How Do I Stay Free?

We're in a series right now we're calling Cleaning House and we actually started this a few weeks ago at uh our one big party service and we uh we had two like living room scenes up here if you some of you are here for it.

If you weren't I'll kind of explain it to you.

So on one side we had um one room that was trashed.

It was it was messed up, it had broken furniture, um the the art on the wall was crooked, uh there were spills, there were stains, there were all of that.

And then the other side had a room that was uh perfectly in order.

And so what we did was we started talking about Matthew chapter one, where uh it says that Jesus came to save his people from their sins.

So when we think about uh Jesus saving us from our sins, we we think about that moment where um you know we've come to the realization that that we need help, that we that we have uh mess or we have things in our lives that we need forgiven for.

And um, you know, sometimes it's uh a moment where we feel some shame.

Uh it can be overwhelming at the time at the time, but once we understand the grace of God, we understand that Jesus is knocking on that door.

And and when we're honest with ourselves, we realize like, you know what, I have some things that have gotten out of control in my life.

I have some areas of brokenness that are really uh affecting every single part of my life.

It might be things not only that you broke, you know, God's rules, so to speak, you broke your own rules, you broke your own, violated your own conscience.

And so to come to that place of honesty, to be honest with God, to be honest with yourself, and to hear that knocking.

And when you do that, by faith, we open the door, Jesus comes in, and uh saving us from our sin, the first act is he forgives us.

He says, Look, I, yep, it's out of order.

It's there's a mess here, but at my expense, I'm gonna pay for it.

I'm gonna pay for what it takes to fix this room up.

We're gonna get it clean.

And so then we had that second room, and and that room was was in order.

And so we talked about, okay, saving people from their sin is not only dealing with everything I did yesterday and the day before, but it's helping you and I order our lives to where that I don't go back to my demons.

I don't go back to those behaviors.

That means it's gonna be sometimes a painful and patient process of having new habits, of thinking new ways.

If I'm not good at conflict, it might have been conflict that caused, you know, this stuff to get broken over here.

I don't know what to do with my anger.

I don't know how to disagree with somebody, even somebody I care about.

Uh I've not seen it before, I've not witnessed it, I don't have it in my bag as of today.

I need to learn how to do healthy conflict.

I need to learn what I do with these emotions.

I need to learn what I do with my mouth so that I don't make another mess and I can save, be saved from future sins.

Okay, this doesn't mean that we're gonna live in spotless perfection, okay?

But what it does mean is learning to live a life in order.

Uh today what I want to do is I want to talk about kind of a little bit of a compare and contrast to legalism versus discipline.

Okay, so I want me to think about those two words, those two concepts: legalism and discipline.

What is legalism?

Legalism is an attempt to earn my righteousness or to earn my right standing with God based on how clean I can keep my life.

So uh what it really is, is it is external behaviors that I do, but internally what's going on is I am trying to get God to like me, or I'm trying to uh avoid God's wrath, or in some way I'm hoping that if I do enough good and I stay clean enough, that then ultimately, you know, God will be be good with me.

That will that will equate righteousness.

And legalism is just really another form of bondage.

Um it's like you've been to the house that was a mess, and we know how it is, honestly, even let's just think literal messy rooms like chaotic rooms create chaotic minds.

It's hard to relax, it's hard to rest.

Okay, I'll be honest enough to tell you, I've just gone room to room till I found a clean one, right?

Instead of cleaning one of you, you've ever gone in, like I'd really like to hang out in this room, but it's a mess, and I don't want to clean it up, so you just go find the cleanest room.

And if not, I'll just go stand in the yard.

You know, it's like I gotta find a clean, oh, it needs mode.

Okay, all right.

Now, you know, it's you you know, chaotic rooms, chaotic minds.

But I've also been in a different kind of bondage, which is in a room that was so clean and with a person who was so paranoid about a speck.

Okay, I felt like I couldn't sneeze.

I felt like I was, I mean, I've gone around other people's house, like literally just cleaning up because I'm worried that, you know, I'm gonna mess up their stuff.

And so you've been in that spot where you are totally self-conscious in someone else's presence.

You can't even relax in their home because you're worried you might spill something or you might do something.

And in fact, part of why you do that is because they're paranoid the whole time.

They're walking around cleaning everything up, they can't even let any life sort of happen in the space.

So when you think about it, those are both bondage.

They're both bondage.

If you're living in paranoia all the time, that I can never get it clean enough and I can never keep it clean long enough, then your life goes past you, and frankly, you create a lot of bondage.

I'm gonna look at a couple different scriptures that kind of help us to kind of think this through.

The first one we're gonna talk about the bondage that comes with sin.

This is in uh the book of Romans, chapter six, and I'm gonna read it actually in the message translation, which is a little more of a free verse, but I think it really captures the spirit of this text.

Romans 6 comes right after Romans 5, and in Romans 5 is where it says it says that God demonstrated his love in that while we were sinners, he died for us.

So it's this beautiful exposition of the grace of Jesus.

And it kind of ends at, you know, really um demonstrating and articulating how gracious Jesus is.

And so uh then it picks up in Romans 6, the next chapter, and it says, so what should we do?

So how should we respond ultimately to God's amazing grace to clean up our lives when they were a mess?

It says, What should we do?

Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving?

I should hope not.

If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we live in our old house there?

Or don't you realize that we packed up and left there for good?

That is what happened in baptism.

When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind, and when we came up out of the water, we entered into a new country of grace, a new life and a new land.

And so he beautifully articulates two different kinds of bondage.

One would be a bondage to sin, but the second, he talks about the tyranny or the bondage of the law, which is basically, you know, all of the rules that I just can't, I just can't seem to keep them all.

Like I'm I I break one, okay, I'm back to being uh in in bondage and in shame.

And so he says in verse 15, he says, So since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want?

Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind?

Hardly.

I love how he says this.

He says, You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom.

That is so well said.

Some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom.

There are some people hiding behind the label freedom have actually justified their own bondage.

He said, offer yourselves to sin, for instance, it's your last free act.

But offer yourself to the ways of God, and freedom never quits.

All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do, but thank God you've started listening to a new master.

He's saying this to a group of people who had been subjugated to the Egyptians, they'd been subjugated to the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans.

They knew what it was like to have a king.

They knew what it was like to have a master, somebody who had them in bondage.

They knew what bondage was.

And he said, Look, when you listen to God as your master, it said, um, the one who sets you free, whose commands set you free, and to live openly in his freedom.

And so this takes a lot of honesty.

It really does.

It takes honesty to look at my life and go, am I operating in freedom or am I using freedom as an excuse to stay in bondage?

Uh, I've told this story before, it's been a while, uh, so if you've heard it before, bear with me.

Uh, but I think it really, it really fits uh this kind concept.

Um, both of my sons are on the autism spectrum.

And when our older son uh Hudson um he was getting a little bit older, he was physically able to go unlock the door and leave the house, but he he didn't he didn't have the faculties to manage being out of the house, and so um we actually he didn't sleep well, so he would wake up at like four in the morning and he would just leave.

And so we actually would get knock on the door at 5 a.m.

5 30, it was the police uh brought our son home, you know.

So eventually we, you know, pretty quickly we got alarms for our doors and windows so we would know when he was leaving.

But before we did that, I remember there was um one day uh Shaylin left for for the day and she said, Hey, you've got Hudson at home, so keep an eye on him.

So I'm like, all right, so I was upstairs, I was working on something, I was pretty locked in, and I kind of lost track, and all of a sudden, in the middle of my work, I feel a draft of cold air.

This was like in uh January, it was like winter time, it's starting to blow snow.

Um, and I feel this draft of cold air.

And I just go, Oh no, oh my goodness.

I go down, doors standing wide open, and he's gone.

And so I was really concerned.

Like I didn't know even where to start looking.

You know, it's like one of those things.

I'm like, if I run to the right, I might be running in the wrong direction.

If I run left, I didn't know where to go.

I felt helpless.

And so I just start running around the neighborhood and I'm calling out his name, and I knew he wasn't gonna answer, especially at that time, he wouldn't ever answer you, he wouldn't reply to you.

So I'm running around the neighborhood helplessly, yelling, calling out his name.

I can't find him, and it felt like forever I couldn't find him.

Eventually, a few blocks over, I go and in somebody's backyard, they had a play set, and so I climb up, I look in the play set, and he's laying there.

And he's curled up in the fetal position, he's shivering, he's freezing cold, he got out, no coat.

Uh, and what will happen?

Well, what happened is he didn't like the boundaries that we had put in his life.

He didn't certainly see it as freedom, he didn't see it as love.

He saw it as it was it was constricting him, and so he opens the door, he walks out.

Now, is he free?

Uh yeah, I guess.

I mean, he could go right, he could go left, he could go up, he could go down, he could climb a tree, he could go, you know, do whatever he wanted.

But what happened is he got outside of himself.

He ended up a few blocks away, didn't know how to get home.

So he thought he was free, but it turns out he was lost.

He was lost.

Now, in his mind, it started out as freedom.

Eventually, he got out cold, no coat, and I don't know how to get home.

And it took his father coming to save him to bring him back.

And I think if we're not careful, guys, and we got to be honest with ourselves, there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

This is not about shame.

This is not about wagging our fingers at each other.

This is about being honest with God who wants you free and honest with yourself to go, is there anywhere in my life that an appetite, an action, something that I have been telling myself and other people?

In fact, maybe some people have started to nose around and hold you accountable, and you've been defensive, saying, No, I'm I'm I'm grown, I'm an adult, I can do what I want, I'm free, and maybe even using God's grace as an excuse to actually in reality be in bondage.

And so we got to take this seriously, man.

This is why when we think about repentance, repentance isn't a shame-filled word.

Repentance isn't a shame-filled concept.

Repentance is the idea that I open up my mind and heart for God to show me something that I maybe have come to the conclusion is this, and it turns out it's actually that.

So I can see the bondage instead of the excuse.

And when I see that, now I can repent, change my mind, turn from that.

Uh not to try to get God to like me if I can get clean enough, that's legalism.

But the discipline of saying, look, I'm gonna get that out of my life.

I'm gonna put up a boundary because I know for me, if I do one, I'll do two, and if I do two, I'll do three, and it's a slippery slope, and I end up back in a mess, I'll go right back to my demons.

I go right back to the mess that I used to live in.

I don't want to live in that any longer.

So somebody else, they may not have the same issue and they may have a different boundary than you.

This really is custom in many ways.

There are some standard things that we shouldn't lie, cheat, steal, do these things.

You we understand that.

But there are some things in the journey that that can kind of camouflage themselves as freedom, and the reality is they're bondage.

Um, okay, let's look at another text where where uh Jesus talks about uh actually uh legalism.

And this isn't this is a pretty intense text.

This is actually Matthew chapter 23.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

Jesus is talking to some of the more pious, uh well-behaved people, um, the religious law, uh, religious uh teachers of religious law and the the Pharisees.

And Jesus comes at them pretty pretty intensely, and and uh let's just go into it.

So it's Matthew 23, verse 4.

Matthew 23:4

It says, He's he talks about the religious, the leaders of teachers of religious law and the Pharisees.

He says they tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on people's shoulders, and they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

What he's talking what he's talking about is he people taking um their standards or or sometimes their morality, putting it on someone, um a heavy load.

In other words, it's it's kind of a different way of saying what we talked about here.

This person is so proud of all of their cleanliness that everybody around them just feels unclean and not in a way like, you know what, man, I need to get my life right.

Not like in a holy conviction, but in a way that, you know, you're not meeting up their standard.

And their their um uh legalism is leading to self-righteousness.

And and what it's doing is making other, you know, everybody else uncomfortable around them.

Not not in the right kind of uncomfortable way, but but in a way that they can't be honest with who they are because they know you're you're gonna put your standard on me, but then you're gonna leave me alone and you're not even going to help me in my struggle.

And so um he says in verse 13, now, by the way, real quick little Bible teaching here.

So you're gonna see if you have the NIV, uh, it's gonna say, woe to you, woe to you.

Um, woe to you.

We're gonna see Jesus seven times.

I'm not gonna read all of them, but in Matthew 23, seven times Jesus says, woe to you.

And when they heard this, they would have immediately thought of Isaiah chapter five.

So in Isaiah chapter five in the Old Testament, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah six woes.

So six times he says, woe to you, and he's giving them a caution.

It is a it is an exclamation of grief.

It's a you know, woe to you, careful to you.

Um, you know, it's almost it almost has like a uh like it's got this like you know, like a warning that he puts out.

And so in the book of Isaiah, chapter five, um, God through Isaiah gives five of those related to sin.

I'm sorry, six of those related to sin, six woes.

In Matthew 23, so now we're in the New Testament, Jesus is talking to the teachers of the law and the Pharisees who would have known Isaiah chapter five backwards and forwards, and as soon as they heard woe to you, their minds would have gone right there.

And Jesus, I believe very intentionally, gives seven woes instead of six.

And what he's doing with this extra woe, right, the seventh woe, is he's ultimately taking them and going, you guys think because you don't fall into the category of the Isaiah 5 woe, that your woe is different and worse.

And he, but he goes, I'm gonna give seven, like a number of completion.

And so what Jesus is doing is is essentially heightening their awareness around the destructive nature of the sin of legalism, and not only what it does to them in terms of rotting their own heart, but what it does to the people around them that it's crushing, it's it's killing their community, it's killing their relationships, and it's ultimately corrupting them internally.

Okay, so he says, and it uses harsh language, hard to receive, woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.

Of course, what do they think they're doing?

They believe that through their morality and through their acts of righteousness and self-righteousness, that they're ultimately, you know, abiding by the kingdom of heaven.

He goes, No, you're actually doing the opposite.

You shut the door of the kingdom in people's faces, and you yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

Verse 15, woe to you, teachers of the law, Pharisees, you hypocrites.

Well, again, what's the word hypocrite?

You remember when we were doing the Sermon on the Mount and we looked at the word hypocrite, it's it's Hippocritos, which means actor or actress.

So this is somebody not who just says something, says one thing and does another.

It's somebody who might say one thing and do that thing.

So they tell you what to do, they do it, but the the motive is acting.

It's it's about posing.

I'm not cleaning the house because I want you to come in and be free from bacteria and be able to relax in a in a healthy, awesome environment.

I want you to think that I'm look how clean and elite and superior that this person is, right?

So it's all really about an act.

And so he says uh in verse 15, woe to you teachers of the law, Pharisees, you hypocrites, you actors.

You travel over land and sea to win a single convert.

And when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

I'll just keep reading.

Verse 23.

Woe to you, teachers of the oh no, actually, I'll stop there for a second.

Because I want you to think about what is he talking about?

Making them twice a child of hell.

He's saying you're going and you're you're you're converting someone from their way of thinking to your way of thinking, and maybe you got them to stop sinning in a certain sense, but you introduced legalism, that's just you just introduced a different kind of bondage and made them a proponent who perpetuates the same type of bondage.

Uh verse 23, woe to you teachers of the law of Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You give a tenth of your spices.

Okay, again, giving would be a spiritual discipline of generosity and giving.

So you give all the way down to the mint, dill, and cumin, but you've neglected the more important matters of the law justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

You should have practiced the latter.

In other words, you should have given.

You should be generous, but without neglecting the former.

I do think it's worth noting there, some of your Bibles say the weightier matters of the law, the weightier matters.

A lot of times we uh I think sometimes uh people would sacrifice cleanliness.

They would choose cleanliness over hospitality.

The idea of like I'd rather come to your home and have it be, have a few little bit of dirt around, but to feel the love and the acceptance and and the hospitality.

So he's saying you guys are are meticulous and spotless, so to speak, with your morality, but people around you don't feel mercy, justice, faithfulness.

He said, You you yeah, go ahead and do your spiritual rituals and practices, uh, but don't neglect the former.

You blind guides, you strain a gnat, but swallow a camel.

Okay, what's he doing?

It's hyperbole, he's but he's using two things within the law, they weren't permitted to eat, you know, insects or gnats, and also not camels.

So he's like, you know, you're so meticulous about cleaning your baseboards, okay?

And so you strain all the way down to a gnat, but you're ingesting something much bigger.

You're creating a bigger problem.

Uh woe to you, teachers of the law, verse 25.

Uh the teachers of the law, Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you're full of greed and self-indulgence, blind Pharisee.

You clean the inside of the cup and the dish, and the outside uh will also be clean.

I could keep going.

I I I think the the message is clear.

You know, we as a community, we as believers, let's start at a personal level.

I think we need to understand that there's more than one kind of bondage, and I think we need to take both seriously.

And I think the first is anywhere.

That we've allowed freedom or grace to become an excuse for us to stay stuck in behaviors, mindsets, activities, anything that would keep us in bondage.

And so I think in a process of being honest and open in repentance, allow God to show us those things on a case-by-case basis.

There may have been something that you could do in freedom last year that you can't this year.

And so you just got to be honest.

It's and allow the Holy Spirit to be dynamic in his speaking to each one of us.

I I also think that the bondage of legalism that we go around looking down our nose and not being hospitable and not being gracious and creating an environment where we neglect mercy.

Okay, I think is a big mistake.

And what it makes me think of is the quality of the community of this body and what is it going to be.

And so metric, metric, metric, and so you end up with a lot of metrics.

And in a sense, even I understand even myself sometimes a desire to there's nothing wrong with measuring, and in some ways I want to know how effective we're being.

Just like you go to the doctor and they take your blood pressure and they give you a measurement so you can assess health.

But I think probably the most important elements of health within this community are not quantitative.

It probably has a lot to do with the nature and the qualitative nature of our community.

And are we the type of people that can encourage each other on?

Because the reality is there are some areas in your life that are in order, and you at this point in your life have the habits and the disciplines to keep certain rooms clean almost effortlessly.

You've just gotten really good, it's been clean for years, and yet you have some other rooms that you wouldn't necessarily invite people into, or you'd hate for them to know how out of order that actually is.

That I still struggle with that, and I still pretty childish in that area, and that thing's pretty undisciplined.

And the reality is you're sitting next to somebody who's out of order in an area that you keep in order well, but then there are people around that are in order in some areas that you struggle.

So as a community, we really got to figure out how we're gonna do this thing.

Because it what we can end up doing is just end up hiding our rooms from each other.

And so you got some rooms with skeletons and dead bones, and you got some rooms with bacteria and and and stuff is growing and it's creating uh unhealth.

Or we can get to a place where we have the level of trust and maturity as a community where we understand that iron sharpens iron, and we understand that I can invite you into my life and you invite me into your life, and we hold one another accountable.

And and I would be humble enough to say, hey, can you help me out in this area?

Because for the life of me, I just I've tried so many times and I'm starting to lose hope that I can stay free there.

How do you how do you do it?

And and then we have a great community.

Otherwise, if we don't, if we don't, now what we just end up doing is having artificial harmony and and fake community, and we just try to fake each other out.

We become actors and actresses, hypocrites.

Do we have the type of community?

Are we becoming the type of community where where we don't use grace as an excuse for bondage?

But also, are we a community that tips into legalism and where we look down our nose at each other?

I I um I didn't get permission to name names in the story I'm about to tell you, so I'm not gonna name names.

But they uh all the people that I talked about were here today.

Okay.

Uh I I saw there were two of them were in first service, and I tried to not look at them while I was telling the story, but they were sitting right over there.

Um okay, so um quick story.

So a young couple in our church was telling me about uh an older couple in our church, and this older couple is um their retirement age.

They are some of the most hospitable human beings I've ever met in my life.

I've known them now for a few years, and they are just there's just something about them.

Like they are just incredibly kind, hospitable people.

They do they just have a gift for making you feel comfortable in your skin.

They have people to their home all the time, and they're just really kind.

Like they're the kind of people, like, man, if I really, you know, was in a low place, right?

That's that's who you're going to.

Like, you know they're gonna love you.

And so, anyway, this younger couple goes over and the couple has young kids, and they go over to their house.

They said, Hey, we went over to their house, and their house was beautiful.

They had this beautiful white carpet clean, everything smelled clean, everything was great.

They made dinner for us, and and we had this amazing dinner, and they said, uh, at dinner we started to smell something a little funky, and it turns out it was our son.

And so they they you know the drill, right?

You take the son, you find out their son had messed up his diaper, so they go and they clean up their son's diaper and they go to reach for another diaper.

Turns out we got out without an extra diaper.

So they got no diapers, okay, except the one that's been, you know, soiled.

So they throw that away, and they now they have a decision to make.

What are we gonna do?

And so the husband and wife seemed like a good idea at the time.

They said, look, uh, he's emptied himself clearly, you know, so we can probably be fine.

We're gonna be here another hour or so.

So they put his little pants back on with no nothing.

And and so they're they're you know, uh, rolling the dice.

You know, we're gonna roll the dice here.

See, we're gonna trust God, you know.

And um, and so they they went about, they're having such a good time.

Well, it turns out uh their son still had a little bit in his system.

And what my mom would call number two, okay, uh, was still in there.

And so apparently, without anybody realizing what was going on, he he he went ahead and just went right through his pant leg down into their white carpet.

And I know, isn't that terrible?

And then and then you would think, right, that's the end of the story.

It's like, oh man, that's okay.

But their daughter stepped in it and did the stanky leg all through their house.

So they got this amazing white carpet.

Now, you look, we've all been in a spot where somebody did something to your space, and you're like, all right, time for you guys to go.

God bless you.

And and then, but then we've all been in that spot where it was like your kid just dropped on the wrong carpet, and the other kid did, it was like a comedy of errors.

But it really is embarrassing.

It really is embarrassing because you feel like that family, like we're that family, we're those people, you know, whatever.

And and so they took about two minutes.

This young couple gave me, told me about two minutes of you know, the carpet and the and and it getting dragged through the house.

And then they took like 10 minutes to talk about the layers and levels of kindness and support and hospitability from this couple, they have the hospitality, that that's the word, hospitality from this couple that they were like, you know, they're freaking out, oh, let us clean it.

They're like, we got it.

Our kids are grown.

You think we've never seen stuff get tracked?

You think we've never seen a mess before?

That's why God made cleaning products.

We got this, man.

You guys just get everybody together.

We'll help you get out to the car.

They said they didn't make us feel bad about it, they didn't make us feel embarrassed about it.

They said we've been there as well.

We've walked a mile in those shoes.

We'll clean this thing up at our expense.

It's no problem.

We're not gonna hold it over your head, we're not going to look down our nose at you.

And I just thought, what a profound picture of a healthy community where we don't let mess drag and we're not gonna leave it there.

We're not gonna leave it there, we're gonna clean it up, but we're also gonna come alongside and we're in different seasons of life.

It's part of the beautiful diversity of this church, people in different seasons of life, people struggling with cleanliness in different rooms.

Do we have the type of community?

Are you the type of citizen am I that can commit myself and you commit yourself to say we're not going to let sin exploit our appetites and rob us of our freedom?

We're not gonna do that.

We're not gonna do that.

I love you too much.

I love you too much, and I hope you love me too much to allow these finite lives we have here on earth to be caught in the bondage of sin.

And there are some of you, and some of us here today, who have operated in bondage for so long and you've tried so many times to find freedom, and maybe you had little bits of freedom here, little bit there, and you've lost hope.

And then there are other people in the room, same thing.

They've walked through similar things, and yet they have found a way to sustain freedom.

He who the Son has set free is free indeed, and it is God's will for your life, not that you live in a new bondage of legalism and a fear that you're gonna get dust on the baseboards and lose face or what that says about you.

Like, but you do need habits of running the vacuum, and we do need to have habits of cleaning, and we do need to buy a mop, and we do need to get this bacteria out of here so that we can live safe, free, clean, and as a community, we'll either be the biggest blessing to one another, or we'll end up driving each other into different types of bondage.

Let's commit.

Let's commit.

Um I'm gonna end with uh I'm gonna end with this.

Guys, let's just jump to the end.

I've got two questions that I want you to take a moment to pray about, maybe wrestle with even after you you take off from here.

Wait, you guys fooled me with the time.

I still got six minutes, man.

Stop.

Okay, bring up the spiritual disciplines.

I'm going back to plan A.

Bring those up.

Yeah, see what these guys are trying to they're trying to pull a move on me because I preach long.

So they're they they give me a timer that's five minutes early.

I I'm on to you guys.

I'm looking at the time right now.

Everybody's good.

All right, spiritual disciplines.

These are spiritual disciplines, right?

What's the difference between discipline and legalism?

On the outside, they might look the same.

You might put a boundary on yourself.

I don't put that stuff in my eyes, I don't look at that stuff, I don't eat that stuff, I don't ingest that thing.

I've got a boundary up, not not because I'm trying to earn God's righteousness, you know, earn righteousness.

I'm doing it because I don't want to live in bondage.

So on the outside, legalism and discipline might look the same.

It might be the same behavior.

The difference is on the inside.

And on the inside, it's coming from a uh a place of freedom and to remain free.

So when you think about these disciplines, like I think you go down this list, you think about things like prayer.

All right, when you think about prayer, you think about your prayer life.

Often, if you ask somebody, hey, how's your prayer life?

I was talking to somebody the other day on our staff, we do um every uh our annual review, we get together and we start with like, how are you doing spiritually, how are you doing physically, how are you doing mentally, how you doing emotionally, how you doing relationally?

And so they get a chance to say that.

One of our staff members who serves this church with all of their heart said, I'm not doing well spiritually.

And I was like, man, that's pretty common actually.

Sometimes you can get so busy doing stuff for God that you, you know, you don't you neglected the relationship.

So I said, tell me about what's your prayer life like.

And this person immediately went into this like shoulder slump, like shame-filled.

It was like, oh, you know, I've I know, I have no excuses.

I just haven't been praying and I haven't been worshiping.

I haven't been, I was like, oh no, I know, I got I gotta clean up.

And I'm like, ah, don't think of it like that.

Like it's almost like you're treating God like somebody who texts you, and then you see them, and you're like, I was gonna text you back.

And they're like, Yeah, I know.

When are you gonna text me back?

You know, I called you, when are you calling me back?

You know, and it's like God, that is not God.

Like, think of the think of the most liberated relationship you have where you instinctively go to them on a bad day, you instinctively, instinctively go to them on a good day, where it's just somebody you're in conversation with.

Like, like don't go legalistic, like worship.

When you think of worship, I think sometimes we just we we so reduce it down to just do you like worship and praise songs and you know, and and and do you understand every word of the song?

I I gotta tell you this, I know I gotta go quick, but man, today it was like during worship.

I gotta tell you what I was experiencing, man.

I was sitting over there, I'm standing over there in worship, and you know, we come to that part of the song, and Harrison is back here, and he's playing a solo, you know, and and I've seen people before, you know, they're like, yeah, worship, you know, these days it's all entertainment, it's a big show, it's a big concert.

And I was sitting there thinking, you know, is he playing it like I know Harrison and I'm watching him play, and I'm watching Harrison use the gift that God's given him to do.

I'm watching him, his fingers going up and down the stain.

It's it's just it's almost like a you know, somebody who can run running fast, or somebody who, you know, who can write, writing something, and you know, whatever you're good at, you know, at an athlete, you know, using their body like he's using.

And so even like in the moment, there was no words, but I was like watching Harrison use his gift, and I'm like, God, thank you for giving Harrison that gift and watching the joy of his freedom doing that.

Then a couple, uh, like the next song was the Still Good, Still God song.

And I thought back a couple years ago, these people who are up here singing it, they wrote that song.

They wrote that song, and I remember seeing them write it and come back, and they're like, and and they're working on the lyrics, and they're there, they're you know, there was a story that that song was born out of.

And then there was the line in the song that was like um, it was something about I've got my father.

Uh, I wrote it down.

It's whom shall I fear?

Because I've got my father.

And today on my way into service, I got two texts about two friends here at the church who both lost their fathers yesterday unexpectedly.

And so I'm reaching out to them on the way in today, and I'm thinking, I don't, I don't think, I doubt they're here, but maybe they're watching online, or maybe they'll watch later, or maybe they'll watch the service, and and and and you've got this song that was two years ago that these guys are that they wrote, I've got my father, and even though they've they're coming, starting to grieve that they lost their father, but I shall not fear, I still have my father, and you're still good, and you're still God.

And I'm sitting here just like feeling like I'm in the middle of this divine intersection, and and yet was I sitting there, you know, detailing out every word of the song.

No, I was in some ways enjoying somebody who's enjoying the gift that God's given them.

And for some of you, man, worship, you know, has become you may not, it may not be music, it may be the gift that God's given you.

And even fasting, I used to feel really guilty because I didn't fast enough, you know.

People, you know, they everybody fasting but me, you know, and I'm like, ah, okay.

Well, what is fast, what is fasting?

Fasting, if you do it for the wrong reason, it's legalism, but I started to rethink and reframe fasting as not something I'm doing to get God off my back or to make God think that I'm just an awesome son.

But fasting is something when I feel some appetite or some desire starting to get out of control, that I go ahead and let myself be hungry right there.

All right, I go ahead and let myself, I'm gonna deprive myself of that, even though I could say yes, I'm gonna say no.

And the fact that I feel compelled to reach for it, or I feel compelled to have it, I'm I'm going to allow that feeling of frustration actually to see it as a positive thing of getting this appetite under control so that that thing, I won't be mastered by that thing, it won't control my life and re-establishing and reattaching to God.

My point is, with all of these spiritual disciplines, if we do them the wrong way, they become legalism and it's just wrapped in all kinds of shame and frustration and self-deprecation.

What what what it at its best, it's a reconnection and a reattaching to God that leads to freedom.

So here are my three questions, and we'll be done.

What is an area where you need to introduce discipline in order to find freedom?

What's an area where you need to introduce discipline in order to find freedom?

Is there anywhere in your life that you'd allowed quote-unquote freedom to become an excuse to stay in bondage?

And number three, are there any spiritual disciplines that you need to rethink or reimagine to eliminate legalism?

Is there any spiritual disciplines?

I just put some of them up on that board.

Is there any uh anywhere in your life that those things have started to become this drudgery or it started to become this thing that makes you feel worse and it's just this, you know, yeah, I gotta pray more.

No.

Is there anywhere you need to reimagine, rethink these spiritual disciplines to remove legalism and cause it to be something that reattaches you and God?