What The World Needs Now Series

Most of us here are familiar with that hit song written by Burt Bacharach, “What the World Needs Now.” And of course, as bad as I am with notes, I’m even worse with lyrics, but in this case, I do remember the next few words—“Is love, sweet, love.”

And admittedly, the song strikes a chord with everyone, I think, and even those of us who are believers. Of course we would like to refine and further define precisely what kind of love it is that the world needs—not just any love, not just romantic love, but the love of Christ, the self-sacrificing, tangible actions which meet others’ needs. This is truly what the world needs now, we might think,

But this morning we come to a story which must more definitively epitomizes exactly what it is the world needs, what we all need, to experience and practice to be fulfilled in what God has always wanted for us. And though God’s love is certainly the over-arching theme, there is much more that the world needs to be and to experience what God really intended it to be and experience, and most of it is more wonderful than most worldly and sentimental definitions of love might lead you to believe.

So exactly what is that kind of love that the world needs now. If we were to be precise, what is it that Jesus Himself offered which is so unique and practical, that if all were truly to embrace it, the world would be a completely different place.

What the world needs now is the love of a humble merciful God who forgives even as he calls to repentance. It’s a merciful love which accepts, forgives, reconciles and restores sinners even as it moves them to repent.

And there are actually two different kinds of people here I suspect—those who have received this kind of love and those who now need to be expressions of this kind of love for the glory of God and the good of our friends.

If you desire to be an expression this kind of love. . .

Uphold what is right without self-righteously condemning others. Upholding what is right means upholding what is in accord with the love of God and the love of others. Yet, to do so means we love other sinners like ourselves even as Christ has loved us—in spite of our sin.

Now before we get into the passage, some of you may be finding your particular copy of the Bible does some strange things concerning this story. You might find it in brackets, or you might even find it in the margin or at the bottom of the page of the Bible you’re using. And you’ll probably find some footnote saying something along the lines of earliest and best manuscripts do not include this story here. And what that means is that those who study the oldest manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament in a discipline called Textual Criticism have noticed that none of the very oldest manuscripts include this story here in the Gospel of John. But among those who are regarded as scholars of the New Testament, very few doubt the authenticity of the story. Most regard it as having really happened, and it is consistent with the character of Christ as we find it throughout the Gospels and also it is consistent with the character of the scribes and Pharisees as we find them throughout the Gospels. And so the major question about this story is its placement—if it really happened here in relationship to the other events of the Gospel of John, not whether it really happened or should be part of the Word of God.

And it opens by telling us that Jesus was once again teaching in the temple, and He began His teaching at dawn, at first light one day, and there were people milling around the temple at even that time of day. This would likely have been pretty normal if it were during one of the great feasts of Israel, and perhaps especially so if it had occurred during the Feast of Booths, when Israel’s men spent the night sleeping outside in temporary shelters erected throughout Jerusalem. And interestingly, at first, He sits down to teach, and people begin flocking to him, so unique and so relevant is His teaching. And within a very few minutes a very unique set of events begins to unfold. A group of scribes and Pharisees come bustling upon the scene and in their grasp is a woman who is obviously not happy about the whole situation. They interrupt Jesus’ teaching and the crowd surrounding Him by coming through the crowd right up to him. Then they this woman to stand there in front of both Jesus and the crowd. Immediately, they announce what the occasion is all about. Verse 4: “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” And then in verse 6, John adds a comment with regard to their motives: “They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him.”