The Truth Will Set You Free
2 Corinthians 10:3-7; John 8:30-36
Introduction:
A. Spiritual Warfare
1. The battle is for your mind!
2. Satan wants to distract you from what God is doing in your life.
a) 2 Corinthians 10:3-7
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
7 Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ’s, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ’s, so also are we.
b) We walk in the flesh but we do not wage this spiritual war according to the flesh.
3. We have divine power to destroy strongholds – what are they?
a) Arguments
b) Lofty opinions against the knowledge of God
c) Thoughts that are not focused on God and who He is and what He is doing
4. What are we to do?
a) Take every thought captive to obey Christ
b) Look at what is before your eyes
c) Be confident in the Truth that you are Christ’s.
d) This truth will set you free!
e) Remind yourself that you are Christ’s!
5. University of Texas Main Building – The Tower – right next to Welch Hall – the Chemistry Building at UT.
a) Inscribed in huge letters over that entrance were the words from John 8:32
b) “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
c) What is the truth that frees our minds so that we can be “free indeed”?
B. Sunday = Resurrection Day
1. Today we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Every Sunday we celebrate the day of the resurrection.
a) If you look carefully, you will see that most of the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection took place on Sunday!
b) The resurrection of Jesus from the dead marks the beginning of a totally new creation.
c) Saturday was the day of rest for the old creation.
d) Sunday marks the beginning of a new order.
3. Christianity is first, last, and always a religion of the resurrection.
a) It starts with our Lord’s resurrection, then each of us is born again as we believe on Him.
b) In a very real sense we enter into His death, His burial, and His resurrection.
c) Our baptism is a picture of this!
d) Romans 6:3-14
(1) 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
4. Because of Who He is, proven by the Resurrection, Our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the sovereign, risen, living Lord of the universe, is the source of real freedom in your life!
C. We All Want to Be Free
1. One of the men I disciple told me that his grandmother always used to remind him and his cousins as they left her house: “Remember, you are always free – free to do what is right!”
a) Everyone in this room wants to be free in the deepest, fullest sense.
b) If the opposite is bondage and slavery, no one here wants that.
c) You may be enslaved to some habits that are very pleasurable, and in that sense you love your slavery.
d) But when you step back and consider happiness without that slavery, then you would like to be free from that bondage.
e) We all want to be free.
2. John 8:36, Jesus says, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” That is what we really desire – to be “free indeed.”
a) Really free.
b) Freedom in its deepest and fullest meaning.
c) Jesus offers us real freedom this morning – the freedom to do what is right!
D. The Jesus of History
1. The Jesus of History is the Jesus of our faith!
2. Bible believing Christians know that what the 27 books of the New Testament record about Jesus is true.
a) These books uniformly teach that Jesus lived in history, died as a substitute for sinners, and rose again on the third day, and that he ascended to heaven, and rules the world as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
3. These 27 books are filled with references to the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
a) John 20:27–28, Jesus appears to Thomas, one of his disciples who had refused to believe that Jesus was raised, and says, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” And Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
4. Greek or Roman mythology claim a distant past that does not connect with real history.
a) The New Testament books are talking about real history.
b) Pilate, the Roman governor, Herod the king from Galilee, Caiaphas, the High priest.
c) All of these people are known from history outside the Bible.
5. The accounts of the New Testament (the 27 books) were all written while eyewitnesses were still alive.
a) Paul’s letters were written 15 to 30 years after the death of Jesus.
b) In 1 Corinthians 15:6 Paul mentions that 500 people had seen the risen Jesus at one time and that most of them were still alive.
c) Most of the books in the New Testament, maybe all of them, were written before AD 70, forty years after the death of Jesus.
6. This is remembered history – eyewitness historical accounts!
a) Remember, too, that the enemies of Christianity would have loved nothing better than to be able to bring out the body of Jesus into Jerusalem, and prove that it was all a hoax, but they couldn’t!
b) The tomb was empty, and there was no dead body!
E. John’s Witness
1. These apostles of Jesus were eyewitnesses.
a) John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
b) 1 John 1:1-3
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—
2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
2. As one of those witnesses, John, records as an eyewitness Jesus’ words concerning our freedom in Him
John 8:30-36
30 As He spoke these words, many believed in Him.
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be made free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.
35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.
36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.
I. A Slave to Sin
A. Everyone Is Enslaved to Sin
1. In John 8:32, he says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
a) The people answered him, just as some of us might:
(1) We are already free!
2. So Jesus clarifies in verse 34, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”
a) Everyone sins, therefore, Jesus is saying that everyone is a slave of sin.
b) This means that sin is not just a bad act, but a power in our hearts that makes us do bad things.
c) We sin because we are sinners.
3. So our slavery is slavery to this power inside of us.
a) Jesus alone can set us free.
b) He says in verse 36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
B. Sin’s Domination and Damnation
1. Sin enslaves in two ways.
a) First, sin enslaves us by producing compelling desires.
(1) Sin enslaves by making anything look more desirable than Jesus.
(2) That’s what sin is: desiring something above Jesus and then acting on it.
b) The second way sin enslaves is that it eventually damns us.
(1) Unless something intervenes, it leads to hell.
(2) This is slavery because someone might say, “I’m fine with desiring things more than Jesus. Sounds free to me.” But you wouldn’t say that if you saw clearly that the end of that road was destruction.
2. Jesus alone can free us from these two kinds of slavery: the domination and damnation of sin.
a) He frees us from the damnation of sin by becoming a damnation for us.
(1) “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).
b) He frees us from the domination of sin by changing our nature through the new birth.
(1) 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
(2) He gives us eyes to see that our Savior is more to be desired than anything in the world.
(3) When our sins are forgiven, and God’s wrath is taken away, and we see Jesus as a greater Treasure than all the world.
(4) We are freed from both the damnation and the domination of sin.
(a) We are free indeed.
(b) That’s what Jesus is offering you today.
II. Freedom
A. Freedom Defined
1. There are at least four kinds of freedom.
a) Each one adds a crucial dimension of freedom to the last until we get to the full freedom—”free indeed.”
b) Definition of full and complete freedom: You are fully free—completely free, free indeed—when you have the desire, the ability, and the opportunity to do what will make you happy in a thousand years (freedom to do what is right!).
B. 4 Kinds of Freedom
1. If you don’t have the desire to do a thing, you are not fully free to do it.
a) Oh, you may muster the will power to do what you don’t want to do, but nobody calls that full freedom.
b) It’s not the way we want to live.
c) There is a constraint and pressure on us that we don’t want.
2. If you have the desire to do something, but no ability to do it, you are not free to do it.
3. If you have the desire and the ability to do something, but no opportunity to do it, you are not free to do it.
4. If you have the desire to do something, and the ability to do it, and the opportunity to do it, but it destroys you in the end, you are not fully free—not free indeed.
C. “Free Indeed”
1. To be fully free, “free indeed” we must have the desire, the ability, and the opportunity to do what will make us happy forever.
a) Only Jesus, the Son of God who died and rose for us can make that possible.
b) If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed.
2. Only Jesus can do that. In fact, he has already done it.
a) He died for our sins.
b) He took upon Himself God’s wrath.
c) He rose from the dead.
d) He offers us that now as a free gift.
III. A Picture of Freedom
A. Sky Diving
1. I have modified John Piper’s skydiving story as a picture of this freedom to make it as clear as possible.
2. Suppose then that you are on your way to the airport in Rosharon to go up for your first real skydiving jump.
a) But your car hits a pothole on Hwy 288 and you have a blowout, and run into a telephone pole.
b) You are no longer free to jump, whether you have the ability or not, because the opportunity passes while you wait for the tow truck.
c) You lack the freedom of opportunity.
3. Or suppose you do make it to the airport, but it turns out that you skipped all the classes and don’t know the first thing about skydiving.
a) You lack the most basic abilities—like how to operate the parachute.
b) The opportunity is there, but you don’t have the freedom of ability.
c) They’re not going to let you jump.
4. But suppose that you make it to the airport, you went to all the classes, and have all the abilities that you need.
a) You take off in the plane, but as soon they open the door and you look down, all your desire vanishes and in its place comes a paralyzing fear – that’s me!
b) The opportunity is there, the ability is there, but you don’t have the freedom of desire.
c) But there is one last requirement for full freedom.
5. Suppose you get to the airport with no obstacle (you have the freedom of opportunity); you have all the know-how necessary (you have the freedom of ability); you look out the door at the tiny clusters of silos and barns and farmhouses a few miles down, and just can’t wait to jump.
a) You have the freedom of desire, so you jump.
b) Then as you free fall, enjoying every second of it, unknown to you, your parachute is defective and is not going to open no matter you do.
6. Are you free—fully free, free indeed? No.
a) What you are doing so happily and so freely is going to kill you.
b) Even though you don’t know it yet, you are in bondage to destruction.
c) It feels like freedom, but very soon the whole thing—all the exhilaration—will prove to be an illusion.
d) In thirty seconds you’ll be dead.
7. In order to be fully free—free indeed—the Son of God must set you free.
B. Dying and Rising to Make You Free Indeed
1. We have a Savior Who died for us and now there is now no condemnation for our sins!
a) Because he died for us, there is no condemnation.
b) The deadly, gravitational pull of our sins is broken.
c) He has caught us in mid-fall and has become our supreme Treasure.
d) Our destiny and our desires are new.
e) He is their source, and he is their content.
f) He gave us the new desire, and he is the new desire
g) “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
2. For those who trust in Jesus, and treasure him above all, will mount up with wings like eagles, and be glad—a thousand years from now.
a) They will be free indeed.
3. Jesus is not just giving you information in this message.
a) He is giving you an invitation.
b) Trust him.
c) Treasure him.
d) He died and he rose again to make you free indeed.
4. You are free – free to do what is right!