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So this week I got to celebrate my 16th wedding anniversary with my bride. That was a fun experience. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. We we uh I feel old uh is what I do. I really do. Uh I realized we got married when we were really young. Like we got married when we were 12, so that's part of the deal. But um but uh we were young, so uh I was I I I was it was Friday, our it was our actual anniversary day, and it's easy for me because we were born in the year 2000. Anyone else born in the born? Married. Yeah, I'm really young, right? Anyone else married in the year 2000? Anybody? It's beautiful because if anybody says how many years have you been married, you're like, what year is it? Oh, okay, yeah, 16. Uh so it makes it easy for me. That was God's grace to me in the midst of all of my uh dates floating around in my head. We have six kids, and so when I go to Walgreens and I get a prescription, and they're like, hey, can you give me your kid's birthday? And I'm like, just a sec. And they're like, really? Come on, dad. Like, you got this. I'm like, there's six of them. I gotta go through my file real fast and figure it out, okay? I don't have twins like Harley. So um, but but here's the deal. Uh I got home on Friday, it was our anniversary on Friday, and my wife had the infamous uh wedding photo album sitting out on the counter. Brutal. That's all I can say. It's just so brutal. I'm like, one, I look so young, uh, which makes you feel really old. And then, like, we honestly we had terrible wedding pictures. I mean, my wife can attest to this. I'm not saying something she doesn't agree with. It was bad. Uh, what we wore was not very cool or hip even then. And uh, and honestly, uh the the dresses that she had the girls wear, the bridesmaids, like they were ugly. And um, I know it sounds bad, and they were her cousins and her her sisters, and like they're still angry at her today for making them wear these dresses. And like we're looking through this album, and it is just it is, I mean, brutal. That's the only word I can think of. This is just really bad, and I'm thankful that God redeems everything. And um, but like if if if the website Awkward Family Photos had been around back then, we would have been on the front of it, okay? Because like I don't know what we were thinking, some of the poses they put us in, but they were so strange. Uh, it was just very awkward. And I was like, why do we do that? I was like, oh, because I was only thinking about marrying you. I wasn't, I didn't really care anything else I was doing at that point. They got me to do some strange things, but anyway. Um, so I just was looking at that and I was going, man, I would love to have a do-over. I mean, in our culture today, there's so many so many good photographers and uh good cameras, and you get good pictures. And so now when I do these weddings for people, uh I look at their pictures and I'm like, oh, I wish our pictures were like that. You know, it's like ours are so bad. Uh so we can have, can we have like a do-over on our our wedding pictures? Uh but that would be really awkward too now. So anyway, but we I say that because this morning we're gonna start a series called Do-Over, and it just was a reminder that there's things in our lives we wish we could go back and change, we wish we could get a fresh start, a second chance. Uh, we wish we could could have a do-over. And some of those things are just mistakes that we've made. And I mean, we just naively, we were inexperienced, we were foolish, and we just made a bad choice with our money or with our relationships. I mean, some of us in this room are like, hey, I wish I could go back and do over in middle school. And I'm like, look, I don't want to do it over, I just want to forget it, right? I want a little men in black moment, just kind of zap that out of my memory forever. Uh I don't want to ever remember middle school again. Uh, but whatever it is in the room, some of us we we feel that stress and that strain, but we all, let's just acknowledge reality here. We all mess up and we all have moments that we wish we could just get a do over. Life doesn't work that way. You can't go back and redo it. Uh, but you can get a second chance and you can get a fresh start. And I'm thankful for that because some of the things that we've done were mistakes. They were purely uh, you know, just not having enough experience or wisdom or asking someone for some wisdom before we made a dumb decision. Other times we just flat out made a bad decision because we were like, we're gonna do whatever we want to do, regardless of what anybody else says, regardless of what wisdom says, I'm gonna do what I want to do. We rebelled, uh, we sinned, whatever, however you want to say that, we did that, and then we had to deal with the consequences, the fallout of that. So I don't know all of your stories, but again, because you're a human being, you breathe air, your heart beats, you've made mistakes, you've experienced what it's like to mess up, and and you've needed a fresh start. And this is the beginning of 2016, and and it's a great opportunity to remember that we have fresh starts with God. We have new days with God. In fact, scripture even says, and I I quoted this last week, that every day God's mercies are new. It's like we get a fresh look at life, a fresh opportunity. And I'm thankful, aren't you? Thankful for that. Because God is an expert, He just specializes in giving second chances, and thirds, and fourths, and fifths, and the list goes on, huh? Because if we're honest, all of us in this room, we need more than just two a lot of times. We continue to learn and we make hard uh wrong decisions and we we deal with the fallout of that. But I want us to look over the next four weeks at four stories from the New Testament where we are uh given a little glimpse into the God of the second chance, a God of the do-over. And so we're gonna start today in John chapter 8. If you have a Bible, I encourage you to pull that out. If you don't have a Bible, the words are on the screen. There's also some Bibles scattered around under underneath the chairs in front of you. But I encourage you to read along with me because this is a very interesting story. And in fact, I'm guessing that many of you will recognize the story as soon as I start to read it. But I think it tells us some things about fresh starts and do-overs that we need to hear today, okay? So, verse 2, John chapter 8, here's what it says. At dawn, he went to the temple complex again, and all the people were coming to him. He sat down and he began to teach them. And by the way, this is Jesus, okay? Then the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, making her stand in the center. A teacher they said to him, This woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. And the law of Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? They asked this to trap him, in order that they might have evidence to accuse him. Jesus stooped down and started riding on the ground with his finger. And when they persisted in questioning him, he stood up and said to them, The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her. Then he stooped down again and he continued riding on the ground. When they heard this, they left one by one, starting with the older man. Only he was left, Jesus, with the woman in the center. When Jesus stood up, he said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? No one, Lord, she answered. Neither do I condemn you, said Jesus. Go and from now on do not sin anymore. So this section of Scripture is packed with incredible truth, but I want to make a note just before we jump into it, because you, if you're reading from your Bible, you may see that your section, this section beginning in verse 53 in chapter 7, is bracketed, or may have a note out to the side of it, says something like this, not included in the original manuscripts. I just want to make sure that we don't gloss over that. Um, maybe you're wondering why that's in there. Well, briefly, what that means is that in the oldest manuscripts, and we have manuscripts that have been as in fragments of scripture, where it was recorded, we have them all the way back to the first century. And so one of the ways we know that we can trust that the Bible is accurate and true, and that we can bank on it and teach from it, is because we've seen how God's word has stood the test of time, and God's given us these fragments, these sections of scripture where it was recorded and recorded and recorded over time, copies of copies of copies, but it goes back and it stays consistent. What's interesting is John chapter 8, when it starts out here and really begin, like I said, in verse 53 and chapter 7, uh, this section was not in the oldest manuscripts that we have of the book of John. Um, it wasn't included in there. And scholars who've done textual criticism, which is a way that they try to evaluate whether this is trustworthy, whether it was true, whether it should be included or not, um, they would say that this was not in the writings of John when he first wrote the book. And they said probably it either didn't go in this particular spot in John, or it could have gone in another gospel. But all the same textual critics would say to us today, and I want you to hear this, that we're not teaching a story that's not biblical because this actually all does flow within, number one, consistent character of Jesus. There's nothing in this that can uh that contradicts who Jesus is or contradicts the way he ministered, but two, that all of the early church uh churches would have seen this text as inspired by God, as authoritative, as should have been included or as in you know as a part of the canon of scripture, of the scripture that we read. Does that make sense? You with me? So what I'm saying is that I personally, my view, based on the historical data, those who've actually uh criticized this text and evaluated it, I believe that this is supposed to be in Scripture. I believe it is something God wants us to hear, and I believe that it is a text that we we can learn from today because it is consistent with the person work of Jesus. So I just want to make sure you guys know that because if you're reading in your footnotes and you're going, wait, this wasn't even in the Bible. How who put this in here, right? Now, the second thing is uh how many of you guys have heard this passage before? Probably a lot of hands go up, right? And if you haven't or can't remember the entire passage, you probably remember the verse, he who was without sin cast the first stone. Okay, because this is one that's quoted fairly often. Uh, even culturally, even people who aren't Christians will quote from this text and saying, oh yeah, if you don't have any sin, well then you get to cast the first stone, right? And so that's a verse that is pretty popular, pretty common, pretty well known. But I want to just take four observations from this section of scripture we've read about fresh starts and do-overs. And so if you've got a worship guide, uh there's actually some notes that you can take down in there, write some things down. I encourage you to do that. Even if you throw it away when you're done, it'll help you remember it beyond today. Um but I think that what God wants to say to us is really powerful about this idea of second chances. Because, again, in this story, here's Jesus, he's teaching in a crowd, and he is an incredible teacher. He's he's very gifted, he's very um insightful and inspired because the Spirit is on him. I mean, he is the living word. He's not just like teaching from the word, he is the living word, and so he's just spewing this amazing wisdom, he's teaching all these people, and they're surrounding him. And into the middle of that scene, these rabbis, uh these Pharisees and scribes, they show up, and these guys usually aren't together, at least not in the New Testament, we don't see them together often, but these scribes are the ones who actually write down scripture uh and and record it. They know every nuance of it. They know uh all these, because if you've set and you've you know copied something over and over and over, you've got a pretty good handle on it, right? And these Pharisees, these are the law uh-abiding, uh they they see themselves as kind of the chief law followers, rule followers, and they they really had a passion for following the law, which started out okay, but then they became pretty self-righteous. They became pretty uh focused on how they were obeying the law, okay? But in the text it says that these scribes and these Pharisees, they bring this woman, and and and notice the word that they says. It says they brought a woman caught in adultery, making her stand at the center. So they're trying to make a spectacle out of her, right? They're putting her in the center of the room, in the center of the situation. And it says, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. So twice we get this idea that this woman is caught. And I just want to say this on the front end that if we want a fresh start in our lives, if we want a second chance, if we want a new day, we're gonna have to admit that we are caught. Now let me explain what was going on here and explain why I think this is such a significant piece of the puzzle. Um, whenever these men brought this woman to them, and it says she was caught in adultery, that means that these Pharisees, these scribes, somebody actually caught, like they saw with their own eyes this woman committing adultery. And this isn't just like uh fornication, is the way they would have talked about uh like two people having sex but that were not married, but adultery means that at least one of the people involved in this relationship were married, okay? That was married. And so uh when they were committing adultery, there was unfaithfulness to a spouse involved here, and there was sexual relationship that was outside of the context of marriage. Just to make sure we're crystal clear, okay? So this was not good. And clearly in the text, she never defends herself, she never speaks up. I mean, the way the story unfolds is described, she never says, I didn't do this or anything else, but she is caught, which means again she was seen. My question, by the way, is where's the man? Like, why is the woman the only one that's in trouble here? That's a problem, right? And but that just shows a little bit of the heart of these scribes and Pharisees bringing just the woman into the scene and trying to make a spectacle out of her and trying to condemn her, accuse her. But she is caught, and there's nowhere she can hide. Now, have any of you in this room ever been caught before? And it was like just busted, I'm done. What can I do, right? I mean, she's in that moment right there. Can you imagine how much embarrassment she felt, how much shame she felt, how much guilt she had to have felt in that moment? I can remember as a kid multiple times, you know, my mom and dad would say things like this beware, lest your sin will always find you out. Quoting from scripture. And I'm like, don't say that. You know? I don't want to hear that. But you know what? Inevitably, it always found me out somehow. I my parents are praying these prayers. God, if they're doing something secret, make sure it comes out, right? And God's answering their prayers because I keep getting in trouble and I'm caught. And those are just hard moments, right? Now here's what I know to be true. Whether you have been caught publicly or caught by any other person before a holy God, before a God in heaven, we're all caught. We're all guilty. We all have sinned. In fact, Romans 3.23 says we've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. And in Hebrews chapter 4, if you want the hair to stand up on the back of your neck, listen to what it says when it says that everything in creation, all of God's creation, that nothing is hidden from God's sight. Everything is naked and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we give an account. So we're fooling ourselves, I'm fooling myself to think that God doesn't see my sin. He doesn't see my rebellion. Now, let's be honest. Things like adultery in this story, those are easier things to go, oh yeah, that's wrong. But as we'll see as the story progresses, there are a lot of things that are behind the scenes that are in our hearts that are sort of undercurrents, that are going in our lives that are just as rebellious and sinful, aren't they? Things like jealousy, things like envy, things like greed. You know, some of the sins that our culture says, oh, that's okay, it's not a big deal. And so we just live in these things. Like we have jealousy. It's like we get on Facebook and all we do is we feel this jealousy and this envy towards other people. God says that's detestable. That that's sin. That's wrong, that's rebellious too. There's different things in our lives, but we all have sin and we're all caught. God knows it, He sees it. And when we try to hide it, it's as silly as Adam and Eve in the garden, right? When they sinned and they blew it and it says they went and tried to hide. You can't hide from God. We're caught. And if you want a fresh start today, if I want a second chance today, if we want to want to walk into a new way of life today, we got to admit that we're caught, that we're sinners, that we have failed, we have messed up. And we need to acknowledge that. And I want you to understand, guys, listen, maybe you'll find this encouraging, maybe you won't. I don't know. I think it's kind of encouraging in a weird way. There's not one of us in this room who has it all together. There's not one of us in this room who has it all figured out. There's not one of us in this room who has arrived. That's good, isn't it? Like, we're all in progress. And even the most godly people on the planet, even the people that you know, you're like, man, they are so mature. They love Jesus so much. God is still working on areas of their lives where there's pride and there's fear and there's control issues. There's things in all of our lives, and maybe we don't see it from the surface, from the externals, but God's working on all of us. There's always something that He wants us to grow in. We won't be perfect until we finally are with God in heaven one day. So just this morning, I want us to remember that we are caught, that we can acknowledge that there is sin there. Now, some of you guys have heard me say this before, and I just want to say this as a warning and an admonition to you. Listen. People don't suddenly go bad, they just get found out. And what I mean by that is that public sin, things that happened in public, where people uh people's sin is exposed, that's not something that happened fast. Things were going on behind the scenes, behind closed doors, in the heart uh at that at that hidden level. And I want you to know that God, He loves us too much to just let us walk in private sin. He's gonna mess with us, He's gonna call us out. And some of us are like squirming now, right? Uh-oh. But he loves us too much to let us walk in darkness, to walk in that that place because we're enslaved, we're shackled in shame and fear. And we're trying to have this private sin, but I want you to know before God he sees it. And we have to acknowledge that this morning. We need to admit this woman was caught. Maybe we haven't gotten to this place where we were drugging to a crowd of people and they said, Sinner! But it could happen to any of us, couldn't it? At some level. We because we've all done things, again, to disobey and dishonor God. But I want you to see the second thing. In verse 5, he says this in the law, this is the the scribes and Pharisees, in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? They asked us to trap him in order that they might have evidence to accuse him. Now, notice their hearts. They are bent on what? They're bent on condemning. I mean, they are like focused on condemning this woman, and ultimately they want to accuse Jesus. They want to condemn him. Well, how could they accuse Jesus? Well, let's just put this real simply that uh they were quoting from the law, from the books of the Old Testament, from Moses' law, which said you shouldn't commit adultery. It's one of the top ten, right? It's one of the ten commandments. Don't commit adultery. And the penalty for committing adultery was what? Stoning them. So was what they were saying wrong? No, it's actually accurate, it's actually true. That the law says if you've committed adultery, you deserve to be stoned. And so they're like, Jesus, this is what she's done, this is what she deserves. What do you say? And the thought was that if Jesus says, No, give her some grace, give her some forgiveness, that they would go, see, you don't believe Moses. You aren't following the scripture. You know, you don't buy into our faith. And so they could, you know, basically create a riot amongst the religious in that moment. On the flip side of that, as he says, yeah, let's stone her, then basically what would happen is that it would be in opposition to the Roman way of handling people who had gone into some sort of sin or crime. And in the Roman way would have been, no, you have to have a trial. And you have to go through the process of being the, are you guilty or are you not guilty, right? And so either way, they're trying to trap Jesus into getting in trouble with the Romans or getting in trouble with the Jewish people. But notice how wise and incredible Jesus is. Man, he handles himself so incredibly. I wish we had more of his wisdom, right, in these type of pickle situations. Because here he is, he's in this situation, and you notice that they are bent on that, and he doesn't answer them. Now we're gonna continue the story in just a second, but I want you to see something that's really significant. If we are gonna receive a fresh start, we're gonna have to filter the voices of accusation. We're gonna have to filter those voices. Now, the reason I use the word filter versus like block them all out is because sometimes you have friends and I have friends who come to us and they say to us things like, what you are doing is wrong. And I want you to know that that is some of the most loving things that people could do for us is to speak truth, truth to us when we don't want to hear it. Right? Proverbs says that wounds from a friend are better than kisses from an enemy. So there are times when friends or people outside will come to us and say, Hey, look, you're headed down a path of destruction. And we need to listen to that. We should say, No, you're right. Thank you for telling me I can turn away and not continue down that path of destruction. However, there are a lot of people who just rebel in you struggling. Who just are want to condemn you, who want to slam you because they want to make themselves feel better. You've been there? There are some people who just want to slam you and accuse you because somehow they feel in their own heart like they're not good enough, and so they want to accuse you so that they feel better than you. There are, that is in the human heart, isn't it? And in fact, let's be honest, some of us in this room sometimes, and we know this because we we we see you want to know why gossip continues to go and grow? Because there's a weird part of us in our human nature that says, Yeah, look at them, look at what they've done, right? But we're gonna have to filter. Through the voices of condemnation, and we're gonna have to understand that there are gonna be people sometimes who condemn us, who speak things over us. And by the way, I should say this. In this passage, I am not telling you that what this women, this woman did, was acceptable. That it was right. Was it right for her to commit adultery? No. Was it against the law of God? Absolutely. Was she in rebellion? Yes. All those things. But I want you to see their hearts. Their hearts were not so that she would come to repentance. Their hearts were not so that she could come back and experience the grace of God. What were their hearts? Their hearts were to accuse and to condemn. And we're gonna have to filter through those voices. Sometimes it's not people out there who condemn us. Sometimes voices right here in your own heart. Can I tell you how many Christians I speak to on a regular basis that say, you know what, I just can't forgive myself. I just can't receive forgiveness. Like, how could God really forgive me? And I just want to say to you this morning, and again, this is where we're headed anyway, but just know that there is nothing you could ever do to make God love you less. And there is nothing that you could ever do that's unforgivable. Other than, caveat, rejecting him forever. But he offers forgiveness, he offers grace, he offers new life in him. So if we're gonna receive a fresh start, we need to filter those voices. Um, do you guys know that you have an enemy who wants to take you out? He wants to accuse you. He wants you to stay paralyzed and on the sideline. He wants your life to be miserable, he wants you to be depressed and discouraged. He wants you to spend all of your time sitting over in the corner, just feeling like this shame on you and like, whoa is me, and just terrible, and just wallowing in sin. That's where he wants you to be. That's the voice of the enemy. He wants you to accuse. But thankfully, just like in the case of this woman, we have an advocate. We have an advocate. His name is Jesus. You see, the next thing that I want us to see from this passage is that Jesus alone has the right to condemn, but he doesn't. Jesus alone has the right to condemn, but he doesn't. Now, I want to read this section because I think this is significant to the point that I'm trying to make here. It says that after they tried to trap him, that Jesus stooped down and he started writing on the ground with his finger. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I'm immediately like, well, what was he writing? Like, I want to know. What was he writing on the ground as he stooped down? Uh, some people say, well, you know, this was kind of a symbolic thing that just as God had uh created man from the dust, and then God now Jesus is this new covenant and he's writing in the dust. I mean, like, I that's all speculation. It's all guessing because we don't know. It wasn't recorded. We can't uh we can't uh guess uh and get it accurate because we just don't have that accurate picture here of what was going on. But what we do know in its context, it would make sense that maybe some other things were going on with these guys that got that Jesus was writing some significant things that um maybe they didn't want him to write, right? So he he stoops down, he begins to writing on the ground, and some people would say that actually what he was doing is writing sins. Writing out the sin of these accusers, writing out things like envy, you know, pride, jealousy, right? Writing out these sins, embezzlement. I I don't know, whatever they were struggling with, he begins to write in the dirt. I mean, maybe on the other hand, Jesus is just doodling because he's just taking time, right? He's just like, hey, just draw some flowers and trees. You know, I created those one time, you know. Like, maybe that's what he was doing. I don't know. Maybe because anybody ever do that when you're in like an awkward situation, you start doodling? I mean, maybe that's what he was doing, okay? We don't know. But I kind of wonder if he wasn't writing down some things that were revealing what was going on inside these men. You say, well, why do you think that? Well, look what happens. When they heard what he said, you know, what do they do? They leave, okay? Now notice, he goes, verse 7, when they persisted in questioning him, he stood up and he said to them, The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her. So he's saying to them that if you're perfect and righteous and you got it all together, well then have at it. But he knows what to be true. Not one of them was perfect or righteous and had it all together because they were all sinners. They were human beings, right? But then what also is that verse telling us? What is significant in this whole scene here regarding Jesus' position? Well, here's what it says to me. Yeah, none of them could throw a stone, but there is one who could have. There is one who could have thrown a stone. Jesus could have thrown a stone. Because he was perfect. He was sinless. In fact, in Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15, just was in Hebrews chapter 4 a while ago, it says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. That's Jesus. Jesus doesn't have any sin. He is sinless. And he could have picked up the biggest boulder and just thrown it on our head in that moment. Right? He could have. But he did not do that. That's powerful. Because he had the right to judge. He had that place of moral superiority, that perfection, and yet he chooses not to throw the stone in that moment because he's revealing a heart of grace and not condemnation. John 3. Everybody probably knows John 3, 16. In fact, we probably quote it here fairly often. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believeth him would not perish but have eternal life, right? Everlasting life. But the following verse says, For God did not send his son into the world that he might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Jesus didn't come to condemn, he came to save. He didn't come to condemn, he came to save. And I think it's significant for us today to remember that Jesus has the opportunity to condemn if he wants. But he's so good, he's so compassionate, he's so full of grace that he offers us life instead of death. That makes me thankful. That makes my heart worship him. I'm so thankful and grateful that he who could throw that stone at me, who could just take me out, who could just wipe me out and say be done with you, says, I love you enough and I give you grace. In the the text it says that they persist that question. He says the one without sin should show the throw the first stone. He stoops down again, he continues writing, maybe some more sins. At this point, they're starting to get the point. And it says, when they heard this, they left one by one. And notice this, starting with the older men. I mean, there everything in scripture is there for a reason. I think like the older men are going, all right, guys, he's he called our bluff. We better go, you know. And the younger men, like, let's keep going, let's go, let's push it hard. Okay, you're right. We should probably go too, right? Older men were just kind of quicker to acknowledge the fact that, yeah, this is a hopeless case here. We we didn't we didn't accomplish what we wanted to, and now he's writing down the things that we're struggling with in our own hearts. But in the text, I think it's encouraging to again see where Jesus goes because he says, when he looks up, he stands up and he says, Woman, where are they? Where are your accusers? Where are the ones that have been condemning you? And she says, or he says, Has no one condemned you? No one, Lord, she answered. Notice what she said, no one who Lord. In that moment, she understood who Jesus was, didn't she? She called him Lord. No one, Lord. No one, Lord, is here. But here's Jesus, he's still with her. And he says, Neither do I condemn you. Some of the most powerful words we could ever hear in our lives. Maybe I can speak these. God, God can't, he could if he wants audibly to speak these down, but right now in this room, I want wherever you are, whatever you're struggling with, I want you to understand. Christ is saying, I do not condemn you. I offer you grace. I offer you a second chance. I offer you a do-over. I offer you new life. And that's what I want to land of the fourth thing that we've got to pull from this passage is the very last sentence, the last statement of Jesus there. You can't talk through all this without addressing this particular piece of it where he says, Go and from now on, do not sin anymore. Woman, go on your way. And what? Do not sin anymore. If we are going to experience a true second chance, a true opportunity to get a fresh start, listen, God's forgiveness isn't so that we can go right back to the same sin. He wants to set us free. He wants us to walk in a new life, in victory, overcoming the sin that we've been enslaved to. And he says there, and by the way, this is consistent throughout the gospel accounts where Jesus will uh regularly say this: go and sin no more. Go and sin no more. He'd heal people, go and sin no more. And I love this because Jesus wouldn't give them a command that they couldn't do. Right? But he was saying, Go do this, but now you have the power to do it. You have the capacity to do it. And so God wants us to be free, guys. Jesus came to break the chains of slavery to sin. In fact, Romans chapter 6, verse 6 says, We know that our old self, that that sinful self, that rebellious self was crucified with him, with Christ, in order that sin's dominion over the body may be abolished, so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin. And some of you in this room are like, I'm not enslaved to sin. I'm not a slave. What are you talking about, Nick? I don't know, I don't know what you're talking about. And I would say to you, stop sinning then. You're like, I don't think I can. You're saved. That's where we are, right? But with Christ, we are not enslaved to sin. With the Spirit, we don't have to be enslaved to sin any longer. God invites you and me. He invites anyone in this room to come as we are, but he also invites us not to stay as we are. He invites us to be changed, to be transformed, to be made new. So where do we go from here? Where do you and I go from here after this section of scripture we've just read and these truths to lean on, to meditate on today? There's really only two options. We can live in condemnation or we can run to the cross. We can live in condemnation or we can run to the cross. I quoted from John three a while ago, and I want to finish verse 18. It says this anyone who believes in him, Jesus, is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Jesus offers us salvation, forgiveness, redemption, a fresh start. He offers those things to us. The question is, are we willing to receive it? Are we willing to receive his forgiveness and his grace? Romans 8, verse 1 says, Therefore, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's good, isn't it? There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The question then becomes, are we in Christ Jesus? If you are a believer in Christ, you've put your trust in Christ and you believe He is your salvation, you believe it's the only way, He's the only way to heaven, then today there is no condemnation for you any longer. You know why? Because of the cross. Because Jesus was condemned so that we could go free. Jesus took on the condemnation we deserved so that we might have life and forgiveness, mercy. That's what Jesus has done for us. And if you are not a follower of Jesus, if you're not a believer in Jesus, if you're just checking this thing out, I want you to know there's an invitation to you from God that says that if you would receive the gift of eternal life, it's yours. If you receive the gift of what Jesus did on the cross, dying in your place, giving his life for your life, you can have eternal life. You can have freedom. You can have a new way of living. You can have the ability to live and not be condemned. That's awesome stuff. That's encouraging stuff today. Let me pray.