Let It Go - John 8
Notes
Transcript
Tonight, I want to just speak on something I believe we all at times can struggle with, and we may be struggling with in in this moment. It’s a message that can feel heavy, because it deals with our past, it deals with our sin, it deals with our mistakes. All things that we can carry the weight of, like chains, like a weighted vest, something that we can’t shake off, but are constantly reminded of.
Take Notes
Take Notes
But for the note takers, the title of tonight's message, in the words of the great theologian Elsa, Let It Go.
If you have your Bibles, we’ll be in the Gospel of John, chapter 8.
John Newton
Amazing Grace/ slave trade
23 ship story
34 years later, wrote he still experienced humiliation
Stories like this leaves us asking the question, what are we to do with our past. What are we supposed to do with our sin, the mistakes we’ve made, and our regrets. Wrestling with the tension of living in the life we have in Christ, but still feeling the weight of our sins. What do we do with our sin.
This bring us to our passage, John 8.
Before I read this, let me just setup where we are, so we can understand what’s happening.
Jesus is in the midst of his ministry.
People are flocking to him to hear Him teach, and seeking miracles
Pharisees want to arrest him
John 8:2-6
Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
The Pharisees bring this woman before Jesus, to publicly trap him so that the people would reject Him. They offered Jesus with a question of this or that. Stone her or not. The reason they do this, is because however Jesus would answer, whether Jesus said to stone or not to, they’d be able to charge him with a crime.
Because if Jesus said not to stone her, then they would accuse Jesus of opposing the Law and the scriptures. Lec 20:10
English Standard Version Chapter 20
“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death
So if Jesus says not to stone her, He’s opposing the Law, the Old Testament.
To Stone
Violates Roman rule
So they come to Jesus, offering him a question of this or that, knowing that either answer puts Jesus in trouble.
But Jesus being the stud, the G that He is, doesn’t play their game, doesn’t give into their manipulation. What does Jesus do…
John 8:6b-9
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
Jesus doesn’t even respond to the question they gave him. Instead he turns it back on them. He says is he who is without sin cast the first stone.
If you have siblings, by show of hands, who argues or fights with their siblings? It’s just what happens. With our two kids, Cienna and Elias, especially at their age, they argue often. But there’s something else that they do. I’ll tell them to clean their room, because they share a room, and they both know they are supposed to pick up their own toys. Times goes by, and one of them will come out, and tell on the other, they aren’t picking up their toys.
So I’ll respond, are you picking up, and they’ll usually nod their head. So I’ll tell them, don’t worry about what they are doing, just do what I told you to do.
What my kids do, is what we can find ourselves doing. Caring more about the faults in everyone else except ourselves. Jesus statement, he who is without sin, is dealing with this very idea.
Don’t point out the sin of others while you ignore your own.
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Jesus points not general, but their current sin:
Man and woman
Pharisees/crowd were breaking the law, bringing only the woman
So desperate to trap Jesus, they were wiling to twist Scripture
They were twisting and manipulating Scripture for their own purpose, but because Jesus knew the Law, He could call them out on it. This is why it’s so important today to read and know God’s Word. Because today, you’ll run into people with TikTok theology, beliefs based upon 30 second reels that manipulate and twist the meaning of Scripture.
But you can’t know what’s false if you don’t know what’s true. We can’t know false teaching, false beliefs if we don’t know what’s true, if we don’t read what’s in this book.
Car problems mechanic
Math problems, teacher
Don’t rely on someone else to build your faith for you. Go to the source
Jesus was able to call them out, because he knew the Scripture.
Coming Back
Coming Back
John 8:10-11
Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
(CLOSE EYES)
What’s something you would not want anyone to know. What’s a secret, what sin, what would you not want anyone to find out about you. Now imagine, someone finds out what that is, and they pull you up to the front of the room, and being telling everyone the very thing you want nobody to know. You’d probably want to hide away, you’d want to get out, get away. Imagine for a second what you would feel, if your sin was aired out for everyone to know and see.
(Open)
Here this woman stands, with her life being aired. Everyone knowing her sin, everyone knowing the very thing she wanted to keep a secret. Publicly shamed in front of all these people. People will look at her different, people will treat her different, and in this moment, she is bearing the weight of shame, and guilt, and public humiliation, standing before Jesus.
Jesus gives her two messages.
“I do not condemn you.”
I think some of us need to receive that. Jesus, does not condemn you. This woman didn’t deny what she did. The Pharisees, the crowd didn’t make it up. The woman was caught in her sin, and yet Jesus says to her, though you’ve sinned, though you’ve done something that’s wrong, I do not condemn you.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
We all know or have hard John 3:16, but I want to hone in on verse 17.
Jesus did not come to condemn you, but to save you. Jesus didn’t condemn the woman, because he was going to save her. The sin she committed, he was going to lay his life down for her, so that she could be forgiven of all her sins. So that she wouldn’t live under the shame of her past, but so she could live in freedom from it.
No matter what secrets, no matter the parts of our lives we want nobody to know about, Jesus already knows. He already sees it, just like the woman. Yet these words He spoke to that woman are the same words he speaks to you and me, I do not condemn you.
I need you to hear that, and grab a hold of that. Jesus, does not condemn you.
I don’t know what you hold onto, I don’t know what weighs you down from your past, what mistakes, but I do know that Jesus died so that you could wouldn’t have to carry it.
“Sin no more.”
People will often cite this story in the Bible, and use it as a way of saying, only God can judge me. Jesus doesn’t condemn me. But in the story, they’ll stop there without finishing Jesus’ statement. Jesus doesn’t condemn us, but He does say now go and sin no more. He said to the woman, don’t continue living in adultery. Don’t go back to your way of living. You’ve got to make a change.
With this last statement, what Jesus calls the woman to, us what He call us to. Repentance.
To repent means to turn away from. If you’re going in one direction, repenting is turning the other way. But it’s not this subtle, oh I’m just going to change. The word repent, originally carried the same meaning of an army turning back or retreating. That when an enemy was in fear of dying, they repent, they turn around and run the other way to save their life. It’s wasn’t this, oh I’ll just turn around. It was dropping everything, and out of fear for their life, they ran as fast as they could.
So when we talk about repentance, that’s the weight it carries. A desperate turn away from our sin, and desperately turning to and chasing after God.
Repentance is not just something we say, it’s a change we make. It’s us abandoning our sin, and relentlessly pursuing God.
Go, live not with shame, not with condemnation. Go live in the freedom of Christ and sin no more.
What do we do with our past, with our mistakes, our regrets, the wrong things we’ve done. Let It Go. Don’t hold onto it. Jesus told the woman, I don’t condemn you, go and live the life I called you to live. Don’t hold on to your past, Let It Go. Don’t condemn yourself for something JEsus has already forgiven you of. Don’t condemn yourself for something, that Jesus doesn’t condemn you for.
You can’t live your life, holding onto the shame from the past. Let It Go. Scripture says when we ask God to forgive us, he removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. Scripture says that God remembers our sin no more. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, Let It Go.
We can’t move forward, holding on to the chains of our past. Let It Go.
Let me pray over
