Forgiven Much (February 18th, 2018) - Karl Whittingstall

Alright, well, good morning, Harvest New Market.

Good morning.

If you have a Bible, you can go ahead and open it up to Luke chapter 7.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

Luke 7 is where we're gonna be this morning.

And uh this is my second time I've got to come and preach at this church, and it's always a joy and a privilege to fill Mike's shoes.

Uh Mike and I lived together for a year in Bible college, and I uh stole his shoes a lot, and so it's uh fun to actually come and stand in his pulpit and get to be part of what's going on here.

Um, as you're flipping to Luke 7, uh we're gonna be looking at a story there that I believe is one of the most amazing stories in all of Scripture.

It's one of the most encouraging because it talks about one of the greatest and most amazing things that Jesus did.

Now, to say that can sound kind of trite and flippant really quickly, because Jesus did a lot of amazing things.

Can we just agree about that?

Like he walked on water, he fed thousands of people, he healed blind, deaf, lame, mute, crippled people, he cast out demons, he raised people from the dead.

But what we're gonna see that he does here this morning, I believe, is amazing.

And that is he brings forgiveness.

Now, if you're like me and you've you know you know a little bit about Jesus, maybe, and maybe you don't know a lot, but you've maybe you've you know a little more and you've been reading his word and you you've you know about the forgiveness that Jesus offers for sin, but it's just not that amazing like it once was, or like you believe that it should be.

It's my prayer that this morning God's word would make his forgiveness amazing to you.

I don't know where you're coming from and how you're getting here this morning, but uh, if I'm just honest with you, there's days when I'm just not thinking that the forgiveness of God is the most amazing thing.

I'm just I'm thinking about all sorts of other wonderful things that he did, and I'm grateful for those things, but I'm not thinking about the forgiveness.

And the forgiveness is so key for us to understand and be grateful for, because the forgiveness is what makes us right with God.

Amen?

And so that's why it's important that we understand this and we get this, and our hearts are stirred.

So let me uh let me read.

I'm gonna read a few verses, then pray, and then we'll jump into the rest of the text.

Luke 7, verse 36 is where we're gonna start.

Luke 7:36

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him.

So this is Jesus going to eat with the Pharisee, and he, Jesus, went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.

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

And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wipe them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment.

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

I'm gonna stop right there and we're gonna pray, and then we're gonna jump into this passage, right?

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you this morning, God, um, just confessing our need for you, our understanding, Lord, that we need your help all the time.

We need your spirit to speak to us, we need your word to teach us and instruct us this morning.

So, God, would you do that?

Would you help us, Lord, to hear what you would have us hear this morning, God?

And would you get so much glory in our lives?

And I pray, Lord, that as we look at this story of Simon and this sinful woman, God, that you would help us to see how like the sinful woman we are and how great forgiveness is.

Lord, please also help us to um by your spirit reflect on how we are so often like Simon and ungrateful for the gift of grace that's been given to us, Lord, the forgiveness that you offer through your son Jesus.

So, Lord, would you teach us, would you stir our hearts, Lord?

Thank you for this time we have together this morning.

Would you be blessed and would you be honored?

And all God's people said, Amen.

Amen.

Let's pick back up at verse 39 there.

Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, now I just think this is really interesting.

I love that Luke just puts this in here because he just wants us to all know he thought this.

Anyone ever had, you know, someone just answer your thoughts before?

Probably not.

Anyone really glad that this week there were some thoughts that you had that you just were kept for yourself?

Yeah.

When you're like, I'm glad no one else in the room knows what I'm thinking right now.

That's probably what the Pharisee was thinking.

If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.

So judgmental, so condescending towards her.

Now, Jesus, it says verse 40, and Jesus answered him.

Now, he doesn't know he's answering his thoughts at this point.

So Simon's head's like, it's gonna blow in a little bit as he kind of recoils and realizes what's going on here.

And so Jesus said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you.

Now, I'll just be honest, if Jesus came to my house and was like, we're eating, and all of a sudden he's like, Carl, I have something to say to you, I'd be like, hold on, let me get like pen and paper and an audio recording, because I want to cherish whatever you're anybody else like that?

You'd be like, if Jesus is at your house, and nobody, nobody, Jesus is at your house, and he's like, I have a word for you.

You're like, I want to hear this, right?

Look at Simon's response though.

Simon has so much fast and attitude, and he just answers, say it, teacher.

You got to put yourself kind of in in the scene here.

So Jesus and the and and Simon and all these other people, they're gathered around, and in in that time, they didn't eat off a table where they would all sit around chairs, but they had these little tables that were this is a foot, a few inches off the ground, and everyone would kind of lean on.

I'm doing that on the wrong side, you'd lean on your left side, and you'd you'd have your feet back away from the table, and you'd kind of reach onto the table and take some food.

And everyone would be around this table with all your feet sticking out around the edges like a nice beautiful flower.

But that's how they would all say.

So this woman comes in, they're all really low on the ground.

It's very obvious what she's doing.

And so now Jesus asks this question to Simon, I have something to say to you, and he says, and and in my mind, now we don't know the tone of him here, but he probably, you know, Jesus says, I have something to say to you, and he kind of like looks at his friends and rolls his eyes.

Say it, teacher.

All right, whatever, like you're the guest, so you can do what you want.

Like, this woman's ruining my party.

This is what Jesus says.

Verse 41 A certain moneylender had two debtors, one owed 500 denari and the other 50.

I'm just gonna pause right there for a second.

Getting the translation to figure out what that value is to us is it's kind of tricky.

So just kind of imagine this is like one person owes the amount of like a used car, and the other person it's like a really nice house.

Super nice house.

Okay, that's kind of like the difference here, all right?

That's just a good way to think about it.

When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both of them.

Now, which one of them will love him more?

So he asked Simon this question.

Simon, it says, uh, he's he answered, the one, look what he says, I suppose.

He he's not, he kind of knows something's going on here.

He's like, Jesus is pretty smart.

He's been traveling around and preaching, talking to a lot of people.

I do not want to get tricked into something here, so I'm not gonna say anything that's gonna lock me in indefinitely.

So I'm just gonna suppose the one who canceled the larger debt.

And he said to him, Jesus said, You have judged rightly.

I imagine Simon's kind of like, Yes, I don't look ridiculous in front of all my friends.

Then, though, turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, Do you see this woman?

Uh, this is like the most underrated question in all of scripture.

Do you see this woman?

Simon's sitting there and he's like, She's ruining my life right now.

She's a complete embarrassment because if you knew who you she was, you'd not be okay with her.

That's what he's thinking right now.

But Jesus is about to teach him a lesson.

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

You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.

You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.

Those are all customary things that you would do for anybody if they came to your house.

And Simon hasn't done any of those things.

So already we're seeing a huge lack of respect from Simon for Jesus, just in the way he was greeted before the meal even starts.

Jesus goes on and says, This, therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven.

For she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little.

Now Jesus finally addresses her and he says to her, Your sins are forgiven.

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

And he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you.

Go in peace.

I really just want to look at for the rest of the time that we have here, just for verse 47, want to kind of zero in on this.

Um, we need to look at, though, the two people who are here in this story.

Um, one, Simon, and that's who Jesus addresses first, and so we're gonna look at him first, and then this woman who is just labeled in scripture as this sinful woman.

But she understands something.

She understands something that you and I need to understand more and more and more, and that is the magnitude of what it means to be forgiven of our sins through Jesus.

She understands that she has been forgiven much.

She's been Simon doesn't get that.

Simon's sitting there and essentially pushing away and ungrateful for the gift of grace of God, which is Jesus Christ, at his table.

And ungratefully, not thankful for anything, not thankful for any of this.

Now, if you're a Bible scholar, you might be saying, isn't this passage of scripture in other places?

Doesn't Jesus go to another guy named Simon's house and a woman comes in with an alabaster flask, and yes, it's not the same story.

All right, that story, the the emphasis there is on the amount of money that the alabaster flask was worth.

And that was right before Jesus was uh crucified.

It was in Bethany.

This is a totally different story.

And the reason why it's important that you know this is because this one has a different main point, and that is forgiveness.

This story is all about forgiveness.

Forgiveness is there, forgiveness is in the room.

Jesus is present at the table.

And Simon, in his pride, he's not willing to receive this love and this grace and this mercy, who's sitting right there.

He's not willing to receive all that Jesus has for him.

And so, in his pride, in his piety, he's thinks that he doesn't need Jesus.

So you can write this down.

If you write down sermon notes, you can write this down.

This is point number one.

Pride rejects grace.

Pride rejects grace.

Simon has a little love for Jesus.

In verse 47, Jesus says, He who is forgiven little loves little.

Jesus just calls him out.

You don't love very much because you don't think you've been forgiven very much.

That's essentially the thing here.

Sadly, his sin does not seem like an evident problem for him.

Simon has bought into the lie that God is good with him living good.

He's bought into a lie that many of us fall into as well.

Thinking that good church attendance, praying before meals, reading our Bible regularly, having a high standard of morality, and I don't go to see those movies and I don't listen to that song on the radio, is gonna somehow make us be good in God's sight.

None of those things make us good in God's sight.

All those things are great and helpful, but the only thing that makes any of us good in God's sight is the grace that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

That is the only thing.

And that's not something that you and I can manufacture, it's only something that you and I can receive.

And Simon here in his pride, he'd rather sit back in his routine moralism and religious self-righteousness.

Maybe that's a word for some of us here today.

There's just this routine trying to do things to make God be pleased with us.

And really, God's like, I want your heart.

I'm glad you're doing those things and you're abstaining from those sins.

But what I want is your genuine affection and love for me, because I've done so much for you.

Verse 47 again.

Therefore I tell you, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much, but he who's forgiven little loves little.

Jesus acknowledges here, and I think it's helpful for us to know this, that he understands, listen, you've committed less sin than her, Simon.

Like if we're making like a chart and a graph to see who had more evident and visible sin while they were here on this earth, Simon, yours is lower.

Great job.

Here's the problem, Simon.

Any and all sin, one sin makes you separated from God.

So it doesn't mean that how many sins you have, if you have any sin, you're separated from God and you need grace and you need forgiveness and you need Jesus.

And Simon here, essentially, he's like, I don't like you, Jesus.

I wrote this down.

No one loves Jesus who doesn't think that they need him.

And we all need him.

No one loves Jesus who doesn't.

That's not super profound, it's kind of right out of the text.

But it's true.

No one loves Jesus who doesn't think that they need him.

And we all need him.

We all genuinely need him.

And so Simon's there, and he doesn't understand how much he needs Jesus.

See, in Genesis chapter 1, we were created in this perfect relationship with God.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And by Genesis 3, that relationship is destroyed.

Sin is entered into mankind, and we are then forever by participating in humanity, by being a human, in your soul's genome, you have sin inherent in you.

It's been passed down since Adam and Eve.

So I want you to envision it like this, okay?

Um, in Genesis 1, you and I have this perfect relationship with God.

I want you to envision it like a glass or crystal staircase.

It's just beautiful.

This makes anything in frozen look lame, okay?

This is like, it is this perfect relationship where you and I are connected with God, and it's awesome, it's amazing.

The problem is sin enters in and sin smashes it.

And the glass crystal staircase is now obliterated into billions of little pieces, shards of glass flying everywhere, and that is our sin.

No way can we ever do anything to fix that problem on our own.

All of our good deeds really are just heaping up piles of broken glass and trying to kind of stand on them to kind of get like, God, are you okay with me now?

I'm kind of getting a little higher.

I'm trying to, I'm trying to clean up the mess, I'm trying to take away the far-reaching effects of my sin that have so hurt and damaged other people, like shreds of glass would do, right?

And this is the problem is that so often we think that we can just kind of make it all be better, but what we need is a miracle.

We need God to do something, and the only answer is Jesus.

Simon sits there though in his pride, and he's not really willing to accept the love and the grace and the mercy that's offered through the work of Jesus.

See, Jesus would just a little while after this go and die on a cross.

Die on a cross so that Simon could be forgiven of his sin by taking the punishment for sin that Simon and anybody else who ever believes in Jesus could be forgiven of their sin.

But Simon here in his pride, he rejects the grace of God.

And you and I do this all the time.

In pride, we reject grace and we reject help.

And so I want to tell you this little story just to kind of get your mind thinking about this.

A couple, uh, it was a little while ago, I inherited a snowblower, and uh in Burlington where I live, it's like hit or miss.

Sometimes snowstorms come across and they like dump on the top of the escarpment, and then they like miss Burlington, and then Toronto and like over here, this side of the city, you guys get it.

And then other times snowstorms come across and they just dump on Burlington and like Peel and Halton and all these other places are fine, but Burlington were just like buried.

Well, it was one of those snowstorms where we were just like buried, and so I got up really early one morning before I went to work, and I went out and I blew out my driveway, and our driveway is kind of connected to our neighbors, and it's this sweet elderly couple, and um, so I blew their driveway out, not because I really wanted to, but because I knew it was the right thing to do.

I don't want you to think I'm like an amazing person, okay?

And so I kind of get all of this done, and then I noticed my neighbor around the lawn on the other side over here.

He's this, he's about my age, and he's just come out and he's just kind of starting to shovel.

And so I blew out the sidewalk again, because I'm just trying to be a good neighbor.

My heart wasn't in it at all.

And I kind of get over there and I'm like, hey, do you want me to help you with your driveway?

Like our drivers are kind of there's a couple, there's a couple cars deep, and it's it'll take them a little while.

There's a lot of snow.

And he's like, you know what?

I got this, don't worry about it.

And to me, I was like, okay, no problem.

Put my snowboard back inside after that.

You know, you always smell like two strokes, so you gotta have a shower, and then you know, have some breakfast, say goodbye to my kids, go out, start the car, go back inside, come back out, get in the car.

It's warmed up now.

I back out of the driveway, and my neighbor's still like like barely halfway down his driveway.

Now, I I know so many times in my life I've done this, but this just always jumps out to me the story of like he could have been done.

We could have been done, right?

Now, again, don't want to think I'm amazing.

My heart wasn't really in it.

But there was grace there, there was there was help that was offered, but in pride, it was like, no, no, no, I got this, don't worry about it.

Listen, we do that all the time.

Every day that we get up and we leave God's word on our bookshelf or on the counter or wherever it sits from weekend to weekend, and we neglect to go to God for help.

We are in pride rejecting the grace and the help of God that He wants to give to us.

Every day that we neglect to go before the Lord and call out to Him dependently in prayer, we're saying, I don't need your help, God, I can do it on my own.

That's pride.

And God is saying, I love you, I want to help you, I'm offering you grace.

And look, I've taken care of your biggest problem, that is sin at the cross, and I love you, and I want to take care of all of your other problems too.

But so often in our pride, we begin to reject the grace and the help that God has for us.

We are completely dependent on God, and we need to understand that more and more that apart from Him, we can do anyone know the next word?

Nothing.

We need His help all the time.

All the time.

And so what happens is we begin to fall and we begin to slip and we begin to stumble into pride.

I wrote down some kind of pitfalls, and uh maybe as I go through these, there's four of them.

You can identify one that, you know, hey, maybe that's one that I struggle with.

I think Simon struggled with these, and we often do too.

The first one is that we just try and do life without God.

We just often think, you know, I don't need his counsel, I don't need his help, I don't need his word, I don't need prayer like I really genuinely do.

And so I just struggle through life on my own.

That's a fail.

That's a fail.

God has given us all we need for life and godliness in his word and he calls us to pray.

We try to do life without himself.

Here's the second thing: we we lie to ourselves and others about the severity of our sin.

We try to make our sin a small thing, which is horrible, especially when you think about sin is not a small thing.

It's such a big deal that God had to come down to earth to take care of the problem of sin.

This is not like a it's a big problem, but man can figure it out.

It's like a we need a miracle, only God can fix this problem kind of thing.

Sin is a big deal, and we lie to ourselves about it.

Sometimes there's a third pitfall is that we think we're in the clear.

Hey, you know what?

I haven't had any massive, you know, like life-destroying sinful acts in the last seven to fourteen days, so God must be pretty happy with me.

No, that's not how it works.

Any and all sin is not okay in God's sight.

And so what happens is the fourth pitfall, and this was Simon's for sure, we just failed to see the problem of our sin.

Simon just failed to see the genuine, serious problem of his sin.

So, question Do you have sin to confess?

Yes.

The answer is yes.

We we all have sin to confess.

And if you're here this morning and you're buying the lie just even a little bit, that's like, well, yeah, but I don't have a lot of sin to confess.

That's the evil one trying to trick you into not understanding how good and great it is what Jesus has done for you.

Because the more you understand, like this sinful woman, how separated from God you are or were, the more grateful you will become for the work of Jesus Christ.

One of my favorite doctrines is that of our own human depravity.

Because the more I understand how sinful I am, the more I love my Savior.

But if we walk around thinking, you know what, I'm pretty good, well, that's just pride.

And listen, Galatians 6, 7 says, God is not mocked.

Your sin will be found out, whether in this life or the next.

You can lie to yourself now, but you're not lying to anybody else.

You're definitely not lying to the Lord.

He knows.

He knows.

And so what do we need to do about this?

We need to learn to confess our sin.

We need to not reject the grace of God, but understand why we need grace.

We need to confess sin.

If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, maybe you're like, I've been saved for a long time, I've confessed my sin and asked Jesus to forgive me of my sin.

That's great.

Keep confessing your sin.

James 5 talks about continually confessing your sin to one another.

Why do we do that?

So that we're reminded of the work of Jesus, so we never get complacent in thinking, well, I'm righteous and perfect before God.

So sorry about you, dude.

No.

We need to constantly be coming back to this place where we understand and we grow and increase in gratitude and gratefulness for the work of Jesus Christ for us.

Now, maybe you're sitting here and you're like, you know what, I could try and confess sin, but I don't know if I could come up with very many.

Just honestly and genuinely, listen, if you live with some people, just talk to them.

They know all of your sins.

And hopefully, graciously, they will help you see those things.

I know I could ask my wife, you know, if If you dare go home and find out what all the unknown sin is in your life by asking the people you live with, but then use that to come before God.

Now, maybe you're sitting here right now and you're like, this whole idea of being separated by sin from God and not being in a perfect and right relationship with God, this is something that I'm I haven't thought of very much.

Or it's kind of new to me, or it's shocking, or I don't like you because you're saying this right now, Pastor Carl.

Listen, 1 John 1 9 says, if you confess your sin, he is faithful and just to forgive you your sin and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

You do not have to stay in a place separated from God because of sin.

You can be forgiven of your sin this morning through Jesus Christ.

You can put your faith in him and be saved.

And you can be like this woman, you can be forgiven much.

We all have much we need to be forgiven of.

I want to encourage you to embrace your need of forgiveness.

Embrace your incapable, incompetent, holy living.

And be thankful to God because of his son Jesus.

If you want to write down one word as an application for this, it's kind of the opposite of pride rejecting grace.

It's this, it's just dependence.

We need to increase in our dependence.

In a few minutes, we're gonna sing a song, Lord, I need you, and I kid you not.

For years now I have woken up, and this is the song that I sing every morning.

Lord, I need you.

Oh, I'm not gonna sing it all to you right now.

We'll sing it together in a minute.

But I sing it to remind myself how genuinely desperate I am for God's help.

If you get up every morning and you're like, all right, I'm gonna do this, I'm not gonna sin, I'm gonna battle against the flesh, you're gonna fall on your face and you'll be done before breakfast.

You and I need God's help.

We cannot do it on our own.

And so we need to get up and genuinely go dependent on God and call out to Him.

Not with pride, but with dependence, with a sincere humility and a desire to be forgiven of our sin and for the grace of God to sustain us.

Listen, Simon didn't get this.

The woman, though, evidently not an overly religious gal, she gets this.

And maybe you're here today and you understand this.

No one needs to get up here and talk about how sinful you are in God's eyes.

You know.

You know.

You're filled with shame and guilt and condemnation that you carry around for the things that you've done in your life.

Listen, this morning, in Jesus' name, by the grace of God, that can be gone.

That can be gone because he has already died and taken the punishment for sin that you and I justly deserve if you come to him and receive that forgiveness that he offers to you.

This woman, she understands the seriousness of her sin, and then in reverse, the magnitude of the forgiveness that Jesus offers her.

Scripture, she's only referred to a couple times in this passage in like verse 37 and 39.

She's just referred to as a sinner.

You can see it there.

She's never named.

And Christian tradition, we we don't know exactly what she had done, but Christian tradition says, because of that word sinner and how it's translated, that she likely had uh been a prostitute or committed some sort of adultery that made this woman um unclean to everyone else.

They were like, we don't want this woman around.

She is appalling in our sight.

And I wrote this in my notes, and I think it's good for us to remind ourselves, forgive us, please, God, when we have judged and condemned others for their sin.

Simon sits there judging her.

What about all of us?

What about all of our sin?

Any and all sin separates us from God.

Maybe she has a bigger list, but we still have a list.

We have a list that needs to be forgiven, and that only comes through Jesus.

That undeserved forgiveness only comes through him.

This woman loves Jesus with a corresponding love to her understanding of her sin.

Do you understand your sin?

This is why it's good for us to confess our sins and to understand our sin more and more and more.

The more she understood that what she'd been forgiven, the more she just loves Jesus.

Look there in verse 47 again.

Therefore I tell you, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much.

Loan loves Jesus who doesn't think they need him.

She gets it.

She understands this.

And this woman comes and recognizes in humility and comes before Jesus and calls out worship on him.

Worship and thanksgiving for all that he has done for her.

You can write this down.

This is point number two.

Brokenness loves grace.

Brokenness loves grace.

This woman is broken over her sin.

She understands that sin separates her from God.

And this woman has received the gift of grace and forgiveness and salvation that Jesus offers her.

A question I've always wondered about when I'm reading this passage is when this woman got saved?

At what specific time.

We can see here there's a genuine, sincere outpouring of brokenness over her sin.

And Jesus says in verse 47, her sins are forgiven.

See that there?

Now, he's not forgiving them at that moment.

For those of you who are like grammar English people, all right?

That's the perfect tense there, meaning that she is already currently in a state of forgiveness.

So sometime prior to Luke 7, verse 36, this woman has understood the treasure and the gift of grace that God gives in his Son Jesus Christ.

Luke 7:36

So just think about it for a second.

Just let your mind wander to all of the things that Jesus had done.

Where had her path of life and Jesus' journey on earth crossed?

And what did she hear him say?

We don't know exactly, but I want to speculate something for you.

If you look at verse 18 in Luke chapter 7, at the little title there, it says, Messengers from John the Baptist.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

When Matthew records this same thing, likely the same day in the same town.

Messengers come, they come and ask, and so at the end of Luke's talking about the messengers, he kind of jumps straight into this story.

But at the end of that story in Matthew, this is when Jesus begins to preach a message.

And I don't know if this is the one that she heard, but tell me if you don't think that if she heard this, this might have been what caused her to come to faith in Jesus.

Jesus says in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

How refreshing would it have been for this young woman?

Standing there, probably knowing that everyone knew her sin, so Jesus is preaching, and she's kind of off behind a tree just listening, because everyone thinks she's this horrible sinner, worse than all of them, and she's just kind of standing there, but she's listening and she's hearing Jesus.

I don't know if that was the sermon that she heard.

I don't know what it was, but at some point she's come in contact with Jesus and she understands the grace and the love and the forgiveness that's offered through Jesus Christ.

Too often we think that our relationship with God is dependent on our performance.

So what Simon's thinking, and failing to understand that it's on what our relationship with God is dependent on what He has already done for us.

He has performed everything that we need through Jesus Christ.

So he doesn't just take this giant pile of broken glass and like glue every piece back together, cutting his fingers and kind of looking over his shoulder, like, why did you mess this up?

No.

He comes along and he removes all of that sin.

And he perfectly and beautifully recreates that relationship and that connection that we can have with God, all through Jesus Christ.

So that we're no longer separated anymore.

This is what this woman understands that the far-reaching of effects of her sin had been devastating in her life and to all the people in her town, and they all knew how big of a pile of broken glass she was.

But Jesus in his love has fixed that.

And her response to the grace and love of God is worship poured out from her heart.

Genuine thankfulness, honor, and glory to God with what she does as she comes just broken before Jesus, and she confesses in her coming and getting at his feet, she's confessing to him how much she loves him.

And he receives this and is so pleased with it.

Especially when you contrast this to Simon, who he's just kind of sitting there with this like snarky attitude, say it, teacher.

Not understanding the wonderful gift of grace that's there for him.

In her brokenness, she just loves the grace of God that's given to her.

The application for this point is this my love for Christ is a response to his enduring and unwarranted love for me.

So here's my question then for you this morning.

Are you responding to God?

Are you loving him with a proper response to the understanding of your sin?

Do you love Jesus with the same measure or more that you understand the measure and weight of your sin?

So often what happens is we think, you know, if this is like the perfect scale and then there's like the Ten Commandments, I'm like a minus seven because I haven't murdered anyone this week, kind of thing.

We're just like, there's a couple there that I'm just like, I haven't done those, so I'm not too far off of perfection.

Listen, when God looks at us, he doesn't just measure us on the Ten Commandment scale.

He looks at us and He doesn't see us as a minus seven.

He sees us as like devastatingly, no way we could ever fix the problem.

That's how deep we are in our sin.

And we need to see this more because what happens is, is so often we measure ourselves as a minus seven, and then so what happens is we're like, okay, well, Jesus has forgiven me, that brings me up to zero.

And I know I'm adopted as a child of God and welcomed into his presence, and Romans 8 says that, so okay, that's that's pretty good.

And we get to kind of like here in our level of love.

If we better understood that this is where we were, separated from God because of our sin.

When we grasp more and more the love and the grace and the mercy and the work of Jesus for us, it should cause our love to just explode and our hearts just to be overflowing, overwhelmed with love for Jesus.

That's this woman here.

And so I want to give you five things, and you can look for these things in your life and be encouraged as these things happen.

Five indicators that God is doing this in your life and look for these more, and when they come, let them come out.

The first one is this it's brokenness.

This woman is broken over her sin.

She now hates her sin.

There's no way this woman leaves this room and is like, I'm gonna go back to doing all the things that everyone considered so sinful.

She knows the weight of those deeds.

She is broken over them, and not in a way where she's walking away and feeling all the weight and guilt.

No, no, no.

This is like a 2 Corinthians 7.10, godly grief that leads to repentance.

She understands the weight of her sin and the love of Jesus, and she wants to honor God because of this.

She is broken.

Next, second thing is she is humble.

She is humble.

God offers mercy and grace and delights in forgiving forgiveness.

This woman is humble.

She doesn't care about anybody but Jesus.

Think about all of like the sideways glances and the murmurs and the whispers as she comes in the room.

Oh, that's so-and-so.

You know, she oh, I can't believe she's here.

She's such a that's what would have been.

She doesn't care.

In humility, she doesn't care about anybody else anymore and their opinions of her.

All she cares about is loving her savior because she understands better what he has done for her.

Brokenness, humility, sincerity.

There's a sincerity that comes from her heart.

Now, sincerity is gonna look different for all sorts of different people.

Maybe you're not a weeper, you're not a crier, you're not a hand raiser when you worship, so it's gonna look different for you.

But is it genuine in your heart?

In her heart, she is just so overwhelmed that it says that she weeps.

And that word weep, uh, or the word there for wet her feet is the same word, the Greek word for rain.

So this isn't just like a couple tears dripping off her face.

She is now, remember, Jesus is standing there or laying at the table with his legs out.

She's standing behind him at his feet.

She is bawling her eyes out so much that it's like rain coming down on his feet, that his feet are now wet.

And then she's like, Simon never washed his feet.

And so she lets down her hair, which again would have been seen as like a very disrespectful thing.

But she doesn't care.

Just genuinely, immediately in the moment, she just emotion sincerity takes over and she just goes down and washes his feet with her hair.

How sincere do you have to be in love for someone to wash their feet with your hair?

Especially if you have hair like my length.

You can like hold the foot and like it's a little different.

But she just gets right down that she doesn't care because she sincerely loves Jesus.

I wrote this down too.

She is thankful.

Are you thankful for the love of Jesus for you?

Are you thankful for the work of grace and the mercy of God that's been poured out for you?

And is it authentic and evident in your life?

Are you thankful for Jesus?

Do you thank him often for what he has done, not just on the cross, but daily and sustaining you, as you are completely dependent and incompetent and incapable of doing anything pleasing to God on your own?

Is that an increasing and growing thing in your life?

And last thing that I wrote down, and this comes from verse 50, and we can kind of flip over there to look at this for a second, is she has peace.

There is peace that comes through Jesus Christ.

Jesus says, Your faith has saved you, go in peace.

In my Bible, beside the word faith, I wrote one, besides saved, I wrote two, and beside peace, I wrote three.

Because so often in our world we want peace, right?

We want to just like, I want some rest, I want some relaxation.

Listen, this is the order.

It starts with faith.

Jesus is the source of peace, all peace.

So it starts with faith.

Faith saves, saves, leads to peace.

If you're here this morning and you're like, I need more peace in my life, I need more rest, it starts with your relationship with Jesus and coming to Him and depending on Him and resting in Him and finding your joy in Him.

When that happens, peace grows.

How do I know this?

Because it says it in other places in Scripture too.

Romans 8.1 says, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Breathe deep.

No more condemnation.

No more being beat down by your sin.

2 Corinthians 5.17.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away, and behold, the new has come.

It's new, it's different, it's not the same.

The gift of grace has been received.

We need to ask God for brokenness over our sin more often.

We need to recognize the love that's been poured out for us and not slip into in pride rejecting the grace, thinking that we're good enough, that we can do it on our own, but understanding how much we need God and being broken over our sin and loving our Savior more.

We need to be reminded that we've been forgiven much.

We need that all the time, amen.