Four Life Changing Words - Luke 7:36-50 - July 15, 2012
Series: Forgiven For Forever - #1
(Baptism Service)
I very much appreciate that passage we just heard from the book of 2 Chronicles. Those words are a call to humbleness and holiness, to righteousness and revival. The occasion was the finishing of the temple. This would be God’s dwelling place with His people. This is where He would meet with them and they would worship Him. This is where the heart of God would be – with His people in the temple – a testimony to all peoples everywhere of God’s glory and His goodness.
But today that temple is no longer standing. It has been replaced – not by church buildings which we tend to think of as our temples of today - but by something of far greater worth. Scripture says that if you are in Christ Jesus then you, yourself, are the temple of the Holy Spirit, the place in which the Spirit of God now dwells. He resides with you in a very real and personal way. But the call on your life is still the same as it was so long ago – a call to humbleness and holiness, to righteousness and revival as you walk in step with the Spirit of our God.
When we get right down to it we could say that everyone in the world could be placed into one of two broad categories – those who know their sin and are broken by it, who have called out to God for mercy and who have received the true grace of God, and then those who are blind to sin and proud and self-righteous in it, and who, whether they know it or not, live as enemies of God in word, thought and deed. We’re going to meet both of those people in our Scripture passage this morning so I’m going to invite you to turn in your Bibles with me, please, to the Gospel of Luke. Luke, chapter 7, beginning in verse 36. And as we hear the Word of God this day, consider seriously, which of those two categories that find yourself in, which group of people will you identify with? … Let’s begin in verse 36 …
“Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”” (Luke 7:36–50, NIV84)
This past week we wrapped up our Care Group study called, “The Way of the Master.” It’s a DVD study hosted by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron that helps teach Christians how to share their faith. If you’ve never seen it before it is definitely worth taking a look at. You’ll find it challenging, insightful, and truly helpful as you seek to share your faith with others.
One of the segments I appreciated most in each week’s study is where they filmed themselves sharing their faith with ordinary people that they met on the streets. And when I say “ordinary people” I mean people from every walk of life from gang members, to students, to fathers, to businessmen, to housewives – you name it – they just share with everybody. As they speak with each one they follow God’s precepts in sharing biblical truth in that they give the Law of God to the proud and the self-righteous and the grace of God to those humble and broken by the reality of their own sin.
As they speak with each different individual they will come around to asking if the person being interviewed would think of themselves as a good person. Almost invariably the answer given is a resounding, “Yes!” – at which point Ray or Kirk will ask them, “Can we do a little test to see if that is true?” And then what they do is to take two or three of the 10 Commandments and begin to work with them. They will take something like the command to “not bear false witness” – we shall not lie – and then ask the individual if he or she has ever told a lie. When the person says, “Yes I have,” Kirk will ask, “And what does that make you?” And he gets all kinds of answers in response! People will say, “That makes me human,” or “That makes me normal,” or “That makes me just like everyone else in the world.”
The answer Kirk is looking for at that point is that telling a lie makes a person a liar! It’s amazing to see how difficult it can be for so very many people to see themselves as such, and yet when Kirk asks these same people, “What would you call me if I told a lie to you?” the answer is an instant, “Well that would make you a liar!”
The truth is it’s so very easy for us to see sin in someone else’s life but to be completely blind to it in our own. That’s what’s going on in our Scripture passage today. The Pharisee so very easily sees the sin in this woman’s life. Everyone there that night knew her story. Her sins were obvious for all to see. She had a reputation that preceded her. Whether she was a prostitute or not, we do not know for sure, but whatever she was, however she was living her life, everyone seems to have been aware of it and known that the manner in which she was living was sinful; that it could not be pleasing to God. Her sin has been laid bare for all to see. And the response of the Pharisee – of this religious man – is to look down upon her with disdain.
So let’s talk about Simon the Pharisee for a moment. He’s invited Jesus into his home. The Greek emphasizes the fact that he extended this invitation to Jesus again and again until Jesus finally took him up on it. We might understand that if his desire had been to know Jesus better, to accept what He had to say, and to enter into the life that Jesus was making possible. But that doesn’t seem to be what lay in Simon’s heart. What his motives were, we are not certain, but he shows himself to be less than a gracious host. After begging Jesus to come to his house for this meal, Simon then proceeds to treat him very poorly, not even extending to Him the customary courtesies of the day. There was no water to wash His feet with, no kiss of welcome as He entered the home, and no oil for His head. Verse 39 would suggest that He doesn’t really believe Jesus is who He claims to be in the first place. Perhaps He’s invited Jesus to dinner to try to trip Him up, to find cause against Jesus to take to his fellow Pharisees.
Folks, Simon has a problem. It’s not an uncommon problem in our day either. Simon doesn’t understand that He’s a sinner standing in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. Instead of the righteousness of Christ, Simon has self-righteousness. He thinks God owes Him because He has done the right things, said the right prayers, provided the right sacrifices and lived by the letter of God’s Law. In his eyes he has earned his salvation, he deserves it. Most of those who knew him would probably have thought the same about him. “Simon? Sure, he’s going to go to heaven when he dies. Why wouldn’t he? He’s a great guy! He can quote the Scriptures like you wouldn’t believe! He gives a tenth of everything he gets as an offering to God. What’s not to like?”
Of these two people – the woman who is a known sinner and the Simon the self-righteous Pharisee – the one who must be right with God was evident for everyone to see – except for the one who really matters – Jesus. While the woman’s sins were known to all, the sins of the Pharisee were hidden from everyone (including himself it would seem!) except for God. Just like in the parable that Jesus shared with Simon, both Simon and this woman owe a debt that they cannot pay. It’s a debt of sin – the exact amount of that debt is irrelevant because regardless of it’s size it’s not a debt that they can pay. What’s important is their awareness of that debt; an awareness of the reality of their sin.
There is something else that strikes me when I think of the “Way of the Master” DVD series I mentioned to you a few minutes ago. As they take people through a number of the 10 Commandments, as these people profess with their own lips that according to God’s word they are lying, thieving, blasphemous adulterers, the question they are asked in the light of these things is this: In view of what you’ve just admitted to be true about yourself, do you think you will go to Heaven or to Hell when you die? And so many of them, despite the fact that they have just acknowledged the reality of their guilt, believe that they will go to Heaven – why? - because they still see themselves to be good people. They do not see sin as God sees it. They think sin is but a little thing. And because sin is not seen as it really is, because they do not yet see themselves truly as sinners, they do not see the need for a Savior because they do not believe they have anything to be saved from. They are still trusting in their own self-righteousness believing that, while they may not be perfect, that they are still able to enter into Heaven under their own merits. Friends, they are deceived!
Let me ask you this: How many lies must you tell to be a liar? How many times must you steal to be a thief? How many times must you murder to be a murderer? How many times must you sin against God to be a sinner standing in need of God’s grace? Just once, right?
Ephesians 2:8-9 says this: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9, NIV84) Friends, salvation is not by works! Not one can boast that because of their good works, their good living, their kindness, their gentleness, their thoughtfulness, or because of the absence of great deeds of evil such as rape or murder in their lives, that they will enter into the kingdom of God. And yet this is just what Simon believed! In his eyes he thought that because he had kept the letter of the Law that he would be saved. He believed he had worked for it and earned it and therefore was rightly deserving of it.
And I want you to understand today that the world around us, and even our churches, are filled with Simon’s! Religious Pharisees who look good on the outside, but who are whitewashed tombs on the inside, never having known the cause of their death – sin – nor the life giving cure – Jesus. They see the sin in everyone else’s life, often they are very quick to point it out, but they fail to see the reality of it in their own lives. They might go through all the motions of religion but what they are really trusting in is their own self-righteousness and the evidence is often seen in the fruit of their lives.
Simon, the blinded, unrepentant sinner, has little love or care for Jesus who would soon give His life that Simon might find his. Yet it is this woman, a woman who Simon is disgusted by, a woman who is known to all as a sinner, who humbles herself at Jesus’ feet, who washes His feet with her tears, dries them, not with a towel, or the edge of a robe, but with her own hair. She has not stopped kissing His feet – a sign of respect towards a rabbi, and even more than that she has anointed His feet with her own very costly perfume.
At some point along the way, perhaps even shortly before Jesus entered the Pharisees house for dinner, this woman had heard Jesus speak. His words so touched her, she was so intimately aware of her own sin, she was broken by the truth of the words He had spoken, they cut to her very heart, and she humbled herself and cried out for mercy. She comes to Jesus and there is no pride or self-righteousness to keep her at arm’s length. She does not care what those around her think of her now. She only has eyes for Jesus. To be near to Him, to pour out her heart in humble tears of love speaking of both her brokenness and her gratitude at God’s gift of grace.
As many of you will know, Romans 12:1 is one of my favorite verses. This is what it says: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1, NIV84) Our response to God is all in light of God’s mercy that we have received. That’s why Jesus goes on to say that her great love for Him is evidence of the reality of the forgiveness of her sins. Her love, her actions, her tears, are her response to the mercy of God which she has experienced. Her love is great because she knows the much that she has been forgiven. Simon’s love for Jesus is non-existent because he is not even aware that he stands in need of forgiveness! And because of that it’s not the religious man who hears some of the most beautiful words that we can hear, but rather this broken, weeping woman who is told, “Your sins are forgiven.” Four words that change her world and that can change your world as well. Jesus speaks to her again and says, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Literally it is “go into peace.” She is leaving, not with a temporary peace that is here one moment and then gone the next, she is entering into a on-going peace with God. She is no longer living as an enemy of God – even as the Pharisee does under his religious coverings – but she has been born again as a child of God, a daughter of the king.
And let us be clear this morning – she is not saved because of her tears, nor her love – she is saved by faith. The outpouring of love is in response to God’s mercy. And so it is in our lives as well. If our love for God is little it is likely because we have never understood the true nature of our sin nor experienced the rich wonder of God’s grace. If that is true of us we stand in the place of Simon the Pharisee and will perish in our sin, going blindly to our graves covered in our own self-righteousness unless we humble ourselves and repent and turn to God. That debt of sin is owed to God and only God can wipe the slate clean. And the Pharisee is the most tragic of New Testament figures – covered with all the trappings of religion but so very far from God – unresponsive to God’s love, unrepentant in his sin, and blinded in his self-righteousness. May it be that if that be true of any of us, that God Himself would remove the blindness from our hearts, break down the pride of our souls, that we might call out to Him in the name of Jesus, repentant and humbled, that, as it says in Acts 3:19, that we might “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,” (Acts 3:19, NIV84)
This morning we have the privilege of witnessing someone step forward in loving obedience as she enters the waters of baptism. In just a few minutes she will give testimony to the goodness of God in her life, she will identify herself with Jesus – His life, death and resurrection, and then we will celebrate with her as she takes this step of loving obedience in view of God’s mercy to her.
Some of you here this morning need to take that step of faith as well. You’ve been putting it off for any number of reasons. But God is calling for obedience. He is looking for willing submission. He’s looking for living sacrifices who lay aside pride and self-righteousness to walk in loving response to His mercy. We have many excuses, many reasons why, we might not choose to be baptized. Some may feel it to be a terribly hard thing. But consider Jesus, who suffered so much for our sakes, who lay down His life, that we might have life – and see what a small step baptism becomes for us in light of His sacrifice!
Let’s pray … [Leave to go and get changed.]
