God describes Himself as being a forgiving God. Join Pastor John Bradshaw and discover how the power of forgiveness can revolutionize your life.

<p>God describes Himself as being a forgiving God. Join Pastor John Bradshaw and discover how the power of forgiveness can revolutionize your life.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

The Power of Forgiveness

I'd like you to pray with me now and we'll together ask for God's blessing.

Our Father in heaven, thank you that together we can gather around the Bible.

We expect that you will feed us with the bread of heaven.

If you mention Smithfield Market, Smithfield Market, to anyone who knows much of anything at all about London, England, and they'll know what you're talking about.

Smithfield Market is a landmark, an icon.

For over a thousand years, Smithfield was the site of London's livestock market.

That's why there is a cow cross street there today.

There used to be a goose alley, a pheasant court, and a duck lane, and more.

But redevelopment meant that they are now no more.

Smithfield today is still a meat market, among other things.

But what's next door to Smithfield Market is what surprises people.

Right next door to the historic market is something called Citigen.

It's a power plant, the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom, and there it is right in the City of London.

Since 1993, Citigen has been producing enough power for 11, 500 homes, and then it captures the by-product heat, sends it off via a network of tunnels to buildings in the City of London.

It also provides chilled water, which is used for cooling in several properties' air conditioning systems.

Every day people drive or, probably more likely, walk along Charterhouse Street without even realizing that behind those walls of that facade on Charterhouse Street, there is a real-life power station, as unlikely as it seems, right there in the City of London.

Now a similar thing could be said about New York City.

You've seen pictures of steam coming up out to ground in New York City?

Why there's steam coming up out of the ground, out of the sidewalks in New York City?

That's actually consolidated Edison moving steam around New York City as part of the largest commercial steam system in the world.

It's so big that it's larger than the next 9 largest steam systems combined.

All that energy is being moved around the city, and the vast majority of people don't even know that they are in such close proximity to great energy, real power.

There is power in places that you might not expect.

And I want to share with you right now that there is power in forgiveness.

I want to start by looking at an important Bible story.

A passage starts as a story and then segues seamlessly into a parable that Jesus taught.

And you know that Jesus spoke in parables not because he wanted to confuse us, but because he wanted us to really grasp the meaning of something.

And so Let's begin together in our Bibles in Luke chapter 7 and verse 36.

I showed you my Bible and now I'm looking on my tablet and there's a simple reason for that.

It says And 1 of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him and he went into the Pharisees house and Sat down to meet or sat down at the table sat down to eat Well, who were the Pharisees we know this The Pharisees were the religious upper class, at least in their own minds.

They were solid, diligent, rigorous, strident in their observance of the law, the written law, and the traditions.

And if there was ever a group of people who suffered from delusions of grandeur, this was them.

And we see that attitude play out in the ensuing verses.

Verse 37, And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, which, as you know or should suspect, was valuable.

Yes, except the contrast is 1 sinner evidently knew that she was a sinner, and the other sinner, this man, was not nearly as conscious of his sin as the woman was of hers.

It pays to be conscious of your sin and your sinfulness.

In fact, it's not easy to be close to Jesus and to be unconscious about your sin or even about sin itself.

If you've ever driven towards a mountain range, let's say for example, the Rocky Mountains.

You might have seen the Rocky Mountains in the distance and thought to yourself, they're not so high.

But then the closer you get to the Rockies, the larger they appear in your view.

When you are far from God, you probably don't see your sin as being nearly as bad, nearly as terrible, nearly as large as it is.

But the closer you get to God, the larger your sins and your sinfulness appear.

There was a man, though, he could barely see his sin.

Evidently, his self-righteousness kept him from really getting it.

And so now we look at Luke 7 and verse 38.

We've just read about the woman with the alabaster box of oil.

She stood at his feet behind him weeping, and she began to wash his feet with her tears, and she did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment.

So this lady, you can understand, who would do this?

She had been broken evidently because of her sin.

And here she was anointing Jesus and blessing Jesus and demonstrating her great love for Jesus.

Verse 39 says, Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him, which had invited Jesus for dinner, saw this, he spoke within himself, saying, This man, if he was a prophet, he would have known who and what manner of woman this is that touches him, for she is a sinner." Isn't this an amazing thing?

Jesus, the Bible says, came to the world to save sinners, to seek and save those who were lost.

And here he was in the process of the salvation taking place, and there were those nearby who just looked down their nose at what was happening.

Let's never be in the place where we are so self-righteous that when Christ extends mercy to somebody, We sit in the place of judgment.

There she was, kissing Jesus' feet, anointing those feet with the ointment that she had bought.

And there was a man who, well, it's clear that this man didn't get it.

Now, I don't fault him for that too much.

That is, he was a product of his environment.

That's how he was raised to feel about people.

Now, his ignorance turned out to be a blessing for us because Jesus corrected him, and therefore he helped us to see straight.

2 people, Jesus in the room, there were others.

1 lady, she is heartbroken, and she does something beautiful and tender for Jesus and she weeps at his feet and another man is standing around saying, why is this woman being such a waster?

Verse 40 of Luke chapter 7, And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee.

Now there is a detail here that you need to get.

It's found in a parallel account of this happening.

In Mark 14 verse 3, you read where the Bible says, and being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious, and she broke the box and poured it on his head." Simon had been a leper.

The Power of Forgiveness

Transcript

Description

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Gracious

41m

A Dying Critic

40m

A God Worth Knowing

03 The Faith of Jesus

1h 1m

The New Covenant

36m

Wilderness Wandering

The 12 Spies

36m

Talking Points, 4th Quarter 2021: Present Truth in Deuteronomy

07 Law and Grace

28m

Morning Devotions: In HIS Presence

Power and Victory in HIS Presence

39m

The Sins of the World and Learning How to Think for Yourself

The Sins of the World and The Lamb of God Part 2

54m

Steve Wohlberg -The Character of God Controversy

The Character of God Controversy, Part 2

1h

Sanctuary, Salvation & Our Savior

Sanctuary, Salvation & Our Savior: It’s All About Jesus

39m

The Cross and the Sanctuary

The Cross and The Sanctuary- Part 1

34m

Gerard Damsteegt: Sanctuary Series

Sanctuary, Part 1

1h

Sound Doctrine