SPEAKER_00: This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.
SPEAKER_00: For more information, visit Access.tv.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get to work today, everybody.
SPEAKER_00: If you are new to our church, honored you're here, you're coming in on part six of an eight-part series.
SPEAKER_00: Now we don't normally do series that are that long, but every summer we pick a book of the Bible and we just go to work on it.
SPEAKER_00: And this year we're working through the book of Galatians in a series that we've called Free People.
SPEAKER_00: The whole heart of the series is that God created you to live in and to walk in freedom.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul writes this letter to a church, it's really a group of churches in an area called Galatia, that would be found in modern day Turkey.
SPEAKER_00: And he writes this letter, and this is the first of the letters that Paul writes to all of these different churches, and he comes out swinging.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's like, guys, you've got to stop falling into the trap of falling into religion or falling into trying to earn God's love in his favor.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot earn what God has freely given to you, so stop trying.
SPEAKER_00: And he's really strong about it.
SPEAKER_00: So the first three chapters are about that.
SPEAKER_00: Then last week, I was supposed to preach Galatians chapter four, but I skipped it because last week when we celebrated 250 years of our country, we celebrated Independence Day.
SPEAKER_00: And um, chapter five is all about living in and walking in that freedom in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So I talked about that.
SPEAKER_00: But today I want to backtrack and I want to go to chapter four, which is a really difficult chapter.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to go to chapter four because to understand how to live in freedom in Christ, you have to understand what you're free from.
SPEAKER_00: To get us started today, every summer my family takes a vacation and we go somewhere around the world.
SPEAKER_00: This year we went to New York City, and for four or five days, we literally ate our way through New York City.
SPEAKER_00: I ate all the pizza, all the bagels.
SPEAKER_00: Your boy is still trying to lose those New York pounds, and uh had a wonderful time.
SPEAKER_00: And we took our kids to all the all the tourist traps, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building.
SPEAKER_00: We did all that stuff because they had never seen it.
SPEAKER_00: But the very last day, we had one of the most memorable moments on the trip.
SPEAKER_00: We're literally going to the airport, and Uber comes and picks us up, and it's this really sweet man.
SPEAKER_00: He was from Bangladesh, and so I'm in the front seat, just making small talk, and we talked about the World Cup, and we talked about his family back home.
SPEAKER_00: And I asked him why he moved to America, and he said, It's the land of opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted a better future for my family.
SPEAKER_00: So we got to talking about what he does, and as a driver, the things that he hears from people, and he said this thing, and when he said this phrase, I was like, Wow, man, you just dropped a nugget of wisdom on us.
SPEAKER_00: He said this: he said, People are always moving, but have no idea where they're going.
SPEAKER_00: This is a man who every single day his car is filled with like the craziest, the most interesting people all over the world.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, people are always moving, but they have no idea where they're going.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if that might be true for you.
SPEAKER_00: That you you might examine your life and feel like you're doing lots of stuff, but you're not getting anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Like there's parts of your life where it feels like your purpose is disconnected from your effort.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's parts of your life that feel like you're in a rocking chair.
SPEAKER_00: You're doing lots of stuff, but you're not really getting anywhere at all.
SPEAKER_00: If that's you, I want you to hold on to that tension because that's what Paul is going to talk about today.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we go into chapter four, I'd like to backtrack just a few verses into chapter three so we can get a running head start.
SPEAKER_00: These verses are really technical.
SPEAKER_00: If you're like a Bible nerd like me, you're gonna love this.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'll read it, it may not make a lot of sense, and I'll come back and try to backfill it with information.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he says at the end of Galatians chapter 3, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the Old Testament and all the 613 rules and laws of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He says, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: He says, So the law was our guardian.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of bookmark that word.
SPEAKER_00: We'll come back to it.
SPEAKER_00: The law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.
SPEAKER_00: If you were here a couple weeks ago, we said the word justified is a legal term that means made right in right standing with or declared innocent.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means.
SPEAKER_00: He says, now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
SPEAKER_00: So in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs.
SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful word, heirs, according to the promise.
SPEAKER_00: So here is what Paul is trying to say.
SPEAKER_00: If we were not careful, what will happen is we will start to live out of a false kind of identity.
SPEAKER_00: We will start to think that what we have to do is exhaust ourselves, nose to the grind, trying to accomplish perfectly following and never messing up on all of the rules and the laws of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like this.
SPEAKER_00: He's like the Old Testament, it's really, it's it's unique.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, to explain it like this: a couple years ago, my son Joey was on a football team and he was a quarterback.
SPEAKER_00: And one day he was standing under center and he took a snap, but the ball didn't go right into his hands.
SPEAKER_00: It actually hit and jammed his pinky finger.
SPEAKER_00: And it was painful, but he's like, I toughed it out.
SPEAKER_00: I rubbed some dirt on it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, it's my boy, I'm so proud.
SPEAKER_00: In a generation full of wusses, I'm raising men in the Burns household.
SPEAKER_00: Line your daughters up, everybody.
SPEAKER_00: And so the ball jams his finger, and and he he kept going, he kept playing through it.
SPEAKER_00: That night, he's like, Dad, I don't know what the deal.
SPEAKER_00: I can't, because I can't bend, can't bend my finger.
SPEAKER_00: So we took him to the doctor, and the doctor ran an x-ray on it and found out he had fractured a bone in his hand from from that weird snap.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's the funny thing: the x-ray revealed what was broken.
SPEAKER_00: If I went to another doctor and had another x-ray, it would show the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: If I had 10 or 100 x-rays, they would all show the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: They would reveal what was broken, but they they wouldn't be able to fix it.
SPEAKER_00: They would just show what's broken.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul is saying in those verses we just read is that the law, which is the Old Testament, it reveals what's broken in you, but it doesn't fix it.
SPEAKER_00: The law, all those rules, all those laws, all they do is reveal the areas where you need help and where you need a savior.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the funny thing.
SPEAKER_00: For so many of us, these are guardrails.
SPEAKER_00: These are things that are meant to help us stay on the path that God has for us.
SPEAKER_00: I think of it kind of funny like this.
SPEAKER_00: Some people are like, I can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: There's just too many, like the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: How can anybody do the Ten Commandments?
SPEAKER_00: To me, the Ten Commandments are God's lowest standard of living.
SPEAKER_00: God's like, hey, can you not murder each other, right?
SPEAKER_00: People are like, oh, it's such a struggle, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm with you.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the the law is gonna reveal what's broken, but it doesn't help you fix any of it.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul uses another word.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the law is like a guardian.
SPEAKER_00: What is a guardian?
SPEAKER_00: It's someone who manages or takes care of someone younger.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, best way I could explain it is this.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that that you're seven years old, and you get a letter in the mail that you had a distant relative, a distant uncle that you never knew, who passed away tragically and he left you$270 million and you're seven.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone remember the TV show Richy Rich?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody remember this?
SPEAKER_00: I would have a soft serve ice cream in every room of my house if I had seven years old and had$270 million.
SPEAKER_00: The thing is, if a child inherits that much wealth, they usually don't get to run it by themselves because they're seen as immature.
SPEAKER_00: They're seen as needing help and guidance.
SPEAKER_00: And so a guardian could be a parent, could just be an adult, but a guardian makes sure that they live within their means until they're mature enough to manage it for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, this is what the law, this is what the Old Testament is like.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, if you're not careful, what will happen is you will find yourself, and he uses this little phrase, he says, you will find yourself locked up or imprisoned to it.
SPEAKER_00: If you were here last week, we talked about walking in freedom in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I told you a story about this man in the news who had been on death row for 20 years, and he was found innocent 20 years into his prison sentence.
SPEAKER_00: Now try to try to imagine this is you.
SPEAKER_00: You were falsely accused of a crime you had never committed, you spent 20 years of your life in prison, and they come to you one day and they're like, hey, my bad.
SPEAKER_00: We messed up.
SPEAKER_00: And they unlock your door and they say, You're free to go.
SPEAKER_00: But instead of leaving, instead of walking out to your family and friends who are thrilled that you're free, instead of stepping out into freedom, instead of going to Chick-fil-A and getting that sweet tea for yourself that you have been thinking about for 20 years, you just sit there.
SPEAKER_00: You don't move.
SPEAKER_00: You just stay locked up.
SPEAKER_00: Stuck.
SPEAKER_00: This is the picture Paul gives of a lot, a lot of people that get stuck under the weight and the rules of the law.
SPEAKER_00: There's a term in psychology for people who get stuck like this.
SPEAKER_00: The term is institutionalization.
SPEAKER_00: This word is a word used to describe people, it would apply to prisoners who, for generations, years, decades, they've literally been told every single thing that they are to do.
SPEAKER_00: They never choose what to eat, they never choose when to eat, they never choose when to shower, they never choose when to exercise.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is dictated for them, and it gets to the point where if they get through their sentence, they're not able to make decisions for themselves because they're so used to decisions being made for them.
SPEAKER_00: This is how a lot of us, if we're not careful, we will choose to live.
SPEAKER_00: It's like we become enslaved to the law, enslaved to religion, or here's another way to think about it, enslaved to your past, enslaved to your shame, enslaved to your guilt.
SPEAKER_00: And God's desire was that you would be free.
SPEAKER_00: Now, now today's chapter, chapter four, that we're gonna go to in a moment, I'm gonna be honest with you, it is a theological, it is a theological gem, but it's also a landmind.
SPEAKER_00: Because what Paul is going to do is he's going to compare two things.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna say that you were created to be a child of God, but he uses a word to contrast it that if I'm just honest, it's difficult.
SPEAKER_00: He uses a word to explain freedom in Christ, and to understand freedom, you've got to understand what you're free from.
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is this word is so problematic for us as Americans.
SPEAKER_00: The word he's gonna use is the word slave.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the reality of our country.
SPEAKER_00: There are some people who the word slave is such a strong, domineering word to them that when they hear the word slave, they can't hear context at all.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be really clear about this.
SPEAKER_00: Some people are like, the Bible doesn't condemn slavery.
SPEAKER_00: Read the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Timothy chapter 1, Paul says it is inappropriate, wrong, and sinful for any man to own another man.
SPEAKER_00: It is not okay.
SPEAKER_00: I think about the word slave and I think about our country and the atrocity of our country that people thought that they could own people.
SPEAKER_00: That is abhorrent and it is anti-the way of God.
SPEAKER_00: Are you with me on this?
SPEAKER_00: But Paul uses this word slave, and I want you to see the word he uses.
SPEAKER_00: In Greek, the word for this word slave is the word doulos, and maybe a better way to understand this word as an American is to not think of a slave the way we think of the atrocity of slavery in our country, but to think of this two-word phrase, bondservant.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a phrase that we use very often, but a bondservant is someone who might owe a debt.
SPEAKER_00: They might owe money to you, and so what they might say is I have no way to pay all of that money, so what I'll do is I'll come work for you as a doolos, a bondservant, almost like a slave, and I'm working for you, but I'm working to pay off the debt.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when the debt is satisfied, then I'm free to go and free to do whatever I want, but it's for a season I'm here slaving away, working for you, and you get to call the shots.
SPEAKER_00: You understand this because all of us have this at times.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture says that the borrower is slave to the lender, which means if you've ever paid off a student loan or paid off a mortgage or paid off a high credit card balance, you know that feeling of like, oh, I'm free.
SPEAKER_00: Then you can kind of start to understand what Paul was talking about, but here's what I want you to get.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to ask you to approach these verses with a sense of maturity and to understand that what he's talking about is he's trying to use the strongest of language to talk about the spiritual condition in many of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us, we're not physically enslaved.
SPEAKER_00: We don't work or answer to someone that's a master or who is above us.
SPEAKER_00: But what we do is we we find ourselves spiritually enslaved.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can understand that, you can understand the contrast Paul is making when he's talking to these Galatian readers, and he's saying, stop falling into the spiritual trap of slavery when you were designed and created by God to be free.
SPEAKER_00: Galatians chapter 4, here's where he picks up.
SPEAKER_00: He says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, someone who inherits something is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate, which means someone else is calling the shots for that person.
SPEAKER_00: He says the heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.
SPEAKER_00: He says, So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, when we were immature, what we would do is we would find ourselves being led by spiritual leaders that wanted to oppress us and put weight on us.
SPEAKER_00: He says, But when the set time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to see this line that we might receive adoption to sonship.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on, he says, Because you are his sons, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out Abba Father.
SPEAKER_00: This phrase in Aramaic, it's an Aramaic phrase that literally is like the sweetest, most intimate thing that a child could call their father.
SPEAKER_00: And I love this phrase because God, the creator of the universe, the God who spoke the world into existence, Genesis chapter 1 says, with the power of God's voice, he speaks the world into existence.
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew phrase is ex nielho.
SPEAKER_00: And God speaks the world into existence with the power of his voice.
SPEAKER_00: He creates the sun, the moon, and the stars.
SPEAKER_00: He hangs planets and galaxies farther than science will ever get to.
SPEAKER_00: He fills the sky with birds and the sea with fish.
SPEAKER_00: He creates all the vegetation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of his creation, he creates humanity for relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I need you to understand.
SPEAKER_00: You might think that you're an accident.
SPEAKER_00: Your parents might not have planned you, but God always did.
SPEAKER_00: You might feel like your whole life has never had a purpose to it, but God has one for you.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to understand this God's desire is to adopt you into his own family.
SPEAKER_00: How crazy is that?
SPEAKER_00: The God of the universe longs to be in relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes on.
SPEAKER_00: He says, So, you are no longer a slave, but God's child.
SPEAKER_00: Can I pause here for just a moment and say something?
SPEAKER_00: God wants you to be close to him, but do me a favor, don't call him daddy God.
SPEAKER_00: That just creeps me out.
SPEAKER_00: Are we cool?
SPEAKER_00: But it good?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: He says, and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about that for just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: That the God of the universe created you to live in and to walk in a different kind of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: That you were created by God to walk in freedom as a son or a daughter, a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, for so many people, we find ourselves retreating back to the obscurity of living a life entrapped, enslaved in sin, entrapped or enslaved in darkness, entrapped or enslaved in our past.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want to ask you.
SPEAKER_00: Why would someone who has been adopted into God's family choose to live like a slave?
SPEAKER_00: Like why, when you were created to walk in freedom, would you retreat to the obscurity of living a life trying to measure up to the things of the law when God created you to walk in a different kind of grace and freedom?
SPEAKER_00: If we're gonna be the kind of church that actually lives this out, if people are gonna say, man, I don't know what it is about access church, but there's something different, they walk in a different kind of freedom, we're gonna have to change some stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to pull your notes out and write these down.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is this if you're going to walk in freedom, number one, you've got to know who you are.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear this.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a world that wants to identify you.
SPEAKER_00: All of us have an identity.
SPEAKER_00: An identity is the truest thing about you.
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of things that are true about you.
SPEAKER_00: Your height is true, your weight is true, who you voted for is true, your job is true, your hair color might be true, nobody knows, right?
SPEAKER_00: Lots of things are true about you, but according to Scripture, your identity is the truest thing about you.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's going to talk about what is the truest thing about you.
SPEAKER_00: Here it is, Galatians chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: He says, So you are no longer a slave, but a son.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that word for just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 2, Jesus is in Capernaum, he's at his house.
SPEAKER_00: And it says some friends have a buddy of theirs who's paralyzed, and we don't know the whole story, but the dude can't walk, and so they do anything they can to get him to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They grab the mat, they lift him, they walk him to Jesus' house.
SPEAKER_00: But scripture says Jesus' house was so packed with people that they couldn't get to him.
SPEAKER_00: I think one of them was from Plant City, and he said, Hey boys, I got an idea, let's get her done.
SPEAKER_00: And they lift him over their shoulder, walk him to the top of the house, rip a hole in the roof, and lower the man in front of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What do they want Jesus to say to the paralyzed friend?
SPEAKER_00: You're healed, rise and walk.
SPEAKER_00: And what does Jesus say?
SPEAKER_00: Son.
SPEAKER_00: Before he heals him, before he saves him, he uses language that immediately has to heal his heart.
SPEAKER_00: For this man, his whole identity has been found in the 18 square feet of a mat that he laid on every single day.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus uses a word, a word to a person whose family might have forgotten him.
SPEAKER_00: He says, son, what does it mean?
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome in my family.
SPEAKER_00: You're no longer a slave, but a son.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a son, then God has made you an heir.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what is what is an heir?
SPEAKER_00: It's someone who gets to receive all the benefits, all the blessing, all the inheritance of living in a family.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to just take a moment and I want you to think about the difference between a person who's a doolos, a slave, and a person who's an heir.
SPEAKER_00: A doolos, a slave, they never get to make their own decisions.
SPEAKER_00: They have to do whatever a master in charge of them says to do.
SPEAKER_00: They have no true identity.
SPEAKER_00: The only identity they have is that they work for someone else.
SPEAKER_00: But an heir.
SPEAKER_00: An heir is someone who belongs.
SPEAKER_00: An heir is someone who is chosen.
SPEAKER_00: An heir is someone who finds their identity in the family to which they belong.
SPEAKER_00: An heir is the person who receives all the benefits of being in the family.
SPEAKER_00: According to Paul, you are an heir of God.
SPEAKER_00: It means all the blessing of heaven, all the joy, all the peace, all the grace, all the love.
SPEAKER_00: All of that is available to you.
SPEAKER_00: So why in the world would you revert to the ways of this world and live enslaved to sin, enslaved to your past?
SPEAKER_00: Why would you do this?
SPEAKER_00: According to Paul, you need to pay attention to what your identity is.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to understand why.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think, well, if I can fix my behavior, then I'll feel better.
SPEAKER_00: Like if I can if I can fix my sin issues, if I can fix my past, if I can fix those things, then my identity will feel better.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how it works.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see this.
SPEAKER_00: Your behavior will never rise above the identity you believe.
SPEAKER_00: It's the reason is behavior flows from identity.
SPEAKER_00: People who exhaust themselves trying to fix their behavior first will never experience true life change.
SPEAKER_00: But when you understand that behavior flows from identity, it changes things.
SPEAKER_00: So what does it mean for you?
SPEAKER_00: It means that you are not your worst moment.
SPEAKER_00: You are not that sinful past of yours.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me, somebody, you are not that sexual assault that happened to you.
SPEAKER_00: You are not that divorce.
SPEAKER_00: You are not that product of rape.
SPEAKER_00: You are not the worst moments in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You are who God says you are.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thought for you: The only person who can name you is the one who created you, so don't you dare live under the name of someone who didn't create you.
SPEAKER_00: Ready?
SPEAKER_00: What's your identity?
SPEAKER_00: You are a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see this.
SPEAKER_00: Galatians 4 again.
SPEAKER_00: God sent his son to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: I love the word he chooses.
SPEAKER_00: He uses this word adopted, and it's such an important deal.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because an adoption is love by choice.
SPEAKER_00: It chooses to invite you into the family.
SPEAKER_00: Some years ago, we had a lady on our staff who was moving, and she was so sad to be leaving.
SPEAKER_00: She loved our church, loved the job.
SPEAKER_00: And the last time we met, she goes, promise you won't forget me.
SPEAKER_00: Promise you'll check on my family.
SPEAKER_00: Promise you won't forget about us.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Girl, I love you.
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
SPEAKER_00: Like all our whole staff, my family, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: If there's ever a gap, like if I ever forget to reach out one week or one month, I need you to do me a favor.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to fill in that gap with trust.
SPEAKER_00: Trust that we love you.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I said I pulled out a piece of paper and I wrote on it, fill in the gap with trust.
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
SPEAKER_00: And I signed my name on the bottom.
SPEAKER_00: Because I wanted her to have something in her hand that she would remember it by.
SPEAKER_00: When you came in today, you should have gotten a piece of paper that says certificate of adoption.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this isn't for everybody, but if you have found your identity in any place other than being a child of God, I want you to write this down.
SPEAKER_00: Today's the day that you make this decision that I moved from living in slavery to walking in freedom as a son or a daughter of God.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to write your name and write today's date and put this somewhere you'll see it all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the God of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: Who created the world and spun it into existence could have said, I have made you, good luck.
SPEAKER_00: But he said, No, no, no, no, it's not enough for me to create you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to love you and I invite you into my family.
SPEAKER_00: One last thought on this is if you are adopted into the family of God, it also means that we are family.
SPEAKER_00: Family acts different with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Family loves each other, family has each other's back.
SPEAKER_00: And sure we might disagree, but we would fight for each other because we love each other so much.
SPEAKER_00: Can I say this?
SPEAKER_00: A divided world needs a united church.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be a family.
SPEAKER_00: So look at me.
SPEAKER_00: Stop getting in the mud of politics.
SPEAKER_00: Stop making your whole life about what you think on social media.
SPEAKER_00: And may we be the kind of church that when people look at us, we say, whoo, I don't know what it is about that church, but that church loves each other and has each other's back.
SPEAKER_00: Can I hear a good amen on that church fam?
SPEAKER_00: All right, we gotta we gotta move here.
SPEAKER_00: Number two is if you're going to be the kind of person who walks in freedom, number two, you've got to stop going back.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means there is this tendency in our hearts to think, I'm not good enough.
SPEAKER_00: I can't possibly earn God's love, and that's the very argument Paul is trying to destroy.
SPEAKER_00: Stop trying to earn something that's been freely given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what you need to know about this.
SPEAKER_00: If the enemy, he doesn't always need to destroy your future, he just needs to convince you to return to your past.
SPEAKER_00: Cut it out.
SPEAKER_00: Learn why we obey God.
SPEAKER_00: You do not obey God to become loved.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: You obey because you are loved.
SPEAKER_00: You don't obey to get in God's family, you obey because you're in his family and because he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: Learn to live out of the right identity and watch as your behavior changes.
SPEAKER_00: Learn to live out of the right identity as the son or daughter of God and watch how everything around you changes.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, if you're gonna be a person who walks in freedom according to Galatians chapter 4, you need to make this decision to not let religion steal your joy.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, a few verses after what we read, Paul says, Where is that joyful and grateful spirit you felt then?
SPEAKER_00: Let me say this to you.
SPEAKER_00: You need to make this decision to audit your life every once in a while.
SPEAKER_00: And if following Jesus feels heavy and weighty, I got bad news for you.
SPEAKER_00: You're not following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Following Jesus will make you more joyful, not more religious.
SPEAKER_00: Following Jesus should feel light and free.
SPEAKER_00: We read Jesus' words last week from Matthew chapter 11, where he says, Take my yoke upon you.
SPEAKER_00: That yoke was the device that would either force you to work harder or would kill you trying.
SPEAKER_00: Just take my yoke upon you.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna find it's different.
SPEAKER_00: Because my way is free and light.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder how many of us live heavy, burdened kind of lives.
SPEAKER_00: Following Jesus should make things lighter, not heavier.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of the I grew up in a family where we were always at church.
SPEAKER_00: Like I feel like I lived at church and I would vacation at my home occasionally, like I was always there.
SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
SPEAKER_00: But my church had services all the time.
SPEAKER_00: There was always some sort of revival service or an event or something.
SPEAKER_00: And there was times when if I could just be honest, I was like, Dad, do I have to go?
SPEAKER_00: And my dad would say, No, you don't have to, you get to.
SPEAKER_00: This is the perspective of religion versus a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Religion says I have to.
SPEAKER_00: Religion says there's things that I have to do to earn God's love, but understanding the grace of God says it's a joy, I get to do this.
SPEAKER_00: Religion says you better, you better serve, you better give, or God's gonna zap you for doing wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Grace says, no, no, it's a privilege.
SPEAKER_00: Of course you get to.
SPEAKER_00: So let me say this to you.
SPEAKER_00: If when it comes to serving people, you do it out of a religious obligation, I love you, stop serving.
SPEAKER_00: There's someone here who would love to serve for you.
SPEAKER_00: If every month when you tithe and put God first in your finances, if it feels like a religious obligation and you get no joy out of it, you're doing it from the wrong perspective.
SPEAKER_00: But conversely, I will never understand a person who Jesus has saved.
SPEAKER_00: I will never fully understand a person who has received the gift of salvation because Jesus gave the ultimate gift and gave his life, who looks at their bank account and says, No, it's all for me.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do anything, but as a follower of Jesus, you get to live open-handed, generous in a different kind of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Number four.
SPEAKER_00: If we're gonna be people who live in and walk in freedom, you've got to learn to live in true freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what this means it means you cannot build a life of freedom while protecting the system that keeps producing slavery.
SPEAKER_00: You can't live in freedom.
SPEAKER_00: You can't walk in freedom and continue to feed the things that lead you away from God.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a simple life principle.
SPEAKER_00: The things you feed grow, and the things you starve die.
SPEAKER_00: You understand this, right?
SPEAKER_00: It works with your body.
SPEAKER_00: If you feed your body good food, you will live and get strong.
SPEAKER_00: If you starve your body, you will die.
SPEAKER_00: It's true of your grass.
SPEAKER_00: If you feed your grass water, it will grow.
SPEAKER_00: If you starve your grass of water in this Florida sun, it will die in about 37 seconds.
SPEAKER_00: It will die, right?
SPEAKER_00: You understand?
SPEAKER_00: The same principle is true spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: If you feed the things of God in your life, you will see them grow and flourish and multiply.
SPEAKER_00: But the stuff you starve will die.
SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot keep feeding what you are asking God to free you from.
SPEAKER_00: Hear me, church.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot keep feeding what you are asking God to free you from.
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like?
SPEAKER_00: If we just made this decision to say, Jesus, look.
SPEAKER_00: I'm done playing games.
SPEAKER_00: I'm done retreating to the obscurity of entanglement, entrapment.
SPEAKER_00: I'm done living that institutionalized kind of life where I no longer walk in freedom, but I'm just so used to the oppression of the law or my past or my sin or my shame.
SPEAKER_00: And today, Jesus, I choose to receive your gift of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: I choose to be different.
SPEAKER_00: Would you bow your head and close your eyes at all of our locations?
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you to take just 10 seconds and I want you to audit your own soul.
SPEAKER_00: Do you find that following Jesus is leading to freedom, or do you find that following Jesus feels like an endless amount of rules to follow?
SPEAKER_00: Like a stair master, it exhausts you and you never get anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Do you find that following Jesus is setting you free, or does it feel like one more thing to do?
SPEAKER_00: If you came today and you find your heart feeling entrapped or enslaved, enslaved to trying to keep the law that feels insurmountable, enslaved to your past, enslaved to sin, enslaved to shame, enslaved to that addiction.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what if today was the day that we made this freedom to receive God's gift of adoption into his family?
SPEAKER_00: What if as a result of that everything changed?
SPEAKER_00: So, Jesus, today we make this decision as a church.
SPEAKER_00: We take on your identity.
SPEAKER_00: God, our identity is the truest thing about us, and there's lots of things true about us, but the truest thing is that we are children of God, sons and daughters of God.
SPEAKER_00: For my brothers and sisters who maybe came today feeling weighed down by the rules of religion, forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: May we shake that off.
SPEAKER_00: And as your son and your daughter, may we understand that we are heirs to everything you have for us.
SPEAKER_00: All the joy, all the grace, all the peace, all the love, all of the blessings of heaven belong to us.
SPEAKER_00: So may we live in and live from a true identity.
SPEAKER_00: God forgive us if we've tried to fix our behavior, thinking it'll fix who we really are.
SPEAKER_00: May we understand once and for all today that who we are is children of God.
SPEAKER_00: With your head still bowed and eyes still closed, maybe you came to church today and you don't know if you're right with God.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for you that means you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, or maybe you just feel like you did when you were a kid, but let's be real, you've just walked away.
SPEAKER_00: If either of those are true for you, and today is the day you say, Jesus, I want you to forgive me and change me.
SPEAKER_00: I want to live for you, I want to be adopted into your very own family.
SPEAKER_00: If that's you, nobody's looking because this moment's between you and God.
SPEAKER_00: But if it's you, would you have one moment of courage and just raise your hand right now?
SPEAKER_00: Say, Jason, I want to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Wow, thank you.
unknown: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: I love this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, at all of our locations.
SPEAKER_00: If this is you, I'm gonna ask you to do one more courageous thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pray a prayer and I want you to pray it out loud after me.
SPEAKER_00: Praying a prayer will only change things if you mean it with your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And as we pray this prayer and as you repeat it after me, I want you to mean it, but I want you to know you're not alone.
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna call you out.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, everyone around you who's made this decision wants to stand with you in this moment to support you and to lend their faith alongside yours.
SPEAKER_00: So we're all gonna pray this out loud.
SPEAKER_00: Church family, I want you to pray it loud and proud like you mean it.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, everybody, would you say, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your love, thank you for your grace.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that you gave your life for mine, and because of your sacrifice, I can receive forgiveness, I can I can receive salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, today, I make this choice.
SPEAKER_00: I give you my life, be my Lord, and be my savior.
SPEAKER_00: And from this day on, I'm in your family and I choose to follow you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I love you, and I give you my life for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, church fam, let's celebrate like it matters.
SPEAKER_00: I love it.