Amazing Thanks How Sweet The Smell

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. It's good to have you here. We are doing a bit of a tongue-in-cheek series this November called Thank Gord. I know it's kind of cheeky, but actually, with the way people talk about God these days, you might as well say Gord, because you ask them what God, which God, who God, and they really don't know other than he's the big guy upstairs, and that's not much. Not much at all. I know this is a little cutting, but without a relationship to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the God of the covenant, and to the God of the promise, to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, it's really hard to truly have any thanks at all. It just turns into a sentiment rather than actual a relationship. And so today we're looking again at this series, and this day, you could almost, well, yeah, it's also a little cheeky, but the sermon today could be entitled Amazing Thanks, How Sweet the Smell. You'll see why. Sometimes, you know, when you face things in life, it's not what you see, but how you see it, and that's what we're looking at today as well. So we're going to be reading in Luke chapter 7 an incident that happens that Jesus is involved in, of course, in the Gospels, but then he tells a story in the middle of the incident to kind of reframe the whole thing that's going on, okay? So let's read Luke 7, 36 to 50. One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table, and behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say it, teacher. A certain money lender had two debtors, one owed 500 denarii and the other 50. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more? Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt. And he said to him, you have judged rightly. Then 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 came from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. And those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you, go in peace. Three main characters in this scene, and we're going to be kind of working through them one at a time. So the three points today for this message are that Simon sees a woman anoints and Jesus declares. Simon, he's the name of the Pharisee in this story, and he sees, actually he doesn't see. Or he sees, but he doesn't really perceive what's really going on. Jesus asked that question, it's pretty obvious he knows he sees this woman in his house, but he still asked the question, right? In Luke 7, 44, he says, do you see this woman? Duh, you know, you might say, of course I do, she's intruded into the house, I see what she's doing, don't you see this woman and see what she's doing? So Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount puts it this way about your eyes. He says, the eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? It's not what you see, it's how you see, or through what you see, how you perceive, Jesus is saying. And if you perceive through a darkened, judgmental attitude, that's what all you're going to see in any situation. And it seems like Simon, well, he's already biased all the way from the beginning. It's really interesting. Have you ever gone, actually, okay, here I'll explain a little more. Have you ever gone to somebody's house? Well, you think you were invited, but when you get there, you don't feel that invited, right? Do you know what I mean by that? You show up, and you knock on the door, and you come in, and you see all these other people, and, oh, yeah, and they let you in, but you almost feel like you're an intruder. And then you see ever...