In Her Place (Costly Grace)

John 8:1-11

Have you ever wished you could be in someone else’s shoes at least for a moment? If you like sports and see a great player making a great play, you might think, “man, I’d love to be that guy right now.” We usually have those fleeting (hopefully) ‘trading places’ fantasy moments about someone who is having a highlight moment. We rarely think “man, I’d love to be that guy right now” about the place-kicker who just shanked a chip shot to lose the game. That’s when we think “man I’m glad I’m not that guy right now.” In our text, a woman caught in adultery in a time and place when it was a capital offense is brought into a courtyard, publicly humiliated and threatened with execution. How would you like to be in her shoes at that moment? I suspect not so much, but that is exactly what Jesus chose to do - to put Himself in her place and ours. John Stott once wrote, “The essence of sin is we humans substituting ourselves for God, and the essence of salvation is God substituting Himself for us. We put ourselves were only God deserves to be, and God puts Himself where we deserve to be.” This account shows our need for grace, the cost of grace and the power of grace.

First, let’s look at our need for grace. The woman’s need for grace is obvious. She was caught in an act of lawlessness and facing immediate execution at the hands of legalistic accusers, who were using her to trap Jesus. It was a clever move. They probably felt like a chess player with an opponent in checkmate. My opponent can zig or they can zag, but they can’t win. In this case, if Jesus let the woman go, they could accuse Him of not upholding God’s Law and thus condoning sin. If, on the other hand, Jesus upheld the Law and condemned the woman, His message and ministry of compassion was publicly discredited and open to ridicule. “Oh yea, blessed are the merciful, huh?” Of course, playing ‘outwit the Son of God’ is a can’t win proposition, and Jesus cleverly turned their move back on them. In the process He also exposed their need for grace. No one, and that certainly includes me, knows what Jesus was writing, but I wonder if it was commandments from God’s Law, which acts as a mirror showing us our sin and need for grace. In any event, He gave a condition that forced anyone who threw a stone to declare themselves sinless in front of the crowd and their hyper-judgmental peers. The oldest (wisest), who were the first to know that they had been outwitted, dropped their stones and headed home. Jesus, the only one actually meeting the sinless qualification needed to condemn, chose not to. As He had stated before, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him”-John 3:17. The question is how was Jesus free to let her go free without dishonoring God’s Law and God?

The answer is that He knew He would soon endure her condemnation in her place. As hard as it is to say, this woman deserved execution. So did her accusers, and so do we. We are all guilty of sin, and we all face condemnation in the ‘courtyard’ of heaven, where nothing is hidden. Thankfully, Jesus took her place (and ours) on the cross. That is what true grace, grace that does not condemn sinners or condone sin, costs. God is only free to let us go free, because He paid the full price for our sin. “God presented (Jesus) as an atoning sacrifice...to demonstrate His justice because...He left sins committed...unpunished”- Romans 3:25. John Piper said it well. “If God was unjust there would be no demand for His Son to die. If God were unloving there would be no willingness for His Son to die. But, God is both just and loving. Therefore, His love is willing to meet the demands of His justice.” Anything less than price-paying grace is cheap grace, and if we think about it, true grace always costs the one giving it. Not only does the grace-giver absorb the original losses of the sin against them. They also absorb the pain of forfeiting the consolation of just retribution. When we (or a loved one) are mistreated and choose not to mistreat in return, it can feel like it is killing us not to kill them. This is a taste of the death grace requires, but it is still not the whole meal. Grace not only withholds condemnation from someone who deserves it. It blesses them instead. So, grace costs the giver the pain of the original injustice, plus the pain of not condemning the offender and the pain of blessing them instead. Grace costs a lot, but it is worth its high price, since the death grace requires brings a resurrection of life.

Only grace, true costly grace given free of charge to the undeserving, has the power to break the cycle of sin and condemnation. We can think of God’s Law as legs supporting condemnation. When God’s Law is broken condemnation is sure to fall upon those under it. The point is God’s Law has the power to condemn, but it does not have the power to redeem. This is why “God sent forth His Son...born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law”- Galatians 4:4-5. Since the condemnation due to us fell upon Christ, we are free to leave with our lives and to leave our lives of sin. We are liberated by the reality that there is no longer any condemnation hanging over our heads. Instead of growing worry and resentment, we are filled with gratitude for grace and satisfied in the secure love of God. This increasingly empowers us to answer God's call to "sin no more." Grace also disarms our spiritual accusers. Just like the guilty accusers could not condemn the woman caught in adultery. Our accusers can not condemn us in God’s court. “Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died”- Romans 8:33-34. Grace disarms our accusers, allows us to escape death and frees us to leave our lives of sin behind. It is amazing indeed, and God calls all the beneficiaries of His saving grace to freely give costly-grace to everyone else. This means dropping our stones of condemnation and blessing those who curse us. It may feel like it is killing us to do so, but it will free everyone involved from the guilty cycle of sin and death and the bitter poison of bitterness.

Truth's Freedom

John 8:31-36

Friday a number of us celebrated the 4th with the three F's (Frisbee, football and fireworks) at the "Freedom Fest" on Fort Lewis. It has become something of a tradition, and once again it was a lot of fun. Of course, it is tradition throughout the U.S. to celebrate America's independence and the liberties we enjoy as citizens. Many people around the world long for such liberties, and America is recognized as an inviting liberty hub the world over. In fact, the Statue of Liberty extends the famous invitation "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free." The last phrase, "yearning to breathe free," captures my attention. You see I think there is a significant and often missed distinction between liberty and freedom. I think the best the U. S. or any country can offer anyone is liberty. Consider, for example, a person addicted to a legal substance in our country. They may have the liberty to purchase that substance at will, but they certainly are not free. Their wills are enslaved. Freedom, the true freedom described in our text, is more than liberty, and it is something only God can give.

In our text, Jesus is addressing people who have believed His message up to a certain point but not unto salvation. They are in the same spiritual condition that many people, including many church-going people, find themselves in today. They are not overtly denying Him, but they are not in committed union with Him either. Thankfully, Jesus works to fan such flickering faith, initial sparks insufficient to save, into the bright flames of saving faith that illuminate our darkness, consume our doubts and fuel the perseverance that we need to know true freedom. One of the better stories I know (sort of an oldie but goodie) to illustrate the difference between belief that savingly binds us to Christ and belief that leaves us left behind is the story of James Francois Gravalet, better known in his day as the Great Blondin. He once tight-roped 1,100 feet across Niagara Falls carrying a man on his back. He took him across and back suspended 160 feet above the waters below. When he arrived safely back, he asked a man in the crowd, "Do you believe that I could do that with you?" “Of course, I’ve just seen you do it,” the man replied. “Well, hop on,” said Blondin, “and I’ll take you to the other side.” The man answered, “Not on your life!” That is the difference between believing something enough to honestly say you believe it and believing something enough to stake your life on it. Biblical belief, saving faith that unites us to Christ who carries us across the chasm our sin has fixed between us and God, is committed belief that stakes life on Christ. Have you stepped out like that? Are you putting the full weight of your relationship with God on Jesus? If not, why not? Have you researched Jesus diligently and come to some nagging intellectual questions that will not let you go any further? If so, let’s prayerfully and diligently investigate them. Contrary to popular belief, biblical belief is not blind faith. It is committed trust in truth that God has revealed and authenticated, and it brings many blessings. Jesus gives three in our text: authenticated discipleship (assurance of our acceptance), spiritual insight (spiritual ability to know God’s revealed truth), and true freedom (from sin’s penalty, power, and presence).

Those who hold on to Jesus and persevere with Him by exercising committed faith in Him have His word that they are (prayerfully we are) His true disciples. If we picture Jesus as carrying us on a narrow way across a chasm, much like the tight-rope across Niagara Falls, it is not hard to see that those who try to hop off early or to wiggle their own way back to where they came from will lose their assurance, at least, of making it to the other side, but those who hang on will rest easier and easier with increasing security the further they are carried by Christ. One of Jesus’ first fully-committed followers Peter encouraged us all to seek such security when he wrote, “Make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things (persevere in the behaviors belief produces), you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” - 2 Peter 1:10-11. Persevering faith in our committed relationship with Christ is not effortless, but it's worth it. In all good relationships, the depth of our knowledge of each other grows over time. Many of the blessings in our relationship with Christ are not instant. They come with time and distance traveled and blessed assurance is one of those. So, growing assurance of our acceptance in Christ flows from fully-committed faith, and it is an important key into the freedom of greater delight in God, who comforts us with growing security.

Jesus also promises that His true disciples will know the truth. In a world of confusion and remarkable uncertainty, this is a bigger deal than it may at first appear, and it is not something that we can do on our own. The once spiritually blind religious zealot Paul wrote, after Jesus miraculously granted Him spiritual sight and simultaneously physically blinded him (literally blinded by the light) on the Damascus Road, “We have…received the…Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. We speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. Those without the Spirit do not accept the things from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to them. They can’t understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” – 1 Corinthians 2:12-14. Those who trust Jesus with their lives are indwelt by God’s Spirit. The great chasm between us and God is erased in Christ, and we are reconciled to God so completely that the very Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures, illuminates our understanding so that we recognize and resonate with spiritual truth and reject spiritual error. Jesus declared this would happen when He began His public ministry by reading the following from Isaiah - "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free those who are oppressed” – Luke 4:18. He not only promised His people spiritual insight in this biblical purpose statement for His ministry. He also promised our next blessing - true freedom.

Jesus’ original hearers did not know that they were not free and many people today, perhaps even particularly in America – ‘the land of the free,’ don’t know that they are slaves. Some of the original audience referred to their heritage as an indication that they were free and some today speak of their Christian heritage as evidence that they are free in Christ. This is not so. While participating in a family of faith has many blessings, biblical belief is not inherited. Each person has their own relationship with Christ. While a right relationship with God in Christ cannot be inherited, inheriting a sinful nature cannot be avoided. We are all born sin slaves, who must be born-again in Christ to be set free. A sinner is not something we become once we commit a sin. We are certain to sin, because that is who we are by nature. That is why no amount of moralizing can permanently free a slave from sin’s power. As Jesus said, “A slave does not stay in the house forever.” As sin-slaves, we may have momentary blessed experiences with God outside of saving-union with Christ, but that does not make us permanent residents of heaven. It just means God is privileging us, as He says He will in multiple Scriptures, to “taste and see” that He is good. Only a permanent relationship with God in Christ can free a person from slavery to sin’s penalty (death), power (progressively) and presence (ultimately). That, and nothing less, is the truth’s freedom, and God alone can give it. Thankfully, He is happy to give it to everyone who gives their fully-committed faith to Christ. That's why as Jesus, God’s unique eternal Son, declares, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Are you free indeed? Do you know that you know Christ is carrying you home to be with Him forever? Though it is rough road sometimes, are you experiencing growing intimacy with God and diminishing oppression from sin? I pray so. If not, you can be. You can begin right now by sincerely turning to God, acknowledging your sin and need for a Savior and trusting Jesus with the full weight of your life.

I also pray that we as a church will honor our “Live the Life” commitment to “Share the Truth” about God, His word and ourselves with humility, kindness and courage. If we will do so, I trust God to bless our obedience and create a liberating atmosphere of integrity that frees people to safely open up and deal honestly with the remaining symptoms of our sin and brokenness. God calls us to confess our sins one to another that we might be healed from sin’s power, and Jesus prayed that God would sanctify us, that is set us apart and make us holy, with the truth, which He declared to be God’s word. Our community groups can provide a great opportunity for you to grow together with other imperfect people, who are being carried home by Christ and progressively set free from sin’s power through the truth of God’s word and honesty with each other. I pray that you will talk with the leader of the group nearest you and take steps to connect and grow. Let’s pray.