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Here is a sampling of some of the messages that have made a special impact at CCiPH, and that have been transcribed or written in manuscript. Most weeks in our equipping assembly, at least one man has been asked to prepare a message that will build up believers. Often, the message is taken from the liturgical Gospel reading of the day, or it is a life message that God has been working into the fabric of that man. It is included here to build you up. |
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The Kindness of God Leads to Repentence Message from Ben Gregory on February 2, 2003 Back in the fall Ruthie and I helped out with a youth retreat in conjunction with the Florence church. Our theme for the week was Compassion and one of my responsibilities was to give a little talk about that. When I talk to people I like to use the Gospels and the hardest part of this particular assignment was to choose which example of Jesus’ compassion I’d focus on—there are so many and they’re all powerful. After my talk was over Dean told me that I should use it here sometime, and today’s the day, so if you were with us on that retreat in November and you’ve heard it before, feel free to do what my dad would call “checking your eyelids for holes.” Its okay… Let’s set the scene. Its early in the morning, in fact its dawn, and Jesus is teaching in the temple courts where a large crowd has gathered to hear him. Its not hard to imagine getting up early to hear this man that everyone’s talking about. Or maybe I’d heard him before and heard things so revolutionary that I had to have more. John 7:46 helps to explain this huge audience—no one had ever spoken the way Jesus did. Put yourself there. You’re a part of this huge crowd and Jesus has begun to teach. I wish someone had recorded what Jesus had chosen to talk about that day. Maybe he was in the middle of one of those stories that he liked to use. You’re riveted. Suddenly there’s a noise from behind the crowd. A group of men shoves their way toward Jesus. They’re yelling and they’re dragging something with them. You can’t tell what it is, but they throw it toward Jesus, and that quickly whatever Jesus was developing was gone. And you’re stunned to realize that the object they’ve been handling so roughly was a woman. And they make her stand there in front of everyone. She’s sobbing. She’s so scared that she’s shaking. Her head is down. Her hands are to her face. She’s been caught in adultery—in the act. It’s reasonable to me that she could be naked. She knows she’s guilty. Everyone is looking at her. She wants to make herself as small as she can—she wants to crawl under a rock—she wants to hide. And they make her stand up straight in front of the whole crowd. And she’s ashamed. And she’s scared. See, they’re looking to rattle Jesus—to trap him. The Law said—God’s Law said—she’s gotta die. Leviticus 20:10 says, “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” The Pharisees catch a lot of flack from us for all the traditions they cooked up and put on the people and all the false guilt that went with them, but this is not tradition and this is not false guilt—this is God’s Law. They’re right. If Jesus lets her off the hook, he’s broken the Law. But if he says to kill her, there’s trouble with Rome—Jews couldn’t carry out their own executions without Roman consent (which makes it interesting later when they want to kill Jesus. That’s why they have to have all those goofy trials). By the way, where’s the guy? If they’d been interested in justice he’d be there too. But they’re not—they’re after Jesus—and she’s just bait. Do you know about bait? Bait’s nothing. We buy it cheap in Styrofoam at Wells’s Open Air Market or we dig it out from under a rock and we do whatever we want with it in the pursuit of something else and then we’re done with it. That’s bait. She’s not even a person to them. They say, (verse five) “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. Now what do you say?” And Jesus yells at them and tells them to cram it and shut up and leave her alone and don’t treat women like that and where’s the guy anyway. Right? Nope. He ignores them. Anybody ever ignore you when you’re all fired up and want to fight? Its irritating. He just bends down and starts doodling in the dirt. Why’d he do that? When I was fifteen, on April 10th in fact, my parents took my little sister and went to Sunday night church (they were twice a day Christians) and I got on my bicycle and went and got myself arrested. The cops had to call the church to get ahold of my parents. They came and got me and followed me home (very closely) I on my bicycle and they in a Cutlass. When we got home I braced for them to yell at me and they didn’t. In fact for a long, long time they didn’t say anything at all. They just sat there and looked at me. And I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. I certainly couldn’t make eye contact with them. And I don’t know anything that anyone else doesn’t know, but I think this whole writing in the dirt thing is about not embarrassing this frightened, naked woman any more than has already happened. Because to Jesus, she’s a person. Of course, the Pharisees press it. And look at verse seven—Jesus stands up. They’d made the woman stand up to embarrass her, and now they’ve made Jesus stand up because he’s had enough. And his eyes—those eyes that were too compassionate to look at a guilty woman—lock on her legally correct accusers. And he gives them an answer that is no answer at all. “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” See, they didn’t want an answer any more than they wanted justice. And he goes back to his doodling, as if they don’t even exist. And one by one, they all drop their stones where they stand. Older men first, because they’re smarter. And when Jesus stands up for the last time, they’re all gone. By now its easy for me to imagine that someone has brought this woman something to cover herself with. Remember they’ve been listening to Jesus teach. They’re heard him say things like, “Treat people the way you’d like to be treated,” and “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) Her accusers are gone and Jesus does what he’s done over and over and continues to do… He gives a broken, guilty person her life back. It was over. The second that her bedroom door burst open and she and her lover were interrupted she received a death-sentence, and she knew it. Even if they’d trapped Jesus and decided to let her go, they’ve humiliated her forever. And in an instant of compassion, he gives it all back to her. Listen to him (verses ten and eleven). He speaks to her. “Woman, where are they? Where are your accusers?” This is probably the first time since the whole ordeal began early that morning that someone had spoken to her. The Pharisees certainly hadn’t. Why would they? She’s not a person to them. Jesus speaks to her. And he extends mercy to her. What do you suppose the rest of her life was like? Jesus had just given her her life back—what do you suppose she did with it? I’ve got a pretty good idea. I think she left her life of sin. Listen to this from Romans (2:1-4) “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” God’s kindness—God’s compassion—leads to repentance. And I believe that the love that she saw when Jesus looked into her eyes and the mercy that she experienced changed her forever. (And by the way, when you get to heaven, good luck finding her. All we know her as is “the woman caught in adultery.” And if that’s all you’ve got to go on, you’ll ask around heaven for the better part eternity and nobody there will have any idea what you’re talking about.) God’s compassion leads to repentance. You want people who are wrong to change? Don’t throw rocks at them, love them. We talked a lot at that retreat back in November about the way we treat one another. We have got to be extremely careful with the people around us. But we get so casual, so careless. People are not bait to do with whatever amuses us. They’re people. We get so eager to condemn and to judge one another. If ever anyone was in a position to condemn, it was Jesus—He chose mercy. Still, by nature I’m not terribly compassionate. I’m sarcastic and cynical and prone to make fun of people and judgmental and argumentative and I like to be right even if—especially if it means someone else is wrong. And none of that does anyone any good. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I posses to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” But God’s kindness leads toward repentance. Will you stand and pray with me? "I have one deep supreme desire, I want to be like Jesus To this I fervently aspire, I want to be like Jesus I want my heart His throne to be So that a watching world may see His likeness shining forth in me, I want to be like Jesus
He spent his life in doing good, I want to be like Jesus In lowly paths of service trod, I want to be like Jesus He sympathized with hearts distressed He spoke the words that cheered and blessed He welcomed sinners to His breast
I want to be like Jesus
A holy harmless life He led, I want to be like Jesus The Father’s will His drink and bread, I want to be like Jesus And when at last he comes to die “Forgive them, Father,” hear him cry For those who taunt and crucify
I want to be like Jesus
O perfect life of Christ, my Lord, I want to be like Jesus My recompense and my reward, I want to be like Jesus His spirit fill my hungering soul His power all my life control My deepest prayer, my highest goal
That I may be… I want to be… Lord, let me be… I want to be like Jesus. I Want to be Like Jesus By Thomas O. Chisolm Copyright 1945. Renewed 1973 by Lillenas Publishing Co. Repent: The Key to Healing and Miracles (Mark Scherer, Nov. 2002) Doing Versus Being in the Kingdom (Jay Horn, Aug. 2002) The Kindness of God Leads to Repentance (Ben Gregory, Feb 2003)
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