Buckets of Grace

“Buckets of Grace”

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Put away evil, live in love

4:25

So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another.

4:26

Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,

4:27

and do not make room for the devil.

4:28

Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.

4:29

Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.

4:30

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.

4:31

Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice.

4:32

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

5:1

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,

5:2

and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 Then they all went home,  but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.  The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group  and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”  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.  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.

 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.  Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

The New International Version (https://ref.ly/res/LLS:NIV2011/2024-03-22T14:15:08Z/4788557?len=1226)

. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan

An elderly man was quite unhappy because he had lost his favorite hat. Rather than purchasing a new one, he decided he would go to church and steal one out of the vestibule. When he got there, an usher intercepted him at the door and took him to a pew where he had to sit and listen to an entire sermon on the Ten Commandments. After church, the man met the preacher in the vestibule doorway, shook his hand vigorously and said, "I want to thank you for saving my soul today, preacher. I came to church to steal a hat, but after hearing your sermon on the Ten Commandments, I decided against it." "You mean the Commandment, Thou shall not steal, changed your mind?" the preacher asked. "No, the one about adultery did," the old man said. "As soon as you said that, I remembered where I left my old hat."https://www.ba-bamail.com/jokes/cheating-jokes/?jokeid=402

The world we live i gives us the opportunity to make choices. And choices matter to God and the people we love. In both cases we are expected to be in fidelity relationships. Fidelity comes from the Latin word fidelis which means faithful. Sometimes we can be temped to stray from those relationships for what appears at times to be a better deal. The fact of the matter is that in friendship, marriage, and relationships with family and friends we must be faithful. The motto of the United States Marine Corpus is Semper Fidelis —always faithful.

In my experience the only one who is always faithful is God. God meets us on the road like the father in the prodigal son parable He had wasted his life on wine, and illicit sexual behavior. He was broken, starving and hoped his father would take him as a hired servant or slave.

The father will have none of that. He put the finest robe on him and a ring for his finger.

God does that when we have messed up. When we feel worthless, God meets us where we are at.

I spend a lot of time praying for Gods grace, but it never occurred to me that I need to extend some grace to myself. Perhaps when we make amends to others for the harm we have done—we need to make amens to ourselves.

Psalm 103 says, “as far as the east is from the west so I have I removed your transgressions.”

So why do we continue to dig in the past mistakes looking for buried treasure when all it is — is manure.

Sexual sin is nothing new to humanity. From the dawn of time, we have abused one another though our actions and the objectification of both women and men. We have done horrible things for pleasure, power, and conquest.

King Solomon had 300 wives and 700 concubines, and he was considered the wisest man in all of Israel?

King David had multiple wives and still felt the need to have a sexual relationship with Basheba and then murder her husband to cover it up.

Tamar’s brother raped her and then despise her to the point of depression death.

 Think I am wrong just flip on the television or open an internet browser. There is a statistic that 97% of all internet sites are porn sites. It is a trillion dollar a year business, and it is not victimless. The victims are the men and woman who sell their bodies and live in depression, and use drugs and alcohol just to cope. This is not to mention the number of women and children that are sex trafficked.

Fidelity I. Our relationship with our spouses and partners is so important because when you step out of that relationship for carnal pleasure. The damage you do is three-fold.

1st to your relationship with God

2nd your relationship to your spouse or partner

3rd you set an example for your children that sex = love.

There is a blog article that I read by a woman who was cheated on by her husband. When she found out she was destroyed emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

She said to her husband after a long separation, “I forgive you, but I can never trust you again.” He never learned and the cycle of his-behavior did not change, and a divorce took place.

The idea of marriage relationships is that we leave or parents and our past behind and cleave to our spouse or partner and God.

Choices matter. Fidelity matters, honor, and integrity matter. While the world is hooked on illicit sex and adulterous relationships on television and the internet—we must be making choices that honor God and our families.

It is not easy when temptation is lurking whenever we pick up our smart phone and turn on Facebook.

The Gospel text this morning deals not only with a woman caught in an adulterous relationship, but hypocrisy itself. This woman we will call her faith was dragged from her lover's bed, stripped, dragged-through the streets as a piece of human refuse and thrown before Jesus.

The mob wants justice! They want to prove that they are following the commands of Moses and God.

Jesus in this moment is still. He writes on the ground the whole law which states that the man and woman caught in adultery should be stoned.

Jesus then says, “You who are without sin cast the first stone.” One by one the rocks fall to the ground and the crowd disappears.

Jesus says, “woman has no one condemned you?”

She replied, “not one.”

Jesus said,” then neither do I, Go and sin no more.”

I realize this is a heavy topic for Sunday morning, but the message is clear—we all at some point in our lives have sinned. We have faced condemnation from our families, friends, and even our church.

The only one who has not condemned us is Jesus.

Jesus says, love your neighbor.

Jesus says love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, and strength and you neighbor as yourself.

Jesus says Go and sin no more.