As a man thinks lesson #3 part 1

Text: 1 Corinthians 9:16-27

It is a great joy again to be with those who are in love with Jesus. God has called the world into a new relationship with Him through His Son and the sacrifice that He did for us roughly 2000 years ago! If we ever begin to wonder if God is interested in our lives or thinks we're worth something all we need to remember is the cross on which Christ Jesus died and the empty tomb where his dead body once laid but lays no more. Jesus died for me and that tells me something with regards to how important I am in God's eyes!
We've been talk for a couple of lessons about the proverb of the wise man found in his book of Proverbs chapter 23:7 where he said "as a man thinks in his heart so is he." While Solomon was applying it to a specific situation, namely advising us against taking the apparent gift of a greedy man, because his greed or selfishness or love of money will eventually show up and you will regret taking his "gift". Well, we can apply this truth however to many different areas of life. What we are doing in this series is looking at how Christians can think themselves into living a life far short of the life that God wants us to have in Jesus Christ!
Last time we spoke about Christians struggling with low self-esteem or feeling like they are not worth very much. As Solomon said what we think about ourselves will eventually show itself in our life.
As a man thinks in his heart so is he! How do we begin to think in our hearts the kind of thoughts that allows us to live the abundant life in Jesus? This week we want to speak about the feeling that we are trapped! What happens to many Christians who are struggling, is the idea in their minds that somehow they are not living the life of freedom that the Bible seems to vividly paint.
In 2 Corinthians 3:17, there is a wonderful verse there that Paul uses as the calling card of Christian freedom! Where people who used to strive to be justified by the law found only bondage, those who seek to be justified by Christ find freedom, Paul said, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty"!
However, so many people struggle today in their hearts because they rarely feel free! Because we rarely feel free we face the day as if we are forever behind prison bars and we're there for life. Our home life is affected because after all, our kids and spouses or parents are part of our sentence. Our work suffers, because our bosses are our prison guards and our fellow employees are just working alongside us on the chain gang. Even church suffers because we're obviously not living the life God wants us to live and so therefore I'm really not deserving enough to be here and maybe I'm not much of a Christian at all!
One of the problems we face in this life as Christians who struggle yet try to be free, is what does Christian freedom mean? If we can get a good understanding as to what exactly it means, the rest of our world: our family, jobs, friends, church might not seem so restricting!
Let me suggest to you three areas where people feel as if they can not be free! Because they feel they cannot be free, they never will be!

People become dependant on habits, rituals & additives! We live in a helpless world today! I mean the great theology of today is not the all sufficiency of Christ, but the non-sufficiency of man! We live in a world that says you can't be happy, you can't feel good, you can't get over things, you can't be healthy unless you have things added to your life that can take the pains away! You got people today who are addicted to everything from: alcohol, drugs, the taking of pills, therapists, coffee, sweets, possessions! It all comes down to one theme: I can't live without it! Now, there are two extremes and both are wrong:

all faith no help! This is the old idea and I think its dying out and good thing it is. It said, basically with faith you didn't need anything else. Well, this isn't as far removed as some of these religious groups that don't use doctors and things like that. There are definite areas that we can use the help of medicine, doctors and therapists.

All help and no faith! This is the new extreme and is becoming more and more dangerous. Instead of Jesus Christ being our Saviour, other things take his place! I owe my life to Doctor so and so. I owe my happiness to this wonderful brew. I owe my great joy to my new house. There has to be a balance between the two and there is. What happens though is when we take the attitude that we can't possibly live without these things we have become dependant on: we have to ask ourselves if we believe in two verses: Phil.4:13- I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! & Matt.19:26- with God all things are possible! Why do we never get off some of these things? Because we convince ourselves we cannot! Listen to Paul in 1 Cor.6:12! Things might even be okay but I will not be a slave to them!

(continue to the rest of this lesson.)

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