The Power of the Bible
I just want to underscore what Nick was saying, that the most powerful tool we have in our witnessing arsenal is the Bible itself. So many times we look for a tract that will speak to this topic or that issue, and those can be helpful. Sometimes we want a book. Can you give me a book to recommend to my lost family member or to my unsaved co-worker? And those books can be helpful.
But the most important thing that we can share is the Bible itself and ask people to read it with us. So I would encourage you to take some of the Gideon literature today. And if you want a next step on the church end, we have some books downstairs near the information desk called Reading the Bible One to One by David Helm.
I have lots of copies of that book, and it's just a book to equip you on how to read the Bible with someone else, whether they're a believer or a non-believer. And out of that have come many evangelistic conversations and even people professing faith in Jesus. So I want to encourage you to be involved in that.
This morning, as we consider the scripture, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7, beginning.
Context of Luke Chapter 7
In verse 36 through the end of this chapter, so far as we've been looking in this section of Luke's gospel, we see Jesus encountering different people. He started by coming into contact with two Gentiles, non-Jewish people that were in desperate need. One was a Roman soldier, a centurion in fact, whose son was ill. The other was a widow whose son had died. And Jesus came into both of their lives and attended to their need by healing the son that was sick, restoring life to the son that had died, and more importantly, curing the souls of all. And that is offering the hope of forgiveness through his work as the Messiah.
Well, Jesus not only encountered Gentiles, he also last week when we saw was in a discussion with John the Baptist's disciples who had sent and come to Jesus asking a question on behalf of John. And Jesus offered him the assurance of his identity and his work. Now we see Luke telling us about a sinful woman and a Pharisee named Simon. Those are the people that we'll meet today in Luke chapter 7, verses 36 and following, where Jesus is returning to some Jewish people that need a divine encounter, that need to understand that Jesus came to save sinners.
Let me read this passage for us as we consider it this morning. When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisees' house and he reclined at his table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees' house. So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisees who had invited her saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is and that she is a sinner."
Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you." "Tell me, teacher," he said. "Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him 500 denarii and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven." "You have judged correctly," Jesus said. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little."
Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this? Who even forgives sins?" And Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."
As we hear this account of the woman and the man, and we see Jesus interacting with them, we come face to face with the fact that Jesus had come to save sinners. Jesus was not simply coming to confirm religious people in their self-righteousness and say, "Good job." No, he was coming to show that even religious people were doing a bad job and that they needed forgiveness of sins.
Often, when a notorious sinner becomes a Christian, even earnest believers doubt their conversion. Perhaps someone in jail makes a profession of faith and well-meaning Christians say, "Well, he only found Jesus because he wants to get early parole." Or maybe someone who's caught in a white-collar fraud case makes a profession of faith and believers say, "Well, he's now saying he's a Christian because he hopes the judge will be lenient." The point is, we can be skeptical when we hear the gospel converting sinners even in a point of crisis and desperation. But sinners are precisely the people Jesus came to save.
As we encounter this story this morning of a sinful woman, a self-righteous man, and a glorious savior, we're going to see that Jesus came to meet people where they were, to take them where they needed to go. After Jesus had preached his sermon, he was showing how his sermon worked its way out in real lives. This is why Jesus came down from the mountain, not to applause of people saying, "Give us more," or we wish there were some way to have recorded that so we can hear it over and over again. But people were genuinely confused. They wondered why Jesus had said the things that he did, why he challenged them with the beatitudes, why he confronted them with love for neighbor, and why he even challenged them to love their enemies.
Jesus not only preached an amazing sermon, and one that was misunderstood, but he walked with real people to show how his sermon informed his life. And as Jesus comes to this situation, Simon is a man we don't know a lot about. Yet this man has been observing Jesus and has been around him enough that he feels comfortable inviting him over to dinner, and Jesus accepts the invitation.
So as Jesus comes into Simon's home, that's when events begin to unfold. In the way that Luke tells this story, there are parallels to other encounters that Jesus had with scandalous women. But these are not those stories that are recorded in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. This is not Mary Magdalene that has come into Simon's house. This is a woman who's not even named by Luke.
Because the point is not to draw attention to her, but to contrast her with Simon, the one who thought he had it all together. The one who was important enough that he could host this incredible teacher who was gathering so much attention, and yet the one who needed Jesus more than he realized. He desperately needed Jesus.
So as Luke tells this account, he first introduces us to the Pharisee; he says in verse number 36, "And Jesus coming into his home," but the focal point in the first section of this passage is an uninvited,
An Uninvited Sinful Woman
Sinful woman who honors Jesus. And that's my first point this morning, that there is an uninvited, sinful woman who honors Jesus.
Jesus. This Simon is not the same impulsive disciple that followed Jesus. This is not Simon Peter. This is another Simon. We don't know about him. We only know that he's a Pharisee. He's one of the most religious people in Israel, one of the leaders of the faith. And this man has invited Jesus into his home, but Luke does not give Simon's motive. In Luke's telling, he simply says that he invited him over to dinner, verse 36, and Jesus went to his house and reclined at the table.
In the first century, people walked from place to place. And as they did this, they would inevitably get dirty. They didn't have paved roads in the way that we do. They had stone chips and dusty soil on the paths and the roads that they followed from place to place and house to house. And when they went anywhere, their feet would get dusty or muddy, depending on the weather. And a good host would offer water for their guests to either clean their feet themselves or they would have the guests' feet cleaned for them.
However, Simon, in inviting Jesus, does not do that. He does not offer Jesus this common courtesy of water to cleanse his feet, but nonetheless, Jesus is found reclining at his table. This table would have been a low table lower to the ground in the center of the room, really in the center of the house where people could have been observing that weren't a part of the table meal, but were there to listen to what was being discussed by those who were there. Usually, this would have been only men at this kind of table. And the way they sat at the table was not like we do in tables with chairs that have us upright, but they would have been reclining with their feet stretched out away from the table.
And here with this scene of men eating and talking about the issues of the day, perhaps even inquiring about Jesus, about his teaching and his miracles, it says in verse number 37 that a woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees' house. So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.
The irony here of Jesus' unclean feet only becomes apparent when an uninvited sinful woman appears at the dinner table. This woman's name does not appear anywhere in the story because she is in contrast to Simon, whose name is all over the story. The woman was known for her sins, and she felt great guilt and shame. Simon, however, was recognized for being religious, even self-righteous, a Pharisee of Pharisees. He felt enormous pride for his purity.
The people in the town, including Simon, knew this woman. They said, it says in verse 37 that she lived a sinful life. This is a gloss or a summary statement to mean that she lived contrary to God's law and in open immorality. It's most likely that this woman was a prostitute. People knew that she had violated God's seventh commandment and others, and they viewed her with scorn and disgust. Yet, sadly, the men who abused this woman avoided the same level of contempt. That seems to be the way it always works: that the women get the blame and the men get off.
But the point here is that the scene has been set. Simon has received Jesus into his home and seated him as a guest of honor. And now, this uninvited woman, known for scandalous sin, has learned about Jesus being there. So she came with her jar of perfume. Somehow, she snuck into Simon's house to see Jesus, and she brought a highly valuable gift with her. Again, this should strike you as strange because a Pharisee would not be inviting a prostitute into his home. If a Pharisee were hypocritical enough that he was going to a prostitute, he would have gone to her, not invited her.
And here she comes uninvited, sneaks her way into the presence of Jesus. She got so close that it says in verse number 38 that she was standing behind him and weeping over his feet. She was crying uncontrollably. Imagine the scene. Not only has she snuck in, now she's announced her presence. And she's crying so much that his feet are getting wet enough that they were becoming—the soil was turning to mud. And she wiped the slurry of tears and mud with her hair.
Another scandal. In this culture, a woman would not have let her hair down in the presence of other men. But now she's letting her hair down in the presence of everyone and using that hair to mop the feet of Jesus. This uninvited woman now had everyone's rapt attention. All eyes were on her. She wasn't talking to Jesus. She was crying uncontrollably. Everyone in the room probably felt the tension around the table as they looked at the woman and they looked at Jesus and they watched Simon to see what was going to happen.
This scandalous sinner was bringing her guilt and her shame directly to the guest of honor and insulting this host. What would Simon the Pharisee do? Would he stop her? Would he dismiss her? What was going to happen next?
Well, at this point, this woman made everyone even more uncomfortable because she was not only crying profusely and wiping Jesus' feet with her hair, but it also says she was kissing his feet and anointing them with perfume. This was no sexual connotation or advance against Jesus. This was an advance of humility, even desperation, that she was honored to be in the presence of the promised Messiah.
We don't know this woman or her reputation or her beliefs, but we will come to see that she believes that Jesus is who he said that he is. At this point, all we know is that she is showing that she reveres him, that she honors him, and she respects him. Simon, for his part, didn't stop her. She continued. She did what she had come to do, casting herself at the feet of Jesus, essentially begging for mercy. And with the weight of guilt and shame that she must have felt for her sins, she believed in her heart that Jesus was there to help her.
When we see a passage like this, it can make us uncomfortable because we're like, "What is going on? This is odd. I've not seen that happen before, and I'm not sure I want to see that happen." But what Luke has recorded for us is a glimpse into someone's brokenness over their sin. He's showing us that we must admit our sin against a holy God and come to him for forgiveness. It's only when we recognize our sin for what it actually is, an offense against a holy God, that God can offer us the balm of forgiveness.
God offers us forgiveness when we come to him with our guilt and our shame, even our scandal. And Jesus saves sinners from every kind of sin. This woman's sin was not an obstacle to Jesus' forgiveness. He didn't say, "Well, I save some people, but not prostitutes. I save self-righteous men. I save Pharisees, or I save other moral people, but this, no." That's not what happens at all. This woman has literally bowed herself prostrate before the Son of God, asking for mercy. And that is exactly what he gives her. At the end of this passage, he tells her, "Your sins have been forgiven. Your faith has been blessed. Go in peace." The idea being Jesus welcomed this woman and he forgave her of her sins.
When we think about the gospel, we think about all kinds of different ways that we came to Christ and God saved us from all different backgrounds. Some of us were blessed to be children when we understood the gospel. That's my own testimony that when I was young, six years old, that I felt the weight of sin. And though my sin was small by comparison as a child, I still sensed that something was desperately wrong between me and God. And it was in that weight of sin that my dad was able to clarify my need of the gospel and the relief that came through Christ's forgiveness.
And that's exactly right. But others of you may have been saved when you were older. Perhaps you were a teenager. Perhaps you were in college. Maybe you were a young adult or a middle-aged adult and possibly a senior adult. All of us bring different sins and different issues. All of us have guilt and shame for our sin. And it must be brought under the authority of Jesus. We need to bow before Jesus with the hope of forgiveness, knowing that he gives us his righteousness. That's exactly what this woman has done in this context and what he does for us.
But there's a contrast in this account. First, we see the uninvited, sinful woman who's honoring Jesus. But second, we see a religious, self-righteous man who judges Jesus. A religious, self-righteous man who judges Jesus. Up until this point, all we've
The Judgment of a Pharisee
Heard from Simon is the invitation, the scene of him reclining with Jesus, but nothing about his reaction to the woman. So Jesus is now going to confront Simon. Notice that when the Pharisee saw this, he had a reaction in his mind. He didn't speak it out loud, but in verse number 39, it says, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who's touching him and what kind of woman she is, and that she is a sinner."
In other words, if this man was truly holy, representing God, if he were the Messiah that people are saying that he is, like crazy John who's in jail, then surely he would disassociate himself from this prostitute. He would not be inconvenienced, let alone made unclean by interacting with her. Simon was silently judging Jesus. He was observing her and he was condemning Jesus just as he had already condemned this woman. In his mind, without saying a word out loud, he was confronting Jesus, rejecting Jesus.
And yet Jesus surprised him. He didn't surprise him by merely addressing Simon. Jesus surprised him because he answered what he was thinking. Notice it says in verse number 40 that Jesus answered him. Simon had not asked a question or spoken a word out loud, yet Jesus knew what he was thinking. And he said, "I have something to tell you."
Jesus didn't ask the woman to stop what she was doing or be quiet or go to another room or even be removed from the house. Instead, now he directs his comments to Simon. To this point, we don't see Jesus saying anything to the woman. She's continuing to cry. Maybe her uncontrollable tears have turned into a more quiet sob. But whatever the case, Jesus used this interruption of an uninvited woman to confront Simon's sinful heart. And he used a parable to teach about forgiveness. In this very simple parable,
The Parable of Two Debtors
There were two people who owed money to a moneylender, and neither one of them had the resources to pay him back in verses 41 and 42. One man owed a debt that was 10 times greater than the other man. Denarii, without getting into the whole thing, was simply a day's wages. So one man owed about a year's worth of wages, and the other owed 10 years' worth of wages. These were crushing debts in the ancient Near East. There was no leverage that he could shop from bank to bank or find some venture capital. Instead, these men had to own it and they were stuck. And with these debts, they were completely dependent on the moneylender.
Yet Jesus says in his parable that the moneylender forgave the debts of both men. He had every right to demand repayment. Both men owed him a debt, and he would stand to lose a lot of money. Perhaps even his fortune would be at risk by these guys defaulting on their loans. So this man made an incredible gesture of kindness and generosity. The moneylender released these debtors from their obligations and he forgave them both and canceled the debt. He doesn't defer it or delay it. He canceled it.
So Jesus finishes this parable as simple as it is, and he asks Simon a question: "Which one of these debtors will love the moneylender more?" Verse 42. Simon cautiously replied as if he were a politician, a religious, upright man who is trying to read the room and say the right thing. So he says, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt." Now think about the irony dripping in the words "suppose." It should be obvious that the man with the greater debt had the greater response. And yet Simon is hedging his bet, saying, "I suppose" that is the right answer. Maybe he sensed that Jesus was making a point and that that point was coming his way. After all, Jesus has just read his mind and is answering questions that he's not asked out loud.
But whatever the case, even Simon would recognize that both men in the parable needed forgiveness, but one man appreciated it far more than the other. So Jesus told Simon very simply, "You've judged correctly." Notice that Simon did discern the difference. But what the contrast here is that the Pharisee had judged Jesus and the woman incorrectly. He had read the parable, or not read the parable, heard the parable, and understood it correctly, but he had completely misjudged Jesus. He had looked down on the sinful woman and formed the wrong opinion about Jesus. In Simon's way of thinking, Jesus was not a holy man and he certainly could not be the promised Messiah.
What we see happening here is that God is condemning self-righteous, religious hypocrites. Too many times, religious people do not recognize the magnitude of their sins. They don't see that their critical and judgmental attitudes are an obstacle to their forgiveness because they can't themselves forgive others because they're constantly accounting for, "This person did this, this person did that." These guys look like the bad guys, we're the good guys, and they have it all wrong. Too many times religious people simply compare themselves to others as if God is judging sin on a sliding scale from least to worst. But all sin, the Bible says, is an offense against God. All sin will be punished by the wages of death. And all sin that is not dealt with through the forgiveness of Jesus will cause the damnation for those who sin.
Self-righteousness is insidious because it blinds us to complacency and it causes us not to see ourselves as we really are. Think of this: Jesus knew Simon's thoughts before he ever said them out loud. And Jesus spoke to what Simon was thinking in order to point him to his need for forgiveness. Have you ever been in a church service or a Christian meeting where someone was teaching the Bible or a sermon was being preached and you feel like, "That pastor is talking to me"? It's as if he knows what I'm thinking. It's as if that message has been written for my particular conscience and what I'm struggling with. Well, it's not because the pastor has read your email and has your phone and looked at your text messages, nor is it because he can read your mind. It's because the Spirit of God, by the word of God, convicts sinners and brings us face to face with our need for Jesus.
What Jesus was trying to show Simon is that even religious people that think they're morally upright desperately need forgiveness for their sins. Because even the most religious person, the most moral person, has nothing to offer God but filthy rags, soiled like Jesus' feet, messed up like the woman's hair, ruined like the woman's life in terms of the struggles that she had gone through and would probably continue to face. And yet all can be dealt with by the cross. Several years ago, whenever... had finished with a church plant over in Suwannee. Crystal and I were in a liminal season, and that's for Luke, the word liminal.
So, a liminal season is an in-between season where you just don't know where things are going, what's happening, and it's a season of waiting and confusion and sometimes frustration. The Bible is filled with these seasons of the people of Israel waiting for God to act, waiting for God to bring them out of Egypt and into the promised land.
And there were liminal seasons, even in the life of Jesus, that it took 30 years before he announced his public ministry. And Crystal and I found ourselves in one of those seasons of in-between, of waiting.
And it was in that season that we were confronted face to face with this idea of our ongoing and desperate need for the Savior. Because so many times what happens, especially the longer you walk with Christ as a Christian, is you flatten the gospel.
The Danger of Flattening Gospel
And you think, "Well, that was something that I made that decision when I was a child. That's something that I'm okay." I've been walking with Jesus now for many years. I've even pastored churches. And yet, during that liminal season of our lives, God brought a mentor into our lives that helped us see that our need for the gospel is never-ending because our own understanding of sin should grow in time.
And he pointed us, and I've now pointed many other Christians, to the fact that the Apostle Paul, at the end of his life, didn't say, "I'm so glad that I'm better than all the other Christians." No, the Apostle Paul said, "I'm the worst Christian I know." He struggled at times whether or not he was a Christian at all. And yet, in those same passages where Paul is working that out, and in that case, 2 Timothy, he's also saying, "But I have such an incredible Savior, a Christ who's given me his righteousness and a Christ who has forgiven me all my sins."
During Crystal and I's liminal season, we came to realize that we had flattened the gospel. Not that we knew all the right words to say and we appreciated Jesus, we had made him small, sort of like those mini Jesuses that are going around right now. But what we came to see is that Jesus is incredible, that our sins go far deeper than we ever realized, and yet God forgives them all.
It was no longer surface sins that we were either avoiding or ignoring. It was those sins of the heart, like Simon thinking in his head, those judgmental thoughts, those critical attitudes, and those condemning thoughts or statements that also needed to be dealt with at the gospel. So I say that to say, I've been Simon. I have been a man who has known it all. I'll put that in air quotes. I don't know it all. A man who thought that he had things figured out and was living a good life, only to be reminded that the life I live is always because of the mercy of Jesus.
And that sometimes the most self-righteous, religious people are the people that need Jesus the most. That's what Jesus wanted Simon and all in that room to understand, is that he was not here simply to save prostitutes, but he was also here to save a Pharisee. And he could do this because he's the great high priest.
And that leads to my last point. So an uninvited, sinful woman is honoring Jesus. And a religious, self-righteous man was judging Jesus. But point number three is that all repentant sinners receive forgiveness. All repentant sinners receive forgiveness. Beginning in verse 45 to the end of the chapter, in what must seem like an incredibly long pause, Jesus turned toward the woman and said, "Simon, do you see this woman?" Up until this point, he had not addressed the woman, not given her eye contact.
The Contrast of Two Responses
Now he's looking into her teary eyes and he's saying, "Simon, do you see what's going on here?" This woman that God was using was there not only for the forgiveness of her sins, but to underscore Simon's need for his forgiveness.
Simon saw the woman and wanted her to leave. Jesus saw the woman and wanted her to come, wanted her to experience the gospel of forgiveness. So Jesus leveraged the woman's incredible kindness. Simon, who had invited Jesus to his house for a meal, had not offered him the kind of hospitality that would be reserved for most guests, not to mention a guest of honor. He had come into his house, Jesus said, and he did not give him any water for his feet. He didn't greet him with a kiss. He didn't put oil on his head. Simon did not treat Jesus well.
Yet this uninvited woman honored Jesus. She wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, kissing his feet non-stop and poured her perfume on his feet. The uninvited woman admitted her sinfulness. She came to Jesus for forgiveness, and Jesus forgave her and displayed great love toward her.
Jesus knew that Simon needed the forgiveness of his sins, but Simon only saw himself as pure and righteous, the exact opposite of this woman. He didn't honor Jesus because he didn't need what Jesus was offering. After all, in Simon's mind, Jesus was not a prophet and there was no way he would have considered him the promised Messiah. Simon probably thought Jesus was a charlatan and himself a sinner, but Simon misunderstood Jesus entirely. He was coming to compare himself to the uninvited woman.
Simon compared himself to this woman thinking, "I'm a Pharisee, she's a prostitute, I'm pure, she's impure, I'm moral, she's immoral." But Simon was comparing himself to the wrong standard. He was comparing himself to the sinfulness of a woman, but the right standard was the holiness and righteousness of God. Simon was a sinner who had fallen short of the glory of God, who had broken God's moral law and needed forgiveness.
Too many times we compare ourselves to other sinners to justify our own sin and excuse our own transgressions. We'll say things like this: "Well, at least I didn't do that." Or, "Do you know about what so-and-so did? Let me tell you a story. I would never do anything like that. That's unbelievable. You would never catch me in that situation." Or, "I'm not that bad of a person. I mean, again, look at so-and-so." Or I hear this one all the time: "I try to do good things and be a good person." Or finally, you might say, "Compared to everyone else, [fill in the blank]."
But the point is, God doesn't compare us to each other. He doesn't say the prostitute is the epitome of awful and the Pharisee is the pinnacle of good. Jesus is flattening and saying sin is sin and all sinners need to come before Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. It was easy for Simon to tell Jesus, "This woman is a sinner," but it was impossible for him to admit, "I am a sinner."
Jesus proved that he was a prophet and the Messiah because he knew Simon's thoughts. He knew the woman's thoughts. And he revealed that Simon had a judgmental heart and he revealed that the woman was trusting him for forgiveness. Simon needed the same thing as the woman. He just didn't see it yet. He owed an unpayable debt for his sins, and Jesus was prepared to cancel it.
When we repent of our sin and receive the forgiveness of God, we can love and thank our Savior. The woman in this story did not receive forgiveness because she loved Jesus or showed him honor. She displayed great love and honor because Jesus had forgiven her sins. Her faith in Christ assured her of salvation and caused her to respond to Jesus with great love and deep respect.
This is why Jesus says in verse 47, "Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown." In other words, this woman brought Jesus' parable to life. She had been forgiven an incalculable debt, and she responded to Jesus with her great love and affection. She risked public embarrassment in front of a household of religious people, and she honored Jesus no matter what they thought.
But Jesus describes Simon's response with these words in verse 47, "But whoever has been forgiven little loves little." Simon lacked any kind of self-awareness about the sins of his heart and mind. He and the woman had both sinned against God. But Simon harbored self-righteousness and pride about being a Pharisee. He had a critical spirit against Jesus and against the woman. He desperately needed the same mercy.
The woman's sins were more obvious and known in the community, but Jesus knew both of them had sinned. Both the woman and Simon were morally corrupt and could not pay back the sins that they had committed against God. Simon was just as morally bankrupt as the woman, and Jesus wanted him to realize it. So now Jesus finally speaks to the woman.
This woman, who so far we've only heard crying uncontrollably, sobbing quietly, and standing in the presence of Jesus, is now going to be directed not in the third person like verse 47, but in the first person. Jesus looked intently into her tear-drenched eyes, and he noticed her disheveled hair, and he tenderly said, "Your sins are forgiven."
Jesus Christ is the moneylender. He paid the woman's debt for sin in full. The woman had searched for Jesus with the hope of Israel for her forgiveness. Now she gladly and lovingly believed Jesus forgave her. And Jesus said to her, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."
Jesus saw Simon's judgmental attitude against him and confronted it. And he also saw the woman's heartfelt faith in him, and he blessed it. But yet Simon's friends were just like Simon. They were religious, self-righteous, and skeptical about all that was happening. And they asked the question, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"
By declaring the woman's sins forgiven, they recognized that Jesus was making a claim to be God. Only God could forgive sins. We saw that in Luke chapter 5, and we'll see it again later in Luke. The Son of God, Jesus, would later give his life as a sacrifice for the sins that this woman and others committed. And this forgiveness would cost Jesus his life on a sinner's cross so that we could have atonement for our sin.
That's why we'll celebrate communion in just a few minutes when we receive the bread and the wine to remind us of the sacrifice that Jesus made. Once we realize the magnitude of our sins, then we can appreciate the greatness of the forgiveness we've been given. Those of us who have been forgiven the most can respond to Jesus with the greatest love. That doesn't mean that we have to be the greatest sinner, that everybody knows of the notoriousness of our sin, but we need to be broken and gripped. Did you know that most revivals over the centuries happened
The True Meaning of Revival
When church people realized how much they had sinned against God? We have confused revival with evangelism to say that revival comes when lots of people get saved. But I would say revival comes when Christians come face to face with what Simon was being confronted with, that they are broken over their sinfulness, that they are grateful for God's forgiveness, and that they desperately want to tell others.
When Crystal and I went through that difficult season of waiting and we were challenged with this truth that as we grow in Christ, we grow in awareness of our sin. Guess what that did? That made us better evangelists. It made me bolder in talking to people about Jesus because I could relate to other sinners and say, "I'm just one sinner sharing with another sinner the desperate need we both have for Jesus."
Charles Spurgeon in his day said this about this passage. He said, "I'm afraid that there are many professed Christians who must have had very little forgiven them. For they love Christ very little. As you diminish the guilt of sin, the punishment of sin, you also diminish the sense of obligation in being saved from sin. Consequently, you diminish your love to Christ."
Those words ring true, that so many Christians have so little love for Jesus because they don't realize how much Jesus has saved them from. And yet I'm here to tell you, Jesus can save a scandalous woman. Just as he can save a self-righteous Pharisee, he can save you because we are one or the other. We are either someone who knows that we have sinned and we have sinned greatly against God, or we're someone who's deceiving ourselves into thinking, "I'm okay. I'm all right. I don't need this gospel stuff."
What we believe about Jesus and what he has done for our sin will determine our eternity. Jesus told the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." This woman who had only known the discomfort of guilt and shame, had only known the embarrassment of our sin, was now relieved at the gospel.
Jesus wants you, whether you're a child, a teenager, or an adult, to come face to face with your sin, confessing it to him and receiving his righteousness. And when we do that, it says we will be saved. My question for you is, are you the scandalous woman who knows your sin and feels the weight of it and wants this forgiveness? Or are you the self-righteous Pharisee saying, "I'm okay. Look at what I've done. Compare me to those other people"?
Whichever the case, I would beg of you to believe in Jesus, to confess your sins to him and trust him. And as we receive the elements of communion this morning, these elements are for believers. And I would encourage you to think again of the magnitude of your sin and the incredible measure of God's grace poured out on you.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider this passage, we do see ourselves in this. We see ourselves as either those who are riddled with guilt for our sin or those who are trying to minimize it and simply compensate for it with our own righteousness. Father, I pray that you would bring both kinds of people face to face with their desperate need for Jesus and help us to respond to the grace that we've been given by living lives for you. God, help us to realize that we are the worst sinners and help us to become your greatest champions. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.