Freedom Group Part 2

I want to welcome you to week number two of our freedom life groups so glad that all of you showed up to your groups today first of all let me just say from right off the top here how blessed I am by all of you that have signed up to be a part of the groups I just really believe that this is gonna be a very special semester for our church a semester where we all grow a little bit deeper and enjoy the Lord more it's gonna be a wonderful time I just real quick want to say thank you to all of the Life Group leaders to all of you that took your time and energy to step out some of you for the very first time I just want to say thank you I would say to all the participants man just encourage your leader throughout the semester being a leader is not always easy and stepping out and these folks have and we are so blessed by them I also want to thank all of the host homes there are many folks that opened up their home and said hey I'll little a group leader and a group come in every week to our home thank you for spitting things up and making things ready for everybody to come in and then also let me just say how very proud I am of all of you that said this year I will grow closer with the Lord that you're taking time out of your busy schedules to grow and to be a part of freedom I really believe that this can be life-changing in fact I would just like to say it like this I really believe that freedom is a journey it doesn't really matter if maybe you're in a group today and you're brand-new to Christianity you're a newer believer a lot of this is new for you and then others of you maybe you've been serving God for 20 30 40 years of your life you know the Bible back in front it doesn't matter where you are on that continuum there's always room to grow and so wherever you are we're always experiencing more of the Lord more of his joy more of his freedom more of his truth in our lives so just be prepared to grow you know there's a scripture that sticks out out to me in the book of John chapter 10 verse 10 what Jesus said he said the thief comes to kill steal and destroy that's the devil that's his job that's what he wants to do but jesus said I have come that you may have life and that you may have it to the full my heart for you this semester is that you'll enjoy the fullness of what God has for you the fullness of joy the fullness of peace the fullness of communion with him and freedom in your life that's my hope for you and so as we get ready to dive into things today I kind of wanted to just share my heart with you a little bit before we get into the teachings and here's a couple things I just would call important info about the freedom life groups I think are so critical the first one is this I encourage you to commit to finish the semester if you've gone to the the expense of your time to sign up and to buy a book and to show up for the second week man finish it's easy to start something but sometimes it can be difficult to finish how do you know that you know you start an exercise program or a diet you know it's exciting to start but man sometimes it's hard to finish but I promise you if you tie into this and you commit and you say you know I'm gonna finish this semester out I truly believe that your life can can radically be changed and you will certainly be closer to the Lord on the other end of this secondly is this you will get out of freedom what you put into it if you know if you just decided like hey I'm gonna you know show up to group and not haven't really read or prepared and maybe you don't go to the retreat you know you're not gonna get necessarily a lot out of this but if you say hey you know I'm I'm diving in I'm all-in on this and one of the things I would encourage you to do is the way freedom is designed it's kind of meant for you to do the reading of the chapter before you come to group so my encouragement is maybe when you get up in the morning with your morning devotions grab that hot cup of coffee when your mind's fresh and you know the chapters are only what 15 or 20 pages you know read through there highlight things make notes think about it throughout your day and then when you go to your group you're gonna be prepared to discuss and that's gonna be make a lot more impact on your life that way here's another thing to number three and that is schedule the retreat make sure that you put it on your calendar May first and second do not miss the retreat I would go as far as saying that if you go to all 12 weeks of the study in your group that is going to be wonderful but if you don't go to the retreat you're gonna be missing 50 percent really of the impact of freedom it's really essential that you go to the retreat it's gonna be a wonderful time May first and second right here at our church in a comfortable place Friday night we're gonna come in and have some fun and some worship there's gonna be some teachings we're gonna be praying together it is going to be I promise you it'll be life-changing and then we'll come back in on Saturday morning until lunchtime and have a wonderful time together you definitely don't want to miss the retreat and then number four is simply this make friends you know one of the reasons why we encourage life groups number one is for spiritual growth but also for connection for friendships you know the Christian life was meant to be done with other people and so in your group I I encourage you you know get to know some people that are in your group if you start to connect with with some people or you connect with another couple man hang out afterwards for a little bit go to coffee but after church one day or whatever but but really you know make sure that you're doing your best to connect with other people you know we always made time when Christy and I had our own life group we always had plenty of time for fellowship and connecting and I look over the church now there are so many friendships in our church that happened from just milling around and getting to know each other and taking some relational risks to get to know some people so make sure you do that I think you'll definitely be glad that you did and before we dive into today's teaching I want to do a real quick recap on what Pastor Chris taught I love Pastor Chris he's an incredible pastor I've learned so much from him personally over the years and I appreciate his heart in his teaching because I think he laid out one of the most important questions when he opened his teaching last week and it's this what is going to be my approach to God such an important question how will I how will you choose to approach God remember he introduced those two trees it's the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil every single day of your life in my life we determine which tree that we are going to connect to God in and the what we decide to do with that decision is critical to our relationship with God you know another way of seeing the tree of the life versus the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is just kind of comparing it to law versus grace in fact back in November I did a series that kind of set the stage for our our freedom life group semester and it was called freedom out of the book of Galatians you might remember what Paul said he said it was for freedom that Christ has set us free no longer to be enslaved to a yoke of slavery I'm such a powerful book and and really what that did is that compared the Old Testament law versus the New Testament grace of Jesus Christ you will choose to live under law or grace and so the law would be like that tree of the knowledge of good and evil grace is like living in the tree of life and and God wants us to live in the Tree of Life in fact Pastor Chris gave us four things last week that really helped us to understand living in the tree of life first of all is just falling in love with Jesus you know honestly at the end of the day that's probably the simplest way to view Christianity you know I mean I love the rich things of scripture and the deep things and I love to teach and share those things with you but honestly at the end of the day you know what our Christian life is all about just being in love with Jesus Christ if you fall in love with Jesus you're gonna experience what he has for you and I hope this series will help you to do that and then secondly he said serve God out of relationship not out of rules and that's so important you know don't read your Bible because you're just putting another notch in your then the spiritual column of your life it's just another duty that you have to do you don't read my Bible to check a box I I read my Bible because I want to know more about this incredible God that I serve you know don't pray because you feel like you have to man pray because God is awesome and you want to get to know him more it's the whole idea of living in the The Tree of Life and then and then thirdly he said respond to all sin with life anytime you you feel like you've sinned or fallen short don't pull away from God which is what we're gonna learn a lot about today but draw near to him he is loving and good and gracious in fact I like what Pastor Chris talked about last week when he was talking about temptation he said temptation is not so much a test of your self-control as it is a test of your love for Jesus when that profile really at the end of the day you know if you fall under temptation but you're in love with Jesus you naturally don't want to give in to that because you love God so much and then lastly he said guard your heart from going back you know that's as a pastor that's the one thing that grieves my heart is when I see people that have come on a spiritual journey and then they go back man guard your heart my heart for you this semester my heart is your pastor is to see you start here and by the end of this semester be in a whole new place with the Lord so let's make sure we do that so today we're gonna go ahead and shift gears into the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and we're gonna look at what God said to Adam in Genesis chapter 2 you'll see it up on the screen here but the Lord God warned him you may freely eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil if you eat its fruit you are sure to die so God immediately in the beginning he told Adam and Adam was supposed to give that info on to Eve listen you can have all this freedom and you can live in my love just don't eat of that one tree when you do you are going to experience death and ultimately we know for them it was spiritual death and so we're gonna kind of get into this second story of the Bible and it's so important that we get into this we call this the second story first story was of course the story of creation and then the second story is the story of man and the fall and then ultimate redemption through Jesus Christ but as we dive into this let me kind of just give you another really refresher between the two The Tree of Life what what describes the Tree of Life for us very simply its freedom its grace its eternal life it's the fact that God is good he's a good god that God is merciful and loving and forgiving that's the mentality you have of God if you're living in the Tree of Life let me give you some examples of living in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that is that you'll have bondage in your life the law you'll feel condemned to the law it leads to death it's the whole concept that God is angry and he's just this judge and he's he's out to zap me for all of my wrongs you'll constantly feel ashamed and condemn that's that's the fruit of living in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so we want to study it for a few minutes today so that we can understand it so that we don't fall prey to it and we can see some of the fruits of it so that we can more so live in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that being said here's a really important point that came out in the lesson that I think's paramount for today's lesson that simply this that in our journey to walk in communion with God in freedom we must find out why we may be separated from God and why we may be in bondage that's what I want to take you on a journey in this curriculum we'll do over the course of the next several weeks if you feel like you're in a place right now where you're just not as close to the Lord as you used to be if you feel like there's a little bit of distance between you and God you feel a little bit separated from him you just don't feel the warmth of his presence in your life or maybe you're in a place where you're struggling with some things maybe it's a private thing maybe no one even knows maybe there's an addiction in your life or there's just this pattern of sin you can't seem to break or you just feel defeated with you know maybe fear or anxiety or depression maybe you're in a situation where you just can't seem to to make it make it work in relationships you you deal with unforgiveness or bitterness in your heart I mean there's so many different things that people can be dealing with well if you feel in any of those ways in that way if you feel a little bit separated or you feel like you're not free then what we want to do is we want to kind of dig in and find out why and that's kind of a journey of of where we're going so we're gonna start in the first book of the Bible and that first story well it's the first or that's the second story its creation then man the reason why we're doing that and the curriculum does that is because in Bible study there are some rules and one of those rules is called the law of first mention and that means whatever you study in the Bible you always want to go back and start at the very first place it was mentioned pick up from there and then move forward so what we want to do to really understand communion with God separation bondage and then freedom is we want to go back to the very beginning so that's why we're spending some time for a few weeks in the very beginning and really digging into this thing today all right so that being said here's what you need to understand that in the very beginning God gave Adam authority through relationship so you may remember when God created Adam he gave them he gave mankind dominion over the earth that was the the heart of God he wanted man to be in communion with him and then dominion over the earth here's what you need to understand Dominion necessitated the relationship in order to have dominion you had to have the relationship if there was no relationship and obedience of man and God there would be no dominion over the things of the earth so that's important that we understand that because Satan has always wanted to usurp that authority in fact through deception we find in the story and rebellion the serpent took the authority and Dominion that God has given to man we see that in the story right in fact even before this story we learn in the Bible that before even creation there was this coup in heaven that Satan or Lucifer started because what he was trying to exalt himself above God he always wanted God's Authority always wanted Dominion and after God created the earth and Adam and Eve he wanted it but he couldn't have it as long as mankind was in union with God and obeying with God they were in Dominion the Satan had no power but after the fall that gave Satan a legal right to come in look what the Bible says in the book of first John in the New Testament it says we know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under the control look of the evil one what does that mean well doesn't mean that Satan's in charge of God's creation listen God still in charge God still sovereign he's still providentially still in control the world the Bible tells us is the system of the world in fact the book of John goes on to define it it's the lust of the flesh lust of the eyes the pride of life it's the perversion in the world it's all the the spirit of the Antichrist that the anti God stuff we see in the world and the news and the media it's the pride and lust for things it's all the anti godless things in our world he is now ruling that and charge it and in charge he's basically taken charge of that because of the sieve of mankind so that's kind of where it all started but here's what we need to realize about that beginning is that you'll see here in my next point then after Adam and Eve sinned when they ate of that tree that God said don't eat from looks what happened they went in they hid the Bible says and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife look they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden so what happened was God warned them not to eat of this tree they went ahead they were deceived they ate of the tree and immediately what happened they got the knowledge that they were wanting it was knowledge of good and evil and suddenly they realized that they are naked and what happened their sin the they're naked they're ashamed they're they're scared and so what did they do they went and they hid themselves and can I be honest with you that's really human nature I think so oftentimes human nature is if a person feels like they've disappointed God or they've sinned against God what do they naturally do you they they begin to pull away from God they begin to kind of hide from God and and I want to teach you today and that's really critical in this lesson that when you feel like you failed or you know you've disappointed the Lord it's not to pull away but to press into the tree of life but their natural response what was to go away and I know a lot of people read the story and like man well you know God came in and he booted him out I had out of the out of the Garden of Eden and man God was was tough no no what you have to realize is is once Adam and Eve sinned sin can no longer live in the presence of God and so there's a kind of a long theological story but they they had to go because of that but here's what you need to understand about God God is Oh is not as angry god god is always pursuing relationship with man as a matter of fact the beautiful thing about this story God knew Adam and Eve sinned but look what happens in verse 9 it says then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him where are you so notice that God wasn't looking to boot him out God was looking that wasn't as you know goal in that moment his goal was relationship look he he said where are you he pursued Adam and that's the beautiful thing about God that God God's always pursuing us he loves you and I that much as a matter of fact even after um God talks with Adam and Eve in this story he immediately turns to Satan to the serpent he says listen genesis 3:15 he said eventually the seed of that woman speaking of the Messiah Jesus Christ is one day gonna come and crush your head and ultimately we see that when Jesus comes and gives his life for us I love what Jesus said in his earthly ministry he said the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost God is always pursuing you God loves you that much that's the very heart of God for you and I so here's what we need to understand as we look at this chapter and we look at the fruit of this tree so if you're living in this tree what's the fruit of it I'm gonna hit the couple 4 points just briefly and then we'll finish with the ending here but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil here's some fruit number 1 the fruit is knowledge so what you need to understand when Lucifer you know the serpent when he tricked Eve and deceived Eve what did he tell her that you will know the thoughts of God this wasn't just fruit eating a fruit it was a desire for knowledge what she wanted to do is not just submit to God and honor God and trust God but she wanted to know what God knows she wanted to be like God and that was the dangerous part so it was this whole idea of knowledge and let me just tell you knowledge is a good thing the Bible says we should be people that pursue knowledge we should read the Bible we should know knowledge but any time we're looking at that you always want to look at the motive of why you know we're not just getting this knowledge so we can be like God in kind of an arrogant self-serving way or for people to think we're great but we get knowledge because we want to know more about this wonderful God we want to honor him more we want his power in our life and that's the idea and that God even Jesus even warned actually Paul did in 1st Corinthians he said knowledge puffs up and you know that was the problem with the Pharisees of the Bible you might remember I mean they knew so much about the law they were full of knowledge but it didn't lead them to God it led them almost like gods like that of their own and Jesus detested their behavior and their attitude because it was literally godless even though they had all of this this knowledge and so it's important when you when you go after knowledge it's because I just want to know this wonderful God more I want to live more for him and so it was this knowledge here's enough here's number two is that the fruit was deadly remember God said when you eat of it you will surely die wasn't just a physical death it was a spiritual death it was gonna create a separation and that's the thing they really point out in the study and the teaching it says this is pursuing knowledge in your pursuit of your own godliness kind of like the Pharisees did the desire to know can be in direct opposition to the desire to trust that sometimes we want to know so we can control versus just trusting God and then here's number three is that the fruit was ultimately consumed and that's what you need to understand remember Eve had a discussion with the serpent and then she ate of the fruit then Eve had a discussion with Adam and then Adam ate the fruit and so the whole idea is knowledge and ideas and thoughts whether it's good knowledge ur bad knowledge it gets into our minds and ultimately we ingest it into our hearts and that's what we have to be careful of we have to be careful as believers of what what kind of truth or so-called truth we're exposing ourselves to the things that we allow in our minds to meditate on in fact let me just kind of a little side note here you know I think it's important as believers what we read what we watch what we listen to what we're allowing into our hearts and minds to meditate on you know I say a lot I'm not a legalistic guy I like all kinds of different styles of music and Christian I enjoy watching movies and TV but in saying that we're also very careful about that because I don't want anything coming into me that's gonna create a desire in me that would not be godly so and that's of course that's very much a danger there and then here's number four is that the fruit ultimately it causes a separation so again we see in in verse eight what did they do they went and they hid themselves what happened Adam and Eve the ate of that fruit and what happened they had shame so they pulled away they also were afraid they were afraid of God's reaction so they felt shame and like oh my goodness we did what God didn't want us to do and then they were afraid so they had shame and then they disappeared and they were hiding from God but here's the thing that we need to understand is Adam and Eve they misjudged how God was going to react to the situation they they did it in fear but here's the beauty again like I've been trying to share with you God is always pursuing so God comes and he pursues them because God loves them and God loves you and me he's always pursuing he wasn't up there was you know sitting in the garden with some lightning bolt ready to shoot them you know God's not just looking down waiting to zap you every time you do something wrong as a matter of fact I like what they said in the curriculum I thought this is such a powerful point when we see God's heart for us we will run to him instead of hiding from him when we sin so good like you know when when we feel like we failed when we feel like we've let that God down instead of pulling away from him you know Adam and Eve instead of running from God they could have run to him God wants you and I to run to him when we feel like we failed because God even in my reading this morning I was in the Old Testament in the book of Exodus and it was God's interaction with Moses and the making of the second time around and the Ten Commandments after Moses had broken them the first time and God showed up and the Bible says about God he said I am good and loving and slow to anger and merciful I mean aren't you glad that God's that way He loves us like the perfect parent perfect father could ever love us but here's the thing that we have to be careful of and this is what I want to close on today that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil produces shame and victimization in people's lives here's the big danger here's the big fruit that that this tree if you're living in this tree you can be susceptible to being in this particular situation this fruit is bad shame and victimization there's an interesting story that was told in the curriculum that thought was so powerful it was a story of a young teenage boy who lived in a loving godly home and he loved his mom and dad he was bright-eyed and ambitious and loved being around his family we got into a season where his mom realized that this boy was not the same boy that they had he would come home from school with his head down and his shoulders slumped instead of wanting to be with the family he spent a lot of time alone would go to his room and his mom wondered what was going on till one day she was in his bedroom cleaning up some clothes that he had left on the floor and as she was cleaning them up she saw under his bed that he'd had some pornographic magazines under his bed and at that moment that precious discerning mother realized exactly what was happening with her boy that her boy had opened himself up to pornography to sinful things and he had opened himself up to that darkness and now that darkness was now in him and that darkness was was affecting him in a lot of negative ways and one of those ways too was with shame because he was hiding from the people that loved him most and that's the danger of shove of shame in this tree is because it can lead you to separate from God it can have you really see yourself in a really negative way in fact you do realize that there's a difference between guilt and shame guilt says I did something wrong I did something bad shame says I am a bad person big difference you know godly conviction is a good thing when you and I do something wrong when we say something wrong and we feel that conviction that's a good thing because that's God leading us back but when you feel I'm a bad person I'm not worth nothing you you sense that you in your heart like I'm it's not a good that's shame and what shame will do it'll keep you away from God keep you away from church keep you away from the people that really love you and are looking out for you so we want to fight that shame because shames like a veil that stands between us and God God never wants us to live in that place of shame and then the second thing is victimization that's where we begin to make excuses instead of taking responsibility for our actions you might remember when God comes to Adam and Eve and this is what he says to me he says to Adam first because Adam was the head of the home he says Adam what what happened you know Adam doesn't say god I'm so sorry we blew it I knew you told us not to eat of that tree and I did I'm so sorry he didn't say that did he said God that woman that you gave me that's why took no responsibility fact what he did was he pointed fingers at other people instead of himself and so what does God do God says Eve well what happened and she said God it was a serpent he made me do it like no one was willing to take responsibility for their action and that can be a really dangerous thing cuz then what happens is people get stuck in this rut I've always been this way and I'm never gonna change I never and you can almost get a victim mentality it's everybody else's fault fact um you know a few years ago actually several years ago I was working with a couple that was as it was in the church and they had been married for many many years and over the course of many years of time they'd been married for twenty plus years the husband just really made some bad decisions and didn't didn't take his rightful place and being the head of the home in certain areas and you just got to a place where the wife just kind of blindly followed him for 20 years until the fruit of all of the the struggles that they were having kind of hid the kind of came to a head and she just realized you know we can't do this anymore we need some help so they came in to see me and it was really obvious as we began to sit down and look at their situation that he was the one that was in the wrong 95 or at 98 percent of their struggles was with him that he'd really not stepped up in some areas of their marriage and their family and in a lot of areas and the wife dearly loved him and the family and and she wanted to make it work and and he had a great opportunity right there just to get things right but instead of doing that he sat in my office session after session after session and he just made excuses and he blamed everybody else and he blamed his wife and and never one time did he ever admit that he'd done anything wrong and he just fought tooth and nail for his rights and it was and he just fell into this victimization and I want to tell you what it didn't end well it ended in divorce and I feel like he lost a lot because he was here so here's the thing I think we need to realize is that in fact Pastor Chris said it last week respond to all sin with life so here's the good news today the good news is that God loves you and he's for you and if we feel like we've blown it if we feel like we've messed up or you feel like there's just some things in your life don't hide don't allow yourself to to get into the victim mentality come to the Tree of Life come to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who loves you so much who's gracious and long-suffering and merciful and loves you like the perfect father and wants the best for you and has good things in store for you who wants to have this beautiful relationship with you where you're overflowing with life and joy and peace where you're experiencing freedom in your life that's God's heart for you and and we want to help you with God's truth and your small groups and the retreat for you to really begin to experience that so let's guard ourselves against that tree of the knowledge of good and evil and let's respond to everything in life with life let's choose to live in the Tree of Life amen I want to pray for you today before you guys break off into your groups father I just thank you for this time together today thank you for each and every one of these life groups thank you for the leaders and host homes and all of the participants father as we are launching into this series we just ask for your blessing on it I pray for every group and everyone under the sound of my voice that we would all choose to live in the Tree of Life thank you for your love your grace thank you that you're good and thank you that you have good things in store for us help these each and every group and each and every participant to just grow in their walk with you and to grow in the freedom that they experience in Jesus name Amen god bless you I look forward to talking with you next week have great discussion

Channel: Woodlawn Church Online

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Id: 0jiEaY6tSJM

Length: 30min 45sec (1845 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 12 2020