Friend of the “Nones”

John was dedicated to God from the womb. John had received prophetic visions from God. It was John who preached the coming of the kingdom of God and prepared Israel to receive their Lord. He paved the way for Jesus; he even baptized Jesus. John spent his entire life looking for this moment and the Messiah. John was a great servant of God. John had a strong spiritual resume.

Yet John had a period of intense doubt while in prison. Faith and doubt can find room in the same heart. You can be a wonderful servant of God yet still have moments and seasons of intense doubt. If you struggle with doubt, know that you’re not alone and you’re not necessarily broken or wrong. Sometimes we treat doubt as though it’s some really nasty evidence that someone does not truly trust Christ or is not a Christian. That’s not necessarily so. We Christians may have to pray, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

John’s disciples deliver the question in verse 20. Jesus seems to perform the many miracles in verse 21 in order to send back concrete evidence for John’s doubt in verse 22. He says, “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard” (emphasis added). These miracles signify that Jesus is the Messiah and that the kingdom of God is coming into the world. Jesus doesn’t rebuke John for his doubt. He assures John with evidence. The Lord is tender and gentle with the weak and the doubting. Matthew 12:20 says, “He will not break a bruised reed, and he will not put out a smoldering wick.”

Then the Lord adds this word of encouragement in Luke 7:23: “And blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me.” Or, as the New Living Translation puts it, “God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.” In other words, “John, keep believing. In the end, you will be blessed, made happy, by God. Don’t fall away. Hold on to faith in me.”

Jesus blesses those who continue to believe in him even if they experience some doubt along the way. What a tender and compassionate Lord! Do you have doubts? You can safely bring them to Jesus. Do you have questions? You can raise them in the Scriptures. I really dislike that strain of “Christian” teaching that demands we never doubt or question God. The Lord is the kind of Messiah that doesn’t simply talk about being the Messiah; Jesus will prove it to you by raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, preaching the gospel to the poor, and giving evidence on which to base our faith.

Did you know that the majority of the thirty-six million Nones in the U.S. come from nominally Christian backgrounds? Only 9 percent of U.S. adults say they were raised without any kind of religious teaching. Most of the Nones are people like John, who began to doubt. The difference is, they didn’t follow or have evidence for their faith, so they stopped following and began to say they had no religion. Based on Luke 7:23, Jesus would say they’ve chosen the cursed path rather than the blessed path. They’ve chosen what would end in sorrow rather than what would end in joy. Blessed is the one who is not offended by Jesus.

The way to happiness is not to give in to your doubt. The way to happiness is to answer your doubts with the evidence we have in Christ. Never treat your doubts with certainty. Always doubt your doubts. Never let your doubts have the last word. If they are truly doubts, then seek answers on which to stand. Find evidence. Follow the evidence to the truth and then build certainty with the truth. That’s the life that Jesus blesses.

Doubt makes us short-sighted. Faith gives us the long view. The Lord gives John evidence to answer his doubt, and he gives John a promise of joy to strengthen his faith. Jesus is a Messiah who answers our doubt.

Luke 7:24-35

Verses 18-23 occur in the presence of a crowd. No doubt a lot of people overheard John’s question and became aware of John’s doubts. Some people were probably prepared to question the authenticity of John’s faith. That’s what many people do whenever they learn someone experiences doubt.

So it seems as if Jesus wants to prevent the crowd from reaching the wrong conclusions about John. The Lord anticipates our tendency to evaluate and criticize the faith of others.

The Lord asks a series of questions designed to help the crowd remember what they were seeking when they went to hear John preach. They weren’t looking for some weak man. John was a powerful and fearless preacher who stood up to kings. They weren’t looking for some fancy Dan “dressed in soft clothes” (v. 25). John was not a prosperity preacher in tailored six-button suits and crocodile loafers, living in a luxury mansion. He was rough and lived a simple life.

They went to see a true prophet of God, and that’s what they found. Jesus reminds them in verse 27 that John was unique among the prophets because John was the promised messenger whom Malachi 3:1 prophesied would prepare the way for the Messiah. The crowd needed to know they had seen the prophet whom Israel awaited before receiving the Messiah that God promised.

Jesus commends John in verse 28: “I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater than John.” You can’t get higher praise than that. This man, imprisoned and doubting, was the greatest man alive. The crowd needed to know and respect that.

Then Jesus says something surprising and pleasing to ordinary people. As great as John was among men, “the least” of men can be greater than John if they make it into the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a place where the lowly are exalted above the so-called great people of this world.

That’s why “the people” and “the tax collectors” (v. 29) rejoiced when they heard this. The “average Joes” declared God just. They celebrated because God’s kingdom does not work like man’s kingdoms. The things that men think make you great—power, position, money, etc.—don’t count for anything in God’s kingdom. In God’s kingdom the first will be last and the last will be first.

While the “regular people” rejoice, the religious and cultural elites have the opposite response. God does not oppose people with position and power in this world. However, the elites of this world are often so proud they live as if they don’t need God. That’s the meaning of verse 30. The religious rulers didn’t think they needed John’s message of repentance and preparation for the kingdom. They assumed they were just fine the way they were. In the process they “rejected the plan of God for themselves” (v. 30).

Can you think of a more devastating statement than that? God had a plan for them, but they chose their own plans and purposes. Many people make that same tragic mistake every day. They become the kind of people Jesus describes in verses 31-34. It doesn’t matter whether an evangelist comes in a happy, kind way with the message of the gospel or if a preacher comes in a stern, direct way. Either way they reject the message, just as these Pharisees did with John and Jesus. They become the kind of people who commit themselves to unbelief and doubt.

“Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children” (v. 35). You can tell a wise decision by its results. The little people in this life who believe will be the great people in the kingdom of God. The big people in this life who disbelieve will not even enter the kingdom of God. Which, then, is wiser: unbelief or faith in Jesus Christ?

Many people make doubt a virtue. They think doubt somehow proves they have an open mind or that they’re humble because religious certainty, they think, is a kind of pride. Some people are principally committed to uncertainty.

Clinging to doubt actually proves the opposite. Clinging to doubt closes the mind to actual evidence. Evidence is what Jesus gives John. The Lord gives John evidence not so John could remain doubtful or unbelieving but so that John would become certain. It’s as G. K. Chesterton put it: “The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid” (Autobiography, 217). John is to close his mind onto the solid fact that Jesus Christ is the chosen Savior of God. That’s where the evidence leads. That’s what John is to believe. That’s why Luke has written this account of Jesus’s life: so that we may have certainty that what we have been taught is true (1:1-4).

This crowd all saw the same evidence and heard Jesus make the same promise. They were all required to believe as much as John. But they were a spiritual generation just like ours—skeptical, doubting, unbelieving—and willfully so, contrary to all the evidence.

Jesus is a King who exalts the lowly in his kingdom.

Luke 7:36-50

Verses 36-38 describe our final scene. Put yourself in the place of the Pharisee. He’s a religious man. He’s serious about sin and holiness, morality and immorality. He doesn’t have just anyone at his table. He’s taking a risk having Jesus at his table because Jesus isn’t like the Pharisees. But he’s showing some level of hospitality. Then into his house—right up to his table—walks this woman known all around town as “a sinner” (v. 37).

Now put yourself in the place of the woman. She lives in that city, and she knows what Pharisees are like. Religious men. Often self-­righteous. They make a big distinction between themselves and “sinners.” They always reject “sinners” as unworthy. But Jesus is in the Pharisee’s home, in her city, where she can reach him. What courage must it have taken for her to enter this Pharisee’s home? What hope must have been in her heart when she gathered her most expensive possession, an alabaster flask of ointment? What brokenness must have rushed up in her heart and mind as she stood behind Jesus “weeping” (v. 38)? She knew she was a sinner better than anyone else did. There behind the Lord, at his feet, she knelt in a pool of her own tears.

Maybe she had planned to anoint his feet with the oil all along. Then she saw that the host had not washed the Savior’s feet when he entered the home. Maybe she picked up on the minor insult, as washing a guest’s feet was a common courtesy whenever anyone came to your home. Maybe she had been to homes and had not been given this common courtesy and knew the insult, or maybe she just loved Jesus. So she cried—so much that she could wipe the Savior’s feet with her tears—and she took the tresses of her hair and wiped his feet. Then she kissed his feet in love and worship, and she anointed him with her oil.

It’s a moving scene. In that dramatic moment we are not told what motivated this woman to behave this way, but we do receive a window into Simon’s heart (v. 39). In the Pharisee’s mind, holy men don’t allow themselves to be touched by a sinner. And prophets can tell “what kind” of people they meet. She was that kind. Jesus must not be a prophet.

But Jesus knows what’s in the Pharisee’s mind. He knows what’s in all of our minds. In verse 40 the Lord confronts the Pharisee about his thoughts. He tells the parable in verses 41-42. The punch line of the parable is the question, Who loves more—the one forgiven little or the one forgiven much? Simon answers correctly in verse 43—the one who has his larger debt cancelled.

See the scene in verse 44. Imagine the Lord’s body language. “Turning to the woman” but speaking to Simon, Jesus said in verses 44-48,

“Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she, with her tears, has washed my feet and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she hasn’t stopped kissing my feet since I came in. You didn’t anoint my head with olive oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; that’s why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little, loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

This is when we realize the woman’s motivation for coming. She came to the house fully aware of her sin. She had a reputation in the town, but the town didn’t know her failures as well as she did. She probably forgot more sins than they would ever be aware of. She knew the deep pain and brokenness of life apart from the mercy of God. She knew her debt before God—a debt she could not repay.

But she sensed something about Jesus. Jesus is a Savior who forgives the biggest sinners. She understood that Jesus could remove her guilt and shame, grant her a new heart, and give her a future. The more she remembers her sin, the greater Jesus appears. The more she weeps over her sin, the more she delights in the Savior. She knows she can rise up from that spot a new creature because Jesus makes things new. The biggest sinners who see and weep over their sin can come confidently to Jesus for forgiveness. The “little sinner” can come too. Both may be forgiven. But the big sinner has hope because Jesus is that kind of Savior.

To be a big sinner is not the worst thing; to not ask forgiveness through faith in Jesus is. You can recover from a very sinful past—the church is full of people who have—but there is no recovery from God’s judgment against sin.

You can’t sin yourself out of the possibility of forgiveness. There’s more grace and forgiveness in Jesus’s little finger than there is sin in the vilest sinner.

I once shared the gospel with a woman who cut me off by saying, “Honey, God gave up on me a long time ago.”

I said to her, “Honey, you don’t know Jesus.” There are many who believe like that woman: that God has given up on them. But if you would believe like this sinful woman—that Jesus is worthy of your love and that he will forgive your sins—then you may, like this woman, go away from Jesus forgiven and full of peace. Jesus is a Savior who forgives the biggest sinners.

He can do that because he’s the Savior who takes the punishment for all of our sins—big and small, past and future, known and unknown. He did that when he was crucified on the cross. On the cross God the Father punished all of our sin by punishing Jesus Christ, who took our place. When God raised his Son from the grave three days later, he proved that Jesus’s sacrifice was acceptable and we—even if we are the biggest sinners—can be righteous in God’s sight by faith in God’s Son.

Faith not only amazes Jesus, faith brings forgiveness from Jesus. Some like Simon the Pharisee miss out. Others like the sinner woman find it. Which are you? Will you believe and be forgiven? Or will you continue to check the box labeled “none” and have none of God’s love and forgiveness? You must decide. Wisdom is justified by all her children.