"Let Any One of You Who Is Without Sin…” | John 8:1–11

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways.

Well you are back for another Amazed. Well we're back.

I don't know if our listeners are back. I'm assuming

they're back for another platinum edition of The Bible Guys.

This week we have Wesley Woods with us. Chris Sarball

is out of the studio doing some really great missionary

work down in the Dominican Republic, and so we have

this great episode where Jesus is I think maybe engaging

in one of the most beautiful moments in all of

Jesus ministry today, and so I'm looking forward to getting

into that. But before we do, Dez has this really

great episode or segment for us called Who's most Likely?

I love these, Wesley, These are so fun. So we

have to take a vote of who's most likely. So

the first one is who's most likely to talk to

themselves in public and not notice.

So that's tough.

I'm gonna say me.

Well, I was gonna say I might say me on this,

especially if you're trying to work through something, you know,

like should I get this or not?

You know, So when I'm driving, probably two thirds of

the time I don't have any music going.

Yeah, that's the same with me, and I'm just.

Thinking, Yeah, I'm working through a problem. I'm trying to

figure out a thing, and uh, I have found myself

before answering myself and looking at somebody and they're just

looking at me kind of you.

Know, like I didn't ask anything, So then just put.

Your hand up to your like like you're talking. Yeah,

so I do. I do on occasion talk to myself,

So that's it.

Yeah. I would say that's a tie right there.

Okay, here's the second one. Who's most likely to start

a story and forget the ending? That's every day for me,

every day? Yeah, yeah, how about you do?

Do you ever?

I've done that before where you start and it's so good,

you know, how like you're ramping up to the ending.

I was in a meeting the other day and it

was so important where I was going, and then somebody

said something and it totally just took me down another

road and I'm like, how does that even apply?

Right?

So I'm going there and suddenly I can't remember the

application of what I was saying. I was like, what

was I just talking about Everybody around the room is

trying to remind me what I was saying. Oh yeah,

it's the worst one. I'm so embarrassed for a storyteller, Yeah,

to not remember the ending of their story is terribly embarrassing.

Who's most likely to build a blanket for it as

an adult?

Now here's the thing I might say you on that one.

You know what because of your grandson.

I got grandkids? Yeah yeah, yep, yeah.

So actually he has a fort in your backyard.

Yeah, there's a big fort. The house we bought. The

previous owners had this really high end fort customer and

it's it's his. Yep, Rowan took it over, is his? Now? Yeah,

so that's great. Who's most likely to say you too

when the waiter says enjoy your meal.

I just did this.

I literally you know how you give the person at

the airport to We were just on vacation last week.

They scan your stuff and you walk down and they

say you don't have a good flight, And I responded back,

you two.

And it's like, well that really wasn't apply.

But you ever see Brian Reagan when he yeah, he

does that. Yeah, they're like, I have a good good

good luck flight, have a nice flight if you ever

get to fly too.

Yeah, I hope it's a good one. I just did that.

Yeah, that's funny. Okay, And then who's most likely to

google do penguins have knees? At two am?

Hm?

Oh see that's tricky. Now. I'm a night owl. All.

I love staying up late, but normally if I'm staying

up late, it's either a documentary that I'm watching. Oh yeah, yeah,

which my wife is like, why are you watching a

World War two documentary yet?

One am? Either that?

Or something just like completely dumb funny, you know, like

one of the two of those.

Right, So you're not You're not. Your grain's not just

running wild at two am?

Yeah?

Yeah, me either. I am a sound asleep at two am. Yeah,

so I'm usually at eleven o'clock midnight kind of a person. Yeah,

when I go to sleep, but I put my head

on the pillow and I'm out in five minutes. Yeah,

I don't. I don't. Probably not once a month do

I have an O in the middle of the Yeah, yeah,

not hardly ever does it happen? So that's definitely not

me doing that one, Although I am curious do they

have knees? I've never even thought of that.

That is a good question.

Let's google it right now.

I can picture the leg and yeah, you.

Know, the thin leg and normally if they're have a

small you know, just a newborn penguin.

Google says, yes, penguins do have knees.

So maybe it's further up. I don't know.

Yeah, it says although their knees are tucked up inside

their that's been hidden by feathers. They possess a femur,

a knee joint, a tibia, and amphibia in each like

just like humans and other animals. Yea, you just can't

see it for hidden knees. Yeah, Okay, are they embarrassed?

They embarrassed about their knees. Yes, So anyways, there you go. Now,

you know, it's no wonder people tune in.

It's right.

It's uh information that we bring to the table. So

that's funny. So now you're a documentary guy, Yeah, I

love document And then do you ever search weird stuff

like that where it just crosses you might know, not

not at two am, but just all of a sudden go.

Not normally normally how it starts a dog, you know,

how the algorithm knows you. So a documentary will come up,

and then I go down the rabbit trail, you know,

so like I'll watch one and then like, oh, this

one's interesting about why there's no bridge between you know,

North America and South America and you know, through the

dairy and gap. So then now I gotta watch that one.

So then then you just kind of go down this

rabbit trails.

So so a documentary kind of person that usually means

you're pretty curious kind of is that? Is that the

I think curiosity is an important trait that we don't

celebrate enough.

Right mind order doesn't understand that.

She comes downstairs and on Saturday, I'm watching like the

History Channel.

She's like, Dad, what is this?

Yeah? Well good?

Well.

I think a good, healthy sense of curiosity helps you

become a renaissance kind of a man, where you curiosity

drives you to learn lots of different things, lots of

different things. I just talked about this, not the brag, Wesley, Yeah,

I hate the brag. I'm I think humility is one

of my favorite traits. But I was reading and I like,

I like to read the headlines. I don't like to

read articles a lot of times, I know, I don't

want news, uh, news websites or whatever to tell me

what to think is I rarely watch the news. I

don't want talking heads to tell me what to believe.

You don't want to commentator to telling you what you

should think about.

I can't stand that, and I don't need them to

tell me. Nine times this hour, the exact same thing

didn't tell me what to think about it. So usually

I'll read my news and most of the time it's

just headlines. Well then I love to just kind of

cruise through all of the headlines for the day from

maybe six or seven or eight or ten different sources.

Well then all of a sudden, you know, like Wall

Street Journal or whatever. I think I was in one

of the science magazines, come across this thing and it

was talking about math process to be able to estimate

whole numbers of things. And I read this thing and

that I'm like, you're never going to believe what I

just read about how to figure out estimates better. And

everybody's looking at me, their eyes are rolling back in

their head. I was like, this is the most amazing

thing ever. And I'm not a big math guy, but

this was a brilliant It's how the British were able

to figure out how many tanks estimate how many tanks

the Nazis had world War Two, and it's a fabulous

algorithm that they worked out and it's super simple.

I love it.

And everybody's like, you are so weird, right, But there's

just this weird curiosity. I think that's one of the

reasons why our buddies, because we wind up talking to

each other about really weird stuff in the office. Sometimes well, hey,

talking about I don't know. I was going to say,

talking about weird stuff.

But that was a good transition.

Yeah, yeah, So I don't even have a bad here's

the bad transition. I don't have a bad for this one.

Usually we set a goal to have like the worst

possible position from the goofy segment into the Bible study part.

But we are in John chapter eight and we're going

to read one through eleven, and this is one of

the sweetest passages. And to be honest with you, there's

some curiosity for me in this passage that I'm looking

forward to talking about. In John chapter eight, verse one,

it says Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, which

is just outside the city of Jerusalem. But early the

next morning he was back again at the temple. A

crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them.

As he was speaking the teacher's religious law, and the

Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the

act of adultery, and they put her in front of

the crowd. Teacher. They said, this woman was caught in

the act of adultery. The law, Moses says, to stone her,

what do you say. 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,

and they kept demanding an answer. So he stood up

again and said, all right, but let the one who

was never sinned throw the first stone. And then he

stooped down again and wrote in the dust. 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 a woman. And then Jesus

stood up again and said to the woman, where are

your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you, No, Lord,

she said, and Jesus said neither do I go and

sin no more. Yeah, there you go, man. This is

one of my favorite stories in the Bible.

Yeah, that's a great story.

And I want to point out one thing here, and

it's in verse three and it says as he was

speaking that the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees

brought a woman who had been caught in the act.

So can you imagine how embarrassed this woman was so

not that they heard that she was an adultery, she

was caught in the very act of adultery. So she

has probably embarrassed, ashamed, doesn't even want to show her face,

and they're bringing her before Jesus, this religious leader, to

see what Jesus has to say about this.

So that's just one point that just the gravity of

the moment.

I always read this and she was caught in the

act of adultery, and you're like, oh, right, the humiliation,

the shame, everything she was doing was laid bare in

front of everybody. Everybody in their culture knew this was

a death penalty issue. But I always wonder, where's the dude. Yeah,

she was caught in the act. Yeah there were two

of them. Yeah right, so where's the dude. Yeah, and

they just bring the woman out right to do this.

And what they're trying to do is they're trying to

use it against Jesus, because if Jesus says, well, stoner,

then the Pharisees would say, where's Jesus mercy and love?

All he ever talks about love? But now he wants

this woman executed. Yeah, and if he doesn't say, if

he says, disobey the law, what kind of prophet is

he to disobey God's law?

And they were constantly doing this to Jesus.

Yeah, yeah, So it wasn't about the woman's sin.

Yeah, yeah, they could have carried they wanted to entrap Jesus.

It was just an entrapment.

Yeah. Yeah. It was terrible.

So there's this really great note in the Life Application

Study Bible says, imagine the complete humiliation of being in

this woman's place. She stood alone in public, surrounded by

angry accusers. They had laid bare her terrible sin for

all to see, and the man caught with her was

nowhere to be seen. Jesus rescued her from her sin

and her shame and her indignity and death. Jesus knows

your worst sins, and yet he offers you compassion and mercy.

Let his mercy give you the courage to face your guilt.

His leve will overcome your shame. Don't deny it or despair.

Be sorry for your sins, Seek the Lord and receive

his forgiveness. I love that that whole thing, right, It's

just such a beautiful thing that she's completely exposed, so humiliated.

And Jesus goes watch this, and in the most unbelievable way,

Jesus solves us. So he stoops down in the dirt.

He starts drawing in the dirt, gidling doing something.

And then they.

Say, so, what do you say we should do? Should

we stoneer? Yeah, And Jesus sends up and he says, well,

why don't you that has no sin? Why don't you

cast the first stone? And then it says he stooped

down again and wrote in the dust, And man, when

I get to Heaven, I want to find out what

he's writing. But I'm hoping he was writing the names

of those very Pharisees that also had an affair with

this woman. How great would that is? Like, Yeah, Bob Johnson,

you were here last last Thursday. Right, that's I would love. Yeah,

because whatever he was writing in the sand, the oldest guys,

the ones who had the most experienced they were the

ones who left first. Yeah, because you know they had

also the most sins. Yeah, right, yeah, And whatever it

was Jesus was writing down because he said, whoever has

the no sin, you go ahead and cast first stone.

And the old guys start leaving, until finally the youngest

and it's only Jesus standing there with her.

Yeah.

An amazing thing.

And it says that they kept demanding an answer. This

is the funny, funny part about this. But the thing

that I like about this is they kept demanding an answer.

And I look at this from a very practical perspective

as it relates to us. You don't always have to

give a response to people, no, right when they're demanding

an answer to something.

That's just a side note right there.

They kept they kept demanding an answer while he's just

writing in the dirt.

Yeah, just completely ignoring them at peace as they're pestering

up them.

This is why I hope he's writing names, yeah, because

they keep he's writing their names. You know, let's say

there's ten of them, or twelve in there, right, and

he goes, Bob is here, and Bill is here, and

Dave is here, and Jim is here. Right, he's right's right?

Not the names that would be odd. Yeah, And they're like,

what are you doing? And then they start to demanding.

They're so confident in their trap.

Yeah.

And one of the most enjoyable things sometimes when you

do get somebody trapped is how confident they were until

they realize their trap. Yeah right, It is kind of

a and so these guys are so confident they keep demanding,

we got you now, buddy. Yeah, and then he stands

there he goes, okay, sure you're right, you're right, she's

supposed to be stoned. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, just just

just make sure the person who's never sinned you throw

the first one, and then we'll all throw some. Yeah.

What I also like about this, Jeff, is the fact

that and I think we need to be careful here.

Jesus.

At no point did he cover over her sin or

did he say her sin was okay, No, no, no,

that's not what Jesus was saying here. He wasn't saying that, Yeah,

what you do, it's not that badger, you know, he

didn't do that there, he was simply showing compassion to

the woman.

That's right. So there's nowhere in the Bible that says

that a woman would would have to be put the

death on her own for having an affair like this.

As a matter of fact, in both Leviticus twenty and

in Deuteronomy twenty or twenty two, it says both the

man and the woman. So they were already breaking the law.

Coming to Jesus, this was already a moot point. This

was already a non prosecutable crime. They were caught in

the act, but were only bringing the woman. Means we

can't prosecute this. They knew the law right, but they

wanted Jesus to put her to death because they would

have within their culture for for so long they had

abused that law and they had gone beyond. And if

they get the woman, they would execute the woman, leave

the man free. Men had totally different rights and experiences

than the women did. And so this is one of

those moments where Jesus elevates the woman right. He treats

the woman better than society was treating the woman. He

does this all throughout his ministry, where he elevates women.

It was women who brought the first evidence that Jesus

had resurrected. They they're oftentimes their testimonies weren't even accepted

in court. Jesus allowed the women to be serving in

the ministry with him. All these things. He elevated women.

He did so much ministry for women, He healed women,

he did so many things. But for their culture at

the time, women were second rate and expendable. And so

that's why they regularly broke the law. And Jesus is saying, hey,

if you're going to be precise on the law, let's

be precise on the law. Right, where's the man? He

didn't bring a man. Okay, well, then if you're without sin,

they had sinned just against that law. They brought the

woman and didn't bring the man. That may have been

the only thing he was saying, yeah, right, And then

they all realized, oh, wait a minute, we didn't do

this the right way.

So, Jeff, how can we apply this to our lives.

You know, there's someone reading this, and maybe there's someone

you know, it could be a family member, friend, neighbor, whoever.

They feel the person is not living right, the person

is in sin. They're ready to condemn them, they're ready

to pick up stones. How can we apply this in

our life?

Yeah, I think first of all, Jesus did not condemn her.

Our sin condemns us. Yeah, right, So the wrong that

we do is what condemns us in this situation. Jesus

had the right to be the judge. Yeah, he is

the judge. The Bible says at the end of time,

he'll be the judge. But in this moment, he said, hey, listen,

they came to accuse you. In the perfection of the law,

your partner should have been with you. So he said,

where are your accusers? And she said, I have none, Lord,

And he said, then I'm not accusing you either.

Yeah.

But then he says, go and sin no more. So

he acknowledges her sin. He acknowledges that what she did

was wrong. And this is the difficulty we have. It

is possible for me to love you and disagree with

your with your lifestyle. Yeah, it is possible. Right. I

loved my children when they were growing up in my home,

but I didn't always approve of their lifestyle. I do

not have to endorse or affirm sinful lifestyles. And at

the same time, if I'm like Jesus, I'm also going

to be loving. Yeah, so I don't need to condemn

you because of it. Your your own lifestyle condemns.

You, which oftentimes we as Christians do. Yeah, we will

beat the person over the head with the Bible, and

we want to add further condemnation on top of the condemnations.

Right, it's oftentimes we want to make them feeling yeah

the page, that's right, yeah, and which Jesus did not do,

that's right. Yeah, so he does affirm the law. Yeah,

he says, all right, you right, that is all. But

then he's really challenging us. A lot of times, I

think we can rise up above the person that's offended,

thinking that our sins aren't as bad as their son. Yeah,

and we forget that my sins put Jesus on the

cross just like their sins.

But that's a really good point of how I think

we have degrees of sin. Yeah, yeah, so my sin, Jeff,

isn't as.

Bad, but yours.

Oh your you should be stoned, you should be cast out.

But mine that was just a little lie.

Well, you know, you know how we tend to extend

a lot of grace to ourselves and little grace to others. Yeah, right,

because we know what we meant. Yeah, we assumed they

meant the worst, yes, and we knew that we really

meant to do the best. But it was just a mistake.

So usually we don't sin. We make mistakes. Yeah, that's

usually what we do. But they sin horribly. Yeah, these

are horrible monsters.

I think of like cars speeding that we were near

a hall road. Cars drive fast all the time. If

we're going fast late for something, we want grease and

mercy from the police. If someone else goes fast, he's

an idiot. Yeah, you know, that's kind of how we.

Look at it.

So I'll tell you a quick story on this, on

this idea. So I'm working on a peace project overseas

and a guy, a leader. Two leaders wound up butting

heads and next thing, you know, because they didn't deal

with it, bitterness crept in and they started kind of

they started doing damage to each other. Well, one of

the leaders rose and fired the other one.

Oh man, Well, then the.

Other one winds up losing everything. He lost his home,

he lost his money, he lost his family, he lost everything,

lost his reputation. He's not hiable anymore. Yeah, and all

of a sudden, the guy who did the firing starts

getting these threatening letters from a terrorist group. We know

where your kids go to school, all these things.

Yeah.

So the guy that was the boss starts being afraid

for his life, thinking these terrors not connecting to until

they kind of discovered maybe the guy who got fired

was actually the one that was sending these fake things.

Yeah.

Well then it blows up. They ruin this other guy's reputation.

It just gets so bad.

Yeah.

Right, Well, now maybe that guy whose reputation is ruined

is willing to just burn the whole thing down like

Samson just put a whole temple down on top of him.

So I get called in to try to work out

some peace because I think these are both good guys.

They just misbehaved.

Yeah.

So, in talking with the most offended one, I was like,

how do we work for peace? Has Jesus ever forgiven

you for something worse than this?

Yeah?

I said, I don't need to hear the accusations. I

know the accusations, and all you want to do is

keep saying the same accusations. Let's get beyond it. What

is your motivation is your motivation that you need to

punish this guy?

Is that it?

Because if we won't forgive others, Jesus won't forgive us.

So then you want to be punished for all of

your sins that Jesus forgave. He goes no. I said,

all right, so what is your only option? And he goes,

I need to forgive, And I said, not just forgive.

Jesus said, pray for him and do good to him.

I said, you need to use your power to find

a way to do good too. He's like, I will.

I'm willing to work that out, right. So then the

other guy, I went to him and I said, let's say,

because he's denying that he sent those letters, but we

have video evidence. Yeah, So I said, let's let me

just set that aside and say that was your worst

decision on your worst day because you were desperate, or

it's the most extraordinary coincidence in the history of extraordinary coincidence.

It could be that, right, But I said, let me

set both of those aside, and let me say love

keeps no record of wrongs. So because I love you,

if you will allow me to set those aside and

say those are your worst day I can forgive you

for your worst day. I'm going to invite our friend

to forgive you for your worst day. That broke his heart.

In that moment before we were done, I asked him,

I said, would I want to pray for you, but

would you pray for me? And he said yes. And

he says first sentence, Father, forgive me. I'm sorry for

the damage I've caused. So for three years he's denied

being any part of this, but in the moment, I said,

I'm willing to set it aside and forgive. I'm believing

you did it, but I think it was your worst day,

and I choose to forgive you even on your worst day. Yeah,

everything changed right now. He didn't offend me. And so

we're right on the verge of putting these two men

back together and fixing this. And what a great test.

This is what Jesus say. Remember when we talked Matthew

eighteen that maybe we can restore a brother. These guys

were great friends. How do we bring this back? And

maybe I don't know that they'll ever be best friends again,

but how can we get them back to functioning like good,

healthy brothers in peace. It's going to require that we

also choose not to prosecute, right, choose to forgive. It

doesn't mean that you're saying it wasn't a bad sin.

Jesus says, go and sin no more. He said, lady,

that was a sin. Don't do it anymore. So it's

possible for me to love you and not affirm your

lifestyle and encourage you to change and not sin anymore.

That's okay, but I have to do it from a

position of love and not a position of judgmentalism. The

Pharisees came. They wanted to correct the bad behavior too,

but they want to kill her. Yeah, right, And Jesus

instead extends forgiveness. And he does the same thing for you.

I mean, thank god he does.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Well, there we go. Let's wrap it up there. Hey,

there's probably somebody in your life that you need to

encourage to go and sin no more. And at the

same time, maybe it's time for us to drop the

rocks in our hands and we don't have to execute

the people who've offended us so badly. So good, what

a powerful one. Well, I look forward to seeing you

again tomorrow here on the Bible.

Guys,