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May 28, 2022
Key verses 31-32: "Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him: If you will abide by my word, then you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Everyone values freedom. No one wants to be dependent on other people or anyone. Unfortunately, many people don't feel free because they depend on people, money, situation, or the power of death. How can we be truly free and happy?
The good news is that God gives us true freedom through Jesus.
We now want to get to know this freedom and accept it.
May God help us to know and enjoy this freedom well.
The truth sets us free
Jesus said to the people who believed in him:
"If you will abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples and will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (25-26).
Jesus spoke these words to the people who heard Jesus' word and believed in him. They listened to Jesus' word with an open heart and believed in his word. That is why they believed that Jesus is God's son or God.
When Pilate asked, who he was, Jesus said to Pilate,
“I am a king. I was born and came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Whoever is of the truth hears my voice” (John 18:37).
Then Pilate asked Jesus, "What is the truth?" (John 18:38).
What is the truth?
The internet German Dictionary Wiktionary defines the word truth:
“What is true, what endures; what is really the case, what is true... One distinguishes between absolute truth (timelessly true) and relative truth (temporarily true).”
Earthly truths such as "water flows from top to bottom" or "Korea is a peninsula" cannot be timeless truths because Korea will disappear when Jesus Christ comes, and present water will also disappear in the kingdom of heaven and new water that gives us eternal life will be there.
There are different truths in the world: e.g. Mathematical truth, historical truth or fact without falsification, etc.
What or who is the timeless truth and absolutely unchanging?
He is God and Jesus Christ. God created heaven and earth and each of us. God is the basic truth, for He is the origin and ruler of all existence. Jesus is the foundational truth, for He is God and Savior. Jesus freed us from the power of sin and death.
That is why Jesus says: "Whoever is of the truth hears my voice" (John 18:37).
When we carefully listen to or read Jesus' word from the Bible, we can recognize the truth and believe in Jesus as Christ and the Son of God. That is why it is important to read the word of Jesus in the Bible carefully.
This truth sets us free from all darkness and gives us blissful, eternal life. Even if all earthly world disappears, God will give us a new world. God loves us very much. That is why he sent Jesus Christ as Savior; out of love for us, He sacrificed Him for our sins and raised Him from the power of death. God gave Jesus Christ power to set us free from the power of sin and death to give us eternal, blessed life. All who know the truth have victory and eternal bliss.
"Knowing the truth" means believing in God and His Son Jesus Christ. When we believe in Jesus Christ based on the Word in the Bible, we see the truth that Jesus is God's Son and died and rose for us. This truth sets us free from all burdens of sin and death, and we have forgiveness, eternal blissful life. And we can experience how much God loves us and accompanies us and leads us to the kingdom of heaven.
Who is Jesus?
The Bible is a thick book. The main message of the Bible is who God or Jesus is. For example, in verse 58 Jesus said to Jews,
"Before Abraham came, I AM."
When the Jews heard this word, they became angry and wanted to stone him.
Why?
If we want to understand the reason for the anger of the Jews, we must know the meaning of Jesus' words, "Before Abraham was, I AM."
When Moses was in the wilderness, God appeared to Moses. Moses did not really know God.
So he asked God, "What's your name?"
Then God answered: "יהוה, Yahweh". This name "Yahweh" means "I am who I am" or "I will be who I will be" (Exodus 3:14).
God's name means: "Yahweh" or "I am who I am" or "I will be who I will be."
God's name "Yahweh" is often rendered in the Bible as "DER LORD".
This name "Yahweh" or "The LORD" means that God is already here from eternity and will remain unchanged until eternity.
We remember that Jesus frequently said "I AM..." during His ministry.
For example, Jesus said:
"I am the bread of life",
"I am the light of the world",
"I AM the Good Shepherd",
"I AM the way, the truth, and the life" etc.
Outwardly, Jesus was just an itinerant preacher. But in reality, he is God Incarnate.
Jews knew that the "I AM" is God's name.
When Jesus introduced himself "I AM", the Jews knew immediately that Jesus made himself equal to God. So they wanted to stone him as a blasphemer.
C.S. Lewis, an American writer, once said that Jesus must be either God, a liar, or a madman.
And the Bible says that Jesus is God's son or God Incarnate.
Everyone should read the Bible with an open heart and get to know Jesus.
Everyone should then decide whether to believe in Jesus as the Son of God or not. This decision is one of the most important decisions in life for every human being, because with this decision he chooses heaven or hell.
How should God's children live?
When we believe in Jesus as God's Son, we are God's children and have true freedom.
I have watched many YouTube testimonies of people who fled North Korea to South Korea via China. They used to live in a dictatorial communist society of North Korea. Most of the time, all they had to do was follow North Korea's instructions.
When they came to South Korea, they had full freedom. But they initially had great difficulties enjoying this freedom with personal responsibility.
How should we live now as God's children? How should we use the freedom?
We are to confess our faith in Jesus and live in accordance with our faith, even though we make mistakes and sometimes sin.
In a way, we live as God's children like Jean Valjean.
Jean Valjean was the hero of Victor Hugo's classic novel Les Misérables (The Miserable). The convict Jean Valjean is released from prison where he spent 19 years, 5 years for stealing a single loaf and the rest for trying to escape.
Upon release from prison, the police inspector gives him the yellow passport, which shows him as a convict on probation.
Jean Valjean is full of hopes of being able to start a new life, but has to discover what kind of life this passport gives him: he is only paid half the usual wage for his work and no hostel takes him in. Only the bishop of Digne takes pity on him and shelters him.
The embittered Valjean steals a silver candlestick, but is immediately caught by the police. But the bishop, who knows Valjean's past, claims that he gave the silver candlestick to Valjean, and also gives him two silver candlesticks; then he admonishes him to become a decent man. After struggling with himself, Jean Valjean decides to live for Jesus.
He does his best to hear God's Word and do His will. He becomes mayor of the city of Montreuil-de-Mer under a different name, until discovering that he is a convict.
Jean Valjean has to move on and on, building a new life for himself each time, until he meets Cosette, an orphan living in terrible circumstances with the Thénardier family, and moves on with her. Jean builds a new life in Paris with Cosette. But even there, their life is not easy, and they have to overcome many difficulties.
With this work, Victor Hugo shows the misery of the people in France in the 19th century. Once you were expelled from society, you could just end your life because you would never be accepted again.
But Jean Valjean demonstrates courage and the will to do something for the poor, and in doing so repeatedly runs the risk of doing good under a false name.
Jean Valjean thus becomes a role model for other outcasts and disadvantaged people.
Jesus says in verse 31,
"If you keep my word, then you are truly my disciples."
Let's also look at verses 39-41.
"If you were Abraham's children, you would do Abraham's works."
The emphasis is on hearing and doing God's Word.
James, a physical brother of Jesus, says the same thing in his Epistle 1:22-25.
It is a legitimate interest to ensure that those who profess to be true children of God live and act in accordance with their creed.
But we should have a firm belief that God has forgiven all our sins and adopted us as his children. With this conviction, we should strive to live a righteous life even though we might face difficulties. That is why Jesus explains in verses 32-36 that true children of God are free from the chains of sin. Of course, Jesus doesn't mean that they won't commit any more sin.
Rather, he means that God has accepted us and that we are God's children.
Instead of setting our eyes on sin, we as God's children are to set our eyes on Jesus.
This is the secret of victory.
When we fix our eyes on Jesus, sin can no longer deceive us. And we are in the process of spiritual growth toward Jesus, who is the source of all contentment.
What a beautiful image of rebirth! When the Holy Spirit comes into us and changes us from sinful selfishness to one who loves to serve the Lord, we will have a desire to do good.
Only we do not know exactly how we can serve the Lord well.
The spell is broken, and we are free from the chains of sin. But we are to learn how to follow Jesus Christ, and we are to follow him one step at a time.
The book of Jean Valjean says that every Christian is set free from sin and therefore has a new name.
Let's look at verses 42-47.
These verses say that the true children of God know the truth of God, but the false children do not. From time to time, we experience that two people talk to each other and do not understand each other at all. The difference of opinion between different generations is an example. There is a great gap of opinion between the children of God and those who are not yet born again. We, God's children, see God's fingerprint everywhere. We see God's fingerprints in the trees, on people's faces, and even in people's sorrows. There are people who only know God with their heads. Such a person only studies God with his head. When a crisis comes, he doesn't trust God. He only tries to overcome his crisis with his human abilities. In the church he only cares about the external things like organization or human relationship. Of course, we should take good care of the organization or human relation. But getting to know God and having fellowship with God - that is the center of the church, because God's presence is essential in the church and in our Christian life.
Jesus said in verse 56,
"Abraham your father was glad to see my day, and he saw it and was glad."
Abraham was considered the father of the Israelites and was born more than 1,500 years before Jesus. But Jesus said that Abraham saw Jesus and rejoiced in salvation through Jesus.
Jesus meant by this example that Jesus was already there when Abraham was born.
Maybe some of us know Dickens, one of the English writers. His novel Christmas Carol is famous.
The first ghost took the miser named Scrooge back in time. Scrooge was then working for an old man called Fezziwig. Fezziwig was very happy about Christmas, so he closed his shop on Christmas Eve, cleaned up his office facilities, prepared a big banquet in his office and set up a dance hall. So Fezziwig waited longingly for Christ's birthday every year. He saw Christmas as an opportunity to break away from his normal day and celebrate the coming of Christ wholeheartedly. His heart was glad and happy.
True children of God have the heart of Fezziwig. They celebrate their life as a great gift from God. They put on clean clothes that Jesus Christ gave them, and they do not cling to the laws, knowing that they are not saved by laws, but by the grace of the Lord Christ.
The kingdom of heaven is like a party thrown by the happy, cheerful Fezziwig. The true children of God are like Jean Valjean. And they also have the heart of Fezziwig.
We should know that after rebirth we don't automatically become good people like new Jean Valjean or Fezziwig.
The Jews of Jesus' time were wrong in saying that because they were Abraham's children, they would automatically be good people.
We became God's children by God's grace. We should then often sit with God and learn from Him how to conduct ourselves according to His grace. Because Jesus wants to free us from the sinful way of life. It is true that Jesus sets us free from the power of sin and death. Thank God for that. Out of gratitude, we want to live a changed, happy life.
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