The Third Option

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Today we’re going to take a little bit of a detour from the book of Hebrews. Earlier this month, the U. S.

Supreme Court ruled on a case involving a man named Jack Phillips, who’s a baker in Colorado, who cited his Christian beliefs on the definition of marriage as his reason for declining to create a custom wedding cake for the wedding ceremony of a homosexual couple. And the couple filed a complaint, and the state of Colorado in turn demanded that he comply with his customers’ requests regardless of what his religious convictions are. He still refused, and a lawsuit was filed, and the Supreme Court then ruled, as I understand it, not that, not necessarily that the baker was within his rights to refuse service, but that the state was out of in its open hostility toward his religious convictions.

Now, before anybody goes ahead and dismisses this message as some kind of hateful attack on those who are different, please hear me out. I don’t think you’ll find that to be the case. Today’s message is going to touch on a couple of different issues, but it’s really not about homosexuality.

It’s not about adultery. It’s not even about marriage or any other single issue. The message this morning is about how Jesus sees all of our sin, and how Jesus rejects the excesses of both extreme tolerance and extreme intolerance, and calls us instead to extreme transformation.

He calls us to be different. And in the midst of our national conversation about balancing non-discrimination with religious liberty, there’s a false narrative that’s going along about how intolerant Christians and our beliefs are. And so I’d like to begin this morning by setting the record straight about where I think most of us stand, and I hope that the message comes across in the loving spirit with which it’s intended.

Now, from my own political perspective, I think people have the right to manage their property however they see fit. You know, if a private business wants to discriminate against me or against anybody else, I think that’s a First Amendment issue. At least that’s the way I see it.

But with that said, if someone refuses to do business at all with homosexuals or African or Jews or Muslims or Hispanics, etc., which, by the way, is not the case that happened in Colorado. I can’t see myself taking my business there either. You know, I think I’m going to go elsewhere, even though I’m none of those things because I am a Christian.

And as a Christian, my Lord teaches me that loving my neighbor is the second most important job I have. I don’t want to see anybody discriminated against or mistreated. And I don’t think I know any Christians who do want to see anybody discriminated against or mistreated.

Now, in this country, in this country, churchgoers have done some terrible things in the past. I think we can all admit that. For example, a lot of Baptists, unfortunately, were involved in slavery and segregation. But just because people are churchgoers doesn’t mean that their actions always reflect the teachings of Jesus, right?

Do mine or yours always reflect the teachings of Jesus? A lot of Baptist churchgoers were involved in some bad things, but I’m thankful for the steps that Southern Baptists have taken over the last few years to repudiate these activities, to rightly label racism as sinful, to reaffirm our commitment to share the love of Jesus Christ with every nation, tribe, and tongue on the planet. there’s been way too much discrimination perpetrated in the past by churchgoers who thought that they were doing the right thing when what they were really doing was denying the gospel which Paul says in Romans 1 16 is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes regardless of their background.

Folks if we want to be faithful to Jesus Christians have to love our neighbors. We have to. But if we want to be faithful to Jesus, we also cannot condone or participate in every activity our neighbors do.

There’s the line. And that’s where this case was concerned. Phillips was willing to do business with this couple.

He was willing to sell them anything in his shop, but his conscience wouldn’t let him participate in a ceremony that violates God’s word by using his creative talents, his artistic talents, to create something for that specific purpose. He told a reporter, he said, quote, I don’t create cakes for Halloween. I wouldn’t create a cake that was anti-American or that would be disparaging against anybody for any reason, even cakes that would disparage people who identify as LGBT.

Just cakes have a message, and this is one I can’t create. So that’s where his stand was. It wasn’t just them.

Any of these cakes he disagreed with, he couldn’t make. And I don’t hear any hatred there. What I hear is a man whose conscience won’t allow him to use his talents to promote a message that goes against everything he believes in.

And I think that most of the Christians I know stand somewhere in that region. I think most of us do. Our church, our church, I believe, would welcome any homosexual guest if they came to attend a worship service here with us, I think we would welcome them with the same love and the same grace that we would show any guest who came here to worship without disruptive intent.

But we couldn’t host and I couldn’t officiate a same-sex ceremony any more than we could a wedding ceremony for a polygamous union or a union of a Christian and a non-Christian. I have a small business doing Native artwork, and I’d sell wooden shaped animal toys that I make. I’d sell them to anybody who wanted to buy them, but if a nature worshiper wanted to come and commission some kind of special animal figurines that they could use in their religious rituals, I couldn’t do that.

Julie, who’s not here this morning, she makes quilts, and I bet she’d sell them to just about anybody for the right price, but I can’t see her taking a custom order for a quilt with a giant swastika on it, right? None of this comes because we hate anybody. It comes because we just have to try our best to be faithful to Jesus and what he taught.

And in Matthew 22, Jesus said the two greatest commandments are first, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And second, he said, love your neighbor as yourself. As Christians, our second most important job is to show real love to everybody around us.

But hear me on this, because our first job is to love God with everything we have. Our love for people cannot lead us to disobey him. Now, having said all this, the purpose of this message again is not to attack homosexuality or really even to focus on it, but to discuss Jesus’ attitude toward our sin.

I wouldn’t have even preached on this topic this morning if it had just been the cake debate. The more significant problem to me is when professing Christians get the two commandments backwards and start condoning sin. And here’s why I’m bringing this all to your attention this morning.

there was a progressive church in Denver who posted on its sign, quote, Jesus would have baked the cake, end quote, or Jesus would have baked that cake. They said Jesus would have baked that cake. I don’t think so.

My first thought was Jesus didn’t even have a home, so I doubt he had an oven. But I know that’s not what they’re talking about. But knowing what Jesus taught, I can’t imagine him baking that cake.

And again, the reason I’m bringing this to you this morning is not because of the cake, not because I’m angry at the people who, or hate the people who sued over the cake. I don’t get particularly angry at people in the world exercising their job description. What does tend to make me mad is when people who profess to be Christians and should know better start siding with things that go against the word of God.

And so if I do come across as angry this morning, it’s not at the homosexuals, it’s at the churches that are teaching wrong. Now, again, I can’t imagine Jesus baking that cake, and it’s not because he hates anyone, but it’s because he upheld marriage as the union of a man and a woman. He did.

I know we’re told that Jesus really never mentioned the issue at all, but he did. In Matthew 19, he affirmed the Old Testament view of marriage. Verses 4 through 6 say, He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.

Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Now the Pharisees had challenged Jesus on the issue of marriage, so Jesus opened up the Old Testament and said, here’s what God says.

And this is where Jesus stood. Plus, if you believe in the inspiration of Scripture, as we do, then anything that the Bible says about marriage ultimately came from Jesus. If the Bible says it about marriage, then Jesus said it, because we believe that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

So I think the sign is dead wrong, but it does raise an important question. Is Jesus ever okay with our sin? See, that’s the real issue here.

Not the cake, not what group we want to be mad at and ostracized this week, but is Jesus really ever okay with sin? That’s where we need to focus. Folks, this isn’t about our political principles.

It’s not about our personal experiences. It’s not about our feelings. It’s not even about the law.

It’s about whether or not Jesus’ love for us means that he ever just consents to let us live however we want. And homosexuality is not the only issue where that comes into play. Again, it’s just that church sign that got me thinking about this.

But that’s far from the only issue. Let’s be honest, folks. We have more than enough sin of our own to go around, don’t we?

I know I do. Does Jesus ever celebrate it? I mean, does Jesus ever celebrate my sin?

If we lie, if we gossip, if we’re unforgiving, if we hurt people, if we lust, if we’re greedy, if we’re drunk, if we’re prideful, if we’re self-centered, if we’re disobedient, how does Jesus respond to that? How does he respond to our sin? Does he bake us a cake to celebrate our sin, or does he beat us to death in condemnation over it?

John chapter 8 tells us that there’s a third option. So turn with me in your Bibles, if you haven’t already, to John chapter 8, verses 1 through 12. Now verses 1 through 3 say this, And Jesus went up unto the Mount of Olives, and early in the morning he came again unto the temple.

And all the people came unto him, and he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. Now let’s stop there for just a second.

At this point in Jesus’ ministry, he could draw a crowd just about anywhere just by showing up. So when a crowd started to gather early one morning at the temple, they gathered in the courtyard. Jesus seized an opportunity to start teaching them.

But Jesus wasn’t the only one who was seizing opportunities that morning. The Pharisees and scribes hated Jesus, and so they were always on the lookout for things that they could use to try to discredit him. And each time they tried, each time they tried, Jesus addressed their challenge in a way that they didn’t expect and couldn’t refute.

And so they grew ever more frustrated with Jesus, but they never stopped trying to find a way to discredit him. And they found another opportunity that morning when they found this woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. And when I read this story, I always wonder where the man was, right?

Because you know she didn’t commit adultery all by herself. That’s not how that works. But they didn’t bring the man, for whatever reason, they didn’t bring the man to Jesus too.

And this tells me that the whole thing was not about their concern for God’s law. Because the question that they posed to Jesus, which we’ll read about next, sounds like they were concerned about God’s law. But people in this position had to have known that Deuteronomy 22.

22 says, if a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die, meaning the woman and the man she cheated with. And because they ignored the parts of the law that were convenient, and they decided instead to shield the man while making the woman a spectacle, we can only conclude that this was a little bit of theater just designed for the sole purpose of discrediting Jesus. Had nothing to do with their concern for the law.

Now let’s look at the rest of verse 3 and read through to verse 6. It says, And when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned.

But what sayest thou? this they said tempting him that they might have to accuse him now stop there for just a minute they dragged this woman they dragged this woman into the crowd hoping to shame her and to embarrass Jesus that was the whole purpose of what they were doing we don’t know exactly what they did we don’t know exactly how they caught her in the act of adultery but they did and she was guilty now just because the pharisees were so shady and the man was guilty too it didn’t change the fact that she was guilty and that she did deserve punishment under the law, just like they said. So they brought her to Jesus and they pointed out her sin.

They reminded him, as though Jesus needed any kind of reminder, they reminded him that adultery is a sin and that the law called for her to be stoned. And then they asked him essentially, but what do you say? Here’s what the law says, but what do you say?

Now this was a deliberate choice of words on their part. Jesus had a habit in the Sermon on the Now, for example, he had a habit of explaining the true point of the law by saying, ye have heard, meaning this is the traditional interpretation of the law, and then beginning his own explanation of the law with the phrase, but I say. So they came to him and asked, yeah, well, what do you say about that with this case of adultery?

They wanted an answer that they could use against him, and they appeared to have him pretty well boxed in between these two options. If he said that Moses was right and that she should be stoned to death, then the Pharisees could say that all his teaching about forgiveness had been just utter nonsense. If, on the other hand, he said they should let her go, they could then accuse him of breaking Moses’ law.

If he just refused to answer, they could call him a poser who knew nothing about the law anyway. So he’s really caught between these two options. He seemed to be faced with a dilemma whether to put his stamp of approval on her sin or whether to bring down the hammer of condemnation.

They thought they had him. Oh, it’s great. They thought they had him, but they underestimated him.

Never underestimate Jesus. To paraphrase that dancing movie, I hate, nobody puts Jesus in a corner. All right?

Nobody puts Jesus in a corner. They thought there were only two options, but he made a third one. Verses six through eight tell us how he responded.

The Bible says, starting in verse six, but Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And when again he stooped down, and again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

When they tried to trap him, he ignored them and started writing in the dirt. I love that. I don’t have to answer you.

He ignored them. We don’t know what he was doing down there, writing, ducking his head. We don’t know if he was averting his eyes from a scantily clad woman.

We don’t know if he was writing a list of the accuser’s sins. Both of those explanations have been suggested. Either way, Jesus, he displayed as little concern for the seriousness of their question as their question showed for the seriousness of God’s law.

He ignored them. He ignored them. But they kept asking.

They kept asking him. They were determined to embarrass themselves that day. And so they kept asking, and finally Jesus said, all right, you want an answer?

Here’s your answer. He told them in verse 7, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And there’s your third option.

There’s your third option that Jesus brings out. He didn’t dispute her guilt. She was guilty.

He didn’t dispute that adultery is a sin. It is, and it just is. He didn’t even dispute that she had earned the consequences that they suggested.

The law was clear. But the Pharisees had overlooked one tiny detail, that they too were guilty of breaking God’s law. Now, they may not have committed adultery, but they knew they had sinned.

And Jesus’ response was basically, sure, stoner, absolutely, she’s a sinner, she deserves it. But you know, if we’re going to start stoning sinners around here, we’re going to need somebody sinless to get the party started. That’s all he said.

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And then he went back to writing in the dirt. he didn’t have to say anything else because their own consciences told them that they were wrong before God now look at verses 9 through 10 it says and they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one beginning at the eldest even unto the last and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst and when Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the woman he said unto her woman where are those thine accusers hath no man condemned thee?

And when they remembered their sin, they really had no choice but to walk away and ponder how they too had fallen short of the righteousness of God. And those who were the oldest, those who had the most years of sin behind them, were the first to recognize it and leave. And when the accusers were gone, Jesus asked, where’d they go?

Is there anybody here to condemn you? Now, Jesus knew the answer. Jesus always knows the answer, but he was preparing her for his next point.

She answered him in verse 11. She said, no man, Lord, no man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, neither do I condemn thee.

Go and send no more. She said there was no accuser left to condemn her. And Jesus said he didn’t condemn her either.

But don’t assume from this that Jesus was somehow okay with her adultery. Jesus upheld God’s design that had been revealed since the time of the Garden of Eden. You know, that God designed marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and that we’re called to purity outside of marriage, and we’re called to faithfulness within marriage.

Anything else, anything outside of that paradigm, God calls sin. And Jesus agrees with that assessment. And Jesus, as we see in this story, I don’t believe would have baked the cake any more than he would have paid for a room at the inn for that woman to go off and continue her affair.

He didn’t condemn her for her sin at that moment, but he didn’t praise it either. The last five words of his message to her could not be any clearer. Go and sin no more.

He didn’t affirm her sin. He told her to leave it behind. Now, this passage deals specifically with the sin of adultery.

Did Jesus love the adulteress? Obviously, he did. Was there grace for her?

Absolutely. But did he excuse her sin? Clearly, he didn’t.

But the story applies to sins beyond adultery as well. For example, to bring it into our modern discussion, Jesus loves homosexuals. Church, we need to be in agreement on that.

Jesus loves homosexuals. He died for people in the LGBT community. He offers them his all-sufficient grace just as he did to us.

But he does not affirm homosexual activity any more than he affirms adultery, premarital sex, or any other sin. All of our sin is offensive to God. All of our sin is offensive to God.

Let me make that more personal. My sin is offensive to God. And regardless of what specifically it may be, yours is too. But when so-called churches in our country say otherwise and preach that Jesus would celebrate sin because somehow he loves us too much to call us to repentance, they deny the clear teaching of the word of God.

And they make themselves into little more than social clubs that preach a heretical antinomian gospel that God’s grace means we can live according to whatever impulse strikes us without the need for conviction, for repentance, or for evidence of conversion in the form of the fruit of the Spirit. And worst of all, worst of all, they lead people away from Jesus who can forgive every sin by pointing them instead to a false Christ who says no forgiveness is necessary. Jesus loves sinners.

Okay? He died for sinners. And he extends grace to sinners.

But he never tells us that our sin is okay. That includes our sins. And when he agreed that sin made the woman guilty before God, and he called her to stop, that’s not just a message to the adulterers.

It’s a message for all of us. He says, go and sin no more. The truth that needs to be remembered in our churches and needs to be proclaimed to a dying world is this.

Jesus came not to celebrate our sin, but to subdue it. He didn’t tell the adulteress, don’t let those old judgmental Pharisees get you down. You just live your life and you do what you feel like is right for you.

No. He said, go and sin no more. He wouldn’t tell the couple in the lawsuit, congratulations, here’s your cake.

No. No. He says, go and sin no more.

Folks, when I struggle with pride, he doesn’t tell me, oh, it’s okay. You’ve got so much to be proud of. No.

He says go and sin no more. It doesn’t matter what the sin is. It doesn’t matter whether it’s public or private.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s one of those that we think is socially acceptable or not. It doesn’t matter whether it’s one of those that we think we have each believer in this room he’s called you go and sin no more Jesus came not to celebrate our sin but to subdue it sin will ultimately destroy our lives and separate us from God in eternity and because Jesus loves us he doesn’t try to accommodate sin’s presence in our lives but nor does he cast us aside into condemnation for it there is a third option he came to forgive our sin and to give us lasting victory over it. He came to subdue sin.

He came to beat sin. Let’s look at one last verse from John chapter 8. John 8 12 says, Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world.

He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. This is the very next verse after Jesus had just told the woman, go and sin no more. It’s later on, probably the same day, sometime later, the crowd of people had reassembled at the temple, and Jesus started to teach them again.

But in the text, he goes straight from go and sin no more right into I am the light of the world. Those two thoughts are connected. He came to shine his light into the world, the light of God’s righteousness and of God’s truth.

And he plucks us up out of the darkness and we’re able to walk away from the power of sin only in so far as he gives us the light to do so. We can’t walk away. We can’t go and sin no more under our own power.

That’s why he gives us the light. Now to simplify this whole point as much as possible, Jesus loves you right where you are, but he loves you way too much to leave you there. He loves us way too much to allow us to continue to wallow in the sin that’s going to cost us everything.

Jesus loves you too much to abandon you to the clutches of sin and just affirm your decision to do it. Instead, He calls us to follow Him, saying, Go and sin no more. Jesus came not to celebrate sin, but to subdue it.

He came to put our sin to death. Our sin was placed on His shoulders, and it was nailed to the cross with Him. And 2 Corinthians 5.

21 says that the Father made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus was punished for our sins, and He died for our sins, so that we would not have to be in bondage to those sins any longer. And if you’re a believer, if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, who died for your sins on the cross, and who rose again the third day, and you’ve trusted in Him to forgive those sins and be your one and only Savior, you need to understand that He didn’t come to celebrate your sin, but to subdue it.

Don’t continue to wallow in that sin when He came to defeat your sin and set you free. If you’re a believer, in Romans 6. 14, the Apostle Paul said that because of what Jesus did, sin shall not have dominion over you.

That’s for you if you’re a believer. If you’re in Jesus Christ today, that’s for you. Sin shall not have dominion over you.

If you’re a believer yet you’ve been walking in sin, Jesus calls you to go and sin no more. Confess that sin to God this morning. Repent and ask him to set you free from it.

Jesus wants you to walk in his light. You’ll never be sinless. We will never be sinless on this side of eternity.

But by the power of Christ who lives in you, he can give you victory over the sin which does so easily beset us. And if you’ve never trusted in Christ as your Savior, you need to understand, like the Pharisees eventually did, that we’ve all sinned. We’ve all disobeyed God, and we’ve all fallen short of his standard of absolute sinless perfection.

And our sin condemns us to punishment and separation from God, just like the woman who was caught in adultery. Jesus will never say that your sin is okay. He’ll never say sin is okay, no matter what it is.

But he is willing to forgive it and to set you free. We started the invitation early. He is willing to forgive it and set you free.

You cannot, hear me on this, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, you can’t go and sin no more all on your own. But He can change you and He can empower you to walk in His light. See, we’re all guilty before God.

And the first step in all of this is to recognize that that includes you. It’s to recognize that you’ve sinned against God, that you’re guilty and that you’ve earned the condemnation of God. But you’ve also got to know that God is willing to forgive.

He’s willing to forgive sins. Not because you’ve been good enough, not because you’re religious enough, not because you’ve been to church or performed some such religious ritual. God is willing to forgive. He’s willing to forgive you because Jesus paid for your sins in full on the cross and rose again from the dead.

He’s willing to forgive you any sin that you can bear. This morning, you can be saved if you believe that message. If you believe that your sin has separated you from God, that you can’t do anything to save yourself, and that Jesus is your only hope.

If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died to pay for your sins in full, that he rose again from the dead, folks, that this morning you can ask him to forgive you and to save you. You can ask him to forgive you and be your savior. He will forgive you.

He promises that if we come to him in faith, he will forgive. And he’ll subdue your sin. He’ll give you victory over that sin.

He’ll forgive it. He’ll wipe it clean on your slate as far as God’s concerned. And then he will enable you to go and sin no more.

He’ll subdue that sin and he’ll give you eternal life.