This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Hello and welcome, uh, to all of you again, once again to Prairie Lakes. I'm happy to be here. How about you? Little, uh, a little nod to our founding and teaching pastor there. But hey, um, if you're new or this is your first time at Prairie Lakes, my name's Jesse.

I'm glad that you're here. We're glad that you're here. Um, and, uh, maybe you wanna stay mostly anonymous, and that's totally fine. Or maybe a friend has invited you and I'm kind of introducing you around, um, which I hope is also fine.

Just know that it comes from a good place, I think they mean well. But if this is your first weekend here, lemme catch you up a little bit to what you're walking into. 'cause we've been in a series for the last few weeks, um, that we're finishing up this weekend.

And, uh, so the series we've been in around here at Prairie Lakes is called Not In It to Win It, not In It to Win It. And it's inspired by a book that a pastor down in Atlanta, a guy named Andy Stanley, who you heard from last weekend. Uh, he wrote, and he wrote this book not to when it, after the craziness of the pandemic and the election, and all the stuff we saw in 2020, wrote it just as a helpful response to how he saw his church and, and maybe the church as a whole, kind of navigate some of this stuff.

And what he was seeing was just a lot of polarizing and arguing and fighting all the stuff that the rest of the country was getting embroiled in. He watched the same thing happen. We watched all of us, a lot of the same things happening in the church.

There was almost, at times, almost no distinction. Church didn't seem to be a place that looked or was navigating that stuff differently than the rest of the world, right? Just as divisive, same battle lines, subject to the same arguments and misunderstandings and fears that the rest of the country, uh, was all wrapped up in.

So he wrote this book to remind us, Hey, we gotta be different. Jesus was different, you know? So, so here's what we thought, okay? As we're doing this series, uh, one year out, less than now, one year out from another, uh, which I'm sure is gonna be a contentious election, um, with, with very serious crises still around our world, commanding our attention, um, Ukraine or, or the Middle East, um, and some of the same voices and factions calling for our attention and calling for our allegiance.

What if we here pray lakes? What if we just took an opportunity in this series to, to just hit pause, you know, and take a step back, take a deep breath, be reminded of who Jesus is, be reminded of what Jesus said and what he told us to do, what he told us to be like.

Um, how to live as followers and as a community. How do we do that? Just hit pause. How do we do that in a world that just continues to be in crisis? Okay, so here's, here's the idea this weekend, as we wrap up this series, here's what we're talking about this week, and here it is.

If you wanna follow Jesus, which, which most of us do, if you wanna follow Jesus, sometimes winning means losing. Sometimes winning means losing. There's, there's the idea, okay? As we kind of wrap our minds around this, here's where we're gonna start.

Uh, back in 2020, uh, there were parts of that year, if you kind of rewind in your mind. There were parts of that year where all we did, all I did anyways was, uh, huddle around my TV or my laptop or tablet or phone or whatever. Um, but our internet and our streaming services got a workout in 2020.

They just, they just did lots of hours put on those screens. And, and, and one of the most anticipated documentaries, in my humble opinion, came out that year in 2020, okay? And I'm guessing more than a few of us watched either, all or part of it. But this documentary was called The Last Dance.

The Last Dance, right? It was a 10 part documentary series on Michael Jordan and the 1990s greatest basketball team of all time Chicago Bulls Dynasty. Now, as a kid, and I was a teenager, um, approaching teenager during, during the nineties.

Um, and I loved playing basketball, uh, a hundred pounds ago, but I loved it. Uh, and I love the Bulls, okay? Um, now, as a 40 plus year old, uh, I just could not wait for that documentary to come out. And when it did, it did not disappoint. It just didn't.

And actually, it, it was really unique. The documentary was super unique in this regard. They showed the documentarians, they showed their footage to Michael Jordan, and then included his reaction to their documentary in the documentary itself. So it felt like you were kinda watching along with Jordan in real time as you were experiencing it.

Now, uh, Jordan was a legendary competitor, you know, legendary. He hated to lose, he hated to lose at anything. And the stakes always had to be high. They always had to be, even if he had to make something up, uh, make something up for them to be high, which drove him to be just a successful, um, I mean, one six Champion, he was six for six in championships, right?

Two, three Petes in the same decade. But, so it's documentary now in episode seven of the documentary, they've got an iPad in front of him, like I got in front of me, right, right now, okay? They got an iPad in front of me. He's watching this footage, you know?

And, um, and, and they're showing him some footage from, from teammates who are sharing what it was like to be on his team, uh, to practice with him, to have to guard him and practice, uh, to play in a game with him, you know, to get yelled at, or challenged or pushed or, or sometimes even punched.

Um, I mean, they, and they talked about what that was like, like how intimidated he, he intimidating he was, or, or what it was like to be confronted by him, or just driven by him, you know? And so Jordan's watching this, and he starts to like, get emotional.

Um, I mean, this six time NBA champion, six foot, six car from North, you, you know, like greatest to ever play the game. Michael Jordan starts to, he starts to cry, and he, and he's watching his teammates share all this stuff. And, and he looks up to the person who's kind of filming him or interviewing him.

And he says, like, basically he says like, well, this is who I am. Um, it's how I play the game. And if you don't, if you don't wanna play like that, then, and then his emotions get the best of him. And he has to like, break and walk off, walk off camera, you know?

I mean, he's, at this point, he's like 20 years into retirement. Um, it's been two decades, but it's, it's, it's like he's being confronted for the very first time, the cost with the cost of this win at all costs approach that he's got.

Um, and, and you can't argue with the re results of that approach. I mean, that approach, it was six NBA finals, six championships. But, but you couldn't, it was like, he couldn't argue with the consequences either.

Um, it cost him a lot, especially, especially in his relationships. And that, that was what was so interesting to me about this documentary in, in episode seven. 'cause what a contrast between the Michael Jordan of his twenties and thirties and, and Michael Jordan at 50, uh, 'cause twenties and thirties Jordan was, you know, win, we're here to win win at all costs.

Fifties. Jordan said the same thing. That's how I played the game. But he said it with like, with like tears in his eyes. And it's, it's ironic, but I think it's, it's universally human. Okay? It's ironic, but it's, it's so familiar how, um, how it's so easy for us.

I think it's so easy for us to convince ourselves that something is more important than someone. It's easy and it's like universally human. I, I, I, I read that and I go, I, I know, I know. I can point to a lot of times where I've done just that, and you probably can too.

Um, and what we're gonna look at, I think as we wind down this series is, is how did Jesus navigate that? And so, turn your Bibles, if you could. John eight, one through 11 is where we're gonna be, John eight, one through 11.

Um, and it's a story that we, I I, I even as I was kind of crafting this, I'm like, man, I talk about this story a lot and we're gonna talk about it again. Um, and so let's just, let's just kinda read this story first, uh, John eight, again, verse one.

We're kind of coming into like halfway into the verse, but says this, okay. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, and at dawn he appeared again in the temple courts where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach him.

So this was kind of his habit. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman as he's teaching, brought in a woman, caught in adultery, okay? They made her stand before the group, everybody there in attendance.

And he said to Jesus, teacher, this woman was caught in, in the act of adultery in the law of Moses. That's the first five books of the Bible, our Bible in the law of Moses. He 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 riding the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and he said to them, let any one of you who's without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.

And again, he stooped down and he rode on the ground. And here's how the story ends at this. Those who heard begin to go away one at a time. The older ones, first until only Jesus was left with the woman still standing there. And Jesus straightened up and he asked her woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you? Uh, no one sir. She says, then neither do I condemn you. Jesus declared, go now and then leave your life of sin. Okay? So there's a story. Now remember, here's what we've said so far. Here's what we've said. Uh, we've said, if you wanna follow Jesus, sometimes winning means losing.

And we've also said this, it's really easy for us to convince ourselves that something is more important than someone. Sometimes winning means losing with Jesus. But it's, but it's so easy for us to make something more important with someone.

And now that we've read the story in, in John from Jesus' life, we can kind of start to see what we mean by these things. Okay? You can see, you can see Jesus lived this one out really clearly in the story, right?

Um, what's more important, Jesus, what's more important? This is what the Pharisees are asking him. What's more important, uh, what the law says about what she did. Is that important? What the consequences are to her sin? Is that the most important thing, the word of God?

I mean, it's the law of Moses. This is God's word, the truth. You know, the hard, but, but, but holy truth, Jesus, are any of those things important to you? 'cause those are some big things, right?

The law, the consequences, the word of God, the truth. I mean, these are, These are big things, but to Jesus, someone was more important than something To Jesus. Someone was more important than something E even all those things we just listed.

And, and you gotta understand, we, we believe that Jesus was God. We believe that Jesus is God like God in the flesh. In fact, um, earlier in John, which was where we read this story, John describes Jesus in this way, okay?

John one, one says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God. And the word was God. He's describing Jesus. So what what he means by that is whatever God says, Jesus says, whatever Jesus says, it's as though God is saying it.

He's the word of God. If Jesus prioritizes it, it's because God prioritizes it. If someone is more important to, than something to Jesus, it's because God is the same way. That's what that verse means. Anything that we think about God, we just look at Jesus and we know, okay?

But you gotta ask yourself From That story, how can that be? Um, how can Jesus make someone more important than something? When that thing is, is God's word and what it says and what it says about what that someone did, how can Jesus make her more important than what she's done and what God says about it?

How can he basically, I dunno, it feels like he's ignoring it or he is defying it, or he is refusing to follow God's word and how he's treating her, Because It's right there in black and white, by the way.

This is, they're quoting Leviticus 20, verse 10 says, if a man commits adultery with another man's wife, with with the wife of his neighbor, or whoever, both the adultery and the adultress are to be put to death. Kind of harsh, but it's right there in the word of God. Jesus. It's right there. It's right there. Black and white.

Call sin a sin, pronounce judgment. Just, I know it's awkward, okay? But just think about, just think about this for a second. Just 'cause most of us, we don't, that we don't feel that way about adultery anymore, and we don't like it. It's not, it's not a good thing, you know, but you're not calling for us as pastors to, to, you know, pick up stones in the name of God.

You know, like you're not, we, we, we fly over these Old Testament passages and we just dismiss most of them outright without giving it a second thought. But this was still going on in Jesus' day. It was, I mean, stoning for breaking God's laws was still a thing.

And, and, and we know from the gospels that Jesus almost got stoned a couple times. And, uh, because of what he was saying or what he he was doing or what he was preaching, and we know from the rest of the New Testament that more than a few of Jesus's followers did get stoned.

Some of them died, some of them survived, but they got stoned for what they were doing in Jesus's name. So this was still a thing, and it was still a thing, and there's no way around it because it was in God's word. God told him to do it, but, but Jesus doesn't.

He doesn't. So how, so, how, I mean, how can he not do that, but still maintain this? Okay, here's what, here's what Jesus says. He goes, very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing. He's describing himself, I'm God son. I can't do anything by myself.

Jesus is saying, because I can only do what I see my father doing, uh, because whatever the Father does, the son also does. Jesus, I'm lockstep with God the Father. You, you watch me. You're seeing God. That's what Jesus is saying. How can Jesus claim that, that, that he only does what God tells him to do, and then not do the thing that God's word says he ought to do?

Well, It's because God also said things like this, for I desire mercy, Not sacrifice. And that I desire an acknowledgement of God Rather Than your burnt offerings, rather than you following all these laws, he says, he's shown you immortal.

What's good and what does the Lord require of you to act justly And To love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. He also says, who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives transgression of the remnant of his.

You don't stay angry forever, but you delight to show mercy. And finally, this is what the Lord Almighty said, administer true justice, not by stones, but by showing mercy and compassion To one another. God is merciful.

He Loves Showing mercy. He loves it. And, and, and He wants us, his people to be merciful and to love being merciful, just to love it. So, so just to be clear, okay, what, what is mercy?

What is it? Well, mercy. Mercy is a withholding of punishment or judgment. It's a withholding of something. Mercy is not giving someone what they deserve for the wrong thing they've done. God loves that. He loves it.

God loves not giving what you deserve to you what I deserve to me for the wrong things we've done. He he loves it. He loves it. And so Jesus loves it, right? It's why Jesus led with it instead of a stone with this woman.

I mean, he didn't even lead with the truth. He didn't begin his interaction with this woman by saying, thus sayeth the Lord in Leviticus 2010, you know, he led with mercy. He led with mercy. I I'm begging you to listen to me, okay?

It's okay. It's okay to lead with mercy. I Listen to me. I'm telling you God's word here. I'm telling you who God's like. It's okay to lead with mercy. It, it's not going soft. It's not people pleasing.

It's not capitulating the culture, okay? It's not re rewinding scripture. It's not any of those things. I mean, some of us feel like the problem with the church today is that we've gone soft. You know, we're not willing to call sin.

Sin culture continues to push further and further away from what God's word says about, you know, marriage or sex or a number of other things. And we're just letting it happen because we're afraid. We're afraid to call 'em out. You know, some of us feel like that, or some of us will, we'll say this, Hey, hey, how, how is the rest of the world gonna know that they need Jesus and they need his forgiveness?

Unless they know that what they're doing is wrong, how will they even know? You know, h how how will they if we're not willing to tell them, how will they know? And, and I, I, we will get to that in a second. 'cause I, I think I, I'm really, I'm not pushing back against that idea genuinely, okay?

But if we're following Jesus example, I would still say this, it's okay to lead with mercy. And not only that, I'd say this, it's biblical to lead with mercy. 'cause all throughout the old and New Testament, this is what God did.

And this is what God instructed his people to do. And this is what Jesus did. And this is what Jesus' followers did. And not only that, but it'd also say this, it's Godly to leave with mercy because God in the flesh, Jesus himself did, okay?

Okay. So I want that to be clear, because that's where we gotta start. But let's go back to the story in John just for a second, and let's address this concern. 'cause there's some, there's a kernel of truth in this, that if unless we are clear, clear about it, we're gonna be incomplete.

Okay? So John eight, one last time, here's how it ends. Okay? At this, those who heard begin 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 in, he asked woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you? No one, sir. She said, then neither do I condemn you. Jesus declare. And then he says, go now and leave your life of sin. Okay? The conversation that Jesus has with her, he has with her privately and personally, I, Okay?

No one else was around, just her and him, and, and, and, and, and in this situation, Jesus does a couple of really significant things. First, Jesus does call what she did. Exactly what it's, he calls it a sin, because that's what it is.

It is. I mean, adultery, adultery is a sin. It goes against what God said about the covenant of marriage. It goes against God. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. It is sex with someone other than your spouse is a sin.

Jesus doesn't soften that. He doesn't minimize it. He doesn't call it a mistake. He doesn't just say, Hey, you messed up. You know? No, he calls it what it is. It's a, it's a sin. But He does that after he shows mercy. And he does it personally, and he does it privately, and he does it gently, and he does it lovingly and clearly because someone was more important to him than something because he's not trying to win.

He's not trying to be right. He's not trying to take a stand or win some sort of stupid cultural war. No, he's for her, but he, but in order to be for her, he has to call what she did.

What it is, he has to call it a sin that he does that first. Second, not only does he call it what it is, he also doesn't condemn her for her sin, okay? Meaning he's not gonna punish her for it. And, and he is not gonna allow anyone else to punish her for it either.

And, and, and I, let's just remember what she did here, okay? 'cause it's not, it's not as though he's saying it's not a big deal. He's just, it is a big deal. She, she, she ruined at least one marriage.

Two, if she's married, And, and to be sure she wasn't the only one involved. I mean, where's the dude? Right? Where's he, for some reason, they didn't drag him along with her, even though that's what the law called for. But, but, but nevertheless, I mean, if either of them has kids, she's messed up their kids, she played a part in ruining his marriage.

She may have ruined her own if she was married. And there's consequences for that, right? There's, some of us have lived through that. There's destruction, there's shame. There's a kind of death even. There's the death of her marriage and the death of her reputation, the death of the future.

She had envisioned the death of her immediate security, the death of some of her social circles, some of her friends and relationships, the death of her peace. And she killed all of those in, In one decision. And yet Jesus says, I Don't Condemn you.

Why? Why does he say that? Was it? Because what she did wasn't as big of a deal, and it wasn't just really worthy of condemnation? No, it was worthy of condemnation. It was a horrible thing. She did. WWWW was it, you know, it would've been unkind or unjust or or hypocritical of Jesus to, to do that?

No, I may think it would've been perfectly justice, super fair. And, and it wasn't hypocritical at all because Jesus didn't have any sin. He was the only one there that if he wanted to cast a stone, he would've been justified in doing it.

So how is it that he can say, I don't condemn you. I'm not gonna punish you for the sinful thing that you did. How, how can he say that? Well, Paul explains it in this way. He says, for all his sin and falls short of the glory of God, and all are justified Freely By the same God's grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Because God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement. Meaning Jesus is gonna balance the scales through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. And he did this to demonstrate his righteousness. Because in his forbearance or his his patience, he, he had left the sins committed beforehand, unpunished, there's mercy.

He didn't, he he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just, and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. And if we were to boil some of what Paul says there, down to some sentences that are maybe a little bit easier for us to grab onto, Jesus doesn't condemn her.

Jesus doesn't condemn her because Jesus is going to be condemned for her. It's, it's not as though the condemnation never comes. It just doesn't ever come her way. Jesus doesn't punish her because he's gonna take her punishment.

I Jesus leads with mercy Because Jesus is going to pay the price. It's not because what she did wasn't a big deal. It was a big deal. It's just that his sacrifice was bigger.

Listen, okay. God deliberately and delightfully does not punish us for all the horrible things that you and I do. And this should be so obvious to those of us who claim to know him and claim to stand on his word.

You know, I mean, he tells us to love our neighbor. And we don't, I mean, he tells us, don't forsake gathering together. Get the, get your butts to church. And we don't, you know, he, he tells us, Hey, don't love money.

Give it away. Give a 10th of what you have. And then on top of that, give even more. And we don't be generous. We're not. He tells us to forgive. And, and, and we withhold. He, he, he tells us to lead with mercy. And, and we judge. And, and, and we just do. All of us, just all of us.

We just do so many stupid things, sinful things like every day of our lives that are so worthy of condemnation, that are so worthy of punishment. And yet, God leaves all of these things that you and I do unpunished in our world. And it's so kind of him and it's, and it's so merciful of him.

But, but how is that just, you know, how is that fair? How do the scales ever get balanced? Well, it's, it's because he places all of the punishment and the condemnation that was due to us. He places that on himself in his son Jesus. And so, here's your reality.

In case you forgot, here's my reality. When I forget here it is. Before we asked, before we repented, before we agreed with God that we're sinful and we need him before any of that, okay? God so loved us Here. Here's, here's what happened that day with that woman whose, whose dirtiest, darkest secret was dragged out into the open for everybody to see.

Here's what happened to her that day. Jesus. Jesus won the heart of an unrepentant sinner because he was willing to lose. He was willing to lose his right to condemner. He was willing to lose his anger at what she did. He was willing to lose, lose his reputation and relationship with those calling for her judgment.

He was willing to lose that. And for Jesus, he was willing to lose his, his very life for Her. And that's what mercy is, my friends, like mercy is a loss.

Mercy is a choice to lose. When you lead with mercy, you decide that you're gonna lose your right to condemn someone. You decide that you're gonna lose. You're right to be angry over what they did. You're gonna, you, you, you may even lose with some folks around you who feel like you're going soft or you're not standing on God's word, or you're not calling a sin, sin or whatever.

You know, like losing, uh, leading with mercy is, is, is choosing to lose. But, but it's, it's choosing to lose on purpose and with a purpose even. 'cause, 'cause you lose all of those, some things for the sake, for the sake of someone.

And when you choose to lose in that way, like Jesus chose, when you pay the price of mercy like Jesus paid it, you just might win the right to personally, privately, gently, lovingly, Clearly Tell them the truth, the truth about what they did, the truth about what that creates between them and God.

But the truth about what God has done to take care of it before they even asked. The, the goal is repentance. The goal is for people to still change their mind, change their direction, and for God to change their heart. And maybe that's what God will do if we leave with mercy.

'cause with Jesus, sometimes winning means losing. And you're gonna have, you and I are gonna have plenty opportunities to make the choice to lose in this next year on purpose, with a purpose. You have plenty of opportunities to put someone over something.

So let's let this year be the year that we at Prairie Lakes lead with mercy, and then tell the truth, and maybe God will win someone's heart in the process. We got a little bit more coming your way in this service. Um, but let me pray for us, um, as we move into that.

Father in heaven, thank you, um, for this series, for these stories for your word. Jesus, thank you for putting this so clearly on display. Help us be people who lead with mercy. God, I I I genuinely pray that as we head into the crises of this next year, the election of this next year, the contention, the polarization, the calls, I pray that pray legs wherever, wherever we find ourselves in our state, that our church would be the place that leads with mercy.

Jesus. In your name we pray, amen.