In this sermon‑style teaching, the speaker examines John 8, the story of the woman caught in adultery, to illustrate how human judgment contrasts with Christ’s grace. He explains that the Pharisees’ accusation stems from sin, jealousy, and fear rather than love, and that Jesus’ response—“let him who is without sin cast the first stone”—exposes their hypocrisy and reveals the true standard of judgment: God alone. The speaker then connects this biblical truth to contemporary experiences of feeling judged through social media, cultural standards, and personal insecurities, emphasizing that there is only one judge who offers forgiveness and a call to a better life. He encourages listeners to reject artificial standards, recognize their inherent worth as God’s masterpiece, and let go of sin and negative self‑vision. The talk concludes with a practical invitation to share the message, seek prayer, and apply the freedom found in Christ’s forgiveness.
Chapters
You've been judged, and that's not a bad thing. We're going to take a look at John 8 today, and I'm going to break down why that's so crucial. I'm sure you guys at some point in your walk, in your journey, have felt judged at some point by someone, by something, by a group of people. You felt like your actions, your thoughts, your ideas have been criticized in some way. And what we're going to look at today is the story at the start of John 8 where Jesus really sets A very clear standard as to how we're to approach that feeling of judgment, of criticism, and and how it can be very freeing for us to have that right mentality around it. So if you guys don't have your Bibles handy, go grab one. Whatever translation you guys prefer doesn't matter. I'm going to read from the ESV. I love to read from the ESV. It's my favorite. But whatever you guys have, go ahead and grab it. John eight. Is where we're going to start. If you don't have a Bible handy, don't worry, I'm going to read the passage. So they went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning, he came again to the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. Placing her in the midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now, in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. As they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing there before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, no one, Lord. Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on sin no more. Kind of a crazy little excerpt here, but it's really, really telling where on the one side you've got this persecution and judgment, right? You've got a group of people that are saying, here's somebody, they're a bad person, this woman, she's committed adultery. This is a lady that is deserving of punishment by the law. Get her. You're a great teacher. You're supposedly the prophet. You're supposedly the Messiah. Surely you'll do what God says to do. And God said in the Old Testament, get her. And Jesus doesn't even really give these guys the time of day. He doesn't even— he doesn't even give them the credibility of standing up and having a one-to-one conversation or debate on the matter. He just crouches down, starts drawing in the sand like, this is so irrelevant and so petty and so small what you're doing here. He sees right through it. And what's amazing is his response to them is, oh, cool. So, so we're, we're going to start judging people for their sins. Let's, let's do this. So anybody here who's without sin, go ahead. You guys can cast that first stone. So you guys are charging her with adultery. Surely you guys are sinless in doing this. So go ahead. Then he bends down to continue treating them as irrelevant as they are because he already knew the answer. He already knew that these people that are so quick and so apt to point at somebody else and say, this is wrong. Are also carrying a lot of pain, a lot of anguish, a lot of guilt in their own sin. Heck, most of the Pharisees that brought this woman there are doing it out of anger and pettiness and jealousy of Christ, or maybe even fear of Christ. None of it's coming from a place of love or compassion. They're not doing it for God. They're doing it for themselves. It's coming from a place of human sin itself. And so as he ignores them and continues to ignore them one by one, They move away. And I love that it makes the point of the older Pharisees are the first to pull away, right? Those that seemingly have wisdom are the first to understand what's been said of like, oh yeah, we went about this kind of the wrong way and we're gonna look like idiots if we do this. 'Cause if we're the first ones to throw the stone and claim we're sinless, we make ourselves liars, right? This is the 1 John thing. If you say you are without sin, you've made yourself and God a liar. You are a sinner. And so there's this beautiful moment where the older start to lead the way. And as the older Pharisees that have that authority, that feel like the backbone that can really challenge Jesus start to melt away, everybody else does too. And eventually Jesus looks up and he knew the crowd would be gone. There's nobody there that could do it. And he goes, okay, well, I mean, the reality is this. I'm the judge. I'm God. And I find no fault in you. And it's not that what she did was right. The adultery is the sin. He's not negating that. He's not ignoring that. Yeah, a sin was committed. But there's also forgiveness there, right? The passage just before, uh, in John 7, Jesus is talking about, I'm going to go to a place that you cannot go. The Holy Spirit's going to come to you guys and live through you. It's going to be living water that pours out of you. He promises us forgiveness, and that forgiveness is something that he exemplifies immediately in the next story. In this story, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna die on the cross, I'm gonna cover your sins, there's gonna be forgiveness, and you're gonna give a new life. And so he says, I'm not gonna judge you, I'm not gonna condemn you. What I am going to do is forgive you and tell you to go on and live a life that isn't this life that you've been living. And for guys, I've got to tell you, that's the biggest part about this. There's lots of judges out there. There's lots of people that would judge or criticize, and maybe that's not directly. Maybe that's online as you're going through your Instagram feed or your TikTok feed. You're feeling judged because you don't meet some artificial standard the world has set. Maybe you're watching TV or a movie and celebrities have just set this artificial standards so high and you don't feel like you meet it and you beat yourself up because in some part you're feeling judged. You don't need to. The beauty of this passage is there's one judge and he says, I love you. I love you who you are, as you are. I love you and I want you to be better. I want you to grow and I want to be in relationship with you. And so do that, but I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to destroy you because of what you've done. That's why I came. I came to take that from you. I came so that you could grow and live into the better life that I have for you. And I think that's just such an amazing and something that's not reinforced enough these days of artificial standards, judgment, criticism is imposed on us almost daily, almost daily through this thing. Pick your feed, pick your poison, pick your social media network, whatever it may be. But there is an artificial standard that's imposed, that's put on you, that is judgment and criticism from the world. And it's just not true. It's not valid. There's one judge, just one. So if that's you, if that's something you've been wrestling with, this feeling of you're not good enough, you're beaten down, there's something wrong with you, you're not. You're not. There's nothing wrong with you. You were created. You're a masterpiece. You were crafted in your mother's womb. There's a purpose that God has for your life. There's something beautiful and amazing about you that he wants to come out. And if there's something that's dragging you down, something that's holding you back from doing that. Let it go. Whatever it is— sin, negative self-vision, whatever it is that's holding you back— just let it go. It's forgiven. There's something greater and there's something better for you. There really is. That's the start of John 8, guys. We're not going to go further than that in 8 today. We'll keep going tomorrow. But hopefully this is an encouragement for you guys. And if you know somebody that this could help, just just take a second, reach out to them, let them know this. They don't have to watch the video, but let them know. Sometimes people just need to hear that, you know. So have a great day, guys. I hope this was helpful. I hope it was an encouragement. Let me know down in the comments below if there's anything in particular that I can be in prayer for you guys for. Have a great day.
