"FREEDOM Where You Live" By Brother Andy Giebler July 31st,
2016
Morning. I count it a privilege to be here; I don’t
take it lightly. I pray I never do. Parrish, you set the stage; you talked about
how we, three years ago, it was kind of, “Okay, we’ll give it a year, and see
where this goes.” No one’s kicked us
out, yet, Parrish, so I guess that’s a good thing. This morning, I’m going to talk
about freedom. It’s July; it’s the last
day of July. The beginning of this month
is when we celebrate our freedom, our independence as a country. But, yet, we have many other freedoms to lay
hold of. We put a flag up, and we say,
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the
republic, for which it stands. One
nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We pledge our allegiance to that nation. But, yet, when I first hear, “I pledge
allegiance to the flag…” that seems kind of stupid. But, it’s more than a symbol; it’s what
represents our country. But, yet, we
have a bigger freedom that we know of. A
freedom that’s not automatic. Just as
you hear the statement that freedom isn’t free; it had a price. Our freedom isn’t free. And a lot of people don’t understand that
freedom in Christ, sometimes. Some
people want to say that, you know, thy at like this country’s free, and it’s
here forever; we don’t have to do anything for it. And, sometimes, in Christ, we want to look at
our freedom, and say, “Oh, it’s there; I can’t lose it.” It’s true that it was a free gift; no man can
take it away. But, you can walk away
from it. You can not… I’m getting ahead of myself, here. I’m going to get some Scriptures out. We have a lot of people with a lot of
opinions. This month, we want to look to
our families. This is a month where,
summertime; kids are getting ready to go back to school. This is the time when parents get to spend
time with their kids, and say, “Hallelujah!” when they go back to school. We’re talking about the times that we have
with our families. If I had to give a
title to this message, it’s, “FREEDOM, Where You Live.” Freedom where we are, where we live our
lives. And this freedom needs to be
taught. We talked about our country,
this freedom has to be taught. That’s
why we teach it in schools. And our
messages, earlier this month, talked about watering down; you can’t water down
what we have in this country and expect it to keep doing what it’s doing. We can’t water down this message, this
truth. We talked about one nation under God. In Genesis—I want to read this, because, when
we think of nations, we look at borders, or boundaries. Genesis 12:1-3 Now the LORD had
said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from
thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee
a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt
be a blessing: And I will bless them
that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all
families of the earth be blessed. Our theme Scripture for the month is: Isaiah 60:12 For the nation and kingdom that will not
serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. We want to celebrate our country,
our one nation under God, but, if you look at the people around us, it’s
evident that we’re a nation of—the people of this nation are serving many
gods. So, how do we say, as a nation,
we’re one nation under God? But, we look
in the Old Testament, where Israel was.
We think of Israel as a nation overseas, somewhere. But, Israel—we look at Jacob. Jacob wrestled an angel. The angel said, “Let
me go,” and he said, “Not until you bless me.”
He said, “What is your name? Your
name is now, Israel.” He didn’t name a
chunk of land Israel. Yeah, there was a
promised land for them, but that chunk of land wasn’t named Israel; the family
was named Israel. The family hat was
foretold in Genesis, with Abraham. All
the families be blessed, “I will bless them and bless you.” (Genesis
12:2-3) Even in this nation, you’ve seen
it with your eyes, when people serve God, the people around are blessed. They may not know it, they may not realize
it, they may not understand it, but they’re blessed. And I’m still talking about our freedom, and
I’m going to talk about some different points of our freedoms, and freedoms in
our country, and freedoms that we have in Christ. I want to set this up a little
bit: Our freedom, where does it
lie? Galatians 3:25-29 But after that faith is come, we are no
longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in
Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on
Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there
is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be
Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. No, I am not a Jew; I am not
Jewish. I am German, by lineage, but,
yet, our baptism into Christ. It says
right here, if ye are in Christ, ye are Abraham’s seed. We are that wild olive branch grafted
in. We have an inheritance; we have our
freedom. But, as I alluded earlier, it
starts in the home; it begins in the place where we live. Yes, it began at Calvary, it began with the
blood, it began with our acceptance, but, in life, our living. Where do we live, where do we spend our time? If you visualize your home, if you visualize,
you know, walking in your front door, that portal into your home, what do you
bring in to your home? And, sometimes,
it’s the simple things. I could say,
“Ah, I’m a Christian, I’ve done this for years.
I know what my house is set up like.”
Sometimes I’ve got to stop and think, what am I carrying through that
door? Who am I inviting into that
door? What purpose am I inviting them
into that door? Walk into my
kitchen. What kind of fellowship am I
having there? My dining room, what kind
of conversations am I having there? My
wife, children, grandchildren, what am I teaching them? How am I exercising my freedom, there? What am I doing with that freedom, the
freedom that I have in Christ, because I’m born again? That freedom can’t be taken for granted, just
like our country’s can’t. That freedom
can’t be taken for granted. Go into our
living room, walk around through your house a little bit. Turn on the TV, take out a movie, a
television program. Turn on the radio, and
listen to some music. Is it glorifying
God? Is it subtly tearing away at the
roots of what we believe in most? Is it
subtly tearing away at the morals, the things that we learn in Scriptures? Pick up a book to read. Is that book just as bad as an X–rated movie,
an R-rated movie, or even a PG-13—“It’s a book; it’s not a movie! There’s no pictures!” Where does it take your mind? Throughout our homes, throughout our days,
when we take our kids places, when we take ourselves places, what do we do with
our conversation? I’m talking about our
freedom, and a lot of people have a lot of different ideas on freedom. I was out with our grandkids, yesterday, and
we were going to fly kites in this big old field, and we get there, and we find
that this big old field is now a parking lot.
They’re having taste of Wisconsin, up in Kenosha. So we sat in our lawn chairs, and we kind of
relaxed, off to the side a little bit.
We took the girls, we walked around, we had some corn on the cob, got
something to eat, and I listened to a folk-singer girl, she was college-aged,
talking about freedoms, from her perspective.
Talking about, “You lay down your weapons; I’ll lay down mine,” talking
about all that mentality, and I’m looking around the crowd at people I know that
have served, people that have dedicated their lives to the military, people who
have lived through world wars, lived through the Great Depression, and thinking
of the stark prospective of those that say, “Oh, well, let’s just all be love,
joy, peace.” And, sometimes, that’s out
perspective as a Christian: “Oh let’s
just all be love, joy, peace. Let them
all do their thing; I’ll do my thing.”
But there’s got to be a line, somewhere.
I can’t just walk up to someone and just start railing on them for the
sake of railing on them, but, we have a freedom in this country. And that’s where I’m going with
our next topic: What freedoms do we have
in this country? Our First Amendment says,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the Government for a redress of grievances. Freedom of due process, from illegal search
and seizure…” So, the first priority was
our freedom of speech. Some of the other
things are freedom from—we’re free from illegal search and seizure. That’s just things of our country. We’re free from cruel and unusual
punishment. Those are things that we have,
just based on being a United States citizen.
We have the freedom, if we’re accused of a crime, to be judged by a
group of our peers, to appear before a judge, and to have that done in a
process that’s not out of order. It’s
done in a process that innocent or guilt is proven. I’ve heard people say that, you know, I would
rather have a hundred guilty people go free than one innocent man charged for a
crime. Those are some freedoms that we
have, because we live in the United States of America; because we’re born here,
or because—there are many that have come into this country and have gained
citizenship, and they have gained that same freedom, as a United States
citizen. There’s a Scripture here, it‘s
where Jesus was talking to Pilate, and He said: John 18:36 Jesus answered, My
kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my
servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my
kingdom not from hence. We have a human nature, to go and
fight for the things of this earth, the things that we value. It’s what we do. It’s the nature that God gave us. And, yet, our freedom is much more than
patriotism. Because I’m a Patriot. My core nature is, you know, someone comes
and invades what I believe, go get my gun; I’m going to do something about
it. That’s my nature. But, sitting in a chair with a former a
Marine—once a Marine, always a Marine—he was up there at the coffee shop. He’s pretty gung-ho. He’s one of those guys that I know, if I went
to his house, he’s got quite the armory.
He’s prepared. That’s his
mentality. And I thought that way. I served in the military; I served as a
technician, I also served in a physical security capacity, so I know what it’s
like to pick up a gun and carry it. So,
that’s the kind of mentality that’s there, but, it’s something that God laid on
my heart as I was sharing with him, I said, “You know what? It’s nice to have a stockpile of something,
and say, ‘Yeah, I can defend myself,’” and I said, “You know what? If I need to defend my country, that’s what
I’ll do. But, if all kind of craziness
breaks out, and God says, ‘Put your gun down and go preach; g tech My Word,’
that’s what I’m going to do. There’s a
time for both, but that’s when we have to evaluate our freedoms; evaluate that
spirit that’s within us, because that’s where—the point I’m getting at is, our
freedom is spiritual. Where it comes
from is God’s Spirit, dwelling in us. We
have the law, but, yet, we have God’s Spirit, guiding us, showing us, giving us
the things that we need to do, showing us the footsteps we need to take. So, our freedom’s in Christ. Just to further that point: Hebrews 13:14 For here have we no
continuing city, but we seek one to come. Yeah, we have this great
nation. I’ll be glad to stand up and say
it’s a great nation. But, we have no
continuing city, here, but we seek one to come.
So, what makes us free In Christ? Galatians 5:5 Stand fast
therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. What makes us free? What are we
free from? If we could turn to: 2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord
is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. There’s liberty where His Spirit
is. I’ve been in churches, I’ve been
around people that want to deny the Spirit of God. They want to deny His presence, they want to
deny the power, they want to say there’s no miracles, they want to say there’s
no more working in God’s Spirit, and that’s just not true. Because, without that Spirit, we are none of
His (Romans 8:9). Romans 6:1-7 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in
sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin,
live any longer therein? Know ye not,
that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his
death? Therefore we are buried with him
by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the
likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. That’s a freedom this country
can’t top. We’re free from sin. Sin?
Why is that important that we’re free from sin? Sin is death.
Sin is what separates us from God.
We can’t say, “Oh, I want a little of this, here, and a little of that,”
no, we have to be free from sin. We have to seek that out on a daily
basis. And there is a condemnation, and
there is a guilt, and: Romans 8:1-3 There is therefore now no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was
weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: How do people know, talking about
this freedom—we look at people who fly their flags for their country, and put
on bumper stickers—how do people know that that’s our freedom? How do they know that we’ve got something to
offer? There’s a lot of bumper stickers
out there—I’m not, if somebody wants to put a bumper sticker, that’s fine, but
that’s not how we show our faith. It’s
how we live. Let’s talk about a—we talk
about a pledge to our country, what about a pledge to our Savior? What about a pledge to the Gospel? We have a pledge to God. It’s not even about church, per se, because,
church, having a service, if it’s not led of God, if it’s not of His Spirit, if
it’s not grounded in that freedom, it’s just another organization. I pray that we never get there. I pray that we’re bound by that same Spirit. So, we enjoy this freedom, this freedom that
we show, we confess... What do we do
with it? Going back to the question, how
do people see it? There are some certain
things that people need to see in my life, if I profess to be a Christian. If I’m saying I’m of God, if I’m saying that
Spirit is within me, those things should be evident. Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace… Those are things that people seek
for all their lives. They seek it in
relationships, they seek it in people, they seek it in their job, they seek it
in money; they look for a lot of joy and peace in all those things, and it’s
not there; it’s only in the Spirit of God.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness… These are things that people
strive for. “I need to be more gentle,
kind; I need to be good.” I can strive
for those things all I want. They’re all
good, but, to truly have these things as we’re talking about—if I want to have
longsuffering, I need to seek God’s Spirit.
That’s an evidence of God’s Spirit.
If I want to be more longsuffering, if I want to be more gentle; if I
want to have more meekness, more faith, more temperance, I could find a how-to
book. There’s a million and one of them
out there. I could find a self-help
book. But I should really find myself on
my knees. I should find myself saying,
“God, how do I get closer to You? Show me how I can get what You want for
me. Order my steps. Galatians 5:24 And they that are
Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 25 If we live
in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. To walk in that Spirit, and I’m
going to go back to, that walk starts at birth. Not our physical birth of our mothers, but it
starts at our birth in Christ. Because,
without that birth, without that blood being applied, without having been
raised to walk in newness of life, we don’t have that. Another question: What am I doing with my freedom? In our country, what do we do with that
freedom? Sometimes, as Americans, we
kind of grow numb to some of the freedoms we have. When we see people that come over to this
country, not much money in their pockets, they get out and they make themselves
something. They get out and start a
business. They do something, because
that’s what they set out to do when they came here. They say, I see a better life over there, and
I’m going to go get it. My wife tells me
about their mom, had a situation in Puerto Rico to get away from. Made a plan, put her kids on a plane, got to
a friend’s house in the United States.
Didn’t have a college, or scholarship.
Didn’t have some big pot of money to draw from. She came over; she made a life for her
family. There are many people that have
done that. We hear lots of stories,
coming in, coming off a boat, starting something. Like I said, my family came from Germany,
came from a passion, came with a vision, “There’s something there I’ m going to
get.” And, that’s why we come to Christ,
looking for that freedom. And, yet,
sometimes, when you’ve been here a while, we start to forget. We start to—I’ll just say me. I forget.
I forget that passion. I forget
what I came looking for. I forget about
that freedom that I found, over twenty years ago, 1989. I found it in a watery grave. I found it in a message I’d never heard
before. I grew up in church; I went to
church all my life. You were talking
earlier a Scripture talking about he didn’t come from a—Amos—a lineage of
prophets. Isn’t there another one that
talks about a preacher’s lineage? Same
one? (Amos 7:14) I come from a religious
background. It didn’t save me. My grandfather was a preacher. My uncles have all been to Christian
colleges. One of my uncles, before he
passed way, was a chaplain in a hospital.
And I know these are men that were doing something; they were
active. When he died, I was on-line,
trying to get his obituary to come up, and I found tons of obituaries. None of them were his; they were all
obituaries of funerals that he was presiding over. So I come from that background, but, as I
said, that doesn’t make me any less, any better, it doesn’t change the fact
that I had to seek for something. I had
to go find something. I had something
that was missing from my life. A freedom
that I had never had. Even though I grew
up in church. I remember, Sunday
mornings, “Ma, do we have to go to
church?” “No, you get to.” I was going to
church, whether I liked it or not. And
I’m thankful for that; I’m glad that I did.
But, I still had to find something on my own. I still had to come to a realization that I
needed Christ real I my life. It wasn’t
about church, it wasn’t about the preacher, it wasn’t about the choir singing;
it was me and God. And, I want to touch on, how are
we, how are we in this room, when it comes to the Gospel’s sake, how are we
using the freedom that we have in this country?
We have tis freedom of speech. We
have this freedom of telling people about it.
There may be a day when we don’t have that. We are very privileged in this country. In some other countries—you go across the
ocean, you’re going to find countries where you can get thrown in jail, you can
be killed, you can be beaten, take everything you own, because you’re talking
about this Jesus. We’re going to look at a Scripture. Now Peter, he’s healing people, preaching,
and they put him in prison. An angel
came; got him out. Tells him to go to
the Temple and preach. After they put
him in prison. Angel said, “Go
preach.” They go to the prison looking
for him; everything looked good on the outside.
They go inside and he’s gone.
Find him in the Temple doing exactly what they told him not to do. And they brought him back, and called him,
and charged him to not preach this Gospel.
And Peter says: Acts 5:29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered
and said, We ought to obey God rather than men Just simply said, “Look, I know
what you’re telling me. I know you’re
charging me not to talk about Jesus.”
This is Peter, he says, “I ought to obey God, rather than men.” I’m highlighting this because, once again, we
may not have that freedom someday. We
may not have that ability to openly worship.
Like I said, there are countries right now, somebody would be watching
the door, because there may be armed guards coming to break up your church
service. I know that’s painting a grim
picture, but we have this Gospel, and it’s too important not to share. This freedom. God gives us lots of things. Sometimes I’ve got to wonder if I’m leaving
something on the table. My mom and dad,
I think back, they gave me lots of things, you know, and gave me incentives for
things, grades—and for my grades, and different things. And they gave me things I needed, and I
remember the first time I got my nice Red Rider Daisy BB gun, and it was just
what I always wanted. And they did
things for me. But, I remember one time,
I wasn’t doing good in school, and they said, “Keep your grades above a B…”—not
straight A’s, just a B—they weren’t shooting for a lot, they just wanted me to get
involved—“we’ll get you a motorcycle.” I
knew how bad my mom hated motorcycles, but, yet, she was going to offer, and I
never even made a plan. I didn’t even
say, “I’m going to find a way to make my grades better,” because, we make plans
when we want things. I know, when I was
in the Navy, I wanted to make E-6, and the only way I was going to do it was to
study for that exam. I made a plan for
that. I got all the material, I figured
out how all the points were added up, I figured out, “I need that award, I need
to study this, I need to get that button pushed, I need to do this, I need this
interview, I need this letter of commendation,” I knew the things I needed to
do to get my points, and I made a plan to do it. But, this one thing that I really wanted, I
let it go. I never said, “I’m going to find
a way to study. I’m going to find a way
to stay awake in class. I’m going to
find a way to pay attention.” I let down
the team. And, we have a Scriptural example: The parable of the talents. The Master gave three different men three
different things. The one that was
blessed was the one who did something with it.
The one who just held it, buried it in the ground, and said, “Here. This is what you gave me. It’s yours.
Have it back,” was cast out. But,
yet, He said, take it from him, and give it to the one who did something with
his (Matthew 25:14-30). And that’s part
of our freedom. But, it’s not just
handed to us. It’s not just, “Well, here
you go.” I’ve never looked at any person
in this room and said, “I expect you to do this,” as far as, “You’re going to
rise to this or that.” I have things
that I’d like to see people do, and goals, as a leader, and, yet, those are
things that—I don’t know what everyone’s ability is; I don’t know what God has
placed in your life. Go does show us
things, but there some things God didn’t tell us, in your life, that only you
know about. That only God has revealed
to you. And I bring that up because I just
want to see this ministry grow, and I’m encouraged by—and I see it every day, there
are those of you do have your talents out, I see it multiplied every time we
come together. I see people doing—not just
things, but growing in the Spirit, growing in the Word, coming higher in
Christ. Jesse made an example, talking
about slaves that were being rescued, and there were slaves that were not; they
were settled. The statement was made, “I
could have saved more, if only they had known they were in bondage, if they had
known they were slaves.” And I believe,
going back to our revolution, there were people that were content to say, “Oh,
don’t make waves. We don’t need this
freedom from England. Stop it. You’re making a mess of things!” But there were those who were willing to
stand up and declare their independence.
And that’s the question today: Am
I willing to go back and revisit, and stand up and declare my independence, my
freedom from sin? It’s personal; I have
to declare that. Now, that freedom doesn’t
come from me; that freedom comes from the blood of Christ. But I still have to do something. I still have to submit myself to His Word. I have to declare my freedom. I have to declare it every day. I have to die daily. That’s the beauty of it, the way it clears it—the
forgiveness that we have every day. The
blood of Jesus Christ can be applied every day.
Sometimes we have a tendency to look, and say, “Oh, I’ve gone too far. I can’t go back.” If God’s still tugging at you, poking at you,
you haven’t gone too far, but you can’t stay where you’re at. God wants to bring people, and, sometimes the
trip back is not as far as you think it is, it’s just a matter of turning
around, and declaring that independence. So, how do I know what’s for
me? I have a Scripture that I lean on
quite often: Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you. It’s not that
complicated: Seek ye first the Kingdom
of God and His righteousness. Let me ask
a question: How do I seek the Kingdom of
God? How do I seek His righteousness? The Kingdom of God, we’ve got to seek—I’ve
got to seek something higher than me. I
have to seek, first, God’s Kingdom. I
have to seek things that glorify God and His righteousness. Flip that backwards: Not my righteousness. Seek ye first His righteousness; is what I’m
doing His righteousness? Because if it’s
not God’s righteousness, then it’s not leading me to freedom. If it’s for my own righteousness’ sake, it’s
for naught. I’ve got to seek Him first. Another one that
I lean on quite a bit is: Matthew 22:36-37 Master, which
is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. With all. Matthew 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself. So, He’s talking about two
commandments, here. The first one: Love God with all. And the second—so, you’ve got one, and you’ve
got number two, right here, almost to it:
To love your neighbor as yourself.
And, you know, when I get up here, it’s one that I make a point of, quite
a bit, but it’s, on that hang all the Law and the prophets. And, we could study the law, but, yet, this
commandment, right here: If you’re
loving your neighbor, as yourself, it’s kind of hard to not fulfil the rest of
the Law. Not to say that we shouldn’t
learn the Bible or learn the Old Testament, but, there’s a lot of conviction
there, for my part. Loving my neighbor
as myself. And, another piece of this
is: How we celebrate our freedom? Now, in our country, we have celebrations, we
have parades, we have fireworks shows… We
have all kinds of things to celebrate our independence. How do I celebrate my freedom? We look at the Jews, Israel, when they were
released from bondage, when they left Egypt, what did they set up? Passover.
What was that celebration? That
was something they did, every year, as their celebration. It was their reminder of their deliverance
from Egypt. And, as I wrap this up, I, hopefully,
will make this simple point of where our freedom lies: Our freedom lies in Jesus. As the Communion team gets ready. This is also a way we celebrate our
freedom. We remember our freedom. We remember the blood that was shed. We remember—it’s a time to remember the
commitments we make. A time of
reflection. Communion. They’re going to come up here, when they’re
ready, and they’re going to give us a wafer and a cup of juice. But, it’s the bread, the body of Christ. We’ve got to remember that. The blood.
His shed blood, that was shed for me.
I’ve got to remember that. I’ve
got to remember that every day I wake up.
This isn’t just a time—well, we do this once a month. This should not be the only time we have this
communion with God. This is just a
reminder. This is just a time that we do
it as a reminder. But, it’s
important. We’ve got to have that
communion with God. A remembrance of
what God did for us. If you look throughout
the Old Testament, there are times when God’s nation, got away, and they read
out loud the Scriptures, to remind the people where they came from, to remind
them what God did for them. As the
communion team comes up, and I turn this over to Chris, my prayer is that we
will use this time to look at our freedom, to evaluate that freedom we have in
Christ, to evaluate what we do with it, how we use it, evaluate our own
personal communion with God, our own personal time. Amen.
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