032110 CHAD - FREE: CAN I REMAIN FREE? Gal 5:1-6

Introduction:

As we continue our series on “FREE” with dozens of other churches in Cincinnati. Today we are asking, “how do I remain Free?” How do I Stay Free? And to make this understandable…

I’d like to tell you a Tale.

THE TALE OF TWO TURTLENECKS

I’d like to tell you the tale of Two Turtlenecks. One is dirty, black, and filthy. The other is clean, pure, white, and beautiful. And both will bring you and I to making ONE decision: One decision: Do I…Can I… Agree with God. The One Question, Each of us must answer is this “Who do I Agree With?”

I. The Black Turtleneck

Imagine your whole life you have been wearing a black turtle neck. This turtle neck is a representation of your selfishness, fear, anger, complaints… And God says to you, “You have on a dirty shirt. Your righteousness, or good works falls short of my standard… They separate me from you and You will never be able to clean up that shirt without some help…” God says, Here are just some of the stains that have spoiled your soul. Lusting after someone sexually. Wanting something beside God to run your life. Hating someone in your heart. Gossiping. Talking about someone behind their back. Losing your temper. Living for your self. Envying someone else’s job, house, wife, kids…..Here’s the list…

⁹ Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery… idolatry…hatred… contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions… envy… of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So, now, we are left with ONE DECISION. Is God right or wrong? Do we agree or disagree with him. And if we disagree with him, what will we agree with… Well, there are many ways to reject this belief. Or Disagree with God.

A. Denial:

I am not really wearing a dirty shirt. I am not really a “sinner”. It’s not that big a deal. “God is some Cosmic Micromanaging nag in the sky… God needs to take a chill pill.” What is a stain? This are these supposed “dirty things I’ve done” What areas of bondage am I in?

B. Self-Clean:

I will clean up my mess. I will do better. I’ll try harder. Give me another shot, Let me try again. I really can do it. I really can clean up the mess. Yes, it’s not up to the standard, but give me a year… This is a person who is trying to live by the law… The law is a way of living to clean up your own life…

Gal 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law

Now notice both of these are a refusal to Believe what God has said… One says, I don’t believe in your diagnosis of the problem. The other says, I don’t believe in Your Solution.”

(WORLDVIEW) So in life we gravitate back and forth from one to the other. We become enlightened. Liberal. Modern people who say, “I don’t believe in sin, moral right and wrong, objective truth. That is all religious constructs used to control and manipulate people…” We don’t need Jesus, a Savior…A Rescuer… This is Technique #1: Denial. The Second Technique is the conservative approach. The moral approach. I am a good person. Yes there is a problem in others, and a little bit in me, I’ll fix it and get back to you… I don’t need Jesus, A Savior.. I’ll take out my own garbage, thank you very much… This is technique #2: Self-Clean.

1. Denial

(Chad walks behind Plexi glass 4 X 8 Sheet where words are prewritten) Each of us, has created very specific unique patterns to play these out in our lives. If you are a denial person, it might look like this

• Denial: There is not a problem
• Defensive: I am fine, The problem is other’s judgment.
• Excuse: I have a good excuse for what I did.
• Blame: I don’t have anything to apologize for…
• Hide: I’ll hide what I did, so others won’t find out.
• Minimize: I’ll minimize what I did, so others won’t see it as such a problem.

2. Self Clean

(Chad writes on Plexy glass 4 X 8 Sheet) Each of us, has created very specific unique patterns to play these out in our lives. If you are a self-clean person, it might look like this (Chad writes these in white “chalk” on clear glass.)

· Try Harder: I’ll make up for it

· Self-Protection: I must protect myself

· Perfectionism: I can be perfect.

· Self_justification: I must clean up my own mess.

· Self-Punishment: I will punish myself for not doing well enough.

(Chad tries to clean the plexigalss from the front, it won’t wash off)… Why? So, If denial won’t work, and self-cleaning won’t work, what is the other alternative…. It’s the Second Turtleneck…

2. The White Turtleneck

1. We Must Put it On

Now, Let’s suppose that you decide to “buy” or believe what God says, “You are wearing a dirty black Turtle neck… “ You decide you can’t clean it yourself. You can’t deny the stains. You can’t clean up the mess… And God says, Alright now, that you agree with me on that… I have another Turtleneck I’d like to talk about. A white one. It’s mine. And then you decide to accept this gift which is (His turtleneck. His glorious, white, pure, righteous, clean, spotless turtleneck for you to wear…” This is the robe worn by my son Christ. It is a perfect moral life. It is a beautiful right standing with me… Please, put it on…

Gal 3:6 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

So you put it on… Now God says, “Here is how I see you… You are clean. A Saint. Pure. I see you as I see my son Jesus…” I am now a son of God… I wasn’t before. Now I am. By faith, I am wearing his beauty. And the “benefits” God says that come with putting on this white turtleneck are…

2. We Must Realize It’s benefits

Gal 3: 28 you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you are Christ’s, then you…heirs according to the promise. ¹ Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child.

God says you, who have put on Christ. Are now a Son/Child of God. And with that, you are an heir. A royal heir to God Himself… A full beneficiary of all of God’s promises.

3. We Must Look in the Mirror

When I look in the mirror, what do I see. Do I see who I was in that black turtleneck? If so, I will need all these coping mechanisms to deal with it. Or when I look in the mirror of my own mind, am I truly clean, washed, and white as snow as a heir of God? Now we are back again to “Do you agree with God…” Will I agree with what God says about me, or what I see/say about myself? Agreeing with God is what Paul calls “walking in the Spirit… Walking/Living in agreement with God…. Or will we agree with the “old coping mechanisms called “the Flesh”

Gal 5: I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

Now, back to our board… I don’t know about you, but My whole life, I have often created “coping mechanisms to deal with not agreeing with God.” Paul warns us that there is a thing called the FLESH. Which is a weird word really. Paul uses this word to sum up all the coping mechanisms we use to earn, cope, find, and get Love, appreciation… or cope, get, and deal with not getting it. It’ the ways we Deny, rationalize, hide, minimize… and the ways we try to self-clean through works, performance, perfectionism, etc… And now, there is a tension… Every situation. Every circumstance in our lives… we have a chance to live freely. Clean, pure, washed… BUT!!!!! We are so use to living behind the screen. We have become so accustom to these habits formed over years of disagreeing with God… First, it was hard to believe what he said when it was Bad News, Now it’s hard to believe what he says, when it’s good news. So if we continue to think this way, we will constantly live life behind the Screen. We become “entangled in our old way of doing it…” We are not living in the liberty, standing in the liberty we have…

4. Break Free By Learning to Agree

Gal 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage…

Every situation in your life, you will need to “agree or disagree” with what God says about you, or what your “coping mechanisms” have said about you. And what you choose to believe will impact how you react. How you respond. How you feel. I’d like to show you how being “entangled in the yoke of bondage is all about not agreeing with god about who you are in Christ. Not believing that with Christ’s white turtleneck… I am a Son. A Heir…

Gal 4: ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” ⁷ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Watch out untangling is all about agreeing with God…

APPLICATION: WHO DO I AGREE WITH?

· Self-Protection: So a situation comes up where we are criticized. We become use to self-protection. Attacking and Blaming others when they criticized us.. That our default is to jump back behind the screen… To defend. To become angry. To attack back, or attack first… But, if we will push the screen out of the way… If we will realize that we are already clean before God. We don’t need to attack, blame others. If it’s all true, we have been forgiven it… If it’s all false, we don’t need to defend our selves. Our standing is sure, and not based on what we do…. So we can begin to “wash” away our coping mechanisms in light of who we are. (chad sprays the plexiglass) and wipes it clean… But we will never wipe away from Self protection, until we fully realize our standing before God is completely protected.

· Hoarding: For many of us, money can be an “emotional topic”… We may have learned to hoard it… Or that we can escape by spending it… Or that it is security, and therefore we hold onto it for dear life… These are “flesh patterns”… so when the topic of Money comes up… we are so use to jumping behind the screen… we can’t distinguish between who we are (in our white turtleneck) and the flesh patterns we use to use… So we default to this. We may even see ourselves through the lens of this plexiglass, but we can overcome this pattern.. we can be free from this habit.. How? By seeing who we are in this white turtleneck. We are the child of God. Our Father takes care of us, not money. We are an heir to God himself. All the riches we could ever want, or ever need are secured in Heaven for us in a place where rust and moths cannot get at… So, we can talk about money without being emotional. We can give away money without being scared. We can save money without hoarding it. (Chad sprays and washes plexiglass) But our ability to Remain Free comes from seeing who we really are. Agreeing with God about what He says is true about us right now. We are already an Heir. A Son… No longer a slave to money and false security.

· Self-Hatred: Self-Pity. When we feel UnLoved and Rejected in situations. We learn to hate ourselves. For doing dumb things. Saying dumb things. For making mistakes. For not being perfect. When some of us go home to see our family we feel rejection and criticism from our mom and dad, brother and sister… And they begin to bombard us with “the look” the snide remarks.. Etc. And our instinct is to Dive behind the screen… To protect, attack back, feel terrible, get pulled in, to get pulled back into a “bad self image” But in that moment, we need to answer ONE QUESTION: Who do I agree with? Do I agree with God, I am loved. I am cherished. I am valuable. (Chad washes away self hatred) And these words are silly, lies, untruths. If we agree with God, we can push away the screen, and see the lies for what they are…

STORY: Recently, my son Javan has had several kids who have been horribly teasing him on the bus. And we worked through the normal challenges of trying to stop them by working with the school Etc. I was trying to find a way to help Javan not “Agree” with the voices of rejection, anger, and cursing… I said “imagine if a little baby was throwing a fit… and starting saying, “You stink. I hate you” Would it bother you much? Javan said, No. It’s just a baby. Try to picture them as little babies, and don’t agree with them. Javan came home one week and I asked him what happened. He said, This kid was cussing at me, and I burst out laughing, because I pictured him as that little baby.. What was he doing…? Refusing to “Agree” with the voice of rejection.

A Bad SELF IMAGE IS THE MOST SUBTLE FORM OF PRIDE. Why? It says, “ I REJECT God’s View of Me… I accept my view of me… And it’s bad.” I trust my view of myself more than God’s. (But when you see who you are in Christ. You are able to wash away the coping mechanism…)

• Worry: Take Control : Rescuing. Fear and Stress. We begin to get overwhelmed. Some bad news comes our way. We feel out of control… Our instinct is to “worry” to “take control” by worrying, fretting, or taking over… (All those phrases from the board”… And when the situations and circumstances are “breathing down our neck”… we have one question to answer, “Who do I agree with…” I can look at this turtle neck… And remember there is a God who controls the universe, the stars, holds the molecules of matter together… And will I think “I can control life better than him…” or “I can trust him to control my life…” Instead of “I can’t handle this…” I agree with God… “He can handle this…”

STORY: For me…My performance in “helping” and rescuing others is also a subtle form of pride… It is the belief that, like it said on p34 of our FREE notebook, You believe that “You are your own best hope… “ That only Chad can do it, That others need Chad to be their Savior…. To help combat this flesh pattern of mine, “Being a Savior for others…” the belief that am indispensable in some way to God. Will I agree with God, that He is the Savior, Not me. People don’t need me to rescue them, they need to allow Him to rescue them. And if they feel some pain or hurt prior to finding him… God will use that. I have this poem I put on my desk at work.

POEM: INDISPENSIBLE MAN Sometime when you’re feeling important; Sometime when your ego’s in bloom Sometime when you take it for granted You’re the best qualified in the room,Sometime when you feel that your going Would leave an unfillable hole, Just follow these simple instructions And see how they humble your soul;Take a bucket and fill it with water,Put your hand in it up to the wrist, Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining

Is a measure of how you’ll be missed. You can splash all you wish when you enter, You may stir up the water galore, But stop and you’ll find that in no time It looks quite the same as before. The moral of this quaint example Is do just the best that you can, Let God be God and remember, There’s no indispensable man.

• Pride: When we study the Bible we begin to grow spiritually. We learn things God has said about what is right and wrong… And we realize that we haven’t been doing many of them… So we begin to better understand what the righteousness of this T-shirt really is… we begin to live out who we are as a righteous son/daughter of God… But we see others who aren’t living it out. Aren’t living consistently with it…. And we are tempted to step behind the screen… And look down on others and say… How can they be so lazy? What is wrong with them…? I would never do that, I could never have done that…. I see their black Turtlenecks, and I feel self-righteous… because I cleaned up My mess… Ooops… Wait, we didn’t clean up our mess. We couldn’t clean up our mess… And they can’t clean up theirs… What they need, is what we needed. What they can have… is what we now have… “We need to agree with God that our turtleneck was just as dirty as theirs is… And God forgave, was patient, was so merciful to us…” Will we be as merciful, patient, and forgiving to them… “Will we agree that our turtleneck is NOT the result of our moral efforts, but the result of His mercy?
• Gossip:Bitterness: When we see we are clean and forgiven for all we’ve done. This will rescue us from Gossip… We only gossip about people we think we are better than. It will rescue us from bitterness and unforgiveness, because we hold grudges against others we think “I would never have done that…” I can release the hurt… And trust God is judge.

TO THE EXPLORER: If you can’t identify a moment, or season, or decision you ever made to “PUT ON” the white robe, I hope today you can see how this white robe of Christ's Righteousness can change everything. Make today The moment for that decision. Put on the Robe. Receive the Gift, and agree with God. Agree with him that you are broken and stained with selfishness.... Other wise, the best you can hope for is "less-dysfunctional" ways of dealing with your black turtleneck. Switching some of the unhealthy coping mechanisms on the board for slightly less unhealthy ones… But you will never be free from this board until you swap turtlenecks. And that begins by admitting, I am wearing a stained, dark shirt that is caused by desire to run my own life…

TO THE CHRIST-FOLLOWER:(ADORATION) Christ came into the world to offer a full reversal. A way of seeing ourselves that would reverse all the lies and coping mechanisms we’ve picked up. You have been made free. These lies on the board are just that. Lies. They are powerless over you now. Jesus gives us power to take all the thoughts and messages we’ve developed over time and turns them inside out and upside down. It allow you to wipe away, and wash away all the brokenness that has kept you in bondage for so long… So you may know that you are forgiven. Loved. Fully and Finally. This next video shows visually what this process is like

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FORGIVEN AND LOVED.