At a farmer's market in a little village there was a covey of quail walking in circles around a pole. They had strings attached to their legs, and they continued to walk around and around the pole hour after hour. A man came into the market and asked, "How much will you take for all of them?" He paid the owner the agreed price and then began to cut the strings off of their legs. "What are you doing?" the shocked owner asked. "I'm setting them free," said the new owner. But in spite of the strings being cut giving the quail their freedom, they continued to walk around the pole in the same old circle! They didn't even realize that they were free and that they could go in a different direction… Not until the man began shooing them away did they move from their set routine!

Jesus says, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." We need to realize that we are free today from all kinds of things because of His freeing us! We need to go in a different direction. We don't have to continue to march around in circles of guilt and sin and drudgery. We are free indeed! What does that include? For Jesus, and for us, the only true freedom that will never and can never be lost, stolen, or compromised is the spiritual freedom He won for us by dying and rising as our Savior! Jesus wants you not just to know his freedom, but taste it, live in it, die in it, and enjoy it with every breath and beat of faith. Can you do that? Absolutely, because The Truth (of Jesus) Will Set You Free!

One Labor Day, a family I knew went white-water rafting. When they started out it seemed like they were in control of the raft. But then they came to the first rapids. Big waves threatened to engulf them. The water swirled around and pushed and pulled at them. "No matter how hard we paddled or even in what direction," they said, "we had no choice but to go through the rapids and down the river." It was the river, not them, that was in control. In the same way it is sin - not man himself - that is in control. No matter how hard we try, sin plunges us straight ahead into the abyss of ruin and destruction! We're enslaved by sin, fear, and confusion.

Fear leads to confusion for the Jews Jesus is speaking to in our text. It then leads to slavery, and they don't even know it. Sure, they believe Jesus, John tells us, but not in the same way as the many mentioned in the previous verse who "put their faith in Him." They believe Jesus but don't believe in Him. Kind of like you might believe a statement of a politician but not support his platform. Jesus promises these Jews real freedom, but they mistakenly insist He's offering them something they already have. "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves to anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?" That is the self-deception of errorism responding to sin's terrorism! The same thing happens today when people think they are set with God because of their blood lines or because they belong to a certain church body. The only thing that makes you a disciple of Christ is remaining in his Word!

Obviously these Jews are not taking Jesus' offer for freedom as a political one. The Jews had been political slaves for over 400 years in Egypt and for 70 years in foreign captivity. Even now they are not entirely free from the rule of the Roman Empire. It's not that they conveniently forgot about all this bondage; rather they avoid mentioning it since Jesus is speaking in religious terms, not political. And they are quite proud of their religious status. They live very securely in their relationship to God, because they are Abraham's descendants. But friends, don't be fooled by this pride in their heritage! Underneath its chin-in-the-air confidence are trembling sinners terrorized by spiritual tyranny - hiding under the false-security-blanket of Abraham's DNA because there is nothing else and nobody else, in their minds, to free them from sin's terror. These Jews are slaves, alright. Slaves to themselves and their own sins, terrorized by sin's tyranny and errorized by self-deception into a false pride right where the devil wants them to be. Imprisoned, all the while thinking they are free!

True slavery, you see, isn't always recognizable, particularly when I am my own prisoner. "Everyone who sins," Jesus warns, "is a slave to sin." The slave master whipping me isn't some thug with a cruel weapon, but an enjoyable pleasure of my sinful flesh tearing my life apart, while I refuse to admit it and just can't say no. The shackles clinging to my neck and clanging between my feet are not metallic irons, but materialistic desires - "Gotta have it" designer fashions and décor furniture that remind me and everybody else I'm a somebody. My daily chores of tasks and responsibilities as a slave aren't for nothing, but rewarded with paychecks, praiseworthy grades, and pats on the back; so the more tasks I take on, the more paychecks, praises, or pats I get - all the while wrecking my health and ruining relationships, but not recognizing it. Who has time to be depressed about sinful failures and guilty regrets when so many diversions can free us?

And therein lies the devil's trap. These diversions don't actually free us. They enslave us to their service! They can be, of themselves, good things. That's why the devil uses them for bait and hooks us, laughing as he rips us away from the net of God's kingdom and reels us into the torment of hell. Even worse, we often don't kick and scream and put up a fight but learn to enjoy the devil's ride because it makes life so easy, and the scenery is just fantastic, and everybody else is going the same way. That's true slavery! Self-deception at its finest. Going to hell and not even knowing it.

Rescue from self-deceptional slavery will not, therefore, come from myself, otherwise what I think is freedom could really be enslaving me. Rescue from self-deceptional slavery also won't be found in a religion that turns me to myself to put into action the commanded practices, the proper ceremonies, and the right obedience before some deity will smile upon me. Is there a way out? Is there some truth that will make us free? These questions haunted an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther. After a close call with a lightning bolt in the year 1505, he entered a monastery and took the vows. For a dozen years or so, he tried to work out his salvation with fear and trembling. He did whatever he could to be a righteous person.

The problem was that, no matter how hard he tried, Luther was never good enough. He was never free from himself. Luther confessed his sins daily, sometimes for as long as six hours in a single sitting! He believed every sin to be forgiven must be confessed, and every sin to be confessed must first be remembered. So he spent hours trying to remember the truth about his life, recalling every wayward thought and dirty deed, both real and anticipated. As a memory device, he repeated the list of seven deadly sins, one at a time, and tried to recall every occasion when he had felt an inclination to commit each sin. He recited the Ten Commandments, line by line, and then probed his own heart to remember every time he broke, or thought about breaking God's law. Those assigned to listen to Brother Luther's sins often grew weary. "Look here," someone once said to him, "if you expect Christ to forgive you, come in here with something to forgive - murder, blasphemy, adultery - instead of all these [minor things]."

Luther knew better. He was a prisoner of sin. To think otherwise was, and is, an illusion. His whole life was saturated with sin, even in the relative protection of the monastery. On every page of his Bible, he found something that judged his life and condemned his soul. Yet, as you know, something happened! Martin Luther discovered there were other things in his Bible. In 1515, he began to lecture some students on the book of Romans. Like every good teacher, he learned something when he taught. When he flipped to the third chapter of Romans, he knew it said, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." He knew that was there; that was his burden. But then he stumbled over the next verse, where it says, "All are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Righteousness comes from God!

The next year, Luther began to lecture on the book of Galatians. When he got to the 2nd chapter, he knew what it was going to say. He read, "A person is not justified by the works of the law," and he groaned, because that was the burden of truth. For years, Martin Luther tried to keep God's law and it was killing him. Then he read, "And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ." That was it! That was the way out of every illusion, falsehood, and sin; through faith in Christ who sets us free!

So rescue, fellow slaves, has to come from the outside! That's why Jesus says, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." You are set free from your sins, from their control of your body and mind, and from the curse of hell hereafter, by the truth of Jesus. You are disciples of Jesus following Him through a life of freedom because by faith you hold on to his teachings. There's no possibility of self-deception here because Jesus' teachings are not some mystical discovery you make while meditating on your karma; they aren't some hidden code unlocked by a team of specially trained scientists; they aren't individually edited belief systems concocted by some hermit followers isolated from the real world. Jesus' teachings have been "revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe."

What is our great heritage? Something that has nothing to do with our DNA, but it comes from the outside, from heaven! God's Word! It is holy. It is miraculous. Its message of salvation rescues us from our self-deception. It is the absolute truth. Hold onto it, and know that The Truth Will Set You Free!

Jesus rescued you by making Himself a slave like you, and making you a son like Him! Jesus fulfilled your sentence of servitude and became a slave to your punishment. Your whippings. Your beatings. Your sentencing and trial. Your death. Most of all, your hell. All of the punishment. Paid for completely. You can search every file in God's computer and there is none that says, "Fred or Frank or Fatmata still owes me 3 eternities of hell and 10 years of earthly misery." Jesus also fulfilled your sentence of servitude by becoming a slave to the law's demands for your perfect performance. Your devotion to God more than all things. Your glad obedience to every authority. Your pure and chaste appreciation for the opposite gender. Your unselfish interest in the needs of others ahead of your own. Performed completely. You can search every file in God's computer and there is none that says, "May or Monique or Michael still needs to do better at the 8th Commandment to get to heaven." "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed," Jesus promises. The Son became a slave to make the slaves into sons!

Having accomplished that rescue we call "redemption," Jesus shed his shackles of slavery and ascended to the right hand of God, reclaiming the authority and power of his Sonship and now sharing it with us! "A slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever," Jesus teaches. In corporate terminology for our business people, let's just say that if your mother happens to be the wife of the CEO, you probably won't be a casualty of company downsizing. In terminology for our children, let's just say that if the men who come and mow your lawn happen to mow over a few shrubs and the same day you accidentally trample a few more shrubs chasing your friends, the lawn-care guys would be fired and never see your house again but you'd still have your room and bed and loving family. In spiritual terminology, for the sons and daughters adopted by God in baptism, let's just say that no matter how old you are or how many eternities you'll be in heaven, God is still your Father, and you are still his child. Forever!

Centuries ago, a fearless Martin Luther stood tall against giving into threats on his life. At a meeting with religious and state authorities hoping he'd just be quiet and let the church be taken over by the spiritual terrorists promoting false teaching, Luther stood alone (yet not alone) and said, "Here I stand. God help me." We are still free today, not because we bear in our bodies the DNA of Martin Luther or because we belong to a certain church, but because we hold in our hearts the teachings of Jesus! We will stand strong against our sinful flesh, the evil in the world, and the devil's lies - even if it means standing alone (yet not alone). We will not be slaves to sin's terror! We will be free! And that's the truth. Amen.

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