I always love to start with a story when I can, and I have got a doozy for you today. It goes back to when I was 16 years old. My parents said, "Hey David, where do you want to eat for your birthday?" And I went to work on that question. Where do I want to eat? Red Lobster. I mean, that was probably the nicest restaurant in Dothan, Alabama in 1997.
So we went to Red Lobster and we ordered the cheese sticks, because we are a big appetizer family. Where are my appetizer families at? And then some of you had the no-appetizer dad. He was too frugal. I am sorry. But listen, you can reset that. You can become an appetizer family now. You can turn the tide.
So we ordered the cheese sticks. As I was eating one, it looked kind of small, so I just threw the whole thing in my mouth. And something unique happened. The cheese began expanding. I misjudged it. I thought I could handle it. I do not want to give you too much information, but somewhere in the middle of this I had half a cheese stick in my stomach and half a cheese stick still in my mouth, and there was a thread of cheese running down my esophagus. It was the most uncomfortable feeling I have ever had. I did not know if I was choking. I did not know if I was dying. My dad noticed I was really starting to choke, and he smacked me on the back a couple of times and got me through it.
Now here is what is funny. When the Cheddar Bay biscuits landed on the table, I kept eating. Because there is something about those cheese sticks: they come in limited supply. But the Cheddar Bay biscuits? Unlimited. Just keep them coming. And you can actually ruin your whole meal on the biscuits if you are not careful, because your body does have limits. You ever hit that point at the chips and salsa, and then the burrito shows up and you wish you had never ordered it?
We have limits. Our lives are limited. And honestly, that is the thesis of this series. We are okay admitting it. There are limitations to our lives. But we serve a God who is limitless. He has no limits at all, and He can step into our lives and help us live a limitless life. Yes, we have boundaries, and we need those. We have guardrails. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the spiritual limits we want taken off, because our God is limitless and His power is limitless, and it is available in us.
That is where we started last week: the limitless power of God is not only available to you, it is already in you. A lot of us tend to think God’s power is for God, or it is for somebody else, some person who seems really godly. But if you know Jesus, the same power that raised Christ from the dead is alive in you. Our theme verse for the whole series says it like this.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)
So the big idea is simple. God made you for more. He has more for you, and He has the power to get you there. And this week we are talking about what it takes to find true freedom in God.
A Man in Chains
There is some irony in today’s message right up front. This series is a study in Ephesians, and when Paul wrote Ephesians, he was in chains. He was under house arrest in Rome, awaiting a trial that took a couple of years. He was in a rented home with a Roman soldier guarding him around the clock. And from there, chained up, he is teaching the church at Ephesus about freedom.
I love that. He is physically in chains, and he is talking about the spiritual freedom he has in Christ. Look at how he describes himself.
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— Ephesians 3:1 (NIV)
He does not say "prisoner of Rome." He does not say "prisoner of Caesar." That would have been factually correct. He says he is the prisoner of Christ Jesus. If there is anybody he is chained to, connected to, submitted to, it is Jesus. Here is a man in chains showing us how to be free.
How many of you know that freedom is not free? We get that intuitively. To become free, there is a cost. We have seen it in our nation. Sometimes an additional cost has to be paid just to preserve freedom. But more importantly, spiritual freedom is not free either. It has a cost. And everybody wants to be free, but not everybody means the same thing by it.
Paul dealt with this in another letter. He was quoting some people who were missing the mark.
"I have the right to do anything," you say—but not everything is beneficial. "I have the right to do anything"—but I will not be mastered by anything. 1 Corinthians 6:12 (NIV)
Paul understood something. You are going to yield to something. Your life is going to be submitted to something. So you may have the right to do a thing, but you have to ask whether it is beneficial, and you especially have to pay attention if it has become a master in your life, something that is controlling you. Some things promise freedom and then turn around and control you. We think we are running the situation, and then we find out the situation is running us.
Three False Freedoms
The first false freedom is when we say, "I do what I want." Some of you know somebody who says that, and it is comical. Has anybody ever given you bad advice? It is always better when you know the advice is bad as it is being handed to you. It is worse when you do not find out until after you have followed it. We have some bad advice floating around in 2026.
"Treat yourself." It sounds good, but listen to what it really is. You are telling me there is something you think I need, so I should spend my money on the thing you think I need, and that is going to make me better. Does that logic actually hold up?
"Trust your gut." My gut processes food. I have eaten some things, Mexican in particular, that did not do healthy things. My gut is not always right. I am not going to trust my gut.
"Fake it till you make it." That might be fine for a job interview. But let me tell you who I do not want faking it: my airline pilot. Some things you do not fake. You go through the training.
And this one is running rampant, so I am going to say it gently: "You do you." Please do not do that. It is the same thing as "follow your heart." Do not follow your heart. The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things. We cannot trust our gut and we cannot trust our heart. We have to follow God. There was a season in Israel’s history like this.
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit. Judges 21:25 (NIV)
Go read Judges 17 through 21 sometime. It is calamity after calamity. They even threw in a civil war. That is how bad it got when everyone just did whatever they wanted. Total chaos.
The second false freedom is, "Nobody tells me what to do." You can hear the pride in it. Go to the top 40 on Spotify right now, in almost any genre, and that is the message of the song. Nobody is going to tell me what to do. And I get the pull toward independence. But I am convinced it is not really a self-preservation issue. It is a control issue. We are trying to be the rulers of our own lives. We set up a throne and say, "I will rule. I am the king or queen of my own life. I take orders from no one." And what does God say about that?
In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God. Psalm 10:4 (NIV)
That is what happens when you sit yourself on the throne of your own life. There is no more room for God.
The third false freedom is, "All I need is me." I hope you do not need that friend. Some of these are the quiet whispers of our own hearts, where we just want to be self-sufficient. Jesus actually warned the church about this.
You say, ’I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. Revelation 3:17 (NIV)
I am sorry for the bad news. I promise to be more positive by the end. But if you think it is all on you and you can survive on your own self-sufficiency, you are not even seeing the real condition of your soul, because you have put someone else on the throne of your life. You. And God will let you trust yourself instead of Him if that is what you want. That is the scary part. He does not want you to live that way, but He will allow it.
Somebody Else Paid the Bill
So freedom is not free, and that is most true about our spiritual freedom. There is a price to pay, and you can either pay it yourself, which ends in death, or you can let what Jesus did pay it for you.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NIV)
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 1 Peter 1:18-19 (NIV)
Imagine you go to dinner with a friend and you let them pick the place. You sit down, open the menu, and there are no prices on anything. You start to realize your friend has brought you somewhere very bougie. This is not Red Lobster. Here the Cheddar Bay biscuits cost money. This is the kind of place that asks if you want flat, still, or sparkling water, and you are trying to figure out which one is free. Just turn the faucet on, I am good.
So what do you do? You start hunting for the soup. Is there a half salad? Can I get a half order of cheese fries? Can I secretly DoorDash some McDonald’s onto my plate? And then your friend says, "Hey, this one is on me. And I want you to experience something great. This place has the best tomahawk steak in Chattanooga. I want you to order it." Well, I think I will. That is a great day, because somebody else is paying the bill. You get an incredible experience and you do not have to worry about the cost. They are even telling you to get the most expensive thing on the menu.
As silly as that illustration is, that is what Jesus did for us. We were sitting at a table we could not afford. There was a price we could only pay through death. And Jesus is sitting there saying, "If you will let me, I will take care of this bill for you. And you are not just getting soup. It is going to be an abundant life, and then eternity with me." That is the truest freedom any of us can experience. So what do we need to know about the freedom we have in Jesus?
Free to Live Eternally
The first thing is that you are free to live eternally. That is the greatest freedom. You are free from death, free from getting only one life. You get to live again, forever, with King Jesus.
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2:4-5 (NIV)
He made us alive when we were dead. Have you ever heard of a dead person doing CPR on themselves and coming back to life? I do not see any hands, because it is impossible. And that same impossibility faced all of us. That is exactly why God came for us.
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 1 John 5:11-12 (NIV)
A couple of years ago Missy and I were counseling a young lady. As best I knew, she was saved. Somewhere in the conversation she mentioned a fear she was carrying. She said, "I just hope I make it into heaven." So I called a timeout, the way pastors do, and I said, "Tell me about that. What is that thought?" She said, "Well, you know how it is. Sometimes I just do not know if I am going to make it." I said, "Hold on, let me ask you a couple of questions. Do you believe Jesus is Lord?" She said yes. "Have you made Him the Lord of your life, committed your life to live for Him?" She said yes. I said, "You are going to heaven." And she started crying. I honestly did not fully know how to handle it. I said, "I hope that is helpful." She said, "You have no idea." Missy and I watched a weight lift off of her. The enemy had been working on her with fear and anxiety, making her think her eternity was not secure, even though she knew Jesus. And I got to correct the record.
If anybody here has that same fear, do not carry it. If you have made Jesus the Lord of your life, I will see you in heaven. And you also have an amazing life to live here between now and then. Be satisfied in knowing your eternity is secure.
Free to Talk with God Confidently
The second thing is that you are free to talk with God confidently. I might pitch a tent and camp out right here. In Jesus, you can approach God with total confidence.
When I finished high school and moved to college at Montevallo, my parents helped me move into the dorm. It was sweet, and then came that moment where everything is settled and they are about to drive two and a half hours back home. We are standing in the parking lot and my mom starts crying. Not a little cry. An ugly, boo-hoo, grieving-the-loss-of-her-son cry. And I am saying, "Mom, I will probably be home this weekend to do laundry." They prayed over me and drove home.
A couple of months later I had a problem. The new bills I was responsible for were more than I had in my checking account. So what did I do? I called my dad. I told him the situation. He could have just given me budgeting tips and told me to dig my own way out. Instead he said, "I am going to put a check in the mail." He sent me 500 dollars, and for a college freshman that was solid. My dad took care of it. He saw I was trying, he saw I was not entitled, I was just asking for help.
Here is the thing. When I called my dad, I did not hesitate. I was not thinking, "How do I frame this? Is he even going to pick up?" I just called. "Yo, Dad." I think a lot of us hesitate with God because we have forgotten who He is. We approach Him like a judge with a gavel, waiting for permission to approach the bench. Or like a boss calling us into his office, "Get in here, we need to talk." That is not who our God is. He is our Father.
In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. Ephesians 3:12 (NIV)
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)
My brother Jon is a pilot. He was a private pilot for about 20 years, and he has just earned everything he needs to fly commercially. He had some health setbacks that kept him from the start most people get, but he stayed with it, and I am proud of him. I remember going up with him early on. The instructor could not believe he had never flown before, because Jon had logged a thousand hours on Microsoft Flight Simulator, and it turned out that actually taught him where everything was.
His first landing on his own was a little rough. The second was better. The third was smooth as silk. Afterward I asked him what changed. He said, "I learned that right at the very end of the approach, you give it a little bit of thrust. Just a little power. And it smooths out the landing." Church, we need to approach God with some faith like that. Sometimes we stall out on the approach, doubting whether He is really going to come through, and we wonder why things feel rough. How about, when we come to God, we turn the motor on just a little more?
That is your practical takeaway this week. Next time you pray, have a confident approach. Come with faith. Come with some power, knowing who you are. You are a son. You are a daughter of the Most High God. You are welcome there. It is your runway. Land on it.
Free to Be Filled Completely
The last thing today is that you are free to be filled completely. Paul unpacks this better than I can, so let me let God’s Word show you.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV)
To know a love that surpasses knowledge. This is a love that goes past the things we think we know about God, to where it is not just knowledge anymore. It is a personal experience of the love of God. Thank God for what we know about Him. But Paul is saying there is something that surpasses the knowledge. Do not just pursue the knowledge, pursue the love. The knowledge leads you to the reality that the love is there, but only you can open your heart to receive it.
And notice, Paul is not praying about what God can do around you, or in your neighbor, or even in your church. He is praying that you would be filled, in your inner being, to the measure of all the fullness of God. We cannot fathom it. There is no way to measure how wide, how deep, how high. And yet here is the promise: the One who made you can now be in you. The One who created you can be your constant companion, your guide, your friend, every single day.
The Freest Man in the Room
I want you to picture the scene one more time. Paul is in his rented home, under guard, chained, writing letters, and even preaching to the people who come by while a soldier watches him around the clock.
Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Philippians 1:12-13 (NIV)
On one end of the chain you have Paul, the prisoner. On the other end you have a Roman soldier, the one in authority, the one who looks like he is in full control, the one with the plan, the one who looks like he is working it all out. And you have Paul, chained up, who looks like he has no control at all.
But Paul is actually telling you which end of the chain you want to be on. I think a lot of us are in the shoes of that guard. We are there because we want to be in control, and we think nothing is binding us, nothing is really controlling our life. Paul is the one who can say, "It may look like my life has gone the wrong way, but do not get too fixated on this, because it is temporary. The truth is, I am the freest person in this room."
That is what I want for you. Not to be chained up. Not to let the things of this world hold you back or bind you. If you walked in here carrying a chain, our prayer team would love to help you cast it off. The truest freedom comes from a relationship with the only One who can set you free, and His name is Jesus.
And if you have walked with Christ a long time but you have forgotten a little of how powerful He is, how much He loves you, how much He has forgiven you, let me remind you those things are still true, and then some. His mercies are new every morning. I woke up this morning and prayed, "God, I need more mercy today." Your pastor is asking God for mercy, because I need it, and you do too. Some of you need to recommit today. Maybe you lost some of that faith, some of that power, and you do not even remember why. Come back today. The truest freedom comes from knowing Jesus Christ.
