Well, we want to welcome all who are watching at Padre and at our church in Marina. And especially, we are always grateful for all the prisoners at Soledad and locally who watch every Sunday. And I can't think of a more significant message than the one you're going to hear today, because I'm talking about how to have your memories healed by Jesus. And I'm sure you have a lot of memories that you'd like to be healed. God bless you. Thank you for watching today. Well, the Bible says that one night a prostitute kissed Jesus, not once, but over and over and over again. And Jesus did nothing to stop her. It happened at a dinner party at the house of a Pharisee named Simon. And everyone was scandalized when in walked the notorious prostitute of the village. They were even more scandalized when she knelt down and kissed Him again and again. And Jesus did nothing to stop her. Now, just imagine what these upright, self-righteous Pharisees were thinking as they watched this prostitute kiss Jesus. What do you think they were thinking? Simon, the host, had refused just the common courtesies of those days. He had not anointed Jesus's head with oil. He had not had a slave wash the dust of the street off His sandals. He had not given Him the customary kiss on the cheek that is still given in the Middle East today. Calculated contempt. It was deliberate. This was not a friendly dinner party. It was hostile. Now, she could walk into this dinner party because of the architecture of the houses in Jesus's day. The wealthy houses, at least, were built around a courtyard. And the door was left open to the courtyard, so that the ordinary people of the village could wander in, if they wished, and sit around the perimeter and listen to the conversation of the elite. So in she came. And she fell to her knees, with her head bent over Jesus's feet. She had an alabaster jar. That's expensive. And in it was expensive perfume. Scholars today estimate that, in today's dollars, this perfume was worth north of $2,000. Perfume, of course, was a tool of her trade. But the expense of this perfume also showed that she was very popular and in high demand as a prostitute. That's why she could afford to buy it. Notice that the verbs in this passage are all in the past tense. What the Holy Spirit is saying in this passage is, yes, she was once a prostitute, but no longer. There was some point at which she heard Jesus preach in the village. You know, He went from village to village preaching. And she heard the message of grace and forgiveness, and her heart was cut, and she confessed her sins and was forgiven by Jesus. That's why this is not their first meeting. She has already been forgiven. She is now a former prostitute. Second Corinthians 5:17 has come true: "If anyone is in Christ," they are becoming "a new creation." Colossians 2:14 describes what happens when we ask forgiveness. It says He forgave all our sins, no unforgivable sin, "by canceling the certificate of debt" for our sins "that stood against us." Those of you who've been to Rome with me know that we have gone to a Roman prison. And we can bring up examples of a certificate of debt. What that is: the Romans would take a piece of paper and write down all the crimes you had committed, and nail it to the doorpost of your jail cell. That's your certificate of debt to society. Your crimes. And this word "canceling"… I get so excited. The Greek is so rich. What this word means is "to erase." And so what it's talking about is the erasure of all your sins. Remember when I preached through the book of Revelation, that it says in Revelation 20 that at the end of time, the books of our life will be opened. The books that have recorded everything we have said and done, in secret or not in secret. And we will have to give an accounting, line by line, of our behavior. And part of that is how we are cleansed before we enter heaven. An accounting of what we've said and done. Did you know that? Except if you have confessed the sin. Then it is canceled. In Greek, exaleipho: erased. And I want to tell you, that's why every morning when I get up, I start with self-examination of yesterday and confession of everything that was sin in my life. Because I want a lot of erasures up there. As much as I can get erased, I want erased. If you get it erased, there's no accounting, because it's forgiven. Do you ever do any self-examination? A lot of people don't even do it at Communion. Christians. Self-examination: do you do that? Much confession? That's how you get erasures on the record, and also the healing of memories. It's erased. The Word of God says that when we confess our sins, God actually erases our past from the record books. And that's why, over the years, I have continually encouraged self-examination every day. What this means is she was a virgin in God's eyes. All of her prostitution had been erased. Why? Her sins were erased, and that's how memories are healed. She's a new creation. And I've actually had this experience many times over the years. A woman has come and told me about her past sexual activities, and she's ashamed. She wants forgiveness. And we've prayed for forgiveness, and I can look her right in the eye and say, "As of now, you are a virgin." Because God has erased all of that and forgiven it. It's just amazing, the power of forgiveness. Well, as I was writing this last week, I thought we should pause and ask: Do we have sins we still need erased? Unconfessed? Unrepented? Do we have things in the past that we know we need to confess and have erased? Why leave this morning without having that done? Healing of memories does not mean it never happened. It means you don't live in the past or let it shape your self-image. You are not that old person when you've been forgiven. You are cleansed. And this is so important, because so many of us think that because we did, we are. And nothing can change that. "We did bad things in the past, so we're a bad person." Well, no. It is erased. And you do not let what's been forgiven shape your self-image today. My bet is that many of you have confessed things, but those memories have risen from the grave at an amazing rate. They pop up and start tormenting you about how you failed, or humiliated yourself, or something you've done that you're ashamed of. And my bet is that's happening right now with many of us. Memories are coming to mind. We have got to learn the difference between the voice of Satan speaking to us and the voice of Jesus. Remember, Satan in the Bible is called the accuser. But Jesus is called our advocate, our defender. And it's the image of a trial, where you've got a prosecuting attorney, and then you've got a defense attorney. And you've got the best in the world: Jesus. So when you start hearing accusations about what you have confessed, what you have asked forgiveness for, you know that's not the voice of Jesus. It's the voice of Satan, the devil, who's accusing you. And if he can't do anything else, he just wants you to live with guilt and to beat yourself up. All the time, Jesus is saying to you, "But I've forgiven you." You've got to know the difference between the two voices. We've got to say, "That's you, Satan, talking. I know it's you, because you're the one who accuses me. But Jesus is my forgiver. Devil, I'm not listening to you anymore." And then you've got to quote the Bible at him. And the one to quote to him is Isaiah chapter 1, verse 18: "Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." You've got to quote God's Word to the devil. And then don't listen to him anymore. And it's so important for us not to be passive. This requires thought-stopping. I've talked to you about this before. So many of us, whatever comes into our mind, we just let it go on. The Bible says to take control of your mind. You'll never find happiness if you just let your mind reel on. You've got to thought-stop when the devil is accusing you about the past you've already confessed. And no one can do that for you. Only you can thought-stop. You can't delegate that to a pinch hitter in your life. You've got to do it. But a lot of people don't want to work at it that much, because you have to do it again and again and again. But the more you do it, the more he shuts up. If we keep revisiting the past and rehearsing it, our memories will never be healed, will they? Every time we revisit the past, we tear the scab off a memory, and we bleed again, don't we? And my guess is that many of us have been tearing the scab off some memories over and over again. We've just got to stop it, and believe Isaiah 1. There's something else we must do. We must not let anyone walk us down memory lane. Does anybody love to walk you down memory lane? Oh, yeah. Maybe your ex. Oh, yeah. Maybe the one you're married to. This is very common. When there's an argument, there are some people who just want to go down memory lane and remind you of all the bad things you've done, to win the argument. Have you got anybody like that? Or it could be a parent. Or worse, it could be a grown child who keeps throwing the past up in your face. Don't you have anybody who wants to walk you down memory lane? You've got to say no. You've got to stop being passive. If you want abundant life, you've got to take responsibility for the choices in your life. Not be passive. I wrote, "You are responsible for your own happiness." If you expect others to take responsibility for your happiness, you will be very disappointed. Don't ever give anyone responsibility for your being happy. Don't ever say to somebody, "I can't be happy unless you…" Nobody can make you unhappy without your permission. Don't give it. Take responsibility for your happiness, and do the things you need to do to be happy. Stop giving other people that power in your life. I know this is hard, but it is something we just have to do, because so many people in the world around you have not learned what I've preached to you again and again from the Bible. They haven't learned it. That's why you need to take control of yourself. And it's this: Don't treat people as badly as they deserve. Treat them as good as you are. Don't treat people as badly as they deserve. Treat them as good as you are. Because I can tell you, you can't be happy treating people the way they deserve. It's going to muck up your life. You've got to treat them as good as you are instead. The world hasn't learned that. Happiness is not found by treating people as badly as they deserve. But today you can start to live that way. A few years ago, Compass was named in a national magazine as one of the fastest-growing churches in America. And the magazine article talked about how we'd grown to three campuses and five worship services. And I got some calls from around the country from pastors who wanted to know how we did it. And one call I will never forget. It was a call from a pastor back east who had a church of about 300 people, who were resisting everything he did to reach the community for Christ and lead people to Jesus. The church said, "We don't want more people in our church. They're messing up our church." One guy actually said, "I'm tired of new people ruining our church." Okay. Then he choked up, and he said, "People are saying to me, 'If there are people in our community who want to be saved, let them go to the Baptist church.'" I'm not making that up. So I told him, "God doesn't want donut churches." You know, churches that exist mostly for the coffee and donuts, the fellowship. You don't find any donut churches in the New Testament. No, you don't. You find Jesus churches: churches that are reaching the world in the name of Jesus, bringing people to salvation, and people are being changed. Those are Jesus churches. Donut churches don't change anybody. We're a Jesus church. Amen. If you want a donut church, you need to go find another church, because we're not a donut church. And over the years, so many people have changed within this church, because we're a Jesus church. A couple of years ago… oh, do I have memories… a guy who had become a Christian at Compass wanted to share with me how this happened. He said that over Easter break, he and some of his friends had gone to Mexico, and they had a wild time. He said, "All week long, we did things that you only see on MTV." I don't know why he thought I watched MTV, but anyway. Only those bad things. He said, "By Saturday, we were broke and hungry. And all week we'd been seeing the sign 'Campus Crusade Free Breakfast.' Well, we didn't know what Campus Crusade was, but we went to their free breakfast. And when we sat down, some guy came over and sat next to us and began to tell us how Jesus had changed his life." "Well, we finished as fast as we could, got up, and left." He said, "But when I came back to Salinas, I knew my life was a train wreck. I had things in my life that were just junk. Attitudes, relationships. And I knew I needed this Jesus he talked about. So I decided I was going to go to church. But the only church I'd heard about was Compass." He said, "I'll never forget walking in and sitting down in the chair, and you stood up to begin your sermon." He said, "The very first words you said were, 'The biggest drunk in town is here today.'" "And I thought, 'How do you know my name?'" He said, "I was afraid you were going to make me stand up. But you went on in that sermon to talk about a guy who thought he had no hope, that he never would recover, and all that. And that day you invited people to come down front. I went down front, and you introduced me to this Jesus, and my life has never been the same. I'm a different man now." Well, I want to tell you, that has happened hundreds of times at Compass. Changed people, healed marriages, all of this. Because we're a Jesus church, not a donut church. And people get changed when they come to Jesus Christ. Did you notice that Luke never gives us the name of this prostitute? Do you notice that? All kinds of women's names are given to us in the New Testament. But this woman's name is not. He knew her. Everybody knew her name. He could easily have inserted it in there, but he deliberately doesn't. Because the message is, we are all the woman. We're all the prostitute. You may think you're Simon, with little, small, or dinky sins, but you're all prostitutes in Jesus's eyes. You're in no less need of grace and forgiveness than this prostitute was. That's why he doesn't give us her name. Your name is in there. My name is in there. It's an invitation to come and be changed. Notice, when she comes, she bows down over His feet. And it says in the Scriptures that she was weeping, and the Greek word, which I love, is a cloudburst of tears. She began to wet His feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair and kissed them. That's the imperfect tense: over and over again, repeated action. His feet. And Simon wouldn't even kiss His cheek. And she poured perfume on them. Thankfulness. That's how you understand this. She was so thankful for her memories to be healed and for her to be forgiven. She gave her maximum. Seriously, what memories do you need healed? What memories do you still need to be healed of? Why leave today without that happening? Jesus is still healing memories. And He'll heal the memories that are popping into your head this very moment, if you'll let Him. Confess it, and believe it. Last week, in my research, I came across a very impactful line. Maybe it'll impact you, too. It was this: "If you're searching for a person who can change your life, look in the mirror." You'll never hear anything more true than that. The first step the prostitute took to heal her memories and to break these chains was to confess it all to God and ask forgiveness. No excuses. Just the plain, bald truth. I wrote last week, "If you are afraid to admit when you are wrong, then you're afraid to grow." You'll never grow. You know, people are good at making excuses. I hear that all the time, even in counseling. Excuses. But if you're good at making excuses, you're not good at fixing things in your life, because you'll never fix what you won't admit needs fixing. That's why a lot of people never get better. Excuses don't get results. Excuses make sure your future is the same as your past. That's why a lot of people you went to high school with are not only the same as they always were, they're worse. They're worse. I'll never forget Dr. Kirkland, who was the pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York City, one of the most prestigious churches in America. He was our preaching instructor when I was in seminary at Princeton. And one of the great things he emphasized was: every year, pick something to improve on in your preaching. Just one thing every year. Work on that, to improve. So he said that over the years, one year he'd worked hard on telling the story. Just that one thing. And then another year, he worked hard on improving his sermon conclusions. And then another year, he worked on his diction. I've done that, too, because I grew up in Arizona. I learned terrible speaking habits. So I've worked on diction. So I asked Dr. Kirkland, "What are you working on this year?" He said, "My pauses." We hadn't even thought of that. "Your pauses?" "Yes, because that's part of impact." And the whole class burst out laughing. Because if he was working on his pauses, we were so far behind. We had so much to work on. That has stuck with me all these years, and I've tried to practice it. Here's my question for you: What are you working on in your personal life, to improve? Anything? Do you know that almost every person around you hasn't got a target? They're not working on anything. Not working on an attitude, not working on a behavior, not working on their tongue. That's why most people around you are not getting better. So I ask you, what are you working on improving as a Christian in your life this year? That's how you get better. Jesus then tells a story about two men who owed a big debt to a moneylender. Neither of them could repay, and the moneylender forgave them both. And He asked, "Well, which of the two would be most grateful?" And Simon got it right. He said, "The one who had been forgiven the most." The point is that when a person thinks their sin is not that serious, "I mean, I'm better than most people. It's just a little," then they only need a little of the blood of Jesus. Only a little of the forgiveness. And they're never very grateful. But you know, a person who's been forgiven of a lot in their life turns out to be a maximum Christian, not a minimum Christian. Because thankfulness is the drive in their life, not legal obligation. Thankfulness is the drive in their life. There's a link. Be thankful, because your life is someone else's dream life. Thankfulness helps you fall in love with the life you already have. And it makes you a generous giver back to Jesus. Yes, it does. You know, most churches, when they have a men's breakfast or a women's event, have donuts and coffee, and they'll put a little basket there if you want to help pay for it. You watch people. A lot of people go by and don't put anything in. Some people put in a buck. But there are always some people who are going to come along and put a ten in there. Maybe a twenty. They're maximum Christians. Not donut Christians, who want to take and take because it's free. No, they want to give, because they're so thankful. And that's the prostitute pouring expensive perfume on Jesus's feet. Thankfulness cures depression, resentment, anger. I'm serious. It's impossible to stay angry if you start being thankful for your blessings. You can't do it. Not to be thankful to God, when He's given us our very life? Well, that's being a donut Christian. We have a choice. Be a thankful Christian who's a maximum giver, or a Christian who minimizes giving back to Him. It all has to do with thankfulness. You don't want to be a donut Christian, do you? Lord, help us to just learn the power of thankfulness. And I pray for the healing of memories today, Lord. Heal memories. We pray in Your name, Jesus. Amen.