Luke 7: Jesus and the Prostitute

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Efforts stand no legacy survive unless the Lord does raise the house in vain its builders strive to you who boast tomorrow's game tell me, what is your life a mis. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Come. [00:00:54] Speaker A: His will be done, his kingdom come honored as is above who is himself our daily bread praise him, the Lord of love. Let living water satisfy the thirsty without price we'll take a cup of kindness yet all glory be to Christ. All glory be to Christ, our king. All glory be to Christ. His rule and reign will ever see. All glory be to Christ. When on the day the great I am the faithful and the true the lamb who was for sin is lame is making all things new. Behold, our God shall live with us and be a steadfast light. And we shall let his people be. All glory be to Christ. All glory be to Christ. I'll keep. All glory be to Christ. His rule and reign will ever sing all glory be to Christ. [00:03:08] Speaker C: Amen. [00:03:09] Speaker D: Guys, it is such a blessing to hear you guys sing that out this morning. As we worship. I want to share this passage with you guys. It's from Ephesians, chapter two. And it says, and you were dead in your trespasses and in sins in which you previously lived, according to the ways of the world, according to the ruler of the power of the heir, the spirit, now working in the disobedient. We, too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts. And we were by nature children under wrath, as others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ, though we were dead in our trespasses. We are saved by grace, and also raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavens, in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages, he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us, Christ Jesus. For we are saved by grace, not through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It is God's gift, not from works, so that no one can boast. This is why we worship. Because without that story, without that thing, none of this really gives us a way back to God. And we all need it, because we're all broken. So I would love for you guys to join me in this song. [00:04:34] Speaker B: And. [00:04:53] Speaker A: Who could carry that kind of weight? It was my. Till I met you? I was breathing but not alive? All my failures I tried to hide? It was my tomb? Till I met you? You called my name and I ran out of that grave out of darkness to your glorious day you called my name and I ran out of that grave? Out of the darkness into your glorious day. Now your mercy has saved my soul. Now your freedom is all that I know. The old made new. Jesus, when I met you, you called my name and I ran out of that grave? Out of the darkness into your glorious day. My sin was heavy, the chains break out the weight of your glory. I needed shelter, I wasn't orphan now you call me a citizen of heaven? [00:07:55] Speaker B: When I was broken, you were my healing. Now your love is the air that. [00:08:02] Speaker A: I'm breathing I have a future eyes are open because when you call my name? [00:08:12] Speaker B: I ran out of that grave? [00:08:17] Speaker A: Out of the darkness into your glorious day. You called my name and I ran out of that grave? Out of the darkness to your glorious day. [00:08:44] Speaker B: You sa. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Fortress is our God upper work never failing our helper here amid. [00:09:25] Speaker B: The flood. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Immortal is revealed for still our ancient foe I see to work us woe. His craft and power are great and. [00:09:47] Speaker B: Of his cruel hate. [00:09:53] Speaker A: Honor is not his. [00:09:58] Speaker B: Oh wound strength and fight. [00:10:21] Speaker A: Our striving. [00:10:22] Speaker B: Would be losing. [00:10:28] Speaker A: We'Re not the right man on our side the man of God don't. [00:10:41] Speaker B: You ask who that may. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Be Christ Jesus it is he, the lord of hosts name from age to age the same and he must win the battle. Whoa. [00:11:06] Speaker B: Whoa whoa whoa. You. [00:11:18] Speaker A: Know this world with devil still should threaten to undo we will not be upon God has will his truth to triumph through I know this world is devil should threaten to undo us we will not feel God has will his truth to triumph through us. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, whoa. Close whoa, whoa. [00:12:37] Speaker A: Almighty fortresses I got. Almighty fortresses I got. Almighty fortresses I got his kingdom is forever. His kingdom is forever. His kingdom is forever. His kingdom is forever. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Close. San strength and fight. [00:13:35] Speaker A: How striving would be losing. [00:13:43] Speaker C: Church. [00:13:43] Speaker D: Would you pray with me? [00:13:47] Speaker C: Lord God, we come to you knowing. [00:13:51] Speaker D: That we have nothing that we contribute to our position before you, we have free access to the father. Even though we're broken, even though we're. [00:14:04] Speaker B: Weak. [00:14:08] Speaker D: We can't trust in our own strength. It's only through the work of your son. And it's why we sing. [00:14:35] Speaker A: Nest. He sought me weary and sick with. [00:14:44] Speaker B: Sin. [00:14:47] Speaker A: And on his shoulders brought me back to his throne again. While angel until the court of heaven. [00:15:13] Speaker B: Rain the love that the that's you. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Died for me while I was in needy and forever he whispered to show me I found thee, thou was mine. I've never heard a sweeter voice. It made my aching heart rejoice. [00:16:30] Speaker B: Hope. [00:16:33] Speaker A: The love that got me hope. [00:16:39] Speaker B: The blood that was me the grace that brought me to the throne of God grace that brought me to throne of God. [00:17:10] Speaker A: Daily ponder and sing anew his praise with all adoring wonder. [00:17:26] Speaker B: His. [00:17:26] Speaker A: Blessings are retrace it seems as if eternal day I thought too short to. [00:17:40] Speaker B: See his bright oh. [00:17:46] Speaker A: The love that taught me home the blood that bought. [00:17:55] Speaker B: Me the grace that brought me to the grace that brought me to the. [00:18:34] Speaker E: Church we pray every week for one of our missional partners. This week we're going to pray for impact church, which is in Festus, Missouri. If you don't know where that is, I don't blame you. I didn't either until I went out there. It's a much more rural location. Their church just looks a lot different than ours does. They sing differently, their worship is different, but the gospel is the central focus of their church, just like ours, Jesus is worshipped and praised and preached, so let's pray for them that God would continue to have an impact at impact church. [00:19:14] Speaker A: I didn't prepare that. [00:19:17] Speaker E: Jesus, we thank you so much for impact church. I thank you for Scott and Teresa, just their faithfulness and their love for you and for this church. Jesus, I pray that you would continue to lead and guide their leadership, that you would continue to be present and be changing the hearts of those who are attending their church. Jesus, I pray that Festus would be a place where you would continue to bring the gospel through impact church. That this would be a place where the gospel would be made known, not just within their own walls, but outside of their walls. Jesus, that you would be bringing your truth and your love to Festus through your people there. Thank you, Jesus. Jesus, I also pray for Sam as he comes up to bring our message this morning. I pray that you would open our hearts to your word and that you would speak through him and that you would change us. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. [00:20:37] Speaker C: Good morning, church. What a joy to be together today. It's a weird Sunday. It's a weird Sunday for two reasons. The first one is I was not supposed to be preaching today and Chris was not supposed to be leading worship today, so don't know how that happened. Emma. You guys know Emma, our resident alien who's away at school. She was supposed to be in town and lead for us and she's homesick and so, Chris, she's here. Oh, hi, Emma. Those of you who are sitting right by Emma, just so you know, she's sick. So Chris had to step in with the creative team, man. Thank you, creative team. For flowing with that. You guys led us so well. That was such a blessing. And then Jim is also homesick, and so I found out yesterday that I'd be preaching today, which is great. The other reason today is a weird Sunday is it's the Sunday after Christmas. And I don't know about you guys, but, man, I know a lot of us just have to work the week between Christmas and New Year's, but those of you that don't, it's the weirdest week of the year. Is it not like it's this weird twilight zone where you're like, is it Tuesday or Saturday? It's like the only week where you're allowed to eat Reese's and Pringles for breakfast. And it's not weird. You're just like, you don't take off your house coat the whole week. Yeah. So you guys pulled yourself out of that weird stocking, candy stuffed induced stupor and you made it here. So, yeah, it's a weird Sunday. But, man, God is sovereign, and I am convinced he has something great for us today. We were supposed to be in the gospel of Matthew, but I'm just going to tell you guys, I love you, but not enough to prep an entire sermon for Matthew last night. So we're not going to be back in Matthew today. We're going to actually be preaching a text that is one that is really sacred to me. This is, if you've known me a long time, you've probably heard me talk about this text, either from the pulpit or in a discipleship kind of context. But, man, I just think God has something for us in this. If you want to open your bibles over to Luke chapter seven, we're going to be in Luke chapter seven today. And I'll tell you guys, as I was sitting, praying, considering what we might do today, the thing I kept coming back to, and this is probably cheesy, but I think it's helpful, is just the fact that we're heading into the new year, right? And the new year is this cultural invitation for us to do some self reflection, to think about what our year has been like, to see God's faithfulness, to see the accumulative decisions we've made over the year, and to consider what it might look like to step into the next year with a plan, right? And as many of us think through our new year's resolutions or our personal goals or all those things, I think something that can be really helpful, really beneficial, is just to include your spiritual life in your planning, right? We make health goals, we make professional goals, we make relational goals. But, man, I'll just tell you guys, a life of faithfulness and intimacy with Christ does not happen by accident. It happens because you choose to pursue Christ, to give yourself over to him fully. And so as we think about stepping into the new year and what it might look like to give some intentionality to our faith, I was struck by this idea of man. What would it mean for us as a church this year to just bring our love for the world, our love for neighbor, our love for the mission, the kingdom of God into just an intentional focus? What might happen if we as a church just said, man? We're entering into our era of mission, to use the Tswift phrase, right? We're going to take some time this year. There were like four people in the room who are like, I got that joke. And the rest of us were like, what is it? Tswift? That's me, by the way. That's my take on no, no. What would it mean to actually have some intentionality with just our engagement with the kingdom, our engagement with mission this year. And I think this text gives us a really beautiful framework to think about what it looks like to love those around us. Well, with the love of Christ in Luke seven today, we're essentially going to talk about how the image of God within people and his love for his creation fuels our engagement with the lost and broken world. A simpler way to say that is this. We're going to talk today about how the fact that the mission of the kingdom of God is fueled by love. Mission is fueled by love. Beloved, you all know this. You know this is true. You were made in the image of God. You are precious and valuable. Christ sought you out in his love and care for you. He saw the value in you. He chased after you and he made you his own. We just sang that beautiful line right in the song, in tenderedness, like Christ whispers to us, I have found you, you are mine. Like, that is all of our testimonies, that Christ sought us out, that he saw something in us that we could not see ourselves. And he made a way for us from death to life. It is the love of God that fuels our salvation. It is our love, like modeling that, that fuels our mission. Guys, you're being made in the image of God. Your value as an image bearer means something. So let's step into this text, read it together, and we'll see where God takes us. We are in Luke chapter seven, and we're going to start in verse 36 then one of the Pharisees invited to him, him, being Jesus, to eat with him. He entered the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. And a woman in the town who was a sinner found out that Jesus was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house. She brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and she stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to wash his feet with her tears. She wiped his feet with her hair, kissing them and anointing them with the perfume. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, this man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what kind of woman this is, who was touching him. She's a sinner. And Jesus replied to him, never a good sign when you're thinking something and someone replies to you on side notes. Jesus replied to him, simon, I have something to say to you. He said, say it, teacher. A creditor had two debtors. One owed him 500 dinari, the other 50, since they could not pay it back, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more? Simon answered, I suppose the one he forgave more, you have judged correctly, he told him. Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house, and you gave me no water for my feet. But she, with her tears, has washed my feet and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she hasn't stopped kissing my feet since I came in. You did not anoint my head with olive oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. That's why she loved much. But the one who's forgiven little loves little. Then he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Those who were at the table with him began to say amongst themselves, who is this man who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. And this, beloved, is the word of the Lord for us today. Pray with me. Church father, we ask today as we consider this text, Lord, give us hearts of compassion to consider the reality of the curse and brokenness around us. But, Lord, give us humble, open hearts to see our own brokenness within us. God, Holy Spirit, we need you to be the one who convicts us, who challenges us, who reminds us, who guides us today. Spirit, teach us, disciple us today. We need you for this work, Jesus. So we pray it in your name. Amen. I'm not going to lie to you guys. I love this text. It's one of my favorite scriptures. I've studied it and preached it and taught it multiple times over the course of my ministry. And I got to just be real and just say, like, this text moves me, moves me, and it moves me in ways that honestly make it kind of hard to teach in this kind of setting. But I'm just eager for us to hear from the spirit this morning. I just think Christ has something beautiful for our fellowship today. So here's what we're going to do. I want to walk through this text. We're going to put it in kind of its historical context here. We're going to see a couple cultural bits that might cloud the meaning to us. But ultimately, guys, it's going to come back to what we already said. What we see in this text is that it is our image bearing nature, God's image stamped within us, that gives us worth and value in spite of the ruin of sin. It is the love and compassion of God that he seeks us out even in our ruination because of his image, because of his glory. And that we get to model that. We get to out of the gift of grace, the gift of the gospel. We get to love as we have been loved. We get to see others as we are seen and invite others to know the freedom and love and joy and healing of Christ. Amen. The mission of God is fueled by love. So let's jump into here. We've actually talked about this a little bit over the course of our Advent series. We were in Luke for most of advent. But Luke is unique amongst the gospel writers. He's the only of the four gospel writers who writes in what's called a historical style. His gospel is written more as an actual ancient historical record. He's also the gospel writer who gives the most attention to marginalized peoples. He's a gentile writer. He's the only non jewish writer in the New Testament. And so it makes sense as someone who, amongst the religious folk, was an outsider, that when Luke tells the story, his heart is drawn to those on the outside, in the margin. So we know that Luke is concerned with reporting what actually happened, reporting it as historical fact, and that he's going to actually highlight these moments in Jesus'ministry where special attention is shown to those on the margins. So, knowing this, let's look at our actual text here. What's the story here? Essentially what happens here is that Jesus gets invited to a dinner party at the house of a wealthy pharisee named Simon. We see this phrase in our text. It opens here that Jesus reclined at table. This is one of those kind of phrases that you can move past really quick because it's a weird phrase we don't use. And it also seems like it doesn't really matter, but it actually sets the stage for our story in a couple ways that are actually important. So there's a couple things we can see about the story from these opening lines. First, we see that Simon is a wealthy man. Now, this is weird to us, but follow me on this. I've actually talked about this a couple times, but this is really illuminating for understanding a lot of narratives. In the New Testament, there was a custom in this day that people who were wealthy would have these public event meals. Wealthy folk would build these outdoor dining rooms that have actual seating for guests like you're putting on a play. They would build a dining room in the open area outside their home and put this large open area with seating around it. And they would have dinner parties where they invited in as important and strange and unique of guests as they were able to with their wealth and their influence. And it would be simultaneously the community's entertainment and the community's social safety net. This is weird, but follow me on this, right, like you live in a day before mass communication. There's no radio, no Internet, no television, no newspapers. And so a lot of people live their entire lives only knowing the news that their immediate neighbors know. And so getting to go and sit and watch a group of wealthy, influential people eat a meal and talk shop about life that's going on in the world was entertaining. Beyond that, there wasn't a social safety net for the impoverished. And so one of the things these wealthy people would do is serve an extravagant meal. Think seven, 8910 courses. And they would nibble their way through it while talking about the goings on in the world. And all the leftovers would just be handed out to the crowd. And so impoverished people would show up to these wealthy people's houses to watch their dinner parties, to figure out what's going on in the world and get a free meal. This is actually a relatively normal thing in this world and something that served some really important social tasks in those communities. Now, beyond that, we need to know that they were reclining at table. This is a weird cultural thing, but again, it sets the image of the story for us. These folk in the ancient near east didn't sit upright at tables the way we do when we eat. They laid down on their side. Their dinner tables were very low to the ground. Think of a full dining room size table that sits a little lower to the ground than your coffee table, right? Like, that's what you imagine here out in this courtyard. And they would lay these big old huge body pillows all around it. And the people who were eating would lay on their left side, crooked up on their left elbow, with their feet splayed out behind them. And they would reach over and grab the food and eat it like this while they're talking. It was the normal way these meals were conducted, by the way. This is the normal way meals were conducted in Palestine and the ancient areas, not just these public ones. And so you get this image of all these men and rabbis and important people laying on their side with their feet splayed out, kind of making this weird star. I've got a picture of it. You can kind of see here the way they do it. It's a weird way to eat, right? But this is kind of the normal piece. And you need to understand this because this actually sets up how our story makes sense. Jesus has been invited to one of these dinner parties. Jesus is an established traveling rabbi who performs miracles. He's the talk of the community. And getting him to come to your dinner party and talk shop about theology and life and politics would have been a good get for Simon the Pharisee, right? This is something that would get people in to come watch. It would be interesting. And so Jesus is sitting at this table with these other religious and political people, feet splayed out behind him, laying on his side. They're eating food. They're talking shop about life. And you can imagine just this array of guests spread out around them, watching, listening to what's going on, listening to the interchange of theological debate, eating snacks they brought with them, taking scraps from the table as they're given. It's a strange scene, but I want you to draw yourself into it as much as you can. I want you to imagine this scene because there's some aspects to this that really become socially uncomfortable. And I think they set some of the importance of this narrative for us. So do your best as we're sitting here, put yourself in this space. You're one of the crowd. You're watching. You're munching on your snacks. You're listening to the exchange. You're getting your entertainment for the week. And then we meet our woman. We don't get her name, but we get a brief description of her, a woman of the city who was a sinner. Now, I don't want to be crass here. I know we are in mixed company. But there is some important aspects to this. Liz Higgs is an author and theologian. She says this about this text. Her sins weren't listed in detail because they didn't need to be. The world's oldest profession hardly requires a job description. The way this is phrased in the text communicates that this woman is a prostitute. She's someone who sells her body, her femininity, her intimacy, her sexuality for money. Now, we don't know what brought this woman to Jesus this day, but we know that God is already working on her heart. We know that because her reaction to Christ, to his teaching, to this exchange, is instantaneous. It doesn't tell us that she sits there and listens for an hour and then gets involved. She walks in the room, walks into the courtyard. She's in the crowd, and pretty much immediately she walks right up to Christ. Now, again, put yourself in this scene. It's the middle of the meal. You're sitting, you're watching, you're listening. When this woman enters the space, again, not to be uncouth for us, but for understanding the story, right? Like, you notice when this woman walks into the space, she's dressed for her profession. She smells like her profession. She has her perfume, which was one of the ways prostitutes would advertise themselves in this day and age was to perfume and scent their dwelling places. She has it with her, right? She walks in, and instead of doing what everyone else is doing, instead of sitting down and eating some food, instead of listening to what's going on, she walks up to Jesus'feet and she starts crying. I don't mean crying. Like, this is not like that worship song was really, Chris. Like, this is not that. The actual word we get here is this woman is sobbing. I don't know if you've ever been with someone when they like what we call, like, ugly cry. You know, I'm talking about, it's an experience, right? The person is not fully in control. What's going on? There's snot, there's noises. It's not a pretty moment. This woman is sobbing over Jesus's feet, so much so that his feet start to get wet, right? Like, that's a level of crying. That's pretty intense. And again, this is an awkward moment for you as the observer. She takes it a level further. She realizes in her crying that she's getting Christ's feet wet. And so she kneels down and begins to dry his feet with her hair. Because this is painful to watch. If you're in that room. This is awkward. Why is she doing this? Why won't she stop? Why won't she leave? What is she doing right now? And then, while everyone's watching, while these important men are trying to have their important conversation, and she's kneeling down, weeping and wiping his feet, she begins to massage his feet. She opens up her ointment and begins to anoint his feet and kiss his feet and rub them. While you're sitting there, she takes her prostitute's perfume and she's cleaning and massaging him. Guys, none of us are first century palestinian Jews, right? All of us in this room know that this is an awkward and inappropriate interaction. Right? This is not something any of us would be comfortable with. Aside from this being inappropriately erotic. This woman is breaking all social codes. She is imposing herself on a meeting that she has no right to invade. This space is not for her. She is pushing boundaries here. And Jesus, Jesus doesn't react. He just keeps on eating and talking and chatting. He's just interacting with the people at the table like nothing's going on. Guys, I can't overstate how awkward this situation would be for everyone involved, right? Like, I was trying to think through. How could I give, like, a modern example that would work for us? You can't in a room like this, it would be inappropriate to share. This is an inappropriate situation, right? The kind of thing that people would be talking about, would be angry about for a long, stinking time. In her book, the gospel comes to the housekeep. We talked about that this morning. Rosaria Butterfield talks about this story, and she has this quote she says about this woman. Her understanding of intimacy had been so distorted by her sin and by the cursed world that she expressed love to Jesus in the only broken and distorted way she knew how. This woman's person has been so broken by the sin she's living out, the sin she's choosing, by the culture within which she lives, that in this moment of sorrow and intimacy and engagement, she just goes, I love this Jesus. And she loves him. The way she knows how and the way she knows how to love him is not good. It's not right. It's not the way she should interact with him. So because of that, Simon's response, if we're honest, is really relatable, right? If this man were a prophet, he would have known what sort of woman this is who's touching him. She is a sinner. He's angry about this. What the heck is happening right now? Who does she think? Why isn't he saying anything. Why is he letting this happen? He's shocked a, at her impropriety and b, at Jesus'lack of response. What kind of self respecting rabbi would allow this to happen in public? Simon does not have a mental category for a rabbi who allows prostitutes to kiss and massage his feet while he talks shop about theology. And let's be honest, most of us probably wouldn't have much of a mental category for that either, right? Jesus responds again to Simon's thoughts, which is. That's a bad sign. Jesus responds to Simon's thoughts with this short little parable about debt. This is the sort of parable that makes me love Jesus'teaching. He asks about these two debtors who are forgiven their debts. He asks, which ex debtor will love the creditor more? And Simon responds, the one forgiven the larger debt will love more. And then in that moment, Jesus just takes Simon's self righteous guts. And just like Indiana Jones style, he just kind of pulls him out of his chest and lets him look at him for a second. Let me reread this for you guys. This is starting in verse 44. Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet. But she, with her tears, has washed my feet and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, and she has not stopped kissing my feet since I came in. You did not anoint my head with olive oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. That's why she loved much. But the one who's forgiven little loves little. Then he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Do you see this woman? What a loaded question, right? I mean, this is like top tier loaded questions in the Bible. Of course he saw her. Everyone there saw her. She was making a spectacle of herself and of Christ. But of course, we know that he didn't see her, right? He saw this spectacle. He saw a prostitute. He saw a woman of the city. He saw a sinner. Simon, we're going to be brutally honest here. Simon saw garbage messing up his party. But Christ saw his daughter. Christ saw his creation stamped with his own image. Christ saw the love of his life. Christ saw this woman, really saw her, the real her. He takes this woman's, let's be honest, inappropriate actions and compares them to Simon's lack of action. And then this whole lunch gets significantly more awkward, right? Jesus essentially says, I mean, yeah, what she's doing is inappropriate, but look at you. Look what you did, Simon. I got here and you didn't give me the common decency that is given by all men in our culture of washing my feet or even water to do it myself. She washed my feet with her tears and her hair. You did not give me the normal, peer to peer respectful greeting of a kiss on the cheek between two rabbis and two teachers. She has not ceased kissing me since she arrived. You didn't give me the honor to a fellow rabbi by anointing my head with oil, as is done for all traveling rabbis in our culture. But she has anointed me with her perfume. And then Jesus strikes at the heart. Simon, she just loves me more than you do. She may be bad at it, but she loves me more than you do. Simon was so busy playing religion, assessing Jesus as a rabbi and a prophet, deciding if he liked him or agreed with him, trying to figure out if he was better or smarter than him, trying to build his social standing through his little party, that he not only missed the opportunity to love the hurting and marginalized woman literally in his house, but he missed out on loving Christ himself. You see, the beauty of Jesus'parable here is that Christ is being so gracious to Simon. Simon sees this woman as a piece of garbage sinner, and he sees himself as a righteous man sacrificing his life and comfort to honor God. Simon thinks that their debts are incredibly unequal. Simon thinks that they're on two different standings with God. It's why he's so uncomfortable answering Jesus, because he knows he's trapping himself by saying that. But Jesus knows the truth behind the parable. The truth is that Simon is not a lesser debtor. His sin of disrespect, his sin of religiosity, his sin of judgment is just as death inducing as the prostitute's sexual sin. Guys, as a culture, to this day, we love to pick and choose which sins are worse. Right? We love to make the categories for, like, well, I mean, I know I sin. We all sin, but I don't do what Craig does. So, like, I'm good, and Craig's like, I know, I know. But at least I don't do what Jesse does. And then we just keep going, right? Jesse? Jim's not here. You're stuck. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Now. [00:48:00] Speaker C: The deacons are getting thrown in the mix. It's going to get rough because we love to do this. We love to try and measure which one's worse, who's closer to God. But, guys, the reality is we are equal in our debt before God. We're equal in our debt before God. Simon and the prostitute are equal in their sinful debt before God. They are unequal in their realization of the debt. They're unequal in the subsequent love toward that debt canceling God. You see, Jesus sees the woman. He really sees her. He sees through her sin. He sees through her making a spectacle of herself. He sees through her inappropriate actions, all her bad decisions and all the terrible things that have done to her. He sees through all of it, and he sees her. But he also sees Simon really sees him. Sees through all his self righteousness and all his sin and all the sins that have been done to him and all the junk in his heart, and he really sees him, sees both of them. And there he sees his children. There he sees his creation stamped with his image. There he sees the love of his life for whom he will willingly sacrifice himself. Christ sees them both with compassion, love, grace, invitation. And yet, one of those two people left brunch saved and washed clean by Christ and one didn't. Jesus saw both of their brokenness, both of their love for him. The prostitute, the sinner who made a scene. Her love brought her into such connection with Christ that he forgives her sins and sends her away alive in the gospel. Beloved, I hope the spirit is meeting you in this already. Right? Like there's some challenge for us in this. The one who, according to the world, is very vocally, obviously, visually far from Christ is the one who leaves brunch connected with Christ walking in forgiveness, walking in redemption. And yet the one who is theologically trained and astute and follows the rules and holy by worldly standards is the one who leaves brunch dead in their sins. Because Jesus doesn't just see these guys, he sees you. He sees us. And, guys, he loves us. He sees us as we really are and he loves us. Can we sit in that truth for a minute? Because here's the thing, guys. Here's the thing. Every single one of us, across the board, regardless of who you are, regardless of how hard or easy your life has been, every single one of us presents ourself to the world in a way that does not reflect the inner, true reality of our person. There are parts of ourselves that we don't like. There are parts of ourselves that we have shame around. There are parts of ourselves that we know are evil and wrong. And so we do our best to hide those parts away, to present ourselves as good and loving and kind as best we can. Every single one of us does that. We don't want the people we know and love to see the skeletons in our closet. We don't want our friends at church or our coworkers to see the evil thoughts we have in private. We want to be seen as loving and kind and good. Here's the problem. You cannot hide from Christ. You are laid bare before him. He sees every facet of you, the parts of yourself that you hate, the parts of yourself that are making you cringe right now. Just because I'm vaguely saying this. Christ sees those with complete and total clarity. He knows the parts of you that delight in sin and selfishness and evil. And yet Christ does not reject you. He loves you. He loves you deeply and passionately. He gives himself for you. Because when he sees you, he doesn't just see your ruination. He sees his creature, his creation. He sees the precious image of God walking around this broken and sinful world as dead as something can be dead. And that in Christ, inspires his mercy, that brings out his love, his kindness. It breaks his heart, and it causes him to call us unto himself. And look at how he calls. Look how Jesus invites. Look how he engages this woman with her scandalous and inappropriate engagement of him. He sees through the effects and distortions of the curse. He sees through her lack of ability to love. And he sees her and he accepts her and he forgives her. That's intense, guys, because Christ pushes through some stuff there that, let's be honest, is really inappropriate. That shouldn't be there. That's not right and good. And yet Christ is able to navigate through that and call her from death to life. Is it any wonder that Jesus was called a friend of. That's how the religious people mocked Jesus. You can't respect him. He's friends with sinners. Yeah, he is. He absolutely is. There's a presbyterian theologian named Francis Schaefer, and he has this description of our sin, our depravity, that I think is really helpful. He calls humanity affected by the curse glorious ruins. And the idea here is that you imagine, like, some ancient greek ruins, like the pantheon or something similar, right? Amazing, unique, precious, worth preserving. Right? We would all be bummed out if it comes in the news today. They were tearing down the pantheon to build a chipotle. Maybe they just put the chipotle in the pantheon. That'd be kind of sick. Worth preserving. Important, but also so broken and ruined that it cannot be used for its intended purpose. Right. That's why they're called ruins. They're precious. They're important. They're valuable. But you just can't use them for what they were built for. I like that. I think that's helpful to get us there. When we think about the sin we experience in others around us, I think there's an image that's actually maybe even a little more striking and helpful. This comes from a pastor in Texas named John Burke. He has this book called Unshockable Love, I think. And he talks about this idea that as God's creation, that we are unique works of art that have been destroyed and covered in garbage juice. And so I got a picture here of one of my favorite paintings. This is the apostle Peter by Rembrandt. You can barely see it because Rembrandt paints really dark. I love Rembrandt's paintings. Rembrandt was a christian painter who saw his artwork as like a form of worship leading. It's really beautiful. You should go on Wikipedia Commons and just look at all his biblical portraits because they're amazing. But this is one that I really like. This is one of his, like seven of them. This is one of his portraits of the apostle Peter near the end of his life before his beheading. It's in the Louvre right now. I've never been there, but that's what Wikipedia told me it is. Imagine you take a trip to go to the Louvre and you're going to see this Rembrandt exhibit and you're going to go look at this painting. And as you're getting ready to walk in the building, you notice, you know the trash can out front where you're supposed to put your gum wrapper before you go in, you see this painting sticking out of the trash can. And so you walk up to it and you go, hold on just a second. That is not the poster they sell at the gift shop. That's the painting. And you grab it and you pull it out of there and the canvas is ripped and the frame is broken and it's covered in like garbage sludge. In that moment, your response would not be, well, I mean, it's ruined. And then like, shove it back in the trash can, right? No. Each and every one of us, if we were convinced that we were holding a real original rembrandt, that someone had torn and ripped and broken and shoved in the trash, we would freak out, we would run inside and we would go to someone who works there and say, I didn't do this, I promise, but I feel like you should have this right? And then we would spend millions of dollars and thousands of man hours to do everything we possibly could to restore the painting. They would take it down in some hermetically sealed vault. And people in HvaC suits would, like, sit hvac hazmat suits would sit there and scrape stuff off and clean it and restore it. We would do everything we could to bring that thing back because there's only one Rembrandt of the apostle Peter, and it's a masterpiece. And even if it were ruined, it would still be too precious to throw away, right? Beloved, beloved, this is all of us. We are all in this boat together, made precious by God, stamped with his image, made for eternity, made, set apart and separate from the rest of creation. You, as a human being, the crown of God's good and perfect creation, made for eternal intimacy with him, made for connection with him. You are not like the angels, a disembodied spirit. You are not like the animals, just a body. You are a human being, made in God's image, with body and spirit melded together, designed for connection and relationship and intimacy and forever. You are made special and unique. You are precious, made by God with value in mind. Made by God with eternity in mind. And yet you are killed and ruined by sin, destroyed by sin. The curse has left you completely and utterly unable to fulfill your design. This is why Paul says, what wretched man am I? Who will save me from this body of sin? It is a terrible position to be in, to be made for eternity and trapped in the here and the now and brokenness. And then there's Jesus standing in front of us with life, with freedom, with resurrection in mind. And there's Christ, who sees you, sees the real you, sees your true heart with all your potential, good and bad, with all the righteous acts you've tried and all the horrific sins you love and hold on to. He sees the real you. He's not drawn to wrath, to anger, to judgment. He doesn't throw you in the trash. His response is compassion. It's love. It's invitation to come and be made new. To come and receive, to eat a meal without cost, to drink without price. To receive the gift of life. Read this already today. But I'm going to read it again in Ephesians, chapter two. Paul says it like this. You here, in that you and me were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the curse of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. We were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Verse four. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, has made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your doing is the gift of God. It is not the result of works no one can boast. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. A friend in ministry described it. I saw it on social media this week. A friend in ministry described it and said, many of us think of our salvation and we think of us out in the ocean drowning, and Christ throws us a life preserver and we reach out and grab it and he goes, that doesn't encapsulate it well enough. Instead, you're out in the ocean drowning and you drown and you're dead and you're sinking and Christ dives in and grabs you and pulls you out of the water and performs mouth to mouth and resuscitates you and massages your heart back to beating. And your contribution to the act is to cough and receive your life, beloved, this is the love of Christ for us. He dives in, grabs our dead, ruined, cursed bodies, and through his own love and his own sacrifice, draws us back to life. Beloved, what are we to do with this? We know this is true, right? This is the kind of thing you come to church to. Amen. God is good. Look how much Christ has saved us. Look at his love for us. But guys, you need to understand something. We have been loved very much. We have been loved very much. And yet, how many of us, our tendency is to love little? What do we do? How do we engage that? How do we change that? How do we move out of our Simon phase, thinking that our debts are so small and that our religiosity and our self discipline kind of helps balance out the scale? How do we live with the kind of honesty that knows I have been forgiven very much. I have been loved so much, and I want to give the love I've received. I want to love like I've been loved. How do you move to that place? How do you not just stand in shock when that woman comes to Christ and loves him with that audacious, inappropriate love. How do you respond like Christ, where you cut through and see the person and see the need and offer grace? How the heck do you do that? Guys, let's be honest. That's hard. We live in a world that is given over to the flesh, and there is audacious and terrible sin all around us. And there are horrific things said about Christ and about his church. And it's hard to live in this world and not respond with offense, not respond with judgment, not be reactionary. How do we love like we have been loved? Guys, you have been loved very well. Christ sought you. Christ sought you in spite of your sin. Christ resurrected you from your own sin and your death. Christ loves you so well if you consider what it looks like to be intentional in your faith. Stepping into the new year, let me give you this invitation. What if your goal, what if your next step in your faith journey is to bring intentionality to loving as you've been loved, to giving the kind of grace and patience and long suffering that has been given to you, to considering the people around you as image bearers before you consider them as sinners? Look, here's the thing, guys. We're all sinners. We're all ruined. That's the same boat. We're all in it. But when Christ looked upon you, he saw the masterpiece before he saw the garbage juice. He saw the image of God and considered that as of more weight and more value than the ruination of the curse. Amen. Is that not our own testimony, that Christ loved us with such grace to see our eternity instead of our right now? Beloved, I urge you. I urge you to begin to consider your neighbors, your family, your friends, your coworkers, your spouse, your children, your grandchildren with eternity in mind. Consider them as image bearers. First and foremost, your primary thought about them. That person is precious to God. That person is made in his image. That person was built for eternal intimacy with the creator of the universe. One of the best places to do that, by the way, is your table. Have meals with people, spend time with your family, your friends, your coworkers, share food and talk about life. It is so I said this to the discipleship class this morning. It's really hard to be judgy over a slice of pizza. Just is. Your table is one of the most powerful, apologetic tools you have in a culture that is so far from Christ. Your time given, sharing meals and sharing life together is one of the most powerful spaces where you can proclaim the gospel to those in desperate need of it. And I promise you, sharing meals with the sinners in your life will help you see your Simon tendencies. It will help you cut through your own judgmental, religious everything and see them as you are seen. Band if you want to come back up, I'm going to invite us to take just a few minutes today to pray. As we close out. I want to invite you to just really intentionally right now, take a few minutes in prayer. If you can do that in your seat, that's awesome. If you want to get out of your seat and get on your knees, you're welcome to do that. If you want to grab one of the pastors and let us pray with you, we would delight to do that. But I want to encourage you to find some space however you need to right right now, to be alone with Christ. I want you to do two things for me. I want you to first and foremost, consider his love for you. I want you to think about your own testimony, your own experience of ruination and death, and the compassion that Christ has poured out on you. Remember that. Remember where you came from. Remember the heart of Christ that sought you out, that saw you and bought you and brought you in. Give him some thanksgiving for that. And then let that, let that fuel your reflection on how you might engage the kingdom and the mission in this coming year. Let that thanksgiving for Christ's love for you be something that draws you to consider your own love for the world around you. Let's sit in that in prayer for a few minutes, and then we're going to close our time in communion, as we always do. So church, find the space you need to find. Be connected with Christ. And in a few minutes we'll continue our worship through communion. [01:11:38] Speaker F: What a beautiful passage to ponder the gospel over this morning. [01:11:44] Speaker B: Amen. [01:11:47] Speaker F: I hope you did that during that time of reflection and prayer and contemplation as you search your own heart and ask God to search your heart. It's a beautiful gospel. The good news? It's a wonderful, beautiful thing. We invite you to celebrate with us the Lord's supper this morning. If you are part of the family of God, if Jesus Christ is your lord and savior, we invite you into this family meal. Alan is going to distribute the communion. If you didn't grab at the elements as you came in, just raise your hand and Alan will. [01:12:30] Speaker C: One of the. [01:12:31] Speaker F: Cups with the wafer and the juice. I think it's amazing that we get to end 2023 celebrating the gospel. As I was thinking about that this morning, we got to ring in 2023 doing the same thing. Because January 1 was on a Sunday. December 31 is on a Sunday. And that should be every year, really should be every year that we end the year celebrating the gospel as family, taking communion together in the year that way. So this is a unique opportunity for us. I love Paul's description of communion in one corinthians because it places us in history. Communion, the Lord's supper, is something that has been celebrated for a couple of millennia. And Paul talks about how he received it from the Lord and he passed it on to the corinthian church. And that passing on continued and continued and continued until this very moment, this very day, this very time, this very place, where we gather this morning as believers in Jesus to celebrate communion. And he says, on the night when he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread and he gave thanks and he broke it. And he said, this is my body, which is for you. And he asks them to remember. And the interesting thing about this simple representation of Jesus's body, if I can get this out without spilling, the interesting thing about this simple little element, the simple little wafer. In the past, we've used matzah, sometimes actual bread. But it's just an element. It's an ordinary thing. It represents the bread of life. That's what Jesus is. He is the bread of life. He calls himself that. And so we are exhorted by Paul to take it. Jesus'broken body. That satisfies us deeply. Nothing else in this world can to what this represents, the satisfaction that we get from Jesus Christ. And so take and eat. Paul goes on to say, in the same way he took the cup after supper, Jesus did at this family meal, as they reclined around the table, just like we saw in that picture, he took the cup and he called it, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. He said, do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And the unique thing about this representation of the juice, another normal element, sometimes we use juice, but the unique thing here is it's cleansing qualities of Christ's blood. We are cleansed. Sam said something in his sermon to the effect that we are equally sinners because of the gospel. We are equally cleansed. We're on the same plane when it comes to being cleansed by Jesus. I am no more a Christian than you. Jesus is the great equalizer. Take and drink and remember. Paul ends this, and he says, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, there's a proclamation that happens. He says that you're proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. It's not just proclaiming that Christ died. It's proclaiming his life. It's proclaiming his birth that we just celebrated at Christmas time and his perfect life and his coming in and living with sinners and cleansing and loving and inviting and dying. And one day he'll come again. And so, as what we just celebrated this communion, we proclaim the gospel. And again, I think it's a beautiful thing that we can end the year and begin the year. Jesus, thank you for the gospel. The good news that in our sad, tragic state of sin, where we are incapable of taking a breath as we lie motionless on the floor of the ocean, sucking in water, incapable of taking a breath because we are dead in our sin, you sought us out in love, in our mess and in our filth while we were still sinners. [01:17:59] Speaker C: You died for us. [01:18:02] Speaker F: You resurrected us. You breathed new life into us. Lord. And as Sam said, all we could do is cough in response. Lord, my prayer. [01:19:17] Speaker B: It. It. It. It. It. It.