Deo Gloria
Sermon for October 30, 2022
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: John 8:31-36
Theme: Hold on to Jesus’ Teachings!
- Then you will know the truth.
- And the truth will set you free.
Have you ever done a garage sale? We’ve done a few of them over the years, some on our own, some together with friends of ours. The good thing about garage sales is that you get rid of stuff you don’t need anymore, things that have just sort of accumulated over the years. Some things, of course, are easy to part with: an old set of tires, an old set of dishes, certain clothes that don’t fit anymore. But that isn’t true of everything. While some things are easy to get rid of, others can be very hard to part with. Maybe it’s a little coat or outfit that your son or daughter wore as a baby. Maybe it’s some of your spouse’s clothes, your spouse that recently went home to heaven. Maybe it’s an old pair of shoes or an old baseball glove. You pull it out of the closet or out a storage box and you’re just not ready to put it on the rummage sale pile, so you turn around and put it back. You just can’t do it. You just can’t get rid of it. Or maybe it happened that your spouse took something of yours and put it out among the garage sale items. And when you noticed it out there, you went out and brought it back in. Some things you just can’t get rid of. Some things you hold on to.
Jesus isn’t talking about garage sale items in the verses of our text today. He would agree, however, that there are certain things you and I will want to hang on to, certain things we will not want to get rid of or let go of: specifically the teachings of his Word. “Hold on to them,” he urges. Hold on to Jesus’ teachings. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
Jesus was speaking to a crowd of people at the temple in Jerusalem. As was often the case, there were people present who were not ready to listen to what Jesus had to say. There were Pharisees there and others too who did not believe in Jesus, who challenged him and questioned him and, as John records later on in this chapter, even tried to stone him. And yet, there were other people in this crowd who did listen to what Jesus had to say, who took it to heart and believed. These are the ones Jesus is speaking to in the first two verses: “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’”(vv. 31+32).
“If you hold to my teaching….” The word that Jesus uses here is a word that means “to remain, to stay” somewhere. It’s the same word Jesus used in John ch. 15, where he used the illustration of the vine and the branches, where he emphasized to his disciples how important it was for them to remain in him, to stay connected to him. Here he says it a little bit differently. Instead of telling them to remain in him, he tells them to remain in his teachings, in his Word. In other words, Jesus doesn’t want us to let go of the teachings of his Word. He doesn’t want us to change them or walk away from them. He wants us to remain in them.
Where we lived in Michigan at the beginning of my ministry there were quite a number of Christian Reformed churches. In fact, the seminary of the Christian Reformed Church was located in Grand Rapids, about an hour north of where we lived. Back in the early 90s their seminary made a startling announcement. They announced that they were no longer going to be teaching that God created the world. They had come to the conclusion that the Biblical account of creation was only a story or legend that conflicted with science. And since the evidence for evolution was so overwhelming, they now were going to teach evolution instead of creation. Naturally that caused quite a stir in the Christian Reformed churches. It was very disturbing to many of their members. Their seminary was giving up the Biblical teaching of creation.
Today the hot topic in many Christian churches, the issue that is disturbing many Christians in the pew, is gender identity and transgenderism. And again, the disturbing trend we see in many churches is how willing they are to give up what the Bible teaches about sexuality, that God made only two sexes, male and female. You’re either one or the other, and you don’t get to choose. Many churches are now teaching that you can choose your own sexuality and can change your sex if you want to. It’s fine. It’s fine with God and we should accept it.
This is not what Jesus had in mind when he spoke the words of our text, that we compromise his teachings, that we change them, that we give them up in favor of popular opinion or man-made ideas—just the opposite. Jesus wants us to hold on to his teachings, to stick to what his Word says, to keep on believing it and keep on teaching it. Whether it’s creation or human sexuality, whether it’s baptism or what he says about Judgment Day, Jesus wants us to hold on to his teachings.
When Jesus tells us to “remain” in his teaching or to “remain” in his Word, he’s implying something else as well. More than simply holding on to the teachings of his Word, Jesus also wants us to spend time in his Word, to read and study God’s Word on our own and together with our families, because that’s what keeps us connected to him. Eating pepperoni pizza and chocolate chip cookies does not keep us connected to Jesus. Sitting in front of the TV and watching the Vikings game does not keep us connected to Jesus. Talking on your cell phone or checking your Facebook page isn’t going to keep you connected to Jesus. God’s Word is what keeps us connected to Jesus, what feeds and nourishes and strengthens our faith, what gives us the strength to hold on to Jesus and his teachings, even when the rest of the world is saying, “Give it up.” No wonder Jesus urges us to remain in, to stay in his Word. He says it because he knows we need it. As true disciples of Jesus, remain in his Word. Hold on to his teachings.
A number of years ago it was quite common to see stories in the news about investors who lost their shirts as a result of some corporate scandal. Those investors were lied to. They were deceived. They were told the company was doing fine and profits were on the rise when actually the company was going down the tubes. And when the truth finally came out and the company’s stock plummeted, many of them lost a lot of money, in some cases everything they had saved for retirement. If only the people at the top had been honest with them! If only they had known the truth!
Well, what is true in the world of investing and finance is also true when it comes to spiritual matters. How devastating it would be for us on Judgment Day if we found out that the things we had believed in, the things we had pinned our hopes on for eternity, were nothing more than lies and half-truths! We’d end up losing a lot more than just our shirts. We’d lose our souls. So how can we be sure that we’re not being misled, that the things we believe are not a bunch of lies and half-truths? Jesus tells us in these verses: “If you told to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth”(31-32).
As the Son of God, Jesus knows the truth. He knows the truth about God, who the true God is and who he isn’t. Jesus knows the truth about the origin of the world and the universe. Jesus knows the truth about mankind, about our relationships with one another and our relationship with God. Jesus knows the truth about morality and standards of right and wrong. Jesus knows the truth about heaven and how to get to heaven. Jesus knows the truth. And he tells us the truth in his Word. So if we want to know the truth, this is where we have to look—not in the paper, not Time magazine, not the Koran, not the book of Mormon, not even the internet. We need to look to God’s Word and hold on to Jesus’ teachings. Then we will know the truth.
That is especially true when it comes to the most important truths of all: who Jesus is and how we get to heaven. There are so many lies and half-truths out there about Jesus. Some religions teach that he is only a prophet—no different from Moses or Isaiah. Some religions say that he is only a good teacher or good moral leader, someone who taught people how to get along and how to love their neighbors. Others teach that he is the Savior of the world, but not the only Savior, not the only way to heaven. But that isn’t what the Bible teaches. That isn’t what Jesus himself said. The Bible makes it very clear that Jesus is so much more than a prophet or good teacher. He is the Son of God and the only Savior from sin.
The same is true when it comes to how we get to heaven. Again there are so many lies out there and half-truths. Some teach that you can earn your way to heaven by being good and doing good. Some teach that Jesus made the down payment on your salvation and now you have to take care of the rest. Some teach that if you don’t do enough good works in this life to make it into heaven, you’ll have to suffer for a while in a place called purgatory to pay off the rest of your sins, and after that you can go to heaven. That isn’t what the Bible teaches. That isn’t what Jesus himself said. The Bible makes it very clear that you and I cannot make it to heaven on our own, no matter what we do or how hard we try. We are saved by grace through faith, not by what we do.
Jesus also makes that very clear in the second part of our text:
They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now 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.”(vv. 33-36).
Some of the people in the crowd did not like what Jesus said about being set free, and they objected to it. In their opinion they were already free. They were descendants of Abraham. They already knew the truth about God and the way to get to heaven. They weren’t deceived like the Gentiles. They didn’t worship a bunch of lifeless idols. They were members of God’s chosen people. How could Jesus say, or at least imply, that they were still slaves and needed to be set free?
Because they were. They were slaves. It didn’t matter if they were descendants of Abraham. It didn’t matter if they were members of God’s chosen people. They were slaves to sin. And they needed someone to set them free. “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”
And the same is true of you and me. We too are slaves. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a member of the church all your life. It doesn’t matter if your great great grandfather was a founding member of the church or your grandfather helped build the church. You’re still a slave. “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” Is there anyone here who does not sin? I guess that settles it then. We all are slaves.
And you know what that means, right? Slaves don’t have a permanent place in the family. Back in Jesus’ day slaves would come and go. The owner of the house might keep them around for 10 years or maybe 20 or maybe 30, but then he would generally get rid of them and get some different slaves. Slaves never had a permanent place in the family.
Jesus, of course, is not saying anything about the rightness or wrongness of that practice. He’s simply using it to illustrate a point: Slaves don’t have a permanent place in the family—in God’s family. And if you and I are slaves, then we don’t have a permanent place in the family either—in God’s family. When our time in this life is over, we will not be welcomed into the Father’s house and receive the inheritance of eternal life, because we are slaves. Instead we will be banished to the slave quarters, to eternal death and suffering in hell—unless someone sets us free. But can anyone do that? Can anyone set us free from sin and death?
It would have to be someone who was never a slave himself, someone who never sinned, someone who always did what was good and right. Someone like that could set us free. Besides that, it would have to be someone who could take away our sins, someone who could cancel them out and break sin’s power over us. Someone like that could set us free.
And that someone is Jesus. As the sinless Son of God, Jesus lived a holy, sinless life. He never was a slave to sin. And by his suffering and death on the cross he offered a perfect payment for all our sins and broke sin’s power. Jesus, the Son, has set us free. So you and I—we’re not slaves anymore, people who don’t have a permanent place in God’s family. Now we’re sons of God and daughters of God, people who do have a permanent place in God’s family, people who will be welcomed into the Father’s house with open arms and who will receive the promised inheritance of eternal life in heaven. This is that central truth which Scripture teaches over and over again. This is the truth that Martin Luther rediscovered in his study of God’s Word 500 years ago, the truth that he proclaimed and championed throughout his life and that became the centerpiece of the Lutheran Reformation: not that we have or can set ourselves free, but that Jesus, the Son, has set us free, that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus.
Do you see how important Jesus’ teachings are? Do you see how important it is to hold on to them and to remain in his Word? This is not an old hat that we’re talking about or an old set of dishes, something we might get rid of someday in a rummage sale. Jesus’ teachings are something we want to hang on to. Jesus’ teachings are something we don’t ever want to get rid of. Hold on to Jesus’ teachings! Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Amen.