Free Indeed by John

Free Indeed
John!12:31-36

1. The title of this message comes from the last two words of the text.
2. The first two verses tell us there is more to being a Christian than just believing.
(1) The Jews to whom Jesus spoke believed, but they needed to go further.
(2) They needed to commit themselves to follow Jesus.
(3) Many people today believe in Jesus. They will not be true Christians until they commit themselves to follow Jesus.
3. Our text tells us that when we trust Jesus we are free! That’s right now in the present. We are free indeed!
4. But Satan uses the world to enslave us.
(1) We are enslaved by debt. Did you know that Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich
rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”
(2) Commercials are designed to entice you beyond your limits. If you allow that to happen, it will enslave you!
(3) Credit card companies intend for you to never get out of debt. That’s slavery!
5. Only God sets us free, but if we aren’t very careful in living according to His plan for us, the forces of Satan will get us back under their control.
6. Every day I hear someone talking about how the government keeps adding more regulations for all of us to carry out. You hear it, too, don’t you?
7. We don’t usually think about it, but every law, every regulation, every zoning ordinance takes away an individual person’s freedom.
8. The hew and cry of legislators is that laws are made to HELP US! When we are chaffing because of one of those laws, we feel like asking, who is “US?”
9. Laws are made for groups of people, and they are definitely put in place to GOVERN US, and that’s another way of saying, you are not free to do as you please, right?
10. Obviously some limit is required. Restrictions on the human race started with creation in the Garden of Eden.
(1) Adam and Eve had just one restriction, “Don’t eat of the tree in the midst of the garden.”
(2) Satan tempted them, and they sinned by eating the fruit of the tree we call the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
11. Satan tricks us into believing we are wild and free when we sin, but sin always enslaves us.
12. No one knows how sin enslaves human beings better than God does.

I. God Sent Jesus to Free Us.

1. How could He free us? Well, we need to understand several things.
2. First, we need to know God Who created us is in control, and He always has been, and He always will be.
3. As our Lord God Almighty and our Creator, He decrees what will be done about anything and everything.
4. He is the One Who said, “The soul that sins must die.”
5. He is the One Who said He would send a Redeemer to save us from our sins.
6. He also laid down the Law that our Redeemer had to be one who had experienced temptation to sin just as we have, but did not yield.
7. He is the One Who decided that the Redeemer could only be another human being.
8. Because all human beings have sinned, because all human beings do sin and because all human beings are the children of Adam and Eve who were sinners, that human Redeemer had to be very, very special.
9. God decided that only His Own Son could do it.
10. He sent an angel named Gabriel to tell the young virgin Mary that she would bear a child of God, and she would call Him Jesus which means Savior!
11. It happened just the way God said it would, and strangely enough there were people far away from Bethlehem who knew about it ahead of time. The Bible calls them the Magi, and they brought gifts for Jesus.
12. God sent Jesus to free us by dying in our place at the hands of sinful men!

II. Jesus told us Knowing Him Would Set Us Free.

1. That’s what we read in our text.
2. He did not tell us right there how His death freed us, but put it in words His disciples understood at that moment. “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31,32.
3. You see, the disciples were just like you and me. They were enslaved by sin when Jesus called them, and they were not freed from the penalty and power of sin until Jesus died for them.
(1) They have all gone to be with Jesus, of course.
(2) That means they are now also free from the presence of sin!
4. In John 1:11-13, the Scripture says, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, not of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
5. That happened when Jesus died on the cross, and immediately His death freed all believers from the penalty and power of sin!

III. When we are in Jesus, we are free.

1. We lock criminals away in prisons. Their crimes and society’s decision enslaves them. Some hope to be free, and some make it, but all the time they are locked away is lost forever!
2. Paul writing about his life before he met Jesus said, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” (Philippians 3:7-9)
3. Paul had a great education. He had a high position in the Jewish Religious Community, He was already achieving fame when He met Jesus, but He tossed all that aside for the freedom he had in Jesus.
4. It’s strange, but it’s true. John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained was free to write in prison, and his life has affected thousands upon thousands of people through what he did with the spiritual freedom he had while in prison.
5. As surprising as that is, Paul the Apostle also did some of his most powerful writing while being shackled to a Roman soldier in prison. Although his body was imprisoned, his spirit was free to serve God, and he did.
6. The freedom we have in Christ cannot be taken away from us ever! We are free right now! And one day that freedom will take us into the very presence of the Most High God, and do you know what we will say then? We will simply say, “Father! Father!”

Conclusion:

1. Do you belong to Jesus? You are free!
2. The world can enslave our bodies. The world can even kill our bodies, but we are still free in Jesus!
3. God planned our freedom, and He sent His Son to pay for our sins. Jesus came and made that payment by living a sin-free life among us, and then by dying for our sins.
4. Now we are free in Jesus, and one day we will be in the presence of our Heavenly Father.
5. Paul wrote about his own freedom in I Corinthians 6:12. He said, “Everything is permissible to me - but everything is not beneficial - everything is permissible for me - but I will not be mastered by anything.”
6. Christians, we belong to Jesus, and we are free!
5. If you have not committed your life to Jesus, He invites you to trust Him and be free forever!
6. Starting today you can be free forever!

Emmanuel Community Church 3/12/2006