Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] As we land out today, I want to talk about one particular aspect of a church that has this Kingdom of God mentality toward the gospel. And it's this.
[00:00:10] How do we respond not just as a church, but as individual believers? How do we respond to the reality of the gospel need in the community around us? We've spent four weeks digging into understanding our posture toward the image of God represented in lost and dying souls around us. Do you notice? Do you value? Do you welcome? Are you, are you going to take up the mission? And so how do we respond to this? How do we take this forward?
[00:00:38] And I want to invite us today to end by considering a really simple thing which is just the power that exists in obedience to the mission.
[00:00:49] So turn your bibles to Luke 7. If you don't have a Bible with you today. We have house Bibles around the room. Just look under the rows. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel. If you don't own a Bible, you can take one of those or we'll give you one. It's nicer.
[00:01:03] We're going to be looking at what legitimately might be my actual favorite narrative in the New Testament.
[00:01:09] And I really want us to engage this. Whether you're familiar with this text or not, I want to engage you or I want to invite you to engage this text to see in Jesus and then imagine in ourselves what kind of actual eternity changing power can exist in obedience to the mission. And when I say obedience to the mission, I want to be really specific. I want us to imagine what it would look like in ourselves what kind of eternity changing power there might be in just one singular, brave and loving conversation.
[00:01:45] What kind of power there could be in one brave and loving conversation. So my main point today is this, and it's pretty simple. It makes sense with Ruben, it's just this, guys. One gospel conversation can change everything.
[00:02:01] I want us to imagine that possibility in your life. One gospel conversation can change everything. I think for many of us in the room today, and this is honestly, I feel like the conversation I've been happening, I've been having over and over and over the last four weeks as we've gone through this. I think for many of us today, the problem is not that we don't believe that's true. Like, yeah, a gospel conversation can change everything. I think the problem for most of us is that we just can't get our eyes beyond ourselves enough to even imagine and remember this reality.
[00:02:32] I think many of us in the room have been Hearing these sermons over the last three weeks and we've been wrestling with how to even start. How do I even lift my head up and get my eyes open beyond myself and my own stresses and my own anxieties and my own problems and my own insecurities to look at the world around me? How can I give myself to prayer on a card for the lost when I'm struggling to pray, period?
[00:02:57] Right.
[00:02:58] How can I spend time connecting with and seeking out gospel opportunities with the lost when I'm so hurting and dry in my own spiritual life that I don't want to have gospel conversation?
[00:03:10] How can I lift my eyes up to the spiritual needs of others when I'm stuck in my own needs?
[00:03:17] How can I make disciples if I need to be discipled?
[00:03:21] Anybody? Anybody? Just me.
[00:03:24] I think, by the way, that's a really good and normal question to ask. I don't think you should be embarrassed or ashamed if that's what you've been feeling these last few weeks.
[00:03:31] We're not digging through these texts to pile on guilt and make you feel like there's some facet of your faith that you're failing in. It's not bad. We're not trying to say, oh, you're a bad Christian because you're not missional enough. I don't know.
[00:03:42] It's really natural and normal to feel those things because life is difficult and life is stressful and we go through a lot.
[00:03:50] Life in the cursed and broken world is just that. It's cursed and broken.
[00:03:54] It beats us up.
[00:03:56] And it's easy. It's easy. I would say it's the natural bent of us to slowly lower our head and lower our eyes and turn inward and focus on our own hurts. It's a really normal thing.
[00:04:10] But I will tell you, it's not the place we want to live.
[00:04:13] It's not where thriving is in your own life, in your own faith. And so what I think will happen in this text today is I think it will remind us purely and simply how Jesus loves us.
[00:04:25] And I think today by focusing in on how the image of God and his love for his creation fuels our engagement with the lost and broken world. I really think God will say something to our church today.
[00:04:38] And so I really love for us to be quiet enough and present enough to actually hear what God has for us. So pray with me and we'll jump into this text. Jesus, we need you this morning.
[00:04:51] We need you to cut through all the noise we are experiencing.
[00:04:56] For those of us sitting in the room who are tired and exhausted. For those of us sitting in the room who are hurt, frustrated or angry. For those of us sitting in the room who are apathetic and detached. For those of us sitting in the room who are thriving and joyful, like every bit of the spectrum of spiritual, emotional life experience.
[00:05:14] Lord, we need you to be our discipler today.
[00:05:19] We need you to speak your truth through the word. We need you to challenge and encourage us. We need you to scratch through the calluses we've put over our own hearts and the areas we don't want to walk in repentance and holiness.
[00:05:32] Lord, we want to be children who are given over to your work. We want to love what you love and do what you do. And we can't do it, Father, without your help.
[00:05:43] So spirit, we ask that you would move in us in power today.
[00:05:47] Let us leave today having met with you in the way our hearts needed.
[00:05:51] We pray this in your name, Jesus.
[00:05:53] Amen.
[00:05:54] Okay, Luke chapter seven. We're going to start in verse 36. I'm going to give us just one verse and then we'll kind of set up the context for us. So verse 36 of Luke chapter 7 reads like this.
[00:06:04] Then one of the Pharisees invited him, him being Jesus, to eat with him. He entered the Pharisees house and reclined at table. Okay, so let's take a quick second to set up the story. We're back in the Gospel of Luke.
[00:06:19] And I would say this. I haven't, I haven't focused it on this much because we were looking at Jesus's parables earlier. But this is a narrative text.
[00:06:25] The thing to remember when you're reading the Gospel of Luke compared to the other gospels is that thematically, Luke is the Gospel to the forgotten. It's the Gospel to the marginalized.
[00:06:36] We don't fully know why that is, but thematically, more than any of the other gospels, Luke goes out of his way to highlight Jesus's love and care for the poor and the marginalized.
[00:06:48] In Luke, we see this continued emphasis on the people who are discounted, the people who are belittled by the Society of Jesus Day. We see Jesus in Luke more than any other gospel. Honoring women, honoring children, honoring the poor, being with sinners, and really every category that existed in the 1st century Jewish world of marginalized person. We spent our first three weeks in Luke 15 looking at Jesus's parables. And really specifically those parables were about God seeking out the lost, those who are far from him, the outsiders.
[00:07:20] So knowing this, let's Set up our actual story here. This picks up in the middle of Jesus's public ministry. And he's been traveling around the northern region of Galilee, preaching town to town. He's kind of this got this traveling rabbi thing going. And at this point in his ministry, he's built up a large following, but most of his following is the common, everyday folk. And this, by the way, is not unique to Jesus. This is actually a thing that happened relatively often in that northern region of Galilee. The rabbis who rose up in that era, in that area, in that era, Whoa, that's hard to say. The rabbis who rose up in that area back in that era. There we go.
[00:07:57] Most of them were kind of folk movements. The center of education and theology was in the southern area of Judea and Jerusalem. Galilee was where folk theology existed. It's where the people's theological movements arose. And Jesus is in that bane. He's a guy who has a lot of just common folk who love his message, who follow him around, who seek him out, but he's also got such a following that he's gained the attention of the educated, the religious leaders, the religious elite, and he's able to run in both of these circles. And so our text picks up with Jesus being invited to a dinner party by a Pharisee named Simon. And we see this phrase in the text, he reclined at table. This is one of those Bible phrases that we read enough that we can kind of just read it and move past it, but it's actually worth, weirdly enough, important for us to understand this exact story, to get the difference, the specifics of what reclining at table means.
[00:08:55] Reclining a table is a specific phrase that refers to a specific thing in first century Palestine. And it tells us a couple things about the story. The first thing it tells us is that Simon, the host, is a wealthy man.
[00:09:07] See, the custom of the day in ancient Jewish Palestine was that people who were wealthy or important would share these public meals with important guests. And they were to set aside space. They would be in a public open courtyard. There would be room around the table for locals to literally come sit and watch the meal. And this served two important social things. The first thing it did is it was literally a social safety net because they would create these elaborate, large, expensive meals with multiple courses that no one was expected to actually eat. And the leftovers went to the poor. So if you were poor, you would go to the rich guy's house when he was having a party, and you would sit there and you would get food and in ancient Palestine under Roman oppression, that was a big deal.
[00:09:55] But the second thing is this, this is the world before Netflix, right?
[00:10:00] This is how you get the news.
[00:10:03] If you live in a small town, if you're not connected, if you go to the local rich guy's house and listen to all the rich, smart people talk about life and world and theology, that's how you get caught up on what's going on in the world.
[00:10:14] And specifically in the Jewish context, they would bring in religious leaders to have theological debates over dinner to dig into scripture, to discuss it from an educated, nuanced point of view. This was a form of discipleship in some of these Jewish communities. So this is an established thing. We know about it. Historically, outside Scripture, there were rules in place. There was all this social etiquette of exactly how it went down. And so people reading this originally, who read that phrase, they knew exactly what we were talking about.
[00:10:43] Exactly what we were talking about. This is an established social event and Jesus is partaking in it.
[00:10:50] The second aspect of this that would be strange for us Westerners, but again, it's actually important to understand the story, is that they ate these meals lying down.
[00:11:02] Think about that. I want you to imagine like a dining room sized table that's coffee table height. Like, that's how they would set these spaces up. And they would spread out these large body pillows around the table, and folks would lay down on their left side, propped up on their left elbow, eating with their right hand, with their feet kind of splayed behind them. We have a picture to kind of let you see what it looks like.
[00:11:29] It's kind of weird to think about, right?
[00:11:31] But this was the normal way these particular meals happened. A lot of people ate reclining in that day for casual meals, but not all the time. But for these public meals specifically, this is how you did it.
[00:11:43] Laid on your left side, propped up on your left elbow, eating with your right hand into your mouth.
[00:11:49] Strange, but it's important. It's important. I think it's interesting, by the way, to note that in just a few chapters, when we get into Luke 15, in those parables we just read, Jesus will be delivering those parables because of a criticism he received for doing this with people the Pharisees didn't like.
[00:12:08] Here he's doing it with one of the Pharisees. Later he'll do it with people they don't like, and so he gets in trouble. But anyway, the first verse setting up the story, that's very normal, but that's where the normalcy of this text ends. So read on, starting in verse 37, and we'll see how this story gets off the rails really quickly.
[00:12:28] Verse 37.
[00:12:30] And a woman of the town who was a sinner found out that Jesus was reclining at the table in the Pharisees house.
[00:12:37] She brought an alabaster jar of perfume and stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to wash his feet with her tears.
[00:12:45] And she wiped his feet with her hair, kissing them and anointing them with the perfume. And the Pharisee who had invited him saw this and said to himself, this man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what kind of woman that is who was touching him. She's a sinner.
[00:13:01] Okay, now the story takes a turn and we meet this woman and we don't get her name, but we get her description. Luke calls her a woman of the city who is a sinner, a woman of the town. Now, I don't want to be crass here, but there's a facet of this story that we need to discuss.
[00:13:19] Theologian, author Liz Higgs, she wrote an essay on this particular narrative and she says this.
[00:13:26] Her sins aren't listed in detail because they don't need to be.
[00:13:30] The world's oldest profession hardly requires a job description.
[00:13:34] The assumption of this text, according to most theologians, is that this woman is a prostitute, that she sells her body, her femininity, her intimacy, her sexuality for money. And this is a little bit in the weeds of textual criticism, but this is the kind of thing you'll see if you go back and Google and study this text on your own later.
[00:13:51] It's really important to note here that Luke does not specifically tell us she is a prostitute. And because of that ambiguity, scholars do debate a little bit specifically, like, what is her deal?
[00:14:05] What's her sin? In fact, some of the details have led some scholars to believe. No, no, I think she's actually the wife of a tax collector. I think that's what's going on here.
[00:14:15] And I'll just say this.
[00:14:17] I actually think it's a really safe assumption that Luke is trying to describe her as a prostitute.
[00:14:25] And I'll say this, if he isn't, if that's not what her deal is, then at the minimum, Luke is purposely leaving in innuendo and vague descriptions that would read as erotic to the first century reader, which makes her look really bad.
[00:14:41] And so that may be what's happening. It may be that she has something else going on in her life and Luke wants you to connect it to the idea of sexual sin, for whatever reason. But I think what's most likely. I think the safest reading for us in this is to assume that Luke is trying to kindly and delicately tell you she's a prostitute without saying something demeaning of her. Okay?
[00:15:02] We don't know what brought this woman to Jesus this day, but apparently God is already working on her heart because she heard Jesus was there and she comes to seek him out. She wants to be in Christ's presence. And I want you to do this.
[00:15:20] And I don't do this super often, but I want you to actually with me for a minute. I think this is important.
[00:15:25] I want you to imagine this scene.
[00:15:29] Like, you can close your eyes. You can sit with me in this for a minute. Imagine you are one of the people standing in this courtyard.
[00:15:37] Maybe you're sitting because you're pouring. You're waiting for food. Maybe you're standing. You took off work so you could come hear the news going on.
[00:15:43] But you're standing in this courtyard, and all these people, more important than you, are splayed out in front of you. And they're eating and they're talking, and they're bringing up all the debates of the day. What do you think about Rome? What do you think about taxes? What are your thoughts on this scripture? And they're digging through it. And then, while you watch, a prostitute enters the crowd.
[00:16:05] You recognize her because it's impossible to miss her, right? She dresses and smells and acts like a prostitute. She moves her way through the crowd. Everyone's either standing or kneeling. And then she pushes her way through, up to the feet of this traveling rabbi at the meal.
[00:16:23] And here's the thing.
[00:16:25] It's not that strange that she would come, but she's pushed through the crowd, and she's kind of out in the open. Like she's way too close to the table.
[00:16:34] And as she's standing over this rabbi's feet, and he's just talking, debating theology, doing the things rabbis do.
[00:16:44] And then she just starts crying.
[00:16:47] And really quickly. It's not just crying. It's like it's really crying. It's not. Man, this song is emotional. I want to lift my hand. Like she's sobbing.
[00:16:58] She's crying so hard that her tears are beginning to wet his feet.
[00:17:06] Imagine how you would feel in that moment.
[00:17:09] What is happening right now.
[00:17:11] Someone grabbed that lady. Will she just move? Like this is painful to watch.
[00:17:17] And then she leans down, kneels, and begins to wipe her tea, her tears off of his feet with her hair the next thing you know, while everyone is watching, while these important men are trying to have their important conversations, she's kneeling down, still sobbing, wiping his feet, cleaning them with her hair, kissing over his feet. And she takes out her perfume and begins to anoint and massage his feet while she continues to weep.
[00:17:49] Now, here's the thing.
[00:17:51] None of us are first century Palestinian Jews, and yet all of us recognize how uncomfortable this situation is, right?
[00:18:01] How inappropriate this is. Like, aside from being a level of just inappropriately publicly erotic, this woman is breaking all social code. She is imposing herself in a meeting she has no right to invade.
[00:18:16] She's putting herself publicly in front of everyone in a space that is not hers to enter into.
[00:18:22] And Jesus, according to the text, just keeps on eating like nothing is happening.
[00:18:31] Like he just keeps doing what he's doing.
[00:18:34] Talking shop about theology and discussing the news of the day. I cannot overstate how insanely awkward this would be for everyone in the room, right?
[00:18:44] Can you imagine the moment of going, does he not.
[00:18:47] Does he not see her? Like, what is.
[00:18:50] What is going on right now?
[00:18:55] Rosaria Butterfield, in her book the Gospel Comes with the House Key, she discusses this same text and she says, you know, this woman's understanding of intimacy and love was so broken by her life, had been so distorted by her sin and the cursed world within which she lives that she had lost eyes on how to appropriately express love.
[00:19:16] And so she expresses it to Jesus in the broken, distorted way she knows how, in a way that is inappropriate.
[00:19:24] And Simon's response, if we're honest, is incredibly relatable.
[00:19:30] Imagine him sitting there watching this happen and going, what are you doing?
[00:19:36] What are you doing right now? And it says, he doesn't even say anything to Jesus. He says to himself, if this man, if he were a prophet, he would know who and what kind of woman who was touching him. She's a sinner.
[00:19:49] He's shocked A, at her impropriety and B, at Jesus. Lack of response. Like Simon, like most of us would in this moment, has no mental category for a rabbi that lets prostitutes kiss and massage his feet while he talks shop on theology.
[00:20:08] That's wild.
[00:20:11] The setup of this scene is supposed to make us uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as the folk in the room would be.
[00:20:18] Read on with me.
[00:20:20] Verse 40.
[00:20:22] Jesus replied to him, I love that, because Simon wasn't talking to Jesus. But Jesus replies to Simon, simon, I have something to say to you. He said, say it, teacher.
[00:20:33] A creditor had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii, the other 50. Since they could not pay it back. He graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more?
[00:20:43] 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?
[00:20:54] 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.
[00:21:02] You gave me no kiss, but she had not stopped kissing my feet since I came in. You didn't 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.
[00:21:15] But the one who's forgiven little loves little.
[00:21:19] Then he said to her, your sins are forgiven.
[00:21:23] Those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this man who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you go in peace.
[00:21:37] Jesus responds to this whole situation. When Simon finally says something, he responds with a short little parable about debt.
[00:21:47] And this is the sort of parable that just makes me love Jesus's 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. Jesus goes, yeah, that makes sense. And then rips Simon's self righteous guts out of his chest and shows them to him. Right, Let me reread this.
[00:22:10] Do you see this woman?
[00:22:14] I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she with her tears has washed my feet and wiped them with her hair.
[00:22:22] You gave me no kiss, but she hasn't stopped kissing my feet since I came in. You didn't 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.
[00:22:36] But the one who is forgiven loves little.
[00:22:41] Do you see this woman?
[00:22:46] I think it's one of the most loaded questions in Scripture. Of course he saw her, right?
[00:22:53] Think about us imagining that scene a moment ago.
[00:22:56] She is the center of this room.
[00:22:58] Everyone sees this woman.
[00:23:01] They can't not see her.
[00:23:03] And yet, of course, when we think about it for a moment, we realize Simon didn't actually see her, actually see her.
[00:23:14] To use our phrasing, his head wasn't up, his eyes weren't open to her spiritual reality in the room.
[00:23:22] What he saw was a prostitute.
[00:23:25] A woman of the city, a sinner.
[00:23:28] Simon, I Think, if we're honest, saw garbage messing up his party.
[00:23:35] Jesus, at the same time saw his daughter.
[00:23:41] Jesus saw his creation stamped with his own image. Jesus saw the love of his life. Jesus saw this woman.
[00:23:48] And he takes this woman's inappropriate action and compares it to Simon's lack of action.
[00:23:56] And then the whole text, the whole lunch gets a lot more awkward, right?
[00:24:00] Jesus essentially says, yeah, look, everything she's doing is inappropriate. But you, you, when I got here, you didn't give me the common decency of water to wash my feet. This woman's washed my feet the whole time. You didn't give me the common decency of a kiss as a greeting like you would a fellow honored rabbi. But. But this woman hasn't stopped kissing me. You didn't give me the honor due of an anointing on my head before we had this public discourse, but she has anointed me with her perfume. And I think what's interesting here is that if you go back and you look at the rules and proprieties of these meals, Simon hasn't broken any of the rules.
[00:24:33] None of those things were actually required.
[00:24:35] They were just honors, the kind of things you might do to honor someone who was coming to your house. They weren't required of him, they were extras.
[00:24:44] So Simon was likely shocked that Jesus is accusing him of lacking these things because he's like, I didn't short you on anything. But this is precisely how Jesus strikes at the mark. Simon, at the end of the day, she loves me more than you do.
[00:24:59] She loves me more than you do.
[00:25:02] She's honoring me. She's going above and beyond. She did these things out of love and honor, not to fulfill her social duty. Simon was so busy playing religion, addressing Jesus as a Rabb, a prophet, deciding if he liked him or agreed with him or was better than him, that he missed the opportunity to love the hurting and marginalized woman who was literally in his house.
[00:25:27] Literally.
[00:25:29] And even worse than that, he missed out on loving Jesus.
[00:25:35] See, the beauty of Jesus's parable is that it was Jesus being gracious to Simon.
[00:25:41] Simon sees this woman and sees a piece of garbage sinner.
[00:25:45] He sees himself and sees a righteous man sacrificing his life, his comfort, his time to honor God. Simon thinks their debts are incredibly unequal, which is why he's answering the question kind of with a little bit of trepidation, because he knows he's trapping himself. He knows he's. Of course, he's the lesser debt. He knows this and saying the other one will Love the creditor more.
[00:26:09] But here's the thing.
[00:26:11] Jesus knows the deeper truth behind the parable.
[00:26:14] Jesus knows that Simon isn't a lesser debtor.
[00:26:18] He knows that the sin of disrespect and empty religiosity and judgment is just as death inducing as a prostitute's sexual sin.
[00:26:30] That they are equal in their debt before God.
[00:26:34] What they are unequal in is their realization of their debt and the subsequent love toward a debt canceling God.
[00:26:44] You see, Jesus sees the woman like really Caesar, Praise God.
[00:26:51] But Jesus also sees Simon like really sees him.
[00:26:57] He sees them both.
[00:26:59] And he sees his children, sees his creation stamped with his image, sees the love of his life. And yet one of those people left brunch saved and washed clean by Jesus.
[00:27:12] And one didn't, right?
[00:27:15] Jesus saw both of their brokenness, both of their love for him.
[00:27:20] And she, the prostitute, the sinner who made a scene, her love brought her into such connection with Jesus, he meets with her, he forgives her sins, sends her away alive. In the gospel, your faith has saved you. Go in peace, beloved. I hope the Holy Spirit is working in your heart. As we talk about this.
[00:27:43] The most fundamental truth we could understand in a text like this is Jesus sees you.
[00:27:48] Jesus sees you.
[00:27:51] The real you.
[00:27:53] Sees through how society understands you. Sees through the actions, the decisions you've made, the way the curse has affected you. He sees his image stamped in you. He sees his beloved, his love of his life, sees his child.
[00:28:08] But look what he does. Look what he does when he sees someone who he values.
[00:28:14] He calls them.
[00:28:16] Look how he calls. Look how he invites. Look how Jesus engages the woman and her scandalous, inappropriate engagement of him.
[00:28:23] He sees through the effects and distortions of the curse on her ability to love. He sees her and he accepts her and forgives her.
[00:28:32] By the way, that's exactly what we've been talking about these last four weeks.
[00:28:35] Did you catch that?
[00:28:37] Jesus noticed her.
[00:28:39] He valued her.
[00:28:41] He invites her home into forgiveness. He's intentionally on mission.
[00:28:47] Oh, and God saves her.
[00:28:49] How cool is that?
[00:28:51] Is it any wonder that by the time we get to chapter 15, people are going to be accusing Jesus of being a friend of sinners?
[00:29:00] Right?
[00:29:02] There's a Presbyterian theologian back in the day named Francis Schaeffer, and he gave this description of total depravity, the way sin breaks us and ruins us. That I think is really helpful. He calls humanity under the curse glorious ruins.
[00:29:16] Glorious ruins.
[00:29:18] You ever been to ruins?
[00:29:20] Like, I don't know, you can go to see the Pantheon or something around Here, what would it be? Cahokia mounds. There you go.
[00:29:26] I don't know if it'd be around here, but something. Imagine something like the Parthenon in Greece.
[00:29:30] Amazing, unique, precious, worth preserving, right?
[00:29:36] Like if you heard on the news later today they were going to level the Parthenon to put in a parking garage, you'd probably be upset, right? Like that's worth preserving and yet it's so broken and ruined, it can't actually be used for its intended purpose.
[00:29:52] And they're not hosting the games in the Parthenon, right?
[00:29:56] Francis Schaeffer says, this is us.
[00:29:59] Understand?
[00:30:01] Ruined, Ruined. Unable to do what we're built for. Sin has broken us.
[00:30:06] And yet still of immeasurable worth, still worth something, still immeasurably valuable.
[00:30:15] In our text, our beloved sweet Jesus, he sees this woman. He sees Simon. And in his love, he spoke to both of them.
[00:30:26] He valued both of them enough to actually invite them into life in this one day, this one conversation. It changes everything for this woman.
[00:30:36] Change the absolute, eternal direction of her life.
[00:30:40] The most famous verse in the whole Bible is John 3:16, right? Who can say it with me? Come on. For God so loved the world, he gave his only son. Whosoever shall believe in him, not perish, but have everlasting life. Some of you are like, that's not fair. I memorized it in King James, not Niv. It's okay. It's okay. Most famous verse in scripture. I had a moment where I thought, what if I blank and can't say it?
[00:31:03] That would be. I would be done. I'd have to resign.
[00:31:07] Most famous verse in scripture. It happens in the middle of a larger scene within John.
[00:31:12] John 3. As a. As a chapter, it tells the story of a religious leader coming to Jesus in the middle of the night. Nicodemus. And he comes to him with questions. And what does Jesus do?
[00:31:23] He stops what he's doing. He speaks to Nicodemus. He invites him into the life of the gospel. He shows up for him, just like he does for Simon, just like he shows up for this woman. Jesus had his head up, had his eyes open to the people in his life. They got seen, they got noticed, they got valued, they got invited.
[00:31:41] And, beloved, you need to know something.
[00:31:44] Followers of Jesus have been doing this for thousands of years.
[00:31:49] Like, this is the thing that sets Christianity apart as a system, as a movement, as a faith, is that we do this.
[00:31:58] If you were in Christ, this is your story. I guarantee it.
[00:32:03] At some point in your life, someone had their head up and had their eyes open and they noticed you.
[00:32:11] Maybe it was your parents, maybe it was your grandparents, maybe it was a Sunday school teacher, a friend at school, a teammate, a youth pastor, a college Bible study. I don't know. But someone, somewhere, probably several someones and several somewheres noticed you and they valued you and they didn't write you off the way the world does.
[00:32:36] And they invited you to come home in Christ because they were obedient to the mission.
[00:32:42] They spoke to you.
[00:32:44] I guarantee, I. I guarantee your faith journey involves moments where someone spoke the gospel invitation to you and the Holy Spirit was working in your heart and chewing through it, and something broke through and your heart went, yeah, that is what I want. That is what I long for.
[00:33:05] You know, research shows that most people who accept Christ hear the gospel clearly articulated or invited into repentance and salvation, like multiple times. There's actually been several, like actual research projects done into this. And across denominational lines, the average is somewhere between 7 and 20.
[00:33:24] It's a pretty big, pretty big widespread there. But somewhere between 7 and 20 times of hearing the gospel clearly presented with an invitation built into it for someone to finally engage it.
[00:33:37] And you know what I love out of that, by the way?
[00:33:39] What the research bears out is actually the more times a person hears the gospel before they accept Christ, the more likely they are to stick with it for the rest of their life.
[00:33:48] The longer it takes them to get there, the more likely they are to commit to it fully.
[00:33:53] I had a theology professor in my undergrad, a guy named Luke Bobo, and he would do this demonstration in class. I went to Linnewood University, and they still have some of these really old school classrooms that look like they're out of a movie, that they're like all wood built in desks, and they're like. And they've got these slate floor to ceiling chalkboards that wrap around three of the walls. And Dr. Bobo had a flair for the dramatic. And so he did a several. Like, the first time it was really powerful. But like the third time I was like, I know where this is going. But he would do this thing sometimes when he wanted to talk about evangelism, where he'd walk into class right at the beginning without saying anything. And he would go across to the left side of the room and he put this big X on the chalkboard, and then he'd step over and put a big X and he would start working his way around the room.
[00:34:35] And when he get to the edge, then he put a big check mark and he would Go. Everyone wants to be there when someone accepts Craig. You want to be in the room when the light bulb comes on. Everyone wants to be the check mark. But you don't get to the check mark without all the exit.
[00:34:50] So share the gospel every time you can.
[00:34:52] And then you go into his lecture.
[00:34:55] Stuck with me, right? Stuck with me.
[00:34:58] Guys, I think it's easy, easy for us to fall into the trappings of our own life and our own concerns and to miss this simple reality.
[00:35:13] We receive Christ when our hearts are softened and we hear the gospel. Invitation we respond to has to be spoken.
[00:35:25] It's not going to happen through osmosis.
[00:35:29] It's so easy to forget that because life is hard, because our lives are stressful. They're anxious, they're busy, they're painful.
[00:35:40] There's a whole lot of heavy and important things that we have to deal with and you have to deal with them.
[00:35:45] Gotta pay your bills, gotta work on your marriage, gotta do excellent in your job. You have to do all these things. They're important, they're glorifying to God, but they can become so life dominating that we forget and our faith gets set aside next to the stresses and needs of our immediate concerns.
[00:36:08] But I want to urge you church right now in this space, remember your story.
[00:36:15] People spoke Christ to you, people spoke Christ to you.
[00:36:22] I mean, I'm sure you had people in your life who were showing Christ through awesome examples. They were living godly lives and they were nice and they were kind. I'm sure all that stuff happened, hopefully.
[00:36:32] But at some point someone spoke Christ to you, someone saw you, someone noticed you, someone valued you, someone invited you to come home and it worked, right?
[00:36:46] Let us remember Paul's words in Ephesians 2.
[00:36:50] We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared for him, that we should walk in them.
[00:36:58] Beloved, you are God's workmanship.
[00:37:01] He made you. He made you precious and loved even in your death and separation, even in your ruination.
[00:37:09] He loves us with a love that is scandalous.
[00:37:14] Not literally, but he loves us when we love him little.
[00:37:18] He loves us when we're sinful and selfish and turned inward. He loves us with a ferocity that is not understandable.
[00:37:29] John Mark McMillan, the singer, songwriter, Christian worship guy in his most famous song, how He Loves, has this line in there where he compares the love of Jesus to the winds of a hurricane laying trees down flat.
[00:37:43] That's the strength, the power, the immensity of the love of Christ for selfish, broken sinners living their lives in rebellion and darkness, lust and legalism and all the different things precious to him.
[00:37:59] His love chases after them. His love can lay them down flat and rebuild.
[00:38:06] Beloved, isn't that wonderful news?
[00:38:09] Like, isn't that amazing news?
[00:38:12] Beloved, this is the love you have received.
[00:38:15] This is the way Jesus looked at you. And can I tell you something?
[00:38:19] You know this, you know that love of Christ because someone clearly told you you didn't figure that out magically.
[00:38:34] You didn't absorb it, didn't pop in your head.
[00:38:38] People told you and you heard. Because God opens your heart to believe.
[00:38:45] Paul says it like this to the Romans, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's great news. If you call on the name of the Lord, you'll be saved. Can we like, praise God for that?
[00:38:53] If you call on the name of the Lord, you'll be saved.
[00:38:56] But then he goes on to verse 14 and says, well, how can they do that?
[00:39:00] How can they call on someone they've not believed in?
[00:39:03] Well, how can they believe on him if they don't hear about him? And how can they hear about him if no one preaches? And how can they preach unless they are sent?
[00:39:13] Beloved, do you see this?
[00:39:17] Someone must speak so they may hear.
[00:39:22] You can be nice to people and you should.
[00:39:26] You can love well and you can love and hope that people will find salvation and pray for them. And you should.
[00:39:33] You can invite them to church in small group and you should.
[00:39:37] They'll hear the gospel if they come hang out in our church, right?
[00:39:40] The beloved, they will not believe the gospel in saving faith if no one tells them the gospel.
[00:39:49] At some point, someone must come alongside that person you love and you're praying for and they must tell them the gospel. God made you in all things and sin ruined it. And you and me and all of us are sinners. And the wages of that sin, the consequence of that sin is death. But God loves you so much, he sent his Son to reconcile you to himself, to forgive your sins, to give his life and glory to you. And he promises you a perfect eternity, restored from sin, with no curse. And all you need do is come to him in faith and repentance.
[00:40:21] Someone must say, it must be said.
[00:40:26] It must be said. Do you want this salvation?
[00:40:32] It's freely offered to you.
[00:40:35] Beloved, as we consider this today, can we consider this right now, this moment you're sending Paul says, how will they preach if no one sends them? Well, we're sending you when we send missionaries on short term or long term deployments you know what we do? We commission them and we send them. Right?
[00:40:57] When we send church planners and core groups to go start new works in the Gospel, what do we do? We commission them and we send them.
[00:41:03] But here's the deal, beloved.
[00:41:05] You are just as much a missionary.
[00:41:08] You are just as much a core team. You are just as much the tool of the Lord for the intervention and salvation in people's lives.
[00:41:16] And so, just in case you didn't know, just in case you had questions about it, like, just come Back to this.
[00:41:22] October 2026. You were commissioned. You are sent.
[00:41:26] You're the missionary.
[00:41:28] You.
[00:41:29] There are people in your life who need to hear of Christ.
[00:41:33] They need to hear of him. How can we possibly choose to live our lives with our heads down and our eyes averted from the gospel need around us to simply not look?
[00:41:47] Beloved, it doesn't make it go away.
[00:41:50] To simply not look doesn't mean that you aren't surrounded by lostness to avert your eyes.
[00:41:57] It doesn't mean that there aren't those around you who still desperately need the gospel of Jesus shared with them.
[00:42:05] This means something for us and our church. Beloved Jesus Span, if you want to come back up, Jesus invites the dead sinner to come to him exactly as they are with all their brokenness, with all their selfishness, with all their sin. Just like you were invited. Jesus invites the dead sinner to come to his cross and at his cross find life.
[00:42:30] Beloved, I don't say this to beat you down. I don't say this to guilt you. I say this. I say this in challenge and encouragement as a brother who is in this journey with you, who needs this challenge. Myself.
[00:42:42] We cannot do less.
[00:42:47] You cannot do less than what was done for you.
[00:42:53] Think of it this way.
[00:42:56] The gospel of Jesus has been faithfully proclaimed by every generation of faiths since Jesus returned to heaven.
[00:43:04] I use this example a lot.
[00:43:06] We talk about this idea of the apostolic succession of the faith.
[00:43:11] The earliest church fathers called this the rule of faith, that we must take the faith, the gospel handed from Christ to the apostles and handed to us, and we must faithfully preserve it, allowing nothing to change it, nothing to corrupt it, nothing to touch it. And then we must faithfully, like a baton and a runner, hand it to the next generation. It's the rule of faith that it would be preserved, protected, and handed off to who needs it next.
[00:43:38] And you need to know this. There is a straight, unbroken line of faithful preservation and proclamation and invitation and salvation from Jesus to you.
[00:43:53] He shared it and they preserved it and held it and shared it and handed it off. And the next generation preserved it and held it and shared it and handed it off. And it went by generation, by generation until you were sitting somewhere and the Holy Spirit opened your heart and you received Christ.
[00:44:11] 11.
[00:44:13] Church can end with you.
[00:44:17] Oh, we have a role in this. We have a role in this.
[00:44:22] But we have a place, a part to play.
[00:44:26] And I know that can be scary.
[00:44:28] And I know our lives push us to turn inward. And I know we feel unprepared, and I know we feel fearful. And I know we go, what if it doesn't work? What if it breaks this relationship? How am I even supposed to do that? I'm so bad at this.
[00:44:42] I know.
[00:44:43] Me too.
[00:44:45] Beloved, Christ is with you.
[00:44:49] And Christ is the one who softens hearts.
[00:44:53] You didn't receive Christ because, like, some amazing, like, skilled, perfect angel descended from heaven and like, he had all the right things.
[00:45:01] A bunch of sinful, broken humans who didn't know what they were doing did their best to proclaim Christ thief.
[00:45:07] And God worked through that to bring you to salvation.
[00:45:12] Let's do the same thing.
[00:45:14] Let's be a bunch of messy, sinful, broken humans who love Jesus and are doing our best to preserve the gospel, who share it with those in need.
[00:45:22] Because, guys, I mean, seriously, you have no idea. You have no idea what one honest and loving conversation might deem with someone's forever.
[00:45:35] Who would want to miss out on that?
