The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin

Transcription

1 Transcript November 29/30, 2014 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin Jake Barker John 8:31-59 Alright, what is up Traders Point? Everybody doing well? Sweet. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends. If you are one of our guests, we are so incredibly honored that you are with us. We know that there are a lot of other things you could be doing right now and you are here. We do not take that lightly. So, thank you for joining us. This is our fifteenth installment in our series in the Gospel of John. So, if you ve missed any of the previous 14, I encourage you to go onto our website. You can watch them there or you can download our church app and watch them as well. Today, we are going to be closing out John, chapter 8. So, if you have a Bible or a Bible app I would love for you to get a head start, head that way. John, chapter 8 is where we are going to land today. If you don t have a Bible, I d love for you to stop by Connection Central. We d love to give you one free of charge. It is our gift to you. Head toward John, chapter 8 and we ll get started. Now, today we are going to be talking a lot about freedom, this idea of freedom. Specifically, we are going to be talking freedom in light of what Jesus said about it. That s our theme. We are going to read at the end of John, chapter 8 what Jesus says about freedom and then how that applies to our lives. You and I, as people who live in the United States, we know a thing or two about freedom, right? It s kind of like our thing. We love freedom. We get together on the 4th of July, and we throw explosives into the air, and we celebrate freedom. That s what we do. We are free to make a bunch of different choices in our lives. Our forefathers established the freedom in this country. They wrote the Bill of Rights and, when that wasn t enough, they added amendments to continue to protect our freedom. We are free to choose where we will eat lunch in about an hour. We are free to choose what is on our Netflix cue. We are free to wake stupid early the day after Thanksgiving and go shopping, any Black Friday shoppers here? You can raise your hands. You re free to do so. There is so much freedom. In fact, we are so free in this country that we are free to drop the first letter in our country s name and just call it merica. That s what we do because we are free to sound like a red- neck. We re just free to do all kinds of things. In our country it s kind of like our deal and we want to insure that no one steps on our freedom. No one infringes on our rights. And when that starts happening we get really protective because we want to be able to do what we want, when we want no questions asked. That s kind of like the goal to be able to live a life where we get to do what we want whenever we want to do it and no one bothers us. That has become our definition of freedom is the ability to do what we want when we want. We re going to watch as Jesus explains what true freedom really looks like in John, chapter 8. And, as it is usually the case, Jesus has a different understanding than we do. We re going to see how He explains Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved.

2 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 it, look at our definition of freedom, and then we re going to have a choice to make. Which one do we buy into? John, chapter 8 begin with me here in verses 31 and 32. If you ll remember from last week, Jesus was speaking to this group of people and He made the claim, I am the light of the world. I am the light of the world. I am the hope of the world. I am the purpose of all of this. He s talking to these people and in verse 30 it says that some were becoming convinced, some were buying into what Jesus was saying, what He was putting out there. So, Jesus addresses those people here in verse 31. Look what He says to them, 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. Jesus is talking to these people who are considering buying into Him and He says, If you really want to be about this, if you really want to come along, if you really want to be one of My disciples, then I need you to abide in My Word Now, that word abide is probably not a word that you have said in the last I don t know, ever. You don t say abide. So, what abide means is to stay. Even more precisely it means to continue staying in the midst of something stay put, do not quit. And so, Jesus is looking at them and He s saying, If you really want to be My disciples then I want you to continue staying in the midst of My Word. I don t want you to quit. How many of you have ever encountered a quitter in your life? Just someone who quits? Yeah, like tons of you. You may be with them. I don t know. So, many of us have experienced someone who just bails when it gets hard. Growing up, I was the big brother to two younger sisters and the summers got really boring for me. Every once in a while I would coerce one of them to come out and play basketball or kickball with me. And I could always count on one thing. There would be this moment in the game when I would get up five to 10 points on them because, you know I was a lot better than my little sisters in sports. So, I would be up and no matter what we were playing, as soon as I got up by about five points my sister would just quit. She would quit the game, she would bail. If we were playing to 21 and it was six to nothing, she would just quit. She was the opposite of an abider. As soon as it got hard she was out. No matter how long I complained, no matter how long I yelled at her, she would not come back and play with me. She was the worst abider in the world. What Jesus is saying here He s looking these people in the eyes and He says, Look, there are a lot of you who are following Me for different reasons. Just like today. There are people who follow Jesus for different reasons. Some people were there for the spectacle of it all. They loved seeing the miracles. They kind of liked the show. Some of them were in it for the occasional free lunch when Jesus would get some fish and some bread and blow it up. They were there for that. Some people were there because they had never heard anyone teach like Jesus before. There were all kinds of motivations for people to be watching Jesus following Him and so He looks them in the eye, and we can t miss this, He looks us in the eye and He says, If you really want to be about this, I m asking you to continue to stay in My Word. Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 2.

3 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 The point is this, the goal, the point of this whole faith thing is not to just say that we are Christians, but it s to stay a Christian. And those are two very different things. You see, Jesus was not looking not then, not even now for us to assume the category of Christian, to just put that label on ourselves. He s not saying, Hey, all you have to do is just say, on your Facebook profile, that you re a Christian and then you re in. That s it. It s much more than just saying that you are a Christian. Being a Christian is not some piece of who we are, much like where we work or how many kids we have. Being a Christian is the foundation on which everything else is built. So, Jesus is looking at them and He s saying, Look, don t just follow Me around and say that you re a part of what I have going on, I want you to continue staying in My Word. Can we all just be somewhat honest today? I m going to be honest. I found that it was a whole lot easier to say that I was a Christian than it has been to stay one. Throughout my journey it has been very difficult to stay a Christian. In fact, the easiest it ever was to stay a Christian was the very first time I publically professed my faith. It was a time where I was at church, my family was there, they were cheering me on, the church was rooting for me, I received loads of affirmation. That was the easiest it ever was to say I was in. From there on, it has been a battle. There have been temptations that try to pull me away left and right. Some of the friends who I began to journey with, they ve fallen off of the path. There are moments when it is a whole lot easier to say that I m in than to abide than it is to continue staying in His Word. That may very well describe where you are today. And maybe you showed up here and you were on the verge you were on the brink. One more disappointment, one more frustration, one more let down and you are just out. You re just going to give up because this whole faith thing isn t what you thought it was going to be. Jesus isn t who He said He was going to be. You are just about to quit. What is it about this thing that makes it so hard to continue to abide? As we watch, Jesus is about to explain that very problem. As we continue reading here in John, chapter 8 Jesus is about to lay out for us why it is so hard to stay a Christian. Here we go. Verse 33-38, now He had just told these people, I have this freedom. I want to free you from captivity. Here s their response, 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 if 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. Here s what is happening. Jesus is looking at these people and He s saying, I have come to set you free. I m giving you the gift of freedom. And they are looking back at Him and they are saying, We don t need to be free. We don t know what you are talking about. We are not slaves to anyone. What they are experiencing here is a, Oh, no, He didn t, moment. This is when someone gives you a gift that is offensive to you. So ladies, imagine Christmas day comes around and your man gives you a gift and you open it up and it is a brand new diet book without any explanation, alright? Now, at this point, you may be asking, Are you saying that I need to lose weight? Are you saying that I m not pretty? Are you saying that you don t Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 3.

4 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 love me anymore? Would rather you sleep outside instead of the couch? Because, you just lost the couch. That would be the logical procession because it s a diet book that s a terrible, offensive gift. This happens to my wife and me sometimes. Sometimes we ll be sitting somewhere maybe like here she ll just lean over and give me a stick of gum without any explanation. I am I just like, Are you saying that I have bad breath? Am I offending you with my halitosis? And then, when she refuses to answer me, I ll just breathe in her face because I m a grown- up. That s what I do. I m offended by her gift. I don t think I need what she is trying to give me. And so I am offended. That s what is happening here. They are listening to Jesus and they are like, Uh, Jesus. We re not slaves. We don t know what You are talking about. We re free citizens of the Roman Empire, we have jobs, we have family You re offering us something that we do not need. And Jesus is looking back at them and He s saying once again, I just have to disagree with you. You need to be free. See Jesus is illuminating the truth that many of us have struggled to accept. Our previous assumption in life is that each decision that we make on a daily basis is completely 50/50 as to whether we are going to choose the right thing or the wrong thing. My desires, my will, inform me of the decisions that I make. And, on a daily basis, I can either choose the God honoring, holy thing or I can choose the sinful, dishonoring thing. But, it s completely 50/50. So some days I can choose between greed and generosity. I can choose to be encouraging or discouraging. I can choose to be selfish or selfless. And each decision that I make is completely 50/50. Maybe it s my mood or my circumstance. As a human being, I m just as likely to choose the right thing as I am the wrong thing because my assumption is that my will and my desires are either neutral or they re naturally good. Many of us would describe ourselves like this, I m a naturally good person. I want to do the right thing more than I do the wrong thing. So I m actually more likely to choose what God wants instead of the other things. And Jesus is looking at us and saying, Listen, guys. That s not even close. In fact, when sin entered this world not only did it corrupt the outside circumstances of our lives, it corrupted our will, it corrupted our desires. So, in reality, our decisions are far from 50/50. In fact we are far more likely, because of our sinful nature, to choose the wrong thing that we are the right thing. This is not 50/50 at all. The apostle Paul describes this so perfectly in Romans, chapter 7. He describes this whole battle, this whole internal battle of how to choose between the right thing and the wrong thing and what sin has to do with that. I m going to read it and I d love for you to ask, Does this apply to me at all? See if this sounds familiar. Romans 7, verses 15-20, For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Man, does that sound familiar to anyone? I know. It s like my daily life. Like sincerely, if we were sitting down from one another at a table, I would tell you that I really, genuinely want to do the right thing, I do. My intentions are always to love my wife the way she deserves, and to be generous, and to spread Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 4.

5 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 the gospel. I want to all of those things. But then there are those moments when life gets real and I fail over, and over, and over again. Maybe you ve been there. Maybe you ve done that thing for the millionth time that you promised you wouldn t do anymore. And you even wrote it out and gave it to someone and said, Hey, I want you to keep me accountable to not do this anymore. And then it happens. And then you look in the mirror with the same shame, and disappointment, and frustration, Why can I not stop? And that is what Paul would call the sin that dwells within us. It s what Jesus describes as slavery to sin. And maybe for the first time this is shaking you a little bit. Maybe this is getting a little too real because this really is your daily experience. And is it possible that you are not in control quite as much as you thought you were; that maybe this whole slavery thing is yours. Maybe it s the reason that you keep having the same fights with your spouse over, and over, and over again. Maybe it s the reason that you return to the same bottle after a really hard day. Maybe it s the reason you keep typing in the same website when it gets to a certain point in the night. It s that cycle of sin. It s the sin that dwells within us. It s the slavery to sin. That s what Jesus describes. And if we re all really honest, we know what He s talking about. Still, some of you may be saying, I don t know. Slavery? Slavery seems intense. Slavery seems a little over the top. I would call it more like a struggle. I wouldn t say that I m a slave. That s way too hard. Okay, maybe you re right. But I d like to ask you some questions, just for some introspection. This is a self- guided quiz. I m going to ask you some questions and ask whether it is possible that you have less control than you thought you did? Question number one: Where do your thoughts go when you re alone? When no one is forcing you to think about anything, maybe it s right before you fall asleep, maybe it s the first thought that grabs your mind when you wake up when your mind is completely idle, where does it go? What direction? What are you thinking about? Is it possible that you re not as in control as you thought you were? Question number two: How do you spend your money? This is a test that is as old as time. Jesus said that where our treasure is there our heart will be also. If someone hacked into your bank account, not to take anything but just to look, what would they see? Where do you put your resources? Is it possible that you re not as in control as you thought you were? Question number three: What would crush me if I lost it? What would crush me if I lost this thing or this person? It s called our functional savior. I can t even imagine going another day without this job, without this person. It would just end me if I lost this. Is it possible that you re not as in control as you thought you were? Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 5.

6 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 Question number four: What determines my mood? What determines whether I have a good day or a bad day? What are the things that can send me sky high, on- top- of- the- world and other things that completely crush me? Is it possible that you re not as in control as you thought you were? See, all of us are resonating for a reason and it s because of the sin that dwells within us. We re all fallen. We re all broken. We ve all experienced it. And so maybe now we are all on the same page, Yeah, we are all struggling with this. If I am truly a slave to sin, how do I become free? How do I get this freedom that Jesus is talking about? Well, there are different ways of doing this and the world would pitch us one idea. The world would tell us that our goal as human beings is to be as independent as possible as independent. I don t want anyone, anything, any hand- outs my goal is to be completely autonomous, completely independent. Financially, I want to seek independence to where I can make enough money to buy what I want, when I want. I don t have to delay that gratification. I don t have to put anything off. I can just get stuff. That s the goal, financial independence. Then the world would say, Be relationally independent. Get as much as you can from people without giving them anything back. In fact, just use them so that you can love your life but you don t feel any commitment back. And this is the rise of casual sex in our culture. Have all of the fun without any of the commitment. Be relationally independent. That s the goal. The world would even encourage us to be spiritually independent, Don t feel obligated to believe just one set of things. Don t let anyone else tell you what to believe or what to think. You are free to choose a little bit from this path, a little bit from that path put it together, that s your own deal. Truth is whatever you define it to be. Be spiritually independent. So, the goal is to position our lives to where we don t need anyone, anything we are a rock, we are an island, I will follow my heart and let my desires drive my decisions. But here s the problem. Here s the problem with that worldview. Our desires are terrible decision makers. Our desires are terrible, terrible decision makers. What we want is often not what is right, what is good for us. If you ve ever been around a kid you have seen this, right? What they want is not always what is best. And we are not exempt as adults. The same is true for us. There have been moments in my life when I have wanted something that would have been terrible for me. Maybe for you it was that person that you knew that you wanted to marry. You knew that you were in love and she was the one with a capital O she was the one for you and it didn t work out. And now, later, you look back and you say, If I had married that person, it would have been a train wreck. My desires are terrible decision makers. Maybe it was the promotion you so wanted at work that next step up the corporate ladder. But that promotion would have come with an increased demand of your time at work, you wouldn t have been with your family; you would have missed out on your kid s childhood. It would have been terrible for you. Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 6.

7 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 Sometimes what I want is not what is best. Then, on top of that, Pastor Tim Keller puts it like this, There are moments when our desires are in competition with one another. I have two desires that are equal and can t be true at the same time. How many of you who are here would say that you love ice cream? Just raise your hand. You love ice cream. Yeah, fantastic. If you did not raise your hand, I do not understand. Maybe you re lactose intolerant? It might be worth it. Just think about it, ice cream is delicious. And my deal is that I would love to eat ice cream all day, every day, every meal I am team ice cream. And so, my thing is that I love ice cream with Reese Cups inside and what I ll do is get some Jiff peanut butter and add extra peanut butter because you can t have too much peanut butter. Stir it all up judge me if you must but your taste buds would agree it is delicious. So, I love ice cream. That is my desire. I want ice cream all day, every day. How many of you would also have the same desire that I do? You want to be healthy. Raise your hands very good. I want to be healthy too. So I want to be in shape. I want be healthy. I want to live a long life. I want to see my kids grow up I want both. How many of you raised your hands to both? Love ice cream want to be healthy. So, here s the deal. I desire both of these equally at the exact same time. I want ice cream all of the time. I also want to be healthy all of the time. And I know that those two things cannot happen. Sometimes I will be eating a bowl of ice cream and looking at a men s health magazine and saying, I want that too! I want that. I want to eat Reese Cups and I want them to give me a six- pack. That s my game. But, unfortunately, scientifically it s not an option!! I m holding out hope but it s not yet. That s not a thing. So, I have this situation in my life where two of my desires are equal, they re both in the moment and I can t have both of them at the same time. Freedom is not following our immediate desire in the moment. Freedom is choosing the desire that will lead to freedom in the future. It is the discipline of choosing the desire that will lead to freedom. And so, in that illustration, as a responsible human being, I need to choose the healthy diet over ice cream for every meal because I know that a healthy body will allow me to live a longer life and be free. So, I have to have the discipline to choose the desire that will lead to greater freedom. See, this is where some of us are mistaken. We re aiming at that completely independent, completely autonomous life to where we can just follow our whims and our desires and let that lead us. Those are our motivations. But in reality, what Jesus is saying, is that a completely independent life without any authority over us is just not an option. Freedom is not living without a master. Freedom is living with the right master. There is a difference. Freedom is not a life where I m the one in charge, I m the boss all of the time, I m calling all of the shots. Freedom is choosing the right master who has our best interest in mind. The Bible is very clear that this whole independent life with no strings attached is not an option. We will have a master. The choice is ours. We will be slaves to sin or will we be in obedience to Jesus. Those are the options. Now, which one is the right master? Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 7.

8 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 See, one master is our Father in heaven who loves us. The other master is the father of all lies. One master is the designer of everything that is good in this world. The other master is the destroyer of all things good. One master has our best interest in mind. The other one wants to see us fail over, and over, and over again. We will have a master. The important thing is choosing the right one. That s what Jesus is trying to communicate to these people who He is talking to in John, chapter 8. He says, Hey, look. You need to be freed. You re currently enslaved. And, they just can t hear it. They are rejecting the good gift of grace because they can t listen with their ears. Let s find out why. In verse 39 we re going to learn why these people were so convinced that they didn t need freedom. Let s begin, They answered Him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did but now you seek to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. Skip down to verse 43, Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear My Word. 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. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. So this would be an example of Jesus not backing off. Here s what He is doing. He s saying, Look you need freedom. They re saying, No we don t. And their understanding is that because they belong to the family of Abraham, they don t need the freedom that Jesus is providing. Now, if you re not all that familiar with the Bible, let me give you a quick synopsis of who Abraham was. In the Old Testament that first part of the Bible you re going to encounter the nation of Israel. Now, the nation of Israel was born out of Abraham; it was his family line. And the Old Testament follows the Israelites through their successes and their failures. We learn about their good Kings and their terrible Kings. We learn about the times when they listened to God and the times they rejected God. All of the Old Testament is a precursor to Jesus. It s leading up to this very moment we are reading about with Jesus. Jesus listeners who were there were convinced that, because they belonged to the family of Abraham, that was their admission into the Kingdom of God. Their bloodline was their ticket. Now, you and I have inherited certain things from our parents, right? Scientifically speaking we inherited our DNA maybe our height or our hair color. Those kinds of things are passed down. I inherited my last name from my family. But there are also things that I did not inherit from my parents. For instance, my dad is one of the handiest guys in the world. The guy can fix anything. He can fix a toilet. He can fix a car. He can fix the government I don t know he can just fix everything. He s just awesome like that. I, on the other hand, am the least handy person that has ever been born. I can t fix a thing. I am the least helpful friend that you will ever have. I can barely Google stuff, alright? That s like the extent of my skill set when it comes to fixing things. I did not get that from my dad. I wish I had. I did not. Now, one other thing that I did not inherit from my parents is salvation. Salvation is not a transferable gift. That was the mistake that Jesus listeners were making. They assumed that because they came from Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 8.

9 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 a family of faith they were taken care of. Jesus is trying to walk through the fact that they are actually slaves to sin and that they need freedom. They are not guaranteed a spot at the table. This is a truth that many of us need to wrestle with today. No one is born a Christian. No one. In the Bible it doesn t say that you can just be born into a Christian family and then you will be taken care of. In order to become a Christian it takes a particular, individual response to the grace of Jesus. So, let me say this with as much grace and clarity as possible. Just because your parents are Christians does not mean that you are. Just because someone in your family is saved does not mean that you are automatically saved. That s not how it works. Salvation is not a family heirloom that is passed from one generation to the next. Salvation requires a response to the grace of Jesus. If you ll remember, in John, chapter 3 Jesus is talking to this guy named Nicodemus and Nicodemus was one of the Jewish teachers and he was well learned in the law. And Jesus said, Nicodemus, in order for you to come into the Kingdom of God, you need to be born again. And Nicodemus said, That s super weird. I don t know what that means. So Jesus explains it and He says, You have to be born again. Your family line is not enough to get you in the Kingdom. It requires a personal response. So, again with as much grace and also with as much clarity because this could be a very dangerous thing if today you are assuming that you are taken care of because you were born into what you would call a Christian family, I need you to wake up. It requires a personal response to salvation that is offered by Jesus. This is not something we inherit. One of the big dangers, and the Devil would love this, is for us to get lulled into sleep thinking that our family history will take care of us. It just won t. Here s the good news. No one is born a Christian, but you can become one. No one is born a Christian the DNA, the bloodline they don t take care of it but you can certainly become one today. That same offer of freedom that Jesus passed along in John, chapter 8 is available to you. It just requires you to respond. Today let that be today. Today, wake up from your sleep. Wake up from your slumber and realize that we may not be as comfortable as we once thought. But, we can respond to the really good news of Jesus. Jesus is just kind of pushing. He s pushing His listeners. He s pushing them, pushing them, pushing them to get as close as possible to the outside of their comfort zone. And, eventually, He breaks them. Let s finish up John, chapter 8, verses Jesus is going to force His listeners into a decision that they have to make and that you and I have to make as well. Here we go, Jesus answered, If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing. It is My Father who glorifies Me, of Whom you say, He is our God. But you have not known Him. I know Him. If I were to say that I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know Him and I keep His Word. 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. Man, Jesus is doing everything He can to wake them up, to make it so clear that they are slaves in need of liberation. He was doing everything He could to open their eyes to this reality. They are just not hearing it. They think that their family line is going to take care of them. Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 9.

10 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 And Jesus is saying, Look, Abraham, your father the one who you are putting so much trust in, he worships Me. If Abraham were here, he would be worshiping Me. Do you not understand? And, like many of us, these Jewish listeners, instead of being convicted of their sin, focused on a technicality. They were trying to find a loop hole so that they wouldn t have to admit that they needed a Savior. They said, Hey, Jesus. You re not even 50 and Abraham died hundreds of years ago. Are you saying that you guys met up? What s up with that? And, in what may seem like a grammatical error, He says, Before Abraham was, I am. Now, the Jewish listeners were not confused. This was no slip of the tongue by Jesus. He says, I Am, which is that name that God gave to Moses to identify Himself. Moses said, Hey, how am I going to represent You if I don t know Your name. And God said, Tell them I Am sent you. It was a name that every good Jew knew. It was a name that His audience would absolutely understand. It was a name that was so holy some people wouldn t even say it. And Jesus says, That is Me. I Am. So they picked up rocks and they were ready to kill Him. The people who needed to be freed were about to kill their liberator. And they missed it. He was standing right in front of them. And for you and me, one of the biggest dangers that could happen today is walking out of this room and not responding. Truly being in chains when we came in and then walking out in those same chains. Freedom is here. Freedom is named, Jesus. And it is available to you today. Let today be the day that you experience the freedom that you need. As we wrap up I want to talk about two different reasons why many of us reject the freedom that is given to us. Number one sounds like this: I don t need to be freed. I don t need to be freed. Maybe that sounds a lot like the people who were responding to Jesus in John, chapter 8. Maybe it s possible that you have built your own life. You got your education, you got your job, and you got your money, you got your spouse, you got your kids you built your life. You don t need anyone. You didn t ask for anything and so you can figure this thing out on your own. Can I just suggest that maybe you re wrong. Maybe you re not the rock, maybe you re not the island that you would like to think yourself to be. In fact, maybe the reason that you can t break things that you call bad habits, that Jesus calls slavery to sin, is because you re not strong enough. But the cross is. Maybe the reason that you stay in that same cycle every day day in and day out is because you can t break those chains. But Jesus did. Maybe the reason that you just feel stuck is because you don t have the perspective that you need. But God does. Let today be the day that you receive the freedom that you need. The second reason that we reject freedom sounds like this: I don t deserve to be freed. I m not worth freeing. Man, if you knew what I ve done, if you knew where I ve been freedom is for some people but it s probably not for me, I m just too far gone. And again, with all love and grace, I would like to suggest that you are wrong. The Bible is very clear that Jesus knew exactly who you were before He ever showed up. In fact, that s the reason that He came. Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 10.

11 The Gospel of John: Slaves to Sin November 29/30, 2014 The Bible says that Jesus came while we were still sinners. Not when we got our act together. Not when we deserved it. But it was out of the grace of God that He gave us salvation and that is freedom today. You are not too far gone to experience the freedom that you need. Right now, we re going to sing this truth. We re going to sing this song that says, Sin is strong, but Jesus is stronger. Our chains cannot hold Him back. The gates of hell are not going to stop Him. Jesus is the One offering you the freedom that you need. Do not leave today without receiving it. You need it. There will be people down front who would love to pray with you, they would love to talk you through this. Don t wait until the song is over. We will talk right now. Do not leave in your chains. Jesus is the freedom we need. Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 11.