Book of Luke - Ch. 7, Vs. 36-Ch.8, Vs. 1 (05/11/2003)

truth, thinking about the finished work of your son Jesus Christ and your work that you did in him and that you do in us.

And we ask you to teach us once again this afternoon that we might be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ.

Amen. Okay, well let's get started with Luke chapter 7 verse 36, about the time

Tracy gets in here we'll be through. That's usually what happens, she's out collecting, he's out collecting children, young people.

Okay, verse 36, let's see, chapter 7 of Luke, and one of the

Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him and he went into the

Pharisee's house and sat down to meet and behold a woman in the city which was a sinner when she knew that Jesus sat at meet in the

Pharisee's house brought an alabaster box of ointment and stood at his feet behind him weeping and began to wash his feet with tears and did wipe them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment.

Now when the Pharisee which had bitten him saw it he spake within himself, so he was talking to himself here, saying this man if he were a prophet would have known who and what manner of woman this is that touches him for she is a sinner.

And notice this next phrase, and Jesus answering and said unto him, now how could he answer him when he was just thinking?

He knew his thoughts. Jesus, now how would you feel if this were you?

You're sitting there thinking something inappropriate and he says, well let me answer that.

Imagine that, imagine being here, you know, imagine what this must have been like. And Jesus answering said unto him,

Simon I have somewhat to say unto thee, and he saith, Master say on, still trying to keep his cool, there was a certain creditor which had two debtors and one owed five hundred pence and the other fifty.

And when they had nothing to pay he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore which of them will love him the most.

It is interesting that that word is agape in the Greek there, it's the highest form of love that Jesus used.

And Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most, and he said unto him, thou hast rightly judged.

Now I want to show you a kind of interesting word, this word forgive, where it says whom he forgave most, doesn't really mean it like we think when we say forgive a debt in English.

In the Greek language the word is karitso mahi, let me start over, karitso mahi,

I can say them pretty well when I'm studying, when I have to say them out loud it's a whole different ball of game, ball of wax there.

But I want you to notice the first part of that big long word that I just tried to say and butchered is karitso.

Karitso, is there any English word that sounds anything like that to you that's used in kind of Bible language, karitso, oh that's a good guess, yeah a word, a

Bible word we talk about, there you go, charisma, it's karitso and it has omahi in the end of it to make it a little bit longer word and it also adds another meaning to it, karitso, it means to grant as a favor, to grant as a favor.

Now when you use charisma what's so amazing about that word is the charismatics and the

Pentecostals use it all the time to talk about the operative, that the gifts are all still operative just like they were for the apostles which we do not believe, although I've rephrased that I do believe they're operative,

I don't like using the word that they're inoperative, I mean the phrase inoperative. In my study what

I find is that the Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Father each play a role in the gifts and the

Father himself plays the role of turning the energy up on the gift when he chooses to and all the gifts are exercised by a sovereign

God and the problem today in the church is not that we have people who believe in the gifts and people who don't believe in the gifts, the problem is we have

Armenians and we have Calvinists and I don't like the word Calvinist so much because Calvinism existed before Calvin was born so it really should never have been called

Calvinism, it's just that he was such a great theologian, he put it down in print and printing presses were all new and they printed it and sent it out to the whole world and he made it more easily studied, he put it in an orderly format to study so it got the name

Calvinism but basically what it means is those who believe God is in control, not man, so you have two camps, you have the camp and they're in every group, the

Baptists have the two camps, the Pentecostals probably have some that believe in the sovereignty of God but not very many, the

Baptists don't have many either so the thing is the more you think man is in control the more apt you are to get off in error on any doctrinal issue and so they think that you can just go out there and be taught how to speak in tongues, now they would deny that but if you go and observe there are even linguistic scholars who have done this, born again linguists who have gone into Charismatic and Pentecostal churches and watched them teaching each other how to do this so that in each fellowship the tongues there sound similar whereas this over here has a different sound but they all sound alike and it's easily seen that they have taught themselves how to do this, you cannot teach a spiritual gift, you cannot even have a spiritual gift just because you want it, only

God can turn the energy on for one of these and only the Holy Spirit administers who gets them, we don't have any control in that whatsoever so that's all a farce, anybody that believes that is believing a lie, it's a farce, it's a counterfeit, it's very destructive because it gets people off of the main thing which is

Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit has never made himself the main thing, he always points to Jesus and the things of Christ who always points to the

Father and the things of God and it's just that way, so when you see it out of order then you know something is wrong, but isn't it interesting, now let me get off the rabbit trail back to verse 43, it says to whom he forgave most is the one that would love

God the most, that word really is not forgive like we think of it, it is like this, to whom

God had granted the most favor in the same sense as he grants gifts, as he gives one person a gift to do this in the spiritual realm, another person a gift to do this in the spiritual realm, those are gifts of grace, they are given by a sovereign

God to different people in the body of Christ for God's purpose to be fulfilled, not for prideful reasons, not for selfish ends, but for God's purpose, and what this really says is the one that has been given grace the most is going to love

God the most, isn't that amazing to think about, so we should count our graces that God's given us and be thankful for them, and the more we look at what

God has given us by grace through gifts that he has given us and given us the ability to do things in his vineyard, the more thankful we are and the more we love him for that, now verse 44, and he turned to the woman and said unto

Simon, seest thou this woman, now this guy is thinking now why is he pointing this out,

I've just been sitting here thinking about this woman, now why is he going to talk about this woman that I've been thinking about, and don't you think it's interesting,

I'd have to ask you gentlemen this question, why do you think that this Pharisee knew who this woman was, yeah enough said, enough said, you know she was a professional and he knew her, and he turned to the woman and said

Simon, seest this woman, I entered into your house and you gave me no water for my feet, but she hath washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head, you gave me no kiss, now this was the custom, don't think of this in modern terms for a man kissing a man, but it was the custom in those days that when you came to visit, just like in Europe today, the men will kiss on both cheeks still, that's where it comes all the way through the

Bible, living through the Catholicism and all the history they've had, all the way back to Bible days, that's where that comes from, aren't we thankful that Americans didn't pick that up, but anyway that's all it means, it's just the, it was just the typical thing that a good host would do, to wash the feet, because most of them wore sandals and their feet were dirty, and they'd wash their feet and kiss them on both cheeks, greeting them in a proper way, and he says, you know you didn't do this, but this woman since the time

I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet, and Jesus is pointing out she's a better host than you are, and you're the host, and you think she's not even supposed to be here, my head with oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment, wherefore

I say unto thee, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little, kind of interesting in the

Greek language, that word little is the word puny, the best translation is puny, it's kind of funny to pick up a

Greek textbook, and you look in there, do you find that they put that as the definition, that is the word puny, you know, but so Jesus tells him, you know, to whom much is forgiven, they love much, but to whom puny is forgiven, the same loveth punyly, his love is puny for God.

Now the word forgiven is kind of beautiful here, where Jesus teaches that her sins which are many are forgiven, it is a word that consists of two smaller

Greek words, the first part is apo, which means away, or away from, and hyemi, which means to send, so you put those words together and you get to send away, that is the word for forgiven, the sins, the sins of this woman who had many have been sent away from her, not just overlooked, but removed from her, as far as the east is from the west, and Jesus teaches this definition of forgiveness, and I'm sure that this

Pharisee is, you know, wondering what does he mean her sins are sent away, and how can you say that, how can you proclaim that, is what he's thinking, and the word sin, where it says her sins are sent away, comes from a

Greek word, the root word means to miss the mark, so the fact that she has fallen short of the glory of God, has been sent away, her sin nature has been sent away, her sins themselves have been sent away, to be forgiven, to send away, verse 49, and they that sat at meet with him began to say within themselves, who is this that forgiveth sins also, and he said to the woman, as if to know what they were thinking, as soon as they finished thinking, who is this that says he can forgive sin, he turns the woman and says out loud,

I visualize, he says loudly, Jesus says, and he said of the woman, thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace, faith here is pistis, which comes from the larger word pistuo, it means persuasion, it means to stick to, like glue, to adhere to, to cling to, it's a much stronger word than the

English word believe, but he said the God -given faith, you remember a while ago we had the word grizzo, it is a gift from God that this woman has,

God gave her the ability to know who I was, do you realize that when she was putting that ointment on his feet, it was the same ointment that they put on a dead body, she was symbolically preparing him for the cross, and her faith led her to do that,

Jesus said later that's what this picture is, and it's amazing the faith that this woman had, but it was a gift from God, that's why she loved

God so much, by your faith you are saved, saved here, so did so, to deliver, it's always stronger than the

English, oh I got saved, no you got delivered, you got delivered from the world, the flesh, and the devil, and your sins, and your old sin nature, salvation in the

Bible also includes deliverance always, not just being saved from hell, but being delivered from that which caused you to be headed that direction, now

I'd like to end with chapter 8 verse 1 rather than at the end of the chapter, because I believe it goes with this, and it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings, now was that not good news for this woman that the

Pharisee called a sinner, I don't know how good a news it was for the Pharisee, because he couldn't believe it, but it was good news to this woman, that woman you don't get saved by what you do or don't do, you cannot be saved by your works, if you have the faith enough to anoint my feet for burial, my body for burial, knowing that I'm going to die for your sin, you're saved, and your sins are removed, that's good news, and he went on as if to launch from this experience,

Jesus went right out and he just told this good news to everybody, he began to tell the good news throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, and the twelve were with him, learning things, learning things, that later the

Holy Spirit would bring to their minds and teach them the spiritual truths of all these things, I want to make one more point, we're through with this little passage, this word preaching, there are an awful lot of expositors today and guys on the radio that will tell you that preachers are supposed to be what they call preacher slash teachers, they get that from the book of Ephesians, where the

Bible says that they, God gave some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers, and they say in the

Greek it really says pastor slash teacher, and that way may well be true, it is important that a pastor also be able to teach the word, to be able to get down into it and teach it, or he's not even qualified to be a pastor the

Bible says, but a lot of them use that to say a pastor does not need to be able to shout and be enthusiastic or have emotion or any of the preaching, it doesn't say anywhere you ought to be a preacher, it's a teacher, you just sit here and you just lay it out there for them, can you imagine that women putting a beautiful meal together and put it out in such a way no one wants to eat it, you just make it either boring or ugly or something where they don't want to eat the good food that's there, and that's what they think, and what's interesting in this passage it says

Jesus went out to preach and that Greek word is different than the word for teach, so as there is a place for teaching, but you have to have a place for preaching in the local church too, not just teaching, how many of you know of groups that have gotten so disenchanted with church that they meet in little groups in a home and maybe listen to study tapes or they have a person just sits and teaches and they don't go to church, you know some,

I know some, that is unscriptural, yes, that's right, nor that he's called, and yet this word is very different, this word where it says

Jesus went out preaching is the word keruso which means to herald as a public crier, that implies shouting sometimes, a loud voice sometimes, enthusiasm, making the point to the back pew back there, it's not just okay ladies and gentlemen let's turn to this word, this

Greek word means this, you know it's not just that, if that's all you get it's not enough, and the word teach is the word didactios which means our word didactic comes from that in the

English and it means to be instructive and that's a part of it too, but a lot of the modern players are saying that's all you have to have, it's not true, you gotta have both,

I think it's important that a preacher be able to teach, but he also needs to be able to preach, and there is such a thing as a gift of teaching in the church and that person is gifted at teaching doesn't mean he can preach at all, and if he can't then the church needs more than him or her, because there are female teachers, the church needs a preacher, always remember that young people when you grow up you go out into different places in the world and you got to go find a church, it's great if you can find a good

Bible teacher, but if he doesn't have some heart and you can't preach it won't be enough for you, so try to find a church that has some great teachers and at least one preacher, that's the way the

Bible says it, it's a little different than the way the modern church says it, yes, from the tears and he hated it, and when

Jesus would deal with such things they hated that, that's when they would pick up the stones and want to kill him, when he dealt with that problem with sin or when he healed somebody physically they didn't like that either, remember how it says

Peter outran, I mean it says that John never calls himself John, he says the one that Jesus loved outran

Peter and John got there first, she had already been there, she had already been to that tomb and looked in it and saw that it was empty, you know what

I had forgotten that little detail, that's amazing, well doesn't it prove exactly what

Jesus taught that day, he that's been forgiven of most will love the most, she knew what she came from and sometimes those of us who are saved a little bit later in life, not that I advocate that,

I want our children to get saved, you know as soon as the Lord will turn the little light on where they can see it, that's in my view that's better from a human viewpoint, they get saved early, but those of us who get saved later sometimes do know more of what we got saved from, a lot of times people get saved later in life and they not only get saved, they become evangelists too, they're so excited about it, let's stand and have prayer together,

Lord we thank you for this beautiful touching passage of the scriptures that you give us and how you teach us so clearly that we're not saved by works or religiosity but by faith and by your blood, thank you that you've given us the hyssop weed to apply the blood with and that is faith,

Lord help our young people to understand more and more of this as they mature and they're able to study the word, thank you for our school, our teachers, ask that you bless the teachers and the students in this coming last week of school and our ceremony and graduation, ask that you would bless that as well coming up this

Friday, Lord we just thank you for the young people that you've given us, Lord we ask you to go with us today, protect us on the way back home, help us to have a wonderful celebration with our mothers today, we ask it in Jesus name, amen.