It started out with the truth—a biblical truth from the lips of Jesus himself. “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” And the response was this: “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone!” They were bold, they were confident, and they were wrong.
I. Look at your life honestly, (slaves struggling for freedom, or free struggling with slavery).
- What were the two biggest events in Israel’s history before the birth of Christ? Every year they celebrated the Passover: when Moses led the people out of slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. That was just the outward slavery. There was an inward slavery then, too. When Moses led the people out, they complained all the way. When God fed them with manna from heaven, they complained about that, too. They put the Lord to the test, and God said, “You think you won’t get to the Promised Land? You’re right. I won’t reward your faithlessness. But because I am faithful to my promise, your children will see the Promised Land” (See Numbers 14). And when they got to the Promised Land, it was back and forth, remembering the God who graciously gave them the land, and then forgetting. The time of the Judges was a time of forgetting. Judges would rise up from time to time to remind them. The last judge was Samuel, who anointed David, his son was Solomon, and then there were times of forgetting. Once in a while a good king would have a reformation, dust off the scrolls of Moses and read them to the people. But then there was so much forgetting, they put the Lord to the test again. God withdrew his protecting hand, the king of Babylon came in and destroyed everything and carried away a few thousand people as Seventy years later the Persians conquered Babylon and told the Jews to go back home and rebuild. The children of Abraham had been slaves, physically and spiritually. When God’s people were slaves, God freed them because he was faithful and still had a higher purpose for them.
- Israel’s past shows something about our past—it shows what is wrong with all humanity. It would be easy for us to give an answer like those people who said, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves.” “We’re American people and ‘freedom’ is one of our favorite words!” But what have we done with that freedom? People confuse freedom with license or with the idea that it means everybody can do whatever they want. There is such a thing as sin—it is doing what God forbids or forgetting what he commands. Misdirected sinful desires and excesses make slaves of people and ruin them. Because of this slavery that Jesus talks about, we need to set aside any illusions about “the nobility of the human spirit” or about history as a constant progression of improvements and progress in society. Haven’t wars, violence and crime grown increasingly worse? From tribal skirmishes to territorial wars to revolutions to civil war to world wars? The present state of things makes you wonder what’s next! We see evil of all kinds on the rise, shootings, violence and crime on the small scale, terrorism and war on the big scale, and that’s only the evil that makes the news. There’s what’s in people’s hearts, too. Every individual is either a slave struggling to be free—not really knowing what freedom is—trying one desperate thing after another to be free… or free still struggling with slavery. Those who know God, and who know God’s commands and know about forgiveness and grace in Jesus still have a broken human nature. We are still inclined to selfishness. We still have temptations from within ourselves. And we still have to live in the world with all its evil and all its troubles. St. Paul wrote “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. … Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:18-24 ESV).
II. Look to your life in Christ hopefully (free indeed).
- “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25 ESV). Jesus himself says “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” What is this truth that sets us free? It’s the truth that we need a Savior—we have seen that—and it’s the truth that Jesus is that Savior. He sets us free with this truth, this thought: It’s not about you. Jesus’ opponents thought life, freedom, and being God’s people was all about them. “We are Abraham’s descendants!” But it’s not about you. It’s about what God has done for you. It’s not about who you are or what you do. It’s about Jesus—his forgiveness that comes to you because of his holy life and innocent death. You are part of that “world” that “God so loved.” You have a Savior. Grace alone!
- And that changes everything—especially how we look at ourselves in the world. As we look at ourselves, at one and the same time it humbles us and lifts us up.
- It humbles us because all that we have and are as children of God we have because of his mercy and love in Jesus—we did nothing to earn it, and there’s nothing we could do. Everything you are proud of or everything that you think makes you special or lovable you have to forget and cling to Jesus Christ alone as your Savior. Sometimes it’s very tempting for us to look at all the problems in the world and the people behind the problems and to puff ourselves up. It’s tempting to think “I’m better than that. I’m not into drugs or violence or mass murder. I never got my face on the front page of the paper for any heinous crime! I guess I’m pretty good.” That is the emptiest boasting of all, even from a worldly point of view. Instead of being proud of something good you’ve done, you’re proud of the evil you haven’t done. Those comparisons do nothing but feed our pride. The only comparison God makes is comparing our imperfect lives with his perfect law. We all fall short. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
- It lifts us up, too, for all the same reasons. All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption of Jesus Christ” (Romans 3:24). Forget anything else you might be proud of. Jesus is your Savior. He took all your guilt. You are free and forgiven in him. Because of Jesus God counts you as his own. That is your value before God. We worthless sinners have been given the same value the same cost as the blood of God’s own Son. So you are counted as a child of God. That is true for you, true before God, even on your worst day. That is true even when the devil is doing his worst and parading your worst moments and worst memories before you. That’s true for you when you have failed so badly and know the depths of your guilt—but you hide yourself in Christ. That’s true on your best day (humanly speaking) when you are living your life to God’s glory. St. John writes, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3:1). Good days or bad, top of the world or in the dumps, you are a child of God because of Jesus. Believe this sure Word of Christ, and the gift is yours. Faith alone!
- This changes our view of our Christian brothers and sisters. A church is like a family, and like a family there is often sibling rivalry, envy, jealousy and resentment. There doesn’t need to be. All of us have received this same gift. All of us have no reason to boast except in Jesus, who called us and made us his own (Galatians 6:14).
- It changes our view of those outside of God’s kingdom of grace. When we see people caught up in evil and slaves to sin, hurting others and destroying themselves, it isn’t the time to compare ourselves with them, but to look with compassion. What burdens they carry in their slavery to sin! What burdens they carry in their struggle for freedom when they pursue it on their own without Christ—the slavery will only deepen. These are people who need the same gift we have received.
Conclusion: “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.” We hold on to this precious freedom by holding on to the teaching of Christ. Scripture alone! That’s our Christian heritage and our Reformation heritage—we have Christ’s Word, Christ’s pardon, and new life powered by him to love and serve God and love and serve our neighbors. Free indeed.
Amen.
Pastor Stratman’s sermons are available online through the St. Stephen’s Sermon page www.ststephenspulpit.wordpress.com, and on his own sermon blog, www.pastorstratman.wordpress.com.
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