Jesus Offers Fredom

We'll start in verse 30. John chapter 8, verse 30. As Jesus was saying these things, many believed in him. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham, and have never been enslaved to anyone.

So how is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.

I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father. Let us pray. Oh Father, would you help us to understand your word now? Would you open it up to us afresh and would you apply it to our very souls? Lord, we know that this is a miraculous work that you do by the Spirit. So help us, God, to rely upon him now in this moment.

Let us not rely upon our own strength or our own power. Lord, let us not rely upon the things that we can do as if they amount to anything of value, but I ask that both speaker and listener would rely upon the Spirit of Grace. We know that in this life there's many tribulations and hardships, there's many different pitfalls, there's deceptions that Satan sets up to bring us off the path, but I pray, Lord, that here and now we would see your truth, We'd respond to your truth, and your truth would certainly and truly set us free.

Thank you for this hope of the gospel for all these things are only possible by the blood and resurrection of our Lord who has taken on sins upon himself so that we could take his righteousness upon ourselves and be free indeed So it to him we look now for his glory for his power for his honor forever and ever and to eternity In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Our dear Lord Jesus says in verse 32, this truth will set you free. Freedom is perhaps the greatest desire that people have. To be free is a desirable thing for all people in the world. It seems like the first thing I have to do when it comes to disciplining my children is when they want to do the alligator roll on the changing table. And this reveals their great desire to be freed from whatever is going on.

They desire the freedom. And I remember myself going from high school to college, and not liking high school at all, but loving college because there was a certain level of freedom from one to the other that I could actually go to the bathroom anytime I wanted. In fact, I didn't even have to go to class if I didn't want to. There's a great desirability there because there was a certain level of freedom there that I wasn't used to.

The history of the world really can be said is a history of people striving for this desirable thing called freedom. If you look at the ancients of times, there was only kingdoms on the earth, and now we have mainly democracies in the world. We can look at the history of slavery being outlawed, abolished. We can look at the civil rights and the women's rights.

We can see all these different ways that this thing called freedom was desirable and pursued by man and woman. It is the most basic desire to have freedom, Which explains then why Satan would provide a counterfeit freedom that looks like freedom to some degree, but actually is only slavery. You see, Satan offers a certain idea of freedom to the world, but it's a freedom that's a counterfeit.

It's a version that says there's true freedom only whenever you're no longer under any authority. 3 Only do or when you able to do when you free to do whatever you so desire And so since freedom is such a desirable thing for man the devil sets up his own freedom and it's one in which it's freed from authority, and it's free to do whatever you so desire. But here in John 8, Jesus offers true freedom.

And this morning we will see how to get this true freedom and what this true freedom is as opposed to Satan's so-called freedom. So let us look first here at the text at how to get freedom, that is true freedom. Look again at verses 30 and 31. John writes in his Gospels, As he was saying these things, you remember Jesus is preaching at the Feast of Booths, and he's preaching about him being the light, him being the I Am, him being the authority of all of the universe from eternity past all the way to now.

And here we have, there's mainly people hating on him and arguing with him, but here an interesting thing happens. In verse 30, he was saying these things and many believed in him. And so now moving forward into this new category or this new section that we're in of freedom, he talks about how to get freedom when he says to those who have believed upon him, and he's going to start teaching them.

And so we can stop right there for a moment and say the first step to freedom, how we get it is to believe upon Jesus. It's to believe Jesus. And this is a major controversy with this freedom that Satan says is available, in that we do not want authority. In order to be free, you need to be free from authority. And here Jesus says, I am the I am, which is the greatest of authority.

And it's here, at this juncture, at this stop right here, you must believe upon this authority if you're ever going to hope to have freedom. And we see here a people in the crowd go from hating this man to all of a sudden believing this man. And this is indeed the first step to freedom This is the parable of the sower where the seed has been sown by Christ and now a plant has come up And this is something that the religious leaders who are intermingled with those who are believing at this point absolutely cannot do.

You see, the religious leaders would claim that they don't believe Jesus because he is a false prophet and whatever. But the truth of the matter is they do not believe Jesus because they hate the authority Jesus was proclaiming about himself. They hate the fact that Jesus said, you are wicked so-called authorities of God. I am the true authority. They hated it.

They wanted Jesus' authority. And so they would not believe upon Jesus. And this context, belief, is a matter of what authority are you going to entrust yourself to. And here we see the first step to true belief is to believe upon Christ and his authority. But that's not the last step. You know, Satan would love to tell us, and we've been told this, especially in the last hundred years of evangelicalism, All you have to do is believe and then you're all good and just go on with life.

But that is not the truth of scripture. The truth of scripture is that although belief is the first step to freedom, it is not the last or the only step to freedom. And there is one that comes after in which Jesus says to those who have believed upon him in verse 31, look at your text, If you abide in my word. Highlight the word abide. Key word there is abide there.

And that means to continue or remain. So not only must you believe upon Jesus at the first when you hear his word, but you must remain upon his word if you are to have freedom. You know, so when we think and talk about remaining on something, that denotes that it is not easy to do so. So, you don't need to tell a worker to remain on vacation, do you? You don't need to tell a worker to remain on break.

You need to tell a worker to continue or abide in working, because that's the difficult part. You don't need to tell a child to remain on playtime. But you do need to tell a child to continue doing chores, because it's not easy, it's difficult. And so here, Jesus is telling these people who have made the first step to freedom, the important second step, or continuing, and that is to stay on my word.

Not just the initial belief upon my word as the authority, but to stay on my word. And the reason why it's difficult, the reason why it's not easy, it's hard, it's because Jesus' word is different from your word. By nature, that's the way it is. Jesus' word is different from your word every time. We see this in Proverbs 3, verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

The Proverbs don't have a door open to maybe your understanding is the same as God's. Maybe you just kind of won the lottery and that's who you are. No, it is made clear. Your understanding is different from God's understanding. And the teaching here is to trust yourself to the Lord's understanding and not your own. That is not an easy task.

I hate airplanes and I hate anyone else driving in my car. I want to drive because I want to be in control. It is not easy to then say I'm going to give up control to someone or something else. And here we see an important step of freedom is abide, stay in the word of Christ, which will and is different than yours. We need to be like the disciples in this way.

The disciples spent every moment with Christ while he walked this earth, and they immersed themselves in his word. And we need to be people who walk with the Lord daily and stay and immerse ourselves in the word, especially whenever that word is offensive or difficult or hard to our souls. We see this, we saw this recently, this aspect with the disciples and immersing and staying despite the hardship.

You remember in John 6, go there, it's just a few pages over, 660. Remember when Jesus taught his word that he had initial believers right They believed but then they do not abide Why didn they abide Well in verse 60 of chapter 6 when many of the disciples heard it they said that is his word This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? Here's a moment.

Are we going to abide and stay for freedom or are we going to get out of dodge because this stuff is hard to hear? Why is it hard to hear? Because it was against their own understanding and wills. That's simple. But what happens with the 12? We'll look at verses 66 through 69.

After this, many of the disciples turned back and no longer walked with Jesus. So Jesus said to the 12, do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the authoritative, holy one of God. You know what's interesting about that?

It's implicitly, now we've got to be careful with this, but implicitly, Peter doesn't say, listen, I don't know what they're talking about, your word isn't hard to swallow. He doesn't, implicitly, he's almost saying, yeah, it is kind of difficult, but where else are we going to go? And so in that hardship of, yeah, I see why they're kind of leaving, his word is very difficult here, But I'm going to submit and follow him because he's one with the word of truth despite how I'm feeling in the moment about it.

They abide in his word despite the hardship of staying on the word as opposed to their own understanding. In our life, we must be like the disciples, constantly walking with Jesus in our heart, abiding, staying in his teaching, Especially when it's difficult to our own understanding and wills. I think perhaps the number one reason why people stop being students of the Bible, they stop reading the Bible, they stop caring about what the Bible says, they stop trying to grow and understand it.

The reason why people stop being students of Jesus' Word and abiding in it is because they grow bored with it. And the reason why you grow bored with it is because you have stopped practicing it. And the reason why you stop practicing it because it hurts to practice it sometimes. You're telling me I have to be patient with my spouse when I get angry instead of just letting them have it You telling me I got to be patient with those who persecute me You telling me I got to do all these things that are difficult for me Jesus My understanding says to do it this way and I kind of tired of having to submit myself to it So I'll just read the Bible because I'm supposed to as a textbook and wonder why it grows dull and boring.

We need to abide in Jesus' word for freedom, even whenever it's difficult, And be yearning to practice what the pages say. So not only must we believe upon Jesus at the first for freedom, but abide in Jesus as well for his true freedom. And so that, what's the result of that? In verse 31, you are truly my disciples. That is, those who believed upon him, if you abide in my word, he says in verse 31, You are truly my disciples.

Now the scary part about that sentence is that that means there are false disciples, right? Then you will truly be my disciple versus those who aren't truly my disciples because they do not abide in my word. He says, if you abide, you are truly my disciples. Belief alone will not create a true disciple, so to speak. Belief always, true belief always produces abiding.

But there is a form of belief in which you will acknowledge it and say, yeah, I believe that. And if that's all you rely upon, it will not result in abiding and it will result in a false disciple. But true belief will result in abiding, which then will result in a true disciple. There are many who have started in belief but did not continue to abide and have a false profession and they are a false disciple.

They'll be like the one who tells Jesus, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this and the other? And Jesus will say, I never knew you. And the intent and the implicit thing in that is because you never knew me. You never knew my word. So the great indication of true versus false discipleship is your relationship with the word of Christ. Abide in the word.

So listener, beware. It is a great sin or lie of Satan that simple acknowledgement of Jesus is all he wanting But to be a true disciple abiding is necessary So how does one receive freedom? It begins with belief, continues with abiding, and then it results in true discipleship. And so that is how you receive it. What is freedom? Well, look what he goes on to say in verse 32.

This is what actual freedom is in verse 32. And he says, and you will know the truth, right? True discipleship, then this is what happens. This is what freedom is. You will know the truth, Jesus says. Know the truth is true freedom.

And knowing the truth here, again, it's not a cursory knowing. It's not just a knowing that you get initially when you find out something and that's it. But it's a deep abiding knowing. It's a well-rooted knowing. It's not like a cursory one when someone first believes based off of first knowledge, just initially hearing something. This is a knowing that comes by staying and settling on his word, abiding in it.

It's like the difference between when you first learn about something and becoming a master of it. When you first learn about something, you know it, so to speak. But when you become a master of it, you know it for sure. There's a different level there. And when Jesus is saying this is what freedom is, it's to know the truth. This is like a deep, abiding knowing of truth.

I remember when I first went into the military to be a military police officer, and I had never shot a gun before I went into the military. It was very strange. And I remember we got to A school after boot camp, which is just training on being a police officer, and they had to spend I don't know how many days learning about guns and what it means to shoot.

Just in a classroom, it was awful, it was tedious. I could say at the end of it, I know how to shoot, kind of, but whenever they put the gun in my hand and I started to actually shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot some more, I learned how to put a magazine in a gun, take it out real quick, put another one in, and reload and shoot, shoot, shoot. I learned how to do it much more.

It became part of me. But I say that, and then last night, my wife saw me try to shoot a raccoon, and I failed miserably with like five shots. So, it's probably not the best example, but nevertheless, you know what I'm getting at. There's a difference between initially knowing and a settled knowing, right? You get to know it more and more as you do it and practice it and know it more.

And this is the kind of knowing that is freedom that Jesus is talking about here. Knowing the truth here is the fruit of abiding. And part of that fruit is not only getting to know it more and more, but the bad understanding and the bad will that you naturally have that we've already established gets flushed out. That doesn't happen just automatically.

It just takes time for that water to run through and clean out all that debris and nastiness. And so we come to Christ and we believe upon him and we know him in a way, but then as we abide in his word, his knowing of him flushes out all the bad understanding, all the ill will that we have, all the nasties that we have in us. It flushes itself out and this is what it means to truly know his word.

Not only know it actively, but it flushes out our own word as we grow in knowing it. With the result being, in verse 32, this truth will set you free, right? That's the result. True discipleship, you'll know the truth, and it'll flush out your own understanding, and so it will set you free, he says in verse 32. So there's a progression here. Follow it with me, right?

You initially hear the word of Christ and believe. You have your own understanding and will that seems right but must submit to Christ's word. And as you build this habit, you begin to do Christ's, you begin to do his word and understand his word almost by nature since your old nature is being flushed out. And so you live a life of true freedom in Christ.

So Satan will tell you that freedom is being your own authority and not being under anyone else's authority. The truth is freedom is found under the authority of Christ. Satan will tell you that freedom is doing whatever you want to do But the truth is freedom is found in doing whatever Christ wants you to do And the final experience of freedom that you will have when you practice this is when your understanding and will is in step with Christ after your own understanding has been flushed out.

That's what happens, that sanctification, that's growth, is that you started by saying, yep, I have my own will, my own thing that seems right here, but you know what, Christ says this, so I will abide in his word. And you do it over and over again, then all of a sudden you see this beautiful thing happen, where what Christ says, you say. What Christ desires, you desire.

And that is the full experience of freedom that Jesus is talking about here. Psalm 37, 4 doesn't say There is freedom in it, but it certainly is freedom indeed when the psalmist says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. When you are desiring the Lord and he gives you that desire, there is no more freeing thing than that.

Romans 6, Paul talks about freedom and righteousness by Christ. In Romans 6, go there real quick, we'll spend a few moments there. Romans 6, let's go to verse 16. It's really nice not being sick behind this pulpit, I tell you what, this is much better. Oh, I say that and then God's going to strike me down and I'm going to get sick. Dare I presume.

Look what Paul says in Romans 6, 16. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey? Either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. And here it is. But thanks be to God that you were once slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves, or we could say free, in righteousness.

And so this is the freedom that we're talking about here. And obedience from the heart to the word of Christ practiced by denying fleshly thoughts and wills This is the freedom Christ has to offer Now this sounds pretty good. It should to the saints before me. It sounds pretty good what Jesus has to offer these people who believe must have easily continued in this word, right?

They must have easily continued and abide just like he said. Nope. And that's because Satan sets up hindrances to freedom. Satan will set up a hindrance to freedom. And we see a major one here which causes them to immediately stop abiding in the word of Jesus because they are convinced of this hindrance of Satan. And what is that hindrance?

Look at verse 33. So they answered him, we are offspring of Abraham. If you have never been enslaved to anyone, how is it that you say you will become free? You see, all of a sudden, these are the same people who just believed. We thought maybe we'd get a break from this constant conflict between the unbelieving Jews and Jesus, but no, we don't. Because these believers immediately do not abide in the truth of Jesus, and they go to antagonism once more.

It's almost as if Jesus knew that, which is why he taught, you need to abide in my word and not leave it immediately after this sentence. And they do. And the reason why they do is because they are deceived. Because Satan has set up hindrances to true freedom that in our deception we will believe is actual freedom. And what is that hindrance here? We can describe it, generally speaking, as I already have freedom.

What are you talking about? I don't need your freedom. And this is the same hindrance that everyone faces in the world. They do not want the freedom Jesus has to offer because they are convinced they already have freedom. They don't know this part from Satan. And this is what we're seeing from these previous believers turned into non-believers because of this hindrance.

They say, we already have freedom. Look at what they said. They say, we are offspring of Abraham. How dare you say that we need to be set free? We are offspring of the Abraham. Maybe you've heard of him.

We are offspring of him. You know, Abraham enjoyed great blessing from God, no doubt about it. God called him out of Ur and he became very blessed in Canaan. And the blessing was to continue to his offspring as well which is what the Jews were saying here Think about it Genesis 12 1 through 3 Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred, your father's house, to the land I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and those who dishonor you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. We think of Genesis 15, 5, and he brought, that is, God brought Abraham outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars. If you're able to number them, then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. We think of Genesis 17, 6 through 8, when God says, I'll make you exceedingly fruitful and I'll make you into nations and kings shall come from you.

I'll establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. And so they are saying, we are that offspring, Jesus. What are you saying that we are slaves of anything?

We are the blessed offspring of Abraham. But Paul gets to the nitty gritty. He gets to the point of the matter, doesn't he? Paul would hear the same argument from the unbelieving Jews in his ministry. And what he says in Galatians 3.16 is appropriate here. He says, Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring, yes, but it does not say into all springs, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ.

So the point is, is that the promises came to Jesus, And so such a false assurance of freedom, of blessing, right? Now, the thing that we are Abraham's offspring brings about a great delusion to their actual state. Look at what they say in verse 33. They say, We are offspring of Abraham, and here's the delusion, and have never been enslaved to anyone.

How is it that you say you will become free? That is such a crazy statement if you know it. Know your Bible at all? That many commentators try saying that they're saying something different than we've never been enslaved to anyone. Some people think that they're saying, they must be just saying we've never been enslaved to any idol. Surely they're not saying they've never been enslaved to any nation or political entity.

But if you read the text, that's what they're saying. We've never been enslaved to anyone. And what makes it so nuts is because Israel has been enslaved to literally all the great empires in the ancient world. In fact, their law in Exodus 20, 1-3, the law of God, it starts off by saying that you were in prison or enslaved to Egypt. Remember in Exodus 20, 1-3, and God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me. They had been enslaved to all the major empires of the world, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece. And at that moment, as they're talking to Jesus in the temple, there is a Roman tower overlooking the courtyard, making sure that the Jews down there didn't do anything that's too close to freedom. In other words, they were enslaved to Rome at that very moment.

So some people grapple, what do they mean by saying we've never been enslaved to anyone? Now you could take it as maybe they don't mean politically and something else. Honestly, what I think it is is that they are so utterly deceived in their false assurance of being Abraham's offspring that they're willing to say something so crazy like, we're not enslaved to anyone.

It reveals their utter deception that they're in based off of their false assurance. And this is true of all people Satan has convinced is free when they are actually enslaved to him. Do you understand that? Now, whether you use the excuse of I'm an offspring of Abraham, whatever it may be, that whenever you are enslaved to the devil, he will cause you to think the most wonky and weird things that you're not actually enslaved.

If they could see, those who are enslaved to Satan, if they could see reality correctly, they would know that there is nothing freeing about what they're doing at all. But they're so deceived that they'll say, I'm free, even as they practice sin and the misery therein. And they say, this is freedom, baby. And it nothing but enslavement It the same kind of insane deception that kind of blows your mind if you can see it from the outside You really think that you free outside of Christ You really think that life is a life of freedom It's like, really?

Either you are free in Christ or enslaved to Satan, and the very thing that keeps you enslaved is to think it is freeing to obey yourself and your understanding and desires. And to be able to live in accordance with your own standard and not have another imposed on you, that's a deception of freedom. Even while the fruit of that is false freedom, and it's rotten, and it's painfully obvious.

Obeying your own desires brings misery, which causes the one enslaved to think they just need to practice a little bit more of their own self-will and they won't be miserable. And this only creates more misery, which causes the person to continue to practice self-will to try to overcome their misery. And it's a vicious cycle. I'm miserable. I need to do what pleases me.

I'm miserable even more. I need to do more of what doesn't please me. And they do this over and over again. Misery, misery, misery, misery, misery. I'm free. What do you mean I need Christ?

It's the same insanity. The life without Christ is insanity. And it's a deception from Satan. And so, since the Jews are deceived into thinking they already had freedom, Jesus teaches what slavery actually is to help them out. So we saw what freedom is. We saw the hindrance to it.

I'm already free. And Jesus says, let me tell you what slavery is, because that's what you are. You're a slave. In verse 34, he says what slavery is. Look at your text in verse 34, chapter 8. It says, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

Very succinct, isn't it? Very easy definition of what slavery is. If you practice sin, you are a slave to sin. Where freedom is abiding in the word of Christ, slavery is abiding in sin or anti-word of Christ. Where freedom is staying in the word of Christ, slavery is staying in your own sin as opposed to the word of Christ. Notice he says practices sin.

The word practice there is important Slavery is to practice disobedience to Christ Practice sin That is a consistent pattern of behavior That's what slavery is, is to have a consistent pattern of behavior of disobedience to Christ. That is slavery. But it's more than that, though. We need to add something more to that to get a full understanding of what practice of sin means.

It's not only a pattern of behavior, but it's a pattern of behavior without repentance. And that's key. It is a pattern of behavior that has no repentance in there at all to the higher authority of Christ. By repentance, I mean a turning away from sin by acknowledgement of the wrong to Jesus. Asking for forgiveness and for help to overcome that sin. There are people, Christians, who fall into a pattern of sin.

The major difference between them and the one who practices sin and slavery is that the believer practices repentance. A, Lord, forgive me for this wickedness that I keep on falling into. Oh, Lord, you have promised to help with such wickedness. You promised to help with such a pattern of sin. Will you help me now, please? That is the difference between a slave of sin and someone who's free in Christ.

The practice of sin is a pattern of behavior that is not with repentance of that sin. Someone who understands that sin is misery and enslavement will repent. They know the end of that game. But someone who does not understand that, they're stuck in their misery, they're stuck in that slave cycle, they won't repent because that's my freedom. They practice sin and they continue to do that sin as a slave.

So slavery is a practice of unrepentant sin. And what is the outcome? As we're going to move a little bit quicker here. What is the outcome of slavery and freedom? Look at chapter 8, verses 35 through 36. Jesus says, The slave does not remain in the house forever.

That's the outcome of the slave. That's the outcome of one who is a slave in sin. They do not remain in the house forever. But the son, here's the outcome of the one who's free in Christ. So there two different outcomes First is slavery the outcome of the one who enslaved The slave does not remain in the house forever Jesus says In the ancient world slavery was a very common thing And you might be a slave in a house one day and then you won be in that house the next day You might be sold or brought somewhere else.

The point is, you're not going to remain in that home. And you're certainly not going to receive a good inheritance, but will be left out into the cold and into the darkness. And so Jesus is saying that those who are slaves to sin will not remain in the house forever. And what he's saying there is that they will not remain in the blessings and in the house of God forever.

There might be a time where a slave is within the blessings and the house of God, but that won't last forever. They will eventually be kicked out with no inheritance out into the outer darkness. And we see examples of this throughout all of history, right? Adam was kicked out of the garden because he became a slave of sin. The people were not allowed of the old world into the ark during the flood.

They were kicked out. And although these unbelieving Jews were in the house of God in the old covenant, there was coming a time soon when the new covenant would be fully realized and they would be kicked out of the house of God's covenant community. And that's what Jesus is warning these people. You are slaves to sin, and you are not going to remain in the house forever, but when I establish the new covenant, you will be kicked out for good because of your slavery.

But there's the flip side. The outcome of the freedom of those who are free, he says, the son remains forever, so if the son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. And what he's saying is, the son, that is the son of the home, that is Jesus Christ, the son of the Father, he remains forever. He won't go. He won't be kicked out. He'll receive the inheritance.

And not only that, but then whoever he makes free will be free indeed to remain in the home and the inheritance too. So again, Jesus is saying, your only hope is to believe, abide in the Son who inherits. And you will be free indeed. This is a warning against everyone who would play church, who would play a part and think, well, this will be enough for me.

And then I will eventually inherit the blessing. Again, this is a warning for those who would be a slave to sin. Even as they claim to be a true disciple of Jesus and think this is enough, they go day in and day out and hear the words of Christ to say, Abide in my word, and they know for sure they're not, but they think, well, I'm part of the house, I go to church, I'm part of that community, and that's enough.

There's a warning from Jesus here that it is not enough. One day you will be kicked out to utter darkness, and that will be it for you. It is a warning for anyone who wants to play like their disciple but are not abiding truly in the word of Christ. Repent of your sins. Repent of desiring the things of the world and of Satan, thinking that gives you freedom.

And truly dwell within the home of God by faith in Jesus as a freed person. And then he applies it personally. These teachings to the Jews. All up to this point have been, this is what it's like, this is what it is, and now he's going to apply it directly to the Jews. He says in chapter 8, verses 37 to 38, he says, I know that you're offspring of Abraham.

Now he's getting to them. He's saying, okay, I know you're an offspring of Abraham, and I'm not an idiot. I know that you are an offspring of Abraham, but yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. He's saying, my word is not, you're not abiding in my word because you want to kill me. So he's saying, you're a son of, you're an offspring of Abraham, big deal, you're not abiding in my word at all.

You are a slave. And the reason why his word finds no place in them they have no appetite for it they do not want to be with it is because they are a slave to Satan which is what he says in verse 38 He says, I speak of what I've seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father, which we'll see later is Satan himself. And so this is him applying now what he said directly to them.

You're not abiding in me because you're a slave to sin, you're a slave to Satan, and you will one day get kicked out and judged in the darkness, utter darkness, where all slaves will go. So everybody wants freedom. In conclusion, everybody wants freedom. It is a universal desire. You are either a free member in the house of God with God as your father and Jesus Christ as your brother, or you are a slave of sin with Satan as your father.

Since Satan dresses his slavery as freedom, he makes it pleasant to obey him initially. It is easy and pleasing to the flesh not to have to submit to any other authority but your own. It is easy and pleasing to the flesh to simply do what feels good to your flesh, but the road of practicing sin is a road of miserable bondage and being left out in the dark forever.

Jesus says, but if you abide in my word, you truly are my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Turn away from your sin and believe upon Jesus and rest upon his word. Abide in his word And when his word becomes difficult to understand and a pain to practice it is especially here where you need to rest and abide in it and as this becomes your practice you will enjoy the fruit of freedom in Christ difficult at first but it truly the way of everlasting joy for the way of the wicked is hard but my yoke Jesus says is easy and my yoke is easy My burden is light.

Let us pray. Oh God, thank you for freedom in Christ. What a terrible tragedy. And something that ought to create fear in everyone who hears that there are those who would be associated in the house of God, but yet be kicked out once, one day. Lord, I fully believe this isn't supposed to cause us to doubt our salvation or doubt the promises of Christ. This is simply meant for us to look to Jesus and believe and remain.

Help us not to think that to go away and to rely upon our own authority, our own desires, will result in anything but slavery to Satan and sin. Help us to be awake to what sin actually does. Help us to know the word of Christ well, to know what sin is. And I pray that the spirit working in us would cause us to hate that sin, to hate disobedience to Christ, to hate the idea of relying upon any other word but the Lord's.

And so it will cause us to refresh ourselves in Christ and his word and become truly free I thankful that as we believe and trust ourselves to Jesus he justifies us and he declares us to be righteous that is the Father so that there is a freedom that initially had And I'm thankful, Lord, that as we rely upon Christ, we are able to experience this freedom more and more as we reject sin and rely upon Christ. So I pray for those who have never believed upon Christ truly. Oh, would you give them a true belief to, for the first time ever, truly understand their state of sin?

And would you all of a sudden open their eyes to the one who brings about freedom? That is Jesus Christ, the Lord. And for those, Lord, who are true believers, yet they find themselves caught in sin, would you remind them of the freedom Christ has won for us? 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 1 John, 3 John, 4 John, 5 John, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 41, 42, 45, 49, 41, 42, 44, 47, 49, 42, 50, 51, 42, 53, 52, 51, 52, 52, 53, 54, 52, 51, 53, 54, 52, 53, 53, 42, 53, 52, So that we would see what it looks like to be free truly in Christ.

Thank you for his work. And I thank you for his power. And in his name we pray these things. Amen.