Shame and Forgiveness

Main Idea: I want my students to be free from shame through the forgiveness of Christ.

Intro: Paint Picture

Jesus is teaching, crowds are all around Him.

Pharisees jostle and move people around to get to the center.

They’re dragging a crying woman. She’s covered with a sheet, and there are bruises on her arm where the men dragged her.

They explain that she was caught in adultery and demand her death

Jesus starts writing on the ground.

They ask again.

Jesus responds, and then continues to write.

Everyone leaves.

This story is emotional and intense. It tells of a woman found in sin, men who use shame as a weapon, and a God who loves.

CONTEXT

Before we get into it, we should talk about some of what’s going on right now in this.

Most of you who are looking at your Bibles can see that there’s a line that says that the earliest manuscripts don’t include this section.

What that means is that the earliest writings of John don’t have this story; so does that mean that we should just leave it out?

I don’t think so. While this section wasn’t initially included in John, the story itself was around for a long time before it was written specifically in John.

So, it seems like the event actually happened, but then it wasn’t initially included in that section of John until later. So, this story is true, it just wasn’t initially included, but now (by the grace of God) it is.

Now, we’re going to see the tool that the religious leaders use, and then the tool that Jesus uses.

Shame

How would you define shame?

A painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.

This woman must have felt immense shame.

She was found to be sleeping with someone who wasn’t her husband, and then forcefully dragged from her house and then into the temple. She was thrown at the feet of Jesus and had her sins told to everyone.

You see, the Pharisees used shame as a weapon.

For them, this woman wasn’t a person, she was a filthy sinner who deserved to die, and they made that incredibly clear.

For one, they used the Law as a weapon to trap her.

They would have had to catch her in the act in order to accuse her, and then they would have quoted Lev. 20:10.

Leviticus 20:10 ESV

“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

But, there’s a big question here. WHERE’S THE GUY?

The woman wasn’t alone when she was caught, and yet the Pharisees don’t bring the man to be killed, just the woman.

These men are weak, attacking women and letting the men go because they view woman as property.

They throw her at Jesus so that they could trap Him in His words.

You see, the Jewish Law that they all lived by said that if someone was caught in adultery, then they were to be killed.

So, they can say, “Jesus, You claim to be all about mercy, but this woman needs to be executed. What are you going to do?”

Shame is the tool that they use to make people feel worthless and to make them better than anyone.

And maybe you’ve felt the same way

We all have things in our lives that we’re ashamed of, and there’s times when we can be defined by our shame.

Maybe you feel like God could never love you because you’ve watched pornography

Maybe you feel like God could never love you because of the way you’ve treated people

And that shame can eat away at you until you feel like you are nothing except for the sin that you’ve committed.

Or, maybe you’ve been like the Pharisees.

Maybe you feel like someone is less than human because of what they’ve done. Maybe you feel like God could never love them because of the things that they’ve done.

But Jesus doesn’t use shame.

In this story, He doesn’t even address the woman’s sin until everyone else has left. He won’t use shame to destroy her, He puts it on them.

He tells the men that they can absolutely kill her, but only if they’ve never sinned.

This causes them to look at themselves, and eventually realize that they can’t possibly fit that bill.

And so, bit by bit, they start to leave, until it’s just the woman and Jesus.

The ironic thing is that the only one who could have ever thrown that stone was Jesus!

He’s perfect, He’s God in the flesh, and so if He had chosen to eliminate this woman because of her sin, He would have been the only one who could, and yet He didn’t!

It’s then that He addresses her.

He tells her that He hasn’t condemned her, meaning that He’s not going to punish her, but that she should stop sinning and turn to Him.

So, what have we learned from shame?

You are not defined by your shame in God’s eyes.

You’ve done some despicable stuff (we all have), but when God sees you, He sees a son or a daughter who He loves.

Yeah, sin is evil and it needs to be removed from your life, but God still loves you.

“Sin was not treated lightly by Jesus, but sinners were offered the opportunity to start life anew” Borchert: John

Don’t use shame against others.

You are not the one who can condemn people. You can’t decide that whatever they’ve done is so despicable that God must hate them, only God can do that.

Shame ruins people’s lives, don’t be the source of shame for someone else.

Forgiveness

This is the tool that Jesus uses for the woman.

When the Pharisees brought her in front of Jesus, there was no way that they would have thought that Jesus would have forgiven her.

She was in the wrong! She had been caught, and the Law was clear that she was supposed to die.

But they forgot who Jesus was.

Jesus doesn’t forget about her sin, but He doesn’t let her sin define her.

He tells her that he doesn’t condemn her.

That’s a legal term meaning to pass judgment on someone.

A judge will condemn a murderer to death.

Jesus knows that this woman was caught, He knows that her sin was evil, and He knows that she’s messed up (He’s God, remember)

But Jesus chooses to forgive he, something that the Pharisees couldn’t do.

You see, for the Pharisees, God was a judge who could only say guilty

A law can never tell you that you did well, it can only call you guilty.

And so, the Pharisees looked at everyone through the eyes of the law, and saw what they wanted to see: terrible people in need of execution.

Jesus, however, looked at people differently.

So, what have we learned from forgiveness?

Forgive others.

If we are so forgiven by God, then we can’t hold on to the grudges that we do.

God loves you and has forgiven you, but He also loves the person you hate. He created them with a purpose.

Don’t be like the Pharisees, waiting to pounce on any weakness to make yourself look better and being unable to forgive.

Forgive others in the same way that you’ve been forgiven.

Matthew 6:14–15 ESV

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

God looks at people as only He can.

He sees your sin, He knows you better than you could possibly know yourself, and He’s aware that you are jacked up beyond anything that you could imagine.

But at the same time, He sees a child who He loves, He knows how He created you with a purpose, and He loves you more than you could ever hope.

That’s the Gospel! You are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believed, and at the same time more loved and accepted in Jesus than you ever dared hope!

YOU ARE FORGIVEN.

Questions.

What is your favorite word to say?

Why is shame so hard to escape from?

Are there grudges in your life that you know you need to forgive?

Read vs. 11. If you have shame defining you, how can Jesus’ words help you?