Today we continue our series titled "The Quest for Character." We said last week that character is what we do and who we are without thinking. There are different features that make up a person of godly character. One of those is humility, which God uses to transform our character when our pride is burned away. Today we want to talk about another key element of a godly character and that is gratitude. What I want us to understand is that a character of intense gratitude is created from the pieces of extreme brokenness.

There are lots of things that can happen in our life that have the ability to express intense gratitude. Unless you have been under a rock this last month you know that Oprah Winfrey surprised all 276 guests of her season opening show with the gift of a brand new Pontiac G6. each guest was secretly chosen because of their need of a car. The car lists, with all its options, for right around $28,000. The excitement generated by each person opening a small box and discovering the keys to a new car was amazing. Each guest rushed out to see his or her car screaming, crying, and Oprah saying, "You get a car! You get a car!" Of course Oprah got the boom from the greatest marketing ploy in TV history for free! The $7.7 million that the cars cost was paid by Pontiac. Each guest had to pay about $7,000 in taxes but as one Wheaton College employee said, "You can’t get a brand new car for $7,000!" (Pittsburg Post-Gazette and Associated Press, 9/29/04)

It’s one thing to feel intensely grateful because of the gift of a free car. It is entirely another kind of gratitude that is created out of the pieces of a broken, shattered life. Gratitude that is created out of the pieces of our broken lives has an intensity about it that refuses to be ignored. Gratitude like this doesn’t depend on the possessions or material gifts we receive or don’t receive. Intense gratitude, created out of the pieces of our brokenness, is resilient, lasting and overwhelming. Gratitude is the singular characteristic that will determine how far we travel on this quest of character. Erwin McManus says, "It is gratitude that nurtures wholeness and expresses itself as generosity in the end. Gratitude is the pathway of love. It unleashes the healing power of love…It is a life of gratitude that makes us whole, overwhelms us with love and moves us to live generous lives." (Uprising, p. 114-115)

We are all broken people. The problem is we just don’t know it. Our brokenness mostly results from our own sad and desperate choices. Sometimes our brokenness is the result of the way life has turned. That’s what this woman felt because she knew she bore the pain of her choices and the source of her guilt and shame. Therefore she was able to express gratitude for the love and forgiveness of Jesus. The Pharisee in the story had not begun to see his own brokenness; therefore, for him the love and forgiveness of Jesus was a spectator event. He saw no need to be grateful because he was totally blind to his own brokenness. The woman in our story created a character of gratitude from the pieces of her brokenness. The Pharisees lack of gratitude left him staring at the pieces of his own self-righteousness. In our text for this morning Jesus taught that a character of intense gratitude is created from the pieces of extreme brokenness.

Our story begins with Jesus accepting an invitation to have a meal in the home of a Pharisee named Simon. The Pharisees, you will recall, were the strictest and most outwardly moral group of the Jewish religious leadership. For Jesus to do this only shows how willing he was to meet anyone in order to show them his love. Luke records earlier his eating with Matthew the tax collector and miraculously healing a Roman officer’s servant so he was willing to reach out to someone who felt they had the least possible reason to have any contact with Jesus. He was equally as willing to be with those who felt they were doing Jesus a favor by having him over for supper.

The meal was going fine with people coming and going in and out of Simon’s home because of the popularity of Jesus. It went well until "she" came in the room. We don’t know who she was except that there is some connection she feels she has with Jesus and is inexplicably drawn to him. She may have heard him speak. She may have actually had a conversation with him. Yet more than likely she was one who because of her life and lifestyle had been in the shadows listening, believing, receiving and saw this as her only chance to show Jesus just how grateful she was for his love. We simply don’t know if this was an expression of gratitude and love for forgiveness already realized or forgiveness anticipated.

Why was she so reluctant before now to secretly show him the passion of her gratitude and love? We don’t know. What we do know is she was a "sinner", a promiscuous woman, a hooker or a whore. She obviously wasn’t invited but risked all the social irregularities to just be near him. John Ortberg writes, "She hadn’t always looked like this. There was a day when she had been someone’s little girl, when someone cherished dreams for her, perhaps. When she had dreams herself, maybe. But that day had been gone a long time. It had been years since she had been in the public company of anyone respectable. It took all the courage she had to brave the looks and whispers in that room." (A Love Beyond Reason, p.18)

So there she is and there he is. She is behind him, he is facing away from her. She has in her hand a small globe of very expensive perfume. It has cost her all she has earned as she gave her body away cheaply. She meant to pour it on his head but she sees his feet stretched out as he is reclining in the customary manner at the meal. Suddenly her sense of the brokenness of her life, her love, her gratitude, his presence, this moment, caused her to begin to cry. Her tears at first were filling her eyes then they ran unrestrained down her face, falling not on the floor but on his feet.

She was embarrassed at the awkwardness of the situation and she does what would have been unthinkable for a Jewish woman to do in public--she let down her hair! Oh, she had let her hair down often but this time it was not for another but only to wipe away her tears. She took a long, dark handful of hair and began to wipe the places on his feet where her tears had splashed. As she wiped one or two she suddenly was just overcome with the emotion she felt inside. The tears became countless and she could no longer keep up with their marks.

If this were not risky enough she then began to do what spontaneously was her deepest personal expression of love and gratitude. As she drew near with her hair she began to kiss his feet. Her lips did not just brush his feet once but over and over she let the lips that had been stained by her shame become lips that kissed again and again these feet. Yet, she was not finished for she took the perfume that she brought with her, broke the top and poured all of the perfume not on his head but on his feet! The room suddenly became filled with the fragrance of the aroma of extravagant gratitude and love that was unashamed and unhindered. Intense gratitude was created out of the pieces of her extreme brokenness.

The woman’s character of gratitude that was created out of brokenness is only one of two in our story. She fully understood the pain her sin had caused and it broke her heart in pieces. Does that describe your character? Or, are you more like Simon, the Pharisee? What was the Pharisee’s problem?

Simon no doubt waited for Jesus to rebuke this woman for her scandalous life as well as her behavior. He did not even say a thing yet it was written all over his face. Simon thought that as long as the moral exterior of his life was clean everything was just fine. Yet Jesus said that the real waste dump in our life comes from within " For from within, out of a person's heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, eagerness for lustful pleasure, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you and make you unacceptable to God." (Mark 7:21-23).

Jesus tells Simon a story about two people who each owed the same person a debt. One owed a huge debt and the other a very small debt. Yet they both had the same problem: neither could pay the debt they owed. So the one to whom they owed the debt forgave both of their debts. Jesus question is simple, "Who was more grateful, the one who owed the huge debt or the one who owed the very small one?" Simon could see through it quickly and responded, "The one who owed the larger debt". They both owed a debt. They both were unable to pay. They both were forgiven. Yet who felt gratitude more deeply?

Jesus shows Simon and us that he is scandalously ready to forgive the debt that she and he owes to God.He is also showing Simon that a life of gratitude and generosity is waiting for him! Jesus shows Simon that he had no knowledge of the debt he owed and it was reflected by his lack of respect for Jesus (v. 44-46). Notice that He was looking at the woman but at the same time was speaking to Simon. In doing so he points out to Simon the differences in his actions and in hers. Simon provided no water for Jesus to wash his feet; she though had soaked them with her tears. Where he had not even offered the common courtesy of a kiss on the cheek, she could not stop kissing his feet. Simon didn’t even offer the cheapest olive oil for his head, she had poured out the most expensive perfume on his feet. The woman knew the brokenness of her life and used the pieces to create a character of gratitude.

Simon just couldn’t bring himself to receive the forgiveness of Jesus because he clung to the notion that he did not need much forgiveness. Yet the woman knew all about who she was and that Jesus knew all about her and loved her anyway. Jesus simply tells the woman her sins are forgiven. Jesus tells her two things: "Your sins have been forgiven," and "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." Both of the verbs "forgiven" and "saved" are in the Greek perfect tense meaning that what was done remains done. Nothing would ever spoil her forgiveness or her being his completely. The depth and reality of her brokenness had created a character of gratitude that would be remembered forever.

Why did this woman create such deep and intense gratitude from the pieces of her broken life? I believe it was because she understood fully the reality of the guilt and shame of her broken life. Shame and guilt are two emotions that are very much the same. Guilt is an emotion that recognizes that we are responsible for something that is wrong in our life. It is no doubt a painful but sometimes helpful and healthy emotion. I believe this woman’s sense of guilt, her personal sense of sin, drove her to this obvious demonstration of gratitude.

Yet she overcame something else and that is shame. Shame hurts us at deeper level than guilt. It hurts at a fundamental level of our soul. Guilt can be used in a healthy way but shame is experienced so deeply that it often makes us see ourselves as without hope and recovery. Shame causes people to see them selves as without value, unlovable, unworthy and irreparable shame is what really breaks us. . What this woman sensed was that Jesus was the only one who could relieve her soul of the weight of guilt and the depth of shame.

What do you think about your own sin? When you fully understand how your choices have torn you and disfigured you, you are broken. When you are broken the depth of your brokenness doesn’t need to hold you back from showing the intensity of your gratitude to Jesus.

Do you think that somehow your own sins and failures are somehow not as damaging as another’s? The reason Simon reacted with no gratitude was because he felt that the woman was a sinner, but he was not! He felt that only a person of his earned worthiness could approach someone like Jesus. The Pharisee thought that God was only for people like him. I mean you’ve got the equivalent of the character of Pamela Anderson kissing the feet of Jesus and Jesus does nothing but accept her. Simon misunderstood his own sin; therefore, forgiveness for a person like her was out of his grasp. Do you think that way? How many people are turned away from our lives because we think that God is only for those who have no outward evidence of brokenness.

How would you react? If you would react like the Pharisee, then you will not have a character of gratitude because you still have not comprehended your own brokenness! God’s grace reaches to all! As the song by U2 says "Grace makes beauty out of ugly things." So many times our problem is that we say, "I can’t come to God like this! I must do something to make it right. God is not for me! Not now, I’m not worthy." Are you like Simon, refusing to accept just how broken you really are, therefore, still missing gratitude that can be created from your own brokenness? If you are, then listen to Jesus’ teaching.

Do you understand the meaning of your own brokenness of sin? It’s an exponential debt greater than the size of all other debts. Do you realize you can’t pay? You’re unable to pay. Do you realize God cancels out your debt in the cross of Jesus? Romans 3:22 says, "We are made right in God's sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done." (NLT) Today I’m not asking you to accept this for the first time. I’m asking you to perhaps own it for yourself.

Retired pastor John Claypool tells the story about a counselor friend of his and a young woman who came for counseling. She had a terrible sense of her own brokenness of sin, guilt and shame and it was real. She couldn’t get rid of it; she couldn’t feel forgiven. She came week after week and couldn’t get a breakthrough. One day he decided to try something. He said to the woman, "I want you to take this piece of paper and pencil and write down every sin you ever committed." She went to a desk and did it. She brought it back and he said, "Is every single sin on that paper that you can remember?" She was a little tenuous so he sent her back. "Write down every one you can remember. Try to dredge them up. Write them down." When she had done that, he took a brass bowl that was in his office and he shredded all of those papers and he said, "I want you to kneel before this chair." He put the brass bowl right in front of her. "Now," he said, "I’m going to light a match to these sins. They are going to burn up. They will be no more and I am going to stand behind you with my hands upon your head. I want you to listen to what I say because they are the words of God from the Psalms."

He lit those shredded pieces of paper, stepped behind her and put his hands upon her head and began to quote from Psalm 51. "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy steadfast love; according to thy abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." He moved over to Psalm 103: "As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him." And she broke. All of a sudden that cesspool of sin was cleansed in a torrent of tears. She sobbed with heavy, aching sobs. But when it was all over, for the first time in months, she was free. Intense gratitude is created from extreme brokenness.

Erwin McManus says, "When we are grateful, we are most fully alive. Gratitude allows us to absorb every possible pleasure from a moment. It is the grateful who suck the marrow out of life…for them…life becomes an endless celebration." (Uprising, p. 127-128) Until you face the reality of your own brokenness you will never be able to be intensely grateful. The celebration of life begins when you allow God to create a character of intense gratitude from the pieces of your brokenness.

Sunday, October 3, 2004

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org