John 8. Zanzibar is an old city in East Africa. It is the home of the Swahili Institute, the official guardians of the Swahili language. But, for nearly 300 years it was the home of one of East Africa’s largest slave markets. But, something happened in Zanzibar. About 150 years ago a man walked into Zanzibar with a message of freedom for those who were bound by slavery. David Livingstone set thousands of slaves free, and even today the name of David Livingstone commands deep respect in East Africa. Today, in Zanzibar, a Christian Church sits on the very site of the former slave market, and the very same platform that used to display slaves as they were being auctioned off, is now the platform that holds up the altar in that place of worship. This is a picture of what Jesus does in the hearts and lives of all His elect. John 8 verse 36 says “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus comes to us as Livingstone came to Zanzibar, and He meets us at the very place of slavery in our lives. He meets us at our very point of shame, the very place where darkness is holding us captive, and He makes His grace reign in that very place, so that our hearts which used to be enslaved are freed from sin and transformed into places of worship. The title of my sermon today is “Jesus makes us free indeed.”
So far in John chapter 8 we’ve seen the Pharisees try to trap Jesus, we’ve seen Jesus forgive and pardon a woman caught in adultery (vss. 1-11), we’ve seen Him declare that He is the Light of the world (vs. 12), we’ve seen Him point to the cross as the place of greatest revelation (vs. 28) and then last week we saw Jesus speak to the new believers beginning in verse 30, and He described the process by which people become free. You can see it there, it begins with faith in Jesus (vs. 30), the process continues as those new believers hold to His teaching, and remain in His Word (vs. 31). Then holding to the teaching leads to knowing the truth (vs. 32), which then produces freedom (vs. 32). This is the process: God gives us faith to believe in Jesus, we immerse ourselves in His Word, we come to know the truth, and we begin to live in freedom from slavery to sin.
So freedom has to do with our remaining in God’s Word. Let’s compare vs. 32 with vs. 37. Vs. 32” You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Vs.37: “You are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word.” Those who have no room for God’s Word continue in their sin, whereas those who hold to Jesus’ Word are set free.
But in Jesus’ saying that the truth would set them free, these Jews became offended and stated in verse 33 that they are Abraham’s descendants and had never been slaves of anyone. Now we mentioned what a terrible denial this is, because they were in slavery throughout their whole history as a nation, with brief periods of freedom interspersed. They were first enslaved to Egypt for 400 years, then they were taken captive to Babylon and currently they are in bondage to the Romans, with no freedom to be an independent nation. I mean their whole history is one of slavery.
And so we see that it is hard for people to acknowledge their slavery. “We’ve never been slaves of anyone.” Wow! Just write the word “Denial” across verse 33. And Jesus cuts through their denial, and explains what kind of slavery He is referring to when in vs. 34 He says “everyone who sins is a slave of sin”, thereby declaring these Jews, and all of us, and the whole world to be slaves of sin.
Here is the human problem. Some people talk about an “addictive personality.” He or she has an addictive personality. No, the actual term is “slavery” and it’s not a particular personality, it is actually all humans. It is just as true of India and China and Russia and Africa as it is of America; we are a race of slaves. We are born into the world with sin and self and Satan as our Trinitarian master, and in this condition we are not saved. You can see that in vs. 35, “a slave has no permanent place in the family.” Here Jesus is reminding them of what happened in Abraham’s family, as the slave woman’s son, Ishmael, was cast out of the family. Ishmael had no permanent place in Abraham’s family, and the Jews and us are like Ishmael while we are slaves to sin, we have no permanent place in God’s family. Jesus just described the human problem.
But what is the solution? The solution is clearly verse 36: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” In order to understand what it means to be set free, we need to go back and read the passage Jesus was referring them to. When He talks about slavery and freedom, they would immediately be reminded of the book of Exodus. Let’s look at chapter 6. As we read this we will find that their slavery and Solution is identical to ours today in the 21st century. We remember that the Israelites had been in slavery for 400 years by now, that they had harsh taskmasters. And as we look at this chapter, let’s notice that God preaches the gospel of freedom to the Israelites. He has seven points in His gospel, and let’s notice these 7 points from this passage.
1.Rest from their burdens: Vs. 6 “I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.” What good news this would be to them. Making bricks without straw was a hard task, and they needed rest, they needed to come out from under the yoke. The first promise of the gospel was rest from their burdens, rest from their slavery.
2. Deliverance from the power of the enemy: vs. 6. “I will free you from being slaves.” They were powerless to free themselves. Imagine a Hebrew slave comes up to his master and says, "You know, you’ve been quite mean to me recently, so I have decided to leave your service and go be a slave to a nicer man." Well, if he lived thru the beating, he would continue to serve his harsh master. These Israelites could not simply choose to leave slavery in Egypt. But God says, “I will free you from being slaves.” The second promise of the gospel was deliverance from the power of the enemy. Now we have rest from their burdens and deliverance from the power of their enemies.
3. Redemption by great judgments. Vs. 6. “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.” Before Israel could be set free God would judge Egypt. We think of the 10 plagues God poured out on the enemy of His people, culminating in the death of all firstborn sons in Egypt. God’s people were redeemed through judgments and death of the firstborn son!
4. God’s claim on His own. Vs. 7 “I will take you as my own people.” Now think about this for a minute: possession is the goal of redemption. God would set His people free from slavery that He might take them to be His own people. The fourth promise of the gospel was that they would now be owned by God, not by the Egyptians.
5. God’s assurance to His own. Vs. 7 “I will be your God.” They would have a new Master. They would be His, He would be theirs. The fifth promise of the gospel was that God would be their God.
6. Promise of continued guidance. Vs. 8 “I will bring you to the land.” See God would not deliver them from their slavery to the Egyptians, and then leave them in Egypt. No, He would guide them clear to the end. The sixth promise of the gospel included God’s ongoing work to save them to the end and bring them to the desired goal.
7. Promise of a great possession. Vs. 8 “I will give it to you as a possession.” As slaves they didn’t own anything, they had no possessions. But as God’s people they would own the entire promised land. The 7th promise of the gospel was that of a great possession.
So what does this have to do with us today? Well, for this to mean anything to you and I today, we must accept Jesus statement that anyone who sins is a slave of sin. We must accept that we are born slaves and grow up as slaves. Are we like these Jews that say, “I’ve never been a slave to anyone” or are we like Paul, who said “I myself am sold as a slave to sin, for the good I want to do I don’t, but the evil I don’t want to do, that I keep on doing.” The reality is that by nature we live in constant slavery to sin, we get so weary of our slavery and burdened in our guilt, and we become hopeless of ever being free. To people like this Jesus comes and says, “whoever the Son sets free is free indeed.” And He frees us just like God freed the Egyptians. Notice the same 7 points:
1.Rest from our burdens. Jesus says “come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mat. 11:28). He removes the yoke of slavery, He removes the burden of guilt and finally we have rest. When Jesus says, “if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed,” He means He will give us rest from our burdens.
2.Deliverance from the power of the enemy. "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” The gospel is that we are actually rescued from the comfort of sin, the excitement of sin, and the power of sin through Jesus’ death. Any church that teaches “come as you are, stay as you are” is not teaching the gospel. The gospel is a deliverance, a rescue, an emancipation, a liberation, a freeing from that which we love to do by nature. I remember reading the story of two men trapped in the top story of a burning building. And the crowd had brought all kinds of ladders and none of them reached the top, the highest one still fell short. And finally a man over 50 years old grabbed one of the ladders and carried it on his shoulders to the top of the tallest ladder. And he stood on the top rung of that ladder, with the other ladder on his shoulders, and he steadied himself as best he could and he said, “come down over me”. And when both men had climbed down on top of him and were saved, their savior, their deliverer fell off the ladder, fell to the ground at their feet, broken and bloodied having given his life for them. That is the essence of the gospel; that Jesus gave His life to deliver, rescue, and liberate us. I imagine Him saying something like this to us:
I give my life for you, my precious blood I shed
That you might ransomed be, and quickened from the dead
And I have suffered much, more than your tongue can tell
Of bitter agony, to rescue you from hell
3.Redemption by great judgments. Remember the plagues God poured out on Egypt and the last one was death of the firstborn son? On the cross, God treated Jesus as the enemy and judged Him as guilty in our place, and then poured out the plagues of His wrath on His own Son. And we think “why?” You see God’s righteousness and holiness could not merely forgive sin, couldn’t merely look the other way and pretend it didn’t happen. His justice required payment. And on the cross God’s justice and His mercy met together in One Person, and payment was made and we were redeemed. God redeemed us, just like the Israelites, through judgment and death of the Firstborn Son.
4.God’s claim on His own. God told the Israelites “you will be my people”, and he tell us “You were bought at a price.” “You are mine”.
5.God’s assurance of His own. God said, “I will be your God”. No longer will you bow down to that idol, I will be your God. We literally have a new Master. Freedom is the exchanging of our worship. Just like the church was built on the previous spot of slavery.
6.Promise of continued guidance. God said He would bring His people to the promised land, and the Bible says “Jesus is able to save to the uttermost all who come to God through Him”. Jesus means He will take us out and bring us in.
7.Promise of a great possession. God said He would give His people the promised land, and Jesus says 2 I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. John 14:2-3 (NIV)
Jesus sets us free from slavery to sin just like God delivered His people long ago. This is the good news. The good news says He died that we might live. He was stripped that we might be robed. He accepted thorns that we might wear crowns. He was thrown out of the city of Jerusalem that we might enter into the New Jerusalem, the city of God. Yes, He was fastened to a piece of wood that we might be set free.
And now, in light of Jesus giving up His life to set us free from slavery, what is your response? Are you mad that He called you a slave? That’s the way some of the Jews responded. Notice John 8 verse 38: “you are ready to kill me because you have no room for my word.” Or do we have a desire to serve Him willingly all of our life because He died for us? Maybe someone here today would like to say “Yes, I want to serve this Liberator all the days of my life.”
In your mind go back in time about 150 years or so and imagine you are visiting a city in the South like Savannah or Atlanta. As you approach the center of town you see a crowd has gathered for a public auction. The first thing you notice in the crowd is a loud, foulmouthed, boisterous man whom you know is the meanest and cruelest man around. You also notice in the crowd another man who stands out for his dignity, and you recognize him as a kind, gentle, and gracious man. The auctioneer steps to the podium and begins the auction with the first item to be sold who is a young black girl, about 20 years old. The loud obnoxious man sets his evil eyes on this innocent, young lady. She knows his reputation and cringes in fear as he begins to bid on her. But when the kind man saw her fear, he too placed a bid. Soon only these two men were bidding as the price of the girl rose higher and higher. Finally the evil man bowed out of the bidding when he realized that the price of the girl was more than he was willing to pay. The kind gentleman paid the price for his purchase, and turned to leave. The young girl started to follow her new master. “Oh! You misunderstood,” the man said, “I didn’t buy you to make you my slave, I bought you to set you free.” “I don’t understand,” the girl said. “You mean I am FREE!” “Yes, you are entirely FREE!” “Mister, I don’t know who you are, but no one has ever shown such love and kindness to me. If I am free to do as I please, nothing would please me more than to go with you and serve you till the day I die.” And that day she went home with Abraham Lincoln as his willing servant.
And the story of this young girl is the story of all the elect, it shows our slavery to sin; the cruel intentions of our enemy; and the gracious purchase, at an incredible price by Jesus to set us free. How could we respond in any other way than to say, “If you love me that much, I’ll serve you forever!” Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.
Let’s pray.
Closing meditation: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 (NIV)
