Freedom // Truth Brings Freedom

And we are in John, chapter eight.

John chapter eight, and we are in week three of a series entitled Freedom, breaking Chains and Living Free, and how many of y'all know, there is a lot of bondage in our world today.

If you believe there's a lot of bondage, would you say amen, amen, man, people are living in bondage to all kinds of things, to their past, to shame, to unhealthy thinking, and, honestly, how easy is it for us to live in bondage, man?

It's super easy for that to happen, and here's the good news, though we don't have to live that way.

We don't have to live in bondage because of Jesus, and we've been talking about it the last few weeks, and what I want to do is I want to catch you up on what we talked about the last few weeks, if maybe you've been on vacation.

Week one, we talked about experiencing freedom by embracing the grace and mercy of Jesus.

That's what we said.

We said that Jesus extends grace and mercy to anybody that's humble enough to receive it.

In week two, we said that we experienced freedom, as we looked in the text, by walking in the light.

So what we have to do is we have to choose to confront the places in our life where there's some darkness and choose to take a step to walk in the light, and last week was so cool because so many people decided to take a step to walk in the light.

Now, today, in week three, this is what we're going to see.

We're going to see that we experience freedom by learning and growing in the truth, by learning and growing in the truth.

Now, some of you are like Pastor Nate, I already know it all.

I've been in church for a while.

I know it all.

I would say I'll tell you one thing you might be a know-it-all, but you don't know it all.

All of us how many of you say all of us we're all in process, we're all growing and we're all learning.

Who would say that?

Yeah, I'll tell you what.

Dave Griffith.

I love Dave.

He's incredible.

I want to be like him when I grow up.

He always tells me.

He's always telling me he's like man.

I have so much more to learn and so much more to grow, and I'm like if Dave Griffith, barbara said amen, his wife, y'all just take care of that.

Let's get into the text this morning John 8, verse 31.

John 8:31

Here's the reality, though.

If we will learn and grow in the truth.

The truth will set us free.

This is why this matters so much, because the truth will set you free.

And you might be in a place in your life where you might say, man, I'm just resistant to like the scripture thing and the Jesus thing, I don't know about all this.

You might be resisting the very thing that will set your heart free, and this is what Jesus says in John 8, verse 31.

John 8:31

Let's pick it up.

If you're ready for it, would you say amen?

Verse 31 of John 8 says then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him if you continue in my word, then you really are my disciples, you're my followers, and you will know verse 32, you will know the what's that next word.

You will know the truth and the truth will.

Here's a big word.

It will set you free and the truth will here's a big word, it will set you free.

Now, if you have a hard copy of scripture, can I encourage you to underline the words truth and circle the word set, because truth will set you free.

Now, if the truth is going to set us free, we first have to.

Well, we got to acknowledge that there actually is truth out there.

What is truth In a very general way.

Here's what truth is it's an absolute standard by which reality is measured.

Truth is an absolute standard by which reality is measured.

You might say, man, pastor, nate, like dude, I don't really believe in absolutes.

I mean, everything is subjective, everything is relative.

I mean, how can we even say there's truth?

Everything is relative and I would say everything.

What about gravity?

Can you imagine if I said, hey, taylor, I don't believe in gravity anymore.

I've actually progressed in my life so far and that's kind of like archaic thinking.

In fact, I think they created gravity to control the masses.

Now, taylor, I know, do you believe in gravity?

That's for you, ralph, that's good, that's good Me.

I don.

You believe in gravity?

That's for you, ralph, that's good, that's good Me.

I don't believe in gravity.

In fact, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna climb up to a 10-story building, I'm gonna turn on Spotify and in my AirPods I'm gonna play the song.

I Believe I Can Fly and I'm going to fly because I don't believe in gravity.

How many of you would say that's not a good decision for your long-term or your short-term health, nate, that would not be a very good decision.

You'd be like Nate.

Good luck with that.

That ain't turning out well.

God, that's gravity.

Watch this.

It's an absolute standard.

Whether I embrace it or not, here's what Jesus says Truth will set you free, whether you choose to embrace it or not.

Now here's the truth that he's talking about.

He's not talking about physical realities like gravity.

When you look at the teachings of Jesus the rest of John he's talking about two things.

One he's talking about himself.

Jesus is truth, he's the measure, he's the standard.

My feelings and my emotions are not the standard for truth.

Jesus, second of all Scripture, john 17, 17.

Sanctify them by thy truth.

Thy word is truth.

What does truth do?

Truth sets us apart and as I get to know Jesus better and I grow in his truth, what's going to happen is I'm going to be set free.

Now Jesus says this to these people and look at their responses.

They're really unsure about it.

The Jews, in verse 33, said we're descendants of Abraham.

They answered him and we have never been enslaved to anyone.

How can you say you will become free?

These people here are not talking about physical slavery, because if you understand the text, you understand history.

They have been enslaved to lots of people the Jews had.

They were speaking of a spiritual slavery and they're thinking we're good because we're descendants of Abraham.

Like we have Abraham's law, we're not enslaved to anything.

We're good.

Jesus responded truly, I tell you.

Verse 34, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

What is sin?

Sin is anything we say, think or do that breaks God's law.

A slave verse 35, does not remain in the household forever, but a son does remain forever.

It's really important when we go to Scripture that we understand context and we look below the surface, especially for something like this.

It helps us understand.

It says a slave is not made in a household forever.

In Jewish culture, a slave would be with the family for six years and the seventh year they would go free.

A son was always with the family.

He remains forever.

And in verse 36, what Jesus says?

Jesus says so.

If the son talking about himself he referred to himself as the son multiple times in John if the son sets you free, then you what's that next word?

Then you really, then you, really.

You let's say it again then you really really will be free.

So the Son of God, jesus, can set you free, free from the thing that has you enslaved right now, free from that thing that you can't quite get over, free from bondage.

How does this happen?

How does the son set us free?

Well, I'm so glad that you guys asked.

In John chapter one, this is what it says in John one.

It says but to all who did receive him.

So we become children of God when we believe in his name.

And I think the word children of God gets thrown around a lot and I think sometimes we can like I don't really understand what this means.

We can say in our good hearts and whatnot.

We can say man, everybody's a child of God.

Actually, everybody's a creation of God.

But according to this verse right here, he gave them the right to be children of God to those who what's that word?

Those who believe.

By believing in him, by trusting in him, we become children of God.

And even when we do this, sometimes we're like, okay, I'm a child of God.

Sometimes we sing a worship song and it's like, okay, it talks about being a child of God, like that's great.

But what if understanding what it means to be a child of God can change everything?

Because being a child of God, being a child of God, enables you to experience freedom.

Because if the Son sets you free, you really will be free Free from past baggage, free from current anxieties, free from future worries.

But how does this happen?

Let me explain.

In Galatians, chapter 4, it says so that we might receive the adoption as sons and because we are sons, god sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying Abba, father, when you trusted Christ to be your Lord and Savior, when you believe the gospel, the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ for your salvation, god adopts you into his family.

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

You become a child of God.

Now, in Jewish culture here, when you were adopted, it was a permanent, binding legal agreement that literally changed everything about you.

When you were adopted, it changed your identity, it changed your standing in society, it changed your future.

It literally changed everything.

You now belong.

You're now one of the father's children.

You now have privileges that you didn't have before.

And here's how this matters.

And if you can grasp this next part, I think it can be powerful for us.

Scripturally, there's this fascinating verse in numbers, chapter 32.

Numbers 32 · chapter mention

It says be sure your sin will catch up with you.

Be sure your sin will catch up with you.

In many translations it says be sure your sin will find you out.

And here's what's interesting about that it says that our sin catches up to us.

Huh, our sin catches us.

It's almost like sin has a life of its own, almost like sin has a life of its own.

Sin causes this shame and this brokenness that eventually will catch up to us, no matter how much we try to run from it and to make things even more complicated.

What the enemy does, what the devil does, is he's constantly bringing up our sin and our struggle and our setbacks and our failures, saying things like you're not good enough, you don't measure up.

Remember when you did this, that person over there?

They never did that.

Accusations, condemnation this is what sin does.

And when we feel this, we have a few choices.

One thing we can do is we can just replay this over and over and over and over again in our head.

This is who I am, this is what I did.

I will never be good enough, I will never measure up.

This is what this is where I am.

The most common thing that most people do is is they run to temporary pain relievers that will numb those voices and numb those feelings of pain?

You know what?

Those temporary pain relievers that will numb those voices and numb those feelings of pain.

You know what those temporary pain relievers are.

It's a choice we can make.

Or we have a third choice.

We can run to what it means to be a child of God, fully forgiven, fully accepted, freed from shame, freed from condemnation.

This is who God says that you are.

And when the voices of shame and condemnation get loud and they will here's what you can say hey, that's right, but Jesus paid it all.

And because I'm his child, those things don't define me.

Jesus paid it all and because I'm his child, those things don't define me.

Because I'm his child, those things don't even describe me.

And because I'm his child, that is not who I am, because whom the Son sets free.

They really are free.

That is a reality of what it means to be a child of God.

I'm free from this shame, I'm free from this condemnation, I'm free from these lesser things that define me.

Next week we're going to see it also frees us from the opinions of other people, so we don't have to live our lives in this constant state of people-pleasing, trying to make everybody happy all the time, because what the Son does is the Son sets us free.

This is why the gospel is so powerful.

Like we've been saying this every week in the series, the gospel doesn't just save us.

It strengthens us, it shapes us, it guides us.

It shapes us, strengthens us and guides us.

How does it do this?

Okay, how does the gospel do this?

Because when I hear the voice of shame, the voice of I'm not good enough, I don't measure up.

Because of what I did, because of what happened to me.

This is what we say, that is not who I am, that is not what God declares about me.

And that will shape your life and that will strengthen your life and it will allow your faith to come alive.

It will allow this truth to not just be in this book and in a room on Sunday morning, but to permeate every single part of your life and it will allow you to live free.

I was reading this past week about a therapist and she was talking about how, when she went to her psych 101 class to learn how to help people and counsel people, to learn how to help people and counsel people, she learned that the foundation of what people struggle with it comes from three things and from three decisions that people think about themselves.

Everything else springs from Three things I'm helpless, I'm worthless, I'm unlovable.

If we think I'm helpless, I'm worthless, I'm unlovable.

If we think I'm helpless, I'm worthless, I'm unlovable, things spring from that.

But if you're a child of God, can I say that none of these things are true.

If you're a child of God, you are not helpless.

You are more than a conqueror through him, who loved you.

If you're a child of God, you are not worthless.

You have been made into a masterpiece.

If you are a child of God, you are not unlovable.

Jesus loved you so much that he died for you.

Guys, this is not some just positive thinking to try to cheer you up.

No, no, no.

This is realities of what it means to be a child of God.

This is why the son of God can say Jesus can say whom the Son sets free, they are really free.

And what would your life look like if you lived every day knowing that you were a conqueror?

You were a masterpiece.

You are loved unconditionally.

May I venture to say you would live free Now.

I venture to say that this is the very thing that people are looking for freedom, and it's found in Jesus.

This is why, as a church, we unapologetically want everybody to know Jesus and we want to make Jesus known, because this message is the hope for all people, of all backgrounds, of all colors, of all ethnicities.

It doesn't matter.

The hope is that Jesus can set you free.

This is why, as a church, we will never be satisfied with where we are.

We will always want more people to know him.

We will always want your friends and your family to know who Jesus is, because he can set us free.

And if we're going to do this, experience this freedom, we're going to have to continue to grow in the truth of learning more about this number two, the truth of Jesus and his word.

This is more than just Pastor Nate.

I'm a child of God, trusted Christ.

I'm good.

No, no, no.

It's saying I want to grow deeper in my faith and I want to continue to grow in my knowledge, my understanding and my application of scripture.

Why?

Because this sets us free.

But for us to do this, there's a challenge.

Here's the challenge.

We live in a really busy world.

How many of you would say, man, life is super busy.

It's busy.

I feel like everything takes so much time now, like nothing's simple.

It's like I was driving from Vallejo to Fairfield to try to head back.

The other day it was like 45 minutes because of traffic.

I'm like don't we have like AI to figure out this traffic thing?

Or something Like yeah, we're so busy, there's so many things that are going on in our life.

Some of you have small children and I'm like man, I'm praying for y'all.

Yeah, all this stuff is happening.

What's going to happen is this truth of freedom is found by knowing and learning, and continuing in god's truth can be overshadowed by just the reality of the busyness of life and all the things we have going on, and the kids screaming and the traffic and the invitation here and the invitation here and the invitation there oh, and my favorite Netflix series too, because that's important, right?

Hey, we can just get overwhelmed and what can happen is the most important thing can be pushed down.

Here's what I want to do.

The rest of the message is I want to get super practical and I want to give you six tips that will allow you to continue to grow and learn the truth.

And here's my prayer is.

My prayer is not that you will apply six of these things.

That's a lot.

My prayer is that you will do one of these because, as your pastor.

What I want you is I want you to experience the freedom of letting truth set you free.

Here's the first thing.

If you are newer to faith or you're coming back to faith, I would encourage many of you to join our Foundations Growth Group.

That's beginning July 10th at 10 am.

That's going to happen during this service.

What that'll look like is it'll be about seven weeks or so and maybe you're new or maybe you're re-engaging and you're like man.

Who's God?

Who's the Holy Spirit?

What's the Trinity?

How do we read the Bible?

How do we even know the Bible's even true?

This group will cover all of those things.

It's about seven weeks long and even if you're traveling, maybe a week or two, you're like man.

I'm gone like a couple weeks in July.

That's okay.

Like you can still be a part of this group.

And if you've never had somebody in your life walk through the foundations of what does it mean to follow Jesus and the foundations of Scripture, this would be a great group for you.

You can sign up by scanning the QR code or going to the Next Steps and Information table in the lobby afterwards.

We would love to help you do that.

Tip number two.

Tip number two Engage in a personal Bible study this summer.

Engage in a personal Bible study this summer.

Engage in a personal Bible study this summer.

You're like what?

Engage in a Bible study.

How do I even do this?

What's this all about?

Where do I even start?

A couple of things that can help us with this One, something called RightNow Media that many of us are familiar with, but some of us aren't.

Rightnow Media is basically a Netflix for Christian Bible study, and what it is is our church actually pays for this, so you can have this for free.

So what it is is there's literally thousands of things that you can learn about.

They even have Bible study.

Bible studies are on like a college level class, like they're that deep and you can get all of them for free.

Scan in the QR code.

Go to NextUp's information table.

It's a great resource.

Some of you are like Pastor Nate I don't like reading.

That's okay.

Everything is video on here.

It's great.

They even have like accompanying study guides too.

If you want to do that, that's one way.

Here's another way.

Another thing you can use the good old-fashioned new version Bible app.

That's another way.

That's an awesome way that you can just learn and apply a Bible study.

Tip number one foundations.

We've called it growth track foundations before Tip number two engage in a personal Bible study.

Tip number three use a Bible study commentary or online resource when you read scripture.

So it's very helpful that you can use something to supplement your time in scripture to help you better understand it.

I have used all of these resources.

The one I use every day is the third one on here tony evans study bible.

So my tony evans study bible it's actually not this one.

My tony evans study bible is like a big, thick bible that you would like expect a pastor to have, and here's why I like it because it has QR codes all throughout there where you can scan it and get information.

It's got a bunch of it talks about every book before you read it.

What does this mean?

Who wrote this?

It is super, super good.

Tip number four memorize a scripture verse.

Memorize a scripture verse.

How many would say Pastor Nate, I am not good at memorization at all.

I'm not good at memorization.

Okay, all right.

So some of you are good at memorization.

Those of you that just raised your hand, or should have raised your hand what happens when you walk into a store and you hear your favorite song playing over the speakers.

And you hear your favorite song playing over the speakers, what do you start doing?

Sing along.

You know why?

Because you memorized it.

And here's the power If you will memorize and everybody can do this you memorize a 12 to 15 word verse.

It can really set you free and help you.

Specifically when you're memorizing verses that deal with a struggle that you're having in your life.

Say, man, I'm struggling with this, I need to memorize a promise from God.

Just memorize a 12 word verse that talks about that promise.

Maybe you're like man, I just have overwhelming temptation right now.

Hey, you are not alone.

This is what we do Memorize a verse about that, memorize a scripture verse and let that help you.

Now, I understand Memorization's hard, especially as you have more birthdays in your life.

I get it, but some of y'all just got that.

Some of y'all just got that.

But it can set you.

Isn't that a nice way to say that?

But I thought that on my own Some of you guys it will really help you grow in your faith.

Number five use your drive time.

And this might be the biggest game changer for some of us.

Use our drive time to grow deeper.

Use our drive time to grow deeper.

There's a lot of really good Christian podcasts out there and if you have like a 20 to 30 minute commute one way every day, you're going to be in your car four to five hours, four to five hours a week.

What if you use one of those hours to say I'm going to listen to a podcast or I'm going to watch, don't watch, don't watch a YouTube video, listen, listen to a YouTube video.

I'm going to do something.

What this will do is this will give you some resources that, as you are driving, you can listen and grow.

Resources that, as you are driving, you can listen and grow.

Number six, tip number six talk about scripture with others.

Talk about scripture with others.

If you're a parent in here and your children are in Kingdom Kids, we make some things available, some resources available to help you talk to your kids about scripture, to equip you and resource you to talk to your kids about scripture.

So you can grab one of these at the resource table and it will go through what your kid is learning and then we'll give you prompts as to how you can talk about that.

Why.

We just want to equip you and help you talk to your kids about scripture, which, by the way let me just take a timeout for a second FCC's got the best next-gen ministry workers of any place anywhere.

I am so proud of our kingdom kids and nursery and all our next-gen workers are phenomenal, and they want to equip you with some resources.

Why?

Why?

So you can talk about this stuff with your family, so you can talk about these things that will allow you to have the truth be more and more a part of you, and, as a church, here's all we're trying to do.

We're trying to equip you so you can know and grow in the truth, so you can walk in freedom.

That's why I want to end with a story, and the way I'm going to end with it is by showing you guys a picture, and let's see if you guys can guess who this picture is Edgar.

Edgar's on vacation.

He knew it.

Edgar's on vacation.

That's Edgar, but Edgar had a few less white hairs in this picture Just a few.

Don't tell him I said that, though, so let me give you the story of this picture.

This is like 14, 15 years ago, believe it or not.

I was a basketball coach.

Edgar was on my basketball team, and we had a basketball tournament.

Now, when the games didn't happen, my goal was to not lose any teenagers, to not lose anybody on my team, because you know, because if you lost a teenager you were in trouble.

So I had to make sure I knew where everybody was at.

Guys, I lost Edgar at the basketball tournament and I couldn't find him.

We're all in the gym, we're watching the game and we're like, hey, where's Edgar?

On top of this, we were on a college campus.

Now I was like a young staff member of a church and I'm like I'm about to get fired.

It's like my first year here on staff and I lost a teenager.

I didn't plan on this.

So I'm like, guys, we got, we got to find Edgar.

We got to find Edgar, that's fine.

We look everywhere, we can't find him.

I'm like exasperated.

I'm like, come on, dude, what is wrong with this guy?

Why don't you watch basketball like the rest of us?

We're at a basketball tournament, but where are you at?

So we figured out.

We're like last place, we haven't looked the dorm, let's go back to the dorm.

We go back to the dorm.

You know what?

We find this A Bible opened, a commentary to the right and a notebook to the left and a pen in his hand.

And, I kid you not, for the next three days of that tournament, when we did not have a basketball game, this is where he was.

I as the coach.

I was supposed to be the spiritual leader.

I'm like dude, come watch basketball, come on, he's like I just want to study, I just want to learn and fast forward the clock 14 years later to today and he is being used mightily in the life of our church to help more people know Jesus and make Jesus known.

If I were to take a survey and I were to say who has been influenced for Christ because of Edgar, many, many people all around this room would raise their hand.

And where did it start?

It started with him being intentional and learning and growing and saying, hey, if the truth sets us free and if the word is truth and Jesus is truth, I'm going to learn and grow in that.

And, friend, friend, friend, if a teenager can do that, so can you.

And what would happen If we would say I'm just going to be intentional?

You can't do all six things, but this is what I challenge you to do.

I want you to do one thing.

Which of these one things can you do?

And when you do one of these things and scripture becomes a part of you, this is what you're going to find.

You're going to find truth will start permeating your life, and the truth will set you free.

So here's my question for us to reflect on this morning.

Here's the question which one of these can you incorporate into your life to learn and grow deeper in the truth?

Let's bow our heads and let's close our eyes.

Let's just think about that.

Which of these six, which one of these Maybe it's I can find a podcast to listen to on my drive?

Of these, maybe it's I can find a podcast to listen to on my drive?

Maybe it's I can go on YouVersion, or I can get RightNow Media, or I need to be a part of Foundation.

Just one of these things that's going to allow us to grow and continue in the truth.