The Liberated Life - Part 2

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley.

Habits and attitudes that you pick up from others are more costly than you might think. Embrace the liberated life as the series on the life that wins continues. If you'll turn to John chapter 8, want us to begin reading in verse 30 and read through verse 36.

And this is a part of our series, The Life That Wins, and today the life that wins is a liberated life. A liberated life, John chapter 8, beginning in verse 30. And Jesus had his conversation with a woman taken in adultery and then he got into a conversation, a little argument here with the Pharisees. And in the course of that conversation, Jesus says something here that I think all of us should take heed to. Having been speaking with the Pharisees, he says in verse 30, As he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed on him, If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed.

Now notice as he says, two things will happen. If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed? And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily I say unto you, Whosoever committed sin is the servant of sin, and the servant abideth not in the house forever, but the Son abideth forever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. The life that wins is the life wherein Christ is freed and liberated to live through that life, the life that he chooses to live through us. It is a life with joy and happiness and peace and achievement.

It does not mean that there are no difficulties, heartaches and problems, but the life that wins is the life that wins over the difficulties and the heartaches. Now we've talked about many aspects of it, but today I want to talk about an aspect that every single person on the face of this earth is interested in, and that is a life of freedom and a life of liberty. Now it's interesting today how people who will turn away from God will oftentimes say the reason they're turning away from God and the Bible and all of these puritanical ideas about sex and about freedom and liberty is that they want real freedom. But I want to say to every single teenager who's thinking about leaving home, getting your own apartment in order to get away from your parents, I want to remind you of one thing. When you step out from under your parental authority, you must be very, very careful that in order to escape what you think is bondage, more than likely you're about to plunge into a greater bondage, far more distasteful than what you think you're feeling right now.

Many, many people move to the big cities to get away from little towns. They want to be free. They want to live where nobody knows them, where they can really be free and do just like they please.

They call that freedom. They want to be liberated from the requirements and the restrictions and the rules and the commands of their parents, only to discover six months or two years later that they're in a different type of bondage they didn't even know existed. They're in a type of bondage that has absolutely overwhelmed them, put them in a terrible sense of imprisonment to attitudes, feelings, relationships they never even dreamed existed. People who turn away from God in order to be freed always end up in a greater bondage than they even could possibly conceive existed. When I think of many Christians, I think of people who are saved but still in bondage. You're in bondage. You say, well, how could I be in bondage? You ask the same question the Pharisee asked. You say, well, how can I be saved and still be in bondage? Because there are some very, very subtle types of bondage that we are oftentimes imprisoned by and not even aware of. And there are many, many Christians.

I'll tell you a good example of that that demonstrates it physically. You recall when Lazarus died and Mary and Martha called for Jesus and he came a little later after they had wrapped him in his burial clothes and put him in the tomb there. Jesus came upon the scene and he said to them, remove the stone. They removed the stone and he hollered, Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus came forth little by little wrapped in his grave clothes, which was sort of like sheets that they would wrap around the dead person's body and then sprinkle all kinds of ointments and spices and perfumes on it. He came forth wrapped in those grave clothes. Now Jesus raised him from the dead, but even after Lazarus was raised from the dead, he still was in bondage. He was in the bondage of grave clothes, which they had wrapped him in. When I think about that scene, I think about how many Christians sit in church houses on Sunday and they have been born again, but they're still in bondage. They have believed in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, but they're still in different types of bondage. They're born again, but still in bondage. Lazarus had life, but he was still bound by his old grave clothes. He still smelled like death, same perfume, the same ointments, the same spices, the same grave clothes. A man can be saved from his sins and still live in bondage.

And this is why so many Christians are not happy. Have you ever asked, Lord, I know that I've been forgiven, I know that I've been saved, but why is it that I still feel the way I do? Why is it I'm not free? Why is my spirit not free? Why am I not liberated?

There seems to be something in my life that keeps weighting me down in gut. I want to be free from all of this. I want to be the total person you want me to be. Well, I want to show you why that can be true in a Christian's life. Now, listen, the life that wins is a life that is liberated from pre-programmed emotional responses.

Now, get that. Pre-programmed emotional responses. Let me give you an example.

There are many of them. I don't have time to give you a lot, but just let me give you one or two ideas. Now, what do I mean by pre-programmed emotional responses? Simply this, that when you and I came into the world, most of what we learned and most of our attitudes and ideas, we got them by accident. We didn't decide, we didn't choose to say, I will be afraid of the dark.

You didn't choose that. Somebody said, don't go out in the dark, the boogeyman will get you. All right? As a three-year-old lad and your mother, your dad told you that, you had no defense mechanism mentally. If they told you that, that's what you believe. Out in the dark, there's a big boogeyman.

All right? So, if you'll think about this, for the first two years of our life, everything that entered our subconscious and our mind, it was there by accident. We didn't choose it. Somebody else poured into us all of our thought processes. So that all of us, to some degree, what we've learned, we've learned by accident. I don't mean that you eliminate God in this, but I mean in the normal growing up, whatever your parents said. If they didn't like something, they said, don't ever deal with that. I don't ever deal with that.

What? Because my daddy said so, and whatever my dad says goes. All right, now, let's take an example of how you and I get programmed into thinking things that eventually have their effect upon us. Let's say that here is a woman, here's a family, and the husband and wife can't get along.

They have all kinds of fusses and fights, and so they finally get a divorce. Okay, so you're just a little taught when that happens, and you don't quite remember that. But you grow up as an old girl, and your mother says to you when you were five years of age, now be very careful that you do not go in any stranger anywhere, and you do not want to trust men. You cannot trust men. So you see, you didn't ask anybody to teach you not to trust men. You didn't ask anybody to teach you not to meet strangers until you grow up in your life, and you realize, you don't know why, but you do have a difficult time meeting strangers.

You don't know exactly why that's true. You just think, well, it's just your feeling about yourself. Then one of these days, you get married, and everything seems to be fine, but you know, everything is as good as you know how it to be, but somehow you can't quite get the cutting edge there, and you want to be the kind of wife you ought to be, and your husband, he just pours it on you, and he thinks you're the grandest gal in the world, and you're super fantastic. There's no other woman in all the world like you, and you think, yeah, that's great.

But I wonder why I can't feel the same way he feels, and so you can't quite give yourself absolutely totally, and you don't know why. You go through your whole married life like that in bondage to pre-programmed emotional experiences. You have nothing to do with programming into your life, and if I had time, I could give you a whole list of things that we suffer from in our lives if we're not careful, and parents, we are responsible primarily, not totally. They hear them out on the street. They hear them in the classroom, attitudes, ideas that get programmed into our thinking about fears, for example.

The primary purpose may have been protection, but it is a disaster in that person's life. Now, you'd be surprised how many of us, in fact, all of us have been programmed both for good and for bad. Both for good and for bad, we've been programmed, and the people who were programming us did not even realize what they were doing, just dropping little sayings, and you see, it's a very subtle sense of bondage. For example, whatever you're afraid of, that fear puts a perimeter around your life. Until you break out of that fear, you're locked in by it. Whatever you're afraid of, that locks you in to some degree in your life. Unless you're willing to step out and break through that fear, you're locked in.

You're surrounded. You're in bondage to that fear, and people are afraid of all kinds of things. Do you have feelings, for example, that when you feel them, they're unpleasant? You say, I wish I didn't feel that way. Or maybe it's a feeling that keeps coming into your life that you've never even thought about that you had any choice about. But it's something in your life that you really don't particularly like. It's an attitude that you would prefer not to experience.

Is there something that you thought about? Well, I wish I could get over that. Let me tell you, that is a form of bondage which God wants to free you from. For example, let's say that an attitude crops up and you think, I really don't want to feel that way. I wish I didn't feel that way. I wish I didn't respond to that temptation that way. I wish I didn't respond to him in that way. I wish I didn't become angry. It seems that when a certain thing arises, I always get angry.

I wish that didn't happen. First of all, you've got to admit that the attitude is there. Secondly, you've got to isolate it.

And how do you isolate it? First of all, you admit that it's there, then you say, where did that come from in my life? I certainly do not choose to feel this way. I don't choose to distrust men. I don't choose to be afraid of the dark. I don't choose to be afraid of any kind of a financial situation that I don't have all the answers to.

I don't choose that. That just seems to be something I'm having to deal with. So, you isolate it, you ask yourself the question, where did that come from? You will be surprised if you will ask God to help you to trace that feeling to the source. It is amazing how, you may not do it the first time you try, it is amazing how you'll be able to trace that back to some incident, some experience, something you've heard, something that was told to you many times, you'll be able to trace it back to its original cause.

Now watch this. If you go back and say, well now, you know, my mother used to tell me that all the time. Am I still suffering from that?

You are. Then how do you get over that? First of all, you don't criticize your mother. You go back and you ask the question, why did my mother feel that way? Was it because her marriage was a mess?

Because she was mistreated? All right, now looking at that 25 years later, because my mother's marriage was a mess, doesn't mean that mine's going to be. Because my mother couldn't trust me, it doesn't mean that I can't trust them. And so, here you are and you ask yourself the question, what is the proper response to that now that I am a child of God indwelt by the Holy Spirit? My choice is simply this, I do not have to choose to feel what I've always felt.

I don't have to choose to distrust people any longer for the simple reason that she or he, whatever the situation may have been, whoever programmed that into your mind, they may have been innocent when they did it, but looking back, you can see, you don't have to accept somebody else's programming of your life when what they said is not true for you. All right, suppose you can't trace it back to the original cause, then here's what you must do. You say, all right, here's something that keeps bothering me.

Here's an attitude. Maybe it's the sense of rejection. Why do I feel like that everybody's against me? Why do I feel like that people always want to do me in?

You may be able to trace it back and see what somebody said to you or how you were treated. But if you can't do that, you isolate the feeling and the attitude and say, all right, now, knowing that I'm a child of God, loved by God, I do not have to feel what I've been feeling. Why do I have to? For the simple reason that I have Christ within me and listen, Christ within us empowers us to choose how we want to feel about a thing. You say, but now wait a minute, when a certain thing happens, I just react. You know why you react? Because you've never stopped to ask the question, how do I want to respond? Haven't you wanted to respond in the affirmative sometime when people rubbed you the wrong way and they keep on rubbing you and you say, well, I got to overcome this and I've got to respond in a Christian way. But you can't listen.

You can't unless you isolate the feeling, look at it, find out what it is, why it's there or that's the way I respond. I don't want to respond that way. I have the power because of Christ within me to choose my response. You have the power to choose your response because Christ living within you is freeing you and liberating you to make the right choices in every area of life.

Read the book of Proverbs. We have the power to choose. We don't have to just off the top of our heads respond in the wrong way because we have in the past. Listen, the old subconscious is going to bring up the response that is most convenient, the response you're most used to. When you see that same situation, choose because you have the power to choose. You say, I don't want to respond that way. How do I want to respond? I just want to be forgiving and loving and kind and I know that Christ within me would respond that way. I choose by the power of the Holy Spirit within me to respond in the affirmative and graciously, lovingly and forgiving.

My friend, one of the most subtle, one of the most subtle and destructive forms of bondage is that bondage that lays right beneath the surface in our subconscious, in our unchosen, unchosen reactions to responses which all of us have within us the power to choose otherwise. I want to go back to say, if there's a feeling you keep having, a response you keep having to deal with that you choose not to, isolate it, trace it to its source if you can. If you can't, just decide, I don't want to respond that way anymore. I respond that way just now, but I choose not to respond that way and I want to respond the way God would have me to respond. What is the proper way to respond? Then look back in your life and ask this question.

Have similar situations come up that I responded in the right way? Then ask the Lord to bring those proper responses into your life rather than the ones that you know are not proper. And you see, by His power, listen, the life that wins is Christ living within me. How would Jesus Christ respond?

He's going to be right. And what I'm simply saying to you is this, I'm simply indicating that there may be a form of bondage which you're suffering from, you never even thought about the possibility of it being there. I cannot deal with yours for you at this point in this moment, but I'm saying you can deal with it if you will choose to acknowledge the supernatural power of Christ living within you and He wants you in no form of bondage but freed and liberated to become the person He wants you to be.

He'll change your life, your family, your relationships with everybody you meet. He wants you free. And I want to ask you this morning, is there any bondage in your life? And if there is, listen, watch this one last thing.

If you're not careful and that bondage has been there a long time, it will be more comfortable to keep it than to give it up. Now, Father, we thank you this morning that you have freed us, that you have liberated us, that you've given us all the freedom and liberty we'll ever need if we're simply willing to claim it by faith and to trust you and to see ourselves as you see us and then to look at our relationship to you and see we're children of God. We are walking under the constant, unending, unalterable umbrella of your divine love which covers every single need that we have.

And Father, I pray today for someone who's lost, someone who's never received Jesus Christ as their Savior. They know they're in bondage. Or it may be some who do not understand that they're in real bondage and what they think is freedom is real spiritual imprisonment. Would you speak to that heart? Would you stir somebody's heart today to give their life to Jesus Christ and become free because He said, if you know the truth, the truth will set you free.

And He said of Himself, I am the way, the truth and the life. And I ask you, Father, in Jesus' name, to speak of that somebody to come to Christ to be freed and liberated from their past guilts, their past habits of sin, those old emotional responses that they like to get rid of, those legalistic attitudes, if they're saved and still in bondage, speak to their heart. We praise you this morning by having the power to liberate our children. And we claim that freedom right now in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to part two of The Liberated Life. We would like to invite you to join us in celebrating 45 years of God's faithfulness. Stop by intouch.org slash 45 years to learn more. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.