Church of the Oaks, 841 Rosita Road, Del Rey Oaks, CA (2026)

Dr. Robert Hellam. Worship services are held every Sunday morning from 10:30 to 11:30. We share Holy Communion on the first Sunday of each month. Fellowship hour immediately follows our worship service. The Congregational Way is a way of following Jesus. People of a Congregational Church do not seek to be led by a creed, but by the Spirit. Ours is the tradition of a free church, gathered under the

headship of Jesus and bound to others by love, not law. We are voluntarily affiliated with the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches (NACCC). By voluntary membership in a National Association of free churches, a local church can join in efforts which one church could not undertake by itself and experience the fellowship of kindred minds, while maintaining full control of its own affairs. We support and affirm the mission statement of the NACCC: "Bringing together Congregational Christian Churches for mutual care and outreach to our world in the name of Jesus Christ."

06/07/2026

“Help!” by Rev. Dr. Robert Hellam
Psalm 38
Church of the Oaks, June 7, 2026

My sermon title is also the title of a Beatles song which begins, “Help! I need somebody—not just anybody!” That’s a pretty good paraphrase of what David is saying here. He’s desperate for help, and he knows he needs Somebody, not just anybody—he needs the Lord God.
Psalm 38 is one of the seven “penitential psalms” in traditional Christian liturgy, so it is appropriate for Communion Sunday, when we—like David—repeat together a prayer of contrition such as our collect for today.

[Read Psalm 38, p. 467 in the pew Bible.]

Those who encourage us to pray the Psalms back to God would probably recommend this psalm for those moments when we are full of guilt and sorrow over something we have done wrong. And unless you are one of those clueless individuals who will insist “I am not a sinner,” you have had moments when you knew you had really sinned and sinned seriously, when you were your own worst judge and could only turn to God. And so have I and everyone with a fully energized Christian conscience, a conscience that has been awakened by God’s Holy Spirit.
We don’t know what sin David is lamenting here. It’s something painfully serious. He didn’t just say a bad word in a moment of stress and anger. Our first guess might be his sin with Bathsheba. But despite the fact that we know David was “a man after God’s own heart,” there were other acts of wickedness. Is he thinking about how he abandoned his first wife for so many years and took up with many others, only to cast her off again much later when she had come back to him? Does he remember how his anger almost caused him to kill Nabal, the selfish farmer who would not share his produce with David’s men? Is he sorry for not punishing one of his sons who did wrong to his own sister? Does he regret causing his men to risk their lives one day just to get him a drink of water? Is he repenting of proudly numbering the people at a time when God did not want him to do that, and even the very unsaintly Joab cautioned him against it?
The Bible doesn’t tell us every single detail of David’s life. He could have been regretting any of those actions, or something else that is not reported in Scripture. But he knows Whom to talk to about it. He says, in effect, “Lord, I know You’re angry with me. I feel Your anger like arrows in my flesh. My whole body feels unwell, down to my very bones. Please let up, even though I know it’s all my fault!”
This is so realistic, so familiar, that each of us sinners by nature can identify with David here. Again, though, we can be like David and turn directly to God and tell Him about it and ask Him to be merciful. One of the great insights of the Protestant Reformation is that we don’t need to confess our sins to a priest. We can do what King David does here and go straight to God. (Of course, that doesn’t mean that we are not permitted to confess to other human beings if the Holy Spirit is leading us to do that.)
David is totally penitent here. He makes no attempt to excuse himself. He doesn’t say, “Forgive me,” but that is what he really means throughout nearly the whole psalm. He admits that his sins are many, no matter what this latest one is. He feels the burden of those sins. This reminds me of the song in our hymnal that speaks of being “shackled by a heavy burden, ’neath a load of guilt and shame.” That’s how David feels. This is a tremendous load of guilt and shame that towers over his head, and he needs relief.
Thomas Oden, the late Methodist theologian, said that David’s feeling of the heavy burden of his sins was really the result of God’s lovingkindness. Oden wrote, “Grace came in the convicting form of heaviness, draining that strength that would resist a healing transformation.” How often is what seems impossible to bear really the activity of God’s grace?
David says, in effect, that he stinks to high heaven. He describes himself as totally disgusting. He acknowledges that he was foolish to defy God. David is identifying with what he believes is God’s view of him at this point when he is at his most sinful. And that is how we also should look at our own sinful behavior, when we know we have displeased our Lord. We should also look at ourselves as loathsome little vermin, seeing ourselves through the eyes of our totally holy God.
David doesn’t do here what we are often tempted to do, but probably he is also facing the same temptation—to say, “Well, at least I am not as bad a sinner as [fill in the blank]. I didn’t do this or that terrible thing that he did. By comparison, I am a pretty good person, a good citizen and a good friend and relative and a good church member.” That doesn’t work. God demands total holiness from us as well. He says, “Be holy, for I am holy” (I Peter 1:16), not “Be holier than the other guy.”
We can see and feel David’s penitence. These are not just the sad reflections of a moment. He is mourning all day long. According to the customs of that time, he might have put on rough burlap clothing and poured dust and ashes on his head. He wants God to know how seriously he takes his wrongdoing. God knows, and He has known at least since what happened in the Garden of Eden, that we will all sin from time to time, but He waits for our sincere repentance before He will act in our favor.
I said before that we could repeat to God psalms like this one as a token of our own repentance, but that would do no good if we were only saying the words. We would have to internalize David’s sorrow and guilt and repentance, not just to treat David’s words when we read them out loud as part of a formal liturgy, a kind of ritual. When I was little and my brother and I had been fighting and we were commanded to hug one another, it hardly ever felt genuine. The Lord does not want us to pretend. God does not want us to say a dozen Our Fathers and fifty Hail Marys and just go about our business as the same old sinners. He wants us to be real with Him, just as He is real with us.
David’s heart is pounding in response to his guilt, and he feels weak. He can’t even see clearly, but he recognizes that God sees it all. He says, “O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you.” And that’s a realization that ought to be before our own minds all the time. God is never unaware. He sees us at every moment. Little children are taught in a Christmas song that there is someone who knows when they are sleeping and when they are awake and whether they have been bad or good. The song doesn’t quite have it right, because that is really true of God alone. But there is an encouraging side of that. God is our constant Witness, but He also loves us with His uniquely complete and comprehensive love. He judges us only because He always wants what is best for us. We may sometimes know what’s best for us, but we are not always right. God knows.
When we sin, we not only feel estranged from God, but often from other human beings as well. It seems that David’s friends and family know about whatever offense David has committed. Are they staying away from him? Is that why they seem aloof to David? Is it because they are totally disgusted with him? Do they see him as he is now seeing himself, as someone who has a repulsive condition, as if he were a l***r? Or is it that David himself feels that he must stay aloof from the people that he loves? Does he feel as unworthy of their company as he does from the Lord’s company?
And hasn’t that been our own feeling sometimes, when our misbehavior or our unholy attitudes have been even worse than usual? If we are loaded down with guilt and shame, and we take a hostile view of our own self, don’t we also assume that other people must feel the same way? More than that, don’t we feel that they should despise us? Maybe they’re really staying away, or maybe we just don’t feel worthy of their company.
But there are others who were already David’s enemies, even before he committed whatever specific sin he is grieving here. They are only too happy to condemn David, even if they are guilty of the same sins or crimes themselves. He even has enemies who want to kill him, but he is so weak from guilt and shame that he can’t even defend himself against them. He not only can’t see well or hear well in his current state, but he can’t even speak out on his behalf.
David knows Who it is that he can ask to speak out for him. “But for you, O LORD, do I wait,” David says; “it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.” David is repentant for real sins that he has committed, but he trusts God to know that the accusations of his enemies are complete fictions. Certainly, if they don’t even want David to live, they don’t hesitate to destroy his reputation as well.
This is a little bit reminiscent of our American politics today. Don’t just engage in polite conversation, arguing the points of your position and answering the countering remarks of those who disagree with you. Instead, destroy them. Democrats say that Republicans hate women, the poor, and people of color and want to prevent citizens from voting. Republicans say that Democrats are not patriotic, that they value illegal aliens over U.S. citizens, that they advocate s*xual perversion, and the list goes on. But what most of us would like to see would be calm debates about the issues, with reasonable decisions made after weighing all the evidence, and without all the name-calling. We don’t want to be like King David’s enemies, seizing every opportunity to tear down those who don’t see things the way we do—we don’t want to be like that, and yet the temptation to trash our opponents is so very strong.
In David’s case, his enemies never give up. Even though he confesses his sins to God, and he writes this psalm for the whole world to read or to hear, even though he is thoroughly repentant, they hate him even more. David’s enemies are not the friends of God, and they don’t have any use for anyone who is the friend of God. They can’t tear God down, so they have to settle for tearing David down. And we wonder, don’t we, is that what motivates the enemies of God today when they seize every opportunity to speak out against Christians who dare to express their faith publicly?
David’s last words in this psalm are very significant for the Church: “Do not forsake me, O LORD! O my God, be not far from me! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!” We may sometimes feel forsaken by God—but we know, as David does, that we are the ones who have gone off into the far country, like the prodigal son. God does not forsake us. It’s the other way around, even though it may not feel that way. God is truly never far from each of us.
And He is always ready to hasten to our side to help us. He is our Lord. And the Hebrew word for “Lord” in the last verse is not the Name of God, but the title that New Testament writers take as a reference to the Lord Jesus. And to say that the Lord is our Salvation is very much a Christian saying. That Hebrew word for “salvation” is closely related to the name Jesus, which means “The Lord Saves.” Jesus is our Salvation.
We know that if we have trusted in Jesus as Lord and Savior and have genuinely repented of all our sins and received His forgiveness, then that forgiveness is permanent, never to be taken away. And when we do fail our Lord, when we sin badly, as David did, even after we have become Christians, then we can rely on the verse we often repeat on these Communion Sundays: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).
Well, I guess I shouldn’t be so unpredictable, but I’d like to share with you my poetic paraphrase of this psalm. It’s a bit long, but I thought it was worth sharing anyway. It’s called “Kyrie Eleison,” Greek for “Lord, Have Mercy.”

My God, do not chastise me in Your fury.
Your arrows wound, You hand oppresses me.
My body is unsound, my bones are weary
Of sin. Your righteous wrath distresses me.
My sins have mounted high above my head,
Become a load that weighs too much for me.
My wounds are festering and stinking, fed
By my own folly, my stupidity.
Bowed down, depressed, I mourn the whole day long.
My loins are filled with sickening disease.
Though I am sore and weak, my groans are strong.
God, see my sorry state, and hear my pleas.
My strength is failing, my weakened heart sighs,
And now the light has gone out of my eyes.

Old lovers and friends, and even my kin,
Aloof from me they stand. They stay away,
Disgusted by the consequence of sin.
My enemies trade gossip all the day,
But I am deaf to all their lies. I’ m mute,
For all of my attention’s turned to You,
To You, my God, Whose mercy will refute
All slander. Only Your great love is true.
Yes, I’m a sinner, but I sorrow sore.
My foes, who render injury for good,
Will not forgive. But this and so much more
Do You remit: all I sinned, all I could.
I seek You, God, with great anticipation.
Come quickly. Be my Help, be my Salvation.

Amen.

06/02/2026

Schedule of Sermons for June 2026:

June 7 Psalm 38 "Help!"
June 14 John 8:37-59 "Greater than Abraham"
June 21 Psalm 69 "Appeal to Our Heavenly Father"
June 28 Leviticus 10:1-7 "Nadab and Abihu" (Josh Converse preaching)

05/31/2026

“Preparing to Hear the Commandments” by Rev. Dr. Robert Hellam
Exodus 19:14-25
Church of the Oaks, May 31, 2026

We see in this morning’s reading that the people of Israel are frightened, terrified. And we can see why, and we can feel their fright if we put ourselves into their place. They are at the bottom of a mountain, and the whole mountain is shaking. There is thunder and lightning, and the sound of a trumpet. No one seems to know where the trumpet is, or who is the trumpeter. But the trumpet sound keeps on and on and on, and it gets louder by the moment. As the people stand at the foot of the mountain and look to its top, so impressively high above them, they see Someone coming down to the top of the mountain. It’s the Lord God, coming in fire and smoke, and for Him the mountaintop is not a high place but a very low one. The smoke continues rising. I would be afraid. Wouldn’t you?

[Read Exodus 19:14-25, p. 61 in the pew Bible.]

Before the scary part that we discussed earlier, Moses comes down from the mountain where he has been talking to God, and he sanctifies the people. The Bible doesn’t tell us much about what goes on in this sanctifying process, this consecration. All we know is that the people have to wash their clothes, presumably in a way that’s more thorough than usual, so that their clothing looks clean and holy like the clothing of a priest. They are to be perfectly clean, both inside and out. It reminds me of some words from a hymn that is not in our hymnal: “Are you washed in the blood, in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?” Does that mean that we have to come to church each Sunday in spotless, bleached-white clothing, looking like Old Testament priests? Of course not, although we should show not only by our behavior but also by our appearance that we recognize Who God is and what claim He has on each of us. Clean garments symbolize a clean heart and mind.
Another requirement that will either make them more holy, or less unholy, is that husbands and wives are not to have s*xual relations during the three days that the people will wait to hear from God. That may sound strange to people used to the loose culture that we are living in. The people of Israel were required to stay away from things and activities that were not fit for God’s presence, but at certain times they were also required to stay away from things and activities that were otherwise perfectly healthy and holy and pleasing to God.
Husbands and wives, I said. In Biblical morality, s*xual in*******se is for no one but married couples—one man and one wife for a lifetime—not for boyfriends and girlfriends, not for fiancées, not for casual encounters, not for same-s*x romances. S*x is holy in God’s eyes, because it is His design for perpetuating life. But even in those days, when people still recognized that there is a moral element to human s*xuality, s*xual activities were not always performed with God in mind and with holy thoughts. In view of that reality, the perfectly healthy and holy activity of s*xual in*******se between a husband and wife was temporarily forbidden as the people prepared to be in God’s presence. This was not a time to be casual about s*x or about anything.
This is so different from attitudes in today’s America. Our movies, for at least the last fifty or so years, have taught us that s*x is no big deal, a bodily function like going to the bathroom but much more fun. It used to be true in our society that girls did not kiss on the first date. According to our movies, and due to their influence also according to many of our citizens these days, it’s fine if the girl not only kisses on the first date but also throws off all her clothes and jumps into bed with her date. After all, he didn’t buy her dinner just because he was hungry for food.
Even people in churches watch movies and TV shows that teach those things uncritically, even though when the Bible is faithfully taught they hear a radically different message in church. It’s bad enough when people believe things that are not true, but it’s completely insane when they believe two things at the same time that completely contradict each other. How many people in our churches today hear the Gospel preached and receive the message gladly, but just live in whatever way they choose, no matter what the Gospel says?
For example, I once told my chiropractor’s assistant that I am a pastor. She was very interested. She said that she intended to bring her boyfriend to our church, although in fact they never came. What struck me, though, was that after she told me how religiously conservative her boyfriend was, she casually let it be known that they were living together. Of course, this would probably not shock very many people in our younger generations today.
But back to the Bible account—Moses tells the people to be ready for the third day. It’s remarkable, as the British theologian N. T. Wright has remarked, how often the promises of God’s saving power include the phrase “the third day.” Bishop Wright says, “This is one of several Jewish texts, from the Bible through to the second-Temple period and beyond, which speak of the ‘third day’ as the time when Israel’s God will accomplish his work of salvation and/or resurrection.” Is the bishop correct? Is this an instance of salvation or resurrection? I think so. The people of Israel have been saved from slavery in a pagan land, and they are being born again from spiritual death as the children of God. Of course, this naturally causes us Christians to think in terms of the wording of the Apostles’ Creed: “The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father Almighty. Thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.” If it’s true, as it was traditionally believed, that the Apostles’ Creed was written by the twelve apostles, then that creed is another one of those “Jewish texts” that Bishop Wright was talking about.
And on that long-ago “third day” that Moses was talking about, we see plenty of drama. Once again, we notice that the people are all afraid. They are trembling, and even the mountain whose foot they are standing near is trembling along with them. The smoke from the fiery mountain goes up, Moses writes, “like the smoke of a kiln.” And this was like a kiln. As the prophet Jeremiah and others would write later, we are like unformed clay until God, the divine Potter, shapes us into what He has always intended for us to be. He was shaping this ragtag mob of emancipated slaves into a people, into a nation, into His own chosen people.
And then there is that trumpet, that mysterious trumpet that might make us think of the trumpet that one day will announce the end of time. But this trumpet is proclaiming not an end, but a new beginning. And that sounds very good when we are only reading the text. It’s such nice poetic imagery. But put yourself in the people’s place at the foot of God’s mountain, with the trumpet sound, in real life, continuing without interruption and getting louder and louder and louder. I am annoyed when my car alarm goes off without any apparent reason, and that is pretty loud. But this was much more powerful. If God wanted to get the people’s attention, He certainly had it. We know that loud and persistent noise can cause actual physical pain. C. S. Lewis once said, “Pain is God’s megaphone”—to cause us to pay more attention to His words than we usually do. Maybe we should, every one of us, be hearing that amazingly loud trumpet in our mind’s ear all the time. After all, God still wants to get our attention.
And by the way, the trumpet is one of those symbols in the Hebrew Bible that points forward to Jesus. What our translation calls a “trumpet” is actually a ram’s horn. And we remember that when God demanded the life of Abraham’s son, and Abraham was about to give it to Him, the angel of the LORD pointed out a ram caught by its horns in a bush (Genesis 22:13). The ram substituted for Abraham’s son, and Isaac, his son, did not have to die. That ram’s horn reminds us of the sacrifice that Abraham did not have to make, and the sacrifice that God the Father did make when His Son voluntarily gave His life to save you and me. Jesus died in the flesh, so that we would not have to die in the spirit.
And then, as the trumpet keeps on blowing, God warns Moses and the people about boundaries. If their fear does not keep the people away from the sacred ground of the mountain, there is a danger, as God says to Moses, that the Lord might “break out against them.” As we’ve noticed before, and as Moses was warned at the burning bush, wherever the Lord God is present is holy ground.
Very often, you have heard me preach with gratitude, in favor of our great freedom as Protestant Christians. We have used that freedom to become quite informal in our worship. Today, what we call here the “platform,” where the pulpit and the lectern and the choir loft and the organ and the piano are, is not always seen as a special place, as it was in the days before the Reformation, and still is in certain other Christian fellowships. Some American churches today even call this area the “stage,” as if the church building were a theater; but traditionally this was the “chancel,” a place too holy for ordinary church attenders. In some churches, this area would be fenced off or even walled off, so that only priests and deacons could occupy it, apparently symbolic of the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple. That seems extreme to many of us today, but at least it is a recognition that God is holy, and everything related to Him is also holy and not to be taken lightly. Better a chancel than a stage. What we do here is not meant to be entertainment, but to be an appointment with our supremely holy Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Our God is not our buddy, or our teddy bear. As He was in the time of Moses, He is still a “consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). He loves us. He treasures us. But He is still God, and He is still holy, and we are still not as holy as He wants us to be. Even though Moses was able to talk with God “face to face” (Exodus 33:11), Moses recognized that this was not a casual chat between equals, even though he sometimes sounded surprisingly familiar in talking to God, as he did when he told God that He did not need to tell the people again about those boundaries, because the Lord had already said, “Set limits around the mountain and consecrate it.”
I like how this account pictures the people leaving their campground all together and going “out of the camp to meet God.” One study Bible calls this “a huge prayer meeting, where God would come down in the sight of all the people.” We need to see coming to church on Sundays in that same way. This is a big deal. We are here not just to shoot the breeze with each other, not just to drink coffee together after the service, although those are good things, which you have certainly observed me enjoying. But all that is not the main event. The real reason we are invited here is so that we can meet God, as the children of Israel did on that long-ago day. Another study Bible puts the truth really well: “God is indeed approachable and close to the human race. But we do not know what untainted light is like; we do not know how to categorize raw holiness; we do not have much experience with pure spirit, pure essence, pure being.” And that study Bible is right: that’s Who God is. He is certainly our divine Friend, but at the same time our holy God Who can never be completely understood by us in this life.
We all know what is coming next in the following chapter of Exodus: the people will hear the Ten Commandments. And the Commandments are important. That’s why we follow the tradition of early Congregational churches, and we have the Ten Commandments displayed prominently on the wall of our narthex. But we have to see them as more than a chart on the wall. We need to see them as God’s words to us. And no matter how many times we have read them and heard them, we need to be ready always to hear them again. God’s commands are that important, as Jesus reminded us when He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).
And all was accomplished by Jesus on the cross, but Jesus never told us not to obey the Ten Commandments. We know we don’t have to keep a kosher kitchen or to limit how far we can walk on the Lord’s Day, but Jesus went on after the words I just quoted to remark that we Christians need to be even more holy than the holiest among God’s Old Testament people. In order to be allowed into the Kingdom of Heaven, in order for God not to “break out upon us,” we need to keep God’s commandments in our hearts, to make them part of us—so that we are not following rules outside of us, as if they were a chart on a wall, but we are following the Holy Spirit Who lives inside of us and continually reminds us of the Savior Who rose on the third day and made us who believe in God’s Son, Jesus, into a new people of God.
Can we approach a holy God, a God we are taught to fear? Yes. But only through Jesus.

Amen.

05/24/2026

“Who Are You, Jesus?” by Rev. Dr. Robert Hellam
John 8:1-30
Church of the Oaks, May 24, 2026

Sermons don’t usually bring up the claims of the textual critics of the Bible, but we have to do that today. Remember, the word “critic” doesn’t always mean negative criticism. Textual critics are mostly sincere Christians who just want to make sure that our translations are as close as possible to the original writings of the human authors of the Bible.

[Read John 8:1-30, p. 894 in the pew Bible.]

That wonderful story that takes up the first eleven verses of our Scripture for this morning was not part of the Apostle John’s original Gospel manuscript, the critical scholars say. But they are also almost unanimous in saying that it is still a true story that some scribe with first-hand knowledge knew should be in the Bible, so he stuck it in where he thought most convenient.
You can see why everyone agrees that the episode with the woman caught in adultery really belongs in the Bible, because it shows the Jesus we all know very well from the rest of Scripture, and it shows Him behaving as we expect Him to behave—in perfect love, in perfect calmness, and perfectly logical.
Those scribes and Pharisees who so often try to discredit Jesus are at it again here. It’s early in the morning, and Jesus has just arrived at the Temple to worship and to teach. Suddenly, with no warning, they bring this unfortunate woman to Him, and we can’t help but wonder how rough they must have been with her.
The religious professionals claim that the woman has been caught in adultery, “in the very act.” Already, we see that some misbehavior has happened on the accusers’ part. If they did catch the woman “in the very act,” then they also must have caught the man. Where is he? They quote the Law of Moses, saying that the woman should be stoned to death.
But Moses specified that in a case of adultery, both the man and the woman deserved punishment. Moses said, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10). So where is the man? Who is he? I couldn’t help but wonder whether he was a friend of theirs who seduced the woman just so she could be publicly accused by his friends while he got away scot-free.
The woman’s tormentors are not really dedicated to justice, or to honoring the Law of Moses; really, this is just another one of those tests, where Jesus’ enemies try to trap Him, tempting Him either to contradict the Law of Moses or to be seen in public as a cruel punisher. But as usual, Jesus does not let Himself be tricked. He doesn’t defend the woman, but He also doesn’t say that her accusers are in the right.
Mysteriously, Jesus bends down and writes on the ground. Then he stands up and invites the one who is without sin to cast the first stone. And then, still mysteriously, He bends down and writes on the ground again.
The Bible does not say why Jesus was writing on the ground, or what he was writing. Many guesses have been made. In fact, I knew a pastor who simply said that it was absolutely true, without any question, that Jesus was writing the names of the men who had brought the woman and naming their sins. When I questioned my friend how he knew that, he didn’t explain beyond claiming that this was unquestionably true because it was perfectly obvious.
Maybe. Or maybe it was just the power of Jesus’ question. These men’s consciences were awakened, and one by one they realized that they were not without sin. Each in turn went away, probably dropping any stones in their hands, and soon Jesus was alone with the woman.
Before we think about what Jesus said to her, let me tell you a little story from our Sunday School class. A man named Peter, who belongs to the Assembly of God church, has been attending Sunday School here at Church of the Oaks. Sometimes, he brings his grandson with him. His grandson, Aidan, grew up in China, the son of missionary parents.
Most of you know that some non-Christian groups have tampered with the Bible. Jehovah’s Witnesses are famous for that. But so are the Chinese Communists, Aidan says. The Chinese government prints Bibles, but in the Communist version Jesus, being the only One without sin, picks up the first stone and throws it at the woman, who is then stoned to death by the whole group of men.
Apparently, forgiveness and understanding are not Maoist values. Of course, as we just read, Jesus did nothing of the kind. Instead, He looked around and then He asked the woman where all those accusers were. She said there was no one there any longer to condemn her. And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.”
If the episode had ended with those words, we might think that the scribes and Pharisees had won, that they had exposed Jesus as someone who did not respect the Law of Moses. But the story does not end there. Jesus continued, “Go, and sin no more.”
And we can understand the lesson of this event for us. No one likes to think of himself as a sinner, and none of us wants what we might regard as our private sins to be exposed. But even if we don’t like the truth, we know what’s true, that we sin often whether we want to or not. Jesus does forgive you and me when we sin and repent and sincerely ask for His forgiveness. But He doesn’t say, “Look, all your sins were forgiven when I gave my life on the cross. So don’t worry about it. Go ahead and sin all you want. It’s OK with Me.”
Not at all. He says the same thing to each of us that He said to that woman: “Sin no more.”
We can see why that unknown Christian scribe inserted this outstanding true story into this exact spot in John’s Gospel. It fits pretty well. We see right after His conversation with the woman that Jesus is still speaking to some of the Pharisees. He tells them, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
This is a powerful statement for many reasons, one that should not be lightly passed over, but that’s exactly what these Pharisees do, going on to accuse Jesus once again. You’ve heard me say this before, but this must really disappoint Jesus, because I believe the Pharisees were the closest group among the Jewish Bible experts to Jesus’ own point of view. Like Him, they believed that everyone should aim for holiness and respect the Word of God.
But they disappoint Jesus once again by not paying attention to His important claims here. For one thing, here and four other times in this morning’s passage, Jesus calls Himself by the Name of God. He says, “I Am” the light of the world. Those two words, “I Am,” represent the same Name that God replied to Moses when Moses asked God, “What’s Your Name?” God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. . . . Say to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’ ” (Exodus 3:14).
Also, calling Himself the Light of the World is another claim to being God. “In the beginning,” Moses wrote, “God created the heavens and the earth. . . . And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:1-3). So in calling Himself the Light of the World, Jesus is identifying Himself with that original Light that appeared even before the sun and moon were created, the original Light of Creation. Only the Creator Himself could claim to be that.
Jesus also pointed out another fact that the Pharisees just casually ignore. Since they apparently don’t agree with Jesus’ description of Himself, they are walking in darkness. Whenever there is total darkness, there is also total blindness. So they can’t see for themselves Who Jesus really is. In other words, they are living their lives in spiritual blindness and ignorance, and they do not have eternal life.
But instead of paying attention, the Pharisees just question Jesus’ testimony about Himself, as if He were just some loud talker with a ridiculous story to tell about himself. Maybe they think Jesus is just bragging. They can’t see God in front of them, but only someone they see as a fairly ordinary Jewish man. From their own words, they obviously believe that Jesus is a liar. “You are bearing witness about yourself,” they point out. And because He has no witness who can back Him up, they conclude that He is not telling the truth. But they don’t say so directly. They merely say that Jesus’ testimony is not legally valid.
We have laws about when testimony can be accepted in our courtrooms today. As someone might say in a courtroom, these Pharisees are focusing on a procedural issue and totally ignoring the substantive issue—which we know is the absolutely true fact that this man Jesus standing in front of them is their God and our God.
The Pharisees are taking it upon themselves to remind Jesus of the Law of Moses, which teaches that testimony in a court of law is acceptable only if more than one witness gives the same testimony. And of course, they keep on insisting that Jesus is only another man, and He has to follow the standards of human law. Of course, Jesus is not formally on trial here, so their comments are beside the point.
Jesus gives them the benefit of the doubt and pretends that what they say is relevant, treating them as if they were the respectable experts on the Law that they claim to be. He points out several realities that they don’t understand. His testimony is true for at least four reasons.
First, Jesus knows where He is from, and the Pharisees don’t. He testifies over and over again in the Gospels that He has come down from heaven to earth. He tells them that He knows where He came from. He also says that they don’t know this fact. They also don’t know where He is going, which of course is right back to where He came from, back to the throne room of God the Father in heaven.
Second, the Pharisees judge Him when they don’t have the right to sit in judgment upon Jesus. They judge by human standards only, and right now in His earthly ministry Jesus is judging no one. If they only realized the truth, those Pharisees would see that even though they do not have the right to judge Jesus, He would be perfectly qualified to judge them.
Third, even if Jesus were to judge, He would be judging truly, because God, His Father Who sent Him to earth, also judges along with Jesus, and their judgments are always in perfect agreement.
Fourth, Jesus’ testimony does satisfy the Law of Moses. Moses wrote, “A single witness shall not suffice. . . . Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses . . .” (Deuteronomy 19:15). But, Jesus says, He has more than one witness. God the Father, and also God the Son—Jesus Himself—are His two witnesses.
But these Pharisees still insist on walking in darkness. They pay no attention to these amazing words. God Himself in human flesh is standing among them, and they refuse to see. They are about to make another accusation against Jesus, in an indirect and insulting way.
What about us? Do we sometimes ignore Jesus’ testimony? Do we often just go our own way, making our own decisions, or just letting things happen, without giving Jesus a thought? Isn’t it true that we can sometimes go whole hours or even days like that? We forget Who Jesus is, and Who He is supposed to be for us. We live as if we were still heathens, when we know very well that every activity we engage in, and every decision that we make, should be done with Jesus in mind. Maybe this habit of ignoring Jesus isn’t true of any of you, but I suspect that it is, because I know it’s too often true of me.
So, completely ignoring Jesus’ thrilling testimony, these Pharisees ask Him, very disrespectfully, “Where’s your daddy?” Sometimes we forget that not everybody believed Mary and Joseph’s testimony. All Jesus’ life, it seemed, there were still some people who believed that Mary had committed adultery, maybe with a Roman soldier, or with a Samaritan; or that Mary and Joseph had come together before their marriage, and that Jesus was illegitimate.
This church even had a pastor many years ago who taught that old lie from this pulpit, completely denying that Jesus’ mother was a virgin at the time of His conception and at the time of His birth. Thank the Lord that the church had the wisdom to let her go and suggest that she look for another occupation. But as I’ve heard the tale, there were some people, including a former moderator, who liked the lady; they left the church and never came back.
It often happens that an old controversy like that will keep a church small for many years afterward. It was true of the Methodist church that Connie and I used to belong to. In my childhood, they had a minister who became inappropriately involved with several women in the congregation, even though he was already married. Many families left that church because of that minister, and I know of at least two families who left that Methodist church to become members of Church of the Oaks. The name of one of those families is on the upright piano in the Social Hall, by the way.
But that’s just an aside from the main point. The point is that there are too many people who believe that Jesus is a liar when He tells us that He is our Savior and our God, and that He loves us, and that He is the only One Who can rescue us from ignorance and sinfulness and even from death. And even after we know Him, as I asked earlier, are we even now sometimes a little too much like those old Pharisees?
Jesus, as He often does, models patience for us, and He ignores the insult about His birth. Instead, He speaks of His true Father, God, the One they pretend to know and to follow. Jesus knows that they are pretending to be faithful, whether they would admit it to themselves or not; and He tells them, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” If they finally understand that Jesus is testifying that He is the Son of God, they might be so enraged that they could decide to have Him killed right away. And Jesus is right there in the Temple of God when He makes His claims, in the presence of His enemies. But they can’t touch Him yet, because, as John the Apostle writes to us here, “His hour had not yet come.”
Jesus could not be killed until the time was right. Did you ever think about that and apply it to yourself? We believe, don’t we, that God is sovereign over human events? If we know that, then we should draw the logical conclusion that we are all absolutely immortal until that very hour, that exact time, when God has already determined our time will be up. When that thought first comes to us, we might find it a little threatening. I guess that’s what it means to fear God. But when we really ponder that fact, we should see it as a great blessing and a way of being freed from all worry.
Jesus keeps on making the effort to get through to these hard heads. He simply says to them, “I’m going away.” In other words, whether they want to arrest Him or punish Him, they can’t lay a hand on Jesus because the time for that has not come. He says, “You will seek me.” This probably has a double meaning. We know that the authorities will seek a time when they can conveniently do to Jesus whatever they want, but until God wills, they can’t touch Him.
The other meaning is that these Pharisees are like most people. They really want to know God, to come close to Him, to please Him. But they have lost their best chance ever to do those things, because they have ignored Him when He has been right in front of them. So, since they have rejected the One Who forgives sins, they will die in their unforgiven sins. And they can’t go where He is going.
A couple of you were telling me a few weeks ago that you were both reading the book of Ezekiel all the way through. Maybe you recognize some of Jesus’ words here as referring to Ezekiel’s prophecy. Ezekiel speaks about the Jewish religious leaders of his own time. And he reports that God has told him, “If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning . . . that wicked person shall die for his iniquity [or ‘die in his sins,’ in other translations], but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness . . . he shall die for his iniquity [or ‘in his sins’], but you will have delivered your soul’ ” (Ezekiel 3:18-19).
This seems to be where Jesus borrowed the words about dying in one’s sins. Jesus, being a Prophet and more than a prophet, knows that He has given warning and that He has no sins to die in. But I like what Michael Card commented about this: “Jesus has said He has come to convict the world of sin. The bizarre twist on this Old Testament concept is that in the end Jesus will indeed choose to suffer the penalty for the sins of the world.”
Jesus has told these Pharisees that they can’t go where He is going. In other words, once again Jesus is testifying that He will return to heaven. There will be human beings who can follow Him there, such as every believer in this room. But if those Pharisees stay on the road they are on, that road will never lead them into the eternal presence of God. They will seek God—in other words, they will really be seeking Jesus—but they will not find Him because they don’t submit to Him.
They are from below, Jesus says. Some people have thought that Jesus means they are from hell. I don’t believe He means that. Hell may be their destination, but it’s not their origin. By “below,” Jesus means here on earth. The Pharisees are from the earth, and Jesus is from heaven. The Pharisees will never rise above their earthly reality if they never change their ways, but all real believers will rise. As Jesus says in another part of John’s Gospel, speaking to His Father about the disciples who are with Him, but ultimately speaking about all believers to come, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:14).
Jesus repeats what He said before: “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” And the Pharisees reveal once again that they have not understood a single word. Even though Jesus has told them over and over again Who He is—the Son of God, One with God, the same God Who spoke to Moses from the burning bush—they just don’t get it. And they say, finally, “Who are you?”
And again we have some double meaning. We can be sure that double meanings in the Bible are never accidental. Jesus tells these Pharisees, “I Am just what I have been telling you from the beginning.” And again, we think of that Light of the World that existed in the beginning. And we remember the first words of John’s Gospel, when he repeated the first words of the whole Bible, “In the beginning.” And John adds to that phrase: “In the beginning was the Word.” That Word was the same Word that spoke light into existence, and that Word is God Himself, God the Son Who came to earth as Jesus Christ.
But to the Pharisees, Jesus may only be saying, “I have been telling you Who I Am from the beginning of our conversation today.” Or He might be saying, “I have been telling you since the beginning of my earthly ministry.” His audience can’t seem to see beyond that, just because they are of the earth. How many like them are there in the world today? They might say, “My head’s not in the clouds. I’m not like you Christians. My feet are planted firmly on the ground.” Too bad. If they’re too firmly planted, they can never go with Jesus.
Jesus knows what’s coming. He knows that He will be supremely glorified, “lifted up.” But again we have a significant double meaning, because that lifting up will involve His vulnerable human body being lifted up on the cruel cross. He said something similar to Nicodemus earlier in this same Gospel. And we know that by the end of Jesus’ earthly life Nicodemus the Pharisee was a believer.
Each of us has asked at some point in our life, “Who are You, Jesus?” And thank God some of us were listening to His answer. And thank God, this morning’s passage ends on a strong note of hope. When Jesus testifies once again about His intimate relationship with God the Father and their total agreement with each other, John tells us, “As he was saying these things, many believed in him.”
“Many” here must mean “many Pharisees.” The love of Jesus can transform enemies into friends. Do we know people we see as enemies that we might show the love of Jesus?

Amen.

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841 Rosita Road
Del Rey Oaks, CA
93940

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+18313948000

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http://www.churchoftheoaks.com/

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