Key #8: Gentleness

Opening Line

We are going to kick off this morning with a little table interaction. I want you to come up with a list of seven words you would use to describe God. Each table come up with this list, and I will check back in a moment.

Introduction

how many people put gentle on their list? How many of you put gentle on your list simply because you knew gentleness was the topic this morning? I would say that most people do not default to thinking about God as gentle. In fact, when you hear those words, “God is gentle,” if you are like me, your brain goes straight to every story when God wasn’t gentle. Even if I were to say that Jesus was gentle, many of your minds will go straight to the story about Jesus flipping tables and ask, “What about this story?”

yet, as you will see this morning, one of the prophecies about Jesus is that He was going to be gentle. If that is true, and Jesus is gentle, that means God is gentle. The Father and the Son are one, so any description of the one must apply to the other. If God is gentle, if gentleness is one of His character traits, then that means you are also called to be gentle, since you are a child of God and reflect Him to the world.

Gentleness can be a really hard concept for a lot of people. When you think of gentleness, our brains often default to pushover or soft. You have probably seen someone try the gentle parenting approach and have concerns about how that child is going to turn out. I’m saying all gentle parenting is bad, but there are a few kids out there that would do good to hear now every now and then.

I think gentleness is especially hard for men to grasp because you have been conditioned in so many ways that you need to be tough. Men don’t cry, they play football and paintball, and you rough each other up. Even the church has jumped on this and highlighted the warriors of the Bible as an example of how men need to be strong and fight for what is right.

I’m not saying any of these things are wrong, but they are often taught to the ignorance of gentleness. Yet I would say when it comes to being a true man, Jesus is the ultimate example. In the story we are going to look at this morning, you are going to see what gentleness really looks like. It is not soft or a push over, but actually quite the opposite.

if you have your Bible, you can turn to John chapter 8. As you turn there, I want to note that many of your Bibles will have a note that some Greek manuscripts do not actually contain this story. There is debate about whether or not it actually happened, but as we unpack everything that is going on, you will that this is very much something Jesus would do, and it stays true to His character.

John 8:1–5 NLT

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

It’s a trap!

you are going to see in the next verse that this is designed by the Pharisees to be a trap for Jesus. The obvious part of the trap is that if Jesus were to say that she could go free, it is a violation of the Law and He is thus the heretic that the religious leaders want Him to be.

However, this is another aspect of this trap. If Jesus was to say, “Stone her.” because that is what the law required, it would have been a betrayal towards the people that Jesus actually spent most of His time with. The Gospels frequently talk about Jesus being a friend of sinners. He would eat with prostitutes and tax collecters, the lowly of the low. He was constantly showing grace and preaching truth to those who needed it the most. He even said that just as a doctor is for the sick, Jesus came for the lost.

If He would have agreed to the stoning of this woman, that crowd that He spent so much time with would no longer be able to trust Him. Their comfort around His was that He accepted them as people, not as the sum total of their mistakes. To agree to someone being killed for her mistakes would’ve undone all of that.

It is a trap.

Now, there is another question some of you may be wondering. If this woman was caught in adultery, where is the guy? If she was caught in the act, there is a very real chance that this woman is naked and utterly humiliated. But last time I checked, adultery required a partner. Where is he? There is a good chance he is colluding with this crowd. He is probably standing among them, because it was more important to trap Jesus in His words then deal with the sin that was before them.

So what is Jesus going to do?

John 8:6–11 NLT

They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

What was He writing?

the age old question: What in the world did Jesus write in the dirt? There has been speculation, and I have heard a lot of different theories. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. If John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, didn’t feel it was important enough to include, then you really don’t need to know. As it often does, Scripture records only what is necessary for us to grow in faith. What you do know is that between Jesus’ words and what He wrote, the crowd left.

However, I did come across a fairly strong argument that is worth considering. Jeremiah 17:13

Jeremiah 17:13 ESV

O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.

one commentator noted this verse. He also quoted on translator as saying that Jesus may have actually said, “Let the one who hasn’t committed this sin throne the first stone.” What Jesus may have wrote was the names of everyone in the crowd, along with the name of a woman that they either committed adultery with or at the very least looked lustfully toward.

Could you imagine being in that crowd, holding onto a stone, and having Jesus just put on display your own sin, the same way they put this poor woman’s sin on display? There wasn’t a hole big enough to crawl into.

But this is where the gentleness comes in. Isa 42:1-3

Isaiah 42:1–3 NLT

“Look at my servant, whom I strengthen. He is my chosen one, who pleases me. I have put my Spirit upon him. He will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or raise his voice in public. He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. He will bring justice to all who have been wronged.

Jesus was gentle

other translations read v. 2 as he will not shout or fight in public. Nonetheless, Jesus was prophesied as being gentle. In this story, it is easy to see Him being gentle with the woman caught in adultery. His words are soft and comforting, and He allows her to go on, with the encouragement that she is free to sin no more.

But He is also gentle with the crowd. He doesn’t shout, He doesn’t pick a fight with them. He is gentle, but He speaks the truth. The apostle John talks about Jesus ministered with truth and grace.

Some of you who have read the bible cover to cover may need to go back and read it through the lens of gentleness. Every time Jesus has a conversation with the Pharisees, He is gentle. Even in the table flipping, there is a way to gently push a table over.

But Jesus is not a pushover. He stands for truth and brings justice for the oppressed. He is not one to be taken lightly. The challenge for us is to balance these to truths. We need to learn to balance truth and grace, firm but gentle.

Where this needs to be exercised the most is with our words.

Proverbs 15:1 NLT

A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.

You need to err on gentleness

this one really doesn’t need to be unpacked, but I will anyways. How many times has a conflict in your life escalated due to a lack of gentleness? Whether it was a poorly chosen word or a harsh tone, our words have the ability to make things a lot worse. With so many people looking for a reason to be angry, poorly chosen words are an easy way to make them flare up!

Yet when you read the stories of Jesus, there isn’t much temper flares. People walk away disappointed or convicted. They walk away with their foot firmly jammed in their mouth, but they are rarely angry. In the moments that they are angry, it is rarely anything Jesus did and solely due to the guilt and conviction of something Jesus was teaching about.

1 Peter 3:15–16 NLT

Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.

it would be better for you to have a reputation of being gentle, for then even if an accusation is brought, it would be seen as contradictory to who you are.

Gentleness will lead to less conflict in your life. Not that conflict is a bad thing, but it doesn’t need to be unnecessarily escalated. I don’t know about you, but less conflict in my family and marriage sounds like a plan I can get behind.

This week has been a challenge in gentleness. I have a child who is not sleeping through the night. They will often end up in my bed, and that means that mom and dad are not sleeping well either. I can typically operate well on a little sleep, but in spurts. This has been going on long enough even I’m losing the ability to function. I have been less then gentle with this individual. Even though I know that raising my voice probably isn’t going to help, I don’t it anyways. Wouldn’t you know it, it always escalates the situation.

But when I choose the gentle route, it usually works out better. If Jesus was able to de-escalate crowds with a gentle answer, how much more could you minimize conflict in your life by choosing a gentle answer. I’m not saying be a pushover, but if you have to, err on gentleness.