Sunday Gathering - John 8 : 31-59 - Mike Healey - Sermon Only

Mike Healey begins by admitting he had spent weeks preparing the wrong passage and only discovered the change when he checked the service outline — so there are no slides, just a couple of visual aids. He picks up where Erica left off, since her passage ended with “many believed in him” — many, but not all.

John 8:31-59 is Jesus speaking to Jews who had believed him, not to those who had already rejected him, and that is the sting of it. “If you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples; then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Mike is careful about what that freedom is: not head knowledge, not agreeing it sounds sensible, but holding to the teaching — living by it and growing into it. Eternal life, he notes, is defined in John 17 as knowing the only true God and the one he sent.

The reply is the odd part: “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.” The festival of booths they had just kept remembers the wilderness; the Passover remembers Egypt. Being God’s people has never meant never having been slaves — it means having been freed, and God does not choose people who do not need saving. Their objection is the ego’s objection: being set free means admitting you were not free.

Jesus presses: everyone who sins is a slave to sin; a slave has no permanent place in the family, but the son belongs to it forever, so if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed. When they claim Abraham, Mike points at two Greek words — sperma, seed or descendant, which they are, and tekna, children, which is about character: you would do what Abraham did, and Abraham was a man of faith and obedience. Their claim escalates to “we have one Father, God himself”, and Jesus does not soften it: if God were your father you would love me; you belong to your father the devil, a murderer from the beginning, and when he lies he speaks his native language. Mike dwells on that: lies and murder belong together, because a lie has to be maintained and enforced while the truth simply is.

The chapter ends with the claim. “Who do you think you are?” — “Before Abraham was born, I am.” Mike ties it to the name given to Moses, I am what I am, and to John’s habit of recording Jesus saying simply “I am”: God is, while everything else exists because he keeps it in being. He borrows Erica’s line that before existence existed, he existed, and Julian of Norwich’s hazelnut — everything made, small as a nut. The chapter that opens with stones for a woman caught in adultery ends with stones for Jesus; he slips away because it was not his time. Jesus is not one truth among many but the truth itself.

Bible passages

• John 8:31-59 — the sermon text: holding to his teaching, the truth setting you free, slavery to sin, Abraham’s descendants and children, the father of lies, and “before Abraham was born, I am”.
• John 8:1-11 — the woman caught in adultery, which opens the chapter this passage closes.
• John 8:12 — last week’s text, “I am the light of the world”.
• John 7 — the festival of booths and the plot against Jesus, preached earlier in the series.
• Exodus 3:14 — “I am what I am”, the name behind Jesus’ claim.
• Exodus 4:22 — “Israel is my firstborn son”, behind “we have one Father, God himself”.
• Luke 13:16 — the bent-over woman called a daughter of Abraham.
• Luke 19:9 — Zacchaeus called a son of Abraham.
• John 14:6 — “I am the way, the truth and the life”, the saying Mike ends on.
• John 17:3 — eternal life as knowing the only true God and his Son.
• John 1:1 — “in the beginning was the Word”, God being and creation coming into being.

Key points

• Jesus is speaking to people who had believed him, which makes the passage a challenge rather than a rejection.
• Freedom comes from holding to his teaching and living it, not from agreeing with it.
• “We have never been slaves” misses Israel’s story: God saves people who know they need saving.
• Everyone who sins is a slave; the slave has no permanent place, the Son does, and the Son frees.
• Descendant is biology, child is character: Abraham’s children do what Abraham did.
• Lies and murder share a father, because a lie needs maintenance and enforcement while the truth does not.
• “Before Abraham was born, I am” claims the divine name, not a long life.
• The chapter’s bookends — stones for the woman, stones for Jesus — show where lies end.

Calls to action

• Be open to the truth instead of deciding in advance what you will believe; Jesus says some could not hear him because they had no room for his word.
• Hold to the teaching rather than merely hearing it, and keep growing into it.
• Ask honestly whose child your behaviour shows you to be — Abraham’s faith and obedience, or lies that need enforcing.
• Refuse the flattery that a lie is just another point of view.
• Come to Jesus as the truth, not as one option among many: everyone on the side of truth listens to him.

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/ooRVUw8Sfr4