05-18-14 Freedom Pt. 3 - Abide

John 8:31 Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "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. "

We are into our third week

in a study of the freedom offered to us through Christ.

So far our study has centered on comments made by Christ Himself

in the 8^th chapter of the Gospel of John.

And just to help us get back into this study

let me remind you where we’ve been the past couple of weeks.

We began the study by recognizing

that what our culture offers as “freedom”

and what our Lord offers as freedom

are two very different things.

Our culture believes that freedom

means having the legal right to live out

the inner slaveries that dominate our lives.

We are by nature

such self-deceptive creatures.

We know ourselves well enough

to know there are forces at work within us

that dominate our lives.

We have seen our anger,

our fears,

our passions,

our addictions,

our prejudices,

and our desperate need for validation

and recognition from those around us.

We know the power of those forces

to dominate our lives.

But we dare not admit to ourselves

that we are enslaved to those forces.

So we skillfully redefine freedom

so that freedom now means

I have the right to live out those inner slaveries

without being restricted or disrespected by the society around me.

We currently live in a society

that offers

one of the highest levels of social freedom in history,

and yet we are a population

more deeply enslaved to our own areas of inner bondage

than ever before.

And as we have moved into this study on freedom,

the first great distinction we’ve seen our Lord offering us

is the distinction between social freedom

and true freedom of spirit.

What our Lord offers us

is not the right to live out

those areas of inner bondage that dominate our lives,

what our Lord offers us

is the strength

and the knowledge we need

to break the power of that bondage in our lives.

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

And then last week we took one more step in our thinking,

recognizing that Jesus makes a distinction in this passage

between being granted freedom by God

and actually experiencing the reality of that freedom in our daily lives.

When our Lord said,

"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 linked two concepts together - TRUTH and FREEDOM.

And it is clear from His comments

that without the one

we will not know the reality of the other.

When we come to Christ in faith,

trusting our lives,

our sins,

and our futures into His hands,

one of the many things He does in our lives

is to free us forever from both sin

and the Law

by a sovereign act of His will.

And before we complete this series

we will look closely at what that means.

But our Lord also links

our experiencing the reality of that freedom

to our knowing and abiding in His truth.

The chain may have been unclipped from around our necks,

but as long as we still believe it’s there

it continues to have the power

to hold us in bondage.

And then I spent our final few minutes last week

attempting to redefine TRUTH

in a way that is more consistent

with the way the concept is used in Scripture.

We live in a culture

that believes TRUTH,

and especially RELIGIOUS TRUTH

can be separated from reason and logic.

Experience alone

is accepted as an adequate basis

for declaring something as true.

In our culture, if I experience it,

then it is accepted as TRUTH

even if it is completely inconsistent

with reason and logic.

When our God calls us to know the truth

He is not asking us to plunge into some sort of mystical

or “meaningful” religious experience.

He is calling us to carefully,

logically,

honestly examine the facts.

I find it fascinating that Jesus lived 33 years on this earth,

and He lived 3 full years

on a full-time basis with His first 12 disciples

before He asked them,

“Who do you say that I am?”

He didn’t grab the microphone,

and jump up on stage,

with the lights flashing,

and the crowds cheering,

and declare Himself the Messiah.

He lived with those men every single day

for several years

so that they could see every aspect of His life,

under every possible circumstance.

And then,

and only then did He ask them

to reach their conclusions

about who He was.

That’s God’s concept of truth.

It is not even remotely an experience-based leap of faith,

or a mass-driven follow-the-leader.

It’s deeply rooted in the verifiable facts

offered to us by our God

about who He is

and what He’s asking from us

and what He’s offering to us.

And as long as I’ve gotten into this

I think I’ll go a step farther

and offer a personal comment

to some of you here this morning.

There are some of you here today

who have come with a great deal of skepticism,

even antagonism toward what you believe to be Christianity.

Maybe you’ve been coming for some time.

Maybe this is the first time you’ve ever been here.

You’ve brought with you

a whole bunch of questions

and confusion

and concerns about what you believe to be Christianity.

Maybe in the name of Christ

some well-meaning folks

tried to cram some sort of religious experience down your throat,

promising you that it would change your life.

Maybe they succeeded,

and you tried hard to make it work,

but when the emotional high was all over,

and the crowd went home,

and the feelings went away,

you knew nothing had really changed.

Or maybe you were caught up in one of those groups

who shoved an offering plate in your face

every time you stepped through the door,

and who promised you that

if you would show up at every meeting,

and fulfill every duty

that the church thrust upon you,

you’re life would be transformed.

Or it may be that you’ve never before dared to get near THE CHURCH until now

because you just couldn’t handle the thought

of getting near a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites

or mindless, judgmental religious fanatics.

I don’t know what kind of GOD heritage

you’ve brought to this point in your life.

But one thing I do know -

the God who really exists

wants you to make your decision about Him on the basis of truth.

He loves you,

and He wants you to know

the reality of that love.

The time will come

when He will ask you for your submission to Him.

But I also want you to know

that God is not a door-to-door

vacuum cleaner salesman.

He is not trying to trick you

into a decision

for which you don’t yet have all the facts.

And I want you to know that it’s OK

to just sit,

and listen,

and learn,

and ask questions if it helps,

until you have the information you need

to respond honestly to your Creator.

The time will come

when you have the knowledge you need

to make the choices He wants you to make

and you, too, will hear Him asking you,

“Who do you say that I am?”,

asking you to respond by saying,

“You are my Lord and my God.”

But God isn’t in the business

of peddling high-pressure religious experiences to ardent seekers.

He isn’t looking for throngs of faithful followers

fervently committed to keeping His system.

He’s simply seeking to restore

each human being to an eternal love union with Himself through Christ.

That restoration does involve our choosing to submit to Him as our God,

but that submission is no blind leap of faith.

It is a commitment based upon our knowledge of the truth about who He is,

and what He asks of us,

and what He offers us through His Son.

Which brings us to the real point of focus

I want us to spend the rest of our time on today.

And it concerns a fascinating word in Jesus’ comments that I mentioned last week,

and one I want us to look at

a little more closely

before we move on to the next step in this study.

It’s the word ABIDE,

found in Jesus’ opening comments in John 8:31:

...”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.”

The word that we have translated as “abide” here in the New American Standard Bible translation of John 8:31

is used 147 times throughout the New Testament.

Sometimes it is translated as “abide”,

as it is here,

and in such passages as John 15:4-7

where Christ says,

John 15:4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

This same Greek word is not always translated as “abide” in the New Testament.

Sometimes it is translated as “remain”

or “continue”

or “endure”

or “stay”.

In one passage it is used to contrast

the relationship a servant has to the family estate

with the relationship that a son has with the estate.

It says that a servant does not always “abide” in the home,

but a son “abides” forever.

And when Jesus talked with His followers

about the relationship to His Word

that has the ability to bring about freedom in our lives,

He selected this word “abide”.

Now, I want to be careful here

with what I say

so that I am not misunderstood.

You see, possessing an abiding relationship

with the Word of God

is not the same thing

as reading it,

or memorizing it,

or quoting it,

or studying it.

Many hundreds of thousands of people throughout history

have read God’s Word,

and studied it,

and memorized it,

and quoted it,

and yet have never known the freedom

that Christ promises us in this passage

because they did not abide in His Word.

And we need to make no mistake here -

Jesus is offering the human race

an amazing promise in this passage.

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...”

He is making an absolute promise

that an abiding relationship with what He says to us

will always produce greater freedom in our lives.

You know what that means, don’t you?

For one thing it means

that if my relationship with God’s Word

is not producing a growing freedom of spirit within me,

then I am not understanding

and applying it correctly.

It certainly means

that if God’s Word is being used

to produce a greater sense of bondage in my life

then I am not relating to it as He intended.

You see,

in this passage here in John 8

our Lord is providing us

with both an amazing promise

and a powerful protection against deception.

The promise is obvious -

as we develop an abiding relationship with His Word

it WILL bring about real, true, growing inner freedom in our lives.

And the protection, I think, is obvious too -

no matter who’s using it,

no matter who’s speaking it,

or writing it,

no matter how persuasive it may sound,

if the Word of God

is used in such a way

that it crushes my spirit,

or brings a sense of fear,

or inner bondage of spirit,

I am not hearing it correctly.

When I correctly relate to the Word of God it will increase my true inner freedom of spirit.

So, then, what does it mean to “abide” in His Word?

Well, the first thing I want us to notice

as we try to work out an understanding

of what this means

is to see that Jesus took a word

that is normally used to describe

our relationship to a physical place

and used it to describe our relationship to what He has said to us.

If you and I were driving down Roosevelt Avenue

and I pointed up at a log house

sitting on a little hill

and I said to you,

“That’s our home. I live there”,

it would be a logical statement.

But If I pointed to some words printed on a piece of paper and said,

“That’s my home. I live there.”,

it would sound stupid.

And yet, that is exactly what Jesus is doing

when He talks about us “abiding” in His Word.

He is talking about His Word becoming

the place in which we live.

Now let me offer you a definition of “abiding” as Jesus uses it in this verse

and then I’ll give you an example or two

that may help explain what I’m trying to say.

Abiding in God’s Word means correctly understanding what He is saying

and then choosing to trust it enough

to build my life around it.

When I abide in something God has said

it means that that truth

has become my home.

It has become the place from which I start all my thinking,

and the place to which I always return.

Developing an abiding relationship

with any statement in God’s Word

is not a quick

or an easy process,

and it never just happens.

It always involves

an active process of choosing to trust

both Christ Himself

and what He is saying to me.

I am a preacher.

I have spent most of my adult life

studying the Bible.

And in the process

I have accumulated a great deal of knowledge

about a number of Bible passages.

But I only ABIDE in a very few of them.

And generally

that abiding has not come easily.

Accumulating Bible knowledge in itself

will never produce an abiding relationship

between us and the Word of God.

The knowledge is necessary,

but it is only the beginning point.

In Rom. 13:1-2 our Lord says to us:

Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.

Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.

Now, I can read that passage

and gain the knowledge about what God says

concerning the human authorities in my life.

That’s easy.

But developing an abiding relationship with that passage

is one of the most difficult callings

most of us will ever undergo.

It means I must actively choose

to trust God to work through those authorities.

It means I must let go of my stubborn will,

and my determination to win,

and my sneering antagonism toward the absurdity and stupidity

I see in the laws and the authority personalities I live under.

And it means I must honestly face the fact

that every time I choose to disobey

some law

or some authority I am under,

so long as my submitting to it

does not cause me to sin,

what I am really doing in that disobedience

is telling God He is wrong,

or telling Him I refuse to trust Him.

Developing an abiding relationship

to that one passage

means I allow my God to break me

to the point where I will choose

to make heart submission to authority

the place where I begin all my thinking

and living,

and the place to which I always return.

And obviously,

very few Christians

ever choose to abide in that aspect of God’s Word.

Now that one, of course, is hard stuff for us,

but it’s just a tiny tip of all the wealth our King has for us

through our entering into an abiding relationship

with what He’s said to us.

I’ll give just one other example of what I mean.

There is a statement made by Paul in Romans 5:1

that I have brought us back to countless times

because it is literally the foundation rock

upon which our entire life with our God is built.

In that verse Paul says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...

It is designed by Paul

to be the perfect summary statement

of the first 5 chapters of his letter to the Romans.

It’s not a complicated statement,

but developing an abiding relationship to it

is literally a life-long process for most of us.

Paul tells us that, because of our simple faith in God’s promise

that Christ has forever paid our debt in full for our sins

through His death in our place on the cross,

we now and will forevermore have absolute PEACE with God Himself.

The battle is over.

He is now and forever with us, for us, loving us, holding us, carrying us in His arms,

our Papa, our perfect Father

who will never leave us, never forsake us, never reject us, ever.

That’s the truth, the fact.

But do we live there each day in our minds and hearts?

Do we rest there?

Do we ABIDE in that truth?

Mostly, no we do not,

without a whole bunch of rethinking,

relearning,

and trusting,

and choosing to rest.

To know the truth is one thing,

but to abide in it is a whole different thing,

but when we do it revolutionizes our lives forever.

Simply put, when I choose to abide

in some statement or concept in God’s Word,

it means that

I establish a deep, trust friendship

with what God has said at that point.

I know our time is gone,

but before I leave this

I want to make just one more important distinction.

Abiding in God’s Word

is not the same thing

as submitting to it

or choosing to obey it.

We frequently choose to obey God’s Word for all sorts of different reasons.

We can submit to it

because we know God is bigger than we are

and we fear what He will do

if we disobey.

That is not abiding in His Word.

We can submit

from social pressure,

or from habit,

or from a sense of religious obligation or duty.

We can submit

because we are trying to win God’s approval.

Though we will likely reap the benefits

that come from good choices in those situations,

it will not lead us into the kind of freedom of spirit

that results from truly abiding in the truth we have come to love,

a truth we love

because we trust the love

of the One who revealed it to us.