Monthly Archives: June 2016

Sight for the blind, John 9:1-7

As I have said before many times, that every miracle in the gospels is presented to teach us a spiritual parable. It is important to understand that. Not every miracle that Jesus did is recorded in scripture. John will say later that if everything that Jesus did while He was on earth was written down, that all the books of the world could not contain them. But John said in chapter 20 verse 31 that the signs that he did record, are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in HIs name.

So the miracle we are looking at today has spiritual significance and symbolism that goes beyond the mere physical healing of blindness which I would like to examine this morning. Yes, Jesus has compassion on this blind man and 5 other blind men that we know of. But no where in scripture do we see that Jesus healed every person of every disease. Jesus also raised three people from the dead. But never in scripture do we read that Jesus raised every dead person. So while compassion may be one of the lessons we can learn from this text, it is certainly not the primary lesson.

The primary lesson deals with an important theological question regarding the origin of sin and then the response of God to that spiritual condition. It deals with spiritual blindness and all that represents. But to fully comprehend this text though I want to remind you of what has just proceeded it in the previous chapter. Because I think this event is tied to the the teaching that Jesus gave in the last chapter.

You will remember that in the running dialogue that Jesus had with the Pharisees during the Feast of Tabernacles, there were some claims made by the Pharisees concerning their father, who they said was Abraham, and an insinuation that Jesus had been born of fornication, and as such was similar to the Samaritans, who were Jews that had intermarried with pagans and produced offspring who were outcasts from Israel.

So on the one hand, the Pharisees were holding onto their pedigree as sons of Abraham, and thus they considered themselves righteous in the sight of God. But Jesus repeatedly said you don’t act like sons of Abraham. He said you don’t do the deeds of Abraham. You don’t have spiritual discernment like Abraham. And in fact, you do the deeds of your father the devil. That didn’t go over too well with those guys. So they got angry. And they picked up stones to kill Him. But Jesus disappeared into the crowd and slipped away.

Now this chapter opens with Jesus and His disciples as they were leaving the temple, and they pass by a blind beggar sitting by the gate of the temple. That was a popular spot for beggars. They knew people were coming into the temple to offer alms to God, and one of the ways that they were taught you could remove sin from your life was by giving alms to the poor. So the poor, the infirm, the blind, paralyzed and sick people who had no other recourse but to beg for their income found the temple gates a lucrative spot.

John writes that this man was blind from birth. And that phrase has given commentators fits. They go to get extremes to explain how that should be interpreted. Many of them say that meant that some Jews believed in reincarnation and so the disciples thought that this man perhaps had sinned in a past life and consequently was blind from birth. But I think that misses the obvious interpretation, which is that John is writing this almost 60 years afterwards. And from his historical viewpoint he is able to say, this man was blind from birth. The disciples did not necessarily know that. They assumed that he became blind at some point in his life due to committing some grievous sin, or that if he had been born blind, that his parents must have committed some terrible sin. But I believe that it is simply that John is writing long after this event, and he is letting us know at the outset that this man had been born blind. That indicates the totality of this man’s condition, the hopelessness of this man’s condition.

So I believe that based on the dialogue found in the last chapter regarding the nature of the father exhibited in the sons, Jesus’ disciples seeing this blind man by the gate, ask this question; ““Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” That’s kind of the logical assumption, isn’t it? When we see someone suffering, someone having physical problems, it’s tempting to think that somehow they brought it on themselves.

Job had that happen to him. His friends came and ended up accusing him of some hidden sin because all this tragedy had happened in his life. They argued that God blessed those that were good people and cursed those that were bad people. And I think that kind of thinking exists today, even within the church. The prosperity doctrine preachers teach that God just wants to bless you and give you all kinds of things to prosper you and make your life fulfilling and enriched. That is the promise of the prosperity gospel. That if you belong to God, He will bless you and won’t hold any good thing from you. And so we believe that a new car is a good thing. A new house is a good thing. A great job is a good thing. So we equate physical success with spiritual blessing.

And the opposite also is often true. We see someone who is addicted to drugs, and they are looked upon someone who brought the ravages of that kind of life upon themselves. We see someone poor and destitute, and we think that it’s probably because they aren’t good workers, they must have brought their poverty upon themselves.

But I think that is far too general a categorization. The fact is that there are plenty of healthy sinners and a lot of sick saints which contradict that view. However, the Bible does teach that sickness and death are the result of living in a fallen world. Romans 5:12 says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” So original sin is the origin of death. But there are multiple examples of suffering in the Bible that show that not all suffering is a direct result of sin. Again, Job is the foremost example of a man that God declared was righteous. God pointed Job out to Satan as someone who lived an exemplary life. And yet Job suffered more than most of us could ever imagine. Joseph was another man who suffered for years and yet was innocent. Paul was yet another who suffered imprisonment and beatings, as well as the other apostles. There are many examples of saints who suffered without cause.

So Jesus answers His disciples’ question by saying, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” So what Jesus is affirming is that this man’s blindness was not a direct result of either his sin or his parents. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that sickness is not the result of original sin. Sin caused all life which was perfect when God created it, to become corrupted. And that corruption has permeated every fiber of creation.

I believe that is what Romans 8:22 is talking about which says, “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” Paul said that the creation was subject to slavery from that corruption, and was anxiously awaiting the day when God would bring freedom from that corruption of sin that is in the world. In fact, I think the argument could be made that the further we get from the initial perfection of creation, the more subject to corruption not only creation becomes, but also our bodies. Our cells are more susceptible to cancer and other illnesses because we are further removed from the original creation. Now I cannot be dogmatic about such things because I am not a scientist. But there are some that do suggest this to be the case; that contrary to the theory of evolution, all biological life is breaking down, not getting better.

But back to our main point, Jesus dismissed the idea that this man’s blindness was a direct result of individual sin. Instead, He asserts that this particular man was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

The theologian Ellicott said, “There is a chain connecting the sin of humanity and its woe, but the links are not traceable by the human eye. In the Providence of God vicarious suffering is often the noble lot of the noblest members of our race. No burden of human sorrow was ever so great as that borne by Him who knew no human sin.” He is saying that Jesus Himself through His sinless life disproves the principle that sin equals suffering. And that it is not in our purview to determine the cause of human suffering.

In fact, the Bible indicates that more often than not, the opposite is true. It is not the judgment of God that brings people to repentance, but according to Romans 2:4, it says the kindness and tolerance of God is intended to lead people to repentance. Over and over again the scriptures declare that “the Lord is slow to anger, compassionate and gracious.” He will one day judge every man according to his works, but for the most part, that judgment is postponed until the day of judgment and for now God is patient, not willing that any should perish without salvation. In an agrarian age when rain was considered to be a blessing from God, Jesus said in Matthew 5:45, “for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” God is merciful, and patient, and long suffering, and does not reward us according to what we deserve, but is merciful, that perhaps we might turn to Him and be saved.

So Jesus said, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Now what are the works of God that would be displayed in this blind man? Notice that works is plural. It is not a singular work of God. It is not therefore, simply that God would heal him from blindness. It is much more multifaceted than that. But as we look at the complete chapter, what began with the compassion of Christ for physical healing, results in seeing eyes, which produces faith and obedience and culminates later that day with spiritual healing. The work of God is salvation. This is the real goal of Christ’s work. It is not God’s will that all men would be healed of every sickness, but it is true according to 2Peter 3:9, that “the Lord is… not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” This is the primary work of God through Christ. Christ came to reconcile men to God through His substitionary death on the cross.

So then to some extent, evil actually furthers the work of God in the world. It is in conquering and abolishing evil that God’s great attributes are manifested. The question for us then is not where suffering has come from, but what we are to do with it.

And the Lord answers that concern as well in vs.4, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” Note first of all, that we are included in Christ’s work. The KJV had interpreted that as “I must work the works,” but most translators later determined that the best manuscripts indicate “we”, and not “I.” And that is an important principle that we need to emphasize. We are saved to do the works of God. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” So we are co workers with Christ. He is the head, and we are the body. We are supposed to be His hands and His feet, doing the works of God, even as He did the works of God on the earth.

This is our purpose now that we are saved. What a contrast that is to most modern conceptions of Christianity. We have this idea that God just wants to help us achieve our goals, and wants to help us enjoy this life, to be happy here on earth. That may or may not be a side effect of doing God’s work, but it isn’t the goal. The goal is to do the works of God.

This phrase, “while it is day, and the night comes” what does it mean? Well, He’s talking about our lives. The day symbolizes our life, and the night symbolizes death. It is very likely that it was Saturday afternoon at that time, the Sabbath evening. And the sun soon setting was the illustration for the analogy that our lives are short, and so we must make full use of the time we have left. Let me emphasize that this morning. Life is short. I had someone tell me that this week. Unfortunately, they made the wrong determination based on that. They determined that since life was short they had better live for today. That is the world’s view. The Grass Roots in 1967 sang “Sha la la la la la live for today!” That was the theme song of my generation. And that’s still the mantra of the world, to live for today. Life is short, live it up.

But that cannot be the theme of a true disciple. Because we don’t live for today, we live for eternity. We live for the day our Savior will return and take us to be with Him. That’s when we will get our reward for the work that we have done here on earth. But this person that said to me that life is short is afraid to live for tomorrow. They are afraid because this life is all they can see, all that they feel they can be sure of. In regards to eternity they are blind. And so they cannot let go of today, they can’t let go of the world, they can’t let go of what they think can give them happiness. And as such, they stand to gain the whole world and lose their own soul.

Disciples must work, Jesus said, they must work the works of God. The day is fleeting, and the night is coming when no man can work. And when that night comes, we shall then find ourselves standing at the throne of God, awaiting our reward, awaiting our judgement for what we have done with this life that God has so graciously given us. I saw a video the other day of Francis Chan, and he was illustrating the position of so many Christians who were afraid to step out and work for God, by balancing on a balance beam that he had set up in his church. And as he illustrated the fear of following Christ he crouched down on all fours on the balance beam as one might do who is afraid of falling off. As he illustrated the life of this Christian, he ended up laying down on the beam, holding onto it with both arms and wrapping his legs around the beam. And then he showed the end of the life of this person, as they jumped off the balance beam and lifted both arms in the air like a gymnast might do at the end of their repertoire, and taking a little bow. And Francis then describes God’s reaction to this life, this Christian performance as one of surprise and incredulity, like He doesn’t know how you expect Him to judge such a performance. You didn’t do anything. You just held on to the balance beam. You held onto the world, and failed to do anything for eternity.

Well, what exactly is the work that we are to do? It is to do as Jesus did. Jesus said in the next verse, that as long as He was in the world, He was the light of the world. He came to shine the light of God, the light of God’s truth to a world that was in darkness. Darkness and blindness in this case being synonymous. That was His purpose. Isaiah 60:1-3 speaks of the day of the Messiah coming to Israel, saying “Arise, shine; for your light has come,And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earthAnd deep darkness the peoples;But the LORD will rise upon youAnd His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

Notice in that Old Testament prophecy that it says their light has come, that is the Messiah. But there is also the instruction for the church to arise and shine in response to that light. We are to shine the light of the Son even as the moon reflects the light of the sun. That is our purpose. Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

How do we do we reflect then the light of Christ? Well, I believe that is illustrated in the spiritual healing that Jesus does with the blind man. This man who had been in darkness since birth. That is the situation the whole world is in. Ephesians 2:1 says we are born already dead in our trespasses and sins. Since birth we have been blind. And if not for the love and compassion of God we would die in our sins.

Ephesians 2 continues, saying “you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

So first of all we see illustrated here the grace of God. John 9:6-7 “When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.” Notice that Jesus initiates this divine act of grace. God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son. The world was hopeless, in darkness, lost, trapped in their sin. But God. But God so loved the world, that He sent Jesus to be our Savior. So the first part of our work is to share the grace of God with a world in which is in darkness.

This process that Jesus uses to heal this man is interesting. There is much that could be said about the process of how He healed him. But I would point out that out of six recorded times when Jesus healed the blind, this is the only time He spat on the ground and made clay. So there is no formula here that we might use to heal people. There is no supernatural essence in spittle. So I wouldn’t advise spitting on sick people. You might end up really suffering for Christ.

However, I think that we can learn some things from Jesus’ method. First of all, as I already mentioned, we see the sovereign grace of God. The Lord chose to heal this man, and not visa versa. We are told to believe, we are told to receive, but at the same time, it is necessary for God to take the initiative if the blind are to see. Secondly, we see a correlation between the first act of the creation of man, and this act of recreation. Salvation is a new creation. Not a reformation, but a creation. We are new creatures. 2 Cor. 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is]a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

In the first creation, God made man from the dust of the ground. In this new creation, taking dead eyes and making them new, the Lord again uses the dust of the ground. I don’t know for sure why God chose to make man from dust. All the other creatures that God made He simply spoke them into being. Even the sun and stars were spoken into existence. But for man, we see God take clay into HIs hands, and mold it, and make it in His image. To me, that indicates that the creation of man was an act of love. It reminds me of an artist, a sculptor, a potter, who shapes an inanimate object with his hands and in so doing instills in it the love of the artist. It bears the image of the one who shaped it. And so we see in the touch of Jesus, the love of God. He could have healed with just a word. But He chose to use His hands, to touch, and shape as an illustration of His love.

I also see in that mixture of spittle and dust, a symbolism of the need for God in man. Christ was fully God and fully man and thus was uniquely able to be our Savior. And so the divinity of Christ is symbolized by His saliva, the water, the living water that He said in the previous chapter would flow from your innermost being, this He mixed with common dirt, symbolizing man. And that perfect mixture, the God-man, was the formula God used to save the world from darkness.

Jesus then after rubbing this mixture in his eyes, tells him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash. Now first in that command we see the need for obedience and faith, and the fact that they are indivisible. Faith and obedience cannot be separated. Far too many people today think that faith is an emotion, or that faith is an intellectual assent. But faith is trust. And to trust requires obedience. You cannot say that one is saved by faith, but that is only an emotional response to an altar call. Or that you are saved by faith, but that is only believing that God exists. That is not saving faith. Saving faith is exemplified in the life of Abraham, as Hebrews 11:8 states, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” Abraham, obeyed. That was the action of his faith. So this blind man acts in faith. He obeys and goes where Jesus said to go. Some of you today think you are saved because of an emotional response you had during a church service. Some of you think you are saved because you believe in the existence of God. But I suggest that you can know you are saved because you do the works of God. Because you obey the word of God. That is how Jesus said you can tell that God is your Father.

Also, note that the pool of Siloam is the same pool that the priests went to draw water from during the Feast of the Tabernacles. And as they poured the water into the funnels and it gushed down upon the altar, Jesus stood up and cried out in the midst of the temple ceremony, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” So Jesus is reaffirming in His directive what He declared in the temple. That by believing in Him, you might receive the living water which will spring up in your soul, resulting in eternal life. This is the significance of the pool of Siloam.

And then Jesus tells him to wash. And he did so, and was able to see. John records it simply. But we can only imagine the joy that this man experienced. Imagine never having seen colors, or the sun, or light reflecting on water, or the blue of the sky. And suddenly having sight. I read on the news a story yesterday of two brothers who were able to see colors for the first time. And the story said that they cried. I can’t imagine the wonder that this man felt.

Baptism is the symbolic act of washing. But it is a symbol of not the removal of dirt from the body Peter said. But the act of God in providing a clean conscience. 1 Peter 3:21 says “Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you–not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience–through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” How do we get a clean conscience? By the removal of our guilt, the forgiveness of our sins. That is the significance of washing.

Listen, that is why repentance is the twin sister of faith. You are saved not only by faith, but faith and repentance. One cannot be saved without repentance. We must be made clean to be holy, and we must be holy to be accepted by God. Paul said in 1Cor. 6:9-11 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” To be washed indicates to receive forgiveness for your sins, to be sanctified is to be holy, that is separated from your sins, and to be justified is to be declared not guilty, freed from the penalty of your sin. That is the whole of salvation. And that happens through faith and repentance. To be washed is necessary. If you continue in your sins, then regardless of what you say you believe, you are still in your sins. To be a true disciple, Jesus said in chapter 8, you are to continue in God’s word. That is the distinction between those who claim to be Christians and those who show themselves to be disciples. One continues in their sin, and one continues in God’ word through obedience.

Well, this man came back seeing. He had been walking in the dark, now he was walking in the light. He came back different than when he left. And as we will see next week, he immediately was kicked out of the temple, he immediately suffered persecution for his faith. Once again showing that suffering is a part of the life of faith, and not as many would teach, that faith exempts us from suffering. God does allow suffering, but so that we might show forth the glory of God through it. Perhaps you are afraid that if you choose to obey Christ you will suffer for your faith. That is entirely possible. God may want to rub some dirt in your eyes so that you might show forth the glory of God. And that might be uncomfortable, even painful. The work of God is sometimes offensive. People tend to get mad when you tell them that all men are sinners, and therefore they are a sinner. The Jews tried to kill Jesus for that, and eventually they succeeded. But even then, God used their evil for good. God brought about salvation for the world through the suffering of our Savior.

But I hope that today’s message has illustrated for you that Jesus suffered so that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. That we might turn from darkness and walk in the light. And then that our life should reflect the light of Christ to a dark and dying world. This is the work we have been called to do. I pray that you are going to be about the business of the kingdom of God this week. The day is coming when no man can work. This dark world seems to get darker by the hour. Let us work while it is still day to bring glory to God through our lives.

Perhaps you are here today and you recognize that you are missing something. You have an intellectual basis or emotional basis for your faith, but you realize that you are still very much attached to this world, and have never let go of the things of this world, I would encourage you today to simply call out to the Lord in faith and repentance, and ask Him to wash you and make you a new creation. Jesus said that he who comes to Me I will in no way cast out. Today while it is still day, come to Jesus, call upon Him to save you, and He will anoint the eyes of your heart, that you might see and that you might walk in the light, even as He is in the light.

Worship in spirit and in truth, John 8:48-59

I’m going to warn you in advance that today’s message is going to be a little bit different than usual. I’m not going to exegete every word, or every sentence in this text. I’m not going to reveal a three point outline in the passage and expound on each subject. I guess I could. That is what I normally do. But today I want to focus on just a few points that Jesus makes at the end of this dialogue we have been looking at for several weeks and use them as a springboard for our own application here this morning.

Every week, I pretty much make a point of quoting a particular verse of scripture at some place during our service. Any guesses which verse that would be? Let’s assume that is a rhetorical question. The verse of scripture I quote almost every week is from John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Now I do that deliberately. Most of our signage says “Worship on the beach!” And so I would hope that is why you are here this morning. To worship God. I hope that is your purpose. But we are not the only people who are worshipping this morning. There are churches all over this city that claim to be worshipping God. And let me add something – there are a lot of folks that are holding worship services on the beach lately too. I know of several groups that are coming out on the beach to hold some sort of service lately. I guess we make it look to easy or something. So there are a lot of options out there for people who want to worship God.

However, I want to remind you that at the very beginning of the Bible, God makes it clear in Genesis 4 that He is not obligated to accept our worship, unless we worship Him as He desires. As He designed it. In Genesis 4, Cain and Abel come to present their offerings to the Lord. You know the story. Cain brought the fruit of his labor, the best of his crops, and Abel brought the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions. That means that he brought animal sacrifices, blood sacrifices. And it says that the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.

So that simply means that God did not accept Cain’s worship, but He accepted Abel’s worship. That was God’s prerogative, wasn’t it? But what was Cain’s response? He became angry, and in his anger he sinned and murdered his brother.

Now we find a very similar situation presented here in this passage today. The Jews were very religious, they had a system of worship by which they felt they could please God, by which they thought they could become acceptable to God, and yet Jesus said it did not please God. In fact He says that they are still in their sins, and so they become angry, and end up trying to murder Christ here at the end of this chapter, and then finally succeed in murdering Him 6 months later.

The question then is how do you worship God? How do you know that He accepts your worship? How does your worship make you acceptable to God? I’ve been speaking about this for weeks now to some degree or another. I would assume that most of us consider ourselves Christians. But if I were to take a survey of 100 Christians as to what they base their faith on, I would not be surprised to find that there would be dozens of different answers.

There are millions of professing Christians around this country that are attempting to worship God this morning. You happen to be here. But how do you know what is true? How do you know what is acceptable worship and what is not? Why should you believe what I am telling you? Does it really matter how or where you worship? Does it really matter if you go to church? Does the content of the worship service really matter? Won’t God just accept you if you are sincere? Does God really care how you worship Him?

Well, I would say that most of those questions can be answered by Jesus’s statement which I quoted from a moment ago, “God is Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Note that He says you MUST worship Him in spirit and in truth. It’s not optional, it’s not conditional. He is stating the requirements for acceptable worship. Yet I must say I don’t think most professing Christians really believe that. I think they have this idea that God is going to accept their worship however they may present it. And yet I would point out that illustration again of Cain and Abel. I believe that this was placed at the beginning of the scriptures for a reason, that we might recognize that God does not have to accept any worship that does not meet His requirements. And if God does not accept your worship, then I am afraid I have to tell you some bad news. It’s the same news that Jesus told the Jews in this passage three different times. Jesus said, “You will seek Me, but you will not find Me, and so as a consequence you will die in your sins.” And to add insult to injury, over and over again, particularly in vs.47 and again in vs.55, Jesus said you don’t know God. In spite of their worship, they didn’t know God, and as a result they would die in their sins.

Now why would Jesus say something so dreadful to these very religious people, who were in the temple worshipping God at that very moment? In fact, they had been there for a week, night and day worshipping God. And yet Jesus has the audacity to tell them that they are going to die in their sins. That their worship is useless. Why would He say such a harsh thing as that? These people were sincere. They were worshipping God. They were in church for a week. Doesn’t that count?

I’ll tell you why Jesus said that. First He said it because He loved them. If He didn’t love them, He wouldn’t warn them of their impending doom, would He? But because He loved them, He told them they were still in their sins. We hear all the time, love the sinner, hate the sin. But the Bible teaches that if you love the sinner, you will expose their sin. People get offended though when you tell them that they are a sinner. Just like Cain, the natural man gets angry at the idea he is a sinner. But God’s desire is to save you from the condemnation of sin, and He cannot do that unless you first recognize that you are a sinner.

But there is another reason that Jesus said that they were going to die in their sins. And that is because they did not know the truth. Jesus said in vs 32, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Some people think that freedom means that they can come to God any way they want, just as they are. But that is not what Jesus is teaching. The freedom Jesus is speaking of is freedom from their sins. In other words, if they knew the truth, it would set them free from the penalty and enslavement of their sins. But these Jews didn’t accept the truth, because it did not fit into their paradigm of religion. So Jesus said in vs.40, “But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.” So just like Cain, they plot to murder Jesus, because they didn’t like the fact that God had rejected their worship.

So verse 32 then where Jesus said “you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” correlates to the quote from chapter 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” If you neglect the truth, or reject the truth, or ignore the truth, then your worship of God is in vain. It doesn’t matter how sincere it is, it doesn’t matter how emotional you may be about it, it doesn’t matter how beautiful you may think the service may be, or how inspiring it may seem to you. If it is not truth, then it is not accepted by God, and as such you are still in your sins.

Do you understand that folks? I’m talking to you here today right now. I’m not talking about the Jews 2000 years ago. I’m talking to 21st century Christians right here in this community. I’m telling you by the authority of God’s word that if your worship of God is not according to the truth, then it is worthless and you will die in your sins.

So what is truth? That’s the logical next question, isn’t it? Well, Jesus has the answer to that question as well. First of all, right in this passage He says that His words are truth. Vs.31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Back in vs.14 at the beginning of this dialogue, He says, “My testimony is true.” In John 17:17, Jesus says, “Your word is truth.” And note another tremendous verse, which connects truth and the spirit together as we saw earlier that both are required. In John 6:63 Jesus says “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

So we know the truth by the word of God. And the word of God is spirit and life. So if we are going to do what Jesus said, and worship God in spirit and in truth, then we must worship according to the word of God, which is the gospel of Christ. So God reveals how we must worship Him in His word.

There is an important principle that we find in hermeneutics, which means the interpretation of the Bible, and it’s called the principle of first mention. How that works is that you find the first time a word or phrase is used, and that becomes a template for how you are to understand that usage throughout the Bible. Do you know the very first time that the word worship is used in the Bible? That’s another rhetorical question. But you need to know these things. Because your eternity depends on it. Your life depends on whether or not you get it right. The first time worship is found is in Genesis 22. Abraham has been told by God to offer up his son Isaac on the altar. To sacrifice his son. And so He gets up early in the morning, and his servants and Isaac go to the mountain that God has appointed. And seeing the mountain in the distance, Abraham says to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”

Can you imagine that? God told him to sacrifice his son, he has a knife to slit his son’s throat, he has the wood to make the fire, and his plan is to sacrifice his son in order to please God. And Abraham calls that worship. Now that’s heavy. Think about that for a moment. And compare that definition of worship to most concepts of modern worship today. There is no comparison. There is no correlation. Listening to music and clapping hands does not equate to sacrificing one’s own son whom you love with all your heart. There is no comparison.

Actually there is a comparison. And that is in Genesis 22, As Abraham bound his son on the altar and raised the knife to kill his son, God provided a ram caught in a thicket at the last moment. God pointed out the ram which was provided to be Isaac’s substitute. And that was a picture of the sinless substitute that God would provide for the sin of the world so that sinners condemned to death might be made acceptable to God. So that their sins might be taken away.

I believe that event is what Jesus is referring to in vs.56. Jesus said, ”Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” I think that Abraham was given the insight at that moment, that there would be a Lamb of God who would die in our place, so that we might be saved from the wrath of God against sin. Abraham saw Christ’s day prefigured in the ram that he slew and laid on the altar. And Abraham rejoiced, not only because Isaac was spared, but also because he understood the fulfillment of the prophecy given before Isaac was born, which was that through his seed would come One from whom the whole world would be blessed.

So before you can begin to worship in spirit and in truth, your sins have to be dealt with. And God has provided a substitute to pay the penalty of death that we all deserve because all have sinned, and none of us are righteous. So that is the first step in worshipping God. Believing who Jesus is, and what He came to do, and accepting His sacrifice for your sins.

Listen, that is the basis for our salvation. We cannot come to God without a sacrifice. Because the penalty that God requires of sin is death. Romans 3:23 says “the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” There are two essential elements in obtaining that salvation which Christ paid for. Two essential elements; faith and repentance. Faith is believing who Jesus is; the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and repentance is confessing and turning from your sins and asking God for forgiveness. In the book of Acts, we see that the apostles taught faith and repentance were necessary, Acts 20:21says they were “solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul instructs Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:25 “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.” Jesus and the disciples went about preaching repentance and the necessity to believe in Christ. So repentance and faith are the twin pillars of our faith.

Now I will tell you what most modern worshippers get wrong. They emphasize faith, but not repentance. They say believe in God, but they don’t say repent of your sins. I would suggest that the word sin is an anathema in most churches today. They don’t want to offend someone. Instead, sin is accepted, it’s even condoned in many churches. But I will say this, without repentance from sin, there can be no salvation. And without the appropriation of Christ’s sacrifice to cover your sin, there can be no worship. There can be no fellowship with God. There can be no acceptance from God.

That’s why Jesus kept emphasizing to those Jewish religious leaders that they would die in their sins, because they would not accept the One who came to pay the penalty of their sin. Now how do you know what is sin? It must be found in God’s word. God’s word defines sin. Not society, not the culture, not some religious figurehead. No one defines sin but God. Sin is anything that does not conform to the nature of God. And God has written His word that we might know sin, that sin would become even more sinful.

Yet how many churches today are trying to accommodate society’s definitions of lifestyle, of behavior? In their efforts to appeal to the world, they accept the world’s definitions of marriage, for instance, when it is in opposition to God’s definitions in His word. I have to say that if they are changing God’s definition of sin then they are not worshipping God in spirit and in truth. They are worshipping God in vain. They are still in their sins.

Notice how Jesus keeps refocusing on this aspect of God’s word is truth, and His words are God’s words. John 8:43-47, “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

So the bottom line is that He says, you don’t believe my word because you are from your father the devil who is the father of lies. So instead of believing my word, you believe a lie. Since you are not of God, you don’t accept My word. I would suggest this is evident in Christianity today; that those that do not believe God’s word is the truth, have no use for God’s word. That is why many churches today rarely refer to the word of God. They rarely preach the word. They rarely teach the word. Instead they sing some songs, watch a couple of videos, maybe watch a skit, and then the pastor ends up telling a couple of funny stories at the end, and everyone goes home feeling vaguely entertained.

So I will summarize so far; if the church does not preach faith and repentance, then they are not worshipping God in truth. And if the church does not preach the word, then they are not of the truth. I don’t care how entertaining it is. They have forsaken the truth, and as such are apostate.

Here is what the religious apostates believe: that God is love, and that sin is ok. That God loves them in their sin. And so they hate anyone who preaches against sin. This is the difference between true religion and false religion. False religion does not deal with sin and claims all that is necessary is a relationship with God, and true religion recognizes that sin must be dealt with in order to have fellowship with God.

I want to point out another statement Jesus made in vs.50 “But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges.” This is another way that they should have recognize that Jesus was speaking the truth. He did not seek His own glory, but He sought to glorify the Father in all that He did.

And I would suggest that this is a way that Christians can discern those who speak or teach the truth. If a church or a worship service is geared so that it brings glory to the people who are conducting it, then you need to be suspect of whether or not they are of the truth. I’m going to be very candid with you for a moment. I don’t do this to bring glory to myself. I don’t do this for fame. I don’t do this to bring some sort of honor to myself. To be frank, I’m often humiliated as a pastor. But I think that is the method God employs to able to use me.

There was a time in my life when I had a certain amount of fame. There was a time when I was recognized in my career wherever I went around the country. I used to be an antique dealer, and I was on a national television show about antiques for a few years. And I received a lot of notoriety from that at one time in my life. I made good money from that career. But God took me down more than a few pegs in my pride in order to be able to use me for His glory and not my own. So I didn’t chose this ministry because I thought it would make me popular or well liked. If anything, the more people listen to me, the more enemies I seem to make.

But I will say this. I am in good company. Jesus said inJohn 15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” And I believe that is because I preach the truth of God’s word. We obviously don’t have a whole lot else to offer you folks here. I don’t tell jokes very well. We don’t have a cool band. We don’t have skits or interpretive dancing. But what we do is preach the truth of God’s word without apology and as the central theme to our worship. And I believe that the word of God is truth, and that only the truth will set you free. Some people are offended by that. And as a result they get mad when I preach on sin, and the need for repentance. But I would also hope that there are going to be some that will believe, and will respond to the truth, and will commit to this church. I hope that some of you are here today.

Quite often lately I find myself praying the prayer of Elijah as he contended with the priests of Baal in 1Kings 18:36. He prayed, ““O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again.” I pray that God will show that I have done these things according to HIs word. And that God will turn the hearts of His people back again.

Well, I warned you that I was going to go on a bit of a tangent today. And so I’m going to wrap this up with one last point. And that is the principle found in vs.51, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.” So you want to worship Him in spirit and in truth? Then you will keep His word. Jesus emphasizes this over and over again. This key principle is found in vs.31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Listen,1 Samuel 15:22 says, “to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams.” To obey is better than coming with songs and hymns. Isaiah 29:13 says, “Then the Lord said,’Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote.” And because of that false worship, God says He will turn away from them. God wants obedience from the heart. To obey is to love the Lord. Jesus said in John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

I don’t have a lot of time to show you every reference this morning, but over and over again Jesus says “continue in my word”, or “keep my word,” or “keep my commandments.” In fact, as an example to us, Jesus Himself keeps the word. That was the measure of His truthfulness that the Jews should have recognized. He says in vs55 “and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.”

And I would suggest that this is the way we know that someone knows the Lord as well. They keep the word of God. If they don’t keep the word of God, then they don’t know God. 1John 2:3, 5 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” … 5 “but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.”

That’s the reality of true worship. It’s laying down your prerogatives, your rights, your purposes, to obey the word of God. It’s putting Christ first in your life. True worship requires that you bring to God the offering of yourself. Romans 12:1-2 says, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

That’s all I have for you this morning. Worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. Nothing else counts. Anything less than the truth is a lie. God desires truth in the innermost being. And we do that by being conformed to God’s word. Simply lay the template of the gospel over your life, and follow the commands of God as He laid them out in His word. It starts with a sacrifice, Jesus substitionary death on the cross, and it ends with another sacrifice, presenting your body as a living and holy sacrifice. Acceptable to God. That is your spiritual service of worship. That is how we are made free. Let us pray.

Characteristics of a child of God, John 8:37-47

It would have been great if I could have held this message back for another week, to coincide with Father’s Day, since this message has a lot to say about fathers. That’s one of my favorite holidays by the way. My wife and kids always get me some sort of gift for Father’s Day. My second favorite holiday is my birthday, but she doesn’t get me anything for my birthday. Coming the day after Christmas, it kind of is like an afterthought. So Father’s Day is my day. I am really looking forward to it, in case you didn’t notice.

But anyhow, shameless plug aside, it would have been nice to preach this next week, because this message is really about fathers. But not so much your immediate father, as it is talking about ancestral fathers. Who you descended from. I have noticed that some people really value their ancestry. Their heritage means a lot to them. They have done all sorts of research into their family tree. And perhaps it should be meaningful. But then again some people put way too much emphasis on some great thing they can claim their great great grand daddy did, and they feel that somehow validates them in some unique way.

By the way, I’m always amused by these people that believe in reincarnation. Whenever you hear someone claim to have been reincarnated, it’s interesting that they always claim to have discovered that they were somebody great in their past life. There are a lot of people that claim to be the reincarnation of Napoleon or Cleopatra, for instance. I read about one guy who believed he was the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. He didn’t look anything like her though. Phil Collins, the rock singer, believes that he is the reincarnation of a survivor of the Alamo. Amazing. And looking around on the internet I even came across a couple of people who claim to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. I guess these poor confused people want to find some way to add importance to their lives.

But I guess everyone would like to know if they are related to anyone famous. I found out something interesting about my own ancestry the other day, which in light of those previously mentioned people is going to sound like I too am trying to add importance to my life. But my nephew supposedly traced our lineage back to Scotland, and found that our line came from one of the daughters of Robert the Bruce, a Scottish king that was featured in the movie Braveheart. I have to admit, I found that a little bit exciting for a while as I thought about it. But the truth is, someone in my ancestry that lived over 700 years ago has very little to do with my life today.

But for the Jews, their ancestry meant a lot. Being descended from the line of Abraham they could rightly claim the benefits of God’s covenantal people. Their property, their ancestral lands, were divided according to their tribe, according to the sons of Jacob, the son of Isaac, who was the Son of Abraham. So for a Jew living in the first century, being a descendant of Abraham was a matter not only of religion, but nationality, property and even to some degree determined their livelihood.

Now this week as we look at these claims by the Jews to be children of Abraham, we need to remember that we are jumping into the middle a teaching session that Jesus was having with the Jews, which occurred during the Feast of Tabernacles, which has been going on for several days. We have looked at various elements of this for the last several weeks. All of it was occurring in the temple during this feast in which tens of thousands of people are attending. And last week, we saw that Jesus delivered this great statement at one point in the discussion, saying, that if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Jesus wasn’t talking about freedom from slavery, or freedom from Roman oppression, but He was speaking of spiritual freedom, freedom from the enslavement of sin. And three times in the previous section Jesus said they were still enslaved to their sin, and as such they would die in their sins. The Jews, who had already hated Him enough to want to put Him to death, were enraged by that charge. So they argue that they couldn’t go to hell as sinners, because they were descendants of Abraham.

You see, the rabbis taught that no son of Abraham would enter into hell. They believed that their father Abraham was actually posted at the door to Hades to make sure that no circumcised person would enter there. Justin Martyr, in the Dialogue of Trypho in the second century, argued with a Jewish man who said this about the Jews; “They who are the seed of Abraham, according to the flesh, shall in any case, even if they be sinners and unbelieving and disobedient toward God, share in the eternal kingdom.”  So this was their belief, that due to the covenant of God with Abraham, they inherited eternal life with God, and escaped hell, simply due to their being a descendent of Abraham.

So in vs.33, the Jews in response to Christ say, “we are Abraham’s descendants.” They said that as a defense of their freedom, possibly referring to their religious freedom. And three times in this passage before us today, the Jews are going to claim their heritage as a defense against what Christ was teaching. They have three claims they make, and as we look at them you will notice that they are progressive in their claims.  First, they claim to be the physical seed or physical descendants of Abraham, which Jesus says is true in vs.37.  Secondly, they claim to be the spiritual seed of Abraham, which Jesus says is not true.  And thirdly, they claim to be the children of God, which Jesus again demonstrates is not true.  So Jesus agrees with the first claim, and then just debunks the second two, exposing the falseness of their claims.

And I would just like to make a parallel to us in our culture today. Most people in America today claim to be Christian. The Pew research study showed that 70% of Americans claim to be Christians. At the very least that means that they believe in God, they believe in Christ, and they believe in an afterlife in heaven. But I’m afraid that for the majority of those claiming Christianity, they are not unlike those Jews. When we examine the basis for their claims, we find that the number one reason is that they were raised to be Christians. They were raised in a home where Christianity was taught, or at least accepted by parents who believed in God. So most people I believe would claim their heritage as a basis for their Christianity.

Secondly, their claim to Christianity is based on their church affiliation. You could equate the nation of Israel with the church in many respects. And so spiritually, many in our culture claim their Christianity based on their church association. They not only were raised to believe in God, but to belong to a particular denomination; whether it be Catholic, or Episcopal, or Presbyterian or Baptist or whatever, and they find their identification in the rituals and ceremonies and community of their church. And as the Jews were required to be circumcised in order to belong to their church, many denominations require people to be baptized as a mark of belonging to their church.

And then thirdly, as a result of the first two, most people in that 70% would believe that they were children of God. And as such they believe they would escape any judgment that might fall on the world. Rather than Abraham standing at the gate of heaven, they might expect Saint Peter. But I’m afraid that in light of what Jesus is teaching today, we will discover that what Jesus is talking about is not being made a child of God through physical means, but by being born as a child of God by spiritual means. And so the requirements which were true for the Jews are true for us as well.

Now let’s look briefly at each of those claims of the Jews. So number one, they claim to be Abraham’s descendants in vs.33. That’s their defense against Christ’s charge that they would die in their sins. So Jesus’ response is in vs. 37 “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.” Jesus agrees that they are the physical descendants of Abraham, through Isaac and then Jacob, and then the 12 sons of Jacob, constituting the nation of Israel.

But though Jesus acknowledges their physical relationship, He says that there is something amiss. What is wrong about their claim is that they were seeking to kill Him, because they did not believe His word. This is a very important principle by the way. You cannot say you believe in Christ, but not believe His word. Christ’s word is inseparable from His entity. It’s like the old adage, “a man’s word is his bond.” Or like my Dad used to say, “you may not have much in this world, but the most valuable thing you possess is your name. Don’t dishonor your family name.” The principle that he was trying to teach was that if you gave your word, you better keep it. Your word was who you were. It was your character, your reputation, your nature.

There is an effort by liberal theologians today to try to redefine who Jesus was, irrespective of His word. They want to claim to believe in Jesus, but deny the authority or reliability of God’s word. And what Jesus is teaching here is that HIs reliability, even His deity, is authenticated by His word. So we either have to believe what Christ taught, or dismiss Him altogether. Jesus Christ was the Word, He was in the beginning with God, and He was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and His word is truth. That is why Jesus said in vs. 31, “if you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of mine.”

So Jesus says, though you might be physical descendants of Abraham, yet your deeds are witness that you are not the spiritual children of Abraham, and further evidence is that you do not accept Christ’s word. So spiritually speaking, your lineage is worthless because it hasn’t affected your spiritual condition. Literally, He is saying is, “my word makes no progress in you.” It’s the same idea as what He said was the evidence of a true disciple; you will continue in His word. A characteristic of a true Christian then is that you have an appetite for His word. I would hope that is the reason that you are here this morning. I hope it’s not to see the dolphins, or to enjoy the beach. I hope it is to drink and eat of God’s word.

And not only to accept the word, but that the word is a sanctifying agent in your life. It changes you. It is the means by which God speaks to you and the Holy Spirit guides you. It is making progress in you. The word of God is progressively doing the work of sanctification in you, changing you into the image of Jesus Christ.

But that isn’t the evidence in these Jews lives, according to Christ. So He says in vs. 38, “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.” In other words, you have no interest in things which come from My Father, you are only interested in things that come from your father. So Jesus is saying that their lineage says one thing, but their actions say another. Listen, our actions speak louder than our words. I had a young man come up after the service last week who talked to me about his conversion. He related how as a teenager, a self righteous man acting in hypocrisy in the church had really turned him off on the church. But later in his college years, he came across some believers who really practiced what they preached, and that testimony was the catalyst for him coming to the Lord. When he saw the reality of what they were saying in their life lived out, then it made an impact on him.

So the Jews respond to Jesus again in vs.39, claiming once again to be the children of Abraham, and I think they are claiming not only physical descendancy, but now they are also claiming spiritually to be sons of Abraham. They say in vs.39, “Abraham is our father.” See, I think they realized that Jesus was saying they had another father, and so they are refuting that, asserting once again that Abraham was their father spiritually as well as physically.

Jesus answers, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham.” What are the deeds of Abraham? Well, 3 times in the New Testament, in Romans 4, Galatians 3, and James 2, it says “Abraham believed God, and He counted it to Him as righteousness.” When God spoke to Abraham, he believed God. Jesus says I am speaking to you the words of God, but you don’t believe them. Therefore you are not children of Abraham, because Abraham believed God. Jesus said, “But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.”

You know what else were the deeds of Abraham? Abraham obeyed God. Hebrews 11:8 says, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” Listen, we are saved by faith. But faith is more than just lip service. It takes little to no faith to say you believe God, but it takes faith to act on that belief. It takes faith to leave all and to follow Him, as the disciples did. God wants more than lip service. That’s what’s wrong with some of the modern praise and worship movement. We are projecting this image of this narcissistic God that just wants to hear us tell Him how great He is all the time. That’s not the image of God we see in the Bible. But Jesus said “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” To obey is better than sacrifice, it’s better than praise. To obey is the proof of your faith.

So in vs.41, Jesus said, “You are doing the deeds of your father.” See, to whom you obey, you belong. Not whom you claim to be, but to whom you act like determines who you belong to. That’s what Paul said in Romans 6:16 “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?” That’s the same thing Jesus said in vs.34, “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”

So twice now Jesus has alluded to another father whom they are obedient to. And it is not God the Father but another father. Their response is very interesting.  They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication.”  And here’s where they make the final claim: “We have one Father: God.”  Not only are we the physical children of Abraham, the spiritual children of Abraham, but we are the spiritual children of God.  Because we’re not born of fornication.

Now some commentators say that the Jews are claiming by this statement that they have not worshipped idols. Idol worship was associated with fornication, which produced illegitimate children. So many feel that fornication was closely associated with idolatry and that was the meaning of what the Jews had to say. But I think it was because they had researched Jesus’ pedigree, and had ascertained incorrectly that He had been born out of wedlock, because He was not Joseph’s true son. So I think that this is more than likely a slam on Him and on HIs sinlessness. Because as we see in vs.46, Jesus asks, “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” Well, they couldn’t prove it, of course. But they would have loved to believe that He was born in sin, and thus eliminated from any consideration that He could be God in the flesh.

And that highlights the significance of Jesus being born of the Holy Spirit who came upon Mary. That the sin nature of Adam did not pass on to Him. But He was born of the Spirit. So Jesus was born sinless, and He remained sinless. And therefore He was able to be the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

So Jesus says if you were the spiritual children of God, you would love Me. Vs.42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.”

To love God then is to love Christ, because He is the physical manifestation of God in the flesh. Hebrews 1:3 says that He is the exact representation of God. So it’s impossible to love God and not love Christ. And how is that love for God expressed? Well, we just said it earlier, we believe His word, and we are obedient to His word. And I would add to that you do not love the world. The world being synonymous with the realm of Satan.Jesus continually refers to Satan as the ruler of this world. So in 1John 2:15 it says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

That love for the world, the love of the things of Satan is the characteristic of those that are not of the Father, but are children of the devil. That’s the next point that Jesus makes, the clarification of who their real father is. Vs.43 “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Listen, physically we exhibit the characteristics of our father, don’t we? That’s natural. You pass on your physical characteristics to your children. I would even say that we pass on more than just physical characteristics, we pass on some of our personality, some of our intelligence, and then as our children grow up, we pass on many of our habits, our personal tastes for certain things, the way we talk. All those things are greatly influenced by our parents. Most of us are horrified to find out as we get older how much like our parents we are. We thought we would be so different. And yet it turns out that we end up very much like our parents.

Well, Jesus is saying, if you love God and are a child of God, then you will take on the characteristics of your Father. But if you love the world, and the things of the world, then you will take on the characteristics of the ruler of this world, that is the devil. And it’s interesting to note the characteristics of Satan which Jesus points out. He was a liar, He says, and the father of lies. There is no truth in Him. What a contrast to Christ who is the truth, and who speaks the truth of God. Satan is a liar and entraps mankind by his lies. But Christ is the truth, and His truth sets men free.

You remember the first time we see Satan in Genesis, he comes to Eve with a lie. And she believed it, and then obeyed it, and was entrapped by it. And as a result of her and Adam’s sin, the entire human race is trapped in the bondage of sin. So Jesus adds that he is a murderer. What that means is that in that first deception, Satan brought about the murder of the entire human race. Because sin brings forth death. From Adam’s sin, came about the murder of all men, of which Satan bears much responsibility. Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

So Jesus expresses that contrast again by saying in vs. 45 “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.” You could simplify that statement by saying, here’s the way to diagnose a child of the devil: he doesn’t believe the truth, doesn’t love Christ.  Here’s a way to diagnose a child of God: he loves the truth, he loves Christ.

The summary of this principle Christ is teaching is found starting in vs.46, Jesus says, ”Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

Jesus could ask that question, “which of you convicts Me of sin”, because it was apparent to all that He was guilty of no sin. And that fact alone was validation that He was the Son of God. There is no prophet of any religion that can honestly say that he is not guilty of any sin. No one on earth can honestly claim to be sinless. And even if we did have the audacity to claim sinlessness, you better believe someone could convict you of sin, because your life reveals evidence of your sin. Romans 3:23 says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And Romans 3:10 says that there is none righteous, not even one. No one can claim sinlessness. So for Christ to be able to say that, and for them to be silent in response to that claim, is evidence that He was the Son of God.

And yet irregardless of that fact, they choose not to believe Him. They reject His words as the word of God, and Jesus said that is because they are not of God. They are not the children of God. They may have been descendants of Abraham, they may have been members of the nation of Israel, but their sinful deeds were evidence that they were of their father the devil.

Listen, do I even need to make the application here to this present body of people or is Jesus’ teaching self evident? To what evidence is your claim to Christianity? Is it to your heritage? Is it to your church membership? Is it to your nationality? Is it to some religious ceremony? I would submit to you today, that as Jesus said in Matthew 7, by their fruits you shall know them. If you are of your Father in heaven, then you will do the works of the Father. You will love Christ, and love His body, the church, and you will obey His word. And your life will be evidence of your faith.

But if you love the world, and the things of the world, and you do not love the word of God, nor the things of God, then it is evident that you are of a another father. The good news is that there is a way to be adopted into the family of God. Gal. 3:26, 29 says, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” And then in vs. 29 ‘And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”

Today adoption as a child of God is offered to you. Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for our sins by HIs blood on the cross. That those who believe in Him might receive His righteousness, and our sins would be transferred to Him, the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And having been made righteous by faith in Christ, we are made the children of God by redemption. The offer is open today to all who will call upon Him in faith and repentance, for the forgiveness of sins. I pray that today is the day of your salvation. Don’t trust in anything else, but in Christ’s righteousness alone.

The Source of Freedom is the Truth, John 8:31-36

The idea of freedom, or the principle of being free, is one that is particularly indigenous to Americans. It’s not limited to Americans, of course, but much of our history is based on the premise that man is designed to be free. Our country was founded on that principle. As the Constitution declares, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Liberty means the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.

So the American Revolution was fought over those truths, that we had a right to be free from tyranny. And to some extent the Civil War continued that fight, eventually taking on the context of freedom from slavery. Then in the 1960’s, we experienced a cultural revolution called the Hippie Movement, which espoused the idea of freedom from social mores. However, not all the freedoms that generation sought were necessarily based on truth, as history has made evident. But nonetheless, the entire history of the United States has this search for freedom interwoven in it’s story, from generation to generation.

Yet after 300 years, I would suggest that we are still trying to come to grips as a nation with the notion of freedom. We are still trying to obtain it. For that matter, we are still trying to define it. And so it is to that question that we come to today. What is freedom, and how does one really achieve it?

Well, I believe that this passage teaches us the answer to that question. The blueprint for freedom was written long before the Constitution of the United States. And it’s author was no less than Jesus Christ. I believe that this passage before us today is one of the most important in the gospel. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is the heart of the gospel.

The reality of freedom is the purpose of Jesus Christ’s visitation to Earth. In His first message that He preached, He quoted from Isaiah concerning Himself, saying that this prophecy was fulfilled that day in their presence. This is what He read from the scriptures prophesying about Himself. He read from Isaiah 61:1 which says, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.”

Now how was that freedom realized? What does it look like? Is He talking about social freedom, or political freedom, or freedom from slavery, or spiritual freedom? Because there are people that have interpreted these statements in all those various ways. But remember, Jesus said that they that worship God must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. So we cannot just apply any template we want to these statements. We must apply them according to the truth.

Well, I suggest that Jesus is speaking primarily about spiritual freedom. But I will add to that the caveat that the spiritual is the fountain from which all other freedoms flow. You can attempt to find freedom outside of the spiritual, but I would suggest that if you do that, then you are being deceived. You are still held captive, still enslaved. Jesus says that in our text in vs. 34, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” So until you take care of the spiritual issue of sin and become free in that regard, you cannot know any other freedom. You are still in your sins, and as such, you are still held captive by the devil, and are a slave of sin.

That is why three times in the previous passage we looked at last week, three times Jesus says to the Jews, that they would die in their sins. Because they had believed a lie, and as a result, they were still in their sins, still enslaved.

So what is the solution then? Jesus said if you are going to know freedom, then you must first know the truth. Jesus said in vs.32, that when you know the truth, then the truth will make you free. So knowing the truth is paramount to becoming free. You cannot be free and live a lie. As became evident in the Hippy Movement, things that they thought provided freedom, like drugs and sex, only served to further enslave them, because they were not founded on the truth. And I would suggest that many of the new social mores which are being expounded today are simply more of the same kind of deceit; they promise freedom, but they only will produce greater bondage.

Now that was the scheme of Satan from the beginning was it not? To lie against the truth and as such enslave men to sin. Satan appeared in the Garden of Eden to seduce mankind to sin by telling a lie, by selling Eve an untruth. As Jesus says in our text in vs. 44, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

So Satan, in his rage against God – his rage that God would choose to shower His affection on man, and make man in God’s image, according to God’s likeness, when he himself had desired to be like the Most High and was rejected – so Satan came to man disguised as a creature of God, and he deceived the woman by making her think something evil was good, and he invoked her to pride because she desired to know what God knew, and as such mankind fell from their sinless state in God’s presence just as Satan had also fallen. And mankind has been suffering bondage to that lie all throughout the history of the world.

That is why Jesus calls him the father of lies. And he did not stop with that lie, but he has sold the world a lie ever since. Satan, who controls the world system, has so engineered the world so that according to 2Peter 2:19, he is “promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.” What he means is that they are being promised freedom but instead they end up becoming slaves of corruption.

So what is truth? Well, to start with, God is truth. Truth is defined in God and by God and there is no truth apart from God. In Isaiah 45:19 God says, “I the Lord speak the truth; I declare what is right.” Psalm 119:160 says, “The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.” And vs. 142 of the same Psalm says “your law is truth.” And one more, Numbers 23:19 says “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

Now I cannot overstate this doctrine. God is the source of all truth. His word establishes the standard of truth. All philosophy, all science, all the wisdom of man must be examined in the light of God’s truth, and only when it conforms to God’s truth, is it true. So as Paul said in Romans 3:4, “Let God be found true, though everyman found a liar.”

So as God is true, Jesus also is true. As we have seen in our studies in recent weeks, Jesus speaks the things of God, He does the works of God, He does nothing that the Father isn’t doing. So if God is true, then HIs Son is true. In fact, Jesus says that He is the personification of truth in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Notice in that verse, that Jesus doesn’t say He sometimes speaks the truth, but that He is the truth. That means nothing less than perfect truth comes from God. And as Jesus personifies the Word of God, then He is the truth of God, and no one can come to God except through Him. One must come to accept Christ’s word, in order to come to God. God has chosen to reveal Himself in His Son. And what God has revealed is truth. So coming to know the truth, will make you truly free.

Now we saw that in vs.30, many people listening to Him had come to believe in Him. That simply means that they believed that He was speaking the truth. They believed that He had come from the Father. Vs.26 Jesus had said, “He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.” So some people listening to that believed in Him. Some did not, as we see in the later verses. But some did believe Him. And I think that means that they became Christians at that point. Some commentators think that these people were superficial believers. They didn’t really want to follow Christ, but they just acknowledged that what He said was true. I don’t buy that. I think that what Jesus was saying was so radical, so outrageous, that they had to either acknowledge Him as a lunatic, or acknowledge Him as God come in the flesh. So when John says twice that some believed in Him, I think they truly had their eyes opened to the truth, and they believed in Him and they were saved. That is the way that we are saved, we are justified by faith in Christ. Romans 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So then now that some have been justified by faith, then in vs.31, Jesus speaks of the next step in salvation, and that is sanctification. There are three phases in salvation; there is justification, then sanctification, and finally glorification. All must exist for salvation to exist. If you are justified, and then you are sanctified, but there is no glorification, no eternal life, no heaven, then your salvation is worthless, is it not? Paul said in 1Cor. 15:19 “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” And the same thing is true of the other two phases in our salvation. If we are not justified, then our attempts at sanctification through works can never save us, can they? Because Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” So if you skip over justification by grace, and try to become sanctified by works, then you cannot be saved. And by the same measure, justification without sanctification is worthless. As James said, “faith without works is dead.” So then Hebrews 12:14 warns us that without sanctification, no one will see the Lord. All three then are necessary for salvation.

That’s why Jesus turns to those people, the people that had believed in Him, who believed that He was the Son of God, who were justified by faith, and to them Jesus said, ““If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Now I believe that these people were saved by faith in Him, as I said. And so Jesus now is instructing them how to be His true disciples. That is the consequence of truly being saved. We not only believe, but we follow. We join Him, fellowship with Him, allow Him to teach us as we go through each day and every circumstance. It’s not just “I have faith, so I’m saved, and now I can go on with my life and do what I want to do, live like I want to live.” It’s not like Jesus is now my genie and so He’s going to make sure that everything I do works out. He’s going to keep me safe as I go about my business.

No, that’s not what discipleship. A true disciple recognizes that Jesus is the source of life, the source of truth, the way to God, and so he follows Jesus wherever He leads us. Most Christians today have it backwards. They think salvation entitles them to God following them around and working out any difficulties they might encounter, but stay far enough behind me so as to not hinder my freedom to do what I want to do. That’s not biblical discipleship. Christ doesn’t follow me, but I need to follow Christ.

How do we do that practically speaking? Well, Jesus says how, He says you do it by continuing in His word. He’s talking about relying on the word of God for your day to day situations. This is the way of sanctification. Read the word, and apply the word. That’s called wisdom by the way. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. So we don’t just become hearers of the word, but doers of it.

Jesus said in His high priestly prayer to God in John 17:17, speaking of His disciples, He prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” That’s tremendous. The word then is a sanctifying agent. It’s like the old adage, “sin will keep you from the Bible, or the Bible will keep you from sin.” David in Psalm 119:11 says, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

Here is the thing that Jesus is teaching at this point. Justification is taking away the penalty of sin. Sanctification is taking away the power of sin. And one day, glorification will take away then presence of sin. But let’s just focus on sanctification for a moment. Sanctification is deliverance from the power of sin. This is the true freedom that Christ brings. It’s not just taking away the penalty of sin but leaving us to live in sin. That would not be true freedom. Christ gives us the power over sin, the power to be delivered from sin. That is the hope of Christianity in this life. That we have victory over sin.

Now the reality is that as long as we are in the body and living in a fallen world we are going to feel some of the effects of occasional sin. No one is going to achieve sinless perfection this side of glorification. But as a Christian we can be delivered from continual sin. That is the meaning of the word used there for sin. It is continual, habitual sin. That’s the good news that Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 61 which we quoted earlier; “the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.”

That’s the same thing that the old hymn Rock of Ages is talking about when it says, that the blood of Christ will “be of sin the double cure, save from wrath, and make me pure.” That double cure is speaking of being saved from the wrath of God, and then the sanctification that produces purity towards God. Justification and sanctification.

So that is the path of sanctification. That path is progressive, by the way. There is a sense in which we are sanctified, consecrated, and set apart at salivation by the blood of Christ. That is positional sanctification whereby we have been set apart from the world for good works. But there is also practical sanctification, and that comes from continuing in the word. As God reveals truth to you through His word, then you apply that truth and it becomes a sanctifying agent that works to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ. That is why the text doesn’t just say the truth sets you free. That’s true, but it’s not once and done. It’s a continual making free. Each day continuing, and that continuance working in us that which is pleasing to God. That’s discipleship. Sanctification is discipleship.

And that’s God’s goal for His church. When Christ commissioned the church, He said go into all the world and make disciples. Not just believers. But followers of Christ in conduct and in truth which is doctrine.

Well the Jews answered Jesus back by saying, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?” Now first of all, I don’t believe that this “they” who John refers to is the same people that became saved. I think these people are the Jewish religious leaders who have been having this running debate with Christ all throughout this whole passage. Because these people obviously do not believe in Him. They accuse Him of being a liar, and in vs.41 they even accuse Him of being born of fornication, of being illegitimate. So obviously these cannot be those who believed that He was the Son of God.

But the really confusing part was what they said. They said they had never been enslaved to anyone, when in fact, they had been enslaved numerous times, starting with Egypt and then in Babylon and they were under a form of bondage even then to the Romans. So it is difficult to know what they were talking about. Except for to note the irony that when you are enslaved to a lie, the lie is that you are not enslaved. Many times I meet people who are obviously weighted down under the bondage of sin, and yet they extol the virtues of their freedom. I suppose there is no lie like the lie you tell yourself.

That is the curse of sin which brings condemnation. To refuse to acknowledge it and thus refuse to repent of it. To be an alcoholic and deny it is obvious folly to everyone but the alcoholic. But that is very often the case. They say, “I can take it or leave it.” But in actual fact, they only take it. Or to be a drug abuser and say “it doesn’t hurt me.” And yet the lie is apparent in your body and in your life. Perhaps that unwillingness to face their sin caused them to deny their enslavement and to blind themselves to their reality.

So Jesus gave an answer designed to prove HIs point. He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” Again, this is speaking of habitual sin. In other words, if you are living in sin, then you are obviously a slave of sin, and you have not been set free. You may tell yourself you are free, you may tell others that you are free, but your actions say otherwise. You are still in your sins, and you will die in your sins, unless you believe in Him, which Jesus said meant to continue in His word and follow Him.

And then Jesus says, “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.” What Jesus is saying was in response to their claim as Abraham’s children. He is saying that their actions demonstrate that they are not Abraham’s children, because Abraham’s children are the children of faith. They believe God and He counts it to them as righteousness. But these men demonstrate that they are not Abraham’s children because they are not children of faith. So Jesus says that they are slaves. And like Ishmael in the house of Abraham, they will not inherit the blessing of the son Isaac. They will not stay in the house forever, because they are not true sons. These men had a temporary stay in the household of God in the sense that they belonged to the tribe of Israel. But when they were judged according to their works, they were found to be doers of wickedness, and thus slaves of wickedness, and not sons of righteousness.

That was the judgment. But thank God Jesus doesn’t stop with the judgment. He offers once again salvation. He says in vs.36, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” This is the reality of salvation, that we are truly free if Christ has made us free. If the spirit of man has been freed, then he is free inwardly, in a way that no earthly chains can contain. Because if Christ has made us free, then we have fellowship with God in a realm that cannot be ascertained by those who are not free in Christ.

In a simplified way of looking at slavery and freedom, we might say that those who are slaves have someone else take advantage of their labors. If they make money, it’s not really theirs to enjoy, it’s their masters. If they have possessions, they are not really theirs to keep, for they are their masters. The master owns everything that the slave has. Such is the reality of the lie that Satan has foisted upon the world. He has promised that you can enjoy the fruits of a sinful life. but the fact is, that he owns all that you do. All that you do in that world ends up being left behind when you die in your sins and face an eternity in hell.

But if the Son shall make you free, then not only are you made free, but you receive the adoption as sons, and consequently you receive an inheritance that will never fade away, reserved in heaven for you. As a result of that hope, we know that our labor is not in vain. That what we do in this world will be used for the glory of God. So we find our freedom in service to God, knowing that He keeps track of our works, and will reward us in the day of our glorification.

Listen, today is the favorable year of the Lord. Today the Lord offers freedom from whatever prison of sin that has kept you hostage. The Lord is ready to save all that call upon Him. Believe in the truth and be saved. That is the offer extended to you today. Receive all that God has prepared for those that love Him. Or continue to believe the lie of this world and you will die in your sins. There is a very clear choice, and the choice is yours. There are two paths, two possibilities before you today; the truth and the lie. God is the author of truth, and Satan is the author of lies. One path leads to freedom, and the other path leads to further enslavement. I pray you chose to believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. May today be the day that you are free indeed.