Know Yourself

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Luke 7:36-50

"Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.""

 

 

1

As usual, let me check how you remember what we learned last Sunday. Last Sunday we watched a video clip about the story of The Three Little Pigs. With the story, we learned how to build our relationship with God. We can build an easy and quick relationship with God as if we build a house of straw. By contrast, we can build a difficult and painstaking relationship with God as if we build a house of bricks and stones. It is obvious that while the straw house easily falls into pieces when a wolf comes, the brick house remains strong enough to throw the wolf out. Most of us agree that we want to build a difficult and painstaking relationship with God. That relationship is based on how we worship God. I know it is difficult to sit rightly, praise loudly, and pray well in worship. However, remember once again what we are doing here is part of our building a relationship with God.

 

2

That being said, let us move to today’s Bible story. For today’s story, I made a title: Know Yourself. Do you know what it means, know yourself? It is said by Socrates, one of the most well-known philosophers in history. Know yourself indicates that we are really good at talking about others, but not ourselves. For example, we enjoy saying bad things about someone while the person is not around us. When I am not here, you may say to your friends, “Hey, do you like our new pastor? I don’t like him because he is too strict about worship. Before he came, I consider this church as a playground I can play whenever I feel like doing it. After he came, everything changed.” Likewise, we are all very good at criticizing someone for something. But, you know what? Because we are really good at criticizing someone, we are really poor at looking into ourselves and discovering who we are. The same thing happened in Jesus’ time. To know what it is, let us read the Bible. It is Luke 7:36-50. The story is quite long. But, I don’t worry because I know you guys are all good at reading and understanding the story.

 

3

One day a Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him. The word Pharisees is a title given to a very religious person who strictly observes rites and ceremonies the Bible teaches. Jesus entered his house and sat at the table. A woman in that town heard the news. She really wanted to meet Jesus. However, she was nervous to come to the Pharisees’ house because people in that town considered her a sinful woman. Unfortunately, we do not know what wrongdoings she did. Anyhow, she came to Jesus with a bottle of perfume in hand. When she saw where Jesus was, she approached him, weeping, and knelt at his feet. She began to wet Jesus’ feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

 

4

Seeing what the woman was doing, the Pharisees said, “This is a crazy thing! How is it possible that a sinner is doing this kind of a weird thing to Jesus!” Jesus answered, “Hey, man! Let her do what she wants to do. Because she knows that she is a sinner, she is really happy to see me. While you are busy criticizing her, she is busy expressing her thankful heart for me. So, if you know you are as sinful as she is, you cannot say bad things about this woman anymore.”

 

5

The Pharisees closed his mouth. Today Jesus told us. Do not criticize others, pretending that we are a good person. Instead, think deeply how sinful we are before God. Then, we might change how we treat others. Guys, do you understand what Jesus taught us today?

 

 

Prayer

God, today we learned that we are really good at criticizing others, but we are really poor at knowing ourselves. When we feel bad, angry, and nervous, we are easily tempted to say bad things about others. However, God, today we learned that is not a good thing to do. From this moment on, when we feel like saying bad things about others, when we feel like doing bad things to others, we will try to change our thought and act, thinking before you God we are not really different from our friends we look down on. We pray in your name Jesus Christ. Amen.