If you would turn with me this morning to the book of John chapter 8. This morning we'll look at verses 33 through 36 but as we read let's start at verse 31 to give us some context. Let's John chapter 8 starting at verse 31. This morning hear the word of the one true living God. As we read we're reminded that this is His inspired word that He's given to us.

It's sufficient for all that we need in life and all that we need to know Him. And so this morning as we read, be reminded that it's as if we are hearing the audible voice of God. And so hear the Word of God in John chapter 8, starting at verse 31. It says, So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word then you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free." They answered him, We are Abraham's seed and have never yet 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 the slave of sin. And the slave does not remain in the house forever, the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free you will be free indeed. Let's pray. Heavenly Father again this morning we ponder Your name, Your greatness, Your magnitude, Your glory.

Father, You are the God of all Gods, the one true God. Your sovereignty expounds, it is amongst the entire universe. And Father, even those who raise up their false gods, it is all subject to you and your sovereignty. Your name is great. Father this morning we remembering your glory Remembering your majesty.

Remembering who we are, Father. Those who were once your rebels, your enemies. Father, you have rescued your people. So Father, this morning we come to you again remembering this flesh that we still dwell in and the sins that we still fall into and Father we confess before you that we are a sinful people and even still a needy people. And Father above all we need you.

We need your forgiveness. And as we confess our sins before you, Father we pray and plead and beg for your forgiveness that's found in your son Jesus Christ. So Father we're also reminded of our need of daily bread, of all the things that a fallen world and a corrupt flesh that we are tied to of those things of which we daily need. We're reminded of our sister Alice Mae who's recovering father. We pray that you would continue to draw her to you.

We know that just as we have saying that father you work all things together for the good of those who love you and so Father as we toil as we at times suffer in this world may it be constant reminders that we need to evermore draw near to you and so Father we pray that you would bless her and Father as I ponder this message this morning, and freedom, that God, for your people, you have set us free from the slavery of sin. And you set us free from the ignorance of the blindness that our rebellion has brought upon ourselves. But Father, we're still reminded we need you in this. So Father, would you open our eyes and our ears that we might see and hear, that we might be conformed to the image of your Son. Father, your name would be glorified in the preaching of your word, in the hearing of your word, and in the applying of your word.

Father for your glory we pray that you would draw us to you in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. Well this morning as we continue through the book of John, I realized last Sunday we hit on this verse a little bit in the last point that who the sun makes free is free indeed.

And we tackled some of the misconceptions or the misconception that seems the mainstream finds in this. And this morning, I would like to think more on or to maybe to ponder, why is it that that we we make these misconceptions? Well, specific to this congregation, or at least the congregation that is in the United States of America, we have a view of freedom that most of the rest of the world doesn't have. In fact, you and I, or as I ponder working internationally with people from France, and I remember one of the things the people of France when they would come to America more than once they would share with me that something very much stood out as in America you you all have flags everywhere you have them in your yards and you have them here and there and no doubt it's because we we are patriotic we are thankful to live in the land of the free the land of the free and the home of the brave Even the Statue of Liberty has this inscribed on it. It says, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.

And no doubt this morning, we all, just because of the land that we have grown up in, we have an understanding of freedom. But freedom actually has many different definitions, many aspects of it that sometimes we miss because of the culture that we are in. Most often when as an American we think of freedom, we think of freedom from tyrannical reign. And no doubt that is freedom and we enjoy that freedom. We often think of that when we think of our constitution, that we, the freedoms that the constitution gives us, that we have freedom of the press, that you are free this morning to go to a county meeting and sit in that meeting and then write up an article.

You can say, hopefully you stick with the truth as a believer, but if the truth is offensive to the county leadership or the county politicians, you are still free to publish it and you're free to publish it without fear of being arrested for doing so. That's not true in most of the world. We have freedom of the press. This morning we enjoy freedom of religion though it's been warped in its meaning from the Constitution by our current government who seems to march towards again that of tyranny. This morning we gather together without fear of the government coming through these doors and arresting us.

Without fear of them telling us what we must read or not read, say or not say. And obviously times are changing. It seems that the world would like to drag us always back to this tyranny but it's what we enjoy and so we see in this we often see the freedom of what we can do. We can write, we can publish, we can worship, we can do this. And no doubt in our constitution It does grant us certain things that we can do and it is in fact because of freedom.

But the Bible as we examine this, the Bible also speaks of freedom as to what we don't have to do. And that also is a part of it. There are countries where you have to do, if your parents were shoe fixers, it's likely in those countries you will have to be a shoe fixer. There are countries where you will have to do the job that you are assigned to do. But it's not normal for us to think in that way.

But the Bible speaks of freedom from, or not freedom, let me, the Bible speaks that we're free to not do certain things. And so James Montgomery Boyce, coming back to this topic, he, in his commentary, he points out that when the Bible speaks that we are free, free indeed, that there are two specific things that we are free from. The first he points out is, as we just prayed, that we have freedom from ignorance. If you remember those who aren't in Christ, those who haven't been born again, that they walk in blindness. It's as if they are a blind person walking through a room and just groping through life.

And oftentimes our science apart from the gospel apart from being subject to the Bible is simply that it's mankind groping as he goes to try to figure out what he can figure out and therefore and just as I had a friend this morning as I'm in this weight loss challenge and he says you need to just eat lots and lots of eggs chicken and drink some coffee and I remember as many of you do maybe not you young people when the government warned us severely to don't eat too many eggs. They will kill you. And my son this morning, I won't tell you which one so I don't pick on him, And he says, maybe it was, I think it was this morning, he says, I'm like, oh you're eating cereal, because I don't think cereals a good thing to have. But he says, on the box it says, this is, Cheerios is a heart healthy breakfast. I said, I don't think a load, eating an entire bowl of carbs is probably great for your heart.

Even though the box says though. I'm going off onto the side track but as you and I have all experienced, the world is going to burn up, the oceans are gonna flood the houses, the world is going to freeze, this, don't eat that, this, eat that, don't eat that, eat this. It changes all the time. And you say, but it's, how could it change all the time? It's, it's scientists.

How are they so wrong all the time? And the answer is because they walk in darkness. Their authority isn't the word of God, it's themselves trying to grope in the darkness. But brothers and sisters, this morning when Christ, if the Son has made you free, you will be free indeed and you are free from ignorance. Now our world would understand that in some ways, humanity or culture in the last 200 years, They would understand that the person who maybe, obviously, this morning, if any of you, if say my appendix was hurting and it's about to rupture, I wouldn't look to any of you to cut me open to fix that for me, but I might trust Will to do that, right?

Because he's had lots of training in that and I prefer to go to the one with training, right? The same is true of the economic scale, though I don't think you need college to succeed in life. And in our day, I think it's likely to hurt you in some areas as far as succeeding in life. But if you're not literate, your paycheck is probably going to be less than the one who is. And so we see that correlation and our world has chosen to invest fully in that and push very hard the idea of education And no doubt that there is good in that as far as it's subject to the Scriptures, amen.

The same is true of the Bible. If you are truly in Christ, brothers and sisters, you are set free from the ignorance of spiritual things. But if you would neglect your Bible and choose to remain ignorant, it's an indicator that you are not set free. You're set free from ignorance. And secondly, Martin Lloyd Jones points out, and it's the thing that we hit on last week, and the thing that's very obvious, is that the Bible says we're free from sin.

Not free to sin, but we're actually free to not sin and so this morning I will look at three different aspects of that the first is is the illusion of freedom and verse 33 it says they answered him we are Abraham seed and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? In verse 32 Jesus had just declared, he says you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. The Jewish people respond back with shock. So Jesus says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

The Jewish people respond back with shock and they say we are Abraham's seed, we have never been enslaved, what are you talking about Jesus? And what's that called? What's that response called? It's called selective memory. Amen.

For the Jewish people had been enslaved in Egypt And while they were in Egypt, Moses came and God told Moses to speak to the Pharaoh. And what was Moses to say to the Pharaoh young people? Let my people go. Let my people go. Good job.

Then later they were ruled by judges. Invaded by enemies. I think they were under their enemies like seven times in that time period. Then they were exiled to Babylon. And now in their current state, they are under the thumb of Rome.

So much so under the thumb of Rome that when they look for a messiah and their general idea or general attitude was when the messiah comes he will deliver us from the bondage of Rome. And yet they say, we've never been enslaved to anyone. What are you talking about? Seems like the Pharisees maybe were great, or the Jewish leaders, They were great debaters, but their debating had departed from truth But hear me this morning brothers and sisters religious pride does something disastrous It edits history and it denies bondage. Their claim rested on three false confidences that still live in congregations today.

One of their confidences was in their pedigree. They said, We're Abraham's seed. We have come from the right people. We're covenant stock. We're church folk.

And today we hear people say, well I grew up in church. Maybe it's that I remember sharing the gospel with a young man at the Hamilton School in the gym and he says, well my dad is an elder of the church, I already know about these things. Perhaps today your confidence is that you're reformed or that you're conservative, but brothers and sisters, friends, none of those things save. It's only Jesus Christ who saves. Secondly, they had confidence in their religious performance.

They assumed that on external association that that somehow equals an internal reality. Outward religion can decorate the prison cell of sin, but it cannot unlock the door. So this morning I asked you, is your confidence that you came to church today? Is your confidence that you do nice things for people or maybe give a hitchhiker a ride or treat your neighbor kindly? These young people don't give hitchhikers rides, Don't hear me wrong there.

We should be nice to our neighbor. We should be kind to them. We should be helpful. But religious performance doesn't equal salvation. It can again make a prison cell look better, but it can't unlock the door.

And thirdly, they had confidence in their self-perception. They said, we've never been enslaved. They feel free. Jesus says, but Jesus says they're slaves. Our subjective sense of freedom is a terrible standard of truth.

A man who says and repeatedly says, as we even see in the Word of faith movement today, a man says, goes to the doctor and the doctor says you have cancer and the man says well I'm just going to go out and tell everybody that I'm not sick and hopefully it will go away. But he's not free of dying from cancer. He's deceived. He's not speaking truth. Ponder that brothers, and it's, I wasn't trying to do down the word of faith movement today, but ponder a doctor examining you, finding truth, maybe finding a tumor, maybe he gives you evidence of the tumor, and then you say, but I'm just going to say I'm not sick, and that will fix it.

So you're saying deception is what heals you. Now that's not what they would they would... I don't want to go down that route. One of these days we'll go into more depth of that. To say you're not sick while you're sick isn't freeing you, it's simply deceiving you.

To say you know what I found, what sometimes what religion has caused, and sometimes people's children. Their children have no interest in the church. They really have no interest in their Bibles and yet the parents will say, but I just believe they're saved because of something they did. Brothers and sisters, it's this huge, it's a huge temptation to you to not question that. Because one of the, one of the most, I don't know if hurtful is the right thing, word, one of the hardest things that you can tell a parent is that their child isn't saved.

But yet hear me this morning and you can choose not to you can you're tempted to choose not to and obviously we I'm trying to say this clearly I'm sorry we obviously don't determine, I don't know someone's heart, but I do know their fruit. And I don't want to hurt parents' feelings, But I also would rather them hurt with truth, hurt them with fruit, than I would care to comfort them with a lie. Do you hear me this morning? We don't want to comfort people with lies, even though the fruit might hurt deeply. The Israelites are comforting themselves with lies.

So we've never been enslaved. And since they comfort themselves with this lie, they feel free. Their perception is that they're free. But in reality, they aren't free at all. Brothers and sisters, We're surrounded by people in this world who don't know Christ.

And especially in a country that is founded upon freedom, they feel free. Just this last week I was sharing with someone and they say well I do what I want and I say well you do do what you want that is still the boy talking in you but you do what you want because sin has enslaved you and convinced you that it's what you want. Your feelings say that you do what you want, but in reality, you don't do what you want. Who wants eternal damnation? Who wants to go to hell at the end of the day?

But sin has enslaved you. You feel that you do what you want but it actually isn't doing what you want. In this world we see the same it's how we explain addictions. How many in here want to die from lung cancer? How many in here want to walk 20 feet and be out of breath?

And yet we say I just want another cigarette. Or Hopefully none of you are entrapped in that and I'm not picking on that entirely but but every addiction How many of you say I wish I would just I I would have spent more time with my kids but I really just wanted to watch YouTube every night or play on social media every night. Our world is addicted to this stuff. And as the quote is on work, I doubt that I will ever see a time in the future where I will read, go into a cemetery and read a gravestone that said, if only I spent more time on Facebook. And yet we're, yet those, we can be very easily enslaved.

Sin has a way of convincing us that we're doing what we want. Many today say I'm free, I do what I want. But if what you want is always tilted towards self, sin, lust, bitterness, greed, then your will is chained and it is not free. The proud insistence, I'm fine, is itself a symptom of bondage. Secondly this morning, the reality of slavery in John 834.

Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. Jesus ignores their offended nationalism and goes straight to the heart. Slavery is not first political, it's moral and spiritual. Hear me again this morning. Slavery isn't first political, it's moral and it's spiritual.

Everyone who commits sin, the verb tense points to ongoing practice, the characteristic pattern of life. Jesus is describing humanity in Adam. If this morning you are after your father Adam, you are enslaved to sin. And only those who aren't are those who have been made new through Jesus Christ and so what does it mean to be a slave to sin first is that sin reigns and not merely just happens. Sin is not just a series of unfortunate mistakes, it is a master.

Apart from grace, sin rules how we interpret the world. It bends our desires, it shapes our loves, and all of us aren't neutral in this. You're not basically good with a few quirks. If you're in sin, you are in chains. Secondly, the will is not absent, but it's in bondage.

Let me say that. Let me say it again so you can ponder it. The will isn't absent but it's in bondage. People sin freely, meaning according to their desires, but those desires are fallen. We choose what we love but by nature we love darkness.

In John 3 19 it says and this is the judgment that the light has come into the world and that men love the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil. The reason it plays with the reason why the world feels like it does what it wants is because it actually is doing what it wants. It loves darkness and therefore it does those things that it loves. But thirdly this morning in this text we can't ignore that slavery, it's slavery that leads to judgment. In verse 35 it says and the slave does not remain in the house forever and the son does remain forever not all who are eternal or not all who are eternally among the people of God I'm sorry not all who are I'm like I can't say that that's not correct not all who are externally among the people of God are true sons slaves may be in the house for a time but they do not remain religious hypocrites can sit along sit long in pews but they cannot stand in the judgment.

As we look at that text, the slave doesn't remain in the house forever, but he is in the house for a time. The son does remain forever. It's further defined for us in John 14 verses 15 through 26. This is what Jesus says he says if you love me you will keep my commandments. Again there's a distinction.

Do you love the world? Do you love yourself? Or do you love Christ? Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you an advocate, that he may be with you forever.

The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him, You know Him because He abides in you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live, you live also, you will live also. On that day you will know that I am and my Father and you and me and I and you.

He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me and the one who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and will disclose myself to him." Judas, not Ascariot, said to him, Lord, what then has happened that you are going to disclose yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words, And the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you What do we see repeated in this text?

He who loves Christ Is a new person He who loves Christ isn't the one who loves darkness any longer, but loves the law of the Lord. He who loves Christ keeps his words, though we understand not perfectly. He who loves Christ doesn't abide with him just then, but will abide with him for all of eternity. So this morning the question is, if you're free, if you're free, is One, are you free from ignorance? But two, are you free from sin?

Are you free from sin this morning? Now I no doubt would probably know that every single person in this room, you have areas of your life where you are struggling with sin. But the question is, are you struggling with it or are you embracing it? That's the difference between a believer and a non-believer. The believer loves the word of the Lord.

He desires to keep the word of the Lord and though his flesh continues to battle and fight with him until he is finally delivered from this flesh and And then is with the father and son for all of eternity But that battle is going on it's ever raging and though it's a blessing for me to look back and to see the things that God has delivered me from and helped me to conquer but there's also this other side that's always examining and always finding things that I didn't see before and ever pleading God to deliver me from this flesh help me father. Young people are you battling sin Or are you making provision for it? Or maybe a better word, are you making plans for it? Young men, Are you thinking today there's going to be a time when you're going to be alone with your device? And it's going to be the time where you can finally look at the things that you want to look at?

You're making plans for sin and it's an extremely dangerous place to be. You should deeply examine yourself. You should repent immediately and if necessary crush your phone into the dirt if needed. Give it to your parents and say put something on here so that you're always watching what I do. Help me to fight this.

I don't like to refer to movies much, but if you ever watch Fire Proof, it's a pretty cool movie. And God starts to change this husband and this pornography, which is affecting his marriage on an immense level, almost to divorce. And at some point, God wakes him up and he realizes he is now in a battle with sin and not embracing sin and he takes his computer outside and starts beating it up with a baseball bat. Well the neighbor says don't talk to that guy he's weird. That's part of us being distinct from the world.

If you need to crush sin with a baseball bat, be weird all day. Amen? You all, I'm sure probably know this quote, but it's one that you should consider often by John Owen. He says be killing sin or it will be killing you. Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

It is a real battle. But brothers and sisters, if you are in Christ, you are set free from the slavery of sin. You're set free from the slavery. Now battle with confidence. Battle with ferocity.

I don't know if that's a word, tenacity, ferocity, because the Lord has won the battle. You can be freed from it And one day when we stand before Him, we will be freed once and for all. But as we dwell here, as our lives are about glorifying God alone, let us be diligent to be killing sin in our lives. The Puritans didn't see sin as a pet to manage, but a tyrant to crucify. And that's Christ's view here.

Sin is not a roommate, it is a ruler. And this morning if you're in Christ you are set free from the bondage of sin. And this morning friends if you are not in Christ you can be set free from the bondage of sin. Though it is deceiving you for a time, I pray that you would seek Him diligently, that you would put your trust in Jesus Christ, that you would turn from your sin, that He would make you new, He would give you a new heart that sees rightly and is set free from ignorance and set free from slavery to sin. We must let Jesus define our condition and not our feelings.

If you protect your sin instead of fighting it You must turn to Christ. If you are comfortable being half in with Christ, and half in with the world, you must repent and turn to Christ. Jesus' words for you in this text, or Jesus' words in this text are for you. If you want to be half in with Christ and half in with the world, you are in slavery to sin. It is slavery.

Beloved, where do you see chains? I can't remember where I read that from, but Beloved, where do you see chains in your life that you're trying to call jewelry? What sins have you? That you just want to pretend that they're okay. Pretend that they're not that bad.

Turn from them, fight against them, plead with the Lord, plead with with God that the Holy Spirit would deliver you from the slavery of sin. And thirdly this morning look at the liberty of the Son. John 8 35 through 36. And the slave does not remain in the house forever, the Son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Here is the blazing center of the text true freedom is not an idea but it's a person. It's Jesus Christ. The Son has a unique position. The son doesn't remain forever in this tax door. He's not going to try to think about how to word it correctly, but Jesus is not a fellow slave offering tips.

Amen? He's the eternal son in the house of the father. Only the son has the right and authority to liberate. Now consider this, a slave can't sign another slave's freedom, but the son can. Freedom then is not found in law keeping, it's not found in spiritual techniques, it's not found in finding yourself, it's found in union with Christ alone.

Notice the nature of being free indeed. If the Son makes you free you will be free indeed. What kind of freedom does Christ give? He gives you brothers and sisters, He gives you the freedom from sins condemnation. In Romans 8.1 it says, therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.

You are no longer under wrath, no longer under the curse of the law. Jesus bore the guilt and curse as your substitute. You have freedom from sin's dominion. It's not sinless yet, but no longer enslaved. You have a new heart we find in Ezekiel 36.

You have new power found in Romans 6. And you have a new master. You can now obey. Grace doesn't just forgive, it liberates. You have Freedom for joyful obedience.

Liberty is not the absence of all authority. It's being restored to the right authority. The fish is free in water and not on a beach. The believer is free when walking in God's will and not resisting it. We have a freedom that is permanent.

The son remains forever. Those the son frees are not on probation. Adoption is not a trial period. You're in the house to stay. And so believers stop living like emancipated slaves who camp at the edge of a plantation.

The Son has broken the legal claim of sin over you. He has given you his spirit. He has brought you into the Father's house. So this morning brothers and sisters you are free to confess sin without terror. You're free to confess sin to each other without judgment.

Obviously, we want to help you fight and battle your sin. And I've shared this many times in the past. You're not going to surprise your pastor by coming to me and saying, I have sinned in this way. You're not, you don't become a second-rate citizen in the church at that point. Why?

Because your pastor still has a flesh. And I know the trickery of the enemy I know the trickery of our flesh I know what it is to fight with sin and I know that we're in this together. Amen? You're free to confess sin without terror. You're free to say no.

Where you once could only say yes. You're free to move towards holiness and not to earn love, but because you are loved. One of the things that I know we're getting, almost getting to the conclusion, One of the things that I have struggled with for however many years I've been a Christian is in this world it seems that it's very normal for us to work hard it seems to earn people's favors. Obviously we shouldn't feel like that towards our parents. Like, our parents just naturally love us.

But we feel tempted in this world to put on masks and do different things and to earn people's respect. And especially if you didn't have a good father. This can be really deep within you. That you always think people are disappointed with you. Or not happy with you or what.

And You can spend your life trying to please those people. But the worst part of all of that is you can naturally put that upon God. And you can see that, You can put what isn't there, you can put a false idea of the true and perfect heavenly Father that you can now relate to Him as one who is severely upset with you every time you make a mistake. There's times in my life where I've even expressed to my wife like, I don't know how God can put up with me. And even times where I've said, I don't know if God likes me even.

But it's all false views of God. It's taking something from experience and trying to place it upon the perfect Father. If you are in Christ, You didn't earn any of his favor. On your very best day as a Christian, he didn't love you more than on your worst day as a Christian. And our response to him isn't, I can't come before him because he's surely very unhappy with me.

But it's that he's my father and he loves me and my flesh has tore me up today and I failed in so many ways. I must go to my father and rest. And his love, You didn't earn it to begin with. You don't diminish it. What He has started in you, He will bring to completion.

His love never changed towards you if you are in Christ. Therefore, it's all the more we propel ourselves to holiness, not to earn love or to earn his favor, but because we are loved. In application to this, some of Abraham's seed, some are Abraham's seed in all the outward ways. They're baptized, catechized, they may have all the reformed podcasts queued up, but still chained because there's no clinging to Christ. Now don't misunderstand, these things are great things.

I was at a conference about a month ago and they talked about the Puritans and how they catechized their children. And because they were diligent to catechize their children the average Puritan child at 12 years old knew more than most pastors do today. These are great things. We should be baptized. If you are in Christ, if He has made you new and you aren't baptized, I would plead with you this morning, be obedient to Christ who says, be baptized.

It's a good thing. You should listen, no, let me rephrase that we should listen to good teaching there I have been blessed immensely by reformed podcasts but friends if we do all the right things and we're still chained, if we're still a slave to sin, it could just be an illusion of freedom without having Christ. So that's the real question. Someone came to me this week and asked me very difficult questions about someone who committed suicide on their family. And I said, well I've heard that if someone commits suicide, that that's the end.

Like they have no chance of heaven. And so my first, how do we answer that question? Well, the first way we answer that question is we must thoroughly explain what the gospel is, right? Because we can't answer the question apart from it. And what is it about the gospel that gives us hope in this?

Well it's that when we turn to Christ, when he has made us new, our past sin has been forgiven, our present sin has been forgiven, and our future sin has been forgiven completely. So the question isn't, the question isn't can someone, does committing suicide automatically send someone to hell? Murdering yourself, breaking the commandments, murder, the murdering of yourself, does that automatically send someone to hell? Well the answer is easily no. Right?

Because you can be a genuine believer and stumble into sin. So then the question becomes, I don't know someone's heart. The person who I think is the most, absolutely no question about the most Christian person in the whole United States, we have very good assurance that they're in heaven but at the end of it I don't know their heart and the same as the other way now we see we have fruit we have lots of fruit right and that's that's how we can better assess the question is is what was the fruit of their life? Did they know Christ? Did they not know Christ?

Now, if you're hearing this as some way of saying, well, this is some encouragement for me to murder myself. You're not hearing this correctly. Because that suggests you're still a slave to sin. You're making provision. Amen.

I've really went down a trail there. This morning, what is the fruit? What is your fruit? What about as you examine yourself is there secret sin? Is it secret sin that it stays secret because you want to hold on to it?

Because you don't, you're concerned with giving it up. I would tell you this morning, be killing sin or it's going to be killing you. Even the little things, Even the secret looking at stuff on your device. Kill it. Don't return to...

Imagine, I thought of different routes to go in this, but imagine Wednesday nights, we learned of the Israelites being delivered from Egypt now think of all the times I can't I should have counted the number of times where the people not Moses the people said we would be better off if we went back. Would they? Would they be better off if they went back so they can sit beside, not eat the pots of meat, but sit beside them. If you're in Christ and there's something in you that says, but I just want to go back in this area, I just want to keep this, I just want to keep this from Egypt. Just let me go back and visit Egypt once in a while.

You are completely, you're totally missing it. There's ignorance that still reigns in your flesh. Beat it into subjection. Don't go back. Christ laid down his life.

He lived, he came, God the Son, Jesus Christ came and dwelt among us, lived a perfect sinless life, and then laid down His life taking your sin upon Himself. And the Father poured His wrath out upon His own Son because he was that serious about sin. He was that serious about his glory of being just and the justifier of sin. And who are we to look at that and to bring it so low as to say, but he won't care if I just sin a little bit more. He crucified his son for that.

Sin isn't a pet to be kept in the back corner. The Father crucified his son that you would be set free. Imagine a prisoner who has lived his entire life in a stone cell and one day the king comes and breaks the lock, swings the door wide open and says you're free. The prisoner thanks him and believes him and even sings about the King's kindness but he never steps through the door. He remains in the cell sitting beside an open doorway calling that arrangement freedom.

That is the man or woman who likes Jesus conceptually, or knows the language, or even a firm sound doctrine but will not part with their sin or entrust themselves entirely to Christ. True freedom is not merely hearing the King say free, it is rising, leaving the old master, and walking into the light because you trust the King's word. So this morning to the self-confident, your heritage, your morality, your theological precision cannot unshackle you. You must be made free by the sun. To the despairing, You who feel your chains good, you are seeing reality.

Now look to Christ crucified and risen. He is not merely an offer to partial relief. He promises that you will be free indeed. And to the saints, live like freed sons and daughters. Drag no chain Christ has broken back into your life when sin whispers you belong to me answer with the voice of John 836 If the Son has set me free, I am free indeed.

You are free from sin. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, again we come to you.

Father, just in awe because you could have just left us to be enslaved. You would have been glorified and wiping out humanity for their crimes against you. Yeah, Father, you sent your Son to dwell among us, to show us who you are, to deliver us from our sin, to deliver us from ignorance, to deliver us from slavery to sin. So Father, for those who don't know You, would You draw them? Would You awaken them?

Would Your Word permeate their hearts and break through the ignorance? Father, for Your glory, would you set them free from sin? Father, for my brothers and sisters, would you help us to be diligent to war against this flesh? Father, we know that though you give us a part in this, we have no part in our salvation, yet Father you co-labor with us in our sanctification. We know that our labors on their own will be fruitless.

So Father again we realize our need, our deep need for your spirit to conform us to the image of your son? Father, would you give us the courage to confess our sins to one another? Would you give us the strength to war against them? Would you give us the mindset to kill our sin, whatever it would take? God, who would be set free and turn back?

Who would be set free and want to go back under bondage. But above all, Father, for your glory, Would you set apart your church that the world would see something different than the way of the world? The people who aren't about themselves, but they are about you, about Christ, in glorifying your name. Father, it is for your glory that we ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.

Amen. If you'd all stand, we'll sing together. I'll stand and we'll sing together.