The Gospel of Freedom

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Turn with me to the book of Galatians. And if you are in need of a Bible, or if you see someone in need of a Bible, please, there's Bibles right up there on that table, and on the table, immediately out those doors, the main entrance doors, for you to grab one. You can also fire it up on your phone. Lots of ways to turn to the book of Galatians. We're going to be in Galatians chapter 1, verses 1 through 9 today. So if you want to just turn the beginning of the book of Galatians. Now, for the book of Galatians, really, to set the stage for Galatians, you really need to feel the emotion of it first. And to get at that, I want you to imagine that your house, you have left for an extended vacation, maybe two weeks, and you left your house and when you get back in your house after two weeks everything is different and I don't mean it's torn apart I mean that your furniture is

rearranged some furniture is missing it's been replaced with new furniture there's different pictures on the wall and everything's you know maybe some walls are different colors everything's different and your emotional reaction to walking into a completely different house it varies greatly for some people it's just straight anger. Okay, who did this? I don't care if this is Frank, I'm mad. For some people I was just shocked they didn't really know how to react or what to do. Some people might actually laugh, they think they're being punked or something, you know, they're looking around for cameras, you know, is this candid camera? What are we dealing with here? Why has everything been moved around? And this is the feeling that Galatians begins with. This is this, this feeling of shock or anger or disillusionment or confusion is where we begin in the book of Galatians. And really, before we get into all of that, before we talk about even the

shock and the confusion that's at the beginning of Galatians, we actually need to begin before that just in the first couple of verses of Galatians. So we're going to start with Galatians 1, 1 through 2, and we're going to have that up on the screen for you. Galatians 1, 1 through 2, it says, Paul, an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches in Galatia. So Galatians then is a letter that is written to the churches in the region of Galatia. That's why verse 2 is in the plural, to the churches in Galatia, of Galatia. It would be like somebody writing a letter to the churches in Johnson County. Johnson County is 100,000 people or so. There's about 40 churches thereabouts, or more in Johnson County. It's actually more than 40 churches. It doesn't matter.

Burleson is about 40 churches. And so this is a letter that is written to multiple Galatian churches. It's a big region. And this letter is intended for circulation. It's intended for one church to read it out loud and then pass it on to another church. That's the letter of Galatians. So in Galatia, Paul had visited that region. He had preached the gospel. He had reasoned with people. He'd help people see kind of how the gospel fit in life. He'd discipled them. He raised up leaders and he established churches, multiple churches in the region of Galatia. And when he left those churches, everything was in order. Everything was in order. Each of them had a few pastors and deacons. Each of them were preaching the clear gospel that they had received from Paul. Each of them were living out a vibrant Christian faith. They were following Jesus. They were making disciples.

However, that was how it was when Paul left, but somewhere along the way, Paul gets a report that things have been rearranged. Things are different. Things are not how he left them. In fact, it's probably a little bit more dramatic than that. Maybe it's beyond just rearranged furniture, but it's like your house has been turned into something different, like a meth lab, or something crazy. It's not even a house anymore, right? Something has happened in this church, and Paul is writing a letter because the churches in the whole region of Galatia are turning into something different. They're turning into something monstrous. They're turning into something unchristian. In this letter, Paul accuses the churches of deserting Jesus, that's a quote, of being a curse, of being enslaved again, they are turning their backs on everything that made them a church. And so to deal with this,

Paul writes a letter intended for circulation. It's not a small problem, it's not just in one church, it's a big problem, and he's really trying to address it the best way he knows how. So what he does is he begins with the gospel in verses three and four. He begins with the gospel, And because he is precise with this wording, I want to notice the wording, okay? Galatians 1, 3 through 4, let's just read it. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.

The first thing I wanna notice is that he gave himself, right, it says that Jesus in the beginning of verse four, that Jesus gave himself for our sins. This reminds us of Jesus's words, Luke 22, 19, this is my body which I give for you. Right? Do this in remembrance of me. John 10, 15, Jesus says, I'm the Good Shepherd and I lay my life down for the sheep. Jesus giving himself freely is a big part of the gospel. What Jesus gave up was not comfort, what Jesus gave up was not something better, Jesus gave all of it up. He gave up something that he knew he probably could never get back on his own. He gave up his life and he knew he was going to have to get it back a different way. He was out of control of that. And so what Jesus said, he took all the chips that he had, everything, his whole life, all that he'd been leading up to, he pushed it to the middle of the table to use a poker analogy.

He went all in. Right? Why did he go all in? He went all in to deliver us. That's another specific word right there. Okay? To deliver us. It says that he gave himself for our sins to deliver us. This is actually, this word deliver is a very specific word and it carries the idea of snatching something or someone actually out of certain death. When you deliver somebody, when you use that word in particular, it kind of reminds you of God's people in Egypt, whenever God plucked them out of slavery, whenever He delivered them. And if you read Exodus, you're going to see that word deliver come up a lot. And it's the same word that's being used here, that if God had left them in their state, it would have resulted in not just a bad day for them, not a bad year. just a bad life, but generational slavery for them and their children and their grandchildren and their children and their children, and it would not have stopped.

In Egypt, what we look at is not a situation where a nonprofit organization is going to eventually come into Egypt and rescue God's people because of all the injustices that are going on at the hands of Egypt. we have in the Exodus, what we needed to be delivered, right? God's people were in a place where they could not get out of it on their own. They were in generational, grinding slavery. God plucked his people out of generational slavery. And here it uses a different phrase. It says that he delivered us from this present evil age, this present evil age, which is really a lot like generational slavery if you think about it, right? This present evil age that we are in, okay, that is opposed to the coming age whenever we are in heaven with the Lord. Those who follow Jesus are in heaven with the Lord. This present evil age, no matter who you are, is frustrating. It's evil. Bad people

prosper. Good people are trampled. Even your good intentions are mixed in with selfishness. Even good things, things that start good are eventually corrupted. If anybody would tell you, yeah, hey, in this life I have only seen things get better and better and better with time. I actually haven't met anybody that has said that to me ever. In fact, the reigning chorus is things are a lot worse now than they used to be. I'm not trying to say like we're in the bleakest time we've ever been. What I am saying though is that this present age is evil, right? And doesn't mean that you know we we know we treat everybody that's not a believer as someone who is evil or you know someone who's like Hitler or Osama bin Laden. What that means though is that we understand that this in this present evil age it is difficult it is not impossible for good to thrive and survive. Right? That's what it's talking about here.

This is not... if you are trapped in this present evil age, it's not something you can buy your way out of. You can't think enough positive thoughts. You can't create enough social change. You can't do enough to get out of this present evil age. In In a sense, we are trapped in it. In fact, in this age, without deliverance, without being plucked out of it, we are dead where we stand. Jesus delivered us from this. This is the gospel. He delivered us from this. So Jesus, this is the gospel that he's laying out in verses three and four. Jesus saw our bondage. pushed all his chips to the middle of the table. And Jesus plucked us out of grinding generational, no way out, slavery. This is the gospel, and quite simply the way we can say it is that the gospel is that Jesus gave himself to set us free. That's the pure...you asked me what the gospel is, specifically as it is

described in Galatians, kind of the coloring that you put on it. That's it. that Jesus gave himself to set us free. This is the gospel of freedom that is all over the Bible. Mark 10, 45, Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many. That's exactly what we're talking about here. Titus 2:14, that Jesus gave himself to redeem us and to purify us. And so for our purposes, this is the gospel in Galatians. We're going to call it the gospel of freedom that Jesus gave himself to set us free. This is a simple, straightforward presentation of the gospel. And now that we have this gospel of freedom firmly in mind, we can look at the crisis in the Galatian church. Okay. So let's look and let's skip to verse six, Galatians chapter one, verse six. It says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Okay, so the Galatian church has turned into or is turning into something else, something different. Okay, and what he describes here, he says that they are deserting Jesus, right? Deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ, deserting Jesus and are turning to a different gospel. Now I would submit to you, these aren't two different things that the church is doing. This is one thing described in two ways. Deserting Jesus and turning to a different gospel are one and the same. Okay. They are the same. And what I want to do is I do want to take each of them. I want to take, deserting Jesus, Jesus, and then I I want to take turning to a different gospel. So the church is deserting Jesus. Okay. And I would bet, I don't know this, but I would bet if you asked those churches in Galatia, Hey guys, when did you start deserting Jesus? That you would get some surprise books. You

You would, what? What? Deserting Jesus? No, we're not deserting Jesus. Why would you say that we're deserting Jesus? That doesn't make any sense. Look, we're doing all these things. We're following, we're doing... They would kind of point to some evidence in their life. And I think that whenever Paul says in chapter one, verse six, that they are deserting of Jesus, I believe that's actually a huge surprise to them.

And to see how that happens, to see how people get there, we need to understand something that happens today a lot. That people tend to separate Jesus from his message. Okay. People tend to separate Jesus from his message. And so if you ask man on the street, you know, when we go and do surveying on Saturdays. If we knock on doors, we talk to people all the time. And we, you know, if we started with the question and we don't, but if we started with the question, hey, do you know who Jesus is? Oh, I mean, we're in Burleson, USA. 95% of people are going to say, yeah, yeah, I know who Jesus is. You know, almost insulted that you asked them, right? You'd say, hey, do you know who Jesus is? Do you believe what he said?

Oh yeah, yeah, sure. And then if you'd ask him, what did Jesus say to do? At that point, you're gonna get very divergent answers. Not a lot of people are going to agree on exactly what Jesus said. And it's not because the Bible changes. It's not because somebody's been taught something wrong. It's because we have a way of separating out Jesus from his message where we don't love some things that Jesus said, like hate your mother and father and follow me. We don't love that, but we do love let the little children come to me.

We don't love whenever Jesus says, if you're my disciples, prove it with fruit. Show me the fruit, he says in John 15. need. Prove that you're following me. We listen to that, we hear that, and that makes us, oh, I don't love that. But what we love is, oh hey, he who is without guilt casts the first stone. Oh man, let me tell you, if I would get on Twitter this morning and I would say, and I would put that verse up, he who is without sin cast the first stone, boy, howdy, I would get 100,000 likes. I mean, people would just love it. I don't actually had that many people follow me on Twitter. But I would get so many likes, right? In our culture, it's really easy for people to rally around something like that. But it's really difficult to rally around whenever Jesus says, Hey, I want you to proclaim the gospel of freedom in places where it is hostile to do so. Hey, I want you, when you see your

brother or sister in sin, I want you to call them out. Yeah, I know, I know you're gonna be accused of being judgy, but I want you to call them out. These aren't things that we celebrate with what Jesus said. So following Jesus, we're okay, and many of us are okay whenever it's kindness and love toward people, but we're not okay whenever it's make disciples. We're not okay whenever it's be vulnerable to somebody. We're not okay whenever it's call somebody out. We're not okay whenever to give up your whole life to follow me.

We separate Jesus from his message. And it's very popular today and it's a two sided sentence. It's very popular to say this. The first side is let's just love like Jesus. And the second side of that is, but let's not, let's not start wondering whose interpretation is correct. Let's not, let's not start trying to be certain about how we should love people. Let's not worry about that. That's too judged. That's too messy. We can't do that. Let's just be kind. But what you're doing is you're separating Jesus from his message. Anything that Jesus says that is difficult is swept away. And so it's easy to do that. It's easy to separate Jesus from his message. Or at least our impression of Jesus from his message. And so what ends up happening is you can try to follow Jesus and still desert Jesus at the same time because you're unwilling to lean into what makes you uncomfortable.

You start taking scissors to the Bible, right? You start not wanting to follow some of it and then a little more of it and then a little more of it and pretty soon you're not following Jesus, you're following a God of your own making. I've been there, I've done that. It's easy to do, it's easy to slip into. Just ignore the parts of the Bible that you don't like. And so what you do is you change Jesus's message and this is what is happening to the churches in Galatia. They're deserting Jesus by changing his message. And it says it right there in verse 6, right? It says, I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, turning to a different gospel. So the church is leaving the gospel of freedom for something else, something different. And remember, we just covered this in verses three through four.

This is the gospel of freedom. Jesus has given himself up to deliver us from generational slavery. Right. This is the gospel. So why would people turn away from that? Why would people turn away from freedom? Why would we turn away from Jesus giving himself to deliver us out of generational slavery? Who is a fan of generational slavery? Not me. To understand this though, we need to understand how freedom can turn into slavery. Freedom can lead to slavery. Now that doesn't sound right. That sounds wrong. How does freedom lead to slavery, Drew? Let me explain. First, everybody desires freedom. on the planet wants to be free. In fact, we want to be free so much that we want to see other people free too. We consider it, and rightly, a moral wrong for someone to be a slave of someone else. Right? Amen? Yeah, right. We all agree on this. Okay. We recognize that slavery is wrong. However,

However, freedom is often misunderstood. We often associate freedom with kind of an American version of freedom, to be honest. We associate freedom with statements like, I can do anything I want. I can do anything as long as it makes me happy. You know what? You do you, I'll do me. You stay in your lane, I'll stay in mine. I'm going to do whatever I want and I'm going to leave you alone to do whatever you want. This is how the majority of people in America believe freedom works. This is how most people believe freedom works. I can do what I want. And what happens is you focus freedom only on yourself. When you focus freedom only on yourself, that actually circles back into slavery. You use your freedom for slavery. Now I'm going to give you two examples. One's an extreme example because it helps. The other one's more realistic. So the extreme example, just so that we can see it in stark contrast, you are free, each

of you are free to go outside. I don't know why you'd want to do this, but you go outside and steal my car. Okay? You don't want my car, but maybe there's a car worth wanting out there. Okay. You go out there. Oh no, David up church's truck. That thing's a beauty or is your motorcycle out there today? Motorcycle. Okay. So David up church's motorcycles out there. That's where stealing. Okay. So you go out there, you are free. Each and every one of you in here is free to steal David up church's motorcycle. I wouldn't recommend it, but you're free to do it. Okay. You are, You're free to do it. However, however, that act of freedom will lead directly into slavery, right? When you steal somebody else's property like that, then you are now giving up your freedom to exercise your freedom. Does that make sense? You are using your freedom, and then even when asked about it,

you can say, well, his motorcycle was great. I mean, I've always wanted a motorcycle like that. It makes me happy to drive his motorcycle. I want his motorcycle, right? But all those things don't stand up. That is a selfish focus of freedom, okay? So that action actually takes away from your freedom. So that's an extreme, you know, example, a more realistic example. You are free when you are in line at the grocery store And the Spirit is prompting you, the Holy Spirit is prompting you to speak a word of encouragement to the person in front of you. And this isn't just sort of a good idea that comes up. You're feeling heavy. You're feeling this. This person in front of you, you don't know this person in front of you. But you feel a burden to speak a word of encouragement to them. Let me tell you, you are 100% free to ignore that. Okay? You are. You're free to ignore that.

You're free to make a choice of your own free will to ignore the spirit telling you to do that. But when you do that, when you do that, you take a step back into slavery. You have effectively used your freedom for slavery. Sin erodes our souls. That's what sin does. And when we choose sin, when we ignore the spirit and choose sin, when we choose self over, speak in the word of encouragement, right? When we won't get over ourselves to actually open our mouths to speak a word of encouragement to somebody in front of us, that's sin. And I'm not trying to be judgy, the Lord calls it that. Okay, that's sin. And when we do that, we, it erodes our soul, it numbs our senses and our minds. Sin, actually, it's called the noetic effect of sin, right? Proverbs 1:7, it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. And so it's not just that fools won't listen once,

it's that fools will never listen. Why? Because they're foolish, right? They're foolish. It is a downward slope of worse and worse and worse because you're ignoring wisdom And then you're ignoring wisdom about ignoring wisdom. And then you're ignoring wisdom about others. So you're just not going to get it. Mark 4:25, Jesus illustrates this really, really well. Jesus says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. That's in verse 24. In 25 it says, and to the one who has, more will be given. But to the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And what Jesus is saying is that there's no middle ground. There's no, I'm just going to think about it for a while, but then never really make a decision. That does not exist spiritually. Spiritually, you're either seeking the Lord and getting more of the Lord, or you are ignoring the Lord and your senses are becoming even more dull as that happens.

Now that makes it sound like it's a hopeless case, and it would be if it weren't for the grace of God. God and his grace, he turns us back around, right? We have it. But how many lost years need to happen for us to understand that dynamic? Do we need to subject our own selves, our children, our grandchildren, our parents? Do we need to subject them to years of fruitless toil before we say to them or before we help them kind of wake up and realize, use your freedom for freedom. Quit using your freedom for more slavery. The noetic effect of sin is really it's a lot like abusing alcohol, right? It's a lot because sin impairs your spiritual senses, just like alcohol impairs your physical senses, right? So when you're drunk, what's stopping you from getting more drunk? Well, I don't know, I don't know what's stopping you, but it was a lot less than what was stopping you from getting drunk in the first place.

Right? You're on a roller coaster that's only gonna get further down as you go. It's only gonna get faster. The wreck is only gonna be worse. Sometimes literally. It's gonna be bad. Sin works the same way. Sin left unchecked. And there's nothing worse, there really is nothing worse than somebody who is sinning, who thinks they're acting out of freedom. How ironic is that? We think we are so free, but we are just enslaving ourselves all over again. We're stepping into sin when we could be stepping into more freedom. Freedom gospel freedom only comes through Jesus. I realize I realize that is probably a very simplistic statement but I really want you to just I really want you to let that sink in for just a minute. The only place you can get that freedom is in Jesus. That's it. And this is why, this is why verse six is true. This is why rejecting the gospel of freedom

is the same as rejecting Jesus. We don't get to accept Jesus on our own terms. We don't get to make the gospel in whatever way makes us more comfortable. The gospel comes to us, And sometimes, some parts of the gospel are so relieving. They are so good. And sometimes when the gospel come to us, it hurts so bad, right? And sometimes at the exact same time, right?

If the God you worship never confronts you on anything, then you're probably just worshiping yourself and calling it God, right? If God in heaven never confronts you, I would worry that you don't know God. Either that or you're perfect. So not in great choices. But those are the only two. Think about that. I want to speak to our church for just a second. And if you're a visitor here, great. I'm glad that you're here. But this is something that we need to understand as a church. And if you're considering making this your church home, You know, you can listen accordingly.

This, this is what Jesus intends for us to be, to be a church that is breaking free from slavery and using our freedom for more freedom. God intends our church to move from the place where we're free now to even more freedom. And not just ourselves, right? So I'm gonna pick on Candace Coffee for just a second, right? Candace, you, just like every other believer, you are still using some of that freedom for slavery, right? We all are in some ways, okay? What Jesus wants you to do is to begin to recognize that and use that freedom for more freedom, more gospel freedom, but not just you. Jesus wants to use you, Candace Coffee, to enable other people to walk in freedom also. And not just people that don't know the Lord, but also your fellow church, churchmen, your fellow church family, right? Not even just your physical family, not just your husband, not just your son,

but everybody here. And guys, that's where all of us, I'm picking on Candace, because it's easier than picking on all of you. Just takes too much time if I did that. But all of us, all of us guys, that the Lord intends our church to be a place for gospel freedom. To a, we're not just prancing around saying, oh, I can do whatever I want. No, that's not what gospel freedom is. And if we believe that, then we will just end up in more slavery. That we need to be a church that is breaking free. That is enabling gospel freedom in other people, in our fellow church members, and in people in the community. We need to be about freedom, true gospel freedom, not cheap. I get to do whatever I want, freedom, true freedom. We're gonna be exploring a lot more about what that looks like in the coming weeks. But for now, for today, let me just challenge you to make a commitment.

Make a commitment today, make a commitment this week to be people of freedom, to recognize where you are enslaved. I want to encourage you this week. I'm not going to check on you, but I think it's a really good idea. Galatians is six chapters long. It takes roughly 20 minutes to read. I'm a slow reader. It takes me 25. I read very slow, believe it or not, even though I talk fast. I read slow. I want to encourage you to read Galatians this week. My point is it won't take that much time.

I want to just challenge you. Let this be your prayer. Let this be your prayer. Maybe for the first time, let it be your prayer. Lord, show me, show me where you want to set me free. Lord, show me where you want to set me free. Because the Lord is calling each one of you to the gospel of freedom, to understand even more how you are enslaved. maybe even to something that you're not even aware of fully at the moment. Maybe you just have a sense of it, begin to pray and ask the Lord to show you where you need to be set free and then just come to him open handed. Look, we're going to have a time. Instead of just doing, uh, you know, an invitation with a couple of verses over it, we thought we'd just do it a little different this week. Uh, instead of doing that, we're going to sing a couple of songs, uh, three of them, actually, uh, we're going to sing three songs.

And I'm going to encourage you whenever Dan comes up to start singing that we're all going to stand and join him. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to be right over here the whole time. Now I'm just going to be singing. I might even have my eyes closed. It doesn't matter. If you want prayer, if you want to take a step with the Lord, if you want to learn more about being a Christian, if you want to be baptized, if you want to join our church, then come and talk to me. I'll be right here, okay? I'll be really like a little bit further over, but you'll see me. I'm 6'4.5. You're behind me, I promise. And it's okay if I'm, you know, if I'm singing, man, just tap me on the shoulder. It's cool. This whole time of worship, this whole time of response is going to be your time to come up and talk, okay? And so let's pray and then let's sing. Jesus, we thank you so much for your gospel of freedom.

We thank you that you took the time to listen. You took the time to see us in our slavery and to set us free. I pray that we would continue to step into more of that freedom, that we would reject attempts by the enemy to trick us into slavery, that you would thwart the attempts of our flesh to just indulge in the flesh and then step further into slavery. I pray that you would help us to use our freedom to step into more freedom. Let's do it as we sing. And it's your name.

Through the winter rain and beyond the horizon With mercy for today, the faithful you have been And faithful you will be, you pledge yourself to me And it's why seeing your praise will ever be on my lips. Ever be on my lips, your praise will ever be on my lips. Ever be on my lips, your praise will ever be on my lips. Ever be on my lips, your praise will ever be on my lips. Ever be on my

You father, you're a fan Your kindness makes us whole You shoulder weakness Your strength determines our own You're making me like you Clothing me in white Bringing beauty from ashes For you have your bride, and three of our guilt, and rid of all her shame, and known by her true name. And it's why I sing, Your praise will ever be on my lips. Ever be on my lips, your praise will Ever be on my lips, ever be on my lips Your praise will ever be on my lips Ever be on my lips, your praise will Ever be on my lips, ever be on my lips You'll be praised, You'll be praised With angels and saints we sing worthy Are You Lord? You'll be praised, You'll be praised With angels and saints we sing worthy You'll be praised, You'll be praised, Angels and saints will sing worthy, Are You Lord? And it's why I sing Your praise Lord, Ever be Your minds, Ever be Your minds, Your praise Lord, Ever be Your my lips,

Ever be on my lips, your praise will Ever be on my lips, ever be on my lips Your praise will ever be on my lips Ever be on my lips