The Woman Caught In Adultry But Cared For By The Good Shepherd

Well, thank you for your singing. If you open up your Bibles to John, chapter 8, or technically 7, verse 53. I'm going to read the text. We'll go to our Lord in prayer. John chapter 7, verse 53. They went each to his own house, but, now verse 1, chapter 8, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

Early in the morning he came again to the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. And placing her in the mist, they said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.

So what do you say? This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones.

And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. And Jesus stood up and said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? and she said no one lord and jesus said neither do i condemn you go and from now on sin no more let's pray oh father we are so thankful that you are a god who meets us in our weakness you are a god who meets us in our corruption and our sin and our filth and our misery and our shame we are truly a guilty people, but because of your mercy and grace that's unmatched, you meet us and you condemn us no more.

Lord, and we know that's only possible because of what Christ has done on the cross. We know that he brought condemnation upon himself on the cross and he overcame condemnation and conquered the grave, conquered death, conquered sin when he rose from the grave. And now he reigns on high. And we know from that reign, we hear the same words of Jesus to our guilty, to our guilt.

That is, there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ. And we have this freedom, this power, this magnificent gift that we can go and sin no longer. God, I pray that we would look at this text and we would be refreshed by it. I ask, Lord, that the people of God before me, those who are struggling, they would be comforted by it. Those who are in need of correction, they would be corrected by it.

I pray, God, that for the unbelievers before me, they would be convicted, convinced of their sin and their need to flee to Jesus for salvation. Lord, be with us, for we are weak, but in you we are strong. And so we rely upon your promises now, in Jesus' name. Amen. And one of the activities we did around Christmas time this past year is we put together a puzzle, a real big puzzle.

It was like 500 pieces, not 1,000. 1,000 is ridiculous, right? It's something, I can't remember, it was one of those. It was a lot. But it's a lot of fun. I always forget how fun putting puzzles together, how much fun that can be.

And it's interesting, you get those pieces in those puzzles where it looks like it really fits where it's at, like for a moment. But then you realize it's just not quite there. You know, it fits the overall scene of the puzzle well enough, but you can just tell it doesn't quite belong there, even though it just looks really close, perhaps. And that reminded me of where we're at in John here.

We are at this place in the Gospel of John, a break in the narrative in a way that it almost looks like it doesn't quite fit in the Gospel of John here. If you remember, we talked about last time, we talked about Jesus is at the Feast of Booths and he's kind of in contention with the religious leaders. And in the midst of this turmoil, he has these four things that he proclaims that he can give to the people who come to him as the good shepherd.

And so amidst this turmoil on the last day of the feast, he proclaims these four things. If you remember last time, we talked about the first thing he proclaimed, that he is the one who can give living water. If you remember, we talked about the division surrounding that great claim that he made. Some believed, some didn't. And then we saw the failures of the religious leaders to bring about amongst the division, to bring the people to Jesus.

They completely fail at that. In fact, they do the very opposite. So we talk about the failure of the religious leaders to be good shepherds, right? And then what would make a really good transition now would be then to verse 12 of chapter 8, in which he says, again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. That would be the next thing Jesus provides for his people.

He provides living water and he provides light to the world. It would be perfect. And in fact, that's most likely how John wrote the gospel. But weirdly, we have this kind of strange narrative in the middle, and that is this woman caught in adultery. Now I want you to know I am not a liberal okay and I don mean politically okay although I not that either but theologically I not a liberal okay I don hate the Bible I don't think that it should just be thrown away.

It doesn't make any sense. I don't believe that. But here, it is very much widely understood that John did not write this part in his gospel, but it was probably added later, okay? Just relax, relax, okay? I know, I know. Relax, though, for a second.

If you look at the earliest manuscripts of the book of John, this story is not found in the earliest manuscripts. Now, you might be saying, what is a manuscript? Well, imagine John wrote this gospel. He wrote it, right? And then he sent it off to his audience. And the audience read it and said, oh, that was nice.

And then they threw it away, right? No, they didn't do that. They made a copy of that, right? Perhaps John even made a copy of it. The point is, is as soon as that this gospel was written, there were copies and copies and copies and copies and copies and copies and copies and copies. And now here, 2000 years later, we have a ton of copies or manuscripts.

OK, and the original of John isn't no longer. It's not with us. Right. It was way too long ago. It's it's been destroyed or whatever. But we do have copies of the original and we have very early copies of the original.

And the very early copies of the original, they do not have this narrative of the woman caught in adultery. It goes right from I am, I provide living water to I provide light. And it's kind of seamless. And so here it's kind of like almost an intrusion in the text. And in fact, furthermore, when we see early commentators on the Gospel of John from the church fathers early on, They go from commentating chapter 7 with he is the water to I am the light in chapter 8 in verse 12.

They skip the narrative of the woman caught in adultery because it wasn't there. And so because of this fact, it's very clear, there's a lot of preachers who will not preach this text. That one. But I feel comfortable doing it, okay? because I think there's things going on. I don't want to spend too much time with this, but I think there's things going on here.

One is it was attested to very on in church history. Church fathers like Jerome, who was it, Augustine, Ambrose, they acknowledged it as true and as God's word. And so it was very early on accepted in church history. And also, it's apostolic in its teaching. In this narrative, as we'll get to, it's apostolic. It has apostles' teaching in it.

And so these things come together to where, okay, perhaps it wasn't written by John, but it was very clearly taught and spoken by word of mouth. And then someone thought, we need to add this in the scripture so it's safeguarded. And so sometimes it's added here in the manuscript. Sometimes it's added earlier in chapter 7. Sometimes it's added at the end of John, and other times this story is added in Luke 21, which we'll get to.

I think that's probably the best place for it. But nevertheless, I believe this is truly God's word, and so we will preach it and be edified by it today. Despite the fact that it probably doesn't belong in the Gospel of John, it carries a lot of the same themes. And these are the themes that we're going to look at this morning. That is, is that this we see in this text, the failure of the religious leaders to be good shepherds.

If you remember, we talked about that last week and we'll continue to talk about this in this gospel. The failure of the religious leaders to be good shepherds contrasted with Jesus's ability to be a good shepherd and feed life to this woman caught in adultery. And so that's the main theme we're going to see come out at us as we go through this text this morning.

So let us begin with the failure, as we look at the beginning of this text, the failure of the religious leaders to be good shepherds. And we see, first off, I want you to note that this woman is not a victim of the law. Look again at chapter 8, verses 1. Okay, 753 and then we're going to... They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

Early in the morning, he came again to the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. Now, again, I don't want to spend too much time on this because I want to get to the main point here and hopefully be edified by it. But really, the way that part reads right there, it really reads like Luke 21. In fact, if you look, look in your Gospels, look at Luke 21 real quick.

Look at that with me. Look at it. It's a little bit to your left there. Look at Luke 21, 37. It reads the same. And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went and lodged on the mount called Olivet.

And early in the morning, all the people came to him in the temple to hear him teach. So this was what was going on in the last week of Jesus' ministry at Passover. Now in John, we're at the Feast of Booths, which is six months prior. But this was going on where Jesus would go to Mount Olives at night, come to the temple in the morning, and people would listen to him.

And so I think it's very likely that this situation happened at that time, towards the end of Luke here, the last few days of his life when he's doing this. But nevertheless, it reads like that, and we see the narrative continues in verse 3. Jesus' teaching gets interrupted like what happens often when he taught by his enemies. We see it get interrupted in verse 3.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. and placing her in the mist, they said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? Now it's very important. We can help as we read this narrative to see a victim before us can we When you read this you can help but see that this woman is a victim She is being abused and mistreated It just the words just glow with this woman is being abused right now and it's not right what is happening to her.

But it's important that we understand why she's a victim. She is not a victim to the law of God. Okay? We see that she has committed adultery. And nowhere in the text do we ever see that that was not a true statement. Jesus never says you're wrong.

He assumes that's actually true. This woman has committed adultery. Now we'll get to the religious leader's abuse of the law, which is what she's a victim of in a moment. And the fact is there should be a man here too, because it takes two to tango. I don't know if I should say that, but it takes two, right? The man should be there too.

And he's not. So automatically you see, but nevertheless, this woman is a law breaker. She's a victim, but she's not a victim of the law of God. She's a transgressor of the law of God. That's going to be important for when Jesus feeds her life and later on. But I want your mind to be settled on the fact that she's a victim, but she's not a victim of the law of God.

She's a transgressor of the law of God. We've read a little bit of it already, but it's worth us pointing out how she's a transgressor of the law of God. We see in Leviticus 20.10, if a man commits adultery and the wife of his neighbor, both of the adulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to death right so in the law of God you have adultery is sin and then the law was given to Israel that the way that they handle adultery that sin is you are to kill that person or those people that committed adultery in other words God takes adultery very seriously we look at and I want to just highlight the fact that she's not a victim here.

She's of the law. She's actually a transgressor. This is a serious sin that she's done. And I think a lot of times we get this confused and we don't appreciate that. The fact that she's committed a very great sin. You understand that the very foundation of society is the family.

And the very foundation of the family is the marriage unit. And so when you commit adultery, you are underlining or you're attacking the very foundation of society and the future generation's happiness because you are breaking the foundations. Do you understand why our youth is not happy today? It's amazing how depressed our youth is. And it is directly related to the fact that our marriage union and the society is not treated as sacred and holy.

Free love is what we hear from the 70s and then on. And then divorce for any reason at all. By the way, who legalized that one? Our champion Reagan. So Republicans aren't always that great. Divorce for any reason, right?

How can you spit on marriage more than saying free love is champion and you can get a divorce for any reason at all? And we wonder why the following generation's children are completely and utterly depressed and in a terrible condition. because we have undermined the very fabric, foundation of the family, and that is marriage. And this woman here in this text committed adultery.

And that should be something that we understand is filled with shame, and she is guilty of. And we should lament. So when we get a sense that, man, this woman, this is a victim here. Again, she's not a victim of the law of God. The law of God is good, and she's a transgressor of it. She's a transgressor of it.

There's another aspect, too, of her breaking the law here. God's law is good in that it reveals the utter shame this lady is in, which we'll get to later why that's actually a good thing. So we need to understand that this law reveals she broke it, and she is undermining the very goodness of God, protecting society. And also, this law is revealing her sin and shame rightfully, and we should understand that to be so.

So although it is right to sense that this lady is a victim, it's not God's law. She is rather a transgressor of it. By the way, you will never help anyone caught in sin like this lady is. You'll never help them but try to minimize their guilt and shame from the sin they are caught in. And that can be easy to do because we think we're empathizing. They're caught in this public sin, and we think that we can empathize by diminishing the guilt of it or the shame of it.

They're never going to help anyone that way. Now, we're going to see how we are to carry forth, but we've got to acknowledge, we've got to see that this lady is an utter, terrible law breaker. But she is a victim. but she's a victim of the religious the religious leaders abuse of the law of god and we see this again she's a victim all right but it's not the law of god she's a victim of the religious abuse or the the religious leaders abuse of the law of god in her case and we see this in verse six in the text we see this we get a commentary on their motivations in verse six this you remember they brought him to Jesus, she's caught in adultery, the law of Moses says we should stone someone, and we see their completely abuse of the law of God and this abuse of this woman by their motivations for doing this.

And we see that in verse 6, this they said to test Jesus that they might have some charge to bring against him. So we see her victimhood is related to the fact that this whole thing is happening not for her sake or for the glory of God's sake, but so that they could test Jesus and try to get him in his words so that they could get him killed It has nothing to do with her nothing to do with God everything to do with killing Jesus And that where the abuse and the failure for them to be proper and good shepherds comes into play. They are using her for ulterior motives.

Now, the reason why this works is because only Rome has the ability to execute people. Okay? And so here they think we got Jesus in a conundrum. Because the law of Moses says that the adulterer should be stoned. Actually, the one who's betrothed should be stoned, but we don't need to get into that right now. The law of Moses says that she has committed a crime, she should be stoned.

Rome says that if you do that, you're going to have a problem with us. So what is Jesus going to do here? Is he going to say, yes, the law of Moses says this, let's do it. Or is he going to say, don't do that for, and be good on Rome's side. But now he's supposedly breaking the law of Moses. And so we see the whole purpose of the religious leaders is not any care for their neighbor, not any care for her, not any care for the nation of Israel to purge the evil from their midst.

It has everything to do with we can get Jesus with this and perhaps kill him, trap him in his words. This is actually, again, very similar to what they did in Luke 21. Does this sound familiar? And Luke, going back to Luke 21, we read it earlier, actually Luke 20, with the question in Luke 20, verse 19 and on, the question with paying taxes to Caesar.

Why did they ask Jesus that question? It's because if Jesus were to say, yeah, don't pay taxes to Caesar, he's going to get executed by Caesar. If he says pay taxes to Caesar, now it looks like he's undermining the law of God. It's a similar thing that they're trying to do. They're trying to get him caught between a rock and a hard place. I think the thing that we need to hold on to, though, is that they have no love.

They're not motivated by the glory of God. They're not motivated by being proper shepherds of Israel. they are motivated by wanting to kill Jesus. They have an ulterior motive for bringing this woman who was caught in adultery before Jesus and has nothing to do with what it should have something to do with. Do we understand what's being said here? Now, I think it's important, too, to look at their motivations.

Why did they want Jesus to die? What was the reason? Why did they not like Jesus? Well, we've been talking about this, and we'll talk about this a lot in the Gospel of John, but it's very clear the reason why they hate Jesus is because they were afraid, concerned for their own power and glory, and Jesus was a threat to that. So they are motivated to kill Jesus because they are motivated by their own glory, their own power.

And we see this in John 11, 48. This is a great summary statement of that. If we let him go on like this, the religious leaders say about Jesus, everyone will believe in him and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. So why did the religious leaders hate Jesus and work against him? Because they were concerned about their own glory, their own power.

Jesus talked about this earlier on in chapter 7 when he started teaching at the Feast of Booths. And remember, they all marveled. The religious leaders marveled. And we talked about they weren't saying, wow, he's really good. They were saying, how dare he teach like this? This is amazing that he would even teach like this.

Where did he even get his studies from? He didn't get it from us. And what did Jesus say? He says, if your goal is to glorify God, you're going to see my teaching is from God. But if your goal isn't to glorify God, you will not accept my teaching. So the problem is your desire to glorify yourself, religious leaders, and not glorify me.

And then he says, by the way, because you want to glorify yourself and not God, you get the law of Moses wrong, too. And you're trying to kill me, not for rightful reasons. And then Nicodemus, you remember at the end of chapter 7, put the icing on the cake. when he says to the religious leaders, he says, does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?

And the religious leaders didn't want to do that. In other words, Nicodemus is saying, you're not following the law of God either. Why? Because they cared about their own glory. They cared about their own power. They did not care about God.

They did not actually care about his law. And they certainly didn't care about this woman or the nation of Israel and keeping it holy. So she's a victim. This woman's a victim. She's a victim of these religious leaders not being good shepherds, but rather having ulterior motives and it's wicked. Now, we do the same thing.

We do the same thing. We can do the same thing as religious leaders. We can have the standard of God that we use not for love for God and neighbor and wanting to end sin and help people with sin, but for the ulterior motive for our own glory. We can do the same thing. It's not just the religious leaders here. This is why when someone you know commits a public sin, you are so quick to go to everyone else but not go to that person.

We all are tempted to do that, aren't we? This person has a public sin on display, and we don't go to that person. we go to other people and we gossip. Why do we do that? The law of God has been broken, the standard, and we say, look what that person did because it makes us feel better. I didn't do that. I don't do that.

And so our motivation for the law of God is for our own glory to be puffed up and not to end sin, not to be shepherds or good shepherds. We have ulterior motives all the time. This is what motivates us to gossip and to talk about everyone, about someone's failure besides that person. How many times, I don't want to reach too far here for application, but how many times have our children broke the law of God and they need to be shepherded?

And because we are stressed and annoyed with work or other things going on, we utilize their lack of meeting the standard of God, and we hammer them. Nothing to do with shepherding. Now, we have ulterior motives. I can use this to make myself feel better about the stress that I'm feeling. Really just let them have it. That's so easy to do, isn't it?

It's the same principle, is it not? I hope I'm not reaching too far here. But it's whenever we have the law of God, we don't utilize it well. We use it for our own glory, our own ends instead. That is what the religious leaders are doing, and that's why this woman is a victim. She's a lawbreaker, and she's being abused by these religious leaders for their own self-interest. but thanks be to God, she is at the feet of the good shepherd.

She's been brought to him by bad shepherds, wicked. Isn't that amazing how God uses motivations or uses ends, means, to his glory and honor? This lady was brought to Christ. Usually that means preach the gospel, loved, right? No, this lady was brought to Christ, but by very wicked means. yet she's brought to Christ. Thanks be to God, she's brought to the feet of the good shepherd.

You got to see the contrast there. You got to see the beautiful contrast there to see that her being a victim of being a law transgressor and being abused, and she's brought to the feet of the good shepherd and life is given to her by this good shepherd and it begins by driving away the wolves the life given to this woman is begins by jesus driving away these false shepherds these wolves it begins in a very interesting way jesus doesn't just pull out a rod and just say get away you know to the religious leaders, although that would be entertaining. It would be like at the temple, when he drove the temple, and when he cleared it out, that was exciting.

He doesn't do it this way here. Instead, he begins by driving away the wolves to give this woman life. He starts with driving away the wolves. He begins by, in verse 6, look at what the text says. Jesus bent down a rope with his finger on the ground. Very fascinating, right?

Imagine the setting, right? This woman, you know, drugged, dragged before Jesus, committed adultery, law says we should stone her, right? And Jesus just bends down and writes on the ground. That's how he responds. Now, there's a billion books, maybe not, probably not, I don't know, maybe there is, about what in the world did he write? And why did he do that?

That seems kind of odd, right? I think I'm going to just express what I think is most probable, what makes sense with the context of the text. I think Jesus, a motivation for doing this, I think there's a couple things here. One is he's showing that he is not interested in what they're doing. They're bringing a very serious charge and everything, and he just goes and he writes on the ground and he ignores them.

And I think he's showing I'm not interested in your foolish games. I know what you're doing. Kind of like the irritation when they say, should we pay taxes to Caesar or not? And you can imagine him kind of be like, get me a denarius. Kind of like, you guys are wicked. And this is his way of just showing his displeasure, his irritation with these false shepherds by ignoring these serious charges.

In fact, it gets a little awkward. Jesus isn't afraid for it to get a little awkward. And so they start to ask again. they continue to ask in verse 7 they continue to ask him right what should we do with this woman we got him we're gonna get him he's gonna say something wrong and we're gonna get him either in trouble with the romans or trouble with the law of moses so they continue to ask him and i think what then moves forward after they insistently ask him what they should what he would say that should be done i think it leads us to probably what he wrote on the ground it's a good chance something that would pair up with what he then says so he's writing and he speaks and i think they're probably connected somehow i don't think he was doodling and what he says after they continue to ask because he's ignoring him he stood up in verse seven and said to them let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her now jesus is highlighting in the law of Moses whenever you stone someone the person who begins the stoning is to be pure from that sin right so you wouldn have an adulterer take a stone and stone someone for committing adultery it the whole purpose is to pure purify the corruption that has been brought to the land and the one who begins it is to be pure himself to end that impurity we get what we're saying here and so what jesus is saying is okay this is a whole sham this is a foolish sham you guys are all sinners with your own sinful motivation hey how about the one who's without sin you start the stoning notice jesus isn't denying the fact that this is a transgressor she's not he's not saying oh she's completely innocent you guys are crazy he's he's not denying that there's an acknowledgement that this lady is a sinner and deserving of punishment and he's saying let the one who's without sin you be the one to throw the stone.

By the way, don't miss the irony. Who is the only one who can actually throw the first stone? And what's beautiful? And I'm getting ahead because I can't help it, but he says, I don't condemn you, right? That's beautiful. I'm getting ahead of myself because it's too beautiful not to highlight here.

The point is, is that Jesus is highlighting you guys are all sinners. You're false shepherds. Shame on you. And I think what was he writing in the sand or write in the ground reflected that, right? Perhaps he wrote in the ground, Isaiah 29, 13, and the Lord said, because these people draw near with their mouth and honor me with, I'm sorry, these people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me.

Maybe underlined, hearts are far from me. Or Ezekiel 34, 2, son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord God, ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves. Should not shepherds feed the sheep? Yet you feed yourselves your own glory. Maybe he underlined feeding yourselves.

Or we can look at Matthew 23 with the seven woes to the religious leaders. Look at that whole chapter. Maybe he wrote a summarization of woe to you. I think the point is that Jesus is saying you guys are sinners. and not one of you guys are qualified to throw the first stone anyways. So between the words of Jesus and writing on the ground, between his words and writing on the ground, Jesus is successful in driving away the wolves, isn't he?

Look at verse 9. When they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with a woman standing beside him. The KJV uses another early manuscript, but adds, this manuscript adds in being convicted by their own conscience they left. So that denotes the fact that they are convicted of their own sin. And that very well kind of reads like that.

But at the end of the day, they weren't interested in stoning this woman at all. That wasn't the point. And so Jesus answers in a way that is very intelligent, just like the taxes. He answers in a that's very smart and doesn't get them in trouble at all and still glorifies God. They recognize that and they say, well, this is lost. Let's get out of here.

But I think it's safe to say that perhaps they're convicted, too, of their own sin. And beginning with the older ones who had a lot more time with their sin all the way down to the younger ones, they leave the woman alone. Jesus is successful at driving away the wolves. and so again isn't it wonderful jesus used the means of wicked false shepherds to bring this lady to himself and now the first action of feeding her life is driving them away to then give her mouth give her um give her life and then look at let's look at this life in verses 10 and 11, Jesus stood up and said to her, women, where are they?

Women, where are they? And when you see woman, it's respectful. I call my wife woman. She doesn't like it very much, but it's respectful, okay? I learned from Jesus here. Remember, he called his mother woman.

It's a respectful, endearing term. He's being respectful here. Jesus said to her, woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? And she said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you.

Go and sin no more And so here we see three steps here of Jesus feeding her life One he clears out all the condemnation that doesn matter Okay that the first thing he does to give her life He clears out all the condemnation that does not matter, right? There, again, truth to it, but it's a condemnation that ultimately will, does not matter, even things that are totally rightful, right? We think of like David and his sin against Bathsheba and her husband, right?

What does David say in Psalm 51 after that effect? He says, against you and you alone have I sinned, right? And so ultimately, the sin is against the pure and holy one, God. And so Jesus clears away all the dross, all the condemnation. That doesn't matter. That won't matter in eternity.

He gets rid of them. He says, where are they? Are they still here to condemn you? Is anyone here? And she says, no one. No one's here to condemn me.

He clears them away. And then the one that does matter, the condemnation that does matter, that is the Holy One, that is Jesus Christ the Lord. What does he say? He says, I don't condemn you either. He says, I don't condemn you either. Jesus is the Holy Judge.

Perfect. He's the one that has the right to throw the first stone. and he will throw the first stone at all transgressors who do not repent. He will destroy. But what's amazing about his grace and mercy is he tells this woman during this time of grace, this time in which there's a cry out for forgiveness of sins, he says, I do not condemn you. And what's so beautiful about this church age that we're in is that there is a cry from the church, you, unbeliever, even though you're a sinner, broken, corrupted, deserving, you can be in a situation where you're condemned no more from the Holy One.

Hear Christ in full mercy and grace. He says, I condemn you not. Not because she doesn't deserve condemnation. She does. But because he's merciful. He says, I do not condemn you.

John 3, 17. for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. And notice he doesn't say because the world's not condemned, they don't deserve it. No, they do deserve it. But he didn't come to do it, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Saved from the condemnation they rightfully deserve. And Jesus here, this wicked sinner, who undermines the very fabric of society with her adultery, says to her, I do not condemn you.

Romans 8, 31-39. How is this possible? What does Paul say? What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. And here it is in verse 34. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Because Jesus would take on the cross, rise again from the dead, and intercede for his people. He could tell this woman, I do not condemn you. And that is the gospel cry. that no matter what kind of sinner you are, Jesus holds out a hand of grace for you and says to you, I do not condemn you as you look to him in faith and trust and, as we'll see, obedience.

Because what does he say furthermore? And this kind of ties it up. This is the third aspect of feed in her life. Drives away the dross of the condemnation of the religious leaders. condemns her not as the second aspect of feeding life to this woman. And of course, the full thing comes to play when he says, go and sin no longer. The fact is, life in Jesus is found in being forgiven of your sins and the ability to live and walk righteously.

That is life. Death is walking in sin If I could say that over and over and over again to the young people here Death is walking in sin Life is forgiveness from Christ and the ability to walk in righteousness This is the full life that Christ provides to this woman caught in adultery. I condemn you not and go and sin no more. And that's what the gospel does for us. forgiveness and the ability to go and sin no more.

By the way, when you wake up tomorrow, believing upon Christ yet fallen in sin, it's the same cycle. I condemn you not because I have purchased you with my blood. Now go and sin no more. So in conclusion, real quick, what a far cry that is from the religious leaders. You get that contrast. abusing this woman, utilizing her sin for their own selfish gain.

And Jesus says, because I gave up myself for you, I condemn you no more. Go and sin no more for your good. What a contrast we have between the false shepherds of Israel and the true shepherd. So when you call out, in conclusion with some application before we finish, when you call out someone's sin, when the law of God has been broken, Right? There ought to be a cry.

We ought to love God's law. We ought to love it, righteousness. So when you see it, when you call it out, is it with an eye on Christ who can take care of all condemnation? Is it with your eye on the cross? Or is it to serve your own glory and ego? if when calling out sin if it's not for the healing power of christ to be manifested you can be sure your motivations are wrong and you need to take a step back now for the unbeliever do you not know that you stand condemned today you are condemned rightfully so you are not a victim of god's law you are a transgressor of it and God, through Christ, will one day throw the first stone at you.

But yet there is this beautiful age now where he says, I condemn you no longer, but it's only if you put your trust and follow Jesus. He has done the work needed for this to happen. It's accomplished. Believe and obey. For this is what he's provided in his gospel. Let us pray.

Father, we thank you for Christ. we thank you for his healing power we see this on display this woman caught in adultery yet healing displayed to her of course we don't see we don't see how she responded exactly but the fact is as Jesus said I condemn you no longer and that's only when he works faith in the person he's speaking to so I pray God that everyone in this room would be the recipients of the love and grace of Jesus. To work faith in us, to look to him and receive that beautiful sentence, I condemn you no more. And Lord, help us to see that life continues on from no condemnation to and sin no more.

We know God that Christ commanded this and he by his great grace and mercy provides the power behind the command for us to do. We know that Moses commanded from the mountain and provided no ability behind the command, but when Jesus commands, we know, Lord, that he's done everything well and enables us to fulfill the command. Oh, Lord, would you help us believe this?

For those who have never believed, would you help them to believe that Jesus is the only way to receive forgiveness of sins and to sin no more? And would you help those who are in Christ yet caught in sin, perhaps even right now they're considering the sins that they've done, would you help them, remind them that if they put their faith in Jesus, it's that same blessed promise, I don't condemn you, and I'll sin no more. Thank you for this gospel.

Thank you for your peace. Thank you for Jesus Christ, the Lord, who has done all things well. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Thank you.