If you will recall, last Sunday our text ended with us reading that many who heard the words of Jesus believed in him. Well, our text for today picks up there and finds Jesus speaking primarily to those who have just come to believe in him. Jesus assures them, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” It’s here that I think we need to make a very slight, yet crucial, distinction. There is a difference between profession and possession. Hear me out for just a second. Many people think that they are Christians because they made a profession of faith, they stated what and who Jesus was to them. Maybe they went to some service where they made an altar call or went through some class before joining a church that taught them all they needed to know. To each of those things I would say great, but that doesn’t make you a Christian. Just because I went to seminary doesn’t necessarily make me a pastor. Just because my wife has an animal and dairy science degree doesn’t make her a veterinarian. Jesus is telling those around him that if they are truly his disciples and they truly adhere to his word, then they will know the truth and they will possess saving faith. You see, being a Christian is much more than saying that you are a Christian. It’s much more than having all the right biblical and theological answers when a question arises. I had an old preacher friend tell me one time, “Tommy, if you truly live as a Christian should live, then you’ll never have to tell someone that you are a Christian. You’ll never get asked whether or not you believe in Christ, because people will know that you believe just by how you live your life.” There is a difference between living it, possessing saving faith, and simply professing with our tongues and not our hearts.
Now, the Jews take offense to such a statement. After all, they are not slaves; so what does Jesus mean when he talks about setting them free? They even point to the fact that they are children of Abraham, part of God’s chosen people. In fact, most of these Jewish people could trace their lineage back to Abraham himself. We see this statement made by these people and we laugh because it seems like they are trying to say that they should be and are saved based off of their family tree, but we shouldn’t be too quick to judge. After all, how many of us do the exact same thing? I know that when someone asks me about my Christian background and my own personal relationship with the Lord, I point to and start with the fact that I was raised in a church by Christian parents who also were raised by Christian parents and so on and so on. I say these things as if they had any bearing on my salvation at all. It’s not like my faith being multigenerational is any stronger or more valuable than the Christian who came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior a few days ago at a Bible study. Sure I have more experience and maybe more folks to lean on, but that doesn’t change the status of my salvation.
Christ tells these folks that it doesn’t matter who you are, who your parents are, or who you can trace you lineage back to, you are a sinner. There is no person aside from Jesus who has existed, does exist, or ever will exist that is completely free of sin. However, there is freedom to be found for the rest of us from this sin and it comes in the form of the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus knows that these folks are children of Abraham and that they are upset because of his roundabout way of referring to them as slaves, but once again it is from a perspective that they cannot understand. Christ is again speaking from a heavenly plane whereas the Jews can only attest to the things of this earth. He’s not talking about slavery to Rome or any other nation or person, but a slave to sin.
One of the most often asked questions that I get as a pastor and particularly a Presbyterian minister pertains to that of free will. People always ask the question of, “Preacher, we do have free will, don’t we?” Before I answer this question, I often warn people that they need to be careful how they understand and interpret the concept of free will. Somewhere along the way, this belief that we were born ethically neutral and indifferent entered into our minds. You see, when God created man (Adam and Eve) they were neutral. They had the ability to choose right or wrong without being biased to either side. As we know from our studies, they chose wrong, and initiated what is referred to as the Fall of all mankind. However, it isn’t as if this Fall took away all choice and ability to choose on the part of man. We still have minds that think, wills that make choices, and hearts that have affections, so we think we’re free, completely and totally free, but Jesus tells us here that we really aren’t free. When he refers to man as slaves to sin, think about sin as being chains that shackle a prisoner or slave. We still have our minds, wills, and hearts, but those chains of sin greatly limit our choices. We can still do good and we can choose to do good without being forced into it. However, we are inclined to not do good. We aren’t necessarily inclined to do evil, but not really to do good. Think about this, do you really seek the welfare of others before your own? I must admit that far too often my mindset is that of “let me get myself and my family secure and comfortable and then I will devote myself to the service of others.” I don’t intentionally want others to suffer, but I’m just more concerned with myself and my family than those who are actually suffering. I don’t think that anybody could look at me or my family and give a description of our lives and the word suffering be anywhere in there. In fact, the only words that should be used are words like blessed, fortunate, and privileged. Does this sound like a freedom to you? Does knowing that I should choose others, yet I almost always choose myself sound like complete and total freedom? It sounds like I am already inclined to behave one certain way over another. This is what is meant we say that while we still have a free will, we are not completely free from the slavery to sin.
Jesus goes on to say of this slavery, that it is ultimately a slavery to the devil. This slavery is us wanting to follow the temptations that Satan places before us. Just as Jesus was tempted by him in the wilderness, so too are we on a daily basis. The problem is that whereas Jesus resisted the temptation, we fall victim to it so frequently. I shared with you a moment ago just how my instinct and my desire to provide comfort and security for my family is my temptation. No, there isn’t anything wrong with wanting what is good for my family, but doing it at the expense of those who are truly suffering is a whole different argument. Jesus tells the people that “whoever is of God hears the words of God” when Jesus is speaking to them. Friends, let me encourage you to never try and silence the words of God. Never try to resist the call that God is placing on your life. I tried it once when I told God openly and shouting that there was no way possible that He was going to get me to quit my job and go to seminary for several years so that I could enter into pastoral ministry. We all see who won out in the end, so there’s no need to go into that.
The Jews in our text think that Jesus has gone mad; they think that he is possessed by a demon. This is quite odd, since many of them have just professed to believing in him and would have agreed with just about anything he said before that whole part about being slaves to sin. Jesus is none too happy with their accusation and even tells these folks that they are dishonoring him by saying such things. He tells them that he is only doing the will of the Father. Then he makes an emphatic statement by telling them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” We know that this is both emphatic and accurate because of the “truly, truly” which begins this statement. Any time you find the same word repeated back-to-back in Scripture, it is a note that you need to pay close attention. Jesus is saying that for those who are believers in him that death never comes. Don’t misunderstand me, death comes to our earthly selves, but we enter into the kingdom of heaven and live there for all eternity. The Jews there this day don’t know that part of it. They don’t understand because they have not truly believed in him with their hearts, but only professed him with their tongues. So, we see that the problem of profession vs. possession that we talked about earlier isn’t exactly a new one. The Jews are blind. They say, “But what about Abraham and the prophets of the Old Testament? All of these were men of God and they all died.” Once again, they do not understand because of the view from which they are seeing things. Much like us today, the Jews can only see things as they are on this earth. However, Christ sees the world and all things from a heavenly vantage point. Just because Abraham is no longer there where they can touch him and hear him doesn’t mean that he has ceased to be. Abraham has simply gone to be with his Father in heaven. We say of Christian men and women when they pass away that they have been called home or entered the church triumphant, we don’t say that they ceased to be because that is not true. When we leave this earth, we go to be with the one who told the Jews this day that, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
Friends, the words spoken by Jesus at the beginning of our passage that said that the truth will set us free are not words about being honest and forthcoming. No, the truth doesn’t refer to an action, but to a person. The truth is Jesus Christ. The truth is that through him, we have access to the Father and can enter into the kingdom of heaven. People say, “Well, what about those who died before Jesus came? How did they enter into heaven?” The answer is Jesus. He has made it clear that there has never been a time when he has not been. What does he get for telling such an amazing truth? He gets rocks and stones thrown at him. He gets condemned for telling people the truth, what they need to hear, instead of what they want to hear. The people want to hear nothing but good things of how they are now possessors of heaven and that they have now been saved, but faith doesn’t stop with profession. No, faith goes much deeper than the mouth.
So, it’s at this point, as we prepare to leave this text where I want to ask each and every one of you a personal question that may be difficult to answer. How would you describe your faith? Would you say that you are more of a professor or a possessor? Does you Christian commitment stop with your words and maybe some of your actions, or does it penetrate to the very core of who you are? Are you putting into practice the commandment given by Jesus to go and make disciples, or are you keeping your faith all to yourself? Friends, the gospel is to be shared with everyone. There are thousands of people right here in our own backyard who are running from the truth. There are thousands of people who don’t even think about darkening the doors of a church on Sunday. If we were truly possessors of the faith and sought the fulfillment of all the commands that Christ gives us in Scripture, then we would be doing all that we could to bring them to Jesus. Y’all, we stand on the cusp of a crucial time in the life of the Christian faith. There are assaults coming at Christians form all different angles, but that’s ok. For all we need to do is continue to seek Christ, obey God’s Word, and make disciples. I can promise you without hesitation, that the forces of evil in this world may frighten us, but they will never overtake us. Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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