The Church of Eleven22 - Set Free: Be Free - Wk 11

Episode Date: June 16, 2024

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." Galatians 5:1 If Jesus had set us free, why wouldn’t we be walking in that freedom? - The Church of Eleven22® is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. Eleven22 is led by Pastor Joby Martin and based in Jacksonville, Florida, with multiple campuses throughout Jacksonville and the surrounding areas. To find out more about how God is moving at Eleven22, go to CoE22.com

All right. Man. Man. As you know, I love that video of the dad's catching the kids, especially the guy. He's asleep. And like his radar went off and bam, he just caught the kid. Dads, how many of y'all have saved your child's life at some point in time? It's like special ninja skills that God gives us.

One time we were actually in Disney World, and my little two, three-year-old son wanted my wife and I to swing him. You know how your wife gets over here, right here, and you kind of swinging him, and we got about right here, and the kid just let go of our hands at the same time, and he went flying up into the air, and I went, bam! And I grabbed his leg like that,

and he's just holding there, and he is alive today. Graduating from high school, he's going to college because of me. I'm just kidding. Hey, happy Father's Day for real. It's been an interesting time for me as a father. my daughter got married two Sundays ago, which is great because I don't have to pay her bills anymore. I'm fired up about that. You know, and I was thinking about it is that there's a lot of

things that as parents, we don't get thanked for in life. We just do them because we love our kids. You know, let's talk about moms for a second. Mothers, for example, you gave birth to your children. like you grew them in your womb for nine months. You had morning sickness. You couldn't fit in your clothes. You couldn't sleep at night for a long time. Then you went through the pain of giving birth to that child, however long I took.

And then for the rest of that baby's life, the rest of that child's life on the day of that child's birth, who does that child celebrate on the day of its birth? himself. I don't know about y'all, but I'm thinking maybe on the day that you gave birth to the child, that the child should celebrate the person that gave birth to him, which is a mom. That's what I'm thinking. And the same is true for weddings. You know, I think if the dad paid for the wedding, I think he ought to get some credit for it. That's what I'm thinking. This was the most expensive thing I've ever paid for in my entire life. Pastor Joby and Pastor Britt, they're always real generous.

They give you a little honorarium check preaching, and they handed it to him back there. It's the only time I've ever prayed over an honorarium check before I opened it. Like, dear God, would you please multiply this in Jesus' name? I don't know, man. I know that moms, some of y'all paid for weddings and some of y'all paid for your own wedding, but I'm just thinking there ought to be a moment in the wedding where, you know, we at least recognize the guy that paid for the $18 crab puff you're stuffing in your mouth. Anyway, happy Father's Day, everybody. We love you. Love you, Dad. We're in the book of Galatians together, Galatians

Chapter 5. And so if you brought a Bible, you can turn it there, Galatians Chapter 5. If you don't have a Bible, that's all right. We're going to have the scriptures behind me on the screen. But Galatians 5 is a book that's all about, or a chapter, it's all about Christian freedom. Christian freedom. It's a subject that I honestly didn't know a ton about for a long time. They've been studying it recently, and this was helpful for me, but we're talking about Christian freedom. Here's why Galatians 5 is very important.

I want you to hear this. Because all throughout the 2000-year history of the church of Jesus Christ, there have constantly been people that have been coming along and teaching or trying to teach that faith in Christ alone is not enough to get you into heaven. 2,000 years, people have been teaching that if you want to be saved, if you want to go to heaven, that you need faith in Jesus and something else, right? C.S. Lewis is a famous author, Christian author. He had a name for it or line in one of his books that he wrote.

He called it the false doctrine. of Jesus and. The false doctrine of Jesus and, the idea that you have to add something to faith in Jesus in order for you to be accepted by God, that is a false doctrine. That's a lie from the pit of hell.

In order for you to be loved by God and accepted by God, you don't need anything but Jesus. Jesus and nothing. That's it. You know, in the early New Testament, we're going to see it today. You had the Messianic Jews that were teaching the New Testament church that you needed Jesus

and you need to follow the law. In the Middle Ages, you had the Catholic Church that taught Jesus and you had to be Catholic, Jesus and sacraments, Jesus and all kind of stuff. In the 19th, 20th century, you had the fundamentalist movement that taught you had, in order to be saved, you had to have Jesus and baptism. You had to have Jesus and some level of more morality. in 21st century. I'm seeing some of the charismatic movements that are teaching that if you want to go to heaven,

you have to have Jesus plus you have to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And Paul's whole point today is that the reason this is called the gospel of Jesus Christ because the word gospel means good news. And the good news is you don't need Jesus plus something else, but for God to love you and accept you and to improve you. invite you into his family, you just need faith in Jesus. Period. End of story. And when guys, when that hits you, because for some of us in the room, I'll talk about at the end of the message, for us in the room, this is hard for us to get our brains around. But when that hits you,

when that rests on your heart, you don't need Jesus and something else for God to look at you and say, you are mine. I am well pleased in you that something's going to have. happen in your heart and in your life, you're going to experience biblical freedom, okay, which is the best kind of freedom. And I'll describe it in a second, but let me just tell you this. It's important that you understand what I mean by the concept of biblical freedom. Because here in the United States, our understanding of freedom is different than what the Bible says and describes as freedom, okay? Let me give you the United States definition of freedom. Here's a couple of them. Here in the good old United States, freedom,

is always being able to do what you want to do, right? That's how some people define it. You hear it in the culture. You know, if you try to tell a certain group of people, hey, you can't do this or that, they'll say, man, you're messing with my freedom, right? In the U.S., you've been able to do whatever it is you want to do. Here's another definition of freedom in the United States. We define it as never having to do something that we don't want to do.

Never having to do something that we don't want to do or someone's forcing you to do. I mean, think about it. The reason that we exist as a country here in the United States, some British king tried to charge us too much for a glass of tea. I mean, that's why we exist. Somebody tried to tell us or force us to do something we didn't want to do. You know, our great, great, great granddad was like, wait a minute, you're going to charge us what for a glass of tea?

you're like now man we're picking a fight and we're here that's what happened i mean the reason you're in this unbelievable church here in jacksonville florida um with like fog machines and dead animals hanging all over the walls back there in joby's office is because some dude try to tell us what we didn't want to do okay that's american freedom concept of it but the biblical concept of freedom is very different. It's different. I want you to listen to this because it's a better kind of freedom. It's a kind of freedom that's it digs down into a deeper place than who you are. It's a more lasting kind of freedom. It's a more satisfying kind of freedom. Check this out. It's a freedom that's more transcendent of circumstances than American freedom.

It's a kind of freedom that you can experience even when you are being forced to do something you don't want to do by a government. It's the kind of freedom you can experience no matter what is going on in your life. It's biblical freedom. It's the kind of freedom that Jesus gives you. Jesus himself talked about it. In John chapter 8, verse 36, listen, he said this, this is Jesus talking, red letters. He said, so if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. Jesus like, hey man, if I set you free, Jesus said, you're really going to be free.

And that's what we're talking about today, is this real kind of freedom. And I'm going to tell you all something, that kind of freedom, the Jesus kind of freedom, the real kind of freedom, the transcendent kind of freedom is not found in you doing whatever it is you want to do. but biblical freedom is found in you doing whatever it is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ ask you to do and called you to do. That's real freedom. I've found, as I've been in ministry now for gosh, 30 years next year, there's two primary things that I think our enemy likes to, two tactics in our life that he likes to use to keep us from walking in freedom in this kind of biblical freedom. And he does not want Christians walking in biblical freedom.

Satan's going to do everything in his power to keep you from walking in biblical freedom. Why? Because a Christian walking in the biblical Jesus kind of freedom is a unstoppable force in this world. And so he's going to try to keep you from doing it. Here are the two primary ways. He'll try to do that. Number one is works-based Christianity. Some of y'all are enslaved today. you're going to heaven, but you're enslaved. But this idea of Jesus and, that there's something I've got to do for God to be pleased with me.

That's a big one. And the other one is Satan loves to keep Christians enslaved in sin. But we're going to focus primarily on that first one today. Because that's what the church in Galatia was going through. That's what they were dealing with. Now, check this out. They were cruising along.

They'd gotten saved. They were following Jesus. They put their faith in Jesus. And there was this group of people that came down from Jerusalem and were teaching this New Testament church that they needed faith in Jesus and they need to follow the Old Testament law of Moses. If they wanted to go to heaven. I'll read it to you here in a second.

But that's what they were teaching. They wanted to, they were like, no, faith in Jesus is great, but you got to follow the law. Also, and Paul is screaming from the rooftops. that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. He said the reason that this whole thing is called the gospel is because God came to this planet, put on our injured flesh, and lived a perfect life. And when he did, Jesus Christ fulfilled every single,

solitary one of the righteous requirements of the law. And then he willingly walked to the cross and died, shed his blood, offering himself as a perfect, Once and for all times sacrifice, for all the times you did not follow the law. And so Paul is screaming out, listen, because of Jesus, you have been set free. And he's like, you are free, y'all. He broke your chains. He unlocked the prison doors.

He opened the gates. And so run through them and don't ever, ever, ever go back to the slavery. to the slavery you are walking in before Jesus. And so let's take a minute here. Let's just unpack this text. That's what I'm going to do. Unpack a couple of texts.

It's going to take a minute to do that. At the end, I'll apply it, tell your story, and we'll be done. So let's look quickly here at Galatians 5-1. Paul says, it is for freedom that Christ

has set us free. And we're going to leave that up for a second. I want you to look at that first phrase there. It is for freedom that Christ is set free. Now listen, can I just be honest with y'all? I've been a seminary a long time. I went, I've got a lot of schooling under my belt. And for my entire, I'm going to confess something here. I did not really understand what that meant

until I studied for this message for y'all. My whole life, I'm like, what does that mean? It's for freedom, Christ's set is free. It seems a little redundant. Y'all don't what I'm talking about? But it hit me what Paul said. because I did. I was like, Jesus, like, Pastor Jobi and Pastor Britt and 1122, they are big deal. So, will you please teach me what this means? So I have to, and he did. So look at the

phrase there, Christ has set us free. Focus on that phrase. Christ has set us free. Remember that Paul is speaking to Christians. And that phrase there, Christ has set us free as past tense. He's talking about something that has already happened. to you, believer. He's saying, you need to understand Christ has set you free. Past tense. Already occurred.

All right? So, he's talking about something that already happened. And so, listen, here's what literally Paul is saying to them and to us. Listen. He's saying the reason that Jesus has already set you free is so that you

would walk in that freedom. That's what means. The reason that Jesus Christian already set you free is because he wants you to experience the freedom he gave you. So what does that mean? What does that tell us? What that tells us is that this was a group of Christians that had been set free, but they weren't experiencing that freedom. Okay? That's what's going on. They had been set free by Christ, but they weren't walking in the freedom. Why? well tells us at the end of Galatians 5-1 there he said it is for freedom that Christ sets you free and then watch this he's like stand firm in other words and for order you to

live this out is something you're going to have to do constantly you're going to fight for this in your life it is for freedom that Christ sets you free stand firm then and do not let yourself be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. Let me read that last part one more time. Stand firm then and do not let yourself be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. He's talking about the Jesus and thing. He's talking about faith in God, faith in Christ, plus following the Jewish law and he says, look, don't go back and be burdened again by that. And then he raised the bar, and he says, don't be burdened and put on again the yoke of slavery.

Now, listen, church, what Paul just did was equate the Old Testament law. He called it a burden. That's an important word for you to remember. The enemy's message, it's a burden. And then he called it slavery. Why is the Old Testament law, ultimately, like why was it such a burden and why did Christ have to set us free from it? Well, raise your hand just real fast.

How many y'all have been to Israel before? Raise your hand. Few of you. It's amazing. If you ever get a chance to go, go to Israel. It'll change your just view of the Bible. It's amazing in a really good way. Well, the first time I went to Israel, I experienced my first real Sabbath. And Old Testament law, it says honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. Well, Orthodox Jews in the city of Jerusalem take that really, really, really seriously. Now, if you remember the Bible, one of the things Jesus was always getting in trouble for by the Pharisees was what? They were accusing him of working on the Sabbath.

Jesus would see some guy sitting by the pool of Bethesda, hadn't walked his entire dang life, and Jesus would walk up and like, hey man, he would walk. I was like, I would love to. And Jesus says, all right, you're healed. And the guy would get up and take his palate and run off. And the Pharisees would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, who are you? And why did you just work on the? Sabbath. And Jesus like, do you, what do you think God cares more about that man's soul and heart

or whether or not I healed on the Sabbath? Jesus was like, hey, Pharisees, you're missing the point. God created Sabbath for men. God created Sabbath to be a blessing for men, not for man to serve the Sabbath. Y'all are missing it. And so that's what's going on there on the Sabbath, even modern day. do not work thing very seriously, to the point that somebody came up with the genius idea, and I love the Jewish people, they're amazing. But one of them came up with the idea that pushing an elevator button is work. That they don't want you doing that on the Sabbath. So how do they remedy you doing this on the Sabbath?

if you're staying in a hotel on Sabbath, which I was, staying in Jerusalem there, staying on the 14th or 15th floor. And I learned the hard way they don't want you doing this on a Sabbath. So instead of you having to work so diligently to push a button to go to the 14th floor, how do they solve the problem? Well, they just thought, you know what we need to do? Because we don't want you working on the Sabbath. We're just going to have that elevator.

Stop on every single floor going all the way. up and all the way down. I forgot my wallet and it was the greatest mistake of my entire life. I don't want to bore you, but I cannot tell you how much of a burden it was to have to get on the first floor and go to the second. Stop. Open it up. Anybody? Nope. Close the door. Go up to the third. Guys, it took 45 minutes to get up and down that stupid elevator. That's a burden. Matter of fact, that's not a burden. That's slavery.

And Paul's like, hey, look, Jesus has set you free from having to follow the burden and slavery of the law. And so since Jesus has already set you free, y'all don't. run back and put on again that yoke of slavery. Now, here's the question. What part of the law, because this is actually kind of important? What part of the law were these Jewish Christian guys trying to get the New Testament Church to follow? They were actually, there was a really specific part of the law that they were like,

hey, if you want to go to heaven, your faith in Christ, and you got to do this. You all know what it was? It's kind of interesting. Look at Galatians 5-1 again. I'll read it again. He says, It is for freedom that Christ sets you free. Stand firm then.

And do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. Here it is. Verse two. Paul says, mark my words. I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourself be circumcised, Christ will have no value to you at all. Now, for those of you that came to church for the first time in your life today, because it's Father's Day, you're like, what in the world is going on right now?

Why are these dudes from the Old Testament coming down and teaching about circumcision? All right, well, here's what was going on. There was this, all right, so there's these Jewish folks, in Jerusalem, they were Jews, their whole life, they'd had to follow the law. Part of following the law is you get circumcised. I'll explain that in a second. But then, so Jesus comes in, he dies on a cross. rise from the grave,

ascends in heaven, frees us from the law. But these Jewish Christians that became Christians kind of came down from Jerusalem where all the Jews were into the areas where there weren't Jews that didn't follow the law.

And they taught, Jesus is great, but you better get circumstized. You see it, and don't turn there, but Acts chapter 15, verse one. I mean, they were straight running, saying it. It says, but some of the men came down from Judea,

and we're teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised, according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. I mean, they meant no words. By the way, they had a name for themselves. They called themselves the circumcision party, which is funny. Because there ain't no party like a circumcision party, right? Can you imagine they probably made T-shirts like the circumcision party? Because they were teaching you can't go to heaven unless you got Jesus,

plus you get certain, something. Where are they getting that? It's actually kind of important. A little part of the law here. Check it out. Genesis 1710. Watch. This is God talking.

It says, this is my covenant. This is my covenant. That means like I'm entering into this unbreakable thing. God says with you, you and me. We're going into a covenant together. What you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you, every male among you shall be circumcised. and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins.

Now watch this, the next part. It is key here. He says, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Pastor Jobi taught me something a couple days ago when I preached on Thursday. He said every time you see the word sign, that is God always using a symbol to point to something greater. And so the Jewish folks missed the whole sign thing. What God is saying here is I want you to get circumcised men as a symbol, as a reminder of the covenant between me and you, that you're my people. Now, you're like, why in the world, God, would you have, would circumcision be a reminder of God's covenant?

Well, without getting too graphic here today on this Father's Day, I'm going to tell you because I think it's kind of interesting. Now, I'm going to ask you a question. and I do not shout out the answer, okay? Don't shout this out. But what part of the male anatomy passes the seed of sin from one generation to another? Don't shout it out. But y'all got it, right?

It's not a man's ear. There's a specific part of a man's body that passes the seed of sin from one generation to another. Now, what covers that part of a male's body when he is circumcised. Blood. Okay? So you got blood covering sin.

It seemed like I've read that somewhere before. Right? God said this is a sign. This is a symbol. This is a reminder of something greater. All the way back in Genesis 17, God is calling his shot at the cross. But, you know, he's talking about the Passover for them. But listen, what's going on here?

as God said, I want circumcision to be a reminder of my unfailing, unbreakable love for you. It's a symbol. It's a sign. But what they did is these Jewish guys stopped seeing it as a reminder of the covenant. And they started teaching that you had to do it if you wanted to even be in the covenant. So they took it a step farther than God ever, ever, ever wanted them to. So these New Testament guys come in. and they're teaching, if you want to go to heaven,

you have to have Jesus and something else. Now, church, let me ask you this. What's the big deal with the Jesus and stuff? Why is it so detrimental to us? Why does the Apostle Paul write an entire book of the Bible shutting down the concept of Jesus and? What's so destructive about teaching, the idea that Jesus is not enough for your salvation,

but it's Jesus plus something else. What's the big deal with it? Why? I'm going to tell you two things real quickly. Number one, teaching Jesus plus something else minimizes the power of Jesus' blood. Y'all with me? Whenever you teach, for you to go to heaven,

for God to accept you into his family, for God to be pleased with you, you need Jesus plus. plus something else. That minimizes the power of Jesus' blood. It's saying that Jesus' blood is not powerful enough to forgive your sins. It's saying that your sin is stronger than Jesus' blood. It's like you walking up to Jesus,

hanging there on the cross, broken and bruised and blood. bleeding, paying for your sin, and looking at Jesus and saying, Jesus, good try. But that's not enough. Listen, when Jesus shed his blood to be the one-time sacrifice for your sin and for my sin, y'all need to hear this. Check it out. As he breathed his last breath, what did he say? He said, it is finished.

Finished. completed, not mostly done, not partly done, not three-fourths of the way done, not eight-ninths of the way done. Jesus says, it is completed, it's done, it's finished. My blood has paid for your sins. He's saying, look, you know, what was finished? He's saying the law was fulfilled. He's saying the wrath of God was satisfied. He's saying that the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom, he's saying that the throne of God is now approachable. Why? Because our sins are completely, totally, utterly forgiven. They're forgiven. It's finished. I'm going to tell you what Jesus didn't say. As he hung on the cross, he didn't hang on the cross and say, it is

finished. Except for you've got to get circumcised. Anytime we teach Jesus plus something else, The minimizes the power of Jesus' blood. I'm going to tell you something. There ain't nothing in the world more powerful than Jesus' blood when it comes to forgiven sins. Here's the other thing. Teaching Jesus plus something else minimizes Jesus and elevates man in the role of salvation.

Anytime we teach that, Jesus plus something else, that minimizes Jesus' role in our salvation, and it elevates man's. role. And our salvation, like, and I had a seminary professor that talked about that. His name was Pastor John Bessonio. He was a longtime pastor of Houston's First Baptist Church. He was he was the pastor Jobi Martin of the 70s and 80s. This guy was one of the greatest preachers that's ever walked the face of the earth. He was listened to on radio by hundreds of thousands of people

all over the country and all over the world. Guy was unbelievable. If you get bored one day, go see if you can find Pastor John Basagno and listen to some of his old sermons. Unbelievable, but he was an old man, he was a lion in winter, and he was teaching young bucks at seminary in his late 70s. And that man loved some fried chicken, and he had gained some weight, and he would sit there

at his desk with his hands around his ample midsection, and he would just spout truth at us. And he said something to me one day, and you know, you hear a thousand sermons, you hear a thousand quotes, read a thousand books, and you forget a lot of what you hear and read. And there was something about this one statement that he said that it just stuck with me ever since. He was sitting at his desk. I don't even remember what we were talking about.

But I guess we were talking about this idea of not minimizing Jesus and elevating man in the role of salvation because he looked at us and he said, young men, he said, if you're ever in a church, and they're teaching anything that elevates man over Jesus, if you listen closely, you can hear the hiss of the serpent. And I want y'all to remember that. If you're ever anywhere in this life, you're not going to hear that here. That's one of the most amazing things about this church

and why God's blessing. And I think, because Christ is exalted in this church above everyone. But if you're ever in a church down the road, and for whatever reason you see either man exalting himself or the church exalting man over Jesus. If you listen closely, you can hear the hiss of the serpent. What Pastor John Bessonio was trying to say that if you ever see man being elevated over Jesus,

that is a lie from the pit of hell. The whole point in this book is that when Jesus died and you put your faith in his blood, his death and his resurrection, he set you free from the end. There's nothing else. It's just Jesus. The reality, guys, is there's a lot of us, a lot.

A lot of us in this room today that are still living in the slavery of Jesus and workspace religion. And you may not even realize it. There's a really simple way to know today how you can know if you've walked back and put on the yoke of slavery

of workspace religion. Y'all need to hear this. I mean, you need to hear you check this out. Here's how you know if you're not walking in the freedom that Christ set you free for. Here's how it is. It's a very simple question.

Does your Christianity feel like a burden? Do you... Is you following Christ? Does it feel? like a burden. Do you feel like you can never please God? Do you feel like you're never good enough? That you're always failing.

That God's disappointed in you. If that's you, you have walked back. If you're a believer, if you trust in Christ, you're walking back, you put on the yoke of slavery. I'll give you one example here of when I was growing up, something that I was taught that was one of the reasons I struggled with this my entire life, most of my entire life. Really, until the last five or six years of my life, I, as a pastor of a growing church in

Austin, Texas, like writing books, all that stuff, I struggled deeply with this in my life, and I can trace it back to my youth, going to church. It's a little small Baptist church in East Texas. man. I love that church. I love those people. I love the pastor. I love them to death, but I think subtly, I don't even know if they meant to or not, but they taught that you needed Jesus, faith in Jesus, and there was like a set of moral principles you better follow or God was not pleased with you. I mean, I like I say, I don't even know if that's really what they were trying to do. my guess is that they probably weren't trying to do it.

But that's what I heard as a young man that, look, God, if you have Christ and then you follow these rules, then God's pleased with you and he'll bless you. And then, but if you don't follow the rules, if you mess up, if you don't meet this moral standard, then you're going to lose the blessing of God. And he's not going to be pleased with you. It might just punish you. A classic example of this was the true love weights campaign of the 80s and 90s. Some of y'all maybe experienced that.

And listen, the true love ways campaign, like at the end of the day, it's an honorable thing. The idea is that we're trying to help students, junior high and high school students, save themselves physically, sexually, until marriage. Why do we want to do that? Well, the answer is pretty simple. God created sex. Did y'all know that? God created it.

God thought it up. It's actually a sign for something. Adam and Eve weren't just like cruising along one day and think, that sounds like a good idea. I don't know. God, sorry, Pastor Britt, God thought up sex. And he did it for a reason. Part of it was that he wanted his image bears

to be multiplied all over the face of the earth, but there was something deeper going on. something more powerful going on. God created this to be a covenant reminder, to be a physical picture of Christ's unbreakable love for the church through the one covenant or the one flesh covenant of marriage. That's why God created it. And so instead of teaching us that God has this incredible thing

that he thought up and created to be experienced in one context, which is inside the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, to be a covenant reminder of God's love for us and to show each other the depth of intimacy and love, and therefore God's plan is always the best. They didn't teach that. They're like, man, you better not have sex. And if you do, you're going to lose God's favor. You're going to lose his blessing.

And I kid you not. They also taught, if you do wait, if you do wait, God's going to give you an amazing spouse and you're going to have great sex when you're married. That's workspace religion. number one i i've had buddies that waited until they were married and that has not been their reality the other is what happened when i i didn't meet the standard and i'm here's the deal i was not just this horrible pagan kid that hated god i actually loved god and i wanted to please him and and for christ out loud, I wanted his blessing.

And so, can you imagine what I felt when at 16, 17 years old, I went too far one night with my girlfriend. I was devastated. I was crushed. And it wasn't like a godly sorrow that led to my repentance. It was like this gross, shame-filled feeling that I had forever lost the blessing of God. And so I just walked around for weeks and weeks in this constant state of shame. Then, so I asked for God's forgiveness.

I told him I'd never do that again, but lo and behold, I did that again. And now my shame has been transformed into fear. I'm not just living in shame, but now I'm living in fear that he's going to take me out because I failed again. and summer would come around and I'd go to summer camp and come down in the front and cry and make commitment to God. It's never going to happen again. And then three, four, five weeks later, something would happen again. And now, instead of just walking in shame and fear, now I hate myself.

I'm walking in self-loathing because no matter how hard I. try. I can't meet God's standard. And so what it did more often than not has caused me to run from God, not run to God, to run away from him because he was angry with me instead of running to him because he had already made the payment for all my sin. And so that's what I'm talking about. And if you had just given me a shot of truth serum in that moment and you just said, What does it feel like to follow Jesus? I would have said, you know what? Honestly, it's a burden.

I would have used words like fear and shame and exhausting. I would say it's just this big fat burden because I'm working so hard to please God, but I can't do it. Some of you all know exactly what that's like. And if that's you this morning, I want you to hear this. I want to read to you a verse really quickly.

And it's the words that Jesus used to describe what following him would feel like. Jesus actually described what you following Jesus ought to, what ought to be your experience. If you follow him and it's Matthew chapter 11 verse 28. I want you to listen to what Jesus Christ said ought to be what you're following him. looks like and feels like. Jesus said, come to me. All who labor? By the way, he was speaking to a group of Jews here that were weighed down by the burden of Jesus' hand. Jesus said, come to me. All who labor. All who are heavy laden. And Jesus said, I will give you rest.

She said, take my yoke upon you. Not the old yoke of slavery, not the old yoke of burden. We're not running back to that anymore. Jesus's like, I got a different yoke for you. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. By the way, Jesus didn't say he was lowly. He said he was lowly in heart.

There's a difference. Jesus ain't lowly. He's the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. He's saying, I'm lowly in heart. I'm humbling myself. He's like, take my yoke upon you and learn for me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

1122, I'm almost done. Hang with me. Does that describe your Christianity? that those words describe your experience with Jesus, they ought to. And here's the reason that they should is because the Holy Spirit-inspired Word of God is saying that if those don't describe your experience with Jesus, then you are walking in slavery to something that Jesus has already set you. free from. And you need to hear this. How's he set us free? Listen, the reason that Jesus of Nazareth was

tortured and hung on a cross for six hours was to set you free from fear and from shame and from weariness and from trying to please God. Why? Here's why. Because at the moment of your salvation, listen, believer, that's burdened and heavy laden at the moment of your salvation, the second you trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior, every single solitary one of your sins was completely and totally and utterly forgiven. I'm talking about the small ones were forgiven. I'm talking about the big ones. Those were forgiven. I'm talking about the past ones. They were forgiven. I'm talking about the future ones. They were forgiven. I'm talking about the internal ones were forgiven. I'm talking about the external ones. That was forgiven. I'm talking about the one that

keep popping up over and over again because you're made of flesh. Those were forgiven because at the moment you believe, the moment you turn from Jesus, Jesus took every sin you ever committed and every sin you ever would commit and he picked him up away from you and he cast them away from you as far as the east is from the west. And then he looked at you and said, you have been declared completely righteous now and forever. And here's the best part is now when God looks at you, He doesn't see somebody that he is going to remove his blessing from or punish because Jesus has cast all of your sin as far as the east is from the west.

God looks at you and says, that is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased. Here's the best part. Does it mean you go out and go sin because your sin is forgiven? No, Paul is going to say, no, don't do that. The point is, is that when it hits you, that you've been set free, one of my sins is completely forgiven by the blood of Jesus. That ought to make you run to want to be obedient to the one that sets you free from the bondage of sin and death and slavery.

I'll end with this. Did you catch the last three words, or the first three words that Jesus said at the beginning of that sentence? because there actually is one action step that he wants from you. There is one thing that he's going to ask you to do today so that you can experience the freedom of Jesus. Here's the action step. You all ready for it?

Matthew 1128, three words. Jesus said, come to me. Do you all know that's the big, fat action step of Christianity? That's the list of rules. Jesus says, this is all I want from you. I just want you to come to me. And what I realized when I read that this week is that tells us something about the heart of Christ that all he wants from you is you.

He knew how you would sin before he saved you. Do you know that? And he still came to you and said, I want you. Jesus doesn't want your performance. He wants your heart. He doesn't want your perfection. He wants your presence. So if you've been walking in slavery to Jesus end, this is your action step.

It's not go try harder. It's not pull up your bootstraps and not fail again. All he's asking you to do is come to him today. My wife, Jennifer, this last week, She's a incredibly godly woman. There's never been a time in my life. I can remember getting up

and her not already up and reading the Bible. I can't remember her ever doing that. She loves Jesus so much and she loves me. But right before I came on this trip last week, we got in a fight. Married people, y'all ever do that? I know I'm a pastor and stuff, but we get in fights.

And we don't get in fights very often. They're like once a year. But when we do it, we do it. You know what I'm talking about? And this is one of those good ones. I mean, it was a good one. And we've only done this a couple of times in our 30 years, but it was a haymaker, and we hurt each other pretty bad.

And we sort of walked, went our separate ways, and we kind of left unreconciled. And I was spending some time with the Lord, and I just got convicted that I can't do that. It's not Jesus. I'm called to love my wife like Christ's love the church. And even though I don't feel like it, I need to come and seek reconciliation. And so here's the thing about my wife is that if you've ever read like the five apology languages, that's a book, that there's different ways people receive apology for me.

I'm just like, I'm sorry kind of guy. Like, if you'll just come to me and genuinely say, hey, man, I'm sorry, I did that. I just, I'll get over it. But my wife, she's not like that. I can come say, I'm sorry. That means nothing to the woman. She wants to see repentance. Women are laughing because they're like, that's me.

They're like, I want to see change. And so, so when I was away, like, because I went on a trip before this one, then came here, I got my list together of the ways that I wanted to change. Because that's what men do. You lead, you know, you lead. That's what Jesus did. You love, and you love first. And so I had me a list. I'm like, I'm going to go to counseling over this thing. And I'm never going to say this thing. And this is like what I'm going to do from here and out and I came home. We had just one afternoon together before I had to get on an airplane and come here and I kind of pull out my list, right? And I'm going to, I'm going to give the list. This is

what I'm going to do. This is what I'm not going to do. And she literally, she showed me in this moment, one of the most tangible pictures of Jesus' love for me and for you. She ever has in our marriage because this one was a big fight and I'm about to pull out the list. She won. You know, I'm pulling my list out first. And she looked at me. As soon as I saw it, like, I've got some things. I want to tell you about how when she stopped me. And she goes, Matt, listen, I want you to hear something before you talk about what you're going to do and not going to do. She goes, I just want you to hear something, Matt.

She goes, at the end of the day, all I want is your heart. I just want you. And the fact that you're doing that, that's amazing. But I just want you to hear from me. I just want. And I started bawling like a balling. baby. And what do you think it made me want to do? It made me want to be the best husband I could ever try because you just wanted me. That's what your Lord and Savior is saying to you right now.

I just want. Head bowed and your eyes closed. If that's you today, and I know it's not everybody, but there are a lot of us that struggle with this. I want you to hear, not my words, but Jesus' words, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Why? Jesus said, because I set you free from the burden of trying to please me. I want you to receive that today, Christian. Lord Jesus, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We thank you for the gospel.

Oh my gosh, Lord, you are so good. we do not deserve this, we have not earned this, but we say thank you for the good news. Thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ. That you love us and you forgive us. And even more than that, God, you want to be with us. God, what a privilege it is now to stand in this place and worship you and come to you for you are good. And Lord, I pray that there would be many in this room that would find rest for their souls in Jesus' name. Amen. Church, would you stand with me real quick? Three ways you can respond right now. Number one is we're just going to sing.

Man, if you can't worship God and get fired up over that, man, listen, man, you're forgiven, like completely forgiven. He set you free. Let's sing like free people today. The other is bring. We believe that part of worship, is giving God our first and best, not because of the law, but because of the gospel. He gave us his first and his best. And so what else could we do? But when we come to God and say, God, I give you the first and best of what you've already given me in my finances as a way to worship you.

The last option, guys, is I want to give you the opportunity today just to come to Jesus. And some of you all might want to do that right in your chair. Just come in your heart to him. Some of you need a physical picture of it. It's just like you're ready. like you're a prodigal son running home to a God that's waiting to put Father, is waiting to put his arms around you. So you need to come forward here and just come to Jesus as a physical symbol.

Come to him today. I'm going to pray one more time and then we're going to sing. And as we do that, you do those three things. Father, thank you for this day. We thank you for your word for its power and its clarity. And Lord, I pray that we would be a church here at 1122 that walks in freedom. And we ask that in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you.