(As I begin this morning, I am letting you know that I will be making an invitation to come forward to the altar at the conclusion of the sermon.)
In our text for this morning, many people are in a desperate place and only Jesus can truly save them.
The woman who is dragged before Jesus and accused of adultery is in need of Jesus’ help. Her actions, like ours, have consequences that have affected her relationships with others and with God. Her sin has brought her to the point of physical death not to mention the relational death that has taken place as well in which she has alienated others by her actions.
Then there are the Pharisees who hate sin with a passion and their actions show it! They are intensely loyal to their faith and the practices of their faith. For years, the Pharisees have been portrayed as the Bible’s “Holy Bad Guys.” I remember reading somewhere that they were really admired by many in their day and age for their moral uprightness and wisdom.
Yet a veneer of legalism has insulated them from experiencing God’s grace and the deeper freedom from sin that it brings. They are in a desperate place as well and only Jesus can save them.
Another group that is in a desperate place is the crowd of people who become by-standers to this unfolding drama. They are desperate because they can see themselves in the woman’s place. They both admire and fear the teachers and leaders that stand face-to-face with Jesus and they have sin in their lives just like the woman before them whose life is hangs in the balance. They wonder if forgiveness is possible and look to Jesus for the answer.
Then there are the Disciples. (As you read the gospels, I would remind you that the disciples are a part of the story, sometimes in the foreground or at the center of the story and sometimes in the background. Nevertheless, they are always there.)
This episode seems to take place early in Jesus’ ministry. Yet so far the Twelve have seen him (among other things) turn water into wine, deal with a Samaritan woman, feed five thousand, walk on water, and see fellow followers walk away because the demands of following Jesus are too hard. Now they encounter a situation about forgiveness, and un-forgiveness, and the challenge of legalism verse grace.
“What is He going to do?” whispers Andrew to Peter. “I don’t know,” says Peter, “But I sure would like to teach those teachers a thing or two!”
“Quiet!” says John quietly. “Let’s see what happens.” A smirk comes across Judas’ face.
Among the questions that I was given in response to the question, “If you could ask God one question, what would it be?” were the following questions related to the very important issue of forgiveness.
"How do I accept forgiveness? I mean I know Jesus died for my sins, but how do I let go of my sins and give them to God and live in his forgiveness without guilt and shame?
If I can’t let go does that mean I’m not accepting Christ’s forgiveness?
How can you forgive me, Lord, if I cannot forgive myself?"
Then a question that deals with the place and purpose of the Holy Spirit has also been asked by someone: “Do we have an infilling of the Holy Spirit at the time of our conversion or do we have to wait longer to receive it?”
These were very real questions for the woman at the center of our text this morning. They are very real questions for us as well because all of us, every human being across history, are in a desperate place because of sin and the need to experience the forgiveness of God and because we will always do battle with sin and temptation until we die or the Lord returns.
How do we accept forgiveness…how do you and I let go of our sins and give them to God and live in his forgiveness without guilt and shame?
Paul wrote in Romans 10:9-11: “For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.
A key word in this issue of forgiveness is confession. To confess something is to say openly, “I believe” and “I admit” to one’s spiritual condition and to belief in Jesus Christ.
A recent article by John Ortberg on spiritual growth highlights the value of confession. He writes, “We need someone with whom we can be honest— someone whose spirituality we respect, who can keep things confidential, offer unconditional acceptance, and be utterly truthful.”
He goes on to quote Dietrich Bonhoffer, a Lutheran pastor who died during the Second World War for his opposition to Hitler who said, "Confession is the God-given remedy for self-deception and self-indulgence.” When we confess we say, “I admit to sin in my life that has kept me away from God.” We also say when we confess, “I believe in Christ.”
Good confession is an appropriate public confession. (Some things are confessed better to a safe person in a more private setting.) I did it in the presence of my teenage era church many years ago. One of the reasons that altar calls are important is that they give us a way to confess publicly our commitments and by doing it here in the presence of the church, one finds it easier to do out there in the community. By a public expression in saying, “Jesus is Lord,” we go on record as saying, “I am God’s from this point forward.”
Belief is the private side of accepting Christ’s forgiveness. Do you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? That kind of acceptance helps us allow the work of God to go deep inside of us and affect our attitudes, habits, priorities, and actions.
To answer directly our questioner, we need to learn how to accept Christ’s forgiveness by faith, as we willfully and continuously let go of our sins to God. We must also give God our guilt and shame and let Him help us deal with it.
One reason (a big reason) is that Satan wants to keep us down, out, and under a burden of guilt and shame that Jesus wants us to be free of! Therefore, he will do all he can to keep accusing us by bringing up the past. (His conversation with God regarding Job serves as a reminder to us that he is always looking for a reason to attack us.)
A second reason is that while we can experience immediate forgiveness the residue that is left from our sin sometimes takes a while to remove. A helpful aid in turning over that residue of guilt and shame to God comes from Keith Miller in his book, A Hunger for Healing.
His frame of reference is the Twelve Steps’ concept of character defects. But it also applies to the letting go of our guilt and shame and our past.
Miller treats his defects like a poisonous snake and puts them in a bag and places them on a mental “conveyor belt” back to God. He does this often as necessary and notes, “If you take the defect out of the sack and start trying to deal with it in your mind, it will win almost every time.”
“After days, weeks, or years,” he goes on to say,” I’ve noticed that some of them are gone, and others hardly ever show up…I know that God has been at work [and] it seems that He takes these tenacious character problems only when we are entirely ready to let Him do so.”
This image has helped me tremendously over the years since I first read this book. I also believe it provides answers to the questions, “If I can’t let go does that mean I’m not accepting Christ’s forgiveness?” and “How can you forgive me, Lord, if I cannot forgive myself?"
Self-forgiveness is a choice that we have to make many times over. Think about Peter and how he felt after his denial of Jesus and that perhaps one of the effects of questions that Jesus puts him through in John 21 enables the ability to forgive himself because Jesus wants to forgive him as well.
One of the things that Rick Warren has said is that “The first building block of a deeper relationship with God is complete honesty-about your faults and your feelings. God doesn’t expect you to be perfect, but He does insist on completely honesty.” Such honesty can help us forgive ourselves and embrace God’s forgiveness more clearly.
This brings us to our final question regarding the important issue of sanctification in our lives. Eight chapters later in John’s gospel, chapter 16, we read these important words:
And when he comes, he will convince the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. The world’s sin is unbelief in me. Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. Judgment will come because the prince of this world has already been judged.
He in this passage refers to the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who convinces and convicts us of our sin and who makes possible our forgiveness because He makes us see the desperate condition we are in without God in our lives.
When the Spirit makes us aware of our need for forgiveness, we then have a choice to either accept or reject that offer of forgiveness. There are consequences either direction for such a decision.
If we accept Jesus’ words regarding the purpose and work of the Holy Spirit that we looked at this morning as being true, then as we confess our sins and accept Christ’s forgiveness, the Holy Spirit enters our lives. But, there is more to it than that initial entrance. Perhaps two illustrations can help.
Think about pitching a baseball. Most of us can probably throw a baseball but to pitch a baseball requires an intentional commitment to not merely throw but pitch.
One of my favorite pitchers was Jack Morris who played for the Detroit Tigers and the Minnesota Twins. I remember watching him on TV 20 years ago throw a no-hitter against Chicago and then during the 1991, World Series pitched an extra inning game 7 (I believe) against Atlanta to win the series.
Jack Morris did not just throw the ball he pitched the ball. He knew how to place the ball and when to throw the appropriate pitch. He turned the ability of throwing a baseball 60 feet at over 90 miles an hour into the ability of pitching a baseball 60 feet at over 90 miles an hour.
Then there is the challenge and fear of learning a new job. Perhaps you studied one either in college or tech school or in training on the job. However, there came a time when you had to get out from behind the books and start the job.
Remember the fear and anxiety? You made mistakes, but you were determined to learn the job and do it right. And you did!
Now when you look at a new employee learning a new job where you work, you probably have flashbacks to when you were in their situation, right? You have “occupationally matured.”
This means that you have grown in your ability not to just do a job but to do it well and to do it in a larger context and with a greater skill than when you started. As you do so, you become a better employee. You understand what you do and why you do it. You come to work on time and you give it your best. And employers love those kinds of people!
Sanctification is like pitching not just throwing. It is not just doing the job but becoming a skilled worker. Instead of merely being saved, we are to become spiritually mature by walking with God. Peter says it well in 2 Peter 1:3-8
As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness! And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature.
So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I said at the beginning I would be giving an invitation and inviting you to come forward. Coming forward is important in breaking down barriers that keeps us from experiencing God’s work in our lives. It also helps us to make a public statement about our relationship with the Lord and the priority it has in our lives.
If you have never experienced the forgiveness of God, I invite you to come this morning and stand in front of the altar to receive Christ. If you have been saved and the Spirit has said to you this morning, you need to do such and so, don’t say, “no” say “yes” and come forward to do what you need to do by standing at the altar. If you have been struggling to live for God, I invite you to come forward and make yourself available to the work of the Holy Spirit.
Don’t delay. Don’t resist. Obey the Spirit this morning and let God do the work in your life that He needs and wants to do. Then we can hear with clarity the words of Jesus, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Amen.
