Free to Be Me

Exodus 6:6–7 NIV

“Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

Introduction

Have you ever heard the saying, fake it till you make it?

Come on, I know you’ve heard that.

I think that’s more technically called a Job Interview.

You know what I mean… they ask you “how well do you know this program?” And you might know a little, but you tell them, “I’m great at it! I know all about it!”

What are you doing? You are faking it cause you trying to make it!

Now, that’s silly, and mostly innocent. But I grew up hearing a word all of the time for someone who was faking it, and that word was a poser. I’ve done it again… I can’t help myself with my 90’s references.

But no one wanted to be a poser. You were inauthentic. You were trying to be someone that you weren’t. It was a hard insult.

But, what if, in some way we were all posing and didn’t even realize it?

Transition

Here’s what I mean by that. What if we were all living a life that we were never meant to live? What if we are living a life that we were never meant to live because there were things keeping us back from living the life God intended for us.

That’s the thought that I want to tug on for the next two weeks in this series. And I think, this is going to open up your eyes in many ways.

Text

Last week I set the foundation for this series by talking about the Four “I Will’s” that we found here in Exodus.

Here they are again, let’s get Exodus 6:6-7 up again so we can see them:

I will bring you out

I will free you

I will redeem you

I will take you as my own people

These four promises were originally given to Israel, but because we see them repeated throughout the Bible, we know that they are for everybody. Though they began with Israel, it’s God’s design that we all experience these promises from God.

So as we said last week, we’ve taken these promises and given them fresh handles, and here they are:

He wants the Lost to be Saved

He wants the Saved to be Pastored

He wants the Pastored to be Trained

And he wants the Trained to be Mobilized

Last week we talked about the Father’s Heart for those who are lost, for those who are far from him. Today, we want to talk about how the Saved need to be Pastored.

We call this at Lighthouse, to Find Freedom.

Divine Design

I believe that every single one of us has been fearfully and wonderfully made by God.

Recently my son worked with Sammi, a very talented designer here at Lighthouse, and they customized a pair of Jordan’s. I shared it on my timeline and someone replied, “Those are 1 of 1!”. I didn’t see it like that, but he’s absolutely right. There is not another pair in this world like that shoe.

Well Lighthouse, every single one of you is a 1 of 1.

Though you carry some of the traits of our family, you are uniquely you. You have been hardwired with gifts, talents, skills, and a personality that God has given you.

Furthermore, God has given you everything you need to accomplish your purpose here in this life.

But, as you enter into this world, you begin to become deformed by your environment and your sin nature.

Let me unpack that loaded statement.

You see, God’s design for us was Eden. An environment that cultivated a relationship with God. And though we had freedom to choose, we weren’t born with the inherent bend to sin.

Our sin nature is a result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve.

We were originally wired for relationship with God, and to carry out his plan for our lives here on Earth.

But rather than taking our design and being formed into the image of Christ, we are constantly being deformed by our environment and our sin nature.

That is why I say we are living a life that we were never meant to live. We are posing. Pretending to be someone that God never intended us to be…

Let me give you a Biblical perspective of this...

Israel, God’s chosen people, entered into Egypt to live and thrive. But, in time they were made to be slaves. Think about the impact of that for one second.

Every child born into Egypt at that time was born into slavery. They weren’t designed to be slaves, but their environment of slavery deformed any expectation of any sort of life otherwise.

Let’s apply that now to 2023. We are born into a world where sin is all around us, and we have the natural bend to give into the desires of our sin nature. This wasn’t God’s design for us, but that is what has happened to us.

When our environment reshapes us away from the original design of God, we are being deformed into an image of the world, rather than being formed into the image of Christ.

In the Old Testament God raised up Moses to be their deliverer. He was born with the purpose of delivering Israel from Egypt.

In the New Testament God sent his son Jesus to be our deliverer. He was born with the purpose of being the lamb slain before the foundations of the world.

God sent Moses to give Israel victory over slavery, and God sent his Son to give us victory over sin.

Aren’t you thankful for Jesus today?

Aren’t you thankful that he came to set us free?

Aren’t you glad that Jesus paid a debt that he didn’t owe becuase we owed a debt couldn’t pay?

And how do we receive this victory?

Well that’s why this is called the good news… because the only thing we have to do to receive this victory is to believe.

We are saved by grace through faith.

Why Freedom?

But if I know God, doesn’t that mean I am free?

No!

That means you are saved.

But there’s more...

When Israel left Egypt that did not mean that Egypt had come out of Israel. All they knew was Egypt. All they knew was slavery. They didn’t know how to live free. They were free from slavery but they were not free from acting like slaves.

We see this in the Bible as they wandered and had to fend for themselves. At one point, they told Moses, “We had it better in Egypt! We should go back!”

What makes someone say that?

Someone who only knows how to be a slave.

Similarly, someone can come out of a life of sin, but still need to get the sin out of them.

Growing up in church all my life, we were taught that all we needed was a good altar call.

How many of you know what I am talking about?

An altar call was prayer after the sermon where we cried our eyes out to God.

And I am not against it, and as a matter of fact, some of you all listening do need a good altar call.

But, what I believe we sometimes lacked was a process of spiritual formation. That process included prayer, but it also included reading your word, it included getting into a Connect Group, it included getting into a serving Team and using your gifts, and I want you to hear this last part. It includes being Pastored.

That’s why we believe that in order for us to Find Freedom, we need to get under some Pastors and really be Pastored. We need Pastors speaking into our lives.

We need Pastors who are going to push us to pray.

We need Pastors who are going to counsel our marriage.

We need Pastors who are going to walk us through the Bible.

We need Pastors who are going to care for our souls.

And this is what a good Pastor does. A Pastor is going to help you find freedom. A Pastor is going to lead you away from a life of pretending to be someone that God has not designed you to be.

And if you are wondering, “But Pastor Josh, aren’t you my Pastor?” Yes I am, and I absolutely love being your Pastor. But you need more than just coming and hearing me teach for 35 minutes a Sunday. This is why you need a Connect Group!

You need to join a group where you can sit under another teacher and ask questions. You need a to be surrounded by a peer group that is running in the same direction as you. There are things that you need, that you can’t experience in a Sunday worship service. You need closeness. You need proximity. You need relationships.

Here is a big key that we believe here at Lighthouse, and why we want every single one of you to join a Connect Group. Here it is…

Life change happens in the context of relationships.

The freedom you are looking for is not found in isolated religion. God is relational. He desires relationship. And because he is relational, you cannot tell me that he desires for you be in isolation. That’s not his nature. And furthermore that’s not the nature of Jesus.

Jesus surrounded himself with others to show us that being formed into the image of Christ will also require you to surround yourself with others as well.

So again, I know we’ve said this before, but you need to join a Connect Group. They begin this week. We have many amazing Connect Groups. And I don’t want you to let this opportunity pass you by.

We want for you to find freedom. And let freedom give you these three very powerful promises. And I’ll close with this.

The Shepherds

Freedom teaches us how to have Victory over Sin

Freedom helps us to find Healing From Wounds

Authority Over the Enemy