Transcription
Introduction
[snorts] Well, good morning. If you’d like to go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 7, we’re going to get into that here in the first part of our time together. And I’m going to go ahead and put a word on the screen that I’d like for you to see and I’d like for you to just get familiar with because that’s going to be the focus of our time together. But chances are we would claim that we know a lot about this word. If we were all given an opportunity to just talk about what we think, we all would have likely something to say.
We’ve used this word in all of our lives from the start when we were children, saying we loved mom and dad. We loved our favorite toy, stuffed animal, our pet. And so that word becomes quite a familiar household term even at a age of childhood and then we grow up and we love our spouse, we love our children, we love our friends, we love our church and we get to use the term in many of those ways and through the years a lot of us here have heard lessons pertaining to this word and knowing that it’s the English language and how we use it we then go off to say it means a lot of different ideas even though we use just one word to define it and then we jump into how the Greek language has many ideas of that word and that’s not what we’re going to do today.
Maybe another day this month with the theme being come and see Jesus the model of love. We’ll do that but not today. Getting to the idea clearly is that we can see this one word and maybe just then assume that there’s little left to learn. And that assumption is why I think today the lesson would mean so much to us is because everyone almost everyone believes that they know believes that they have truly experienced and even understand love at a level that this term is just known.
And so it’s easy for us to just come to the part of Jesus’s teaching and he addresses the description or the idea or even the model of love and then we just set it alongside ourselves as if it’s so familiar and miss the message. We encounter his teaching. He might expose something specific about how to live. Maybe you’re selective in your relationships. Maybe you’ve got something that you would withhold in order for someone to maybe not receive that love to learn a lesson.
We’re selfish maybe or even dependent of our love and how we give it with how others treat us. And so you see Jesus then addresses the core of this word and sometimes it just misses us. But what we hear often when it comes into our discussions and what we’re going to be reminded more of today is how Jesus’s disciples are characterized by love. The theme is and . We’re going to get into that towards the end of our lesson more descriptively.
But what we get is this authentic, this genuine love that Jesus is trying to teach his followers. And so for us to just stand aside and assume we’ve got it all figured out will immediately reserve ourselves from perhaps grasping everything he would have us want come to know and then follow and then live out just as he did. A lot of difficult lessons to learn but love is one of the ones that most clearly connects us to him. As a disciple of Jesus, we don’t just learn to love, we learn to love like Jesus.
And we learn to love at a standard that Jesus kept and also calls us to follow. So, what I want to do this morning is just have us all think about this, about how the love of Jesus becomes the source of everything we’re called to do as his people. And what that’s going to look like gets discussed in the scriptures that we’re going to see before us tonight or today. This idea, this standard of what love is and the evidence that Jesus brings to the scene so that everyone can see and not just feel what it means.
1. Where Love Begins: Seeing Our Debt
So in Luke 7, if you’re there, I’m going to just reference different parts instead of reading the whole section for the sake of flowing, but have your Bibles ready and I’ll reference certain sections. But Luke 7 is where we get into this first idea of beholding the love of Jesus. He’s there on a scene having a meal after being invited over to a man’s house whose name is Simon. And here we get to see before we get to hear Jesus tell us what love is, we get to recognize where it begins.
And it begins with seeing what he’s done and what he goes to show through an example. So before getting to Luke 7, I want to just throw this idea out. A lot of us in this room are well acquainted with debt. Some of us more than we’d like to admit. Some of us have had bouts with it and we hope to never be in it again. Some of us are back and forth with it. life is just turbulent and some of us use it strategically because you’re quite shrewd in your financial dealings and it leverages you in ways.
So debt is a familiar concept. Debt is what’s also used in this scene that we get to in Luke chapter 7. And this is where we get to see our debt because Jesus accepts this dinner invitation again from a Pharisee, a religious teacher whose name is Simon. And during this meal, a woman who is notoriously known in the city as a sinner arrives to ge arrives to this place where Jesus is. She enters the house, stands behind him weeping, and then it says that she wets her hair or his feet with her tears and wipes the tears with her hair.
She kisses his feet and then she anoints his feet with ointment. This is verse 37 and 38 of Luke 7. And in that, you can kind of just begin to picture the the the Pharisees there almost like their jaws would drop because the reputation as that scene starts is that this woman is a known sinner. You don’t spend time with this woman. More or less, let her touch you. And that’s exactly what’s h happening. So, Simon the host sees a sinful woman who’s now making this scene that likely has never been seen before.
And then you’ve got Jesus who sees a forgiven woman who’s expressing her love. But two completely different ways it’s being viewed. And here’s the thing about this. Both of them, Simon and the woman, have been in debt. And Jesus wants them to understand that to teach them this idea of love. So listen to this. Jesus tells Simon about two debtors. And he gets to the end of this and asks them a question. But he points out that there are two debtors.
One owes the man 50 daeri. The other owes the man 500 daenery. So Jesus asks, “Which one when the debt is canceled, do you think will have greater appreciation for this?” And then Simon answers correctly, “The one with the greater debt.” So that’s like saying, and we can just use this as a thought exercise. If you’re forgiven for your mortgage payment and I’m forgiven for a small car loan, which do you think is going to be more excited when we walk out the door?
The one with the larger debt. But here’s the thing. Both of those debts are still enslaving both people. Everyone’s got debt, great or small. And that’s what Jesus points to. Verse 42. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Even though the amounts were different, their condition was identical. Neither of them could pay it. And that’s what Jesus was pointing out. And that is where love begins. We stand before a God with an account that has no way of of saying that we are settled and we need our we need his help.
Romans says in that the wages of sin is death. Here’s the way to think of that. [crying] Sin will cost you your life. And whenever you get involved with sin from a very early age, immediately you find yourself in a position where you need help. And whoever fails at one point, says, whoever fails at one point in keeping the law becomes accountable to the entire law. All of it said, we need his help. We need his love. And Jesus teaches this lesson in this moment.
But then you get Simon. Right off the bat, Simon sees another person’s sin. And that’s kind of the grumbling that’s going on. He’s saying within himself, doesn’t he know that this person who she is? And then the woman sees nothing but her need to be at Jesus’s feet to receive his grace and his mercy. And here’s the thing. Simon feels that he’s done a few things wrong. Perhaps that’s recognizable. Yet he considers himself only a tenth of the sinner that this woman is.
What he’s got himself involved with ain’t that big a deal compared to other people. And if we’re talking about comparing ourselves to other people, we’re always going to be in a heap of trouble if we live by that standard. Jesus teaches that forgiveness is this woman’s greatest need. So Simon, he doesn’t think he needs much. He doesn’t recognize what it is that this woman recognizes. And the woman clearly doesn’t carry that illusion that Simon has.
She knows the penalty of her sins before God. And the mercy of Jesus in this scene has turned her inside out. And her expression is clear of that. Now, here’s a question before we move on. When you think about sinners who need grace, how far down the list do you place your own name? Love can grow cold in a heart that has forgotten their own debt. And we become impatient with those like this woman who struggles, who’s begging for Jesus. We in then side in such a way like Simon would and we kind of become a little severe in the way that we handle others who we become intolerant of toward their failures.
2. He Who Is Forgiven Little Loves Little
And then ultimately we stand in this position of being proud with our spiritual record and not even beginning to see the love of Christ that died for me. We lose our amazement that Jesus had forgiven us. And so Jesus teaches us this love through debt which is undoubtedly something we all experience. But then he also points to something else here and it’s his mercy. Because the forgiveness here is the the one thing that will awaken the love inside of everyone.
Forgiveness does that. Jesus asked that question at the end of this verse 42 verse 43. which of them will love him more? And then answer Simon. He says, “The one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt.” And so Simon turns to this woman. I’m sorry. Jesus turns to this woman and draws Simon’s attention toward her and says, “Do you see this woman?” He’s got to teach him something. Do you see this woman? And I would think that since the moment she’s walked in, it’s kind of been hard to keep your eyes off of her.
So, of course, he sees the woman, but he’s not truly seeing her. He sees her reputation. Jesus saw what grace would produce in her. And so Jesus calls Simon out kind of for that elevation of mind that he’s got that I’m not in need like she is. verse 44 through 30 46 he does this comparing and contrasting to what since entering that scene he’s Simon’s done nothing to welcome Jesus and here this woman’s come here and done so much Simon gave no water for his feet to be clean no kiss to greet him no oil to bring on his feet and the woman wet her his feet with tears the scene says that she could not stop kissing them and then she poured out her ointment.
And I think the reason for this contrast here is just to show the reactions that people have toward the love of Jesus depending on how they think of themselves and what they know. This woman has been given this forgiveness by Jesus and because of that she does her utmost to honor him. And then Simon feels that he needs little, so he gives nothing. And that’s when Jesus says in , this is the stamp of the lesson. He who is forgiven little loves little.
So that it is, how do we go about loving much? Seeing what it is that we’ve received from our Lord, that I have been forgiven of my iniquities. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. So love for God stems for how much we’ve been forgiven by him. Our appreciation starts to change quite dramat dramatically whenever we see that all the time. I remember when I first started living here. One of the most exciting things of being here was the short drive to the office.
Getting to come here every day. Even if I forgot something, I go back home, grab it, come back. And I remember telling Jeff after a few weeks after being asked many of times by people, how have you enjoyed it? I’m loving it. I really love being here. And then I was like, I just don’t want that to end. And then he says to me, I hear you. You don’t want it to become normal. He’s right. We become a Christian and this love just becomes normal. And it’s what we get all the time. Our sin grows and it seems like grace abounds in our mind.
And so I can just go on about doing it with this license. You see, it doesn’t happen when you start to recognize that forgiveness you’ve received. And this forgiveness continues as we live this life. First John teaches is that that he who sins, we have an advocate with the father, but we have ourselves confess our sins and he’s faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So you see, it’s ongoing that love and we need it.
So when our hearts are truly torn over our sin, that’s when Jesus’s love becomes so precious. [snorts] And may that never become normal. All of a sudden, it becomes the most most significant thing that God loves a person like me enough to give his son from me. John says it this way in . See what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. Look at that. Behold that. And don’t lose sight of it. May we always act like this woman. We love much and the love of Jesus becomes the source of that love.
3. The Love We Receive Becomes the Love We Practice
So let’s think a little bit more on that. John chapter 13, the love that we receive then becomes the love that we learn to practice. And Jesus gives us this moment in John chapter 13 where we get to recognize this love, the love on display once again. And he gives his disciples and this is where we find our verse verse 34. He gives them this command with this measurement a living measurement. he says just as I have loved you also are to love one another.
So the idea of Jesus saying that love them like I have loved you and then leaving it at that some abstract idea. Well, what does he mean by love? And then we look in the dictionary. Oh, he must mean that. No, he didn’t leave us with just some words that we could hopefully figure out. He then did something in that moment that changed the entire landscape of what he means by love. He himself became the model. He stooped down taking the lower place.
John opens the upper room scene by saying that Jesus in verse one, look at this. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. After the fighting, or I should say the back and forth arguing of who’s the greatest, and there’s just a list of things that these guys have done that many would have themselves right off, the complaining. Jesus stuck with them. And then Jesus rises from this supper, lays aside his outer garment, becomes a servant by putting on a towel, grabs the basin, pours water into it, and begins washing the feet of his disciples.
End of the day, clearly a scene that’s not enjoyable, having to get your hands involved with that kind of messiness. But now what you’ve got here is the guy that they’ve been calling teacher or master is now the one who’s taken the place that no one else is willing to volunteer themselves to take. And that’s it. Love notices the work that everyone else is willing to leave undone and steps in. Even if they’ve got to stoop low, even if they’ve got to take off the outer garment, which identifies you as someone who should just stay at the head of the table rather than at the feet of others, taking care of things that someone else should be doing.
Love serves people who may never repay the effort. And Jesus gets that, too. This scene models that even though again love as you see with Jesus can kneel before some people who are clearly immature who are struggling to get things right. Even as grown men they’re arguing about who’s going to be next to the one who’s king at his right hand and at his left hand. And it’s been difficult journeying with them. We get that all throughout the pages. But if our love only begins to function whenever we are appreciated or maybe whenever the scene is a little bit more comfortable or people are having themselves acknowledge us with respect.
Therefore, I’ll give them respect. You don’t see that here. John 13 throws all of that to the ceiling. Jesus has something to teach us if we feel that love must require credentials. Love sacrifices. It offers itself for another’s good. These men Jesus has been patient with. Perhaps they’ve been frustrating. But these men, whether they’re suffering, they’re going to be soon died for. And whether they realize that or not, Jesus tells them in a little bit in that no greater love does one have than this, that someone laid down his life for his friend.
So if they don’t get it yet, who Jesus is and what he’s trying to exemplify and give them to walk away with, they’re going to hopefully see that soon. Whether through these object lessons or these direct ideas that I’m about to do what I’m saying one should do, others are a such a priority in the life of Jesus that his love will offer himself for the good of one who might be seen as not deserving it. Verse 34, the end of that says he says just as I have loved you in the same way that I have loved you.
It’s almost like he speaks to this degree of love that you know there’s maybe going to be times love’s not most comfortable to give. But just in the same way that I’ve done it, someone they don’t know this directly who but someone’s about to betray me and he’s still going to wash his feet. That’s Judas. Love will cost him his time. It’ll cost us ours. Love may interrupt our plans, create an inconvenience in our day. Love may interrupt us and that’s why we we would embrace the inconvenience.
That’s because love keeps on serving. Even if it feels like the emotion is absent, I serve. It may cost me my pride. It might cost me my money. It might even cost us some sleep. It might also cost us moments of bitterness and having this temptation to feel cold and critical of someone else because of what’s being asked. But Jesus wasn’t dismissive. Jesus didn’t find himself looking for the certain things that someone should provide him in order for him to bring about this love.
That patient spirit of love is proof that love stays. It doesn’t quit on people. I think Jesus’s love here asks us, “What would genuinely be something that I would help this person with? What would genuinely help this person if given the opportunity?” And then we spend ourselves for that good for however much it would require of us because Jesus loved them till the end. First Corinthians chapter 13 talks a very good deal about the definition or just this understanding of what love is.
It’s not giving all your money away or being a martyr to be burned. It’s not someone who just does these actionable moments that are sacrificial. It’s actually someone who gives up themselves in kindness, in all of these different ways that bring about what love is. It doesn’t keep score in your relationships. It endures all things and bears. And we might have a lesson on that this month. But until the end, love never fails. Love is the one thing that cultivates something that the Lord is certainly going to bring about in that person’s life because God is love.
And that patient spirit, it’s got to be cultivated. It’s got to be worked through. Some people are hard to love. Some people are hard to like. and everyone we are commanded to love. And so Jesus doesn’t give up on them, folks. And so as we look at people, as Jesus looked at those he washed the feet of, Peter would just about to soon deny him. He still washed his feet. Again, Judas was going to betray him moments after this. He still washed his feet. All of the men in that room would flee that same night.
And he did not abandon. He did not quit on them just because he knew what they may become. So this is our standard. Love that stoops and sacrifices and love that stays and sticks around. That’s what Jesus did. And there’s a purpose behind all of this. And that’s because of what we end up doing whenever we characterize ourselves in the way our teacher did. Jesus explains in verse 35 of John 13 what this kind of love will accomplish. He says, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.”
4. Love Transforms Us
We desire so much for the world to hear about Jesus, for the world to be saved, but it’s the love of Jesus that becomes the visible thing through which people learn about him. That’s because love will transform us. You might be someone who at one time was almost out of your mind in the way that you related to other people or have thought about other people. And whenever Jesus steps in and begins to transform you through what he’s done for you, lives begin to change.
And so love transforms us. James and John are two of Jesus’s 12 disciples. They are brothers. There is this scene in Luke chapter 9 whenever they went into this Samaritan village. And when a Samaritan village refused to receive their message, they basically denied Jesus, James, and John, they were pretty hot about it. And we’re not told every detail, but listen to what it is that they asked Jesus when they learned that they just rejected him in that city.
Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them? Imagine encountering someone who has no desire to listen to what you have to say when you come to share the good news with them. And you have this desire for God to bring down lightning bolts on them. Just strike them dead. That was their reaction. And so Jesus turned and he rebuked them. Verse 53- 55, we see all of this. But these guys reacted in a way that was almost furious. They’re ready to destroy.
And so that’s when Jesus then gave them the nickname. James and John gave them the nickname sons of thunder. Thunder comes from lightning striking. And so this suggests that this anger was something that well maybe it happened more often than just this one time to be coined a nickname like that. But here’s the cool part about it. Later on, John John becomes the disciple who Jesus loved. John wrote the Gospel of John. He wrote Revelation. He wrote 1, second, and third John.
And first John specifically has love like 50, 60 times used in just two chapters alone. The guy gets it. And so he has this new identity. John 13 23 is where it says that he was the disciple who Jesus loved. So what you get here is he’s transformed and maybe it was through the rebuke, maybe it was through something else, but all along John begins to accept what it is that Jesus is giving. He receives that love. And his writings contain almost no hint of that anger that was once defining him.
He’s changed. You got this guy that Jesus takes who’s angry and turns him into someone who becomes tender. There’s a lot of people in this room that maybe you got that same testimony. Oh man, if you if that was the old me in that situation, right? There are a lot of transformations taking place and it’s what happens whenever his love gets revealed to us. We become disciples whom Jesus loved. We see our anger. We see our selfishness. And it gets stripped bare whenever we encounter moments like this in scripture because it reflects like a mirror the very thing that’s going on inside of us that we need most.
5. Love Reveals Jesus
And then we exhibit it. We begin to see the value in each person that we encounter. We begin to see people as imagebearers to be loved, not as problems to be managed. And so that love goes on to shape the relationships. All of them. Our relationships give us an opportunity to have our Lord revealed, our teacher, the one who’s given us the direction and the transformation. Again he says by this all people will know. Not just those in your selective search.
Not just a few all. And what I also hear here is a promise that you do this and this is then what’s going to happen. It’s an if then clause. Now they may not observe these people in our life. All of the moral choices that we’re making, all of the sacrifices that we’re bringing about to have this greater good in our life. They may not see that. They may not see all of the changes that God has made in my life, but they will notice the supernatural love at work among people.
Love is the language that the blind hear and the deaf see. Is that what it is? They flip it backwards like that. But many in our world are confused whenever there’s this disconnection between the Jesus that they hear about in the New Testament and then they look about at his disciples and see and hear bickering and division and camps and denominations and all sorts of labeling. His modern disciples hold grudges and nurse them. Pride becomes the centerpiece of their decisions.
They can speak cruy. They can just abandon a relationship like dropping hot coal and then we end up clouding the very picture of our Lord, our teacher that came to demonstrate and then said to follow. And whenever we bear patiently and we forgive freely, whenever we stoop low and serve and we stay there and remain committed, we make the influence of Jesus visible. That’s because love reveals Jesus. When we expend ourselves to one another the way that Jesus has for us, it has an impact.
That’s the promise. Then the world sees people although we’ve got different backgrounds, we’ve got different color skin, we’ve got different opinions, we’ve got different personalities, we’ve got weaknesses, we’ve got glaring things in our history that would have people say, “Really, they’re a Christian?” All that’s there, y’all. But whenever we share the one thing, that common love that bonds us all, we learn to love and people come to know him.
Conclusion
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? We become witnesses of Jesus and his reality in our time. So we started with this one word and perhaps we thought this was the lesson that we can just kind of say all right let’s see what new might be here but above all things let it be a reminder because we often forget things become normal rather quickly honeymoon periods they go quick if we think we’ve mastered this idea We just recognize that our teacher showed us a forgiven woman, a basin filled with water and then a towel around the waist and then a man who was transformed that was once known as a son of thunder.
So you see, we still have something to learn. And Jesus teaches us to love better. So love like Jesus. So, I want to challenge you as you leave here to first remember your debt and receive his love with this fresh take, this gratitude that Jathan prayed about to not have the bickering and complaining and getting caught up in the things of this world that would distract you from the straight and narrow path that God has you on. Leave here with hearts of gratitude.
Secondly, begin placing your relationships alongside the love of Jesus, the one that we’ve read about today. Where do you need to stoop and sacrifice or maybe even stay and not give up on someone? And then thirdly, ask what your relationships are teaching people about your teacher. Are you shining your light? Are you modeling his love? Is there someone who needs to see Jesus more clearly through the way that you love? If God is someone that you’ve been away from, if you’re outside of Christ, you stand where both of those debtors stood.
Whether you owe the 50 or 100 or 500, you have a debt and you’re unable to pay it. And Jesus is willing to cancel the debt if you call on him and you can become a child of God today. If you belong to Christ and your love has grown cold, just like we hear about in Revelation, return to the feet of Jesus. Remember how deeply he loved so that you too can love. If you’re here today and you have a need that you need to bring to our attention that we can help you with, we offer you this song of invitation as we stand and as we sing.