Sunday is Independence Day, a day we celebrate freedom. As we gather for worship we will encounter a section from Paul’s magnum opus, the Epistle to the Romans. There Paul acknowledges our lack of freedom and how at times we seem prone to do the very things we know we shouldn’t, and incapable of doing the things we know we should. He then points to Christ as the source of perfect freedom. As we celebrate Independence Day we will reflect on how we at times settle for the smaller “freedom” which is little more than the tyranny of our own desires, and miss out on the larger freedom offered to us in Christ. Paradoxically, this larger freedom comes only when we let go of our lives and cling to Christ. Paul wants us to see that serving Christ, and not ourselves, is the way to perfect freedom.