Freedom

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Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. A man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now.

Welcome to masculine journey and the parents are out of town and the kids have stole the keys to the car. So I'm Danny and I'll be your host this evening. Sam is missing in action and so we are going to try another topic and Andy, will you introduce it for us? Sure, so I was doing my devotions last week and I came across Psalm 81 and there was the discussion about the Israelites coming out of bondage of Egypt and kind of what that entailed and God offered them so much more and they just weren't walking it out. And I'm like, well, how does that apply to my life? And I think even after I received Jesus about the third time, you know, it's a process through your teen years, but I got serious with God in my 20s. But even then, as much as I was free, I knew who Jesus was. There was a lot of stuff.

I had to get Egypt out of Andy, you know. And during that, I thought about some of the, I carried a lot of guilt for the years that I walked away from God and I tried to do everything right and perfect and we got into probably some religion, you know, and also in just sin. And so, you know, it says in John 832, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

And Jesus is of course that truth. And I think whenever, just like the children of Israel, when they came out, they didn't have everything right. There was a process.

It was 40 years of getting Egypt out of the Israelites. And so I just, I got to thinking about more of just simple, you find Jesus and everything's great. You find Jesus, but you don't walk into freedom that you can.

There's a, it's a process to learn that. And, you know, then I got Galatians 5, 1. It's for freedom's sake that he has set us free. It's more to me of becoming who he really created you.

There's, go read this. Galatians 4 sets up Galatians 5 and the freedom we walk in. And the foundation of that is our sonship. And then 2 Corinthians 3, 17, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

We'll talk about that a little bit later on the bump. But just all this stuff came to me all at a very close time. And I thought, yes, freedom. I mean, we're coming off the Fourth of July. We're talking about being a free country, civil freedom. But there's a spiritual freedom that's a parallel to that. And just wanted to dive into that idea of freedom. We've talked about it many times. But it's a big topic. There's a lot of our life. Everything depends on our freedom. I mean, if we're bound, we're not really acting as we should as sons and daughters of God. And we had Scripture within the first two minutes of the show.

That may be a masculine journey record. I'm wound up. Well, you have the first clip, so you want to do it. I did.

Because it only makes sense that you have the first clip. I wanted to say that for so long, I finally got Sam's line. I think Danny beat you to it, though. Sorry. He did. He did. I couldn't even do it. Dang it.

Well, I was sitting in the seat. That's right. Well, what I thought, again, the struggles I had with walking in freedom, you've got – this is from the clip for the movie Les Miserables.

I think I said that right. It's Jean Valjean. He's stolen bread, in jail for 19 years.

He keeps making mistakes and gets stuck there. And he finally gets out. But then he's carrying this identity as not a free man. He's still in jail, even though he's out.

And that's the way we did it. Sometimes we receive Christ and we're really still not free. And then he goes and a guy gives him a different perspective. He steals from that guy. And that guy, this priest, speaks into his life and sets him free. And we'll talk about it after the clip. And then what? Staff to death?

19 years. And now the real punishment begins. Men can be unjust.

Men, not God. All right, whoever you are, thank you. A meal and a bed to sleep in.

A real bed. And in the morning, I'll be a new man. I'm sorry to disturb you. You caught him. But I had my eye on this man. Oh, thank God. I'm very angry with you, Jean Valjean.

What happened to your eye, Monsignor? Didn't he tell you he was our guest last night? Oh, yes. After we searched his knapsack and found all this silver, he claimed that you gave it to him.

Yes? Of course I gave him the silverware. But why didn't you take the candlesticks? That was very foolish. Madame Gillot, fetch the silver candlesticks. They're worth at least 2,000 francs.

Why did you leave them? Hurry. Monsignor Valjean has to get going. He's lost a lot of time.

Did you forget to take them? Are you saying he told us the truth? Of course. Thank you for bringing him back. I'm very relieved. Release him.

You're really letting me go? Didn't you understand the bishop? Madame Gillot, offer these men some wine.

They must be thirsty. Thank you. Don't forget. Don't ever forget. You've promised to become a new man. Promise?

Why are you doing this? Jean Valjean, my brother. You no longer belong to evil. With this silver, I've bought your soul. I've ransomed you from fear and hatred. And now I give you back to God. Truly an ambassador for God there. I mean, he gives him a vision for freedom that he hadn't...

He would have carried, if nobody would have stepped in, he would have carried that guilt complex, that idea that everybody was against him, that God was against him. But this man stepped in. And Jesus steps in and gives us that freedom.

And not only says, I don't mind that you took the silverware, I'm going to give you the candlesticks as well. And just a powerful scene of redemption. And then Jean Valjean goes on and helps a lot of people. He's one particular prostitute.

That very same... Well, there's a jailer or a prison guard that ends up being in government, sheriff, whatever. And he was very hard on Jean Valjean and tried to keep him trapped and bound in those agreements of who he was and Jean Valjean because he knew who he was and free. He stepped up above that and set things right. All right. Well, Rodney, you are up next, sir. Yeah, well, let's see.

We'll try to get... at least to get the clip in before the break. So what Andy actually asked us to do was to look at different ways in which we have been bound. And that was like, wow, how have I been bound?

And tried to figure up ways. And it's like, oh. And when you start thinking about it, you really can kind of think of a lot of different ways. But I'm like, well, what really is one of the major ways in which Satan's kind of had me wrapped around the axle for many, many years and really comes down to probably for me, one of the biggest ones at least, is fear of man and trying to be a people pleaser, trying to make everybody else happy with me or at least me trying to make it that way. And I'm always worrying about, well, what does other people think about me? I started thinking through, okay, well, one of the things, too, is this has become such a big deal in my life, or at least I knew it was, that a few years ago, I was like, man, I think I really need to probably talk to my pastor about this and do some counseling. And finally, maybe a year or so ago, we started going through the book When People Are Big and God is Small, which has been wonderful to go through and just have that time one-on-one with the pastor and just kind of go through what... not what I think Scripture says, but what Scripture says and let it interpret itself and talk to me and tell me how I should be thinking, how I should be feeling about all these things and make God bigger in my life and bring people down a notch or two here, because I had people way too big in my life. And I'm like, okay, well, yeah, you know, in ways that it kind of affects me is in what I should say and how I should say it in how I should go or not to go, and I'm like, wait a minute, there's a song. Should I stay or should I go now? I'm like, well, let me go look at those lyrics and see what it says in there.

So I kind of stumbled upon these lyrics I thought were fairly decent to describe some of the things that I have. So why don't we play the clip real quick. Is that time to flip?

I think so. You're good. What crime did you commit? Not that clip, though. All right, rewind.

What crime did you commit? All right. We'll click on it. This is... There you go. Okay.

So it'll go to the top. Whoo! Darling, you've got to let me know. Should I stay or should I go? If you say that you are mine, I'll be here till the end of time. So you've got to let me know. Should I stay or should I go? It's always tease, tease, tease. You're happy when I'm on my knees.

One day is fine and next is black. So if you want me off your back, well, come on and let me know. Should I stay or should I go? Should I stay or should I go now? Should I stay or should I go now? If I go, there will be trouble.

And if I stay, it will be double. So come on and let me know. These indecisions bugging me.

In decision, they molest us. If you don't want me, set me free. Set me careless, you got me. Exactly who I'm supposed to be.

Don't you know which clothes even fit me? Come on and let me know. So one of the things we get into here is really driving towards identity. And when we come back on the other side, I'll talk more about that.

But there was different words in throughout all of this that just kind of kept leading me more and more into, wow, that's how these words in a song end up speaking about identity in Christ and actually being in Him and having freedom. Cool. The topic's going good.

You guys can find out more about us on masculinejourney.org. We've got a boot camp coming up. What's the dates? November 21st through 24th, I think. Is it 24th? 21st through 24th, yeah. The week before Thanksgiving. The weekend before Thanksgiving. So prepare your hearts for the family bum rush.

You can watch us live on Facebook and YouTube, and you can get this as a podcast anywhere you can find podcasts. We'll see you after the break. What we have in our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. I listened to Morgan Snyder's book Driving to Work last year, and that was a very profound experience. So this kind of culminated into it.

I'd have been invited to it several times, and it never worked out, and God really had it set up that I came last time. So coming into this one, I knew this one went deeper, and I really wanted it. It's a break for me to get outside of things I've got going on, and I just needed a break from it and needed to reconnect, and it's been absolutely that, this process. The covenant of silence, silent prayer, those are some of my favorite parts. This is real connection with the Lord. You can hear Him speak. You can get direction, guidance.

Anything you're missing is there. You always learn something new. It's fun experiencing it with other men. It's fun standing for them and what they're going through. We're all different and unique, but we all go through the same struggles, and when you hear somebody else went through it too, it kind of gives you an encouragement that, hey, you can make it through this, and God's got you, and He's going to hold you up through it, and He's going to carry you to the next level.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. So that was Where the Spirit of the Lord is, or There the Spirit of the Lord, or what is it? There is Freedom is the name of the song, my bad. Josh Baldwin and that was assistant to Danny. He pointed this out to me, so I cut the clip, but he gave me the assist like a good point guard there, like a good show host.

Like a good neighbor. And I won't spend too much time on it, other than that what was cool was right about that time I got the pop-up from the Bible app, that very scripture, 2 Corinthians 3.17, I believe, and just one of those things that confirmed we were on the same page for this idea of freedom. I was riding to work, and I was playing Christian radio, and that's why I'd never heard that song before.

I was like, hey, this may go with the topic. Again, God produces the show. Keith helps us out, but God's got it, right? That's right, that's right. Well, meanwhile, back at the Rodney Ranch. That's scary. That is. Yeah, it's a scary ride at the Rodney Ranch.

So, Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? I've always liked that song. It kind of speaks to a lot of it.

It's kind of funny that at the pre-show I played it, and then everybody's like, oh, yeah, this, this, and this in my life, and we did things and made decisions according to should I stay or should I go now, and use that theme for a lot of stuff. But in there it says, if you say that you are mine, I'll be here till the end of time. And that's me looking for others' approval, me looking out there being very self-centered, me, me, me oriented, and just I can see that's what sort of spoke to me, and then it talks about tease, tease, tease, and then says, like, happy when I'm on my knees, and that's Satan's lure of deception, right? He's misleading us. He's then what? After he does all this stuff to get you to go into sin, what happens? Then he accuses you. You know, he turns on you.

And that's the thing that's so wild is that we think, oh, this is so great. I'll just sin, and I can do all these other things in my life that sounds so good, but Satan's getting you to do it so that he can then accuse you and bring you down. Then if I go there, there will be trouble.

If I stay, it will be double. It's like that's the no-win situation. And when you're living in this life of lies and deception and everything else, trying to make other people happy all the time instead of God, it's a no-win situation, and that's what Satan wants and the world wants in us is to give in to that. And what it really culminates to me is I love that last part about this indecision bugging me. If you don't want me, set me free. Well, it's that indecision that is bothering me because that's Satan always working at you, you know, trying to get you to go towards lies instead of towards truth. And I lived in that for so much of my life, always saying, should I stay or should I go now? Should I do this or should I do that? Should I say this or say that? Always an indecision.

And trying to figure out what others think is how I should act. And I'm like, that's just mission impossible. There's no way I can go do that. So it's like that continual straw man argument of just prop something else up there to make that the truth, Rodney, and I couldn't do it. But then it's really make-believe and ultimately just insanity because you're expecting some different outcome by doing the same stupid things. And what it led me to as I was thinking through this is it's really about identity and identity in Christ. You know, and then when I became more and more grounded in Christ and even going through that with my pastor, it helps me more and more just get more and more focused in the Word and believing the Word instead of my own stupid head. And then as I was going through this, what I really loved going to then was, where is that root of who we are? And really it's Genesis 1 27, And God created man in his own image, in the image of God.

He created them, male and female, he created them. That's where, you know, through the light of the life of Jesus, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, that's where we find the identity. And then you get to 2 Corinthians, this is chapter 5 verses 17 through 21. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old things pass away. Behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the mystery of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their transgressions against them, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. So then, we are, because this will look beautiful, we are ambassadors for Christ. That's who we are.

That's our identity. We are in him and he is in us. As God is pleading through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. And then this is so beautiful. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.

Why? So that we might become the righteousness of God within him. And I just, a gift like that, you know, when you start to think about that, all that self-righteousness, all that wanting to be people-pleasers, it starts to leave just a little bit at a time. And you don't notice it in the daily, partly even the weekly, but in the yearly, I can see the steps of leaving, you know, what other people think a lot, lot lower and raising Christ up in my life. Yeah, that 2 Corinthians 5.17, Rodney, has been one of my life verses for a long time because, you know, a guy like me who's got more skeletons than he's got closets sometimes. But, you know, listening to that and, you know, I remember my grandmother, you say so-and-so passed away. You know, old things are passed away. And what God's saying is, you know what, your past is dead.

And you have a new life. And I've tried to walk that out some and find some freedom in that, like Andy talked about earlier. You know, it's a process. And so, speaking of processes, we have Mr. Dilmore is up with his clip.

Yeah. Let's see if I can actually – Can you see yourself? Can you see yourself? Can I see me now? I can see you doing this. Can you see you now? I can see you doing this. Most of the folks just want to hear you, Rodney.

Me, me, I'm really close to that. I understand completely, but, you know, it's kind of weird when they're just hearing somebody talk but they don't see the person talking. But anyway, nonetheless, my clip is from the movie The Matrix. And, you know, it's an amazing spiritual journey if you watch that movie. It's so much like, you know, those of us who, you know, walked outside of Christ for some length of time like I did.

You know, I didn't come to Christ until I was in my 40s. And so when you take the blue pill or the red pill, you begin to just totally have a different scene on things. But what a lot of folks think is the beginning of the journey, right, is actually, I mean, a lot of people think it's the end of the journey. Like, I came to Christ, now everything's good. Then, oh, man, that's just the beginning of the adventure because just like Nemo, you take that pill and then it starts, right?

And so if you'll go ahead and play the clip, hopefully we got it. Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us.

Even now in this very room, you can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. What truth? That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch, a prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is.

You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more. Yeah, that's kind of what Jesus said, right? If you look at John chapter 8, the way he said it, it's very interesting to that when you listen to that clip and you think about what this says, and it says, and he was talking to the Jews, and he said that if you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed.

And that word continue actually would be better probably translated abide. Like if you live in the truth, then you're my disciples. And he said, you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. But again, we've got to face a whole lot of truth that the person that we lie to the most honestly is ourselves. And those are the agreements that we fall under that we are constantly breaking.

But what he makes so clear here is you have to literally live in his word. I'm talking about like this very morning, right? I'm there and I'm studying and I'm looking at the word Nissan, which happens to be the first month of the year. And I started to put together that the idea of Nissan is flight.

Well, the month of Passover slash the month of the crucifixion and the resurrection is the month of Nissan. And you see when the Egyptians let the Israelites go, they weren't like we might ought to get out of town. They were like taking flight, right? They were on the run.

Well, it's the same idea. When you come to Christ, you're coming to it at the same point in time. You got to run from the enemy here. This isn't a like casual walk. Like I think I might go a little, you know. No, no, no. This is a run and you got to run in his word, which obviously, you know, God took him just moments to get him out of Egypt, but it took him 40 years to get Egypt out of them.

And therein lies the challenge for me, right? That even this morning I was realizing, you know, I actually don't know if I should say this, but anyway, I was on a fast yesterday and it was amazing all the shenanigans that, how bad my attitude got really quick. Like I was hangry. Hangry. And I was hangry in a lot of things that had to do with life.

That's why I don't fast. Well, it shows me that, man, I'm in bondage all over the place, and this opportunity to abide in the truth and to begin to see what the truth is about ourselves is truly revealing. Does it help because we're in the truth booth? It does. Oh, good.

Yeah. Well, we got a boot camp coming up once again, the 21st through the 24th of November, the weekend before Thanksgiving. You can register online at magicandjourney.org. You can go to Facebook, YouTube, check us out, and get us on any of our podcast platforms. This is the Truth Network.