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.

Before Abraham was, I Am

Read John 8

What do you do when Jesus tells you that your father is the Devil?

You fire back that he is a demon.  He is a Samaritan.  He’s a Longhorn.  He’s from California.  He does drink Dr. Pepper.

The problem was that Jesus spoke the truth and the Jews were grasping at straws.  The Jews wanted to claim God as their Father but Jesus had called them out.  He said that God sent him, he did the Father’s will, and you dishonored him.

I will give you the same theological term as before:  Ouch!

Jesus told them again that life—eternal life—was in him.  Believe and you will not die.  He did not come to condemn the world but to save it.

That set them off.  Everybody has died.  All the patriarchs died.  Are you greater than them?

Jesus told them that Abraham rejoiced at seeing his day.

That set the sparks a flyin’. Now we know that you are possessed by a demon.  You are not even 50 years old.  Abraham lived a long, long time ago.  You are saying things that you can’t possibly know. We gotcha now!

Jesus said:  Before Abraham was, I am.

There is no subtlety here.  This is not the non-confrontation approach we saw at the beginning of the chapter with the woman brought before Jesus.  This is in your face:  I Am!

Now they were ready to kill Jesus for sure.  He could not say this unless he was indeed the Son of God and they were not going to believe that.

Jesus slipped away before anyone could do anything.  We know from our other reading that his time had not yet come.

Think on these words:  Before Abraham was, I am.

We often think of the 7 I Am statements in John, but there are many more.  The 7 statements are metaphors that Jesus used, but he used the words egō eimi or I Am more than within those 7 statements.  Each time they speak the words that God spoke to Moses. 

Jesus is proclaiming his divinity.  He is affirming he is of the Father and sent by the Father.  The truth that could set these men free from sin stood before them as the promised Anointed One, but their hearts had already been hardened and all they wanted to do was kill him.

What should we receive from this pericope?  It should give us a great perspective on Philippians 2 for one thing.  Jesus has always been.  He stepped out of heaven to live as a man, even from birth, to fulfill the law and the prophets, and go to the cross as the unblemished Lamb that takes away the sin of the world.

Later in John’s gospel, Jesus confided in his disciples that he is in the Father and the Father in him.  If you know Jesus, then you know the Father.  They speak the same language:  I Am.  They go by the same name:  I Am.

The Jews were so wanting to claim God and Abraham as their Fathers.  They wanted to be counted righteous because of their efforts to follow the law that came through Moses, yet they were blind to the truth and he was standing right in front of them.

Jesus gave them the name that his Father sent with Moses to deliver the slaves from Egypt.  It did not resonate with the Jews because they were not seeking after God.

For some time, the Jews had been asking:  Just who is this man?

Is he prophet?  Is he demon?

Does he come in the name of God?  Does he come only on his own behalf?

Is he the Christ?  Is he an imposter?

How can one from Galilee be who he says 

he is?

He is the carpenter’s kid, right?

Why have we not been able to trap him with our questions?

Can he be from God and be at work on the Sabbath?

Just who is this man?

In two words, egō eimi, know that Jesus is exactly who he said he is.

In two words, I Am, know that he was, is, and forever will be God.  He is the God who made us.  He is the God who has and always will love us.  He is the God who has redeemed us from our sin and has made a place with him for ever and ever.

Amen.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Read John 8

This part of this chapter contains some of my favorite words from our Master.  Many had rejected him.  Many challenged him.  Many were just blind to the truth, but some believed and wanted to follow him.  So, to them he said.

If you abide in my words, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set your free.

If you believe in Jesus, that he is the Son of God, and comes with the authority of the Father, and your sound mind tells you to follow him and do what he says, then you are his disciple. It’s not just knowing the words.  It’s knowing their author and committing to being his disciple.  You follow him by following what he taught you.

Then, you shall know the truth.  What truth?  Truth, as we know it from falsehood, is certainly within this promise, but you also get to know Truth with a capital T.  You know God through Jesus Christ.  In that intimate relationship, you are free from sin and free from death.

You will live eternally, but most of all, you are free to live as God designed you to live.  It’s the most important thing that you will do.

You are freeto live as God’s child.  You know how much he loved you and loves you.

Many of the Jews were not up to this commitment.  They were Abraham’s children.  That checked the box as far as they were concerned.  When they heard the words set free, they countered, who are we that we need to be set free.  We were never slaves!

Had Jesus been inclined to dispute facts instead of bringing life, he might have pointed out the more than 400 years of slavery in Egypt to the people claiming to be Abraham’s children and followers of the Law of Moses.

It seems that four centuries slipped their minds.  They had also been captive in Babylon for a good stretch.  Slaves, captives, prisoners, and other terms of subjugation fit this group extremely well, but the real condition from which they needed emancipation was sin.

Jesus confronted them boldly about their predicament. 

I am from above.  You are from below.

My Father is in heaven.  Yours is the Devil!  

Ouch! Just Ouch!

Who is your daddy? 

He continued this discourse on the ignorance of many of God’s Chosen People.  The reason that you don’t believe is that you belong to the Devil.  Here is your chance to remedy that situation, that incarceration, that condemnation that subjugates you, but you won’t recognize the Illumination before you.

Here is the dichotomy.  You follow God or you follow the Devil.  There is no middle ground, no sitting on the fence, and no procrastination. There is no undecided category!  You are dead or you are alive.

Jesus is the light of the world.  In him is life.  He is our Lord.  Let this never be a question in our lives.  Let it always be an affirmation.

Jesus is light.

Jesus is life.

Jesus is Lord.

Amen!

Light of the World

Read John 8

Jesus continued to teach.  Earlier he declared himself to be the Bread of Life.  He lost a lot of followers after that discourse.  In this chapter he said:  I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows him walks in light, not in darkness.  Think back to chapter 1 where this light and darkness discourse began.

Light came into the world.  The darkness could not overcome it, but the world did not recognize it.  Chapter 8 picks up on that introduction with Jesus stating that he is the Light of the World.

The religious leaders and many lay persons had too much of an investment in this dark world to want to hear what Jesus told them.  He was from the Father.  His testimony was enough on its own but if you needed more, the Father testified to the same things.

Jesus told them that he was from above and they were from below.  Without his light—without believing he was of God and from God—they would remain in darkness.  They would exist without life. They were already dead.

Discord reigned among the Jewish leaders.  Who is this guy?  Where is he going that we can’t go?  Why should we believe what he has to say?

This discussion was consistent with those before as was the answer Jesus gave them.  I am who I said I am all along.  You don’t need more information.  You need to believe.

I love the short quote that makes the rounds via various memes these days.  It says something along the lines of:

We are overwhelmed with information but have a dearth of wisdom.

Everyone seems to want more information but few seek wisdom.  Our craving for information causes us to rubberneck when there is an accident scene with flashing lights all around.  Wisdom guides us to keep our eyes on the road so as not to become accident site number two at the same mile marker.

People crave more information.  Consider the 24-hour news cycle.  On any given day, there is probably enough news to fill an hour’s worth of broadcasting, but you are going to get 24 hours and so many people watch for that little tidbit that seems new.

I can only roll my eyes when the Breaking News logo scrolls across my screen.  I would kick myself if I could when it reads:  What we told you 20 minutes ago remains unchanged.

So many were asking for more information not so they could believe but so they could come up with new questions in an effort to delay having to process the information they had already been given.  Jesus had given them enough to believe in him, especially the leaders who knew the scriptures well and should have been expecting him.

In spite of the hard-heartedness of the leaders, many did come to believe.

To those who had not yet believed, Jesus told them they would get another chance.  When the Son of Man is lifted up then you will know that I am who I claim to be.  The question was, would they believe?

We know the story from prophecies to birth and to death and to resurrection.  We did not hear any parts first hand, but if it is information that drives us, we have all the information that we need.  But receiving Jesus as Lord is not about information.

So it really comes down to faith.  Do we believe?  We are told at this point in John’s account, many did come to believe in the One who called himself the Light of the World.

We say that we also believe.  Information will come and go and remain constant or be changed, but our belief—our faith in what is not seen—must not waiver.  God is our constant, our Rock and our Redeemer.  We believe.

Jesus is Light.

Jesus is Life.

Jesus is Lord.

Amen.

We are that woman!

Read John 8

The religious leaders wanted to get rid of Jesus.  He was messing up their well-ordered world, but the leaders needed at least a pretext or pretense of legitimacy.  If you were going to kill a prominent person, you needed to at least have something to go on, even if you had to go to great lengths.

So, the Scribes and the Pharisee brought a woman caught in adultery before Jesus who had begun teaching at the temple courts once again.  They wanted to see if Jesus would direct or consent to killing her because that’s what Moses said to do.  If Jesus refused, then they could claim he was a goody two shoes who disobeyed the law.

This was not a woman accused of committing adultery.  She was caught in the act.  The folks that dragged the woman before Jesus probably thought this was surely an open and shut case, except that the very law that required her death also required the death of the man who was her partner.

It takes two to tango and the law required both to be put to death.

Jesus could have legitimately called these religious lawyers on their miscarriage of justice.  He could have said, bring the second party to the crime to stand with this woman.  He did not.

He was totally nonconfrontational.  In fact, he wasn’t even making eye contact.  He was looking down writing something in the sand.  Speculate to your heart’s content as to what it was.

When he stood, he announced:  Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

While the religious leaders and the law-abiding Jews were self-righteous; they were not without self-awareness.  They were not ignorant.  All had sinned.

Jesus had given the crowd permission to follow the law given by Moses.  His only stipulation was that whoever was going to kick off this rock-throwing extravaganza, needed to obey all of the law as well.

You know the rest.  Slowly, from oldest to youngest, stones started dropping and people left.  Everyone who arrived with a rock in hand was gone.  This had not gone as they expected. 

Jesus asked the woman:  Is there no one left to condemn you?

She answered in the negative, probably shocked that she was still alive.

Jesus told her to take hold of the life that she had just be given and leave her life of sin behind.  That was truly an impossible charge, at least until Jesus himself fulfilled all the law and the prophecy required and die for our sins on the cross.

But his charge, his command to her was to go and sin no more.  Change your life.  You have just been given your life back.  Now live it for the glory of God.

This is our story.  We may have not been doing the deed with our neighbor’s spouse, but we all have fallen short of the glory of God and through Christ, we have been given our life back.  He wants us to live for the glory of God.

He wants us to turn away from sin and our sinful nature and seek him and his nature.

Consider two things as we continue in chapter 8.  First, know that the Jewish leaders will stop at nothing to kill Jesus.  Second, know that Jesus stopped at nothing to save us from sin and death.  We are this woman.  Jesus gave us life anew.

How will we live?

Amen!