John 8 • Adulterous Woman, Jesus satisfies your heart with VICTORY

John 8: Adulterous Woman-Jesus satisfies your heart with victory
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Where are you most tempted by sinful desires? The Bible calls sin a “work of the flesh.” Do you know what that means? And why does the flesh continue to assault you with sinful desires even after you are saved? It is important to know what the flesh is and be able to recognize how it assaults you. The best news is that through your faith in Jesus Christ, you can overcome the desires of the flesh and have victory over any sin. Who doesn’t like victory? In this post, we will look at how Jesus satisfies your heart with victory over sin. This is post #4 in our New Testament Women series.

Listen to this post as a similar podcast from our  Live Out His Love Bible Study of New Testament women:

Adultery is sin.

Our example of an adulterous woman comes from John 8:2-11. The religious leaders, who were always looking for a way to make the crowds turn against Jesus, set a trap to catch a woman committing adultery. They forcefully brought her to Jesus for a public test of what He would do.

At dawn [Jesus] 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. (John 8:2-6)

Jesus recognized that this woman was bait in a trap meant to turn the crowds against Jesus. Why and how she became the “bait,” we don’t know. Someone squealed on her adulterous relationship and caught her during the secret rendezvous. We don’t know her name. But I like to call her ‘Ada’ to make her seem more like a real person, not just words on a page. One day, I’ll meet her in heaven and find out her real name. So when you read ‘Ada’ in this post, I am talking about the woman of John 8 who was caught in adultery.

‘Ada’ had a problem. She was sleeping with a man who was not her husband. The Bible calls that adultery. Adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not his or her spouse. The man should also have been brought to Jesus. Apparently, the woman’s behavior was ongoing enough that others knew when and where she would be doing it. Adultery was not only against the Jewish law. It was also against God’s law. It was considered sin in Jesus’ day. It is still sin today.

Jesus challenged the hardheartedness of the woman’s accusers with this question,

Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. (John 8:7)

That pretty quickly cleared out the crowd.

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.” (John 8:9-11)

Like the immoral woman in Luke 7, Jesus gave this woman the opportunity to change her behavior and live a new life. Did she? We won’t know until we get to heaven. Our hope is that she chose to leave her life of sin.

Sin is ugly in God’s eyes. All sin is ugly—the adultery of the woman and the self-righteousness of the crowd. But praise God that through faith in Jesus Christ, you can have victory over any sin.

What is the flesh?

The Bible calls sin a “work of the flesh.” That sounds like the title of a sci-fi movie, doesn’t it? The blob, the thing, the flesh.

What comes to mind when you hear the word, flesh? Sex and sensuality? Maybe bulging hips and thighs. Okay, I’m not talking about muscles and fat. I’m talking about something deeper that is an enemy to every Christian.

The flesh is hard to define. I like this definition:

The flesh is the personality of a human controlled by sin and directed to selfish pursuits rather than the service of God. (Dr. Charles Ryrie)

In essence, the flesh is the human being in rebellion against God, coming from that part of the personality where sin dwells. Some translations use the phrase “sinful nature” to describe it.

The flesh doesn’t refer to our physical bodies. That’s very important for you to grasp! God created this marvelous human body for us. The body is not evil in itself. But sin which indwells our humanity—that is the enemy. Since the time of Adam, every human has been born with a sinful nature. It’s in our DNA somewhere. If I could bring in a surgeon to cut me open, find it and take it out, I would do that. Get it out of there! But we can’t. It’s with us until the day we die.

We don’t know what it is, but we know how the flesh works. It sends messages to the mind that are in conflict with the Spirit. We know it’s there. And we can certainly see its fruit in human behavior. Jesus describes some of its fruit in Mark chapter 7. Paul describes what living by the flesh looks like in Galatians chapter 5. The work of the flesh is obvious. And it is ugly. At the end of the list, Paul basically says that if you look like that, you don’t look like a child of God.

The flesh is a very powerful force. It’s driving force is Self. Self-effort, self-sufficiency, self-belief and self-dependence. And it is at war with the Spirit of God within us.

Why does the flesh still assault us?

Okay, so why does the flesh still assault us? Why is it still with us? When we became Christians, didn’t all those bad things go away? Aren’t we new creations? Why do we still have to deal with this “flesh” battle? To understand why this war is going on inside, we need to understand what happens when we are saved.

When Adam chose to sin against God, he left a legacy to every one of us who have descended from him. We have a sin-driven nature and an empty, lifeless spirit. When we trust in Christ as our Savior, we get forgiveness for our sin plus lots of other wonderful treasures. We also get new life as the Holy Spirit comes to live inside our once-dead spirits to make us spiritually alive.

Our human spirit communicates with the Holy Spirit. We have direct access to God who is our Father. We are made into a new creation—spiritually. For believers, this is done in the past when we first believed. And when Jesus returns or we go to heaven to be with Him, we’ll get new bodies without that sin DNA. The flesh will be gone! No more sinful impulses. Yes!

Until that time when we get new bodies, we live in an overlapping age. We possess the life of the new creation through the Holy Spirit in us while still living in bodies of the old, fallen creation in a fallen, evil world. At the moment of salvation, we are born again of the Spirit. Our bodies are not born again. And our souls—the mind, emotions, and will—arenot instantly transformed. We still have the old thinking patterns, the old memories, and the old habits. We still live in a world that stands opposed to the truth of God. We still tend to believe and practice error until our minds have been renewed by truth from God’s Word. And the flesh continues to assault us.

We need to know this enemy to have victory over it.

The New Testament teaches us some truths about the flesh we must know to have victory over it.

  • Truth #1: The desires of the flesh won’t go away. We have the choice to gratify them or not gratify them.
  • Truth #2: The flesh doesn’t improve over time. It does not become “godly” over time. Bummer!
  • Truth #3: The flesh won’t leave us alone to be spiritual. In fact, Romans chapter 6 describes the flesh as a slave master that keeps calling our names to make us obey it.
  • Truth #4: The flesh wants control. There will be continual conflict. Romans chapter 7 describes the persistent nature of the flesh to concentrate on self. This is the universal experience of people who sincerely try to live a good life. Even after you are saved, you can never be good on our own.
  • Truth #5: The flesh doesn’t become less able to be tempted over time. Whether or not we are presently tempted in a given area, you and I are capable of committing any sin mentioned in the New Testament, given the right set of circumstances, time, and temptation.
  • Truth #6: The flesh uses a consistent pattern. The flesh sends a thought to your mind leading to familiarity with that thought. Continued pondering leads to a loss of repugnance and curiosity. That leads to a desire to experiment with an activity. Having tried the activity, the flesh (like a goat) can learn to like it and even grow dependent on any sensual stimulus. Hooked.

The most damaging or dangerous thoughts are the ones that blindside you with a desire you didn’t even know you were capable of having! So you and I must protect ourselves at all times through praying, “Lord, protect me from myself!”

The culture feeds the flesh, especially regarding sex.

Paul wrote this warning in Colossians,

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. (Colossians 2:8)

You have seen enough movies to be able to picture in your mind what it would look like to be taken captive. You might have once been in bondage to something that has taken you captive. You understand that.

Philosophy is a way of thinking about the world, the universe, and society. It works by asking very basic questions about the nature of human thought, the nature of the universe, and the connections between them. Human thoughts. Human ideas. Human traditions. Whenever those human ideas are separated from Christ and the Bible, they are hollow and deceptive philosophies. As a result, they are like a hollow chocolate rabbit. It looks good on the outside but is empty so it crumbles easily.

But even more than that, they are extremely harmful because human philosophies that do not worship and submit to Christ are under the influence of Satan and his demons. This would include anything that leads you to believe you can do without God or can go against His word without consequences.

Ephesians chapter 2 says that before Christ, we are subject to those “spiritual forces.” Through union with Christ, we die to them and are no longer bound to obey them. Yet, they are still there, ever present. They cause us to focus on the material and the external rather than on Christ.

Paul says stay away from any system of thought that depends on and gives credit to human thought and tradition more than to Jesus Christ. When considering anyone’s philosophy, the qualifying test is this: Where does Jesus fit into their thinking? If their thinking says He is just a way to know God or just a good teacher, and we accept that thinking, then we trade the core and eternal truth of Christ for lies. If their thinking is He is just the way to get saved and go to heaven when we die, but doesn’t care about what you do now, then you have turned Him into a ticket for a destination and devalued Him as Lord. Either way, we allow ourselves to be “taken captive” by the culture.

What makes us susceptible to this cultural captivity?

Why are we susceptible to cultural captivity? I found an answer to that question on one of my favorite sources for Christ and culture resources—Probe Ministries. Here’s what they said:

Cultural captivity looks to the culture rather than to Christ and the Bible as truth and a primary guide for living. Cultural captivity is usually caused by 3 things: Putting our trust in something other than the person or promises of Christ, misunderstanding the truths by which Christ has called us to live, or a combination of both. (“See The Threat: Cultural Captivity,” accessed at upperiscope.com)

The culture’s teachings lead Christians to think the culture will satisfy your heart needs more than Christ. So you become more likely to side with your culture rather than with Christ or the Bible, even on those religious practices or cultural issues clearly addressed in the Bible. You become infected by the culture. The sexual immorality infection has permeated our culture and the Church of Jesus Christ so much so that as many Christians are practicing it as non-Christians.

The Bible’s teachings are clear. But the pull of the flesh is super strong. How can anyone have victory over this infection?

Victory comes through dependence on the Spirit of God to overcome the desires of the flesh.

That’s called “living by the Spirit” or “walking by the Spirit.” It is dependence on the Spirit of God to empower you to say no to the flesh and say yes to obedience to God. The blood of Jesus paid your freedom price so you no longer have to obey the flesh. The Bible calls that redemption.

When God redeemed you, you became the possession of a loving, merciful God. You can live in the security of your freedom from bondage to the flesh. Here’s the best part: You have a new master with greater power than the flesh living inside of you now—the Spirit of God Himself. He can give you freedom from any entrapping sin. We are not left helpless like a pawn in the midst of the conflict. We have God’s empowering presence in us. That is taught so powerfully in Ephesians. He is able to give you and me victory in our battle over sin.

Take to heart these words from Titus chapter 2:

For the grace of God …  teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope — the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11-14)

In Galatians chapter 5, Paul wrote these words,

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desire of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16)

Notice what this verse does not say. It does not say, “If you clean up the flesh, you will become spiritual. Legalistic rules don’t work. The verse also does not say that the desires of the flesh will go away. As long as we live in these unre­deemed bodies, sin remains a source of temptation in us. We must make the choice every single day whether to gratify the desires of the flesh or choose to live by the Spirit.

My friend shared this with me years ago:

My flesh always takes over when I have to sit in traffic or wait in a line … no patience at all for that!!! When I have to sit in traffic and I find myself crossing the line, I turn on Christian radio real loud and pray hard. (Joan Floyd)

That’s living by the Spirit. To live by the Spirit is living in dependence on the Spirit to help you follow through with that choice to not gratify the desires of the flesh. Paul wrote this in Romans,

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. (Romans 13:14)

Do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. Don’t even go there!

Here’s the bottomline: We never outgrow our need to depend 100% upon Jesus Christ. Recognizing this should lead us to have compassion on one another and to not take risks with sinful behavior!

Seek to depend on Christ more in your life than on yourself. Admit your weaknesses and trust Him to work there. Ask the Lord to protect you from yourself. In real life, you are trusting Christ with some aspects of your life while living in self-sufficiency in other areas of your life. As we learn more, we trust Him with more of our daily lives. It’s right to say, “Lord, I can’t do this on my own. But you can do this in me and through me.” Then, watch what He does!

The more we choose God’s truth and God’s way, the easier it becomes to resist the lies of the enemy and turn away from the temptations of the flesh. (Teasi Cannon, Mama Bear Apologetics, p. 91)

That is so true. We have this conflict within until we die. But we have God Himself within us to give us the victory over the flesh.

Dear reader, God created you with a spiritual thirst to know Him. Another human cannot satisfy that thirst. Only God can satisfy the thirsty heart. The victory over the flesh that you receive by faith in Jesus satisfies your thirst for love and acceptance. This love from God is what motivates you to live a life that pleases God.

[God] satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. (Psalm 107:9)

A satisfied heart seeks victory over the desires of the flesh, knowing that they are in conflict with God’s goodness in your life. Let Jesus satisfy your heart with victory over sin.

You can learn more about the woman of John 8 from our Live Out His Love Bible Study of New Testament women. Work through our Seek the Treasure Bible Study of Ephesians to learn more about God’s empowering presence in your life.

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