Ep 37 – Demonstration of Love Pt. 1

Hi there tom Mahairas with. It’s all greek to me. And we’re gonna be looking at these words for love story eros philia agape and we’re really at the last end of the the agape love. And here we find ourselves in luke chapter seven where this income big sinner, it calls her a martyr. Lost the center probably a prostitute who had been forgiven and saved in such an incredible way that she’s now coming in to anoint jesus feet. She wasn’t even invited in there, which kind of snuck in and and just weeping and brokenhearted because she she was forgiven much. She loved much. So we’re gonna look at the practical aspects of the demonstration of love, join Vicki and I as we discuss it, not just in word but indeed and in truth, that’s what God says for us, that we are to love not just in word with our words but in deed and in truth. So I have my first question, Vicki is how do you demonstrate true love? How do you actually make it happen in your life with your husband, With your wife, With your Children, With the strangers, With people all around and the connection between forgiveness and love. Well, here I go. So love. And the story that we’re studying today about the two different mary’s Uh huh And we’ve studied this for quite a bit because it was so confusing to us because both of the women in this chapter are called Mary. Both of the men are called Simon but with different distinguishing factors about their name, right? One is a pharisee, the other one is a former leopard. Yes. But the thing that helped us was when we studied the geography of the story, the geography, We realized that they were 80 miles away. These events took place. So the Luke chapter 7 1 The Luke chapter 7: verse one. And then we also identified verse 11 and then some other verses, but they were all up in galilee, correct. And this was a mary who was a um marta los a big center. So probably a former prostitute or was involved in that. So let’s jump right in and see what the, what the similarities and then what the distinctions or or differences were. When he had completed all his discourse in the hearing of the people, he went to camp Ernie um and soon afterwards he went to a city called Nain and his disciples were going along with him accompanied by a large crowd and his mother and brothers came to him from Nazareth and they weren’t able to get to him because of the crowd. Now one of those days jesus and his disciples got into a boat and he said to them, let us go over to the other side of the lake. So they launched out then they sailed to the country of the garrisons which is opposite galilee. So all of this is up north in galilee. In fact we’ve kind of identified it like this, the galilee region, the lake galilee or or uh the towns that we identify with Nazareth, the garage scenes on the other side. Uh and uh Cap Ernie um was up there, nan was up here as well with the stories that we just sally was a huge region huge. It’s like new york city, you’re having the Bronx Brooklyn queens, Staten Island, Manhattan and so it’s not just one little community that was a big, big location. But then when when it talks about the the other story of mary, the one in in uh luke. Uh well the first one is luke seven but the second one is uh the other story in Matthew chapter 26 then Mark chapter 14 and then in john chapter 12 that is mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha. And that one is south about 80 miles from where you see that circle here down to the very bottom there near Jerusalem, next a couple of miles away from Jerusalem. In fact is the the other story of mary. Now they’re both in house by the name of Simon, they’re both gonna anoint jesus with this pound of spink nard and uh it fills the room, there’s just so many similarities but they are different. The Simon’s are told totally different. That was in galilee. That was up north now it probably happened right after the sermon on the mount because you have to remember this is the beginning of Jesus ministry up in galilee and the bible does say that many people came from judea and from across over uh on the other side of the lake. They came from all over and they came to hear jesus and see jesus and everybody heard about him and and be healed by jesus. But this was all happening up in the north at the beginning of jesus ministry. But what happened towards the end of his life, because that’s what john 12 is that last week, uh the end of his life and this time mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha anointed his him with that beautiful mur uh and anointed his body for what I remember. It was for the burial. Each each reference uh talks about him for the burial. The first one in luke Chapter seven. It doesn’t mention that at all because it was a different response. It was a different reason why she was doing it. Let’s go down a little bit further and read the story from luke chapter seven and pick up the story Vicki, why don’t you go ahead and read it for us? Now one of the Pharisees were requesting him to dine with him and he entered the Pharisees house and reclined at the table and there was a woman in the city who was a sinner. I’m not to lose. Now that’s the thing that this lady probably was a prostitute and uh you know, she probably had accepted christ forgiveness And the question I asked before, you know that love in this story we’re gonna see is connected to what forgiveness and how much love you have when you’re forgiven much. If you’re forgiven much, you love much. If you’re forgiven little, you love a little. And so jesus is explaining this to this, this Simon the pharisee in this story here in verse 36. And uh and she’s this center and then and continue on with the story. Okay. One of the distinctions is, is that she is known as the sinner, but she is anointing his feet. Whereas in the other story, they’re all anointing his head. Okay. Okay. So it says, and when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisees house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume and standing behind him at his feet weeping Kleo, she began to wet his feet with her tears dacron and kept wiping them with the hair of her head and kissing his feet and anointing them with the perfume. Yeah, he, I mean he was, his body was kind of a ground level. They were kind of who knows, grapes or a fig or whatever, drinking something. And his head was here near the table but his feet were away from the table and usually what they would do is they would open the doors and they would allow people to hear the discussions that the rabbis and the wealthy people had with jesus and his entourage. And so his feet are away from the table she comes, you know, kind of nonchalant snuck into that room. Maybe they knew her, Maybe they didn’t and she started cleaning his feet and wiping them with her hair. And then what happens is it says in the scriptures. Now, when the pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would know what sort of person this woman who was touching him is and that she is a sinner, a martyr laws. Now he’s just thinking this, the Pharisees just thinking this and jesus answers him without him even saying a word. So, because jesus can read your mind and God can know what’s in your heart. Go ahead, Vicki! And jesus answered him. Simon, I have something to say to you and he replied, say a teacher, A money lender had two debtors, one owed 500 denarii and the other 50 when they were unable to repay. He graciously, forgave harry’s. Oh, may them both. So which of them will love him more, Simon answered and said, I suppose the one whom he forgave more and he said to him, You have judged correctly noticed the word here. The greek word for forgiveness. The first one introduced here is Carrie. So let’s keep reading the story which comes from Hadi’s, which comes from grace and it flows from grace? That is correct. So now now we continue turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman I entered your house, You gave me no water for my feet. But she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss. But she, since the time I came in has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume. For this reason, I say to you her sins which are many have been forgiven. Aafia me, that’s the second word. Well, so you know, we’ll see the distinction here in a minute, for she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little. So we did a whole program on these two words, you know from grace and the next word was forgiveness. So grace carries and then Mahairason was forgiveness. And then it was uh charisma, which is gift and carol, which is joy and then if crystal, which is thanksgiving, we did that. So we’re gonna pull some of those slides that we used from the past. But let’s finish the story first. Then he said to her, your sins have been forgiven a fear me. Those who were reclining at the table with him began to say to themselves, who is this man Who even forgives sins keep going and he said to the woman, your faith has saved you go in peace. Now here are the two things Vicki that we looked at in the past charism of forgiveness and forgiveness flowing from grace and that’s found in Leviticus 16. So clearly with these two goats and then one was the atonement goat, the redemption forgiveness and the other was the ssl goat, the release forgiveness. And so take the time to read that portion of scripture in Luke and Uh Leviticus chapter 16 again. So we understand that God always meant that he would provide his own son to bleed and die for our sins to be buried to rise from the dead and that he will deal with its grace. Pure grace by grace were saved through faith, none of ourselves unless we boast. And then out of that grace flows the forgiveness that releases us from that sin. But but isn’t the as yet as a cell goat, we have to also forgive. The first part is God right? Right for giving us when we received their forgiveness. We have to then we have the possibility from God’s grace to forgive someone else who has offended. Absolutely. Absolutely. So there’s the hotties forgiveness flowing from grace centers on the attitude of kindness that prompts free and voluntary part noticed the hands on top of this other little go to second goat that they were confessing the sins of the people, the high priest Aaron would do that and then there would be a man ready to take it into the desert and uh Cardizem a forgiveness to send away or to release discharge into the desert the second one. Now there are three main thoughts here and evidences of love. So maybe you want to talk a little bit about this before I say something, we only have a couple minutes left. You gave me no water for my feet, jesus said that was service when you love somebody, you serve them. I don’t think of waking up and making you breakfast or oh I gotta do this, doing your laundry. And I’m like, I’m thinking whatever, you know, it’s not, it’s not a burden. I love you. It’s not a burden to take care of somebody you love. No, it’s not. You gave me no kiss and she has surrendered her very soul in public when a woman would let down her hair in public. That was a big thing because even today the jewish women wear wigs to cover their hair. It’s it’s that their aura, their person there. Maybe this part of the kiss, it’s very personal. And you did not anoint my head with oil. She sacrificed the most precious thing and the famous song about, you don’t know what it costs me. That CC winnin. You don’t understand what this vile cost me. You know, it wasn’t just 1 $300. You know price was selling my very soul. You know, I remember being at uh in Washington D. C. And C. C. Wine and actually sang that song at the presidential prayer breakfast when donald trump was president. And and uh I remember her singing that song and it was it was this Amartya lost this center, this prostitute in the story that is singing in this song about the fact that of of how she lavishly just gave everything because she was in love with God now because you know what, she experienced forgiveness. We know that because jesus said those who have been forgiven much love much and and this was the rebuke on this pharisee, who knows what his motives were. Maybe he wanted to catch jesus. I don’t know. Uh you know people would invite him to test him and ask him questions but this woman wasn’t testing and she knew that this was her messiah. This was the one who forgave her, she asked God to forgive her. And I think that’s why that song means so much to you, right? Yes. I think that no one can catch jesus in any bad acts. His motive is always pure. It’s always about love. It’s always about being such a gentle savior. You know, you never ashamed to come to him because you know he loves you so much and he’s always going to give you that grace and forgiveness and I think that in our marriage we were able to stay married for 50 years because we’ve always given grace to each other. We’ve never looked down on the other person. We both have major flaws and faults but over the mean more than you know, they’ve diminished. But we love each other and this act of love is service, surrender and sacrifice to each other. So true because love bears all things believes all things hopes, all things endures all things. It doesn’t keep account of a wrong suffered. It’s not, I got you. It’s, it frees the person up to be able to, you can make a mistake and I could embrace and love you anyway. It says it never fails. It never fails. That’s right. So what a fabulous picture here that we have of this woman and how she loved much because she was forgiven much, wow! What a fantastic discussion we had. I want to give you a couple of examples of this love. I was in a place called chile Collude Up ed in India in Andhra Pradesh, the district of Andhra Pradesh. And I was at the, the school that would like five schools with about 20 plus 1000 students. Spiro jodi arias founded these schools uh, in the beginning with the american mission to the Greeks. But then it turned into advancing the the ministry of the Gospel. And so I went there for sparrows to speak to the pastor’s conferences and then I was invited to speak to the school where they were having a special day. They invited me to come and there were several 1000 deft Asus. There were several 1000 of these temple prostitutes from all over. They came their sons and daughters were in the school, they were um they were being educated many, I’m sure didn’t know who the fathers were and so here I was, I was ready to speak, I didn’t know what I was going to speak on, uh I’m an evangelist, I’m just kind of have a certain amount of messages that I’ve prepared, but who’s expecting to speak to a group of women like this. And so I sat there praying, I said Lord, please show me what what to speak about and just like that Luke seven. And this was the passage that we’re talking about Luke chapter seven verse 36 and on and as as I was reading and praying, these three thoughts came to me to Simon uh the pharisee, he said you know I came, I came into your home and you gave me no water for my feet. See these are the three main evidences of love, this is the way I figured this is how you prove and show that you love somebody, he said you you gave me no water for my feet, they used to, you know you came into a person’s house, remember when jesus was asking his disciples, you know, looking around for water and who’s gonna wash our feet and he took a towel, wrapped it around himself, got the water and started washing the disciples feet. He comes to peter’s feet. No, not my feet Lord, it was a common the most menial slave task that people did back in those days was to wash people’s feet when they came out of the roads many of them were dirt roads and you know they wore sandals and so that speaks of service, you gave me no kiss that speaks of surrender. This woman literally untangled her hair. She began to wet his feet with her tears, wiped the poor the media and the the uh the ointment, the perfume and and then was drying his feet with her hair. It almost looked like it was a lewd gesture because many people in those days women did not take their here a part like that, she didn’t care about anyone, she was gonna be there, he had forgiven her, she was transformed, she was going to tell the world, jesus christ is the messiah and my savior and so and she, she was literally kissing his feet and uh you know that could be very easily interpreted as what’s going on over here, you know and questioning somebody’s somebody’s common sense or don’t you know the kind of woman, this is, this is exactly what Simon was thinking about and of course jesus answered him without even hearing anything from his mouth, he read his mind and was able to answer him and then he says you did not anoint my head with the oil and of course that was a pound. It was uh it was about 2.5 months salary of the kind of appointment that was used there and of course the people you know that were around especially judas, hey, we could have sold this. You did not anoint my head with oil. The sacrifice that went along with the service, the surrender and the sacrifice. These are the sure signs of love. If you want to know how to love your wife, you know, if you want to know how to love your husband, if you want to know how to love your Children, you’re gonna serve them, you’re gonna surrender your rights for them. You’re gonna sacrifice your uh wishes your whatever you have money, time energy for them. It’s a way to show them. You love them. Now. If people are not willing to do that, you’re dating somebody or you know, they’re not willing to do that. Hey, they don’t love you. You want to, you want to be with people that are gonna totally serve surrender and sacrifice. These are this is how you know, they love you. The greatest need in our life is forgiveness. And what the Lord jesus christ did is he associated the woman’s forgiveness who was forgiven for so many things. She loved jesus christ so greatly. And that’s exactly what he said to the pharisee Simon in in galilee for this reason I say to you her sins which are many have been forgiven Afi me for she loved much but he who is forgiven Afi me little loves little both words were used in the text in the narrative, the word haris ahmed which means forgiveness that flows from grace and a fee me this word here, which means to release and let the single isn’t it wonderful that we don’t have to be bound with our sins Like they used to do. Uh they used to bind the dead person when people murdered them in the roman one of the roman death punishment, death capital punishments was to tie the victim to the person and by so doing the corruption would go on them or to have a plaque it around your neck, a big a adulterer or whatever you know or to be in a in a stock because and reading above the stock exactly what the sin was like they did to jesus as if they were gonna put a crime there and the best they could do was this is jesus christ, God’s son, the Savior of the world and the and the Pharisees of that. They didn’t like that. The high priest didn’t like that. They wanted it to be changed and pilots said what I’ve written I’ve written and then it goes on this was the pictures there, these are the chilly chilly Collura, pet an entrepreneur sh the deaf theses which are spiritual prostitutes basically. And then one more thing that I’d like to bring to your attention is that I was able to lead the last person that was executed in Angola prison in Louisiana state penitentiary. Let me just read it here. A list of people executed in Louisiana from Wikipedia. The free encyclopedia, the following is a list of people executed by the United States state of Louisiana since the capital punishment was resumed in 1976, a total of 28 people Convicted of murder have been executed by the state of Louisiana since 1976. Of the 28 people executed 20 were executed by electric chair and eight by lethal injection. This, this man that I ministered to and prayed with before he was executed. The warden burl cain asked me to go and visit him and we were able to talk to him and I shared with him about the three crosses, let me go to the next picture. I’ll come back. The cross on the left. I told him was the cross of rejection. The cross on the right was the cross of reception. The cross in the middle was the cross of redemption basically. I went there. I said, you know, Gerald, there was, there was another person that was executed like you, he was executed a couple weeks after I talked to him actually and I said to him, that person was innocent. He said no, no, no, I’m guilty, he had raped and murdered his, His uh adopted daughter 11 years old. And this guy, not only did that, but he said if they let me out, I’m gonna do it again. And so here was Gerald Bordelon who absolutely understood the hideousness of his, of his sin and the and the darkness of his soul that he couldn’t change himself. I went and I spoke to him and I said you know this man was executed, he was innocent. There were two other people executed with him. They were guilty. I said, I don’t know if you know who I’m talking about. It was christmas time right before christmas and I said to him, there was a person on his left and a person on his right and they were executed through crucifixion. And you know the story? He shook his head. I said the man on the left was cursing at jesus said man if you’re the messiah, get yourself off the cross and save us too. And then the other man said, hey don’t aren’t you afraid of God? We deserve what we’re getting. But this man did nothing wrong. That was all I told him. And then I said there’s the cross on the left rejection the cross on the right reception, the cross in the middle redemption. And this was my question, which side of the cross do you want to be on when you get executed? And you stand before God, he said, I want God to say to me uh today you’re gonna be with me in paradise just like that, I said well then let’s pray. And I went ahead and with Gerald the most uh Gerald Bordelon right here He was executed 1\/7 uh 10 in the year 2000 and 10 on the seventh day of january. And I put my hands on his hands and I prayed with him and we talked to God and I said to him, just say these words, Father God, thank you for loving me, Jesus, thank you for bleeding and dying on the cross for me. My sin. You took my sin on yourself and pay the price. Please forgive me and take my sin away and give me your righteousness in its place, I’m asking you to forgive me and come in my life. And he prayed the words that I let him to pray. And then I looked at him, I said did you mean? And he said yes, I said that God forgave you and when you die a few days from now they’re gonna execute you. The warden’s gonna ask you. He’s gonna tell you. You see, my face is the last face you see on this planet. The next face you see is going to be the face of jesus. That’s what he told him because no matter how evil you are, no matter what you’ve done, rape sodomy, I don’t care what it is. Child abuse, jesus christ died on the cross for you, he was buried, he arose again from the dead, you’re a thief, whatever it is, he took your sin and my sin on the cross and for who so ever shall call upon the name of the Lord for who so ever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I did that once, Gerald did that and jesus christ changed our life. I hope if you’re listening and you’re not a believer today, you might consider coming to jesus asking him to come in your life and save you from all your sins. If you are a believer, go share this great news with someone. God bless you.