Made For Mission Week 5: "Freed For the Mission"

Welcome to the Generations Church

podcast. This week we're asking the question, why did God set you free?

It's not just for you. It's so you can help others find freedom in Jesus.

We'll see how our freedom in Christ breaks the chains of sin,

removes fear and condemnation, empowers us by the Holy Spirit, and sends us on mission.

If you've forgotten what you've been freed from or why your freedom matters.

We pray today's message will remind you of the why behind our mission.

And now, here's Pastor Jeff with today's message. Free to set free.

I am reminded of the old song, Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this place today.

Great job, worship team. I want to tell you a story this morning of a young lady named Dieta.

Emen, also known as Didi. She was a Dutch Christian woman who,

during World War II, was imprisoned by the Nazi regime.

After her release, she risked her life time and time again to rescue others.

She was just a young woman when Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands,

And she and her fiance, Hein, joined the Dutch resistance and began helping

to hide Jewish people and to provide forged documents.

Now, eventually, they were both arrested and Dede was sent to a Nazi prison camp.

Life there became a living hell for her. She faced interrogation.

She was tortured. She was beaten.

She was often starved for long periods of time. And she experienced tremendous

loss, personal loss, including the death of her beloved fiance,

Hein, who died in that same concentration camp.

Yet after being released from prison, something that wasn't even guaranteed

that she would get out, but she did.

And instead of quietly retreating to her home and just living out the rest of

her life like she could have, in peace,

in joy, she returned to the resistance movement even more determined.

And she began helping Jewish families again and she began hiding them and moving

them to safe locations and she continued this dangerous work of saving others.

And her newfound freedom only deepened her compassion and her determination

to help those who were still left in captivity.

Because she believed freedom was not just for her own survival or for her own

good, but she believed that she had been free to help free others.

And Dee Dee's story is an incredible parallel in imagery of the heart of the gospel, isn't it?

The reality is that when God set us free, he didn't just do so for our benefit

so we could sit, soak, and sour, as I like to say.

He did it so that we might become instruments of freedom in other people's lives.

You should have been handed a notes page when you came in. If you didn't,

just slip your hand up and we'll get you one.

You'll quickly realize this, but I am so ADD squirrel that it just does me good.

If I am sitting there listening to a sermon, I got to have something to write

on or something to color pictures on. maybe some notes if I'm listening.

But here's the big idea that I want to get across to you today,

that God set us free not just for ourselves, but so we can lead others to freedom in Him.

God set us free not just for ourselves, but so we can lead others to freedom in Him.

This morning, I want to give you four things freedom in Christ does.

The first one is this. Freedom in Christ breaks the chains of sin.

You with me? Come on, church.

Romans 6 says this. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so

that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer

be enslaved to sin since a person who has died is free from sin.

Here, Paul's saying that our old self was crucified with Christ.

So what does that mean? Our old self was crucified.

Well, Paul in scripture in the New Testament uses the term old self most often

to refer to our former way of life before we came to Christ.

So it's who we were before Christ saved us.

So who were we? I did a little study on who we were before Christ this week,

And I want to share it quickly for two reasons.

Number one, because I think so many of us as Christians, there is not much difference

between our before Christ and our after Christ life.

But number two, I want to share it as a reminder to the prison that we were

in, to what we were caught in and who we were as men and women and boys and

girls before we came to Christ.

And I think it's so fitting, especially on July 4th, Independence Weekend,

that we can take a look at who we were before Christ, because it's important

to remember what you were saved from. Amen?

Here's a quick list, and this isn't even all of them, but we were spiritually

dead. And I know it's small, but I didn't want to put it on like five slides.

We were spiritually dead.

We were separated and alienated from God.

We were slaves to sin. We were darkened in understanding.

There was a veil covering us where we were blind to the things of God.

We were children of wrath, Ephesians said. We were following the course of this world.

We were under the power of Satan. Do you know, before Christ,

we were actually enemies of God?

We weren't just neutral. We were enemies of God.

Ephesians 2.12 says we were without hope. Romans 8 says we were unable to please God.

2 Corinthians and 1 Corinthians, we were blind to spiritual truth.

Galatians 5 talks about how we were ruled by our sinful desires.

Isn't it true? Even after we come to Christ, we are still battling our sinful

desires, but we're no longer ruled by them.

We have victory over them now. We were living in darkness.

John 3 says, we were condemned already. And then Matthew 25,

46 and 2 Thessalonians 1, 9 says, we were destined for eternal separation from God.

I pray that you never get over and that I never get over what I was saved from.

We need to remember that first and foremost, freedom in Christ is spiritual liberation.

But we need to be reminded how hopeless and how lost and how dark life was before we came to Christ.

We were dead and now we're alive. We're no longer controlled by guilt and shame

and sinful old patterns that we lived.

Those are chains that have been released.

They've been broken off. And our freedom has given us a brand new identity.

It's given us a brand new start.

A lot of times when my kids would mess up or would have an awful morning or I was just livid at them.

I taught them a word when they were little tabula rosa it means clean slate,

clean slate and I love it actually I got mad at Mason the other day and he actually

said tabula rosa and I said you're pushing it,

but it's the term for there's a chalkboard and it's just got stuff all over

it and you literally wipe it clean as if it never happened it's being justified,

don't ever forget what you were freed from Number two, freedom in Christ releases

us from fear and condemnation.

We don't have to live in fear and feeling condemned anymore.

Romans 8, 1 through 2 says, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

So how much condemnation is there for those of us who are in Christ Jesus?

None. There's none. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ

Jesus because the law of the spirit of life, not in me, not in you,

in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

When you come to Christ, you're no longer under the penalty of the law of death.

You're under grace in the law of the spirit.

And Jesus has set you free.

Condemnation here in Romans refers to the act of declaring someone guilty of

wrongdoing, and it always leads to judgment and punishment.

And since Romans tells us that we've all sinned, that anyone and everyone who

has not yet come to Christ is living with a guilty verdict over their lives,

when we come to Christ, there is no longer a guilty verdict.

We've been pronounced guilt-free. We've been pronounced innocent.

And Romans 8 is a powerful declaration stating that there's no condemnation

if you're in Christ Jesus.

When an individual accepts Christ, their legal standing before God is transformed,

absolving them from all guilt and the consequences of sin, past, present, and future.

It's interesting to note that the phrase no condemnation holds legal weight.

It's indicating not only a verdict of not guilty, but a total and complete exoneration.

And when God looks at us when we're in Christ and we have found freedom in Christ,

he looks at us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

We're not held guilty if it's under the blood of Jesus.

Another thing that I think we need to point out is this battle of feelings of not being good enough.

A lot of us struggle with, man, I just am not good enough.

You're right, you aren't, and neither am I.

But when we come to Christ, our sins are forgiven, and we're no longer under the judgment of the law.

Some of us came to Christ and our chains were broken and thrown away,

but we still live trying to pick them up because we still feel guilt. We still feel shame.

Maybe you're walking around acting a certain way, trying to attain friendship,

trying to be accepted by coworkers or friends or neighbors, and you struggle with just being enough.

Let me tell you, dear friend, this morning that you are enough if you are in Christ Jesus.

Another area that this verse talked about is fear.

And if I'm being real, sometimes I allow fear to sneak back into my heart and into my mind.

The enemy is real and he attacks us a lot of times in the battlefield of our

minds, doesn't he? And I've battled this.

And those of you who know me, I have battled social anxiety and panic attacks

and fear for the better part of 20 years.

It was my excuse for not answering the call to Plant Generations Church.

I said, God, I can't do that. I'm just a worship pastor. I was a worship pastor for 20 years.

I'm just this. And I was trying to define myself by my fear and my anxious hearts and my flesh.

He said, no, that's not what I have for you. This is the calling I have for you. Walk in it.

I love the story of Peter when he was in the boat with Jesus.

If you know the story, I think I'm a lot like Peter sometimes when I think he was a hothead too.

So I just like Peter. I don't know.

But the disciples were with Jesus out on the boat one day and Jesus stepped

out of the boat and he went for a walk on the water.

And I love Peter. Jesus steps out and Peter's like, Jesus, call me out.

I want to come. I want to try this. This looks awesome.

And he's like, come. So what does Peter do? Peter just steps off.

Catch me danny he steps off and he walks but then what happens i don't know

why i'm doing sound effects this morning i'm terrible at them.

The storms and the waves and the wind comes ripping through and he gets terrified

looking at his current circumstance and so he starts to go under and what does

he do he starts to sink and he looks back up at Jesus.

Because when we look at Jesus, we have peace and we have joy.

And he calms the storm. He may not calm the storm, but he'll calm our hearts, that's for sure.

Some of us are walking in storms of life right now and we're looking at this

storm and you're praying that the storm would cease and that it would just go away.

And it might, but if it doesn't, God can calm your heart and your mind and your anxious thoughts.

In the middle of the storm.

And we get in this crazy cycle as Christians, I think, where we go from storm,

we sink, and then look at Jesus.

And then we're like, okay, we're good. And then we go on and then we sink and

then we look at Jesus and we're good. And we get in this cycle.

What if, now I was not the top of my class. I did graduate 18th in my class.

And there were 18 students in my class. True story. My parents are so proud.

But I'm not the smartest person in the room by far. But what if we just kept our eyes on Jesus?

What if we stopped looking at all of the things around us and we kept our eyes

on Jesus so that we didn't go under the water every few days or every few weeks or months?

In my battle over the years with fear and with anxiety, I've learned the powerful

truth of 1 John 4, 18, which says this, there is, say it with me,

no fear. That was like terrible.

Let's try it again. There is no fear in love.

Instead, what does love do? Perfect love drives out fear because fear involves punishment.

So the one who fears is not complete in love. not complete in love.

Perfect love drives out fear. If you are in Christ, if you've been set free,

you no longer are going to be punished.

So there's no reason to fear. Even if you stare death in the eye and look at

it, there's no reason to fear because you will not be punished.

No one who fears is not complete. So the one who fears is not complete in love.

And here's what I've learned. The more that my eyes are on Jesus, guess what?

The less fear I have. And so as I've pushed into my relationship with the Lord

over the last four or five years,

I'm not perfect, but man, I've come a long way in my fear and in my anxiety

because it's no longer looking at the storms or looking at the man in the mirror.

It's just looking at Jesus.

Gaze into Jesus, and it'll take away your fear.

Freedom in Christ releases us from fear and condemnation.

Number three, freedom in Christ empowers us to live by the Spirit.

When we come to Christ, the Holy Spirit now guides us, and He empowers us to overcome sin.

Have you ever wondered why you can't break that addiction or that sin on your

own? We try and we try and we try.

Well, it's because there's not enough willpower on earth to break the bondage

that sin has over a person's life.

It can only happen through complete reliance on the power of God and the transforming

power of the Holy Spirit as he guides us and he convicts us of sin.

Now, there are a number of ways the Holy Spirit empowers us,

but I want to highlight a few of them.

First, when we experience God's freedom, the Holy Spirit helps us say no to sin.

It's the bottom of your page there. The Holy Spirit helps us say no to sin.

Romans 8.13 says, If you live according to the flesh, you are going to die.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Now, I was not an English major, and we actually have someone in here who was

an English teacher for her whole life.

But I do know that the phrase, if by the Spirit, is a conditional prepositional

phrase, which means that the sentence could also read this way.

You will live if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body.

The condition of living freedom, free lives, is allowing, it's that if.

If you allow the Spirit, the Spirit is the means to overcome sin,

you put to death the the deeds of the body.

If I've lost you, let me break it down.

You put sin to death by the means of the Holy Spirit.

You put sin to death by the means of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit begins to change our hearts and gives us a new desire to please

God rather than to please and to fulfill the cravings of our own heart.

Ezekiel 36, 26 and 27 says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

I will place my spirit within you. And I love this. And cause.

I would circle that or highlight that or underline that in your Bibles because

it's not us that desires normally to do the good things that God wants us to do.

It's the spirit within you that causes you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.

Catch the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, my Spirit will cause you to

follow my statues and carefully observe my ordinances.

The more you're in the Word of God, the Spirit causes you and gives you new

desires to be obedient to the Word of God.

And then when we do sin, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin.

The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. And before we move on, I want to say one

thing that the Lord just put in my heart.

One of the prayers that I pray for our kids and for you guys and for a lot of

people is a prayer that David prayed.

Because how many of you know, like I just said, we don't always want to do what

God wants us to do. We don't.

I don't always want to go to church. I don't always want to tithe.

I don't want to always talk to someone about Christ. I don't always want to

do what I'm supposed to do.

And I forget where it is, but in Psalms, David prayed, help me want to do your will.

He understood that we don't have enough willpower to live out the life that God has called us to.

But when you come to Christ, the Holy Spirit empowers you and causes you and

gives you the unction and the want to, to live out a life of meaning and purpose with God.

All right, back to the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. The Holy Spirit makes

us aware when we're tempted or when we have sin, and he helps lead us to repentance

and dependence on Jesus.

John 16, 8 said, when he comes, he will convict the world about sin,

righteousness, and judgment.

Before I surrendered Christ, I wasn't convicted about sin.

Or not living righteously. Even after we come to Christ, our hearts can become

callous sometimes or harden by continually disobeying the word of God and the spirit.

That's why it's so important for us to listen and obey when the Holy Spirit

convicts us of something, or when the Holy Spirit says, go do that,

go pay for their meal, go pay for their coffee, encourage them.

We have to, the more you listen to the Lord, the more you'll understand and

know that it's from the Lord, if that makes sense.

It is then that you truly experience life.

So the Holy Spirit helps us say no to sin.

Another way in which the Holy Spirit empowers us in our daily lives is by guiding us.

The Holy Spirit leads and directs us. The Holy Spirit leads and directs us.

When the Spirit of truth comes, John said, he will guide you into all the truth.

That word guide implies that it's a continuous process. It's an ongoing process.

The Holy Spirit doesn't just come and indwell you at the time of salvation and do nothing.

No, the Holy Spirit actively leads us day by day and moment by moment.

And if you're stuck in sin and you're struggling with it, it's because you're

not actively walking with and obeying the Holy Spirit.

And so to break free from the stronghold of sin on our lives,

it's essential to attentively heed and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Another role of the Holy Spirit in our lives is that the Holy Spirit helps us

pray and make intercession for us.

The Holy Spirit helps us pray and makes intercession for us.

Romans 8.26 says this, in the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness.

King James would say, in our infirmities, the better translation is weakness.

He's talking about, we don't always know what to pray. we're weak, we struggle.

And it says, because we do not know what to pray for as we should,

but the spirit himself intercedes with us.

I mean, intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.

So in Romans eight, the apostle Paul highlights the reality of our human weakness

in our spiritual lives, but here specifically in the area of our prayer lives.

How many of you struggle like, how am I supposed to pray? What am I supposed

to pray for? Am I supposed to pray for this? Am I supposed to pray for that?

God's sovereign. Why do I pray? I mean, there's a lot of ifs,

ands, and buts when it comes to prayer.

We struggle with knowing how to pray. Here in Romans 8.26, we see that the Holy

Spirit helps us in both our physical and spiritual areas of weakness.

And one of the key aspects of the Holy Spirit's role in the life of believer

is that of being an intercessor.

The Holy Spirit intercedes and prays on our behalf.

So when we don't get it and we don't understand, the Holy Spirit is praying for us.

Scripture also teaches that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father,

and he's making intercession.

He's praying for us. take some comfort that the Lord, that God is interceding

on our behalf, on your behalf.

Been thinking all week about this next phrase that I had written down,

and I'm going to say it anyway.

It's not bad. Usually it's a bad thing, but I just, you know,

I have conversations in my head while I'm up here, and one of my conversations

is, should you say this? But I'm going to.

So we talk about the Holy Spirit interceding and praying for us on behalf with these.

You know, there are some denominations and even my best friends,

I don't know why, but most of my best friends are Pentecostal.

And that's great. And I love them.

That's just not where I land. And guess what? They're okay.

They're still my best friends. We just land in different areas on this.

But I don't see a prayer language in scripture.

The spirit's role is to bridge the gap between our human incapacity and God's

divine purpose through prayer.

And it says they're groanings that are done through a spiritual language by the Holy Spirit.

It's not me doing it.

That's just my interpretation. And that's okay.

What's important is that we understand that we are weak in our prayer life.

And so when you get stuck and when we're unsure of how to pray,

know that the Holy Spirit is interceding and praying on your behalf in your weakness.

The next thing we see is that the Holy Spirit produces Christ-like character in us.

Galatians 5, 22 to 23.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness, and self-control.

The law is not against such things.

And so here the Apostle Paul gives us the virtues that are the natural outcome

of a life led by the Spirit.

As we live a life that is surrendered to the Word of God and to the Spirit of

God, the Holy Spirit begins to transform us to look more like Jesus in our attitudes and our actions.

Be people that are in the Word. Sing it.

Worship through the week. Listen to it. Be in the Word and be obedient.

Number four, freedom in Christ sends us on a mission.

Freedom in Christ sends us on a mission. For those who have experienced being

set free from the chains and from the bondage of fear and anxiety and condemnation

and guilt, we weren't freed for ourselves.

We've been freed to set people free.

And I hear this all the time.

Well, I just don't have the gift of evangelism. Or I just, I'm not good at talking about my faith.

Or, you know, I just, That's not for me.

They're so much better suited for that. We all, all, all, all of us have that

same battle and that same fear and those same thoughts in us.

But I want to challenge your thinking this morning and just tell you that you

were set free to free others.

You cannot be freed from all that you've been freed from. Come out and just

sit or just keep your mouth closed.

When God's done something in your life, man, you want to brag about it.

Look what God's done. I was a captive and now I'm free.

I was going to hell and now I'm, man, I'm going to heaven for eternity.

I struggled with anxiety and fear and guilt and shame and I'm free.

Man, when that happens, you cannot help.

You cannot help but tell other people how to become free too.

Listen, I am not a bold person.

It's the Holy Spirit that gives us the power to be witnesses.

The Holy Spirit gives us the power to be witnesses.

Acts 1.8 says, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you,

and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria,

and to the ends of the earth.

The Holy Spirit's coming was specifically tied to empowering believers to share the gospel boldly.

That's how we're able to spread the gospel, because the Holy Spirit empowers us.

Acts 4 says they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly.

This is week five of our series Made for Mission.

We've talked about that we're all part of this mission, that we're all supposed

to be actively involved, and this is a mission that we're supposed to own. Amen.

We're ambassadors of Christ. And our message is be reconciled to Christ,

that he loves us, that he loves the world, that he didn't come to condemn the

world, but that through Christ,

people could find freedom and eternal life.

I want to make a difference with my life. I want heaven to be more crowded because

of the way that I handle my life.

And I want that for you.

When you've truly experienced freedom, you can't help but be on mission.

Like Didi, who we started off the service talking about, who joined the resistance

and spent the rest of her life freeing those who needed to be free.

Those of us who are free, guys, we have to spend our lives freeing others.

We have been freed to lead others to freedom. Would you pray with me?

Heavenly Father, thank you for this time that we have together.

Thank you so much for sending Christ to die for us so that we could be free together.

Could experience life for the very first time.

Lord, I want to thank you,

for what you did on the cross for us, for taking my punishment for all of my sins.

Help me to have a boldness that crosses divisional lines, that crosses everything.

That I would walk across a room and talk to someone.

I pray that you would empower me, but I also pray that you would empower each

person here today who has experienced freedom in their lives.

If they're free, they need to be about freeing people.

Let us free people and build the kingdom of God.

And maybe you're here today and you've never experienced freedom in Christ.

You've never surrendered your heart and life to Christ.

When we planted Generations Church three years ago, we said we wanted to always

give people an opportunity to respond to the gospel, the good news that God so loved the world.

And so we just want to let you know that God loves you that

Christ died for you and if you accept that he

is Lord and Savior and invite him

into your life not just invite him in but say Lord I want to obey you I want

to live for you I want to do things your way I surrender my heart and life says

he'll give you eternal life all you have to do is receive it it's a free gift.

You can just say this in your heart. Father, thank you for sending Jesus to

die for my sins, to take my punishment, to bridge the gap between me and heaven.

Come into my heart and my life. I want to live for you. Make me more like you.

Give me freedom. Give me purpose. Give me joy.

Help me live for you.

If you just prayed that prayer something happened something miraculous happened in your life,

you've entered into the kingdom of god and you're no longer part of the earthly

kingdom you're part of god's kingdom and you represent a new king and you serve a new king,

if that was you would you do me a favor and just i'm not going to ask you to

stand up or come down here or anything.

I'm not going to embarrass you, but will you just raise your hand and just let

me know, hey, I made this decision today.

And then mark it on your connection card and give it to somebody at the Welcome

Center so that we can join you on your journey.

Music.

Lift your hand if you did that.

Okay. Father, would you go with us out of this place today? May we rejoice.

May we take our freedom and tell the world,

God, we're just, we're all beggars who have found some food and we want to lead people to the table.

Music.

Help us build your kingdom and we'll give you the glory. In your name I pray. Amen.

Music.