Welcome to Day 2864 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.
Day 2864 – “The Love and Grace of Jesus”  based on Luke 7:36-50

Putnam Church Message – 04/19/2026

The Good News According to Luke: “The Love and Grace of Jesus.”

Last week’s message was: “In Defense of a Doubter,”  and we learned that “There is room near Christ for a doubter who still wants the truth.”

Today, we continue with our nineteenth message from Luke’s narrative of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Today’s message is: “The Love and Grace of Jesus.” We will explore how Jesus’s Love and Grace extend to those others reject. Our core passage today is Luke 7:36-50, which is found on page 1604 of your pew Bibles.

 Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman

³⁶ When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. ³⁷ A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. ³⁸ As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. ³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

⁴⁰ Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. ⁴¹ “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,^[a] and the other fifty. ⁴² Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

⁴³ Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

⁴⁴ 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. ⁴⁵ You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. ⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

⁴⁹ The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰ Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Opening Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word, which is living, true, and full of grace. Thank You for sending Jesus, who does not turn away the broken, the ashamed, the doubting, or the weary. As we open this passage today, open our hearts as well. Let us see ourselves honestly, see Jesus clearly, and receive Your mercy gladly. Break down our pride, soften our judgment, and teach us again what real love and real grace look like. May Your Holy Spirit speak to each person here in a personal way. And may we leave this place forgiven, changed, and filled with peace. In Jesus’ name, amen.

As we continue in this nineteenth message in our journey through Luke’s Gospel, we come to one of the most tender, powerful, and unforgettable scenes in the ministry of Jesus.

Luke has already been showing us who Jesus is.

• He is the One with authority to teach.
• He is the One with power to heal.
• He is the One who speaks hope into impossible situations.
• He is the One who raises the widow’s son.
• He is the One who reassures the doubter.
• And now here in Luke 7:36–50, He is the One who receives the sinner.

This is not just a story about a woman with a bad reputation.
This is not just a story about a Pharisee with a hard heart.
This is a story about the love and grace of Jesus.

And if we are honest this morning, every one of us needs this story.
Because some of us know what it is to feel like that woman—ashamed, wounded, carrying a past we wish we could erase. And some of us, if we are really honest, know what it is to sound a little too much like Simon—composed on the outside, religious on the surface, but cold in the heart.

This story meets both kinds of people. It confronts the proud, and it comforts the broken. It exposes false religion, and it magnifies the beauty of grace.

So let us walk into Simon’s house and watch what happens when love and grace sit at the same table.

A Simple Object Lesson

Here are two jars, one beautifully polished and sealed on the outside, and the other cracked open and spilling perfume. Most of us would naturally be drawn first to the neat one. It looks respectable. It looks controlled. It looks presentable.

But the truth is, the sealed jar may hold nothing that blesses anyone.

The broken jar, however, fills the whole room with fragrance.

That is our story in today’s message. Simon looks polished. The woman looks broken.

But Simon offers Jesus almost nothing. The woman pours out everything.

Sometimes the people who look the most put together are the least aware of their need for grace, while the people who know they are broken become the very ones through whom the beauty of Christ fills the room.

That brings us to our first of four truths or points in our message today. In your bulletin insert on the side, it says The Love and Grace of Jesus.

Main Point 1: Jesus welcomes the people; / religion pushes people away.

Luke tells us that a Pharisee named Simon invited Jesus to his home for dinner. Jesus accepted the invitation. Even that is grace. Jesus was willing to go into the home of a man who did not really understand Him and may not even have honored Him properly.

Then suddenly, into that carefully managed dinner walks a woman the text calls “a sinful woman.”

That phrase tells us everything about how the town saw her.

• She had a label.
• She had a reputation.
• She had a history.
• People did not say her name first; they said her shame first.

And yet she comes.

• She comes into a place where she is unwelcome.
• She comes into a room where eyes will judge her.
• She comes near Jesus with tears, perfume, humility, and love.

Now, in that first-century setting, this would have been a shocking scene. Meals among the wealthy would sometimes take place in semi-open courtyards, where others might observe from the edges. But this woman does not stand at the edge. She moves toward Jesus. / She falls at His feet. She wets His feet with tears. / She uncovers and lets down her hair. / She wipes his feet with her hair. / She kisses them. / She anoints them with perfume.

Imagine this picture – in polite society, it would have been scandalous. What a picture. / The Pharisees saw contamination. / Jesus saw a heart. The religious world saw a problem to manage. / Jesus saw a soul to restore.

This is the pattern we have seen throughout Luke. Jesus speaks to fishermen, touches lepers, heals servants, raises the dead, encourages doubters, and now receives a woman with a ruined reputation. Again and again, Luke shows us that Jesus moves toward the very people others avoid.

This reminds us of the woman at the well in John 4. Society had pushed her to the margins, but Jesus met her there and offered living water. It reminds us of the woman caught in sin in John 8, when others reached for stones, but Jesus reached for redemption. It reminds us of Matthew 9, when Jesus sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners and said, “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners” (NLT).

Now let’s bring that into our day.

As hard as we might try otherwise, we still label people, do we not?
Divorced. Addicted. Difficult. Political. Unstable. Rich. Poor. Tattooed. Lazy. Obese. Uneducated. Too far gone. We may think they are not our kind of people.

We may not say it aloud, but at times we think it. And then we wonder why people feel safer being themselves with strangers than in some churches.

The church of Jesus Christ ought to be the place where truth is spoken clearly and grace is offered freely. Not permissiveness. Not compromise. But welcome. Honest welcome. Gospel welcome. The kind of welcome Jesus gives this woman.

An ancient Israelite listening to this account would understand how scandalous and beautiful this moment was. Purity mattered. Reputation mattered. Honor mattered. But Jesus shows that God’s holiness is not diminished by the presence of sinners; rather, in Christ it moves toward sinners to make them clean.

Here is the lesson: Jesus is not afraid of messy people, because grace is not fragile. That is good news for us. Because if Jesus only welcomed polished people, none of us could come to him.

Main Point 2: Pride keeps people from grace, but humility opens the door.

Simon watches the woman and thinks to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”

Notice the assumption. Simon believes that if Jesus really knew her, He would reject her.

But Jesus did know her. / Better than Simon knew her. / Better than she knew herself. / And He still received her.

Then Jesus answers the thoughts Simon never spoke aloud. He tells a parable about two men who owed money. One owed a great deal, the other much less. Neither could repay. Both were forgiven. Then Jesus asks the question: Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”

Simon gives the correct answer: “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”

Now that is the turning point of the story.

The issue is not whether Simon is a sinner, and the woman is a sinner. Both are debtors. The issue is that the woman knows she is in debt, and Simon does not.

That is why pride is so dangerous. Pride blinds us to our condition. Pride has a way of comparing sideways instead of looking upward. Simon could look at the woman and feel superior. But he was not standing beside the woman before a human audience; / he was standing before a holy God.

And so are we. There is an old trap of the soul: “I may not be perfect, but at least I’m not like that person.” / That was the Pharisee’s trap in Luke 18 when he prayed, “I thank you, God, that I am not like other people” (NLT).

But grace cannot enter the heart that thinks it does not need it.

Humility, on the other hand, tells the truth.
Humility does not excuse sin.
Humility does not pretend.
Humility says, “Lord, this is what I am. This is what I have done. This is what I need. Have mercy on me.”

That is why the woman is free enough to weep. Free enough to kneel. Free enough to worship without protecting her image. She has stopped managing appearances. She has come to the end of herself, and that is often where grace begins to feel most real.

Here is a modern comparison. Imagine two people sitting in a doctor’s office. One has all the symptoms but insists, “I’m fine. I don’t need help.” The other says, “Doctor, I am sick, and I need treatment.” Which one is more likely to receive healing? Not the one who looks strongest, but the one who admits the truth.

Pride says, “I’m fine.”
Humility says, “I need help.”
And grace meets the humble.

James 4:6 says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (NLT).
And 1 Peter 5:5 repeats the same truth. The doorway into peace is low enough that proud people must bow to enter.

So, let us ask ourselves plainly this morning:

• Am I more concerned with appearing righteous than with being forgiven?
• Do I judge other people’s visible sins while hiding my invisible ones?
• Have I become so polished on the outside that I no longer weep before Jesus on the inside?

Humility is not humiliation. Humility is freedom. Humility is finally telling the truth and discovering that Jesus is merciful.