Real Freedom

It's been a good week.

It's been a long week this week.

My son was out of school, and so it was like a whole week of all the kids at home, which is which is really fun.

It's always a good time.

Anyone else have kids at home all week this week?

So I'm saying, anyone else exhausted?

It's amazing.

They have so much energy.

So much energy.

We have uh we've been spending the last month or so in a series called A Year of Real.

And we're just looking at all the real things that God has for us.

We're looking at all the real promises that He makes to us.

Because here's the thing: God offers us the real version of everything this world is trying to sell us.

He gives us real hope, He gives us real purpose, He gives us real love, real peace, you name it.

If it comes from God, it's real and it lasts and it works.

And we want our lives to be filled with what is real, something we can count on, something we can bank on.

If it comes from God, it's real.

And we've only got this week and next week left in this series, and then we're done with real, no more real for the rest of the year.

It's all fake from this point on.

We're just gonna phone it in.

No, I'm teasing.

Um, real, real is actually a big part of our culture here.

We are authentic to a fault sometimes.

But we are gonna be moving on to something new.

Next week, we're talking about real church, and I don't say this very often, but but be here next Sunday.

Especially if his hands is your home, or if you're considering making his hands your home.

By the way, there's no real formal process for that.

If you want this to be your home, welcome home.

So, if his hands is your home, be here, because next week, we do this once a year.

We're gonna talk about our vision as a church, what what we mean by being a real church, what we believe God has asked us to be as a church, and we want to make sure that as a church, because a church is people, that we're all on the same page.

So next week is really important.

Please be here next Sunday.

Today, though, we're gonna talk about real freedom.

Real freedom.

Freedom is something that God offers to us.

You'll see freedom as this theme throughout the Bible.

God is always offering us real freedom.

But freedom from what?

You know, sometimes we we have these these terms in the Bible and we get a little, we get a little off.

We we just misunderstand what we're being told.

And if we don't define our terms, if we don't have clarity, then we're confused.

So, like I grew up in church, and from a very young age I heard people say, you need to get saved.

And I remember being I remember being young and not understanding what that meant.

And someone's saying, You need to be saved, and I'm like, I from what?

I feel pretty safe right now in this church on a Sunday morning.

I don't feel like I'm in mortal danger.

What do I need to be saved from?

And sometimes we can we can throw out these terms and and we don't really define them, and so we're not sure what's going on.

The same is true with freedom.

God is always promising freedom to his people.

God is always promising freedom throughout the Bible, and we want to explore today what that freedom looks like.

And I'm just gonna go ahead and say this up front.

We are going to cover a lot of ground today.

We're gonna skip rocks, so to speak, and what I mean by that is that we're gonna we're gonna touch on several different moments in scripture because we've got to cover a lot of ground to understand the freedom that Jesus offers us.

I don't I don't really like to skip rocks, I'd rather focus on one moment in scripture, one thing, and just throw a huge rock in that and let the splash be big and let it reverberate.

But today we've kind of got to cover ground so that we can get to this moment, so that we can explore what I really think is one of the biggest crises in our faith and our journeys as Jesus followers.

And so whether you've been following Jesus for a day or for 25 years, by covering the ground that we need to cover today, we're gonna get to this moment where we can explore one of the sources, perhaps the biggest source of discouragement, of doubt, and frustration for us as believers, as followers of Jesus.

But first we've got to explore this concept of freedom from Scripture.

God promises you real freedom.

Now, we can take that, we can go a lot of different ways with it.

Like maybe God is promising us freedom from our worries, freedom from problems, right?

Come to Jesus, no more cares, no more struggles, everything goes smoothly.

If only that were the case.

But I love that Jesus is a straight shooter, and he tells us in John 16, 33 very clearly, here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows, but take heart because I have overcome the world.

So Jesus does not promise us freedom from our problems.

When Jesus talks about freedom, he's not even talking about like a political freedom.

The people that Jesus ministered to, the Jewish people of his day, they craved political freedom more than anything else.

At that point in time, they were under the rule of the Roman Empire, like basically everyone in the civilized world at that time.

But for centuries, the Jewish people they had just changed hands.

A different conquering empire had simply conquered the empire that conquered them.

And so, first it was the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, and it's just one after another, and they're just changing hands.

And now Rome is the nation, the empire that has control.

So they craved political freedom, and their idea of a Messiah was simply a political figure.

A man who would rise up and overthrow whatever government was oppressing them.

That is what they understood the Messiah to be.

But Jesus, the actual Messiah, had a very different agenda.

Because he was promising them a freedom from an oppressor much more invasive than an empire.

And Jesus lets us know who that oppressor is in John chapter 8, starting in verse 31.

John 8 · chapter mention

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Here's the response the people have.

But we are descendants of Abraham, they said.

We have never been slaves to anyone.

What do you mean you will set us free?

We will be free.

And Jesus replied, I tell you the truth.

Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever.

So if the son sets you free, you are truly free.

Now notice a few things about this exchange Jesus has.

Number one, the people don't like what Jesus is insinuating.

And they say, we are descendants of Abraham.

We've never been slaves to anyone, which is just fundamentally not true.

I mean, the whole story of Moses that Zoe talked about a few moments ago.

We're gonna talk about that story here in a little bit.

It's funny how the Holy Spirit works things together because I didn't know what she was talking about, but it fit perfectly with what God wants to share this morning.

But that's not this obscure story, like the story of the Israelites being slaves in Egypt, and then they, you know, go to Pharaoh and say, Let us go, and he's like, no, and then there's these plagues, and they cross the Red Sea.

That's a pretty major story in their history.

It is fundamentally not true that they have never been slaves, but it's amazing as people how we will lie to ourselves so that we can live life believing what we'd rather believe instead of believing what's true.

And also notice that they're the ones that bring up the word slave.

Jesus does not use that phrase, but they bring it up, they say, Hey, are you saying we're slaves?

We're not slaves, we're not slaves to anyone.

And Jesus basically says, Okay, since you brought up the word, let's go there.

Let's just pretend for a moment that you weren't slaves in Egypt, and that the Assyrians never conquered you, and the Babylonians never conquered you, and let's just pretend for a moment that Rome isn't in charge.

Let's just pretend that.

Rome was actually really good at convincing the people they conquered that no, no, no, you're still in charge.

We'll let you kind of govern yourself.

They kind of stepped back and then they would get involved if you got out of line, but but Rome was in charge, and Jesus is going, hey, let's just let's live in your fantasy for a second and pretend, like, sure, you're you're free politically.

Let me ask you a question.

Are you free from sin?

Are you free from the power of sin in your life?

Have you ever been free from sin?

Can you ever be free from sin?

Jesus makes it very clear that the freedom that he is offering to these people and to us, it is a deep freedom, it is a real freedom, it is freedom from the power of sin itself.

But like I said earlier, we've got to define our terms.

For us to understand what that even means and why that's important, we've got to know what he's talking about when he talks about sin.

The Bible teaches that basically every problem we deal with is the result of sin.

Either our sin or the sin of someone else.

That all the things we struggle with selfishness, greed, lust, laziness, addiction, depression, you name it, those are all symptoms of sin.

But sin is the root cause, and we we live in a world that doesn't want to call sin sin.

We live in a world that just wants to medicate the symptoms without ever dealing with the actual issue.

Jesus came to deal with the issue.

The Bible teaches that basically everything we deal with and struggle with, all the hurt that we have in our lives, it's all the result at some level.

You can trace it back to sin, and usually you don't have to trace it back very far.

Sin is that root cause.

And the Bible says a few things about sin.

Number one, in Romans 3.23, it says, For everyone has sinned, we all fall short of God's glorious standard.

Yay.

Now you can take that really negatively and discouragingly.

I actually find it encouraging.

I'm like, we're all in the same boat.

Look at how much we all have in common.

You sin, I sin.

Look at us.

Two peas in a pod.

It says that we're all on the same boat.

We're all in the same place.

We all struggle with sin.

So the word sin, when it's used in the Bible, it's actually a Greek term when we read it in the New Testament, and it's a term that was used with archery.

I've talked about this before, but it it literally means to miss the mark.

That's what it means.

And so when it says all have sinned, it's just basically saying, hey, everybody's missed the mark.

No one's hit the bullseye.

Some have missed it by a wider margin than others, but no one's hit that bullseye.

Everybody's fallen a little bit short.

And that is technically what sin means, but it's actually more than just that.

If we if we just say, okay, sin is simply the fact that at some point in time, like a numbers game, we all end up making a mistake.

If we believe that about sin, that it's just something we eventually do, we actually we actually vastly underestimate sin because it is actually an active force working against us.

In Genesis chapter 4, we read this story about two brothers, Cain and Abel.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

And you may know the story, it's it's a pretty common story.

Very early in the Bible, sin has already entered the picture, things are not going well.

Cain is jealous of his brother Abel, he's going to kill his brother Abel out of jealousy.

But just before that, God speaks to Cain.

And in Genesis 4 7, God says this to Cain, you will be accepted if you do what is right.

But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out.

Sin is crouching at the door eager to control you, but you must subdue it and be its master.

God personifies sin here, and he communicates in this moment that sin is actually working against you.

That sin isn't just something you do, it's a force that is at work within you, and it is it is actively seeking to control you.

So if we go back to that archery analogy with sin, it's not just that you you shoot and you miss the arrow.

It's like you have the string pulled back, you've got the bullseye in sight, you let the arrow fly and it's looking good, but then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this incredible gust of wind comes and it blows your trajectory way off.

That is sin.

It is an active force working against us.

And the Bible teaches that we're born with a sin nature.

We're born with sin actually working against us from the start.

That's the concept of original sin.

And that's not a very popular concept, especially in our kind of PC world today, the idea that even little children are born sinners.

But if you have children, it is not a hard concept to understand.

Right?

In fact, I was talking to a guy a few years ago who was basically telling me some holdups he had to the whole faith in Jesus thing, and I I we all have holdups, we gotta get through those.

And so we're just talking, we're having a good conversation.

And one of the things he was really struggling with was the idea of original sin.

He's like, I just don't like the idea that that even kids have this sin inside of them.

I just feel like that's offensive.

And I wanted to sit there and be like, dude, you have children.

This this should not be offensive at all.

This should make so much sense because here's the deal if there is no original sin, that means that all your kids' problems are your fault.

Because they started off great and you just messed them up, right?

And to a certain degree, as parents, that's true, we'll all mess up our children to some degree.

But look, anyone who's raised kids will tell you they do not cooperate with you.

It's not like they're just these innocent, lovely blank slates, and you just tell them what's right, and they go, Oh, okay, cool, I'll do that.

No, it's it's an uphill battle from the start.

You do not have to teach a child to lie, you do not have to teach a child to hide things from you, you do not have to have to teach a child to share, to like to be selfish.

The opposite is true.

You have to teach them how to share, you have to teach them how to tell the truth because from the very beginning they they have a sin nature, and it's fighting against you, trying to help them grow into healthy adult human beings.

That is why God was so wise when he made sure that children were not bigger than us until they were like teenagers.

Right?

My son asked the other day why our our youngest Judah, who just turned one, why is he kind of scared of Lily?

Who's three?

Because he notices that.

When Liam comes near Judah, Judah kind of laughs and gets excited.

When Lily comes near Judah, Judah tries to run.

And I just looked at Liam and I said, if Lily was twice your size, would you be scared of her?

Right?

The only thing that even gives us a chance raising our children is that for like 10 years we can physically pick them up and move them places.

Because they would not go along with us if they could be in control.

It's amazing the things as a parent I've seen my kids do.

Things that no one had to teach them.

When my daughter, Lily, was two, I came downstairs to find her smearing peanut butter on my HD TV.

Just she had a peanut butter sandwich, and she had opened up the bread, and she was just doing this.

All over that TV.

And I'm sitting there going, What are you doing?

And she just turned and looked at me.

And she knew what she was doing was wrong.

She had not seen anyone do this.

I do not know what possessed her by herself in the basement, watching a show, just watching one of her shows.

Hey, you know what I should do?

I should open up my peanut butter sandwich, cake it all over the TV, make sure that it really gets in the crevice where the screen meets the frame, you know.

You still see peanut butter in the speaker.

There's a speaker right there on the front of the TV, and I cannot get the peanut butter out of little speaker holes.

It will not happen.

She just did that.

No one taught her how to do that.

My son Judah, like I said, just turned one, and he's not saying a lot of words yet.

He says mama, he says dada, some some little things like that.

He says no.

But he understands a lot, and you can tell that the gears are turning, and so we'll say things, and you just know that he understands what we're saying.

I'll never forget, was two months ago, the first time we said no to him, and we knew he understood.

Because he was trying to go somewhere he's not supposed to go, and Megan said, Judah, no, and he just turned.

Like it was like this from behind.

It was like he was doing, he went.

What did you say to me?

No.

Like that was, he didn't say those words, but his face and just the way he perked up and turned, it was like, how dare you tell me no?

And then he tried to go, and we just like picked him up, put him where he needed to be, because that's our only hope.

Like we're we're born with this sin nature, and just like God said to Cain, look, you've got something going on inside of you, dude, and it's trying to control you, you better get a hold of it, or otherwise it's gonna take over.

But here's the the real problem.

Not only are we born with this, but we actually don't have the ability to subdue it.

We don't.

We are we are powerless against our sin nature.

That's what the Bible teaches.

And again, that is not a popular thing to say, but what's interesting is that our culture actually completely agrees with that statement.

It really does.

Our culture would not agree with the terminology if you were to say, you know, to our culture at large, hey, agree or disagree, you're a slave to your nature.

People would say, absolutely not.

How dare you?

That is that is offensive.

But but here are some things you'll hear said in our culture, you'll hear these things celebrated in our culture today.

I can't change who I am, I can't change the way I feel, I can't control who I'm attracted to, I have to follow my heart.

Those are all accepted and celebrated statements.

And they're all just a very clever way of saying, I'm a slave to my nature.

Because people will say, I'm not a slave to my nature, but I have to do whatever I naturally want to do.

It's the same thing.

See, Satan's very, very clever.

He just changes the words, and we think instead of this being a bad thing, it's a good thing.

I'm just being true to myself.

No, you can't say no to yourself because you're a slave to your sin nature.

So the Bible teaches us that there's this force called sin.

It works against us.

We all struggle with it.

We're born this way, and we're powerless to stop it because it's not it's not just something that's out there, it's something that's in here.

It's in our nature.

And it is the cause of every struggle, of every disappointment that we deal with.

In fact, sin is what causes death in the story of the Bible.

If there was no sin, there would be no death.

So everything we struggle with results in sin.

That's where Jesus comes in.

Because Jesus, Jesus enters our story.

He is God who puts on flesh, and he lives a life, and he does what Cain could not do, and no one after Cain could do.

Jesus lived life, and he did subdue sin.

And he did master it.

And so sin has no claim on Jesus.

Death has no claim on Jesus because Jesus conquered sin.

But then he did something even more amazing.

Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for our sin.

Jesus could do it because he didn't have to pay the price for his own.

See, I can't pay the price for your sin.

I can't even pay the price for my own sin.

The debt is too high.

But Jesus had no debt.

Jesus had a lot of credit.

And so Jesus died on the cross and he paid the price for your sin.

So the mistakes that you have made, the mistakes that you will make, those have already been paid for.

That is already covered.

But then Jesus offers to us a new nature.

And he says, If you will, if you will be my disciple, which just means if you will submit your life to me, if you will give me your life, that is what we mean when we say saved.

That is the biblical concept of salvation.

It means to recognize that you are in trouble, that sin is too powerful for you, and to basically go, Jesus, I need help.

I give my life to you, do for me what I can't do for myself.

He saves us and he gives us this new nature.

Ephesians chapter 4, verse 21 through 24 talks about this.

Ephesians 4:21–24

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned that the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.

Instead, let the Spirit, that's a capital S, that means the Holy Spirit, renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy.

That is something we could not do without Jesus.

Without Jesus, we couldn't just throw away our old nature.

Because without Jesus, it's the only nature we have.

But when you give your life to Jesus, there is a new nature.

And you actually have the freedom now, for the very first time in your life, you have the freedom to say no to the old nature and yes to the new.

Jesus sets you free.

You might still be influenced by sin, you might still be tempted by sin, but you are no longer bound by sin.

You have a new nature, you're free.

Hallelujah.

Yay.

Now here's what I want to focus on.

We just skipped rocks, we just covered a lot of ground.

Talked about sin, talked about kind of the whole story of sin and how it all affects us.

And I know we didn't go in depth on any of that, but I just wanted to make sure we understand the story that the Bible is telling us because here's where we often find ourselves as followers of Jesus.

And I don't know, no, I know that not all of us are followers of Jesus yet, but but as followers of Jesus, why do we still sin?

We have this new nature.

Sin was defeated by Jesus, death was defeated by Jesus, he was completely victorious, he gives us his spirit.

The Bible says that when you accept Jesus, God puts his spirit, the Holy Spirit, in you.

That the Holy Spirit joins with your spirit, you become one, you have this new nature, sin no longer has claim over you, you are not bound to it, and that's so exciting to think about.

But if that is true, then why do we still struggle so much?

If that is true, then why do we still find ourselves dealing with the same attitudes, the same thought patterns, the same frustrations, the same behaviors?

Why, if that's true, are our Christians not perfect?

Why are we often called hypocrites?

Because sometimes we are.

Why do we still struggle if we're free?

That is the crisis that we often find ourselves in, and it causes us so much doubt, so much frustration.

We feel so guilty so often because we're saying, God, I I I'm sorry.

I I believe in you, I've given my life to you, but I can't shake this, I can't stop this.

I keep doing the same thing over and over again, and I'll be the first to admit that sometimes I don't feel too Free of sin.

Sometimes it seems like sin still has a decent amount of influence on my life, and that is putting it mildly at times.

But why?

And more importantly, how can we change that?

Because I want to say this and I believe this fully.

Jesus has won your freedom from sin.

He has won your freedom from sin.

But whether or not you live in that freedom depends on a few things.

Jesus has won my freedom from sin, but I do not always choose to live in that freedom.

I don't always know how to live in that freedom.

But I want to talk about two things, two steps that we can make in our lives today and every day that allow us to enjoy the freedom that's been won for us.

That allow us to move beyond the doubt and the frustration of going, okay, I'm free, I've been saved, why am I still dealing with all of this?

Because look, I want to say this first and foremost: you shouldn't feel guilty because you struggle.

God chose this family in the Old Testament, the family of Abraham, to be his people.

And he was going to reveal himself to the world through them, and eventually he does through Jesus.

And he names that nation Israel.

And the name Israel means to wrestle with God.

To struggle with God.

So struggle and wrestling, that's part of our namesake.

We're meant to struggle, so to speak.

We have to struggle.

You can't conquer something you you don't struggle with.

And so it's okay to struggle.

As a church, we're okay with the mess of our struggling.

We're okay with that.

We talk about that.

You should never feel guilty here.

Old habits die hard.

And so do not feel like you're a failure as a Jesus follower because you still struggle with sin.

As a church, we accept each other in that place, but but we got to be careful.

Because while we accept each other that way, we should accept ourselves that way.

We don't want to stay that way.

I mean, I'm so grateful to be part of a family where I can talk about my issues and my problems and not be judged and not be you know criticized too heavily, but I don't want to stay where I'm at.

Ten years from now, I don't want to be dealing with the same junk I'm dealing with now.

I want to deal with the new junk that I'm not aware of yet.

That's what I want to be dealing with.

I want to grow.

And so, yes, it's okay that we struggle, but let's be resolute and let's say, hey, if Jesus has won us our freedom, let's figure out how to enjoy that freedom.

So two things.

And they're very connected to one another.

Number one, you gotta buy in.

You gotta you gotta buy in.

You've got to trust the process.

You'll you'll hear terms like that thrown around in sports or in business.

Uh in sports, if someone recruits a new player, and that player's talented, and that player has all the ability in the world, but they don't buy into the process.

They don't end up trusting their coaches and trusting the plan and doing what has been prescribed for them to do.

They just kind of do their own thing, it doesn't work.

The same is true if you work for a company, if you come into a company and you think you know it all and you think you've got it all figured out, and you don't buy in, you don't trust the process, you don't learn how it works and how you need to navigate it, it just doesn't work out.

You've got to buy into the process.

And make no mistake, there's a process.

2 Corinthians 5.17 says, anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.

The old life is gone, a new life has begun.

See, there's a difference between salvation and this other thing that gets called sanctification.

We don't use a lot of churchy terms here at his hands, but sometimes it's important to just know what we're talking about.

Salvation is a moment.

The moment you give Jesus your life, the moment you say in your heart, I'm yours, there's no ritual to that, by the way.

You don't have to walk forward or raise your hand.

It is in your heart.

You say, God, I belong to you.

Jesus, I believe in you, my life is yours.

That is salvation, and in that moment, you are forgiven, you receive grace, you receive mercy, God's spirit comes to dwell within you, and that's amazing, that's incredible, but that is the start of a process.

Salvation is a moment, but sanctification, which is the process of you learning how to actually live in this freedom and this new life that you have, that takes time.

Several years ago, I was playing basketball and I hurt my ankle.

And I ended up tearing two ligaments in my ankle, and uh, I walked around for like three weeks thinking it was just a bad sprain.

And finally, I went to a doctor and he's like, Oh, you've torn two things in half.

I'm like, cool.

Um and they they went in with surgery to fix it.

And that surgery only lasted a few moments, at least for me, because they put me to sleep and I woke up and there I was.

They made a one-inch incision on my ankle.

That's all it was, a one-inch incision, and yet I couldn't walk for three weeks, and then it was crutches for like two months, and then it was physical therapy and all this stuff.

But here's here's the thing: the problem was solved, the root problem was solved with the surgery.

That happened in a moment.

But the physical therapy, learning actually how to put weight on this ankle, learning how to how to move again, that took time.

And I remember going to the doctor in charge of my physical therapy and saying, Doctor, how long until I can get back out on the basketball court?

And my doctor said, That really depends on you.

That depends on whether or not you buy into what I'm gonna tell you to do.

I'm gonna give you exercises, I'm gonna give you homework.

You need to do this stuff.

And if you want to get back on that court as soon as possible, that depends on your willingness to do what I ask you to do.

And there were weeks that I didn't do it.

There were just weeks I didn't.

I'd come in and the doctor would say, Did you do your exercises?

And I'd be like, No.

And the doctor would say, Okay, well, we're gonna have to do what we did last week again.

Please do these exercises so that we can move forward.

But that was kind of on me.

And sometimes what happens, I think, is we experience salvation.

We give our lives to God, but we kind of expect salvation to just carry us all the way through.

And we wake up the next day after we've been saved and we're excited, but our IQ is not higher, we do not have a six-pack, and we are not better at life.

And we kind of go, hey, I thought that you know the salvation thing would sort of solve everything, but no, we've got to step into the physical therapy.

We've got to step into the process and be willing to walk in obedience to God.

It's when we walk in obedience to Him that we learn how to experience the freedom that we have.

And that obedience, guys, it's it's it's not it's not too difficult.

At times it feels that way, and sometimes it is challenging.

Yes, it's okay to be challenged, but it's about it's about saying yes to God.

Have you said yes to him today?

You know, baptism is a great example of that.

Baptism is a step of obedience.

And if you commit your life to Jesus, the next step in obedience is to get baptized and say, I'm all in with Jesus.

And you don't you don't have to be baptized to be saved.

That's not the way it works.

We say this in the office all the time here.

You don't have to be a Jesus follower to become a Jesus follower.

But once you become a Jesus follower, you should probably become a Jesus follower.

And Jesus got baptized, he stepped in obedience.

And in fact, John the Baptist, who baptized him, his cousin's like, you don't need to get baptized.

You're kind of exempt from this.

And he said, No, I'm gonna do this because I will walk in obedience to my father.

Have you taken the next step?

I don't know what that step is for you.

As a church, we are passionate about helping you grow.

So we're always gonna give you steps you can take.

You can take the step of being in a home group.

The Bible does not say you have to be in a home group, no, but we we know that the Bible says community is important.

The Bible says, do not forsake the gathering together of believers.

Iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

So we want to help you.

We want to facilitate the ability for you to take the next step.

It's about diving into God's word and saying, okay, God, you be my teacher.

I'm not gonna let my culture, I'm not gonna let what I watch on TV influence the way I think.

I want to know what you say.

By the way, if you have the His Hands Mobile app, we are constantly adding new content.

We added a ton this week in the learn section.

Tools that you can use to help you start engaging the Bible in a way you never have before.

But just like I had to say yes to my doctor and do what my doctor prescribed, you've gotta you've gotta buy in.

You've got to say yes and start walking in obedience.

Do that today, by the way.

Sign up to get baptized.

If you don't have a Bible, we'll give you one.

Just whatever, whatever your next step is, just take it, buy in, and begin to walk in that freedom.

You'll begin to learn how to put weight on your new nature.

All right, number two.

And this this one's big.

Not only do you have to buy in, you've got to believe.

You've got to believe.

Romans chapter 6.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

I'm gonna start in verse 2.

It says, since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

That's the problem we're talking about, right?

Or have you forgotten that when you were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death.

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

Again, we have a freedom.

We may live new lives.

Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was.

We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ, so that sin might lose its power in our lives.

We are no longer slaves to sin.

We are no longer slaves to sin.

For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin.

And since we died with Christ, we know that we will also live with him.

We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead and he will never die again.

Death no longer has any power over him.

When he died, he died once to break the power of sin, but now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God.

And here's the big one.

So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

So you also should consider yourselves free.

The word that the Bible translates consider there.

It's a Greek word that we get the word logic from.

It means think.

What it's saying is that you're free, but you've got to think free.

The way you think determines so much.

One of my favorite things about being a parent is getting to see the way my kids think.

And you know, I talk about my daughter Lily a lot, and sometimes I feel like maybe I use her as examples of like defiance a little bit too much.

But she gives me a lot of material with that.

But I need to make this clear, I love my daughter.

She's amazing.

If there has not been a woman president by the time that my daughter is of age to be president, that will probably change.

Because my daughter thinks like a champion.

She thinks like a conqueror.

She's like two feet tall, but she is out to conquer this world.

A few weeks ago, she came to Megan and I, very concerned, and she asked us a question we were not prepared for.

She said, Mom, Dad, are there swamp monsters living in our house?

And we're like, What's a swamp monster?

And I guess she has a show that she's watched, and uh, and there was a monster in this one show, it was a swamp monster.

And I actually ended up seeing that episode because I watch a lot of children's TV, and it wasn't the scary thing or anything like that.

It was just kind of like a show, and there was this little creature called a swamp monster.

But she asked us, are there swamp monsters in our home?

Now, as a parent, what I should have done was say, baby, no, that is a made-up thing, you have nothing to be worried about.

But sometimes I'm not a good dad.

And so I thought this would be a really fun opportunity to have a little fun at her expense.

And so I said, I know.

I said, Yes.

But, hold on, they only live in our toilets.

That's what I told her.

Now, Megan, like if looks could kill, Megan was right there and she looked at me like we had just made made up major ground with Lily in the potty training department.

And so Megan's like, you're gonna make her afraid of our toilets?

Are you serious?

I'm gonna kill you.

Like that is what Megan was communicating by by looking at me.

I am terrible, thank you.

And so I uh but here's here's what's awesome, because you've got to understand how my daughter thinks.

Lily just kind of processes that, and then she turns around and starts walking toward the bathroom.

And Megan says, Lily, where are you going?

And Lily turned around, and I'm can you I'm not can you guys just like resolute with this sort of like air of courage, she goes, I'm gonna go pee on all the swamp monsters.

Like, isn't that awesome?

That's my daughter.

She's going, so swamp monsters live in our toilets?

I'll teach them.

They're gonna live on our toilet, I'm gonna go pee on all the swamp monsters.

That is Lily.

She thinks like a champion.

And I and I pray to God that she never changes the way that she thinks, that she always thinks like someone out to conquer whatever she should be afraid of.

Peeing on the swamp monsters.

The way we think determines so much.

And if we think like someone who is a slave to sin, we will live like someone who is a slave to sin.

We will.

It's like a child afraid of the dark.

The dark has no power.

The dark does not do anything.

Their room is no different in the dark than it is in the light.

They can just see what's in there.

But but that dark does have power if the child believes it does.

Because the way we think determines so much.

It is possible to be free, but not live like someone is free.

Point in case, the nation of Israel.

God freed them from slavery in Egypt, he brought them through the Red Sea, He did all these miracles, but for 40 years they acted like slaves.

They were fearful, they freaked out all the time.

They're like, We're gonna die, we're gonna die out here, we're gonna starve to death.

God made food rain from the sky.

We're gonna die of thirst.

God made water come out of rocks.

We're gonna die, we're gonna die.

All the time they're freaking out.

And and it wasn't until an entire generation passed that they were able to enter into the promised land.

Because here's the truth: even though they were free, they did not think like free people.

An author put it this way: Chris Hodges wrote that even after the children of Israel left the land of Egypt, there was still a little bit of Egypt left in them.

They were free people en route to the land God had promised to them as their new home, but they still had a slave mentality and they still acted like slaves.

They had a wrong view of themselves, a distrustful view of God, and a skeptical view of the future.

To put it bluntly, their thinking was all messed up.

We can be free spiritually, committed to following Jesus and living for God, and yet still act like slaves to the old habits and the sinful behaviors.

Worship team, if you want to make your way out, we're gonna wrap up, but I just want to say you are free.

But you've got to believe that you're free.

Jesus has freed you from the power of sin.

That means when Satan tempts you, you can say no.

You can say no, but you've got to think that way.

You've got to believe in your heart that what Jesus says is true.

So often we find ourselves off track simply because we don't believe what God has told us.

I find myself in that place all the time.

I see that happen in my kids.

We're all telling them they can do something and they don't think they can.

You know, go back to that time that I was doing my physical therapy at first, at first there were things I simply couldn't do.

I was not strong enough.

I'll never forget there was this one exercise, the doctor put marbles on the ground, and all I had to do was pick up a marble with my toe, and it was like the hardest thing I'd ever done.

But there came a point later on where I was strong enough to put all my weight on my ankle, but I didn't believe I was.

And so sitting in that therapy session, it was the doctor saying, You can do this.

Jump.

And I was like, no, mm-mm.

Does not feel like it's ready to jump.

I think we need a few more weeks before we start jumping.

And the doctor said, jump.

And again, I'm sitting there like it was like, jumped.

Because in my mind, it wasn't, it was like there were even moments where I tried to, but my brain was like, mm-mm, nope, don't jump.

Don't jump.

Your doctor's lying to you.

The doctor wants you to get hurt.

She'll make so much more money if you get hurt and have to go through this whole thing again.

Just think about it.

But eventually I did, I jumped.

And so it was it was at this point where I was actually healed, but I didn't think like someone who was healed.

And I needed my doctor to convince me.

I needed to believe that my doctor was telling me the truth.

What my doctor said, you are ready for this.

So many of us in this room today need to understand that you are more free than you believe.

You have given your life to Jesus.

Sin does not have any power over you.

In fact, the Bible says that Satan has been disarmed.

And the word for disarmed, it was a military term that meant to actually take the armor off of fallen soldiers.

The idea being that not only has Jesus defeated Satan, but after Jesus defeated Satan, just for good measure, he went up and took his sword and took his armor, and he's he's not only defeated, he is stripped bare.

He is disarmed.

So when Satan comes to you and he tempts you and he lies to you and he tells you that you're never gonna change, and he tells you that you're not good enough, that you're not holy enough, that you're not righteous enough, he's lying, he's not, he's not packing heat, he's shooting blanks, and you've got to believe that Jesus has set you free.

You are free.

But if you don't believe that you're free, you will not live that way.

If you don't believe in your heart that you are truly free from sin, if you don't learn to think like someone who is who is free, you'll never experience that freedom.

And so you've got to believe.

Here's the beauty of it, we're gonna wrap up with this.

The beauty of it is this is that God Himself wants to change the way you think.

As you live your life, that's why these two are tied together.

As you buy in, like we said at first, buy in and believe, and as you buy in and begin to do the things God has asked you to do, he will change the way you think.

He will help you think like a free person.

Romans 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 changing the way you think.

Romans 12:2

He's the one that changes the way you think.

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

Ephesians 4.21, we read it earlier.

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.

Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and your attitudes.

Put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy.

Let God do what God wants to do.

As you buy in and you say yes to him, whatever he tells you to do, and you start living that way, giving God your yes at every turn, you will begin to believe.

You will begin to believe the truth.

You will begin to think like a person who is free, and you'll begin to experience the freedom that has already been won for you.

Real freedom comes from Jesus.

Freedom from the power of sin, complete and total freedom.

So let's live in it.

Let's buy in, let's believe.

Pray with me.

Jesus, thank you so much for this amazing group of people.

And thank you so much, Lord, that we get to come together at least once a week and dive into your word and explore what you have for us, God.

We want to live in the freedom that you've won for us, Lord.

We want to live in the freedom that you purchased on the cross.

God, help us buy in to your way.

Help us say yes to you, help us walk in obedience.

Whatever our next step is, help us do it, Lord.

And I pray right now that you would make those next steps known.

That next step might be for some of us just to say yes to you for the first time, to give our lives to you, to accept your salvation.

But for the rest of us, God, it is sanctification.

It is us daily walking in obedience to you and saying yes to whatever the next step is, whether that's baptism or whether that's diving into your word or praying for someone or serving someone or giving financially, whatever it is, God, help us say yes.

Because as we begin to say yes to you, you change the way we think.

You renew our thoughts.

Your spirit that dwells within us helps us think and lit and live like free people, Lord.

Give us the power that we need to do that.

We ask all this in your name, Jesus, and we love you.

Amen.