Bound in sin but set free in Truth - John 8:31-59

The. Thank you so much.

All right, good morning, everybody.

My name is Pastor Dave. I am the middle school director

here at Rez. Thank you guys.

You guys. You have awesome kids, by the

way. I know I was with them all week.

My body is sore, my throat hurts, and I I wasn't even

screaming and I'll probably never wear a Jedi costume to

church again probably. But let me tell you, my heart is

full. My spirit is full.

If I got the chance to experience the hand of God in

our presence, forever changing the lives of students and really

everyone who was here that witnessed it all, I would do it

all again tomorrow. And we kid you not, the baptisms

were through. It was crazy.

There were so many baptisms. It was it was wild.

We were handing out wet used towels for kids to dry off over

and over again. By the end of it, our waters, no

joke, turned from this crystal clear to this delectable kids

soup. There are all kinds of things

floating in it. That murky water?

It represented 22 lives being washed clean by the blood of

Jesus Christ. Over 30 students realized that

they were playing games with God and decided this week was the

week that they were going to be serious, that they were going to

rededicate their lives, they were going to follow Him with

all they had. Amen to that church.

This is what happens when the body of Christ shows up in

Christ, honors it, when you show up with your time, your energy,

your sacrifices. I know you've been giving.

I know you've been encouraging students all week.

We're encouraging students to become Jedi disciples who begin

to abide in God's Word, to experience his spirit and life,

to believe God who sent Jesus to follow him through darkness

because he is the light of the world.

We are learning this week after week.

We're encouraging them all to memorize the fruits of the

Spirit. If you ask any of the students

in there, they probably will tell you I beat it into them

because that was our goal for the whole week, to have love and

joy and no peace and patience and kindness and goodness and

faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.

Thursday we had this light bulb moment that these lifestyle

changes, these choices, they come from one source.

That source is having Jesus Christ in your life and abiding

in him. So today join me in John chapter

John 8 · chapter mention

8. I give you a second to get there

in your Bibles. If you don't have it, it's going

to be on the screens. We'll be in verse 31.

This is where Jesus is questioning.

He questions if we are abiding in His truth or just memorizing

facts, where he's questioning if we are true disciples or just

knowledge gatherers. So let's read verse 31.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide

in my word, you are truly my disciple, and you will know the

truth, and the truth will set you free.

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? Jesus answered them Truly,

truly. I say to you, everyone who

practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the

house forever. The sun remains forever.

So if the sun sets you free, you will be free.

Indeed. Our big idea for today is

abiding, is moving from knowledge collecting to life

transformation. I'll say that again, abiding is

moving from life, from knowledge collecting to life

transformation. Abiding in knowledge is much

more than facts and information gathering.

I would know my favorite way to pass a test is to memorize it.

Memorize the questions so the instant I see, I know the

answer. Or even worse, I'll just

memorize the answer. I'll visualize patterns or

themes. Can I?

Can I be honest for a second? In seminary Bible college, I was

a master at gaming the system. I remember this one question.

In what way does Jesus divinity manifest itself?

I knew that question had 7 answers and each of them, each

of the words ended with ER or Orr.

So I memorized the pattern, but I didn't dig into the truth.

I aced the test. It's about Jesus without

actually knowing Jesus any deeper.

I turned the Son of God into a word puzzle, just collecting

Bible facts while my heart stayed unchanged.

Why? Because this is the fastest way

for me to pass a test. It demands the least from me,

keeping my involvement to a bare minimum.

But does that actually change me?

Did it develop my knowledge on the subject?

Does it actually grow me, Prepare me?

Did it instill any of the fruits of the Spirit into my character

that we've been pounding into you all week?

Was it transforming me into a better person?

The idea of being transformed directly come from abiding in

Jesus. Abiding.

Abiding. What a weird word.

We don't even hear it anymore, probably because we're too busy.

Abiding means to remain, to dwell, to let something

penetrate you so deep into your soul that it changes you,

changing not what you know, but who you are and how you actually

live. Back to verse 31.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide

in my word, you are truly my disciples.

Jesus is laying out what it really means to be a disciple,

or he's laying out what it actually means to be what we

call a Christian, a follower of Christ.

Through the past several weeks, if you've been sitting in

church, you've been reading John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

Jesus is surrounded by people who are surface level in their

beliefs. At best, one moment they believe

Jesus is speaking the truth, giving amazing guidance and

insight, and then in the next, like they turned off the lights.

These people are living in the dark, disregarding Jesus for

their personal opinions. Jesus is trying to lead them

into a real a deep personal understanding of what what it

means to be a follower of him, a follower of Jesus, a Christian.

Just like the Jews here. It's possible for us, say me, to

believe in God and not let His truths shape our lives.

Abiding in His Word implies commitment, enduring continue

practice, and obedience to His teaching.

It's possible believing God, but not walk the life of a true

disciple. How do I know?

Because I do that all the time. I wear the title Christian.

But sometime, sometimes I'm just tired.

I'm exhausted. I'm worked out, tired of being

strong, tired of pretending everything is OK.

Christianity calls me to lay down my life and to pick up and

carry a cross when I'm already caring so much.

I read come to me, Jesus says this, come to me, all who are

weary, but I keep running to the other things instead.

Entertainment, every distraction I can think of, performance, and

ultimately I just have to check out.

I want peace but avoid the path that leads to it.

Obedience. I want joy but I avoid pruning

what I know is souring me. I want transformation but avoid

surrender because even though I am exhausted, I am tired, I have

done all I can. I still I think it's best for me

to be in control. The real cost of discipleship

isn't doing more, it's laying more down.

Think about that. The real cost, what it really

cost you to be a disciple, is not to do more, it's to give

more. Up my pride, my pace, myself

made strength. Jesus isn't asking me to hustle

harder, but to trust deeper, to abide, not to strive, to rest in

him. Not just for him.

Because the title Christian does not transform me.

Discipleship in Christ is a person who's developing,

growing, changing. It's a person who's becoming

more like the teacher, more like Jesus.

And often I fall back into being more like Dave, less like Jesus.

According to the Bible, there are two versions of you.

One who was enslaved to sin, living under the power of

fleshly desires. This is kind of our default.

This is what we started from. The other is filled with the

Holy Spirit, living as if we were originally created in the

image of God as we were. So when I say I want to be Dave,

I have to ask which Dave, the one that's redeemed and made

holy by God, or the one who is still bonded to sin?

And when did becoming like Dave become more appealing like than

being like Jesus? When what makes me think more of

me is better than more of God? When I stopped abiding in

Christ? When I stopped recognizing that

my life isn't how He intended it to be.

This transformation is recognizing that I need God's

word to shape my life. This is a disciple.

This is what Jesus is talking about, or this is what we call

in church sanctification. It's the growth in your capacity

to be more like Christ, to be more like Jesus in your

character. All right, think of it like

this. You guys like food?

Yes. OK, four people like food.

OK, The foodies in here, you don't get intense flavour by

brushing on marinade. Brush it on, throw it on the

grill. How's it taste?

If you want your rib eye to taste like garlic and balsamic

and explode in flavours, you can't just dip it in and cook

it. Nothing sinks in, nothing

changes. Real flavor comes when you let

it soak in, absorb when you work that marinade deep, give it time

to break down the tough parts and then fuse into the middle.

That's how transformation happens, not with a quick

splash, but with the slow, deliberate soaking.

And the same is true with God's Word.

It has to soak in, not just sit on.

Jesus says in order for you to become a true disciple, He says

you must continue. In my Word, discipleship always

involves 2 key components. Receiving His word #1 and being

shaped by His Word. It's both truth learned and

skill developed. Abiding means more than hearing.

It means continuing in it, applying it, living it.

Information must be married between practice and skill.

Imagine you need something like a heart surgery.

Something that's super important.

And your surgeon walks in and he starts explaining it to you,

This is what I'm going to do. And he shows you diagrams of how

your heart's working. And you're impressed.

Like, wow, this guy's pretty good.

And then he's got his medical degrees on the wall.

Wow. He doesn't go to a Skibby

school. Then you ask him the question

that changes everything. How many of these have you

actually done? He goes Oh no, I've never done

this before, you're my first. Suddenly all that knowledge is

just surface level. When life and death is on the

line, information without experience is worthless.

Life is too big of a deal to not get this right.

Abiding is moving from knowledge collecting to life

transformation and in a life and death scenario, information is

not enough. Knowing Christ or not knowing

Christ is a life and death situation.

We love to gain knowledge. We love to hear God's Word.

We love the idea of living godly lives.

We are so good at biblical knowledge gathering, but for

informational purposes only. We want the data without the

responsibility. That's truthfully what happens

on a Sunday morning. So many people come in, but they

don't continue in God's word. They hear God's word.

They come in and say, give me a sermon, teach me, preach to me,

make it good, make it exciting, let's get our lightsabers out,

let's go crazy. But the second they leave those

back doors, is it being applied to our lives or is it simply

they love the feeling of church and excitement?

And don't get me wrong, church is amazing.

Church is here to lift us up, to refocus on the Lord.

But Jesus says when we're not abiding in his word, when it's

not changing you, when you love the way you live more than the

way the Lord asks you to live, Jesus says, you're not my

disciple. You may be a church attender,

you may be taking tons of notes, but a disciple, No, you may be

saved and on your way to heaven because you truly believe in

him. But his disciple, No.

Again, verse 31. So Jesus said to the Jews who

had believed in him, If you abide in my word, you are truly

my disciple, and you will know the truth, and the truth will

set you free. They answered him, We are

offspring of Abraham, and I've never been enslaved to anyone.

How is that you say you will become free?

Become free? What is this freedom he's

talking about? We live in America.

What do we need to be free from? The Jews are asking the same

question, which is blowing my mind.

These are the same people that God had to save from an

enslaving hand of Pharaoh. How could these people forget

about their million people leaving Egypt where God had to

intervene? Get in the middle of it

physically do one of the most spectacular miracles of parting

the seas. It's the same way we forget to

put Christ in our lives. Somebody might be thinking this

Jesus talk sounds great, but I'm not even sure this guy existed

2000 years ago, let alone that he can set me free from the

things that I'm dealing with today.

That's a fair question, I get that.

I understand what you're thinking, but let me show you,

no matter how skeptical you may be, that freedom that Jesus

talks about changes lives. All of us have a basic idea of

tools. Yes, we have tools at home.

OK, We have all kinds of tools. We have computers, we have

phones. Some that's good, some of it's

not so good. We have cars, we have drills,

and there's a way to use our tools well, the way that they

were designed. But if you don't use the tool

correctly, you'll ruin the tool. If you took an electric drill

and you used it as a hammer, eventually this will no longer

be an electric drill. It'll be destroyed.

There'll be pieces. If you take it and you start

digging and trying to use it as a pry bar.

Done it before, destroys it, by the way.

It's pretty messed up. It's no longer optimum.

The lie the devil tells you is that anytime you have a

restriction, a barrier, a guideline, a guardrail in your

life, you are not free. That's basically saying how dare

you tell me how to use that drill?

How dare you? If I want to use it as a hammer,

I'm going to use it as a hammer. How dare you.

You're so enslaved. Often in our culture, we look at

guidelines and designs that the Bible talks about and go How can

rules or guidelines lead to freedom?

But here's what's wild the husband and wife who actually

follow God's design, who choose exclusivity, who practice

selfless love, who build their relationships on trust, respect,

biblical commitment. These couples, they report the

highest satisfactions in their marriage.

The reality is when we actually live life the way our Creator

designed for us to live, this is when we are the most satisfied.

You were created for a dependent relationship with your Creator.

Let me say it again, you were created for a dependent

relationship. We don't like that word, but

it's true. And life without Him will not

feel satisfied. In fact, life without Him leaves

you feeling broken, missing out. True freedom isn't about having

no rules. It's about living within the

right rules that actually fit how we were designed to work.

So you can be your absolute best.

Jesus is. True freedom means being

liberated from bondages and limitations, bondage that is

preventing you and I from becoming what we were created

for. What Jesus died on the cross

for. Bondage is such a shame and

guilt. Unprocessed trauma, envy,

addictions, goes on and on. Here's what's fascinating.

Jesus is making a claim that every human can test this, that

there are invisible chains holding us back from becoming

our best selves. You don't have to believe in

miracles to recognize that something inside of us sabotages

our own happiness. We know what is good for us, but

we keep doing what hurts us. Jesus says this pattern has a

name, it's called slavery to sin, and he claims he has the

key to break those chains off. How does an addict know that

they're an addict? At one point do they say I am a

drug addict, I'm a sex addict, I'm an alcoholic?

The truth is, at first they don't, because addiction doesn't

feel like slavery in the beginning.

It feels like freedom. It feels like a choice.

It feels like you're in control. From the outside, we say, how

could they not see that they're a slave to this?

But when we're doing it, we don't feel like a slave until

you try to walk away and you can't.

I didn't think I was a slave to working, being a workaholic,

even though I've been told many times you need a vacation.

Working myself to the point of depletion.

I didn't believe it because I was doing it to myself.

And I love working. It makes me feel good, makes me

feel important. When I'm not working, I miss it.

I can't stop thinking about getting things done.

This is just me. Anybody else in this room have

something in their life that is like that?

Amen to that hand. Freedom isn't doing what you

want. Freedom is being able to stop

when you realize you need to stop.

Freedom is having the sight that you need to stop.

Slavery is when you can't stop. Verse 34 Jesus, answer them

Truly, truly. I say to you, everyone who

practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the

house forever. The sun remains forever.

So if the sun sets you free, you will be free.

Indeed. Abiding is moving from knowledge

collecting to life transformation.

Our big idea for today is simply stated.

It's easy to say, yet it's not often taken seriously.

I know because I often fall short of abiding in His word,

from dwelling in it, from pondering how His words should

change my character, from letting it truly set me free.

I do this because it's easier to skim than to soak.

Because I will seek the Lord as an afterthought because I'm too

caught up in everything else. And there's a lot going on.

Romans 12/2 says do not be conformed to the patterns of

this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And it's crazy to me how I will only see transformation when

it's so deep, when I'm in it so deep that it's hurting.

My thought life, my prayer life, it becomes about me.

I'm enslaved by what I want, ultimately letting the sin of my

life overcome and enslave me. And if I'm being honest, the

same split sin that's enslaving me is enslaving you, not

allowing you to have and enjoy the benefits that God is

promising us, keeping us from the benefits that we were

created to receive. And that's my question I asked

you today. Do you have true freedom from

life's bondages? Christ offers freedom in his

salvation. It's not merely enough to know

that Christ can set you free. He has to be a part of you

before you become free to take off those sinful chains of your

life. Christ offers in this through a

real relationship with Him and if you actually believe in

Christ that Christ is who he says He is, He gives you the

free gift of salvation and it starts to break you free.

Our lives consequences may seem impossible to overcome, but the

reality is without Christ most of them are right now I give you

the opportunity to have a real relationship with Jesus today.

The Bible says you must place your faith in Him to be saved.

Romans 10/9 through 10 says because if you confess with your

mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that

God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with a heart 1 believes and is justified, and with the mouth

1 confesses and is saved. If you would like to surrender

your life to God today, I want to give you that chance.

So if everybody could please bow your heads, close your eyes,

just for a quick moment. This is just so you can focus on

God, if you're willing to ask Him for forgiveness and

salvation with every head bound you can quietly, silently repeat

repeat this prayer or something similar.

Jesus, I know I am messed up. I am a Sinner.

I can't save myself. I want you to save me, adopt me

into your family. I surrender everything to you.

I receive your promise of forgiveness.

I receive your adoption and eternal life.

Jesus, please be my Lord with every head down.

If you pray that prayer for the very first time, would you be

brave enough to raise your hand? Amen.

You may put your hands down in the amazing power of Jesus.

Amen. If you just committed your life

to Jesus for the very first time, welcome to his forever

family. There are tables in the back of

this room behind banners that says, I raised my hand and we

just have a small gift for you, something to celebrate.

But really we just want to pray with you and be there for you

while you make this first step into having Christ come into

your life and change your life and start breaking you free from

the things that you know you're working through.

And before we end today, let me give you some practical steps of

abiding in God's word #1 hang out with God's Word.

Hang out. Take a second.

One of the best places to do this is in our community groups.

Our community groups are not secular Hangouts.

They are centered around the Word of God.

Because community is nice, but biblical community is essential

for everyone here. It's the word that changes us.

Sometimes it's the word from other believers, so hopefully

with a group of people, if not by yourself, take a verse, take

a section of scripture and read it over.

Ask God, am I living like this? Pray and ask Him.

God, what are you telling me in this section of your word?

Let it soak into you. Dwell on it.

If you have no idea what it means, even better.

Search, see, talk to people about it #2 be a doer, not just

a hearer. Throughout the week, take a

moment to ponder the word that you've been reading, that you

opened up and read, and ask yourself, how can this change my

outlook on a situation? How should it change my

character or my actions? Lastly, find a verse that speaks

directly to an area you know you are called to be transformed in.

Utilize your pastors, your elders, your leaders, the people

around you to find a verse that speaks into what you know you

need to change in, Be transformed.

Write that verse somewhere where you'll see it multiple times a

day, every thought, Every time you see it, don't just read it.

Confess your need for God's help to actually live it out, because

we really need God's help. The goal is not perfection, it's

authentic discipleship. It's when we get to see God,

when we are face to face with God and he says, you, you were

my disciple. It's allowing God's truth to

slowly conform you to the image of His Son.

As we close the song, I ask you all to please stand.

Our prayer team will be up here if you need to pray about

anything. And when I say anything, I

really need it. These people have heard it all.

If you need healing, if you need encouragement, if you need just

to be with somebody, come forward and pray with them.