Love and Life Change - Ben Stuart

If you have a copy of your scriptures, we are in Luke chapter seven, Luke chapter seven. I'm gonna read to us this passage just to load it into our mind. We'll pray and then talk about it. So Luke chapter seven, I'm gonna begin in verse 36. And if you don't have a copy, just listen, because I'm about to read it, so you'll be fine. But this is speaking of Jesus. It says this. One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table. And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment. And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this was who's touching him, for she's a sinner. And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he said, say it, teacher. A certain money lender had two debtors, one owed 500 denarii, the other 50. And when they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both.

Now, which of them would love him more? And Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt. And he said to him, you've judged rightly. Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Well, Father, I pray that as we begin this new year, you would help us understand what this means. So God, quicken our minds that we can understand your thoughts and think them after you. And then God, I just pray also that you would move our hearts, that we would feel what you want us to feel,

that our hearts would beat in rhythm with yours. And then God, I pray our lives would change as a result of this. God, I want people to walk out different than when they came in, that as Jesus said to this woman, that we would go with a peace maybe we don't possess now. And I can't generate that. So we're asking for help. And I wanna invite you family, if you're up for it to take a minute and you pray and ask him that, say, Lord, please teach me today. And then if you would please pray for me, that the Lord would use me and I'd be helpful to you. Well, Father, we love you and we trust you. Use this time and we pray that in Jesus name, amen. Well, not long after college, my sister and I traveled to Italy and we went to the Uffizi, which is an art museum in Florence, housing one of the largest collections of Renaissance art, probably second only to the Vatican. But I imagine like many of you as a 20 year old, I didn't have maybe a deep appreciation of Renaissance art. And so after a while, just all kind of started to look the same. There was a lot of pictures of the Virgin Mary, little baby Jesus and statues of Greek men in various states of undress. And so after several days with no tour guide

and no audio guide, and after having visited several museums, we were just kind of motoring through the Uffizi, like Mary, Jesus, naked guy, just kind of moving through. But I remember I turned a corner and was arrested by this one particular painting. And it was by the master Michelangelo and it was of Mary and Jesus, but it was so different from the rest. He had broken from the norm in that day by using vibrant color. And it was them sitting like at a picnic and the baby Jesus was crawling over her shoulder and it was so dynamic and looked so real. It felt like at any moment you could watch them move. Or if you leaned in, you could hear their conversation. And I've been amazed by nature before, but this was the first time in my life I had been absolutely transfixed by an image. And I remember feeling all these different tours move past me, but I could not move because I was arrested by this image. Now, why do I tell you that? Because that's how I feel every time I study this passage. Sometimes we need to be convinced by an argument. Other times we need to be captivated by an image. So as I thought about our first steps into a new year, I thought about what the master, Luke, is doing here. He's painting a portrait of the heart of God expressed through how Jesus treats this woman.

And my hope is, as we look at it together, that we could experience what Paul said to the Corinthians that beholding the glory of the Lord, we are transformed from one glory to another. That's been my prayer today, that in beholding, we become more like him. So as we move through it today, verse 36 begins with the setting. It says, one of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table. Now, the Pharisees were a powerful force in that community in that day. They were the preservers of religious and moral purity. The word Pharisee literally means the separated one. And we aren't told why this Pharisee invited Jesus to dinner, but we can tell from the context later that it's not because he felt some great need for a savior. Simon the Pharisee is discourteous by the standards of the day. It was customary in that day to pour a small amount of oil on the head of an honored guest as a sign of respect. And Simon offers Jesus no oil. It was customary for a man to give another man a kiss upon entering their house as a symbol of friendship. In many cultures, this is still the case today. Simon offers Jesus no kisses piece. It was common politeness to offer someone water upon entrance to your home for their feet. I mean, in that day, men and women wore sandals

and they would walk on dirt roads, your feet would become dusty. And so it was just decency to offer them water to clean their feet. And Simon offers Jesus no water. And so by the cultural standards of the day, he's making a statement here that I'll bring you in to evaluate you as a curiosity, but I wanna make clear that I don't respect you as an authority in my life. And he denies him the respect and the love and the courtesy of his home. And then in verse seven, a woman comes in who is in every way Simon's opposite. And Luke opens in verse 37 by saying, and behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner. And when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment or perfume. Luke describes her arrival by using the word behold. And in doing that, he's trying to let us know that something out of the ordinary is happening. This is strange. But what's strange is not that some random woman showed up at his home during dinner. This is not breaking and entering. And we know that because Luke says twice, they were reclining at table. That tips off to us that this was not like a normal family meal.

That was the position when you would host a banquet. They would get a table that was probably the height of like a coffee table. And the distinguished guests would kind of lean on a forearm around the table with your body kind of splayed out behind you. And then you would have this conversation. And in that day, the conversation like this would have been something pretty special. I mean, this Pharisee was at least one of, if not the most educated man in his town. And so here when this educated man is inviting this traveling preacher who was also a healer to have a conversation, that would be an interesting conversation that people would want to hear. We do the same kind of thing today when you listen to podcasts or discussions. You wanna hear thought leaders talk to one another unscripted. So in this day, when they're hosting a meal like this, this would have been the most exciting thing to happen in your town at least that week if not that year, possibly your lifetime. So people would be interested in this conversation. So in that time it was common to open the doors of the house and people could come in and sit on the floor along the walls and they could just listen into the conversation, but they weren't meant to participate.

And so it's not odd that this woman shows up as an uninvited guest to the house. The surprise is that a woman like that would come to a place like this. What is a person like you doing here? Which if I can just stop for a moment, I wonder if some of you felt that way coming here today. Behold, the sinner walks into Passion City Church. That's good, this isn't normally what I do. He made me come. I remember I did a wedding once years ago and they had one of their groomsmen be the scripture reader and he got on stage and he read a passage and as soon as he got off stage, he threw the Bible down and he goes, I am the last person who should be reading that. He said, I thought I was gonna burst into flames up there. And what he meant is like, hey, a person like me who lives like I do has no business being around you people. That's the idea here. Behold, a woman of the city, a sinner. Now, when you hear that description of it, the natural question is. And what'd she do? And Luke doesn't tell us. But in that day to call someone a sinner like that, it often had a sense of sexual connotation to it. So many people think maybe she was a prostitute, but we don't know. She could have had sex for money.

She could have just been promiscuous, party girl. We don't know. But what we do know is that everybody else did. That's the woman in the city, a sinner. She had a past and everybody knew it. And their looks of condemnation in the marketplace in the town square reminded her every day that she lacked welcome. But then somewhere, and Luke doesn't tell us, she heard the message of Jesus. And it's possible it was in the meeting he had just a chapter before where Jesus is showing up, healing people, taking broken people and making them whole, and then speaking about the love of God, that there's a possibility that the God of the universe wants to love and offer grace, kindness to broken, sinful people. And maybe she heard that and it just opened her eyes to the possibility. I know I'm dirty. I didn't think there was any possibility to be clean. Maybe she heard his conversation about John the Baptist who preached to repent, that the way you're going is leading to destruction, but there's an opportunity to go another way. Maybe she didn't need to hear that whole thing. Sometimes we don't need to be convinced we're dirty. We just need to be explained how we can become clean. And some of you have felt that way. I see it all the time in DC.

That when the club closes and the party's over and the music stops, sometimes you look in the mirror and you don't like what you see because you don't like what you've become. That's her. And then yet somehow she hears from this man, there's a possibility of grace that God might want me, that my tragedies don't have to determine my destiny. She hears the message. She wants to meet the man, but she got a problem. She probably heard him in a crowd and it can be hard to get to him. And yet then she hears, he showed up in my town. He's just down the street, but to get to him, I've got to wade through them. Yet they're not her concern. Her eyes are fixed on him. So when she learns he's at the Pharisee's house, she says, I've got to get there. And so this woman summons her courage and steps into that door, the sinful woman in the house of the separated one, clutching her little bottle of perfume. And she doesn't say a word. We never hear her speak, but Luke slows the story down and every verb is hers and her actions say everything. Verse 38, it says, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears

and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment or perfume. Now, how is she behind him at his feet? Remember they're laying on a table on a forum. His feet would be splayed behind him. The idea is she walks into the room and we don't know if she had a speech prepared. We don't know what her plan was, but somehow she got close to him, close enough to see his face, the eyes that held kindness, not condemnation, the mouth that had spoken of the love of God, the hands that she saw heal brokenness. And she starts crying. And as she cries, she looks down and she sees that his feet are dirty. And so she just kneels down and Luke uses the word for rain. She lets her tears rain down on his feet. And then she does something scandalous in that day. She lets down her hair. Back then women would kept their hair bound in public. It was actually a very exciting thing about your wedding day that a husband got to watch for the first time as a woman unbound her hair and he'd get to see it cascade down her shoulders. Paul called the Corinthians. He said of a woman that her hair is her crown of glory. And here this woman took her eyes that had been painted up to attract men

and she uses them to wash the feet of Jesus. And she takes the crown of glory and uses it as a rag to wipe his feet. Then she begins to kiss his feet. And Luke uses an intense form of the word kiss. It's the same word he'll use later to talk about what the father does when the prodigal son finally comes home. Then she takes this little bottle of perfume, alabaster jar, meaning it was expensive. That's why he mentions it. Perfume maybe she used to attract men. Maybe she bought with the money from Ludex, but she takes it the best she has and pours it at his feet. And she's a picture of Romans 6.13. Do not go on presenting your bodies to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. That's what this woman does. She takes her body that had been used as an instrument of sin and say, I don't walk like I used to. I don't want to live that way anymore. And she takes that body and offers it at the feet of her king, the best she has. And the room is filled with the aroma of that fragrance. But then as one preacher said, but then a stench arose. And it was the attitude of the Pharisee.

And in verse 39, it says, 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's a sinner. So he's reached his verdict on Jesus. And he frames in his mind an if then statement with a contrary to fact construction, meaning this. He says, if this guy were a prophet, which I can see now he obviously is not, he would have been able to discern who and what sort of woman this was, that she's a sinner. Clearly he hadn't figured that out. And if he had figured that out, he obviously would not have let a person like that touch him. And so I want you to notice that he's offended, not by this woman, but by Jesus. How dare you be a holy man, claim to be one with God, and yet let a person like that touch you. He's offended by Jesus. Now the irony is, the Pharisee says all that, Luke tells us, to himself. And then Jesus will answer him. Thereby demonstrating the prophetic ability, Simon just believed that he lacked. And in a room filled only with the soft cries of this woman, and the whispers of a condemning crowd, Jesus hears that man's heart. And he says, Simon, I have something to say to you.

Say it, teacher. Certain money lender had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii, the other 50. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which one will love him more? Simple story, two debtors. One owes 10 times more than the other. The denarii would be a day's wage for the middle class. One owes about two months worth of debt, one almost two years. But they're alike in this, both unable to pay, both helpless, both in need of grace, and both graciously forgiven. But then he asks, which one will love him more? Now I want you to understand, this story would be crazy, this is totally unexpected, that a money lender would forgive, right? It'd be like if I told you a story about like, oh yeah, I got a call from the bank, and they're like, you know your mortgage? Forget about it, don't worry about it. It's a crazy story. Or if Sally May called you, it's like all that college debt, we got you. What? That's wild, money lenders don't do that. And he said, unable to pay, but a Monday letter graciously forgives. Which one will love him more? And Simon answered, the one I suppose

for whom he canceled the larger debt. He sees the obvious implication, but he doesn't like where this is going. So he gives a grudging answer. I guess the one he forgave more. And Jesus says, you've judged rightly. And then Jesus presses in on it. And turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. He goes down the list of courtesies that Simon neglected, and shows how she met and surpassed them. And in doing that, what Jesus is saying to this religious leader is, yeah, I know who and what sort of woman she is. And honestly, Simon, you could learn a couple things from her. He goes, because here's the problem. You are cold to me, Simon, because you don't think you're that bad. Wow. But when you truly feel the weight of your debt, and then experience the wonder of forgiveness, it produces worship.

She knows the value of the Savior. And then Jesus makes this pronouncement. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little. Let me clarify a few things about that before we close. Number one, what he's not saying is that she is forgiven because she loved much. That would contradict the parable, verse 50, and the entire New Testament. Remember the story, money lender, debtor, unable to pay, graciously forgiven, and as a result of that forgiveness, who will love more? So the love does not cause the forgiveness, the love is in effect, not a cause. The love is the result of the forgiveness, not the cause, and so he says, look at this woman, look at this love, what does that show you? It is evidence that grace has been received, because it's love embraced that becomes love extended, right? It's the forgiveness of the debt that produces love in the debtor. The great sense of our debt, coupled with his extraordinary forgiveness, is what creates love in the heart. That's the beautiful collision. The love she displays shows that she's a forgiven one. That's the gospel. We are not here earning the smile of God. For those of you who are like,

I know where y'all are going to church. You're here to try to be good little people so one day God will like you. That's not what this is. This is not an installment debt repayment plan. This is sinners before a holy God, unable to fix ourselves, debtors unable to pay, graciously forgiven, and we cannot get over it. That's why we sing. It is a response to the forgiveness of God. That love embraced becomes love extended. Our love and our worship is an effect, not a cause, because we are in awe of who he is and what he has done. That's what's happening here. Her devotion doesn't prompt his forgiveness. It's proof that forgiveness has been received. And then he says, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. Did that feel a little harsh to some of you? Like, was that necessary? Her sins, which are many. You remember Bob, you were there. Like, why does he throw that in? I think there's two reasons. Number one is he's letting her know, I know exactly who and what sort of woman you are. Because some people hear, hey, Jesus forgives, and you go, yeah, the bright, shiny, happy people, the sanitary sins, but you don't know all that I've done. You don't know all the places I've been. So you're offering his love,

but you don't understand all the places I've been. And Jesus is looking at her and saying, no, I know all of it. This is not me going, you're forgiven. And then the disciples telling him later who she really was. He goes, yeesh, how come nobody told me? He's saying, no, I know all of it. Daughter, your sins, and there's a lot of them. I know them all. I've seen them all. I've seen it down to the depths, forgiven. I understand the depths, and that's how far my grace goes. He wants her to know, I've seen it all. I forgive it all. I think he also brings that up because he wants her to know that these are real sins, and this is a real problem. The gospel is not, you just gotta love yourself. You're perfect right where you are. He's like, no, your sins, and there's a lot. Like, you're a mess. There's something wrong with you. That's where the gospel starts. That we're all beautiful in the image of God, but desperately broken because of sin, and we can't fix us. That all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There was something we were meant to be, and we're not it. And yet, he sees all of that and says, hey, you can't fix you, but I have come to be a healer. You can't wash yourself clean,

but I've come to be a restorer. I've come to forgive. So these are real sins, a real problem that have really separated you with God, but I have created the solution to that, forgiving those that you could be right with him. Salvation's not accepting who you are. It's you understanding what you have become, and yet, by the power of God's grace, you can become something else. That's the gospel. It's the union of our desperation and the heights of his redemption that produces our affection. We marvel at amazing grace that could save a wretch like me, and that love received produces the life change. That's how it works. So years ago, we got a dog. Donna called me from a camp where she was leading worship, and she said, hey, they got this dog here that was abandoned, wandered into their camp, malnourished, and signs of abuse, but they've got a lot of animals. They can't keep this dog. Can we take on this dog? I said, sure, great. So she brings this dog home, and we don't know the dog's story, but obviously, where she has been was pretty rough. You'd reach out to pet her, and she'd wince, pee.

She'd hide from cats, squirrels, there's something wrong with her. But it was interesting watching her going like, okay, these are all reactions to where you've been, but you've had a profound change of your position. You just went from abandoned to adopted. You're home now. You got a new master now. You've been removed from the chaos, but there's still some chaos in you. And she's flinching from me. And I realized, oh, she just needs to see my character, what I'm like, that I don't hit her, I pet her. I don't starve her, I feed her. And we watched her little dog brain slowly process, oh, my position has changed. Like we'd put down food and she'd be like, this is for me, I was gonna eat this. Did you drop this? Because I'm gonna eat it. It's for me, I'm gonna eat it. And she'd eat it and realize, oh, like these people don't beat me, they feed me. Oh, he's not hitting me, he pets me. And you watched over time her realize, oh, my position has changed and her priorities and perspective starts to change. Now, instead of wincing from me, she would start to move towards me. She would sit by me on the couch and go,

lean into me. And then she just took it upon herself. When I would write sermons in the backyard, I would sit there and study and then walk out and talk it out. She would just start walking next to me like a sentry. I didn't ask her to be a guard dog. She's just looking to pitch in. She's like, well, this is my house now. What do you need from me? What do I got? You need a guard? I got you, let's go. Okay, let's go. You good? Yeah, we're good. No, we're good. Yeah, you keep going. That's good. That's gonna get him. And she would just kind of work it with me in the backyard. We left the gate open. We weren't worried about her running away. Why? Where would she go? She's home. And you realize what happened to her. Her position changed, her perspective changed, and then her practice changed. That's how the gospel works.

You go from dead to alive, from condemned to forgiven, from abandoned to adopted. He changes you and it produces life change. You are not here to get a task list for a new year, new you. Because the kind of change God wants to enact, you can't accomplish with a punch list. But he says, you don't walk like you used to, talk like you used to. How? Because you get changed from the inside out. And when a glorious God offers radical grace, it produces extravagant worship. I will take the best I have and lay it at my king's feet. That's the gospel. That's what happens to her. We don't change in order to be accepted. We are accepted. And that produces change in us. That's the gospel. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Now, some of you hear this and you go, man, that's great. Because he who's been forgiven much loves much. But Ben, what about me?

Like, I haven't done much. Am I just doomed to love little? Like, I don't have a crazy past. Like, you bring the people on stage that are like, you know, we're dealing drugs and killing people. I haven't murdered anybody. Like, so like, I guess I don't have that great a testimony. Like, I'm doomed to love little because I didn't have a wild past. Well, friend, Paul told the Romans, should we sin so that grace may abound? Certainly not. You're not a couple beers and a wild weekend away from truly being able to love God. You're not. Jesus isn't dealing really about with the amount of sin here. He's dealing with the amount of sin realized. Simon's judgmental attitude is just as, if not more nauseous than her unsavory past. His problem is he's blind to the reality of it. So you don't need to sin more. So if I can diagnose you, Christian, there's another ditch you can fall into. And I would encourage you, don't minimize your sin. I'm not as bad as that person. Well, I did that because, well, you don't know what she did to me first. We excuse, we blame, we shift, we compare. No, friend, you let your sin stand at its full height.

How cold and indifferent you've been towards those he died to save. How judgmental and wishing of condemnation you are the lost one that he would wish that none would die, but all would be saved. Mourn how far your heart is from his heart. Don't minimize your sin. Let it stand at its full height. Because when you see your sin at its full height and then understand how much it's forgiven, you'll love much. You don't need more sin, you need a better glimpse of your savior. That's what you need. Because you'll see the heights to which we've fallen. Or some of you, you don't need to minimize his forgiveness. The reason you don't love much is because you think when you show up here, God's showing up with his arms folded waiting for you to get your act together. And he's just perpetually disappointed. And so it's hard to really abandon yourself and love to a God like that, that he's grudgingly letting you back in. But that's not the portrait we get. That when the sinful woman stumbles in, Jesus looks at her and says. Your sins, which are many, are forgiven. That He is not here chastising you. He is here transforming you.

That's our King. So don't minimize His forgiveness. Don't think for a minute that you're pitching in at the cross like you toss a couple bucks at the bottom of it to pitch in. No, you were lost and could not get found. You were broken and could not heal you. And Jesus paid it all. And when you see that kind of radical grace, it will produce extravagant worship in you. You'll marvel at a Savior who would save someone even like you or like me. So last clarifier, how can He offer this? He says, your sins are forgiven, but how can He be sure? How does He know? In verse 48, He says to her, your sins are forgiven. He uses the perfect tense, it's done, you're forgiven. And those who are at the table with Him begin to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? Jesus looks at her and says, your sins have been forgiven. And they're like, whoa, who does this guy think he is? And it's a little bit, if you're following along, you go, wait, what is Jesus doing here? Is he mixing up the metaphor? Because if you're following the story, the story was moneylender, debtor. Moneylender forgives debtor, debtor loves moneylender. And Jesus says, woman who sinned, forgiven, loves, and it should be God, but He says, look at how she loves me.

Look at how she's washing my feet with her tears. Look at how she's rubbing my feet. You go, wait a minute, did you get lolly? What are you saying about yourself? Who do you think you are? But He's the moneylender. That's how I can forgive her because I am the one who's been offended. Jesus is centering Himself in the story. That's a wild thing to do, unless it's true. Example, let's say you girls are in a fight, okay? I don't know what's going on, but let's say it's bad, okay? Feelings have been hurt, words have been spoken, and let's say it gets ugly, okay? Spills out onto the streets, spills out online, it's bad. Now imagine if I came up and said, hey, shh, shh, shh, I forgive you. And all that you've done wrong, I absolve you. You would say, hey, respectfully, who are you, man? Like you've got nothing to do with this. This isn't about you. If you've been hurt by her, there's only two people who've been offended, her and the God who made her. I don't have the authority to forgive you. And yet here Jesus looks at this woman and says, you're forgiven. Where does He get off saying that? Because He's the God who's been offended. That's how, that's how He centers Himself.

John will be explicit about it. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as the one and only begotten of the Father. That's not a prophet sitting in that room. That's the maker of the stars sitting in that room, and the one who made her, made that body that she used in so many broken and sad ways. He is the one offended, and yet He looks at her not with condemnation, but love, and says, hey, yes, it was not what I made you for, but I forgive you. He has the right to do it because He's the God who was offended, and He says to her, I choose to, you're forgiven. And He's not just the money lender. He's the payment. He's the payment. If I say your debt's been forgiven, like if you owe me money, and I say I forgive you, it doesn't make the debt go away. We've only got two choices. I either make you pay or I pay, but debt must be paid. And so when He says your sins are forgiven, how can He say that? He can say that because He is not just the money lender who chooses to forgive, He is the payment for the debt, that Jesus lived the perfect life she could not. And the Bible says the wages of sin is death.

If you sin, you get death, separation from God. And yet Jesus died. Why? He did not sin. The Bible tells us He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we could be right before God. He sees the stain of her sin and how far it goes, and He looks at her and says, I forgive you. How can He do it? Because He knows I'm about to pay for it. I'm about to pay for it with my blood, and I choose to. I choose to, because I know it's love that produces life change. I know that it's my grace that makes you a worshiper. So I choose this, that I can do something that can make you something new. So we did children's church at the church I grew up at. And I don't know if you've grew up at a church like that, where they would have all the kids run forward and have an elder or something do a little Bible story, and then send all the kids off to a children's church. And I remember one Sunday they did it and had one of the elders down there. He grabbed this big bucket full of dirt. He's like, kids, what is this? We're all like, dirt. And then he like pours a bunch of water in it, stirs it up and makes this big pile of mud. And then he took this big white tube sock and put it on his hand.

He shoved it in the dirt, pulled it up. He looked at it and he goes, kids, why did the sock get dirtier and the dirt not get sockier? Ask your parents. Then he left. It was the last time he ever did children's chores. I remember as a kid thinking about that, I was like, what is it? And I was like, I think he's maybe explaining what Paul said, the Corinthians, that bad company corrupts good morals, that if you hang around with dirty people, you're gonna get dirty, which some of you, that should be your New Year's resolution. You need to reboot your friendship group. But there's something interesting about that mentality. That was Simon's mentality. If an unclean person touches you, they make you unclean. That's the way uncleanness worked back then. And if she's a sinner and she touches you, if you were a holy man, you wouldn't let her touch you because if you're a holy man and she touches you, she makes you unclean. And Jesus is sitting here going, no, you don't understand who you're dealing with. You don't make the sock dirtier. I make the dirt sockier. She doesn't make me unclean. You get a touch from me and I make you clean.

That's who I am. I'm in a category on my own. I'm something else entirely. So your sins have forgiven you. Go in peace. And look, some of you, that's really where this starts. You don't need a list of to-dos. You need to bow at the feet of a Savior who came for you and let Him change you from the inside out. Your faith has saved you. You believe who I am and you believe what I came here to do. And that changes you from the inside out. New identity leads to new activity. It's my love that precedes and produces life change. Don't walk out of here with a list of things to do, although your life will change. Walk out of here with a Savior to bow before. And some of you, maybe you just need to let your heart break, that you have a cold heart like Simon. You see the thems politically, the other side philosophically, and you judge and condemn and wish doom on them. Let God break your heart that your heart doesn't break for them, that He doesn't wanna condemn, He wants to save. And so ask God to give you a heart like His. Some of you, you're not sure what to do with all this. You just keep coming back. We only sell one thing here. It's Jesus, the Son of God,

who changes us from the inside out. You bow before Him, you receive His grace. And then friend, we don't throw a couple bucks towards His mission and show up at church every now and again. We say, all I have is yours. If you gave all for me, radical grace receives extravagant worship. The best I have at the feet who gave all for me. So Lord, I thank you that there is no one here too far gone. And I know there's some people who feel that way. And friend, I wanna challenge you in the way the story does. You are not outside the scope of Jesus's ministry. You are His mission. He came for you. So however imperfect your worship is, stumble in and fall at His feet because He will not cast you out. He delights to look into your face and say, I know all of it, you're forgiven. Your faith has saved you. If you've never put your faith in Jesus, that's where it all starts. I believe who you are, the Son of God. I believe what you did, died for my sin. And I say yes to that. And you let His radical grace change you from the inside out. And then for those of us who know Him, let's just ask Him,

God, would you melt my frozen heart? Would you give me a heart like yours that loves my coworkers, loves my city, loves my enemy? Some of you need a moment to confess. I've been minimizing sin and saying it's not that bad. No, let me let it stand at its height for a moment, not to be buried in shame, but to marvel at mercy, that you forgave even me. Some of you, maybe God's just letting you know, yes, you know my grace. It's time to lay it all at my feet. May the aroma of our worship fill the rooms we walk into because those who know and have tasted grace show grace. you