How The Truth Can Set You Free, Part 3

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. You may or may not feel proud of your family history, but if you're a believer, you'll hear about your true identity in part three of the series, How the Truth Can Set You Free. Now, let me just sort of catch you up with where we are. We're talking about God setting us free, that is, setting us free of the bondage that shackles us, and imprisons us from becoming everything God wants us to be, and accomplishing or achieving those things in life that God has set out for us. So this is where we're headed, and we said now, one of those truths that sets us free, and I believe there are three essential truths that sets us free, that is, having already been saved. One of those truths is our position in Christ Jesus.

So what is that? And you recall the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 that God, through his Holy Spirit, the moment we've accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior, that is, we accepted his death on the cross as sufficient, adequate payment for our sin. The moment we accepted him as our Savior, he baptized us where? Into Christ Jesus, sealed us as a child of God, and forever we're in him. That is, our position is that we are living in union with him.

He says abide in me, and I in you. So that we're living in a relationship of abiding in Christ. That is a relationship to which we have been placed by the Holy Spirit.

And you'll recall as we examine that position, what that position is. The Bible says that we have become the sons of God, that we are in the family of God, we are in the kingdom of God, and he says not only that, he says, but when that began to happen, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has sinned to the Father, he said, being in him that we are likewise seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. God says that he placed every single one of us in Christ Jesus. The only way for anything or anybody to get to you is, first of all, they've got to go through whom? They've got to go through who? Through the Lord.

He says the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and he delivers them. If one of the problems, one of the burdens, one of the things that has harassed you all of your life is the feeling of insecurity. I just don't feel secure. Don't feel secure in my job. Don't feel secure in my finances. Don't feel secure in my family.

Don't feel secure in my relationships. Listen, our security, my friend, is based on one thing, one thing only and nothing else. It is based not on what I have or who I am or where I am. It is based on relationship, on a position of being in Christ Jesus. That's where our security is.

Our security is found in a relationship and not in our possessions or our position in life. So, my friend, the scripture says that your position today is that you are in Christ Jesus. And he says he put you there. He sealed you there. He's put you in the heavenlies.

And if God puts you there, brother, you are kept forever. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. One of these days, you're going to die and go to heaven. But until that time, you're going to have a journey.

It's going to be in the valleys and on the mountain peaks and on the rollercoaster out of the spiritual life. And so what you want to do is you want to be sure to memorize 1 John 1 because you're going to need it every day. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So most of us grew up believing and seeing ourselves just like we were taught. And that is, I'm a sinner who's been saved by the grace of God. And as I trust the Lord all through my life, one of these days, I'm going to be lucky enough to die and go to heaven.

But I want to ask you a question. Is that the attitude that God intends for his people? Look, if you will, in Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter one.

Let me ask you this question. What is the church that Paul had the most trouble with of all the churches? Philippi, Thessalonica churches, Rome, you name it. Which was the church he had the most problems with? The Corinthian churches.

I mean, they just about broke his heart. But I want you to listen to what he said. Verse one. Paul called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and sustanies our brother to the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus.

What? Saints by what? By calling with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Now, listen, where in all of his writings did he say to the sinners at Rome, to the sinners in Galatia, to the sinners at Philippi, to the sinners in Thessalonica, to the sinners in Corinth? He didn't say that. What did he call them? He called them saints. He said, oh, now, wait a minute.

Hold it, hold it, hold it. If you're going to talk about sinless perfection uninterested, that's not what I said. I said that God addressed through the apostle Paul the believers in that day, not as sinners, but what?

Saints. Everybody in the church who has been saved as a saint. But there are folks who are outside of the Lord Jesus Christ and they are indeed sinners. Now, listen, saints do commit acts of sin. But because we commit acts of sin is no reason for us to see ourselves. And our whole perspective in life is sinners.

Now, watch what I'm going to show you here. The Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, what is he? So is he so that there is a principle and a law. And you can't change this because it is a principle. You and I are going to act the way we see ourselves.

You can't change that. You are where you are today because the way you thought all these years. You act the way today as a result of the way you see yourself. And if you change the way you see yourself, your actions are going to change. This isn't a matter of mind over matter.

We're talking about a principle here. He says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he so a man's actions are going to follow the pattern of the way he sees himself. If I walk up to someone else and I see myself as inferior, then I'm going to act inferior. If I see myself on my job as inadequate, I'm going to back off and be inadequate. If I see myself as being rejected and unworthy and guilty because I don't deserve the good things that are coming to me.

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to, in spite of everything I do, I'm going to blow it somewhere along the way and fail. Because you see, not believing that I deserve to succeed, I'm going to make a mistake somewhere along the way. We are the products of our thinking.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. So if we are programmed to say, I'm a sinner saved by grace and I'm going to sin. You know you're going to sin every day. And I ask some people every once in a while, how many of you can live one hour without sin? You'd be surprised at folks who don't raise their hand. You know why? They think, oh my goodness, if I raise my hand, that'll be pride and I've sinned.

There's no way in the world, no way in the world to win against that kind of a game. Now listen to me. God wants us to be free, to be everything he wants us to be. And I cannot be what God wants me to be if I see myself less than what God sees me. Because if I do, I'm going to act less than what God wants me to do. Now it is the Holy Spirit within us who is our teacher and who must inform us and instruct us and empower us to be anything and to achieve anything God wants.

But we have to deal with the person of who we are. He says, call to be saints. Now I want you to watch that word saint. That word saint, hagios in the Greek, is the same word for sanctification or holy. So we talk about saints, sanctification or holy or holiness.

It's the same original, same root Greek word. And let's notice what he's saying. He says that we are saints. That is, a saint is one who having accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as personal savior has been what? Sanctified, set apart unto God for God. Every single believer is a saint because they have been sanctified. That is set apart unto God and are in the process of being sanctified on a daily basis. That is, he is renewing us and conforming us to his likeness.

All right. The second thing I want us to notice here about who we are in Christ. Jesus is found in Second Corinthians, chapter five, verse 17, 18 verses here. In verse 17, he says, Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature or new creation. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. Now, all these things are from God who reconciles unto himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. That's what he did to us. Listen, watch this.

Not counting their what? Their trespasses against them. And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Listen, what did he do? He put all of our trespasses upon whom? Upon Christ. Having nailed, he says, he nailed all of that to the cross with him. And having nailed all that to the cross, now accepting Jesus Christ as our savior, that freed us. Now, I want you to notice something in the 17th verse. He says, Therefore, if any person, man or woman, is in Christ, that's their position, he is a new creation.

And let me show you something interesting here. When you were saved, what happened? The Bible says that you gained a new spirit. The Holy Spirit of God came into your life and brought to birth a newness of life within you. But you didn't exchange bodies.

Same old body. Something else you didn't exchange. You didn't exchange your mind, your will, your emotion, your conscience or your consciousness. You didn't change any of that.

All of that was still there. Now, I want you to watch me carefully here. We're talking about who we are in Christ Jesus. We are talking about being freed and liberated.

Now, think about this. He says the truth will set you free. The truth of your position is part of that truth. The truth of who you are, giving you a sense of security, no longer feeling inferior, but adequate and capable in the power of the Holy Spirit who is within you.

Now listen. The day you were saved, something dramatic, drastic and eternally happened to you. You became a new creation in Christ Jesus, but still deposited in the same old physical house, this body.

Still the same mind, will, emotion, conscience and consciousness. So immediately God began to do something in your life. He began the work in your life of doing what? A transformation.

So something begins to happen. Listen, in order for me to enjoy, in order for me to be able to express, in order for me to be able to become and to achieve what God wants, something must begin to happen in my thought processes if I am going to enjoy everything that God's provided in my relationship to Christ. And that's why he says the truth will set you free. Now, you can be free from condemnation. That is, you can be free to go to heaven, but if you're not free from these other satanic harassments, then what we can do is live saved. But what?

About half sorry and two thirds miserable. And that's where a lot of Christians are. God doesn't want us living that way.

So what does he say? He says in Romans Chapter 12, he says, Be not conformed, shaped into the mold of this present world, but be what? Transformed.

That is, a transforming process goes on. You don't get transformed to be saved. Salvation is an act of God and the twinkling of an eye. The moment you receive him by faith, you're saved at that moment.

But he says he predestinated us not to be saved, but what? To be conformed to the likeness of Christ. Now, if he is in the process of conforming me to the likeness of Christ, what's being transformed? What is being conformed to the likeness of Christ? I have a spirit that is absolutely brand new, created a new creation in Christ Jesus. But what's being transformed? What is this? What is this renewing?

He says, Don't be part of the world's mold, but what? Be transformed by the renewing of your what? The renewing of your mind. All right, now the renewing process. That's really what we're doing in this series.

We're talking about the renewing process. And that is, we need to begin to think about ourselves the way God sees us. If we don't, those saved, we will go through life, harassed, burdened down, shackled down with attitudes about God. You see, listen, if I can't believe that that I am accepted in the Beloved, that I am accepted in God, I don't have to feel rejected. I don't have to feel guilty.

I don't have to feel like I've got to measure up. I've got to follow the 15 principles in order to get God's grace today. If I can see myself accepted in the Beloved on the basis of my relationship to him, I'm going to be freed from some of that. But until I do, I'm going to live under Satan's satanic, very effective satanic oppression. And a lot of people who go into the doctor who need to get on their knees, find out who they are, claim by faith God's position, God's possession and God's person in them.

And I want to tell you, my friend, that'll do something for you that no pill will ever do because of your relationship to life. That is the life, eternal life of Jesus Christ living within you. Now, watch this. He says in this passage back here, a new creation. But what is new? New on the inside, but I'm not new on the outside.

I'm not even new in all my thinking because how many of us have been saved? And yet the next day or the next week did something just like we used to do. Same old habits. The habit patterns have been riveted into my mind with 20, 30, 40, 50 years of living in sin. So there's got to be a transforming experience. That's why he says, don't let the world shape you into its mold. But he says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. What did Jesus say? He says, if you abide in my word, ye shall be my disciples and ye shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. What is it that frees you? What frees a man from these things, frees a woman from these attitudes and these harassments.

This bondage is what? The word of God. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

This is the truth. Now, how am I transformed? How am I made free? He says, by the renewing of your mind. Now, listen, the renewing process is the feasting, the absorption, the study, the intake, the perusing, the concentration, the meditation, the praying it back to God upon the word of God. Listen, getting God's viewpoint about himself and about myself, seeing myself in my position in him, seeing who I am, seeing what I possess in him and what happens? Then I begin to think like God thinks. When I begin to think like God thinks, what does that do?

That renews my mind. I've seen a lot of people who've been saved and back in the same old habits. They say, well, I know I'm saved, but I just can't break out. Can't break out, can't get release, can't get liberty, can't get free. You mean God who is almighty enough to save you and sovereignly rule this world?

You mean he can't break you out of a habit? You know why they feel the way? They have it so strong that they know they're saved. They're in Christ Jesus. But the mind's not been renewed.

There's some things they need to learn. And he says that we are saints and that we are new creations. But listen, new creations in Christ Jesus. And some of you said a long time, many times, know I'm saved, but I can't figure out what it is, why things aren't working.

I'm going to tell you why they're not working, because your attitude about God and yourself is not right. When you see who you are and what you are in Christ Jesus, what else really makes a difference? Because your sense of insecurity is going to tumble. The feeling of inferiority is going to crumble. All those things are going to dissipate and you're going to begin to walk, listen, walk in the truth. And here is the burden. The burden is that Satan is going to send you those same old feelings, unworthy, guilty, incapable, inadequate, insufficient, insecure. You're going to feel it, you see, unless you say, all right, makes no difference what Satan says. Here's what God says. And it all boils down to one of two things. I'm going to have to make a choice. And my choice is I'm going to have to believe the divine facts of this book and resist and reject my feelings, or I'm going to accept my feelings and settle for a life far less than God Almighty has allotted to me and to you. And I simply want to ask you a question on the basis. Have I told you the truth?

Say amen. Who you are, a saint in Christ, and I've only told you a little itsy bitsy part of it, a saint in Jesus Christ, a new creation in him. You're a brand new person in him. But you see, if you've not been living new, I want to tell you, he says the truth will set you free. If you abide in my word, continue in my word, absorb it, study it, keep on reading it. You see, some people listen to the sermon one time and that's it.

You can't do that. He says continue in my word. You know what's happening? The renewing of the mind is going on. God is changing your attitude about the way he sees you and the things that are happening in your life.

And your actions are going to be different because your attitude is going to be different because you're going to begin to walk. Listen, in faith, on the basis of what God has said, not what Satan has made you feel. And here's the simple choice. Had you rather be who God says you are? Are you willing to listen to Satan's lies and settle for less in becoming and achieving that almighty, sovereign, loving God has provided for you and me?

That's the choice. And I pray, my friend, in Jesus name, you'll make the choice of resisting your feelings and accepting the thanks of God. Thank you for listening to How the Truth Can Set You Free. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.