Rejoice In The Freedom Of The Cross
Tom Shrader examines three aspects of Christian freedom that flow from the cross: freedom from the consequences of sin through justification, freedom from the bondage of sin through the Spirit's power, and freedom to be the unique person God created each believer to be. He addresses how Christians often forfeit this freedom by returning to legalistic bondage, emphasizing that true freedom comes through voluntary submission to Christ rather than self-determination.
“God has given us extraordinary freedom and we all want formulas, but that's not what freedom is - it means I can do my own thing, but that doesn't work because everybody doing their own thing creates collision.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: How Do I Stay Straight in a Crooked World (2006)
Recorded: 2006 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 1 hr 4 min
Themes: freedom, grace, legalism, bondage, identity, justification, submission, cross, struggling with legalism, new believer, feeling condemned, christian seeking freedom, pastor, mentor, parent teaching children, young adult
Scripture: Romans 3:10, Romans 3:23, Romans 5:12, Romans 6:11-14, Romans 6:23, Matthew 5:21, Matthew 5:27, John 10, 1 John, 2 Corinthians 1, Philippians 2:12-13
Theological Themes: sanctification, holy spirit power, justification, christian freedom, spiritual bondage, legalistic thinking, cross theology, identity in christ
Full Transcript
Good morning. Good to see you this morning. It's kind of interesting—I don't know if you can sense it or feel it, but Janet and Jeff and every ball the staff are in meetings today. I feel like we're the kids and the adults are gone and we get to do whatever we want to do. It's so exciting. I don't know what happened. That's just how it feels.
A Few Preliminary Thoughts
A couple of things. I continue to think I made a wise choice to say I'll just deal with some of these questions as you write them along the way and try to respond to them rather than—I'm so glad we didn't do that because that would take a ton of time on Friday. So I'll try to answer some of them. Also, I have it you seem to feel a certain freedom to stop and talk along the way. I appreciate that, and then we had our time with the guys this morning.
I was a little, to be honest, taken back by that. I couldn't believe that there were guys there. You guys need to get lives, gentlemen. But we filled that room and had a great time.
I have had about 8,000 of you say you need to introduce Susan. I don't know exactly what that means, but let me just have her stand, and by now you've figured out who she is. This is Susan. You need to stand. So we've been married since 1978, for a long time. We've got two girls. We've been through a bunch of stuff in life, and it's just been wonderful to be together, and I've watched you figure out who she is and make a path to talk with her.
It's always interesting. Her favorite question, by the way, if you're going to ask her a question—here's the question to ask her: "You guys must do nothing at home but just laugh and have fun because Tom's so much fun. Ask her if that's what it's like at home." She loves that question. I'm sitting there, I can't remember where we were, and some lady just starts going, "That Tom, that Tom is so funny, and he just—you guys must just sit at home and laugh all the time." I'm just watching Susan, and she just said, "Yeah, he's a lot of fun." That was her answer. She's got her figured out.
Book Recommendations
What else do I need to do? A couple of things just by way of some questions that you've asked, and I'm trying to condense them and get them into one area. There was a question—I had mentioned you don't have time to read good books; you've got to read great books. So the question was kind of, "Well, what books should you read?"
I have for a long time just done authors. There's just certain guys that I'll try to read or gals that I'll try to read over and over again. Susan's in the process of reading a book, ladies, by Beth Moore called "Believing God," I think is the name of it. I don't know if you have all read that book. I have not read it, but my son-in-law's mom was probably the first one to call and say you need to read this book, talking to Susan. Probably our best friends back home on staff, Susan and Suzanne, have been through it, and they're taking some ladies through it. That book seems to just be a phenomenal book, so I'll endorse it indirectly in the sense that the ladies have read it.
I try to read just certain things, as I said, by certain guys. It depends a lot for me on topic of what I'm trying to read. Even when I'm trying to study a book, I don't necessarily say, "Here's the author; I'll use all of his commentaries." For example, I love to read Martin Lloyd-Jones. I like to read the J.I. Packer stuff. I like to read the R.C. Sproul material. I find myself going back to those guys again and again.
I mentioned Ray Stedman earlier. Use a lot of Ray Stedman stuff—pbc.org, Peninsula Bible Church org. That thing is an absolute treasure chest. If you go on there, it'll say "a link to the old site," and the old site will take you to all the old Stedman stuff and all of the books and stuff that He's written. At least at one point, they were just literally there for downloading, so all of them were there.
I love to read Chuck Swindoll, and I love the biography—He's got a biography series. Those are wonderful biographies to just work your way through: Elijah, Paul, David, Joseph, Esther—just wonderful biography. So obviously all of that is, and then I'll read a lot of contemporary stuff. I enjoy reading Mark Driscoll. Driscoll's up this way in Seattle, and He kind of shakes cages every once in a while. A little bit of John Piper I like to read.
It's nothing—James Montgomery Boyce is a great name, and I think if you were going to get books and work your way through it, I mentioned the other night "The Foundations of the Christian Faith" by James Montgomery Boyce. Wonderful book to just help you work your way through that.
There's so many other authors. All I would say to you is really, if there's a book you're unfamiliar with, it doesn't hurt to just check them out now on the website, which you can do so easily, or talk to somebody you respect and say, "What about this book?" I've wasted a lot of hours reading books that were awful, and you don't want to do that. So that's a good thing.
Questions About Church Growth and Evangelism
I talk about programs in church, especially to do with evangelism and outreach—their merit and their downfalls. So there's something there, and there's a very similar question or quite a few questions you ask about churches and what about a church that isn't growing. Is that God's will? Is that God's design? What about missionaries who spend their lives and have a convert or two?
William Carey, the father of modern missions, ends up in India, and as I recall the story, I think he was there a decade with essentially no converts at all. Obviously then comes this huge revival out of that. How do you figure that out? And the answer is, I don't. I don't think you can.
It is amazing to me—God pretty much uses people, and once He starts using them, you can't really explain it always. I had a pastor who was on sabbatical in Phoenix and
He landed at our church one Sunday and called to ask if he could come meet me. He came in on Tuesday, sat down, and said, "I've got a church not far from here. I've got about 250 people. I think I'm a better preacher than you, a better teacher than you, probably a better business organizer than you. You have 4,500 people and I have 250 people." I didn't point out that he had missed the humble gene along the way, but I let that go.
I said, "You know what? I can't explain that." I watch some things on TV and I'm saying this guy is lame, and I watch 20,000 people follow him. I see faithful people labor away. I have a great admiration for those men who are laboring in churches—we have them all around our area. They've been there for 20 or 25 years with essentially the same 150 or 200 people, and they just labor so faithfully. It just seems that's the field God's given them.
I see other guys where they just kind of put up a sign and it starts. God moves and away it goes. Then when God's done—let me give the other side—when God's done with you, He's done. I mean, it's just the way it is. It's just done. I was online trying to get a picture of Spurgeon, so I was emailing back and forth with the Metropolitan Tabernacle, which is his church, by the way. It was like they'd never heard of him. They said they didn't have a picture.
The Mystery of God's Calling
I can't really explain that. I think that's a matter again like decision-making, and there were some questions here on decision-making. If God's called you to go to Memphis, then you need to go to Memphis. I mean, that's just the way it is, and it may be irrational. But if it's not sin, that was the question.
So what is God's moral law? Well, you know what God's moral law is. You can look through that Old Testament, you can see those commandments and those Ten Commandments. Jesus kind of brings them forward in a way. He talks about how He didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Then beginning in Matthew chapter 5 verse 21, you see Him deal with murder and adultery and divorce and retaliation and love.
Jesus Expands Our Understanding of the Law
Here's what He says. Let me give you a pattern of this. Matthew chapter 5 verse 27: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Jesus says, "Here's this law," and the Pharisees were saying, "We've complied with this law. We don't do this." Jesus takes the law in that sense to a new dimension. He says it's not just external compliance—it's with the right heart.
You can look at that New Testament and you can see that He says we're to love one another and care for one another, and that we shouldn't engage in sexual immorality. So decision-making has with it some pretty clear guidelines and then this huge area of freedom.
Practical Decision Making
That was one of the questions: "I've read Gary Friesen's book on decision-making and the will of God. I've listened to your thoughts and your comments on God's will, and I'm still confused about God's will as it pertains to our daily decisions. Please clean up my confusion."
Well, here's probably what you need to hear. God says just kind of like do it. We get out of here at roughly 11:30 and we're going to be hungry. Susan's going to be hungry—she hasn't had anything to eat yet today. We're going to try to figure out where to go eat and what to eat when we get there. Then whether to come back here and should we be here for all the carnival or not. I'm trying to figure out whether I should participate in the talent show tonight and sing. No is the answer—no, no, no, no, don't even start. I'm totally kidding about anything like that.
But that's my very point. I think that's Friesen's point: you make thousands of decisions every day that you don't stop and pray about. You didn't get up this morning and pray about, "All right, is this a tooth brushing day or not?" No, hopefully you said yes. Every day is, and you brush your teeth and you do these things and you figure them out. That's the whole point.
God's Gift of Freedom
That frankly ties into today's lesson: God has given us extraordinary freedom. We all want formulas. We talked a little bit about it with the guys, so guys, I apologize for some of the repetitiveness of this, but we all want formulas. We want to know what does it mean to walk in the spirit? Well, it means to do what God calls you to do, stay away from the things He tells you not to do, be obedient and have a right relationship with Him, and then go do your thing.
Here's where that gets to be a problem: all of a sudden I want rules and regulations. I want to check boxes so that your thing and my thing need to look alike, and they need to look very similar. If our things aren't the same, we try to figure out who's wrong. The reality is maybe no one.
The Music Question
We talked about it a little bit. We got talking about the churches, and there was that implication in there. Everywhere you go, people want to talk about churches. When they talk about churches, the number one thing they want to talk about, without exception, is what? Music. What about the music? Which music is right? Which music is correct? That seems to be the defining thing.
Again guys, bear with me because we talked about it this morning. For 13 years I stood in our pulpit at church and said we will never, never, never have anything but one style of music. Now whenever you're up there saying never, never, never, you better make sure it comes out of here.
I have subsequently said, because I meet with a lot of guys that are planting churches and I try to tell them, "Here's what I would do. I would end every sentence with this phrase: for now. For now we're going to do this."
When it comes to teaching the Word of God, we're going to do that forever. But after that it's for now, and that's the whole music thing. We see people divide all over on music and what's the right music. What's the right mix of music? I don't believe there's an answer for that. I believe it's up to the leadership and the people that you've been trusted, and they go and do that music.
If you don't like that music, don't write letters. Don't complain—go somewhere else. That's the leadership that God's entrusted, and that's what we have here. That's why we made that variation. We have three distinct different styles of music. We have some people who love what happens at 8:30 in one room, some what happens at 8:30 in the other, and some like Sunday night at 6.
Freedom in Musical Preferences
Here's my deal, and I think this is really important. I don't even care if you like the other guys' music—could not care less. If you're coming at 6 o'clock and you don't like what they're doing in the morning, I couldn't care less if you don't like it. But you better love what God's doing through that music in those people.
Have you come in the morning and it's a little bit more proper in the morning and maybe a little bit more traditional, and that's what you love, and you don't like what we do on Sunday night? I don't care if you don't like it. But do you understand what God's doing in these kids' lives? That's the deal.
Cross-generational is really important. We've kind of resolved that cross-generational—older people, younger people together—is probably not going to happen in the service as effectively as it is in other areas of ministry. Even when we had all ages in the same room, they were coming in, dropping off their Bibles, worshiping, and leaving. There wasn't a lot of interaction. So we try to create venues outside of that where men, women, older chronologically can be with younger people and generation cross-generational stuff takes place.
Decisions and Daily Life
When I get to decision-making in the will of God, especially as the question asked about the everyday occurrences, those things that we encounter every day—I mean, I know you don't like this answer, but the answer is just do it. Have a little fun. Rejoice in the freedom that He's given you. He can have a burger. You can have a veggie burger. You can eat vegetables. You can eat pigs in a blanket. You can eat, but He's giving you this freedom, and rejoice in that freedom.
Which really does launch us into today. Let me give you just a little bit from last night because I want to close that. I stopped pretty quickly last night—the time was away from us.
Contentment in Singleness
We were talking on contentment, and we tend to talk about money, and then we talked about a spouse. I did not talk last night, and I should have, but also with being single. We have a lot of young men and women, and it seems more women than men, who really want to be married. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But to be content with where God has you at that moment, to be content in that stage of life wherever you are—to be very, very careful there.
We find a lot of people who all of a sudden think it's time to get married or they need to get married or they want to get married, and they will somehow in some distorted way become convinced that this is the guy God brought him here for a reason. This is the gal God set her in my aisle for a reason. That may or may not be true. And there's contentment with where God has you, even if it's in your mind where you need not end up.
The Reality of Consumer Debt
When we talked about money, we talked about a couple things. Let me just throw some things at you. Right now Americans owe about six hundred billion dollars in consumer debt—that's not counting mortgages. Four hundred ninety billion dollars of credit card debt. The credit card companies are spending 1 billion dollars a year in marketing at the 250 largest universities in the country.
Listen to this, and I quote: it means that a college freshman moving into a dorm will have three credit card applications waiting for him with pre-approved credit for $3,000 each. That's $9,000 of instant credit requiring no effort, no discussion, or no permission from mom and dad. There are enough credit cards in the country for every man, woman, boy, girl, child, infant to have four.
These numbers go on and on. There are 1.2 million bankruptcies each year, which costs us on average $344 a person. The average bankruptcy, by the way, is for a total of less than $7,000. Talking about savings: for every one dollar increase in household income, spending goes up a dollar ten. Let me say it again—for every one dollar increase in household income, spending goes up a dollar ten. That's what we're talking about last night. Whoever loves money never has money enough. As wealth grows, so do those who consume it.
The Cost of Financial Bondage
Here's two more, and then we'll be done with this. Nine out of ten who make application to go to the mission field are declined because of financial bondage. That's one that always gets me. These are people who are saying God's called me. I'm making application. God's called me to go here. Their call of God is on my life, but my personal debt has stopping that. I can't imagine standing before God and saying, "You know what? I really heard you. There was no confusion. I got the call. It was clear to me, but I had to have that new car."
Here's what we get a lot, especially with the kids: "Well, you know, I can never get ahead. I can never save any money." I had one of our financial people run a little figure for me. Let's say that you are a couple, can't save any money, and let's say that one of the two of you go to Starbucks five days a week. So let's say how this goes: the husband goes Tuesday, Thursday; the wife goes Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you have one of those foo foo blim blam skim milk, whatever they are where they write your name on it, and they give it to you. Any time I got to write your name on it, it's a special thing.
Let's say you're spending four dollars on that, which by the way would probably be on the low end. So here you are as a couple - I'll give it to you as a couple, the same would be true for individuals. Let's say you give up your Starbucks five days a week, but on vacation we'll let you have all the Starbucks you want. So 50 weeks a year, you set aside a Starbucks a day. That is a $1,000. If they made you prepay that stuff, you'd never drink it.
Listen to these numbers. If you put a thousand dollars away a year from age 21 to 28 - so for those eight years you put away $8,000 - if it accrues a 10% interest, at age 65 that's setting aside that Starbucks is worth $427,736. And all you've done is give up a Starbucks.
That's what I'm saying when you say "I can't get ahead." No, you can't just rocket ship there, but especially if you're younger, you have the power here of accumulating interest. That's why the Bible says be a steady plodder. I hate that phrase "plodder." It doesn't even sound like somebody from North Dakota. "I'm a plotter." What are you, a plotter? Hey man, I'm a greyhound, but steady. And that's really true in finance. We'll talk more about that when we talk about my dad tomorrow night.
Rejoice in the Freedom of the Cross
Grab your outline. We are at session number nine. We've talked about establishing the Bible as the final authority in your life. We've talked about learning and making decisions and growing from that. Today, number nine: rejoice. This ties into what we were just talking about - rejoice in the freedom of the cross.
You and I live at a time where politically, even economically, freedom is the big deal. A friend of mine that travels around the world speaking was in Florida at an IBM conference a couple years ago. They gave him an interesting speaking assignment. They said, "We want you to talk about each of the continents and we want you to do a financial forecast for each of the continents." When he was all done, he was essentially very positive about some more than others. He said, "The only one really that I'm not positive about is Africa. And the reason is there seems to be on that continent an absolute absence of freedom politically and economically."
Freedom is a wonderful thing. Let me help you understand what made America great, because I hear this - especially now you're going to be throwing up here in the next couple months listening to these politicians, it'll be awful. They're going to talk about "the American people, the American people." The American people are no different than any other people. What made America great was not the American people. It's the American system. Not the people. That's why a family can come over on a boat with absolutely nothing and in five years they got four restaurants and three duplexes. It's the system, and they were the same people there. It's not the people, it's the system. By and large, give them freedom, give them choice, give them options.
The Power of Free Markets
Susan and I and the kids used to vacation in a place like this, only way smaller, down in Northern California called Sea Ranch. I don't know if you've ever been there. It's a little dinky place, 114 miles north of San Francisco. It is a tough to get to place. We love to go there - I love it maybe a little more than Susan because it's isolated. You have a beach, it's cool like this, you have cable TV and USA Today and not many people, and that's what I'm looking for on vacation.
We go and you have to buy groceries and they're really expensive and the market's not very clean. And all of a sudden one year we pull into town, we go to the market, we're going, "The groceries are cheaper. The place is cleaner. Must be new management, huh? What happened?" You know another market opened across the street? Once we put the other market in, there's competition - cheaper, better. Freedom.
Understanding True Freedom
Not just economic or political freedom, but we're talking about our life now. And we're talking about rejoicing in the freedom of the cross. Here's Webster's definition of freedom: liberation from slavery or imprisonment, exemption from necessity in choice or actions, liberty, independence. It is a liberation from slavery or imprisonment, exemption from the necessity of choice. In the Christian life we have extraordinary freedom.
Now it's helpful to understand that freedom doesn't mean just doing whatever you want to do. Years ago I got into my daughter's car. There was somebody with her riding in the front seat. I was in the back seat. Sitting next to me was her journal, some notes that she had made, and I knew she would want me to read them. So as she's driving I picked it up to read it, and after I read it I said to her, "Do you mind if I make a copy of this? I'd like to use this." And she said, "No, that's okay."
Let me read you what Sarah wrote in her journal: "Many feel that to follow Christ is to lose everything and gain nothing, when in all reality it is to lose nothing and gain everything. Once we've been given this freedom, we as Christians often forfeit that freedom and return again to slavery by pursuing our own desires and following our own flesh."
The Paradox of Freedom Forfeited
That's odd, isn't it? I think she's right. We're given this freedom and then we return. One of the phenomenal phenomenons at the end of the Civil War is after Abraham Lincoln - I mean this just, I'm just kind of reading along in my history and I said this can't be right, and as the more I research it, it is right - He signs the Emancipation Proclamation. He frees the slaves and many of the slaves just stayed. Either they were in a situation that for whatever reason it was better for them in their mind, or there was never any conception of freedom. That makes no sense to us, does it? We look at slavery and how horrific that is. We're saying if I'm free, man, I'm out of there. And we're saying that doesn't make any sense.
what Sarah's saying is it doesn't make any sense to have Christ come along and free you, yet you begin to follow your own desires and the desires of the flesh here. She continues: He will one day... we will one day realize that apart from Christ we are not free. Our freedom looks nothing like the freedom the world looks for.
The world looks for the freedom to do as they please, no matter what, no matter who they hurt along the way. Our freedom is to love as Christ loved, to serve as Christ serves. Many say that sounds like bondage, but in following the truth, the truth will set you free. She nails it cold right there.
That's what freedom is. It is amazing to see Paul read through and to hear Paul identify himself as "Paul, a... bond servant, a slave."
Understanding Biblical Slavery
Now that word "slave" for us is so ingrained in our mind with that area that we just talked about—pre-Civil War early America. But in fact, in Paul's culture, the word slave and the existence of slave, there were many varieties of those. There were some who were indeed involuntary. I think of Ben Hur when I think of that, just in the bottom of the ship rowing. But there were many who served as slaves, called as slaves, who did it voluntarily. They placed themselves in there. Some were working off a debt. Some, in a sense, it was a form really of employment and security for them.
Paul is saying this is exactly what I am. I'm a slave, I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm free—free indeed. You know the truth, and the truth has set you free. And Paul says I am so free that I understand that doesn't mean me doing my own thing. It's me doing His thing. That's the distinction—Paul, a bond servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul one who's called by Christ to live for Him.
The Problem with "My Own Thing"
Again, when we talk about freedom: "I want to be free, man. What does that mean?" It means I can do my own thing. Well, that doesn't work.
RC Sproul tells a wonderful story of a lady who he's dealing with, and she said, "We talked to my teenage son." And he said, "You know, whatever, I'll be happy to." And he comes and he said, "I understand you're not getting along with your mom." He said, "No, I'm not really." "How come?" "I think I should be free." "What do you mean by free?" "I think I should do my own thing."
And Sproul said to him, "Should everybody do their own thing?" And he said, "Yeah, everybody should do their own thing." "Should your mom do her own thing?" "Yeah, mom should do her own thing." "What if her thing is shoving this religion down your throat?" There's a collision here of "own things."
Our Natural Bent Toward Selfishness
Everything in us instinctively wants to say "mine, me." That's how you're wired. Any questions? Go over there and watch the two-year-olds. Watch the kid over here, and he's playing happy as can be, and the minute that kid over there has a toy, away they go and a struggle ensues: "Mine! Mine! Me! Me!"
I used to come home from a trip, and I would almost always bring them a gift—almost always a t-shirt or something. And I would come in and one of the kids would come up, and I'd give him a t-shirt. Immediately the other one would say, "What about me? What about me? What about me?"
And then we grow up. We get a little more sophisticated. We learn how to put on the facade. We buy a new car, we get a new car. We hide it a little better. We can sing the songs or read the verses, but all inside we're saying to God, "What about me? What about me? Me! Me!" And He says, "No, no, no. It's not about me. It's about Him." That's what Paul's saying. I am so free in Christ that I voluntarily submit myself to Him.
Three Areas of Freedom
I want to talk about three areas, and then we're done. Here you go—three areas where this freedom plays out. Number one: the freedom from the consequence of sin. Number two: freedom from the bondage of sin. And those would be two that you would expect, right? Number three: freedom to be the person God created you to be.
We want to hang in those three areas. When we talk about freedom, we get into all sorts of things. Inevitably we want to talk about: Is it okay to smoke? Is it okay to have a beer? Is it okay to go to an R-rated movie? Is it okay? And then we begin to define those behaviors. So we'll touch on those maybe at the end. But I want to stay here: number one, freedom from the consequence of sin; number two, freedom from the bondage of sin; number three, freedom to be the person God created you to be.
Paul's Indictment Against Mankind
Open your Bibles to Romans chapter 3, would you please, and we've made reference to it, so it only makes sense we'd go back again and kind of build on it.
From Romans chapter 1 through chapter 2 and culminating in chapter 3, Paul has issued this blanket indictment against mankind. We saw it right there—Romans chapter 3, verse 10: "none righteous, not one; none who understands; none who seeks for God; all have turned aside; together they've become useless; there's none who does good, no, not one."
So there's his indictment. Paul now begins to talk about the righteousness that we find in Christ and Christ alone. Romans chapter 3, verse 23: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." That's really the summary statement of what Paul has been saying.
He talks about justification through grace. He talks about Abraham and Abraham's justification by faith. Look at chapter 6. He has talked about how sin entered the world through one man, Adam. Look at chapter 5, verse 12: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin..." When Adam sinned, we were all joined with Him. We all sinned. Death spread to all. Why? Because all have sinned—all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
The Wages of Sin and the Gift of Life
Romans chapter 6, verse 23: "For the wages of sin"—the paycheck for sin, what I earn for my sin—"is death. But the contrast is the free gift of life. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." Undeserving sinners are given eternal life—quantity and quality.
Let's talk about eternal life. When I think eternal life, I said, "What do you think of?" I say eternal life, what do you think of? Yeah—forever, heaven. Well, there are two aspects.
that are important to eternal life. I'm sure you've thought about this. When somebody says to you do you have eternal life, every person can say yes to that? Everybody's going to live forever. So eternal life isn't just quantity. It's also quality. Eternal life that He's talking about is a relationship with the Living God, ruling with the Living God, reigning with the Living God, united with the Living God.
You and I have eternal life. The free gift of God, not something I earn. What I earned was death, right? The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. I've been delivered. I've been saved by grace. Let's just go through it: unmerited favor, undeserved, unearned.
The Cry of Man and the Solution of Religion
What can I do? That's really the cry of man, and that's the solution of religion—that somehow I'm going to do something. We sense something's wrong. We're separated from God. We understand it. We see the world is a mess. We understand there's problems around us, but that's big in general. But I know I'm supposed to do something about it, and from that flows religion in whatever system it is: do this, don't do this, be this good, be not this good.
When I was a young man, that's how I was raised. I'd never really fully understood how God did it, but somehow God tabulated everything that every person did in their life. And at the end of your life, if you had more good than bad you went to heaven, more bad than good you went to hell.
I reached a point midway through my college career—which was an extended but I was in college three terms: Nixon, Johnson and... yeah, three terms. I was there a while. But I only had four years of eligibility though. But I reached a point in my college career when I said if that's true, my bad stack is so much higher than my good stack, I'm never going to get it there. I'm never going to get it balanced out. So let's just see how big we can get the bad stack.
The Freedom of the Gospel
When I heard this truth, you talk about freedom. All of a sudden I even had asked, "Wait a minute. I want to really get this right. That no matter what I do, if I believe Jesus is who He said He was, can confess that Jesus is Lord, believe God raised Him from the dead—if that's the belief of my heart not just intellectually now, but emotionally, volitionally, that's driving my life—if I believe that, I'm as certain of heaven as the saints that are already there?"
In fact, when you read First John, there's that phrase over and over again: I know, you can know, you can know, you can know, you can know.
I had two Mormon guys knock at the door years ago, and there was an older guy and a younger guy. It was a training session obviously for the younger guy. Normally I'm really gracious, but I'd had a bad day or something. So this younger guy started, and I said, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Can I know that I have eternal life?" "Well, not really." "So what about First John?" I said, "Let me get a Bible."
A Divine Encounter
So I came back and now the older guy was in charge when I got back. I said, "Look at this: I can know, I can know, I can know." And he said, "Listen, we have to go." I said to the younger guy, "Here's my card. Call me. Call me. Let's talk about it."
That night that kid called, and it was the most amazing thing. I don't get too weird in this, but I've never had this happen in my life. He called, we started going through it, and he said, "Well, let me ask you about this," and literally the phone line went dead. I've never had that happen before. He called back. We went through it a second time, starting to go through it, the phone line went dead, and I never heard from him again. It's kind of a weird thing.
But that was great, for that was to me very freeing. I can know that my life now is not a process of trying to coerce God or convince God, but I'm now in partnership with Him in the sense that He is working and living through me. There's great freedom in that.
The Process of Salvation
I was saved at that point in time where I was justified. Christ died. Everything needed to be done was done. It was then applied to me in my life, and now I'm in this process of becoming more and more like Christ. Ultimately that salvation will culminate in my glorification or my presence with God in heaven one day.
That's the cry to the world. I don't know if you watch the NFL Hall of Fame introductions this year or not. My assumption would be you didn't, and if you did, you didn't see all of them. I was fortunate enough to see every second of it.
Reggie White was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Reggie's the first person who in the first round has been voted in but had died before that could take place. His son spoke for him, and his son said this—it was a great phrase—he said, "I want to thank God for this moment. Now let me tell you which God I'm talking about." And he was talking about this God, that God of the Bible.
The God Who Never Blinks
It's a God that we can't seem to get in a box. It's a God who never blinks when we talk about adversity. In fact, He's the God who said, "Who created the deaf? Who created the dumb? Who created the blind? I did. Don't be worried about my reputation. I can handle this."
It's a God who everything in us would say, "Okay, we've sinned, now there's something we need to do," and God says, "No, it's been done. You believe."
This is about the third or fourth time that I've kind of been down this trek since we started, and I guess it's because the more time I spend out and the more time I spend with people who come to our church from other churches, the more time I spend at Priority Living, I understand—not out in the world, but within the church—there's this battle going on.
There's a gentleman who is an Episcopal bishop, retired now, speaks I think for lots of people who
would call themselves Christians. He wrote several books including this one titled "A New Christianity for a New World." He's saying we need something new.
He goes back in history to the early 20th century and talks about how there were these groups of people, these old fuddy-duddies we might call them. He would use the term fundamentalist, and he said out of this came five things that these fundamentalists believe. Let me read them to you. Number one: the inspiration of Scripture as the literal revealed Word of God. Number two: the virgin birth as the miraculous and literal means by which the divine nature of Christ has been guaranteed. Number three: the substitutionary view of the atonement—Jesus was a substitute. He died in your place. He got what we deserve, which was accomplished through the death of Christ. Number four: the certainty of the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the accuracy of both the empty tomb and the appearance stories in the Gospels tradition. And number five: the truth of the second coming of Jesus and the reality of the day of judgment.
So let me give to you real quick—here's what this guy said. He said there were these guys and here are the five things they really believed in: the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth, the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross, the resurrection, and the second coming of Christ.
The Attack on Biblical Fundamentals
Now listen what he writes today: "I find each of these fundamentals as traditionally understood not just to be naive but eminently rejectable. Nor would any of them be supported in our generation by reputable Christian scholars, really? Scripture's filled with cultural attitudes, which is true, that we have long ago abandoned and with behavior that today is regarded as immoral. Concepts such as the virgin birth, the physical resurrection, the second coming of Christ are today more often regarded as symbols to be understood theologically than events which occurred literally in history. The substitutionary death of the atonement has become grotesque both in its understanding of a God who requires the shed blood of human sacrifice as a prerequisite for salvation and in His definition of humanity as fallen into depravity. If these things still constitute the faith of Christian people, then Christianity has become for me and for countless others, hopefully, unbelievable. Surely the essence of Christianity is not found in any or all of these propositions."
That is the essence of Christianity? Therein lies the problem. Therein lies the battle. That is why we begin with the inerrancy of Scripture, and flowing from that I now have a lot. Once I attack that, once I've done that, I can go wherever I want to go with this thing.
That's Episcopal. That's mainline denominations. That's what you hear, and I'm not out here beating these guys up, nor do I think he speaks for all the Episcopalians. Don't take it that way. I'm saying here are these denominations who want to go and have conclaves and figure out why is nobody coming? I can tell you why nobody's coming: you aren't teaching anything. It's God's Word that attracts.
What Really Connects with People
Even when you're talking about we want to reach young people, I'll tell you how to reach young people. It's helpful if you connect from the platform musically, but what really resonates in the hearts of young people is what resonates in the hearts of middle-aged people and old people, and that's the Word of God. The Word of God applied by the Spirit of God connects. It connects.
When I'm with young people that are in the church, I find them to be orthodox. I find them to love the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of tradition. They're immersed in them because they see God gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and I get smaller and smaller and smaller. And nowhere is that more obvious or evident than in salvation, where He strips me away from everything.
Grace—unmerited favor. What can I do to merit unmerited favor? Nothing. It's entirely, utterly, completely from Him. He's the God that spoke the world into existence and holds it together. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. What we deserve, what we've earned, is destruction. And in spite of you—not because of you, in spite of you—not because of anything you have done or are doing or will do, but because of God's good pleasure, He saved you from your sin.
The Natural Response of Gratitude
Now there is the great truth. Now I don't have to conjure up gratitude and thanksgiving and worship because that comes throwing up out of me. Once I understand that, that's the most natural thing in the world.
If somebody gave you a gift certificate to use this afternoon down at Dugar's for lunch, I don't care who they are, you'd hunt them out and you would at least say to them, "Thank you." That's what you do with your little kids. Little kids are standing out there, and I'll have something I'll give it to them, and inevitably the parent will say, "Don't... thank you." Why? Well, somebody's giving us something. In this case, someone we didn't even deserve arbitrarily gave me. I can go to Dugar's and get some clam chowder.
Here's the Creator God of the universe who has brought us back into a right, intimate relationship with Him. We should not have to be conjured up or motivated or stimulated to say "Thank you." It ought to just come throwing up out of us, and that's what worship is. That's why Sunday worship begins all week long. If you're just coming in there and going, "All right, pal, get us going"—no. It's the response to understanding who He is.
Freedom from Sin's Bondage
Number one: freedom from the consequence of sin. Number two: freedom from the bondage of sin.
You're in the book of Romans. Look at Romans chapter 6, verse 11: "Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts. Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness."
For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but you're under grace. Let me read you Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of Romans chapter 6 verses 11-14: "From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you. God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You're dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.
That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your life. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under the old tyranny any longer. You're living under the freedom of God."
You have freedom from the bondage of sin. When Paul says in Romans chapter 3 verse 10, "No one does good, no not one," he speaks of natural man. He speaks of us apart from Christ. But now he says you and I can perform good works—good works that are evidence of obedience to Him, good works that result from freely submitting ourselves to Him. We need not sin any longer.
The Power of Choice
When somebody says to you "I can't, I can't, I can't," you can say, "No, you won't, you won't, you won't." That's the problem. Is it difficult? Sure, it's difficult. That was one of the questions this morning: walking in the Spirit, being led by the Spirit—how does that take place? It takes place as I form these new habits of obedience to God. That's why obedience becomes the issue to me, as I submit to Him and I obey Him even when I don't feel like it, even when I don't want to.
Let me tell you something that's probably a little different than maybe you're used to hearing. I think one of the great indicators of where you are spiritually is how you respond to sin in your life. If all of a sudden you've sinned and now you're saying "that wasn't so bad," and then you do it again and again and again and again until it just becomes part of your life, I would suggest you've got a real problem. But if you've just committed a really great sin and your gut is just in a knot over this, that's different.
Understanding Sin's Appeal
Sin is fun. If you're saying sin isn't fun, you aren't doing it right. Sin is fun for a season. There is that moment, that exhilaration. But all of a sudden when I'm by myself, when I'm alone, when all of a sudden I can face it, something's wrong here.
I ran into somebody at church the other day, and I hadn't seen him for a month or so. I said, "How you doing?" "Not well. What happened?" "Fell into sin." I said, "How was it?" He said, "It was fun for a night, and then it was miserable." And what happened to him—I could see it—is he started to pull away from his small group. He started to pull away from church. He started to pull away, and he was immersed in his sin. Then he saw a friend, ran into him at the grocery store. His friend said to him, "Where you been?" He got in his face and said, "What's going on?" He repented, and here he was.
That's sin. I don't have to live that way anymore. I'm not stuck in that anymore. I've got the power to get out of there—not through resolve or self-determination, but through Christ living in me who does extraordinary things.
A Personal Story of Freedom
Let me tell you how I quit drinking. I don't talk about this very often because I know this could be a source of discouragement to some. I drank and drank and drank and drank and drank and drank and drank. God saved me. I said, "All right, I've got to stop this drinking stuff." Then I'd fall off, then I'd fall back on, then I'd be off.
December 11th, 1980, Susan and I went to the Christmas party. I had a couple of drinks. I talked with my buddy and I said, "Okay, I know you don't drink. Tonight, this is a big night. Don't do this." So I had a couple of drinks, and then it was time for dinner. I went and got three scotch and waters and three gin and tonics and put them on a tray so they thought I was getting them for everybody. When everybody went into dinner, I went into my own little room up there and drank while looking at the city. Music was going, I was dancing, doing the gator.
I woke up wrapped around the centerpiece. The centerpiece that night was a wooden donkey with green berries stuffed in it. I woke up the next morning wrapped around the centerpiece and I said, "You know what, God? This has got to stop. I've got issues. I've got a lot of issues, but this is clearly a problem. You need to take it away." And I haven't had a drink since.
I've never really had a desire. Every once in a while—and here's what I've discovered: it's not when I'm down, but when everything's good and it's a sunny day—I kind of think, "Gosh, maybe a Corona would taste good today."
The Question of Christian Freedom
Do I have the freedom to have a beer? Let's get back to this. Yeah, I think so. The Scripture is pretty clear. It says don't get drunk with wine. Here's how I think: the easiest way to not get drunk is to not have a drink. I don't drink for a couple of reasons. Number one: I end up in jail, and that tends to hinder ministry. It slows things down. People aren't as receptive when you have problems.
But it's not as simple as that either. I don't have a drink for your sake. If you walk into the bar and there I sit with a drink, you don't know if it's the first drink or the eighth drink. You want it to be the eighth drink so that you can gossip and spread rumors. But do I have freedom? Sure, I have freedom. Are there guys around who are pastors who have beers or wine or whatever? Yeah, they do. You know what? That's between them and God. To me, I don't major in that.
It's okay to smoke if you want. I mean, you smell like an ashtray, but if you want to smoke...
Want to smoke a cigar or pipe? That's a different story. There's a pleasant aroma to me, but if you want to smoke, you know. But I think, is it okay to go to an R-rated movie? Well, I think so. All these Christians lined up to see the Passion of Christ, which was R-rated. I mean the boycott stopped then for a day.
Those are all personal issues that you have to figure out, and you have to understand that it's affecting the people around you. You have to formulate that and you have to submit that. It's like that money thing. Somebody says how much house should I have? I can't answer the question for you. What kind of car should I drive? I don't know.
I know this: if you're spending $125,000 on a car, it's not about transportation. I know that. I'm not saying don't do it. I know a guy who just spent $285,000 on a car. Seems high. But I don't know. How much house should I have? I don't know, but I do know when it gets like ten or twelve thousand square feet, it's not just about living.
Freedom We Struggle to Accept
So there's freedom in there, and we hate this freedom. We want rules and regulations and everybody to be identical and everything to go this way. Look, I'm free from the consequence of sin and the bondage of sin, and my third point was: I'm free to be the person God's called me to be.
I spend time in our church with lots of people who are missionaries. We got a team that just launched to Morocco. Guys just came back from Uzbekistan. They're in Caborca in Mexico all the time. I do not feel the slightest bit called to go to Uzbekistan, but friends of mine feel so guilty. I said why? Why do you feel guilty?
You feel guilty because you think you should go there. If you should go there, you should go there. If you don't need to go there, or you don't feel called to go there, you know what? I don't feel guilty. You got freedom, man. You got freedom to be who God created you to be—unique and different.
Learning from Life's Difficulties
I know this is the third time we've talked about it, but I want you to see how important it is, especially in your life where God's allowed some real awful things to happen in your life. I've watched people who take something that was awful that happened in their life and they nurture it. They see the rest of the world through that prism, and it becomes something that's a source of bitterness and anger and hurt and pain. I'm not saying it isn't legitimate. I'm just saying that becomes the vision.
I see somebody else go through almost the same thing, but they see it now as an opportunity for ministry—something that God's taught them. Second Corinthians chapter 1: to be able to minister to one another. God created us different, and it seems to me He created us different for a reason.
That's why I think when you get into church models and you get into trying to figure this out and figure this system out, I don't think it works. God just called you to be you—the way He created you, but now indwelled by the Spirit to be you. And it's gonna look very different. You've got that freedom to be the person that God called you to be.
Freedom Leading to Bondage
Ironically, God's freedom leads us right back into bondage—bondage to Him, enslavement to Him. Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13. Let me read it to you from the Living Bible: "Dearest friends, when I was there with you, you always were careful to obey, to follow instruction. Now that I'm away, you must even be more careful to do the good things that result from being saved, obeying God with deep reverence, shrinking back from all that you know would displease Him. For God is at work within you, helping you to want to obey Him and helping you to do what He wants you to do."
The freedom to be the person that God called you to be—however it is He created you, however it is He made you. And the last thing you want to do, let me just tell you something, the last thing you want to do is have a bunch of hills you're gonna die on, because you're gonna be a dead soldier really fast.
Choosing Your Hills Wisely
I got people, and I'm okay if this guy says, "I'm gonna die on that hill." That's fine. I understand that you are under the conviction that God's giving you—that's a hill to die on. But you know what? I don't have many hills I'm gonna die on.
Those five that this guy mentions—those five I'm dying on those hills. We're dying on the inerrancy of Scripture. We're dying on the virgin birth. We're dying on the substitutionary atoning death. We're dying on the physical resurrection. We're dying that Jesus is coming again. But you know what? There aren't many more hills I'm gonna die on.
I can't tell you how to live your life outside of these mandates. You got it. I can tell you this: we had a call one night. There's a gal who calls and she said, "Is Susan there?" I said, "No, she's not there." And she said, "Well, will you give her a message?" And I said, "All right, hang on, let me get something to write this down."
A Story About Misplaced Priorities
And she said, "I want to get a prayer for the prayer chain." I said, "Okay, what is it?" She said, "Should I marry Bob?" And I said, "All right, you marry Bob? Yeah, I got it. Got it." She said, "Okay." I said, "Hey, hang on a second. Tell me about Bob. I don't think I've met him." "No, I haven't met him." "Well, tell me about Bob."
"He's a great guy." I said, "Oh wow, really a good guy?" "Yeah." "He's a stud. I mean, he's chiseled. He's just like granite. I mean, he's just a ride." I said, "Like me?" She said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's studying to be a doctor. His family has a lot of money, and he's really sensitive." I said, "Well, that's cool."
I said, "Where's Bob go to church?" "Bob doesn't go to church." "Oh, now could he be a Christian and not go to church for a while?" "Okay, so Bob didn't go." I said, "Oh, I said well, tell me: when was Bob saved?" She said, "Well, He's not saved." If you had a picture phone, it would look like this, but he's...
You've seen that, but he's this close. I said, "Wow, okay, I got that. Let me make sure I got this prayer request right. Should you marry a pagan?" Now we're going to waste time praying about this. Do I need to pray about that? You don't know her, you don't know him. You just got this. Now you tell me, do we need to pray about that? No. What I got some advice for: what's her advice? Run. Run from the guy, get away from the guy.
I had a different circumstance when this gal called and said, "I've had this guy. He's proposed to me, and I want to marry him." I went through the same thing. "You know him? No, no, no. I'm telling you, run from the guy."
About a half hour later the phone rings. "It's just Tom." "Yeah." "This is Daryl. I said, I don't know you, Daryl." "Well, you just told my girlfriend not to marry me. I'd like to meet with you." I said, "How big a guy are you, Daryl? You want to bring Johnny Ray with me, I think." He said, "No, I want to meet." I said, "Okay. I figured it's an opportunity for evangelism, nothing else."
So he came in and he's all bent out of shape. He said, "I don't even understand this. This makes no sense to me. How can you say that? You spend time with me now. Don't you think I'm a good guy?" I said, "You're a great guy. Here's the problem: you're unequally yoked. You're not a follower of Christ."
This guy, and this doesn't happen very often, she broke off the relationship. God saved him. Of course, now she raises in and goes, "He's a believer. Let's get me right." I said, "Why don't we see if this takes? Let's see this flesh itself out for a while." Something like a year later, these two were married and they're key players in the church they're in now.
The Clarity of God's Direction
See, there it is. Do I need to pray about those things? Look at God gives me clear direction, and where He doesn't give me clear direction, you got freedom. The Christian life is pretty easy to figure out. Kind of tough to live, but pretty easy to figure out most of the time. And you got freedom.
Why would it make no sense for those slaves in the time of Civil War to put themselves right back in slavery? Why would you put yourself right back into slavery under the yoke of bondage when Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden"? He's not talking about people who are necessarily pooped physically from carrying a load. He's talking to the Jews who are under this bondage of requirements of law and legalism and rules—hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of rules—and saying, "Listen, you're weary from that religion." Religion poops you out. Religion makes you tired. There's no end to it. There's no finish line. He says it's done.
Let me say this. I've used this phrase three or four times. Let me make sure you get this: you and I who are followers of Christ are as certain of heaven as the saints that are already there. That's a huge statement. It means I can't out-sin God's grace.
The Security of Salvation
It means even as I look at it sometimes it's a little tough because I've got somebody and they've been around and they're followers of Christ, and all of a sudden some sin comes into their life and they're trying to figure out if they're really saved or not. First of all, that's God's job, not yours. But you're truly trying to figure this out, and all we know is if you're really a child of the King, He's just going to work in your life. And it may simply be that He says, "Come on home, buddy."
But once I went it, now what we saw in John 10: who can snatch me from the Father's hand? He who began a good work in me will continue to the day of Christ Jesus. This isn't wishful thinking. This isn't a hope over hope over hope. This isn't the power of positive thinking. This isn't a Tony Robbins tape. This is the Word of God that says, "Listen, this is true." God said it; that makes it true. That makes it true.
Running Toward Trials
We're going to talk tonight about something that almost instinctively when we hear it we want to run from it, and God has a really odd spin on this. He says run to it. "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials." Really? Suffering, pain, hardship. You can relate to this because every one of us have it in our life at different levels, different ways. Maybe emotional pain, relational pain, physical pain, spiritual anguish and warfare. We'll talk about that tonight.
Father, thank You for this truth that we are free. It's so wonderful. What is amazing is that we then put ourselves back into bondage. God, I know that even the words that were spoken this morning produced tension for some. But God, I want to resist the temptation to give answers where You're silent and always to try to speak boldly where You've spoken.
We have thousands of decisions to make this day, some as simple as what shirt to wear, others as complex as who to marry or where to live, how to respond, whether to start that church, to join this church, to work in this place, to move to that land. God, help us seek Your truth through Your word. Thank You for the comfort of knowing that Your Spirit continues to work in our lives. Help us to seek wise counsel from one another, and then God, to do what You'd have us do best we can tell.
It's amazing, but the freedom is almost intimidating to us. God, let us rejoice in the freedom You've given. We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.