The Nature and Extent of God's Forgiveness

Transcript

Good morning. Good morning. Well, given the fact that we’re in between a sermon series, I thought I would preach this morning on one of my favorite passages in Scripture. It’s not very often I get to select one passage of Scripture. So this morning we’ll be looking at Luke chapter 7, verses 36 through 50. If you’re here this morning and you don’t have a Bible with you, there should be Bibles in the seat in front of you, and you can find our passage this morning in that pew Bible on page 811. As you make your way to Luke chapter 7, verse 36, you can just sit while I read Scripture. One of the Pharisees asked him, that is Jesus, to eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining

at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment. And standing behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say it, teacher.

A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Which of them will love him more? Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt

— Luke 7

(ESV)

.

And he said to him, you have judged rightly.

Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the moment I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you, go in peace

— Luke 7

(ESV)

.

The Cast and Context

Family, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we do pray that as we sit under this text this morning, that the Holy Spirit would do what he does best, illuminate the text, make it alive, cause for it to be pushed deep into our hearts and produce fruit. We pray, O Lord and God, that today we would be transformed by your word and conformed into the image of Jesus. May we see Jesus and desire to be like him as a result of exploring your word this morning. We pray these things in Jesus’ name, amen. As I mentioned, this is one of my favorite passages, and I love this passage for a variety of reasons. I love it because of how clearly it reveals the character and compassion of Jesus towards those who would be considered the worst of sinners.

I love this passage because of the way in which Jesus addresses the self-righteous religious establishment. I love this passage for the many ways in which I find pieces of my own sinfulness and self-righteousness exposed in the storyline. And finally, I love this passage because of the way it’s written. It almost feels cinematic, in fact, if you were to have closed your eyes when I read this portion out loud, it would almost feel like you were watching a mini-movie unfold in your mind. And that’s because this story has all the typical features of a movie. It has shock and scandal, love and interrogation, drama, dialogue, contrast, suspense, and of course, like in any good movie, you get a twist. And even though this passage is vivid enough to preach itself, this morning I want to walk through this mini-movie, if you will, scene by scene. And my hope is that after exploring this text in these scenes, that we will walk away not

just with a good story or some data points, but that we will walk away with a deeper devotion to the Lord and a deeper understanding of the nature and extent of God’s forgiveness. Now before we dive too deep into the story, I want to first begin by introducing you to the cast and the context that sets the scenes. So the cast consists of three main characters, Jesus, Simon, and the unnamed woman. Now you all know Jesus, I hope, the principal and protagonist of the story who really needs no introduction. But then you have Simon. Now for the record, Simon was a very common name in that particular time, a name used in other parts of scripture. So just to be clear, this is not Simon Peter, the apostle. This is not Simon, the father of Judas. This is not Simon, the leper. This is Simon, the Pharisee, a unique character in the storyline in scripture.

And then finally, we have the unnamed woman. Now some have mistaken this unnamed woman for Mary Magdalene because of the similarities in this story and others found in the gospel, but this woman is not Mary. She’s an entirely different person. And though there are some striking similarities with this story and the story that we explored as we were going through Mark’s gospel with another woman who used very expensive perfume to anoint Jesus, this is not the same woman in that story. I think the similarities in their actions point to a kind of common expression of devotion in this particular culture, and that would be to anoint with perfume as an act of worship. Okay, so we have these three main characters, plus you have a crowd of onlookers, which you might consider to be extras in the movie. Now the setting of this scene is set in the town of Galilee, which is in the northern

region of Israel. And just to give you a bit of backstory that leads up to our scenes this morning, Jesus had been traveling and teaching and performing miracles all throughout the region. And as a result, he began to grow in popularity among the people who were starting to consider him as a young rabbi or a prominent religious figure. Some of the people even began to think that this Jesus might be the Messiah, though they didn’t quite exactly know what the Messiah really meant. And because of this, the Pharisees, the ones who make up the puffed up religious establishment, had their eyes and their targets set on Jesus because Jesus was in every way shaking up the religious norms and errors of the first century Jewish society. They perceived Jesus and his influence as a threat to their religious institution. Now we just celebrated Reformation Day last week, and my family watched a cartoon on Martin

Luther, best way to inform your children. And one of the ways in which Luther reflected the nature and character of Jesus was by confronting and correcting the institutional corruption of the Catholic Church. Luther, following in the footsteps of his master Jesus, stood in opposition to the religious establishment of that day that was leading people away from the truth. And doing this came with a great cost, as we saw with Luther, and most specifically as we see with Jesus. Though Jesus embodied all the character and qualities of a prophet, something that was becoming more and more clear to the people that he engaged with, the Pharisees outright rejected the notion that Jesus was in any way a prophet. And so in an attempt to stop Jesus’ growing influence, much like the Roman Catholic Church did with Luther, the Pharisees began to gather evidence against Jesus to establish a legal

Cold and Loveless Invitation

case against him. And this, in every way, is the backdrop for scene one, the cold and loveless invitation. Look at verse 36. One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. So this guy, Simon the Pharisee, invited Jesus to dinner, where Jesus was the guest of honor. Now this wouldn’t be unusual. This would be the kind of common practice for Pharisees to invite a respected rabbi into their home for a meal, especially after a rabbi taught in the synagogue. Pharisees being a part of the upper class society had often had these large homes that could host these kinds of gatherings. Now it’s important to understand that in the ancient Middle Eastern culture, much of life was lived publicly. There wasn’t at that time what we would kind of consider to be a more private or closed

off life. And so when someone like Simon hosted a dinner party with a guest of honor, the doors of the house would be intentionally left open, and people from the town would be able to come in and listen to the conversation, even though they weren’t really invited to eat at the dinner. So the people would gather around, almost like a kind of public forum, and they would listen and watch, and this would be done as kind of a form of entertainment. Now though Jesus was invited to this dinner, don’t think for a moment that Simon invited Jesus out of a heart of hospitality. Simon was not at all warm towards Jesus or his message. In fact, Simon’s motivation in every way was interrogation. Up to this point, most of Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees had been tense, cold, and confrontational. So Simon probably by design decided to take a different approach.

He decided to gather as much information about Jesus as possible, and to do this would require not open hostility, but more of a kind of pseudo-hospitality. Have you ever heard the saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Well, this is exactly what was going on here. This invitation wasn’t an act of friendliness or hospitality. It was loveless, it was deceptive, it was agenda-driven, and it was entirely disingenuous. Simon was looking for specific evidence that he could use to discredit Jesus and his ministry. J.C. Ryle said it this way, there was outward civility, but there was no heart love. And family, this is the very opposite of Christian hospitality. In fact, heart love should be the driving force behind all of our hospitality. We should be engaging our world and inviting people into our homes and into our church, not out of obligation, not out of interrogation, but out of a genuine heart love for lost people.

So Simon the Pharisee, though he was cordial, he was in every way shady. Now here’s the thing, Jesus knows the thoughts and motives of all people. Before he was even extended this invitation, he knew exactly what Simon was up to. And still, Jesus, knowing that this was kind of a trap, graciously accepted the invitation. Now why does Jesus do this? Because Jesus is concerned not just with sinful, irreligious, lower-class society. He’s also concerned about the sinful, hypocritical, self-righteous religious elite. You see, long before there was a Luther who set course for the Reformation, Jesus was already working to reform the church, beginning with the religious establishment who was leading people astray. So Jesus accepts this cold and loveless invitation, not out of obligation, because Jesus is the friend of sinners. Not just the obviously broken sinners, but also the self-righteous religious broken sinners. Religious people, friends, need to be saved from their sins as well.

One of the biggest misconceptions in our world is that religious people are the good people. And good people don’t need to be saved. But the truth is, there are no good people in this world. The Bible clearly tells us that no one is righteous, meaning no one is good enough. Even those we might perceive to be the most morally upright, generous, theologically stable religious people are dead in their sins if they are without Jesus Christ as a Savior. Hopelessly unable to fix what is fundamentally broken about them. Everyone, no matter how good they think they are, needs the forgiveness of sins or they will be condemned in their sins. And what is so beautiful about our good God is that He alone offers the forgiveness that humanity needs. And He offers it freely. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. You don’t have to pay money for it.

Passionate Response of Forgiveness

He offers it freely. All He says is, come to me with your need. Which brings us to scene two, the passionate response of forgiveness. Verse 37 and 38. And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisees’ house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment. So Jesus shows up at the dinner party, knowing it’s a trap, but He makes His way to the table. Now the tables in those days were different than what we would be used to today. They were a lot shorter. They would be without chairs, and so you had to kind of lean or recline at the table to

eat. And because of the reclining, the guests’ feet would be exposed to all the other guests at the table. So you have to remember, this is first century Israel. People walked everywhere, so the rocky, dusty terrain would make feet dirty, worn, and cracked. So sitting at someone’s table, where their feet would be exposed, was not just uncomfortable, it would be undesirable. So it was customary for the host to have one of his servants wash the feet of his guests as they entered his home. And to neglect this custom was considered both disrespectful and socially unacceptable. Not just to the guest, but to those whose feet remained dirty. To everyone else at the table. It was also customary to do what Andre talked about just a few weeks ago, to greet your guests with a holy kiss. So it wasn’t abnormal to do that. And to sometimes anoint them with oil.

This wasn’t just good manners, it was a way to show honor and love to the invited guest. None of this, by the way, was done for Jesus. Which is why we know that there was no heart love from Simon the Pharisee. But still, Jesus took his rightful place at the table. And right when Jesus gets situated at the table, she walks in. The unnamed woman. Who had heard about Jesus, that he would be at this dinner, and so she came to see him. She had likely heard his message of forgiveness somewhere in town. A lot of people speculate that she may have heard it at the home of Levi the tax collector, with all these other sinners that Jesus was engaging with. This woman was known by the town as a sinner. In fact, she was considered a woman of the city, which simply means she was a prostitute.

And to be clear, everyone in the town knew who she was and what her life was about. Which begs the question, how was it that so many men in the room knew who she was and what she did vocationally? The Bible doesn’t tell us, so we can only speculate. But one thing we do know is that when she entered the room, it made everyone uncomfortable. And so you could just kind of imagine the shock of the scene. With the Pharisees, with the other guests, and all the people in the room as spectators. I mean, it would have been outrageous in this kind of religious culture for a prostitute to walk into the home of a Pharisee. It’s the kind of situation that causes all the sounds in the room to go silent in a matter of seconds. The loud discussion, the partying, the clinking of dishes, the buzz of conversation, all of

it fades into these kind of quiet whispers. And all the eyes in the room begin to turn towards this woman, watching her, judging her. But the thing is, she doesn’t care. She knew she’d have access to Jesus at this dinner, and she came prepared. So she brought with her this alabaster jar of perfume with the intention of anointing his head. And as she moves through this room, this obvious walk of shame, past the whispers, past the turned backs, past the condemning glares, she finally made it to Jesus. And standing behind him, she prepared to anoint his head with this perfume, the perfume that was likely paid for by the money she earned from the many sinful men in the town who did whatever they wanted with her and then disregarded her. She took all that money from the life that she left behind, and she used this perfume

as an offering. But in that moment, as she sits in the presence of Jesus, she’s sitting under the weight of her forgiveness of sins, and she’s moved by the love and grace that she had from Jesus. She has this flood of emotions. And so her tears begin to fall like rain onto the feet of Jesus. Tears of repentance, tears of joy, tears of freedom, tears of gratitude that spoke more than what words could ever speak. And as she knelt at his feet, she noticed them. And what she noticed about them was that they were dirty, that they had not been washed. She saw the complete disrespect of the host who failed to honor Jesus by washing his feet, and suddenly a new flood of emotions takes over her. How could you let this happen to my Lord? How could you fail to wash his feet?

The beautiful feet that carried this liberating message of forgiveness to the region, the beautiful feet that John the Baptist said he wasn’t even worthy to untie the sandals of. You see, she understood something that every religious Pharisee in the room failed to understand, something they should have known from reading about the prophet Isaiah 52.7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. And so with no water, no towel available, she did the unthinkable. She let down her hair and used it to wipe away the dirt from Jesus’ feet. And then she kissed his feet and anointed them with the perfume. This family is the most fitting response to such overwhelming grace. She wasn’t concerned with being polite. She wasn’t concerned about the social expectations. Her response was raw, genuine, spontaneous, emotional, and messy, but it was completely acceptable to God.

This woman, deeply aware of her sins and the forgiveness she had received, shows the greatest gratitude and humble worship towards her Savior. Family, when was the last time you responded this way to God’s forgiveness? Does your response to forgiveness look anything like that? What does your response look like these days? Is it mechanical? Is it rote? Is it polished for the public eye? Is it inauthentic or emotionless? Family, I pray that as we hear this woman’s response this morning, we would examine our own hearts and assess if we have lost that impulse to respond to forgiveness this way. And if you have lost the impulse to respond this way, then you’re in a very bad space. You need to get alone with God and ask Him to realign your heart and your affections. Maybe you need to seek out a trusted brother or sister in the church and begin praying

together that God might help you feel and respond to the forgiveness of sin appropriately. Maybe you need to ask the Lord if you have hidden deep in the crevices of your heart a seed of self-righteousness that is keeping you from feeling the depths of your sin and corresponding in the corresponding weight of forgiveness. Family, listen, self-righteousness has a way of eclipsing our gratitude. In fact, self-righteousness is the greatest killer of deep devotion to our Lord. Because ultimately it causes us to think that we either don’t need forgiveness or that we’re somehow good enough or that we’ve earned our forgiveness with the way that we live our righteous life. And that feeling of not needing or earning forgiveness makes our hearts cold and callous towards the Lord’s kindness. It’s one thing to know theologically that God has forgiven you. Yes, that is true. It’s an entirely different thing to feel that God has forgiven you.

---

Presumption of the Self-Righteous

Which brings us to scene three, the presumption of the self-righteous. Verse 39, and now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who was touching him, for she is a sinner. Now in this scene, you actually see a stark contrast of emotions. While the unnamed woman could not contain her tears, Simon the Pharisee cannot contain his disdain. He’s filled with judgment. He’s filled with anger, with shock, with irreverence. Simon sees this woman and he begins to presume the worst of her. He presumes that she is dirty, that she’s worthless, and even worse, she doesn’t belong. She doesn’t belong around these religious people. He might even assume that her devotion is an act of seduction. He sees her tears, her touch, and immediately misreads her motives, and so he’s astonished

at the thought that Jesus would let this woman near him. And as he watches her let down her hair, which in that culture was as shocking as undressing in public, he’s convinced that Jesus is allowing something scandalous to take place in this Pharisee’s room. So Simon isn’t just judging the woman, he is also judging Jesus. Simon’s judgment of both the woman and Jesus kind of gives him an epiphany. Simon thinks to himself, I think I just got what I was looking for. The strategy of the dinner, as it turns out, was successful because now I’ve got some dirt on Jesus. In Simon’s mind, this proves Jesus isn’t a prophet, because if he were a prophet, then he would certainly know what kind of woman this is, that she’s a sinner. And if he knew that she was a sinner, he would never let this kind of woman come near him.

You see, Simon’s religious presumption or presupposition is that religious people should never associate with sinners. But Simon was dead wrong. Simon believed he had both this woman and Jesus figured out, but in reality, he completely misread the entire situation. His self-righteousness blinded him from seeing what was actually happening. And you see, family, this is exactly what self-righteousness does to people. It’s what it does to us. It makes you believe that you are somehow the standard of what is good, acceptable, and worthy. It makes you think that a person’s value or dignity or worth is inextricably tied to their conduct, to their behavior, or how well they fit into the mold of your moral standard or society’s standard. In Simon’s mind, people like that woman, people that don’t fit his idea of righteousness, have no value, they don’t belong, and so they deserve distance. And listen, it’s easy for us to look at this passage and see all of Simon’s errors in this

story, but if we’re not careful, if we’re not careful, if we let this seed of self-righteousness grow in our own hearts, it will produce the same kind of things to us. Even those of us who love the gospel and sing songs about the gospel, it can have a deep impact on us. It will cause us to look at the people around us and determine their worth based on their outward appearances. I mean, if we’re being honest, we do this all the time. We’re just very covert when we do it. We don’t talk about it. We keep it filed in our private life and in our private thoughts. We see prostitutes and drug addicts and homeless people, the people in our city living lifestyles that we don’t approve of, and we immediately place them in that category, those people. Brothers and sisters, if we don’t guard our hearts, we can start to think that some people

are not worth saving. Self-righteousness, even in the smallest amount, builds walls around our hearts that keeps us from seeing broken and sinful people the way that God sees them, the way that he saw you and me. Now, while most of us would never admit these things to other people, I’m convinced, and I’m convinced because of my own thoughts, that many of us think these things in the privacy of our own thoughts. I mean, have you found yourself making these kinds of judgments towards the people in our world? What about the people in your neighborhood when you walk past the signs that they stick in front of their house? I have done this so many times, it’s embarrassing to admit it. Instead of seeing those signs on their front lawns as a way to pray for them, there’s that reflexive nature in me that’s just like, those people.

Have you ever looked at someone so deeply entangled in sin and rebelliousness and thought to yourself, there’s no way God could save them? I can’t be the only one in the room who’s thought that. I’ve thought this way a thousand times, especially in the culture in which we live. I mean, we live in perhaps the most broken and sinfully rebellious place in the country. I’m not even, I’m not being facetious or exaggerating. I’ve been all around this country. We live in probably the worst. The Pacific Northwest, more than most places, is incredibly dark, where the most offensive of sins are celebrated. I mean, we’re at the epicenter of the LGBTQ community, the sex industry, the homeless epidemic, the open fentanyl use. And what’s crazy, what’s crazy about all of that is that the people who shape the policies of our city seem to not care enough to do anything about it.

And that’s because their sin causes them to see the city through the lens of activism, or autonomy, or sexual liberation, or pleasure. It’s so bad that I often find myself asking the Lord to help me love the people of Portland. I’m just being honest with you. I need to ask the Lord to help me hate the policies of Portland, but to love the people of Portland. Not only those who are most affected by the policies, but those who make the policies. Family, I pray that God would grant us, as a church, eyes to see the people in our world and in our city, not like the Pharisee, but the way Jesus sees people. Family, listen, it is okay to be angry with sin. We should be angry with sin and its devastating effects on us and humanity. We should be disgusted with our own sin, but you need to protect your heart from falling

into apathy or even hatred towards those people. Jesus taught us to pray for the world, that they might come to know Him and be saved and transformed into new creations, just like we were transformed into new creations. My encouragement for us, as a church, when you go home today and you spend time with the Lord this week, is ask the Lord to search your heart and expose any self-righteousness that might be in there, so that you could see this world the way He does. I will do that with you. The truth is, Jesus already knows your thoughts, just like He already knew Simon’s thoughts. And if we ever find ourselves thinking in this way, that presumes certain people are beyond the grip of grace, or we place them in a category where we begin to hate them and hate what they do, the Lord already knows what’s going on.

Comparative Indifference of Debt

Go to Him, confess it, and receive the forgiveness that He offers others to experience. You see, the truth is, there is no us versus them when it comes to our need. All of us are needy people. All of us are guilty of sin. Which brings us to scene four, the comparative indifference of debt. Verses 40 through 43. And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say it, teacher. A certain money lender had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii, and the other 50. When he could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more? Simon answered, the one I suppose for whom he canceled the larger debt. And he said to him, you have judged rightly. In this scene, Jesus takes complete control of the room. Amidst the tension and the unspoken accusations, He brings calm and sobriety by telling this

simple but powerful parable. What Jesus does here is not too dissimilar to what the prophet Nathan did in 2 Samuel when he confronted King David about his sin. While the meaning is different, the goal is exactly the same. To lead the hearer down a path of self-awareness to help him come face to face with their own sin. So Jesus begins to lead Simon down this path by talking about the very relatable realities of debt. Now just to couch this parable in our world today, Jesus might describe it this way. Imagine two people with loans at the bank. One who has a mortgage of 500,000, that’s normal in Portland. The other for a car loan that’s 5,000, that’s abnormal for Portland. But that’s just what I’m saying. But neither cannot pay the debt. And they’re about to default on their loans. So the bank in some strange and twisted, unexpected way decides, hey, we’re just going to write

it off. We’re going to just forgive the debt of both loans. You’re good. This one is going to feel the most gratitude for the removal of debt. Simon realizing now that he’s caught, responds reluctantly. I suppose the one who had the bigger debt would express more gratitude. And Jesus wisely says, you’re right. This parable is so simple, so straightforward, yet it exposes comprehensively all of Simon’s errors in one punch. Listen, first it proves that Jesus does know this woman, that he knows her condition, that he knows her history, he knows her many sins, and he certainly knows her motives. Secondly, it proves that Jesus knows exactly what Simon was thinking. Remember, Simon didn’t say any of this out loud concerning his thoughts about this woman. It was all in his mind. Which then proves thirdly that Jesus is in fact a prophet with the ability to read the

thoughts and hearts of men and women. And fourthly, it proves that Simon and the woman are more alike than Simon realized. They both had a debt they cannot pay. That’s a common denominator. Their inability to cover their debt actually tethers them together, no matter how much debt they owed. To both of them, it was a great debt. Now, here’s where we need to be careful not to misread the parable. Jesus isn’t saying that you have to experience the deepest, darkest sins to feel the full weight of forgiveness. Jesus is not saying that. And I bring this up because I often see this in the church, where the believers with the grimiest and shadiest past seems to get all the attention, as if those are the only kinds of people that experience the miracle of mercy and forgiveness. Family, this is not the case. Every saint who was saved from their sins, no matter the situation, no matter the circumstance,

no matter the severity of their sin, is a miracle. Spiritually dead people brought to spiritual life. So there isn’t this kind of greater degree of spiritual maturity or authority for those who have been pulled out of the depths of the pit. So don’t let that kind of experience cause for you to create in your mind a kind of class system in the church. We are all equally the recipients of God’s marvelous grace. Jesus uses the debt of sin subjectively, not objectively. Jesus paid it all. Every single bit of it. So it’s not necessarily how many sins you’ve committed or how bad, you know, they are compared to other people. It has more to do with how aware of your sin you are. It’s about your conscious awareness of the debt that you owed and the fact that you could not pay it. That’s the whole point of this parable.

Both debtors were bankrupt, unable to pay their debts, but God completely canceled it by grace. Family, I want for us as a church to be careful to not esteem certain people as better than others because their story is, you know, from a human perspective, better or worse, which sometimes the worse is the better. Don’t do that. Because when we do that, the people with the kind of less provocative past will feel like they can’t encourage those with the more provocative past. And then we fail to encourage one another as the scripture calls us to do. And that works the other way around too. When we see each other as a family who are all desperately broken, spiritually bankrupt, but brought to life, then our unity and our worship and our mutual encouragement will be all the more effective and all the more meaningful because we’re on an equal playing

Public Restoration of Dignity

field. Scene five, the public restoration of dignity, verses 44 through 48. Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. I want you to notice something in this text that is, I think, often overlooked. Jesus turns his eyes and his attention to the woman. And keeping his eyes fixed completely on her, he asked Simon this question, not looking

at Simon. Do you see this woman, Simon? Now of course Simon sees her. Everyone in the room saw her from the moment she stepped into the room. In fact, all eyes have been locked on her the entire time, full of judgment and condemnation. But Jesus is asking this question because he’s not asking it because he’s uncertain whether Simon sees her physically. He’s asking because he wants Simon to realize that while he sees her, he doesn’t truly see her. Simon doesn’t see this woman the way Jesus sees her. And more than that, he begins to contrast their actions, showing that not only has Simon failed to treat Jesus with honor, but this woman has actually done everything that Simon, the religious Pharisee, should have done. I entered your house and you treated me with cold indifference. You didn’t offer me any water from my feet.

You didn’t give me a kiss of greeting, no oil to anoint my head. You showed no hospitality and no respect for me. And the reason you did that, Simon, is because you don’t love me. You don’t know me. And yet you go around everywhere claiming to everyone else that you know God. But you don’t know me. Then Jesus turns back to the woman and he says, but this woman, who you so quickly judged, she greeted me with warm tears. She honored me. She kissed my feet. She anointed my feet with perfume. And why does she do all this? Because she loves me. Because she knows me. And in this moment, Jesus cuts right through the heart of Simon’s self-righteousness, exposing not only his lack of love, but also his failure to truly know God. And what’s crazy is that at the same time Jesus gives this Pharisee this sharp rebuke,

notice that Jesus publicly restores this woman’s dignity, value, and worth. Jesus wants everyone in the room to see it. She is accepted by God. Jesus doesn’t look at this woman and see her past. He looks beyond her former reputation, beyond her many sins, and he gives her a future. And I wonder if you saw the goodness of God in this text. By intentionally omitting this woman’s name from Scripture, rarely do we come across a character in Scripture where we’re not told their name. Simon’s name was mentioned. Why is her name not mentioned? Why is she the unnamed woman? Well, this is the goodness of God, to restore and publicly protect her dignity so that in the canon of Scripture we might not associate this woman’s name with her past sins, but have engraved in our hearts this unidentified woman who so wonderfully responded to Jesus

and let that burn into the pages of Scripture and into our hearts so that we might respond appropriately and similarly. This is God’s kindness to this woman. Where Simon and others see this immoral prostitute, Jesus sees an adopted daughter grafted into the family of God. She is loved, accepted, forgiven, and restored. Family, can I ask you this morning, do you feel unloved by the Lord because of your sins? Does shame because of your sin cause for you to believe that God has not forgiven you? Has the sin that you keep tripping over every single week caused for you to believe that God’s forgiveness has run out on you? Maybe you’ve looked at what you shouldn’t have looked at this week or way too many times for God to forgive you of that particular sin. Maybe you’ve blown up at your kids or your wife or your husband so many times this week

that it seems impossible that God will forgive you for the way that you’ve treated them. Child of God, you need to hear this. I need to hear this. If you are trusting in Jesus, if you confess your sins, you are forgiven. His mercy and forgiveness never runs out. They are new every morning. Go to Jesus, confess your sins. He already knows them anyway. There’s no reason to hide. Go to him, confess it, and receive what God has spoken to this unnamed woman. Your sins are forgiven. Family, have you ever wondered why we do this confession and pardon every single week? It’s not just because it sounds cool. We do it because we want you to create a personal liturgy of confessing your sins and being reminded from God’s word about his beautiful pardon. Have you sinned this week? Have you confessed your sins to him?

The Cause and Giver

Brothers and sisters, hear now the pardon that is yours by virtue of the gospel. Luke chapter 7, verse 48. Your sins are forgiven. You, child of God, can rest in that. You don’t need to feel shame. You don’t need to feel guilt. God has forgiven you. You don’t need to try to work off your debt by doing enough good things to weigh out the bad things you’ve done this week. We are not the Catholic church. Jesus paid it all, so Jesus can forgive it all, amen? Jesus seals the restoration of this unknown woman with this public declaration. Notice Jesus doesn’t whisper this in private. He says it openly, confirming that her dignity and worth have been fully restored and that she is accepted by God. This is so beautiful. Scene six, the cause and giver of forgiveness. What was it that caused this woman’s forgiveness, family?

Was it her spontaneous actions? Was it her great love for Jesus? Was it her courage to walk into a crowd of men to get to Jesus? Was it her devotion or humility? You see, if the story ended here, we might deduce that her love and her actions were what caused her forgiveness, that she was forgiven because of her works. But look at verse 49. Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? Finally, the extras in the room get a speaking role. But like most extras, they only exist to accentuate the main character. Their question serves as the final check to Simon’s earlier assumptions that Jesus was not a prophet. By asking who is this who forgives sins, they force the obvious answer. When you survey the Old Testament, the only ones who could forgive sins besides a priest

was a prophet. But Jesus wasn’t simply a prophet. He was the greatest of prophets. He was the prophet to whom all prophets pointed to. They were all but shadows. Jesus was the reality, the ultimate and final prophet. And after this subtle correction to Simon, Jesus answers the question of what truly caused this woman’s forgiveness in verse 50. And he said to this woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. You see, it wasn’t her devotion. Her courage, her actions, all of those things were the consequences of her faith. Her faith was in Jesus and what he has done. That is what led to the forgiveness of her sins. And this is so important to understand. If we miss this family, if we don’t understand this, we end up like the Pharisee, believing that God will accept us based on our own religious work because we go to church every Sunday,

because I give some money to the church, because I’m a member of the church. It’s owing all to Jesus. It’s all by faith. It’s passages like this that Luther appealed to that sparked the Reformation. It is faith alone that saves us. Friends, I wonder if there are any of you here this morning that would not consider yourself to be a Christian. I want you to hear this with the deepest amount of affection and love that I can muster up. You need a Savior. You need a Savior to save you from your sins. The Bible is clear that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And that God’s rightful judgment for sin is death. And dear friend, this is the very reason why Jesus came to die. If you ever were wondering why did Jesus die, it’s because our sin demands death.

But Jesus paid it all. He died in our place so that the sins we commit against him can be paid for. Jesus died to cover the debt that we could never pay. And he offers forgiveness and peace with God freely. All he requires is faith. That you believe who he says he is, the Son of God and the Savior of the world. And you can know him this morning. This beautiful story of God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness extended to scandalous sinners can be your reality this morning. You can embrace him by faith. And if you have any questions about what it means to follow Jesus, after the service we’re going to have a few people standing up here that would love to talk to you. They’ve already been prepared and prepped to answer any questions you have. So come to the front after the end of the service and get those questions answered.

Please don’t leave this morning without knowing the beauty of this forgiveness that Jesus offers with his life, death, and resurrection. Don’t leave today without experiencing that. Family, everyone at the dinner wanted to know who Jesus was. The Pharisees with their cold indifference who had investigated Jesus to try to dismiss him and close the book on Jesus being this so-called prophet and end any obligation that they might feel toward him. The crowd who had witnessed Jesus’ compassion wanted to know who was this man who extended such grace and mercy in such a controversial setting who has the authority to forgive sins. But this woman, the forgiven prostitute, she knew exactly who Jesus was. The one who canceled the debt that she could never pay. The one who took away her many sins and loved her. The one who freed her from a life of oppression and bondage and abuse.

The one who restored her dignity and her femininity by not making her perform for forgiveness but by offering it freely. The one who brings reconciliation by laying down his life for her. She knew who Jesus was and she knew who she was. This is why she responded the way she did, overwhelmed with love because of the forgiveness Christ had given her. She saw the nature and extent of God’s forgiveness and responded in the only fitting way by this radical act of worship and devotion at the feet of Jesus. Family, this should be our response every single time we gather together when we’re confronted with our sin and we are reminded of his great mercy. Amen? Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you that you did not leave us in the pit, in the darkness, in our sin that was killing us and crushing us.

But you made us alive in Christ Jesus. You gave us new hearts that would beat for you, that would love you, that would seek to obey you. God, I pray that you would take those new hearts and make them more like Jesus, that all seeds of self-righteousness would be eradicated from our hearts and that you would give us the eyes of Jesus that sees this world the way that you do, broken and needy. Help us to bring the good news of the gospel to bear on this broken world and in this broken city. God, I pray that you would help us in our homes to bring the gospel to bear on our children. Keep us from being self-righteous parents. Help us to confess to our children so that our children see our deep need for Jesus to forgive us so that they might become acquainted with the God who forgives.

Lord, we need you. We thank you for canceling the debt we could never pay. Help our hearts to worship with thankfulness and gratitude because you are worthy of it. We pray these things in Jesus’ name, amen.