43: Preaching/Teaching-John 8:1-12
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What’s So Amazing about Grace?
What’s So Amazing about Grace?
EOT-The Pharisees and scribes deliberately tried to trap Jesus by using a woman who was caught in the act of adultery.
EOS-Lessons about amazing Grace
DDS-
A person came in and asked C.S. Lewis what is so different about Christianity? He said that is easy, “Grace”.
This giant of the faith in one word shared what separates Christianity from all other religions. Gracw\e!
I share a lot of sports stories, but one of my all time favorite movies is about a man named Jean Val Jean. He is a convicted thief and he gets out of jail. On the very first night that he is out of jail he goes into the house of priest of pastor to rob him. The man gets out of bed only to see Jean Val Jean stealing his most prized possession.
The next day they find the criminal and they bring him back to the man’s house that he stole from. The police said the man said you gave him this. With one word he could send this man back to prison for a very long time. He says I did, and then he said something even crazier: You forgot the candlesticks.
Get quote from the movie.
This grace given to this convicted thief would go onto change his life He would become a dispenser of grace throughout the movie.
Can you remember a recent time when you experienced grace in a real tangible way?
can you remember a time when you gave grace?
Maybe you blew it with a boss, a friend, your spouse and instead of giving you what you deserve they gave you grace?
Is Gods grace amazing your you?
Today we are going to talk about grace.
Many think that grace is a prayer that you pray before dinner.
But no. It is so much more than that.
As one acronym says it is: Gods RICHES at CHRISTS expense.
Mercy is when you do not get what you don’t deserve.
Grace is when you not only get what you don’t deserve but you get something better in return.
Setting
john 8:12 “Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.””
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them.
I love how Jesus was always teaching in every day life. We are about to see how the leaders want to turn the table on him and teach him. But what they don’t realize is: Jesus is going to be the one to be the master teacher.
‘But what they forget is that Jesus is the master teacher who is going to give us a master lesson grace!
So today we are going to learn about Amazing Grace.
The first lesson we must learn about amazing grace is without it:
The first lesson we must learn about amazing grace is without it:
1. We are hopeless without it (3-5).
1. We are hopeless without it (3-5).
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court,
This is the only time that the Scribes and the Pharisees are mentioned together. You have the scribes who interpreted the Law with the Pharisees who enforced the Law.
One of the reasons that Jesus is so hard on these groups of people is the very experts of the Law missed the one the OT talked about as being the fulfillment of the Law.
This lady has a problem.
but what I realize is when we read this story the woman is not the first person we relate to. Or to put it another way we think we are so different from her.
She was caught-
She was caught-
They did not just know that she committed adultery. She was actually caught in the act of it.
This would be an extremely humiliating situation
Have you ever been caught red handed. It is not a fun time. Where there was no where to run.
time I got caught by my parents letting a friend come to my house with his girlfriend
Have you ever caught your kids in an outright lie.
just like this lady before God we can’t run and hide. We are naked before our creator.
they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.
She was humiliated.
She was humiliated.
Maybe one of the reasons you do not know how amazing grace is = you are really good at hiding your sin.
One time one of my kids got in trouble and they literally went behind their bed and they were hiding from me. We are really sneaky at sinning.
This lady was humiliated for her sin. She was not just caught they brought her in front of the court and put her on trial.
This woman is an adulterer.
Aduletry was one of the three top worst sins in Israel.
She was at front and center of the court. They were doing everything in their power to make her feel ashamed. This reminds of the movie the Scarlett Letter.
When was the las time you were bare before God?
“Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?”
She had to pay-
She had to pay-
The Gospel according to John Excursus: The Woman Caught in Adultery (7:53–8:11)
Stoning is the biblically prescribed punishment for a betrothed virgin who is sexually unfaithful to her fiancé, a punishment to be meted out to both sexual partners (Dt. 22:23–24). Elsewhere (Lv. 20:10; Dt. 22:22) death is prescribed for all unfaithful wives and their lovers, but no mode (such as stoning) is laid down.
She was hopeless and helpless.
But we have to ask a question here. Where was her partner. Why was she standing in front of the court and her partner as missing.
The man was getting off. He was doing the same thing we see in the first book of the Bible. Man not taking ownership of his sin. The woman was doing and not having to deal with the consequences.
At this moment she knew she needed rescue.
As bad as a spot as she was in, the reality is we are all in this place spiritually before a holy God.
Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, ...
When we are standing before a HOLY God we are hopeless and helpless.
Many times we read this story and we naturally relate more to the scribe and the Pharisee.
But have you ever related to the lady.
Or do you relate to her partner who is not having to take any responsibility for it.
We will never understand grace if we never understand this first point
John 1:17 “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”
The beauty of the gospel is = the payment we owed was paid in full by God. But that will just be a bunch of empty words if we don’t grasp our hopelessness we will never embrace our savior.
The next lesson we must learn about amazing grace is:
The next lesson we must learn about amazing grace is:
2. we are naturally resistant to it (6-9).
2. we are naturally resistant to it (6-9).
What is your greatest need, what is my greatest need. The grace of God. We are in dire need for grace every single day. How are you responding to grace?
They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.
Religion makes us resistant to it
Religion makes us resistant to it
Remember when we looked at the samaritan lady, she was the one who embraced grace quickly. Nicodemus the religious person got it but it took him longer.
They pharisees were asking Jesus questions not for answers but to accuse him. (6-7)
One of our core values is religion over relationship.
This should scare us like crazy because we are at church and churches can become very religious quickly. These Pharisees were very religious.
As a matter of fact the reason they were bringing this situation to Jesus was because they wanted to show Jesus up.
These men did not think they needed grace because they thought they were better than this woman.
Here is how they viewed this woman:
Illustration: In the movie Les Mis this one act of Grace and Mercy changed him. He used the money he stole to do good with his life and he became the mayor of a city. There is one scene where there is a lady who is working in the factory. She is an outcast and their is a cop who is trying to shame her and the man who was shown grace Jean Valve Jean. This inspector just cannot believe that someone can change. This is what grace does at it’s very core, it changes people.
But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.
Those who had come to shame Jesus now leave in shame. Carson
Application:
Here is the reality
When we share about Christ we are not sharing him in such a way that we are judging people. We are sharing him in such a way that we are a beggar showing another beggar where the food is.
The Last lesson we must learn about amazing grace is:
The Last lesson we must learn about amazing grace is:
3. there is no condemnation for those in Jesus (10-12).
3. there is no condemnation for those in Jesus (10-12).
Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?”
I just want to show you how incredible this situation is. They are in a court room.
God is perfectly Just.
You can’t have grace without justice. The problem with justice is, only God has perfect justice. Only God is the perfect judge.
There is a story in the Bible where David blows it. And God gives him different options for his punishment. Do you remember what he picks
She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”
Grace is life changing
Grace seems too good to be true.
It is free.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?