Go and Sin No More

I thought I would give, and I've been thinking about this, a basic sermon on sin.

Now, I'm going to say that by way of introduction. Because sin hurt.

Whether we fully realize that or not, it often isn't something we think about, but it does. And I was thinking, whenever I thought I might say that, as far as a basic sermon on sin, that's not the title.

What I was thinking of was an episode of Andy Grippen and with Barney. And of course, I'm fairly familiar with those. We've watched them over and over and over again for decades. And of course, you can still see them on TV, so that's good. And of course, sometimes they have a church service involved. And I recall one more service was, there was a guest speaker there, and he gave a sermon about relax. Don't get so caught up in everything that you need to take time to relax. And of course, as Andy and Barney are leaving, everybody's, he's toward the back, and everybody's saying something to the preacher as they leave. And on this particular occasion, several people shook his hand and said, you know, nice sermon pastor. And I think Andy said something appropriate, and Barney said, good sermon pastor!

You ever can't hear enough about sin? Yeah!

And so it obviously made a great impression on him, as far as what the sermon was about. Anyway, I want to go over a section here in John chapter 8 that you are familiar with. Maybe you've even gone over this here somewhat recently, if you've tied it together to the latter part of the piece. But in John chapter 8, you have a remarkable interaction, a remarkable interaction of Jesus Christ with a woman who was brought to him, a woman who was viewed by others as a sinner, of course viewed by Jesus as a sinner. He knew that. And yet, let's just read through this in John 8 starting in verse 1. Each of them went home. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives early in the morning in verse 2.

In verse 2, early in the morning, he came again to the temple, and all the people came to Jesus. And he sat down, and he began to teach them, which is a fabulous concept to think about. They were not church members. There was not a church yet. But people came to hear what the Son of God had to say. And the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. And making her stand before everyone, they said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. And in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. What do you say?

And of course, in verse 6, they said this to try to trip Jesus up to test him so that they might have some charge to bring against him. So obviously, their motives were bad. You know, they were kind of a criminal bunch, in a sense. They were somewhat of a renegade operation, although they had the full backing of religion.

You couldn't say they were really very religious, but they had the support of the religious, or they were the religious authorities.

And of course, they didn't have the same concept about sin that Jesus had.

And so, Jesus, verse 6 again, bent down and broke with his finger on the ground. A lot of speculation about what he wrote, but regardless of what he wrote, when they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and he said, Okay, you guys are so out to condemn her. You guys are so hard-hearted and cruel. You all are wanting, you know, in a sense, maybe you get a real thrill out of punishing Jesus. Someone for their sins.

And so he said, Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to start throwing the rocks, to cast the first stone.

And of course, you know, they eventually all filed out. Once again, he bent down and continued to write on the ground. Whatever he was writing. And whenever they heard what he said, whenever they heard what Jesus had to say about this situation, and whenever they heard that, they all started filing away one by one.

And I guess it says, what does it say? What does it say? I need to keep my place here. Well, they heard that they went away one by one, beginning from the older or the elder. And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

So we could say that Jesus thoughtfully dealt with those who were here to try to make a scene out of an issue that was really a problematic, but not in the way that they were working on it, should it be addressed. And so he, you know, I think it's remarkable what he had to say, let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.

But in verse 10, when Jesus straightened up and said to the woman, well, where are they? Has no one condemned you? And she, of course, says, no one, sir. And so Jesus finally concludes with what I really want to focus on today, because what he said was, well, neither do I condemn you. He said, no one else is here to condemn you. No one else has the qualifications to condemn you. Because he said, well, someone could condemn you if they don't have any sin. But he says, no one fits that category, at least none of them. And so he said, neither do I condemn you, but go and sin no more. I know there are other translations of that, but that's the sermon title, Hank. Go and sin no more. See, now, it dawned on me as I read this and thought about, you know, some of the things that we can read and write about this particular type of section of Scripture, that clearly Jesus was the only one in the group who had the credentials to condemn her. And he says, I don't. Neither do I condemn you.

No one else could really do that. You know, they could point out that that sin or a sin was wrong, not wrong to figure that out. But see, Jesus was not here to condemn people. He was not here to look down his nose at everybody about how rotten or how much sinners they are. He already knows that. He's already aware of my sin. He's aware of your sin. But what he told this woman was really an act of mercy. He says, I don't condemn you, but I want you to go and sin no more. And I wanted to read a section here. We had this in one of our ministerial papers here a month or two ago. But it is Barkley's daily study guide. It has a little explanation of what somebody else, another commentator or a commentary, says. He is a preacher of the past. He's no longer alive. But Barkley writes about this section on John 8. He says it's very important that we understand just how Jesus did treat this woman. It's easy to draw the wrong lesson altogether and to gain the impression that Jesus forgave lightly and easily as if sin didn't matter. Some could read that into that. They could say, go and sin no more. No big deal. Not really a problem. He goes on to say, what he said was, I'm not going to condemn you just now. I want you to go and sin no more. And in effect, what he was doing was not to abandon judgment and say, don't worry about it. It's quite all right. He wasn't saying that. But what he did say, as it were, I'm just going to defer sentences. We'll see how you do. We'll see what your response to this probably alarming moment in her life.

He says, you have sinned. Go and sin no more, and I'll help you all the time. At the end of the day, we'll see how you play. So his directive to go and sin no more is really very instructive in many ways, and clearly not something that all of you are unaware of. You are clearly aware, and I realize that. But I have to say, I believe that there are levels of awareness. Levels of awareness regarding our sin. For me, levels of awareness for my sin.

Markland continues. He says the basic difference between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees was that they wished to condemn. That's what they were there for. They wanted to condemn this woman, and he wished to forgive her. He wished to forgive and then tell her, go and sin no more. If we read between the lines of this story, it's quite clear that they wish to stone this woman to death, and we're going to take pleasure in doing so. That was really what was represented. They were really doing it to try to trick Jesus or try to trip him up, but I would almost imagine they'd probably been involved in this condemnation before.

I would think they, I don't know how often it was that this kind of end result occurred. I don't know how often it was to find blatant sin. But their whole attitude was one of condemning, looking at others instead of looking at themselves. Actually, what Jesus made them do was look at themselves.

And he said, you know, if you don't have any sins, then you need to throw the first rock. They knew the thrill of exercising the power to condemn. See, that was what they were puffed up with. And Jesus knew the thrill of exercising the power to forgive. That was what he not only came to the earth to live and die for, but that's what he taught throughout his interaction with people.

And, you know, this, you know, trying to emulate his example is, you know, it's an awfully tall hill to try to climb. Of course, with his help, he will help us be successful. Jesus regarded the sinner with pity, born out of love. And the scribes and Pharisees regarded Jesus with disgust, which was born out of their self-righteousness. You know, that's the conclusion of what Barkley said just regarding this section and what it is.

Now, that it's not talking about easy forgiveness or easy mercy, or that sin isn't serious. It's talking about God's view of mercy, of forgiveness, but beyond that, go and sin no more. That's what I want us to think about. I think this is a truly remarkable account regarding Jesus' concern for this woman, but for all of mankind, really, because he has that same kind of compassion and care for every one of us. He didn't wish to condemn, as the Pharisees did, and he didn't condemn, but he extended mercy, and he taught her to go and sin no more.

I think that's a good thing to keep in mind. I'd like to...there's three things I want to mention here about this because we can preach against sin, which would be not all together popular in many places, but maybe here it wouldn't be so unpopular. We kind of readily admit that.

But there are three things that I want to point out about going and sinning no more. Now, the first thing is that Jesus insisted on her acknowledging her sin. He really said so. He says, you've been sinning. I'm not going to condemn you, but I do want you to go and stop sinning. I want you to go and sin no more. And sin no more. See, so the knowledge of sin is necessary. Necessary in order to receive the mercy and forgiveness of God.

If people refuse to even figure out what sin is, then where can you turn? See, I know the Pharisees certainly defined what they thought sin was, and they were saying she's guilty. Clearly, Jesus understood her sin. I know she understood it. She knew that, yeah, I was sinning. And see, all of us know about sin. We know how sins define. I'd like to mention a few verses. Actually, you could write down your own verses as far as what is sin.

Knowledge of sin is all I'm dealing with here with this first point. See, we could quote 1 John 3-4. You know, sin is the transgressing of the law, transgression of the law. That would be one. There are several clear statements about what is sin in the New Testament. And again, I'm not going through all of those.

There are some in the Old Testament that I also want to mention. But in Romans 7, verse 7, you see a very clear statement that Paul made. Here he was even talking about the law.

And he says, what should we say? Romans 7, verse 7, that the law is sin by no means, yet if it had not been for the law, then I would not have known.

When people want to dismiss the law, the law of God, the law of love, a law that is broken down, love toward God, and love toward our fellow man, and then the Ten Commandments being more clearly defining that, you find that you don't really have much of a basis for a knowledge of sin. He goes on to say, I would not have known what it is to be to covet if the law hadn't told me you shall not covet.

He said, I wouldn't have known that. That wouldn't have been normal thought to me, what Paul was saying, and to others, perhaps. God defines that. He says, and of course this is quoting the Ten Commandments, you should not covet. We realize that sin involves many aspects of the law. In Psalm 51, which is a psalm again that I know we're familiar with, you see in Psalm 51, and David wrote this psalm after his sins were pointedly forced upon his mind. Psalm 51, in verse 3, he's writing this after his adultery and murder and numerous other things, his deceit clearly, his dishonesty, and his I don't know, maybe he's not a lot different than us, than me.

But what he says here in verse 3, and of course this is kind of in response to what Nathan would send to tell him, 2 Samuel 12 verse 13.

Nathan was sent and he told David what the problem is, and David said there in 2 Samuel 12 verse 13 that I've sinned before the Lord. Pretty small statement. Just a... See, it was almost like a light bulb went on. Otherwise it must have had a bulb but no electricity. It wasn't making a connection. And you also, well chapter 51 is where I was in verse 3, he says I know my transgressions or I acknowledge my sins. I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is ever before me.

And obviously, Father, against you and you alone have I sinned. Of course, he's sinned have been a bunch of other people too. Uriah, for one. Bathuba. You know, Joab, the whole court, the whole nation. His actions adversely affected a lot of people. And yet what I see there in verse 3 is simply a statement about acknowledging. See, clearly prior to that he wasn't acknowledging. He wasn't seeing. The bulb was there, but no electricity. Wasn't connected.

I think we could tie this together with Matthew 7. Matthew 7 verse 13. Matthew 7.

Matthew 7, not verse 13, but verse 3. Matthew 7 verse 3, Jesus said, why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but you don't notice the log in your own? Yeah, I think that ties directly together with go and sin no more. Acknowledging the fact, as Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees, you're not in a position to condemn others.

But why don't you, he goes ahead to say, how can you say to your neighbor, take the, let me take that speck out of your eye while the log is in your own? What you need to do, you are a hypocrite, but you need to do is take the log out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to serve and help someone else.

You know, under this first section, as far as knowledge of sin, there's more to it than quoting 1 John 3.4. There's more to it as far as acknowledging sin. You see that in Psalm 32? I'll just quote that if I can find it. Verse 5, then I acknowledged my sin. See, that's another wonderful Psalm, but it's one of recovery. It's one of when I finally figured out I need to come to God for help. When I'm finally seeing the extent of my own problems, then knowledge of sin, we could look at Proverbs 21.

And of course, we realize that it's not just direct statements of the Ten Commandments that we recognize as sin. It's the spiritual intent with killing, a matter of the heart, anger, or hatred with adultery, a matter of lust. You could think about each one of those. They all have a thought side and a heart side. But here in Proverbs 21, it says in verse 4, what is sin? This would be another biblical definition of what is sin. It says, a haughty look, haughty eyes, and a proud heart.

Now, the King James says, the plowing of the wicked. That's kind of... I don't understand what that means. My translation that I normally use says, the lamp of the wicked. This is what is projected by or produced. I guess, if I was plowing a field, I'd be turning up the dirt, and then you'd see what's turned over. And yet, the lamp of the wicked. What the wicked represent, what is the fruit of their life, is haughtiness and pride.

And he says, haughty look and proud heart, lamp of the wicked. They are sin. So again, that's all I want to say about the first one of these. Because, again, I know all of us are aware of sin, but often, you know, our awareness needs to be heightened. It needs to be...we need to be open to the fact that maybe we don't see ourselves like we should. And we can ask God to help us see ourselves, or truly have the knowledge of sin. The second thing, again, this time's together with go and sin no more. Whenever we repent, see what does repent mean? I remember one of my co-workers when I worked for the state, she has a religious background. She's a very nice lady, but we were talking about that briefly one day. We didn't talk about religion much. But, you know, she realized, yeah, well, repent means to turn around and go the other way. I mean, turn, change, seek forgiveness. And, of course, God really does call for all of us. Once we have a knowledge of sin, once we truly see that in ourselves, then we want to ask for forgiveness, and we want to turn. What was Jesus saying? Go and sin no more. Go, and with your knowledge now, heightened of sin, which I'm sure that woman's knowledge was heightened of the seriousness of sin, he says, I want you to go and sin no more. I want you to go and rely on me to help you to be able to sin no more. And so I want us to think about that. You know, in Acts 2, we're familiar with the reaction of the people that Peter preached to right after the day of Pentecost.

He told them, you just killed Jesus Christ. Very bad mood. And, of course, they were realizing, well, some of them at least realized, you know, yeah, I guess we did. And, of course, what it says in verse 37 of Acts 2 is they were pricked in their heart. They felt the extent of, and, of course, then their appeal was what do we need to do? And, of course, Peter told them, repent, be back, receive the Holy Spirit. There is something to do. There is a way to repair that. And yet I'm struck by, as I think, about this turning and going the other way. See, one of my, at least I think it is one of the more telling parables of Jesus is in Luke 15.

And, of course, Luke 15 records three parables, but I'm only going to ask you to think about the one. The one that's about the loving Father starts in verse 11, goes down through the end of the chapter. And, again, I know you're familiar with what it says because the younger son, took whatever his father would give him, went off and lost it all, and finally had severe difficulty with him. But what it says, he, verse 15, hired himself out to one of the citizens of the country who sent him out in the field to feed the pigs, and he would gladly have filled himself with whatever he was slapping the hogs with. He was glad to eat anything. He was obviously hungry. But the point of what I want to mention here in connection with turning, not enough to know, not enough to simply be able to quote the verses, but to truly acknowledge and turn. See, now the description here, I think, is very telling. It says in verse 17, but when he came to himself, now I'm not even going to read the rest because I don't have time to even consider, you know, all of the wonderful benefits of this parable. There are many. But all I'm mentioning here is, you know, he realized that he had been mad. He realized he had been kind of deranged and he needed to get his head screwed on straight regarding his actions, regarding his own sins, regarding his disrespect toward his father. And, of course, thankfully, as he returns to his father, his father is obviously there. He's obviously welcoming this young son of his who he loved.

And yet, I point out just verse 17. We can even know what it says. I'm pretty sure most of you probably knew what it said before I read it. When he came to himself, that is a marvelous phrase to think of in connection with repenting and turning, going and sinning no more. Well, because do we have a perfect track record as we go forward? Well, no. But we've got to be able to come to ourselves. We've got to be able to see our sins and maybe the impact of those sins. Second Chronicles, chapter 6. I thought Tom mentioned a couple of chronicles earlier, but in 2 Chronicles chapter 6, you have what I thought is an interesting, again, another description of the same thing. Now, this is Solomon dedicating the temple. And in a sense, he's praying to God. Verse 4, "...blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hand has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to my Father David." See, this was, you read through the entirety of this chapter. It is his thinking about getting ready for and then actually his prayer during the dedication. And yet, what I want to focus on...

Here, in verse 3, during this prayer... and again, we don't have time to go through it... but in verse 34, he's asking for favor when they go to battle. 2 Chronicles 6, verse 34. In verse 36, it says, "...if they sin against you, for there is no one who does not sin..." See, the New Testament says that, but the Old Testament says that, too. "...if they sin against you, and you are angry with them, and you give them to the enemy, so that they are carried away captive in a land far or near..." Actually, Solomon's thinking about a lot of the options. Some of these things, you know, if we have God's help, we may be able to win in battle. If we don't, then we probably will be in captivity. But what I'm focusing on is, in verse 37, you know, if you somehow disrespect God and go into captivity, in verse 37, then if they come to their senses. That's what my translation says. I forgot to look to see what the New King James says, but come to themselves. Yeah, that is a similar thought. That is clearly involved with turning and sinning no more. Having a desire to turn away from sin.

"...if they come to themselves or they come to their senses in the land of which they became taken captive and repented and plead with God in the land of their captivity, saying, we have sinned, we've done wrong, we have acted wickedly. If we repent with our heart and soul in the land of captivity to which we've been taken and prayed toward this land which you have given us, the city that you have chosen, the house that was built for your name, then hear from heaven and hear from your dwelling place their prayer and plea and maintain their cause and forgive them the people who sinned against you." See, again, a lot of things you could talk about, about numbers of these things. But just the phrases back in dealing with the son returning to his father, you know, he came to himself. Here, they come to their senses. See, they were actually, you know, not in their right mind. They were actually in a, you know, they were off. They were needing to turn. But see, you know, there may well be more to this than we think. In Luke 18, you have an example that I think is significant. And often we read over this because we don't want to think that we might fit this category. We always want to put ourselves in the category of the second person, not the first person. But sometimes, if we're thinking about sin, if we're acknowledging God's word, and if we come to our senses, we may see more about our sins and the effect of those sins than we knew before or than we realized before. Luke 18, verse 9, he told this parable to those who trust in themselves that they are righteous. And who regard others with contempt. See, that's an important statement because this is what Jesus was pointing out. You know, we don't want, however righteous we may want to be, we don't want to look down with contempt upon others. And we may well do that, whether we think we are or not. Of course, he said two men went up to the temple to pray. If one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. And the Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying with God, saying, God, I thank you that I'm not like everybody else. I thank you that I'm not like other people. What he was saying is, I thank you that I'm so far above others, that I'm so much more righteous than others. I thank you that I am not like others, thieves and rogues, adulterers, and even like this horrendous tax collector, as he looked at the other man in the parable. Verse 12, I fast, twice in a week, I give times of all that I possess. But the tax collector, standing far off, had quite a different approach.

And of course, it says the tax collector wouldn't even look up to heaven, but simply was beating his breast and saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Now, we always want to think of ourselves in that category, but I think sometimes we may need to consider the other, because we we may do the right things much of the time, some of the time. We may even think we're doing the right thing. We may not see some of the implications. And so I tell you, he says in verse 14, this man, this tax collector, went down to his house, justified before God. Justified rather than the other, for those who would exalt themselves are going to be humbled, than all who are humble, God, can exalt. Now again, we can see humility, and clearly we should. I would say all of us believe that that's what we should do, but whether that is what we actually do, that may be a different story. And so we need to think about, of course, you could go through the example in James about looking in the mirror and walking away. It didn't look too bad.

It wasn't too dirty. Or I forgot altogether that I looked. And yet, all of these, I think, should be thought about in connection with turning. Not just knowing about sin, but turning from sin, and requesting forgiveness, which obviously repentance involves God. It involves repentance. It involves an attitude toward God. And then the final thing that I will say here in connection with this, Jesus not only offered this woman forgiveness, which it was clear he was not going to condemn her. It doesn't even say she asked for forgiveness. He just said, well, they're not condemning me or no one's condemning me. And Jesus said, I don't either. He was offering mercy and forgiveness. And yet, he encouraged her to change. That's what he was, in essence, doing when he said, go and sin no more. You can do better than this. You can. You don't have to be enslaved to your sins and to your struggles with God. I'm able to help you, in essence, he was saying, but you don't have a lot more information than just simply the phrase, go and sin no more. So if we look back in Psalm 51, which is the only place that I want to go here for this point, Psalm 51, of course, is a Psalm. Some of you surely have memorized, or at least parts of it. All of us probably know parts of it. And it is one that would be good to keep in mind, because there are so many wonderful concepts that are revealed in God's inspired dictation to David, because this was something David was living through. And yet it was recorded for us to be able to read and understand, you know, this is what turning from sin and then changing is all about. Because, see, what we see David doing in this psalm is acknowledging his sin, desiring to turn from the sin, desiring to be cleansed, to be relieved of the guilt that sin causes. And of course, he really realized, I can't do that. I don't have the capacity to do that. I'm not. I don't have the prerogative, the authority to forgive myself of sin. I can't do it. I've got to have God's help. Verse 7, he says, purge me. Purge me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.

Verse 9, hide your face from my sin, blot out my iniquity. How many times does he have to figure out a way to say to God, please wash me clean? Let me turn from sin and then let me do better. Of course, I think it's also interesting to see that David, in verse 10, or in verse 11, said, don't cast me away from your presence. Please don't take your Holy Spirit from me. See, David had watched what happened to Saul. He watched what occurred in Saul's life. And that's really not my point here today, but it's interesting to me when I read that statement, I'm thinking, you know, David watched what God did regarding Saul. Saul was appointed by God. That's why David had the respect he had for him. But he also saw, you know, that God pulled back, and he began to work with David. But what I want to point out here, in just regarding the desire to change, the need to change, once we see our sins more clearly than maybe we would otherwise. And I think that could occur if we are asking to do that. And it may occur even from other circumstances that arise. But what we read in verses 13 and 14 and 15, or what the response was, what the change was. See, I'm going to say that prior to 2 Samuel 11 and the catastrophes that were described there, you know, David probably wasn't doing a very good job of helping Israel. He was kind of out to lunch. But see, he said, as I come to myself, as I come to my senses, as I turn away from sin, then in verse 13, I will teach others, I will teach sinners, I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. He says, deliver me from bloodshed, O God. He clearly understood what that was. I just sent Uriah out there and killed him. Deliver me from bloodshed, O God of my salvation. Deliver my tongue or my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. See, David would be once again in line of actually, like we read about the speck in someone else's eye. Now, the log would have come out of his eye where he was actually able to teach and serve others. And in verse 15, he said, O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praises. See, I'll have the ability and the capacity to reach out to others and serve them. So I think that, like I said, I wanted to just give a simple sermon on sin. And as we think about that, very thankfully, God is merciful. Thankfully, Jesus, in this example in John 8, was merciful. He extended mercy and forgiveness. He was not light on sin. He was actually showing the remedy for sin, which was turn from sin. See what it is, turn from it, and actually live a changed life. And that, of course, I think is what God wants for all of us. And if we seek his understanding, then we may see things that we were unaware of. And there's a solution. There's a full solution. But I think it's exciting to see what Jesus has to say. And it is, you know, a wonderful benefit to be able to know, as we're told back in my path, that we are to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God. That's what he expects of us. And so, again, John 8, verse 11, Jesus told her, I'm not condemning you, but I do tell you to go and sin no more.