ARE YOU FREE?

Can I pray for you in any way?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

“I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill Me, because you have no room for My word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”

“Abraham is our father,” they answered.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”

John 8:33-41

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Are you free?

I mean, are you really free?

I guess the answer to the question depends on the context, right? It’s not a simple question without some background, without a secondary question being asked:

Free from what?

Perhaps it was this lack of clarity that led to the exchange Jesus had with some Jews who had assembled to hear His teaching. We know that among the number were some Pharisees, the high ranking religious authorities of that day, the ones who would be considered to be most knowledgeable of the ways of God.

But as we see from the exchanges in John, Chapter 8, and elsewhere throughout the gospels, it’s arguable that the Pharisees, along with their counterparts (the Sadducees and teachers of the law), really weren’t seeking the guidance of God in regard to Jesus. Rather, they were leaning more on their own understanding and wisdom, something the Book of Proverbs warned was a wrong approach.

Had the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders truly consulted God, there is little doubt God would have confirmed to them that Jesus was indeed His Son and they should listen to Him. But that’s not what happened. It was more attractive to sinfully reject and rebel against Jesus than it was to accept Him. And such was their enslavement to sin, that they were far from free. Rather, they were firmly living in bondage.

So given this context, I’ll ask you again:

Are you free?

Have you accepted Jesus, believing in Him, receiving His free gift of salvation, and liberating yourself from the penalty of death that sin brings?

Or have you lived as the Pharisees and their counterparts did, rebuffing Jesus and refusing to place your faith and trust in His words, and by doing so, choosing to continue to be imprisoned by your sin?

You see, a lot of people think they are free but they really aren’t. This is why Jesus proclaimed this in our passage today:

“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v. 36).

True freedom only comes when one accepts Jesus as their Savior, the Lamb of God who was sent to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Indeed, Jesus breaks the bonds of sin and sets the captive free, not just now but forever more. But before you can be free, you need to understand the enslavement of sin and how Satan wants to keep you incarcerated in it.

The Pharisees and other Jews who agreed with them didn’t get it. Rather than say they were God’s children and had not received the memo regarding Jesus, the Jews place their genealogy in a mere human man, Abraham, reasoning that if they are descendants of him, then there is no way they could be slaves because slaves had to connection to family. They were objects used by their masters.

Again, they were missing the point Jesus was trying to make. His point was spiritual but the Jews He was addressing were looking at it from a worldly perspective. And so Jesus tried to refocus them in the right direction, saying:

“Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.”

Sin has no partnership with God and an unsaved sinner has no place in God’s family. This is because they are a slave to sin.

Conversely, a sinner who chooses to repent and turn to the Son God sent to save them will be rescued from their slavery and connected to a permanent family, the family of God Himself, a family they will always be a part of.

Jesus knew that the Jews rejecting Him were Abraham’s descendants but they weren’t acting like it. Abraham placed his fullest trust in God, evident when he was told to leave his homeland and travel to a place God had not yet identified. Abraham didn’t reject God’s offer. Instead, he went in obedience and by faith, the same faith required to trust in Jesus for a salvation granted through the love of God the Father.

The Jews who were not only rebuffing Jesus but even seeking ways to kill them were not connected to God, their heavenly father. Rather, they were following the direction of their worldly father, an assertion the Jews rejected with protest. Their minds were closed and the chains tying them to their sin were anchored solid.

To understand enslavement is to see where they stubbornly remained when freedom was as close to them as Jesus was.

Friends, the offer from Jesus still stands for sinners. He still breaks the chains of sin and sets the captives free, not just for the short term but forever. God’s family grows by one every time an enslaved sinner becomes liberated and thus the kingdom of God grows and grows and grows.

In light of this devotion, I’ll ask one final time:

Are you free? I mean, are you truly free?

If you have received Jesus as Savior, rejoice for your answer is a resounding “yes”!

If you have yet to receive Jesus as Savior, won’t you allow Him to set you free today and forever?

For truly, if the Son has set you free, you are free indeed.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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