so that his enemies could do anything they wanted to him. Our God, who really is the only one who has the right to live, gave up that right to die. The Lord had it all. He had life, liberty, and happiness in the fullest measure possible. But he gave up his happiness for sorrow. He gave up his liberty to be treated like a slave. He gave up his life in heaven to die on a cross on earth. He gave up all of his rights because you were born without any. He gave up his rights to give them to you.
And he shouldn’t have done it! God shouldn’t have given up every right he had for us! Because he didn’t gain anything from it. If he had asked me beforehand if I thought his plan was a good idea, I would have said, “No, not at all, Lord! We aren’t worth it! Don’t give up your rights for us. Don’t sacrifice anything for people like us. You are God and we are sinners. You have no reason to give up anything for us!” And that’s true. God didn’t have any reason to give up his rights for us. But he gave them up anyway because he wanted to. Somehow he found it in his heart to love people like us with a love that goes far beyond our ability to comprehend. Earlier in Romans chapter 5 Paul tells us that a person will rarely give up his life for another. Maybe if that person has a close friend or family member, he might possibly give up his life for a person like that. But then Paul says, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). While we were still sinners and even though we will always be sinners in this life, Christ gave up his right to live for us anyway. And because he gave up his rights for us, his rights are now ours.
Although Adam’s sin made sure that we were born without life, liberty, and happiness, we now have the right to life eternal. We now have the right to liberty from the consequences or our sins. And we now have the right to happiness forever with our God. We really have “the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:5) as the book of Galatians says. And having the full rights of sons means that we are now considered the firstborn sons of God himself because of what Christ has given up for us. The firstborn sons in biblical times were the only ones who received the family inheritance. Whether it was cattle or flocks or land or buildings, the firstborn son was supposed to receive it all. And that is exactly what we receive. We receive it all. We receive the inheritance of life, liberty, and happiness. We receive the inheritance of heaven from our Father. In fact, we could say that we even have the right to that inheritance because that is what God promises us. That is his gift to his firstborn sons.
And now we have come full circle. We have come full circle because just as the sin of the one man, Adam, has affected the world, the gift God has given through the one man, Jesus Christ, has affected the world. “But the gift is not like the trespass,” Paul says. “For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” Adam’s sin may have condemned the world, but Christ’s gift, his self-sacrifice, has saved the world. And so now it doesn’t matter. Even though we were born without any rights at all, we have been given every right through faith in Christ. Undeserved. Unthinkable. And unparalleled rights. There are no “rights” that we enjoy on this earth that can even come close to the rights we have and will one day experience in heaven. And these right are the only ones that really are “unalienable Rights” - things that cannot be taken away or removed. These rights of life, liberty, and happiness in Christ are and will be ours forever. Because these things that all Christians enjoy are not protected by a piece of signed paper or a popular ideal or even a powerful government. These rights are given to us and protected by the one who gave up his rights for us all.
In 19 days we will celebrate the 4th of July once again. We will look back at the founding of our country and the declaration that those original American’s made. And I hope that you enjoy that day and thank the Lord for this country and all the blessings he has given us through it. But when those flags wave, those bands play, those soldiers salute, and those fireworks light up the sky, please remember what Paul told the Philippians, “Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). Our true country is in heaven. Our loving Savior is in heaven. And in heaven we will experience for all eternity the rights of that country we have been given by the grace of God. And so although Adam may have lost our home because of one sin, but the Lord will bring us back to that home because of his love. And for that, and for all of the rights of our inheritance that the Lord promises us when we get there, we praise his name and give him the glory, now and forever.
Amen.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” - 1 Cor. 15:55-56