Come Follow Me – Week 3 | Jesus Forgives

When shame, scandal, or a lifetime of mistakes makes you feel unclean, it’s natural to think forgiveness must be earned or negotiated. This message names that tension directly—people like the paralytic and the tax collector, the scoffing religious onlookers, and the sting of being excluded—and shows how the gospel collides with our instinct to bargain for worth. The sermon argues that Jesus speaks with direct authority: he forgives, he heals, and he calls—often in ways that offend religious expectations. Three shifts follow: the call is scandalous because it includes the excluded; it’s superior because nothing else should hold first place; and it’s salutary because his mercy actually heals and makes new. Listeners are invited to hear the plain, almost startling boldness of that call and to imagine what it would look like to rise and follow when grace comes first and costs everything.