TLP 172: We Want to Free Your Family

Truth.Love.Parent.

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Doctrine and application are inseparable. Anyone who teaches doctrine without teaching how it's to be lived out in our lives doesn't truly understand the doctrine.

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Welcome to Truth. Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents.

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Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. Welcome to Season 7. If you haven't worked your way through our previous six seasons,

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I invite you to do so. Each season is packed with biblically revolutionizing truth for your parenting.

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So speaking of truth, and in celebration of Independence Day, and in preparation for Season 7, today's episode is all about how your family can be set free.

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Truly independent from the world, its system, and its consequences. So let's jump right in.

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Last year on Independence Day, in episode 68, we learned that we really shouldn't want to be independent from some things.

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Yes, there are sinful things, and dangerous things, and wicked things from which we should strive to be independent, but the reality is that no one is ever truly, completely independent.

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We're all dependent on something. If you haven't heard that episode, make sure you check it out. But in our dependence on God, He wants us to be free from many things.

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So in John 8, 31 -32, we read, So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

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God wants to free us. He wants to free your family. And we love God here at TLP so desperately, and we also love your family so intensely that we want to participate in that emancipation.

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So today I want to look quickly at how we're freed, and from what we're freed, and then springboard into a summary of the focus for Season 7.

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As we already read, Jesus is talking to a group of Jews who have believed on Him. They have a relationship with Him, but they still don't understand everything perfectly, so Jesus is teaching them.

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And the first lesson they need to learn is that God wants to free us, but that freedom only comes through one thing.

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Again, verse 31 reads, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

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Working backward through the verse, we see that freedom comes through truth. We spent a lot of time talking about truth in our

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Mirrors Christianity series, and then again in our Speed Parenting series that taught us how to use the Mirrors Christianity when we don't seem to have enough time.

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And we're going to talk about it a lot more Lord -willing for as long as the Lord gives me breath.

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It's the first word in our title, truth, love, parent, and there's nothing more important than truth. In fact, at church,

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I'm going to be doing a six -week series in the book of Jude, and it's all about the war for truth because it is so incredibly important.

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There is no successful parenting without truth. It must be the foundation on which our homes are built.

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We must be willing to fight for it because it's the only thing that can save us or our kids.

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So, we know that truth frees us, but how do we know that truth?

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How do we get that truth? So, as we work backward through verse 31, we see that Jesus' words were the truth.

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If we abide in his word, we are his disciples, and we will know the truth. You see, this isn't simply a question of knowledge.

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You can know a lot of things that you don't live out in your lives, but that truth isn't going to set you free.

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Jesus says we need to abide. That word means that we're setting up camp. We're not going to depart.

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Now, what's the consequence of setting up camp? Well, it means that we're going to be his disciples. It's going to affect our lives, and people around us are going to notice it.

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Jesus said that everyone would know that we are his disciples if we love each other. It should be an obvious thing.

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It's not merely head knowledge. Listen, doctrine and application are inseparable.

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Anyone who teaches doctrine without teaching us how it's to be lived out in our lives doesn't truly understand the doctrine, and to be honest, it's not doing us any good.

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If we abide in the word of God, we will be his disciples. It will affect the way we live.

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That's knowing and living in truth, and then, and only then, will the truth make us free. Do you want your children to be free?

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Do you want them to experience truth independence? Well, it needs to start with grounding their lives in truth.

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Secondly, you must do everything you can to help them apply that truth and live it out in discipleship to Christ.

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This is going to require us to understand the topic that we discussed in episode 94, train your child to stay with God.

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Suffice it to say, teaching them is not good enough. We need to understand the difference between teaching and training, and we need to help our children actually participate in the truth and interact with the truth as they hear it, abide in it, and allow it to change them.

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I would encourage you to listen to episode 94 to better understand our discussion today. It'll be a helpful addition to it.

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So, number one, truth in the form of submission to God's word is what sets us free, but from what are we being freed?

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Let's continue reading. Starting in verse 33, we read, They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.

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How is it you say you will become free? Now, it's important to note that this group of people who's talking at this moment are not specifically the ones who had believed to whom he was talking earlier.

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Picture a large crowd of people, and while Jesus is teaching the believers, others are listening in. It's these people who are now asking the ridiculous question.

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Now, the question wasn't ridiculous because they wanted to know from what they would be freed. We want to know the same thing.

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The question was ridiculous because they're claiming that because they're children of Abraham, they were never slaves to anyone.

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Not only had the nation of Israel been constantly enslaved since Egypt, but at that exact time when the question was being asked, though,

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I mean, sure, they weren't technically slaves. They were under the control of the Roman Empire. Anyway, in verse 34,

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Jesus answers them. Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

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The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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I know that you're offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.

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I speak of what I've seen in my father, and you do what you have heard from your father. From what are we emancipated?

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God and everyone here at Truth Love Parent want everyone in your family to be freed from sin.

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And that makes sense. I mean, again, knowing truth doesn't merely free us, abiding in it, however, being a disciple of it frees us.

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As we turn away from sin and toward the Savior, we are freed from the power and the consequences of sin. Isn't that what you want for your family?

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Now, Jesus and this group of unbelieving Jews continue their argument. During it, Jesus is going to be accused of being an illegitimate child and being possessed by demons, and the

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Jews are going to continue misunderstanding what he's saying. But Jesus is going to give us some more clarity when it comes to understanding how to be freed by truth and what it looks like once we are freed by truth.

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We're now just going to do a flyover of the rest of the chapter. Stay with me. This is powerful. OK, starting in verse 39, they answered him,

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Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works

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Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.

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This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. The observation

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I want to make here is that, again, Jesus is tying our actions to our freedom. If they truly were children of truth, they would be acting like it and doing the things

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Abraham did. But their actions betray that they were still enslaved to sin and its father.

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Continuing on, they said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even

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God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and I am here.

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I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.

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You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

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When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. And because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.

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Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God.

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The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. Okay, so here's a synopsis.

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Jesus says that if you want to be free, your life and the lives of your children are going to have to be characterized by the following.

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1. We will love Jesus. And don't forget that Jesus said if we loved him, we would obey him.

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2. We will love Jesus because he came from the Father, and we obviously will love the Father. 3.

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We will understand Jesus' words. 4. We will love to hear God's words. 5.

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We won't want to do the things that conform to the lifestyle of Satan. Satan is a murderer who hates truth and lives a lie.

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6. We will believe everything God says. 7. We will hear the words of God. Moving on, the

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Jews answered him, Are we not right in saying that you are Samaritan and have a demon? Jesus answered,

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I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory.

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There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.

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Again, Jesus continues to explain what a truly independent life looks like. 8. We will honor the

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Father and Christ. 9. We will not seek our own glory. Instead, 10. We will keep

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God's word. Now, to keep means to guard and protect like soldiers keeping watch over the president.

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Now, before we finish off, please note that the only thing these people can do to contradict the truth that Jesus is speaking is to spit out offensive, hateful attacks.

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Does that sound familiar? Yeah, if you're interacting with somebody like that, you know what side they're on.

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A person who is free from sin and dependent on God doesn't talk like that. So, the

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Jews said to him, Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets. Yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.

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Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? And the prophets died? Who do you make yourself out to be? Jesus answered,

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If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom I say,

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He is our God. But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him,

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I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.

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He saw it and was glad. I love that our Lord just keeps giving us more and more. If we're truly free, number 11, we will let

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God glorify us instead of glorifying ourselves. Number 12, we will know God.

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And number 13, we will rejoice in God and his truth. Now, before we finish up, let me remind you that our free episode notes are published on our blog,

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Taking Back the Family, and you can find that at TruthLoveParent .com. I'm going to format these 14 points in a slightly more understandable way, a little bit more progressive way.

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I encourage you to download them, share it with your family, teach them to your kids, okay? Also, if you join the

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TLP family, you will receive an email every time we publish something new to our blog. That way you're only a click away from it at any point.

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Okay, so let's look at the grand finale of this dissertation on truth and freedom. So the

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Jews said to him, You are not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to them,

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Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.

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So they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. Here we have a powerful,

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I am statement of Christ. Here he openly claimed to be God, and the unbelieving

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Jews realized it and wanted to kill him for it. So what's the 14th indicator of someone who is freed from sin?

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We will stand for truth, even in the face of persecution. Can I say it again?

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This is what we want for your family this Independence Day weekend and every day thereafter. We want to free your family.

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So to that end, here's a plan for season seven. Season seven is all about emancipating truth.

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Next time we're going to talk about the specifics of being a disciple -making parent. That's how we give our children truth.

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We're going to discuss the sufficiency of Scripture. That's our source of truth. We're going to ask some very important questions about the importance and place of church.

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This is another vital channel through which God wants to work his truth. We're going to talk about your parenting Bible. We're going to study the five jobs of a parent.

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We're also going to talk about worship and the things that God commands his people to hate. It's going to be an awesome season, but I need to give you just one warning.

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Some of you may not automatically see how these topics will be daily applicable to your parenting. I know we just came out of a season that was super practical, daily life stuff.

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But remember what I said, doctrine cannot be separated from application. These truths are desperately important to your families, my family, and we will definitely make it super applicable, regardless of the age of your kids or the size of your family.

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So please share this episode so other families can join us in our journey to be truth -loved parents.

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And don't forget about the episode notes. I've included a link below. And never hesitate to send us an encouraging note, ask us a question or share a concern by sending an email to teamtlp at truthloveparent .com.

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We recently received such an email. It was sent through a submission form at truthloveparent .com and it read simply

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TLP Zindabad. Of course, any of you who speak Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, or Bengali know that a loose translation is

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Long Live TLP. Thank you so much for that encouragement. And another special thank you to Ray and Carolyn for their continued support for TLP.

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Their monthly gifts help us create this content and deliver it into your homes. You can learn more about supporting

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TLP by clicking on the 5 ways to support TLP link in the description. And remember, Team TLP, Ray and Carolyn, our other patrons, and I want nothing more than for God to be glorified as we set your family free by His truth.

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As you immerse yourselves in it and abide in it and submit to it, we want to equip you to thrive in your new freedom.

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To that end, I'll see you next time. Love Parent is part of the

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Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.