What Makes Us Free?
July 4th Sunday Sermon
Chuck Sligh
July 2, 2017
TEXT: We will examine three scriptures today, both in John 8.
John 8:32 – “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
John 8:36 – “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
2 Corinthians 3:17 – “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – Several years ago, my family and some visiting friends from the U.S. visited the Dachau concentration camp. It was tragic—in fact, horrific—to see the pictures of those pitiful convicts in bondage, deprived of their most basic freedoms.
But it occurred to me that the bondage of their persecutors was just as tragic in a way, for theirs was a SPIRITUAL bondage. They were in bondage to their own depraved natures, submitting themselves to acts of cruelty and savagery unparalleled in modern history in so-called civilized nations. And eventually they all went to their graves to face their Maker who will hold them accountable for their shameful deeds.
This Tuesday will be Independence Day in the United States. With all of America’s imperfections and contradictions, Independence Day still represents one thing that all people can celebrate: FREEDOM.
Freedom is one of the greatest blessings we have: Political freedom—from which flows freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. Personal freedom—to attend the house of worship of my own choosing, or not to attend at all if I so choose; freedom to choose my own job or school or spouse.
But it’s possible to be POLITICALLY free and to have many PERSONAL freedoms, yet still be in a bondage greater than any political or personal bondage. – That is to be in bondage SPIRITUALLY, to be in bondage to our SIN—to be in bondage to our baser passions. Conversely, it’s also possible to lose all your political and personal freedoms, but be free in your spirit.
Illus. – One of the most moving stories I’ve ever read illustrating this is in The Hiding Place, the inspiriting autobiography of Corrie Ten Boom. Corrie grew up in Haarlem, Holland, and when the Nazis invaded Holland, her family got involved in smuggling Jews and others into the countryside and abroad. They were committed believers, and because they believed God loves Jews as much as any other people or group, they saved the lives of as many of them as they could.
Unfortunately, one day they were found out. The entire family was arrested and sent off to concentration camps. Corrie and her sister Betsy ended up in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Their suffering at the hands of the guards was indescribable. In the end, Corrie was the only one in her family who survived. But during the entire ordeal, she and Betsy were shining lights of God’s love and power in a dark place.
After the war, she committed herself to bringing reconciliation to war-torn Europe. Her message was that of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. But one day her message was sorely tested. After a church service in Germany in which she had told her story and spoken about forgiveness and reconciliation, a man walked up to her.
Instantly she recognized him—her worst tormentor in Ravensbrück. He fastened his eyes on her and said, “I too am a Christian now. God has forgiven me for what I did. Corrie, can you forgive me also?”
As she fought back a torrent of anger that welled up in her heart, suddenly she softened. She looked him in the eye and said, “Yes, I forgive you—just as Christ has forgiven me for all my sins.”
She knew that becoming a SPIRITUAL prisoner to bitterness would be worse than the PHYSICAL and EMOTIONAL bondage she had experienced in Ravensbrück.
Our text today proclaims SPIRITUAL freedom for the person who will come to Christ. Let’s look today at what makes us free.
The Bible tells us three things that make us free:
I. FIRST OF ALL, THE SCRIPTURES MAKE US FREE – John 8:32 – “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
The phrase, “The truth shall make You free,” is a well-known quotation used frequently in the secular media that few know is straight from the lips of Jesus in the Bible. This statement—“the truth shall make you free”—has always been true politically. Nazism and communism were two political systems at complete opposite ends of the political spectrum, yet they were both built upon lies, and therefore brought bondage and misery to untold hundreds of millions of people.
But more importantly, what Jesus said is also true SPIRITUALLY—“the truth shall make you free.” Anytime we think we have a better way than what the Word of God says, we submit to enslavement rather than freedom.
For instance:
* As we look across the landscape of America, we see lonely spouses and children—abandoned for another woman or another man in a desire to be liberated from the constraints of marriage imposed by God’s Word. – Their desire for freedom, leads to bondage for those they leave behind!
* We see people in bondage to homosexuality—who long for legitimacy and affirmation in our society, and they’re getting it, but this societal stamp of approval will not and never can free them from their slavery their biblically forbidden passions.
* Before you get high and mighty with a judgmental spirit, if you are in bondage to sinful habits through pornography, that is just as sinful before God, yet our society does not condemn or regulate any kind of debauchery in pornography with the sole exception of child pornography.
* Not only are people in moral bondage to pornography in our society, but many of the movers and shakers in the pornography industry are in bondage to unabated greed, while many of the participants are in bondage of human trafficking.
* We see people in bondage to alcohol and drug abuse.
This are freedom?—No, this is BONDAGE. I could give illustration after illustration of so-called freedoms proclaimed in secular society by rejecting God’s Word, and repeatedly, what you see as a result is enslavement and bondage.
When a nation honors God’s Word, it will be blessed. “Happy is the nation” David says in Psalm 144:15, “whose God is the Lord.” The scriptures—the TRUTH—will make you free!
That God’s truth sets us free is also true regarding the matter of salvation: Many try to get to heaven by their self-effort, religion and good works. But God’s Word clearly declares that salvation is totally and unequivocally by grace, without any works on our part.
Trying to earn your way to heaven by your good works or by the life you live or by religion is a terrible form of bondage.
* How many good works must you do to finally earn God’s forgiveness?
* Which are the works that count?
* Do many small works cancel out the BIG sins you’ve committed?
* Can a BIG good work cancel out a BIG SIN, or many small sins?
* At what point can I know that God is appeased?
* What if I’m doing the wrong good works, or not enough good works?
It’s an endless cycle that gives no hope or assurance. If you try to get to get to God by your own works and religion and goodness instead of God’s way of faith in Jesus, you’ll go to hell’s destruction—the WORST bondage there is.
But if you come the way GOD says in His Word—by faith in Jesus Christ and His death on the cross for your sins—you can indeed have life everlasting. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” There’s no greater freedom you can ever experience in your life than to have ALL your sins forgiven, cast into the deepest sea, never again to be brought against you by a holy God. Now THAT’S freedom!
Go to the Word of God—God’s truth for the knowledge of salvation—not to your own understanding, not to man’s religion. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
II. SECOND, I WANT YOU TO SEE THAT THE SAVIOR MAKES US FREE – John 8:36 – “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
Freedom flows from the WRITTEN Word (the Scriptures) and the LIVING Word (Jesus Christ). Christ sets people free in many ways:
1) As I was talking about a moment ago, NICODEMUS was set free from RELIGIOUS bondage in John 3.
He was trying to be accepted by God through religion and good works. But Jesus told him, “You must be born again.” If he would stop relying on HIMSELF to please God and start relying of JESUS to save him, he could be set free. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
2) ZACHAEUS was set free from his GREED in Luke 19.
He was a tax-collector who, under Roman law, was allowed to extract just about any fee he could get, as long as the Roman government got its tax. In bondage to greed, covetousness and materialism, Zachaeus cheated everyone he could. But one day he heard that Jesus was coming through town.
Apparently, he was a short man who could not see over the crowd, so he climbed into a sycamore tree to see if he could see Jesus pass by. Jesus walked under the tree, looked up and said, “…Zacchaeus, hurry up and come down here, for today I need to stay at your house.” (Luke 19:5)
At Zacchaeus’s house, Jesus wonderfully saved him so that he was set free from the bondage of covetousness. So freed was he that he gave half his fortune to the poor, and promised to pay back anyone he had swindled four times what he had cheated them of. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
3) THE WOMAN AT THE WELL was set free from MORAL bondage in John 4.
She had been married several times, and when Jesus met her, she was shacking up with someone. She longed for something deep in her soul, a longing that propelled her from one relationship to another, but always leaving her spiritual thirsty. Jesus told her about the living water, speaking of Himself and His power to meet her deepest needs in a way no one else could. He told her “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14) She took Jesus into her heart and her spiritual thirst was quenched! “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
Our political freedom is a gift from God; Spiritual freedom is also a gift from God and it can be yours through faith in Christ.
III. FINALLY, I’D LIKE YOU TO SEE THAT THE SPIRIT MAKES US FREE – We must go to 2 Corinthians 3:17 to see that: “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
All through history you can trace man’s desire for religious ceremony and ritualism.
* You see it in many churches where people find ceremony and ritualism and formality and pomp as a salve and a substitute for the real presence of God.
* You also see it in churches and denominations that focus on rules that you must keep to be in and stay in a right relationship with God, whether it be the Old Testament Law or certain Sacraments of a church, or additions to the conditions of salvation—like baptism or good works.
* You see it in churches that profess to believe in salvation by grace through faith alone, yet think that ongoing fellowship is maintained by adherence to their list of extra-biblical, man-made rules focused mostly on the outward appearance and external actions of its members. – It’s called legalism.
You mark it down, where the SPIRIT of the Lord is, there is LIBERTY! Christ came to free us from law and performance-based religion and legalism! He gave us His Holy Spirit! When you have a RELATIONSHIP with the living Spirit of God, you step out of empty ritualism into a living, vital relationship with the living Lord. Ceremonialism, rules-based religion, and legalistic adherence to the commandments of men become empty and hollow. You begin to thirst for a true living relationship with the living Lord, not appeasement through rules or ceremony. What a liberating experience!
CONCLUSION
POLITICAL freedom makes us FREE CITIZENS; SPIRITUAL freedom makes us FREE SAINTS.
Illus. – There’s a story of a legendary character in Moscow named Rabinovitch, who was the subject of hundreds of stories that circulated cautiously among the people behind the Iron Curtain in the dark days of communism in Russia. In one of these stories, Rabinovitch leaves Moscow for a trip through Europe. He sends back post cards from ten successive cities he visits. “Greetings from a free Warsaw,” he writes from Poland. “Greetings from a free Prague” he writes from Czechoslovakia. “Greetings from a free Budapest,” he writes from Hungary…and so on through nine communist cities. Finally, he escapes to Paris, outside the Iron Curtain, and the last card comes with its penciled note: “Greetings from a free RABINOVITCH!”
It’s possible to be seemingly free, but to not be truly free in your heart.
How free are you?
1) Have you been freed from the lies of Satan that sin and surrender to our fleshly and selfish desires is freedom? – The SCRIPTURES have the answer.
2) Have you been freed from sin and judgment through a life-changing experience by trusting in Christ as your Savior? – That comes only through the SON.
3) Have you seen the vanity of the charade of religion and ritual and come into a living relationship with God? – That comes through the HOLY SPIRIT.
How can you and I be free?
1) First, by surrendering to the scriptures. – Learn what the scriptures teach and obey what they say. – They will free you from the bondage of sinful habits and behaviors.
2) Second, by believing in the Son. – Turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ as your hope of salvation, not in your works or good deeds.
3) Last, by doing what the Bible calls “walking in the Spirit.”
To walk in the Spirit means to live so that you are consciously listening to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in every situation in life and being obedient to whatever He leads you to do. When you are tempted to sin, He will tell show you the way to escape, which God’s Word promise he always does. – Listen to His voice and obey. When you see someone in need, He may impress upon you to give to that person in need. – Be His instrument of love in that person’s life and give what the Spirit impresses you to give. He may impress upon your heart that someone is sad or hurting and that you need to take a moment in your busy day to give a word of encouragement. – If you feel that tug from God, do it.
God help us to find real freedom and joy and excitement in the Christian life by finding true freedom in God’s Word, by faith in Jesus Christ and by listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice moment-by-moment.
