John 8:30-36
Truth’s of True Discipleship
The title of our sermon today is, “Truths of True Discipleship”. What does it mean to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ? What is the distinguishing mark of someone who is His dedicated follower? There are 5 truths that mark out true disciples of Jesus Christ.
Truth #1: True Disciples are Regenerated (v30)
First, they have to be regenerated. Regenerated is a big word that simply means “born again” or “re-born”. When the Bible talks about being born again it means that a man has been spiritually born into eternal life. He now has a whole new quality of life that he didn’t have before. This life comes from Jesus Christ because it is actually the life of Christ that a man receives.
That’s why you can’t find eternal life in any other religion. You don’t get Jesus’ life through Mohammed. You don’t get Jesus’ life through Buddha. You don’t get Jesus life through yourself. You only get Jesus’ life from Jesus. And you get this life by placing your trust in Him. You get it when He forgives you for your sins when you ask Him to in faith. All true disciples are regenerated, or born again. And, all those are born again with the life of Christ are born as true disciples of Jesus Christ.
We read in verse 30 of people who heard Jesus teaching and believed in Him. However, the problem with these people is that they didn’t believe for salvation. Look at the rest of the chapter says about these people:
They did not realize they were in bondage to sin (v34), they hated Jesus and were trying to kill Him (v40), they don’t love Jesus (v42), they belong to the devil and not God (v44), they were unable to understand what He said (v43), they dishonored Jesus by insulting Him (v48-49), they thought He was demon-possessed (v52), they were liars (v55), and they tried to stone Him (v59).
This is not the description of people who have true saving faith in Jesus. This is not what we see in the Bible how believers view Christ. This is not people who had and then lost salvation - this is people who never had it. Whatever kind of faith they had they did not have saving faith.
It has been said that there are 3 elements to the kind of faith that saves. First is the intellectual, where you understand what the Bible says about salvation. Second is agreement, which is when you agree to the biblical facts. And thirdly is trust. I understand what the Bible says. I agree that it all makes sense. But if you stop there you won’t be saved. You must move on to actually entrust your eternal destiny into the hands of Jesus Christ. In other words, its not enough to trust Him about salvation, you must personally trust Him for salvation.
These people in verse 30 show that they may only have trusted about salvation. In that case, may I point out that someone can agree to the facts about Jesus Christ, but, because they have not actually trusted Him, they will prove themselves to be His enemies like these false believers. There is no half-way with Christ.
The starting point for becoming a follower of Jesus is to be born into spiritual life. A true disciple, a true follower of Jesus Christ has been regenerated.
Truth #2: True Disciples Remain (v31)
In contrast to false disciples, True disciples will remain with Jesus Christ. Verse 31 says, “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.’”
Illustration: On March 6, 1987, Eamon Coghlan, the Irish world record holder at 1500 meters, was running in a qualifying heat at the World Indoor Track Championships in Indianapolis. With two and a half laps left, he was tripped and he fell. But he got up and with great effort managed to catch the leaders. With only 20 yards left in the race, he was in third place – which was good enough to qualify for the finals. He looked over his shoulder to the inside, and, seeing no one, he let up. But another runner, charging hard on the outside, passed Coughlan a yard before the finish, thus eliminating him from the finals. Coughlan's great comeback effort was rendered worthless by taking his eyes off the finish line. It's tempting to let up when the sights around us look favorable. But we finish well in the Christian race only when we fix our eyes on the goal: Jesus Christ
The overarching and distinguishing mark that sets the true disciple of Jesus apart from the false disciple is his commitment to the teachings of Jesus.
As a true disciple a man can expect his faithfulness to Christ to be tested. But, he will allow no danger from enemies to threaten him away from his Lord. He will allow no pleasure to lure him away. No ambition of his heart will steal his zeal to hold on to the teachings of his Savior.
He will not be among those who say, “this teaching is hard, who can accept it?” If all these cannot cause him to fall away, how could he let his own Savior’s words cause him to leave? He won’t because he is among those who say with Peter, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” And therefore, at all costs, he remains with Christ.
This is an important point to pause with. Know this beloved, that the Lord does not soft pedal His expectations of us. More times than not, what we want to do and what Christ expects of us are two opposing things. It is in these moments that we prove whether we deny ourselves or Christ, whether we pick up our cross or leave it on the ground, and whether we’re following Him or ourselves. True disciples remain in His teachings.
Now we talk about the teachings of Jesus, but, what are they? What teachings am I to remain in? What does it mean to hold on (NIV), or to abide (NAS), or to continue (KJV)? Listen, the key teaching and the key characteristic of the true disciple is splattered all over John’s gospel – it is love.
Jesus said loving the Lord was the greatest commandment. Loving your neighbor as yourself was the second greatest command. The whole law and all the prophets hung on these two commands. Paul echoed that in Romans 13 when He said love fulfills the law.
Turn with me to John chapter 13 (Have the congregation go through each verse with you). Everything in chapters 13-16 are what Jesus taught in one night – the night before He was crucified. Look at it as if Jesus were saying to them, “If there’s one thing I want to leave you with; if there’s one thing that sums up the last 3 years we’ve spent together – it is love.”
In chapter 13 Jesus is showing them the full extent of His love by what He is about to do. What is He doing? He is serving them like a slave. No pride in Jesus. He is humbly serving them like a slave. But what does He say in verse 14 and15? “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” He set the example of how they were to love one another by showing them how He has loved them – with a humble slave’s heart.
Look over at verses 34 and 35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Notice this is one another, not the world. Not people far away who we don’t know. This is the people of our fellowship, the people here who we do life with for the rest of our lives and on into eternity. We serve one another and we do it with the same lowliness and humility that Christ did it with; we do it like Paul said to in Galatians 5:13, “serve one another in love”. This is how the world will know we are the disciples of Jesus Christ. Our testimony to the world is in the way we love each other – our fellow disciples of Jesus Christ.
If I were to ask you if you love Christ what would you say? Why would you give your answer? How do you know if you love Jesus Christ? An emotional feeling, like when you listen to a Christian song? Is it by coming to church? Do you love Christ? You can answer that by honestly answering if you love your brothers and sisters whom you fellowship with. First John 4:20 says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God’, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” This love we have for one another is how we prove we love Christ.
Look at the next chapter in verse 15: “If you love me you will obey what I command”. What did He command? To love one another as He has loved you. Do that and you love Jesus Christ. Again in verse 21 He says, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” Verse 23 says, “If anyone loves me he will obey my teachings.” Notice what he says next in verse 24, “He who does not love me will not obey my teachings.” What’s His teaching? Love each other as He has loved you. Don’t do that and you don’t love Christ. Do that and you do.
Over in the next chapter, chapter 15, Jesus wants to labor the point some more with them. Verse 4 He says, “Remain in me”. How do we do that? He says so in verse 10, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love”. What is your command Jesus? In case they didn’t get it earlier in chapter 13 and 14, He says again in verse 12, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” and verse 17, “This is my command: love each other”.
Turn to Colossians 3:8-10, 12-14, “…..” What is it that binds all these virtues together? LOVE! These are the expressions of Christ’s love. These are the virtues that come forth from Christ’s love in our hearts that cannot be expressed unless we have Christ’s love. Paul would tell the Romans that love is the fulfillment of the whole law. Kindness, compassion, forgiveness, humility in the life of a disciple are proofs of that disciple remaining in and holding on to the teaching of Jesus to love.
Love is the sum of all the law. Love is the virtue that binds all godly virtues together. Faith and hope and love remain but the greatest of them is love. Love for Christ is demonstrated in loving His people whom He purchased with His blood. A true disciple of Jesus Christ remains in His teachings and does not depart.
Truth #3: True Disciples Realize (v33, 34)
One of the strongest powers of sin is its ability to cause blindness. Not physical blindness but, spiritual blindness. It causes people to see the specks of sawdust in the eyes of others but fail to see the plank in their own eyes. They are those whom Jesus said are ever seeing but never perceiving. A true disciple Realizes his own sinfulness. (Read verses).
The Jews said they were never enslaved to anyone, but, that was a lie. They were slaves in Egypt first. Then they were slaves to the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Now they were under the rule of the Romans. They were not a sovereign nation at the time they spoke these words.
But, as usual, they didn’t understand that Jesus wasn’t talking about political bondage. He told them right then and there that they were slaves of a different kind. They were slaves to sin. And, just like their pride blinded them to their political bondage, so too, it blinded them from their spiritual enslavement to sin.
The more we are in our sin the more blind we are to it. Sin has amazing powers to deceive over 2 kinds of people: 1) unbelievers - who according to the Bible are in their sin, and, 2) carnal Christians who are not pursuing spiritual growth. One author says this:
“People are prone to overlook their deeply embedded sin because it has an extremely deceptive nature. There exists an interesting correlation between a persons involvement with their sin and their awareness of it. The more a person becomes involved in sin, the less he sees it. Sin is a hideous disease that destroys a persons ability to comprehend its existence. It could be compared to a computer virus that has the ability to hide its presence from the user while it systematically destroys the hard drive. Typically those who are most entangled in sin are the very ones who cannot see its presence at work inside of them. Sin has the ability to mask itself so well that it can actually make the person who deals with it the least, think that he is the most spiritual.” (Gallagher, 71 & 72)
Sin masterfully hides from and blinds a man. The only way to expose it is to shine the light of God’s Word on ourselves. John 3:19-21 …… This is why a Christian who does not study and submit to the Word of God will never grow. They will be no further along in their spiritual maturity 5, 10, 20 years from now as they are today. They will remain as spiritual children and never through study and submission to the Word of God go on to grow into spiritual adulthood.
There is a strange truth about spiritual growth however. We would think in our human minds that the more we grow spiritually the further away from our sin we become. Now, that is true, in that we grow away from the practice of sin and grow in our practice of righteousness. But, while this is happening we find that we become more and more aware of how far reaching and how deep this sin nature runs through us. The Light of Christ’s Word opens our eyes and we start to see! In other words, the more we come into the light and walk in the light with Christ, the more we realize this sinful nature within us.
A good example is the Apostle Paul. He was a Pharisee and thought very highly of himself. Pharisees didn’t see themselves as sinners. They had the Law and their traditions and therefore they weren’t sinners like the rest of the ignorant people around them. That is how Paul felt too before He was converted to Christ. Afterwards, he went on to become arguably the most notable apostle and the most known and respected Christian in history. He wrote 13 of the 27 NT books you hold in your hands He called all of his churches to follow his example of life because he followed Christ’s example.
We would think of this man so highly that we might think he somehow attained some super spirituality that none of us could know. But, in case anyone would foolishly think that, he wrote in his letters how deeply aware he was of his own sinful nature. He wasn’t blind to it, but, he saw the truth of what was in him as he grew in Christ.
In Romans 7 he says this: “I know that nothing good lives 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 what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work iin the membe3rs of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
This calls for the true disciple to be remaining in Christ’s teachings. Like the apostle Paul, a true disciple is not blinded. He realizes that he has a sinful nature.
Truth #4: True Disciples have Rights (v35)
We have an insatiable appetite for our rights in America. We will fight tooth and nail for our entitlements as citizens and human beings. Those rights are only guaranteed if our country can defend them against invasion from outsiders, or, if the country has the integrity within to uphold those rights. In either case our human strength and our human integrity to our Constitution are the only things that guarantee our rights are preserved.
Not so with God. When God gives you rights you are guaranteed those rights. He has the power and the personal integrity to ensure them. Truth #4 is that true disciples have rights. Notice verse 35…..
Jesus is talking about who has the rights to the household. Now a house may have slaves, but, though they are a part of the household they do not have a permanent place in it. The sons of the house, however, will always be a part of the house. They belong to it forever.
Jesus is telling the Jews that they are a part of God’s household but they are not as sons but slaves and they are in danger of being cast out unless they become sons of God. They think that because they are physically sons of Abraham that they have a permanent place in God’s house.
But, what they are as sons physically they are not spiritually. Spiritually they are nothing like Abraham because they do not have the same faith as Abraham. The only thing they have in common with him is their physical bloodline.
This is the magnificent promise to believers that we have a permanent place in God’s house. There is no greater sense of belonging than to know that you have a place in the house of God because you are His child and He is your Father. Jesus says in chapter 14, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” Why? Because your place is there! You do belong! You belong to the Father and you belong in His house.
Conclusion
Truth #5: True Disciple’s are Ransomed (v36)
Truth #5 is that a True Disciple has been ransomed. Verse 36 says, “So if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.” A ransom is when someone pays the price for your freedom. It’s when someone other than you suffers the cost for you to be free. A true disciple has been ransomed by Jesus Christ because it is only Jesus who can and has paid the ransom.
True disciples haven’t bought their own freedom. They haven’t earned it. They haven’t escaped the villainous grasp of their enemy by themselves. True disciples have not broken the chains of sin and conquered death, but, they know all too well that it is Christ Jesus who has done this for them. They know in their heart of hearts that the Son has set them free, and they are free indeed.
If anyone other than the Son has not set you free you are not free. You are a slave. You have no permanent place in the house of God. You have not hope of a future in God’s house. You are blinded to your sinfulness. You do not remain in the commands of Jesus and you are truly not regenerated with the life of Christ. You are still in spiritual incarceration.
Turn to the Son and be set free.
Truth’s of True Discipleship
The title of our sermon today is, “Truths of True Discipleship”. What does it mean to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ? What is the distinguishing mark of someone who is His dedicated follower? There are 5 truths that mark out true disciples of Jesus Christ.
Truth #1: True Disciples are Regenerated (v30)
First, they have to be regenerated. Regenerated is a big word that simply means “born again” or “re-born”. When the Bible talks about being born again it means that a man has been spiritually born into eternal life. He now has a whole new quality of life that he didn’t have before. This life comes from Jesus Christ because it is actually the life of Christ that a man receives.
That’s why you can’t find eternal life in any other religion. You don’t get Jesus’ life through Mohammed. You don’t get Jesus’ life through Buddha. You don’t get Jesus life through yourself. You only get Jesus’ life from Jesus. And you get this life by placing your trust in Him. You get it when He forgives you for your sins when you ask Him to in faith. All true disciples are regenerated, or born again. And, all those are born again with the life of Christ are born as true disciples of Jesus Christ.
We read in verse 30 of people who heard Jesus teaching and believed in Him. However, the problem with these people is that they didn’t believe for salvation. Look at the rest of the chapter says about these people:
They did not realize they were in bondage to sin (v34), they hated Jesus and were trying to kill Him (v40), they don’t love Jesus (v42), they belong to the devil and not God (v44), they were unable to understand what He said (v43), they dishonored Jesus by insulting Him (v48-49), they thought He was demon-possessed (v52), they were liars (v55), and they tried to stone Him (v59).
This is not the description of people who have true saving faith in Jesus. This is not what we see in the Bible how believers view Christ. This is not people who had and then lost salvation - this is people who never had it. Whatever kind of faith they had they did not have saving faith.
It has been said that there are 3 elements to the kind of faith that saves. First is the intellectual, where you understand what the Bible says about salvation. Second is agreement, which is when you agree to the biblical facts. And thirdly is trust. I understand what the Bible says. I agree that it all makes sense. But if you stop there you won’t be saved. You must move on to actually entrust your eternal destiny into the hands of Jesus Christ. In other words, its not enough to trust Him about salvation, you must personally trust Him for salvation.
These people in verse 30 show that they may only have trusted about salvation. In that case, may I point out that someone can agree to the facts about Jesus Christ, but, because they have not actually trusted Him, they will prove themselves to be His enemies like these false believers. There is no half-way with Christ.
The starting point for becoming a follower of Jesus is to be born into spiritual life. A true disciple, a true follower of Jesus Christ has been regenerated.
Truth #2: True Disciples Remain (v31)
In contrast to false disciples, True disciples will remain with Jesus Christ. Verse 31 says, “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.’”
Illustration: On March 6, 1987, Eamon Coghlan, the Irish world record holder at 1500 meters, was running in a qualifying heat at the World Indoor Track Championships in Indianapolis. With two and a half laps left, he was tripped and he fell. But he got up and with great effort managed to catch the leaders. With only 20 yards left in the race, he was in third place – which was good enough to qualify for the finals. He looked over his shoulder to the inside, and, seeing no one, he let up. But another runner, charging hard on the outside, passed Coughlan a yard before the finish, thus eliminating him from the finals. Coughlan's great comeback effort was rendered worthless by taking his eyes off the finish line. It's tempting to let up when the sights around us look favorable. But we finish well in the Christian race only when we fix our eyes on the goal: Jesus Christ
The overarching and distinguishing mark that sets the true disciple of Jesus apart from the false disciple is his commitment to the teachings of Jesus.
As a true disciple a man can expect his faithfulness to Christ to be tested. But, he will allow no danger from enemies to threaten him away from his Lord. He will allow no pleasure to lure him away. No ambition of his heart will steal his zeal to hold on to the teachings of his Savior.
He will not be among those who say, “this teaching is hard, who can accept it?” If all these cannot cause him to fall away, how could he let his own Savior’s words cause him to leave? He won’t because he is among those who say with Peter, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” And therefore, at all costs, he remains with Christ.
This is an important point to pause with. Know this beloved, that the Lord does not soft pedal His expectations of us. More times than not, what we want to do and what Christ expects of us are two opposing things. It is in these moments that we prove whether we deny ourselves or Christ, whether we pick up our cross or leave it on the ground, and whether we’re following Him or ourselves. True disciples remain in His teachings.
Now we talk about the teachings of Jesus, but, what are they? What teachings am I to remain in? What does it mean to hold on (NIV), or to abide (NAS), or to continue (KJV)? Listen, the key teaching and the key characteristic of the true disciple is splattered all over John’s gospel – it is love.
Jesus said loving the Lord was the greatest commandment. Loving your neighbor as yourself was the second greatest command. The whole law and all the prophets hung on these two commands. Paul echoed that in Romans 13 when He said love fulfills the law.
Turn with me to John chapter 13 (Have the congregation go through each verse with you). Everything in chapters 13-16 are what Jesus taught in one night – the night before He was crucified. Look at it as if Jesus were saying to them, “If there’s one thing I want to leave you with; if there’s one thing that sums up the last 3 years we’ve spent together – it is love.”
In chapter 13 Jesus is showing them the full extent of His love by what He is about to do. What is He doing? He is serving them like a slave. No pride in Jesus. He is humbly serving them like a slave. But what does He say in verse 14 and15? “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” He set the example of how they were to love one another by showing them how He has loved them – with a humble slave’s heart.
Look over at verses 34 and 35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Notice this is one another, not the world. Not people far away who we don’t know. This is the people of our fellowship, the people here who we do life with for the rest of our lives and on into eternity. We serve one another and we do it with the same lowliness and humility that Christ did it with; we do it like Paul said to in Galatians 5:13, “serve one another in love”. This is how the world will know we are the disciples of Jesus Christ. Our testimony to the world is in the way we love each other – our fellow disciples of Jesus Christ.
If I were to ask you if you love Christ what would you say? Why would you give your answer? How do you know if you love Jesus Christ? An emotional feeling, like when you listen to a Christian song? Is it by coming to church? Do you love Christ? You can answer that by honestly answering if you love your brothers and sisters whom you fellowship with. First John 4:20 says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God’, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” This love we have for one another is how we prove we love Christ.
Look at the next chapter in verse 15: “If you love me you will obey what I command”. What did He command? To love one another as He has loved you. Do that and you love Jesus Christ. Again in verse 21 He says, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” Verse 23 says, “If anyone loves me he will obey my teachings.” Notice what he says next in verse 24, “He who does not love me will not obey my teachings.” What’s His teaching? Love each other as He has loved you. Don’t do that and you don’t love Christ. Do that and you do.
Over in the next chapter, chapter 15, Jesus wants to labor the point some more with them. Verse 4 He says, “Remain in me”. How do we do that? He says so in verse 10, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love”. What is your command Jesus? In case they didn’t get it earlier in chapter 13 and 14, He says again in verse 12, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” and verse 17, “This is my command: love each other”.
Turn to Colossians 3:8-10, 12-14, “…..” What is it that binds all these virtues together? LOVE! These are the expressions of Christ’s love. These are the virtues that come forth from Christ’s love in our hearts that cannot be expressed unless we have Christ’s love. Paul would tell the Romans that love is the fulfillment of the whole law. Kindness, compassion, forgiveness, humility in the life of a disciple are proofs of that disciple remaining in and holding on to the teaching of Jesus to love.
Love is the sum of all the law. Love is the virtue that binds all godly virtues together. Faith and hope and love remain but the greatest of them is love. Love for Christ is demonstrated in loving His people whom He purchased with His blood. A true disciple of Jesus Christ remains in His teachings and does not depart.
Truth #3: True Disciples Realize (v33, 34)
One of the strongest powers of sin is its ability to cause blindness. Not physical blindness but, spiritual blindness. It causes people to see the specks of sawdust in the eyes of others but fail to see the plank in their own eyes. They are those whom Jesus said are ever seeing but never perceiving. A true disciple Realizes his own sinfulness. (Read verses).
The Jews said they were never enslaved to anyone, but, that was a lie. They were slaves in Egypt first. Then they were slaves to the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Now they were under the rule of the Romans. They were not a sovereign nation at the time they spoke these words.
But, as usual, they didn’t understand that Jesus wasn’t talking about political bondage. He told them right then and there that they were slaves of a different kind. They were slaves to sin. And, just like their pride blinded them to their political bondage, so too, it blinded them from their spiritual enslavement to sin.
The more we are in our sin the more blind we are to it. Sin has amazing powers to deceive over 2 kinds of people: 1) unbelievers - who according to the Bible are in their sin, and, 2) carnal Christians who are not pursuing spiritual growth. One author says this:
“People are prone to overlook their deeply embedded sin because it has an extremely deceptive nature. There exists an interesting correlation between a persons involvement with their sin and their awareness of it. The more a person becomes involved in sin, the less he sees it. Sin is a hideous disease that destroys a persons ability to comprehend its existence. It could be compared to a computer virus that has the ability to hide its presence from the user while it systematically destroys the hard drive. Typically those who are most entangled in sin are the very ones who cannot see its presence at work inside of them. Sin has the ability to mask itself so well that it can actually make the person who deals with it the least, think that he is the most spiritual.” (Gallagher, 71 & 72)
Sin masterfully hides from and blinds a man. The only way to expose it is to shine the light of God’s Word on ourselves. John 3:19-21 …… This is why a Christian who does not study and submit to the Word of God will never grow. They will be no further along in their spiritual maturity 5, 10, 20 years from now as they are today. They will remain as spiritual children and never through study and submission to the Word of God go on to grow into spiritual adulthood.
There is a strange truth about spiritual growth however. We would think in our human minds that the more we grow spiritually the further away from our sin we become. Now, that is true, in that we grow away from the practice of sin and grow in our practice of righteousness. But, while this is happening we find that we become more and more aware of how far reaching and how deep this sin nature runs through us. The Light of Christ’s Word opens our eyes and we start to see! In other words, the more we come into the light and walk in the light with Christ, the more we realize this sinful nature within us.
A good example is the Apostle Paul. He was a Pharisee and thought very highly of himself. Pharisees didn’t see themselves as sinners. They had the Law and their traditions and therefore they weren’t sinners like the rest of the ignorant people around them. That is how Paul felt too before He was converted to Christ. Afterwards, he went on to become arguably the most notable apostle and the most known and respected Christian in history. He wrote 13 of the 27 NT books you hold in your hands He called all of his churches to follow his example of life because he followed Christ’s example.
We would think of this man so highly that we might think he somehow attained some super spirituality that none of us could know. But, in case anyone would foolishly think that, he wrote in his letters how deeply aware he was of his own sinful nature. He wasn’t blind to it, but, he saw the truth of what was in him as he grew in Christ.
In Romans 7 he says this: “I know that nothing good lives 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 what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work iin the membe3rs of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
This calls for the true disciple to be remaining in Christ’s teachings. Like the apostle Paul, a true disciple is not blinded. He realizes that he has a sinful nature.
Truth #4: True Disciples have Rights (v35)
We have an insatiable appetite for our rights in America. We will fight tooth and nail for our entitlements as citizens and human beings. Those rights are only guaranteed if our country can defend them against invasion from outsiders, or, if the country has the integrity within to uphold those rights. In either case our human strength and our human integrity to our Constitution are the only things that guarantee our rights are preserved.
Not so with God. When God gives you rights you are guaranteed those rights. He has the power and the personal integrity to ensure them. Truth #4 is that true disciples have rights. Notice verse 35…..
Jesus is talking about who has the rights to the household. Now a house may have slaves, but, though they are a part of the household they do not have a permanent place in it. The sons of the house, however, will always be a part of the house. They belong to it forever.
Jesus is telling the Jews that they are a part of God’s household but they are not as sons but slaves and they are in danger of being cast out unless they become sons of God. They think that because they are physically sons of Abraham that they have a permanent place in God’s house.
But, what they are as sons physically they are not spiritually. Spiritually they are nothing like Abraham because they do not have the same faith as Abraham. The only thing they have in common with him is their physical bloodline.
This is the magnificent promise to believers that we have a permanent place in God’s house. There is no greater sense of belonging than to know that you have a place in the house of God because you are His child and He is your Father. Jesus says in chapter 14, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” Why? Because your place is there! You do belong! You belong to the Father and you belong in His house.
Conclusion
Truth #5: True Disciple’s are Ransomed (v36)
Truth #5 is that a True Disciple has been ransomed. Verse 36 says, “So if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.” A ransom is when someone pays the price for your freedom. It’s when someone other than you suffers the cost for you to be free. A true disciple has been ransomed by Jesus Christ because it is only Jesus who can and has paid the ransom.
True disciples haven’t bought their own freedom. They haven’t earned it. They haven’t escaped the villainous grasp of their enemy by themselves. True disciples have not broken the chains of sin and conquered death, but, they know all too well that it is Christ Jesus who has done this for them. They know in their heart of hearts that the Son has set them free, and they are free indeed.
If anyone other than the Son has not set you free you are not free. You are a slave. You have no permanent place in the house of God. You have not hope of a future in God’s house. You are blinded to your sinfulness. You do not remain in the commands of Jesus and you are truly not regenerated with the life of Christ. You are still in spiritual incarceration.
Turn to the Son and be set free.
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