Scripture referenced 6 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Psalm 8:3-4 opened the service, asking who are we that God would love us
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained;
4 what is man, that you think of him? What is the son of man, that you care for him?
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Keep this verse
John 7:53-8:11
main text, the woman caught in adultery brought before Jesus
53 Everyone went to his own house,
1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 Now very early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him. He sat down, and taught them.
3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman taken in adultery. Having set her in the middle,
4 they told him, “Teacher, we found this woman in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now in our law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. What then do you say about her?”
6 They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of. But Jesus stooped down, and wrote on the ground with his finger.
7 But when they continued asking him, he looked up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her.”
8 Again he stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground.
9 They, when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning from the oldest, even to the last. Jesus was left alone with the woman where she was, in the middle.
10 Jesus, standing up, saw her and said, “Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?”
11 She said, “No one, Lord.” Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more.”
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Leviticus 20:10
cited as the law commanding death for both the adulterer and adulteress
10 “‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, even he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
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Deuteronomy 22:22
cited alongside Leviticus as commanding both parties to die
22 If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall remove the evil from Israel.
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Exodus 31:18
the tablets written by the finger of God, connected to Jesus writing on the ground
18 He gave to Moses, when he finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, stone tablets, written with God’s finger.
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Romans 8:1-4
no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit sets free
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.
3 For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh;
4 that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
The pastor opened with a story about a faulty temperature sensor on his car, then worked through the account of the woman caught in adultery in John 7:53-8:11, using the sensor illustration to frame how Christians can misread situations and react in ways that cause more harm than help. He closed by praying over a mass shooting that had happened the night before in Colorado Springs.
What was said
The sermon started with the pastor describing a cold morning when his car's temperature gauge shot up to alarming levels. He pulled over, popped the radiator cap in a panic, and got a face full of steam. When he finally diagnosed the problem, it turned out the engine itself was fine. The sending unit was broken. The car was running at a normal 195 degrees all along. The sensor was lying.
From there he moved to John 7:53-8:11, noting that these verses appear in brackets in most modern Bibles. He was straightforward about why: most of the oldest manuscripts do not include the passage. He said he personally believes it is original, and that it fits the surrounding context well, but he wanted the congregation to know the scholarly discussion rather than pretend it does not exist.
The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery and placed her in the center of the courtyard. The pastor pointed out the trap: if Jesus said stone her, he would lose his reputation for mercy and forgiveness; if he said let her go, they could charge him with dismissing the law of Moses. He noted that the law in both Deuteronomy and Leviticus required the death of both parties, and that only the woman had been brought.
Jesus stooped and wrote on the ground with his finger. The pastor noted this is the only place in the Gospels where Jesus is described writing anything, and he pointed back to Exodus 31, where the tablets of the law on Sinai were described as written by the finger of God. He left open the question of what Jesus actually wrote, but suggested that even the Ten Commandments alone would have been enough to make the point.
When Jesus stood and said, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her," they all left, beginning with the older ones. The pastor found that detail worth sitting with, suggesting that age and accumulated experience make it harder to claim a clean record before God. He connected this to James, noting that breaking the law in even one point means breaking the whole thing.
The pastor then read through more than a dozen English translations of Jesus' words to the woman, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on sin no more." His point was that the condemnation part and the go and sin no more part cannot be separated. He said Christians who rush past forgiveness straight to the behavioral command are like a sensor reading too hot when the engine is actually fine. God is on His throne, everything is running as it should, and reacting as though it is not often causes more damage than the thing we were alarmed about.
He closed by stepping back to Romans 8:1-4, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," and connected it to the shooting in Colorado Springs that had happened the previous night. He prayed for the victims and for the congregation to be the kind of people who pause, think carefully, and respond with grace rather than reacting out of a sensor that may not be reading correctly.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- The pastor described the scribes and Pharisees as putting Jesus in a no-win situation, where any direct answer would damage his reputation one way or another. Have you ever faced a situation where doing the right thing felt like a trap? How did you handle it?
- The older accusers left first, and the pastor suggested that age and accumulated regret may have made it harder for them to claim they were without sin. What does that observation stir up in you about self-awareness and judgment of others?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 6,104 words
Alright. Good morning, everybody. How are we? Good to see you. Good to see you.
How about we begin by worshiping song? And would you stand with me? And here's a here's a good word from Psalm eight to to lead us into worship. It's when I consider your heavens and the work of your fingers and the moon and stars you've set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them? He's saying, who are we, God, that you would love us so much, human beings that you care for them?
Lord, our lord, how majestic is your name. Let's start by saying, lord, our lord.
Amen. Y'all can have a seat. Few announcements to start off. Usually, Monday night's first, Carl. What's going on?
Yeah. We're on tomorrow. Even if we're just a a small group, Monique is gonna be cooking. We can do a little song and scripture night with the theme of thanks Thanksgiving. Thankfulness.
Good deal. Awana Awana, however, is not on tomorrow night. So Awana is not on tomorrow night. Monday nights is. Nick is making his way to the front.
There is a children's Christmas choir. Lisa Landis, would you stand up? She's right there. So after the service, the after this first service today, could I get all the kids to meet up here up front? Alright?
Would you mind that, Lisa? Okay. I'm asking her, we're figuring this out. If she would come up to the front and have all the kids come up front that want to participate in the children's choir, they'll go down from here into the basement to the practice room, but they're practicing between services from now until the show. So that's Christmas choir.
There is a women's Christmas luncheon coming up December 7. That's coming up pretty fast, Joe. It's at the Snow King Ballroom. If you would like to, there's an RSVP link in our weekly email. The Angel Tree.
Tanya has called me this morning and said, if anybody wants to jump ahead, there's not a tree out there yet. There's not any tags out there yet. But if somebody's thinking I'm going to Black Friday and I'm gonna get everything at one time, and they want to, tell them to text me and I'll get them a head start. (956) 357-3676 is Tanya's number. So that's for the Angel Tree, which is forthcoming.
Connect hour is happening down the hall, But we need volunteers on that list and on the Monday night kitchen list also. That's in there. Friendsgiving potluck. Nick, do you want to mention this? You've got another announcement too.
So we're having a big Thanksgiving dinner here. If you need a place to go, if you know of somebody that needs to go someplace, it's been expanding every year, and we're like, let's load some fishes this thing. Let's see how many people we can feed. So if you're gonna come, please do bring something so that expands that food out. But just open it up to your neighbors.
If they need a place to go, we'll be meeting at 04:00 here, 05:00 for dinner. Some people might help out with the dishes. Who knows? It could be great. And then afterwards, we're play some board games.
So stick around for that. I do have another announcement too. It's the season of thanks, and we do wanna say thank you to all of you. There's been a lot of ways that people have have given. At the first week food drive, on the back there were these tables, we gave 424 pounds of food over the last four weeks.
Thanks to Nancy Terasiano for setting that one up. Iwana volunteers. Thank you so much to all of the Iwana volunteers who are here every week diligently helping out. For Samaritan's Purse, the Operation Christmas Child, thank you to Casey McCooey and the rest of their family for packaging that and everybody who volunteered. There was a stack of boxes.
We don't know how
many yet, but it was a lot.
And then finally, Old Bills Fun Run. This this happened a while ago. We we got the check-in October. We help people regularly with that that amount of money that comes in. This year, we got $78,000 to be able to help people in this town.
And it I hardly a day goes by
Right.
Where we don't help somebody. And as an example, there was a gentleman who came in for something else at the church and it wasn't happening that day. He didn't have anywhere else to be. He was out here texting his friends and just on his phone. And we're like, hey, do you want some food?
And so we took him down. We fed him.
It was
a Monday night. We fed him down there. And we're like, so what what's going on here? I got to know him. He only speaks Spanish.
I don't. We're using Google translate back and forth. About five hours later, I finally said goodbye to the guy. We bought him winter clothes. He'd never he'd never been through a winter before.
So we bought him winter clothes. We took him out, got him something to eat. And we end just having this lovely afternoon. Was so appreciative. And you guys do that.
You're the one who you're the ones who enable us to be able to say yes, to spend time with people, to slow down. We we give emergency housing, food. I mean, it's it's a really emotional experience for all of us. But if you wanna know how daily we're helping to help people, that is one of those ways. And you can continue to give through the benevolence fund.
All of our Christmas Eve service money goes there too. But we just wanna say thank you to all of you. You are seeing you make a difference, and we appreciate it. And there's always more ways to volunteer.
If you wanna get involved, let us know. Thanks a lot.
Gracias. Thank you, Nick. Nick is office assistant and IT guy here at First Bee. Y'all don't y'all probably
know that.
Making stuff. Okay.
About Jesus paid it all? That's that's a good segue right into it. Thank you for being the hands and feet of Jesus. Stand with us this thing, please.
Sin had left a crimson stain. He was still whitest. Lord, this morning, I'm thankful for new life and freedom in you. Thank you, Lord, for forgiveness, and thank you, Lord, for the freedom that we experience in you, Jesus. God, may you fill this place this morning.
Fill our hearts. Fill our minds with your peace, with your love, with your joy, with a deep recognition of who you are and what you've done. And may that gratitude just flow up from each and every one us this morning. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. Lord, we thank you for those mercies that are new every single day. Thank you for the mercy for this day and right here. And Lord, would you help us
to trust?
Help us to trust you where you lead. Even though we don't always know exactly where that's where that's going to be, that we would trust him. Like that father who calls out, Lord, I I I believe, but would you help me in in our
one day, we were here in the
midst of all that, and this song was playing. And the Lord brought me back
I know.
Amen.
I've had church. Sorry. You want me to pray now? God, thank you. We're overwhelmed, God.
Thank you. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your tenderness. Thank you for your tender mercies. New every morning.
Thank you for the grace that you offer. Thank you for taking your time with us, lord, and bringing us around. God, I ask that you'd bless this offering that it would bring hope, bring it I hope with the good news to bear on a on a world that's just floundering and struggling in darkness and difficulty. Some to the point that they don't realize it at all. In Jesus' name, Lord, we pray that you do your will and your way among us.
I thank you that you're doing that, and I thank you for Yvonne's testimony right there. After Bonnie's death, it was very difficult for a long time, but you brought her back around. Thank you for the songs, Lord. Thank you that we can use the breath that we have to praise you and then eventually come around. In Jesus name, thank you.
Amen. Downstairs, it's time for children's church down there. Last half that. To to Scar And but smarter? I mean cold?
Hot? Yes. Yes. It was chilly on the way in this morning. Uh-oh.
It's me. I have a couple of things, weird things this morning. This week, in the frigid temperatures, I woke up in the morning. The worst thing that can happen in a car, like I'm a mechanical type guy, and worst thing that can happen to a car for its longevity is to have the temperature go high. Right?
If temperature gets high, you blow head gaskets, you cause all kind of problems, things seize up and it's ugly. And so I kind of nurse along these old junk cars that I drive, and I've been doing this for a long time. And I got up the other morning. It was registering two below when I got in the car, and I started the car thinking, well, I'll run back in for a minute, let it warm up just a bit. I come back out and it's up to about 200, which is fine.
That's a reasonable temperature below boiling is good. And then I got in the car and Raptor J, the backside of Raptor J, by the time I got to the tennis court, it was going two ten, two twenty, two thirty, two forty. I was like, oh, I don't want to walk back home. Said five below by that time. So I turned around, although when something gets hot, turn it off and sit still, you won't cause any more damage if you do that.
I'm a quarter of a mile from home. I decided to turn around and go home. I blow the head gasket, so be it, I'm not walking home at five blow. You all like to hike, I don't. And so I get back home.
You don't ever put cold antifreeze or water into a hot engine that's just sitting still. Let it run while it's running. Never open it hot. Yeah. Know that.
Take a towel, look the other way. And I did that. And man, the steam show. I've never seen that kind of a steam show because I've never done this at five degrees below zero before. And I just thought, well, smoke that engine.
That's terrible. And all that day, I came in here and I started thinking, there's no reason for that thing to get that hot that fast, especially at these temperatures. Must be a stuck thermostat even then. So I'm diagnosing all day long. And then I thought, I wonder if it could be that the sensor is bad.
That's a possibility. It's a rare possibility. Usually when something goes wrong, it's something wrong. But the temperature sending unit on that turned out that was bad. I went by, picked one up, put it in when I got home, and when I popped the top on that thing that morning, it was at normal running temperature.
Everything was fine, but the sensor was off. Does that make sense? It it was reading that it was really, really hot. And so I got all into a worked up into a state and I popped the top before I should have. I could have gone back inside let it cool down.
But I popped the top and it literally just blew smoke everywhere. I wish I had sent Blake the picture I didn't put it in the show. Didn't know I was gonna say this. Went home, changed the sensor, and that thing's running exactly. I have this in my hand.
This is a little temperature gauge. And you can kind of put it that podium is 62 degrees. Don't know. Out there it might be slightly warmer than that. Up here it's a lot hotter than that right here.
But 195 is the thermostat I put in this. I changed the thermostat because that's what you do. Maybe thermostat stuck. First thing cheapest thing is that. Change that.
And then later on in the day, went and I put this on the temperature sending unit that was reading two sixty and put it on there. It said 195. Like the the sending unit was off. There's something in the system that's not right. And if it's our sense or our sensor, it's a problem.
Maybe that will help today, I don't know. I was doing story time until the slides got ready, but 07:53 to 08:59 of John. Now you all know we've been doing a study in the Synoptic Gospels, are Matthew, Mark, Luke Matthew, Mark and Luke, not John. But I feel like John, having written his gospel later, he had some insight into some of the things that were kinda gaps. And there is a building conflict with the Pharisees especially and the Sadducees to some extent that we're seeing in the other gospels.
But then, it seems like things just go ratchet up really, really fast. John has given us a couple of stories in here. And last week, John was saying that Jesus, his brothers went to the feast, and then Jesus goes to the feast. Although it doesn't say he feasts. He just goes, he goes to the temple, and he teaches, and he says, if anybody's thirsty, let him come to me.
And this is at a a festival where they're talking about the wilderness wanderings, and they're celebrating the fact that God provided for them. And Jesus is saying, after they read Isaiah about salvation coming in the form of rivers of living water. And Jesus says, come to me, any of you who's thirsty, and I'll give to you to drink. Right? That was last week.
And there was building conflict there, but then it kinda died down. Right here at the very end of chapter seven, it says, and everyone went to his home. They just went home. But Jesus was not from there. He went to the Mount Of Olives.
Oh, what a location. He goes up to the Mount Of Olives. We've seen him in the Mount Of Olives before. It's commonplace for him to go with his disciples. We'll see him there again on the night of betrayal.
My goodness. And Jesus goes up to pray, would assume, spend time with his father. And early in the morning, he came again into the temple area, and all the people were coming to him. And he sat down and he began teaching them. We see this a lot with Jesus, especially in the temple area.
That's what he does whenever he's there. Even when he was a little boy. When he was in the temple area, he was teaching the doctors. Right? The scribes.
He sat down and he began teaching them. Now the scribes and the pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery. And after placing her in the very center, in the middle of all of them, of the courtyard, they said to him, teacher, this woman has been caught in the very act of committing adultery. Oh. Oh.
How hard for her. How difficult that must have been. They said to him, teacher, this woman has been caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Excuse me.
What does the law say by the way? Deuteronomy and Leviticus both touch on this. Leviticus says, if there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. They had only brought the woman. Deuteronomy says, if a man is found sleeping with a married woman, then both of them shall die.
The man who slept with the woman, the woman. So you shall eliminate evil from Israel. Oh, I'm glad to live in the New Testament times. This seems really, really harsh. It is given in Deuteronomy the the so you shall eliminate the evil from Israel.
There was something about the purity of the people of God. Although they were human beings, they did not have the Holy Spirit. There was something about keeping the purity there that seems to me very, very harsh. But this is the law. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
What then do you say? Do you realize what's going on here? The scribes and the pharisees come to him. The scribes, not always, but they could have been pharisaical or they could have been sadduceical. They could have been either.
But the scribes and the pharisees were coming and saying, this is what the law says. Both of us agree on this. It's the written law. It's Torah. We agree.
Now, what do you say? There is some question as to whether they could have carried out that sentence legally under the Roman government that was really over them in power and technically no, they could not have, but it didn't keep them from doing it. We see that in the New Testament and Stephen stoning. They stoned Stephen. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
What then do you say? They set this up to trick Jesus. To trick him into saying either, well, yeah, go ahead and stone her, and losing his reputation for mercy compassion and love, forgiveness, or no, and saying, this guy doesn't believe in the law. This guy says the law is no good. It's not good enough for him.
They're putting him in a position to either go against Moses and the law and turn everybody against him or to say he's not as compassionate as everybody thinks he is. Now they're saying this to test him. I didn't make that up. They are saying that the test him says so right there. So that they might have grounds for accusing him.
But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground. This is the only time in the gospels where it's ever mentioned that Jesus wrote anything. Lot was written about him, but he stooped down. It's interesting that it doesn't say he took a stick or he wrote with his finger. And I I can't help but thinking of this.
Exodus 31, also Torah. And when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, this is God, he gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, the tablets of stone written by the finger of God. What a callback. When they persisted in asking him, answer us Jesus, mister smart teacher boy. Come on, tell us what you're gonna do.
Tell us what you're gonna do. Tell us what you're gonna do. What do we do? When they persisted in asking him, they were badgering him, he straightened up. So he'd been writing down in the ground, on the ground with his finger.
He straightened up and he said to them, he who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. Now it's Jesus who's saying this, and he was among them. He could have. He did not have any sin. He could have.
He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. Did he answer the question? He didn't answer either of the ways they wanted him to answer it. They had him either way. It was one of those kind of questions where, you know, you can't answer it directly and be alright.
He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. And again, he stooped, and he wrote on the ground. Now there's all kinds of crazy conjecture as to what Jesus might have been writing on the ground. I think that Exodus 31, the same thing he wrote on those tablets could have been enough because if we are honest with ourselves and we look at the law of God, we fall short. Period.
He stooped down. He rode on the ground. And when they heard this, they began leaving. They took the air out of their sails. We're gonna get him today.
Been planning this one. They were more interested in tricking Jesus into saying something politically incorrect either direction or making him look like a hypocrite since he's been so compassionate and loving and helpful and forgiving and merciful to folks both inside and out of Israel. And then he got us again. When they heard this, they began leaving one by one, beginning with the older ones. I've never noticed that in this story till this time around when I read it.
It started with the older folks. I wonder why. You think it's because with age comes wisdom, and it's really hard for them to look at their own life and say, I'm sin free. When you're young, you tend to feel like you're mortal, ten foot tall and bulletproof, and whatever you do is just fine. But the older ones are like, there are a lot of things I did that I regret that I can't do anything about.
Once they've been done, they've been done. There's nothing I can do about them. And I can see it in the law that it was wrong, and I could struggle, struggle, struggle to try to pay, but there's not enough I can do to erase that. I mean, James James, Jesus' brother. James James says if you've broken law even in one little instance, you've broken the whole thing.
Man, there's nothing that you can do about it. Beginning with the older ones. And he, Jesus, was left there alone and the woman where she was right there in the center of the courtyard. What a hard place to be. Dragged out with a charge and straightening up because he's bending down right and again in the sand with his finger.
And straightening up, Jesus said Jesus said to her, woman, where are they? Where are they? Did no one condemn you? And she said, no one, Lord. Although they had stones in their hand, although they were standing there ready to sling them at her.
No, Lord. And Jesus said, I don't condemn you either. Now he could have. Right? He was the one without sin.
He could have. I don't condemn you either. Go from now on and don't sin any longer. That one I wanted to look at the different versions on. I'm gonna read all of them if you don't mind.
Okay? It's a bunch of them. This is all of them that are available on biblehub.com and easy to copy and paste. No one, sir. No one, sir, she said, then neither do I condemn you.
Jesus declared, now go and leave your life of sin. There is a continuous ongoing progressive nature to the verb there. New Living says, no, Lord, she said. And Jesus said, neither do I. Go and sin no more.
English Standard. No one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go. And from now on, sin no more.
There is something that says from this point forward, you've been forgiven. You've you're not condemned. You've been forgiven. From this point forward, you've got a clean slate, and you can keep it. You had a problem.
I love the 12 steps, by the way. I just have to say, I know that comes out every once in a while from up here, but I think that they are very, very helpful. You got a problem you can't do anything about. God can help if you will let him. Oh, it's helpful.
A start over point is really, really helpful to know that you've been forgiven, that you have received forgiveness helps. Neither do I condemn you. Go in now on and sin no more. No one, Lord, she said, then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared. Now go and sin no more.
Berean literal. And she said, no one, sir. And to her, Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more from now on. Some of us are bristling right there with the from now on.
He's saying, you have a clean slate. I will help you walk in victory. Then she she said, no man, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more.
She said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. She said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, I do not condemn you either.
Go from now on and do not sin any longer. She said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, do not condemn you either. Go from now on and sin no more. She said, no one, Lord.
And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go your way from now on and sin no more. Now if he had asked this question just a few minutes before that, there were a bunch of people there condemning her. Right? That's what they were there to do.
Well, now they were there to trick Jesus, but they were using her as an object lesson. And then he used her and them as an object lesson for what he had been teaching that we talked about last week. Amplified Bible. She answered, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, I do not condemn you.
Either go from now on and sin no more. No one, Lord. She said, neither do I condemn you. Said, Jesus, go. And from now on, do not sin anymore.
Neither do I condemn you. Go. And from now on, do not sin anymore. And she said, no man, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you.
Go that way and henceforth, sin no more. Aramaic Bible in plain English. But she said, not even one of them, Lord God. And Yeshua said, neither do I condemn you. Go.
And from now on, sin no more. The woman said, no, sir. Then Jesus told her, I'm not gonna accuse you either. The accuser of the brethren is the devil. Jesus says, I'm not gonna accuse you either.
You may go now, but don't sin anymore. Who said, no man, lord. And Jesus said, neither will I condemn thee. Go now and sin no more. Good news translation.
No one, sir. She answered, well then, Jesus said, I do not condemn you either. Go. Don't sin again. No one, sir.
She replied. Jesus said, I don't condemn you either. Go home. And from now on, don't sin anymore. This was your past life.
He knew her heart. It doesn't say that she repented. It doesn't say that in the text. But he knew her heart. He knew their heart too.
He knew why they were there. Literal standard. And she said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I pass sentence on you. Be going and sin no more.
Neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on, don't sin anymore. I don't condemn you either. Go and from now on, don't sin anymore. Neither do I condemn you.
Go your way in. Now on, don't sin again. Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more.
No one, sir, she replied. And I don't condemn you either. Go and from this time, do not sin anymore. The web, world English Bible, she said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you.
Go your way. From now on, sin no more. And she said, no one, sir. And Jesus said to her, neither do I pass sentence on thee. This is the Young's literal.
Be going on. Just be getting along, and no more sin. I think that for judgmental Christians, judgmental folks, church folk, I think we wanna just get to the he said go and sin no more. We wanna get to that without stopping at the I'm not condemning you either. Right?
God's penalty for sin to a living human being, yes, it hangs over them and their sin. It does. But there's always hope that they will allow Jesus to be the one to pay for that sin. Does that make sense? And when he does, he also gives the spirit to allow us to walk in victory.
If we're expecting people who don't know Christ and don't have the Holy Spirit dwelling in their lives, if we're expecting them to act like they do, we are very, very gonna be very, very disappointed. And our sense, our sensor is going to go. It's going to go way hot. And really there's no cars for alarm right here. God is on his throne.
Everything is running as it should. When our sensor tells us, we gotta do something right now, we often will do things that are more harmful than helpful. Go. From now on, don't sin any longer. I've got two blank slides, and then I've got a whole lot more.
Two blank slides and then a whole lot more text. I think that this story if you're looking in your Bible instead of looking up here, you'll see brackets around this story. From seven fifty three to eight eleven of John, there are brackets around the story. Most of the oldest manuscripts don't have the story in So a lot of very good scholars, conservative theological scholars, look at that and go, Well, that's not original to the text. It does sound like Jesus.
It does sound like Jesus for sure. It's got the ring of truth, and that's why they put it in there, but they put brackets around it. It's probably original to a gospel around the time. Not sure it's of John, but we're going to put it in there and bracket it off and say, it's good, but we're not certain that it's original to the text and not want to add anything or give you that caveat. So I just did the whole sermon on that text, may or may not be in there.
There are another group of good conservative theological conservative scholars that think it was original to the text, but the early church was afraid that it looked like Jesus condoned adultery, and they took it out and then put it back in. Does that make sense to you? We're not really sure. It definitely sounds like Jesus. I don't have any doubt myself as to whether it's original.
I believe that it is original. I don't know if it goes right there or not, but it fits the context very well. Romans eight one to four says this, therefore now, there is no condemnation at all. No condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
It's gonna be one or the other. Law of the spirit of life, which sets you free. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did. In sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. Jesus paid it all, like we sang earlier.
So that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. I pray and I hope that some of those guys that dropped those stones and walked away, I pray that they recognized what was going on. I will say that if what he was writing on the ground was the 10 commandments and they looked at that if that's what it was, and I'm not saying it was. If that's what it was and they looked at that, them dropping the stone and walking away is an admission of guilt.
Right? That's a beginning step. I've got a problem I can't do anything about. But here's this guy that's not condemning this woman that was caught in the very act. It'd have been a different story if the guy had been there, I think.
They weren't interested in that. What they were interested in was getting Jesus to say something that would hoist him on his own petard. There are two blank slides, and there's a whole lot of John. I'm gonna wait. On the way in this morning, also, I heard about a nightclub in Colorado Springs that was shot up pretty bad.
Five people were killed, 18 wounded that they had counted at that time. I don't know who the guy was, but it would not surprise me at all if he was religiously motivated. In error. Absolutely in error. I'm gonna invite the band back up and just pray.
Would you pray with me? God, I pray for for every soul affected by that incident that happened late last night, early this morning. I pray for all of those people carrying folks out of there in ambulances stacked double. They're taking people out to in an ambulance, which is rare. God, I pray that you would that you would have your will done on earth as it is in heaven, that we would be sensitive to what you are saying, Lord.
That we'd be sensitive and that we would take the time and pause, maybe scribble out a few thoughts on the ground before we answer. And would you give us a good answer, Lord? There are so many tricky situations right now, political situations where if you on one side or the other, you're branded. You may be canceled or you may be lauded but for the wrong reasons. God Almighty, I pray that we would just remain humble before you and sensitive to your spirit and that you would allow us to give a defense for the hope that's in us and that you'd allow us to give an articulate answer that would be profound and be life giving.
In Jesus' name, Lord, I pray that our sensors would be reading correctly and that we would see that you're all right, that we're alright in you, that union with Christ is what it's about. And when people act out of their character and they don't know you, God allow us to have mercy on them. Allow us to have grace in our hearts. Allow us to truly love them. I pray, Lord, that you would erase the battle lines between us, that you would draw people in to your love.
Amen. Would you stand with us? Amen. And the benediction today is for for you individually. Alright?
For you individually, think about this. Because we wake up in the morning a lot of times and rather than realizing that God has forgiven us for yesterday, and he's offering new mercy for today. A lot of times we wake up and we feel condemned. And sometimes when we read scripture, we feel even more condemned. Sometimes when we talk to folks, they make us feel even more condemned.
Will you remember this that therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Lord God Almighty, keep us right in the center of your will. Keep us right in the center of your love. May it flow into us so fully that it overflows onto everyone around us. Lord God almighty, may we live in your forgiveness.
May we live in your pleasing and your perfect will, and may we be reflecting your glory. Amen.
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