The Gospel of Luke: The God who cancels | faith | debt | forgiveness | Pharisee - Video

Sermon Notes: 4/6/25 Pastor: Brian Crawford Luke 7:36-50 . Check us out at: https://citylightvicksburg.org/ Or check us out here: https://www.facebook.com/citylightvicksburg . The importance of the person coming to your home, often dictates the way the home is prepared. In these verses we have a Pharisee - a man who is an expert rule follower. The woman - who is such a sinner she has no name, no title, and her sin would be so great, that she’s aware of her own sin. And Christ, simply put, is God. And in this text, we see three things: The Christ who drawn near The Christ who cancels debt The Christ who we embrace by faith. The Pharisee is uncomfortable with the woman in his home, due to her sin. But Christ gives time to both of them. As the Pharisee invites Christ to his home, Christ invites the Pharisee to fellowship, because he is the Christ who draws near. He is the God who draws near to the self-righteous, but also the abject sinner. Christ calls them and all between. There is no lengths that he cannot cross to get to you, despite how far gone you feel like you are. The Pharisee was so focused on who Christ was with - the sinner - he missed exactly who Christ was. But her sight was fixed on Christ, attempting to get as humbly close to Him as possible. But even in our self-righteousness, Christ engages with us, as he does with Simon, with the story. Christ gives Simon, the Pharisee, an example he cannot ignore. The one who is forgiven more is the one who loves the most. The one who doesn’t understand their debt, cannot understand the depth of their need of forgiveness. When we don’t understand and our own need, our service to Jesus will waver. And here we see the woman, rushing to Jesus’ feet, wiping his feet with her tears and unbound hair (a symbol of humility). Faith was the act of washing Jesus’ feet. A woman was moved to act in favor of Jesus, despite the fact that she would not be welcome in the place where He was at. Faith says “I just gotta get to Jesus, despite everything around me.” Faith is also whatever that moves us to bring our best gift. When we truly understand our need, and how Jesus meets our needs, we give everything we have. Faith is also the weeping at the grace and the gratitude we have to just be in the presence of Jesus. And if we don’t understand our need, we won’t cry at our need. Faith fills us with gratitude, that we’ve been found by God. But faith also fills us with humility - the humility to unbind our hair, and wash the feet of Jesus with it. Simply put, the strength of our faith is reflected in the depth of our understanding of our need.