Freedom vs Bondage — John 8:31-59 (06.21.2026)

If everyone will remain standing for the reading of God's Word.

When I finish reading today's scripture from John 8, I will say,

This is the Word of the Lord. Please respond by saying, Thanks be to God.

Okay, so John chapter 8, we're going to start in verse 31. So Jesus said to

John 8 · chapter mention

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

disciples, 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 son remains forever.

So the son sets you free. You will be free indeed.

I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my

word finds no place in you.

I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father.

And we're going to skip to verse 44.

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth,

because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father

of lies. And we're going to skip down to verse 56.

Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.

So the Jews said to him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?

Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.

So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks to the days I'm young.

Thanks to the angel of the chandest. Greetings today.

Good morning, everyone, and happy Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day to all of you fathers here and father figures.

You're called to a great task. You're called to a great task as a dad.

And we have a perfect model in the father, in the heavenly father,

and we know we can't meet that, but he's given you grace sufficient enough to

follow and imitate him. And that's what we'll get to see a little bit in this passage.

So just for fun, a fun Father's Day introduction here, who in here is a great dad?

There you go. There you go. A couple of humbles, a couple of not so humbles.

Yeah, you should take honor in what God has called you to.

Now, which one of you is the greatest dad?

All right, we got one. Papa James says he is the greatest. He's the greatest.

Well, when you think of the greatest of all time, you might think of Hank Aaron

or Chipper Jones, or you've got John Smoltz, Greg Maddox, Tom Glavin.

It's the year of the Braves, right, Ben? It is.

The Stanley Cup, That's hockey for you, Southerners. The Stanley Cup just finished.

You have Wayne Gretzky, who's the greatest.

Maybe Alex Ovechkin for soccer. The FIFA World Cup has begun and it has been great.

You have Lionel Messi. No contest, hands down, the greatest.

And then the NBA Finals also just ended, right, last week.

And there you have this four-time NBA champion,

Four-time MVP The league's leading scorer His name's LeBron James And then you've

got Kobe Bryant He's a five-time champion,

The most clutch player in the history of the NBA Scored 81 points in one single game.

And then you've got this guy who's a six-time champion, six-time finals MVP,

never lost a finals when his team made it there.

This is the GOAT, Michael Jordan.

But you see, whenever we talk about who might be the greatest or whoever claims

to be the greatest, there's always some sort of division and debate that goes on, right?

That's exactly what happens here in this passage, as Candace read,

when Jesus claims to be greater than Abraham, even more so the great I am.

They pick up stones ready to kill him. We started off this passage in 31. They believed in him.

And then we ended with his claim to be the greatest and they were ready to kill him.

So we always see debate when someone claims to be the greatest.

And again, the end of this passage when Jesus claims, truly,

truly, I say to you in verse 58, before Abraham was, I am, this is a callback.

If you remember Nathan's sermon a few weeks ago, surely you do.

It was just a couple of weeks ago when he was preaching on, I am the bread of life.

He showed us how I am, it was a metaphorical way of Jesus saying that he used the Greek word ego, a me,

which in Hebrew is Yahweh, which is what God said to Moses in Exodus 3 at the

burning bush, when he revealed himself, God's self-revelation of who he is, I am who I am.

So Jesus is repeating these words of what was said to Moses at the burning bush.

And so when these people hear it.

They get pretty upset. They get pretty upset about it. And they want to pick

up stones and kill him for blasphemy.

They come at him like a mob-like mentality, kind of like when,

as we know the story, when Jesus was arrested and set on trial,

they welcomed him into the town of Jerusalem saying,

hallelujah, hosanna, hosanna, praising him, welcoming him.

And then at this trial, chaos ensues and they say, crucify him, crucify him.

So similarly, these people believed and then they're ready to kill him at the end of this section.

But this is what Jesus does. He pushes on the traditions and the understandings

of these Jews to help them realize that they are in fact, living in darkness

and living in sin and living in bondage, because he wants them to come into the light.

This is what Ben preached last week. I am the light of the world, he says in verse 12.

So Jesus, he helps them, he helps us confront our wrong ideas of sin,

our wrong ideas about freedom and about God himself.

And so this is what I hope that we get to see from the text today. Is that, is that me?

I hope we get to see that from the text today, that the father of lies,

this is in your sermon notes, the father of lies keeps us in darkness and bondage,

but the father of truth brings us into light and freedom.

I left you a lot of room for notes, no set points.

So have at it. Hopefully the spirit will speak something to you from this,

but the father of lies keeps us in darkness and bondage, but the father of truth,

brings us into light and freedom.

So again, to refresh us some from last week, Jesus calls himself the light of

the world, but in the much bigger sense, he is saying that he is one with God.

He is Yahweh, right? One with Yahweh.

So when he says, I am the light of the world during this feast of booths,

which remembers the Israelites journey through the wilderness,

when Jesus says these things.

They would be quick to connect that he's talking about, okay,

maybe this is the pillar of fire that was guiding the Israelites through the

wilderness at the dark. You remember this, right?

They would go in the cloud cover of day and then follow the pillar at night, the light of the world.

Jesus says this, their ears would be perked up because this is what they're

remembering in this feast of boost. They're remembering the journey through

the wilderness and God's provision and deliverance in that.

And then back in chapter seven with Jesus's invitation to come to him who are

thirsty and drink and living waters will flow.

The water there again at this feast, the officiating priests take water from

the pool of Siloam. Is it Siloam?

It's the other one. It's one of them. We're going to learn about it next week.

And they take water from the pool and they put it around the altar in the temple

where this is where Jesus is speaking.

They put it around the temple. So when he says living water,

they will connect that to when God provided water in the wilderness to the Israelites.

So Jesus is using these teachings and events and memorial events,

these feasts to show who he is.

So that was about me.

All of these things that have happened were pointing to me.

I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I produce this living water.

Come to me, you who are thirsty.

And so their ears, their ears will be perked up. They'd be aware.

They'd be following along with this.

And so just as the Bible does, all the Old Testament pointing forward to Christ,

Jesus uses these things to say, this is who I am. I am one with the Father.

So after verse 12, I am the light of the world. The Pharisees accuse him of

not being true, right? remember this last week.

But it's as if Jesus is saying, I'm telling you I'm true. What I'm saying is

true. And you don't even know who my father is or who I am, or else you would

believe what I'm telling you.

You can see throughout this chapter,

how many times Jesus is trying to tell them you're dead in your sin.

You're a slave to sin. You are walking in darkness.

If you do not believe that I am he, you will surely die in your sins.

It's kind of the opposite of what the serpent said back in the garden, right?

Like you will not surely die, right? It's the opposite.

And this is what Jesus is doing. He's showing us the difference between darkness and light.

It's because Jesus is saying, it's because you don't know the truth.

You don't want to know you're in darkness.

I'm calling you out of your comforts, Jesus is saying, but you would rather

sit in the darkness of your own sin and to be presented with the truth of the light of which I am he.

Because if you know the truth, the truth will set you free.

Verse 31, so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my

word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will

set you free. Let's try it again.

You will know the truth and the truth will set you.

There we go. Good participation. We're going to interact this morning.

So be alert, pay attention. Come on, come on. Okay.

So Jesus, as you heard read, knows where he's going with this conversation.

They believe, and he's going to start continuing to press and push and challenge.

All the way to the end where they pick up stones ready to kill him.

He's not only saying that he

is from God, one with God, but he himself is God, is what Jesus is saying.

And he says, if you receive my word, you will know the truth.

It will set you free. So he continues to just challenge the darkened hearts

and darken the minds of these Jews there at the Festival of Booth.

But this is such an important warning to us, too.

If we can read this and see ourselves in our fallen condition,

we'll realize that we're not too different than these guys that Jesus is talking to.

The Bible was written for us, not to us to be like, oh yeah,

we're better than those guys were.

But it was written for us so that we can see, oh yeah, God is so much more holy than I am.

I am much more like these guys questioning God and not believing.

And this is what the scriptures are for.

The Bible was written for us, and so we should be quick to read it as the opposition

rather than the blessed hero, right?

So in this passage, hopefully we can take that stance and see how this is speaking

to us even today, even in our redeemed state, still struggling with lies,

believing lies of the enemy, even though we are redeemed in Christ.

So this story here at the Feast of Booths shows us the danger of unbelief,

not fully trusting Jesus.

Some of the people believed, but when he claimed to be greater than Abraham,

they wanted to kill him. This is what Jesus said in 37 and 40.

You're seeking to kill me. You want to kill me. I'm telling you the truth, but you want to kill me.

It's like when Jesus is Lord of your life, but you don't want to do what he

says to do, or you do want to do what he doesn't want you to do.

It's the departure of scripture. When you do what Jesus says not to do,

and you don't do what Jesus says to do, is a departure from scripture and an entry into bondage.

And this is a danger for us. So these people think they're free,

right? These people that Jesus is talking to think they're free because they're

descendants of Abraham. Look at verse 33.

Verse 33 says, We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.

How is it that you say you will become free?

They think they're free, but they have the wrong understanding of freedom.

They think because we belong to this group of people, we practice these certain

things, we don't practice these certain things, we follow these rules,

we follow these guidelines.

How was Abraham counted as righteous? By faith. By faith.

That's freedom. That's freedom. Freedom is found in nothing but Christ.

True freedom is not found in a country.

True freedom is not found in a political preference. True freedom is not found

in a certain level of finances.

You've probably heard the financial freedom thing. It's not found there.

It's not found in being self-employed or not having a boss or making your own vacation time.

It's not found in anything other than at the cross of Christ.

So you go to the foot of the cross of Christ and you find true freedom.

That's where the father draws you to himself, John 6.

You're born again by the spirit, John 3, solely based on the sacrifice of the

son, a free gift of grace, freedom, ultimate freedom from sin and the bondage that it keeps you in.

In Christ, you're no longer a slave to sin, but alive to Christ, as Paul would say. Amen.

False freedom is one of the lies that the enemy wants to use to keep us in bondage.

This self-reliance, selfishness, this, if I can just get this,

if I can just do that, if I can just, if I can just, if I can just,

this self-reliance is where the enemy wants us to be.

The lies that are causing us to shift our gaze away from Jesus,

and again, perhaps even worse, looking at part of Jesus, but not believing all.

Of Jesus, not receiving all of his truth.

And no doubt there are people that are outside of Christ and we that are living

in bondage and sin and darkness, and we should not be surprised when they do

dumb things, right? We shouldn't be surprised by this.

But we also, for us who do believe and have received the gospel,

he still, the enemy still wants to use the same tactic.

Did God really say, did God really say, you and I know brothers and sisters

that are still in, and hurts and habits and hang up struggling to advance.

You and I know brothers and sisters in Christ that still believe certain lies

of the enemy, something that might sound like, I'm not pretty enough.

I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not strong enough.

I'm not fill in your blank enough. But.

If you can read what we're saying here, when our faith may fail and we sink

into the dark waters like Peter, when he was walking towards Jesus out of the

boat, our faith may fail.

Jesus is right there ready to reach and pick us up. This is what he did when

he came incarnate, just like we read in our confession.

He came to us to pick us up out of the darkness and out of the bondage,

the pressure of the water to deliver us into his kingdom of his marvelous light,

to give us freedom, show us the truth, expose our sin to the light so that we might be freed.

And this is why Jesus points us to cling to his word, verse 31 and verse 51.

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

Us. In verse 51, truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.

We need the scriptures to point us back to Christ, to fix our eyes back on Christ,

to remind us of our identity in Christ, a truly, truly set free, beloved child of God.

In Christ, that is who you are. So all of these worries about not being smart

enough, not being pretty enough, not being good enough, not being advanced enough.

It's all a scheme of the enemy to make us believe a lie.

And even in Christian thought, I'm not pure or good enough to receive God's

blessing, or I'm not doing enough for his kingdom, or I'm not bold enough to evangelize.

These are all lies that we want to believe. But listen, listen,

friends, Jesus loves you just as you are.

Jesus loves you just as you are and way too much to leave you there in darkness and in bondage.

Jesus loves you just as you are and loves you way too much to leave you in darkness,

and bondage. If you have your little worship guide, look at the back of it.

This is why we remind each other of these truths. You are loved by God the Father.

There is no one left to please.

You are saved by God the Son. There is nothing left to prove.

You are comforted by God the Spirit.

There is nothing left to fear.

This is the identity that we put our stake in.

We cling to because Jesus loves us so much to pull us out of the darkness,

out of the bondage, and into freedom and into light.

The truth will set you free.

Jesus, he's just laying it out there for him, right? He just,

this is what it is. This is, I'm telling you the truth. Just receive the truth.

Verse 38, Jesus says, I speak of what I have seen with my father and you do

what you have heard from your father. And you heard Canis read it.

This is where things get to be a little bit dicey for Jesus.

He starts to really kind of press on them and they get offense or offended and

defensive. And well, let's just read, let's just read.

But Jesus is saying, I speak what I have seen with my father.

Of course, he's talking about, as we saw last week, he's talking about his heavenly

father, not Joseph, his earthly dad.

He's talking about his heavenly father. He's showing his oneness with him.

And he's speaking of what he has seen.

So the father, the son, the spirit have been one for eternity.

Jesus has seen this for all of eternity.

There was never a time that the Trinity was not.

Jesus is saying, my father is truth. He is the father of truth.

Verse 38, I have seen it with my father.

Verse 40, I have heard it from my father.

And verse 42, I was sent by my father to tell you these things.

And these people that Jesus was talking to, as Paul describes in 2 Corinthians

3, speaking about the Jewish people.

Paul says, but their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the

old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted.

Because only through Christ is it taken away.

Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts.

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. So when we see verse 43,

why do you not understand what I say?

It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. The veil is still over their

hardened and darkened hearts.

Verse 47, whoever is of God hears the words of God.

The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.

This is where Jesus really, really starts to pressure them. You'd rather carry

out the desires of your father.

And your father is the enemy, the devil, the murderer, since the beginning, the father of lies.

And we look at this and say, why do they pick up stones to want to throw at

Jesus? I mean, this is getting pretty dicey, getting pretty dicey here.

He says, you'd rather carry out the desires of your father and your father's the enemy, the devil.

When they're claiming, my father is Abraham, even God, which we'll look at in a second.

But the scriptures, the scriptures hold the truth.

And it's by the illumination of the spirit that we can receive these words of

truth, which we'll look at again next week, right? It's the illumination of

the Spirit that gives us the ability to understand what is being said and taught and told to us.

The veil remains over these Jews, so they cannot receive the word of truth.

So we're living in the age of information, right? You can push a couple buttons

and you can know just about anything, about everything.

There's this thing called AI. You may have heard of it.

But it's producing these photos and videos of wars and rumors of wars.

You may have heard that before somewhere in scripture.

But this AI technology is producing things that look so real, right?

So we're confused of what's reality, what's really happening,

and what's not, what's fake.

We've come up as a culture with a buzzword about this called fact check.

Y'all know this one, fact check?

And so this is kind of like what Jesus is doing here.

He's going back and forth with these Jewish people, just fact checking.

And they're like, they're questioning him. They're saying, oh,

truly, truly, I tell you, Jesus says, truly, truly, I tell you.

So we see this interaction of what's reality, what's true.

And it's this whole chapter, even back in chapter seven, this is what Jesus is drawing out.

So the Jewish people, they go, but we're Abraham's offspring.

We've never been slaves to anyone. Abraham is our father.

And Jesus says, 37 through 41, look, I know this.

I know you're Abraham's children, but if you were Abraham's children,

then you would do what Abraham did.

And you know what Abraham did? he listened to me. He listened to me and it was

credited to him as righteousness. He listened to every word I said.

If Abraham were your father, you would listen to me.

They say in verse 41, the only father we have is God himself.

Jesus said to them in verse 42, if God were your father, then you would love me.

I am Abraham's father. I am one with the father. This is what I'm trying to

tell you. He goes, you're Abraham's kids. Be like Abraham.

Believe my words. Abide in my words. Keep my words. Find life.

Find light. Find truth. Find freedom.

Rejoice. Rejoice at my coming like he did.

But here, as Jesus is trying to draw this out of them, it's another tactic of

the enemy, the one who comes to steal and kill and destroy.

The murderer since the beginning, the father of lies, he wants us to stay in the domain of darkness.

The Bible says that those who walk in darkness do the works of evil. It's Ephesians 5, 11.

Ecclesiastes 2 says that the fools walk in darkness.

And then Colossians, as you heard read, has this larger picture,

which is that Jesus came to free us from the dominion of darkness and transfer

us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have the redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

The devil doesn't want us to come to the light. He doesn't want the light to be turned on.

He doesn't want us to realize that we're actually living in sin.

We're living in bondage.

He doesn't want us to realize that we're so comfortable with sin that we've

begun to brag about how well we navigate our life in the darkness rather than seeking the light.

We have an eight-year-old and a five-year-old. So dads, you'll get this illustration.

You wake up early in the morning, you go to make your wife a pot of coffee.

It's dark out because you love

your wife and you're a sacrificial servant as a good father is, right?

Amen? There we go. Come on.

You go, you have the dimmest light on in the house possible and you're fixing

coffee and then your child comes around the corner and what do they do?

Oh, it's bright. It's bright, right? They cower at the light and they complain that it's too bright.

Then they don't want to be exposed to the light, right?

Or when you're opening the car door at night and the light turns on and they're

in their car seat and they have that moment, they don't want to be exposed to the light.

These Jews that Jesus was talking to are the same way.

We sometimes are the same way.

All of us just naturally born in sin with a dark heart in a dark world,

carrying out the desires of the enemy.

And his desire is to keep us there.

Maybe allow us to get close to the light. Maybe allow us to get close to the

truth, but not close enough.

Just like what we see here in these Jewish people that perhaps believed,

maybe just intellectually.

Maybe he's a great teacher. Maybe he is the prophet. Maybe he is the Messiah.

We saw that in chapter seven.

To receive some of Christ's teachings, but not obeying all of them is a grave

danger, right? We know this.

Applying that to our lives is a lot harder. We want to choose what to believe,

what not to follow, what to obey, what not to obey.

But if we take Jesus's words here, if you abide in my words,

if you hold to my words, if you keep my words, you are truly my disciples and

you will be free and you will be free indeed.

So let's not be those people who cower at the light that's exposing our sin.

Let's not be the people that don't confess our sin.

Let's do that. This is why Jesus has given us the church, right?

This is also a message to the church here, that we are together,

the people, not the building, not where we're gathered, but the people,

that we can confess our sins to one another so that we might be healed, we might be freed.

So let's be those people. Let's be those people that live in the light,

that confess our sin to one another,

that abide and keep all of Christ's teaching as hard as some might be.

At each Feast of Booths, the Israelites would give up their comforts of their

home in order to commemorate and remember God's salvation from the wilderness.

This is a reminder that in order to be redeemed, that the people of the Lord

must surrender certain things.

Some might even say all things.

We must give up self-reliance. We must give up our selfishness,

and we must turn from our idols and from the comforts of our sin.

And unless we repent, turning from such things to the Redeemer, we will not be freed.

Father of lies wants to keep us in darkness and in bondage, but the father of

truth gives us light, brings us into the light and freedom.

So as we finish up, let me just give us one exhortation to go out on mission

with this great message, with this great message of Yahweh, the ego a me, the great I am.

You and I know people who are living in bondage. You and I know people who were believing in lies.

So let's go tell them the truth about who Christ is and how free you can truly.

If you want to know what a free life that's free in the gospel looks like,

it's hard to say, a life that's free in the gospel, look at Paul,

especially in the letter to the Philippians. Count it all joy.

He counts it all joy despite the circumstances.

Let's be like Paul and advance the gospel, inviting people out of darkness,

out of bondage into freedom and light.

Can we be those people? Because who the Son sets free, He is free indeed. Amen.

Amen. Well, let's pray.

Father, if we are brave enough to pray this prayer, would you expose the darkness

in our hearts, whether for the first time or the millionth time.

You love us just as we are and way too much to leave us there.

Lord, would you help us to be truth seekers and not information gatherers like these people?

Lord, when the light is turned on and the exposure of sin hurts,

we know that it's far less painful than in eternity and darkness apart from you.

Lord, so give us the wisdom and boldness to carry this message to ourselves,

preaching the gospel to ourselves, to our neighbors, and to the ends of the world.

Would you give us the bravery and the courage, even now, Holy Spirit,

to ask you to expose anything that you see in us that we don't see.

Any lie that you need to show us that needs truth, that needs forgiveness, that needs freedom.

Lord, we want to be more like you and live in the light, live in freedom that's found only in you.

So Lord, would you help us?

In you, we have life, truth, light, and freedom.

Draw us near, Father. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.