SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you for having me here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you to Justin.
SPEAKER_00: He's become a good friend of mine along with the other Acts 29 pastors.
SPEAKER_00: If you're ever in Columbus, we would love to see you.
SPEAKER_00: We feel a kindred spirit with many of our Acts 29 families.
SPEAKER_00: So we feel uh the same kind of things that you feel, the same kind of values we value as well.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're in Columbus looking for a place to worship, we certainly would invite you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for inviting me here tonight or this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Our church meets in the evening, so if I say tonight, I'm very sorry.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just so used to that at this point.
SPEAKER_00: And gosh, this is the first time I've woken up before 10 on a Sunday morning in a long time.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm really tired this morning.
SPEAKER_00: All right, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00: If you wouldn't mind uh praying with me real quick.
SPEAKER_00: Father, where else would we go?
SPEAKER_00: You have the words of life.
SPEAKER_00: Father, where would we go for our anxiety?
SPEAKER_00: Only your words are life to us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, where would we go for our shame?
SPEAKER_00: Only your words have life for us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, where would we go for our frustrations and disappointments?
SPEAKER_00: Only you have the words of life.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, we know that man really doesn't live by bread alone.
SPEAKER_00: Anything happening in this physical world is only temporary, but Father, we truly live.
SPEAKER_00: We truly experience eternal life by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so, God, thank you for your Son Jesus, who is the very word who has come to us and has delivered to us not just the law, but has given us grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, today we would ask for the words of life.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we have come to you on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Father, for your purposes.
SPEAKER_00: So feed us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We pray these things through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Um I meet a lot of people in my profession.
SPEAKER_00: I I love meeting people.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of why I love being a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: I meet all kinds of people.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you'd be surprised.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I, on purpose, go to places where uh I'll meet some shady kinds of people because I think Jesus wants to connect with them.
SPEAKER_00: But I meet a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00: I meet good people who are trying to be good.
SPEAKER_00: I meet bad people who are coping with their inability to be good.
SPEAKER_00: And I meet bad people who have all but given up on any attempt of being good.
SPEAKER_00: You see, I'm trying my hardest to connect them to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like a simple task, but you would be surprised at how many people do not actually want to be connected to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: As a pastor, they'll happily tell me that.
SPEAKER_00: The good ones don't need him, and the bad ones are too ashamed to talk with him.
SPEAKER_00: I kind of feel as a pastor, I could, I think I could get it all to go away.
SPEAKER_00: If I could just get everyone to stop sinning so much.
SPEAKER_00: If the good people would stop being so pious, or if the bad people would finally get their stuff in a pile, I think they would see that, you know, Jesus really isn't that bad of a guy, and maybe, like Zacchaeus, maybe they would just invite him over for dinner.
SPEAKER_00: But it's really hard to stop sinning, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's really hard.
SPEAKER_00: Really hard.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been addicted to the thought that you're just better than everyone else?
SPEAKER_00: I mean like addicted.
SPEAKER_00: Like every conversation with your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just stop talking.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just lose.
SPEAKER_00: You're right and you know it.
SPEAKER_00: You're smarter and you know it.
SPEAKER_00: And see, whether or not we believe it deep down in our hearts, we've all been committed to the idea, or at least trying to commit to the idea that we really are just better than other ones.
SPEAKER_00: I've been here before.
SPEAKER_00: I've spent most of my life literally believing that I was smarter than my parents, more competent than my teachers, had more potential than my youth pastor, and was more moral than my friends and co-workers.
SPEAKER_00: Most of my life has been spent that way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just better than everyone else.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I was older that I actually figured out the truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that I was actually better.
SPEAKER_00: I was just simply addicted to the reality of trying to prove to myself that I was.
SPEAKER_00: You see, my religion is one of the reasons I have a hard time making friends to this day.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know anything about that?
SPEAKER_00: Your ability to try to prove yourself just pushes people away.
SPEAKER_00: I know that all too well.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to love people when you're always better than them.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the religious people hated Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because he wasn't interested in getting better.
SPEAKER_00: They hated the fact that God really isn't interested in playing games with religion.
SPEAKER_00: It almost seems like he isn't interested in helping you get better at all either.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's really hard as a religious person to stop sinning.
SPEAKER_00: But lest you think I'm only religious, let me tell you I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: I also have a dark past.
SPEAKER_00: I have many things in my past that I'm too embarrassed to share publicly.
SPEAKER_00: There are things in my life that only a few people know.
SPEAKER_00: Shoot, there are things that only Jesus knows, and I kind of think he's okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: If I could go back and tell myself something in the middle of my deepest and darkest temptations, I would tell myself it's not worth it.
SPEAKER_00: The guilt and shame are not worth it.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to tell you about all my success stories of personal triumph and sobriety and how my cravings have just simply gone away over time and how I've mastered my compulsions.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't really have too many of those stories.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest with you, it's really, really hard to stop sinning, and this is coming from somebody who's tried really hard.
SPEAKER_00: I've read my Bible from cover to cover multiple times.
SPEAKER_00: I've prayed more than you know over my sin and my flesh.
SPEAKER_00: I've been to more youth group meetings and revivals and church services than most people, and I'm only 35.
SPEAKER_00: I've walked down so many aisles and prayed so many prayers at the altar, but the hunger for darkness still aches in my stomach.
SPEAKER_00: The pull of life's pleasures still pulls through my veins.
SPEAKER_00: It is so hard to stop sinning.
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel what I feel?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever tried to stop?
SPEAKER_00: You ever tried to just quit cold turkey?
SPEAKER_00: This is part of the reason for the text this morning, part of what we see.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not so much the reason, but it's what we see in our text this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This is an interesting text.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's kind of actually one that I'm I'm not so sure is best placed in our scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: You might even read in some of your footnotes in the text that this has some qualifications and some asterisks about whether or not it's supposed to be there.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not so sure this particular text aligns with the timing of the story of John's account in the Gospels, but uh the veracity of the scriptures here certainly uh would stand up.
SPEAKER_00: There are multiple historical accounts that talk about this story, uh and the realities certainly flow from a clear uh doctrinal um cohesion with the rest of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: But this is such an interesting story and has actually become one of my favorites over the years.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, but then early in the morning he came again to the temple where he normally was found by the religious people.
SPEAKER_00: We've got a couple of interesting details that are helpful.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, this is very early in the morning, maybe even as kind of early as it feels here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I was driving in from Columbus and was able to see the sunrise.
SPEAKER_00: I left when it was dark and I arrived when it was early and saw a beautiful sunrise over the farmlands of our beautiful state.
SPEAKER_00: And it's probably that kind of early where Jesus was meeting in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: He was doing a couple things.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, he was gathering with all kinds of people, just like I try to do throughout the week and throughout the months of pastoral ministry, just trying to gather with people and connect with them.
SPEAKER_00: The reason people were gathering to Jesus is because Jesus was saying and doing things that were extreme.
SPEAKER_00: They were on the polarizing opposites of life.
SPEAKER_00: He was raising dead and he was speaking with authority.
SPEAKER_00: He was doing and saying things that you don't normally have seen and done.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was, according to the people, speaking with boldness, making claims that were absurd, especially to the religious.
SPEAKER_00: All the people came to him in verse 2 and they sat down and Jesus began to open his mouth and teach them.
SPEAKER_00: You imagine the kind of commentary on the scriptures that Jesus offered to them.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus loved teaching about themes related to the law, the clarity of the law and the nature of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus often used parables and stories to communicate certain kingdom aspects and values.
SPEAKER_00: But he also used really hard sayings to clarify the true meaning of the law.
SPEAKER_00: He would say things like, You have heard it said that you shouldn't commit adultery, but I'm saying to you, if you've ever looked at a woman with lust in your heart, you might as well have already slept with her.
SPEAKER_00: The law of God is inflexible.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was saying things that were really hard for the normal people to understand, people like you and me.
SPEAKER_00: And while the normal people gathered to listen to Jesus' bold and authoritative teaching and to see his actions, maybe they were looking for a handout, maybe they were looking for some healing.
SPEAKER_00: The religious themselves had actual other intentions.
SPEAKER_00: You see, verse 3, the scribes and the Pharisees had brought a woman who had been caught in adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the timing and the details are important.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about probably mere minutes or hours of this woman's actual sin.
SPEAKER_00: Early in the morning, they brought Jesus, this woman.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even sure if she had clothes on.
SPEAKER_00: We don't really know.
SPEAKER_00: It was an unbelievable moment.
SPEAKER_00: Truly shocking moment, scandalous moment.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to really even know the full feeling of this moment for her, for Jesus, and even for the crowds watching this happen.
SPEAKER_00: And while the crowds were seeking answers about themselves with Jesus, the religious were more asking questions about somebody else to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting kind of dichotomy.
SPEAKER_00: The crowds were interested in hearing about themselves, Jesus teach us.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas the religious were actually hoping to teach a lesson themselves with this woman.
SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting flip and an interesting power struggle that's presented here at the moment.
SPEAKER_00: And so they placed Jesus in the midst of this crowd.
SPEAKER_00: And they addressed Jesus as teacher, kind of tongue in cheek, and say, This woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
SPEAKER_00: They tried to put Jesus to the test in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such a woman, so what do you say?
SPEAKER_00: The punchline is given in verse 6, the motivation is given.
SPEAKER_00: They said to him, they said this to him to test him, that they might bring some charge to bring against him.
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't so much that much care about the woman and her situation and her setup there.
SPEAKER_00: There was really a much bigger priority placed on trying to pin Jesus down more than the woman.
SPEAKER_00: See, once you begin to see that religious, that religion's primary motivator is guilt and shame, you start to recognize religion everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Once you begin to realize that the only thing that religion has to offer is a carrot and stick kind of way of life, motivated by guilt and shame.
SPEAKER_00: It's a horrible master.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll begin to see that religion is all over our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's the reason we go to work.
SPEAKER_00: It's the reason we're pursuing the kind of jobs we're pursuing, because what if I don't?
SPEAKER_00: What if I don't get that promotion?
SPEAKER_00: What if I don't live up to my dreams?
SPEAKER_00: What if I can't do what I was built to do?
SPEAKER_00: What would my wife think?
SPEAKER_00: What would my parents think?
SPEAKER_00: What would I think?
SPEAKER_00: Would I be able to look at myself in the mirror?
SPEAKER_00: We're scared of these moments that this woman was placed in at the moment.
SPEAKER_00: To be honest, we're much like the religious here, they're scared.
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to justify themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have answers for their soul.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have a kind of settledness and assurance that religion offers.
SPEAKER_00: They're being motivated by guilt and shame too.
SPEAKER_00: This is not found in scripture in this story here, but in my estimation, I think there's a good reason to think that this was actually a setup.
SPEAKER_00: The religious knew exactly what they were doing.
SPEAKER_00: I actually think that maybe even they themselves were part of the setup, trying to trap this woman into committing adultery so that they could bring her to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that there's no man present in this situation.
SPEAKER_00: The law of Moses, when it reflects judgment or righteousness for those caught in adultery, it affects both the man and the woman.
SPEAKER_00: Here we just have the presence of the woman.
SPEAKER_00: Where was the man?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he fled, we don't really know.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the man was actually part of the religious institution.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he was part of the plan.
SPEAKER_00: We don't really know too much.
SPEAKER_00: But what's funny is they say that they're really concerned about righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: They really are concerned about morality, they're really concerned about the demands of the law.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in doing that, they're willing to publicly shame a woman and willing to publicly try to trap the one who wrote the very laws himself.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what might look like morality, that is, this desire to love God and to love people, this pursuit of morality based on the function of our ability to do or not do it, actually is completely futile, backwards, and gets hijacked really quickly.
SPEAKER_00: They neither end up loving God or loving people and seeking to love God or love people.
SPEAKER_00: It shows us that a life motivated by our own ability to keep the law is always going to backfire.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew this.
SPEAKER_00: And so he begins to write.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 6, Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Something else we don't know about this text.
SPEAKER_00: This text has a lot of mystery around it.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus begins to write on the ground with his finger.
SPEAKER_00: I find that a very interesting language.
SPEAKER_00: We have actually the fact that God in Exodus 31 wrote with his finger the words written in the tablets of stone in the law of Moses.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe there's a hint there about the contents of what's being written by the fact that Jesus is willing to use his finger.
SPEAKER_00: He could have used a stick, could have just spoke it, but he begins to write it with his own finger.
SPEAKER_00: There's obviously some amount of time that's taken to be written.
SPEAKER_00: It took him quite a while to inscribe all that he intended to write out.
SPEAKER_00: Because as he began to write verse 7, they continued to ask him.
SPEAKER_00: They continued to badger him with questions.
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus kept writing.
SPEAKER_00: He actually interrupts their questions and says this in verse 7 Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.
SPEAKER_00: And then he continues to write, took even more time after Jesus acknowledged their questions.
SPEAKER_00: Some people think that Jesus was writing the Ten Commandments, a very general understanding of the moral law of God, that is like part of just the Decalogue there.
SPEAKER_00: That might be the case.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Jesus was writing specific sins.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he knew the religious crowd and began to write out very specific sins.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he even drew names and wrote very specific things.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's less likely.
SPEAKER_00: I think more he let the word of God do the talking.
SPEAKER_00: My own thought would be that he wrote just the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: That would be my personal opinion of what he wrote.
SPEAKER_00: It's funny, they went to Jesus to accuse him, and they were the ones ending up accused.
SPEAKER_00: They went in being judgmental, but they were judged by the judge of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: They went in feeling religious, and they left as actual sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, when they heard it, and when they heard Jesus' words, let him who is without sin be the first to throw a stone, they left.
SPEAKER_00: They walked away.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had silenced the argument.
SPEAKER_00: He had silenced the accusations.
SPEAKER_00: And notice how they went away.
SPEAKER_00: They went away from the oldest ones first.
SPEAKER_00: It was the older ones who began to walk away.
SPEAKER_00: And then the younger began to follow.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we don't know exactly what Jesus wrote, but he made something perfectly clear from a theological perspective.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody is without sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so the question, my question for us this morning, how do we stop sinning?
SPEAKER_00: If you're keeping notes, you're welcome to write this down.
SPEAKER_00: This is my first point.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, how do you stop sinning?
SPEAKER_00: You can't.
SPEAKER_00: But you'll figure that out when you're a little bit older.
SPEAKER_00: You'll begin to realize that reality.
SPEAKER_00: You'll begin to internalize that reality once you've lived a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Once you've experienced a kind of chronicness to the suffering of our own sinful nature.
SPEAKER_00: You'll begin to figure this out like these religious men eventually figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: None of us are pulling it off.
SPEAKER_00: None of us are as religious as we project.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has skeletons in the closet.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has chronic sins that they can't overcome.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is silenced by the accusatory voice of God's inflexible law.
SPEAKER_00: And so when Jesus comes in and says things like, you have heard it said, the goal in that moment is not to give you a passing grade.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't trying to help you find justification on the basis of the law.
SPEAKER_00: He's actually trying to get you to understand your unjustification.
SPEAKER_00: He's not trying to get you to understand that you're doing it, you're doing it right, you always have been doing it right, and you can find acceptance with him on the virtue of what you do.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to get you to understand since you've been born, you've never been pulling it off.
SPEAKER_00: No one is righteous.
SPEAKER_00: Paul would clarify this over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Pauline theology is perfect for this.
SPEAKER_00: He says this by works of the law, no man is justified in God's sight.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe maybe this will ring a little bit true in Galatians as well.
SPEAKER_00: He says, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything to God.
SPEAKER_00: Let me translate that a little bit here to our context.
SPEAKER_00: What you do or what you don't do doesn't mean a thing.
SPEAKER_00: What means a thing to God, the only thing that matters is faith.
SPEAKER_00: That expresses itself in love.
SPEAKER_00: Rule keeping, not rule keeping, none of it can set you free.
SPEAKER_00: None of it can justify you.
SPEAKER_00: None of it can give you acceptability before God.
SPEAKER_00: The law was intended to crush.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 2 Corinthians that the law is a ministry of death and a ministry of condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: The voice of the law is to silence that voice of inner justification in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So how can you stop sinning, my friend?
SPEAKER_00: You can't.
SPEAKER_00: And the longer you live life, the longer you allow the law of God and the law of this world to work in your heart, the longer you will realize this.
SPEAKER_00: Because though God has his own laws, the world has our own laws, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: I call them big L laws versus little L laws.
SPEAKER_00: God's big L laws would be love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_00: And we're really good at being religious.
SPEAKER_00: But then Monday through Saturday, we work so hard to fulfill the laws that were written on our hearts of be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: And it turns into little L laws of if I can just be pretty, if I can just be Instagram worthy, if I can just be church culture acceptable, if I can just be corporate office successful.
SPEAKER_00: And all of these little L laws scream at us, and so what we do is we kick into performance mode and we seek justification or acceptability on what we're able to do or not do.
SPEAKER_00: And my friends, by works of the law, no human being is justified in God's sight or get this in our own sight.
SPEAKER_00: Justification in this world is never finished, which is why we're so tired all the time.
SPEAKER_00: It's why we're so hungry.
SPEAKER_00: It's why we're so unsatisfied.
SPEAKER_00: It's why we jump from one thing to the next.
SPEAKER_00: We're always moving and never free.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you guys are familiar with this.
SPEAKER_00: There's a beautiful little curriculum that is written by Robert Foon.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Gospel-Centered Life Curriculum.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of the foundation of our own church as we help bring people on board into the life of our church.
SPEAKER_00: We help them understand that throughout the whole Christian life, there are two things that continue to grow and grow in our Christian experience.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, we continue to grow in the awareness of God's holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not to say that God becomes more holy.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
SPEAKER_00: He's always holy, he's always been, and he's unchangingly holy.
SPEAKER_00: But in our own awareness and the awareness of our own hearts, God is increasingly more holy.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just talking about moral purity, that's true.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm talking about holy in his providence, or holy in his love, or holy in his morality.
SPEAKER_00: All the ways in which God is in and of himself who he is.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's going to continue to grow in your understanding, in other words, if you're never going to be able to exhaust the nature and character of God and your understanding of who he is continues to grow, then something else happens in relation to your understanding fundamentally of the human nature.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see the true reality of the human heart as it is.
SPEAKER_00: A big theology of God leads a big theology of sin.
SPEAKER_00: So you begin to see sin and a clearer light in your own life as you stand in light of the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: You begin, and again, it's not that you are functionally sinning more, but that you're becoming more and more aware of just how sinful you are and just how much you need God in your life.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul would say at the very end of his life, I am the chief of sinners.
SPEAKER_00: What would give Paul the awareness to have that?
SPEAKER_00: An understanding of God and who he is.
SPEAKER_00: Leads to a clarity on sin and what it is in our own life.
SPEAKER_00: And so you begin to see that the Christian life is not this upward mobility where we just keep getting better and better towards God, more and more acceptable towards God.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, it kind of works the opposite way, where you begin to see your sin more and more and more, and you begin to see the need for God's grace more and more.
SPEAKER_00: The very thing that connects you from your sin to this holy God is God's infinite, eternal, unconditional grace, his free forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And you begin to need that more and more.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're singing amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
SPEAKER_00: That saved a wretch like me.
SPEAKER_00: I once was lost, but now I'm found.
SPEAKER_00: I was blind, but now I see that continues to gain momentum in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering, is the amazing grace of Jesus still amazing?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you just sing the words and have to check in and oh yeah, oh yeah, what are we singing about today?
SPEAKER_00: We're not seeing the amazing grace of Jesus as sweet as it is, probably because we don't see our sin as big as it is.
SPEAKER_00: As one pastor put it, Christian growth does not involve becoming stronger and stronger, more and more competent every day.
SPEAKER_00: It involves becoming more and more aware of how weak and incompetent we are and how strong and competent Jesus was and continues to be for us.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, that is the nature of Christian growth.
SPEAKER_00: This is why I love old people.
SPEAKER_00: We have some old folks in our church, which I praise God for.
SPEAKER_00: I tell them, you are not just critical, you are absolutely vital to the culture of our church.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see it.
SPEAKER_00: You see just how much we need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You don't buy into the press of your own success.
SPEAKER_00: You don't buy into the press of your own religion.
SPEAKER_00: There's an older guy, he's older 70s in our church.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Richard.
SPEAKER_00: I love him to pieces because if you hear him talk, he'll talk to you a big game about just how sinful and messed up he is.
SPEAKER_00: But I promise you, I promise you, this is one of the most richly virtuous men that I know.
SPEAKER_00: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Because the grace of Jesus works in his heart big time.
SPEAKER_00: Grace oozes from him.
SPEAKER_00: Humility oozes from him, an awareness of sin oozes from him.
SPEAKER_00: And he, you know, and I've his ministry at our church, I don't give him a job in our church.
SPEAKER_00: Like he has no like title or tag.
SPEAKER_00: I just say, dude, your job why you are here at our church is to find young men to encourage.
SPEAKER_00: Go find young men who are bought into their own press, who are trying to find acceptability and self-justification in their awesome golf league and their passionate uh uh vocational spot that they're in.
SPEAKER_00: Like, and just go and encourage the heck out of these dudes.
SPEAKER_00: Just sit with them when they fail.
SPEAKER_00: Sit with them when they're struggling to be a good dad at home, and just sit and encourage.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what Richard says to them?
SPEAKER_00: Because I hear from these guys, he's just like one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God for older men who see their sin and who rest in the grace of Jesus in a way that actually does the work of transformation in real time and space.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to stop sinning, sorry, you can't.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll figure that out when you're older.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is now alone with this woman in another kind of amazing shift in the story.
SPEAKER_00: The drama is unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: I would love to just be a speck of sand right underneath Jesus' feet at this moment to see this part of the story.
SPEAKER_00: All the religious had left.
SPEAKER_00: You get the idea that the crowd had even left, and all you see is this tortured woman standing there in who knows what kind of condition with our Savior, early in the morning, fresh out of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Woman, where are they?
SPEAKER_00: Who?
SPEAKER_00: Her accusers.
SPEAKER_00: The law, judgment, those who would shout to her her guilt, those who would shout to her her shame, all the bad things that she's done in this moment expressed right in real life, right there, and our Savior looks at her and says, Woman, where are those people?
SPEAKER_00: Where are those voices of accusation?
SPEAKER_00: Has no one done the job of condemning you?
SPEAKER_00: Those are the sweetest words in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, this is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: This beautiful confession of righteousness found in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: No one, Lord, no one has been found to condemn me.
SPEAKER_00: No one is here to speak a word against what you say, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And you see, at this moment, you'd be still tempted to think that Jesus doesn't care about sin, that Jesus is the kind of antinomian that the religious are claiming him to be.
SPEAKER_00: Where all of our mockery and our shame could be cried out against him at that moment.
SPEAKER_00: All of our religious, yeah, I told you so's would be placed on him.
SPEAKER_00: My friend, he cares a lot about holiness, so much so that he'd be willing to take the failure of that holiness all upon himself and bear it as his own.
SPEAKER_00: He cares deeply for sin.
SPEAKER_00: And as Jesus would cry from the cross, he says, It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: I've paid it all.
SPEAKER_00: I've embraced the debt.
SPEAKER_00: Religion fails because the law requires a perfect judge, and there's no one worthy except Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't this what John would eventually cry out in the book of the Revelation?
SPEAKER_00: Who is worthy?
SPEAKER_00: He gets so stressed out.
SPEAKER_00: Is there anybody who is worthy to open the scrolls of judgment?
SPEAKER_00: Who is able to exercise justice?
SPEAKER_00: Is there anybody who's able to do that?
SPEAKER_00: And we see a lamb.
SPEAKER_00: A lamb slaughtered before the foundation of the world, who is able to pick up the scrolls, the one who himself would be the sacrifice, is able to then execute perfect justice in himself.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul would say in Romans 8, it's because of Jesus' sacrifice, Romans 8, 1 through 4, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ from the law of sin and death.
SPEAKER_00: For God has done what the law weakened by your flesh could not do, by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You owe nothing to this God who has paid everything for you.
SPEAKER_00: You're accepted and loved in Him.
SPEAKER_00: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What though the vile accuser roar of sins that I have done, I know them well and thousands more.
SPEAKER_00: My God, he knoweth none.
SPEAKER_00: That is for you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus turns to the woman and says, Neither do I condemn you.
SPEAKER_00: Go and sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting word order here.
SPEAKER_00: Notice how Jesus does not say, go and sin no more, and we'll figure out whether or not I'll condemn you or not.
SPEAKER_00: The word order is very important.
SPEAKER_00: Neither do I condemn you.
SPEAKER_00: Now go and sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: You don't owe that way of life anything anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And so the reality is if you want to stop sinning, there's a big truth theologically that Jesus presents here.
SPEAKER_00: You can.
SPEAKER_00: But you only figure that out after you realize how much he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: You only figure that out when you realize that everything that you've been living for, all the acceptance you've been wanting, all the justification that your heart needs, is not found in whatever you're pursuing, but it's found given to you freely in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Once you realize that, you have no more need for that old way of life.
SPEAKER_00: You can simply go to job and work hard just for your boss's sake, not for your sake.
SPEAKER_00: You can go home and love your spouse, not because you feel like you have to to earn credit with God, but just because you love your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: Just because the love of God is working within you and his righteousness has set you free for the sake of love, and you can go move towards them and finally just go empty the dishwasher for the heck of it.
SPEAKER_00: My friend, you're free.
SPEAKER_00: And you'd be surprised what a free heart could do.
SPEAKER_00: You'd be surprised at just how much sin can be resisted with a heart that's set free with the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: The old hymn turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
SPEAKER_00: You're free.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to turn that into religion, right?
SPEAKER_00: How much do you love God?
SPEAKER_00: That's not the question.
SPEAKER_00: The question is how much does he love you?
SPEAKER_00: 1 John 4.19.
SPEAKER_00: We love him because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_00: Setting your heart on his love actually gives you the power and the freedom to then go move towards your neighbor in free unconditional love this way.
SPEAKER_00: So you can.
SPEAKER_00: But you only figure that out when you realize how much he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.