Saved to be Thankful part 1

Well, let's take our Bible. Let's turn to Luke chapter 7. Turn to Luke chapter 7. We're going to be in verses 36 to 50. It's a big portion of Scripture. I'll go ahead and tell you we're not going to cover it all, but we have had a break from our series in the parables and we're picking back up with this series. And you know, I think everyone knows that we're dealing with parables that Jesus taught, and these parables are focused on the Christian life. And all of these parables really relate to true Christian living, I think, very well in our day.

Now, if we think back to what we've studied so far, I think you'll see that a lot of what we're studying, it all relates to the true Christian life, Christian living, as we are striving to attain. Remember, we started off with what I call "save to serve." We looked at the parable of the two sons. I'm going to ask you to maybe review your notes. Save to serve. We are saved to serve. Some of you are going to be called upon to serve. We are not pew warmers. Save to serve. You might need to go back and look at your notes. You might need to go back and study that parable, the parable of the two sons in Matthew 21, 28 to 32.

Then we're saved to shine in Luke 16 to 18, the parable of the lamp. We are to shine the gospel into a dark world. We're saved to love, the parable of the good Samaritan. We are to love those that God puts in our path that we come in contact with no matter who they are. And we need to identify if we're a little priestly or if we have a little bit of Levite in us. Remember, they didn't do too well in that parable. And then we looked at save to pray out of Luke 18, the parable of the persistent widow. We covered that in April, April the sixth.

And we, we covered that before and as a part of getting ready for our brother John O coming those revival services. Now I want you to see how this goes together. We did take a Sunday night and look at prayer out of Luke 11. And then on Wednesday night, we looked at Luke 18, the parable of the persistent widow, those two go together. And it might be good for us to go back and study those parables from time to time to refresh in our prayer life. I'm just like you are. My prayer life can grow dull and stale. And sometimes I go back and study those portions of scripture.

Now tonight we're going to study what some call the parable of the two debtors in Luke seven starting in verse 36. But if you'll notice the actual parable is in verse 41 to 42. Some Bibles might not have a heading there, but some do. It's right there in verses 41 to 42. This is the parable of the two debtors. Now, but I want you to see something. It would be a mistake to only look at those two verses because this parable is a part of a greater, much larger story. Just like with some of the other parables, there is a lot going on right here. There is a lot going on before these verses and around these verses.

In other words, there is more here than just the parables. And we'll see that. I think you'll see that as we get going. Also, just like with some of the other parables that we've studied, we will see the positive and the negative here. I've mentioned this before, the parable of the good Samaritan. We saw the negative in the priest and the Levite, and we saw the positive in the Samaritan. Well, here we will see the negative in a Pharisee. And surprisingly, this Pharisee is named. And then we'll see the positive in an unusual situation and in an unusual person. So I want us to read all of these verses.

These verses cover all of what we're going to study. We're going to read verses 36 to 50, and then I'll share with you how we're going to approach the verses tonight. Now, one of the Pharisees was questioning him, requesting, excuse me. Now, one of the Pharisees was requesting him, that would be Jesus, to dine with him. And he, Jesus, entered the Pharisee's house and he reclined at the table. And behold, there was a woman in the city who was a sinner. And when she learned that he, that would be Jesus, was reclining at the table in the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume.

And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and kept wiping them with her hair, with the hair of her head and kissing his feet and anointing them with the perfume. Now, 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 sort of person this woman is who is touching him, that she is a sinner. And Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, see, here's the name of the Pharisee, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he replied, say it, teacher. A certain money lender had two debtors. One owed him 500 denarii and the other 50.

When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him more? Simon answered and said, 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. 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 has, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume.

For this reason, I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she has loved much, but he who is forgiven little, loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. And then those who were reclining at the table, this tells us that there were more than just Jesus and the Pharisee. Those who were reclining at the table with him began to say to themselves, who is this man who even forgives sins? And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.

Now in reading all of those verses like that, I think it's easy for you to see why I said there is a lot going on here and why I said that we need to cover all of these verses. You can say it like this, this parable is right in the middle of a lot of things that are going on. Now let me show you how we're going to cover the verses. Let me show you how we're going to cover the verses. We're going to look at four things. First, we're going to look at the scene. Then we're going to look at the sinful woman. Then we're going to look at this self-righteous Pharisee. And then real quickly, we will look at the situation.

And the situation here leads us up to the title of the message. And the title of the message might surprise some of you. It's real simple, but I believe you'll see that it is there in all that we're studying. So let's start off with number one, the scene. We have the scene here, and I say that the scene is in verses 36 to 39. We'll not read all of those verses. Now when I say the scene here, I'm speaking of this dinner event. Some scholars or translations may mention a banquet. This is a banquet, a dinner event. We saw at the end of the scriptures that there were more than two people there.

And I'm speaking about what's going on between Jesus and the Pharisee and the sinful woman that is there at the table at the dinner or the banquet. Now this scene is completely different from what we are used to in the West in our culture. In the East or in the culture of Jesus' day, people did not sit in chairs at a table when they ate a dinner like this. And that might surprise some of you. Instead of chairs like we would use, guests of a dinner or a banquet would recline at a low table, leaning on their left side and arm and using their right hand to eat. Also dinners and banquets like this were more public events.

In our culture, a dinner like this would be closed. Let me explain what I mean. For us, most likely someone would attend by some sort of an invitation. Maybe not written, but verbal. They would attend by some sort of an invitation. But in their culture, it was normal for outsiders and uninvited guests to come into an event like this. They would not partake in the meal, but they would hover around the room, they would watch and they would see what's happening, and they would listen to the conversation. Now I'll pause here. That sounds like chaos to us.

If you do that at my mother's Thanksgiving dinner for the family, you're probably going to get asked to sit down and eat or leave. But there is a tremendous cultural difference. So this would have been private, but yet it would have been public. I would use the term semi-private, semi-public. The Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him in his home or in some type of a hall for a dinner or a banquet. But others could and did attend the dinner event, not reclining at the table at this event, not reclining at the table, but hovering around, listening and watching these imported people. And one uninvited guest did attend the event.

She even interacted with Jesus in many ways as we see. And because of who she was and what she did, she was a main part of the main topic of the evening. If there was another conversation going on, that conversation got changed. So simply, the scene here is basic, but it is much different for us and for our culture. This is totally normal for their day. Again, this would be very chaotic for us. A Pharisee named Simon, he invited Jesus to dine with him and a certain woman came into the room as well and she interrupts things. She interrupts the entire event. Or did she? Depends on who you ask. For Jesus, she did not.

But yet for the Pharisee, she did. And we will see that she did not interrupt things. She actually prompted the main subject of the evening and all of these things were ordained of God. All of these things were ordained of God. This was not some type of an accident. Now I'm going to pause here and make a little application here that might surprise some of you. We have a cultural lesson here. If you travel outside of the country, you're going to run into cultures that are different. You will run into norms and habits and things that they do that are totally different.

And I would encourage you to be praying about where the Lord would have you to travel around the world. We have tremendous opportunities at our Anchored in Truth Network to travel and to go anywhere around the world in many different places. You might say, "Me? Yes, you." Airplane? Yes. Passport? Yes. Fly to another country? Yes. You can. I've been all around the world even by myself. I was going on an Anchored in Truth mission trip to the Philippines and I didn't meet my group till Okinawa, Japan. And my wife said, "How are you going to get to Okinawa, Japan by yourself?" I said, "I'm going to follow the signs." But here's the thing.

When you go into a new culture like that, you have to be really careful. You can offend them. You have to be really careful. You could expect them to act and be like you. You have to be hospitable even in their culture. You have to be open. You have to be willing to conform. And here's what I'm getting at. You can't judge them. In our culture, we can kind of have a little bravado. You know, men, you know, we sit at the table and expect our wives to service and we expect them to be busy in the kitchen. And you might say, "I'm not going to get in the kitchen.

That's women's work." And sometimes we can make some of that stuff Christian when actually it's not. I went to India years ago with a friend of mine. And when we were in the home of Christians, the women would stay in the kitchen and cook. They did not come out. And the man of the home would serve. He would walk around and it was extremely strange. It looked like he was doing what we would call women's work. That was culturally acceptable. And if I took my standards and my expectations over there and I was legalistic, I could have looked at them and said, "They're not being very Christian." See, a lot of that is cultural, not Christian.

And you have to get along in those environments and not judge them. Now, that might surprise you, but that's a good opportunity to talk about those things. We wouldn't have a dinner party like this or a banquet like this, but they did. And it was the norm of their day. So we see the scene there. We see the scene. Number two, I want us to see the sinful woman. I want to read these verses, verse 37 and 38. "And behold, there was a woman in the city who was a sinner. And when she learned, she heard that he, Jesus, was reclining at the table in the Pharisee's house.

She brought with her an alabaster vial of perfume and standing behind him," see, he would have been reclining at the table, you see, "standing behind him, she wet his feet weeping. She began to wet his feet with her tears and kept wiping them with her hair, the hair of her head, and kissing his feet and anointing his feet with the perfume. Now here we are dealing with the first of three characters in this event. We actually have a contrast in this event between the sinful woman and the self-righteous man. Now we'll get into the contrast a little later, but here we will focus on the sinful woman.

And I want us to look at this woman by examining who she was and what she did, who she was and what she did. First, we need to see who she actually was. In verse 37, Luke tells us that she was a sinner. Also, the Pharisee knows who she is and he calls her a sinner as well. That's at the end of verse 38. So two times she is called a sinner. Now scholars tell us that the language here seems to indicate that she was an immoral woman, possibly a prostitute or a well-known adulteress. She was known, a known woman of the city and a known sinner of the city according to verse 37.

As a matter of fact, some of your Bibles might have a footnote there that denote this could mean an immoral woman. There might be some kind of a notation. If you have a study Bible, it will probably reference that and help you there. Now right here, I want to clear up a mistake or a misconception. This woman was not Mary of Bethany as seen in John 12 verses 1 to 8. And this woman was not Mary Magdalene as seen in Mark 16, 9 and Luke 8, 2. If you do some study, you will see that Mary of Bethany and John 12 was Mary, the sister of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

And Mary Magdalene is seen in Luke 8, 2 was not called a sinner or a prostitute, but a woman who was demon possessed. Now my point is this, this Mary in our verses here tonight is a different Mary. She was a well-known sinner, most likely some type of an adulteress at best or a prostitute at worst. But that is a common mistake. That is an assumption that some can make. You can do some study on your own and you can easily see some more details that show us who this Mary is. So we need to see who this was. We need to see who she is and who she was.

She was a well-known sinner from the city and knowing who she was helps us see how scandalous and tense the whole situation was. Jewish teachers, Jewish leaders did not interact with or eat with any women in public and they certainly did not interact with a woman like this, an immoral woman, an adulteress woman or a prostitute. They would not have interacted at all. Now second, we need to see what she did. Starting in verse 37, we see that this sinful woman heard that Jesus was eating with a Pharisee and she went to the dinner. Now remember that these dinners were semi-public, semi-private, so that was common.

So she purposely comes into where they were eating. She hears that Jesus was there and somehow she plans these things out. And look at what she does. As Jesus was reclining at the table, she anoints Jesus' feet with the perfume. She is weeping profusely. She washed his feet with her tears and she wiped his feet with her hair, even kissing his feet. It's there in the verses. And notice what she did here. We're still dealing with the what? Notice what we did here. Look at her actions. First, what she did was very risky. As a sinful woman, she would not have been welcome at this event at all. Evidently, she was able to slip in unnoticed somehow.

Somehow she was able to remain in the shadows or in the corner of the room until she could approach Jesus from behind. But she took a social risk here. Second, what she did was expensive. The text says that the perfume was stored in an alabaster vial. Alabaster was a type of expensive marble which came from Egypt. So this vial was expensive. And scholars tell us that this indicates that the perfume she used would have been an expensive perfume if it was stored in an expensive container like this. So what she did here was expensive. And then third, what she did was undignified. What she did here was undignified on many levels.

As a sinful woman to come into this setting was undignified. She would not have been welcome. Also, she washed Jesus' feet. In that culture, to wash someone's feet was the lowest of jobs reserved for the lowest of servants, the lowest of slaves. But there's more. In letting down her hair, she was doing what no decent Jewish woman would ever do. For a woman in that culture to let down her hair was to be seen as immoral or indecent. And all of this sobbing all over Jesus' feet, that was undignified as well. So she was very undignified, very undignified in many different ways. And then fourth, what she did was very emotional.

The text says she anointed Jesus' feet with the perfume and she wet his feet with her tears. Now the word "wet" here in the original language, it does not mean that she shed a few tears. This word literally means to rain or to shower or to pour like rain. The King James is accurate here. It says to wash. And notice, you can't wash something with just a few drops of water. This tells us that she was sobbing. One scholar said that the emotional dam broke. This tells us that she was sobbing with great emotion, with great tears. So she would have been very, very emotional.

So look at what we have here with this first character of the sinful woman. She was a known sinful woman of the city, most likely an immoral woman, maybe even a prostitute. She purposefully comes into this dinner at the Pharisee's house to see Jesus but much more. We see that when she had her chance, she washes his feet with her expensive perfume, even washing his feet with her tears and her hair. And as strange as this is to us, as strange as this is to us, this was a shocking display of love. It was a shocking display of honor. It was a shocking display of worship. It was displayed by this woman and directed upon Jesus.

Now a question or two I want you to ponder with me before we get into some application. Which of the two, remember we have the sinful woman, we have the Pharisee, Simon, and Jesus. But which of the two bestowed upon Jesus a true active worship? The Pharisee, what did he do? He gave a dinner, a banquet for Jesus. The Pharisee, he gave Jesus a nice dinner. What about this center, this known center who interrupted the dinner with her unusual emotional actions? Which of the two bestowed upon Jesus a true active worship? And then also, why would this woman do such a thing? She planned at least part of these things.

She planned at least part of this. And when she heard Jesus was there, she purposely came with this expensive perfume. Those are some good questions for us to ponder. Now at this time, I want us to ask a few questions. I want to make a few statements in application. Could it be that this type of worship is too undignified for us? Or could it be that we are just too dignified to worship like this? Same question, I'm just turning it around. This type of worship, is this just too undignified to us? And are we too dignified to worship in an undignified way? Let's just face it, we get nervous when someone raises their hand.

Would we be nervous if someone came down? We don't call this an altar, these are steps. We're not Catholics, we don't have altars. But we've been in churches where people can come down to the "altar." I'm not against that. How would we feel if someone sat over here and wept uncontrollably over sin in their life or something that God was doing in their life? If they needed someone to pray with them, two or three people, maybe a couple of ladies with a lady or a couple of men with a man over here, and they were weeping and they were broken. Would we view that as too undignified? Are we too dignified to be undignified?

And what should we learn here? What should we learn and apply? She had no shame. She had no restraint. She was totally honest. She was true, unhinged it seems, but true. You see, we need to evaluate her actions and we need to ask how we would react and can we react that way? And how would we react if someone was over here to our right or someone was over here to our left? Or after a church service, if we walked down the hall and we saw someone in a room and they were behaving this way, how would we react? Should we be like this?

I think it's a little more maybe than you know here with the sinful woman that we should pray over and examine, look, compare in our own lives. But number three, I want us to see the self-righteous Pharisee, the self-righteous Pharisee. I want to read verses 39 on down to verse 43. "Now when the Pharisee who had invited him, Jesus, he saw this. He doesn't say anything out loud. He said to himself, he fought to himself. If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of person this woman is and who is touching him that she is a sinner." Again, an immoral sinner.

"And Jesus answered and said," but notice Simon didn't say anything to him. "Jesus said to him, 'Simon, I have something to say to you.' And he replied, 'Say it, teacher.' A certain money lender had two debtors. One owed him 500 denarii and the other 50. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. Now question, which of them therefore will love him more?' Simon answered and said, 'I suppose the one whom he forgave more.' And he said to him, 'You have judged or answered correctly.'" So we have here the self-righteous Pharisee. Warren Wiersby calls him a critical host. He hosted a dinner. He was critical.

John MacArthur calls him a self-righteous man. We will see that he is a critical and self-righteous host and man and Pharisee and more. Now if we look at verse 40, we've read it, we will see that Jesus names the man. He calls him Simon. So I call him Simon the self-righteous. Simon the self-righteous. And in these verses, we will see this man's self-righteousness from me in two ways. First, we will see that it was hidden in his heart. That comes out of verse 39. It was hidden in his heart. Here we see that this Pharisee, when he saw all that had happened, he did not stand up in protest. He could have kicked her out.

He didn't throw the woman out. Like, who are you? What are you doing here? He didn't even ask Jesus why he had allowed this thing to happen. The verse says that he said to himself, what does he say? And I'm paraphrasing, if this man was really a true prophet of God, he would know that this woman, who this woman is that's touching him, that she is an immoral sinner. That's what he thought and said to himself. These were secret thoughts. These were secret words. These were things that he said in his mind and in his heart. And look, with that hidden thought in his heart, he was revealing his self-righteousness on two levels.

First, he was assuming that Jesus could not be of God because he allowed a sinful woman to do this. He was assuming that Jesus didn't even know who she was. And then second, he was assuming that he was right. He knew what was right. He knew that Jesus was not of God, but he knew or thought he was of God. Simply, Simon, the self-righteous, was self-righteous and that he assumed that Jesus was wrong and that he was right with God about all of these matters. So first, the self-righteousness was hidden in his heart. Then second, it was exposed by Jesus' words. We see that start in verse 40. Jesus answered him, but Simon had not said anything.

He answered him with a statement and with the words here in the parable, he is exposing the man's self-righteousness. So here we finally get into some interaction about the situation, interaction between Jesus and Simon, Simon the self-righteous, dialogue, if I can use that term. No doubt they had been talking while they were reclining at the table, but these are the first words that we have after or as a result of all that had gone on with the sinful woman and Jesus. And here there are several things that happen that expose Simon as the self-righteous Pharisee. Notice that Jesus makes a statement.

Directly, Jesus says, "Simon, I've got something to tell you." Now, I do not think Jesus was being rude, but I think he was being direct. If I could use this phrase, he cut to the chase. You know what that means. But he was going straight at Simon's self-righteousness and Simon nicely responds to Jesus. He says, "Go ahead and say it." And notice that Jesus gives a parable. The parable is extremely easy to understand. We have a money lender and two debtors, one owed 500 denarii, which was approximately one and a half years wages, one owed 50 denarii, which was about two months wages.

And when both could not repay their debt, the money lender forgave their debt. And notice the verse says that he was graciously, they were graciously forgiven. So notice that Jesus makes a statement. Notice that Jesus gives a parable and notice that Jesus asks Simon a question. After Jesus tells Simon the parable, he asks a question, "Which of them loved him more?" Which of them was more thankful, was more happy, was more loving. Which of the two forgiven debtors loved the money lender more and was thankful more? Of course, Simon, the self-righteous was correct. This is an easy question to answer.

He says, "I suppose the one who was forgiven the most." Jesus says he was correct. Now look at what we have here with Simon the self-righteous. He is truly Simon the self-righteous. He is more than just a critical host. And we see his self-righteousness in two ways. First, it was hidden in his heart. He thinks of Jesus as not being from God because he thinks that Jesus as not being from God because he does not interact with the woman, the sinful woman, according to his standards. Simply he thinks that Jesus is not from God and that he is. And then second, Jesus reveals his self-righteousness. Jesus tells the parable for numerous reasons.

But one of the biggest reasons was that so he could expose Simon's self-righteousness. Simply Jesus was using a comparison from the parable to reveal the sinful immoral woman for who she was. And he was doing the very same thing to reveal Simon as the self-righteous. Now just like with the sinful woman, I want to ask us some questions that I want us to ponder over. Can we be a self-righteous Simon? Can we be self-righteous just like Simon? Chances are most all of us would be saying no in some way, some way, in some shape, some fashion. Chances are most all of us would be saying no somehow.

Chances are we are thinking that we are more like the sinful woman than Simon when we are dealing with self-righteousness. Now I want to be a little more specific here. Can we be like Simon the self-righteous by comparing ourselves to others? In our coming to Christ and our godliness, can we compare ourselves to others and think that we are more right than others? Isn't that what Simon did? He compared himself to her. And can we be like Simon? Can we compare ourselves to other people? And in coming to Christ and in dealing with our godliness, can we compare ourselves to others and think that we are more right with others?

I'm going to be specific in three areas. There are people that attain certain Bible knowledge. There are certain people that will attain Bible knowledge, certain theological positions and understandings, and what they do is they'll come to God in their Bible knowledge, in their theological positions, and they'll come to God and they'll come to God. And when others can't come to God the same way, they'll think they're more right with God than the other. That's self-righteousness. Another thing that sometimes can be heated in the life of the church is how we raise our children, what we do in our home.

You know, the New Testament is strangely silent on a lot of these things. There are some people that advocate for a family altar. I'm not against that. Some are more inclined to talk about it as they get up and as they go lay down and all throughout the day, I'm okay with that. You have to find what works for you. These are matters that pertain to Christian liberty and your conscience. But what I'm trying to show you is this. I have seen people, they have all of their, the way they relate to their children, the way they lead their children, they have it scripted out, and that's how they come to God. That's how they come to God.

And then when someone over here does it the same way they do, they're self-righteous. They condemn them. They look down on them. And there are many other ways we can point out how we can be like Simon. And what I'm trying to show you is this. We come to God, we come to God, and we can come to God and we can compare ourselves to other people and we can think that we are more right with God than they are. That's self-righteousness. We can even be self-righteous when we're right and they're wrong. We can even be self-righteous when we're right and they are wrong. And isn't that what Simon did? Was there anything wrong with a dinner?

Was there anything wrong with a banquet? No. It was his heart that was wrong. Simon did nothing wrong physically, but he still thought he was more right with God than the sinner woman. Now at this point, we really should be getting into verses 44 to 50. But for the sake of time, and because we also need to look at some insights here, we need to look at some lessons from the parable. And really all of this situation, we're going to cover that in a part two. Simply we're going to cover verses 44 on down to the rest of the verses, verse 50. Then we're going to cover some lessons and insights from what we've studied and the parable.

But what I want to finish up tonight with what I'm calling the situation. The situation. Here we have the Pharisee. He invited Jesus to be a guest at his dinner. Other people were there. Of course, we have this semi-private private event. We have the well-known sinner. She has to have snuck in the door. She has to have been sneaking behind people in the shadows. And this immoral woman anoints Jesus feet with this expensive perfume and she washes Jesus feet with her tears. She dries his feet with her hair. She was kissing his feet repeatedly.

This, this emotional outburst, this active worship, all the things that she did here, it interrupted the dinner. It produced this awkward event. And Jesus, knowing Simon's heart and thoughts here, he posed him a story. Remember, he knew what was in his mind, a parable money lender had two debtors. One owed him about a year and a half worth wages and the other owed about two months. And out of the gracious graciousness of his heart, the money lender forgave those debts that they couldn't pay. And the situation of these events here are revealing two people, Simon, the self-righteous and the unnamed sinner woman. Simon was self-righteous.

This woman was the opposite. She was loving. She was thankful. She was humble and she humbly submitted to Jesus in worship. And in contrast, Simon was unloving. He was arrogant. He was self-righteous in the way that he related to Jesus. Now we'll go ahead and give you the title of the message. "Saved to be thankful." Now for that title to really resonate with you, it's going to take next week's message. So we have Simon. He was self-righteous and ungrateful, unthankful. And then we have the sinner woman. She was saved and thankful. And we'll answer the question, was she saved because of these events or was she saved before these events?

Now I want to conclude in two ways. Two ways. First of all, I'm going to give you your assignment. Just study the parable. Read your resources. Meditate over the parable. Make some notes. Take what we've studied and flesh it out as you continue to study it. But the second thing I want you to see here is this. Look at how this parable highlights the deity of Christ. First, he knew Simon's self-righteous thoughts all along. Simon didn't say those things, but he knew they were there. Second, he knew the woman was a sinner. He knew what she was. He knew she was a sinner, which refutes Simon's assumption that Jesus didn't know.

And then third, we didn't cover the verse, but I read it. He forgave her sin. Who but God can forgive sin. And then fourth, Simon and the woman's true standing before God was revealed by their response and attitude towards Jesus in the events. All of this reveals who they really were. So we have saved to be thankful, and we're going to examine just how thankful we are in light of Simon the self-righteous in this unnamed sinner woman. I wish we knew her name. We will one day.