Speaker 1: We're going to be starting up a new series starting today, called Freedom, and it's all about John chapter 8.
Speaker 1: So if you want to open up your copy of God's Word today whether you've got a digital Bible, paper Bible open up to John chapter 8.
Speaker 1: We're going to be really scanning through the verses there, so I'd really encourage you to follow along.
Speaker 1: And it's all about freedom, breaking the chains and living free in Jesus and what are the implications of that.
Speaker 1: We start off with John chapter 8, with a really well-known story, and it has a really well-known phrase.
Speaker 1: You guys can probably finish it, even if you're a Christian or not a Christian.
Speaker 1: You probably at least know the phrase he who is without sin will cast the first.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 1: So it's a phrase that's used by Christians and non-Christians alike and a lot of people know this story right.
Speaker 1: You know this story because it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's the heart of Jesus, really it's Jesus and the adulterous woman.
Speaker 1: But the thing is with well-known stories that you can often fall into the trap of thinking that you really know it but you don't really know the really nitty-gritty details of it.
Speaker 1: And it can be dangerous really because there can be really well-known stories out there that because you miss the details, you miss the meaning of it.
Speaker 1: For example, just as a question, how many of you guys, if you're around in the early 2000s, late 90s, remember the story of the woman who sued McDonald's because she spilled coffee on her lap?
Speaker 1: How many of you guys remember that?
Speaker 1: Let's see a little raise of hands, right?
Speaker 1: So the story goes right.
Speaker 1: Woman got coffee, spilled it on her lap, sued McDonald's, got two million dollars.
Speaker 1: And she's the reason why we have on the back of shampoo bottles do not eat, do not insert in your eyes, right?
Speaker 1: People think that that's the story, right, but when you learn the details of it it really changes your perspective.
Speaker 1: Story goes in 1992, stella Liebeck went to a drive-thru as a passenger ordered a cup of coffee for her.
Speaker 1: They were going to go somewhere, her and her daughter.
Speaker 1: In the morning she went.
Speaker 1: They parked in the parking lot.
Speaker 1: Car wasn't even moving but because of the way that a lot of car seats are, they're on a slight slant.
Speaker 1: When she put it on her lap and open it up, the coffee spilled on her lap.
Speaker 1: Now also is to note that McDonald's at the time heated up their coffee to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: They did this to save a few pennies on the dollar, so they didn't have to keep refilling the canisters.
Speaker 1: They could keep their coffee hot and they could keep it still for longer.
Speaker 1: Now your food starts burning the inside of your mouth at about 130 degrees.
Speaker 1: So when 190 degree liquid spilled all over her lap, it caused her third degree burns.
Speaker 1: She needed skin grafts.
Speaker 1: She was wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: She needed multiple surgeries and it was just a lot of back and forth for months.
Speaker 1: Her daughter had to quit her job in order to take back and forth from the hospital for months.
Speaker 1: So initially, when they sued McDonald's because of the heat of the coffee, they just wanted McDonald's to cover the medical bills.
Speaker 1: It was about $20,000.
Speaker 1: And so McDonald's received the lawsuit and they laughed at it and offered her a pitiable 800 bucks to cover pain and suffering.
Speaker 1: And so she lawyered up and she sued McDonald's.
Speaker 1: They went back and forth.
Speaker 1: The lawyers investigated like why in the world are you heating up your coffee to 190 degrees Fahrenheit?
Speaker 1: All the other coffee chains were heating up way lower.
Speaker 1: And so they sued McDonald's and they successfully won a settlement of over two million dollars.
Speaker 1: All the while, though, mcdonald's hated the fact that they were being brought on the world stage for a frivolous lawsuit in their eyes.
Speaker 1: They paid off a couple media companies Fox, msnbc, abc to run stories where they made her look ridiculous.
Speaker 1: They made McDonald's look like the victim, like how could this lady who spilled coffee on herself sue for that much money?
Speaker 1: They were paying media companies to run that.
Speaker 1: And all the while they were they and it's just unbeknownst to anybody.
Speaker 1: They discovered this in the late 2000s.
Speaker 1: They lowered the temperature of their coffee about 30 degrees too.
Speaker 1: So really, you think you know the story, you've probably heard it, you've probably discussed it, but it's not until you hear the details of it that you understand really how deep that corporate greed of McDonald's was right.
Speaker 1: And so today, in John, chapter 8, we're going to be talking about a very similar story.
Speaker 1: And the fact of you think you know it, you've probably heard it, you've heard that phrase at least somewhere, right, but it's not until you hear the details of it that you really gain the significance.
Speaker 1: So let's pick it up in verse 1 of John, chapter 8.
Speaker 1: Jesus went to the Mount of Olives it was a mountain in Jerusalem and early in the morning he came again to the temple.
Speaker 1: It's in modern day terms, it would be like the place where people have got to congregate.
Speaker 1: It would be like a church, right?
Speaker 1: All the people came to him and they sat down and taught them, kind of like we're doing right now.
Speaker 1: Jesus was sitting down and people were crowding around him in the temple courts and they wanted to hear what happened.
Speaker 1: But then the story changes.
Speaker 1: We have the first tension right here.
Speaker 1: The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, placing her in the midst.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, those back doors they burst open and a crowd of people rowed and rambling.
Speaker 1: They come in, they're dragging a woman and they throw her in front of the ground and say this woman has been caught in the act, in the act of adultery.
Speaker 1: So the tension is high.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine if somebody walked in right now?
Speaker 1: Just one person walked into the building and started to talk to me while trying to yell at me while I'm teaching right now?
Speaker 1: Now imagine a whole group of them, right, this is what was happening to Jesus, and so there was tension.
Speaker 1: There was a woman, publicly humiliated, caught in the act of adultery.
Speaker 1: So the question is what is Jesus going to do?
Speaker 1: What is Jesus going to say and what happens next is unexpected and would change everything for her and would change everything for us as well.
Speaker 1: So, from today's passage, we're really going to examine three groups of people in this story.
Speaker 1: The first group of people that we want to examine is the Pharisees.
Speaker 1: The Pharisees were a group of high-class religious people.
Speaker 1: If you've been through us with the series, you've heard all about their meddling already, right?
Speaker 1: So what they were really is they were really expert people at the law of Moses and a lot of the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: A lot of them.
Speaker 1: When they grew up if they had good upbringing they memorized the first five whole books of the Bible.
Speaker 1: I've got a few verses off the top of my head that I can rattle off, but five whole books of the Bible, that's a lot, right.
Speaker 1: So they knew the Old Testament inside and out, on the surface level, right, they memorized it.
Speaker 1: These people were the guys that you went to to ask Bible questions.
Speaker 1: These people were the ones you went to because they had influence, because they had power and, on the outside at least, they looked totally holy.
Speaker 1: They were on the street corners praying.
Speaker 1: They never said that they sinned.
Speaker 1: They did all this great stuff right.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, too, they wanted to put Jesus in a box.
Speaker 1: Because, you understand, at the time Rome occupied Judea, right the country where all this was happening, and Rome established its own laws and customs onto Judea and told them, to a certain extent, you couldn't practice your law entirely.
Speaker 1: So what they wanted the Messiah to do was they wanted him to be a militaristic, political guy who went out and bucked Rome off so that Judea could live liberally and Judea could live freely.
Speaker 1: However they wanted to do so.
Speaker 1: They were looking for that in a Messiah.
Speaker 1: So when Jesus came on and he said if somebody slaps you, turn the other cheek.
Speaker 1: If a Roman makes you carry his armor for one mile, do it for two miles, this was just like whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1: This guy cannot be the Messiah.
Speaker 1: So because they were put Jesus in a box and Jesus was talking about a spiritual kingdom and spiritual renewal rather than a physical political kingdom, they didn't want anything to do with Jesus.
Speaker 1: So they were trying to reject him at every possible opportunity.
Speaker 1: They were trying to trap him, they were trying to get him gotcha questions, and this is exactly where we are today.
Speaker 1: They interrupted Jesus's teaching moment in the temple to and we'll see pick it up here in verse three the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, placing her in the midst.
Speaker 1: They said to him Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
Speaker 1: Now let me pause right here, because I think adultery can be one of those Bible words that, because we don't use it in today's vernacular, can lose its punch.
Speaker 1: Right and simply put, adultery is this having sex with somebody other than your spouse.
Speaker 1: So this woman, she was caught in adultery.
Speaker 1: She got caught having sex with somebody who wasn't her husband.
Speaker 1: She got caught being a cheater.
Speaker 1: She got caught breaking her marital vows in the act.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like she came and confessed it.
Speaker 1: They opened the door and they saw it.
Speaker 1: They caught her in the act of cheating on her spouse.
Speaker 1: So they got her.
Speaker 1: And, by the way, where's the guy in all this?
Speaker 1: That's the question.
Speaker 1: Where's the fella right?
Speaker 1: They said.
Speaker 1: They caught her in the act.
Speaker 1: You need two to tangle.
Speaker 1: Where's the guy in all this?
Speaker 1: They grabbed her, dragged her to the temple, threw her down on the ground and said she committed adultery, and placing her in the midst, right?
Speaker 1: They said to him teacher.
Speaker 1: This woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
Speaker 1: Now in the law of Moses, and in the law, moses commanded us to stone such a woman.
Speaker 1: So what do you say?
Speaker 1: They said this that they might test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Speaker 1: What was happening here was not a religious question.
Speaker 1: Truly, really, what it was was this is that in Roman occupied Judea what we just talked about the Jews did not have the power to execute somebody under the law.
Speaker 1: Really, it makes sense once you think about it.
Speaker 1: Because at the end of the Gospels, what happens?
Speaker 1: They get Jesus and they have to take him to Herod.
Speaker 1: They have to take him to Pilate.
Speaker 1: They take him back to Herod, they take him back to Pilate all to get approval to crucify one guy.
Speaker 1: Right, because they did not have the authority to put somebody to death.
Speaker 1: When the Romans came in, they said you kill people for cheating.
Speaker 1: That's just something we do as Romans, that's all the time, right?
Speaker 1: So they didn't say that cheating was an executable offense.
Speaker 1: So they were bringing in Old Testament law to Jesus and saying in the Old Testament, moses said we could execute people because of this heinous sin.
Speaker 1: The Romans say, nah, you have to get approval for it.
Speaker 1: So what do you say, jesus?
Speaker 1: They were trying to again, politically, put him in a box and say are you going to follow the Romans?
Speaker 1: Are you going to follow the Jewish law?
Speaker 1: What are you going to do?
Speaker 1: Either way, this woman's going to die.
Speaker 1: Today we got to do something, jesus.
Speaker 1: They weren't concerned about holiness, they weren't concerned about justice.
Speaker 1: It was all about humiliation, holiness.
Speaker 1: They weren't concerned about justice, it was all about humiliation.
Speaker 1: It was all about getting a gotcha question, it was all about control, and I know that because they didn't bring the guy.
Speaker 1: If they were concerned about justice, they would bring the guy too, but no, it was just the woman, just the woman, the easy target, the pawn that they could use in this situation.
Speaker 1: This is all really a picture of legalism, of religion, of condemnation, because religious people, because legalistic people, they love to point the finger, they love to point out sin in other people.
Speaker 1: They love to condemn without giving a hand up, because really what religious people do is they condemn.
Speaker 1: They look down right and we've felt it, I've felt it People looking down at me and defining me for what I've done.
Speaker 1: They point the finger, but they don't extend the hand.
Speaker 1: And that's really the difference.
Speaker 1: That's the difference, right?
Speaker 1: Because look, religious people they tear down, but Jesus followers, they lift up Religious people.
Speaker 1: They look at the sin and think that's the end.
Speaker 1: That person can just get marked off, whatever that person's a dirty, filthy, rotten sinner.
Speaker 1: But Jesus followers, they confront the sin and we'll see about that here in just a moment but they won't stop there.
Speaker 1: They'll lift you up and bring you to Jesus too.
Speaker 1: Because when we look down at people, when we condemn people, like the Pharisees did right here, we're just like them.
Speaker 1: We're just like religious people, we're just like the people who have hurt us.
Speaker 1: And it can be a lot like this Everybody's got one of these, right?
Speaker 1: Let me ask you guys, let me ask you this how many of you guys are like me?
Speaker 1: And as soon as you get a phone, you put a screen protector on it.
Speaker 1: How many of you guys are screen protector people?
Speaker 1: I am 100%.
Speaker 1: Now, let me ask you guys this, and I'm not going to judge you, it's okay how many of you guys are not the screen protector people?
Speaker 1: Y'all just go in with the glass.
Speaker 1: Y'all are some brave people.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I mean honestly, right.
Speaker 1: Honestly, you guys love to live in a brave manner.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your honesty.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, right, I am the type of person and if you know me, this is not going to shock you one bit.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you, when I put a screen protector on, if there is one bubble, if there is one dust bit, if there is one little invisible hair on my screen, I am ripping the thing off, I'm putting a new one on until I get it right.
Speaker 1: When I get like plastic screen protectors they give you like three or six right, I will go through the entire box if it means I will get a perfect one right.
Speaker 1: Because when I look down at my phone, even if it's like on the edge of the screen, where, like the bezel is, it's not even the screen anymore I will not be able to look at my screen without it being just like immaculate it at my screen, without it being just like immaculate.
Speaker 1: It needs to be perfect, because if I see a little air bubble right here, I'm just going to be looking at it the whole entire time.
Speaker 1: I will not be able to focus.
Speaker 1: Honestly, that's just how I am and you know, honestly, if it's for something like this, it's a little funny.
Speaker 1: Whatever, it's just the Edgar thing.
Speaker 1: Whatever right, it's excusable, it's whatever right.
Speaker 1: When we treat our screen protectors like that, it's one thing.
Speaker 1: When we treat people like that, it's a whole other thing.
Speaker 1: When we point the finger, when we can't look past somebody's mistakes, somebody's sins without letting that define who they are as a person, we become just like the Pharisees and even to the extent, we become just like Satan.
Speaker 1: It's satanic, it really is, because Satan what it literally means.
Speaker 1: The word Satan in the Hebrew means the accuser.
Speaker 1: So when we become the accuser, when we become the finger pointer, when we become the dismisser, the condemner, and we let one person's mistake define the entirety of who they are, when we forget who they are as a person and they just become the action, we come in line with what Satan does, because religious people tear down but Jesus followers build people up.
Speaker 1: So now let's shift the focus over from the accusers to the accused.
Speaker 1: Let's continue the story.
Speaker 1: This woman is the woman that we're going to focus on, and it's interesting to me because the Bible doesn't give her a name.
Speaker 1: The Bible doesn't give her a backstory, the Bible doesn't really talk about a lot of the circumstances.
Speaker 1: She is just defined by her sin.
Speaker 1: And even if you look in your Bible, a lot of times you'll have like a little tag at the beginning of stories by the publishers.
Speaker 1: This is the episode of Jesus and the adulterous woman.
Speaker 1: Even to Christians she is known as the adulterous woman because she got caught in the act.
Speaker 1: She's known by her sin, not her name, not her story.
Speaker 1: She's just a woman that got caught.
Speaker 1: We don't know the circumstances either.
Speaker 1: I'm not here to pretend like I know them.
Speaker 1: Was it a cycle of sin?
Speaker 1: Was this just like a one-time thing?
Speaker 1: I mean, we just don't know.
Speaker 1: But what we do know is this is that in the eyes of the crowd, in the eyes of the Pharisees, she was just the woman who got caught in the middle of having sex with somebody other than her husband.
Speaker 1: And this woman represents us when we get caught at our worst moments.
Speaker 1: Right, whoever felt like you've been defined by something someone saw one time and now they've dismissed me.
Speaker 1: Now I'm somebody else in their eyes.
Speaker 1: She represents us when we get caught in the moments that we hope nobody remembers.
Speaker 1: She gets when we think about those times where we wish we said something different, those times when we wish we could do something different, those moments that keep you up at night hoping that you could turn back time and take that back.
Speaker 1: That's you.
Speaker 1: You're the adulterous woman too.
Speaker 1: The only change is she got caught, and sometimes we get away with it.
Speaker 1: But if somebody knew, if somebody really saw us at our deepest, darkest moments and saw the things we do behind closed doors, the things we think, because nobody's going to hear our thoughts, if all that got exposed, like this woman got exposed, do you think people would drag you in front of a crowd and condemn you in the same way?
Speaker 1: That's the thing this woman represents us humiliated, publicly, shame on display, just being defined by her sin.
Speaker 1: This is the eyes of the people.
Speaker 1: So, then, the question is what will Jesus do?
Speaker 1: They're out here saying this woman's going to get killed one way or the other.
Speaker 1: The Jews, the Romans, we're going to have blood on our hands some way or the other.
Speaker 1: What are you going to do, jesus?
Speaker 1: This woman deserves death.
Speaker 1: What are you going to do?
Speaker 1: What happens next is just it turns the table, really, because what happens next is this Jesus bent down and wrote with his fingers on the ground.
Speaker 1: We don't know what it was, the Bible doesn't specify.
Speaker 1: But he bent down and he wrote on the ground.
Speaker 1: They continued to ask him what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: Jesus, it says the laws.
Speaker 1: We're going to stone her.
Speaker 1: What's going to happen?
Speaker 1: So he stood up and he said to them let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.
Speaker 1: And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.
Speaker 1: Instead of joining in on the condemnation, instead of joining in on just bagging on this woman, letting her be defined by her sin, by her worst moment, he created silence, a still moment.
Speaker 1: And when they continued to press him, he exposed their sin.
Speaker 1: Her sin was on display, her sin was publicly exposed.
Speaker 1: Their sin, her sin was on display, her sin was publicly exposed.
Speaker 1: But he wanted everybody in that crowd to know everybody's a sinner too.
Speaker 1: Everybody's guilty, everybody's got moments, just like she has.
Speaker 1: But the fact was, you just didn't get caught.
Speaker 1: So he exposes their sin, he exposes their hypocrisy and one by one, they just leave until he creates a moment where he can personally talk with the woman.
Speaker 1: But this is the thing about Jesus.
Speaker 1: A lot of people take that verse that he who is without sin shall cast the first stone and they take it as Jesus is excusing sin.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter what happens.
Speaker 1: You can't judge me, for whatever I can do whatever I want.
Speaker 1: People take it that way, but that's not what Jesus is doing.
Speaker 1: Jesus isn't sweeping away the sin under the rug.
Speaker 1: Jesus is dealing with the sin, not hers only, but everybody's sin.
Speaker 1: And that's the beautiful thing about Jesus is that Jesus names the sin, but he never ends the story there.
Speaker 1: Aren't you so glad for that?
Speaker 1: That Jesus names your sin, but that's not the end of the story, right?
Speaker 1: Jesus doesn't point at you.
Speaker 1: Jesus lifts a hand and says grab it, let's go.
Speaker 1: Jesus lifts you up.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing about Jesus.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of it, right?
Speaker 1: It's not that Jesus is pointing the finger at you and is angry at you and wants to deal with your sin and wants you to no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Jesus is going to deal with your sin, but that's not the end of the story.
Speaker 1: So what happens next?
Speaker 1: What happens in the story?
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens now.
Speaker 1: Let's focus on the words and the actions of Jesus himself.
Speaker 1: Verse number nine when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the older ones.
Speaker 1: When they heard it.
Speaker 1: They went away, one by one, beginning with the older ones.
Speaker 1: Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
Speaker 1: So the people left, beginning with the older ones.
Speaker 1: It's interesting the older ones, in their wisdom, they recognize yeah, I messed up too.
Speaker 1: And then the younger ones, the more zealous ones, they realize he's got a point.
Speaker 1: So they all left, one by one the Pharisees, the scribes, the people that were originally there to hear him.
Speaker 1: They all left.
Speaker 1: So Jesus created a space where it was just him and the woman, where he could deal with her personally, not as a statistic, not as an action, not as a pawn, but as a person.
Speaker 1: Jesus wanted to talk with her.
Speaker 1: So what does he say?
Speaker 1: Jesus stood up and said to her woman where are they?
Speaker 1: Has no one condemned you?
Speaker 1: That's a thing.
Speaker 1: Man To Jesus, you're not a problem, you're a person.
Speaker 1: Jesus knows your story.
Speaker 1: Jesus knows you're not defined by your worst moments.
Speaker 1: Jesus knows you're not defined by that one time somebody caught you, or maybe sometime that somebody didn't catch you.
Speaker 1: Jesus knows you're more than that.
Speaker 1: So Jesus deals with you personally and powerfully, and that's the heart of Jesus.
Speaker 1: He steps between us and our accusers.
Speaker 1: He steps between the woman and the Pharisees.
Speaker 1: He created space and he stepped right in the middle of them.
Speaker 1: Instead of saying Romans or Jews, no, he said neither, I'm going to deal with this woman myself.
Speaker 1: He goes and talks with her and he says where are the people that condemned you?
Speaker 1: The woman replies to the question has no one condemned you?
Speaker 1: She says no one, lord.
Speaker 1: And Jesus said neither do I condemn you.
Speaker 1: Now go and sin no more.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine hearing the words?
Speaker 1: Can you imagine being in that woman's shoes?
Speaker 1: You got caught in a heinous, heinous, heinous sin breaking your marital vows, having sex with somebody other than your husband.
Speaker 1: You got caught in the act and they dragged you from that bedroom.
Speaker 1: They took you.
Speaker 1: They dragged you in the temple of God, where God's holiness was on display.
Speaker 1: They took you in front of the man who claimed to be the son of God, in front of a crowd.
Speaker 1: You got publicly humiliated.
Speaker 1: People were saying stone her, stone her.
Speaker 1: And Jesus created silence.
Speaker 1: And he says neither do I condemn you.
Speaker 1: Could you imagine what she felt?
Speaker 1: Jesus says the same words to us today.
Speaker 1: We have sin in our lives, we have things that we're not proud of, we have things that we wish we could take back.
Speaker 1: But Jesus says to you neither do I, I condemn you.
Speaker 1: He's not angry with her, he's not shameful of her, he doesn't think of her as a less than or a piece of trash, because that's the word condemnation mean.
Speaker 1: It means to, means to sweep in the way, to say you're useless, you're ugly, you're dirty, I reject you.
Speaker 1: That's what condemnation is.
Speaker 1: But you know what the Bible says about those who have put their faith in him.
Speaker 1: Romans 8, verse 1 says this there is therefore now, how much condemnation, no condemnation.
Speaker 1: How much condemnation, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: So what does this mean?
Speaker 1: This means that when Jesus looks down at you, he's not angry with you, he's not going to punish you, he's not after you.
Speaker 1: He loves you.
Speaker 1: He sees you as a dignified person.
Speaker 1: He doesn't see you defined by your actions.
Speaker 1: He sees you defined by his actions, by his blood, by his cross.
Speaker 1: He loves you and there is no condemnation.
Speaker 1: There is no condemnation, nothing, zilch, nada.
Speaker 1: There's nothing preventing you from being able to run into the loving arms of the God that died for you, and that's the beauty of the gospel.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of the gospel.
Speaker 1: The death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus is that God loved us so much that he sent his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Speaker 1: He rejects that condemnation.
Speaker 1: He's not looking at you and sees you as angry, sees you as dirty, sees you as less than he sees you as a person that he loves.
Speaker 1: And he didn't just sweep away your sin.
Speaker 1: He didn't just sweep away the condemnation.
Speaker 1: No, you know what he did.
Speaker 1: He took that upon loves.
Speaker 1: And he didn't just sweep away your sin.
Speaker 1: He didn't just sweep away the condemnation.
Speaker 1: No, you know what he did.
Speaker 1: He took that upon himself.
Speaker 1: That's what the cross was for, that when Jesus went on that cross, he paid for our sin.
Speaker 1: He took the condemnation on himself and he nailed it to that cross and when he was buried and rose again, it showed he was who he said he was, that if we put our faith in him, we can have forgiveness, we can have acceptance, we can have no condemnation for all those who are in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: And that's the beauty of the gospel Beauty of the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't even stop there.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even stop there.
Speaker 1: That's the beautiful part of it, because the gospel doesn't even stop there.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even stop there that's the beautiful part of it because the gospel doesn't just save us, it shapes us, it strengthens us and it guides us.
Speaker 1: The death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 1: The gospel, it's not just a get-out-of-hell free card.
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
Speaker 1: It informs everything else that we do in our Christian life.
Speaker 1: Notice if you can put on verse 11 just one more time.
Speaker 1: Jesus says the order right here.
Speaker 1: He says neither do I condemn you Now.
Speaker 1: From now on, go and sin no more.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say go and sin no more and then I won't condemn you.
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
Speaker 1: He says I don't condemn you Now.
Speaker 1: Go and sin no more.
Speaker 1: He wanted to liberate her from the cycle, he wanted to break her chains from that cycle of sin.
Speaker 1: Because Jesus knows this is that the freedom, the true freedom, isn't just freedom to do whatever you want and to not be judged by God or whatever right.
Speaker 1: True freedom is living in him and being free from not just the penalty of sin, but from the power of sin as well.
Speaker 1: And so because the gospel informs everything we do, because the gospel doesn't just save us, right, it shapes us, it strengthens us and it guides us, because I understand that.
Speaker 1: How could I continue in sin if it's the very thing that Jesus freed me from the power to do?
Speaker 1: How could I continue to live in sin and not care about what God says about it, if that's what took Jesus to the cross, that's the thing that Jesus had to die for, just so I could have liberty?
Speaker 1: How can I continue in that If Jesus paid the price so that I didn't have to be condemned?
Speaker 1: That's why Jesus says neither do I condemn you first.
Speaker 1: Then he says now go and sin no more.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of it.
Speaker 1: And Jesus even goes beyond that.
Speaker 1: In verse 12, the next verse.
Speaker 1: Right there, he says to them I am the light of the world.
Speaker 1: Whoever follows me will not walk Talking about a lifestyle, talking about a habitual nature there, walk in darkness.
Speaker 1: They won't do that, but they will have the light of life, and that's really what freedom is.
Speaker 1: Freedom is talking about not just being free from the penalty of sin she got free of it, she didn't have the death penalty but freedom is living away from the power of sin too, and it's not just leaving sin, it's living a new life in Jesus.
Speaker 1: I mean just to show you guys a little bit of a visual illustration right here, I got these handcuffs right here and you see, what happens is this Is that when, initially, all of us are sinful people, all of us have things we regret, all things we do that we wish we could take back right, and those sins, they impede our relationship with God, they impede our relationship with other people, right, when we've sinned against people.
Speaker 1: It's a harsh reality, it's a harsh thing.
Speaker 1: So when I've got these on, I feel restricted, right, I feel like I can't move.
Speaker 1: I talk with my hands, if you haven't noticed, right, I talk with my hands.
Speaker 1: And right now I feel really restricted.
Speaker 1: If I were to go out after this service and say I'm going to go to lunch, I'm going to go to Chipotle La Cabana, if I walk into the building like this, people are going to look at me funny, right, and this is really restricting.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I thought I got adult-sized ones.
Speaker 1: These are child-sized ones, so they're kind of digging.
Speaker 1: But honestly, I don't want to be like this forever and I can't get out by myself.
Speaker 1: The little keys is right there in the middle.
Speaker 1: So you know what I need.
Speaker 1: I need somebody to help me out.
Speaker 1: Luckily, I have Pastor Nate.
Speaker 1: He's going to help me out here in a sec.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1: There you go, Thank you, thank you, sir.
Speaker 1: So now I'm free and you see, honestly, it did dig into my wrists a little bit.
Speaker 1: It feels a lot better.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I can talk with my hands, I can go as big or as small as I want to.
Speaker 1: Now, right, and this is what freedom is.
Speaker 1: Freedom is being able to live out the life that God intended for me.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this then I was in cuffs, pastor Nate, he helped me out and, man, I'm thankful for him with that.
Speaker 1: I really am, because I didn't want to be like this forever.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you then how ridiculous would it be then if I were to consider my freedom, consider what I have now, and think back and what it felt like to be in handcuffs.
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 1: It wasn't too bad.
Speaker 1: It'd be ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It would be absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Why would anybody do this?
Speaker 1: If you were in a jail cell and somebody took you out and said you're free to go, why would you go back into the corner of the jail cell, slam the door shut and say, no, I like being in here.
Speaker 1: No, that's not the point of life and that's not God's plan for your life either.
Speaker 1: God wants you to live in freedom, and what freedom is is not just the power to do whatever you want and to say, ah, whatever, god forgives me anyway.
Speaker 1: True freedom is this living a new life in Jesus, not just free from the penalty of sin, not just to get out of hell free card, but free from the power of sin, to break the chains that bind you, not to live in these handcuffs anymore, but to break out of them through the power of Jesus.
Speaker 1: That's the beautiful thing about the gospel.
Speaker 1: So today, as we think about this story, as we think about the story of the woman, as we really think about the story of us, when Jesus asks, where are your accusers?
Speaker 1: If you're weighed down by your sin, you hear those same words today.
Speaker 1: And if you feel accused today by other people, by religious people, by your own shame, by yourself, you know what Jesus says to you.
Speaker 1: Neither do I condemn you.
Speaker 1: Now go and sin no more.
Speaker 1: Don't walk away from this message, don't walk away from this Sunday.
Speaker 1: Unchanged, jesus didn't just silence your accusers.
Speaker 1: Unchanged Jesus didn't just silence your accusers.
Speaker 1: Jesus freed you, jesus has introduced you and invites you with an open palm not with a finger, but with an open palm to live in freedom.
Speaker 1: Won't you take his hand today?
Speaker 1: Jesus is not finished with your story.
Speaker 1: You are not your past.
Speaker 1: You are not your worst moment.
Speaker 1: You are not your actions.
Speaker 1: You are not your past.
Speaker 1: You are not your worst moment.
Speaker 1: You are not your actions.
Speaker 1: You are not your sin.
Speaker 1: If you have your faith in Jesus today, you are his.
Speaker 1: That's what you are.
Speaker 1: So today, I just want to close off with three questions, just for all of us to reflect upon.
Speaker 1: It's this what do you need to surrender to Jesus today?
Speaker 1: Where is something in your life that you feel, yeah, I'm still in these handcuffs.
Speaker 1: I slapped them right back on and I regret it.
Speaker 1: I need your help, jesus.
Speaker 1: I'm going to lay these cuffs right down at your feet, but I need your help, god.
Speaker 1: Where have you believed condemnation instead of grace?
Speaker 1: Is there an area in your life that you're even afraid to fess up to God because you think he's going to be disappointed in you and angry at you or he's going to cast you off?
Speaker 1: He's going to think you're too far gone.
Speaker 1: His promise is that he will never condemn us.
Speaker 1: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's aware of you believe internally Condemnation instead of grace.
Speaker 1: And then, finally, is this what does following the light look like for you this week?
Speaker 1: Jesus has freed you from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin, by the power of his death, his burial and his resurrection.
Speaker 1: So for you, what does that look like?
Speaker 1: To live in his freedom, to walk away from the bondage, to break those chains and to live in Jesus?
Speaker 1: We'll learn more about that in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1: But what does that look for you like this week?
Speaker 1: Well, let's take some time right now to reflect on these things, to reflect on God's word.
Speaker 1: I'll invite you to take a prayer at the prayer next.
Speaker 1: If Is there people on, then If you need somebody, you can pray for somebody to pray with you.
Speaker 1: But let's just take some time right now to sit and to take a seat and just really reflect.