This sermon emphasizes the importance of true freedom found in Christ, contrasting it with the false sense of freedom the world offers. It calls for a deep relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, highlighting the need for personal transformation and deliverance from addictions and bondages. The speaker challenges the congregation to seek true freedom in Christ and to be lights in a dark world, standing firm in faith despite the cultural challenges and moral decline.

In your presence this morning, coming to call upon you, that we might behold your Son and the glory and the and the beauty and the majesty of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and that you might come in the power of God the Holy Spirit and minister deeply to us. Where our hearts are callous, Lord, soften them. Where we're held in bondages by the prince of darkness, Lord, free us in Jesus name. Where you need to do a work inside of us, we pray you come and do it. Strengthen us, we pray. Bless your church, we pray. Come be with us, we pray. In Jesus name, amen. Good morning to you. I would like to attend the scriptures to Galatians in chapter 5 and the portion of chapter 6 that we heard together today. There are times that I stand in front of churches and I know my task. I know our work is to open the Word of God and that's what we're going to do. But there are times and especially on this particular weekend in our country, we're celebrating Independence Day, we're celebrating freedom, and I am concerned for our country. I am concerned for the well-being of our children, grandchildren. I'm concerned for the culture at the present time, and I am terribly discerned in my own spirit that a lot of times what we're doing is we're coming to church to be entertained. This is not a time for entertainment. This is a time to call upon the Lord. It's time to do business with Him. How many times do we have to hear of attacks in Bangladesh and in Turkey and Istanbul and Orlando? How many times until we as Christians rise up and say, what is going on, Lord? What do you want from us? That's why I make my appeal today from Galatians chapter 5 and verse 1. The Bible tells us what freedom is. For freedom Christ set us free. This is why the great testimony of the Apostle Paul in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 14 is, God forbid I should boast. Please turn me down. I would love to be turned down. Many people here would love me to be turned down, I'll tell you that right now. But God forbid I should boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what he's boasting in. Something happened there at the cross. This power of God that was released that we might have life and habits and abundance. And that's what we have always testified. I was born and raised in the Episcopal Church. I was born and raised and nursed on the liturgies and the scriptures and all the things that we do. And I heard the words growing up from the Nicene Creed. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and Son he is worshipped together and glorified and he has spoken to the prophets. Oh, we said it with our lips. Maybe there are some people who believed it with their minds. But can you imagine what it would be like to be transformed by the same power of God the Holy Spirit who is the giver of life. That's all I want to know today. I can't do my job. I can't do anything, anything at all in the work that I do unless we come to the grounds of this question. Is God something that's supposed to be in our minds? Doctrine only from the past of what he's done. And something that happens to us when we die, when we go into the great glories to come. But what have we got here and now? That's the question I've got. This relationship with which we have now today. Listen to what the Bible says. For freedom Christ to set us free. Is that true for you? Is it true for me? Is that freedom real? Is it freedom tangible? And that's why we say the Holy Spirit is the Lord giver of life. Because it is the Spirit of the Lord. Romans 8 verse 2. For the law of the Spirit of life, the Holy Spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death. Has he done that? There's no Pentecostals here, I can tell that already. His job is to set us free today. Listen to the words of 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 17. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of our country is celebrating freedom and liberty today. Is it a freedom and liberty come from God? That's what I want to know today. We're going to use the word, we're going to send fireworks into the sky. Our country is going to drink itself silly over the next couple of days. Already has. To celebrate this freedom, my friends, they know nothing of freedom until they come to the one who sets us free. That's the story. That's the way it's always been. Until we come under obedience unto the Lord and follow in his path, we shall not know this freedom. The devil comes to give us a taste of a freedom that doesn't last. Makes us feel these great highs and then we come crashing down in the lows, in depressions and bondages. Held in captivity to addictions of drugs and of sex and of money and of power. And then he's got us. We call that freedom. It is not freedom. There's a freedom that comes from heaven, that our Savior has come. Listen to how the Bible says it. From the beginning of time, from before the times began, before the ages began, our Father has commanded eternal life. That's his promise. That's his purpose for your life and for mine. He desires us not just to have life in this world, but to have everlasting life. To have eternal life. To have his life. And that's why in the beginning of time, that's exactly what he did. The author of life took from the dust of the ground that he made and he breathed his life into the first couple that they might have life and have it in abundance. And then he set him before the tree of life, where the first couple could choose. We who are made in the image of God, the perfect image of God, in the days of Eden, had in those days perfect will to choose. And you know the story. The way we say it in our prayer book is this. Holy and gracious Father, in your infinite love, you made us for yourself. You made us for yourself. And when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, and that's the story, there is no more tragic scene found in the entirety of the Bible than this passage from Genesis chapter 3 and verse 24 that we had read today, where it says that the Lord drove out the man at the east of the garden of Eden. He placed the chair of him. He placed the flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. It is our sin, our disobedience, this darkness under the powers of the evil one, that now block us from getting to the tree of life. We cannot have it. All we have is this life and in this life we have the promise that one day we shall die. We do not have access to the tree of life. There's a sword. There's a flaming sword. There are cherubim there guarding the way to the tree of life. We do not have access, but we have a promise. Our Father has decreed from before time began, you'll find that in Titus chapter 1 verse 2, that God has promised eternal life before the ages began. Two people groups came out of the first couple of Eden. One followed the way of Cain and one followed the way of Abel. Those who follow the way of Abel know there is no way to have access to the tree of life, but must depend upon the Lord. These are the people that seek him and call upon him, who want to know him, who want to follow in his ways, because they know he holds the promise of life, and that even in death, the sound of the great passage from Job chapter 19, even in death I know that my Redeemer lives, and the last he will take his stand on the earth, even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God. That's the book of Job. Oh, how you doing? Already in the Old Testament, these people knew that life was coming. The way is blocked, but God would open the way. The other people are the people of Cain. They're all over the world today. They're here in Myrtle Beach. They're everywhere. They may be here in this church. They don't care about God. They don't care about his word or his way. They don't care about the sword, the flaming sword or the cherubim. They don't care about a judgment to come. No, no. They don't want any of those things. They need a religion that tells them that they are good at what they do and who they are, and when they die, they go to heaven. That's the religion that's all over the world today, and you hear it even in the secular funerals. They come to bury their dead, and what do they say? Ah, she's in a better place. What place is that? Where is she? Ah, but they've got this dream that she lived a good life. She's a decent person, and she will get into heaven. That's the religion that's around everywhere. Everywhere. We don't need God. We will do God our way, the way we design it. That's the religion that we want. But up came a group of people that said, no, no. We are waiting for what the Lord has in mind. Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 11. If you've memorized that, would you stand up for me? Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 11. Listen to it. It's beautiful. I promise you, once you hear it, you will memorize it. God has set eternity in the heart of man. He has set the knowledge of eternity inside of us. He has. It's there. We already know there's something more than this life has, because God put that knowledge inside every soul. This is why, when you get to the Bible, it's, our Lord comes upon a group called the Sadducees, and they don't believe in eternal life. They don't believe in the resurrection. They don't believe in angels and this other world, these other ages. No, no. And our Lord comes to them and says, really? And they test him and all the rest, and he looks at them and just sends these words. Our Lord says these words, you are wrong. You neither know the Scriptures nor the power of God. Our Lord said in Exodus 3, verse 6, Jesus quoted Exodus 3, 6, and he said these, this is where it's written, I am the God of Abraham. I am the God of Jacob. I am the God of Jacob and Israel. I forgot somebody. Isaac. I forgot Isaac. Isaac. I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. Always has been. You've missed it. You've lost it. God has set eternity in the heart of us. We know about everlasting life, and that's why Abraham, the great Abraham patriarch that you're studying in these days, I've taken the series away. You'll get back to it next week. But this is why Abraham already, you find this in Hebrews 11, he saw the city. He saw the eternal city. He saw the new Jerusalem. He saw the city of God, the heavenly country, whose builder and architect is God. Jesus said, Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced in it. You see, he already has in the Old Testament, these great saints that are waiting for the day when Bethlehem happens and life himself is born in our midst. Oh, dear friends, Jesus has not just one who's come to give us life. Our Lord is life. He is eternal life. He is God the Son. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. Listen to this. John chapter one, verse three, in him was life. Can you imagine being with him? This is why C.S. Lewis had to do what C.S. Lewis had to do in Narnia. Narnia was like New England in February. Everything cold and icy. But what happens when Aslan comes into town? What happens? It happens. C.S. Lewis was brilliant and he was Anglican. Everywhere Aslan went turned to springtime. Life came everywhere. This is why Jesus said to his disciples, go do what I'm doing. He entrusted the disciples with the life that is in him, this eternal life, and go tell the devil he cannot stand. Go tell sickness it cannot stay. Don't tell death it cannot wield its sword. The kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of God is in town. And out they went, unbelievable that life has come. And that's what our Lord came to do. He said, I am the resurrection and the life, but he has come for a purpose and a task. He's come to write what happened in Genesis 3, 24. He's come to face the cherubim and the flaming sword, the judgment of God against us. He's come though he didn't deserve it. He took our sin upon him, our disobedience and our rebellion, and he's going to go the way to the tree of life. He's going to go the way to the Father. And he's going to go the way of the cross that will pay for that judgment, that cherubim, that sword, that judgment against us. That's why he went to the cross. He went to the cross, as it says in 2 Timothy 1, to abolish death and bring life and immortality to light. He came to bring us life. And that's why Paul says, I cannot boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus. Why? Because everything he came to do happened on the cross. He made the way to life possible. Do you believe this? This is why Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. 32 years ago, May 20, 1984, I was fired for preaching that sermon. I was. I was given the text. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. That was the morning text. The rector, the rector of the church had preached the following Easter that there is no resurrection, that Jesus is a myth. And then he set me up to preach that text. So I called the bishop. I said, Bishop, I'm in trouble. The rector says it's not true. The Bible is the passage for the weekend. I can't go against his authority. I can't go against God's authority. Bishop, have you got any wisdom? The bishop said he was very glad not to be me. He said, I want you to be faithful to the text. And so I said, the early Christians were called just this. They were called the people of the way. That's what they're called. The people of the way. The way to what? I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father, but through me. And that is God's eternal plan for us. This is the testimony. He gave us eternal life. And that life is in his son. He who sees the sun and believes upon him shall have life and have it eternally. But this is the question. When does that life begin? I need to know your answer to this. Because the churches I belonged to growing up would state the creed that God the father commanded it. God the son did it. And when I die, I'll get it. God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And when I die, I will have eternal life. And that's the church I went to. The singing was horrible. The preaching was dead. The scriptures were read and the Eucharist was done all performa. Until suddenly I came amidst the Christians. Until somebody had the courage to tell me the truth. That Jesus Christ is alive today. The Holy Spirit has come to be giving us this life now a foretaste. A foretaste of the life to come. What's called a down payment. That's how the Bible says it. Don't don't look at me funny. I'll tell it. In 114, in him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise. As a pledge of your inheritance, it starts now. I need it to start now. I need this life to start now. And I'll tell you why. Because the devil is wreaking havoc with our Christians. He's wreaking havoc with our pastors. Our pastors are having to stand before you and put on a face, an image. The kind of pastor our search team wants is somebody who's going to grow this church and bring in the people and bring in the money and be the entertainment that we need to grow Trinity. And I say to you, hogwash. We need somebody who knows Jesus Christ passionately, who believes in the Holy Spirit as the giver of life, that when our people fall into the addictions that are seizing us on the internet, on these things of porn and sex and money and power and pleasure, all the things the devil is doing to rob us. And I tell you, it's happening, especially to our pastors. It's happening because they're alone. They're having to perform and give and give and give, but they're they don't know where to go themselves to receive. And they do things that are unhealthy. And that's why we're setting up this office for clergy care. There's got to be a place to go that the devil cannot have our pastors. He cannot have our leaders. He cannot have our churches and he cannot have our children. There is a freedom that comes from our Lord and our Savior. And that freedom flows today to set us free from the bonds of addiction. If you don't believe it, call me. I'll watch it. We'll all watch it. Call your leaders. Call your interim. Call somebody. Here's the key behind it. The devil will want you to walk alone. Never, never walk alone. Have the courage to confess to somebody. I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble with drink and drugs or internet or whatever it is. I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. We've got to watch Jesus come and set us free. Our country is not free. Our country is being filled with the darkness from the pit of hell. When our Supreme Court can tell us the morals of what marriage is. And that's what happened on June 26th last year. The government has decided. The Supreme Court has decided what God decides. In 1973 January, the Supreme Court decided when life begins and made it a political event about rights. It's not about rights. It's about God. He sets the story. Does he not? But our country has said no to God and no to his word and then tell us that today we're free. There's a confusion that our kids are growing up. We can't even decide what bathrooms to go to. That's what's happening in our culture. It's that real. It's that tangible. What's the hope of our wonderful country? Well, is it going to be found in Congress? Is it going to be found in electing a new leader? I don't think so. I'll tell you where it's going to be found. It's going to be found in you, Christian. You, the church. The Spirit of God has come upon us. He's come to set us free. He's come to be lights in a dark country. Our job isn't to turn the country around. Our job is to turn the souls of the next generation back to the Father in heaven. Because he's come. Because he's real. Because he's Lord here in this place. Is he Lord of you? Is he Lord of your marriage? Is he Lord of your family? Is he Lord of your church? Is he governing us? Is he guiding us? Can you not wait to see what he's going to do with us? My friends, he is the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. And where the Holy Spirit is, there is freedom. What do you know about that freedom? Is it in your life today? If not, why not? Why not? Oh, thank the Lord it's there. I've got to tell you, if I was a doctor and I could diagnose the times and have no treatment for the times, what kind of a doctor would I be? Are there any doctors here? Can you imagine not being able to treat your patients? You go to them and say, you're a mess. Can't help you. But for $3,000, you've got your lab results. Well, well done us. All the results with nobody saying that we've got a treatment. Thanks be to God. We who know Jesus Christ have a treatment for it was for freedom that Christ set us free. If you're not living that free life, live it today. Give yourself to Jesus. Let the spirit of God come upon you. If you're living in addictions and bondages, let the spirit of God come upon you. Let's watch and see what he will do. Because I'm telling you, in a land that's celebrating freedom, that knows nothing about freedom, we are a people that know how to celebrate freedom. The Lord's name be praised.