Reading
Morning, church. Today's reading is from John chapter eight, verses 31 to 37.
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, we are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free? Jesus replied, very truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me. Because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the father's presence. And you are doing what you have heard from your father. Abraham is our father. They answered. If you were Abraham's children, said Jesus, then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me. A man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father. We are not illegitimate children, they protested. The only father we have is God Himself. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own. God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil. And you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language. For he is a liar and the father of lives, of lies. Yet, because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is what you do not belong to God is that you do not belong to God. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks, Rebecca.
Prayer
Let me pray. Lord God, as we listen to your Word in John eight, may we know you better. May you love you more deeply, and may you renew us by your word and spirit and grace each day. Amen.
Truth, Lies, and Freedom
I recently laughed out loud at the spin on a classic trope. This is the trope. You might recognize the image from the 80s film labyrinth.
There are two doors and two guards. One door leads to freedom. One door to certain death.
The two guards, one always lies and one always tells the truth. Your job is to decipher which one and escape.
The spin on it that had me laughing was that one always lies and one is always wrong. But it's from an honest place.
The two guards puzzle is solvable. Ask me later. But in the real world, distinguishing between truth and lies is very hard.
Nobody always lies. Nobody always tells the truth. A lot of people are wrong, but it comes from an honest place.
Deciding who to believe is not so easy.
In this chapter in John's gospel, Jesus is debating with the Jews gathered in the temple courts, and the topic of debate is truth and lies. Belief and deceit. Light and darkness. Freedom and slavery.
In this part of John's narrative. Opinions about Jesus are increasingly polarized in the last chapter. Chapter seven, people were whispering amongst themselves, some saying he's a good man. Others saying no, he deceives people.
In chapter eight, that whispering builds to shouting. It seems at the beginning of this passage some are believing.
But in verse 37, Jesus accuses them of looking for a way to kill him, and by the end of the passage they are picking up stones to murder him. No plotting, just rocks.
They've decided that he is a liar. They have rejected the truth.
This is a passage about truth. The second in our Light and Truth series from verse 31.
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
What does it look like to be a true follower of Jesus? It looks like knowing and believing the truth.
It looks like holding to Jesus teaching. Hold to my teaching is a useful translation of this verse.
These words, like the rest of the New Testament, were originally written in Greek. They've been translated into English.
Are you might have read a more literal translation at some point, which says, if you abide in my word, if you dwell in my word, you are truly my disciples.
Jesus is saying, if you remain in continuing, hold on to my words and teaching, that is discipleship.
As you know, I'm a Ridley student. Theological student. It's a bit of an odd thing to be, and I'm just going to lean into it for a minute, so bear with me.
If you've ever wondered what a theological student does all day, there's quite a lot of reading. There is essay writing, and then it's kind of intermingled with prayer and worship, which is a strange combo.
And recently I had a history essay, and I was reading and writing about 19th century revivalism. Revivalism.
I was a Christian movement. These passionate evangelistic preachers held these big outdoor meetings. They were calling people to faith.
There was this renewal of faith, an awakening of sorts. And there were lots of new things about the way the revivalists thought and operated that have had impacts on the church since.
And that's what I was studying. One of the things that I learned that we've inherited from this movement is a real emphasis on the moment of conversion, that moment you first believed.
And what an important moment that can be that first time you put up your hand or bow your head and say, I believe I want to follow Jesus.
That's a life changing moment. If it's part of your story and a life giving memory.
Yet even as Jesus speaks to those who are believing, believing for the first time, it seems he tells them it's not just about the first step, it's a journey.
He calls it discipleship. Discipleship is a biblical word for pupil, a learner.
In Jesus time, it was common for Jewish teachers called rabbis to have disciples, and Greek philosophers sometimes did too.
They would listen and follow and learn not for a day, but for years. A slow, immersive kind of learning like an apprenticeship.
Discipleship means being a student, not a student of 19th century revivalism. Although somehow that's part of my journey now.
But I'm a student of Jesus, his teaching, his word. As we follow Jesus.
That might mean literally studying his words, reading the Bible, the Gospels. Opening your heart to hear what God is teaching you.
It means having room for His Word, as Jesus says in verse 37. Sometimes it will be learning.
Sometimes it will be holding on to something you already know. Holding on to Jesus.
Teaching what you have heard and believed. Discipleship is something that you step into and it is something that you continue in.
Jesus teaching is something to be believed and to be held and dwelt in. Abide in his word, because when you abide in the truth, it will set you free.
One of the things that strikes me reading this chapter is that it has these odd moments where Jesus says something wonderful like this, and then the response is like a brick wall. Like what? Really hostile.
Last week we heard Jesus wonderful words of comfort I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.
But then there met with this hostility, attacking his legitimacy. And again today we have words of hope and comfort.
Hold my teaching and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
But the crowd find it offensive. How dare you! We are Abraham's descendants. We have never been slaves of anyone.
How can you say we will be set free? It's a defensive response.
Why would I need freedom? You're saying I need your help? Are you saying I have a problem? Do you think you're better than I am?
In their defensiveness, they say we are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. It's kind of strange, because it's not really true.
The Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham, they had beaten slaves. Abraham himself gets this message from God in Genesis 15.
Then the Lord said to him, know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.
And I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. God's plan, even in Abraham's day, was first for slavery and then for freedom.
Israel suffered under slavery in Egypt and then were rescued by God through Moses. That's what the kids have been learning about last term after exile also.
The Jews had been slaves under Babylon, and these opponents of Jesus know that history. Politically, slavery is not so foreign to them.
Actually, their claim to have never been slaves is not a political claim. They do understand that Jesus is speaking spiritually.
They're having this conversation in the temple courts. They understand the concept of spiritual freedom.
They just don't agree that they have a spiritual problem. They're angry that Jesus would even suggest that they are spiritually slaves.
I wonder if many of the people we know might have a similar response if we offered them freedom. They might look at us confused or offended.
I have freedom, I have agency. Self-Determination. I've never been a slave of anyone.
Why would you offer me freedom? You are peddling something that I do not need.
Jesus says, very truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Really?
This is William Ernest Henley, the poet. Henley. Out of the night. That covers me.
Black as the pit. From pole to pole I thank whatever gods may be. For my unconquerable soul.
It matters not how straight the gate. How charged the punishments that scroll.
I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.
Or as a five year old I know says you are not the boss of me. I am the boss of me.
Am I the boss of me? Am I the master of my fate, the captain of my soul? Or am I a slave?
Is everyone who sins a slave to sin? And if so, how so?
I think Romans seven is helpful in thinking about this. Let me read Paul's words.
We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do for what I want to do.
I do not do but what I hate, I do, and if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good as it is.
It is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. So I know that good itself does not dwell in me.
That is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out, for I do not do the good that I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do.
This I keep on doing.
Paul is saying that sin is so embedded in us, within our sinful nature that we are slaves to it.
When we know even desire what is good, still we are unable to live it out. Sin is so alive in us as humans.
It's as though we had been sold as slaves to it. We choose sin when we wish we wouldn't.
We do wrong. And in the words of a classic Anglican prayer, we failed to do what is right.
Maybe that's your experience. Or it has been that sin is like an addiction that controls and entices and feels irresistible, or it's lethargy that we know the good we want to do.
But it feels hard. I'm tired. Sluggish, disinterested.
Apathetic. Unable to follow through. If this is your experience, you have a friend in Paul and there's an offer of freedom in Jesus.
Paul ends this passage saying, what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. There is deliverance.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
But the Jews in John eight are not acting burdened by sin. They don't see themselves as sinners.
They see themselves as righteous. They are slaves to sin. But that truth has been obscured.
They do need freedom in Jesus, but they don't see it. They claim to be free already.
They can't hear and don't accept the truth because they've believed lies. This is their response to Jesus.
We are children of Abraham. They claim, and therefore they say, we are children of God.
But Jesus answers. If God were your father, you would love me, for I have come here from God.
I have not come on my own. God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you?
Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil.
And you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of all lies.
Yet, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
They are slaves to sin, unable to hear or accept the truth because of lies.
Recognizing the Lie, Hearing the Truth
My family are really into games, board games and card games. I like strategy games, that's my thing.
But my brother is a fan of bluffing games like where there's a secret traitor or a saboteur. The digital version would be like Among Us, or games like Werewolf or Mafia or Ku, and you have to work out during the game who is the enemy?
Who is the liar? And I remember one time we were playing a game like that I called Dark Moon, and it was me and my brother and my mom, and I was a secret bad guy, and normally I'm not very good at that.
But this time, well, I remember this time because I won and I had bluffed successfully. Or maybe my brother had been acting suspicious by mistake, but in any case, I had my mom 100% convinced that I was on her team and my brother was the secret enemy.
She could trust me. He's the liar. And once she'd believed that I'd won, they'd definitely lost.
It's just a game. It's a game about trust and lies of saying, you can trust me but don't trust him.
This passage is a bit more serious and much more serious liar and much more serious lie. But still, you can trust me, but don't trust him.
Jesus says these heavy words you belong to your father. He says he was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Jesus words from the beginning cast our minds back to the beginning of the Bible into Genesis. The first introduction of Satan in the Garden of Eden is an introduction to these twin characters of him deceiver and murderer.
In the garden. The the serpent deceived Eve with tricky words and distorted truth.
God had set before Adam and Eve every tree in the garden that was good for food, setting only one restriction. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
For when you eat from it, you will certainly die. But the serpent twists God's words and sows these seeds of distrust.
Chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden?
The woman said to the serpent, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God did say, you must not eat the fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.
He would not certainly die. The serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
This is the first lie. You can't trust God. He's withholding something good from you.
You can't trust God. You won't certainly die. God isn't telling you the truth.
And so Eve and Adam take and eat. And when God asks, what have you done? Eve answered, the serpent deceived me, and I ate.
And so death enters the world. And in the very next narrative, murder of brother against brother. As Cain kills Abel.
When the serpent lies, he speaks his native tongue. A language of manipulation and deceit, of lies which twist and distort.
That's what lies. Do they entangle, confuse and disorient lies? Are walls of a labyrinth moving as you're trying to find the right path?
Lies work to enslave us, to sin. They take away freedom by keeping us from seeing the truth.
Lies tell us that right is wrong, and wrong is right. Until we're so far from the truth that we say God is a liar and can't be trusted.
One reason that we think in our world I'm not a slave to sin is because we are so turned around that we don't know sin when we see it, at least not in ourselves.
We believe lies that justify us, lies about ourselves, lies about God, lies about what matters and what doesn't, and who matters and who doesn't.
About what's wicked and what's just a little bit wrong. Brothers and sisters, the devil lies to us.
But we have the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Listen to these lies and the truths that Jesus offers.
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God is holding back something good from you with arbitrary rules. Lie. Jesus shows us that God is a good father who delights to give good gifts to his children.
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I am the master of my own soul. Lie. I am not in control. We serve a master, whether it is God or another.
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Submitting to God would mean giving up my freedom. No true freedom is found in true flourishing. Being who you are made to be.
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God might change his mind about me and reject me. Lie. You have a permanent place in God's house as his adopted child.
These are broad lies which tempt. But we're all different. We have different experiences.
We have different weaknesses. We have different lies that we're vulnerable to believe.
I wonder if you have a lie that you hear quietly in your mind, in your heart. I wonder if you've ever stopped to think on that.
Let me tell you two of my lies. Two lies. The deceiver wants me to believe.
Lies that I've grown to recognize, in part by reflecting on my sin and asking, why did I do that?
The first line. God is asking too much of you. That lie says it's too hard to live God's way.
Just give up. Or sometimes it sounds like burdens I've placed on myself that God hasn't. Did God really say you mustn't eat from any tree in the garden?
How unreasonable. The other lie says you are on your own. No one is helping you or will help you.
You have to do it yourself. And I can hear the deceiver in that one too.
God isn't with you. He doesn't care. What a bold faced lie.
Can I challenge you to think about it? About the lies you might tell yourself or hear from somewhere whispered by a deceiver.
We can learn to recognize them. And so defend against them. Preach the gospel against them.
Maybe it's a Bible verse that you memorize. Or a worship song lyric, or just a statement of truth.
God loves me. He wants what's best for me. He is with me.
Something that grounds you in reality. In truth, Jesus opponents have been so taken in by lives that they are slaves to sin who belong to the enemy.
Jesus says, you belong to your father, the devil. They are so taken in by lies that they have become themselves liars.
Jesus says, you are doing the works of your own father, the works of the murderer and liar. But there is another way.
From verse 34, Jesus replied, very truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.
So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Though, lies obscure the truth. The sun reveals it though lies enslave. The sun sets free true freedom.
And notice where freedom comes from in this passage. Verse 32. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
And verse 36, if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. The truth sets us free because it exposes and destroys those lies which work to enslave us.
Knowing the truth opens our eyes to God's view of the world. Holding to Jesus teaching it enables us to see what is true.
John 321 says, whoever lives by the truth comes into the light. And in that light we can see the sin that we were blind to.
When we were blind to it. We were slaves to it, but no longer.
Light and truth are also not just abstract concepts. Here they are titles for Jesus.
Jesus who said, I am the light of the world, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus the Son sets us free.
Jesus defeats sin and lies. Jesus defeats the father of lies.
This is Hebrews two. Since the children have flesh and blood, that is, we have flesh and blood. He too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Brothers and sisters, the death and resurrection of Jesus has broken the power of the devil, so that there is no need to fear him and no need to fear death.
We who have been united to Jesus through faith are not slaves to sin. He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into life.
You are no longer slaves, but children have confidence. The devil has no power over you.
If you belong to Jesus, never again. It's written A slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.
So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Amen.
