Questions with Surprising Answers (Dr. Terry Thomas)

Yeah, all right.

Hey, uh I want to tell you about that those interest groups.

I had decided to join an interest group this year.

First one I was in, my son is running.

It's about photography.

We meet here on Sunday nights, and uh I think we're meeting tonight at six, but I think the next three, because of the Kids Fest stuff, we're meeting at seven o'clock here at the church.

And uh it it is fascinating.

It's about learning about photography, it's about looking at pictures.

We all bring pictures and show them, and they're pathetic most of them.

You know, I didn't even have a camera.

I had to borrow my daughter's camera, and before I could get a picture, I couldn't figure out how to turn it on.

It was too complicated.

So I had I got another camera, and uh I went out to take a picture and realized it didn't have the little card in it, you know.

Anyway, so um, you know, I come from a different different generation, a non-tech Ludite type generation.

And uh, okay, anyway, hey, so it's uh it's the 4th of July weekend.

I hope you're relaxing.

Hey, by the way, do you get Monday?

How many people get Monday off, you know, for the 4th of July?

So you get the weekend plus Monday plus Tuesday for the 4th.

How many people get Monday off?

Ouch! Not that many.

Okay.

Well, you could use some time off though, couldn't you?

Huh?

You get a little tired, you know, you get a little weary during these times.

I I know I am.

I knew we need a little rest, we need some relaxation, we need to be with some people, have some fun.

Uh, this last week, I uh I was here at the church doing something, and then I um I went up through Cranberry and decided to go through the car wash at get-go.

You know what I mean?

And uh went in the car wash at get-go, and uh I fell asleep while I was in the car wash.

I know it's pathetic.

It is, it is, and I I was tired.

It was only like for a minute or two then, but it was one of those deals where when the jets of the wire come on real hard, uh, uh, yeah, yeah.

Luckily, the other four people in the car didn't no, no, no, there weren't any other people.

I was by myself.

So, anyway, uh yeah, it's good to get a break, it's good to get some and enjoy and relax and you know do some of that stuff.

And and have fun, have some fun.

I wanted to have some fun here today, so I you know I went out looking for 4th of July jokes.

And apparently there is not a time to be real funny, ouch, you know, and uh there are an awful lot of 4th of July jokes, you know?

Like, for instance, you know why there are no knock-knock jokes about America?

Because freedom rings.

I lost a bet I had to use that joke as a result.

But um, thank you.

I appreciate that.

All right, so anyway, hey, here's what we're gonna do today.

We're gonna spend some time looking at uh little groups of three things.

Okay, I got three areas that I want to talk about.

One is the Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma women's softball team.

Uh, another one is about the Declaration of Independence, and the third one is about a passage in the eighth chapter of the uh of the book of John, the Gospel of John.

And then I want to talk a little bit about how each one of them has a kind of like question with a surprising answer, and each one of them has uh an idea about the notion of freedom.

And we'll look a little bit into those things.

The thing that really got me to connected with it, though, was the number 56.

Okay, that's what really took me to it.

Because coincidence, I don't think so.

Think about it.

The University of Oklahoma women had won 56 games.

They were 56 and one.

You know, when you saw we're gonna see a little video at the time.

56 games at that point.

That's impressive.

Uh 56 guys signed the Declaration of Independence, you know, and the Bible is made up of 56, okay, it's 66 books, but I had to I had to figure some way to get the Bible in there, okay?

And we're gonna look at the book of John anyway.

And John 8, if you look at John, if you had your Bible and you wanted to look, make sure I wasn't making this up, you know, at least John 8, it has 56, it has 59 verses in it.

But they're, you know, if you have 59, you have 56.

That's all I'm saying, right?

So there you go.

It's makes no sense whatsoever.

I hope the whole thing comes together as we uh as we get through it, okay?

So the first thing here is about the uh about the the softball, the women who play softball at uh Oklahoma University.

They won the uh national championship, by the way, for the third time in a row.

They won the NCAA uh Division I women's softball championship for the third time in a row this year.

And we have a little video of some of the team players, and I think you find this interesting.

This was done by ESPN.

So let's let's take a look at the video.

Alex Garbo with ESPN for for the players.

I know you talked about keeping the joy of the game, but I'm curious, it's a long season, right?

And you guys have had the target on your back the entire time, the win streak being number one.

How do you handle the unique pressure that comes with that?

How do you keep the joy for so long when anxiety seems like a thing that could very easily set in?

Well, the only way that you can have a joy that doesn't fade away is from the Lord.

And any other type of joy is actually happiness that comes from circumstances and outcomes.

And I think coaches said this before, but joy from the Lord is really the only thing that can keep you motivated, um uh just in a good mindset, uh, no matter the outcomes.

Thankfully, we've had a lot of success this year, but if it was the other way around, uh joy from the Lord is the only thing that can keep you embracing those memories, moments, friendships, and all of that.

So uh I would that's really the only the only answer to that because there's no other way that softball can bring you that um because of how much failure comes in it and just how much of a roller coaster the game can be.

One thousand percent agree with Grace Lyons.

Um, I've gone through that my freshman year.

I I was so happy to win the college.

I've talked about this before, but I was just so happy that we won the college world series, but I didn't feel joy.

I didn't have, I didn't know what to do the next day.

I didn't know what to do for that following week.

I didn't feel filled, and I had to find Christ in that.

And I think that is what makes our team so strong is that we're not afraid to lose because if it's not the end of the world if we do lose.

Yes, obviously we've worked our butts off to be here and we want to win, but it's not the end of the world because our life is in Christ, and that's all that matters.

Yeah.

Um I think a huge thing that we've really just latched on to is eyes up.

And you guys see us doing this and pointing up, but we're really like fixing our eyes on Christ.

And that's something where, like they were saying, you can't find a fulfillment in an outcome, whether it's good or bad.

And um, I think that's why we're so steady in what we do and and our love for each other and our love for the game, because we know this game is giving us the opportunity to glorify God.

And um, I just think once we figured that out and that was our purpose, and everyone was all in with that, um, it's really changed so much for us.

And I mean, I know myself, I I've seen so much of a growth in myself with um once I turned to Jesus and I realized how he had changed my outlook on life, not just softball, but understanding how much I have to live for, and that's living to exemplify the kingdom.

And I think that brings so much freedom.

And I'm sure everyone's story is similar, but we all have those great testimonies that have really like shown how awesome it is to play for something bigger.

Um, and I think that's just what brings me so much joy, and no matter the outcome.

Wow.

I'm saying that ESPN commentator did not see that coming.

You know, all the women saying the same thing.

By the way, they had a 50-game winning streak this year, uh, these women.

Unbelievable.

They played they played very, very well.

But did you hear what was at the heart of it?

First there was a question, then there was a surprising answer, and in the answer, they talked about freedom.

Freedom from the anxiety of having to succeed, you know, of having to earn or deserve adulation from other people.

I thought one of the greatest ones was when the woman said, the second woman said, I remember when the first time we won the national championship, and the next day I felt so empty.

Because it wasn't that big a deal, you know?

And so what they discovered was when they were free for something bigger, when they were free for the truth about the way life really is, they were able to see the things that were important about.

Not that they didn't care about softball, they worked hard at it, I'm sure they did, you know, but they saw things that were more important and they they committed themselves to those things and they drove themselves in those directions, and those were the things that were gonna be lasting.

Those the things that were gonna liberate them from that temporary sort of happiness that they might experience by a little bit of success playing softball into a new kind of life.

Pretty impressive, right?

Pretty impressive about these women.

And and uh you should, if you go online sometime, you should hear the coach talk.

You know, she's something, she is really something.

It'd be interesting for you to hear her talk a little bit about it.

Well, there's there's one example, okay?

Here's the next example.

Uh the 56 uh 56, 56 guys who got together as delegates from the um various colonies of uh the United States back in 1776 in Philadelphia.

They got together uh uh on June the 11th and started talking about whether or not they ought to separate themselves from Great Britain.

Now, there had been rebellions in, by the way, in countries before this, but not this kind of rebellion.

Okay?

Not the rebellion that said, we have a reason why, other than simply we don't want to be under these guys' rule anymore.

You know?

We have a different idea of what the world ought to look like, of what our country and our experience and our life ought to look like.

And so we're gonna come together and we're gonna talk about it.

Here's the deal.

I don't want to make an argument here today to say that the Declaration of Independence when it was done was flawless.

There were all kinds of things that they missed, they missed, and on purpose they they cut out of it.

And that was a mistake.

And they later people admitted it.

But what they did do was important.

You know, it was very, very important.

And the reason, one of the reasons why they did it was because they wanted, they had a different picture of what the world could be like.

Okay?

By the way, just in case you missed this, this is why most people had already come to America.

It wasn't because they thought it was going to be easier to go across the ocean and to a place they'd never been to before, to do whatever they didn't know among a people they'd never met.

You know, I mean, it was sort of a very risky kind of a thing to come to the United States.

Well, not the America at that point.

And yet they did.

You know, part of it was because they wanted to leave the oppression that they were experiencing in these other places.

And they experienced oppression once they got here still, from Great Britain.

I mean, there were unjust taxes that were forced upon them.

They didn't have anything to be able to say about them.

There were uh there were laws that were, you know, ridiculous in terms of trying to make them be able to obey them when they didn't have anything to do with it, and they didn't have any input into the making of those laws.

They had uh uh control, Great Britain had control, like many countries at that time, over the religious practices of people.

The Church of England was the church there.

If you were lived in Italy, the Roman Catholic Church was the church there.

If you lived in Germany, the Lutheran Church was the church there, and you couldn't have an opposition to that.

And people decided, no, you know, we want people to have the freedom to be able to express themselves religiously in the way that they think is important, is gonna do it for them.

We wanted to be free to be able to do that.

And so the Declaration of Independence is not really long.

I don't know if you've read it, you know, recently or ever.

You can read it this afternoon in about 10 minutes if you wanted to, you know, and it outlines some of those things that they think are important.

They want people to have the ability to have the freedom for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

You right?

And they wanted them to go.

Well, you know, here's the deal.

I just just as a little, you know, today's the 2nd of July.

It was actually on the 2nd of July that the Continental Congress, that first Continental Congress, decided and passed the Declaration of Independence as being the thing they were going to use as their statement to separate themselves from Great Britain.

It was on today.

They signed it, they got a copy of it and signed it on the 4th of July.

That's why we celebrate it on the 4th of July.

56 people wrote their names on it.

And then they had later on, about a month later, in August, uh August the 2nd, they had the official copy, okay?

The official copy of the Declaration of Independence, the one that was real nicely written up and everything, that everybody came back and signed again.

Uh and and by the way, this is the one that if you're gonna, if you're ever done in Washington, D.C., you can go and see it.

You know, you can go, I I can't remember what the name of the building is, but uh you can you can go see it, you know.

And I got a little story about this because this is the way these things happen, you know.

Um, in my family, I had an uncle, great uncle, Uncle Buzz, okay?

And Uncle Buzz, a lot of families have this.

He was the uh family historian, you know, and he had kept the records supposedly to be able to demonstrate that we were seventh-generation Pennsylvanians.

You know, our family had seventh generation Pennsylvanians, and all these connections between people and so.

And you know what he figured out?

By the way, his name was Robert Morris Klingon Smith.

Okay?

He found out that Robert Morris had signed the Declaration of Independence, you know?

And so I, you know, I thought to myself, hey, well, last time I was in Washington, D.C., I thought I've never seen the Declaration of Independence.

I'm gonna go find it and find my you know relative's name on it, supposedly, you know.

By the way, I don't know really.

This is before you know Ancestry.com and DNA stuff, and all like I don't know if he was accurate or not.

And by the way, did you ever notice this?

That when people do this about their family trees, they never discover that they were related to Benedict Arnold, you know, you know, or Jeffrey Dahmer, you know, or something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

It's always some, you know, this is the sign of decade.

Anyway, uh, it worked out pretty good for me because you when I was gonna go to my do my doctoral work at the University of Pittsburgh, I'd just living in Ohio when I applied, and uh you had to pay more if you were coming in from another state to do it.

So I sent this thing that I was a seventh generation Pennsylvanian and they they bought it.

You know?

I paid the PA price for that doctor, and I could have it.

So it worked for me.

I don't care whether Uncle Buzz was wrong or not.

So, anyway, so I go in and I'm I'm looking on in the decoration of independence, I can't find his name.

I'm thinking to myself, I there's like 56 names on it.

I'm going over every single one.

Then I realize where it is.

It's right beside John Hancock's name.

So you get this big John Hancock, and then right over here, you got a little over here, Rob Morris.

You know?

So I bought a t-shirt, you know, has it on it.

You know, I took it home and everything and such.

56 guys signed it.

And you know what the question they had to ask themselves as they were getting to the end of it, after they had decided they were approved of these things, they were gonna agree to these things, they basically asked themselves this question: Do we really mean it?

Are we really committed to doing this thing that we're saying right here?

And if you want to know whether they're really committed to doing it or not, all you have to do is read the very last sentence of the Declaration of Independence.

Here's what it is, here's what it says.

For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

So basically they said, Do we really believe this?

And they said, Well, I'll tell you what, we you who sign here, we sign it, we sign ourselves over to our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

That's what they said.

I'd say that means you really mean it in a way.

So the question is, did they really mean it?

Well, I found a book that talked a little bit about this, and here's what it talks about about the 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Very few of them were long to survive.

Five were captured by the British and tortured before they died.

Twelve of their homes from Rhode Island to Charleston were sacked, looted, occupied by the enemy, or burned.

Two lost their sons in the army.

One had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 died in the war from its hardship or from its more merciful bullets.

He says, I don't know about the impression that you have of the men who met that hot summer in Philadelphia, but I think it's important to remember this about them.

Now listen to this.

They weren't poor men or wild-eyed pirates.

They were men of means, rich men, most of them, who enjoyed much ease and luxury in their personal living.

No hungry men, prosperous men, wealthy landowners, substantially secure in their prosperity.

But they considered freedom, that they learned about freedom.

This should be so much more important than security, that they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

And they fulfilled their pledge.

They paid the price.

Yeah, you know, you know any wealthy people who are pretty secure and never hungry, and it's us.

You know?

We we have the benefit of what these people laid down their lives for in many ways.

And you have to ask, why would they do that?

Especially you know, against the most powerful country in the world.

Why would they think that they would have any chance?

Or why would they be even because they thought that the freedom that they wanted was gonna be worth it.

The ability to worship the way they wanted, the ability to speak publicly the way they wanted, the ability to make laws that they had an influence on determining the laws, to see that justice was taking place.

Now, by the way, people didn't always do this since they still don't do it, you know, completely well.

But the point was, the idea was that this was what would set people free.

This would make a difference, this would be worth it.

And those people who didn't need to do it because their lives were already secure, pledged their lives and their fortunes and their sacred honor to see that that got done.

And here's the deal it got done, but not without them paying the price, obviously.

You know?

Anybody, you know what?

I think it's easy for us.

Anybody asked you to pledge your uh your life, your fortune, your sacred honor recently?

Did you have to write it down somewhere?

That you said that you were in favor of this kind of a world?

You thought it was important enough that you would be willing to make these kind of sacrifices for it?

No, we you know we live on the other side of it.

We live on the winning side.

And by the way, interestingly enough, you know that video of the women from University of Oklahoma?

They won the national championship again this year.

They ended up being 61-1 for the season, had a 50-game winning streak.

But that video that you saw, that was before they won the national championship.

Can you imagine the pressure that was on them to be able to win?

To get through, to follow through, to have it happen.

No, no.

They were saying those things about what gave them freedom and meaning in life before they experienced any benefit of it.

And these guys who signed the Declaration of Independence, they were they were committing themselves.

To the forfeiture of their lives and fortunes and sacred honor for something they had not yet seen either.

And they had to pay the price for it.

Because they thought freedom was important.

And by the way, I like living in a country that has freedom and guarantees life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of all its people.

It treats them equally, at least to some degree, you know?

I mean, I like living in a place like that.

You know what freedom, real freedom is?

Real freedom is, I've been watching a couple TV shows, and this is kind of the theme of the series.

It's about people that have been incarcerated unjustly.

And people go in, and the system works to be able to get them free from prison.

Well, that's freedom, isn't it?

Freedom when you get out of prison for a crime that you didn't commit.

That's freedom.

It's good to know that we can have that, we have that sort of freedom in our country.

But the third kind of freedom I want to talk about, this one that's talking about in John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

It's the kind of freedom where when you're in prison because you're guilty, somehow you get out.

Now that is real freedom.

Not when you're innocent and get out, but when you're guilty and you get out.

Here's the passage.

It's from John 8, starting at verse 21.

It says this.

Once more Jesus said to them, I'm going away, and you'll look for me, and you will die in your sin, because where I go, you can't come.

This made the Jews ask, Will he kill himself?

Is this why he says, Where I go, you can't come?

But Jesus continued, You're from below, and I'm from above.

You're from this world, and I'm from I'm not from this world.

I tell you that you will die in your sins, and if you do not believe that I am He, you will indeed die in your sins.

And by the way, the book of John is an interesting book.

Uh the first three Gospels of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they're called the synoptic gospels.

What they mean is they sort of have a similar story and a kind of similar kind of thing.

There's a lot of the same information in them.

And so if you see someplace a comparison of the stories that are a lot of them are in the same ones in those three books, okay?

And by the way, partly it's because you know Mark was written first and it had that kind of outline of the life of Jesus, and then Luke and uh Matthew had Mark available to them to be able to sort of set up a structure for their own thing.

But John is completely different.

The book of John is completely different.

Matter of fact, for instance, none of the parables are in the book of John.

All the parables are in those other three books.

He just doesn't deal with those things.

Matter of fact, what happens is the first sort of 12 chapters of the book of John is stories about what Jesus said about who he was, and proof to show that that's who he was.

Then there's a little bit of context there, you know, about uh him having him anticipating what's gonna go on in the future.

And then there's a section, a long and in in very in-depth section of Jesus with his disciples, talking to him about what the future is gonna become about.

Then there's the trial and uh uh execution of Jesus and his resurrection, and that's the end.

And so, in many ways, this question where he comes and they say, you know, who is he?

He says, Well, if you knew who I was.

Well, it's not like he was trying to keep it a secret, you know, it's not like he was trying to keep it.

He had revealed himself, you know, he would he'd gone around miracleizing, so to speak, you know, you know, doing one thing after another to show people that he was from God.

Obviously, he wasn't from here in that sense.

He was divine.

He was the Son of God, he did have that kind of authority.

He not only could people help tell people who couldn't walk to stand up and walk, he could tell them that he could forgive their sins.

And it was it was just as easy because he had that kind of authority.

I mean, he could turn water into wine, he had control over nature, he he calmed the storm, he walked on the seas, he made people who were blind able to see, and people saw these things, and and and and as he did them, people said a couple of things about that.

Who they said, who is this that has this kind of authority?

That can say to the wind, stop, and it does.

Who is this that can can control?

Who is this that can bring life to someone who was dead?

And by the way, this is a little before Lazarus gets raised from the dead.

That happens in chapter 11.

But if somebody else had been healed before this, and you can imagine if you saw that kind of stuff, wouldn't you say, it's somebody special?

This is the proof of the puddings in the way he's going about.

You know, and he meanwhile, he's telling him, you know who I am?

I'm uh I'm the light of the world, I'm the bread of life.

You know, I I'm the son of God.

He tells them that.

And by the way, by saying he was the son of God is not simply to say he's a human being who has his, you know, who has his origin somehow in God.

He was making a reference to a passage back in the book of uh Isaiah in chapter 53, where he was talking about the Son of God as being the one who rises on the clouds and sits in the throne beside God.

All sovereignty and authority is given to him, and he rules with God.

He is God himself, incarnate.

And he made that clear to him.

And yet, when he tells them these things, they say, Well, who are you?

Who do you think you are?

Goes on, says this.

They asked him again, you know, just from the what I've been telling you from the beginning, Jesus replied, I have much to say in judgment of you, but he who sent me is trustworthy.

And what I've heard from him, I tell you.

So, in other words, I could jump all over you for the stupid things you've done and said, but I'm not going to, because God has a different word for you.

It's a word about forgiveness and freedom and new life.

Then it says this.

They didn't understand what he was telling them about the Father.

So Jesus said, When you've lifted up the Son of Man, he's talking about himself, that is, when you see him arise from the dead, you'll know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.

The one who sent me is with me.

He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.

Even as he spoke, it says, Many believed in him.

Interesting, huh?

He says this, they begin to remember what he's done, things they've heard about him.

You know, you know what they used to say about Jesus?

He spoke with authority.

Who speaks with this kind of authority?

You know, it's one of those deals where, like, when you heard him talk and he talked about something and he gave insight to it, you went, wow.

That is deep.

That is so true.

That is so.

And so as a result, it says many believe.

By the way, this is chapter 8 again.

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention

This is before anybody gets raised from the dead yet, like Lazarus in 11.

Okay?

But they believed.

But the question is, did they believe?

Did they really believe?

By the way, you know what I think we think it means when we believe?

I think we we think believing means you have certain information and you say that it's true.

And that's what belief is.

No.

That's two-thirds of what belief is.

Sure, it has certain information about the things that God has revealed about what he's done and what he's doing and what he has in mind and how he has in mind for us to live.

That's part of that knowledge, and assent to that knowledge of saying that it's true, is important too.

That we say, well, we believe that that's really the truth.

But there's a third part to true belief, to real faith, and that's trust.

That's where you give yourself to it.

And by the way, you can you can you can convince yourself you got real belief, but only have two-thirds of the way there.

You know what I'm talking about?

By the way, you know how you know whether you got all three?

The same way the guys who signed the Declaration of Independence knew that they were serious about what they were doing, they committed their lives and their fortunes and their sacred honor to accomplishing the task to demonstrate it.

And so the question is, for us, comfortable people, this isn't like those comfortable people of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Are we willing just to leave in the freedom that somebody else has sort of given to us and lended to us?

Or are we gonna own it?

You know, are we are we committed to it?

Do we believe?

Because the freedom we're getting offered here is a freedom that's even bigger than the freedom that was offered in the Declaration of Independence.

You know, I I was reading a story about a famous French uh tightrope walker.

I this was in a commentary at a Bahoyo.

And apparently this was in the mid-1800s.

This guy was world-known for being able to do these fantastic things where he would walk over long distances, you know, of tightrope and such.

One time he was at Niagara Falls, all right, and they say that he went out halfway across the falls on the thing and cooked an omelette.

How about that?

Cooked an omelet while he was tightrope walking over Niagara Falls on the fall, took cooked the omelet and ate it, went over the other side, got a wheelbarrow, and went across the rope, pushing the wheelbarrow, got somebody to sit in the wheelbarrow and went back across with the person in the wheelbarrow.

He got back to the other side after that, and he said, Pretty good, huh?

People are like, Yeah.

And he said, Who thinks I can take somebody back to the other side?

And one guy said, I think you can, I believe you.

He says, Okay, get in the back, get in the wheelbarrow.

And the guy was like, no.

But you know what you know what faith is, right?

Faith isn't just, I see what you're talking about, I see the information, I know what we're dealing with here, and I think you can do it.

It's getting in the wheelburner.

It's being willing to say, okay, I'm willing to commit myself at that point.

Says this.

The Jews who had believed, Jesus said, if you hold on to my teachings, you're really my disciples.

And then you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

There it is, right there, isn't it?

Where Jesus says, What I want you to know is that if you hold on to my teachings, you'll know the truth.

Hold on to them.

That means commit yourself to them, live them out.

If you do that, then you'll know the truth, and that truth will set you free.

You know, uh these guys still didn't get it to some degree.

They they begin to say to Jesus, Well, we're Abraham's descendants, and we've never been slaves to anyone.

So how is it that you can you say that you can set us free?

Well, apparently they forgot that they were slaves in Egypt for 400 years, and they were slaves several times, six different times during the book of Judges, and they were slaves to Assyria and to Babylon and to Persia, and now they're slaves to Rome at the moment.

So it's funny how you can convince yourself you're not really a slave.

You're not really deep in something that you need to be freed from.

Isn't that easy to do?

Especially if you got a nice, comfortable life.

You know, you got plenty to eat, and you're secure, you feel like secure in the way that you're what you're doing to live.

If somebody offers you freedom, you wonder, what do I need that for?

I'm not a slave.

And Jesus replied, Verily, truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.

So if the son sets you free, you're free indeed.

I know that you're Abraham's descendants, and you're looking for ways to kill me because you have no room for my word.

But I'm telling you the truth.

The what I've seen comes from the Father's presence, and you're doing what you've heard from your father somewhere else.

Okay.

Here's the freedom that Jesus is offered in a nutshell.

Basically, he's saying, That's what you know what I can free you from?

I can free you from the penalty of death because of your sin.

That's the whole point of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Him to pay the price for something we did that the holiness of God demands justice for.

And when that happens and he takes our place, we are freed from the penalty of sin.

We call that justification.

But we also believe this, Jesus talks about, and the Bible talks about a next step, a step of sanctification.

This is where you turn around and you go a different direction from the previous direction you go.

It's you know what it's about?

It's about the change of your heart.

This is what Jesus talks about when he says the Holy Spirit, he especially talks about his disciples in a later part of John.

He says, this is when the Holy Spirit comes into your life and makes you a new person, gives you new desires, recommits you or commits you to things that previously were not the agenda of your life, even when you find it hard to do, even when you're wealthy and secure and you find it hard to commit your life and your fortune and your sacred honor because you know it might cost you.

You'd do it anyway, because that's true freedom.

That's we call sanctification.

There's a glorification, there's a freedom from the actual even presence and reality of sin that's still future.

That doesn't allow us to be bogged down in the right now as if that's the only thing that matters.

I got a friend right now.

I don't think he'll live the rest of the month.

Been struggling with cancer for months now.

In a hospice, palliative hospice right now.

More and more drugs are needed to keep the pain from being overbearing.

Can hardly be awake for a couple hours a day.

But you know what?

He he knows the truth.

He's lived the truth.

He committed himself to this one who said, you know what, I can set you free if you if you're my disciple, if you hold on to these things, just trust him.

I'll set you free.

And you know what?

I don't think he's afraid of dying.

Because he knows, you know, the promise of God is that there's a new heaven and a new earth that waits for him.

And a complete renewing of the brokenness of the creation.

Okay, this is my final thing, my final three things.

Okay.

So what do you do?

What's what's the response we have to this these things today?

I I'd say there's three things.

One is this one here.

If you want to be that disciple who knows the truth, you got to know the truth.

You know, you know what that says to me?

You got to be somebody who begins to study the Bible, who begins to see the things that God talks about and He says they're important.

I think that's obvious.

You can't be set free by knowing the truth if you don't know what the truth is.

But I don't think that's the only thing.

You know what I think else you need?

I think you need to get together with other Christians, other people who are like-minded.

So that you build an, you know, it's not just the ability to know the truth, it's the intimacy of relationships with people that are like-minded that give you encouragement to be able to continue to move on together.

Then there's the ability to be able to lay that old life behind.

By the way, the old life doesn't have to be so terrible and bad, and you're like, you know, you're a cannibal or something like that.

You know?

It doesn't have to be like that.

It's just that relentless, meaningless day in and day out, not really that important that it makes any difference, kind of thing that you you know what it is?

It's the it's the offer to taste what life was really meant to be about.

In John 10, 10, Jesus says this I came that you might have life and life abundantly.

It's that.

It's the freedom to know the truth, to be connected to other believers, to encourage and uphold you and move together to live out the truth.

And then it's the living out of the truth in the expression of living for the kingdom of God day in and day out.

And in that you taste the goodness of freedom.

And it's something that's worthy of us committing our lives and our fortunes.

Hey, by the way, you know one way to do that?

You participate as a church member.

That's how you do it.

It's not that complicated, you know?

And so God calls us and he says, Listen, here's how you'll know if you're really my disciples.

I give you the truth, you believe it.

And then you'll be free.

Free indeed.

Let's pray.

God, thanks for this day.

Thanks for the freedom and those who bought it for us.

Thank you for the freedom that's offered that you offer us through your Son.

A freedom from death, a freedom from the brokenness and misdirection of our own lives, and a freedom of the promise of a perfect future.

We pray, Lord, that we figure out how to hold on to the truth so that we can be free and free indeed.

We pray this in Jesus' name and for his kingdom's sake.

Amen.

See y'all.