Sermon Tone Analysis

“The Heart of Worship”

*Luke 7:36-50*

          This morning we continue on our topic of Worship.

Something that should affect every part of a Christian’s life.

We’ve have mentioned Way of life Worship, in all we do we should be able to worship our Lord not merely as an event but as a way of life, the way we live our lives.

Worship isn’t a plan or performance, it’s not merely the time we spend singing in Church.

Worship is a heartfelt response to our Awesome God, our Wonderful Savior; which is just what we see in our passage this morning as this woman comes and pours her worship out to our Lord

          *We’ve defined worship as our response Both personally and corporately To God – For who He is, and what He has done.

Expressed in and by things we say, think & do.*

It has been said that ~* “Prayer is most often focused on the problem” ~*“Praise most often focuses on the provision” ~*“Worship, Worship focuses on the PROVIDER”

      When it comes to Worship, the HEART of the matter is really a matter of the HEART.

Last week we saw with the Corinthian Church in how they gathered for corporate worship to celebrate the Lord’s Table they had some real Heart disease, they had some Heart issues.

Their hearts were all wrong when they came to worship together.

This morning we take a look at the story of an anonymous and otherwise forgotten woman.

Here we will see one of the most beautiful and awe inspiring pictures of true worship.

This woman really demonstrates to us that true faith cannot be hidden, and true faith shows itself in Worship, and we see a heart ready to Worship.

Now as we come to our passage let’s look first of all at the setting.

*1.

The Setting*

      One thing we want to be careful of as we look at our passage, we don’t want to confuse this event with a similar one that happened much later in Jesus ministry involving Mary of Bethany recorded in the other 3 Gospels.

This event that we will look at this morning is only mentioned here in Luke’s Gospel.

*/36 Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to /**/dine with him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.

/* \\ Now here we have our setting and background.

Jesus is invited to dinner by a Pharisee, we find out his name is Simon.

Now Simon probably had a few of his fellow Pharisees with him.

Remember, Jesus had been denouncing these Pharisees.

He said some things that they didn’t like; so it is difficult to believe that the invitation to dinner from this Pharisee was a friendly one.

Jesus said in the previous verses, vs. 33 & 34, comments directed at the Pharisees,

     */33 “For John the Baptist has come /**/eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, /**/‘He has a demon!’ 34 “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a /**/drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and /**/sinners!/**/’ /*

The Pharisees didn’t like the fact that Jesus would actually spend time with these types of people.

It made them angry in fact.

They said Jesus was A friend of sinners.

The Pharisees would only look on these people with scorn & hatred.

The Pharisee invited Him to dinner so that he could spy on Him and find something wrong with Him.

Find something to accuse Jesus of.

*2.

The Scene*

   It is also important for us to note that it says Jesus reclined at the table.

They didn’t sit around like we would if we had dinner together.

In those days they didn’t sit on chairs at the table; they reclined on couches.

So Jesus was reclining on a couch, with His feet sticking out turned from the table in back, leaning on His left arm or elbow, as He talked across the table to His host.

In the Eastern culture of that day it was customary for outsiders to hover around during banquet or dinners so they could watch the “important people” and hear the conversation.

Since everything was open, they could even enter and speak to a guest.

This explains how this woman had access to Jesus.

He was not behind locked doors.

They were not eating dinner with all the doors shut.

This would be a bit different for us but it was the custom of strangers passing in and out of a house during a meal to see and converse with the guests.

*3.

The Sinners /37 /**/And there was a woman in the city who was a /**/sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, 38 and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume.

/*

*     A.

The Unrighteous Woman*

Jewish rabbis did not speak to women in public, nor did they eat with them in public.

Women in general were treated poorly in the culture of that day.

A woman of this type would not be welcomed in the house of Simon the Pharisee.

Her sins are not named, but we get the impression she was a woman with a bad reputation, guilty of sins of the flesh.

She is certainly a person in pain.

Most likely she had endured a lifetime of sin and abuse.

\\ Her Predicament probably seemed hopeless, no way of escape.

No one would have had to argue with this woman that she was a sinner, she was unrighteous and she knew it.

*     B.

The Self Righteous Pharisee *

*/39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were /**/a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a /**/sinner.”/*

Simon was his name.

He gave Jesus the invite for dinner.

It was an attempt to test or trap Jesus.

Whereas the woman was unrighteous, guilty it appears of sins of the flesh.

Simon is self-righteous and guilty of sins of the spirit.

Often the most difficult people to reach can be the self-righteous they look around at everybody else, they say I’m not so bad, look at them look at what they are doing.

I’m not that bad.

Their attitudes give them away quickly.

They tend to look down on other people.

Look at how Simon looks down at this woman.

He is all about position and tradition.

Pride oozes out of Simon.

Self-Righteous people are often just like an Old Crow with fresh Road kill, have you ever seen how a Crow will just pick it apart, Self Righteous people are like that too, they just love to pick apart other people, they seem to really enjoy it; just like an old crow.

Now that might be a revolting illustration for you, but Self Righteous people are revolting.

Simon didn’t think this woman was worthy to be in his presence.

He was uncomfortable with her being there.

How would you feel towards someone with a known reputation coming into our midst, it they came in broken to worship with us?

Would we be shocked?

How do we view people like this woman?

Do we look at them with scorn or do we realize they are sinners in need of a Savior?

It is certainly right to hate sin, but not sinners.

We are to hate the sin, not the sinner.

Now we look at the one the Pharisees called the Friend of Sinners, and I for one I am so glad that He is, He is by far the greatest friend any sinner could ever have.

\\ *4.

The Savior*

Our Wonderful Lord here deals with both the self-righteous sinner, Simon; and the un-righteous sinner, the woman.

Christ came to save both didn’t He.* *

*/40 And Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”

And he /**/replied, “Say it, Teacher.”

/*Simon hadn’t asked any spoken question, Jesus the all-knowing Lord, knows just what he is thinking.

He knows it all.

It is quite a thing to really behold how our Lord deals with each of these people.

*/41“A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred /**/denarii, and the other fifty./*

Think on one owing you $50 and another $500

*/ 42 “When they /**/were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both.

So which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”

And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.”

/*

Now the application is obvious Simon saw himself as the lesser sinner and the woman as the greater sinner.

Simon represented by the 50 Denarii, the woman 500 Denarii.

It may be as some have remarked that the amounts may more accurately describe awareness of guilt of each of them not the amount of sin.

The woman knew she was guilty of sinning against God, but Simon the self-righteous He thought he was OK.

Yet he desperately needed to be forgiven too!