Freedom is something we all want but before we go asking ourselves how do you get it or where do you get it, first it might be worthwhile figuring out exactly what it is because freedom, real freedom may not be what you think.

Most of us, I guess, would define freedom as being able to do whatever we want whenever we want. And that definition right there is what brings a whole world of pain crashing down on our lives. I don’t think there’s a single person on this planet who doesn’t want to be free. Do you want to be free? Well of course you do, me too but if freedom is that important to us you have to ask yourself, exactly what is it?

Sure there’s political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of association, the freedom to gather, to protest, to live where you want to live, to marry who you want to marry, to choose to have children or not. In this day and age we live in a world that’s more and more fixated on our individual freedoms, our rights as individuals.

After all I’m entitled to enjoy my life, right? So it doesn’t take too long to start imagining that freedom is being able to do whatever we want whenever we want. Anything that cuts across that is a restriction of our alienable right to be free. And yet if you travel to any place where that kind of freedom is practised what you discover is lawlessness and anarchy. There’s no safety, there’s no protection, there’s no security because that ‘anything anytime’ kind of freedom is a terrible thing.

That’s what the rule of law is all about, to keep us safe and secure. So when you think about it what we actually need is a different definition of freedom, one that really works. Try this one on for size, Galatians chapter 1 verses 3 to 4:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself for our sins to set us free from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father.

It seems that God takes our freedom so seriously that He sent Jesus to suffer and die to set us free. From what? Well from our sin and from this evil age. So according to God real freedom, the sort of freedom that Jesus purchased for you on that cross is about setting you free from the devastating consequences of your sin and the evil that pervades every nook and cranny of this age so that you can live in grace and in peace.

Not such a bad definition when you think about it. So here’s a question for you, what sin, what evil is robbing you of the freedom that Jesus came to give you because that sin, that evil is what God is calling you to hand over to Him today? His will for you is to be free to live in the grace and the peace of Jesus Christ.

But that’s not always an easy thing to do. One of the things you discover when you set your heart on following Jesus is that the rest of the world is not going to be standing by and cheering you on. In fact far from it. Not long after I became a Christian, a few decades ago now, the IT consulting firm of which I was a partner had the opportunity to bid for a rather large government project in the developing world.

But the simple reality was that unless you paid the bribes to the various officials you were completely wasting your time in bidding. As you can imagine as a brand new Christian I was faced with a real dilemma and can I tell you I came under quite some pressure to compromise.

It happens in every corner of our lives because when you decide to believe in Jesus, when you decide to follow Jesus, when you decide to live your life for Him let me tell you the world is not going to be all that happy with you. They’ll criticize you, laugh at you, persecute you, whatever fits best at the time.

You see those people want you to believe that their way is the way of freedom, of success, of enjoyment. The world wants you to believe that following Jesus somehow is going to rob you of your freedom. What do you believe? Who are you trying to please? Jesus? Or those naysayers around you?

Paul the Apostle made a very clear decision on that question in his life, Galatians chapter 1 verse 10:

Am I now seeking human approval or Gods approval or am I trying to please people? If I was still pleasing people I would not be a servant of Christ.

People are so fickle, have you noticed? Jesus did, that’s why we’re told in John chapter 2 verses 23 to 25:

When He was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival many believed in His name because they saw the signs that He was doing. But Jesus on His part would not entrust Himself to them because He knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone for He Himself knew what was in everyone.

At some point in every corner of our lives, in every thought, every decision, every action, each one of us has to decide who we’re trying to please, people or God? And the way it tends to work is that it’s not so much the big decision we make up front that matters, it’s the little decisions that we make a hundred times a day that together tell us who we’re really trying to please.

Come on, who are you trying to please with your life? Because if you’re still seeking human approval, if you’re still trying to please people you wouldn’t be a servant of Christ.

Look to experience freedom, real freedom we need to stop focusing on the world. What we need is a spiritual revelation. The fact is that the freedom that only Jesus Christ can bring is a fantastic thing but whilst the facts are incredibly important you don’t find freedom in facts.

The Apostle Paul was an interesting character. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling religious body in Jerusalem and there’s a reason that he made it to the top of the pile, Philippians chapter 3 verses 4 to 6:

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrew’s; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

So Pauls heritage, his breeding, his upbringing ticked all the right boxes. He studied the Old Testament law, he knew it from back to front, he worked hard at it, you know the sort of person. He had all the head knowledge that you could ask for, all the discipline that you could ever expect of anybody.

On top of that he was a Pharisee. Now this sect took the idea of following the law to incredible lengths. The very word ‘Pharisee’ means to be a religious separatist. He was absolutely full on and yet the one thing he didn’t have was freedom until one day on the road to Damascus Jesus appeared to him and that encounter with Jesus was the turning point of his life. This is what he writes years later looking back on it, Galatians chapter 1 verses 11 to 12:

For I want you to know brothers and sisters that the Gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

So it wasn’t something that he’d learned through years of study, it was a revelation. The original Greek word used there for revelation is the word ‘apokolypsis’. In other words it was an apocalyptic revelation, dramatic, powerful, completely life changing.

And it wasn’t a revelation about Jesus, it wasn’t words from a book, come on Paul knew all those words in the Old Testament Books, he’d studied them for years, he’d made it to the top of the religious pile that way but that’s not what changed his life. It wasn’t a revelation about Jesus, it was a revelation of Jesus through a personal encounter with Him.

Have you had a apocalyptic revelation of the person of Jesus Christ? Have you had a dramatic, powerful, life changing encounter with Jesus? No, then get a revelation, Jesus is waiting for you now. He wants to turn your life upside down now. All the head knowledge in the world won’t do that for you, only Jesus.

Freedom sounds like such a wonderful thing and it is. So why is it then that so few people experience true freedom in their lives? It turns out there are plenty of things that would rob you of your freedom, plenty.

Freedom is a tricky thing. So often we are our own worst enemy, our perspective, our thoughts, our behaviour, they all rob us of this elusive thing called freedom. Try as we might we just can’t grasp it. You’ve had that experience right, you know what it’s like? There’s something in your make up, an Achilles heel if you will, that’s constantly your undoing.

For each one of us it’s something different but at the end of the day it trips you up again and again and again. Mine is perfectionism which has a tendency to fuel anger. Yours? Well you probably know what it is, maybe its insecurity, gossiping, a lack of compassion, selfishness; hey the list runs as long as my arm and then some.

God has a simple name for it, He calls it sin. The devil loves to rub your nose in it and just when you’re feeling weak or tired, emotionally spent he pushes your button and there you go again. For the Apostle Paul it was an obsessive hatred of the Church. He was of course a Pharisee in the Jewish religion when Jesus came along and turned everything he’d ever believed in, everything he’d ever worked so hard for, completely upside down. No wonder he hated Christians.

But then, then he met Jesus and something changed in him. People were talking about it, Galatians chapter 1 verse 23:

… They only heard it said, “The one who was formerly persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy” And they glorified God because of me.

And he had been too, he was a terrible persecutor of the Church until that day he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. You can read about it in the Book of Acts chapter 9. Okay so he met Jesus but what happened to turn him from a man breathing threats against the early Church to the guy who ultimately wrote almost half the Books of the New Testament.

That’s quite a turn around you’d have to admit. I’ll tell you what happened – Jesus changed his heart. You know and I know that when we have a change of heart our thoughts and our actions flow out of that just as God promised in the days of old through Ezekiel chapter 11 verses 19 and 20:

I will give them one heart and put a new spirit within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them.

When you encounter Jesus on your road, when you draw close to Him, when His Spirit fills you to overflowing He does what you were powerless to do, He changes your heart which, as it turns out, changes everything. Sometimes though it feels as though nothing is happening, NOTHING.

So what? Has God forgotten me now? Has He left me on the shelf? We all want to feel as though God has some great plan for our lives so in those months, even years when nothing much seems to be happening it can be terribly disheartening.

Jesus: “I came to set the captives free”

You: “yeah right, it feels like you’ve forgotten me.”

Other people, they seem to be powering on. You on the other hand feel as though there’s nothing really exciting ahead.

Saul is on the road to Damascus, off to persecute some more Christians, he meets Jesus along the way, that’s pretty exciting but then he loses his sight and for three days he’s completely blind.

Now that doesn’t sound like such a long time unless you’ve been struck blind in which case it probably feels like an eternity, adversity has a way of doing that. Which is why when you’re feeling as though you’ve been left on the shelf it does seem like an eternity, am I right? Freedom? What’s that? You ask yourself in this prison of inactivity.

When we get to that point there’s something we need to be reminded of, it’s what Paul says of himself in his letter to the Church of Galatia, Galatians chapter 1 verses 15 to 17:

But when God who had set me apart before I was born and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son to me so that I might proclaim Him among the Gentiles, I didn’t confer with any human being nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already Apostles before me but I went away at once to Arabia and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

In other words God already had a plan for Paul even before he was born. Along the way people tried to kill the guy, they rioted against him, he was imprisoned, beaten, shipwrecked, bitten by a viper of all things and eventually he rotted out the remainder of his days in a Roman dungeon on death row.

But that powerful encounter with Jesus, that incredible revelation of Christ Himself when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, that changed everything because no matter how dire his circumstances became he knew that God had a plan. So in the middle of those difficult circumstances Paul had the freedom that Jesus promised.

You know God still has a plan, a plan for today, for tomorrow, next month, next year and indeed for the rest of your time on this earth. God hasn’t forgotten you, He hasn’t lost the plot. God has a plan and that fact gives you freedom even if you’ve been locked away in a dungeon or forgotten on a shelf. And that’s a promise God wants you to take into your heart today. The only sort of hope the Bible talks about is certain hope so may the Holy Spirit write that hope on your heart.

One of the things I’m so passionate about is sharing God’s Word with you in a way that makes sense. I’m sure I don’t get that quite right every day but do you see how real, how practical, how powerful the Word of God really is? The problem is that all too often we don’t take God seriously; we don’t take God at His Word.

We read stuff in the Bible or we hear the stuff preached and we think, “ahh yeah, sure but…..” But what? You don’t think that God means to give you hope? You don’t think that God is up to something good in your life, really? Well don’t just believe me, listen to God’s Word again because I know that as it’s spoken out the Holy Spirit will do the one thing that I cannot do, He’ll write it on your heart. Jeremiah chapter 29 verses 11 to 14:

For surely I know the plans I have for you’ says the Lord, ‘Plans for your welfare and not your harm. To give you a future with hope, then when you call upon me and come and pray to me I will hear you. When you search for me you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart I will let you find me’ says the Lord.

That’s the Word of God spoken to a people who thought they’d been forgotten by Him, who thought they’d been left on a shelf but with God there’s always hope because He will show up, He has set you free, He is ready to do things in you and through you than you can scarce imagine.

With all my heart I believe that He has put us together today to speak that truth into your heart. May you receive the powerful truth of His Word and may His Spirit breathe a certain hope into you that you have a future, a future of freedom in Christ. That’s what I believe God wants you to receive today – hope, real hope and certain hope. Whether you take it or leave it, hey that’s entirely your choice, only you can decide.

One of the things that robs us of freedom are our old habits. Old ways of thinking, old ways of behaving and you know those old habits; they can be more difficult to shake than you might think.

Okay the subject for today is circumcision. I know it’s not exactly something you want to be thinking about but stick with me, there’s an important point to be made. And what we’re really chatting about is freedom, your freedom here, now, today. But first let’s head back to 1st century Jerusalem.

See there’s a rocky transition underway for those who believe in Jesus, from Judaism, the religion of their forefathers, to Christianity. From a life lived under a complex set of religious rules to a life of freedom in Christ. A lot of the things that seem pretty obvious to us today had to be nutted out back then, it wasn’t easy.

One of them was male circumcision which to this point had been part of God’s law for His people. Let’s take a look at how the Apostle Paul puts it in Galatians chapter 2 verses 3 to 5:

But even Titus who was with me was not compelled to be circumcised though he was a Greek. But because of false believers secretly brought in who slipped in to spy on the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus so that they might enslave us, we did not submit to them even for a moment so that the truth of the Gospel might always remain with you.

See there’s a tussle here between the old traditionalists who didn’t believe in this whole nonsense about grace through Jesus and Paul to whom the Gospel of grace, the fantastic news of Gods unmerited favour towards us had been revealed by Jesus Himself. Circumcision was just the flash point, the real debate was between the slavery of living under the set of rules and the freedom that we have through our faith in Christ.

And it’s a struggle that continues to this day in the heart of many a believer because grace is so radical, so counterintuitive. We live in a ‘dog eat dog’ world and there seems to be plenty of ‘dog’ to go around. Yet along comes Jesus and says in effect:

Look it’s not about following a bunch of rules, it’s about experiencing my love and so that you can I’m going to pay the price on a cross for all the things that you’ve done wrong in your life.

The reason Paul takes this so seriously is that it strikes at the very heart of the Gospel of grace, the truth. Besides have you noticed? It’s pretty much impossible to follow the rules anyway, we all fall short, that’s why we need Jesus. So if you’ve been struggling under a bunch of rules do yourself a favour, ditch them. Go to Jesus instead; start having a rich dynamic relationship with Him and your unbounded freedom will flow out of that relationship. Don’t let rules enslave you!

And you and I, we aren’t the only ones that suffer from this problem. Take Peter the Apostle, we think of Peter as one of the New Testament’s ‘A’ list yet he made quite a few mistakes along the way not the least of which was political correctness. This age of rampant political correctness isn’t something new in the 21st century, it turns out that there’s nothing new under the sun.

Now look, it’s absolutely a good idea that we shouldn’t deliberately go out there to say or do things that will hurt others but it’s a very bad idea to take that to the ridiculous nth degree, to the point where we curtail our freedoms in order to appease those with a agenda.

And that’s exactly what was going on in the first century as Christianity was being birthed out of Judaism. There was a tussle between the two; there were difficult issues to work through. For instance, most Jews believed that the God of the Old Testament was for them and them alone. Many of the Apostles stayed in Jerusalem for that very reason but Paul was called to be an Apostle to the Gentiles, to take the good news of salvation in Jesus to people whom the Jews referred to as dogs.

So Peter is happy to dine with the Gentiles until some other legalistic old school Jews show up at which point he does the politically correct thing, retreating only to eat with Jews again. Well at this point Paul pretty much has a pink fit, Galatians chapter 2 verses 11 to 13:

But when Cephas (that’s Peter’s other name) came to Antioch I opposed him to his face because he stood self condemned. For until certain people came from James he used to eat with the Gentiles but after they came he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction and the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy so even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

To the extent that you believe in Jesus you are free in Christ to live out your faith. Sure in this age of political correctness, this age of pluralism you will be derided for it, you’ll be laughed at for it, you’ll even be persecuted for it but let Peter’s mistake be a lesson to us all – let’s not be hypocrites, let’s not compromise our freedom in Christ to appease the sinners of this world.

Sure, the issues of today are different but the principle remains the same. People will disagree with you because you believe in Jesus, they just will, there’s nothing new in any of that. Live out your faith in Jesus anyhow. Don’t let the fear of what others will think or say or do rob you of the freedom that you have in Christ, don’t let your life compromise the truth of the Gospel of grace.

Isn’t it funny how our old ways keep coming back to haunt us. Peter spent three and a half years with Jesus, he saw the miracles, he heard the sermons, he experienced the radically different way that the Son of God would approach things.

Jesus wasn’t afraid of upsetting the religious leaders, Jesus wasn’t afraid of offending people yet still Peter falls back into his old ways, no wonder Paul took him on, it’s a good thing and as I said it’s a sobering lesson to you and me about the power of the old ways to rob us of the freedoms that Jesus came to give us. Jesus said that if He sets us free then we are free indeed. Don’t throw that freedom away so easily.

Alright so today we’ve looked at the old ways, the old rules as they were back then in the 1st century. Circumcision well you’d have to agree it’s not such an issue anymore really, at least I hope it isn’t in your life and then there’s the people we associate with, well that’s still an issue today isn’t it?

One of the things I try to do as much as I can is eat meals with people who aren’t believers, to associate with people who don’t go to Church, to spend time out there in the world sometimes at the expense of time, involved in Church activities. In fact really, I feel called to be a minister outside the four walls of a Church rather than inside.

Hey Church is great but just as God called Paul to take the Gospel to the Gentiles, I guess in the same way He’s called me to take the Gospel outside the Church. And you wouldn’t believe the criticism I cop for that sometimes. I wonder what it is in your life. What religious norms, what rules are people trying to get you to submit to? What criticism are people hurling in your direction? It’s amazing how quickly and how easily people want to turn the Gospel of grace and freedom into a bunch of religious rules.

Now God’s Word is replete with wisdom about how to live. God tells us the things that are wrong, the things we shouldn’t do, actually there aren’t that many of them surprisingly enough but don’t get suckered in, as the Apostle Paul writes: For freedom you have been set free. And that freedom was purchased at such a huge price.

Let’s face it, grace is a difficult concept to wrap your mind around. Maybe you get as far as the theory but the practice, actually living as though Gods grace in your life is real, well that’s a whole different thing.

Have you ever tried to work yourself into Gods favour? You try and you try to do the right thing but still you just mess it up. Well if you’ve been there you’re not alone. There’s a fine line between responding to God’s grace and falling into the trap of trying to work your way into His favour. Here’s how it happens:

At some point you realise what an amazing thing God did for you by sending Jesus to die for you on that cross. Amazing! And so you turn your life over to Him lock, stock and barrel. There’s a joy, a euphoria almost but then life gets back to normal. You go back to your day to day business and you slip back into your old habits, the sin that’s been robbing you of joy and peace for most of your life creeps back and guilt sets in.

So you say to yourself ‘self, you have to do something about this, there are standards here, there are rules, I shouldn’t be doing this, I shouldn’t be doing that’. You start to work at it harder and harder and harder and before you know it you’re pedalling so hard that it’s just about killing you. Yet still that old sin keeps on tripping you up.

My hunch is that you know exactly what I’m talking about. Jesus promised you freedom but this doesn’t feel like freedom. That’s because it’s not. Have a listen to what the Apostle Paul writes about trying to follow a set of rules, Galatians chapter 2 verses 15 and 16:

We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ and we have come to believe in Christ Jesus so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by doing the works of the law because no one will be justified by the works of the law.

I am my father’s son not because I followed a bunch of rules and worked my way into that position, no, I am my father’s son because he is my dad and I’m his son. And as I grew up in that relationship my behaviour matured and improved as a response to his love not because I was good at following rules which by the way I wasn’t.

The moment you and I put our faith in Jesus God becomes our Father and the more we grow in that relationship, the closer we get to Him the more we experience His love and the more our behaviour changes. See it’s not about following a bunch of rules, it’s about trusting Jesus and as we experience His love first hand, allowing His love, His grace, His mercy to change us, to set us free in a way that following a bunch of rules never ever will.

It turns out that living in freedom has everything to do with Jesus. A Scripture that is really familiar to many people is this one:

It’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

But as familiar as that may be to many I wonder whether we truly realise what it means. Freedom is such an elusive concept for us, we want it, we chase it but very few ever really experience it and I mean that especially for people who believe in Jesus. Because deep down inside most of us have this nagging sense that we’re simply not good enough.

In fact the more you grow in your relationship with Jesus the more you see your own weaknesses and failings, it’s just how it happens. The closer you draw in a rich dynamic relationship with Jesus the more aware you become, the more sensitive your spirit becomes to the things that break that fellowship. And sin, sin always disrupts the closeness, the intimacy between you and God, right?

I believe that God wants to deal with this in your life today, Galatians chapter 2 verses 19 to 21:

I have been crucified with Christ and it’s no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God for if justification comes through the law then Christ died for nothing.

So what’s God saying to us today through His Word? Quite simply this; the moment you accept Jesus into your life the old you has died, the old you was nailed to a cross. That’s the effect of making Jesus your Saviour and the Lord of your life. The whole point of Jesus suffering there for you on that cross was and is to set you free from the old you and give you a new life, a radically completely abundantly new life. So in Gods eyes it’s no longer the old you who lives but Christ who lives in you.

If you believe in Jesus you have a complete and perfect right standing with God, not because of what you’ve done but because of what Jesus has done for you despite what you’ve done. In fact because of what you’ve done that’s why Jesus died for you, that’s the whole point, that’s why they call this the Good News. You and I, in and of ourselves will never ever be good enough to stand before God, if we were who’d need Jesus, if we were then Jesus died for nothing?

But as it is we’re not and what’s more we never will be but that’s completely irrelevant because it’s no longer you or I who live – that old person is dead and gone but Christ who lives in us. So let me challenge you today about some of the old habits that may be robbing you of that freedom that Christ came to give you.

The older I get the more I realise what a creature of habit I am. We all have routines, little rituals that play themselves out day after day. In the morning when I get up I always shave before I clean my teeth, it’s never the other way around, I never clean my teeth first and then shave, I couldn’t imagine doing it that way.

Why? Well its habit, it’s routine. I’m sure that you have silly little rituals as well, we all do and one of the habits we want to fall back into is believing that the only way we can be in Gods favour is to work hard at it. Now if you’ve believed in Jesus for any length of time you’ll have heard sermon after sermon after sermon about Gods grace.

What’s grace? The free unmerited favour of God. I’m guessing you’ve heard that definition on more than one occasion and grace is such a great concept, the theory of it is so elegant, so simple, in fact deep down we suspect it’s just too good to be true.

I was staying with a man recently, a real man of God who shared something with me of his past, something he regretted, something he was ashamed of and I could tell in his heart of hearts he still wasn’t over it, he still hadn’t really forgiven himself for it and I’m guessing that in his heart of hearts he believed that it was still an issue for God too. You get that right?

Well check this out, this is the Apostle Paul’s reaction, his response to that old habit, Galatians chapter 3 verses 1 to 5:

You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified, the only thing I want to learn from you is this, did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish having started with the Spirit are you now ending up with the flesh?

Did you experience so much for nothing, if really it was for nothing? Well then does God supply with the Spirit and work miracles among you by doing the works of the law or by believing what you have heard?

See, they had the same problem as you and me. They were always wanting to fall back to the old ways of working their way into Gods favour through what they did rather than knowing for sure, deep in their hearts that they were already in Gods favour because of what they believed. Knowing absolutely 100% that God had completely forgiven them absolutely.

Listen to me; if you believe in Jesus then you are drenched in the grace of God, in the free, unmerited favour of God today and for all eternity. That’s freedom.

Yeah we know about grace, we’ve heard about grace, it’s a good thing but deep down inside, in our heart of hearts most of us harbour a sneaking suspicion that this whole ‘God’ thing surely has to come down to following a bunch of rules, right?

If I were to ask you, “are you living under a curse?” What would your answer be? I guess perhaps if you’re going through some tough times you might be tempted to say yes but just for a moment set your circumstances aside, forget what’s going on around you, in your relationship with God are you living under a curse?

Now that may seem like rather an odd question but actually a good many people who say they believe in Jesus are doing exactly that, they’re living under a curse. A curse that God wants to remove from your life today, Galatians chapter 3 verses 10 and 13:

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse for it is written ‘cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law. But:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written ‘cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’.

That word curse is a very strong word. If someone says to you ‘I curse you’ that’s pretty offensive, you take that pretty seriously. There’s a venom, a sense of evil, a sense of fear, foreboding in that word curse.

Well, now listen this to this very carefully, God is saying to you today that if you’re living your life under the lie that you can only be in His favour if you perform, if you deliver the goods, if you follow the rules. If that’s how you’re living your life God is saying to you today that you are living under a curse.

That’s very strong and the reason I’m being so blunt and so direct with you on this is that God is making a powerful point to you and me today. But with the bad news comes the good news. They call it the Good News but frankly I think it’s stunningly Good News, it’s fantastic news, it’s sensational news.

Jesus took that curse on His shoulders when He died for you. He became a curse for you as He hung on that cross so that you could be set free. Listen to me, stop living under the curse of trying to follow the rules and start enjoying the freedom that you have in Christ. Start enjoying the fact that God has put His Holy Spirit in you. Start enjoying the fact that you’re forgiven, that God has a plan for your life, a good plan.

Back in the Old Testament it says that:

The joy of the Lord is your strength.

Have you heard the Good News today? Then enter into that joy, experience that joy, live in that joy, the curse has been removed, you are forgiven, you are free. That’s fantastic news.

And yet we still struggle with this whole ‘grace’ thing don’t we? Grace, Gods grace is such a difficult concept to wrap your heart around. Even if you can wrap your mind around it, wrapping your heart around it, believing in the grace of God is so hard because we don’t live in a world of grace.

We live in a world that measures you on your performance. A world that says, “if you’re wealthy, if you have a good job, if you live in a big house, if you drive a nice car then you’re successful, then you have value, THEN you have worth.” And the flip side of that coin is true too. If you don’t measure up, if you don’t deliver, if you don’t fit into the world’s mould of success, if you’re not good looking and well dressed then you don’t have much worth at all.

In fact all too often if you can’t do something for people they just discard you, pass you by, throw you on the trash heap. So we have a performance mind set, we’ve been taught to equate performance measured by the world’s scale, with value. That’s the basic lie we live with and can I say even as Christians we kind of have this belief that what comes first in the Bible is the law of the Old Testament, the rule book if you will and it was only later that this idea of God’s grace, made active in our lives through faith, came about.

Law first then grace but actually that’s not true, that’s putting the cart before the horse. Have a listen, the Apostle Paul, Galatians chapter 3 verses 6 to 8:

Just as Abraham ‘believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’ so you see those who believe are the descendents of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify Gentiles by faith declared the Gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, ‘all the Gentiles shall be blessed in you’. For this reason those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

Now the point Paul makes a few verses later in that chapter is that this whole ‘Abraham believed God and it was reckoned as righteousness’ thing happened a full four hundred and thirty years before the Old Testament law was given to Gods people through Moses. So let’s get the horse before the cart, grace through faith in what God says always came first, always. Grace, the free unmerited favour of God. It’s just who God is. It’s born out of the incredible love He has for you and me.

The world wants you to perform, to deliver, to be measured by its rule of success and frankly religion is about performing and delivering too. But what God has for you today is His grace and grace always, always comes first. So let me ask you; if God is the God of grace and when you see what Jesus did for us on the cross there could be no doubt about that, then why did He introduce the Old Testament law? Why did God even entertain a bunch of rules that at the end of the day His people would simply be incapable of keeping?

It’s an important question to know the answer to because it’s all too easy to slip back into that old way of thinking, that following Jesus is all about adhering to a set of rules. So here’s Gods answer through the Apostle Paul, Galatians chapter 3 verse 19 and 23 to 26:

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions until the offspring would come to whom the promise had been made. Now before faith came we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come we are no longer subject to the disciplinarian for in Christ Jesus you are children of God through faith.

So the Old Testament law was only ever put there as a temporary measure until God was ready to reveal His grace, through faith, in the coming of Jesus Christ. It was put there to keep people in line I guess until God was ready to reveal Jesus. And when you look back at the history of Israel throughout the Old Testament, from beginning to end, the thing that stands out is that God’s people couldn’t seem to keep the law for very long at all.

In fact the very name Israel means ‘to struggle with God’. The whole story of the Old Testament is about Israel struggling to keep the law, struggling in their relationship with God. God sent them Prophet after Prophet to call them back to Himself. He punished them over and over again to bring them to their senses and for a little while that would work until they wandered off again.

If you ask me, “what’s the central theme, the central point of the Old Testament?” My answer would simply be this; but try as they might Gods people couldn’t stick to the rules. We can’t follow the law. We’ll never be able to put ourselves into a right relationship with God simply by following the rules.

The whole of the Old Testament screams out at us, “this isn’t working, there has to be another way”. And there is! That’s why God sent Jesus. That was always the plan. The whole point of the Old Testament struggle for you and me today is to teach us beyond any shadow of a doubt that following the rules simply doesn’t work, what’s more it never will and that’s why we need Jesus.