Faith, Farming, And The Real Cost Of Freedom

Freedom gets talked about like it’s a feeling, but it’s really a foundation, and foundations can crack. With the 250th anniversary of America’s independence on our minds, we slow down and look at what liberty actually costs, what keeps it strong, and what happens when a culture starts trading it away piece by piece. I share why I’m deeply grateful to live in the United States, not as blind optimism, but as a sober appreciation for a heritage built through sacrifice and shaped by faith. 

We go to Scripture, especially Galatians 5, to separate real Christian freedom from the cheap version that means “do whatever I want.” Christ sets us free so we can live free, and that freedom is meant to produce self-control and love of neighbor, not indulgence. From there, we talk about self-governance, the role of government in restraining evil, and why a moral code matters if you want a society where free speech, private property, and true religious liberty can survive. I also tell a story from Africa that challenged me to see America’s Christian heritage with fresh eyes. 

Then we get practical through the lens of faith and farming. Economic independence and local production helped early Americans resist tyranny, and the same principle applies today when consumerism, debt, and dependency quietly limit our choices. If we want to keep living out a biblical worldview in our work, our homes, and our land, we need the courage to sacrifice comfort for freedom. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with one takeaway you want to live out this week.

Buy a copy of Henry and the Great Society from our friends at https://homeward.press/

Transcript

Gratitude For American Freedom

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The freedoms that we enjoy here in America are something we can give thanks to God for for many reasons. But for sure, without a firm foundation of faith and farming in our history, America could not be the country that enjoys the freedom that it does today.

Why Freedom Matters This Weekend

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hi, welcome to the Redeeming the Dirt Podcast. I'm Noah Sanders, a farmer and husband and homesteader here in Alabama. And today we're going to talk about the idea of freedom and how it relates to both faith and farming, which is kind of the topics of this podcast. This upcoming weekend is the 250th birthday of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and kind of the birth of the nation of the United States of America as we kind of know it today. And as we're going to be celebrating with family and enjoying food and festivities and fireworks, it's important to think and be reminded of the cost of the freedom that we enjoy today and where that comes from and some of our responsibilities ongoing to be able to maintain that freedom. And that's kind of what we want to talk about today. I am so grateful to live in the United States. It's an amazing country, not because necessarily of things innately due to the people and the climate and stuff, that there's a lot to be grateful for there. But really, it comes down to how God has blessed us in those things. And we're so grateful for that. There is so much of a heritage and an investment of previous generations that have gone before us that we benefit from today in the freedom to be able to worship, to work, to travel, to speak freely, to create, to innovate, and to own property. I've been able to travel a few places in the world and it's definitely makes you appreciate the uniqueness of the impact that a biblical worldview has on a way of life and culture, especially when you go to nations that don't necessarily have that, and you realize, wow, you know, private property or telling the truth. They make a big impact. Or having just this expectation of self-governance and having the freedom to do what's right ourselves without the restrictions of how you can live or not live being enforced on you in every way of life from somebody else, or uh being neglected by your governments or oppressed and persecuted. So there's a lot to be grateful for in America.

Freedoms At Risk And Given Away

SPEAKER_00 2:51

And I think we live in a time where many of us understand that the freedoms that we enjoy are not something that are guaranteed. They are something that we could lose. And some are things that are at risk of being taken away from us. Uh we could lose uh the ability to have private property due to socialistic ideas that are being spread around the U.S. We could lose the right to free speech due to hate crime ideas and those kinds of things. But others are being uh given away by us and by our culture, uh, things like privacy, things like economic independence. And so many of the freedoms that we have enjoyed in America, uh, we need to be careful lest we lose those. You know, as Christians, freedom is important uh not because we just want to do whatever we want to do, but because we were bought with

Galatians 5 And True Freedom

SPEAKER_00 3:46

a price. Christ paid for our freedom. And I'm gonna read to you uh Galatians chapter five. It says, It is for freedom, this is verse one, that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. So he's saying, Christ set you free so that you could be free. If you went and you set a slave free, and then he went right back to working for his old master, he's thinking, I didn't set you free to go back and be a slave again. I set you free to be free. And so Christ values freedom because he's the one that bought it for us. And if we go on to verse 13, he says, This is Paul talking to the Galatian church, you, my brothers, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command, love your neighbor as yourself. So the freedom that America was founded on was not one, was a was the biblical idea of freedom. Not that you can just do whatever you want, but it's the freedom to do the right thing, the freedom from sin, the freedom from the uh being captive to all the effects of sin, which is why we have a government, why we have laws, why we have rules, not to restrict freedom, but if anybody can take anything that they want, if anybody can uh can tell lies without any ramifications, um basically if we can sin where we aren't obeying the number one law, which is to love our neighborhoods ourselves, that's what we should be free to do. It's the whole role of government, and our founding fathers understood that was to punish evil and to provide an environment for those who want to do good to live a life doing that and worshiping God as they felt fit. And uh, so that that was that's a big part of as Christians, we should care about freedom because there's kind of two types of freedom.

Spiritual Freedom Versus Physical Freedom

SPEAKER_00 5:47

One is the spiritual freedom that we have in Christ, the the freedom from sin and from the condemnation that comes as a result of us rejecting God. And when Jesus pays that price, he offers us forgiveness when we accept that, then we're set free from that condemnation. We're no longer bound to sin to have to obey it. We, by the Spirit of Christ, can live free of that. We don't have to sin anymore. We can uh be free through the power of God and the power of his spirit. But there's also another freedom, the freedom uh economically, the freedom to, you know, physical freedom. And there were many uh people in the times when the New Testament was written that were slaves. And Paul wrote to them specifically saying, You're free in Christ, live as a free person, but even you are a slave, so live freely, obeying Christ, even as a slave, honoring your master, doing well. He was saying you can live freely spiritually, even if you are in bondage physically as a slave. But he did say in 1 Corinthians, if you can be free, be free. So there is uh we because we have spiritual freedom in Christ, it doesn't matter if somebody enslaves us or puts us in jail, we can still uh be free in in kind of the eternal sense and in our spirit, but there is value in um pursuing and paying the price for the freedom that comes physically when we are able to live in a way and in a society where we're not always being oppressed and not always being limited in how we live our lives, because as Christians, our faith should impact every part of our life. That we

Freedom To Farm Your Worldview

SPEAKER_00 7:34

that's what we talk about on this show is the idea of applying a biblical worldview in agriculture. Well, if I don't have the freedom to farm in a way that reflects my worldview, and if I can only farm the way that my government tells me or that my neighbor tells me, then I don't have the ability to reflect who Christ is through what I'm doing as well as I could if I was free to do that. So that physical freedom is something that is very important. You know, we it's kind of like this idea of in the Old Testament uh of God being represented through the nation of Israel, was when they were in Israel and you had they were, they were not being subjugated by their enemies. There was King David and and how he represented the you know the coming Messiah and how God was working through that. And that was that's that kind of the ideal way that uh Christ was represented through Israel. And then when they disobeyed and they were taken to captivity, it was not, it was kind of a sign of judgment. It was a sign of judgment there. But Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo still had the freedom to uh spiritually to obey God, and he demonstrated himself in other ways, but it wasn't like, oh, it's superior for you to be here in captivity and bondage. Uh and I think that's what our founding fathers understood is this ability to honor the Lord through your lives, through having the freedom to make decisions about how you live and how you raise your family and how you conduct your life and how you worship is a precious thing and is very, very important to maintain and to value and to be willing to pay for.

America’s Faith Foundations And History

SPEAKER_00 9:18

So let's talk a little bit more about this foundation of faith. So we have faith in farming, but in America, we have this foundation of faith that gives us freedom. You know, the uh one of the reasons that a lot of people came to America originally was for religious freedom. They were fleeing from religious persecution in Europe. The French Huguenots, the uh Puritans, and the Separatists from England and many others came to America for religious freedom. They were seeking that, not just in the spiritual sense of freedom, but physically having the freedom to live out and apply their faith, especially with the scriptures who, which at that point in time had just begun to be freely available through the printing press and through translation into the everyday language of people. They wanted to be able to live that out in their lives. There was uh later the Great Awakening, this revival of God's spirit moving through the colonies when they had kind of become dead spiritually from that initial uh wave of settlers that came. And a lot of the American Revolution and the thinking behind why they had a duty to stand up for uh their community and for their homes in standing against the unlawful uh tyrannies of the king were articulated by what's kind of known as the black robed regiment, a lot of preachers who articulated from the scriptures the idea of allegiance to God, the importance of freedom, and yes, submitting to the governing authorities, but the idea is we submit to God first, and the governing authorities are there uh to punish evil and to promote good. And so they viewed themselves as the ones who were standing firm, and the king was the one who is rebelling against the traditional views of uh the rights of Englishmen. And a lot of that came as a result of them seeking the Lord and saying, how should righteous government look? How should we apply a biblical perspective to the way that we run a country, run our nations, run our communities?

Self-Governance Or Bondage By Sin

SPEAKER_00 11:34

And it was that foundation of faith that they had that overflowed into their understanding of freedom that differed so much from the French Revolution, where freedom was much more a freedom to do whatever you wanted and steal whatever you want and kill whoever you want, and it ended up in chaos and eventually tyranny again, with Napoleon Bonaparte coming along. This idea of freedom is is uh this understanding that without true freedom and this this freedom from sin, you know, it's it's funny because we think freedom would involve, oh, well, I can live however I want to. I should have the freedom to do whatever I want. And it only works if you have a moral code that people self-govern and follow, because otherwise doing whatever your flesh wants leads to bondage ultimately. We see that in America through so many addictions, whether it's drug or substance addictions or sexual addictions or entertainment addictions or whatever, our freedom leads to bondage if we don't have a moral code and a self-governance through the Spirit of God or through our communities codes that are that are uh applied to be able to give people the freedom to live. Because otherwise, it's this idea is this quote from the early fathers that either by God you will be governed, or by God you will be governed by a tyrant, basically. And it so without this foundation of faith, it would have it would be impossible for us to enjoy the freedom that we have today. It's interesting.

A Challenge From Zambia’s Christian Chief

SPEAKER_00 13:19

When I first went to Africa, I went to Zimbabwe, and at a conference there, I met a chief from Zambia. He was a Zambian king, and he made a real big impression on me because he was a follower of Christ, which is unusual for a lot of chiefs in Zambia. Oftentimes uh being a chief is synonymous with being a witch doctor, but he was a follower of Christ, and uh, and during the worship service, it's amazing. He would be at the front of the uh the conference hall on his face on the ground, uh, worshiping the Lord, the King of Kings, as a king with his bodyguard sitting in the front pew. Uh, but anyways, I got to speak with him uh briefly a few times, and we were talking about the U.S. and he had been here um before, and as I was talking about some of the challenges, you know, that we face here, and and uh he said, You have a lot to be grateful for in the U.S. He said, You guys have a Christian heritage as a nation. He said, they don't have that, but they have a heritage of witchcraft and fear and ancestor worship. And he said, even though we definitely face challenges here, we don't need to fail to be so grateful for that Christian heritage that we have because we don't understand how what a blessing it is, uh that especially in light of people that don't have that. And so he really encouraged and challenged me to not uh fail to appreciate that and to be grateful for it and make sure that I uh was faithful to walk in light of that and carry on that heritage, even despite uh the challenges and failings that we see in our country with not living true to that.

Farming, Work, And Economic Independence

SPEAKER_00 14:57

So then you have that faith foundation, then we have the foundation of farming that was really built here uh in America, that was paved the way for us to be able to be the nation that we are today. Uh the Puritans and many of the people that came from the Reformation over, they had this new idea of work being a noble and God-honoring thing, this idea of calling, uh, being sacred and not something that was to be despised or looked down on. And so many of them, their the craftsmanship and the work and the farming, they viewed it as part of their worship, part of their way that they served the Lord. And it was interesting as I've done some research about the colonial era, once you had uh the time when the British started to really crack down on and limit them a bit in terms of wanting them to be purely just a c colonies, and they really wanted them in as farmers and producers to just produce raw materials, so cotton and indigo and rice and stuff, and then ship that back to uh England and sell it to them, and then we would buy processed products back as the colonies and be the consumer base for uh England. So what happened was once they uh started really kind of limiting and and starting to take away some of the freedoms that the colonists and the c colonies had enjoyed, the they realized their dependence on English goods really was impacting their freedom to be able to uh govern themselves and that England had a great degree of power over them because they needed the stuff that they sold to them. So they ended up actually, this was this motivated many of them and many of the colonies to promote a lot of local production of goods that they had been buying from England. So linen was an example. They opened in many places uh schools to promote the idea of growing flax and making linen and taught people the skills of that and um offered rewards for people that could produce uh linen and flax at home. And uh eventually, I was reading the other day, one of the colonies actually imposed a fine if you didn't uh produce a certain amount of flax or linen. And this was because they understood how what that this idea of growing and making what you need from the land was linked to their ability to be free as communities. So the colonial idea was to grow raw product and buy finished product, and this new American way was to grow or make what you need or do without. You know, it was we're not gonna drink tea if we, you know, we're just going to either drink our own stuff or drink coffee, which is from somewhere else or whatever. We're gonna wear homespun instead of wearing stuff from England. And it wasn't because they they didn't like that stuff, they loved tea, it was because they didn't want to be slaves. They didn't want to lose their freedom uh for economic comfort and security. It's amazing, even back then, some of the farmers began to lose some of their freedom politically to think independently because of their dependence on British subsidies, particularly

Subsidies, Dependency, And Lost Courage

SPEAKER_00 18:25

of indigo. We've been reading a book recently about the time and uh of the American Revolution and Francis Marion around the area of Charleston in the Southern Campaign, and it was talking about in this book the indigo planters received a subsidy for growing indigo from the British government. So almost all the indigo growers were Tories or uh loyal to England and fought against the uh the Patriots, and the planters who grew rice and did not receive subsidies, they were patriots and they uh fought for independence. So uh it's interesting how even then this taking money from the government uh had an impact on these plantation owners they might be sympathetic to, but they knew they would lose a big degree of their income if they gained their independence. So they ended up being Tories. So the freedom that we enjoy today, I just want us to be reminded and remind myself as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of this independence as a nation that we have. I want us to remember that it was purchased for us by other people. The spiritual freedom that we enjoy was purchased by Christ and was passed down to us at great expense and the martyrs of many people through the years. And we want to appreciate that and understand that it's also gonna cost us at times to keep it. And the economic and political freedom that we enjoy also came at a price, uh, not only uh for those people and the founding of our country, but for many years since then. And even though it's eroded some, there have been definitely a lot of uh there's been a lot of people making sacrifices for us to enjoy what we enjoy today. Again, politically, but also economically. Our country has uh historically was for the most part entrepreneurs and agrarian communities where we grew a lot of the stuff that we you know ate and and used ourselves in our communities, at least what we needed for, you know, the basics.

Stewardship, Sacrifice, And Future Generations

SPEAKER_00 20:30

And I think it is important for us to recognize the need today to not just use up our bank account spiritually, to use up our uh our heritage economically and spend our the future generations' inheritances through our consumerism today, but we need to today watch out for a deadening of our own faith. How is our relationship to the Lord? Are we are we being good stewards of the faith and making sure that we have the fruit of the spirit, one of which is self-control so that we can govern ourselves and not be uh wanting uh to give away our freedom for security? And do we have a discipline and a willingness to sacrifice to push back against the pull of consumerism and dependency that will erode the economic freedom that was built and that enabled our country to, in the beginning, even have its independence. The campaigns of George Washington and the other military heroes of the Revolutionary War would have been uh fruitless if it had not been for the economic work of the farmers producing the things that we needed to be able to separate economically from Great Britain. And as we think about what we as the church and we as Christians need to do to be free to follow Christ, even in a growing, increasingly hostile culture, we need to be able to make sacrifices and even do without, if need be, to be free from debt, to be free from handouts from the government, to be able to think what does God want me to do? How does God want me to live rather than just what's allowed or um what am I gonna get into trouble for? And I think that's something that is gonna be increasingly important in days to come. And I really want you, us, I want to be considering in my own life how to uh celebrate and appreciate the freedom that we have in this country and what I can do to sew forward in that, first of all, obviously spiritually, uh, in a way that's gonna have an eternal impact, but also physically in a way that's gonna have an impact on my children and my descendants.

Book Recommendation And Closing Charge

SPEAKER_00 22:49

A resource I would like to recommend that we have recommended before on the show here is this book, Henry and the Great Society. Uh, it was written by a pastor in the 1960s and just recently republished by my friend Rory Groves. And it really kind of talks about some of these hidden ways that we are asked to give up our freedom for security and comfort and the good things of life. And it's a very uh impactful story to kind of help jolt us to the dangers of consumerism and giving up uh the freedoms that we have just for comfort. So I'd encourage you to pick up a copy of Henry and the Great Society. You can go to their publishing company, Homeward Press. Uh homeward.press is the website, and pick up a copy of Henry and the Great Society. I'll put a link in the show notes as well. But it might be a great book to uh read together as a family to think about what are ways that you can make more sacrifices to be more free in the years to come as you press into Christ and want to live in the freedom that He set you free for. Well, thank you so much for listening today. Happy 250th anniversary of America. And as always, be humble, be faithful, and keep redeeming the dirt. God bless.