05-11-14 Freedom In Christ Pt. 2

Last week we started a study

about the true nature of our freedom in Christ.

If you were with us then

you may remember that we spent most of the morning

clarifying the difference between

what our culture offers us in the name of freedom

and what our Lord offers us.

We were looking at Christ’s comments

to a group of His followers

in John 8:31-36.

We heard the Lord say,

John 8:31-32 ‟...If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

And we heard His listeners object to His words by saying that

they were already free.

They were not enslaved to anyone,

they had control over their own lives,

and they had the freedom to do what they wanted to do,

when they wanted to do it.

In other words,

they defined “freedom”

the same way our culture does today.

Freedom means that I have the right to choose

what I want to do, when I want to do it

with no external force restricting that right.

Then we heard Jesus respond by saying,

John 8:34 ... ‟Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”

And as we spent time in that passage

we saw that Jesus forced his listeners

to face the true sources of the bondage

and the slavery that control our lives.

He showed us that the real slaveries

that control our lives

are the ones that come from within us,

the slaveries that grow out of our own inner fears,

and insecurities,

and addictions,

and loneliness,

and unmet needs,

and bigotries.

Those are the slaveries

that really dominate our existence.

And we began this study by making

what I hope was a clear distinction

between what our society is peddling as “freedom”,

which is nothing more

than the social right to live out our inner slavery,

and what our God is offering as freedom,

which is the wisdom

and the inner strength

to make those choices in life

that will bring us the kind and the quality of life we truly long for.

Now, we are going to move on in this study

to look at the two foundations for freedom

offered to us through Christ -

freedom from the law

and

freedom from sin.

But before we leave these comments of our Lord

recorded for us in John chapter 8

I want to spend a few minutes

clarifying one more thing.

Jesus’ comments in these verses in John 8

make it clear that there is a huge difference

between being granted freedom by Christ

and actually living in the reality of that freedom on a daily basis.

At one point in Jesus’ conversation with His followers in this passage

He tells them: John 8:36 “If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”

In that statement

I hear Him telling us

that He grants freedom to His people.

He makes us free.

He frees us by His own sovereign act.

When we get farther into this study

we’ll hear Him saying to us:

“You have been freed from the law.”,

and

“You have been freed from sin.”

In context we will see those statements

as being in the past tense.

They are sovereign acts of God

accomplished in the lives of Christians

at the time we came to Him in faith.

However...

in that 8^th chapter of John

Jesus links our experiencing

the reality of that freedom

to a conscious,

progressive learning process in our lives.

He says,

John 8:31 “... If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;

John 8:32 and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Clearly, our knowing and understanding His truth

is a crucial ingredient in the freeing process.

Throughout most of our daughter Joni’s childhood

we had a miniature Schnauzer named Pepper.

Pepper owned our house, and he knew it.

Supposedly there were certain places

he was not to go unless we invited him.

He was not to get up on our bed

unless we invited him.

He was not to get up on the couch in the living room

unless we invited him.

But we all knew

this was just a little game we playing

when Sandee and I were home.

Frequently when we have been gone

and returned to the house

we would find a place on my pillow

where some furry thing

had curled up and slept while we were away.

And sometimes when we would come back

we would find that somehow

the throw-pillows on the living room couch

had mysteriously jumped off the couch and onto the floor in our absence.

The truth was,

Pepper was totally free to go anywhere he wanted

and do anything he wanted within our house.

But it was not always that way.

Many years ago

when Pepper first came to us as a puppy

we were new to the ways of dogs

and we were very uncomfortable

with the thought of Pepper roaming the house while we were gone

or while we were asleep at night.

So we made a little bed for Pepper in the entry way,

and then we attached a chain to the bench

and then clipped it onto his collar.

Every night for the first several months of his life with us

my last duty of the night

was to carry him down to the entry way,

tuck him into his little bed,

and hook the chain to his collar.

It didn’t take long before Pepper learned this routine

and accepted it totally.

As soon as I would hook the chain to his collar

he would lay down and not move

until I unhooked him in the morning.

Then, after a number of weeks of this routine,

one night I decided to try something

just to see what would happen.

When I brought him down to his little bed,

rather than hooking the chain to his collar,

all I did was to rattle it a little

so that he could hear it.

Then I patted his little head

and told him “goodnight”.

Pepper never moved from that spot

until I came down in the morning

and rattled his chain a little.

From then on

I never hooked his chain again,

and for a number of weeks

he never moved from his bed

until we came down in the morning and rattled his chain.

Now, there he was,

unchained,

and absolutely free to roam the house all night long if he chose to.

But he didn’t.

Why?

Obviously, because in his little doggy mind he still thought he was chained.

Before we come to Christ

every one of us has our own personal chain depriving us of the freedom we long for.

We know the sound of it.

We know what it means.

We know we cannot break free from it.

Our two great masters, Sin and the Law,

clip that chain onto us

and we just drop down and accept it

as the only reality we know.

Then, when we come to Christ,

one of His many first acts as our new Master

is to reach over and unclip that chain

and set us free.

And when God unclips our chain

no one ever again has either the right

or the power to clip it back onto us.

But do you know what Satan does?

He does just what I did to Pepper -

he rattles that chain,

and with that rattle

brings back to us the memories of our bondage,

and with those memories

he tells us that nothing has changed.

And we believe him.

Having known only bondage

nothing else feels right to us.

Several nights after I stopped chaining Pepper

in the middle of the night

I suddenly woke up and found our little dog

silently standing next to my side of the bed.

Somehow he had come to realize

that the chain wasn’t hooked.

But rather than using his freedom to roam the house

or curl up on the couch for the night,

he came straight up to me

to tell me I had forgotten to put the chain on.

I took him back to his bed,

rattled his chain,

and he slept until morning.

When Jesus says,

‟If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free...”

He is telling us that

experiencing the reality of our freedom

takes more than just His reaching into our lives

and unhooking our chains.

It also takes an active process

of His teaching us the truth

about what He has already accomplished in our lives.

When we come to Christ

His Spirit tells our spirit

about the reality of our new freedom in Christ.

We know something huge has changed within us.

We know the reality of freedom

deep within us.

But we soon discover that what we experience in our spirit

is not being duplicated in our daily lives.

We continue to struggle with

many of the same sin patterns

that dominated our lives

prior to our submission to Christ.

And unless we understand

what’s happening

and why

it can be a terrifying experience

in the life of a young Christian.

Jesus’ words here in John 8

make it clear that

the growing practical reality of freedom in the Christian’s life

requires both the Lord unclipping the chain,

and also our abiding in Him

in a way that allows Him to teach us the truth about this freedom He has given us.

And I don’t want to leave this

until I clarify one other thing.

I mentioned it last week,

but I want to reemphasize it

especially in the context of where we are as a culture.

And before I say what I want to say here

I need to warn you

that I know what I’m about to do

is risky.

It’s possible that it will sound as if

I’m simply intellectualizing

or philosophizing about the nature of TRUTH.

But I’m going to do this because

unless we approach the concept of truth

from the same perspective as God does

the power of what He is offering us

will be greatly diminished in our lives.

Now obviously

in these words Christ offers us in John 8

where He says,

and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free...

two crucial concepts are linked together - TRUTH and FREEDOM.

He tells us that the one

has the ability to produce the other in our lives.

But we live in a culture in which

strange things have happened

to the concept of truth.

We live in a culture

and at a time in history

in which the concept of TRUTH

has been separated from logic and reason.

Throughout most of our cultural history

the concept of truth

has been inseparably linked

to the correct use of human logic and reasoning processes.

In the past in order for me to understand or discover truth

I would have to gather verifiable facts,

examine them honestly and correctly

and reach my understanding of truth

on the basis of where those facts led me.

But that is no longer the case

in our society today.

We now live in a society in which

we commonly believe

that truth can be discovered

on the basis of experience alone

apart from reason and logic.

In our culture it is assumed that

if I FEEL something

then it must be true.

In fact, we have gone so far down this road of separating truth from logic

that we now even tend to look at logic and reason as being a hindrance

to the pursuit of truth.

EXPERIENCE

produces FEELINGS

which then become our validation of TRUTH.

This is especially true in the world of religion.

Everyone’s religious experiences

are accepted as valid and TRUE.

When that last big earthquake hit San Francisco a number of years ago

I remember someone asked

one of the prominent New Age gurus

what she thought about it.

She said she just felt as though

mother earth was so upset with us

for the way we were abusing her

and she was lashing back at us.

When I was still in school

I had a close friend

who was actively involved in the pursuit of truth through psychedelic drugs.

I can remember talking with him

late into the night

about his drug-induced experiences

and how he “almost saw God”on his trips.

Not only did he not require his “God”

to meet any logical,

verifiable tests,

he felt it was necessary to remove the barrier of logic and reason through drugs

so that he could then pursue truth.

Now, we tend to think that

once we come to Christ

that kind of thinking no longer affects us,

but the truth is

we bring exactly the same experience-based attitudes toward truth

into our walk with Christ.

Every time we trust what we feel

more than we trust what God has said

we are simply continuing to live out

our culture’s sick, twisted concept

of the pursuit of truth through experience.

We are so certain that what we feel

is more real that what God says

that we live out that pattern again and again.

I enter into some sort of religious experience.

It’s “real”, meaning I really did experience it.

It feels good.

Then I look at God’s Word

and discover that it’s not there.

In fact, not only is it not there,

but there are some things about it

that are in direct contrast

to what I see clearly written in the Word.

But because I experienced it

I accept it as being true and valid and right,

rather than trusting what I see in God’s Word.

Or, God tells me in His Word

that He has designed me in such a way

that my needs can only be truly met

within the moral framework

He has revealed to me through the Bible.

Then I find myself in a situation

in which I suddenly feel deeply,

intensely that some need in my life

can only be met

by my stepping outside of God’s moral framework.

I have to choose -

do I accept as TRUTH what God has said,

or do I accept as TRUTH

what I feel intensely.

In our culture today

most Christians will trust what they feel.

Or how about this...God says to me as His child,

“I have created a new heart within you,

I have made you a new Creation in Christ,

you are now and forever my HOLY ONE.”

But then we suddenly feel some powerful pull toward evil within us.

We look at what God says.

We look at what we feel.

And most Christians opt for believing

what they feel

rather than what God says.

“I’m not really a new creation.

I’m simply the same old sinner,

saved by the grace of God,

and hanging on as best I can

until God brings me home.”

For, you see, in our culture

what I FEEL is a more reliable basis for “truth”

than what God has revealed to me.

Now the problem with this whole experience-based perception of truth is two-fold.

1^st , we end up living out our lives

being driven by our feelings.

Whatever I feel must be true.

And we end up intensifying our bondage

with each feeling-based choice we make.

2^nd , our acceptance of an experience-based concept of truth

causes us to burn up our energies

asking the wrong questions.

Here I am as a Christian

hearing my God tell me that I am a new Creation in Him,

His HOLY ONE.

Then, suddenly, I find myself feeling strongly drawn to some evil.

If I accept God’s word as being true

the question I will ask myself is this:

“Why are my feelings

so inconsistent with the truth?

Why, if I’m really God’s HOLY ONE

do I find myself so drawn to evil at this point?”

That is a healthy and proper and valid question for a Christian to wrestle with,

a question for which Scripture can provide clear answers.

But in our society,

given our experience-based concept of truth,

we will tend to believe the feelings,

accepting as TRUTH

the belief that we really are not a new creation in Christ.

We then ask ourselves the question,

“Why didn’t God do in me what He promised He would do?

Why didn’t He make me a new Creation?

And what can I do to get Him to do what He said He would do?”

All of those are questions for which

we can never find answers

because the questions themselves are rooted in lies.

Now, I brought all of this up

simply because,

if we ever have any hope of living in the freedom God has already given us in Christ,

that hope begins

with our choosing to return to the pursuit of truth

that has as its bottom line

not what we experience,

but what God Himself has said to us.

That is what Christ is saying

when He says,

“If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”