In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: Some of you who've been saved 30, 40, 50 years are still living in the same old shackles and bondage because somewhere back then nobody ever told you, "Man, you can be freed of all of that." Jesus says the truth will liberate you. The truth will free you to become the person that God wants you to be, to achieve what God has set out for you to achieve in your life.

Guest (Male): Our culture celebrates independence and self-determination. But even a person who seems completely free on the outside can still be weighed down on the inside, held captive by sin's power. Today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, you'll hear how God's truth offers to be your true liberator. Here's the wrap-up of our series, "How the Truth Can Set You Free."

Dr. Charles Stanley: Please turn to John chapter 8. Jesus talking to the hearers on this particular occasion, and if you'll notice, beginning in verse 28, he says in John chapter 8: "Jesus therefore said, 'When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing of my own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught me. And He who sent me is with me, and He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.'"

As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him. Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed in Him, "If you abide or continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." Now watch this. If you continue, abide in my word, then you're truly disciples of mine. If you're abiding in my word, He says, you're going to know the truth, and the truth in which you have been continuing is going to set you free.

Now let me take about two minutes to bring us up to date, and then I want to start off in a different perspective today. When you and I were born, these little brains of ours began to receive. Negative thoughts, negative patterns were set up in our thought processes—either rejection or acceptance and all the rest. And so we grew up with an image of ourselves that was built into us by those about us.

To make us accept ourselves, to appreciate ourselves, to have a sense of belonging, a sense of worth, a sense of adequacy, a sense of competence, or the very opposite of all those things was built into our life. So that whichever it may be, Satan will take advantage as early in our life as possible to begin to whittle away at our self-image, our sense of respect for ourselves, our sense of worth.

So that even after a person is saved, Satan will take those negative attitudes which have been built into our life and continually harass us by telling us, "But you can't do that. You're not adequate to do that. You don't count. You're not worth that. Who do you think you are?" making us feel intimidated by people around us, forcing us by his own lies to compare ourselves with other people.

Until the longer we live in the Christian life, it seems sometimes for some people the less we feel about ourselves instead of going in the opposite direction and seeing what God is saying. We see the opposite. And so the churches today are filled with millions of people who have a terrible image of themselves based not upon the truth of God's word, but rather the lies that Satan's told them.

But we've seen, as Jesus said here, "When you know the truth, the truth will set you free" from what? It will set us free from anything and everything that hinders us from becoming the person God wants us to be and achieving the things God wants us to achieve. But He says, "If you know the truth, the truth will set you free." The problem is that most people don't know the truth about themselves.

They don't know the truth about God. Therefore, they don't know the truth of what they're capable of achieving or what God has provided for them. And so they settle for a second-rate life and go through the Christian life never experiencing the fullness and the totality of having a dynamic life that God has provided for every single one of us.

Now with that in mind, Jesus said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free from these things that have shackled you, that have put you in bondage, that have hindered you from becoming that." So what is that truth? And as we've examined the word, we've said that truth is first of all to know what our position is in Him—that we are in Him and He is within us and many other facets of that.

To know who we are as the saints of God, ambassadors of His, the salt, the light, and all the rest that we said about that. And then what we possess in Him. That is, He said we have everything we'll ever need to live the Christian life successfully. That He has deposited to our account in the heavenlies everything we'll ever need. He says we already have access to that through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So that the truth about you and me is that we are the redeemed children of God. We have a brand-new nature; we are new persons. We are saints. We are in Christ Jesus—that is our security. We are somebody, He says. We have Christ living within us. And that is He's living His life through us. We have no reason to feel inferior to anybody, to feel intimidated by anybody.

He says we have everything when we have Him, so therefore we have all the riches of heaven and we have access to that if we only know that and know how to get in touch with what is already ours. So on the basis of that, what is it that I have to be worried about? What do I have to be afraid of? Why do I have to feel so insecure?

Somebody says, "Yeah, but you're not without a job." Now listen to me. Friend, if you're without a job this morning, whoever you may be, I'm going to tell you something: you're not without one without God's knowledge. He knows exactly that you don't have one. He's not forgotten you. He says the truth will set you free of worrying about that even when you're saying, "God, what are you doing?"

Now listen. Sometimes God takes away what we think is absolutely essential to our security to teach us a simple lesson. He uses that sometimes to drive us unto Himself, to teach us how absolutely and totally adequate He is. If I have all that I need materially and I never have to trust the Lord, how do I know what God is willing to do? And here's what I want you to notice here.

When He says the truth will set you free, I want you to notice two things primarily at that point. Set us free from what? From all these entanglements and attitudes and ideas and lies and untruths of Satan, the harassment of Satan that cheats us out of the joy of walking in the Spirit victoriously and being of service to God. Now it's one thing to be made free from something, but if God frees us from something, He in turn likewise frees us to something.

Now listen. He says the truth will set you free from all this junk, all the things that hinder you from being what God wants you to be, in order that you may be liberated and freed to serve God by pouring your life into the lives of other people who are hurting. Friend, listen, you can't pour your life into somebody else's life if your mind is just fastened upon you and the only thing you can think about's me, myself, and I. There's no way to do it.

Until you learn to allow God to love you and accept yourself just the way you are, you can't accept everybody else the way they are. You can't pour your life into somebody else's life. And so what do we do? We believers, even though we're saved, what we do is we get in the middle of the road. We say, "Well, I know I'm saved, but you can't be perfect." And so when somebody sees us, they don't see us either black or white; they see us in the gray area.

Here we are saved, but we're acting like the world because we have allowed the world to shape us into its mold to keep on thinking the same old erroneous thoughts that God intended to free us of. And that's when He said the truth will set you free. We are free to be, free to become, free to do, free to achieve, free to fulfill God's great purpose in our life. But as long as I'm concerned about me, myself, and I, it'll never happen.

And I think a very important facet of this is that God doesn't liberate us just so we can sit back in idleness and pleasure in our own comfort. "Well, God's going to take care of everything." Well, He is going to take care of it as I walk in obedience to Him. You see, freeing me from all this that hinders and shackles me, freeing me from that still makes me accountable. I'm accountable as a child of God and responsible as a free man, free in the Spirit of God, accountable to my brothers and sisters who are hurting, who are in need.

So it's free from in order to be free to, free from in order to be free to. And if I'm free from just for myself, I've missed the whole point. Secondly, if I am, I'm not really free. I'm still in bondage to old self. Now He says, if you'll notice, "If you continue in my word, then you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Now let's look at the principle for just a moment. How does that work?

And if you'll turn to Romans chapter 12 and look at a familiar passage that most of us could quote, I'm sure, especially these first two verses, listen to what He says. He says, "I urge you or plead with you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God," that is based on everything else I've told you in the first 11 chapters, "to present your body a living sacrifice," that is to give your total self to the Lord, "acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship."

Now watch these next three words. He says, "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." That is, the will of God is, listen, the will of God is always good, always perfect. Is it always acceptable? Not to us. The Bible says that God's will is always good, always perfect, and acceptable. But sometimes we doubt, that is, sometimes it's not acceptable to our plans.

Now how does the believer over here who knows he or she is saved, how is it that we break out of that and begin to live consistently in this life of liberty? All right, here's the principle. Notice what He says: three words I want you to watch them. Verse 2, He puts this in an imperative negative: "Stop being conformed to this world," or He says, "stop allowing the world to shape you into its mold."

Now that word here in the Greek means stop assuming an outward appearance and lifestyle that is inconsistent with your inner being. He said you are allowing the world to shape you back into its mold so that you're looking like you used to be. He says that is incompatible and inconsistent with who you are. You aren't that any longer; you're a new creation in Christ. Look at the next word.

He says, "All right, stop being conformed to this world, but," He says, "be transformed." It's the Greek word from which we get our word metamorphosis, that is, a transforming experience is taking place. The caterpillar crawls up the tree onto a leaf, weaves that cocoon, does not come out a caterpillar but a beautiful butterfly. A metamorphosis, a transforming experience is taking place.

Now look at this word, though. The word conformed means stop allowing the world to shape your outward appearance, your outward thoughts, your outward life pattern, inconsistent with what is within you. Look at the next word. "But be transformed." That is, allow your outward appearance and lifestyle to be consistent with what is within you. That is, just live out what is within you.

Now listen. How do you do that? He says by the renewing of your mind. Now here's what I want you to notice. How does the truth set me free? The truth sets me free by a metamorphosis, by a transforming process that takes place in our life. And that is, He says by the renewing of the mind what happens? By the renewing of the mind, the outer being begins to live consistent with what the inner man is like.

Christ Jesus living within us. He says He predestined us to be conformed, shaped into His likeness. What He's simply saying in this passage is this: that apart from the word of God in your mind, in your life, in your spirit, you know what's going to happen? Without the truth, you're going to be saved, but you'll go to heaven in bondage. In bondage to fears and anxieties and worries and inferiorities and inadequacies and all of this that God doesn't want.

Because, you see, He says you and I were created in Christ Jesus unto good works. He saved you and me and has equipped us that He may accomplish His great universal goal, His big picture might be accomplished through you and me, and that is that the whole world may hear the truth of the gospel that Jesus Christ is Lord. But if I'm living in bondage, my name may be written in the Lamb's Book of Life, but if I'm living in bondage, I'm of no use to God.

So He says by the renewing of the mind what happens? That is, I begin to hear, to receive, to believe, and to understand the truth. And as I understand and know the truth, as the truth becomes a part of my thinking, I become a free man. Then I no longer have to respond the way I used to respond. You see, the old thought patterns had us in bondage, and so when some kind of a stimuli comes along to tempt us, what happens? It's the natural, normal response.

But now being a new creature, now being a new creation, now knowing the truth, what is the truth I need to know? One of the parts of that truth I need to know about my position in Him is that when Jesus died, He says we died. That is, the power, you see, before salvation, here's the strong arm of sin. But when Jesus Christ comes into our life, what does He do? He breaks the strong arm of sin.

Sin loses its power to overwhelm us and overcome us and destroy us. And now we have the living Christ living within us. Now we are positioned with the awesome responsibility of choosing. Before, I had no choice; living in sin, I had no choice. Under the strong arm of sin, all I could do is submit. Now Jesus Christ is coming to my life. Now the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ is being made known to me.

Now I begin to see who I am, what I have, and where I am in Him. Now I have the freedom to choose, to choose what? Every time a temptation comes along, whether it is to worry, to become anxious for a moment, to doubt, whatever it might be, you and I are freed as His children to make a deliberate, willful choice. At that moment, what God wants is that you and I learn to walk in His Spirit so that it is just the natural tendency of our life to submit.

That's really what obedience is. That's what walking in the Spirit is. Walking in the Spirit is that I submit here, I submit there. Now walking in the Spirit and letting the old flesh get the best of me and not knowing the truth, decision comes along, I think, "Oh, what am I going to do?" Satan says, "You can't do that. Who do you think you are? Look at sin in your life, look at your past." And God says, "But I've accepted you." And so the struggle is on.

But you see, once I assume my position, once I assume who I am, once I assume what I have, and it becomes a living, vital reality in my mind, my soul, my spirit, it's going to affect my outermost being as Paul says in Romans chapter 12, and the outer man is going to begin to be consistent with the inner man who is Jesus Christ.

Now listen to me, mom and dad. And I want all you children to listen carefully. Listen to me. When somebody says to you, "Read the Bible, learn everything you can about God's book, search the word to know its truth," I want to tell you, my friend, they're giving you the greatest piece of advice, the wisest wisdom that men have ever known. Because it is in this truth of the word of God that men are set free.

So our children go to school, most of them do not go to church anywhere, and most of their parents teach them nothing. So they grow up in bondage, no faith in God. Some of them get saved, not enough of them, and they still live in bondage. They don't know anything about God's word. They just discovered enough to be saved, and in far too many churches people get saved and nobody ever instructs them. Nobody ever teaches them. Nobody ever disciples them.

They just keep preaching folks how to get saved, how to get saved, how to get saved. Listen, once you've been saved, that's it. You need to move on to something deeper and something higher and something better. Now listen. You think about the kid today who goes to school with no Christian parents, goes to school 12 or 14, 16 years, and then they get saved. I want to tell you, my friend, the battle's on. Unless the truth of God becomes a vital, living part of their life, there's no way to survive.

And you see, an even worse truth is this: that some of you who've been saved 30, 40, 50 years are still living in the same old shackles and bondage because somewhere back then nobody ever told you, "Man, you can be freed of all of that." Jesus says the truth will liberate you. The truth will free you to become the person that God wants you to be, to achieve what God has set out for you to achieve in your life.

Now I'm going to say something to you, and I don't know but one way to say this and this is the only way I know how to say it. My friend, when you go home or if you're seated at home today and you look around and there's any other book, any other magazine, newspaper, you name it, it makes no difference, that grabs your attention with more interest than this book, I want to tell you, my friend, your priorities not only are out of order, but you need to check up on your understanding of what freedom is.

This book in every home ought to be the book that is most worn and most open. When and where you do your reading, this book ought to be found there. And friend, listen. If you are listening to radio and you think this is going to set you free, mm-mm. We can only help you and pray that God will motivate you to get in the word. But you've got to get in the word yourself and read it for yourself and really ask the Lord, "Lord, show me today what I need to free me to live today in the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit fruitfully and productively for you today."

You see, every single one of our lives can be a dynamic motivation in somebody else's life every single day if we begin the day the way God intends for us to begin it. And that is to begin it soaking up in our minds and hearts another truth about Him. Listen. Jesus said it. The only way to be free is that the truth will set us free. And my friend, if you and I are going to be liberators of mankind, we've got to know it before we can share it.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to In Touch and the final message in Dr. Stanley's series, "How the Truth Can Set You Free." Remember, when your goal is to display the truth of Jesus Christ to those around you, you make yourself available to be used by God. You're sharing the liberating truth that sets people free. If you want to know more about who Jesus is and what He came to do, stop by our website and go back over this final message in the series by following the link to Today on Radio. Find all this at intouch.org.

You can also connect to our online bookstore to order Dr. Stanley's complete teaching set, "How the Truth Can Set You Free." Again, that's intouch.org. Or call or text 1-800-IN-TOUCH. If you prefer to write, our address is In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357. The Bible makes it clear, without the shedding of Jesus' blood, there can be no forgiveness of sin. Today's "Moment with Charles Stanley" is just ahead.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us get closer to Jesus as we all want to do. So are you ready for the next step in your journey? It begins at the Charles Stanley Institute. You can learn how at charlesstanleyinstitute.org.

Guest (Male): You're listening to In Touch. Jesus bled and died for you, and through faith in Him, your sins are forgiven. Here's a "Moment with Charles Stanley."

Dr. Charles Stanley: My friend, there is no such thing as peace apart from the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ. Don't listen to any theologian or any preacher who tells you what is important is the life of Jesus, not His death. When they say to you, "It's His beautiful life that we're supposed to pattern. You're to think about Jesus' life and His teachings and His healings and His wonderful sermons and the wonderful pattern He was," don't worry yourself about that old stinking blood, that's not important.

The word of God says that you and I have been justified and declared not guilty by His blood. Whatever declares me not guilty and brings the peace of God in my heart isn't just something that I lay aside; it must be central and focused to every single thing I believe in the word of God. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. And if there's no forgiveness of sin, there is still conflict and estrangement. There is no peace as long as sin rules and reigns in the heart of a human being.

Guest (Male): God's "not guilty" verdict is applied to anyone who receives His forgiveness through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. Learn more at intouch.org. The Bible says to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. Has this program helped you with that? We'd like to know how. Ahead soon on In Touch, are you down and discouraged? Be back again to find encouragement for a troubled heart on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley.

This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.