Freedom Comes From Truth

This week's audio message:

Freedom Comes From Truth

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Meditation For Freedom (Transcript)

I’d like to begin by quoting a great verse of Scripture from Philippians 4:8. Some of you may have memorized this verse. It goes like this:

"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -- meditate on these things."

In connection with this passage on what we should be thinking about, what we should be meditating on, I’d like to read also the verse from John 8:31,32 which says this:

"If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Much of what we decide to do or not do in life is decided by how we FEEL about it. And this is not automatically bad. Emotions certainly are a gift from God. To be able to feel often means to be able to enjoy. To be able to feel often means that we don’t just live as robots, but that we live with zest and passion and COM-passion and focus and fun.

Of course our emotions also may allow us to feel grief, despair, depression, rage, and misery.

But how do we take these wild mustangs of emotion and drive them into the corral, and train them to do what’s best for them? To be able to value them, and not dread them? To get them to help us in making decisions in life that are wise decisions? Without becoming robots?

It has to do with what we think about, meditate about.

When we think about things that are bad, we tend to feel bad. When we think about things that are good, we tend to feel good.

Now this is actually good news, for three reasons:

1. We can limit the bad that we take into our minds.

We can’t eliminate it, because it assaults us through our eyes, our ears, and even internally from repetition of past bad things. But we can limit it. We can stay away from input that we know contains great amounts of bad, whether it be books, TV shows, or a particularly destructive person.

2. We can fill our minds with good.

The most obvious source of this truth, this good, for the Christian is the Word of God. Secondary sources may be trusted teachers of the Word, including books, spoken messages, and so forth. But filling our minds with good things tends to set us free.

3. Our emotions are the result of our thoughts.

Now the reason this is good news, is that if you can limit the bad you take in, and if you can fill your mind with good, and if your emotions will respond to that good, then you can be made free. Free in your thinking, free in your feeling, and free in your decision-making.

Now I’ve heard teachers say, don’t let your feelings make your decisions for you, use wise thinking. But they’re in a sense denying a normal thing, and that is the simple reality that SOMETIMES our feelings decide for us. And it’s important for those feelings to be directed by the true, the noble, the just, the pure, the lovely, that which is of good report, that which is virtuous and praiseworthy. As our verse for today tells us.

Another word about what is true: The Bible is big book, and some truth is just plain more important that others. The geneologies are good. But some truth affects our emotions in a good way.

So there’s a lot of truth in that wonderful book. Now the Bible itself says, in 2 Tim. 3:16, that "ALL scripture is inspired by God and profitable." And I sure believe that. There is no scripture that should be left untouched or unread, from the genealogies of Genesis, to the obscure symbolism of Revelation.

But, having said that, we have to realize that when it comes to our daily lives, and truth that brings right thinking, which leads to right emotions, and good decisions, in other words, what we meditate on, there are some scriptures which are just plain more important than others.

There are some rich gems in the genealogies, and digging them out is a wonderful thing. But lets’ face it, there are some truths of the Bible that if we don’t have a good solid handle on, we are just plain messed up. And by “messed up”, I mean “in bondage” of one kind or another. We’re not free in our thinking and in our feeling.

So let’s just look at a couple examples of these foundational truths that tend to set us free. These things that are more important to meditate on than perhaps some other more obscure parts of the Scripture.

Some Extra-Important Things To Meditate On

1. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” -- John 14:6

Whenever we talk about truth, primary in our minds should always be Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus Christ was the Truth and is the Truth upon which all other truth is based. Just meditating on that fact, even just meditating on that passage that “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’”...that has so much in it that can change our thinking, and therefore our feeling, that just to meditate on that truth alone is a valuable thing.

It reminds me of that Scripture which says, “Be still and know that I am God”. Such a simple thing on the surface, and yet the truth of that small passage is so incredible.

2. Secondly, let’s look at the idea of Righteousness.

Romans 3:21 says, “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction."

Meditating on righteousness is a great and valuable thing, too. One of the things about the Gospel is that it reveals the righteousness of God, to those who otherwise never would have understood righteousness at all.

You see, because as the Scripture teaches, our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, that when we’re born into this world and inherit the sinful nature from Adam, our forefather, we have no righteousness within ourselves.

If we’re to be righteous at all, if we’re to gain any kind of righteousness, it has to be given to us from elsewhere, as a gift. And that’s exactly what God did.

He said that Jesus became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. And when we meditate on that truth, that we have been declared righteous by God, that He has given us His righteousness, and now it’s ours...when we meditate on that, it can turn our thinking around. And cause great joy and feelings of gratitude and enlightenment, that nothing else can do. So that’s a great one.

3. The third one is we need to understand and meditate on the fact that we died too, when Jesus died on the cross. Those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ...when He died, we died – in a way that, while mysterious, is very clear in the Scripture.

We look at Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who delivered himself up for me.”

Romans 6:11: “Reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to god.”

See, when we died, we died to sin, and became alive to God in Christ by this miracle.

Romans 7:6: "But now we have been released from the Law, having died
to that by which we were bound."

See, when we died in Christ, we also died to the Law. We were released from the Law, so that the Scripture says that we’re no longer under law but under grace.

Galatians 2:19 "For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God."

So something amazing has happened here, and worth meditating on. Talk about that which is noble and of good repute! This is an amazing thing that God has taken us with Him in Christ, and allowed us to die, our old self to die, and be made new, a "new creation". "Old things have passed away, behold all things have become new" (2 Cor. 5:17).

4. O.K., fourthly, is our Unconditional Love and Acceptance.

Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus...”

Boy, is that worth meditating on.

And Romans 8 goes on to say that “NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ, the love of God”. He accepts us in the Beloved, and there is nothing we can do to make Him accept us more, and nothing we can do to make Him accept us less.

He accepts us in Christ.

He loves us in Christ.

That alone is a worthy cause for meditation.

5. Fifthly, the Sovereignty of God.

This is one of the most important ones, to understand simply that things are not out of control. That God has control over ALL things.

Philippians 4:11 says, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content”.

Paul says that he has learned to be content in any circumstances. Why? Because he understands that God is sovereign. That no circumstances come into his life that God has not planned and allowed, for good. And that even things that are bad are being worked together for good.

Romans 8:28, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, and are the called according to His purpose.”

When we can meditate on that, and really get a grip on that, we have no cause for [undue] sadness. We have no cause for despair or depression, because all things are being worked together for good.

And if we can meditate on that, get a hold of it, it can revolutionize our lives.

Contentment comes from understanding that God is good, and that God is in control. That’s the sovereignty of God.

6. And then lastly, the fruit of the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit.

What a wonderful thing to meditate on. This leads to surrender.

This is the wonderful fruit of the Spirit that comes into us as we meditate, commune with Christ, surrender to Him, are filled with His Spirit, are walking in truth.

And this only comes from the Word of God and the Spirit of God, as we look upon Him. As we meditate on Him and His Word. As we move our eyes from ourselves, and onto Him. As we surrender to grace, and get off the ground of law.

In comes this fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, meekness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Those things alone are great to meditate on.

As we meditate on good things, we are filled with the truth of Christ, and the truth of Grace, and the truth of who we are in Christ, and the truth of His great love and acceptance of us, and we naturally tend to respond in our feelings, and with that comes a freedom we may have never known before.

Well, let’s close by reading that great verse again, Philipp 4:8:

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -- meditate on these things.”

And you know, God has made us fearfully and wonderfully in a particular way, and that is that our minds can only think or meditate on one thing at a time.

So as we set our minds on these things that are good, on these things that are true, it actually crowds out of our minds those things that are bad, and untrue, and that cause bondage.

Meditation For Freedom

This week's audio message:

Meditation For Freedom

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Truth and Emotions (Transcript)

Here's something you won't find in the Bible:

“You will be emotional and your emotions will set you free.”

That may sound humorous, but there are actually therapists who think the solution to life's problems is to “vent”. To shout, scream, express your emotions for all the world to see, or at least in a closed room.

But there is a better way. One of the most precious and glorious and profound Scriptures in all the Bible, I believe is also one of the most neglected.

John 8:31,32 says this:

“If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

When this great passage is not neglected it is often used incorrectly by the world. You’ll see it on government buildings, and in political rallies of the most unbiblical kind. People sometimes think that THEIR idea of truth is what sets free. But of course, it’s the truth of God that truly sets us free.

I entitled this message “The Truth and Emotions” because I want to examine a little bit the relationship between emotions and truth.

Emotions, or the way we feel, often govern the way we act.

Ask any trained salesman, and they will tell you an old maxim that goes like this, “People buy according to their emotions, and then justify their purchase with the facts.”

That’s just one example, of course. Much of what we decide to do or not do in life is decided by how we FEEL about it. And this is not automatically bad. Emotions certainly are a gift from God. To be able to feel often means to be able to enjoy. To be able to feel often means that we don’t just live as robots, but that we live with zest and passion and COMpassion and focus and fun.

Of course emotions also may allow us to feel grief, despair, depression, rage, and misery.

But how do we take these wild mustangs of emotion and drive them into the corral, and train them to do what is best for them? To be able to value them, and not dread them? To get them to help us in making decisions in life that are wise decisions? Without becoming robots?

The answer is in the word TRUTH. As the passage says, The Truth shall make you free.

Error Brings Bondage

If you don't take away anything else from this message, please listen to this:

“Whenever we are in bondage, in our minds or our emotions, it is because of error.”

Now this is actually good news, for three reasons:

1. We can limit the error that we take into our minds.

We can’t eliminate it, because it assaults us through our eyes, our ears, and even internally from repetition of past error. But we can limit it. We can stay away from input that we know contains great amounts of error, whether it be books, TV shows, or a particularly destructive person.

2. We can fill our minds with truth.

The most obvious source of this truth for the Christian is the Word of God. Secondary sources may be trusted teachers of the Word, including books, spoken messages, and so forth. But filling our minds with truth sets us free.

3. Our emotions are the result of our thoughts.

And our thoughts are the result of what seems true to us. And what seems true may not be true at all. If you think a rattlesnake is inches from your face in the dark, it doesn’t matter one bit if it’s only a rope. Your heart will pound, your skin will perspire, your muscles may go rigid…you get the idea. It doesn’t matter what the truth really is in this case. What you THINK the truth is affects your emotions.

Now, again, the reason this is good news, is that if you can limit the error you take in, and if you can fill your mind with truth, and if your emotions will respond to that truth, then you can be made free. Free in your thinking, free in your feeling, and free in your decision-making.

Very Practical

This can be very practical in some cases. For example, if you’ve learned from God’s word that a close relationship with Christ is the highest most wonderful thing in your life, and that material possessions are as dung by comparison...and if you’ve learned from God’s word that unnecessary debt is not wise, then when the Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman comes to the door with a $2000 machine that your emotions might have driven you to lust for a few years ago...instead of “feeling” like “I gotta have that Kirby!”, you might actually feel like, “that vacuum cleaner is emptiness to me. I don’t even feel like wanting it. I want to get back to my quiet time with the Lord that the Kirby man just interrupted.”

And you tell the Kirby man to have a nice day.

Now I’m not talking about wise thinking here. I’m not talking about thinking through the situations. Right now I’m talking about emotions. About feelings. And how with right thinking, with truth, the right feelings are there, right when you need them.

I’ve heard teachers say, "Don’t let your feelings make your decisions for you, use wise thinking." But they’re denying a normal thing, and that is the simple reality that SOMETIMES our feelings decide for us. And it’s important for those feelings to be directed by the truth that is deep within us.

Now let's make another point about truth.

All Scripture Is Inspired by God, But...

The Bible is a big book. The one I'm looking at right now has 1393 pages, just counting Scripture itself.

It's a big book. In fact, as you probably know, it’s actually 66 books written over many hundreds of years, and covering history over many thousands of years.

So there’s a lot of truth in that wonderful book.

Now the Bible itself says, in 2 Tim. 3:16, that ALL scripture is inspired by God and profitable. And I sure believe that. There is no scripture that should be left untouched or unread, from the genealogies of Genesis, to the obscure symbolism of Revelation.

But, having said that, we have to realize that when it comes to our daily lives, and truth that brings right thinking, which leads to right emotions, and good decisions, there are some Scriptures which are just plain more important than others.

There are some rich gems in the genealogies, and digging them out is a wonderful thing. But lets’ face it, there are some truths of the Bible that if we don’t have a good solid handle on, we are just plain messed up. And by “messed up”, I mean “in bondage” of one kind or another.

So let’s just look at a few examples of these foundational truths that set us free. There are many others, but these are a few examples of what might be considered “heavenly things”, eternal truths on which we are to set our minds. And they will set us free.

1. Jesus Is The Truth

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” John 14:6

So all truth is measured by Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean that the red letters of your Bible, the words actually spoken by Jesus, are more inspired than the rest of the Bible. In fact, the Epistles contain some important information about Jesus Christ, and our relationship to Him, that you can't find in the Gospels with Jesus speaking.

After all, the New Covenant was not even put into place until Jesus died on the Cross, was buried, rose again from the dead, and ascended to the Father.

And this New Covenant is the basis for our relationship to Him who provided the Covenant, the Lord Himself. And so, critically important truth begins with the person and work of Jesus Christ.

It's about our relationship to Him Who is Truth.

That's a truth that can set you free.

2. Righteousness

Rom. 3:21,22 “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;"

Since the Bible teaches that our own righteousnesses are as filthy rags (another important truth), God made provision to give us His righteousness as a gift, by grace through faith in Christ. And when we believe in Him, we are declared righteous by God.

That's called Justification, and it puts us in a right relationship to the Lord, as though we had never been born sinful fallen creatures and had never committed a single sin.

There is no longer anything separating us from God and His love. He has declared us righteous.

That's a truth that can set you free.

3. We Died Too.

Gal. 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who delivered himself up for me.”

Rom 6:11, “Reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God, through Jesus Christ.”

Rom 7:6, “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound.”

Galatians 2:19, "For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God.”

See, when Christ died on the Cross, in some mysterious way, we believers died with Him. We died to sin, and we died to the Law. And so we have become a new creation, a new creature, who loves Christ and hates sin in our very heart of hearts.

That's a truth that can set you free.

4. Unconditional Love and Acceptance

Rom 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus…”

Rom. 8 goes on to say that NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ, the love of God.

God fully accepts us in the Beloved, in Christ. We are His Beloved, just as He is ours. God favors us. He shows us His favor, just as He does His love. God has become FOR us, and if He is for us, who can be against us?

That's a truth that will set you free.

5. The Fruit of the Spirit and /Being Filled With the Spirit

Rom 12:1, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

This is surrender. This is that wonderful fruit of the Spirit that comes into us, as we meditate, commune with Christ, surrender to Him, are filled with His Spirit, are walking in truth. This only comes from the word of God and the Spirit of God as we look upon Him. As we move our eyes from ourselves and onto Him. As we surrender to Grace, and get off the ground of Law.

Look how much the fruit of the Spirit and freedom from bondage go hand in hand.

Paul told the Galatians that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, meekness, faithfulness, and self control.

Do you see any bondage in those?

We can be emotional, but we aren't in bondage to our emotions.

As we are filled with the truth of Christ, and the truth of Grace, and the truth of who we are in Christ, and the truth of His great love and acceptance of us, we naturally respond in our thoughts, and our emotions, and as He promises, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

Truth and Emotions

This week's audio message:

Truth and Emotions

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

Simple Song of Freedom (Transcript)

In 1969 Bobby Darin wrote a song. The name of the song was “Simple Song of Freedom”, and the first line went like this, “Come and sing a simple song of freedom.”

The Simplicity That Is In Christ

Although this message has nothing to do with the subject of that song, I want to borrow the title, because of an important principle of Scripture, the simplicity that is in Christ.

We complicate things, sometimes. And we are confused by so much input, even about Jesus. Sometimes we even confuse ourselves, because we run to and fro looking for deep truth, when we haven't even latched on to the basic truths.

Let me ask you something before we get rolling on this Simple Song of Freedom. Do you ever criticize what we call “The Church Today”. You know, like, “Man the Church Today is sure messed up.” Or, “The Church Today is sure carnal. They've sure gone crazy with false doctrines, backsliding, worldliness, or whatever.”

Now I'm not saying there's not some truth to that, but I like to remind myself of two things, from time to time.

First I like to remind myself of the promise of Jesus, when He said, “...I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

Or “will not prevail against it.” He's going to build the true church of the born-again ones, and nothing will stop that from happening. No child of God, chosen before the foundation of the world, will fail to come into the kingdom, and live forever with the King.

The second thing I like to remind myself, when I feel like complaining about the church, is how the the early churches were.

You know the problems the churches had in the second and third chapters of Revelation. Jesus spoke to those churches in Ephesus, and Smyrna, and Pergamum, and Thyatira, and Sardis, and Laodicea. And how about the Galatians, whom Paul called foolish, because even he was shocked how quickly they got off track on legalism.

And then there were the Corinthians. They were some church!

Paul spent more time straightening them out than any other church in the New Testament. They had problems, and when we say problems, we mean “sin”, but I'll just use “proglems” in this context.

They had problems with unity, lack of wisdom, not relying on the Spirit of God, carnality, not being servant-minded, flat out immorality, or at least allowing it openly in the church family, suing one another in court, idolatry, disrespecting Paul's authority as an apostle, order in the church, making a mockery of the Lord's Supper, misusing spiritual gifts, lacking in love, immaturity, and bad doctrine on the resurrection. And that's just in 1 Corinthians!

And even after all the correction Paul had done for the Corinthians, in Chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians, verse 3 and following, Paul writes,

“But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.”

See, even after all that Paul had done for the Corinthians, and taught the Corinthians, and corrected in the Corinthians, he still considered them shaky.

Some Encouragement

And so I'm not giving this message to put down the church of today. Jesus is building His church. And I love the church, the Body of Christ. He is working in all of us to bring about His purposes. And I want to be an encourager, not a complainer.

I want to be Barnabas, son of encouragement today. I want to be the one who, when Paul got frustrated at John Mark, and kicked him off the ministry team, I want to be the one like Barnabas who took John Mark under his wing, and encouraged him, and was patient with him, and saw God's potential in him. And by the time the story was over, John Mark ended up a valuable assistant to Paul, who had rejected him, and John Mark wrote the gospel that we call the Gospel of Mark.

I want to encourage you today. And one of the best ways I can do that is to go back to that passage in 2 Corinthians, verse 3, “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”

Or as the King James puts it, “the simplicity which is in Christ.”

You see, the Christian life, with all its complications, is really simple in some ways. We organize, and specialize, and generalize, and complicate things in a hundred different ways, but there is a simplicity in Christ that we need to discipline ourselves to get back to.

The Discipline of Simplicity

We need to discipline ourselves to get back to the simplicity that is in Christ. This is a simple song of freedom. We're free from a complicated religious system like Israel was put under in the Old Covenant.

We have a simple relationship to God, through a simple covenant He has made with us, called the New Covenant.

Now, I'm not saying God is simple. We can exhaust a lifetime and just scratch the surface of the beautiful intricacies of our Lord. But our relationship to Him is meant to be a simple one.

And notice that Paul's concern for the Corinthians was that this simplicity would be complicated by false teaching, false gospels, and other complications of the world, the flesh and the devil.

And so I want to briefly mention three simplicities that are important to us, as believers, and as those who seek to share the simple gospel of Jesus Christ with others.

1. The Simplicity of The New Birth - Regeneration

This is perhaps the simplest of all, because when Jesus said, “You must be born again”, He referred to that work of the Holy Spirit with which we have nothing to do. The “wind blows wherever it wants”, and such is the Wind of the Holy Spirit, Who gives new life, the new birth, regenerates those Whom He will.

And until one is born again, he can't even SEE the Kingdom of God, let alone believe in its King.

Profound in its implications, and worthy of a lifetime of study, yet extremely simple at its core. And it elevates the Sovereign God as it declares, sola gratia, by grace alone, since no baby can “born” itself, and no person can “born again” themselves. It must be only by the grace of God.

2. The Simplicity of God's Righteousness – Justification

Scripture makes it clear that even our righteousnesses are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). In other words, before we are born again, even what we do that seems “good” is not good. It is tainted by the fallen nature of one born in sin. One who inherited a sin nature from Adam.

An Alien Righteousness

And since there is “none who does good” and none who “seeks after God” (Rom. 3), there is nothing we can do to for our own righteousness. We need a new righteousness. We need what is sometimes in Theology called an “alien righteousness”, one from outside ourselves.

But lo and behold, that is exactly what Jesus has provided for all those who believe in Him.

Remember Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes...”?

Well, the next verse, verse 17 tells why the gospel is the power of God for salvation:

“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, 'But the righteous man shall live by faith'.”

See, that's the “alien righteousness” we needed, the righteousness of God. If we could get rid of our so-called righteousness, which is really unrighteousness, and if we could somehow have God's righteousness as our own, as a gift, let's say, we would then be in pretty good shape. But how could we get it? How could we exchange our unrighteousness for God's righteousness?

The simple answer is the Cross of Christ.

Let's read it in two passages, one from Romans, and one from 2 Corinthians.

Romans 5:17,18, “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

See, just as we inherited the sin nature from Adam, through the death of Jesus on the Cross, we were justified, which means “declared righteous”.

Now before I read the passage from 2 Corinthians, we need a couple of definitions here. Not complicated ones, remember we're seeking the simplicity which is in Christ. So here are two simple definintions.

1 - "Justified" in this context means “declared righteous” by God.

2 - "Righteous", in this context, means “in right standing with God as though we had never had a sin nature and had never sinned.”

So by Jesus' death on the cross, and His shed blood, we are declared by God to be in right standing with Him, as though we had never had a sin nature, and had never sinned.

Now let's read 2 Corinthians, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

That explains the actual method of Christ on the Cross. He took our sins on Himself, even though He was sinless, and in paying the price for our sins, He opened the door for God to declare us righteous.

How do receive what He has accomplished? By faith alone, or as the Reformers put it, sola fide. By our simply believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and what He did on that Cross, we are justified, declared righteous by God.

And so there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ (Rom. 8:1). We can come before the Awesome Creator as our Abba, Father, just as Jesus Himself can. We are now a friend to Jesus.

We are His beloved and He is our Beloved.

All because He has declared us righteous.

Now you may be tempted, as some have said, “Yes, but I'm not really righteous, that's just in God's eyes.” Please avoid that temptation. Don't dishonor the Lord by saying it's only in His eyes, as if His eyes didn't matter. "His eyes" is what matters most of all. Take God at His word. Don't water down the righteousness that God has given to you. If He's given you the gift of His righteousness, whose is it now? It's your's friend. Accept it. Don't brag on it like you earned it. But humbly accept it.

Which brings me then to...

3. The Simplicity of Walking By The Spirit

I've written and spoken much on this point, so I won't belabor it here. But if you are born again, you have the Spirit of God in you, and you have become one spirit with Him. (1 Cor 6:17, "But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him."

He has made you a new creation, and given you a new nature, which has become one spirit with the Lord Himself. When you sin now, you are going against your new nature. It's not natural for you to sin anymore. Romans 6:11 says that you are dead to sin but alive to God through Jesus Christ.

Now the simple thing for you to do is to commune with Jesus. He is in you now. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Draw near to Him, fellowship with Him, read his Word, talk to Him.

Throughout your day, be aware of His presence, talk to Him continually. As you learn His Word, take every thought captive to Him. As you think a thought, ask, “Is that what the Bible says? Is that what my Lord whom I love thinks?” And bring your thoughts into line with His.

Think on those things that are true and good. And talk to Him some more. I could say “pray without ceasing”, that's Scripture. But talk to Him, read and study His word.

And don't reduce your Christian life to laws and rules.

Make it a simple relationship to the one you love. We love Him because He first loved us. As you live that way, you will learn to more and more walk by His Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. And you will learn truth, and truth will set you free, and you can join in the choir of those who sing a simple song of freedom.

The simplicity which is in Christ.

Simple Song of Freedom

This week's audio message:

Simple Song of Freedom

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