David Hughes - Collectors

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house. So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on 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, teacher, he said. Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more? Simon replied, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven. You have judged correctly, Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, do you see this woman? I came into your house, you did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little. Then Jesus said to her, your sins are forgiven. The other guests began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? Jesus said to the woman, your faith has saved you, go in peace. What a great passage, man, I love.

Put your hands together for the Word of God, man, the Word of God. We love to study that wonderful record, that book. So glad you're here. If you're a guest, I want to jump right into the conversation. But first, a word to the men. Man up. Next weekend, it is man weekend at Church by the Glades. It is literally one of the best services, guys. We do all year. You do not want to miss it, whether you're a father or not. We celebrate all things godly and testosterone next week at Church by the Glades. So it's a manly weekend. So if you don't show up, we'll make assumptions about you, my brother, because the manly men will be here next weekend. So don't miss, I'm telling you, it's one of the most fun weekends. Put your hands together, guys, if you're going to be here. Ladies, encourage those men, bribe them, give them some extra love and gifts. All right, so that's next weekend. I want to jump into the conversation as we, I want to explain that great story found in Luke chapter 7. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Luke chapter 7. Hobbies. Let me use hobbies as my intro. I think hobbies are a good idea. If you have a hobby you love and you spend maybe like me too much time and too much money on your hobby, make some noise right now. Make some noise. I think hobbies are kind of good for your head. They're healthy. Good, good distraction.

I like a good hobby. Collectors. Do I have any collectors in the house? Anybody collect anything? A few people. Okay. Okay. Yes, very excited about your collection. I'm curious. What is your collection? What? Lilo and Stitch. That's a brilliant thing to collect. I love it. I love a Disney fan. That's perfect. That's perfect. We have people in the church who collect things. Like I used to know a guy who went to our church, had a car collection, had dozens of classy cars. Wow. Very, very wealthy guy. Cars, it's a hard thing to collect. I collect Hot Wheels for me. It would be more of the thing. Let's see. Charlie, my son. young preacher collects manuscripts of other pastors. He has their handwritten copies. Pastor Stephen, and Christine Kane, and some dead guys as well.

That's a cool thing to collect. One of our staff guys collects Star Wars memorabilia. Has a whole room full of Star Wars stuff. I don't judge. Different kinds of hobbies out there. I have a friend of mine, this is very popular, and he collects trading cards, like sports trading cards, baseball cards, football cards, and old cards. They've always been very valuable, but he told me, man, the market on trading cards, sports trading cards, has gone crazy in recent years, where he gave me examples like Mr. Wonderful of Shark Tank paid $12 million, Heather, for a Michael Jordan card. Michael didn't play in the 1800s, he just played in the 80s, right? Gosh, man, I thought, so I started thinking about the fact I collected football cards as a kid, and when I first began collecting football cards, an older guy in the neighborhood sold me some of his cards, so he's an older kid than me, but when I got home, my dad said I got ripped off, because he sold me his old cards, belonged to his dad probably, but now the old cards are the most valuable cards, so I'm just thinking, I know where those cards are, I've taken good care of those cards, that looked at them in decades, right? I thought, I'm gonna go home, Probably got treasures in there.

So I went to look at my card collection, and if you're a fan of sports history, you might recognize, I found a Gale Sayers. Gale Sayers still holds the record. Chicago Bears for the most touchdowns scored in a game. Dolphin fans, a great Dolphin quarterback from the past. You're thinking Marino, Bob Greasy from the 70s. I found, wow, I found all kinds of great old cards. Y'all like Peyton Manning, Eli Manning sports fans. I got their daddy, Archie Manning, played for, yeah, that's an old card. I was so excited, I thought they're worth so much, and so I sent a picture to my friends, said, nah, they're all kind of trash, not that valuable. But I found one, I found one. You might have heard the New York Knicks won the NBA Finals last night. Go Knicks. We got a lot of New Yorkers in the fans. Now, I like the Knicks, I'm a Heat fan, but I like the Knicks. But as a good Dolphins fan, there's one New York franchise we love to hate on, the New York Jets. Do I have any Jets fans in the house? I have a Jets fan, we love all kinds of people. Listen, they're getting booed here in church. It's awesome. Listen, Dolphins fans have a very little to brag about in recent years, but the Jets fans, oh my gosh, the Jets. You guys are still living off of Super Bowl III. It's Super Bowl 61 this next year, Super Bowl III.

But the greatest Jet from back in the day was a guy named Joe Namath. I found in my collection a 1969 Joe Namath card. It's not his rookie card, but 69 is the year y'all won a Super Bowl way back when. And I thought, this one, oh my gosh, this one's gonna be so valuable, this one. Oh wow, Zane's going to Harvard. I found a Joe Namath. And he was, if you don't know, a little extra, he was the first sports celebrity to be famous outside of sports. And a lot of sports people recognize, well, the general population recognized Broadway Joe. He was a big deal, got the biggest contract in the history of sports, 400 million, no, 400,000 back in the day. But he was a big deal, so I just knew this card. I actually looked up online, so it wasn't worth millions or something, but I saw in good condition, this card is worth $13,000. And mine looked pretty good, so I sent a picture to my friend. He quickly texted me back briefly, 40 bucks, 40 bucks, it's worth, it's 40 bucks. I thought the condition's not that bad. I mean, it took good care, not that bad, but that's it, because condition for these cards is a big deal. People evaluate the condition.

So if it's a 10, a Jim Mint is worth this. If it's mine, it's worth 40 bucks. But not to worry, I found a better one. I could not believe, going through my cards, I found a better one. This one, this guy is in the NFL Hall of Fame. This one was a NFL MVP. This one set records. This guy, good looking, famous, made movies. By the way, if you can guess who he is, don't be that guy, guys. Don't be that guy and shout out who this guy is. But this guy, oh my God, won the Heisman Trophy. I thought, this card is so valuable. Lisa, baby, we're going to Europe this summer. I'm gonna sell this card. I'll tell you about this card before we're done, because I want to jump into our study of Luke chapter seven. Luke chapter seven, because people grade out the condition of these cards. Are they faded? Are they creased? Are they bent? Is it missing a corner or edge? That devalues the card. Aren't you glad, Christian, that God does not grade us and compare us to each other? He's not that kind of God. So if you listen to the story beautifully read by our team, and by the way, I love our team.

I love when they read a story or a narrative from us. Like three people love the team. Thank you. We love the team. Young, sharp people on our team. We've got two people who could not be more unalike. In fact, if we were grading them out, like they evaluate sports cards, one would be, you know, he'd be near mint condition. His name is Simon. Simon was very respected, religious, a moral person, community leader. But the other one, a woman, she had some rough edges. Right, probably back in the day, pretty and pristine, but now her beauty had faded. She had some damage, had some damage. In fact, Luke, in verse 37, did you catch, didn't even mention her name, just describes her in this way. And Luke, typically the author of the third gospel, is kind and gracious, but he just describes her as a woman who had lived a. Sympathy. So a woman, you know, a nice woman, but she'd made some mistakes. So I got, you know, one guy, he's almost mint condition. He's this respected community leader, a very moral person, probably a wealthy person. But then I got this woman, and she's not gonna grade very highly.

She's a messy person. So I got a comparison. I wanna jump into this great, great story, but I gotta lay some groundwork, some foundation for you Bible scholars to understand what's taking place, because if you listen carefully to the story, this woman. comes in and anoints Jesus. So here's the question, what is an anointing? What is an anointing? When I say three, say the biblical word loudly, anointing. One, two, three. So anointing is not something we do today in the faith family. Back in that day, it was not just a religious practice, it was a social practice of anointing someone, typically with oil. In fact, Bible scholars, take some notes on your phone. There are actually two different kinds of anointing in the New Testament. One is the anointing of oil, because all the way back to the oldest parts of the Old Testament, if someone had anointed you with oil, oil signified these things. Purpose, calling, was anointed, was anointed, or something was anointed. But they would co-mingle other ingredients, like fragrance of cinnamon and fragrance of myrrh. Remember the Christmas story? Gold frankincense or myrrh. All these things that smelled really good. So it had both the perfume and the oil, and it was used for two main ideas, consecration and worship. Moses said, create this oil, you know, the Holy Spirit said, create this oil and anoint all the elements and the furniture in the tabernacle for worship. So when you see this woman anointing Jesus' feet, she is worshiping. It's a beautiful act of worship. Like, really? Worship? Where's the music? I didn't see the music. I missed the music in the story. Is there a band in the story? Is there a worship leader? Can you even worship yet? Because elevation, worship, and hill songs have not been invented. Can you worship? Yeah. Music is a great way to worship. Singing is a wonderful way to facilitate our worship. But worship is just bigger than you singing songs in church. Worship is how

you live your life. Worship is your love for Jesus. Worship is your sacrifice. Worship is your service. There are guys in orange t-shirts helping us park our cars. They're worshiping God by using their gifts. There are people taking care of our cute punk kids right now in kids ministry. They are worshiping. But this woman, she's demonstrating a beautiful act of worship. The anointing, the anointing. And by the way, this is really cool. Jesus, Jesus, his name, well, Jesus Christ. We call him Jesus Christ. Some people think that's his last name. Like he's from the Christ family, right? Joseph of Mary Christ had this little boy named Jesus. It's not his last name. It comes from the Greek, which comes from the Hebrew, Meshua or Messiah. Stay with me, people. Messiah in Hebrew translates anointed one. So it all comes together for Jesus. He has a purpose. He's calling. He's that special one. He's the one we worship. He's the one we sacrifice for, right? And then here's very important to him. I'll get into a promise, but another thing. If you read your Bible carefully, you'll notice a story about a woman anointing Jesus shows up in all four Gospels. Shows up in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Now, so you think, like, I guess it's the same story told from different points of view. That's a logical assumption, but actually, no. It's not the story of one woman. I think it's the story of at least two women doing the same thing. Because you read the accounts carefully, they don't align in certain places. So we're gonna study Luke chapter 7, but just for instance, there's another one that shows up in John's Gospel, chapter 12. In John's accounts, the only account, we get the name of the woman. Her name is Mary. That's not much help. He's like, which Mary is it? There's a bunch of Marys in the Bible. There's Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus. This is Mary of Bethany, who is the sister of Lazarus. And she knew Jesus well. She loved him much as after the resurrection of Lazarus. So it's Mary in John's Gospel, but this is a different woman here. Why? I know the context is similar, but the conversation is very different. So it's like, wait, wait, I'm so confused. Did Mary, like, imitate or rip off this other woman? Exactly. Same way things trend on TikTok or Instagram. Things trend in the church and spiritual community sometimes. I watch churches do this. I've been around

for a minute back when I was a kid in churches. We all sang, like, beautiful old songs. Every church sang hymns. These hymns have been around for hundreds of years, had great lyrics. But, you know, I wonder why. Why God only likes old music and then a few churches start doing newer songs and contemporary songs. And now almost every church sings modern songs more than hymns. So we're trending. We follow each other's example. That's OK. Back in the 7th century is the first time we have any record of stained glass being in a church. So way back then there was stained glass. Within a few decades, all kinds of cathedrals and churches had beautiful stained glass. By the way, sidebar, I think LEDs are the modern equivalent of stained glass. Stained glass would tell a story of Jesus. We can change the story every weekend. So we use this to teach and communicate powerfully the message of the Bible. So, but these things trend. So what am I saying? OK, you see someone, another Christian, and they worship well and they serve well, imitate their example. Follow their example. This story got out. This story I'm going to show you is a shocking story. It made noise. So later on, Mary follows the example of this nameless woman in chapter 7 and she interrupts a party and she anoints Jesus' feet just as a same way. You find a brother or sister who loves Jesus well and you follow their example. Amen. And quickly, if I let this go, the points of intersection are striking. In all four stories, this this act of worship, this this anointing with perfume is very generous. But the other accounts say that the cost of the perfume was a year's wages. You're not shocked enough about that. A year? How much money do you make? What's your annual salary? Think about how much you make in a year, pre-taxes. Think about how much you make in a year. She gave that much. She gave that. I mean, in fact, how much you make in a year? When I say three, I want you to shout out loud how much money you make. You don't want to do that? No, you don't. Why? Because you're, that's probably a lot of money. It's kind of awkward. In

one beautiful act of worship, she gave all that. All that. That's epic. No wonder this makes noise. No wonder people, it gives you chills thinking she was that beautifully generous. I know there was a young guy on our team a couple years ago, went to his savings and gave half of his annual salary, just just a young person to say, hey, and it wasn't somebody working at Chick-fil-A because I believe what God is doing. Beautiful. So it's expensive. It's generous. Number two, there's no ask. Not one of these women ever, whether it was two women or maybe three women who did the same thing. No one says, okay, Jesus, now I did this for you. I really need that promotion at work. I need to land that client. I'd love to make the varsity team. Hey, I'm a single like to meet somebody Lord just saying it's okay to ask God for things, but they never asked God for things. And then finally they were all criticized. They all made the Bible, not by Jesus. Jesus thought it was awesome, but they were somebody in that circle watching this, some bystander doing nothing, some bystander giving nothing. They criticize this. You're going to see in a moment, Simon criticized this. He thought this is unorthodox. It was, this is inappropriate. It wasn't. Uh, but the other stories they criticize because they think the gift is too lavish. It's too much money or the generosity is misdirected. Let me just show you quickly. We're going to study Luke chapter seven, but look when Mary does it, this is beautiful. And John chapter 12, it says, then Mary took a pint of pure Nard and expensive, by the way, Nard, Nard, Nard. That's a terrible name for a nice perfume. Nard, Nard by Chanel, right? Nard, but it's Nard, this expensive perfume. She poured it out on Jesus' feet, wiped his feet with her hair. You'll recognize all that from the

earlier account in John, excuse me, in Luke. And the house was filled with the fragrance. Isn't it funny when one person is generous, it affects all of us. When one person really worships, some of y'all, you worship. Can I tell you who sits on the front row? My biggest givers. No, no. My best worshipers sit down there. We, we kind of pick who sits on the front row because their worship is contagious. I mean, they, they, I look for people who really worship really well. Yeah. I stack the front row. Sue me. I stack the front row because their worship kind of spreads throughout the room. They, they lead in worship. So, so when people worship well, or they are generosity, if you were not in this church back in 2008, other people, their generosity paid for this room that you enjoy. So worship generosity becomes something that alters environments. It changes rooms. It becomes wonderfully viral. And so I love people who are not giving anything or even worship standing there or they're enjoying the smell of this very expensive Nard perfume. Then verse four, verse four, it's criticized. Verse four, this is, look at the screen. Verse four, but one of his disciples, dot, dot, dot, objected. Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? I mean, after all, it's a year. I get it. That kind of makes sense, right? Wait, wait, time, timeout. Excuse me. Excuse me. It's a lot of money. We've got a lot of poor people out there. We should take this money we're spending on Jesus and give it to the poor. It sounds logical. I get that. Every once in a while, you know, churches in America criticize, why do you build all these buildings and not give all the money to homeless people? Well, number one, buildings help do church. By the way, I'd argue we steward our real estate really well. I preached last weekend at a church in Orlando

had a 5,000 seat room. We could have built a 5,000 seat room and I could only have to preach once or twice a weekend, but we roll service after service after service, trying to be good stewards of our facilities. Because these things help us. Aren't you glad that someone's paying for the air conditioning? It's 95 degrees outside. Aren't you glad? I can turn it off next week if y'all don't really, thank you. So, I get the objection like, oh, you could take that money and give it to the poor. It sounds like a really generous person. We say it about each other. They're like, oh, my gosh, car collection. If I had a car collection, I would have dozens of cars. I would sell those cars and I would give the money to the poor. No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. Would you really? And maybe they give lots of money to the poor. We feed hungry people in our church. You know that every time you give, we feed orphans in Haiti every single day of the year. We provide every single meal. We pay for all their clothes, all their medical expenses. We pay for their clean water. We pay for their educational supplies and teachers. We pay you. We do that. We should do that. We should do that. But you'll see people on this, especially online. Oh, that church should that certain church that they should take all that money. Give that money. It sounds so spiritual, unselfish. But I left out put the verse back on the screen, if you will. It says, but one of his disciples objected. Can I show you which disciple it was?

Boom. Oh, Judas. So if you ever say something like that, just know this. You're not quoting Jesus. You're quoting Judas. I'll move on. I'll move on. I'll move on. We do take care of poor people. We should. But just what? Listen, just watch that critical spirit, that critical spirit. Just just pump the brakes. You don't know sometimes that you don't know. And I hate the Christians jam other Christians and churches jam of the churches. We're all in the same team. Y'all are all trying to figure out how to bring meaningful, compassionate ministry to our broken world. I got it. I got to keep moving. But man, she's she's criticized. So now let's get into Luke chapter seven properly. So I want to give you a quick, quick outline. I'll take like nine minutes on this whole thing. Three ideas, three points. Take out your phone. Take some notes. Take out your phone. Take some. I'm staring at you. Take out your phone. Take some notes on this. All right. And normally, if you're new to our church, all my points are action words or verbs or things to do. I just want to study this beautiful story with you because I think it speaks for itself. So it's obviously a comparison contrast.

You got you got, you know, Simon, who's going to grade really high. He's a good neighbor. He goes to synagogue all the time. He's memorized big parts of the Torah. He's probably not a bad guy. And then you got this poor woman. All we know about her, she's led a very sinful life. So she's going to grade kind of low. All right. So here's the comparison. Number one, one came curious. Simon, Simon is very interested in who Jesus is. Brilliant. Simon is a Pharisee. Now, later on, the Pharisees kind of hate on Jesus. Well, you know, it's kind of early in his ministry. This is not the same story as in John chapter 12. John chapter 12 happens right before the cross. This happens early on. John chapter 12 happens in Judea. This is in Galilee. They're different women, different story, right? It starts to trend. So what happens is, but Simon's trying to figure out who Jesus is. Jesus is popular. Jesus has shown up in his feed. Jesus is a good neighbor. Jesus is trending. He sees, wow, Jesus, he says amazing things. He's doing miracles. He's very popular. He does some research.

He has the right bloodline. Both of his mama's side, his daddy's side, because Jews were careful about genealogies. He's from Judah. He's a descendant of David. He's ticking lots of boxes. Simon is open-minded. He's curious. Many Pharisees already had closed off their mind to Jesus. They didn't like everything he did. But Simon is curious. If you're here and you're curious about Jesus, well done, great job, kick tires, check him out. Simon is doing firsthand personal research. He's not looking at Facebook or what someone else says about it. He's doing the research himself. This is amazing. I'm so proud of him. He is curious, but curiosity never saves anybody. It can't start and stop there. And while Simon is curious, while he comes in curious, this woman shows up desperate. She brings no questions. She brings no objections. She brings no excuses. She brings no credential, just tears and perfume. And while Simon is kind of looking Jesus up and down and sizing him up, she falls at his feet and anoints him and worships.

One's curious, one's desperate. I hate the way desperation feels, but I've learned in my life, sometimes desperation can be your best friend. Number two, Simon sees her flaws. Jesus sees her faith. Verse 37, we read, we get the requisite information required to understand her behavior. When Luke, Luke is kind. Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, just says, this is a woman who had led a sinful life. She's made some mistakes. In fact, some scholars say that idea sinful life is a synonym for the fact that we got kids in the room. She was a working girl, practitioner of the world's oldest profession, perhaps. By the way, the text, every scholar said, every commentary I read says the fact that she did that. Thank you. She did that. had said that, but that's not in the story. That's the word mentioned in the text. I hope we get to heaven. I hope she meets all the preachers who've been calling her a prostitute all these years and said, hey, sinner, I had a bad mouth. I cussed a lot like a sailor, that's what it was. Are you kidding me? We don't know, but that's the thought. But again, Luke is being gentle,

but not Simon, verse 39 on the screen. But when the Pharisee who invited Jesus saw this, he said to himself, key, 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. One more time in your most judgmental voice, ready? She is a sinner, a sinner. Simon reduces her entire existence to her most regrettable mistake. The most shameful part of her life resume. Doesn't say she's a single mom. She's been through a hard life. She works two jobs. She's been abused. Sinner. So these cards, I'm talking about these trading cards. It's not just how important the player was, it's the condition, the condition. And so if you're in these cards, again, if you're a card collector, I'm gonna get this wrong. I don't understand completely, but I guess you send it off to PSA and they grade your cards. Someone's nodding, they grade your cards. And the slightest bit of damage does you in. Like they look hard for imperfections. So this buddy of mine has one of the best cards

of all time, he has a Rookie Mickey Mantle, which is like the crown jewel of all the cards. Most valuable card, there's three 10s, that's the perfect rating, three 10s in the world right now. Not a once for sale, but it's estimated if it goes on for sale, they're worth between 30 and 50 million dollars for a baseball card. My buddy has one worth 40,000. It's graded out at a 1.5, it's still worth 40. 40,000's a lot of money, right? Until you compare it with 30 million. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Simon thinks this woman is a 0.0. Look, so you screwed up, you got some regret in your life, you've done some things wrong. The ancient world would label people, not by the, there's no name mentioned, that was common in the ancient world, right? Just think the whole stories, right? The leper, the demon possessed man, the woman caught in the act of adultery, the tax collector, the sinner. You are much more than your mistake. Aren't you glad that God does not define us by our worst chapter? Don't you do it either? Do you see the subtlety, it's nuanced in the scripture. By the way, Simon emphasizes her sin, Luke emphasizes her humanity. A woman, a woman who's made some bad decisions,

a woman who's made some regrettable choice, a woman who has sinned like the rest of us. Then quickly and finally, one walks away free and forgiven, and one just lets Jesus walk away. Dang, man, Simon was close, Simon was so close. He's curious, he recognizes Jesus is from the right family, right bloodline, he's doing miracles, he's fulfilling so much messianic anointed one prophecies. He's so close, he's so close. But again, curiosity is not what God is looking for, it's commitment, it's surrender. And so as the story continues, verse 40 after, by the way, he doesn't say in verse 39, this woman is a sinner, everybody. It says, he says it to himself. God can read your thoughts. That's the scariest thing you heard today, it is a serious thing. In case you're feeling like you're like a 9.0, you're pretty good, God reads your thoughts. God reads your thoughts, so Jesus knows what he's thinking, so he responds, verse 40 on the screen right now. Jesus answered him, Simon, I have something to tell you. Tell me to, good response. If God wants to speak, I'm open. All right, I'm not sure about it, I got questions about you, Jesus, but I'm open to hear, tell me what you're thinking. And then I won't read it, but it's a brief story

about two guys that owed money. One guy owed like a month and a half's wages, that's a lot of money, think how much money you make in six weeks. But the other guy owed 10 times that much, and the lender forgave both of those debts. Jesus said, who loves him more? Simon said, I guess the guy forgiven the bigger debt. Correct, he says, correct, he says. And then look at the nuance here, verse 44, verse 44, this is so important. Then Jesus turned, don't miss that, turned toward the woman and said to Simon, turned towards the woman, but said, he's talking to Simon, do you see this woman? I came into your house, you do not give me any water for my feet, she wet my feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, do not give me any kiss, this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You do not put oil on my head, you're like, ooh, who wants that stuff? This are the ways you would greet people in the ancient world. Everything he's describing is custom and courtesy of the ancient world. If you had a party, you would do this for everybody. This is like, wait a day, you shake hands, high five, chest bump somebody. In the ancient world, you would do these things.

Water for their feet, roads were dusty, anoint their hair with this perfume. And he did none of that, but the woman did it. Verse 47, therefore I tell you her many sins have been forgiven, for she loved much. For he who has been forgiven little loves little. That was shocking, it gets more shocking. Verse 48 on the screen right now. Then Jesus said to her, your sins are forgiven. Crowd stunned when he said that. And then just to go ahead and wrap it up a little more, verse 50, Jesus said to the woman, your faith has freed. She walked away free and forgiven. She walked away qualified for heaven. She, oh my gosh, Jesus is claiming divine authority to forgive sins. That is epic, that is powerful, that is so big. And it begs to me the theological question. Do you think Simon did his own cooking for this? Do you think Simon cooked for this big dinner? Do you think Simon, Quincy, you're a chef, do you think he cooked? Because there's a lot, because Jesus is not a plus one. He's a plus 12 when he shows up, right? Do you think Simon or Mrs. Simon did the cooking in the kitchen? I don't think so. I think he's a community leader. I think he's probably wealthy. I think he hired a caterer.

So I was thinking to myself, because when I read the Bible, I think things like this. I wonder what conversation the caterer had after the dinner when he got home to talk to his wife. Hey, honey, I'm home. Oh my gosh, baby, this was the craziest dinner party I've ever, ever catered. Who was the client? Simon, Simon the Pharisee. No, he didn't tip. He's the cheapest guy in town. He's so rich, he didn't tip. And in fact, I tried to convince him to buy our A package. I think our guests deserve the greatest hospitality, you know, with the water and the warm towel and the annoying, but he only opts for the basic package, just the bare minimal. And here's the crazy thing, crazy thing, who came, who came? That young rabbi from Nazareth, he was wonderful. Everything we're hearing about him is true. He's so wise and kind and amazing. I mean, the wisdom rolling off his lips, but that's not the crazy part, honey. Right when the entrees were wrapping up, just before dessert, a gate crasher. This woman comes in, this poor broken woman, and she falls down behind Jesus, begins to cry. The tears are touching his feet. Then she takes her hair, starts wiping his feet, anointing his feet with her tears.

I don't know if that's appropriate, probably not. But it was beautiful and kind of sad. And then, and then old Simon, he said, Simon said something, I couldn't hear what he was saying. He said, I don't know, maybe he said, maybe he just thought, I don't know. And that rabbi, he shut old Simon down hard. I've been wanting to clap back at that cheapskate, that arrogant, self-righteous man for years. And then, and then, honey, he did this. He did this, he did this. Michael, you're gonna be Simon the Pharisee. Stay right there. Lisa, you're the sinful woman, Lisa. Sorry, it's my wife. You're the sinful woman. He's talking to Simon, but instead he turned towards the woman. He's correcting Simon, but he's, and she can't even look at him. Jesus turns his back on the self-righteous and his face to the broken woman. And he corrects Simon, he tells a story. And everything he says to him, he speaks to her. And when she finally lifts up her gaze, he says, your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Because you have value and God made you. And guess what, Simon, you have value and God made you.

You have choices. Listen, we're all flawed. You're thinking, man, I don't know if I really need this stuff. I'm pretty moral, I'm a nice neighbor. I kind of pay my taxes. We all fall short. We all have damage. That card, that card, that card, that card. That card that's gonna be, Zane's going to Harvard because I have this card. This guy, this guy, and to give you context, he's a great running back. Great running back from back in the early 70s. Just before him, Jim Brown was a great running back. His card goes for $300,000. Right after him, Walter Payton was a great running back. His card goes for like $50,000. And I thought, oh my gosh, this guy's better. This guy, Hall of Fame member, set records, five-time pro bowler. This card right here, it's his rookie card. It's his rookie card, that's the best card to have. He won the Heisman Trophy. It's gonna be worth so much money. But sadly, in my collection, I found the card of O.J. Simpson. Yeah, if you don't know who O.J. is, Google him. I just say it's not good, it's not good. I'll avoid the controversy of the.

decision in the mid 90s. But in the early 2000s, he was convicted for assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping and all that went to jail for a while. So I'm just saying, but the crazy thing is compared to those other guys, a mint condition OJ cards worth about $900, not bad, but mine's a negative two. Mine's terrible and bad condition. No one's going to college on this card. And the crazy thing, if you were a fan of football back in the day, you loved OJ. I know if you're not a Gen X, you won't understand. We, he was great. He was good looking. He's in movies. He's on Monday night football. He's a great athlete, had a ton of charisma, nice looking guy. We, I remember the whole thing went down to the nineties at first. Like, Oh no, poor OJ. Oh gosh, OJ. Right? Uh, so first impressions can be wrong. Simon looked amazing. The woman looked messy. She walked away forgiven. More than that, Messiah means anointed one. Isn't it crazy who God the father chose to anoint the anointed one. John baptized Jesus, did not anoint the anointed one. The disciples followed Jesus, did not anoint the anointed one. The people cheered Jesus, did not anoint the anointed one. Peter walked on water, did not anoint the anointed one, but he chose a messy person, a broken person, a flawed person, ragged edges. This anonymous woman, a sinner to anoint the anointed one. God can choose and use us. If you surrender to God's purposes, you're not too messed up. You're not too young. You're not too old to say yes to God's purpose in your life. You are anointed in Jesus name. I think God has a plan and a mission for your life. Embrace everything my God has for you. Amen. Amen. Amen.