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Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You so much for
the freedom that we have in this country,
the ability to celebrate that.
That speaks to the deep need in all of our hearts.
There's not a person on the planet that
doesn't long to be free. Even in this
country, in this great country, where freedom reigns,
there's still people who aren't free.
Yes, they have the freedoms that our government
affords to us, the rights, those sort of things,
but in their souls, they're not free.
The reason is because they've never
met the One who can truly set them free.
Lord, as we go into the word of God today,
I pray that You will open up our hearts and minds
and to see this freedom that we have in Christ
in new and refreshing ways. We thank You
for this in Christ's matchless name, amen.
We're going to go through various passages
today, so if you want to follow in your Bible,
you certainly can. We will have some of these passages up on the screen,
not all of them, but we'll have some of them.
We're going to start today in Galatians chapter 5.
Galatians chapter 5, "It is for freedom
"that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then
"and do not let yourselves be burden again by a yoke of slavery"
So it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
So what we learn in this passage is that
we have a liberator.
We have someone who has
taken a key and has unlocked the chain
and has said, "Go free."
That person is Jesus Christ.
He did that so that we could experience freedom.
So it is for freedom that Christ has set us free,
"Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burden
"again by a yoke of slavery."
We've been set free in Christ.
That is what the liberating work of grace
does in each of our lives, it sets us free.
And it sets us free so that we can experience
freedom; so that we can actually live free.
Last week, we did a message called
"Live it!" We have this gospel that comes to us,
that Jesus Christ is our savior,
He saves us through
His death, burial and resurrection.
We hear that, we hear that
message regarding Christ.
We believe; our hearts respond
with faith, so we believe that,
and now, we're to live that.
To live out the death, burial and resurrection
of Jesus Christ in our lives.
One of the characteristics of living it out is this freedom.
This freedom that we have in Christ.
So, God has called us to live free,
and He gives this warning,
"Do not let yourselves be burden again
"by a yoke of slavery", and we're going to talk about
what that yoke is, as we move forward.
So, we have a liberator, Jesus Christ.
He has set us free and the reason He did that,
is so that we can live free.
Now, in John chapter 8, and we'll spend a little bit of time
with this particular passage, starting in verse 31,
Jesus said this to the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said,
"If you hold to my teachings, you are really my disciples.
A lot of people profess with their lips that they follow Jesus,
but they don't actually hold to His teachings.
They think of Him as this wonderful teacher,
and yet, they don't really apply what He says.
Here Jesus says, "If you hold to my teaching,
"you really are my disciples."
If you hear what Jesus says to you,
you respond to that by faith, you live it out,
you are marked as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
"At that point, you will know the truth,
"and the truth will set you free."
So if you hold to the teachings of Jesus Christ,
you're going to be introduced to truth.
You're going to find out what truth really is,
and that truth is going to set you free.
It's going to make you free.
That's good news, isn't it?
But it's only good news to those who know
they need to be set free.
"The pharisees answered Jesus,
'We are Abraham's descendants,
'and have never been slaves of anyone.
"How can you say that we shall be set free'?"
So the Pharisees response indicates that
they believed they were already free.
They didn't need a liberator.
They didn't need someone to come in
and unloose the chains and set them free.
A lot of people in this world that believe the same,
that they are independent.
They are experiencing freedom to the max.
So Jesus' promise that truth will set them free,
falls on deaf ears. They're not interested.
(mock conversation) "Wait a minute, Jesus, I'm already free!"
The Pharisees were like that.
It's interesting, you know, their response,
"We are Abraham's descendants,
and have never been slaves of anyone".
That's also a re-write of history, isn't it?
The Jews were slaves for 400 years
to the Egyptians. I mean, for 400 years,
the Egyptians rulers told them
when to get up, what to eat,
what to do, when to go to bed.
They had no independence as a people whatsoever.
They were under the control of Egyptian rule.
They were enslaved to the
Egyptians for 400 years.
Moses was raised up as their liberator;
as the person who would set the people free.
That's the whole story of the book of Exodus.
It's a fabulous story, a fascinating story.
It's intriguing, it's filled with all sorts of
incredible stuff, that really resonates.
We love those stories.
We love the underdog stories.
The people that have been oppressed,
the people that have been put in bondage
and at a point and time they've been
set free to experience real humanity.
That was the story of the people of Israel.
But here, the Pharisees
have basically just ripped that history
out of their overall story.
'We've never been slaves to anyone!
How can you say that we shall be set free?'
"Jesus replied, 'Very truly, I tell you,
"Everyone who sins is a slave to sin."
Did you get that?
Everyone who sins
is a slave to sin.
What's the problem?
What do we need to be set free from?
Sin. "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin,
"and now a slave has no
"permanent place in the family, but a son
"belongs to it forever."
So when we were lost,
we were slaves to sin.
We were sinners by nature.
That's who we were.
Jesus Christ liberates us.
He makes us free. He sets us free.
So He says, "If the son
"sets you free, you will be free indeed"
And a part of this freedom, if you notice, He says,
"a slave has no permanent place in the family."
"But a son belongs to it forever"
Part of this emancipation
is through adoption.
We've been adopted as sons.
Declared to be children of God.
In that declaration, we have been
made free. Free from what
kept us in bondage; sin. So that we
could experience full rights as children of God.
If the son sets you free, you will be free, indeed.
So who is it that sets us free?
The son, Jesus Christ, Himself.
He is the liberator.
Moses made a statement to the people of Israel.
He said that there is going to be a prophet raised up like me.
So Moses was foreshadowing the great liberator.
The one who could set us free, permanently.
The one who could change our status from one of slave, to one of son.
When Jesus Christ has done that,
you are free indeed.
So, our freedom comes through change of status.
We see this in Romans 8,
"The law of the spirit who gives life, has set you free from the law
"of sin and death." So what did we need
to be rescued from? Sin and death.
Who does that?
Jesus Christ. Christ is the one.
How did He do that?
By adopting us into His family.
By giving us new birth, declaring us to be children of God.
When the son has done that,
you are free indeed!
That's your status. Now the question is,
are you going to live free?
That's the whole deal.
Do you really believe it?
Do you really believe it?
That's the issue, isn't it?
Lot of folks, when they've been set free
from political tyranny, they're not sure
that it's going to last, and they're always
looking over their shoulder, and they're just
waiting for the shoe to drop again,
and for them to go back into slavery.
Back into bondage.
Some folks don't know what it means to live free.
They've lived in bondage all of their life,
they've been oppressed all of their lives,
and when freedom comes, they have no earthly idea
how to live as free people.
You see this a lot in relationships.
You see this a lot in with women who are
battered and taken advantage of in marriage.
They've learned to live with that for so long,
that when freedom actually comes
they don't know how to handle it.
They don't know how to live freely.
Christ has set us free.
That is the issue. Christ has set us free
Are you a child of God? Then you have
been set free, made free from
the punishment of sin, and from the power of sin.
That's the issue, isn't it?
That's the thing that we need to realize.
I think that's why our gospel
messages today are watered down.
They don't have the power that they once did.
Why? Because we don't like to talk about sin.
It is not a political correct term.
You can't call homosexuality, sin today.
It's not acceptable.
If you say that, you have all the critics
that accuse you of speaking hate language.
But when you know
what it feels like to be trapped,
and the power that sin has
over your life, when a message
of a liberator comes to your heart,
you want to be set free!
It's not hate language.
It's the language of love.
It's the language of freedom.
But if you don't know that you're in bondage,
all of this language of love,
this language of freedom,
comes through that filter
and it comes out as hate language.
We've seen that time and time again in the media.
And there's going to be a time when anybody on radio,
anybody in media, anybody in churches
who call sin, 'sin', is going to be questioned.
It's just the way this country's going, isn't it?
The sadness of that, is that we started with this longing to be free.
I mean, all of the great songs
and our history was all about freedom.
How can we be a free people?
How can we be free to express
our beliefs? So we have
a constitution that guarantees the freedom of religious expression.
How can we be free to speak our minds?
So we have a constitution
that guarantees freedom of speech.
We want a freedom to protect ourselves,
and so we have that right to bear arms.
All of those things were tied to this word, "freedom".
That's how our country started.
And that's the beat of the drum that we march to.
Yet, in our political system today,
our politicians are moving us
away from that freedom and are marching
us right back in slavery.
Why? Because the person who sins,
is a slave to sin.
When we start calling sin something
other than what it is, we've just taken
a step away from freedom, back to bondage.
Jesus Christ did not set
us free for that purpose.
He set us free so that we could live free.
So what's the problem?
Sin and death.
Jesus Christ has rescued us,
has set us free, and so this gospel story
is a retelling of the Exodus account, isn't it?
Here Israel was in bondage.
Moses is raised up, the people are set free.
We were in bondage to sin
and death. God sends Jesus
and He sets us free.
Those of us who have come to Christ by faith,
who have been taken from status of slaves,
to status of son, we've experienced our own
exodus, haven't we? We've escaped.
We're on the other side of the Red Sea.
We're in the land of promise and freedom.
So we need to fight for that.
We need to fight with every ounce
of strength to keep that freedom.
An interesting observation
when you look at the world and you look at
wars and the warring factions, and those who initiate war,
and those who have to defend.
It's normally those countries that are in bondage,
that attack those who are free.
That's the way the world is set up.
That's the way satan operates.
That's the way the world system operates.
So the minute that we experience our own exodus,
is the minute those who are against
freedom start attacking.
We've all experienced that, haven't we?
A battle for the minds,
a battle for the hearts,
a battle for our souls.
Satan wants to keep us from experiencing freedom.
Jesus Christ wants to move us forward,
So that we can experience it to the full.
What's the source of freedom as we read?
Truth will set us free. So our fights
is to maintain that road of truth.
Satan is going to try to pull us off by what?
Error, lies, deception. That's his game plan.
That's his only real weapon against us.
He tries to masquerade those lies
in such a way that it sounds true
and it sounds good.
Temptation.
Think of the last time you were tempted.
Don't think about it too long.
Did that temptation look good to you?
That's the nature of temptation, isn't it?
It looks pleasing to the eye.
Man, when Adam and Eve were tempted
in the garden by satan to eat of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil,
they had really never noticed that tree
until satan pointed it out.
Somehow he described it in such a way
that it looked pleasing to them.
It looked like something that
they wanted to partake of;
something that was going to be beneficial for who they were.
So that allure led them closer
and closer until they reached out
and grabbed it and partook.
That's the way temptation positions itself,
doesn't it? It doesn't
open up and show you all the consequences;
that if you give in to it, you know, this
may cause pain to this person,
this may impact this person,
this may effect your job,
this may effect this.
It doesn't show you all of those consequences.
It doesn't show you all of those possibilities.
Temptation just puts on its best face.
It says, "This is good for you"
and it promises things.
How many of you have been caught up in
some of the get rich quick schemes
that are out there? Man!
If you just buy into this,
man you can buy that boat,
you can by that place down in Florida,
or in the mountains, and man,
you will just be rich beyond your wildest imaginations.
You can do so by only working
one hour a week.
Sign me up!
Instead of getting you out of financial debt,
most of you wind up a little deeper.
I mean, that's what happened to me.
Just the way it is, isn't it?
But, man, it just looked good.
Gotta do it! Gotta have it!
There is no such thing as a get rich scheme.
You might win the lottery.
But you know, most of those people who do,
are broke in a very short period of time?
It's really weird, isn't it? But it's true.
It's absolutely true.
So, satan is just throwing out stuff.
I mean all kinds of stuff.
Always thought of satan you know, as a fisherman.
Now you guys that like to fish,
you ladies who like to fish,
just bear with me.
just for a minute, okay?
Satan knows that there's fish
in a lake, in an ocean,
and he knows those fish are hungry for something.
He's not quite sure what they're hungry for.
So, he sits in the boat,
and he has an assortment of baits.
Some are real stuff like worms and minnows
and you know, smaller fish and that sort of thing,
Others are imitations.
Spinner baits...and...that's as much knowledge
as I have about fishing bait.
Sorry. I'll do some more research.
So, what does he do?
He sits in the boat, and he says,
"I'm going to try this,"
and he puts a worm on the end of that line, and he throws it out.
He wants to hook it in such a way that
it looks good to the fish.
Leaves that out there for awhile,
no bites, no bites, no bites,
so he reels it in, and he puts on another bait.
Let's try a minnow this time.
Sends that out.
No bites, and so he gets the
artificial bait and sends that out.
Finally, they're biting.
He's found what the fish
what look good to those fish,
and he starts reeling them in, just like crazy.
That's what satan does with us.
He doesn't know us, personally.
He doesn't have that sort of
knowledge of us,
that's reserved for God.
That's reserved for Jesus.
Jesus is the one who knows us inside and out.
Satan just has some general understanding
of human kind, that we're flawed.
That we're weak, that we have
flesh that's going to respond to temptation.
So what does he do? He just keeps
sending out something that might
appeal to us.
He makes it look good; he tries to
deceive us. He attaches promises.
You know, that's what advertising
is built around isn't it?
Everything you see on television,
Everything... everything,
is going to meet some need in your life.
If you just buy into it, you know,
you'll be driving this car, and you'll be doing this,
and you'll be doing that, and... it doesn't work.
I mean, I've tried a hair product.
Regrow hair.
That's funny, come on!
(chuckles) But they made me think it would work.
But that's advertisement.
That's what satan does.
We have to fight for truth.
We have to have some discernment
to kind of dissect what's being
presented to us, so that we can see it
for what it is and call it sin.
Satan, what you are tempting me to do,
the bible calls sin.
And I've lived long enough under the control of sin,
I don't want to go back there ever again.
That's the discernment that we need.
So, we have this freedom from,
"for sin shall not be your master, because you are not under
"law, but under grace."
When we were lost,
who was our master? Sin
Just exactly what Jesus said to the Pharisees.
"You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free"
Man, we've never been enslaved
to anyone, or anything!
The person who sins is a slave to sin.
Adam and Eve sinned.
From that point forward,
all of humanity was
subjected to sin, was under the control
of sin with death as its consequence.
So, when we come into this world,
We have a master.
That master is sin.
But now that we've been set free,
that control has been broken.
We're no longer under the control of
sin. Why? Because we're under grace.
What is grace? It is that work
by Jesus Christ to set us free
from the law of sin and death.
To break the chains of sin
in our life, and to put us on a whole
new path in life.
Path described as freedom.
So we've been set free from the law of
sin and death.
Now that we've been set free
we truly have choices that we can make;
that we didn't have before.
You know, here's the whole lie of satan,
Satan said to Adam and Eve,
"You can be like God,"
in other words, "you can be independent" .
You don't need God in your life.
You can be an independent person.
So, when we come into this world,
we're lost; we're dead; we're separated
from the life of Christ.
We still live with
the notion that we're independent.
You know, folks out there will say
"I'm free, I don't need this religious
stuff. I want to live free."
"I want to be able to make my choices."
Well, as a lost person, you don't
really have choices, but satan has so deceived your mind,
that you think you're independent.
You're not. You're under the control of sin.
So, the decisions you make
are motivated by sin.
That is an awful thing to admit to,
but it's true, isn't it?
Now that we've been set free,
we have real choices.
Satan is still going to throw out those temptations,
God's spirit, working inside of us,
is going to put a whole other set of choices
in front of us. As children of God,
we have freedom
to choose either path.
We didn't have that before.
We may have wanted to do good things,
but as Paul wrote, the things he wanted to do,
he didn't do, and the things
he didn't want to do, he did anyway.
That was our journey.
Now that we've been set free,
we have some real choices
that we can make. But if we make
a choice to give into temptation,
what are we making a choice towards?
Slavery.
Because sin just isn't an action,
it's not just this act, and you do it,
and that's it. It's a trap.
It's a trap, and the first step you
take, that trap starts closing.
If you take another step down that path,
it gets a little tighter.
You make another step down that path,
it gets a little tighter.
Sin is not just this action.
That's why there's
drug addiction; that's why there's
alcohol addiction. That's why there's
sex addiction. That's why there's all these
addictions out there in the world.
Why? Because once you step in that direction,
you've got to keep moving
for the flesh to be satisfied again, and again, and again,
You drink one beer,
and then it takes two;
you drink two, then it takes three;
you drink three, then it takes a case.
You drink a case,
then it takes the hard stuff.
You drink the hard stuff,
then you have to do it in the morning and
in the evening. It's a path, isn't it?
You start... a little friend comes up
and says, "you want to take a smoke
"of this joint?"
You say, "sure" then the next
day, you're doing it again,
and then you realize you need something more.
So you go to the next drug,
then you go to the next drug.
Just the way it is.
I'll never forget the pastor who wrote
in a journal that described
his kind of downfall.
He started going out and speaking.
He was by himself most of the
time, and he felt lonely.
So, he would go get something
to drink at a 7-11,
and there were these magazine racks,
and he would look at you know,
just a generic magazine.
Not a pornographic magazine,
something that had images, and he would look at that.
Pretty soon, that wasn't enough,
and he had to get the pornographic magazines,
and pretty soon that wasn't enough.
He just found himself
driving up to strip bars.
Then he just found himself paying
money, and he got trapped.
He didn't know what to do.
That's the nature of sin.
Richard and I were talking a little
bit about a little this week, and
I asked the question,
what is your definition of sin based upon?
Do you have a law based definition,
or a grace based definition?
Because if you have a law based definition,
it's not going to get any deeper than
"Here's the law, I've violated it"
Here's the speed sign that says 55
and I've violated it by going 65.
But if you see sin through the eyes of grace,
you understand the very nature of
sin; the power of sin; how it can control
our lives. Not only that, you see
the consequences of sin
in another person's life.
Grace in all things moves our eyes
away from ourselves and onto others.
When we have a grace based definition of sin,
our eyes are going to be out there,
looking at what these decisions
do in the life of others.
We start actually talking about consequences.
Marriage is a tough thing, isn't it?
I mean, you have two people who,
you know, have their own desires
and wants and needs
that sort of things and you put them together,
and you say,
"live as one, live in harmony."
And sometimes it's hard
and you start thinking about,
"Man, I just got to get away from this slob"
"I just have to find
"freedom in being single again"
and you've had kids
and they're young kids, and
you get so caught up in wanting your thing,
that you don't think about the consequences.
What is this going to do to you?
What is this going to do to those kids?
What is this going to do
to all the people that I say I love?
But when you have a grace based definition
of sin, you start thinking,
"Man, I can't do that!
"there's kids involved"
"and I need to learn how to get along
"with my spouse"
"I've got to let go of this, because if I go
that path, it's going to put me in bondage,
it's going to put our family in bondage.
It's just going to make a mess of things.
And the grace of God opens your eyes and
lets you see it, so that you can
make a choice for freedom.
That's why Paul wrote in Galatians,
'You, my brothers, were called "to be free"
Jesus is the liberator.
Jesus is the one who sets us free.
What does He set us free from?
Sin and death.
He sets us free from the punishment of sin,
from the power of sin, so that we can experience
the fullness of life in Christ.
He has called us to be free.
But then Paul gives us this warning,
"But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh."
Do we have that opportunity?
Yes, we do!
When we use
that opportunity to indulge the flesh,
we rob ourselves of the experience of
full life in Jesus Christ.
So he ways, "don't use your
"freedom to indulge the flesh."
"Let the grace of God open your eyes
so that you can see the real consequences.
Let the grace of God open your eyes
to allow you to see what you've
truly been rescued from.
You know, the Israelites,
once they got into the desert,
They started thinking
(mock conversation) "Those Egyptians weren't so bad."
Really??
Really?
Man, you've come to Christ, and
satan starts to tell you,
"remember how much fun you used to have...?"
What? Waking up with a massive headache and puking your guts up?
You had a lot of fun doing that?
Or, just empty?
Oh yeah... I forgot about all that.
But he throws it out there, doesn't he?
And sometimes, you know,
you think back, 'yeah, it was pretty good'.
Talked to this guy on radio, and he'd
become a Christian and got involved
with someone that wasn't a Christian.
They got involved intimately.
He started reading his bible and came
across that passage that says,
"don't be unequally yoked",
he thought, "Well, if I'm going to
"be a follower of Christ, then I need
"to put this into practice"
So, he breaks up with this woman, but now he's lonely.
Now he's lonely.
So all satan can do,
is tell him, "remember how good this was?"
Yeah, I know, it's not the best,
you're not equally yoked,
you're not on the same page,
there's problems there,
but at least you weren't lonely."
and he started listening.
And started thinking, "I really want to go back to this person"
Flesh gets involved.
Don't use your freedom to indulge it.
That's not freedom.
Rather, serve one another in love.
That's the life of freedom.
Serving others in love.
Oh it doesn't seem like you're free.
Sometimes it seems like you're just a
doormat for other people to walk all over.
Sometimes it's like, "well what's in it for me?"
We think about all of those things,
but when you take the step,
and you serve somebody in love,
no strings attached,
you walk away, and it is the greatest
reward on planet Earth.
There's nothing like it.
There's nothing that compares
to a life of freedom in Christ.
So, don't use your freedom to go back.
Use your freedom to go forward with Jesus.
The liberator; the one who
has set you free; who has now
paved a new pathway that has
freedom written all over it.
Walk with Christ.
If He's moving in your heart
to be reconciled to somebody, He's doing
so because He wants to set you free from a root of bitterness.
If He's moving in your heart to
get your finances in control,
walk with Jesus, because He wants
to give you margin, so you can use
your resources to advance the kingdom.
If He's moving in your heart,
latch on to truth about who you are.
He's doing so because He wants you to
experience freedom from
emotional bondage, control, and despair.
This path that Jesus has,
is a path of freedom.
Walk it. Live it.
There's nothing like it.
Well, let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You
so much for this life of freedom
that we have in Christ.
Help us to see clearly what we've been set free from,
Understand it,
to know it, so that when
temptation comes our way, knocks on our door,
and tries to show us
that it's good for us,
sin is good for us,
we'll be better equipped to say no.
Thank You that by Your grace,
You teach us to say no
to enslavement, and yes to freedom.
No to sin, and yes to Jesus.
Help us to understand too, that
this is a freedom that can never
be taken away.
It doesn't matter what's happening in the world,
it doesn't matter what's happening politically,
it doesn't matter all of those things.
This freedom is ours.
Help us to learn to live as free
children of God.
We thank you for that
in Christ' matchless name,
Amen.