Go And Sin No More | John 8:1-11

But when the banging kept going, Brian Hamilton turned around and saw a woman with a message on her phone through the glass that read, “The mole on the back of your neck is cancer.”

That’ll get your attention. And it turns out she was right. Hamilton had the mole biopsied and found it was a phase 2 malignant melanoma.

Turns out the woman was a 22-year-old physician named Nadia Popovici, and she saved Hamilton’s life. If the mole had been left unchecked for a few years, it could have proven fatal.

What a random situation. But it makes me thankful that she noticed and was willing to point it out.

But it also reveals something that is true about us — It’s easy to spot flaws in other people.

Now, I’m not saying her motive is wrong. It wasn’t. But I am saying it was much easier for her to see that spot on the back of his neck than it would have been for her to see a spot on the back of her own neck.

And it speaks to a spiritual truth - It’s easy to see flaws in others, but miss them in ourselves. Now, her motive was pure. She wanted to help.

But the way this usually plays out on a spiritual level is we tend to see the flaws and point them out not to be a help but to tear someone down.

Husbands and wives do it - We see the worst in our spouse and ignore our own issues.

Parents do it to their children - We tend to highlight their mistakes and forget that they are likely just following mom and dad’s lead.

Employees do it to their bosses - They talk about a toxic environment or an unforgiving mindset, but they contribute with their own spirit.

Church members do it to each other - We’re quick to focus on an issue when we have our own.

It’s a spirit Jesus dealt with in Matthew 7 when he talked about judgingv a mote in someone else’s eye when we have a beam in our own.

Seeing the spots on others is easy. Doing it in a helpful way is not.

And to make it worse, we ignore or excuse our own flaws in the process.

We give ourselves the benefit of the doubt while refusing to do so for others.

Proverbs 21:2 “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: But the Lord pondereth the hearts.”

We’re quick to see ourselves as noble and sincere and genuine but write others off just as quickly.

But the truth is, to focus on the flaws in others while ignoring our own is liking having a spot on the back of your neck and talking about someone else’s issues.

One group of people that was very good at pointing out the flaws of other was the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders in Jesus’ day. They are the focus of our text this morning.

The day after Jesus was in the Temple saying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me,” He returns to the Temple to teach.

Notice in vs. 2 that He starts His day early. Apparently, He Jesus didn’t even go home. He went up on the Mount of Olives for the night, then came right back to the Temple early the next morning.

It’s not wrong to make God’s House the central part of your life. When you seek first God’s kingdom, there are things that other people view as sacrifices that you view as normal.

Some people struggle with giving their Sunday to the Lord. Many in here spend 5 or 6 hours at church on Sunday with prayer meetings, Sunday School classes, practices and services.

Sundays can feel long. But for our family, a long time ago we decided it’s not too much to give a whole day to the Lord. It’s called the Lord’s Day.

That’s not the main point of this text, but it’s something worth noting.

Jesus comes to the Temple, and there’s a lot of interest in Him. Last time we saw how many people were talking about Him and whether He might be the Messiah.

So while He is sitting in the Temple, the scribes and Pharisees bring a woman to Him that was caught in adultery.

Adultery is sexual sin outside of the marriage relationship.

Vs. 4 says, “Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.”

There’s so much that seems fishy about this:

“Caught in the act?”

It seems as if that could only happen if there was a set up.

A private sin, as bad as adultery is, is usually not done in a way that is obvious and visible.

So the implication is that these men potentially were behind the situation from the very beginning. We don’t know that, but would you put it past them?

Here’s another question I have:

“Where’s the man that was involved?”

Adultery requires two people.

Just last night my wife was getting on to the kids about arguing and she said, “It takes two to tango.” Moms have so much wisdom.

But the same thing is true in adultery. It requires two people.

So if they used a man to set up this woman, that’s as low as it gets.

But to add insult to injury, they don’t bring the man to Jesus. They just let him go.

This reveals just how delusional they were about Jesus. They didn’t care about the law. They cared about trapping Jesus.

They turned a private sin into a public spectacle

I’m not saying adultery isn’t wrong. But they made it worse by making it public.

Vs. 3 says “They set her in the midst”

So Jesus was sitting in the Temple, teaching Scripture to a group of eager listeners, when these Pharisees walk right through the middle of the crowd dragging this woman by the arm.

They wanted to do this as publicly as possible.

Can you imagine that happening here this morning? We’re having a service, looking at God’s Word, focused on truth, and a group of angry men lead a woman by the arm right up here to the platform, make her face us and say, “She was caught in adultery. The law says she should be killed with stones. What do you say, Pastor?”

That’s essentially what’s happening. You talk about an awkward and uncomfortable situation.

And the worst part is they don’t care about the woman. They just want Jesus.

This is what self-righteousness does. They aren’t as committed to righteousness as they are appearances.

They don’t care what happens to her. She’s a pawn in their game. An agenda is taking precedent over a life.

When this was all over, can you imagine what this woman’s life would have been like?

Jesus doesn’t condemn her, but she was marked from this point on.

Walking down the street, “That’s her. The woman caught in adultery.”

Either way, her life would likely never be the same.

The Pharisees were certainly treating sin with outrage.

They were using the OT law to push their agenda.

And when they found someone they had no concern for, they didn’t care what happened to her.

And if they were behind the whole situation, they weren’t telling the whole story.

Either way, they’re wrong. But now they have a victim and a public forum. And it’s the moment of truth. And they probably think they’ve caught Jesus. There’s no way out of this.

“Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?”

“What do you say, Jesus?”

A Pharisee looks at a Scribe like, “We’ve got Him now.”

“If He says to stone her, there goes His message of mercy. He says He’s a friend of publicans and sinners, but they’ll abandon Him if He says that.”

“And if He says to let her go, He’s putting Himself above the Law and we can finally arrest Him.”

They think they’ve finally caught Him in a trap there’s no way out of.

But there’s a truth here that I don’t want to miss:

A spirit of self-righteousness is a trap we set for others that snaps around our own ankle.

Jesus doesn’t take a self-righteous spirit lightly. Notice His response:

He does not respond emotionally.

He takes His time as if He didn't hear them.

He doesn’t immediately start talking.

He doesn’t rush to act.

He counters their emotion with truth.

He is sitting there teaching, not answering.

But after a certain amount of time, rather than answering with His words, He leans over and writes a message in the dirt of the Temple floor.

We don't know what He wrote, but clearly it was a convicting truth.

Maybe He wrote about their own sinfulness

Maybe He wrote about the need for mercy and compassion

Maybe He wrote, “I know that you set this woman up to trap her and trap me too”

Maybe He wrote, “Where’s the man?” (Lev. 20:10)

Maybe He referred to the sermon on the mount when He said, “…whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Matthew 5:28

We don’t know, but whatever He wrote brought great conviction.

Because obviously Jesus dealt with the heart of the matter.

The woman was wrong, for sure.

But the issue Jesus gives the most attention to in this story is not adultery.

Adultery is a big deal, for sure. But in Jesus' mind, the bigger issue was a spirit of self-righteousness.

Everyone sins. That's not in question.

But what is in question is the fact that these Pharisees had their own hidden sins that they were ignoring in favor of a public sin.

While they were focused on the public sin, Jesus was just as concerned with what was happening deep in their hearts.

He acknowledge this woman’s sin, but He dealt with the sins no one else knew about. The sins in their hearts.

Which reinforces the idea that the most dangerous sins in our lives are not the obvious ones. They are the hidden ones.

The sins that only our conscience knows about.

The sins that only we are aware of.

The sins that, if left unchecked, can lay hidden for years.

Whatever Jesus dealt with, it stung the conscience of the Pharisees so much that they went out one by one (Vs. 9).

Hidden is just as destructive as public sin, and often more so.

Illustration: Things that can hurt you

Lions, Bears, Slippery Ice, Car Accidents

That's one category. Visible things that can hurt you.

But here's another category

A virus, Pneumonia, Cancer

If the first category is visible danger, the second you might call invisible danger.

But let’s be honest, those things are just as dangerous as the first category, they’re just hidden.

And things that are hidden tend to go on longer than things that aren't hidden.

If I see a lion, I'm running inside.

If I see ice, I will drive differently.

But I can’t see cancer cells slowly growing in my body.

And because some dangers are hidden, I may let them go, which is actually more dangerous because I don’t see them and the danger continues to grow.

What Jesus is talking about is this: All sin is condemnable. But the hidden sins can be more dangerous because they don't get dealt with like the others.

Sins like:

A critical spirit

Self-Righteousness

Lust

Pornography Addiction

Hatred

Bitterness

Suppressed Anger

So while we may get all riled up about the big, visible, sins, it may just be the hidden sins of the heart that cause the most damage.

Because they sit unchecked, lingering deep inside. So the question this morning is this:

What hidden sins are lingering in your heart and potentially causing the most damage to your spiritual life?

I’m not talking about what everyone else is doing. I’m talking about your sin.

The nature of hidden sin makes it worse because it is left without being dealt with for a potentially long period of time.

And that’s dangerous because sin is so destructive.

Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, But the end thereof are the ways of death.”

Public or hidden. It doesn’t matter. Sin destroys us. It leads to death.

“The wages of sin is death.”

Here are three truths from this text to take away:

I. We must hate all sin, whether public or hidden

We must hate all sin, whether it's someone else's or ours.

We must hate all sin, whether it's big or small.

We must stop accepting sins based on who commits it or whether or not it seems like a big deal to our moral standard.

I don’t like to use the word hate much, but when it comes to sin, we can’t use it enough.

It doesn’t matter if it’s us.

It doesn’t matter if people view it as a small one.

We must hate all sin. Why?

Because God hates all sin. And Because all sin is dangerous.

Psalm 97:10 “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil…”

Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: Pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, And the froward mouth, do I hate.”

I don’t use the term lightly, but it is scripturally appropriate for God’s people to have a healthy hatred of sin.

And not just the big stuff. Not just the public things. According to our text, Jesus was just as concerned about the innermost thoughts of our hearts.

The dormant, hidden, destructive, soul-killing, spirit destroying acts that no one else can see.

We must hate all sin.

II. God is a God of mercy and forgiveness.

God hates all sin, but he offers forgiveness to every sinner.

First, take advantage of the fact that he's a forgiving God.

Confess your sin

Ask forgiveness

Keep a short account with God

Second, treat others who sin with the same mercy that God shows you.

Hate the sin, but show mercy to the sinner.

If someone repents, grant forgiveness.

If the sin seems big and they confess, don’t forget that God forgives sins of all sizes.

If you’ve been forgiven, forgive others the same way.

Ephesians 4:32 “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

III. Genuine repentance and forgiveness should result in a changed life.

Vs. 10 - When all of her accusers had left, it was just her and God.

In the end, that relationship between us and a holy God is the only one that matters most.

How you stand before God is much more important than anyone else.

Vs. 11 - Jesus isn’t saying that she hadn’t sinned.

The law had already condemned her. That’s what John 3:17 says, “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

Jesus didn’t come to condemn. The law already has. We are already condemned by the law because we’ve sinned.

So Jesus, the lamb of God, came to pay our sin debt and bring salvation.

But notice what Jesus tells her, “Go, and sin no more.”

Genuine repentance and forgiveness should result in a change of life.

Jesus’ expectations of a forgiven Believer are a transformed life.

We have a far too casual view of forgiveness. We think, “I forgive you” means that’s the end of it.

But when it comes to God forgiving through Jesus Christ, it’s just the beginning. After the forgiveness comes the change.

There should be a stark contrast between a Believer’s life and someone who doesn’t know Christ.

Christ’s expectations for us are not to be perfect. We’re still sinners until we get to Heaven. But He does expect us to live a life free from sin.

It could be that God is writing something with His finger on your heart this morning saying,

“You’re a little critical of the sins in others. But have you looked at your own heart lately?”

“You’re a little too comfortable with sin in your life. Why don’t you hate it as much as I do?”

“You’re holding on to a wrong that someone committed against you. Can you name the last sin I refused to forgive you of when you asked?”

What’s He convicting your conscience of this morning?

It’s time to confess it, just you and God.

Then go, and sin no more.

There are two categories of people:

The self-righteous who are convicted about their sin but leave and never deal with it. That’s what the Pharisees did.

Can you imagine if Brian Hamilton had left the hockey arena that day and never gone to a doctor? How foolish. But it’s just as destructive for us to have our sins pointed out and not deal with them.

The other category is the woman. Who, even though she was wrong, if she placed her faith in Jesus Christ, she left changed. Sin didn’t have to define her life anymore.

Friend, it doesn’t matter how you come. It matters how you leave.

If you’re convicted of your own sin this morning, confess it to the Lord, and leave with a mindset to go and sin no more.

You will fall again, but as long as your mindset is, “I hate sin and I won’t put up with it in my life anymore,” that’s the kind of tenacious spirit we need.

Do you want to leave with your sin intact? Hidden and destroying you from within?

Or would you like to finally leave changed?

Go and sin and no more. What Jesus was saying to the woman was, “You have choice.”