PASTOR: Introduction
One of the great sources of comfort our Father in Heaven gives to us to enjoy and so that we might rest in Him each day is what theologians have come to call our “assurance of salvation”. I believe that is what Jesus is focusing us on this morning in our reading from John 8:31-47
ELDER: John 8:31-47 (48-59) [NLTse]
31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?”
34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. 35 A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. 37 Yes, I realize that you are descendants of Abraham. And yet some of you are trying to kill me because there’s no room in your hearts for my message. 38 I am telling you what I saw when I was with my Father. But you are following the advice of your father.”
39 “Our father is Abraham!” they declared.
“No,” Jesus replied, “for if you were really the children of Abraham, you would follow his example. 40 Instead, you are trying to kill me because I told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham never did such a thing. 41 No, you are imitating your real father.”
They replied, “We aren’t illegitimate children! God himself is our true Father.”
42 Jesus told them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I have come to you from God. I am not here on my own, but he sent me. 43 Why can’t you understand what I am saying? It’s because you can’t even hear me! 44 For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 So when I tell the truth, you just naturally don’t believe me! 46 Which of you can truthfully accuse me of sin? And since I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God. But you don’t listen because you don’t belong to God.”
PASTOR: Sermon
Many years ago I was driving with my family down to North Carolina to visit some of Amy’s family. Our oldest son, Noah, was ten or eleven at the time. We were driving through farm country surrounded by mounds of hay on all sides.
I remember Noah pointing out the window at the fields of hay in awe, saying, “Look at all those buffalo!” [Pull out the glasses.] It was then that we knew he needed glasses.
Our reading from John 8:31-47 takes place on the eighth and final day of the Feast of Tabernacles. As we read last week, Jesus interrupted those closing celebrations when He shouted, “I am the light of the world!” The Pharisees and religious leaders were furious that He’d disturbed their worship so they gathered to rebuke Him, and they were quickly surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. John ended his narrative about those events last week saying that “many believed in Him.” (V. 30)
So, having confounded the leaders the Lord Jesus begins to address those who have believed Him: Those who had come to think and look to Him as God’s promised Messiah, the Christ. And Jesus says to them, “You are truly My disciples if you remain faithful to My teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” So Jesus is telling them that it’s not just the acknowledgement of His teachings but the living-out of them that make a person His followers. And He goes on saying that once they’ve begun believing and living out His teachings that they will then recognize their bondage to sin and, as they continue following His ways and living out His teachings that they will then be set free from the power of that sin, as well.
But they don’t get it, even these Jews who believe in Him. They are children of Abraham. They are Jews. They are God’s people. What do they need to be set free from?
Their identity as God’s chosen ones, Israel, had blinded them to their bondage to sin and their need for a savior. They knew they needed a political-savior to set them free from Roman domination and abuse, but they couldn’t recognize their need for a spiritual-savior to set them free from sin.
“You are sinners!” Jesus proclaims to them. “Don’t you see? You may believe in Me now, but just a little while ago some of you had been planning with the leaders to kill Me. And God has said, ‘Thou shalt not murder.’ So you’re sinners, and whoever you obey is who you belong to: So you’re slaves to sin.
“It doesn’t matter that you’re descendants of Abraham. If you were ‘sons’ of Abraham you would have trusted God the way Abraham did. And because I’m not a sinner you know I come from God.” (Do you see down in v. 46 where Jesus affirms His sinlessness, asking the crowd, “Which of you can truthfully accuse Me of sin?”) “So,” Jesus continues, “because I’m free from sin, I’m a ‘son’ in God’s House, and so I have the authority to set free those who are slaves to sin, and I can make each of you a ‘son’, too. And I do that by teaching you, and you receive that by living out My teachings day by day.”
These people wanted to believe in Jesus but their spiritual heritage handicapped them from seeing their need for Christ. [Put on the glasses.] Jesus was showing them Himself but their assurance was in their heritage.
God sees us as we really are and gives us the Holy Spirit so that we can see ourselves more truly, too, and repent. A counselor helps us see ourselves more clearly – how we truly are (haystacks/sinners) and not merely how we’ve come to think of ourselves (as buffaloes/saved, and not as bad as the other guy). The Holy Spirit is God’s counselor – God’s glasses for us – Who leads us into all truth.
Like those first, believing Jews, the truth that sets us free is the knowledge that apart from Jesus we are slaves to sin, but trusting in Jesus’ sacrifice and living-out Jesus’ teachings we will be set free. The Lord wants each of us to know we are saved, to be assured day after day of our salvation. And He gives us, to have that assurance, His commandments and law of love to live out so that we can see His salvation – see His transforming power – in ourselves.
It all starts by living out Jesus’ teachings because it’s when we start to live Jesus’ teachings that we realize how very different they are from the ways we’ve always lived. When we commit to forgive all those who sin against us as Jesus has commanded us, only then do we realize how far from following and living out Jesus’ teachings we have been. Only when we commit to always do what we’ve said we would do – no matter what, do we see how far from following and living out His teachings we have been. Only when we commit to always give to those who ask of us, as Jesus has asked us to; only when we commit to never let the sun go down on our anger; only when we commit to never worry, but to seek God’s Kingdom first … [“What are some specifics that come to your minds when you think of Jesus’ teachings that you might not always keep?”] …
So it’s only when we commit to following and living out His each and every teaching that we can truly realize the depth of our sin and our need for the cross and His forgiveness. Because it’s only when we have that kind of focus and awareness that we can recognize our shortcomings and failures in all their detail, and can we truly understand how far from God we are even now that we believe! How much we need Him always! And the assurance He has for us in our obedience and His forgiveness.
We must not be like those believing Jews of old who thought that because they were Jews that they didn’t need a savior. We must never think that just because we’ve already received Christ that we are now “good to go”. “We’re Christians. We’re saved!” some proclaim. Buffalo! The apostle Paul warns us, “If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12) Haystacks…
Now when Jesus talks about our following Him and living out His teachings, He’s not saying that you or I will ever perfectly follow or perfectly live them out. No, but modern Christians have minimized the horrors of sin and made the grace Jesus established for us on the cross “cheap”.
When we’re tempted to sin and what we feel like instead of what God has commanded us, we should be afraid to! We should be afraid of what God might do to us. We should be afraid of what our sin and selfishness might do to God or to others around us or to our very selves. And we should let that fear of the Lord and dying in our sins keep us from wrong!
But too often Christians will minimize such faithlessness to themselves and to others, saying, God will forgive me,” or “God will forgive you.” And although that’s true and that He will, where in the Scriptures does it say that it’s okay for Christians to sin because God will forgive them? … [“Anybody?”] … It’s because there’s never such a sense anywhere across the Bible. Sin is death. Sin is what put Jesus on the cross. “We have died to sin,” Paul writes to the Romans, “how can we continue to live in it?” (6:2)
No, the devil uses “O, God will forgive me. He knows I believe (even though I’m acting faithless),” – the devil uses such ways of thinking to minimize in us the horror of sin, to minimize our sense of needing the cross, to keep us in our sins, to keep us living for ourselves and not for God’s Kingdom, and to keep us turning a blind or lazy eye towards other’s sin around us. (“God loves them anyway,” we’ve been taught to think. And thank God He does. But they will still die in their sins if they don’t start living God’s way, asking forgiveness, and repenting.)
And so our continuing to sin works against the assurance of our salvation because we know He’s set us free and we don’t see that freedom and self-control in our lives.
I am passionate about this because the Bible reveals that my faith and comfort and the assurance of my salvation are not in my perfection but in my faithfulness. I don’t want to fall to temptation and sin, and I fight and strive and hope to fight and strive harder and harder with God’s help to not sin. But, although He hates sin and died to set me free from sin’s power and to purchase me and fill me with His Own power, during those times when I do fail and do blow it and do sin I can confess my wrong to Him and/or to the one I’ve wronged and know I’m forgiven. And it’s not a blind or hoped-for forgiveness. It’s a promised forgiveness! And it’s not my making light of my sin by saying, “O, God will forgive me.” It’s my being sorry, and heartbroken that I’ve hurt Him, that I’ve nailed Christ to the cross all over again, and in such sorrow and regret, knowing that He’s made a way for me back to Him – each day and throughout each day – through the cross.
Some will say that it’s not much of an assurance of faith to believe that we are safe and secure only when we are actively living by faith. But it’s the only true assurance the Bible talks about: I’m living out Jesus’ teachings today and God’s Spirit tells me that when I’m living my faith that I’m free! But there are no promises for those who want to do their own thing and pretend it’s alright with God. No, their only hope is that in time – God willing – they will recognize and admit that “their own thing” has been sin, and start living “God’s Own thing”, confessing their sin and repenting of it, and starting anew…
The Bible doesn’t say, “Jesus knows you are sorry and forgives you.” No, the Bible says, “Confess your sins and you’ll be forgiven.”
So let’s live for Christ. Let’s live His teachings no matter what. Not even a hint or suspicion of sin. And let’s let sin be the big deal the Bible says it is so that we can see how even much bigger a deal the cross of Christ and Jesus’ sacrifice there is: For us and our salvation! Let’s live the truth and be free!