THE FREEDOM OF TRUE DISCIPLESHIP

Introduction

-Christianity has long been criticized by its opponents as a religion or worldview that is too constrictive—meaning, there are too many rules that take away from someone’s freedom to live the way they want to live

-Non-Christians feel that Christianity takes away their freedom, when in reality the opposite is true—true biblical Christianity brings freedom, while living for self and sin brings slavery

-The world, though, has this all mixed up:

~Take, for instance, the sickening law passed in New York that allows for a baby to be murdered in the womb up to the point of birth.

~I don’t have time to go over all the reasons why their logic is completely messed up, but I want to emphasize the reaction to this law.

~Not only was the law passed—but after it was passed, the legislators gave it a standing ovation

-They were celebrating what they thought was a freedom to choose—they think it’s a freedom for a woman to choose what she wants to do with her body, but it’s actually a freedom to choose to murder

~They think they are free, when in actuality they are slaves—slaves to sin, slaves to their selfish passions, slaves to the world system, and ultimately slaves to Satan himself

-Or, take for another example, this past week in the news, immoral pop singer Lady Gaga complained about Vice President Mike Pence’s wife working for a Christian school that did not believe it appropriate to allow LGBTQ teachers or families into the school

~So, Lady Gaga said that the Pences did not represent her Christianity because she claims to be a Christian (like she is a role model of virtue)

~But her version of Christianity in her mind is freedom to do and live however you want—but in actuality that is slave mentality, because you are slaves to sin, slaves to passions, etc.

-The truth is, freedom to choose only comes when you are born again in Jesus Christ—but the kicker is, in Christ your heart is so changed that what it is you want to do is completely turned on its head—when you delight in the Lord then He gives you the desires of your heart because you desire what He desires

-But you can only live in this freedom when you are a true disciple of Jesus

~There’s a lot of people that claim Christianity, but they live by rules and regulations—they think pleasing God is all about the do’s and don’ts

~No doubt, there are do’s and don’ts, but that’s not what drives us

-When you are committed to Christ and committed to being His disciple, that’s where you have freedom to live as God always intended for His people to live

-So I want to lead us to live in that freedom this morning…

John 8:31–38 ESV

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.” 33 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’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. 38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

-I guess we could call my points today steps in the freedom of discipleship—what is it that Jesus highlights for us today?

I) Accept the revealed Jesus

-I’ve touched on this for a few weeks now because Jesus in this gospel is constantly reinforcing this point—because the people of His day had their own desires and agendas and they were projecting this on Jesus

-So, when it says in this gospel that someone believed in Jesus, you have to be careful because the question is: What is it that they really believed in?

-In the context here, in the passage before the one I read, Jesus was teaching them that He is the light of the world, and it ends in v. 30 saying that some folks believe in Him

-Our passage picked up in v. 31 where Jesus starts to address those who said that they believed in Him, and as you read on through to the end of the chapter you learn that they didn’t really believe in Jesus—they believed in a Jesus of their own making

-Or, to put it in Jesus’ terms, they weren’t really disciples—sure, they made a profession of faith, but when they learned Jesus’ claims for Himself and what true discipleship was all about, they instead turned around and wanted to kill Jesus

-And, honestly, that is what the world desires. They want a Jesus who will never offend anybody and will rubber stamp everything that they want to do—be it the legislators in New York or Lady Gaga or people sitting in the pews

~They want a Jesus who would never ask anything of them or go against the grain or go against the world system—so they want a Jesus who will let them remain slaves

-But that is not the Jesus who revealed Himself in Scripture—the Jesus who died on the cross and rose again revealed that He alone is worthy of all your devotion, and if you are not committed to Him fully as He revealed Himself, then you will never taste the freedom He offers

-In a practical manner, though, how can you live in this freedom?

II) Abide in the living Word

-In v. 31 Jesus makes clear that if you are going to be His disciple where freedom is found, then you have to abide in His Word—what does that mean?

-It literally says that you are to continually abide in the teachings and commands of Christ—the word means to cleave and to sojourn and to persevere in something

-It’s like Jesus is saying—take your life and park it in my words and commands and stay there all the days of your life

-It’s like you take your car to a parking garage, find your spot, park your car, and you sit there in the parking spot from then on.

~Or, another illustration I thought of was that in the 1960’s-1970’s college students would organize sit-ins on campus to protest the Vietnam War or whatever it was that they were protesting, and they wouldn’t move no matter the threats that came their way

~So, this is the picture: Jesus’ words and commands are found in Scripture, so you take your life and you make the conscious decision that you are going to park your life in the Bible (what it says, what it teaches, what it commands) and willfully obey everything found within it

-And obedience is an important part in this—you’re not abiding in the Word to only mentally know things, you decide that you will know it and live it relying on the Holy Spirit

-Not that you will perfectly follow His commands all the time, but the more you abide, the more you obey

-You are continually in the word, persevering to live the Word, and letting the Word have its way in you.

-And when you do that, then you are able to get this next step of discipleship

III) Apprehend the objective truth

-Jesus says in our passage that when you believe in Him in a saving manner you will continuously abide in His Word, and then, when you abide in His Word you will get a grasp on the truth

-Truth has become a tricky subject over the past several decades as people have begun to deny that there is such a thing as objective truth—instead, people try to say that you can make your own truth up

-That is where those New York legislators and Lady Gaga come from when they do and say the things they do—they are making up their own truth

-And that is where this whole gender identity crisis thing comes from—people can make up their own truth about their identity—so if you want to be a boy or a girl or a nothing, that is your choice

~Well, if that is the case, then I’m going to make up my own truth—my truth is that I am the Emperor of the entire galaxy, and I expect everyone to bow down to me as I rule and reign

~And my truth is that the Saints are going to the Super Bowl, not the Rams (that one’s for James…)

-But what is the problem with all of that? None of it corresponds with the facts (with reality)—it doesn’t agree with what actually exists

~So, no matter what the New York legislators say, the truth is that those are really babies (real human beings) that are being murdered—because that’s what corresponds with reality

~And so, biblical Christianity with biblical morals is the truth—it doesn’t matter what Lady Gaga or anyone else says, because what corresponds with reality is what the Bible says

-The reason people think that they can make up their own truth is because they don’t like the truth as it really is

~And Jesus makes it very clear that His Word, the Bible, is truth as things actually are

~People really are sinners; Jesus really is God the Son; He really did die on the cross; He really calls people to believe in Him as He is revealed in Scripture; He really calls people to a deep work of repentance

-Not that the Bible gives us every piece of truth that there is, but the Bible in itself is historically, archeologically, philosophically, ethically, and spiritually accurate—not one single thing in Scripture has ever been disproven, and there are more than enough evidences and arguments to prove its truthfulness

-But then you have to apprehend the truth for yourself—you believe in the Lord Jesus, you abide in His Word, and when you do you will apprehend the truth about what the really real is

-And then after you apprehend the truth, then you will be able to:

IV) Acquire the available freedom

-You believe in Jesus, you abide in His Word, then you will know the truth—and what happens when you know the truth, it is the TRUTH THAT WILL SET YOU FREE

-As us petty little human beings continue to assert our autonomy from God, all we do is tangle ourselves up even more in the slavery that we are already under

~As long as you believe a lie and live under that lie, you are a slave

-Jesus says in v. 34, in my translation: EVERYONE WHO LIVES A LIFESTYLE OF SIN IS A SLAVE TO SIN

~If your life is marked by nothing but sinfulness, you are a slave—everything that makes you you is enslaved to sin, and enslaved to the devil

~You mind, will, emotions, and body are all under the control of sin

~And Jesus says that a slave doesn’t live in the house forever—a slave isn’t part of the family, so they get no inheritance from the household

~But the Son is family—and when you believe in Jesus Christ you are placed in the Son, and by being placed in the Son you are family and you are free

-Only by grasping the truth will you be set free

~But sometimes Christians themselves aren’t living victorious lives because they don’t know the truth, and because they don’t know the truth they sometimes still live like a slave

~If your Christian life is a roller coaster, it’s because you aren’t living in the freedom of truth because you don’t know the truth; and you don’t know the truth because you’re not abiding in the Word

-By way of illustration: As the story goes, after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he (by law) set all the slaves free. However, some of the slave owners did not tell their slaves that they had been set free and tried to keep the information away from them. So, even though these slaves were free, they lived day by day as if they were still slaves. Why? Because they didn’t know the truth.

-When you are in Christ, you are no longer a slave. But some of us act like we didn’t get the memo. We don’t know the truth because we don’t know the Word.

-But if you are not in Christ, you have no freedom. All these people thinking that they can either work their way to freedom by being good or moral or religious, or think they are free enough to determine their own truth, but all they’re doing is tangling themselves up in the web of sin tighter and tighter

-If you want to be truly free, you have to be a disciple of Jesus Christ who has accepted Him for who He has revealed Himself to be and abide in His Word—then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free

V) Affirm your faith with spiritual fruit

-These Jews who made a profession of faith (but really didn’t) get all sorts of upset that Jesus said they were slaves. They said they were slaves to no one (conveniently forgetting Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, etc.). Their argument was that being the physical descendants of Abraham is where their freedom came from

-And Jesus agrees they are the physical descendants of Abraham, but they were not the spiritual descendants of Abraham, and He based it on the fruit of their actions and words and hearts

-In v. 37 Jesus tells them that by the fact that they seek to kill Him they demonstrate they are not Abraham’s descendants and they are slaves to sin—their actions verified that the Words of Christ were not in their heart

-If the Word of God had taken root in their hearts, they would not have been seeking to kill Him, they would have believed in Him and received Him as their Savior and Lord

-When you receive Jesus, and abide in His Word, in turn His Word abides in you—this was Jesus’ point in John 15; Jesus said:

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (Jn. 15:5-7 ESV)

-If you abide in His Word, and His Word abides in you, it will be noticeable in your words, actions, and attitudes—a tree is known by its fruit, and a tree will demonstrate if it has been set free

Conclusion

-Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved; abide in His Word so that you know the truth that will set you free, and then you bear fruit where there is no mistaking that you belong to Him

-I want to close with an interesting thought:

Dr. W. H. Griffith Thomas wrote:

One reason many have never realized their bondage to sin may seem very paradoxical, but it is, nevertheless, very true. It is because they have never tried to get free. There is a yard where a dog is heavily chained. The dog, however, is fast asleep, and so he does not realize his bondage. Later on we may even notice the dog eating his food, still chained, but as the food is close to the kennel his chain is not irksome, and he is thus still unconscious of his bondage. But soon comes the owner of the dog, who, forgetting the chain, calls the dog. The animal springs up, eager to reach his master. What happens then? All his efforts are vain, and now for the first time he feels the irksomeness and restraint of his fetters. It is exactly similar with sin. Try to get free, and you feel your bond¬age.

-Do you want to be free today—believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, become His disciple, and know the truth that will set you free, and then you’ll really understand how much of a slave you really were

-Christian, are you sick of the roller coaster—come to the altar and ask God to make known to you the truth and it will set you free

-Are you looking for a church that teaches truth…