Freedom Fighter

Galatians is an incredible book. It's a book of war, really.

It's a war between Paul and the false teachers.

There's this massive fight going on.

There's a there's a war between law and grace.

There's this massive fight taking place and there's a war

inside of us between the Spirit and the sinful nature.

I met a man at the door just now, just just walked into him.

He said, hi, I'm Rory. He said, Rory, I'm Jerry.

I said, Jerry, what are you doing?

I said, I met your mate Grant down in Cape Town, and Grant

told me I must come to your church.

So I came to your church. I said, tell me a story.

He said I was just sitting in a church.

And he said it was I just, I just spoke disgusting language

for 50 years. And two years ago, the Holy

Spirit came upon me and he said it was as if I'd been speaking

English for 50 years and I started speaking German.

Instantly the Holy Spirit came upon him.

And so, so we have this nature inside of us, but the Holy

Spirit is upon us and we have this fight that takes place

between. He said I used to swear, now our

praise and and and I said that's just Jerry.

He's yet. Where are you, Jerry?

Can we say welcome? Where are you?

Where's? Yeah, flipping back roads.

Tana, let's give Jerry a warm welcome.

And so we're going. We're going to look at this

fight and we're going to look at freedom.

And you know, they say that if you preach properly, Paul's

gospel, if you because because Paul's gospel only got accepted

about 500 years after he died. Before that, it was all about

the Sermon on the Mount, which is absolutely vitally important.

But then people started to understand grace.

And Martin Luther, which is the Reformation, started to preach

the gospel by grace and, and, and when he started to preach

that people came free from religious practices.

And so should we be obedient? Of course we should be obedient,

but we shouldn't be obedient by external regulation.

We should be obedient by internal reformation.

And so, So what the spirit does is it transforms me.

What moralism does is it tries to control me.

And so we said every society you have liberals and you have

conservatives. So liberals are for abortion

because everybody can choose conservatives or anti abortion.

And they say, but surely the Christians will fall into the

conservatives. We are only anti abortion not

because we're conservative, but because we believe that the

moment you get conceived, you have been designed by God with a

purpose. So we are not conservative

around abortion. We are radical about the life of

God, and so we don't fit into a liberal or a conservative party

and say, but all the Christians should vote conservative.

No, the Christians should vote for Christ.

And when we understand that, friends, we start to live by the

Spirit, not by external rules and regulations.

And some other God says, if I put a behavioral pattern on you,

you will be better. We're not trying to be better.

We are trying to transform from inside out.

Now, if you haven't been here, my son went to a Christian

School that was planted by Christian people.

And it's just and, and, and, and, and it is ruled by the

Scriptures, but as an external behavioral pattern.

And I watched him and his buddies in a boarding school

environment for five years, living under this biblical sort

of pattern. And when he leaves school, the

way that you celebrate leaving that boarding school is

everybody goes out the gates of the school and the first thing

you do is you pop champagne and you start smoking cigars.

And I looked at them. I thought the illustration of

their freedom is smoking and drinking.

Then I think surely what they got taught is not right, because

the only thing that you can do when you're free is to break off

the shackles of constraint and exercise some kind of liberal

freedom. You leave your parents homes,

you come to Pretoria and you spend your life on the strip

where you go down to Stellenbosch and you spend your

first 18 months goofed out of your mind.

You think surely that is not Christian value, that's not

freedom, that's not what God came for.

And so we look at this incredible picture of Jesus.

He was really kind. He loved sinners.

He hung around with outcasts. He brought healing and wholeness

to people. He was really kind and and, and

and gracious and, and, and he and he spoke good news and he

brought people in this spaciousness.

And yet Paul said, I fought against them.

It makes absolutely no intelligences, but I fought.

People hate Christianity because they don't really understand

Christ. And when we understand Christ

and we understand freedom, we will start to exorcist.

That's the book of Galatians. It's this major war that's going

on and and and people say to me, hey, Rory, you've been preaching

this so long. Felicia is starting to become a

little bit grace based friends. Only when they accuse me of

being empty, the law will I know that I've preached properly and

and when you go to the absolute extreme, you think, well, I can

do absolutely anything and God will still be right.

As we get to that place, the Spirit picks us up and we come,

right, but by internal transformation, not external

behavioral pattern. Does that make sense to you,

friends? It's absolutely vital that we

understand that. So we are credited with

righteousness. We are credited with

righteousness. And I tell you this, friends,

people fight me on this all the time.

And the Scripture that or the story that we used is a friend

of mine who has had bulimia or anorexia for 40 years.

He's been catching his heart out.

His wife sent him here, his wife.

And and I've had three situations where I've said to

the people, the moment you vomit, stick your face in the

vomit and say this, I am the credited righteousness of Christ

and the power of that cyclical sin gets broken over you.

You cannot friends, behave yourself, right?

It has got to be an internal, some mechanism that sets you

free and, and, and, and what happens.

I'll show you a little bit of the church.

The church preaches freedom where people become so free.

You know what's happened, friends?

As, as we've been preaching Galatians, this is what I

thought would happen. I thought as I preached

Galatians, our finances would kick and go through the roof.

As people have understood freedom, our finances have done

the complete opposite. They've gone down radically.

But I'm not going to change the preaching of freedom.

But the church, what happens is preachers freedom.

People exercise their freedom, do whatever they like with their

money because they're free. And then what the church does,

it has to get the money back. So it puts the law back on

people. When we are free friends,

completely free, and we're led by the Spirit, our lives start

to come and line up slowly but surely.

Amen. So let's have a look.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us for Galatians 5.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm then. Do not let yourselves be

burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

We, we, we know the story. I had it in the frontier.

We had a yoke called the law and, and, and we had a little

girl and we had a big muscle guy.

And it's called the law. And wherever the law takes you,

you've got no choice because you yoked in and this big guy leads

you around. And so and so that's how many of

us grow up. We sort of yoke by the law and

then you the yoke goes off and you go to Stellibus University

and you go nuts. And then we get yoked by sin.

And wherever sin wants to take us, it takes us.

But Jesus Christ came and says in Galatians chapter one, it

says he came to rescue us from sin.

So we are not we are not sin has got no control over me.

And then Jesus puts his two hands out like a yoke, and he

says, Come unto me, all you are heavily laden and burdened.

Come unto me. I will take the law, and I will

fulfill it. I will take the sin, and I will

absorb it. And I say to you, come unto me

and take my yoke upon you, for it is easy.

And he puts his yoke upon us, and he takes that yoke off us.

So now we're standing here. The law has been fulfilled, sin

has been absorbed by Christ, and we're standing.

And God says, now I want you to go and live.

And the sinful nature inside of us says, Hey, we're free, we can

do whatever we like. And Paul says, no, you're not

that free. You're completely free, but you

have to learn how to obey the Spirit.

Now does that make sense, friends?

So verse seven, I'll actually show you this. 5 pictures going

to use 5 pictures and they're going to come very quickly if

you can put the first picture up just of the athlete, please.

So they're going to be 5 pictures and and if you, if you

it's like a guy telling a story quickly is going to go as an

athlete. There's a Baker, there's a

doctor, there's an advocate and there's a soldier.

All you have to remember today we're seven.

You are running a good race. These Galatians had no idea of

the Mosaic Law. They had no idea of the law, or

they were pagans. They were having sex in the

streets. They were wild.

They got set free by God's grace.

They came into alignment and the Jews came in and said, now

listen, this is not such good news.

You've actually got to get circumcised.

You've got to start obeying the law.

And Paul is saying, listen, I took Peter onto his face.

I took Barnabas onto his face. I'm not scared to take people

on. And I'm standing at Pretoria and

say I'll take on religion to its face.

You're free by grace, completely free by grace.

There is no sin that can hold you.

There is no memory that can hold you.

You're completely and utterly set free by grace.

You're credited with righteousness.

And if you remember, there was a man called Ian sitting in the

back row there. And the world women's archery

champion is our church. And Ian had no power to take his

arrow from there and stick it in the bullseye here.

And that Lady bought you a bow, which is a picture of Christ and

took his arrow and stuck it in the bull's eye.

It doesn't matter where you sit. And yet in our mind, we still

barely sensing, well, that sin is worse.

And this sin and that guy got sinned.

And I want to tell you, the Bible says there's no

difference. All of our sin is the same,

exactly the same. And so when we stand up here,

that's why I don't preach off here, because I'm a Sinner.

I try and preach off here and say, hey, we are all the same.

We're all the same. You are running a good race.

Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?

That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you

the athlete, the Baker. A little bit of yeast works

through the whole batch of dough.

Just a little bit of yeast works through the whole back.

If you're a Baker, you know that too much caustic soda can spoil

a whole. And he's saying if you don't get

this thing right, it's going to affect the whole body of Christ.

If we don't understand this freedom, it's going to affect

the whole church. We had the greatest friends.

I don't want to draw, but we had one of the greatest gospel

pictures I've ever seen in my life happen yet two weeks ago.

But don't compare that perceived sin to your sin.

It's the same. Don't say if God can forgive

you, then now I want to tell you if God can forgive you.

If God can forgive you, then God can forgive anybody.

Don't waste sin in your head. I think this church is full of

bad sinners. Romans says they're good

sinners. They're bad sinners and they're

very bad sinners, but they're all sinners.

And the gospel of Galatians is the gospel of grace, Amen.

And so we sit here with no condemnation, no criticism, and,

and, and no value. We're not writing.

When you look at a person, you look at them through the eyes of

grace because God looked at you through the eyes of grace.

Fight continues inside of our hearts.

Amen. So we've got an athlete, We've

got a Baker. A little bit of yeast.

A little bit of yeast. Hey, you wake up at the morning.

Hey, Mitch, have you read your Bible today?

It's my son. Hey, Mitch, have you read your

Bible today? No, I haven't, Dad.

Off he goes there. Little bit of guilt next to.

Hey, Mitch, have you read your Bible today?

No, I haven't, Dad. And off he goes.

I have never in my whole life ever had a devotion with my son.

I've never asked him to read the Bible.

I've never asked him to keep a journal.

But on Tuesday when I came here, I was sitting at the back in the

pre meeting. For some reason, I don't know

how he got involved. He ended up leading most of the

pre meeting and I just sat and I thought, wow, because the Spirit

of God, Spirit of God, don't put your kids under religious

obligation. You head masters of schools

don't preach moralism to your students.

Preach the gospel. Our friends.

Somebody said that I went to somebody, one of my least said

is Rory a racist? It's not a weep.

And then you see the issue between Bosch and Bisch or Bosch

and Paul Jim, the racist incident with friends.

We we are 30 years past 1994 elections and racism is just as

rife in our nation as it ever was because you can't fix racism

with external laws. And people say to me, does that

mean we stop? No, it doesn't mean we stop.

I'm just telling you, unless your heart changes inside, there

will be Paul, Jim or flipping Rhonda Bosch or Bishops or

somebody that will be shouting. Just a couple years ago it was

St. John's VS Michael House.

It's not an issue of intellect or riches.

Those are two of the richest schools in South Africa, Michael

House and St. John's.

And there's a racist incident that happens on a hockey field.

So everybody climbs in the bus, drives home, stops at my

business, spends their money and comes home.

So I don't care whether they come home early or late, as long

as they stop. But the issue, friends, the

issue is that after 30 years of putting the law upon people,

there is absolutely no difference in the behavior of

people. And I'm not, I'm talking about

rich people, I'm talking about educated people.

There is no difference in the behavior because laws cannot

stop evil. Laws cannot stop prejudice.

Only the gospel can do that. And that is what's happening in

the book of Galatians. There's this massive war going

on between is God going to win or is the enemy going to win?

Is God going to win or is grace is, is the law going to win?

And these guys say, well, let God win, but there's a little

bit of law must come with it. You with me?

I am confident of the Lord that you will take no other view.

The one who's throwing into confusion will pay the penalty,

whoever he may be. Brothers, if I'm still preaching

circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?

In that case, the offence of the cross has been abolished.

Say we've all got signs like members we put stickers on the

back of our cars. Members of three CI or live and

have worked and we have these stickers.

The sticker in the Jewish face was circumcision.

Take a label off you don't, don't, don't tell Pretoria that

you're from Tricia. Just tell them you're of Christ.

We're not a brand. We're not a franchise.

We're of Christ. We're not trying to build our

brand. We're trying to portray Christ.

As for those agitators, they're having an operation

circumcision. As for those agitators, I wish

they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves.

I heard the other day a man, we're talking to some doctors,

he went in for a ingrown toenail and he ended up having a pile

operation. I said, how did that happen?

You've got the customers mixed up.

I thought, how did that work? Paul says, you know, you guys

are going for circumcision. I hope the doctor makes a steak

and cuts the whole freaking thing off.

That's you think, oh, that is radical.

That's how radical Paul is. Because Deuteronomy 3323 says

those who have been emasculated are not allowed in the Assembly

of God. And he says these people who are

trying to make you obey the law and understand God, they need to

be emasculated and excluded from the community because they're

confusing you. That's hardcore.

You said that's not grace. No, that is such radical grace

friends, if you understand that is such a radical grace.

You, my brothers are called to be free and now we like saying

Rory preachers in three CR that you can do anything you can do.

Absolutely you're credited with righteousness when you couch put

your face in the couch when you sin, put your face when you get

drunk. Just come to church on Sunday

and and just remember I'm the credited righteousness of God.

Hallelujah. Yes, I believe that.

I believe that. I believe if you get smashed on

a Saturday night, the greatest place to run to on a Sunday

morning is to church with your stinky alcohol breath.

You come here and you're accepted by grace.

And when you turn your computer off after you just watch porno

at 2:00 in the morning, because that's when it happens as you

close your computer, you must say this.

I am the righteousness of Christ.

And you say, Rory, that is extreme grace.

Exactly. That is extreme grace.

And as you think you can continue to do this, he says

this, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful

nature. Rather serve one another in

love. So as you're at this absolute

extreme, he comes and says, hey, listen, stop living selflessly.

Paula is about you. Drunkenness is about you.

He says you must remember you're part of a community and you need

to actually start to learn to serve the community.

I met sculpt Brits the other day at a function.

I don't know how I end up standing next to loud people,

but I did. So we got talking and, and he,

he, he, he played in the 2019 World Cup.

But he, he played 200 games for Saracens and, and he was the

unbelievable flank hooker. But he came again, Bismarck and

John Smith and Audrey and Strauss, good, good hookers in

his town. But he could play Frank and his

stats were high and he had the most carries and the most rocks

and the most hits and the most tackles and the most.

And he's to train early on in the morning and he's to finish

late. And he said to John Smith after

the 2007 World Cup, I just got chatting him.

He said, He said, hey, John, why am I not a Springbok?

He said, I've done absolutely everything.

All my stats are in place. Why am I not a Springbok?

And John said, you really want me to tell you skulk?

He said, yes. He said, let me ask you two

questions. What's Albert Funderburg's

children's names? He said.

I've got no idea. He said, OK, let me ask you an

easier one. What's Yanni Duplici's wife's

name? He said, I got no idea.

He says that's why you're not a spring back, because he's just

selfish. You don't know anything else

about the people around you. You're selfish.

And he said when you actually stop being selfish and you

actually worry about the other fourteen guys in the field,

you'll become a spring back. And Paul is saying, you know

what's wrong with you. You know what's wrong with you?

You're selfish. You're absolutely full of

yourself, He said. I was full of selfish ambition.

I was trying to get ahead of myself.

And actually, when Jesus Christ died, he died so that I can get

out of the center of my own life.

Because the bottom line with every problem in this auditorium

is that we are selfish. My house, my car, my job, my

degree, my holiday house, my holiday, my children, my, my,

my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, and God has to deliver us from

ourselves. Amen.

And if you get yourself out the way and you let Jesus start to

lead you, you'll start to see miracles taking place.

The entire law, the entire law advocate summing up the whole

court case, the entire law is summed up in a single command.

Love your neighbor as yourself. So I think, well, are we under

the law? We're not under the law.

No, we're not under the law. We're under grace.

But the number one picture of grace is actually take your eyes

off yourself and start thinking about other people.

Seriously. You bring a picture that's

really generous. Take the box home with you.

Seriously, every time we have a sundown Monday, we take 6 or 8

bags of litter out of this auditorium.

Just take your bottle with you. But you don't think like that

because we're under grace. We can do whatever we like or or

we can race them here into the parking.

And we don't have communion because we want to get to our

car, because we want to get out first.

Unless you die to yourself, friends, unless you start to

live for the benefit of other people, you will constantly be

in bondage. True story.

Yeah, we are all selfish. I am selfish, Am IA racist?

I hope not. Did I grow up in a racist

society? Absolutely.

Do I have human prejudice in my life?

Absolutely. It will never ever stop by laws.

It will only stop by Jesus getting inside of my heart.

So I say by, so I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not

gratify the desires of the sinful nature, for the sinful

nature desires. What is contrary, say contrary,

Contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit, What is contrary to the

sinful nature? They are in conflict with each

other so that you do not do what you want.

But if you're led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

So there's this massive fight going on inside of my heart

between the sinful nature and the Spirit.

If you can put that picture up, please, of the grass.

So that is called Radcliffe Camera.

It's a library in Oxford University.

And before the World War Two, that thing had a massive 12 foot

metal fence around it, all the way around it.

And that grass is actually open to the public.

But because of the 12 foot metal fence, the public didn't have

access to it. And when the war came, they had

to take all the metal that belonged to England and they had

to melt it down to make guns and bullets.

So they melted it down and they made guns and bullets, and now

there was no fence around that lawn.

You can give the next picture of the lawn that's on the other

side. And So what happened when the

fence came down? Go back to the previous one,

please. When the fence came down, the

people of Oxford started to picnic on that piece of lawn

because they got access to it. And then they started to have

parties on that lawn and they started to urinate on that lawn

and they started to stay late at night on the lawn.

And then they started to leave bread crumbs on the Lord.

So weeds got into the lawn. And eventually how it is today,

they had to put a fence around it again.

And people haven't got access to the lawn.

And God says, I'll tell you what, here's your freedom,

here's your lawn. I've taken the fence away.

Let's talk about finances. If I preach this, if I preach

the law on you financially as the church does, it stands up

week after week with veins sticking at him and say you must

give your money to God. And I take the fence.

And I say, I want to tell you, part of this garden is

generosity to God's ways. You can picnic there.

You can stay late at night there, but don't urinate on the

lawn. Don't leave your seed behind so

that weed grows up in the lawn. And the church has to come and

put fences up again and say this is how we operate in the church

with these fences. We're not meant to have fences.

Paul says, I take the fence away so that you can enjoy marriage.

What? What about sexuality?

He said, Rory, you preaching that I can watch pornography and

I'm the righteousness of Christ. Yes, but then the Spirit says,

but I want to take on the sinful nature.

I want to take down the fence. I want to say to you, you have

got access, but don't pee on the Lord.

Otherwise you've got to put a fence up again that says don't

watch this. This is how much you must give

to the church or we get led by the Spirit of God under this

preaching. I believe the finances should go

up. Why have they gone down?

I don't know, but I'm still not going to put the law on you.

Because the preaching of grace and the gospel of grace is far

more sustainable to the people of God than the Mosaic covenant.

And that's the book of Galatians.

You're running a good race. A little bit of yeast works

through the whole batch of dough.

Don't just get circumcised, get castrated so you can stop your

nonsense. This is the whole law.

It's not about you, it's about your neighbor.

And don't give up the fight inside of you.

The spirit eventually wins. And when the Spirit wins because

you know, you can't keep sinning, you can't keep watching

porno. But what the church says and

what some people say is if you're going to porno problem,

throw a brick through your computer, that's just very

expensive. Or put a, a system on your

computer that is accountable. That's just a law.

It only lasts for a little while until your accountability

partner goes overseas and you buy a new computer or let the

Spirit have access into the depth of your heart.

So what must I do with my money? Lord God, you've taken away the

law, you've taken away sin. The sinful nature says go and

spend it on yourself. Be selfish.

Holy Spirit, what must I do with my money?

Holy Spirit, what must I do with my sexuality?

When you go to Stellenbosch, if we've trained you properly in

this church, if we've set you free by grace, you're going to

end up in the parties of Stellenbosch, in the middle of

the party, and your parents are not there, The pastor, Rory Dyer

is not there, or Stephen Dolenberg is not there.

You're sitting in a Joel in the middle of Stellenbosch and you

think I can do whatever I like. But the Holy Spirit is upon you.

Listen to his voice. And in that way, in that way, in

that freedom, we'll build a community that changes the

world.