Freedom, Part I: When the Son sets you free

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, June 29, 2008

This weekend and next we are looking at the concept of ‘freedom’ in the Bible.  I’m willing to bet that if you asked most people they would say, “Yes, I am free.”  But my question is, “Are you really?”  I believe most people don’t even realize the lack of freedom they have, and the reason they have this lack of freedom is because, one, they don’t understand what true freedom is; and two, they do not ground their lives in Christ.  We’re going to John chapter 8 today, verses 31-47.  John is the 4^th book in the New Testament, so the order goes, Matthew, Mark, Luke and then John.  If you didn’t bring your Bible today – your book of freedom – then I invite you to open one of the pew Bibles.

To set the context of our reading, Jesus has been involved in His ministry for awhile now, and has amassed followers, skeptics, and those who are adamantly opposed to Him.  This conversation is one of the biggest head-to-head He had with ‘nice’ religious folks who were secure in their traditions and activities as a means of their salvation.  They didn’t want to be challenged; they didn’t want to have to change; they didn’t want to entertain the thought that though they believed they were free, they were really in slavery and bondage. 

Do we?

To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.  How can You say that we shall be set free?”  Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  I know you are Abraham’s descendants.  Yet you are ready to kill Me, because you have no room for My word.  I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you do what you have heard from your father.”  “Abraham is our father,” they answered.  “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did.  As it is, you are determined to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.  Abraham did not do such things.  You are doing the things your own father does.”  “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested.  “The only Father we have is God himself.”  Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came from God and now am here.  I have not come on My own; but He sent Me.  Why is My language not clear to you?  Because you are unable to hear what I say.  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire.  He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me!  Can any of you prove Me guilty of sin?  If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe Me?  He who belongs to God hears what God says.  The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

Those are some pretty harsh words there, Jesus.  These good church folks just got put on warning – they are not destined for Heaven because they are still slaves to the world.  They are relying on what once existed, what happened in the past, for their salvation; they are relying on their own works, their own understanding of scripture – how they interpret it – to be saved.  They have rejected Jesus for who He really is, and think there is freedom in continuing on the path they are on.  What they don’t realize is the path they are on, regardless of how good it looks to their eyes, is a path that leads straight to hell.

It’s the same for many people today.  Too many people rely on their own interpretation and application of scripture for their salvation.  Too many people rely on ‘doing unto others as you would have them do to you’ for the basis on which God will say to them, “Well done, good and faithful servant…come and share your master’s happiness.”[1]  Too many people believe they have the best bead on who Jesus is and what it means to be a Christian, but never actually open their Bibles to find out the Truth. 

And so I ask you this morning as we head into the celebration of our nation’s birthday and the freedom we have in the political realm to pause for a moment, set that aside, and think about the spiritual realm.   In those terms, are you free; truly free?  How do you know?

Are you free?  The good response question to that is, “Free from what?”  Anyone of us can walk out of here today and go do pretty much anything we want to.  We can say anything, watch anything, read anything, participate in anything, and we are promised by our constitution that unless what we are doing is blatantly illegal, we’ll suffer no consequences.  For us, for Christians, that’s not an option, though.  So I ask you again, “Are you free?”

Are you free from the claim the devil would have on you?  Are you free to celebrate and know without a shadow of a doubt that if you died on the way home from church today you would immediately find yourself looking into the eyes of Jesus?  Do you have that confidence, that freedom?  How do you know?

Jesus answers that question for us plainly in our text this morning: “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed!”  It’s not up to me whether or not I’m free; it’s up to Jesus and the work He has done to set me free.

Jesus was nailed to the cross and suffered separation from God, so we would not have to.  Jesus died and went to hell to say to the devil, “They are mine.  You can’t have the ones I have set free ever again.”  Jesus rose from the dead and went to heaven so we could know that His sacrifice on our behalf was accepted by God, and for those who are free in Christ, the same eternal home awaits for them.  Are you free?

The Jews in our reading today didn’t like this message, and so they countered with an appeal to their own lineage – “We are Abraham’s children!”  They essentially responded with a membership card to the “Descendant’s of Abraham” club.  They relied on themselves as a basis for being right with God; as a basis for inheriting eternal life.  They relied on their own good work; their own rationale, for getting into heaven.

Jesus’ response is a harsh one: “…you are unable to hear what I say.  You belong to your father, the devil…”  Why did He say this?  He said it because they were so wrapped up in themselves they couldn’t hear the truth.  And because they couldn’t hear the truth, they were depending on lies they thought were true.

Why did they think the lies were true?  Because they placed their trust in themselves.  And who was behind them trusting in themselves?  The devil.  He told them lies, and they believed them.  His lies were ‘easier’ than the truth, because his lies told them they were ok and didn’t need to be changed; didn’t need to be set free.

I can’t help but think that we’ve fallen into the same trap today.  “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere” people say.  You can sincerely believe that if you walk off the top of a 10 story building into thin air you won’t fall, but you’d be sincerely wrong!  Jesus is very clear on this: “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father {that is, no one gets to go to heaven} except through Me.”[2]

“As long as you’re nice to people and treat everyone fairly, then you’re being a good person and God will take you to heaven” is another thought.  In Isaiah, God says that our good deeds are like filthy or bloody rags to Him.[3]  Some of you have heard me mention this before: the literal meaning of ‘filthy rags’ in those verses from Isaiah is the soiled cloth that a woman uses each month.  You see, you can do ‘good things’ but if they are done apart from saving faith in Jesus, they mean nothing!  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to Me on that day {the last day}, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy {or speak} in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.  Away from Me, you evildoers!’" ^[4]  You can know the right words to say and the right things to do, but if they are said and done apart from the freedom found in Jesus, they are said and done by one who is still in bondage to sin and relying on the self, and they mean nothing.

“I don’t believe a loving God would send anyone to hell.”  I’m sure that’s what the devil thought too when he tried to overthrow God.  God says that in the end, “The devil… will be thrown into a lake of burning sulfur and will be tormented day and night forever and ever, and if anyone’s name is not found written in the book of life, they will be thrown into the lake of fire, too.”[5]  Why were their names not found written in the Book of Life?  Because they were never set free by the Son.  Why were they not set free by the Son?  Because they preferred their truth to God’s truth that He has spelled out plainly in His word.

They are in bondage to their own sins, to their own selves, without realizing it, and they don’t turn to the one place – the one Person – they can go to find out about their freedom. 

Jesus died for you, you realize that, right?  Let me say that again in a slightly different way: God died for you, you realize that, right?  Not only did He die for you, He came back to life for you, too.  We have to have both Good Friday and Easter Sunday or our faith isn’t worth anything.  Jesus broke free from the bounds of death, and then has given that freedom to those who believe so they will never have to suffer eternal death. 

Are you free?  How do you celebrate that freedom?

Do you read the words of our God, our Liberator, or do you ignore them, getting in your Bible readin’ when somebody else reads a few verses of God’s word to you at church?

Do you participate in the very things that in the end are only rooted in the lies of the evil one who wants to return you to bondage to sin and self?

Or do you investigate thoroughly the freedom you have by immersing yourself in the letter God wrote to you, and in His word find freedom from sin, eternal death and the devil by living in the boundaries God sets?  Think of our nation’s flag flapping in a breeze on a flagpole on July 4^th.  It flies free in the wind because it has an anchor.  Cut the cord that holds the flag, and it will just fall on the ground.  We only fly free like a flag in the wind only when we are anchored to something larger and more steady than we are. 

Everyone will be anchored to something.  We’ll either be anchored to our God, or to the devil through the things of this world.  We’ll either be free in our anchor of the Truth in God’s word, or we’ll fall flat on our face and die as we are anchored to the lies, to the things of this world.

You know what God says?  “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”[6]  He says, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and loaded down with burdens, and I will give you rest.”[7]  He says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”[8] 

He says, “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed!”

Freedom.  Freedom to be who we were created to be: God’s children living lives in the light of His love for us; people who have been set free from the bondage of our sin and reliance on ourselves and traditions.  People who have been set free to be firmly anchored in God’s word. 

Freedom not to sin, but freedom from continuance in sin.  Freedom not to reject God’s word in our lives, but freedom to find our very life in God’s word.  Freedom not to make excuses for sin, but freedom to call sin, ‘sin’ and help others who have not yet experienced the freedom the Son brings.

Jesus said in our text today, “He who belongs to God hears what God says.”  How are we free to hear what God says?  “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”[9]  Faith, freedom in Christ, comes through the Word of God. 

So I ask you again, are you free? 

Next week we’ll take another look at freedom in Christ.  Until then, pray, read God’s word to you, and live lives as sons and daughters who are free within the boundaries Christ has established for us. 

 

Amen