Chasing freedom? (The Book of John #33)

Introduction:  Are we experiencing the freedom of being a new creation?

2 Corinthians 5:17–Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

-One of the greatest freedoms we can embrace, is to not allow other people’s thinking to dictate who and what God called us to do-people have perceptions of you that make them comfortable, instead of embracing who you really are and are going to be,(which might change their way of thinking about how they limit you, and open them up to a new belief system)

1 John 3:2–Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared;but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

Ex:  God saw the children of Israel as free, Pharaoh saw them as slaves-redemption was about the people seeing themselves as freed by God, not bound slaves, this is gospel! (they had to believe God they were free first, not convince Pharaoh, b/c he never wanted to change how he saw the Israelites.)

Romans 6:17-19-But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedientfrom the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

-Unless we see ourselves as free from bondage through the victory of Christ (seeking and fighting to obey)–we too see ourselves as slaves, while God calls us free in Christ…(ex: of a slave mentality: I am defined by my insecurities(bound), instead of effective in spite of them(being set free))

-so when we taste freedom in Christ, we now stand and fight to keep that freedom-b/c I know what it is like to suffer in bondage, riddled with insecurities and doubts b/c I had no deliverer before Christ…

Ex:remember the children of Israel were running from the chariots of Pharaoh-never wanting to let them go!

-now why was Pharaoh so desperate to chase them?-because it was a lucrative investment in keeping the children of Israel in bondage

Ex:some people prey off of you staying bound-making them feel like you need them in order to flourish

-in order to be set free they would need to be released by Pharaoh, by the power of God-in order for us today to be free we need to be released by sin and Satan, which Christ has done through the power of His blood!

Signs of change, are signs of freedom

-A new creation is someone who lives to walk in that power-challenging their old ways, and other people’s ways towards them, by fighting to walk with God

Psalm 119:104-Through your precepts I get understanding;therefore I hate every false way.-(we can’t get help from God to change what we don’t understand or won’t confront)

–so as a new creation do you recognize “false ways” and do you call it what it is?  Or have we operated so long in being bound, we just manipulate and justify what we do is normal for us?

Psalm 55:19-God will give ear and humble them, he who is enthroned from of old, Selah because they do not change and do not fear God.

(the closer we walk with Jesus the more we identify w/ freedom and the ways of truth, when we don’t we do not change out of bondage)

Freed beyond belief

John 6:40-42–For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”  42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph,whose father and motherwe know? How does he now say,‘I have come down from heaven’?”

-Now we see Jesus creating conflict, by not only declaring what He will do-but revealing who He really is to people who know His mother and father!

–The Jews unbelief has kept Jesus in a box as to who He is, and who He is supposed to be in relation to them-if Jesus lived effected by this kind of “small mindedness”, he would’ve believed according to what they knew about Him…

-In order for Jesus to complete His mission, He didn’t allow Himself to be “bound” to other people’s unbelief about Him-their perception literally kept Him regulated to this earth, to not be sent down from heaven!

Ex:People’s unbelief can keep you from doing what God called you to do-b/c we allow the voice of unbelief to be louder the Word of God for courage to do His will.(faithless/religious people don’t know we are sent to serve and bless them)

–They don’t know that they are trying to bound their “Liberator”-their unbelief not only tries to destroy Jesus’ mission, in doing so they destroy their own help…

-this is why it is so important to be courageous and stand for your own freedom in Christ-b/c not everyone is believing in you, and you can’t let their unbelief dictate your confidence to trust God, (not only for your own sake, but their sake too!)

Ex:  If you are a Christian and have lost confidence in a person b/c they have failed-forgiveness lets people be free AND grow….God forgives us in mercy for our sins so we can be free and grow…

If they believed in Him, they would benefit from Jesus’ relationship with the Father-but because they don’t, they miss out on the experience of eternal life in Him (relationship, not just heaven)

 

When freedom calls are we listening?

John 6:43-45–Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves.  44 No one can come to meunless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.  45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Fathercomes to me

-Jesus seems to give them relief not to worry about believing in Him, because it is not up to them!-PH thoroughly explained this doctrine, that God chooses to put faith in our heart or draws us to Him.  (So to some people the gospel will sound like bondage, while to some it will sound like great freedom because you are chosen)

2 Corinthians 2:15-17-For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.Who is sufficient for these things?

(vs45)–Jesus explains how this “drawing from the Father” happens through “hearing and learning”-so we all “audibly hear” but all do not hear what the Spirit is saying that provokes us to obey…(this is why you can hear sermon after sermon and never come to real saving faith, just religious and perishing) 

Romans 10:17–So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

–Hearing in this context, implies hearing with the desire to obey-we don’t grow from hearing sermons or religiously reading the Word b/c we have no heart to obey it, (instead of responding to it as a call freedom, we stay in our bondage)

(guess who gives you the heart to hear and learn from the Father)

–In other words, God gives what the Bible refers to as a “heart of flesh” that we hear the Word and it is delightful-but a hard heart doesn’t see it as delightful and resist the Word and the freedom in Christ it offers!

Hebrews 4:2-For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them,because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

–So if some people are benefiting from the Words of Christ and coming to faith-while others are not growing…the problem is not the “food”, the problem is the heart of the recipients...(God possibly hasn’t opened their heart to hear it)

–So since God is doing all the work to give us a heart to obey-what causes us to neglect His Word and stay in our own ways and not grow in freedom?

Conclusion: Confirming that we are a new creation: 

John 6:46-50–not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.  47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.  48I am the bread of life.  49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.  50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

-(in the wilderness)-Jesus contrast what others ate from God in a time to sustain their physical hunger-so the food they ate was not from seeking, but complaining, and no faith that God would provide, and God met their needs anyway…

-Jesus refers to himself as the bread of life, not simply to sustain physical hunger and need-but to go beyond the physical to the spiritual, that not everyone yearns for! (That if God doesn’t give us what we want physically, will we leave?)

Ex: some people, like those who saw the feeding of the five thousand miracle-wanted to make Him King, because he provided physical needs…(Jesus called them out, knowing their motives as to why they followed Him, it wasn’t spiritual hunger.)

-To settle to use Jesus just for provisions that are physical, is to not want Jesus at all, but what He can give-But staying with Jesus when what He offers is beyond the physical, is to make Him our Bread–(even when it makes us sacrifice our own understanding and comfort-is to say I want freedom and life, versus comfort and bondage…)

-The people who wanted Jesus as a supplier of their physical needs only, they left Him, and He let them go!-because He was sent to be more than that, He was sent to be Life,

-Jesus didn’t compromise and lower Himself to be some spiritual Santa Clause-their lack of thirst for spiritual things didn’t redefine His passion to do what He was called to do, He moved on-Ex:are you allowing people to make you settle for less than God called you to be? are you making yourself less thanthat?

-It takes a real conversion experience to deny what others would settle for-God calls His people to be satisfied in Him b/c that is freedom…like Abraham who couldn’t settle for this world, with the reality of losing friends and family affirmation

Hebrews 11:9-10-By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tentswith Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Challenge:  Do you have a vision that makes God’s purpose the goal?-then He must be the bread of life b/c nothing or no one else can satisfy that goal…(Or have you enabled a system, that tries to fulfill it’s hunger with temporary/physical things while given an eternal call?)

We are in a temporary life (in tents) with an eternal call (city of God)-trying to make Jesus a provider for temporary needs is not to have Him as Lord and Life...(many people can come along and satisfy physical desires, but only Christ can free us from bondage and give us freedom and life)