MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
RIDGE CHAPEL, KANSAS, OK
(Powerpoints used with this message are available at no charge. Just email me at mnewland@sstelco.com and request #271.)
ILL. The A P Wire Service reported this story out of Nashville, TN a few years ago. A TN Highway Patrolman stopped a car that was a total wreck. It had 3 flat tires. Every window had been broken out, & the roof was caved in, indicating that it had rolled over. This car had been wrecked, but it was still going down the highway.
When they stopped it, the woman who was driving expressed surprise that her car had been wrecked. In fact, she said she didn't realize that she had been in an accident until she started to roll down the window to talk to the arresting officer. When she saw that the glass was shattered, she knew that something must have happened.
When they questioned her a little further, she admitted that she had had 2 or 3 beers. But the alcohol breath test revealed that it had to be many, many more than just 2 or 3.
Here was a woman who had wrecked her car, rolled it over, & was so drunk that she didn't even realize that she had been in an accident. (From a message by Ben Merold at the Rendezvous, Honobia, OK)
I believe that there are people who will be surprised at many things. People will someday stand before the judgment of God & express surprise that they are lost.
They are the ones Jesus talked about, who said, "Lord, Lord... in your name we have done many wonderful works." Some of them will even say, "We did miracles in your name." But Jesus will tell them, "I never knew you: depart from me..." (Matthew 7:22-23)
God has written in His Word what He expects us to do. If we don't do it, we have ignored Him. And to stand in the judgment & be surprised that we are lost, is like this woman expressing surprise that her car had been wrecked.
Our scripture text this morning is Luke 7:36-50. And I want to read vs's 36-39 to you right now. "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.'
I have just 2 points to my sermon this morning. #1. We will consider the story with some explanations. #2. We'll consider its lessons with some applications.
I. LET'S LOOK AT THE STORY
Jesus had been invited to the home of a Pharisee by the name of Simon. That is quite something because the Pharisees saw Jesus as a threat to their power, their teachings, & to their very legalistic system.
They considered Jesus an enemy. Not all of them did, but most of them resented Him & His teachings.
A. In that day in Israel, houses of well to do people were usually built around an open courtyard. Many times there were flowering plants or a fountain there, & often it was the best place to eat their evening meals when the weather was hot.
It was probably in such a setting Jesus had been invited to eat on this occasion.
Now they had an interesting custom in Israel. That custom was this: When a Rabbi was visiting & you were out in the courtyard, anybody could come & listen to the conversation in order to learn from the Rabbi.
B. You also need to know that when a guest arrived, it was customary to make him feel welcome by going through certain common courtesies.
First of all, his feet would be washed. A guest's feet would be caked with dirt after walking in sandals on the dusty roads. So a servant would greet him at the door with a basin of water, & would wash & dry his feet.
After his feet had been washed, the host would greet him with a "kiss of peace" to make him feel welcome, & let him know that he was an honored guest.
Then it was a matter of courtesy to anoint the head of the guest with some sweet smelling oil. Maybe it was because of the hot oriental sun. Maybe some of the men were thin on top & slightly sunburned. I'm not sure exactly why, but it was customary to use oil to anoint the head of a guest.
All of these things went together to say, "You are welcome in my home."
But when Jesus visited the home of this Pharisee, none of these things happened. Luke says that Jesus sat down at the table without His feet being washed, without the customary kiss, or the anointing of oil.
C. Which leads us to ask the question, "Why did Simon invite Jesus in the first place?" Well, we don't know.
1. Some speculate that maybe Simon was really interested in what Jesus was teaching & who He was, & wanted to find out more. But had this been true, I think he would have certainly observed the customs of common courtesy in his treatment of Jesus.
2. One Bible scholar suggests that Simon was probably "a collector of celebrities." It was now popular to have Jesus as a dinner guest. Simon invited Him so that he could say, "Oh yes, I had this new teacher, this new Rabbi in my home."
But since he didn't agree with Jesus, he received Him with a rather patronizing attitude.
3. But most commentators believe that Simon, as a Pharisee, was one of the religious elite, critical of what Jesus was teaching & hoping to expose Him as some kind of religious fraud.
So Simon treated Jesus with barely disguised contempt, carefully neglecting every custom that would have made Jesus feel welcome in his home.
D. Then, as they began eating, an unusual thing happened. This woman - Luke calls her a "sinner" - & the word he uses means "an immoral woman, a prostitute," came to where they were eating in the courtyard. She stood at the feet of Jesus & started weeping.
Her tears fell on His feet, so she dried them with her hair. Then she broke a vial of expensive perfume & anointed His feet, & began kissing them.
All the while, Simon the Pharisee was watching. He was greatly offended by what was going on because it was obvious that all the things he had failed to do to make Jesus welcome, this woman was now doing.
Simon knew what kind of woman she was. So as he judges her, he also judges Jesus. He assumes that Jesus, in not stopping her, is condoning immorality. Simon thinks, "If this man really is a prophet, He would know she is an immoral woman."
Jesus knows what Simon is thinking, & Jesus knew more about her than Simon did. When Simon looked at her all he saw was a prostitute, a sinner, someone to be shunned.
But Jesus saw her as a repentant sinner, a precious soul seeking some way to express her love & appreciation for what Jesus had come to mean to her.
I want you to notice a couple of things in this passage that you may not have thought about before. Vs. 37 begins with these words, “When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town…”
Wait a minute, it doesn’t say, “who is living a sinful life.” It says “who had lived a sinful life.” That’s past tense, isn’t it?
Now if your Bible is a Study Bible with footnotes at the bottom of the page it will probably point that fact out. My Study Bible says, “She must have heard Jesus preach, & in repentance she determined to lead a new life.”
And in just a few moments we will be reading vs. 47 where Jesus, in speaking about her says, “Her many sins have been forgiven…”
I think we can safely conclude that Jesus had met her before, had already forgiven her, & she had become one of His followers. And that’s why she had followed Him there that evening.
E. Now let’s continue on with vs’s 40-42, "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 500 denarii, & the other 50.
'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?'
Jesus says that one of them owed the moneylender 500 denarii & the other one owed him 50 denarii. Now don't try to translate that into dollars, because you could easily get confused. Just remember that a denarius represented a day's wage.
So one owed the equivalent of 50 working days, & the other owed 500 working days. Using a 5 day work week, one man owed him ten weeks work & the other owed him 100 weeks, or almost two years.
Jesus says, "Simon, neither of them could pay their debts. So the money-lender tells them, 'I know that you don’t have the money, so I am going to cancel your debts, & you no longer owe me anything.' Now then, Simon, which one will love him more?”
I imagine Simon was sitting there with his mouth open. First of all, to think that a moneylender would not collect what was owed him was unreal. Simon couldn't even imagine that type of thing happening with moneylenders he knew.
Secondly, he was probably trying to figure out why Jesus was telling him that story at all. He couldn’t see any point to it. But he went ahead & answered the question, "'I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.' 'You have judged correctly,' Jesus said.”
F. Vs’s 44-47 tell us, "Then He turned toward the woman & 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 & 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."
That's the story. Now, let's bring out 4 lessons & apply them
II. FOUR LESSONS TO LEARN
Lesson #1. Everyone is in debt - Everyone of us is a debtor.
A. Every person in this room is in debt to society, to our nation, & to God. We are all debtors. Now if I were to talk about atonement or regeneration some of you might go out scratching your heads. But when I talk about being in debt, you know exactly what I'm talking about. All of us are debtors.
An important asset when you're in debt is a good memory. Because if you don't remember to whom you owe money you're going to have all kinds of trouble. And Simon's problem was that he had a poor memory.
I imagine when Simon looked at himself he thought, "God, you're lucky to have me on your team. I'm pretty special. I've memorized the law, & I pray beautiful prayers, & I do many significant things for You. I'm a Pharisee & I have mastered the art of being a Pharisee. God, I'm a pretty special guy."
What Simon forgot was that he was a sinner. His sins were sins of the heart, & he didn't recognize them as sins. So it was easy for him to forget that he needed forgiveness too.
B. Isn't it easy for us to forget how indebted we are to those who paid a price to achieve freedom for us? Isn't it easy to come into God's house & open our Bibles & forget those early pilgrims who crossed the ocean to settle in this new land for “the glorie of God”?
We put hamburgers on the grill & sit around enjoying all the material blessings that God has given us, & forget the blood that was shed so that the stars & stripes could fly in the breeze & that we could still enjoy the freedom that is ours as citizens of the United States of America.
We owe a great debt to those who have gone before. We also owe an even greater debt to our God who has redeemed & forgiven us. We are all debtors. We all owe a debt.
Lesson #2. We can never repay those debts.
A. When I think of the debt of freedom that I owe to our forefathers, I realize that is a debt that I can't pay. And when I think of the debt that I owe God in heaven for the price He paid for my sins, I realize that I can't pay that either.
Now back to our story. This woman came to Jesus & stood at His feet. She wet His feet with her tears & tried to dry them with her hair. Then she anointed His feet with oil. It was an expression of gratitude & love.
You say, "Well, that's one way to pay God back." But she wasn't paying Him back. All she was doing was saying, "Thank you, Lord. Thank you for forgiving my sins."
B. That's all we can do, too. We can never pay God back. But we can roll up our sleeves & go to work. We can worship & serve, we can cry & pray. We can seek to reach others for Jesus.
We can do all that, but we will never even if we work 20 hours a day the rest of our lives never be able to pay the debt that we owe our God.
Lesson #3. Forgiveness is available to everyone.
First of all, we stated that all of us are spiritually in debt. Secondly, we said we can never repay the debt. Now we are saying that "Since we can't pay it, therefore we stand in need of forgiveness from it."
And the good news is that forgiveness is available to everyone, but forgiveness is not free.
Lesson #4. Forgiveness is not free. Forgiveness always costs something.
For the moneylender it cost 550 denarii to forgive those who were indebted to him. A small amount perhaps when compared to the debts we're talking about. But forgiveness always costs something.
When God said, "I forgive you of your sin," then it cost God something because before forgiveness there had to be the agony of Gethsemane. Before forgiveness there had to be the death on the cross & the resurrection. And Jesus paid that price!
The ledger had to be clear before forgiveness of sin could become a reality. But now that it has been paid it's available to all.
B. Isn't that also true of our freedom? The price has been paid. It is available to all in this land. That is why we rejoice at the Declaration of Independence. That is why we rejoice in the Statue of Liberty - because freedom is available to all of us in this great land.
ILL. Robert McCormack was a sergeant in WW 1. He nearly lost his life while saving the life of Major Henry Parkin. Fortunately, both men survived the war. From that day on, until he died 25 years later, in April of every year Parkin wrote McCormack a letter of gratitude.
The last letter Parkin wrote contained this brief note: "Dear Bob, I again want to express to you my appreciation for another year of life which I would not have enjoyed had it not been for you & the price you were willing to pay to save my life. I want you to know, I am grateful."
Today, God's forgiveness is available. He offers it to you through Jesus Christ His Son. The price has been paid & He invites you to come. Will you come?
INVITATION
(The opening illustration and some of the beginning comments of this message were gleaned from a sermon by Ben Merold, now retired, at The Rendezvous, Honobia, OK.)
