Thank God I Am Free At Last
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We talk about our church and the mission statement that we have made. We have also made several core values, and one of our core values is to be Christ-centered. A lot of organizations, a lot of things, have core values. In our country, for example, we have many core values, one of which is freedom. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and, freedom is a big deal to us in the United States. We believe that we are the freest country on earth. That’s not to say that we haven’t gotten away from our core values from time to time. We fought a civil war over this concept of liberty. At least one of the things we fought over was the idea of emancipation for a whole group of people in which we were not acting out our values. So freedom is a big deal. We are celebrating that this month with the birthday of Martin Luther King. His famous speech, “Thank God I am free at last!”
The Bible talks about freedom and, actually, emancipation. Freedom is a biblical value but when the Bible talks about freedom it talks about it in a deeper kind of way. It talks about it spiritually. That is where we are today in our series on the Gospel of John. It is a short passage today, which has been unusual lately, but a very deep passage. We will literally be going verse by verse in this particular one because it is very short, but it deals with that powerful concept of freedom.
Listen to the word of God. (John 8:30-36)
30Even as he (Jesus) spoke, many put their faith in him.
31To the Jews (those that put their faith in him) who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
What’s Jesus talking about? Well, I have come up with this particular outline. I think first and foremost Jesus is saying that God’s freedom is born in surrender and grows in obedience. Obviously some of the people who heard him believed in him in a way. One of the themes, as we have seen in the Gospel of John, is that John is very, very concerned about people knowing what real faith is. It is not just believing in a fact. Apparently this is the kind of faith that these folks had. They had a kind of faith, Jesus was attractive to them but it wasn’t all the way. It wasn’t biblical faith. So he recognizes that and he challenges them. He says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.” In other words, it has got to be real. It has got to be faith in me not just believing in a fact. Later on Jesus’ human brother, James, will say in his book in the Bible, “the demons believe and they shudder.” In other words, the demons believe in God, what’s the difference between that kind of faith and yours? It has to be something qualitatively different.
I heard a story this week about a man from North Carolina named John. John was seen to be walking toward the train station. This was a long time ago. And he had a big bible in his hand. Someone asked him, “Where are you going, John?” He says, “I’m going to New Orleans.” They said “Why are you going there?” John said, “Because I have heard that the woman are loose and fine and I have heard the bars flow with liquor.” “Why do you have a bible in your hand, John?” He said, “Well if it is as good as they say it is, and I get to stay over until Sunday, I don’t want to miss church.”
That may seem far fetched, and it probably is, maybe not; but the point is that all of us do things we shouldn’t, and we will talk about that more in a minute, but we need to make it real. We can’t carry a bible in our hands and maybe have pictures on our computer. We need to be careful about what we watch, not to be legalistic, but some things just aren’t appropriate for us because we need to make it real. Faith in Jesus means change in behavior, and means that we are following a certain direction. We have to see what we need to see, and do what we need to do, in order to be those witnesses we have been talking about for others outside of ourselves. Jesus is saying that. He is saying to those folks, and to us, that you are free, and we will talk more about that in just a minute, but to be free you must have discipline. You must have surrender. In fact that is one of the greatest paradoxes of the Christian faith. You will never be free until you surrender to God and literally put the chains on, if you will, the spiritual chains on and say, “I am yours.” We have heard stories like this over and over again. People who have been enslaved to sin and basically say to God, “I am yours” and suddenly they become free by saying “I am yours.” That is what it is about. It is a paradox, seemingly, but you know, life is that way, is it not? Isn’t life that way? I mean, I am kind of addicted to the Olympics— I don’t know about you—in a good sort of way; but I stay up too much at night watching things. I couldn’t help but stay up the other night when Evan Lysacek, I am trying to pronounce it correctly. It may be a Czech name, I’m not sure, but I still have trouble. But, how wonderful he was! I don’t want to get in the debate about who won or who didn’t; but to do those kinds of things requires hours of, literally, slavery, slavery of discipline. And only in doing that did he have the freedom to move like he did. Or the story of the young Canadian skier who won the first gold medal, French, Alexandre Bilodeau, I think is his name. I saw his story. He has a brother who has cerebral palsy and he said, “Every time I felt like not training, my brother would remind me that I needed to train.” In other words, training is a form of slavery. In order to have the freedom to ski like he did, he had to basically be disciplined and give his life to that, give his life to that. That is what Jesus is saying. He says, “God’s freedom is born in surrender and then it develops, it grows, in obedience.”
There is a wonderful poem and I do not know the author, I read it, but I was struck by it. It goes like this, it was a statement. It’s a parable. He says:
“I have on my table a violin string. It is free to move in any direction I like. If I twist it on end, it will move in any direction, but it is not free to sing. If I take it and fix it on my violin, I bind it and when it is bound, it is free for the first time to sing.”
Our purpose in life, we have said it many times, is to serve God and we are only free when we surrender to God and continue to surrender to God.
Now when Jesus says these things, he goes on and says “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The truth he is talking about, it is basically two things: one is you belong to God and the second is you can’t save yourself. You can’t save yourself. When he says that, the folks that are listening to him aren’t very happy. They are Judeans. Now remember I’ve told you when he talks about the Jews, he is talking about Judeans or the leaders. It says they answered him “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we will be set free?” Now they had a problem. They looked at their freedom, their freedom, as something they deserved. It was something they were entitled to because they were descendants of Abraham. They looked at it as their privilege.
Many of you I’m sure, it has been all over the news, you can hardly help it, have seen the story of Tiger Woods lately. Who knows how that is going to end up, but I was impressed by a part of what he said. He said, “I felt like I was privileged to do what I did because I had worked so hard.” He had enslaved himself to golf, literally, and he was free to play, that’s the good part because he was so disciplined. But he felt like he was privileged to do what anything else he wanted because he had done that and had all this money. And it bit him, didn’t it. He fell from it. That is what happens when you think you are privileged.
The Judeans were not free because they were privileged, their freedom was a privilege and it is a huge difference. It is a huge difference. They didn’t have that knowledge. They didn’t have that kind of thing going on in their lives. Now, as we approach modern people it is not quite the same for them but I think it is somewhat similar. In modern life, freedom, again, is a big deal. But there is a philosophy going around. It runs something like this: Human beings are basically good but they are bound. They are bound by things like ignorance, poverty, and corrupt institutions and for others they would add morality and religion. The idea is that if we can free people from these things, because human beings are basically good, they will be really free.
Now, of course, we should make corrupt institutions better. Of course we should build schools and have education. Of course we should deal with poverty and hurt and injustice, but Jesus and the Bible refute those ideas and those ideas are very prevalent. You know, even John Lennon, “Imagine there’s no heaven, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, no religion too.” The whole idea is that if we just get rid of these things we will be free. It is still alive and well. But Jesus says “No. Freedom is not a privilege.” Then there is a power much worse than any Roman domination, much worse than any corrupt institution, much worse than ignorance, much worse than many things. It affects young and old, it affects rich and poor, it affects the educated and the not educated, it doesn’t matter what color you are or where you are from. It is that thing in the heart called human sin that we are all born with, every one of us has it and it must be dealt with. It must be dealt with. That is the knowledge Jesus is talking about, because when you know this about yourself, that is the only day you can become free. It is much like someone who is addicted to something and can’t get help until they admit they have a problem. We are all like that, aren’t we? I was at an Army marriage enrichment conference on Friday and Saturday and it is really good stuff. It is a longer version of the Marriage Course, really, in the end. It was interesting. As I was talking I had one of my talks and I was doing a break, you know we let them do some work, a couple came up and said, “We need to talk to somebody right now.” I said, “O.K. I’ll do it and you guys take over.” So we went and talked. A nice couple. But the man said, “I just realized why I do a lot of the stuff I do. In your talk, I realized why I do this.” The light had come on. He was able to get help now because he knew what he had done. We were able to talk a little bit and I could refer him to someone who could talk to him more.
These guys aren’t very happy with Jesus. “How can you say that we will be set free? How can you say this to us?” In other words, you can’t save yourself. Jesus is saying it doesn’t matter about ancestors. We all have this problem. There is an ancient legend about some very committed Christians who wanted to leave the sin with the world. So they literally become monks and they left the world and they were to create their own little community, high on a mountain away from everybody. They went away and no one heard from them for years. Finally someone went up on the mountain to see what had happened to them and found that they had all been killed and they had done it to themselves. There was a note scribbled that said “We couldn’t leave the sin of the world, we brought it with us, because we brought it with us in our hearts.”
Jesus gives them the bad news; but then he talks about the good news. God’s freedom is guaranteed by Sonship. Now don’t get wrapped around the actual about the word Sonship. It means both men and women. It is a theological term. It is just talking about how as Christians we become God’s children in a very special way. John said in his letter, “How great is the love that God has lavished on us that we should become the children of God.” That is the legacy of becoming a Christian. And the good news is that when God sets you free, you are free, indeed. Now Jesus gives an argument. He says “if you sin you are a slave to sin”. Now, it is not stated directly, but he basically says if you sin you are a slave to sin, and underneath that, all are sinners therefore all sin. That is what he was trying to tell his fellow Jews, and to us as well. But here is the good news, he says, “a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” In other words the only way you are going to get free is me. The paradox, again, is that you can’t be free until you give your life to God. And you can’t be free of sin until you give your life to Christ.
There is a wonderful illustration I read this week about this, as Steve Brown tells it, he says: Suppose that I hire someone to do my dishes for me and that person does the dishes but he leaves dirt on them and he doesn’t do a very good job.” Steve says, “I may give him another chance. I may give him a third chance before I fire him and kick him out of my house. But, if I ask my daughters to do the dishes and they leave dirt on the dishes, they are still my daughters no matter what happens. I may want them to do better but they are still going to be my daughters. They are still going to be my children.” And that is what is true about you and me. We become his children through faith. And that is forever. We will talk about forever in a minute. But “a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Most of us here have heard of the Prodigal Son, the story of the Prodigal Son. That is just a story. You know the story. A younger son says to the father, “Get lost! I want my inheritance.” He runs off and spends it all and then finally kind of wakes up and says, “I need to do something about this.” He changes and he goes back to the father and what does he say to the father? He says “I am no longer worthy to be your son.” In other words, I am a slave; make me like one of your servants, your slaves. At least I can live in your house, at least I can eat. And what does the father do? He says, “No, you are still my son. You are my son.” He puts a ring on his finger and a robe on him and they have a feast. That is what God does with us. There is a sense in which we are a slave to sin. In and of ourselves, we are condemned, but when God makes us his child, we have freedom, we are his, forever. It doesn’t end.
Now, one of the themes in the Bible is be what you are. Paul will often say that in one way or another. He’ll say, “You are this and you are this and you are this, so act like it.” That message still applies. Act like children of God. You know, I remember when I was in high school and I was competing for a starting defensive line position. I was a junior, and we had a lot of seniors on the team and seniors don’t treat juniors very well in those kinds of situations. But as we got through summer practice, I didn’t have a lot of confidence; I remember that. But the coach said, “Chris, you are starting.” “Me, how cool!” You know, I became different. I became a lot better after I knew that I belonged because I then had confidence. We can become better because we know who we are.
And that is the last point. God’s freedom is forever. Same verse, except I was emphasizing before that “a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it…and you will be set free” but you “belong to it forever.” You belong to it forever. You know, I know if I were you sitting there I would be going, “O.K. I am a son but I also know that I mess up a whole lot.” Being better as a Christian is like slogging away inch by inch. Sometimes it is two steps forward, one step back in life and we struggle with sin. I read a story about a beggar in New York City. He walked up to a successful business man and said, “Change? Change?” And the business man looked at him and said “I am doing the best I can.”
That’s the way I feel, half the time. But you know what? When we go to heaven and we stand before Jesus, and we have been changed, permanently, we will be completely obedient, completely obedient. And we will also be completely free. In the meantime it is process and there is a sense in which the more we obey, the more we are free. Paradox of all paradoxes, but it is true.
So go, be what you are. If you have faith in Jesus Christ, you are his child, no matter your sins because Christ died for you and be what you are. And one day, as we have heard in our singing and in our prayers, by and by God will bring us home and change us forever and we will be completely free and we can say: Thank God Almighty! I am free at last!
Would you pray with me?
Lord God thank you for the promise that you give us that even though we cannot save ourselves you can save us and you have through Jesus Christ. Help us to believe that. Help us to know that, that we are your child and help us to act like that, and to know that in spite of ourselves we can be your children in this hard and difficult world and I pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen.