Freedom, Trees & Hats

So a couple weeks back, we started a series called A Really Good Year.

A really good year.

And the idea behind this is very simple.

We would like to have a really good year.

I don't know anyone who doesn't want that.

I don't know anyone who settles for like mediocrity at the beginning of the year.

They say, I just want this year to be mid.

No, we all want to have a really good year.

And we're going to.

I know that God wants us to as well, but we've been exploring what that looks like.

And so just to kind of catch us all up, we began by discussing the fact that God's version of good often looks different than ours.

And if we want to have a really good year, a truly good year, we need to be people who are seeking what God's version of good is.

Instead of just going after what we think is good or what our world tells us is good, we want God's good because really only God is good.

That's why in Romans chapter 12, verse 2, it says, Don't copy the behaviors and the customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Romans 12:2

And then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

God's will is good.

And so if we want to have a good year, we've got to discover what God's will is, and that's kind of a journey that each of us get to go on with God, because you can know God, you can hear from God, you can pray and hear him as he speaks to you and he moves you.

And he might show you something that wasn't even on your radar that needs to be a major focus for your year, and it is good, even if it's hard.

But there are things that we know from Scripture are good.

There's so many things that we don't have to wonder at God, is this good?

Is this what you want for me?

I'm not sure.

God just tells us this is who I am, this is what I'm about, and this is a good thing.

So last week we talked about the fact that we want to have full lives.

We want to be filled.

Ephesians chapter 3.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all of the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

And to know that this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Think about that.

Filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

God wants to fill us.

He wants to fill our lives with his presence, with his power, with his goodness.

And so if we seek that, if we hunger for that, Jesus promises us that if we hunger and thirst for righteousness, for God, that we will be filled.

We will be satisfied.

And so God wants you to have a full year.

Today, we're going to talk about another word.

God wants us to have a year that is free.

He wants us to be free.

If there could be a theme verse to go along with today, it would be Galatians chapter 5, verse 1, which says, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Galatians 5:1

Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

And we'll explore that a little bit more.

Freedom.

God wants us to have a year that is defined by the freedom that He gives us.

Now, I don't know if you can think of something that you've experienced in life, maybe something that you have now that you didn't have at a previous time.

But after experiencing it, you'll say, I'll never go back.

Now that I've had this, now that I've tasted this, now that this is in my life, I could never live without it.

I'll give you an example for my life.

It's kind of a silly one, but it's just like modern vehicle uh technology, I guess, like backup cameras and Bluetooth connections and stuff like that.

I bought a car in 2009, and it was a 2006, and it was like the worst time to buy a car because it was right before that stuff became normal.

Like only really expensive cars had that stuff.

And because I bought it and it was relatively new, I drove that car from 2009 all the way until 2023.

I had it for 14 years.

It's a Toyota Scion.

I drove it right into the back of a lady at a school bus stop.

It was great, it was awesome.

The police officer that arrived because my car couldn't uh it was just a dumb moment.

My car wouldn't work after that.

Uh he was a former student of mine in the youth group, it was a great experience.

It was fun.

He drove me home.

My neighbors got to see cops, dropped me off at my house.

It was just it was wonderful.

It was what every pastor dreams of.

Um so that once that happened, that car it was toast.

And I I got I got a Toyota Corolla, so I didn't mean to flex, but I drive a Toyota Corolla.

So just know that.

No, I I had never experienced a car that that had all those gizmos.

And it was like, I've been missing this for all this time.

Like it beeps at you when you're in like drifting into the wrong lane.

That's amazing.

That's incredible.

It means you have to pay attention less when you drive.

It's wonderful because it'll pay attention, right?

But I just until you've had those experiences, like, remember life before backup cameras?

How did we even we used to parallel park without backup cameras?

There's gonna be a whole young, like our high school students are with us today, there's gonna be a whole young generation that will not even understand how that was possible.

It's like, oh well, what you had to do was you had to put your arm here and then twist your neck in a way that it cannot twist, right?

To try to back into spaces.

And if they say how did you guys do it, the answer honestly is like we just bumped into stuff a lot more.

Like, true story, one time, one time I spent a thousand dollars on dinner at Ipps in downtown Woodstock.

Uh the meal only cost 50 bucks.

This was pre-COVID prices.

Uh the thousand dollars was because I, backing up without a backup camera, backed into a car that was parked in a very tight parking space.

And so I decided not to file with my insurance, and it was a$950 bill, and so I spent a thousand dollars on that dinner just because I didn't have a backup camera.

I would never, like, if I was looking for a car and I had any say in the matter at all, and they're like, well, it doesn't have a backup camera, like, why would I even buy this?

Like, I can't go back.

Like, GPS in a car.

Do you guys remember maps?

Like actual unfolding.

I remember my parents having the worst fights you can imagine.

Arguing.

Oh, like one time we were driving in a city we had never been, and my mom has this giant map.

We're in a state we don't live in, and she's like, turn here, and my dad just went, that doesn't sound right, and he kept driving.

And I remember being a kid in the back seat, like, Dad, we don't live here, we've never how does it what do you mean it doesn't sound right?

We got lost, and my mom has this huge map, it was awful.

So for me, having experienced modern technology in a car, I can I can just say, I'll never go back.

And I don't know what your version of that is, something that you have now, but you didn't have it before, and now that you have it, you can't imagine life without it.

But I'll say that for the Apostle Paul, who if you're unfamiliar, was a leader in the early church, he wrote the majority of the New Testament or close to it.

For the Apostle Paul, the thing that he experienced that he could not imagine going without was freedom.

The freedom that he experienced through Jesus.

So we'll go back to Galatians 5.

I'll give some backstory here, and I'm gonna read from the New Living Translation, which is typically the translation that we use here.

So Christ has truly set us free.

Now make sure that you stay free and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law.

So there's a little bit of backstory here.

Uh, and many of you know this, but it's fun to explore it.

Make sure we understand the context of this freedom that he's talking about, because there it lets us know that the freedom specifically is freedom from what is described as the law.

So Jesus was Jewish.

He was the Jewish Messiah, he fulfilled the Jewish scriptures, and at the outset of the church, the church, Christianity, our faith, was a Jewish faith.

And all of the followers of Jesus were Jewish, and they still lived like the rest of the Jewish people.

They observed all of the Jewish laws, all of the Jewish festivals and holidays.

That was how things went.

But very shortly after Jesus died and rose again, and the Holy Spirit came and the church began to grow, things changed.

And it really starts from a story involving one of Jesus' closest friends named Peter, and we see this in Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 10, verses 9 through 16.

Acts 10:9–16

It says, The next day, as Cornelius' messengers were nearing the town, Cornelius was a non-Jewish person.

Peter went up on the flat roof to pray.

It was about noon, and he was hungry.

But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance, and he saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners.

In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds, and a voice said to him, Get up, Peter, kill and eat them.

No Lord, Peter declared, I've never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean.

But the voice spoke again.

The same vision was repeated three times, and then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven.

So Peter has this vision, and in the vision, God tells him to eat things that Jewish law forbade him from eating.

And he's like, I would never do that.

I never have done that.

And God has to tell him three times.

And that's kind of a theme with Peter.

Like you have to tell Peter over and over again for him to get it.

He's stubborn.

But then he he starts to understand what that vision was really all about.

Because Cornelius' messenger arrives, Cornelius, again, he's a non-Jewish person, a Gentile.

That's how the Bible describes that group.

Most of us are probably Gentiles.

And so Peter goes to Cornelius' home.

And Cornelius is ready to follow Jesus.

And this surprises Paul because up to this point it's it's a Jewish thing.

And or rather, rather, Peter.

And so in Acts chapter 10, verse 28, Peter tells them, You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you.

Acts 10:28

But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.

So I came without objection as soon as I was sent for.

Now tell me why you've sent for me.

And after this, Cornelius, his whole family, his whole home, they accept Jesus, they begin to follow Jesus.

They're like the first non-Jewish Jesus followers.

And this spreads and it grows to the point where it's a little bit of a challenge because at a certain point in the early church, you have just as many, if not more, non-Jewish people following this Jewish Messiah, and how do these groups of people mix?

Because the Jewish people were by design supposed to live a very set-apart life.

And so all these questions come up.

And the questions essentially are when a Gentile person gets saved and starts following Jesus, do they have to become Jewish to become Christian?

Do they have to start following all of the Jewish laws and regulations and observe all the festivals?

And for the men, do they have to get circumcised?

That's everyone's favorite topic.

Paul's going to talk a lot about circumcision.

I'm just going to reference this and give you a warning.

The message title today is actually Freedom, Trees, and Hats, but it very easily could have been Freedom, Circumcision, Trees and Hats, but I left that out for a lot of obvious reasons.

Just know that that's coming.

Like, that's questions that they're wrestling with.

Hey, if these guys start following Jesus, do they have to become Jewish too?

And this leads to this giant conversation that happens in Jerusalem with the leaders of the early church.

We see it in Acts chapter 15.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

It says, when they arrived in Jerusalem, Barnabas and Paul were welcomed by the whole church, including the apostles and the elders, and they reported everything God had done through them, but some of the believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and insisted.

God knows people's hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us.

He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith.

So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear?

And he's talking about the law.

We believe that we are all saved the same way by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.

Everyone listened quietly as Barnabas and Paul told about the miraculous signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles.

And when they had finished, James stood and said, Brothers, listen to me.

Peter has told you about the time God first visited the Gentiles to take them for for a people to himself.

And this conversion of Gentiles is exactly what the prophets predicted, as it is written afterward, I will return and restore the fallen house of David.

I will rebuild its ruins and restore it, so that the rest of humanity might seek the Lord, including the Gentiles, all those I have called to me.

The Lord has spoken.

He made these things known so long ago.

And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.

Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from eating food offered to idols, from sexual morality, from eating meat, the meat of strangled animals, and from consuming blood.

For these laws of Moses have been preached in Jewish synagogues in every city on every Sabbath for many generations.

And so essentially, what James and leadership does, I know that was a lot, is they say, yeah, they don't have to become Jewish.

They don't have to start following the law.

Let's just have them observe a few basic things so that there can be relative peace between them and the Jews so that their lifestyles aren't so totally different that they can't mix together.

That was kind of the first compromise.

But even though that settled it for a while, things started to get dicey again because religious habits die hard.

And some of us didn't really grow up in church at all.

This is maybe your first church, your first experience in church, maybe.

I don't know.

Some of us grew up in all kinds of different church backgrounds, and if you did grow up in church, you know that like religion, and by religion, I don't mean the reverent worship of God, I mean like all the rules and the man-made stuff.

That stuff, like it gets in you, and it's kind of sticky, and it sticks with you, and sometimes it's hard to shake.

Like it can just be really tough to shake.

And so after a while, there starts to be this uprising of hardcore Jewish Christians telling all these other people, no, no, no, you actually do need to observe the law of Moses.

And even Peter himself, the one God gave this vision to, he kind of started to go that way.

And it made Paul really angry.

And so in Galatians chapter 2, Paul writes that when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers who were not circumcised.

But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn't eat with the Gentiles anymore.

He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision.

As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter's hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

And when I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?

You and I are both Jews by birth, not sinners like the Gentiles.

Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law.

And we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law, for no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.

You can't do it.

The purpose of the law wasn't to cleanse us, that's what people thought the purpose of the law was.

That if you follow all these rules, that'll make God really happy and he'll accept you.

That's kind of the way that religion, I don't care what the name of the religion, always views God.

God is on the mountaintop, and you're down here in the valley, and if you do all the right things, you get to climb the mountaintop, and maybe if you're worthy enough, you can be with God at the peak.

That is not our faith.

Our faith is that God left the mountaintop, he came into the valley with us, lived as one of us, and he brings us to a place that we can never get on our own.

And that's what Paul had experienced in Peter 2, the freedom that going, oh my gosh, the law, that was just there to show me my need for a savior.

That I can't do this.

And they let that go, but like I said, religious habits, they have a tendency to come back, and Peter gets sucked into this.

This starts happening in a major way at this church in Galatia, and so Paul doesn't hold back, he keeps going.

In Galatians chapter 4, verse 9, he says, So now that you know God, or should I say, now that God knows you, why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?

Galatians 4:9

It's funny.

I did not know we were singing no longer slaves today.

Didn't know that until I walked in this morning.

And uh, as I read this verse this morning, just kind of preparing, I thought to myself, man, it's been a while since we've sung that song.

And here you go.

Funny how God works.

Why would you become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?

You're trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years.

I fear for you.

Perhaps all my hard work with you is for nothing.

Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from these things.

For I have become like you Gentiles, free from those laws.

He goes on in Galatians 1 through 4 to say, So now that Christ has truly set us free, make sure that you stay free.

Don't get tied up again in slavery to the law.

Listen, I, Paul, tell you this.

If you're counting on circumcision or any adherence to a rule or anything like that at all that's part of the law to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you.

I'll say it again.

If you're trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, and in our culture we might say by reading your Bible enough or by doing enough Christian things, or whatever it might be, by listening to the Christian radio station.

I don't know.

If you're trying to think that if I do these things, God is pleased with me, if you're going to act like that, you should obey every single regulation in the whole law of Moses.

For if you're trying to make yourself right with God by keeping the law, you've been cut off from Christ.

You've fallen away from grace.

That phrase, fallen from grace, usually when we think of that phrase, we associate it with someone who's a believer, who's trying to live a good life for God, you know, and then they get caught up in some type of sin.

But when Paul says fall from grace, he isn't talking about that.

He's not talking about someone who just gets tied up in some type of bad habit, some type of issue, an addiction, or whatever it might be.

He's talking about people who experience the grace of God and the forgiveness for all of their sins, no matter what they've done, and then they decide to abandon that grace and go after pursuing God via following some list of religious regulations again.

And he's like, You've fallen from grace.

Why would you go back to that?

You had freedom.

Why would you go back to the law?

And this group of people that are pushing really hard in the church at this time in Galatia for circumcision, and they're saying, like, you have to do this, you have to do this.

Paul uh lets them know exactly how he feels in Galatians chapter 5, verse 12.

Galatians 5:12

He says, I wish that those who are troubling you would even emasculate themselves.

And uh that word emasculate is essentially the word castrate.

Paul says, if you're that passionate about circumcision, why don't you just go the whole way?

That's how he finishes that conversation.

So, that is in the Bible.

Um we can at least say that Paul is passionate.

Now, here's what I want us to understand.

This is how God has always been.

He has always been a God of freedom.

It's very easy to look at the Old Testament and have this idea that God used to be like really strict and he's all about laws and rules, and all of a sudden Jesus shows up and God is like, you know, I'm trying something new.

I'm gonna try to be a little more chill.

I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna try a new approach.

That's not true at all.

God has always been a God of freedom.

Always.

And we know that because we can look at the Garden of Eden.

And this is actually like a foundational teaching for our church here at His Hands, and it's one that we try to go through at least once a year and refresh ourselves with, and it's one at the outset of the year, I'm just telling you, if you want to have a great year, if you want to have a really good year, you need to live in the freedom that Jesus has won for you.

So think about the Garden of Eden.

Even if you haven't grown up in church, you've heard the story of the garden, it is basically just part of human history at this point, or at least human storytelling, however you you've grown up to view it.

People know this story, right?

There's the garden, and there's Adam and Eve, and they're naked, and they eat the bad fruit, and then you know everything goes awry.

But it's interesting, we we have a tendency to think about God's will completely different than God shows us in the garden.

The Garden of Eden is the clearest picture that we have of God's will on this earth.

No question.

Because it is how God originally made it, it is the way that God wanted things to operate, it's the way he wanted us to be, it's the way he wanted us to relate to him.

There's never been a time when God's will was more perfect on the earth than the garden of Eden.

No sin, nothing like that at all.

Just how God made it, how God wanted it to be, version 1.0.

And if you know the story of the garden, you know that God, God puts Adam and Eve in the garden, and what does he tell them?

What is the instruction that he gives them?

He says this in Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

The Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to tend and watch over it, but the Lord God warned him, you may eat freely from the fruit of every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

If you eat its fruits, you are sure to die.

He says, eat freely.

Eat, eat freely.

All these trees that you see, grab whatever you want.

Oh, just don't eat from that one tree.

That fruit, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that that'll mess you up.

That'll kill you.

We have a tendency, because of religion, and how religion has trained most of us, many of us, to believe that God's will is the exact opposite of that, that God's will is like a tightrope.

That you've got one good option, one good choice, and everything else is bad.

And I see a lot of people struggle with that.

A lot of people will reach out to me and ask me for advice, and they're very stressed because they have a big decision to make in life, and they believe that, you know, God has one thing for me.

And if it's a job choice or a school or whatever it might be, it's like, man, if I make the wrong decision, I'm gonna be outside of God's will, and they're stressed about it because they believe God's will is like a tightrope.

One good option, and everything else is bad.

But that is the exact opposite of the garden.

God's perfect will on this earth.

God said, No, eat freely.

You have freedom.

Go enjoy it.

Eat whatever you want to eat from, just don't eat from that tree.

That tree will kill you.

God has always been about freedom.

That story has become such a big part of our church.

It's actually like our logo.

If you've ever seen our logo, it's two hands holding a tree.

And the tree that the hands are holding is the tree of life.

There were two trees of significance in the garden.

One was the tree of life, and we were able to eat freely from that.

It sort of represents today for us our relationship with Jesus.

That we have a relationship with God, and it's not defined by how well we've followed a list of rules, it's defined by how much our God loves us.

But the other tree, the forbidden fruit, that was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Think about that for a second.

This is incredible if you've never thought through this.

The forbidden fruit was not lust, it wasn't greed, it wasn't some type of obvious stereotypical sin.

The forbidden fruit was knowing right from wrong.

And God's like, I don't want you to know right from wrong.

How weird is that?

I've tried to process that over the years, and the best I've ever been able to think about it in terms of my daily life is my children.

I've got four kids, and you know, the older they get, the more they know right from wrong, and it completely changes my relationship with them.

Like we had little baby David up on stage, and we first started this morning.

We did a baby dedication with Lee and Warren and David, and David doesn't know anything right now.

He doesn't know right from wrong.

And I remember those days with my kids when they were babies, and they would do terrible things.

They would hit you in the face, you know.

I mean, they just make messes everywhere they go.

They're just a human mess.

That's what it's a baby, is just a walking mess.

But you don't you don't look at them and get angry with them, or at least you shouldn't, because they don't know any better.

Like children can do, like little babies, they can do selfish, silly things and you laugh about it.

But if you've had kids, you all remember that moment when your kids did something wrong and you knew for the first time that they knew what they did was wrong.

And it's like this crisis as a parent because now everything changes.

Now that you know that they know right from wrong, you no longer get to just be the loving parent who provides warmth and comfort and security and love.

Now you have to discipline.

You have to, because they know right from wrong, and you now have an obligation as the parent to hold them accountable to what they know.

And it's almost like God in the garden always wanted us to be innocent like young children.

He just didn't want us to have this knowledge of what's good and what's bad.

Because if we had that knowledge, he would have to hold us accountable to that knowledge.

But we chose that.

Adam and Eve chose that.

They said, you know what?

I want it.

They ate the forbidden fruit.

And from that point on, up until Jesus, people's relationship with God was very much defined by good and evil.

What's good, what's bad, what's right, what's wrong.

And we might even call that tree the tree of religion because that's what religion is obsessed with is good and evil.

What's good, what's bad.

That's never how God wanted it.

But that's the way it was for a long time.

That's the world that Paul grew up in.

This world that says, hey, you want to please God, do this, don't do this, do this, don't do this.

And it was exhausting, and no one could actually even do it.

They try, but no one could even pull it off.

Jesus comes along and he does what we can't do.

He lives the perfect life, but then he opens this other door.

It's grace, it's mercy, it's love, it's relationship, regardless of whether or not you've followed the list of rules.

The Gentile people, they've never even tried.

They didn't grow up with that list of rules at all, and now they're coming to faith in Jesus, and they've never even, I mean, they haven't been circumcised.

They've eaten bacon.

Are you kidding me?

Like they've done all of these things, and now they get to be part of Jesus.

They don't, I mean, you can see why the Jewish people are mad.

Like, no, I they've got to do the stuff that I had to do.

But God says, no.

No, that wasn't the purpose of the law.

The purpose of the law was just to show you that you can't do it.

You need a savior, you're free from the law.

All those ceremonial things that you don't have to do that stuff anymore.

And that's where Paul is so incensed, and he's looking at Peter and the others, he's like, why?

Why would you go back?

Why would you ever go back?

You've tasted freedom.

Have it.

And if you want to have a really good year, you have to live in the freedom that God has given you.

But it's hard.

Freedom's hard because freedom is messy.

I'll give you a few different examples of this as we as we get near the end.

Some caveats.

There's a difference between freedom and chaos.

They're not the same thing.

And so in the book of Judges, chapter 17, verse 6, it says, In those days, Israel had no king, and the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.

Judges 17:6

And you might think, well, that was a great time to be.

That must have been a blast.

Everyone's just doing whatever they want to do.

And no, it was terrible.

Like, if you could go back to any point in time in history, do not go back to the time of the judges in Israel.

That was the worst.

People did whatever they felt like doing, and it was a disaster because that is not freedom, that is chaos.

And we experience that in our world.

Sometimes our version of freedom is just really selfish self-expression, where people have this attitude of like, this is me, and everyone needs to just deal with me.

This is what I like, this is what I want to do, this is who I am, and all of you just deal with it.

Here I am, this is me.

And our culture is very big on self-expression, and oftentimes that self-expression is very, it's just selfish.

And everybody doing whatever they feel like doing, that is not freedom, that is chaos, and chaos never turns into something good.

That's not what Paul is talking about when he talks about freedom.

It's something much deeper than just what I feel like doing.

It's also not a license to do things that we know in our heart are wrong.

We might call that sin.

Paul goes on to say in Galatians 5.13, you've been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.

Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.

Use your freedom to serve one another in love.

He says, don't use your freedom to sin.

Paul would later say that anything is technically permissible.

If you're a Jesus follower, anything's permissible, but not everything is beneficial.

Sin no longer divides us from God.

Because of what Jesus did on the cross, your sin, no matter what it is, no matter how recent, no matter how dark, how big, whatever, how small, your sin does not divide you from God.

Sin used to be divisive, or at least we were led to believe that it was, but Jesus took care of that completely.

But sin is still destructive.

So while sin no longer divides you from God through grace and faith in Jesus, sin will still destroy your life.

It'll still ruin relationships, it'll ruin your reputation, it'll create addictions and ways of coping with stress in life that aren't healthy.

So Paul's saying, hey, don't use your freedom to sin because that's not going to be good for you, and God doesn't want that for you.

Use your freedom to serve others.

So freedom is this experience that we have through Jesus that we don't have to live under a set of laws and rules and structures.

We don't have to relate to each other that way.

We don't have to size each other up that way.

Like your status at His Hands, if you're part of our church, which by the way, we don't have membership, so if you want to be part of His hands, you're in.

Boom.

Some of you join the church today.

That's good.

Because you're like, yeah, go ahead, this is my church.

That's it.

Your status, your level, there aren't statuses and levels.

Because it's not about some type of hierarchy of who's done better than other people, of who's followed the rules better.

That's not how it works at all.

There might still be standards for leadership or things that we've got to do to be prepared for certain experiences, but as far as our value, that is, we all have the same value.

We are loved by God.

He sent his son to die for us, to pay the price for our sins, and it paid the price for my sins and your sins and your sins, and that entire section sins.

Like all of them.

Completely paid for.

We are all like sons and daughters of God through faith in Jesus.

And we've been set free from religion.

It's a good thing.

Yeah, you should clap for that.

Now here, I guess this is why this is so important to me.

Because I've learned the hard way that that religious nature, that spirit, whatever word you want to use, tendency, it has it, it has a way of like working itself back.

And I've seen people who experience, just like Paul, I've seen people who've experienced the freedom of Jesus, and they're like, oh my gosh, I have a relationship with God and I love him, and I don't have to live my life trying so hard to do it myself and follow these rules, and I'm gonna do my best to follow the Lord and do what I know is right.

I'm gonna mess up and I know that I'm forgiven.

And I've seen people have that mindset and then somehow shift back into this very staunch, rigid, religious, ugh.

And it's heartbreaking.

It's heartbreaking.

But it happens.

Like religion is a powerful thing.

And as a church, we've always said that we are about Jesus, not religion.

So we're a non-religious church.

That doesn't mean by religion, we don't, I'm not talking about reverence for God.

We love God.

We just we want to live at the right tree.

Does that make sense?

But it's hard to do.

So how does this actually work?

I want to give us a framework for this and maybe explain how this is uh how this actually functions in our day-to-day lives.

Because this is a big deal.

It's a big deal to God, it should be a big deal to us.

And I know that some of us, maybe some of us who are younger, you're like, this is the only church I've ever known, or or you've always lived in kind of a more free church experience, and that's great.

But many of us, can I just show of hands if you don't mind?

How many of us grew up in a very religious environment?

Like a good number of us.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

It's at least half of us.

The other half, you guys just, you're like the Gentiles.

You've come in and you're like, woo, this is fun.

And some of us are like, you don't know what we've been through, okay?

We've had we have some trauma.

All right?

All right.

I'm gonna I'm gonna give us a framework real quick, and and we'll wrap up with this.

A framework for how to responsibly enjoy freedom, and then a silly example of how in the last year this has actually been like a mild crisis in my life.

Make sense?

All right, here's the framework.

Five words.

Used to be four words, but I added a fifth.

Um, this has kind of grown over time.

And I think it's done, but who knows?

Absolutes, interpretations, convictions, customs, and preferences.

Absolutes, those will be the things that we know God says it, it's clear.

Old Testament, New Testament, wherever you look in Scripture, God says this is good or this isn't good, and we want to live by the absolutes.

And it's not, it's not so that God loves us, he loves us.

It's because it's what is good for us.

To step out of the line, just to step out of line or to step outside of what God says is healthy and good for you will be destructive for you and the people around you.

So if it's an absolute, we should do it.

We should value it, we should follow it for our benefit.

Interpretations, those are things in scripture that, you know, depending on how you read it, can go a couple of different ways.

And there's a lot of issues that have multiple valuable and credible interpretations.

And we do our best.

When there's an interpretation, we do our best to read it, to interpret it correctly, and people will disagree with that interpretation, and that's okay.

Because we're all trying our best with interpretation.

And I could give a lot of examples about that, but I don't want to take too much time.

Convictions.

Those are like deep personal beliefs that you have.

And we are told in scripture and Romans, we're told to live by our convictions.

If you have a deep conviction, follow it.

Live by it, but never force other people to, unless they're your children, and then you get to do that for 18 years, and then they can have their own convictions later on, okay?

But yeah, live by your convictions.

Because actually, to go against your own convictions would be like sinning against yourself.

So live by your convictions, but we're not supposed to force our convictions on other people.

And then you've got customs.

These are things that are mostly cultural.

They're just the way that our culture operates, and to go against those is fine, but you can push it too far and actually be so outside of what is normal in your culture that it's unnecessarily distracting or dividing.

Okay?

And then the last one is preferences.

Those don't matter.

Who cares?

They just they don't matter.

Get over it.

That's essentially what you do with preferences.

I really like it when blah, blah, blah.

Who cares?

That's the right attitude to have about that.

Now, the tendency, here's the thing with religion.

The tendency with religion is to start elevating everything to the same level.

It's all an absolute.

So your interpretation of scripture, it's absolute.

And it's not.

The absolutes are absolute.

God makes those really clear.

They're not really hard to discern.

You shouldn't kill people.

Absolutely.

Right?

Don't have affairs.

Absolutely.

Don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat.

Love God with all your heart, with all your soul.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Those are absolutes.

They're not easy, and we've all fallen short.

All of us have.

I don't even have to.

That's the beauty of the Ten Commandments.

They're not like the pinnacle of human achievement.

Right?

The Ten Commandments are kind of like a low bar.

Just don't kill each other, basically, and tell the truth, and we all find a way under that bar.

All of us have.

But they're absolute.

So just live that way.

But the tendency with religion is to elevate all of it, all of it to the same status.

So I'm gonna give you an example.

This was a crisis in my life last year.

I'm gonna do something right now that might make you mad, but just hold on.

We're gonna get through this, guys.

Hold on.

Alright, put a hat on.

What if I put it on backwards?

Hold on.

Maybe that would be like Joe Justin, don't.

Too far.

Alright.

Let me explain.

Let me explain.

Okay.

Go back with me to early 2024.

I'm sitting in uh a barber's chair, and I hear a phrase I wasn't prepared for.

The barber said, starting to get a bit thin back there.

And I was like, what?

You know?

I'd actually just had a buddy who told me he was struggling because he was starting to lose his hair, and I was like, dude, that's not a big deal.

Who cares?

You're fine, it's not a big deal.

And then like two days later, that happened to me, and I was like, I care very much about this.

What is uh what do we do?

And so uh, because I don't have a lot going for me physically, but at least I had a full head of hair.

And it's still it's still there, but it's so much, guys.

Just no, no.

Everyone's like, you're not, I am.

It's it's it's gonna take time, but it's it's a whole different texture than it's just it's bad.

So so here's what happened.

I didn't know what to do.

My wife, oh guys, I drove Megan nuts for like two weeks.

And I had people like I was telling friends, because I'm very open, like I'm too open.

And so I had people telling me, oh, just get this, go to Brazil, and they can fix that for you.

I'm like, I'm not going to Brazil.

Someone told me that.

Get this cream, put it on your head every day, you can inject it.

And I'm like, I'm you know what I'm gonna do?

I'm just gonna buy hats.

That's what I decided to do.

So I did, and in one week, I'd never worn hats, like hardly at all.

You know, to a game maybe here or there, but I just wasn't a hat person, and I bought seven hats in a week.

And I have maybe 15 now.

I don't know.

And here's what I found: I love hats.

If you have seen me outside of a Sunday morning at any point in the last nine months, there's like a 95% chance I've been wearing a hat.

I found that I I just genuinely I love it.

I don't have I get up in the morning, I don't even have to do anything, I just put a hat on.

And I can match my hats to my shoes, and I have all these new choices with like wardrobe.

I love it.

I hats, it's like been a revolution in my life.

I love hats.

I love them.

But then I had this crisis because I was like, can I wear a hat at church?

And I didn't know.

I got really panicked by this.

And I and it to a point where it's silly, but I had this like internal dialogue and I had arguments with myself and with other people that don't even exist.

So, for example, I was like, well, you know, I started thinking, you know, Herb, who wasn't on worship this morning, but we all love Herb.

Um, Herb's great, right?

You guys love Herb?

Herb's amazing.

Yeah.

And if you're new, you don't know Herb, but you'll know.

Picture Herb.

Is he wearing a hat?

He's always worn a hat every time he's ever led worship.

And I've never even looked at Herb and been like, get that hat off.

Like, what are you doing?

I've never even thought to do that.

It's never even crossed my mind.

Matt, who has led us in worship for years, he's been part of this church since he was in high school, he's our worship pastor.

Matt wears a beanie.

That's a hat.

It's never even occurred to me to be like, Matt, you are take that hat off.

Right?

And so I'm saying, like, are we a hat church?

Are we a church where not like you should wear a hat, you you ought to wear a hat, but can you wear a hat?

Well, clearly we are, but I was like, but if I wear one, it'll be different.

It will be, and it is.

So then I was like, I don't know.

And then I went through this whole like historical thing.

I'm gonna show you guys some pictures.

All right?

Let's let's picture number one.

All right, here we go.

That is John Calvin.

That is John Calvin.

If you guys know who John Calvin is, Calvinism, not exactly known as like a, hey, let's party kind of guy.

That's not John Calvin's vibe.

John Calvin always preached in a cap like that.

So if you've ever read a John Calvin sermon, if you're like a theologian, you've read John Calvin, just know that when whatever you're reading, he wrote it, he said it wearing a hat in front of other people.

Okay, next picture.

That's Martin Luther.

Hat.

Okay?

Martin Luther, like the father of the Reformation, if you know the church history, big, it's a big deal.

Wearing a hat.

Alright, next picture.

Okay.

Jonathan Edwards, maybe the like most intelligent American theologian that that has ever been in America, wrote a very famous sermon called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

Again, not a like a let's have fun kind of guy, not someone known for being loose and just free.

Not wearing a hat, you say, that is a powdered wig.

He it's true history.

That's not his hair.

That is a hat pretending to be hair.

That is that is that's like a hat that lies.

That's what that is.

Okay?

And Jonathan Edwards always wore a powdered wig when he preached.

Always.

So when he when he preached sinners in the hands of an angry God, and like if you do that, he did it wearing a wig.

I got one more picture for you.

Enough said after this one.

Guys.

Guys.

I mean, can you imagine if I wore a hat like that?

So, alright.

I don't want to get in trouble.

I don't know if I would or not, but I know.

Alright.

So I wrestled with this.

I wrestled with this because I was like, ah, and I wore a hat once.

I just I tested the waters like last October, and I got some responses, and I actually really seriously appreciate those of you who who did share with me, like, hey, what's with a hat?

And my answer was like, I I like I like hats.

But I know it's a thing.

But let's, here's what I want to say too.

Because I care deeply about this stuff.

1 Corinthians chapter 11.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Paul, same guy that wrote Galatians, wrote 1 Corinthians.

He says, A man should not wear anything on his head when worshiping.

For a man is made in God's image and reflects God's glory.

It's like, well, there's the Bible verse about not wearing hats.

And I wrestled with this.

1 Corinthians 11, 13.

He says, judge for yourselves.

Is it right for a woman to pray to God in public without covering her head?

I was like, oh no, we haven't been doing that at all.

We've had so many women on the prayer team, and I've not seen one of them wear a hat.

And so apparently we've been out of.

1 Corinthians 11, 16.

If anyone wants to argue about this, this is when he's talking about this head covering thing, it's a strange chapter in scripture.

I simply say that we have no other custom than this.

And neither do God's other churches.

So, I want to take this off, just in case.

Just in case.

No, so so Paul, and this, there's a chapter with this scripture.

And Paul's saying, hey guys, don't cover your head.

Ladies, cover your heads.

And he's very intense about it.

And you read it, and in 1 Corinthians 11, you're like, what happened to the Paul from Galatians that was like, guys, freedom.

All of a sudden it's it's like rules.

No, it's not.

It's not that at all.

What is it?

It was a custom.

He says, if you want to argue with this, can you point to some other custom that we have?

What he's saying there is that as a church, he's telling the Corinthians who were all over the place.

They were just wild and crazy.

He's like, guys, y'all are causing so many unnecessary distractions.

You're doing things that are so against the norms of the culture that you're part of that it's it's it's just creating division and distraction.

These are our customs.

Just follow our customs.

So so then, again, long process, and we're almost done.

In fact, worship team coming out, so we finish this up.

Um I'm like, Lord, can't I'm like praying this.

Can I wear a hat?

It's a dumb conversation to have with God.

But what it actually, the wrestling that I had with it, what it exposed for me was, wow, Lord, that religious thing, it's strong.

Because I I genuinely I don't ever get nervous standing on stage.

Ever.

There could be 10,000 people in front of me, I'm like, woo.

Um, but I was really nervous to wear a hat.

Because I don't want to mess up and have God be mad.

Like if a few of you get mad, that's actually not that big of a deal.

But if God gets mad, that I'm I'm half joking, because I don't want to create any division unnecessarily here either.

But I thought about Lord, okay, so it's a custom, and the Pope does it, and uh are we at a point in American culture where hats aren't that big of a deal?

Like 50 years ago, 100 years ago, it's like you you know, absolutely, but are we are we there?

Like I wouldn't even maybe I'm just guy can we wear hats as a church?

What do you guys think?

Yes, okay.

That didn't seem very confident.

So I'm not saying you're gonna see me in a hat all the time, but you might.

But what I What I am saying is this, and we'll wrap up with this.

It's a silly example.

What I'm saying is that I feel very confident that what Paul wrote in Corinthians is a custom because he himself called it that.

And that's not the same thing as an absolute, it's not the same thing as an interpretation or even a conviction.

But as a church and as a people, we have to be passionately committed to freedom.

Because Jesus has set you free.

He has set us free.

He's not just set us free from the penalty of sin, he's set us free from the burden of law.

And if you grew up feeling like a failure because of your inability to ever live out the rules the right way, and you felt like God must be so disappointed with you, or if you today feel like you don't live up to whatever God's standard is because you know that you haven't done this right, you haven't done that right, what I want you to know is Paul would look at you, Jesus would look at you and say, You're free.

That doesn't mean your choices don't matter.

It doesn't mean it's not important to live right and to do the right thing.

Next week we're going to talk about what that really looks like.

We're going to talk about living by the Spirit next week because we're actually told in Scripture that God puts his spirit inside of us so that we can actually do the things that we're supposed to do, to live the right way, but it's not out of a strict adherence to a list of rules that that's the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

It's out of a love for God and a desire to actually live in a certain way for Him.

It's freedom.

Not because you have to, because you want to.

We have been set free.

You've been set free.

And so be free.

Shake off whatever system or structure you have in your mind that tells you that you have to do it a certain way, that anytime you've stepped off of the tightrope, God is displeased with you, that he's angry with you because you haven't done it perfectly right.

And remember that the garden was freedom.

We're the ones that chose the tightrope.

And God led us, he let us live that out for a season, but then he came through Jesus and he freed us from that.

So, like Paul, be free.

Enjoy your life.

If you want to have a really good year, enjoy it.

And don't let our enemy for for one second, don't let the enemy convince you that you have to tow the line, or God is displeased.

That's not the way it works anymore.

He loves you, he's your father, he's for you.

Does he want you to live a good life?

Yes.

Does he want you to do things the right way?

Of course, because it's what's good for you.

It's what's good for everyone.

But his love for you and your status with him, it's not about the rules or how well you've done this week or this month or this year.

It's about who Jesus is, who the Father is, and he puts his spirit inside of us to empower us to live it.

We are free.

So let's be free.

Which means that if you want to wear a hat next Sunday, you can.

I might.

I'm still figuring it out.

But we have the freedom to figure it out.

Does that make sense?

So be free and enjoy that.

We're going to finish with Lord's Supper.

You know, the freedom that we have, that ability to go back to the tree of life, it is something that we have because Jesus won it for us.

Jesus died, he gave his life on the cross, paid the penalty for our sin, and now we're free because of this.

So this talk we have about freedom, it wouldn't even be possible without this moment.

And we take this every Sunday if you're new, just to remember what Jesus has done for us and thank him for it.

Reflect on it.

And if you missed a cup with bread and juice, they're at the tables in the back.

Feel free to grab one right now.

You're not going to mess anything up by doing that.

But with that said, let's take the bread.

Jesus, we thank you for this bread.

We thank you for what it represents.

This is your body given for us as a sacrifice.

You died for us.

And you died to put an end to the law.

You died, Lord, to put an end to this exhausting life of trying to please our Father in heaven by strictly adhering to a list of rules that, frankly, we're not capable of living out anyway.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you for freeing us from that.

Thank you for giving us the ability to go back to the tree of life, to sit at your feet, to be loved by you, to be known by you, to be innocent again.

And we thank you for that, Jesus.

Let's take the bread.

Let's pray for the juice.

Lord, we thank you for this juice.

This represents your blood poured out to cleanse us.

A final sacrifice.

Now that this final sacrifice has been made, Lord, help us remember that we don't have to live making constant sacrifices to atone for our mistakes.

That's the old law.

That's the old way of thinking.

But we we tend to think that way.

We're always trying to make up for whatever we feel like we've we've done wrong most recently.

We don't have to live that way.

We can just say thank you when we mess up.

When we struggle, when we fail, we can look at you and say thank you.

That this failure doesn't define my relationship with you anymore.

Because what defines my relationship with you, Father, is that I've been accepted through grace by Jesus Christ.

Thank you for that.

Let's take the juice.