Worship Matters - A Heart Poured Out - Luke 7:36–50

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Well, good morning. Listen, for 8 o'lock in the morning, you guys sing really, really good, right? Because it's 8 o'clock. Would you turn to the person next to you going, I'm glad you made it this morning. Get my high five. Welcome home. Do something there. Don't we hate it? One day they're going to change this whole time change Sunday and not not make it a reality. But today, it's a reality. So, thanks so much for being here today. If you're a guest with us here today, listen, we're so glad you're here, especially on time change Sunday. Did you know this? as a guest, if you come to church on Time Change Sunday, you get X rewards in heaven. So, congratulations. You get those extra rewards. But really, we're so glad you're here. And um as a guest, if you'll take a few minutes when you received a handout when you came in, there's a card in there looks like this. If you'll take a few minutes and fill that out, um we just love to contact you. We don't harass you. We don't bother you. It just lets us know who you are because here at Souths Subhurch, we don't want you just become one of many people. We want you to become a real person. And we don't know if you're a real person unless we know who you are. And so take a few minutes. You can fill that out. You can drop in the offering box as you leave here or the welcome center. If you take it by there, they actually have a little gift for you. But thank you so much for filling that out. You know, whether you're a guest or a long-term attender of the church. Have you ever noticed at any church you go to, there are certain churchy words that are used with great frequency? But but here's what I've realized. We use these words with such frequency, but a lot of times people really don't even know know what they mean. I mean, they're part of the regular vocabulary, but we just assume everyone knows what they mean. We talk with these words. We may pray with these words. We may even sing with some of these words. But the reality is, if you stop somebody and you chose one of these churchy words and you stopped and asked them in the foyer after the service, "Hey, what does that word mean?" There's a good chance they may look at you and going, "I have no idea." They're what I call familiar but fuzzy words. Okay? Familiar but fuzzy. You recognize the words. You may even kind of fake it in a sentence, but the familiarity of it still leads to some fuzziness of what it really means. But here's what I've learned. But sometimes you go to church so long, whether it's a church or many churches and everybody uses these words, but it would be a little bit embarrassing to look at somebody and say, "Could you tell me what that word means?" Like, we say it, we use it, we we we implement it, but I'm afraid to ask because it seems like everybody knows what that word means. And so, here's what I want to do. We're beginning a brand new series today, and I want us to take four weeks and look at one of these words that we use often times in church. one of our churchy words and the word that I want us to look at and really study and move it from just being just familiar but fuzzy and move it to be more biblical and bold. In other words, that we know what this word means because here's what the Bible defines it as. We know what this word means and we can boldly just not just say it and use it in vocabulary, but we can proclaim it with our life. And the word that I want us to look at over the next four or five weeks is this word called worship. Okay, just worship. Again, we we use that so many times, but most people have a very limited understanding of what worship is. Most people think in church when you use that word, it's the few songs that you sing before the preacher ever gets up to preach. That's worship. You sing it, you stand up, you do it, and like, "Oh, yeah, we worshiped." But here's what I want you to understand. that the Bible has a much bigger and larger idea of what worship really is. And so this new series that we're starting is entitled Worship Matters. And over the course of these next three or four weeks, here's what I hope we don't just learn what the word is. We begin to refocus our life and incorporate worship into our lives. And we really begin to experience what worship is. But you may be sitting there going, "No, Keith, I'm not much into worship." Okay? Like that's one of the reasons I come like five or 10 minutes late to the service because I don't get into all the singing, so I'm not much into worship. Here's what we need to realize that we all worship. The things that you focus on during the week is what you worship. The things that when they're missing or something gone arry and and you get stressed out over it, that's what you worship. The thing that you spend your money on, that's what you worship. And so nobody can say I'm not really into worship because all of our lives in every one of us we worship something. And so the purpose and the goal of this series is to get this idea of what biblical and bold worship is and for us to make that the centerpiece of our lives. So worship matters. And here's how we're going to do it. Over the next few weeks leading up to Easter, we're going to choose a different narrative. Some in the Old Testament, some in the New Testament. In fact, some of these stories that we're going to look at in the Bible are stories that you might not have heard of. It's not your common everyday stories. And we're going to look out real people, though they might have lived a thousand, 2,000, 3,000 years ago, worship has always been a part of our culture. And we're going to look and see how they engaged in worship in their own lives. And so if you have your Bibles, today's um chapter and verse we're going to be looking at is Luke chapter 7. But before I get there, let me read just a big broad description of what I think worship is. It's in your in your handout. It's on the right hand side. But here's what it says. It says this. Worship is the way our hearts and our lives respond to God because of his gracious forgiveness. We express worship outwardly through music and singing, but also through prayer, through gratitude, obedience, generosity, and the daily choices that put God first. True worship isn't confined to a moment in a church service. It's a whole life oriented around God's worth. So, we're going to be looking at that. We're going to be digging that apart. We're going to be tearing that apart. And we're going to be discovering over the next four weeks this whole idea of engaging in worship. But Luke chapter 7 starting in verse 36, there's a story about a woman and I think her very life shows us what worship is. And here's what it says starting in verse 36. This is one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him. Just to kind of give you an idea what's going on the life of Jesus, he has began his public ministry. He's gone around. He's done some miracles. He's done some teaching. And so he's starting to really attract a crowd. And there were those who are very very interested in him. There were those who are curious with about Jesus but not sure what to do with him. And there were those the Pharisees and other religious leaders that are beginning to kind of like push back on him because they were not liking the attention that he was getting. Yet they were trying to understand what he was trying to teach. They were trying to understand what he was saying. And so they would often invite him into these different conversations. So in this one particular moment they invited him over their house to eat. Says one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him. And so Jesus went to his home and he sat down. The fact that Jesus sat down with these Pharisees, these religious leaders. Um if you're new to church or new to reading the Bible, you're thinking, well that makes sense. If Jesus is this great teacher of the Bible and these are the religious leaders, don't they all fit together? But they really didn't. Because we'll understand as Jesus fulfills his ministry and lives on this earth, they really were two separate groups of people. You see the rel the Pharisees were very very religious men. It was a very inclusion type of group. No women were involved and it was just men back in those days. In fact, they were probably some of the most religious people of their day. If you were to follow them around or spend some time with them, you would understand that they knew the Bible more than better than anybody else. They attended anything that was religious, they would have been there. And they tried to follow every law they found in the Bible. And they even to make sure they were good religious people, they added a whole bunch of rules of their own to make sure they were really, really good. You see, these men, these religious guys, these Pharisees, the problem wasn't they cared too much about God. Here's what their problem was. They begin to let their rules, their man-made expectations replace God. You see, Jesus came on the scene and he wanted to redirect people to God. He he wanted to redirect people to a relationship with God. But these Pharisees that had invited Jesus over to dinner that night, they had kind of put God on the shelf and they put all their rules, their laws, and their man-made expectations involving with all that and they made that the centerpiece of their lives. And so this night that they invited Jesus over to eat. And then it says in verse 37, "And while they were sitting down, a certain immoral woman from the city heard he was eating there." So the word got out on the streets that all these religious guys, all these Pharisees, they had invited Jesus over and that's where he went to dinner that night. And the Bible says that when she heard that, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. And then she knelt behind him at his feet weeping. Her tears fell on his feet and she wiped them off with her hair. And then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. I want you to for a second to go back in that moment in time with me. Here was this living room area the way that would have been set up back in those days. It wouldn't have a high table chairs like we sit in. It had been a very low table. And when the men went to eat, they would have been relying on like one arm and they'd been eating at the table. More of like a reclining table they were eating at. And as they were sitting eating, a very, again, like I said, a very inclusive group of these religious highranking officials. And Jesus, the Bible says this woman, this immoral woman, here's what that means. She didn't have the kind of reputation of a girl that you would want your son dating. There's a good chance she was a prostitute. There was a very good chance that everybody in the town knew exactly who she was and what she did in the evenings. And so on this night that Jesus is having dinner, she walks into the room unannounced and uninvited. And the Bible says that she walked over to Jesus and doesn't describe the walk, but I can guess it was a very timid, fearful, shy walk. I don't think she had opened the door going, "Hey, I'm here for dinner. You guys didn't invite me, but I'm here." And she walked right over there. I imagine she went with great curiosity or fear of how those in the room might respond to her because I'm sure knowing the time of the day and the culture, they had responded to her many times before in that rejection type of way. The Bible says that she walks over there and she kneels at Jesus's feet. Remember, he's lying down. And so to kneel at his feet would have been a very normal position. The Bible says that she built me down. And she began to weep. She wept because she knew who Jesus was and she knew who she wasn't. Fact, the Bible says that she wept so much Jesus's feet are now wet.

And she carried with her this alabaster jar of perfume. And the first thing she did as she began to weep and and and see his feet wet with her tears that she knew she had to wipe them off. But she came unprepared with a towel. And so she just took her hair. And back in those days, women would have wore their hair up and covered. And so there had been no hair hanging down. So she did the unthinkable. She took the covering off her head and her hair came cascading down. And as she knelled and she wept, she began to wipe his feet with her hair. You can imagine the room. Nobody's saying anything. They're all just sitting there going, "Oo, can you believe this is happening?" It's interesting. Even Jesus didn't do anything. Now, let let's be honest. If we're in some situation, you don't have your shoes on and somebody comes starts rubbing or wiping your feet like, "Oh, can you back off?" We're kind of got this foot fetish rather than nobody touches our feet. It would have been very normal back then that when someone came walking into a home after walking on the dusty streets, a servant should have already washed his feet. So, the fact that somebody was touching his feet, washing his feet, was a very normal culture. Not with hair and not with tears, but everybody just sat there. And then the Bible says this that she took her alabaster, her jar of perfume, and she began to pour it on his feet and just simply wipe it on his feet. And then she did the unthinkable. She reached down and began to kiss his feet. She was displaying this this act of humility, this act of reverence, this act of love in this moment. And everybody just sat there quiet. Nobody said anything. No one knew what to say. But I'm sure everybody had something to say because look what it says next. Verse 39. When the Pharisee who had invited him, we're going to learn later in the story that this particular Pharisees name is Simon. Now don't confuse him with Simon Peter, one of the disciples. Simon was a very common ordinary name. But this particular Pharisee that had invited Jesus a dinner, his name is Simon. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, now watch this. He said to himself, if you ever circle things in your Bible, circle that. He didn't say it out loud. He just thunk it. Okay? I mean, he's like responding inside going, "This is what I want to say, but I know it's not the right time to say it." But the Bible says he said it to himself. If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She's a sinner. So, while this woman is pouring out her heart, while this woman is just loving Jesus unconditionally, while this woman is serving him, here's this other disciple over here. not discipled this Pharisee over here going, "Oh my gosh, can you believe that?" If he's who all who said he is, the Messiah, the Savior, the son of God, he would know she's a sinner, and he would never allow that. And so, you sense this tension going on, but the tension is inspoken because the the the Pharisees only thinking inside his head. See, here's what you need to understand a little bit more of the backstory that the scripture doesn't say. This woman doing everything she's doing is not breaking any biblical laws. There is nowhere you can look in the Old Testament from Genesis to the end of it that says that women shouldn't be doing this one. But there was a lot of those man-made religious expectations that the Pharisees had made. There was a lot of these ideas that they considered what it should or should not be. In fact, if you look in the Old Testament, there's um theologians say there's like 600 different laws in the Old Testament that God made laws that were put in the Old Testament. But Jewish tradition stepped in. These religious leaders stepped in. And the Bible says this, or not the Bible, but just Jewish customs says this, that they created like a thousand plus other rules because remember, they're so focused on being right and good, they miss the very God they're being right and good about. And so when this this this Pharisee Simon is looking on, he can't pinpoint going, "Oh, in Leviticus 3 21, it says there's no law in the Bible that says what she's doing is wrong." But in his mind, in his little covenant with his other religious people, they had decided what's right and wrong. They they had determined that she should have never entered into a Pharisees house uninvited because she's a woman. And they're religious figures and this this woman comes into their house. It kind of makes them a little bit not so good. She had her place out there at the other people, but she wasn't just a woman. She was an immoral prostitute. How dare her taint the religious meal with her dirty self. So Simon along with these other Pharisees, they're sitting back there going, "This is just not good. We know the way we like our religion to run and she's not working the way it's supposed to." And then when she let her hair down in public, how dare her? their expectation from a religious standpoint that if a woman comes into the presence, her hair needs to be up on the head and needs doesn't need to be falling down like that. And so I'm sure on this day, Simon is not the only one that's thinking these things. I'm sure every one of those other religious people are thinking the same things because they had these expectations and the woman wasn't meeting the expectations.

And we look at that. And if you're like me, when I read that, I'm going, "Man, what a bunch of sorry suckers." Really? I mean, here's Jesus in their midst, and they're more concerned about their own personal religious expectations not being met than the Savior, the Son of God, right in the middle of them. Now, they're mature enough not to say anything out loud. They're smart enough not to speak it, but they're more focused on what's not being done the way they think it ought to be done than the very Jesus who's in the room with them. Are you with me? Kind of what I want to do is all of us pick up a have some stones in our chairs and pick up a stone. Let's let's get rid of them. But before we throw the stones at these Pharisees, here's a question I have for us. I wonder if we're guilty of the same thing too many times in our life that we've all developed where somebody told us or our culture's done it or just the church we go to or just whatever. We've all developed these extra religious rules that we place within our spiritual lives and they're nowhere to be found in the Bible. But when someone doesn't do them the way we expect them to, we're like, "Woo, how dare that person?" Can I give you an specific example? Some of you might have already noticed the table's not here today. Don't worry, we didn't get rid of the table. It's right over there. But there's some of you going, "Oh man, I didn't even notice. I If you hadn't told me, I wouldn't have known. The altar table's not there." There's others in the room that's like, "Yeah, I noticed it and I was kind of curious about it. Thought I might ask somebody afterwards." But I think there's a chance that there's some in the room right now going, "How can we go on with this service? You just wait till I can write my note. I need to talk to an elder. I need to talk to a board member. The table's not there. That table is supposed to be there.

And you're just up in arms. Can I propose something to you that if that's you, could it be that's a perfect example of focusing on an expectation, a religious expectation that's nowhere in scripture? Now again, nothing's wrong with it. When we have religious expectations, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I I tell you one of mine, my relationship with God, one of the things I do is just get up early in the morning and I spend time with Jesus. And if you come to me going, "Well, Keith, I like to spend time with Jesus at night." I'm going, "I don't know how that works. Six o'clock, my brain shuts off. My time's in the morning." And if you took away my mornings, it would affect my relationship with Jesus in a way because I'm so used to it. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with me spending time with Jesus in the morning and someone else spending time with Jesus in the evening. But if I hold it up to point going, "How dare you spend time with Jesus in the evening? It must be done in the morning." Would would that be right? No. That's a preference, not a mandate. Are you with me? And so the fact that we don't have a table right here, moved in on purpose just to kind of stir you a little bit today. Okay, we're not going to ask you to confess right now. You'll be like the Pharisee. Just keep it to yourself. Only Jesus knows what you're thinking. But we could pick a hundred other things that are religious expectations that aren't biblical mandates. They're just our religious expectations or our religious preferences. But somehow we work them up to more as biblical mandates. Are you with me? But here's the problem. There's nothing wrong if that helps you personally worship. But it when it rises up there, here's what happens to so many people. We place those up such high esteem, such a high place in there. We will miss the very Jesus that they were put there for in the first place.

You see, in this moment when this guy is thinking this, here's how Jesus responds. Verse 40. Then Jesus answered his thoughts. Woo! Circle that one. Okay. The man thought these things, but Jesus knew what he was thinking. Aren't you glad that Jesus is not answering all of our thoughts right now? I mean, what if Jesus was standing here going, "Let me go and tell you what you're thinking. Let me tell you what you're thinking." Like, I'm out of here. But on this day, Jesus answered his thoughts and he said,"Simon, I have something to say to you." And what a foolish man Simon was. Because Simon looked at him and said, "Go ahead, teacher." Man, if Jesus ever I'm in public and she said, "Keith, I have something to say to you about what you're thinking. I think I might say, can we talk about it private?" But he said, "Go ahead, teacher. And so Jesus tells a story. He says,"Simon, there was two men and and they owed a debt. One man owed a debt of 500 pieces of silver and the other man owed a debt of 50 pieces of silver." And he said, "Neither one of them could pay their debt." And so the man they owed the money to, the man they owed the silver to, walked up to them both and said, "Hey guys, I got good news for you. I forgive both of your debts. I forgive you that owes me 50 pieces of silver and I forgive you that owes me 500 pieces of silver. And then Jesus turns to Simon Peter and the rest of the guys sitting around the table and said, "Who who do you think had the best gift on that one? Who do you suppose loved the master, the owner more after that?" And Simon said, "Well, the one he forgave the debt of 500 because it was a bigger debt." And he goes, "Right, you are." He said, "You know, a few minutes ago, this woman walked in this room and you're fussing and complaining because she's wiping and crying her tears and washing my feet with her tears. I walked in." He goes, "Not a single one of you even offered to wash my feet like you're supposed to."

He said, "You didn't offer a towel for me to wipe the dust off my feet." And she lets down her hair and she's wiping my feet with her hair.

He goes, "You didn't even greet me with the normal kiss on the cheek and she's kissing my feet and you didn't supply any oil that I could wipe down my feet because they're so dry and she paid out of her pocket for this expensive perfume to wipe on my feet." And he looked at the Pharisees and he says, "She gets it and you don't.

Here's what we need to understand. As Jesus is telling the story, here's what we need for our series. The woman understood worship. It's almost like Jesus stood up and said, "She gets what worship is and you don't. You're more worried about expectations that you set forth and things that you like and your preferences and and all those things that go with your religion." All this woman came in and she was a sinful, dirty, outcast of society woman and she has bowed down and she's given me everything she has. Why? And he looks at her and says,"Woman, your sins are forgiven." Here's what the woman realized. that her worship came out of an overflow of who Jesus was and what he did for her. She got worship. She understood more than the religious men at the table. Worship is not this thing that we do so we can check off the box. Worship is not this thing so we feel better about ourselves. Worship is an overflow of everything in our lives because of who Jesus is and what he did for us by dying on the cross for our sins.

And he looks at him and she go and he goes, "And she got it.

She got it. It's a beautiful picture of who we worship more than what we worship. It's a beautiful picture to remind us why we worship.

Worship is more than a few songs that we sing on a Sunday in a service. Worship is an overflow of our hearts because of the gratitude that we have to God. because of his grace. And she got it.

If you're taking notes, I'm trying to get me a definition that I'm trying to hang on to this whole series. Write this down. Worship is our wholehearted response to God, to who God is and what he has done. Worship is our wholehearted response to who God is and what he has done. So as we begin our series of worship, if you want a picture of what a worship is, just look at the woman in the story.

She just came and said, "Jesus, I got to do it." She came and it was planned because she brought the perfume, but it was spontaneous because she didn't have a towel. you you could tell there's probably something in here going, "I don't know what's going to happen when I do it, and I don't know who's going to be there when I do it, and I don't even know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to show up because I have no response but to pour myself out to Jesus."

And so, as we begin this four-week series of worship, it's about a lot more than music. It's about a way of life. And my prayer is it is not just something we learn here but it is something that we experience here. And so let me wrap up four questions for you to think about this week as you ponder this idea of worship. Remember we said you can't say I'm not much into worship. We all worship. The question is what do you worship? But here's the first question. As you think about worship, where do I see myself? At Simon's table or at Jesus's feet? Am I one of the the religious leaders sitting around the table going, "We have expectations and this is not fulfilling it, and I'm kind of pushing back on this." Do do you leave here more put out that the table's over there or more focused on Jesus is here? So where do you see yourself? At Simon's table with the Pharisees or at the feet of Jesus worshiping him? Here's question number two. Question number two. Has my familiarity made Jesus my Has my familiarity with Jesus made my worship casual? Wow. Has my familiarity with Jesus

made my worship casual?

I've been following Jesus a long time.

And sometimes I could say those words and Jesus forgives me and I know he does. But can I be honest with you?

Sometimes too many times I feel it is his obligation to forgive me, not a gift he gave me. I would never say that out loud, but if Jesus said, "Hey, can I tell you what you're thinking, Keith?" It's kind of like I just rush in going, "Hey, yeah, God, you for here's what I know. I'm not a prostitute.

Nobody would classify me as immoral.

But I am as dirty, broken, sinful as the woman in the story.

But sometimes I get so casual with me and Jesus that I forget the price that he paid.

Question number three,

what's in my alabaster jar?

Historians would guess an expensive perfume might have cost her a year's salary. This is not something she just went and grabbed out of the cabinet going, I'll take this and go. It is something she paid a price for.

Worship should cost us.

In the book of 2 Samuel, David, the great king of Israel, made this comment. He said, "How dare I bring an offering before God that doesn't cost me anything?"

And so, what is it in your life this week that you could say, "God, I want to pour this out for you."

And it could be something those around you going, "That's ridiculous. Why would you give him that? If it cost you, that's what you give him."

And here's the last one. If someone watched my life this week, what would they conclude? I worship. Because we agreed we all worship something. So if someone watched your life this week, what would they conclude? You worship.

Here's why I'm excited about this series. Worship matters. It is not to condemn us where we are, but it is to urge us and lead us where God wants us.

We're going to end with some worship of singing. And it may be a time that you need to sing. It may be a time you need to just pray. It may be a time that you just put your hands out going, "God, I worship you. With whatever is in my life, I open up to you." A lot of times at the end of our service, we specifically do half a song because we know by the end of the time when the preacher finishes preaching, everybody's ready to go home. But can I invite you to do something with me? Let's not rush out of here today.

The Bible says, "Where two or more are gathered, God is surely in the midst." And Jesus is here.

And I'm going to invite you to step into and recognize his presence.

And I'm not asking you to let your hair down. I'm not asking you to put tears on someone's foot. I'm not asking you to pour out perfume. But would you allow your heart to worship and pour it out today?

And so would you stand with me?

And Jesus, can I just um this morning, can I just confess this? I think for all of us. When it comes to worship, we probably don't do very good. We're more concerned about our comfort than the cost. God, I confess for me, I confess for all of us that we have our own expectations.

And God, sometimes too many times our expectations replace your presence. And so Jesus, you are here. We don't want to leave this place until we know and experience we at your feet

and our voices aren't good and we can't clap on time and our lives don't reflect it on Monday. But oh Jesus, you welcome the broken sinful people.

So receive our worship, receive our lives,

and we pray this in your name.