Life and Liberty

The American Founding Fathers cared about freedom and liberty. The Declaration of Independence states that all are created to be free and to have basic rights for “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”

I mean that is what we are celebrating today and every year on July 4th. It was the day we declared independence from British rule. A day we established our desire to live free from the tyranny of the British crown.

And so the concept of freedom is nothing new to us. We are taught its value as young kids in our schools. Our country has for the majority of her history, been a beacon of freedom to the world.

It is our freedom that has attracted people from all around the world, from various nations, cultures, and languages to enter and become citizens of this country.

Plain and simple, people want to be free.

Another way we can see freedom, is being tied to truth telling and knowledge. In other words, we can become trapped or enslaved to lies and/or a lack of knowledge. However, when the truth is made known, or knowledge is gained, then there is a freedom that comes with that.

For instance, there was a period of time when it was believed that the Earth was flat. Because people believed this lie, they were limited as to where and how far they could travel for fear that they might fall off the edge of the planet.

Their belief in a lie, or rather their lack of knowledge made them slaves to false limitations that didn’t really exist.

However, once the truth was revealed and through exploration we discovered that the Earth is not flat but round, and could be traversed in its entirety, it brought a new level of freedom that wasn’t known before.

And so the phrase “the truth will set you free” is in a broad sense accepted by most people, though it finds its origin in one of Jesus’ teachings.

Power in the Text

John 8:31-32 NLT 31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

The Greek word for “truth” is alētheia and means “what is true in any matter under consideration” Truth conforms to reality.

So, when Jesus says that he is “the truth” in John 14:6 (Way, Truth, Life), he is saying that the reality of knowing the real God only comes through him.

The Greek word for free is eleuthero and means to “set free from bondage, or from another’s control”. In the context of John 8:31, Jesus is relating himself to truth and freedom.

In John 8:32, the truth comes from remaining (as if to live or dwell) faithful to Jesus’ teaching, and that truth that only comes from Jesus can set all of humanity free.

The truth and freedom that Jesus speaks of isn’t about people being “true to themselves” and then having some ambiguous feeling of personal freedom.

You hear it all the time, “you just have to live your truth” or “ I am living my truth”. And that somehow doing so will give us freedom.

This is a twisting of the word of God to mean something Jesus never meant it to mean.

2 Peter 3:15-16 NLT 15 And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him—16 speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.

To tell the truth is not to simply to...

tell people what they want to hear

tell people what is easy or convenient

say what is most accepted by the culture

make people feel accepted

affirm what we want to be true

Truth is the reality of Jesus, his teaching, and what he has done. Freedom is found solely in Jesus; that is the context for freedom.

You see the Jews that Jesus was talking to were confused and unable to understand what he was saying.

John 8:33-36 NLT 33 “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?” 34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. 35 A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.

“The freedom Jesus spoke of was spiritual freedom from sin and its effects, as the following context shows. The Jews’ response indicates that they were thinking of political freedom, since they spoke of being enslaved to persons.

Like a being bound by a straitjacket and drowning in water, sin enslaves us and kills us. The bondage of sin cannot be broken by moral philosophy or self-discipline.

Think of someone who has an addiction. Addiction binds the person physically and mentally to a substance. No matter how hard they try, they find themselves bound to the addiction, even in the most compromising of situations.

Musician Brian Welch, famous from his time as a member of the hard rock band Korn, before giving his live to Christ describes being so addicted to drugs that he couldn’t stop taking them, even in front his daughter (something he told himself he would never do).

Other places in the New Testament describe this freedom from the enslavement of sin. Paul declares that...

Romans 6:17-18 NLT 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

“Paul appeals first of all to a fact familiar to all—namely, that whatever one submits to becomes his master. … Here, Paul arrives at the full answer to the question raised in v. 15 (do we keep on sinning). To be set free from obligation to serve sin means entering into the service of righteousness

The Big Idea

This is the whole point this morning. That true freedom is not unrestrained living. It is the freedom to no longer be controlled by our fleshly desires and sinful nature.

It is the freedom to no longer have to do those things we know are only going to hurt us and those we love.

It is the freedom to remain faithful to Jesus and his righteous standards, something that would be an impossibility if we were still slaves to sin.

Application/Closing

For Jesus, freedom was about being set free from sin by being united with him.

However, Christians can go to extremes and forget the messy reality of Christian growth. While Christians may be free from sin, they do still sin in life.

There is hope in Jesus still for the messy walk: “The participle construction in John 8:34 NLT ‘everyone who (practices) sins’ is in the present tense, which implies a continual habit of sinning rather than an occasional lapse”.

Likewise, Paul tells believers to “let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Romans 6:12). This doesn’t mean that one will never sin again, but that a believer is not a slave to sin and does not have a lifestyle that is unrepentantly bound to sinning.

Last week I concluded our Proclaim series with a message from book of Acts on the Grace of God. That it is grace alone that saves us. Not our efforts, not our good works, not our perfect behavior. It is grace.

But I also mentioned that grace is not a license to sin. Freedom from sin does not mean freedom from any standard whatsoever.

And it is this kind of thinking that is a result of the Church’s failure to truly disciple people.

For so long in the western Church it has been about numbers and large alter calls, and reciting the sinner’s prayer, and packing out the stadiums, and crusades.

And what are we left with? An American Church that is full of people who prayed a prayer, or went up front, but have no idea what it means to be free, at least not in the biblical sense.

We have failed to make disciples who have counted the cost and who have died to self and who made themselves slaves to righteousness.

There are believers who are still living in bondage, and it is evident in their refusal throw off the old self and the old way of life and to take on a completely new one.

I am not talking about legalism or man-made rules and traditions that the Church has created.

I am talking about the teaching of Christ in that we love God more than anything in this life, that we count everything; money, possessions, friends, family, health, desire, dreams, passions, life , everything else as garbage compared to the infinite value of knowing Jesus.

I am talking about loving others in a way that always puts us second. That always has the interest of other ahead of our own. To love others in a way that costs us something, because it cost him something.

To set aside our comfort and even our well-being for sake of the gospel.

You can’t do that and still be a slave to sin. Only free people can do this.

And so if you are sitting here today and you are saying, I can’t do that. It costs too much. It isn’t what I signed up for. It is too hard. I just want enough Jesus in my life to make me feel like I am on the right side of things.

Then my only question for you is are you tired yet? Are you tired of being a slave? Or do you want to be set free? True freedom? Not the make me feel better about my sin freedom or I hope this means I am a better parent freedom, or it feels like the right thing to do freedom.

Truth doesn’t care about your feelings. Truth can set you free, Jesus can set you free. But you have to be willing to abide and dwell in it. You have to allow the teaching and person of Jesus to become central to everything you are. Then and only then will you experience the kind of freedom I am talking about this morning.

Alter Call

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