Obedience Through the Son

So as we jump into our passage, I want to pause for a moment and I want you to contemplate, to think about, and to answer this question in your mind.

When you hear the word obedience, what do you think of?

When you hear the word obedience, what do you think of?

For me, with four kids, 12 down to four, a lot of times when I think of the word obedience or being obedient, it comes to a parent-child relationship.

Naturally, a child is called to obey their parents.

A child should be obedient to their parents.

And so I always think through that when I when I think that, but you gotta understand when a child becomes an adult, they move out on their own, they no longer need your help financially, they they have their own family, that relationship dynamic changes.

And so we sometimes tend, or at least I do, to kind of think that word obedience falls off.

It kind of goes away.

We don't always think of it as maybe submitting to a boss at work, uh submitting to the uh speed laws, traffic law, the the uh how fast you drive in the car, whatever that's called, all of a sudden blanking on it.

I don't follow those.

I'm just kidding.

Um I try to.

It's a guide, okay?

It's not a it's not a rule.

Um just kidding.

Um I need to hear this message myself this morning.

Um we we tend to think of those types of things, but we don't a lot of times associate those with the word obedience or being obedient.

And I think sometimes when we come to our relationship with God, we can tend to do the same thing.

We can move right past this idea of obedience.

But other times, and and I think sometimes it's it's not an intentional thing, but other times I do think it's a mindset we have.

We struggle to be obedient to the Father.

As Pastor Justin mentioned last week in his sermon, we believe freedom is to not be held by anything, including submission to God or being obedient to God.

But the reality is, and the truth is, that under God is where we find the liberty we desire.

A lot of times we what we do is we don't connect obedience with liberty.

We think liberty is freedom to do whatever we want, and that's not the reality.

When we we must remember that liberty is ultimately found in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which drives us then to be obedient.

It's not obedience to get that liberty or obedience to get to the Father.

It's the obedience follows the gospel in our own lives.

So let's jump into our text this morning as we continue our series through the Gospel of John, and we're gonna be looking specifically at verses 31 through 47 of chapter 8.

And in that, we're gonna first pause and look at verses 31 through 36, where we are gonna understand this freedom in the sun.

Freedom in the sun.

And when we come to verse 31, we're dropping back into the middle of the conversation that Pastor Justin preached through last week.

We're kind of being brought back into the middle of it.

So that conversation didn't end where we ended our sermon last Sunday, but it continues on as Jesus is having this conversation with a group of Jews.

And right at the end of verse 30 last week, we read that many believed in him, being Jesus.

But what's interesting, and what we'll see throughout the text this morning in the verses, is that these people haven't truly believed in Jesus.

Now, the gospel writer John is not trying to trick us or do anything.

These people did think they had believed in him, and Jesus now is drawing out that you don't actually believe in him.

You don't actually believe in Jesus.

So Jesus follows up in verse 31 with those who have believed to help them understand what believing in Jesus really means.

He says, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

And that Jesus uses the word abide here.

And we have to understand what Jesus is implying in this discussion.

When Jesus says, if you abide in my word, he does not mean this is how you become a disciple.

That's not what Jesus is implying.

What he is saying is it is a sign that you are a disciple.

It's a sign of being in Christ already.

The fruit of that is to come out after.

To abide in Jesus' word means to continue to believe in what Jesus has said and to walk in obedience to him.

Listen to what John the gospel writer says later in 1 John 2, 6.

Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

So to be a disciple of Jesus Christ means you aren't just claiming to be a follower of Christ, but you are actually walking it out.

You are living as a follower of Jesus.

Now, there are many people today who claim to be a Christian, right?

They say, I'm a Christian.

That's, I would, you know, I grew up a Christian, I'm a Christian, but they don't really abide in the Word of God.

They don't actually believe what God says in his word.

Now, if we want a quick litmus test to understand when someone says they're a Christian, you want to really test that theory out, begin to move that conversation into current social issues like marriage or like life.

Because if they don't hold to the fact that marriage is between one man and one woman, or that life begins at conception, then they don't actually stand on the word of God.

They don't actually believe what his word says.

That helps us understand whether actually they believe the word of God or not.

So when we look at verse 31, what Jesus reveals is that continuing to trust Jesus and obey him is a test of who truly are his disciples, who are his followers, and what happens when you abide in the word of God?

And we have to keep verses 31 and 32 together.

We can't separate them out.

What did he say in verse 31?

If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

Then what does he say in verse 32?

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

How will you know the truth?

Number one, by abiding in the word of God.

And what does Jesus claim that that truth in verse 32 will do?

The truth will set you free.

Why?

Because the word of God always points us back to Jesus.

It always points us forward to Jesus.

He is the only one who can truly set you free.

And what's interesting in this conversation that Jesus is having is number one, the Jews first don't understand what Jesus is saying.

And then number two, they have an issue with what Jesus is saying.

So they don't get it.

They're not understanding what Jesus is trying to accomplish here, and then they're frustrated and angry at what he's actually saying.

The Jews misunderstood Jesus when he says the truth will set you free.

They believe he's talking about a physical slavery in this passage and not a spiritual slavery.

The Jews even kind of sound delusional when they make the case that they've never been enslaved to anyone.

Because if you look at Israel's history and the people of God, the Jewish people, they have been enslaved physically multiple times, from Egypt to Babylon and now even Rome.

But the problem here in this passage, this conversation Jesus is having, he's not actually talking about physical slavery.

He's going deeper to a spiritual slavery, being a slave to sin.

Listen to verse 34.

Everyone who practices sin is what?

A slave to sin.

It's a spiritual bondage.

This is what Jesus is actually revealing to the Jews.

They responded, We are the Jews, we are offspring of Abraham.

But Jesus is going deeper.

He's going deeper than just surface level.

Your freedom won't come from who you're related to.

Your freedom can only come from the son.

Jesus is using this kind of this word picture of the comparison of a son to a slave.

These people in this conversation would have understood that a slave had no rights to an inheritance at all.

They actually didn't have any rights, period.

But a son of the family, that's different.

A son gets it all.

A son has the ability actually to set a slave free.

Why?

Because a true son will be given all of the family inheritance.

Everything that belongs to the family of the home ultimately belongs to the son.

And who is the son that Jesus is helping the Jewish people in this conversation understand?

Dece himself.

Jesus was pointing out that true freedom only comes from the Son.

Now, the Jewish people here in this conversation, they actually believe their freedom comes from their ethnicity because they're Jewish.

The fact that they were descendants of Abraham.

And everything they did and acted and believed flowed out of that understanding for them.

Which brings us to verses 37 through 47 this morning, where we see this.

Rejection of the Son is a rejection of the Father.

Now Jesus acknowledged their ancestry.

Here when he says in verse 37 that he knows, he knows that they are offspring of Abraham.

But he's getting to something deeper here.

If Abraham was truly their father, they would not actually be seeking to kill him.

They had been seeking to kill Jesus for a while.

Now, this is nothing new.

Jesus had experienced this already.

If we go back to John 5, we read another time where they were seeking to kill Jesus.

John 5.18.

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him.

Because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

Here in John 8, Jesus once again claims God to be his father.

And if Abraham was truly their father, then they would actually believe who Jesus was.

But Jesus is pointing out that their father is actually not Abraham at all, but someone completely different.

Imagine, it's like one of those talk shows.

I don't know if they're really on anymore, where all of a sudden they're out there, the family's out there, and they're like, that's not your real father.

And they're like, what?

And it's like great, and it's like, that's what's happening here in this situation.

Jesus is basically like, that's not your real father.

And they're like, what?

Like, this is not true.

This can't be happening.

Jesus is comparing here the difference between him and his father, and the Jews and their father.

Jesus' father is God, the Father.

But later down in verse 44, Jesus actually calls out that their father is who?

The devil.

The Jews don't understand what Jesus is saying here because they respond in verse 39.

Once again, Abraham is our father.

Once again, pointing out their ancestry.

So Jesus digs down a little bit deeper.

If you were actually children of Abraham, you would do the works that Abraham did, but you're not.

The Jews here were so focused on that belief that because of Abraham's faithfulness, they were credited with the same faithfulness in their mind.

Listen to Genesis 15, 6, where Moses pins this back talking about Abraham.

And he, being Abraham, who Moses is referring to, believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Abraham believed in the Lord, but the Jews here were believing in Abraham.

They were physical descendants of Abraham, but not spiritual descendants of Abraham.

Their faith rested in Abraham, but not actually God.

Because if they did, they would believe Jesus.

But here they're rejecting the Son, which in turn means they are rejecting the Father.

The Jews are placing their faith in the faith of Abraham.

But we do the same thing in our own lives.

For example, maybe you were raised in a family where you come from generations of Christianity.

Maybe not.

But maybe your great-grandparents were followers of Christ, and your grandparents were followers of Christ, and your parents were followers of Christ, and now you're saying, I'm a follower of Christ.

But we have to understand if we don't place our faith in Christ, then we have no faith at all.

Our parents' faith is not our own faith.

But not only are the Jews here not doing the works Abraham did, but they're seeking to kill Jesus.

Jesus isn't denying their ancestry.

He's not saying, no, no, no, you're not descendants of Abraham physically.

He's not denying that at all.

What Jesus is doing here is pointing out that if you truly spiritually descended from Abraham, then you would do what Abraham did, but they aren't.

You are doing the works of your father, just not the father you believe you are following.

But the Jews don't understand, again, what Jesus is talking about here.

And so what they do is they they flip the conversation around and they attempt to ridicule Jesus with the response.

So instead of actually dealing with the argument or addressing the real issue, the Jews begin to attack Jesus.

It's like when you hear an argument taking place and they're both bringing their points, and all of a sudden someone goes, Well, you're dumb and I don't believe you, so what's done?

And it's like that doesn't work.

You're just attacking the person.

You're not actually getting to the root of the argument.

It's like right now we're getting ready to be thrust into presidential election season where you have debates and you have commercials on TV, and it's just one after another just attacking the other person.

They're not actually going after the issues, they're just going, they voted on this and they did this, and they're an idiot, so don't believe.

Like this is literally what's happening.

The Jews are going, well, we're just gonna attack Jesus here.

This is what we see the Jews do.

Verse 41, we were not born of sexual morality.

Look how much better we are than you.

Who are you?

They are now attacking the virgin birth.

They're coming after this whole situation where they said, We are not born of sexual morality, pointing back to when Mary, the mother of Jesus, becomes pregnant but was still a virgin.

Even Joseph would have been lumped in with his camp until an angel came to him and told him that the Holy Spirit had brought this baby so that he could come along and save his people from their sins.

This is why Jesus responds, if God were truly your father, you would love me.

You wouldn't ridicule me.

Why?

Because he was sent from God.

And what is the reason why you don't believe him?

It's because their father is not actually Abraham or even God.

Your father is the devil.

Now imagine this moment in this situation.

The shock on their face.

You can probably see their cheeks moving as they're gritting their teeth, the anger welling up in their body as they feel their blood pressure rise.

Why would Jesus say this?

Because if your father was truly God, you would not be seeking to kill me.

But you are just like your father, the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning, Jesus said.

Jesus goes on to say that the devil is the father of lies.

And when we see this, it helps us to understand that the devil is the ultimate deceiver.

And what is deceit?

Deceit is the concealing or misrepresenting the truth.

Those who follow the devil are deceivers.

They are actually not of God because not only have they been deceived by their father the devil, but they are now deceiving themselves.

They have become, they have deceived themselves about Christ, they've deceived themselves about God, and they have deceived themselves about the way of salvation, but ultimately they have deceived themselves about being a child of God.

Because if they were truly a child of God, then not only would they hear the words of God, but they would believe the one who was sent by God, the Son of God, Jesus.

But because they reject the Son, they have rejected the Father.

Why?

Because they had been deceived by the father of lies, their devil, the father, their father, the devil.

And when we go back to verses 31 and 32, how would we know if they were truly children of God?

They would, number one, abide in the Word of God, and they would know the truth, and the truth would set them free.

Free from the deceiver, free from the father of lies, and God would be their true father, all because of who?

Because of the one they're standing in front of.

Because of the one they're arguing with, because of the one they're ridiculing, because of the one who is Jesus.

And it's the same for us today.

When we abide in God's word, when we are obedient to do what God says in his word, this is the fruit or the outpouring of the relationship we have with the Father because of the Son.

Let's not flip those.

We don't strive to be obedient to earn God's love.

We strive to be obedient because of God's love.

Which helps us understand our main idea this morning.

And it's this our obedience to the Father flows from our union with the Son.

Our union with the Son, Jesus Christ, is the foundation of our obedience.

We have to start as our foundation as being united with Christ.

The problem that the Jews were facing here in John 8 with Jesus, as they're having this conversation, is not only were they rejecting Jesus, the Son, but even looking to kill him.

It makes complete sense that the works they claimed to do were not of their father who is God, but of their father, the devil.

Why?

Because they had rejected the Son.

And so for us today, this is why we must start with the Son to get to the Father.

And the only way we do that is through being united with the Son, Jesus Christ.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 6, 3 through 6.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into his death.

In order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Paul gives us this picture of our union, what our union with Christ looks like here in Romans 6.

If we have been buried with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his, so we too might walk in what?

Newness of life.

This is why we celebrate baptism as the church.

It's an outward sign of an inward change.

What change?

Our being united with Christ.

This is why Paul can say, following in Colossians 3, 1 through 4, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Paul uses the picture again here in Colossians 3, like he did in Romans 6, with being raised with Christ.

If then you have been raised with Christ, if then you have been united with Christ, it starts with the Son, Jesus Christ.

This is why at sacred mission, the very first value we celebrate is this Jesus first and foremost, making Jesus the focus of every aspect of our lives.

Is that you today?

Is Jesus the focus of in every aspect of our lives?

The reason we can understand this and believe this is because of what the Apostle Paul says in Colossians 1, 15 through 20.

Listen, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

And he is the head of the body of the church, he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

What I want to do for a moment is just pause and really just understand and just kind of think about how incredible and to consider how incredible Jesus really is.

Because when we grasp how incredible Jesus is, it's easy to run to him.

It's easy to make him first and foremost in our lives.

When we start to neglect him and push him to the side, our eyes lose focus.

He no longer becomes first and foremost, he becomes second, third, or fourth.

He holds all creation together.

Think about that.

Even though at times everything can seem random and completely out of control, Jesus is sustaining, orchestrating, and even planning.

He is the firstborn from the dead.

Because of this, we too who have professed faith in Christ are raised spiritually from the dead, and one day will also be raised physically.

Jesus crushed death.

And because all things will be reconciled to himself, he will make all things new.

Everything sad will become untrue.

All things broken will become all things new.

Every now and then we get a glimpse of this reality, a glimpse of the beauty in our own lives that we can watch and see how Jesus will restore to what has been broken since the fall, since sin entered the world.

Whether it's a broken relationship that's restored in the beauty of that, or even something like a video I saw recently of a moose.

Interesting video.

A moose is uh all of a sudden the video breaks in, and this moose has a Halloween costume stuck on his head.

I don't know how this took place, I don't know where this costume was.

Um, but this moose, all of a sudden, it's it's stuck on the rack, it's covering his eyes, he's panicked.

And if you've ever seen how large a moose is, it's not an animal you just pick up and like help out.

Like they're dangerous, they're wild, they don't want to come in contact with humans, and they can actually be very dangerous.

He can't see, and so this guy, one person's videotaping, this guy is.

He's now trying to get close enough to try to pull this off of him.

And he's having a hard time because they're unpredictable, they're dangerous.

He doesn't want to get kicked.

He doesn't know how to do this, but he's trying to help.

And these animals always don't play well with humans.

So eventually there's this fence where the moose kind of is trying to move around and he actually comes up to the fence, and the individual is on the other side.

So, okay, now I feel a little bit more safe.

I can at least get closer.

And he's he's working on getting this Halloween decoration costume off of the moose's head, and uh and he's trying to pull it off and he finally gets it off.

And typically you would assume the next step is that the moose is going to turn and just run.

But the moose stops, approaches the fence, and as the man's hand is there, starts to lick his hand.

Then the moose raises up his head, and the guy reaches over the fence and begins to pet the moose, and he allows it, and the moose stands there.

And how you know this is an incredible picture is another guy approaches into the video and he reaches up to pet the moose, and the moose backs up.

Like, no, no, no, you didn't help me.

This one did.

And it was this incredible sight as this moose came together and allowed this human to pet him.

That shouldn't happen.

It doesn't happen normally.

Of what one day the new heavens and the new earth will be like when everything will be restored, all because of how incredible Jesus is.

And we are united to him and with him.

This should be what drives our obedience to the Father.

Compared to the Jews, we are those who believe Jesus in this conversation.

We of all people should.

Listen to what John the Gospel writer says later in the gospel in chapter 15, John 15, 1.

I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser.

Jesus is the vine, God the Father is the vine dresser.

What is the purpose of a vine dresser?

Not to dress the vine in that way, but he's not making it look prettier, although he is.

He's pruning it, right?

He's pruning that vine in order for what?

For fruit to be produced.

He's taking off what is no longer needed so that good fruit can be produced out of the vine.

John 15, 4, Jesus goes on.

Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

As we abide in the vine, being Jesus, we bear fruit.

As John says here, we cannot bear fruit unless we abide in Jesus Christ.

We cannot be obedient to the Father unless we abide in Jesus Christ.

Guys, it doesn't matter what we put out there in culture.

If people are blinded by the devil and their eyes are blinded, they cannot be obedient to the Father unless we're united to Christ.

It comes back to the gospel over and over again.

You want this world to change?

You want this culture to change?

Tell people about Jesus.

John 15, 8.

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

How do we do this?

John 15, 10.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.

Why can we obey God?

Because Jesus did, and we are united with him.

Why did Jesus say all of this?

Why?

John 15, 11.

These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.

He said this so that our joy would be full.

Our obedience to the Father is not something negative.

A lot of times that's what we do.

We flip obedience around to being something negative, something controlling, something containing us, something like we just want to bust out of and be like, that's not me.

If I want true freedom, if I want joy, if I want happiness, I gotta do what I want.

But it's not that we have to be obedient to the Father, it's that we get to be obedient to the Father.

Why?

Because Jesus was obedient to the Father.

And because we are united with Christ, we are now and can be obedient to the Father.

And that should drive us to joy.

That should drive us to joy.

But the problem a lot of us face is this we deceive ourselves.

We deceive ourselves.

It's essentially the same thing the Jews did in our passage today, just in a different way.

Whereas the Jews were deceived by the devil, we actually deceive ourselves.

Think about our passage today.

These religious Jews believed they were doing just fine.

John 8.33, they were free.

John 8.39, they were sons of Abraham.

John 8.41, they were children of God, but Jesus corrected them.

They were enslaved to sin.

They rejected the truth and the fatal blow, they were offspring of the devil.

And if we aren't careful, we can start to walk down a similar path as the Jews.

We can start to believe the Christian life, the life of abiding in Christ and being a disciple of Christ is based on our works.

It becomes based on us.

Here's a good test for us to think about in your own life.

How many of you have ever had a time that you, as being a follower of Christ, that you have felt like a failure if you did not read the Bible or pray that day?

Have you ever believed that God is not going to be happy with you because you didn't read the Bible?

You've even said to yourself, well, a real Christian wouldn't struggle with having to read their Bible.

The problem in that moment is what you've done is you've now placed your hope in yourself.

You've put it in what you can do all because you base your feelings on everything that you did or didn't do.

Our salvation is not based in our works.

Our hope should not be based in what we accomplish.

Our hope is not in ourselves.

Our hope is rooted in the fact that we have been united with Christ so that we can now walk in newness of life.

Now, this doesn't mean that we'll never have dry periods in our life or we'll have difficulties.

What it does mean is that God will continue to work in us, to continue to cause us to abide in Christ, to desire to read his word, to desire to spend time more and more in prayer.

Why?

So our joy may be full.

But the reality is our joy is found in what Jesus has done, not what we can do.

Which leads us to our gospel conviction this morning is this Jesus defeated the deceiver, so we don't have to be deceived.

Jesus defeated the deceiver, so we don't have to be deceived.

Think about it.

Satan has not changed his tactics.

The devil still does what the devil has done.

Demons still do what they've always done.

They're not innovative.

They might flip things and switch things up, but they're not innovative.

They still do the same thing.

Satan deceived Adam and Eve in the garden the same way he attempted to test and tempt Jesus in the wilderness.

Same way.

The serpent used fruit in the garden to tempt Eve.

Satan used bread to tempt Jesus.

The serpent said to Eve, When you eat of the fruit, you will be like God, knowing good and evil, tempting her to believe that she was somehow on the same level as God.

Satan said to Jesus, If you are the Son of God, attacking his deity, actually saying, You're not on the same level as God.

Eve saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to desire to be make one wise, she took and ate.

Satan showed Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world and their glory, but instead of allowing the temptation of his eyes, he tells Satan to be gone.

Every time Jesus is tempted here, he abides in the Word of God.

Where Adam failed, Jesus succeeded.

It's the same for us as well.

Temptation comes at us each day in the same way it came at Adam and Eve, and in the same way it came at Jesus.

We are tempted to fulfill our appetite with the things of this world, with fleeting pleasures, as if they will really satisfy our deep hunger and longing.

We're tempted by the things we see.

We want to look good.

We want to look powerful.

We want to look successful.

We want people to believe we have it all together in our own strength, in our own works.

And we're tempted to put ourselves at the center of our lives, to be worshipped like God.

I always wonder how these musicians who just explode and become massive, how they can actually really, in all honesty, stay humble.

You watch them on stage and they literally stand there and people worship them.

And it's this incredible sight.

And it makes sense that they cannot handle it.

It makes so much sense why these massive musicians end up in depression and they end up having issues with drugs or alcohol or whatever's going on in their lives because they're trying to fulfill being worshiped like God and they can't.

If that's a hope for your life one day, I pray God would protect you of that.

That will crush you outside of Christ.

We desire to be worshiped like God.

This all started because of Adam.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 5.12.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

But thanks be to God, Paul follows up Romans 5.12 with Romans 5.18.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

We see in Adam's fall our own sinfulness, but we see in Jesus' obedience our righteousness.

Jesus didn't just show us the way, Jesus created the way for us to have the ability to walk in newness of life.

And this brings us to our gospel vision this morning, and it's this we abide in the life of Christ.

We abide in the life of Christ.

Listen again to what the Apostle Paul said in Colossians 3, 1 through 4.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Because we have been raised with Christ, we now seek the things that are above.

We do this by pursuing a deeper knowledge of Christ Himself, by spending time in the Word of God, by abiding in the Word of God.

Remember what Jesus said in John 8 31.

If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

Remember earlier how I said what abiding in Jesus' word meant?

To abide in Jesus' word means to continue to believe what Jesus said and walk in obedience to him.

And why can we believe what Jesus said and walk in obedience to him?

Because our old life was buried with Christ.

Our old life was crushed with Christ in the grave.

And we have been raised like Christ to walk in newness of life.

So what does that mean for you and me this morning?

How does this impact us?

How does this help us live out?

First, we must continue to look to Christ.

Make sure that Jesus truly is first and foremost in your life.

That's one of the reasons I love Sacred Mission is our goal is always to point to Christ.

If we ever veer from that, we are no longer loving Jesus.

We are no longer a faithful church to the gospel, but we do.

Second, because our old life has died, we are to put to death anything associated with our old life.

What are the sinful practices that are currently in your life?

You've buried deep within your heart.

So deep that you go, there's no reason to even try.

I cannot change these things.

Because the reality is, you have been set free.

You don't have to be held captive to these sinful patterns in your life anymore.

In the same way that you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God, it's also time for those sinful practices in your life to be put to death because guess what they have?

You're just continuing to feed them because you love them more than Jesus.

The truth is, you don't have to be deceived anymore.

One day you will once again be with Christ who defeated the deceiver.

Don't allow him to deceive you.

Don't allow yourself to deceive yourself and believe that there's no way that God, that the Holy Spirit working through you, can actually pull those out of your heart and rescue them, rescue you from them.

He can and he will.

Let's start believing the truth this morning that one day when Christ appears, we also will appear with him in glory.

The gospel is not just about the future in heaven or the new heavens in earth.

The gospel is also about today, how Jesus will change your life now, leading you to where your life will be changed in the future.

And because of that truth, we need to start living that out today.

Let's pray.