Primary concepts that are taught within the Gospel of John, what makes John's Gospel unique, is John himself and his style of writing, his approach to laying out the Gospel has a different slant, a different approach because he is communicating at a level that is to take us beyond information. Many times the Gospels, as we think about them, they give the stories of Jesus and what he did, and they give teachings and what he taught. John's Gospel is to take it a little bit further and get it to the heart. It's to present it in a way that if you dig a little bit and search a little bit and listen a little longer, it's going to take us to another place.
And that's his purpose and intent is that the good news touches the heart and changes people's lives. It's harder to get through the Gospel of John and not have to deal with what's inside of us. If you read the other Gospels, you may gather a lot of pieces of information, you may get teachings about what is right and what is wrong. You may hear the stories, but sometimes it's possible to hear it and become familiar with it.
And somewhat miss its intent to change and transform the heart. As you read John's Gospel, it gets to you. And it's the beauty of it, not only that, the others cannot do that, but it's the beauty of how God has used this Gospel to the point that most people who have been brought up in church and someone says, well, where do you start? What do they say?
The Gospel of John. It's because it has its own unique style and approach to that. But we realize as we journey on through life that if you take one small piece of the Gospel and don't read at all, there's a chance that some things you can miss. Some things you won't capture.
It's intended to be one Gospel that comes to us and touches the heart and life. So we've been working our way through these things to try to understand what are these significant truths or these significant teachings that really give you the framework to build your life upon. Two weeks ago, I was going to say last week, but last week I was at home. And most likely you were at home and we kind of got snowed in, but we are grateful that we can be together again this morning.
Two weeks ago, we talked about the importance that the Gospel was intended to be a means of teaching us about Christ and teaching us about truth. And so it's important as followers of Jesus Christ that if we take a hold of the teachings of Christ and we hold them and we cherish them and we keep them, Jesus said, you'll know the truth. And that truth will set you free. It's the core of what the Gospel is.
It's the good news that truth has been given to us. It's the good news that we can know what the truth is. It's the good news that the truth becomes this foundation stone in our lives that as we follow Him, we are a people of the truth. We are a people that believe that what Jesus taught is what sets us free.
John chapter 8, turn with me again to 31 and 32. John chapter 8 verse 31 and 32. Now to the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you'll know the truth and that truth will set you free.
As we spend significant time a couple weeks ago in the Sunday morning talking about the number of places throughout scripture that reinforce the same concept that there is this teaching. There is this truth that is given to us. And what allows us to grow and what allows us to experience a clear understanding of what is right and wrong. What allows us to be changed is a constant steady diet of truth.
But that truth is so much more than information. It's the words that give life. And when Jesus spoke His words, He spoke them and gave them to us as spirit and life. Those words themselves are extremely powerful.
They will nourish us and they will give us direction in life. They are the secret to a change life is we live on these truths. Now Jesus not only came in truth, but to notice if we go back to John chapter 1 and we look at verse 14. John chapter 1 verse 14.
We find that the gospel of John is unique in a sense that there is a strong emphasis upon this word called grace. John chapter 1 verse 14 says, now the word meaning Christ became flesh. Made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only.
Who came from the Father full of grace and truth. Drop down to verse 16. From the fullness of His grace. We have all recede one blessing after another.
For the law was given through Moses in verse 17, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Let's take a minute and break. Father, we are humbled by the reality that that truth not only has spoken into our lives, but it came with grace all around them. We realize the importance, the value of taking to heart your teachings and walking in a life of obedience and devotion to those teachings.
Yet because of grace we hope. Because of grace we can experience your life. Because of grace we get second chances. Because of grace we have a power that's not ours, but it is.
We thank you for that grace that has softened us and given us some kind of stability in life, some kind of security in life. We thank you for the grace that not only amazes us but empowers us in Jesus name. Amen. Turn with me now as we look back in John chapter 8.
Gospel of John chapter 8. Now the word can be used as information, that the word grace as it's used throughout the gospel is one form in which God or through Jesus Christ has given us grace. But the way that Jesus ministered to people, it was rather evident that he not only talked about the idea of grace, but he lived it, he communicated it. And many of us that are familiar with the gospel stories and the accounts of others that surrounded Jesus, particularly the religious leaders, grace was not part of the vocabulary.
They may not even know how to spell it, they certainly didn't know how to offer it, they didn't know how to share it. And you and I are well aware that as devoted as God has called us to be without a cushion of grace, without a foundation of grace, without that presence of grace in our life, none of us could ever even come close to following all the teachings and the principles that Jesus gave. It's important to understand that just as Jesus came communicating a truth that gets set people free, he offered a grace that allows you to live within the balance and the beauty of a holy God and of every unholy nature. You and I, as we all are born and we continue to grow, we recognize that it doesn't take very long to realize that the real you will stand.
Who you and I are, not only because of how we are created or born as descendants of Adam, who has eaten the forbidden fruit and has shared that in essence with each and every one of us, we have this tendency or this strong depravity that consumes us, it controls us. It's because of grace that regardless of my past, I can have hope in a Savior who loves me in the future. And so that grace is what enables us to not only understand the truth that penetrates the heart, but it allows us to stand with assurance that I'm okay, even those sin continues to work in my life. John chapter 8, and we begin with verse 1 and we'll read down through 11.
Here's a story in which this grace is clearly manifested and it's demonstrated among the followers who have come to listen to Jesus. I believe we're putting these scriptures up there. Okay, so if you like to follow up on the screen, you're certainly welcome. In verse 1, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives in verse 1.
At dawn, he appeared again in the temple courts where all the people gathered around him and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought any woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
What do you say? They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down, he started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, if any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.
Again, he stooped down and he wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time. The older ones first until only Jesus was left with the woman standing still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you? No one, sir, she said, that neither do I condemn you. Jesus declared, go now and leave your life of sin. It's interesting that when we try to understand the background to all that is taking place, most of us are well aware that probably one of Jesus' primary teaching topics was forgiveness.
And he talked about this love of God that is greater than our sin. He talks about this grace of God that enables us to understand and respond to God. It's almost as if this grace, when it begins to soften your heart, Jesus becomes extremely irresistible. As you and I begin to be aware or familiar with the concepts of grace, it has a way of breaking the hardest of us.
It brings us to a place in which we want not only this grace, but we long to experience that grace day by day by day by day. And so as Jesus is communicating this unlimited supply of forgiveness and this amazing grace that is constantly being demonstrated and given out, you have the religious people who believed in all honesty, that they were perfect, they were pure, they were innocent, they were above these things. And so you can imagine it really, really irritated them. Who does this Jesus guy take his?
That he can just say, you're forgiven. Who does this Jesus guy take his? That he can pretend or present himself as this. He has the authority to speak, you're forgiven.
Who is this Jesus guy that could talk about a love as if it's for everybody? Who is this Jesus guy that comes across anyway and he ministers to people who are clearly sinners? So everything that they believed in, everything they cherished and he was to make sure people stayed in a nice little box and behaved exactly the way they're supposed to. They talked in a way, condemned a lot more than ever gave hope to other people.
And I trust that we recognize that regardless of where we've been in our past, that we realize that we are fully capable of identifying with this woman and we're certainly fully capable of identifying with the Pharisees. And throughout the journey of cherishing the teachings of Christ, there's moments when you and I are going to really feel good about ourselves. And there's other times in the journey of faith that we're going to feel like the stone is about to come on my head. I trust that we realize the beauty of this grace, though it's very difficult to explain this favor that God pours out.
One thing you and I must recognize is our standing before God began because of grace and on a judgment day, it's not going to change. You and I are embraced. We're covered. We're surrounded by this grace.
What Jesus wants to teach us is what it amazed you about it in the beginning. I trust we'd humbly become aware that that's what needs to amaze us all the way through. And as you and I have searched through this journey of life as we become followers of Christ, we do not minimize the importance of holding firmly to the teachings of Jesus Christ. But what really gives you the grip is grace.
What gives you insurance to continue to press on. What gives you the hope that one day we might live a little bit more in the dimension of maturity is because this grace keeps getting to your heart. Well, sometimes we would struggle with this. No doubt you'd run into people and say, wait a minute, wait a minute, you're telling me that you Christians, meaning us who believe and hold to the teachings of Jesus, you guys tell me that a person literally could live however they want to unthinkable things all the way through their life.
And in that final hour, that moment of their life, in their last breath, they say, Jesus, I'm sorry. And that person gets to go to heaven. No doubts. We may not be Pharisees, but there's still an element that hangs within our mind and heart that says, it can't be that good.
But my proposal is not simply to give us an excuse to live it up and then wait till the last second and throw in an eye, do that would be foolish because grace is something. You didn't earn it. You don't deserve it. You can't control it.
You can't package it. All you and I can do is take it when it overwhelms us. So here we are as a people that are overwhelmed in seasons of life. There's sometimes that grace doesn't really break the hardness of our heart.
And other days the grace just softens us so pliable. The challenge we have is when he speaks. That's when we listen. And when we listen, that's the moment to once again receive this abundant, amazing grace.
Now, what's interesting is the woman isn't even the issue in this story. Religious leaders, they worked long and hard to trap this Jesus guy. He keeps talking about love and forgiveness and mercy. He keeps talking about these things and they're trying to figure out how to nail him to the wall.
So they conveniently grabbed somebody that probably had a reputation in town. They grabbed one that somehow they had to figure out the time to catch her at the same time Jesus is teaching. So you have this battle going on between the new teacher in town making Jesus and the ones who always are known as the teachers of the law. You've got the religious leaders who believe that their job is to teach it right and Jesus shows up with a different twist.
So the showdown began, no doubt, as we consider this, that it's an awful situation. To simply grab someone else at a point and grab someone else and publicly humiliate them. Obviously she was most likely devastated not only in the reality of her own life, but she's obviously humiliated to be drug right in front of them with the assurance or the conviction or the belief that I guess this is it. I'm caught.
I'm condemned. I'm guilty. But she simply uses it on to the religious ideas. I trust that we recognize there may have been times that we have somehow built ourselves on some kind of a platform because we're in good mode.
We're feeling pretty good with the things of God. We're trying to follow God. We're trying to do what God wants us to do. And somehow these crazy thoughts, the same thought that God put in the religious leaders can rest in us.
We somehow think that we're better than someone else. So this story is intended to bring down the plane field on the level ground because the grace that saved you is the grace that keeps you. It's the grace that you and I will hold on to on Judgment Day. We're not going to talk our way to the early gates saying God, I've really been good.
We will probably break and say I'm a sinner. But because of his grace and because of his love and because of his faithfulness, he will welcome us into his presence. It's the foundation of grace that continually transform the life of shapes and changes the way we look at scripture and shapes and changes the way we interpret life. It shapes and changes what keeps us going, what motivates us, what presses us on is we know we are people that the grace of God has found me.
Well, there was a time when we were blind, but now we see. And God has opened our eyes to begin to respond to this. So we have this showdown of the religious leaders and combating Jesus and trying to trap him and trying to set him up. And it's kind of ironic as we think about this drama to unfold.
And what does Jesus do? We notice here when we look in John chapter 8, verse 6. They were using this question as a trap. They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing Jesus.
But Jesus bent down and he started to write on the ground with his finger. He doesn't say anything. He simply bends out. He writes on the ground and the scriptures make it clear.
He writes with his finger. Now as the religious leaders were well aware and the majority of people fully understood that thou shalt not commit adultery. It's one of the big ten. It's one of those that's kind of hard to weasel your way through that one.
You either did or you didn't, you're either involved, you're not involved. And as Jesus writes on the ground, we need to humbly consider Exodus chapter 31. Exodus chapter 31. We'll hold on to John and come back.
But look at Exodus chapter 31 and verse 18. Exodus chapter 31 and verse 18. Now I forgot to mention when we look at John, they say that in the law Moses commanded us. Did you get that phrase back in John chapter 18?
We recognize that the religious leaders, ironically when we talk about being disciples and followers of Jesus, ironically the religious leaders claim to be disciples of whom? Does anybody know? Moses. They were disciples.
They were students of the law. They submitted to the teachings of Moses. And so somehow they connected the laws with the Moses guy who met God on the mountain and received the laws. But who gave Moses the laws?
God did. But they were using that. Moses. He's bigger than you Jesus.
He'd been around a lot longer than you Jesus. Their misunderstanding of the identity of Christ was according to the law. It's Moses command us. Exodus 31 verse 18.
When the Lord had finished speaking to Moses, he's on the mountain on Mount Sinai. He gave him the two tablets of the testimony. The tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God. I don't know what that would be like.
It kind of witnessed with distance. God write these laws. But Jesus has now identified himself as the one right. He says, I'm well aware that this is a big care.
I'm well aware that the law has principles to follow and reinforce. I'm well aware that this woman has committed adultery. Jesus identifies himself as the one whose finger wrote the law, though probably the religious leaders did not see the connection because they did not want to see the connection. You don't understand the significance of what Jesus is doing.
They simply are saying, you know, we got you now because you're quiet. You're just doodling on the ground. You're coming up with time. You're stalling because you know that if you let this woman free, you are minimizing the importance of God's law.
And if you do not let her free, then you must kill her. You must cause her to die. The penalty of this particular law. The religious leaders, they could not see it not only because they did not want to, but that's the beauty of John's Gospel is when our heart is in the right place.
Truth begins to do its work. When our heart is in the wrong place, the most obvious you and I will miss. That's the intent of the Gospel. The Gospel is intended to keep us from knowing all the right answers and pretending to be the right people.
I trust that as we look at the Gospel, we realize that through a response to the person of Jesus Christ by responding to him as for who he is, we begin to gather the insight and the beauty of all that's taking place. And so Jesus never says a word to defend the woman, nor does he attempt to justify his own actions. Jesus then says if anyone is without sin, let him be the first. His words were basically, okay, the law says she is to be stolen.
Who here is innocent? I'm not sure exactly what Jesus wrote on the ground, but I think it was rather clear whether they just discovered by what he said or somehow by what he seemed to write. It's somehow the scriptures make it clear that when you break one law, you are called a law breaker. When you're sin in one area, you're the same as all sinners.
So it's important to know that the beauty of the Gospel, the grace of God, brings us all to a place where we are guilty before we're healed. We are brought to a place in which there is no way to throw stones. He brings us to a place where each and every one of us are well aware that the punishment ought to fall upon all of us. And yet because of the goodness and the love and the mercy and the forgiveness of Christ that there is hope.
And you can imagine the multitudes are hanging on to the moment. Now you got to realize at the beginning of chapter 8, it says the places packed, it's the temple grounds. It's the outer courts of the temple. And Jesus is speaking about this love, this mercy and grace and the people have come, all kinds of people packed.
They're probably holding on to, can Jesus pull this one off? As people anticipate it, what will he say? Well this woman truly be stones. It makes sense that the oldest, then on down to the youngest, went away one at a time because they realized, Jesus, we really don't like him.
We really don't want this grace. But since you put it that way, I think it's actually a good thing. Can you imagine being in the crowd and well aware? Now the ironic thing about the story is where is the man?
There's a good chance that in the presence of Christ somebody was squirming. Somebody was well aware and most likely all the religious people knew who it was and they were all part of it. In other words, they all had their hands involved most likely in this. So they began to realize, I think it's time to get out of there.
When the first guy left, it made it easier for the second guy to left and they started going out pretty darn fast because they realized this Jesus must know something that somebody either leaked the information or that's his particular style. He graced knows how to search us and to break us down to the point. And we know that he knows, but somehow because of grace, I think I need to keep silent. I think I need to allow my heart to break for a moment.
I think I need to allow myself to experience that I'm guilty. Somehow my hope is that there's a freedom offered. Well, not only does Jesus inscribe on the ground or right with his finger, with the significance of God, but the story goes on. As we mentioned, we think in terms of the law is given by Moses.
In other words, the teachers of the law, the disciples of Moses, the religious leaders, identified that their pattern is we're like a Moses. We are teachers, we are preservers of truth. Now if we go back to Exodus 32, the story continues to unfold. We were at the end of 31 and we realized that Moses has given these finished products, the Ten Commandments.
He has them. They're holy, they're sacred. He's carrying them. And God gives them to him and is clear that they were inscribed by the finger of God.
Notice in verse 1 of chapter 32 now. And we'll read down through several scriptures going down through 19 of chapter 32. Now when the people saw that Moses was a long time in coming down from the mountain, that's interesting. I don't know how long it takes God to do handwriting.
I don't know how long it takes God to do his inscribing. But 40 days Moses is on the mountain alone with God. So you could only imagine that after a period of time Moses is going to have this encounter with God and the people are down there wondering, okay, how long does it take for an encounter with God? And actually the human simple side of us is we kind of believe that whatever God does, he does it instantly, he does it quick.
And so this longing period, what is going on down below in verse 1, they gathered around Aaron, now he is the high priest. Come make us gods who will go before us as for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt. We don't know what has happened to him. Aaron answered, take off your gold earrings and your wives, your sons and daughters are wearing and bring them to me.
So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They were fashioning it with the tool. Then they said, these are your gods, oh Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and he announced, tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord. So the next day the people rose early, they sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings after where they sat down to eat and drink and they got up to indulge in revelry. Verse 7, the Lord said to Moses, go down because your people whom you brought up out of Egypt, they have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I command of them and have made them sell an idol cast in the shape of a calf.
They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, these are your gods, oh Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. Verse 9, I have seen these people, the Lord said to Moses, and they are a stiff necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I might destroy them, then I will make you into a great nation. But Moses, but Moses sought the favor of the Lord has not.
He said, why should your anger burn against your people who you brought out of Egypt with a great and mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them and the mountains to wipe them off the face of the earth, turn from your fierce anger? Relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember, your servants Abraham, Isaac, take her.
To whom you swore by your own self, I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land. I promise them and it will be their inheritance forever, then the Lord relented and did not bring his people the disaster he had written. Jesus says Moses, the one you claim to be disciples of, he is not throwing stones. He stood boldly in the presence of Almighty God, knowing his anger is hot.
And later on you will find he says, if they are not redeemed, you have blocked my name out. The story of redemption is all through the Bible. And the story of this love, the sacrificing love, ought to come through those who are disciples of Moses. In essence, Jesus often would make claims such as that if you did not listen to Moses, you won't listen to me.
Jesus has now elevated himself by writing on the ground which they did not catch. He's elevated himself above Moses, who they claim to have been the big man. That gave us the big ten. He gave us these laws.
And Jesus reminds him, Moses wasn't interested in killing anybody. He was boldly standing in there. And now we realize we look in verse 30 and 32 of the same chapter. The next day Moses said to the people, you've committed a great sin.
But now I will go up to the Lord. Perhaps I can make atonement. Again, we begin to see that in the very law that condemns is the same law which offers atonement. It offers a sacrifice of substitution.
And we recognize that through all the Passover story in the Old Testament, that the same law that has provided the firmness, there is a law that always offers grace. And this is the message or the gospel, the good news that has come through Jesus Christ. Verse 31, Moses went back to the Lord and said, oh, what a great sin these people have committed. They have made themselves gods of gold.
But now please forgive their sin. But if not, then blot me out of the book that you have written. Which time is it? Okay, it says 915.
Sorry about that. So we learn that Moses is standing in the gap and in essence is saying, you can take them or you can take them. And that's the essence of what the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ is. But I don't know if I read earlier in there what Moses did when he got down and he saw the people going crazy and wild.
He says he threw the stones and he shattered them over top of the people. But now we get down to chapter 34 and verse 1. The Lord says to Moses, tisle out two stone tablets like the first ones. And I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
Jesus stoops down and he writes a second time. He gives it a second chance. Not only do you understand that the law that condemns us, the same law provides hope for us. What is this grace?
This grace is the amazing way that we can only say, Lord, the stones have been broken. Because of the law that I have set aside. But I thank you that the second set of stones were written with grace all around them. God's offer of salvation is not because the you and I have earned some great position.
It's not because we have become these great people with great obedience and great devotion. Those are important qualities and will give us so much joy and peace in life. But the basis of our salvation, the basis that sets this woman free isn't simply that the people walked away. Because by law Jesus was required to stone her or let himself get nailed across.
And that's what brings grace to its greater portions. Jesus did not simply say what you've done, don't worry about it. He's not saying to the woman what you've done, it's okay, it's understandable. He's not saying to the woman, I'll sweep your sins under the carpet.
He's not simply saying, well, we'll just forget about it. He takes the stone himself. The beauty of grace is that someone pays a huge price. The beauty is just like Moses, block me out so your people can go free.
And that's what Jesus came to do, is He came to communicate and in John's gospel become so clear that everything Jesus did was for your benefit in mind. Everything Jesus taught is for your benefit in mind. Everything that Jesus ultimately ever does is for your benefit in mind. And that's this grace.
It's between journey to the gospel of John and we learn what this life truly is about. We always remember our real security isn't because we're climbing up some spiritual ladder making greater levels of success. It's because grace, and it's always grace that keeps us, that secures us. Our security is because we are in Christ.
We've invited Jesus Christ to be at the center and foundation of our lives. And therefore there's no longer any condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. It's a relationship with Him. So as we come and we continue to grow in our understanding of God's grace, His love, His forgiveness and mercy we recognize.
It's where we are today that is so important. We had a place where our hearts are receptive, we're tempted to receive this grace. Is that the foundation of our life and is that the motivation to continue to live? I trust we will never become Pharisees.
But I also trust that if those that yeast of that Pharisees isn't as beginning to do its work and we think we're doing pretty good, remember one of them. We are saved by grace through grace. It's not ourselves. It is a gift of God blessed any man who lives.
Father, we humbly come before you. Not simply looking for an excuse to set our guard down, they're not simply looking for a means to bypass. What true love and loyalty looks like. We do pray that your grace would give us a boost.
Some of us no doubt might feel a little overwhelmed with things that have crept into our lives. Others of us we might feel a little overly confident. We pray that the beauty of your grace would bring us all to the same playing field so that we know that our security is in you and not in ourselves. Yet we trust that you will mature us.
You will grow us. You will strengthen us so that we might bear fruit for your glory and honor in Jesus name. God bless you. Have a great day.