Weekday Warrior | Week 1

this idea of freedom. And I'm thankful for our country and the freedom we have here, but that the American Revolution wasn't fought just to have freedom from something. It was also freedom for something. It was it was freedom maybe from tyranny, from a lot of the things, but it was a freedom to have a different form

of government. It wasn't rejecting all authority. It was to have a better form of that. That that that good, better form of authority provided more freedom, really. And and in the same way, as we come to church, we gotta recognize this this truth. There is a greater freedom that we need

that's greater than this cool freedom we have in our country as as Americans that we need, and it's the freedom that Jesus fought and died to give us. It's it's it's the freedom of of of the salvation, of his love and his grace because that's a freedom every one of us needs because every one of us is enslaved to death

and and separation from God. But when we put our faith in Christ, we've been given an eternal freedom. But in the same way as the American Revolution, that freedom that we get in Christ is not just a freedom from death

and a freedom from any authority and a freedom to do whatever we want. Everyone thinks freedom means do what you want. It doesn't. When we go from calling freedom from something and calling freedom the freedom to do whatever, chaos, that form of freedom always ends up to greater slavery.

And as we start this series on this day, as we've celebrated our nation's freedom, we're starting a series called Weekday Warrior. Because we're gonna be looking at this idea of how do we live out this freedom? How how how does that actually work in a way that's manageable? Because I think we misunderstand

what it means to be have free in Christ. And it's a good follow-up to our last series because our last series on worship, that would we could have called that weekend warrior.

We talked about what is the power and the meaning behind why it's important for us to gather like this in church and to hear God's word and to sing together and worship together. And what is that for? But what does happen what what does that help us do and what are we supposed to do when we get up on Monday?

And Monday through the week, how do we live in the freedom that we've given? Because when we live in the freedom under the rule of Christ, the loving, grace filled authority that provides us greater freedom when we trust him, How do we do that? What does that look like?

And what we're gonna see today in starting this this series is this big idea. Live free every day in Jesus' name. What does it mean to have this name and live in the name of Jesus? What does that look like? What is what is it really about? And we're gonna be today in Colossians chapter three.

David read a section, and I am only gonna be preaching the the last verse of that section, verse 17. That's why I have to hurry up because I have this weird quality that whenever I go into one verse only, I go longer. There's something deeper I try to dive into one thing, the the longer I get. So

buckle up. Here we go. Now Colossians three is a letter written to this city Colossae as in this this area. It was kind of a blue collar type of town. Wasn't had better, more larger, richer neighbors. And if the church there was, it's written to the letter was written to this church there by a guy named Paul.

Paul had never been there. He didn't start the church. A guy named Epaphras did, and that was the guy that Paul had led to Christ in Ephesians, in Ephesus.

And that's and so, Epaphras had got this church started. He's just a normal guy that got saved, came to know Christ, found freedom, went back home and started telling people, the church got started. And the church was growing. And so he went to meet Paul, because Paul's in prison,

to tell him how well the church is going, but also to ask him for his advice because he's having a problem. That shortly after the church started growing, this was a common problem in in in this time, was these teachers weren't moving in, these false teachers

that started teaching. Yeah. You believe in Jesus, but you also need these extra deep truths, these mysterious truths, these these lists of of of realities that you have to know about. And it kinda reminds you of today as people go, yeah, yeah, yeah, Jesus and all. But do you know there's a code in the bible that unlocks blah blah blah blah And you wanna tell us, like, who cares?

You're sick. You're you're you're so looking at all these little numbers, you're forgetting the point. And they have that. They had this list of extra truths. They were really focused, super hyper, overly spiritual, like really focused on angelic beings and and and and all of that kind of stuff and rituals.

Basically, they're saying is, yeah, you need Jesus, but it's Jesus plus. And so Paul gave him this letter. He wrote it. And you can sum up the entire letter in three words. Jesus is enough. That's the point. And so the first two chapters, he does what Paul always does. He actually talks really deeply about who Jesus is.

And he explains how he's savior, how he's really God, how it's all these things, and he is more than enough. And then in chapter three, he starts transitioning into, okay, so what does that look like for your everyday? And the linchpin, the hinge of this entire book is verse 17.

It's where it goes from all of the list of, hey, because of who Jesus is, this is how our lives can be lived in that freedom.

Verse 17 explains exactly what that means. And then he immediately goes into, so now what does a family what does the Christian household look like? What do these relationships look like? And then he wraps up the letter. He goes into every day, weekday living.

Because we need to know that how does what we do here relate to what we do out there? And how do we connect those dots to really live life that's filled with contentment and peace no matter how hard it is and not filled with more slavery of Jesus men more?

And so I just wanna read the verse again, and there's three things out of this verse. There's actually these commas, and this one sentence says three things that really kinda helps us understand how to live free every day in Jesus name. And it says this, and whatever you do or say,

do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus giving thanks through him to God the Father. Now when you read that on the surface, in English, it seems to be really clearly say something, but what most of us assume that just said is not what it's saying.

And and that's the hard part. What you might have thought it said is, hey, whatever you do or say, do as a representative of Lord Jesus giving thanks to him. You it almost sounds like God that Paul's saying, hey, you go, you know what? Hey, whenever you're out there, whatever you're doing,

you better not give Jesus a bad name. You better rep him really well. You better rep that, and you better rep him well. Otherwise, you're screwing it up. And you know what? And in the process of doing that, no matter what's going on, you better be thankful for it too. Some of us had parents that were like that.

You ever have, like, hey, you represent this family when you're out in there having conversations with you about how you're living your life? They always make it about how you make every the family look. That's not what this is saying. This isn't a threat. This isn't another command on a list.

He was explaining how this works. That's what I mean. This first phrase, whatever you do or say, what that is teaching us is that I am free from living divided. Free from living this compartmentalized life. I have a freedom from that. That whatever, that whatever line

is in is in the present subjunctive tense in Greek. This is written in Greek. I I'm not sure what present subjunctive means anymore. No. It just means that it's it's a mood and a tense, and what it's saying is that whatever you whatever, it it means it's a it's a ongoing habit. It's not just a single moment.

You combine that with do or say, that's called a merism. It's where you take you take two polar opposite, like do and say, you know, north and South, and the way you say it, you're saying this includes this and this, so it means everything in between.

So an ongoing habit with everything in between, what it's trying to say is that this is all of life. All of life. So what he's saying before and what he's saying after, that Jesus is enough and Jesus and the relationship,

we live in his name. All of our life should be living the same. So in other words, there isn't spiritual things and non spiritual things. There's not like and one of the ones we still kinda propose in in in in life that we just believe and even guys in ministry believe, we think there's secular jobs,

and then there's the guys that I do this. I'm in a I'm in the in the spiritual job. That's not true. Every one of us, our job is a spiritual job. Every single one of us because all of life is to include the name of Jesus. We should be living all of our life that all of our moments are just as spiritual to include

Jesus and who we are should be in every one of those moments. That's what it's saying Because we have freedom to do that. We don't have to live a divided life. Because a divided life is complicated. It's overwhelming. But for some reason, we like to compartmentalize.

In other words, he's saying if you really wanna live out in Jesus' name the freedom and you understand this freedom is stop splitting my life into God's and mine. He's king of all or king not at all. You gotta understand that. When I when I don't live under his authority and his word and his wisdom

in parts of my life, what I'm saying is I don't trust him at all, really.

And that goes back to the original sin. Every sin. Everything. God didn't just make sin this term of know, I'm gonna make up stuff I just don't want you to enjoy, and that's it. The only thing that we know for a fact that if it tastes good, it's bad for you is food. That's the only one. But the reality is this,

sin just started and everything we do that pulls us away from God comes back to the root of it is what happened in the Garden Of Eden. Is they had this great relation with God and that that Satan came in and tricked them with a lie and they believed it. And what he said is,

you need to have there's that part of your life that's God. He didn't say don't believe in God. He didn't tell, and I think you should run away from having a relationship with God. He just said, you need to have part of your life that he's not a part of

because if you really want contentment, if you really wanna know who you are, if you really wanna make a name for yourself, if really wanna be something, you need to do this thing he gave a boundary to. You need to not live freedom is you need to have the freedom from what he said to do. And then you'll then you'll know.

That's every sin we ever commit. Comes from that. And he says, Jesus' death, if we put our faith in Jesus, we have the power to not do that anymore. Because that's not who we are. We have the freedom because when we live compartmentalized, it actually enslaves us. It overwhelms us. It frustrates us. It defeats us.

It can make us mad at God because we start to think, and he's giving me rules that are impossible, that I don't understand. And here's here's the problem when we compartmentalize it. It's it's it just doesn't work as well. And and I think about it, and I think this is why men struggle more.

It's why when men are called to be leaders, but we sit in churches, and I see, especially in the American church, men have not really stepped up in the way they should as leading spiritually. And I think it's because of this. Men compartmentalize easier than women.

Don't have a problem with it. Now now it's it's our brain structures actually between men and women. We are different. Now don't hear what I'm not saying. It's not a 100% because humans are humans. Some of you ladies might be wired more like what typically a guy is and vice versa. It's just studies show

the highest percentage, probably ninety to ninety five percent of men, our brains are wired this way and 90 to 95% of women are wired this way. You can be opposite. And if it's opposite, just apply what I'm saying to the other side. Okay?

But men can compartmentalize it. You know why? Because for the most part, men's brains are wired and structured like a big tool chest. All the drawers, everything has its place.

And that's why when we come into a situation with our wives and she's having a problem with something, we're like, where's the tool that knee I need to fix this. You're trying to get in that drawer. The problem when that happens that creates tension this is a good marriage advice, by the way, so just write this down.

The problem is the ladies' brains are typically wired like a walk in closet. Everything has a place, but you also see everything all at once. And so when a woman

like your wife's trying to talk about, hey, I'm struggling with this because he walks in and you're wanting to talk about this over here, she's talking about this. It's like, okay, I I'm gonna try to fix it. And she just wants to talk about this cause there's all these other stuff going on. And you're like, I got a tool for that. And you go to the church, she's like, no. I don't want that. I don't want this. Oh oh, it's this drawer. It's this drawer. Now you're getting in this space. She's like, I don't want you to keep trying to fix it. And you pulled all your drawers out. What happens if you pull every drawer out of tool chest open?

It falls on its face. You just collapse and you shut down. It's not gonna work. And then she's mad at you because you don't listen,

which is true because you kept opening all your drawers thinking you're gonna fix the problem. You see, the the other reason this is hard, the way that the women's why does is the guy's all the different drawers.

He's got the drawer for this, the drawer for relationships, drawer for work, the drawer for church, the drawer for you know that. The drawer for sports, the the the the drawer for special married time. That's a really big one. And and

and so the ladies ladies have all those things in their thing. They got this and this. They got the the tiny envelope for special married time behind the shoes up on the farthest back. And and and and you have all of these drawers ready to go. And but the one thing that confuses you ladies is guys have an empty drawer.

It's the nothing drawer. We could literally go to a place where we're thinking about nothing. And we like to do it, especially, like, on long road trips.

And that's why you've probably had some weird fights or started to maybe go, thought this road trip would be good for a marriage. Now I don't think I trust my husband anymore because you're driving and he doesn't say anything for an hour and you say, what are you thinking about? And he goes, nothing? Well,

walking closet brains can't think about nothing. They so you're like, there's no way you're thinking about nothing. So you go to, he must be thinking about something that would upset me, and he doesn't wanna tell me.

And then you keep fighting, and then he was like, nothing, nothing, nothing. And if you keep there's gotta be something. Fine. I'll find a drawer that has a few grievances I have against you, I'll go open, and I'll tell them to you now. And now you're in a fight.

And and and and and and and and you know why? Because ladies, you don't have a nothing drawer. And when you get really quiet, it's not because you're thinking about nothing, it's because you're overwhelmed because you're thinking about everything.

And you're like, so when you get because, maybe I should talk some of this out. And then you think that your husband should do the same thing. He's like, I didn't wanna talk about anything. I was blissfully unaware of everything right now. Guys have a screensaver basically. Just the

That's why and and then when they focus on something too, they could sit there wasn't even. They really didn't you hear me? I said your name 10 times. No. They literally didn't hear you. We're just wired different. And that's what caused but but guys can compartmentalize easier. But here's what happens. As we still do this,

you still do the same thing where you you you you were free from being divided, but we still live divided. You can still go out there and go, okay, out there, there's things I do that I don't even think about the name of Jesus or who I am in Christ in this moment. I just do what I do.

And it's easy for a guy to do that and not feel any problem with it because we have the drawers. And that's why a lot of guys will sit here. You will sit here and listen, and you know the word of God, and you're nodding, and you agree with me, and you say, But I'm not gonna do that. Because that's in the spiritual drawer.

I can agree with you in here, but when I go out there, I'm just not gonna do it. And you don't even usually feel that bad about it. You're just like, Nope. Nope. That's not going in the drawer. So you are actually just disconnected and you just live disconnected. You're okay with them being disconnected. But for you ladies,

you do it also, but you're not disconnected. You end up discombobulated.

You just feel overwhelmed hearing here's how to live for the Lord, but then what am I trying to do out there because you see it all at once. And so you end up in the same place, living a divided compartmental lives, but it hits different. But it's the same problem. It's living this life that's separated.

You're not having the freedom in all of your life, but instead, when you don't You don't see that as freedom, you see it as rules. You see it as, oh, here's another thing from my list. And and and and then we get stuck. But we're freed from that. Because see, here's the thing. When I don't listen and I live divided,

I go out there during the week and I will start making choices just like Adam and Eve did that says, I have to do this. I I need to ignore what God said because I need to do this to either survive or get something I want. I just want the freedom.

And I think I'll be better off. The problem is every time we chase that freedom,

it ends up blowing up in our faces eventually. That's why God says don't go down that road. There's a story in the '80s of a guy named Larry, and they end up maybe known as lawn chair Larry. And he was a guy that always wanted to be a pilot,

but he couldn't get a license because of his vision. He hated those rules. He was so mad at it that one day he finally said, I've had enough. I'm gonna do what I wanna do. I'm gonna fly. And I wanna show you a picture of what his answer was. He basically attached a bunch of helium balloons

to a lawn chair, put a cooler on it with some beers and some sandwiches, brought a jacket and a pellet gun. So he figured this should take me up a few 100 feet. I'm gonna float over my neighborhood, maybe a few miles. And then when I start to float too far away, I've decided I wanna come down, I'll shoot a couple of the balloons and slowly go back down to earth. I mean, that sounded like I got a perfect plan to have the freedom of getting what I want and soaring in the skies, not being told by anyone I can't do this. I'm gonna go do what I wanna do. And so he decided that. This is what happened shortly after he cut those ropes, the next picture.

That's him at 16,000 feet,

where he had flown miles from home and has now entered the LA International Airport's airspace in its approach run. And and and and and that got taken after a pilot called in. He said, yeah, Howard, I just thought, please don't send me the mandatory drug testing after I tell you what I'm looking at.

He's like, yeah. There appears to be a man sitting in a lawn chair floating at approximately 16,000 feet up here. He's in the flight path. We're gonna have to shut down the the the airport until, he gets out of here.

And they did. They shut down the airport. And you know what happens? You shut down airport. It's really hard. People were delayed, stranded. It took days to catch up and get people. All because this guy decided, don't need the rules. I'm gonna fly, and and I think I know what to do. And

on top of that, he got so high so fast, he got scared and didn't wanna shoot any of the balloons,

rightfully so. But then he started to think, I'm feeling dizzy. I'm not sure if I'm thinking straight from the lack of oxygen. So he goes, I better shoot one of these. Finally shot it. It lurched. When it blew up, it lurched. Think he almost fell out of the chair, and he dropped the pellet gun so he couldn't shoot any more of them. So then he got stuck floating for, four more hours as it slowly went down, ended up, like, 60 miles from home,

hit a power line when he landed. He was okay, but it knocked out the power for over a 100,000 people for thirty six hours. So as he landed and hit the ground and and the cops had already followed him, they watched his descent, reporters got in on it. So there's police there arresting him when he got landed,

and the reporter asked him as they were putting him in the police car, Larry, why did you do it? And his answer was this. He goes, well, sometimes a man can't just sit there.

That's all he did, was sit there. That's what we do often when we think, well, God, it's just so hard. I'm out there and I live this divine have this part of my life that I just that's separate. I go to the spiritual things, but then I have these things. You're gonna get out of your oxygen level.

You're gonna end up someplace cold. It's gonna be further than you ever intended. It's gonna be out of your control, and it's going to affect people around you. That's not freedom. That's slavery. And Jesus gave us freedom from that. And why? Because it goes right into the next thing. When he says,

do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus.

He's not saying, You better not give me a bad name. What he's actually saying is, You are now free from pretending and performing. In other words, live from the name that Jesus gave you. This is directly connected to everything he already said.

And what does he say earlier? You go read. He he says, you know what? We are a new creation. The old self has been put to death, and we have a new self. You've been given a new identity, a new name, a new creation, and even new clothes. You put put on the new clothes, the the new self clothing.

Don't wear the old self clothes. Wear the new clothes. Be dressed as who you are. And to be you get dressed when you go outside in the world. We could be dressed as as the name. It's not go

defend the name of Jesus and not me. It's like we've been given the name of Jesus. We've been given a name and we don't go earn it. We don't have to pretend. We just go out there, and we have it. He already gave it to us, and that's consistent with scripture. When we go out there and try to do our own thing independent,

we feel like we end up pretending. We feel like we're playing a game. And most of the time what we do is you feel like you're pretending when you come here.

Like, okay, I got to church. I gotta act spiritual. I gotta put my Jesus because I know what I've been doing out there, but I need to be more spiritual here. And now I start pretending. And then eventually, if you keep having that divided life, you start to feel more guilty about that or just more confused or more like, you know what? What does it matter? I come here. I play this game. It doesn't change anything out there,

and so you give up. And what you but here's the problem with that. When I say pretending, what scripture says pretending is, we think that we're pretending when we're in here.

And you think what's happening out there is that's the real me just kinda showing up. And then you feel this guilt, but also you feel this responsibility that when we talk about what God says, like, to live in the name of Jesus, what a lot of you heard is, I gotta force myself to live this list out.

You know what that means? That means you think the old self is who you really are. So when you're out there and you put on the old self and you don't listen to the authority, the loving wisdom of God in your everyday life, it's because you think it's the real you and you're like, I can't seem to corral this guy.

I can't force myself into this. And you get exhausted, you're either filled with shame and guilt, or you get frustrated with God because you start to say, God, you've called me, you saved me, you told me to do this, and this is impossible. You realize most of that shame and that guilt and that frustration

and that that that exhaustion isn't from what God's asked us to actually do. It's from the fact that you think that you're pretending when you're in here and you think that's really you when you're out there.

And you all do it because it's feelings.

So we come in here, I don't really feel like singing, don't feel like this, but I gotta do it. I put that on, and then you go out there, I'm not supposed to do this stuff, and I do So you feel all that weight all the time. What would change

that would give you more energy to realize when you're in here, if you know Jesus, if you profess Jesus as your Lord and you come in here and you worship him, I don't care how guilty you felt about what you did out there. I don't care how not in the mood you feel when you come in here to do it. If you do it,

that is the real you. That's actually the first time maybe all week you actually are being real. In other words, a lot of us, we all celebrated last night, July 4, a holiday, right? But how many of us celebrated like it was Halloween? We celebrated wearing a dead man's clothes.

Who we thought we were is what we were wearing. It's like Halloween. We put on the Halloween costume when you put on the old clothes. I'm gonna dress up like a zombie.

The Walking Dead. Does that make sense? It's so simple. But you have to understand this. If you have professed Christ as Lord, the part of you that wants to live with Him and for Him all your life is who you are. That's who you are. Raised and recreated. This is not reformation of an old self. It's replacement.

That is who you are. If Jesus calls you home right now, that's who goes. That's who goes. What you gotta get in your head is that old self that wants to dominate because you lived that a long time, you keep thinking that's you. It's not you anymore.

And see, so the problem is, if you look in the Old Testament, whenever God called someone and loved them like Abram, he says, I'm gonna make your name great. But that's after he already called him. All Abraham did do is say he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

He says, Let me build you into something. I'm giving you the name. He gave him the name. He didn't earn the name. He didn't go find the name. He didn't go build the name. He gave him the name. The opposite was the Tower Of Babel where men get together like, Oh, let's make a name for ourselves.

And they built this giant tower, and that's what most of us are doing. We're out there, we think. We're not. We're pretending when we're out there, but we think that's who we are, so we think we gotta go build who we are one brick at a time, and we even think our faith is that way. I gotta go build these to grow up in Christ so then God will love me more or bless me more. And that's not how it works. You don't have to build your name. You've already been given.

So many Christians, we act like the world when we say, I know Jesus, but man, I gotta find myself. Who am I? What's my purpose? You don't need to. You've already been found. You've already been declared. You already have a name. You already have a purpose. Why are you searching?

It's like you're gonna go look for yourself when you've already been found. I wanna show you a picture of a guy. His his name was Behan Mutlu. That's his name. Behan Mutlu. Weird name because he's he's he's in Turkey. And what he is, that's him when he's with this, a search party he he joined.

As he was, lived in this area in Turkey, there's a mine. He worked at the mine, and and,

the mine they would work hard and play hard, so he got off work, went and had, you know, some drinks with friends. He drank a little bit too much, got separated from him, and realized, okay, had a little bit too much to drink. So right at the outskirts of the forest, he stopped at a friend's house and just slept on his couch.

And then he woke up in the morning to this search party that was all there. And goes, he what's going on? I go, hey. We're looking for someone that they think is out in the woods somewhere. They're lost. And he goes, okay. Yeah. And he goes, yeah. They just said, you know, his his wife was concerned. He never came home last night. So he goes, I'm in. I'm gonna go help find this guy. So they gave him a lanyard and he goes off into the woods, spent like an hour looking. He never asked for the name of the person. He just went, started looking to find somebody in the woods, and he got separated from everybody and then about an hour in, he heard from the distance this,

Bayon Mutlu, are you there? And he goes, yeah, I'm right over here. And a couple of the the search by that's who they they kinda joined them. And they went over and they're like, oh my gosh, it's fantastic we found you. Why? Did we find the guy?

You're the guy. What? We're looking for Behan Mutlu. He's like, what are you talking about? Your wife called in. You never came home last night and she was concerned. He's like, what? And he goes, dude, you've been looking for yourself for over an hour.

Go home.

Are you doing that right now?

Do you come here and you hear about how much Jesus loves you and you believe it? You say, I'm a believer. I put my faith. I confess that I'm a sinner and he is the savior and I've put my faith in him. And you're out there trying to curate one brick at a time, a life. We don't just do that on social media.

Social media is just a byproduct of what we're trying to do. Period. We're trying to build a life and build a persona and build an identity that's based on an old self. You don't need to go look for it. That's the freedom. You've already got it. So when you serve God, when you trust him,

you don't have to have the weight of shame when you fail. When

we go out there and put on the old clothes, that's what Paul goes on to describe earlier on. He says, Have you put that guy to death? That's written in the present subject, which means every day. It's that's the battle. That's why we call it weekday warrior. Until Jesus comes back or we join him,

that's gonna be the fight we're in every day, is the fight for the old self to want to come back because sin didn't get the memo that it's already dead to us. And we can choose to go to the closet of our heart and put those old clothes back on when we don't have to. We have a freedom from that.

And when we do that, we think that's who we are. So then the enemy starts to go, oh, you're such a hypocrite. We come in here and we start to feel like here's where we have to pretend,

and then we don't realize that here's where we're really being real. And we start to think it's pretending, then we feel the pressure, then we feel the guilt, then it doesn't help, and then we go and then we ignore God even more, then we pull back, and then eventually we either give up out of discouragement or overwhelm, or we get angry with God because he says, hey, I've been playing the game right. I've been doing this and you're not giving me what I want.

And we've missed the whole point. The energy and the power and the joy comes when we embrace who we are And we realize that. Because that's what this last phrase says. And we we we finally it says,

giving thanks to him to God the Father. That's like forced giving thanks. That word there for thanks is a combo word that comes from, it's it has grace in it.

And what it's saying is, it's saying that that it's thanks that flows from received grace. You ever somebody give you something that you you you absolutely know there is no way on God's green earth you would deserve that at all. Matter of fact, you got something in a moment when you felt like you should probably get

in trouble but instead you got something because someone just decided to have grace on you?

Did you have to be told to be thankful to that person in that moment? No. When you know beyond a shadow of a doubt you got something that you absolutely do not deserve. You're thankful. If I have a hard time giving thanks, and a lot of worship is giving thanks to the Lord. If I'm struggling with giving thanks,

this isn't a command and added list. It says this is the way this whole living works. It's unlocked in the thanksgiving, but the thanksgiving is a byproduct of the grace received. So if you're struggling with that, is you are struggling with not seeing the amount of grace that God has in your life.

We either are downplaying our sin, making excuses and trying to make because and you know when you make excuses and try to downplay sin? Is when you think that you have to earn it. Because you really know you can't.

So you gotta make yourself look better. It's like, I want this job and I'm totally not qualified for it, so I better fudge my resume.

When what we need to realize is and own the fact that we are saved only by the love and grace of God. We don't earn it. We don't deserve it. We are not lovable. God loves you and me because he's love.

He loves us because of who he is, which is an incredible thing to be thankful for. Because if it was contingent on us staying lovable and earning it all the time, none of us. And you have to know that. The more you understand God's absolute grace he has for you, the more you can be thankful.

And out of that thankfulness, it drives that hopefulness. And out of that hopefulness, we then trust. And out of that trust, we then honor and obey. And out that trust, our life becomes undivided. And then you get to the other side and experience a peace that surpasses all understanding. You can't play this game.

It'll just destroy you. And where does that come from? He says how in verse 16. How do we learn to receive this grace? It says right here in verse 16, let the message about Christ and all its richness,

meaning be in the word of God. See who Jesus really is in light of who we are. Look that's why we need to be in the word of God consistently to see who he is. Let it fill your life. And then teach and counsel each other with all wisdom he gives. Community. It's why we talked about find a circle. We can't do this alone.

Other people help us. We help each other.

And then he says, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with a thankful heart. That thankful heart comes back from the more you know the grace. You do these things, you come here, and that's what the weekend wore. We could've called our last series when we talked about the singing and the praising. That's a direct way of we now come and we sing that because now the grace is overflowing, it reinforces it. And there's something when we be thankful that God, he gives us something back, and that's how it works.

But it all comes back to that original, do you realize you are free in the name of Jesus?

Do you realize who you are when you accept his grace? Because otherwise, we get overwhelmed because we try to fix it ourselves. We either give up or we're the guy that says, I'm looking for the drawer where I can get the right tool to fix this. And that's exactly what Adam and Eve did.

The second they sinned, they go, oh, no. We messed this up. They got closed because they realized we're naked. Let's cover ourselves. And they hid from God. They're trying to fix it. And when they realized that was hard, they hid from God. Some of the weight you feel is not God being unfair.

It's that you think that you're supposed to fix this the whole time, and now you're seeing God incorrectly because you're seeing yourself incorrectly. And you've put that weight on yourself, do it.

Going going to

do

it. And the name He gave us. So that last point, what he's saying is stop trying to earn what grace already gave you.

That's all it says. Let this freedom of free you to actually trust Jesus. This freedom will take you from believing in Jesus to actually believing Jesus.

And then you will make choices in your life that'll align it and watch what happens in your heart, in your attitude, in your ability to get up every day and able to do it. You realize all of this language is the same language of talking about what happened in the parable of the prodigal sons?

You guys know that story? It's in Luke 15. Go read it.

Jesus is facing a crowd that has two types of people in the crowd. Those who are far from God, but they knew it. So they're returning and embracing his grace, and he's been meeting with them and talking to them. And then you have the church people, the religious leaders and them that had never left. They've been obedient,

but they thought the wrong way about God. They thought they had earned it. They thought and they thought they were doing a good job. They thought we've been doing all the religious rules. They had their life compartmentalized.

We do all the spiritual things. So we did our part. Now God owes us his part. And they watched all these people coming to Jesus, and they were mad at Jesus. They look at how he eats with these sinners.

And what it really was was why isn't he meeting with us? Why didn't he come after us? Why didn't he take us out to lunch and wanna pour into us? It was very self centered. They were frustrated like, why are they getting part of our inheritance, so to speak? And so Jesus goes, let me tell you a story. A man had two sons

and they figured out really quickly what he's talking about. The two sons is the ones that were far from God was the younger brother who ran away, well, after home, and they're the older brother in this story. That's the whole point of him teaching the story.

And he says, this man had these two brothers. And the younger son, he felt like, I don't wanna live under the authority of my father anymore.

He felt like I have to be a slave. I want freedom from this. So he went to his dad and said, give me my inheritance now. I've which is super disrespectful. It's basically saying, I wanna live like you're dead, but I still want you to pay for it. And the father said, fine, and he left.

You know that part of the story. He goes off, he spends, he he he becomes the original lawn chair Larry. He's like, this was great for a few moments, and then he's realized he spent the money. He's all out. He doesn't know what to do now. And he finally wakes up and realized, you know what? I would be better off as a slave to my father than doing this. So he walks home, and his original attitude isn't come back to this great liars with God. He's gonna go back and agree to be what he thought he was in the first place. I will be your slave.

But as he shows up, dad runs out to him, he starts to give his speech. He goes, I'm have none of it. And what does he do? He gives him his ring, and he throws the cloak over him. He gives him his clothes, his original clothes. He thought he had become this slave and this outsider, now he had to go try to get back. When the father's like, you were always my son.

Dress like it. Come in. And he threw a party to celebrate that his son has now realized it and come home. You realize the father in his story is God. That's what God wants to do in our lives, celebrate when we come home.

But then after we're Christians, the real punch of the story, you always hear that part. The whole point of the story, Jesus was talking about the older brother because it ends with the older brother then leaves the house. Now he's outside of the house and he's mad.

And he goes out, the father goes out, goes, why are you celebrating? And he's like, because not only did this guy waste and he calls him your son. He's not even gonna call him a brother. Your son

went off and blew the your money on this and now you're throwing this party. You know what he's really insinuating? He's now come back and you're spending some of my inheritance because I get what's left, and you're spending some of my inheritance on him.

And he's mad about it because the older brother syndrome makes us selfish. And then we get really mad when we don't think God's doing what we think he should do. But guess what? Both brothers have the same heart. Because what does he say? He says, you never threw a party for me, and I have slaved for you all these years.

He was obedient. He never left the home, but he felt like he was doing this to earn something. And if you do something to earn something and you think you did it, you think you're owed something.

And so he was mad at the father.

That story ends with that brother outside. Jesus ended with, what are you gonna do? That story is actually to us church people. Those of you that already know Jesus, have you become the older brother? Maybe you're always here. You've stayed faithful to Jesus, but you've struggled because you feel like you've slaved.

You feel like the list, every time it says, God wants us to live this way, God says, Let's go reach the lost. God says, We should honor him with our money. We should honor him with our time. We should be in community. You just see that as one big list of, Work harder, slave. But he's like, no.

This is the path to the freedom of who you are as a son or a daughter of the king. This is where life is found. And all that weight you feel has nothing to do with what God is, who he is, and what he's asking us to do. It has everything to do with the way you see him because the lens of the way you see yourself.

We are not the old self if you know Jesus. We've been given real freedom. And it's not just a freedom from, it's a freedom for living out the life Jesus died to give us. And that's where you really find it. And finally, last thing. My

dad used to tell me this whenever I would go off and I'd do something, it just wasn't who I was. Either tried to impress friends or just acted knuckleheaded. And he would just say, son, why would you do go why would you go become something that you know that's not you?

Matter of fact, why would you go become something that you actively try to fight?

And he told me this story that when he was in Korea fighting for the freedom of the South Koreans and the North Koreans and the Chinese, they were brutal. They when they they were just murdering people, and when they wouldn't take prisoners, my dad barely got out of a situation where everyone behind him, a thousand men got slaughtered. They didn't take any of them prisoner.

So he knew about that. They were just they just weren't taking prisoners. They were just awful. And they're there to try to protect because we don't stand for that.

And he goes, he was at his little base area, and then and they had this little village nearby. This teenager kid would come in and wash clothes if you paid him. And my dad couldn't sleep one night. He woke up. He walked out, he saw this guy walking around with a satchel. And at first, he thought maybe he was just bringing some laundry. He goes, no. It's too late at night, and he's acting pretty sus, and that doesn't look like a laundry bag.

So he went and tackled the guy. And he opens the thing. He's full of explosives. Turns out this guy was a North Korean operative, even though he's a teenager.

Turns him in the next morning. MPs take him to Seoul to process him, and and then the training officer grabs my dad, kicks him in his office. I'm writing you up for a commendation, and here's a two day pass. Take one of the Jeeps, and you head into Seoul and have fun. Good job.

He said, great. So about an hour or two later, he leaves, jumps in the Jeep, drives down the road, gets about three miles outside of the camp, and off to the side of the Road, he sees this teenager that had been taken into custody just hours before hung in a tree dead.

And my dad went over and realized they just killed him. Our our soldiers just killed him. My dad cut him down, dramatically walked back into his commanding officer's office, plowed right in, sat him down there at his feet, and said, we gotta do something about this.

And he goes, what are we gonna do? I go, those soldiers, we need to go. They need to we need to put them up for charges. They can't because that's not what we do. We're actually here to defend people against this very thing. And his commanding officer said, I agree, but I don't think it's gonna get very far.

And in all reality, those guys are just mad because of the guys that just got massacred and how they're not taking any prisoners, so they took it out on him. And my guy goes, that's exactly why we need to do something. And he's like, I don't his commanding officer was like, I just don't think it's gonna go anywhere.

And my dad looked at his commanding officer. He said, sir, if we become what we're fighting, then why are we fighting? He used to say it to me, son, when you become what you're fighting, then why are you fighting? He had another word in there, but I can't say it in church.

In other words, why, if you know Jesus, do you choose to live the slavery of this divided life? The pressure, the overwhelming, the guilt, even the frustration, the anger towards God, the feeling you can't do it. Why do we decide to become the very thing we're fighting?

The very thing Jesus died to put to death, the very thing he already killed and then gave us our new life, gave us our new name, gave us an identity, gave us a purpose, gave us eternal life, gave us what life was supposed to be in the first place because that was only death. Why do we keep putting those clothes back on? Why do we choose to not only not fight it, why do we choose to become it?

And it all comes back to we forget the richness and the glory of who Jesus is. That's what verse 16 said. Embrace the greatest freedom giver ever. God loves you more than you can possibly love yourself. He knows what life is supposed to be. He wants the best for you.

But you need to live that through the freedom and his love and his grace, but also his authority because he knows where that life is found.

Because if you become what you're fighting,

then why are you even fighting?

Because the truth is you're not at that moment. As my dad was saying, the truth is we're not fighting what we're supposed to be fighting. We've just become like them.

Grab onto the grace of the Lord and his love and live in that freedom. Father, I thank you, Lord. I thank you that you love me more than I can love myself. I thank you for all the moments that that that I just realized your grace has been in my life.

And I just pray for every one of us here that we all could see that grace so clearly, hold on to that grace so closely. Let it saturate our hearts, our souls, and spill into our lives. And during the weekday, we will be the warrior that fights from your freedom, from your love, because we realize

that the person we are in here, when we praise you, when we listen to your word, that's the person we really are. That's who we really are. I just pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. You can stay connected with us through rockwind.io or our social media.