Jesus Forgives A Sinful Woman

Program Transcript # 1377 Jesus Forgives A Sinful Woman The Truth In Love P.O. Box 865 Hurst, TX 76053 www.thetruthinlove.com www.ttil.tv requests@thetruthinlove.com

Jesus Forgives A Sinful Woman Program # 1377 Robert Dodson Good morning, and welcome to The Truth In Love. Today we're going to take a look at Luke 7 where Jesus forgives a sinful woman. Sometimes we forget about our own need for forgiveness while we point the finger at others. But Jesus provides forgiveness for us all. Without Him, we're all hopelessly lost in our sins, but because of Him, we can be set free to live a new life and an abundant life. We can have eternal life in Him. I hope that you'll stay tuned, get out your Bibles, and turn to Luke 7. I'll be right back. Our story from Luke 7 begins in the home of a Pharisee. One of the Pharisees had invited Jesus to dinner. Let's read as we begin in Luke 7:36. Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee's house, and sat down to eat. Jesus had been invited to the home of a Pharisee by the name of 2

Simon. That's quite something, because the Pharisees saw Jesus as a threat to their power, their teachings and their very legalistic system. They saw Jesus as their enemy. Not all of them did, of course, but most of them resented Him and His teachings. This Pharisee invited Jesus to his home. We're not exactly sure why, but he did invite him and Jesus accepted the invitation. I think that the scene needs to be described. It was normal, when a guest arrived, to make him feel welcome by going through certain common courtesies. First of all, his feet would be washed. A guest's feet would be caked with dirt after walking in sandals on the dusty roads. So a servant would greet him at the door with a basin of water and would wash and dry his feet. After his feet had been washed, the host would come and greet him with a kiss to make him feel welcome and to let him know that he was an honored guest. Then it was a matter of courtesy to anoint the head of the guest with some sweet smelling, cooling oil. Maybe it was because of the hot oriental sun. Maybe some of the men were thin on top and slightly sunburned. I'm not exactly sure why, but it was customary to use oil to anoint the head of a guest. All of these things went together to say that a guest was welcome in the home. But when Jesus visited the home of this Pharisee, none of these things happened. Luke says that Jesus sat down at the table without his feet being washed, without the customary kiss or the anointing of oil. It is then that something unusual happened that the Pharisee did not understand. Let's read on in verses 37 through 39. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she 3

knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner. As they began eating, this woman, who Luke calls a sinner, came. The word Luke uses implies an immoral woman, a prostitute. She came to where they were eating, probably an outdoor patio to take advantage of the evening breezes, and she fell at the feet of Jesus and started weeping. Her tears fell on His feet, so she dried them with her hair. She broke a vial of expensive perfume and anointed His feet and began kissing them. All the while, Simon the Pharisee is watching. He was greatly offended by what was going on because it was obvious that this woman was now doing all of the things that he had failed to do to make Jesus welcome. Simon knew what kind of woman she was and as he judges her, he also judges Jesus. He assumes that Jesus is condoning her immorality. Simon thinks that if this man really were a prophet, He would know that she was an immoral woman. Jesus knows what Simon is thinking, and Jesus knew more about her than Simon did. When Simon looked at her, all he saw was a prostitute, a sinner, someone to be shunned; but Jesus saw her as a penitent sinner, a precious soul seeking some way to express her love and appreciation for what Jesus had come to mean to her. 4

I want you to notice a couple of things in this passage that you may not have thought about before. In verse 37, it describes the woman as one who was a sinner. That's past tense, isn't it? This may mean that she had heard Jesus preach, and in repentance she determined to lead a new life. In just a few moments we're going to be reading verse 47, where Jesus, in speaking about her, says, Her sins are forgiven, that is, they've already been forgiven. I think that we can safely conclude that Jesus had met her before, had already forgiven her, and she had become one of His followers, and that's why she had followed Him there that evening. It's right here that Jesus introduces a parable to teach the Pharisee. Let's read verses 40-43 together. And Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. So he said, Teacher, say it. There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more? Simon answered and said, I suppose the one whom he forgave more. And He said to him, You have rightly judged. Here Jesus says that one of the men owed the money lender five hundred denarii, and the other one owed him fifty denarii. Don't try to translate that into dollars, because you could easily get confused. Just remember that a denarius represented a day's wage. One owed the equivalent of fifty working days, and the other owed five hundred working days. Using a five-day work week, one man owed him ten weeks' work, and the other owed him one 5

hundred weeks, or almost two years. Jesus said that neither of them could pay their debts. The money lender tells them, I know you don't have the money, so I'm going to cancel your debts, and you no longer owe me anything. Jesus asks Simon, Which one will love him more? I imagine that Simon was sitting there with his mouth open. First of all, to think that a money lender could not collect what was owed him was unreal. Simon couldn't even imagine that type of thing happening with the money lenders he knew. Secondly, he was probably trying to figure out why Jesus was telling him that story at all. He couldn't see any point to it. He went ahead and answered the question that Jesus had asked, and he said, I suppose the one whom he forgave more or the one who had the bigger debt cancelled. You have rightly judged, Jesus said. Jesus makes the application in verses 44-47. Let's read it together. Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. The woman's love was evidence of having been forgiven rather than the cause of her forgiveness. The Pharisee on the other hand had felt little need for forgiveness, and 6

consequently his love was small. The Pharisee did not see his great need for a Savior as this sinful woman did, so he had no great love or appreciation for it. The Pharisee and the others that were there questioned Jesus about forgiving the sinful woman. Let's read verses 48-50. Here it says, Then He said to her, Your sins are forgiven. And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, Who is this who even forgives sins? Then He said to the woman, Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Once again, Jesus exercises the power of God in forgiving sins, as He did for the paralyzed man in Luke 5:20. And once again, the Pharisees are blind to who Jesus is and what He's able to do for them. He is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world who alone can save them from their sins. There are three things that I want us to take away from the story today. Number one, we are all in debt to God. Every person who's listening to me this morning, including myself, is in debt to God. In Romans 3:23, the Bible says that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's all of us. In Romans 6:23, we see that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Yes, we all deserve to die spiritually and to be separated from God because of our sins. That's what we earn for ourselves. But God's gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 2:8-9, the Bible explains that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone 7

should boast. We are all in debt to God. We're all debtors. If I were to talk about atonement or regeneration, some of you might go out scratching your heads today. But when I talk about being in debt, you know exactly what I'm talking about. All of us are debtors. An important asset when you're in debt is a good memory, because if you don't remember to whom you owe money, you're going to have all kinds of trouble. Simon's problem was that he had a poor memory. I imagine when Simon looked at himself, he probably thought, God, you're lucky to have me on your team. I'm pretty special. I've memorized the law, I pray beautiful prayers, I do many significant things for you, I'm a Pharisee, and I've mastered the art of being a Pharisee. God, I'm a pretty special guy. What Simon forgot was that he was a sinner. His sins were sins of the heart. He didn't recognize them as sins, so it was easy for him to forget that he needed forgiveness, too. Isn't it easy for us to forget how indebted we are to God? Isn't it easy to come into God's house and open our Bibles and forget the blood that was shed for us? We owe a great debt to our God who has redeemed and forgiven us. We are all debtors. We all owe a debt. Number two, we can never repay the debt. If my creditors should decide to collect everything I owe all at once, I'd be in deep trouble, because I owe more than I can pay all at once. I can whittle away at it, but I couldn't pay it all back if everybody wanted their money at the same time. When I think of the debt that I owe God in heaven for the price that He's paid for my sins, I realize I can't pay that, either. 8

The sinful woman who came to Jesus fell at His feet, wet His feet with her tears and tried to dry them with her hair, then anointed Him with oil. It was an expression of gratitude and love. You might say that this is a way to pay God back. She wasn't paying Him back. All she was doing was saying to the Lord, Thank you for forgiving my sins. And that's all we can do, too. We can never pay God back. We can roll up our sleeves and go to work, we can worship and serve, we can cry and pray, we can even seek to reach others for Jesus. We can do all of that but, even if we work 24 hours a day the rest of our lives, we'll never be able to pay the debt that we owe our God. Perhaps you remember this passage from Luke 17:10, So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. Thirdly today, let's notice the good news that God has paid the debt for us. Forgiveness always costs something. For the money lender, it cost 550 denarii to forgive those who were indebted to him. That is a small amount when compared to the debts we're talking about. When God said, I forgive you of your sin, it cost God something. Before forgiveness, there had to be the agony of Gethsemane. Before forgiveness, there had to be the death on the cross and the burial and the resurrection. That price had to be paid. The ledger had to be cleared before forgiveness could become a reality. But now that it's been paid, it's available to all. That's what Jesus meant when He cried from the cross in John 19:30, It is finished! The debt has been paid in full. Robert McCormack was a sergeant in World War I 9

and nearly lost his life while saving the life of Major Henry Parkin. Fortunately, both men survived the war. From that day on until he died 25 years later, in April of every year Parkin wrote McCormack a letter of gratitude. The last letter Parkin wrote contained this brief note, Dear Bob, I again want to express to you my appreciation for another year of life which I would not have enjoyed had it not been for you and the price you were willing to pay to save my life. I want you to know I'm grateful. Today God's forgiveness is available. He offers it to you through Jesus Christ His Son. The question is: Will you trust Him with your life? Will you truly give yourself to Him as He gave Himself for you? If you believe, then I call upon you this morning to make that decision to turn away from sin in your life, to commit yourself to God wholly and completely and to demonstrate, as this woman in our story today, genuine repentance. Jesus said in Luke 13:3, Unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Yes, repentance is necessary for our salvation. The power of the gospel is to so impact our hearts that it would turn us away from sin to cause us to give our life to Jesus. It will impact us to live for Him, to commit in our heart to turn away from that evil that caused Him to have to go to the cross to pay that price, and to hate sin so much that we would always turn away from it and give our life to Jesus. In Acts 2:38, when the people asked what to do, they realized that they were sinners, too. He told them first to repent, to make that decision of heart to turn away from their sin, and then to be baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of their sins. But before we're baptized, the 10

Bible teaches us to be ready and willing to make the good confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. It's upon faith in His name that we are to be baptized into Jesus Christ. In Acts 8, an Ethiopian had just learned from Philip the preacher about becoming a Christian and about the forgiveness that's available through Jesus Christ, and he was ready to be baptized. Philip said to him, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him (Acts 8:37-38). If we truly trust our life with Jesus, we'll not only make that decision to turn away from sin and be willing to confess our faith that Jesus is the Christ, our Deliverer, our Savior, the Son of God, but we'll give ourselves to Him in the waters of baptism. Paul explains in Romans 6 that it's in that act of faith that we die and that God puts to death the old man of sin. We are buried with Jesus Christ and raised with Him to walk in newness of life. It's here that we become a new creation of God, born again of water and the Spirit, our sins forgiven. Remember these words of Jesus in Mark 16:16 where He said, He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. The price has been paid for your sins, and Jesus Christ invites you to come to Him. I hope that you'll let us know how we can help you towards heaven today. 11

2013 The Truth in Love Robert Dodson, Speaker Chad Seaton, Director The Truth in Love P.O. Box 865 Hurst, TX 76053 www.thetruthinlove.com www.ttil.tv requests@thetruthinlove.com 12