Author: Bryan Jay

My name is Bryan Jay and I have been teaching the Bible full-time for almost 30 years now. In 1992, I began pastoring a new church in Asheville, North Carolina, and in 1997, I moved with my family to Brazil where we lived and served for many years. Since that time, we have moved on to other places, continuing to teach the Word of God.

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Bible Study Cross-Centered Life Sermons

Luke 7:36-50 Forgiveness and worship (part 1)

Luke 7:36-50 tells the story of a sinful woman who worshiped Jesus by anointing his feet while he was eating at the home of Simon the pharisee.   The woman is an example of one who truly worships the Lord Jesus, as she wipes her tears from his feet with her hair.  Simon is an example of failure to worship.  What does this scripture passage teach us about how we can worship the Lord with a right heart?

The main thrust of Luke’s account of this incident is that experiencing God’s forgiveness is an important key to having a right heart in worship.

 

The contrast between the sinful woman and Simon

Both Simon and the woman were offering something to Jesus.  Simon was offering the meal.  The woman, on the other hand, was there to offer Jesus the alabaster flask of ointment.  But as the story plays out, the contrast in Simon’s heart and the woman’s heart is striking, and what reveals this difference is what happened that night that neither one of them intended.

When the woman brought her alabaster flask, I don’t believe that she intended to break down in Jesus’ presence, weeping.  This wasn’t some orchestrated performance.  But there she was–a “sinner”–in the presence of the man who had come to be called “the friend of sinners”, and she couldn’t contain herself!  And the love in her heart was laid bare as she worshiped the Lord Jesus.

Simon as well never intended to have to deal with the presence of a sinful woman at his dinner party doing something that he considered scandalous.  And even though his heart isn’t publicly displayed like the woman’s, his thoughts reveal what is in him.  Verse 39.  He’s thinking:  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.

The difference between these two hearts is in their FOCUS.  The woman is focused on Jesus.  She is in his presence.  She loves him–“the friend of sinners.”  She isn’t thinking… “is he going to like my offering?”  “Am I doing this right?”  “Will he be impressed with me?”  No, she is broken.  She is overwhelmed by the mercy and kindness that characterizes the person of Jesus in his relationships with people like her.

Simon, on the other hand, is focused on himself.  “Jesus should know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him.”  He is unconsciously making a comparison between himself and the woman:  “I am not the sort of person that this woman is.”  “Jesus should know that she is a “sinner”.  In other words, “I am not a sinner,” at least not in the sense that this woman is!”  

Both Simon and the woman brought an offering, but one had a heart focused on Jesus, the other was focused on himself.

I think we all know how easy it is to perform an act of worship, whether it is in a worship service at church, in our personal devotional time, or some other religious activity, and our focus is not on Jesus, but on ourselves; and even when we are analyzing and criticizing others, our focus is still on us.


The source of a right heart in worship:  An experience of forgiveness

Jesus reveals what is in Simon’s heart by telling a three-sentence parable in verses 41-42.

A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?

 Simon, apparently oblivious to what Jesus is doing, answers correctly, “The one who was forgiven more debt.”

Jesus with this parable is showing Simon the source of a right heart in worship.  And the meaning of the parable is clear: 

The greater the experience of forgiveness,

the greater the love that will be shown to the forgiver. 

We know from other Scripture that Jesus is not comparing here the SIN DEBT of Simon with the sin debt of the woman.  Rom. 3 says it over and over:  “No one understands…no one seeks for God.  ALL have turned aside; together they have become worthless…for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Simon is not less a sinner than the woman is.  If that were the case, Jesus wouldn’t confront him at all about his heart problem, Simon would simply be worshiping in proportion to what he had been forgiven.  

What Jesus is comparing here is the EXPERIENCE of forgiveness.  Both Simon and the woman owe an infinite sin debt to God.  The difference is that the woman has seen her sin and received Jesus’ forgiveness, and Simon hasn’t seen it!

Look also at what Jesus says in v. 47

Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven–for she loved much.  But he who is forgiven little, loves little.

Jesus isn’t saying here that the woman earned forgiveness through her great display of love to Jesus.  That’s what it sounds like in most English versions.  But Jesus said the exact opposite in his parable.  The love that the debtor showed to the moneylender was because he had been forgiven the debt, not something that he did to earn the forgiveness.

One author paraphrased Jesus’ words this way:  She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful.  The greater the experience of forgiveness, the greater the love that will be shown to the forgiver.

Both Simon and the woman have brought something to Jesus.  Simon offers a dinner party, the woman offers the alabaster jar of perfume, but because her heart is right, and because of her greater experience of forgiveness, the woman HONORS Jesus because she truly loves him, whereas Simon DISHONORS him.

Jesus points this out in vs. 44-46.  He mentions three specific ways that Simon dishonored him and the woman honored him.  All three of the things that Jesus mentions were common practices in that day.  They were simple ways of showing hospitality to a guest:  washing his feet, greeting him with a kiss, and anointing the head with oil.  

When Jesus points out that Simon did not offer these things, he isn’t complaining about Simon’s lack of manners.  He is trying to show Simon his heart problem.  Simon failed to honor Jesus because his heart was wrong.  The woman on the other hand, without even consciously trying, honored Jesus because her heart was filled with love.  She washed his feet…. with her tears.   She anointed him… with the perfume that she brought.  And her kisses, far from being a mere formality, were the humble kisses of a forgiven sinner.

What Jesus is showing us is that when our heart is filled with love for him, worship is not about “getting it right”–raising your hands and dancing, or not raising your hands and not dancing–It is about a genuine honoring of our Savior, Jesus, the friend of sinners.  And when our heart is right and filled with love for him, he will be honored.  Our focus will be on him, and not on ourselves.   We will do the right things in his sight, even if they aren’t right in the sight of others.

I’ll have more to say on this passage in future posts.

Categories
Bible Study Cross-Centered Life Sermons Theology

Romans 1:18-25 The blessing of giving thanks

This post is based on a SERMON that is available by clicking here.

In a previous post, I talked about why thanklessness is a sin.  You can read that post for more detail, but here is a summary:   My starting point was the following definition of thankfulness…

We give thanks when we acknowledge the goodness of another

as it is expressed to us in real benefits.

The reason thanklessness is such a sin is that the real benefit we have all received from God is everything pertaining to our existence.  He is our creator, and everything we have, even our very life-breath comes from him. Not only have we failed to thank God for these real benefits, we have also failed to acknowledge the goodness of God in giving them to us.

Everything around us in the creation proclaims the infinite goodness of God!  To reject that and to scorn the Giver of life and existence is to scorn his infinite goodness.  Scorning an infinite God is an infinite sin, and a sin that is worthy of infinite condemnation!  That is why Romans 1:21 says that God’s wrath is being revealed against men for their failure to give thanks!

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened

As I thought about this verse, I began to wonder:   If God’s wrath comes when we fail to give thanks, then is it possible that there is a tremendous blessing that comes when we do give thanks?

I think there is a blessing that comes from thankfulness.  Giving thanks is a blessing because the joy and gratitude and happiness that we feel when we are thankful isn’t primarily from the benefit that we have received, but from the goodness of the one who gives us that benefit.

This is the real blessing: We are able to consciously experience the goodness of God.  Ultimately, BEING THANKFUL is a blessing in and of itself!  There is the joy and happiness and satisfaction of witnessing daily the goodness of our wonderful God and Savior, the Lord Jesus.

So the question is, how can I begin to walk daily in the blessing of thankfulness?  How can I experience the joy and satisfaction of being thankful?  Do I just walk outside and look up at the stars, or at the beautiful autumn leaves, or at the glories of creation and thank God for my existence?

The problem is that just as those pagan gentiles in Romans 1, you and I (and the religious jews in Romans 2), are ALREADY under the condemnation of God for our FAILURE to give thanks.  If the only thing you do to try to remedy this problem of not giving thanks is walk outside and look up at the stars and be grateful for your existence, you will be looking at the revelation of a holy and just God who says that he will not leave the guilty unpunished.

Because of the wrath of God that we deserve, we cannot become thankful people just by making a list of the blessings that God has given us:  like your family, your job, the turkey you ate this past Thanksgiving Day, etc., 

There is only one way that we can become thankful people, and that is through the cross of Jesus, our Savior.  Jesus took upon himself at the cross the wrath of God that we deserve for our thanklessness.  Think about this, God himself took on human flesh and suffered the just penalty for our rejection of him.

When God did this, it was a far greater display of his goodness than the creation of the entire universe.  Through the creation, God’s eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen, but through the cross, God’s justice and his grace are clearly seen.  

We criticize these pagan gentiles for their failure to see God’s gracious benefits to them in creating them for his glory, and yet so often we fail to see God’s grace and love displayed to US when he REcreated us for his glory, at the cost of his own Son, Jesus.

So how can we experience the blessing of thankfulness?  We do it by living a cross-centered life.

 

Thank God every day for the Cross

I began a practice some time ago that should be second-nature to all of us as Christians, and that is to thank God every day for what he did for us at the cross.  I’m sad to say that I don’t yet have this godly habit ingrained in my life like I wish I did, but by his grace, I will!  May not a day go by that I don’t thank my Lord for his death for me on the cross.  

I need to keep this always before me, that I am a sinner, deserving of God’s condemnation, but instead receiving his mercy.  I deserve hell, but I get heaven.  I deserve separation from God, and instead he adopts me into his family and cherishes me as he does his only begotten Son!!! Imagine the difference it will make in your life if you are meditating EVERY DAY on the wonderful grace of Jesus expressed to you at the cross!

And as I thank him for my salvation, may it remind me not just of the fact that I am SAVED, but of what an infinitely GOOD God he is!  

 

Thank God for good gifts  

Every good gift that comes into your life is due to the cross of Christ!  When God blesses you as his child with ANYTHING, no matter how small, remember this.  If Jesus hadn’t died on the cross for you, he would not be blessing you now with that meal, or that car, or that relationship, or anything.  Let every good thing that comes into your life remind you of this.  It is all because of Jesus’ cross.

You may wonder, “But what about those who are NOT followers of Christ?  Where do the benefits in THEIR lives come from?”  The answer is the same, from the cross of Christ, and just like the pagan gentiles in Romans 1, those who are not followers of Christ will be held accountable for their failure to give thanks to God for everything that they have been given.

 

Thank God for difficulty

Not only are the good things that come into your life through the cross of Christ, so are the difficult things.  Peter said in 1 Pet. 4:13, Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.  God has promised us that our sufferings are not without a point.  He promises in 2 Cor. 4:17, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

There is a pernicious lie in the church today that a life of obedience and submission to God means that everything will go well for you, you will never suffer.  But the promise of the gospel message of the cross is that we are blessed to share in Christ’s sufferings, and for that we can be thankful!  

Sometimes God removes his temporal blessings to show us that the greatest blessing we have is  HIMSELF!

 

Get rid of distractions from the cross

Finally, and probably most important of these four suggestions, is to rid your life of everything that is a distraction from the cross of Christ.  We fill our lives with so much activity, with so much entertainment, with so much busyness that we simply don’t have time to live a cross-centered life.  Even God’s good gifts can become idols in our lives if they keep us FROM God rather that directing us TO God.  

Don’t expect to become a thankful person just by adding these first three suggestions to a life that in all other respects shows no desire to know God as he has revealed himself at the cross of Christ.  The overall movement and direction of your life must be toward Jesus if you are to live a cross-centered life.  

When Jesus died on the cross he accomplished our RECONCILIATION with God.  That is the gift he has given us–the way is opened once again for us to have fellowship with God.

Would you not agree that the greatest thanklessness that a person could express would be to fail to appreciate and use and enjoy the gift that they have been given?  Which hurts more, kids?  When your brother or sister unwraps that toy that you spent all your allowance to buy and immediately begins playing with it, but forgets to say “thank you”?  Or when he opens it, and then casts it aside disinterested, looking for the next present?

Do you want to be a thankful person?  Enjoy the gift that God has given you–HIMSELF!

I heard about a missionary wife who had been without her husband for almost 10 weeks as he toured in the churches.  On the day he was to arrive home, a huge package arrived for this lady by delivery truck.  It was from her husband.  She was so disappointed.  She didn’t just want a present, she wanted HIM, and when she opened the box… out he popped!

That’s what God has done for us.  He has reconciled us to himself.  He has given himself to us!  What goodness he has shown us!  Let us thank him!

 

This post is based on a SERMON that is available by clicking here.

Categories
Bible Study Cross-Centered Life Sermons Theology Uncategorized

Isaiah 1-2 How God sees sin (part 2)

This post is based on a SERMON that is available by clicking here.

In an earlier post I talked about how God sees our sin, and that if we want to be victorious in our battle with sin, we need to see it from God’s perspective.  When God sees our sin, he sees the pervasiveness of our sin, and in his holiness, he rejects us in our sin.  The way Jesus saves us is by being rejected for us.  When Jesus declared on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” he was being rejected in our place, so that we might be accepted by the Father.  Understanding this perspective on sin is the crucial first step to living in victory over sin.

In this post, I want to talk about what we can do to make our perspective on sin more in line with God’s.

 

1.  We must humble ourselves by confessing the truth about ourselves

In our struggle with sin, we have to come to the point where we admit the truth of what God has shown us in Isaiah 1:5-6  the whole body is sick.  

The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.  From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds…

 I think we have an amazing ability to accept our total depravity as a theological proposition, and yet fail to ever make it a personal affirmation.  

When was the last time you saw yourself in this way?  If you look at your life and your behavior, chances are that you will not come to this conclusion about yourself.  Oh, after a big failure, you may see it a little more clearly than you do at other times, but even then you will be likely to say, “but at least I’m not as bad as I could be.  At least there are some others out there who have done worse than I have.” 

We are like a soccer player who has fallen down on a muddy field.  And the whole left side of our uniform is covered with mud.  And yet we look at the other player, who fell on his right side, and we somehow think we are better because we haven’t dirtied the same part of our uniform as he has.  Or we look at him and say, “yeah, but at least my mud is cleaner than your mud!”

We fight to save our reputation, in our own eyes, before God, and before others.  But if we want to experience victory, there must be a humbling of ourselves.  Several times in Isaiah, pride is pointed to as what will ultimately bring us under the judgement of God.  

Twice in chapter 2, God’s judgement is spoken of as being against the pride of man.  Isaiah 2:11-12

The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.  For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up–and it shall be brought low.  (see also verse 17)

This is why both the Apostle James and the Apostle Peter quote Prov. 3:34 God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  And James adds in 4:10 Humble yourselves, before the Lord, and he will exalt you.  And how do we humble ourselves?  James goes on to tell us in 5:16:  Confess your sins to each other.

We humble ourselves by CONFESSING the truth about ourselves.  

 I have been amazed at how many times I have heard since coming back to the U.S., “Bryan, I just don’t have anyone I feel that I can open up to”  I’ve heard this so often its becoming a theme.  Even pastor-friends have told me this:  there is no one I can be honest with.  Brothers and sisters, together as a church we should be on our faces before God begging his forgiveness for the pride in our hearts that keeps us from confessing our sins to one another.  Do we want to see victory and blessing in our lives and in our churches?  Then let us humble ourselves before God, and confess our state of spiritual destitution before him and before one another!

I have found that when the Holy Spirit convicts me of sin, he almost always shows me to whom I should confess that sin.  There have been times that it has taken me days or even weeks to submit to his voice. (“Lord, there is no way that I can confess that to him!”) 

I can point to a turning point in my spiritual life as as teenager, when I confessed sin to my father that the Lord had been putting his finger on for a long time.  I have humbled myself on multiple occasions and gone to my sons and said, “I was wrong, will you forgive me.”  Countless are the times that I have confessed my sin to my wife, or to Christian brothers.  Confession of sin within the Body is an integral part of our lives as Christians, and it flows from our acceptance of the fact that we really have no reputation to uphold.  We are completely and totally depraved.  We are sinners of the worst kind, and nothing we can confess could make us seem worse that we actually are.  If we want to walk in victory, we need to rediscover this discipline of confession of sin.


2.  We look to Jesus and find our acceptance with God only in Him.

There is something extremely freeing in the fact that God rejects us as sinners.  When God forgives us and saves us, it is not as if he is just giving us a second chance.  It is not as if we have another opportunity to prove to him that we really can do it this time.  We no longer have to prove to him and to ourselves that we really aren’t that bad.  We are free to admit the truth, that we really *are* that bad.  We are free to reject our sinful flesh as totally unable to do anything that is pleasing to God.  And we turn in faith to the Lord Jesus, and trust him to do what we cannot do.

Your sinful flesh isn’t getting any better.  You are just as much in need of God’s grace today as you ever have been in your life.  When you fall flat on your face in your sin, God is showing you once again how much you need Jesus.  In Christ, he has rejected that sinful you, and He has given you a new identity in Christ.  So you need to reject that sinful you as well, and turn your eyes to Jesus and confess to him, It is only through your cross, Lord Jesus, that I can be acceptable to God.  Thank you for your grace!

It is only when we look at sin from God’s perspective that we can be victorious over it.

And what is God’s perspective on sin?

He sees the pervasiveness of our sin.  Our total depravity.  Will you agree with him about that, and confess your sin before him and before the Body?  

He sees that the sinner must be rejected.  And so his very Son was forsaken on the cross in your place.  Jesus died so that your sinful self might be forever and completely rejected.  Will you now live that out, by refusing to look for anything good in you apart from Christ?  Will you live that out by admitting that you are just as much in need of God’s grace today as you ever have been?

This post is based on a SERMON that is available by clicking here.