I don't know if they'll ever picked up in our vocabulary in the language that we use often. We use the word blind a lot, if you think about it. We say love is blind. Don't we? Love is blind. We talk about going on blind dates. We say that when you're driving, you have a blind spot in the rear view mirror. There's multiple things. When you're playing cards, you're playing spades. You can go blind if you've ever played spades, you can go blind. What we're saying is that there's an inability to see. Love is blind. We're unable to see the flaws and the faults in the person because we're just head over heels in love. If we're blind spot in the rear view mirror, you're not able to see the car that's in the lane next to you. But one that I like is a medical term, it's color blind. And I've got a good friend named Ryan English who is in Atlanta, Georgia. He went to the University of Alabama. I'm an Auburn grad, Orange and Blue, through and through, but I was at the University of Alabama doing campus ministry for three years. So I can relate because he told me this story. He went up to Alabama as a freshman and Ryan pledged a fraternity. Pled stayed a cop at the University of Alabama. And Alabama, when you pledge a fraternity, the fall is crazy. I mean, the older brothers, the house, they're letting you have it. Well, football games roll around and all the pledges have to dress up and white butt down shirts, blazer, tie, slacks, get dates to the game, go, they sit in their little section and then they wait on hand and foot on the brothers to fetch them drinks, to fetch them food, to do whatever. Well, I call them, I'll blow this, his nickname, I'll blow, goes and gets him a date. And he's like, I don't have a white butt down shirt. And so he runs to Walmart to get him a white butt down shirt to put on his tie as a blazer goes to pick up his date. They're having fun, they're talking, they get to the stadium, they sit in their little section and the brothers come start funneling in to the stadium and then one older brother just kind of walks up to him and then it starts to unload on him. It starts to ring him. He said, we don't let pledges wear pink shirts here. He had a pink button down shirt that he was wearing with his blazer and his tie now. Ten years ago, pink was not in but pink's kind of in now. But even for pledges, if they to cut Alabama, you can't wear pink. And so he was hearing it. I mean, they were letting him have it. Now, I blow did not know he was wearing a pink shirt. He thought he was wearing a white shirt and he was color blind. He didn't see his need for a true white shirt. And so from that point on, I guarantee you, I blow had multiple white shirts in his closet. And so when games rolled around, he thrown a white shirt, get him a date, go sit in the section and be about it. But I blow from then on, realized that he was color blind and needed a white shirt. The question for us is, how are we to run to something when we don't see our need for it? How are we to run to something when we do not see our need for it? You know, oftentimes spiritually, we're blind. We're blind to the depth of our own sin. We're blind to the depravity of our own hearts, the wickedness of our own hearts. We're blind to who we are apart from Jesus Christ. And as a result, we don't see our great need for a Savior. We don't see our great need for forgiveness. We don't relish, we don't cherish the gospel. And tonight, my prayer is that we would see that part, that we would see that we are in great need for forgiveness. But at the same time, I want us to see that forgiveness flows from the Savior to spring forth hearts of worship, that forgiveness flows from the Savior to spring forth hearts of worship. We're going to look at Luke 7, verse 36 to 50. And so if you have your Bible or your bulletin, you can turn that, it'll be up on the screen. But before we get into this passage, let me pray for this time. This is the Word of God, which we're in need to hear, and we need him to speak to us. So, by with me, let me pray. God, we come, and we thank you for the cross. We thank you, that you are a redeemer, and we thank you for the Word of God that is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. And we come to this time, and we need to hear you. We need you to pierce our hearts. We need you to teach us to instruct us. So, what are minds being gays, or hearts being gays, would we not be distracted? God, whether it be from circumstance, or from family, or from hunger pains, whatever it may be, Lord, may we be focused on you. We need to hear from you. Speak to our hearts, speak to our minds, in Jesus' name we pray. Luke 7, verse 36 to 50, you should have it. I'm going to read it for us. This is one of my favorite passages. And it's probably a passage that you've heard preached on multiple times. You've probably read it. You've heard stories, devotions, whatever given about this passage here. But it is one of my favorites because I'm in need to read it because I can tend to relate often to a person in it. It is a story. It's a vivid portrayal of two different people. There's a person here who sees their great need for forgiveness. She sees the depth of their sin and sees the height of God's love in Christ. It's a person who experiences great forgiveness and expresses incredible love. But it's also a person who does not see their need and does not see their need for a Savior. And there's hardness of heart. And so there's two people on the question as we enter into this text tonight, who are you? Who am I? Are we the blind Pharisee? Are you the blind Pharisee? Are you the worshiping prostitute? That's the question for us. So Luke 7, verse 36 to 50, this is the word of God. Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him. And so he went to the Pharisees' house and he climbed at the table. And when a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees' house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume. And as she stood behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them. And when the Pharisee who had embodied him saw this, he said to himself that this man were a prophet. He would know who was touching him and what kind of woman she is that she is. And Jesus answered him and said, Simon, have something to tell you. Tell me, teacher, he said, two men owed money to a certain money lender, one owed him 500 to nary, the other 50. Neither of them had the money to pay him back so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more? Now which of them will love him more? Simon replied, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled. You have judged correctly, Jesus said. Then he turned towards the woman, he said to Simon, do you not see this woman? I came into your house and you did not give me any water for my feet. But she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she is poor perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you her sins, which are many have been forgiven for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little. And then Jesus said to her, your sins are forgiven. And the other guests began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? And Jesus said to the woman, your faith has saved you, go in peace, go in peace. The first thing that I want us to see tonight, as we look here, first looking at verses 39 to 44, is that the Savior points out our blind hearts. Is that the Savior points out our blind hearts. Looking at verse 39 with me, here's Simon, the Pharisee, the Pharisee, for y'all that don't know, was someone who was very educated, well-versed in the law of God, they knew it well. They prided themselves on obedience outwardly to the law of God. And so the Pharisee here took pride and in enters this prostitute, this harlot. And she enters into the place of this Pharisee named Simon, where they're dining with Jesus and other Pharisees. And this woman does not even make it to the face of Christ, falls down begins to weep, kisses his feet, anoints him with perfume, and then Simon in verse 39, looking verse 39. He says to himself, says to himself in verse 39, he says, if this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is, that she is a sinner. If this man were a prophet, in other words, he's saying, Jesus, this man's not a prophet, he's not a prophet. If he were, he wouldn't let this woman who's a prostitute, who's a harlot come in to this house, kiss his feet, wet his feet with her tears, he wouldn't allow that to happen. And so Simon first is blind to who this man is that is reclining and dining and fleshing with him at his own table. He doesn't know who Jesus is. He's blind to who this is, who's at his table. He'll look in verses 40, Jesus answers, and I'm sure that must have shocked Simon because Simon didn't say that out loud, he didn't say to anybody, he said to himself, kind of underneath his breath. So he said, who's this, if you were a prophet, he wouldn't let this happen. But Jesus answers in verse 40, which probably took him off guard and he says, Simon have something to tell you. And Simon says, okay, tell me. And then he gives him this scenario, he says, Simon, here's a scenario. If there are two deaders, one who owes 500 to an area and the other who owes 50 to an area. And the person cancels both debts, Simon, who do you think will love more? Who do you think will love more? And look at Simon's response in verse 43. Simon answers, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt, cancels, do you hear the hesitation from Simon? He says, I suppose the one, he's not ready to affirm that the one who's forgiven more will love more because if he does, he's confessing that the prostitute loves Jesus more than he did. And I suppose, but I'm not ready to go there because he's saying she's the sinner and I'm not. And he knows Jesus is giving him the scenario to point out and lead him to the point that he real, he does not realize who he is and the great need he has for forgiveness. But the woman does. And so first, Jesus points out that Simon's blind to who Jesus is. He doesn't know who's at his table. Secondly, Simon's blind to who he is. Simon's blind to who Simon is. He doesn't see that he's the 500-denari debtor. He sees the woman as the sinner, not himself as the sinner. And so Jesus points out this blind heart and Simon responds, well, if he were a prophet and I suppose, and you see the blindness of his heart, you know, I lived in China for two years, three summers. And while I was there, I picked up on something pretty quickly from the Chinese people. There is a bitterness and hatred that the Chinese have for the Japanese. And as they interacted and began to learn about this, I began to understand why. It was because in December of 1937 in World War II, y'all may be familiar with this. The Japanese army invaded China to Nanking, which is now Nanjing, which was the capital. And they came in and the Chinese army fled. And they moved the capital and no one was left but civilians and women and children. And the Japanese army came in and they just began to brutally murder all the people in Nanjing. Three hundred thousand people were murdered. Fifty-seven thousand people were murdered at one execution. The Japanese army came in and they took the women and they began to rape the women. Twenty to eighty thousand women were raped. They then, after they raped the women, would disembowel the women, leave them to die. They took some women and they cut off their breasts, knelt them to the wall and left them hanging to die. Now, y'all would know that as the rape of Nanjing if you know your history. A Chinese historian once called it the unspoken Holocaust. The unspoken Holocaust because the Japanese do not acknowledge that this event ever took place. And Japanese history books for 50 years or so, 50 plus years, it was not written about. They just started writing about this event. And they say that the civilian deaths occurred because of the battle, not because of what the army really did. And so the Japanese have never faced it. A Japanese leader said in 94 that it was a hoax. They never took place. And so they never come to the Chinese and ask for forgiveness. They never asked, how can we compensate for the losses that you occurred? I mean, incredible atrocity. They never said anything about it. Said it never happened. It was the biggest hoax. Now, if you think about that, the atrocity that massacred the what took place, how could they not ask forgiveness? How could they deny what took place? Well, if you could remember Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, I may be familiar with that. And Jesus says, if anybody gets angry with his brother, he is committed murder. Or if anybody lusts after a woman, he's committed adultery. You know, we often like to call what we do or not acknowledge what we do and say it was a hoax. Jesus says if we lust, if we get angry, it's the same as what took place in Nanjing. But we don't like that. We don't like to say that because we really don't believe that our hearts are as deep and sin as the hearts of the Japanese soldiers did what they did in Nanjing. But it is. It is. And oftentimes, we like to blind ourselves from the truth that we are the 500-dinary debtor, that we are the great debtor and need a forgiveness. You know, we do that multiple ways to think about it. A lot of times, we just don't want to look at it. Our sin, our heart, our thoughts, whatever it may be, we don't want to look at it because if we don't look at it, we don't have to face it or maybe we just cry out our life out with busyness. And as long as I wake up at eight o'clock and I run till I go to bed, I don't ever have to sit down and think about the way I spoke to my family, the way I looked at that woman, the way I interacted with my children. We don't have to think about it if we just keep ourselves busy. Or another one is you may not even know what you're doing as soon. You may not know the word of God and if you don't know the word of God, then you don't know the way your living is wrong. But I tell you, I think the biggest thing that we do to blind ourselves is what the Pharisee does. We like to compare ourselves. We like to compare ourselves and ingestify ourselves. You know, I'm not too bad. I'm in seminary or I'm pretty plugged into the church. I'm in the core group. I go to this life group or I do this church activity, I read my Bible, I pray. I mean, look at them, this family, he's having an affair, at least I'm not having an affair. Look at their kids, their kids are terrible. Their kids are a lot better than their kids. And we compare ourselves so that we don't have to really see the depth of our own and see that we're the great debtor. But we really are. And we need to see the blindness that we have toward our own hearts. The first thing that we see is that we are the great debtors and you know, if we want to compare ourselves, you know who we're to compare ourselves to? Christ. Christ. What does Scripture say? Be holy as He is holy. And if we look to Christ and we see the life He lived, we can do nothing but say, I've fallen short of the voice. I've sinned. I need. And so if we want to compare, don't look at your neighbor, don't look at people in this church, don't look at your friends, don't look at unbelievers, look at Christ and allow that to humble you and to see the depth of your own so that it can point us to the height of God's love. So, the first thing, the Savior points out our blind hearts. The Savior points out our blind hearts. Secondly, the Savior reveals our hard hearts. The Savior reveals our hard hearts. Look at verse 44 to 47, verses 44 to 47. Now, when we don't see our need for something, we won't run to it. We don't cherish it. We don't relish it. We don't love it. If we don't see our need for it. Well, here, this is what Jesus points out to Simon. He's not loving. He's not cherishing Christ. Verse 44 to 47, look at verse 44, He says, do you see this woman, Simon? I entered your house. I came in to your house and you gave me no water. You gave me no ointment. You gave me no kiss. He's saying, Simon, I entered your own house. I'm dining with you and there's been no love, no affection. Where's Simon, where are your tears? Here's this woman who entered your own house and she's weeping at Simon, where is the love? Where's the love? You know, when I was seven years old, I remember, I don't know if I tried to remember this, but I can remember getting upset, fired up at my parents. They didn't know if they did something and I thought it was unjust or what, but they punished me. And I was going to show them. And so, I was like, I'm leaving. And so, I went, got my bag and I began to pack. I was going to let them know who was boss. And so, I began to pack. I was crying. I was throwing a temper tantrum and the wisdom of my parents, they kind of let me go on and I slammed the door and I walked out and I left the house and I made it all the way to the front entrance of Bertini Two Neighborhood and I sat there and I was like, I can't believe my parents. I mean, my heart was hard toward my parents at that point. And I was like, I'm going to show them 20, 30 minutes passed by, seven, and I began looking around. It was dark. I got scared. And I began to think, okay, I could go back to the warm house at 6138 Abbey Drive. I began to remember about the protection of my father. I began to think about the love and the care of my mother and I began to go, maybe it wasn't too bad. But at that point, 20, 30 minutes before, man, I was hard toward my parents. I took for granted the love, the protection, their provision and I showed them little love by storming out of that house and just kind of taunt them as I walked out. And spiritually, we can be that little seven-year-old on the street corner, like me. Taking for granted the privilege of being a home and a family. Taking for granted the mercy and the grace, it becomes old hat. Yeah. I know Christ forgives me. Yeah, I've read this passage before, yeah, we're all prostitutes. We can say it over and over but our hearts become hard and we become calloused and it doesn't penetrate our hearts anymore. And the kiss is nowhere to be found. The intimacy is nowhere for us. The love is little. The love is little. You know, it's been said that sin is not what sets Christians apart from non-Christ. Just the object of the God. Sin is not what sets Christians apart from non-Christians, it's the object of their affection. So the question is, where is our affection? Where is our affection? You know, when was the last time? You were so overwhelmed with Christ and the gospel that you wept. Have you ever wept and cried over the God? Now I'm not just talking about pure emotionalism, crying all the time. But we're emotional beings and if the gospel Jesus Christ penetrates our heart and we understand it, it should well up within us an emotional response. Not all the time, but at times. So when was the last time you might have cried over the mercy and the grace of Christ in your life? When was the last time that you were so caught up in the person of Jesus Christ that you forgot about time and you just wanted to pray and you wanted to read the Word and you wanted to worship. And you weren't going, okay, that's about 30 minutes in the Word, that's my five minutes of praying for the day, but you just got lost in the person and the intimacy came and you just poured out your affection upon the Savior. You know, for me, this past year has been one of the hardest years of my life spiritually. It's been one of the times when my heart's been the hardest and I read this and I'm like, I'm the blind Pharisee. Been in campus ministry for five years. I'm in seminary supposed to be studying the Word of God. I'm learning Greek, I'm learning Hebrew, I'm learning theology and that's me, little love. Little love, when was the last time that I was so overwhelmed with Christ, it's been a while. Been a while. When was the last time I got so caught up in the gospel that I just wanted to worship for to get about time? It's been a while. How about you? Did you just kind of get wrapped up in church activities doing these things that we miss Jesus, that we miss Jesus? You think that's absurd? It's not absurd. It happened all the time. I know many of y'all here on staff in the ministry and y'all've done ministry and you're in your jobs and you want to do it for the Word, we miss Jesus a lot. A lot. So Christ asks us, where's our heart? Is it hard? Where's your affection? So the Savior points out our blind hearts. Secondly, the Savior reveals our heart hearts. Thirdly, the Savior longs for tender hearts. Look at verses 37 to 39, the Savior longs for tender hearts. Verse 37, when a woman who had lived a simple life, this woman was a prostitute, she was a harlot. And that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees house. She brought an alabaster jar of perfume and she stood behind him at his feet, weeping and she began to wet his feet with her tears and she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. This woman, the town knows who she is, she knows who she is, she sees her sin. She enters into this Pharisees house where they're eating with Jesus, she's not even able to make it to the Christ. She falls at his feet and she begins to weep, she begins to weep because she knows her sin and she knows who's present, so she just pours out her tears from the feet of Christ. And then she lets down her hair which in the Jewish custom, this was a sign of intimacy. When a Jewish woman let down her hair, it was a time for sexual intercourse to take place. This was, she lets down her hair weeping wipes, Jesus is with her own tears and with her. And then she takes out this very expensive jar, alabaster jar of perfume, she breaks it and puts it over. She saw he was worthy of all that she had and then she begins to kiss the feet of Christ. And I've heard many prostitutes say they would rather have sexual intercourse than kiss because kissing is way more intimate. This is an intimate time and she does not care she's in the house of the Pharisees who know the law of God, they know the protocol, she's in the presence and she's going to worship him because she sees her sin and she sees the incredible love of Christ toward her. Toward her. You know, is it because she had it right? She did right know that was Simon. Simon acted right outwardly, you know, that's what I find often, I try to do right outwardly but in my heart I'm often missing the kiss, missing the tears, missing the intimacy because often what happens. You know, last week if you were here you heard me say, maybe an uncomfortable statement that in Christ we are all beautiful, we're all beautiful and I said that it could be uncomfortable because we don't believe that, we don't, that's settled right with us because we don't believe that we're beautiful and at the same time tonight I want to say we're all harlot, we're all the horse, that may not settle right, that may be uncomfortable because we don't believe that either. And I say we don't believe either side of the gospel. If you're familiar with Jack Milley, you know there's the two-sided part of the gospel, the two cheerups, the Jack Milley always says, cheer up your far more sinful than you ever dare imagine. We are the harlots, we're the prostitutes, we are in need but then he says cheer up your far more forgiving and more loved and ever dream. That's the gospel. That is the gospel. To understand how beautiful we must understand the world of harlots and how deep our sin will, to understand the height of God's love, the height of God's love. So for some of y'all tonight, y'all may be here tonight and you beat yourself up over your sin. You feel guilty over your sin. And you're not blind to your sin. You see it. I mean, you can come in and chime in with the rest. Yeah, I do this, I do this, I do this, you beat yourself up, just lashing your sin. Well tonight, you need to receive the grace and the mercy of Jesus Christ. And you may not be able to receive that. And because you're not able to receive the grace and the mercy of Christ, there's been no kiss. There's been no intimacy for you. And do you think yourself too highly of yourself that you think your sins are too great, that an incredible God can't forgive you? I hope not. You see that the gospel is wide open arms saying, all I forget, all I forget whatever your sins are. So don't feel guilty. Accept the grace and the mercy that is offered and allow that intimacy to come. For us who are the religious, who like to play the part and we play it well, who tend to be the blind, Pharisee, we need to come face to face with our hearts, with the depth of our sin. And you know that for you that may mean you need to take a day, a month, a day out of a month and get away and just spend time with the Lord for a whole day. And journal, pray, reflect over what has happened in this past month, where your heart astrayed, what's happened in your life. It may mean you take a half a day and just get away. It may mean for your husband's wife that after the kids are late at night, if they've gone to bed, that y'all just go and you take a prayer walk and you confess your sin to one another and you encourage one another and you just pray about the day. And when you confess your sin and don't confess it vaguely, and that's what we tend to like to do. But forgive me for my sins. And that's it. But confess specifically your sin. And when you do it, pray Ephesians 1, 18 to 19, that he would open the eyes of your heart to the person of Jesus Christ. And so for example, when you confess specifically your sin, preach the gospel to your heart so that then your heart becomes warm and becomes tender example. When, say you get angry and you reflect back over the day and you see that you just lost it in driving or you lost it with your spouse, you lost it with your kids and you got angry Don't just go Lord, forgive me if I was angry. The Lord, I confess that I got angry today. Forgive me and I thank you that Jesus Christ did not get angry with me but he was patient. He was for bearing and he was kind. That warms the heart. That tenderizes the heart. So lazy, sloth, maybe not be diligent in your work. Instead of just coming and saying that to the Lord I confess I was not diligent in work today. Forgive me. Jesus, I thank you that you were diligent to the point of shedding blood in the garden and to accomplish the work of all works on the cross of the house. See how that brings the gospel home and pride. Don't just confess, Lord I was prideful. Forgive me. Thank you that Jesus humbled himself and became obedient, became obedient to the point of death on the cross. So confess your sin specifically and then preach the gospel and see it and allow that to warm your heart. You know, we can be a church and we can be a people that do all day long but we need to be a church of affectionate worshiping who encouraged one another with getting lost in the person of Christ. Who get lost up and have the kiss and the anoint us, we see he's worthy and we see what he's done in our lives. So that's my prayer. For me and for y'all and for us as a church is that the kiss would come, the tears would come and that we would see that forgiveness flows from the Savior to spring forth heart of worship. Let me pray for it. Lord God, I want to read this prayer, Lord, to engage our hearts. I want to read this prayer, God, so that we can see the person of Jesus Christ and that's the Lord. Would you stir our hearts? Would you stir our affection? Would we not be blind? Would we not be hard but would we have tender hearts of worship affectionate worshipers of Jesus? Lost up in who you are. So Lord, we pray, my Father, enlarge my heart, warm of my affections, open up my lips, supply words that proclaim love lusters at Calvary. Their grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy son, made a transgressor, a curse and sin for me. They are the sword of thy justice, smote the man and I fell of. Under thy infinite attributes were magnified and infinite atonement was made. Their infinite punishment was due and infinite punishment was endured. Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy. Cast off that I might be brought in, trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend, surrendered to hell's worst that I might attain heaven's best, stripped that I might be clothed, wounded that I might be healed, a thirst that I might drink, tormented that I might be comforted, made a shame that I might inherit glory, interdarkness that I might have eternal light. My Savior wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes, groaned that I might have endless song, endured all pain that I might have unfading health, bore authority crowned that I might have a glory dyed to him, bowed his head that I might uplift mine, experienced reproach that I might receive welcome. Closed his eyes and death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness, expired that I might forever live. O Father who spared not the only Son that that might spare us to me, all this transfer that I love designed and accomplished, helped me to adore thee by lips and life, O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise, my every step buoyant with the light. As I see my enemies crushed, Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed, sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood, hell's gates closed and heaven's portal opened. Go forth of conquering God and show me the cross, mighty to subdue, comfort and save.