The Depth of Grace
Text: John 7:53-8:11
Introduction
1. Illustration: On Sunday, August 16,1987, Northwest Airlines flight 225 crashed just after taking off from the Detroit airport. 155 people were killed. One survived: a 4-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, named Cecelia. News accounts say when rescuers found Cecelia they assumed she had been a passenger in one of the cars on the highway onto which the plane crashed. But when the flight manifest was checked, there was Cecelia’s name. This little girl survived because, as the plane was falling, Cecelia’s mother unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and then would not let her go. Nothing could separate that child from her parent’s love--not tragedy or disaster, not the fall or the flames that followed, not height nor depth, not life nor death.
2. Most of us that are honest would agree with the song when it says "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me..."
3. However, some people get off base in one of two ways:
a. Either they have forgotten just how wretched they were before Christ.
b. Or for some reason they think other people are more wretched than they are.
Propostion: When it come to grace, we are all in the same boat, we don’t deserve it but we desperately need grace.
Transition: In the story of the Adulterous woman, we see...
I. The Ignorance of Grace (7:53-8:6)
A. What Do You Say?
1. This narrative begins with Jesus teaching in the temple early in the morning. His teaching is suddenly and rudely interrupted when the Scribes and Pharisees barge in with a woman in tow.
2. They bring her in the midst of all these people and sit right in the midst of them and says to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act."
3. The Greek construction of the sentence makes it clear that these men are making a legal claim: They possess the evidence the law requires to convict the woman. What evidence do they need?
a. So that suspicious husbands could not accuse their wives unnecessarily, the law required strong testimony from two witnesses who saw the couple in a sexual context: lying in the same bed, unmistakable body movements, and positive identities.
b. The two witnesses had to see these things at the same time and place so that their testimonies would be identical.
c. Such evidence virtually required the witnesses to set a trap. (Burge, NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: John, 242).
4. Notice what they say next to Jesus, "Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?"
a. Now here lies a major flaw in there argument: that’s not all of what the law says.
b. Lev. 20:10 The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.
c. Where’s the guy?
5. John tells us in verse 6 what their agenda was: "This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him."
a. They didn’t care about this woman.
b. They didn’t care about her spiritual condition.
c. They didn’t care about her husband.
d. They didn’t care about her children.
e. All they cared about was making Jesus look bad and themselves look good.
6. They but Jesus in a threefold dilemma.
a. If he said, let her go, He would be going against the Law of Moses.
b. If he said stone her, He would be telling them to go against Roman law which did not allow the Jews to put anyone to death without Roman approval.
c. Most importantly, if He said stone her, He would be going against the whole idea of grace that He had teaching so much about.
7. Notice what Jesus does: "But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear."
a. Over the centuries, scholars and theologians have speculated what Jesus wrote in the dirt.
b. However, for me, the real issue is not what did He write, but why He wrote.
c. Jesus intention in doing nothing was to show how unworthy they were of being heard (Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries XVII, 319-320).
d. In other words, He ignored them.
B. Self-Righteous People
1. Illustration: In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis helps us gain balance when he says, “If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity (sexual sin) as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual. The pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me. . . they are the animal self and the diabolical self; and the diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why a cold self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.” Then he adds, “But of course it is better to be neither ”
2. The problem that Christians sometimes have is that we forgot what it was like to be unsaved
a. We forget what we were like before we were saved.
b. We forget what it was like to be a new Christian and we were working out our faith in fear and trembling.
c. We forget that we are no more than sinners saved by grace.
3. We loose touch with the depth of God’s grace.
a. We loose touch with the fact that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
b. We loose touch with the fact that Christ accepted us just the way we were.
c. We loose touch with the fact that we didn’t come to Christ all clean and pretty, but we were all blind, deaf and naked.
4. It is time for the church to do more than sing about His amazing grace. It is time for to extend some of His amazing grace.
Transition: In the story of the adulterous woman, we also see...
II. The Conviction of Grace (8:7-9)
A. Convicted By Their Conscience
1. By this time these self-righteous men are becoming indignant. The text says "So when they continued asking Him..."
a. The tense of the verb here shows a continuous action, thus indicating that they pestered Him for an answer.
b. These men persist to force the question of judgment on him before the crowd ( Burge, 243).
c. They weren’t just self-righteous, but they were arrogant too!
2. So Jesus tires of their pestering and says "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."
a. Jesus was fully aware that the woman was only brought to him so the Pharisees could test him.
b. Jesus’ statement of permission, "All right, stone her," balanced several crucial points of truth.
c. He upheld the legal penalty for adultery (stoning), so he could not be accused of being against the law. But by requiring that only those who have never sinned throw the first stones, Jesus exposed what was in the accusers’ hearts.
d. Without condoning the woman’s actions, he highlighted the importance of compassion and forgiveness and broadened the spotlight of judgment until every accuser felt himself included.
3. Then Jesus stooped back down and began to write again. "Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last."
a. John uses an imperfect verb here (conveying continuous action) to build a picture of one teacher departing, who is then followed by a succession of people eventually walking away, so that the accusers arrayed against the woman crumble bit by bit (Burge, 243).
b. The leaders slipped away one by one, from oldest to youngest. Evidently the older men were more aware of their sins than the younger.
c. Age and experience often temper youthful self-righteousness.
4. We all have a sinful nature and are desperately in need of forgiveness and transformation.
a. None of us would have been able to throw the first stone; none of us can claim sinlessness.
b. We, too, would have had to walk away.
B. Convinced of Grace
1. Illustration: Conviction – a holy conscience – is a powerful thing. It can change everything. A man said his daddy used to read the comics to him on Sundays. “One of the main characters in the comic strip was a guy named Willie. In one strip, he’s slumped in front of the television set with a coffee cup resting on his pot belly as he flicks his cigar ashes into his cup. He says to his wife, ‘you’re awful quiet this morning, Mamie.’ And she says in return, ‘Willie, I’ve decided to let your conscience be your guide on your day off.’
Next scene, Willie is surrounded by a lawnmower and an edger and a hoe and a shovel and he’s frantically washing the windows and muttering, ‘Every time I listen to that dumb thing I end up ruinin’ my relaxin’.’”
2. The reason that we need to extend grace to others is because when we look at ourselves in the mirror we cannot run from the fact that we constantly need the grace of God ourselves.
3. We cannot:
a. Run from it
b. Hide from
c. Deny it
d. Without God’s grace we are lost!
4. Rom. 2:21-23 You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, "Do not commit adultery," do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?
5. If we need the grace of God so much, how can we deny to someone else?
Transition: In the story of the adulterous woman, we see...
III. The Desperation of Grace (8:10-11)
A. Has No One Condemned Her
1. Jesus was left alone with the woman. He looked at her and said ""Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?"
a. "Woman" here is not a harsh form of address, but rather a term of respect (Morris, NICNT - The Gospel According to John, 285).
b. In fact, he uses the same word to address His own mother.
2. His questions do not imply that the woman is innocent since in 8:11 he warns her to cease a sinful life that has been her habit.
a. He simply points to the absence of accusers.
b. They have disappeared.
3. Her response shows considerable respect for Jesus. "She said, "No one, Lord."
a. The word that is used here is the Greek word kurie, which was (a title for God and for Christ) and refers to one who exercises supernatural authority over mankind —Louw & Nida: NT Greek-English Lexicon
b. It is obvious that grace has had a profound effect on this sinful woman.
c. She will not forget the grace of God.
4. Notice what Jesus says to her: "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."
a. This does not mean that He condones her sin.
b. "The form of the command implies a ceasing to continue an action already started: ’Stop your sinful habit’" (Morris, 785).
B. Sin No More
1. Some people think that grace means God will forgive, so go out and do whatever you want.
2. Dietrich Bonhoffer calls this cheap grace!
3. Illustration: “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” Dietrich Bonhoffer "The Cost of Discipleship"
4. Grace means that realize the price that was paid for your sinful life, so you do all that is in your power not to do it again.
5. Grace means that you love Christ so much that you would not do anything that break His heart.
6. Grace means you "go and sin no more."
Transition: Grace realizes the depth of God’s love and the debt to which we owe Him.
Conclusion
1. Propostion: When it come to grace, we are all in the same boat, we don’t deserve it but we desperately need grace.
2. Are you ignorant of grace? Do you point the finger at others while forgetting how much you have been forgiven?
3. Are you convicted by grace? Does seeing God’s grace to others remind you have how much you still need His grace?
4. Are you desperate for grace? Do you realize your need to go and sin no more?
5. What will you do with the grace of God?
