Scripture Introduction
The world defines freedom as the license to do whatever we want. God (on the other hand) says it is the ability to do whatever is right. Human freedom flows from obedience.
I can sit at that piano with “liberty” to pound each and every key; but I lack the freedom to make beautiful music. Obedience to music theory and the discipline of practice are necessary to free me to play the piano. True freedom is the power to create melody within the laws of music.
Many folk think of freedom like jumping off a tall building without a parachute. For a while, the adrenaline rush courses through our bodies. But the pavement races to confront us with a reality that cannot now be avoided: no one has the freedom to break the law of gravity. Creaturely freedom submits to the laws of the universe.
In Isaiah 61.1, God promised that Messiah would “proclaim liberty to the captives.” Jesus offers us that freedom in John 8.31-36. [Read John 8.31-36. Pray.]
Introduction
Students of American history know well of Patrick Henry’s 1775 speech urging military action against British troops. Henry ended with these stirring words: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” The crowd rose to their feet shouting: “To Arms! To Arms!”
General John Stark (New Hampshire’s most famous soldier of the American Revolutionary War) expressed a similar sentiment. He was invited to an anniversary reunion of the Battle of Bennington, but poor health made him decline. He sent his toast by letter: “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.” In 1945, New Hampshire adopted, “Live Free or Die” as their official state motto.
The poem on the plaque in the base of the Statue of Liberty, The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus, 1883:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
The hope of freedom fills our history, thrills our souls, and unites us in a common cause in this uncommon country. But we are not the only people to long for freedom, nor the only ones to be defined by it. Israel, the people chosen by God, dated their calendar from the day of independence, the day in which they were delivered from slavery. And when Jehovah gives the law that sets them apart from all other nations, he begins the same way: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20.2). I believe it is accurate to say that freedom is a universal desire.
It is good news, therefore, that for freedom Christ has set his people free (cf. Galatians 5.1). But what is true freedom? How do we walk in it? How do hold to it so as not to slip into moral relativism or sinful rebellion?
Just before this teaching on freedom, Jesus sharply rebukes the Pharisees, the religious leadership. They were enslaved by what is called, “legalism,” placing their hope in their obedience to the law. Then, rather than fail, they lowered the standards and counted themselves righteous. Legalism always produces pride and self-exaltation. Jesus condemns it harshly.
But Jesus does not promote the opposite error (called “antinomianism”), which leads to licentiousness, living without standards. Antinomianism suspects the law of being our enemy and supposes that grace urges breaking of the law. But the law is not our enemy; it is perfect, good, and holy, therefore, it must be my friend. It exposes my true nature and drives me to my Lord as my hope. There I find that he kept the law both that we might love it and love his keeping it through and in us.
Our hearts ache for the freedom Jesus offers. Not the freedom to sin, but to live as God intends. In order that we might possess it, first notice…
1. We Find True Freedom in Submission to Jesus (John 8.31-32)
Jesus offers the incomparable blessing of freedom in his gospel.
John Calvin: “All feel and acknowledge that slavery is a most wretched thing. Since the Gospel delivers us from this, it follows that the treasure of the blessed life comes from the Gospel.”
But what kind of liberty does Jesus offer?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (pastor imprisoned and executed in Nazi Germany), Cost of Discipleship, “The demand for absolute liberty brings men to the depths of slavery.”
Bonhoeffer understood that created beings cannot have absolute liberty. We must submit either to the God who gives freedom or to sin which tyrannizes.
Here is a simple illustration. I have a John Deere riding lawnmower which I really like and am proud of. With the mower came an instruction book, the truth which sets the mower free to do that for which it was created. Now suppose that I want to give my mower a special treat, since I am proud of it and want it to really cut well this summer. So I fill the tank with chocolate syrup. We all know that chocolate syrup is more fun than gasoline—it tastes better; it’s a real treat. But the John Deere will be destroyed. Why? Because its freedom to perform requires submission to the law of lawnmower liberty. Is that illustration far-fetched?
A letter written to Ann Landers from a miserable woman reveals the same. She committed adultery, and in the process destroyed every relationship around her. She cannot enjoy the new relationship, because it is full of guilt, lies, and manipulation. Neither can she go back, for what was, is lost. Additionally her friends and family are forever affected by this evil. She wrote Ann wanting to know whether to leave the new man or convince him to divorce his wife. What was unusual was that she admitted in the letter that her future held only pain and misery. Why? She refused the truth and her freedom to live was lost.
The world defines “freedom” as the license to do whatever we want. But sin causes us to want that which destroys. The alcoholic wants to be drunk; he will lose his health in so doing and, one day, will lose the freedom to stop drinking. Or the parent who wants to re-live her failures through her daughter; she will one day drive away what is most important to her and lose the freedom to love and be loved. The world’s definition of freedom will not work because our sin nature causes us to want that which will destroy us.
God defines freedom as the ability to do whatever is right, and only Jesus gives that freedom. Notice, two details.
First, we must abide in Jesus’ word. Freedom is not simply being released from the guilt of sin in conversion; it is victory over the power of sin in you daily walk. Many people make a great beginning of the faith, but fall under sin’s tyranny when the freshness of the feelings have worn off, when the world and the devil begin to tempt and tease, and when the desires of our sinful nature rise and announce their preferences. It is not so much beginning, but abiding in Christ’s word that marks a true work of God’s grace.
Second, it is the truth which sets us free. Pastor Doug Wilson points out that many men think of home as the place where they can “let their hair down,” come home after a hard days work, and live in ease while being waited on by woman and child. But the man is first and foremost a “husband,” one who manages and cares for his family garden. At first, it may seem that this truth deprives him of freedom—no longer can he rule tyrannically over his house-slaves. Doing so feels good, for a time; but the end is enslavement to selfish desires. Apart from the truth of a man’s high calling to husbandry, he lacks the freedom to be the man he was created to be. Truth sets us free to fulfill Jesus’ calling on our lives.
Creatures cannot have “absolute” freedom; there is no true freedom apart from submission to God.
2. We Find True Freedom In Admission of Slavery (John 8.33-34)
The Pharisees’ answer to Jesus was a typical Jewish claim always to have been politically free. Yet, their history proves this answer patently ridiculous. They were slaves in Egypt when God sent Moses to take them to the promised land. During the period of the Judges they fell under foreign rule multiple times. They were overthrown and deported as slaves by the Babylonians during the time of Jeremiah. And even as Jesus speaks, they are under the rule of Rome.
We can laugh at this self-delusion, but there is more here than simply political pretending. Their self-deception is a parable for the power that sin has in every life. Many are just as obviously slaves of sin as the Jews were slaves in Egypt, yet have just as much trouble admitting it. Many are controlled by their corruptions and captives of their desires, but would protest as passionately as any Jew, “I have never been enslaved to anyone.”
So Jesus makes clear the spiritual application: “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Could there be any worse task-master? Sin prompts behavior which hurts self and others. Sin promises freedom but gives guilt. Sin holds out the hope of reward, then punishes instead. The Puritan Pastor Thomas Brooks called sin the bait on the fishhook—you taste the treat but end up caught in its sharp, steel grip.
So we have two options—will we admit to the power of sin and its enslavement over us, or will we continue to profess our pretended liberty? Only those who admit their need come to Christ for his solution. That is why we find true freedom in admission of our slavery.
J. C. Ryle: “Happy is he who has opened his eyes and found out his danger! To know that we are being led captive is the very first step toward deliverance.”
3. We Find True Freedom In Possession of Sonship (John 8.35-36)
Every person to whom Jesus spoke knew first-hand the difference between a son and a slave. If they did not personally own a slave, a neighbor did. Slaves had no rights, no inheritance, no ability to do the things he or she wanted. Slaves were controlled by another and would be thrown out when used up. Not so the son; he has freedom to treat the house as his own, for one day it will be so.
God offers us these same blessings. In the gospel, God adopts people into his family. “Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, whereby we become his sons and have a right to all the privileges of being his” (Westminster Shorter Catechism #34).
When Jesus says “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed,” he offers to you as a gift everything that is his “by right.”
• Freedom from guilt, for he never sinned.
• Freedom from the demands of the law, for he perfectly obeyed.
• Freedom from punishment, for he has taken the pain.
• Freedom from death, for he has won victory over the grave.
• Freedom from sin’s power, for he has broken its reign.
• Freedom from Satan’s terror, for he has crushed the enemy.
• Freedom from fear, for he brings you into the Father’s family.
• Freedom from the ceremonial law and the traditions of men, for he has fulfilled all the types and shadows that separate man from God.
• Freedom from trying to measure up, for God accepts us in his beloved Son.
Have you been adopted into God’s family? Is your faith in the Son, in his perfect obedience, in his promise of freedom?
Many people set their hearts on physical freedoms. We agree that wherever the gospel goes, freedom should ring—freedom from tyranny, freedom of religion, economic and educational freedoms. But these shadows exist only because true freedom is present—that which Christ gives. The only truly free man is he who is free from sin. If you would be truly free, you must come to the one who holds the key to the great chain that binds all souls, victory over sin won at the cross.
4. Conclusion
Whether the film Braveheart was accurate or not, the last scene illustrates a beneficial truth. Mel Gibson acted as Sir William Wallace, the Scottish Patriot who fought for his country’s liberty and independence. In the last scene, after Wallace was betrayed, he is to be executed. But before he is killed, they give him a chance to admit he was wrong and seek mercy. So they ask him, do you have a last word? Wallace takes a breath and screams, “Freedom!”
He was saying that you can chain his body to the rack and take away even his life, but it is better to live free, or die.
Jesus is saying that no matter what your situation—whether you are a slave of Rome or a Priest in the church or a mother, at home, chained to the diaper changing table—you can have freedom. Admit to sin’s mastery, a mastery you cannot free yourself from. Come to Jesus for adoption into God’s family. And abide in his Word and truth, and so be free indeed.
