Welcome. If you're new here, just know that's not something we take lightly. If you're here and you're going, man, I always refer to it personally as just like the dating phase. You know what I mean? You're dating the church to figure out if we smell or if we've got any weird habits or that kind of stuff. If we're going to leave you with the bill, that kind of thing. But just know you being here, I personally believe it's by design. I don't think you're here by chance.
And I don't think that you being here is just another Sunday. Like you stepped into, I don't know if you realize this or not, but you stepped into a moment that can pass us by if we let it. And we have to move slowly enough to see the moment. Here's what I mean. You step into a room of people and normally in a group this size and in a space like this, there's a variety of people. Some have said yes to Jesus. Some are still navigating and going, man, I like this Jesus. I don't know
if I can trust him. Some are like opposed to Jesus and you're here to just prove why you're opposed to Jesus, that kind of thing. And so it can be easy to miss what just happened. But we have the gift. It's a gift to come in and be able to sit next to other people that are all in different places on the journey, but to hear those who are ahead of you on the journey, to raise their voice. and not be afraid to raise their voice. And maybe they raised their hands
and you're like, well, that's weird. Why are they raising their hands? It's not a concert. Do that at a concert. But the idea that you were here and you got to experience people going, there is no one else. And like they're saying it from the sense of conviction, church. There is no one else who is worthy, who matches up to. Who has greater value than the person of Jesus. And you got to experience that. We get
to experience that together. Do you realize that in that song, one of the lines that I love in that song is that you get to do something that not even the angels can do. I don't know if you caught it or not. But that song, right, like what it is speaking about is what Jesus has done for you, what Jesus has purchased for you, that you were lost and now you are found, right? That you had no standing with God and because of the person of Jesus, you're made right with God.
That your future eternally is secure in the person of Jesus. And so that creates in you a thanks. Can you believe just the cosmic story? That a God would love you enough and love me enough that he would show up in person and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, pay a debt that we couldn't pay, right? That we would be given this life and given this moment and put into this room with other people to go, no one else is worthy. You know what your no one else is
worthy is? It's just a thanks. It's gratitude. And you know who can't do that? The angels. Because they haven't even experienced that for themselves. They got to watch you and watch God pursue you and watch God love you enough to show up so that you could stand in a room and go, no one else is worthy, only Jesus. That's the privilege. Think about it. I don't think as you were singing, maybe you were, but I don't think anybody was going, who else is worthy? And you're like, me.
I'm worthy, right? It's not happening. The collective voice is raising and going, no, no, no. Don't let your eyes settle here. Don't let your eyes settle here. Get your eyes to what really matters. I don't think anybody was singing worried about someone coming through the door because you mentioned the name Jesus in a public space and now your life, we may not make it out of here. I don't think anybody's worried about it. We have a gift.
We have such a freedom. This is a... This is such a gift and such a freedom to be able to come in here together and not be worried about someone coming in because you said the name of Jesus in a public space. What a gift. What a moment. And we've got to learn how to slow down and cherish and nourish that and go, man, let it feed your soul for the rest of the week. That's the value of what this is. And it's this beautiful moment. And sometimes we treat it like just another
latte. It's just another church service. I just gotta make it through an hour. Church is boring. Meanwhile, what just happened in this room is resonating throughout the caverns of heaven. I assume there's caverns there. It's resonating and resounding in the very presence of God. And it was your voice because only you can bring your voice in the presence of God. And this isn't in my notes, so we probably should move on. In
Matthew 13, 44, Jesus tells the story. And the story is framed in... that the kingdom of heaven is like. Okay, so it's this idea of the kingdom of heaven. It's God's rule and reign, his domain. And this is what it's like. And then it goes on to tell the story of a man who went to a field. And when he got to the field, he discovered that the field had a treasure. And it says that he took that treasure and he hid the treasure. Now in that culture, for you to hide the treasure
was for you to protect it. So what we first see about this man is as he comes, his actions change determined by the value that he found within the treasure. And he hides it and he protects it. And it says that he goes away and he gets back to all of his stuff. All of the stuff that once carried this high value for him. He gets back to it and it says that he sells it all. The things that had captured his heart at one
point that meant so much. He sells it all and he goes back to the field and he buys the field because he knows the treasure, the value that the field holds. When you find something that you value, it changes the way that you live. When you find something that you value, When you find something that is so worth it, something that you just can't live without, something that has such meaning and value and beauty, that all of a sudden it changes the way you interact with
everything else. Maybe even things that you once felt were valuable, you now live differently towards them because of what you found. That's the essence of what Galatians chapter five is leading us into. And over the next two weeks, at least, we're gonna spend some time just looking at Galatians five. And today, what I'd love to do is just kind of give you a lens and kind of a framework that we're gonna look over the next
few weeks at Galatians five through. Because what we find in Galatians 5 is it's Paul trying to help the church in Galatia through this letter to go, hey, how do you live this life? How now do you live this life when everything has changed? And so he starts out in verse 1. He says this. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. has set us free. What is the purpose of the whole
cosmic story? What is the purpose of the grand narrative of this God who would leave heaven, that would become a man, that would go to a cross, that would suffer and die, taking the sin of the world, my sin, your sin, on him, leaving it in a tomb, rising again, death defeated, sin defeated. What is the purpose of this whole story? Your freedom. is the purpose of the entire cosmic story. It is for freedom that Christ did what
he did. Why? So that you could be free. Now, when we talk about freedom, we have to be careful because we can easily associate freedom in this passage to, well, that's political freedom. At this time, this world was not free. It was under the oppression of the Roman Empire. So the world was not politically free. So Paul can't possibly mean political freedom that you've been saved for. We enjoy political freedom, but I wouldn't
count on political freedom, right? Like we look at things like, well, it's economical freedom, right? Like come to Jesus and everything gets better and you get rich. That's a terrible gospel and is not true. How do I know it? Look back at the people that lived this out. Lots of them lived in poverty. They lost their business circles. They lost their social circles. They were worse
off for saying yes to Jesus, not better. And so what happens here then, what happens here is the freedom has to mean something else, that you have been set free. You have been set free. And it has to be in a much larger sense of what God's doing in the universe. And then it says specifically, says specifically something about you. That it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. That's identity. That's who you are. I don't know if you feel that today or not, but
that's who you are right here, right now. You are free because of the person of Jesus Christ. Well, what am I free from? What does this look like? So what I'd love to do is, kind of create this framework. But the framework is born out of maybe taking a picture from football, if we can, okay? So if you don't like football, maybe daydream for a minute, come back. So in football, imagine, let's make it a high stakes game, Super Bowl. And the Steelers are in the Super Bowl.
I told you, we're daydreaming, we're daydreaming, right? But you're in this game, right? And you receive the playbook of the other team. I mean, every single play that they're going to do for that game, every single one, they're not going to deviate from it. They're going to run this plan. And so you look at it and play number one is they're going to run a draw to the right side. What do you do with your defense? You stack the what? Right side. Why? Because that's where they're
going to attack. And so you stack your right side and you defeat them. Right? We understand it in a sports context. What we're given here by Paul. is we're given the cheat code, if you like, the way to live, the way to live in this life, right here, right now, because he reveals the enemy's plan through what he's saying. What do I mean by that? Well, we're gonna use a couple of phrases. We'll use them over the next couple of weeks. But on one side of this, you've got
the phrase no longer, right? So no longer refers to who you are. are. Here's what I mean, right? The context of Galatians has been this idea of slavery, like that you've got to work hard, you've got to earn it, you've got to gain it. And Paul's coming along and going, in Christ, you have been set free. You no longer are under that. You no longer are under all these rules and regulations to try and earn God's favor. He goes, you're free from that. So what happens is what was true
of me is I was a slave. I was a slave to having to perform. I was a slave to having to earn my own worth and try and get a good standing with God. That's who I used to be. I'm no longer that. Why? Because now I am free. And so what happens is you follow this all the way through, right? You didn't have a right standing with God. You had no relationship. In fact, you were guilty before God. Jesus shows up, dies on the cross, and what's now transferred to you on your life
is that you are no longer guilty, right? So what was true is I was guilty. I am now no longer guilty. I am now not guilty because of the blood of Jesus. And you continue to follow this through. The idea of I've got to work and earn God's forgiveness. So on one side, I've got, I'm unforgiven. Well, in Jesus, you are no longer unforgiven. You guys, you realize right now, right now, today, even with all the feels you got, you will never be more forgiven than you are right now. You'll
never be more forgiven. How do I know that? Because in the droplets of blood from God himself on a cross, it says that he paid for all of your sin. All of it, past, present, future. It was all paid for. So what that tells me today is you are no longer unforgiven. You are forgiven. What was true of you is no longer true. Why? Because of the person of Jesus. The idea of self -worth, right? That I earn my own worth, that I earn my own standing with God, that's no longer
true. Why? Because now I have Jesus' worth. What Jesus did for me, that gives me worth, right? The idea of self -effort, right? That I just gotta work hard enough, strive hard enough, do enough good things. Can we just talk about something for a second? When somebody tells you, well, you're not a very good Christian, you know what I want you to tell them? That's not in the Bible. That phrase is not in the Bible. But somehow we associated it with, okay, there's good Christians
and there's bad Christians. Well, I guess I'm just a bad. No, no, you know what the Bible has? People who believe Jesus died for them on the cross and they become sons and daughters and people that don't. Right? That's it. It's that simple. You either are a follower of the way. You are, in the term we use as Christian, you either are that because you put your faith, trust, and hope in the person of Jesus and what he's
done, or you don't. But this whole idea of there's good and there's bad, all that is is me trying to get self -effort to be in the good category. That's no longer true of you. Why? Because you have Jesus' effort. What gives me any standing, any worth? It's not what I've done. It's what he's done. And the sooner we wrap our heads around this, the sooner we begin to understand where we actually live. And so on the one side, you have this idea of this is no longer true. All
these things that once were true of me. They're no longer true. You're no longer a slave. You're free. You're no longer guilty. You're not guilty. You no longer don't have a standing with God. You have a right standing with God. At one point in your life, you were trying to earn God's favor. You don't have to. You already have God's favor and you're in grace. Right? All of a sudden I stand on this side where my entire identity is
changed. What's also true on the other side, you'll see another phrase that says not yet. And what not yet is this, that you have an inheritance that is promised for you in eternity. That your inheritance, what the idea of heaven, the new heavens, the new earth, right? Like in everything that that brings, your complete identity, because you may stand here and especially next week when we get into the idea of I'm not being a slave to sin, right? Like not living for my own desires
and passions. You may go, well, I know that's true, but I don't feel that, right? That doesn't change that it's true. It means you just don't feel it. What is true of you is that you have been set free for how long? All of eternity, right? Like what's true of you, what's true of you is that your right standing with God lasts for all of eternity, void of how you feel here
and void of what you experience in life. Your inheritance, that you are a son and you are a daughter means that you're a co -heir with Jesus, that everything that is promised to Jesus is promised to you. That's all in eternity. But here's the thing. How do I know it's not yet? Well, it tells me in eternity, there's no more death. Anybody experiencing death still? Right? There's no more pain. Anybody experiencing pain?
That tells me what? We're not there yet. So what's true of you is your identity is completely changed and I'm still not in eternity with God yet. So that leaves this. You are in the in -between life. I'm living in between. I have a complete new identity, but I'm in the in -between life because I'm not yet in eternity. I'm not yet face to face. I'm still living by faith. I'm not living by sight yet. And here's what the enemy knows. Ready? This is the enemy's kind
of game plan. The enemy knows. He cannot change your identity. He cannot change who you are, who Jesus has made you. He can't touch that. Everybody excited about that? He can't touch it. What I mean by that is this. He can't come to you and go, oh, you think you're not guilty? Ah, I'm gonna say you're guilty. He can't change that. That's your identity before God, your right standing. Oh, you think you have a relationship with God? I'm gonna change that. You don't have
a relationship anymore. He can't change that. Oh, you're free? No, you're not. You're a slave. He can't change that. Oh, you think you're forgiven? No, you're not. You're unforgiven. The enemy cannot change that. He does not have that power over your life. Only God has the right and the power to tell you who you are in Jesus. And he paid for it to be true. So in this context, the enemy can't do anything to change your identity. Your identity is given by God in the person of
Jesus. Now, what the enemy also knows is that you have an inheritance and a future and he can't touch it. Your inheritance is secure. He doesn't get to go, oh no, we're revoking your past. He doesn't have that power. The enemy is so dumb. It's okay to call the enemy dumb. He's not that big and scary. I know the creator. He's a little bigger. But the enemy still thinks he can win. But I got a story that tells me that Jesus wins. So what is the enemy doing? If he knows he can't
win, what is he doing? Well, he's going to get whatever he can. What can he get? He can't get your identity. He can't get the no longer. He can't get your future. But he can get the in -between life. And that's what Paul is writing about in this section. He is writing about the in -between life. How do you live in the in -between where you have been set free? How do you navigate
this life? And so he goes on and he says, in that verse, he says, stand firm then, stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Stand firm then. What does stand firm mean? It means become who you are. Become who you are. Become who you're going to be. So in between, what he's saying is don't let the enemy pull you back and convince you
of things that are no longer true of you. Don't let the enemy pull you back and tell you things that aren't true of who you are, that God's upset with you because you did that last night. God's not upset with you. Why? Because when he looks at you, he sees the person of Jesus and he sees his sacrifice and what he has done and your standing has not changed before God just because you chose to do something. Isn't it funny how twisted we
get this, you guys? I don't know what kind of, maybe you're not churched and there's a blessing to that, trust me. I've been in church for as long as I can remember. Swore I would never do this. God had different plans. I can remember going to Sunday school as a little kid. Worst name ever for kids' church, by the way. No kid likes to go to school on the weekend. But we had Sunday school. And you would show up, and you know what? If you showed up with your Bible,
guess what would happen? You got a gold star. If I showed up, and I could say the Bible verse from the week before, that was two gold stars. And then guess what? If I had perfect attendance for whatever block of time that was set, that was another gold star. And if you got just enough gold stars, you got a reward. Now, I'm not knocking anybody that did that culture, grew up in that culture, whatever. But isn't it fascinating that what was connected to me is if I do these things,
I will earn what? I will earn some kind of favor. Now, translate that to a grown man. I have my prayer time this morning. I'm closer to God. No, I'm not. I couldn't be closer to God than I already am. The prayer time is just an expression of love in the relationship that I have with God. Isn't it funny? Like we get up and we're like, ooh, I got my French press. It's already going to be a good morning or whatever your coffee
of choice is. And I got some quiet time and I opened my Bible and I actually read a chapter, a whole chapter today. Oh, God's got to be like, we're just, we're tight today. You were tight before you ever started the coffee. But it's subtle, right? It's subtle what the enemy wants to do. The enemy wants to shift. So instead of my time with Jesus being, I have found something so valuable that everything else taints to it. So why wouldn't I spend time with what I value?
And so now the reading of my Bible is so that I can get to know this God. There's so much value and beauty inside of it that now when I sit with my Bible, it's about understanding him and seeing him and understanding his heart and letting that change me. But what the enemy will want to do is what? Shift it back to, ah, attaboy, good job. I think it's interesting that it's just wired, and we'll talk about it next week, but it's wired inside of us to earn God's approval.
It's wired inside of us to think that God is mad. that God is upset, that he is angry, when all that's flowed from the very throne of God is deep, passionate, pursuing love. You're so, I'm not preaching this in a, woo, look at you, you're amazing. I'm preaching this from God's perspective. You are so valuable to him that he cannot live without you. And what does the
enemy wanna do? The enemy wants to, his battle plan is if he can get you to forget who you are and what you've been given and forget the God that loves you and convince you otherwise, in the middle, you will live like you don't even know Jesus on the other side, which is why he says what he says next. Mark my words, I, Paul, tell you, That if you let yourselves be circumcised, that idea of circumcised is that you're still trying to earn God's favor. You're still trying
to self -effort this thing. You're still trying to self -worth this thing. Christ will be of no value to you at all. The enemy knows. The enemy knows, you guys, that if he can get you, if he can get you to believe the lies, to believe that the things that were who you were pre -Christ, pre -Jesus, If you can believe those and live in the middle like those things are true, he knows that you devalue Jesus with your life because your life will be about you. Think about it for
a second. The idea of self -worth, who are my eyes on? Me, you guys, I can remember so many times in my life where communion would happen and I would have instant feelings of guilt and shame and unworthiness. I can remember like sitting in communion, going through this list of what the last two days have been, let alone the last week and being like, God, I'm so sorry. I just
need your forgiveness. And all the while, all the while, a moment that should have been my eyes being on Jesus and his worth and how valuable he is and what he has done for me became how wretched I am and my eyes are on me and how I got to beg for this and I got to prove myself to God and then he will. That is not, that is not, that's the enemy getting in and going, hey, you're believing the wrong thing because truth is he has already done it and there's nothing
left to get. And so the enemy wants to convince you what? If the enemy can convince you that you live like you used to be, then guess what? Christ has no value to you. You devalue him. The other thing that the enemy will do, and we'll talk about this more next week, but the enemy wants you to believe that your future isn't secure. The enemy wants you to believe, he wants you to forget, right? Think about it for a second.
If you really get an idea of heaven and being with God, and you really get an idea of what the kingdom of heaven is like, then you long for it. You can't wait to be face to face and not walk by faith anymore, but walk by sight. You can't wait for a space where there is no
death and there is no pain. Like it just becomes this deep passion of yours that all of a sudden when I see what is ahead, when I see the future, when I see what God has promised, all the things, just like the man with the field, all of a sudden they don't look so good. All of a sudden, in light of the universe and what God is doing in the grand narrative, in the light of my future, all of a sudden I don't try and get that house.
Because it doesn't matter. All of a sudden, it's not about trying to find the right person and always trading up. All of a sudden, it's not about getting the best experience of this world and wringing it for everything it has. It doesn't matter. It loses its value. It's not there anymore. And if the enemy can convince you to get your eyes on earth instead of eternity, then you will live the in -between trying to collect everything you possibly can here, trying to hold on to it
with everything you've got. You realize, right, you're gonna get old. You're gonna get old. And what's crazy is in our culture, you can get shots for that. I don't mean drinking shots. That would be one way of doing it. Right? I can get an injection that pulls my face up a little bit. I can do these things to try and stay young forever. The problem is you're not going to stay young forever. And 20 years from now, it's not going to look so good because your face is going to be all
tight and nothing else is. You realize wrinkles are beautiful. Wrinkles prove that you have lived a life worth living. Wrinkles, wrinkles prove that you are that much closer to eternity. And that is a good thing because this place sucks. We just got to put it in perspective. We hold on to this like, oh, this is amazing. It's not even a shadow of what's to come. And at some point we have to realize. That if the enemy can convince you that this is worth holding on to,
right? Versus going, I'm letting go because I know my inheritance. When you can let go and you see some of these people and you're around them, you're like, it's like they don't care. Why? Because what they've learned, what they've learned is in the in -between, in the in -between, only one thing matters. Look at verse six with me. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision has any value. So all he's saying, you might be going, if you're new to this whole thing, you missed a couple of weeks, why are we talking about circumcision? This is weird, right? Okay, so in their culture, in their tradition, their religious tradition, there was a belief that to be in the in crowd, to be closer to God, then this had to happen, right? And so what he's getting at is neither of those things
actually matter. right? Like your self -effort, whether you do it this way or that way, none of that matters. Your to -do list of how do I be good? How do I make God happy? None of that matters. Listen to what he says, how we should live. The only thing, okay, if I say only, this is the only thing. Pretty pointed, right? The only thing, the only thing that counts. is faith
expressing itself through love. The only thing in this in -between life, between my new identity in Christ, this in -between and what is to come in eternity, the only thing that counts is that by faith, I reject. The enemy's battle plan. By faith, I go, this is who I am in Christ. I am no longer a slave. I am no longer guilty. I am no longer separated from God. I am no longer have to work my own way there. Like all of that, that's no longer true. By faith, I have to accept
that I am free today. That God looks at you and he is pleased with you today. That he looks at you and because of his son, you are forgiven today. That he looks at you and he declares you not. I'm not guilty because of Jesus. By faith, I have to accept that, right? And when I accept that and I'm living in this middle, by faith, I have to look at his future and what he writes. And by faith, I accept that this world is not my home. The new heavens and new earth someday.
But today, this old earth is groaning. It's falling apart. And by faith, I have to believe that this is the story I live inside of. And when, when I grasp that, it says, how do you do? What do you do next? You express. What is an expression? It is to put into visual form. How do I put all of this into visual form? How do I live in my day to day? It says by what? By love. By love. By love. You see, something amazing happens when you reject the enemy's plan and you see yourself
as Jesus sees you. All of a sudden, I have nobody to impress and nobody to prove anything to. All of a sudden, I don't have to collect all this stuff for here. Guess what I get to do? I'm not worried about me anymore. I'm worried about the expression of Jesus that is seen through me. And so now I start to love the person next to me. Now I start to love those in my family circle. Now I start to love those that I work with. Now I start to love those like when I go to a restaurant,
right? You just love the people around you unless it's cold, then you're not going there. Some of you, that was too soon. You're still grieving. Still grieving. But you're to love. You're now free. What are you free to? That I don't have to make this life about me. Jesus has freed me to make it about you. Jesus has freed me to make it about those around me. Jesus has freed me to serve. That I no longer have to worry about it. But here's the thing, that what he's getting
at is that your life matters. Your life counts. The way you live. Do you live like the man who found something so valuable that Jesus is so valuable that he'll give everything else away? so that you would know. I highly doubt that if you went to that man's field, he's like, oh, I just want to show you the grass. He's like, no, no, no, no, come look what I found. It's
mine and it's precious. Like that's the idea that Jesus is so valuable to you that you go, I'm going to live an expression of love that displays to everybody how valuable Jesus is. That's the power of your life. There was a man, I don't know if you saw the news this week. There was a man, he died. He was 114 years old. That's not a bad, in England we say that's not a bad
batting average, right? 114. What's significant about his passing is that 89 years old, he decided he saw a long distance runner and he decided he was gonna take up long distance running at 89 years old. Some of you are like, I'm not even close to that and I ain't running, right? 89 years old. Three years later, he finishes a marathon. He broke the record. I didn't even know there was a record for 90 plus in marathons. He broke the record by 58 minutes. Shattered it. He continued
to run all the way until he was 101. At 101, he set records that they had to create because nobody was doing it. At one point in his life, he was on a relay team and the overall total age was 397. People watched his life and were inspired so much so that the Queen Elizabeth gave him an award due for people in sports. It's sacrilege, but they took David Beth... Beckham, Adidas took David Beckham out of their spot and put this man in to prove that impossible is nothing.
Don't clap for that. To prove that impossible is nothing. He gave his life and he inspired people towards what? What he valued and it was running. One of my favorite quotes of him this week that I got to read, he's like, the first 20 miles, they're not difficult. The last six, I talked to God. What a beautiful testimony that a life can leave. Your life has immense value. You, you are the expression of Jesus to everyone
around you. And what you do with your life will either devalue that expression or add value to it. We started in here singing and we were singing about no one else, no one else, no one else is worthy. But Jesus. And I wonder what it would be like to close out the weekend. Because y 'all are last. In a way that where you stand and you take your voice and you go, I am going to use my voice as an expression of love to declare I found something so valuable. And his name is
Jesus. Would you stand right where you are? I need you to catch this. I need you to sing over the people next to you. Because they may not know yet the value that is in Jesus. His worth that no one else can compare. And your voice gets to be the expression for them today of the love of God. Let's sing together.