SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us on the CCW podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you connect with us on social media to stay up to date on ministries and events happening at CCW.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you're encouraged, inspired, and motivated by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: To find out how to connect with us, keep listening after the message ends.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad that you're here this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, I do want to say a word of uh we want to acknowledge there's some folks here with us that are from the furthest I think somebody might have ever visited, CCW, all the way from California, because Robert Pick turned 72 today.
SPEAKER_01: And you can say an age about somebody as long as they look really good, and Robert looks good.
SPEAKER_01: So it's all right.
SPEAKER_01: Anyhow, happy birthday, sir.
SPEAKER_01: Glad to have y'all.
SPEAKER_01: And um, I want to invite you next week, don't miss something.
SPEAKER_01: Next week, uh, Barry Key is going to be recognized in the service.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we prayed when God uh allowed us to get into ministry, and as a part of CCW, we hope that God would allow us to ordain pastors.
SPEAKER_01: And uh Barry Key is going to be ordained as a pastor next Sunday, so you don't want to miss that.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna be sharing some of his testimony, which is a testimony to identity change.
SPEAKER_01: And uh we're gonna hear a charge about that.
SPEAKER_01: So don't miss that, make that important.
SPEAKER_01: Man, we'd love to have you back.
SPEAKER_01: That is a part of the organic work of the church.
SPEAKER_01: We want to send people, we want people to become pastors and missionaries, and we want some in this younger generation to become pastors.
SPEAKER_01: We want that to be our church.
SPEAKER_01: So don't miss next week.
SPEAKER_01: And then I do want to just share a word, church family.
SPEAKER_01: I know that uh many hearts were broken this week.
SPEAKER_01: And um, when I consider the loss of Charlie Kirk, um one of the things that I really thought about is this is the loss of a voice of a generation.
SPEAKER_01: And I just consider what it might have been like for my grandparents to lose Billy Graham.
SPEAKER_01: Um, not in the same realm, but his voice was being heard.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I don't have a lot of things coming all throughout my platforms, but I feel like Charlie Kirk visits me every day.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I felt like I've been at rallies of his just listening um to a lot of insights, and it is unbelievable, no matter where you stand on things, his ability to uh debate and his ability to take words and bring back a response that was biblical.
SPEAKER_01: Um, what a gift.
SPEAKER_01: And uh our prayers today are with his wife and his children and turning point USA.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'd like for you, if you would, to pray with me.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we thank you that we know Romans 8 says that all things work together for good to them who love God, who are called according to your purposes.
SPEAKER_01: And we know that no man that walks into the gates of heaven would ever trade being back here where we are.
SPEAKER_01: And God, we thank you for a life that has been lived and has motivated many.
SPEAKER_01: God, we lift his family in this season right now.
SPEAKER_01: God, their children.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you just walk with them, put some Christian, godly people around them and love them through something that, God, I don't know they ever get to understand.
SPEAKER_01: But God, I pray they continue to walk and stand.
SPEAKER_01: We pray for uh the organization and the people at Turning Point USA, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We just pray that you would uh be with Christians, help the heartbeat to remain focused on the right things.
SPEAKER_01: And God, I pray that you raise up, Lord, we're asking that.
SPEAKER_01: Charlie was a man, but there's more men.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that you raise up a generation, God, of youth who would hear this message, of people that would hear the message of Jesus Christ and use our lives to fulfill that message.
SPEAKER_01: But I pray that you would bless the word of God this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Let our hearts be in tune with you, with what you want us to hear, and God, let us walk out differently than we came.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 8, if you would take your Bibles there.
SPEAKER_01: Identity losing the label.
SPEAKER_01: The first point I want you to see this morning is a name of shame.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 8, we're going to be introduced to a woman known as the adulterous woman.
SPEAKER_01: When the kids were young, I made up a story.
SPEAKER_01: Bedtime stories.
SPEAKER_01: They may remember it, I don't know, but when it was bedtime, I think I was more entertaining myself because I didn't have a book, but I made up a story of a cat named Dog and a dog named Kat who went to a park together.
SPEAKER_01: And I would tell them this story over and over, and it would morph into a rabbit named Squirrel and a squirrel named Rabbit, and they would be on a swing set.
SPEAKER_01: And I was just entertaining myself till they fell asleep.
SPEAKER_01: And uh I came across this week there's a family in Texas that in fact named their dog Kat.
SPEAKER_01: Mainly because they thought it would be funny when people looked at that label and saw that the truth did not match the label.
SPEAKER_01: And I've told Heather, if we ever get a dog and I'm in charge, I really want to name it Kitty.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say, here, kitty.
SPEAKER_01: Here, kitty.
SPEAKER_01: And people look at me like, what is wrong with that man?
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't match the label.
SPEAKER_01: Labels are everywhere in culture.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go very far to look for a label.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to submit to you this morning as God's masterpiece.
SPEAKER_01: When he looked through all of creation and he said, When you and I were made, when humans were made, he said, It was very good.
SPEAKER_01: As God's masterpiece, humanity is far too wonderful to be identified by man-made labels.
SPEAKER_01: And so, if you would look with me in verses 1 through 4 in John chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_01: Now early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him and he sat down and taught them.
SPEAKER_01: Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery.
SPEAKER_01: And when they had set her in the midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act.
SPEAKER_01: Letter A, this morning is this, the collapse from sexual passion.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to sugarcoat adultery, uh, is sexual relationship with any man or woman outside of marriage, and sexual adultery is wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Adultery is a perversion of what God intended with marriage.
SPEAKER_01: But I want you to think about some things according to this text.
SPEAKER_01: Understanding cultural context is important for a clarified picture.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the things you need to know about marriages, then often was a marriage arranged.
SPEAKER_01: And it might have been common for a woman to be involved in an unloving relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And so possibly pulled towards, again, adultery is wrong, but maybe pulled out of an unloving relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Women were seen as a different class citizen, and their economic dependence had to do with marriage.
SPEAKER_01: It impacted a woman's survival.
SPEAKER_01: Commentators believe, because the woman was drawn out, that possibly she was baited into this situation.
SPEAKER_01: And so you have to look at the whole picture because it says she was caught in the act.
SPEAKER_01: So they think possible that they were baiting this woman, that maybe the man was in cahoots with the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: And another reason why, if you turned your Bible into Deuteronomy chapter 22, verse 22, you can turn there if you like.
SPEAKER_01: But it says this this is the law, and they were understood the law.
SPEAKER_01: It says, if a man is found lying with a woman married, then both of them shall die.
SPEAKER_01: You know what's missing in this picture?
SPEAKER_01: We see an adulterous woman, but who do we not see?
SPEAKER_01: We don't see the man.
SPEAKER_01: The man is missing from this accusal, making the idea of a trap plausible.
SPEAKER_01: What else is missing in this picture of this woman?
SPEAKER_01: This adulterous woman is her name.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know her name.
SPEAKER_01: All we get is this label.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know her marriage status.
SPEAKER_01: What's going on there?
SPEAKER_01: All we know that there is a collapse, and she is caught in her shame.
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's look into that further.
SPEAKER_01: Letter B.
SPEAKER_01: We see the charade of the pious.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to turn your Bibles to Luke chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: Luke chapter 11, verse 53 and 54.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said these things to them, and the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail him vehemently and to cross-examine him and many things, lying in wait for him, and seeking to catch him in something he might say, that they might accuse him.
SPEAKER_01: See, the Pharisees were very concerned about trapping Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I think, more so concerned about trapping Jesus than finding this woman in adultery.
SPEAKER_01: I think their hearts were to look into see where they could find some loophole in Jesus as the person.
SPEAKER_01: Their hearts were looking to use somebody, a sin as a pawn.
SPEAKER_01: See, if Jesus rejected the law of Moses here, they could call out blasphemy.
SPEAKER_01: And if he upheld the law, you can look in John 18, 31, he would be violating Roman law.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus was put in this place.
SPEAKER_01: What do we do with her?
SPEAKER_01: Caught in the act, set up a trap.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6 says, it says they said this to test him.
SPEAKER_01: Luke 11 there said it was they were lying in wait, seeking to catch him in something he might say, that they might have an accusal.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give y'all some teen lingo today.
SPEAKER_01: Parents, this is time to listen.
SPEAKER_01: Alright?
SPEAKER_01: If you hear your kids say this, you need to understand why, okay?
SPEAKER_01: All right, y'all with me?
SPEAKER_01: He's a problem.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all heard he's a problem.
SPEAKER_01: He might be a problem.
SPEAKER_01: So, in a good way, my sons will talk about sports figure and say, you know, he might be a problem.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what's that mean?
SPEAKER_01: He might, he's fast, he might be a problem.
SPEAKER_01: He's strong, he might be a problem.
SPEAKER_01: Well, for the Pharisees, because Jesus disregarded their traditions and their religiosity, his authority in word and in miracle threatened their power.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was a problem.
SPEAKER_01: And they were having enough of that problem.
SPEAKER_01: People here listening today, they were listening to his message.
SPEAKER_01: And the Pharisees didn't like that this message was being held on to.
SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you, this is not the first time in Scripture that a problem like this came up.
SPEAKER_01: In Daniel chapter 6, we don't have time to go through all the passage, but in Daniel 6, people were watching the life of Daniel, and it says they could find no fault in him.
SPEAKER_01: And they hated that they couldn't find any fault in this man.
SPEAKER_01: He was upright in all his ways.
SPEAKER_01: So they went to King Darius and they proposed, let's make a law that people will bow down, and nobody can revere anything, any God, except for you.
SPEAKER_01: If they do, they're going to be thrown into the pit of lions.
SPEAKER_01: And Daniel, of course, did what Daniel did.
SPEAKER_01: He prayed daily.
SPEAKER_01: And he did it.
SPEAKER_01: I love Daniel.
SPEAKER_01: Daniel did it and pulled the curtains back, and he kept on praying so everybody could see who he was.
SPEAKER_01: And his accusers brought him for the king, and the king was sorrowful that he threw Daniel in the pit.
SPEAKER_01: But y'all know the story.
SPEAKER_01: The lions took a nap, and Daniel slept with the lions that night.
SPEAKER_01: And then the accusers, the king, brought them and threw them into the pit of lions.
SPEAKER_01: Wednesday, September 10th, evil took aim at a man.
SPEAKER_01: And not because he was on a political side.
SPEAKER_01: Evil took aim because he had a powerful message.
SPEAKER_01: There was a few months ago Charlie Kirk was interviewed and he was asked how he would want to be remembered.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I want to be remembered for the courage of my faith.
SPEAKER_01: He said this in another interview.
SPEAKER_01: I am nothing without Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to hear this this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe evil took aim at Charlie Kirk because he spoke, but I think evil took aim because the youth of America were listening to Charlie Kirk.
SPEAKER_01: They were hearing this message, and Charlie was fighting for a new identity, for a turning point.
SPEAKER_01: What I've been praying for for years as a previous youth minister, a revival in a nation that people would come to, and people were hearing this message, and so evil took aim.
SPEAKER_01: Satan himself, church, is the father of charades.
SPEAKER_01: He was so low as to tempt Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_01: He took Jesus into the wilderness, and in each temptation, he came at him.
SPEAKER_01: He said, God, Jesus turned stone into bread.
SPEAKER_01: He had been fasting.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Jump off this temple pinnacle.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Bow down and worship me.
SPEAKER_01: But in that back and forth, two times, there's a blatant attack from Satan.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he does.
SPEAKER_01: If there's ever been a fight, evil versus good, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: Satan had a chance to attack Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And what does he do?
SPEAKER_01: Twice he says to him, Art thou the Son of God?
SPEAKER_01: He attacks his identity.
SPEAKER_01: Who he really was.
SPEAKER_01: He means to attack.
SPEAKER_01: If you aren't the Son of God, and so if Satan will attack the identity of Jesus Christ, don't you know men full of themselves would attack Jesus' identity?
SPEAKER_01: The enemy, Satan, his name means accuser.
SPEAKER_01: And he is in full operation today, church.
SPEAKER_01: He's looking to whisper in your ears, whether that be through men, through media, through magazines, some medium.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to whisper in your ears something that you are not what God made you to be.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to hear that you're nothing.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to hear that you don't matter and what you do for God doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to hear that you're a faith, that you're a failure and not faithful.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to hear that you're a mistake.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to hear that you are made to be the dollar sign and go after that.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to hear that you are made to be prosperous and if you can attain things, then you'll be happy.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to hear anything, but you are a child of God.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to attack your identity at its core.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we see a second thing about this woman in this picture.
SPEAKER_01: We see a heart in pain.
SPEAKER_01: Proverbs chapter 3, if you want to turn there.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody knows Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.
SPEAKER_01: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not into your own understanding.
SPEAKER_01: All thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy path.
SPEAKER_01: But verse 7 and 8 gives us some instruction.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Do not be wise in thine own eyes, fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
SPEAKER_01: And if you do, it will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.
SPEAKER_01: Hear me, this was a heart in pain.
SPEAKER_01: This was a heart of a person who had sin.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, Jesus said, I came to seek and to save that which was lost.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't come here for the found, but the lost.
SPEAKER_01: And so this woman was in a painful place.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is painful.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, all sickness is a result of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 3.
SPEAKER_01: When the world was cursed and we became a fallen place, polluted, everything that follows became fallen.
SPEAKER_01: But Proverbs says, if you want to live better in the world that's fallen, he says, forsake sin.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying all your ailments are going to magically go away if you start living a more holy life, but it is a result of sin that you have ailments, that we have pollution, that we have struggle.
SPEAKER_01: So James 5.16 says, confess your sin so that you may be healed.
SPEAKER_01: Get your heart right at the end of Proverbs there.
SPEAKER_01: Get your heart right and watch your physical health be impacted.
SPEAKER_01: Depart from evil.
SPEAKER_01: It says it'll be life and flesh to your bones.
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, if we were just making sense of it, we could pick anything, but we'll say you are physically, you know, in an addiction with alcohol.
SPEAKER_01: Well, obviously that has a physical impact on your body.
SPEAKER_01: And you're being filled with something that's not the Holy Spirit, and you're pulled and torn to that thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you quit, the physical impact begins to change.
SPEAKER_01: This was a heart in pain.
SPEAKER_01: And any heart in pain, any heart and sin, letter A is a crushing pressure.
SPEAKER_01: Look at Romans chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: Paul gives this perplexing passage in Romans 7.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: He says, For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal.
SPEAKER_01: I'm flesh, sold under sin.
SPEAKER_01: For what I am doing, I do not understand.
SPEAKER_01: Hear this, because I think we all can verify with it.
SPEAKER_01: For what I will to do, that I do not practice.
SPEAKER_01: But what I hate, that I do.
SPEAKER_01: If then I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law, that is good.
SPEAKER_01: But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
SPEAKER_01: For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells, for to will is present within me.
SPEAKER_01: But how to perform what is good I do not find.
SPEAKER_01: For the good that I would do, I do not do, but the evil I will not to do, that is what I practice.
SPEAKER_01: Does that sound at all familiar to anybody?
SPEAKER_01: So often Sunday morning we will come down and people will make a decision at this altar.
SPEAKER_01: And the crazy thing about Sunday morning is Monday happens after it.
SPEAKER_01: And my flesh is still sold to sin.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
SPEAKER_01: And that word sold to sin is paprasco, and it means as one who has been trafficked into it, disposed as merchandise.
SPEAKER_01: In the garden, Adam and Eve question, what do they question?
SPEAKER_01: Their identity and who God was at the hands of the serpent.
SPEAKER_01: So sin creates a tremendous weight.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul said, I can't not sin.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I don't want to, but I do.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to do good, but I don't.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture says in one place, therefore, for him that knows to do good and doeth it not, it is sin.
SPEAKER_01: So sin is sin by commission when I do something, and then sin by omission, when I know to do something and I don't do it.
SPEAKER_01: So the only answer for commission and omission is remission.
SPEAKER_01: The weight of sin is a crushing pressure, church.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've heard of this book.
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ralston wrote a book.
SPEAKER_01: It's called Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
SPEAKER_01: And it's the story of Aaron Ralston taking a detrimental hiking trip to the Blue John Canyon.
SPEAKER_01: And what was detrimental about that trip was that he went alone and he shared with nobody his itinerary of what he was doing.
SPEAKER_01: And so as he was hiking along, he fell, and when he fell, he became trapped by a several-ton boulder pinning his arm.
SPEAKER_01: It was crushing pressure.
SPEAKER_01: And Aaron Ralston, amazingly, I don't want to give you the gory details, but he had to lose his arm, which was his own doing, and he lost his arm, and he amazingly walked out of that place, bleeding out, and his life was dramatically saved.
SPEAKER_01: But for five days, and there's a movie about 127 hours, he was trapped by crushing pressure.
SPEAKER_01: Church, sin is a trap.
SPEAKER_01: It's heavy and it leans on us and it seeks to destroy.
SPEAKER_01: And the enemy says he wants to kill, steal, and destroy.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to take your life.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to get a picture of where the woman was.
SPEAKER_01: The woman, the woman that was awaiting Jesus' response.
SPEAKER_01: Hear this she was drugged out.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all hear that?
SPEAKER_01: You got the picture?
SPEAKER_01: She was dragged out, caught in the act.
SPEAKER_01: She was acutely aware of her standing before everyone.
SPEAKER_01: She was very aware of her sin and her guilt.
SPEAKER_01: Suffice to say, she was feeling every pressure of sin.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, have you ever been caught in the act of your sin?
SPEAKER_01: How many of you were bad at sinning as kids and the parents got you?
SPEAKER_01: Bad sinners.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm a bad sinner.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna be honest, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I'm a bad sinner.
SPEAKER_01: God caught me all the time by the nap of the neck, let me fall down.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God for bad sinners, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so some of you are.
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking, caught in the act.
SPEAKER_01: So my cousin, my best friend of the time, and I scored, this isn't popular today, some SIGs.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Cool SIGs, which made you cool.
SPEAKER_01: K-O-O-L.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody old enough to remember cool?
SPEAKER_01: It was cool filter kings.
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know what that meant.
SPEAKER_01: But we scored some sigs, and we were in, it used to have been my sister's bedroom.
SPEAKER_01: She had moved out, and I thought everybody was asleep.
SPEAKER_01: And so there we were.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know what I was doing, but I was trying to do it and look cool, and there we were going, just having a good old time, cool filtering the whole place up.
SPEAKER_01: Like somebody wouldn't be able to smell it, but we just smoking away.
SPEAKER_01: In pops my mom, caught in the act.
SPEAKER_01: But there was my cousin and my best friend sitting on the couch.
SPEAKER_01: When she opened the door, she turned eyes on them.
SPEAKER_01: I stepped behind the door, dropped my cig on the floor, burned my foot, and stood there.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, see, I knew y'all would get caught.
SPEAKER_01: Mom never knew what I did.
SPEAKER_01: There was never a I don't know how there was never a question about the burn in the purple carpet, but I was right there, caught in the act, as I've ever been.
SPEAKER_01: It was an awful feeling.
SPEAKER_01: For this woman, she was a waiting stoning.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine the feelings.
SPEAKER_01: Her failure in the eyes of the law was a pending verdict.
SPEAKER_01: Undoubtedly, her death penalty was nearing.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is devastating, church.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 6 23 says, For the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_01: It's devastating.
SPEAKER_01: Let her be, I want you to see.
SPEAKER_01: A captured prisoner.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 23 and 24 of Romans 7.
SPEAKER_01: Paul said, But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm captive to the law.
SPEAKER_01: I'm captive to this thing that's within me.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't just crush us, hear me, it chains us.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 5, 2 says, By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.
SPEAKER_01: We were born prisoners.
SPEAKER_01: This woman was bound by law, by guilt, and labeled by her adultery.
SPEAKER_01: Labeled as an adulterous woman.
SPEAKER_01: That's her label.
SPEAKER_01: Adulteress.
SPEAKER_01: No little girl ever grows up and dreams that one day I'm going to be an adulterer.
SPEAKER_01: This is going to be my label from society.
SPEAKER_01: There she was.
SPEAKER_01: Paul said, Paul lamented.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm captive to sin.
SPEAKER_01: It's in myself.
SPEAKER_01: And the thing that I don't want to do, I keep doing, and what I wish to do.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Oh, here, hear the weight.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wretched man that I am.
SPEAKER_01: The flesh wars against the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And it happens, church, every day when our feet hits the carpet all over again.
SPEAKER_01: The problem for humanity is that we cannot stop being human.
SPEAKER_01: The psalmist, Psalms 51, says, I was brought forth in iniquity.
SPEAKER_01: I think we need to see a proper picture of where this woman was at, the pain, the sinfulness, and where she was.
SPEAKER_01: And don't miss this, because the ones that we make the enemy of the story, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're over here and we're feeling it now.
SPEAKER_01: Them Pharisees, them dirty people trapping, trying to trap Jesus, no good.
SPEAKER_01: All they they were worried about their power, those Pharisees and scribes, and they stood in judgment of this woman.
SPEAKER_01: They sought to foil Jesus' plans.
SPEAKER_01: They too are bound.
SPEAKER_01: They too are captives in their self-righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Church, we're all captives.
SPEAKER_01: It often gets missed in this story that Jesus died for the woman, but he gave his life for the Pharisees and the scribes too.
SPEAKER_01: Who were missing it.
SPEAKER_01: And I beg to say today, there's maybe more people here that would side on the error of self-righteousness than who are struggling in adultery.
SPEAKER_01: And we go, I'm okay, but they're not okay.
SPEAKER_01: I've been praying for them, but I'm not, I'm good.
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually quite good.
SPEAKER_01: But are we?
SPEAKER_01: So we see that Jesus came for both.
SPEAKER_01: Charles Wesley wrote a song, and if you grew up like I did in church, maybe you sang an old hymn that says, And can it be?
SPEAKER_01: And the words of And Can It Be say this about this capturing this prison.
SPEAKER_01: Long my imprisoned spirit lay, thus bound in sin, and nature's night.
SPEAKER_01: My chains fell off my heart and was free.
SPEAKER_01: Amazing love.
SPEAKER_01: How can it be?
SPEAKER_01: This is what Jesus does for a heart that's captured in sin.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came.
SPEAKER_01: Hear me, don't miss.
SPEAKER_01: He came for the adulterous woman, he came for the Pharisees, he came for you, and he came for me.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have seen the movie The Count of Monte Cristo?
SPEAKER_01: That's the first amen from over there.
SPEAKER_01: All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_01: I better pick it up.
SPEAKER_01: In the movie The Count of Monte Cristo, the lead character is a man named Edmund Dantes.
SPEAKER_01: And Edmund Dantes is imprisoned by betrayal.
SPEAKER_01: And he's bound in the Chateau d'If.
SPEAKER_01: And for years he's chained in this darkness, in this solitude, and he's enslaved because of betrayal.
SPEAKER_01: And he begins to find a way to dig a tunnel, and on his digging through a tunnel with a plan to somehow free himself, he runs into another man in another prison, so, and becomes friends with Abe Faria.
SPEAKER_01: When he goes through that wall, this fast friendship, they begin to make a plan together of how they might escape Chateau d'If.
SPEAKER_01: And what seems like, in a moment, a woeful twist to the story, Abe Faria dies as some rocks come down as they're digging through a tunnel and it crushes him.
SPEAKER_01: And you think, this is so sad.
SPEAKER_01: But Dantez fortuitously makes a quick plot, pivots, and gets the body of Faria, puts it in the tunnel, and as the men were bringing the burial shroud, he puts himself into the shroud, seals up the shroud, and the guards come and take Dantes' body and they pitch it over, they take it outside and pitch it over the cliff into the sea, which was how the prison did burials.
SPEAKER_01: And as he was in that shroud, he cuts himself free.
SPEAKER_01: The guards believed it was Faria.
SPEAKER_01: He cuts himself free, setting himself on a new path of life.
SPEAKER_01: But I thought about this.
SPEAKER_01: You know what really set him free?
SPEAKER_01: It was the death of Abbe Faria that changed his destiny.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 25 of Romans 7.
SPEAKER_01: Paul finally pivots in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, I thank God through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He shares the answer.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I had to take a look outside of myself.
SPEAKER_01: I had to look outside of me.
SPEAKER_01: Colossians 2, 14 and 15 says it this way.
SPEAKER_01: Having wiped out the handwriting of the requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he, Jesus, has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross, having disarmed principalities and powers, and made a public spectacle of them by triumphing over them.
SPEAKER_01: Another scripture says it this way greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.
SPEAKER_01: That takes us to the third point this morning.
SPEAKER_01: He breaks the chains.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to see what Jesus does.
SPEAKER_01: If you go back to John chapter 8, Jesus breaks the chains.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll conclude at verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Says this they said to him, testing him that they might have something of which to accuse him.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus, watch his behavior, stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger, as though he did not hear.
SPEAKER_01: So when they continued asked him, he raised himself up, and he said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.
SPEAKER_01: And again he stooped down and he wrote on the ground.
SPEAKER_01: Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest, even to the last.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
SPEAKER_01: Letter A, I want you to see a complete pardon.
SPEAKER_01: Sort of mysterious behavior.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus stoops down, and they were calling on him because this woman was caught in the act, and they were calling for some sort of judgment, and Jesus quietly stoops down to his knees.
SPEAKER_01: And people today still debate.
SPEAKER_01: Commentators are all over the map.
SPEAKER_01: They want to know what did he write in the sand?
SPEAKER_01: What is the line drawn in the sand?
SPEAKER_01: What was he saying?
SPEAKER_01: And some think Jesus drew a picture.
SPEAKER_01: Some people think that he wrote the verse from the law, Deuteronomy 22.
SPEAKER_01: Some think he wrote the names of the accusers standing there.
SPEAKER_01: Some think the sins of the accusers.
SPEAKER_01: But let's look at what we do know.
SPEAKER_01: We do know what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: It says he stooped down.
SPEAKER_01: Commentators believe that Jesus took this action to show humility.
SPEAKER_01: To stoop down in the moment, not rise up and call forth judgment, not yell.
SPEAKER_01: He stooped down.
SPEAKER_01: He acted as if he didn't even hear the accusation.
SPEAKER_01: For a moment.
SPEAKER_01: He's doing something in the sand, and it seemed as if he didn't even hear the accusation.
SPEAKER_01: Understand that Jesus knows not only an act, hear me, but he knows our heart.
SPEAKER_01: He knows our intention.
SPEAKER_01: He knows our reason.
SPEAKER_01: So, church, hear me.
SPEAKER_01: Take heart when you fall.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus knows.
SPEAKER_01: He knows when you've made a mistake.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to put a wrinkle in your identity forever.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what the enemy wants to whisper.
SPEAKER_01: You've fallen, you've messed up, you're a mistake.
SPEAKER_01: You are this thing that you've done.
SPEAKER_01: And you're not your worst mistake.
SPEAKER_01: You're not what the enemy says you are.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, My sheep know me and I know them.
SPEAKER_01: But when Jesus continued, when he made another action, it was caused.
SPEAKER_01: It says, and the Pharisees continued.
SPEAKER_01: They wouldn't relent on this.
SPEAKER_01: It says, and they continued.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, Jesus, who had stooped down, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: They're going on.
SPEAKER_01: Is there a judgment?
SPEAKER_01: Is there something we can say?
SPEAKER_01: This woman's been in adultery.
SPEAKER_01: And he's quiet.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus stands up.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss that.
SPEAKER_01: He stooped down, letting the woman know that the accusation, whatever it may be, there was some meaning to what he did.
SPEAKER_01: And then he stood back up.
SPEAKER_01: And I like to believe he said with a good, firm, manly voice.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_01: But he said, He who is without sin, come grab your stone.
SPEAKER_01: And the word he uses, without sin, it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: The word for sin here is anameratos, and it means not just without sin, but without even the desire to sin.
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, the room begins to clear.
SPEAKER_01: He who is without a sin or even the desire to sin, go ahead and start slinging stones.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' standard, you see, above the law, was unattainable.
SPEAKER_01: Who is without even the desire?
SPEAKER_01: Here are your rocks.
SPEAKER_01: That's the ultimate of mic drops.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The show was over and they hightailed it.
SPEAKER_01: You know who has the right to make a statement like that?
SPEAKER_01: He who is without sin, go ahead and throw a rock.
SPEAKER_01: Probably 2 Corinthians 5.21, the one that says that he who knew no sin came to be sin for us.
SPEAKER_01: That's the one who could say, He who is without sin, go ahead and throw a stone.
SPEAKER_01: In the presence of Christ Jesus, he did know no sin.
SPEAKER_01: Humbly and quietly, they were sent on their way.
SPEAKER_01: You see the attack here.
SPEAKER_01: Evil and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Satan is called the Father of lies, John 8, 44.
SPEAKER_01: He is the accuser of the father of lies.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: They sought to trap Jesus the truth.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, you can't trap the truth.
SPEAKER_01: The truth will set you free, Scripture says.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot trap the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Let it be we see a changed pathway.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 10 through 12.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus has raised up and he saw no one but the woman, he said to her, Woman, where are those accusers of yours?
SPEAKER_01: Has no one condemned you?
SPEAKER_01: And she said, No one, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you.
SPEAKER_01: Go and sin no more.
SPEAKER_01: Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world.
SPEAKER_01: He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Jesus had stooped down, and then he stood.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Woman.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Don't miss that.
SPEAKER_01: He did not say adulterous woman.
SPEAKER_01: He did not say sinner or sinful woman.
SPEAKER_01: He did not give a derogatory word, not one label.
SPEAKER_01: He said woman.
SPEAKER_01: Possibly.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus remembered in this moment, perhaps, Genesis 2, where John 1.1 tells us that it in Genesis 2, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God, that Jesus was there with God in the beginning of creation.
SPEAKER_01: And when he put Adam to sleep and took a rib, he said, it's not good for him to be alone.
SPEAKER_01: And he created out of Adam.
SPEAKER_01: You know what he created?
SPEAKER_01: Woman.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Woman.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Woman.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he remembered in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: Heva, which is the Hebrew word for Eve.
SPEAKER_01: He said, woman, a helper, God's divine creation.
SPEAKER_01: God breathed, I was there.
SPEAKER_01: God knit, I was there, God formed.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't say adulterer.
SPEAKER_01: He said woman.
SPEAKER_01: The world and Satan, the accuser, will find in life ways of leaving you identified with your worst decision, your worst mistake, with a label.
SPEAKER_01: Something daddy said when you were a kid, something mommy said, something that a coach said, something that a teacher said.
SPEAKER_01: You're never going to make it, you're never going to amount.
SPEAKER_01: All of these things.
SPEAKER_01: And the enemy wants to accuse.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what Jesus said?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Where?
SPEAKER_01: Where are your accusers?
SPEAKER_01: Where are your labelers?
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8:1 says, There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Notice this though.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't deny her wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is crushing.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is a mess.
SPEAKER_01: He calls it.
SPEAKER_01: He calls her wrong.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't look at wrong and dismiss wrong.
SPEAKER_01: But then Jesus releases her from condemnation.
SPEAKER_01: While calling for an action, he calls for transformation.
SPEAKER_01: So you're getting all that?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: He says, now go a different way.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Where are your accusers?
SPEAKER_01: Now go a different way.
SPEAKER_01: You can leave, but take a different path.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to me, church.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to receive this.
SPEAKER_01: It is hard to truly encounter Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Hear me.
SPEAKER_01: It is hard to truly and really encounter Jesus and leave the same way.
SPEAKER_01: If you can encounter Jesus week after week and stay the same, I'd begin to pray over that.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Go, I forgive you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not holding that label.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Go and sin no more.
SPEAKER_01: Go back differently.
SPEAKER_01: So when you come to this house of worship, hey, listen, don't come for the music.
SPEAKER_01: Don't come for a program.
SPEAKER_01: Don't come for me.
SPEAKER_01: Come because you need an encounter with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because I want to promise you something.
SPEAKER_01: If you encounter him, it's going to be hard for you to leave the same way you came.
SPEAKER_01: I said this and quoted this earlier, but Proverbs 3, 5 and 6.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding.
SPEAKER_01: In all thy ways, acknowledge him.
SPEAKER_01: He will direct your paths.
SPEAKER_01: He can change your way.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what happened with this woman.
SPEAKER_01: I want to finish close by reading in Romans again.
SPEAKER_01: Paul pivots from chapter 7, chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: And this is beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: You may not have come for any other reason.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to tell you this morning the love of Jesus, church, is for you.
SPEAKER_01: He's not holding a condemnation.
SPEAKER_01: He's not holding your sin in heaven and going, well, there's another one.
SPEAKER_01: The burden of sin is great, and he is a righteous God, and there is a wrath to come.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible says he is slow to anger and quick to mercy.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to forgive you today.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to release you of the label that sin, that an accuser that somebody in your life has been holding and the enemy has for you.
SPEAKER_01: So Romans 8, listen to what it says.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8, 34.
SPEAKER_01: Who is he who condemns?
SPEAKER_01: It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
SPEAKER_01: Hear this.
SPEAKER_01: You might have come in just for this.
SPEAKER_01: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
SPEAKER_01: As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long.
SPEAKER_01: We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
SPEAKER_01: Hear this.
SPEAKER_01: Yet in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, don't miss this, church.
SPEAKER_01: I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He loves you, church.
SPEAKER_01: And he came to change you and do a work in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I want you for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking this week over this and what God does.
SPEAKER_01: Labels try to hold us down.
SPEAKER_01: But that ain't what God wants in your life.
SPEAKER_00: We're excited you've joined us for today's message.
SPEAKER_00: Our heart is to connect with others in our community, to grow with one another, and build a bigger kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: If you accepted Jesus today, we want to hear about it.
SPEAKER_00: Take a moment and text CCW Connect to 94,000.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you will make plans to join us in person on Sundays.