Luke The Orderly Account of Truth - The True Weight of Sin - Luke 7:36-50

God, we thank you for tonight. We thank you for this opportunity to

open your word. God. We pray that our ears are open, our

minds are open, and our hearts are open to receive from you. Today.

We receive your words only, not none of my words or any other

words, but just what you want to say tonight. God. So I

pray that you just pierce our hearts like you do every time we open your

word, and that we are able to understand it and know how we can

apply it to our lives. So we thank you for all this in Jesus

name, everybody said a men. Okay. We've been in a series called

Luke The Orderly Account of Truth. We're going verse by verse through the Book

of Luke looking at his investigated account of the life and the works of Jesus

Christ. And the cool thing is is his account that he took gives us

the opportunity to know the exact truth about who Jesus is and what he taught.

So it's not just that he wrote it forth day Offlus, but we

get the benefit of being able to know the exact truth about Jesus as well

as we are another one of his audiences. We got to look at the

contrast between the heart of John's question to Jesus when he asked Jesus a question

and the people's hearts in how they treated John and Jesus. Is this feeding

back? I don't know. It sounds weird to me. Perfect Okay,

I got some. I got this. That's a that's a good sign.

I don't know how to fix that, Rath, that's up to you.

But last week, that's what we were talking about. We got to see

the difference between doubt and disbelief. That there is a big difference. When

we have moments of uncertainty and doubt. What do we do with that?

We never ignore it. What we do is we grab it, We bring

it to our chests, and we deal with it right. We don't ignore

those doubts. That our cure for doubt that we talked about last week,

the cure for doubt is this to pray and ask God to settle our doubts.

That's the first step. The next step would be to read his word

to note is true, because He's given us to truth in his word,

so our doubts oftentimes come from us believing something as now true, and he

gives us his truth. And the last step is in trust his guidance to

the Holy Spirit, because the Living God, for those who have profess faith

in Jesus Christ, the Living God resides in you. The Holy Spirit lives

in you. So trust in His guidance as you're walking through and navigating these

doubts. But then on that disbelief side, and we have moments of stubborn

and rebellious disbelief, the thing we need to remember is that God is God

and we are not. We are not God, He is, and that

we would in response to that repent and believe. That's what we would do

when we see this stubborn, rebellious and disbelief pop up in our lives.

If you did miss the messages on YouTube, you should go check it out.

I was challenged as I was preaching it. So but this week we're

going to pick it back up in Luke chapter seven, starting in verse thirty

six. So grab your Bible and start turning there. If you don't have

a Bible, we have some at the resource table out there. The Connected

team can hook you up. We want you to have the Bible, So

if you don't own one, take it. It's your gift. It's a

gift for you. We love the Bible, we love God's word. We

So everyone understands debt, right, Yeah, all of us, probably at

some point in our life have accrued or attained some form of debt. Maybe

it was when you bought your first car. You had some debt associated with

your first car. Or maybe when you got your credit card and didn't fully

understand what a thirteen point five percent interest rate does on minimum payments, or

what about thirteen I know, sorry, my first credit card is thirteen point

five percent spilling my dirty airing my dirty laundry there. Or maybe you've purchased

a home so you have a home loan, or maybe there's something less extreme,

like you borrow five bucks from a friend to pay for something. Right,

But we all understand debt to some agree. We all understand this concept

of debt that you owe somebody something and you got to pay him back.

But my point is, how how we feel about that debt changes based upon

the amount. Right, how we feel about the are that debt that we

are owing somebody change is based on the amount of the debt. It's changes

based on how much we actually owe. So owing your friend five bucks doesn't

feel so bad, right, But how do we feel about paying or owing

five hundred thousand dollars for a house? Feels a little different, right,

But what happens if all of a sudden, somebody told you that you didn't

owe them anything anymore, Okay, that the debt is completely removed, that

somebody paid it for you. Well, if you only owed five bucks and

the friends like, I don't worry about paying me back, You're like,

it feels pretty good. That's nice. But what if the bank called you

and all of a sudden said, oh, you don't have to worry about

paying back that five hundred thousand dollars. It's been taken care of for you.

That's completely different. I'm throwing a house party. Everyone's coming over,

and everyone's going to celebrate because I don't owe anything on my house anymore.

That feels a little different, doesn't it? Difference between the five dollars or

the five hundred thousand dollars, Our reaction is different, or we feel differently

based on the amount of debt that we owed. That was forgiven. And

so today what we're gonna do is we're actually gonna read about a woman who

had some debt that was removed, and we will see that based on how

she reacted, just how much debt that she actually had. And so today's

message is called this the true weight of sin. It's kind of heavy,

it's gonna be great. The true weight of sin. There is a proper

perspective that we should have regarding our own sin and just how much it weighs.

And I think that Jesus is going to help us see that today.

Guys, ready on the text Luke, chapter seven, starting in verse thirty

six, Let's read our text. When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to

have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisees house and reclined at the

table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life, learned that

Jesus was eating at the Pharisees house, so she came there with an hour

alibast jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet, weeping,

she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them

with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them. When the

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

man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind

of woman she is that she's a sinner. Jesus answered him, Simon,

I have something to tell you. Tell me, teacher, He said,

two people owed money to a certain money lender. One owed him five hundred

denari and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him

back, So we forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will

love him more? Simon replied, Suppose the one who had the bigger debt

forgiven. You have judged correctly, Jesus said. Then he turned toward the

woman and said to Simon, do you see this woman. I came into

your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but

she wet my feet with her tears and wipe them with her hair. You

did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I

entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on

my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I

tell you her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love is shown.

But whoever has been forgiven little loves little. Then Jesus said to her

your sins are forgiven. The other guests began to say among themselves, who

is this who even forgives sins? Jesus said to the woman, your faith

has saved you go in peace. I think Jesus is shooting pretty straightforward on

this one, which is really helpful because I'm not that smart, so I

need help understanding what he's saying. Sometimes he's making it not too terribly hard

to understand kind of what his point is here. But I think what the

biggest part of today is going to be a challenge of perspective. That's what

is going to be what it's going to be today. I think a g

Jesus, what he would have us do is to see our sin debt for

what it actually is, to see how much it truly weighs. And it's

only then do I think that we will react and respond appropriately or in proportion.

So let's look at those first few verses. Go back to verse thirty

six. Please, When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with

him, he went to the Pharisees' house and reclined at the table. A

woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at

the Pharisees' house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.

As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his

feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them,

and poured perfume on them. So what Luke is doing right here is

he's setting a scene. Right, He's setting a scene on what's going on.

Jesus was invited to come to the Pharisees' house for dinner. And because

we just read the full text, we know the name of this Pharisee is

Simon. Right, Simon is the name of this Pharisee. And the Pharisees

were the religious leaders of the day. They were the ones the Jewish people

look to for guidance, the ones they were told to imitate to be like.

This is who you should be like. If you're striving to be a

person of God, this is who you should be like. But the Pharisees

were also the ones that Jesus was constantly and consistently rebuking. What weren't they

slot right? So if they were the ones they were told to follow,

but you see Jesus rebuking them. We have to reconcile that. But if

that's the relationships relationship that Jesus had with some of the Pharisees, why would

Simon, a Pharisee, invite Jesus to his house for dinner? And I

think Jesus not. I think we read in scripture and see that Jesus was

oftentimes invited to gatherings with pharisees because they were trying to trap him and condemn

him in his words or catch him sinning. Right, Oftentimes that's what they

were trying to do. The Pharisees would try to get Jesus, catch Jesus

sliping, but Jesus is no punk, never catch him slipping. But it's

not too like absurd to think that Simon might have had not the purest of

intentions or motives in inviting Jesus over. There's potential to think that maybe he

was inviting him over to do the same thing, to trap him. And

the reason I wanted to point this out is because the Pharisees are the ones

that thought that when it came to following God, that they were just nailing

it. They're like, I'm nailing it as it comes to following God.

They thought that they were the standard of righteousness, and then they might not

say it out loud. I'm sure they had days we're like, man,

I did so good, I'm sinless today they might even have thought that.

And we're we're just painting a picture. Who's here, where Jesus is at?

What's going on? Jesus is invited to the house of a man,

probably trying to catch him sinning, all the while thinking he had no sin

of his own. And Jesus shows up and reclines at the table. And

we have to take a pause here to talk about reclining at the table,

because that's not a normal thing that we deal with in our culture. Back

then, in that time, in that area of the world or that part

of the world, the tables are a little different than here in the good

old US. They they weren't tall tables with chairs like you know, like

a table here have a chair that you'd sit up against it. They were

actually much lower tables, and they'd have couches around the table that you would

lean. You would sit on those couches and lean on a table like with

one elbow and your feet are out here, right, he got your rather

hand free to snack and eat, and you're like zep Simon. You know,

you'd have conversations across the table. So it wasn't the same way that

we're sitting at our tables today. And the reason this is helpful to understand

is because what the text says. If Jesus was sitting in a chair,

he had a table and somehow a woman appears behind her and all of a

sudden she's crying on his feet, doesn't make sense. But when you see

this picture of laying on a table and his feet are away from the table,

well, all of a sudden, this makes a whole lot more sense

with a woman standing behind Jesus, reclining to the table, doing all this

stuff. So my whole point in that is cultural context matters, right,

it helps us understand what the Bible's saying. So that's what That's how the

woman approached Jesus. That's how she stood behind him at his feet, and

we can see that if we understand what reclining at a table means. But

let's talk about this woman. I wrote that. Let's talk about this woman.

That sounds terrible the way I wrote it. My notes, What does

this verse have to say about this woman. Let's look back at verse thirty

seven. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus

was eating at the Pharisees house, so she came there with an alabaster jar

of perfume. This woman lived a sinful life. That's what scripture just tells

us. But the Greek word here that's used here means pre eminently sinful,

especially wicked. That's the word sinful life here. That's the word that's used

for that. And theologians and scholars have mentioned that this is a word typically

used when you're referring to a prostitute. So there's potential to understand this at

or not potential. It wouldn't be crazy to understand this as this was actually

a prostitute who had made a profession out of sinning, an especially wicked sinner,

and this wasn't a secret to the people what type of woman she was,

so she was publican enough. It was either she was public enough about

her sin that people knew who she was and what she did, or some

of the people at Simon's party partook in sinning with her. That makes sense

and this woman found out that Jesus was at Simon the Pharisees house, and

she showed up. Somehow she got into this dinner party, because there's no

way she was invited the Pharisees. That word literally means the separated ones.

They wouldn't be caught dead mixing with sinners. So there's no way that he

Simon would have invited this sinful woman to get into the party. So we

don't know how she got in the party, but she got in the party,

and she brought this expensive jar of perfume. Right, so we all

caught up on verse thirty seven, love it, verse thirty eight what'd she

do with this jar? As she stood behind him at his feet weeping,

she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with

her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them. So, while

Jesus is reclining at this table, this sinful woman stood behind him, weeping

at his feet. She was weeping so much that her own tears covered his

feet. The word there I was reading in a commentary this week is that

it was like rain covers you. That's how much she was weeping and wetting

Jesus' feet and then she used her own hair, which, for the record,

you don't put your hair down or show it in their culture. And

she took her hair out and wiped Jesus's feet and washed his feet, and

then she poured her expensive perfume on them. The reason we know it is

expensive is because alabaster is a precious stone, and you don't put worthless perfume

in an expensive jar. She poured this expensive perfume on his feet. This

is a beautiful moment of worship that we're experiencing, that we're getting to see.

It's a beautiful moment of someone just showing their love and adoration for Jesus.

She came face to face with her savior, and she can't contain her

love. She was moved to go as far as breaking into a party she

wasn't invited to. I mean, it wasn't like a party at a public

park. This is somebody's house. She broke into somebody's home. But she

did whatever it took to get to Jesus so that she could worship and serve

him. And just as a side note, I kind of wrote this down

in my notes. Jesus hasn't even died for her yet. He hasn't even

died for her yet. But she knew who he was. He was the

one that was prophesied about long ago, that is God, the Savior of

God's people, and he was finally here. She knew exactly who he was,

and she believed what God said about his son, about his Messiah.

And she was a believer in the same way that Abraham was. Abraham believed

God Who's counted him his righteousness. And we know that because we read at

the end of the story, your faith has saved you go in peace.

And we'll get to diving into that a little bit later. But based on

this belief that she knew who Jesus was and what she believed about him,

she was ready to do anything to worship and serve God's Holy One. So

it's question time. I'm sure you can see this coming from a mile away.

Am I ready to do whatever it takes to serve the Lord? Look

at this woman, Look what she the length she went through does worship and

serve the Lord? Am I ready to do whatever it takes to serve the

Lord? For the record, I am not condoning breaking into someone's home.

Don't do that. But I think we should let this question just kind of

sit on us for a second. Am I ready to do anything to serve

the Lord? Is there anything I'm unwilling to do? Is there anything that

I'm unwilling to let go of for the sake of serving the Lord? Jesse

was at a preaching or a biblical exposition workshop. How's that for nerdy words?

All put together? It was fantastic. And her text was in Exodus.

And so we've been reading a lot about Exodus and Pharaoh and God's people

back then. But when I think about, like, am I willing to

do whatever it takes? Like I thought about Pharaoh back in Exodus, does

my obedience to God come with conditions? I'll only follow you if fill in

the blank. So Pharaoh in Exodus ten, he said, sure, I'll

let your people go, but you can't take the flocks. Leave the flocks.

But that's not what God said, That's not what God demanded. So,

like Pharaoh, does my service to the Lord or my obedience and worship

of him come with a condition? Are there conditions associated with it? This

sinful woman's worship did not. It came without conditions. She was ready,

no matter the costs. She didn't care what she looked like to everybody there.

It's a party of people, and she walked in and said, I'm

going to do this, and I do not care what I look like public

shame and embarrassing. She didn't care possibly getting locked up for trespassing. She

didn't care using her expensive and valuable perfume. She just didn't care. There

were no conditions. She was washing their feet. And that's the job of

the lowest servant or slave in the house was to wash the guest's feet when

they entered the home. And she humbled herself to the lowest servant's position by

washing and even kissing Jesus' feet. To put it in New Testament term,

into like Paul's New Testament terms, she is counting everything is lost for the

surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus her Lord. Nothing else was as important

as this, nothing else had this much value to her. It's beautiful,

right, it's so beautiful. Well, Simon viewed it a little differently.

Let's look at verse thirty nine. When the pharisee who had invited him saw

this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he

would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is, that

she is a sinner. Just kidding, I don't know if he said it

that way. So the first thing we see here Simon's questioning if Jesus is

really a prophet. That's his first question. That he doesn't even fully believe

that. But he's not. Like we read here, he said to himself.

That means he didn't say it out loud. He thought to himself,

is what that means. So, which makes it pretty cool what Jesus did,

because he answers a question he didn't say out loud, kind of proven

the point he's a prophet. We'll get to that in a second. What

I want you to see here is how Simon views this sinful woman. How

does he view her? And he views her as less than, as someone

who shouldn't be interacted with, let us, let alone even associated with,

And he views her as less than, but he views himself as greater than.

And this is not how we're supposed to view things. This is not

how we're called to view things as believers, is it. Let's look at

what Paul said in Romans chapter twelve, for by the grace given me,

I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly

than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance

with the faith God is distributed to each of you. For just as each

one of us has one body with many members, and these members do not

all have the same function. So in Christ, we, though many,

form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Paul is

specifically speaking about brothers and sisters in Christ and how we should be interacting with

each other. But the big thing I wanted us to see, and that

can you go back one slide, is do not think of yourself more highly

than you ought. He's telling you how to think about yourself as well.

Right, We basically need to calm down and be humble. Yes, we

are loved by God and we are special to him, but that does not

give us license to put ourselves as more important or give us more importance than

somebody else. Should never look at the sinful woman and think we're better than

they are. Every single one of us who's put faith in Jesus was a

wretched sinner in need of saving. Every single one of us, So us

pause and think just in this story so far alone, if you as we've

read it, who do you think we're supposed to be more like? What

do you think the suggestion is in the text? Are we supposed to be

more like Simon, the pharisee who thinks he's better than the sinful woman?

Or should we be more like the sinful woman who humbled herself to show love

and adoration for Jesus. And I'll give you a hint, it's not Simon.

Sometimes you need to take a step back from the text that were reading

so we get real close to it and then we just kind of missed the

point. Sometimes it's pretty clear who were being encouraged to be like, not

like Simon, like the sinful woman. Simon viewed her one way, but

Jesus didn't to view the woman in the same way as Peter, or excuse

me, as Simon. I want to say Peter, because Simon Peter Bible

jokes. Yeah, Jesus was obviously fine interacting with this woman. He wasn't

pushing her away, he wasn't telling her to stop. He was letting her

continue what she was doing. And do you remember what Jesus told the Pharisees

when he went to that big banquet at Levi, the tax collector or Matthew's

house back in Luke chapter five, Do you guys remember In case you forgot,

we're going to read it right now. Then Levi held a great banquet

for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others

were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who

belonged to their sect plained to his disciples, why do you eat and drink

with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus answered them, is not the healthy who

need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous,

but sinners to repentance. Jesus already gave him the answer as to why

he's completely fine associating with a sinful woman. And it's not just hurt,

it's all sinful people. He came to the sick, not the healthy.

He came to call sinners to repentance, and that's why he's cool with her

doing what she's doing. And now this is where Jesus actually does address that

he really is a prophet to Simon. So let's look at the next verse,

starting forty Jesus answered him, Simon, I have something to tell you.

Tell me, teacher, he said, Or if you read other translations

as say, it doesn't seem like a very respectful response, but that might

be me reading into the text a little. Simon, I have something to

tell you, Tell me, teacher, he said. Two people owed money

to a certain money lender. One owed him five hundred denary and the other

fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he

forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?

Simon replied, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven. You've

judged correctly, Jesus said, And again, I think this is probably one

of the more straightforward or most straightforward parables Jesus ever taught. One guy owed

five hundred deenary and the other owed fifty. A denarius is a day's wage

for a day laborer. So if you add that up, one guy owed

five hundred days worth of wages and the other one owed fifty days of wages.

And Jesus asked, if both their debts were forgiven, who would love

and appreciate the guy more? And Simon answers I suppose the one with the

bigger debt, he knows the right answer, but he's cautious in answering it.

You can see the hesitation said, why didn't you say, well,

obviously the one who had the bigger debt forgiven, why would you respond that

way. It's almost like he's afraid that Jesus is trying to trap him in

his words, kind of like they were always trying to do to Jesus.

Right, And I watch a lot of theological debates and like sidewalk interviews or

conversations about theological topics, and when you hear someone who make a very sound,

logical statement is clearly factual and true, and you see the other person

just doesn't want to agree or admit that what they just said is true.

So because they don't want to admit, they hesitate in the answer, they

kind of don't answer it, or they're super cautious about answering it, because

if they agree to what you just said, then it actually changes the whole

foundation of their own argument, and now their whole argument is not sound anymore.

So you see this happening in theological or man on the street debates.

So for me, I think when I read this, I think that Simon

doesn't want to answer the question because he knows that Jesus is telling the story

for a reason. And if I agree to what Jesus just said, then

he's gonna make another point, a bigger point in what a story is.

And remember what it said in verse forty and you go back one slide for

me, Jesus answer him, Simon, I have something to tell who you.

So he knows this point that Jesus is making is meant to be made

at Simon. So he's got He's a little hesitant to want to give a

straightforward answer, but he's brave and he gives Jesus the obvious correct answer,

and Jesus tells him, yes, you have judged correctly. That is the

right answer. But what point is Jesus trying to make? Why did he

tell Simon that short story? And we see that in verses forty four through

forty seven. Then he turned toward the woman. Okay, he turned toward

the woman, but said to Simon, do you see this woman? I

came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet,

but she is feet. She wet my feet with her tears and wipe

them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this

woman from the time I entered, is not stop kissing my feet. You

did not put oil on my head, but sheep poured perfume on my feet.

Therefore, I tell you her many sins had been forgiven, as her

great love is shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves. Little Jesus

tells Simon that even though he didn't even show him, what are very normal,

everyday common courtesies that guests would receive when you arrive at someone's home.

So we know that back then the primary method of travel was by foot,

and most people wore sandals. And if it's dusty and you don't have paved

roads, what does that do to your feet? Safe to say they got

mega gross. So it's very normal to have discussing dirty feet. And it

would be normal thing to provide water and a towel for guests when they arrive

at your home to wash their feet. And in homes that had servants,

kind of like we were mentioning earlier. Earlier, it was the job of

the lowest servant or slave in the house to walk wash the feet of the

guests. Simon didn't provide any of this for Jesus. What about the kiss

part, Well, in their culture, you would greet a friend with a

kiss on the cheek, a holy kiss. Simon didn't show Jesus that courtesy,

signifying these not really his friend. They would also regularly give their guests

oil for their head and their hair, and it would be a mixture of

oil and good smelling fragrances, and the purpose was to soothe and refresh someone

as they arrived. If you had to walk a few miles to get to

your friend's house, it would help to smell better. If someone gave me

some oil that smelled good to put in my hair and my face to soothe

me and refresh me. Simon did not get any oil for Jesus. So

Simon didn't do any of the very normal things in their culture that you do

for guests when they arrive at your home. But this sinful woman, she

provided all these things, and she did it in a much grander way,

didn't she She didn't have a bowl to wash jesus feet a bowl of water.

What she use her tears? She cried and wet Jesus' feet with her

tears. She didn't have a towel to dry Jesus's feet or wash his feet

off, but she use her hair. She used her own hair to wash

Jesus' feet. She didn't view Jesus's up here to greet with a kiss on

the cheek. No, she went down and continually kissed Jesus's feet. She

didn't have oil for Jesus' head, what did she use her costly perfume,

and she poured it on his feet. This woman was showing something extremely important

by her actions, and we see that in verse forty seven. Therefore,

I tell you her many sins have been forgiven as her great love is shown.

Whoever has been forgiven little love's little as her great love has shown.

Look at that love that she's showing. Look at her actions. The debt

that she has been for given is huge. She understands how much sin is

in her life and how much that she has been forgiven. It's why she

dropped to the floor behind Jesus at his feet. She knew that he was

the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That's why

she's showing this level of love. But as the end of the verse says,

those who haven't been forgiven of much, or don't think they have much

to be forgiven of. I want to put that in there. These people

don't express this same type of love, and I've worded it this way.

A proper view of our sin leads to a proper expression of love. A

proper view of our sin leads to a proper expression of love. As our

understanding of the weight of sin grows, so will our expression of love of

Jesus, because He forgave us of that. We've all told little white lies.

Right, Come on, confess this to a safe space. We've all

told little white lies. If we think that's just an innocent thing, it's

not hurting anybody, that's not a big deal. Then even if we receive

or when we receive forgiveness for that little white lie, we might just move

on with life without skipping a beat. Doesn't mean much, right, because

we don't think it's a big deal. But if we stop and remember that

God says that when Satan lies, he's speaking his native tongue and what it

really means to be deceitful, meaning that whenever we lie, even those little

white lies that were actually speaking the same language as Satan himself. It doesn't

seem like a small thing anymore, does it. It seems a little bit

bigger than a little white lie that doesn't hurt anybody's feelings. Thank you God

for forgiving me when I speak like the devil. Our expression of love and

gratitude to God will increase when we see sin for what it really is.

The sinful woman saw how many her sins were, She saw how much they

weighed, and she understood how much she had been forgiven. And Jesus publicly

acknowledges this moving on to the next verse, because he said to her,

your sins are forgiven. The other guests began saying to themselves, who is

this who even forgive sins? Jesus said to the woman, your faith has

saved you go in peace. Still looking at this woman, right, because

he's looking at her, and now he's speaking to her instead of Simon,

because earlier he was looking at the woman but talking to Simon. Now he's

looking at her and now addressing her, and he tells her that her sins

are forgiven. And I thought it was kind of a cool thing when I

was studying this week that the Greek word that's used here for the words are

forgiven are in the perfect tents. Anybody know what that means, because I

had to look it up. It's in the perfect tense, which it means

that meaning that her sins had already been and continued to be forgiven. Excuse

me, like past tense and present tents and future tens, right, perfect

tense is all of it. Her sins had already been and continued to be

forgiven. So when she went there her like already having believed and received her

forgiveness. That's how she arrived. That's the whole reason she showed this type

of love to Jesus and the other people of the party. They hear this

and they have their own thoughts. You guys, remember the when Jesus healed

the paralyzed man on the mat. Before he healed him, what he say

He said, your sins are forgiven. That's what he said. And the

Pharisee said was blasphemy. Why, because only God can forgive sins. You're

right, Only God can forgive sins. So as I say about Jesus,

Jesus is God in the flesh. He is in Manuel, God with us.

He is the ultimate judge. He has the power to forgive sins because

he's got the flesh. And lastly, Jesus tells a woman that her faith

has saved her and to go in peace. And I have one thing that

I want to say about peace. True peace only comes from peace with God.

It's the only place that you're gonna get true peace. It only comes

when you have peace from God, because all the other peace is temporary,

it's short lived. You could be sitting on a throne in a mansion,

surrounded by family and friends, all the family and friends that you love,

a full belly and a full heart, joy, laughter, None of it

matters. If the mansion's on fire. You've beound a cruise ship in the

middle the ocean. Live in your best life, eating all the food,

full belly, eating right. There's a theme here. I'm hungry. Can

be eating all food, living your best life. None of it matters.

If there's a hole in the bottom of the boat. Imagine your dream beach,

because beaches are fun. Sitting in the sand, listening to the waves

something I love to do, feeling the warm sun on your skin. This

is paradise. What does that matter? If there's a tsunami on the way.

True peace only comes from peace with God. What does any of this

awesome stuff matter? If our end destinations be burned, alive in the mansion,

drown on the bottom of the ocean from the cruise ship, or obliterated

by a wave in a tsunami, what does any of that awesome stuff matter.

Eternity is what matters, not today forever. I joke and say,

it's like this feels like the matrix. Sometimes it just feels super real because

you can touch it, see it, smell and taste it. But what's

really our life on earth or eternity. That's what we have to consider is

eternity. Where does true peace come from? It comes from peace with God.

There is no real or true peace if you're not at peace with the

Creator. And if you don't have actual peace, where you have is a

distraction. It's something to keep your mind occupied until the end. There are

only two camps of people on this earth, two categories. There is those

who've been forgiven and are at peace with the Creator, and there is those

whose sin is still on them and they are going to suffer the wrath of

God on them for eternity. And I read a quote from Jay vernon Macgee

this week that said that if you are a church member and have never asked

the Lord for forgiveness, you are lost. And hopefully they were preaching the

gospel, so you understood that in that church, But without asking for forgiveness,

without repentance, there is no salvation. Being a church member is not

what saves you. And if there's even church members who are still lost,

then think about all across our country or the world when people go to church

every single Sunday and not profess Christ as Lord and their loss too. It's

not about church attendants, it's not becoming a member. It's about faith in

the saving work of Jesus Christ. God tells us all have sin and fall

short of the glory of God. That's Romans three. He also says,

we claim be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in

us. That's first John one. Every single one of us has something to

repent of and to ask the Lord Jesus for forgive every single one of us.

And our answer is to turn to Jesus and tell him I know I

have sin, I've sin in my life, and the only one who can

remove it is you. You turn to Jesus and say, I believe that

you are the son of the Living God, that you live the perfect life,

died on the cross paying for my sins, and you rose from the

dead. I repent of my sin and disbelief. Thank you for forgiving me

of all of my sin. Jesus, you are lord of my life,

and you are Lord of all. And if you're sitting here today and you

heard that and you're like, all of a sudden, something just clicked in

your head, welcome to the family. First off, that's amazing. God

is piercing through your heart and showing you your need of Him, maybe for

the first time, or maybe you've never heard it at all, and this

is the first time you've heard it and you believe it. The next step,

we have a baptismal. That's literally the next step. After you put

faith in Jesus, we turn and we baptize you. So if you feel

the Lord just ignite something in your heart hearing the gospel message, whether you've

heard it a thousand times before and maybe you've never been baptized, or maybe

you heard it for the first time, we will baptize you today. We

have extra clothes and we have towels. There's nothing stopping you. But we

confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from

the dead, and then we get baptized, and this is our public expression

or showing this new covenant we have with God. But all this starts from

a very very key point because we're talking about being at peace with God,

and in order to understand the good news, we have to understand the bad

news first. So I have a question, do we see the true weight

of our sin? Do we see the true weight of our sin? You

guys know a lot about church history. Duncan is our a resident church history

expert. Say your questions. You should ask him. It's fantastic. He's

like, please, don't ask me. He really is brilliant and he's gonna

be humble about it. He's studied a ton. It's awesome. I learned

a lot from him. But you guys know who Martin Luther is, German

guy from the fourteen to fifteen hundreds. All Christian churches that are not Catholic

churches are Protestant churches. So if you're sitting here today and have put faith

in Jesus, you're part of our church. You're a Protestant Christian, and

the word Protestant at its root is to protest or, to protest and Martin

Luther protests the false doctions being taught by the Roman Catholic Church. He wrote

the ninety five Thesis and brought forth the Protestant Reformation of the Church. He

argued something very key that wasn't being taught. He argued that salvation is by

grace through faith in Jesus and not by works. And not only did you

fight for true biblical doctrine, but he also translated the Bible from Latin into

German to help get the Bible into way more people's hands in a language that

they could read. So Luther is a pretty awesome guy in church history.

You should read up more about him. That's just a quick sprinkling, no

depth to his whole life and how amazing and crazy it was. But if

we're asking the question about the weight of sin, do we understand the true

weight of our sin? Why am I talking about Martin Luther? Well,

in God's providence, I happened to be listening to a completely unrelated sermon this

past week by RC Sproull, who's talking about Martin Luther and Luther. Before

he wrote the ninety thesis, he was living in a monastery, following the

teachers of the Roman Catholic Church, and like everyone else, he would go

to confessional to confess his sins for the past day, and sometimes this would

take a long time. In fact, it was recorded that on one occasion

he actually spent six hours in the confessional confessing every sin he could think of

from the past day. Six hours. What would drive a man to spend

six hours reciting every single sin over the past day? Can I have the

band come up to please, we'll drive him to spend six hours recanting all

of his sins. Well, Luther, like all of us, we know

the greatest commandment, And in case you forgot, it's in Matthew twenty two.

Let's turn there. In verse thirty seven, Jesus replied, love the

Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and

with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the

second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and

the prophets hang on these two commandments. So Luther read this, and it

wasn't the first part that hit him the hardest. Wasn't the first part about

what the the greatest commandments were. It actually was the last part that says,

and all the law and profits hang on these two commands. And Luther

concluded, right and I think he rightly concluded that means any time I break

any part of God's law, I'm actually breaking the greatest commandment. If all

the law and all the profits, everything we were told to do, and

all the prophecy about what is to come, I don't follow any of that.

It all hangs on these two commandments, the law and the prophets.

That means I'm breaking the greatest commandment any time I break any part of God's

law. And I think that also changes how we think about that little white

lie. This is why Luther walked into a confessional in that day and spent

six hours reciting every single sin, great or small, that he committed in

the past day. It's because he hadn't broken a small commandment. He broke

the greatest one. That's what he understood. He did break the small commandments,

because there are no small commandments. If you transgress any part of the

law, you've broken at all, is what Scripture says. Can we put

that question back up on the screen, do we see the true weight of

our sin? This is how God chose to reveal the true weight of sin

to Luther by letting him understand the truth in the Greatest Commandment in that Matthew

text. But if that isn't enough for us to see it, I have

a couple more things to say, Well, not me. It's a scripture,

so it's what God has to say about it. Roman six says the

wages of sin is death. That means that the payment that we get for

sinning is death, or another way to say it is our work is sin,

our paycheck is death. James one says that when sin is fully grown,

it gives birth to what death. Everywhere sin is, death is not

far behind it. Sin itself leads to death, and the only thing that

corrects the sin or makes up for the sin is death. That's why in

the Old Covenant they had to sacrifice animals to shed blood for forgiveness, to

pay for their sins. And that's what Jesus did as our perfect sinless sacrifice.

Amen. But before we get too much more into that, we aren't

done actually talking about the weight of sin. And I think it's helpful to

think about what Jesus actually went through when he was crucified, because when we

read in scripture that Jesus was flogged, it's just one sentence in the Bible,

But what does that fully entail being flogged. They didn't just hit him

with a stick and move on, give him his forty lashes plus one.

That might be wrong if you read the Bible, can correct me later.

They didn't give him his lashes plus one and then just move on. They

tied or chained him to a pole and then repeat it, and then hit

him repeatedly with rods, beating and bruising him. Then they whipped him with

a torture device, the leather straps woven with rocks and bones and sometimes metal.

The purpose of this was to rip open the flesh to destroy the body

that it would get stuck in their skin. This is super groosome, I'm

sorry, but get stuck in the skin and pull it to cause as much

damage to the flesh and to destroy the body. So Jesus experienced that he

was whipped, tearing his flesh open. None of this, by the way,

is part of the crucifixion. This is his flogging before he was stripped

down and mocked. They twisted together a crown of thorns and pressed it onto

his head, stabbing into his skin, blood pouring out of his head and

his back. Only then did they throw his own cross on his back and

tell him to carry it to where they were going to murder him, which

he was too weak to do and had to have help carry it up there.

And at the top of that hill is where they laid him on the

cross, and with the hammer they drove nails through his hands and his feet,

nailing his body to the cross, before lifting him up and putting the

living God's body on display for all to see. This is the height of

human arrogance and pride. You won't know how much sin waves and what sin

costs. Just look at the cross. God gave us an illustration. He

gave us a picture to look at whenever we need to remember what sin costs,

and we need to remember how serious He is about it. And this

is only a time, any glimpse of his wrath that will be poured out

on all sin for eternity. It's our visual representation of the wages of sin.

This is the death that we all deserve, for all of our transgressions.

We can never minimize our sin. Why because look at the cross.

You can't minimize your sin. That's how much that little white lie weighs.

And Martin Luther understood this and it caused him to be desperate enough to seek

the truth. What do I do with my guilt? I need to find

the answer, and the answer that he found praise God as the same answer

that we have today. Romans won and Ephesians two. The righteous will live

by faith. We're just talking about this this morning. The righteous or the

just will live by faith. It's by faith that we have been saved by

the free gift of grace through faith in Jesus, not by works. This

free gift of grace meaning you could grace, you can't do anything to deserve

it through faith, which is belief in Jesus. So we need to do

exactly what the sinful woman did. And I put it in four steps or

four points. And the first step is recognize the true way of your sin.

That's what we need to do. Recognize the true weight of our sin.

The second one is repent and believe in Jesus. That's what we should

do. The third step is we should remember the debt that was forgiven,

which leads us a step four, that we would respond in adoration and gratitude.

And I think most of us haven't. Most of us believers have an

idea of number one. It may not be a full grasp of what it

is, but we got some idea why because it led us to the number

two. We know we need to repent and believe in Jesus right. But

I think we have a tendency to skip right over number three sometimes, and

when we do that, it leads to us diminishing number four. How we

respond to the Lord. Our adoration and gratitude to the Lord should always be

increasing, it should always be growing. And the way that we do this

is by looking at the debt that we've been forgiven. God didn't forgive you

of a five dollars debt, He paid for the house, the five hundred

thousand dollar debt. He took it all. It only takes one sin and

the result is the cross. And our sins are great and many, they

are terrible and uncountable. I think it was Ray Comfort always starts his street

evangelism like this. He's like, do you think you're a good person?

And everyone's like yeah, I'm pretty good. And he's like, have you

ever told a lie? And they're like, well, yeah, I have

total lie. He's like, how many lies have you told? So?

If I asked you that question, how many lies are you told? Could

you count them? Like? No? It's like okay, so what would

you call somebody who told an uncountable amount of lies? He's like a Liar's

like awesome, so you're a liar. Have you ever taken anything he didn't

belong to you? Right? And they're like well sure, and he's like,

oh, you're a liar and a thief. So he just goes down

the list and he makes him feel terrible. It's awesome. No, not,

it's awesome. I'm just joking. But understanding the bad news. Right,

But there's this, we have to understand that our sins are great and

many. You can't count the amount of lies you've told, And how many

does it take to require the cross? One? It only takes one.

But all those sins, though great and many, through Jesus Christ, God

forgave them all, we don't deserve it. There's literally nothing you could do

to ever deserve it. There's no way to pay for that. And That's

what makes God's mercy so incredible. And I want to leave us with one

last verse. So we're gonna turn back to Romans chapter twelve and go back

to verses from what we already read. Therefore, I urge you, brothers

and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a

living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper

worship. I mean, after day you think about God's mercy just a little

bit different. How merciful He is to us, the fact that we deserve

probably to be wiped off the face of the planet and experience full wrath on

sin for all eternity because of our sin, But He chose to provide a

way for us to be forgiven and at peace with Him, the true peace

that lasts forever. He provided that way. You guys, we owe him

everything everything when you look at the mercy that He has shown us. The

only reasonable or proper response is in worship with everything we have and everything we

are, that our whole life is lived as a living sacrifice unto Him.

So we need to grow our affections and worship of Jesus by growing our understanding

of the true weight of the sin that you've been forgiven of Amen. I

know it is really heavy, but it is important