Be Free

All right.

Well, today we are wrapping up a series that we actually started about six weeks ago called Free.

I heard someone go woo-hoo at the thought of wrapping this thing up.

I get it.

I know, I understand.

It's been a lot.

But the series we've been in for the last several weeks has been called Free.

And, you know, it's funny, free coffee opened up the Sunday that we started the series, and that was not planned.

That just worked out that way.

So God has a sense of humor.

But this whole time we've been talking about this idea of freedom.

And what we've actually been doing is going through a very complex, nuanced, complicated section of scripture.

We've been going through Romans chapter 6, chapter 7, and most of chapter 8 as we sort of make our way through this letter in the New Testament of the Bible called Romans.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

And I just have to say something real quick.

Those of you, Willie's getting me all fixed up.

Let's hear it for Willie, by the way.

Good job, Willie.

I was probably not in the right spot for the camera.

I don't think about those things well.

So anyway, um, Romans 6, 7, and 8 might be one of the most complicated parts of one of the most complicated sections that we have in all of the Bible.

And those of you who have been here for the entire time, or even most of the weeks, I just want to commend you for a moment because this has been some pretty nuanced stuff.

But I will say this and I believe this because I've felt it.

I know this is true, that this church is full of people who have a genuine hunger to grow in their faith.

You know, sometimes we settle for way less than we should.

And this is true in every aspect of life.

It's easy to settle for the broad strokes.

It's easy to settle for just like, just give me the bullet points, just give me the basics.

And maybe you've had things in life where you're like, yeah, I don't care that much about this, just give me the basics, I'll be fine.

That can't be the way it is with our faith.

Like the basics we need, but we need more than that.

And his hands as a church, we've always been a really accessible church.

If you're here, you're new to church, you're new to Jesus, like we don't take ourselves that seriously.

We have a lot of fun, none of us have life figured out, but we do believe that we can have a really good time together and be a church that you can engage with, even if you if you're new to the whole faith thing, but at the same time not sacrifice the deep stuff.

Because when it comes to our faith, guys, we we want to go deep with God.

Like, how deep do you want your roots to be with God?

Because the deeper those roots are, the stronger you will be.

The deeper your roots and your faith are, the more you're able and capable to withstand everything that life throws at you.

You want to go, you want to go deep.

And it's been fun to open up a section of scripture that that even planning for it, I was like, oh, I gotta talk about all that.

Okay.

Lord, please help me.

But it's it's been a lot of fun.

And to those of you who are new, maybe you're here for the first time, maybe you're watching from home for the very first time, you might be tempted right now to be like, I picked the wrong Sunday to come.

We're wrapping up a series on what is apparently one of the most complicated, complex aspects of scripture.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, number one, I'll catch you up in a second.

But number two, more importantly, you are created by God.

You have been created by God with the capacity to understand deeply spiritual things.

I don't care if you're if you're in your 60s, 70s, I don't care if you're 10, you have the capacity inside of you.

Created by the God who made you to understand deeply spiritual things.

And that's why Jesus could simultaneously be someone who talked about things that no one had ever heard before and it blew people's minds, but at the same time, he was completely accessible to people who had honestly counted themselves out of the whole God thing.

We don't have to sacrifice depth to have fun together and to be accessible and to not take ourselves seriously.

So I've enjoyed this tremendously.

Now, what we're gonna do before we wrap it all up and hopefully tie a bow on it, unless I fail miserably, which is entirely possible, by the way, um, is I want I want to recap where we've been.

And honestly, this series has been a little bit different.

Normally, I don't spend as much time recapping what we've talked about in previous weeks as I've had to in this one.

Normally, when I plan a message, I want every single message to be able to stand on its own.

To just be able to maybe be connected to something else, but but to stand on its own.

This series does not work like that because some things just have to go together.

I was thinking about this on the drive here this morning.

One of the worst meals that I have ever had.

Not worst in terms of how it tasted, in terms of its quality or how it was made, but just conceptually.

I ordered uh at a restaurant something called deconstructed jambalaya.

Now, quick show of hands, who who's eaten jambalaya?

Like, who likes jambalaya?

Who ate it and said, I will eat that again?

Yeah, like it's does anyone here make a really good jambalaya?

Could you just bring some next week?

And just raise your hand if you would like some.

Okay?

Just enough for these people.

Here we go.

You got it?

All right.

That's the Holbrook family.

I see y'all.

I'm counting on you guys next.

She's gonna come in with like so many pots of jambalaya and be like, I was kind of kidding, but let's go.

Let's see what happens.

I'm just gonna be excited to see what happens next week.

Jambalaya's good.

It's even I didn't hear what you said, but it was funny.

Uh Jambalaya, it's it's good, right?

And it's even like fun to say.

It's just a fun word, it's a fun food.

And if you've never had it before, it's kind of like this Cajun rice, and then it has all kinds of spices and sausage and shrimp and sometimes chicken and all kinds of other things.

So I went to this restaurant one time and I see on the menu a deconstructed jambalaya.

And I'm like, ooh, I love, I love jambalaya.

I'm ordering that.

And what I got was exactly what I ordered.

It was all the things that make jambalaya, jambalaya just not together.

Deconstructed.

So it was a piece of chicken and a piece of sausage and some rice, and it was like the most disappointing thing I've ever tasted in my life because I saw the word jambalaya and my heart jumped.

I love it.

And uh, and it wasn't very good.

Because what makes jambalaya good is that it all goes together.

Like you have to cook it all together.

You have to put all the elements together and let them all, you know, blend with one another, and that's what makes it good.

And the same is true with so many of the concepts that end up forming the foundation of our faith.

You know, sometimes in our culture that's so just, you know, quick hits and hot takes and all that kind of stuff, we like to take these aspects of our faith and break them into these little tiny, digestible, bite-sized pieces and go, okay, I understand grace and forgiveness and mercy and God and all these, but at the same time, as a work like that.

No, no, we we need to have everything working together.

We need to have that understanding.

And the concepts that we've talked about in this series, they just have to go together.

You can't deconstruct this and get the most out of it.

So I want to recap for just a little bit.

And what I'm hoping happens is really simple.

Every week, I feel like as we've talked about these ideas, the focus has just become a little bit more clear each week.

And dots begin to connect.

And my hope today is that we walk out of here going, I know what this is all about.

I understand what Jesus has done for me, and I know what to do with it.

And if we can accomplish that and walk out of here knowing that and being ready to do that, I think we're in a really good place.

And so let's start here.

The word free.

We've called this series free because this section of scripture talks a lot about freedom.

In fact, if you wanted to pick a theme verse, we've kind of gone with Romans 8 2, which says, Because you belong to Him.

Anyone in the room would say that you belong to Jesus?

Anyone at all?

Like I belong to Jesus?

Okay, good.

Because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving spirit, that's the Holy Spirit, has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.

If you belong to Jesus, the power, the undeniable power of the Holy Spirit gives you life.

And it's a kind of life that is so unique, so different, so other than what most of the world would consider life to be, that you are now free from the power of sin that leads to death.

Now, just in that one sentence, there's all these concepts that are blending together.

And so, I'm not gonna deconstruct it because I learned my lesson with Jambalaya, but I want to analyze what we're looking at.

Okay, so we've we've used this as a framework the entire time we've been in this section to understand what we're talking about.

Two columns.

How many of you are tired of seeing this?

A little bit?

Okay, it's the last week.

None of you were tired.

Great, we'll keep this going.

We'll keep it going.

Um, everyone in the room, everyone watching from home, you were all born.

And when you were born, you received uh a nature.

You received uh personality, you have dreams and passions and goals and talents and all kinds of things, and and this would be called in scripture flesh.

Sometimes it's translated sin nature, sometimes it's translated flesh.

The two terms are synonymous, but the idea is that you were born, you have a nature, the Bible calls that flesh, and flesh unfortunately leads to death.

And we see all kinds of scriptures in this section that have that have talked about this.

Romans chapter 6, verse 16 begins, and it says, Don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey.

Romans 6:16

You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.

Thank God.

Once you were slaves of sin, but now wholeheartedly obey this teaching that we've given you.

Now you're free from your slavery to sin.

Now these terms are harsh.

And there might be a part of us that's like, I don't, I don't like this.

I don't like the idea of being a slave to sin or a slave to my nature.

Galatians 5 continues this idea, verse 16.

So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives.

Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature, and some translations will just say your flesh craves.

The sinful nature, the flesh, it wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants, and the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires.

And all of these desires, all of the flesh apart from God, Romans 6.23 says it so simply, it leads to death.

The wages of sin is death.

But the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Okay, so a few things that I want to point out, want to clarify.

First of all, we have to understand that this idea is the complete opposite of what our culture has taught us.

I get caught up in this sometimes, I get a little stuck.

And if you've known me for long, I've talked about this before, I'll talk about it again.

I think it's really important that we understand that the message of Jesus is completely and totally antithetical to the culture's message that we are programmed to believe from a very young age.

The message of Jesus, the gospel we might say, it's not just a slight variation on the things that we're taught to believe.

It is an it's completely different, it's totally different, it's an entirely new way to look at and understand life.

But in order to see that, we have to understand and really come to terms with what we've been taught to believe and how we've been taught to think.

This stands opposed to everything that our culture teaches us.

Because what our culture actually teaches us is that is that when we're born, we have this nature.

And what we need to do is be true to this nature.

We need to be true to this.

And if we're true to this, if we can just really be true to our ourselves and get in touch with what we truly deeply desire and live out of that, it will lead to life.

Now, this is actually a very specific worldview.

It's called secular humanism, and it's been the dominant worldview in America for about the last 50, 60 years.

It's the official worldview of the United States, at least it is in the school system.

I started school in 1989.

That's when uh when kindergarten happened for me.

And what I was taught in kindergarten, in very unique terms and on posters on the walls, was secular humanism.

And if you don't know what that is, here's the basic definition.

I just looked this up.

Uh, it's the belief that humanity is capable of morality and self-fulfillment without belief in God.

We don't need to believe in God.

We don't need to even have a concept of God to be the best that we can be.

What we need to do is be true to ourselves.

And that's why the champion statements, the mantras of secular humanism that we've all grown up around are things like just be yourself.

I mean, how many of us have heard that so many times in so many different ways that the key to happiness is learning to just be yourself?

I mean, raise your hand if that's a theme that you've heard, right?

Disney songs, movies, it's all over the place.

And anyone who's ever been on a first date and wants to get to a second date knows that that's garbage.

Like the key to the second date is to not be yourself, right?

I wasn't myself until year five of marriage.

Um, I was smart.

I'm not showing her the truth.

That's gonna No, I'm just teasing, sort of.

Uh but like honestly, no, just be yourself.

Believe in what?

What were we all taught to believe in?

Ourselves.

Just believe in yourself, and you'll be you'll be happy, you'll be fulfilled.

And then that language has morphed over time, and now we have phrases like, you know, you gotta find your truth.

Find your truth, live your truth, and you will be happy.

And that's what we've been doing as a nation for the last 50 years, and that's why everyone's so happy, right?

That's why everybody's so fulfilled in our culture.

Everyone's just smiling, no one's mad about anything, right?

No one believes that the world is falling apart, no one's like on anxiety medication or anything like that at all.

We're all so happy because we've been doing, we've been doing us.

We've been being ourselves and trying to fulfill ourselves and find ourselves and be ourselves and and find our truth and living out of that, and it it leads to, it doesn't lead to life.

This doesn't play out.

We're taught this, but it just isn't true.

It's like an experiment that humanity took up 50 years ago, and now we should be at the point where like, maybe this doesn't work.

Maybe the answer for fulfillment is not just within ourselves.

Like maybe, maybe we need someone who knows better.

Maybe we need help, maybe we need some guidance.

We all know that this is true because any of us who have lived more than two decades have memories, very, very clear, distinct memories of times that we have followed our hearts and been ourselves and followed our truth, and it has led to regret and disaster and death.

We've phrased it this way it might be the death of an opportunity, it might be the death of a relationship, maybe it's been the death of trust, maybe it's the death of self-respect.

When you live out of your flesh, just doing you, just being yourself, disconnected from the God who created you, it leads to death.

That's what the flesh does.

Now, last week Megan spoke and uh a little bit upset because I'm just gonna be honest, she did a really good job.

And uh, yeah, you can clap for that.

But I needed her to do less good.

Like, it's just the way now I have to follow that.

In fact, someone texted me on Monday, hey, what can I pray for you this week?

And I was like, pray that I can follow my wife's message, because honestly, it was it was amazing.

And there were some aspects that Megan talked about that again, this is about getting this into focus.

I want to make sure we really understand what this is saying so that we can know what to do with it, because that's what today is all about.

This flesh thing, we get confused about that.

And so there were a few words that uh that that Megan wrote out, and hers was pretty with nice handwriting and whatnot, but I'm a guy.

So uh these are Greek words, and we find these words in scripture all the time.

Uh, soma means your physical body.

Psyche, that that's your that's your soul.

That's your your mind, your thoughts.

And in our language, in kind of American Western culture, we might say that your soul, your psyche, that's your mind and your heart.

Your mind, it's that logical part of you that thinks, and your heart is that that compassionate, emotional part of you that feels.

These are your thoughts, your feelings, that's all your soul.

And then there's this deeper part, pneuma is the Greek word, and it's your spirit.

That's your your spirit.

And that that's the part of you that that honestly makes you unique as a person.

When you look at the story of Scripture, God creates everything, and everything's good.

In fact, it's kind of uniform in the early story of the Bible.

If you read the first chapter of Genesis, he's like, God makes this and he says it's good.

God makes that and he says it's good, and he makes it, and guess what?

It's good.

Everything's good, but we're unique.

Because when he made us, it says that he breathed his spirit into us.

We have a we have a spirit, we have a deeper part of who we are.

Now, our culture, for the most part, has denied that, right?

Because it's secular humanism.

You don't do the spirit stuff.

And what we've actually done over time is we've begun as people to confuse our psyche, our soul, with our spirit.

And it causes a lot of confusion.

I was having a lot of conversations this week about that.

In fact, just had a really great conversation this morning with someone, and we were talking about the fact that we struggle as Americans to not see our soul as the deepest part of who we are.

But it's not.

And this can get kind of complicated as a Christian because I've known a lot of people who confuse their soul, their most passionate feelings, with their spirit, with the Holy Spirit.

And so they thought they were following the Spirit, they thought they were doing what the Spirit wanted them too.

Turns out they were really just being hyper-emotional and really going with what made sense to them, with what they felt was right, and our feelings, while important, a really important part of who we are, they're not spirit.

See, our flesh, it's not just our body, it's our psyche, it's our soul, it's your thoughts, your feelings.

That's that's still flesh.

And so if we live out of our thoughts and our feelings, if that's what drives everything we do, it doesn't go well.

You know, I have four children, I talk about them very often.

They live out of their soul.

They want something, and they want it, they want it bad.

You know how kids just never want something a little bit?

It's funny, right?

Like there's no six-year-old who's like, I'd be okay with that.

They're like, no, I want it, I've never wanted anything more than I want this right now.

I can't, I can't live without it.

I have to have it.

I just saw it, I didn't know it existed five seconds ago, but I have to have it, I want it, my life will be over if I don't, if I don't have it.

You guys know what these things called poppets are?

You know, poppets, like it's a thing with with young people.

I don't know, maybe it's all people.

I'm just late to the party, but they're like these uh these little things that have little bubbles and you pop them and it feels nice to pop them.

I don't know.

It's like bubble wrap, but you can do it over and over again, which is kind of cool when you think about it.

Um, my kids got those, but my three-year-old decided that they're all his.

All of them.

And he has to go to bed with everybody's puppet.

Everyone's.

And he he won't settle for for three of the four.

He has to have all four.

And so at night, because I just want to go to bed, uh, I'm like searching the house for the the other puppet.

I walked into my son's room, I'm like, hey, where's your puppet?

And he's like, it's mine.

I'm like, not right now, it's not.

Give me your puppet.

I'm trying to put that kid to bed, right?

And and the thing is, Eli, he just wants it really bad.

But let's be honest, guys, how many of us have justified major decisions in our lives?

And we might like to think that it's it's out of a maturity, it's out of a even maybe a spiritual maturity, but at the end of the day, the justification is I just really, really want to.

I I have to.

I want to.

I have that.

That's that's flesh, that's that's soul.

And there's a deeper part of who you are.

I'm not saying your soul's bad, it's not, but it is flesh.

That's something that Megan talked about last week.

So let's let's go back to this because we're we're we're almost done wrapping this up and we'll we'll we'll understand all of the mysteries of life.

It's gonna be so good.

Um this is flesh, right?

And and it leads to death, and this whole idea that living this way is the way to live, this whole secular humanism thing, our culture screams at us, it's it's a big lie.

And it's actually a really dangerous lie because here's here's the way it always works out it it pretends to be empowering.

It sounds empowering.

You don't you don't need God.

Like you don't have to have faith.

Look, faith is a crutch.

It's a crutch, it's for weak people.

Or or or maybe it's this hey, God and the whole faith thing, that's repressive.

All that's gonna do is contain who you really are, it's gonna keep you from being true to yourself.

It sounds empowering.

It sounds like, oh, this is how I really unlock my potential and become the person that I really want to be.

But here's what it always turns into: it turns into people making poor decisions and justifying it by saying, I can't help myself.

This is not a strong view of humanity, it's a weak view of humanity because when people live this way, the things you hear all the time are I can't help how I feel.

I can't change the way that I feel, I have no control, my emotions have complete and total control over me.

I am a slave to my feelings, I am a slave to my my flesh.

You won't use those words, but it's what ends up being said.

That's what's always said is I can't I can't help myself.

I have to.

And God will look at us and say, Who told you that?

You are so much more than that.

How do we how do we mitigate this?

How do we how do we try to come around this?

Well, the way that we've historically done it is law.

It's religion.

Let's make a bunch of rules and let's try to legislate the flesh.

Let's make a bunch of rules and let you know what let's do this is a great idea.

Let's make it illegal to be a bad person.

If we just made it illegal to be bad, no one would be bad, right?

Doesn't work like that, does it?

No, in fact, what ends up happening when you make laws to try to mitigate the flesh, all it does is reinforce this stuff in a couple of different ways.

And we've talked about this.

Number one, if if I tell you something is illegal, you want to do it a little bit more, right?

I mean, it's like take a 16-year-old and show them a speed limit, son, and they're like, I can go faster than that.

It's a challenge, right?

If I find one door in my house today that just goes to a random closet, but I put on it, only mom and dad are allowed in this room.

All of my children will want to be in that room.

Like all that happened was a law was created and they want to break it.

There's a part of us that has that rebellious tendency.

So when you when you try to legislate the flesh, it doesn't work.

Number two, even if you try your best to follow those laws, you fail, and all that does is reinforce that, oh, I guess I am a bad person because it was illegal to be a bad person, and I did it anyway.

What does that mean for me?

That's why we have to be so careful about believing that laws are the solution to all the problems.

There's heart issues, and you can't legislate the heart.

It doesn't work.

We need something else.

That's where Jesus comes in.

John chapter 3 says, Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.

John 3 · chapter mention

In other words, this guy's a religious expert.

And he came to Jesus at night and he said, Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher who's come from God.

No one could perform the signs you're doing if God were not with him.

And Jesus replied, Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.

Well, how can someone be born when they're old?

Nicodemus asked.

Surely they can't enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born.

And Jesus answered, Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the spirit.

Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit.

Jesus says, You must be born again.

Something needs to happen.

And when you put your faith in Jesus, you're born again.

And now you get a new nature.

And this nature is not flesh, it's spirit.

And this leads to life.

Because your spirit, combined with the Holy Spirit, will begin to desire the things that God actually desires for you.

We see so much scripture about this.

Romans 8, 16, for his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children.

This is mysterious stuff, I know.

And some of you are really logical, and you're like, I need to know exactly how this works.

I can't tell you.

But I've met people who are different people than they used to be.

And it wasn't because of their own efforts, it wasn't because of them training their minds to think differently, something happened.

They had an encounter with God, and it changed them.

They were born again.

Ephesians 2.10 says we are God's masterpiece.

He created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things that He planned for us long ago.

You have been made new.

It's a powerful thing to think about.

If you put your faith in Jesus, you've been born again.

You have a new nature.

It's your spirit.

And your spirit will desire the very things that God desires for you.

And if you learn to live out of your spirit, if you learn to let the spirit be what guides you and drives you, it leads to life.

Now the recap's almost done, I promise.

Megan talked about this last week, and I honestly, this was a moment that brought it home for me in a big way.

I was sitting there just kind of taking it in, learning.

Some of us might be looking at this being like, yeah, yeah, this is all cool, but like I still deal with a lot of this.

This stuff's still there.

So what gives?

If I'm a new person, then why isn't the flesh stuff just gone?

That can actually lead to like a crisis in our faith, but here's what we have to understand.

Now, Megan drew this last week and it was like artsy and beautiful and stuff, and I'm not doing that, okay?

This is the best I can do.

Let me get my marker.

It's always so hard because I'm sweaty.

It's the COVID-19, it makes me hot.

That's the weight that I put on during COVID.

Okay, so we have spirit and flesh.

Okay?

I call it the COVID-19.

It's more like the COVID-24, but no, this is all good.

Um you know that you're hitting a stage of life where it's hard to lose weight when you start getting excited about genes that stretch.

You know what I'm talking about?

Like, this is a quick aside.

Like I go to the store and I'm like, oh, these are really flexible.

I guess I don't need to lose weight, you know.

I never cared about that when I was in my 20s.

Now I want stretchy pants.

Okay, so your flesh, which includes your body and all the weight that you have on it, uh, but also your flesh is your, it's your soul, right?

It's your mind, it's it's your heart, it's your emotions, it's your passions, it's your talents, it's your dreams, your intellect, your emotions, your goals.

Now, apart from the Holy Spirit, this is the way Megan put it last week, thought it was brilliant.

Apart from the Holy Spirit, this is like this is like the enemy, the devil's playground.

Like Satan just, he loves it.

He's like, I'll take your passions and I'll make you make stupid decisions out of those.

I'll tempt you to follow your passions to bad places.

I'll take your talent and I'll fill you with pride.

And you'll learn to rely on your natural talents.

You won't rely on God, you won't even ask for his help because you've got it until you don't.

I'll take your dreams and I'll confuse you.

And I'll cause you to limit what God wants to do in your life, and you'll settle for silly dreams like just having a lot of money or having nice stuff.

I'll take your intellect and I'll fill you with all kinds of pride, with all kinds of arrogance, because you'll think you've got it figured out and you don't.

And then you'll run into something that you don't understand and you won't know what to do.

I'll take your goals, your emotions, I'll take all this stuff, and I'll just mess with it.

And it's like it's the devil's playground and it's flesh, and he's good with flesh, and it leads us astray.

But here's what happens.

We read this in Romans chapter 6.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

When we give our lives to Jesus, verse 4 says, We died, and we're buried with Christ by baptism.

That's why baptism is the way it is.

When you go into the water, it's symbolic of Jesus going into the tomb.

So we died when we were buried with him in baptism, and just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

So here's what happens.

This is so good.

This stuff, when you give your life to Jesus, it gets buried.

It's in the ground.

But the Spirit begins to work in us, and this goes from being the devil's playground to God's garden.

Because now the Holy Spirit can come in and resurrect and redeem this stuff, and Megan drew little like flowers.

That's my best.

That's a flower.

Uh that's not bad.

Come on.

Yay, Justin.

I will sell this to you for$45.

Straight.

I'll even laminate it for you.

Um, but like all of a sudden, God can say, you know what?

I can take your passions now.

The Holy Spirit comes in, redeems you, begins to work in your flesh, brings your flesh to life.

And it begins to take your passions and your talents and your intellect and your goals and emotions and dreams, and it starts to pull that stuff up and bring that stuff out in a way that never could have happened apart from God.

Now it can be your intellect and your talent, but without the pride.

Now it can be your passions, but with discernment.

Because God takes this stuff and he uses it.

All of your personality traits, all this flesh stuff.

It's not bad.

It's not, it's not stuff that God wants to do away with, it's stuff that God wants to redeem.

He wants to change, He wants to make it useful, He wants to make you the version of yourself that you were meant to be.

That's a beautiful thing.

That's what God does.

See, now you're free.

Like, I'm gonna make sure to emphasize this.

You're free.

Now, because of the power of the life-giving spirit, because the Holy Spirit has joined with your spirit and has begun to redeem your flesh and take all those things that you've always said, this is just how I'm wired, this is the way I was born, all those types of things that make you who you are, the Holy Spirit grabs a hold of those and says, you know what?

I can do something amazing with this.

I'm gonna bring this to life, I'm gonna bring this out in new ways, and now you are free of all the other stuff that held you back.

You're free from the power of sin, you're free from death, you're free from fear.

Any of you who have ever lived afraid of what God thinks about you, that fear has no place in your lives anymore.

If you've given your life to Jesus, here's what God thinks about you.

My son, my daughter, I love them, they bring me great joy.

You're free of fear.

You're free of shame.

Any shame and regret you have because of mistakes that you made out of the flesh, guess what?

The flesh, it's buried.

It's gone.

God looks at it and he's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

That's why scripture says that he takes our sin as far as the east is from the west.

That he takes our mistakes and he throws them in the ocean and they're they're dead, they're buried.

So we might look to God and be like, I'm so ashamed, and he'll look at you and say, ashamed of what?

That's gone.

You're free of shame, you're free of guilt.

You're completely and totally free.

You're free of self-reliance, you're free of self-sabotage, you're free of self-destruction.

You, if you belong to Jesus, if you've given your life to him, you are 100% free.

And that is good news.

You're free.

Does this make sense?

All right, good.

I'm done with the chart.

So, what do we do with this?

That's the question.

We're gonna take just a few minutes and and hopefully put this into action.

What do you do with freedom?

All right, it's really simple.

You just have to be free.

Now here's the funny thing with freedom.

It's simple, but it's not easy.

Like, it's so funny, my kids will come to me and they'll they'll want me to like tell them what to do sometimes.

You know, they'll say, Dad, like, I want to play.

And I might go play.

They're like, no, no, dad, I want to like, I don't know what to play.

There's nothing to do.

And I'm like, what do you mean there's there's nothing to do?

Like outside there's a swing set and a jungle gym and a slide and a bunch of just grass that you can run around in, and there's a playhouse, and and inside there's just games, galore, and all kinds of stuff.

Like, just pick pick something.

Just go play.

And they're like, I don't, I just tell me what I don't know what to do.

It's like they short circuit.

Because freedom, freedom's intimidating.

And it's amazing how often people will claim that they want freedom, but really what they want is safety.

Really, what they want is just to have someone figure it out for them.

Like we've said from the beginning of this series, it's one thing to be handed freedom, it's another thing to know what to do with it.

Jesus has won your freedom.

He has freed you from the power of sin and death.

You are completely and totally free, but now you've got to learn how to be free, how to live in that freedom.

And freedom is messy, freedom is difficult, it's not neat and tidy.

Control is neat and tidy.

Freedom's a mess.

That's why American history is so interesting.

We've talked about that a bunch in this series.

Look at the history of America.

We're free people and we don't know what to do with it.

And so it's messy.

But I'd rather have messy freedom than neat and tidy control.

So we've got to learn as people how to be free.

Now, a few tips in that, really quick.

Number one, you've got to think like a free person.

You've got to think free.

Romans 6.11 says you should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive through Jesus Christ.

In other words, you have to think this way.

You have to think like a free person.

If you believe that you're not actually dead to the power of sin, if you believe that your flesh is still in control, what's gonna happen when you get tempted?

What's gonna happen when you're when you're struggling?

If deep down inside you actually believe that, yeah, I don't I don't have total freedom, I really can't say no to these things.

I I really have to do what I desire to do, even if I know it's not good.

I'm I mean, I'm just I'm only human.

If that's the way you think, then you're in trouble.

But you have to think like a free person.

You have to believe this.

Romans chapter 12, verse 2 says, Don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by what?

Romans 12:2

By changing the way you think.

Then you will know God's will for you, which is good.

The way that you think matters.

It's interesting, the word repent.

We associate that with somebody standing on a street corner with a sign, just yelling at us and being crazy and weird.

The word repent just means rethink, think differently.

Some of us today, we we we've got to start thinking like free people, truly believing that what Jesus did on the cross accomplished something.

Before he breathes his last breath on the cross, Jesus said these words.

He said, It is finished.

He didn't say almost done.

He didn't say, hey, I've taken it most of the way there.

Now you guys take it from here and really bring it to completion.

Jesus did something on the cross and it changed things.

And the power of sin and death is dead because of what Jesus did.

But as people, we have to believe that we're free.

We have to think this way.

You know, go back to those columns that we've looked at so many weeks, right?

The whole born flesh death, born spirit life.

Which one of those do you believe is the real you?

It's something we've talked about a lot, but you've got to see yourself.

The real you is the spirit.

But we're conditioned to believe differently because when we say phrases like, I was just born this way, we're almost always talking about the flesh.

It's like the spiritual birth doesn't really count, like it's not as real as the other.

That's not true.

Your spirit, alive through your faith in Jesus, because the Holy Spirit has made his home in your heart, that is you.

That is more real than anything that you see.

That will never die, that will never fade away.

But you have to think like this.

You are a new creation, you are a new person.

And when you get tempted, when sin or or whatever comes your way and it tempts you, and you're led to believe that you're weak and you can't do it.

No, you've got to think differently.

You have to have the ability to say, that's not who I am anymore.

So I don't have to do that.

I don't have to follow that desire.

I know where it leads.

I'm free now.

You can't make me.

I mean, honestly, just use really childish rebukes to Satan.

You can't make me.

Because he can't.

He can't.

There's no power over you.

Unless you think he does.

That leads us to the second one.

If you want to experience the freedom, if you want to be free, you gotta you gotta be strong.

Do you believe that you're strong?

Someone just sighed or yawned or something.

I hope you're not mad about the strong thing, because you're strong.

Do you believe that though?

You know, strength is something necessary for freedom.

Freedom and weakness don't go together.

It doesn't work.

If you're free but weak, you won't be free for long.

At the same time, it's hard to keep someone who's strong subjugated for very long.

You are strong because you have the power of the Holy Spirit inside of you.

There's a guy I used to listen to, I've used this before, but I don't have that much original thought in my brain, so I have to repeat stuff a lot.

Uh we're all like toothpicks on our own.

Pretty easy to break, but with Jesus, we're like toothpicks duct taped to a lead pipe.

You know, just try to break it.

And as silly and cheesy as that may be, it's it's true.

You're strong.

The Holy Spirit lives inside of you.

It's the same spirit, by the way, that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

That same spirit lives inside of you.

How strong does that make you?

You know, one of my favorite things to do when I read the stories of Jesus is just read what happens when Jesus encounters someone who's possessed by a demon.

And if you're here and you're watching and that whole concept is a little much for you, I I get that.

That makes sense.

But look, the supernatural stuff is real, the good stuff and the bad.

And and I don't know if any of you have had this experience, but I've had times in life where I've seen the dark stuff and it's it's real.

But it's funny when Jesus is in the presence of someone possessed, when he's in the presence of something truly demonic and evil, uh, the evil thing freaks out, panics, screams, begs.

That's how powerful Jesus is.

That's how powerful the Spirit of God is, and that spirit lives inside of you.

Do you understand that?

That means there's nothing that you can't do.

There's nothing with God.

There's nothing when you live in partnership with God that you cannot overcome.

And I'm not just saying this is a pep talk.

This is not about our own strength, that you can do anything.

Believe in yourself.

No, no, no.

Believe in the power of the Holy Spirit inside of you.

There is nothing that you cannot overcome.

In fact, one of one of most people's favorite verses is the verse that through Christ we are more than conquerors.

And in the Greek language, that more than conquerors, it's actually just one word, but it translates weird in English because it's actually the word hyper-conquerors.

Some of you might be hyperactive, or at least you used to be, or your kids are, but they're over there.

Through Jesus Christ, you are hyper, hyper-conquerors.

You're strong.

And strength is better than safety.

It's more important than safety all day long.

And God cares much more about us being strong than he cares about us being safe.

Because the safest person in the room is the strongest person in the room.

That's why, by the way, when God made the garden, he didn't make it snake-proof.

Like apparently, God was okay.

If you know the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, God was okay with the garden having some danger in it.

Because God wants us to be strong and you are strong because the Spirit of God lives inside of you.

You are equipped.

You are equipped through the power of the Holy Spirit to come against anything that comes against you.

And again, this isn't just a pep talk to make you feel good.

This is reality.

So you've got to be strong because freedom will be attacked.

Your freedom bothers your enemy.

Your freedom will be attacked.

Your freedom will be threatened, but you are strong through the power of the Holy Spirit.

You can come against anything that comes against you.

Let's look at Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Verse 10 says, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Like, how strong is God?

Come on, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand your ground.

And after you've done everything to stand, stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.

With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.

Now, there's a lot there, and we did a series about a year and a half, two years ago called Standing Ground.

You can find that on our app, on our podcast, and you can get a deep dive on all that stuff.

But simply put, you are equipped.

The enemy, the world would like you to think that you're powerless, that you don't have any tools available to fight.

Are you kidding me?

Do you know how powerful prayer is?

It's so powerful.

I've seen God answer crazy prayers, like insane prayers.

And sometimes it makes me wonder why I don't pray crazier prayers more often.

I literally had times where I'm like, God, I should have just been praying for this all along.

Why do I pray weak prayers when I have a strong God?

Do you know how powerful your faith is?

That's why Jesus said that faith, the size of a mustard seed, can move mountains because a little bit of faith in a really big God can do just about anything.

Do you know how powerful the truth actually is?

Jesus said the truth will set you free.

Not your truth.

Your truth will not set you free.

If you're driving like 75 in a 35 mile an hour speed zone, and a cop pulls you over and you say, Well, my truth is that I was driving 35 miles an hour, you will not get off the hook.

All of a sudden, your truth doesn't matter.

Because there is something called the truth.

And there's nothing more true than the word of God.

When God speaks, it is true.

It's always true.

And if you build your life on truth, Jesus said it so simply, Matthew chapter 7, he says, Anyone who listens to what I say and does it is like someone who builds their house on bedrock.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

And when storms come and when floods come, guess what?

It's still standing.

You are strong.

So be strong.

Think free, be strong.

One final thing worship team, you guys can make your way out.

Never go back.

Never go back.

It is amazing how often people will be willing to trade in a little bit of freedom for safety or something else.

Something that feels more certain.

If you know the story of the people of Israel in the Old Testament, they're slaves in Egypt.

I mean, they're they're broken as a people.

One of the final straws is that Pharaoh realizes that the Israelites are growing too big in number.

And so he creates a law and has all of the males under a certain age thrown into the Nile River and killed.

There's a mass extermination.

That's what slavery was like in Egypt.

And God sends Moses and he frees him, and there's miracles, and there's all kinds of great stuff.

Some of the best stories we have in scripture.

It's been made in the movies several different times.

But it's interesting, they're in the desert free.

But they don't know what to do with freedom yet.

They don't think free yet.

They don't realize how strong they are.

And so at a certain point in time, they start to grumble and they start to say things like, Maybe we should just go back to Egypt.

They actually say that.

Maybe we ought to go back.

Maybe, maybe this whole freedom thing isn't what it's cracked up to be.

Why don't we go back there?

Because at least back there, you know, we had this, and you want to look at them and go, Are you crazy?

Do you not remember what those people did to you?

Why would you even think about going back?

And the reason that we think about going back sometimes, the reason that we're we're willing to relinquish freedom is because we we value safety and simplicity.

And sometimes freedom's complicated.

Sometimes freedom requires strength.

But never go back.

Same thing happens later on in Israel's life.

If you read the story of Israel, you realize how much God loves freedom because when he makes them into a nation, he doesn't even give them a king.

They don't even have a ruler.

He doesn't give them some government that like just pounds them with rules and regulations.

They're very free people, more free than we might understand.

But eventually they decide, you know, we don't like this freedom.

Give us a king.

We want a king.

And Samuel, who's the prophet at the time, he's like, no, you don't.

You don't want a king.

Because here's what the king's gonna do.

The king's gonna take a bunch of your stuff, he's gonna make your kids serve in the military.

He's gonna come and he's gonna crush you with all kinds of taxes, and you don't want a king.

And they're like, We do.

And so he's like, All right, here you go.

Here's a king, and then things go really poorly.

Freedom is so valuable.

Jesus has set you free, so never go back.

Don't ever go back to religion, to just trying to connect with God by following a list of rules.

It doesn't work.

In fact, in Galatians chapter 5, verse 1, Paul wrote, 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 the yoke of slavery.

And what he's talking about there is actually religion.

The church that he's writing to, he was appalled and just blown away, perplexed that they were going back to the laws of the people of Moses.

Like all of a sudden, instead of just enjoying the freedom that God had won for them and being free to enjoy life and knowing that they were forgiven, they were going back to this legalistic way of living, where every day was about whether or not you followed an arbitrary list of rules.

And he was like, Why would you go back to that?

Don't go back to thinking that way.

Don't go back to religion, don't go back to sin.

These are pretty strong words, but in 2 Peter 2, verses 20 through 22, Peter writes, When people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus, and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they're worse off than before.

2 Peter 2:20–22

It'd be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.

And they prove the truth of this proverb a dog returns to its vomit, and another says a washed pig returns to the mud.

And again, I know that's harsh language, but what we have to understand, and we talked about this a few weeks ago, sin isn't messing around.

Sin is never content with just a little bit.

Sin is never content with just being an annoyance in your life, it wants to destroy you, destroy your life.

And when you know Jesus and you've been freed from the power of sin, doesn't mean you're not gonna struggle.

And Peter here's not talking about people who are struggling, he's talking about people who have abandoned their faith and said, now I'm just going back into this full-fledged.

And he says, You're worse off than before.

Don't do that because you don't have to.

Think free, be strong, never ever go back.

Jesus has set you free.

Do you believe that?

Jesus has set you free.

And we'll close with this.

This is the whole wrap-up to be free.

There's no one more powerful than Jesus.

There's no one more powerful than him.

No one else has the final say.

No one else has authority over death.

Yesterday my wife and I were in the backyard and she's doing some gardening, and some of the stuff hasn't grown.

It's died.

And you know, it didn't even occur to me just to look at the seeds and be like, grow.

And I guess if I had enough faith, maybe I should have done that.

But Jesus could do that.

That's that's the authority that Jesus has.

You know, the story of Lazarus, Jesus' friend, who dies, and Jesus is sad and he cries and he goes and he calls out to Lazarus to come from the tomb.

And I heard a pastor once say that it's very important that Jesus said, Lazarus, come out of your tomb.

Because if Jesus had just said, come out of your tomb, like every dead person would have come out of the tomb.

It would have been a huge problem, a big mess.

Like, oh no, what are we gonna do with this?

But he had to be specific.

Lazarus, come out, guys.

Jesus, I hope you understand this.

I hope this connects to your heart.

Jesus is powerful.

He is the Son of God, He is the King of Kings, He is the Lord of Lords.

And one day, it is inevitable, one day, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

It can't be helped.

It cannot be helped.

And so knowing that, understanding that, John 8 36, Jesus says, if the Son sets you free, you are free.

If the Son, if Jesus declares that you are free, you are truly free.

So it's time for us as Jesus followers to believe the Jesus that we follow and to live in the freedom that He's won for us.

It's time for us to stop believing that we're somehow slaves to our natures or slaves to sin.

It's time for us to actually realize the strength that the Holy Spirit has put inside of us.

It's time for us to actually believe that the Spirit of God lives in us, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, that nothing can stand in our way because we're hyper-conquerors, not in our own strength, not in our own power, but through the power of the life-giving spirit that lives in us, that's freed us.

And if Jesus, the Son of God, the first and the last, says that you're free, you are free.

So be free.

Enjoy your freedom.

Love it, live in it.

Wake up every day and just say, God, what do you have for me today?

What do you want from me today?

God, I'm gonna go after it.

I want it.

Don't become enslaved to your flesh, your soul, your emotions, your thoughts, and believe that you're stuck with those things.

That happens all the time.

We all struggle, but believe in your heart that your spirit is completely and totally free and live in it.

Soak it up, enjoy it.

Go be free.

Leave today.

Ask the Lord, what do you want me to do with my freedom today?

And whatever he gives you, be excited about it.

Because God has good things for you.

You are created anew in Christ Jesus for the good things that He planned for you long ago.

Believe that, live that, enjoy that.

Be free.

Be free.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much.

Thank you, Lord, for the freedom that you've won for us.

Thank you, Lord, for all the things that you do for us.

Thank you, Lord, for winning battles that we could not win.

Thank you, Lord, for finishing what you started.

You restored us.

You brought us to life.

You put your spirit inside of us.

You've given us a whole new life, a whole new outlook on life, Lord.

And I pray that you give us the courage to live that out.

God, help us think like free people.

Help us be strong.

Help us realize the strength you've put inside of us.

Lord, give us the courage to never go back, to never settle for the old familiar stuff, forgetting where it led us before you.

Give us the courage to enjoy the freedom that you've won.

And we pray this all in your name.

Amen.