WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.080 But for tonight, the plan is to really hear a quite short and a simple message from verse 1 of the chapter that John read from. 00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:13.040 That's our text for tonight. If you look there, Galatians 5 verse 1. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:25.980 And I think there are two things for us to think about there. 00:00:25.980 --> 00:00:32.200 And Paul says, number one, Christ has set us free for freedom. 00:00:33.100 --> 00:00:41.420 Christ has set us free for freedom. Now, it seems a little bit cruel, doesn't it, to speak about that word at a time like this? 00:00:42.179 --> 00:00:51.579 But regardless of what the prime minister says at seven o'clock tonight, Christians have a freedom that cannot be taken away. 00:00:51.579 --> 00:00:58.439 Christians have a freedom that remains intact, whatever our circumstances. 00:00:59.939 --> 00:01:05.439 I don't know if that's your perception of the Christian life or of Christians themselves. 00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:10.019 Would you use that word to describe your Christian life? 00:01:10.019 --> 00:01:20.939 If not, it's not actually that surprising because the Christians in Galatia, to whom Paul writes, also struggled with this idea of freedom. 00:01:21.739 --> 00:01:23.199 They didn't get it. 00:01:24.379 --> 00:01:27.299 Notice how Paul phrases verse 1. 00:01:28.399 --> 00:01:31.599 For freedom, Christ set us free. 00:01:32.219 --> 00:01:35.920 Sounds really odd, doesn't it? As if he'd free us for any other reason. 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:37.659 It sounds obvious, Paul. 00:01:38.799 --> 00:01:45.560 But Paul states the obvious because for some of us, it's just not all that obvious. 00:01:47.159 --> 00:01:51.859 I don't really think that living for Jesus is about living a life of freedom. 00:01:53.320 --> 00:01:58.280 Jesus says that I've got to obey him and submit to him and follow his commands. 00:01:59.260 --> 00:02:01.520 I'm no longer in charge of my life. 00:02:01.620 --> 00:02:02.900 He is in charge of my life. 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:04.340 I am no longer Lord. 00:02:04.340 --> 00:02:05.299 He is. 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:07.280 Is that freedom? 00:02:08.219 --> 00:02:11.120 To obey his rules and regulations. 00:02:11.920 --> 00:02:14.560 To be locked in to Jesus's rule. 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:18.659 The Galatians were beginning to wonder on it. 00:02:19.259 --> 00:02:22.460 Actually, they were very good at following rules and regulations. 00:02:23.460 --> 00:02:29.199 You'll notice in this section that Paul deals with them keeping laws about circumcision. 00:02:29.199 --> 00:02:32.560 They were law people. 00:02:32.560 --> 00:02:35.819 They loved to follow the law, but not in a good way. 00:02:37.199 --> 00:02:39.699 At heart, they were moralists. 00:02:41.179 --> 00:02:42.299 They've got Jesus. 00:02:42.579 --> 00:02:45.879 They know about Jesus and what he's done to pay for our sins. 00:02:45.879 --> 00:02:49.219 But they want to add more to what he's done. 00:02:49.219 --> 00:02:52.000 They want to do a bit themselves to get righteous. 00:02:52.560 --> 00:02:56.299 To supplement the work of Christ with religious law keeping. 00:02:56.300 --> 00:03:00.719 But they've not understood the gospel properly. 00:03:00.719 --> 00:03:05.300 Christ has set us free for freedom. 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:11.000 And Paul, earlier in the letter, explains what this freedom is all about. 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:22.240 Earlier in chapter 2, he says in verse 16 that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus. 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:25.439 So did you hear what he says there? 00:03:25.600 --> 00:03:31.140 Jesus brings his people a freedom from works of the law. 00:03:32.140 --> 00:03:36.540 A freedom to be known and loved and accepted by God. 00:03:36.620 --> 00:03:39.100 That's what the word justified means. 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:45.500 To know friendship with God apart from our works of the law. 00:03:47.600 --> 00:03:51.480 That is not a freedom that most people think they need, is it? 00:03:52.240 --> 00:03:59.700 It's not a fashionable kind of freedom, like freedom of speech or freedom of movement or freedom of religion. 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:01.980 Freedom to do what you want to do. 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:07.320 It's a freedom, actually, with greater value than those freedoms. 00:04:07.939 --> 00:04:15.140 Because it's not a freedom to be ourselves, but a freedom from ourselves. 00:04:16.600 --> 00:04:21.500 A freedom from ourselves and the failures that we commit and carry with us. 00:04:21.500 --> 00:04:24.319 The failures that we carry before God. 00:04:25.319 --> 00:04:33.480 It's a freedom from facing the curse of our failure to live up to God's ways, his law in our lives. 00:04:34.540 --> 00:04:37.620 Freedom from works of God's law. 00:04:38.180 --> 00:04:41.060 Working to make ourselves right in God's sight. 00:04:41.060 --> 00:04:46.300 Paul says that by trusting in Jesus, we are freed from that. 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:52.120 He says in chapter three that Christ redeemed us. 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:55.399 He brought us back from the curse of the law. 00:04:56.259 --> 00:04:56.720 How? 00:04:57.160 --> 00:05:00.639 Well, not by God being less holy or having lower standards. 00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:05.620 But by becoming a curse for us, he says. 00:05:06.519 --> 00:05:08.560 And Paul is speaking there about the cross. 00:05:08.860 --> 00:05:13.839 Paul says that that on the cross is where Jesus brought us this freedom. 00:05:15.339 --> 00:05:17.419 He became cursed for us. 00:05:18.419 --> 00:05:19.379 He took our place. 00:05:19.379 --> 00:05:27.659 So as we read about the Lord Jesus in the Gospels, in the Bible, we see there a man who takes our place. 00:05:28.379 --> 00:05:30.639 Who becomes a curse for us. 00:05:30.719 --> 00:05:32.540 Who becomes cursed in our stead. 00:05:33.019 --> 00:05:34.699 He lives perfectly, doesn't he? 00:05:35.639 --> 00:05:38.300 And he's tempted, but he never sins. 00:05:38.819 --> 00:05:40.339 Never sins in anger. 00:05:41.279 --> 00:05:44.540 He's tempted with all kinds of things. 00:05:44.659 --> 00:05:46.620 With the lust and greed and power. 00:05:46.620 --> 00:05:48.939 But he never succumbs to those things. 00:05:49.500 --> 00:05:51.319 And he keeps God's law perfectly. 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:55.620 He loves his father with all of his heart and mind and strength. 00:05:56.319 --> 00:05:57.620 He loves his neighbor as himself. 00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:04.699 And then he dies the death that his people deserve in our place. 00:06:06.780 --> 00:06:13.019 So when we have a bad week, when we sin, when we fail under God's law, 00:06:13.019 --> 00:06:17.819 when we do things that we shouldn't do and when we don't do things that we should do, 00:06:18.719 --> 00:06:20.459 Jesus takes our place. 00:06:21.759 --> 00:06:26.240 Like we saw this morning, he goes before us when we fail. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:28.099 He takes our place. 00:06:28.799 --> 00:06:34.359 He takes our place under God's righteous wrath and hatred of our wrongdoing. 00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:40.020 So it's a freedom from works which fail. 00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:46.620 Freedom from the curse that we would inevitably get, from the curse that we deserve. 00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:49.639 And it's a freedom from our own pride. 00:06:50.740 --> 00:06:55.759 From heading into this week and relying on yourself and your own moral performance. 00:06:56.439 --> 00:06:58.819 Freedom from your own self-righteousness. 00:06:58.819 --> 00:07:00.680 Self-justification. 00:07:01.819 --> 00:07:03.259 Freedom from self altogether. 00:07:03.579 --> 00:07:04.240 From yourself. 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:12.240 You see, the Galatians, they thought that their obedience would lead to this freedom. 00:07:13.100 --> 00:07:15.319 But actually, it's the other way around, isn't it? 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:21.899 Jesus gives freedom by taking our place, which leads to obedience. 00:07:21.899 --> 00:07:26.679 And this is what the Bible calls grace. 00:07:27.739 --> 00:07:32.139 God blessing us, not because we're good, but because he is good. 00:07:32.799 --> 00:07:34.759 And there is a massive difference. 00:07:35.560 --> 00:07:40.079 For the Galatians, it was about performing this ceremony of circumcision. 00:07:40.599 --> 00:07:43.500 It was about their works before God. 00:07:44.060 --> 00:07:45.679 But Paul says in verse six, 00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:54.680 In Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision count for anything, but only faith working through love. 00:07:55.780 --> 00:08:05.319 So unless Jesus takes your place and frees you and you trust in him, you have faith in him to do that for you. 00:08:06.019 --> 00:08:10.420 Your works, what you do, count for nothing, Paul says. 00:08:10.420 --> 00:08:20.280 Unless Jesus sets you free from the curse that you deserve, your obedience, your good works count for nothing. 00:08:21.980 --> 00:08:27.600 And actually, the Galatians should have known that from how circumcision was given, 00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:32.399 because God has always worked in the same way in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. 00:08:32.620 --> 00:08:33.860 Grace comes first. 00:08:34.300 --> 00:08:36.220 And they should have known about God's grace. 00:08:36.220 --> 00:08:46.600 In the Old Testament, circumcision was given as an expression of faith in God's liberation for Abraham and his children. 00:08:48.300 --> 00:08:56.980 So God, remember, told Abraham in Genesis 17 to be circumcised and to circumcise his sons. 00:08:58.259 --> 00:09:02.080 But that wasn't so that God would then free them, is it? 00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:10.480 It was an expression. It was a sign of a freedom already given by God in God's salvation that came earlier. 00:09:10.879 --> 00:09:21.400 So earlier in Genesis 12, God told Abraham that he would bless Abraham and make of him a great nation and give him a land so that he would be a blessing. 00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:25.180 And that came out of the blue. God revealed himself to Abraham. 00:09:25.179 --> 00:09:30.559 God wasn't responding to Abraham's goodness or his performance. 00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:34.879 But Abraham was called to respond to God's goodness. 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:41.579 And we're told that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. 00:09:42.620 --> 00:09:50.240 He was in God's right in God's sight because he believed, because he had faith in God's grace. 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:52.539 That's before he did anything. 00:09:53.820 --> 00:09:57.480 And then God gave him circumcision as a mark of that faith. 00:09:58.680 --> 00:10:02.460 But what happened over time was that those two things got switched around. 00:10:03.180 --> 00:10:10.019 And rather than helping Abraham's offspring later in generations trust in God's freedom for them, 00:10:10.019 --> 00:10:20.460 circumcision had become the thing that was trusted in by God's people, the thing that was done to perform, to win freedom. 00:10:21.659 --> 00:10:31.399 And so our obedience can end up trying to pull God along behind us when actually it is God pulling us along in his goodness. 00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:36.399 But Christ comes then, doesn't he, to reorder things. 00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:40.659 He comes to bring freedom from thinking like that. 00:10:41.699 --> 00:10:46.340 For freedom, he has set us free from works of the law. 00:10:47.799 --> 00:10:53.220 So secondly, Paul says, don't submit again to a yoke of slavery. 00:10:54.439 --> 00:10:57.279 Christ has set us free for freedom. 00:10:57.279 --> 00:11:04.360 So verse one, stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:08.199 Stand in your freedom as a believer in Christ. 00:11:08.740 --> 00:11:09.559 Hold on to it. 00:11:09.720 --> 00:11:10.159 Live it. 00:11:11.039 --> 00:11:12.879 Don't become a slave again. 00:11:14.559 --> 00:11:19.419 Now, again, we ask the question, why on earth does Paul put it like that? 00:11:19.559 --> 00:11:21.079 Why does he need to say that? 00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:29.460 You know, if you let someone out of prison, do you need to hold them back from trying to get back in again? 00:11:30.180 --> 00:11:33.580 Are they desperate to get back into the cells? 00:11:35.320 --> 00:11:38.820 Well, actually, in reality, sometimes, yes, it's true. 00:11:38.900 --> 00:11:39.520 They are. 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:47.659 You see, the human heart and mind is like the heart and mind of a kind of institutionalized prisoner. 00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:55.720 Who's been inside for a long, long time and who on release day can't seem to cope with the outside world. 00:11:56.259 --> 00:11:58.159 They can't cope with freedom. 00:11:59.059 --> 00:12:02.299 So they reoffend to get back into prison. 00:12:02.439 --> 00:12:03.500 It's really odd, isn't it? 00:12:03.500 --> 00:12:09.019 But it happens because life seems better on the inside than being let out. 00:12:10.620 --> 00:12:12.059 And we're like that, aren't we? 00:12:12.059 --> 00:12:22.899 We're so tuned to being slaves to our own pride and our own performance that we just don't get it when God frees us from those things. 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:26.960 And the history of God's people shows that. 00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:35.780 Remember, God's first big rescue mission was to rescue his people from slavery in Egypt. 00:12:37.019 --> 00:12:40.660 What is the first thing that God's people do when they're released? 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:43.100 They want to go back. 00:12:44.720 --> 00:12:51.240 This freedom that Jesus gives us is something in a sense that we long for and we want. 00:12:51.240 --> 00:12:52.360 And it sounds good. 00:12:52.980 --> 00:12:54.560 Freedom from works of the law. 00:12:55.399 --> 00:12:58.240 And yet something in us makes us go back. 00:12:59.399 --> 00:13:09.259 We want to submit again to a yoke of slavery, to the shackles of our performance, of our works of the law. 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:17.659 Now, I think it's pretty safe to say that not many of us tonight attempted to start getting into circumcision, are we? 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:20.379 Don't think that's an issue for most of us. 00:13:20.379 --> 00:13:27.500 You'd have thought then that this letter to the Galatians has become a bit out of touch. 00:13:28.220 --> 00:13:29.899 We're not struggling with this, are we? 00:13:30.980 --> 00:13:40.919 But Paul hints at what lies at the heart of their problem, which actually is a temptation we all face and share in every age. 00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:48.259 Because earlier in the letter, he talks about something called the elementary principles of the world. 00:13:48.259 --> 00:13:54.679 You see that phrase a couple of times in chapter four, the elementary principles of the world. 00:13:54.939 --> 00:14:03.399 It's describing the basic principles, the basic values of the world that we live in, in every age. 00:14:03.399 --> 00:14:13.559 A world trying to deal with the human condition, trying to deal with human failure and sin underneath God. 00:14:13.559 --> 00:14:19.759 And that is because all of us are created as moral creatures. 00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:22.959 We're created with consciences. 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:27.100 We're made to tell the difference between right and wrong. 00:14:27.620 --> 00:14:33.420 And our consciences communicate to us that we've fallen short of God's glory. 00:14:33.419 --> 00:14:38.099 We know that when we lash out at our kids, we've done wrong. 00:14:38.839 --> 00:14:43.500 When we envy someone and their things and that consumes us, we're doing wrong. 00:14:43.779 --> 00:14:49.399 Or when we become overanxious and we're untrusting of God's goodness, we've done wrong. 00:14:49.479 --> 00:14:54.399 And when we're proud and so on, every day we're reminded that we fall short. 00:14:54.399 --> 00:15:02.539 I think just as an aside, this lockdown situation makes us face our failures in a much more raw way, doesn't it? 00:15:03.319 --> 00:15:04.539 There are less distractions. 00:15:05.159 --> 00:15:08.959 We're facing our sinfulness in a much more stark way. 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:17.360 And yet, strangely, if I don't know this freedom that Jesus gives me, the values of the world, 00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:23.279 the elementary principles of the world keep telling me that I can do this. 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:35.480 We are so easily seduced into believing that we actually can gain all the approval we need from God just by our behaviour. 00:15:37.639 --> 00:15:42.259 You see, the world's problem isn't that there is no morality in the world. 00:15:43.139 --> 00:15:46.220 It's not that we've become empty of all moral judgments. 00:15:47.039 --> 00:15:50.039 At the moment, that's really, really clear, actually. 00:15:50.039 --> 00:15:55.740 If you look at how people are behaving, there is a strong sense of morality in this country. 00:15:56.740 --> 00:16:02.439 As we praise the sacrifice and service of NHS staff or World War II heroes, 00:16:02.819 --> 00:16:04.339 they're lauded rightly, aren't they? 00:16:04.839 --> 00:16:07.159 And we frown at flouters in the park. 00:16:08.699 --> 00:16:12.419 People have a keen sense of morality at the moment. 00:16:12.419 --> 00:16:15.539 But the problem here is not morality. 00:16:16.019 --> 00:16:17.379 It is moralism. 00:16:19.579 --> 00:16:23.620 Moralism is when we take our morality and we make it our God. 00:16:24.979 --> 00:16:29.319 We take our moral performance and we make it our saviour. 00:16:30.719 --> 00:16:33.839 And we can even do that with God's morals and laws. 00:16:34.599 --> 00:16:35.779 They're good things. 00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:38.240 And yet we can make them our saviours. 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:40.060 Yes, it's possible. 00:16:40.720 --> 00:16:46.720 You can use God's laws actually to push God and his grace away from you. 00:16:47.039 --> 00:16:48.700 It's what the Galatians were doing. 00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:52.600 It's quite clever the way that Paul speaks in this passage, 00:16:52.600 --> 00:16:55.740 because as they were circumcising themselves, 00:16:56.740 --> 00:17:01.620 Paul, in a backhanded comment, uses a lot of cutting language in the passage. 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:04.400 In verse four, look at what he says. 00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:10.480 By trusting in circumcision, they were severing themselves away from Christ. 00:17:11.600 --> 00:17:13.920 Cutting themselves away from God. 00:17:14.540 --> 00:17:16.840 Cutting themselves away from grace. 00:17:18.800 --> 00:17:19.920 Do you see what they were doing? 00:17:20.019 --> 00:17:24.200 They were using God's laws to cut God out. 00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:26.420 Literally in this case. 00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:29.880 And that is what moralism is. 00:17:29.880 --> 00:17:36.740 It is a deadly mixture of morality mixed with pride and self-righteousness. 00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:38.840 And it is so addictive. 00:17:39.980 --> 00:17:43.300 Because it puts myself back in control. 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:47.700 Jesus comes to take our place. 00:17:48.760 --> 00:17:52.180 And we are tempted to say, it's OK, Jesus. 00:17:52.180 --> 00:17:57.660 Jesus, I can face this and deal with my own sins before God by myself. 00:17:57.759 --> 00:17:58.660 Thank you very much. 00:18:00.259 --> 00:18:04.420 And of course, the mistake there is to think that our sins aren't so bad. 00:18:05.240 --> 00:18:07.880 And that our good works are so good. 00:18:08.660 --> 00:18:10.060 And that I'm good enough. 00:18:10.620 --> 00:18:12.120 So I can do it myself. 00:18:12.120 --> 00:18:13.539 But that is a lie. 00:18:14.420 --> 00:18:16.840 But we're just so used to believing it. 00:18:16.839 --> 00:18:21.740 Jesus sets us free for freedom. 00:18:22.919 --> 00:18:26.299 But that freedom means letting him do it. 00:18:27.119 --> 00:18:28.439 Letting him be Lord. 00:18:29.539 --> 00:18:33.939 Letting him take my place in earning righteousness before God. 00:18:35.619 --> 00:18:38.059 And that is upside down thinking, isn't it? 00:18:38.059 --> 00:18:50.039 If you submit to Christ as Lord and you become his slave, as he becomes your master, he sets you free from that lie. 00:18:50.839 --> 00:18:57.720 But when you free yourself from him and his work, you become a slave to that lie. 00:18:57.940 --> 00:18:59.139 And it's misery again. 00:18:59.259 --> 00:19:01.139 You become a slave to yourself again. 00:19:01.140 --> 00:19:05.160 You'll have probably heard this story before. 00:19:05.800 --> 00:19:10.120 But the story goes of an Afro-Caribbean guy called Ludger Silbaris. 00:19:10.460 --> 00:19:22.580 And Silbaris became famous because he was one of the only two men who survived a massive volcano eruption in the town of St. Pierre on an island in the Caribbean. 00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:24.440 It happened in 1902. 00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:31.880 And the volcano eruption was so severe that it killed about 40,000 people on the island. 00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:35.299 But Silbaris, this guy, survived it. 00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:40.400 But the thing about his story was how he survived it. 00:19:41.360 --> 00:19:48.039 Because he and another guy were the only two men at the time in St. Pierre's underground prison. 00:19:48.039 --> 00:19:54.500 And as the volcano erupted, they were locked up in the dungeons beneath the island. 00:19:55.079 --> 00:19:56.480 They were slaves. 00:19:57.839 --> 00:20:02.680 But what they thought was their prison ended up freeing them. 00:20:03.980 --> 00:20:11.059 The prison protected them as the free men and women on the surface were killed. 00:20:11.059 --> 00:20:18.419 You see, it was a slavery that brought them freedom and life. 00:20:19.899 --> 00:20:24.059 And it's kind of what we've seen, haven't we, about belonging to the Lord Jesus. 00:20:25.159 --> 00:20:32.000 That being his slave, when he is Lord, frees us. 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:47.039 That as he calls to us to obey him and serve him and follow his law, he calls us to do that, not to earn freedom, but in response to the freedom that he's already given by taking our place. 00:20:48.400 --> 00:20:50.619 And that is grace, isn't it? 00:20:51.460 --> 00:20:55.339 And that drives us to live godly lives. 00:20:55.339 --> 00:21:01.220 That's what Paul says in Titus, remember when we looked at it as a church a while ago. 00:21:01.359 --> 00:21:07.799 For the grace of God has appeared, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. 00:21:09.699 --> 00:21:17.559 When he takes our place as our saviour, we begin to enjoy this freedom and actually serve him in it all the more. 00:21:17.559 --> 00:21:27.659 He frees us from the perfect demands of God's law so that we can enjoy the delights of God's law. 00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:39.819 Martin Luther said that the gospel supplies the world with the salvation of Jesus Christ, peace of conscience and every blessing. 00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:44.500 And just for that, the world hates the gospel. 00:21:44.500 --> 00:21:47.640 Why does it do that? 00:21:49.099 --> 00:21:53.680 Why does the world hate the good news of Jesus taking our place? 00:21:55.220 --> 00:22:02.039 Because the world with its elementary principles would make moralists of us all. 00:22:03.420 --> 00:22:10.720 We value every freedom available apart from the freedom not to earn our own salvation. 00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:15.720 The values of the world want all the freedoms of liberal society. 00:22:17.100 --> 00:22:20.539 But sees no value in the freedom that Jesus gives. 00:22:21.740 --> 00:22:26.519 Not freedom to be ourselves, but a freedom from ourselves. 00:22:27.799 --> 00:22:30.579 Because we're so tempted to make the self king. 00:22:32.460 --> 00:22:37.559 Paul isn't saying at all that God doesn't care whether we obey him or not. 00:22:37.759 --> 00:22:39.220 That's not what grace is about. 00:22:39.220 --> 00:22:46.240 He is pleased when we obey him and we follow his law and displeased when we sin against him. 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:59.579 But this is the yoke of which Paul speaks of that wants to make your behaviour the measure of your value and meaning and worth before God and your acceptance before him. 00:23:00.220 --> 00:23:03.720 That if you perform well this week, you'll have had a good week. 00:23:04.019 --> 00:23:09.620 But if you don't, you'll have some more work to do next week to get back into God's good books. 00:23:09.619 --> 00:23:11.439 But that's not the gospel. 00:23:12.579 --> 00:23:15.000 That's not the freedom that Jesus brings. 00:23:17.159 --> 00:23:24.500 Augustine said of this strange relationship that we have with Jesus as he is Lord over us, he frees us. 00:23:24.500 --> 00:23:28.420 He says, any other burden oppresses and crushes you. 00:23:29.140 --> 00:23:32.859 But Christ's burden actually takes weight off you. 00:23:34.019 --> 00:23:36.259 Any other burden weighs you down. 00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:39.720 But Christ's burden gives you wings. 00:23:41.079 --> 00:23:43.039 He uses the analogy of a bird. 00:23:43.180 --> 00:23:48.599 If you take a bird's wings away, you might seem to be taking weight away from it. 00:23:48.599 --> 00:23:54.399 But the more weight you take off, the more you tie it down to the earth. 00:23:55.099 --> 00:23:59.079 There it is on the ground and you wanted to relieve it of weight. 00:23:59.879 --> 00:24:05.339 But give it back the weight of its wings and you will see how it flies. 00:24:07.179 --> 00:24:09.759 It's a slavery that frees. 00:24:11.459 --> 00:24:13.199 Jesus says to us, doesn't he? 00:24:13.679 --> 00:24:17.719 Let me burden you down with my lordship this evening. 00:24:18.599 --> 00:24:20.579 Come under my yoke. 00:24:21.399 --> 00:24:22.599 Be my slave. 00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:23.939 Be my servant. 00:24:25.519 --> 00:24:30.819 And as you come under me, feel the weight lifting off you. 00:24:32.039 --> 00:24:37.079 Feel the weight of guilt and misery lifting off you. 00:24:38.099 --> 00:24:40.099 Because I took your place. 00:24:41.679 --> 00:24:44.679 For freedom Christ has set us free. 00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:47.480 So stand firm, therefore. 00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:52.279 And do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 00:24:53.480 --> 00:24:54.660 Let's pray together. 00:24:54.660 --> 00:24:55.100 Let's pray together. 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100 00:24:55.100 --> 00:24:55.100