 series. Tonight we're going to be in John chapter 8. I had a change of heart. I know that the bulletin said Romans chapter 6. We are going to hit Romans chapter 6, but as I was looking over my studies, I was studying, I was like, you know what? John chapter 8 is really what I want to hit. And so John chapter 8 verses 28 through 36 will be our base text. And we're going to go through that as well. And then we're also going to hit Romans chapter 6. We're looking at some interesting things here as we started this new series that we call identity. So what I'll do is I'll read verses 28 through 36, and then we'll get into our study. John chapter 8 verse 28. John writes, Then Jesus said to them, When you lift up the Son of man, Then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself. But as my father taught me, I speak these things. And he who sent me is with me. The father has not left me alone. For I always do those things that please him. As he spoke these words, many believed in him. Verse 31. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you will be made free? Jesus answered them, Most assuredly, I say to you, Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. Freedom. That's a big word today, isn't it? Especially in our country. I mean, if you're a history major, you know that our nation was founded on the principle of liberty and justice for all. It's a big word. It's used a lot. I mean, in fact, our first amendment has basically guarantees the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and all of that. And then we look into these things and we're like, you know, there's there's freedom in this country. Now, when we talk about freedom, as far as political freedom, political freedom is a cool thing. It's a good thing. But there's another kind of freedom. This is the freedom that I want to talk about tonight. And that is a spiritual freedom. Spiritual freedom is even better than political freedom. Why? Well, because no matter what sort of government you live under, you can always experience freedom. And not only that, but true spiritual freedom lasts forever. The freedom that I'm going to be talking about tonight is not a temporary freedom. It's not something you just experienced while you're on this side of heaven. This is something you're going to experience on this side of heaven and beyond into heaven. It's a freedom that I think it's going to be very beneficial for us tonight. But as we talk about this, as we're talking on the subject on freedom, I mean, if you really think about this, many people today don't understand true freedom. What freedom means, what it means to be free. A lot of people actually, when it comes to freedom or to be free, most people define freedom as being able to do whatever you feel like doing. Right? You hear that all the time. People will say things like, it's a free country. I can do what I want. In fact, I had friends that would say that, if I were to say something to them, hey, don't do that. What do you mean, don't do that? It's a free country. I can do whatever I want. That's kind of like the definition of freedom when it comes to these things here. And freedom is not really like that. And I'm going to explain this here in a moment. But we're all into freedom to express yourself, right? Freedom to just be who you want. That kind of freedom. Freedom to be loud. Freedom to know you, right? People use it all against you. And it's like, you know, that's not really the definition of freedom. When it comes down to real freedom, what does it really mean? Well, that's the way most people actually desire to see freedom. I mean, in fact, freedom is a basic human desire. Everybody wants to be free. Maybe you said, you know what, I wish I had the freedom to fly all over the world. Have you ever said that? Wouldn't it be nice? Or what about this? Or what about, maybe you said this, you know, I wish I was free to spend money and never go into debt. Right? Especially now, right? With Christmas coming. I mean, we all have the desire to be free. And freedom is a basic human desire that people just want to be free. But the definition is not always right. Freedom is a basic human desire, as I just mentioned. And when we look in the Bible, when we see in Scripture about freedom, there's one story that comes to my mind, and that is the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal son, in chapter 15 of Luke, defined freedom, this young guy defined freedom exactly the way people did find freedom today. You know the story, and I'm just going to make it real quickly. But he thought of, maybe it was wise to get his inheritance a little early. You know, here's a father who had two sons, the younger one is the one that came to his father. He basically said, Dad, give me the inheritance now. So the father divided his inheritance and gave it to his younger son. And as his son had all this material possessions or whatever it was, he decided to just leave the house. He went out and he left home and he went off and he indulged himself in instant gratification. To him, that was freedom. I'm sure that you have thought of that young person here tonight. Maybe you're still living under your parents house. Like, I can't wait to get out of here. I'm going to be so free. I don't have to worry about coming home at 12. I can come home at two. I don't need to ask my parents for this or that. I'm going to be free. Well, listen, that's exactly what the prodigal son did. Did it work? No. This man, this young guy, he depleted his inheritance. And not only that, he was left in the middle of a cold and cruel world. He lost everything. And when he would not run out of money, the Bible says that there was a famine in the land. And the famine basically was so harsh that he began to get scared. So he had to find a job. So he starts feeding pigs. And he wanted to eat the food of the pigs. And he's like, you know what? This is getting really weird. And it says that nobody wanted to help him. How did that freedom go for him? It didn't go well, did it? Because that's not the way freedom is to be defined. But to this young man, freedom was defined as, I can just leave the house and do whatever I want. Listen, freedom to do what you want to do is not only unsafe, it's not something God promotes. That's not the kind of freedom God is wanting to promote to his children, to those who are in Christ. When the Bible speaks of freedom, when the Bible speaks of freedom, oftentimes this freedom is focused frequently related to the, basically to the spiritual freedom a person experiences in Christ. Anytime God talks about freedom in the New Testament, it's always pointing to Christ in Christ. It's a freedom that is unique and it's a freedom that is very liberating. And this is what we're going to see here tonight. We're going to see this kind of freedom. What does it mean to be free in Christ? Well, we started this whole new series about our identity. Remember, last Sunday night, we talked about this, that we are in Christ. And why did I start this identity series? Well, I think it's very important that you understand your identity in Christ, because I believe it's critical. It's critical to a fruitful walk in Christ. If you don't know who you are in Jesus, you're going to limit your walk in Christ. You're not going to understand who you are in Christ, your purpose, what God requires of you and who you are as a person, as a Christian, as a born again believer. Yes, and Christians are free people. We've been freed. And that's part of our identity in Christ, that you are free. You can say that I'm free. But the question is free from what? What are you free from? If you could say, I am free, which you can, what does that mean? So as we continue this series identity, who are you really? I think it's very, very important for us to understand. Because you may have a non-Christian that may come to you at work and say, you say you're a Christian, what does that mean? Now you're put on the spot. Well, who are you as a Christian? What is your identity? And this is what we're going to be talking about. Last Sunday night, we talked about the identity that we have that we are new people. We've been made brand new. God did not patch us up. He did not put a couple of bandits on us in those areas that we were hurt. He literally gave us a brand new life because he's imputed in us a new nature. And it's cool because now our new position that we are in Christ as a new person means that we have new desires, new passions, and we have a whole new worldview. You know, one thing that I love doing is talking to brand new Christians. What about you? When I just meet a Christian that just got right with God, maybe a week or two weeks, and you talk to them and they're so excited. They're talking about what they're doing now. And maybe they even say things that, you know, what they used to do before and they're just totally transformed, especially if you knew who they were before they were Christians. Doesn't it kind of boggle your mind when you're talking to them and you're like, wow, you are seriously new. I mean, you are totally different now. And that's pretty cool. I love talking to new Christians because that encourages me because our identity in Christ is something that is to be different. When people see us, we are identified with Christ's. So what does that mean? What does that look like? Well, tonight, we're going to look at this. We're going to be looking at this in Chapter 8. We're going to be looking at it as Jesus said that the truth will set you free. And we're going to look at this more in detail here. So let's look at Chapter 8. Now for context's sake, I'm going to kind of go through the entire chapter, actually not the entire chapter, but kind of give you an aerial view of Chapter 8. And then I'm going to run into Verse 28. But in Chapter 8, if you notice, way back in Verse 1, this whole chapter started here. Jesus, as it says there, that Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. And then in Verse 2, notice it says, then early in the morning, he came again into the temple. And all the people came to him and he sat down and taught them. So this whole chapter starts with Jesus teaching the people in the temple. And it's a very big chapter because there's a lot of things that go on here with Jesus, things that happen to Jesus. Right away we see that they brought in a woman that was caught in the act of adultery. If you notice there, it says there in Verse 4, teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act. Well, then they put Jesus to the test. They wanted to basically find something to condemn him. And of course in Verse 7, notice it says there, that Jesus said to them, he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And then Jesus begins to kind of doodle on the ground. He began to write something. Notice in Verse 8, he says, he stooped down and rode on the ground. We don't know what he wrote there, but whatever he wrote basically pushed these guys away. So this woman was caught in the act of adultery according to these guys. They brought him to Jesus, brought her to Jesus, and then Jesus makes the claim that he is the light of the world. Notice in Verse 12, Jesus said to them, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. So Jesus begins to kind of build on something. He tells them that he is the light of the world. Light is the life of Christ, darkness is sin, evil. And Jesus says that I am the light of the world. I'm the one that brings life to people. I'm the one who basically turns on the light in the dark life. And he begins to kind of go in that direction. The Pharisees get involved in the conversation and all of a sudden they call Jesus a liar. Basically they say that Jesus, your witness is not true. Totally judging Jesus right here. Well, Jesus gets into a very serious conversation or serious conversation with these Pharisees about spiritual matters. And here's where he gets really into them here. And basically, notice there, it says in Verse 13 or Verse 14, Jesus says, if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I'm going. But you do not know where I come from and where I'm going. You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. And yet if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am one who bears witness of myself and the Father who sent me bears witness of me. So there we see Jesus just telling them, hey, I am a true, I'm true in what I'm saying. And they didn't understand this. And they said, well, who is your father thinking of a fleshly man as earthly father? Who is your father? I mean, you speak in all these big words. Well, who is your father? They were clueless about who Jesus was and where he came from. And then Jesus said to them that he was actually leaving. And then they said, oh, no, Jesus is going to commit suicide. I mean, he's going to kill himself. He's leaving. He says, you cannot follow me where I'm going. He says, again, all about spiritual things. They were totally ignorant about these things. Then we come here to verse 28. After all of these things that were going on in this conversation, notice in verse 28, Jesus continues this conversation, and he says, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, I speak these things. And He who sent me is with me, but the Father has not left me alone, for I always do those things that please Him. He begins to explain his relationship with the Father, a Father and Son. And in verse 31, he makes it very clear there. He says, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. Now, in other words, head knowledge isn't enough. A superficial faith is not enough. Notice he says, if you believe in me, there's something else that has to happen. You can believe in God, generally speaking, but there's got to be some heart knowledge there. There's got to be an acceptance of who Jesus is and what he did on the cross, and there is a superficial faith in a lot of people today. People that don't really, really deeply believe in Christ, they just have a generic kind of view or this general understanding of God. I call them theists, people that just believe in God. Did you guys know people like that? They'll tell you, hey, I believe in God, but the moment you start talking about Jesus, they stop you, right? Why? Because their view of God is different. They'll talk about God all day with you, but the moment you bring Jesus, the moment you identify God, they have a problem. And there are people that are like that. They're superficial in their faith, but Jesus says it very clearly that those who abide in him, he says, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. Now that's a big claim there. This is the path to freedom right here. Jesus says, those who abide in me are my disciples. What does that mean? What does it mean to abide? It really means this. Speaking practically here, Jesus ruling your life. That's the question you need to ask yourself. Is Jesus ruling your life? If Christ isn't ruling your life, then according to Jesus, you're not really a disciple. A disciple is one who submits to the master, to his master, to his teacher. But apart from that, there's a superficial faith that happens if we say, well, I am a believer in God, but I don't allow God to rule my life. Well, we see here that Jesus made it very clear that submitting to who he is brings freedom. It brings freedom to that person. You know, there are hundreds of thousands of people who reject Jesus today without ever really examining the evidence for who Jesus really is. And I think it's very important for us as Christians to let those who reject Jesus clearly understand what they're rejecting, the benefits that come with knowing Christ's. For them to understand that when you reject Jesus, not only are you denying heaven, but you're also denying joy, peace, the power of the Holy Spirit that can come upon you. I mean, all these different things that they actually will deny when they say, I don't want Jesus. I don't care about Jesus. That's good for you, but not for me. It's important for us to understand, or for them to understand, what they're actually rejecting. When Jesus is speaking here to the Jews, to the Pharisees, and the Jews that were surrounding him, when he came to freedom, these guys weren't ignorant about freedom. In fact, slavery was part of their society. They understood this whole thing about slavery, how people were actually basically part of this family, but they were slaves. And there were some good slaves and so bad slaves. The ones that were abused were the ones that were not taking care of well, but there were some slaves that actually voluntarily allowed themselves to submit themselves to their master. They were treated fairly well, but they understood the whole world of slavery. So when Jesus is talking about freedom here, and he's talking about these things, as we're going to be looking at here in a moment, these guys were not ignorant when it came to this whole thing about freedom. You know, when we look in the Old Testament, God actually removed the children of Israel out of that slavery in Egypt, and he gave them freedom. He took them out of there, and they went out in the desert, and they did their thing. But we see here, though, when Jesus is talking to these guys, notice in verse 32, he says, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Right there, with the Jews thinking about this, these guys must have been excited to hear that. To hear Jesus say, the truth shall make you free. That was huge. You know why? Because these guys wanted to be freed from the Roman government. The Roman government oppressed them, and the Jews hated the Roman government, and they were waiting for Messiah to come to basically conquer the Roman government, the Romans, and set them free. So could you imagine what these guys were thinking when Jesus said, and the truth will set you free? I'm sure they're probably thinking like, oh great, this is great, the truth. He knows the truth, that these Romans are actually being mean to us, and he's going to set us free. Absolutely. I want to hear this, Jesus. These guys were probably excited to hear these words from Jesus, but obviously we know that this entire freedom Jesus is going to be talking about here. It's more spiritual than it is physical, but the Jews hated the Roman guards, the Roman government. You know, the Romans were interesting people. If you know the history of the Romans, these guys were not only oppressive, but the Greeks actually influenced their culture. Actually, the Romans had the morals of the Greeks, and the Greeks were very, very immoral, fornicators, so because the Roman religion was made up of different other religions, they really just embraced everything, but the Greeks were the ones that actually influenced their morals. So a lot of this stuff was happening, and the Jews, wanting to serve God, wanting to honor the God that they believed in, well, they wanted to be free from the Roman government, from the rules and regulations, so here we see that Jesus is making a statement that I believe is very, very strong. But let's apply this to our lives today. When Jesus says, the truth shall make you free, what does he mean by that? Well, I'm going to give you tonight two practical ways a Christian is actually set free. What we're free from, two things tonight. Here's the first one that we're going to look at, and I kind of talked a little bit about it last Sunday night, but tonight I'm going to really hit it hard. Freedom from the bondage of sin. That's the very first thing. When you think about leading somebody to Christ, that should be the very first thing that comes to your mind, is that this person is about to be set free from the bondage of sin. What does that mean? What does that mean? Well, a major cause of the world's problems, I believe today, is the failure to understand human nature. It's just that lack of understanding of human nature. Did you know that human nature has not really improved since Adam fell? I've never seen man kind of become a little bit better since that time. I mean, right away, we see that once Adam fell, as they got kicked out of the garden, first murder in the Bible from their own children. And as you read on what happens, you go through, and then days of Noah, it was a horrible time. What did God do? He says, you know what? The sin, the unrighteousness, the wickedness of the people on this earth has come up to me, he says. It's like there's a stench. He says, I need to wipe them out. And then this global flood happened because of that. I wonder where God is at today with our world. I wonder if he's about to say the same thing he said way back in Genesis chapter six and seven. And he says, you know what? I'm done. I'm fed up with what's going on. And we see here that being set free from the bondage of sin is important because I guess, again, human nature hasn't improved. And there's nothing. I mean, I've had talks with people before that some believe that man is preparing to take this huge leap into becoming good. It's nuts. It's crazy. It doesn't happen. I've talked to people like that and people are really serious. And there are others that people, other people that believe that there's no such thing as a sinful nature. Really? Are you a parent? You know, my little four year old just yesterday, we were talking about sin. That's right. I talk about sin with my four year old. She's very doctrinally sound. But she said to me, Daddy, I'm not a sinner. Really? You just lied right there. You're a sinner. And she's arguing with me. I'm not a sinner. I said, honey, listen, we're born in sin. We're all sinners. Well, we told her that sin is doing things that are not right, things that are bad. But she told me I am not a sinner. My wife and I started laughing. I said, just don't say that when you're 13. Then you'll scare me, you know? I read this article that this group of scientists from Yale and Harvard University, they actually did a study by studying human nature. And they pulled about 2000 people and they asked them questions that led to decisions. And they also studied them in other ways. And these two groups of so called scientists from Yale and Harvard, they came to realize that humans, according to their study, are wired to be good in nature. They must live in a hole. I don't know. I mean, seriously, I mean, yeah, are there people that are good? Absolutely. I mean, yeah, I mean, right now, this is the season to be good, right? You know, you have the Salvation Army outside of the stores with their little bells. You see people like, you know what, this is my time, this is my time for good deed here. Here's a quarter. Thank you. God bless you, right? A lot of people want to do good deeds today. Yeah, there are some people that are moral. They want to do good. They want to feel good. But their nature, their human nature isn't good because we're born in sin. You know, when the Bible talks about sin, sin is represented as a power that rules over a man, is a power that rules over man. Sin is kind of like the monster in scripture. When you see what sin can do to a human being, it's almost like a monster just comes over and takes over that person's life. It's seen as this huge thing. It's seen as this power that's ruling over that person. Jesus actually spoke on the human nature. He talked about that sinful nature in two sections, actually in Mark and then also in Galatians, Paul kind of reiterated some things. But I want to show you real quickly. Turn with me to Mark chapter seven. Let me give you a glimpse on the sinful nature. Mark chapter seven at verse 20, and then we're going to go to Galatians. So Mark chapter seven, listen to what Jesus said in chapter seven, verse 20, it says this, what comes out of a man that defiles a man? He says, for within out of the heart of men, here we go, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within. Did you see that? Now, a person who denies the sinful nature would say, that's not true. Oh, really? Have you ever had a desire to steal? I mean, we see the description here is pretty bad, right? It's almost like reading the paper or watching the news, right? You can easily fill in these here, these descriptions here, the description of the sinful nature. Now go with me to Galatians chapter five. Let me show you this now. This is from Paul, kind of echoing what Jesus said. Galatians chapter five at verse 19. This is the list that Paul left us here in Galatians chapter six, I'm sorry, chapter five. Galatians chapter five at verse 19. This is what he said, 19 through 21. Now the works of the flesh are evidence, which are, here we go again, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, adultery, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath on the freeway, right? Selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like of which I tell you beforehand just as I also told you in the time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. I am so glad that heaven will not have those things, aren't you? I mean, you know, the times that I just crave a sinless environment, don't you? I mean, seriously, I mean, you just, you can walk into heaven, you don't have to worry about ISIS, you don't have to worry about Al-Qaeda, you don't have to worry about somebody cutting me, none of that, right? I mean, you're just going to be in an amazing environment. Heaven will be a place that will not have sin. I love it, totally love it. But unfortunately, right now on this side of heaven, we have to struggle with this. We have to watch out. We have to be careful. And what we see here, and what I just gave you here, is that this is a reality. Every person that I'm before right now, we all have that tendency to do something bad because of our sinful nature. And Romans 3.23, Paul says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, all, not just some, all. I think it was my four-year-old, okay? All. But Jesus said, notice in chapter eight of John, if you guys go back there, if you're not already there, verse 34, notice what he says there in verse 34. Most of Shirley say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. He says sinners are slaves to their sinful nature. They don't have the freedom to do what is right because they're slaves to their own sin. That's, that's bad, isn't it? I mean, do you remember your life before Christ? What you did? And how, and the feeling that you had when you did it? There was no real conviction, right? You just make sure that nobody caught you, right? Make sure, no, I don't want to make sure nobody sees what I'm doing. But you did it because you enjoyed doing it. You had no conviction. There was no hesitation. You just did it because that's who you are, a sinner. And it's interesting because as we come into this new life as a Christian before Christ, we were led by our sinful desires. We had no conviction yet now as Christians, as we become born again, Christ removes us from that power that sin had on our lives. Listen to what Paul said in Romans chapter 6, verses 12 and verse 18. He says, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Now, notice in verse 18, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. So our spiritual senses are awakened to the reality of sin. You didn't have that before. As a Christian now, you know that when you're in that moment, when you know that you're being tempted, there is that weird feeling in your heart when the Holy Spirit is saying, don't go there, don't do it, don't say that. You're awakened to sin. And there's where you have a chance, or I'm sorry, a choice to either blow through that conviction or say, no, I'm not going to go there. You have that choice now. You've been set free from the power of sin. Before that, you did not have a choice. You just did it because that's what you were prone to do. Now, it's important for us to understand something though. There's a big difference here between that surviving sin and reigning sin. Because when you read a thing like Romans 6, you think, wait a minute, so does that mean I don't sin anymore? I shouldn't sin anymore. And Christians beat themselves up because they're like, you know what? The Bible says that I've been set free. I've been dead. No, listen, there's still surviving sin in your life. That's part of the sinful nature. However, you're not held in bondage to that power anymore. Christ broke it. And when you read Romans 6, Romans 6 basically says this, that you as a Christian have the power, you have the power now to plug it back in. You see what I'm saying? You have the power to plug back in sin in your life. That's why Paul says, don't let it rain in you. Hey, listen, you have the power now in Christ to say no to sin. Isn't that cool? It really is. Think about it. I know this is kind of hard to grasp right away. Maybe as you walk out, you're just going to hit, oh, okay. But it's a really deep truth that if we were to grasp this, a lot of our reoccurring sins that we struggle with would be stopped right away. Because you're not under the power of sin anymore. You're under the power of Christ's. Christ now has given you that power. Sin is no longer a monster. You can move it out of the way. Do we struggle with it? Absolutely. I'm not saying we don't. Sin no longer rains in us, but it does survive in us. Keep that in mind. And no longer rains in us, but it survives in us. In other words, you can still allow it to rule you if you want to. And that's the thing that we have to be careful. Freedom from the bondage of sin means that sin has no power over you anymore. And we don't have to give in to sin's power, because now we're in Christ's. That is liberating, don't you think? It really is. Because you think twice now. You didn't think twice before. You don't do it anymore. You don't lie. I mean, when you're tempted to lie, you don't just do it. You think, ah, you know what? I don't think I should do that. That's not right. Because the Holy Spirit is saying, don't say it. Don't tell them that. That's a lie. And you struggle with it. That's the Holy Spirit. That's where the Holy Spirit takes over and says, ah, ah, don't go there. And we see here, this is exactly what Paul is saying. And this is what Jesus is saying in John chapter eight, is that the truth of Christ will make you free. And the very first thing that you're freed from is the bondage of sin, the power that sin had in your life. That is huge, that's big, that we have been set free. So that's one thing that we've been set free from. The bondage of sin, the second thing, and this is what we're going to end here with, is that you have been set free from the law. That's important. You've been set free from the law. Now, according to Scripture, law and sin always go together. In fact, the Bible says that the strength of sin is the law. The strength of sin is the law. The law does nothing but make the offense greater. You know, we have laws today in our cities, in our counties, and you have to abide by the law. When you break the law, all it does is just increases that condemnation that you did something wrong. The law is just there. It's a good thing. The moment you cross that red light, your heart pounds, right? Where's a cop? Right? You're like, oh, man. And when you see those lights behind you, you're done, right? Well, that law caught you. You're done. You're in trouble now. But there's nothing wrong with the law. But now, we see, as he says, that the strength of sin is the law. The law kind of reveals sin. Why do we need laws because man is sinful? If we weren't sinful people, we wouldn't need laws. We would all obey laws, right? We'd all stop at a stop sign instead of rolling through it, right? Seriously. I mean, we wouldn't need laws. But because we are sinful people, we need to abide by laws. And when we break laws, then, as the Bible says there, that the strength of sin is the law. The law reveals that you're a sinner. You've broken the law. Now, the Christian must know that he is entirely free from the law, the law of the Old Testament. We've been freed even from my practical law. And what I mean by that is that you must do things. We've been freed from that. You know, we've been freed from old from that, that tension that we have, where it's like we're living this Christian life with this, you must, you must, you must, you must, you must, you've been set free from that. And I'm going to explain this here in a moment. You see, Christ redeemed us from the curse that has been actually brought through the law. Speaking of the Old Testament law, he became a curse for us. We see that in Galatians chapter three, verse 13, but the law in the Old Testament cannot justify or make righteous any person in God's sight. That's why Jesus sent his son, God sent his son to die on the cross for us. He was actually the fulfillment of all the requirements of the Old Testament law. You know, when you read your Old Testament and you see all the laws that these guys were under, all the regulations, man, that was crazy. All the different sacrifices, burn offerings. You know, you had the peace offering. You had all these different offerings. You had all these different things that they had to keep. I mean, the book of Leviticus, some of you guys have ever read the book of Leviticus. Raise your hand. If you haven't, read it. Okay? Read it on a full stomach though, because you get hungry with all the barbecue and it goes on in there. But it's an amazing book because the book is basically saying, here is how a holy God can relate to a sinful person through all of these sacrifices, through all of these regulations and laws. Well, listen, Christ fulfilled all those requirements. We've been set free. We have a new way of worshiping God now. It's really amazing when you think about it. You know, we've been set free from the bondage of rules and regulations that are relative to the Old Testament. You know, and that was an issue in the early church. In the early church, one of the issues that they had is that they were trying to bring these new Christians back into law. Let me give you an example. Turn with me to Acts 15. I'm going to give you this example here real quickly. Acts 15. Here's one example of how the new Christians were being brought back into slavery or in bondage to the law. Acts 15 at verse one. And this is something that obviously did not go well with the disciples or the apostles there as they came in and rebuked these guys. But notice what it says in verse 15. He says, a certain man came down from Judea and taught to brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Wow. Pretty sad, huh? Notice, go to verse 10. It says, now, therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved in the same manner as they. I love that. You know, there are Christians today that kind of make up laws in their walk with Christ's and they impose those laws on other people. I knew, I remember when I used to teach at a Christian school when I lived in New York, I remember I had a young girl, sisters that were in my class, whose dad was a pastor. And I noticed that these young girls had long hair. And they would wear dresses all the time. Now, we did not have any uniforms at the time or any uniform codes. So I just happened to find out, I found out that their father was a pastor. And as I checked into their church and whatnot and their doctrine and stuff, I realized and I found out that they had a rule in their church that all women had to have long hair. And they had to wear dresses. If they didn't, they'd be kicked out of the church. Or God wouldn't be pleased with them. That's a law, isn't it? That's sad. Because now it all clicked when I saw these young girls with long hair and wearing dresses. I'm like, now it makes sense. These young little girls were under that law, a man made law that you don't even see in Scripture. And you have churches, even Christians, individual Christians that will somehow put in laws in their own Christian life, and they're living under the slavery, this bondage of this law, instead of living free in Christ, free to worship Christ, whether you wear a dress or have long hair. If you want to buzz your head, buzz your head. We're free in Christ. And they didn't understand this. And we see here that when we come to Christ, not only are we freed from the bondage of sin, but we're freed from the law, not just the Old Testament law, but even any man made laws that perhaps can be put together to put us in bondage. But we've been set free from under the bondage of rules and regulations relative to the Old Testament, as I said, as well as any other man made laws. We have to be very careful. Maybe somebody will come to you and say, Hey, you know what? You're to worship God on Saturday only. You shouldn't do it on Sunday. That's wrong. All of a sudden, there's a law. All right, everybody will see you Saturday. And people will do stuff like that. And it's really sad when you hear it. But listen, God's goal is that your life and my life be fully governed by the Holy Spirit, His word and His love. That's freedom, isn't it? That's totally freedom. You know, when Adam and Eve were created, when Adam and Eve were living in the garden, they experienced freedom. God gave them freedom. He had the freedom to name all the animals. That's great. And not only that, but they were perfectly accepted, secured and free. God just said, Listen, there's a tree in the middle. Just stay away from it. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the garden. You know, as he was working, it was an enjoyable kind of work. They actually experienced freedom. They freely submitted to God because they trusted him. And they were free to be ruled by God. They allowed God to rule them. In the fall, they lost their relationship with God and they became slaves to sin. They lost that freedom. And what we have here today, in our life today, Jesus died on the cross to set you and I free. Not only that, but we have the freedom to serve God. We have the freedom to serve God. We have the freedom to worship God. We don't have to be in a building to worship God, although gathering corporately is important for fellowship. But listen, after you're done here, you can continue to worship God on your way home in your car. These guys did not have that. They had to go by a tabernacle. And that was the place that they actually worshiped God. You and I now can worship God in our car, in our room, in the lunch room. Just close the door and let people see you, right? You're free to do that. I guarantee you that the Old Testament saints that are probably looking down on us, probably saying, that's not fair. These guys can worship anywhere. We had to carry through the desert this mobile kind of tabernacle and we had to plan ourselves here and worship God here. Then we move along and we go. I mean, these guys, they did not have the freedom that you and I have today in Christ because of what Jesus did on the cross. And I think this is a freedom that we have to understand because even world religions don't have this freedom. Did you know that? Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Muslims, they all abide by rules and regulations. If you break them, you're a bad person. They kick you out. I mean, Mormons have three different levels of heaven and obviously the ones that are out there in the mission field, riding their bikes, knocking on doors, they're the ones that are going to make it to the highest level. But if you don't go in that route, then you're going to be kind of like either in the middle or the last. The terrestrial, I believe, is the lowest. So you have all these different things. So when you think about it as a Christian, I haven't made because I have a God who's given me freedom. Now, does this mean I can do anything I want? No, absolutely not. There's parameters to this. There's boundaries. We're not talking about freedom so we can go out and live lawlessly. No, there's consequences. But listen, overall, you guys are free, free to worship God, to serve God, to love God, to enjoy God. Christians have been set free for all of this and we're not bound by these regulations and rules. Now, let me close with a few thoughts. You know, we've been set free from continually striving to earn God's favor. And what Jesus did on the cross set us free. I don't have to work for my salvation because I know I'm a sinner saved by God's grace. I don't have to do certain things to say, God, do you accept me now? And not only that, but there aren't any other rules that I have to abide by for God to say, oh, now I like you. Listen, we have been set free from continually striving to earn God's favor. You are now accepted in the beloved tonight. That's cool. Sometimes as Christians, we kind of get works base where we have to do these things like if I read my Bible today, God's going to be like, I like that. Keep it going, you know? I mean, there's nothing wrong with reading our Bible, but I'm just saying that if you think that God is going to like even more because you're in the Bible, you're wrong. He already loves you. He does. This, when we read our Bibles, it's because he knows it's going to cause us to grow spiritually. And he knows it hurts us when we don't read his word or abiding him. But he already loves you. You've already been accepted in the beloved. So we've actually been freed from trying to get God's favor. We already have his favor through Christ. So the fullness which we have in Christ means that we are free to obey God joyfully, to just obey him joyfully, and that we find our life now in who Jesus is rather than what I do or who I am or what I bring to the table. I've been set free. I can love God. I can tell people about God. I've been set free for that. So I'm going to leave you with this. Learn to live in Christ's glorious liberty. Learn to live in his glorious liberty. Then stay on the alert because you don't want to return to captivity. Be very careful.