Episode Transcript
Welcome to the World Changers Church Gold Coast Podcast. Join us as we listen to today's message. Well, Father, we thank you for this opportunity to minister today to your people, to your eagles, to your sheep, to your followers, to your disciples. And if we have any fans here today, Lord, may they dedicate their hearts to you fully today.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.
Amen. That might be my opening prayer for a while now. But welcome to church.
How you doing? Amen. Sometimes church feels so heavy.
And, you know, it's something we get through like, oh, does the pastor know my sins or does sister so-and-so, does she see me? Are they gonna prophesy over me today? But the main reason I feel that we come to church is to celebrate our freedom.
Amen? You know, I oftentimes think about when people come to church, they come and celebrate their captivity and what the devil's done, and they glorify that more than what God is doing in their life. Do I got any people that wanna celebrate their freedom today? Amen?
Okay, that was one or two of you. Do I got anybody that says, I'm free today and I wanna celebrate my freedom? That's in Christ.
Amen. The funny thing is we're on the winning team. The game's rigged.
We're going to win. Amen. You know, there's no losing here. There's only overcoming and breaking through.
Did you hear me? Um, so yes, for those of you who don't know that my wife has, um, gone to America, and I'll talk a little bit about that in a moment, but I wanna, before I share with you about that and what God has done in that situation, I wanna talk to you about this message. As we're leading up to Vision Sunday, and yes, we had announced that Vision Sunday would be this Sunday, but we feel like we wanna give more time to really extract from the Spirit of God the banner for the year, which is freedom.
We believe that this church is gonna experience freedom in its identity like it's never before. And so we don't wanna rush into Vision Sunday. We don't wanna let circumstance stall it.
What we wanna do is say, God, what do you want? And God has spoken to the leadership and said, we wanna extract and understand freedom before we announce it as a banner over the church for the year. Amen?
So I'm gonna talk to you today about freedom in Christ. You've heard that message before, right? I promise you, you've never heard this message.
So I'll simply say good morning, how are you? And I'll tell you that today I wanna talk to you about freedom that doesn't come from circumstances, it doesn't depend on your past, and it can't be taken away from you by other people. It's a freedom that comes from Christ, amen?
Now anybody knows that scripture that says, you know, in Christ I am free, and I'm gonna talk about that scripture as well, and I'm free indeed. But it's not just about knowing him, it's about walking and receiving from him that we experience a maturity that shapes the true freedom that is in Christ. Amen?
See, most people see freedom as a lack of rules or boundaries. But that's just anarchy. The freedom that I'm talking about is the freedom that comes from seeing the world through God's eyes, the freedom that comes from knowing exactly who you are, the freedom that comes from the peace that Christ gives you, the freedom that comes from the wisdom to walk in what God has said and apply the knowledge he's given, and the freedom that comes from knowing your purpose.
Why are you here? Amen? If I could sit with each of you for about an hour, the first question I'd ask you is, what's your purpose? You'd say, oh, to provide for my kids or this or that.
And I'd say, that's not it. The search for your purpose, I believe, is first found in Christ and it's found in the freedom in Christ. Amen?
Does that make sense? So biblical freedom is so much deeper. It's not just freedom from sin.
You know, we focus so much on sin that we make sin a problem. You know, the moment I keep calling myself an alcoholic, alcohol is my problem. The moment I keep calling myself an addict, that means there's something I'm addicted to.
That means I'm giving power to something, amen? But I have freedom from sin, therefore it no longer has power over me, and I no longer have to acknowledge it. I can walk in the freedom that is in Christ, and when I mess up or miss the mark, I can say, God, show me a better way.
Amen? That's the freedom I have. See, when you mess up, when you mess up when you were a kid, I don't know if you had a father like me, but when you mess up when you were a kid, you just kind of, it's like the new puppy dog I have.
It's like when he messes up, you know when he's done something wrong because he's walking around with his little head down. I'm like, man, you're giving it all away. Kids are the same way.
When you messed up, you were afraid of the trouble you were about to get in. More than realizing that the Father that loves you from heaven just wants to show you a better way. He doesn't want to beat you up.
No parent wants to punish their kid. Amen? I believe it. It hurts parents more than it does the kids when we punish our kids. So God's not just waiting for an opportunity to punish you.
He wants you to walk free from shame, free from sin, free from bondage, and become everything that God intended you to be. Amen? Amen? Are you, Pastor Kyle, everything God intended you to be?
Hey, I haven't arrived, but I've left. Amen? God will complete a work that he started in me, that he made me that promise.
I know I'm not perfect, but I'm moving when walking with one that is. Amen? Come on, somebody.
Hallelujah. So what does it mean to walk with in the freedom that Christ gives? How do we embrace the mind of Christ and grow in the maturity that leads us to that true, lasting freedom?
Well, the word is key in there, maturity. See, if we look at the Greek word in Matthew 5:48, it's not in our notes. It says, may you be there for, may you, I'm gonna quote King James here, so I'll sound Shakespeare.
May you be therefore perfect as your father is perfect in heaven. That word perfect comes from a Greek word called teleos. Now that Greek word means spiritually mature, mature. Now, so what that scripture says in Matthew 5:48 is it says, may you be spiritually mature as your father is spiritually mature in heaven. What it's asking us is will you become like your father and set yourself apart for his works?
Amen. That's freedom. See, immaturity tries to hide its mistake while maturity learns from them. Amen.
Does that make sense? Oh man, how do we walk in this? So the reality is, is at first we have to see freedom as our foundation.
Amen? See, what someone believes will shape their actions. So if at your foundation you believe that you are no good, and not worth it, or that you're still trying, or I'm not gonna do Yoda there, but you're still giving effort into things, and at your core, you're still, I might make it one day, then that's all you're ever gonna produce is a maybe.
But if at your core, you're saying, I know I'm better than this, man. You know what I'm saying? This is not God's best for my life.
I don't have to accept what's going on right now. I'm going to travel through, break through, and overcome what's happening right now. But this is not my identity.
This is not my purpose. And this for sure ain't my place to stay. Amen?
Come on, somebody. So, hallelujah. It's kind of like, Have you ever seen somebody that gets out of prison, they're still living like they're behind bars?
Amen? I haven't been in prison, but I've had plenty of friends that went to prison. And man, if you take them to a buffet house, man, they got that tray like they're ready to hit somebody with it. Amen?
They're gripping on like this is my food. They sit down and they eat real fast like somebody else is gonna eat it. They walk around like everybody's a threat.
because they're still living, and I'm not gonna say this wrong, this is a cow word, I made it up this morning, because they're still, they haven't received the freedom that is in Christ, and they're returning to their old captivities. Not activities, captivities. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Sometimes in Christ, we just adapt to the activities of the old nature and they become our captivities because we think because my uncle said it, my father said it, my mama said it, the world said it, the bank account said it, that's just who I am. I will remind you what God said in the Garden of Eden. Who told you that?
If I didn't say it, it's not your identity. If I didn't say it, it's not for you. God's word is filled with things that are supposed to be yours and things that are not.
There is things that will take you into captivity and there's things that will take you into freedom. Amen? Come on, somebody.
Amen. It's the freedom. It's for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Think about that. It's for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again to the yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5.1, let's look at that real quick. In this freedom, Christ has made us free and completely liberated us. Somebody say liberated us.
Does that say partially liberated us? Does that say halfway liberated us? Does that say we'll be liberated?
What does it say? Completely liberated. Now, so I can look at that outside of those brackets and say Christ has made me free.
It is up to me to stand in that freedom. And do not be hampered and held and snared and submit again to the yoke of slavery which you once put off. Meaning I can go back to the things.
that I used to do. If I allow the devil to entertain me, if I allow things to get into my heart, if I let circumstance train me, I can go back to the things I used to do. See, there's some good Christians that talk it, but don't walk it.
We need to see, I was watching another bishop and I don't watch him often because I don't agree with his whole doctrine, but that's okay. He says some good things and I'm sure he probably thinks the same way about me. And he's sitting there and he said, he's just kind of doing his thing.
He said, oh, Christianity, it's about how much God loves you and you're the love of God and you're the masterpiece. He said, you know what? If that's your only focus, that's dirty water.
You got to live this. You can't just be in love. You got to walk in love.
You can't just say you're clean. You got to live clean. Anyway, Christ has set you free so that you no longer are under the yoke, the weight, the burden of those old actions.
So freedom has to be our foundation, what we build from. Amen? Does that make sense?
So what Paul is saying here in Galatians is that the byproduct of salvation, its very purpose is that Jesus didn't just save you from something. He saved us for something. My God.
I'm going to say that again. I'm saved from hell. No, man, you ain't saved from hell.
Hell was never for you anyway. You just wanted to choose hell because you didn't want to believe God. God did not create hell for you.
He did not. That's just all I'm gonna say about that. What he brought salvation for you to is not so that you can just follow some rules.
He didn't bring you salvation so that you could just go to church, sing in the choir. He saved you for something, not from something. Amen?
That gives me meaning. That gives me purpose. That gives me freedom.
And I start to ask the question when I think that way. I stop going, oh, Lord, thank you for saving me from myself, my sins, my addictions, my alcohol, my this and that. And I start saying, God, I thank you that I have a purpose.
I thank you that I got something to do in this world, that my life has meaning. And I begin to experience some strength and freedom from that. Amen.
Come on, somebody. You know what I mean? Like when you're focused on your failures, you never go forward.
but God is calling us for something. Come on, somebody. Amen.
See, Paul's warning is do not be burdened again. Look at that. And do not be hampered and held and snared and submit again to that yoke of slavery.
That's his warning. You can be saved and still live like you're in chains. If your mind is still captive and your maturity hasn't grown beyond infancy, you will not reach the level in which God is calling you to.
If the devil's in every bush and all you wanna do is blame everything on the devil and never take responsibility for your own actions, repent, learn, grow, all you ever gonna do is blame the devil for everything wrong in your life. Amen? Just like Israel set free from Egypt and still had a slave mentality in the wilderness.
They were set free. The day before, they were doing double time work. They was plagues. The day before, they were hidden in Goshen, everything was good.
Come on, somebody. But the moment they got free in the wilderness and things wasn't going perfect, God, it was so much better in Egypt, Moses, why'd you lead us out here to die? I was better off eating onions and garlic.
Go on back with your bad stinky breath, amen. We get so focused on it not being perfect that we can't see the promise. We get so focused on the problems that handle, we can't see the freedom that God's bringing through.
Man, we get so challenged by everything, we're even ready to give up and give in and say, life is just over for me. Trust me, I've been there. But when you start listening to God, he says, you've entered back into a slave mentality.
You're a king. Some of you are queens. You're an ambassador of the most high.
Quit thinking like a slave and start thinking like a diplomat. Amen. Many believers are free in position but bound in practice.
I'm going to say that again for those of you that were missing it, thinking about your Sunday dinner. Amen. Many of us are free in position, but captive in practice.
Your mouth, you need to practice more. Amen. The actions, you need to practice more.
Many people, they come in happy. God is good, but they don't like what's going on and they're complaining about everything to mama and them and the next thing you know, they're just at the end of a bottle complaining about mama and them. Amen?
We need to stop looking at what's wrong and we need to start practicing what is good. Why? Because we haven't developed the mindset of freedom or maturity to walk in it if we're just positioned to talk about it but not practicing it.
Many people come to church and they don't really know why. That's why they only come a couple of times a month. Many people go to church because of what a church offers, what it has, the children's ministry, the teen's ministry, and most of the time the singles ministry. But reality is, that's not why we go to church.
We go to celebrate our freedom and corporately encourage each other to continue growing, brother. Man, when you go to the gym, there's always that one gym, bro. Y'all know that go to the gym, unless you're about to learn.
There's always that one gym, bro, man. He's in there with the headphones. I promise you this ties in with the message.
He's in there. He's lifting everything three times heavier than you. He's doing everything. And you're struggling with your little weight and he comes over in front of you and he's just tapping that bar.
Come on, you can lift it. He comes over when you can't get the bench up. He's like, come on, you can lift it.
And you only want to lift it to shut him up. But every time he's there to help you and eventually you start appreciating his encouragement, him showing up to keep you pushing. That's what church is supposed to be like.
That when you don't feel good and you can't push no more, there's supposed to be another brother tapping the bar saying, come on, you can get it. Because that brother has freedom and he wants you to have the freedom he has in Christ, amen. Oh my Jesus, Caitlin, I think you're right.
Amen. Think about it. You're not just freed from sin.
You're freed to love radically, serve boldly, and to walk with purpose. Well, I just don't believe I'm called to be an usher. I don't believe I'm called to work the connect desk.
I'm called to point fingers and tell people what to do. That's my anointing. Almost went into a little voice that you might familiarize yourself with.
That's my anointing. Honey, I was called to the ministry of John when I started ministry. That means I clean toilets.
And I've been friends with Bin for a long time because a lot of ushers leave him alone because he's always full and needed to be taken out, the trash bin. Amen. I've had the ministry of Bin and John for a long time. I've had the ministry of vacuum and children's ministry and teens ministry.
If your calling is too high that you can't serve down low, you forgot who Jesus is that washed feet. Amen. Amen.
God has called you to love radically, serve boldly, and let freedom be the foundation that you walk in purpose. Amen. But to do that, you gotta start thinking free. How many of you think free? Don't raise your hand, doesn't, you know, some of y'all are like super saints, like, I think free. I pray every morning the freedom of Christ and the mind of Christ.
I'm not talking to you guys. I'm talking to you guys that struggle to have positive thoughts. You gotta start training yourself with freedom as a foundation and you gotta start thinking differently.
Let's go to 1 Corinthians 2 and 16. For who has known or understood the mind, the counsel and purposes of the Lord so as to guide and instruct him to give him knowledge? Question mark.
But we have the mind of Christ. Hold on a second. Tony, does that say we get the mind of Christ? Annabelle, does that say we get the mind of Christ?
What does that say? Have. I just can't think positively because you're thinking too much like yourself and you need to start reading more words so that the word of God starts thinking for you, starts thinking through you.
You need to train your mind to think like God because you have the mind of Christ and he will give us knowledge. No, no, no. He gave us the mind of Christ and do the, I'm gonna read this again. But we have the mind of Christ the Messiah and do hold the thoughts, feelings, and purposes of his heart.
Isaiah 40 and 13. You can't give something you don't have. You can think like Christ.
You can be like Christ. It just means you need to operate in surrender. The greatest freedom I've ever experienced in my life is in surrender.
Amen? I don't like it, but sometimes my wife will be right and I'll surrender. Notations sometimes, Aidan, sometimes.
Underline, bold, italic, sometimes. Sometimes, most times, she's right. The times that I surrender, I experience some true freedom.
Because she's thought about it more than I have, she's been patient with it more than I have, and most likely she's just been waiting on me to make my mind up about what she already understands. Surrender to God means he knows the best way, he knows the way that'll bring you peace, and he knows the way to bring you freedom. You just need to surrender.
Romans 12 and two is the reason we trouble with surrender is because time and time again, we are conformed. Do not be conformed to this world, this age, fashioned after or adapted to external superficial customs, but be transformed, changed by the entire renewal of your mind, by its new ideas and its new attitude so that you may prove for yourselves, not to God, You're not doing this for him or somebody else. So you may prove to God that they turned the air conditioners up to 24, and that's why I'm burning up up here.
So you may prove to God what is acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect in his sight for you. Amen? Amen.
The proving is not to achieve anything. The proving is not to become. The proving is to accept what's already been given.
Amen? Come on, somebody. I'm gonna keep going.
This mind is where freedom is won or lost. The reality is the world teaches us to be conformed. Christ invites us to be transformed.
Now, we've been talking about the mind of Christ probably most of your Christian life. If you knew Christ or heard this for the first time, maybe wanting to seek Christ's salvation, the mind of Christ is something very important, but I've heard it taught very, very many different ways. We're not just talking about thinking holy thoughts. See, I was taught that the mind of Christ is thinking holy thoughts. I just thought, man, I'm never gonna have the mind of Christ.
Because when somebody is driving 10 kilometers below the speed limit, Me and Jesus aren't talking. Amen? Father, we forgive me.
But he's working on me. Amen? There's less external actions in those moments.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're talking about seeing life through his lens. Thinking redemptively.
Amen? See, I may have a thought, but I can take it captive and realize it's not of Christ so that that thought doesn't train me. That's freedom.
See, if I let the thoughts of Christ train me, I'll have less the thoughts of sin that will train me. But the more and more I entertain those thoughts of sin, the more and more I sit in that place of anguish, the more and more I sit in that place of anger, the more and more I sit in that place of anxiety, it will train me in those things. And oh, I find myself in bondage instead of freedom.
Christ will train you in freedom. Let us get skilled in righteousness. Amen?
So we're talking about seeing life through his lens and thinking redemptively, thinking in alignment with God's truth, not the world's patterns. Amen? I mean, every time something happens in the Gold Coast, that sounds like a tropical storm or a cyclone or a epidemic, we go just get all the toilet paper.
Can I ask who has trained you that toilet paper is going to save you from those things? Please tell me what toilet paper can do in World War III. I believe if World War III breaks out, we're going to see toilet paper completely gone.
It must have some genie power or something, I don't know. Yep, I'm not going any further. But we keep falling into those same patterns.
The way the world reacts, we react. And I can say that I was there myself. Glen and Alex know this story, and Glen will love this story, but don't comment.
Come on, Glen. All right. So yesterday, I think it was yesterday, day before yesterday, we'd gotten up from how Americans say it, Cloncurry.
How do Australians say it? I'm sorry. Yeah, anyway, same. And we decided we'd drive to Kyuna, or that other word the Australians said. And we got there and all of a sudden we couldn't go any further because the roads had closed. And then we found out the roads behind us had started to close.
The water behind us, water in front of us, we're like, sweet, awesome. And we stayed in a roadhouse. I'm just gonna tell you if you're ever that way, don't stay in that roadhouse.
That's all I'm gonna say about that. And so I'm just thinking about being stuck and need to get home and how am I gonna get home by Sunday and All those things are running through my mind. So I'm having those fleshly reactions.
I'm trying to park Alex's car and my wife calls. And, you know, it's one of those moments that you just, she's crying. You're like, oh, I got to park the car.
I'm stuck here. I got to figure things out. I was like, I'll call you back.
And she's crying. And so you're going to be mad at me in a second. But anyway, it's okay.
You'll forgive me at the same time. And so I pull forward. Next thing I know, I just feel the back end of the truck go bloop.
And I was like... Ah, this is great. Two-wheel drive Toyota Hilux just sunk in some mud. So I rock it forward, rock it back.
I go get Alex, and I'm there in the front like a rugby player thinking I can push this Toyota Hilux by myself. I became the story of the restaurant inside. This guy thought he could push it himself.
You know. And so I went and got Glen and, you know, he pulled it together and roped it together and he had his Amarok and he pulled it back and he'd pulled it out and it was enough. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
So I put on the brakes. He kept dragging me just, you know, to show his truck was better than mine. And so then I call my wife back and she's crying really heavily.
So I'm saying, honey, what's wrong? And she tells me about her mom. and what's going on with her mother. And I realized that the first time she called me, that's what she was trying to tell me.
See, I told you you'd be mad at me. And I said, honey, what do we need to do? And she was just, you know, it's your mother.
You know, you can have faith and you can respond with faith. And I know all of you would. And, you know, as we're feeling the emotions of a child potentially losing their mother, we all went into action.
And me and the boys, we came together and we put money together to buy her plane tickets so she could leave that night. And I'm sitting there laying that night and I'm getting fiery mad, man. I'm thinking about this message too.
And I'm just mad at the devil, mad at everything. And God said, started talking to me about Egypt. Moses and the children of Israel coming out of Egypt and they left with all the spoils and they were still slave mentality and they got fed quail, they got fed manna and they still had slave mentality.
They had a cloud of fire by night and a cloud by day. They had all the pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. They had all these things, right? That was working for them and they're still complaining.
But if you look at the deeper part of that story, God was killing their enemies. over here before they got there. If you look at it from God's perspective, he was sparing and training and delivering all at the same time.
Amen? So I started thinking about that and I said, man, if I'd have been able to drive maybe two hours further, she would not have been able to get ahold of me for at least six to eight hours. So I started thinking maybe sometimes my detours and delays is so that God can do something through me Instead of, you know what I mean?
Sometimes your detours and delays don't deserve, the enemy doesn't deserve any credit because God's allowing the enemy to think he could get you, but God's going to do something through you to benefit a lot of people around you. Amen. And if I hadn't have been available for that phone call, me and the boys couldn't get on a phone call together.
We couldn't get all this organized. We couldn't have done that because we've been trying to do that between all those breaks in Telstra. Amen.
But sometimes we look at our detours and delays and the first thing we talk about is the devil. You are so trained to give him credit. You are so trained to talk about him first.
We need to start praying like the Bible says in Philippians 4, 6 through 8, be anxious for nothing, pray and make your petitions known and with thankfulness. Sometimes you may be in the doctor's office and getting a bad report. Pray, petition, thank God.
Quit thinking about the devil first. Think about God first if you want true freedom. And then all of a sudden, it wasn't so bad hanging out there because I was able to be available to my wife for the next, I don't know, 16 hours.
And then every time she called me throughout the next day, somehow we had service. Amen? In places we shouldn't have had service.
When freedom is your foundation and you have the mind of Christ, the world may be talking about self-expression and all of its problems and all that's going on, but true freedom is when we deny ourselves and let spiritual empowerment come in and the word that follows says, I will follow your heart and I will follow you, Jesus, instead of follow my own way and I will find true freedom. Amen? Oh man, I praise the Lord.
The world says, help yourself. God says, let me help you. The world says, follow your heart. God says, follow me.
So how, so what did Jesus think like? He operated with humility. He walked in obedience to the Father. He thought from a place of identity.
not insecurity. He never wavered in purpose. Freedom comes from when you stop letting your past, your pain, your present, and other people define you.
When you let God's voice become the loudest thing in your mind. See, in Christianity, listen to this real quick. In Christianity, our transformation doesn't happen by trying harder.
It happens by thinking higher. I think I'll say that again. In Christianity, our transformation doesn't come by trying harder. It comes by thinking higher.
I tell my boys all the time, value yourself and other people will too. I tell my friends all the time, value yourself and other people will too. Respect yourself and other people will too. The way you value yourself is the way others will value yourself. If you break yourself, other people will break you.
Amen? Come on, somebody. Often we think about success.
We think about triumphs, but God thinks about identity and legacy so that we grow from generation to generation. So freedom is our foundation. Amen?
The mind of Christ is when we start thinking free. But the last thing I want to land on as the worship team is coming up is maturity of Christ is living free. Ephesians 4, 13 through 15 says this.
Ephesians 4, 13 through 15. That we might develop until we all attain oneness in the faith and comprehension of the full and accurate knowledge of the Son of God that we might arrive at really mature manhood. The completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ's own perfection. The measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and the completeness found in him.
So then we may no longer be children tossed like ships to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing doctrine, the prey of the cunning cleverness of unscrupulous men gamblers engaged in every shifting form of trickery and inviting errors to mislead. Rather, let our lives lovingly express truth, lovingly express truth in all things, speaking truly, dearly, truly, living truly, infolding in love, being covered in love, let us grow in every way and in all things in him who is ahead, even Christ the Messiah, the anointed one. If we go back to the very first part of that scripture, that we might develop.
There's another scripture that says, let us be skilled in righteousness. Your obligation is not the doing. It's the receiving and thinking higher and develop an understanding of who Christ is.
Maturity brings stability and stability protects freedom. Many Christians lose their freedom because they lack spiritual maturity. They're saved but tossed around by emotions, offense, culture, and lies.
Man, the amount of people that leave a church because the pastor didn't shake my hand or I didn't like what he preached today or so-and-so said something I didn't like and so-and-so offended me. Don't come in here and call me family if one sneeze gets you out the door. Don't go to any church and call them family if one thing you don't like makes you go church hopping.
We ain't shopping. We don't come here to be entertained. We come here to worship God.
If you come here to worship God, worship God no matter what's happening. If they're up here singing in the key of I don't know what, worship God. Amen? It's not their responsibility for you to worship, it's your responsibility to worship. I didn't like how the worship team worshiped today.
I didn't really like that song. I didn't know we started worshiping you. Amen?
Come on, you can clap to that one. God's goal isn't to just give you heaven is to grow you into the image of Christ. That's maturity.
When you're reflecting Christ, that's the full measure of who you are called to be. I didn't like how Pastor Kyle preached today. I like Paddy better.
Well, praise God. I didn't realize it. I like Jeremy better.
I didn't realize we were auditioning for you. Amen. If we are not careful, we can be in church for 20 years and still be spiritual infants.
Because maturity isn't automatic, it's intentional. So how do we grow in freedom that comes from maturity? Can you write these down or something or go back and watch the podcast or listen to the podcast?
I don't guess we watch it yet. I guess I just prophesied, no, I'm kidding. How do we grow in freedom that comes from maturity?
First one, if you're gonna write these down, write them in your phone or we'll send them out to you maybe later. You let go of offense. You can't walk in maturity if you're offended.
If everything that someone does offends you, you just, nah. It's gonna stump your maturity. First thing is let go of offense.
Next thing you need to do is walk in grace and truth. Second thing you need to do is walk in grace and truth. That means love and what is true.
Just because somebody said some gossip to you doesn't mean you need to react to it. You need to know what the truth is. Walk in love and truth.
And this one is the most important one you need to write down. Learn to discern rather than react. I've had to learn that as a leader.
Man, people be calling me up. You know what I'm saying? Y'all know. People be calling me up.
Now say something. I'm gonna call this person. Call Jeremy.
Chew him out. Thank God I grew in that, Jeremy. Amen.
I didn't really chew him out that much, did I? No, okay. But I've had to learn as a leader the difference between discerning, is this something I need to do or respond to?
Or is this something, because all I'm doing is their reaction is making me react. If you want to grow in maturity, don't let someone else's emergency become yours. Learn to discern rather than react.
The fourth thing, how to walk in freedom that comes from maturity is bearing the fruit of the spirit, not just enjoying the gifts. I'm gonna say that again. Bearing the fruit of the spirit, not just enjoying the gifts. The more mature you become, the less the enemy can manipulate you. Maturity is what keeps us in freedom. Maturity is what keeps freedom sustained.
I have a fourth point that I'll save for next week. Praise the Lord. Because I feel like you've gotten what you've needed today and I'm not done yet and I got more time to preach.
You can come back next Sunday for part two. True freedom in Christ is not just a one-time experience. It's a daily transformation.
Amen. It's something you can go through every day. So I'm going to say three things to you.
You ready? Can you repeat them after me just so we can wake up a little bit? You ready?
It's time to stop thinking like a slave. Okay. Now that you've practiced it, let's say it again.
And let's go a little louder. Let's let somebody know next to us and around us. Let's even let the devil know.
It's time to stop thinking like a slave. It's time to stop reacting like a child. Let's say that one again.
It's time to stop reacting like a child. It's time. Say, it's time to live free.
Come on, somebody. It's time to live free. Give the Lord a hand clap of praise.
Thank you for tuning in to today's message. To connect or find out more, you can reach us online at worldchangers.life. Remember to subscribe for more uplifting messages from our pastoral team, and may you continue to walk in faith and transformation until we meet again.
