Arise in True Freedom

Boy, it's a good day to be in the house of the Lord. He is

good and he is God. And I am just

reminded this morning that my failures, my mess

ups, my lack of faithfulness is not a prerequisite

to his goodness. He is always good. He

is always on time. He is always God. And guess what?

He knows your name and he knows my name. And he is

faithful, is he not? Has he been faithful to you?

He is so faithful. He's good. Welcome this morning. We're so glad that

you are in the house this morning. As we

continue our journey this morning in the Lord, I've got one

quick announcement for you. I want to invite you to something real special

that's taking place here on June 5th. And

that is an Instruments of Joy

benefit concert featuring Land of Color, Jeremy

Casala and Cole Burkitt.

And this is going to be a real

wonderful evening. Now, Springhouse has always

looked for opportunities prayerfully to sow into Global

Missions. And Instruments of Joy, led by our very own

Josh McLeod, has fingerprints all around

the globe. You're going to hear a little bit more about that next Sunday.

But this, this is a unique, wonderful way to participate

in Global Missions by attending this

concert. And you're going to be entertained. It's going to be a great

night. So I'm going to be here. My family's going to be here. I hope

that you will make plans to come and enjoy this concert together

as we sow into the kingdom. Amen. Amen. So mark your

calendars on June 5th. Okay.

Well, we are going to continue in our

series today. Abide, arise

in advance. We're in that arise section today. And we're

going to read one verse of scripture. So as we read

this today, my prayer would be that you would stand and read it

from the pit of your stomach as if you actually believe what

you're reading. Okay? Can we do that? All right, let's read together from

Galatians, chapter five. Here we go. It is for

freedom that Christ has spoken. Set us free.

Stand firm, then. And do not let yourselves

be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. You

know, that's so good. Let's read it one more time. Here we go.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us

free. Stand firm then. And do not let

yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of

slave. Father, I'm so grateful for the freedom that we have in you.

My prayer today is that our hearts would be open and our eyes would be

open to know and to see the things Lord, that

yout want to reveal to us, God, I pray, Lord, that there would

be change for eternity as we lean into youo precepts and principles

here. And, Lord, that yout would just speak through Me, anoint us to receive today

in Jesus name. And everybody said, amen.

Amen. Well, we're continuing

on our journey, as I said in the arise section. And I don't know, maybe

at the end of this, you guys can let me know if this was like

a sermon or not. But I was struggling a little bit this week

because what I felt like the Lord wanted me to do today was

not necessarily preach at you, but

instead illuminate our eyes to something that may

be right in front of us, that we may not realize. Have you ever been

looking for something and it's right in front of you, but you keep asking where

it is? Hey, where's my cell phone? Has anybody seen my

cell phone? I can't find my cell phone. And eventually somebody who's

got a keen eye looks and says, it's in your hand right now. If

they're kind, that's where the period happens. If they're not kind, they have a few

other words that they'll call you afterward. But have you ever been

looking for something that's right in front of you? I believe that there are

some things at times because we become creatures

of habit and we are products of

the culture with which we live. I believe that there are

sometimes that we are blinded to. And we're not necessarily

intentionally blind, but they're there, these blind spots. And

so as a pastor, this is not, Thus saith the Lord, what I'm about to

tell you. But as a pastor, as your pastor,

I believe that there are two very specific areas

where we as believers miss the mark. And

it's not that we aren't attempting to make the mark, but we

miss the mark because we believe we have actually

achieved the mark. And we're far away from the mark. We have

almost fooled ourselves to believing that. We can kind of check that off

the list because we've got that under control. Let us move

on to some other things. The first one of those two things is

this love.

We have a propensity to believe that we've got.

We just know how to do this. Like, we do this really well.

We understand what this is. We can move on to some other things.

In fact, in 2019, when,

when it was solidified that I was going to be in this role, the Lord

gave me three very specific things for our church. And that was this

that we would be a church that loves big lives truth and operates

as a healthy family. And right on the cuff, if you just

look at that and then turn your head away, you might look and say, well,

that's kind of a shallow vision. You know, love, big live truth. Okay?

Everybody's trying to do those things, be a healthy family. No,

I believe that these are some of the most challenging and hardest

things that can be done. And apart from the

Holy Spirit, we can't achieve any of this.

Apart from the Holy Spirit, we can't achieve any of this. And I believe

that the most challenging things of these three is not the live

truth and not the healthy family part. It's the love, big part.

Love. As we find in the book of Galatians,

love is a fruit of the Spirit. It's the fruit of the

Spirit. And so in order for us to. We don't manufacture love. In order

for love to be evident in our lives, we have to be walking

with the Spirit of God. Over in First John, we

also see this in scripture. It says God is

love. Well, anybody who says I've got a handle on

love is kind of saying, I've got a handle on God. And

anybody who says they've got a handle on God, I'm going to step back a

few steps, right? No,

it takes a lifetime to even begin

to scratch the surface on something as enormous and extraordinary

as love. Jesus even said, no greater

love has anyone than this than to lay down one's

life for one's friends. Not family, not

spouse, friend. And

of course, Jesus was the embodiment of the truth that he rendered here when he

laid his life down for us. Now, this is not what we're going to talk

about today. That's the one of the two that I believe like

are glaring misses when it comes to believers in the kingdom. The

second of the two is freedom.

It's freedom. It's not that we don't understand

some of the concepts and principles of freedom, but

instead rather it's we parade around like we are free

while we live in bondage. We parade around and

masquerade as free agents, as free people in

the kingdom. Yet we have very little understanding

of what freedom in the kingdom of God looks like. It's so easy

to take the attributes of freedom as they're portrayed in

the world and assign those attributes to freedom

in the kingdom. I don't believe that those are the same things.

Over in Psalm 16:6 it says this. The boundary

Psalms 16:6

lines have fallen for me in pleasant

places. This Is a life verse of

mine. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant

places. Now, some of us. Are anybody here a rebel?

You know, we tend to be creatures

where somebody says, don't do that. That's the one thing we wanna do.

And take that all the way back to the garden. God said, don't do this,

don't do that, don't do this. You can name this, you can name this, you

can eat this, you can do this, you can, you can, you can, you can,

you can. Don't do that. What's the one thing we

focus on? The one don't. Right? It's testing

the boundaries. It's testing the lines. But I have

found in my life that freedom is

found within the boundaries that the King of the

universe has set for my life. Freedom, true

freedom, is found when I obey his

principles, when I operate within those boundaries.

Jesus said, narrow, narrow is the road and

very few find it. But here's the thing that I've come to

believe. When you find the narrow road, you get to really

experience how broad it is. There's a lot that you can do

in the kingdom when you are free. When you are free.

And so there's this misunderstanding or

misattachment to freedom that I believe that

we wrestle with. And that's where I wanna camp today. This is

my daughter, Hadassah. And I had a better picture for this story,

but I couldn't find it this morning. And some of you have heard this story

before, but when she was two years old, you know that one and two

year olds, sometimes before they actually start forming words,

they actually can understand what you're saying. And

I came to realize that Hadassah could understand what I was saying

one day because we were at our house and we brought in groceries, and I

had asked Hadassah to pick up a can of beans and put it

in the pantry. And don't you know, she walked right over there and grabbed the

beans and put them in the pantry. And I thought, she can understand me.

So a little bit later, we had cooked a meal for dinner, and that

meal was spaghetti. And so she

had spaghetti on this tray, this high top of hers. And

just like all toddlers, she was sitting there priming proper and eating her meal

just the way that she should. No,

she was taking her spaghetti and she was playing with it and moving it all

around her tray, all across the way, and she took a handful

of the spaghetti and she did like this, and she threw it on

the floor. Now, I realize now that my toddler

Understands what I'm saying. And so I look at her and I

say, no, we do not throw

spaghetti on the floor. No, ma'. Am. And

do you know that she, without hesitation, looked

me eyeball to eyeball, grabbed a handful of

spaghetti, stretched her arm out over to the

side, and it was me against her

and threw that spaghetti against the wall.

I had an out of body experience.

See, I had been an educator for 15 years. I wasn't used to

teens and kids telling me no, let alone my own.

I grabbed our kitchen table. She was in a high chair. I grabbed our kitchen

table. I'm telling you guys, I do not have muscles, but I could have picked

that table up at that moment and thrown it across the window. I. I

mean, I was. And I told Shari, come in here and take care of the.

I've gotta go process these feelings that I have going on

inside.

We discipline our kids because we love them.

And for some reason, we believe that

we operate in this realm of freedom with a king who's not

going to discipline us. The God of

the universe loves you. And so that means he is willing

to. To discipline you. Aren't you glad you came today?

You are free to be disciplined. This morning, God

wants us to become like him. Not just because

he's God, which he is. Boy, he saw. I was thinking, I was pacing and

praying down here yesterday, and I was like, lord, forgive us

because we have so diluted all the vocabulary words I could

come up with to give ump to describe your sovereignty,

your bigness, your greatness. How wonderful. Even

the word king we don't understand. We live in America, after all.

We. Boy, the

words go into my mind, I can't say out loud. We basically said no to

the king. And we came over here and we said, we're not going to come

under authority. Right. We just don't like coming under

authority. But true freedom in the kingdom is

a willingness to come under an authority that

knows what's best for us, knows what's better for us than we

do. And it doesn't look like the authority

that we find in the world. And so what happens? And this is here's where,

you know, I might step on some toes today.

I believe that there are some lukewarm Christians in this church,

lukewarm Christians in the big church, capital C.

There are seasons where those of us who have the best intentions

find ourselves in lukewarm waters.

And a lukewarm place is not a place that we want.

We want to find ourselves. And so

what we do is when we find ourselves in places where we may be

skirting the line of being lukewarm and being too

comfortable. What we think is the antidote

to being lukewarm is to shout louder

the biblical principles that we think we've got a handle on

to let other people know how they should live their life as

an excuse or a banner to say, I just want you to know that I'm

in my word. But the

antidote to being lukewarm is not volume.

The antidote to being lukewarm is dying

to yourself is a willingness to

die to yourself. We are celebrating, as I mentioned before, Memorial Day

tomorrow. And, guys, I can't tell you,

cannot express to you how

grateful I am that I can stand on this stage

and publicly proclaim the Gospel of

Jesus Christ without worrying about somebody coming through those

doors with an automatic weapon to take me out, because

it's illegal to stand here and do it. I

celebrate the liberty to freely proclaim

Christ. And there are men and women who gave their lives so that

we can have that privilege. And I'm so grateful for it.

But Scripture says in the book of Ephesians that our fight is

not against flesh and blood.

It is against rulers and authorities and

powers of this dark world.

Our world is not full of light. It is full of

darkness. It is our fight is against

the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of

evil. So the greater war that's going

on in our lives is the war against our souls.

It's the war against our souls. And so

I want to take us to John, chapter five today.

If you own a Bible, a Bible is a good

thing to bring to church. Bringing a Bible

to church is like bringing a fork to your spaghetti

dinner. It's a necessary part

of the experience.

If you don't bring a fork to a spaghetti dinner, all you get

is mess. If you don't bring your Bible

to your Christian walk, all you get is

mess. A Bible is important.

I can't afford a Bible. See Barbie, she will get you a

Bible today. Is that true? Today we will get you a Bible today.

It's a matter of life and death. This book, John,

chapter five. Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of

the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem,

near the sheep gate, a pool which in Aramaic is

called Bethesda, which is surrounded by five covered

colonnades. Here a great number of disabled

people used to lie. The blind, the lame, the

paralyzed one who was there had been an invalid for

38 years. When Jesus saw him

lying there and learned that he had been in his condition

for a long time. He asked him a question, and the question

was, do you want to

get well, sir? The

invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool

when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in,

someone else goes down ahead of me. Then Jesus said to

him, poor baby,

I see you're having a hard time getting up.

Oh, well, let me sit by you and put my arm around

you. That's not what my Bible says.

Jesus said to him, get up.

Explanation point. Get up.

Sometimes we need someone in our life to say, get up,

pick up your mat and walk at once. The man

was cured. He picked up his mat

and walked.

So this man has been laying here for 38

years, lame and paralyzed,

and he wants to be healed. That seems to be what he needs.

He needs to be healed. And Jesus comes on the scene

and he asks him a very direct question, question.

And the question is, do you want to get well? I'm

going to ask another question today that can parallel that question, and it

is this, not this. Do you want

to be free? Do you want to

be free? And this is the question that I am

laying a foundation with in our church today,

this morning. Do you want to be free?

So Jesus walks up to this man and he says, do you want to get

well or do you want to be free? And the man

replies, and his reply is not an answer to

the question. This here is a yes or no question.

It is a yes or no question. And the man

who has the authority and the ability

to heal is the one asking the question.

And so we ask this question, and what we find

that the man gives is a bunch of

excuses. And what I

want to suggest to the church today is that

we may have believers who have found

themselves in a season of complacency.

And God is saying, do you want to be healed?

Do you want to be free? Free? And we say, well,

You see, there's not been anybody here that's been able to pick me

up and put me in the water.

Jesus is asking, do you want to be free? And we say, well,

God, you don't really understand how that

individual hurt me, what that person

did to me. God, do you want to be set free?

Says the Lord. And our response is, well,

God, in order for me to be set free, you're gonna have to expose some

things that I don't know if I want those people around me to see

those things. God, in order for me to

set free, be set free, it's gonna require me to

do something that I'm not quite ready to do.

And so what happens is, is we get very

comfortable and we set up residence in

the bondage that the blood of his salvation

saved us from. And our excuses.

Our excuses are the decorations we use for the

residence with which we live. And so we've got

a comfortable bed, We've got a comfortable couch. And

Jesus comes along. And here's the danger.

Jesus comes along and he says, do you want to be free?

And you know what our reply is? Free from what?

I don't even recognize that I need to be free because

I've spent more time in my bondage

than enjoying the freedom that's ready at my

hand from you, Lord. Do you

want to be set free? I'm asking you that question today.

And I believe the Holy Spirit of God is asking you today, do

you want. Want to be free? Are you sick and

tired of being sick and tired? Are you

ready to move on from that thing that you have

chosen to shackle yourself to?

Because God, his desire for your life is not

for you to be living your life beneath the

call, beneath the call of a

son and daughter of the most high God?

And so this interaction happens. He gives excuses and

Jesus says an imper. And actually it's an explanation point

in my Bible, but it's an imperative, too.

Get up, Barbie Kate, get up.

When it's time for my daughters to go to school and we're running out to

get up, it's not a negotiation. It's

not a conversation. It's not. No, it's a get up,

Rich. Get up, Val. Get up, Jonathan, get

up. And Jesus is saying, do you want to be free? And we're going,

wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. And he's saying, get up. Pick

up your mat. Pick up your mat and

leave this place. In other words, forget the

decorations. Forget all the stuff that you forget,

all of those things. Pick up your mat and move. In order to

be free, it requires you to do something.

Now it says immediately the guy's cured. He gets

up and he walks away. Amazing. Miracle of miracles. Wonder

of wonders. Isn't that a musical fiddler on the roof?

Look a little bit deeper into the chapter here, verse 14.

Later, Jesus finds this guy at the temple

and says to him, okay, where did he find him?

Where? Okay, so Jesus found him going to church.

He found him going to church. Hey, I got healed, so I'm at church.

That's where I'm supposed to be. I got the T shirt. I got

the. Hey, I got. I Got some Christian friends. I'm giving my

tithe check. I'm giving like I'm supposed to. I'm showing up at the church. I'm

at the church picnic. I'm at all of the things. And then Jesus says this.

I see that you are well again. Stop

sinning or something worse may happen to you.

What? I mean, he was

strolling up on Jesus like he was the home dog. He's like, hey, what's up,

man? Thank you for healing me. I'm so glad. I'm so glad to be

here. And you know what Jesus says? Stop sinning

or something worse may happen to you. You know what this

tells me, guys? It tells me that Jesus was far

more concerned with his spiritual sin condition than he

was with the ailment that he healed him from.

See, our excuses have everything to do with the ailment that he's

already set us free from. Why are we being set

free? We're being liberated so that we don't have to be entangled

in the sin that wants to kept us in bondage.

But yet there's something attractive about that sin.

There's something that just lures us right back

that way. Do you want to be

free? And

so I want to show you this morning what I believe this looks like.

This here is the pool of Truth.

And it is God's desire for

us to be far more than

just well acquainted with his truth. And so we get

into the pool of Truth,

and it starts with a wading of the water.

But the ultimate goal is not that we would be wading in this water.

The ultimate goal is that there would be full immersion into

the truth of God's word. Now, I don't know about you, but when I go

swimming, I don't wear a blazer.

When I go swimming, I mean, who

jumps in the pool with a blazer? I don't wear jeans

when I go swimming. You know what I'm saying? I mean.

I mean.

And see, here's the thing.

Now I'm not gonna take this sweater off because I don't want you to stumble,

okay? But I

sure enough don't wear socks in a pool.

When I'm around the pool, I wear flip

flops,

right? And so here I am

enjoying the benefit of freedom for being

in the truth of God's word.

The truth changes things. When the truth comes

into our life, we have to shed those outer garments, those

outer. That filth that we've been in, so that he can

get in and do a work on the inside of Us. Us.

But here's what happens in American

Christianity and in the church, in our culture and

civilization. We get. We get here and we get in the pool and we get

about knee deep, and we feel like we've got a

handle on the truth of God's word. And so what happens

is we begin

to exchange what we can see with

some other things. And we end up stepping out of the pool

and setting up camp

in the bondage with which

we once lived.

And so we find ourselves in this place

and we say to ourselves, you know what?

I'm just fine being in proximity to the Word but not immersed in it.

Now, here's the thing. When I got out of the pool. When I get out

of the pool, I'm wet. So I've

got residue of truth on my body.

True. So I've got this residue of

truth on my body, okay? Now, when I took off my jeans.

This is the scripture, okay? Foolishness.

The world calls it foolishness. What it looks like when

you're in. You're in the pool.

But what we have to understand is that proximity

to truth is not the same as surrender to truth.

And so I've got this residue on me that is truth.

And for a little bit of time, I can get by with that. But

there comes a point when that water dries

because the water hits the elements of what's on the

outside. Are you with me? And so all of

a sudden, I've got the truth mixed with all of this

other stuff out here. And all of a sudden I just become

damp. Got a damp short. And I become

dried up. And so

here I am in proximity to. But

I'm not fully surrendered. And so with that, I want

to take us to John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

In John chapter 8, Jesus has spent a

John 8 · chapter mention

discourse with the Jews trying to convince them of who he

is. And so he does this by

explaining who he is. And they're going back and

forth. And then we land on verse 31.

And it says this to the Jews

who had believed him. Jesus said,

now let's look at the word Jews there for a moment.

Is Jews singular or plural? What

is it? Plural. That means there's more than one

Jew. There's multiple people here.

Okay, so it's to the Jews who had what

they did. What? Okay, so he's talking to

multiple believers. That is a very important

point as we move forward in this passage. Jesus is

talking to Jews who believe. Are you

with me? So he says this to the

Jews, multiple Jews who believe. He says this.

If you hold to My teaching. You are

really my disciples, then you

will know the truth and the truth will set

you free. So in other words, he's saying this. He's saying,

if you hold on to my teaching, then you

will be my followers. And if you'll hold onto

my teaching, if you'll be immersed into my teaching,

then you will know the truth and the truth will

set you free. Free. Now, they respond

to this, and they say this. We are

Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves

of anyone. How can you say that we

shall be set free? Now, I don't know about you, but I have

read the Bible, okay? There are

multiple occasions where I see the Jews in

slavery. And their response, not

one. Multiple Jews. Are you listening to me?

Multiple Jews who say they believe what Jesus is

saying. They are saying back to Jesus, we ain't never

been slaves. Follow me.

Multiple Christians in today's church

looking at the truth and saying nonsense

and not no one stopping the nonsense.

Because everyone, everyone has been

succumbed to the bondage

that each is in. And the whole community has

been deceived. God does

not want his bride to be deceived.

In other words, what should have happened is one of the Jews should have said,

hey. Could have said, hey, Jesus, we ain't never been slaves. Somebody else should'

said, wait a second, that's not true. That's not true.

Didn't nobody say a thing. We ain't never been

slaves. Let me ask you a question. How do you know that

you're not being deceived this morning?

How do you know the words coming out of my mouth

are truth?

Listen, I'm asking a question that we

need to ponder and consider and think about

because we could very well be a group saying,

we ain't never been slaves. And I'm

connected to 300, 400 people. We ain't never been slaves.

So he's having this. They're having this interaction. And Jesus

responds. He says this

very truly. I tell you, everyone who sins is a

slave to sin. Now, a slave has no

permanent place in the family, but a son belongs

to it forever. So if the Son sets you

free, you will be free indeed.

I know that you're Abraham's descendants,

yet listen to this. Yet you are looking for

a way to kill me. Listen to this,

because you have no room for my word.

Selah,

We literally could be believers

wearing the shirt, attending church, paying

the tithes, serving in the ministry, but at the same

time killing the truth because we don't have room

for the word.

I am telling you What I have seen in the father's presence. And you are

doing what you have heard from your father. Abraham

is our father, they answered. If you were Abraham's children, said

Jesus, then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for

a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth. That I

heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of

your own father. To which they respond,

we are not illegitimate children. Now,

let's camp there for one second. This discourse is

taken between the Jews and Jesus. In human

reasoning, which of the two parties might be an illegitimate

child? In human reasoning, which of the two parties?

Jesus. Remember his story. Mary's

pregnant. Wait, y' all aren't married? What?

And so think about this.

We're not illegitimate children. We're not

illegitimate children. We are descendants of Abraham. And I

laugh at this next line. It says this. Where is it? They

protested. The only father we have is God

himself. They're talking to Jesus Christ.

Somebody say stupid.

But here's the thing.

When we don't know the word of God,

we say the most idiotic things.

We execute what we believe the truth to say in

the most idiotic, destructive ways.

They're talking to Jesus. He said,

if God were your father, you would love me. For I have come

here from God. I have not come from my own. God sent

me. Why is my language not clear to you?

Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong. Listen to this.

You belong to your father, the devil,

and you want to carry your father's desires. He was a

murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth. For the truth was

not in him. He speaks lies. He speaks his

native language. For he is a liar and the father of

lies. Here's the thing. When you are immersed in the truth,

if this was water in here and I was immersed in here, I can't

hear anything. But when I'm out here,

and I'm only in proximity to the truth, I can hear the

Father of Lies all day long, combating and

challenging the very truth that I say I believe in.

Do you want to be set free?

That's the question on the table this morning.

Here's what this looks like. We are

to be immersed in the

truth. When we are immersed in the truth,

you can no longer see me.

All you see is Jesus. When you

are immersed in the truth, he

becomes bigger and you become less than

when you are immersed in the truth. All of a sudden,

your words and your actions evolve and

change and look like the Savior who

saved your life. All of a sudden you begin to

love people in a way that. That you've never loved them before.

All of a sudden you are generous in a way that you have

never been generous before. Turn the other cheek.

Jesus says you turn the other cheek. Forgive. 70

times 7. Not a problem. You are

immersed in truth. And because of your immersion

in the truth, the ripples of your life

speak so much louder than the person who's sitting

outside of the truth yelling out what they believe. They

the Bible says on how to live. Are you with me today?

We are supposed to be immersed in

the word of God. It changes our lives.

It causes us to not see anything or hear

anything outside of the truth. And we feel

and know and recognize his presence. We learn

about ourselves. Do you know that God, the breather of

stars, has so many incredible, wonderful things

to say about you? The Father of lies

also has some things to say. But when you are immersed into the

truth, all you hear is truth.

May we be a church who is immersed in the church,

immersed in the truth. May we be a church who's immersed in the truth. So

that when people look at our church, all they see is

Jesus Christ.

All they see is Jesus Christ.

Here's the thing. Some people say, if I'm immersed in the church and I can't

be seen, who's going to do the fighting?

Who's going to do the preaching? If I'm immersed, I mean, who's going to stand

up and tell them what they need to hear? Do you know,

when I look in Scripture and I look at the people with the loudest voices,

before they start their. Started their ministry, they

metaphorically signed the dotted line and said, they can take me out and kill me

for this. They were crucified,

they were speared, they were beheaded, some of them.

So before I take on the idea that I need

to be in the position of a platform to give my voice, I

also need to be in a position that says, listen, I'm willing to give my

life for this. I

believe that those who are immersed in truth speak so

much louder, have more extraordinary voices than anybody

who's ever been given a platform with a voice. It's not to say the

platform isn't important. God uses the platform. But there are

some silent warriors and ninjas in the kingdom that

go farther. I believe that they are going to be recognized before the King

in extravagant ways, more so than those

who are on the platform.

We are supposed to be people who are

immersed in truth. Why

is this important?

The World is confused

about how we are supposed to live our lives.

And if we are not careful, we too, as

believers in the house of God, will become confused

about how we are supposed to live our lives.

There is no confusion in the kingdom of God.

The truth of God's word can stand alone. It

is a firm foundation. The

answer to the problems that you have are not found

on TV or in the world. They're found in the word of God.

There are principles in here. Some of you have been laid up for

38 years and God is saying, do you wanna

be free? Do you wanna be free? He's got

an answer for that question. He's got a peace that

passes understanding. He's got every. He owns the cattle on the

hill. He's got every provision that you've been asking for. He has that

hope that he's instilled inside you. He gives you the ability to be

faithful. He is a God above all other gods. He is a

suprem. The world cannot take him down.

The Father of lies must bow to the truth

of God. And so my question

this morning to you all, to this church, is, do

you want to be free? And guess what? I'm not gonna leave it on

an abstract note today. Would you stand with me, worship team? You can come

out. The question that we have

to deal with is, do we want to be free?

And I believe that there are people in here who want to be free.

Guys, an immersed life is not a passive life.

The Word tells us that when the Son of Man is lifted up, he will

draw all men unto himself. He can

do the bidding for his work. Here's the deal. Does

our life look like the Master to

whom we say we serve? Does our lives look

like that? Do you even know what's required of you

when you encounter something in the world that is confusing?

When the world adopts a philosophy,

when the world adopts all types of things and tries to

indoctrinate the next generation, are you prepared

not only how to answer that with the truth of God's word by

what it says, but how to

encounter and how to interact with those who are rendering the

lie. All of this has to

do with the immersion of the truth of God's word.

So here's my real question. My question that the broad question we're

answering is this. Do you want to be free?

But I'm going to pare that down a little bit more to make this

concrete. Here's the word, here's the question.

Are you immersed in God's Word?

Do you know the truth of God's word.

Now, I'm not talking about. I'm not talking about

quantity. I'm not saying, well, you know, I read 10 chapters

a day. Check that off the list.

What I'm saying is, is this book alive

in your life? Does it hold the

authority of your opinions, your beliefs, how you

interact with people? Do you actually know

what this word says? Because to know the word of God is to know

Jesus Christ.

There's this scary scripture, and this isn't meant to scare

or manipulate. It's meant to convict. It is meant to convict.

In Matthew, Jesus says there are going to be

people that show up on that day and say to him,

Lord, Lord,

I cast out demons in your name.

Did you see that extra zero I put on that tie? Check.

Jesus. Jesus,

I preached in your name. I served in that ministry in your name.

You know what he says? He looks right at those people and

says, I do not know you.

The only way for you to know him and for him

to know you is to be immersed in the truth.

Do you have a relationship with this word? I

promise you, there's a lot of things that we're going to talk about on this

stage, over this series and this year or whatever. There is nothing more important than

what I'm telling you right now. Because the answers, everything that

we're preaching here should come from this book. Get in relationship. Do you

see what God could do? Do you know the freedom that people could experience? If

we had a bunch of people immersed in the truth

he would be bringing. There would be growth. It would be unstoppable. We would not

have room to put all the people. Why? Because when he is lifted up,

he draws all men to himself. He does not need you to lift him

up. He needs you to die to yourself so that he will

be lifted up. So will

those who are gonna pray with people come forward. I have a very specific call

this morning, and it's not even if you have a need.

Some of you have come with needs this morning. And if your need is outside

of this, I'll be down here. Pastor Barbee, we'll meet with you after the service.

Be happy to pray with you. That's not what this call is for. Come on

down here. I'm gonna need a lot of leaders. We had a salvation in first

service. That should be a Praise the Lord. We had a salvation,

and I mean, eternity was changed. Okay, listen.

It's literally a matter of life and death.

My daughters are being raised in this house

and they are being Taught by people who are sitting in these seats.

Guys, do you know this word.

The other day, My diet. I don't remember what day Justin's gonna

punch me in the face for this, but my diet the other day, mozzarella

sticks, popcorn, and a slushie.

It's really what it was. Let me tell you

who felt it the next morning.

My kids don't need cookies, popcorn,

candy, all of that stuff that the world gives out. They need

some meat and vegetables that are found in the Word of God.

I want my kids and their kids and their kids to

have a fighting chance in a world that seems to be taking over.

But I know who has the victory in the end. I

don't want my kids to get trampled on because we got a bunch of

complacent, lukewarm people in their lives.

And the way that we combat that is by getting into the Word of God.

And so this morning, I am asking you, I am beseeching you, I am

begging you, if your life is one that you would say, I'm not

in the Word of God. I'm not immersed in the Word of God.

I read sometimes, but I'm not really necessarily applying what

I'm learning. My calendar is such that I don't. I'm not able. I just

don't get into it. I struggle having time in the Word.

You need a dose of hunger from the Holy Spirit. Spirit in your

life that makes you attracted to this, that this becomes the priority

in your life. And today, what I'm going to ask you to do is

to come with one of these believers down here and confess

and just say, you know what? Listen, here's the thing. We don't need to make

this long down here because I think there's going to be multiple people. There's one

question to answer. Do you want to be free? We don't need to. We don't

need to. Hey, yes. My life has been. I got a

calendar issue. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what the lame man did. Jesus said,

get up. Some of us need to get up, walk down here and just say,

I want to be free. That's all it needs. And these people will know how

to pray with you at that moment. You want to be free? Get into the

Word of God. Get immersed in the Word of God. Know the Word of God.

Live and breathe the Word of God. Jesus Christ

wants to change your life radically. He wants you to be free. Does

anybody here want to be free? Am I the only one? Am I crazy? Guys,

let's go swimming. Come on.

If that is you today, I want you to make your way down here. We

may have lines here because these prayers aren't going to be hellfire, brimstone,

long prayers. We're going to literally just agree that the Lord is going to open

up capacity and birth a hunger in your life. Come on down right now as

we worship. If you want to ask the Lord to help you have a

hunger for his word and to be immersed, come now, let's pray.