SPEAKER_00: I'm 100% sure I'm accidentally wearing the same shirt that I was in that video.
SPEAKER_00: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, what a funny, what a funny thing to happen.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I do want to point out that um you saw on the slides that the marriage conference that we're having is next week.
SPEAKER_00: It is in fact not next week, it is in October.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's on the 17th and 18th of October.
SPEAKER_00: We have been doing this every year.
SPEAKER_00: This is this one's gonna be quite a bit different.
SPEAKER_00: We're uh it's called the Intentional Marriage Conference intentionally.
SPEAKER_00: Huh?
SPEAKER_00: No dad jokes, just me, cool.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are gonna be good for me this morning, aren't you?
SPEAKER_00: But this is for anyone.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be in you're in a relationship and you're looking to get married, you're engaged and you're probably gonna be married, or you're married and you've been married for a long time or short time, we want you to come to this conference.
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be an opportunity for us to build those relationships much like foundations.
SPEAKER_00: We want to build relationships that last.
SPEAKER_00: We want to build a legacy that lasts and a foundation that keeps us moving forward.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready for the word this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Wow, worship was so good.
SPEAKER_00: I have one ear that's working and one ear that isn't.
SPEAKER_00: So it seemed a little unbalanced for me in the first.
SPEAKER_00: I was like on one side, that sounds really good, and this side sounds muddy, so I don't really, I'm pretty sure it's just me.
SPEAKER_00: I had a pretty wicked cold this week, and everything was fine until this morning when I was starting to talk at Huddle, and then my voice was like, ha ha, no, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: And now it's just like it just feels like it's right there.
SPEAKER_00: So we're just gonna just push through.
SPEAKER_00: God's gonna move, even when I sound like I've run uphill for six hours.
SPEAKER_00: Like it just, it's one of those days.
SPEAKER_00: So we've been in this series, and this is the very last one of our everyday saints.
SPEAKER_00: How much, how many of you have really enjoyed this one?
SPEAKER_00: Just hearing about regular people.
SPEAKER_00: I've really, really enjoyed this, and we've been doing it since the end or the beginning of summer.
SPEAKER_00: We've been talking about imperfect people and how God meets those needs.
SPEAKER_00: How when we're obedient to what God calls us to, how we step forward into those things that God calls us to, that He provides, He supplies, He shows up, He doesn't let us just fall apart.
SPEAKER_00: And so, one thing I loved about if you I went back and I listened to a few and I had notes, and I went back and you see all the way through, there's a uh kind of a same theme that we saw all the way through it, and it was like faith over fear.
SPEAKER_00: We saw every single person step forward into faith with Christ and just and God and what God was gonna do, even though they had fear.
SPEAKER_00: Because faith doesn't mean no fear, faith means that we trust in the one who can take away that fear, and we step forward into that, and so we saw obedience when it looked ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes obeying God doesn't look the way we want it to look.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that there is honor where honor wasn't deserved.
SPEAKER_00: We saw when people just pushed through where they said and did things that were contrary to what they wanted to do because they believed that God called them to.
SPEAKER_00: And so today, as we close this one out, I want us to land in Luke chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: You can turn in your Bibles or your sky Bibles to Luke chapter 7, and we're gonna go through 36 to 50.
SPEAKER_00: This is a really powerful passage of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to pray and then we're gonna move forward, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We're so excited to be in your house, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That our today that our hearts are open, that our spirits are ready to receive from you as we hear what your word has to say.
SPEAKER_00: God, you're a good God.
SPEAKER_00: We want to not just be challenged this morning, we want to be changed.
SPEAKER_00: So we just ask for your presence to just move into this house, continue moving, opening up spaces where we need to be opened up, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's go to Luke chapter 7, verses 36 and 38, is where we're gonna start.
SPEAKER_00: When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.
SPEAKER_00: A woman in that house who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house.
SPEAKER_00: So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.
SPEAKER_00: As she stood behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears.
SPEAKER_00: Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have heard the story?
SPEAKER_00: About the alabaster jar.
SPEAKER_00: I want to set the stage for this moment that we're gonna go through today.
SPEAKER_00: He's at the table or at in this house with a Pharisee named Simon.
SPEAKER_00: And all around Simon was the religious elite of that time, and they actually brought Jesus in just to carefully analyze and watch Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to see what he was all about.
SPEAKER_00: And in this moment, you see this woman just walks in off the street.
SPEAKER_00: She has a reputation, everyone knows of her and what she does.
SPEAKER_00: When they say it was a woman that was of sin, generally would have been a prostitute or someone that worked in that kind of environment.
SPEAKER_00: But she comes in that time because she had heard about Jesus and wanted to meet Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But she comes into this place of Simon, who would have been well known, well regarded amongst the Pharisees, someone that was educated.
SPEAKER_00: But she comes into this place and she's broken.
SPEAKER_00: She's got this reputation.
SPEAKER_00: She's not supposed to be in this place.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow she slipped whoever was watching the front door.
SPEAKER_00: And according to the people in this room, she wasn't qualified to be there.
SPEAKER_00: But yet she comes in, immediately goes to Jesus, and just gets to the bottom of where his feet are, and she breaks open this jar and she begins weeping.
SPEAKER_00: This is a powerful story, right?
SPEAKER_00: In this moment already.
SPEAKER_00: He's wiping them with her hair.
SPEAKER_00: She would have just been like, just maybe it was that ugly snot crying.
SPEAKER_00: You know what that one is that you don't want anyone to see, but happens sometimes when you're watching movies like Old Yeller.
SPEAKER_00: My generation knows what that one is.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But we gotta think is that in this moment, with all of the people that were around, it would have been messy.
SPEAKER_00: Would have been awkward to have this woman that everyone knew of her reputation to come in there.
SPEAKER_00: It would have been offensive to the polite society that was in that space.
SPEAKER_00: But to me, this is one of the clearest pictures of what an everyday saint looks like.
SPEAKER_00: What looks messy to Simon in this moment is actually holy to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is that turn right here in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: It's the moment that shows us the heart of holiness.
SPEAKER_00: It's about presence over perfection.
SPEAKER_00: Presence over perfection, church.
SPEAKER_00: Simon thought holiness or being holy before God was looking right, being educated, sitting at the right table, having the nice robes, having the right image.
SPEAKER_00: He thought that that holiness was more valuable because he looked a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was preparing this morning, I had this for I don't know who needs to hear this.
SPEAKER_00: You can't perform your way into right standing with God.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what Simon was trying to do.
SPEAKER_00: But we see this here.
SPEAKER_00: This woman shows us this real truth.
SPEAKER_00: Walking with Christ, you're gonna agree with this, isn't about perfection.
SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'd be done messed up.
SPEAKER_00: Woo! I'm the least perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Walking in holiness is not something that you can work for, look a certain way, say the right amount of prayers, come to church because that's what you're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: Be the most educated.
SPEAKER_00: You are holy because you're in the presence of God and what he did for you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to explain this part right here.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness is living set apart for God.
SPEAKER_00: Receiving his righteousness by faith.
SPEAKER_00: We're shaped by his spirit, and we walk through this faith in obedience to him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what holiness is.
SPEAKER_00: You don't grind your way into holiness like leveling up in a video game.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness is given, it's not earned.
SPEAKER_00: So that's I want to keep breaking this down for us because this is for me as well.
SPEAKER_00: Holiness isn't about perfection, it's about presence.
SPEAKER_00: What we see with this woman, she wasn't invited, she wasn't clean by their standards, but she came anyway.
SPEAKER_00: That's faith.
SPEAKER_00: She stepped into a room filled with people that would have looked at her funny, and she went anyway.
SPEAKER_00: When she knelt down, she was pouring out her heart.
SPEAKER_00: This wasn't just about emotion.
SPEAKER_00: This was the spirit moving past her shame, stirring her up in worship.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how holiness grows in us.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit reshapes us from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: Then she aligned herself with Jesus in front of other people who wanted to reject her.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's holiness in action.
SPEAKER_00: And what do we see even in that passage of scripture?
SPEAKER_00: This isn't about robes, rituals, or resumes.
SPEAKER_00: It's about a faith that shows up, church.
SPEAKER_00: A spirit that we have in us that convicts us of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: And it's us choosing to walk in obedience to what he's calling us to.
SPEAKER_00: What he's calling us to let go of, what he's calling us to sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we do when we're a Christ follower.
SPEAKER_00: We show up.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Not because we have it all together.
SPEAKER_00: Because if that was the prerequisite, how many would be sitting in this room right now?
SPEAKER_00: If the prerequisite that we had to have all of our ducks in a row and everything was all set up, we're all perfectly clean before the Lord, this would be the emptiest church on the face of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Probably every other church in town, obviously, honestly.
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't have it all together, but Jesus does.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that we can do that puts us all together.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that we can do that can perform our way into right standing with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When we give our life to Jesus, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: We're now in right standing with Him.
SPEAKER_00: We're now in alignment when we were out of alignment.
SPEAKER_00: We're now in where God calls us to be, to stand with Him.
SPEAKER_00: But this woman, she comes broken.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: How many of our stories over the last few months have been this?
SPEAKER_00: People come before God, just broken.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what I love about this.
SPEAKER_00: If you're reading the scripture, Simon, he's probably not even looking at her anymore.
SPEAKER_00: He's giving her that side eye.
SPEAKER_00: You know that side eye, you've probably done it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't want to point to anyone out.
SPEAKER_00: I know I've done it.
SPEAKER_00: He's looking at her, probably side eye going through.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a danger that we see in Simon of self-righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to just read through this.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to Luke chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to start in verse 39.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: That she is a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: How many of us have done that?
SPEAKER_00: Don't have to put up your hands.
SPEAKER_00: This is not an interactive moment, Church.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it in your heart quietly to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered him, and I love this because it would have been one of those moments where Jesus just knew what Simon was thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered, Simon, I have something to tell you.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Tell me, teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Two people owed money to a certain moneylender.
SPEAKER_00: One owed him 500 denarii and the other 50.
SPEAKER_00: Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both.
SPEAKER_00: Which of them will love me more?
SPEAKER_00: Will love him more?
SPEAKER_00: And Simon says, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven, and Jesus said to him, You have judged correctly.
SPEAKER_00: Simon is thinking in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: If this man were a prophet, he would know.
SPEAKER_00: Translation is, I've got it together, but she doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: I like to think of it this way because I like word pictures.
SPEAKER_00: You have two young boys that were asked by their parents to help set the table.
SPEAKER_00: You have one that has milk, one has dinner, lasagna for everyone.
SPEAKER_00: They both spill their dinner.
SPEAKER_00: But the one with the milk looks at the one that spilled the lasagna and says, I'm not as bad as that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the excuse that Simon Peter or Simon had in this moment that he was pointing to the excuses or the pointing to the issues that she had to mask his own problems.
SPEAKER_00: His self-righteousness blinded him to the fact that he's sitting in the room with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I would give anything to sit in a room with Jesus face to face and just sit and ask him questions.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus knows the thoughts, and this is what I love about Jesus all the way through is his leadership.
SPEAKER_00: He could have embarrassed him.
SPEAKER_00: He could have said to him, could have called him out in front of all these religious Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: He could have made him feel bad.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, he just tells a story.
SPEAKER_00: Self-righteousness will blind us.
SPEAKER_00: If you think your sin is small and theirs is big, then you're self-righteous.
SPEAKER_00: This is the truth is that your spiritual growth and your Holy Spirit transformation that God wants for you with all of his heart, because he is a good father, will die if you have self or you're walking in this type of attitude.
SPEAKER_00: If you're walking in self-righteousness, you won't see what God is doing for you.
SPEAKER_00: Are you okay out there?
SPEAKER_00: We alright?
SPEAKER_00: You can't revive people who think they don't need life.
SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you something?
SPEAKER_00: I've been a Christian for many years.
SPEAKER_00: I was in this church, I was in other churches, when I was in different cities.
SPEAKER_00: I happily sat in church with a self-righteous attitude.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want what God had for me.
SPEAKER_00: You choose that attitude.
SPEAKER_00: I chose it.
SPEAKER_00: Because it was easier for me to look at someone else and say I'm better than them than it was for me to look at my own sin and deal with my own problems.
SPEAKER_00: You can sit in church for years and just have a cold heart before God, but say, I go to church.
SPEAKER_00: Churches suffocate when the people of the church start believing that they're good enough while looking side-eyed at the people that are coming in broken.
SPEAKER_00: We're not that church.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want us to be that church.
SPEAKER_00: But humility, what I love about this woman is that she showed her humility.
SPEAKER_00: She recognized her own need.
SPEAKER_00: If you can recognize your own need, that's the soil, the ground that God can use to actually have revival and transformation in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Self-righteousness will actually fill that dirt with poison.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus in this scripture highlights what she does.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna keep going.
SPEAKER_00: She knows her debt, she knows her need, and she knew her savior, that he was her savior.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus just changes this whole conversation, and this is what happens is forgiveness fuels love.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to Luke chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: This is 44 to 47.
SPEAKER_00: Then he turned towards the woman and said to Simon, Do you see this woman?
SPEAKER_00: I love what he does here.
SPEAKER_00: I came into your house, Simon.
SPEAKER_00: You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
SPEAKER_00: You did not give me a kiss, but this woman from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet.
SPEAKER_00: You did not put oil on my head, she has poured perfume on my feet.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, what I tell you, her sins may have been forgiven, as her great love has shown, but whoever has been forgiven, forgiven little.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read that again.
SPEAKER_00: But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.
SPEAKER_00: So do we see the contrast between the two?
SPEAKER_00: He turns this whole room of religious elite upside down with one question and says, Do you see this woman?
SPEAKER_00: I bet you at that time Simon really wasn't seeing that woman.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't see her, he saw her, but he didn't see her.
SPEAKER_00: He saw her, but didn't see her as Jesus saw her.
SPEAKER_00: He saw her reputation, he saw her sin, he saw her pass, but Jesus saw something completely different in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus saw her worship.
SPEAKER_00: And he calls out this contrast.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Simon gave him nothing that is important.
SPEAKER_00: And in middle, at this the culture of this time, offering water, offering a kiss, we don't do holy kisses at KCC.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not an invitation for holy kissing after.
SPEAKER_00: But offering water, holy kisses, and oil for anointing were the three basic hospitality things you would have done when someone came to your house.
SPEAKER_00: The three basic, and Simon didn't offer him any of those.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't offer Jesus any of those things.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not gonna offer it to someone, that's the last person not to offer it to.
SPEAKER_00: Like Simon, where was your head?
SPEAKER_00: You know Jesus, the one that is gonna die on the cross, you know, he did all these things, and you're saying, no, I'm not gonna give you these three things.
SPEAKER_00: It's like invite a word picture.
SPEAKER_00: It's like inviting someone over to your house for dinner, but then not giving him a chair or food.
SPEAKER_00: Rude.
SPEAKER_00: It's rude.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what I read from this is that Simon wanted the clout of having Jesus in his house without having to honor him.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted the title of saying that I'm a Christ follower without having to sacrifice anything.
SPEAKER_00: This was unbelievably revealing of Simon's heart.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to honor Jesus, he wanted to put Jesus under a microscope and analyze him.
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta think of it this way is that same Jesus, same room, totally different perspectives.
SPEAKER_00: Simon had a religion with no relationship.
SPEAKER_00: She had a messy, broken life, but a surrendered heart.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing about for God's forgiveness to you.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness doesn't change how you feel.
SPEAKER_00: It will, but it doesn't always change how you feel, it changes how you act.
SPEAKER_00: God's love to us, what he shows her in this is loving, is transforming, it will change everything in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And when you can realize how much you've been forgiven, you will love like you know how you've been forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: But this can be a blind spot, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Many of us can slip into Simon's shoes rather quickly.
SPEAKER_00: I know I can.
SPEAKER_00: I know all the verses, I know what to say at church, I know the right things to say.
SPEAKER_00: I could bring up the right Christian verses to answer any kind of problem that I need.
SPEAKER_00: I could do all those things.
SPEAKER_00: And but after a while, if I keep going in that way, grace feels like an old story instead of the miracle that it is.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Deuteronomy 8.2 says.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what the Lord did for you.
SPEAKER_00: A miracle from yesterday is evidence that God is still capable now.
SPEAKER_00: It's the precedent that he set.
SPEAKER_00: God set this is the baseline.
SPEAKER_00: It's his truth, it's his life, it's his way.
SPEAKER_00: He's shown it time and time again.
SPEAKER_00: But what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: We look at the situation or the struggle that we're in now and forget all the things that he did before.
SPEAKER_00: Your struggle now, hear this, your struggle now doesn't cancel out yesterday's blessings.
SPEAKER_00: The blessings that he's given you should give it the that he's looked after your life.
SPEAKER_00: The thing that just because you're struggling now doesn't mean there's something that it's canceled, all those other things.
SPEAKER_00: Let me frame it this way: Because of what he has already shown you, when I face today's trial, like right now, the thing that I'm having to face right now, I don't start with my weakness, I start with God's record.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear me?
SPEAKER_00: I don't start with my weakness, I start with God's record.
SPEAKER_00: If he came through then, why won't he come through now?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just a reminder that we need.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing I had a conversation with Jamin last week that's kind of in my head.
SPEAKER_00: We have to be willing to accept that what he wants for us might be different than what we want for us.
SPEAKER_00: And that the outcome of said thing, whatever that thing is that you're praying for, might look different.
SPEAKER_00: But if we have trust in, what's that?
SPEAKER_00: Where's Pastor Malachi said trust in God?
SPEAKER_00: If we trust in God, that means the trust that I have in him, when it looks different, I still trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: That I didn't get the job that That I was hoping for, I trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: My relationship didn't work out the way I wanted, I didn't trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get the test score that I wanted.
SPEAKER_00: I trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: When I have cancer, I trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: When I have sickness, I trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: And do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: This is sidebar, not in my notes.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay for you and God to struggle through these things together.
SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely okay that you're like you go to God, you're like, man, what is happening here?
SPEAKER_00: Why am I hurting?
SPEAKER_00: Why am I struggling?
SPEAKER_00: Why does this seem hard?
SPEAKER_00: Why is why why why?
SPEAKER_00: It's okay that you go to God with that kind of broken heart.
SPEAKER_00: And this is this is where I just if your faith in this morning feels like maybe it's a little weak, or you're feeling like, God, I just can't hear you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to say this.
SPEAKER_00: We say this in church all the time, and if I've said this to you, apologize.
SPEAKER_00: I'm probably never gonna say it again.
SPEAKER_00: We do this at church.
SPEAKER_00: We say try harder.
SPEAKER_00: We say, try harder, pray harder, read your Bible harder, go deeper, harder.
SPEAKER_00: We say all of these things.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes what we see from this woman is we just need to stop, take a pause, and remember all the things that he's already done.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so guilty of doing this in my own life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna white knuckle this in my own strength.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go hard and I'm gonna just like drip harder, I'm gonna work harder, I'm gonna research more, I'm gonna do everything except go to God.
SPEAKER_00: What a human thing that we do.
SPEAKER_00: Is that we so easily forget the things that God's done because the thing that we're doing now isn't what we wanted?
SPEAKER_00: Is it just me?
SPEAKER_00: Do we have humans as believers in a God where we trust in God?
SPEAKER_00: Is it not hard for us sometimes to just remember the things that God's done?
SPEAKER_00: I said this during Huddle.
SPEAKER_00: We try so hard, but sometimes we miss the connection that God has for us.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say this if you're struggling right now, any of you in this place are struggling right now to have uh to go deeper in your relationship with the Lord, I want to tell you, you're not broken.
SPEAKER_00: There might be parts of you that just need healing, but God looks at you and says, Hey, I can bring all of these things together.
SPEAKER_00: I said this so many times.
SPEAKER_00: He says, God loves you the way you are, but loves you too much to leave you that way.
SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Because the guy that I was 15 years ago doesn't, this guy doesn't like that guy.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing: if we're gonna white knuckle it, our focus will be this way, but we'll never see what God wants to do, and we have to stop and remember what he did on that cross.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the last time he blessed you.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the last time that he did something you just couldn't couldn't fathom and you were just blown away by it.
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to walk away from this.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Brian said you don't have to pray.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to have a relationship with God?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to read our Bible and know the Word of God?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to be actively choosing to dig deeper?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: We don't.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we do those things out of an emptiness.
SPEAKER_00: God, it's really hard for God for us to pour out if there's nothing in the cup to pour out.
SPEAKER_00: We need to stop and rest and remember what God's done for us.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: This is what I love how we approach God.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms 51, 17.
SPEAKER_00: My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart.
SPEAKER_00: You, God, will not despise.
SPEAKER_00: We see in this woman that she is showing us what forgiveness looks like in action.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't just feel forgiven, she acted it out.
SPEAKER_00: All that she did, her tears, the kisses, the sacrifice of that stuff that she had.
SPEAKER_00: And the same is true for us.
SPEAKER_00: When we remember what it cost Jesus to wipe our debt clean, our love can't stay hidden.
SPEAKER_00: That's why worship on a Sunday morning is an overflow of your relationship with God that you put into during the week.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is, the truth is, church, sometimes we come to church because we are empty and we need to be refilled.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever think that that's not okay.
SPEAKER_00: But when I'm coming to worship on a Sunday morning, even as a pastor of this church with our team, and God is doing things in my life, there's times I've come here because I got nothing left to give and I need to be refilled and recharged.
SPEAKER_00: To say otherwise would just be a lie.
SPEAKER_00: But when we're living our life for Jesus throughout the week, when we come here and worship starts on a Sunday morning, it's an overflow of the remembrance that we have of what God's done for us.
SPEAKER_00: We remember before we come and sit down, God, you're so good.
SPEAKER_00: You died on the cross for my sins.
SPEAKER_00: I'm ready to worship you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It shows up when we worship.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was young, Gur.
SPEAKER_00: I had probably like 17 or 18.
SPEAKER_00: Why do y'all laugh like that?
SPEAKER_00: If I had any age issues, you just hurt them.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember being like 17 or 18 and not wanting to lift my hands in worship.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember one time in worship, here downstairs in our fellowship room, the Lord just spoke and God something just broke through.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember this became commonplace for me.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is that act of surrender that Pastor Malachi was speaking of this morning.
SPEAKER_00: What do we see in this progression with this woman?
SPEAKER_00: Is that presence brought her to her feet, humility opened up her heart, forgiveness fueled her love, and that love spilled into a worship that cost her absolutely everything.
SPEAKER_00: When we see her break that jar, that would have been not a little bottle of lotion from Bath and Body Works.
SPEAKER_00: It would have been something that was expensive and a year's worth of wages to them, to her, when she gave this up, it was like a retirement plan.
SPEAKER_00: It was socially, they would carry it around their necks like this, to this, like this was something that was valuable.
SPEAKER_00: The security would have put all of her money into this thing.
SPEAKER_00: But what does she do?
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't just take it out and just spray a little bit on Jesus' feet.
SPEAKER_00: Her worship cost her something.
SPEAKER_00: She broke it open, she dumped all of that onto her feet, onto Jesus' feet.
SPEAKER_00: Her worship in that moment wasn't easy, it wasn't convenient, it didn't, it wasn't simple, but it cost her something real.
SPEAKER_00: And I love this scripture, this whole passage of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't just bring her tears, she brought her treasure.
SPEAKER_00: The thing that she valued most.
SPEAKER_00: And why does this matter for us, church?
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you.
SPEAKER_00: Worship that costs nothing often means nothing.
SPEAKER_00: When I live for Jesus and I have to sacrifice, and sometimes it's my reputation, sometimes it's my time, sometimes it's my finances, sometimes it's it's the thing that whatever whatever, insert the thing in that you're struggling with or that you have to sacrifice to follow Jesus, just know that it worshiping Jesus costs something.
SPEAKER_00: Then for me now at this stage in my life to walk away and and say I don't want anything to do with Jesus would cost me more.
SPEAKER_00: I could tell you of a time in my life that me not serving the Lord would have been like, okay, cool.
SPEAKER_00: It would have been easy.
SPEAKER_00: But now in my life, knowing what I know, the experience I've had with Jesus, the trust that I have in him, not perfect, still making mistakes, still doing those things, I don't want to live without Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
SPEAKER_00: Worship that costs nothing often means nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I love about what David said in 2 Samuel 24 I will not offer the Lord that which costs me nothing.
SPEAKER_00: What does that cost us today?
SPEAKER_00: For her, it was her perfume.
SPEAKER_00: But for us, it could be our pride, it could be our resources, it could be our comfort.
SPEAKER_00: I know we don't like to give up our comfort.
SPEAKER_00: But the beautiful part of this is that while everyone in that room would have looked at her, and the thing that she would have looked at would have been that was distasteful to everyone else, was to Jesus, was worth everything.
SPEAKER_00: That means that when you sacrifice and you give what costs you in worship to Jesus, that he he takes that and he's like, This smells amazing.
SPEAKER_00: This is beautiful to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he says.
SPEAKER_00: In one of the other parallel scriptures to this one, it was like the fragrance filled the room when she broke that.
SPEAKER_00: And that act just didn't impact her, it changed the atmosphere of everyone in that room.
SPEAKER_00: Your act of worship that you choose can change your family.
SPEAKER_00: It can change your marriage, it can change those students that are going back to school this Tuesday, it can change your homeroom, it can change your friend group.
SPEAKER_00: That's what costly worship does.
SPEAKER_00: Not only does it shift who you are, it shifts the space around you.
SPEAKER_00: Can I have the worship team come up?
SPEAKER_00: Are you okay, church?
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to Luke chapter 7, verse 48 and 50.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to her, Your sins are forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, Who is this?
SPEAKER_00: Who even forgives sins?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you, go in peace.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus turns from the crowd, from all of the whispers, from all the judgmental stairs, he looks straight at this woman and he tells her this.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone else saw her as a sinner, but Jesus saw her as forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: That's who we are.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we need to remember.
SPEAKER_00: Can you stand with me?
SPEAKER_00: The heart of this story is the heart of being an everyday saint, to being Christ's followers today, church, is that we're not perfect, but we're present.
SPEAKER_00: We're not proud, but we're humble.
SPEAKER_00: We're not cold, but we're loving.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have been forgiven so much.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And the stories that we have heard know that choosing God will cost us something because Jesus is worth everything.
SPEAKER_00: We okay?
SPEAKER_00: Simon left that dinner unchanged.
SPEAKER_00: This is what just baffles me.
SPEAKER_00: He left that dinner unchanged.
SPEAKER_00: He had the title, he had the knowledge, he had the reputation, but he missed Jesus sitting right in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: The woman she left forgiven, saved, and at peace.
SPEAKER_00: That's for us, church.
SPEAKER_00: That's the choice for all of us, whether or not this is the first time ever hearing the gospel, or the 50th time you've heard the gospel, or the two millionth time.
SPEAKER_00: This is the choice for us every single day.
SPEAKER_00: Do we sit at the table?
SPEAKER_00: This might be for those that have been Christians for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna point anyone out.
SPEAKER_00: Do we sit at the table with arms crossed, guarded and critical?
SPEAKER_00: Or do we fall at Jesus' feet like she did, pouring out and holding nothing back?
SPEAKER_00: That's your choice.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a very black and white guy.
SPEAKER_00: If you know me, you know that.
SPEAKER_00: In serving Christ, there's two choices serve him or don't.
SPEAKER_00: Don't want to be on the fence.
SPEAKER_00: We either serve him or we don't.
SPEAKER_00: That's the invitation.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is ready to meet with you with forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: I would say that there's times as Christians that we make things of this faith that we have that didn't God didn't ask us to make of it.
SPEAKER_00: We do things, say things, walk things through that God didn't ask us to do, and so we have now made barriers or put up ways that we can't actually aren't actually able to approach God now because of the things that we've put in place.
SPEAKER_00: That's our invitation, church.
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to close your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And you're not a believer in Jesus, and you're thinking this morning, I I want this peace, I want this joy, I want to pour out like this this woman did before Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If that's you and you don't know Jesus this morning, I just want you to raise your hand, and we're gonna pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: But if that's you, just raise your hand high so I can see it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, I want you to say this with me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I come to you just as I am.
SPEAKER_00: I believe you died for my sins and rose again.
SPEAKER_00: Today I put my trust in you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for forgiving me, saving me, and giving me peace.
SPEAKER_00: I choose to follow you.
SPEAKER_00: If you decided this morning, just keep your eyes closed, but if you gave your life to Jesus for the first time, I just want you to look up here.
SPEAKER_00: If you decided to follow Jesus today, you're gonna see on the screen, they'll put it on the screen, take out your phone, you can text that number.
SPEAKER_00: We want to celebrate with you.
SPEAKER_00: We want to walk this life with you.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have some resources that we want to be able to get to you.
SPEAKER_00: So please, if that was you and you gave your life to Christ for the first time, take this opportunity and just text that number so we can connect with you.
SPEAKER_00: Now for the rest.
SPEAKER_00: This is a song that keeps coming to mind when the music fades.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could remember all the lyrics because that's not me, that's Jamin.
SPEAKER_00: But that song when the music fades just is in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: What is that thing that you've you have right now that's your alabaster jar that God's asking you to break and just come to him right now?
SPEAKER_00: What's that thing that he's just saying?
SPEAKER_00: I need you to give this to me.
SPEAKER_00: What's that thing that you know you're not willing to sacrifice?
SPEAKER_00: But God's saying if you do this, breakthrough's gonna come.
SPEAKER_00: So just let's just worship for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: And just take a second here and just hear and respond to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Don't respond to what necessarily what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: Respond to what the Holy Spirit's doing in your heart right now.
SPEAKER_00: What's that alabaster jar that's in your life that you need to crack open and just lay at Jesus' feet?
SPEAKER_00: So let's just take a minute and just worship and hear his voice.