Speaker 1: Phenomenal, phenomenal.
Speaker 1: I love the story that Grace shared there.
Speaker 1: What a powerful reminder.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe for you it wasn't athletics, but I think in some way, shape or form, we can all relate to that sense of placing an identity, our identity, our worth, and something other than God.
Speaker 1: For me it was sports.
Speaker 1: I grew up playing football and for a long time my goal was to make it to the NFL and obviously that didn't happen because I'm here right now.
Speaker 1: I went close to that and it became clear pretty quickly that that was not going to be in my future.
Speaker 1: Actually, I take that back.
Speaker 1: My first goal was the NBA, but when you're six foot two and you can't jump and you play the center position on your high school team, that dream dies really quickly.
Speaker 1: And then from there it became the NFL and that dream died too.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing, here's what I know now, that I didn't know then.
Speaker 1: If God had allowed me to achieve at the level in the athletic arena that I wanted to, I would have gotten really prideful, like you couldn't have been in, you wouldn't have been able to be in the room with me, I would have thought I was something.
Speaker 1: And the reality is, I think God allowed me to experience some of what I experienced in athletics the difficulties, the hardships, the trials to show me that there's a bigger story at play, and what I was in danger of in that moment, growing up, was giving my life to chasing after a shadow, something that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Athletics isn't a bad thing, it's a great thing.
Speaker 1: Chasing a career a career is not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Chasing after a number in a bank account it's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: To have money.
Speaker 1: Giving all your time and energy and effort into building a business or building a family A business is not a bad thing, A family is a great thing.
Speaker 1: But anything less than Jesus is a shadow, and good things make bad gods.
Speaker 1: And that's where we're at today in this story of the path.
Speaker 1: We were at the point in this series in Colossians where, like I'm starting to lose Colossians one and two from my Bible, it's starting to fall out.
Speaker 1: We've been in this series now all summer long.
Speaker 1: The nine o'clock did not think that was amusing either, so I don't know what that means either, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know my position's in Christ, thank goodness, because my jokes are bad, but we're at the point in this series where Paul is going to get really practical about what it means to be a Christian.
Speaker 1: And that's a great question, is it not?
Speaker 1: Like, all right, our faith is in Christ?
Speaker 1: Last week, we talked about how now, because of Jesus, we are positionally in Christ.
Speaker 1: Our life is hidden.
Speaker 1: With His, we are no longer our own.
Speaker 1: We were bought with a price.
Speaker 1: It's not about our performance, it's about what Jesus has done on our behalf.
Speaker 1: Like that's where we're at in the story, and now Paul wants us to get practical and answer the question.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, what does it mean to be a Christian?
Speaker 1: And that's a great question.
Speaker 1: And it's a question that if you ask a hundred people what it means to be a Christian, you might get a hundred different answers Depending on background and what denomination someone grew up in or whether or not they even have faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: If you ask someone who believes in Jesus and is following Jesus what it means to be a Christian, and then you ask someone who doesn't believe in Jesus and follow Jesus, but only knows about Christianity, you're going to get very different answers as to what it means to be a Christian.
Speaker 1: But there's a chance, a good chance, I would say that a lot of the answers are going to have to do with a list, and what I mean by that?
Speaker 1: For a lot of people, their perception, perspective of Christianity, is that it, at the core, boils down to a list of do's and don'ts.
Speaker 1: Here's what you should do, here's what you shouldn't do.
Speaker 1: Y'all are wondering what I'm going to say next with this, and to an extent it's true.
Speaker 1: And Paul gets there.
Speaker 1: The next two weeks, that's what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: Paul says hey, now that you're a follower of Christ and you're a new creation, there's a list of shouldn'ts and there's a list of shoulds.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, paul says I want you to know that to follow Christ is to walk in freedom At its core.
Speaker 1: Following Jesus means freedom.
Speaker 1: It means freedom, and the question that we're going to ask and hopefully answer today is what does this freedom look like?
Speaker 1: Because there's a very real risk for the church in Colossae 2,000 years ago that Paul's addressing, that the church was going to replace the freedom they'd been given by Jesus with the weight of expectations and law that they could not live up to.
Speaker 1: And I think, if we're honest in our day and time, some of us are at risk of doing the same thing, taking a relationship with Jesus by grace, through faith, and replacing it with a list of do's and don'ts.
Speaker 1: And the reality is that following Jesus is so much more than a list.
Speaker 1: Following Jesus is so much better than just a list.
Speaker 1: It's about a relationship with the life-giving, resurrected Son of God.
Speaker 1: And so, with that in mind, paul says in Colossians, chapter 2, verse 16, he says Therefore, because you're now in Christ, he's your Savior and your Lord.
Speaker 1: Your life is hidden in Him.
Speaker 1: Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
Speaker 1: These are but a shadow of the things to come.
Speaker 1: Don't chase shadows, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Speaker 1: Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by His sensuous mind, not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God.
Speaker 1: If, with Christ, you die to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?
Speaker 1: Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teaching.
Speaker 1: These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
Speaker 1: Father, we pray as we open your word together, that, god, you would cut through human wisdom, that you would cut through the narratives of our past, the weight of expectation, the pressures of life, the chains of shame and guilt and regret.
Speaker 1: Father, that your voice would be louder than anything else in our life.
Speaker 1: Father, help us today to see your word, to see the beauty in your word and, father, to see Christ through the pages of Scripture.
Speaker 1: We love you, we thank you, we're grateful today in Jesus' name, and everybody says Amen.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk this morning about the relationship between grace and law.
Speaker 1: This is what Paul is getting at here in Colossians, chapter 2.
Speaker 1: He's addressing a very real scenario that's happening in the church at Colossae.
Speaker 1: We talked the last few weeks about the false teaching that had risen up from within the church and we get a little more clarity in this passage today about the nature of this false teaching.
Speaker 1: He wants us to do a little Bible study this morning to talk about what is going on 2000 years ago and then we're going to apply it to us today to see how we can walk in freedom.
Speaker 1: That sound good to you guys?
Speaker 1: Fantastic, you all are awesome.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 1: So here's what Paul says.
Speaker 1: There are three elements, or three components, to the false teaching that's happening in Colossae.
Speaker 1: The first element is this believers are being told that their salvation is dependent on their keeping of the law.
Speaker 1: How do we know?
Speaker 1: Well, colossians 2.16.
Speaker 1: Paul says Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
Speaker 1: What he's saying is that what's happening in Colossae, there are teachers that, as people are coming to faith in Christ, they're receiving forgiveness for their sin, they're being freed to walk in new life.
Speaker 1: There's other teachings that are coming out saying to these Christians okay, that's great, you know Jesus.
Speaker 1: Now here's what else you need to do.
Speaker 1: Y'all like those fried shrimp, y'all eating bacon, egg and cheese biscuits.
Speaker 1: Y'all got to cut it out because we don't eat shrimp, we don't eat bacon, egg and cheese biscuits.
Speaker 1: Think back to the Old Testament, right?
Speaker 1: God gave his people rules.
Speaker 1: He gave them the law.
Speaker 1: There were 10 to start with, and then he added some more.
Speaker 1: And then, over time, the religious leaders added layer upon layer upon layer and suddenly what started this 10 became 600 plus laws and regulations that the Hebrew people, the Israelites, the Jewish people were supposed to keep.
Speaker 1: And what is happening in Colossae is people are saying to the church okay, you've got faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Amazing, now keep the law.
Speaker 1: And they'd never been Jewish a day in their life.
Speaker 1: But now they're being crushed under this expectation, this pressure that they are now supposed to keep the law to.
Speaker 1: And you imagine if you came to church and you gave your life to Jesus and you were baptized, or you joined the church, and the next thing we said was okay, fantastic, no more bacon.
Speaker 1: You'd be like well, what do we do?
Speaker 1: Right, this is not what I thought this was about.
Speaker 1: I can't eat shrimp any longer.
Speaker 1: Why are we going back to that?
Speaker 1: But this is what's happening.
Speaker 1: They're being told that in order to be right with God, they've got to keep the law, in addition to their faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: But not just about food and drink.
Speaker 1: It's about festivals as well.
Speaker 1: All these celebrations, these holidays you've never celebrated a day before in your life.
Speaker 1: You got to celebrate them now, and your Sabbath day has to be on Saturday these new moon celebrations.
Speaker 1: You got to keep those too.
Speaker 1: But not only is it about law.
Speaker 1: Paul is also addressing this teaching that there's a higher level of spiritual revelation available to the church.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, okay, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: You came to faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Now you know Jesus is Savior.
Speaker 1: But there's more.
Speaker 1: There's more.
Speaker 1: You can actually worship angels too, and when you worship angels, you're going to get this new level of mystical knowledge that's withheld only for people who reach a certain stage of their spiritual growth.
Speaker 1: You see what's happening, right?
Speaker 1: So it's the pressure of law and it's also oh, once you achieve this level of spirituality, then there's more knowledge available.
Speaker 1: But not only that, there's also this leveling of asceticism that's happening, which simply means they're being told that you've got to self-deny to the point of starving your flesh.
Speaker 1: You got any natural desire that you have.
Speaker 1: You've got to cut it off because the flesh is bad.
Speaker 1: And Paul's like why are you going back to that In Christ?
Speaker 1: Paul's message is simply this if in Christ you died verse 20, if with Christ you died, then why are you putting yourself under a weight that Jesus died to lift from your shoulders?
Speaker 1: Like, why are you trying to earn your place when Jesus died to give you your place?
Speaker 1: This is Paul's question.
Speaker 1: Like you've died, you've received the fullness of Christ.
Speaker 1: Like the fullness of God dwelt in him.
Speaker 1: There's no more special revelation beyond Jesus, right?
Speaker 1: Like that's Paul's point.
Speaker 1: Like, why are you praying to angels?
Speaker 1: You've got the resurrected son of God filling your life.
Speaker 1: His spirit is within you, and not only that.
Speaker 1: But why are you starving your flesh from gifts that God has given you?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 1: My father-in-law's favorite chapter in the Bible is when Peter is told arise, kill and eat.
Speaker 1: Right, what a great day that was for all of us who like bacon and shrimp, right?
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's Paul's like.
Speaker 1: It's not about that.
Speaker 1: It's not about the food or the drink, it's about Christ.
Speaker 1: It's about Christ.
Speaker 1: Paul's message, paul's response, and as a response to this legalistic teaching, is hey, you've encountered the fullness of God in bodily form.
Speaker 1: His name is Jesus.
Speaker 1: Everything that you need to be right with God was accomplished by Jesus on the cross.
Speaker 1: You don't add to it, you can't take away from it.
Speaker 1: Like he's done it all and by grace, through faith, you enter into this life-giving relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 1: Paul says the goal of faith is that we would be nourished from the head as we hold fast to Christ, who's in charge of this whole thing, that the whole body would be nourished and knit together.
Speaker 1: That's the picture.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, you've got this church at Colossae that is infiltrated by this false teaching.
Speaker 1: They're crushed under the pressure of law and expectations.
Speaker 1: They're being told that you can't do this and you can't do that, you can't eat, that You've got to kill all the desires on the inside of you, and they are being buried under the weight of religious legalism.
Speaker 1: Faith for the church at Colossae, paul, is worried that it's going to be reduced to this list of do's and don'ts.
Speaker 1: In Paul's message is Jesus died to set you free.
Speaker 1: Jesus came to give you life, and life to the full.
Speaker 1: Now this raises a question for us today.
Speaker 1: What then, is our relationship as Christians to the law, or to the old covenant, or, to put it really clearly, to the Old Testament?
Speaker 1: How do we read the Old Testament?
Speaker 1: Well, I thought the Old Testament was good.
Speaker 1: I thought the law is a good thing.
Speaker 1: Right, that's like God gave it.
Speaker 1: It's in my Bible, isn't that good?
Speaker 1: Well, 1 Timothy 1, verse eight, paul says the law is good.
Speaker 1: We know Paul says that the law is good if one uses it lawfully.
Speaker 1: So then the question becomes okay, well, how do we use the Old Testament lawfully and not allow it to become a list of do's and don'ts, a weight that we place back on our shoulders when we're supposed to be walking in freedom?
Speaker 1: I wanna talk about that question just for a moment today.
Speaker 1: Well, what is the point now of the Old Testament?
Speaker 1: What's the message, the story of the Old Testament?
Speaker 1: What does it mean for us today?
Speaker 1: I would summarize the Old Testament like this God is holy.
Speaker 1: Why do we have the law?
Speaker 1: Because God's holy and his bar, his standard, is really really high.
Speaker 1: We know the law is good if one uses it lawfully.
Speaker 1: Why does God give the law?
Speaker 1: To show us the standard that God requires for relationship with his people.
Speaker 1: You wanna be right with God.
Speaker 1: Paul says later on be holy, be perfect.
Speaker 1: It's God's perfect right, high bar, high standard.
Speaker 1: That's the point of the law.
Speaker 1: God's bar is really really high.
Speaker 1: Now, the story of the Old Testament is that people are broken.
Speaker 1: God's holy and people are broken, no matter how hard Israel tries, how many laws they layer upon layer upon layer, the law that God has given.
Speaker 1: Can Israel be right with God?
Speaker 1: No, over and over and over, israel falls short.
Speaker 1: People fail, people falter.
Speaker 1: So God is holy.
Speaker 1: We are broken, we are sinful.
Speaker 1: We need a hero.
Speaker 1: That's the message of the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: We need a hero.
Speaker 1: We need somebody who can step in and bridge the gap between broken people and a holy God.
Speaker 1: And if there's a promise in the Old Testament, the promise of the Old Testament is this the hero is on the way.
Speaker 1: And isn't that good news for all of us today?
Speaker 1: You know, this changes how we read the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: It really does.
Speaker 1: I think about for a moment the story of David and Goliath.
Speaker 1: Okay, david and Goliath, you grew up in church.
Speaker 1: You know the story.
Speaker 1: If you don't, here's a little background.
Speaker 1: David was a shepherd hanging out in the field, right, keeping watch over the sheep, doing what he's supposed to do.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, the prophet comes to David and says hey, you're actually not gonna be a shepherd forever.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be the king of Israel, but it's gonna take you a while to get there.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, just keep shepherding.
Speaker 1: And so David does.
Speaker 1: And until one day David is tasked by his father.
Speaker 1: Hey, your brothers are on the front lines of a battle against the Philistine army and your job is to door hub.
Speaker 1: You know this Chick-fil-A Door-Dash, this Chick-fil-A to the front lines of the army for your brothers.
Speaker 1: And so he does.
Speaker 1: And he ends up on the front lines and when he gets there, what's he find?
Speaker 1: And the army is cowering in fear before Goliath, who's nine feet tall and he's got a sword that's twice the size of the Israelites, and like they're cowering before this giant.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to fight this Philistine.
Speaker 1: And Dave is like what's wrong with you guys?
Speaker 1: God's on our side.
Speaker 1: Like somebody needs to step up and take this giant out because he's defying the armies of the living God and this isn't good.
Speaker 1: And he can't do that.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna fight this giant?
Speaker 1: All the army of Israel is like looking around, like we're not fighting this guy, and Dave is like I'll fight him.
Speaker 1: And Saul is like well, if you're gonna fight him, at least take my armor.
Speaker 1: Dave is like I don't need your armor, I got God on my side.
Speaker 1: And he takes his sling and five stones and goes to the front lines.
Speaker 1: He went from delivering Chick-fil-A to standing before Goliath with a few rocks and a sling.
Speaker 1: And what happens?
Speaker 1: Goliath's talking junk.
Speaker 1: David's like you better enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I'm about to be over Wines up rock goes right to the forehead and David chops off Goliath's head with his own sword.
Speaker 1: And all the Israelites are like, ooh, didn't see that one coming, amazing.
Speaker 1: And we read that story, we hear that story and then the application so often becomes well, we need to be like David, right, we need to find the giant.
Speaker 1: And then we need to find the giant in our life and we need to grab our rocks and our sling and we're gonna cut that giant's head off with his own sword.
Speaker 1: And then, three months later, three years later, three decades later, we're still staring at the same giant in our life.
Speaker 1: Because here's the point of the story.
Speaker 1: The point of the story is not that we need to go be David.
Speaker 1: It's that we need a hero who can step in and kill the giant that's keeping us bound and afraid and enslaved.
Speaker 1: We're not David in the story.
Speaker 1: We're not the hero who kills the giant.
Speaker 1: We're much more like the Israelites who were cowering in fear, unable to move forward, afraid of what's in front of them.
Speaker 1: The giant is not whatever's in front of our lives.
Speaker 1: The giant is sin that keeps us bound.
Speaker 1: Jesus is the greater David who steps in and cuts off the head of the giant.
Speaker 1: That's the story, and so we read that story and our minds need to go okay, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: What I need in my life is not a little more courage, it's more Jesus.
Speaker 1: For Jesus to be at work and involved in my heart, in my life.
Speaker 1: I need Jesus to remove the giants from my life.
Speaker 1: I need Jesus to lead me into freedom.
Speaker 1: I need Jesus to step in for me and do what I could never do for myself.
Speaker 1: And the good news is our hero has come, and what you and I were powerless to do in the face of our giant called sin, jesus has done on our behalf.
Speaker 1: And so when we read the Old Testament, we understand it's all pointing us forward to the moment where the Son of God steps into the world, where the hero comes to do for the people of God what we could not do for ourselves.
Speaker 1: So when we read the Old Testament, we read to be inspired by what God has done for his people in Christ.
Speaker 1: He killed the giant called sin that keeps us bound and afraid.
Speaker 1: He released us from the chains of slavery, and he leads us into the future through the person and the work of Jesus Christ, and that's really good news for all of us.
Speaker 1: I think the greatest picture of the relationship between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is in Galatians, chapter two and three.
Speaker 1: I just want to read a chunk of scripture here this morning.
Speaker 1: This is Paul again, and he's explaining to the New Testament church what it looks like to walk in the freedom of the Covenant of grace, to live in the freedom of Christ, to not submit again to a legalistic perspective that reduces our faith down to a list of things I have to do and things I shouldn't do.
Speaker 1: Paul writes these words, beginning in Galatians 2.15.
Speaker 1: We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.
Speaker 1: Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, and so we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified or declared righteous by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Speaker 1: But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin?
Speaker 1: Certainly not, for if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor, for through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God.
Speaker 1: I've been crucified with Christ.
Speaker 1: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, in the life I now live, in the flesh.
Speaker 1: I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Speaker 1: I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Speaker 1: Paul says if you could save yourself, then Jesus doesn't have to die.
Speaker 1: But because we can't save ourselves, jesus chose to lay down his life to redeem us from the weight and the curse of the law.
Speaker 1: Paul goes on verse seven of chapter three.
Speaker 1: He says no, then, that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith.
Speaker 1: Preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying in you shall all the nations be blessed.
Speaker 1: So then, those who are of faith or blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.
Speaker 1: For it is written cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.
Speaker 1: Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith.
Speaker 1: But the law is not of faith.
Speaker 1: Rather, the one who does them shall live by them.
Speaker 1: It's by works.
Speaker 1: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree, so that, in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.
Speaker 1: Who are the Gentiles?
Speaker 1: Anybody who's not Jewish, that includes us so that we might receive the promised spirit by faith.
Speaker 1: And then Paul says in Galatians, chapter five, verse one, for freedom.
Speaker 1: Christ has set us free.
Speaker 1: Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Speaker 1: Y'all, the bottom line for us today is this a list of dues and don'ts will never compare to the freedom of knowing Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Don't reduce your relationship with God down to a list of things you can do or can't do.
Speaker 1: Don't reduce your relationship with God down to 15 minutes in the morning where you read the word, and if you don't read the word, you feel guilty and ashamed because you didn't read the word in the morning Like it's so much better than that.
Speaker 1: Christ has come and Christ has died, and Christ has resurrected from the dead and his spirit now lives in us so that we can walk with God every single moment of every single day.
Speaker 1: And Paul says what happens when you submit to this spirit of legalism that says you can do this and you can't do that, and if you miss your quiet time then you gotta be guilty and ashamed, and if you didn't pray before dinner then your food's not blessed and you probably need to repent of that burrito you ate.
Speaker 1: Like when you reduce your faith to that, and that's what it becomes.
Speaker 1: Paul says you're just layering shame and condemnation on what is supposed to be the most freeing experience in the human story.
Speaker 1: Paul says to the church Colossae, don't let anybody disqualify you, don't let anybody pass judgment on you.
Speaker 1: What's happening in the church is that these false teachers are looking at new Christians who are trying to follow God and they're heaping laws and requirements and regulations on their shoulders and they're being crushed by the weight of expectation and pressure.
Speaker 1: And these false teachers are looking at people and pointing the finger and saying hey, you know what you're actually out, you're disqualified, your faith is not real, it's not as legitimate as you thought it was because you didn't live up to the standard, you didn't achieve the level required.
Speaker 1: You're out.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine the feeling, the sense in that church?
Speaker 1: Can you imagine what our lives would be like today if that's what it was like to relate to God, where our relationship with God becomes more about what we have done or haven't done, becomes, more about our church attendance or our small group attendance, or whether or not we check the box in a quiet time, in a prayer, before a meal.
Speaker 1: None of those things are bad.
Speaker 1: We want you in church.
Speaker 1: Please pray, please be in the Word, but don't make that the totality of your faith in God.
Speaker 1: You are in a relationship with a resurrected King Jesus.
Speaker 1: That's the goal, that's the focus, that's why we read our Bibles, that's why we pray, that's why we show up and lift our hands in church, because we know the Son of God, who is the substance of our faith.
Speaker 1: So how do we avoid the spirit of legalism?
Speaker 1: Four things, really quickly, and I'm done.
Speaker 1: Number one keep your focus on the substance.
Speaker 1: Don't lose sight of Jesus.
Speaker 1: We've got so many distractions, so many opportunities to chase a shadow.
Speaker 1: So many opportunities to pursue something that isn't a bad thing, it's just not a God thing.
Speaker 1: It's Adrian Rogers who said if Satan can't make you bad, he'll make you busy.
Speaker 1: Keep the focus on the substance of Christ.
Speaker 1: It's where your nourishment comes from, it's where your fulfillment comes from.
Speaker 1: In him, the fullness of God dwells and he lives in you.
Speaker 1: Second thing don't get caught up in chasing the shadows.
Speaker 1: Careers, another dollar, the next position, the next office, up the version of yourself that you think you're supposed to portray to the world on social media.
Speaker 1: Don't get caught up chasing shadows.
Speaker 1: None of it's bad, it's just not God.
Speaker 1: In Colossians, too, it's the shadow of people's expectations.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been chasing that shadow?
Speaker 1: People expect me to be perfect.
Speaker 1: People expect me to have the answers, have it all together.
Speaker 1: People expect me to never show weakness.
Speaker 1: Have you felt that before?
Speaker 1: And the reality is that's a shadow, because we're all weak.
Speaker 1: We all have questions that we don't have answers to, we all have moments where we fail and fall short, and we need to be honest about who we are and where we are, because that lets the light in so God can work in our lives.
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise in the new Top Gun movie, who looked at the higher ups and said I'm just trying to manage expectations.
Speaker 1: And isn't that what so many of us do?
Speaker 1: Just try to manage the expectations of people around us.
Speaker 1: Paul says don't worry so much about people, just worry about who Jesus is.
Speaker 1: Let that be the guiding principle for your life.
Speaker 1: And then, number three seek the wisdom of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: As we navigate this freedom in Christ, seek the wisdom of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we get concerned that if we tell people, hey, you're free in Christ, then they'll just think that means they can do whatever they want.
Speaker 1: I mean, some of y'all got kids.
Speaker 1: If you tell your kids, hey, you're free, your house may not be standing in the next hour.
Speaker 1: If I tell my kids, hey, you're free, you can do whatever you want, they're going to go get a chainsaw and something's coming down in the backyard.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: That would not go well and that's the fear.
Speaker 1: If I tell people they're free, they're going to throw off restraint.
Speaker 1: They're going to do whatever they want.
Speaker 1: Paul even says in one place to the letter to the Corinthian church they say all things are permissible, some free in Christ.
Speaker 1: But he says not all things are beneficial and that's where we need the wisdom of the Spirit to get involved in our life.
Speaker 1: We were talking about this the other night at our life group and somebody made the point that we live in a day and time where you can find somebody to affirm and amen any way you want to live, and the unfortunate reality is that you can find a church to affirm and amen any way you want to live, which is why we've got to be people who are spirit, filled in spirit, land and who anchor our lives in the truth of God's word, together, so that we can discern what is right from wrong in the freedom that we have in Christ.
Speaker 1: There are some things that there is not a clear black and white answer to.
Speaker 1: There's not a right versus wrong issue.
Speaker 1: This is not a should versus shouldn't issue.
Speaker 1: There's some freedom that we have in Christ.
Speaker 1: We need the spirit to help us discern, to be wise, and together we can get there, so that our light can shine in the world, so that people will see the church and say, hey, they're different.
Speaker 1: There's a different power, a different spirit at work there.
Speaker 1: Freedom is not the license to do whatever we want.
Speaker 1: Freedom is the ability to choose Christ over self every single day, and by the power of the spirit, by the wisdom of God working through the truth of God's word.
Speaker 1: That's the invitation on the table for us to walk in the wisdom of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: And then, number four remind yourself that you are in the story of God.
Speaker 1: How do we keep the legalism off of our shoulders?
Speaker 1: How do we make sure that we don't put ourselves back under the curse of the law and reduce our faith to a list of do's and don'ts?
Speaker 1: Remind yourself that you're in the story of God.
Speaker 1: And then church your whole life and, like I know that, but I want to make sure that we not just know that but we feel that we believe that we understand how big of a deal that is.
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, tara and I had a chance to go to Israel and before we went we're on the Google machine and we're Googling places that we're going to see in Israel and we're talking to people that have been before us and we're like, hey, tell us your stories.
Speaker 1: What was your favorite point?
Speaker 1: Where did you really like encounter God the most and what was it like for you?
Speaker 1: Like how did the scriptures come to life.
Speaker 1: Like tell us about your experience, tell us about your story.
Speaker 1: It was amazing, like hearing the stories, seeing the pictures you know through, like Google, being able to Google, and Google just great, you can Google whatever you want, you can be there.
Speaker 1: Then we get on a plane and we fly to New York and in New York we meet another guy who's part of our group and he's from West Virginia, and we're talking to him and we're like hey, man, is this your first trip to Israel?
Speaker 1: And he's like no, this is my seventh trip to Israel.
Speaker 1: And like that sounds excessive and expensive.
Speaker 1: Like why do you keep going back?
Speaker 1: And he's like man, just wait, just wait.
Speaker 1: And I was like we got 11 hours on a plane, so I mean nothing else to do but wait.
Speaker 1: And so we get on the plane and we fly from New York to Tel Aviv and we land and we get off the plane and it's just an airport still.
Speaker 1: I mean it's an airport in Israel, which is cool, but it's still just an airport, and everything's in Hebrew and Arabic and it's like I can't read that.
Speaker 1: And so we get on the bus and it's still like it hasn't quite yet set in and we drive a couple of hours north to Haifa.
Speaker 1: We get off the bus, we go around our hotel to look out kind of the back and all of a sudden in front of me is the Mediterranean Sea and all of a sudden, what was just a picture on my phone I now see with my own eyes.
Speaker 1: I can smell the salt water in the air.
Speaker 1: And then later that day, tara and I were walking the beach and our feet are in the sand next to the Mediterranean Sea.
Speaker 1: Then, as the week goes on, we're sitting on the steps that lead to the temple in Jerusalem where Jesus would have walked as he entered the temple, and we're in Bethany, walking a cobblestone path thousands of years old that Jesus would have traveled, and we're seeing the stories come to life before our eyes.
Speaker 1: We can see it, we can smell it, we're eating the food, we're touching the ground.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden it's like wait a minute.
Speaker 1: What I just saw through a screen and heard from somebody else, it's real and I'm here and y'all.
Speaker 1: That's the story of God for every single one of us.
Speaker 1: It's not just a story in a book or from someone else's experience.
Speaker 1: You get a chance every single day to see it with your own eyes, to breathe in your lungs the gift of life.
Speaker 1: That is this life we call life on planet Earth.
Speaker 1: You get a chance every single day to walk in the forgiveness of Almighty God, to experience the feeling of his spirit, to know his love, to receive his mercy.
Speaker 1: Every single day, your feet are planted in the story of God.
Speaker 1: It's not just a Monday.
Speaker 1: It's an opportunity to see the kingdom of God come in your life and through your life, to see his will be done in your life on this earth as it is in heaven.
Speaker 1: You wake up and you plant your feet.
Speaker 1: You plant your life in the story of God and you walk with him.
Speaker 1: His spirit is within you, his word is available to you.
Speaker 1: Your mind is being renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Your heart is being refreshed by the love of God.
Speaker 1: You're walking out the kingdom's story of God.
Speaker 1: On a Tuesday afternoon, when it's 98 degrees and the humidity is through the roof in Somerville, south Carolina.
Speaker 1: It's an opportunity to be in the story.
Speaker 1: What a gift that is when we understand that it's really really hard to reduce our faith down to a list of things that we shouldn't do and we shouldn't do To adopt this legalistic perspective that says I've got to do enough so that God will love me.
Speaker 1: We understand that Jesus died because God already loves us.
Speaker 1: Everything we need to be right with God was accomplished in Christ on the cross and by grace.
Speaker 1: Through faith, we now walk in freedom, today and every day.
Speaker 1: Mary and Martha, luke, chapter 10.
Speaker 1: Jesus comes, he's at their house, martha, what's she doing?
Speaker 1: She's in the kitchen, she's cooking, she's cleaning, she's trying to make it all perfect so Jesus will be impressed.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing.
Speaker 1: She's trying to serve Amazing Mary.
Speaker 1: What's Mary doing?
Speaker 1: Just sitting at Jesus' feet.
Speaker 1: She's in His presence, in all of who he is.
Speaker 1: Martha comes in, martha's ticked, she's like tell her to get up, make Mary go do something.
Speaker 1: And Jesus, he looks at Martha and he says Martha, you are worried and anxious about many things.
Speaker 1: And isn't that where a legalistic perspective leaves us, when we're trying to do enough, to perform enough, to show God we're worthy enough, worryed and anxious?
Speaker 1: And Jesus says but Mary has chosen the one thing that is necessary and that will never be taken away from her.
Speaker 1: May we choose the one thing, the one who is necessary.
Speaker 1: His name is Jesus.
Speaker 1: He loves you.
Speaker 1: He gave His life for you.
Speaker 1: He is the substance, the goal, the aim, the treasure of all of this.
Speaker 1: It's all about Him.
Speaker 1: So, father, I pray that in this moment, god, that you would release us from the chains of shame and guilt and condemnation that come from thinking we have to earn your favor and your love.
Speaker 1: And, father, help us to understand that Jesus is enough, that he is sufficient, that when he said it is finished, he meant everything was finished, that we needed.
Speaker 1: Everything we need to be right with you has been accomplished by Christ.
Speaker 1: Father, our goal, our aim is to live in the freedom of Jesus, today and forever.
Speaker 1: Father, right now, in this moment, I pray that you're working in our hearts, setting people free the weight of expectations, the weight of fear, the weight of anxiety.
Speaker 1: Help us to plant our feet firmly in the story of Jesus, to choose the one thing that is necessary.
Speaker 1: In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1: So we stand and sing this morning.
Speaker 1: This is a chance for you to respond.
Speaker 1: If you've never given your life to Jesus, you've never experienced the one thing that's necessary for life and salvation.
Speaker 1: This is your moment by grace, through faith, trust Jesus as Lord and Savior, or if, today, you need to join the church.
Speaker 1: You say God's led us, our family, god's led me here to this place.
Speaker 1: Love to have that conversation with you.
Speaker 1: If you just need to pray, love to pray with you, or the altar is open.
Speaker 1: But let's respond to the leading of the Spirit this morning as we sing together.