He who is forgiven much, loves much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little. A true encounter with Jesus happens not through religious activity, but through a heartfelt recognition of our own sinfulness. When we cease judging others and see our own great need for mercy, we can experience the fullness of Christ’s forgiveness and find our hearts overflowing with genuine love for Him.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:01] As I was sitting here tonight and I was listening to the praise and worship, it’s the Spirit of God that it’s inspired the team to prepare those songs because it really lines up with my message that the Lord’s put on my heart. And that’s the work of the Holy Spirit because I can tell you right now that I haven’t spoken to anybody to tell them what I’m preaching on so that they prepare songs that line up with my message. But that’s the work of God. And Pastor Jim this morning talked about when we serve the Lord and flow in the gifts of the Spirit, it’s for the common good. It all comes together beautifully and the church gets edified. And glory to God, amen, for that. And I thank the Lord for this opportunity to share the gospel.

[00:00:56] You know, I’ve got to admit that I’m slightly anxious preaching in front of Pastor Jim. I think Pastor Jim knows me from the old church when I was leading worship. He probably has heard me more singing and playing the acoustic guitar and leading worship than preaching. So I think he’s the first time he’s probably hearing me preach, you know. So it’s a bit daunting preaching in front of a theologian, a man that I greatly respect and that’s so deep in the Word. But that’s okay because I’m not here to put on a performance of any kind, you know, because I prayed and my whole aim is to be a servant of the Lord, yielded to Him fully in unreserved obedience and a vessel through whom the Holy Spirit of God ministers to us, including me tonight. Amen? And that’s the whole purpose, you know.

[00:01:51] And my, I’ve got a bit of a sort of acronym that I use that somebody is saying that I should change it. I’d like to be fat. And what I mean by that is faithful, available and teachable. Faithful to the Lord, available to serve and teachable as well. And that’s the way to be, I think, you know, when we are servants of the Lord. I want to, one wants to focus a little bit on this text tonight, the Lord’s put on my heart. And a couple of months ago when I preached from here, I preached from Matthew chapter 9, 36, where it says when he saw the crowds, Jesus had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And we see many instances in the Gospels where this counterculture,

[00:02:51] where Jesus is doing things that the disciples or the people around him didn’t quite expect, didn’t quite understand. So, and a couple of examples are when Jesus was walking through and people were bringing the kids to him, for him to bless them. And the disciples that acted as his security detail, if you like, you know, like as somebody that’s high up, they have a security detail that sort of, you know, moves people on. Keep moving. Keep moving. You know, stop. Don’t approach him. Don’t approach him. But yet Jesus, there’s so many instances in the Gospels where we see Jesus stopping and not feeling interrupted by the people crying out to him for help. And there was an instance where the women brought the kids to him and then he said, bring the kids to me, do not stop them.

[00:03:51] And then he prayed for them and blessed them. And there’s an instance when the disciples came back from ministering and they needed to retract to a quiet place, a desolate place to rest and have some rest. And yet, people were following Jesus and he had mercy on them. So he got out of his routine, he got interrupted out of his rest that he was supposed to have with the disciples and ministered to them. And this is no different, what’s happening here. Jesus gets invited by… by a religious leader named Simon, but I just want to make a distinction here. So let’s not get this mixed up. It’s not Simon Peter that we hear in the… that we know about. You know, it’s Simon, it’s a religious leader, a Pharisee. And the interesting thing is that he didn’t think much of Jesus, you know, because in verse 39, he says,

[00:04:57] if we can project, verse 39, what does it say? 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. So in his mind, he’s got this judgment and this sort of uncertainty, or at least, you know, like he’s… he’s not recognizing who Jesus is and he’s got this doubt, you know, to say the least. And yet he’s coming to… you know, he’s inviting him over. And he’s coming, you know, he’s having… we don’t know the motives of what he’s inviting over. You know, like… and there was a banquet there, there’s people coming, there’s supposed to be probably like a party, some celebration and this woman sinful woman you know like and if you read in the in the gospel

[00:05:50] in the translation uh sinful woman of the city um it’s a euphemism which you know more or less means uh could mean an adulteress a serial sinner that snuck in at the feet of jesus and don’t get any ideas that you know like because they weren’t eating at the table where That we’ve got, like how we’ve got in the modern day where we’ve got tables and chairs. They were eating on the ground, you know, where they were reclining and Jesus had his feet tucked away towards the back. And that’s how this woman got access. Some scholars say that they wouldn’t have been eating inside the house, because the woman wouldn’t have been able to have access inside the house, because there was a security at the door. to basically vet and profile who comes in the door to come in for dinner

[00:06:48] because she wouldn’t have been on the VIP list. Welcome to come there. So, people speculate, and I’m not going to go into those details because they’re not really relevant to what I’m trying to say tonight, is that they would have been eating out on the patio somewhere outside where this woman could have had access to come in. But the point of the matter is that the whole focal of this passage, if you read it, you know, like when I was praying, you know, the narrative is not the central piece. It’s actually the parable, the actual event with the woman coming. It’s not the central piece. the central piece is the parable that Jesus tells Simon. And if I may have the audacity to give a bit of a title to this passage or to this sermon. If you look in your Bibles in ESV, it says before verse 36,

[00:07:59] the title there says, A Sinful Woman Forgiven. But if I was to give this passage or this sermon a title, I would have given Sinful Simon gets put back into his place by Jesus. Am I fair to say that? Because really in reality, that parable that Jesus is saying, who is it about? It’s actually about Solomon. This hypocrite man that’s basically sitting there, he’s judging this woman that came to praise and weep for her sins and seek forgiveness and repent of her sins. And he’s judging her. And this parable that Jesus, you know, Jesus knew his thoughts, knew his motivations, his judgment attitude towards this woman and responds to him. In the Gospel, it says that Simon, this man spoke to himself. So in his thought, he didn’t utter it for people to hear it. Yet Jesus knew his thoughts, knew what he was thinking.

[00:09:14] And straight up he says, Simon, I have something to tell you. And he says the parable. And the interesting thing is that what we’ve got here is Simon. He’s the sinful man that gets put back in his place by Jesus because he’s seeing himself in such a high moral ground, such a high standing and judging of this woman that basically he thinks nothing of her. And the Lord spoke to me through this text and often what can happen, and this is from personal experience, we can grow up in religious institutions, in churches, go to church, go to Sunday school and put on this facade, this churchy sort of type of attitude where we can sort of go through the motions. You know, learn the hymns, learn the songs, learn to pray, learn to do all these things and yet not have a real encounter with Jesus

[00:10:17] and think of ourselves of being better or less sinful than other people. And that was the case for me as well as a young man. And I want to share my testimony, my story as to how I came about. It’s important for us to understand how the Lord works and the importance of being true to ourselves and putting that spotlight on us and see how sinful we are. Because the Word of God says that in Romans, if we can bring up Romans 3.22-24, The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus for all who believe, for there is no distinction, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter that we sin this much and other people sin that much or as serial. Sin is sin. We’re guilty as charged. On the same level.

[00:11:35] We’re guilty as charged. We’re in the need of mercy and redemption and restoration. The same as the serial people. We might not be serial sinners or people might classify big sins and small sins. There’s not such things as small sins and big sins. if we’ve broken one small Lord we’ve broken it all guilty of it all and I want to share my personal journey coming to Christ I was raised in a Christian family going to church I came to Australia when I was 12 years of age didn’t know a word of English thrown into English school for 6 months and then went to high school I got picked on I’ve been ostracised and felt the awkwardness that one might feel when they’re feeling a misfit couldn’t speak English I remember this to this day how mean can kids be at school I came from Romania with a pair of socks

[00:12:54] written on them in Romanian tennis now how do you spell tennis? T-E-N-N-I-S right? okay well not in Romanian tennis is spelled with one N and I tell you what if you walk around school in a schoolyard with a pair of socks that says tennis written on them with one N And kids, it’s enough reason for kids to pick on you and make you feel this little. And that was the start of my journey to Australia. And then I went on to, we attended a Romanian church and the Lord spoke to me. I felt the pull of God. The Holy Spirit was ministering to me and at the age of 14 I gave my life to the Lord. And I got baptized. But before I got baptized, the church had a meeting, had a conundrum. This guy’s so young, he’s got nothing to repent for. That’s what somebody said to me at the time. Why should we baptize him? Let him live his life.

[00:14:02] And then if he’s maybe mature enough, we’ll see if he’s genuine. It’s just not an emotional heat of the moment thing that he wants to get baptized and follow Jesus. I said, no. And they dragged me out. You know, they went to these old Bible classes to see that I’m genuine, that my faith is genuine, that my love for Christ is genuine. So they baptized me. I wanted to bring a photo and put it up there and see because, you know, I was a lot more handsome than I am today. Had a lot more hair. I was the youngest out of the lot that got baptized. And then served in the church, you know, in different ministries and all that. And then it came to a point where later in life, my family broke apart. My father left us. And one of the things that he said when he left, which marked me and it’s cost me three years of my life

[00:15:14] in anguish and depression and anxiety, he said, you’re useless, you’ll amount to nothing, to a young man. And the difficulties that came from then on, you know, lasted for about three, four years. And he wanted to leave us on the street. And then I had to step in to save the family home. He wanted to take me to court. We bought a house together. And then he, when he left, he wanted to take the whole lot. And I had to go to court to justify that I actually put in 50% of that into that property and to save the family home for my mum and my younger sisters who needed to go through university at the time. So to cut the long story short, I started to develop resentment, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness that harbored in me, you know, and that really has put a stop in my,

[00:16:22] has put a kink in my relationship with the Lord. And I spiraled down. That has created a lot of anger in me, has created a lot of things that, that basically made me short of what, the experience in the fullness of, of, of, of God and the presence of God. And, um, it took, it took some time to, to, to, to get through that. And, and then out of that response of anger and, and, um, I fell into a period of depression. I was taking medication and it took me some time. And I was looking, I was looking at, um, the people around me and thinking, you know, like, you know, I’m still doing the church thing, you know, sort of plodding along, just plodding along. and I’m just sort of doing the church thing and not thinking of myself too much, you know? Like, and I’m just sitting there wallowing for three years,

[00:17:20] taking all these pills, nothing’s getting better. And then I’m getting to all sorts of trouble. I’m having difficulty with authority because my father’s response to me. And I tell you what, there’s no justification to respond in a sinful way or in rebellion when we get wrong. We still have to obey authorities. And I remember I got in trouble with, I was angry. I got in trouble with the police. I was driving a car. I got pulled over for speeding. The police officers were speaking to the police officer next to him. Oh, look at his wheels. Oh, he’s got a big 18-inch wheels. You know, give him a big one. Write him a big one. Write him a big ticket. And I heard that. That made me so angry that I spun the wheels, made a big burn out and covered everybody in smoke and took off. And then they came after me.

[00:18:20] They served me another ticket. And that’s out of a rebellion. And that’s out of that loss of trust in authorities. And yet I thought that I was such a good Christian, that I needed to go to court to actually get my license back because I had a job and I had to drive. And I’m sitting in the car and I’m praying because I’m thinking, no, look, I’m the one that’s wrong here. And I’m opening the Bible and I said, Lord, what should I do? And funny enough, as I opened the word, I opened the word from Romans chapter 13 from verse 1 to 5 that says, Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?

[00:19:42] Then to what is good and you will receive his approval. For he is God’s servant for your good. My goodness. I thought I was so good and I had the audacity to sort of get an out-of-jail card, you know, praying to God, Lord, you know, like, help me out here, you know, because I’m in the right. And the Lord gave me this passage. You know, put me back in my place. So I was kind of a bit like this Simon guy that’s in the passage, you know, that he thinks is so good. Because he’s a churchgoer, you know, he’s a religious leader. He keeps all the sort of… Mate, I can tell you I was tithing, I was very generous. But no, you know, tithing, offering, doing all these things are dead works. That’s what the Word says. Any of the things that we try and do in our own strength are dead works. And God had to break me.

[00:20:45] And when things started to improve, when I basically repented before the Lord and I said, Lord, I can no longer do this. I choose to forgive my father who’s wronged me. He may never come and accept that he’s failed me as a father, that he’s wronged me, that he’s tried to put us out in the street. Humanly speaking, I would have had every justification to be angry, to be resentful, to be mistrusting of authorities. But it took me three years of depression and medication when I had to kneel down before the Lord and like this woman and said, Lord, have mercy on me. And what I can tell you is that the depression lifted and the feeling that, the cathartic feeling that, like this woman would have experienced towards the end of the text where it says, your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you.

[00:22:00] Go in peace. I can tell you right now that I felt that I was floating. When I repented before the Lord, when I saw his face and I said, Lord, I repent, I seek your face. I don’t think myself of being any better than any other people. You don’t have to engage in all these sort of big sins, in sexually, morally, all these sort of big sins that we might classify them. But the little things, the little disobedience, the little grudges or resentments, the unforgiving spirit that we may harbor in our hearts is sufficient to separate us from the love of God, separate us from having that fellowship and that fullness and experiencing that full forgiveness and freedom that we should be walking in. and God forbid that we walk around and waste our time doing churchy things, churchy activities

[00:22:59] and not having that real encounter with Jesus. We need to be true to ourselves. We need to put the spotlight on us because the more we put the spotlight on us and look at our sinfulness, the more the love for Jesus will come out of that. The more we see our sinfulness, the more repentant and the more love will come out of us to serve Jesus. It doesn’t have to take a tragedy. It doesn’t have to take a significant event for us to realize, to wake up to our senses and to be on fire for the Lord. But that’s my personal journey and it’s cost me three years of my life. And when I look back, how silly. How embarrassing. How foolish. I don’t know. Do you relate more to the religious leader, Simon, or the sinful woman? I don’t know. Some people might feel that they’re too far gone. A complete write-off.

[00:24:15] I don’t know where you stand. I don’t know where you are with your walk with the Lord. And it’s not for me to assess that. But it’s for me to encourage us to seek the Lord wholeheartedly. Because he who is forgiven much, loves much. He who is forgiven little, loves little. And I pray that the Lord may help us to understand that Jesus is a friend of sinners. Because, the song says, just as I am, with that one plea. There’s another verse that says, you know, come to me all who are weary. All who are weary. With this sin, or this much sin. All who are weary. And I will give you rest. Some people might feel that they’re too far gone. And because that was ingrained in them, that was put into their minds. The black sheep. As people might say, oh, you know, who’s the black sheep of the family? Nobody’s too far gone.

[00:25:41] The word of God says that in Isaiah, chapter 59, verse 1 to 2, Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that he cannot save, or his ear dull, that he cannot hear. But your inequities have made a separation between you and God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he does not hear. And then Psalm 50, verse 15 says, Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. Can we walk away from here tonight in peace, knowing that our sins are forgiven, that our debt is paid off? We don’t know what tomorrow brings. But one thing that I want to be sure of, and we should be sure of, when we walk from here, if we might not wake up in the morning, or God forbid, we get run over by a car, we need to know where we’re going. We need to be right with God.

[00:26:44] And I pray that the Spirit of God may minister to us, and help us draw closer to him, and examine ourselves, and to see our sinfulness, and our great need for the redemption of Jesus. And it’s by grace, by grace, unmerited favor. It’s for us to accept and receive by faith. Let us pray. Father God, I thank you, Lord, for this beautiful passage, Lord. I thank you that you’re a merciful and gracious God. I thank you, Lord, that the precious blood of Jesus can cover all our sins, no matter how small or big, or how many, Lord. I thank you, Father, that your sacrifice is sufficient to wash away all our sins, and restore us into fellowship with you, Lord Jesus. And Lord, if people have written us off, been too far gone, Lord, I thank you that you’re a restorer, Lord. And I thank you, Father, that you have grace for the people that were like Simon, which I once was as well, Lord. And I thank you for the restoration you bring in my life as well, Lord. And Father, we thank you that the good work you began in us you’ll bring to completion until Christ Jesus returns. Amen.