JAIL BREAK (Breaking the Chains of Unforgiveness) -
How Big Do You Consider Your Debt?
October 28, 2018
Luke 7:36-50 (p. 721)
Introduction:
I’ve got three dogs…Buck, Tucker and Evie…Buck usually is in the side yard in a place we have fenced off for him when he’s not inside…both Evie and Tucker go out front when they need to go to the restroom. They won’t run off…Buck might.
But I share this with you because if you walk through my front yard it can be a sort of doggie dodo minefield.
Now I want you to pretend with me for a moment you show up at my house to visit one evening…and you don’t know about the dog do minefield and you step in it…unknowingly you come into my house with your feet covered with poop.
And upon seeing this I break open the triangular wooden and glass box that holds the flag that covered my dad’s casket…I take this flag, get down on my knees and clean your shoes with it…all the while telling you how much I love you and how sorry I am this happened to you.
You’d be shocked right…you’d be amazed, maybe horrified that I’d take something of such importance and glory and use it to clean something so dirty and degrading. You might have many questions about why I would do this…but you wouldn’t question how important I thought you were.
I share this pretend story with you because I couldn’t think of a piece of cloth that means more to me than the flag that covered my dad’s coffin and was presented to us at his funeral…This “old glory” is special to me. I would have to worship you to use something that important to me to clean your feet.
In Biblical times Jewish women wore their hair long…viewed as a covering given by God….In fact 1 Cor. 11:15 says, “If a woman has long hair it is her crowning glory.” Please understand, I’m not sharing this to legalistically argue about short hair or long hair in men and women…but I do want you to understand how it was viewed culturally in Jesus’ time…it was important. Taking it down or having it taken down and displayed was humiliating…it was a woman’s “glory.” It was important…a crown. Like my dad’s flag.
So, when one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him at his house and while they are reclining around his table this happened:
LUKE 7:37-39 (p. 721)
There are some things we can know for sure and some we can’t. We don’t know the Pharisee’s reason for inviting Jesus to dinner…or his attitude toward Jesus…we can only guess what kind of sinful life this woman lived…I think our guesses would include the sex industry, the perfume…used in between clients…small amounts at a time. We know the Pharisee doesn’t think much of this woman…and he loses respect for Jesus because he lets her touch Him.
We know this woman wants to find Jesus…she is weeping in His presence…Her tears fall on His feet…and because she has no towel she lets down her hair and uses it…she also kisses His feet in adoration…the woman is a sinner…the Pharisee, a religious leader.
I. DO WE SEEK JESUS OR JUST INVITE HIM INTO OUR HOUSE?
Pharisees are extremely concerned about ceremonial cleanliness…they wash their hands and dishes…They strain their drinks for gnats…the smallest of unclean animals.
So to believe that Simon just forgot to have someone wash Jesus’ feet is ludicrous…It’s not an oversight…it’s a deliberate act to shame…because,
You walk everywhere you go…on the same streets that animals travel…dung and mud and filth mix together to become a disgusting minefield you walk through. So when someone enters your house you assign the lowest of the slaves to wash their feet…Simon is telling Jesus…you are not even worth the lowest of my slaves to serve you…Simon may have wanted Jesus at his house…but he didn’t want to honor him.
I wonder how many of us do the same…We want Him in “our” church so He can bless us. We want His power, but we don’t want Him to have control. We don’t want to listen to His commands and obey them. We want to go to heaven because we believe we’re good enough without His forgiveness. I’ll bet you a million dollars Simon didn’t think Jesus was the greatest person in that house.
But this woman uses her crown and glory as a rag. Her pride, her reputation means nothing in the presence of Jesus. She is broken open in repentance as she weeps…and it means nothing to shatter that expensive jar of perfume in His presence.
She didn’t care what anyone else thought…she was seeking the approval of only one man.
Can you imagine what it meant for a woman to willingly let down her hair to wash someone’s dirty feet? She came to this house seeking redemption and she found it when she let go of her pride and glory and washed the feet of God…she wasn’t coming to a house…she came to worship Jesus.
The difference is this woman is a sinner and she knows it…Simon is a sinner…and he doesn’t.
Jesus looks squarely at this woman…but His words are for Simon.
LUKE 7:44-50 (p. 721)
Our love for Jesus will always depend on the answer to one question:
II. HOW BIG OF A DEBT DO WE OWE HIM?
Simon says to himself, “He’s no prophet! If He were He’d never let a woman like that touch Him! She’s a sinner!”
I love that it says…Jesus answered him…Jesus surprises Simon by knowing what he’s spoken to himself.
“Simon I have something to tell you.”
Simon responds, “Tell me teacher.”
LUKE 7:41-43 (p. 721)
A simple story…“I owe a loan of about a year and a half wages…You owe a month and a half…and the guy we owe it to, forgives us both.”
Who’s more grateful? Me!!! The one who had the biggest debt forgiven.
Who was more grateful to the Father…The Prodigal Son who came from the pig sty or the older brother?
The scariest part of salvation is this truth…“You cannot be saved until you realize you are lost.”
Repentance is simply the heartfelt realization that we’ve sinned and that sin separates us from God and eternity. It is the turning to God by the one who has walked apart from God.
Jesus is right in front of Simon and this woman…one is clearly repentant and one is clearly not…How can this happen?
This woman clearly feels the debt of her sin…and Simon feels none of it. Her repentance pours out in tears, humility and surrender…Simon in his pride only feels contempt and judgment for others.
This is a heart matter for both of them…as it is a heart matter for every one of us.
WM Taylor said, “True repentance hates the sin and not merely the penalty. And it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered and felt God’s love.”
True repentance feels what the Apostle Paul describes to Timothy.
1 TIMOTHY 1:13-16 (p. 829)
This woman at the feet of Jesus in tears knew her life of sin…The Apostle Paul considered himself the worst sinner who’s ever lived…Both knew the size of their debt…and both knew who could cancel it.
“Gratitude isn’t putting a tip on God’s tablecloth…it is the confession of an unpayable debt at God’s Calvary.”
Here’s what I want to end with…
It’s an essential question when it comes to seeking forgiveness through Jesus…
What are you not willing to break open and pour at His feet? What are you too proud to humble yourself to wipe them with? What are you not willing to weep over in repentance?
Do you think you just need a little forgiveness like Simon the Pharisee? Or does the debt of sin you have require a surrender of it all?
My fear is we want to invite Jesus into our house as a guest…We’ll eat with Him, but He wants more…He wants the keys to the house…He wants ownership…He wants to turn it into a temple.
Folks, the cross that Jesus died on is all about our debt of sin…all sin…Simon, the Pharisee’s sin, the woman in our story’s sin, Rick Burdette’s sin, and your sin…
Sin isn’t pretty whether it’s a Pharisee’s pride, or a prostitute’s sexual history…God never says, “Oh your greed and gossip isn’t as bad as his adultery or homosexuality.” Jesus never said, “Oh never mind about how you judge others and criticize…just do some works to even ‘em out.”
The woman in our story wasn’t trying to buy her forgiveness with an expensive jar of perfume…She, in brokenness, was coming in faith to worship the One who could forgive all her sins.
Her sins were forgiven…and she was able to have peace…she believed she was forgiven a lot…she was set free to love a lot.
Jesus lived a sinless life…He never needed to ask for forgiveness…This perfect Lamb of God, born of a virgin through the power of the Holy Spirit…surrendered Himself to die one of the most horrible deaths possible in my place…and not just mine but He became “a substitute” for every one of us…and every sin, all sin…our lies, our greed, our lust, our gossip, our thievery, our depravity…was taken into His body while dying on a cross…
2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made Him who had no sin TO BE SIN for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
His sacrifice paid for everyone’s debt…
The danger is…Satan whispers…“Your debt’s not that big…you don’t really need to humble yourself before a Savior.”
He’s a liar…The Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts…truth…You are unrighteous, you are guilty…you will face a judgment…and there’s a way to tell which voice you’ve listened to…Listen to a story told by Jesus and the reason He told it:
LUKE 18:9-14 (p. 732)
So, let’s end with one final question…Are you trusting your own righteousness…or His?
