Walk in Freedom
Church, Let’s Be the Church • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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How do we walk in freedom when we have so much weighing on us? We have pressure on the job… at home… in life… meeting expectations… financial, comfort, leisure.
Church, let’s be the church with a renewed focus on Jesus, on prayer, on surrendering all with a renewed boldness fueled by our faith. Taking God’s Word for what it is and believing that if God says it, I can take it to the bank and it’s as good as gold.
We can only be that church that is effective if we abide in Jesus. We cannot give what we do not possess. We cannot offer anything of value that goes beyond this life if our wellspring that only Jesus can fill is dry. We must be full of the Holy Spirit to be led by the Spirit.
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Drawing our strength from the Lord is key to walking in that real freedom. Jesus freely gave us that new life so we can live out the truth of our identity in Christ. We no longer have to fight and defend ourselves in anger but we can freely love and forgive the way Jesus does freely.
That is what walking in freedom is all about but we must remember that our old man sometimes will want to creep up and show his ugly face. Be patient, this is a process of walking with Jesus.
In our text this morning, Paul addresses that process to freedom…
17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
PRAY
Jesus already set us free so now let us walk in that freedom. Through Christ we now have freedoms that we can never forget as must never ignore in our pursuit in following Christ.
Freedom from our old self
Freedom from our old self
We can be our worst critic or we can compare ourselves to others and feel pretty good about where we are at.
Changing our self is possible… physically, we can loose weight, eat better, exercise more, get more sleep, get better sleep.
We can change emotionally… we can be more positive, we can choose to hang out with positive people and avoiding toxic people who are bad influences.
We can change relationally… by focusing on becoming a better spouse, a better parent, co-worker, boss.
We can read books on marriage, on parenting, or on leadership. We can be inspired to try harder and to apply great advice.
Those are all wonderful choices to make, however we are limited by our own goodness, righteousness, strength. Paul is saying here that without Jesus we are just running ragged in our old self with nothing to gain beyond this life.
17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
Our thoughts are only the beginning
“in the futility of their minds”
“darkened by there understanding”
What we put in our minds will influence our behavior…
social media, youtube influencers, cable news, books.
What and who are we listening to?
If our mind is filled with a sense of longing for what we don’t have we will become very self absorbed and never be truly satisfied and full of joy.
That’s why filling our mind with God’s Word and praying is so important when taking off our old self because it begins with our mind.
Our thoughts will eventually come out in our behavior.
Life can make us jaded and see others as jaded. If we are not careful our heart can become callous and hard towards others, especially when we get hurt.
19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
That’s what life looks like without Jesus. Bound up, no real focus and no real love for others because we only love ourselves.
Until we commit our life to Jesus and begin to follow HIM we will never truly be free from our old self.
We must learn to walk in the freedom of our new self by abiding in Christ.
20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,
Once we commit our life to Jesus, we must be teachable so we can recognize that truth is only found in Jesus.
With our old self, we were self governed but putting on the new self means that we are no longer the boss but Jesus is.
21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
We cannot wear both the old and the new, we must put off our old corrupt and deceitful self before we can put on the new self.
Our new self begins with a renewed mind.
“Be renewed in the spirit of your minds”
Our new self will always reflect Jesus.
“The likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Jesus came to set us free from our old self and put on the new self.
Freedom from our false self
Freedom from our false self
We like to put different filters on our selfies. Some filters make us look younger, cartoony, silly, older.
Filters alter our real self to give others the illusion of fake beauty so that we can hide the person that we are ashamed of.
We are ashamed of our real emotions, and feelings, hurt and pain and anger.
We just put a filter over it, just cover it up.
We have scars but we would rather hide those scars because the scars have a painful story.
We would rather ignore the plank in our own eye and focus on the specks in others.
God wants to heal us. God wants to take out our plank so we can see things better.
Jesus came to set us free from our false self.
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
As believers in the church, we must exhibit “true righteousness and holiness” so we must put away falsehood.
This falsehood could pertain to our old lifestyle and is not part of Christ’s truth.
As we are in that process of putting off the old self and replacing it with the new self, so as believers we must put off falsehood and be willing to speak the truth.
Because we are members of one another Paul stressed our mutual responsibility.
Because we are members of one another in Christ’s body, our words and actions must not be destructive to the body.
Lying to each other disrupts unity…
Creating conflicts and destroying trust.
It tears down relationships and leads to open warfare in a church.
Truthfulness, however, opens the door to understanding. In order to maintain unity, as believers we must be completely truthful with one another.
26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil.
We can feel angry about something and not necessarily be in sin.
Anger is an emotion that is neither right nor wrong.
Our emotions are not sinful, but emotions like anger can cause us to sin and the devil knows that.
Using a car as an illustration, healthy emotions are the warning lights on the dashboard, our emotions should not be the engine that drives us.
It is not healthy to be driven by our emotions.
We must be able to read and define our emotions. As indicators, recognize them before we respond or react emotionally.
The Bible doesn’t tell us that we shouldn’t feel angry, but we must handle our anger properly.
We must not indulge our angry feelings or let them lead to pride, hatred, or self-righteousness.
If we nurse our anger, we will give Satan an opportunity to divide us.
Anger must be identified and dealt with quickly.
If anger is used correctly, anger can motivate us to right a wrong, address a grievance, correct an injustice.
If anger is used improperly, it can burn us and everyone else around us.
That freedom from our false self comes as we put on our new self so we can be drawn to the truth, heal relationships within the Body, and transform us through repentance.
28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
As we “put off” that old lifestyle and put on the new self, God will begin to transform us.
A thief will no longer steal but will turn to honest work in order to make a living.
Stealing and idleness go together; that’s why Paul says too not only to stop stealing but also to begin honest work.
Putting on the new self means that as believers we should work hard, do our part in the community, hold our own, and not expect anyone else to support us.
Even more then just supporting ourselves, as Christians our goal is different from the world’s.
We work not to enrich ourselves, but so that we can give generously to others in need.
Giving is at the heart of Christianity. We don’t hold tight to our possessions because we have our treasure in heaven.
29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
What we are full of will eventually come out.
that’s why we must take off our old self before we put on the new self daily.
We must come to Jesus and empty ourselves of those things that cause us not to be fully filled with the Holy Spirit.
The things that are in our heart will eventually come out under pressure.
The fruit is always the evidence and the fruit of the Spirit will come out when we are completely filled with the Spirit.
This will impact the way we talk and the way we see and others, especially those people that we do not get along with.
Block the corrupt speech… think before you speak, post, text so when you open your mouth we can speak things that are full of grace. God wants to bless our words so that they can be fitting and in season.
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
The Holy Spirit is key when it comes to being free of our false self.
Here Paul warns us that the Spirit can be saddened or grieved by our behavior.
This points to the personality of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person who can be saddened by the way we live.
The Holy Spirit empowers us as believers while we continue to battle with our sinful nature.
We should be living for Christ each day and when we refuse to do so by giving in to lying, anger, stealing, and foul talk we grieve the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is our counselor that we must listen to and walk in step with. The Holy Spirit gives us the power and the strength to walk in that freedom so we can delight in our true self, our new self made in Christ.
Freedom from our bitter self.
Freedom from our bitter self.
There are so many things in this world that can make us bitter and angry.
People do foolish things; even evil things and we want to be able to control other people’s decisions.
We want to protect and prevent the consequences of other people’s foolish decisions.
The truth is, the only person we can control is ourselves… we control our decisions and how we choose to respond to our own decisions and other people’s decisions.
We can choose to respond according to our old bitter and vengeful self or we can choose to respond according to our new forgiven and freed self made new in Christ.
Paul finishes up by saying…
31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
We can not unsay what has been said. Sometimes we need to repent and seek forgiveness.
That goes against our old nature which takes humility.
Take Away:
Jesus came to set us free so we can walk in real freedom.
Freedom from our Old Self
Freedom from our False Self
Freedom from our Bitter Self