John 8:31-37
31 Jesus
said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you
remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will
know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 “But we
are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone.
What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?”
34 Jesus
replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. 35 A
slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family
forever.36 So if the Son sets you free, you are truly
free. 37 Yes, I realize that you are descendants of
Abraham. And yet some of you are trying to kill me because there’s no room in
your hearts for my message.
Are You Really Free?
In
this passage, Jesus had a conversation with some Jews living in Judea who were descendants
of the Israelites who were led out of slavery in Egypt in Exodus. The Israelites were proud to be descendants
of Abraham and the story of how Moses lead them through the Red Sea and out of
slavery in Egypt was an essential part of the nation, ethnic, and religious
identity. They were proud to be a “free”
people. And even though the Roman Empire
was the real authority in the Judea, the Romans had allowed the Judea to remain
autonomous in deference to their national pride as a free people (so long as
the Judeans promised to remain loyal to Rome and not cause trouble). But Jesus explains that true freedom is more
than national or ethnic identity or a political matter. True freedom is a spiritual matter.
I
have always known we are blessed to live in this country—the land of the free
and the home of the brave. I came to
appreciate those blessings in a new way the first time I traveled to Guatemala
in 2006. For one thing, the poverty I
saw in Guatemala reminded how fortunate we are to enjoy so many comforts in the
United States. Everyone in Guatemala
looked up to us—literally…
I
will never forget returning to the United States after a week in
Guatemala. Now, I love Guatemala. It is a beautiful country filled with amazing
people (and we could learn a lot of things from the people there), but I was so
glad to come back to my homeland and I was so proud to be an American.
I
will never forget arriving at the airport in Atlanta and going through
customs. There was a line of people a
mile long waiting to go through customs and “enter” the United States. My mission team was tired and homesick and
ready to see our families and the thought of waiting in another long line was a
bleak prospect. Just then, a customs
agent came walking down the line asking, “Are you a US citizen? Are you a US Citizen?” And all who answered yes were ushered to the
front of a much shorter line. I could
see the weariness on the faces of all the non-citizens waiting in that long
line as we walked passed them and I thought, “I am truly blessed to be a citizen on the United States of
America.” We enjoy so many privileges we
take for granted.
Just a few days ago, we celebrated
Independence Day on July the Fourth.
Independence Day is a holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence—declaring our independence from the Kingdom of Great
Britain. In it, our forefathers
proclaimed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It was the
belief of our nation’s founders that Freedom
was a God-given right that should never be violated.
If ever there was a national ideal that came
straight from the pages of the Bible, it is this—humanity was created by God to
be free. “In the beginning,” (Genesis 1), “God created
the Heavens and the Earth.” And God
created humanity to be free—free to think, free to make choices, free to
love. God did not create us as animals
chained to follow our basic instincts. God created us to be free!
Yet
today, the vast majority of humanity is not free. Even here in this great Nation where freedom
is the hallmark of our national identity, the vast majority are not free. People are enslaved to a cruel master,
Sin.
You
might have a hard time thinking of yourself—an American citizen—as a slave. We live in the land of the free, but that
doesn’t automatically make you free, not any more than standing inside a gym automatically
makes you fit and muscular. You are not truly
free unless the Son of God sets you free.
Sin keeps us from being free.
Romans
6:23 says, “All have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God.” And
Romans 6:23 says, “The wages [or
consequences] of sin is death…” So
we all have a big problem. We are all
guilty of sin—which is turning away from God and doing things our own way—and
we will all reap the penalty of sin—which is death.
But
the death Romans talks about is far worse than just passing away into oblivion
and ceasing to exist. The death we face
because of sin is a spiritual death. Sin
separates us from God. Our spirits
suffocate in the absence of God’s presence.
In Luke 16, Jesus described the eternal destiny of sinners as a place of
fiery torment. The 20th
chapter of the book Revelation describes the place as a lake of fire. I don’t know for sure what that place is
like, but I know it is something worse than death. It is spiritual death. (If God
is like the air we breathe, you could imagine hell like suffocating without air
for eternity.)
Jesus
came to set us free from the spiritual death that sin brings into our life. The great Christian evangelist of the first
century—St. Paul—epitomizes to me a man who is truly free. Death held no power over his freedom. He boldly traveled wherever the Lord led him
to spread the Gospel unhindered by persecution, hardship, or even the fear of
death. He was beaten, imprisoned,
stoned, shipwrecked, and eventually executed.
Yet he was not afraid. Paul said
in Philippians 1:21, “For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is
even better.” And he penned
those famous words that have comforted so many at funerals, “O death, where
is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians
15:55)
When
the Son of God sets you free, you no longer have to fear death. I tell people (and myself), “What is there to
be afraid of? The worst thing that can
happen is death. And to die means to go
home to glory—no more suffering or pain or sickness or grief. It’s like the ultimate retirement!” And to live with no fear of death out on the
edge with God holding your hand—now that’s freedom!
It’s
not just a fear of death that enslaves people. Because of Sin, some people are
bound by chains of guilt. Ironically,
the church is often a place where people feel the most guilt. I have known
people who avoid church altogether because it makes them feel so guilty. They walk into a beautiful sanctuary like
this and instead of inspiring them it just reminds them how far short they have
fallen from God’s glory. They see
everyone dressed up for church and smiling like they don’t have any problems
and the preacher is standing up on stage peering down over the pulpit at
them. And all these things remind them
of how unworthy they feel. They don’t
like that feeling so they just stay away.
Ironically,
I have found that sometimes the people in church with the biggest smiles are
the ones with the most heartache and guilt.
Jesus Sets Us Free
Maybe
you feel that way, but Jesus doesn’t want church to be a place that overwhelms
us with guilt. Jesus came to set us free
from sin. He said, “God sent his Son into the world not to judge
the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17). And 1
John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
wickedness.” Because of Jesus
Christ, those who confess there sins and believe in Jesus Christ can trust Psalm
103:12 which says, “[God] has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.” When
we come to church (or wherever we are), God does not looking down on us as He
looks down on us. He looks at us and
smiles the way a loving father smiles at their children.
And so we are free to live!
We are not bound by a guilt that causes us to hide from God in shame or
try to impress Him or somehow try to work our way back into His favor. We don’t have to bow our heads in shame. We don’t have to carry a load of constant
apologies. As Ephesians 3:12 says, “Because of Christ and our faith in him,
we can now come boldly and
confidently into God’s
presence.” Now that is truly free!
But the freedom we have in Christ goes even further. We are
also free from the power of sin. This
is the glorious Good News of Christ’s message that—frankly—doesn’t get preached
enough. The salvation we have in Christ
is not just forgiveness; it is also healing. We are on the road to recovery. Gradually, with God’s help, we are getting over
this sinful nature that plagues us. So we don’t have to dread a life of
constant mistakes and sinful living while we throw our hands up in the air and
say, “I can’t help it. I’m a sinner by
nature.” Romans 6:6 says, “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with
Christ so that sin might lose its power
in our lives. We are no
longer slaves to sin.” And Romans 6:22 says, “Now you are free from
the power of sin…” So, we don’t have to go through life thinking
we are bound to sin. If we slip up, we
can be forgiven. But we don’t have to
sin. We are free! Because God loves us so much, we are now
empowered to love others! We are free to
share the love of Christ with everyone!
Closing
Jesus said, “The truth shall set your free.” He said that to the
Israelites and they had a hard time seeing that they were enslaved. Can you sense their national pride when they
said, “We
are descendants of Abraham. We have
never been slaves to anyone.” I wonder
how many of us here today have a similar notion. We think, “I live in the United States of
America. I am not a slave. I am free.”
Jesus
would say the same thing to you today that he said 2,000 years ago. “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a
slave of sin.” When we humble ourselves
and recognize we are enslaved, Jesus is there to set us free. But if our pride makes us hang on to the
false notion that simply being an American makes us free, we will remain
enslaved. Exercising freedom takes
wisdom and courage and determination. It
takes the Son to set you free and keep you free.
As
we give thanks for the independence of our great nation, what better way to
honor freedom than to truly live out our freedom. I hope today you will humble yourself and ask
Jesus to help you. And then I pray you
will go out of this place and live the free life you were created to live!
