August 17

Transcript

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.)

Good morning. It is wonderful to be back and to be with you. Aiden said to me, Opa, it's a little empty.

I said, it's summer, buddy. The rapture has taken place. It'll happen again.

He'll come back after the summer. They'll come back and be with us again. It is good to see you.

It was wonderful to take a little bit of a rest. Thank you to my brother, Jim. I don't think I see Jimmy this morning.

Thanks to my brother, Jim, who was here for most of the time and my friend, Mark Gaskin, who was here for two Sundays in the beginning. Thank you for taking care. Much, much appreciated.

I forgot to bring some extra dental floss this morning. We're not going to let that go, Jimmy. For a while, we're not going to let that go.

Pray for Sandra Goodwin. She had a fall on Thursday and ended up in hospital. She's still there.

Then they discovered there's some stuff going with the lungs and some not good things going on with the kidneys. I went to visit her yesterday. She's fine.

She's being taken care of, but it's good that she's there because she's getting really, really good care. She said she would appreciate your prayers as you think of her. We miss her because her whole family has been sitting in that back view since, I think she said, 1968.

They've been sitting in that back view. That's a long time that they've been coming to this church. Father, thank you for this moment.

Thank you for your word. Your word is that lamp that not just lights our path, but lights our life because we live from the word. As we just walk through the word this morning, may you speak through your Holy Spirit.

You know our hearts. You know our needs. Will you take those words and you translate them into each one of our own little needs as you speak into our lungs.

As we always remind ourselves, we want to see Jesus and only Jesus. As we say that, how does your Jesus look like? The Jesus that you know every day, the Jesus that you walk with, how does your Jesus look like? I'm going to give you an example of someone who knows how Jesus looks like, and I don't have his permission, but that's okay because I'm his opa. Six-year-old little buddy boy who came and sat on my lap again this morning.

He has a relationship with Jesus that I am envious of. He's always talking about him, always. I don't know where this comes from.

Scott must be that beautiful school and his oma and his mother that work into his life. He gets in the car. You know what he says to me when we drive? Hey opa, can I talk to you about Jesus? Those are his words, and then he talks to me about Jesus.

He told me the story last week of Paul being converted on the way to Damascus. He's six years old. How many of you remember that story? Then he told me the story of Jonah who was running away from Jesus, and how dumb that is.

He ran away from Jesus. That's what he does. One of his favourite pastimes, he asks me to take him outside.

We have a swing in the tree out there that I put up for him. He'll say, opa, put me on the swing. Will you swing me? Because I want to talk to Jesus.

I'm not allowed to talk. I'm just allowed to swing. He's quiet, and his little eyes are closed.

He's talking. When he's done, he'll say, thank you, opa, and then we can talk and play. But maybe the thing that touches my heart the most, because listen to what he says, and then I'll explain it.

He often says to me, opa, I wish I could die, because I want to be with Jesus all the time. He doesn't have the concept of death, but he has the concept that this is what I want. I want to be with Jesus all the time, because he's so important in my life.

He has this amazing, cool relationship with him. He says to me, when you're talking to him, what happens? He says, he talks back to me. How does your Jesus look like? Do you hang out on a swing with him every now and then? Do you just talk? Let's talk about that Jesus.

I'm going to take you to a beautiful chapter in the book of John, chapter 7, and I'm not going to read yet grace. Let me give you a little background on chapter 7. It's the Feast of the Tabernacle, Shavuot. It's a whole week where they build these little houses.

And those of us, remember, Orsi, when we were in Israel, you went with to Israel? No, he was with us in Israel. Oh, Denise, remember Denise, when we went, we came at the end of it. We still saw some of the huts that they built.

They built these huts, and then they stay in them for the week to remind them of the 40 years in the desert. And during that time, they celebrate God's taking care of them, providing from the manna and the quail, being there for them. On the last day of the feast, they have this beautiful ritual that they go down from the temple to the pool of Siloam, and the priest, the high priest gets the water, brings the water up, and then sprinkles it and throws it all around the altar to remind them of the water from the rock how God provided for them.

On that day, on the last day, Jesus is there. And as they play this little ritual, Jesus gets up and he says, if anyone is thirsty, let them come to me. For whoever believes in me, as the scriptures say, streams of living water will flow from me.

And he tells them, I am the Messiah, Son of God. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees are immensely angry at him. How can he say this? And they go into this whole conflict with him.

And he decides it's time to get out because the guards of the temple are there too. The high priests and the priests were actually really kicked off if you read that. Why didn't you bring him and arrest him so we could take care of him? So Jesus goes away.

And this is where we start our reading today. So thank you, Grace. Verse 53.

Then they all went home by Jesus. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. As dawn, he appeared again in the temple courts where all the people gathered around him.

And he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.

In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say? They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him. And then there's the word that I don't have to tell you about anymore.

There's your belittled but. But. Jesus.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. Again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left with a woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked the woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? No one, sir, she said. Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared.

So go now and lead your life of sin. Who is your Jesus? So Jesus gets out of this moment, goes up to the Mount of Olives. You see that so often, right? That's his place to be with his father.

That's his swing where he just sits and talks to his father so often. Look at it. Every time he goes to the Mount of Olives, he sits and talks to his father.

Then he goes right down into where the nonsense started with him, right into the temple because it's his joy. And as always, when the people see him, they crowd around him because here's the thing. The way that Jesus taught was so different from the way that the teachers of the law and the Pharisees were teaching because they took the law, the Torah, the first five books, Genesis to Deuteronomy, and they broke it up into 613 laws of do's and don'ts.

And they put this yoke on the people of trying to live this because you can't. There's no way you can handle 613. Not even if you are one of those, as Jesus called them, white plastic graves called Pharisees who thought that they tick every little box.

When Jesus spoke, Jesus spoke about love. Jesus spoke about forgiveness. Jesus opened his heart and his arms.

He didn't discriminate. He spoke to those on the fringes. He just loved.

When he spoke about God's word, he spoke about love the Lord your God. And if you love him, he'll teach you how to love those that God has put around you. And his arms were wide open.

It was never this. It was never condemnation. It was never judgement on them.

It was teaching them to love as Father God loves us. So no wonder. Never this 613 stuff.

So he sat down, and as usual, they would make this semicircle around him. That's how they sat for the teachers. And he's teaching.

And then all of a sudden, there's this commotion and this noise. And here come the teachers of the law and the Pharisees with this poor woman, watching her right in front of Jesus. In the middle, there she stands, all of these people.

And they say, so we caught this woman on adultery. According to the law of Moses, we should stone her. So what do you do? There's the trap.

We're going to take today. Can I just show you a few things here? They're so good with the law. They're the teachers of the law.

And then they do what people often do. They use the word to serve their own purpose. According to the law of Moses, we should stone this woman.

Really? Law of Moses, Deuteronomy. I'll read it for you because I don't just want to quote it. I can.

Deuteronomy 20, verse 10. If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death. Um, what did they do? Where's the dude? Deuteronomy 22, 22.

If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. Where's the man? The law says we should kill her. Where's the man? Number two, I've always thought this.

How did they catch her? How did they know this? Was she set up? Was this something that was set up as a trap so that they could use her as bait? Because here's the thing that gives it away. And there's a slide for this, please say grace. The Greek, they don't translate this stuff, right? It angers me so much when they don't translate it correctly.

It says, and it don't normal Mosu. Amen. In the law of Moses, it commands us to stone such things.

They do not call her a woman. They call it a thing. And if you miss that and you don't translate it right, you missed the whole story for them.

This woman is not a woman. She's not a person. She's just an object to use to catch Jesus.

They are the teachers of the law, the teachers of God's word. And this is what they do. What kind of God do they see? What kind of Jesus do they see? A Jesus who has no heart, a Jesus who has no compassion, a Jesus who does not care, a Jesus who just uses me and puts me there as a thing to stand there.

How does your Jesus look like? I pray to God that every Sunday when we break this word, you might see the real Jesus. And I've often said that, and you know that the day that I do not preach God's word the way it should be preached, you take me off hearing walking out that door. Because it's not about what we want, it's about what we like, it's about who we are.

So there she stands in front of this church. What is she going to see in him? That cold heart? So maybe let's ask this question first before we answer that one. What do you think Jesus saw when that thing they call him? In my mind, I think Jesus looked at her and he saw this little girl.

He ran up to her dad often and he would jump on his lap and put her arms around his neck and say, hey daddy, I love you. I think he saw this young woman growing up with so much potential for what she was going to be. And maybe, maybe he thought back way further than that.

Maybe he thought of that moment when there in heaven with his own hands, he wove her together. Isn't that what Psalm 139 says? You wove me together fearfully. Not a masquerade thing, but his child, his daughter, the one that he loved.

Paul writes it even better, Ephesians 3.10. He says, we are God's poiemas, the Greek words. Do you know the word poem, poiema? God's little masterpiece. We're this poem, that sing of who God is.

When people listen to our lives, they hear the poem of God and God's hands and God's touch and God's creation in each one of us. That's who you are. That was such a perfect choice, again, as always.

You're a good God. That's who you are. And I am, that's who I am, not a thing.

Jesus does not see a thing. He sees you. He knows you by your name.

He loves you. So let me take you back to scripture. So Jesus doesn't answer them, which is so cool.

I love that, that moment when he just doesn't answer them. And then he bends down and he's just right in the ground. For me, I see something different than just the bending down.

Just think for a moment, where's all the attention? It's on this poor woman in the middle of all of this. When he bends down and he starts writing, whatever it was, wasn't important because what happened? The moment he bends down and writes, where do their eyes go? The human down there. And for a moment, this poor woman can breathe.

That's what he does. He just takes it away so that in a moment, he can just breathe. They don't let go.

Boy, was that a mistake. Then he looks up and he says, okay, throw. That's what the law says, throw the stone.

But just before you do that, look at your life quickly. And if you have never made a mistake, if you have never fallen into a trap that the world has set for you, you have set for yourself, and you walked into that, you've never done that, go ahead and throw. And oh, by the way, the elders, according to the law, when there was a stoning, the elders had to throw the first stone.

Who are the ones that walked away first? Then he bent down and he writes again, and you hear the stone drop, drop, and it's only Jesus. How does your Jesus look like? How does her Jesus look like? I want to read you verse 10 and 11 again, but I'm going to read from the Passion Translation because it is beautifully, beautifully translated. So they all walk away.

Jesus looks up and then he says, listen to the words, how they are translated. Remember this thing, now year. Dear woman, where are your accusers? Is there no one here to condemn you? Looking around, she replied, I see no one.

Jesus said, then I certainly don't condemn you either. Go, and from now on, be free from a life of sin. Dear woman, where are your accusers? I don't accuse you, because I will die for you, for all of your sins.

When we take the bread and drink the wine, remember what we say? Drink this wine, for my blood was shed for you, for a perfect redemption of all your sins. I don't condemn you. Dear woman, I love you.

And then she answers him in our Greek translation again. Man, it's the word kurios. Kurios in Greek can mean sir, but kurios also means Lord.

And John, just a little background, this is me in my craziness because I love this. John was actually written in Aramaic originally. Aramaic was the spoken language, so it was translated into the Greek.

So they took what was written in the Aramaic, and and they translated it this, and then they wrote kurios, and then we translate sir, which is a mess. The Aramaic says, and she said, no one Lord God, not just sir, this is the God she saw. This is the Jesus she saw.

Thank you, this is the Jesus that she saw. The one that she could stand before and say, I'm a mess, and I broke my own heart, and I broke so many people's hearts, and I stand here, and I'm all full of mud, but thank you for being here. Thank you for seeing me, for who I am, and not just the sin, but your child, for the compassion, and the care, and the love.

For that's who Jesus really is. Isn't he the one who said, I came to seek and to save those who are perfect and have done nothing wrong? Wow. I came to seek and to save those who are lost.

I didn't come for those who are white-plastered graves and think that they don't need the doctor. I came for those who are sick. For those of us, because that's the problem, right? These beautiful little poiemas, masterpieces, we mess them up every now and then.

At least I do. Trip yourself up in things that you do that you shouldn't. End up in messes where you shouldn't end up.

Trip and fall in the mud of sin, and you won't get up, and you're all dirty. And the most amazing thing is, when I stand before you, where are your accusers? They're gone. No one condemns you? No.

Neither do I. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8, verse 1, the most beautiful verse in the whole Bible, because it takes away those shackles. It takes away that yoke, and it sets me free.

Because Paul starts out, right? Look at me. I'm this wretched man. Who will save me from this? I thank God in Jesus Christ, but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

I wonder if they had that woman there the day that Jesus was crucified. I'm sure if she looked up and saw the hands, she would recognise them, because they were the only hands that didn't hold any stones. I'm sure she would recognise the voice, because that same voice that said, neither do I, was the same voice that was saying from that cross in that moment, Father, forgive.

I'm sure she would recognise those eyes, because it would be the same eyes that would look down with love and forgiveness and grace. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. There's a song. There's just something about that.

Master, save me. Jesus. Like the fragrance after the rain.

Kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there's just something about you. Oh, that we could all be the six-year-old little boy. Thank you, Father, that we may see Jesus, and only Jesus.

Thank you for who you are in our lives, Lord Jesus. Thank you for this amazing journey that we can take with you. Oh, that could we be perfect, but we are not.

There will be a day. There will be a day when you will come, and all of that will change, and we will be. But until then, like Peter, we'll stumble, and we'll walk, and we'll stumble, and we'll walk.

Like Peter will often say, Lord, you know everything, each and every little mess, but you know that I love you. Thank you for coming and looking for us always. Thank you, Jesus.

In your name we pray. Amen.