Turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 7. That can be found on page 863 in the pew Bibles.
As far as status symbols go, a car makes for a pretty good option. It’s not just the car itself – the make and the model – but the things that you can put on the car like a bumper sticker. It can represent your child’s school or your college allegiance or your favorite vacation spot. Maybe you can make a political statement or represent and support a particular candidate. There are all sorts of stickers and decals and accessories that we can put on our vehicles to represent some sort of status or to say what is significant to us. These are the markers that we oftentimes value or we look to, to measure significance in our culture. Things like wealth, education, success, power, name recognition. These are the things, surely, that bring happiness and blessing. But not to Jesus.
As we saw last week, Jesus establishes a whole other set of values. He institutes an upside-down way of life; a way of life that is based on, it begins with love, but not just love, love for our enemies. And Jesus also said in chapter 6 of the gospel of Luke, He said to His disciples, He says to us, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” The poor. The poor feature prominently in Luke’s gospel. Way back in chapter 4, we read where Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” We’ll read in chapter 7 where He says in response to the question from John’s disciples, He says, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them.”
Who are the poor? The poor are those who are of low social status. They are the outsiders. One commentator says that “Jesus is expanding the circle of those who get invited in to experience the healing power of God’s kingdom.” And as Jesus does this, as He invites in this expanding circle of those who come to experience the healing power of the kingdom of God, He upends the societal norms for how we assign value or significance to ourselves and to others as well. Jesus is showing us – I think we see this in Luke chapter 7 – that what it means to be blessed is not power, it’s not prestige, it’s not prosperity. It’s faith. It’s faith in Him. And so we’ll look at faith tonight from Luke chapter 7. We’ll see faith’s need, faith’s focus, and faith’s devotion. Need, focus, and devotion as it relates to faith from Luke chapter 7. Let’s pray before we read this chapter.
Our Father, we all come before You and we confess our poverty as it comes to understanding Your Word. We need Your help desperately. We need the work of Your Spirit to speak to us. Open our hearts. Open our eyes. Open our ears and our minds that we would understand. Speak, Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 7:
“After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, ‘He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.’ And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, ‘Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’ When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, ‘I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.’ And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.
Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has visited his people!’ And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ And when the men had come to him, they said, ‘John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’’ In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.’
When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings’ courts. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written,
‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’
I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.’ (When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.)
‘To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,
‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’
For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.’
One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.’ And Jesus answering said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ And he answered, ‘Say it, Teacher.’
‘A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘The one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt.’ And he said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.’ And he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this, who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Faith’s Need
Faith is what holds this chapter together. We have four separate incidents in this chapter, but the bookends on each side of the chapter – the beginning and the end of the chapter – verse 9 and verse 50, deal with faith. They are statements about faith. Verse 9, Jesus says about the centurion, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” And then He says in verse 50 as He says to the sinful woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Now here are these two different individuals. They are very different from one another. They are really on opposite ends of the spectrum. One is a well-respected man who is in a position of authority and command. He is a centurion. And on the other end of the spectrum is this woman. She is a notorious sinner and she is socially unacceptable, scorned by those who see her. But here they are and they are connected to one another. They are connected because of their faith in Jesus. They are actually commended for their faith. And at the same time they are commended for their faith and their faith is recognized by Jesus, this is an indictment on the unbelief of the Jewish people.
And we have to ask the question, “How do the centurion and the sinful woman display such faith when so much of Israel and so many of the Pharisees did not?” They persisted and remained in unbelief. Well it’s because the centurion and the sinful woman were aware of their desperate need. And we see faith’s need in this chapter. They were poor in the broad sense of that word “poor.” The centurion was poor because he was an outsider. He is a centurion of the Roman army. He is a Roman. He is a Gentile. He is outside the covenant people of God. He is outside the covenant promises of God. And yes, he loved the nation and he had done much for them. He contributed to build the synagogue for the people in Capernaum. But when the elders of the Jews go to Jesus and say, “This man is worthy for You to help him,” what does he say? “I am not worthy. I am not worthy for You to come under my roof.” He has a sense of his own poverty and need for Jesus. He is nothing in comparison to Jesus. There is nothing that this man can do to help his servant, to heal him and to restore him back into his proper place. He is helpless.
And with the widow – verses 11 to 17 – she is poor because she is a widow and her son has died. This was the one who would provide for her and support her and care for her and now he is dead and she is alone. She is the epitome of vulnerability. You think about Naomi in the book of Ruth. You remember where Naomi, in the time of famine, their family went away and there were three deaths – her husband and her two sons – and she came back to Bethlehem. And what did she say when the women of the city greeted her and welcomed her home. She said, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara.” Mara meaning “bitter.” There was something bitter about her experience and this is the same thing that this widow is experiencing in Luke chapter 7 – a bitterness and a grief. Her only son had died. There is such a finality to death. There is no turning back from death as far as she was concerned.
And then we come to the sinful woman. And we don’t know what sin it was that had marred her image and her reputation. It says she was a woman from the city and she was a sinner. Many commentators infer from that that she very well could have been a prostitute, but it doesn’t say that. She was a notorious sinner in some way. We don’t know exactly what that sin was, but Jesus, when He talks about her, He compares her, he tells this parable of two debtors and He compares her to someone who has a great debt that cannot be repaid. He even says in verse 47 that her sins are many. And she knows that. She is well aware of that. She knows her guilt. She felt the shame of her past and of her lifestyle and there was nothing that she could do about it. There was nothing that she could do to heal that and to bring her back into good favor with the people around her.
But this is where faith begins. Faith begins with a sense of helplessness and bankruptcy. One commentator says that what is noteworthy in all three of these incidents is that each describes a need which God alone can meet. There is a need in each one of these incidents where only God can meet that need. I wonder if we have come to feel that way and to recognize that sense of need. I had a friend tell me recently that – he was much older and he was dealing with some of the changing circumstances in his life. He said, “You would think at the time that I get to this age I would have had things figured out by now.” And there are certain things in his life that he had not figured out and he did not know what was coming next. He did not know what to do in regard to those changing circumstances in his life.
Well everyone who comes to faith in Jesus realizes that we have a need that only Jesus can meet. And namely, what we find in this chapter is the deliverance from death and the forgiveness of sins. There is nothing that we can do to put off the coming death, the inevitability of death. There is nothing that we can do on our own to deal with our guilt and our sin. Nothing. We have a need that only Jesus can meet. We can’t do anything to fill those needs. We can’t do anything to secure those blessings. We have to recognize our utter poverty before we come to Jesus. We all come to Jesus with empty hands. That’s what faith is. It’s an empty hand. “Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to the cross I cling.” And if we did not realize that, we would never come at all. We have to realize that we are in utter poverty to come to Jesus to receive His grace and forgiveness and deliverance from death and life everlasting. If we were holding onto anything else we would continue on our own and doing our own thing and going our own way. In fact, that’s what’s happening in this passage for so many of the other characters. For the elders of the Jews, they think that there is something that can be merited in order to gain Jesus’ help and favor. And so Jesus says that in Israel He had not seen such faith. And on a whole, Israel had not responded to Jesus because they did not recognize that they had a need that only Jesus could meet. And this is the problem with the Pharisee. The Pharisee didn’t recognize the depth of his sinfulness. He didn’t realize how big his debt was, how his debt was unpayable, and so he kept Jesus at a distance. He viewed Jesus with a guarded and cautious nature.
Faith’s Focus
That’s where we see not just faith’s need, but where faith takes us in its focus. And everything about this chapter is an answer to the question that John sends with his disciples – “Are you the one that is to come or should we look for another?” That’s a strange question. It’s one I think it’s hard for us to understand. How could John the Baptist who had done so much to prepare the way for Jesus and had been so bold in his proclamation of Jesus’ greatness – that this is the man who comes after than me, who is greater than I, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie – and yet here he is asking this question, “Are you the one to come or should we look for another?” And we don’t know all of what initiated that question in John’s mind, but there was something about Jesus’ ministry that did not match his expectations. But what does Jesus do? Jesus answers John’s question by pointing out to him all the things that He had been doing – all of His healing, all of His teaching. He says in verse 22, “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the good news preached to them.” This is in fulfillment of prophecy that Jesus is the one who is to come. These are some of the very things that are recorded in this chapter. The centurion’s servant is healed of his sickness. He is raised up. The widow’s son is raised from the dead. The sinful woman, she hears the good news of forgiveness – Jesus is the one who is to come. Jesus is the promised Messiah and He says, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.” One writer says “Blessedness is based on one’s response to Jesus.”
And that’s really the line that divides the different responses to Jesus, the different individuals in this chapter. It’s how they respond to Jesus. They either recognize Jesus for who He is and what He can do, or Jesus says they are like the children in the marketplace that can’t be satisfied no matter what you do. They say, “We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not weep.” They couldn’t be satisfied. Nothing could meet their unbelief. Nothing could change their hardened unbelief. And what Jesus is saying is that what matters more than anything else is to recognize His greatness and His uniqueness as the promised Messiah and Savior of God’s people. That’s what matters. That’s what is of ultimate significance. And he says, after all, John the Baptist didn’t look like much. What was he, like a reed shaken in the wind? Did John the Baptist wear soft clothing and live in king’s courts? No, he was strange and he was in the wilderness and he did not look like much at all. And yet he is the one who had come to point the way to Jesus. He is the one of whom it was said, “He will prepare the way for the coming. I will send my messenger before your face who will prepare the way before you.” And he says that “Among those born of women, none is greater than John.” John is the last of the prophets of the Old Testament era and he was the one who saw Jesus. In fact, he baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. There is none born among women before this that was greater than John the Baptist. And yet, what Jesus says is that “The one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
Being in God’s kingdom is what matters. And that comes by responding to Jesus by faith. That beatitude that Jesus pronounces here in this chapter, the blessing pronounced by Him in verse 23, says, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.” The Greek word there is the word “skandalizo.” It’s the word from which we get our English word, “scandal.” There’s something scandalous about Jesus. The scandal of Jesus is that He was not the kind of Messiah they were looking for. He came in humility and He experienced suffering. The scandal of Jesus as the Messiah is who He was surrounded by. He was surrounded by tax collectors and sinners and by centurions and shameful women. And those who had the appearance of respectability, who seemed to be in the know, they missed Jesus altogether. And that’s the point. That if salvation comes by faith, faith that focuses on Jesus, then none of that other stuff matters. It doesn’t matter if you have all the credentials. It doesn’t matter if it seems like you are all but disqualified. What matters is faith that focuses on Jesus. What matters is recognizing Jesus for how great He is – that He is the focus and object of our faith and not anything about our qualifications or our lack thereof can separate us from being great in the kingdom of God. What matters is a focus on Christ. A faith in Jesus.
Faith’s Devotion
And that leads us then to faith’s devotion that we see in this chapter. And those two things go together, don’t they? That if we recognize our need, on the one hand, if we recognize our utter poverty and bankruptcy, there’s nothing we can do to satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts and what separates us from God. And then we recognize who Jesus is in all of His greatness, His sufficiency, His perfect salvation. Our need. His salvation. How do we respond when we truly recognize that? It’s with devotion. It’s with love and adoration. And that’s what we see from this woman in verses 37 to 38. That when she comes to Jesus, He is reclining at table in the Pharisee’s home, it says that “She brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head and kissed His feet and anointed them with the ointment.” This is great devotion. She is undone because of what Jesus has done for her and the forgiveness of sins. This is extravagant love that she is giving to Jesus. It is something that disturbs and disrupts all of the social customs. And here she is, she is putting herself at great risk, she is putting herself out there to be scorned by those who are the elite and the respectable. She is putting herself out there by giving up this ointment, this alabaster flask of ointment that would have been valuable to her, and she is pouring it out on Jesus because she recognizes what He has done for her in forgiving her from her sins. And so those who are forgiven much, love much. Those who are forgiven little, love little.” It’s not that she loves and therefore she is forgiven. She is forgiven and she recognizes that forgiveness and then she pours out her love to Jesus.
Do we recognize that? Do we recognize how much we’ve been forgiven? The debt of our sin. What separates us from God. There is nothing that can restore that except for Christ and His forgiveness. And so we come in love to Him. Shouldn’t that change how we worship? Shouldn’t that change how we serve Him – that we do it with an extravagance that we risk our social status, that we risk and give up our resources, our finances, our time to love and to serve and to worship and to praise Him? It should totally reorient our lives. Here’s what John Piper – he recently wrote a book, it came out, I believe this month. The title is, What Is Saving Faith? In the introduction to that book, Piper quotes people like John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and others who define saving faith as “a warm embrace, a pious affection.” It’s a “reception with delight.” He says, “Love is the main thing in saving faith.” Piper himself says that “Saving faith receives Christ as a treasure.” So often we are tempted to think of saving faith as an act of the will. And it is, but it includes love and affection, a devotion, and holding Christ as our greatest treasure. Those who are forgiven much, love much.
How could it not be that we would not love like this when we recognize the forgiveness and the good news of the Gospel – that it is by grace and by grace alone, received by faith and by faith alone. Here’s what John Stott says. He says, “No other system, ideology or religion, proclaims a free forgiveness and a new life to those who have done nothing to deserve it but a lot to deserve judgment instead. On the contrary, all other systems teach some form of self-salvation through good words of religion, righteousness, or philanthropy. Christianity is different. Christianity, by contrast, is a Gospel. It’s the Gospel. It’s good news that God’s grace has turned away His wrath, that God’s Son has died our death and borne our judgment, that God has mercy on the undeserving and that there is nothing left for us to do or even contribute. Faith, faith’s only function is to receive what grace offers.”
How great is the grace of God that the only thing required of us is to trust and to rest in what Jesus has done for us; to receive it with an open hand, recognizing our need, focusing, looking to Christ, and responding in love for Him. There’s a few ways we can apply that before we turn to the Lord’s Table tonight. One is for those who are invited in, for those who are included in God’s kingdom. And you may be here tonight and you are dealing with some shame, some great disappointment. Maybe it’s a stubborn sin in your life or something from your past that you haven’t dealt with; you can’t shake it. And you may feel like you’re not worthy to be here. You may feel like a second class citizen in God’s kingdom. But there are no second class citizens in God’s kingdom. Faith is level ground. There’s level ground at the foot of the cross. We all stand on the same merit and sufficiency and that is the merit and the sufficiency of Christ and nothing of our own. There is something that brings us together as one; that you are welcome here. You belong. Nothing can cast you out; nothing can exclude you from Christ’s kingdom and from His love because His salvation is by faith and not by anything that we have done or could do.
And the other thing is how we view others in our midst. You know, James writes in James chapter 2, he says, “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there or sit down at my feet,’ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him?” No partiality. Doesn’t that change how we view what is significant in our world around us and even in our own lives? We’re oftentimes enamored, aren’t we, we’re mesmerized at times by the fine things in this world – by big wigs and big names and high rollers. And we think, “Surely, that’s what is important. That is what is significant. They deserve special treatment.” We may even be tempted to be entitled ourselves. And this passage, Luke chapter 7, it rebukes that. It’s showing what Jesus values overturns what the world values. And yes, we are called to love our enemies. We are also called to love the poor, the sinner, the outcast, the outsider, and to bring them in, to welcome them in as members of God’s kingdom.
And that’s what the communion table portrays for us tonight. It displays that for us tonight. This was the problem in Corinth. There were divisions as they came to the Lord’s Supper and some thought they were better and looked at others as if being lower than them. There were divisions there. But this is a communion meal. There are no better seats at the table. There is only one Head at the Table and it’s Jesus, and we all come in communion, in fellowship as one before Christ to enjoy the blessings that He has given to us in the taking of this bread and this cup. And portrayed here, displayed here at this Table as we come now to the Table, we see here presented before us our great need. We need the forgiveness of sin and deliverance from death. And we see Christ’s perfect sufficiency; His grace to us – that He has taken the punishment that we deserve. He has died the death that we deserve. And in His resurrection has defeated death, defeated sin, and gives us access to Him by faith that we might enjoy His blessings forever and ever. And that we come to this Table to strengthen that faith and to grow in our love and devotion for Him.
Let’s turn to the Table now and ask God to help us as we do. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for our great Savior. Would You help us, even as we come to the Table tonight, to see our need, to see our sin, to see our weakness and our insufficiency. Help us to taste and to see that You are good and that You are worthy and that You have loved us with an everlasting love and that we might respond to You with extravagant love ourselves. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.