*Title:* Liberty to the Captives — Pastor Kyle Baldwin, July 4, 2026

On the nation’s 250th anniversary, Pastor Kyle Baldwin opens with a sobering reminder: slavery has been part of the human experience for most of our history, with more than 15% of pre-modern peoples enslaved and as many as 40% in the Roman Empire. But the God who spoke to Israel — “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” — is still in the business of setting people free. From John 8 and Romans 7, Pastor Baldwin shows that our captivity runs deeper than history’s chains: apart from Christ, each of us is “sold under sin,” often so used to the water we swim in that we cannot see it.

The heart of the sermon is Jesus’ first sermon, in the Nazareth synagogue. Luke deliberately places it just after Jesus’ victory over temptation in the wilderness, because only a Savior who had conquered sin could break its shackles in our lives. Invited to read, Jesus unrolled Isaiah’s scroll and read the promise — “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… He hath sent me to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty them that are bruised” — then closed the book, sat down, and declared, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” The crowd, looking for a king in robes to break Roman chains, turned from anticipation to anger and pressed Him toward a cliff. But the controversy Jesus raised that day has not gone away: He promised not partial or occasional victory, but total victory over sin — “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

The sermon closes by turning to the day itself. God was in the founding of this nation and its God-given freedoms, and even visitors from abroad are discovering, to their surprise, that America is a land of freedom, prosperity, and opportunity. In the same way, Pastor Baldwin says, contrary to what we may have heard — even from our own preachers — Jesus can still set the captives free. His name, Yeshua, means He came to save us from our sins. So rejoice, join with our forefathers, and shout it: “Let freedom ring.”

*Key texts:* Luke 4:14–21; Isaiah 61:1; John 8:34, 8:36; Romans 7:14, 7:24–25; Romans 3:23; Matthew 19:26; Exodus 19:4; Exodus 20:2; Revelation 12–13

*Watch:* https://youtu.be/DE5aFg10ZcE · *Listen:* https://cloud-1de12d.becdn.net/media/original/db9a872c0b4765453d8306db23f1a0ce.mp3