Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You.
[00:00:01] Why don't we stand this morning?
[00:00:05] These are the hardy people. They dug themselves out.
[00:00:11] We got a lot of snow yesterday. Amen. That's true.
[00:00:17] Father, we just want to thank you this morning for your amazing love, mercy and grace.
[00:00:23] Father, we just pray, Father, that you would speak into our lives today, that you would instruct us. You would give us moral discernment and wisdom, give us understanding hearts. Help us to see that your ways are not our ways. Your ways are actually higher than our ways. The way you deal with things is so much greater. It's beyond our comprehension. And, Lord, we want to live like you. We want to know you. We want to walk with you. We want to do the things you do. We want to say the things you say. Lord, we want to be just like you. And, Lord, we recognize that when we behave like you, it has a terrific impact, a positive impact, a life changing impact, not only in ourselves, but in the lives of those around us. And so, Father, help us. Give us that grace to be transformed by your holy spirit, to become every day more and more like you. We thank you for that. In Jesus'name and God's people said, amen. You may be seated.
[00:01:26] How many realize that nobody really likes to be.
[00:01:32] It's true. You know, I was reading a story of this little girl, and she was being disciplined by her mom. And so she told her, you know what? I know you want to go to the Sunday school picnic, but you've been so misbehaving this past week, I don't know if I can let you do that. So she was upset about that. Little later on, the mother decided, well, you know, maybe I need to discipline her in a different way. I'll let her go to the sunny school picnic. So she came up to her and said, listen, I'm letting you go to the sunny school picnic.
[00:01:58] And the little girl seemed really sad. She goes, well, why aren't you happy? Well, she said, because I've already prayed that it would rain.
[00:02:07] So we know that discipline is something that we don't all embrace that well, right? And I think it's probably one of the most challenging elements of being a parent, having to discipline our children. When it's done right, it brings about generally healthy resolution. I always think it's great when people are doing the right thing, but what happens when people start doing the wrong thing? What happens when issues arise in relationships that need to be addressed? It literally starts creating pressure on that relationship, and discipline is required. That's one reason why I think a lot of people avoid it. How many here you can honestly say that you're motivated by peace at all costs and you would rather avoid all conflict? Yeah, there's a lot of people like that.
[00:02:55] And I'll be honest, I don't enjoy conflict either. But sometimes it's inevitable. It comes to you, and you got to deal with things.
[00:03:02] But if we don't correct in love, then we're allowing others to eventually learn behaviors and patterns in life that will be self destructive, and that's also going to cause pain to those around them and to themselves. So healthy discipline is actually an expression of love, and the Bible teaches us that. I know that our society doesn't always understand that, but certainly God understands it. And I want you to look at some text of scripture, Hebrews, chapter twelve, verse five. He's actually quoting from proverbs, actually. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you. How many feel like you almost want to melt when you're being disciplined? I think that's an emotional response to it. But let's continue to read here. This is what happens, because the Lord disciplines the ones he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his children. That's true. He does. And if we've never been disciplined, that's not a good scenario in our lives. Because what God is trying to do is help us to become more and more like him. That's his aim for each one of our lives. He wants us to grow up to be godly, loving people. As a matter of fact, the book of Romans says it this way. And we know that in all things, God works for the good to those who love him, who've been called according to his purpose. For those God, he forenew. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. So God is on a life journey, and God has a purpose for all of our lives, and it's to help you and me to become more like him.
[00:04:47] So we should be saying down the road, we should be coming more christlike in our actions and our behaviors. God wants to fill us with humility, compassion, gentleness, patience, forgiveness. How many go?
[00:05:02] You're not really describing me yet, pastor.
[00:05:05] You see what I'm saying? I mean, this is what God is like, and yet God is helping us develop like this. Now, I'm sure that we have some of these traits in our lives, but how many say there's probably a little bit of room for a little more patience in our life, especially towards others, or a little more compassion or a little more gentleness or a little more forgiveness. You say that's probably true. Yeah. He's working on us. None of us can say, I've got it all together. I've mastered the God class, yet I'm still studying in the class. I'm still learning to become more like him.
[00:05:41] So why is it that God allows challenges to come into our lives? Things like injustice or difficulties or sorrows and sufferings and all these things? I think that he allows us to walk through those things that you and I eventually become like little lighthouses. So people that are struggling in the storms of life actually find their way through the dark places in their lives because they can see an example of someone that's actually gone through those experiences. You know, when we look at God's relationship with the nation of Israel, it was like a parent at times to a child. It's true. You could look at a husband to a wife, but sometimes it's a parent to a child. And here the prophet Jeremiah is basically giving us the heart of God, the father, heart of God. After being exiled, this is Jeremiah trying to encourage the people in Jeremiah 31. He says, they will come weeping. They will pray as I bring them back, bring them back to the homeland. I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel's father. And Ephraim, that's another name for Israel, is my firstborn son. I have surely heard Ephraim's moaning. You discipline me like an unruly calf, and I've been disciplined. Restore me, and I will return, because you are the Lord my God. And after I strayed, I repented. And after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace in my youth.
[00:07:14] Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, still I remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I have great compassion for him, declares the Lord. How many can actually hear the heart of a parent? Heart, you know, you can hear his heart towards us as his children.
[00:07:33] He loves us so much. And I think we need to have a revelation to grasp the immensity of God's love for us. Isn't that true? The Bible says that Paul says that. I'm praying that you'll have your eyes open, that you will understand the enormity of God's love. I cannot imagine someone laying down their life for me when I was a rebel. But that's exactly what God did for me, and he does for all of us.
[00:08:00] Everything inside of here, this text here, sees the heart of God's longing for us as his children.
[00:08:07] Everything in him cries out for us.
[00:08:10] But that's not the only reason why life becomes difficult, that God's just going to help mold us into his image. I think sometimes we help create messes in our own lives. How many go? That's true. Anybody know that's true? We make bad decisions, we make sinful choices, and they have consequences in our lives. And Isaiah points it out. He says, we all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each one of us has turned to his own way. And one of the things we need to know about sin is it's not only self destructive, it's also destructive in the lives of people around us. It affects other. Know, my sin affects many people. Your sin affects many people. That's the nature of it. And that's one of the reasons why God hates sin. I was reading in our devotional, I'm putting a little plug in for our Nicky gumbel going through the Bible in a year. I keep bringing this up, so if you haven't joined us, jump in. Nikki Gumble wrote in his devotional this week. He said, God's hatred is not like ours. It contains no element of spite, no pettiness, no hypocrisy. But it is the reaction of the altogether holy and loving God to sin. His anger is his loving and holy hostility to evil isn't. That's an interesting way of seeing it. So when we see God's angry about something, it's because he's angry at the evil that he knows is going to have a negative impact in our created world and in the lives of people. So how do we handle sin?
[00:09:40] Usually in our lives, far more mercifully than we do towards others? How many say that's probably true?
[00:09:47] We give ourselves a bigger break than we do to the people around us. Anybody want to argue that point? I think that's pretty true, isn't it?
[00:09:56] Well, you have to understand where I'm coming from.
[00:10:00] Well, why don't we do that to the other person where they're coming from? Right. So how do we handle sin generally? The things we despise in other people, many times, are the things that are wrong even inside of us. And sometimes we're not even aware of it. Subconsciously, we've repressed those things. And that's why? Jesus warns us in how we go about judging. Now, I'm going to just read this verse. In Matthew, chapter seven, verse one, it says, do not judge or you too will be judged. Many people stop right there. That's a big mistake. You got to keep reading the context. He's telling us how to go about doing it. He says, for in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. And with the same measure you use, it will be measured to you. So it sounds like, okay, I don't really want to be judged, therefore, I won't judge anybody. You could go that route, but let's keep reading. He says, why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own? In other words, what's going on in you is probably even deeper and more significant than what's happening to the other person. Then he says this. How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there's a plank in your own eye? And here's the verse that we need to read, you hypocrite. He said, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then what? You will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. So now I'm reading something here. When I read the five verses together, jesus is not saying don't judge. He's saying, make sure when you judge, you've judged yourself first, dealt with the stuff in your soul, and then addressed the problem in another person's life. That's what he's saying. A lot of times we take these verses and then we just run with it. I'm going to jump over some slides here. I was up early this morning deleting pieces. You go, why? You'd be here too long. That's why. Okay.
[00:11:53] I think one of the great struggles we all face is how we address sin, not only in our lives, but also in the lives of other people. Because, let's face it, the people that are the closest to you when they're messing up, it affects you. How many glow. That's true. Everybody relate to that. So how are we going to deal with that stuff? Because I think we're called to deal with that stuff. As a matter of fact, if you notice, the title of my message is how to empower the lives of other people in their brokenness. And really, that's a nice way of saying, how do you address the mess in their lives? Okay. How do we deal with people that are struggling? How do we deal with the sin not only in our lives, but how do we deal with sin in the lives of people we love? And it's affecting us. How do we deal with that stuff? Anybody think this is a relevant topic?
[00:12:43] I think if you're living in family, you'll say it's totally relevant, right?
[00:12:49] In other words, how can I love and accept people without agreeing with their lifestyle decisions? Oh, that's another good idea.
[00:12:56] Anybody relate to that one?
[00:12:59] Anybody? Go, hey, let me in on this. I want to know. Right?
[00:13:07] Okay. So how can we empower the lives of others in their brokenness? How can we support a person without endorsing their sinful choices? And I want to turn to a very powerful incident in the life of Jesus and try and address this important question. All right, now you'll probably notice that most Bible translations, we're going to turn to the gospel of John. We're in chapter eight. And I'll note, and if you notice in your Bible there, mine has it in italics. Does anybody else? Or you'll have some footnotes or you'll see something that says most translations don't have it in the earliest translations.
[00:13:46] Anybody have that kind of stuff in your Bible? Okay, so let me talk about that for just one moment here. Yeah, some of them will say that, but none of the biblical scholars doubt, I mean, these are the conservative biblical scholars, doubt the authenticity of the account. They know this happened. Okay. Now some of them, as a matter of fact, Carson goes on to say there's little reason for doubting that the event here described occurred, even if its written form it did not in the beginning belong to the canonical books in its written form, in its placement.
[00:14:21] Know, all of my reading this week said there's a big argument.
[00:14:25] Should it have been put in this place? In John? That's the biggest argument. Some of them will even argue, did John even write this? Shouldn't this be maybe Luke that wrote this? Maybe it should be in the synoptics. But nobody's disputing that this incident never happened. There's too many other similar stories in the gospels to relate this attitude of Jesus towards sin. As a matter of fact, earlier in John's gospel, Jesus, we read that he did not come into the world to condemn sin, but he came to save people from their sins. And I think that's the whole point of this text that we're going to look at today. And so here in this, well, he goes on saying there's a bunch in the synoptic gospels.
[00:15:07] Let me move on. So in this incident, we're going to discover two damaging and dangerous attitudes that seem to haunt each generation of believers. And where we tend to move from one extreme to the next. How many know? We either go to one side and we become very legalistic, truth filled, condemning people, or we shift to the other side and we talk about being extremely loving, forgiving, and everything slides, and we never address sin. Okay, those are the two extremes. And I'm going to argue today that Jesus practiced neither one of those extremes. I'm going to show you from the text that there's another way to deal with sin. There's another way to deal with people in their brokenness. Okay, so in this incident, we're going to learn three attitudes in our approach to dealing with others in their sin. Okay, so the first attitude is to condemn people's behavior, and we're going to find out Jesus doesn't do that. But let's take a look at the story.
[00:16:09] Often it's the people who have a strong sense of what's right and wrong who struggle with judgment issues. So they're the truth. I think some of us are on the truth side of the equation, and some of us are on the mercy side. So depending on your wiring, you tend to move from one direction to the next. Okay, follow what I'm saying.
[00:16:29] Now let's take a look at the story. Story of the woman caught in adultery starts out here in John, chapter one. But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Mount of Olives overlooks the city of Jerusalem. So we know that Jesus is in Judea. This is a very dangerous place for him to be. By the way, I am really struck with this has really come across in my reading this last year how dangerous the last year in the life of Jesus really was. There was a lot of antagonism. There was people out to kill him, especially in Judea. It was a very dangerous situation. Here he is back in that area, and it says he goes to the Mount of Olives, and at dawn he appears in the temple courts where all the people have gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The Bible says the teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group. Now, isn't that interesting? Where's the guy? He just brought the woman. There's a lot of hypocrisy that's going on in the story. How many see that? There's a double standard here. Everything is wrong about the story, and they're really publicly humiliating this person. And let me just say something. If we're going to deal with people and their difficulties, the best place to do it is privately, okay? But these people have no shame. They don't care. They're shaming this person. They're making her stand before everyone.
[00:17:51] And they said to Jesus teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
[00:18:00] In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now, what do you say?
[00:18:06] They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him. What they were really doing was setting Jesus up. They thought, hey, if you say to us, you need to let this woman go, then you're not keeping the law, okay? You're a law breaker. How can you be truly a man of God? Okay, so that's the one side. On the other side, if Jesus says, yeah, go ahead and stone her, he's going to alienate the people that are listening to him. And also, basically, they weren't doing this at this time. They weren't stoning people. And really, the people that could only sentence people to death were the Romans, though sometimes they would do it anyways, the jewish people. So how does Jesus start dealing with them? Well, first of all, he starts by ignoring them. Now, I'm going to use this idea just to say this. You know, a lot of times when we see somebody doing the wrong thing, there's two responses. You rush in and say a bunch of stuff, or you wait a little bit and you try to get more information. Now, what I mean by that is, I think the first step is you pray and you give it some time. And you have to understand something. If you're going to help somebody, they have to be prepared to receive what's being said. Okay, now, Jesus starts by ignoring them. So what is he doing? He bends down and he starts writing on the ground with his finger. Now, there's a lot of supposition. What's he saying? Is he writing out all their sins? I have no idea what he's doing, but he's writing something in the sand. And I think when you don't act the way people want you to act or you don't respond immediately, it makes other people uncomfortable. But Jesus knew what he was doing. And I think there's a number of things we need to learn from this. First of all, Satan, one of his name means accuser. So there's a lot of accusations flying around in life.
[00:20:15] He's the accuser of the believer. And unless it's valid, I think we need to learn how to ignore accusations because it's just a form of gossip.
[00:20:26] Okay? Some people, it's like you're collecting garbage.
[00:20:35] Unless people, this is a fact. This is something you have some dealing with. You have some responsibility to address this thing. Just talking about people's bad behavior is just gossip. How's that? So if you're practicing that, I pray that you'd stop it because it's really detrimental to you and to other people. And a lot of times if you can't do anything about it, when the problem gets straightened out, you're still causing problems.
[00:21:04] How many know? Triangulating is one of the worst things going on in relationships here? Somebody gets hurt. Instead of going to the person that's wounded them and offended them and addressing the problem, they go to somebody else and tell them.
[00:21:18] And that's unbiblical because what you're doing is creating an offense in a person's heart. Has no idea what's really going on. Eventually this person may come to you, ask for forgiveness, and this person's still angry at this other person and you've moved on. That's why it's wrong. So we have to learn from those. We shouldn't be doing that. Okay.
[00:21:38] Now the other thing I notice is that you and I can really only address people when we have relationship with people.
[00:21:47] Right? And I'm going to say this. If you're going to correct somebody, you need to be in a loving relationship and that person needs to know you love them before you correct them. Because if you come across and you don't know them and you don't love them, you're just attacking them. They're not going to respond in a good way. They're going to become defensive. It's not going to work. People have to know that you care about them. The other thing I noticed about correcting people is that we need to learn how to focus in on a behavior and not destroy the whole person. A lot of people, because they have one issue in their life, there's probably 15 things they're doing right, one thing they're doing wrong. How many have noticed? In life, we tend to focus on the negatives and rarely focus on the positives. How many go, that's probably true. Isn't that right? I'll give you an example. If I gave you 15 compliments today and gave you one criticism, when you leave this room, you'd be thinking about what the criticism. That's what I'm telling you. That's how powerful negative comments are. They're very devastating to people. So we need to think before we speak. Now, it's interesting here, Jesus now challenges the woman's accusers. I think this is fascinating. He says when they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and he said to them, if any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.
[00:23:11] Wow.
[00:23:13] He's basically saying, before you start dealing with other people, you got to deal with your own stuff. And he said, hey, if you guys haven't sinned, go ahead and throw a stone. And I don't know what he was saying when he was writing on the ground. Maybe he was pointing out things to them. I have no idea. But this is what the book of Romans reminds us. In chapter two, verse one, he says, you therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things. He says, just be careful. Maybe there were people actually condemning her that were actually doing the same things. And Jesus knows that. How many know? Jesus actually knows what people are thinking, which is a little unnerving. How would you like to be hanging around with a person who even knows what you're thinking? This is Jesus. He's God. He knows what you're thinking. Satan would like you to think he knows what you're thinking. He doesn't. He just shoots thoughts in your head like little flaming arrows. But he doesn't know what you're thinking. God knows what you're thinking.
[00:24:16] Now, it's interesting.
[00:24:18] Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver's travel, once, made this observation. He says, we have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
[00:24:28] What was he saying? A lot of people are like that. They have religion. They're good at hating, but they don't know anything about love.
[00:24:36] Biblical Christianity needs to move us past what's wrong to what's right. We need to get to that place where we actually love people. We actually love people deeply and are concerned about other people. Warren Worsby says professed christians who hate one another usually disguise their hatred under a zeal of truth and know. And everyone in this room, if you've never had a person like this, know very zealous and very angry. A lot of times when they're angry like that, I just go, where's the love in all of this? Because if you're going to discipline someone, it has to be motivated out of love, not out of anger, not out of hurt, not out of woundedness. Those are the wrong motivations.
[00:25:23] It's interesting that Jesus gave them time for their consciences to do its work. He was in no hurry.
[00:25:31] Hey, guys, think about this. If you've never sinned, go ahead, throw a stone. Then he just bent back down and started writing away again, doodling on the sand, whatever he was doing there. And I'll tell you, the spirit of God obviously was working because some of the older people started realizing, well, I can't throw a rock. And they started leaving and they left. They were leaving all the time. They just continued to leave.
[00:25:58] It was a book from the desert fathers. Here, wisdom from the desert. Abbott Moses said, they who are conscious of their own, let me go back here. Of their own sins have no eyes for the sins of their neighbors.
[00:26:14] Let's go back to this story, though, skipped over again. He stooped down after he'd said that and wrote on the ground at this. Those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until Jesus was left with the woman still standing there. Interesting.
[00:26:36] What's this statement really all about? We realize that we're all sinners. And when we recognize that we're a sinner, we tend to be a little more merciful to other people.
[00:26:47] And I really think that one of the things are going to happen if we're ever going to get close to God, he's going to do a deep, searching work in our lives and start revealing stuff inside of us.
[00:26:59] I think the church needs a renewal, a brokenness, a spirit of repentance to come over it. I'll tell you why. Because when the church is broken like that and walking in humility and love, we're going to have a big impact on society because society right now feels judged by the church a lot of times. Isn't that know? Finally, Jesus doesn't condemn us. I like this. Thank God for that. Jesus straightened up and he said to her woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?
[00:27:30] No, sir. She said, neither do I condemn you. Jesus declared, isn't that beautiful? So here was a woman guilty. And Jesus says, I'm not in the business of condemning people. Why did he say that? I'm going to tell you why. She was already under condemnation. Jesus didn't come to condemn. He came to save us from condemnation. He came to save us from our sins. That's what we need to understand. That's what this is about. The gospel is about saving people from condemnation, saving people from sin. That's what it's about. We need to understand, know so of all the people there. Just think about this for a minute. The only one who could have thrown a stone was the one without sin. And there was only one person there without sin. It was Jesus.
[00:28:20] And the only one that had never sinned did not throw a stone. I think I got to learn something from that.
[00:28:27] Amen. That's true.
[00:28:31] He could have cast it, but he didn't. His response was one of mercy. How many are so thankful God showed mercy to you?
[00:28:39] I'm so thankful God showed mercy to me. I deserve to be stoned.
[00:28:44] I deserve to be stoned.
[00:28:46] I deserve to be crucified. I deserve to die. But you know what? Jesus died for me. I am so grateful for that. You say, well, then he wasn't justifying her behavior. It's not that we accept sinful behavior as legitimate. That would even be unloving. Think about it now. Sin always corrupts. It destroys. Sometimes it disguises itself in a religious form called legalism. Legalism is just an outward conformity to God's word, but without love. And there's an absence in that person of an inward transformation of heart.
[00:29:23] We have to be changed on the inside.
[00:29:27] Listen to what Galatians say when we're dealing with people that are struggling. It says here, brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the spirit should restore that person. How?
[00:29:42] Gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. What's he saying? He's saying, just be careful when you're dealing with this stuff. You could do a lot of damage, and you need to do it gently. And before you think that you're beyond doing what they're doing, you could be doing something so far worse.
[00:29:58] It's easy. We could all slip. There's not one person here. Ah. I'm okay. I'll never fall.
[00:30:04] Be careful. Peter said he wouldn't deny Jesus. Jesus said, before the rooster crows twice, you're going to deny me three times.
[00:30:11] A lot of times, people are put in very difficult situations and make poor choices. Right. It happens. Okay. To show grace is to extend favor or kindness to one who doesn't deserve it and can never earn it. I like that truck. Swindall wrote that the second attitude that Jesus addresses here is the tendency to condone people's sinful behavior. So we have the one side condemning it, then we swing over to the other side where they're condoning it. In other words, they're saying, it's okay. It's okay to sin. Right. And we have the church today doing that, too. A lot of people are swinging over there. How many know that's true? That's the other extreme.
[00:30:55] There's an indifference towards sin in our culture today. We talk about live and let live. We tolerate all kinds of stuff.
[00:31:04] Right. But I want to just argue for a moment that that approach is a very unloving and non caring attitude. How's that?
[00:31:13] It looks like you're loving, but you're not. Jesus didn't condemn her, but he certainly did challenge her. He didn't leave her. He didn't just say, neither do I condemn you. See you later.
[00:31:25] He didn't say that. Oh, there's one more verse, and I think this is important, this verse. Eleven. Neither then do I condemn you. Jesus declared, go now. And what?
[00:31:36] Leave your life of sin. Go now and don't continue in this course of action. I'm not condemning you, but I'm not condoning this behavior. This is wrong behavior. Don't continue on in this. I forgive you, but don't continue on in it. He didn't condemn her because he covered her sins. I love that Jesus is the one who dresses the sin issues in our lives. And Jesus can forgive sin because he died for our sins. Only God can forgive sins. Did you know that?
[00:32:12] You and I can forgive people who hurt us. We can forgive them for that. We could say, well, we could forgive people who have sinned against us. But we need to understand something. Only God ultimately forgives sin. And I'm going to make an argument that every sin you and I commit is always against.
[00:32:31] Great. I don't think we have a real deep appreciation for how bad sin really is. I don't think we understand it. You know, David, when he sinned, remember, he committed adultery and then he had Bathsheba's husband murdered. So he was an adulterer and a murderer. How many go? That's kind of bad. I think he violated a few commandments there. He kind of broke a whole bunch of them right now. Isn't it interesting when he's writing psalm 51, what does he say against you? And you only, have I sinned. He's talking to God.
[00:33:05] Wait a minute, David, you sinned against Bathsheba. Wait a minute. You sinned against Uriah and then God, he says, well, only against God have I sinned. You have to understand the way the hebrew mind works. What David is saying in light of what I've done to sin against these people. What I've done against you is know I have violated the sacred trust you gave me as the king of Israel, I violated your grace in my life by doing this to other people.
[00:33:35] I've sinned against you. God and God forgave them. Isn't that an amazing thing? God is a forgiving God. I love that about God.
[00:33:45] Listen to what it says here. In Corinthians, he said God made him Christ, who had not sinned to be sinned for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In other words, we have an exchange. How many think this is amazing? God takes our sin. Christ takes our sin upon himself, and he gives us his righteousness.
[00:34:05] His righteousness means his right standing with the father, his. I've never sinned standing with God. So when you and I stand before God, one day it'll be as if we had never sinned.
[00:34:17] Now, how many know we don't deserve that standing? We've just been acquitted. We're not innocent. We're guilty, but God acquits us. That's amazing. That's grace. So forgiveness is not denying that sin has been committed, but rather choosing not to allow sin to destroy the relationship. And that's know, Peter says, above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins. You know, when we love somebody and we forgive them, what are we doing? We're covering over their sin. We're making a decision not to hold that sin against them. That's pretty powerful. Forgiveness is a powerful thing. When you and I forgive, we're behaving just like God does.
[00:35:01] That's a christlike behavior. That person doesn't deserve it. Nobody deserves to be forgiven. Folks, I want to just say that right now. No one deserves forgiveness. Get that out of your head. A lot of us are going, well, I'll forgive them when they finally own up to the fact that they did this.
[00:35:20] Well, that's not forgiveness.
[00:35:22] Forgiveness is giving a gift that that person does not deserve, just like the gift God gives to you and me. We don't deserve to be forgiven. It's the same thing. We need to understand that.
[00:35:34] And we need to know one thing about mercy. A lot of times when we don't give people what they deserve, we give them something they don't deserve. Listen to what romans tells us, he says. Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you to repentance?
[00:35:55] God could have taken any one of us out at any time after we had sinned. Come on, let's say that's honest. But you know, sometimes God, the worst thing in the world is to have somebody do something nice to you after you've done something rotten to them. Come on. How many say that's true?
[00:36:14] We know we deserve tit for tat kind of thing, but when somebody does something really nice after we've done something wrong, we feel about this big.
[00:36:25] That's why good always overcomes evil. That's why forgiveness is such a powerful element in society. And our society doesn't even exercise it because we're so caught up with. We're all into justice these days, except for when we're guilty. Then we want mercy.
[00:36:41] Isn't that true? I want justice when you're doing something bad to me, but I want mercy when I'm doing something wrong. And that's the way people think today. But that's a natural thinking. Let me move on to the third attitude in dealing with basically this brokenness in people's lives or their sin is one of gracious confrontation. And I want to just spend a moment there because this is not easy. This is the hardest part of the whole thing. If you can't do this and you can't do that, what should we be doing right? How do we find the middle road? How do we do the thing God wants us to do? Well, Jesus gives this woman a new sense of direction. Listen to what he says again. Let's go back to that verse. He goes, go now and leave your life of sin. Don't continue on this course. Change direction. When you think about it, isn't that what repentance is? It's a change of direction. It's an about face. I'm no longer serving the idols. I'm serving the true and the living God. I've turned my back on idolatry, and a lot of times idolatry is just us continuing on in our sin. That's idolatry, folks. I don't think we realize that we're sinning against God by continuing in that way. Jesus now is giving a clear direction of what needed to be done. Otherwise, some serious consequences would eventually destroy that person's life. Now we see an example of it in a church. I'm going to go to the corinthian church because they're the great. I like this church because you learn so much from it. These guys knew how to do everything wrong.
[00:38:10] And Paul's writing a letter to straighten out all these problems in the church. It's a mess. I'm so glad for that church because I've learned a lot from them. I'm glad I'm not the pastor of that church, though it is actually reported, Paul, says that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that even the pagans do not tolerate. This is really getting bad. He says, you guys are even worse than the people outside of the church. He says a man is sleeping with his father's wife. That's not a good thing. And the people knew it. He says, and you're proud, he says, you're walking around like, oh, we're so liberated in our thinking, this is okay to do. Shouldn't you rather have gone into mourning, grieving and put on out of the fellowship the man who has been doing this? In other words, shouldn't you have dealt with this stuff? Because then he goes on and he says, you're boasting in this toleration of sin. He says, your boasting's not good. Don't you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? How many have ever baked bread? I've done it once. Okay, you need yeast. And what does the yeast do? It causes the bread to rise. And we know that's true.
[00:39:19] It leavens. It affects the nature of the dough. Right? And that's what happens. Just a little bit of sin in a church can do that. And it's true in our personal lives. If we let a little bit of sin. Oh, it's not a big thing. It's a little sin. Let me tell you something. It's going to leaven. It's going to grow. It's going to develop. It's going to overtake you. That's what he's talking about here. Now, when sin is tolerated, it diminishes not only the sinner, but the other people around them. And Paul is going to give guidelines how we need to respond to people, especially believers, who are flaunting sin. Let me point out that this is the people who profess to be believers. Key point.
[00:40:00] There's always a guideline here. He's calling believers to repentance and to no longer engage in sinful behavior. Right?
[00:40:10] That's the nature of the christian life. So then he writes this letter. He goes, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Don't hang out with these people. These are sinners. Don't hang out with them. Okay, now he has to clarify it. Not at all. Meaning the people of this world who are immoral, greedy, swindlers, idolaters. He says, if that was the case, you'd have to leave the world, because that's where most people are living, they got the wrong value system. So he's not saying you're going to associate with them, but he goes on to say here, but now I'm writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister, but is sexually immoral, greedy, idolater, slanderer, drunkard or swindler. Don't even eat with such people. What's he doing? He's basically saying, don't act as if this is no big deal.
[00:41:02] You got to say to somebody, hey, I'm basically not going to relate to this person because they're not behaving correctly. They're acting as if I'm serving God, but I'm living in sin, as if there's nothing going on. Well, there is something going on. You got to address this stuff.
[00:41:20] He goes, now he says, but what business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside but expel the wicked person from among you. So what is he saying?
[00:41:35] Isn't it interesting? We read judge not lest you be judged. And you can see some people just take that literally and don't judge anybody. Now he's saying, let God judge the world. By the way, is God going to judge the world?
[00:41:48] Yeah, I'm terrified for the world.
[00:41:51] I am. I'm serious.
[00:41:54] Listen, there's a day of judgment coming. I don't think we talk enough about it, but it's real and it's coming.
[00:42:02] And the only salvation you and I have is found in the person of Jesus Christ.
[00:42:07] But we can't just fool around here either. He said, no, the church, we need to be wise enough to say if something comes along and we're not addressing this stuff, we're in trouble because it's going to do a lot of damage. Because if you let one person get away with something, then other people are going to start doing it. And pretty soon everyone's going to be doing it and pretty soon the church is going to be totally ineffectual. It'll be just like the world.
[00:42:32] And you know, a lot of churches today, that's what they're doing. They're going to become just like the world. And you and I need to be distinctly different.
[00:42:38] We're going to deal with the stuff now. It's interesting, discipline. Here's what we need to know about discipline. Discipline is meant to restore, it's not meant to punish.
[00:42:49] So if you have this idea that, yeah, discipline is, I'm punishing this person no. Discipline is a tool to restore a person to their rightful place.
[00:43:00] If you're a doctor, I'm sure, and a bone goes out, you broke your arm, and maybe the break is not jagged, but it's just a real clean break. And they decide they're going to put that bone back into place.
[00:43:17] Does anybody know that probably will hurt, putting that bone into place. Actually, one of the words for equipping in the Hebrew language is setting a bone back into place. How many know that's going to be painful?
[00:43:31] So the idea is to restore it to its original place, putting it back in place, and it's going to hurt. I think we need to know that.
[00:43:42] I'm not making light of this stuff. This is painful stuff, but it's necessary, because if you don't put the bone back in place, what's going to happen is that bone, that arm is never going to be able to be useful again.
[00:43:55] It'll always be unable to be used. Right. You got to set it in place.
[00:44:02] Well, they did what Paul told them to do, and guess what happened? This person repented. Isn't that a beautiful thing? But you know how many know the people way over here, the guys that are a little bit on the strict side, they didn't want to bring this guy back to know. They just wanted to keep in their minds they had the wrong idea about church discipline. They think it's punitive. And Paul is saying, no, it's restorative. And this is what Paul writes in the second letter. He said the punishment inflicted on him by the majority, not everybody did this. Some people still associate it, but by the majority is sufficient. In other words, he had repented. And Paul says, there, I don't want you to be ignorant of Satan's device. What's the device that Satan was using to have unforgiveness towards a repentant member? We need to forgive repentant members.
[00:44:55] That's our responsibility. And you go, well, how do you know they repented when they've changed their behavior?
[00:45:03] Hello?
[00:45:06] Because, you know, a lot of people go, I'm so sorry. And then they keep doing it. I'm so sorry, but they keep doing it. Repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior.
[00:45:22] Okay, we got to understand that. But this person now apparently changed their mind. They changed their behavior, but there were some people still wanting to punish him. And Paul says, you know what?
[00:45:35] You need to let him back in. And you'll notice here that not all the people agreed with Paul's approach. They wanted to continue, some of them, to disassociate and punish him. And they were struggling with this issue of forgiveness.
[00:45:48] And I think sometimes people do struggle with forgiveness.
[00:45:51] Matter of fact, Paul goes on to say, now, instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. Now you've disciplined. Now you got to do the work of restoration. That's important, too. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.
[00:46:10] Are we learning something? This is beautiful, I think. How do we restore the broken person? We need to reaffirm our love for this person and not keep punishing them. I've seen it even in our own church. Some people have made mistakes and you've addressed it. And then some people, they just want to keep punishing. They just want to keep punishing. I'm going, what's this punishment business? It's about discipline and restoration. That's what it's about.
[00:46:40] Now, one of the roles of the church in our world is to be salt and light. By living the truth in a loving way, we keep our culture from totally rotting. Do you know the only thing that's keeping our society from totally deteriorating is the church? Did you know that? We're it. This is the bastion of keeping the society from deteriorating, but we can't deteriorate with them. How many see that whenever the church accommodates a sinful culture by remaining silent, the church becomes part of the cause of the demise of that culture.
[00:47:14] How's that? You and I have to be.
[00:47:17] We have to live differently, we got to talk differently, we got to love differently, we got to forgive differently.
[00:47:24] But we're not tolerating. We're just saying, hey, our goal is to see people be restored. Now look what Eugene Peterson says. I'm going to quote from the message. Over in Samaria, saw prophets. Or those are just preachers, right? Acting like silly fools. Shocking. They preach using that no God bail for a text, messing with the minds of my people. And the Jerusalem prophets are even worse. Horrible, sex driven, living a lie, subsidizing a culture of wickedness and never giving it a second thought. They're as bad as those wretches in old Sodom, the degenerates in old Gomorrah. So here's the message of the prophets from God. I'll cook them in a supper of maggot meat with after dinner drinks of strict nine. The Jerusalem prophets are behind all this. They're the cause of the godlessness polluting this country.
[00:48:12] I don't know that's pretty strong, and he's really directing his remarks to the preachers. So you guys are all off the hook. But I'm not. I'm reading this stuff and it's telling me real simple.
[00:48:24] We have no business as messengers of God to change God's message.
[00:48:30] And I'm going to say this to you as believers, you have no business changing God's message to non believers.
[00:48:37] We need to speak the truth, but we need to speak it in love.
[00:48:43] We're not here to condemn society. They're already condemned. We're here to bring the gospel of salvation, of God's mercy and grace into their lives. That's what we're about. Amen. Okay, so let's stand.
[00:49:02] I know this was a very delicate subject. How many go? This was a very delicate subject. Right?
[00:49:09] Do we need to hear this kind of message?
[00:49:12] Okay, so I'm going to summarize it. We're not here to condemn people. We're not here to condone people. What are we here to do? We're here to love people. And when God is showing us that there's brokenness in someone's life that we love, we have a relationship with them.
[00:49:29] Now, I'm going to give you an illustration to help you.
[00:49:33] You know, if you're a lifeguard and someone starts to drown, what are you going to do?
[00:49:39] You're going to swim out there, but you better wait until they start thrashing because they'll drown you.
[00:49:50] You got to wait. There's a moment there where they have gotten to the place where they are stopping, panicking, where you can actually grab them and rescue them.
[00:50:01] I believe that there's such a thing called timing. I left this out of the message, but timing is huge. Just because you notice something doesn't mean you just jump in and start talking.
[00:50:11] Step one prayer.
[00:50:14] Step two, Lord, show me what to say and how to say it and what to say. Step three, show me when to say it.
[00:50:24] Sometimes I've been praying for a situation. Praying and praying and praying. I see it and I'm just saying, okay, what am I supposed to say here? Okay, what am I supposed to do here? This is agonizing work. This is not fun stuff, right?
[00:50:38] And then I feel like, well, then when am I supposed to say it? Because if you say it, when people are not ready to hear it, guess what's going to happen?
[00:50:46] They're not going to respond. Right?
[00:50:48] You have to say, God, when did you want me to say this? And waiting and waiting and being patient. And you go, okay, now's the right time.
[00:50:56] This is the right time. I feel in my spirit, I need to say something now. I think I see them coming around. I see them struggling, and I think they're starting to catch on that what's going on isn't working for them. Now, maybe if I sit down and talk to them, they might be ready to hear this.
[00:51:12] And then when you sit down and talk to that person is sitting down there, you don't zero in and just crashing down on them and tell them they're the worst person that ever lived on the planet.
[00:51:22] I'm serious.
[00:51:24] A lot of times when we deal with people, we're angry, we're frustrated, we're upset. You know what? That's why I always tell parents, you got to take time out. You got to send the kid to the timeout room when you're going to discipline them. And that's not for their sake, that's for yours. So you can calm down and you can get a right response that's going to be directly correlating to what's going on in that situation. And you actually have a strategy and you're thinking this through. You've prayed about it. You understand what's going on now. This is work. This is not easy stuff. Then you probably have to say things like, you know, this is what I value about my relationship with you, and this is who I see you as a person and focus in on all the positive things. But then I notice there's one area, or whatever that thing is, is self destructive and say, you know what I'm noticing? This is destroying you, and it's affecting our relationship. And it's not only going to affect our relationship, but it's affecting other people's relationship.
[00:52:20] And I know that you're actually not wanting relationships around you to diminish and you're not happy on the inside, and they're sitting there looking at you with tears coming down. They're going, you're so right. And you know what? God's going to help you overcome this. That beautiful.
[00:52:38] And I do care about you, and that's why I'm saying these things. I'm for you and so is God.
[00:52:44] You got to give people hope when you're correcting them.
[00:52:47] Are we following all of this?
[00:52:50] Okay. It's the best I can do.
[00:52:53] I'm just being honest. I'm trying my best to help you. It's not easy. I know that.
[00:52:59] Pastor, I love our elder board. They go, pastor, why don't you go talk to them? I'm always the guy they send in to go talk. You do such a good job, pastor. Yeah, I hate doing it.
[00:53:11] But you know what? When you hate doing it, it's probably good, because then you come in with more concern, more gentleness, more love, more prayer. Amen.
[00:53:22] We want to see people restored. How many here say, I can think of somebody right now, God's spirit is showing me there's a person I need to pray for. I'm concerned about them, and I need to start saying, God, help them to awaken to with their condition. Help me to know what to say. Help me to know when to say it and how to say it, and not let them just flounder.
[00:53:43] Don't just let them flounder. Don't just let them perish. And sometimes they may take a while. Sometimes God will say, I don't want you to say anything for quite a while. You might let months go by.
[00:53:54] You got to kind of listen to the conversation and queue in where they're coming from. You got to start hearing them, start to realize that there's something wrong, and there's an openness to hear you follow what I'm saying.
[00:54:07] This is developing skill and helping people.
[00:54:11] And God wants everyone in this room to develop the skill. This is how we're going to help people in our society.
[00:54:19] So let's pray today. Father, it is a challenge, first of all, not to condemn the culture when we see the terrible things that are going on. It's a challenge not to condone behavior when the person we see doing it, we love them and we get why they're doing what they're doing. But we see how broken, the brokenness it creates. And it's a challenge to be invested in that relationship to such a degree that it's breaking our hearts, causing us to pray. It causes tears to our eyes, and it's causing us to ask questions of what's the best way to engage in this situation.
[00:54:58] And I pray, Father, that you will give us a skill set, Lord, to be able to empower the people that you're bringing into our lives, people we have relationship empower us, Lord, to help them through a season of brokenness and recognizing that no matter how gifted or how skilled we are, they were people that walked away from you, Jesus, and chose to remain in their sin and that you, with tears in your eyes, had to let them walk.
[00:55:24] Help us to have that kind of wisdom and discernment, Lord, as we relate to people in their brokenness. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave today.
