Well, hey, we are in the midst of a series winning with Jesus, following Christ's path to victory. And I don't know about you, but I am thankful for the victory of Jesus in my life. I get to experience it in my life, and we as believers get to win with Jesus. But if I want to have the victory of Jesus in my life, I need to understand what Jesus' victory is about, what his perspective of victory is. And we've got all these games on the platform. There's like Uno and there's Candyland and Monopoly and the different things. And if I want to play a game or if I want to win at anything, I need to understand what the objective of the game is, right? If I want to win at Uno, then I need to get down to what? One card, Uno, right? If I want to win at chess, then I need to know that the objective of the game is to take out the opponent's king. If I want to win at Monopoly, then I buy out all the spaces, and I think the objective is to wait for everyone else to tire out and get bored, right? But I need to understand what the objective of the thing is. And so if I am looking for the victory of Jesus in my life, I need to not look for victory as I see it or the things that I want, but look for the victory as Jesus sees it, to look for Jesus' victory in my life. How many of us are thankful for our independence? Like our choice to be able to do our ability to do things on our own or make choices right? Like I don't have to ask my parents or anybody if I can go across town anymore, right? And uh growing up, like the times that you would get excited would be almost those opportunities where you were given a little more responsibility or a little more freedom, a little more um independence. And uh when I was real little, I had like a Fisher Price car, and we go on a walk, and uh I could have a little bit of independence with that, but I could really go only as far as my little feet would take me, right? And then I graduated. How many have had a Power Wheels car? Anyone? Nobody okay, a couple. I had mine was a Ford like monster truck, and it had like lights in the back, and it revved up really loud, and so I could drive that thing and like speed around the yard and speed down the road, and I got a little more independence, and that was exciting. And then you kind of most of us graduate to like a bike with training wheels, and then maybe a bigger bike, and now I'm going a little bit further, and we're always wanting to grow and do more and more, right? Um, the time I got my first truck, I felt like, man, this is this is great. Oh, and before that, from a bike, I graduated to an electric scooter. And my mom, this was about fifth grade, she even let me take my electric scooter to elementary school, and it was safe, it wasn't that far away. But I felt like I was on top of the world at 15 miles an hour. Like it was great. Um, but as we gain more re uh independence, a lot of times we gain more responsibility, right? And um as an adult, now I've got to pay bills and insurance and all that stuff, and uh I'm not so as excited about more independence or more responsibility as I am just being able to shrug off some responsibility sometimes. Like as an adult and a business owner, if you want to plan a good birthday day for me, you plan the whole event, the whole schedule, and you just tell me what to do, and I follow along. That sounds like a great day to me. When I go hang out with my uh sister and brother-in-law, like if they drive and Alyssa and I get to sit in the back and we just go along for the ride, that is great. That sounds like a great day. But uh a major part of the victory that Jesus has for us is the freedom that we receive as believers. And Jesus' idea of freedom doesn't necessarily involve our independence, but rather our dependence on Him. How many have recognized that in your walk of faith? Jesus' freedom is different than what we normally perceive freedom to be, and it is deeper and it is richer than we can ever imagine. Paul in Galatians 5 1, and we're gonna kind of camp out in mainly Galatians today, chapter 5 and verse 1, Paul says, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. So Jesus went to the cross not for me and for you for the purpose of freedom. He went to the cross so that you may be free for freedom's sake. And so if I want to be free in Jesus, I have to recognize and learn what his freedom is about. What am I free from, and what is his freedom for? Paul is writing this letter to the churches in the region of Galatia to encourage them to embrace the original gospel they had received. Paul had been to these churches in this region before, several years prior, and he had brought to them the message of the gospel that they received and they found freedom in. But the Galatians had begun to accept what Paul calls a different gospel. He begins his letter in chapter one passionately protesting those who taught the Galatians differently and protesting this different gospel. Galatians 1 6, Paul writes, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. How many know that anything contrary to this word, anything contrary to the gospel of Christ is no gospel at all? And he's saying, you were called to live in the grace of Christ. This is our calling too. We are called as believers to live in the grace of Christ. How many of you know God has his mercy and he has his grace? And mercy is his willingness to withhold the things that we do deserve. Our punishment, the death, the shame. He withholds from us because of his mercy. And his grace is the everything that he freely gives and lavishes on us that we don't deserve. It means that he took on the cross for us is his grace, that he covered our sins when we didn't deserve it, that he gives us freedom and hope. That is the grace of Jesus. The fact that I no longer have to be good in and of myself, but I rely on him. I'm dependent on his salvation on the cross, it's his grace. And so we are called to live in that truth. To live in the truth that Jesus died for me and he has covered my sins, and I don't do this thing on my own. In 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 4, Paul clearly lays out the gospel for us. He states it plainly. He says, Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved. If you hold firmly to the word, I preach to you. Otherwise you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance. And this is it. That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he raised on the third day according to the scriptures. That is it. That is the fullness of the salvation work of the gospel. That Jesus died for our sins, he was buried, and he rose again. Amen. And the gospel is profound in the fact that it's hard for us to grasp and kind of wrap our minds around sometimes, but yet it is simple. It is simple, just as Paul stated it. And sometimes the simplicity of the gospel messes with our human nature, sometimes. For us to accept it, we have to realize that we are dependent. Sometimes, maybe even right now, your heads are spinning. As I read what Paul said and the simplicity of the gospel, and you're thinking, well, yes, but you have to, and this has to happen, and yes, but there's this. But truly the gospel is simple. Jesus died for our sins, he was buried, and he rose again. He completed the salvation work on the cross for us. And so to accept or to hear this gospel, it wrestles with our desire to be independent sometimes. And the true gospel says, I am in need of a savior. And a lot of us are self-sufficient. So we say, Well, I I'm okay though. I really got this thing figured out. And that could be believers and unbelievers alike. Unbelievers saying, I don't really don't want anything. That's good, but I don't really need a savior. I'm got this thing figured out. But even as believers, sometimes we can say the same thing. I'm saved, God's it, I'm I'm good. I don't need any more of the Lord. We have to be willing to recognize and admit that I'm in need of a savior, that I'm a sinner and I need a savior. And we can't be the savior for ourselves. I can't be my own savior, and I can't input any savior that I want into my situation. Jesus is the only, the one and only Savior. Only His blood can cover our sins. Only the work on the cross that is done by Jesus can save me. There is no other. And I can't do anything to earn what he did on the cross. I can't make myself better in order to earn it. I can't change my ways and myself to be able to earn it. He freely gives the gift of salvation. So I can't take any credit for it, right? But isn't there a freedom in knowing that? I simply have to receive. Romans 10 and 9 says, if you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. There is a release in knowing that I am fully dependent on Jesus. I've tried to do this thing on my own. I've tried to face it in my own circumstances, and my best thinking, my best abilities have gotten me to where I am, but Jesus takes me further and he's given me freedom to live in his grace. And so the Galatians, others had come to them and said, Well, you must be circumstancied, you must follow the Jewish customs, you must do this, you must do that. They are almost telling them at that time, you have to become Jewish before you become a Christian. They were placing these extra burdens onto the grace message of the gospel. How often do we do the same thing to ourselves? We allow outside influences, and oftentimes, really, it's just inside my mind where I'm fighting. My mind's saying, Well, you haven't done this well enough. Well, you could do this more. And the Lord can't possibly love you the way he did yesterday because today you've totally messed up. And I combat in my mind as doubts cloud my perspective from the grace of God. I can't do enough to earn it. There's a song by United Pursuit that says, I'm laying down all my religion. I'm laying down. I want to know you, Lord. I will rejoice in the simple gospel. I will rejoice in you, Lord. And this is what our walk of faith is about. We are called to rejoice in the simple gospel, to rejoice in the Lord. When things are trying to tell me that I am bound up and that I am not good enough and that there's no way that the Lord can possibly love me, I will rejoice in the truth of his salvation. I will rejoice in the goodness of who he is and the fact that he died for me and that he is alive and well. I will rejoice in that fact. And when I come into this house, I don't want to come here just to receive what I can gain from the Lord. I don't want to try to come in and try to fix things on my own before the Lord. I want to come to praise him and to thank him with a heart of gratitude for what he has done. Amen. It's my decision and my joy to rejoice in the Lord. The word says, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. So let my life rejoice in him, rejoice in his grace, his kindness, his love, his faithfulness, his freedom. I want to rejoice in Jesus. And if my focus, if I would stop just trying to do things on my own and stop trying to walk a straight and narrow without following the Lord, without seeing him, if I would just shift my focus to the grace and the goodness of Jesus, everything would change. Everything would fall in line. Because the goodness is what he is about. Paul is so adamant about the danger of that different gospel that he curses those that are leading them astray. Galatians 1, 7 through 9, he says, evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let them be under God's curse. As we have already said, so now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God's curse. We have to be as adamant and I have to be as adamant as Paul was about this other gospel, that nothing can be contrary to the word of God. I am going to set my mind on the grace of Jesus. I'm going to set my heart on him and him alone, that I won't be distracted by my shortcomings. I'm not going to be strapped distracted by my own efforts. I am going to follow the Lord because my relationship with him, my heart before him is all that matters. That he loves me and he has set me free. If I want to walk in the victory of Jesus, I have to be convinced that Jesus is my victory in him alone. Amen? Galatians 5, 1, again, he says, it is for freedom that Christ has set for us free. And he continues and says, Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. I don't want to be in bondage anymore. I don't want to be in bondage to my thoughts that try to command the way that I walk or the way that I think. I don't want to be in bondage to the ways of the world. I don't want to be in bondage to my sin. I don't want to be in bondage to the things that Christ has set me free from. So Paul says, Stand firm then. How do I stand firm? Paul and Silas in Acts 16, and this story is probably familiar to many of you, they were going to a place of prayer, and they were doing this daily, and the Bible says a woman, a slave girl, was following them who had a spirit of divination. It means that she was a fortune teller. And she was crying out behind the men and following them around, saying, These men are servants of the Most High Guy, God, who proclaimed to you the way of salvation. And what she's saying may have been true, but she kept following them and yelling it and yelling it and yelling it. And eventually the word says that Paul got so annoyed. Wouldn't you get annoyed if someone was like following around and just continuing to chant? He got so annoyed that he says to the Spirit in her, I command you in the name of Jesus to come out of her. And so the Spirit leaves. And now the the owners who profited off of the girl's ability had no income and they were mad. And so Paul and Silas are sent right to jail. And they're not sent to like a modern-day jail where they had a bed and where they had a meal and they had a judge on TV in the morning that was going to give them their verdict. No, this is a Roman-era prison, right? And so I'm sure it was nasty, and they were probably chained to the wall, and the floor was probably dirt and moist, and there might have been critters and rats in there. Like it is a nasty place, and they are truly in the flesh stuck here. And so I'm sure in Paul's flesh he certainly felt bound. Because he was. They were stuck in this prison. But what do Paul and Silas choose to do? In verse 25, it says, About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. They chose to sing to the Lord. They chose to praise the Lord in the midst of their bondage. What is our response when we are bound? What is our response when we feel caught up in the flesh, caught up in our circumstances? How do I respond? I see like three different categories, if you will, of problems that we face. One, a lot of times our problems can be we can have trivial problems. They're small things. And yet I'm so fixated on that problem that I'm dramatic about it. I've talked about before, like I get hangry or I get tired, and then it seems like everything's a problem in that day, right? How many have experienced that in your in your day-to-day? Those things we can simply remind ourselves of the goodness of the Lord, sing a song, read his word, and our perspective can be changed, right? So sometimes we just need to practice praising the Lord, having gratitude. And a lot of our problems would be a lot better off than they are, right? Sometimes we just have to change our stinking thinking, and that's it. But then there are problems that we've been facing for a long time, and they take measures, they take obedience, they take uh diligence in seeking the Lord in. But the word says what? That it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. And if Christ has set us free in the spirit, certainly he also wants to see us walk in freedom in the physical. Amen? And so Christ's desire is for us to be free from our challenges, to walk through them and to pursue his freedom. And so oftentimes we're in the midst of our situation and we've prayed and we've asked for answers, and God has given answers, but yet we haven't chosen to walk in his freedom yet. We haven't been obedient. And now hear me out. I know every problem is not straightforward, and I'm talking about just a category of problems right now, right? But sometimes we are praying for financial freedom and yet we aren't willing to set a budget. We're not willing to look over our finances or sell things that the Lord has already blessed us with. We're not willing to make any changes to see the situation change. And so we're stuck in our bondage still. We're stuck in the situation when God has already made a way to freedom. Sometimes we have relationship problems, but we're not willing to say, I'm sorry. We're not willing to forgive. There's counselors around us here in this church and people that we know, but yet we're not willing to seek counsel. Because the pain of staying the same has not become greater than the pain of change. And so Christ has already won the freedom for us, and yet we stay in our bondage. I want the freedom of Jesus. I want to be obedient. Like I said, not every problem is straightforward. So sometimes it's just that we haven't heard yet, and we're waiting patiently on the Lord to give us instruction. The third category are those problems that are too difficult for us to handle, the things that are beyond our ability. We've received a diagnosis that there's no answer to. We've had death in our family. We're facing a battle that there seems to be absolutely no way out. And in the flesh we are stuck. But we have a choice to set our minds on the freedom of Jesus. And we serve a God who is greater than any circumstance we may face. And so when I decide that it is truly for freedom that Christ has set me free, I can decide in my heart that whether I live or die on this earth, I will praise the Lord. I believe that my spirit is free. I am not just this flesh here and now, but I am eternal being through Christ Jesus. He has given us eternal life. And there is something beyond this earth, something beyond the circumstances I will face. And so when I am facing death, when I am facing challenges that are beyond my measure, I can say, Where, oh death is your sting, where oh grave is your victory, because Jesus has won it all. Amen. Amen. And so all of these situations can make us feel bound. And sometimes in the flesh, we may be truly bound. We might be like Paul and Silas, stuck in that jail or stuck in our circumstances. But Jesus has our freedom in mind, and he will not leave you where you. And so Paul's mind wasn't just fixed on the jail cell that he was in, he was fixed on the spiritual. His heart was too fixed on the freedom of Jesus to allow his spirit to be bound by his physical circumstances. Galatians 5 13, he continues and says, You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather serve one another humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. My flesh and the spirit are at war with one another. How many can testify that? We recognize it. We know that my flesh is selfish and that it wants what's contrary to the spirit. And so if I want to be spiritually free, I cannot indulge the flesh. But I can't resist the flesh on my own, right? How many of you tried? Like we pray and we grit and we're like, I promise, Lord, I'm not gonna do it again today. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna do better today, and we still mess up. I can't just decide that I'm not gonna do something and hope that by my own strength and my own might I'm gonna overcome it. I need the grace of Jesus. I need the Spirit's empowerment to overcome my flesh. And so if I want to combat my flesh, if I want to tell my flesh, be quiet, I must set my mind on the grace and love of Jesus and take my mind off of myself. So one, we need to spend time in his presence. Amen. The more I'm in his presence, the more I am radically transformed. The more I focus on his goodness and his grace, the more he changes my mind and reshapes my heart. And two, Paul gives some great advice and direction here. He says, rather serve one another humbly in love. So if I set my heart and my mind to serve the kingdom, to serve Jesus-minded victory, to serve Jesus things, and to serve others, then my selfishness is removed and I'm directed towards things that lead me towards freedom. My natural response to the radical grace of Jesus should be to share freedom with other people. If I am truly in tune with the victory and the freedom of Jesus, the fact that I can live just open-hearted and in the joy and the gratitude of who He is, I should want to share that freedom with everyone that's around me, to tell them how good it is. And so when I direct my energy to loving God and others, my focus is off of myself, and I'm freely walking in the grace of Jesus. When I think about the suffering Jesus went through for me and how much he loves me, how much he loves you, my heart begins to break for the things that break his. And a spirit-focused heart outweigh the flesh every time. By God's strength and by his love. Verse 16 through 28, Paul continues and he says, So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. See, the law listed all of these instructions, all of these commands that we couldn't possibly live up to. And we still try to turn back to that. We look to our own means to live up to God or to please Him. But I can only find my righteousness and wholeness in Jesus. And so if I am led by the Spirit, I am no longer bound by the law, but I am free to live in his grace. Paul earlier in verse 6 he says, For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith, our belief in Jesus, expressing itself through love. In other words, he's saying, you can get circumcised if you want, you can be uncircumcised. What matters is your heart before the Lord. I can do everything right. I can get everything in perfect order. I can read the word as much as I possibly can, and I can I can grit a little deeper in worship, and I can and I can get the day perfectly on spot. But it doesn't matter if I don't have a heart before him. I can do all of those things and still be far from the Lord. My response has to be in love. I believe and receive the grace of God, and now my response is love for him and love for others. Listen, fruit is produced in us, like we look to see the goodness in the Spirit of God and the fruit of other people. We see good things produced in them. Fruit is produced in me and through me, but I am not the vine. My flesh is selfish. And Paul lists in 19 through 21 the acts of the flesh and all of these things you can read later. They're selfishly motivated. My response to the grace of God is repentance. And repentance means to change your mind. I can't choose to change my mind. The Spirit of God changes my perspective. It's the knowledge of what He did for me, the knowledge of His goodness and His grace that changes my perspective and causes repentance in me. Only God can change that. Only the Spirit can change my mind. His kindness, the word says, leads me to repentance. And what's the result of our changed mind? What's the result of repentance? Changed behavior, right? The fruit of the Spirit begins to happen in us. And so no longer am I bound to those things that I once was. No longer am I going to indulge the flesh or or or commit the things that I once did because I found freedom in Jesus. I want to say this, I want you to think about it a little bit because it's a kind of hard to chew on. It's something you can contemplate, but repentance is the response to and the result of the saving work of Christ and not a means to salvation. So I want to say this a little more clearly. I don't repent to get closer to God or to get things right. I repent because I am closer to God and He has made things right. Does that make sense? It takes the weight off of us. That's the weight that Jesus wants to carry for us. He has made things right. He has restored us. He is our righteousness. And it is for him that I am free to live and move and have our being. Grace allows me to see that Jesus is my true salvation. It's a relationship with him that matters. Now how good I can become. And a result of that is the fruit of the Spirit. Verses 22 through 26 says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. The fruit of the Spirit is selfless because it's the product of faith focused on the grace of the one who gave it all. I think back to the woman who was caught in adultery, and he says, go and sin no more. He wasn't saying, go and sin no more because next time I'm not going to do this thing again. I'm not going to give you grace again. He wasn't saying, go and if you sin the same way again, I'm going to reject you next time. No, he was saying, go and be free from the sins that I have set you free from. Go and live in this freedom and this liberty that I have found, I've given you, and you have found in me. I want to live that type of freedom before Jesus. I want to live open and abandoned before Him, knowing His love and that He cares for me. Will you stand with me this morning? How many know what happened to Paul and Silas in the prison when they began to pray and they began to sing? How many know? In Acts 16, 26, it says, suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and at once all the prison doors flew open and everyone's chains came loose. That is my prayer for you this morning. How many know that suddenly your situation can change? When your focus is on the freedom and the grace of Jesus, and you say, Lord, I accept, I believe that you are my Savior. I need you and you alone. Suddenly your circumstances can change. Today, suddenly your circumstances can change. And even if you still are stuck in the flesh, your spirit can be free in Christ Jesus. Amen. And so all we have to do is simply accept to simply come before Him. So I invite you this morning, this is my prayer for you today, that the chains on your mind and on your heart would be broken free, that doors would open wide in your situation, and you would begin to see the direction of Jesus and follow after him. Would you just come forward this morning and show gratitude to praise the Lord for his grace and for his mercy, for his love, to spend time in his presence. He has freedom for you, for the purpose of freedom, for the purpose of relationship. He loves you and he cares for you this morning. He sees your circumstances and he has freedom in mind.