The Beauty Cost and Scope Of Forgiveness

The Old Testament we're reading this morning is Psalm 32, the entirety of that chapter, which if you'd like to read along is found in page 462 going through 463 in your few

Bibles. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long, for day and night your hand was heavy upon me.

My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity.

I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found.

Surely in the rush of great waters they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me.

You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.

I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or mule without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and brittle, or it will not stay near you.

Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the

Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy all you upright in heart. A New Testament reading is from Luke chapter 7, beginning in verse 36.

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table.

And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment.

And 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.

Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.

And Jesus answered him and said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say it, teacher.

A certain moneylender had two debtors, one owed 500 denarii, and the other 50. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both.

Now which of them will love him more? Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he has canceled the larger debt.

And he said to him, you have judged rightly. And turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman?

I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair.

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

Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much, and he who is forgiven little, loves little.

And when he said to her, your sins are forgiven, then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins?

And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. You may be seated.

This is the third week of having a friend preach, right? Oh, it's my real privilege to introduce to you

Dale Shaw. Dale is the pastor of urban outreach at College Park Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.

I know Dale because Dale was a deacon here when I came here in 1985.

I remember the first time he called me. Yance was only about a week old when he called me and said, no kidding, answer the phone.

This guy says, I'm Dale Shaw. I'm from LaRue Baptist Church, and this is the church for you. And I hadn't even met this guy yet.

Hadn't even met this guy yet. And I said, oh, okay. And so I came and preached, and then they asked me to come back and candidate.

And so Dale was part of that leadership group that called me here.

So I've known Dale since that time, and he's just been a real dear friend.

So it's really great to have him come and preach here to us and to share the word of God.

And so Dale, Lord bless you, brother. Wow, this is an amazing privilege that no lie,

I've thought at least 25 years about this moment. Unfortunately, every time I thought through it,

I was standing back there preaching that way, because that's the way the building used to be. Forty years ago today, my wife

Sarah and I had been married for 28 days. And I was a schoolteacher in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the pastor at LaRue Baptist had been my college roommate named

Kimber Kaufman. And he was getting married that summer, and he said, is there any way you would want to come and live in LaRue and just serve in this church?

And I ended up getting a job teaching school for two years. It was a school called Marian Christian that's not even here anymore.

And for two years, I taught at first grade at Pleasant Elementary School. So we lived in LaRue for four years.

Our oldest son Sammy was born right off. He was born in Marian General Hospital, but we lived on Market Street.

I just want to say this, friends, that these four years that we had here, like, shaped our lives.

And they had a disproportionate influence on our lives. And so for me to be able to come back today and to still be married and to still be walking with Jesus is an amazing tribute to grace.

And Sharon was so kind to let me choose the songs. And here's what

I want us to happen. Here's what can happen this morning as people gather together and the

Spirit of God and the Word of God comes down to us. The songs that we have sung might actually become, like, vibrantly real.

And we leave and we're different people. We sang a song that said, ever since by faith

I saw the stream, your flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die.

We are gonna sing, my sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole, it's nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. We sang, wonderful, merciful

Savior, precious Redeemer and friend, who would have thought that a lamb could rescue the soul of men.

This is our moment, friends, and God has brought me back for this moment. We sang, to the great one in three, eternal praises be, hence, evermore.

Your sovereign majesty may we in glory see and through eternity love and adore.

My prayer has been for a long time that this moment God might use in a unique way, just like he used

LaRue Baptist in my life in a unique way. And so one of the nice things about coming back is, like,

Tim has to take the text and preach it week in and then week out. I get to just give you the best of my best of 40 years this morning, all right?

I mean, I get to, I get to just tell you. I want to just share some things that have really helped me, like, they really have helped me, and I would love it if they helped you.

Here's one. I would title this Rehearsing the Gospel. Listen to this quote by Milton Vincent.

You ever heard of him? The gospel is so foolish according to my natural wisdom, so scandalous according to my conscience, and so incredible according to my timid heart, that it is a daily battle to believe the full scope of it as I should.

That's our biggest battle. Rosario Butterfield said, God didn't save me from homosexuality.

He saved me from unbelief. Your biggest issue, your biggest sin, your biggest struggle isn't that issue.

It's rooted in that you're not believing God, and when we hear God's word and we ask God, even if we're reluctant to help us, he will.

There is simply no other way to compete with the forebodings of my conscience, the condemnings of my heart, and the lies of the world and the devil, than to overwhelm them with daily rehearsings of the gospel.

That's one reason we're here today. And for me, the best way that I have found to rehearse the gospel is to take chunks of scripture.

Chunks. Could you say that with me? Chunks. Good. Take big chunks of scripture and get them into my bones, and then have them so I'm not working on what the next word is, but I got it out.

And guess what happens? God's it. It leads me to meditating on it and chewing on it, and when

I chew on it, it brings this transformation. Thousands, Brian Savage, thousands upon thousands of decisions you make every day, you're making unconsciously, subconsciously, and if you can get the word of God in your bones, those decisions are going to be different, and over the course of time you're going to have a love of righteousness and a hatred of wickedness, and the life of God in you will be great.

Some of you might say, well I really can't memorize. I'm not very good at it, and I would answer the way

I answer a lot of my friends back at College Park Church. I would say, sir or ma 'am, if I gave you one million dollars to memorize the first chapter of John over the next 30 days, would you be able to do it?

How many think, if I literally had a suitcase right here and I said, here's a million dollars if you memorize it, you say,

I could probably get her done. Go ahead, give me a show of hands. Oh, some of you are really not being honest today.

Yeah, of course you could, of course you could, and so Sharon graciously wrote out copies of Why I Memorize Books of the

Bible. It's not an article written by me, but it's a very helpful article, and if you want to grab that article at the end, ask

Sharon, and get it and read it. You know what I thought? What if five people in this room promised that they're gonna chew on God's Word, get it in their bones, and memorize it?

Those five people would be totally transformed. I've seen it. I've seen it. Here's another reason

I gotta have God's Word in my bones. You still with me this morning, church? Okay, good. So in May, I helped a funeral for a man named

Finest Gent in his 80s, and his wife's name was Sue Gent, and in June, I got a call that Sue Gent has pancreatic cancer, and so every week,

I can make this beautiful, wonderful commitment. I get to go to Sue Gent's house, and I don't really ask her how he's doing.

We hold hands. She's a real little bag -of -bones lady with these vivid blue eyes looking at me, and I'll recite chapters of Scripture to her, and you know what she says?

Well, this sounds so good. This sounds even better than when it's red, and it's true.

Another reason that we got to have God's Word in our bones is so we can be bold and answer. This past Monday, I was sitting across from a woman named

Beverly whose husband has chronic pain, and she was telling me very candidly that she was thinking about having an affair with an ex -high school boyfriend, and it was a weird story how it even came together.

I was sitting there with her, and you know what I said to her? I said, Beverly, you better remember this. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.

Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. She started weeping, and then

I said the next verse, Therefore, since we have such a great high priest who has gone through the heavens,

Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. And she left that meeting feeling like she'd been rescued.

We need to have God's Word in our bones. As the world gets darker and darker, you need to have a power that's outside of you, and I want to encourage you to get the

Word in your bones. So what I thought I want to do today is we read in Luke 7 the story of the sinful woman and Simon the

Pharisee, and I want us to look at that. But I want us to do something different today, and again, like I said, this is my one -off sermon, so Tim can either invite me back next year, or if I don't get invited back next year,

I'll know this didn't work. But it's okay. What I want us to do is I want you just to hear a portion of God's Word, okay?

I want you to hear in Hebrews chapter 1 about the fact, the reality, that Jesus is

God. See, my mind, I know that Jesus is

God, but I'm not I'm not grabbing hold of it. I'm not believing it like I should. And then in Hebrews chapter 2, it's real clear that Jesus is man.

What I want us to do, what I prayed a lot about, is that as we hear Hebrews 1,

Jesus is God, and we hear Hebrews 2, Jesus is man, and then we take those two truths and we look at Luke 7, that we might see it a little differently, all right?

So here is what Hebrews 1 says about Jesus. You ready?

In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways.

But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom

He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe.

Do you hear that? The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful

Word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the

Majesty in heaven, so He became as much superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is superior to theirs.

This is Jesus. This is real. For to which of the angels did God ever say, Sit at my right hand?

No, to which of the angels... Excuse me. In speaking of the angels, He says,

He makes His angels winds, His servants flames of fire. But about the Son, He says,

Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.

He also reminds us that Jesus Christ is the creator of the world. He also says, In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment, but you remain the same.

Like a robe, they will be rolled up, but you remain the same, and your years will never change. To which of the angels did

God ever say, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet? And then

He does this warning to us. He says... What's He say,

Sarah, in chapter 2, verse 1? We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

He confirms the salvation. He says, This salvation, it's real, which was first announced by the

Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. God also testified to it by signs and wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the

Spirit distributed according to His will. Now listen, friends. When you're struggling, when you're weak, like I am often, these next verses mean that Jesus can identify with you.

We think of Jesus as some kind of robotic human, and the Bible says very clearly He was not.

It is not to angels that He has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking.

But there is a place where someone has testified. What is man that you are mindful of Him? The Son of Man that you care for Him.

You made Him a little lower than the angels. You crowned Him with glory and honor and put everything under His feet.

Listen to this. In putting everything under Him, God left nothing that is not subject to Him.

Yet at present we do not see everything subject to Him, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels.

Do you believe that? Now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

In bringing many sons to glory, it is fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Both the one who makes men holy, Jesus, and those who are made holy, us, are of the same family.

So Jesus is not ashamed to call you

His brothers and sisters. Do you realize the gospel means on your worst day when you're so full of shame and you're so sick of yourself and you're so sick of your sins, that Jesus, by an oath from the

Father, has said, I am not ashamed to call you my brother and my sister.

That's good news. He says, I will declare your name to my brothers in the presence of the congregation.

I will sing your praises. And again He says, I will put my trust in Him. Listen friends, that is

Jesus talking and Jesus, the writer of Hebrews, is taking Jesus and pointing back to the

Old Testament and he's quoting a verse that says, I will put my trust in Him and he's attributing it to Jesus.

So that when Jesus Christ, the man, woke up in the morning, he had to learn how to put his trust in the

Father just like you do and he can identify with you. And then it says, and here

I am and the children God has given me, hang with me just a little bit longer, since the children, us, have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity.

So that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

For surely it is not angels he helps but Abraham's descendants. For this reason he had to be made like the people of LaRue Baptist Church in every way in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help you when you are tempted.

And so let's just take a break for just a second and let's think about the reality that this

Jesus who we just read about, who is the exact representation of the being, who's sustaining all things by his powerful word, who's the heir of all things, who's the radiance of God's glory, who's provided purification from sins, is also the one who's identified with us in his humanity this morning.

Like for now, not for yesterday, not for tomorrow, but for us now. So that as we go to this story from Luke chapter 7 we can remember, think about these two distinctions of Jesus, and I promise as I've been doing this it just washes over you what a wonderful Savior he is, and the more our hearts can see what a wonderful Savior he is, the easier it is to follow him and to hunger after him because we find out how great he is.

So we've already read the passage and I'm just going to take you through the story, and I'm assuming that most of you are familiar with it, but if not you can still grab the points, alright?

So we know this, that Simon was a Pharisee, he was a religious man, he was highly regarded in circles, he was basically, a lot of it was built on the law, the

Mosaic law that he followed and he took pride in that, and he had heard previously in Luke 5 or 6 that Jesus had performed miracles, so he invited

Jesus to his house, and maybe the room in the house was about half of the size of this, and there would have been low tables on the floor, and there would have been cushions, and someone would have brought food, and they would have kind of just been lounging around, and Simon is trying to dial in to who

Jesus is, he's trying to figure out who Jesus is. Back in that day, because people were walking and it was hot and it wasn't air conditioning, their feet would get real dirty in their sandals, and they might get a little smelly, so when they came to somebody's house for dinner, the right thing to do was to clean their feet, or have their feet cleaned by a servant, or even just give them water, the right thing to do is to give them something to clean their hands with, the right thing to do is give them a little cologne so they could kind of sprinkle on it, so they weren't odiferous to the people around the table, so that's the man.

There's really three characters, the man and the woman and Jesus, and the woman doesn't tell much about her, but we know from the implications that she's a woman who's been used and abused by men, that she's probably lost her identity and who she is, and her identity is in how men treat her.

We know that she was not very highly regarded by those people around her, and I want you just to realize that she met the

Jesus of Hebrews chapter 1 and 2, and when she met him, he treated her differently than any other man had treated her.

He treated her with respect, he was not wanting to get anything from her, he listened.

Do you know somebody that's a really good listener, how comforting that is? Jesus is the best listener in the world, and she found great comfort in him, and something over time opened up in this woman, and in Jesus she found a hope that she had never had.

And I've been a pastor for about 21 years, and here let me just make a little statement here, that God's design for sex is beautiful and right, and when it's used the way

God designed it, it is glorious. But when people try to use sex on their own terms, it always leads to deep pain and isolation.

I have a box of Kleenex in my office, and the reason I have a box of Kleenex in my office is because life is really hard, and people come into my office and they are weeping, and I would guess that six out of seven people that come into my office are weeping because they tried to abuse and break

God's seventh commandment, and somebody once said, you don't break the seventh commandment, the seventh commandment breaks you.

So here's a woman that's full of pain, and Jesus, she just loves him. And I want to tell you, this is my favorite story in the

Bible, because over the last 40 years, I've gone to this story hundreds, maybe thousands of times, when

I felt shamed, when I felt like I can't go back to Jesus, when I feel like I'm just,

I can't do it, I'm too tired, or whatever reasons I have, when I ponder the idea that this woman, in all of her sinfulness, coming to Jesus, and Jesus not turning her away, but accepting her worship, the beauty of forgiveness washes over me, and I come back to Jesus, the

Jesus that we sang about. And so this woman, she comes in, she's not invited to the table, she sees

Jesus, she's so overwhelmed with this human being in front of her, she knows the

Hebrews 2 Jesus, and she senses the Hebrews 1 Jesus. There's something different about him, and she just, as she stands over him, and she thinks of her shame, and his goodness, and her wrong choices, and his grace to her, she just starts crying.

And he hadn't had his feet washed. And you can get a picture of Jesus with these feet dusty, and the women, the woman's tears come down, and they drop on his feet.

And she just loves Jesus, and she's overwhelmed with love for him, because he's so worthy of her love.

And so then she gets down on her hands and knees, and Tim can verify whether this is true.

Some of the stuff I read said that she let her hair down. The Bible says she did that, and back in that day, that would have been a scandalous thing.

Women didn't let their hair down in public, but she did, because she was so caught up with her love for Jesus that she didn't have a lot of self -consciousness, self -awareness.

And she then begins to kiss his feet. And then she takes a bottle of cologne that some people think was worth at least a year's salary, and if you just kind of connect the dots, where would a woman like that have gotten the money to buy that kind of valuable thing?

She probably got it through illicit means. And she breaks the bottle open, so it's irrevocably towards Jesus, and she pours it on his feet, and she gets on her hands and knees, and she puts her hair there, and she starts rubbing her hair and cleaning his feet because she loves

Jesus so much. Jesus is really worthy of that love.

The more we know him, the more we think about him, the more we stay in community with him and his people, the more we get his words in our bones, the more we pour out our heart every morning with raw honesty and detailed thoroughness before this friend of sinners, the natural outcome of that church is that we'll follow

Jesus in a happy, more glorious way. We'll find more pleasure in him.

Now here's Simon's response. Simon basically says, if Jesus knew what kind of woman this was, he would not let her touch him.

So he's kind of saying, if he's not a prophet, because if he was a prophet, he'd know what kind of woman she was. It's really kind of interesting in the story because it says,

Jesus knowing what Simon was thinking, which kind of articulates that he was prophetic, he said,

Simon, I want to tell you a story. He said, there were two men, and one owed 50 and one owed 500, whatever the currency is, and so whoever they owed it to, the bank or the person, forgave them, and when they forgave them, they went free.

And so who's going to be more grateful? Who's going to be more grateful, Larry, by natural thought?

The one who owed more. Now I want you to make sure you understand this.

Jesus isn't making the point that the woman has a bigger debt than the man, because Simon couldn't, he was so sinful, he couldn't even recognize the love of God when it sat across the table with him eating food.

But the point is, for me, and for the woman, and for you, do you see your need?

The one who has the bigger debt will love more. The point is, the woman saw her need.

She remembered who she was, and then she remembered who Jesus is.

And Simon makes this analogy, he says, or Jesus does, I'm sorry, Jesus does, and he says,

Simon, when you came in, you didn't give me any water. And this woman wet her feet, wet my feet with her tears.

You didn't give me a towel, and she used her hair. You didn't give me any oil, and she used the whole bottle.

One of the points that I prayed about is that you would see something so beautiful about a person who really understands their forgiveness.

One way we can be a witness to Jesus and also be a bridge to others is to talk about forgiveness.

I've been forgiven. Fran Rayburn, we've been forgiven. One way we can be a great witness is to respond to Jesus with gratitude like this woman.

And as we live out our lives, people will ask us for the hope that is in us. It's interesting, too, that Jesus is trying to help

Simon see his need for Christ, and he pushes into this. It's interesting, too, that when we see, when someone like the woman does see her need for Jesus, how gracious he is to her.

This week, as you go through your struggle of being a human in a fallen world, and you feel separated from him, and you're not knowing how to turn to him, and you're confused, and you're alienated, picture this woman weeping with relief as she hugs

Jesus' feet. Because Jesus has promised, through the gospel, he will never, ever point a finger at you, but he will always open his arms.

It's been a life -changing thought to me. Jesus is never, he, it's been paid.

By one sacrifice, he has made perfect for all those who are being made holy. It's good to confess your sin, but if you grovel in your sin, you're not honoring the king who's paid the price.

And it's actually subtle pride, thinking, I gotta somehow deserve it. You don't deserve it. You never will deserve it.

Andy, you know you won't. I know I won't. I know you won't. You know I won't, you know? And we just need to embrace how good he is.

When you feel that way this week, remember Jesus opening his arm to that woman, and fall at his feet, and give him all your weakness.

Give him all your sins. John R. W. Stott said, Jesus Christ, we believe, is the fulfillment of every truly human aspiration.

To find him is to find ourselves. The woman has deep gratitude. The woman is generous.

She seems satisfied and content. She's so absorbed in Jesus that she's totally non -self -absorbed.

I so wish that my passionate love for Christ was so strong that I was willing to be a fool, and I didn't even know

I was willing to be a fool. I aspire to be caught up in the love and forgiveness as this woman was.

And then you know what Jesus said after he got done? He went to the woman and he said, your sins are forgiven.

And I want to think for just a few minutes, so I only have two more points, I want us to think for just a minute about the cost of forgiveness.

Because when we understand the cost of forgiveness, we will also more deeply understand the beauty of forgiveness.

So I hope you can follow this.

This has been so helpful to me. In Hebrews chapter 10, the writer says it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

But then listen to this, and think about this in Jesus's humanity. Therefore when Christ came into the world, don't forget the writer of Hebrews is looking back on Jesus and looking on the

Old Testament so that we can understand this. And when I understood this about Jesus's humanity, it made me love him even more.

Therefore when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.

With burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, here

I am. It is written about me in the scroll. I have come to do your will. Do you know how

Jesus identifies with you? Jesus, according to these verses, Jesus didn't wake up one morning going,

I'm the Messiah and here's my plan. Jesus was so human that he had to read the

Old Testament. And he had to discover himself in the

Old Testament. Then I said, here I am.

Talking about Jesus, it is written about me in the scroll. One day Jesus, as he's growing in his stature and wisdom and knowledge of God, he begins to figure out through the study of the

Old Testament that he is the one who is the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world.

And in John chapter 3, Jesus is talking and he goes, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the

Son of Man is going to have to be lifted up. That wasn't just anointed to him. He learned that as he studied the scriptures.

And so think about this, friends. You're just like that woman and Jesus comes up to her and he comes up to you and he says, your sins are forgiven.

And he knows. I wouldn't be surprised if he groaned in his soul because for him to say your sins are forgiven, he's gonna have to pay an eternal price.

We all know Psalm 51. Just think about the cost of forgiveness.

In asking for mercy, you are reminding yourself that God would show it to you but has withdrawn it from Jesus.

In asking to experience God's unfailing love, you're asking that Jesus will feel that it's been removed, past tense.

In asking to taste God's great compassion, you are asking him to refuse it to Jesus as he dies on the cross.

In asking God to blot out your transgressions, you are asking that they will be obliterated by the blood of Jesus.

In asking to be washed, you're asking that the filth of your sin will overwhelm

Jesus like a flood. And I could go on and on and on, but the point is, is every time we have sinned and failed,

Jesus has paid that price and he's not holding it against us. And he's not saying, oh here you go again.

He's saying that's covered. The gospel means it's covered. You're free. I got it. That's the cost of forgiveness.

The last thing I want to look at, and I might even have a use an illustration here, a physical illustration, talking about our pastor

Tim Pazma this morning. I just want you to walk through just a couple different thoughts about the scope of forgiveness.

It says in Isaiah 57, this is what the high and lofty one says, he who lives forever whose name is holy.

I live in a high and holy place but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

So, about done here. Tim, do you mind just stepping up here one time and let me use you as an example?

Okay. I won't hurt you, I promise. All right. So, this is just a small example, but I did want to have him up here just to share the memory.

This means a lot to me because I love him so much. So, let's just say that Tim and I are having a meal, and I ask him to give me the shaker of salt, and he begins to give me the shaker of salt, and he spills it, spills it.

And what if Tim, when that happened, goes, oh, Tim, I'm so sorry, I spilled the salt.

I'd be going, okay, you know, pick it up, we'll refill it, because the scope of that little air is very small.

And what if Tim and I pledged to meet at a coffee shop somewhere in Marion, and I don't show up.

And Tim's there, and he's sitting there, and he calls, and I don't pick up, and he texts, and I don't respond. Is Tim going to be able to forgive me for that?

Yeah, but is it a little bigger than the salt? Yeah, sure, yeah.

So, what if I don't have this, but, or let's just say

Tim, what if Tim had a Porsche, and he asked if I could borrow his, or I asked if I could borrow his

Porsche, and he said, sure, sure, go ahead, take it for a spin. And I took it for a spin, and I wrecked it, and I totaled it, and I'd forgotten to tell him that he hadn't renewed his insurance payments.

Would the scope of that be a little bit bigger than a coffee? What if this

Porsche had multiple seats, and what if some of our children and our offspring were in the car, and I was careless, and I wrecked it?

The scope of forgiveness would begin to be staggering.

Easy, wasn't it? Yeah. So, let's go back to Hebrews chapter 1 and 2.

Who is Jesus? He's the heir of all things. He's the one through whom the universe was made.

He's the exact representation of the Father. He's the radiance of God's glory.

He's sustaining all things by His powerful Word, and that's the one that we have turned against.

That's the one that we have violated, so that the scope of our forgiveness, as R .C.

Sproul says, I call it cosmic treason. And you and me, in our cosmic treason, have been 100 % forgiven, and there's nothing anybody in this room can do to earn anything of it other than this.

Come, you sinners, poor and needy, bruised and broken by the fall.

If you wait until you're better, you will never come at all.

So there's a beauty in forgiveness, there's a cost in forgiveness, and the scope of our forgiveness is mind -boggling.

And what we need to do is just keep rehearsing these realities, and God will begin to, or has already begun, but He will continue to bring about a change.

This is the last thing I want to say, and then I'm going to sit down after a wonderful experience of preaching to you this morning.

You know what? You know what's different for me from 1981 and 2021? There's a lot of different things.

I was riding my bike on Thursday, I think, when

Sarah was painting, and I was riding my bike. We were having a little getaway, and I was just riding my bike, and I looked down at the time that I'd spent riding my bike, and I thought,

I used to run faster than I'm riding my bike right now. So that's one thing that's happened, but much better thing in this, and I really am done with this.

As I followed Jesus for 40 years, not perfectly, and I got all kinds of scars in my soul, and every one of the scars is covered with grace.

But one of the things that's said in Hebrews 1, I don't know if you heard it, but He's talking about the Son. He says, but about the

Son, He says, your throne, oh God, will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. And then listen to this, you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

And if you'll just keep following Jesus, and keep trying to rehearse the gospel, the Bible says

He will rewrite His laws in your minds, and put them on your hearts. And what's changed in me, imperfectly, is

I love righteousness more than I did 40 years ago, a lot more.

You know, it also says in Hebrews 5, talking about mature people, it says, but let's see what it says, solid food is for the mature who, by constant use, have trained themselves to discern good from evil.

As you keep following Jesus, He's gonna help you be mature, and the mark of maturity is that you discern good from evil.

The last verse about the same idea of loving righteousness and hating wickedness is found in Hebrews 6, and it's a parable about our souls.

It says, land that drinks in the water, often falling on it, that's the land is our hearts, and the water is

God's Word. Listen, land that drinks in the water, often falling on it, and that produces a harvest, that's the fruits of the

Spirit, helpful to those for whom it is farmed, receives the blessing of God. And one of the blessings of God is that He does something inside you so that you love

Jesus more than you love anything else. So that you can be a good neighbor, so that you can love your wife well, or love and submit your husband well, and you can just submit to one another well, because the

Spirit of God is making you new, and you're full of love for Jesus like the sinful woman was.

So let's just close our eyes, and I'll pray, and we'll move forward in the service.

Father, thank you for this church that has endured and done more than endured.

It's thrived, it's healthy, it's broken, it's repentant, it's waiting for you, it's trusting in your

Word. We pray as they go through transitions and changes in leadership,

God, that you'll just keep that baton going forward. And I pray,

God, somehow that your word about the sinful woman who just responded to Jesus with such a humility and a love, that that can be our experience, and we can see our need and experience the forgiveness in great measure, in Jesus' name, amen.