Victory Fellowship
BTCS - Hope Is Here: Week 2 – Hope for the Broken
September 26, 2021 – Healing Service
Scripture: John 8:1-11
Intro: Last week we looked at how Jesus invites us to find rest in Him when we are weary and burdened, and how we can share these burdens with one another so that we don’t walk alone. This is where hope is found: in relationship with Christ and in relationship with one another. The truth is we all find ourselves in need of hope from time to time. Perhaps our need for hope does not stem from a weariness, but instead from a sense of brokenness.
There is no worse feeling than when our sin finds us out. Being exposed can leave us feeling broken and ashamed. Oftentimes, this can be rock bottom for us. Many of us can relate to the woman caught in adultery. We may fail in different ways, but they have the same result. The woman was going to pay the price for her sin—until she meets Jesus. What hope she must have felt as the stones began to fall at the feet of her accusers, and she was given a second chance to “go and sin no more.” If you feel broken today, hope is here. Jesus is offering forgiveness and a fresh start.
On the other side, how we interact with people around us who have made mistakes says a lot about our relationship with Jesus. The Church should be the place where grace is found easily and forgiveness is extended quickly.
We should always remember that there is nothing we can do that Jesus cannot forgive. Because we have been forgiven, we should also extend forgiveness to others.
Jesus loves us just as he finds us, but he loves us too much to leave us there.
Our lives can be fragile. The choices we make matter, and our decisions have consequences. We have all had times when we have chosen poorly. We all have made mistakes and fallen into sin. Because of our choices, a relationship falls apart, we lose a job, our finances suffer, or our marriages are strained. It can leave us feeling hopeless as we try to pick up the pieces. We can feel abandoned by God and judged by those around us. It is in these times that we long for some kind of hope.
Our scripture text today is a story of a woman who knew exactly what it felt like to be broken and in need of restoration. As Jesus is traveling to the temple to teach, he sits down with the crowd, and his teaching is interrupted by an angry mob of religious leaders who are dragging a woman along with them.
The woman in this story is brought before everyone with the accusation that she had been caught in the act of adultery. She was cheating on her husband with someone else, and these men apprehended her in the middle of the scandal. How embarrassing. How humiliating. She would have been fully aware that the consequence for this sin, according to Mosaic Law, was for her to be stoned to death. This is what brokenness looks like. A broken marriage. A broken woman. A broken reputation. This is rock bottom.
WE ALL HAVE EXPERIENCED BROKENNESS
What is most shocking about this story is that the woman seems to have been used as a pawn in the religious leaders’ plan to rid themselves of Jesus. Here, sin was being exploited in front of everyone in order to harm Jesus. This woman was caught in the middle, and her sin had been exposed. She was caught in adultery and laying before Jesus. She had lost hope that her fate would avoid a death by stoning. But then Jesus intervenes.
Rather than agree to this woman’s death on account of the law, Jesus does something different. The Bible says that he stoops down and begins to write in the sand with his finger. We are not told exactly what he is writing.
Regardless, when pushed by the mob for an answer, Jesus stands up and tells them they are free to proceed, but the one among them without sin should be the first to throw a stone.
THE CHURCH IS A PLACE OF HOPE
You see, sin does not happen in a vacuum. It often has collateral damage. It touches other people. It becomes common knowledge. As important as it is for the sinner to respond rightly to a shameful mistake, it is equally important that the Church responds rightly as well. We receive hope in the midst of our brokenness when we acknowledge that we all have fallen short and all have sinned before God. The beauty of the fellowship of the Church is that we are able to extend forgiveness and grace to one another because we are all broken people learning each day how to live under the grace of God. Jesus is making a point here. He is teaching the religious group a lesson about grace. If you cannot throw a stone at this woman, it is because you are guilty of breaking the law yourself.
So, these men, one by one, drop their stones and go home. I love the detail we are given here. First, the older men leave. Their wisdom causes them to understand the lesson first. Eventually the younger, and perhaps more stubborn, men follow. As the dust settles, it is only Jesus and the woman left.
I can imagine Jesus looking at this woman with such compassion and love. For the first time in this woman’s brokenness, she must have felt hope. Jesus is the only one in this story who does not condemn her for her mistakes. He is the only one who does not want to punish her for her wrongdoing. Rather, Jesus offers her grace.
God does not determine your value based on how well you preform. God does not decide your worth based on your reputation. God calls you valuable because he made you. Your hope is found in a God who loves you just the way you are, but loves you too much to leave you that way. Jesus clearly does not condone the woman’s sin.
In fact, the last words he speaks to her are “go and sin no more.” Jesus cares about how we live our lives. He cares about the decisions we make that leave us broken. Jesus wants to expose the sin, but not for the same reasons as the religious leaders.
Pastor Steven Furtick says it this way, “God exposes sin, not to shame us, but to change us.”
You see, these men exposed this woman’s sin to shame her and to trap Jesus. Jesus exposes sin because he wants to make us whole. He wants to take the broken pieces and put them back together.
GOD PUTS THE BROKEN PIECES BACK TOGETHER
I have good news for you today. If you find yourself broken today, if you feel like you are surrounded by people who only want to throw stones, Jesus meets you here in this place, and hope is here. You have a choice to make, and it will determine the future that you will live into. You can choose to make no changes and continue on your current trajectory. That seems hopeless. The other option you have is to confess your sin to God and receive his forgiveness and walk in new life. When we confess our sin and believe in Christ, then we are found in Christ. Paul writes about this when he is writing to the church in Corinth.
2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
We are made new. The Church is nothing more than a gathering point for a whole bunch of sinners who are learning every day how to live into this new life. The Church should be the place where grace is found more readily than any other place on earth. The grace of God, and the grace found from those with whom we fellowship, is the key to our hope.
This morning, I want to invite you, with your broken pieces and all, to believe that God can make something beautiful of your life once again. I want to invite you to trust the community that he has placed you within to offer hope to one another and live out this wonderful, grace-filled life together. (Come for prayer)
PRAYER & ANOINTING for HEALING
SONG: God Only Knows
John 8:1-11 NLT
1 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
