My name is Greg Hampton. I'm one of the pastors here at the house. If we've never
met I would love to meet you, buy you a coffee, lunch, go bowling. I don't know. What are you into?
We are wrapping up our series called The Church Called Tough next Sunday. We'll be
wrapping that up, but today looks at kind of like the last chapter, the topic of
the last chapter. We're not like, none of these sermons have been book reports. If
you read the book you're gonna be like, oh they said stuff that wasn't in there.
That's not the point. The point is to to jump off of these topics. The word tov is
a Hebrew word that means good. If you read the creation account at the
beginning of the scriptures on page one and two, it says that every time something
was created that God said that this is good, but when it got to humanity God
said this is very good. That word is tov, good. The reality is that we were created
good and we still are good. God put that in us. It is the beginning of who we are.
So far we have covered the topics of nurturing empathy and resisting a
narcissistic culture of nurturing grace, resisting a fear-based
culture. We've talked about putting people first, telling the truth, and
nurturing a culture of justice and service that avoids creating celebrities
out of the pastors or out of the people that do the most, right? In the book the
last chapter of a church called tov culminates in talking about how there
should be a culture that nurtures Christ likeness and resists just having a
leadership culture. I'm not going to focus on the leadership stuff because
I've already touched on that a bunch throughout the point, but what I want to
do is I want to focus in on what it means to be Christ-like. It seems to be
like it should be obvious that if you're a Christian, if you're a church that are
full of Christians, that you should be Christ-like. You should be like Jesus.
C.S. Lewis is famous for having said this in mere Christianity. He says every
Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a
Christian is simply nothing else. Now here's the thing. I'm not sure that
Jesus like or like Jesus is how most Americans would describe most churches.
I'm sorry? Like it's alright. Public polling on trust from the year 2023,
which is the year we're in, shows that organized religion in America ranks just
barely higher than banks and public schools and lower than hospitals and the
police. 32% of Americans say that they trust the church, that they trust
organized religion a little less than a third of the people you see every day.
What's weird about that stat is that 60% of Americans say that they've committed
their lives to Jesus, but only 32% of Americans say that they trust
organized religion. The church that was formed because of Jesus, because people
believed in Jesus, has such a small amount of trust. Historically speaking,
churches have created and then denied racism, justified capitalism and war,
propped up the patriarchy and misogyny, protected the powerful, and judged people
for who they love. But is that Christ-like? I want to read you a story
today in the scriptures that I have never preached on. Not once, ten years of
pastoring this church, and to my best of my recollection, not once in the 23 years
that I have been a pastor have I ever preached this passage. And I'll tell you
why at the end, but let's first open our Bibles to John chapter 8. John chapter
8. If you don't have a Bible of your own, we have physical Bibles out in the lobby.
You can take one, they're blue, they're on the bookshelf. Otherwise you can
download a Bible from any of the digital app stores. It goes Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John, Acts, Romans. See any of those, you know you're in the right neighborhood. And
I'm gonna be reading from the new international readers version. We have a
tradition around here to give the scriptures our best attention when they
get read at this part of the service. You can do that any way that makes the most
sense to you. If you'd like to stand with me as I read scriptures as you are able,
you are also invited to do that. So this is John chapter 8 starting in verse 1. It
says, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At sunrise he arrived again in
the temple courtyard. All the people gathered around him there. He sat down to
teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman she
had been caught committing adultery. They made her stand in front of the group.
They said to Jesus, teach this woman, teacher, this woman was caught sleeping
with a man who was not her husband. In the law, Moses commanded us to kill such
women by throwing stones at them. Now what do you say? They were trying to
trap Jesus with that question. They wanted to have a reason to bring charges
against him, but Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his
finger. They kept asking him questions, so he stood up and said to them, has any one
of you not sinned, then you be the first to throw a stone on her. He bent down
again and wrote, on the ground those who heard what he had said began to go away.
They left one at a time. The older ones first. Soon only Jesus was left. The woman
was still standing there. Jesus stood up and asked her, woman, where are they?
Hasn't anyone found you guilty? No one sir, she said. Then I don't find you
guilty either, Jesus said. Go now and leave your life of sin. Let us pray. God
of every tribe, every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank you for the
scriptures, that they exist, that they have persisted throughout the millennia,
and I pray that whatever you have to show us today, that it would stick, that
it would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would become
stronger, that we would become more like your son Jesus. Amen. You can have a seat.
Alright, so back in the first century in Israel, towns, a lot of towns, most towns
had what's called a synagogue, like a little local church for Judaism. So
imagine like, so if we had grown up Jewish, this would be a
synagogue rather than just generically a church. Matter of fact, back then there
was as many as 400 synagogues in just Jerusalem, but there was only one temple,
and only certain people could go into certain parts of the temple. But then on
the temple property, inside the walls of the temple mounts, if you go to Jerusalem,
imagine that this, like there's a big wall, all stone wall, and that this is all
elevated, and there would have been a temple right here with a wall around it,
and there would have been a court in here called the court of women. It didn't mean
only women could go, it just meant that that was as far as they could go. And in
this place, this is where the priests would do other things, the holy of
holies, and then, but all this mount had a wall around it, and this mount was
what was called the court of Gentiles, which meant it was basically where
anybody could go. Think about it like this, it would be like Christians saying
that this room that we're in right now, that the sanctuary isn't only reserved
just for Christians, but it's only for pastors and leaders. Get out! Jen can stay.
Chris, just the three of us, we're gonna have church? No, that's what it'd be like.
And then the lobby right out there, that would be where you guys could go listen
on the speakers out there, maybe watch on your phones. And then the parking lot,
because the parking lot is still part of this property, the parking lot would be
that court of Gentiles, where anybody could go no matter what, but you got
everybody, and then you got the Christians, and then you got just the
leaders. That's the way if we use the same thinking, that's the way that it
would be applied. So now imagine this, you pull up to this property, to this church
building on a sunny summer morning, just imagine it now, you know, the weather's
pretty nice this week so far, but it was really cold last week, so just imagine
that, that sunny summer, whether it's not too hot, but it's one of those Sundays at
the Expo Center is also doing an event, they're having like a fishing and
hunting event, or something like you've seen all the billboards, and so you're
getting here and the parking lot's already kind of starting to fill up,
because they've started to also park in this building's parking lot, and there's
a bunch of different people, people that you don't, you don't know if they're here
for that, or if they're here for this, you don't recognize a lot of people, and
then you see Jesus. Yes, I'm pulling Jesus out of first century, physically
putting him here in our parking lot. Isn't that great? Tell everybody the house
has Jesus. So you see Jesus, he's teaching outside for some reason, he's teaching
over next to the building, and there's a crowd that's starting to form around him,
you can't quite hear what he's saying, but you think, oh maybe he's giving that
whole Fisher's and Men's sermon because of the fishing and hunting event, oh
he's doing a little tie-in kind of thing. Either way, you're in, because Jesus is
your favorite teacher, so you, you get the folding chair and the umbrella just in
case it gets too sunny out of your trunk, and you go and you pull up his feet, and
you pop a squat. All is well in the world, you've got Jesus and some vitamin D,
you're chill, you're happy, then you hear a scuffle behind you. First you, you ignore
it, but it's getting louder, you're thinking, can't these heathens see I'm
trying to listen to Jesus? As the commotion gets louder, you see someone
start breaking in through the crowd, a bunch of guys going up front, it's a whole
group of guys, and they've got this young lady with them that looks as hungover as
you have ever seen someone look hungover. Turns out last night, Wake Brewery, right
over there, the bar across the street, had a big event with metal bands and food
trucks, and these guys, they're, they're Christians that went to picket, well
they called it evangelism, but they're, they were holding signs that said things
like, start praying now or you'll still be screaming later. They didn't think the
city needs another bar, especially not one with death metal and bands. Now these
guys were so dedicated, they stayed and prayed all night long, and in their
grogginess, in the night, in the, in the morning, right around the same time that
you got here, they happened to find a young lady, colored up with a married guy
in the back seat of his parked car. How did they know he was married? I don't
know, but they woke them up by tapping on the window with their Bibles. When they
heard Jesus was teaching in the parking lot across the street, they knew exactly
what they were gonna do. When she finally got out of the car, they, they dragged her
over in front of everyone, they were hollering, Jesus, you need to stop talking
so much about sheep and start talking about sin. This girl's probably under 21,
she's hungover. We found her sleeping with the guy in the back seat of his car,
and we're pretty sure he was a married, married Jesus, because he drove off as
fast as he could when she got out. Jesus, the Old Testament says that we can stone
this girl. Someone in the back of the crowd says, I think she's probably a
little stoned right now. There's an awkward chuckle across the crowd. They
said, Jesus, even you have said that to even look at someone with lustful intent
is to commit adultery. So what do you say? Because we're ready to ruin her life.
We're gonna post pictures of her sleeping with this guy on the internet. At
this point, she's just crying, but quietly. There's ripples of rumors and chatter
sweeping across the crowd, and her accusers just keep on asking, so what's
it gonna be, Jesus? You're gonna contradict Moses or yourself? But Jesus
doesn't say anything. He just picks up some sidewalk chalk that was outside for
the kids, and he kneels down, and he starts riding things on the ground, and
they just keep pushing. Come on, Jesus, justify our anger. Co-sign our sanctimony.
Finally, Jesus stands back up, and they quiet down just enough to hear him almost
whisper. He says, anyone that has no sin, stone away. And he knelt back down, and he
just keeps riding right out here in this parking lot. Only now do the accusers
start to read what Jesus had been scribbling on the asphalt. You can't
really get a good look at it, so you're not really sure what it says, but for some
reason, them, they, all of them, they shut down their phones, and one by one they
sleek back through the audience, through the crowd, like Homer Simpson going into
a bush. Anyone catch that? And they're all gone. Suddenly, they just leave. Young
lady, she's still standing there. Now, in front of the original crowd of people
that had gathered to listen to Jesus, and then Jesus says to her, just loud
enough that you can hear, young lady, where'd they go?
Is there anyone left that thinks that you're guilty? And you pause. You, you
pause, and you think to yourself, do I think that she's guilty? And you wonder
if maybe Jesus wasn't just saying that to her, she was asking everyone else that
was still there. And she says, I guess not. Jesus says, yeah, me neither. You, you
should go home. But you can leave any sin you have behind here with me. What does
it mean to be Christ-like? You have to ask the question, what is Jesus like? I
think he's empathetic and gracious. He remembers that people are just that
people. He tells the truth. He serves the person in front of him with a justice
that is married to mercy. Listen, if I had to give you one story from all the
scriptures that describe what the Father is like, I'd say it's the parable of the
prodigal son. And if I had to give you one story from the scriptures that
described you what Jesus is like, it's this. Churches were full of people like
this Jesus. I doubt that only 32% of people would trust them. Amen? Okay, Greg
Bitt, this is what Jesus is like. Why have you never preached a single sermon from
this passage? I'll tell you why. Because this passage, this story, it's not in the
original version of John. Dun dun dun. What do I mean? What do I mean that it
wasn't in the original? I mean, in the earliest manuscripts, the copies of the
scriptures that we have, in the earliest versions that we have, this story isn't
there. Matter of fact, it doesn't start showing up until the 300s. John is
thought to have been written around 100. This doesn't start showing up until the
300s. It's what's called an interpolation. By definition, an entry or passage in a
text that wasn't written by the original authors. I want you to think about it
like this. Follow me in one more. Let's say that you're a historian, okay? You're
like just really down with history. You just love history. And you have been
assigned to copy down the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Now, this story
matters to you a lot because your grandmother was there. She was a freedom
writer. She was at the rallies. She met Dr. King a hundred times. You grew up
hearing her stories of Dr. King and now you, you have the job that you get to
write these stories down. You get to copy down the definitive anthology of Dr. King's
life. Most of these stories, as you're writing them down and making the copies,
you already know them because grandma told you all these stories already. Then
you realize that there's a story missing. You realize that her favorite story is
missing. You trust your grandma. All the other stories that she told you were
there confirming that what she had told you was true. And so what do you do? You
add it in. And then thousands of copies later, 50 years later, that story, her
story has become his story. Somewhere along the line in the time between when
John was originally written and when this story got added, people became
convinced that it belonged. Some of you would say like, well why isn't, I used to
think that it should just be taken out. That's why I've never preached on it.
Because I thought, well it wasn't there in the beginning. It should just be taken out and then there
isn't any confusion. If you open up a physical Bible right now, almost every
version of your Bible, I don't know of a version that doesn't have this in it, but
most versions have it in italics or brackets. At the bottom there's a little
star that explains that this story wasn't in the oldest versions of John
that we have. And I used to think, well it should just be taken out. And it has
taken until now for me to realize that this story getting added later is the
best reason to say that this is the best story of what Jesus is like. Why? Because
way back then, someone heard this story in the hundreds. Someone heard this story
in the two hundreds. Maybe it was even passed down by John, by the author of the
book of John to his disciples. And they saw later, man we need to add that to the
Bible. That story we've been telling, it's our favorite story. It fits in with the
character of who Jesus is. Part of the reason that it's still in the Bibles that
you look like, is that scholars and theologians agree that it does not
disagree or grate against anything else that we know about Jesus. They accept the
idea that it might be a real story that happened that got added later along the
way. And so let me ask you, don't we all wish we had a story about Jesus that so
perfectly showed us who he is that we would add it to the Bible? Shouldn't we
all hope to have a story about Jesus that so perfectly explains who Jesus is,
that you would want everybody to know that story. A story where we experienced
Jesus in such a meaningful way. We want everyone to hear it, because we know that
that is exactly Jesus. It's like a story, like a vulnerable woman shoved in front
of a crowd of people by the religious elites, being crushed by judgment and
legalism, but being met by empathy and grace and justice that was married to
mercy. A story where the stuck-up religious snobs are silenced. A story
where a crowd full of people, some that didn't even plan on being there that day,
got to see that Jesus didn't condemn someone condemned by others. A story
where you learned that just maybe Jesus won't condemn you either. Maybe, maybe just
maybe we can be a safe church, a trustworthy church, a church that nurtures
Christ-like character as we become like Jesus. Not only putting down stones,
leading others to put down theirs as well. As we tell people the stories of
who Jesus is and what he's like. As we listen to the stories that each other
tells, as we become more like Jesus. Amen?
Let's pray.
God, every single week that I get to preach, I always thank you for the
scriptures. And today in a new way I thank you for this story.
I pray that each one of us would be reminded of a story about Jesus. Everyone
should know. Everyone should hear. If they just knew this story they would know what
you really like.
I pray that story would encourage our hearts as we remember it. And I pray that we
would find the words of that story coming out of our mouths and landing in
the ears of the people around us. Whether it's something that happened to
us directly or if it's just a story that's in the Bible that maybe someone
already heard before. This is why this is so meaningful to me. Help us to be like
your son. Let your Holy Spirit guide us. Lead us. Jesus dwell within us. Make us
like you. Amen.