John 8

John 8

Tonight we're going to be back in the book of John chapter 8 and we're going to be looking at this entire chapter and a lot of things to talk about here. The first, as you may know, the 1st 11 verses talk about Jesus and the woman in adultery. So let's go ahead and look at those first. 11 versions tonight. It says, “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. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery. Having said her in the center of the court. He said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery in the very act, and the law of Moses commanded us to stone such women. What then do you say? They were saying this, testing him so that they might have grounds for accusing him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger he wrote on the ground. When they persisted in asking him, he straightened up, and he 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 he rode 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. The woman where she was at the center of the court, straightening up. Jesus said to her, Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you? She said no one. Lord Jesus said I do not condemn you either. Go from now on and sin no more.”

So a few things I want to mention about these verses is we're going through them. We know that Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and it's early and he began teaching in the temple. He's talking, he's. Teaching. And at that point, the scribes and the Pharisees brought in this woman. They brought in this woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. Scripture says verse four in the very act. Can you imagine how this woman must have failed? Can you imagine the shame? Can you imagine how she felt being drug in to all these people in the temple, knowing what she had done?

Another thing I want to mention real quick, also knowing the penalty for what she done. Gonna look at 2 verses in the Old Testament, Leviticus chapter 20 verse 10 and also Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 22. Let's look at that first one. Look at Leviticus chapter 20, verse 10. It says, “If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.” Skip on over real quick. We'll look at Deuteronomy 2222. It's pretty much saying the same thing, but let's look at this first. It says, “If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. Thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.”

So what we see here is we have a little bit of a problem. Not really a problem, but more like a situation. They have brought this woman to Jesus and they're wanting to know what Jesus is going to say. They're wanting to know what Jesus is going to do. They're putting him in a trap. And the reason I say that is they're testing Jesus. The law says to Stoner to put her to death. If he rejects the law, his credibility is gone. If he held on to the law and he said stone or put her to death, then his reputation for compassion, forgiveness, love is questioned. Do you see what I'm saying? They're putting Jesus in a trap. They're trying to get him to either go against the law or to go against his own teachings and his own words.

But Jesus does something that they don't expect. First of all, when they first asked the question, he stooped down and he started to write on the ground again. I kept asking him. What are you going to do? What do you say? He straightened up and he said this verse 7 is very familiar, very popular verse. He used without sin of money. Let him be the first to throw a stone. Now that's a verse that can get you at your heart should. We all have sinned to deal with. We all have it. What did they do? When they heard it, they began to go out one by one. They realized they understood what Jesus was trying to get them to understand. They felt guilty. They left.

Then there was a little conversation that happened afterwards. Verse 10 says, straightening up. Jesus said to her, woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you? In other words, he's saying, look, we all have sin. Everybody has sin now. Jesus was the only perfect person, the only one who never sinned, not one time. But basically what he's telling this woman, they're no better than you. She said no one Lord. Jesus said down Verse 11 says I do not condemn you neither go from now on sin no more.

How do we handle that situation today? Now I know we have probably most, if not all of us have been where Jesus is at the you're doing something, maybe not teaching or teaching in a temple now, but we're we've all been doing something and somebody comes and talks about sin, talks about how bad somebody else is. They may even bring somebody to you and say look what he did. How do we handle that? Do we condemn them? Do we tell them you're going to hell? Are we harsh with them? Or do we love them? Now, with this woman who had been caught in adultery, she knew that she had done wrong. She didn't need anybody to tell her that. She didn't need anybody to rub it in her face and act like they were better than she is. She needed somebody to love her. That's what Jesus did.

Jesus told her go and sin no more. In other words, go and live the life you're supposed to. Don't live the life of sin. Jesus loved this woman. He tells us to do the same. He tells us to love people. How good of a job do we do at that?

Move on down. Look at verses 12 through 30 of John chapter 8. You didn't say this, “And 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. So the Pharisees said to him, You are testifying about yourself. Your testimony is not true. Jesus answered and said to them, Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I come from, where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I'm going. You judge according to the flesh. I am not judging anyone, but even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone. But I and the Father who sent me, even in your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true. I am he who testifies about myself, and my Father who sent me testifies about me. So they were saying to him, Where is your Father? Jesus answered, You know neither. They nor my father. If you knew me, you would know my father also. He's words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, and no one seized him because his hour had not yet come. Then he said to them again, I go away, and you will seek me, and I die, and your sin where I'm going, you cannot come. So the Jews were saying, surely he will not kill himself, will he? Since he says where I'm going, you cannot come. And he was saying to them, you are from below, I am from above, you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. So they were saying to him, Who are you? Jesus said to them, I have been saying to you from the beginning, I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. But he who sent me is true. The things which I heard from him, these I speak to the world. They did not realize that He was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught me. He sent me, is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things. That are pleasing to him as he spoke these things many come to believe in him.”

So we come to this second, I am saying in the book of John, and Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Now if you go back and you look at Old Testament scripture, you look at especially the book of Isaiah, it indicates that the coming Messiah, there would be a time when the Lord would be the light for His people. He's talking about that. He is saying that he is the light of the world. He is the Messiah. He is the one that has come to save the world. But they missed it. They didn't understand who He was. They didn't understand the words that He was saying. If you noticed in the last few chapters, Jesus says several times where I am going, you cannot come. And every time he says that, it makes the Jews question what He is talking about because it doesn't make sense.

Because if we think about it in our worldly language today and what it would mean in practicality today, where I'm going, you cannot come. Well, you know, physically we can go just about anywhere on this earth. If we have the funds, if we have the ability, we can go just about anywhere. There's really nowhere on this earth that we could not follow somebody if we wanted to. But Jesus is not talking about hiding out in another country. He's not talking about going down the street and locking the door behind him. He's talking about going back to heaven. He's talking about sitting at the right hand of the father. He's alluding to his death. He's alluding to what he is going to do on the cross.

Another thing I want to touch on real quick, we hear a lot of times in scripture and in other places and church and we hear people say all the time. I need to follow Jesus. What does that mean? What does that word follow mean? Means we have to give ourselves completely to that person. If we're following, we're not just walking behind him. We're listening to Him, we're obeying him. We're following his lead, we're doing what he does. Are we truly following Jesus or do we just pretend? Because to truly follow Jesus, we study His word, we spend time in prayer, we do what He tells us to do. We follow everything. So I ask you again, are we following or are we pretending?

Now again here Jesus talks about sin. He even says, Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am He. We know what the wages of sin is, right? It's death. If we do not believe in Christ, if we do not follow His word, if we do not do what He tells us to, we will die in our sins. We don't want to end up in that spot. We have God's word, we have all the information we need to be saved. We have the steps of salvation. We have what we need to do. It's up to us to do it. It's up to us to encourage others to do it as well, because the consequences are great.

Going to go ahead and move on down a little bit. Look at verses 31 through 59. I know this is a lot of verses, but it is something that we need to look at at a big block here. It says, “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed in him. If you continue in my Word, then you are truly disciples of mine, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. They answered him. We are Abraham's descendants. Have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them. Truly, truly. I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The Son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free. Then you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's descendants, yet you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I seek the things which I have seen with my father. Therefore you also do things with which you have heard from your father. They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. This Abraham did not do. You are doing deeds of your Father's, they said to him. We were not born of fornication, we have one Father, God. Jesus said to them, If God was your Father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not come of my own initiative, but he who sent me. Why do you not understand what I'm saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father, the devil. You want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God. For this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God. The Jews answered and said to him, Do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me, but I do not seek my glory. There is one who seeks and judges. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. The Jews said to him, Now we know that you have a demon, Abraham died, the prophets also. And you say, if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste of death. Surely you are not greater than our Father Abraham, who died, the prophets died to whom? Who seeks whom you make yourself out to be? Jesus answered. If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our God, and you have. Not come to know him, but I know him. And if I say that I do not know him, I will be a liar like you. But I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. So the Jews said to him, You're not yet 50 years old, and you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Therefore they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”

Alright, so a lot of stuff to go over and talk about here. If you look at the last verse there, we know Jesus finally got them mad enough to throw stones at him. He finally. Told them enough to make them that mad. If you look back at verse 31, that first verse we looked at here in this block, one of the biggest steps to true discipleship that we have is to be obedient, to be obedient to God's Word. Now we should understand that. We probably do understand that, especially this group here that gathers here on Wednesday night. But we know it's important to be obedient to God's Word. If it wasn't important, it wouldn't be in the scripture. That's a philosophy that I have always said. Because some people will take out parts of scripture. Some people will change parts of scripture. You can't do that. You can't take out scripture because we don't like what it says. We can't take out scripture because we don't want to follow it. We have to be obedient to every bit of it.

Now Jesus goes on to talk about how we are slaves to sin. Now I'm sure most of us can probably understand why that is, because we have all sinned. We've all done things that God doesn't approve of. We've done things that God told us not to do. And we understand how easy it is to get caught up in dissent. It's easy to get caught up in the sin because it seems enjoyable. It seems like the perfect thing to do at the moment. It seems like we just have to have it. But that's when we run into a problem. That's how we become a slave to sin, because we have to have it. We can't survive without it. The only way to get out of that is through Christ. That's it. We have to have his help.

Now if we go on and we look at some other things that Jesus said, he's talking about heaven and hell. He's alluding to eternity. We have to follow Him, we have to believe in Him to in order to make it to heaven. And belief is much more than just acknowledging one's existence. We talked about this back in John chapter 3. When we believe in someone, we follow them. When we believe and we follow in some one, we acknowledge what they say is true. We follow it. We follow His word, we do what He tells us to. All of that is included in belief.

The last thing I want to touch on here real quick tonight is Naomi in verse 58. Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Now this is something that is very important. We cannot let go of the fact that Jesus said I am. Now why is that important? Well, it's important because if you go back to the book of Exodus chapter 3 and you look at God is sending Moses. And God is sending Moses out, and Moses basically says, well, if they question my authority, what am I supposed to tell them? Verse 14 of Exodus chapter 3 says. “God said to Moses, I am who I am. He said, Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you.”

Now this is important because those words I am are very closely tied to YAHWEH. To God the Father, this would have been something that the Jews would have known they would have picked up immediately on it. You see, they were so focused on not taking the Lord's name in vain that they would have never said those words. I am. They would have never said it in that way because they were so focused. They did not want. In any way, shape or form to take the Lord's name in vain, they would have never said what Jesus himself said. Because he is calling him equal with Yahweh. And that's what made them so mad. They picked up stones to throw at him.

To them, this was considered blasphemy. Because they would have never done this, they would have never said those words, They would have never put themselves in that position. But Jesus did now he couldn't blaspheme because he was God in the flesh. But they didn't understand that at the time. They didn't get it. They didn't grasp it. And just like always when we're looking at these verses, we cannot forget who Jesus is. We cannot forget his authority, how he was able to say what he did. It was because he is the Son of God. He is the Messiah.