How to be Free | John 8:31-36

and you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free I don't have you heard that but the first time I saw that line I was at an LA Fitness in San Mateo so I'm I'm finishing my workout and I walk into the locker room and and I have this locker at the bottom I always picked the bottom I hope people don't you know I'm trying to pick the lock and I feel like most people are likely to rummage through because I always forget a lock so if you go to my gym pretend you didn't hear that and so I always taught my stuff at the bottom and I come back into the locker room and right above my locker there's another locker wide open and in that locker is that unopened DVD the case for Christ does anyone know what that is this DVD it's a documentary on a on a Chicago Tribune reporter who discovers Jesus with empirical evidence that's that's essentially what it was and so I'm basically a brand-new Christian I mean brand-spanking-new like within the first couple weeks and so I grabbed this DVD and I'm like surely this is here for a reason I don't know I mean I'm not super spiritual but this feels like it means something so I go home I steal it and I I go broke Commandments and I went and I put it in my DVD player at the time which I had and and I played it and at the very end of this documentary I mean it is just powerful documentary at the very end the last line that flashes up John 8:32 and it says and you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free and in that moment I just felt goosebumps come over me what I now know is probably the Holy Spirit coming over me declaring me his and telling me that I can be free if I were to believe the message I just heard of Jesus powerful moment now John 8:32 is plastered over so many campuses if you were to walk around an Ivy League school or even like Ohio University you would see John 8:32 at a secular university edged into the arches of these campuses and typically they are arched around things like the library because knowledge essentially is the truth and truth will set you free but this passage is not actually about knowledge it's about freedom and you know Americans we love our freedom we love our freedom in fact if you were to wander into a Walmart around the fourth of July you will see very many chairs and cupholders and beer warmers or beer coolers I guess they are with the word freedom all over them right we love freedom in fact even now the one recent Gallup poll says 77% of Americans still consider freedom the nation's top virtue maybe you thought were kind of past that part of our history actually four out of five people believe this is our top virtue and seventy-three percent of Americans believe that freedom is worth dying for freedom of speech freedom of religion freedom of the press these car country's founders have etched freedom into our ethos it's what we were about that's what were for and that was a Christian ethic but when asked the question here today how free are we really how free are we really you may feel like man I am free to go to jack-in-the-box or or McDonald's you may free I'm I feel like I'm free to get in vanilla ice cream or rocky road ice cream I want to consider I want you to consider rather how free are you really for instance are you free to yell fire in a crowded building I suppose you are but you will be arrested okay are you free to yell bomb on a plane yes but the plane will be grounded and you will be arrested for instance you are not free to swing your leg into the space someone else's body currently occupies without consequences right are you free to do that sure you're also free to be apprehended by the authorities okay we are free but we're free within limits we're free within limits in fact most of us don't notice that these limit and limitations because we are programmed to not even consider being freed from them so you didn't even consider the fact that you can't jump 9 feet in the air oh no I'm free to jump how high are you free to jump you're free but free within the limits of gravity okay you're you actually you're not free to for instance swim underwater for 20 straight minutes you're actually limited and so what we think about our freedom we actually need to understand that there are actual boundaries within our freedom we actually are very much limited we're physically limited but we're also spiritually limited maybe we're not as free as we'd like to be but we actually do have these spiritual limits as well in fact you're not you're not free to never suffer there's going to be suffering in your life people or when it pass away you're going to lose your job you're gonna be short on money you're going to suffer we're not freedom not never be anxious or depressed ever again right we have these spiritual emotions we are limited and cannot exceed these things unless we're maybe some sort of sociopath or or maybe even lying to ourselves now maybe that's our problem maybe it's that we we are limited but we're struggling with our limitations maybe we're all trying to discover how limited of a person we actually are maybe that's why we experience so much of the spiritual rub in our lives as we don't realize how limited we actually are question what if there was a way for us to be actually truly spiritually free what if there was a way to be free of the expectations of other people free of a lack of joy in our lives free of a lack of purpose what if you could finally find your place in this crazy world that extends beyond a careful curation of our social media feeds what if we could do that in this passage Jesus wants to elevate what it means to be free he wants to elevate our idea of freedom and what he demonstrates in this passage is that it's actually in our limitedness that we discover how free we actually are most of us think no no limits is what keeps me from being free actually Jesus has embracing of your limits is what makes you most free here Jesus here is gonna claim that he is the source of all freedom and that he claims following him will actually make you the most free so for this message I'm gonna give you four questions that I believe in this passage Jesus wants us to ask ourselves as we discover how free we actually are fair enough let's get started number 1 question 1 question 1 is it on there No cool all right next all right there is one thank you do you abide do you abide what does that mean look at verse 31 so jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples now we're gonna focus it on this back part but hold on a second what about this first part jesus said to who the Jews who had believed in him so Jesus here has actually talking to people that believe cognitively that Jesus is who he says he is right so we spend so much time studying passages where Jesus is talking to people that disagree with him right the Pharisees the Sadducees that the many of the unbelievers who just dislike Jesus people want to kill him Pontius Pilate they no one likes Jesus they're always disagreeing with him but Jesus is actually talking to people who believed or at least claimed to believe in who he says he is that's that's powerful so what that means is Jesus is probably if you here if you're here and you're a Christian or maybe you claim to believe in God he's actually talking to people like you people like me this is who Jesus is addressing in this passage but we all know people that have believed in Jesus and have fallen away from that belief do you know anyone does anyone know anyone who's maybe believed in Jesus before and no longer does that right that that happens right and it happens in our lives but it also happens in the scriptures we see that many times people walk away from Jesus who had currently believed in him there was a rich man Jesus tells him to leave half of his stuff sell half of his stuff and follow him and the rich man says he left away sad for he had much he couldn't follow Jesus anymore couldn't give it up so there's people that hear the hard things Jesus says and they have to walk away from Jesus they can't believe in him so what does this mean for us it means that Jesus is making a distinction there will be those people who believe in Jesus and there will be those people who actually abide and live in the midst of Jesus so there's two types of people people cognitively believe but ultimately will fall away and people that abide what does it mean to abide sane whenever here probably not cause it's not 1950 but isn't here ever called their home like a an abode a humble abode welcome to my humble abode right maybe that's very Leave It to Beaver okay but I have never seen that show for the record none of you have either obviously but it's a really old show where people were really formal with with their houses and what they're serving and so we're bowed really it means essentially to abide it means the dwelling place a dwelling place it means to essentially make your home right they dwell there what are you doing your dwelling you get cozy you wear your sweatpants you embrace people essentially what it means to abide in Jesus it means living under God's Word so continuously that it becomes part of your life to make your home underneath God's rule I recently was in Miami for a free conference and when I was there I love going on trips because the hotels and the hotel we stay in in Miami every year for this conference is very nice and the towels are plush and they have robes and has anyone been to the hotel with robes nice rubs as you can imagine the rubs don't always fit me you know it's just a it's it sucks and the slippers definitely don't but everyone I try to squeeze it on you get comfortable right and the soap is usually really nice and the beds are nice one of my favorite things to do at a hotel is - I always iron my own clothes and so I'll pull out the ironing board and you know what I do I leave that ironing board I do not put that ironing board away the maid doesn't put it away I don't put it away it just sits there why cause it's a hotel I'm gonna leave anyway right I'm gonna leave the ironing board out what do you do with your towels when you're done there I'm on the ground and that nice boom right under the ground beautiful white towel I washed my hair down to the ground don't judge me you do to stop acting like I'm the only person and at the end before the maid comes there's a giant pile of white glorious towels just sitting there ready to be washed again now yes you can put them back and probably you should but many of us we don't we throw the towels on the ground and we love these hotels are so nice giant television and one of the things you can do at a hotel is order food and so you sit in your robe on your bed and wait for that food to come while some Bell servant comes up to your door rolls the food in your room you don't have to leave your back and they'll roll it into your room and then they'll leave and then you eat your food has anyone not ordered you've ordered room service no too expensive you've ordered it maybe once what do you do with your food after you're done eating it you put it right outside of your door because you're an emperor in this moment and you leave it there and some in a servant will come remove it from your presence and then you'll come out there'll be a copy of the USA Today right there for you in place of your food that's what happens at these hotels but after a couple days what happens ready to get home right I'm ready to get out of the hotel I'm no longer excited about the hotel I want to go why because I miss my bed I miss my my frigerator I miss my kids I miss my wife I miss my home so my question for you is do you make God's Word a home or a hotel is God's Word a place where you abide where you live where you're comfortable where people know you where you're we're cozy or is it a hotel a place you come every now and then because you're on a trip and you just want to get there and maybe you like it for a season but then you move on and go somewhere else worse you could treat the Word of God worse than a hotel you could treat it like a non place like a bus stop or an airport and what do you do at those places you just come for a second you only go if you need to go and even when you're there you're only there for a brief moment because you know you're going to leave is the word of God a hotel for you or is it an airport is it a bus stop or do you abide in this place is it a place you love so much to your core now Jesus isn't telling you to abide in him as some sort of like emperor rule like you abide in me or else that's not what he's getting after actually you get something out of the deal look at verse 32 verse 32 says and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free what do you get out of this deal if you abide in Jesus you become his disciple and His disciples learn the truth and the truth makes you free you get truth and then you get freedom but in order to do it you must abide we love quoting this passage and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free but what those universities on their campuses forget is that there's a condition to getting this freedom in this truth you must abide in the Word of God and in Jesus and remember this passage is directed at people that may consider themselves believers of who Jesus is and so just merely cognitively stating we believe does not mean we abide in them we can still be our selves a Christian and using the Word of God like a hotel or a bus stop first question you have to ask yourself do you abide next question you have to ask yourself how free you are do you understand your physical nature do you understand your nature you know a fundamental problem with people in general probably and the Bible in particular is people fail to see the error of their ways have you ever had a friend that you told not to do something you know date that person go out that night make that decision and they did it anyway and something bad happened raise your hand if you have a friend that you're like do not do that and they're like I'm gonna do it and they did it you're like I told you so just me I'm on the okay we all have done that we all have that person in our lives but all of the people in the Bible and I think all human beings we have to learn something about ourselves if we know people that did something they weren't supposed to do and the Bible talks about people that do things are not supposed to do what does it say about us it means there's probably things we're doing there we're not supposed to do yeah verse 33 this is how the people answered Jesus after he tells them he'll make them free they say they answered him we are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone how is it you say you will become free how is it you say we're gonna become free what do they do they question Jesus they say Jesus hold on a second I'm a child of Abraham I've never actually been a slave now to what they're saying is I've never physically been a slave individually at myself but here's what they forget actually their people have been enslaved constantly they just completely forget that they were slaves in Assyria never slaves in Babylon they there were slaves in Egypt they were slaves constantly now they're under oppressive Roman rule they're currently not like physically in shackles paint been in slaves the whole time they missed it no no I'm not a slave that's what they're saying all the people in the Bible do this that's what they're saying and then they appeal to their authority they appealed their family line they go well I'm actually a child of Abraham god of the universe so my family means I'm in I've I'm the chosen people of God now we may chide the Jews here for their mistakes because they're a really easy target in this passage they're clearly missing Jesus's point and they clearly think I'm not a slave but we also make the same mistake here we might be saying you know what I'm not a slave to anyone I make my own decisions I choose to follow Jesus I choose to not follow Jesus and how do we prove ourselves to be right in that regard what do we do we point to our authority just like the Jews pointed to Abraham as their authority will point to our authority I'm an American I'm free I've made it on my own it's different in my family I grew up in a tough neighborhood now I'm a philosophical thinker and I would probably know if I was enslaved to anything I could make my own decisions I'm educated I've got a college degree and I've been I've got through a master's program will appeal to our authorities you know there's a study on doctors if there's a doctor here I apologize no there's a study on doctors doctors are incredibly smart we love doctors we need doctors who are medical doctors when I'm specifically talking about medical doctors will often take their expertise and which is really high level and they'll bring it into other verticals and so they'll believe that there are actually higher capacity in other areas because they're really high capacity in their area and so because they know a lot about medicine they'll think they know a lot about something else oh I know a lot about CrossFit I know a lot about marketing I know a lot about the tech world I know a lot about stocks and bonds right that's what we often do we often think because we're intelligent in the bay area in one vertical that we know everything about everything else probably not true probably not sure it's not true for these people how does Jesus answer us and the Jews he says jesus answered him truly truly I say to you verse 34 anyone who practices sin is a slave to sin now that is hard to hear that's hard to get for us but it's definitely hard to hear for them because Jesus is saying oh you're looking at the physical I'm actually talking about let's go a few layers deeper I'm actually talking about your spirit I'm talking about your your persona I'm talking about your nature you actually a slave to your sin Jesus here wants to give us the real right he wants to give us the reality of who we are in order us for to change deeply and I know all of us want to change in here we want to grow in some capacity we have to come to grips with who we actually are and it's true for us but it's also true for companies too many of you may have even read Jim Collins good book good to great maybe it's a great book have you been read if you've read that book it's an awesome book and he talks about how companies go from good to great how do they do it and here's what he says he says all good two great companies began the process of finding a path of greatest of greatness by confronting the brutal facts of their current reality it is impossible to make good decisions without infusing the entire process with an honest confrontation of the brutal facts jesus knew what Jim Collins knew Ryder jesus knew what Jim Collins knows that we need to understand the brutal facts of our reality if we're actually ever going to actually change if you want to change something you've got to know the bad and the good we cannot live in a siloed reality where we believe we only do good and try to expect to change it's not gonna happen you have to know where you fail and where you're wrong and Jesus is trying to give the Jews this perspective you need to see that this is how you change don't you get it and it's funny because that attitude of not wanting to see sin is probably the reason they're enslaved in the first place it's the reason we're enslaved in the first place the news that can actually get us free Jesus actually offends us because it might mean we have a problem we can't detect that's what's happening now you may hear this and go slave to sin that's a bit much for me I don't know where I'm at you know all that well let me give you the Bible's perspective on what it means to be sinful first John chapter 1 verse 8 and 9 it says this if we say we have no sin I mean this is as clear as it gets we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness so wait a second the truth you said that I get from geez by abiding in him you're telling me that's not in me if I don't think I have any sin yes in order to abide in Jesus we have to come to grips with our reality and understand that we are sinners now listen sinning used to be thought we used to think about singing like making bad decisions right I I accidently yelled at my spouse today I was rough with my children I spaz out on my boss I did some things I shouldn't did last night we think sin sure those are that is sinning but we are not just people who sin we are sinners which means by nature our nature is that we always choose sin if somehow we weren't by nature sinners by now we know it found out a way surely with all the technology figuring out how to stop sinning we haven't done that yet we are by nature of sinners so coming to grips with our sinful reality is key to understanding the truth and being free third question you have to ask yourself about your freedom do you actually want the truth now we're talking about truth you may be sitting here going I don't even know if I even care about this sort of truth I don't even know if I'm there with you I understand actually a lot of people have pondered and dabbled in this idea of truth and have not really actually wanted the actual truth maybe they just wanted to seem intelligent or maybe explore but they're not really super interested in understanding the truth a lot of people punt on this issue and in fact in the Bible there's a major story where a large heavy influential character punts on understanding the truth and that man his name is Pontius Pilate and I'm gonna bring up that and the text is gonna be here I'm gonna read this story and now this story is when Jesus is brought forth to Pontius Pilate and Pontius is deciding whether or not he's guilty or whether he's innocent and I'll pick it up here and it'll be on the board so oh don't worry it hopefully it's not cracked we'll keep going so hey it might be it might be here so Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him are you the King of the Jews jesus answered do you say this of your own accord or to others say say it to you about me and Pilate answered am i a Jew your own nation and chief priests have delivered you over to me what have you done and jesus answered my kingdom is not of this world my kingdom if my kingdom were of this world My servants would have been fighting that I may not been delivered over to you by the Jews but my kingdom is not from the world then Pilate said to him so you're a king jesus answered you say that I'm a king for this purpose I was born and for this purpose I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice and Pilate says to him what is truth so Jesus gives him an explanation of what it means to embrace Jesus as the truth and what does Pilate do he gives a philosophical he plays a philosophical mind game back to Jesus and he says what is what is truth I've studied my Plato my Socrates my mchugh my Nietzsche and I've said what is truth I don't know what truth is Pilate shows an indifference to what Jesus had to say revealing he didn't actually want an answer to this question I wonder sometimes if we actually want an answer to it do we actually really want to know the truth or are we living in a social media meet actual print media bubble we're we're just trying to get through life with the most pleasure possible do we actually want to know what's right and wrong or do we just want to live life with the least resistance possible do we actually want to know the truth or we just satisfied asking the question reveling in our spiritual intellectualism incapacity but not really actually wanting to know the actual hard truth Frederic neech I just said his name an atheist and philosopher he said this sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed some people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want to hear they don't want their illusions destroyed I think this is true for many people question what illusion are you protecting that you don't want destroyed what illusion are you protecting that if you were to explore who Jesus was you're gonna have to give up what is the thing in your life that you're kind of saying I want to live my life this way and if I export too deeply and I find out God really with brutal facts doesn't want me to do this I can't give it up so I'm not gonna go too deep into the scripture am I gonna explore the Bible - well I don't know if community makes a lot of sense for me I just want to dabble on the surface of Christianity a new age and every other kind of worldly religion and ideology and I'll kind of form my own thing so I can continue to keep my my life or my illusion alive until we decide that we want to know the truth we're never actually gonna find the answer and the words about truth will continue to be cold to us okay last question you need to ask yourself why is this good news well why is this good news right the word gospel means good news why because I just said you're a sinner and that we have a nature that we're trying to protect and it's loss and it's broken why is this good news well Jesus actually gives us an answer which is great look at verse 34 and 35 I'll read 34 35 will be here jesus answered them truly truly I say to you everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin now if it stopped there that would that would be hard but Jesus keeps going he says the slave does not remain in the house forever but the son remains forever what is he talking about Jesus here is referring to something called the sabbatical year back in Jesus day people would enter voluntarily most of the time in the slavery and in the sabbatical year year 7 you were you were mandated to be released from that slavery and so out of the house the slaves would eventually leave right they would leave the house eventually and they could voluntarily decide to stay but most of the slaves left but Jesus here says the son remains forever and Jesus here is saying the slave doesn't stay but the son remains forever so verse 36 says so if the son sets you free you are free indeed Jesus here is saying I am the son in the house my father built this house I am the son and guess what I don't leave because this is my house and that means if I set a slave free they are free free free free free free indeed because this is my house and I do as I please so this mean this means that if we here were slaves to sin Jesus is the ultimately the the housekeeper in this home this is his place he sits on the couch he eats the food out of the fridge and he says you're all free what that means that you come to grips with the reality of who you are as a sinner and you bring that to Jesus and Jesus says go and sin no more I've made you clean you're good but until we're willing to embrace our reality Jesus can't do that for us and to him get to the brutal facts of our company or organization and internally and bring that to Jesus he can't free us but Jesus here offers a offers at this free gift you can be let free even in your lost in your brokenness now here this free indeed the reason why I said that is because in its original language it doesn't say free indeed it says free free or freely free or freely free free for sure free that's kind of the emphasis here he's saying you're not just like free like you're getting buy one get one free at Target he's saying no you're actually free your shackles can be removed from you you can have a new heart with new desires your past doesn't count against you the bad things that you've done in your life that haunt you to this very day can be erased the things that have been done to you can be eradicated as well that's what he's offering us we're free to live a holy life free to love others without fear or judgment free to let go of our past mistakes free to grow free to find purpose and free to sin less and love more all because Jesus has given us or rather he's blotted out the sin in our lives and given us a new righteousness that is Jesus as himself we're free to do that you know I didn't grow up just too close I didn't grow up in a healthy home growing up I don't know what your your upbringing was like but my father left my house when I was nine years old and my mom passed away when I was 13 and so we lived in a turbulent childhood we grew up in a really rough neighborhood in the North Bay for a part of part of my experience and get our house broken into it's just a tough place to be and I remember dreading coming home I remember coming home just wondering if our house is gonna be broken into wondering if you what was they gonna eat that night for dinner didn't know if my mom would be home didn't know if my my mom when my mom was real sick I wasn't even sure she was alive coming home sometimes it was just a really hard place to live and I could really say that I did live in that house but I didn't abide there you know what I'm saying I lived in it but I didn't abide now often think about what would it be like if I had a dad who look prepared bed for me who-who prepped meals for me who poured drink for me who forgave me who was gracious to me and didn't yell at me when I made mistakes who didn't slap my hand every time I made an accidentally spilled a cup of milk what would that be like for you to live a home of grace and peace and kindness now that's a home I can abide in that's a home I can't dwell and that's not home I could get relaxed and what to be proud of I can invite my friends over in life my family and feel like this is my home I abide here many of us we're living in hotels spiritually you can't invite anybody there doesn't change lives but you know you can do with a home you can change people you can serve out of that abiding that's what I want for you now I want you to close your eyes and I'm gonna read something to you I just want you to picture what it's like to be in this home should you bow your heads with me picture yourself in this comfortable home it's huge warm the best you've ever felt you're relaxed there's not a care in the world picture yourself there for a second now picture the Spirit of God in there present with you God's present in that net in your midst your feet are up and you relax your heads back and then you hear these words you think these words to yourself you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies you anoint my head with oil my cup overflows surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall abide in the house of the Lord forever you can have a god like that today let's pray [Music] [Applause]

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Id: vl4T1bVKBcs

Length: 31min 30sec (1890 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 19 2020