Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] My name is Craig Jarvis. I am the pastor here, lead pastor at Village church East. And it's my privilege to welcome you to our time to look into God's word this morning. This has been a unique last four weeks for us because we've kind of been delving into some of the things, topics that I've wanted to touch on through the year. But because we're in sermon series or other things are going on, we haven't had a chance to do it. And so I've called this series that we're in true, which is tru, true reality for us. And we started talking about this when we talked about an abundant life, and I called it the lit life, which came back with several comments. And I'm grateful for that. But we talked about the abundant life that was at our picnic that we had outside. And we talked about ministries that we had and how those ministries could change people's lives. So that was the beginning of it. And then last week, we talked about cucumbers to pickles, as I mentioned before, and how Jesus makes a change that can never be undone and how our identity is changed. Boy, if there's one topic this world is confused on, and they admit they're confused on its identity. And I want you to know that in scripture, as God teaches us, our identity is crystal clear. Clear. When you come to know Christ as your savior, your identity is in Jesus Christ. There are no greek slaves, bond free Canadians or Americans.
[00:01:34] There's only those who belong to Jesus Christ. And we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We've been changed.
[00:01:41] And this week what I want to talk to you about is the truth about our freedom. So we talked about the. Throw it up there, Callie. I want to just briefly give you some idea of what's coming up as well. We talked about true life, our lit life. We talked about true identity. Today we're going to be talking about true freedom. What is true, as God says in his word, what is true about freedom. And we're going to be talking about true purpose next week, and then the final week on this, we're going to be talking about the truth about our hope.
[00:02:13] I'm going to give you an illustration that I've given before, and if you've heard this illustration, please forgive me, but if you haven't, it's a really good one.
[00:02:22] This story might be the best story I have about freedom from a very sad point of view of a tiny little animal. Several years ago, I had my pool that I kept up too long. I have a not only do we have a set up tear down church. I also have a set up tear down pool. And in my backyard, my pool stayed up too long. The water got very cold very fast. And one day, I got up to get my coffee in the morning, and I heard something splashing around in the pool. So I walked outside, and in my pool, there was a squirrel.
[00:02:59] The squirrel had fallen in my pool and was trying desperately to stay alive. Something very bad happened to that squirrel he was not planning on. Now, the problem is, my pool has sides, and there's nothing to grip onto for the squirrel to get out of there. He's basically treading water until he runs out of steam. But he was trying awfully hard. The sides were too high for him, and I felt badly about that. So I went downstairs into the garage, and I pulled out a rake. And I thought to myself, I'm not grabbing this, you know, disease infested mongrel. I thought, I'll provide him with a rake, you know, a big lawn rake, and I'll slide it under him and lift him up, and he can jump out of the pool. And I have da da da da, saved a squirrel. Like we need to save any more squirrels, right?
[00:03:49] However, when I put this rake underneath of him, he would quickly swim away from it. And then I put the rake under him another time, and he would swim away from it. He didn't trust me. He was scared of me, and he didn't trust the rake. He didn't know what I was trying to do. At one point, I actually did get him up a little bit, and he jumped off back into the pool.
[00:04:09] Over and over, I would try to give this little creature an opportunity to get free, but over and over, he only showed that he did not want my help. And eventually, I watched the squirrel's time expire.
[00:04:26] He slowly, as he fought and fought, expended all of his energy, and he froze to death in my pool. He could have been rescued from the pool, but his time ran out as he struggled on his own. As I was thinking about our topic this morning of freedom, I was reminded of that incident with that poor little squirrel in my backyard.
[00:04:49] There's a truth about God's grace intersecting with our human nature that describes to me how that squirrel felt about my grace offering him a way out and his refusal to take it. God's grace offers us true freedom, but it's difficult to comprehend that freedom. It's difficult to grab that freedom because we don't trust God and we don't understand his grace.
[00:05:20] We want to live life on our own terms with no confines. We want to be free of any shackles that would bear down on us. And so we talk about being free.
[00:05:31] But in reality, so often when we overcome one problem in our life, one shackle in our life, all we end up doing is jumping into another pool.
[00:05:44] And we also long for somebody that would show us this grace along the way. But when we are introduced to God, we fear him too much or we don't understand what he's offering.
[00:05:57] God is that quintessential hand of grace that we long for. I want to share with you a psalm. This is not our main passage, but this psalm, I think, talks about the grace of God in some pretty powerful ways. Psalm 100 310 to eleven. Here's verse ten. God does not deal with us. Would you read this with me? Because it is really. This is a good one to memorize. All right. Would you read this with me? Here we go. He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities. Now, how does that come across to you? Pretty full of grace, right? We do things on a regular basis to disappoint others, hurt others, hurt him. And in the process, he does not treat us as our sins deserve.
[00:06:49] His love goes above and beyond for some weird reason, and it only boils down to how he loves us. And no matter how much we sin against him, he continues to show us grace.
[00:07:02] This is why the next verse says this. Want to read it with me? Here we go. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.
[00:07:17] He does not give us what we do deserve. In fact, he gives us what we don't deserve. And here's the irony.
[00:07:25] We instinctively do not want God's help.
[00:07:30] All right. Would you say that with me? It's not on the screen, but I want you to grab this. We instinctively do not want God's help.
[00:07:39] This is how we're born. It's unfortunate, but we don't trust him. We don't want to depend on him. In fact, I would say, friends, that we have a tendency to not want to depend on anybody else. There is something in us that says we can do it on our own. We can make it on our own. We can get through this on our own. Even when somebody offers us a gift, right? What's our first reaction?
[00:08:03] No, no, no, no. You keep that right. When in reality, the other person spent time giving you a gift. Like Christmas is the only time you can get a gift and not argue with somebody. There's something about inside of us, our innate need to get through life on our own, to do it without anybody's help. And when we read about a God who says, I'm here to help you, our first instinct is not to trust him because we don't understand it.
[00:08:37] We don't want to depend on his handout. So we squirm and we try to make life work. All the while we declare that we're free. But we know that this life has tagged us too often and it knocks us down.
[00:08:56] We know ultimately, that death stalks each one of us. And on this side of things, we do know we need God's help, but we instinctively don't want it. Now why would I say we do need God's help? Because everybody, when they're clinging onto the edge of a cliff or they're about to die, no matter how much they hate God, guess what? They do.
[00:09:20] Everybody finds God in a foxhole.
[00:09:24] But we don't want to admit we need his help.
[00:09:27] And so the irony is that we instinctively don't want his help, yet he keeps helping every person alive.
[00:09:40] That's incredible, even for those who hate God. God's grace whispers constantly into their earth. And while they shake their fist at God, their breath is granted to them from a gracious father, Matthew 545. Jesus own words. He says he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good. He sends rain on the just and the unjust. God's grace even tells us all that deep down there is more. His grace speaks to us and his word speaks to us. God's word fills in all the blanks for us. And we, even then, though we know it, refuse to read his word.
[00:10:31] It is God's grace that chases us through our lives simply because he loves us.
[00:10:40] There's a story told when CS Lewis was teaching that he was at a british conference and there were several other teachers there. Experts from around the world decided that they would have a little forum and decide what was the unique thing about Christianity that set it apart from every other religion. So they got around and they started vigorously discussing all of the different, all the different, I've lost my train of thought. All the different little things of each different religion.
[00:11:13] The possibilities were, maybe it's the incarnation, but unfortunately all other religion. Well, some other religions held various versions of God in human form. So they said, well, maybe it's the resurrection. But other religions also had accounts of raising from the dead. When CS Lewis walked into the room. Here's how the story goes. They all turned to him because he's Cs Lewis. They all turn to him and they. And he said to them, what's all the Rumpus about? And they explained to him what their argument was about. What's the difference between Christianity and what's the main difference between Christianity and all other religions? And Cs Lewis, only in CS Lewis form responded, oh, that's easy, he said, it is God's grace.
[00:12:02] The notion of God's love coming to us free of charge with no strings attached seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The buddhist Eightfold path, the hindu doctrine of Karma, the jewish covenant, and the muslim code of law. Each of these offer a way to earn God's approval. Only Christianity makes God's love for us unconditional. You can't earn it, you can't keep it, you can't win it, there's nothing you can do. God loves you simply because he chooses to.
[00:12:40] This is the theme of the gospel, by the way. This is what the word gospel means. It means good news. I have a slide for this on the overhead. Just so you would remember, this word actually means good news. And the good news is that God loves us. That Jesus has taken every penalty, the shame of my sin, the power of my sin, the consequence of my sin, so that I don't have to bear it any longer. God loves us so much that he became sin for us. He bore the penalty of sin in our place. He was crushed under the judging hand of the godhead instead of us. He suffered the consequences of sin for us and he paid the penalty of sin for us so that we could live free eternally.
[00:13:26] He suffered in our place so that we didn't have to listen. When Jesus comes to you, he doesn't just offer you a rake to get out of your blood sucking, life sucking pool.
[00:13:39] The pool of judgment that we are in demanded a life, and Jesus gave his life so that we could crawl out on his back.
[00:13:51] John 316, you know this verse, for God, so fill it in.
[00:13:58] For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. There is no limits to God's grace. It doesn't matter where you're born, when you're born, who you are, what prestige you have, how low or high you are on the economic scale. God's grace has given you the love of the father to the point where he would sacrifice his own son to get you out of your sinful condition.
[00:14:36] Jesus loved us too much to let us perish. Stephen Curtis Chapman says this, the gospel is that we are far worse off than we ever thought and far more loved than we ever dreamed.
[00:14:50] This is the verse I want to give to you this morning. There's only one verse we're going to go and dig into, and this is it. Galatians five one. It's one of my favorite in scripture. Somebody asked me, what are your favorite verses? This would definitely be one of them. Galatians five one. You want to read it with me? It's really, really good. Like, when you're saying it, you're going to go, whoo. All right, here we go. Ready? For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. There you go. For freedom, Christ has set us free. Church for freedom, Christ has set us free, not with a rake, but with his body cut on the cross so that we could crawl out on his back.
[00:15:45] But is it just that I'm freed for eternity? Is it just that I'm freed for heaven, or is there more? Well, in order to discuss this, we need to look first at what it says in Galatians four, because Galatians four is right before Galatians five. You're blown away by that, right? A whole, like, that's. That's three years of seminary right there. All right.
[00:16:08] Galatians four is about checks and balances. Galatians four is about how the law presses down on us. Galatians four tells us that the law is like a very bad babysitter. Like, have you had good babysitters? Yeah. Have you had bad babysitters? Yeah. They're like the ones that come in with a ruler in their hand. Don't touch that. Don't touch that. Don't touch. The law's like a bad babysitter because all it does is say, you're wrong. You can't do that. Don't touch that. Get away from that. You're bad. The law tells us how bad off we are. Galatians four, but Galatians five one, Galatians five one is relieving because the law was the babysitter that pressed us down. Christ is the liberator that set us free.
[00:16:55] For the New Testament Christian, there was a helper that came to make us holy. The Holy Spirit is better than the Old Testament law. He has a relationship with us. His job is not to tell us how bad we are. His job is to help us succeed, to help us grow, to help us live in freedom.
[00:17:12] He reveals to us. Everything that God says in his word. Even if we don't read God's word, the Holy Spirit speaks to us. God's word. Chris McHugh came to know the Lord not long ago. Some of you know, Chris, friend of mine, friend of our church. He came to know the Lord not long ago and God has really moved in his life. And at one point when we were sitting together, he said, craig, I'm meeting with these people and I'm telling them these things and I don't know where it's coming from. And I'm going, neither do I. Well, actually I do, Chris. It's coming from the Holy Spirit. He speaks the truth to us so that we can believe and speak the truth to others. He is better than a babysitter. He doesn't tell us how bad we are. He lets us live free and he speaks to us. Everything that Jesus taught the Holy Spirit, in fact, was promised to us by Jesus Christ and he was promised to us in that light. Jesus said, he will come to you, he will indwell you, and he will remind you of everything that I've taught you.
[00:18:09] I am blown away because we have this. Like, we have this. You know how you get a personal trainer that'll drain your bank account and you'll still end up with a, you know, no six pack, right? Or it's way underneath anyway, right? So this is not a personal trainer that you pay for the gym. This is a personal trainer that Jesus gives to you that helps you live holy and righteous and see the lies and point out the falsehoods and stand for what's right, even when it's difficult and comforts us when we're in pain.
[00:18:41] The Holy Spirit informs us how to live in our freedom that Jesus brought to us. This is so important that in the gospels, even though we're told that Jesus has spoken different messages as he started his ministry, the very first message that Jesus spoke was on this topic.
[00:19:02] The very first message that we have written down in the gospels that the writers wanted us to know, hey, Jesus is teaching a lot of things, but you got to hear this.
[00:19:11] Here's what they say.
[00:19:13] Luke four.
[00:19:15] Jesus goes to the temple and he's given a scroll, and he opens up the scroll to the book of Isaiah, and he can read a bunch of different things, but this is what he chose to read.
[00:19:27] The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
[00:19:35] You remember what good news is? What's good news?
[00:19:38] He has proclaimed gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim. Say it with me. Liberty to the captives and recovery. Sight of the blind. And to set at liberty those who are what church oppressed.
[00:19:54] To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. I love the fact that when Jesus was given an opportunity to preach, he opens the scroll of Isaiah and he finds a 70 zero year old passage that talked about him.
[00:20:09] And he stood up and he read it in the temple, and he said, for those of you that feel oppressed and burdened and heavy laden, I have come to proclaim freedom to you. I have come to set you free.
[00:20:25] Jesus whole mission was to come and make us free. We are the oppressed. We are in bondage. We just don't acknowledge it, or we don't want to acknowledge it.
[00:20:35] And sometimes we don't know it. We live in a world of lies. Here's some of them on the screen. You are free to do what you want. No one will hold you accountable. That is a filthy lie.
[00:20:51] Every mouth will be stopped, and every tongue will confess. Jesus Christ.
[00:21:01] You will be held accountable. Oh, yes. Everybody will. It's alive. The devil to. I heard one pastor say, one of the greatest lies that the devil has ever pulled off is to convince people he does not exist.
[00:21:20] I'm free to do what I want. There's no accountability. Lie or truth?
[00:21:25] My sin promises me freedom, but delivers bondage. Lie or truth?
[00:21:30] Truth. My sin promises me freedom, but it only delivers more bondage.
[00:21:37] I just dropped my daughter off to college.
[00:21:40] I'm still reeling from that experience.
[00:21:44] She's a little sweetie. I texted her this morning, Beth, when I dropped her off for college. She's in a good class. She's in a good place. She's going to do well. But I was reminded about all of these kids getting dropped off for college.
[00:21:59] These kids can't wait. Some of them can't wait to get out from under their parents thumb so that they can really live free.
[00:22:07] It's like a really experienced life.
[00:22:09] And as soon as they walk onto a campus, they are sold lie after lie after lie.
[00:22:17] And the question is, do they have enough roots to decipher what is true and what is false?
[00:22:24] Some of these kids in college finally are free. And so what do they do? What do they use their freedom for? They turn into addicts.
[00:22:33] They turn to sex only to have their hearts crushed.
[00:22:36] You want to know some sad statistics?
[00:22:39] Four out of five college students drink alcohol.
[00:22:43] Four out of five. Half of these also consume alcohol through binge drinking. That means that's 3.8 million kids dropped off at college. We'll experience you know what binge drinking is? Drinking till you can't stand anymore.
[00:23:00] Almost one in four college students, that's 1.8 million college students, meet the medical criteria for substance abuse and dependence.
[00:23:11] Almost 2000 college students, that's 18 to 25 year olds, will die annually from drinking related causes.
[00:23:19] Almost 700,000 students are assaulted each year by another student who has been drinking. And almost 100,000 students are victims of sexual abuse through alcohol abuse.
[00:23:33] Church this is not freedom, it's bondage.
[00:23:38] You're just jumping from one pool, the thumb of your parents, into another pool, the thumb of alcohol.
[00:23:44] Jesus simply said, you cannot serve two masters. You've got to decide which one you're going to serve. It's either the master that's going to crumble your heart from. From peace this to peace, or it's Jesus Christ.
[00:23:58] Jesus died and rose from the dead to free us from this kind of bondage that sin brings to us. This is freedom, God's way. Look at the overhead. Freedom from the persecution, guilt, penalty of sin, and the freedom to live this life in its fullest form. Listen, without Jesus Christ, freedom is just an illusion.
[00:24:18] The more you grab for it, the more shackles you'll find to bind you to another issue.
[00:24:25] Freedom for you might be changing your environment, but the real freedom that we need is a change in the heart.
[00:24:32] True freedom is only possible through the Holy Spirit. He secures our standing before the father.
[00:24:39] He gives us this freedom to live life with no shackles on us.
[00:24:46] This is not just about changing your environment or trying to overcome an issue or pulling yourself up by your socks and getting rid of an addiction. This is not a home makeover. You've seen those shows, like, home makeovers are really cool because you have a home and then these people get paid and they change your home, and then you move into that new home, new home. And you call it a new home, but it's the same home. It just has a makeover. Jesus does not come to give a makeover. Jesus gives you a whole new house, one that he has prepared. This has everything to do with the roots of which my life is live. And now we are able to please him because his love compels us.
[00:25:33] Freedom on the overhead is knowing that I am born a slave to sin and someone else has come and rescued me from it so that I can live differently. Adam and Eve had this whole thing.
[00:25:46] They went through this whole thing. They found out what they thought was freedom was actually bondage. And when Satan came to them and said, I don't think you're really living free right now. Like, hey, let's take the example of that tree over there. So God puts a tree in the garden and says, don't eat that tree. What kind of freedom are you really enjoying?
[00:26:09] And he whispered that doubt into their ears and they took of the apple or the fruit from the tree and they ate from it.
[00:26:19] They did not believe God's freedom or they didn't understand it.
[00:26:28] And in the New Testament, we're told in Romans 519, for the one man's disobedience that's in Adam, the many that's us were made sinners.
[00:26:39] We have the same drive in us to doubt God and to not trust the freedom that he's offering. Cs Lewis back to him says, this fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement. He is a rebel who must lay down his arms.
[00:26:58] All of us are born with the same rebellious attitude toward God. Romans 323. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Every one of us fits this bill. We don't trust him.
[00:27:12] He tries to rescue us and we slough him off. We don't understand it. We don't trust him. Whatever the excuse is, we don't buy it. No one could be that gracious.
[00:27:26] So we foam the same pride, lust, greed and selfishness that Adam and Eve did that bubbles up from inside of us and we are prisoners of our own making. And I want to tell you, Jesus Christ was sent to set us free.
[00:27:41] You know John 316, right? We just quoted it. God so loved the world, he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish. But do you know what verse 17 and 18 say?
[00:27:52] Here it is on the screen.
[00:27:54] For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be what church saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed. In the name of the son of God. Jesus was sent to this world on a rescue mission to liberate those in bondage, of which we all are a part. John Stott writes, God does not love us because Christ died for us. Christ died for us because God loves us.
[00:28:33] The cost of this rescue was Jesus life.
[00:28:37] And so he offers this freedom to all who would believe.
[00:28:41] So this is an election year and you're going to hear a lot about freedom.
[00:28:46] Wouldn't you like to be free too?
[00:28:50] Do you feel like you're in bondage. Vote for me and I will set you free.
[00:28:56] Oh, yeah.
[00:28:58] Sometimes I fear we value our national freedom more than our greater freedom that Jesus offers to us.
[00:29:05] This freedom is not freedom from a government. This is freedom from the bondage that sin brings to us and the consequence that every one of us will face. Listen, everyone will give an account. Every mouth will be stopped. But for those of us that know Jesus Christ, we stand there free.
[00:29:27] We stand there freed because Jesus righteousness covers us. And when God sees you, if you know Christ as your savior, he does not see your sin.
[00:29:40] He sees the righteousness of his son.
[00:29:45] You just stand before God and you're going, God. All right, so here's the final meeting. And I knew this was coming, so I just wanna say, you know, some of that stuff in my life that I struggled with, I'm really sorry for. I know that I sinned right before I got here. You know, it was a bad day. I wasn't in control when I hit that car. And I said some bad things. And so I just want to. And you know what God's response to you is going to be? I have no idea what you're talking about.
[00:30:13] Because if you know Christ as your savior, you wear his righteousness.
[00:30:18] You are free indeed.
[00:30:21] No condemnation for sin. Isn't that great? Doesn't that sound freeing?
[00:30:28] Why go to a religion that makes you feel guilty about your sin when God does not hold it to your account?
[00:30:36] So what? Number one, honestly, call it what it is. Here's your exegesis of the passage. Verse one, Galatians five. For freedom, Christ has set us free. Do you get it? Why did Christ set us free? For what?
[00:30:53] For freedom. Oh, you should be a little more excited at this point. All right, why did Christ set us free? For what? Freedom. You have been freed. Do it like Mel Gibson.
[00:31:04] Do you remember that? All right, I know it's an old movie now, but, yeah, freedom, God's grace, offers us all true freedom. Freedom is an illusion if it does not include the one who freed us.
[00:31:20] You might feel good about being an american. Free to own your own land, have representation from the government, make independent choices about how to raise your family or plan for a future. And all these things are wonderful. But if your definition of freedom does not include the person of Jesus Christ, you're simply switching from one pool to another.
[00:31:39] Why not crawl out on the pool on the back of a savior who loves you and be free in the. Indeed, people declare they're free, but all they do is switch from one pool to another. Try this. It'll make you free. Smoke this. It'll free your mind. Invest in this. You'll free up yourself and your children's future. Believe in this. It will release you from what's holding you back. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. And you know what the Bible says about people who promise freedom but don't include the person of Jesus Christ? I'm glad you asked. In two Peter, verse 19 of chapter two, they promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person to that, he is enslaved.
[00:32:24] It's not feeling good about jumping from one pool to another. It's feeling gratitude to a God who loves us, who crawled in the pool for us and died so that we could be truly freed.
[00:32:37] True freedom through Christ is freedom from the law, sin, bondage, living death, the power of the devil and hell. There's no accusation from the law. There's no horror in death. There's no wrath of God. There is no judgment for us. Jesus has taken all this upon himself. When he hung on that cross, he took your sin, and it's gone as far as the east is. From the what church?
[00:33:05] Second Corinthians 521. He for our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin. That can only be Jesus Christ, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is why precisely, if you walk into this church, you'll hear us talk about Jesus all the time. Because without including Jesus in our lives, we are nothing. Free.
[00:33:30] Number two. If you know Jesus, live free.
[00:33:34] If you know Jesus, live free. Don't let anyone put those shackles back on you. Don't jump into any pool that you think is going to free you up in some way. Understand that if you know Jesus Christ, you can live free today. Galatians five 1 second chunk.
[00:33:54] Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
[00:34:01] If you're set free from prison, why would you ever turn back and try and get in?
[00:34:07] Christ has saved you from all the bondage of sin.
[00:34:10] Stand firm in your freedom. I've heard pastors teach really, really badly about the fact that Jesus loves us and will adjust to the temptations and the sin in our lives. That takes the power of the gospel away.
[00:34:30] The power of the gospel is that he became sin for us so that we could know his righteousness.
[00:34:38] There is no power that can overtake you, that will sink you. Jesus Christ will give you the power to be more than conquerors. Jesus Christ will give you the victory.
[00:34:51] I want to read you one more verse. And this is a scary verse, but I think it might apply to some of the people that are listening, whether online or in house.
[00:35:00] I don't even know if I can explain this verse completely theologically, but it's in there, and it talks about this, and it scares me to death. Listen to this. Verse two, Peter 220.
[00:35:12] For if, after they've escaped the defilements of this world through the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. In other words, for if these people have been freed, they are again entangled in them and overcome, they go back to the prison, back in the pool.
[00:35:28] Listen to this. The last state has become worse for them than the first.
[00:35:32] For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it, to turn back, back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
[00:35:41] That's scary, isn't it?
[00:35:43] Why would you ever choose bondage after you have been freed?
[00:35:49] And for those of us that know Christ as our savior, who live in this freedom, we need to proclaim it like jesus did in the temple. He came to proclaim freedom to the captives and freedom to the oppressed.
[00:36:03] Here's the good news, church. You will drop the ball. That's not the good news, but it's part of the good news. You will drop the ball. You are not perfect.
[00:36:12] Adam and Eve are not perfect. They were innocent, not perfect, and neither are we. We have this ability to deny God's offers to us to be free.
[00:36:24] But for those of us that know him as savior, listen to this. This is key. Our trajectory has changed.
[00:36:32] While we will drop the ball and we will sin, and we will disappoint ourselves and we will disappoint others, and we cannot tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. While we are going to constantly struggle with all of these things in this life, our trajectory has changed, and that's the key.
[00:36:52] If Jesus has changed us, we will stay changed. And whatever ways we fail in the future, none of them will be ever held against us. Because we are moving in a trajectory, the Bible calls it, we are being changed from glory to glory.
[00:37:06] And Jesus said it this way. John 836. If the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.
[00:37:16] True freedom is this. We are not freed to sin by Jesus Christ, but we are freed to not be entangled with sin any longer.
[00:37:26] We are dead to sin and free to live. To Jesus Christ, no longer slaves to sin.
[00:37:34] But Christ's blood stands between us and our sin. No longer can sin overpower us. No longer can sin condemn us. No longer can sin control us. No longer can sin oppress us. No longer can sin bring us guilt. No longer can sin define us. No longer will sin bring us down.
[00:37:52] We are more than conquerors. Through him who loved us, Christ positioned himself between us and the cross that demanded justice. In other words, in my illustration, we crawl out of the pool on the back of our savior, Jesus Christ.
[00:38:11] Christ gives us the victory he won at the cross.
[00:38:15] One more verse for you, if you would. Skip ahead, Callie. To one corinthians 1556.
[00:38:21] This is what I want to leave you with this morning.
[00:38:24] The sting of death is sin. That's bondage.
[00:38:28] And the power of sin is the law. Remember the bad babysitter?
[00:38:33] It tells us that we are bad, bad, bad. It tells us we cannot crawl out on our own. But verse 57 says this. But thanks be to God, church, would you say it with me? Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is never in vain. Purpose in living because of our savior Jesus Christ. Let's pray.
[00:39:06] Father, I'm grateful for this message that we were able to talk about this morning. This freedom that you bring to us, true freedom. Not a wafty politician's promise, not even something that we're given that lasts for a little while in a country and then drifts off into history.
[00:39:26] But freedom that rescues us from the inside out, freedom from our sin, freedom in our soul.
[00:39:35] Thank you for giving us purpose. Thank you for giving us this wonderful gift of true freedom and help us to remember what true freedom is. As we're told about all of the different ideas of freedom in our world today, may we revel in the fact that if the sun sets us free, we are free.
[00:39:56] Indeed.
[00:40:00] May we live as those who have been elevated from the power and the consequences of sin in this world, to live a life that brings glory and honor to you.
[00:40:13] In this way, Father, may we change from glory to glory only to bring you more glory yourself. In Jesus name. Amen.
[00:40:24] I.
