Free Through His Death 1984

It's amazing how often the Spirit kind of causes things to fit together. Many times Sunday School classes and what goes on in the service, without any awareness, conscious of each other, fit. And that happened again today.

I happened to be in Rick's class, and they were talking a lot about this passage in John chapter 8, starting at verse 31, and that's where I'd like to pick it up again this morning. And for those who were in that class, bear with us. You know, if it sounds old-fashioned, maybe the Lord wants us to hear it a second time.

From John chapter 8, verse 31, Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. They answered him, We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How is it that you say you will be made free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

The slave does not continue in the house forever. The son continues forever. So, if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

We're descendants of Abraham. We've never been slaves. We've never been in bondage to anyone.

Oh yeah? What about Egypt? What about Babylon? What about all this idolatry that has followed you down through your history? Whoever commits sin is a slave to sin. And we find ourselves in exactly that same position. We most of the time think of ourselves as free.

We are the freed ones who go out with a gospel to set the captives free. Yet we have a problem, because our gospel doesn't seem to have the impact that it should. And the reason for this is largely because we are not free.

If an angel could come down right now into our midst and gently pull off the mask from each of our faces, underneath the Christian mask, there would be the face of a slave in almost every case. And the slavery would, in each of our lives, be in one of these three areas. We are either slaves to anger, or we are slaves to fear, or we are slaves to battle.

For instance, we like to think of ourselves as free servants of Jesus with a gospel out into the world, setting the captives free, breaking their chains for them. But many of us, beneath that mask, are angry. All the time we are angry.

We wear the mask of serenity and peace, but we are mad. We are seething underneath. We have this volcano that is just bubbling all the time.

And all that has to happen is that somebody comes along and jars us. Out spews the anger. We are angry on our job.

We are angry at home. We are angry in the body. We are angry when we are asleep.

Sometimes the anger takes the form of grumbling. Sometimes it takes the form of cynicism. Sometimes it takes the form of self-pity, but it's anger.

Now we go out there and we say, there's Jesus. He sets the captives free. Listen to our gospel.

But while we're proclaiming the liberty that is in Jesus, these people out there can see the chain of anger that binds our hands together. And we wonder why our gospel seems to have so little impact. Many of us think of ourselves as free followers of Jesus.

But our problem is that we're scared all the time. We're worried about what people think. We're nervous about what's going to happen tomorrow.

We're troubled about every time somebody doesn't agree with us or smile at us if we get a negative reaction. We're all bent out of shape and nervous. It's interesting.

Yesterday, a week ago, we had a gorgeous day of prayer and fasting. It was wonderful. And as the day progressed, the thing that kept coming up from many of us was how much fear is still dominating our lives.

We're afraid. We're scared. And so we go out and tell the world about the freedom that's in Jesus.

And all they have to do is look and they can see the chains that bind our feet so that we can't even take one step of faith ourselves. And we wonder why our gospel of freedom has so little impact. Then there are those of us who consider ourselves free followers of the Lord, but we are in bondage to the glitter of Babylon.

And it doesn't matter whether we have lots of money or no money at all. Our problem is that we're just obsessed with this, with money and things, the things that money buys, manna. Notice how our eyes light up the minute somebody starts talking about the things we like to surround ourselves with, things we like to collect.

Notice how excited we get as soon as somebody shows us a way to make a fast buck. And then we go out and we proclaim freedom that's in Jesus. And we wonder why nobody pays much attention.

There seems to be little impact, not realizing that they can look at us. These people out there in the world are not stupid. They can see the chains of covetousness wrapped right around our heads.

And to them, our gospel becomes a joke. Before we can proclaim liberty in the Lord with any impact at all, we have to be ourselves free. We have to not only be able to say it, we have to be the embodiment of that freedom.

Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, if you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Now, the truth that makes us free as we continue in Jesus' word is not a set of facts, some kind of information that we can grasp with our intellect. And now I have it.

Ah, two and two is four. That's what I needed to know. I'm free.

Oh, the law of gravity, what goes up comes down. You know, and that sounds ridiculous, but that's exactly the way many of us approach what we call spiritual truth. We think we have mastered the secrets of the universe.

We've learned the key, our favorite doctrine, whatever it is. But the truth that sets us free as we continue in his word is not something we first grasp with our minds, even though we have to use our minds. It's something that we grasp with our hearts, our will, really something that gets hold of us if we allow it to.

Basically, boiling it right down, the truth that sets us free is this. We will become free to the extent that our lives are joined to Jesus' death. And if you study the whole Bible, you see that this becomes the center.

Jesus' death is the source of our victory. It's the beginning of our, it's the experience of our atonement. It's the doorway into the kingdom of God, His death.

Putting it simply, the cross of Jesus is the truth that sets us free. And I'm not setting up another doctrine that we can grab with our minds. Because this cross that sets us free is something we not only have to see, we have to see it, but we also have to touch it.

And then we have to enter into it. And when we enter into the cross so that it becomes living in us, the death of Jesus becomes something real inside us. Then the chains of anger and the chains of fear and the chains of covetousness and the chains of lust break.

The supreme example of this is the Apostle Paul. Paul, continued in the word of his Lord, very quickly began to experience the truth that set him on fire. Listen to him describe it.

Jumping around in a few of his epistles, starting in 1 Corinthians 2, 1. When I came to you, brethren, I did not come to you proclaiming the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the source of my life. Jumping into verse 17 of chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, the cross, the cross, the cross. Listen to him in 2 Corinthians 4, 8. We are afflicted in every way, the cross, but not crushed.

Perplexed, the cross, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, that's the cross, but not forsaken. Struck down, that's the cross, but not destroyed.

Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, the cross, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being delivered up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death isn't working in us, but life in you.

Jumping into Galatians 2, verse 20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me as the dying one.

And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Where? On the cross. And back in Galatians 6, 14, he says, But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of Jesus Christ, by which the Lord, the world, has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Now our problem, I believe, is that we North American evangelicals have made a doctrine of the cross that we can look at and hold and make almost into an idol. We all understand very clearly that on that cross, Jesus did something for us. And it's true, he did.

20 centuries before we were born, he went up on that cross and took our sin into his own body and dragged it down into the grave with him. We understand that much. What we don't seem to grasp as clearly is that what Jesus did for us on that cross 20 centuries ago affects our lives only when we allow it to also become something he does in us.

So that the cross out there now becomes the cross in here. If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed, truly. And you will know the truth.

That is, you will experience my death at work in you. You will be crucified with me, and that crucifixion will set you free. The truth that sets us free is the cross of Jesus.

We need to see that cross. We need to join ourselves to that cross. We need to practice that cross in our life with each other.

And we need to proclaim that cross out there in the world. We have to begin by seeing the cross. We have to see the cross of Jesus as the absolute center of our universe.

The source of all our life. Look unto him and be saved, all the ends of the earth. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so that people looking at that serpent got healed, so must the Son of Man be lifted up on that cross so that whoever looks to him in faith will come to life. Every word Jesus spoke and every sign he performed can be understood in a redemptive way and only when it's understood in the light of that cross. When I came to you, brethren, I did not come to you proclaiming the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified, because that cross is the door to the kingdom.

It's the window into the real world, the only real world. You want to know what God is like? Look at the cross. You want to have faith? Look at the cross.

You want to have some sanity? Look at the cross. You want to be delivered from your anger, anxiety, covetousness? Look at the cross. Behold the Lamb of God.

Behold. Behold the Lamb of God. From Isaiah 53, written centuries before it happened, Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole. With his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. We have to see it.

But we have to do more than see it. We have to join ourselves to it. To that cross.

What's the first thing we do when we become Christians? We get baptized. What does it mean to be baptized? It means that we are joined to his death. Don't you know, Paul says, that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death.

We are taken down into that grave. We are joined to his death. That's the source of our life.

And from there on in, every week, we gather. We worship him. And the climax of our worship together is the bread and the wine.

And in that bread and wine, again, we are joining ourselves to his death. This is my body, given for you. This is the blood of a new covenant, shed for your sin.

I am crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. If you continue in my word, you'll know that.

That will be real to you, he says. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, which is a death, take up his cross, daily, death, and follow me, where to? To a cross.

So every day, our life begins, every day, by laying ourselves aside again, and denying ourselves, taking up our cross with an act of the will, following him. This is not morbid. This is the source of all our life.

There is no liberty, there is no authority, there is no power, nor is there any joy, until we're bound to that cross, by our own act of the will, day after day, hour by hour, moment by moment. And then, we need to start practicing the cross in our life, with each other. Reading from John 13, verse 1, Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas' carrier, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, that he had come from God and was going to God, rose up from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and wiped them with a towel with which he was girded. What's he doing? He's practicing the cross.

In the midst of his disciples, he's practicing the cross. He is doing in their midst the very thing he's going to be doing the next day on Calvary. He lays aside his garments, which is to lay aside his life.

Gets down on his hands and knees, and he's wrapped in a towel and becomes a slave. He washes their feet with water. Tomorrow it's going to be a flood.

But he's acting it out. He's practicing it. And he's reminding them in this act of what he'd been doing with them for three and a half years.

He had been their servant. Always their servant. Now he says, that's what I want you to do toward each other.

Reading on in the same passage, When he had washed their feet and taken his garments and resumed his place, he said to them, Do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I, then, your lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do as I have done to you.

Truly, truly, I say to you, the servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know what he's saying, less than are you what you do to him. And so now he's saying, that's what I want you to do.

Lay aside your garment. Get down on your knees. Wash your sister's feet.

Wash your brother's feet. Become their servant. Submit to them.

Lay down your life for them. See, and to lay down our lives for each other doesn't mean that we have to wait until we see a truck coming and then throw ourselves in front of the truck to save our sister. Praise God, if it happens, let's all have the courage by the grace of God to do that.

You know, but we may wait a long time for that truck to come. But what he's calling for here is something that's already right in front of our noses. I mean, in this sense, the truck's come long ago.

He's giving us here ample opportunity, ample, ample opportunity to die for each other. I mean, it comes down into the normal day-in and day-out nitty-gritty of our life together. It means that we forgive each other.

And then we forgive each other some more. And then we forgive each other some more. And then we forgive each other some more.

That's what it means. The practice of God in our life together. See, and if I refuse to forgive my brother or my sister, I block the power of God.

You know, I refuse to die. Hey, they walked on my ego! Let the death work in me so that the life may flow out. Our natural tendency is if they hit us with a pea shooter, we're out with all our guns.

In the body! In the body, my goodness! All of us are like this. You know, I'm not excluding myself. We're all like this.

But the Lord is saying, Nonsense! Knock it off! I'm calling you to live this life! What are you doing? You want to be a club for nice people, or do you want to be my disciples? If you're going to be my disciples, practice the cross, first of all, in your life with each other. And if you won't, there will be no life in you. Nor will there be any life in your fellowship.

Finally, we are called to proclaim the cross out there in the world. When I came to you, brethren, I did not come to you proclaiming the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom, no gimmicks, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul goes into Corinth, and that's what he proclaims, the crucifixion of Jesus, over and over and over again, not only with his mouth, but the way he lived, with tremendous impact.

Eighteen months later, he leaves Corinth, and behind him is a flourishing church. All kinds of problems, all kinds of stirrings, all kinds of tensions, but the life of the Lord is in that church. And we are called to do the same.

Our gospel is simple, and it will be very clear and easy to proclaim if we're living it. When I have that cross in me, then I can proclaim it outside, in the world. And when we proclaim the cross, Jesus Christ and Him crucified as a truth that we not only know with our minds, but are burning within our hearts and minds, the world will feel the impact, and we will set the captives free.

Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in Him, If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. The truth that makes us free is the cross of Jesus. We need to see it, we need to join ourselves to it, we need to especially practice it in our life with each other, we need to proclaim it out there in the world.

And if we will do these things, the chains will fall from our hands, the chains of anger. They'll drop from our feet, the chains of fear. And they'll melt off our heads, the chains of covetousness, and greed, and lust, and envy.

And we will be free. And with a power we never had before, we will free the captives. Let's just take some time in silence and allow the Spirit of the Lord to speak to our hearts.

Let's rise and sing together hymn number 210, and then we'll just go into prayer and praise. Hymn number 210, verses one, two, three, and four only. First four verses.