What does it mean to “live according to Jesus’ teaching”?
Too often, people make their faith practice all about belief.
We must believe the right things.
Or we must accept Jesus as our personal Savior.
They make their faith all about life after death.
But if we focus entirely on where we go when we die, we miss an important part of our walk with Jesus.
How are we supposed to live while we are alive?
Jesus’ ministry was not simply about saving us from something bad that would happen to us when we died.
A lot of his message was focused on saving us from the things that are hurting us now.
Jesus saves us from the hatred that eats away at our hearts.
He saves us from the greed that prevents us from ever being satisfied.
He saves us prejudice that teaches us to fear our neighbors.
He saves us from the need to always be right, to always be superior, and to always be in control.
In saving us, Jesus eliminates the obstacles that prevent us from being who God intends us to be.
We know we cannot earn salvation.
We know we receive forgiveness¬—over and over again—only through the grace of God.
And yet, we are bombarded with voices who claim they are saved, who claim they have a personal relationship with Jesus, who appear to have no interest in actually following Jesus.
Following Jesus is not about professing a belief.
Following Jesus is about embracing a way of life that transforms us.
Jesus frees us from the destructive power of our own sins: our judgmentalism, our greed, and our self-absorption.
In today's Gospel, Jesus says, “If you live according to my teaching, you really are my disciples; then you’ll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
A little later, he says, “So if the heir—the Only Begotten—makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
Free indeed.
It also raises a difficult question.
Why do so many of us fail to embrace that freedom?
Why do we cling to grudges when forgiveness is possible?
Why do we choose suspicion over compassion?
Why are we more focused on our own comfort rather than our neighbors’ suffering?
Why do Christians ignore Jesus’ call to love one another?
I believe that the answer lies in this tendency to confuse believing in Jesus with following Jesus.
Jesus says, “If you live according to my teaching, you really are my disciples; then you’ll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
But the response is, “Never have we been the slaves of anyone.”
How then can they be set free?
Jesus reminds them that they are slaves to sin.
Sin is not just breaking a commandment.
Sin is everything that we do to separate us from God.
Sin is everything that places us in the center—everything that tells us that what we want is the most important thing.
Sin can look like putting an undocumented immigrant on a plane to an African country torn apart by civil war.
But it can also look like turning a blind eye to the unhoused person on the street.
Sin can look like hating the Muslim because you associate their faith practice with terrorism.
But it can also look like assuming the gay man is hitting on you just because he is friendly.
Sin can look like corruption and injustice.
But it can also look like telling ourselves that we are always right and the people we don’t like are always the cause of our problems.
That is what makes sin so dangerous.
Sometimes, it is overt and obvious.
But, more often than not, it is subtle.
Sin is also pervasive.
Greed tells us that we are free to accumulate wealth—until we discover that more is never enough.
Anger, fear, and prejudice tell us that we are free to hate people—until we discover we are incapable of seeing the image of God in our human siblings.
Self-righteousness tells us that we are free assume superiority over everyone else—until we discover we are no longer able to accept the grace that God so freely offers to us.
This is the slavery that Jesus is trying to get us to see.
Jesus wants us to realize that this subtle, pervasive bondage isn’t harmless.
That is why he is so intent on breaking those chains that bind us.
Our Lutheran faith is based on the knowledge that God’s grace is free.
There is nothing we can do to earn it.
As a young man, Martin Luther was tormented by the belief that his relationship with God depended on what he did.
He examined his conscience, worried about his failures, and always wondered if he had done enough.
But his study of Scripture led him to the conclusion that we are made right with God by grace alone, through faith in Christ.
It is not our achievement.
It is God’s gift.
It’s not that good works aren’t important.
In his “Freedom of a Christian”, Luther explained that a Christian is simultaneously free from the need to earn salvation and called to serve the neighbor in love.
The two go hand-in-hand.
God does not love us because we feed the hungry.
We feed the hungry because God loves us—unconditionally.
God does not forgive us because we forgive others.
We forgive because we are grateful for the forgiveness we have already received from God.
God has not redeemed us because we welcome the stranger.
We welcome the stranger because, through Jesus, God has redeemed us.
Our good deeds matter.
They matter a lot.
But we must never lose sight of the fact that they are the result of our being saved.
They are not the price of admission.
Following Jesus changes what we value.
Following Jesus changes how we treat people.
Following Jesus changes what we are willing to accept—and what we must challenge.
Jesus didn’t say, “if you believe in me, you are my disciples.”
He said, “If you live according to my teaching, you are my disciples.”
Being a follower of Jesus means allowing his words and his actions to shape our lives.
True discipleship is not simply agreeing with Jesus.
Lip service is easy.
True discipleship is learning to live as Jesus taught us to live.
It is a lifelong process.
And it is hard.
We will stumble and we will fail.
And then we receive grace again.
True discipleship does not mean we will always know the right thing to do.
It means that we keep returning to Jesus' command to love God and love our neighbor.
We listen.
We learn.
We work to co-create the Kin-dom.
We work to build a community in which human dignity is not dependent on race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, wealth, or social status.
We make mistakes and we repent.
That’s what “the truth will set you free means”.
It means that our faith is never simply between God and us.
God intended for us to live and worship in communities.
We belong to our human siblings.
We need one another because we do not become faithful disciples on our own.
Jesus says, “So if the heir—the Only Begotten—makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
Our freedom begins with Jesus.
We cannot free ourselves through obedience.
We cannot save ourselves through works.
We cannot become right with God by finally getting our lives in order.
Jesus comes to us in our bondage.
He forgives us.
He identifies us as beloved children of God.
He calls us by name.And claims us as his own.
The good news is that we do not have to answer these questions perfectly before we begin.
We begin with grace.
We begin with Christ.
We begin again each day, trusting that the Holy Spirit is at work in us and among us.
And then we go out into the world to love, to serve, to forgive, to welcome, and to work for justice—not to earn our salvation, but because in Christ we have been set free.
For if the Only Begotten makes us free, we will be free indeed.
And a church that truly believes this good news will not merely proclaim freedom.
It will practice freedom.
It will embody freedom.
It will become a place where people experience the liberating love of God through the actions of Jesus’ followers.
I pray that God gives us the courage to receive that grace, the humility to be transformed by it, and the faithfulness to live it out in the world.
May this meditation on God’s word keep our hearts and minds on Christ Jesus. Amen.