Know Truth

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to Legacy of Freedom. I'm your host, Eric. This is my wife Angela. We're glad that you joined us. Today we're going to be talking about freedom. Jesus is speaking to his disciples. The Bible says that Jesus said to the people who believed in him. So John chapter 8, verse 31, Jesus said to the people who believed in him, You're truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. But we're descendants of Abraham, they said. What do you mean you will be set free? Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. So if the son sets you free, you are truly free. Jesus is uh he's having a discourse with people who believe it in him, and he is telling them, If you remain faithful to my teachings, you are my disciple, and you will know the truth, and the truth will produce freedom in your life. And he goes on to tell us, whoever is sinning is a slave to sin. And you know, if you believe in Jesus and you're born again, you become a disciple. But the old things that you are behaviors that you had in the past, you have full ability to keep doing those things. Now the good news is once we're born again, the Holy Spirit comes in and he will convict us of sin. And you know, when we're convicted of sin, we don't want to do that, we don't want to uh we don't want to grieve God. So we obey the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yes, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He reveals things in us that we don't know or not be may not be aware that they're there. But the truth he's talking about, you shall know the truth, as he's talking about, you shall know me. As we look in John 14, verse 6, it says, Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So the truth he's speaking of is you shall know the truth. They needed a deeper revelation of Jesus, of who Jesus was when he was talking to them in John chapter 8.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah. Well, I mean, he truth is a person.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

And so Jesus is God incarnate, he is he is God made flesh, dwelt among us, and he's showing us who the Father is. The Father, uh, I think in this in 1 John, it says that that God there is no darkness in God, He is truth, and there there's nothing hidden about God's character. It's revealed in the Word of God that He is light and there's no darkness in Him at all.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

He says, You shall know the truth. And then in 14, chapter 14, he's saying that I am the truth. Jesus. So it's going back to that relationship. Because if you look in the New Testament, a lot of those were Pharisees he was talking to. Not just his disciples, but some of the Pharisees, it was like they knew the law. So, well, you know, they've been taught the law since they were young. But they lacked the relationship, the one-on-one intimacy with God. And so once they would get that, they would they would want to please God. They would want to obey his commandments. Because when you look down in verse 15 of chapter 14, he's talking about if you love me, then you will keep my commandments. So he's he's saying that if you if you have a relationship with me, then you will love me, then you will keep his commandments. And he says in verse 18, I will not leave you as orphans, but I will come to you. So it's all about a relationship. And when you have that relationship, you're more open to pleasing and doing what God really wants instead of having a list of do's and don'ts and just going through the motions and trying to do that with do's and don'ts.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, and if you live outside of the covenant, outside of the relationship with Jesus, it's an estranged relationship. For instance, if you're a married couple, you come home in the evening time, you enjoy the fellowship with your spouse, you desire to be with them. I mean, it's not a weekend relationship. I understand people have to work and they have prolonged periods where they may be away from the home, but I mean they they still stay in contact. They call when they can, they they they're connected in the best way possible. And so when we are coming to the kingdom of God, we are connected. Like Angela said, Jesus is the vine. We're the branches, we get our our substance from him, we get our life from him. Just as a branch that is cut off has no life in it. If we're part away from Jesus, we have no life flowing into us. So we cut we remain connected, and how do we remain connected is by his word abiding in us and us abiding in his word.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

And so that's what he was actually bringing out to those people who believed him. He said, if you continue obeying my commandments, then you are truly my disciples. You won't be a slave to sin.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

But when we begin to not obey Jesus' commandments, then we we digress. We gravitate back to that old life of this is the way I've done it. And let's just be honest. When we are born again, we're a new creature in Christ. Old things are passed away. All things are becoming new, but still there is the ability that you can transgress what God's desire for you is. You can go back and, you know, you can you make choices. If you if you want to not forgive someone, God's not going to make you forgive. You have to be willing to forgive.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

It's an act of your own will, your own choice. Yeah. And people in bondage are a slave to that sin. They may not realize it, but they are. They are a slave to it, to whatever they do. And it's like they have no control over that area in their lives. It's being controlled by that sin.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah. And I'm reminded the Apostle Paul said he he said he would not be under bondage to anything. He had liberty, but he wouldn't allow that liberty to make him a slave to that. Uh, he said he was a slave to Christ. And he would not allow anything, no matter if it was good, you know, there's things that are that are not bad, but it bec it can become an idol in your life, and it can separate you from God. So I mean, you know, Jesus is saying, if you obey my commandments, what was one of his commandments?

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Love your neighbor as yourself.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah. And then he goes in a others. He goes in a deeper, a deeper place with that. He says, It was written that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But he said, I say, love those who persecute you. And he says, if your enemy is hungry, feed them. We have to remain as disciples, as sons of God, is to honor what our Father is asking us to do. And Jesus, everything he told us was what his father stood for, what he said.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Yes, it was.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

And he says, Be faithful to my teachings, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Now, there's a lot of people that believe things that are not true about themselves.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah, that yeah, that's why you have to have a personal relationship with Jesus. So if there's anything there, yeah, he'll reveal it to you by the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Yeah. I mean, but you think about it. The devil is a master manipulator. He's a liar. Yeah. And so he comes against our minds, right? That's one of the things he says. Well, you're not really saved. He's tried that with everybody that's been saved. You're not really saved. But he that has the Son has life. When you understand that truth, you may fall short as a follower of Christ. That doesn't give us a license to sin. But let's say you struggle with some unforgiveness against someone, and you're praying through that. You're saying, God, I know you want to, I know you want me to forgive them. I'm really struggling with that. But God, I want to forgive. God, you know what happened, and it's difficult, but Lord, and there's days, man, when you like, I don't want to forgive. Let's be honest. There's days when like, I just don't want to forgive. I'm tired of trying to forgive. But you are making a choice saying, God, I I put them in your hands. I put that in your hands. And the truth, when you get the truth, is that Jesus not only died for your sins, but he suffered for your healing. By his stripes you are healed. And so when you understand that truth, yeah, there were some wounds, but Jesus' stripes were for your healing. Not only your physical healing, but your emotional healing, right? Your spiritual healing. And so the whole person, spirit, soul, and body, Jesus wants to be whole. And if we don't forgive, then there's a wound, and you know that wounds have to have healing. And so if that's if that's not being taken care of, what happens is it's detrimental to the whole person. When you understand the truth of Jesus Christ, you won't wrestle with what he asks you to do because you understand that as you put your faith in him and you follow Jesus, there is a positive outcome as we obey him.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

God's good and his word is true. So when he asks us to obey, there is a result from that. So just kind of keep that in your in your mind that everything that God asks you to do, there is a purpose and there is a reward and there's an outcome. So we're just going to be talking about freedom over the next maybe couple of podcasts anyway, and kind of dig down deep to see, am I really free indeed? Because if I'm a child of God, if I'm born again, I should be experiencing freedom.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Let's pray. Father, we just thank you today that you are the one who sets the captives free. We thank you, Lord, that you're the one that sought us out, Lord, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, when we couldn't help ourselves, Lord, you moved and saved us. God, we thank you for drawing us to Jesus. Thank you for giving us your truth. And Lord, I pray for those that are listening today that they would definitely walk in the truth, that they would have life abundant and peace without measure. We thank you for this, Lord, and we give you all the praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, until we meet again, we hope you have a blessed week. And uh remember, live in such a way that you leave a legacy for others to follow in your footsteps to Jesus. We'll see you next time.