Introduction:
To be free from your past... (Luke 7:36-50):
- Recognize Jesus and respond with Humility . (Luke 7:36-39)
- Recognize the debt You owed and Christ paid. (Luke 7:40-47)
- Recognize that forgiveness is received by Faith . (Luke 7:48-50)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Good morning everyone.
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It's really an honor to be here sharing the Word of God with you this morning.
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Let's pray before we get started.
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Lord God, I thank you for this day. I thank you for this church.
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I thank you for everything that you're doing here and across the world, Lord.
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I pray today that, today God, you would move me aside and your Word would speak, Lord God.
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I pray that you would prepare all of us right now to hear your word and be changed by it in a way that only you can do Lord. Thank you we ask you all these things in Jesus name, Amen. Open your Bibles with me please to the book of Luke chapter 7 and as you're turning there have you ever been in a situation where you run into someone and they know who you are but you don't know them? I mean some people say they never forget a face right but personally I specialize in forgetting faces. So I remember this happened to me a few years ago I was at a concert and I was talking to my future brother-in-law actually and And I heard somebody walking down the aisle behind me, and they shouted out, "Justin Katie?" And so I turned around and looked, and had no idea who this person was.
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Has anybody ever been there?
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So we're kind of stuck at that point in this silent face-off, and just waiting for the other person to say something, and then finally she says her name, and then it all clicks.
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I totally remember who she is.
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We actually went to high school together.
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We were actually pretty good friends, and we knew each other pretty well.
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And she looked exactly the same as the last time I saw her.
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And the thing about it is, I graduated in a class of 25 students.
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So I really had no excuse.
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I absolutely should have known who she was.
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So we talked for a couple minutes after that, but there's really no coming back from that start to the conversation.
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Now, that incident was my fault, and I was really glad to see that person.
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But when you run into someone from your past in that story from high school, it kind of makes you think back to that time, doesn't it?
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And the thing about that is - don't raise your hands - some parts of their past that they'd really rather forget.
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It could be from high school, it could be from college or your first job or whenever.
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It could be something that happened last week and it just keeps coming back into your mind.
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Whether it happened a few days ago or whether it happened decades ago, our past can weigh us down. And I think we all know what that weight feels like, right? We all make mistakes certainly, but some of them just seem to stick with you. And please, I'm not at all trying to dig up old wounds or anything like that, but if you could, just think back to yourself right now. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever felt that maybe people were identifying you by a mistake or by a sin in your life instead of who you are?
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And maybe in complete honesty you just want to say to that person, "Look, I know I did that.
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I know I said that.
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But that's not me." So can we please just move on from that and pretend like it didn't happen?
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Or maybe the part of your past that is eating at you isn't out in the open at all.
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Maybe it's something that only you know or only you remember.
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And whether it's conspicuous or whether it's a total secret, that can continue to eat away and just grow into an unbearable burden.
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So what's my point in telling you all this?
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In the story that I told, I didn't recognize my old friend, even though I definitely, definitely should have known who she was.
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And in the passage of scripture that we're going to read today, we are gonna see misrecognition of a sort, but we're also going to see three biblical truths that we need to recognize if we wanna be free from that weight of our past.
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So if you've ever dealt with feelings of regret or missed opportunity or failure, then you're in the right place today because we're going to look at a scripture that addresses exactly that.
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So again, if you'll open with me to Luke 7, we're going to pick it up starting in verse 36.
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It says, "One of the Pharisees asked Him," Him being Jesus, "to eat with him.
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And he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table.
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And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining a 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 the ointment." Pause there for just a moment. There are a few things about those verses that might jump out as a little bit unusual.
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First of all, Jesus was invited to dinner with a Pharisee.
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The Pharisees did not like Jesus.
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And secondly, I don't know how dinners usually go at your house, but at our house, if someone showed up unannounced, let themselves in, and started pouring something all over my feet, I think I would ask my wife to call the cops.
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Now, I'm just kidding, but my point is that this meal is a little bit different than what we're used to typically in our homes.
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This meal was more of a festive event, so it wouldn't have been uncommon for a variety of people to just show up and kind of observe what was going on.
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And as we read in verse 37, word was traveling around that the meal was happening.
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So it wasn't a surprise that a woman showed up.
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The surprise here is that she showed up, and of course, what she did after she arrived.
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So who was this woman?
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Each of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, record an event where a woman anoints Jesus, but for a variety of reasons, most scholars believe that the other three Gospels describe one event, and the account that we're reading today is a separate event that's only recorded by Luke. And the truth is, we don't really know who she is other than what the Bible tells us here, that she had a sinful past and her reputation preceded her. Everybody knew about it. And many of us probably know someone like that, someone whose past colors everything that we think about about that person, or everywhere they go, all eyes are on them because of that.
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And as we talked about earlier, many of us may have felt that way about our own past.
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But despite this woman's well-known sin, she arrived carrying an alabaster flask of ointment.
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Now, the word "ointment" here is better translated "perfume" to us, and it was extremely valuable because at the time, you could only open and use it once.
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So she's approaching Jesus, carrying this extremely valuable perfume.
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And as she does that, we read that he's reclining at table.
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So during these meals, everyone would basically be lying down on these low couches that were around the table.
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And that's how, when the woman arrives, she actually had easy access to Jesus' feet.
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If you try to imagine that with the table and chairs that we're used to, it's a little bit more complicated.
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So are you picturing this scene?
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There's this public meal.
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Everyone there knows this woman's past, knows her negative reputation.
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But in full view of these people, she's bringing her very best, her valuable perfume to Jesus.
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But before she's even able to pour it out, she's just overcome with emotion.
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Verse 38 says, "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 the ointment.
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Obviously, she doesn't care what anyone thinks.
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She wipes the tears with her hair, kisses his feet, and then pours out her perfume.
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And so we have to ask, "Why is she doing this?
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What would drive someone to this incredible, lavish display of love?" I'll tell you, she recognized Jesus for who he is.
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Now, we don't know what event in her life originally triggered her to do this, but clearly Jesus changed her life.
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And now she's worshiping Jesus with her possessions, with her emotions, and with her actions.
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I mean, wow.
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She clearly understood who Jesus was, that he was the Messiah and that he was the Son of God.
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And these actions are her response.
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And that's our very first point for today.
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To be free from your past, you have to recognize Jesus and then respond with humility.
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Humility is the first step.
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And when I say humility, I mean living for God and for others before yourself.
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Around here, we say humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's just thinking of yourself less.
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And Philippians 2.3 says, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." Now, of course, we could spend an entire sermon talking about how Jesus is the ultimate example of humility, but we won't do that today.
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And instead, with that definition in place, we can look back at some of the details about how this woman was humbling herself before Jesus.
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For example, the washing of the feet was typically a servant's task, but not only is she doing that, she's using her tears and her hair to do it, and even kissing his feet.
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The anointing oil is typically poured on the head, but she pours it over Jesus' feet.
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And given her past, it took an immense amount of humility just to be there.
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But she worships Jesus ignoring the judgment of everyone around her.
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Wait a second.
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We know everyone knew her past, but was anyone judging her?
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Let's go back to the text in verse 39.
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Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, He would have known who and what sort of woman this is who's touching him, for she is a sinner.
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Yikes, how'd you like to attend this guy's dinner party?
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Just like the woman, we actually don't know much about this Pharisee either, except that his name was Simon.
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And the Bible does not specifically say why he even invited Jesus, but we do know that the Pharisees, generally speaking, were very much about being noticed.
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In fact, just a few chapters before this, in Luke chapter 5, you can read about Jesus attending a similar public meal with tax collectors, and the Pharisees were pretty upset about it.
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The point is, this invitation wasn't about genuinely getting to know Jesus or ask Him questions.
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It was for show.
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And we know that He wasn't happy about what was going on in His house, because the Bible records exactly what He was thinking.
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He's both doubting the power and the authenticity of Jesus, and he's judging the woman.
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Simon thinks he's better than the woman, and he thinks he knows better than Jesus.
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And as I was thinking about this passage, I actually was reminded of the rehearsal dinner the night before my wife and I got married.
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And I didn't learn this until that night, but apparently cake that's served at the rehearsal dinner is known as the groom's cake.
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I didn't even know there was going to be cake.
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But a friend of mine knew, and she knew that I loved the penguins.
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And so she created this amazing Pittsburgh penguins cake as a surprise.
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So I'm super excited.
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Well, first I'm super excited because I'm getting married the next day.
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But I'm also excited because this cake just looks amazing.
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Actually, do we have a picture of that?
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Yeah, it's pretty awesome, isn't it?
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So you can imagine my excitement.
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Well, a few minutes later, one of the waitresses grabs me and says, "Yeah, my boss was going crazy about your cake.
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I'm going to let her know you're here." Okay.
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So then the manager of the restaurant comes out, and she says to me, "Oh my goodness, don't worry.
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I put it in the safe, and I'm looking at her like, "I don't know what you're talking about." And I quote, she said, "Mario Lemieux is like a god to me." If you're not from around here,
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(Laughter)
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the short version is, Mario Lemieux played for the Penguins, and he's one of the greatest hockey players of all time.
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(Laughter)
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Some would say the greatest hockey player of all time.
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Well, it turns out that the husband of my friend who made this cake had recently met Mario Lemieux, had him autograph a puck, and was giving it to me as a wedding gift.
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Yes!
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(Laughter)
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Well, my friend's idea was to actually put the puck into a case and integrate it into her design of the cake.
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Well, when the manager of the restaurant saw this, She lost her mind.
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She grabbed the puck, took it to the back of the restaurant, and locked it in the restaurant safe.
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This is a true story.
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So why am I telling you this?
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It's because the manager recognized who Mario Lemieux is, and she responded with, in her mind, the appropriate urgent action.
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The waitress, however hard this is to believe, did not recognize who Mario Lemieux was, and she responded with indifference.
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Now flip from my rehearsal dinner back to the dinner that we're reading about.
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The way that the woman and the Pharisee behave in this passage is completely different.
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The woman recognized Jesus, and she responded by reverently, emotionally, ignoring all the outside opinion, worshipping him.
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Simon did not recognize Jesus for who he is, and he was doubting and questioning and judging both Jesus and the woman.
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The first part of being free from our past is understanding who Jesus is and responding appropriately.
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The woman understood and she responded with humility, And Simon did not understand, and he responded with pride.
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I heard a wise pastor once say, "It takes humility to recognize that you're sick with sin." I mean, think about it.
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When do you go to the doctor?
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It's not when you're sick.
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It's when you recognize that you're sick.
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Simon, like many of the other Pharisees that we see in Scripture, he didn't recognize Jesus, and he refused to recognize his own sin.
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He either thought he was good or at least not that bad.
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And if you want to be free from your past, you first need to recognize who Jesus is and humble yourself before him.
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Let's jump back to the text and pick it up in verse 40.
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And Jesus answering said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you.
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And he answered, "Say it, teacher." A certain moneylender had two debtors.
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One owed 500 denarii and the other 50.
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When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both.
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Now, which of them will love him more?
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Simon answered, "The one, I suppose, "for whom he canceled the larger debt." And he said to him, "You have judged rightly." Sean, just to clarify, a single denarius represented one day's wage, but we can understand what Jesus is saying here, right?
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CJ, let's say you owe me 10 bucks.
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Sean, let's say, somehow, you owe me $10,000.
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I question both of our decision making.
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And let's say I call both of you up and I say, you know what, forget it.
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We're totally even.
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Neither of you owe me anything.
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In that scenario, will CJ or Sean love me more?
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Sean, right?
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That's exactly what Jesus is saying here.
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But let's back up a second.
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A woman shows up with an incredible lavish display of love towards Jesus, okay.
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Simon sees it and he judges both her and Jesus in his mind.
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Okay.
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Jesus responds with a lesson on finances.
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Wait, what?
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That was a little surprising.
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There's more to this.
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Let's keep reading.
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We'll pick it back up at verse 44.
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Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman?
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"I entered your house.
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"You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
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You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.
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You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
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Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.
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"But he who is forgiven little loves little." So here, Jesus explains his parable and he's not sugarcoating it for Simon.
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In Jesus' time, culturally, Simon, as the host, would have been expected to provide a way for guests to wash their feet.
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Whether he just brought some water for them to use or he had servants to do it, the responsibility was on Simon.
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And similarly, you would expect a courteous host to greet you with a kiss when you arrived.
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And even though it might sound a little bit strange to us, for a guest of honor, it was customary to anoint the head with oil.
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Simon neglected all of these responsibilities.
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And Jesus is emphasizing that in each of these things, Simon didn't even meet the basic expectation, but the woman not only met them, but went far above and beyond.
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For example, Jesus noted that Simon skipped on anointing with oil, as in a common olive oil, and the woman performed the anointing with that valuable perfume that we talked about.
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So we know that the woman recognized Jesus, but there's more.
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And again, we have to ask, why is she doing this?
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Why?
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Fortunately, Jesus answers that exact question for us right in verse 47.
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He said, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, "for she loved much." In other words, and we're gonna come back to this, she loved much because her sins were forgiven.
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The woman is the one from Jesus' parable who had the large debt forgiven and loved the one who forgave her.
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See, the woman knew her sin. She did. She recognized her sin.
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And using Jesus' metaphor, she recognized her debt.
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But more importantly, she saw that Jesus, and only Jesus, could pay that debt.
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And to be free from our sinful past, we have to do the same thing.
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And that's our second point for today.
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To be free from your past, recognize the debt that you owed but Christ paid.
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After recognizing who Jesus is, we must respond by humbling ourselves before Him, and in that humility, we can recognize the magnitude of the debt that we owe.
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Our sin is a debt that we cannot pay, but praise the Lord, Jesus Christ did pay that debt.
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And for those that know Christ, we can receive our forgiveness in Him.
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And Jesus is teaching here that understanding and receiving forgiveness is the key for freedom from our past.
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Our regrets, our failures, our sin, forgiveness is the key.
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And Jesus even gives us a measuring stick for our understanding, Our love for Christ is proportional to our understanding of His forgiveness.
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Jesus expands on that in the negative direction in verse 47 when He says, "He who is forgiven little loves little." In this passage, Simon again seems completely unaware of his own sin and therefore he loves Christ a little, if at all.
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And he certainly doesn't love the woman.
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Simon saw that this woman sinned more than him, or at least more publicly than him.
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But what he didn't understand is that throughout the gospel, Jesus teaches us that as for where you're going to spend eternity, one sin is the same as one million.
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If you broke the law every single day of your life, or somehow only once, same sin, same guilty, same debt.
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Sin is sin, and whether your past has a little bit of sin, or it's overflowing with sin, it doesn't matter, because in the eyes of God, both are infinite.
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We see in the woman and in Simon that there are two paths that can be taken.
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Like Simon, some people don't see their sin, and there's just a complete failure to recognize the debt that they owe, and they deceive themselves into thinking that they're good, and they don't owe anything to God.
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On the other end, some people are like the woman before she encountered Jesus, carrying a past that's full of sin and full of regret and full of shame.
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And when you're in that situation and you look back on your past, it can be easy to think, "I can never be forgiven because there's just so much here." So much debt. And then you wrongly dismiss the idea of forgiveness, thinking that it's not possible. To be free you need to recognize that all of us are the same in this regard. Each and every one of us owe that debt to God that we cannot pay, and only Christ can pay that debt. So you might be thinking, "Okay, I by humbling myself and I also recognize that I owe a debt and only Christ can pay that debt. So the question is, what do I do to get that forgiveness? To get that freedom? And I am so excited to tell you this morning that Jesus once again has the exact answer. Let's go back to the text in verse 48.
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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.
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"Go in peace." Your faith has saved you.
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The way to receive forgiveness and the freedom that comes with it is only through faith in Jesus Christ.
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And that's our final point on your outline for today.
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To be free from your past, recognize that forgiveness is received by faith.
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See, Jesus' words here confirm that the woman's love towards him was the result of her forgiveness, not the cause of her forgiveness.
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She didn't earn her forgiveness through her worship of Christ or anything she did, and neither can we.
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She received her forgiveness through faith in Jesus, believing that he is who he says he is, and believing that despite the depth of sin that's in her past.
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For some of us, getting over our past and removing that as a barrier in our relationship between us and Christ is a huge challenge.
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You can feel like I've done this thing in my past that everyone knows, and it might as well be tattooed across my forehead.
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I just feel like everybody knows my mistakes and how I've screwed up, and I don't know how they're gonna accept me, much less how Jesus ever will.
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I'm gonna be transparent with you today.
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I'm not the person from the parable with a smaller debt.
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And in fact, I actually don't think that person exists outside of the parable.
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I mean, sure, I'm not a murderer.
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I haven't robbed a bank or even stolen an autographed hockey puck from a restaurant safe.
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But while I haven't done those things, I do have a past.
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I have a past that's full of mistakes and full of regret and full of shame.
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Like the woman, my sins are many.
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And sometimes all I think about every day are all the things that I've done that I wish that I could undo.
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And do you know what Jesus would say to that?
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And what he would say to anyone who's willing to put their faith in him, we just read it.
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He would say, "Your faith has saved you.
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Your sins are forgiven.
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Your sins are forgiven.
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Praise the Lord.
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You can be free from your past.
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And when you start to think about your debt and then Christ's forgiveness, you start to understand this beautiful act of worship of this woman.
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She understood forgiveness.
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And her love for Jesus was just pouring out of her like the perfume that she poured out.
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Because when you really grasp forgiveness, you can't help it.
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Love for Christ just pours out of you.
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Love for Christ leads to love for your brothers sisters in Christ. Love for the lost.
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Verse 47 teaches us that he who is forgiven little loves little, but he who is forgiven much loves much. Some people don't recognize that depth of forgiveness in Christ. The woman was forgiven of a lot and she acted like it. She wasn't ashamed of her past and today we don't have to be ashamed either because regardless of what you've done, what you've said, what you've thought, what you've wished, once you put your faith in Christ, God looks at us and sees Christ.
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He looks at us and says, "I don't see your past. I see you as perfect." It's mind-blowing and it's only possible because of the cross. At the cross through Jesus' sacrifice our sins past present and future were redeemed and the debt that Jesus talks about in this passage it was paid. Through Christ our past doesn't have to be viewed as a weight. He frees us from that but we We don't have to ignore our past either, because it serves as a reminder of who we once were and who we are now.
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Because extending beyond the point of salvation, the point of putting your faith in Christ for the entirety of our time on earth, Christ is transforming us and we're always going to be continually looking back and seeing that transformation.
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the work that he's done in our lives. And looking at it in the negative, if you don't recognize the depth of forgiveness in Jesus, you will continue to carry your past as a weight and probably be defined by it. We can see from the woman's behavior that she's no longer living with that regret or that guilt and that That is why she loves Jesus so much.
33:01-33:07
And through faith in Him, we can follow in the same freedom that Jesus promised to the woman.
33:10-33:19
So as we close, I hope you understand today that you don't need to hold onto your past like so many of us are tempted to do.
33:20-33:29
This passage of scripture outlines how to be healed from that plague of failure and regret and past sin.
33:30-33:33
And as we learn from Jesus, the key is forgiveness.
33:35-33:56
To be free from your past, you have to recognize Jesus and respond with humility, admitting where you've fallen short, and recognize the debt that you owed, but Christ paid, and recognize that forgiveness is received by faith and put your faith in him if you have him.
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And of course, walk out your faith.
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Through Christ, when you screw up, you can pray to the Lord and confess your sin to him and thank him for his forgiveness and ask him to continually be transforming you to be more like Jesus.
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Certainly, you may need to seek forgiveness from another person if there was someone else involved that was wronged in this.
34:24-34:38
And certainly there might be consequences for things that you've done, but if you can pray those things with sincerity in your heart, you truly can walk in the exact same freedom that we read about this woman walking in.
34:40-34:43
So first you need to ask yourself, am I forgiven?
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Have I not yet put my faith in Jesus?
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And if not, today can be your day to make that right.
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And if you already are forgiven through faith, then you need to ask yourself, "Am I living like I've been forgiven, or am I living like I still have that debt?" In either case, you don't need to be burdened by your past, by your reputation, or by your regret.
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You can be free.
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And the answer to our burdens is always in Jesus himself.
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And the same answer that he gave to the woman in verse 50 can be yours today.
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He said, "Your faith has saved you.
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Go in peace." Let's pray.
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Lord God, thank you for your word and thank you for the forgiveness that we have through your son.
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I pray for all of us today, Lord, that through your spirit, you would enable us to understand this forgiveness, both in our heads and in our hearts.
36:01-36:04
Lord, all of us have a past, and all of us have made mistakes.
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And I pray for those of us who constantly struggle with dwelling on them.
36:14-36:21
For those of us who struggle with holding on to our regrets instead of giving those burdens of our past to you.
36:22-36:35
For those of us who may struggle with confessing our sin to you in humility, I pray that in every circumstance, you would bring freedom, Lord.
36:36-36:47
You are the only one with the power to transform us, to change us from what we once into who You have called us to be.
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I pray that You would continue to shape all of us into the likeness of Jesus.
36:56-37:01
God, we all want to be faithful, to live in the freedom that only You provide.
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We thank You, and we praise You, and we ask all of this in Jesus' name.
37:11-37:11
Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Luke 7:36-50
GROUP
What things can get in the way of humility before God?
How would you counsel someone feeling overwhelmed by their past (their “debt”)?
Why do you think some people struggle with internalizing forgiveness?
BREAKOUT
Pray for one another.