Amazing Grace

For today we're here in John's Gospel chapter 8. There is somewhat of a weird chapter break between John 7 and John 8, so I'm actually going to jump in at verse 2. So John 8 verse 2, it says, Now early in the morning he, that is Jesus, came again into the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. And then the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say? This they said, testing him that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear. And so when they continued asking him, he raised himself up and said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. Verse 8 says, And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to her, Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Let's pause there and pray. Father, we thank you for this story, Lord. We thank you that you've included this as a testimony of your wonderful grace. And so we pray, God, that we would have ears to hear what you would say to us through this story and that we would have hearts to receive. And we are thankful, Lord, for the blessing of just being in your house today, worshiping you, gathering together. We thank you, Lord, for many people among many churches today doing the same. And we just want to glorify you and pray, God, that you would use this time in your word to speak to us now. We love you in Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen. If we're not careful, there is the tendency for some pastors and churches to get out of balance with regard to the topics of sin and grace. Some churches emphasize sin too much and grace too little. Sermons tend to be more about conviction of sin rather than restoration from it. People will leave church feeling the guilt and shame of things that they've done with very little understanding about how to recover from it. And in that kind of a church, God is presented more as the Godfather instead of Father God. Heavy on sin, very light on grace. On the other hand, there can be the tendency for

some churches to emphasize grace too much and sin too little. They conveniently skip over certain passages of the Bible that deal with sin and the consequences of sin. The message is all about God as a God of love, as if grace means that God just kind of tolerates our lives and we can kind of live however we want because after all, God is a God of love and God is a God of grace. And in that environment, God is kind of viewed as a grandpa, somebody who's fun and who only likes to have fun and never really judges you. And so the beauty of going straight through the Bible cover to cover, which is what we do here at Cornerstone is that it helps us to stay balanced. When you go through the whole cover, the whole Bible from cover to cover, you're going to deal with some passages that are heavy on the topic of sin and the consequences of sin. And then there are times you're going to come to certain passages of the Bible that are heavy on grace and how to recover from sin and the shame that is associated with it. And this story here in John chapter eight is the latter. It is a story that is heavy on grace and how one can recover from sin and the shame that accompanies it. And so before we unpack this story together, I want you just to keep your Bibles open here to John eight. First, I want us to understand a few things about grace and we use that word grace. What are we talking about? So for you note takers, the word grace or some form of it like gracious or graciously is found 185. Five times in the Bible The first time that the word grace appears in our English Bibles is Genesis 6 8 Which says but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord But Noah see it's a contrast of the culture because in Noah's day the world was exceedingly wicked and it was so evil that God determined to judge the world at this particular time by sending a worldwide flood But because Noah was a righteous man and his family with him God preserved them They did not suffer the consequences of judgment because why Noah was the beneficiary of God's grace Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord and thus he and his family didn't perish in the judgment that came in the form of a worldwide flood The last time that we see the word grace in the Bible is

Revelation 22 21 where the entire Bible closes with this final verse The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen That's God's Final say in the Bible That's his signature line at the very end to conclude everything that the Bible has said God says that I want you to Receive my grace may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. So it's an important word It's an important doctrine and it is something that all of us Desperately need whether you know it or not. We all need God's grace So let's get a working definition the word grace in terms of what the Bible has to say about grace is It's God's unmerited favor. It's his Undeserved kindness God delights to show his kindness to us he Showers us with his favor and we don't deserve it and we can't earn it This is part of his very nature. Look when we sin against God and he doesn't kill us. That's grace No, that's grace when we sin against God. He doesn't kill us right there. That is grace Now some of you might say well, wait a minute Pastor G you just referred to the whole scene with Noah in the worldwide flood. Where was the grace for those people? God just kind of decided to kill him right there. Okay. Now wait, you got to understand the story of Noah in the flood Because the fact of the matter is that God instructed Noah to build an ark not just to preserve the animal kingdom But as an opportunity for anybody to jump on board who wanted to repent and turn to God The ark was actually a symbol of his grace It's just tragic that people refuse to get on board now we like our sinful lives just as we are Thank you very much. Say along and by the way something else you should know Is that in the Bible when you calculate the chronology of events? When Noah was first given instructions about building the ark Until the floodwaters came it was about 75 to 100 years That's nearly a hundred years of God's grace Hoping that people would turn from their wickedness and get saved and get on that ark So God is gracious to us

He is patient with us He doesn't want any to suffer to perish but all to come to repentance that is his grace His grace allows us a chance to repent to turn to him and to be forgiven His grace accepts us rather than rejecting us his grace restores us and he uses us again his grace means that he saves us through faith in Jesus and Takes us to heaven when we die. That's grace. It's all about God's grace You know, there's a chorus in one of the old hymns of our faith That's that goes like this grace grace God's grace grace that will pardon and cleanse Within grace grace God's grace grace that is greater than all our sin who's thankful today for God's grace in your life Amen So a couple of key points about about grace first grace is one of the key attributes of God now there are many verses that talk about this, but here's one at Psalm 145 verse 8 the Lord is gracious and Full of compassion slow to anger and great in mercy Notice there in that verse that God's grace is almost always associated with God's mercy love and compassion Another important point about grace number two is that grace is personified in Jesus The Bible says outright in John 1 14 and the word became flesh. In other words God Came into humanity wrapped himself in flesh Jesus the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father of Full of grace and truth and then a few verses later in verse 17 It says for the law was given through Moses But grace and truth came through Jesus Christ So Jesus is the very personification of God's grace And then one more bullet point is that grace is the basis for our salvation through faith in Jesus Christ This is Ephesians 2 7 to 9 that God showed the exceeding riches of his grace In his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus for by grace You have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves It is the gift of God not of works so that nobody can boast in other words That passage tells us that we can't get to heaven because we're good enough Nobody's good enough. Nobody deserves heaven. We all deserve judgment We all deserve hell God in his mercy has bestowed grace upon us. He's been gracious to us

By saving us through faith in Jesus Christ. This is a gift from God salvation is a gift from God We don't earn it. We don't deserve it. It's a gift from God. We just surrender to it. We receive it as a free gift It's all about his grace. In fact, someone once came up with the acronym about grace God's riches at Christ's expense That's grace And so one of the most vivid Tender illustrations of God's grace found in the Bible is this story here in John chapter 8 Now, let me give you a little background and then we're gonna look at this passage together The background is that chapter 7 of John tells us that Jesus was in Jerusalem for one of the Jewish feasts It was the Feast of Tabernacles Every Jewish male aged 21 and older at that time was required to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the three major Jewish feasts Passover Pentecost and Tabernacles This is one of them So Jesus is there with his disciples and it was his custom as a rabbi Now we know that Jesus was more than a rabbi, but he was viewed as a rabbi as a teacher to when you when you went to the feast in Jerusalem to Take opportunity to just teach in the temple court area and this was Jesus's style, too So we find him in the temple court area teaching it during the day and then he would retreat at night to the Mount of Olives with his disciples where they would just sleep there on the hillside and Then he'd come back the next day to the temple court area for as long as the feast lasted and the same same Repetitive style he would teach in the temple courts go to the Mount of Olives next day teach in the temple courts So what we find happening here is look again in your Bibles at verse 2 now early in the morning He came again into the temple and all the people came to him and he sat down and he taught them By the way, that was typical rabbinical style. The rabbi would sit that people would stand you want to try that some Sunday? I Guarantee those of you normally fall asleep won't So he's sitting there standing a crowd is gathered around him and he's just teaching he's just teaching them when all of a sudden some scribes these are religious leaders and

Pharisees suddenly Haul this woman in front of Jesus and the crowd That they have caught in adultery and verse 3 says that they made her Stand in front of Jesus and this crowd That's gathered there to listen to Jesus teach now. You have to imagine for a moment the humiliation this woman must have felt The embarrassment this woman must have felt the shame that she must have felt to be dragged out of this adulterous bed and Paraded in front of Jesus and all these people. How would you feel? I mean the shame of being publicly exposed like this must have been so humiliating and That's this scene here now What we do know when we look at the verses is that this whole thing is a setup This whole thing is a setup by the religious leaders who did not believe in Jesus who did not think that he was the Son Of God the Messiah and they were always looking for ways to trap him malign him discredit him That's what's going on here. We know this whole thing was a setup from the beginning for two reasons number one Because when they haul this woman in front of Jesus verse 4 they say to him teacher This woman was caught in adultery in the very act Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned stoned to death But what do you say and then verse 6 is a commentary and it tells us this they said testing him That they might have something of which to accuse him Okay, the whole thing's a setup now We'll have more to say about that a little bit later. But the other reason we know that this is a setup is because Who is missing from this scene? Ladies who's missing? The guy yeah, some ladies like that that guy. Yeah. All right. Calm down We have counselors on staff but uh Somebody's hurt you. I know but listen, so the guy the guy is missing

From this scene now, listen, you you need to understand something about adultery in this particular time Adultery was a capital offense If you were caught in adultery, you would be stoned to death under the mosaic law And so it tells us both in Leviticus Leviticus chapter 20 and Deuteronomy chapter 22 That when someone was caught in adultery both the man and the woman Were to be stoned to death I'll read Deuteronomy 22 22 It says if a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband Then both of them shall die the man that lay with the woman and the woman so you shall put away the evil from Israel, so the mosaic law required that the man was just as culpable as the woman So where is the guy and it leads bible scholars to believe? That the absence of the guy is an indication that he was in collusion with the religious leaders This whole thing was a setup and he was a willing participant now I don't know where they possibly could have found a guy who was willing to be part of a sexual experiment like this Probably at a frat house somewhere but But they get a guy to be a part of this whole collusion and you know, what's so so tragic so terrible about this Is that a bunch of men in an attempt to discredit jesus? had no problem humiliating and sexually degrading an unsuspecting woman in the process This is the epitome of willful deliberate sin against god And taking advantage of another person in the process This is completely inexcusable and this is a horrible thing that is happening here now. It needs to be pointed out. However That as a willing participant the woman in the story is no snow white Okay She also is responsible for her own actions now It is likely that she had no part

In trying to malign jesus. She was probably unsuspecting in that regard, but she still committed adultery And it is a sin It's commandment number seven She broke it and as a willing participant she has to own her own sin, but these guys parade her in front of jesus The guy's absent Maybe he's snuck in as part of the crowd who knows And the guys who were trying to trap jesus Ask him a question in verse five Now moses they say moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. What do you say? Now if he says if jesus responds by saying just let her go Then he will be violating the letter of the law And he's going to be falling right into their trap Because see they want him To to contradict the law of god. That's the way they're going to try to discredit him You call yourself the son of god. You think that you're a prophet? Who do you think you are? You're not messiah You're violating the very letter of the law. So if he says Let her go. He's going to be violating the letter of the law on the other hand if he says kill her Because that's the letter of the law then he will be alienating himself from her and every other Sinful human being who needs the grace that jesus came to give So what does jesus do? What's he to do here? This almost seems untenable like what's to happen Well, the story tells us in verse six This is the last part of verse six that when they ask him that question He pretends like he doesn't even hear them and he stoops down and he starts writing with his finger in the dirt Now, why do you suppose he was doing that and a lot of people speculate? Why was jesus, you know Like ignoring them and stooping down and just you know writing in the dirt and I wonder if you've been in a In an untenable situation, you know how sometimes you just need to like kill some time while you can pray You know what i'm talking about? It's just like somebody's you know, your walls your backs against the wall and you're just like oh dear god Please help me with this. You know, you're praying privately. So I don't know, you know, maybe jesus is just like

know, Father, if I follow the letter of the law, they're going to kill her. If I don't, they're going to kill me. You know, and so like what's the wisdom from Heaven? And of course Jesus, the personification of grace and truth and wisdom, He gives a brilliant answer. Before we look at His answer, you know what I find interesting? Jesus stoops down, writes in the dirt with His finger, the only other time in the entire Bible that it mentions God writing something with His finger. Anybody know? The Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments. It tells us in Exodus 31 verse 18, and when God had made an end of speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, listen, written with the finger of God. So, could it be, and this is just pure speculation on my part, could it be, I wonder, if what Jesus was writing in the dirt, because the Bible doesn't say it, nobody really knows, if what Jesus was writing in the dirt were the Ten Commandments. And I wonder that because I think it would send a double message. The first message would be He's asserting His divinity. That as He's writing with His finger the Ten Commandments, perhaps people would put two and two together realizing, oh yeah, the Scriptures talk about the finger of God writing the Commandments. Maybe they would get a glimpse of His divinity, of His deity in this moment. But another reason it's possible, we don't know, that Jesus may have been writing out the Ten Commandments was so that people who were standing by accusing this woman would notice the Ten Commandments and identify their own sin among the list and fall under conviction. Because no matter

what Jesus did end up writing, one thing we do know for sure, they all came under conviction by what He said in verse 7. Jesus stands up after writing a little bit with His finger in the dirt. He stands up and in verse 7 He says, well, he who is without sin, go ahead and throw the first stone at her. Just what a brilliant answer. Just go ahead. If you're without sin, if you're so pure and holy and you've never committed a sin, go ahead, throw the first stone at her. And then verse 8 says that after He said that He stooped back down and continued writing again in the dirt. And I think that's funny because to me He's basically subtly saying, let that just simmer with you for a while while I write again in the dirt. And so, as it simmers in them, verse 9 says that they were convicted by their conscience. They were convicted by their conscience and then they started to peel away one by one. Notice the oldest ones first. Why the oldest ones first? Because the longer you live the more stuff you've done. Yeah, I'm telling you. Yeah, now that I see those ten good men, I've done a few. You know, and so the older you are the more stuff you've done. Of course, and the older ones start peeling off one by one until finally it says that Jesus was left there alone with a woman. And in verse 10 it says, when Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? Two words in that question that He asks her, accusers, condemned. You know the Bible says that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He's the one that is constantly accusing us. Even after we've been forgiven. Have you ever had those random thoughts in your head like you're not

really forgiven? And the accusations that come, that's not the Lord, that's Satan. He's whispering those lies to you. And the other word is condemned. The Bible says there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. In other words, accusers and condemners, that's the spirit of Satan. The crowd, the religious leaders, they were operating in the spirit of Satan, not in the spirit of God. And so Jesus says to her, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you? And she says in response, no one, Lord. And He says to her, then neither do I condemn you. Now if He were to stop there, Jesus might be accused of being soft on sin. Well, neither do I condemn you. You know a lot of people commit adultery, just go on your way, God is love, you know peace out, you know all that good stuff. But He doesn't end there. Instead He adds the rest of verse 11, go and sin no He says leave your life of sin, and there's the balance Look sin is a big deal Sin is a big deal But grace is an even bigger deal And this is why Paul would write in Romans 5 20 Where sin increased? grace increased all the more In other words, you can't out sin God's grace Now I'm not encouraging you to try that I'm just stating as a matter of fact, whatever our sin whatever amount of our sin or type of our sin God's grace is greater still and He is a God of forgiveness and he is a God of grace This woman's public humiliation was condemnation enough Jesus obviously knew her heart that she was sorrowful over her sin

And So Jesus didn't need to heap more condemnation on her what she needed is what he gave her and what he gave her was grace When you think about what Jesus gave her versus what the crowd gave her You know what the crowd did they disgraced her Jesus graced her The basic definition of disgrace is to deny someone grace They were denying her grace and they were dis gracing her let me tell you something Knowingly or unknowingly we disgrace people all the time We disgrace ourselves When we can't accept the forgiveness that Jesus gives us When we still walk in shame and condemnation instead of just receiving gratefully the grace of God We disgrace a loved one When we remind them of their past and we shame them about that thing and we make little cutting remarks to remind them of what? They did that's disgracing them We disgrace our employer when employees talk behind their bosses back Disrespectfully about their boss that's disgracing them We disgrace our children When they bring them a report card like you made a C. What's wrong with you? Why can't you be an a student? We disgrace strangers When we talk about them, who does she think she is? Look at her. Who does she think she is? We do it all the time. And here's the problem It's not just that we're part of a culture that Disgraces we sometimes join in with it thereby revealing we don't even get God's grace. We don't understand it we don't really know it because if we really knew the grace of God we would be so Thankful for it and we would be gracious towards other people who were sinners just like we are Wait a minute pastor G. You just crossed the line. I'm not a sinner like those other people. Oh, yeah You are you're even worse And you know why you're even worse because if you have a thought like that your problem in addition to whatever sin issues you struggle with is now pride and John Calvin said pride is the pregnant mother of all sins

We all need God's grace We all stand the same height at the foot of the cross Desperate for his grace, you know, the only reason well, there's two there's two reasons why someone is not Grace giving to another person one is because you don't know God's grace. So you can't extend what you don't have or Two you do know God's grace for yourself, but you think your sin is not as bad as theirs Those are the reasons why people disgrace others Because you either don't know it at all So you can't extend it or you know it but you think that their sin is worse than yours So you're not going to be gracious to them. I have news bulletin. We are all in need of God's grace equally Do you think for a moment if you were standing there in the crowd in this story on the day that this whole thing happened? Do you think for a moment that after Jesus said what he did? You'd still be standing there with a stone in your hand ready to pelt this woman. I highly doubt it walk away drop the stone We're all in need of God's grace. Amen. We all need God's grace And When we come to grips With our own sin and the depth of God's love and forgiveness for us that he Freely gives us his grace Then not only will we walk in it, but we'll extend it to other people Because we're aware of our own sin. And so we want the same grace for people that we've received ourselves from the Lord Amen Probably one of the greatest illustrations of someone who received and understood and extended God's grace in their lives is the life story of John Newton. John Newton, many of you know the story, he was a slave trader, the captain of a slave trading ship in the 1700s. John Newton would write in his own diary that he would often take the female slaves that have his way with them in the captain's cabin. He admitted that he was a rapist and a murderer. And then one day, John Newton was introduced to Jesus Christ, the love of Jesus, the forgiveness of Jesus, and the grace of Jesus.

And he would write the most famous hymn of our faith, Amazing Grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. T'was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fear relieved. How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed. You know what a lot of people don't know about that song? Traditional African melodies are written on a different musical scale than Western music. Traditional African melodies, particularly what we historically would call Negro spirituals, were written on what is called a pentatonic scale. You can take your index finger and play any five of the black keys on a piano in any octave and you can sing the Negro spirituals. Sweet low, sweet chariot, steal away to Jesus, wade in the water, all those Negro spirituals written on a pentatonic scale. You can take just any of the five black keys on the piano and play those songs and sing those songs. Now, how ironic, I find it a little bit humorous, that you don't need any of the white keys to play the Negro spirituals. But what people don't often realize is that Amazing Grace was written by John Newton on a pentatonic scale. And I think God had his hand in that, you see. Because what God did in John Newton's life would be immortalized in the most famous song as both a testimony of God's amazing grace in the life of that man, while at the same time paying homage to a people and a country and a culture that he had so brutally ravaged. That Amazing Grace would be written on an African melody line as a testimony of God's amazing grace. And at the age of 82, when John Newton was near death, he said, my memory is nearly gone but two things I remember, I am a great sinner and Christ is a great savior. That's God's amazing grace. I leave us with two challenges. Number one, do you know God's grace for yourself?

Some of you struggle receiving God's grace. You question whether or not God could really forgive you for what you've done. And I just want you to know that Jesus died for every type of sin and every amount of sin. And I want to challenge you to receive His forgiveness, receive His grace, and then walk in that grace, okay? Don't abuse God's grace. Don't use it as liberty to sin, but walk as a forgiven person now in the grace of our Lord Jesus. And the second challenge to us is to be very careful to not disgrace people, but to grace them with the same grace that we've received from Jesus, amen? this is God's amazing grace. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your amazing grace. We're all sinners, Lord, in desperate need of your grace, and we thank you that you're a gracious God, full of compassion, abounding in mercy. You're patient with us. You're gracious with us. I pray today, Lord, that people who hear this teaching will maybe once and for all receive your grace that they've been reluctant to receive because they just don't think that they can. They feel unworthy of it, but truth is, Lord, we're all unworthy of it. So I just want to pause in my prayer and just encourage you that if you need to receive his grace, just receive it today. Just say, Lord, I receive your grace. I know that I'm not worthy of it, but that's why you died for me. Just ask him to forgive you, and then say, Lord, thank you for your forgiveness and thank you for your grace. Help me to walk in it. I give you my shame. I give you my guilt. I give you all of that, and I pray you'd wash over me with your grace today. Blanket me with your grace. And every time the enemy tries to whisper accusations, I will remind him that on this day, I pray to receive your forgiveness and I'm a creature who walks in your grace now. And there's therefore no condemnation to me because I'm in Christ Jesus. Secondly, Lord, we pray that we would look at people not with condemning eyes, but with gracious eyes. Instead of disgracing people, we pray that we would grace them with the same grace that we've received. Help us, Lord, to see others in the same way that we see ourselves, sinners saved by your amazing grace. And I close with the final words of Revelation 22, 21. The grace of our Lord Jesus

Christ be with you all. In his name. Amen.