Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I want to take us on a little thought experiment.

Let us picture a person who has committed many sins in their life.

Sins such as burglary, murder, arson, kidnapping, addiction, sexual promiscuity, and many others.

Basically a person who has done everything they have ever wanted for the sheer fact of doing it.

This person has committed so many evil and wicked acts throughout their life that they seem unreachable.

They seem to be in a position where no one would want them saved even if they were to hear the gospel.

Yet this person hears a message of salvation through Christ alone and that He suffered in their stead.

They learn that what they have been doing is not only wicked against other people, but the Lord Himself.

They fear for their soul for the first time in their life when they hear the message of salvation.

They believe and have the atoning work of Christ applied to their life and they realize just what He did for them.

Now, think of the man who has lived an upright life.

He was raised in church, never killed, stole, drank or had an addiction, never slept around, or did anything to raise an eyebrow.

He was a goody goody as some would say.

Yet he hears that the only way to have life everlasting and sins washed away is by believing in Christ alone.

He wonders about this because he was raised in church and his parents are Christian.

He may think he is saved because of this.

But on one morning he hears that every person must believe in Christ for themselves to receive everlasting life and their salvation.

He believes and is saved.

Now, again, he was never evil or a criminal.

He was straight laced and really did not lose anything when he placed his faith in Christ.

His life has basically been the same.

Same friends, same places of entertainment, same hangouts, same everything except now he is a believer.

But the other guy has changed almost everything.

New friends, new places of entertainment, new hangouts, new everything because he is a believer.

He is no longer living in fear of jail or death because someone catches him in the act.

He is forgiven and has life with Christ forever.

Which one needed Jesus more?

Was it the criminal or the straitlaced man?

The answer is it is both.

They both needed Jesus just as much as the other.

Granted one was in deeper sin than the other but if neither had believed, both would be condemned because neither believed.

Today we see this in this section of Scripture.

Jesus was eating with a Pharisee when a women of sin entered and began washing His feet.

The pharisee was aghast at what was happening because of his piety and his raising in the Judaistic ways.

Yet Jesus saw what was going on and knew why the woman was there and what she was doing.

He used this time to teach an important lesson that we all need to hear time-to-time:

ARE WE PIOUS OR THANKFUL?

We see this story in Luke 7:36-50

The first thing we see is that the pharisee asked Jesus to eat with him and then a woman who is a sinner came in and began washing Jesus’ feet with tears and her hair and anointing them with an ointment.

The pharisee looks down on her and this raises the question...

How do We Look Down on Others?

(36-39)

Pharisees were the religious elite Jesus’ time on earth.

They were those who knew the law and what one was supposed to do.

They were so religious that they even added some rules to the law.

They were strict towards others and to themselves, but they made ways for themselves to bypass some of the restrictions.

Even so, they were generally very pious and devout to the law and following it exactly.

This Pharisee is different because he invited Jesus to eat with Him.

This was a change from the others because they would not do this.

Jesus eating with a Pharisee in the Pharisee’s house would be like a far-left wing person inviting a conservative to eat with them or vice versa.

It was not something that one would do to put it softly.

Yet, this Pharisee has invited Jesus to eat with him.

One commentator stated that this shows that he, “did in fact believe in Jesus (and yet had to grow in his love for Him and others)” (Alberto S. Valdés, “The Gospel according to Luke,” in The Grace New Testament Commentary, ed.

Robert N. Wilkin (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2010), 261.”

This makes sense because the text drives at the love the one forgiven has for Jesus.

Which also demonstrated why he looked down on the woman rather than being ecstatic about her love for Jesus.

We see in the text that her act of love and compassion for Jesus upset him.

He began to question in his mind if Jesus was who he said to be.

He felt that if Jesus was this righteous and holy man of God He would know who this was that was touching him and He would have not allowed her to do so.

We do not know her sins exactly, but we do know she was a sinner and one with some sort of reputation.

Some say she was she was a prostitute but the text is not clear on that.

It is clear that she was a sinner and had a known reputation (Bock, Luke, IVP Commentary).

Whatever her sins were, she knew they were bad and that Jesus was her forgiveness and salvation.

The Pharisee was disgusted and felt embarrassment more than likely.

We see his inward thoughts which placed him as pious and that sinners were icky.

He had an outward expression of praise to Jesus but his inward self shown through when he saw the woman.

He was disgusted with her.

I am sure we many times show the same disgust for people.

We see the broken and addicted and turn away in piety and disdain.

We look down on them when we should be seeking to help.

We act like this pious Pharisee more often than not when we see the “sinners” of the world.

Yet, just like the thought experiment at the beginning, we fail to see that we are all destined to the same place no matter how pious we think we are.

That is why Jesus tells this parable coming up.

He read the thoughts of the Pharisee.

Many people put much weight on this like Jesus read His mind, which is possible, but I bet the Pharisee’s face shown what he was thinking clearly enough.

Since it did Jesus then told this....

Parable of Why We Are Equal (40-43)

This parable begins with the showing that two men were in debt.

One deeper than the other, but in debt nonetheless.

They each owed a debt to someone and both needed to pay.

One owed nearly two years worth of wages while the other owed nearly two months worth.

From the parable it seems that both may not have been able to pay this debt.

Since Jesus said the moneylender forgave them and let them go without paying (Valdes, 261).

Now, the point here is not about the money but about the debt.

Jesus made clear that both were in debt.

They were not able to pay and the lender forgave.

This again goes back to the thought experiment at the beginning.

One was more thankful than the other because of what he was saved from.

This is what we see with the woman.

She knew what she was and how bad off she was.

She was extremely thankful for the salvation she had through Christ.

So much so that she did not care who saw her and what they thought she was going to praise the Lord and worship Jesus.

She knew what she had been forgiven.

She knew Jesus was the messiah and because of that her sins were nothing anymore because He had forgiven them.

The Pharisee was the clean living righteous man who still had some self-righteousness to deal with.

His life was the straight and narrow.

He was clean and pure but still needed the debt forgiven too.

He missed that part that everyone can be clean if they have the proper cleansing.

Jesus clarified that for him and showed him that all people need debt forgiveness (aka.

sin forgiven).