Matthew 26, I want to read the
first 13 verses with you. And then we'll try to give you
the background, the context in which this is set. Matthew 26,
it says, And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these
sayings, He said to His disciples, You know that after two days
is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of Man is betrayed
to be crucified. Then assembled together the chief
priests and the scribes and the elders of the people unto the
palace of the high priest who was called Caiaphas. And they
consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him. But they said, not on the feast
day, lest there be an uproar among the people." Such hypocrisy. Such evil. And yet that same
That same attitude is resident in our natural hearts. Verse
6, Now, when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,
there came to him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious
ointment, and poured it on his head as he sat at meat. And when
his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what
purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have
been sold for much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood
it, he said to them, Why trouble ye the woman? For she hath wrought
a good work upon me. For you have the poor always
with you, but me you have not always. For in that she hath
poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily,
I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the
whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done,
be told for a memorial of her." What an account here. I'm going to focus mostly on
the last part here about this woman. and the pouring out of
this ointment. And I'm going to also, in that
context, we'll want to read from Luke chapter 7. A different account,
I believe, and yet the same reason for the pouring out from a different
perspective given in Scripture. But before we do that, I want
to look here, what is the context of this text of scripture? Well, we know what we were just
studying in Matthew chapter 25. Jesus gave in Matthew 24 the
signs of the end of the Old Testament era, the destruction of Jerusalem,
and the end of the world. And then he also gave the account
of his coming in great power and glory to gather his sheep
to himself in heaven. And then He gave the picture
of what it will be like in heaven when the King of Glory reigns.
And when He sits as the King towards His sheep, and His adoring
affection for them, gathering them to Himself, putting them
on the right hand, and commending them for their love to Him. in
the way they served those who were the least among his sheep.
And then he also shows his judgment as the judge of all, judging
those who were called the goats. And we saw all that. That's the
end. That's the ultimate end of this
world and of time, of judgment and the gathering in of God's
people. And now, it's as if the story takes a step back What
is the basis? What must happen first before
all that comes to pass? What's the most important thing?
What is the reason why this One who is called Jesus sits and
reigns as King of Glory and Judge of all, and all of His sheep
gather to Him? And here we have it in Matthew
26, introduced to us when it says it came to pass, When Jesus
had finished all these sayings, He said to His disciples, You
know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the
Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified. to be betrayed, to
be crucified. That's the exact opposite of
glory. That's where He's suffering. He's humbling Himself willingly
and suffering in humiliation for His people in the crucifixion,
the Passover, the pouring out of His blood that He might redeem
the Israel of God and bring them out of sin. Redeem them from
this world. Redeem them from the bondage
of Satan. All the consequences of sin.
This is what is referred to here as the Passover. It's about to
happen in picture, but He's going to fulfill it in time, in His
death, in His sufferings. "...and then assembled together
the chief priests and the scribes and the elders of the people
to the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, the
most religious among the people." Those who the people thought
were the most spiritual. These are the ones whose heart
now is exposed. The first thing we see here is
what I would call the true exposure of false religion. What is in
these men's hearts? Envy? Hatred for the Son of God. Envy and hatred for His people.
They don't love His salvation. They despise it. They hate His
gospel. And so they assembled together
to fulfill what was in them. To carry out their murder against
Him. So they consulted together that
they might take Jesus by subtlety. Not openly. Wickedness always
has to work in secret. And then they were going to kill
him. It was in their heart to do so. And God had arranged it
that they would be allowed to do what was in their heart. This
is God's sovereignty in Acts 2.23. It says that they did whatsoever
God had determined beforehand to be done. And there was a good
reason for it. It says, they said, in hypocrisy
again, they said, let's not do this on the feast day, not on
the Sabbath, not on the Passover, lest there be an uproar among
the people. Yet it was exactly on the Passover that they took
and killed the Son of God. In verse 4, in this context, The preview of the end of the
world and the King in His glory. The judge of all. His people
gathered to Him. And the separation of those who
were called the goats there at the final judgment. And then
the taking a step back and approaching what was necessary to get to
the Lord in His glory. Seeing the cross in picture through
the Passover and the evil intent of these men. Now we come. to
another rewind, a slight rewind. It says here that two days before
the Passover, these men had gathered together. But now, there's a
slight even step back to six days before the Passover. In
verse 6 where it says, "...and when Jesus was in Bethany, in
the house of Simon the leper." I say six days because in John
chapter 12, in verse 1, it says six days before the Passover,
Jesus was in the house of Simon the leper. of Simon the leper. And he was in that house with
Lazarus, who was raised from the dead, with Martha, his sister,
and Mary, Martha's sister and Lazarus's sister. So there was
in that house where Jesus was with these people, there was
Lazarus who was raised from the dead, Simon the leper whom Jesus
had healed, evidently, and then there was Martha And Mary, all
of which Jesus dearly loved. So these people were having a
dinner. And Lazarus is one of those who
sit with Jesus at the table at meat. And you can see now, and
the disciples are there. So you can see what this gathering,
this small gathering is about. It's a gathering of the disciples,
Lazarus, Simon the leper, Martha and Mary, and who knows who else.
The focus is on them because these are the people who dearly
loved the Lord Jesus Christ. They dearly loved Him, and in
the context of this gathering, of this small group with Christ,
we see this woman do what she does here. So understand here
that who was Simon the leper? Well we don't know much about
him except that he was a leper and he was one that was gathered
there pouring out his feeling comfortable with the Son of God.
A leper feeling comfortable with the Son of God. hosting him in
his own house, having him there to dinner, and having intimate
fellowship with him. And there's Lazarus, whom Jesus
had raised from the dead. In John chapter 11, it says that
Lazarus and Mary and Martha were those that Jesus loved. Particularly
loved. Specially loved. Loved them with
an everlasting love. He loved them from eternity.
He loved them when he came into the world. He loved them when
he when He was in their house, when He raised Lazarus from the
dead, when they were sorrowing over the death of their brother.
And He loves them here, in this dinner, and they love Him. And
so they're gathered together. And so when we see this, And
we put it in the larger context, we see how there's a theme that
runs through here. Number one, the king, in his
glory, has gathered his sheep to himself. And that gathering,
in that group, in that gathering, there are these that the Lord
calls his sheep. And to these sheep, he speaks
the most commendable The greatest commendation, you've done this
to the least of these my brethren, you've done it to me. And they're
completely baffled. When did we do this? When did
we do this? So they're not even aware that they did this. As
a group, they're treated as a single entity. It's the church. The
Church of God is called out by Christ for their love to Him
before His throne in judgment. And here we have this gathering,
a small gathering. And in this gathering what we
see, again, is the representation of all of God's people meeting
together with the Lord Jesus Christ at this dinner. And here
at this dinner, which is going to be the Last Supper, they're
gathered there out of adoration and admiration with the Lord
Jesus. And while they're there, all
of them affectionately attracted to Him. Wanting to do something.
This woman does what she does here. So we see again, the church
gathered to Christ. Christ's love known to them. And their love to Him expressed
by what this woman does. And in this dinner that they're
having. And so we see that in the context of Christ giving
himself for the church, as the husband loves his wife, Christ
loved the church and gave himself for it. In that context we see
what this woman does here. And so we need to think about
it in that light. The spotlight is focused on this woman and
upon the Lord Jesus Christ and the reaction of those who were
there in this room with them. But remember, as you look at
this, I want you to go through this and find the reaction, how
it affects you and me too. But before we do, I want to go
back to Luke chapter 7 and read another time, or maybe the same
time, if the same time it's not clear, but perhaps it's another
time when another woman does the same thing, only in a different
setting, and Jesus draws out a different lesson. In Luke chapter
7, In verse 36 it says, "...one
of the Pharisees desired him, that is Jesus, that he would
eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's
house and sat down to meet. And behold, a woman in the city,
which was a sinner." It's so endearing to see those words
in scripture. The Lord calls out this woman,
a woman in the city, which was a sinner. She was a known sinner. She was recognized by the people.
And her reputation was that she was a sinner. It's interesting
that when the Lord speaks of His people in Scripture, He often
refers to them by their natural life before He saved them. Remember
Rahab in the city of Jericho? She's called Rahab the harlot. Even in the book of James, way
far into the New Testament, there's Rahab. Who is Rahab? Rahab the
harlot. the blind man who was blind from
birth that Jesus healed, or the one out of whom Jesus cast all
those demons, or the thief on the cross, or Paul, the Pharisee
who the Lord saved. All those things, it's referring
back, it shows the person in who they are naturally that the
Lord would demonstrate or teach us His grace, that we would be
drawn to Him. And I was thinking about this,
you know, If you want to know somebody, and you've never met
them especially, there was a couple in the church we went to years
ago, and they communicated back and forth through email. She
lived in Singapore, and he lived in the States, and they ended
up getting married, never saw each other. She came out and
got married to this guy. You think, man, how do they get
to know one another? And I was thinking, how would
you describe a friend to someone whom they had never met? You
might say, well, they're intelligent, they're rich, they're kind, they
do this kind of work. And you might stack adjectives
on adjectives to describe them. Nice person, strong, diligent,
patient, and all those things. But at the end of that, all you
get is some kind of an abstract picture of that person, don't
you? You don't really know them. But God doesn't do that with
Himself. Now we say things about God like He's holy, He's almighty,
He's good, He's kind, He's merciful. But even those things, they don't
convey to sinners who He really is. But as soon as God steps
into history in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He
Himself converses with sinners in their setting and saves them
from their sin. And we identify with those sinners.
And we see and hear the conversation, the way He responds as God to
them in the human form, coming to save them by the sacrifice
of Him. The picture of who we're talking
about immediately comes to life. And there's an endearing quality
to that whole narrative, and that's what's happening here.
The Son of Man coming to the earth, and a Pharisee invites
him, and a woman who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat
at meet in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,
and stood at his feet behind him, weeping. Weeping. And I think about that. Why was
she weeping? Was she weeping in shame? Was
she weeping in joy? It was that uncontrollable weeping
of convulsive expression of a combination of shame removed by One who is
so pure and holy who came to me and honestly looked me in
the face and saw all that I was and yet took all that I was and
forgave me all of my sins. When we see Him on the last day,
when we see the Lord, And we know that we're saved by the
Rock of Ages who was cleft for us, then we also will have this
uncontrollable expression of emotion. Who knows how it will
be? And this woman expresses it in
love, in gratitude, and she's just weeping, weeping. and she
was behind him. She stood at his feet and she
began to wash his feet with her tears. Now, we've shed tears
before, but nothing like this. Enough tears to wash his feet
Her whole focus is on his feet. She stands behind him, at his
feet, weeping, her tears falling on his feet, and then she takes
her hair and she wipes his feet with the hairs of her head and
kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. This
is a woman who was a sinner. Now when the Pharisee... "...which
had bidden him saw it." He spake within himself. He didn't say
it out loud. He said, "...this man, if he
were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman
this is that touches him, for she is a sinner." And Jesus answering
said to him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee, and he saith,
Master, say on. There was a certain creditor,
the Lord gives a story. There was a certain creditor,
and he draws the Pharisee into the story. It's like, the Pharisee's
thinking, why would he allow this woman to touch him like
this? Just... making an extravagant show of
uncontrolled affection for him at his feet, weeping uncontrollably,
taking her hair down, wiping his feet with her hair, and pouring
this on his feet, this ointment, the whole thing, the odor of
it, the perfume of it, all through the house. It's just, it's too
much. Why would he do this? And then
he says, I have something to say to you. And he's thinking,
okay, so he's diverting the attention away from the woman. Now he's
focusing on a more intelligent subject. He says, there was a
certain creditor which had two debtors. The one owed 500 pence,
the other 50, one-tenth of the first. And when they had nothing,
when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them
will love him most? Of course, he wants to impress
the master with his answers, and he thinks it through, and
he says, Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he
forgave the most. And he said to him, Thou hast
rightly judged. And he turned to the woman and
said to Simon, as he's looking at the woman, Seest thou this
woman? I entered into thine house, thou
gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath washed my feet with
tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest
me no water, thou gavest me no towel, she poured out her tears,
and she used her hair, thou gavest me no kiss But this woman, since
the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet, my head
with oil thou didst not anoint. But this woman hath anointed
my feet with ointment, not just oil, this expensive ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her
sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much, but to whom
little is forgiven, the same loveth little. The point of that
verse is that she loved much, knowing in her heart she had
been forgiven much. We might think, well, she was
forgiven because she loved, as if her love was the cause of
her forgiveness. Nothing could be further from
the truth. 1 John 4, 19, we love Him because He first loved us.
And herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved
us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And
so when He says, Wherefore I say unto thee, her
sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much." It's showing
that the evidence of her sins being forgiven was that she understood
that by faith. And that faith, that great knowledge
of great sins forgiven, gave her great love in her heart.
She loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth
little." Here's the Pharisee. He loved little, if at all. Maybe he was only there, he invited
Jesus for another reason. If he did have love to Jesus,
it would have been no more than a peer. Maybe slightly better
than himself. Accepting, wanting to gain his
acceptance and approval. That's loving little. That's
not loving at all. Because if you're not forgiven
a lot, Then not all of your sins are forgiven, because you have
a great many, and they're great sins. But to whom much is given
is the case of all of God's people. They're all forgiven much. None
are forgiven little, but the Lord's people are forgiven much,
therefore they love much. And he says, in verse 48, He
said to the woman, Thy sins are forgiven. She had already believed,
she had already shown that love in her heart to Him, and the
Lord again applies that same thing
that she knew in her heart with great assurance and comfort to
her. Your sins are forgiven. And they that sat with him began
to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?
And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee. Go in
peace. Great faith causes us to love greatly. Little faith,
little love. Great faith comes from knowing
our sins are greatly forgiven. And this is what the point is
back in Matthew 26. This woman, Mary, who came to
Jesus and did this to Him, comes like the woman in Luke chapter
7. Her sins had been forgiven much.
That's why she loved so much. And when she comes in here, in
Matthew 26, she came in again with an alabaster box full of
very precious ointment and poured it on his head. It says in John
chapter 12, it was a pound of spikenard. A pound. That's a
large amount. I don't know how many ounces
it was. Our pound is 16. Someone said it was 12 ounces
in those days, but it doesn't matter. The point is, I happened
to look it up on the internet, how much is spikenard by the
ounce. It's really expensive. A pound of it would be a few
hundred dollars, even today with all the modern processes for
extracting this essential oils. But in those days it was even
more expensive. A year's wages, because Judas
had calculated it. This could have been Sold for
300 pence, which was a huge amount of money in those days. So she
had this ointment and she brought it to Jesus. Very expensive.
She comes in. She wasn't trying to make a show.
She wasn't doing this for attention or commendation. She simply wanted
to do something for her Savior who loved her so much. That was
what was in her heart. She did what she could. She had
planned it out. She brought this box. It was
very expensive. Maybe she had, who knows how
long she had had it. And she found a perfect time
to bring it. Her timing was impeccable. Because
it was just before his death. She came in to pour it out on
him. And Jesus said a little later that she did this for my
burial. She was anointing His body ahead
of His burial. But also, because when the Lord
reigns on high as the King of Glory, He's anointed as King. And He's anointed because as
the Lamb of God, He laid His life down for His people. So
that anointing applies both to His burial, but also the anointing. That's the sweet smell, isn't
it? The Gospel is a sweet smell to those who are saved because
we see in it the greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ who gave
Himself for our sins. So here's this woman in great,
you would think, humility, but she wasn't trying to do it. for
the attention of the disciples. Yet when the disciples, in verse
8, when they saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what
purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have
been sold for much, and given to the poor. In the woman, we
see what true faith does. In the Pharisees and the scribes
and all these people who plotted, we see what true religion does.
I mean, what false religion does. But here, we see what true faith
does. And in the disciples, we see what true unbelief does.
These disciples had a combination of faith and unbelief, like we
all do. And so as they're sitting there and they're watching this
woman, I mean, this is a small gathering. It's a dinner. They're
all sitting around. Lazarus is there. Simon the leper
is there. The disciples are there with
them. Judas Iscariot. And when she does this, not just
Judas, although he obviously was the one who was the most
indignant, but the other disciples were led away by his wickedness,
because as the complaint came out, they were all A lot of them
were showing indignation that she poured out this expensive
ointment. Couldn't we have done something
more important with this than to pour it on Jesus here? And
they give this reason. We could have sold it and given
the money to the poor. Now if you think about that.
If you think about that. That's such a denial of the whole
gospel, isn't it? To say, well, we could have,
instead of pouring this on Jesus, we could have sold it and given
it to the poor. What did the Lord Jesus, what
did He do? He came to this earth. He, well,
you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 8
and 9, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became
poor, that you, through His poverty, might be made rich. He who is
the Lord of Glory, the Prince of Life, who has all things,
who made all things and made them for Himself, He steps out,
He lays aside His reputation as God, so that He veils Himself
in human flesh. He who has all things laid aside
all things in order to empty Himself and come and give Himself
and lay His life down for His people. It wasn't like he was
neglecting the poor. He came and preached the gospel
to the poor. He raised the dead. He healed
the leper. He did all these things. So there
was no lack of love for the poor from the Lord Jesus Christ. But
this woman wants to show her love to Him. And so what does
she do? She lavishes, really. She goes
to an extravagant extent. effusively pouring something
that the disciples said, this is a waste. Why would she waste
this on him? How does it say here? It says,
to what purpose is this waste? They considered it a waste. And
here's the thing. When a sinner comes to realize
what the Lord has done for him... When a sinner realizes what the
Lord has done for him in forgiving all of his sins. And he finds
in his heart a love for the Lord. And he finds something that he
can do to express that love. Maybe it's small, maybe it's
large. Whatever it is. And he does it with extravagance.
And people look at it and say, aren't you going overboard? Haven't you kind of wasted your
life giving everything to Christ? That's what unbelief does. There's
this sense that it's too much. It's kind of embarrassing. The
odor of this perfume is just too much to put on him. This ointment could have been
sold for something. No, she wasted it on him. She wasted it. Look at Revelation chapter 5.
This is exactly what heaven will be. It will be the saints gathered
around the throne. Lavishing. uncontrolled and unmeasured
thanksgiving on the Lord Jesus Christ. And there won't be anything
wasted in doing so. All of heaven, God the Father,
all the angels, all the elders and all the saints gathered around
the throne will give to the Lord Jesus Christ praise and honor
and blessing. It says in Revelation chapter
5 It says, and when He, the Lamb, I'm sorry, this is verse 8, when
He, the Lamb, had taken the book, the four beasts and four and
twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of
them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers
of the saints. And verse 9, and they sung a
new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open
the seals thereof for this reason, for Thou was slain. and hast
redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue
and people and nation. and has made us unto our God
kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth." And then
John writes, "...and I beheld, and I heard the voice of many
angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders,
and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand,
and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is
the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom,
and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. You see,
they're just putting it all on Him. Everything. Anything that
they could possibly consider. He's worthy of it all. He's worthy. And every creature which is in
heaven, and on earth, and under the sea, and such as are in the
sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and
honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sits on the
throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And they worshipped
Him that liveth forever and ever. That's what's happening here.
This woman is preparing. She's showing what the church,
in her, in an individual, what the church does collectively.
The gathered church before the throne, worshipping the Lamb,
pouring everything. But here she does it with all
on earth. And she does it with His ointment.
And she does it in the presence of the disciples. And the disciples
consider it a waste. Just a waste. But nothing is
ever wasted on the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot put too much
on Him. You can't give too much to Him. And if you have little, like
the widow with two mites, give the two mites. Give all that
you have. But don't give it as a duty. Give it out of a heart of love,
as this woman did. She wasn't thinking of a duty
here. She never thought, well I need to do this because I was
commanded. It just came out. She thought of something. I want
to do this. And so she does it. And then
it says here in verse 10, when Jesus understood it, when He
understood what they were saying, He said to them, Why trouble
ye the woman? For she hath wrought a good work upon Me. That's the
highest commendation she could have received. It doesn't matter
what men think. It doesn't matter what men say.
If you know that from your heart you have a God-given inspiration to give to the Lord
Jesus Christ, whatever He's given you to give, and you do it, and
men scorn you for it. The Lord, know that the Lord
commends you for it. There's nothing, you can't give
too much. And so he says, Jesus says, to speak against their reasoning.
He says, "...for you have the poor always with you, but me
you have not always. For in that she hath poured this
ointment on my body, she did it for my burial." What a blessing. She was able to pour out this
ointment. She understood, by God-given faith, she understood
that the Lord was about to die. He's the Passover Lamb. And she
wanted to do something to anoint His body for that. And how much
she understood, we don't know. But the Lord makes it clear that
the whole signification of it was for His burial. And verse
13. Verily, I say to you, that wheresoever this gospel shall
be preached in the whole world, there shall also this that this
woman hath done be told for a memorial of her." Now, I want you to see
in that one statement here, a summary of all that's been done here.
What do we see here? Well, we see the Lord Jesus Christ
sitting at dinner with those who love Him. And they came here
to honor Him in this dinner. But in a larger context we see
the outpouring of this woman's heart. She pours everything she
has on Him in His ointment. And does it in a way that the
disciples consider it a waste. It's excessive. Stop! It's too
much. No, it's not enough. There's
nothing I could do. There's not enough that I could
possibly give to show the love from my heart of what the Lord
has forgiven me. Loved much, forgiven. I mean,
forgiven much, love. That one who's forgiven much,
loves much. And she had been forgiven much.
That's the only reason we love, is because we've been forgiven
much. And so she does this. But Jesus
says, wherever the gospel is preached, this is going to be
spoken of her. Because, in the preaching of the gospel, there's
always two things that are brought out. The first one is this. The
lavishing love of the Son of God, who came to this earth,
humbled himself, and in humiliation suffered in blood, and poured
out his life for his people, that they might be forgiven.
And with that is the effect that that love he had for them has
on them. These are sinners. These are
people that you wouldn't want to be with. The ugly and the
irredeemables of the earth. And yet the Lord himself finds
them to be his dearest friends. And He's allowed them to come
near. They feel comfortable. He calls them friends. He treats
them as His best friends. Greater love hath no man than
this, than to lay down his life for his friends. And so the response
to them... Think of it. Here you are a guilty
sinner. God lays out in His Word what
you're supposed to do. And you can't do any of it. You
have a broken heart. There's nothing you can bring
from your heart of all that God demands. You can't bring faith. You can't bring love. You can't
bring your obedience. You have nothing. And everyone
around you, the scribes and the Pharisees and the priests and
the elders, they all seem to have what you don't have. And
so you're cast out, you're ashamed, you're embarrassed, and rightly
so, and condemned by God's law. And here comes the Lord of Glory,
the Lawgiver, the Judge, the King of Glory. And He takes up
not only the cause of His law, but the cause of the sinner.
He takes His law and He satisfies it in all of its justice and
fulfills all of its righteousness. And He does so, and then He advocates
for the sinner. He presents Himself. to the bar
of justice and receives from God a full, clear justification
for the sinner. And then he tells the sinner
of it. He declares to the sinner what he's done. And the sinner
goes, and I thought I had to bring something. I thought I
was condemned forever. And I see that all of my ignorance
is washed away in the wisdom of my Savior. All my sins are
taken away by His precious blood. All the obedience I couldn't
give, He rendered to God. And the sinner goes, he's my
all, he's everything to me. And he's willing, his life means
nothing except to know what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for
him. To know this one who gave himself, as Paul says, the Son
of God who loved me. and gave himself for me." And
so the sinner has this response. And that response of love in
his heart is the result, is the fruit of the Spirit of God who
has given him this precious faith that makes Christ precious to
him. True faith makes Christ precious
to us. And when I think about this,
when I look at this, the one thing I think is, I want, like
this woman, to have a heart that truly loves the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you? When you see this,
when you saw David coming in from the field, taking care of
those few sheep, and see Goliath standing there defying the armies
of Israel, defying his God, and as a shepherd who had saved the
lamb from the bear and the lion's mouth, he sees this Goliath there,
and Holy jealousy for God's glory and love for his people floods
his heart. And by the Spirit of God, he
goes out and with a single stone, sinks it into the head of that
monstrous, blasphemous giant against his people. And Jonathan
sits by, robed and clothed with all of the ornaments of his father's,
the man of flesh. And Jonathan takes them all off
and he lays them at his feet and he says, You're the king,
and his heart is knit together with David. And so you see in
these things that the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed to us in what
David did. That's what these accounts are
for in scripture. They cause us as sinners to see
the glory of our Savior. When this woman did this, and
the ointment is like, wow, it's so strong, and the perfume is
so strong, and it seems like such a waste. As sinners sitting
by, rather than thinking it's a waste, we should think, this
is just the beginning. This is not enough. Continue
to lavish love on Christ. Jonathan strips himself of his
armor, because we see the glory of our Savior overcoming all
of our enemies. And so we see these two things
together, always in the presentation of the Gospel. The Gospel is
always declared to us the love of Christ for His people. The lavishing, extravagant, excessive,
unspeakable gift of Christ to His people. And on the same token,
we see their heart wanting, wanting in their heart to find something
they can do to lavish love back on Him for His love for them.
It's not a repayment. There was no thought here of
repayment. She was not trying to earn brownie points. No thought
of trying to earn a reward. This was completely... She had everything. She had the
love of the Son of God. And she just wanted to pour it
out on Him. To pour it out. And so the Gospel
always does that. It presents to us our salvation
in our Savior and His love for us, which was unbounded and incomprehensible. And then His love for us and
giving us this faith that produces love in our heart so that we
might worship Him and love Him for what He's done for us. And
we should not be satisfied until we find Christ, as this woman
did, to be such an adoring Savior that we would give all for Him
and count it nothing and insufficient. And not even be concerned about
those who would scorn it. Scorn us for it. And whenever
I see somebody give like that, I think, man, I want to do that.
I want to be like that. Lord, give me a heart to love
my Savior in truth. In truth. When my mom died, I
was in Kentucky. And my sisters, Penny and Janelle,
were at the cemetery making arrangements
for her, for the headstone where they had buried her. And they
called me on the phone, one of them called me on the phone and
said, we're here at the cemetery and we need to put something
on the headstone. And of course I would have thought
to prepare much longer to do something like that. But I thought,
well, you know, Mom would have wanted something simple. And
whatever it is, it's got to be about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that place in Luke came to my mind. So I suggested they
write, Forgiven much, she loved much. And that's really the testimony
of every child of God. Forgiven much, we love much. That's what the gospel does to
us. And if it doesn't do that, we haven't heard it. If the gospel
doesn't make us love Christ... We're still in the pride of our
ignorant self-righteousness. If the gospel doesn't cause us
to find Christ to be everything, in the face of all of our sins,
the barrier of our sins being obliterated by the love of Christ
for His people, and His obedience, and His righteousness, and His
shed blood. That barrier completely removed. Nothing required from
us. Receiving us in all of the shame
of our sins, having washed us and made us clean and holy in
the eyes of God, who is holy Himself, and magnifying His holiness
and doing it. If that doesn't produce in us
a love for Him, then we need to fall on our face and say,
Give me eyes of faith. Give me a new heart. Sprinkle
that heart from the gospel, mixed with the blood of Christ, so
that I see that He's my all. And when we see this woman and
we find our own lack of love, what does it do? Doesn't it make
us go out to Him and say, Lord, give me what I don't have. Put
in me this true faith, this love for You. that is only the evidence
of your love for me, the fruit of your own spirit. And let me
not be satisfied until I awaken your likeness to see you as you
are. And that's what this woman was
given here. And wherever the gospel is preached, those two
things are always together. The love of Christ for His people.
The unspeakable gift of God for them. And His salvation. Our salvation in Him. He's everything
to us. It's always about Him. And the
response of us is that Christ is my all. He's my all. I'm a
poor sinner and nothing at all. But Jesus Christ is my all in
all. He saved me from my sins. And
so I see that in them. I see that in my mom. She loved
her children. She wanted nothing more than
that her wayward children would come to know the Lord Jesus Christ
in all of her life. She professed to be a Christian,
but in the latter years of her life, I remember her saying,
then she finally knew that she was a great sinner and nothing
at all but Jesus Christ was her all in all. That's the response
of every child of God. Forgiven much, we love much. May God give us that grace to
see the church in their collective response and in their life. Forgiven
much, we forgive much. How do we love? We don't have
an alabaster box, do we? We think, man, I wish I could
have an alabaster box and Jesus were here. I'd like to do that.
But you can't produce those tears. Your hair isn't long enough. That's not the point. The point
is what He's told us in Matthew 25, when the sheep stand before
Him. Inasmuch as you've done it to
the least of these my brethren, you've done it to me. You see,
the Lord looked upon Lazarus and Mary and Martha and Simon
the leper and his disciples. And He tells Simon, feed my lambs,
feed my sheep. He tells them this commandment,
that you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and love one another.
When we want to pour out an alabaster box on Christ, what do we do?
We take the worst and foulest and most unlikely sinner and
we tell them of the glory of our Savior. That He forgives
the sinfulest. That He cleanses the dirtiest
and makes them stand in glory beside Him. Those He loved. And
we give, we give whatever we can to those He loved. What greater
privilege and honor could there possibly be than to love the
One for whom Christ laid down His life and gave Himself? Let's
pray. Dear Lord, we pray that You would
be so merciful to us as to forgive our sins for Jesus' sake. Give
us this precious faith to see Him as all. in our heart, all
of our salvation, all of the object of our faith, all of our
love, and that we would so love Him. And we would look for ways
to give what You've given us for those for whom He died, and
You would help us, Lord, to do it not with a heart of repayment
or a heart to gain a standing or to gain acceptance, but a
heart that just simply wants to show its gratitude to the
one who saved us from our sins, which were so many and so foul,
and we had nothing to pay. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.