The Danger of Being Good Enough

Audio Transcript

Let’s take our Bibles this morning now and turn to Luke chapter 7.

We’ll pick up where we left off last Sunday. We made it partway through this chapter, and we will finish up Luke 7 this morning.

In the final years of his life, John Newton, the former slave trader who later wrote “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see”—he was a violent, cruel man who traded human beings as though they were property. And God intersected His path and radically saved him.

And towards the later years of his life, he began losing his memory.

Friends would come by to visit him, and he would struggle even to remember their names. And in his embarrassment, he would often say, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner, and Jesus is a great Savior.”

Well, that about sums up the gospel. And it’s exactly what we’ll see in the second half of Luke chapter 7 this morning. In this passage, Jesus encounters two kinds of people, and it’s quite possible that both kinds are in this room this morning.

He encountered a woman who knew that she was a great sinner, and He encountered a man who refused to admit that he was.

Last week, in the verses just prior to this, we saw Jesus responding to the question that John the Baptist had asked, that piercing, difficult question, and Jesus handled it with such grace.

And right after that, in the verses we didn’t have time to get into, it says that some of the people who were there—when they saw Jesus and heard His teaching, they glorified God. That’s a way of saying they were saved, and they glorified God. But it says specifically the Pharisees rejected the will of God and rejected His message outright. The Pharisees rejected Him. Now, we’re still early in our making our way through the four Gospels, but we’ve seen already that the Pharisees have plotted to kill Jesus more than once, which makes our opening verse for today feel very suspicious, because this takes place immediately after the Pharisees have rejected Him again. Look at our first verse for today, Luke 7:36.

“Then one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down to eat.” Now surely we must ask, why is a Pharisee—why is this Pharisee in particular—inviting Jesus to his house?

Inviting someone to your house for a meal in that culture was a sign of sharing fellowship with them, of being in agreement with them, and surely that is not the case here. Well, we’re never told directly in Scripture why this man invited Him over, but I think you’ll see, as these verses unfold, the answer is pretty clear. This wasn’t hospitality. This was a setup.

So Jesus goes, and they gather around the table, and we continue in verse 37.

“And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she learned that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil”—or perfume, it can be rendered—”and stood at His feet behind Him, weeping. And she began to wash His feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head. And she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.” Some translations have left this out, but Luke uses the word “behold” here to let us know that something shocking is happening. The word “behold” is like screaming out at someone to get their attention, to arrest them, to stop them in their tracks and say, “Pay attention.”

“Behold, behold,” he says, “a woman of the city who was a sinner.”

This woman has just crashed the party in a Pharisee’s house.

Luke doesn’t spell it out, but it’s obvious from what he’s saying that she was known by her reputation.

This was the kind of woman who, when she walked through the marketplace just trying to live her life, she felt the stares of people. She heard the whispers, and she knew what it meant. It meant, “There goes a sinner. She’s not one of us.”

Her sinful life is what defined her.

So what in the world is she doing at this dinner?

Well, it just told us she was drawn here. She was drawn here because she heard Jesus would be there. Now, I typically don’t like to step out ahead of the text, but in this case, I think you’ll see in a moment it will make sense. When you examine this entire text, all these verses we’re about to look at, the sequence of events, this woman’s actions, the specific words that Jesus spoke to her, it’s almost certain that she had seen and heard Jesus speak somewhere prior to this dinner, and I’ll unfold that in just a little bit.

It’s almost certain that she already had seen Jesus. She’d heard Him speak, and her life had already been changed by His teaching. Maybe she was in one of those crowds who heard Him talk about how anyone could be forgiven, how God welcomes sinners. This is not a teaching she heard from her rabbis, and it appears as though her heart was smitten by these words. And perhaps, for the first time in her life, she realized that her past didn’t have to own her future.

Everywhere she went, she wore the label. She caught the glances. And perhaps she had reached a place in her life where she assumed, “Well, this is who I am. I’ll never escape this. This is what truly defines me.” And the words of Jesus sparked hope in her, gave her a sense of life and purpose that she’d never known before.

For the first time, maybe she began to believe that God might actually love her. So when word spreads through this little town that this well-known—now famous, as we’ve seen—teacher and healer was going to be at the home of Simon the Pharisee, she knows this is her chance to get to see Him without the crowds being in the way.

But getting to Jesus means stepping into a room where she’s not wanted, into a house with a man who would rather not breathe the same air as her. But she goes anyway.

And we’re told that she takes an alabaster jar of perfume. Maybe, maybe the most valuable thing that she owned. These were very expensive items. This is a remarkable stone, and there’s some photographs of ones that they have dug up. This is an amazing stone. When it’s cut right, it has a semi-translucent quality to it. And it was a very highly prized possession in that day and very costly. Sometimes called alabaster jars or boxes or flasks. You’ll see it rendered all of those ways in Scripture.

She grabs her alabaster jar of perfume. She walks out of the house. She walks to Simon’s house, and she gathers her courage, and she goes inside.

Now look again at verse 38. “She stood at Jesus’ feet behind Him, weeping.” Now, again, this is another sort of micro hint that she already knew who Jesus was. She knew who to go up to in this dining room full of people.

“She stood at Jesus’ feet behind Him, weeping, and she began to wash His feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head, and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.” In that culture—we must take a moment to remember—in that culture, formal meals didn’t look like ours. Guests didn’t sit around a table in chairs with their legs under the table. That would have been remarkably difficult for her to get to His feet if that were the case. They reclined on low couches, leaning on one elbow facing the table, and they would eat with the other hand that was free, and their feet stretched out behind them. So she approaches Jesus from behind. She knows who He is. And the closer she gets, tears begin to well up.

And then they just spill over.

By the time she reaches Jesus and she’s standing directly above His feet—by the time she reaches Him, this One who’s known as a friend of sinners, this One who freely gives grace and forgiveness—she’s not composed anymore. She’s weeping.

The verse here in the Greek is a word that means, it’s an old word, it means to bewail. It means to sob.

And before she can stop, her tears are falling so fast that they fall off of her face onto Jesus’ feet and soak His feet.

And as her tears hit the dust on His feet—and yes, He had dust on His feet; we’ll see in just a moment what would have happened to water and dust—it turned into a muddy mess. This was not a polite scene.

You can almost feel her embarrassment at this point. She realizes what she’s doing. She comes to her senses and maybe paused, and all the eyes in the room were on her. No one was speaking a word. Everyone’s eyes were wide open looking at this scene. And she was the cause of it.

She does something unthinkable.

She lets down her hair.

And you go, “Well, what’s the big deal? I let down my hair all the time.” In that culture, for a woman to let down her hair in public was something no respectable woman would ever do.

But she does. She reaches back, and she unties her hair, and she shakes it loose, and it falls down around her shoulders. And then she gathers up her hair, and she uses it like a towel, like a rag, and she begins to wipe up the mud and the tears from Jesus’ feet.

See, this is so hard for us to get our minds around because we live in such a lewd culture. But in that day, if a woman was in public and let her hair down, it was considered immodest. It was considered shameful. The Bible says her hair is her glory. Women were only to do that in the privacy of her home, in the presence of her husband. It was an act of intimacy.

This woman seems to be saying, “I have nothing left to hide. No dignity, no reputation. I’m laying everything at Jesus’ feet.”

And you know, as I think of this, it’s a beautiful living illustration of something that we read in Romans chapter 6. We’ve heard this verse many times, but listen to it now in light of what we’ve just pictured here with this woman. Romans chapter 6, verse 13 says this: “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness.”

This woman, from everything we’re getting from this text, this woman had used her body as an instrument of sin. Was this perfume perhaps something she put on to help attract men? She now takes the very parts of her life once given to sin, and she pours them out at Jesus’ feet in an act of worship.

This is a picture of a changed life—that when we come to Christ, we don’t just sit idly in a pew somewhere and count the days till we go to glory. You know, we use our life, our body, our mind, our talents, our money, our time, everything. We use that now instead of living for ourself or living for what is wrong. And we now, rather, we turn that around, and we invest that. We use that for the glory of God. What a beautiful picture this is. By now, the fragrance of her perfume fills the room.

And across the table, Simon, the self-righteous Pharisee, is smirking in disgust.

Verse 39. “Now when the Pharisee who had invited Jesus saw this, he spoke to himself.” That’s an old way of saying he thought. He spoke to himself, saying, “If this man were a prophet, He would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”

No rabbi would let a sinful woman touch him. It would render him unclean.

But Jesus doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t rebuke her. And Simon is watching this, and he says to himself, “Prophets know things.” God gave prophets the ability to see things, to read things that were not evident. You remember Elijah and Elisha, that they said one time, “Hey, you know, the prophet knows what you say in the privacy of your own bedroom. God tells him so.”

Simon says, “Prophets, they know things. This guy’s clearly a fake because He has no idea the kind of woman who’s touching Him.”

And then Jesus proves He’s a prophet in the most subtle and shocking way, because He reads Simon’s thoughts.

Verse 40. “And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.'” Do you think Simon swallowed hard? And he said, “Teacher, say it.”

Now, Jesus tells a mini parable. He says, “There was a certain money lender or creditor who had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii, the other 50. And when they both were unable to repay him, he canceled the debts of both. Tell me, therefore, which one of them will love him more?”

Simon answered, “I suppose the one who was forgiven more.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” So just to kind of round this off very quickly, one man owes about two months’ wages, the other two years. Neither can pay, so the lender cancels both debts. Which one was more thankful? This is a first-grade question. The answer is obvious, but Simon doesn’t want to answer because he knows he’s about to be trapped in his own words. So he leaves himself a little wiggle room so that he doesn’t embarrass himself in front of his dignified friends, and he says, “I suppose”—seems to me sort of talking down, like, “Oh, who does this guy think he is?”—”I suppose the one who was forgiven more.”

And then something stunning happens. Verse 44.

Now watch this carefully. We must learn to read our Bibles. “Then Jesus turned to the woman and said to Simon—” You get this picture? It’s not very polite to look away when you’re talking to someone. Jesus is making a point here. He turned to the woman, and He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” Now, I want to pause right there.

This may be the most overlooked question in this entire text. I’ve never heard a sermon on this question. I almost brought one, but I just, I didn’t want to make this a two-week thing.

Looking at the woman, He says, “Simon, do you see this woman?”

Well, of course he saw her. She’s right there. But did you know, sometimes our physical eyes can see things that we don’t really see?

This is a powerful question, and one that should rattle all of us.

Simon’s sitting there thinking, “He doesn’t even know what kind of woman this is.” Because Simon looked at her and saw nothing but a label. Jesus looked at her and saw a person He loved.

I could write a book on the years I’ve wasted putting labels on people. What a shameful thing. What a shameful thing. I was an expert label maker. “Oh, that person doesn’t fit in with us. They’re too different from me.” Christians do this all the time.

I won’t say who, but years ago we had a man and his wife come and visit here for the first time, and I had a chance to talk to them, and I got to know them. And, you know, he was a pretty intimidating-looking dude when he showed up here, and he said to me, “You know, we visited lots of churches, and this is the first church where people actually spoke to us.” And these were his words. He said, “Whenever I walked into a church, it was like the parting of the Red Sea.” He said, “People turned their backs because I looked different.”

And that man has turned out to be a great friend and an absolute jewel.

Do you see this woman?

As we go through our week, who are we not seeing? Who are we intentionally not seeing because we don’t want to see them? A mom and her children walking down the street together, and a man walking towards them with tattoos and piercings and a leather jacket, and the mom tucks her children close to her and says, “You know, let’s cross the street.”

You might be missing a jewel.

Do you see this woman?

Well, let’s continue. Jesus turned to the woman, and He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” He said, “I entered your house, and you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil.”

Simon’s face must have turned red. I imagine his temperature rose several degrees. He was boiling.

Jesus goes point by point showing that every honor Simon withheld from Him, this woman had provided. Simon had offered no water for His feet. This was a basic act of hospitality in a land of dusty roads and sandals. When you went to someone’s house, you took off your sandals, and they washed your feet before you came in the house. It was a basic act of hospitality. “You didn’t do that, Simon.” There’s a major faux pas in this culture. “But she washed My feet with her tears.”

“Simon, you offered Me no kiss of welcome”—a standard expression of respect. And by the way, guys, I’m glad we don’t do that around here, okay? But they would kiss each other on both cheeks. It was an expression of respect. “You didn’t do that, Simon, but she has not stopped kissing My feet.”

“Simon, you offered Me no oil for My head.” Same thing in a hot, you know, smelly culture. It was just a courtesy for an honored guest. When you walked in, you would put fragrant oil on their head. “You didn’t do that, Simon, but she poured perfume on My feet.” These weren’t—listen—these were not accidental oversights. Everyone at the table saw it.

Simon’s message was clear: “You’re here, Jesus, but you’re not welcome.”

Every insult Simon gave, this woman met with extravagant love. And Jesus is now shaming this highly esteemed Pharisee by comparing him to this sinful woman. I mean, the veins on his neck must have been bulging.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? The one considered the worst sinner in the room turned out to be the most devoted worshiper.

Then Jesus drives the point home. Verse 47. “Therefore, I say to you”—He’s still talking to Simon—”Therefore, I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Now, I must say quickly, Jesus is not implying here that her love earned her forgiveness.

He’s saying that her love is the evidence of her forgiveness. This word “for” in the Bible here, it can point to cause, or it can point to evidence. And here it’s pointing to evidence. And this is abundantly clear as we look at the remainder of the text. In fact, the rest of that sentence shows us how Jesus is framing this. He said, “But he who is forgiven little loves little.” The forgiveness came first. The love followed.

It’s the same logic as the little parable He just told. The money lender canceled both debts. Now, as a result of the debt being canceled, who loved him more? Their love didn’t cancel the debt. Their love was the result of their debt being canceled. This woman’s tears didn’t earn her salvation. This would be contrary to everything else in Scripture.

Her tears were the overflow of what had already happened. And again, this is another small insight into—I firmly believe she must have heard Jesus’ teachings already. Her life must have already been transformed, and what she came to do was an act of gratitude.

And Simon?

Simon had his theology, he had his religion, all buttoned down tight. And it didn’t do him a bit of good.

He remained unmoved because he didn’t think he had a debt that needed to be forgiven.

Are you with me?

Pastor Tim Keller said this perfectly. Look at this: “There are two types of people who believe themselves beyond God’s grace: those who think they’re too bad to be loved and those who think they’re too good to need it.”

This room held one of each.

The woman who thought she was too bad ends up finding forgiveness. The man who thought he was too good stayed trapped right where he was. Listen, church, I’m going to tell you: until you recognize how broken you are, you will never be moved by how gracious God is.

My biggest problem in sharing Christ with people is not with pagans. It’s with religious people.

Verse 48. And then Jesus drops the real bombshell.

“Then Jesus said to her”—now He’s turning to her—”Your sins are forgiven.” Wow. “And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?'” Again, we’ve got to teleport ourselves back to this culture and this mindset and this religious teaching, this air that existed in that day. This statement lit up the room. “Who is this who even forgives sins?” I got to tell you, though, it’s a fair question. You can’t just go around claiming to forgive other people’s sins.

If the two of you are having a fight—well, let’s not even say someone in this church. Let’s say I’m pulling up in my neighborhood, and I see someone out on the street outside having a fight, and I park my car, and I go over, and I say, “I forgive you both.”

They stop and go, “Who are you? You’re not even part of this.” See, it doesn’t make sense.

Sin is an offense to God, and only God can forgive sins.

Only He can cancel the debt. The religious experts, we saw this months ago, said the same thing when Jesus forgave the sins of the paralyzed man.

The scribes and Pharisees who were there that day said, “Why does this man speak blasphemies?” Why was it a blasphemy? Because they taught, and Scripture teaches, only God can forgive sins. And there’s Jesus, this carpenter, standing there saying to this man, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Well, they had a conniption fit, and rightly so. “Who does He think He is?” And they said, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And they’re right.

Jesus never said, “Hey, guys, that’s not what I’m saying.”

His silence affirmed exactly what they were saying. Don’t tell me Jesus never claimed to be God. In this culture, receiving a comment and accusation like that, they would put you to death for claiming to be God. Jesus says, “You hit the nail right on the head, guys. It’s exactly what I’m claiming.”

He’s speaking with the authority of God Himself.

And the last thing Jesus says, our last verse for today, is this. Verse 50. “Then He said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.'” Here again, one more confirmation. He didn’t say, “Your tears have saved you.” He didn’t say, “Your alabaster jar of perfume saved you.” He didn’t say, “Your emotional outpouring saved you.” He said, “Your faith saved you.”

And that’s the only thing that will save you.

You say, “Explain faith, Phil.” Look, I’m not sure I can. Just as a nine-year-old boy, I was sitting in Bez Valley Church just outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, and I heard the gospel for the umpteenth time.

And something just struck deep inside as a nine-year-old boy. And I knew I was a sinner.

I couldn’t have written a paper on faith.

But by faith, I said, “Lord, I believe You died for my sins. I receive You as my Savior. I’ll work out all the rest later.” That’s faith. Some people are too smart for faith. They’re too smart for faith. They just can’t get there. “No, I’ve got to see more proof. I’ve got to see more proof.” It’s literally the opposite of faith.

“Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” She believed at some point that Jesus was the Savior of the world, and she was forgiven of her debt.

The word “saved” here in the Greek is the word sozo, S-O-Z-O. It doesn’t mean Jesus put a Band-Aid over her sin to try to cover it up. Jesus wasn’t saying, “Okay, now you try harder to be a better person. You give more money at church.” No, this wasn’t a Band-Aid. Salvation is not a Band-Aid. Salvation is not a self-help course.

Salvation is recognizing that you can’t pay your debt. You can’t fix your problem.

And it’s realizing that Jesus already paid it for you. He already provided a solution for you. You just have to receive it by faith. This word sozo means to be made whole. Isn’t that beautiful? This broken woman, enduring all the stares and the gossip of the town, she’s finally made whole.

Her circumstances hadn’t changed, but her relationship with God had been restored. And that’s where real peace comes from. That’s why Jesus could say, “Go in peace.”

So can I just ask you before we close: which person in that room are you?

Maybe you’re Simon. Been in church your whole life, kept all the rules, you know the lingo, you’ve tried to be good.

Can I just drop this warning in your ear? If that is you, you are in real danger right now. Not because your life looks bad, but because it looks fine.

That’s a real danger.

Your goodness, all of it, hasn’t saved you. It hasn’t saved you.

It has, in fact, blinded you from seeing that you owe God a debt you can never pay.

But if you will believe in Him by faith today, you’ll be saved. Jesus would have forgiven Simon if he had only recognized his need and asked. Or maybe, maybe you’re like a sinful woman.

You’ve been defined by your worst moments for so long, you’ve started to believe that’s all you are.

You feel broken. You feel like you don’t belong.

Maybe you’re like people who’ve come here who I’ve talked to and said, “You know, every time I go to church, I just feel like everybody else is better than me. I feel like I don’t belong.”

Jesus looked at this woman whose sins were public record. By the way, did you notice? This seems like an unfair, unkind statement, but it is not at all. I didn’t even have time to get into it, but Jesus said, “Her sins…” (did you catch it—comma) “…which are many, are forgiven.”

You understand? Jesus doesn’t gloss over any of this. He’s not saying, “Oh, it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s nothing.” That’s not the gospel.

The gospel says your condition is horrid.

“Your sins, which are many—no problem for Me. I’ve forgiven them all.”

Her sins were public record. She was known as the sinful woman. Jesus looked at her and said, “Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.” And listen, He’s ready to speak those same words over your life today.

John Newton had it exactly right: “I am a great sinner, and Jesus is a great Savior.”

That’s the gospel.

You can come to Jesus however you are, and you can leave here today in peace.