Why Half-Hearted Fails Every Time
Pastor Ivan Satyavrata | Jesus & The Kingdom | Part 14 | Luke 18:1–8 | July 27, 2025
James 4:8
Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
Luke 7:36-50
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”
Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”… Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet.
You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume. “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”
SIMON THE PHARISEE
Double-Minded Follower
Double-mindedness leads to half-hearted worship!
Jesus does not want my half-hearted worship or service!
UNNAMED WOMAN: Undivided Disciple
Undivided Devotion flows out of a broken spirit
Undivided Devotion is Laser-Focused
Undivided Devotion is Costly & Risky
Jesus holds up this woman as a model of the Undivided Devotion that God seeks – the condition of the heart that always draws him closer!
The greatest threat to undivided Loyalty & Devotion is…IDOLATRY
1 John 5:21
Dear children, keep yourselves from idols
Idols are anything you seek, honour, exalt or love more than God
Idolatry is not only one sin among many, but what is fundamentally wrong with the human heart – the tendency of the human heart to drift from supreme loyalty to our Creator-God towards other competitors – counterfeit gods!
Where Are Our Idols?
…IN OUR CULTURE
…IN MY HEART
What you worship… is who you become.
WHO am I becoming?”
The gods we worship write their names on our faces - be sure of that. And man will worship something - have no doubt about that either... Therefore, we should be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming
Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 Corinthians 3:16-18
But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
1 Corinthians 10:14
Flee from the worship of idols
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