If the Son Sets You Free, Yo..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. We're in chapter eight still, and our reading this afternoon will be from verses 31 through 36. So John chapter eight, from verse 31 through 36.

This is God's Word. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed 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. 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. Amen. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Well, brothers and sisters, we began this section in the fourth gospel in the eighth chapter, starting from verse 31 last week.

Now, we've been in chapter eight a little while, and the context really hasn't changed since around chapter or verse 12, where Jesus is still in the temple, seemingly. He's still in the treasury, and that's a part of the temple where both women and men have access. But there has been a major change that took place in verse 31. The change didn't take place in the setting, but it takes place in the primary audience of Christ, who His words are primarily directed to. Because verse 31 tells us that Jesus is now focusing his attention, his words, his teaching, to those who have now professed a faith in him.

These are what you would call today, at least from the outward profession point of view, Christians. Christians. If you were among the crowd, and you came up to one of these people and tapped them on the shoulder and asked them, what is your view about this Jesus? They would turn back and say, we believe. We believe His words.

We have resolved to follow this Jesus. We believe. Made a decision. I made a decision to go after His words, to learn from Him, to be His disciple. But is that all it takes to be a true disciple of Christ?

Is that all it takes just to simply confess with your mouth that you believe? Or is there more to it than that? And to be clear, our Lord is calling all the people who listen to His teaching to simply believe. That's His message. Verse 24, that's what He says.

Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. He's not making it difficult for people to come in faith to Him. That's the message. By faith in Jesus Christ alone. That He died on the cross and He will die on the cross as He's already told them.

The Son of Man will be lifted up. But you believe that I am He. I am the one who was said by the Father. I am the bread of life. But I am the light of the world as he began this conversation.

Simply just come and believe in Christ. And that is our evangelism. That's how we evangelize others. We don't make it more difficult. There's no hoops to jump into.

There's no prerequisites to true saving faith. Simply come to Christ as you are and believe. Believe in who he is and what he has done. But beloved, We praise God for salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. We praise God for that, because if that wasn't the case, none of us would be saved.

But when someone professes a faith in Christ, the matter cannot remain simply there. There needs to be something else after that. And Jesus doesn't leave them where they are. Because after one makes a profession of faith, beloved, discipleship must follow. Discipleship.

Remember the Great Commission? When Jesus said, to the disciples, go therefore into all the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Son and of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and then teaching them to obey or observe all that I have commanded. Remember that. For behold, I am with you until the end of the age. Jesus says you go there and you make disciples, you proclaim the good news of the gospel, and when they profess a faith and they trust that you baptize the disciples based on the profession of the faith, but then after you baptize the disciples, you need to disciple the disciples, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded.

There's a discipleship that is mandatory, that is necessary. It must take place. Teaching them all that I have commanded. Teaching them my teachings, my commands, my word. Teach them to abide and to obey in the doctrines of Christ.

Beloved, that's an essential step of discipleship. It's critical for the spiritual growth of a true believer. It's critical for holiness. It's critical for sanctification. Sanctify them how?

In your truth. What does Jesus say about that? Your Word is truth. The Word of Christ. Teach them to obey all that I have taught you.

All that I have commanded you. Teach them to obey My Word. That's why the church is called the pillar and the buttress of truth in 1 Timothy 3. If the church of Jesus Christ is to be known for anything at all, it ought to be known for its truth. Because it's predicated and built upon the Word of God, and the Word of God is truth.

That's what we stand on as a church. That's why any true church stands on the Word of God, God's Word. But beloved, also discipleship, bringing the word of Christ to bear will reveal something. It reveals the state of a person's heart. It will reveal whether this person who's confessed with their mouth has made a profession of faith because they've had a divine, salvific encounter with God.

a renovating encounter with God, or whether the professional faith was simply one that was giving some mental assent in the mind to some information they've heard or something about Jesus' teaching. The Word of Christ, it does sanctify. The Word of Christ does produce holiness. The Word of Christ is mature. The Christian, when they go from milk to solids in the Word, it creates discernment and wisdom.

But the Word of Christ also tests. It reveals. It uncovers. and shows what is really there in the heart of a man or a woman. It answers this question, beloved, am I really in Christ?

Am I really in Christ or am I deceived? The Word answers that question. Now, tests, as I've said earlier or before previous weeks, they're not for the benefit of God. God is all-knowing. He is omniscient.

He sees all. He knows all. He doesn't need to know anything new. He knows it. But, beloved, this is a test for the benefit of the man or the woman or for these Jews that are before Jesus Christ who are making a profession of faith.

Because not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, is a true disciple of Christ. Deception of the enemy is great. And so the test issued by our Lord does not violate in any way salvation by grace and through faith and in Christ alone at all. But it does do something. It reveals that true saving faith is never alone.

It's alive. It's empowered by the Spirit of God so that a true disciple One who has placed true, saving faith in Jesus Christ has a working faith, a learning faith, an enduring faith. That's the message of James, the brother of Christ, do you remember? That faith without works, without deeds, is what? And it's also the message of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A true disciple with saving faith is proven authentic if that disciple abides in my word. That's what he says in verse 31, and that's as far as we considered last week. The conclusion of what we heard last week was this. Your spiritual practice is telling of your I'm going to say that again. Your spiritual practice is telling.

It says something about your spiritual condition. In other words, what you do is rooted in who you are. Hear that. What you do is rooted in who you are and it's telling of who you belong to. What you do is telling of who you are and it's telling of who you belong to.

Because we all bend in need of someone. The question is, who? Now let's continue from verse 31. 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. These are wonderful words of certainty.

and you will know truth, and the truth will set you free. I've been meditating upon those words for a few weeks now, and I must admit they've been a breath of fresh air to my heart. In a post-modern society as we are experiencing now, certainty is not even a thing, is it? You can't come across certainty as far as they're concerned, it's unattainable. There are no facts, just theories.

Bring the topic of truth or absolute truth, you have to be pretty brave, and you'll receive a response not unlike that of the governor Pontius Pilate, if you remember back in chapter 18. Jesus stood before him just a few hours before he's going to be crucified and he said these remarkable words. He says, for this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world, hear this, to bear truth or to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is on the side or of the truth listens to my voice. Do you remember Pilate's response?

What is truth? Imagine the contempt and disdain in his voice. What is truth? Almost 2,000 years later, in a world that for the most part has kicked God out. Removed Him from our schools and removed Him from our universities.

Removed God from the ruling authorities, the governments. Removed Him from their homes and even removed Him from their own minds. I hear the same words ringing in contempt. What is truth? Absolute truth, that's just a myth.

It's an illusion, they would say. Everything is relative. There are no facts, no certainties, no universal truths. Your truth is your truth, and my truth is my truth. They may be different, but they're both true.

It's the epitome of arrogance and intolerance to stand on your ground and say otherwise. What confusion. How much confusion do we see in our world today? Everyone has his or her own standard of right and wrong, their own standard of morality, their own standard of their own gender, their own standard or the code of ethics is an individual thing. The world laughs in contempt and says, what is truth?

God protect our children. Of course, if truth is not prized as sacred, then that society will bear the marks of that confession. And those marks will be mass confusion. Look out there and what do you see? How do I know right from wrong is what they're asking?

How do I know evil from good, fact from fiction? What information can I rely on and what do I discard? What books can I trust? Is the history I'm reading and the history I've been taught, is that even true or has that been manipulated? You know, historical documents are the ones that are preserved by the winners in wars.

It's common knowledge that when a winner wins, when a conqueror wins and they go into the losing side and burn down their libraries and they rewrite history. So when I'm reading these, is it true? Can I know it's true? Is it fact or is it fiction? Which one is it?

How about when they unearth new documents and those documents are in complete contrast to the ones that we've been reading and trusting? What do we do then? Scratch our heads and ask, where do I find truth? We've all experienced this sort of thing to one degree or another. Beloved, even in the 12 months, haven't we experienced something of that nature?

I know I'll ask myself in the last 12 months about this pandemic, I've asked myself, what information can I trust? Where can I get reliable information? I go to one site and I read something and I go to another and there's something else. Now questions may still be on your minds in relation to masks, vaccines, how is this transmitted, preventative measures and so on. How do I know what is fact or fiction?

But even in a more general sense, look at the internet. Look at the internet. Or you can get lost on the internet. And some smiles, you know about it far more than I, I'm a bit old fashioned. Look at how many sites there are on the internet.

Can you tell me out of those, I don't know, is it millions or billions? I don't know. Is there a single one that you can trust explicitly? My son only this week was researching a particular topic, and he was trying to attain some credible information on that topic, and he came to me and he said, Dad, it's just so hard. Why, son?

He says, because I go to credible sites. And one says one thing, and the other says the opposite. How do I know which side to trust? Look, I understand how one can ask the pilot question, what is truth? In some contexts.

But I thank God that on the most important matters, most important eternal matters, we have absolute irrefutable the test of time and will endure for all eternity. My heart skips with joy to know that in the realm of such disorder and confusion and muddiness in the world that we are today, that God is pleased to provide His people beyond a shadow of a doubt, absolute truths pertaining to matters of eternal life. Matters of the soul, your soul and mine. Matters that relate to life and godliness. Matters that pertain to salvation.

We have truth. We have absolute truth. Because it's spoken from the mouth of the one who is true. His word is so precious, beloved, because apart from it, all hope is lost. That truth, beloved, that we find inscripturated for us with the divine hand of God himself through the prophets we find and the apostles.

we find in it the Word of God. And when the Spirit of God that resides in every single Christian takes the Word of Truth and presses it into the heart of God's children, then you have true knowledge of God. And no one can take that away. So hear this now. Our Lord will not entertain the post-modern relativistic ideology even for a single moment.

With absolute certainty, speaking the very words he heard from the Father, verse 40 tells us as much. Jesus speaks with the authority of God and he says, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Now, Pilate asked the question in chapter 8a, didn't he? That question, what is truth? But the interesting thing, and I've always thought this to be interesting, he doesn't get an answer.

He doesn't wait around to get an answer. The apostle John simply says, he asks the question, turns his back, walks outside and starts to speak to the crowd. He just asked the question. That's a bit odd. You just walk away just like that.

If a reader has made it to chapter 18, and I'm assuming the apostle John knows that they've probably gone through chapter 8, the chapter we're reading now, and even chapter 14, where there are wonderful words of our Lord. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. And if that's the case, and one has been reading systematically through the word, when your Roman official pilot says, what is truth? I won't blame you if you cry out to the text.

You're staring at it. Right before your very eyes is truth personified. Truth personified stares right before your eyes, and you turn around and walk away from the only one who can answer that question, and the only one who can save your soul. How foolish. But walking away is not always a physical thing, is it?

Beloved, you could be sitting in this room and have already walked away in the heart. And that's a scary thing. Because that's where the rejection begins. It begins in the heart. And we'll see that's what's exactly what's happening in the crowd before our Lord Jesus Christ, here in the temple in John chapter eight.

Eventually they'll walk away also, physically, yes, they will walk away also. But you always begin, you always begin to see cracks in the heart and the discipleship process where Christ is speaking His Word and bringing His teaching to bear upon the soul of His listeners. That will reveal whether these are true disciples or that they're counterfeit disciples and they just make their way slowly an inch away from the Lord. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. You know, the impact of those words would not have missed the mark of this ice juice.

They knew Scripture, at least enough to know that all truth belongs to God. They can't read the Old Testament Scripture without knowing that as a fact. That if you think of truth, you know all truth belongs to God. Let's look at just one chapter, Psalm 119. You read these wonderful truths there.

In verse 142, your righteousness is righteousness forever and your law is truth. How about, but you are nearer, O Lord, and all your commandments are true, verse 151. And here's one that I think most of us probably have committed to memory. The sum of your word is truth. And every one of your righteous rules ensures, make no mistake, Jesus is asserting something grand here.

is asserting that His words are the words of God, that what He speaks, what comes out of His mouth is truth, the very truth of God. Now, let's be clear. Christ speaks truth. This Word is truth. Jesus is truth personified.

That doesn't mean my son is able to go to the Scripture and search to find his answer to the research question that he has on his mind. The Scripture does give him wise principles to guide him. But the truth Jesus speaks about, the truth found in His Word, is absolute truth in relation to what it speaks to in context. As I said earlier, God has been pleased to give us all things that pertain to life and Godliness through Christ and His Word. That means that the doctrines of Christ are sufficient for us.

They're sufficient truths for our spiritual life from beginning to end. And in a sense I could spend the rest of our time together unpacking that truth but we won't because I want to remain a little bit more focused and faithful to the text because the emphasis here in John chapter 8, although truth is a massive positive, Here in chapter 8, it's more so the freeing power of truth that is the focus before us. Because we have, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know truth and the truth will set you free. Freedom is on offer, isn't it? That's what's happening here before us.

And it comes through the knowledge of truth. Now Christ is truth. We've already established that point. So the knowledge of truth is a knowledge of Christ Himself. You cannot separate Christ from His Word.

To abide in His Word is to abide in Christ. To abide in Christ is to abide in His Word. But here's the thing. Even though truth is truth, irrespective of how you feel about it, how I feel about it, how anyone else feels about it, truth is truth whether we agree with it or we don't because it is contingent upon God Himself. It's contingent on the nature of God who is true and He doesn't change.

Truth is eternal, but beloved, that truth must be believed. That truth must be believed in order to benefit those and to be an enjoyment to those who hear it. And in this context, the benefit of receiving and believing that truth is freedom. Freedom. Trust in the truth and you'll be set free.

but also implied is a yearning to be set free, right? I mean, think about it. If you don't recognize your need to be set free, you're not gonna come to Jesus. You won't come to Him. You won't receive His offer unless you actually believe that you have a desperate need to be set free.

unless you know that you're in slaves, or you're in chains, unless you have a yearning within your soul for freedom. Think about the many invitations our Lord has issued over the course of the Gospels, even here in the Gospel according to John. If you don't come in faith to Christ, you won't receive what he's offering. The benefit comes by coming, by believing. Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11, 28. Are you weary? Come, come to the one who can give you rest. How about John 6? I am the bread of life.

Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. Are you hungry? Come and eat without price and be satisfied. How about only a few days earlier in this same temple, with probably the same audience before our Lord, when our Lord stands up and cries out, if anyone thirsts, let him come. and to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Is your soul thirsty? Then come. Come to Jesus. Come to the bottomless well and drink up the one who is eternal life.

But if you're not weary, if you're not hungry, if you're not thirsty, then you won't come. That's what's happening with the Jews that are before our Lord. Because they don't recognize that they're slaves. And if they don't recognize their desperate need to be freed, then they won't come to Christ who can release them from the bondage that they're in. Self-righteousness, pride.

We don't need to be freed, Jesus. That's the expression of their heart. Because in their own eyes, they are the privileged sons of Abraham. And they're thinking, we were born free. What are you talking about that we need to be free?

What are you talking about Jesus? You see, if there is no need, then you're not going to come. This is what they say in verse 33. They answered him, we are offspring of Abraham and we have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free?

Remember, these are the so-called believing Jews. Jesus is not speaking to Pharisees anymore, right? They may be in the crowd, but His primary audience, His primary listeners, are those who have confessed a sort of faith in Christ. So-called disciples, so-called Christians, learning ones. It wasn't long after Jesus had made them aware of how to show their faith to be authentic, that is, if they abide in His Word, now they Now their colours, their true colours are starting to be exposed.

Their very next words out of the mouth of our Lord. Very next words after He shows them how to know whether they are true disciples. They are offended at. Cracks are beginning to show in their so-called faith. Their pride.

In this we see a spirit of self-entitlement. And it's beginning to surface and show its ugly face. Have they really come to follow Jesus for the right reasons? We are the offspring of Abraham, they say. The father of Israel.

He's our father. We are the privileged people of promise. We are the chosen people of Yahweh. We've never been enslaved to anyone, Jesus. We were born free and we remain free.

We don't need to be rescued. We don't need to be rescued by you. We've never been in bondage in the first place. What deception. A denial of their true spiritual condition.

This truth, just like Pilate, stands before them. You can set them free eternally. Stands before them and they in their because we were never in chains. But what we see here is a type of Romans chapter 1 suppression of truth in unrighteousness. Now to be clear, we know that the freedom that Jesus speaks of, we know that Jesus is speaking about a spiritual freedom.

We know that because he clarifies that. I mean, I believe the Jews already know that. But he clarifies it for them in verse 34. He's speaking about being freed from the bondage to sin. However, with the Jews' response, it may be a little bit different.

You see, there's two ways of understanding what the Jews are saying before their Lord. On the one hand, they may be referring to a physical or a political type of bondage as a nation, right? That could be a possibility. Or on the other hand, they may be also thinking or referring to a type of spiritual or religious type of freedom. Now, the latter seems to be more likely, and we have to give credit where credit is due.

I mean, think about it. It would be reasonable to assume that these Jews that are before our Lord, especially those who make the yearly pilgrimage, probably on three occasions to the temple in Jerusalem, You would think they are well-versed in their history or their historical roots. Now, we know, we know by going through the few chapters that we've been through that they have been quite spiritually ignorant and we've seen a fair few examples of that. But when it comes to their historical roots, you would think they're well-versed in those areas. They're well-acquainted with their history.

So the 400 or the 430 years of bondage to their forefathers in Egypt was really common knowledge to most of these people. And even a surface level apprehension of Scripture would have revealed that Egypt was only the beginning of Israel's bondage experience. On numerous occasions. Even if they had a surface understanding of Scripture. They would have seen on numerous occasions the Jews were under the thumb of a foreign nation.

Due to their fragrant sin, Yahweh would hand them over to be oppressed, to be ruled, even to be crushed by a pagan nation to come in and do its work because of his judgment. In preparation for this sermon, I was going to do a survey. of when the people of Israel, as a people, entered into the land in the conquest. And from that point on, I wanted to see how many times they were actually in bondage to another nation. I wanted to see how many times God would put them under the thumb of a pagan nation.

But I decided it would suffice for me to simply only survey the first three, the 350 years of their history. from the time they enter into the promised land for 3,350 years, and that information is all nicely and neatly packed into the book called Judges. It's a dark book. It's a book that you and I probably have characterized in our minds with the words, and in those days, Israel had no king. Everyone did what is right in their own eyes.

Oh, scary. It's a dark book. The level of immorality was absolutely incredible. But it's also a book, Beloved, that has these words. You don't have to go very far into the book and you'll read many occasions of them.

And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And He gave them over to be ruled, to be oppressed, or as I said earlier, to be crushed. That's the language that the Bible uses to a foreign nation. Chapter three, it was Mesopotamia for eight years. Chapter four, it was the Canaanites for 20 years.

In chapter six, it was the Midianites for seven years. From chapter 10 through 16 in the book of Judges, it was the Philistines and beloved literally that were under the thumb of the Philistines, or the Philistines, I should say, for decades. Beloved, Israel had its fair share of bondage. Their freedom was taken away. And that is even before what we all know, the common knowledge of us all, when they came into the land and they established the kings.

David and Solomon was a united kingdom, and then there was a fracture. You have the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, which is Judah. The northern kingdom was taken over by Assyria. Their freedom gone in 722 BC, right? And in the southern kingdom, some 140 years later, in 586, we have Nebuchadnezzar, a different empire.

Babylon comes in and he destroys, literally destroys Judah. He kills thousands and takes thousands back to Babylon. Destroys the temple, burns it down to an absolute crisp. These people know the bondages. They know what it is to lose their freedom.

Even after 70 years in exile in Babylon, because of the prophecy in the book of Jeremiah, the Lord brings them back under the edict of Cyrus. But even then they weren't free. They were under the thumb of the Medo-Persian Empire. And then the Greeks, and now before our Lord, they're under the thumb of the Romans. Beloved, Israel had its fair share of slavery.

If these people before our Lord are speaking about a type of physical or political slavery, then a more accurate statement would have been, but Jesus, we've never known freedom. But it's likely they're referring to a spiritual or a religious bondage, just like Jesus is referring to it. But they're linked. And so they are most likely saying to Jesus, we have the privileged sons of Abraham, the promised offspring. We may have had some issues with the physical or political freedoms, but as far as our spiritual health goes, Jesus, But as far as our religion goes, oh no, we've never been in bondage there.

We are the people of Yahweh. He has made us free and we are still free indeed. They saw themselves as the object of Yahweh's love. He gave us His law. He gave us His covenant.

He chose to dwell with us. Jesus, this is His temple. You're standing in it right now. He gave us his word and he'll soon send us his Messiah to consummate our spiritual freedoms that we've always enjoyed unbroken with also a political freedom when this warrior king takes over and kicks out Rome and gives us the land back. That's probably what they're thinking.

So Jesus, when you get off alluding that we need spiritual freedom, we are free. Beloved, the physical and the political slavery that their forefathers have experienced all too often, and what I expressed earlier, that those historical events that took place with the offspring of Abraham was precisely because they were in spiritual bondage. If they were spiritually free like they believe they always were, Yahweh would have fulfilled His covenant promises that were contingent and predicated upon obedience. Righteousness would be rewarded in the Old Covenant, was it not? But they failed to obey precisely because they are slaves to sin and always have been.

except for a remnant. Jesus, we have never been in bondage. That's a delusion. What a horrible place to be, to be deceived. So close, freedom right in front of their eyes, yet so far.

That's the nature of deception. That's exactly where the enemy wants them to be. The manifestation of deception, beloved, comes in many forms, but for these Jews that are before the Lord, it's a veil that goes right over their eyes to misappropriate comfort, to give them false security in their so-called ethnic privilege and their cold religious practices, and yet completely oblivious of the imminent danger they are in. hiding before their status as sons, physical sons of Abraham. Resting in a false peace, like the false prophets of old in Ezekiel.

Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Resting in a false assurance, thinking they're just fine, spiritually speaking. Oh, how they would have done well to listen to the warnings of the Baptist when he said, do not presume to say to yourselves, you have Abraham as your father, for I tell you, God is able to make from these stones and raise them up as children to Abraham. There's no safety in your bloodline. There's no safety in your ethnicity.

There's no safety in your temple. There's no safety in your land. There's no safety in your religious practices. Abraham, there's no safety in your lineage. Abraham has no power to save.

Jesus has the power to save. Wake up and smell. They're afraid of the roses. These men just don't see it. And this is the blindness that we are confronted with daily, is that no one will speak to our friends, our relatives, our families who don't know Christ.

What a lesson this is for us. Oh, what a lesson this is for our children. Children, this is for you. You are so blessed. You are so, so blessed to be in Christian households, to have fathers and to have mothers who love the Lord, to have the word of Christ to bear upon your souls day in and day out.

To be exposed to coming to teaching as you are, what a blessing. But hear this, beloved. Your parents' faith, your parents' religious practices, the fact that mummy's a real Christian, daddy's a real Christian, it plays no bearing on your soul. None at all. Because Jesus says we are all accountable.

If you can understand what I'm saying now, then you're not too young to understand that truth. And only those who come to trust in Jesus Christ and the salvation that He brings through His death upon that cross, through the blood that He shed on behalf of those who come and believe in Him, only they are able to trust and be saved. Your parents' faith will account for nothing on that day. Nothing, just like Abraham accounts for nothing for these Jews that are before Our Lord. These Jews, it's becoming fairly quickly obvious that their faith was a counterfeit faith.

He wasn't abiding in faith. He didn't abide in the teachings of our Lord. Instead of drinking up what our Lord is saying, they've just become offended. And now they're imposing Him. It won't go very long into the chapter before we see that they now become agitated and angry, even to the point of committing murder.

They push back. They push back on His truth. When someone pushes back on the words of Jesus Christ, you could say that it's not truth that they want to believe in, but a lie. A lie. And in fact, Jesus says a little later in verse 45 of these people, and these are very scary words if you look at them.

In verse 45 Jesus says, but because I tell the truth you do not believe. Listen, because I tell the truth. So Jesus, why are these people believing in you? And Jesus says, it's because I tell the truth. You don't believe because you have no place in your heart for truth.

You would prefer to believe a lie. And if you haven't come to the point where you've realized and you've come to realize that apart from Christ you're in bondage to sin, then you're going to be remaining in that. Because the only one who can free you is standing before you. And unless you believe, you will remain in bondage to sin. So Jesus says, verse 34, just to make sure the point is clear.

Truly, truly, that double emphatic truly, truly is Jesus' way of saying, now listen now. listen you may be dozing off in and out mentally but now you need to listen what i have to say because the culmination of everything i've been saying is going to be summarized in the words that are going to come out of my mouth now you jews who Say that you believe in me. Listen to what I am about to say. 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 are free indeed. Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. What are you? Confronting truth.

Now we know true salvation is rooted in faith in Jesus Christ alone. We've established that fact. But beloved, those who have a true faith in Christ means that Christ has become their new master. And if Jesus is your new master, your life will bear the marks of that truth. Your life will give evidence to whether or not that truth has sucked into your soul or remains in your mind.

That life of yours will bear evidence to see whether you actually have power. overseeing the sins dominating power has been broken. That you've been given your spirit and the spirit of God is the one who's enabling you to produce actual works of righteousness or whether you are powerless to sin and therefore a slave to sin. It's a test. What do you say?

Either Jesus has set you free and he has become your master or you are still under the taskmaster of sin. By default, all of us are slaves to sin. We know that. The Bible is clear. Sin is a harsh taskmaster.

It takes control of your will, of your emotion, of your intellect. These things always show allegiance to the master. Your desire is bound in sin. to the prince of the power of the air, to give up to the passions of the flesh, the desires of the body, as Paul says. That's what it is to be a slave.

The master demands complete obedience and you're willing to give it. That's what a slave does. And being a physical son of Abraham doesn't play one iota into this scenario for the Jews that are before the Lord. Nothing will save them. Nothing can save them apart from Christ.

And that means it's not Abraham who brings salvation. That means that it's not that they are true sons of Abraham in the spiritual sense. Because although they are sons of Abraham in the physical sense, only those who have Abraham's faith are Abraham's sons in the spiritual sense, true sons of Abraham. The Apostle Paul is very clear on that in his teachings in Galatians and in Romans. And if your life is defined by your practices and you practice sin, then you prove who your Father really is.

You're not a free person at all, but you're 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. What shocking words.

Yes, you Jews have many privileges, but spiritually speaking, you're slaves, not sons. The impact of those words would have been incredible to these people. I can only imagine. I don't have the full time to unpack how wonderful these words are, but basically in their minds, their minds must have gone back to Abraham. Okay, Abraham, because we are claiming to be sons of Abraham, the offspring of Abraham.

But we know that Abraham had a son called Ishmael. From who? From Hagar, the Egyptian slave girl. And he also had a son from Sarah, who is known to be the free woman. Right?

And the Jews before Christ are thinking, That offspring is through Isaac, and it's true, physically speaking, but you just say, oh no, spiritually speaking, you're Haggai, you're Ishmael. What a great offense to these people. Great offense. You see, Ishmael enjoyed the privileges of being in Abraham's home, did he not? He had many privileges of being in Abraham's home, yet, because he was the son of a slave woman, he was considered a slave son.

Isaac, on the other hand, was considered the true son of Abraham. In fact, in Genesis chapter 22, when God calls Abraham and says, come, bring your son up to Mount Moriah and put him in and sacrifice him for him, He says, bring your son, your only son. The true son is Isaac. Ishmael is the slave son. The son has a different status in the home than the slave.

The slave can be bored and sold. The slave has no ownership rights. The slave is not free. And one day the slave can can lose all the privileges and in fact if we know Genesis chapter 21 we see that in fact taking place because there is a time where Isaac was weaned and Abraham then throws a massive feast for his son Isaac and we hear that Ishmael laughs and in the context that is to laugh mockingly and what happens next? Hagar, his mother, and Ishmael are cast out.

They were privileges for a period of time, but now they've been cast out after mocking Isaac. Isaac remained. Jesus is saying the son remains forever. Everything the father owns is shared by the son. The inheritance, he inherits everything that the father has.

And Jesus is saying, although you think your status is that of Isaac, the true spiritual sense, you are the sons of Ishmael. And here you are just about to mock Christ. In a moment or two, they're gonna look at Jesus and they're gonna say, you're dispossessed. You're demon possessed. They're gonna say that, allude to the fact that he's a Samaritan.

And that's a pretty derogatory thing to say. So what's the father going to do? He's going to cast them out. And I believe that casting out takes place with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, where the Father's house is being taken away from these people. The very thing they had security in, the very thing that was, they were resting in the temples here, obviously God's presence is among us, but they're going to be cast out.

But the point, beloved, is this. Spiritually speaking, just because they are the offspring of Abraham, they will not benefit from the salvation. that Yahweh offers to those who believe in Him. They are yet slaves because before they were Abraham's sons, they were sons and daughters of Adam. And they've remained Adam.

Slaves to sin. Now back, back to the practice of sin. Let's go there for just a little while. We all know what everyone who practices sin, the words of our Lord in verse 34, is a slave to sin means experientially growing. It's a life stamped with unrighteousness.

To practice sin is not simply to fall into sin or fall into temptation. It's to be dominated by sin. It's to be bound by sin. Peter says, whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. Think about those words for a moment.

You see, to be one who practices sin is to have a life that is defined by sin. It's habitual. It's unbroken. The desire is for it. You don't have desires for God.

You don't have desires for righteousness. You don't have desires to be clean. There is no remorse. There's no godly sorrow. No desire to be righteous.

And yet the sin that you engage in grips you and you can't let go. Here's the thing. You don't have power to overcome that sin. It has a slaving grab. You're a slave.

It has a taskmaster hold on you and you don't even have the desire to give it up. There may be instances where someone who's practicing sin, someone who is indeed a slave to sin, would like to give up sin because it impacts their own life. We see people trying to give up alcoholism and drugs and sexual immorality because it may affect them or their own life, but it's not to bring glory to God, nor is it because they seek righteousness. And beloved, because of pride, the state of a heart of a person who practices sin or is given over to be a slave to sin, they can outwardly manifest as though they are not, but inside their heart is a world of unrighteousness. You may have made a confession of faith, But the desire of the heart and the way we live our life is going to be telling of whether we do truly belong to Christ or not.

Whether we are looking to Him by faith. Whether the Spirit of God does actually dwell in us and produce in us a type of righteousness that is pleasing to God. Beloved, it is so important that we make sure that we understand this. to make sure that indeed those chains have been broken. We are no longer slaves to sin.

The sins-dominating power has been broken over our lives and we do indeed desire to be righteous and holy and sanctified as Christ is. Now, but it's also important to understand what Jesus is not saying as well. He is not saying if you sin, you're a slave to sin. If he said that, then we have no chance, because I think we can all agree we are all sinners even now. But he is saying rather that if you practice sin, you're a slave to sin.

We have to get this right. We have to understand the distinction. We have to understand the distinction. Because if we don't understand the distinction between practicing sin and falling into sin, the enemy is gonna have a field day with our conscience. It'll rob us of our joy.

It'll rob us of our assurance. So let's be clear. All sin is a serious abomination in God's eyes. All of it. No exceptions.

There are no white lies. You either lie, and that's unrighteousness, transgressing God's law, or you don't. All sin must be dealt with also at the heart level between you and God and anyone you've offended. Sin needs to be taken seriously. We need to get that right.

But a true disciple of Christ united in Him in the life of Jesus because of a lack of biblical knowledge can actually be strict. As I said earlier, from his or her joy, or his or her assurance, because the enemy will create doubts. He is an accuser, and he'll come and play, and whisper into your ear and say, you're not a child of God, look what you've just done. We need to know how to assess this biblically. So let's open our Bibles to John.

1 John 3. First John, chapter three, verse seven. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous. I want you to hear those words.

Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. For the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning.

God's seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. Simply said, what you practice will answer who your master is. What you practice will answer who your master is.

It's either God, and you practice righteousness, or it's the devil, as John says, and you're practicing sin. So basically it's this. Your life has a trajectory. your life, my life, we are going in a particular direction. Our heart, our desire, our actions, the inclinations of our hearts.

We're either going towards righteousness because our eyes are fixed upon Christ, the Spirit of God creating in us true desires for Christ, to get rid of sin, to destroy sin, to bring to death the sin that is in in that direction, and sometimes we fall. Or, the trajectory of our life is in the other direction. Our lives are stamped and defined by sin, by desiring sin. And that is not only on the external, but the internal. That's in our thought process.

It's in our actions. Because beloved, if one has been set free by the Son, if the Son has set you free, you are free indeed. Then the Son inserts that person into His life. You have died with Christ, crucified with Him. Our brother read the passage this evening.

crucified with Him. And therefore, we've crucified the sinful lusts and the passions of the flesh. Jesus Christ died to sin. Sin has no power over Christ. Jesus Christ died to death, the penalty of sin.

It has no dominion over Christ. And those who have been united in Jesus Christ are resurrected. They've died to sin. They've died to death. And now they're resurrected in the very victorious life of Jesus Christ to walk as He walks.

So Romans 6, the Apostle Paul says, consider yourself dead to sin. Because Christ has created in you, beloved, desires for righteousness. Desires for holiness. Sin's dominating power has actually been broken. You see, you may fall into sin.

It could be egregious sin. But are you grieved over it? Have you a life of repentance? Do you continually come to the Lord and say, Lord, forgive me. I've done something that I know grieves you, but it also grieves me because that's not what I am in Christ.

How is your life and mine? What is the trajectory that we're taking? Is it towards Christ looking to the author and the perfecter of our faith, the one who is righteous, looking to his life and in all things desiring to be just like him? Has He satisfied the very longings of our soul? Do we believe Him when He says, come and eat and be satisfied?

Come and drink and be satisfied? Have we found full satisfaction for our soul in Christ? And when we look to the world, it's not what our lives are defined by. But there are times where the sinful nature, the allurements of this world, cause us to look, stumble, fall. But that ought not to be what defines us.

to be what our lives are like. That's not the trajectory we're taking. We're step by step in this exile line, walking in the light of Christ. Walking in the light. That's where it began, this whole passage here.

In John chapter 8, it began by Jesus saying, I am the light of the world. He who walks or follows after me will not walk in darkness, but will be the light of life. That is to say that you walk in the light of Christ, the exposing light that shows you for who you are. When you sin, it reveals that sin. You don't run back into the darkness to enjoy it more, to continue that sin.

But rather you come, you say, you exposed me. I see what I am. I'm not going anywhere. I remain here. Lord, forgive me.

Because beloved, if we are saying that we live for Christ, that means we live in his victorious life, a life that has brought death. to sin. He is our master now and he produces our hearts to desire the very righteousness of God and through the Spirit of God who dwells in us we are actually able, we are now free to produce works of righteousness. Before slaves to sin can do nothing but sin because without faith it is impossible to please God but now in Christ We have been set free. No longer slaves to sin.

The shackles are broken, set free. Not to do whatever we want, but to do what is right. That is now what we want to do because the desire in us desires to do what Christ is like. That's freedom. That's freedom.

If the sun has set you free, you are free indeed, beloved. What an encouragement that has been to my soul this week. That there's no pretense necessary. You're living with an audience of one. He knows you, He knows your heart, He knows mine, He knows our fallings, our temptations, He knows everything.

What freedom to live as you are before the God of the universe who sees all, knows all, and you live unashamed. Because you know that He's working in and through you to produce works of righteousness. And every day, and every month, and every year, you see His hand in your life. To see that you are indeed growing into Christ's likeness. Your goal, His goal, and one day that will come to complete fruition when we, in glorified bodies, He presents us to the Father, pure and holy and blameless.

How our hearts long for that day. How our hearts long for that day. If Christ has set you free, you are free indeed. And don't let the enemy drag you back into bondage. I can imagine.

I can imagine the Israelites. They were in Egypt for centuries, right? 400, 430 years. Generation after generation after generation. And all they ever knew They were slaves.

That's it. This thing was in their DNA, so to speak. And then God comes along and he rescues them by his supernatural hand. How awesome is that? Do you think, honestly, that things change just like that?

Their emotions, their thoughts, everything about them was shaped in that previous life. as slaves. And the slaves, they were in bondage to an evil king in Pharaoh. The taskmasters were known to be quite harsh. They lived in fear.

There was no quality of life. There was no freedom. They knew not freedom. All they knew was whatever the taskmaster told them to do, they did. Otherwise, they would be belted by rods or wicks or whatever came their way.

Psychologically, it would have been incredibly difficult to overcome, even when they were rescued. Think about that. You read stories about people in prison for several years. They come out and they can't cope. No doubt nightmares would come.

Even in the wilderness, nightmare after nightmare, thinking they'll wake up in a cold sweat, thinking they're back in Egypt. No, we're not back. And practically speaking, when they're walking among the camp and they see some shouting, they're probably on edge because they're thinking the shouting that took place in the taskmasters. And they look over their shoulders to see whether they're going to be whipped or flogged or beaten by a taskmaster. It would have been incredibly difficult, even during the time that we're in the wilderness, to overcome these things.

Fear would have set in. Were they sleeping well at night? I have no idea, but I'm thinking they would have struggled. Probably would have taken months for them to sleep in for the first time. I mean, they're probably used to waking up before the crack of dawn because it was seven days of hard labor per week.

That's all they knew. What is it to sleep in? But you know what the sad thing is, beloved? The sad reality is that even after being freed, that freedom may not have been enjoyed to its fullness because of the haunting memories of the past. Haunting memories, because their minds will continue to go back in the past and they will remain on edge.

They may have had nightmares and then they wake up in a cold sweat and come out of bed and maybe after waking up, their hearts are beating, they walk to the tent, to the front of the tent, and then they open the tent, and right before them, we know it doesn't matter what tribe they're in, right? What are they gonna look at when they open that tent? They're gonna look at the tabernacle. And if it's the day, it's gonna have a cloud of, a cloud before them. And if it's night, it'll be the pillow of fire, the manifest presence, He'd be free from being a slave.

The blessedness, beloved, of your salvation is so glorious to be freed from sin. Praise the Lord. But the true blessedness of our salvation is actually beyond that. It's to be reconciled with God. It's to know God in Christ Jesus and to be known by God.

That is the greatest privilege of mankind. And that, that's incredible. That comes simply by trusting in Jesus Christ. Believing in His sacrifice. Believing that His purchase upon that cross with His own blood has cleansed me from my He's created in me a desire to do His will.

He's created in me to walk in His ways and to love Him and to obey Him and to abide in His word. The enemy will come and if you find that this is the thing, if you have tested and seen that you are indeed in Him, that your life's trajectory is not towards sin, you aren't practicing sin, but you are indeed practicing righteousness because the seed of God holiness, not perfect. But you see that finger of God working in and through your soul. If you've seen that, if you know that is the truth, if your eyes are fixed upon Christ, if you find yourself dwelling in his word and meditating upon it, if you've seen evidence of that Warnings in scripture are for all of us, but the accuser will continue to accuse, and a single sin that you may have committed in the past, he'll bring that back. Or a sin you committed now, he'll bring that before you.

So how could you call yourself a son of God, a child of God? How could you say you are and you did that? That's what the accuser's gonna do. This is the beauty, this is the beauty. your sins as well.

And so when this enemy comes and he does that, points his finger and says, you did this and you did that. Beloved, if you truly have grief over your sin, if you mourn over your sin, if you truly seek for righteousness, then you are to take, ought to take the words of the same apostle John in chapter one, verse eight, where he says, faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Tell me that's not free. Tell me that's not free. When you do sin, what you do in that moment is telling of your spiritual condition.

Do you hide? Do you run? Do you conceal? Or do you come before Jesus Christ, who is the faithful and just, and say, Lord, I've sinned against you. Forgive me.

Forgive me. And then believe that he has forgiven you. And then know that he has forgiven you. account you you you resist Look to Christ. Love him.

Meditate on his word. Dwell in his world. Abide by his word. Know that he is the one who has saved you and he is the one who holds you in the palm of his hand if you have indeed come to believe in him. And the absolute truth statement that you and I can hold on to is this.

If the son has set you free, you are free indeed.