Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word, your way through the New Testament one chapter at a time. Whether you’re tuning in in the morning, afternoon, or just before bed, no matter how or when, we praise God that you’re here with us and that you’re listening to His Word. So, let’s get started and tune in to today’s lesson and go a little deeper. A Friend of Sinners, Luke chapter 7. It’s only been a couple lessons ago, but I bet you’ve already forgotten about John the Baptist, haven’t you? He’s been languishing in prison, out of sight, out of mind, right?

Reminds me of a news story a while back about a fellow named Steven Sleven. He was arrested for drunk driving and then was discovered to have other outstanding warrants. He had no involved family, and because he was acting bizarre when they got him to the prison, they locked him in solitary confinement, even before he had a trial. It was two years before someone who cared questioned why he was even there. The pictures when he came out of solitary sort of looked like John the Baptist, or in my imagination what that prophet looked like. So Herod Antipas has the prophet locked up, we’re reminded as this chapter opens.

John had called out his sin and embarrassed his wife, and that led to his arrest and imprisonment. But even from prison, John the Baptist kept tabs on what Jesus was up to. He got reports from some of his contacts of Jesus doing spectacular miracles, like those we read about at the outset of chapter 7 when, for example, Jesus healed a Roman officer’s dangerously ill son without even being in the same location. Notice how he commended that man’s faith at verse 9. He said, I haven’t found this kind of faith even in Israel. He meant among the Jewish people.

This is one of Luke’s big themes, remember, that Jesus didn’t just come for the Jewish people, but was the Savior God sent for the whole world. Beginning at verse 11, Luke tells us about the raising of a devastated mother’s only son right during his funeral procession. Jesus and his disciples were approaching the city gates of Nain, a town, just as the funeral procession was carrying this dead man out to be buried. Jesus learned that the mother was a widow and this was her only son, and he had died, leaving her in a desperate situation, and he felt compassion. Jesus approached those carrying his coffin and then reached up and grabbed hold of it. When they stopped, Jesus commanded, Young man, arise!

And the dead man sat up and started speaking. Luke says, And fear gripped them all. I bet. These astounding miracles, as you can imagine, were creating a huge buzz about Jesus in Galilee, really throughout all Israel. These were the type of miraculous signs which would accompany the Messiah upon his arrival, according to the prophets. But at the same time, what Jesus was not doing was making any moves toward becoming the kind of political Messiah that people longed for, which they expected.

Remember, the believing Jews that had faith that God would keep his promises always held on to the fact that although Israel had collapsed as a nation and been driven into captivity and subjugated now for 600 years, one day God’s promised Messiah would appear, a descendant of King David, and he would powerfully restore control of their land and their fortunes. This was the great and swelling hope surrounding Jesus. So much so that John the Baptist, from prison, sent two men to ask him, point blank, Are you the expected one, or should we start looking for someone else? John was looking for confirmation of what he already believed, but he wanted reassurance from Jesus himself, precisely because, I think, things were not unfolding the way he and others believed they should.

He had expected Jesus to act more forcefully, judging the evildoers in the nation and preparing his followers to set up his righteous kingdom. But John was now in prison. Jesus was making no moves toward initiating a political movement, and the influential religious leaders in Jerusalem are in fact starting to unite against him. None of this probably made sense to John the Baptist, so he sent these two representatives to ask Jesus, to confirm for him whether or not he was in fact the promised Messiah. When they found Jesus, he was in the midst of a powerful ministry period. People were being healed in unheard-of ways.

John’s representatives saw him restore sight to people who had been born blind. People afflicted with leprosy were being cleansed. People with physical deformities made whole again. Demon-possessed individuals freed from the control of the devil. And many people were repenting and believing into Jesus. This was the height of his popular influence in Israel right here.

When they put John the Baptist’s question to him, Are you the expected one, or should we look for another? Jesus’ reply was, Tell John what you see here: how the blind receive their sight and the lame are walking, the lepers are being cleansed, the deaf are hearing, the dead are being raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them. Blessed is the one who is not offended by me. These are quotations, by the way, from the prophet Isaiah, written in chapters 35 and 61 of that book. They spoke of the very kind of miraculous signs that would accompany the ministry of the Messiah when he appeared, the very things that should have reassured John the Baptist and convinced anybody else who was honestly wondering about Jesus’ true identity. He was fulfilling in miraculous ways so many of the things the Old Testament era prophets had written.

Yet there was still this confusing aspect. Much of Jesus’ agenda did not seem to fit with what was in his day expected from the Messiah when he appeared, especially this political aspect. As we’ve discovered, it wasn’t until much later that Christ’s followers came to understand that God’s plan for the Messiah was to have two appearances: a first coming to become our Savior from sin, and then sometime later a second coming, which believers are still looking for, when he will return to establish a period of peace and justice on the earth. This is key to understanding the Gospels and the life of Christ. Jesus was certainly the Messiah, the promised Son of David, but at his first coming he did not do many of the things the Jews were expecting from the Messiah.

Jesus, however, knew he came that time to accomplish something far more urgent, something his contemporaries just didn’t understand yet. As for the sect of the Pharisees and their followers, the most religious people in Israel, they didn’t know what to do with either John the Baptist or Jesus. As verses 28 to 35 explain, while many of the common people, even the outcasts in that society, people seen as the real sinners, were responding to John the Baptist’s call to repent, to be baptized, and get ready for the Messiah. The Pharisees didn’t feel any need for that. In fact, they despised John the Baptist. They thought his demeanor and message off-putting, like he was too zealous, like too ardent.

When he appeared on the scene, stalking out of the wilderness in those rough clothes and preaching about repentance or judgment, the Pharisees were really uncomfortable with that. They saw themselves as pure before God because of their strict religious practices, so he offended them. Then when Jesus appeared, although his message was similar to John’s, his demeanor was completely different. John the Baptist came across as an austere throwback to the ancient prophets of the Old Testament. Jesus came across as an approachable, welcoming man of the common people. But his religious opponents criticized him too because he pointed up the emptiness in their religion and their hypocrisy.

And because, and they meant this in the worst possible way, they were repulsed by the fact that he was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Luke illustrates this in a beautiful story starting at verse 36, where I want to spend the rest of our time today. One prominent Pharisee who was confused but also intrigued by Jesus invited him to his home for dinner. This reminds me of the encounter with the Pharisee Nicodemus in chapter 3 of John’s Gospel. I think this man, Simon was his name, wanted to question Jesus to try and figure him out, to see what he was all about. And Jesus accepted the invitation, and he came to his house to dine.

Simon was likely a somewhat well-to-do man. I can picture them on a warm evening eating in the courtyard area of Simon’s home. It wasn’t just Jesus and Simon either. There were others there, some of Simon’s Pharisee friends probably, as well as some of Jesus’ disciples. So there was a dinner party going on. At one point in the evening, a woman from town, who we learn was a prostitute, finds her way into the social gathering.

This was a bold move by her, but often when a well-known rabbi was at someone’s home, people would gather to listen to them. She came up behind Jesus and began to weep. She actually cried enough to wet his feet, and then proceeded to wipe them with her hair that she let down. This sounds bizarre to us, and I think even in that culture it was certainly unusual and unexpected behavior. I know it made Simon uncomfortable and his religious friends. But because Jesus did not stop her, they watched this awkward scene play out.

She then anointed Jesus with perfume that she had brought. This was in that culture, remember Mary of Bethany doing the same thing, an act of reverence, deep appreciation and respect for someone. It showed how much value she placed on Jesus. She even kissed his feet as she wiped them with her long hair. What an act of extreme humility and worship. Simon the Pharisee and those of his associates watching this were thinking, Doesn’t he realize that this very immoral woman is touching him?

He can’t possibly be a prophet of God and not realize what kind of person this is. What kind of person that was actually was a sinner who needed God’s love and forgiveness, like all of us if we’re honest with ourselves. And Jesus, in fact, did know who she was. But it was for sinners just like her that he had come. He also knew just what Simon and his friends were thinking. He may have read it on their faces or in their disapproving whispers, or he may have been reading their minds because he had the insight to know what was going on inside people’s minds.

At a certain point he said, Simon, I have something I want to tell you. Of course, Rabbi, Simon replied, curious to hear what Jesus was going to say about what they’d just witnessed with this woman. But rather than directly address what had just happened with her, Jesus launched into a little story. To put it into our terms, we’ll understand, the story went like this. A banker made two loans. One borrower took out a large loan of a hundred thousand dollars, and the other a much smaller loan of a thousand bucks.

Both were unable to repay their loans due to unforeseen circumstances. Yet, very graciously, the banker forgave both debtors what they owed. Turning to Simon then, Jesus said, So, which of those two debtors do you think appreciated the banker’s graciousness more? Simon responded with the obvious answer, I imagine the one who was forgiven more. I think he had an uneasy look on his face when he said that, though, because he knew he was being tested by this question. But it wasn’t a trick question.

It was a pointed question, an analogy to what had just occurred there. Then Jesus, turning around to this woman with the puffy eyes and tousled hair, said, Do you see this woman? I entered your home this night and no one washed my feet. It was customary to wash honored guests’ feet when they entered someone’s home because they wore sandals, the roads were dirty, dusty. Yet Jesus continued, She washed my feet with her tears and she wiped them with her own hair. When I entered your home this evening, you didn’t greet me with a kiss, in Middle Eastern custom, but she has been continually kissing my feet.

You didn’t anoint my head, but she has anointed me with expensive perfume. For this reason I tell you, her sins, which have been many, have been forgiven her. And Jesus then turning to the woman said, Yes, your sins are forgiven. This woman had come to him that night in faith and repentance. She acknowledged who he was and her sorrow over her sin. It was evident.

Jesus came for people just like this, all those who will acknowledge that they have sinned against God, and others, and need forgiveness, the forgiveness that Jesus could offer. And that’s all of us, friends. In contrast, his host Simon, who was by now, you have to know, shocked as well as offended, he certainly got the point of Jesus’ story. He realized it was about him and his religious associates. He realized that Jesus had no problem being a friend of sinners, as they had charged, and in fact, that’s who he wanted to be. Simon and his religious friends saw themselves as already righteous before God and not really in need of anything Jesus could offer.

They were shocked when Jesus told this woman, Your sins are forgiven you. Their reaction was, Just who does this man think that he is? They believed, and they were right about this much, only God forgives sins. So Jesus telling this woman, Your sins have been forgiven, and then saying, Go in peace. Your faith has saved you, was in their eyes grossly presumptuous at best and seriously blasphemous at worst. Jesus was assuming prerogatives that belonged to God alone.

These are the kinds of things that made the religious elite determined enemies of him. They both hated the spotlight he shone on their self-righteousness and hypocrisy, and they rejected the idea that he could possibly be the Messiah. And worse, he claims here he had the authority that belongs to God alone to forgive people’s sins. This was all shocking to them. So all in all, a pretty awkward dinner party, don’t you think? There’s a couple big lessons here we can take away from Luke chapter 7.

First is, Jesus is the friend of sinners. He was guilty as charged on that count, thank God. The woman whose life had slid into immorality and who was seen as an outcast in her town by the decent people was accepted by Jesus. She came to him clearly sorry for her sin and in faith believed that he could forgive and redeem her. Jesus responded graciously to her repentance and her faith. And listen, he will do that every time for anyone, because he is indeed a friend of sinners.

All of us who will be saved, to use Jesus’ term here, that is made right with God and fit for heaven, must come to him the same way as this woman did, in repentance and faith, acknowledging we need him as our Savior. We need his forgiveness. We need his power to reconcile us to God. He made the way, and no one who comes that way will be turned away. That’s good news, isn’t it? Very good news.

The other lesson I take away from this chapter is that I too should be a friend of sinners. It’s a huge self-deception to allow our religious activities and associations to lead us to believe that we are above or better than any other person. That’s the problem Jesus had with his host that night. That’s why he said, Simon, I want to tell you a story, and then proceeded to call him out in front of his own dinner guests. Simon didn’t feel like he needed a Savior, and he did not feel like this woman was even worthy of one. In fact, she wasn’t even worthy to be in his house.

Man, that attitude is so wrong. Jesus came to seek and to save those who are lost. That’s Luke 19:10 and probably the best theme verse for this gospel. Jesus came to seek and to save those who are lost. And if we’ve received him as our Savior and now call him our Lord, then our attitudes and actions need to reflect his. That means I too need to be a friend of sinners.

I too need to never give off the air that I am somehow better than other people, or certainly that anyone I meet is beyond God’s grace and forgiveness. I was teaching once on this very subject in a Sunday morning church service, and I used an illustration that I had read somewhere. The story was of a time in the 1970s when a lot of young people in America were swept up in the rebellion, immorality, and drug use associated with the hippie movement. A lot of church-going Christians were disgusted at even seeing these young people. They often looked unkempt. You know, they had long straggly hair.

They flaunted all of society’s norms at the time. But the story went that one Sunday morning, a young hippie-looking guy wandered into a church service in a certain city in California. He came in late, and he walked down the middle aisle of the church and plopped down on the floor, sitting cross-legged in front of the platform. The buttoned-up Christians in the pews were shocked by that. It made them feel uncomfortable all through the songs and the prayers and the Bible readings. What’s he doing here?

But as the pastor stood up to speak, one of the church’s elders, an older godly man, walked down the center aisle himself and when he reached the front, carefully sat down on the floor next to that young man and stayed there beside him all through the message till the close of the service. He, maybe alone in that congregation, was who Jesus wants us to be. That was the point of my message that day. This one godly man had reacted just like Jesus. He was a friend of sinners, while many others in that congregation were thinking and behaving very much like Simon the Pharisee, who Jesus calls out in this chapter. After I told that story that morning, a lady I didn’t know who was visiting the service put up her hand.

This was a pretty informal church and I often took questions during or after a message, so I called on her. She said, I just want all of you to know that’s a true story. My father was the elder in that church who came and sat down on the floor with that young man. I remember him telling me about that happening. You know, I was glad to hear that it was a true story and not just a sermon illustration. I asked her to tell her father, if he was still alive, that his godly example challenged me.

I hope this lesson challenges you as well. Jesus is the friend of sinners. Thank God he is, and we need to be too. Thanks for listening. We hope you found this commentary both interesting and insightful. Keep in mind that Share the Word releases two new podcasts weekly at 9 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays.

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