Today, I want to speak to you about “4 Controversial Uncompromising Life-Changing Truths” from the lips of Jesus Himself. These 4 truths are unpopular for many. They are likely to start a good argument at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Many of these, if not all of these, run against the current notions of many, if not most, Americans. These four truths are not even fully embraced by even those who belong to our church.
Find John 8 with me, if you will.
From the moment our ancestors tossed tea in the Boston Harbor, we’ve been looking for freedom. Listen carefully as Jesus tells us how to secure freedom and what to do with freedom when we have it.
Today’s Scripture
“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ They answered him, ‘We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?’
Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.’
They answered him, ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did.’ They said to him, ‘We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God” (John 8:31-47).
Jesus’ words are for true believers in Jesus today – listen carefully. Jesus’ words are for unbelievers here today – listen colorfully. Jesus’ words are for phony believers here today – listen meaningfully.
Sermon Preview
Why do I need freedom?
Who gives real freedom?
What does freedom look like?
Jesus offers us a remarkable solution only after He shows us our deep-seated problem. You’re more messed up than you could imagine, but you’re more loved than you can comprehend.
1. Non-Believers are Addicted to Sin at Birth
“Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin’” (John 8:34).
Everything Jesus says here is controversial. Everything Jesus says here is aimed at people who think they believe but don’t really believe.
1.1 When Slavery Doesn’t Feel Like It
Most people who are enslaved know they are slaves. The girl who is abducted and taken into the worldwide human trafficking ring knows she’s a slave. You don’t have to tell her this. But there is a kind of slavery where people don’t fully realize they are enslaved. In verse 33, you can see the people push back – “We … have never been enslaved to anyone” (John 8:33b). Jesus tells us about a slavery that doesn’t feel like slavery.
1.2 Jesus is Blunt
Jesus is so blunt here: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin’” (John 8:34b).
In verse 32, Jesus says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus repeatedly tells us we need to be set free. Jesus tells us that we are addicted to our sinful ways. We are enslaved to our flawed thinking, evil attitudes, and corrupt practices. But it doesn’t feel like it.
1.3 Going to the Doctor
Imagine going to the doctor for a physical with not even a slight pain. He looks around at you with his stethoscope and doesn’t like what she hears. She orders tests for what you consider nothing more than a pulled muscle. After the tests come back, she tells you that you have stage four cancer with very little time to live. Do you believe her when you feel so good? Do you believe in results from the MRI and CAT scans, or do you rely on what your body tells you? Again, the people say, “We … have never been enslaved to anyone” (John 8:33b). Jesus speaks of a slavery that doesn’t feel like slavery for us.
1.4 Is This a Jewish Thing?
Some are upset because Jesus speaks to Jews in a hostile way here (John 8:31). As we read the Scripture, the hostility is dripping from the story. Jews are not a special category of sinners. Jesus will deliver truth and even hostile truth to anyone, no matter their racial background. Jesus isn’t saying this because they’re Jewish. He’s saying this because they don’t believe. Again, Jesus tells us that every single person is shackled at birth. We all deny it because we don’t feel like we are addicted to our sinful ways.
1.5 Ann Landers
But, there are subtle signs that we recognize the deeper problem lurks underneath. You may not recognize the names of “Eppie” Lederer or Ruth Crowley, but many of you immediately recognize the name Ann Landers. For about forty-five years, her column was a regular feature in many newspapers across North America. People would write her letters to seek her advice concerning their personal problems, and she would publish her advice in her columns. Landers often spoke of the guilt that would drip from the letters she was sent. One young lady wrote, “I let my boyfriend go too far. Now, when he sees me, he looks the other way. I’m so ashamed of myself I could just die.” Another wrote, “I threw a dish towel in my mother-in-law’s face. She was trying to be helpful, and I lost my temper. I hate myself.” And lastly, one child wrote, “I got caught cheating in a history exam today. All the kids know about it. I feel rotten.”1 Our guilt is pointing us to something. No, we may not categorize ourselves as addicted or slaves to sin, but there are these subtle signs that point to the truth.
1.6 People Are Work
I watched an old mystery this week that involved catching a serial killer. The plot involved two detectives sitting at the bar near the end of the movie. They were talking about marriage and romance. The younger detective had been involved in an affair, while the older one admitted cheating on his ex-wife. Now, he had the opportunity to find love again, but it was complicated. As the two cynical men sat there lamenting their life choices, one said, “People are work.” There are clues all around us that show us our real nature. They function like a CAT scan or an MRI, telling us there is something more seriously wrong with us than it appears on the surface.
1.7 How Does Sin Enslave?
Know that sin enslaves in at least two ways. Back in verse 34 for a moment, when Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin’” (John 8:34b). First, sin enslaves us by producing desires that hurt us, harm us, and will destroy us. Sin enslaves by making anything look more desirable than Jesus. And the second way sin enslaves is that it eventually damns us.
1.8 Denial
Like any addict, none of us want to admit how bad it really is. Denial is a classic sign of addiction for alcoholics and drug addicts. Jesus says practicing sin actually makes you a slave of sin. Each and every time you do wrong, the tentacles of sin’s addiction go deeper and clutch you even harder. Let me push against you for a moment: will you face the truth about yourself?
1. Non-Believers are Addicted to Sin at Birth
2. Non-Believers’ Daddy is the Devil
“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).
If Jesus doesn’t insult you at first, let Him try again ?.
2.1 A Double Insult
Again, Jesus puts it bluntly: “You are of your father the devil.” Not much bedside manner here.
Jesus’ language toward the Pharisees is nearly uniformly negative everywhere in all four Gospels. He calls them a “brood of vipers” in (Matthew 3:7 and Luke 3:7); “hypocrites” in all the Gospels; “blind men” (Matthew 23:19), “white washed tombs” (Matthew 23:27); and “children of hell” (Matthew 23:15). When Jesus speaks like this, He isn’t talking to someone who abducts children. Jesus isn’t speaking to someone who breaks up marriages. He is speaking to someone who memorized the Old Testament in Hebrew and another body of oral tradition twice as long again. These are some of the most religious and strict people you’ve ever encountered. Still, Jesus says to them, “Your father is the devil.”
2.2 Why Does Jesus Insult
Why does Jesus insult the people who are the leaders of His religion? It’s interesting to compare how Jesus speaks to people in the gospels. Jesus has dozens of conversations about life and death, as well as heaven and hell, with people from all walks of life. Jesus reserves His most blunt, forceful comments for the people who should know best. He didn’t talk to the woman at the well like this, a woman who was living with a man and had been married five times before. Only the religious leaders and those who know better get this kind of insulting, tough talk.
Why does He do this? It’s because of the serious nature of what’s at stake. It’s because of our repeated denials. All these years later, we are still pushing back on Jesus’ diagnosis of us, saying, “I’m not so sure that my daddy is the devil. Come on now, Jesus. Let’s get real.” Many of us recognize we are broken, but we hesitate to say we are sinful. And we sure wouldn’t say, “Our father is the devil.” Are you at the place where you recognize your brokenness is a sign of something much larger? When Jesus comes to you with MRI and CAT scan results, and says, “Your broken life is a sign of something much bigger. Your broken relationship and your addictions are signs of something larger in your life that is really broken.”
2.2.1 Marriage is a Clue
Few places show us our broken sinfulness like our relationships and our marriages. We are like the two detectives sitting at the bar saying, “People are work.” The difficulty of marriage is empirical evidence of Jesus’ diagnosis. We have a generation living together in a series of short-term relationships. They’ve thrown up their hands at any hope of a real long-term marriage because they witnessed their parents’ marriages.
Jesus says, “The issue is you are born in sin, and I will trace your heritage for you. Your spiritual father is the devil himself. You are addicted to your broken, sinful ways. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree because your actions look like your daddy.”
2.2.2 Missing Children, Sexual Abuse, and Prisoners
An estimated 460,000 children go missing every year in the United States.2 Around 1 of every 3 children experience this sexual abuse by a family member.3 It was thought that incest occurred in about 1 in every 1 million births in 1975. Due to the advent of DNA technology, it’s now estimated that incest is around 1 for every 7,000 people in Great Britain.4 Jesus says our problem is that we are children of the devil. There are over 1.2 million people incarcerated in the US right now, with another 600,000 plus in local jails on top of that.5 Jesus says, “You’re addicted to your sinful ways.”
2.2.3 Good Samaritan Laws
Why do we have Good Samaritan laws that require people to do something to assist someone who is being carjacked or something worse? In Minnesota, Louisiana, Rhode Island, and Vermont, you are legally required to offer emergency help. Why do we HAVE TO HAVE a law like this? Why do we have to make people do the right thing? Jesus says, “You’re addicted to your sinful ways.”
2.2.4 Public Confidence in Institutions
Survey after survey shows us that we are experiencing one of the lowest periods of confidence in every institution. We don’t trust the church, government, police, or people of other races.6 Our trust in others is shot right now – the lowest it’s been in decades. Most people say, “There’s something wrong with this world.” But can you say, “There’s something wrong with me?”
2.3 What About You?
Do you have this condition? Can you admit this about yourself?
Maybe you are locked in the prison of pride, or confined in the jail of jealously. Maybe you are chained in the bondage of bitterness. Maybe you are confined to the guardhouse of guilt. Once you know the truth about sin, and that sin is the cause of all of our problems. Sin is the warden of all of our prisons.7
Can you read the MRI results and the CAT scan and say of yourself, “I’m broken. I am addicted. I am so far from God.”
Can you confess your sin? Can you admit your slavery? Jesus says you’re more messed up than you could imagine, but you’re more loved than you can comprehend.
1. Non-Believers are Addicted to Sin at Birth
2. Non-Believers are the Devil’s Children
3. Only Real Believers Experience Freedom
“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
3.1 TRUTH
You’ll see Jesus’ words on college logos and university seals. But Jesus isn’t talking about the kind of truth you’d discover in a classroom. And He isn’t speaking of the truth, you’d find in a courtroom. A big clue to the kind of truth Jesus is talking about is in verse 36: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
3.2 Jesus is “Big T” Life-Changing Truth
Jesus said there is such a thing as truth, and not just “a” truth, but “the” truth. There is truth with a little “t,” and then there is truth with a big “T.” If you were to convert this to a math equation, it would read something like this: Jesus = Truth = the Gospel
So, truth isn’t just a concept; it’s a person. When Jesus speaks of truth here, He’s talking about Himself. The One who says, “I am the light of the world,” now says, “I am truth.” When you encounter capital “T” Truth, I will set you free. God sent Jesus, capital “T” Truth, to see us free. When you experience the cross and His grace, He changes you from inside out.
3.3 Your Condition Much More Serious
Because most of us go to God complaining about a pulled muscle when our condition is much more serious, we think the solution is so easy. We think the solution is to do a few more good things than bad things. Give a few more dollars to the homeless. Pray five minutes more a day.
To return back to my analogy, we expect the doctor to tell us to take a couple of aspirin and get some rest. Instead, God sent Capital “T” Truth to die on the cross for us. God didn’t say, “When you obey the Ten Commandments perfectly, you can earn my love.” He didn’t say, “When you follow the Sermon on the Mount, you can earn my love.
3.4 How Bad Are We When Jesus Died On a Cross For Us
Jesus went to the cross so you would experience His grace. Would the divine mind of God, the Father, and Jesus calibrate this whole plan if there’s nothing wrong with you? You don’t need surgery for a simple cold? You don’t need chemo for indigestion? Wouldn’t the bad have to be really bad if Jesus were crucified on the cross?
Christ takes us from:
Hell to Heaven!
From bondage to freedom!
From darkness to light!
From despair to hope!
From God’s wrath to God’s glory!
And from death to life!
1. Non-Believers are Addicted to Sin at Birth
2. Non-Believers are the Devil’s Children
3. Only Real Believers Experience Freedom
4. Real Believers Continue to Obey Jesus’ Teaching
“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you [continue] in my word, you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31).
4.1 Three Questions about Freedom
Why do I need freedom? I need freedom from the inner desires inside of me that lead to real conflict.
Who gives real freedom? Jesus is the only One coming with a true diagnosis and real solution, the grace of God through the cross of Christ.
What does freedom look like? Experiencing freedom from the inner self-centered desires that addict us and enslave us.
Some people think the cross of Jesus is like carrying a celestial pardon in your pocket for any future trouble you might have with God. You’re thinking, “And now that Christ died for me, I can do whatever I want to do.” And yes, many people across America have misconstrued the cross to do just that. They run around in the name of Jesus and do whatever they want thinking God will forgive them by His grace. But such people really don’t understand the grace of God.
4.2 Real Freedom is Obeying Jesus
Jesus says, “If you continue in my word … you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” It’s living the life God designed you to live. Jesus says, “Here’s real freedom. When you experience my grace, and you welcome my word into your life.” Freedom isn’t “I can sleep with whoever I want.” Instead, it’s: “Freedom is sleeping with who God designed me for.” Freedom isn’t “I can do whatever I want to do with my money.” Instead, it’s: “Freedom is being free to be happy to give away my money to those in need.” Jesus can make the filthiest and feeblest of us into bright, immortal creatures, pulsating all through with such radiance and goodness and greatness as we cannot now imagine.
4.3 Paying Your Bill
Imagine if a friend of yours said, “I was at your home the other day, and you weren’t there. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have looked, but I saw a bill on the table. I looked at the bill, and I said, ‘You know, because I’m your friend, I’m going to pay that bill.’” So imagine that your friend actually wrote out a check, put it in the envelope, and sent it in, and said, “I paid your bill. I just wanted you to know that.” How would you feel? It all depends on how big the bill was. What if it was your last month’s cell phone bill? What would you say? You’d say, “Wow. Thank you.” But what if it were something bigger than a cell phone bill?
4.4 Repossession
Several years ago, when Traci and I were married with no kids, we sat down with a couple that retold how they had been in dire financial straits. They had lost all their income for months on end. And they couldn’t make the house note. The local bank had set a deadline of the exact date when they were going to repossess the house. The date was set for a certain date at the end of the business day. Our friends had explored all they could do, and there was no way to pay it. And they paid for so long on the house and were only short $10,000 or so on a house that cost several hundred thousand. They sat together in their home, worried about their home being repossessed. That afternoon, a friend stopped by to tell them that he had paid the banknote for them. He went by the bank with cash in hand to pay the note only hours in front of the repossession. What are you going to do with something like this!? You might fall down on the floor, kiss their feet, and say, “Command me. What would you have thy servant do?” You would certainly hug their neck and thank them profusely! When your house is but minutes away from being auctioned off at the courthouse’s steps, you are more than a little grateful.
4.5 Real Motivation
And that’s what the grace of God does for a believer. Real believers who treasure God’s grace know how much this grace cost our Savior. A genuine believer knows that God’s grace costs the Son of God His very life. So, this grace of God does something no rule could ever do. You live life with grateful worship to Christ. This grace humbles you and stirs you to tremendous love for your Savior. You need grace today to make you truly free. Grace frees you up to welcome His Word to be at home in your life.
EndNotes
1 Ann Landers, The Ann Landers Encyclopedia A to Z: Improve Your Life Emotionally, Medically, Sexually, Socially, Spiritually (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979), 288.
2 https://globalmissingkids.org/awareness/missing-children-statistics/; accessed April 17, 2024.
3 https://www.incestaware.org/incest-rates-in-america-and-beyond; accessed April 18, 2024.
4 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests-incest/677791/?utm_source=feed; accessed April 18, 2024.
5 https://search.brave.com/search?q=how+many+estimated+prisoners+are+in+the+us&source=desktop; accessed April 17, 2024.
6 https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/public-trust-in-government-1958-2023/; accessed April 17, 2024.
7 I owe this language to James Merritt. https://www.sermonsearch.com/sermon-outlines/125932/thats-the-truth-3-of-4/; accessed November 17, 2024.
