RCF 270322 Teaching Service - Josh Heslop Freedom

Entire Lord. If fulfilly, keeping as from command, love your neighbor as

yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out, will you'll

be destroyed by each other. The flesh desire to make this country to the

spirit, and the spirit or is contrary to the flesh. They're in confidict

with each other. So you're not speaking with that you want to. So

if you are led by the spirit, you're not under the law the accident.

The flesh are office sexual moraanty to pauchery, exceptional roality, impurity,

idolatry in which paft, hatred, jealousy, discord, fits of rage,

self ast, ambition, drunkenness or dissensions, factions, drunkenness or jees,

and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those

who live like this we're not gonnaherit the Kingdom of God. But the fruit

of the Spirit is that johny, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

felt, faithfulness, gentleness, and self controuble. Against such things there is

nodle. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and

desires. Since we live by the spirits, let us not let us keep

in step of the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying

each other, brothers and sisters. If someone is caughting sin, you who

live by the spirit, should rustle that person gently. Will be careful,

as you may also fall carry each other's burdens, and in this way you

will fulfill the law of Christ. That's it. So we're kind of hating

and a bit crazy about memorizing and scripture like that, and it might seem

a bit artificial and a bit dramatic, but one of the reasons we love

it so much because sometimes when you when you're reading something, it can feel

kind of and you're reading the news, but it's the word of God.

And when you, particularly when you read Jesus teachers Hate's friends and memorize sending

on the lathing and when you when you hear this is someone preaching Jesus' words

to you, is so powerful, so so powerful. So then I want

to talk about what it means for us to be people who are free,

and yet sometimes our lives don't feel free. And for many of us,

we still experience suffering and sin, and we've feel like freedom is a bit

of an illusion, something that's a bit far off and doesn't really make our

lives looking a different to other people. So I'm going to answer three questions.

The first question is what is our freedom? The second one is why

am I being burdened? Again? We can all feel burdens at the point.

And the third one is what does my freedom do? I see my

silly question, but we're going to look at what effect does there our freedom

have on our lives among other people. And I don't know if any of

you, as I was saying that passage, was sort of thinking like this,

but it came to me a little while ago. Actually it sort of

came to me in a discussion when I was last teaching on this passage at

our church. And that makes it's a good point. I would like anyone

that has a question to stop me and ask me a question. At the

end. If there's a CAD day, we'll have a time four questions and

there's no question that's two random, all sit simple or whatever. But I

loved the question ask being asked questions because firstly, that's how Jesus talked the

disciples of asking questions about what he was teaching. This is great. That's

when you're teaching and someone asks you questions, you start to realize that no

one's really been understanding what you've been trying to say. It's a real fail

safe, so please ask questions. Please. But someone asked me a question

about this passage, and then I realized that this passage is not what I

thought it was. This passage is really a reference to the Exodus story,

the story of God's people. Have anyone seen Prince of Egypt such an amazing

thim to that story, that story of God's people being delivered out of Egypt

and into freedom through me as appointed leader Moses. And this passage is actually

a sort of Paul's like making this sort of parallel with that story and our

lives now here in Egham. He's saying that you can learn lots from the

story of the Extra Story. That will tell you about you, that will

tell you about your habits, your shortcomings, and will tell you what freedom

looks like. So we're using the Extra Story as a way to understand this

passage. So the first question, what is our freedom? So if we

look at the Extra Story, you see that God's people are delivered from oppression,

They're delivered from slavery, from being subject to theorem, and this is

done from an outside force that comes in and the fact the extra story has

this praise over and over again, God's mighty hands delivered them. And they're

then taken out of Egypt after a series of amazing, miraculous things. And

do you know where they go next? They go to the wilderness. So

they go from bad to worse, really, and yet that's what their freedom

is. They're not slaves anymore, but they're in the wilderness. And so

when we ask what is our freedom, our freedom looks like that's in concerts.

Our freedom is that we are no longer subjected to the oppression of the

enemy, and we are free. There's no one there with a rob beating

us. And that is that's more a spiritual thing for us, although for

many people the gospel does look like liberty from actual slavery. And it's amazing.

You know, there'll be people in this room now that have stories of

God liberating them from sin and suffering from the fear of death. And I'm

sure all of us can give testimony to the freedom that we have from being

followers of Jesus. And that's amazing. That an asolutely amazing, and we

should not gloss over that that all of us, I hope all was.

And if you don't aren't free, then we'll talk about that at the end.

But we've all experienced freedom that people that don't know Jesus don't experience.

Freedom from the love of money, which is such a cruel, horrible thing,

freedom from fear, freedom from so many things that the Gospel has made

us free from. It's amazing the Gospel and us to be happy even when

we're poor. The Gospel allows us to be content. Even when we're sick.

We can be beaten and bruised, we still have joy and kid and

I have a friend who died in a plane crash two years ago, and

you can watch his videos on YouTube. He was a public speaker and he

talks about how his dad died in a plane crash. But that family has

so much joy even though they've experienced so much suffering. And that's a testament

to the spirit that's in them and the Gospel. It's not to say that

they don't suffer, they certainly do, but their joy is unparalleled. So

that's what our freedom is. God comes into our lives, takes us out

of slavery and sets us free. But that's not the end of the story.

For most of us, We'll remember at the beginning, it is for

freedom that Chris set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not

let yourselves be burdened again by a yoga slavery. I'm gonna talk a little

bit about that verse. I'm going to try and break down essentially every word

in that verse together. So do you Does anyone know what the first few

days in the wilderness was like for the Israelites after they were said free?

It was horrible rubbish. I'm just going to read something from someone called Nick

Crawley that describes those first few days, which often describes how we feel.

I think to get off to be prayed about something and we're like, oh,

that thing's been sold or God's answered that prayer, and then so many

things get worse. The euphoria of the deliverance through the red seat changes immediately

into the terrifying barrenness of the desert, where there is literally no water or

food. Unsurprisingly, these people who are not a nation cry out in anger

and fear as their taste of freedom rapidly transforms into an experience of hell where

there are no basic necessities for daily life, where they face unprovoked military aggression

from outside their community, where there is little administration of justice. Perhaps the

best perspective is to view Israel as a child who is about is beginning to

face adulthood, a child is now forced to live as a teenager, a

person beginning to learn how to take responsibility for themselves in a wild world of

freedom. God the parent is faithful, kind and very long suffering. The

Israelis said, didn't we say in Egypt, leave us alone, the US

serve the Egyptians. It would have been best for us to serve the Egyptians

than die in the desert. And maybe for us we would say no,

lever say it would be better not to be a Christian. But maybe even

if we don't say that explicitly, we might feel it. Sometimes, we

might feel sometimes it would be better we just didn't have to think about this

difficult question. It would be better if I didn't have to bother. Well,

the is right certainly does, and I think I certainly have. And

then there's this moment where, you know, the epic moment where Moses is

on an aunt and he has he has this incredible experience of God's glory and

then he comes down from the mountain and what are the aug Israels do.

They've made this golden car out of their jewelry which came from the Egypts,

and they worship this and they probably also worth engaging in sexual morality. That

says they engage with indulgence behavior or something. And you imagine those is seen

doesn't see God's face at that moment, but he's experienced God's goodness. I

think at that point he's seen God's back and he comes down from mountain and

the people that he's delivered are now burned down in front of a gold calf

and engaging in sexual sin probably, and you might I think they've been more

questions is to ask us why were they doing that? Any any ideas there's

one idea, yeah, yes, no understanding. Maybe that's what freedom they've

thought freedom look like he's doing whatever they wanted, right. The likely inflation

is by a passage comfort. Comfort got back in your ways to come back

to what they knew exactly. So apparently there's a god that this is an

hypothesis, so it's not definite, but this is an interesting goal. There's

a God in ancient Egypt called Apists, who was a cow, So it's

possible there's are also Canaanite gods that were also cows, but it's possible.

Like that, it was comfortable for them to go back to what they knew,

and we do that self and don't There are three stories I want to

share with you, but I think describe what freedom can often feel like for

us. It's of an eagle, of a shark, what's the last one?

And a prisoner. So the eagle. You may have heard the story,

there's an eagle that grows up with oscar ship ostriches. That's very difficult

to say that, and it has a great time running around, never quite

as fast as the ostriches. Remember they're very fast. They have a very

good top speed. And then one day a family of eagles fly by,

and the family eagles invite this eagle to join them for a flight, and

that eagle looks at them and thinks, oh, if any acuity that looks

awesome, And then they invite the eagle to come with them, and they

stand at the cliff edge, and then one by one he sees these eagles

jump off the cliff edge and saw but this eagle just can't do it,

and it takes all these other eagles time to take this ostrich like eagle onto

a tree on the lowest branch and say just jump drunk and put your wings

out. And he tries and falls and falls, and as time goes by,

it starts to get a bit more flights and eventually learns that's the good

story that storily is the one of a shark. And this is the true

documented psychological phenomena. If you put a shark in a glass cage in a

big swimming pool and you leave it in there for a long time, every

time it goes towards the glass its nose will it hit itself against the glass.

And eventually, if you take the glass walls off that shark, it

will never leave that area which the glass has because it's afraid that the glass

is still there. It's been trained that the glass is still there. But

it's totally free. Another example is with the prisoner. For many of us,

freedom and feels like this. It's like Jesus has knocked down the door

to our prison and it's wide open, but we spend so much of our

life inside the prison with a door widened and for these relatives a bit like

that. They're free. They are free, and they worship the golden calf.

How happen is that what can a golden calf do for them? So

it is a freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then,

and do not let yourselves be burdened by a yoke of savory. Let's

go through each one of those words, stand firm, Stand firm against what

or against who. So in the previous verses which we didn't read, Paul

talks about these agitators of the flesh, which sounds very immensing. And in

chapter one of this amazing letter he speaks so harshly and strongly against people that

preach a gospel that's different to the gospel that he's preaching, the gospel that

he calls my gospel. And he says, even if an angel were to

come to you and preach anything apart from the Gospel of Grace, purse them.

So stand firm. What he's saying is, do not let any teaching

that's in the world that even sometimes within the church, sadly convince you of

anything apart from the gospel. Where he's talking about the Gospel of Grace.

Stand firm, and there are sort of there are three sort of areas in

which the Gospel applies. There's the truth about God, there's the truth about

you, and there's the truth about what makes a good life. And those

three things the world will tell you lots of things about them. World probably

tell you God doesn't exist. World will probably tell you that you are either

worthless or the best thing instead of being created. Or the world will tell

you what constitutes a good life. And those three areas we have to believe

in the gospel because it's true. It's true. The next part is stand

firm and do not let yourselves. Do not let yourselves. I think one

of my favorite stories in the whole of the Bible is Daniel. One of

the reasons I love Daniel is I feel like Daniel gives all of us a

really good example of how to work and honor the Lord Jesus in our workplace,

or how to not just live in a monastery. And the pool of

the world is always there, and if you let yourself, you will find

that you will become enslaved in things. And sometimes they can be things that

you're not necessary, not necessarily in and of themselves. Obviously, bad.

But if you want to have the Kingdom of God, which is so good,

which is the remember all said them can get to remus twelve. Kingdom

of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in that Holy Spirit. If

you want that kind of life, if you want the kind of life where

you have that fruit of the Spirit in your life, I do, then

you should not let yourselves be burdened again like the Israelites did, where they

will say, oh, you better to go back to Egypt. And so

we need to resist that. And that's the language that the negants resist the

devil. The last part is penoc part, do not let yourselves be burdened

again, be burdened again. There's this really interesting verse in Exodus, chapter

thirteen, verse seventeen where its is this when Pharaoh let the people go,

God did not leave them on the road through the Philistine country, though that

was shorter for God saying if they face war, they might change their minds

and return to Egypt. In other words, what are you saying is I'm

not going to take them with the easy roots, the quick roots, because

if they come across really hard stuff like war, they're going to think Egypt's

better than my promised land for them. And I think what I'm trying to

say is when Jesus says to all of us, come to me, all

well wearyed, and I'll give you rest. My yoke is easy, my

burden is light. What he's saying is my way is the light way,

that light burden. And he uses that language like we were using this language

here. We all have a burden of source. And then the Bible word

they use is a yoke, And that's an easy way of the easy way

of understanding that is by thinking it just means the teachings for life. Jesus

has a yoke, but his yoke is like easy, and we'll bring you

life. But the yoke of the world is one that will lead you into

difficulty. And the reason why I use that verse from Exodus is that if

you do God's way he made, he knows exactly when it's time for you

to face your enemies life with the first ice, there'll be there will be

a time, and certainly it will certainly come for all of us where we

have to face and has come for all of us. We have to face

big enemies like the first Sis. But it wasn't that time for the Israelites,

and God said no, not now. Later and later on they do

think for the first times multiplications. So do not be burdened again by a

yoke of slavery. Be burdened by the yoke of Jesus. Right, my

last point, what does our freedom do? What does our freedom? Do

you? Remember? In this passion in Glasian Spy he says you, my

brothers, will called to be free, but do not use your freedom to

indulge the flesh, but rather serve one another humbly in love. For the

entire world to fields one command, love you, neighbors. So the question

is, how does freedom, in knowing Jesus, how does it help us

serve one another humbly in love? The reality is, and there's a growing

there's a small and growing part of the sort of academic field that many of

us have grown up with, something called the self esteem movements. What I

mean by that is we're all told to say things like I am great,

I can do this, and in many ways it's true thanks to Jesus.

But for people that don't know Jesus, it's a very actually a very cruel

thing to do to people is to try and make them believe of them that

their everyday experience tells them that it's not true. And when do I say

this? All of humankind is innately selfish, and the love of Jesus actually

allows all of us to think about other people, which the world really struggles

with. The love of Jesus allows us to become humble. It allows us

to prefer one another because we know that God's going to look after us,

because we know that we're loved, and we know that other people aren't loved

and they don't know the love of Jesus like we do. So it liberates

us to think about other people. It sets us free, and I find

it really interesting kitting out human reflect on this. When you talk to an

anxious person, they have very little capacity to think about other people. They're

completely absorbed with themselves and it's a horrible existence, really. Or when you

talk to someone that's like we talked in the Acts of the Flesh, full

of fits of rage, they're not thinking about other people. They're full of

rage. Or when you think about someone that's got selfish ambition, they certainly

not think about anyone else apart from themselves. But the love of Jesus allows

us to think about other people because we know that God cares for us,

and that's an incredibly powerful thing, and that's led many people to give up

their lives out of love for other people. So I just want to finish

by talking about humility and pride, cause I think it it explains. It

says this in this passage, So one other humbly in love, our freedom

should lead lead us to service of other people. Pride, I think,

presents itself in three ways. The first way, but let me ask what

a pride people? How do you know that someone's pride? Perhaps, what

are the common things that they might say or do? Real we all have

some pride? Yeah, any thoughts what a pride? Proud people look like?

What they say? They're not open to other people's opinions. They're not

open to other people's opinions. Yeah, they're very good better, So they're

good or better than others. They'd like to be seen, they'd like to

be seen. Mm. So I think all of those things can be sending

up in these three categories so working diagnosis as we say. So, the

first one is the arrogant person. It's like what David's saying, These people

think they're better than other people. And we all know these youths. Sometimes

that's us. The aragant person says I'm better than you, and they may

they act in a way where they push other people down to everything's else.

And that's the classic way when we think we're proud pride people, we think

that's all the pride. Pride looks like. There's two other castgories. The

other category it's the person that says I don't care what people think. I

don't care, and I'll give you a reason why I think that's true.

But they say, oh, I don't care. You know, I don't

kill a god things and I don't kill what you think I don't kill analysis.

And the last casigory, and this one might sound a bit harsh for

me, but I think it's true. It's the person that thinks that they're

lower than everyone, that they're insignificant, that they don't matter. And I'll

explain why I think that's the case. So if you look at there's two

passages that I think help us understand what humility is the parable of the soil.

You know, the seed that was put on good soil, that hand

good for a turn. The end of that parable it's one of the few

parables where Jesus explains the parable, and it says, this is the parable

to understand all parables. And at the end of that parable, he says,

others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept

it and produce a crop. Here the word accept it and produce a crop.

And in James chapter one, verse twenty one, he's talking about quid

of humility, and he says he's instructing the recipients of the better, and

it says, humbly accept the word planted in you. Humbly accept the word

planted in you. The word accepts again. So I think a helpful way.

It is not the only way, but the healthful way to understand the

word Humanity is someone that accepts God's truth, a proud person, someone that

does not accept God's truth. So if you go back to those three people,

the proud person says, I'm better than Norman. I'm way better than

Norman. I'm not accepting the fact that God values Norman just not just me.

And then there's the blood of Jesus that defenses Norman. It's the same

blood that can to me or the person that says Oh, I don't care

what everyone says. They're not accepting the truth that God's opinion does matter,

and sometimes other people's opinions do matter too. Sometimes people can see things in

us that we can't see ourselves. Or the last person the person says that

I'm no good, they're the person that they also have to humble themselves to

God's opinion of them, and God thinks that they're amazing. God values them.

God sends us some to die for them. So what's humility? Humility

is someone that accepts the truth. Now serve one another humbly in love.

How does humility help us serve one another humbling love? The humble person is

able to accept God's truth and become free the God's truth that God loves us,

that you are significant, that you have a hand for you, that

God will look after you. God will care for you. That allows you

to big by other people. When you look at the heart of Jesus,

you see someone that humbly accepts the truth about him all through his life a

submission to the Father. So if you want to learn from Jesus, if

you want to become more like him, accept the truth, humble yourself and

accept the truth about who you are, about who God is, and about

what the good life is. So take home messages, love these to take

home messages not like these. And I live with someone who we used to

do bigles, that used to live in a community house. We used to

do biglestudies. And every time at the end you say, right, everyone,

we're gonna have a take home message with your black lunch. And I

think this is just like being a school, but it always made me remember

it. So take home messages to those who want to become free. And

I don't say this in an araban way, I hope not, but you

must have become a Christian because the Gospel is uniquely powerful at setting you free,

Like we talked about the ways in which it sets you freedom yourself and

from worrying about yourself, which we all do, but we all need the

liberty that comes from your Gospel. So if you don't know Jesus, then

you must become a Christian. To those who are a Christian, which I

think it is most of us and Christ God, what happens if we don't

feel free? The first thing is, don't underestimate the greatness of the freedom.

Remember the Israelites. They were out of Egypt, and they were in

the wilderness, and they didn't have food and water, but they didn't know

what their freedom was going to give them, which was the Promised Land.

And God's freedom for all of us is incredible, been powerful. We've been

set free from death. We're all going to live forever that believe in Jesus.

We've been set free from sin, we've been set free from suffering,

and many of us still experience suffering. But there will be a day where

there's no crime, there's no pain, there's no suffering. So don't underestimate

the greatness of your freedom. The next thing, remember that we all have

Egypt in our lives. We all have a time where we were in bondage

and we had great powers that were keeping us slaves, and we would all

be slaves to different things, shame, fear, sin, at different times,

oppression, and there's a temptation to sometimes think that some parts of that

life are better than the wilderness that we offer we find ourselves in. The

best thing I can say to you is wait on the spirits. You know,

the journey from Egypt to the Promise andrew how many days it could have

taken eleven days. Eleven days, we spent forty years. Just wait on

the spirits, the last one. When you grow in understanding your freedom and

the love of Jesus, you will become free to serve other people with joy,

not for gradually, because you'll do that to God. So I'm going

to end by reciting one more time. And if we have time for questions,

so it is for freedom, and Elijah the Christ is set us free.

Stand firm, then, and do not make yourselves be burned again.

Value to stay free. You, my brothers, would cause to be free.

But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, but rather serve

one another hungly in love the entire law as a build and keeping this one

command, love your neighbor as yourself flesh. If your biding or to bar

in each other, what shut what will be destroyed by each other? That

the flesh desires what's conscious the spirit and the spirit what is country to the

flesh. They're in confidt with each other. So you're not to do whatever

you want. The acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual morality and purity

and debauchit, hatred, discord, and jealousy, fits of rage, selfish

ambition, dissensions, factions, drunkenness, and orgience and life. I warn

you as I did before, but those who live by this will not inherit

the Kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,

peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. From us your self

controuble against such things, There is no law those who belong to Christ,

which all of us have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since

we live by the spirits, let us keep in step with the spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking an envy each other. Brothers, if

someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the spirit, should

restore that person gently or be careful, unless you may also fall carry each

other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Amen.