Man's Freedom From Sin
Notes
Transcript
Man’s Freedom from Sin Is Conditional, 8:31–32
Today’s text is very interesting to me… Jesus has been debating with the pharisees and leaders about who he is… and in the middle of the debate as Jesus is laying it all out to them about who he is, he is God, he is sent by the Father to do the Father’s work… John tells us that while he is speaking many believe in him, and John after telling us this, shows Jesus heart as he immediately turns t away from them and addresses some others to make sure they understand what is happening.
30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
And when we read this, it is kind of hard to pickup in English because of our translations, but in the greek it is very clear that there is a difference in verse 30 and verse 31.
In verse 30 it is clearly those who believed IN him and verse 31 just those who believe… its a fundamental difference we must understand that is still present in the world today. Verse 30 speaks of those who believed in him with a faith that leads to salvation… verse 31 it is understand are those who believed in some of the things Jesus said, but did not believe deeply enough for a changing faith that would lead to salvation…
Jesus is about to speak to these people about three different ideas behind discipleship… discipleship proved, discipleship experienced, and discipleship blessed...
Discipleship proved
So Jesus is trying here to explain how you PROVE your discipleship… and he is speaking these words to these people, the people who are believing in the words and actions of Jesus, but not believing in Him, that Jesus is turning to speak and he tells them… If you abide in my word… then you are my true disciple… and it seems that is what makes ALL the difference in our discipleship… our abiding in Jesus…
And it helps us to see what we can see throughout all of scripture.... there is true faith and false faith… and what Jesus is telling us here is a faith that doesn’t abide is false… meaning it doesn’t lead to salvation...
And this isn’t hard for us to understand really, faith is easy in the beginning… it is quite easy to make a decision to follow Jesus and give our lives to him… it is something totally different to live a life for him...
People talk about this all the time when they are criticizing youth ministry in ministry circles… I can’t tell you how many pastors and youth pastors I have heard that completely criticize the camp experience… because if you are unaware so much of the camp experience is built in a way that is emotional that leads to a decision that needs to be made, and kids get emotional and give their lives to Jesus at the end of the week… they see their friends emotional who love Jesus and they feel like they have to jump in, so they make a decision… and their faith starts so it seems… and then a week or two later they go about their way… and this is hard to wrap your mind around… I am not going to criticize the experience… I know some great people that gave their life jsut this way and it was what started their life of faith… I know other people who have had moments like this, and walked away and then later came back to live a life for Christ because this seed had been planted in their life that was later watered again and they fell back on what was given...
and this would bring up the argument in many different circumstances where people will ask did they lose their salvation… did they walk away… and on some sides they will say no they didn’t lose their faith.. they were never saved in the first place… and honestly thats not a fight I want to get into… I don’t think it matters… what matters is what Jesus is telling us here… a true faith… is a faith that ABIDES
And so Jesus is talking to these people that have a sort of belief in him, but aren’t ready to give him their lives yet and this is the people that i tell you I fear the most in the church… becasue we know Jesus, we know what he requires… we even believe it, but we aren’t ready to make that change yet…
Reminds me of the famous acrobat Jean Francois Gravalet… or blondin… amazing skill 1100 feet across niagra falls… walked wheel barrow… stopped in the middle and made an omlet… walked with a dude on his back… and turned around and came back.... and saw a man standing there and said do you believe I can do that with you? and he said OF COURSE! So Blondin said, Jump on lets go… and he said… Not on your life! because there is a difference in believing something on the intellectual level, and believing in the sense the Bible is calling us to believe in Jesus....
So Jesus is telling these people… if you abide in me… or if you remain in me… or if you continue/dwell in me… and he wants this deep connection… he wants us to stay connected to him in a deep and meaningful way and we will see that later when Jesus says Jn 15:1-4
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
And it is clear that Jesus main concern isn’t just that we call ourselves Christians and live our lives the way we want, but that we abide in his word, the way that branches abide in the vine… and this shouldn’t surprise us because we remember Jn 1:1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
So we should be getting our strength and our life from the word of God. And so while we are saved and our life is changed in the instant that we give our lives to him in a true meaningful way we prove our faith by abiding in his word.
This is a tough one for most Christians because I think if you asked most would tell you they Believe the Bible is the infallible undying word of God but most don’t read it… in fact I found these numbers from the Pew Research Center
Frequency of Christians reading scripture:
18-29 50-64
At least once a week 15% 30%
Once or twice a month 23% 26%
Several times a year 19% 28%
Seldom/never 18% 30%
Yet we love the word, but do we abide in it? And we live in a time and age where our faith is easy, we are able to pursue our faith so easily that we don’t have to work for it so most of our faith is just verbal affirmations for Jesus and what we say we believe… we have like the kid at camp pronounced our faith and responded positively, but we aren’t living for and abiding in his word. Is the word of god food for your soul? Is it what replenishes you when you are weak or having a bad day? Is it causing fruit in your life?
I remember a man that always seemed to just depress people in the church because he always seemed to be pharisetical in most circumstances when asked about things of the church said, “Is his love for Jesus evident with life change?” and Thats what we should be seeing. And I love that there are people in my life that we have been praying for that for a few years have professed their love for Jesus but it is more evident in their life now by the fruit of what is going on and how their life is more devoted to Jesus and his word...
If abiding in him for the entirity of our lives is how we prove our faith in him, what this doesn’t mean is that we won’t have moments of stronger and weaker faith… in fact you can think about it like a marriage… it is very easy for anyone to start… you can go and get someone to sign the paperwork rather quickly on a whim and make a decision… thats not the hard part… the hard part is living that marriage out until the end.
That does not mean that we will live everyday without a stumble… you know that there are moments where it will be closers but what it does mean is that when we stumble, we will get up and turn around and continue to go back in the direction that Jesus is leading, get back into the word and get closer to where he is calling us to go.
A perfect example of this is Polycarp who was a bishop in the end of the first century, who it is said heard the gospel from John who wrote the gospel…he was taken prisoner by the roman authorities and placed in the arena… out of respect they offered him the chance to renounce christ and be set free… but polycarp refused and said “For eighty-six years I have been (Christ’s) slave and he has done me no wrong; how can I blaspheme my king who saved me?”
How I hope to be able to get to a place like that at the end of my life.
The other thing idea that Jesus talks about after discipleship proved is,
Discipleship Experienced.
We have already talked about how discipleship and life with Jesus isn’t meant to be lived just at the beginning and end of your faith with nothing in the middle. Instead it is a life lived with the abiding in Jesus that we are meant to experience.
We see this as Jesus said “You will know the truth..”
And what we know is as we walk with Jesus he is continuously illuminating areas of our loves we need to work on and get closer to him..
Remember getting my hair cut.. PK… said the closer I get the more i realize I have to work on...
But as we experience Jesus and get closer to him and abide in his word we will see more and more areas of our lives that we need to work on.... think of John 8:12
12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Because he is the light, we will be able to see the dark areas and want to get out of them, this is the glory of walking and experiencing Jesus that he doesnt leave us to live in the same state we are in.
A true sign of us getting closer and being disciples of Jesus is his ever calling power back in our life in the times when we are doing wrong… or going wayward… the holy spirit calls us back into relationship with him.
The last area that Jesus tells us after talking about Discipleship proved, and experienced is
Discipleship Blessed
So we see that discipleship is shown when we are abiding in the word of christ and his word and his spirit is calling us back an enlightening thee darkness in our lives, but by those same truths we see that discipleship is blessed
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
And there is how we are blessed… we will be set free… and freedom is one of the ways we can describe salvation… salvation is our freedom from sin… and we know that Jesus at the beginning of his ministry he claimed that he came to set the captives free.
And Jesus as the truth is what sets us free… he is the truth… his live is what has set us free… and this is hard to understand… how do we know that the truth sets us free?
You remember when you were little and you had that fear that if you slept with your foot hanging off the edge of the bed that the monster under there would stick out its ugly head and grab your ankle… you don’t still have that fear… because you recognized the truth… there is no monster under your bed… and the truth is what set you free from the fear… in much the same way the truth and jesus’ life is what sets us free from sin.
and in these verses Jesus has showed how we can know and prove our lives as true disciples… he has shown us the difference between true and false faith… and i always say… fear… and the question this morning is where do you find yourself?
There are many opportunities to get back to true faith and have true discipleship… you can read along with us in the Bible. You can come on Wednesday nights…