HANDLING SOCIAL INJUSTICE
John 8:1-24
START YOUR DAY WITH JESUS
V:1. But Jesus went to the
Mount of Olives. 2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all
the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers
of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made
her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was
caught in the act of adultery.
A. The best way to start your
day is a talk with Jesus.
1. Notice, Jesus was in the temple early
in the morning.
2. There ought to be a temple in your
heart for Jesus to enter.
3. He stands at the door waiting for us to
invite Him in.
B. When the Church doors are
open we ought to be there.
1. Doing this pandemic, we have been having
Church on social
media.
a.
Sunday School on zoom
b. Church services on you tube
c. Tuesday and Wednesday night Bible
studies on zoom.
2. Services may not be in the building, we
called church but its
still Church.
3. The real church is in the spiritual
building of Jesus Christ
which has no walls.
4. Where two or more are gathered, Jesus
is in the mist.
C. Real church deals with real problems.
1. None of us are perfect and all of us
have problems.
2. The reason for Church is to fix
imperfect people.
2. Its how you deal with the problems that
counts.
3. All of us will have to stand before
Jesus and give an
account of our sins.
4. Before Jesus, every sin carries the
same weight.
5. Before we think about judging
anyone, we need to see
ourselves as sinners at the mercy of
God.
D. Notice the Jewish leaders
wore the hat of justice, but were really
the workers of the devil.
1. They brought a woman caught in adultery
to Jesus for judgment.
2. Notice,
they didn’t bring the male adulterer who was involved with
the woman to stand before Jesus.
a. That is social injustice at its
core.
b. Prosecute one, but make amends for the
other.
3.
They pointed the finger at the woman, but did not point the
finger at the sins of their bias hearts.
4. There are two sides to every story. They
willingly and purposely
left out the other side which was sin
in its self.
5. Their agenda was not justice but self
promotion.
LAWS SHOULD BE APPLIED
EQUALLY
V:5. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such
women. Now what do you say?" 6 They were using this question as a trap, in
order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and
started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning
him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without
sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the
ground.
A. Civil matters came under
the jurisdiction of the teachers of law, the
Pharisees and the Sanhedrin court. Jesus
was not assigned the
job of judgment.
1. They had the power to convict, but wanted
Jesus to do their dirty
work.
2. Their intentions was to trap Jesus, and
get rid of the woman.
3. Jesus said I came not to judge the
world but to save the world.
4.
Jesus knew the men who brought the woman to Him were up to
no good, so He did not respond to their
questions.
5. Jesus
chose a non verbal way to draw the focus on the accusers.
3. Jesus does not tells us what He wrote on
the ground.
4. Let me suggest that He wrote the
commandments that affected
the hearts and minds of the Jewish men
accusers.
B. There is no one who is
without sin.
1. Reading the Word of God will convict you
of your sins.
2. I would bet that each accuser saw on the
ground his sin.
C. Jesus challenge the men
who had no sin to throw the first stone.
1. The men
realized that their hidden sins were brought to light.
2. If they threw a stone, it would have to
be first at themselves because
they coveted the life of their neighbor.
3. Is there anyone in your life that you
are judging?
4. Having witnessed the police violence
shown on social media,
are you judging or asking for mercy?
5. The more you judge others the more you
disrupt the peace in
your life.
LET THE WORD CONVICT YOU
OF YOUR SINS
V:9. At this, those who heard
began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was
left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked
her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11 "No one, sir,"
she said.
"Then neither do I
condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of
sin."
A. The older men first, could
mean the older we are the more we know
our sins.
1. The older might also refer to those of
the higher rank of the Jewish
civil structure.
2. Jesus had publicly made their complaint
look foolish.
3. By writing on the ground, Jesus also
exposed their desire
to find fault with Him.
B. Finally only the woman was
left with Jesus.
1. We should be careful not to judge others
unless we want to be judged.
2. Jesus does not judge our sins, but
grants the mercy of repentance.
3. Jesus allows our sins to be exposed, so
we can work on our weaknesses.
4. We are God’s work in progress.
5. He showed the woman mercy, not justice.
6. We can’t expect to sets of standards of
justices;
one for the police officers who did
wrong, and none for the
looters who burnt down businesses and
left the owners and employees
with no place to work.
LOOK FOR THE LIGHT
V:12. When Jesus spoke again
to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me
will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
A. The work of teaching the
Word of God is never done.
1. Jesus continued to teach the Word to
those who wanted to hear.
2. The light is the WORD of God.
3. Without the Word, we live a life of
darkness.
4. Knowing the Word is one thing, but it
is living our lives
according to the Word that brings a
life of light.
B. What does darkness look like?
1. Not knowing the truth
2. No desire to seek the truth
3. Inability to make right decisions
4. Being controlled by emotions rather than
trusting God.
5. Living according to the standards of man
rather than
the commands of God.
6. Those who live in darkness follow the
crowd.
WILL YOU BE A WITNESS FOR
JESUS?
V:13. The Pharisees
challenged him, "Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your
testimony is not valid."
14 Jesus answered, "Even
if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came
from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am
going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I
do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the
Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two
men is valid.
A. There are two types of people
who come to Church.
1. There are people who come to hear the
Word.
2. There are people who come to find
fault.
B. The Pharisees didn’t like
Jesus because He spoke the truth.
1. They were the guardians of the truth
which they did not know or
practice.
2. With the woman they claimed was in
adultery, Jesus gave them a
lesson on not judging others.
3. They rejected the Word, and therefore
continued in darkness.
4. They had no interest in the truth, but
only their own personal agendas.
5.
They continued in darkness to find fault with Jesus, the true light.
C. The Pharisees had the Word
in front them but challenged the
validity of it.
1. They were facing the truth, but tried to
prove it to be false.
2. They had God in front of them, but tried
to prove Him to be
the devil.
C. How to prove Jesus was
sent by God?
1. How do you prove that Jesus is God?
2. The Jews had a rule that by two or more witness
a thing could be
proved.
Deut 19:15
One witness is not enough to
convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter
must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
3. That didn’t work back then,
because the Jews would pay people
to
lie.
4. That will not work today because people
will lie to agree with others.
5. There are many religions and many
religious books.
6. People of other religions are as convinced
that their religion
is the true religion as you are of your
Christian faith.
7. Jesus said I testify for myself and the
Father testify for Me.
8. The first century Jewish historian
Flavious Josephus said this:
“About this time there lived Jesus, a
wise man, if indeed one ought to
call
him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and
was a teacher of such people as accept
the truth gladly. He won over
many Jews and many of the Greeks. He
was the Christ.”
a. After His resurrection, Jesus was seen by
over 500 men
1
Cor 15:6
After
that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at
the same time, most of whom are
still living, though some have
fallen asleep.
b.
You have you own testimony about what Jesus has done in your
life.
c.
I am not sure you can prove to a non believer, that Jesus exists.
d. But
you are required to develop an argument for Jesus.
God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in
whom are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say
this so that no one will
delude you with persuasive argument.
c. While we may not be able
to prove Jesus, we have our faith.
Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk in Him,
having been firmly rooted and now being
built up in Him and
established in your faith, just as you
were instructed, and overflowing
with gratitude.
d. Let us not be caught up in
the emotional darkness that drives this current
moment of justice.
But rather, let us live in the righteous of
Christ who will bring about
justice through our prayers and dedication
to Him.
e. Emotions dry up quickly
and we are left with anger and frustration.
f. When emotions dry up, the
movement is put on the sidelines until the
next outburst.
h. When we live in the light
of Christ, our hope for justice is kept alive.
STUDY TO APPLY THE WORD
A. The leading Jews had the Old Testament and
claimed to know the
Father.
1. They didn’t know Jesus, so they
didn’t know the Father.
2. They claimed the first person in the
Holy Trinity, but
not the Son or the Holy Spirit.
B. The Jews knew the prophecies of the coming
of the Messiah.
But they chose not to believe them.
Matt 2:3-5
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed,
and all Jerusalem
him. When he had called together all the people's
chief priests and
teachers of the law, he asked them
where the Christ was to be born.
"In Bethlehem Judea ," they replied, "
THERE IS A TIME FOR
EVERYTHING
V:18 I am one who testifies
for myself; my other witness is the Father, who
sent me." 19 Then they asked him,
"Where is your father?"
"You do not know me or my
Father," Jesus replied. "If you knew me,
you would know my Father also." 20 He spoke these words while
teaching in the temple area near the
place where the offerings were put.
Yet no one seized him, because his time
had not yet come.
A. There is a time for
everything.
1. The Jews knew about the birth of
Christ, but they chose not to worship
Him.
2. God allowed His chosen people to stay
in the dark.
John 3:19-20
This is the verdict: Light has come
into the world, but men loved
darkness instead of light because their
deeds were evil. Everyone
who does evil hates the light, and will
not come into the light for fear
that his deeds will be exposed.
3. Jesus is our offering from the Father.
a. He is author of justice
b. He is the light that keeps our love
for all people, even our enemies
alive as we seek social justice.
c. There is a lot of hate going around
to day, even in the Christian
community.
d. You can see hate in the anger that
eventually promotes violence.
DON’T LET DEATH CATCH YOU
WITHOUT JESUS
V:21. Once more Jesus said to
them, "I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your
sin. Where I go, you cannot come."
22 This made the Jews ask,
"Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, 'Where I go, you cannot
come'?"
23 But he continued,
"You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of
this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not
believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your
sins."
A. People chose not to
believe.
1. They had the facts, but chose to ignore
them.
2. They had the evidence that Jesus was a
man of God
a. They witness His miracles.
b. The witness His healing of all who
came to Him
3. They had His testimony about the
Father.
4. They were given the consequence of
their unbelief, which
was eternal death.
B. We have all the safety
guidelines to prevent the spread of Covid19,
Yet
many people ignore the guideline and expose themselves and
others to this virus which has claimed
the lives of many.
1. God has given us the wisdom to stay
safe.
2. It is up to each individual to follow
the guidelines.
3. To ignore the safety guidelines puts
others at risk.
4. Is it God or Satan driving our desire to
be normal again?
5. Is it God or Satan that is driving our
desire for justice?
Rev. M. Mitchell
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