Extravagant for God

Luke 7:36. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and having entered the Pharisee’s house, he sat down at the table. Then a woman from the city, who was a sinner, upon learning that Jesus was at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of perfume. And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the perfume. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself: If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what kind of woman it is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.

Then Jesus answered and said to him: Simon, I have something to tell you. And he said to him: Say it, Teacher. A creditor had two debtors: one owed him five hundred denarii and the other fifty. And since they had nothing with which to pay, he forgave them both. Tell me, then, which of them will love him more? Simon answered and said: Well, I suppose the one whom he forgave more. And he said to him: You have judged correctly. And turning toward the woman, he said to Simon: Do you see this woman? I entered your house and 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 I entered, has not ceased kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume. For which I tell you that her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much; but the one who is forgiven little, loves little. And he said to her: Your sins are forgiven. And those who were sitting together at the table began to say among themselves: Who is this, who even forgives sins?

But he said to the woman: Your faith has saved you; go in peace. Amen. I know some people are thinking that they have to go season the turkey tonight, they want to leave early, and we understand very well. We are just going to touch on one point now, as if to punctuate everything we have said and wrap it all up, the prayers we have offered. We are here tonight because it is always good to choose moments to give thanks to the Lord. We always give thanks to the Lord every day; obviously, the people of God have to be a grateful people, but it is also good to mark that nationally, as this nation has done.

I believe that if there had not been a Thanksgiving Day, this would definitely not be the time to establish it; they would not establish it. I do not see any president of this nation or politician having the courage in this moral or spiritual era to say: We are going to have a Thanksgiving Day. Isn’t that true? It would not be politically correct. They would immediately say: Oh, this is religious partisanship, oppression, and bias. How good it is that this Thanksgiving Day came about many years ago, when this nation still recognized Jesus Christ for who he is and recognized that it was a Christian nation.

And nowadays, well, everyone travels to their cities, to their relatives, and the airports fill up with people, even atheists and people who hate Christianity, because they are celebrating this day. But many of those people would oppose this day if it were going to be established at this time, wouldn’t they? How things change. And how good it is to have a nation that recognizes God, the God of the Bible, as its God. That is the hope for this nation. And we give thanks, Lord, that visionary men and women perhaps about a century or so ago, perhaps a little more, established Thanksgiving Day.

What? George Washington. George Washington. That long ago? Uh-huh, see, there is a historian here who knows those stories. That means it was a long time ago, precisely because those were God-fearing men, and that is why this nation became so great, because it was founded upon that acknowledgment of God and of the spiritual foundation. And we have to do the same with our lives as well. And this nation is great because it has recognized the importance of giving thanks to God and acknowledging his goodness toward this nation.

Here in this passage we have someone who has always been an example to me, always has been, of the spirit of thanks, of gratitude, of thankfulness toward God. It is this woman who appears only in the book, in the Gospel according to Saint Luke. She does not appear anywhere else, this particular woman. There is one who is somewhat similar, but she is not the same one. This woman seems to have been—and it is clear—a woman whose life was not very pleasant. Verse 37 says that a woman from the city, who was a sinner, and evidently her reputation was not very good because Simon the Pharisee also knew of her, and Simon did not move in those circles, we believe he did not.

He was a Pharisee, but you never know, right? Who knows what he was doing on the internet or on some site out there, but at least Simon was a very proper man, very religious, very much a stay-at-home man, a man who had never broken a plate, apparently, in his entire life. But he knew that this woman was a sinful woman and that she did not live a good life. And yet God chooses this woman specifically to establish her as a symbol of gratitude and of the attitude God wants from each one of us.

Sometimes God chooses the most fragile and unsuitable vessels to exalt a principle of Scripture, and that is why I believe this woman and Simon the Pharisee make such an interesting contrast and, in a way, bring out more clearly what true gratitude is. Simon, again, was a respectable citizen, a pillar of his community, religious, from the spiritual caste that led, that governed, very strict in its ritual and behavioral requirements and everything else. He was an example of the positive side of a community.

This woman was possibly a prostitute; she certainly walked in places where she should not have walked. Nowadays she would have been a drug addict, perhaps an alcoholic lying in the gutter from time to time, or a person of ill repute, or a person who had had many men, who was known to have had many men. And because she was a woman, she was already at a disadvantage as well; she formed a very great contrast with Simon the Pharisee. And Simon invited Jesus to his house because he wanted to learn about him. Simon had religious concerns, and Jesus was an intriguing figure, with a theological position different from the ordinary one.

And so Simon invited Jesus to his house because he was curious to get to know him; he wanted to know a little more about Jesus. He did not really invite him because he wanted to honor Jesus, or because he recognized who Jesus was and that he was the Son of God or that he was the Savior of the world, no. Simon invited Jesus simply because he wanted to know a little about him and sort of question him; it was more a matter of curiosity. He resembled other people who questioned Jesus simply wanting to know what—what makes him tick, as they say in English—what was the spring that drove this different man.

But in his heart there was not truly a desire to honor and glorify Jesus. So when Jesus entered his house, Simon gave him merely courteous treatment. He welcomed him, seated him in his house, perhaps gave him, in a little glass thing, a glass container, some Hershey’s Kisses or something like that, and a glass of water, a Coca-Cola. But his reception of Jesus was basic, it was merely proper, it was appropriate, but it went no further than that. Notice that the Lord apparently never—he did not point anything out to him, but simply received what Simon offered him, and everything was very calm and everything was going very well.

But the Lord was observing, because he knows hearts. But suddenly this woman bursts into that house, which I imagine was a fairly large, quite spacious house, and she approaches Jesus; and it says that she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, and kissed his feet and anointed them with the perfume. I wonder, now that I was reading this, whether that woman, when she performed this act of worship toward the Lord, whether she had completely abandoned her former life.

It would be interesting to speculate about that, wouldn’t it? Who knows whether she was still, perhaps, in the final stages of breaking away from her former life. I personally suspect that she had not yet completely escaped her bondage and her lifestyle. Perhaps she was in the process, as happens when people who have had a difficult life come to know the Lord and receive the touch of the Holy Spirit, as we sometimes see people who come here to the church, come forward, and you know they come straight from the world.

You see it; you see it by the way they dress, by their manner, their appearance, and all these things. You know that they are people who still... but they have come forward; sometimes you see them crying, they have been touched by God. But it is going to take time for all that bad blood they have accumulated over the years to drain out of them and be replaced with positive attitudes, solid behavior. We will see them at church from time to time; they will come one Sunday and then show up again three months later, and then two months later, then one month later, and before you know it, they start staying.

And I have seen that when those people come forward, I say, this will probably take them, unless it is a very exceptional case, two, three years. Our church has been interesting in that respect, because God has used it so that many people come, get to know the Lord, surrender themselves to God, but do not think that you are immediately going to see them coming every Sunday. What happens there many times is that a process of relationship with God begins, and then it is going to take them a long time to become regular citizens of the kingdom of God.

What’s more, perhaps God, they may not even stay in this church. They are going to come here, they are going to receive the Lord, and they are going to go to another church perhaps, or they are going to go to another country or whatever. But the point is that the processes of God always take time, and God is so merciful that he understands this. And I suspect that this woman had not yet completely abandoned her lifestyle, but she was deeply moved. Perhaps, like Zacchaeus, for example, she had heard a sermon by Jesus in the street, and the Lord had seen her and had prayed for her and blessed her, and everything she had received throughout her life had been what?

Slights, contempt. Men used her, took advantage of her stealthily and secretly, and despised her. Then the next day they would see her on the street and act as though they had never seen her. And this woman was accustomed to that, but Jesus, as in the case of Zacchaeus, for example, gave this woman mercy, love, hope, forgiveness, made her feel that she had worth, gave her a reason to live, and gave her a reason to fight for her own redemption, to get out of the traps she was caught in.

And this had such a great impact on her life that I believe all those things moved her to come to Jesus’ house and pour that perfume over Jesus himself. She was truly touched, because for the first time in her life, I believe, there was hope that she could get out of that terrible trap in which she was caught. She was filled with gratitude. She was filled with the hope that Christ had given her. So, for that reason, she carries out this deeply moving gesture of worship to the Lord.

It was a gesture of extreme gratitude to the Lord. And we know that an alabaster jar of perfume was very expensive. Alabaster, as you know, is like a very, very beautiful stone. And we are not talking about today, when you could go to Walmart to get a glass bottle or something like that with perfume in it. In those days there was no manufacturing like that. These things were made by hand. And those perfume vessels did not have a cap that you twisted.

That kind of technology did not exist. You broke the casing that sealed it, and you had to use all the perfume. And the container indicated that it was something expensive. So this woman was going to make a gesture of great sacrifice. It was a very eloquent offering. But not only that; I believe her tears—the inward expression of her being through her tears—were what moved the Lord most. And she used her hair and dried his feet. And Simon, who was, let us say, a rigid kind of man, did not understand these passionate things, what it means to surrender oneself like that, in that way.

He had done things very well all his life. And that is how it is, you understand: there are people who never break a plate, but neither are they capable of feeling deeply toward the Lord. They do everything in measured amounts, they do everything prudently, they do everything with restraint. And you know what? God loves passionate people. God loves people who worship him with their entire being, who do strange things, and who surrender themselves to him in a very, very, very powerful way. That kind of extravagant people—thank you.

Would you like to come up here and help me? Very good word. Extravagant—everyone say, “extravagant.” And thank Meche for that word tonight. God likes extravagant people; that is very true. And that is precisely what this image here is about. Let us never give the Lord only what is sufficient, what is proper, brothers and sisters. And you and I have to ask ourselves tonight: Am I a merely proper person toward God, or am I extravagant? What is the measure by which I measure my worship of the Lord, my life toward God?

Jesus’ heart is touched by people who love him passionately, extravagantly. That is why the Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver, and the Greek word translated into Spanish as cheerful conveys more the idea of hilarity; that word exists in Spanish, and in English it is hilarious. It means an extravagant giver, a giver who is kind of crazy, kind of reckless—the giver, the heavy tipper, the person who leaves big tips, right? The person who loves the Lord in that extravagant and extraordinary way—those are the people who...

And we have to cultivate that. If you do not feel that passion toward God in your life, I beg you, my brother, my sister, to cultivate it. Listen to me, how easy it is for us to say, “Well, I already went to church on Sunday, and the pastor went on too long with the sermon—two and a half hours—so I am going to deduct half an hour; next Sunday I will leave half an hour early to even things out, because after all, we have to be balanced in life, right?”

Sometimes we do something for the Lord and immediately think we have done some great thing, right? Sometimes we are tired and you say, “Oh, I have to work tomorrow. No, man, this thing about going to church...” I see in Scripture that the people God honors and blesses are those extravagant people who do unexpected things; they could have remained within what was proper, and God receives it. Look at how the Lord—look—he entered Simon’s house and was not offended by what Simon gave him or did not give him; the Lord pointed out...

The conservative way in which Simon the Pharisee treated him only when Simon began to criticize him and to criticize that woman. That was the moment when the Lord took that little note out of his pocket and said, “Simon, come here. When I came in, you did not give me this; you did not give me that; you only received me with the basics.” Notice that the Lord is aware of it, brothers and sisters. Do you think God does not know who merely serves him at a basic level, who does only the minimum in the Christian life?

“Well, the Lord has already punched my card; I have my visa ready. When I die, I am going to heaven. So, well, I will also give him a little something here and a little something there, but that is all.” And the Lord says, “Look, amen, he will receive you in heaven, because salvation is not by works; it is by grace. It is because of something the Lord did on the cross, and we connect with it,” and those people will go to heaven. But tell me, how wonderful it is when we touch God’s heart with extra dedication.

I wish I had more life so I could give more to the Lord, brothers and sisters. Would you not like that too? I wish I could, I do not know, sacrifice myself to please my God, because God has been so good to me. God wants us, brothers and sisters, to live at that level of life, to love the Lord. And if we love the Lord, that will have to be conveyed through actions. You see the expression “thanksgiving,” acts of thanks. That is not a coincidence. Gratitude is expressed through actions.

We have to express our love for Jesus Christ through acts of worship, expressions of service, expressions of preferring him, expressions of loyalty. The Lord is a very romantic being, and he likes his daughters and his sons to love him and tell him, “I love you, thank you, I love you, I recognize what you have done.” The Lord likes those moments of intimacy with his children. What father does not like his children to choose him, love him, and tell him, “You are a good father, and you have done so many things for us”?

How beautiful gratitude is, brothers and sisters. Gratitude is this: after you have reached the basics and basic acknowledgment, you then enter a realm of excess, of extra expression. That is gratitude, and that is what God wants from us. That was what touched Jesus’ heart when Mary sat at his feet and listened to him. Mary was not doing anything productive. Notice how interesting it is that many times what moves God’s heart is not necessarily our productivity so much.

It is not even that I am telling you, “Oh, well, now tithe more, or do more of this, do more of that.” Everything begins in the heart. Within. And then that force of the heart is conveyed and translated into actions. When Mary was giving so much of herself there and doing this, that, and the other, perhaps she had lost sight of the attitude of worship. She was simply doing what a Type A personality does: serve, make sure that everything is all right, arrange things, this, that, and the other.

In Mary there was a heart of worship, and that was what touched the Lord. That is why the Lord said, “She chose the better part.” We have to cultivate that, brothers and sisters. Never settle for a halfhearted Christianity. Cultivate passion toward the Lord, cultivate love, cultivate extravagance toward God. My final example is David; the Lord placed him on my heart. When the ark arrived in Jerusalem, David was also an extravagant man toward God. You could not speak badly to David about God, let me tell you.

If David heard someone—I imagine David was the kind of person, the kind of king, who, if he heard someone dare to speak badly of his God, would cut off his head immediately. He was a very, very fierce man when it came to his God. And that is why, when the giant was out there insulting the Lord and his army, David could not contain his anger. And while his brothers were there cowering and intimidated and doing what was proper—who wants to throw himself against a giant the size of Goliath?

God did not expect that from anyone; he did not demand it. But David went that extra mile and expressed his love to the Lord by confronting the giant. But later, when that ark came to Jerusalem, David was filled with love toward God. And what did he do? He celebrated, took off much of his clothing, was left in his undergarments, forgot that he was king, forgot that he represented an entire nation, forgot that CNN and CBN and Fox News and all those things were there, and that it was going to appear on the internet and all of that, and he began to dance and expressed his love for his God.

And Michal was there. Notice this: when people are grateful and passionate and extravagant, there is always someone watching and criticizing what they do. How interesting, because they do not share their love, they do not share their passion, they do not share their devotion. When Michal saw David doing that, when David returned joyful and happy from the celebration, she said to him, “Hey, how ridiculous you have made yourself look today, huh? Just look at you, a king behaving as though you were a servant.” And do you remember what David said to her?

It was—excuse me—David said, “It was before God that I did it, the one who chose me over your father. That is why I danced.” Notice the gratitude David felt. David was grateful that God had taken him away from the sheep and from obscurity and had placed him over his nation, when he did not deserve it. And that is why David danced that way. And that was also why God forgave so many of David’s faults. David made terrible, terrible, terrible mistakes, and even so, God loved David, God honored David, God never took away from David his promise that his descendants would inherit the land, and ultimately that culminated in Jesus, a descendant of the tribe of Judah, from the lineage of David.

And he says something very important there to the Pharisee. He tells him: the one who loves much is forgiven much. Notice, brothers and sisters, that what moves God's heart most is that love for him. When you feel that love for God, you may make mistakes, but that love you have, that passion for God, attracts God's mercy, care, and forgiveness. That is the thing that moves God most: the love, the passion we have. Tonight, I invite you to make a covenant, a vow, to be people who are extravagant toward God, people with grateful hearts and hearts surrendered to the Lord.

Amen. Let us cultivate gratitude; let us be a grateful church. No, do not measure out your worship of the Lord with an eyedropper or a teaspoon. Even if you are tired, offer the Lord your praise. Come to the house of God, honor your church, bless your congregation, and give more and more to the Lord each day. God loves for us to be grateful. Thank you, Father. Tonight, we worship you once again; once again, we express our love to you. We love you; we bless you, not only tonight, but every day of our lives.

Father, I ask that the spirit of gratitude flow, flow, flow through this congregation always. May we be a church that is extravagant toward you, Father. May we always give you the best, the best, the best. We offer you this congregation, Father. We offer you our lives this morning, tonight, Lord. We offer you this nation; although it is not ours, we tell you, Lord, you have the right to take it. Please receive it; we give it to you, Lord. May your will be done in the nation of the United States. May your will be done here in Massachusetts.

May your will be done in our families. We offer you our families, Father. We offer you our homes. We offer you our lives. We offer you our spirits. We offer you every talent, every gift, every dollar we have, Lord, in our pockets and in our bank accounts; it is yours, Father. We want you to glorify yourself in this church. Make a bundle of this church, of all its energy and talents, and use it for your glory, Father. We offer it to you just as that woman poured that perfume over Christ; in the same way, we pour out our lives over you, Lord.

In the same way, we pour out this church over your head, Lord Jesus. May it be like a pleasing fragrance. We love you, and we will serve you every day of our lives, Father. And if you want to use even our death for your glory, we give that to you as well, Lord. Do whatever you want, Father. We love you, and you deserve our best. Tonight, I bless your people, and I bless the families of this congregation, so that tomorrow we may rejoice before you, Lord. I bless all those who may also feel a little lonely, who perhaps will not have anywhere to go tomorrow or who feel a little sad, Father.

Be with them too. Draw near to them, Father. We worship you, Lord. We bless you tonight. Thank you, in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Thank you, thank you, Jesus. Let us sing one last chorus.