Uncommon: Freedom
Pastor Rollan Fisher
Focus: We are called to live in an uncommon freedom through the power of and eternal perspective of Jesus Christ.
Feelings vs. Flesh
Spirit vs. Flesh
Uncommon Freedom in Christ
Feelings vs. Flesh
Our feelings are valuable and God-given, but must not be our masters in this world.
“You are tempted without ceasing, so pray without ceasing.”
-Charles Spurgeon
We have constant enemies of:
Bitterness (we’ll speak about this next week)
Jealousy
Envy
that war against our souls (our mind, will and emotions).
Jesus comes to be the Lord and liberator of our souls as we repent of our sins and look to his healing and forgiveness at the cross.
Galatians 5:16-26 ESV
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
Though your feelings are very real to you, it does not mean that they are reality.
We were introduced to Anxiety, Ennui (boredom), Embarrassment and Envy.
Our feelings can become our reality if we focus on them more than we focus on God’s truth in his Word and what the Spirit of God speaks to us.
“What we think about when we are free to think about what we will – that is what we are or will soon become.”
― A.W. Tozer
Proverbs 23:7 NKJV
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you.
Spirit vs. Flesh
The Word and Spirit of God lead you to power over corruptible flesh and common anxieties of this world.
A recent study found that as an older generation, we have fallen short in creating environments allowing people to fail and pick themselves up again - we haven’t taught them how.
Many young adults feel paralyzed thinking, “I don’t want to commit to anything because if I’m labeled, then I have a pressure to succeed at it.”
A 2021 Gen Z Barna report identified them as having these driving characteristics:
“A pressure to be successful”
“A need to be perfect”
“Judged by older generations”
“Pressured by parents expectations”
Yet these pressures affect not only Gen Z, but have filtered into societal consciousness as a whole.
Choice overload, otherwise known as choice paralysis or the paradox of choice is a very real challenge in today’s modern environment.
Whereas rising income promised to give freedom, technology opportunity and social media connection a window to the world, what people have instead been met with are paralyzing anxiety, doubts, envy and jealousy regarding the lives that they do not have rather than joy in the ones that they are actually living.
Even in the church, we see it reflected.
One of the young women interviewed for the Fuller Youth Institute described it this way:
So what is the solution?
Proverbs 22:4
“The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.”
Even in business, the exhortation given by Rick Warren in the Purpose Driven Life is appropriate:
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others. Humble people are so focused on serving others, they don’t think of themselves.”
What do we do when we’ve failed to meet such lofty and pious goals?
We learn a new confidence and freedom through the gospel and Spirit of God.
Romans 8:1-11 ESV
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
In the gospel, we learn how to fail and allow God to pick us up again.
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
The righteous requirements of the law have been fully met in us because of Jesus’ sinless life - his record imputed to us by faith.
We are freed from the paralysis of indecision because we are walking with God, and are not afraid to give ourselves to the trying because our identity is not wrapped up in others’ perception of success, but in Christ.
The key to uncommon freedom is setting your mind on Jesus and what the Holy Spirit desires as revealed in God’s word.
When we are not myopic, but choose to die to ourselves in order to glorify God, we access the power of resurrection life and actually live.
“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.
If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.”
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Uncommon Freedom in Christ
There is an uncommon freedom released to us when we learn to live for Jesus alone.
Romans 8:12-17 ESV
“So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
There is an uncommon freedom available to us as we put our faith in and submit to the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Spirit by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Acts 16:7; Philemon 1:19).
When we turn to Jesus, God distributes an unmerited favor, a grace that paid for our sins by the death of Christ at the cross and a forgiveness released by Christ’s resurrection from the dead as we repent of our self-absorbed rebellion.
In this gospel, he calls us to live no longer for ourselves, but him who died and gave himself for us - for our freedom.
There is a freedom in learning to die to yourself that you might live solely for Christ.
“People imagine that dying to self makes one miserable. But it is just the opposite. It is the refusal to die to self that makes one miserable. The more we know of death with Him, the more we shall know of His life in us, and so the more of real peace and joy.
His life, too, will overflow through us to lost souls in a real concern for their salvation, and to our fellow Christians in a deep desire for their blessing.”
The Calvary Road by Roy Hession
In the workplace, in our relationships, in the recesses of our own minds and hearts, we can all find this uncommon freedom and an eternal joy when we truly allow Christ to be our anchor and his good news our all in all.
Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher