Who's Your Daddy? Series

Who’s Your Daddy? (John Part 26)

Text: John 8:31-59

We’re going to finish up John chapter 8 today, and next Sunday we’ll be taking communion, so we’ll be taking a break from John in order to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. So let’s go ahead and open our Bibles up to John chapter 8, and while you’re turning there, let me just re-cap what we’ve seen that’s led up to our text this morning.

In chapter 5 Jesus healed a man who had been lame for 38 years, but He did this on the Sabbath and that gave the Pharisees an excuse to attack Him. Now remember; the Pharisees didn’t like Jesus because He had exposed their false theology, and because He was riling up the crowds, and that scared them because they had a good thing going, and they didn’t want Jesus to rock the boat and upset their comfortable racket…

Then in chapter 6 Jesus fed the multitudes with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, then He walked on water and calmed a storm, and then He taught that He is the True Bread from heaven, who had been sent by God the Father. He called the Judeans to true faith, and to stop seeking the temporary pleasures of this world, but rather to take up their cross and follow Him… and of course they walked away from Him. They didn’t want a Messiah who was calling them to repentance from sin, and who was calling them to self-sacrifice. So they rejected Him. Chapter 7 was where Jesus went up to the Feast of Booths, and proclaimed to the crowds that He is the Living Water… basically He said to them that He Himself, is the very same God who delivered Israel out of Egypt, and that fed, watered, protected, and guided the people of Israel during the Exodus wanderings. He closed that up by saying He’s the Light of the World, and that true faith – saving faith, is a following faith… and the result of saving faith is to abide (or live) in His Word, and when you do that, you’ll know the truth and be set free by it.

And that brings us to our text this morning (READ John 8:31-59).

Now remember; verse 31 says that these Jews “believed”… and we talked about that as well… how there’s a false faith… a sort of mental assent, but it’s not true faith. They believe certain aspects about Jesus, they mentally agree with some of what He’s saying, but they haven’t trusted in Him as their Lord and Savior. And so He tells them, “If you truly believe, guess what? You’re going to abide in My Word, and be set free by it.” And they immediately they take offense at this, and go on the defensive. In other words, they get offended by Jesus saying – they’re not actually free. And in trying to defend their position, they actually deny their own history.

They say, “We’ve never been enslaved by anyone.” Uhm… REALLY? We just finished celebrating the Feast of Booths… a festival that commemorated the provision of God during the Exodus… And of course the Exodus was an exodus from Egypt – WHERE YOU HAD BEEN SLAVES FOR 400 YEARS! The people of Israel had been enslaved multiple times. To Egypt, to the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks under Alexander the Great, and at the current time, they were under Roman rule. Their money has the image of Caesar on it. Roman soldiers are walking down their streets as an occupying army. But they’re offended at Jesus saying that they don’t know the truth.

WHY? Well think about it. If you don’t have the truth, that means your worship of God is a false worship, and your faith in God is a false faith. And that’s exactly what Jesus was saying to them.

Their claim to God was their ancestral relationship with Abraham. But Jesus is saying to them, that doesn’t make you right with God, or a child of God.

And I love how the Apostle Paul addresses this later on in the Book of Romans… It’s in Romans 9:6 where he says, “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.” In other words, just being a Jew doesn’t make you part of the Israel of God (People of God). In the book of Galatians, he makes it even more clear. Galatians 3:7 “It is THOSE OF FAITH who are the sons of Abraham.”, and then jump down to verse 29 (Galatians 3:29), “If you are Christ’s THEN you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

So it doesn’t matter who your mom and dad are… YOU need to know Jesus!

Don’t get me wrong here… it’s a wonderful thing to have Christian parents, and Christian grandparents… and if you do, you are blessed and fortunate… but ultimately; their faith isn’t going to save you. You yourself have to have a personal relationship with Christ. You yourself have to have true, saving faith. You yourself have to trust in Jesus, and known Him as your Lord and Savior.