Remain standing, please, and turn to John chapter 8, verses 31 to 47, and it is in your pew Bibles also, if you're using those, on page 894 as printed in the bulletin. First, then, John chapter 8, verse 31, picking up from our scripture reading last week, and we'll go through verse 47 with the chosen theme text in the middle of this scripture reading, verse 39. This is the very Word of God. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham, and have 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 commits 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. I know that you are offspring of Abraham and 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 heard from your father. They answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said 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. Jesus said to them, 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 is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the death, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning. and has nothing to do with 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? 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. God. May the Lord enable us to be rebuked and encouraged by these words, bold words, from our Savior in Jesus' name. Once again, turn over, if you will, to the other side of the worship page. You'll find an outline. The theme, Abraham's children, focusing on verse 39, a passage we have just read in detail. Let's pray again for God's blessing. Lord, teach us again your word. May we not be so proud to think that we have nothing more to learn. In fact, we need to acknowledge that we have so far to go, even if you have started us on that road. We pray that you will enable us to trust you and continue to know that you are the only one to save us from our sins. In Jesus' name, amen. We live for about 17 years in the southern portion of our country, and much of that portion of our country is the Bible Belt. We've lived a couple of places in North Carolina. Once we were in Charlotte, another time we were in Lenore, which is the foothills of the mountains in North Carolina. And there are a lot of hollers up there in the mountains, places where you can't reach very easily, a lot of dirt roads, a lot of isolated communities. But you also have a lot of little country churches also. Up in the mountains of Caldwell County, I went one day to visit somebody who had come to visit the church in Lenore. And he and I were walking along these dirt roads, and we met a man with a couple of dogs. And one of the questions you can always ask somebody if you're exploring someone's faith in need of a Savior is the simple question, are you a Christian? Now, I'm going to quote this roughly, not exactly, but to give you the idea. He said, my mother was a Christian. My grandmother is a Christian. And blankety blank if I'm not a Christian too. And you can fill in the blanks. The idea is I'm an American, I'm a Southerner, and I'm a Christian. They all go together and that's what I am. Now I couldn't help but think as I talked to this man that he was probably what we might call a nominal Christian. That is a Christian in name or perhaps you might say a Christian in culture. That's a lot of what we are seeing here in this passage. It helps us, I think, to understand that there's kind of a culture among the Jews of being children of Abraham and followers of God just by being identified as Jews. Jesus even acknowledges this culture when he says, you are offspring of Abraham. You might even put that in quotes. That is, as they would see it, they are physical descendants of Abraham, these Jews, and yet their murderous desires were being expressed right then and there. This is not too different, in a way, from imagining that you were born in England, maybe the 19th century, let's say. You would be a citizen of the British Empire, but you would automatically be a member of the Church of England. I'm English, and I'm a Christian. I'm a part of the Church of England. And of course you know the emptiness, or you may know the emptiness of those churches. And they are actually empty. There's nobody there. So often. But people have been thinking to themselves, we are Christian. The same thing can happen if we imagine that we are part of a Christian nation and therefore are Christians ourselves. There's a great danger in that Bible belt or American Christian mentality that says just by being here or just by having a label, just by thinking of ourselves in a certain way, that's what we automatically become. Jesus would warn therefore not only the Pharisees but all of us lest we fall into that kind of nominal faith or faith in name only. Abraham's children do exist, but they exist whether they be Jews or Gentiles or bond or free, they exist as they follow Abraham in following Christ. Notice the Pharisees to say the least are not following Christ. If you notice this context, things are heating up and Jesus is helping. Notice that he came reluctantly, but on purpose, not in public to these feasts in Jerusalem. But when he got there, he began to cause the kind of stir that would provoke the crisis that would lead him to the cross, which is where he meant to go. He meant to be crucified, and yet there was a murderous intent behind those who are insisting on crucifying him more and more. And if you're thinking Jesus is walking into danger and causing danger, you'd be right. Wasn't your breath taken away by the words of Jesus to these allegedly spiritual leaders? Just the audacity to say, your father is the devil. You are following him. No wonder they raged at him and gnashed their teeth. and hated him all the more. He did not do what they wanted and they certainly didn't receive his words clearly, even though they were totally true. Jesus asserts the claim of lordship on all of Abraham's true children. And you can see that in verse 39. They answered him, Abraham is our father. That's their claim to sonship. That's what they say by virtue of physical descent. The only problem is, verse 40 says, 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. So what Jesus is saying is if you are sons of Abraham, and there actually was a figure of speech that was used commonly in the Hebrew language particularly, to be the son of someone didn't mean to be physically descended from someone necessarily. It was a figure of speech that meant you are like that person or you are destined to be like that person. You are the son of perdition, for example, is one who was born of perdition or destined for condemnation And the son of Abraham, therefore, would mean someone who is like Abraham. Now, we use the same kind of terminology with regard to physical sons. We say, my son is a chip off the old block. That may not necessarily be all that good, but it might be true. There is something about my son that reminds me of myself. Don't you say that to yourself? And that's true in this case. That's what Jesus is talking about. You are the chip off the old block. Not of Abraham, but of somebody else. They claimed sonship by natural descent, but their true sonship was questionable. Really being like Abraham is the question. Here you are like Abraham, but you want to kill the one who is sent to you? I am telling you the truth from God." Is that what Abraham would do? Kill someone who tells him the truth? Just think about some of the things that happened in what you might call the pinnacle of Abraham's existence and demonstration of his true faith in Genesis 22. Very familiar passage, we just read it, just so you remember it. The first thing Abraham did is he trusted God's Word. He immediately got up and did, well, what seemed to be unthinkable. The one that was delivered to him after waiting and waiting and waiting and wondering and trying all kinds of alternatives, but finally the promised son, Isaac, was born of Sarah as God had promised would happen. Though they were beyond childbearing years, it still happened. This very one, God says, take him and offer him up as a sacrifice and Abraham went and did it. Now what we learn in Hebrews, is that Abraham did this by faith. It's not as though he had any strength in himself. He couldn't raise the dead. He couldn't figure out what God was doing, but he said, you know, God must know what he's doing. I have learned that. Finally, God must know what he is doing. And so if God says so, in Hebrews it actually says, he reasoned by faith. He thought, this is the son of the promise. If I actually have to kill the son of the promise, the son of the promise has to still exist. How do you have someone die and yet still be alive? Well, between death and life there must be something like resurrection. Making life where there was death. Now that is miraculous reasoning. Isn't it as though you see people rise from the dead every day? And neither did he. This is not the age in which Abraham lived in which God was doing all kinds of miracles as he did, for example, in the age of the Exodus. Although there were amazing things happening, as we'll talk about in a minute, certainly God speaking to him ought to be amazing enough. But he still said things that would be hard to believe. And yet he trusted God's Word to the point of expecting resurrection. Would you have expected resurrection if you had to plunge the knife? He trusted God's Word. Were the Pharisees trusting God's Word? Of course not. They didn't believe what God said in His Word. That all we like sheep have gone astray. that God would provide one who would die in substitution for sin. That's what the whole ceremonial law was about. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins and the blood of bulls and goats doesn't take away sin and therefore we must look to someone who is higher than that to shed his own blood. And why? Because we are sinners and that too is something that Abraham learned. It was hard for him. He sinned frequently and audaciously. And yet by faith he finally learned to say, by faith I'm going to do what God says. I'm going to offer my son if I have to. But you know what he said? God will provide a sacrifice, a lamb for the sacrifice of my son. There it is again. Incredible, insightful, sharp faith. God's going to provide whatever it is. You think God can't do something? Well, problem is, the answer is often for us, I'm not really sure he can do that. And here we are, seeing Abraham, so ancient as he was, saying, God will provide the only sacrifice, my son. He knew that God would provide a sacrifice. He trusted in the Christ to come. And that glorious picture of the ram caught in the thicket taking the place of the death of his son and by token the one who would eventually come to take our place and to die in our place upon the altar of the cross. It was dimly seen but it was seen nonetheless. We might even say it was pretty clear to him. Why? Because of his faith. We could go on. Abraham welcomed God's messengers in Genesis 18. When God sent his word to him, he believed it. They would have welcomed in Jesus' day any other messenger than Jesus himself. There were lots of messengers, scribes, teachers of the law. They honored their own teaching, but they didn't honor God's teaching. That, of course, was an aspect of their Pharisaism, and they didn't do what Abraham did. They did not understand Abraham. But here they are saying, we're just like him. I mean, well, we're his children. They weren't just like him. Now, of course, that question comes to us, too, and it's a very piercing one. If Jesus were on earth today, would you have shut him out? Would you have been among the scribes and the Pharisees if you were part of the visible church at that time, part of the community of Israel? Would you not recognize him? Would he condemn you? It can happen to people in the church today. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. That's what Jesus says in Matthew chapter seven. Now, when you know something that God has given you to know, it's a dangerous thing. For to whom much is given, much is required, as Jesus says it. It happened that way in the Old Testament. O people of Israel, you only have I known of all the families of the earth you have been given privileges. Tremendous privileges. I brought you up out of the land of Egypt. I gave you the law. I gave you miracles. I gave you the Word of God. I gave you the promise of the Savior. You only have I given those things of all the families of the earth. And then he says in Amos chapter 3, in prediction of judgment, therefore I will punish you. for all your iniquities, that is, if you reject those things that you have heard. That's why it's a danger to know the Scripture in a way. It has to make a difference in your life. You have to respond by faith. If you don't respond by faith, you could have seen that if you were listening or looking, but you didn't. And that's what Jesus says. It's a horrifying indictment. We have to ask ourselves that same question. Is the Lord Jesus the center of your heart and godly affection? Do his commands have a place in your life? Or do you say, ah, never mind? Do you like to take your own vengeance? Insult your wife? Snap at your children? Ignore your husband? I don't care what the sin is. Is it something you go, well, that's okay. I had a right to do that. Or, when you sin, are you humbled? Are you horrified? Do you confess and ask forgiveness for your sins? It's that simple. But it's not easy because we won't do it apart from the grace of God. In other words, you act like you are godly or you're ungodly ancestors. Who is your father? Who is your father? This is amazing because, of course, by birth we are of our father the devil, and we better admit that. This is pretty hard to do, isn't it? Don't we usually think, ah, you know, I'm a pretty good person. We love to do that. Just look at, I don't know, I can imagine people that are worse, I guess, if I weren't really thinking about my heart. But you could do that, and it happens all the time. And therefore, Jesus is saying, who do you think you are? And this is what the Jews were saying about themselves. We think we are our father the devil, I mean, Father Abraham, sorry. And Jesus says, I don't think so. How do we know? Because they didn't listen to Jesus. Pharisees protected themselves from scrutiny by attacking the righteousness of others, the sins of others, and blinding themselves and declaring others or making them blind, many times the sons of the devil as they were, according to Jesus. Now, what is it about the devil that's so terrible? Well, first of all, he's a murderer, and second of all, he's a liar, not necessarily in that order. You look at the Garden of Eden, he lies. And he gets Eve to believe him, and then they die. A murderer and a liar from the beginning, it says in verse 44. There is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character. He is by very nature a liar, whereas God is by very nature a truth teller. And that is why Jesus is by His very nature the truth and the life. Get it? He speaks the truth and He gives life. The devil lies to you and kills you. You want to follow that lie that the devil leads you into life? Not all men are the sons of God. It was a common thing in old liberalism to say that there is a universal fatherhood of God and a universal brotherhood of man. What they meant was, don't worry. Everything will work out okay in the end. We're not all that bad. And God will see to it that sin is just brushed away by waving of the hand, because after all, we're his children. Well, we are created by God, but we are not by nature his children. We are by nature children of wrath. even as the rest, as Paul says. That means we deserve it. It's depressing, isn't it? Abraham's children, every one of us, are slaves to sin. Even if we were to commit a single sin, which is, of course, a huge understatement, but what Jesus says is sin in general. Anyone who commits sin in general, in verse 34, is a slave to sin. You can't help it. You just do it. But you choose to do it too because your will is polluted by sin. This is what I want to do. Leave me alone. Now the Pharisees were actually saying that to God by rejecting Jesus. They were unable to hear, it is true, because their father the devil was a liar and he believed the lies. They believed the lies. He is a master of doublespeak. He still works out today in that way. You ever think of that word pro-choice? meaning pro-abortion, but because I choose it, that's what ratifies it. Really? That ratifies anything that you might want to do? People are not consistent about that, but it's an elevation, a kind of a deification of your own will. Because I want to do it, I will do it. Leave me alone. I have the courage of my convictions about that, somebody said. But what if your convictions are wrong and you're just bullheaded? That could be the real meaning of your determination to do what you want to do. You're unable to hear, and you're hateful of Christ by nature. You've got to start confessing that. The devil is a murderer. The devil hates God. He hates his children. That's why the one who hates his brother is a murderer, and the truth is not in him. At the fall, the devil lied to Eve, hated God and his children, and they fell into sin and death. And thus the rest of history could be seen as a conflict between God's seed and the seed of the devil in Genesis 3.15. And a great acting out of the reality of the woman and the dragon in Revelation 12. No wonder the Pharisees seem to be so insanely focused upon killing Jesus. Wouldn't you think they might just ignore him? He's nothing. Why should we bother? Oh no, he's a threat to us. Jesus calls them the sons of the evil one and the sons of hell. Of course, you're a child of whatever it is that obsesses you. What is your obsession? Try to answer that honestly if you possibly can. What is your obsession? To serve the devil, to protect yourself, to do what you want, to feel good, or to serve the Lord? Which is it? Jesus says, in astonishment almost, which of you convicts me of sin if I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Well, it's obvious. We don't want to believe that about ourselves. It's too humiliating. And yet the solution is salvation by grace, a grace that reveals the truth to you and enables us to be sorrowful over our sins and to love the one whom we once hated because he loved us first. Love to those who once hated him. Satan says, you can see even though you're really blind. And God says, well, you're blind, but I'm going to give you sight. Do you admit your particular sin? Again, if I may refer to my sojourn in the South. Every once in a while, I preach a message and somebody would come up to me after the sermon, and this is a compliment. You've done stopped preaching and gone to meddling." It means, I was comfortable before I walked in here, but now I'm not so sure. You have put your finger on a sore spot. That hurts. It's like the Nevada evangelist, as the story goes, who preached very deliberately against sin. And they come up to him and said, you know what? We'd only prefer you preach on certain sins. How about against the sins of the Indians. They need preaching against divorce and drunkenness and gambling and they don't even go to church. That's safe. Don't preach to the church-going folk. You've done stopped preaching and gone to meddling. Jesus did that, didn't he? He just went right for the heart. Good thing Jesus has compassion for sinners. He comes to us and says, come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. Come if you are slaves to sin. God's grace comes through Christ and we must focus our attention upon not only who He is and what He has done, but what He has said and what He says to us. The devil is a lying deceiver, and Jesus is a truthful word-bringer. He says that over and over again. I tell you the truth, or verily, verily, or truly, truly, I say to you. He says it again and again. If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. What is that? By faith, of course. Listening to what I have to say. And verse 55. If I were to say to you that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word, a truthful word bringer, even if it offends people. And secondly, he is a sinless life giver. The devil is a sinful death giver. He deals out death like cookies and we eat it up. Jesus brings us the word of life and enables us to eat and drink of him and have life. who is the source of life and truth, if it is not God, God himself, in Christ alone. Marvel, we'll see next time, verse 36. Verse 56, your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. Abraham, as we've seen in Genesis 22, actually saw the reality of Christ's work to come. He saw it from afar, it says. died in faith, having not yet received all the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. Is that your goal? For people to know that you are different enough, that you are weird and you are a stranger and you are an exile and you don't fit in around here. That was, of course, the Pharisees goal to fit in and to have everybody fit into what they were saying. But God, by His grace, corrects us and turns us around. Do you trust in that unfailing love of the sovereign God who loved you when you were still a sinner? And when you have to discipline us, do you ever spank your children and they cry? Of course they do. But do they know your love? Yes, they do, ultimately, if their hearts are being humbled by the grace of God. Do you accept pleasant things from the Lord, but not hard things? Are you willing to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Him? God's demand is of faith that trusts Him, of a denial of self that gives up on what we think we must do to make ourselves feel better, and instead turn and lean upon Him. These are hard words, but Jesus says them to all of us, and they are words of life. Repent of your sin. Trust in Christ. He will give you everlasting life. Lord, may we follow not just Abraham, but You. Thank You for Christ. who helps us admit our sin and enables us to do it. And then, Lord, with tears of joy, we look up to you and find you are our faithful Father there all along, seeking to bring us into the paths of life, but the hard way, the way of humility and confession of sin. May we believe our Savior and know He has said things for our own good. And may we trust you throughout our lives, in Jesus' name.