Can people change?
About 300 years ago, something happened that would change the world forever.
No one knew it then, and no one would have believed it then. A little boy, about 7 years old, lost his mother. Her name was Elizabeth and his name was John. She died from tuberculosis. John’s dad was in the Navy and because there was no one else to look after him, he had to go to sea with his father. Not an easy life for a 7 year old boy and things only got worse from there.
He was forced to join the navy against his will and he quickly became known as a trouble maker. He was always causing trouble and eventually deserted the navy only to be captured and then publicly flogged.
John’s story didn’t get any better from there. One thing led to another and now John finds himself working on a slave ship and then being the captain of a slave ship called the Duke of Argyle. He was now a part of the transatlantic slave trade in the 1700’s and participated in transporting millions of enslaved Africans to different parts of the world. Today we would not only call this slavery, we would call this human trafficking.
The things John did as captain of that ship during that time are unspeakable. The moral depravity, the brutalities of the slave trade, unconscionable.
But then, something happened. Actually, it was a series of events that began to change John’s heart and John’s life.
Most People Can’t Change
Most of us probably think that people can’t change.
But that wasn’t John’s story. During a return voyage to England in 1748, John’s ship was caught in a severe storm off the coast of Ireland. John believed he along with everyone onboard his ship was about to die. So John did what so many people do in moments like that, he turned to God. He cried out to God. And God intervened.
John’s life was spared and if you asked John, he would tell you his life was saved that night. That was the night he turned to God.
For John, this wasn’t a 180 degree turn. He didn’t become a new man overnight. But something had changed within him. And a seed of faith was planted deep within his heart that began to grow. He began to read scripture. He began to change his life. He left the slave trade.
John settled in Liverpool and became a tax collector! And God continued to work in His heart and life. So much so that in 1764, he gave his life to full time ministry and was ordained as an Anglican priest.
Every week, people would come to hear John preach. And like a lot of preachers, John was always looking for a creative way to make the message stick, to help people remember and apply the scripture he was teaching and the truth of God he was trying to share. So John started writing songs to go with his sermons.
In 1772, he was preaching a sermon about the transformative power of God’s grace. The kind of life changing grace that he had experienced in the middle of the storm off the coast of Ireland some 20 years before. So that week John Newton wrote a simple song for his church about that kind of grace. You may have heard it before. It goes something like this…
Amazing grace!
How sweet the sound.
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
Amazing Grace
We all need this kind of grace in our lives. Amen? Amen.
We all need this grace and we all realize our need for this kind of grace when we come face to face with the reality and the gravity of our sin.
And whenever we come to that point, whenever we get real honest about the ways in which our own lives have gone off the rails, the choices we’ve made that have not only hurt us but hurt others, when we’re confronted what we’ve done and we put aside all our excuses and rationalizations, we realize just how much we need this kind of grace.
This happens when we stop pretending that we’ve just made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes are things that people do on accident. And sure, we’ve made some mistakes along the way. But more often than not, our sin was on purpose.
We aren’t mistakers we are sinners. We knew what we were doing and we knew it was wrong and truth be told, we decided to do it anyway.
We wanted what we wanted and in the moment we didn’t care who we hurt. We may have regretted it later, but it wasn’t a mistake. We did it on purpose.
This happens when we stop lying to ourselves and acting like we’re better than we are. We tend to judge others harshly and let ourselves off the hook quickly. Why is that?
We can explain away our behavior, we’ve got excuses for days about why we did what we did or said what we said and why it wasn’t our fault. But if someone else did what we did or said what we said, we’re quick to judge and not only that, we feel justified in judging others.
But at some point, maybe we’re in the middle of a storm… and that may be a literal storm, or that may be a relational storm, or that may be a financial storm, or that may be a medical storm, it can really be any kind of storm, but at some point when we’re in the middle of the storm where going to find ourselves face to face with Jesus just like John Newton did that day.
And when you’re face to face with Jesus there’s no hiding, there’s no pretending, there’s only truth.
Grace & Truth
Well, that’s not exactly true. There is truth. but there is also grace. And that’s exactly what happens for one person who finds herself in the middle of a storm face to face with Jesus in John 8.
Before we dive into this story, I have to give a quick disclaimer. You’ll probably see this in your Bible or in your Bible app, some notation or footnote or something that tells you that more than likely, this story was not a part of the original and best manuscripts we have of the Gospel of John. And that’s true.
Most scholars think this story, if it belonged to any gospel, it probably belongs in Luke, not John. But through a series of what I like to think of as fortunate events, this story was preserved and passed down through time and ultimately ended up here in John’s gospel and I’m so glad it did. Even if it wasn’t originally a part of any of the gospels, scholars agree that there is very little doubt that this story did happen. Historically it is well documented. But even if it wasn’t, everyone agrees that this story lines up perfectly with the person of Jesus. And it is one of my all time favorite stories about Jesus.
So in John 8, here is how this story begins…
1 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them.
This is more or less the rhythm of Jesus. The Mount of Olives is a retreat for Jesus. It’s where he goes to pray, to worship with his disciples, to rest, and to be refreshed. It’s only one mile from Bethany where Jesus had friends.
So Jesus would often go to the Mount of Olives at the end of a long day of teaching and ministry to rest and be refreshed and then take the short walk over to his friend’s house where he would stay with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. The next morning, he was ready to return to the Temple in Jerusalem, about a two mile walk, to continue his ministry and teaching.
Jesus is there at the Temple, in the morning, sitting, teaching, and now a crowd is gathering when this happens…
3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
The Trap
This is where the story takes a hard left turn and we have to take a timeout and just ask some honest questions.
Questions like, Why in the world would religious leaders bring a woman they caught in the act of adultery before a crowd, before Jesus, before the Temple? And how exactly did they catch this woman in the act of adultery? And where is the man? You can’t exactly commit adultery in isolation, can you?
It doesn’t take long to realize these religious leaders are trying to set a trap for Jesus.
It doesn’t take long to realize…
The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees knew the word of God, but they did not know God.
They knew the letter of the law but they did not know the heart of the law.
They sought the judgement of God, not the grace of God.
They were out to catch sinners, not call people to return to God.
What they really wanted was to catch Jesus!
The truth of the matter was that they were correct. The law of Moses said that people caught in the act of adultery were to be stoned. (Deuteronomy 22.24 & Leviticus 20.10.)
You may think that sounds harsh, and it is! But what God wanted to communicate to His people, remember… the Law of Moses was the Word of God for the people of God, and what He wanted His people who were called by His name to understand is that they were to be a part of a different kind of community, a holy community, the kind of community where these kinds of things did not happen.
God takes sexual purity seriously. This is the heart of God. His people were to live such different lives that they pointed the entire world, all the nations around them, toward the One True God.
Jesus knew the Law of Moses. He knew it better than they did because He was the one who wrote it! He also knew the heart of God. His concern is always for what is right and true, but also for the person. And in this moment, what mattered most to Jesus was this woman they had placed before Him.
Had she sinned? Yes.
Was she the only one who sinned? No! Not by a long shot!
What Jesus was witnessing in this moment, this disregard for another human being, shaming her in public in this way, using someone against her will for their own purpose and pleasure and desire, this concerns Him more.
Whenever we use people, we are guilty of an egregious sin.
Jesus knew the Law of Moses, and yes… it did call for both the man and the woman caught in adultery to be stoned to death. That’s how much God hates sin. But there is little evidence if any that this law was ever carried out in Israel’s history and certainly nothing to suggest that it was being carried out in the first century.
But Jesus also knew Roman law at the time and the Jews did not have the power living under Roman oppression to execute anyone.
The religious leaders are essentially putting Jesus in an impossible situation. They’re asking… should we obey the law of Moses or the law of the Romans? And no matter which one Jesus chooses, he will still be making a choice that condemns the woman which severely discredits His ministry and teaching about caring for the least of these with care and compassion.
No Condemnation
6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger.
What was Jesus writing? I have no idea. No one does. Maybe he was writing down the words to Amazing Grace? 🙂
7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.
Those who had come to shame this woman and to shame Jesus now leave in shame.
Their plan had failed. Jesus found a way out of the trap.
You see, by the letter of the law of Moses, those who witnessed the sin had to cast the first stone. (Deuteronomy 17:6-7.)
Whatever those witnesses saw or didn’t see, they were not willing to throw a stone.
They knew they were the ones who had violated the law.
And what’s more, they knew that if they were held to account for the things they had done, they too deserved death.
So they dropped their rocks and walked away. Every one of them. Until it was just Jesus and this woman.
10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
Jesus doesn’t condone the sin, He acknowledges it and He forgives it. Jesus demonstrates grace & truth.
She is free from the guilt of sin but not free to continue in her sin. Jesus says, “Go & sin no more.”
He wasn’t calling her to a life of perfection. He was calling her to change!
A Call to Change
So what is it that you need to change about you today?
In 1785, John Newton was approached by a young man who was seeking guidance and spiritual direction as he was deciding about what he should do with his life. He was a young politician and already a Member of Parliament. But he was having his own spiritual awakening and was wondering if he was supposed to remain in politics or do something else.
John Newton had become well known for his weekly sermons and songs. His story was widely known… how he had gone from slave trader to Anglican priest and abolitionist. And this young man thought Newton would be just the right person to go to for advice.
So he went to meet with Newton and asked him his question. Should he remain in Parliment and politics and use his position for God’s purposes, or chart another course? Newton responded with these now famous words: “God has raised you up for the good of the Church and for the good of the nation.”
And when he heard this, William Wilberforce made the decision to continue in politics and to take up the cause of abolition as his life’s great work!
You see, people can change. And God uses changed people to change the world!
We don’t know the rest of this woman’s story from John 8, but I’d like to believe she left that day a changed person. That’s what happened for nearly everyone who had this kind of encounter with Christ. Maybe one day, we’ll get to hear the rest of her story.
But today, I’m more interested in the rest of your story. Because I believe what John Newton said to William Wilberforce is true for you, too: “God has raised you up for the good of the Church and for the good of the nation.”
God has raised you up to make a difference in this church and in this world for Him. Like the woman caught in adultery, like John Newton caught in the storm, like William Wilberforce caught in indecision, we get to choose what happens next.
We can “Go and sin no more.”
We can live different, live the abundant life Jesus has invited us into.
Or we can remain unchanged.
But for all who come to Jesus, here is the invitation today, to…
Come and be forgiven.
Because according to Jesus, people can change. And…
God uses changed people to change the world!
The Good News
What do you need to be forgiven of today, what needs to change about you today, so you can be set free to make a difference in this world for Christ?
Sometimes think we can’t come into God’s presence because of our sin. Yet this woman, along with every person who was present that day, comes into His presence as sinful people.
Our sins many keep us from God’s presence, but that’s not because of God.
Jesus welcomed and welcomes sinners into His presence.
We think we have to deal with our sin and then we can deal with God.
But… that’s not the gospel. That is not Good News.
The Gospel: We deal with God and God deals with our sin!
Jesus told the woman, “Neither do I condemn you! Go and sin no more.” Jesus was practicing what he preached when he said that He did not come into the world to judge the world, but to save it. John 3.17
It’s the same thing the Apostle Paul would say when he wrote in Romans 8:1-2:
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
If you’re ready to change today, if you’re ready to turn away from sin and turn towards God, if you’re ready to baptized today, the invitation of Jesus is to come and be forgiven.
Will you come?
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