Matthew Poole: Good morning, everyone. My name is Matthew. I'm one of the pastors here. It is a joy to serve you with the word of Christ this morning. If you are visiting with us, a special welcome to you. We are glad you are here. We pray that today you would be encouraged. There would be hope and faith spring up in your soul in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If you are coming in this morning new, just know that we are a church about Jesus. We are not a church about ourselves. If you are struggling, feeling weak, battered, bruised this morning, take heart, you're in the right place. ⁓ we are in some way on all of us on the struggle bus. But we have hope because Jesus is driving and he's taking us to glory. And it's a great ride. We we invite you into what Jesus is doing in and through us. Not to devalue the church. ⁓ in another way, the church is the most glorious thing on planet earth. But we are a group of redeemed sinners who are struggling and weak, but Christ is making his power perfect through us. For his power, let's pray as I open up his word so that he would speak to us. So if you would pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a speaking God, and when you speak, your words are life. They are blessing. They are comfort. They are mercy and grace and goodness to us, God. We pray this morning. Lord, as we open up your word, we would not see just words on a page or hear words hit our eardrums, but that you, the living God, would speak into our hearts the truth as it's revealed in Jesus Christ. God, give us faith to see and apprehend and savor and treasure what it is that you would have. for us this morning. Do for us what we cannot do ourselves. Magnify Jesus in this time through this word. It's in your name that we pray, for your glory and for our eternal joy. Amen. Before the time of GPS, it was not a crazy or uncommon experience to be heading down the road and believe with all of your heart you are in the right direction. You are headed east, exactly where you need to be, at some point to realize, ⁓ my goodness, not the right direction. Right? Headed in the wrong direction. Not unlike the most famous wrong turn in cinematic history when Lloyd and Harry from Dumb and Dumber. Turn east to go to Nebraska when they're trying to go west to Aspen. And they end up in cornfield plains, and it's not as rocky as they imagined that it would be. Confidence is no guarantee of direction, right direction. Confidence is no guarantee that we are headed in the right direction. Are you tracking with me? There can be such a thing as misplaced confidence. Where is our confidence this morning? And what does that say about where we are headed? Spiritually, we're all headed in a certain direction. We're all going somewhere spiritually. The question is: where are we going? And it can be very challenging when you are headed in the wrong direction to be confronted, can it not? Maybe you've had this experience and a spouse kind of Taps you on the shoulder and says, Maybe we should stop and ask for directions. Maybe we should turn around. And what happens in that moment is not great idea, let's do it. There's defensiveness. I don't want to hear that. I'm headed in the right direction. I'm not gonna be looking for things to just confirm and affirm that I am headed in the right direction. To our peril, right? It is a good and loving thing to be confronted with. When we're headed in the wrong direction. It's a good thing. It's a loving thing. Today in John chapter 8, we see these Jews are headed in the wrong direction. And Jesus, in gracious love, confronts them about the truth, about where they're headed. They have an opportunity to turn around, to change course. And maybe the same thing is for us this morning. Jesus would not just be confronting them in this text that's ancient, but be confronting us this morning in this text that is alive by the power of the Holy Spirit to confront us this morning. Maybe we're traveling in the wrong direction and don't know it. Or maybe we are traveling in the right direction and we just need some course correction. We're starting to hit the rumble strips and we need to come back and get on the highway. The highway to heaven. That's where we all want to be. A couple signposts that we're going to be looking for that are in this text, there's two of them. The first signpost, the first marker that we are on the right path is this: to recognize your need for Jesus. Do you have a need for Jesus this morning? That's what this first signpost is about. We pick up this story in verse 31. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, now this is a false type, superficial type of belief that we're going to get to. Jesus is confronting this false superficial belief. He steps into it. If you abide in my word, you are truly. Disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham. We've never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you: everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. So Jesus begins here to confront their superficial faith. And he says, No, true disciples, my true disciples are those that continue in my words. They remain in my words, my word is remaining in them. They continue in my teaching, they continue in everything that I'm about. Those are my true disciples, and the type of words these are are truth. They're true words. They're words that reveal the truth, and this truth does something. It sets people free. Some type of s enslavement, the word of truth comes in, the product is freedom. Glorious freedom. Now, how might we define freedom? It's very different than what our culture today would say is freedom. Right? Our culture today would say freedom is something like the ability to do whatever you want to do and not have any consequences. It's not biblical freedom. I think what Jesus means here in biblical freedom is. Freedom is to enjoy all of God's blessings as his children forever. That's biblical freedom. To enjoy all of God's blessings forever as his people, as his children. That's the freedom Jesus. The Jews pick up on that, so they push immediately back. They push right back. These are fighting words. Don't tell us we need freedom. Don't tell us we need God's blessing. We already have God's blessing. We're Abraham's children. They're leaning, their misplaced confidence is leaning on being Abraham's children for the sake of their freedom. That's what they're depending on for their blessing. Don't tell us we're on the highway in the wrong direction, they are saying. We know we're in the right direction. We're Abraham's children. They've located the blessing of God on their birthright, on their ethnicity. That's where they're leaning and locating their blessing, and Jesus says, ⁓ no. This problem, your problem, is so much greater than what you think it is. You're not seeing the problem correctly. It's not that Gentiles need to be made Jews, it's that sinners need to be made righteous. This is true slavery. Slavery to sin. Not some physical power or some different ethnicity. That doesn't make you a true slave. Jesus is talking spiritual problem and spiritual blessing. So Jesus gives them this verdict, right? Ethnicity doesn't do anything to change your sin problem, but he's also giving them hope. He's giving them hope here. Like a good doctor diagnosing the cancer and then giving the cure, he says, but the son is here. The son. You might be a slave in the house, but I'm the son in the house. Who has all rights, all authority, all power, all privileges in the house of God? The son does. And the son is here. And the son is here to help. The sun is here. Set the slave enslaved free. To bring those that are enslaved into the family of God. This is what Jesus is saying. Then his loving confrontation continues. Verse 37. I know that you are offspring of Abraham. Yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father. And you do what you have heard from your father. So now Jesus sort of like turns the temperature up just a little bit more. He's now he's drawn into question their status as children, and now he's drawing into question their father. They push immediately back, verse 39, they answered him. Abraham is our father. Like, don't talk about who our father is. We know who our father is. Abraham's our father. Jesus says right back to them, If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me. A man who has told you the truth that I heard from God, this is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. They said to him, We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. So now they're pointing beyond Abraham. Okay, you're getting serious, Jesus. Let's go there. Our father is God. What can you say about that, Jesus? Well, Jesus tells them again, verse 42, he says right back to them. So this is heavy conflict. This is probably sorry, just a little parenthetical insertion here. We are in the middle of the of what could be said peak hostility in the Gospel of John, at least in terms of Jesus and his confrontation with the Jews. So that's why we're back and forth in this hostile argument. So Jesus now says, If God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It's because you cannot bear to hear. Then the gloves come off for Jesus, and he lands the vert. You are of your father and And your will is to do your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning. And he does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. He lands the verdict. You're not of God. Evidence is you don't hear my words. I'm from God. I speak what I hear from Him. You don't receive it. So you're not receiving God. You're not of God. What's worse, you're of the devil. He's he's he's kind of making this argument here, he is making this argument. Nature begets nature. You can understand that a puppy is a dog because that puppy barks. You look at it, it's got certain characteristics fur, coat of fur, and floppy ears, and it barks, and you're like, okay, you're very much like your father. Also a dog. Right? So you're a dog. Right? You dogs don't give birth to cats that meow. Nature begets nature. So Jesus is saying, I can tell who you are by looking at your characteristics. And what are the characteristics I find in you, he says to them. You wanna kill me? You're not you're not receiving my word. You're calling me a liar. He says, I know someone who is a murderer from the beginning, and somebody who doesn't stand for the truth. His name is Satan. Name is Satan, the enemy of everything good, a liar and a murderer from the beginning. And Jesus says, you are acting just like. So you're of the devil. ⁓ This is also love. You have to hear the love in this. The doctor has to expose the cancer if there's going to be any hope of healing, any hope of restoration. Wouldn't it be a loving doctor to not do that? Jesus confronts them. He's a murderer, Satan's a murderer, a liar. You are just like him, like father, like son. You need help, Jews. What's their response? We're good. We're good, Jesus. We're good. We don't need your help. Why we got Abraham? We got Abraham. We don't need you. The words of Jesus find no room in their hearts. They reject him. They reject the doctor, they're rejecting the cure. Before we throw stones at them, let us remind ourselves this morning that we're not much different in our flesh, apart from the help, grace of God. The last thing that any of us want to do is admit that we are sinners. Amen? It's not fun to admit that. It's not fun to be told you need to turn around. We love our sin. We love it. And it's also such an indictment on who we are, right? It's not just that we sin, so therefore we are sinners, but because we are sinners, we sin. Meaning our problem with sin is rooted in who we are. That's way worse than messing up a time or two. You're telling me that. Not just do I mess up, but I am messed up. I am broken. I am aiming my love and my affection and my treasure at something other than God. I am an idolater. Yes. That's what Jesus is saying. That's what the Word of God is saying. So our problem this morning is much deeper than our ethnicity. It's much deeper than than our parenting struggles and our financial struggles. Much deeper than all these problems that we want to be free of, right? Freedom to be who God has called us to be and to enjoy God. That is the freedom we are pursuing. Right? Freedom in America is a wonderful gift. But that is not the freedom that God has aimed at giving us in his son Jesus. We're enslaved to sin. Not foreign political power. Problems this morning are in here. They're not in the government. They're not in the healthcare system. They're not in behavior modification. Right? This is how sin sick we are. That we can change our behavior and still be just as sin sick as before. Right? If if I get rid of my addiction and I'm clean and sober, but there's been no worship. To get from here to here, worship of God, then I'm just worshiping something else. Self reliance, a twelve step program, something else. Other than God. I'm still an idolater. I'm just changing out the idols. Still since Jesus is rooting our problem deep in our heart. We need worship. We need worship of God. This is the problem with the whole human race, ever since the beginning, when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. The whole human race is now enslaved to sin. Every single one of us. There's not one of us that is not enslaved here. Children of wrath, sons of disobedience, as Ephesians 2 says. Following the course of this world, the passions of our flesh, the prince of the power of the air. Paul the apostle is not saying anything different than what Jesus is saying to these Jews. We're all enslaved to sin, hopelessly lost in our own self to do anything about it. We cannot stop sinning any more than a than a dog can stop barking. Even if you give it a barking collar, it's still trying to bark. Right? Still can't do anything other than bark, even if it can't bark itself. We need help. We we aren't good people. That need an upgrade. We aren't bad people that need to do better. We are dead people that need to be made alive. We need transformation. We need a heart transplant. We need to be made new creations. We need to be born. We need new life to flow into us. What we need is Jesus. Do you recognize your need for Jesus this morning? It's the first marker we are looking for. Secondly, we are not without hope this morning. The second thing we do is we rejoice in salvation through Jesus. Conversation shifts now. The first big chunk of that was Jesus landing his verdict on the Jews. Now the Jews are gonna land their verdict back on Jesus. We pick back up. Verse 48. The Jews answered him, Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? So they just come right back. I mean, it's like, what grade are we in? You have a demon. No, you have a demon. You're demonic. No, you're demonic. I said, you know, you say, well, you know, bounces back, falls on you, whatever. They cannot handle this. They're fighting back Jesus using the same language. Jesus was true in his verdict. They're not true in theirs. So they push back. They're questioning Jesus' nature. They're saying you're an you're an outcast ethnically and spiritually, you have a demon. Major fighting words pushing back. Jesus is Jesus answers them. I do not have a demon, but I honor my father, and you dishonor me. Yeah, do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. The Jews said to him, Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died as did the prophets, yet you say If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? And the prophets died? Who do you make yourself out to be? Don't hear curiosity here. This is not genuine curiosity. Hey, Jesus, help us understand we're confused. No, this is the peak of hostile confrontation back at Jesus, mocking Jesus. Intense hostility. Who do you make yourself out to be? You crazy, demon possessed, irrational, unspiritual outcast. No one's greater than Abraham. Don't you read your Bible? Don't you know this? Everybody dies, all the prophet dies. Don't tell us that your word has the power to make someone live forever. Don't tell us that garbage. Jesus answers verse 54. If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say He is our God, but you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say I do not know him, I would be a liar just like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and he was glad. Jesus is not seeking his own glory here, but he does need to be truthful because he's about to say some great things about himself. But there's the fullness of humility. He's not seeking his own glory. He's seeking to be truthful and to share the truth with them. He basically says, you better believe that I'm greater than Abraham. You better believe I'm greater than Abraham. ⁓ yeah. Everything Abraham was hoping in was me, was pointing to me. Abraham is the great father of the Jews. He was given a promise by God. Abraham, or Abram, I'm gonna make you great. I'm gonna make you great. I'm gonna make your name great. I'm gonna make your family great. Look up to the stars. You see all those stars? I am gonna bless you like beyond your wildest imaginations. And through you and through your family, all the nations of the earth are gonna be blessed. And Jesus says, all of that is about me. It's about me. Promise is about me. And Abraham was glad about it. And the Jews they push back again. You're not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham? Have you seen Abraham? More mockery. Jesus says right back to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. ⁓ Before he was I am. So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and he went out of the temple. Hear full disclosure from Jesus. Nothing cryptic here anymore. Some commentators have have noticed that throughout this whole dialogue, it's if it's as if Jesus was giving the invitation for them to do some reflection. He didn't reveal all of his cards at first. He gave them just enough information to try to help them reflect and come to the understanding, but they've pushed him into this corner and now he gives the full disclosure, the full hand. Not only was Abraham looking forward to me, but I was before Abraham as well. I've always been. I'm not a Samaritan. I'm not demon-possessed. I'm not merely born hundreds of years after Abraham. I've always been. I'm God. I'm God is the testimony of Jesus. I am him. I am is the name that God specifically, uniquely gave to Moses when Moses was chant was called to go liberate the Jews from slavery to Pharaoh. And Moses says, Okay, God, who should I tell them is sending me when they ask? God says, tell them I am sent you. I am who I am sent you. This is the personal covenant keeping name of God, the everlasting one who is and who is for his people always. Always. So they do hear Jesus correctly. They know exactly what Jesus is doing. Jesus is calling himself God. And then they place their verdict. Let's stone him. We reject his testimony. So they want to kill him, not God. A liar, a blasphemer, demon-possessed out. Jesus escapes. He's good at escaping. He intentionally escapes because his hour has not yet. But it's our will. What hour? The hour when he will get you. The hour. When they will murder Вене деволга з ве. Through these Jewish leaders doing what Satan has always done, being who Satan has always been, a murderer and a liar. They will catch Jesus and they will murder him. They will string him up on a cross as they murder the truth of God. But it is not as if evil prevails. Far from it. Evil is not prevailing prevailing. The Son does not have his life taken from anyone. He willingly lays it. While Satan thinks that he's having his way, Jesus is having his way all the more. Evil is not prevail prevailing. The mission of God is in motion, prevailing. Jesus is prevailing. This is the reason in the hour for which he came to save his people and to destroy the works of the devil. The devil has enslaved people. Jesus is here to destroy that work, to bring about freedom, to bring about a new people of God that rejoice in God, that love God, that are born of God. The Son is the only one. It's not enslaved. He is the righteous one. He is the one without sin. He comes to redeem us. He is, this hour is the I am in the ultimate act of covenant keeping love for his people, not to liberate people out from Pharaoh or out from any other thing we might name, but to liberate them from sin and Satan. To liberate them from the sinful nature that we all have. How does he do this? How does the son set the slave free? Well, in this time, you could purchase the freedom of a slave. The sun could do that. But spiritually, the reason why the son can't do that with money is because the slave deserves a consequence of judgment before a holy God. So the Son, the Son of God, he needs to purchase the slave back, but instead of using money, he uses blood. He uses his own blood, righteous blood. The only type of blood that could be a sufficient sacrifice. And substitute for sinners. It is on the cross that the Son, who alone belongs in the house of God forever, as the righteous one, dies the death that sinners like you and I deserve. This is the gospel good news of how the Son sets us free. And whom the Son sets free shall be free. That payment is And it's never turned back for the people. You shall be free, free indeed, never to go back into slavery. This morning, our freedom to be the children of God, to have God as our Father and enjoy his house forever, all hinges on us believing in the gift of Christ for us. We are to believe in this. If you're saying, how do I get access to what Jesus has accomplished? You get access by believing. That's how you receive it. You don't go down to the bank and figure something out with them to get some money to be transferred. You receive it by faith in your heart, acknowledging Christ on your behalf as your Savior, dying in your place. This is how John said it in chapter one in his prologue. He says this, but to all who did receive him, see the receiving, we're we are receiving who believed in his name. Receiving by believing in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. To become children of God, we receive Jesus by believing in him coming from God the Father, living a perfect life, dying the death that we deserve, and being raised from the grave to give us new life forever. That's what we're believing in. And that makes us children of God. And that makes us glad. We rejoice. We rejoice in the gift of Jesus, just as Abraham was rejoicing to see Jesus, in whom all of his promises were made good on. So it's the same for us. We are rejoicing in Jesus, through whom all the promises of God for us are yes and amen. The way into the people of God is through the Son of God. It's not through. our performance, it's not through our moral efforts, our moral atonement, it's not how hard we work, it's through him. So this morning, we have no need to shy away from the loving confrontation of our Savior, who diagnoses our true need that we might actually be cured. We have no need to run from that. We have no need to be defensive when we hear those words, you need help. You are a sinner that can't help yourself in need of a savior. It's a good thing. To be told we need to turn around if in fact we're headed in the Tim Keller unites these two points that we've looked at this morning so well: our need and Christ's provision. He says this about the gospel. The gospel is this: we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Can I say that again? We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Yet, at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared. Diagnosis, cure, all to the glory of God, making us happy and joyful in Jesus. We don't have to be afraid of the diagnosis that says that we're sinners. It leads us to Jesus. At least it's to celebrate and rejoice in Jesus and all the gifts and blessings that He gives to us. If you've never received this gospel message this morning, then this morning, simply receive it. This morning receive it. Receive Jesus Christ dying in your place and have life forever. Forgiveness of sins is yours today based on what he has done. For those of us that are believers this morning, may we rejoice all over again. May we rejoice and remember how we were transferred into becoming the people of God. We're not jumping in and out of being the people every day we remember the gospel. We're remembering the once and for all time that Jesus did bring us in to be the people of God. So we're remembering that. Praise God, that we are the children of God based on what Jesus has done for us. So would we keep rejoicing in it and may our lives then live as a testimony for who to who we are and to whose we are. Our lives to bear fruit for God in accordance with the new nature that we have. Right? Jesus has set us free not so that we might go on sinning. He has set us free that we might pursue righteousness, that we might be righteous. Like actually, we're justified 100% before God as if we never sinned. declared righteous before him, but now he's sanctifying us, empowering us by his spirit to lift us out and to bear fruit, the type of fruit that glorifies God in making much of the Son. We're living a we're we're living a mission to glorify him, a joy filled mission. Fueled with worship as we are waiting for an unbelievable inheritance beyond our wildest dreams. This is what we are doing as the people of God. How might we need to calibrate this morning? Where are the rumble strips where our lives are not evidencing, testifying the fact that we belong to Jesus, that it's his nature in us? Let's calibrate gladly. Because we know there's more joy on that highway than the other one. Way more joy. Let's calibrate gladly for his glory and let's seek to make much of him in this world that needs Jesus. The need is great. Live on mission for him all to his glory. I love how 1 John ties into some of this. He says, See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. Church, you are the children of God. We are the children of God. With an inheritance in the Son forever and ever and ever. To enjoy God forever. forever all the blessings of God forever as his people. That is our future. All because of what God has done through Christ. What love the Father has for us that He would make us His children now and forever. All praise to the Father through the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your grace this morning that turns enslaved sinners into sons and daughters of Christ. That can take Sinners that look more like the demons, in fact, our nature was demonic. God, thank you that we don't have to shy away from that awful, horrific diagnosis that we are like the devil. But that we can see it. We can see our sin, and better yet, we can see our Savior. God, thank you for making us children of God through the gift of your Son Jesus. God, I pray for those in this room that have never received Jesus, that don't know their Father. They don't know God as their father. Today, Lord, would they receive Christ by saying, Yes, by faith? And God, for the rest of us, would we be the people of God that rejoice, that rejoice in salvation through Jesus? And never lose sight of our need. That it would be true of us, what Jesus says would be true. The beginning of our text to say that the true disciples have the word of Christ remain in them. God would we not lose sight of our need for the word of God? You alone have the words of eternal life, Lord Jesus. There's nowhere else we want to go. We repent today of finding and seeking to have life, listening to all the other words of this world. They come back to the word. The word that was in the beginning. The word that was with God. The word that is God. Lord, we thank you for coming and doing what only you could do for us to die a death that we deserve. Adopting us into the family of God, never to be kicked out of the house. We don't have to have the fear of ever being kicked out. We are free. Free to enjoy you forever, God. Help us have the faith and the hope to live that out. It's in your name that we pray. Amen.