years ago when I began working with EFCA West, that I began to spend some time at other churches. And it's been a very interesting experience. I've learned a lot from that, but I've experienced also a whole bunch of great things. Even this morning, I met a couple, your brothers and sisters in Christ, who are among you for the first time. I am and I've assured them that they won't listen to me if they come back next week. So Things things should be good. I I think you probably Unless these are the songs you sing every week. You probably have a clue that we're going to talk about sin and freedom today. I And yeah, there you have chains, there's chains showing on the front of your bulletin, worship folder, whatever that thing is that every church calls it something different that we pass out. Our anchor text today is gonna be in the book of Hebrews, a familiar text if you've spent your lifetime in God's word. In Hebrews chapter 12, verses one and two, and so you may wanna go ahead and turn there this morning and be prepared. We'll get to that eventually. For those not familiar with EFCA West, we're one of 17 districts of the Evangelical Free Church of America. We serve about 200 churches and church plants in seven western states. Central and Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, El Paso, Texas, because that's closer to the New Mexico churches than any of the other churches that we have in in Texas and Oklahoma, and then a couple churches in the Las Vegas area, and some also in Utah and southern Idaho. So, a little bit of travel that it takes to be with those churches. One of the things we always like to share is that every church is autonomous. meaning that they're self-governing, but we are all interdependent upon one another. Even as this morning our brother prayed for churches and for God to meet the needs of churches in Texas and in Florida, the way God meets those needs is through us, the rest of his kids, the other parts of the family who are not affected by those kinds of things. So each church is autonomous, all the churches are interdependent and none of our churches is ever alone. One of the things I get to do in my ministry as part of strengthening the churches is to come alongside churches in times of transition, which Clovis Evangelical Free Church is in a time of transition in terms of pastoral leadership. I get to work with churches in terms of vision and mission, clarity and strategy and some of those kinds of things. And then I also get the privilege of working with churches that are in the midst of crisis. We call it triage. And part of our team, I'm generally the first guy in when something goes terribly, terribly wrong in a church to try to help them right the ship, do some emergency repairs, and then get the help together that we need to get them through that. It's kind of, that's not necessarily the most fun part of my work, but it certainly is a blessing to be able to do that. So, the Clovis Evangelical Free Church are in a time of transition, and transitions can be a little bit scary. Anybody, you know, got a few doubts, and like, you know, what's next? Thinking, you know, where are we going? What's gonna be next here? Transitions are scary because they move us into uncharted waters, but they can also be very helpful to a church, especially when they're navigated very thoughtfully. One of the things we like to say in our team is never waste a transition. Don't waste the difficulty of the transition. It's a wonderful time for us to examine ourselves. It's a principle that you probably talk about on those Sundays where you participate in communion together. Let a person examine themselves. It's a great time for a church and individuals in churches to examine themselves. I'm also taken in Romans 12, I believe it's verse 3, where we're told to think soberly, right, be sober in our thinking, and also told not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. There was an ethicist, I have a hard time even saying that word, but a well-known ethicist in Southern California who did a lot of police training. And one of the things that he always harped on that really resonated with me is that we want to judge ourselves by our intentions, but everybody else judges us by our actions, and oftentimes by our last worst action. And so it's a good time, a time of transition for a church, for the people of the church and the church collectively to examine ourselves and try to assess where are we, what are we here for, what's going on? And then the question for today is, are there things, is there something or some things that are impeding us? And so that's going to be the message that I want to share with you. Dwight L. Moody is quoted as saying, the Bible was given to us not to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives. And that's my prayer today. I'm not here to increase your knowledge. You're probably, you know, pretty knowledgeable in terms of the scripture. But I'm here to offer you an opportunity, especially if you need that opportunity, to have some significant change in your life. And so that's my prayer. Let me share just a little bit of my journey. I was saved at age six. And in children's church, you just dismissed everybody, but I was there. I remember the day. I'm an old man today, but I remember the day. I remember the songs. I remember dear Miss Christensen, who led that ministry for years at the First Baptist Church of Montebello, asking all the little children if they wanted to accept Jesus in their heart. And then one Sunday, all of a sudden, it dawned on me that I too, at age six, was a sinner, and I needed Jesus Christ. And as only a six-year-old could do, I said, I want to ask Jesus into my heart. Interestingly, just a side note, I was in my mid-20s probably, and I was at my church in Glendora that my wife and I have attended for close to 41 years. We were doing a testimony Sunday, you know, about who was it that was with you or who guided you or nudged you to accept Christ as your Savior. And I'm sitting there because I'm, it's hard to believe maybe today, but I was not at the time one of those loud mouths who would jump up and say something in those services. In fact, this will make sense to you a little later this morning, but I was the guy who would sit back and judge other people. Who were doing that? No, no, you know, that's so weak. But anyway, someone stood up over here and said, you know, I was in the Children's Church at First Baptist Montebello, and this dear lady named Miss Christensen, you know, gave the gospel message. And I thought, oh, that's interesting. That's my story. And then, I'll be darned, someone over here stood up a few people later. It was Miss Christensen. A little bit later, someone stood up in the back, and it was Miss Christensen. Now, there's only 100 people in that room that Sunday night. And I was the fifth person who stood up and said, I'll be darned. It was Miss Christensen who led me to Christ. And from that point on, I've made it a habit of mine to never belittle anybody in their ministry. I'll bet you Miss Christensen has no idea the contribution, at least while she was on earth, she's with her Savior now, had no idea what the contribution was that she made to the kingdom of God. So I grew up in Bible-teaching, Bible-believing churches. I have wonderful, godly parents with just wonderfully, emotionally healthy family. So I didn't come to Christ out of all the terror and tumult that would make my testimony just really cool to listen to and let me write books. Just a simple story of a six-year-old kid who said he wanted to follow Christ, who spent the rest of his life trying to figure out and trying to learn how to do that. with some bumps and bruises along the way. As a teenager, I, of course, got fascinated with policing, retired 38 years later after working my career with the Sheriff's Department, and lo and behold, Steve Highfield, the district superintendent of EFCA West, asked me to be their director of church health, as though church health can actually be directed. And again, it can be facilitated and helped or destroyed, but I'm not sure one can actually direct that, but that's the title. And so the types of things that I do are listed there. In five weeks, Charlene and I have our 41st anniversary, So thankful for that. Two adult kids, one grandson. I've seen some young kids around here, but I'm thoroughly biased, and I think I have the cutest grandson in the world. So would you pray with me? Then we'll jump into our text and a story I want to share with you. Father God, I pray that the words that I share this morning will be of benefit to the individuals here, my brothers and sisters in Christ, individually as well as collectively. that perhaps I'll leave some little seed that will be a benefit that may grow, that may help people be able to keep their eyes on you and to move forward in their faith and to enable this church to reach the surrounding community for you. And that's my simple prayer. And Lord, I just ask you through your Holy Spirit, oh Lord, please let that come to pass. May people look beyond me and understand the message from your word, in Jesus' name, amen. So, I don't know how to, I didn't talk about PowerPointy things. Do we have that? Can we push the little button? There we go, 2014. I'm gonna tell you a story, okay? Jesus told stories, that's how he taught things. I'm gonna tell you a story that's going to illustrate the lesson, and we're gonna actually get back to our text in a minute, but I'll read it to you first, therefore. Since we have so great a cloud of witnesses, where are those witnesses? All of chapter 11. We call that the hall of faith. There's all these famous people who overcome all kinds of things and just thrived in the midst of crisis. We also have this whole list of people, most of them anonymous, who were sawn in half and fed the wild beasts and beaten and died and all those kinds of things. And then chapter 12, remembering that scripture has no Chapter divisions in the original starts out therefore because of all that and all the doctrine that went before in the previous ten chapters Since we have so great a cloud of witnesses Surrounding us. Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin Which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that's set before us fixing our eyes on Jesus The author and perfecter of faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So yeah, April 2014, I decided to ride Amtrak from Los Angeles to Chicago. before you think I'm absolutely nuts. The reason I did that was for fun. See, I figured that train travel, as we know it, will probably cease to exist soon, and if I was ever going to ride a train, which it had slight interest for me in years past, that this was the time to do it, because, you know, they never make any money, and, you know, I figured train travel was going to end. Well, my wife Charlene has ridden trains before, I never had, And so she just very politely declined to go with me. And so we talked about this for several years. You see, she has had some bad experiences on trains in her youth, and it was just kind of a very unpleasant experience. And so she just didn't want to go, and one day we were, you know, trying to, you know, tread those waters again, and she said, just go. Just have a good time. Enjoy your train ride. And so I did. And I actually had a blast. By the way, there's a difference between coach and sleeper class. I'm just saying, so the sleeper class worked out really well for me. And so, when I got to Chicago, I decided, I mean, I'm in Chicago, I may as well spend a week in there. And so I did. And so one of the things that I wanted to do was to visit an urban Chicago church and attend their services on Sunday morning. You see, I was born and raised, I've spent my entire life in the middle and upper class suburbs of eastern Los Angeles County. My whole life has been spent within probably 25 miles. And so I really didn't have much urban experience, and so I did what every good EFCA employee would do, and I looked at the EFCA directory, and I found a church in a kind of urban area of Chicago that I decided I would go to. It was in this little neighborhood in Chicago called Austin, and it looked like it was relatively close to where I was staying. So early on Sunday morning I walked a few blocks from my hotel to the L, Chicago's elevated train system. I went up and I got onto a very nearly deserted train. I felt like I was the only one there. The train took off west on about a 15 to 20 minute ride and then I got off at what I thought would be the closest station and I actually read the map right and it was. I walked for five blocks to the church through a very stereotypical Chicago urban neighborhood. I want you to visualize this with me. I want you to pretend perhaps that you're Bob engaged in this experience. There were deteriorated buildings, barred doors and windows, broken windows, liquor stores everywhere, little tiny beauty shops and barber shops in abundance. bunch of closed and abandoned buildings, weeds, trash, garbage, abandoned cars. You get the picture? Get the picture? Yeah. You see, Austin and its surrounding neighborhood today is over 85% minority, meaning non-white. It's interesting when you say 85% minority when white is clearly the minority at that point. But the middle class in that neighborhood, middle class of all races, had moved away in the 1970s and the 1980s. And so you need to know that because the feel of this neighborhood was very, very different from what I'm used to in my eastern Los Angeles County suburban experience. So maybe the next slide. Rock Church, they call it. Rock of Our Salvation Free Church. They meet in a gymnasium. In fact, maybe the next picture is of the gym. There you go. That was before the service, which is why it looks so empty. I felt awkward about taking pictures in the service. But they meet in the gym. The church was founded in 1983. During that time, unemployment at the area was 40%, and the high school dropout rate was 70%. So they eventually partnered, and now they share facilities with a Christian urban ministry and school. And part of the property is this historic turn-of-the-century auditorium that is in desperate need of repair that they had begun repairs on. But money was short. And they'd run out of money. The construction had stalled. At that point, it had been stalled for years. And I checked their website last week. Still stalled. Still meet in the gym. When the church service began, the founding pastor's daughter, she was a little child back in the founding pastor's day, but she was a guest, kind of like me, but she was leading the singing. Her name was Rachel Washington, and she was known by the people in the church, not just as the founding pastor's daughter, but as an accomplished gospel singer and songwriter, but I had absolutely no clue who she was. And it was really interesting to me to watch the worship experience because I was seated kind of in the, you know, my usual seat there, kind of left, side, center aisle, halfway between the front and the back. And a couple rows in front of me and to the right was this lady that I found out was a deaconess. And she had this, a large shopping bag kind of thing. And she reached in the bag and she pulled out a tambourine. And she begins playing the tambourine during the song. She's not the best tambourine player, but she was playing the tambourine with great enthusiasm. And then on the front row, in this chair where I was sitting, was a gentleman that I later discovered was one of the elders in the church. And he pulled out this kind of long tubular thing, kind of like a animal horn or some type, or maybe a really short didgeridoo, if you're into that kind of stuff. And he started blowing on this thing until it finally made a note. It only makes one note. And he used that note just playing along during the entire period of worship by music. The singing in the congregation, almost fell off my shoe there, the singing in the congregation was very heartfelt and very sincere and just very enthusiastic. But as you can probably guess, for me and perhaps for you, if you were sitting there, it would have definitely been a cross-cultural experience. And I have to admit, I'm much more comfortable with the more sedate music that I normally enjoy in my home church. After quite a bit of singing, The song leader turned to the pastor, and you can see the yellow chairs, it's kind of like, in this culture, the pastor sits on this throne, in this kind of exalted thing, not in a negative sort of way, but in a respectful sort of way, out of respect for his work as a pastor. And so the musician, you can see a guitar player over on the right there where they were warming up, turned to the pastor and said, do you mind if I do an invitation? And pastor kind of smiled and said, well, sure. And so he said, I mean, I figured it would have been awkward if he had said no, get off the stage. And so she started to sing a song that I had never heard before in my life. A very simple song. Boring, monotonous lyrics to my ear. And the lyrics went like this, repeated over and over and over again. There's power in the name of Jesus. There is power in the name of Jesus. There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain. To break every chain. To break every chain. So after a while, singing this song over and over again, the worship leader invited the congregation, anybody in the congregation who wanted to come up to the front and pray to God, in the name of Jesus, he was very, very specific, to pray to God in the name of Jesus to break any chains that bound them, to come on down to the front and pray. Well, right in the middle of the Sunday morning service, a prayer meeting broke out. Nothing weird, you know, it was just nothing ecstatic, but just people coming to pray. My guess is at least 35 to 40 of the 125 or so people that were in the gymnasium eventually made their way to the front to pray and to have other people pray for them. And all the while the singing continued. There's power in the name of Jesus to break every chain, to break every chain. And I stayed at my seat along the middle aisle halfway back between the front. And as I stood there and I watched people singing, my mind began to wander. And I wondered what chains were these people praying about. Were they praying for jobs? Were they praying about their poverty, homelessness, need for clothing, need for food for the day, physical healing? Or were they perhaps praying about some sin that was in their life? And of course, my mind, my suburban mind, went immediately to every kind of urban sin you can imagine. Things like drugs, and alcoholism, and illicit sex, prostitution, violence, thievery. So can you picture the scene in your mind, all this going on? Can you imagine yourself being there? Never been there before? You don't know a single soul. You're watching this go on. Well, my mind wandered off to my years in the Sheriff's Department as they kept singing about chains, because I used to put people in chains. I would handcuff them. We'd have waist chains, leg chains. We'd chain one prisoner to another for transport. And one thing I knew very clear is that people don't want to be chained. They complain about it. They want the chains removed as soon as possible. In fact, one of the first things every arrestee ever said to me after I'd put them in the back seat of the patrol car, I would get in, the first thing they'd say was, can you loosen these handcuffs? Because chains are uncomfortable, and they're confining, and we want them to be removed. And then I thought of people who we had to chain to transport them long distances, and we used to handcuff them or chain them in the front because it was much more comfortable for them for longer travel. Boom! That's when it hit me. Comfortable chains. More comfortable in chains. Long distance travel. Can we grow so comfortable with some of the chains in our lives that we no longer ask God, through the powerful name of Jesus, for them to be broken? Have I grown, had I grown so comfortable with some chains in my life that I no longer was asking God for them to be broken? Have you grown so comfortable with a chain in your life that you no longer grieve over it and ask God for that chain to be broken? So this brings us to point number one in your notes. It is possible to become comfortable in chains. It's possible to become comfortable in chains. And that's because over time we just get used to them. We're used to carrying them around. They just become part of us. It's been my experience over the last four years working with churches that this is a significant problem for established churches and for us long-time Christians. We become over time comfortable in our chains. And so I'm suspecting that this may well be an issue that perhaps you need to consider individually and collectively. Are there chains? that we've become comfortable with. Well, back at Rock of Our Salvation Church, my mind went back to a very recent sermon series at the time in Colossians, chapter 3, verses 5 through 11. You may want to scribble that down and look at that sometime later. But there's this long list of things that we as followers of Christ need to put off. And I began to wonder, I'll need to go through that list again and see if maybe there's some that I'm still wearing and asking myself, I wonder if they actually would bother me. Have any of them become comfortable? And so I looked at the list. Immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, anger, wrath, slander, abusive speech, lying. And then this thought went through my mind. I said, well, you know, it's interesting because there are some sins out there that have what I like to call the ick factor. They're just icky. They're disgusting, vile, icky. We in the church don't tolerate them. We don't like them. We don't excuse them. And this is the stuff like immorality and impurity, the out-of-control passions, wrath. But there are some sins that don't have such a great it factor. And we Christians can become comfortable with them. And it's not like these sins just barge in and take command of our lives. They creep in and they just kinda seem to take hold while we're not paying attention to them. Sins like evil desires, greed, anger, slander. Yeah, when was the last time I, well, I won't go there. Abusive speech. Heard any abusive speech recently amongst brothers and sisters? Lying. You know, it grieves me to read social media postings from brothers and sisters in Christ who are angry slanderous, name-calling, or contain unverified or partial truth, sounds a lot like lying to me. You know, we all know that just because we saw it on the internet or someone sent it to us doesn't make it true. And yet, how often do we pass that stuff on without even giving it a thought as to whether it's actually true? We spread gossip and words that aren't profitable for edification, but rather end up attacking the integrity of other people. And because our focus can be on those icky sins, we sometimes find ourselves just kind of comfortably bound. That's just what I do. Yeah, I'm active on Facebook. I'm active on whatever. Another list, Galatians 5, 19 through 21, you may want to write that down as well. These are the deeds of the flesh that is on the list just before the fruit of the Spirit. Very similar list, impurity, I'm sorry, immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and if that's not enough, the passage basically ends by saying, and stuff like that. And other stuff, it's like a job description, you know, other duties as necessary. So once again, we come face to face with that ick factor. And as I went through this list in my mind, I'm thinking to myself, you know, immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, drunkenness, carousing, yeah, all that icky stuff, I'm good, I'm good. But then I began to ask myself, might I have become comfortable over time with some of these less icky sins of enmity? Who is my enemy? Who do I view as my enemy? Who am I holding or viewing with enmity? Strife. With whom am I not at peace? Jealousy. angry outbursts. Gosh, you know, how do I handle disagreements in my family between my brothers and sisters in Christ? The last serious, say, argument that we've had. Disputes. Who am I fighting with? Dissensions. Who can I just not get along with? Factions. Have I divided myself into one team against another team? Then there's a list of seven things that God hates. I hate lists. Proverbs 6 verse 16, haughty eyes, lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among the brothers. And I thought to myself, you know, the greatest danger probably to long-term disciples are haughty eyes and spreading strife. And I thought, haughty eyes, okay. Oh, there's power in the name of Jesus to break every chain, break every chain. Haughty eyes, nah. Could that be me? Nah, that can't possibly be me. I'm Mr. Mature. I'm a mature Christian. I have it all together. I'm a leader in my church. I work for a church denomination as a church health. I'm sure my following of Jesus is probably superior to the people who are struggling with the power of sin in their life, who have walked down the front of the aisle in the midst of all this singing in this poor inner city urban church to ask God to release them from bondage to sin. And there it was, haughty eyes. My haughty eyes had been revealed to me right in the middle of a church service. I was demonstrating sinful arrogance by wondering what other people were praying about, rather than focusing on my own areas of bondage. Where did that come from? How did it creep back in my life? I've had that there before, especially in my younger years. I had become comfortably arrogant. It was so natural. It was so easy. I was so bound. So brothers and sisters, how do we look at those people who are not as committed as we are, or who have not yet earned the highest level merit badges of Christian maturity? How do we treat those people who are struggling in their faith? Do we kick them under the bus, or do we receive them with open arms? and offer them grace and mercy as they seek to deal with the struggles they have? Do I expect younger believers, immature believers, the person who is struggling with dope or something in the depth of despair who has just come to Christ and knows nothing of what I've known, do I treat them with contempt or with grace and mercy and envelop them into the family or do I hold them off? Because I'm not sure that they're real. Jesus didn't come to earth to be crucified to free us from only the big ugly sins, but he came to free us from sin. Even the sins with which we may have grown comfortable and those that we've come to accept in our life. Point number two is that comfortable bondage is not freedom. So I'm gonna ask you this question. Is there some sin in my life that's become a comfortable chain that I carry around with me. Have we come to just accept certain sins in our lives? And I want to ask you and I want to ask me some questions. Here are some questions that we may want to ask ourselves. Do I excuse some sin in my life by thinking or saying, that's just the way I am? Or that's just my personality? Well, God died on the cross and gave us his spirit to change just the way I am. To change those sinful ways in my personality. Do I excuse some pattern of sin in my life by thinking or saying that it's someone else's fault? My husband, my wife, or some other person made me so mad that I lashed out in anger. And I don't own my anger before God, but I blame somebody else for it. How about that idiot who just cut me off on the freeway? I had encounters with about four of them on my drive up Highway 99 yesterday. And I'll tell you, the fourth time in my own car, no I didn't give any hand signals, but in my own car, as I, in my mind or even verbally, lashed out in an angry response, you idiot, you know, what's the matter with you? Finally God reminded me that I was choosing to lash out in anger. I don't know why they're driving that way, maybe they are an idiot. But maybe they're the emergency room doctor that's trying to save somebody's life, you know? And maybe there are some other circumstances. Do I speak rudely to the table server because I didn't like the meal? I just want them to know about it? So I'm going to be curt and rude? Leave them a 4% tip? It sounds like angry and sinful to me. Do people who have made less progress along their spiritual journey than I have, do they try my patience? Do they irritate me? Am I quick to find and share faults in other people's application of doctrine, style of worship, or matters of personal preference? Do I post, comment, or pass along Christian gossip? Sounds like sin. Is there something that I do that before I do it, I know I shouldn't do it, and I know God doesn't want me to do it, and yet I do it anyway? Are there things I let my mind dwell on that are not pleasing to God? Some of the things God suggests we let our mind graze upon are things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellence, worthy of praise. What's in your computer history? What have you deleted from your computer history? Are there any secret viewing habits? Does Netflix have your real name? Let's look at Hebrews chapter 12 again. I want to not just beat you up, but I want to give you some encouragement because I'm wearing chains. Therefore, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Remember watching the Olympics, the races in the Olympics? What did the runners do before the race? They warm up, they're wearing this little outfit that we like to call warm-ups. They're fairly comfortable. We would call them loungewear, most of us, at least I certainly would. But what do they do just before the race? Just before they get into the starting blocks, they take that off and they lay it aside. What do basketball players do just before they come into the game? They get up, they take their warm-ups, they take them off, and they Lay them aside. And I think that's a great visual picture of what this passage is talking about when it uses the word lay aside. In your notes, the first thing we're told to lay aside is every weight. And these are the things that weigh us down. These are the things we carry around with us that hinder us from running with endurance the race that's set before us. No one who wants to win a prize runs a race while carrying extra baggage. Note that this verse doesn't say to just lay aside the big sins, or the ugly sins, or the uncomfortable sins, or the sins that are awkward. It says to lay aside every weight. And laying aside is something that we do. We choose to lay aside. Jesus has broken the bondage. But we have to choose to lay it aside. So what are the things that we Christians, especially we long-term Christians, tend to carry around? Well, it could be possessions or things. It's not necessary. The word weight isn't something that talks about necessities or even the enjoyments of life. These are the things that weigh you down, the encumbrances. But it could also be other things, like how about our past? How about past sins that have been long since forgiven, yet we carry them around with us on our race, continuing to live with guilt and with shame? How about broken relationships that perhaps we don't do anything to heal or to mend, or that we just won't let go because we've tried everything else? How about bitterness? Bitterness to me man, that's the sin that keeps on giving It's just a load that we carry around and and and I've always been amazed by bitterness because it doesn't hurt the person I'm in bitter toward They don't care if I'm carrying that load around Are there grudges or some other lack of forgiveness I And of course, in today's society and circumstances, how can we not also consider the weight of racism in our society and the way that so often we, by our actions, we at least appear, if not intentionally, to behaviorally be avoiding relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ who don't look like we do or have a culture that's different from ours. What is it that I might be carrying along that's slowing me down, taxing my endurance, taking my eyes off of Jesus and frankly hurting the church. What are some things that Christians gathered together as a local congregation might be carrying around as extra weight? Well, over, again, the years of working with churches and working in my own church during times of trouble or transition, there are some very common weights that I see in churches. Are there grievances or disputes from our past that we've not yet resolved? Is there a spirit of competition and comparison with other churches rather than a spirit of mutual care and cooperation in the cause of Christ? Are there programs or events that we've had for years that no longer yielded the desired results that we lack the courage to just stop doing so we can do something else? If the church were to cut a program that the leadership finds is no longer effective but that I still enjoy, am I going to become angry and bitter and perhaps even leave the church? Has judging and arrogance crept into our discipleship efforts so that hurting people are driven away rather than help towards healing? Do we have a welcome sign or a keep out sign on our door? Have we lost our focus on bringing lost people to salvation in Christ? Have we become a learning center rather than a fishing company? Do we come together to learn more and to be with our friends or do we come together to be equipped to do the ministry that God has called and gifted us to do? And lest anyone here thinks that I'm calling out this church in particular, I'm not. I have the same list of questions that I've probably asked 40 different churches in the last few years. And I really don't know much of the history of this particular church, but this is just a series of questions I ask. And I find that far more often than not, those questions are hurtful. They provoke us. They enlighten some things that we need to work on. Remember one of the phrases I started with, never waste a transition. The second thing we're commanded to lay aside in your notes are those things that cling to us. They cling and then they trip us up. These are the things we trip on. They entangle us, they wrap us up. We're running our race fairly well and then wham, some sin trips us up. But the thing about this sin is it's not the first time that's happened. It's happened before. It's kind of like this is my favorite sin. You know, it's always there for me in this circumstance. It just pops up. I keep going back to it. It's like the tentacles of this practice has us entangled. It's my favorite. It shows up. It keeps hanging on. It doesn't let go. It won't stop. It keeps knocking us down. And perhaps by now we have even given up the fight by choosing to try to ignore it or just accept it in ourselves. In fact, you may find it frustrating that this particular passage tells us to lay that aside because it doesn't feel like I'm holding on to the sin. It feels like the sin is holding on to me. We're bound. It won't let go. The Apostle Paul writes about this in his letter to the Romans in chapter 7, verses 23, 24, and 25. He writes about the frustration he has because the things he wants to do are the things he doesn't do. And the things that he doesn't do are the things that he wants to do. And he's frustrated, and as he concludes his train of thought on this topic, he writes this, But I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? And then he answers this question, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Apostle Paul knew this well. There's power in the name of Jesus. There's power in the name of Jesus. There's power in the name of Jesus to break every chain. To break every chain, including your chain and mine. You see, there's an alternative to bondage and chains, and I believe the tool that breaks the chains that bind us, the key that will unlock the lock, is 1 John 1, 9, and again, a very simple verse. In your notes, the key that unlocks bondage to sin, or the bondage of sin, is confession. The key that unlocks the bondage of sin is confession. It's not keeping silent about it, and hoping no one's going to notice. What? Chains? What chains? I don't have any chains, my life is perfect. It's not coping with the anxiety about if, when, or how my sin is gonna be found out. It's not secretly hoping that my sin will not negatively impact my work in the church or whatever it is, my standing, my reputation. The key that releases the bondage is confession. And there's so many things that we do to avoid confession and repentance. One of the things I noticed is the people in that Chicago church were praying, asking God to break their chains, is that they talked to God. It was real talk. It was not just thinking, like they're trying to telepathically communicate with God. I saw their lips moving. I heard real words, real sentences, real confession right there in the front of that gymnasium. As the first people came forward to do their business with God, one of the things I noticed is it opened the floodgates for other people to come. Because by and large, most of us don't want to be the first or the only one. We're always waiting for someone else to go first in these kinds of things. Why? We worry what other people are going to think. And that's one reason why I, you know, I serve in leadership capacities in my church with EFCA West. That's one of the reasons why I'm telling you my story today. Because for me to fulfill my obligation as an elder in the church, I need to prove to be an example for you of what a follower of Christ should do. And I can't be an example to you if I'm hiding my life from you. And yes, I've shared this sermon a little differently, but yeah, I've shared this sermon with my home church. You know, I've done thinking prayers most of my life. As a child, we teach children to say prayers, right? Say your prayer. In the gospel, the disciples asked Jesus, teach us to pray, and he said, when you pray, say. So I don't know when I decided that thinking prayers was the way for me to pray. But only since that Sunday in 2014 have I come to really appreciate the power of actually saying my prayers, speaking them to God. I know in my brain that God knows my thoughts before I ever utter them. I know that's true. But there's something powerful that happens in me when I say my prayers instead of just thinking them. I know technically and theologically, it's not going to matter to God. But it matters very much to me. And I suspect it would matter very much to you as well. When I think my prayers, my mind wanders. I get distracted. My thoughts move quickly from one thing to another. It's not uncommon for me to go, what was I praying about? And just completely forget. But when I speak my prayers, I have to actually think about what I'm going to say. So I focus better. It creates a natural rhythm that helps me say something and stop and listen to sense God's response. Speaking is slower than thinking. And it gives me time to think about what I'm saying. and perhaps even what I've just said. So I guess in my mind, I fear sounding stupid more than I fear thinking stupid. And so I've tended to keep my mouth shut, even when I'm alone. No longer, no longer area of growth in my life. But you know, when I think my prayers in church, I get to do it in secret, because nobody knows what I'm thinking. In fact, nobody knows if I'm thinking anything at all. So as I stood there, nobody knew what I was thinking. Nobody knew what was going on in my mind. I knew something was happening up front here, but no one had any idea. And I could stand there and just kind of be myself and try to be anonymous. Perhaps it fooled people into thinking that I'm thinking that everything was fine with me. But everything is not fine with me. And I would suggest that everything is not fine with you. So how can I experience the power of God in the name of Jesus when my biggest concern is my own dignity instead of my own weakness? We can become more concerned about maintaining our public facade of spirituality than of allowing God to do a mighty work, a mighty and powerful work in our lives. and then be freed for him to do a mighty and powerful work through our lives. We become fake, not real. We're more concerned about our reputation, what people think of us, than our character, which is who we really are and who God knows us to be. So we hide ourselves and we try to portray an image of godliness to other people. But brothers and sisters, if you do that when you come to church, that too is bondage. We're carrying a weight with us. We're trying to appear to be who we're not. And we stop the mighty, powerful work that God wants to do in our midst and among us by shutting ourselves off to one another and living in our own spiritual Teflon. First John 1.9, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It's the key, confessing our sins. Even the comfortable chains that bind us, these aren't too bad. The ones we seem to keep on ignoring, He can break that bond. Confession is simple, it's just acknowledging before God that our sin is sin. But I've come to believe that verbal confession is more powerful because it engages both our mind and our senses to drive the point home. And frankly, brothers and sisters, I think confessing our sins to one another, not everybody, not standing up here and blabbing to the entire world, but being open and honest, especially with the people who care about us in this congregation, is another way to demonstrate power and to be encouraged. This is the time I should land this plane. So I'd like you to take a moment to kind of look at the picture that's been up there. I first saw this picture the very first time I shared this passage at a church not my own. They did a Google search for breaking chains. And this was on the cover of the handout when you come in the door. It was up on the screen and all that kind of stuff. And as soon as I walked in, I fell in love with it. Google search thinks that this is a picture of freedom from bondage. And brothers and sisters, I want to say this is not a picture of freedom from bondage. Sure, the big chains are broken. The icky chains are broken. But this person still has shackles on both wrists and chains hanging from those shackles. When we look at it that way, it's not such a pretty picture. It could even be delusional. I think I'm free, right? But I'm not. I may say I'm free, but you all know I'm not free. I'm shackled. It's not a big shackle. It's not an ugly, icky one. But shackled nonetheless. I want to suggest perhaps a third way to look at the picture. Might this be a person who is still in bondage? With chains they should have laid down years ago, but they're still hanging from his wrists. Perhaps he's become used to them over time, but they're there. He knows they're there. He carries them around and maybe other people see them quite visibly. But might this person be someone who on this day and in this place is finally taking his or her chains before Almighty God? in a moment of confession and repentance, and with resolve and confidence in the power of the name of Jesus Christ, to finally break them for good, to lay them down, and to allow Jesus to set them free. And so this morning, I want you to consider taking a next step. Is there some chain, is there some bondage to sin that you've grown comfortable with? Is there some extra baggage you've been carrying around with you as you run the race before you? Is there something taking your eyes off of Jesus? Is there some sin that keeps tripping you up? Is there a sin whose grip on your life has gone on long enough? Is there some sin that you're desperate to prevent your brothers and sisters in Christ from knowing about? Are you living a lie here in God's family? While I've been speaking this morning, talking about sin and chains, has something popped into your mind that you've been trying to dismiss all morning? Are you quenching the work of the Holy Spirit in your life? So no, I didn't go forward. I just stood at my seat. And I actually moved my lips and I told God that I'd become arrogant. And I asked Him to free me from the bondage of arrogance. And He did. And then my job is to lay them aside. And I don't know about you, but there are some sins that are tempting to me, and that's one of them. And every once in a while, I'll see something, and I'll say to myself, well, I'm better than that. I'm a better Christian than them. I'm so much stronger than that. Why would they believe that? Oh, how can a Christian brother be so weak? And then it's my prayer that because I've asked God to break the bondage, that he'll remind me not to put the chains back on, and to lay them aside again, and be done with them, to let them go away. Bow your heads, and musicians go ahead and come on up. I'd like you to literally bow your heads. I don't know if that's something that you do often in this congregation. Different congregations do different things. This morning, I'd like to encourage each of you to take a next step to be freed from the bondage of sin, and that is to confess it to God. Will you call upon God in that mighty name of Jesus to free you? Will you tell God you need Him to free you because you're too weak to do it on your own? If God's been speaking to you this morning, calling something to your mind, might you maybe just stick your hand up as a first step to say, yeah, there's something in my life. Is there anybody? Yeah, I see some hands. There's lots of hands. And don't judge yourself for that. This is what God calls us to do, is to confess our sins. He doesn't say, you're saved, now you're sinless for the rest of your life. He says, don't hang on to the sins that want to cling to you. So I asked the musicians this morning to lead us in a song that I trust will be a song of triumph, a song that speaks of God's amazing saving grace and the reality that our Savior is a chain breaker. And when we come to the lyric that says, my chains are gone, I've been set free. It's my prayer that everyone in this room will be able to sing those words with great conviction, clarity, and joy. And if you'd like to, after the service, after the song, there'll be some announcements, but if you'd like to come down front here and pray, I'd be thrilled to death to pray with you. I'd be thrilled to death for you to pray by yourself. Leaders in the church, your friends would be thrilled to death to come and pray with you and to share the burden which is one of the commands that followers of Christ are supposed to do, is to show one another's burden. But I beg you, don't walk out of this place carrying the chains that you came in with. Lay them aside. Father God, may you give us the courage and the strength that we need to not only be true before you, but to be true before one another. Lord, don't let us walk out of this building this morning unchanged, but let us walk out unchained. May we come together as a body, even though this is my one Sunday with these brothers and sisters. May this congregation come together week after week and during their activities in between time to love and encourage one another to love and to good works and to growth. May we do it with openness and honesty and with great joy. And may this season of transition be a time when your people here are filled with your spirit, with renewed joy and enthusiasm. And Lord, I ask that you bless them in this time of transition and in the season of ministry to follow. May your name be made great in Clovis and the surrounding areas because of the work of your people in this place. And I ask these things in Jesus' name. The powerful name of Jesus.