JOHN 8:31-47

Freedom! We are, or ought to be, concerned with it. But when we think of freedom, we may think of different things. There is national freedom which we have come to enjoy for the past 225 years. There is personal freedom: freedom from debt because our bills are paid; freedom from some habit that has dominated us; freedom from fears and anxieties and doubts. For some, however, freedom has come to mean license with no restraints, no limits, no boundaries that are not self-determined and self-imposed. Let me tell you about Raynald, a man who lived like that and who should have practiced some self-restraint on his liberties. Raynald III was a fourteenth century duke in what is now Belgium. Grossly overweight, Raynald was commonly called by his Latin nickname, "Crassus," which means "fat." After a violent quarrel, Raynald's younger brother Edward led a successful revolt against him. Edward captured Raynald but did not kill him. Instead, he built a room around him in the Nieuwkerk castle and promised him he could regain his title and property as soon as he was able to leave the room under his own power. This would not have been difficult for most people since the room had several windows and a door of near-normal size, and none was locked or barred. The problem was his size. He just couldn't walk and wouldn't fit through the door. Here was a man in captivity who could have been free by the simple expedient of self control. He simply didn't recognize, or didn't care about, his enslavement to food! Jesus spoke to people in captivity and told them about freedom: spiritual freedom; freedom that He gives to all who are His disciples. If you want to be free, as Jesus defines freedom, there are some requisites.

1. WE NEED TO RECOGNIZE OUR BONDAGE: V33:
1. Can you believe it? The Jews actually denying ever having been in bondage? Here we see a Jewish blind spot.
1. Did they forget Egypt?
2. Had they overlooked the oppression by the Midianites in the days of the judges?
3. Were they oblivious to the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities after the kingdom was divided?
4. Could they overlook the Roman presence in Palestine even at that very moment?
2. Maybe they thought that even if foreign interests did prevail and foreign governments did dominate them politically, as God's people they were still free. But their denial of bondage was, spiritually speaking, a snare and a handicap to them.
3. Like the Jews, some people don't recognize their bondage to sin:
1. The angry man says, "angry? Who's angry? I'm sure not angry! It makes me so mad when people tell me I'm angry!"
2. The substance user claims, "I can quit anytime I want to. I just don't want to, that's all!"
3. People get addicted to pornography, gambling and other vices and are insensible to their bondage.
4. Some are enslaved to bitterness and rancor and just don't recognize it.
5. Some are in bondage to a critical, fault-finding attitude and don't know it.
6. Some are captive to prejudice and bigotry and are blind to it.
4. But to deny bondage, to ignore or gloss over some enslavement is like denying a drought while the crops are drying up all around us or ignoring debt while the creditors are hauling off the furniture. How do we know when we're enslaved? How do we recognize bondage? We are in bondage when
1. We are unhealthily preoccupied or obsessed with something. Do you think about it without thinking about it? Is it the focal point of your attention so that other vital concerns of life suffer?
2. We are so dominated by anything that it rules the use of our time, money, energy and controls the direction of our life.
3. We are robbed of peace, joy, sleep, appetite.
4. We are unable to work or play or worship or spend time with our families.

2. WE NEED TO RENOUNCE KNOWN SIN: V34:
1. Let it be clearly understood, first, what Jesus is not saying, and what He is saying:
1. He is not saying, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who ever commits a sin is the slave of sin."
2. He is saying, however, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who habitually continues to commit sin is the slave of sin."
3. The difference is between the inadvertent, careless, spur of the moment sins of which we are all guilty and the practiced, indulged, excused, rationalized, and unrepented of sins that represent the life of the Christless.
2. Jesus knew that the Jews needed to renounce some sins:
1. Pride and holier-than-thou self-righteousness.
2. Complacency and spiritual apathy.
3. Godless unbelief.
4. Hateful, murderous hearts!
3. When we recognize sin, we need to renounce sin, too, and not excuse it! The old excuses won't liberate us!
1. "The devil made me do it! I couldn't help it!" He tempts, he urges, he deceives, but the choice remains our own.
2. "It isn't really sin, it's a mistake, a failure, a lapse." Changing the label doesn't alter the poison in the bottle!
3. "Everyone is doing it! It has become acceptable in the modern society of the New Millennium!" But we are told not to follow a multitude in doing evil.
4. "I'll sin now and pray later!" "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit shall from the spirit reap eternal life." Galatians 6:7-8. 
5. "Nobody can tell me what is right and wrong; I'll decide that for myself!" "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel." Proverbs 12:15 and "there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death."Proverbs 14:12. 
4. "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man Whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead. Acts 17:30-31. The call to repent is not the word of a sour-faced kill-joy squelching our good fun, looking from heaven at those enjoying something and hollering, "Cut that out!" It is the agonized plea of a Father Who says, "Please, for your own sake, please do not become enslaved to sin!"

3. WE NEED TO RELATE TO THE FATHER AS HIS CHILDREN: VV38-47:
1. The Jews mistakenly assumed that being physical descendants of Abraham made them automatically children of God! But being children of God is not an ethnic or physical thing!
2. Being a "creature" of God and a "child" of God are two different things. Every existing entity is a creation of God. Those who are in Christ are children of God. Listen to the Bible on this:
1. John tells us, "but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12-13. 
2. Jesus associated love for him with being children of God. He said to the Jews, "if God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent me." John 8:42. 
3. Paul said, "... It is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants." Romans 9:8.
4. John wrote, "by this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother." 1 John 3:10. 
3. Those who are in right relationship with Jesus Christ, and thus with the Father, are children of God. And there is a great promise of ultimate freedom for all of these: Romans 8:21 states that "the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God." 
4. We fall into one of two categories today: slaves, and therefore bound, or children, and therefore free. Which are you? If you are His children, enjoy the liberty! If you are not His children, trust Christ by faith and become His child.