The One Who Forgives What Others Won't Forget (Derik Fuller) | Who Is Jesus?

Good morning. Sure.

It's no matter where you're joining us from.

If you braved the weather and maybe you have all-wheel drive,

you're hoping you can get out of here today.

Good to have you here. I'm I'm praying we don't have to

worry about that. I don't know.

It was like I came in this morning and and there was no

lines on the parking lot. So I hope everybody was able to

navigate that together, but so glad that you're here with us or

joining us online. Turn to Luke Chapter 7, verse

Luke 7:36

36. This is week number four of our

series Who is Jesus? And it is I just want to say

it's always a privilege to be able to preach.

It's always a privilege to spend time during the week to open up

God's word to learn, you know, the first person that a sermon

ever gets preached to is myself. Anything I ever say up here, if

it's worth listening to is something that the Holy Spirit

has been working on my heart in first and this series

especially, you know, every series I I get excited about,

but this series especially, like I, I don't even care what it's

been doing for you. It's because in my heart, man, I

get, I've been so excited every one of these weeks to just get

back in to the word of God, to start into a new weeks.

Because usually I come out of here and I'll be frank, I'm

exhausted on a Sunday and I want to have a nap.

But I find myself just wanted to get back in and see what we're

going to learn about Jesus next week.

To be reminded of just how incredible he is, how unique he

is. To be reminded of how much I

love him and how much he loves me.

And even though I am the one who designs these series, I have

every week just been like surprised to see what we're

going to see about Jesus. The goal every Sunday for me,

and I would say for all of us who have the privilege of

preaching at any of our sites at Forward Church is this, that we

together would see Jesus, that when we worship together, that

we would meet with God, that the Holy Spirit would help us to see

who God is a little bit more clearly.

And in order to do that, this Sunday as I was working through

and the Holy Spirit was working on me, prompting me as to how to

unpack this passage together, I just really felt the Holy Spirit

saying, hey, this Sunday needs to be a little bit different

than I would regularly preach. So what we're going to do is

we're going to take a lot of the time this morning to just really

live in this story. I, I want us to step into it.

I want us to put ourselves in the room to see what's going on

through the eyes of the characters that are there.

And then after we've gone through that and we've really

kind of been there, then we're going to unpack some

implications for us. So let me just pray that the God

would help us to see what he wants us to see about himself

and about us and to live in this story this morning.

God, as we open up your Word, we are grateful that you have chose

to reveal yourself to us through it, and that you've revealed to

chosen to reveal yourself to us through the Word made flesh who

dwelt among us through Jesus. Help us to see you for who you

are. Help us to see Jesus this

morning, to have fresh eyes as we look at this passage and to

be overcome by the reality of who Jesus is, who we are, what

you've done for us. I pray this in his mighty name,

Amen. All right, let's let's just

start reading verse 36. Then one of the Pharisees

invited him to eat with him. He entered the Pharisees house

and reclined at the table. So this is the setting.

There's a Pharisee, we're going to find out his name was Simon

and he has invited Jesus and we can assume some of Jesus's

closest disciples who are with him along over into the house.

Now I think it's probably important that we define some

words and some reality. Maybe you've been in church for

a long time and you you just automatically understand that

word Pharisee, what it means. But that's not true for many of

us. And So what is a Pharisee?

What does it mean that Jesus that Luke tells us there's a

Pharisee who invites Jesus over? Well, a Pharisee, that word

likely comes from the Hebrew word, which translates separate

because this is a, a group of people who believe that it is so

incredibly important that the Jewish people separate

themselves and distinguish themselves from the Gentile

culture, the Roman Greek culture around them and from the impact

of that culture and, and, and how it would sway them away from

faithfulness as Jews. They, they believed that the big

problem, and you can look back and you can see why they

understood this and they're not wrong in it.

That a huge problem in in Jewish culture throughout the totality

of it was that too much of foreign cultures, foreign gods,

foreign habits would creep in and move them away from

faithfulness to the one true God and faithfulness to the Torah,

to his law, which he had commanded them to follow.

And these particular, this particular psych, this

particular group believes that the law is encompassed not only

in the the Torah, the written word of God handed down through

the ages, that which we would now call the Old Testament, but

there it is always, it is also passed along through verbal and

oral laws and traditions that have been gathered up.

And they saw themselves then as the real Jews, the true Jews,

the faithful followers of God. Now he invites Simon the

Pharisee, who belongs to this group of people.

He invites Jesus over. And he could have invited Jesus

over for a couple of different reasons.

It's not specified, although I think we're going to see as we

walk into this story, a little bit of what the heart of Simon

likely was in this. But the first reason he just

could have been curious about Jesus.

Jesus had obviously made a name for himself through what he was

doing, through both his teaching and his healings and his

miracles. And Simon probably at least to

some extent, wants to find out more about this Jesus.

And so has he's in the area. He invites Jesus to come on over

for supper. He also, and I think this is

probably also likely part of what's going on.

He's probably looking for some additional evidence that Jesus

is not all who he claims to be. You know, we've already had

encounters in the book of Luke. If you've been tracking whether

you can go back to Luke 521, a group of these Pharisees already

decided this Jesus guy, he's a heretic, he's a blasphemer.

Remember back in Luke 521, they're aghast because Jesus has

said to a paralyzed man not just get up and walk, but your sins

are forgiven. And so my best guess that what

is going on here and what I think we see in the passage is

that this is a guy who is skeptical of Jesus but also

wants to appear to have an open mind.

Maybe you've encountered people like this before.

One of the things that I thought about is, you know, I have some

people in my life who would, and some of you will understand

this, fit the typical mold of a diligent Toronto Star reader who

also occasionally go to the dark side and read Rebel News so that

they can say that they're looking at both sides of

something. And I also have people who fit

the definition the other way. They are regular Rebel News

readers who occasionally go to the dark side and read the

Toronto Star. Most of the time those people go

to one side or the other just to find some arguments to prove

what they already believe. Deep down, I think this guy is

thinking, man, this guy, he's a blasphemer.

And he's, as we saw last week, a group of Pharisees say he's a no

good friend of tax collectors and sinners.

But I'm going to prove that for myself.

So Jesus, come on over. And so it says that it's

evening, they've gathered together and they're reclining

at the table. And, and I need you to, to, to

see this, to picture this, OK, because, because you need to see

the, the way the room would have been.

So there would have been a table laid out here with the food on

it, probably, you know, maybe knee high and you would have had

some raised beds, cushions around this table.

And, and, and the meal would have had these individuals,

probably some of Simon's friends, some of Jesus's

disciples, but Jesus and Simon in particular with candlelight

in the room. It's dark in the evening, food

on the table. And they're leaning when it says

they're reclining at the table. Their feet are back towards the

edges of the room and they're in the center of the room leaning

in and leaning on an elbow and eating off the table.

Because remember, it's dusty and gross.

There's not showers and everything, and so you want to

keep your dirty feet as far from the table as possible.

Plus these guys, when they have a meal, it's an event.

Now, the fullers are very fast eaters.

I am the fastest of the fullers. I know this, like you can put a

meal down for me sometimes when we're at the restaurant, you

know how like 5 minutes later, the waiter waitress comes back

around to ask how your meal is for me.

They're asking how was your meal?

It's done. So this is foreign to me.

But when I've been in the Middle East, I know this.

I'm prepared for an event. We're going to spend a long time

sitting around chatting and eating.

And especially in a time where there's no electronics, right?

There's, there's no phones, there's no televisions, there's

no screen. This is what is going to occupy

your even in fact, this might be the most interesting thing you

get to do for a month. You have a visiting rabbi and

teacher in. And so the doors of the home,

because you're going to wonder in a second, how does this other

character enter in? The doors of the home would have

been left wide open with this person of interest in the

community. Simon would have left his doors

wide open to allow people to filter in and hear the

conversation that's taking place over the course of the evening.

This is a public conversation with the visiting teacher.

It is both education and entertainment.

It's edutainment. OK, so they're sitting there,

they're discussing by candlelight, they're having

their meal, people are filtering into the room, others are

joining them. And Luke is now going to

introduce us to one particular person who enters the room,

verse 37, and a woman in the town who was a Sinner found out

that Jesus was reclining at the table in the Pharisees house.

Luke tells us there's an intruder into the edges of the

room steps a woman. And not just any woman.

He tells us exactly who this woman is.

It's a woman who Simon would have never formally himself

invited into the house. There is no way that if Simon

knew she was going to be coming, he would keep the door open for

her because this woman was a Sinner.

In fact, the Greek word here that starts and in Greek would

actually read more like and behold, because what what Luke

wants us to see is that what is about to happen is startling.

It's shocking. He wants to emphasize that a

Sinner someone someone who polite society would rightfully

recognize as disgraceful and shameful, and for a Pharisee to

have somebody who was that unclean enter the house would be

to make their house unclean. Never could they be associated

with this person. Most likely.

Best guess, and what tradition tells us, is that this woman was

a local prostitute. But whatever it was, the idea

that she was a Sinner is to say this is who everyone saw her to

be. That is her identity.

If you were to look at her, the first thing that everybody in

town, every local would know is she's a Sinner.

It is not hidden. It is her public identity.

She's notorious and she brought an alabaster jar of perfume.

She stood behind him, that is Jesus at his feet, weeping,

began to wash his feet with her tears.

She wiped his feet with her hair, kissing them and anointing

them with the perfume. The intruder now leads to the

scandal of the moment. This unwelcome, unclean woman

slips in amidst the shadows again.

I want you to picture this because we don't think this way.

But there is no electricity. The only light in the room

likely would have been those lights from the candles on the

table for those who are participating in the meal.

And so it's dark outside. It's supper.

The nights got long. And so in the evenings, as

people have crept in, it's easy to kind of slide in anonymously

into the shadows. This woman has slipped in, and

she's been brought with her an alabaster jar of perfume.

It says, now, alabaster. What is alabaster?

It was a very expensive form of marble from Egypt.

And within this marble vase was perfume, which tells us this is

a very expensive item, a luxury item.

And she had come to see this Jesus.

But I think it's going to be obvious from the story as we

move forward. She comes to see Jesus not

because she doesn't know who Jesus is, because she does.

She's met Jesus before. She'd come to bring him a gift

to honor him, not so that he would do something for her, but

because she was convinced he already had.

She'd heard him. She had been one of those

amongst the crowds that Jesus continually drew amongst

himself, who listened to him preach, who listened to the

gospel that he shared, and who believed what he said, who

repented. And in her gratitude towards

Jesus and what she believed Jesus had already done for her,

she had resolved herself to overcome what must have been

terrifying. Again, she knows whose house

she's going into. She knows how people see

herself, and she has decided that despite her fear and

despite her shame, despite the fact that she would be the most

unwelcome of guests, she needed to honor Jesus, to see Jesus so

much that she would bear all that to come in and bring him

this precious gift. And so she comes in and when she

sees the Jesus whom she is so grateful for, she can't stop

herself. I, I love the fact that my wife

was up here and just had this moment of being overcome.

It's a small glimpse into what this woman experiences when she

meets Jesus again, when she sees and when she sees the count one

that she's come to honor, she's just completely overcome.

It says that she began to wash his feet with her tears.

What Luke is telling us is that her tears just start raining out

of her eyes. She starts bawling.

She starts sobbing is literally in the Greek text.

It's the idea like that faucets have been opened and, and I

don't know if you know this. I know this because I'm an

expert at making messes. My wife is laughing over there

dust and water. They create a mess.

They create a mess. And so she she can't help her.

So she starts crying. But remember, she's crying on

his dusty, dirty feet because as we're going to see in a moment,

Simon didn't do anything to clean up his feet.

So his feet are filthy. The water's pouring out now.

It's making a mess. It's getting all muddy and

yucky. And so she just responds by just

taking her hair and washing those feet.

And then she takes that perfume that she's brought and she just

pours it on his feet. It is absolutely in every way

completely undignified. It says she keeps kissing his

feet. This idea of I mean, again to in

Middle Eastern culture to this day, it is a deep sign of

affection. Her heart is overcome with love

and affection for Jesus and she doesn't care.

She doesn't care how it looks. She doesn't care how undignified

it is. She doesn't care that,

especially given how many see her in this room, it's going to

be viewed as completely immoral. It's become an absolute

spectacle and scandal in the room and everybody begins to

notice. And then we read when the

Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, this

man, if he were a prophet, would know what kind of woman this is

who is touching him. She's a Sinner.

The scandal leads Simon to an accusation.

Jesus can't possibly be who he claims to be, who others say he.

He can't possibly claim to speak for God.

If he had any of the type of connection that he claims he has

to God, he would never allow this woman to do this.

Now, there's two things I think you need to notice in this

moment. First, this is not necessarily

probably the accusation that you and I would expect to be

levelled about someone who has a prostitute kissing their feet in

public, pouring out perfume onto them.

I think it speaks volumes to the character of Jesus just in

general, that Simon wasn't thinking there's something going

on between these two. There's something happening

here. Instead we see this.

Simon Says, no, he can't be a prophet.

He can't be a problem because he he doesn't know who she is.

Not he does know who she is. He doesn't know who she is.

The second thing you need to see is this, Simon said to himself.

He said to himself, Simon's accusation is never verbalized

out loud, it's internal. And that's what makes what

happens next so so astonishing and actually self defeating to

Simon's original accusation. Because Jesus is about to show

not only does he know the thoughts of God, he knows the

thoughts of Simon. Jesus replied to him.

In response to Simon's thoughts, Jesus speaks, because Jesus

knows what's in the the mind and the heart of Simon without him

ever having to say it. He said Simon, I have something

to say to you. He said say it teacher.

A creditor had two debtors, 1 owed 500 denarii, the other 50,

and since they could not pay it back, he graciously forgave them

both. So which of them will love him

more? Simon answered.

And I think he's kind of hedging his bets here because he doesn't

want to get tricked by Jesus. I suppose the one he forgave

more. You have judged correctly, he

told him. Here we get the response, the

response to Simon's internal accusation.

Jesus tells Simon something that we call a parable.

A parable is simply this. It's a an earthly and earthy

story that's meant to communicate a heavenly, eternal

truth. He says, you know, there was a

an individual who was owed money by two people whom he had lent

money out to. One person he lent money out to,

they owed him what would be today the equivalent of about a

year and a half's wages for the average worker.

The other still owed a significant chunk.

It was approximately 2 months wages.

And this man forgives both the people who owed him money, not

because of anything they did. They weren't entitled to any

type of forgiveness. He out of his grace bore the

cost and forgave them. Let me ask you something, Simon.

Which of those two, the one who had a year and a half's worth of

wages, or the one who had two months worth of wages which,

which one do you think had a greater love for the one who

forgave them, who paid their debts?

Which one do you think had greater gratitude in their

hearts? The answer, of course, was that

it was the one who had been forgiven more.

Simon knew that and he pointed out and Jesus said, you got it

right, Simon, absolutely. I'm not trying to trick you.

Just think about that. That's a simple principle.

The greater the forgiveness, Jesus says, the greater the

love, the more it is understood the extent of what has been

forgiven, the more a heart would be moved.

And so now Jesus is going to take this and he's going to

apply this truth to the current situation that's going on in the

home with both Simon and the woman.

Turning to 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 with her tears has washed my feet and wiped them

with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she

hasn't stopped kissing my feet since I came in.

You didn't anoint my head with olive oil, but she is anointed

my feet with perfume. Therefore, I tell you her many

sins have been forgiven. That's why she loved much.

But the one who's forgiven little loves little.

Simon may have invited Jesus to come over to his house out of a

sense of curiosity or duty. Whatever it was, he definitely

gives no sign that he's grateful that Jesus has come.

He hasn't even done what would be expected in having an honored

guest into your house. A guest you would have respected

would have had his feet washed when he walked in, a guess that

you had any type of affection and welcome for that you wanted

people to know. I'm glad he's in my home.

You would receive him with a kiss.

A guest who was honored in any way in that setting, in that

time would have had some olive oil placed on his head to anoint

him. See, Simon didn't just forget to

honor Jesus when he came. It wasn't like, oh man, forgot

about that. Now he he withheld it, he

withheld it on purpose. And then Jesus says in

comparison, this woman, she comes in, she doesn't have any

water. It's not her home.

She washes his feet with her tears.

She doesn't have a towel at the door to clean off his feet.

So she uses her hair, doesn't put olive oil on it.

She goes to the to the the most disgusting part of the body in

that day, the feet, and she pours out the most expensive

gift she could bring to anoint him.

She esteemed him so much. She had such affection for him.

Her heart was so moved by him that she couldn't keep herself

from kissing his feet. There was a world of difference

in how these two people saw Jesus, and Jesus is saying,

because there's a world of difference in how you see me and

see yourself. The difference boiled down to

what they believed about what Jesus had done by being present,

what they believed, what Jesus would do or had done for them,

and what they believed about themselves.

The difference was not in their need for forgiveness.

This is really important. They both needed forgiveness to

equal measure. Simon was every bit in need of

forgiveness is the Sinner. The difference is that this

Sinner, a woman, knew who she was.

She recognized the need and because of that, she had come to

a point where she had received the forgiveness that Jesus

offers. In receiving forgiveness, the

proof that she had previously been forgiven shows up by the

fact that she comes and she loves him.

She loves Jesus because she understands the magnitude of

what Jesus had done for her. Simon, on the other hand, when

Jesus comes in, displays little love for Jesus because he had

never come to a point of receiving forgiveness from

Jesus. Then he said to her, your sins

are forgiven. Those who are at the table with

him began to say amongst themselves, who is this man who

even forgive sins? We've actually gone from a

scandal to an even greater scandal.

You thought it was scandalous to have a prostitute washing the

feet of Jesus with her tears and her hair and kissing them and

pouring perfume on them. You want to know something more

scandalous? When a man claims to forgive

sins, when Jesus says your sins are forgiven, he is claiming

something that only one person has the authority to do.

God, God and God alone has the ability and the prerogative and

the purview to forgive sins. So Jesus making a very clear

declaration of who he understands himself to be.

And when Jesus says your sins are forgiven, he's confirming

again, I need you to connect this and see this.

What had already taken place, right?

Jesus already said her many sins had been forgiven.

She came to the house forgiven already.

She responded with love and affection towards Jesus, not in

order to get her sins forgiven. She responded out of the the

reality that she already knew and understood that her sins had

been forgiven. Jesus is just making known the

truth to this whole room with this woman already knew in her

heart she'd been forgiven. Now he's making it clear I

already forgave her. And then Luke ends this

encounter with a final statement by Jesus.

He said to the woman, your faith has saved you.

Go in peace. It wasn't the sacrifice made to

Jesus that saves her. It was her faith in what Jesus

had already done for her, right? Your faith has saved you because

you already believed that you were forgiven.

And your faith is proven by the fact that you came here to honor

me in this way. The faith that she had been

forgiven was evidenced by the deep love that she had for the

one who had forgiven her. That's what Jesus wants us to

see here. And the result of that is

salvation, because salvation is received through faith, not by

what we do, but faith in what Jesus has already done.

And that faith leads to peace, the assurance that she is saved,

the absence of the shame that she has lived so much of her

life with the confidence of knowing both of those things.

She is saved, she is forgiven, she is redeemed, and she has no

shame. So what does that mean for us?

Two things. One, Jesus can and will forgive

your sins. There.

Is this the point of this story? If you get nothing else to know

this, there is no sin and no Sinner that is beyond the grace

of Jesus Christ, beyond His ability to forgive.

In fact, if you need to know one thing, if I was to ask you what

is the most dangerous sin one could commit, you probably come

up with a whole different list of things.

I think what Jesus would say to us through the story is the most

dangerous sin that anyone could commit is the sin of self

righteousness because that's the sin of Simon.

It's the sin that keeps you from believing that you need a

savior. It's the sin that keeps you from

believing that you need forgiveness.

And the Sinner that fails to see their need for forgiveness can

never be forgiven. In his parable to Simon, Jesus

said since they could not pay it back, he graciously forgave

them. Paul uses that same word that is

translated here as graciously forgave in Romans 832.

Zach same word. He uses it to describe what what

God does for us through Jesus. Where he says he did not spare

his own son but gave him up for us all graciously forgave and

gave him up. Zach, same word in the Greek.

It's just the context of how the sentence works that allows us to

translate. But Paul knows what he's doing

as he shares this. God can graciously forgive us

because Jesus willingly gave himself up for us on the cross

so that everything that we have done and all the sins that we

have committed were paid for and credited to the to him.

So any debtor can be forgiven because there is no length or

amount of sin that Jesus blood doesn't cover.

Jesus, who alone does not deserve death, who alone lived a

perfect and holy life, dies on the cross, the death that

sinners deserve, so that any Sinner can be forgiven.

That's the gospel. That's the good news.

Forgiveness is available for all who have faith in this reality,

who believe it to be true that Jesus died to forgive me.

Have you trusted in Jesus and in Jesus alone for the forgiveness

of your sins? Not Jesus plus anything else

that you've done. Not Jesus plus your resume,

Jesus plus the good things that you've done, Jesus plus your

religious activities, The death of Jesus alone.

The blood of Jesus alone saves. And it is the only thing that

can save. Because here's the promise.

It's the same promise that was there for this woman.

This Sinner is the same promise that's true for all of us

sinners. If you call out to him in this

very moment, not just you can be saved, but you will be saved.

Your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven.

Go in peace. You now get to walk with the

confidence of knowing you're forgiven.

The shame, the things that anybody and everybody else can't

forget about, you have been forgiven by Jesus Christ.

Wash clean. The second thing is this, the

proof that we have been forgiven is a love for Jesus.

The proof that you actually have been forgiven, that you get

this, that you believe this, that your faith is there, not

just some intellectual ascent, but that your heart knows this

to be true. The people often ask me, how can

I know that I've been forgiven? Well, the first answer is, if

you've called out to Jesus for forgiveness of sins, you're

forgiven. The way that you know that you

have received that forgiveness is it results in a heart that is

moved towards love. Jesus says this himself in John

1415. If you love me, if your heart is

moved towards me, if you've understood forgiveness in your

life, you will obey my commandments.

And that the key to being more obedient is to understand in

greater and greater measure the love that Jesus has for you.

It's not to try harder. It's to believe more that you

are so loved and so forgiven. And a love for God, Jesus tells

us, is inextricably linked with the love for others.

The way our love for God works itself out is that we love

others. I just want to put a plug for

our Just Open the Door women's study.

If Jesus, if you believe Jesus welcomes you in with

hospitality, if he greets you and accepts you as you are and

brings you in not just into his home but into the family of God,

the result would be that you in greater and greater measure will

be a person of hospitality. You will invite people in.

You will bring them in not just into your home for a dinner, but

into your life. And the more that you think that

you don't need that, the deeper your need for it is.

Listen, we have to be people who are shaped by love.

The more we understand the love that Jesus had for us, the more

we understand that forgiveness, the more we understand that

welcome, The more we understand that grace.

It moves us to forgiveness and grace and welcome, because the

more you understand grace, the more gratitude grows.

Why is she so overcome? She's so overcome because she

knows how great the forgiveness is.

Is your heart moved to grace? Is it moved to gratitude?

Is it moved to love? Is it moved to mercy?

Is it moved to forgiveness? I'm so sick of looking at

Christians who are angry and bitter, who are unwelcoming, who

hate the stranger and the foreigner.

You are not a follower of Jesus. That is not the way of Jesus.

We have all sorts of different conversations about how this all

works itself out in the political sphere.

That's not for me to determine. But if your heart is cold

towards people created in the image of God, you've got a

problem in your heart. You need Jesus to step into it.

There's a reason that you have never, and I have never written

a thank you letter to a landlord or a bank when you've paid a

bill on time because you've just gotten what you deserved.

When they pay off your bill or allow you to stay in the home.

But how would you respond if someone came up to you today and

told you your entire mortgage was paid off, your rent was

covered for life, your credit card bills were wiped clean and

could never be racked up again? What would your heart do?

How would you see that person? I want us to take some time here

just at the end, and I want us to respond.

I want you to just again, let's, let's just close our eyes, see

you and God. I want you to 1st think about

this. Where do you need to receive the

forgiveness Jesus offers? This is something in your past

you haven't been able to let go yourself.

You're holding yourself to a standard refusing to forgive

yourself of something that Jesus has died on the cross to forgive

you of. If Jesus has forgiven you, if he

set you free, you are free indeed.

Don't carry that burden anymore. Don't carry that shame.

Is there something maybe even today where you just recognize,

hey, I wasn't walking in the way of Jesus, my heart wasn't

aligned? This is the great news.

Jesus forgives and forgives and forgives and forgives.

The entirety of what he does is he forgives us and he never runs

out of forgiveness. Maybe it's the sin of self

righteousness in your life today.

I know there's been lots of times in my life where I've

talked about the other, that person, the person who's done

things that need Jesus forgiveness more than I do.

Repent to that you need. There is no hope for you apart

from the blood of Jesus. There's no hope for anybody.

The ground is level at the foot of the cross.

As you take that to Jesus, He's saying, I forgive you, you're

forgiven, you're washed clean, go in peace.

Now here's what I want you to do.

I just want you to cry out to God with thanks for the

forgiveness that you've received.

He did not owe it to you. Nothing that you have ever done

has earned his forgiveness. He loved you so much that he

died so that you could be forgiven of everything, all of

it. What type of love would do such

a thing? What type of gratitude and love

which should we have for someone who has done such a thing?

Father, I just confessed. There's so many times in my life

where I have failed to receive the forgiveness that you've

offered. And I've carried a burden that

was no longer mine to carry, carried shame that wasn't mine

to carry. It's been lots of other times,

Father, where I felt like I could just kind of pay you back

for what I had done. Just work a little harder, try

and be a little better instead of just taking it to you and

knowing this is a debt I can't repay and receiving the

forgiveness that was given God. There's been other times where

I've looked at somebody around me and felt in some way that I

was superior to them, better to better than them, less in need

than them. Of your grace and mercy and

forgiveness in my life. God, I'm so sorry for being

Simon. I want to have the heart of the

woman. I'm a Sinner.

Want to wash your feet with my tears?

Break our hearts, God, break our hearts.

And then help us to hear what you said to her.

Our sins are forgiven. Go in peace.

Let's sing to God together. Let's raise our voices to him

together. Praise the one who forgives what

others can't forget the one who brings us back to life.