The Peace of Forgiveness

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Luke.
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And we're going to find our place in Luke chapter 7, and go to verse 36 and hold your place, if you would.
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Last week, we had a special service on the Lord's Day wherein we highlighted the sanctity of life.
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We addressed the sin of abortion and the need to pray for our nation and her leaders.
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We talked about the fact that it truly is a worldwide holocaust where lives are being sacrificed daily on the altar called choice.
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Well, as I addressed the need in that sermon to extend grace and forgiveness to those who seek it, especially those who have had abortions, after the message, I was considering that I didn't say enough.
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I had an opportunity to talk with Brother Byron, one of the elders, and I was talking to him about some things that I didn't get to say in the message.
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And he said, well, maybe you should say it next week.
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Just preach more.
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And I said, no, no, no, there's not enough.
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Went home, prayed, and Byron was right.
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It's funny how that works out sometimes.
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Because, you know, studies have shown that guilt associated with abortion has caused tremendous grief, severe depression, and even a much higher rate of suicide.
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And I realized that the need for forgiveness, the willingness to receive forgiveness, is a huge issue for a lot of people.
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And you know what? It's not just people who have had abortions.
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It's everybody.
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All of us, Christians of all backgrounds and histories, often live with a sense of tremendous guilt over their former sins.
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Something from their past, something that they have done, something that has infiltrated their life at some point, still lives with them, even on this side of the cross.
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And as I thought about that, and I prayed about that, I started kind of asking the question, what do we do with the guilt that we experience? What do we do with the shame that plagues the soul? How can we experience the peace of forgiveness that the Bible says we're supposed to have as believers? The Bible says we're supposed to have a peace that passes understanding.
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And yet, I see believer after believer who comes and sits in my office who do not have peace.
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For some reason, there's something that plagues the soul, there's something that plagues the conscience, and they cannot get past it.
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And so today, I want to do an additional message.
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Sanctity of Life Sunday was last week.
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January is Sanctity of Life Month, if you will.
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And I just want to do a message on the subject of forgiveness.
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And that's such a broad subject.
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We could talk about our need to forgive one another.
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We could talk about our need to seek God's forgiveness.
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But really, this message is going to be about receiving the peace of forgiveness that God offers.
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And being able to have peace with God, and peace in ourselves.
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So, we're going to read a narrative from the life of Christ.
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It's a familiar narrative.
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I'm sure some of you will know it very fondly and remember it very fondly.
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But it's certainly one that bears repetitive study.
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So let's stand together.
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We're going to read Luke 7, beginning at verse 36.
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We're going to read down to verse 50.
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It says, One of the Pharisees asked him, that is Jesus, to eat with him.
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And he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table.
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And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought in an alabaster flask of ointment.
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And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wipe them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
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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 was, who is touching him, for she is a sinner.
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And Jesus, answering, said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you.
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And he answered, Say it, teacher.
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A certain moneylender had two debtors, one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
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When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both.
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Now which of them will love him more? Simon answered, The one, I suppose, who he cancelled the larger debt.
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And he said to him, You have judged rightly.
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Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has 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 has not ceased to kiss my feet.
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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, are forgiven, for she loved much.
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But he who has forgiven little, loves little.
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And he said to her, Your sins are forgiven.
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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.
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Go in peace.
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Father in heaven, we thank you for this narrative.
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We thank you for this picture into the life of Christ that we get to see.
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And yet being two thousand years old still has so much significance even for today.
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Oh God, that we might wet the feet of the saviors with our tears.
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That we might be willing to bow at his feet and know that we have forgiveness and peace.
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Father I pray that you keep me from error.
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That you keep me from the sin of reading into the text something that's not there.
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But help me to draw from this text the water of life that we all might drink.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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One of the most common scenes in the Bible, in the narratives of Jesus' life, is Christ having a meal with someone.
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It just was very common that Christ would be brought in to have a meal.
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When he called Matthew, we read that for our call to worship earlier, when he called Matthew at his tax booth, that very evening they went and had a meal at Matthew's home.
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When Jesus met Zacchaeus, you remember little Zacchaeus who ran up so he could see where Jesus was? Zacchaeus was a wee little man, remember him? What did he do? He took him to his home and that night they had a meal.
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Jesus often ate at the house of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus.
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You remember they even argued as to who was supposed to be doing what, because Martha was fixing the meal and Mary was not helping as Martha thought she was supposed to.
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Jesus even ate at the house of a leper, Simon, in Matthew 26.
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We read that narrative.
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And often these meals were treated like events.
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They were worthy of an audience.
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This was long before the entertainment culture that we live in today.
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It was long before there were television shows that people made at home for.
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Yeah, I've got to be home at 7 because my favorite show is on.
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There wasn't anything like that.
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So these events, these meals often took sort of special place in society because it was something to see.
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It was an event to behold.
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People wanted to hear what was happening, especially when the new rabbi came to town and he was going to sit and he was going to opine and debate and talk.
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They wanted to have that opportunity to kind of hear what was going on.
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These were learned men.
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These were great men of society.
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They wanted to hear what was going on.
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And the poor people would be there too because at the evening meal, when it was done, there was often leftovers.
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And the poor people would be there with their hands out, ready to receive whatever scraps were left over after the meal.
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So this was an event.
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Very popular event.
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And it's especially true when the person hosting was a Pharisee because the Pharisees claimed a very special place in society.
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I think often when we read the Bible, we read too anachronistically.
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We read back into their culture, our ways.
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And for us, when you hear the word Pharisee, that's bad, right? I mean, you hear somebody call somebody else a Pharisee, that's a negative thing.
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That's a negative tone.
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For us, it means hypocrite.
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It means religious hypocrite.
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Somebody who says one thing and does something else.
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So we hear somebody's eating at a Pharisee's house.
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That's not good.
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But at the time of Jesus, man, that was the highest of the high.
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That was like a Catholic getting to eat at an Archbishop's house or even at the home of the Pope.
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That was a big deal was these Pharisees who would have people over for meals.
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And Jesus had been invited to have this meal with this Pharisee and we're not told the reason why.
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We don't know what the motivation of the Pharisee was.
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John MacArthur, in his commentary on this passage, believes that the Pharisee had a nefarious intention.
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That his desire was to catch Jesus doing something wrong.
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Because, you know, at the time, the Pharisees really didn't like Jesus.
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Jesus was sort of an affront to them and He was kind of pressing in on their power base.
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So the idea was, well, at least MacArthur's thought, was maybe this guy had invited Jesus in as a sort of an entrapment opportunity.
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And sure, that's possible.
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It doesn't tell us in the text.
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So we're sort of having to kind of glean based on what we know about the Pharisees.
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I mean, it could be that this guy was sort of like Nicodemus.
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Nicodemus had a very positive reason for having Jesus and being there.
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So it's really one of those things we can't know for sure.
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We don't know what his intentions were for sure.
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But whether his intentions were noble or nefarious, we know that in the midst of the meal, his opinion about Jesus changes for the worst.
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Whatever he thought about Jesus, it gets worse in the midst of the meal.
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Because he sees Jesus give approval to a sinner.
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He sees Jesus give forgiveness to a sinful woman.
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And any opinion that he might have had positively about Jesus is sort of put out at that point.
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At that moment, when Jesus accepts her touching Him, He's deemed unworthy of being called a prophet.
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No, no, no.
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You're done now.
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Whatever you might have had, whatever positive cred you might have had, and brought into this thing, is now out.
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Like so many in our day, he made a snap judgment with a haughty spirit.
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And he judged her by her appearance and her reputation and what she had done.
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And then he transferred that to Jesus.
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Well, if she's bad and Jesus talks and touches her and allows her to touch Him, then he's bad too.
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Sin by association, guilt by proxy.
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And he stands ready to condemn this woman and not to restore her, not to offer any forgiveness or anything.
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He's just ready to say, you know what, not only is she a sinner, but now Jesus is a sinner simply having her touch Him.
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So that's the scenario that we see in this narrative.
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And what I want us to do, I want us to examine the three people in this situation.
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The three people in this narrative that the Scripture tells us.
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And I want to see how, while the world would keep us ensnared to our guilt, God has set us free to enjoy the peace of forgiveness.
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And I want us to see in these three people, the three people being the woman, the Pharisee, and Christ.
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I want us to see where are we in this story.
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So let's begin by looking first at the penitent sinner.
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This is the woman, the penitent sinner.
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It says in verse 36, One of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table.
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And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner.
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That was her title, everybody knew.
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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, wiped them with her hair, and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.
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We'll stop there at verse 38.
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Consider the scene, kind of get it in your mind, a picture of what's happening.
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Jesus is at the table, and the way that they sat at table was not like us.
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They didn't sit at a three foot high table with a chair, but they had a table that was much lower to the ground, and they would lay down on their side, and they would put their elbow down.
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So they would prop themselves up on their left arm, and eat with their right arm.
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And the idea was to keep the feet back and away, as furthest from the table as you could, because the feet were considered defiled.
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They were what walked through the dust of the day.
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They would have bowls of water that they would use to clean their feet.
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So the idea was to keep the feet away from the table.
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They're defiled, they're dirty, and so you're propped up.
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This is what I call reclining at table.
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And here Jesus is.
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He's reclining with the Pharisee.
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And in comes this woman, and she is not invited.
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That's important.
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She comes in as an uninvited.
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She's a party crasher.
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She just comes in uninvited, unwelcome.
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It would have been uncommon for a woman to be at the meal anyway, because this was a meeting of the men.
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This was just the way society kind of went at that time.
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It would have been uncommon to have a woman there anyway.
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But here the Pharisee in this meeting is having his meeting with Jesus.
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In comes this woman.
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And she wouldn't have been socially acceptable, even if they were allowing women around the table.
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She wouldn't have been acceptable because of who she was.
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She's called a sinner.
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And what's interesting about that is it never says what she did.
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Now, most people and most commentators have assumed that she was a prostitute.
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And the reason why is because that is an easy sin to kind of say, okay, this woman is a sinner because everyone would know her profession.
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And if her profession was a professional fornicator, then that's well known.
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And people would know who she was.
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The text doesn't tell us that though.
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The text only tells us that that's what she was, was a sinner.
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Some people believe this is Mary Magdalene.
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She's introduced to us in Luke chapter 8 as a follower of Jesus.
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So it's possible, but it doesn't say that.
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So there's been a lot in this story that over the years, people have sort of just kind of crammed in there.
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People kind of assume that she was a prostitute.
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They assume it was Mary Magdalene.
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They put all this stuff in there.
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And again, that's not what the text is telling us.
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What we do know is that her sin was public and everybody knew it.
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It was so public that the Pharisee was surprised when he thought Jesus didn't know.
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If this man were a prophet, he would have some sense and sensibility to know that this woman is a sinner.
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Maybe it was the way she had her hair.
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At that particular point in history, the prostitutes would do things into their hair.
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They would weave gold into their hair so as to make themselves more adorning and more attractive.
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And perhaps that was how people knew.
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And how he said Jesus should know who this woman is.
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She's got it all.
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This is who she is.
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If he really were a prophet, he can't tell us about godly things.
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He can't even discern earthly things, is the attitude of the Pharisee.
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And here's the thing about the scenario that really kind of captured me this week as I was studying it and thinking about it.
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Everybody knows that woman's reputation, including her.
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She knew who she was.
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And she did not allow her knowledge of herself to keep her from going to the feet of Christ.
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If anyone knew how bad her reputation was, she knew how bad her reputation was.
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If anybody knew how sinful she was, no one could mark the sin like her.
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She knew herself.
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She knew her sin.
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She knew her guilt.
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And yet, she did not allow the shame and the guilt and the sin to keep her from going to the only one who could fix it.
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See, that's what people often do.
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People know how bad they are.
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You know your sin better than anybody else in the whole world other than God.
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You know your sin.
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I've told this before.
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I've said, you know, if you could take for just a few moments the thoughts of my life and broadcast them on a screen, I probably wouldn't have any friends anymore.
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Because even our thought life...
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And we know how sinful we are even to the core.
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And how much battling we do with sin.
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And this woman knew who she was.
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She knew she needed forgiveness.
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And she knew where to find it.
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And she expressed her repentance in a very physical and a very tangible way.
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It expressed itself in tears.
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MacArthur, quoting someone else, said he called it heart water.
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He said, tears are heart water.
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Because they just flow out of the heart when we're broken over our sin.
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I got to thinking this week about how, you know, we sometimes fake tears.
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I've got kids.
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I've seen fake tears.
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I've got a two year old.
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I've seen gallons of fake tears.
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Even at two years old.
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They know how to fake it.
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They know how to turn on the water.
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To get daddy's attention, get mama's attention.
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But real tears are hard to fake.
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Because real tears are accompanied by countenance.
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It's different.
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The countenance is fallen.
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The face is marred by the weight of the guilt that's bringing about the tears.
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And here she is.
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She's face down.
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Her tears are dripping from her face to the point that it's making a puddle on Jesus' feet.
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And then she took her most precious possession.
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By the way, at this particular time in history, and I know even up until today, women value their hair.
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But at that particular point in time, hair was so precious.
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And for her to take her valuable possession, the hair from on her head, and to begin to sop up the puddle of tears that she had created, and use it almost as a sponge and a towel to wipe clean his feet, which were dirty from the road that he had walked on to get to where he was.
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And she wipes them clean with her hair.
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This is a picture of her repentance.
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She's giving a gift of love.
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She's giving a gift of brokenness at the feet of the Savior.
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She lavishes his feet with kisses, and she anoints his feet with perfume.
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The perfume was in a little bottle.
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They would often keep these little bottles with them.
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They were made where the top would have a very skinny point at the top where it could be broken so that it could be poured out.
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It was a sort of a one-time use thing.
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And it was very special and very precious.
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And they would have this for special occasions.
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And she came in and she broke it, and she poured it on his feet.
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Why? Why did she do this? Because she knew who she was.
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She recognized what Jesus was offering to her.
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And here's the thing.
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We don't know when she found out about Jesus.
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We don't know what led up to her crashing this dinner party.
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We don't know if she heard Jesus the days building up to this situation, preaching in town about forgiveness and faith.
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We don't know how she got to where she was.
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But at some point in her life, at some point, even if maybe she was outside and she was watching this event, and maybe Jesus is talking to Simon the Pharisee, and he's explaining the forgiveness of sins by grace through faith, and she's hearing this, and she knows how desperate she is for grace.
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She knows how desperate she is for forgiveness.
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And at that moment, her heart breaks, and she goes in, not letting anyone hold her back, and she's at the feet of Christ.
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She's crying.
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She's pouring out kisses.
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She's pouring out oil.
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She's pouring out her soul before the Savior.
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And she doesn't care who sees.
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She doesn't care about embarrassment.
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She doesn't care about Simon and what he might think of her.
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He knows he doesn't like her.
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He knows he doesn't have a good opinion of her.
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And she doesn't care, because right now the only person she cares about in the whole world is Christ.
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And she brings herself to his feet, broken and prostrate before him.
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So that's the penitent sinner.
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That's the picture of a woman who knows her sin and knows where to go to deal with it.
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But she's not the only sinner in this story.
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She's not the only sinner in this narrative.
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Because there's another sinner here.
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And we talked about the penitent sinner.
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Penitence is repentance or the brokenness.
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That's where she is.
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She's penitent.
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She's seeking forgiveness at the foot of Christ.
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There's another sinner here though, and I've called him the pious sinner.
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The pious sinner.
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Because guess what? The woman is identified as sinner by title.
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This woman from the city who was a sinner.
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But there's another guy there, who is also a sinner.
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He's so sinful, he's willing to condemn Jesus.
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How bad you got to be? That you're willing to call out the Lord of Glory.
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You're willing to call out the Son of God.
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Because He ain't as good as you.
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See, that's this guy.
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Verse 39, it says, Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, and by the way, that text seems to indicate that he is not saying this loudly.
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He may not even be saying it at all with his words.
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It may be his face that's saying this.
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But this is what he says, 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.
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And again, whether he's mumbling this, whether he's saying it under his breath, whether he's saying it at all with words, or just with his face, that's what everybody knows this guy is absolutely crazed over this situation.
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Horrified.
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Horrified at this.
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It's a beautiful moment.
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What? Isn't it? A broken sinner seeking forgiveness.
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Somebody wants to draw close to God through repentance and faith.
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And yet, the Pharisee is not impressed.
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He's not pleased.
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He's not happy.
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He's angry.
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And so Jesus responds to him in verse 40 and offers a parable.
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And this is why I think I can feel very confident that calling him a sinner is referenced in the text.
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Because Jesus is going to tell a story about two sinners.
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Two debtors.
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One of them is the woman, one of them is the man.
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Notice that neither of them have a clean slate.
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They're both debtors.
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So let's read.
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It says in verse 40, And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you.
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And he answered, Say it, teacher.
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A certain money lender had two debtors.
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One owed 500 denarii.
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That's a day's wage, by the way.
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So 500 days wage.
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You figure a year and a half, a little over.
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500 denarii and the other 50, close to two months wage.
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When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both.
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Now which of them will love him more? Simon answered, The one, I suppose.
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And this is part of the time where you don't hear the inflection.
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So you don't know if he's saying, Well, I suppose.
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Or, Well, I suppose.
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Like a thoughtful or sarcastic, we don't know how he's responding.
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But he's just saying, He doesn't want to answer for certain because he doesn't want to be caught in a trick.
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So he throws out the I suppose as a way of saying, Well, if all things are as you say they are, this is the right way.
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So, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt.
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And Jesus said to him, You have judged rightly.
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Now, that's not a difficult parable to understand.
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I mean, the Pharisee didn't have any trouble with it.
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It's very simple.
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If you have 500 days worth of money, wages, that you owe someone, and the other person only has 50 days or less than two months worth of wage, and both of you come and both of you are given forgiveness, who's going to be most excited? Who's going to be the one who's most happy to receive that debt paid? Well, the person who has the most that he yet owes.
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It's a simple thing.
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It really just bears very little explanation.
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We understand what Jesus is saying.
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It's almost like, you know, if you called the bank tomorrow and you had a car payment due, and you said to the banker, you said, Hey, I don't have enough money this month to pay the bill.
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The banker says, Well, look, we appreciate your working with us, and we're going to just write the debt off and send you the car in the mail, pink slip.
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You'll own the car outright.
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Now, I'm going to ask you, just in that scenario, because all of you are going, Wow, wouldn't that be great.
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In that scenario, if you had 50 payments left, you'd be super excited.
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But if you only had five payments left, you'd still be excited, but not as excited.
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Right? And that's sort of the scenario Jesus is giving here.
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He's saying, Here's a situation where you've got two people.
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One has a 500 denarii debt.
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One has a 50 denarii debt.
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If they both receive forgiveness, who is going to appreciate their forgiveness more? And the Pharisee answered correctly.
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Now, before I go further, I want to very quickly just remind you of something very important in this, because the connection that Jesus is making here is the connection to sin and the sin debt that we have and the forgiveness that God provides.
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One of the things that we often forget is that our sins are not only offensive to God, but our sins put us in debt to God because He now owes us punishment.
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His wrath is demanded toward our sin.
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You might say, well, why? Because He's righteous.
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Because He is just.
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If a criminal is brought before a judge, let's say he's a rapist.
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The rapist is brought before the judge, and the judge looks down at the rapist and he says, I know you're a rapist, I know you did this wrong, but you're free to go.
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What would everyone say? That's an unrighteous judge.
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That judge needs to get kicked off the bench because how could he look in the face of a rapist and not punish him for his sin, for his transgression of the law? The judge has the responsibility to enforce the law.
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Well, beloved, God is the judge of the universe.
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God is the judge of the universe, and when we stand before Him, we stand before Him having broken all of His laws.
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James tells us that if we've broken the law at one point, we've broken the whole law.
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So we stand before God not just as lawbreakers, but we stand before God as the consummate lawbreakers.
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And yet, He is able to forgive.
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Why? Why? Because what does forgiveness mean? This is important.
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The word forgiveness is actually a term which came out of banking and monetary transactions.
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Jimmy, if I loaned you 50 bucks.
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I'm not, but let's say I did.
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Jimmy, I loaned Jimmy 50 bucks.
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Jimmy comes back to me a month later.
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He's supposed to pay me back a month later.
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He comes up and he says, Keith, I don't have the money.
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If I say, Jimmy, you're forgiven.
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What does that mean? That means I take the debt myself.
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When the lender forgives the debt, it becomes his debt, because now I've lost 50 bucks.
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God forgives us, but He still has the wrath that was due that sin.
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What does He do with it? He gives it to Christ.
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The substitute takes the wrath that is owed.
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There's a debt hanging out there for me.
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There's a debt that's got Keith Foskey's name on it.
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Every sin I have ever done or will ever do is there and it is due punishment.
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And Christ offers me forgiveness.
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Why? Because He takes my debt.
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He takes my punishment on Himself.
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That which God should have given to me and would give to me, Christ absorbs it in Himself, as the book of Colossians tells us, nails it to the cross, because Christ becomes sin for us.
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He doesn't become a sinner.
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Christ never became a sinner.
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But the Bible says, he who knew no sin became sin for us, took our sin debt.
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So now let's go back to the story, because what is this parable teaching? Now that we understand how forgiveness works and we understand debt and debtors, this teaches us that the Pharisee is also a sinner.
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The Pharisee was willing to call that woman a sinner.
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He was willing to look down on her as a sinner.
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He was willing to say, you're not even supposed to be in my house.
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You're not even supposed to be touching my guest.
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You're a sinner.
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But he would never designate himself as a sinner.
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He would have never designated himself as such.
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He was a Pharisee.
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He was pious.
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He was a good man.
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He was a religious man.
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And he would never have compared himself to that lowly rabble, but that's what Jesus did.
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And that story, Jesus compared the two.
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And what did He say? He said, Here, you've got the 500 denarii sinner.
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This woman, she knows it.
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She knows her sin.
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She knows every day of her life, every day of her life that she can remember she has been a sinner.
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And she knows she deserves punishment.
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She knows she's incurred a debt she can't pay.
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And yet, you have a debt, and you don't even realize it.
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You have a debt, and you don't even appreciate the forgiveness that's offered for your debt.
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She has shown me precious love.
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And she has shown me nothing but precious love.
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You didn't even give me the normal hospitality.
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You didn't give me anything to wash my feet with when I came here.
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You didn't kiss my cheek, which was a standard greeting of the day.
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You didn't give me anything, any oil to anoint my head, which again was a standard of hospitality.
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You didn't give me any of that.
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But she has given me all.
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Why? Because she was a sinner who knew it, and knew where to go to get forgiveness.
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You're a sinner.
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You don't know it.
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You don't care that you're a sinner.
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And that's worse.
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That is worse.
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Beloved, can I tell you today something very simple? If you're here today, and you're dealing with the guilt of an old sin, you're dealing with the guilt of something that you're carrying with you, let me tell you this.
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If you've brought it to the foot of the cross, if you've given it to Christ, He says, Go in peace.
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Because that's what this text goes to at the very end.
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He says in verse 50, and He said to the woman, Your faith has saved you.
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Go in peace.
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That word there, we don't know what Jesus said, because this is in Greek, and Jesus wasn't speaking Greek, so this is a translation of Jesus' word, but it's a good chance He said the word Shalom.
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Shalom means peace.
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And He said to her, Peace.
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You have peace now.
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If you're carrying sin, if you're carrying something that you've done, and you've brought it to Christ, and you've laid it at the feet of Christ, don't take it back away with you.
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You don't need to.
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You don't need to carry that anymore.
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He has taken it.
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He's taken all the wrath, all the debt that you deserved, all the punishment that was yours, and that you should have received.
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Christ said, I'll take it.
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And He took it all.
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So to you today, I say this, have peace in Christ.
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But there are others, and I would be remiss if I didn't say, there are also Simons.
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There are also Pharisees.
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And your biggest problem is this, it's not that you don't have the peace of forgiveness because you think your sins are so bad.
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You don't have the peace of forgiveness because you don't think your sins are that bad at all.
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So when I look at this scenario, when I look at this situation, I say, you know what? We're all going to end up in one of two places.
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We find ourselves in that woman at the feet of Christ, crying out for forgiveness and receiving the full pardon of sin, or we're going to find ourselves at the plate of Simon looking at Jesus and saying, I don't need that forgiveness you have.
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I don't even care about that forgiveness you have.
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Because I am not that bad.
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Beloved, I don't care if you're a 50 denarii sinner, a 500 denarii sinner, or a 5,000 denarii sinner.
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You are a sinner, and you need Christ.
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And when you come to Christ, and when you give up your self-righteousness, when Jesus said, I didn't come to call the righteous, but I came to call sinners to repentance.
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He was talking about the self-righteous.
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He said, when you give up your self-righteousness, when you give up your claim to any sufficiency and of yourself, when you give that up and you fall down at the feet of Christ, you can know this for certain, that He promises that whoever comes to Him, He will in no way cast out.
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John 6 verse 37, All the Father gives me will come to me, and those who come to me I will in no way cast out.
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Is that you? Have you never been to the foot of the cross? Have you never been to the feet of Christ? Have you never seen your own sin? And the desperate need you have for forgiveness, is that you? I call you to repentance.
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I call you to faith.
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I call you to the foot of the cross.
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And I call you to leave your sins there and to go in peace.
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Let's pray.
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Father, it is so easy for us to find ourselves in the place of Simon.
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To find ourselves as those who see goodness within ourselves, rather than seeing nothing in ourselves but a need for forgiveness.
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God, I pray.
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I pray that an overwhelming sense of peace would overcome all of us who have the need for peace, and that we would find that peace through repentance and faith.
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Father, I know there are those who still harbor the pain of former sins.
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I pray that you would give them the confidence to leave their sins at the foot of the cross, to know that they have forgiveness, and to go in peace.
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And Father, I know also that there are some like Simon who don't feel the need.
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They don't see their desperate condition.
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And I pray that they would step out of that self-righteousness, and that they would bow to Christ and recognize that even one sin would be worthy of condemnation.
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And yet, none of us can boast having only one sin.
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Help us, Father, to find the way to the foot of the cross by the power of your Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name.
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Stand and we'll sing together.
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And if you have a need for prayer, or for me to pray with you, please come.