David Hughes - Coleccionistas

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the house of the Pharisee and reclined at the table. A woman from the town who had lived a life of sin knew that Jesus was having dinner at the house of the Pharisee, so she came with a jar of alabaster, full of perfume, and she stood behind him and began to cry and wet her feet with her tears. Then she washed them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume over them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is, that she is a sinner. Jesus answered him, Simon, I have something to tell you. Tell me, Master. Two people owed money to a loan shark. One owed him five hundred denarii and the other fifty. Neither of them had money to pay them, so he forgave the debt to both. Now, which of them would love you more? Simon replied, I suppose the one who had the greater debt, who was forgiven. You have judged correctly, said Jesus. Then he turned to the woman and said to her, See this woman? I came to your house and you did not give me water for my feet, but she washed my feet with her tears and washed them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, since I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. And I want to tell you that her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown, but he who has been given little, loves little. Then Jesus said to her, Your sins are forgiven. And the other guests began to say to themselves, Who is this one who forgives sins? Jesus said to the woman, Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.

What a great passage. I love it. Let's applaud the word of God. And here we have a wonderful record. And I'm glad you're here, if you're a guest. But first a word for the men. Man, hold on to next week in Church by the Grace. It's one of the best services we do all year. I don't know if you want to miss it with your parents or not, but we celebrate all the things of God and testosterone in Church by the Grace. So if you don't come, we're going to make assumptions about you, my brother. Because the good men are going to be here. So don't miss one of the big weekends. So ladies, encourage your men, black men, black men to come. But I'm going to jump into the conversation. I'm going to explain that great story that's in Luke 7. If you have your Bible, go to Luke 7. Hobbies. This is my intro. I think hobbies are a good idea. If you have a hobby that you love, and you spend too much time or too much money on your hobby, it makes a lot of noise. There are healthy hobbies, good distractions. There are collectors, there are collectors in the house.

Yes, very excited about your collection. What is your collection? I'm curious. What? Lilo and Stitch. I love Stitch. I'm a big fan of Disney. I love it. There are people in the church who collect things. Here was a person in the church who collected dozens of classic cars, a person with a lot of money. I would collect Hot Wheels in any case. Charlie, my son, he collects pastor's manuscripts. He is a preacher. Pastor Stephen, Christian Caine, and people who have already died. It is something very good to collect. There are people who collect things from Star Wars and have a room full of this. Different types of hobbies. But mine, this person who has cards. I collect baseball or football cards. But this friend who collects cards told me that the market has gone crazy in recent years. For example, Mr. Wonderful

paid $12 million for a Michael Jordan card. Michael didn't even play in the 1800s, but in the 1980s. And I was collecting football cards as a child. And I started collecting these football cards and I met someone in the neighborhood, someone who sold me his cards. Someone older. And when I got home, my dad told me that those cards were given to him by his dad. And I have taken care of these cards and I have had them for decades. and I probably have treasures there. So I went to look at my card collection and if you're a fan of sports history, I've got the Gale series, which still has a record, Jeff Bezos from the most touchdowns in the game, Bob Mann, I've got a former quarterback, Bob Greasy, and I've got all kinds of great cards, people like Peyton Manning, Neil Pate, the Sports Fans, I've got Arshad, Arshad Banning from his dad, I've got a very old card,

and we've got something, so I sent a picture to my friend and he said, what a piece of crap, it has no value, but I found one, maybe you've heard of the Knicks with the NBA Finals last night, and we've got a lot of New Yorkers and the fans, I love the Knicks, I'm a heap fan of the Knicks, I'm a huge fan of the Dolphins, from a New York franchise, the Jets, there are fans of the Jets here, we love all kinds of people, and this is very good, the fans of the Dolphins are like that, but the fans of the Jets, wow, they are really the greatest Jets in the world, and the greatest Jet was someone called Joe David, and from 1969,

here I have the card, and he, since then, when I said this, this is going to be so valuable, I said, same, go to Harvard, with this card, and he was the first celebrity of sports, and a lot of sports people in the world of sports recognize him, and it was a great thing, he had the best contracts, 400,000 for then, but it was a great thing, so I saw this card, I looked it up online, to see if it was worth millions or something, and I saw that in good conditions, it costs $13,000, and it looks good, and I called my friend, and he texted me, $40, $40, I thought the condition was not that bad, but the condition

for these cards, is something very important, people evaluate the condition, so, if mine, is worth $40, but no, I found a better one, this one, is in the NFL Hall of Fame, this guy is a NFL MVP, this guy is a record, this guy, good looking, famous, if you guys don't know who he is, but this guy, won the Heisman Trophy, Lisa, we're going to Europe this summer, I'm going to sell this card, but before we finish, I'm going to tell you, because I want to jump to Luke 7, our chapter, because people evaluate the condition of these cards, if they are blurry, if they are broken,

if the edges are good, and are you guys happy, Christians, that God doesn't evaluate us, and doesn't compare us to each other? It's not that kind of God, I love my team, and the people that love the team, there are like three here, thank you, because we love the team, and they are very different, they are like the cards, some would be in different conditions, like in the story, Simone was a leader, and had a very good condition, but the other one, was a woman, and probably back then, she was pretty, but her beauty was damaged, and in fact Luke, they don't even say her name, in verse 37, they describe her like this, but they describe her as a woman who had lived a sinful life.

So a woman, a good woman, but she had made some mistakes. So God, this man, is respected, a leader, a person of high moral, probably with money, but this is the woman, she's not going to grade very high, she has a disastrous life. So I'm going to compare this with this great story, but again, I'm going to lay some ground, because if you listen carefully He comes in and anoints Jesus, so here's what anointing is. to the story, the woman, When I say three, say the biblical word, anointing. and the man, One, two, three, anointing. So anointing is something that we do today and back in the day. It was not just a religious practice, it was a social practice. Anointing someone, typically with oil. The scholars of the Bible take notes. There were two types of anointing. One was anointing with oil because in the Old Testament it was anointing with oil. It was a purpose thing. It was anointing when something had been called.

And there were other ingredients in the oil, like the fragrance of myrrh, cinnamon, as you remember in the story. All of these things. But both the perfume and the oil were used for two main ideas, consecration and worship. Moses had created this oil, the Holy Spirit had created this oil and anoint all the elements of the tabernacle with oil. And so this woman, when she's anointing Jesus, she is worshiping him. It's a beautiful act of worship. Where's the music in the story? Is there a band in the story? Is there a worship leader? But if it hadn't been invented by Elevation Worship, if it hadn't been invented by Elevation Worship, Lee Hinson, yes, music is a great way to worship. Songs are something that facilitates worship. But not only that, but worship, the way you sacrifice yourself, the way you live your life, your service, that's worship. There are people in orange shirts who are helping to park our vehicles. That's their worship to God. There are people in orange shirts right now in ministry, they are worshiping. But this woman, she's doing a beautiful act of worship. The anointing of the Holy Spirit.

By the way, this is really cool. She names Jesus. Her name was Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Some people think it's her last name. It's her last name, right? It was the last name of the Holy Spirit. It was the last name of the Holy Spirit. She got her last name. It comes from the Hebrew word, Meshua or Messiah. Messiah in Hebrew translates anointed one. So it all comes together for Jesus. He has a purpose. His name is the special, the one we worship, the one we sacrifice. But if you read the Bible carefully, you'll notice a story about a woman who anointed Jesus. It shows up in the four Gospels, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Now, so you may think it's the same story from different points of view. It's a logical assumption, but it's not. It's two people who did the same thing. And if you read it carefully, it doesn't align in different places. So we're going to study Luke 7. But just for interest, there's another woman who you see in the Gospel of John, chapter 12. And in the recount of John,

she gives us her name. Her name is Mary. She helps. Juan is Mary. There's so many Marys in the Bible. Magdalene is the mother of Jesus. This is Mary of Bethany, who was the sister of Lazarus. And she knew Jesus well. She loved him a lot. And after the resurrection of Lazarus, there's Mary in the Gospel of John. But there's another woman here, because the context is similar, but the conversation is very different. So let's see. This is very confusing. Mary imitated this other woman. Yes, exactly. The same things that are trending on TikTok or on Instagram, things trend in the spiritual communities. We've seen churches do this. We've also seen churches do this. There are churches where we sing hymns or old songs with big lyrics. And you wonder why. Why can't we like the old music? And then a few years later, there are churches that are doing contemporary songs

or newer songs. And other churches, they're following trends, they're following examples. And that's okay. But back in this century, there was a record of this type of stained glass in churches. Stained glass was very beautiful. And now we think that LEDs are the modern equivalent of this. As they tell us in the story of Jesus. We can use this to communicate powerfully the message of the Bible. But what I'm saying to you is that you see some other Christian and they worship well and they serve well. Imitate their example. Follow their example. This story that I'm showing you is a story that made a big impact. So later on, Mary follows the example of this woman in chapter seven. And she goes to the party and she winks Jesus in the face. But do you find a brother or sister, your brother or sister, who is well and you follow their example? And I don't think so. So let's go.

The points of intersection are striking. In all the stories where you see this act of worship, this ointment with perfume is something very generous. But in the other story, it says that the cost of the perfume was a year's wage. We're not talking about this, a year's wage. How much money do you make? What is your annual salary? How much do you make in a year before taxes? She gave that amount. How much do you make? When I count to three, you're going to shout, how much money do you make? No, you don't want to do that. Why? Because that's a lot of money. You're going to hear it. And in one beautiful act of worship, she gave all that. That is something epic. No wonder people, I hear you, no wonder people, I hear you, because that was done in a beautiful, generous way. I know a young guy on our team who was saving half of his annual salary. And he was working at Chick-fil-A. And he said, I believe in what God is doing. Something beautiful. It's something expensive. It's something generous.

Number two, none of these women ever had a request. No one says, oh, Jesus, I did this for you. I need something from you. I need a job. I'm single. I need something. It's okay to ask God for things, but they never asked. And finally, they were all criticized. Not by Jesus, but they were all criticized. But someone in that circle that was watching them, someone who was not doing anything, who was not giving anything, they criticized this. Because Simone criticized this, and this was unorthodox. It was inappropriate. But the other story says that the gift was too much, that it cost too much money. Let me just show you quickly. We're going to study Luke chapter seven. But look at what Mary does. This is beautiful in John chapter 12. It says, then Mary took a pint of pure nardo, getting expensive. By the way, nardo, not nardo. That's a terrible name, nardo, for a perfume, or nardo, for Chanel. No, but it was a perfume. And she poured it on Jesus' feet. Wiped his feet with her hair. You'll recognize what happened in Luke chapter 12. And then the house was filled with the fruit of the fruit

of the perfume. And when a person is generous, it affects all of us. When a person really worships, some of you worship. I'm going to tell you what's in the front row. Those are the best worshipers. We kind of pick you because your worship is contagious. I mean, I look for people who really worship well, and they stack the front row, and I stack the front row, because their worship is contagious. They lead in worship. So, if you don't worship well, or they are generous, if you weren't here in 2008, other people's generosity paid for this hall that you enjoy. So, generosity becomes something that alters the environment, that changes the halls. It becomes viral, I will say. And so, those who are not getting anything that gets in there, are they enjoying the scent of this Nardo perfume? But in verse four, here's the criticism. It says, because one of the disciples objected, why wasn't this perfume sold, and he gave the money to the poor? It's a year after all. I said, that makes sense. He said, hey, time out, excuse me, it's a lot of money. We have a lot of poor people out there. We should be taking this money, which we are spending in Jesus, and giving it to the poor. It sounds logical, I get that.

And every once in a while, you know, people in America criticize, why don't they just build buildings, and they just give it to the people who don't have a home? But I think we steward our services really well. I preached at a church in Orlando last week, at a church with 5,000 people. We could do this, and I could preach once or twice a week, and we would have service after service. But we preach over and over and over again, trying to manage our facilities. These things help us, because we have air conditioning, because somebody paid for it. It's 95 degrees, and they're not happy. I could pay for it next week, if they're okay with it. So, I get the objection, like, the objection is that you can give it to the poor, and you can be conceited about each other. I don't understand, but if we listen to things, if I had a collection of cars, I would sell those cars and give money to the poor. No, you wouldn't. Really, maybe they give a lot of money to the poor. We feed poor people in our church. Every time you give, we feed orphans in Haiti. Every meal, we pay for all their clothes, all their medical expenses. We pay for their drinking water, we pay for their education, their teaching. We should do that, but people on this line, all that church, they say, this church, this church is so spiritual, I don't like it, but I love this verse here. But one of his disciples objected. Can you watch this disciple? He was Judas. So if you say something like that, notice that you're not copying Jesus, you're copying Judas. I'm going to continue, I'm going to continue. We do take care of poor people, but listen, just watch that spirit of criticism.

Just pump the brakes, because sometimes you don't know. And I don't like it when Christians really criticize other churches, and they don't have a little bit of compassion for our broken world. But now we're going to go to Luke chapter 7 appropriately. So we're going to give you a guide, maybe nine minutes here. You can take notes. Take notes about this. Normally, if you're new to the church, our guidelines are action, things to do. But this, here we have a contrast, a comparison. We have Simon, who is someone of high position, a good neighbor to the synagogue all the time. He read the Torah, probably, and he was a good person. But here is this poor woman who had a very sinful life. So here's a comparison. Number one, someone came curious. Simon. Simon was interested in who Jesus was. Brilliant. Simon is a Pharisee. And early in his ministry, this is the same story as in John chapter 12, when Jesus was going to the cross. This was in Judea. This is a different story. So what happens is that Simon is trying to figure out who Jesus is. Jesus is popular. He's been here. He's in trend. And he says, well, Jesus is doing miracles. He's popular. He does research. He looks at his mother's family.

Who is his mother, his father, his genealogy. He's Judean. He's a descendant of David. He's a man of open-mindedness and curiosity. Many Pharisees had already closed their minds to Jesus. But Simon is curious and he wants to hear about Jesus. Well done. Good job. Tick-tock. He's doing first-hand personal research. He's not looking at Facebook. He's doing his own research. He's doing his own research. This is amazing. I'm so proud of him. I'm curious. But curiosity can't save anybody. It can commence and it can stop there. When Simon gets curious, he shows up here in despair. She shows no questions. She shows no objections. She shows no excuses. It's just tears and perfume. And while Simon is kind of looking and measuring Jesus, she falls at his feet and anoints him. One is curious and the other is desperate. And I don't like how despair feels, but sometimes despair can be your best friend. Number two, Simon sees her flaws. But Jesus sees her faith.

Verse 137, we read and we get the requisite information required to understand her behavior. Luke, Luke is kind. Luke is a woman who has led a sinful life, has made mistakes. And some scholars say that the idea of a sinful life is the fact that we have children here, but she was a girl working. Practicing the oldest profession perhaps. By the way, the text, every dollar, every comment you ever made says that she did that. She did that, thank you. She did that. But that's not in the story, that's not what's mentioned in the text. I hope when we get to heaven that we meet other preachers who say, Hey, sinner, let's see. But that's the thought. Lucas being gentile, but Simon not. When the Pharisee who invited Jesus saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is. She is a sinner. Once again, with his voice of judgment, he is a sinner. Simon reduces his complete existence to the most regrettable mistake he made. The most shameful part of his life. He didn't say, she is a single mother. He didn't say, she has had a difficult life. He didn't say, she has two jobs. Or she has been abused. No, sinner. So these cards, it's not just how important he was, it's the condition in which they are.

So if you're in these cards, if you're a collector, and you send it off to PSA to get a major card, and it's damaged, and they look hard for imperfections. This friend of mine has one of the best cards. He has one of Mickey Mantle, which is like the crown jewel of all cards. And this one has three tens in the world right now. It's not for sale, but it's estimated that if it were sold, it would be worth 30 and 50 million dollars for a baseball card. But my friend has one of 40,000, it's 1.5. That's a lot of money, until you compare it to 30 million. Simon thinks this woman is a 0.0. Because she, you got some errors, you got some bad things done. In the ancient world, we label people. Not by name. It's a label. For example, the leper, the possessed man, the woman captured in adultery, the sinner. You are much more than your errors. Aren't you glad that God does not define us by our worst chapter? Don't you do it either. But I mean, see the subtlety, it's nuanced in the scripture. But what I see in Simon emphasizing his sin, Luke emphasizes his humanity as a woman who's made bad decisions, like the rest of us. Then quickly and finally, one walks away free from sin, but what does this Jesus do? He let Jesus go. Simon was so close, he was curious, he recognized Jesus, from the right family, from the right lineage, the miracles. And he was so close, but again, curiosity is not what God is looking for. It's surrender, it's purpose.

And so, as the story continues, in verse 40, by the way, in verse 39, this woman is a sinner. She didn't say it to everyone, she said it to herself. But God can read your thoughts. It's something terrifying. God can read your thoughts. God reads your thoughts. Jesus knows what you're thinking. So in verse 40, he says, Simon, I have something to tell you. Tell me, tell me, Master. If God wants to speak to me, I'm open. I'm not sure how to answer, but I'm open to hear you. Tell me what you think. And then I will read a story about someone, two people who owed money. One owed like six months of salary, and the lender forgave both debts, the one who owed a lot, and the one who owed little. And Jesus asks, who did he love more? And he says, the one who was forgiven more. And then Jesus turns to the woman, and he says to Simon, he turns to the woman, but he speaks to Simon. He says, do you see this woman? I came to your house and you didn't give me water for my feet, but she wiped my feet with her tears. You didn't give me a kiss, but she hasn't stopped kissing my feet. This is the way people used to greet each other in the ancient world.

This was courtesy and custom. You had a party, and you did this to everybody. Here, we give each other a hand, or a punch in the chest, but here it was water for the feet, a stain on the hair, but he didn't do any of that. But the woman did it, in verse 47. For this I tell you that many of her sins have been forgiven because she loved a lot, but he who has been forgiven little, loved little. So Jesus said to her, your sins are forgiven. The crowd was surprised when he said that. And then he went on and said, your faith has saved you. And she walked out of there free and forgiven. Oh my gosh, Jesus is claiming divine authority to forgive sins. And this raises a theological question for me. Do you think Simon did his own cooking? Do you think Simon went to church and did this? Because Jesus is a plus one, he's a plus 12, he shows up right. Do you think Simon or Mrs. Simon did anything? I don't think so. I don't think he was a leader in the community, maybe he hired someone's services, a cook. When I read the Bible, I think of things like this. I think of the conversation of this cook when he came back, he spoke to his wife. Hello, honey, I'm back. Oh my gosh, baby, this was the craziest dinner I've ever served.

Who is the client? Simon, Simon, the Pharisee. No, no, he didn't give me a tip, he's very stingy. In fact, I tried to convince him to buy a good package so he could have the warm water and the warm towel, but it was like the basic package. And his advice was, hey, who was that young Rabbi from Nazareth, he's wonderful. Everything we hear is true, he's wise, he's kind, he's amazing, the wisdom that comes out of his mouth. But that's not the crazy part, honey. Right when we were eating, before we were eating, before the gate closed, this woman comes and this woman came to the party, and she falls behind Jesus and she begins to cry and the tears begin to fall on her feet. And then she takes her hair and she begins to clean her feet and she cleans her feet. I don't know if that's appropriate, probably not, but it was beautiful. It was sad. And then Simon said something that I didn't hear what he said. Maybe he thought about it, I don't know. And that Rabbi, he shut old Simon down hard. Michael wouldn't clap for him because he was gay, that Eric's all right, he's all right, he's all right. And he did that, honey, he did this, he did this. Michael, you're going to be Simon the Pharisee. Lisa, you're the sinful woman. You're my wife, but you're going to be the sinful woman.

He's talking to Simon, but he turns towards the woman. He's correcting Simon, but he's looking at her. Jesus gives him the back on which he claims to be the right one Jesus gives him the back on which he claims to be the right one and he gives the face to the broken woman and everything he says to him, he says to her. And she finally lifts up her gaze and says, your sins have been forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace because you have courage and God made you. And Simon, you have courage and God made you, but you have to make choices. Do you think that he might think that he didn't need this? But we're all missing, we're all hurt. That card, that card is going to be the one that's going to make Zayn go to Harvard. This card, if we go back to the 70s, before Jim Brown, this card cost $300,000. But this one that's here cost like $50,000. And I think this guy is the best member of the Hall of Fame, records. And this card that's here is his rookie card, the best he has. He won the Heisman Trophy. It's going to be worth so much money. But sadly, my buck's not on the card of O.J. Simpson. You know who O.J. is, Google him. I just say it's not good, it's not good. I'll avoid the controversy. In the early 2000s, he was convicted for kidnapping, he was in jail for a while, but the crazy thing is that with these others, a minted Neo-Jay card was worth $900, but mine is terrible in this condition, no one is going to collect this card.

And if you are a football fan, if by then people loved him, but he was big, he looked good, he was in the movies, in football, he was a great athlete, he had a lot of charisma, he looked very good, I don't know what happened in the 90s, but the first impressions can be wrong, Simon looked very good and the woman looked like a disaster, but she came out forgiven. More than that, Messiah means anointed, it is not crazy who God the Father chose to be anointed, John baptized him, the disciples followed him, but they did not anoint the anointed, and the people who praised him did not anoint him, Peter, but God chose a broken person, disastrous, with mistakes, to anoint the anointed. So God can choose us, and you are not too young, too old, to say yes, because if you are anointed in the name of Jesus, he has a plan and a mission for your life, so what God has for you is that, amen.