Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I'm thrilled. I'm very happy to be here this morning. My name is Tom Nelson. I've had the privilege of opening up God's word with you a few times before.
[00:00:08] Do the thanks. He's retreating. Thank you for.
[00:00:12] Yeah, the opportunity. This is awesome.
[00:00:16] Oh, before I forget, children ages three to five, you guys are dismissed. You guys can go to children's church. Head that way. I don't know where you guys go every week.
[00:00:27] I hope it's fun. I hope you have a good time back there.
[00:00:31] For the rest of us, we're going to be covering six whole verses today in John's gospel, and we have a lot of ground to cover. So if you haven't been with us forever, it seems like we've been in John's gospel. We've made it all the way to chapter eight, and we're in this series that we've titled that you may believe. All right, we got slides, kind of the background, maybe, to orient us in this series, to kind of help us understand where we're at towards the end of John's gospel, kind of in between two post resurrection accounts where he's talking about Jesus appearing to some of the disciples. John, the author of this gospel, he inserts some sort of parenthetical comments. He kind of comes onto the scene and he kind of tips his hand as to why he has written what he's written. So in John 20, we read, therefore, many other signs. Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these, these things he's written have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of goddess, and that believing you may have life in his name. He says, there's a lot of things that haven't been written, but the things that I have intentionally chosen, I have included for the express purpose that you who are reading this gospel would believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing, you would have life. Now, we'll come back to that word in just a second. The very last words of John's gospel. He says this, and there were also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they weren't written in detail, I suppose, that even the whole world itself would not contain the books that would be written.
[00:02:27] A bit of hyperbole, a little bit of an exaggeration, but he's saying there's a lot that Jesus did and said that we don't have a literary record of. If it were to be all recorded, it would fill the earth. Now, the reason we bring that up. Is that John, as a writer, was selective, intentional, in what he included with the express purpose that what we read in our Bible today, in these 21 chapters of this gospel, were written so that we would believe in Jesus and we would have life in his name.
[00:02:58] Now, when we read life, we're not talking about biological life. We're not talking about cellular respiration. It's this greek word zoe, and we don't have a good comparative term in English. This word Zoe, it means almost like a sense of wholeness. When the Bible talks about eternal life, it's not talking about bios, it's talking about Zoe. Wholeness, soundness, freedom, life, peace, joy, eternal life. Maybe the best. This doesn't even really approach it. But, you know, when we lean back and we just say, ah, this is the life.
[00:03:38] We're not talking about, like cellular respiration, you know, we're talking about something, this intangible quality of wholeness, of peace, of freedom, of joy.
[00:03:51] Now, I don't. I don't know where you're at coming in this morning. I don't know what.
[00:04:00] What version of you walked through those back doors.
[00:04:07] I know that there's the person that we let people see when we come into a place like this, and then there's the person that exists behind our face.
[00:04:21] There's a whole world in there.
[00:04:24] And let's not assume that those two people are the same for you or for me.
[00:04:30] I recognize that there's a lot of things that that person behind the face can carry that doesn't often, maybe never really makes it to the surface. Shame, frustration, anger, guilt, anxiety, depression, addiction, bitterness, resentment, lack of forgiveness.
[00:04:55] And maybe that's you. And maybe that's me.
[00:04:58] There's a lot going on in there. Maybe it's been a while since we've tasted this life that Jesus said in John 1010 he came, that we might have it abundantly.
[00:05:13] If any part of that is you, there is really good news for you in these words today.
[00:05:19] And I pray, and we will pray that we'll be able to hear it and receive it as such.
[00:05:24] So, yeah, let's just pray right now. Father, thanks for your faithfulness.
[00:05:31] Thanks for the life that you offer abundantly in Christ. Thanks for your word.
[00:05:37] And I pray as I teach. You would speak. You would instruct us.
[00:05:45] You would confront us with our sin. You would remind us of the great joy and gladness that is ours in Christ.
[00:05:55] Help us to be obedient and attentive to your words. Today we ask this in Jesus name. Amen all right. We're still good on slides. Fantastic. All right. Title of the sermon. The truth will set you free. The truth will make you free. I just pulled it from the text. You'll see. Let's just read it. John 831 36.
[00:06:17] So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
[00:06:29] They answered him, we are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone.
[00:06:35] How is it that you say you will become free?
[00:06:39] Jesus answered them, truly. Truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son does remain forever. So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. A familiar passage for many of us, I think.
[00:07:00] All right, let me tell you something about myself.
[00:07:04] I really enjoy running. Like, I really enjoy running. Some of you know this.
[00:07:10] I especially like running on trails in the hills, in the mountains, getting lost, going up in elevation.
[00:07:18] The Lord knows this very well, too.
[00:07:21] So in his infinite wisdom and humor, he sent us to minister to college students in this high country of Davis and woodland.
[00:07:34] But when I get to travel, it's not uncommon for me to look at the hills or the mountains and think, oh, I want to go up that one. I want to figure out a way to go there. And sometimes I do. But I understand. I think we all understand that for me to make it to where I want to be, I don't get to just choose any path I want. I can't just say I want to start right here. That would be unwise. It would be fruitless, and I would probably get injured and not make it to where I want to go.
[00:08:01] I need to find a trailhead.
[00:08:05] I can't start wherever I want. I need to start at a designated spot. And only by persisting on the path that I enter into from that spot will I actually make it to where I want to arrive.
[00:08:18] So if we're going to stick with this hiking trail running analogy today, let's assume that the peak, the summit, the apex that we're aiming for is this idea of being made free.
[00:08:29] A loaded term, to be sure. And we'll unpack what that actually means and what it doesn't mean.
[00:08:36] But how do we get there?
[00:08:39] Well, we'll see in a moment that Jesus actually gives us the location of the trailhead.
[00:08:45] He tells us, if you want to be free, here is where you have to start.
[00:08:52] If you're filling out your message notes. You want the blanks? The first one is the path to freedom. We're going to be looking at John, chapter eight, verses 31 and 32.
[00:09:03] Now, just for some context, if you haven't been here, Jesus has been teaching at the feast. Yes, we're still at the feast. It seems like months later, we're still at the feast. The feast of tabernacles, the feast of booths. Succoth. It was an annual celebration where all hebrew males were expected to go to Jerusalem to worship together. One of three of these holidays celebrating the annual provision that God has provided at the end of the harvest season. And a historic looking back to when God provided for the Jews in the wilderness for 40 years when they lived in these tabernacles, tents, booths.
[00:09:39] And if you've been here, you know that throughout this feast, Jesus has been interacting with the Jews and subtly, and not so subtly, making claims and allusions to being God's and son, fully divine equal with God himself, saying things like, I am the light of the world. The father has sent me. My teaching is not mine, but the fathers who sent me. You are from below. I am from above. Unless you believe this was last week, that I am, big statement.
[00:10:05] Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. And the last verse that Duba preached last week, 830, said this. As he spoke these things, many came to believe in him.
[00:10:20] That was verse 30. Let's pick it up. John 831 and 32. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, these are the people that were alluded to in the verse before. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, if you continue in my word, you are truly disciples of mine, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you you free. So we're all learning to be lifelong students of the scriptures. So here's something we need to address when we read our New Testament and it says that someone believes in Jesus, for us, there's a whole host of convictions and practices that appropriately follow along with a statement like that for us. When we say that someone believes in Jesus, we might say, oh, they understand that Jesus died for their sins. They might even say something like, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ now lives in me. They might say, I'm a new creation. We might expect someone like that to be involved in regular christian fellowship. They believe in Jesus. These are the host of truths that we tag along to that statement today.
[00:11:36] Now, as students of the Bible, we need to be careful about wrongly projecting that backwards. When we read in our New Testaments here that they believed in Jesus, there hasn't been a cross yet, there hasn't been the resurrection yet.
[00:11:50] They don't have a fully formed theology of salvation that's tagged onto that phrase. What they have is a man.
[00:11:59] They've been with this man. They've been seeing what this man has been doing. He is a man who doesn't fit into a category for them. He's a curiosity, he's a frustration. They don't have a clean box into which they put Jesus, but they have seen him and heard him do miracles and say things supporting what he has been saying.
[00:12:27] There's probably a sense of hope and wonder mixed with curiosity, mixed with suspicion.
[00:12:37] That's probably what the Bible is talking about when it says they believed him.
[00:12:44] It's not propositions of truth they have that they've attached to him. It's curiosity, it's wonder. It's a man in front of them.
[00:12:53] And maybe this belief the Bible dictates here is genuine, it's sincere. They actually believe that he's God's son. Now, there is a caution, we have to point out. There have been many times in the scriptures where there have been crowds that are told they believed in him only as we read on to find they were hungry, they wanted more bread, they wanted more fish.
[00:13:19] So again, let's be careful as students of the scripture to not project truths that we have now back to what was stated about them then.
[00:13:29] And it's this curious man, Jesus, who says to these probably confused, probably hopeful longing people, if you continue in my word. So this is that first sub point. If underlined, you continue.
[00:13:46] There's very little artistry or creativity, by the way, in the blanks today, there's no pastoral alliteration. And we're just going to let the Bible speak for itself. And we're going to be looking specifically in these two verses, 31 and 32, at the verbs that are in play.
[00:14:05] If you continue in my word, this is the trailhead.
[00:14:10] This is where we get on the path. If we want to be made free.
[00:14:14] This is where we start out.
[00:14:17] And Jesus starts out with the beginning of this conditional statement. If this is the beginning of what he'll resolve in the next phrase. If you continue in my word, some of your translations might have continue. You might have remain, stay abide, hold to dwell in.
[00:14:36] We interpret this word a lot.
[00:14:40] If you continue in my word, it's this greek word menozhe.
[00:14:44] And I know we often hear abide and think, oh, that must be a really spiritual word. It's not.
[00:14:49] Jesus used it in a way, but it is literally the word for stay. If you were a first century Hebrew and you wanted your friend to stay there until you arrived, you tell them, may no stay. Don't move. Be tethered to that spot.
[00:15:03] Don't wander, don't stray. May no stay, remain. If you continue in my word. Jesus says again, when we read the word word in the Bible, what do we often think of the Bible?
[00:15:19] They didn't have that yet. The Bible as we know it didn't show up for hundreds of years later.
[00:15:24] They also understood as first century jews that when a rabbi talked about his word, he's talking about his life message.
[00:15:33] He's not simply talking about statements of truth or facts that he says.
[00:15:37] What he says was not untethered from what he did. It was his life message.
[00:15:45] Jesus is saying, my message as a rabbi, my yoke.
[00:15:52] He's telling his people what he says and what he does.
[00:15:57] He is inviting them to stay tethered to him, to not move on to something else, but to live out an embodied message, a way of life shaped and textured by both Jesus words and actions.
[00:16:13] He's effectively inviting his listeners to become like him.
[00:16:19] Don't move.
[00:16:20] Stay with me. Become like me.
[00:16:26] And for us, if we want to get to this place of freedom to experience what jesus has on offer here, we too are invited to continue in his word, which, as we know, is not merely intellectual, it's not academic, it's not merely a memorization of propositional truths. His message was and is intended to transform, not simply to inform. And we see this throughout the scriptures. In fact, look at the very end of Jesus longest recorded section of teaching, the sermon on the mount. You go to the very end of Matthew, chapter seven. We see a well known story, Jesus making a point, talking about two builders. This is what he says. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the flood came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.
[00:17:49] We're not going to break this passage apart, but we're going to note one thing.
[00:17:54] The distinction between these two groups is not that one had heard Jesus message and was informed and therefore acted on it, and the other group had not heard. And when it's uninformed and therefore did not act on it, both groups hear the message.
[00:18:12] The distinction is not hearing the distinction is doing something with it. This is what Jesus is talking about when he says, if you continue in my word, he's not talking about just listening. He's talking about listening and obeying.
[00:18:31] That's what it means to continue in the word.
[00:18:37] Many have said, we don't study the Bible to know better the word of God. We study the Bible to know better the God of the word. It is not informational. It is relational and transformational.
[00:18:48] For us, we do have the Bible. We don't have Jesus with us for us to physically follow behind, to mimic, to watch, to be an apprentice of his. So the Bible is our best lens. However, if we are to properly apply continuing in his word, for us, it's not enough just to read.
[00:19:08] For us, it's not enough just to memorize.
[00:19:11] Those are good things. For us, it is to hear, listen and respond. That's what it means for us as first century, sorry we're not in the first century as New Testament Christians to continue in his word.
[00:19:29] And Jesus says that if you do this, if you enter the path by remaining, continuing, abiding, staying in his word, his life, something else will be true of you. Next sub point, then you are next verb. You are truly disciples of mine.
[00:19:49] This is where that conditional statement resolves. If you do this, then you are this. And let's not assume here that Jesus is saying anything fancy.
[00:20:00] All he's doing with this if then conditional statement, he's essentially highlighting the fundamental distinguishing characteristic of what it means to be a disciple and then says, yeah, if you're doing that, then this is in fact what you are.
[00:20:19] If you are one who continues in my word, then you are also actually truly my disciple.
[00:20:30] Here's a simplistic, maybe modern analogy.
[00:20:35] If you steer fast cars around a racetrack, competing against others to finish first, then you are a race car driver.
[00:20:46] Jesus isn't being fancy here.
[00:20:49] If you work in a classroom on the weekdays leading the education and development of young children, you are a, you're a teacher. You're a school teacher.
[00:20:58] This is all Jesus is doing here.
[00:21:01] I know we can unpack it and think, what's the deeper truth here? It's not a deep truth. He's saying, if you are one who continues in my word, my message. Not just hearing, but doing. Yeah, you're my disciple.
[00:21:14] That's it.
[00:21:18] It is worth noting here and is well worth our time to consider the converse. If we don't continue, remain abide in his word, we should not assume we are disciples of his.
[00:21:29] Again, Jesus isn't saying anything fancy.
[00:21:32] If this, then this. If not this, then not this.
[00:21:37] And it's interesting. It says, you are truly disciples of mine. As we mentioned earlier, when it says that those, there were those who believed in Jesus.
[00:21:47] It seems there are a lot of people who followed Jesus around. He was a curiosity. He was a spectacle. He was the hottest thing in town. Who is this guy? Out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Let's go see what's going on. We got nothing else to do.
[00:22:01] A lot of people followed, but not all were truly disciples.
[00:22:06] Again, Jesus gives us that distinguishing mark. He gives us the trailhead. If we want to be free, where do we start? We continue in his word. We become like him, both his word and his message.
[00:22:20] All right, continuing on our path, we've set out on the trailhead. If we follow Jesus instructions, we enter the path at continuing in his word. We are therefore accounted among those who are actually truly his followers, his disciples, his students, his apprentices. And something else will be true of us. He says, future verb. You will know the truth.
[00:22:42] You will know the truth.
[00:22:47] Now, this is the point where the Jews probably started to get a little confused, maybe even a little bit indignant, because remember, Jesus is speaking to these Jews who are here at this high holiday, this festival in Jerusalem, celebrating who they are as a people and how God has uniquely formed a people for his glory, the Jews.
[00:23:14] And here, Jesus seems to indicate that there is something that they don't yet know.
[00:23:31] And Jesus is speaking to a group of people who prided themselves on being people who do know.
[00:23:40] In fact, it was the apostle Paul later in romans three, who says, the Jews, you were the ones who were entrusted with the oracles of God.
[00:23:50] We could say a lot of things about how the Jews viewed themselves in the first century, but one thing is they knew the truth.
[00:23:57] They knew about God.
[00:24:03] We're going to keep going. For the sake of time, let's look at that last verb. We were just that. You will know the truth. Our last, our fourth little sub point here. And the truth will make you free.
[00:24:16] Let me just read those two verses all together. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine. And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Okay, we started at the trailhead here. We arrive at the summit. We arrive at the peak. The offer of freedom for us, by the way, and for them.
[00:24:47] But let's not assume that Jesus words again were readily understood. Again, we have a future tense. You will know the truth. Future. The truth will set you free.
[00:24:58] Now, we have two implications here that Jesus has laid out to these Jews who are listening to him. It has been implied by Jesus that there is some truth that these men, perhaps some women at the feast, don't yet know, and there is some freedom or liberation that they have not yet experienced.
[00:25:20] I imagine some of those listening are starting to get a little bit nervous, and we see that in their response coming up.
[00:25:33] See, the problem is the Jews didn't feel uninformed, and they wouldn't have said that they were enslaved to anyone or to anything. And they're probably starting to ask, man, what is this guy talking about?
[00:25:46] You know, we were on board. We were following him. These claims about him being God's son. Yeah, okay. Like, we were jiving with that, but now he's starting to accuse us of being enslaved and not knowing things.
[00:26:01] And we'll see their response to this in the following verses. But for our purposes, remember, we couldn't get here any old way. Again, I'm going to keep hammering this home.
[00:26:12] There was a path he laid out for us. The way to get to this offer of freedom was by continuing in his word.
[00:26:20] I've been working at UC Davis. Now I'm about to start my 11th year, 11th year ministering to college students at UC Davis. Pretty sweet.
[00:26:28] About four years ago, there was a guy in our ministry who posted on instagram, you know, as they do, and he had this quote, and it stuck with me. I just remembered it, like, two days ago.
[00:26:39] He said, today I woke up and consumed scripture. Because it's hard for the truth to set me free when I don't know it.
[00:26:47] And I remember thinking, ouch, where's my Bible? I should probably, you know, I love that. How is the truth going to set you free if you don't know what it is?
[00:27:01] Okay, before we move on to the rest of the passage, we highlighted those four verbs that we find in John 831 and 32. And I want to circle back there because there is a feature of the text that we cannot afford to miss.
[00:27:16] If. Okay, you continue, you are, you will know the truth will make.
[00:27:25] Now, you might be reading these and thinking, wait a second. One of these is not like the others.
[00:27:31] One of these is distinct. And again, this is a very important feature for us.
[00:27:38] First verb, we are the subject of the phrase doing the action. Second one. We are the subject doing the action. Third one. We are the subject doing the action. Fourth one, we're no longer the subject subject.
[00:27:48] We are now the object being acted upon.
[00:27:52] Tuck that away. We will return to this.
[00:27:55] Again, it seems that this final statement, this veiled accusation that there is something that the Jews don't know and there is a freedom that they have yet to obtain seems to be what they respond to. Starting in verse 33. This next blank is going to be a misunderstood freedom.
[00:28:16] John 833, they answered him, we are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free?
[00:28:32] For anyone who has an ounce of biblical history might think, this is kind of a puzzling response.
[00:28:39] They start by appealing to their ancestral heritage. We trace our lineage back to Abraham, which is to say, we are God's chosen covenant people. We are the keepers of the law. Our life has been formed by fidelity to God, to his word, to be like his. We are the children of God.
[00:29:02] And then he says, we've never been enslaved to anyone, which is kind of a crazy response, because if we were to go to. I don't know, we were to go to Israel right now and turn and point in any direction. If you go far enough, you'll probably hit a country or the location of an ancient people group that severely or completely limited Israel's sovereignty. You look south. Egypt, right? Which way south? This way south.
[00:29:29] You turn to the east. Oh. Babylon, you go to the north. Assyria, you go to the west. Greece. Oh. And then you have Rome. Rome has been occupying Jerusalem and Israel for decades at this point.
[00:29:43] So it's a puzzling response because they appeal to their ancestry and say, we've never been enslaved to anyone, and yet they literally are living in subtle oppression under roman occupation, where they don't have full sovereignty, they don't have full self governance. They have a lot of freedoms of worship and expression.
[00:30:04] Maybe. Maybe he's just talking about slavery in a very specific lens, and he's talking about his own generation.
[00:30:12] We're not slaves.
[00:30:14] We're not under anyone's direct command.
[00:30:17] I don't know what he's talking about.
[00:30:19] We'll talk later. If anyone knows, let me know. It's just kind of a weird, puzzling response, it seems, by their response, the sort of slavery they envision is some sort of a socio political slavery.
[00:30:41] It's not attentive to real, just these invisible realities that are probably at play.
[00:30:48] What they didn't understand was that the greatest threat to them from experiencing life and freedom was not outside of themselves, but within the and it's not that Jesus was indifferent or unaware of sociopolitical realities of his time.
[00:31:03] It's just that he understood that the liberations the Jews most needed is probably not the one they most wanted or even one that they were aware of.
[00:31:15] And that's true for us, too, by the way.
[00:31:18] This isn't us looking through a historical lens and saying, gosh, they got it wrong. Can you believe those Jews? They missed it. This is just as true for us today.
[00:31:28] The liberation, the freedom that we long for, is good and right and important. But there is a way that God wants to free us, which is better and deeper than any of those small battles where we often stake our battle lines. He wants to free us from sin.
[00:31:47] He wants to offer a freedom that we can't see, not something that's outside of ourselves, but a fatal flaw that we carry within.
[00:31:54] And then we go on to verse 34. Jesus answered them. He's now responding to this kind of cryptic, weird question. Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
[00:32:09] And here Jesus brings clarity to the slavery he has only been gesturing towards.
[00:32:16] It's not about sociopolitical occupation. It's not about servitude in someone else's home. He's saying it is about sin. Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin, and he gives some weight to it. Truly, truly. Listen, listen. Pay attention, he says, if you're gonna get something, you need to hear this.
[00:32:40] Now we have verses in our New Testament that testify to this reality that Jesus is not talking to a select demographic of his audience. We know that Paul would write, for all have sinned. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But Paul didn't write that for nearly 30 years later than this conversation is happening.
[00:33:03] So should we forgive the Jews for not knowing or being aware of their own sin?
[00:33:08] Absolutely not. Look at the text. They have. They have the law. They have the prophets. Look what it says in the psalms, psalm 14. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.
[00:33:19] They are corrupt. They have committed abominable deeds. There is no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside together. They have become corrupt. There is no one who does good. Not even one. Look what David writes later. Psalm 130. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities. If you should take note of our sin, O Lord, who could stand?
[00:33:48] Famously prophet Isaiah speaking of Jesus 700 years later, all of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.
[00:34:02] The problem is, these jews didn't feel uninformed. They wouldn't have said they are enslaved to anyone or anything.
[00:34:16] And Jesus here gives them a diagnostic test.
[00:34:19] Either a, you commit sin and are therefore a slave to sin, or b, you don't commit sin and are therefore not a slave to sin. There's no option. Circumental. Any honest man or woman hearing Jesus speak then or now would know that without some intervention, they stand condemned. Sin is actually functionally their master.
[00:34:50] And then we get to 35. Jesus continues, the slave does not remain in the house forever. The Son does remain forever, which is an interesting statement. It kind of feels like a bit of a non sequitur. It doesn't necessarily seem to follow from anything he's talking about previously, but Jesus here is distinguishing between slaves and sons.
[00:35:16] Remember, up to this point, he's already been talking about himself as God's son. He has been talking about himself as the son of God, equal with God, fully divine.
[00:35:27] And he has been implying that they are slaves to sin.
[00:35:35] So here's a couple things that are true. They all knew that at that time, a slave could not just free themselves.
[00:35:42] It required something or someone outside of themselves. Really, the only person who could bring liberation to a slave, a bondservant, a doulas, was the owner of the house in which the slave worked, or the owner's son acting in the authority and name of his father.
[00:36:02] They also understood that a slave had no right to an inheritance in the house where they served.
[00:36:12] Here, in this cryptic passage, what Jesus is effectively saying is that unless you lay hold of this freedom that I'm talking about, you shouldn't expect to receive the blessing and inheritance that you assume is yours simply because you are the descendants of Abraham.
[00:36:35] Don't fool yourselves into thinking you're a son when you're actually a slave.
[00:36:41] You need the true son to set you free.
[00:36:45] Don't appeal to your ancestor Abraham and think, I'm in.
[00:36:50] If you sin, which they all did, which we all do, you're a slave to sin. You need a true son to bring you out of that.
[00:37:02] Now, for the sake of time, we were going to look at romans eight. It's in the message notes in the bottom for additional verses. Look at that. Paul starts to talk about what happens when we move from being a slave to a son. How that happens. Read the whole chapter.
[00:37:17] We're going to move on to our last blank, the source of freedom, John 836.
[00:37:26] So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
[00:37:41] Now, you might read this verse and say something like, wait a second, something sounds familiar here. Didn't we just read this somewhere? Kind of.
[00:37:53] But look what he said back in verse 32. He says, the truth will make you free again. That was what we were looking for. That was what we wanted to get to at the very beginning. The truth will make you free.
[00:38:07] Here Jesus says of himself, the Son will make you free. And this intentional callback to what he says in verse 32 now clarifies and gives substance and texture to the fact that this liberating truth is not a what, but a who.
[00:38:32] Remember what we said about verse 32? There is one phrase in that compound sentence with those four verbs that we are not the subject doing the action, the final one.
[00:38:52] Jesus is here emphasizing that he himself is the subject of that final verb, the truth that will make you free. He says, it's me.
[00:39:03] It's not some statement of fact, it's not some memorization of some verse in the Old Testament. He says, if you want to be free, continue. In my word, that'll be the Hallmark characteristic, that you're actually my disciple and you will know me.
[00:39:21] And in knowing me, you will be free.
[00:39:25] Jesus intentionally and masterfully is connecting what he says in verse 32 with verse 36.
[00:39:33] This liberation is not a product of agreement with doctrine or having a cerebral intellectual faith where you agree with statements about God.
[00:39:41] Salvation does not come through our theology, but through an embodied truth, a person, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
[00:39:52] And one of the verses I really like, it's in John five. And so I know we talked about it, but we're going to go back here. John 539, he's at the feast, he's at a different festival in Jerusalem. And he says to these Jews, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.
[00:40:13] It is these that testify about me, and you are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life for those Jews and for us. If we open our Bible and somehow miss that it is about Jesus, if we somehow think it's just good words for me to know, but we miss the fact that this book testifies to who he is and the freedom and life that he has to offer. We're going to miss the point completely.
[00:40:50] And this freedom that he offers is life, eternal life. Zoe, we will miss if we just read the Bible through an informative lens. If for us, continuing in his word is an academic approach, we will miss the fact that it was Jesus himself who lived a perfect life, who died a death on the cross, who was resurrected, raised from dead three days later.
[00:41:22] And the offer for us is that we tether ourselves to him, to his words, to his life.
[00:41:31] If we become little Christs, Christians, apprentice ourselves to his teaching, his lived out message, the Bible says, we will be free. We will be saved again. John 524 it's not on the screen. Jesus says, truly, truly. Again, listen, pay attention.
[00:41:50] He who hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and has passed out of death to life, freedom from sin, both its power and its punishment.
[00:42:11] This is the freedom that Jesus offers.
[00:42:16] How do we get there? By continuing in his word. Now, it's been said, you can take a man out of slavery in an instant, but it can take a lifetime to take slavery out of a mandev.
[00:42:30] We know from verses like John 524 that there is a moment that we do, in fact, definitively, unequivocally pass from death to life.
[00:42:42] But that doesn't always mean we feel like it, and it doesn't mean that all of a sudden everything is merry, everything is fine.
[00:42:54] And for many of us, if we have entrusted ourselves to Jesus, if we have actually entered in at the trailhead and say, you know what? Regardless of what comes, I am going to continue in his word, and I have experienced that freedom at the top, that Jesus alone offers freedom from sin.
[00:43:13] We can know without a doubt that we are his and that we have been freed from the power and punishment of sin. I that for many of us, like we talked about at the top of our time, we might not always feel like it.
[00:43:27] So again, wherever you're at today, whoever you are today, either out here or in here, this is good news for us.
[00:43:41] You may self assess and say, yeah, if this is the way to be freed from sin, I'm not there yet.
[00:43:49] Or maybe you've gone to church your whole life and realized, oh, I thought it was just about knowing about God, but not knowing him.
[00:43:58] Or maybe you do know him, but life just still doesn't feel like that abundant zoe that Jesus says he has to offer.
[00:44:09] The nice thing is, this is a path we can live on.
[00:44:12] We don't get on once and all of a sudden just be like I did that trail. That was fine, I guess. Took a picture at the top.
[00:44:20] We get to continue there whether you're anxious or tired, bitter, whether you're just doing great and you're joyful and free and hopeful and excited for the rest of the day, Jesus says, hey, just continue in my word. If you want freedom from sin, I or all the other ways I want to free you, this is where you remain. Just continue with me. Continue in my word.
[00:44:46] Don't move anywhere. Follow me. Be my disciple. Be my apprentice. Let my life shape your life.
[00:44:54] And for us, that is really, really good news. I'm going to have the worship team come up. I'm going to pray, and then we'll continue to worship together.
[00:45:04] Father, thanks for Jesus.
[00:45:07] Thanks for his life. Thanks for his death. Thanks for his resurrection. Thanks for the promise of freedom that he alone provides for us.
[00:45:19] Lord, we're so good at approaching you with our minds, but maybe leaving our hearts and bodies disengaged. God, I pray that even now you would help us follow you with our whole life so that we might experience primarily and first and foremost, if we have never experienced it, freedom from the power and punishment of sin.
[00:45:43] But, Lord, freedom and all the other battles that we carry with us as well, which you delight to free us from, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
