If you are a pastor or lay person who wants to use this to preach in church – that is why I posted it. I don’t care about credit, I only care that God’s word is preached and Christ is glorified. I pray He uses this sermon in a mighty way through you. You have my permission to alter it and use it however God leads you. God bless you in your ministry. You can bookmark this to check out the other free written sermons on my blog. (The four points in this particular sermon are from a sermon I heard by Robert Morris)
You can listen to the actual sermon as given here.
1. Recognize you need help – Jesus is not talking about who is ruling over them, but what is ruling over them.
Even so, they were in such denial that they had even forgotten WHO was ruling over them – They’re saying “We’re Abraham’s descendants, we’ve never been in bondage to anyone.”
They forget they were slaves under Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and they currently answer Rome.
But Jesus’ freedom goes much deeper than that. Zach Williams sings, I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God…. in Hardy Prison. And these men are raising their hands because they are free, even though they are incarcerated.
In the prodigal son parable – Luke 15:17 – And when he came to himself… came to his senses…. Recognized he needed help…
The irony is the older son with with the father the whole time and never recognized his bondage. It’s the difference in the person who is lost and the person sitting in church every Sunday for years. Sometimes its easier to recognize your need when you’re far from God than when you are close to Him.
2. Repent
We often thing repent means to confess. Make no mistake, confession is a part of repentance. But you can confess without repenting. You can even apologize without repenting. Someone can be caught in the act of stealing money and they may confess, they may even apologize, but they have not necessarily repented. Repent as used over and over in the Bible is to turn from the sin. More specifically, the word is Metanoia – change your mind.
Romans 12:2 – Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
There’s a difference between being sorry you got caught and being sorry you did it. The truest repentance occurs when you have not got caught. Things you have in your heart that are not ic knowledge, and you confess those to God and ask Him to forgive you and ask Him to help you turn from those things. Everything is known to Him. There is nothing hidden from Him. As I am typing this, I want to type, “Nothing is hidden from You, Lord.” And sometimes the repentance requires us to apologize to those we have done wrong, even before we go to God. Matthew 5:24 – “leave your offering there at the altar and go. First make peace with your brother, and then come and present your offering.” Going back to the prodigal – the prodigal son confessed to the father, “Father I have sinned against heaven and against you…” The older son never felt the need to repent. In NA, it says “We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.” Can you make amends to all? Not necessarily, but in humility you ask those you harmed for forgiveness. The Bible says in Romans 12:18 – “If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” As much as it is up to you, live at peace with everyone.
3. Renounce the lie of satan –
In the conversation Jesus has in the Scripture we read, They claim Abraham is their father. Jesus said if you were Abraham’s kids, you would do like He did. But you seek to kill me. Abraham never did that. Jesus goes on in John verse 8:44 to say, your father is the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning, you want to kill me so you want to do his desires, not the desires of God.
The devil is a liar, a deceiver, and a counterfeiter. The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion. Do you know who is? Satan.
Every bondage begins with a lie. Satan tells you this or that will make you happy.
Last night I was at the fire hall for a little picnic deal with the other responders. I was the first one to leave, and I got home and a song I like a lot was on Christian radio. I sat in the car and listened to it. I remembered when I was young and would get a new car, or a new to me car, and I would just go sit in the car and listen to the radio. The car was new and I loved it. And it made me happy. No eating in the car. Heaven forbid you drop a french fry between the seats. For a while. Then, it became nothing but a means of transportation. So last night I was sitting in the yellow Hyundai accent remembering in 2009 when we bought it new. And we longed to drive it, but I didn’t want to put the miles on it for the warranty, so we would drive it two blocks to the river and listen to the free XM radio while sitting in the car on the riverbank. It is only a car. Satan makes us believe a new car, the latest iphone, a new house, will fulfill and complete us and he only wants to get us in bondage – in debt. He had the good jews believing their ancestry got them something special. That they were free from bondage. And Jesus reminds them it is only the Son who sets you free. Satan focuses on immediate gratification – cheating on a spouse, impulsive purchases, drugs, alcohol, telling people how you feel, church or societal standing.
In a great quote from John Piper, he says –
Full freedom is doing what will make you happy in 1,000 years, leaving you with no regrets in eternity.
Liberian pastor at Sistersville – You have so much, but you have so little –
4. Receive the gifts of the Father.
Two parts here – One for the unsaved – Larry Shuck – called someone he knew and asked point blank, “Are you saved?” The guy said, No, but I was thinking about it. Maybe you’re thinking about it today.
In the movie Liar, Liar, Jim Carey plays Fletcher Reede, a lying lawyer. His son makes a birthday wish that his dad would not be able to lie for one day. And the wish comes true. He has court and he can’t lie. He finds out about his sons wish, so he goes to the bathroom to beat himself up and make it look like a mugging so they have to delay court for a day.
The judge asks him what the mugger looked like. Fletcher describes himself. He asks for a continuance until the next day and the judge says, Can you continue today? And he can’t lie, so he says yes, defeating the purpose for beating himself up. So he carries on bloodied and bruised.
If you make it through points 1, 2, and 3, and you do not receive the main gift of the Father, you have done exactly what Fletcher Reede did. You will beat yourself up for nothing. Will you receive today?
Most of you today are saved. God knows you and I are not perfect. Point 4 is GIFTS of the Father. Different areas of your life may be transformed in different areas at different times. You receive salvation, but keep receiving. Keep repenting and keep receiving. Trasformation in marriage, transformation in finances, etc. What is it that the devil wants to use to keep you, who are already saved, what is the devil using to keep you bound? Forgiveness? Finances? Pride? Pornography? Self-righteousness? Comfort?
Extra Notes –
What you love is the pleasure, not the bondage. ~ John Piper
We make the mistake of judging the Word of God instead of acknowledging that we are to judge ourselves by the Word of God.
In seeking the deepest roots of the struggle between the “culture of life” and the “culture of death” …we have to go to the heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man: the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism, which, with its ubiquitous tentacles, succeeds at times in putting Christian communities themselves to the test…producing a kind of progressive darkening of the capacity to discern God’s living and saving presence. ~ Pope John Paul II in 1995
Not about information – about invitation –
Jesus invites you to freedom.
Lincoln slave girl free
Are we a slave to our phones?
Am I a slave to food?
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