YouTube video sermon

Luke 7:36-50

Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to Luke 7. I failed to update the bulletin properly and provide Mary-Lu with the correct text for this morning’s message, so please forgive me. After all, we’re going to be considering the act of forgiveness, so what better way to begin than with an apology and a request for forgiveness. That’s easy, right? You can forgive that, surely. Yes?!

But suppose the offense is deeper? What happens if it’s not a run-of-the-mill mistake? What if the offense cuts to the heart? What if the offense is so significant that you can’t sleep, that there’s literally pain and uneasiness in your chest (and heart), and the words and memories of the person or their actions are stuck in your mind? What then? Do you find it difficult to forgive? And what if you’re the person seeking forgiveness? How is it that we find forgiveness? Where do you go then?

That’s what we’re going to consider (briefly) this morning. Now, keep in mind, I cannot, in the course of one sermon uncover or unpack all that’s involved in this divine transaction. It’s too great, too magnificent, too stupendous a concept and reality that it might consume a person’s entire lifetime of study. Rather, what I hope to do is simply outline the reality of biblical forgiveness and encourage us to embrace it and practice it (be it ever so poorly). And why should we seek to embrace it and practice it? Because we (ourselves) have been the recipients of God’s tremendous forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

To that end, let’s read one of several encounters in the Gospels where we see forgiveness on display (Luke 7:36-50):

36 One of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with Him, and He went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. 37 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, 38 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. 39 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.” 40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”

41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And He said to him, “You have judged rightly.” 44 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. 45 You gave Me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss My feet. 46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but she has anointed My feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven – for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 Then those who were at table with Him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” 50 And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

“God our Father, we thank You that we can gather together this morning around Your most holy Word. As we think together, as we endeavor to bring our minds to bear upon the truth of Scripture, we pray that You might allow the Word of God to dwell within us richly. Help us, Lord, to this end, we pray, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

The Reality of Forgiveness

Perhaps the most striking thing about biblical Christianity is the fact of forgiveness. Since I started preaching (just a moment ago), I’ve referred to forgiveness as a reality and a fact. The reason for that is because, starting at the very beginning of the Bible and running continuously until the last page of Scripture, we’re introduced to a God who, at every point and every place, is ready to forgive. Forgiveness isn’t some psychological crutch used to assuage our guilt – it’s a divine reality. Charles Hodge, a Presbyterian theologian and principal of Princeton Theological Seminary in the early 1800’s said, “guilt can only be removed by punishment; either the sinner, himself, must bear it or a substitute must be provided.” This is a reality that all of us face, and it’s why we need to see forgiveness as a divine reality and fact. God, through Christ Jesus, has the authority and the power to forgive sins.

It’s perhaps the distinguishing feature of Christianity. And being a Christian – at least to the outside world – is perhaps centered in the creedal statement “I believe in the forgiveness of sins…” (Nicene Creed). So, the psalmist writes, “You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to You” (Psalm 86:5, NIV). What a wonderful word to take with you to the office, or to the golf course, or to the gym, or to your school, or to your community tomorrow – to people who wonder who God is, if God is, how God can be known, where He can be known, what He’s like, and how He would reveal Himself. The psalmist says that He reveals Himself in, by, and through His forgiveness, which is good and abounding in love. He’s a forgiving God – forgiving wickedness and rebellion and sin.

It’s with that understanding that you come to passages like Psalm 130:3-4, “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness, that You may be feared.” Or perhaps the most classic example, Psalm 31, which begins with these words, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” One commentator says this, “One must have a dull ear not to hear the voice of personal experience in this psalm. It throbs with emotion, and is a burst of rapture from a heart tasting the sweetness of the new joy of forgiveness” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary).

Personal Experience of Forgiveness

There may be some of you here this morning who have various concepts and notions about forgiveness, but you don’t have a personal experience of being forgiven. And until that happens, until you have a personal experience of being forgiven by God, your ideas about God may be fair enough, they might be close to the Bible, but they will ultimately be merely the affirmations of a creed that you’ve borrowed or the statements of a second-hand religion – statements that momma, or granddaddy, or aunt Suzie used to say. Peter writes, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18a). Puritan church leader and Oxford theologian from the 1600’s, John Owen, said, “There’s not the least encouragement to a sinner to deal with God without the discovery of forgiveness in Him. For God is known in truth only in the forgiveness of sins. In this knowledge of God as the forgiver of sins all knowledge of Him is compounded.”

Think about that. People say, “I know God, or I met God, or I’m into God” or whatever, and John Owen says, “No, you didn’t.” The only way you can ever know God is ultimately in knowing Him as the One who forgives your sins. And according to the Bible, that’s in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. What have you to say about Jesus? What have you done with the man on the middle cross? Do you believe Him to be the “Lamb of God who came to take away the sin in [your] life” (John 1:29, adapted)? Unless you know God as the One who provided forgiveness of your sins through Jesus, then you don’t know God, because ALL of the knowledge of God is compounded in this one dimension.

If you doubt what I’m saying, then all you need to do is read history, read the biography of Martin Luther by Eric Metaxas. Steve Perry let me borrow his copy many months ago. In fact, I believe it was several years ago, and I’ve been reading a little here and a little there (as time has permitted). And when you read Luther’s biography, then you’ll be reminded of the fact that Luther knew the creed. Luther believed the creed. Luther could recite the creed, but he didn’t have a personal assurance that his sins were forgiven. And he owed the discovery of that, humanly speaking, to his mentor, Johann von Staupitz, who said, “Hey, Martin! When Christ died for sins on the cross, He didn’t just die for Paul’s sins and He didn’t just die for Peter’s sins, He died for YOUR sins!” And it was in that discovery that the door of Reformation swung wide on its hinges. Finally, Luther realized that he would know God, discover God, meet God, love God when he accepted the true forgiveness of his sins in Christ – not in the mere recitations of prayers, or creeds, or the comings and goings of formalized religion.

Do you know that all of your stinky, rotten, filthy, dirty, guilt-ridden sins are forgiven in Jesus’ death upon the cross of Calvary? All of your thoughts, all of your animosity, all of your anger, all of your spite, all of your stuff is forgiven! That’s why the best of hymns take us there. It’s still a mystery to me that Horatio Spafford included the second verse in his famous hymn, It Is Well with My Soul. I mean, you know the story, right?

The hymn was written after several traumatic events in Spafford’s life. The first being the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which ruined him financially. His business interests were further hit by the economic downturn of 1873, at which time he had planned to travel to England with his family on the SS Ville du Havre, to help with D. L. Moody’s upcoming evangelistic campaigns. In a late change of plan, Spafford sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business concerning zoning problems following the Great Chicago Fire. While crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with another vessel and all four of Spafford’s daughters died. Spafford’s wife, Anna, survived and sent him the now famous telegram, “Saved alone…”. Shortly after receiving the news, Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, and he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Where are you coming up with this stuff, Spafford? Your daughters just drowned. There’s just you and your wife left. “Ah, no!” he said. This is THE great thing: “My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole [shooting match], Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!” See, what many people leave out of the story, if, in fact, it’s true, is that just before he put his family on that ship, they were attending one of Moody’s evangelistic revivals in Chicago. And Moody in his great style of preaching extended a call for men and women, boys and girls to accept God’s offer of forgiveness in the Lord, Jesus Christ, and Spafford’s daughters (each one of them) on that evening trusted in Christ.

Divine Forgiveness Is Absolute

Do you realize that God’s forgiveness of our sins is absolute? He doesn’t forgive in degrees. He doesn’t forgive in little bits here and there. “I’ll forgive you for last month and then we’ll see how you do, and then maybe I’ll forgive you for next month, and so on.” No! God’s forgiveness in Jesus is absolute. And differ though we may in the sins that we’ve committed, we do NOT differ in the fact that we’re all sinners. We’re like diseased trees. Some of us have branches and shoots of sin coming out of us that are peculiar to each of us, the way that sin has ravaged our lives, the foolish choices and sorry mistakes we’ve made, the bad turns on the road – distinctive and individualistic to ourselves – and yet we’re all in need of God’s forgiveness.

Poet and Anglican priest, John Donne, wrote a poem called A Hymn to God the Father, in which he writes:

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow’d in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.

The forgiveness of God is absolute. The prophet Isaiah, speaking on behalf of God to the nation of Israel says, “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25). Any talk about the forgiveness of God that doesn’t take us to the cross is just vague and unconvincing. Because only a cross-centered gospel takes your sin and my sin seriously. “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). In the words of Isaac Watts, “Alas! and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die! Would He devote that sacred head for sinners such as I?”

Simon said, “I don’t know what You’re talking about Jesus. If you knew that woman and what she’s done, then You’d get her out of here. Blubbering and stinking the place up with her perfume and fiddling around with Your feet with her tears and snotty mess.” Jesus said, “You haven’t got a clue. You know the creed. You can say the stuff. You can wear the clothes. You can do all the right stuff on the outside, but I tell you; she understands. For she has been forgiven much.”

Are you forgiven, today? I mean, personally. Do you know what it means to know the forgiveness of God in Christ Jesus? If not, then what are you waiting for? It’s on offer. All that you have to do is agree with God that you’re a sinner in need of His grace. Confess the reality that you’re a sinner and the only way to get cleaned up is to receive His forgiveness in Jesus. “I urge you, in the name of Jesus, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20, paraphrased).

On the other hand, if you HAVE received God’s forgiveness in Christ, then who are you to withhold forgiveness from someone who’s wronged you? Was their sin wrong? I’m certain it was. Was their slight painful? No doubt about it. Did it cut you to the core? You bet it did! Does it still hurt today? Absolutely! I’m not taking any of that away. But with your eyes upon the cross, with my eyes upon the cross, knowing how much we’ve been forgiven, it’s a small thing to let God handle that. We’re not excusing sin. We’re not condoning hurtful words and actions. We’re simply allowing God to work through us, as witnesses of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“Father, we thank You that Your Word pulsates with the love that drew the plan of salvation. Thank You, gracious Father, that instead of punishing us You meted out Your wrath upon Your Son. What a thought: Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned He stood. And sealed my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah! What a Savior! O God, remind us that forgiveness isn’t a theological theory, but a flesh and blood reality. Thank You for saving us, Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”