Northside Church - Sydney
No Reservations Week 2: Jesus & A Sinful Woman
We're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. The Bible describes encounters with a real man and a real person with real life issues and it always helps for us to see it from that perspective. And so over the three weeks that we've been running this series, we look at this series called No Reservations, what happens when this real man and this real guy encounters people or they encounter them? What is really the heart of God in that sense? And this morning when I was reading through this passage and studying it this week, you know, I thought, this passage is a bit like those funny little diagrams. You get all throughout newspapers and children's books all around the country. You know the ones that spot the difference? You have two images that are next to each other. They look very similar and yet there are some slight differences and that's what you need to look through. Jesus has got us a sporting through God's word on a bit of spot the difference because the title to this passage, the pericope, that's the special minister's word for that title in your Bible, says, "Jesus and the sinful woman," and we could be mistaken to think that this is a message about a sinful lady and how Jesus reacts to her, but there are two characters in this story. There is Simon the Pharisees, now if you don't know what a Pharisee is, they were the religious elite, they were the religious leaders of Israel at the time, they were in constant verbal combat with Jesus. They were always having to go with each other and they didn't get along too well. And the really interesting thing about this passage is that Simon the Pharisee invites Jesus into his house to have a big banquet with him, a big meal. And what's crazy is that there's only two Pharisees in the New Testament that we see actually had conversations and encounters like this with Jesus. There was Simon and there was this other guy called Nicodemus, and where did Nicodemus meet Jesus? He met him over the back of the temple at night time, secret little covert meeting because Pharisees didn't want to be seen with Jesus, Pharisees didn't want to be hanging out with these guys. So here is Simon the Pharisee inviting him into his house, braving scorn, braving opposition, braving ridicule, ridicule from his religious mates. And so what's interesting is that when we first see this, we could go, "Oh yeah, I know what this spot, the difference is, he's moral and this girl's immoral because you look at the woman." It talks about a woman, a lady of the city, it's one of the Bible's ways of smoothing over the reality of what her life is all about. Like if we get real, the commentators, they all agree, at the heart of it, this woman was a prostitute. So here we have this incredible scene of Jesus encountering both the religious elite and the prostitute. At first glance we go, "I know what the difference is, she's bad, he's good." End of sermon. Not quite. You see, it's a story of two people. Just two people, two seekers, they're both interested, they both want to encounter Jesus, they both want to listen to Jesus, they're both in the presence of Jesus. And yet one is totally transformed and the other one goes away cold and miffed and indifferent. One explodes with joy and the other one gets chewed away by Jesus like the way you chew a seagull away from your chips at Manly Beach. Why the difference? Why the difference? Why the difference in their response? Why the difference in their own, in Jesus' response to them? Why the difference? Can you spot the difference of sporting? Look, let's walk through it. I think it's to do with approach, it's to do with authority and it's to do with their actions. Let's have a look here. You see, first and foremost, there were two different approaches to Jesus. There's two different ways that you this morning can approach Jesus. You see, Simon, first up, he approached Jesus from a headspace point of view, right? Verse 44 to 45, Jesus said to him, "Simon, he didn't kiss me, he didn't hug me, he didn't shake my hand. There was no tears, he didn't sit at my feet." And that's what the woman did, and you can imagine what's going through Simon's head. He's like, "Jesus, are you serious? Have I seriously got to get that mushy with you?" If I seriously got to get that cuddly with you, and he goes, "Yeah." See, Simon wants to approach Jesus from a headspace point of view. Simon wants a conversation with Jesus, and then we see the woman, tears, hair down, she approaches him from the heart. He wants a conversation, she wants a relationship. And so in this sense, look at this, verse 39, "When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this," that's Simon, "saw this," he said to himself, "He muttered at us, "He muttered at under his breath, it said, 'If this man were a prophet, he'd know who's touching him, and what kind of woman she is that she's a sinner." You see, what creeps Simon out is that she touches him. She's touching fairly, she's involved with him, he's close to him. Simon's saying, "I don't want a religion of touching, I want a religion of thinking. I don't want a religion that's up close, I want religion at arm's length." And so in that sense, look, there's his first spot, the difference, can you see it? It's the difference between Simonality and Christianity, if Simonality is a word, it's the difference between religion and Christianity. Religion says, "Look, stay at arm's length, headspace, let's be intellectual, have a conversation with Jesus." And Jesus says, "You can't approach me like that, it's about having a relationship with him." That's how most people approach Jesus right with the head, they think being Christians like this is, isn't it, that we investigate his teaching, and I like his teaching, and he seems like a great teacher and a great prophet, and he's like all the other great prophets in the world, and I like what he says, it's good, but I'm not about committing my life to him. I like the message of Jesus, love your enemies, it's beautiful, but I don't like the message of Jesus. I don't want the message of Jesus. You can't work that way with Jesus Christ because Christianity is a personal relationship. Religion is an intellectual discussion, and so Simon wanted discussion, she wanted relationship. But here's the thing, your approach to Jesus will actually be dictated by something deeper. Let's get all physician on you at this moment, let's pretend we're doctors here. We're approached towards Jesus, that's the symptoms, but it's actually driven by an underlying cause, and we see that here, well there wasn't just two approaches to Jesus in this story, there are actually two different authorities in the various people's lives. You see, for Simon, the authority in his life was himself. He was the boss, and I was thinking to you, you know what this scene feels like? A job interview. It's like Jesus is inviting him into his house for a job interview. You know how job interviews go, you're the boss, you sit behind the desk, you invite someone in, they sit down, and they put their best case forward. Describe to me why it is that you should be a part of our organisation. When you agree, that's exactly what Simon's doing, Simon's approaching Jesus the way that many people do, they interview Jesus, they come to him and say, "Look, Jesus, I'm looking at you. Yes, your miracles are quite impressive, and your teaching is quite remarkable." I'm impressed by that, but look, what I'm really trying to work out, Jesus, is if having you is going to be advantageous in my life, so Simon puts it in this way, "Look, Jesus, I want you in my life, but do I really have to change? I want you in my life, but do I really have to change my position towards God? Do I really have to change my goals? Do I really have to change my ambitions? I want your peace and your power, but I don't want the change. Do I have to do this? See, Simon comes at Jesus and saying, "Look, Jesus, I'd like your help, but I'd also like to keep my position." And the woman on the other side, she's something totally different. The authority in the woman's life is not a self, but it's Jesus. How do we know that? She lets herself go. She loses control. She lets her hair down. Look, even though it wasn't culturally acceptable back then, but even we know it today, look, if in the movies a woman lets her hair down, if there's a good relationship, we know we're going to be moving up to a saucy scene and we better press the fast forward button. If it's a horror movie, and she lets her hair down, normally it's darkness and there's a guy around the corner with some knife, letting her hair down means vulnerability. She was vulnerable. All these people were watching her do this incredible thing. She lost control of her life, and here's why she understood who he was. Jesus, if you are really who all these people out on the street corners have been saying that you are, if you really are the Son of God, if you really are the ultimate authority of the universe, then I've just got to have you in my life. I'll do whatever I can do to have you in control in that sense. My agendas go to the side. It's like the story of a six-year-old boy that wanted to be a basketballer when he grew up. He said, "I want to be a basketballer when I'm 25." I want to be a basketballer when I'm 25. I just don't want to kiss girls. Think about it. Isn't that how all six-year-olds think? When you grow up, you're just a six-year-old in a 26-year-old body, and Simon thought exactly the same. He thought, "Jesus, I'm going to encounter. I want you to grow me up, but I want all who I am as six-year-old Simon just in the life of God." He didn't understand that to encounter Jesus, to not only approach Jesus, but to make that commitment to him meant to totally lose control of like the woman, "Look, how did the woman lose control?" And the astute ones go emotionally, "Durh, she was crying." Yeah, okay, she lost control emotionally, but there was something deeper than that, something much deeper than that. That's all got to do with the flask. Anything? Where do you get the flask from? You see, the NIV translated it as, "She came with an alabaster jar." I was picturing, I don't know about you, but she comes in to this party and the public would have been allowed into this party because if a great teacher was teaching, the whole public in the street would be welcomed into the home to listen to him, stand at the side of the walls and listen in on the teaching. And I always envisaged that she just bought a Vegemite jar full of nice-smilling stuff, and that she brings that in and she cries at his feet and she undoes the yellow lid and pours it over his feet. But the NIV doesn't quite translate it the way it should be. You see, the new revised standard version talks about it as a flask, and quite literally the commentators say it probably was a necklace, probably a necklace full of a beautiful smelling perfume. Now, let's start piecing the pieces together. This was a woman of the city. What would that necklace have represented for her? The men would have smelt it as they walked through the alleyways of Jerusalem. They would have felt the allure of this gorgeous scent coming after a long day. It would have been the thing that began to turn their heads and to make them have a second look and to draw them closer and closer and closer in. You see, the flask was more than just a bit of perfume. The flask was her identity. The flask was her job. The flask was her power. And so what's happening here? When she takes this flask, what's happening? When she comes in and lets the hair down and she takes this flask off a neck, some commentators say that you'd even maybe need to break the neck of the flask in order to pour this out in this way. What she's doing when she takes the jar and pouring over her feet, over Jesus' feet. It's a totally different change in her life. She was changing her direction for her to take the tools of the trade off her neck and pour it on his feet says, "Jesus, now I've got a better use for this perfume." She's saying, "Jesus, you're now the authority in my life." She's saying, "Jesus, you're in control." Don't you see, whether we realize or not, we all wear flasks around our neck. We all have at least one necklace around our neck. We all have something that is our identity and our sense of self and our lure and our power. We all carry our own neck. Unless you're this morning, this week, willing to take that off, break the neck of it and pour it at the feet of Jesus this morning, you're still Simon, you're still in control. You think, "How do I know that I'm in what's in control of it? How do I know what the authority in my life is?" Look, here it is. What you struggle to take off your neck and pour at the feet of Jesus is what is the true authority in your life this morning. Instant jobs, careers, finances, sense of status, that's your real authority. Now, the question is, how do we become like her? How do we throw caution to the wind, losing inhibitions, become like her in this way? How did she do it? Look, it's why Jesus tells the story. He tells the story of two debtors, right, which I thought is quite appropriate for our church context. I used to be an accountant, so I related to this very well, and he tells this short little story, two men owned money to a certain money lender, one owed him 500 denari, which is about 10 months worth of wages, and the other 50, which is about one month's worth of wages. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, and so he cancelled the debts of both. Now, which one of them will love him more? And still in, Simon's still in, Simon's going, this is great, a case study, it's like a Harvard Business School case study, it's great, and he's snapped straight back, oh, yes, the one that owed him more, of course, I suppose, and Jesus goes great, you've answered correctly, but here's the thing, the guy answers correctly, and there's no change in his life. One comes in cold and indifferent, and he leaves cold and indifferent in this story. Why was there no change? Because that's not how it's supposed to work in the parables of Jesus, right? I always say to people, the parables of Jesus, they're like truth, metamucil, Jesus delivers these stories in pill form, he delivers the truth, and then three days later they explode inside you, clean you right out. It's so, Simon swears it, but it goes right through him, doesn't clean him out, cleans her out, big time, tears the whole lot, look, why wasn't he changed by this story? I don't know about you, but I visualise here that Simon's hearing this story, and we've done this right. You know, when someone's talking to you, and he's hearing the story, and he's engaged with Jesus, he's listening, but out of his peripheral vision, he can still see her. In his mind, he's going, yep, 50 denary, 500 denary, yeah, that's her. I'm hearing you, Jesus, but the story's for her, mate. You see what's going on? Simon totally missed the point. Simon does what we do. We see ourselves as 50 denary person, if we did, people as if we did admit, right? We hear these stories, and we go, yep, you know what, in order to be a Christian, it's for the really, really bad people that need it, for the sinful people that need it. The ones whose lives are out of control, but my life's in control, I don't need it. And so therefore, of course, yep, the people that really need you, forgive us, love you a lot, Jesus. But Simon didn't get the point, Jesus is saying the exact opposite, look, let me translate to a modern day parable. I said the accountant in me is just wanting to burst out here. And look, imagine you go to the insolvency accountants on Kent Street this week. You go tomorrow. He takes your ledger. He adds it all up. He says you've got $10 million worth of debt, and I've looked at all your assets, and the good news is that you've got $9,999,999 worth of assets. Do the math. What's his net equity position, your accountants, negative $1. And when they take all the files to the courtroom and they stand before the judge, it doesn't matter whether they owe $10 million, or negative $1, they're still bankrupt. And Simon missed the point, Simon's thinking, I've got $900,000 worth of assets here. She needs the most. She's been racking up all the debts. And Jesus goes, you've missed the point, neither of them could pay the debt back. Let me put it another way. Imagine that tonight you go home, you fall asleep. This would be tragic, but a spider nicks you on the side of the arm. Very poisonous spider, deady long legs if you had teeth. Poisones you and you fall asleep for all eternity. You die. Or, in contrast, imagine someone comes in and hacks you to death with a machete in all about 1,000 pieces. Question, which person's more dead? You see, one's pretty dead, one's ugly dead, but they're both dead. And so that's what Jesus was saying about Simon and this woman. You missed the point, Simon. You think you're pretty dead, but you're still dead. And that's the challenge Jesus says to us this morning, whether you are intensely religious or intensely irreligious, you're just as lost and you're just in need of a savior. You see, the difference is religious people try to be their own saviors by racking up as much as they can back towards that debt. Irreligious people think, I'm such a lost cause, I'm just racking up the debt and I'm going with it anyway, but neither can pay it back. And so in that sense, they're both lost, they're both still sitting, they're both as dead. And look, here it's the thing, it shows us the nature of sin and churches have gone through a period, particularly in the 90s, where we didn't want to say the "S" word in church, because we were worried that we would offend people, and it's because society and friends like yours and mine, we have a different definition for sin. You see, how does the world think of sin, definitionally? They think good deeds versus bad deeds. They think good people versus bad people. They think small lies versus big lies, they think small debts versus big debts. But sin's not that at all, sin's the inability to pay it back, sin is the, sin's almost like the bottom line of the Bible. Do you want a headline here? This morning, I could sort of summarise the Bible for you, so you don't have to read the whole lot. If you just want the top level, prasey synopsis, basically it says, the Bible says there is a God and you're not it, there is a God and you're not it. And so sin is not good deeds versus bad deeds, sin is just the desire to want to be God, to be your own authority, the way that Simon wanted to be his own authority here. But here's the problem, when you're in your own God, you still can't pay back the debt. Someone's got to pay, if the legislature's like that, someone has to pay. Look, let me put it another way, I shared with the night congregation the other week. Imagine that you're going to someone's place for a dinner, you've got your nice little sandwiches and some desserts under your arm, you walk into their lovely foyer and you go past a sideboard and you knock this beautiful looking vase and it teeters and all of life goes in slow motion, you know what it's like, as you watch this thing, teeter and teeter and it falls off the sideboard and it smashes into a thousand pieces on the floor and you're shocked. And what's the first thing you should say to them, I'll pay you back. I'm so sorry, I'll pay you back. You begin to pull out the wallet and then you hear them say, look, I'm sorry, but that was my great, great, great, great grandmother's vase from the Napoleonic Wars and it's priceless. I appreciate the gesture but you can't fix this. What happens? You see, forgiveness is only effective unless someone pays. Either you pay or if you can't pay, the owner, the creditor's got to pay in that sense and so Jesus in this wonderful story, can't you see the Simon religion, Simonality, Simonality spends all of eternity on this side of eternity running around with little bits of superglue and blue tack and sticky tape and standing in the foyer trying to piece all this thing back up together knowing that we'll never get it entirely right and never get it back to the condition that we're doing and yet Christianity on the other side has an owner and an accreditor who's sitting down with his Mersey Valley cheese and his legs crossed in the lounge room and he's saying, friend, for crying out loud, please come in for dinner. What the difference between Christianity and religion? Friends what of the wrongs? Look, if we dare to look deep enough inside ourselves this morning, no matter how big or how small, we can't pay back. What do we do with that? What do we do? That's what leads to the two different actions as we finish off here tonight. Simon, Simon was indifferent, he swallowed the pill and it didn't work itself out in him. The woman, she had an action of love. She saw the truth of Jesus Christ and love and grace exploded in her life. Look at this verse 47, "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven for she loved much, but the person that has been forgiven, that all loves little." Simon leaves cold and indifferent. She leaves exploding with love and forgiveness. Why? It's the verse 49 that follows up with us here, it says, "The other guests began to say amongst themselves, 'Who is this who even forgives sins?'" They're saying, "Who can forgive sins? Who can repair that debt? Who can pay that debt back?" They're not actually saying it in that sense. See, they know what Jesus is saying here. They've heard the story, they've heard the debtors. They see the two debtors, Simon and the woman there, and they look to the creditor and they say, they see him forgiving sins and they're outraged because they're saying, "Who are you to play creditor, the great creditor of the universe?" And you see, that's why Simon leaves cold, uninterested, unchanged, and she leaves transformed because she recognized Jesus as the great universal creditor. She recognized, that's why the tears flowed, that's why the hair was let down, that's why all of this happened before Jesus had to say, "Your sins were forgiven." She understood who he was and it spilled and exploded out of her. And so here's the thing, here's a great principle out of this this morning. It's a remarkable principle that your ability to love people and to forgive people in your life will be deeply proportional to how deeply you see your own sinfulness but more importantly how much you rejoice in your forgiveness. And so in that way, Simon didn't see it, he didn't see himself like, he was a 50 denier eye type person. And she explodes, look, why does that principle work? How does that work in the practical life look? If someone's wronged you, if someone wrongs you tomorrow in a relationship and you see them as a 500 denier eye person and you see yourself as a 50, you're going to be thinking, "You know what, Lord, this person needs a lot of forgiveness. They really need your help this morning but I, on the other hand, I haven't racked up that much of a dent." And in that sense you begin to feel superior to that person and you can never let it go because they owe you. But you see what the gospel does, you see what the gospel does, what Jesus is saying here, when you understand that whether you're a $1 or $1 million person, whether you're a 50 or a 500 denier eye type person, if both of you and the person that's wronged you have no ability to pay the universal wrong back, then how are you any better than that person and it humbles you? That's the power of the gospel. That's the difference, friend, do you struggle with love and forgiveness of other people? More importantly, do you struggle with the love and forgiveness of yourself? Look at this woman, nothing within her, everyone knew the reputation that she had, how could she ever find love and forgiveness for herself? Because she wept and she poured out her power and control at the foot of the only one who can give that back to her. And so friend, if that is you this morning, you can have that explode in your life. You can receive Jesus Christ through faith this morning, we're going to three minutes time, we're going to be praying, you can receive Jesus Christ this morning, but most importantly for many of us here, maybe some of you have come this morning, friends invited you, you're approaching Jesus, you're hearing, you go in a headspace on him, interviewing him. The question I just got to ask this morning, can you spot the difference? It's the difference between religion and Christianity. It's the difference between Simon and the woman, friend, which one do you have this morning? Here's how you tell, here's how you tell if you've got religion or Christianity, first and foremost, how do you approach Jesus? Do you want to keep him at arms length this morning or do you want to receive him as your savior? Do you want to stay headspace with him or are you going to give him all your heart? Are you going to be reserved or are you going to throw all inhibitions out this morning? Are you going to go in cold and come away transformed? What's only going to happen if you also ask yourself the question, who is the authority in your life, friends, what flask are you wearing this morning? We've all got it. The only way that Jesus expects you to encounter him is to break the neck of that thing and apply it at his feet. To the Christian, his love and forgiveness flowing from your life like this woman, is that true this week is there, unreconciled differences. I understand, look, forgiveness, we could do four weeks on forgiveness. It's a tough topic. It's a tricky topic. Can I give you a seed somewhere to start? If you're struggling to love and forgive, look at the woman. Look at the way that she gave up her inhibition and the way it led into joy. Look at the truth of the gospel, lived out in her. The Bible is not about principles. It's the gospel. The gospel is, if you'll just relinquish a little bit of your insignificant power over to him, you'll receive an incredible one back that will transform you. Which part of the gospel are we not getting? What part of the gospel do we need to reapply to our lives this morning, Christian, non-Christian? Can you spot the difference?