Northside Church - Sydney
Realigned to Freedom – The Book of Galatians Week 4: Freedom of the Gospel
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, I was only a little toddler, only just that high, and I remember Dad kneeling down and getting eye to eye as you do with kids, good parenting technique, and he said, "Sam, what do you think heaven is like?" And I said, "Heaven is like being able to go to the fridge and pour your own juice." And just as the God was with the boy prophet Samuel in the Old Testament, I think he was with that young Samuel, because it's only until recently in going through this passage that I understood the profundity of what I was saying back then. What I was saying is that heaven is freedom. Heaven is freedom, and that's what the gospel call is, where as many people might think that religion is a call to morality, that religion is a call to conformity. We see that the gospel is a call to pour your own juice. It's a call to freedom. It's a call to freedom, and that's what we see in the passage tonight. What have we covered thus far has been walking through the book of Galatians. We've covered the week one that covered Demtel Christianity, that different gospel is no gospel at all. I know you want more, and that's the challenge with this is we always want to add more to the work of Jesus Christ. We've also seen that the gospel is a spirograph, that it's a guide for our life that draws out the most wonderful and intricate patterns, patterns that we couldn't possibly draw ourselves. Then last week we saw that the gospel is Christianity, not Christianity, that the gospel is not adhering to a set of religious beliefs, but the gospel is more than that. It's an experience, and tonight we see that the gospel is freedom. Once this passage is teaching, it teaches the gospel is a call to freedom, that the concept of Christian, this is the thing, the concept of Christian freedom can be confusing on one hand because Paul said throughout the letter of Galatians that we're free from the supervision of the law, chapter 3, verse 25, but then we are no longer under the law in verse 18 of this chapter. What does that mean? Are we free to just tightly disregard God's glory's way for life? If not, what does Christian freedom consist of? That's what we're going to look at tonight in the book of Galatians chapter 5. You can open your Bibles with us. It is for freedom, that Christ has set us free, stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burned again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words. I Paul tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised, that it is his obligation to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen away from grace, but by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Oh come on, you're running a good race who cut in on you and you kept from obeying the truth. That kind of persuasion doesn't come from the one who calls you. A little yeast works its way through the whole batch of dough and I'm confident in the law that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty whoever he may be. Brothers, if I'm still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves. You my brothers were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. The gospel is a call to freedom and lots of ways that we can think about freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of rights. We can think of Mel Gibson in that movie, Braveheart, freedom. There are lots of ways we can think about freedom of freedom. How does the world see freedom? Look, the world sees freedom like the rolling stone see freedom because I'm free to do it I want any old time and all sorts of chinky 80s remakes of it as well. Look it up on YouTube, but that's the world's freedom, isn't it? The world's freedom says, "I'm only free if I am free to do whatever I want." Wouldn't you agree? The fewer restrictions I have, the fewer restraints I have, the freer I am, but here's the funny thing, freedom's more complicated than that. The gospel says, "You're free," verse 1 says, "For freedom Christ to set you free." Now, does that mean we can do whatever we want? Does it mean we can go crazy? What does it mean? All this, what is the freedom of the gospel, how does it differ? It's like the little boy that said to his mum, "I want to get a pet, I want to have a cat or a dog." And the mum didn't want all the stuff around the house, so he got him a fish. And so he was off, he was really quiet, and she said, "How's your little pet fish going?" And he said, "Oh, look, he's all right. He played for a little while on the rug, and then he just seemed to stop flapping anymore." He says, "John Stott puts it, 'Freedom is not the absence of restrictions.'" Fish is free to jump out of the tank, but there's a context, there's an environment that you were built for, made for, and unless you're moving into that place, then you've got a false freedom, you've got a pseudo-freedom, you just flapping around on the rug. You see, freedom is not the absence of restrictions. And here's the paradox, the principle of it all is that the liberty of restrictions that we see in this paradox that is the gospel, the liberty of that is that we're restricted now in order to reach a deeper freedom. I've said this before, if I want to play the piano like Michael Thomas, I want to smash out a bit of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, I'm sure the fingers are not going to do the work as elegantly and as beautifully as his does. That's because I've also got chunky fingers, but that's a whole nother story. The whole point is that you subject yourself into a, you restrict yourself into the discipline of playing and of scales, here's the principle, in order to reach a deeper freedom, in order to reach a freedom that you don't have to think about hitting the notes, you don't have to think about the music that's coming up at you, you just transcend all that is happening, you swept up in the music, you know what I'm saying? So freedom is not the absence of restrictions, but is it all about restriction, is it all about discipline then? I mean, come on, like if someone said to me, hey, you'd be a really good NBA basketball player, at my whopping five foot ten or whatever it might be, I come on, let's be real here, I could practice all I want, I could dribble all I might want, but there's a context that I'm made for, that's not basketball. You see, it's not just restrictions, it's knowing where you fit freedom is not the absence of restrictions nor the presence of restrictions, but the presence of the right restrictions. The ones that fit your nature, the ones that fit who you are, the ones that fit with the truth of who you are in God. Look, freedom's not a muso, trying to be a basketballer, and freedom is not a basketballer trying to be a muso. True freedom is the freedom to be ourselves, who God has designed us to be. The freedom that is a gospel is to wholly want the environment that you're made for. Are you a fish out of water tonight? Are you flipping around on the rug, you see the environment, your water, your tank is such the environment you were built for is the love of God. And the irony is that love is the perfect example of the complexity of that freedom. Love shows us that freedom isn't the absence of restrictions, I remember when I was here one night and I got caught up in everything and I was back late and I get in the car and I see 15 missed phone calls and then I get home to poor Chris, I've checked it's okay to share with her tonight, I get home to poor things in tears, there's my scar running down the face, she's like, "How come you didn't call me? I thought you were dead!" I jump, you know, amateur hour as far as, you see, it was the first time I realised right boys, I'll just give you a few tips that love is not the absence of restrictions. You see, what we see in all that, the closer the relationship of love, the less independent you can be. Now of course George Michael seems to disagree, what as he says, "All we have to do now is take these lies and make them true somehow, and all we have to see is that I don't belong to you and that you don't belong to me, yeah, yeah, freedom, you know, I won't let you down." All right George, check your lyrics mate, "I don't belong to you and you don't belong to me." The closer the relationship of love, the less independent you can be, that's the nature of our relationship we've gone. Gospel freedom is not the absence of restrictions but the presence of the right ones, and the world thinks freedom is how the rolling stones put it, "I'm free to do whatever I want any old time." That's not freedom, you're flapping around on the rug, and maybe look, maybe this fear of the free I am, maybe that's part of the reason why people, I'm sure it is part of the reason why people hesitate to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, why people hesitate to step into Christianity because they say, "I'm going to lose my freedom," but they don't understand the complexity of that freedom, they don't understand the depth, the deeper freedom that's beyond the restrictions, the deeper freedom allows you to just to get lost in the music that is God's love. What they don't see is the Bible, there's all full of sorts of freedom, language. You remember Jesus and he goes into the temple and he's there and he pulls out the Isaiah scrolls and he says, "I've come to preach the good news to the poor and to do what? To set the captives free." Nice work, you guys get an A. The Bible's all about freedom. Jesus is all about freedom, so the question is how does gospel freedom work and see the whole thesis of what Paul is saying for the whole of the book of Galatians verse one of this chapter, "It's for freedom that Christ has set us free," stand firm then, "and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery," stand firm. What's chapter five? What's he saying? What's he getting at? He's saying that it's a trapeze freedom. Anyone here ever had the wonderful joy of learning how to do trapeze? You haven't. I have to explain it to you because we got one down here, thanks Rachel, it's really good. I was in Bintan, Indonesia and trapeze, look, do you know what trapeze is? It's the funny thing you see at the circus, people swing off the bar and I was over there with Mike McQueen and we were swinging from either ends with this particular trapeze type thing and we were 15, 20, 30 meters above the ground and I'm holding on to do life on this bar as I look down. Then the instructor said that we had to hook our legs over the bar and then Mike and I were sort of doing this, you know, how they're swinging backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards and so here I was holding on to this bar for dear life and then I could see Michael and just right at the right time I heard the instructor say, "Go!" and it was there that I set the legs free and burst out from this and for a brief moment I felt like Superman or a gliding possum and I was sort of through the air like this and then of course I felt the strong grip of Mike's hands on the other side and we'd made it and what am I saying here, look, Christian freedom is like this, there's not only a freedom from but there's a freedom for, you can't just be freed from something because you've got to be freed to something, for something, so there's a freedom from what does Paul say in verse 1, he's saying we're free from the obligation to obey the law of God, that's the first thing that Jesus Christ has done for us, that's what we've been looking at in the book of Galatians and then in verse 2 to 4 he gives us a warning, he says he can lose that freedom, if you want to go back to your legalistic nature, if you want to go back to what these Judaeizers were saying, if you want to go back to a little bit of Christ+ type work then you're in danger of losing that incredible freedom, you're free from the law and he's saying that the warning is if you go back into that, if you just want to do one little bit of the law then the way it works is you've got to fulfill the whole law and everyone knows the deep heart of hearts, we can't do that, that's why we needed Jesus in the first place, that's what we've been talking about and so it says, you know, only Christ has fulfilled the requirements of the law and so you receive His marked by faith and so it's saying by faith in Jesus you've been freed from the obligation to obey, that's great news tonight, it's not about moral performance, it's not about living up to a particular standard because Christ done it for you, He's lived the life that you need to live, done it, here's the other thing, freedom from that leads us into an even deeper one, it frees you from the reasons why you were obeying in the first place, you see up until that point when you're under the law Paul is saying that the reason that we only ever obey is in order to get ourselves right with God, the law was only ever a means to an end, the law was only a means for us to patch up our rightness with God and so given that Jesus has done it for us, if we realize that we've been freed from this obligation and if it all counts for nothing then why would I continue to perform, that the whole reason changes in order to be right with God, before the reason was I was obeying because I have to, now it counts for nothing then I'm also free from the reasons for my good works and my good performance, so I'm free from the obligation to obey, I'm free from the motivation to obey as the means to be right with God, look and what that means deeper for us is we've got a freedom from fear, we've got a freedom from that point whether we think about it or not or whether it's going to be the moment before we think that we're going to meet God face to face, we're free from the fear that is God going to accept me, we're free from that fear am I am I going to be right with God, instead as verse 5 says we eagerly await through the spirit for the righteousness for which we hope, what it means is, what it means practically, let me get it here, what it means practically is that you come tomorrow, the worst thing in the world that can happen to you, get hit by a car is the best thing that can happen to you, if you have faith in Jesus, the worst thing that can happen to you is the best thing that can happen to you, you're free from the obligation to obey the law of God and what that means is that Christian freedom from means you no longer obey God because you have to, we don't obey because we have to, now what does this mean, do we keep on sinning? Remember Paul in Romans 5, 6, he's talking about the gospel and he's having a rhetorical argument with himself, it seems like Paul liked to talk to himself quite a lot, interesting maybe it's all that time in a prison by himself, I'm not too sure, but he puts up this argument if we hear the gospel of grace which that is right there, what should we do, you know hear that we've got no obligation to obey the law, when we hear that, that's the question we're asking, what should we do then, keep on sitting and Paul says come on, no you don't know who you are and here's where it gets confusing because he's saying you're freed from obeying the law but because of what Jesus has done, because of the way that it's come about, because of the grace that God's given to you, now you have even more of a reason to obey it, you're free from it because of the love that God has shown us in Jesus, you've got even more of a reason to obey it, he's saying by his work and not ours, by Jesus has passed and not ours, by Jesus's rightness and not ours, then we've got even more reasons to obey, that we're free from the law but we've got more of a reason to obey it, so the question is which way is it Paul, how do we look at this, so Christian freedom from but we also, the Christian freedom, the gospel freedom is for, now here's the interesting thing, if you're not, what we're saying before, if you're not free from out underneath the law then you've only ever been obeying God's way of life, he's law here in the Bible for your own sake, if you've only ever been doing it for your own sake, that is you've been resting on your own moral put achievements in order to be right with God, a practical example, you know, you go, people that haven't come into the grace and the power of the gospel, people are doing the religious thing, when they're going and giving to the needy or they're serving the needy, they're doing all this stuff and they're out there and they're serving and they're with the poor and really deep down in the very heart, heart, heart, heart of it, they're saying look at all this good stuff that I'm doing, am I right with you, am I right with you, am I right with you, you see, they're doing it for their own sake, it's leverage goodness, God look at all this stuff I'm doing, you've got to bless me, you've got to let me in, can't look, can't you see what's happening here, it's like what Martin Luther says that without an experience of God's grace all good deeds are essentially self-interested, because in other words, until you've come out from underneath the law, you've never been living for anything except yourself, you've just been trying to get right with God out of your own individual journey, but gospel freedom changes your motivation, it changes your reason for obeying, look, why do you pray, why do you read the Bible, why do you turn up the church, why do you do anything that's got to do with the Christian life, and that's the reasons, that's the two different reasons that Paul says is as different as two tightly different religions, they're two different reasons that create two tightly different types of people, they're the reasons of our mind doing it because I have to, or because I want to, so how else can I put it, look, why do we obey God, is it why you obey God, is it because you have to live up to this expectations, he changes your reason for doing everything, is why you obey God because you have to or you want to, look, if we're constantly preaching the gospel to ourselves, we're doing what Martin Luther told us, remember the other week, we're preaching it to our hearts and we're constantly beating it into our heads, if we're taking that gospel that there's no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus, if we're taking the gospel that your sins can never separate you from God, if you take the gospel that your acceptance with God is totally complete based on Christ past and not yours, based on his performance and not yours that you're totally accepted, you're totally completely accepted, you don't do it because you have to, it's the Billy Piper principle, because we want to, because we want to, we obey because we want to, the Titus chapter 2 verse 13 to 14 says the grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness, the grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness, it's saying there, it's saying that gospel freedom frees us to live any way we want, it frees us to live any way we want, but the gospel teaches us to say no, take lying for example, if you go and lie, the real question is not why did I lie, but the question is why did I want to lie, and when we hold the gospel up to our lives, we've talked this through before, at that point in time we say if we're, we're, we're lying to get approval from someone and we're saying that at that point in time the approval of that other person is more important to us than the approval of, of Jesus Christ, and so when we use the gospel on our hearts and, and, and in that moment we'll say oh look I, I'm accepted by the only person, I'm approved by the only person that ever counts, then the gospel frees us to say I don't need this thing, I don't need this approval and so I can tell the truth, I don't know how to look, the gospel is like that, that ad that you see on the TV with a funny guy who's trying to give up smoking, and, and he has a whole sort of cheering squad that's behind him that says no Gary, no, you see not one, the Nicoret ads and Gary's tempted by taking particular cigarette and just as he's about to read the cigarette, the, the team comes in, no Gary, no, no Gary, and, and he has his whole cheer squad that seems to turn up just at the right time, look what I'm trying to say is that the gospel is your cheer squad, the gospel comes in your life tight as chapter two of us said, the God the grace of God teaches us to say no Gary, no, at each, when you, when you want to lie when you, you, you're failing in your sense of acceptance with God, the gospel teaches you to say no, the God look the gospel is a Nicoret patch to sin, that's what it is, and we must be wearing that thing around on our arms each and every day, and be reminded in those moments the gospel teaches us to say no, that it freezes to live any way we want, but at that moment of temptation, that point we want to do that, no, and so if you really realigned of freedom, you hold the gospel up to your eyes each day, you put the patch on, and so when you're faced with the choice to live however I want to live, that is the freedom that we hear in the gospel tonight, when you're faced with that choice, here's the irony, the result is now that you don't ask yourself what can I do, what's, what, how can I go crazy, but you say how can I live for him? You've been freed from, and you've been freed for, and look, when you've removed any ability for, for you to affect the means of your rightness with God, your acceptance with God, when you wake up and realize like the band, the blessed union of souls said, he don't care about my car, he don't care about my money, and that's where I'm real good, because I don't got a lot to spend, but it would mean nothing, he likes me for me, not because I look like Tyson Beckford or with the charm of Robert Redford oozing out my ears, but what he sees are my faults and indecisions, my insecure conditions, and the tears upon the pillow that I shed, he likes me for me. When you come to realize that he likes you for you, that he sent his son for you, and now gives you a reason not to obey you out of obligation, but out of sheer gratitude, why wouldn't you? So then Christian freedom for means we still obey the law, not because we still obey the law. That's the whole point we've been freed from the law to the law, we've just done, we've gone full circle here, but the reason is radically different, not because we have to, but because we want to, and only in the gospel do you obey God for God's sake and not your own sake, and therefore only in the gospel do you love people for their sake and not your own sake, only in the gospel do you do good for goodness sake, only in the gospel do you obey God for God's sake, only the gospel makes to do the right thing a joy and a blessing and a lifted burden. And so if you put verse one of this chapter together, if you put verse 13 and 15 of this chapter together, I won't read them, you know, go back home, do some homework, here's what you'll see. You'll see the gospel freedom frees us from the law for the law. And the Christian freedom is not the absence of restrictions, but it takes away your old motivation for obeying in the first place, and injects a whole new one in your heart, and you continue to live life his way. What does it mean, application as you finish up tonight? What's Paul been saying altogether? What's he been saying in this verse one and verse 13, verse one that you've been set free, verse 13 that says, do not use your freedom to satisfy your sinful desires. What does it mean? He's saying, don't lose your freedom, verse one, but don't abuse your freedom, verse 13. Now how do we make sure that happens? Verses five and six by focusing on the only thing that counts, verse five and six by faith we eagerly await through the spirit the righteousness for which we hope, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. What is circumcision and uncircumcision here mean? Because he says it has no value at all. It says it doesn't mean to be profitable, but it means it puts no credits in the bank for you. What does it mean? Circumcision needs really get alluding at moral achievement. It means rightness based on your performance. Circumcision means like total license going crazy, the questions we've been asking, simply it means religion, it means irreligion. He says they both have absolutely no value at all. Because what he's saying is that neither religion or irreligion can possibly impact your relationship with God, but what he also says is neither religion or irreligion will ever have any impact or dent on changing your heart and your inner character. So moral achievement does nothing because here's what I mean, a gospelised person, a person who's got what we're saying tonight, a person that's living in freedom. When you walk out the door tomorrow and you do something good tomorrow, it is something really good. You go, "Wow, that was good." You get a hold of yourself and you go, "That means nothing." And you say, "God doesn't love me because I did this good thing." You say, "I did this good thing because God loves me." It means nothing. Uncircumcision, it's great, it's for the person who goes out tomorrow, if you go out tomorrow, you're not like the person's done a good thing. And you totally blow it and you stuff it and you muck up and you have an epic fail as the teenagers say these days, you have a massive fail. The Christian says, "Look, even if I did the right thing instead of the wrong thing, even if I did the moral thing instead of the immoral thing, it would have had no impact by faith on the relationship that I have with God." Is that good news or what? Because I'm judged on Christ's work, not on my work, on Christ's life, not on my life, on Christ's past, not on my past, at all amounts to nothing and there's silly, little, good thing that I did, the good thing, the really, really good thing, it means nothing and a really, really bad thing. It means nothing. It all means nothing because God never loves you because he did good and he never disloves you because you did bad. He loves you for you. And he loves you for you. So I see what this represents when we're expressing faith through love and the ups and downs of our life, all the good things that we really do and the bad things that neither puffs us up or it never tears us down because the person in Christ can't get proud of their performance because that has no value and the person who's in Christ can't beat himself up about their failures because it's got nothing to do with how much God loves you this evening, tonight, today, tomorrow, gospel faith provides a certainty that we're holy and that we're beautiful in God's side. And when we come to a realization of that, the more we dwell on this, the less we're subjected to our ups and downs and the more our hearts are melted with love. Melted with love. What do you mean? You're getting all soppy on a Sam tonight. Look, what I'm getting at, the cross flies in the face of George Michael's theology. That's what I'm saying tonight. George Michael's freedom is that I don't belong to you and you don't belong to me. Freedom. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The cross flies in the face of that. It's not I don't belong to you and you don't belong to me. First Corinthians, 2-3 says you were bought at a price. You were bought at a price. Look at how he talks, same sort of language of what he's saying tonight, for he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord. So it's saying if you were a slave, physically, guess what, you're a free person. If you're a free person in God, even if you're still a slave in this world, and similarly the person that's free in this world, guess what, you're a slave to Christ. Real freedom is that he belongs to you and you belong to him, flies in the face of what George Michael's saying. How did that come to be? Restrictions. The ultimate restriction. You see, it's one thing to have freedom and because I'm free to do whatever I want any old time. And you know what, Jesus Christ had that sort of freedom. Jesus Christ had the sort of freedom that the Rolling Stones was singing about. Jesus Christ had the freedom with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and perfect glory way before the world ever began. And as the Bible tells us, he chose to restrict himself. So he didn't consider equality with God, something to be craft. He humbled himself, he emptied himself, I mean he became a man. He veiled his divinity in the form of his humanity. He restricted himself. And there could be no greater restriction when his hands were stretched from side to side with two nails before us. That's restriction if I've ever seen it before, but freedom, the deeper freedom, the freedom that you were built for, the freedom that you cry out, the freedom you hear in songs, the freedom that you are yearning for, that freedom is a deeper freedom. It's a sort of freedom that Jesus blasted out of the cross. Freedom is not the absence of restrictions. That's an example on the model of Jesus Christ. The freedom that you are yearning for is not the absence of restrictions, but it's a surrender in love. And it's one thing for a big God to be standing up there saying, "Yeah, look, you should do all this sort of stuff for me. You should restrict your freedom for me, but what we see in Jesus Christ is that God restricted his freedom first." In order to show you that there's something more wonderful, there was something more beautiful, there was something more precious, there was something more liberating at the cross. So what we said in that is the two ways to live are not religion or irreligion, they mean nothing at all, but the question is, are you going to be a slave full of fear, a slave full of fear? It sounds like the language we're using last week when we're talking through the funny because it's all the one letter, similar themes, or are you going to be a son full of faith, expressing itself through love? What does that look like for you tonight? Because Paul's teaching is simple here tonight, don't lose your freedom, don't go into legalism, but don't abuse your freedom, don't go into license, don't go crazy, you've got a whole new reason to obey the law instead, remember the Christ died, Christ restricted his freedom on the cross, why simple terms, so he could pour your own juice, so he could pour your own juice tonight. The gospel is a core to freedom, it's not the absence of restrictions, but it's freedom from, it's freedom for, do you want to stand the freedom from tonight? The freedom for is a person of Jesus Christ, if you're not a believer, if you are yearning, you're deep down, you haven't experienced that yet can I encourage you? To surrender, in love to him, to ask Jesus Christ into your life, and friends, and family, Christians. We're not free to do whatever we want any old time, we come to understand that gospel freedom is far more complex than that tonight, it's freedom from, it's freedom for, may we meditate on that, may it be revealed to us, may we experience that for the power of his Holy Spirit tonight, let's pray. Father, we thank you for the model that we see in Jesus, that you sent your one and only son out of love, that you love us for us, that you love me for me, Father God tonight. I pray for those that are struggling with feelings of unworthiness, feelings of rejection, feelings of loneliness, Father God, I pray tonight that they might discover they might hold the gospel up to their lives tonight, Father God, and the gospel says no to that, the gospel says you're loved, that you're worthy, that you're accepted, the gospel says that you're right here with us. So Father for each and every one of us tonight, as we move into this week, we've been processing those bleed theology in some ways through this book of Galatians, but Father we pray this week that through the power of your Holy Spirit, you might give us fresh understanding of the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ, but more importantly as we go out into the world, as we go out into a world that somehow thinks that the religion is this quarter restrictions in this quarter morality, may we go and preach the good news that the faith that we have in Jesus Christ is not restriction, but it's freedom. We're free to do whatever we want, or we choose not to do whatever we want, because of the love that we have for you Father. And say tonight, for that freedom we give you thanks, and we pray this in his mighty and his precious name. Amen. Amen