John: From Slavery to Sonship

You may be seated.

So we're going through the book of John.

So we're we're in John chapter 8 at this point, just kind of working our way through.

John 8 · chapter mention

And so John chapter 8 continues this conversation Jesus is having with some Pharisees and with some Jews.

John 8 · chapter mention

And basically it's this continued conversation of Jesus telling these people, Hey, um, I'm God, and uh the way that you've been doing things, the law, it's not working out for you, by the way.

And they're the maintainers of the law, these Pharisees, and so they don't like that Jesus is saying that the law is not working out, and Jesus is saying it's not, and I'm the fulfiller of the law, and I'm coming for that, you know, that shortcoming of yours to live up to the law.

I'm coming for that.

I'm coming to make up the difference.

I'm coming to be the provider of righteousness that you don't have.

Pharisees don't like this.

And so this chapter, John chapter 8, we get a bunch of discussion here.

John 8 · chapter mention

We're going to focus our conversation on some verses in the middle of the chapter, but that's what's going on.

So Wednesday, uh Wednesday morning, uh I'm in, I go to yoga, I go to hot yoga, and uh it's a long story how I got there.

It has to do with a dysfunctional body, mainly feet and a back.

And so I'm at hot yoga.

It's hot, it's 105 degrees, which is basically like you're at the beach, okay?

You feel like you're at in July, you know, in destin and it is burning up hot.

So what this means is uh people aren't wearing a lot of clothing.

It's like being at the beach.

So I'm in the room wearing shorts, that's it, you know, it's you're at the beach.

And so women are in there and they're wearing short shorts and like sports bras or whatever.

So you go into the room, it's a long rectangular room, there's mirrors all across the front because you're doing all these very strange poses and stances, and you're folding up like a pretzel, a bit squatting on one leg, and you gotta really look at yourself the whole time, or else you just kind of fall over.

You can't hold it.

So, but what happens is inevitably, and they're kind of into uh we can talk about yoga a long time, I could at least.

Uh what happens is is uh you you slowly start to kind of check out the people around you.

We all do this, whether at the gym or yoga or aerobics or whatever, you slowly kind of get a feel for who all's in the room, and whether you want to admit it or not, you kind of know who's good and who's not as good.

And and so you slowly just kind of I've slowly kind of figured out I know some people in the room, and and and so I we're maybe 15 minutes into the class.

It's a long class, and so I've kind of settled in, it's hot, kind of got the sweat going, and and I I see something I've not seen before.

So I'm doing my yoga, and and at first I notice her, she's kind of back to my left, but she's in the back row, and so I see her, and then it's like, did I see that?

Not quite sure.

And maybe there's some conversation with parents with children on the drive home today.

Um y'all can have some good conversation with this.

So I I I look, and she has on um she has on black shorts, but she doesn't have on a top.

And I and I'm but here's the thing.

Here's the thing about it.

She's had a double mysectomy.

And all you see is is four scars.

And at first, I'm at first I'm I'm going, like, is this still okay?

Like, I'm still not quite sure.

I'm kind of like wrestling through this morally, like, like, still is this okay?

I mean, she's not revealing anything, but this is I haven't seen this before.

This is new to me, this scenario.

And I'm I'm still trying to do my my yoga pose, and I'm kind of, what is my brain's just kind of exploding.

You know, is this okay?

Is it not?

I don't know.

I I really don't know.

I still don't know if it's okay or not.

And then I and then I just get overwhelmed by, I let's put aside the right or wrong.

We could have that conversation later.

Um, I get overwhelmed with the courage it must take.

We're in that room for an hour and a half looking in the mirror at yourself.

I mean, it's no picnic for me because I start to go, man, man, you know, my hair is kind of frizzy, I got a big nose, I got these bony shoulders, especially you take a shirt off, I got these bony shoulders, right?

I mean, it's no pit, it's no picnic.

And I'm going, man, the courage to stare down your wounds, your scars, for an hour and a half.

And this is the picture I want us to take away from that, right?

It's not me doing a weird yoga pose.

That's no picture for you to keep in your mind.

Here's the picture.

The picture is this do we have the courage to stand in front of a mirror and to really look at what it says about us?

Like, not just not just our bodies.

I'm that's kind of a metaphor for talking about what it's what is going on in us.

The parts we don't like, the parts we avoid.

I mean, we spend so much time trying to be somebody we think we should be, and we spend a lot more time, even than that, spending time trying to be somebody that we think other people want us to be.

And the truth is that freedom comes when we get in front of a mirror and we hold it up and we are willing to deal with ourselves, with God.

I mean, we've been talking the past few weeks a lot, you know, past wounds, past stuff, you know, childhood stuff, I mean, uh, you know, tendencies we have now, idolatry, things we run to that's not healthy, I mean, the way we think, voices of condemnation.

Are we willing to hold that mirror up and deal with that?

I mean, the courage that takes to stare at that and to begin to let God deal with that and to breathe life into that.

So we get to verse 31 in this John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

And this is about freedom today.

Jesus is speaking about freedom.

And so he says, To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

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

So the truth here is it's not a nugget of truth or like just like just moral truth.

I mean, Jesus is saying the truth.

Later in John 14, 6, he says, I am the truth.

He said, I am the truth, the way, and the life.

I mean, Jesus is talking about himself.

And he's talking about everything he's been teaching.

What's he been teaching these first eight chapters of what we've been reading about John writing about him, the things he's been talking about?

He's been talking about this mirror we need to put up to view ourselves, and he's been trying to get these Pharisees to see that they're not all they think they are, and that they have some brokenness inside of them.

Something needs to be fixed.

And this is this is where the mirror can hurt, right?

A mirror can hurt, but it also heals.

That's the way truth is.

Truth hurts, but it heals.

Because it is a revealer of our flaws and the reality that God wants to love you in your flaws.

This is how truth sets us free.

That we slowly learn, we don't have to pretend, we don't always have to cover up with something else, that we can be fully known and fully loved.

And this is not because you're gonna get better, this is because Jesus was the righteousness that you are not.

So that verse 31, it's an interesting verse, the phrasing, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

It'd be easy to come out of that and say, oh, okay, well, you know, like if you do this, then you are this.

Like if you hold to my teachings, then you're my disciples.

And that's that's not what it's saying.

What it's saying is saying, if you are my disciples, you will do this.

This is what happens.

And as you know the truth more and more and more, as you know Jesus more and more and more.

See, it's about knowing him.

But you don't, you see, we don't care to know him, to know the unconditional love, the provider of righteousness.

We don't care to know him unless we've stared in a mirror and come to some conclusions that we are not everything.

And that we we actually need him.

Verse 33.

They answered him because basically Jesus had just told them, hey, uh, if you if you if you know me, hold my teaching, um, and you know the truth, then you'll be set free.

And so he's implying something, right?

What's he implying?

He's implying you're not free.

And so they reply back to him, hey, we're we are Abraham's descendants.

We have never been slaves to anyone.

Interesting, because they would have known their own history, they were slaves in Egypt.

So they're not talking about like political or economic slavery, they're talking about an inner condition.

How can you say that we shall be set free?

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

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

So if the son, talking about himself, Jesus, has set you free, you will be free indeed.

Tuesday night, uh, we're reading books, it is you know, bedtime, bathtime, Johnny's reading the books, right?

We're in the young kids stage of life, and so we're on the floor in Josie and Izzy's room, five, three, and a one-year-old, and the one-year-old Greta's kind of climbing over everybody.

We're reading books, and Josie gets out her library book.

She's five, she's learning to read.

This is a test of my patience.

You some of you know what I'm talking about.

Maybe your kids are older now.

You can remember being patient as your children read and to not blurt out every word for them.

It just takes all the patience I have.

Josie wants to read the cover of the book, make sure she gets all that down, the title page, get that down.

Oh, we missed a page, let's go back to the page.

I'm like, let's start the book.

Let's go, let's read the book, let's go, let's go.

Progress.

Let's move ahead through the book time here.

And so she she reads the book, and Greta's climbing, and then I read a book, uh, the monster at the end of the book.

That's the book I read.

And then it happened.

This is the day before Greta turned one, and Greta's over there with Christy, and and she took her took her first steps.

She she walked.

Pretty cool moment, and and we're all, oh yeah, yeah, we cheer, we clap, oh, we love you, we love you, oh, we love you.

Oh so great.

You're so great, you're fantastic, we love you.

But here's the deal.

Um, the day before, when she didn't know how to walk, I she got showered with just as much love.

And the day before that, just as much love.

I mean, when she didn't walk, she was being loved just as much.

Why?

Because she's a child in the family.

So Christy was in Nashville Friday and Saturday, and so I had all three.

Full on.

This is the intensity.

I can remember some intense moments in my life thinking about high school basketball, like championship game, that nothing compared to three children, you know, all on my own.

I'm responsible.

I'm the only one responsible, right?

I mean, so this is very intense couple days for my life.

And so Christy's away.

I have all three.

And there are times, and some of you know what I'm talking about, is you had children, maybe you have a niece or nephew, and you babysat or something, and you know what I'm talking about, everybody knows what I'm talking about, whether you have kids or not.

There are times you want to hug them and you love them, oh, they're so great, they're so precious.

And there are times you want to lock them in a room and you want to run away, right?

I mean, this is the reality with little kids.

But what was never in question, we all know what was never in question, whether they were loved or not.

Whether you love them or not.

Maybe you don't like them, right?

But whether you love them or not was never in question.

We also, a couple weeks ago, we did our will.

As we had, God willing, Greta's our last baby, the third, kind of the final of our family.

And so we did our will, and uh I hate to break the news to you.

Y'all aren't getting anything.

Now, there's not a lot to get, but you're not getting you're not getting any of it.

I mean, there's none, really.

It's all going to those three little girls.

Why?

Because they're in the family.

They are our children.

They receive our love, they share in the inheritance, not because of what they do or how good they are.

We don't even know what they're going to end up like, right?

Or how they perform or how perfectly moral they are, or the length of their quiet time, or the amount of their giving, or how much scripture they memorize, the height of their hands in worship, like how, how, you know, how are their eyes closed?

Oh, their hands are up, and their eyes are closed.

Okay, they're doing really well.

Now, now, you know, now we love them.

For just one reason.

It's the same with God.

I kind of mixed illustrations there anyway.

All right, it's because you're in the family.

Because you're his child.

This is verse 33.

Going into 34.

Going into 35.

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

I mean, these Pharisees don't get it.

I mean, they're thinking we're followers of the biblical religion, we're followers of the law.

I mean, we morally we are upstanding people.

On the outside, we have good behavior.

I mean, look at the pagans.

I mean, they're thinking, look at the woman we drug in front of you not long ago, the woman who committed adultery.

Look at her.

She's the one who needs to be free.

I don't need to be free.

I'm good.

I'm doing good.

I'm a good person.

And the hard truth that they aren't seeing, and it's so easy for us not to see, is that to be moralistic can be just as imprisoning as to be immoral.

Both of them are ways of being trapped, of trying to self-deliver yourself.

Self-reliance, pride is what we're talking about here.

That is sin in its core.

That's what sin is.

Trying to deliver yourself.

Say, I don't need, I don't need God's grace, I don't need Jesus providing righteousness for me.

I'm good.

Verse 34, it talks about the sin and sin.

So the condition of sin is what births sins, behavior.

It sins birth out of a heart that has not rested in the provision of Jesus.

And this moralism, moralism is trying to be good enough on your own.

I'll be good enough.

And by my behavior, I will justify my value, and by my behavior, I will justify my standing or maintain it before God.

And the problem with this is how good is good enough?

How am I doing?

This is the result of it.

Is this exhausting?

How am I doing?

How am I doing?

Am I good enough?

Have I done enough?

How am I doing?

In the morning, I wake up, how am I doing today?

Am I doing okay today?

How good am I today?

You know, lunchtime, review the morning, how was that?

How was I doing?

You know, the afternoon, evening, evening, let's just record the, let's let's go over the whole day.

How did I do today?

Do I need to pay some penance at the end of the day because I had a few, oh, you know, I did that, I shouldn't have done that.

And you know, you go, well, I'll do better.

I need to do better, because if I do better, then I can earn my way back into God's favor.

At least you feel that way, and then once you do good enough, then now I'm free.

This moralism.

And the problem with that is there's there's absolutely no trust in the sufficiency of Christ.

I'll tell you how you're doing today.

Can I just tell you how you are doing today?

And I don't even know, I don't even know where you've been.

I don't know last night, yesterday, this week.

I don't, I don't know.

It doesn't really matter.

If you've placed faith in Christ, I'll tell you how you're doing.

You are not a slave.

You are in the family.

You're a son.

You're a daughter.

And you're not like the like the leftover child.

This morning I was trying to think of the leftover child.

I I couldn't even think of the middle daughter's name in Downton Abbey.

I mean, that that's how leftover that character has become in the show.

I got Sybil and I got Mary, but I couldn't get her name.

What is her name?

Edith.

Edith, right.

I couldn't even get it, right?

Because what her character is presented as a leftover child.

You're no leftover child in the family.

Some of us are living like we're still slaves when we are sons and we are daughters.

Verse 35.

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

A slave and a son, they can live in the same house, but the relationship to the owner of that house is totally different.

A slave lives in fear because it's all conditioned.

It's conditionality.

He could be sold, he could be traded.

He's not secure in the family by relationship.

And the son has an assurance by relationship to the father.

And this creates a liberated confidence.

Those two words have been going on in my mind all week.

Liberated confidence.

Can we just say that together this morning?

And we'll wait, we'll do it on three.

It's just over and over.

It's been going on in my mind.

Liberated confidence.

Can we say that on three?

One, two, three.

Liberated confidence.

That's what we should have.

I was thinking about the high school, my junior year, so I'm 16 years old in physics class.

Miss Adair was the physics teacher.

And I don't know how this scenario developed, but I can remember she always taught the content at the front of the class, like 20 minutes, and then the back for like 45 minutes or so you you had to do your homework.

So I paid close attention, boom, head down, plowed through the homework, 15 or 20 minutes.

So I always had about 20 minutes left at the end of class.

And so finally I decided, yeah, I just kind of want to have this room.

And so I at first, you know, the first day just went up and bathroom pass.

And it was, she didn't do like the big, you know, some teachers did the big wooden, you know, like they're proud of their bathroom pass.

And it's kind of gross that things have been in and out of bathrooms over and over again.

Like, can we do a sheet of paper?

We throw it away.

So she did the sheet of paper, which I liked, pro sheet of paper, hall pass.

And so I go up, bathroom, first day, bathroom a few times, and then I get up the courage and I write on that sheet of paper, hall pass, Miss Adair, date, time, gym, cafeteria, media center.

Right?

What this means, I have complete freedom in the school.

I can go anywhere I want with this sheet of paper.

And she reads it and she signs it.

And so this becomes, this becomes every day.

This became normal.

And so I'm I go in the gym and I hang out, see the coaches, what's going on, talk, and then I cruise over to the media center, and what's going on there, read a magazine for a few minutes.

I go down to the cafeteria because this is lunch period, and I'm hanging out, and I'm talking to people, and I'm tucking that hall pass in my pocket when I'm in the hall and I'm waiting.

You just ask me.

Right?

I mean, there's a teacher coming down, we're making eye contact.

You know, I'm not, there's no, you know, and they're they're looking at me and they're saying, this guy's got some liberated confidence going on, and I'm just waiting.

You ask me for my hall pass, I got a hall pass, and you won't believe the hall pass I have.

And some teachers saw that hall pass, and they're looking at it, going, this is this is an amazing hall pass.

It was an amazing hall pass.

In Jesus, no one can bring condemnation against you.

There's a liberated confidence in the family.

And it's not that we can go and be wretched wherever we want to be.

It's that we don't have to be manic about our record.

We don't have to self-evaluate to the point of being narcissistic.

We can be unbound from our own performance.

That there's some freedom.

Our position is settled.

I've got the hall pass.

And you get to pull that thing out and you get to remind yourself over and over and over again Christ's sufficiency for me, Christ's righteousness for me.

The core of my identity is not my job or even my family.

The core of my identity is that I am a child of God.

Provided for.

And we live in a gratitude with new hope that's being birthed in us by the gospel over and over and over again.

And we hope for see, we've been adopted into the family, and we We hope for the day when this adoption reaches its fullness.

Listen to this in Romans 8, 15, and 16.

The spirit you received does not make you slaves.

So Paul's teaching very similar language to what Jesus is talking about.

The spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again.

Rather, the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.

And by him we cry, Abba Father.

The Spirit Himself testifies with our Spirit that we are God's children.

Paul uses this term Abba Father, this term Abba.

The general term father is incredibly New Testament thought.

But the term Abba, I mean, that's even further.

I mean, that's more intimate.

This was a term that would never be used by a slave to its owner, but only by children.

As soon as we start talking about it, I mean, we can think about our own dads.

And some of us had great dads.

Some of us had okay dads.

Some of us had horrible dads.

But God, your Abba Father, is not the reflection of your earthly father.

He's the perfection of your earthly father.

And this is good for my children to know that God is not the reflection of me.

He's actually the perfection of what I should be providing for them.

So he's not a condemning father, sort of waiting for you to make a mistake and point it out.

I gotcha.

You know, it's whip, whip, whip, gotcha.

Or not a distant father kind of uninterested in you, and he's got his own deal going on.

He's not a dictator father limiting your joy.

I'm going to constrict you with all my behavioral, you know, guidelines.

I mean, that's not the point of all that.

He is for the flourishing of humanity.

That's what his grace is about.

That's even what his law is about.

See, God being your Abba.

It means you're beloved.

That's who you are.

And not even the best version of you.

Not even the like Beth Moore version of you, or the Mother Teresa, or the truett Cathy version of you.

I mean, you, today, who you are.

You are beloved.

Your flaws, your wounds, your scars, your failures.

You are not a slave.

You're a child.

I remember the first time I read a book called Abba's Child by Brendan Manning.

I was probably 24 years old.

I was in seminary.

I was working a job.

I wasn't crazy about.

I mean, more frustration had to do with it, I didn't know what I was going to do with my future, and I felt out of control in that regard.

And I'm cutting my boss's grass.

So I'm on a lawnmower.

That was part of my job.

So I'm on the lawnmower, cutting my boss's grass.

And I've been reading this book, and I've been incredibly frustrated because I didn't know what I was going to do with my life when I got a seminary.

And probably more than anything, just having worth issues going on, still in this process.

And in Abba's child, Brendan Manning talks about the core of your identity is beloved before your Abba.

And he gives you a prayer.

It's not a prayer that's like an equation, you pray this prayer three times a day, and everything's gonna work out, and you know, whatever.

I mean, it's not that's not what it is.

This is about praying a prayer, meditating in this truth, to know the truth, and the truth will set you free, and that you begin to rest in who you are in Jesus.

And I just begin to pray this prayer, cutting that grass, and I can remember, even today, I mean, it's been 10 years or so ago, I can remember as I was shifting faith away from self-reliance and away for what I was gonna do and my time, my control, and the way things were gonna work out for me, and shifted into the fact that I am positionally and relationally his child.

I can remember a sense of freedom just coming over me.

And it's not that I got that on that lawnmower, and I've been good ever since.

I mean, this has been a prayer that I have to pray over and over and over again, and I think it would do us well, it would do you well to pray this, to meditate on this, and to pray this in your car and cubicle, I mean, in your classroom, you're in the kitchen, you're at work, you're cutting the grass.

And the prayer is this Abba, I belong to you.

And in that prayer, you know your belonging is because of what Jesus did for you.

But you're just you're just praying that and resting in it.

Abba, I belong to you.

Abba, I belong to you.

My belonging is to you.

In the belonging, I have freedom.

Let's pray together.

God, we receive you as our provider, as the just ruler over the world, as the giver of the law and of morality and of goodness that should lead us into human flourishing, but we don't follow.

And yet you provided for us and your own son.

Help us to shift away from just looking at ourselves to looking at what you have given us in Jesus Christ and to know He took on our sin and our issues and our failures, and you have given to us our value and our righteousness.

God, would you help us to see that you are our Abba Father, and that we belong to you.

Amen.