Participants: Carlton P. Byrd
Series Code: BOL
Program Code: BOL000565A
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00:03 Breath Of Life Ministries Presents:
00:07 Sermon B565 "Be Free" 00:11 [Breath of Life Ministries theme music] 00:20 PB: John chapter 8, verse number 31. If you have it, 00:24 let me hear you say amen. "Then said Jesus to those Jews 00:28 which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, 00:33 then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, 00:40 and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, 00:46 We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: 00:48 how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, 00:55 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin 01:00 is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in 01:05 the house for ever: but the Son"--and notice the capital S, Son- 01:10 -"abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, 01:17 ye shall be free indeed." Father, for the next couple of moments, 01:25 God, bless us now. You've done it so many times and I ask 01:30 that You do it one more time today. Speak through me. 01:33 May Your people hear Your voice. In Jesus' name. Amen. 01:38 "Be Free." Jesus begins this passage by telling us two things. 01:46 Number one, He tells us in verse number 31, 01:50 "If ye continue in my word"--and I'm going to need 01:54 you to stay in the Word today. Look at verse 31- 01:56 -"If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples." 02:02 If you continue in My word, then are ye my disciples, 02:04 which means discipleship is tied to your obedience 02:09 to the Word of God. All this talk about love, 02:12 and love is good, love is right. But friends of mine, 02:14 you've got to obey, too. Do I have a witness in this place? 02:18 You can't claim to be a disciple of Christ and not obey His Word. 02:24 So anybody's talking about they're a disciple but 02:27 they're disobeying God's Word, they're not a disciple. 02:29 Discipleship is related to obedience. 02:33 Number two. Jesus says in verse number 32, 02:37 a very familiar passage. "And ye shall know the"- 02:39 -what, everybody? Aud.: Truth. 02:41 PB: "And the truth shall make you"--what? Aud.: Free. 02:42 PB: Now, the opposite of the truth is a lie. 02:47 So then, if the truth sets you free, 02:51 then a lie is what keeps you bound. 02:55 And I don't know about you, 02:56 but I don't want to be bound. 02:58 Do I have a witness in this place? 03:00 The devil wants to keep you bound. 03:01 The devil wants you to believe a lie. 03:03 The devil wants you to believe a lie at 03:04 the expense of your freedom. Spiritually, 03:08 he wants you to believe a lie. 03:10 You don't have to follow the Word 03:11 of God to be free. That's a lie. 03:13 Socially, he wants you to believe a lie. 03:15 You don't have to have godly friends and associations. 03:18 That's a lie. Financially, he wants you to believe a lie. 03:22 You're not really in debt. Yeah, you have no 03:24 cash money but you can just keep charging it 03:26 on your credit card. That's a different kind of money. 03:29 That's a lie. Physically, he wants you to believe a lie. 03:33 You can still eat ice cream late at night and lose weight. 03:37 [laughter] PB: That's a sho-nuff lie. Are you hearing 03:41 what I'm saying? The devil is a lie and there is 03:46 no truth in him. But Jesus begins this passage by saying, 03:51 number one, that there is a relationship between 03:54 discipleship and obedience. And then He goes on 03:58 and says there's a relationship between obedience 04:02 and being set free. Which means every disciple is free, 04:09 but every church member isn't. Let me say that again. 04:14 Every disciple is free, but every church member isn't. 04:22 Church membership doesn't always mean true discipleship, 04:26 because there are a lot of people who have their 04:28 names on the church roll but they don't really 04:30 know what it means to be free in Jesus. 04:32 So what happens is, we come to church bound. 04:36 We come to church enslaved. We come to church 04:40 worried about what people think. We come to church 04:44 worried about what people will say. Am I good enough? 04:47 Do I dress nice enough? Did I say amen loud enough? 04:52 Should I not say amen at all? Should I clap? 04:56 Am I not supposed to clap? Was my song too loud? 05:00 Was my song too much? They come to church bound. 05:05 Church membership does not always mean discipleship. 05:12 Jesus teaches throughout the New Testament--Matthew 5, 05:15 Mark 9, Luke 14--that being a disciple is likened unto salt, 05:22 that you are the salt of the earth. You've heard me 05:25 use this metaphor before, because He wants us to know, 05:28 Jesus does, that salt is not only a pervasive seasoning, 05:32 but salt is also an important method of food preservation. 05:36 Salt, as you know, decays--or retards--the decaying process. 05:43 Put salt on any meat, real meat-- [Aud. reaction] 05:52 PB: Don't act like y'all don't know what I'm talking about. 05:55 [Aud. reaction] PB: I come visit you, knock on the door, 05:56 and I can hear a scurrying in the kitchen. "Put it up, 05:58 put it up, put it up! Pastor Byrd's here!" 06:01 [laughter] PB: Put salt on any meat, real meat, 06:07 veggie meat, fake meat, mock meat. Salt, however, 06:16 will penetrate that meat, preserve that meat, 06:21 purify that meat. The only reason the world doesn't 06:27 stink and spoil today is because you and I, 06:31 we are salt and we're in it. Jesus said, 06:35 Ye are the salt of the earth. But the reason it 06:40 seems that the world is decaying faster than 06:42 it's being preserved is because we've got too 06:44 many salt substitutes. [Aud. reaction] 06:46 PB: Looks like salt, tastes like salt, 06:52 but it's not salt. There are a lot of folk 06:56 that look like disciples, walk like disciples, 07:01 talk and teach like disciples, pray like disciples. 07:07 They can even praise like disciples. But they 07:11 aren't disciples because remember, the true test 07:13 of a disciple is, if you're salty then folk 07:16 around you ought to get thirsty. Thirst after 07:19 God's righteousness. Thirst after His truth and His Word. 07:23 So Jesus continues in John 8, "Verily, verily, 07:27 I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is 07:33 the servant of sin." Then in verse 35, 07:35 "The servant abideth not in the house for ever: 07:40 but the Son [capital S] abideth forever." 07:44 I like the way The Message Bible puts it. 07:46 It says it like this: "I tell you most solemnly 07:49 that anyone who chooses the life of sin is 07:50 trapped in a dead-end life and is in fact a slave." 07:55 A slave is transient, who can't come and go at will. 07:59 The Son, though, has an established position, 08:03 the run of the house. Now these two verses teach 08:08 us that there's a direct correlation between our 08:11 freedom and the way we live. Because the way you 08:14 live greatly impacts your ability to be free. 08:17 If you choose to live a sinful life, you're bound. 08:21 If you choose a sinful life, you're enslaved. 08:25 And anything that goes against God is sin. 08:29 There are no big sins and little sins. Sin is sin. 08:35 There is no hierarchy of sin. Sin is sin. 08:40 Anything that goes against God is sin. 08:44 The Bible says that all have sinned and come 08:46 short of the glory of God, so the person then 08:49 who gossips and keeps up mess is no better 08:51 than the drug addict. The person who talks about 08:55 people is no better than the person struggling 08:58 with a drug addiction that they're talking about. 09:00 Sin is sin. So then the Bible says this: 09:06 The wages of sin is what, everybody? Aud.: Death. 09:08 PB: So then, when you sin, something dies. 09:13 When Adam and Eve sinned, something began to die. 09:19 And so what the devil will try to do is, 09:21 he will try to kill you on the installment plan. 09:23 Because there is some stuff in your life that 09:27 you can't get back because sin killed it. 09:32 That's somebody right now. When you look back 09:35 over your life, and you look at how much stuff 09:38 you lost to sin, there are some things you 09:41 lost back in your early days because of sin. 09:44 And when you get caught up in sin, and then 09:47 you continue in sin, you become a servant of sin. 09:52 The Greek for the word servant is "dulos," 09:54 which means a slave. So then in the text, 09:57 a servant is a slave, a slave to sin who obeys 10:01 a master. But rather than obey God, you obey sin. 10:05 Whosoever committeth sin is a servant of sin. 10:08 Whosoever committeth sin is a slave of sin. 10:10 But remember the text says that the servant, 10:12 or the slave, abideth not in the house forever. 10:15 Which means, a slave may abide with the family 10:18 for a time, but a slave is not a permanent member 10:21 of that family. A slave is transient. 10:24 A slave is trans-i-ent. Transitory. Temporary. 10:31 Now let me be clear and put a kickstand right here now, 10:33 because I don't want anyone to get 10:35 __ where I'm going with this. 10:36 God didn't call you to be a slave 10:38 then and God's not calling you to be a slave now. 10:40 Slavery is over. The slaves have been set free. 10:46 Don't let anybody make you their slave. 10:49 Slavery is done. And let me throw this in: 10:52 Don't let anybody tell you that Abraham Lincoln 10:54 or the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865 freed the slaves. 10:59 The Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves, 11:01 The Emancipation Proclamation preserved the union. 11:05 [Aud. reaction] PB: It did not free the slaves. 11:07 God freed the slaves. Get your history right. 11:12 Are you hearing what I'm saying? 11:14 [Aud. reaction] PB: But back in slave times, 11:16 slaves had to serve their masters. Slaves didn't 11:19 live in the big house. Slaves didn't live in the 11:22 master's house. Slaves lived in the out house. 11:26 A slave was not a member of the family. 11:28 A slave had no rights, no inheritance, no nothing. 11:31 The slave was property. The slave was owned, 11:34 but that ownership could have been passed on or 11:37 sold to somebody else. But no slave was 11:41 able to make another slave free. 11:44 But, the Son of the Father was a fully accredited, 11:51 permanent member of the family who participated 11:55 in the inheritance, had the right to set a slave free. 12:02 Now remember what the text says in verse 35. 12:04 "The servant abideth not in the house for ever: 12:08 but the Son [capital S-o-n] abideth ever." 12:14 So then while the slave is temporary, 12:18 the Son is permanent. No slave could free another slave. 12:25 I couldn't free you. I can't free you. But the owner's son, 12:31 the one with the inheritance, could make a slave free. 12:37 And because I was a slave to sin, because you were a 12:42 slave to sin 2,000 years ago, the Owner sent His Son, Jesus, 12:51 to save you and me from sin. And so now I'm free. 12:57 Now you're free. Now we're free, because of the blood. 13:02 And if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed. 13:09 The Son of God, Jesus, shedding His own blood, 13:13 has paid the purchase price for the slaves of sin and 13:16 now you and I, we are free. No longer bound. 13:21 No more chains holding me. I'm free. You're free. 13:28 Be free. So walk like it, talk like it, act like it, 13:38 pray like it, preach like it, sing like it, 13:46 worship like it. Who cares if folk look at you funny. 13:51 Be free. Who cares if folk talk about you. 13:55 Be free. Who cares if folk point at you. Be free. 14:01 I've had to tell people, you don't know my story. 14:03 You don't know the things I've been through. 14:06 I've been through too much not to worship Him. 14:09 If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed. 14:14 Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 14:18 Be free today, church, because you are free. 14:22 You've been washed in the blood. You're free 14:26 because of His blood. You're no longer bound 14:28 because of His blood. You're no longer a slave 14:31 to sin because of His blood. You're free! 14:36 You know the story I love to tell about little 14:38 Timmy and Susie, who one summer were staying at 14:41 their grandmother's house and grandfather's house, 14:43 on their farm. They were visiting them one summer- 14:46 -you know I love this story--and little Timmy, 14:47 he gets a little slingshot and he goes and 14:50 plays in the woods, and then little Timmy, 14:51 practicing in the woods with his slingshot, 14:53 he could never hit his target. Getting a little discouraged, 14:56 Timmy headed back to his grandparents' house for dinner. 14:59 As he's walking back to the house, he sees his 15:02 grandma's pet duck. Out of impulse, Timmy sees that duck, 15:11 pulls that slingshot back and Ooh! lets it go and fly. 15:13 He hits the duck square in the head and kills it. 15:17 Timmy's sad. In a panic. Timmy hides the little 15:23 duck in a woodpile, because you always know sin 15:26 must have a covering. You try to cover it up. 15:30 I wish I had a witness in this place. 15:32 Timmy hides the duck in the woodpile, 15:35 but all the while he sees his sister Susie watching. 15:40 Susie has seen it all. But Susie says nothing. 15:44 After lunch that day, Grandma said, Susie, 15:48 let's wash the dishes. Susie said, "But Grandma, 15:55 Timmy told me that he wants to wash the dishes." 16:02 [laughter] PB: Susie then whispers to Timmy, 16:05 “Remember the duck.” [laughter] 16:09 PB: So, Timmy washes the dishes. Later that day, 16:14 later that evening, Grandpa asked the children, 16:18 "Look, do you want to go fishing? Let's go fishing! 16:21 Come on, Timmy, go with Grandpa. Let's go fishing." 16:23 Grandma said, "I'm sorry, Timmy can go but Susie can't go. 16:27 Susie must stay here at the house and help me make dinner." 16:31 Susie just smiled. "Well, that's all right, Grandma, 16:36 because Timmy told me that he wanted to help. 16:40 He can stay and do the dishes. I'll go with Grandpa." 16:46 She leans over to Timmy. "Remember the duck." 16:52 Susie goes fishing, Timmy stays at the home to 16:54 help make dinner. After several days of Timmy 16:57 doing both his chores and his sister Susie's chores, 16:59 he can't stand it anymore. He comes to his Grandma. 17:03 "Grandma, Grandma, Grandma, I confess. I killed the duck" 17:09 Timmy's grandma knelt down. She gives him a big hug. 17:16 She says, "Sweetheart, I know." She said, 17:24 "I was standing at the window, and I saw the entire thing. 17:31 But because I love you, I forgave you. 17:35 I was just wondering how long you would let Susie 17:41 make a slave out of you." [Aud. reaction] 17:45 PB: And I just stopped by to remind somebody that 17:49 whatever is in your past, whatever you had done back then, 17:53 and whatever the devil keeps throwing up in your face, 17:57 lying and cheating and bad habits, hatred, 18:00 anger, envy, promiscuity--whatev er it is. 18:04 Somebody needs to know on Communion Sabbath 18:07 that God was standing at the window, 18:11 and God saw the whole thing. [Aud. reaction] 18:15 PB: In fact, God has seen your entire life. 18:18 But God wants you to know that He loves ya, 18:21 and you're already forgiven. He just wants to 18:24 know how long you're going to let the 18:25 devil make a slave out of you. [Aud. reaction] 18:28 PB: And I don't know about you, but I refuse 18:30 to let the devil make a slave out of me. 18:33 I refuse to let the devil make fun of me. 18:36 I refuse to let the devil make sport of me. 18:39 Jesus died for me. Jesus hung for me. 18:43 Jesus bled for me. Jesus was crucified for me. 18:48 But Jesus also got up for me. Devil, 18:52 you didn't create me, God did. Devil, 18:55 you didn't make me, God did. Devil, 18:57 you didn't die for me, God did. 18:59 And devil, you can't save me. God can! 19:04 If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed. 19:09 So today, do you want to be free? Do you want 19:12 to be liberated? Do you want to be emancipated today? 19:15 Do you want to be made whole today? 19:17 Some of you don't realize, we're caught up 19:19 in the devil's penitentiary. Caught up. 19:22 We're on sinner life sentence. We're just 19:26 so used to living that way, we've just resigned 19:28 our spirit that I'll always be this way and 19:32 there's nothing that's going to change me. 19:34 But let me tell you something today. 19:36 To somebody. You are serving a life sentence 19:38 you don't have to serve. It's time for you to 19:41 break out of Satan's jail. The blood of Jesus 19:45 makes you free. So you need to tell the devil, 19:48 Devil, you played me for the last time. 19:51 You've tricked me for the last time. 19:55 You've made a fool of me for the last time. 20:00 If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed. 20:07 So we've got Independence Day but we can 20:09 start the fireworks now. [Aud. reaction] 20:11 PB: Bring out the party favors now. 20:14 Bring out the barbecue tofu now. 20:17 Tell the devil, I'm not going back to that 20:21 earthly hell that you had me bound up in. 20:23 But because of the blood, I'm wrapped up, 20:27 tied up, tangled up, in Jesus. He's all I- 20:35 -start the fireworks now, I'm free! 20:38 He went to Calvary to save a wretch like me. 20:41 I'm free! And one day soon Jesus is going 20:47 to come back. All He asks is that we live for Him. 20:51 He already died for us. Lift up the trumpet. 20:55 Loud let it ring. Jesus is coming again. I'm free. 21:06 You're free. The Son has set you--Jesus is 21:16 coming again. Act like it. You're not in bondage, 21:24 you're not enslaved. Act like it. 21:30 Discipleship, obedience. Obedience, freedom. 21:38 Today, if you don't do it any other Sabbath, 21:42 be free today. [applause] 21:50 [music] 22:02 Lift up the trumpet, and loud let it ring: 22:09 Jesus is coming again! 22:16 Cheer up, ye pilgrims, be joyful and sing: 22:28 Jesus is coming again! 22:36 Echo it, hilltops; proclaim it, ye plains: 22:46 Jesus is coming again! 22:55 Coming in glory, the Lamb that was slain; 23:04 Jesus is coming again! 23:13 __ oceans, each mighty wave; 23:22 Jesus is coming again. 23:31 __ the store that he laid; 23:40 Jesus is coming again. 23:50 Coming again; coming again. 23:58 Jesus is coming again. 24:07 __ the store that he laid; 24:16 Jesus is coming again. 24:25 Heavings of earth, tell the vast, wondering throng: 24:35 Jesus is coming again! 24:44 Tempests and whirlwinds, the anthem prolong; 24:53 Jesus is coming again! 25:11 Jesus is coming again! Coming again! 25:22 Coming again! Again! 25:56 >: For I received from the Lord that which I 26:00 also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the 26:03 same night in which He was betrayed took bread, 26:06 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 26:09 "Take, eat. This is My body which is broken for you. 26:13 Do this in remembrance of Me." 26:17 In the same manner he also took the cup after supper, saying, 26:22 "This cup is the New Covenant in My blood. 26:25 This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. 26:31 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, 26:35 you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes." 26:39 >: As far as possible, we invite you to kneel 26:46 before the Lord our God. Our Father, which art in heaven, 27:03 we are thankful indeed for the joy that You have placed 27:08 in our hearts today, the message of hope that reminds 27:13 us that we are free, and we are free in Jesus Christ. 27:18 We are thankful for this service that reminds us, 27:22 dear Father, that You have not left us alone, 27:26 but through the Communion emblems, You have 27:31 given us the symbol of Your presence. 27:34 Your servant has reminded us that Christ, 27:38 while He does not participate, His presence is here. 27:44 And we acknowledge, dear Father, that He indeed 27:50 is here today. We are thankful, thankful indeed 27:56 that You have allowed each one of us to come 27:58 to the table once more. From the last time 28:02 that we were here, there are many that have 28:04 been laid to rest, but You have kept us here, 28:09 and we are here to worship You in this service. 28:14 We invite Your Holy Spirit -- 28:17 >: Thank you for joining us for another 28:19 exciting Breath of Life television broadcast. 28:22 Tune in next week at the same time, 28:24 as Dr. Byrd will deliver another dynamic message 28:26 from the Lord, just for you. 28:29 Until next time, may God bless you. 28:31 [END] |
Revised 2017-07-03