Collateral Damage

 Read John 8:1-11

Deuteronomy 22:22

So, I have given a proposition a few or few dozen times That’s normally how that works. Remember, this is a Tom Deal not a hard and fast biblical rule or doctrine. Here it is again.

The Law was given for our own good to mitigate the evil in our hearts. It didn’t cure anything. It reduced the effect of evil within us, at least that is what I have proffered to you.

Jesus wants a wholesale exchange of our sinful hearts for a divine one. It’s not quite a plug-and-play deal, but you surely do not want to be unplugged from it.

Where are we in this unique gospel?  Jesus has performed miracles. Some believed. Some didn’t. Some started thinking about killing him.

Is he the Christ? How can he do these things? Some believed. Some doubted. Some continued to plot to kill him.

Through this time, Jesus continued to teach. So we come to a day on the Mount of Olives and the Temple Courts and Jesus is ready to begin his teaching when he is greeted by a crowd once again.

Among his enemies who were about to make their grand entrance, someone thought they had the perfect scenario to trap Jesus. I cannot believe that the gospel author did not insert “lol” somewhere in the text.  Let’s see how it plays out.  It’s likely familiar to you.

Jesus was ready to teach and the Teachers of the Law were ready to entrap him.  Enter the woman accused of adultery. She had been caught red-handed.  That part might make you scratch your head. This should be a no-brainer.  Jesus has to say “Stone Her!”

C'mon, it's an open-and-shut case. 

So, the woman is dragged in. I’m thinking this stop was not on her to-do list for the day. She might get a quick roll in the hall with the guy next door, hit the market for some sales, and maybe grab some drinks with the girls later.

So much for her plans. The religious hierarchy had the woman placed in front of the people.  They probably didn’t even know her name.

They had come for Jesus. The woman was a sideshow, a distraction, while the self-righteous maneuvered for the kill. She was the supporting attack and her death would just be collateral damage. These high and mighty leaders were after Jesus.

Jesus was the one in their sights. The woman was small potatoes, but necessary for this maneuver.

The religious leaders and their closest followers turned their attention to this man called Jesus.  OBTW—they were all packing rocks.  This was the boys day out for sure. There would be blood!

C’mon, you can’t just decide to kill a woman because you want to—really, what’s the deal here?

God told Moses to do this.

And this was no surprise to Jesus. Jesus could have taken the role of attorney and been the best lawyer ever. Jesus could have dismissed on the spot.  Send these knuckleheads away.  They don’t have a case!

What?

They were short some evidence. It wasn’t lost in the evidence room. It wasn’t skimmed off by some corrupt cop. It wasn’t blown away by the Oklahoma wind.

The yahoos in charge of this show just brought the girl. So, what did they forget?

The guy. Yes, even two millennia ago, it took two to tango.

If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

Jesus could have just said that a Two to Tango offense and I only see one person accused.  He could have just sent these self-righteous yahoo’s home.  Jesus took another path. He went along with the scheme to kill the woman and make him look hard-hearted after preaching so much love.

He had one condition.

Jesus was not confrontational. He was not combative. He wasn't there to debater or argue. He could have been. The Teachers of the Law left themselves open to be obliterated by the law. Jesus would not engage in conversation. He wrote on the ground.

When he spoke, his words cut to the heart of why he chose what he did.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground

Jesus wasn’t going to teach the finer points of the law. He came to fulfill the law and he did. But crossing the T and dotting the I were not part of his mission.

This next part is a little speculative, but within the realm of probability.

Realize that there was probably a guy in the crowd with a rock or two or two dozen who was glad he wasn’t standing with the accused. He would make his throws count. He was going to need another side chick but at least he wasn’t about to get stoned.

And we come to a very basic question. What do we want in our relationship with God?

A vending machine? Problem in. Answer out. On to the next thing.

A friend when I need one? Who wouldn’t want that?

Someone to tell you what to do?  I’m talking to the single guys now. The rest don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Seriously, do we want someone who is Lord? We like the Jesus is our friend part. How about Jesus is Lord.

Do you want someone to take the pain in your back or neck or leg away? I’m sure that I missed a few spots.

You want to be able to make this month’s rent or car payment or tattoo payment.  Any financial help is appreciated.

But are we ready to accept Jesus as Lord?

Every man there was armed. Young and old had gathered. Some would throw with passion. Some would move to the back of the line when it formed. Let the extra passion of youth do its work.

But they all brought stones.

So, let’s enforce the Law of my Father that was given through Moses. Go ahead. Whoever has never sinned get this party started.

Who would be the first? Unless a stranger was just passing through at the moment, I’m sure that anyone who stepped forward might have a skeptic or two or two hundred. This statement was universally disqualifying.

 Not even the Patriarchs could play by all of the rules.

The law has some attraction for people. They can satisfy their own human heart—yes the one tainted by evil—and do it in the name of God.

Do you think that those men who brought this woman to Jesus were concerned in doing what was right in God’s eyes? Really?

·         There were those with an agenda. This Jesus character has been disrupting our stage. Time for him to exit stage left.

·         There were those who were just interested in what would happen. Like him or hate him, there was never a dull moment with Jesus.

·         And some didn’t know what to do with the day. My golf game stinks. Let’s see if there is a stoning going on anywhere.

There was another group. The people. The people who were interested. The people who were listening so they could do what God wanted them to do. Yes, there was a group of people ready to hear what the Lord had to say.

There was one more person interested in what Jesus had to say. Yes, the woman who had been brought before him. He had just said, go ahead and stone her, knowing that it would never happen. The woman might have been a little in the dark on the last part.

So it went something like this.

Where did everyone go?

I don’t know.

Then who is left to condemn you?

No one, sir.

Then neither do I. I came to save not to condemn. Now leave your sinful ways and live to the glory of God.

Today, most of us fit into the same category. We have sinned and we have been saved by the blood of Jesus. Now, go and sin no more.

More about that later.

Amen.

Do the Work

 Read John 8:1-11

Deuteronomy 22:22

 

Now, go and sin no more.

What an ending. Jesus was confronted with an impossible situation once again but for God, nothing is impossible. He sent this woman away. No stone had touched her. No one was left to condemn her.

It was just this woman and Jesus, and of course the crowd of people who followed him or arrived at the place he was headed or somehow just showed up where Jesus was teaching.

The One who came to save and not condemn saved her.

Now, go and sin no more.

It’s such a cool ending. Your life has been given to you by the Lord. Now, stop your life of sin and live for him. Amen. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah!

Did she do it? Did she live without sin for the rest of her days?

Let me know if you find out. Never mind, I think I know.

Let’s stand in her shoes.  I can’t do that. I’m not shacking up with other guys or gals. I don’t do that.

How can I stand in her shoes?

We do, every one of us. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It’s a pick-your-poison sort of deal.  We all have sinned. Period.

Some of our sins come with the death penalty.

So, does that mean that mean that running a red light and shacking up with my neighbor’s wife are the same?

They are obviously different acts but both defy authority. God said. Man said. The bot on the phone said: Don’t do that, but we did it anyway.

Jesus told the woman to stop defying God and his ways. He said, the ways of my Father are better than the ways of the world. He said, you don’t have to carry your guilt and shame and embarrassment around with you, but you do need to go forward living for me.

Do you remember God’s way and everything else? Jesus was saying, live my way. You tried it your way. Now try things my way.

Was she able to do this?  Probably for a time and then something would happen or nothing would happen or just out of the blue, she disobeyed God or one of his commands. Just my guess, but based on our common human experience.

We were lost in sin.

We repented of our sin.

We professed Jesus is Lord.

We are saved by the grace of God in the blood of Jesus.

We too are to sin no more. But it’s just too hard. It’s too difficult. We can’t do this.

In the realization that we are saved from our sin and from death, our commitment to living without sin should be unimaginably high. We should be pumped up to live without sin.

We are fighting Satan, evil in every place it gathers, our own nature and understanding but we are committed to living from this day forward without sin.

How is that working? Who is batting 100%?  How about 95%?

Commitment is a tough sell in this time.  If I put a sign-up sheet in the back of the sanctuary, I might get 2 signatures.  One is probably from one of my grandkids who doesn’t know what he is getting into.

It doesn’t matter what the sign-up is for. It could be for helping in the nursery or making cakes for a cakewalk or sitting in the foyer waiting on a delivery of a million dollars worth of gold and silver.  People don’t sign up. People don’t make the commitment.

Now, I will get 35 cakes for the cakewalk, but nobody wants to commit to making a cake.

I can think of another commitment that some of us made.  I do solemly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States...

Now that is a commitment; yet, each service sends many young men and women packing who made the commitment but did not live up to the standards.

Commitment is just a tough sell these days.  Now, instead of committing to bake a cake or two, we commit to sin no more. That might just be tougher than writing a blank check to your country.

We just can’t do it. We have the best motivation in the world and in history and that anyone could come up with to live without sin. Jesus saved us. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe.

On top of that, there is one more reason why you should give up a life of sin.  It might be the most powerful reason of them all. It is…

You have heard me preach.

Surely that would have done it. Or not. Occasionally, I get a little tongue-in-cheek. 

Something in our nature makes us wrestle with the God’s way part of God’s way and everything else.

It could be that Satan and evil and the dark forces in whatever form they come have really good advertising. They have convinced so many that doing things God’s way cheats us out of something else.

And many bought that hook, line, and sinker.

Academically, we know that God’s way is better. Intellectually, we know that God knows best. Our own understanding tries to tell us that sometimes that is not the case. We have to wrestle with this over and over again.

And so, we come to the term efficacy. Efficacy is the power to effect the desired change or the desired results. Efficacy in a single person is called self-efficacy.

So, the question is: Do we have the power to change?

God says with him, all things are possible, so with God do we have the power to make the desired changes?

Yes!

Then why do Christians deal with sin so much? Some of you might want to go ahead and scratch me off your Christmas card list right now.

We are double-minded. We think that God’s way is best but that God doesn’t fully know my circumstances. Like Job, if we could just explain ourselves to God, he would get it. He would grant us an exemption or a waiver, if he only knew our circumstances.

We might just be a little bit lazy.  What! The preacher is calling me lazy!

I didn’t see him out on the tractor until midnight. I didn’t see him out at the rig pushing pipe for three days straight. I didn’t see him in the warehouse making double quota.

How can he call us lazy? He has seen us work!

We make offerings of money. We donate food. We give rides. We do a whole bunch of things to be known as a follower of Jesus by our love. Good on us.

Good on ya!

Where we miss the boat is with our minds. We are to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. We are to win the battle in our minds and then in our lives.

Sometimes we take the thought captive and adopt its mantra instead of being faithful to God and making everything else that we must address obedient to Christ.

We are to seek God first—before all things. That’s in everything we do and that takes some effort.

We are to be strong and courageous. Courage begins in our hearts and minds.

We must win the battle against sin in our lives in our minds first. Every thought must to held captive until it can be examined and found in line with God’s way or in need of reform.

Our first thought must always be of God’s way.

We must have the courage and readiness and willingness to do things God’s way. When we sing, I have decided to follow Jesus, have we really decided?

Have we committed?

Are we ready and willing to put his words into practice? If we are doing what God has told us to do, then we are not sinning.

If we are always focused on what God has told us to do, our chances of sinning go way down.

If our thinking is always, I want to do what pleases God, then sin is fighting an uphill battle.

But, if we are thinking we want to do things God’s way but we are not willing to seek God first, we are likely to strike out with this sin no more stuff.

If we feel like we want to do more things in God’s way but we are not willing to fight the battles that occur in our minds before they manifest themselves in our lives, we have already conceded the fight to sin.

If we want to live sin-free but still wrestle with who has the best way to do things, us or God. Then we are wrapped up fighting a battle that should never have to be fought. It is always God’s way. That is always the answer and not addressing the rebellious thoughts that we should be taking captive is the easy way out.

Sometimes, it is not convenient to follow God and do things his way. In our time, convenience rules.

What am I talking about? Amazon One-Click. That’s convenient. Man, is it easy to order something on Amazon. I occasionally go around with them about their return policy, but ordering is easy.

Some of you may not know this, but you cannot return an AV-8 VSTOL Harrier on Amazon. And you can’t get JP-5 or ammo for it anyways. But ordering is so convenient.

I guess my grandkids can forget about that college fund, but they can come over and play on my airplane. 

You can order your pizza on the app.

Set a reminder on your phone.

Tell my device what music to play. I love going into my son’s house and telling Alexa on the refrigerator to play Stairway to Heaven at 2:30 am at max volume.

Let my refrigerator make its own grocery list.

Do you know what the cutting edge of convenience was when I was young?  Clap on. Clap off for turning the lights on and off. Those were Clappers not Clackers. Clackers could mortally wound you if they got out of control.

Do you remember Jesus telling his followers how hard it was for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven? Consider the many conveniences that we have in this nation and in this age and even out here where there are more cattle than churchgoers. We are rich in convenience.

Do we really need God? Do we really want him as Lord? It’s kind of nice to do things your own way and it’s so convenient. This sin stuff just seems overrated.

Jesus said that with God all things are possible. So, the real question is: Do we want to stop sinning?

The question is not limited to the sexual sin in this pericope or that people seem to get worked up about the most. It’s all sin.

Are we willing to seek God and his way before addressing the thoughts in our minds? Are we willing to do everything with God so we can tackle sin before it leaves our minds and takes hold of our lives?

It’s work.

It’s mental work.

It’s focus-type work.

It takes effort.

Who’s up for it?

We all want to execute his command to go and sin no more. Let’s put in the effort that is our part. Let’s do the work.

If a kid wants to play professional ball, he needs to do the work.

If you want to be a rocket scientist, you need to put in the work.

If you want to be wealthy money-wise, you need to put in the work on earning and investing and buying and selling.

You have to do the work.

We are saved from sin and death and didn’t have to do anything to earn it. We simply received it by faith. It was and is a gift.

If you want to go and sin no more, that’s going to take some work and it begins in our thought life.

I pray and believe that we can get much closer to God when we seek him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Go and sin no more. With God, we have more than a fighting chance. He has his part. We just need to do the work.

In your own way and in your own time, commit to do the work. The work on the cross is finished.

Now, it's our turn to respond in love, obedience, and commitment to sin no more.

Amen.

Targeted Love

 Read Luke 6:27-28

He is not here. He is risen.

He has gone ahead of you to Galilee.

Tell the disciples and Peter to meet me in Galilee.

Why do you look for the living among the dead.

He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!

Up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes.

He arose the victor over the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign.

A week ago, many of you arose early for a sunrise service. We couldn’t wait. We were excited, plus there was breakfast.

Some of you, most of you returned to worship this morning and Tom has the audacity to preach love your enemies on the heels of Christ arose.

What’s up with that?

Love your enemies.

Here is the escape clause.  Here is the golden parachute for those who are not up for this whole love your enemies business.

What’s that?

Jesus didn’t say this for everyone. He was not talking to everyone.  Well, to whom was he speaking?

But to you who are listening I say:

Really? That seems a little flimsy.

Jesus said, I’m really only talking to those who are actually listening.  Who is listening?  Those who profess Jesus is Lord and are ready to put his words into practice. That’s who Jesus was speaking to—those who were ready to hear his words and put them into practice.

Lord, I am READY to trust you completely!

Those who were listening wanted to understand more so they could do more.

But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

This is not for the Christian tourist. It is not for the casual follower of God. It is not for the slightly interested until something comes up.

This is for those who have professed Jesus is Lord and who know and understand what that means, and they embrace it. We embrace that profession. Jesus is Lord!

  Jesus is not an app that you go to when things get tough. That’s too transactional.

We do go to Jesus in times of trouble, but it is a short trip for he is our Lord and he is already with us and we are already doing the things he told us to do. We are walking with the Lord.

Let’s see where this pericope lands us.

This chapter tells us that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.  The religious leaders were so fixed on the rules that they forgot the relationship with the Lord was what was central. They followed the rules and missed God’s heart.

This chapter tells us the names of all the disciples.

This chapter parallels the Sermon on the Mount and Beatitudes found in Matthew 5, at least as it concerns suffering and persecution.

This is the chapter where we find love your enemies and most of us say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Life is hard enough without loving those whom we are perfectly equipped to hate with all of our hearts.  What’s an enemy for if you can’t hate ‘em.

Today, I will tell you that loving your enemies is not really an impossible command. It is overly practical. It blesses you as much as your enemies.

Sure. In the eternal realm, I will be blessed for loving my enemies. Yeah, OK, whatever.  In the meantime, my enemy is running all over me.

Really?

How many times do you have to contend with an enemy?  I proffer that it is much less that we might think and surely less than we advertise.

When is the last time that you were face to face with someone who wanted to kill you?

When is the last time that you had to check and see if you had enough ammunition to make it through the night?

When is the last time that you had to defend the perimeter of the school against all enemies foreign and domestic?

Our troubles do not lie in our enemies. Our Lord and Savior has overcome our enemies. Our struggles lie in the heavenly realms. Our struggles are with evil as it has occupied the world and has too many encampments in our own hearts.

Our struggle is very seldom with an enemy of flesh but with one of darkness in our own hearts.

Our struggles are so often so close to home that we are blinded to them.  Who can hurt us more—someone we don’t know who would just as soon shoot me as speak to me or someone that matters to me?

Really, who can hurt us the most?

The guy or gal or kid who philosophically has been conditioned to hate you for being an American or a Christian or someone who speaks up for good morals and ethics…

Or

Someone close to you? Someone near and dear to you? Someone that you love very much?

Over the past several years, I have proffered the following statement for your consideration.

The law as given for our own good—that’s straightforward in writing stuff right there.  But I also ask us to consider that the law mitigated the evil in our hearts. To mitigate is to reduce the effects of something and it doesn’t go far enough.

Jesus wants us to cast aside our hearts of evil and stone and receive the divine heart of our Lord, whom we know mostly through the Spirit.

Jesus uses hyperbole on a recurring basis but this statement is not one that says pluck out your eye is it offends you. It is one that says demonstrate love and care and kindness for someone that we don’t know very well.

What does that mean?  It mostly means pray for them. Pray for those who hate you or persecute you or are otherwise lost in the ways of the world.

Our direct involvement with those whom we might lump into the enemy category is minimal.  We spend most of our time sorting out our own hearts and minds as we deal with people that we say we love.

Jesus expands our thinking. If loving your enemy is even possible, how much more can I love those that are flesh and blood?

Can we not do a better job of caring for each other?

We do a lot in that area, but what if we posed the question in this way.

How can I take the time, money, energy, and effort that I currently expend on enemies that I will never see and use these valuable resources to love my friends and family?

And there you have it. Tom managed to work in the Parable of the Talents yet one more time.

What did you do with what God gave you?

We have gone from He arose the victor over the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign to Discipleship Time.

We are saved.

He is risen and so too will we be risen.

We take the good news to the world and along the way, we learn to love one another. Loving your enemies seems absurd, but it actuality, it just practical.

Don’t spend your time on that which does not profit you and your discipleship. Where will your love produce the biggest return?

With you and your demeanor and countenance and readiness to do what God tells you to do.

Imagine taking your money—however much that is or isn’t—and going to a financial institution to invest it. The fund manager says that 75% of your investment will make great returns but 25% is just being thrown away on stuff that we know is not profitable or productive.

Do you not look elsewhere to invest what you had to work hard to get? Don’t you want a return on your full investment?

Love your enemies is practical. Hating them takes too much time and effort that could produce good results at home.

That’s not the case for everyone. Some are called to take the gospel into the heart of enemy territory. If that is you, then love your enemies takes on a more personal nature.  But for most, we just need to pray for our enemies from afar and love those who matter so much to us, who are likely much closer.

Does this lessen the intensity of the command?

On the contrary. Our best efforts for those who have declared us as enemies is to pray for them and then be known by our love wherever we go.

Love your enemies. That’s an easy one.

Focus your time and effort of loving, forgiving, blessing, and living this life to the full with those whom you say you love.

If I am already praying for my enemies, then loving those whom I really want to love becomes so much easier. It begins to become our nature.

If I can love those far away by praying for them, how much easier is it to help the kid or the family or the traveler when we encounter them in our own neighborhoods.

How much easier is it to forgive those whom I love and don’t want something brewing between or among us? How much easier to forgive and love and embrace those whom I love when my enemies don’t suck one iota of energy or life from me. I will pray for them.

This is not adopting the pagan practices of loving those who will love you back. This is not tit-for-tat. This is targeted love.

I will target my enemies with prayer. I will be faithful in those prayers.

I will target my friends and family and those who just happen to live on the same part of the planet as me with very intentional or purposeful love. Yes, that will include some prayers but it will also include the hugs and smiles and forgiveness and assurance that we are a forgiven people.

To target my love when I am led to deliver it is grace lived out in our lives.

Love your enemies. Love those whom you want to love even more.

Jesus has raised our sights. We pray for those whom we will likely never see and we pray for, forgive, and rejoice with those whom se see almost every day.

Amen.

Are we truly known by our love by everyone?

 Read Luke 6:27-28

God loves you. Love one another. How easily do the words roll off our lips now, but do we mean it? Do we really mean love one another? C’mon, there’s some bad people out there

It’s the Sunday following Resurrection Sunday. The faithful are here. Many that were here last week we might not see for a while.

We remembered Jesus the way he told us to remember him and then we had a big celebration. Now, it’s a week later and we are back to putting the words of Jesus into practice.

But to get back on course, we get a major course correction.

Love God. Got it. I’m in.

Lone one another. Yep. Good to go. Let’s do this.

Love your enemies. There’s always a catch, isn’t there.

So, if we can do the Bible math, we get our most straightforward answer of answers.  It’s love, love, and more love for the one who truly wants to set aside the gods of this world and seek the one true God.

Love God, and love each other, and that includes those who we don’t like or who don’t like us or who might be on the other side of the world saying bad things about us.

Love the person who if they could would be outside your front yard with an RPG ready to make your day. Chances are, those who might call you an enemy won’t ever show up on your doorstep, but they would still love to do you harm.

Love everyone made in the image of God.

Let’s put it this way. Many of the people who rejoiced at Saul’s conversion were the same people he had persecuted.

Some of those people were dead. Then realize they were on Saul’s welcoming committee in heaven. Now, that’s some words into practice right there. Now, that’s some known as his disciples by your love right there.

We are defined as a people by our love. God loves us and we love others so much so that people know that we belong to God by that love.

We are defined as a people by our love

In the days of Abraham, the sign of circumcision was given to indicate the men among God’s Chosen People. Today, we have a sign in the spirit.  God’s Spirit lives within us.

God not only told us to love him and each other—everyone—he lives within us to help us do just that.

The default setting for the Christian must be love. Yes, we are:

·       Wise

·       Discerning

·       Generous

·       Faithful in a few things

·       Ready to serve our Lord in many things

·       Good stewards of our time, talent, and treasures

·       People who speak the truth in love

·       People who desire to please our Lord

·       People who long to hear Well done good and faithful servant from our Master

·       People who know some scripture and have much of it written on their hearts.

But our nature above every nature that tries to dwell within us is love.  God is love. We are to be known as his disciples by our love. It must be love that governs if Jesus is really the Lord of our lives.

That includes those whom we don’t like. That includes those who don’t really know us. That includes people who would just as soon that we get hit by a meteor or by lightning than receive our daily bread.

But we are called to love them.

And we can’t do it, at least not on our own.  We must submit to the spirit of God that resides within us to be able to love those who seem unlovable to us.

So the question of the day is:  Do we love God enough to love those who don’t love us and we would like to go on hating?

This is trust God over our own understanding once again.

This is putting what God has given me to work to produce a good return in this case that return is love for others.

This is the pastor gets off easy day.  Preach love, love, and more love. It’s for everyone made in the image of God. It must be love.

Love everyone.

Amen.