Bayside Baptist Church

Jason King: Tis the season, right? Merry Christmas as we celebrate together. This time of year is just fun and filled with a lot of excitement from kids even to adults as families and friends gather and all the different things go on. You have parties and other things that you're a part of. There's the traffic, right? Anybody like the traffic that's around Chattanooga constantly?

One of the things that I love for our family is the Christmas holidays represent a bit of a slowdown and a difference in a pace and rhythm of life. The kids are out of school and things shift and slow down just a little bit, and it's a great time for us to spend together.

I love how our daughter Grace, our oldest daughter, gets up first thing in the morning. The first thing that she does is plug in the Christmas tree if it's not already on. She goes to this little thing that we have that sits on the table in the den and she flips it to however many days are left for Christmas. She's also the one that several weeks ago said, "Hey, Mom, Dad, it's time to set up the Christmas tree." She loves the Christmas spirit. She loves Christmas music, and she's great at finding things that we've done as a family around the city, whether it's the boat parade downtown or Nooga Lights or whatever it is. It's so much fun to think about the things that you do and you're a part of this time of year.

But if we're honest, this time of year also brings challenges, doesn't it? Disappointment can creep in when the holidays don't happen like you hope that they would or your circumstances don't come together exactly like you were thinking that they might at the end of the year or in this time. Grief can loom very large if you've lost someone that you've loved over the past year or Christmas is a reminder that someone you love is not there.

Relational tensions can make this time of year tough. There's a part of every single one of us in this room that we experience some of the challenges that the holidays bring. There are moments where sometimes the challenges overshadow the joy and the fun.

It could be that this year, those family gatherings, those parties, the things that you've been a part of, maybe even the presents hit a little bit differently. Instead of being filled with joy, it reminds you of the brokenness in your family or in your own life. While everybody is going about their thing, it seems like they're playing along, you know deep down it's just not right and it's hard for you to enjoy it because you wish that things were different.

You could be on the outside looking in this year because of some of the choices of your past or circumstances that you've walked through that you have no control over. Now you're experiencing this where you feel like you're watching your life or what should be your life as a movie. All of this can make the holidays a difficult time where the joy and the comfort and the peace that we hear so much about at Christmas time seems like it's far away.

Yet the message of Christmas, the message that we're here to be reminded of and the word that we're here to be reminded of today, is that Christmas is about peace. The message of the Christmas story is that Jesus came to bring peace. In the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 9, it was foretold that this child was going to come, that Jesus was going to come, and Isaiah wrote these words as the Lord spoke to him, "For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." These words were attributed to Jesus. He fulfilled these words.

Even in the story of Jesus' birth, there's a reminder that Jesus came to bring peace. Matthew chapter 1, verse 21, the angel is speaking to Joseph and he is finding out that his fiancée is pregnant and he didn't have anything to do with that, and so he's processing all this. But the angel is speaking to him and said, "And she will have a son," speaking of Mary, "and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

Just a couple of verses later, Matthew chapter 1, verse 23: "Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means 'God is with us.'"

I want to say to you this Christmas Eve as we're gathered together to celebrate Christmas, on the cusp of Christmas day, that the message that God offers you, the truth, the reality that God offers you today is peace. He offers hope. He offers something to you and to me that if we accept and receive the gift that he offers, it changes everything.

There's a story later on in Jesus' life. It's in Luke chapter 7. Jesus has been teaching one day and he's been doing the ministry that he often did in this area. In Luke chapter 7, beginning in verse 36, I want you to see what happens. It says that one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to his home and he sat down to eat.

Jesus gets an invitation to come to dinner, kind of like you might say, "Hey, you guys come over, we'll have some dinner, we'll go out to eat." But in this day, it was a little bit different. There are some similarities, but it was a little bit different. The homes in that day of those who had the means and were able, they would have a very large courtyard or kind of like a big room, like we would call a banquet room, in their homes.

When they would invite people over, there would be a certain number of people that they would invite to eat. You've got a plate, you can come and eat and be a part of what was going on. But then other people would hear that there was a gathering and they would just show up and hang out in the courtyard, uninvited.

How would that be this evening? You going home, you've got a family gathering, you've got something going on tomorrow, and about 50 random people just show up to hear what you're talking about? That wouldn't fly with us. We would say, "Y'all need to go home, but you can't stay here." We wouldn't want that in our place, but in this day, it was normal.

The invited guests would eat and everybody else was hanging around, especially if there was someone who was well-known or like Jesus, had a following where people wanted to see him, they wanted to hear him speak or maybe be healed from him. People would show up, so it is a big gathering that's taking place.

Verse 37, it says when a certain immoral woman from that city heard that he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet weeping. Her tears fell on his feet and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

The picture is this big gathering is taking place. Again, the woman, this immoral woman, the woman that's described in this passage, hears that Jesus is coming, and so she's not invited, so she just shows up. But she comes prepared to see him. She gathered this jar of perfume and neither her having that with her or being there is an accident. When it says that she was an immoral woman, basically it means that her past was sketchy at best, that she had a checkered past. She was involved in an illicit line of work and her reputation and her past were known by everyone. Everybody knew what she'd been doing, how she'd earned a living, what she had done. They'd seen her before.

She comes and she brings this jar of perfume and she begins to sit at Jesus' feet and she's wiping his feet off with her hair. That was a common practice in that day. It was a custom in that day. All this was taking place and Jesus is allowing this to happen. By letting her do this, you need to know that he's willingly associating himself with this woman who was less than reputable.

Picture this in our time. What if you saw a video or heard a story of Billy Graham before he had passed away, having a gathering at his house and associating with some different folks? Maybe he had a party and he invited Madonna or Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, one of the Kardashians, somebody to come, and now he was associating himself with those people in his home?

What would your first thought be? Probably same as mine and probably just like the man who threw this party. Look in verse 39. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman this is touching him. She is a sinner."

This man was thinking to himself. Did you notice that it said in the text that he's not saying it out loud? He's not telling everybody that's there. He is thinking to himself. He would push her away if he knew what was going on. He had formed his opinion about this woman. In his mind, here's Jesus, proof positive that Jesus is not who he says he is, that he's not a prophet because if he were, he wouldn't have anything to do with this woman.

Instead of pushing the woman away, look in verse 40 at what Jesus does. Jesus answered his thoughts. I'm just going to stop right there for just a second. Does that give you pause? We think we hide our thoughts. Nobody knows our thoughts. We can conceal our thoughts. But Jesus interrupts this man's thoughts and speaks to him because he knows what he's thinking.

"Simon, I have something to say to you." "Well, go ahead, Teacher." Then Jesus told him a story. "A man loaned money to two people. 500 pieces of silver to one, 50 pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debt. Who do you suppose loved him more than that?" And Simon answered, "Well, I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt."

Remember that Simon never said a word of this out loud. Jesus answered and interrupted his internal conversation he's having in his mind. He tells a story. He says there's two guys and they both owed this one lender a good bit of money. One of them, it's the equivalent of about two and a half years' wages. The other one is about the equivalent of two and a half months' wages. Neither had the money to pay the bill, so the lender canceled both. He said, "Look, you don't owe me anything. It's done. It's canceled."

Jesus said, "Well, which one of you think is more appreciative of the man who canceled the debt?" Simon said, "Well, I'd guess the one who had the bigger debt canceled." And Jesus said, "That's right."

Can I say to some of you here today, it might be that the reason you keep God at an arm's distance, that you really don't step into the whole faith thing outside of coming to church here or there, is because you think that your past, your mistakes, your story, what you did last night or even this morning, somehow disqualifies you and the debt that you've created with God is just too large and God doesn't want anything to do with you.

If that's you, if deep down that's what you think or what you feel right now, can you hear what Jesus says in this moment? He's offering to cancel this debt. That's his point. The woman in this story was in this moment because she had been forgiven, because she had found peace and she'd been a long way from God for a long time. That was her life's work. Jesus' forgiveness that he offered her wiped her slate clean.

I'm talking to some of you right now that think God don't want nothing to do with me because of what I've done, because of what I said, because of how I treated that person, because of what I've done in my life or what I've been a part of. You need to hear what the word of God says. Jesus offers to wipe even your sins away.

1 John 1:9 is one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture. It says but if we confess our sins, if we own it, we name it, and we confess it to him, to Christ, that he is faithful and he is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. He wipes it away.

This lady had heard Jesus' message at some point in the past. Did you notice in verse 37, it said the one who had lived a sinful life? Past tense. It was over. It was done. She was in a new chapter now. Now she simply came and met Jesus in this gathering to say thank you because of what he had done for her.

Jesus continues in this story in verse 44 and he says this. Then he turned to the woman and he said to Simon, "Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn't offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn't greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she's not stopped kissing my feet. You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume."

Did you notice that? You may not know about the culture of this day. It's a little different than our day. They went a little bit further in hospitality and hosting. If you invited somebody over to your house, you took care of them. They walked around in sandals all day long, so their feet were nasty and dusty and dirty. It was a custom to offer not only the water to wash their feet, but oftentimes to wash the feet for them when they came to your house, to give some oil to help welcome them into your home, to take care of their needs.

Jesus says, "I showed up to your house, invited to your house, and you didn't do none of this. You didn't do anything. But yet this woman who wasn't even invited, who lived a sinful life, it wasn't even her house, she's not the host, but yet she is the one who went above and beyond." Her actions were saying something to Jesus that he's pointing out in this moment. God had done something in her life and it overflowed with gratitude because she had been forgiven. She understood, not the religious guy, she understood what it meant to be forgiven, how big of a deal it really was.

Jesus continues, "I tell you, her sins, and they're many, they've been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only a little love." Jesus said to Simon, "Here's the deal. Here's what's up. The reason I know that her sins have been forgiven, she's not doing this stuff to earn that forgiveness, but it's because of the love that she demonstrates. She loves much."

On the other hand, somebody who doesn't think they've been forgiven much, they love little. The one who takes forgiveness for granted feels entitled and doesn't believe their stuff is that big a deal compared to everybody else's. But this girl in this story, in this moment, the one who lived a sinful life in the past, she recognized when she crossed paths with Jesus that his message was different. He offered her forgiveness and she understood exactly what that meant because of where she had come from.

It was hard for the religious dude, for Simon, to understand. He'd got a little self-righteous. Maybe he thought, "Well, I'm in church now, I'm a religious person, I try to be good and do good stuff and do the right thing," probably with good intentions. But he'd arrived at this place of where when he looked at someone who was a sinner, his first thought was to look down on her, to create some distance between her and himself or anyone else who was a sinner and himself. What he did, instead of recognizing the issues in his own heart, the sinfulness in his own heart, he pushed away those who really he didn't think were quite as good as he is.

That may be where you're living today as well. If you're in Christ, maybe you've begun to follow Jesus, maybe you've been in church for a little while, and if you find yourself looking at other people through the lenses of you're better than them because fill in the blank, or because you don't fill in the blank. Jesus is saying, "Look, you might be tempted to think that forgiveness is for only really bad folks, those who do those things we don't talk about in church."

But the Bible teaches us that all of us have need for forgiveness. When we recognize this, what does that have to do with Christmas? This is God's gift to the world that he sent to us in Jesus Christ, that we all were separated from God because of our sin, that we all were a mess before God because of what was inside of us. We weren't good people who occasionally messed up. We were broken people who were completely separated from God.

Do you remember what the Bible says in Romans chapter 3 verse 23? "For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard." Don't get hung up on trying to figure out what those words mean. Basically what it says is God's up here, he's perfect, he's holy, we're down here, and no matter how good you are or how good you're not, you're never going to get to God because of sin in your life. It's not just some people, it's not just those people out there, it's all of us.

Romans 6:23 says the thing that we earn for our sin, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. When we recognize the depth of our sin, the gift that God has given us in Jesus Christ, it changes the way we see other people. When you've received the forgiveness of your sin, then you become a conduit of forgiveness for other people. When you have the peace of God, you can give the peace of God to others. That's what God is inviting you into this Christmas season, is to experience the forgiveness that only comes through faith in Christ.

All of us need forgiveness, whether our sin is blatant or not. All of us are in need of someone to stand in the gap for us, and this woman recognized this. Jesus continued in verse 48 and he said this. Jesus turned to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven." And the men at the table said among themselves, "Who's this man think he is? He goes around forgiving sins." And Jesus said to this woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

Your faith. Not some prayer that you prayed a long time ago or some deal on your wall or bumper sticker on your car or trying to be a good person or trying to come to church when you can, but your faith has saved you. It's brought you peace.

Faith is trusting in God enough to receive this gift of forgiveness, not believing that you're good enough to do it on your own way or that you don't have to listen to what God's word says and follow the truth of God's word for your life. Instead, faith is trusting in God as the one who sent Jesus to forgive you of your sin, to make you right with God, and to set you on a path for a new direction for life. This woman, if we were to put the words of her story on this screen, it would make you blush where she had been and what she had done. But she received forgiveness and it changed everything. She understood where she came from and she knew what difference Jesus had made in her life, and he says, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

The message of Christmas is that this child who was born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, he died upon a cross and then was raised from the dead and he offers you peace through the forgiveness of your sin. Forgiveness brings peace, and that is the best Christmas gift that you could ever receive. Once you receive it, it changes everything.

That's really the rest of Jesus' point in this story, is that the religious guy who thought he knew all the stuff, looked down through his nose at this woman because he's better than she is because he hasn't done all the things that she's done. Jesus says, "Hold on. Once you understand the forgiveness of sin, it brings peace in your own heart, but it changes how you can forgive other people."

He gets at the root of what we think about when we look at other people. Often we think we're better than others. Our way is to think that people have to get their stuff together to be Christians or to have it all right, and then they can come to God. But Jesus is saying, "No, when you encounter the gift of the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ, when you believe in that, when you receive that gift, you're made right through the forgiveness of your sin."

I love a story I heard a long time ago. It was about a store in a small town, and the owner of that store was operating and he was doing a great thing before the Great Depression hit many years ago. He had actually started to try to help the people of the town out by opening up an opportunity for people to purchase things on an account, on credit. They would purchase something and then it would take them a little while to pay for it, and he did that as a service just to help the people of the town.

When the Great Depression hit, nobody had anything. Everything came to a grinding halt. Not only did that affect his business, but the people who owed him money stayed away because they felt guilty and they didn't want to see this man to whom they owed money. You know what he did? This store owner took out an ad in the paper, in this hometown newspaper, this little small town, and it simply said, "All debts forgiven."

You know what happened? People began to come back to the store because they knew that they had been forgiven. I can't help but think today, for some of you in this moment, you're keeping God at an arm's distance. You're just not really jumping into all that. You're holding back and it's affecting every area of your life. But Jesus offers to you this reality today: all debts are forgiven. All of them. He's inviting you to receive this gift today by faith.