Break Those Chains - Freedom in the Walk

Freedom in Obedience
As promised, I'm going to give an update today on my Sunday School lesson from yesterday. Things went really well. God calmed my nerves, and I was able to get across the message He gave me with His help. And the ladies actually asked me to teach again next Sunday, they are real gluttons for punishment!
So anyway, onto the lesson for today. I'm actually going to break this down into several posts called Freedom in the Walk. Today I'm going to talke about freedom in obedience.
Now we all know that when we ask Jesus into our hearts, we are set free. Free from the life of sin that once had us bound. Free from our old master Satan who controlled our lives.
Once Jesus sets us free, we are free indeed. (John 8:36) We no longer have to live a life that is bound.
However, many times we bind ourselves to the consequences of our disobedience. When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden he informed them that if they disobeyed him, they would face the consequence of death. Spiritual death. Seperation from God.
We all still pay the consequences of Adam and Eve's disobedience today. We are all born spiritually dead. Our only hope for salvation is through Christ.
Now you would think that Adam and Eve's ancestors would have learned from Adam and Eve's mistakes, but they continued to go against God's standards. And they continued to pay the consequences.
And sometimes those consequences were very hard to face. Take Moses for instance. In the book of Deuteronomy, God informed Moses that he would not be allowed to enter into the promised land. Moses had to face this punishment because he hadn't obeyed God when God told him to speak to the rock for water. Moses' anger at the children of Israel caused him to strike the rock instead. The children of Israel still received water that day, but God made Moses pay for his disobedience. He was never allowed to enter the land that he had told the children of Israel about.
Then there was David. He committed adultery and as a result, he had to face the consequence of seeing his son die. The son that had been conceived in that adulterous relationship.
God forgave both of these men. But they were still bound to the consequences of their own actions.
The point is that we are free, but that freedom isn't a liscense to do what we will when we want. If we use our freedom in that way, we are chaining ourselves to the consequences of our disobedience.
God loves us, and He will always forgive us (I John 1:9). But God's forgiveness can't erase the consequences of what we have done.
Some relationships might end in divorce because of adultery, though God has forgiven the adulterer. Some children may be born to young teens, though God has forgiven the young girl for having pre-marital sex. Our sins have consequences. And those consequences can bind us.
So freedom is found in obedience. An obedient life is never bound to the consequences of sin.