Jesus, a Friend of Sinners (Part 2) 7:36-50

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Well, what's in a name?

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Bethlehem Bible Church. This morning we've had Romans chapter 3, we've had Proverbs chapter 2, we've heard songs about Isaiah 53,

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Psalm 46, and more. Reminds me of the time there was a very irate parent that was at Iwana and the

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Iwana leader said, Mike, can you please take care of this person that are causing a big problem? And I said, okay.

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And so I brought the man into my office and he said, I'm really mad. And I said, why? And he said, because you're calling my children sinners at the

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Iwana program. And I said, well, I'm a sinner too and so are you.

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And I think he got madder. And then I said, well, we have a sign out front and it's called Bethlehem Bible Church and we're teaching what the

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Bible teaches. And the Bible teaches that there's a Savior of sinners, but you don't know you need a

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Savior until you know you're a sinner. And so welcome to Bethlehem Bible Church. You know, the

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Bible is authoritative. It changes people. It's sufficient.

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It is God -breathed. And one thing for certain, it is not boring.

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When I talk to people and they say the Bible's boring, essentially they're telling me I've never read the

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Bible. And today we're gonna look at a passage that you'll look at and you'll think, dramatic, wonderful, tear -jerking, marvelous, and anything but boring.

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Please turn your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke chapter 7.

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What a passage, what a Savior. We are in the section of Luke that is answering this question, who is

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Jesus? It's a great question, who is Jesus? And it's a question that everyone has to answer because we all are sinners.

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God is holy, God is righteous, and one day we'll die and then there's judgment.

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And so we'll either be judged for our sins or Jesus will be judged in our place. And so this is a very, very crucial topic.

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Is Jesus the God -man? Can He die for sinners? Can He die for sinners?

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Can He earn righteousness? Who is Jesus? And of course all the Bible really is, who is

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Jesus? But particularly here in Luke 7, Luke wants you to know, kind of like an investigative reporter, who is

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Jesus? Because he wants you to know that He is trustworthy. He wants you to know that you can count on Him.

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He wants you to know that He's faithful and powerful. In Luke chapter 7 we've seen Jesus not just compassionately raise people from the dead, but powerfully do that very thing.

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And so Luke chapter 1 verse 4, the intro of Luke, Luke is saying, I want to make sure you know for certain that Jesus is the

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God -man. That you can know for certain that Jesus has conquered sin and death and hell, not just generically, but for you.

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For all those who would by faith and by faith alone trust in the Lord. This is really the question of the ages, who is

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Jesus? And if I were to ask you privately, who do you say that Jesus is?

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That would tell me a lot about you, your destiny, what you think about Jesus, how you worship, and more.

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And so we're in this book called Luke, and just week after week after week the display is, look at who

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Jesus is. And He's so multifaceted, at one moment you could see His wisdom, and the next minute you see

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His great teaching. In one moment you see His power over death, and then the next minute you see how kind He is to sinners.

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And so today we're looking at Luke chapter 7 verses 36 through 50, as we ask the question and give biblical answers, who is

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Jesus? Is He in fact a friend of sinners? Is He in fact someone who forgives sin?

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Is He in fact someone that you should trust? Is He someone that even cares about you?

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So our outline from a while ago, we had a little deviation from James. Wasn't James good?

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I almost had to make James go to five weeks instead of four weeks. It started off as a jet tour one week, then two, and it expanded.

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So wonderful is the book of James. But we're back in Luke now, and we looked at it a little bit several weeks ago, so I'll pick up where we left off.

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And if you want an outline, it's super simple. Eight answers to the question, who is Jesus? Eight answers to the question, who is

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Jesus? And if you parachute into Luke in this section, the writer wants you to know who

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Jesus is. And by the way, that should be a central thing for all churches, right? Churches is not about trying to be good or to do good.

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That's a nice byproduct of Christianity, but Christianity is about Jesus. If someone said to you, are you a

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Christian? And you said yes, and they say to you then, why are you a

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Christian? Well, sovereign grace. What is Christianity all about? I hope the answer is, it's about Jesus.

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Eight answers to the question, who is Jesus? Now one writer said, this passage is better to be wept over than to comment, but I think that was a little hyperbole.

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It is good to comment, because we want to understand what's going on. And the job of the pastor, the job that I have this morning, and I've had for many years, is to show you what the text says.

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Not to come up with anything new, not to say, this is what I think. I want you to be exposed to the text.

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It's something called expository preaching. Instead of imposition, impository preaching.

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That sounds bad, doesn't it? Sounds like you're posing. Say, this is what

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I want you to believe. Expository preaching exposes you to the text, so when you go home today, tonight, you read the passage again, you'll say, oh,

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I understand that better than I did earlier today. Not, oh, Mike's got all these keen insights that I could never get.

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No, I want to show you what's in the text. And so we just go through the Bible, marching verse by verse, and say to ourselves and to the

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Lord, oh, there's going to be rich gold found here. Answer number one to the question, who is

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Jesus? The first answer is, Jesus is a friend of sinners. Who is Jesus?

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Answer, he's a friend of sinners. He even eats with sinners, a dinner with sinners.

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You see it in verse 36? One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the

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Pharisee's house and reclined at table. Now, Pharisee by definition means separated one.

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They were the holy ones in their mind. They don't hang out with riffraff. They're righteous in their own minds.

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They're self -righteous. And Jesus goes to this sinner's house. Now, this man did not just want to feed

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Jesus, to hang out with Jesus. As you saw last time, it's a trap. He wants to entrap

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Jesus. He wants to catch Jesus in some kind of lie or some kind of unbiblical statement, and yet Jesus still goes.

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Jesus is going to go have a dinner with this sinful man named Simon, even though it's a trap.

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I remember C .T. Studd, a Christian man, who said, some want to live within the sound of a church or a chapel bell.

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Remember the rest of the line, what C .T. Studd said? I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.

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I don't want to be off somewhere else. I want to be in the thick of things. And now Jesus goes. Matter of fact, remember

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Jesus invited himself to another sinner's house named Zacchaeus. And so Jesus is having fellowship with this man

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Simon. Now, remember back in the day, this was not a small little gathering, only a few people at the home.

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When you had a leader like this, he would have a bigger home, and the public could kind of come and hang out on the fringe.

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It's almost kind of like a block party, and you could just sit and listen to what was going on.

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Open doors, open windows, and so this man has this gotcha party for Jesus, and Jesus shows up.

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Now, as you remember, if you come to my house, hopefully there's some decorum that we have, and we greet you, we shut the door, we take your coat, we say, would you like to have some tea or water, etc.?

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And back in those days, they had the same decorum. And the decorum was, when someone comes in, an invited guest, you have the servant wash their feet, you give them some perfume or some oil, and then you give them a kiss, a

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Middle Eastern kiss. And so we know from the story, as we'll look at in just a moment, that this

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Pharisee did not like Jesus to the extent that he tells his servant, don't do what you normally do, wash his feet.

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He tells the other servant, don't do what you normally do, put some oil or perfume on his head, and I'm not going to do what

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I'm supposed to do, give him a kiss. This is all out of whack, but thankfully

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Jesus is a friend of sinners, and he goes anyway. He goes to the self -righteous person's house.

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Answer number two we saw last time, that Jesus accepts worship. The question is, who's

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Jesus? He's the God -man, and he accepts worship. Look at verse 37, and behold,

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I mean, I can picture myself right there. I can see what's going on. A woman of the city, who was a sinner, many say was a prostitute, when she learned that he,

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Jesus, was reclining at table, that's how they ate back in those days, in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

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Now, if I were to ask you the Ten Commandments, I wonder how many you could answer. Out of all the

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Ten Commandments, could you figure out, oh, maybe on this side we've got, honor your parents, and don't murder, and don't commit adultery, and don't steal, and don't bear false witness, and don't covet.

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How do we treat other people? But at the top of the list, the number one commandment, what's the first commandment?

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God says, I'm the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Now, the first commandment is what? All together now, no other gods.

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It was ingrained in the Israelites' minds, we understand it, monotheistic, that there's only one

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God, and only one God should be worshiped, and praised, and magnified as the Creator.

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Can you imagine Jesus receiving worship as God? They think

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He's God, and they worship Him. She thinks He's God, and she worships Him. Now, if you just imagine, just for a little bit, what would the world be like if there were more than one

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God? Multiple creators, multiple authorities. There'd be chaos, because there would be these authorities and creators trying to overtake each other.

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It'd be a crazy place. And by the way, we believe in monotheism for many reasons, but if you have a perfect, perfect, infinite, holy

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God, how could you have then another perfect, infinite, holy God?

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Because there'd have to be some differences, and a difference between perfection and something different would mean something less.

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There's only one God. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6, 4.

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And here, Jesus is worshipped, and He doesn't say, get up.

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He doesn't say, stop that. He doesn't say, that's taking away the Father's glory. He doesn't say, that's blasphemous.

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Jesus accepts worship, because He is the God -man. In the beginning was the Word, and the

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Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus accepts worship.

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If Jesus is not God, you, dear Christian, are committing idolatry.

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If Jesus is created, lesser, subordinate, then you're committing idolatry.

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You're breaking the first commandment. But if Jesus is not lesser, if He's not created, and He is truly divine, which

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He is, then it's right, and normal, and meet to do worship. This lady must have heard

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Jesus in the past, or someone told about Jesus' forgiveness, and she was saved.

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She was born again, and she wants to come to say thank you. She wants to come with a thank offering.

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What Proverbs 7 says, sometimes ladies of the night would use for their trade, that is perfume and for oil.

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She brings now to worship, and Jesus accepts it.

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She starts crying. She realizes her tears. She realizes what's going on, and she takes her hair, and she starts rubbing the feet of Jesus with her hair.

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Did you know, dear congregation, I think you know this, that tradition said, I, the husband, can divorce my wife if she lets her hair down, in public even.

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She just takes this very expensive perfume, and just wastes it.

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Well, if it's a man, it's wasted. If it's the God -man, it's not wasted. She had come to Jesus, knowing that she was laboring and heavy laden, and she knew

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Jesus would give her rest. I mean, if I just kind of watch it in my mind's eye, it's kind of awkward, isn't it?

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It's kind of weird. Unless Jesus is truly God, then it's normal. Then it's natural.

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Only Jesus could heal the servant of the centurion. Only Jesus could raise the widow's son from the dead, and only

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Jesus can provide righteousness to any sinner, even this lady.

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Question three, who is Jesus? Answer. Answer to question three is that Jesus is unappreciated by the self -righteous.

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He's unappreciated by the self -righteous. Jesus, number one, is a friend of sinners. He's worshipped, but he's not appreciated by people who think they're good.

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Verse 39, now, when the Pharisee, who had invited him, saw this, he said to him, he said to himself, not out loud, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who's touching him, for she is a sinner.

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Now, you can automatically tell what he's trying to do. He's putting himself over God, over the

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Bible, as it were, over Scripture. And I find this a lot in my life before I was a

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Christian, and now when I meet other people, they're judging God in their minds. They're saying what's right, what's wrong, how things should be, and that's exactly what the

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Pharisee is doing here, judging Jesus, saying to himself, do you know what? If this man really were a prophet, he would be omniscient, and he would know this is a sinner, this is a woman of the night, this is a bad woman, and why would he let her do this to him?

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Religious people don't hang out with sinful people. I, Simon, a religious person, a

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Pharisee, would never let this happen. I mean,

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Jesus is basically being defiled by this woman and polluted by this woman.

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I would never do that, says Simon. And I think it's true to say that Simon has more disgust for Jesus than he does for this woman.

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Frozen heart. Icicle heart. And what happens in life, and you've probably met people like this, so it's good for you to try to evangelize them in a certain way.

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People play the comparison game, right? It's one thing to be called a sinner.

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It's another thing to be called a sinner that's the foremost of sinners. There's always somebody else worse.

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We compare people. Years ago, I thought the Jerry Springer show was popular because it would help everybody think that they were going to go to heaven when they died.

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Because compared to these wackos, I'm good. I'm normal. It's the bell curve.

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And that's exactly what sin does. Instead of saying, you know what? It's just me and God on judgment day.

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It'll be no one else. And I know I'm a sinner, and I know God's holy, and there needs to be some way of me to be right in God's eyes, to be forgiven in God's eyes.

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It's not that I'm better than the person down the street, or at least I'm not an Al -Qaeda, at least I'm not a terrorist, at least

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I'm not, or whatever. Any reason to reject

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Jesus is what the unbeliever tries to use. And here, Simon is like, how could

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Jesus not know this person? He says he's a prophet. He's not a prophet. So he says in his mind, no way.

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And by the way, if they're bad, Jesus is bad, she's bad, I'm better. And self -righteousness means

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I'm right in my own eyes, and if I'm right in my own eyes, I don't have to be forgiven. Morally superior.

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And so by the way, when you're evangelizing friends and neighbors and all that, this is kind of the default position. I'm good enough.

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I'm better than others. My good outweighs my bad. And we have to bring them back to talk about how great

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God is, and how holy He is, and how God is inflexible in His justice. Self -righteousness that this

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Pharisee had said, I'm not going to be saved in God's way. Humble myself to say, I'm a sinner needing grace.

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Please help me. God have mercy on me. I'll get to heaven my way by being good. But you have to keep the law perfectly to get to heaven.

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And of course, this man couldn't do it. Reminds me of that story. Remember Jesus telling the parable of the

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Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

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I listened to a man say that sermon was preached, and during the prayer meeting, another man said, dear

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Lord, we're thankful we're not like the Pharisees. Number four, who is

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Jesus? He's a great teacher. He's a great teacher. He's a friend of sinners. He's God.

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He's underappreciated by self -righteous people. And number four, he's a great teacher. Prophet, priest, and king.

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Here, Jesus, the prophet, the teacher. And answering, Jesus said to him, verse 40,

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Simon. Oh, wait a second. I thought Simon only said that in his mind. Oh, yeah, but Jesus can read minds.

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Jesus is divine. Simon, I have something to say to you. And he said, say it, prophet.

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No, say it, teacher. And then Jesus, the great teacher, we're going to look at parables next week as well in chapter 8.

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He gives a little parable. A certain money lender had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii, a year and a half's worth of wages, and another 50, a couple months of wages.

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When they could not pay, and by the way, they could be sold, their children could be sold, they could be put in debtor's prison.

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When they couldn't pay, he canceled the debt of both. Which one of them will love him more?

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Now, I will say that the Pharisee, I think, was smart enough to know something about Jesus and his teaching style, because I think the

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Pharisee realizes there's a stinger at the end of the scorpion tale, so I better be careful how

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I answer. So he kind of just says, the one, I suppose, he doesn't really want to answer, but Jesus, the teacher, has him.

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The one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt. It's like when you ask a child, you know, what's this passage about,

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Jesus? And you're kind of at the end of the, canceled the larger debt? I'm hoping that's the answer.

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Of course it is the answer. And he said, you have judged rightly. Jesus is forcing the issue, and he uses a parable to do it.

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And parables put you in that exact situation where you're thinking, okay, now the parable's about me.

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It's going to cause me to think the right way. And even though he only calls Jesus the teacher,

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Jesus is the true prophet. And Jesus draws him in to make him say the right thing.

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This is an underhand pitch. This is a slow pitch. This is easy to answer, but it's got a lot of sting to it.

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I don't know if you ever had creditors after you, and they just don't seem to stop.

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I remember years ago, I mean, you get junk mail. And I was getting junk mail from, I can't remember even the name of the bank.

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Let's just say Wells Fargo. And I just kept getting junk mail from Wells Fargo. I didn't even open it.

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And I get this phone call. And somehow, this was 15 years ago or something, a credit card was taken out, and there was a balance, and now they're calling me and everything else.

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And you just get that feeling. It's almost like I start sweating in my armpits going,

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I owe these people $49, and now it's up to $490, and they're calling me. And if the elders find out at the church that I don't pay my bills, then what?

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I didn't think that. I'm like, oh, I made a mistake. Okay, I've got to rectify that.

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Can you imagine creditors after you where they could put you in jail? And here,

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Jesus uses sin language and debt language to be the same, that we have a debt against God when we sin.

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No wonder when we're taught to pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

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And here, Jesus, the great teacher, forces the issue. Question number five, the answer, who is

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Jesus? Answer five, Jesus uses a forgiven lady to demonstrate how forgiven people love

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Jesus. Who is Jesus? Jesus is someone who forgives and then teaches this great lesson on how people should love

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Jesus. Jesus teaches how to love Him. Well, this is going to be good for us, too.

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How do we respond to Jesus? Verse 44, then turning toward the woman. So He's looking at the woman, aiming toward the woman.

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He said to Simon, do you see this woman? I've entered your house.

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You gave me no water for my feet. She's wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.

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You gave me no kiss. But from the time I came in, she's not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.

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Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many like a year and a half's worth, are forgiven, for she loved much.

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But who is forgiven little loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven.

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Or other translations say, your sins have been forgiven. I showed up at your house and you have nothing but contempt for me.

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And look at this person. I mean, you can just see the opposites. You can see the contrast. Woman, man, religious, not.

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Self -righteous, unrighteous. And Jesus says, do you know what?

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When you're forgiven a lot of sins, you love much. You love other people much, but you love

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God much because of all your sins. And if you want to boil worship down to something very simple, it's how much have you been forgiven?

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And then my worship will flow out of that. How much, dear Christian, have you been loved and forgiven?

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And then flowing out of that understanding, worship is easy. Listen to what

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J .C. Ryle said. The fear of punishment, the desire of reward, the sense of duty are all useful arguments to persuade men to holiness.

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But they are weak and powerless until a man loves Christ. Once you get ahold of the principle that God loves you and has forgiven you, you'll see that man's life change.

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There will never be more done for Christ till there's a more hearty love to Christ Himself.

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The key to ministry is, I have been forgiven a great debt that I could never pay, and that Jesus loves me, and I want to respond out of thanks.

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There was a man named Faulconer, Robert Faulconer, and I read this, and I thought, you know, isn't that interesting?

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Talking about worship. And he was an evangelist and a missionary, and he told the story in Luke chapter 7 about this woman wiping the feet of Jesus with her tears.

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And there was a young girl there listening, and she had smallpox, and she had had her hair cut really short dealing with it back in those days.

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And this girl said to the teacher, will Jesus ever come back? You know, the one who forgave the woman,

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I heard He's going to come back soon. Will it be soon? He said yes, and she just started crying, and she said, oh, it's just the sweetest thing.

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Can you imagine a little 10 -year -old girl hearing about Jesus for the first time? Sir, can He wait a little while?

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My hair ain't long enough yet to wipe His feet. Oh, you all just bought that, didn't you?

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Oh, but you get the point. It's like, oh, what would I do?

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I mean, I think about this, and maybe it's just me being a guy or something like that. What would it take for a man to walk through those doors and stand here and have me get on my face and kiss

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His feet? Well, I'm sure if I got a glimpse of my sins and in hell for about a split second,

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I'm sure if I could stand there and look at the sinless lamb dying on the cross, naked, getting spat at with the wrath of God on Him for about a half a second to say, you know what,

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I don't know how I can say thank you, but just uncontrollably weeping with emotion, saying thank you, whatever

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I could do to serve you. The problem is when it comes to local churches, since Jesus' body is in heaven now and not here, it's hard for us to look at other

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Christians and serve them that way. But that's even what the Lord told us to do. You see how humble she is?

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Jesus is using her to say, if you're forgiven a lot, you worship a lot. You don't care who looks, who sees.

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Look at that humility. There's so many people here at the church that serve behind the scenes, never wanting to be up front, never wanting to be commended, just receiving forgiveness and saying,

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I want to serve the Lord behind the scenes. I look at churches and I think to myself, the whole worship service is set up so that they can be consumers and pick and choose.

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And I look at her and I think she's not wanting anything. She's already received it all and she just wants to sacrifice.

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Reminds me of Romans 12. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the view of God's mercy, forgiveness, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

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This is true and proper worship. While we don't have the oil because Jesus isn't there, it's like our life, ourselves, our bodies, our minds to the

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Lord Jesus. Back to the statement in verse 48, do you see it? Your sins are forgiven.

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I have to think through this a little bit, but she's not forgiven because she loves.

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Jesus is not saying, you just love me a lot. You just sacrificed a lot. You just put the tears on my feet and your hair on my feet and kissed my feet.

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Therefore, I'm going to save you because you're not saved by doing any of that. You're saved by faith and by faith alone in the work of Christ.

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This is evidence. This is showing fruit of salvation. And now Jesus says in front of everybody, what's

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He say? Your sins have been forgiven. She's already saved and He's telling the world.

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He's telling the Pharisees. He's telling all the people there. Her sins are gone. Forgiving people love.

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It can't be you're justified by love because no one would ever be justified. The evidence was her love.

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We love because He first loved us, true or false? True, 1 John 4, 19.

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And so I think of my debt. I think about not loving God, not loving neighbor. I think of idolatry and pride and other things.

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And then God saves me anyway. And then I say to myself, Lord, here

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I am. Send me. And I know you think the same thing. Your sins are forgiven. By the way, is there a greater sentence in the world that you could ever hear?

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What other sentence would you rather hear? You can only hear one sentence in your life. I sentence you to eternal hell forever because of your sins or the sentence of your sins are forgiven.

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When I grew up at a church, the pastor would say, by the authority vested in me, I now pronounce your sins forgiven.

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Go in peace. Serve the Lord. I used to love to hear that. I remember showing up to church still drunk, still out.

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My mom had a little system. I've never admitted this before, but that's all right. I will. If I got home past one o 'clock on Saturday night, then she would force us to go to church.

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That was the punishment. And so you get home at three o 'clock drunk and it's like you got to go to church.

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And so I remember at church, forget the songs, forget the sermons, forget all that stuff. I just want to hear somebody tell me your sins are forgiven.

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Go in peace. Serve the Lord. Now that was wrong for me to do, obviously, and sinful for me to do.

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But for the true Christian, and I wasn't, the ones just trusting in Christ by faith alone, trusting in his life and death and resurrection, agreeing with God about sin, and I'm a sinner, trusting in Jesus.

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How would you like to be reminded this morning today, Christian, your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven.

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And by the way, for those of you that like grammar, it's a perfect tense. And that means they are forgiven.

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They're continuing to be forgiven and they will be forgiven forever. It is finished. Debt paid.

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You never have to pay for your sins again. You are forgiven. Oh, just to hear the word forgiveness should make us never want to sin again.

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Number six, three more to go. Think we can do it? That was a rhetorical question.

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We're going to do it. Who's Jesus? Number six, Jesus is the one who grants assurance.

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Jesus grants assurance. And I just was talking about that. Verse 48, your sins have been forgiven.

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She's already been saved. She comes and does the thank offering. She evidences her salvation by love, gratitude, humility.

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Jesus says in front of everybody, your sins are forgiven and they remain forgiven. This is a word of assurance.

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And I want you Christian to know that God wants you to have assurance. These things I've written to you that you who believe in the name of the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

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First John 5, 13. There are some religions even here in New England that call assurance the sin of presumption, the sin of presumption, that it's a sin to somehow think that you're okay in God's eyes.

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It's a sin that if you say no matter what the future holds, I'm going to heaven. But Jesus wants you to have assurance.

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You are forgiven. We sang it today, did we? Did we not? My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought.

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My sin not in part, but the what? Whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.

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Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my soul. Number seven, who's Jesus? Answer, Jesus is the only way you can be forgiven.

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Jesus is the only way you can be forgiven. He can grant forgiveness as the God man. Verse 49, there it is.

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Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins?

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By the way, I think that's what Luke wants everybody here to answer. Who is this who even forgives sins?

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Who has the authority to forgive sins? Remember earlier in chapter five, Jesus said, what's easier to say your sins are forgiven or rise and walk, but that you may know that the son of man has authority to forgive sins.

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He said to the paralyzed man, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. Jesus can forgive sins.

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Only Jesus. They're not ten ways to heaven. They're not two ways to heaven. Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, and Jesus is the one who forgives sins.

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By the way, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, I offer you free forgiveness through Jesus, trusting in him.

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Jesus is the one in whom we have redemption. And then finally, number eight, who's

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Jesus? Well, he is the one who tells us our response.

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Jesus confirms that faith is the instrument of salvation. How do we respond? Jesus tells us, verse 50, and he said to the woman, your faith has saved you.

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Go in peace. Shorthand for your trust in me, your faith in me has saved you.

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Faith doesn't technically save. Faith in the object saves. Faith in faith is not going to grant anyone forgiveness, but it's faith in the right object and it's

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Jesus. And then think what he says to her.

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Go in peace. I don't know if she really was a prostitute or not.

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Most people think she was. But certainly she was a woman of the city and she was a sinner. And all the sins that were in the skeleton of her closet and the consciences that she would have to deal with, conscience rather, he says, by the way, don't let that disturb you anymore.

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Don't let your past sins haunt you anymore. Don't let them bog you down anymore.

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Don't live in that world anymore. I want you to know you're forgiven. It's through faith and faith alone.

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And why don't you go have peace? Peace with God, peace with others.

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Faith and faith alone. And he says it in front of everyone.

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How wonderful. The people that have been forgiven much love much.

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And Jesus is saying, believe. So I come to this passage and I think, boring?

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No. I say, wonderful, yes. And then instead of it being just about her and him and them and Simon, then what the spirit of God wants us to do is just to kind of settle in a little bit and just kind of walk through and say,

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Jesus, me, my sins, what do I need to do? And I think it's fair to say, what would you be like without the

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Lord Jesus? Where would you be going without the Lord Jesus? What would your life be like without the

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Lord Jesus? Aren't you glad for the Lord Jesus? Aren't you glad to be forgiven?

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Aren't you glad you didn't have to earn salvation because you couldn't earn it? It's by faith and faith alone. Aren't you glad that you see a demonstration here, a very convicting one of worship?

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And when we say, I'm tired of service, I'm tired of ministry, there's that old phrase,

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I'm weary in the work but not weary of it. And you just say,

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Lord, I see this woman and I see

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Jesus and I want to see Jesus like this woman did because everything in her that she did, everything in her mind that she thought, that's the right response to Jesus.

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I don't know if I want other people seeing me like that, but she didn't care. I mean, just think about who

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Jesus is and when she touches him. I mean, when's the last time she touched some man who didn't want to abuse her or use her?

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And so when I watch this passage, a sinful woman unforgiven who then loves much,

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I just think all my sins are forgiven. I bear them no more. And Lord, I want to love more.

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Don't you want to love more? Don't you want to love more like Jesus? You say, once again, here's the rub.

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I can love Jesus like that. I just can't love other people like that. But if Jesus loves the bride, if Jesus loves those people,

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I want to do that too. Who is

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Jesus? Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word.

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Thank you, Spirit, for your word. Thank you, Son, for your word. Simon asks the question, do you see this woman?

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And we see the woman and we see how Jesus saw the woman. And Father, we would confess this morning that our sins are many, but we're trusting in you and therefore completely forgiven.

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So help us to love much, not just to worship you, but to love other people.

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We would pray that there be people, if there are people here today, Father, that think they're going to heaven because they're good or they're baptized or maybe never even thought about heaven,

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I pray that you would begin to teach them about sin and about Jesus, the God -man, who can forgive sins and who will punish their sins if they refuse to trust him.

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And so, Father, we're thankful that our sins have been forgiven and we can go in peace.