From Slaves To Sin To Children Of God

Feeling “mostly fine” but drifting without a map? We take a hard, honest look at why feel-good slogans can’t rescue a soul that’s quietly lost and why Jesus’ words in John 8 cut through the fog with a freedom you can actually live. Pastor Carl starts with a road trip gone wrong and turns it into a mirror for the heart: when the battery dies and the playlist fades, what voice guides you home?

We walk line by line through John 8 to uncover how faith really starts—by hearing the Word. Not hype, not heritage, not religious status. Jesus tells new believers, “If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed,” and we press into what abiding looks like on Mondays, not just Sundays. You’ll hear how truth is not a floating idea but a person, and why “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” means deliverance from the lies that shape our choices and the sin that keeps us from joy. The leaders in the passage claim Abraham and miss Abraham’s faith, and that tension becomes a modern warning: fruit reveals fatherhood, and posture beats pedigree.

The heart of the conversation centers on slavery and sonship. Jesus names the bondage we’d rather spin away and then opens the door: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” We explore how that freedom lands—full, final, purchased at the cross—and why it changes both status and appetite. Along the way, we ask why some hear and others refuse, how willingness shapes understanding, and what it means to submit to Scripture when it corrects what we want to protect. We also step back to remember John, the disciple Jesus loved, whose eyewitness account invites us to notice and share how God intersects our own stories.

If you’re hungry for clarity, ready to trade drift for direction, and willing to let truth do surgery for the sake of healing, this message will help you anchor deep. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review with one way the Word has set you free this week.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

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Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

God tells us that we're sinners, we don't like that. We want to go our own way and we want to hear something else that kind of encourages us and builds us up and pats us on the back. You're alright, everything's good. The point is, we're not alright. We are stuck in sin. We're slaves to sin. We're headed to hell, and we need a savior. And we need to be told that. And yet, there is good news, and we are encouraged in it because Jesus loves us.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Picture yourself on a long road trip. Your travel playlist is blaring, and the car is packed to the brim. You're driving far from home when suddenly you realize, darn, you're lost. Your phone is dead, and you haven't had a roadmap in your car for a decade. Now what? In today's message, Pastor Carl reminds you that this story is a familiar one on the path of life. Without Jesus, you're headed to futility and you're lost in your sins. Don't you want someone who can help you find your way again? And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

We are here to grow in our relationship with the Lord, to draw near to him, to allow him to change us from the inside out. And we do that by simply going through the word, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse. Where in John chapter 8, verse 30, as Jesus was speaking these words, many believed in him. Many believed in Jesus simply because they listened to what he was saying. Now, much of the Jewish leadership was not listening. They were trying to trap him and find ways to get rid of him. But if the people that were there were seeking God, which some of them were, they were listening to what he was saying, and the words that he was saying were changing them and causing them to believe. Which reminds me of a verse. A verse in Romans chapter 10. For faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Here was Jesus described by John as the Word of God. And he's speaking, he's telling the truth of who he is and why he was there. And people were hearing and beginning to believe. Faith was coming alive in them because Jesus was gracious enough to reveal himself to them through his word. Now, the writer of the Hebrews says, without faith it is possible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. But how do you get that faith? By the word. How do you get the word? You hear it, or you read it, or somebody declares it to you. That's how faith comes by hearing the word of God. You cannot believe that God is unless you know who God is from the Word. You cannot diligently seek Him and find Him if you're just going and seeking some philosophy, some ideal, something that you're making up. If you're seeking the one that is revealed in the Word that you have believed by faith because of the Word, then you have a desire to seek Him, to find Him, to be changed by Him. And Jesus says something similar in Matthew chapter 7: ask and it'll be given to you. Seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you. He doesn't make it difficult, he lays it out for us because he loves us and he wants us to be changed by him. He realizes that he is the only way by which we can find that change in our lives. We can't build up this faith by ourselves. It's a faith that's given to us by God, but it comes through the word of God. So when Jesus was speaking, these people were hearing and they were being changed, and it gave them a desire to know more of Him and to be changed by Him. So in verse 31, Jesus said to these Jews who believed Him, If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, which has two aspects to it. One, if you indeed are truly believing in me, you will want to abide with me, abide in my word, study and be changed by me. It's a fruit of what is happening. But also at the same time, if you have been changed by me and you are my disciples, it is something that you need to do. You need to come to me. You need to be changed by me. You need to abide in my word. That's why it's so important for us to be in the word, because it's so easy to drift, isn't it? We need to be in it, be changed by him. Because he's so gracious to give it to us, why don't we avail ourselves of it? And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. The truth will set us free. And that's not just this idea of truth, you know, some concept. It's he is the truth. Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. If we know him, we know truth, because he is the truth. There is no lies in him, there's no darkness in him. He is the truth. And as we grow in him, we grow in the truth. And I believe those who believed him there believed that. And they understood that. And they started to apply that. And I trust that we do too. Do you understand that? Do you believe that? The truth changes you, sets you free. Sets you free from what? Free from sin. Free from death. Sets you free from the judgment of God. God, the judge, wants to set you free from the judgment of God because he's made a way where there was no way. Well, not the group that believed, but the religious leaders, they came back to him and they answered, We are Abraham's descendants, and we have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say we will be made free? Boy, did something strike you when you read that? We are Abraham's descendants. Yeah, you are descendants of Abraham, you are of the Jewish nation. That doesn't mean you're necessarily sons of Abraham, but we'll go into that in just a little bit. But the fact that they have never been in bondage to anyone, currently, as we read this, they are in bondage to the Roman government. The Romans have restricted the things that they can do. So they are in bondage to the Roman. In fact, that's what they were hoping the Messiah would come and do, free them from Rome, right? But can we mention Babylon? Can we mention Assyria? Can we mention this little, this little time, a period of 400 years down in Egypt? Were they not slaves then? So in their piety, they've kind of lost track of their own history, trying to make themselves look better than they really are. And Jesus is trying to say, hey, I've got the answer for you, but you just don't want to hear it. In fact, you're messing up your own history. You're not even realizing what you're saying. Verse 34. Jesus answered and said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits a sin is a slave to sin. You might not be a slave to Rome, which you are. You might not be a slave to Babylon, which you were. You might not be a slave to Assyria, which you were. You might not be a slave to Egypt, which you were, but you're definitely a slave to sin. Because of our parents, Adam and Eve, sin came into the picture. And everyone is born into sin. And we are slaves to sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. You know, if you're just servants and you're a servant to sin, you can't make it into the house of the Lord. But family members can. And you say you're part of Abraham's family, but you are, but you're not. You're family members, but your heart is not there. But you know what? I come from I come from heaven. God is my father. And there's a place for me there, and there's a place for you there if you were to believe. If you were to be set free. Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. Because the one who in fact is God, who became a man, is standing before you, offering you life, offering you forgiveness, offering you victory over your slavery, over sin. And if I sent you free, there's nothing else you need to do to be made free. You will be free indeed. Do we realize the power of the gospel? He has set us free, not because of our actions, but because of his actions on the cross, we are free if we believe. I know you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. Look, I'm speaking the truth. My word is going forward. These guys over here, they're believing me. They're being changed because they believe the word of God. They have faith now. And they're seeking after me, they're finding me, they're abiding in me. But you're not, it's not sticking with you. You're ignoring it, you're closing your ears and you're covering your eyes, something like that. You say you're Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. I speak what I have seen from my father, and you do what you have seen from your father. And he's building up to an accusation here. And they answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children, you might be Abraham's descendants, but you're not his children. You're not walking by that same faith that he walked in. If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But you seek to kill me. A man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. And not just any man. Jesus says, the God man standing right in front of them, declaring the truth out of his love and compassion for humanity. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father. And again, he's not saying who the father is yet, but he's challenging their position as saying, we are the sons of Abraham. We are the sons of faith. How can you be sons of faith if you don't believe the one that gave Abraham the faith? You're not walking by faith. You're walking by by works. You're doing this religious thing. You think it's your position that makes you right with God. You know, I've been born of Abraham. That makes me right. There are no grandchildren in heaven. Did you hear that before? Each of us needs to come to faith personally in Jesus Christ. And he's made a way. And then they just start to throw an insult at him. And they said to him, We were not born of fornication, parenthesis, like you. Because everybody knows your mama didn't have you with Joseph, who's somebody else. We have one father, God. We are God's chosen people. He is our father. And you, who are you to talk about this? You're you're illegitimate. Through the eyes of the world and and through their perspective. And if you looked at the situation, you might agree that, you know, anybody who finds themselves pregnant has done something to cause that, haven't they? That's how it works in the world today. Except for this fact that God intervened in this situation in a way that has never happened before and never will happen again. The incarnation. God was the father, Mary was the mother, and Jesus is the incarnate Son of God born as a baby. Not a fornication, but the purest birth ever. But they don't see that. They see things with the world's eyes. Which again sometimes makes sense. But so often we look at things from the world's perspective, from human eyes, that we miss what God is doing, even though in his grace he's revealing it to us and showing us because we don't want to see it. Let's not be like the Jewish religious leaders. Then Jesus said to him in verse 42 If God were your father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God. Nor I have come of myself, but he has sent me. I have submitted myself to become a man and to live as a man this life as I intended man to live in subjection to God. Denying myself, picking up my cross and following after the Lord. But you don't hear me, you don't love me, because you don't really have God as your father. You have him as this idol that you've developed and formed from the law in the Old Testament, and you have this power structure and you want to control people and yet you don't know me. Why do you not understand my speech? These everyday people here are understanding it. They're believing me, they're being changed by me. Why can't you understand it? I mean, you are indeed the representatives of God to man or man to God. You are the ones that people are looking to to see a picture of the Lord and to be led to the Lord, and yet you don't even know the Lord. Do you see the irony in this, Jesus is saying? The reason is because you are not able to listen to my word. You're not able or you don't want to. And the want to restricts our abilities, right? To be able to hear the word of God, to be changed by the word of God, we need a willingness to hear what God is saying to us. And when God tells us that we're sinners, we don't like that. And we want to go our own way and we want to hear something else that kind of encourages us and builds us up and pats us on the back. You're all right, everything's good. The point is we're not alright. We are stuck in sin, we're slaves to sin, we're headed to hell, and we need a savior. And we need to be told that. And yet there is good news, and we are encouraged in it because Jesus loves us and he laid his life down for us. He took the price of our sin, he represented us on the cross so that we would have a way where there was no way. But to enter into that freedom, enter into that forgiveness, enter into that relationship, enter into that blessing that God has for us, we have to start with the bad news, don't we? And I don't think the Pharisees wanted to hear the bad news, because that would mean that what they were doing was wrong. And how could they be wrong as leaders of the people? They had to be right so people could follow them, right? And then Jesus says it. Verse 44 You are of your father, the devil. Abraham's not your father, God's not your father. You know who your father is? It's the devil. And the desires of your father you want to do. He is your father because the things that you're doing are the things that he does. Your heart, your thinking, your actions reflect those of the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning. And what are you trying to do? You're trying to kill me. And just not stand in the truth. You're rejecting me. I am the truth. I'm standing before you. I'm revealing it to you. But you don't want to have anything to do with it because you have your own truth. You have your own way. The devil said, I got my own way of doing things. I don't want to listen to him. And you're doing the same thing. And when he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. Of course, if you don't walk in truth, what are you walking in? Lies. I mean, there's no in-between, is there? You're either in the truth or you're not in the truth. And if you're not in the truth, you're walking in deception. You're a liar. He's a liar and the father of it all. And you're offsprings of that. In fact, we're all offsprings of that, right? That goes back to the fall of Adam and Eve. Because of what the serpent did in beguiling Eve, sin entered into the picture. And we are all born into this fallen world that is full of lies and murder. Jesus comes to turn it all around. Jesus comes to set us free from that deception, from that death. 45, but because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. You're going your own way. You're like your father the devil. You don't believe the truth. You don't believe me. Let me ask you something. Which of you convicts me of sin? Can you truly find something that actually I've done that is a sin against God? Instead of twisting scripture and manipulating things, setting up situations, trying to trap me in my words, trying to manufacture something to convict me of. That's what they were doing here. That's the scheme of the enemy, and it's alive and well today, isn't it? Lord have mercy on us. He who is of God hears God's words. Therefore, you do not hear, because you are not of God. The reason you don't understand what I'm saying is because you need to be saved. The reason you don't understand what I'm saying is because you have a different perception of what the word says, except when the word is declared by me, who is the living word, Jesus is saying, you don't believe it. You don't hear it. Because you haven't been changed by God. I want you to be changed by God, is what Jesus is saying. I'm saying this not to insult you, not to put you down, not to not to take you out of the position that I put you in, but I'm saying this because I want you to know the truth, which will set you free. But you don't want it. You think you're of God, but you're not. This is a warning. How many people in the church today think they know God when they don't know God? And often it's the fruits that we see in our lives and lives of other people around it. The things that the church in general endorses today go against the heart of God. How can they know God if they're doing that? May we seek to know the Lord. May we listen to his words. May we let him change us from the inside out, which is good. Because there's great blessing in that, but it's also hard because there's a lot of correction, a lot of changes, a lot of fixing that God needs to do in our hearts. And it hurts sometimes, doesn't it? But it's good because He's setting us free. Then the Jews answered and said to him, Do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? You're talking crazy. And you're disrespecting God's authority and these people here. You must have a demon in you. We know you're a Samaritan because you're from Samaria, which is an implication that you're a false teacher, you're a heretic. They called heretics Samaritans, because Samaritans kind of were a little loose in their following of the law. They weren't like the Jews in Jerusalem, which were holy. They had God in their temple, in their town. We're more important than anybody else. But you're from Samaria. Which he wasn't from Samaria, he was from Galilee. And Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my father. And you dishonor me. I have the Holy Spirit. I do not have a demonic spirit. That Holy Spirit causes me to honor my Father, and you dishonor me, so I question what spirit you have that's directing you. And I do not seek my own glory, but there is one who seeks and judges. Verse 50 is a is written a little bit strange because it almost sounds like, and I do not seek my own glory, but there is one who seeks and judges.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

That's Pastor Carl on Come On Up. You know, the Gospel of John was written by one of Jesus' original disciples. He's referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved. What a sweet and intimate way to refer to the closeness and friendship that was had between John and Jesus. After all, so many of the events mentioned were witnessed firsthand by John. He was there for the transfiguration, and he was the only disciple of the twelve mentioned to be at the cross as Jesus died. He was also one of the first people to see that the grave was empty. John had an opportunity and a privilege to write about all the things that he saw and witnessed with his own eyes. He saw miracles. He was the recipient of Jesus' love and care, and he was eager for others to see and experience knowing Jesus too. That's why he wrote it all down in this wonderful book of John. Like the author, we hope that you'll take note of the ways that God has intersected your life and brought about amazing stories to tell. Write them down, share them with others, and don't be afraid to tell people about the greatest love of all so that they can also claim that they are disciples whom Jesus loves. An easy way to share Jesus with people is by letting them know about this radio program. The Mountain Cross is a group of believers in Jesus who seek to grow in faith by simply teaching through the Bible. We meet on Sundays beginning at 10 a.m. To learn more, go to themountaincross.com. That's all for today. Come on Up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.