Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on September 15, 2024.
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Audio Transcript
I invite you to take your Bibles and turn to Luke, chapter seven. We will be in verses 36 through 50 today. Luke 7:36 through 50. I begin reading in verse 36.
Then one of the Pharisees invited him to eat with him. He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. And a woman in the town who was a sinner found out that Jesus was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house. She brought an alabaster jar of perfume and stood behind him at his feet weeping. And began to wash his feet with her tears. She wiped his feet with her hair, kissing them and anointing them with perfume.
And when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “This man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him. She’s a sinner.” Jesus replied to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” He said, “Say it, teacher.”
A creditor had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. Since they could not pay it back, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more? Simon answered, “I suppose the one he forgave more.” “You have judged correctly,” he told him.
And then, turning to the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she, with her tears, has washed my feet and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she hasn’t stopped kissing my feet since I came in. And you didn’t anoint my head with olive oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. That’s why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little loves little.”
And then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
May we pray? Heavenly Father, as we look at your word, we give you thanks that you have given it to us, that you have preserved it for us, that we might know the way to salvation, a right relationship with you, and we might know how to live in this world so that we reflect your Son to others and draw them to Him. It’s in His name that we pray. Amen.
Jesus has gone to the dinner at a Pharisee’s house, and it would have been different that day. He would have been lying down. When they ate, they would have had their elbow propped on the table, and their feet were behind them instead of sitting in chairs. The custom during that day would have been that the man would have offered to have his feet washed. He would have given Jesus a kiss.
Now, we shake hands today, but giving kisses in that day was considered a way to welcome others. Where my daughter lives, they kiss each other on the cheek. If you’re in Russia, I hear that they kiss you right on the lips. It doesn’t matter if your breath is bad or whatever; it’s just the acceptable greeting. There, they would have poured oil on his head. There were certain customary things. This man wasn’t even being a gracious host by showing those things to Jesus.
But with that in mind, I want us to look today at worship and how worship is a result of gratitude in our life. As we look at worship here in the text, we’re going to see that worship is both attitude and activity. You can have the right attitude in your worship, but not be doing any activity. You can also have the right activity in your life, but not have the right attitude. It’s important that we have both.
Let’s start out in Luke, chapter four, verse eight, where Jesus has just been tempted by Satan in the wilderness. One of the temptations was he asked Jesus to bow down to him, and then he would give him all the kingdoms of the world. Jesus paraphrased out of Deuteronomy six; he said, “It is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”
Here we find that worship and service go hand in hand. Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy six, where it says, “Fear the Lord your God, worship him, and take your oaths in His name.” I’d like to just look at the Hebrew and the Greek words so we understand what their definitions are.
Going back to Luke four, there’s the word “proskuneo” there, and it means to worship. In the Greek language, that means to kiss someone, to adore them. It means to fall prostrate down before them. You do this by showing respect. Now, once again, a kiss. In that day, if you were equals with someone, you would kiss them on the face. But if you were less than equals, like you might have a grandchild and a grandparent, they would kiss the grandparent’s hand. But if you were a servant before your master or before a king, you would be down on the ground and you would be throwing kisses up to their face, not even daring to touch them. That’s what it means to worship the Lord. We want to be prostrated before Him.
It’s simple as this: it’s almost like your best friend is your dog, and the dog just likes to sit beside you and maybe lick your hand, and they’re just showing their appreciation for you. That’s what worship is for God. But also, Jesus says we’re supposed to serve. The Greek here means to serve in a religious sense. It’s particularly talking about the activities that the Levites did while they were in the tabernacle, while they were in the temple—anything that was of service there for the Lord.
So we think about the service. They offered sacrifices, but that was not all they did. They didn’t just sacrifice; they had to gather wood. They had to chop wood; they had to prepare the wood. They even would examine it to make sure there was nothing imperfect about it. There were other Levites, and there was a large what they called the sea. It was filled with lots and lots of water because people were continually washing. Buckets had to be brought each day to fill that up. They had to fill lamps with oil. They had to bake bread. They had to clean the utensils. They even had to sweep the floor.
There were guards at the gates that were like ushers, and they let people in and welcomed or kept them out. There were people that counted the tithes and the offerings. There were people purchasing the oil and the flowers for temple service. With the tabernacle in the Old Testament, every time it moved, they had to take it down; they had to put it back up; they had to transport it. In all this, they got sweaty and dirty. So guess what they had to do? They had to wash clothes, and they probably had to sew new clothes as they wore out. All of this, according to God, according to what Jesus is saying, was part of their worship.
They had the right attitude, but there was also activity involved. We think about our worship today. We come in and we listen to music. We have musicians, and there were musicians in the temple. There were singers and there were instrumentalists. We have 150 psalms that were songs that they sang. So we have music today. We have prayer; we have reading of Scripture. But we also need to realize that all the things that people do to serve in our church, if they have the right attitude, can be acts of worship. Whether it’s serving donuts, whether it’s working up in the sound booth, whether it’s taking up the offering, giving gifts, sending cards, or giving people phone calls—all of these things are acts of worship if we’re doing them in order to worship and glorify God.
Now, let’s go back to the Hebrew in Deuteronomy, chapter six. Here it says, “Fear the Lord your God. Worship him, and take your oaths in His name.” Now, this would have been written in Hebrew, but many people didn’t understand Hebrew in Jesus’ day. So he used the translation of that day, which was the Septuagint, and he spoke in the Greek language, and this is how he translated it. But if we go back to what the Jews knew, it talks about fearing the Lord and worshiping Him. That first word means to reverence and to respect. The second word means to work, to serve, to perform manual labor. The same word would talk about gardening or tending a vineyard, or working with flax or doing some type of labor in a city.
Both New Testament and Old Testament teach us that in our worship, it’s about our attitude, but it’s also about the things that we do to serve the Lord. Let’s look at the woman here in this case. What is her attitude that she has toward the Lord? Let’s go back to verse 37.
And a woman in the town who was a sinner found out that Jesus was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house. She brought an alabaster jar of perfume and stood behind him at his feet weeping. She began to wash his feet with her tears. She wiped his feet with her hair, and she was kissing them and anointing them with the perfume.
What do we see of her attitude here? She’s humble before the Lord. She’s not approaching Him face to face. She’s at His feet, and she’s not just standing there. She’s wiping His feet with her hair, which means that she’s having to kneel there. So her position, her prostrating herself, is showing what her attitude was toward the Lord. We see that her emotions are one of weeping. There’s sadness there. She is sorrowful for her sin and who she is in His presence.
Now, it may be that she had already met Jesus before, and she had brought this gift to honor Him, or maybe this is the first time, but she has this proper attitude here that the Pharisee and no one else in the room had. But it’s not only an attitude that she had that’s proper; there was activity in what she was doing. Look at some of the words in verse 38. She was washing His feet. She was wiping His feet. She was kissing His feet, and she was anointing them with perfume.
She worshiped Jesus not only with the proper attitude, but there was physical activity involved in what she was doing. So it is that our activity that we do in worship is part of our worship to the Lord. The acts of service again—teaching, cleaning, setting up communion, serving food, working outside in our gardens, ushering—all of these things are acts of worship that we perform as long as we are doing them for the glory of God and we’re not doing it to receive glory for ourselves.
Next, I want you to see in the text that worship is misunderstood. Often, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “This man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him. She’s a sinner.” The Pharisee’s mind was blown. He didn’t understand why this woman was doing this, and he didn’t understand why Jesus was allowing it. A lot of times there’s misunderstanding within the body of Christ about what people do in worship.
Some people might raise their hands while we’re singing, and the person next to them thinks, “I can’t believe they’re doing that.” Somebody else might be clapping during a song, and someone else says, “No, that’s not the proper way to do it.” People misunderstand how we worship, but if we’re doing it for the Lord, it’s a proper thing. Even having instruments on the stage—some of you may have been raised or are familiar with the tradition where some churches say there shouldn’t be any instruments at all, and they would be bothered by us having those. But even having instruments, people using their musical talents, if they’re doing it for the Lord, is an activity of worship, even though it might be misunderstood.
But worship is also especially misunderstood from those that do not worship themselves. And that’s where we find this Pharisee. He’s not worshiping Jesus; he doesn’t understand. As believers, we might often find that people outside the church don’t understand. They’re like, “Why in the world do you go to church and sit for an hour on Sunday? Why do you go there and do anything? You’re just wasting your time. You could be spending time with family, you could be going to ball games, you could be involved in sports—all these other things.” People misunderstand why we worship, but the reason we do is because God deserves it from us.
Next, I want you to see in the text that worship is our response to forgiveness. Jesus replied to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” He said, “Say it, teacher.” A creditor had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. And since they could not pay it back, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more? And Simon answered, “I suppose that the one he forgave more.” And Jesus said, “You have judged correctly.”
What we need to see here is that our worship is because we understand that we are sinners. The more we understand our sinfulness, the more we understand how much God has forgiven us. Every sin that you have committed, that you are committing, and that you will commit—Jesus had to suffer for every single one of those sins on the cross. Because of the enormity of the amount of sin in the world, it made Jesus’ death on the cross almost unbearable to Him. Only God in the flesh could have borne that.
So it’s important that as we think about worship, we understand how much God forgives us. If I were to wrong you over and over and over again, finally, you would say, “Pastor Robert, I just can’t handle this anymore. You keep offending me. I can’t forgive you anymore.” We think about God that every wrong thought that you have, every evil emotion, everything that you do wrong—God continually forgives you over and over and over again because He promises us, if we confess our sins, He is always faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Let’s go and look at verse 47 here. After Jesus pointed out to the Pharisee about little sins and many sins, He says that, “Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven.” This woman realized that that’s why she loved Jesus so much. Whereas it appears that Simon doesn’t even think that he has a few sins, so he’s nothing appreciative of Jesus at all. “The one who is forgiven little loves little.” And then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Those who were at the table with Him began to say among themselves, “Who is this man who even forgives sins?” And He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
The more we understand our sinfulness, the more we will worship the Lord. Therefore, we should contemplate and think about how much and how often God forgives us over and over. Because I would say that all of us continually underestimate the value of our salvation—the great price that God paid for us by sending His Son to die on the cross, that we might be forgiven and have a right relationship with Him. Worship is our response to forgiveness.
Next, I want you to see that worship is evidence of faith. Verse 47 says that her many sins had been forgiven; that’s why she loved me. And then Jesus told her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The reason for this is because she had placed her faith in Jesus Christ. He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
In that room that day, there was not only Simon; there were many other guests. There was Jesus, and there was this woman. And there was only one saved person in the room, as far as we know, and that saved person was the person that was worshiping—in attitude and in action. Worship is evidence of faith. If people don’t have any worship in their life, then there is reasonable doubt that they have even placed their faith in Jesus Christ.
In contrast, we have the Pharisee, who was not forgiven. He had no faith. He was very religious; he thought he was following all the rules and doing what he was supposed to. But the lack of worship was evidence that there was no faith in his life. He not only neglected to worship Jesus, but he didn’t even provide customary hospitality. So it is that people that don’t worship the Lord—they’re not just not worshiping Him; they’re pushing away from Him. They’re not giving Him what He deserves as the Lord. Worship is evidence of faith.
Next, I want you to see that worship shouldn’t be cheap. Let’s go back and read again in verse 36. One of the Pharisees invited him to eat with him. He entered the Pharisee’s house, and he reclined at the table. A woman in the town who was a sinner found out that Jesus was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house. She brought an alabaster jar of perfume. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to wash his feet with her tears. She wiped his feet with her hair, kissing them and anointing them with the perfume.
Have you bought perfume lately? Anybody? We were in Macy’s the other day, and I smelled some perfume. I thought this would smell really good on Marion. It was $92 for this much, all right? So we decided not to get it. She agreed with me, so I wasn’t refusing it. Well, that’s $92. That sounds like quite a bit of money. Now, if you bought that little bottle of perfume and you went and poured it on Sam Jesse’s feet, I mean, everybody would say, “You know, you’re just ridiculous. They smell bad.”
But I shouldn’t be picking on you, should I? But you would think that that’s such a waste of money. Well, this particular jar of perfume was a lot more than $92. This would be similar to what Lazarus’ sister Mary did in appreciation for Jesus. She went out and she bought an alabaster jar of perfume. In that instance, Judas Iscariot, who was about to betray Him, said, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?” 300 denarii—that’s over a year’s worth of income.
So we’re not talking about a $92 bottle of perfume; we’re talking about you taking a whole year’s income, buying something, and then pouring it out on someone’s feet. She bought this alabaster box. It was some type of marble. It would have been white or pink or yellow with bands of different colors in it. It was translucent, so you could see through it. I was reading up on the history of this, and there were different ideas about what happened, but the basic idea is that a woman would have an alabaster jar with perfume in it that either had been given to her at birth or it was given to her at some point in her life. The purpose of that alabaster jar was to use it to anoint someone at their death, or when they got married, they would pour it out on the feet of the groom to show how much they loved and appreciated him. It was a very precious gift. It was a one-of-a-kind thing.
This woman did not worship Jesus with a $92 bottle of perfume or a $4.99 jar of perfume that you can get at Walmart, okay? She was giving something that was expensive and valuable to show to the Lord how much He deserved. In the same way, our worship shouldn’t be cheap. We shouldn’t give the least amount of time to it. We shouldn’t give the least amount of gifts and offerings. We shouldn’t give the least amount of service here in the church or in witnessing to other people. God asks us to show Him extravagantly, with gratitude and generosity, how much we love Him.
I want to take us to 2 Samuel, chapter 24, where King David demonstrated this. There was a plague that had come upon the Jews, and it was moving across the land. The prophet Gad said quickly, “Go and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Once you do that, the plague will stop.” So David went up in obedience to Gad’s command, just as the Lord had commanded. Araunah looked down and he saw the king and his servants coming toward him. So he went out and he paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”
David replied, “To buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord so the plague on the people may be halted.” Araunah said to David, “My lord, the king may take whatever he wants and offer it. Here are the oxen for a burnt offering and his tools, the threshing sledges and the ox yokes. Use those for wood.” Your majesty, Araunah gives everything here to the king. Then he said to the king, “May the Lord your God accept you.”
But David, who was a man of worship—who wrote many of the psalms—answered, “No, I insist on buying it from you for a price, for I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 20 ounces of silver. David could have made that offering, and it would have cost him nothing at all. But he recognized the importance of giving what he had so that his offering would not be cheap to the Lord.
In the same way, it is with us: with the money that we give to the Lord, with our time that we spend—not just at church, but even in your daily devotions, reading your Bible—are you cheap with the Lord? If He looks at the amount of time, if He looks at the amount of service that you do for Him, if He looks at the amount of money that you give, or even if you don’t give, does He say “cheap,” or does He say, “They’re giving an offering that’s worthy of Me?”
We come down with four questions of application at the end. The first one is, “Am I worshiping God in my attitude and activity?” You might be here today doing activity, but if your attitude is not one of prostrating yourself before the Lord, then what you’re doing is not worship. But it’s also possible that you might have the right attitude to the Lord, but you’re never involved in doing anything for Him. True worship is putting both things together.
The second question is, “What does my worship reveal about my appreciation for God’s forgiveness?” If you’re not worshiping much, you’re not appreciating much. You need to spend more time thinking about how much your sin really has weighed upon the Lord and how much pain and suffering it caused for Jesus Christ on the cross so that you will appropriately worship Him.
The third question is, “Does my worship show evidence of my faith?” If others never see you worshiping, if God never sees you worshiping in attitude and action, then you should question yourself. Maybe there isn’t true faith in my life because I really don’t understand what it means to be saved by placing my faith in Jesus Christ.
The last thing to ask yourself and think about is, “Is my worship cheap or is my worship costly?” Am I giving the Lord really what He deserves? All of these things are for you to think about as you leave today. Think about God’s word. What do you owe Him, and what do you need to change? I can guarantee you, if you really want to know, ask God to show you, and He will do that for you.
We’re going to close in prayer, and we’ve got some extra time there. I’ll be finished with Sunday school. So, Bill, I think we’re going to sing that last song today. Can we do that?
All right, let’s pray. As y’all are making your way up, heavenly Father, we ask that you would work in our hearts to show us how we can better worship you in attitude and activity. We may not have much, Father, so what we have to give may be small in comparison to others, but it’s all about the proportion that you’ve given us. Even with the widow when she gave her two mites, Father, that was a costly gift for her. Let us have the same attitude in our worship of you—in our service, our activity, our intentions, our emotions, all these things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Will you stand with us as Bill…?