Throwing Rocks
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Our sermon will be in Luke 20:27-40
We have a website: https://tahlequahworshipcenter.com/
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Awesome God?
Throwing Rocks
Throwing Rocks
I have come before you to tell you that I have sinned.
Where do I start?
If I stood up here and told you my offences, we would be up here a while.
Let me give you a couple that I don’t have control over.
One is food: Gluttony.
I’m getting a grip on that, but I need to show that I can keep it up longer.
Another one is Greed.
My eyes are bigger than my wallet.
I need to do some trimming on my spending.
It’s serious.
I may have to do some work on the side.
It doesn’t matter how I got here or why we are having issues.
I could blame it on others.
I could blame it on medical bills.
But it’s my responsibility and I need to fix it.
And don’t worry, we aren’t going to have to stop eating or anything.
The truth is that we all have some sin in our lives.
Paul tells us in Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
If we all do some soul searching, and we won’t have to dig much, we will find issues in our lives.
Thank God that he will forgive us.
Thank God that paid the price for our sin. Right?
We are going to take a look at John 8 and see what God’s word has to say about those in sin.
1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them.
3 Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst,
4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?”
6 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.
7 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.”
8 And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 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.
10 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?”
11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”
The Sin Of The Others
The Sin Of The Others
I want to talk a little bit about the incident before we go any further.
I’ve told this story many times and every time that I talk about it I find something new.
I do want to say that some NT scholars believe that this story was added later.
However, most of those will also say that it probably did happen.
I think this sounds like Jesus.
The point is that even if it’s not in the earliest greek manuscript, we have good reason to believe that it’s true.
So you have Jesus setting in the Temple area and he’s Teaching.
Then the troublemakers come along.
Once again, they are trying to “trap” Jesus.
There are a lot of issues with the way the Pharisees and scribes are acting.
First, how did they catch her in the act?
Were they looking for trouble or were they in a brothel of some sort.
Something fishy is going on here.
Also, if she was caught in the act, where is the man?
It takes 2 to tango.
Next, they are talking to Jesus about stoning her.
The problem is that they are not allowed to do that.
See, they under Roman authority and the Romans didn’t allow them to kill anyone.
That’s why Jesus was sent to the Romans during the crucifixion.
So they knew the answer here.
They were not allowed because it breaks Roman law.
They are also questioning the truth of Jesus and where his authority comes from.
Some people have said this is the unforgivable sin that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 12:31
They saw the works of Jesus, and they chose to assign it the works of the devil.
And finally, they have sin in their life as well.
We see that in the way they respond to Jesus.
I have seen that some of the angriest people in the church are the ones who are hiding their own sin.
Jesus hits the mark here.
Notice what they all do: they are convicted by their conscience, and they left.
It started with the oldest.
There seems to be an issue with authority these days.
There was when I was younger, but it’s worse now.
What do you see here though: You see the wisdom of the elders.
They recognize their sin and they respect Jesus
Soon, they all leave.
That left the woman standing there all by herself.
The Sin Of The Woman
The Sin Of The Woman
I don’t want to minimize anything the woman did.
We don’t even know what she did for sure.
We know that it was adultery, but was she a prostitute?
Did she have a husband?
Was she doing something wrong before marriage?
Paul tells us later that if this happens between 2 unmarried people, then let them get married.
He even says there is no sin.
Let me say something about desires in general.
God created sex and he deemed it a good thing.
But like any good thing, there needs to be boundaries.
Think of this: Food is a good thing.
We need it to survive.
I’m going to go home and smoke some chicken.
The point is that this woman did sin, but what did Jesus say to her?
He says Go and sin no more.
The Sin Of Us All
The Sin Of Us All
We have all sinned.
I don’t know what your sin is.
I can tell you some of mine.
I’ve already talked about money.
I haven’t been wise in my spending.
I also talked about food a few minutes ago.
I have issues with food, I like it too much.
I’m setting here thinking about some apple pie.
Or some sour dough bread with a big ol’ pile of butter on top.
Now I know the cost of me eating too much.
It may or may not affect me, but it will affect Cristy and the kids.
The same with the money issues.
If I had been more responsible, I wouldn’t be dealing with what I’m going to have to do.
If I start digging, I could find a lot more stuff to talk about.
I’m not here to talk just about my sin, but yours as well.
Just like I quoted earlier in Romans 3, we have all sinned.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
We end up looking like the scribes and Pharisees that we’ve been talking about.
Until we see and acknowledge our sin first, we can’t be talking about others.
The words of Jesus start with us.
I stand before you knowing my faults and publicly acknowledge them.
I could and did use my physical limitations for what I’ve done wrong.
Let me tell you, it was not easy to deny myself what I wanted to eat.
Every time I go out to exercise, my joints cry out in pain.
When I’m in a flare, I get hungry because I normally take a higher dose of prednisone.
But I’m eating healthier and my weight loss is a product of the grace of God.
Somehow, God has helped me through this. I can’t explain it.
I also acknowledge my sin of spending.
I’ve been on a see-things and buy-it diet.
I see it and I buy it.
My wallet is a sieve.
it’s like a boat with a hole in it.
It’s a pontoon boat and one of the pontoons has a hole in it.
It’s a smallish hole, but given some time it’s going to sink.
I’m going to get it out of the water so I can fix it.
The good news is that it can be fixed.
There will be some sacrifices, but with God’s help we can fix it.
If you have a problem and you can’t fix it, God can.
God will help us through it.
Listen, I have some news for you.
No matter what it is that we are struggling with, God can help.
We just read 1 John 1:8 a couple of minutes ago.
Well 1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
and
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Whatever it is, God can and his desire is that it is gone from you.
God has told me, not in any words but through the spirit, that he needs to do a little work on me.
I will never be perfect, but the less motes in my eye will help me to help my brother.
1 “Judge not, that you be not judged.
2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?
4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?
5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
In order for us to help others, we need to clean our eyes out.
My reason to talk about all this today is not to show you how God has changed me and made me better,
but it’s to humble myself and tell of my own sins so that I can speak truth to others.
An old proverb says that we are the windows of the church.
People see Jesus through us.
But I’m here to tell you we need to clean our windows!
So that they can see Jesus
We need to clean our windows. So others can see Jesus
We need to clean our windows. So others can see Jesus
If you are in an airplane, you see those masks.
They tell you to put the mask on yourself first, so that you can help others.
That’s what I am going to do.
How about you?