Truth and Grace -- John 8:2-11 • Dax Palmer

If you guys could stand for the reading of the word, we will be coming out of John 8:2 through 11, and let's read this together.

Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. Placing her in the midst, they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" This they said to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And once more, bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones. And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." — John 8:2-11

Amen. Y'all may be seated.

Before we get started, let me say a word of prayer. If y'all could bow your head.

Lord, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak your word. But this comes with a heavy weight. Because not only am I preaching to your people, Lord, I'm also preaching to myself. So right now, Lord God, I just pray that you move me out of the way and use me for your glory. We love you and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Back again, finally. Good evening and good morning to you all that are looking online. My name is Dax Palmer. I am the director of outreach at CTK. It has been a pleasure for me to serve at CTK throughout the years, and I can't believe how fast time has flown. My goodness. But I'm excited to be here today.

But before we begin, I want to go ahead and look at the elephant in the room. When you guys read the text, you'll see these brackets in there that say that this part of the scripture was not written or were not seen in early manuscripts. What I want to say is that none of the authors or none of the Bible scholars disagree that it happened. They all believe that Jesus actually performed this miracle, but I just want to address that in the beginning.

So I want to check your guys' ages real quick. How many of you all remember the movie "A Few Good Men"? Amen. Alright. One of the best scenes in that movie is when they're in the courtroom, right? And the DA is trying to get the commander to confess about what they call the "red code" or code red. Essentially, what this was was hazing happened and somebody died, and now he wants to hold this person accountable. And one of the key things in the movie, Coffey says this: "Did you order the code red?" Jessup says, "You want answers?" "I think I'm entitled to them." "Do you want answers?" "I want the truth." "You can't handle the truth!"

Right? And growing up as a kid, that would always be a saying in my house. My mom would come at me: "Dax, did you do this?" And I'd be like, "Mama, you can't handle the truth." Every time we turn the corner, "you can't handle the truth," right? And that was the saying.

But if we're honest, sometimes we cannot handle the truth, right? When you've been working hard all day at your job and then your boss says your work has been subpar. Or when you're spending all night doing your homework and you turn it in expecting an A, and then your teacher gives you a C. Or sometimes when your parents tell you to do something, you respond and throw a fit, right? But we all respond differently to correction, but we can control how we handle the truth.

But my question to you all is: Can you handle delivering the truth?

See, when we deliver the truth, we either do it with truth without grace or grace without truth. And every time we do this, it's always for our own benefit.

Truth Without Grace

Sometimes we could speak words to someone and although they are true and the motives are possibly correct, but our emotions aren't right. You even say some things sarcastically, right? There's a little bit of truth when we say things sarcastically, but oftentimes it offends the other person. Truth without grace. "All you do is sit around and watch TV. All you do is eat food and sit on the couch. You don't even read your Bible anymore, and you wonder why you keep falling in sin."

Truth without grace.

Grace Without Truth

Or sometimes we're on the other side, which is grace without truth. You guys know how it is? We avoid telling people the truth for the sake of the relationship. You know somebody who's claiming to be a Christian, but their lifestyle does not line up with it. Grace without truth.

And I know you guys are thinking, "How is truth without grace or grace without truth for my own benefit?" See, if we exercise truth without grace, then we want people to respond in a way that we think is best for them.

You're not living the way that I think you should live. I really don't like how you're making me feel right now so I think you need to change. And if we lean towards grace without truth, we actually want that person not to look down on us, not to be that person that's being judgmental. I don't wanna be seen like I'm a bigot, self-righteous. We always hear this: who am I to judge? But how can we deliver the truth and give grace at the same time without seeking our own benefit?

Grace without truth is meaningless. Truth without grace is mean, but grace and truth together is compassion. I don't own the rights to that—a friend of mine told me about that—but it's great. So in this text, I wanna do three things. We will examine truth without grace, grace without truth, and then grace and truth together.

The Context of Jesus and the Pharisees

Now as we enter this text, we are in the midst of an argument about the identification of Jesus. Is he a carpenter? Is he the Messiah? Is he the long-awaited prophet? Who is this Jesus?

By this time Jesus has already done five miracles, right? He turned water into wine. He healed the official's son. He healed the lame who couldn't walk just by speaking it. He fed 5,000 and on top of all that, this brother walked on water. And after all these signs and miracles, people were still divided about who Jesus is. Most of the Pharisees just flat out denied the authenticity of Jesus.

But what's interesting about all this—back in chapter three, if you guys remember, Nicodemus came by night and said this to Jesus:

Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God for no one could perform these signs that you do unless God was with him. — John 3

This tells us that the Pharisees knew to some extent that God was with Jesus but they still denied him. And I begin to think: what could make the Pharisees so blind that they ignore what is plain to see? What can make these Pharisees so bent on denying the very facts that they hear, that they see?

The Pharisees were in panic mode because Jesus was disrupting their lives. Everywhere Jesus went, these guys were jumping out of bushes, hanging out of trees and confronting Jesus, right? Trying to discredit him. Why would they do something like that? Why would they hate when somebody gets healed? Why would they hate when someone is forgiven? Why would they hate Jesus so much?

Think of it: all their power, prestige, fame, comfort, influence and authority was getting taken away by a carpenter. This shows us that the pursuit of power and comfort could cause you to be so laser-focused that you ignore God's goodness. If they would have just paused and reflected on the things that Jesus was doing and how that connects with what they read in the Torah or the Old Testament, they wouldn't have desired for Jesus to die.

And Jesus knew this. In chapter five he said:

If you believe Moses, you would have believed me for he wrote of me. — John 5

So they were blind.

If I wanna be honest, most of my struggles in life is given power and control. When we love power and control to some extent—I mean the culture is telling us that we have the power to create comfort, we have the ability to create joy, we have the availability to create our own destiny. But when these things begin to fall apart, we begin to flex, try to keep things from falling apart. There's nothing wrong with power and comfort but it's how we steward the power and the comfort.

And this is what the Pharisees did. They were trying to keep the power that they had but they're running out of options. And as we enter this scene of the gospels, they seem to have found a way to disprove Jesus.

The Woman Caught in Adultery

Verse two says this:

Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and taught them. — John 8:2

The people knew that there was something different about Jesus. They were amazed by the way he spoke to people, how he responded to the outcast, how he gave people hope. There's something about him that was different. People were lining up for the teachings of Jesus and the Pharisees didn't like that. So they put together a plan.

Verse three says this:

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst, they said this to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery." — John 8:3-4

Yes, they were right to address the sin but the execution was wrong. Just imagine during early morning service in the middle of a sermon, a group of men drag a female and throw her in the middle of the church and say this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. How would y'all respond in the middle of that? I mean most of us will be shocked, perhaps embarrassed for her because of the shame and some of us will condemn her and say that she deserves this. But some of us will ask: where's the man?

And if you're like me and I'm not the smartest person in the world, I know it takes two people to commit adultery. But regardless of how we respond, we will look to see what Jesus' response would be. Silence in the temple. The half naked woman who perhaps was dragged from one building to another, thrown at the center of the temple knowing that the penalty is death, knowing that she is guilty. And the Pharisees say this woman was caught in the act of adultery. This is truth without grace and I could just imagine how she's feeling right now.

I mean if someone drags you in the middle of an early morning sermon, they couldn't wait, they probably didn't sleep at all that night and put your most secretive sin on blast in front of the whole congregation or somebody was dragging their kids up here to the front and put them on blast in front of the whole congregation. How would you feel if every time you commit a sin someone would constantly put it up in front of your face, constantly remind you of your failures. This is not giving grace. This is truth without grace and I'm guilty of that. I mean sometimes I would deliver truth in a way that pushes people away from God rather than reconciling them to God.

Yes, it's true that she committed the sin but is this the way to speak truth to someone you know that is struggling with sin? Because if you do, do you truly care about that person? See the Pharisees did not care about this woman, she was a pawn. All they wanted to do was discredit Jesus. They didn't care how this woman feels. They don't care about the humiliation, the hurt, the pain. They don't care to know why the woman was committing adultery or what pushes her to do so. All they wanted to do was prove that Jesus is not the Christ. Truth only matters when it benefits them. To them, this was only between them and Jesus.

Cherry-picking Scripture

Verse five says this:

In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? — John 8:5

And don't you hate, we see this all the time when people cherry pick the Bible, right? The verses of the Bible just to make the point ignoring the context, ignoring the words or whatever it may be and they begin to cherry pick the Old Testament to make it align with their agenda, to make their case. They pulled this out of Leviticus twenty when it says:

If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress surely must be put to death. — Leviticus 20:10

But before we point fingers, don't we all like to cherry pick the Bible? I mean I love getting a log out of your own eye but the Bible says first I need to get the log out of my eye. The Bible says:

Love your neighbor as yourself — Matthew 22:39

But don't we love ourselves more than our neighbor? I mean think about it for a second, do you really love your neighbor as yourself? Does your heart break every time you pass by a Planned Parenthood? Does your heart break when you pass by a homeless person or do you try not to make eye contact and roll up your window? Does your heart break when protest happens and sometimes turns into riots and our city is torn down and businesses are damaged? Or does your heart break when an unarmed man or woman is shot like an animal in the street?

See sometimes we think that we have to land on one issue and ignoring the others. Line up with one political party and ignore the other. We think God is a one dimensional God. He only cares about this issue but not the other one. And when I hear stuff like this, I'm reminded of the story in Joshua and he's about to go take down Jericho and he sees this monster of a man with a sword and his face just dropped like, wow. And he says this:

Are you for us or for our adversaries?

And he said this:

No, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. — Joshua 5:13-14

See God doesn't pick one side over the other, one sin over the other. God is on the side of God. But God's heart breaks every time there is injustice. Let's not be like the Pharisees and cherry pick the Bible only using the Bible to fit our agenda. You can't have salvation without the heart of justice.

And what they are doing now is injustice towards this woman and also injustice to Christ. They were right to address a sin but the motive was wrong. And sometimes we go to the extreme just to prove a point don't we? We say and do things at the expense of the individual not really caring about how they feel. This woman was brought to the temple already judged because of her sin. She wasn't brought to the temple to be healed or reconciled, she was used by the Pharisees in order to corner Jesus. Speaking the truth without grace for the benefit of themselves.

But on the flip side, we see them giving grace without truth. I know some of you all were like, where do we see that in the story? I got one thing to ask you, where is the man at? Shouldn't he also be on trial? Where is his public shame?

Why isn't he getting dragged from one building to another with the threat of getting stoned? He gets the grace. And it's funny that the more I read the gospels, the more I read the bible, I begin to see that we are more like the pharisees than we think. See sometimes I think God puts the pharisees in there so we can see ourselves, a reflection. I mean just like them, we choose who gets grace without truth and who gets truth without grace.

And the crazy things about this is that the ones that we are closest with, they get the truth without grace. I mean, most of my 60% of my arguments with my wife is over time. It takes me fifteen minutes to get dressed but my wife, twenty, twenty five, thirty, thirty five and at that point I'm boiling hot. Why are we even leaving? But when I'm out to lunch and I'm meeting somebody, they could be ten or fifteen minutes late. I'd be, How man, it's not a problem man, no problem at all but why do I treat my wife like that? The one closest to me. Can I get an amen for that?

Man, but both options are flawed. Grace without truth is meaningless. Truth without grace is mean. But Jesus offers us a third option which is grace and truth married together is compassion.

Jesus Under Trial

But right now Jesus is on trial. He has to address two challenges. On the one side he has these pharisees bent on discrediting him and then he has this woman who has been guilty of adultery.

And they said to him to test him that they might have some charge to bring about him. — John 8:6

See these religious, these pharisees were pretty smart. They knew that they had Jesus. From their point of view bringing this woman to Jesus, they knew he had two options. One, violate the law of Moses by not stoning her or two, break Roman law by stoning her because under law Jews were not able to carry out death sentences. So you could just see the look on the pharisees face, right, like we got him, this is it, y'all we about to get him to the cross today.

But let's be honest, if someone came up in front of you, in front of all these people and started assassinating your character, how would you respond? I mean, I see this even on social media, right? Somebody goes to your page and says something about your character and you're typing it up. Right? People are like, you even Christian? But Jesus does the unthinkable. He bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. Jesus doesn't even entertain the argument. I believe Jesus gave them a chance to backtrack.

When they persisted in questioning him, he stood up and said, the one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her. Then he stooped down again and continued writing on the ground. — John 8:7-8

And I could just see the temple right now. Everybody is shocked. Pharisees are like, what just happened? I mean, don't know if you all have seen a UFC or boxing match when you think that they have the person kind of choked up or whatever and he just does like a dance move and it gets out and puts him in a lock, right? And this is what Jesus does, right? He does the unthinkable. He turns the pages.

People can speculate about what Jesus wrote on the ground and I'm not about to engage about what was written, but what I would like to highlight is that the 10 commandments when Moses was on the mountain, it was written by the finger of God. And then right here in the text, Jesus is writing on the ground with his own finger. But whatever it was, it convicted them and what's interesting about the text is that it says that the older ones left first. See when my kids get disciplined, I kind of give my younger ones a little grace but the older ones, my daughter, I'm like, girl you should know better than this. And I believe when whatever Jesus wrote on the ground, the oldest got convicted. But rather than falling on their knees and asking for forgiveness and repenting, they just turned around and walked away.

Even when they offended Jesus, he still gave them grace and truth by the way he responded. He didn't address the scandal of the man not being there, he didn't yell at them for interrupting his teaching, no. He says, the one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her. Grace and truth together is compassion. And even when we commit sin, God gives us that space to repent. I mean they could have apologized and asked for forgiveness but they chose to walk away.

But now that the antagonists have left, Jesus now focuses on the woman and I could just see the woman's face scared, humiliated, anxious, thinking, is Jesus gonna stone me? And truth be told, Jesus could have stone her because he was the one without sin but instead he chose not to.

Out of all the miracles that I had mentioned up to this point, I believe this is the greatest miracle, the forgiveness of sin.

Verse nine eleven says this, Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, no one, Lord. Neither do I condemn you. From now on, sin no more. — John 8:9-11

Those have to be the sweetest words that this woman has ever heard. She comes in expecting death but yet she's given life.

Grace is not giving someone what they deserve. See everyone in that temple that day including Jesus understood that what she has done, adultery is deserving of death, getting stoned, but Jesus says neither do I condemn you. Grace. He doesn't dismiss the charge. He doesn't act like it didn't happen. He knows that she's guilty, but he said from now on, sin no more. He acknowledges her sin and says, don't do it again.

And I can't imagine the impact that Jesus' words had on that woman. The pharisees came to condemn but Jesus came to save. See if they had truly known Jesus, if they had known the patterns of his life, if they had abided with Jesus like the disciples, they would have known that Jesus would rather die for her than for her to be stoned to death. Does that ring a bell? Jesus died for us, for you and me so we don't have to taste death.

Grace and truth equals compassion. This doesn't look out for your own benefit but for the benefit of the other. Aren't you glad that Jesus gives us grace and truth?

Jesus tells us, instructs us to go and do likewise. How do you do this? When you realize that your parents were wrong, give grace and speak truth. When you notice your spouse's shortcomings, give them grace and speak truth. When you fail and commit that sin again and again and again, give yourself grace and feed yourself with the truth of Jesus. Jesus has not condemned you.

I'll leave you guys with this verse.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. — Romans 8:1

This is the good news. This is the gospel. But the only way that we could give grace and truth is only through the power of Christ. Amen.

Lord, I wanna thank you for all that you have done, Lord God, expressing yourself, showing your love for us in the stories that you have given us, Lord. We are thankful that you do not hold us accountable for our sin. You take it away. You do not allow us to taste death, Lord. We love you, Lord, and we honor you. In Jesus' name, amen.