Sunday Gathering - John 7 : 53 - 8 : 11 - Andy Holingum - Sermon Only

Morning everybody. If you've got a Bible, you've got to find John chapter 8.

That'd be brilliant. That's where we are this morning.

Carrying on through John. So you might, hopefully you remember,

two weeks ago, Micah was talking.

Anybody remember the two questions he's mentioned near the beginning of her message

that we might ask ourselves? Anybody remember?

Was that a yes? Oh yeah, go on Gail.

Yeah, and? Brilliant. Isn't Gail so good?

fantastic well done absolutely what who do you say jesus is and who does your life

say jesus is right because they're two different things and it's really important that we get a

handle on that because if our mouth just talks about jesus in one way but our life lives something

different then at best we've got a bit of a disconnect at worst that's hypocrisy and god

isn't into hypocrisy right and you know we looked at that in our life group that week and had a

great discussion about it because actually you know even things like going to church praying

prayers singing the songs and all that waving our flags you know we can do all of that but our life

still may not be a life that actually is there telling people about Jesus in the way that our

mouths might think that we are doing Paul says if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation what's

gone the old is gone and what's come is new it's a complete transformation that when somebody

encounters Jesus the old is gone and the new has come in other words as we follow Jesus we should

cease to be the kind of person we were before we encountered Jesus and we keep getting on becoming

more gentle it's hard isn't it but this is the stuff that Micah was talking about when she asked

the question, what does our life say about Jesus? Today's passage gives us a few more things for us

to think about as we try and answer that question. So let's read it. John 8, he says this,

but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts where all the

people gathered around him and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees

brought in a woman caught in adultery they made her stand before the group and said to Jesus

teacher this woman was caught in the act of adultery in the law Moses commanded us to stone

such women now what do you say they were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis

for accusing him but Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger

when they kept on questioning him he straightened up and said to them if any one of you is without

sin let him be the first to throw a stone at her again he stooped down and wrote on the ground

at this those who heard began to go away one at a time the older ones first until only Jesus was

left with the woman still standing there Jesus straightened up and asked her woman where are they

has no one condemned you no one sir she said then neither do i condemn you jesus declared go now

and leave your life of sin let's just pray father we just want to thank you for your word that it is

living and active and sharper than a double-edged sword and we just pray as we look at this passage

together now that your holy spirit would come and speak to us challenge us equip us admonish us and

build us up lord in your precious name amen amen so i want to start finger pointing is everywhere

isn't it we all do it and it's all around us throughout all of society you know anybody who

has two children in their home and asks the question who did that immediately knows what

i'm talking about right because the kids it was them no it wasn't it was you no it was you

and actually all of us when we were kids i reckon probably got involved in the same thing right we

would want to blame our brother or sister rather than ourselves but actually it's not just a thing

it stays with us as we become adults and get into older life it stays with us in the workplace

when the boss comes and says why haven't you done this on time immediately we want to say well it's

because they did that they were delayed getting something to me it's their fault it's not my fault

if you look at politics it's full of finger pointing sometimes it's so hard to understand

what a political party or a person is about because they're so busy telling you what's wrong

with everybody else and pointing the finger at everybody else. Our culture has this totally

embedded within it. If I can get someone else into trouble, if I can point them out, if I can have a

laugh at their expense, if I can deflect away from me, then I will take that opportunity to do it.

all the major society issues that we see in the media at the moment have all of that going on

the whole time and it doesn't matter what the reason is we just get caught up and we just do it

don't we and in our passage today we've got a crowd of people doing it because they're trying

to trap Jesus they're trying to trick him and point that out so what have we got in these in

these few verses in chapter eight well we've got the teachers of the law and the pharisees the

religious leaders they are out to catch jesus they're trying to trick him and so they use this

woman that they've found to their own ends okay first of all that's what's going they're just

simply using her to their they drag her caught in the act of adultery and challenge jesus with what

their law says should happen just to be clear because of the society in the times that we live

scripture is really clear that the whole act of sexual union is purely for a man and a woman in

a heterosexual marriage relationship and anything outside of that is sin and is very clear and so

these guys have caught this woman in adultery and dragged them to the temple and put her in front

of Jesus and they say they're doing this because she's broken the law of Moses but just bear with

me a minute if we look at the law of Moses and we turn back to Deuteronomy chapter 22 and verse 22

we read this if a man is found sleeping with another man's wife both the man who slept with

her and the woman must die so what's wrong in the story today what where's the man yeah right where's

the scumbag where is he right I've got a sneaking suspicion he might be part of the crowd but I've

got no evidence for that right but where is he so actually you can see straight away they're not

actually after really sorting out what the law of moses says they're just using her for for their

own ends they're not interested in the law at all they just want to use her and so they stand there

this crowd in their smugness pointing their finger at her saying this woman so they challenge jesus

about her. And what does he do?

What does he do?

It's just a bit awkward, right?

Yeah, what's Andy doing?

He's just drawing on the carpet. He bends

down and he draws. I mean,

that must have been frustrating, right?

They thought they've trapped him. We've got him.

Because if he says that we should stone

her, then actually he's not the compassionate

son of God he's trying to portray himself as.

And if he says we shouldn't stone her,

then he's denying the very laws that he

claims his father has given us in the first place. So we've

got him but no he kneels down on the ground just draws in how frustrating must that be and then

as i read that i thought you know what when i pray and i think god where's the answer suddenly

i've got this image of what jesus is doing while i'm praying and he's writing on the ground and

we have to learn to wait don't we it's a challenge i found that funny anyway okay but if any and he

said and then he stands up and says if any of you is without sin then they can throw the first stone

And you think, wow, what a response.

This crowd have manipulated the woman

and this situation to their own ends

so that Jesus has got to give a binary response.

And what does Jesus do?

He comes in with a third way.

How often does he do that?

How often does he see things that we do not see

and he is able to bring something completely different?

And you can imagine the crowd thinking, what?

What's going on?

And the younger ones in that crowd pushing forward,

no, no, no, that's not an answer, Jesus.

Come on, what is the real answer?

But then slowly, slowly, the penny drops.

With the older ones first, maybe because they're a little bit wiser.

And they know the truth of what he is saying.

That actually, they've all got sin.

And no one is dumb enough to stand up and say that they've got no sin.

And so the crowd slowly filters away.

It does. They drift away.

And then we're left with this beautiful picture

of just jesus and this woman standing on their own facing each other the woman standing there

with nowhere to hide because what she's been caught doing and yet hearing the words that she

is free from condemnation because jesus is the only one who can say that when moments earlier

her law had demanded that she be stoned to death so in her mind she's thinking she's going to get

killed for what's been what she's been found doing and yet jesus comes along and frees her

from condemnation and at the same time that crowd is dispersed and gone away because they know they

are sinners themselves that's why they've gone away and yet they remain under the very condemnation

that jesus has now freed that woman from the woman remained and received freedom from jesus

and that freeing statement of go and sin no more.

You see, what a mini-story this is of the saving grace of Jesus,

that this woman deserves stoning under the law.

Her sin deserves the penalty of death.

And that is true for every single one of us in this church,

in this community, in this world today,

that our sin deserves the penalty of death.

That is what the law of God demands.

and yet as she is prepared to stand openly, alone

and vulnerable before Jesus in the story

she receives forgiveness

and as we stand and are willing to stand openly

and honestly before Jesus

there is the opportunity for such forgiveness

and such freedom.

See John writes later in his letters

towards the end of the New Testament

he says, if we confess our sins

God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins

and purify us from all unrighteousness.

And I just wonder if he's recalling this episode

as he writes those verses

because this woman came and actually initially dragged in

but ultimately confessing her sin before Jesus.

And Jesus says there's no condemnation for you.

he forgives her sin

and when he says go and sin no more

he's purifying her from unrighteousness

he's putting her in a place

where the sin as a whole in her life

no longer needs to do that

so what practical application is there

there's a couple of things

I just want to pull out quickly

this morning from this for us

first thing right

is about pointing the finger at people

we all do it don't we

right

there's no denying it

I love it

it's quite good fun at times

because it protects me

and it hides my ego

and it covers me up

if I can point out somebody else.

We all say,

have you seen what they've done?

Did you hear what she said?

Did you hear what they did in Heron the other day?

Did you see what she wrote on Facebook?

We all do it, don't we?

All the single ones.

Yeah, I was speeding,

but they were going much faster.

we all love to point the finger

because we all love to point out

other people's misfortune

or because they annoy us

or simply to deflect away

from our own issues

or because we are hurt

and we put it up as a defence

and if I can point people at everybody else

then they won't be looking at me

and they won't be challenging me

and changing me

and it suits our own ends

just like in the story

today you see in all of this finger pointing that we all get caught up in stems right back to

Genesis 3 stems right back to the fall you know when God said to Adam and Eve you can eat from

any one of these squazillion trees in the garden apart from that one what do they do they go and

eat from that one and God comes to them and says Adam why did you eat that apple from that tree

and Adam does what?

Points the finger.

That woman, just the same as in our story, right?

That woman does it.

And what does Eve do when she's challenged?

That serpent, that serpent.

They point the finger.

This issue that we have that is a disease in our own society

and if we're honest in our own lives

about pointing and protecting our own ego

and putting it away from ourselves

stems right back to the fall.

And so what should we do instead?

how do we deal with this well it's it's hard right because Jesus is pretty hot on this stuff

and in Matthew chapter 7 he said we read this he says why do you look at the speck of sawdust in

your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye we're all planks right

we've all got planks and he's serious so why do we get so caught up pointing out other people's

when Jesus is challenging us to be men and women

who get serious about dealing with the issues in our own life

and in our own heart and our own attitudes.

Paul writes later to the church in Philippi,

he says our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.

This is every one of us here as we follow Jesus,

the charge is our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus

who being in very nature God

yet did not consider equality with God

something to be grasped

but made himself nothing

and took the form of a servant

and being found in human likeness

became obedient to death

even death on a cross

you see with Jesus

it's not about him preserving his ego

like it is for you and me

it's about laying down our life

and you know what Jesus is calling

all of us to become men and women that learn what it is to lay down our wants our desires

our ego and to sacrifice them in the way he's doing see in the beginning of the passage we

read he's in the mount of olives probably praying but jesus isn't praying isn't on the mount of

olives saying father do you see what those pharisees are doing he's not there saying

father do you see what these teachers of the law are about what they're trying to do he's not doing

that he's laying down his life in humility he's not he's not protecting his ego paul says at the

beginning of romans in chapter one he says i'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power

of god for salvation of those who believe first jews and then gentiles i always used to think that

verse is about yeah we if we preach the gospel and we live it then actually people will become

christians they will encounter jesus but the more i think about it this is more also about once

we've done that this is about allowing the gospel to continue to change our lives day by day it's

about encountering the fact that Jesus challenges us to be men and women who learn what it is to die

daily to lay down our lives and take up our cross and that and that sounds very spiritual but it

isn't it's very earthy this means choosing not to point the finger at other people it means choosing

to get serious with Jesus about him dealing with my issues that I may become more like him it means

choosing to be serious with Jesus that I want that stuff that's in that list that Sheila's put

up for us to start to happen and sprout in my life Isaiah puts it this way in Isaiah 58 he's

talking about if you want to see God come and we want to see God come don't we okay a couple of us

good we want to see we want to see God come and change the community right we really do because

that's what we believe the gospel is about right we're not just here having a nice religious time

on a sunday we're here because jesus is building his church and one day he's going to return and

claim a bride and he's going to wrap up history and that's the end of it right and in the meantime

he's working towards that and so we want to see god come and transform people's lives and change

hearts and minds and then encounter the love of jesus in the way that the woman has done in the

story that we've read this morning and so isaiah is saying if that's what you want to see then

these are the things you need to be doing to begin to see that happen where you are and you see

sometimes we think it's about we've got to sing better songs more stirred up songs we've got to

pray harder we've got to work more but isaiah says this in isaiah 58 and verse 9 he says then

you will call and the lord will answer we want that don't we then you want to be a man or a woman

who learns what it is to call

and God answers?

He says, then you will cry for help

and he will say, here am I.

You know, we want to cry for help

for the community of Jordenthorpe

and for Batemore

and for where we live

and the schools that we represent.

And we want to know that God

is going to be a God who says,

here am I.

Don't we?

And then Isaiah goes on and says,

okay, great.

Because if you do away

with the yoke of oppression,

if you do away with the pointing finger

the malicious talk right here

then if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry

and satisfy the needs of oppressed

then your light will rise in the darkness

then your night will become like the noonday

in other words, Isaiah is saying

if you want to see God move in your life

in your family, in your school, in your street

in your home, in your community, in your church

then guys and girls put away the pointing finger

and the malicious talk.

Stop it, is what he's saying.

Then you will see God come and move.

Whoa, what a challenge.

It's not a 24-hour prayer meeting we need to do.

After all, well, that might help, right?

It's actually, I've got to change

the way I'm living my life.

Oh, Isaiah, why did you have to write that?

It's hard.

Do away with it all, he says.

But not only do away with it,

he says, instead of being men and women

at pointing a finger become men and women who roll the sleeves up their arms and instead of

pointing fingers at people get involved in raising people up satisfy the hungry he says

take the yoke of the oppressed he says so the charge to us is no longer to be men and women who

go around pointing out other people's faults and why what they've done and why that upsets me and

why that hurts me but instead to become men and women who want to roll our sleeves up and get

involved with those that are less fortunate than ourselves and begin to raise them up round about

us practical things that we can do to deal with this and the second thing i just want to pull out

of this passage that i think it's screaming at us is that we need to deal with sin in our lives

right there's just i can't avoid this i've tried hard uh but this passage is screaming that out at

all the crowd left because they knew they had sin in their lives them walking away is an admission

of guilt is an admission that they are sinners everyone without exception so we can kind of

think well who's got the worst sin here the crowd that have walked away or the woman caught in

adultery but that's the wrong question because the point is the sin needs dealing with see which

of these two groups of people had their sin dealt with that day so that they could walk away

free from condemnation and shame.

You see, when we stand before Jesus

and the blackness in our heart is laid bare,

like this woman,

there's no cover-up.

Hopefully she's got a garment wrapped around her

before the crowd dragged her in front of Jesus.

But it's really obvious what she's been caught doing.

There's no cover-up.

Nowhere to hide.

No ability to deflect.

There's no use of social media

just to let Jesus know the little bit

I want him to know

and hide on and keep hold of the other stuff.

And as she stands before Jesus,

it's the place, first of all, of admission.

I'm a sinner.

I'm a sinner and I need you, Jesus.

As we stand before Jesus,

that is the first thing.

But then standing before Jesus,

once we do that,

becomes a place where condemnation

and shame can be lifted

because Jesus is the one who is able to forgive us.

Remember that promise John writes later,

if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us.

And so this woman that day finds freedom from condemnation and shame,

freedom from forgiveness.

And then thirdly, standing before Jesus

becomes the place where we can walk free.

She says, we read in the passage, Jesus says, go and sin no more.

It's not just that she receives freedom from condemnation and shame

and forgiveness for carrying on like that.

She receives the freedom and the ability

that that sin may no longer have a hold on her life

and she doesn't need to do it anymore.

Only Jesus can do that.

Seriously, guys, only Jesus can do that in our lives.

We have to come and...

But there's an order, right?

We come and stand before him in total honesty,

no pretense, everything laid bare.

He knows it all, and we confess it all.

And then he forgives us, if we're willing to do that, he forgives us.

And then he frees us and purifies us from all unrighteousness.

That is the gospel.

That is it.

That is the gospel, right?

And I guess I just want to add, if we were writing this story today,

we would talk about the fact this woman probably has trauma, right,

because of what she's been through.

we might use a phrase like PTSD

and I want to say that when Jesus

he stands in front of Jesus

and everything is laid bare

and it's really clear what's going on

and Jesus brings a freedom from condemnation and shame

and freedom from sin

this isn't a religious thing he's talking about

he sets this woman free

and I believe the power of the gospel

is well able to set us free

from the effects of trauma

and whatever acronym that is used today to describe some of those things.

And it's not just a sin thing.

It's actually whole restoration that Jesus is able to bring to you and me

no matter what we have experienced and what we have been through.

Ange and I went to a conference last weekend about churching in council estates.

And it's always great going somewhere else where there's a sort of different brand of Christianity

because you pick up the different emphases and you spot stuff.

Oh, we don't think like that, do we? Or we don't do that.

And it was quite interesting.

And one of the things that we picked up was there was more of an emphasis, it seemed at any rate,

on the reality of the effect of sin in our lives and our ongoing need to address it.

And I'm not saying that we don't do that,

but it just made me think that sometimes it feels like we can create a bit of a culture

through the songs that we sing and even the prayers that we pray

and even the bits of scripture that we emphasize.

that it's just all about celebrating

Jesus' death and resurrection

and the fact we've come to know him

and that one day we're going to be with him

and we don't really look very often

at the bits that actually

focus that actually

I'm not that serious about changing my life

you know what I mean

and we can kind of do all the

celebratory stuff

but actually don't ask me to change my life

because that's uncomfortable

but yet Jesus

as I said earlier

he says we we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily one of the films angie and i

like watching is uh sully you watch sully it's brilliant film so it's the guy it's the pilot

who took off from an airport in new york and just have to take off birds hit the plane and took out

both engines and he had to make a decision to land it on the hudson river and all the passengers

were saved and the film covers quite a lot about how the insurance companies were trying to screw

him over because they had to fork out a lot of money because the plane landed on water and not

on a runway. And one of the things

insurance companies do is they do a load of

computer simulations that showed

that actually when he did

the birds, when the birds hit the plane

he had enough time to turn around and land at an airport

and so he could have saved the plane

and saved them lots of money.

And there's a point in the film

where they've shown these computer simulations

and that they could have landed at

these other airports and then slowly turns around

and he says, can we get serious now?

And they say to him, what do you mean?

Well you've ignored the human element.

you've ignored the fact that when the birds hit the plane

there's a length of time required to process

mentally what's going on here, what's

happened, to feel what the plane is doing

to figure out how to, then

what are we going to do, to get the manual down

to read what do we do next

so they reluctantly agree to add in some extra

seconds in their computer simulation

this is a real spoiler alert if you've never seen the film

and they put in the extra

sorry Gabby

and so

They put those extra seconds in the computer simulation

and lo and behold, it proves that he couldn't have landed at an airport

and he made the right decision to land on the water.

But the reason why I'm saying that is because there's this brilliant bit

where he says, can we get serious now?

And sometimes I feel like Jesus comes along and puts his arm around me

and says, Andy, can we get serious now?

This stuff in your life, you know, come on, let's deal with it.

And so as we finish, I just want to consider our responses

because there's two responses in today's passage to the calling out of sin.

In one response, a person stands before Jesus, it's very clear what the sin is

and that person encounters both the grace and the truth of Jesus and finds freedom.

In the other, a whole crowd of people admit to having sin, don't name it and wander away from Jesus

and they remain condemned.

You see, the consequences of the woman's sin was that she was free

And there is freedom today from the grip and the hold that sin has in our lives

if we are willing to stand before Jesus with nothing hidden and all defences gone.

That is the mercy of God today, only in Jesus.

But if we choose to walk away from Jesus,

if we choose to keep our sins hidden from the One who sees all things, ironically,

then we have made a choice to remain under condemnation.

In the words of my granddaughter from school,

let's make good choices.

Amen.