John 8:34-58
ICE BREAKER
Share some thoughts regarding why we trace the roots of our family.
Often we look to see if there is something of importance in our family. But, again, why?
One reason is that our honor comes from our family name.
Share something interesting you know about your family lineage.
Christ is determined to free us from relying on presumptions about our family heritage.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- Jesus is disrupting our “comfortable notions” of family and honor.
We can have presumptions about our lineage but we can also have presumptions about other things such as social status or vocation status.
These presumptions can lead us into a false sense of security spiritually.
Pause and think of it: the crowds Jesus spoke with truly thought they were fine spiritually solely because they descended from Abraham!
Jesus tells them they are dead wrong.
Based on presumptions we can think we are okay when we are not at all okay.
Therefore Jesus must dismantle all presumptions in order for us to be rescued from sin and death.
When we bend our knee to Christ we are rescued from being slaves to sin.
But, we can still waffle. Presumptions can still creep in.
Currently, what presumptions make it hard for you to surrender all to Jesus?
Another way to ask this is to ask in what way you grasp for honor apart from dependency on Christ?
There are many categories of presumptions to consider but you can start with these: depending on family lineage for spiritual security, depending on vocational status or on socio-economic status.
- Which family are you choosing to be a part of? Is it the family of God or the family of Satan?
- How can you be a family of God and still be a family of Satan in some aspects? To dig a little deeper into this same question, ask yourself what is the trajectory of your family? What are the pulls of presumption in your family?
NOTES AND QUOTES
Last week we saw that sin is a prison. Sin always enslaves us.
Sin seeks to own us.
Today we see that Jesus speaks of the sinful pull or relying on one’s family lineage.
Jesus is talking about spiritual fatherhood.
He distinguishes between His father and their father–Satan.
The Jewish mindset was that because they were of Abraham lineage they believed they were God’s chosen people.
They were just fine based on lineage alone!
This presumptuous mindset blinded them to their sin and their need for a Savior.
Jesus said if you were really Abraham’s children you would behave differently.
Jesus is dismantling their presumption. Family lineage does not give life.
In our culture we develop our own blinding presumptions.
If we live in an affluent community we can begin to think we are pretty good people.
Our presumption can also be woven with our vocation and it becomes our source of honor and social position.
The problem is that it does not stop there, presumptions can also blind us from the need for Christ and His forgiveness.
Christ, in His fierce love for us, has to tear it all away because our presumptions can blind us to our need for forgiveness.
We can actually believe we are okay spiritually when we are in fact blind.
The interesting irony is that while the crowd was claiming honor through their father Abraham, Abraham in fact left all the honor of his family to follow his heavenly Father’s invitation.
Jesus says to the crowd that they are not like Abraham. The reason Jesus says this is because their behaviors are not like those of Abraham.
A person’s honor is gained by choosing God as their ultimate Father and living like Jesus.
Family’s matter not because they are an end in themselves but rather as a place where Christ can be tasted and life in Him can be fostered.
Jesus tells the crowd that they are of their father the devil.
Only two families matter in history; each one has a father.
One father is Satan and the other Father is God Himself.
There is no middle ground.
Our behavior proves who our father is.
When we are enslaved to sin our father is Satan. This is an awful truth.
But, in Christ, we are rescued from Satan and we are adopted into God’s family. Our Father is God Himself.
