Participants:
Series Code: BOLS
Program Code: BOLS000034S
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00:06 Sermon #S019 - (Let Your Hair Down - Part 1)
00:20 We want to invite you to go in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians chapter five. 00:24 And if you don't mind, put your finger over in Luke chapter seven, Ephesians chapter five 00:30 and we're going to begin together at verse number two, Ephesians chapter five, 00:38 and verse number two, and for those of you who are watching at home, 00:41 do me a favor, be a digital disciple, be an electronic evangelist, be an apple apostle. 00:47 And even if you're under the Android anointing, you're on Facebook. 00:50 Do me a favor, just hit that share button, a couple of times. If you're on YouTube, copy the link and send it to somebody. 00:56 So that somebody at home can be blessed with the word, as well. 01:00 Ephesians chapter five in verse two, and then just put your finger over in Luke chapter seven in verse 36, 01:06 which is where we will land today. Ephesians chapter five and verse number two, when you get there, just say "Amen". 01:13 [Congregation: Amen] 01:15 Ephesians chapter five and verse two, the word says and walk in what? 01:22 [Congregation: Love] 01:23 In love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us, an offering 01:34 and the sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling. What? 01:39 [Congregation: Savor] 01:40 Sweet-smelling savor, your version may say aroma. The Bible says he has loved us. 01:45 Do you realize he loves you? 01:46 [Congregation: Amen] 01:48 No, no. Do you realize he loves you? 01:50 [Congregation: Amen] 01:52 And the Bible says he's given himself for us, a sacrifice, and a sweet-smelling aroma. 01:58 And I go over to Luke chapter seven, and we will look together, beginning at verse 36. 02:04 Luke chapter seven and we will look together at verse number 36 when you get there, just said "Pastor, I'm ready". 02:12 [Congregation: I'm ready Pastor.] 02:14 Luke chapter seven and verse number 36, a very familiar story for many of us. Luke seven in verse 36. 02:22 The Bible says, then one of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him and he went to the Pharisee's house and he sat down. 02:34 Begin the Bible says that one of the Pharisees did what? 02:37 [Congregation: Asked him.] 02:39 Asked him, Bible says he just asked him to eat with him and he went to the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat. 02:46 And behold a woman in the city who was a what? 02:50 [Congregation: Sinner.] 02:52 A sinner. When she knew that Jesus, sat at the table and the Pharisee's house, 02:56 she brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and stood at His feet behind him weeping. 03:03 And she began to wash his feet with her tears and she wiped them with the hair of her head. 03:10 And she kissed his feet and anointed them with fragrant oil. Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, 03:18 he spoke to himself saying this man, if he were a prophet would know who 03:24 and what manner a woman this is who is touching him for she is a sinner. 03:31 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Simon, I have something to say to you. So he said, teachers, 03:37 say it and there was a certain creditor who had two debtors who owed five hundred denarii and the other 50. 03:44 And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, 03:51 which one of them loved him more? Simon answered and said I suppose the one whom he what? 03:58 [Congregation: Forgave.] 04:00 Forgave more and he said unto him, you have rightly judged. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, 04:06 do you see this woman? I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet but she is, wash my feet with her tears 04:15 and wipe them with the hair of her head. You gave me no kiss, 04:20 but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint my head with oil, 04:28 but this woman has anointed my feet with fragrant oil. Therefore, I say to you, her sins which are many are what? 04:37 [Congregation: Forgiven.] 04:39 Forgiven, for she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. 04:44 Then he said unto her, your sins are forgiven. 04:49 [Congregation: Amen] 04:51 And those who sat at the table with him began to say to themselves, 04:54 who is this that even forgives sins? Then he said unto the woman, your faith has saved you and he says go in peace. 05:06 But I'm going to read for emphasis, verse number 38. And she stood at His feet behind him weeping, 05:15 and she began to wash his feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head. 05:24 Today, saints, I want to talk to you for a little while under the subject. Let your hair down. Let your hair down. 05:32 Let's pray together. 05:34 Father, I pray that you would do something that is unfamiliar, through a story that for some of us is very familiar. 05:49 I pray that in the midst, or despite fallen humanity that you would allow the love of Christ to rain through in this message. 06:00 So, Father, I pray that you would hide me in the shadows of the cross, that Jesus alone might be seen. 06:07 That Christ alone would be heard and at the end of our time together may Jesus alone be praised. 06:13 Would you multiply the presence of your spirit in this place? Would you overwhelm all evil? 06:21 And would you lose the bound? Lord, would you uplift the downtrodden? And Lord may the soul who is under the weight of sins, 06:30 despair, and condemnation, find their freedom and their liberty in you. We pray this in the wonderful name of Jesus. 06:37 Let them that believe say together, amen. 06:39 [Congregation: Amen] 06:41 And amen. You may be seated in the house of the Lord. Again, we're talking today under the subject. Let your hair down. 06:53 You know friends, here we find Jesus in a formal dinner setting of sorts. And you must know that at this point, 07:06 Jesus is the most sought-after person on the face of the planet And yet somehow this Pharisee, Simon is able to get Jesus, 07:19 to come to his house. And this shows, one of the indiscriminate qualities of Jesus 07:28 because Jesus does not charge an appearance fee. Simon doesn't have to make a contribution to the building fund. 07:37 Jesus shows up the Bible says, simply because the Pharisee invited him. 07:43 And the first thing, this teaches us friends is that Jesus goes wherever he is invited. 07:50 You see, all the Pharisee did was ask for Jesus to come, and I can imagine that there's all type of speculation, 07:59 as to how this Pharisee got Jesus to attend. 08:04 And understand that in order to have Jesus come and a newly resurrected Lazarus at the table. 08:12 It is raising the social profile of this Pharisee that has invited him to come. And so folk begin to wonder, 08:21 how he got Jesus to come to his house. 08:24 They begin to wonder what amount did he pay and who was his connection or plug? That got Jesus to come to this occasion 08:33 and I can see them pulling Simon into a corner as they begin to request the hook up so that Jesus can come to their house. 08:43 They want to know who is your connect, that got you into the inner circle of Jesus. 08:49 They want to know what angle did you come from in order to get Jesus to show up. 08:55 And it's amazing that they are frustrated because they think that Simon is withholding the goods from them. 09:02 But the truth is like Simon is saying I didn't pay a certain amount, I didn't go through a booking agent, 09:09 I didn't give a certain amount of money. 09:12 He came simply because I invited him to come, 09:16 and Simon wants them to know that the favor he has received is simply the result of a request made unto Jesus. 09:27 And the reason this is important is because there are times when we see people experiencing divine favor. 09:35 We see folk experiencing professional favor or financial favor or academic favor. 09:43 And we think that they have an agency that we don't have access to, 09:49 but I need somebody to know that favor with Jesus is not earned. It cannot be coerced, 09:57 it's not the result of human association. You get divine favor when you simply invite Jesus into the presence of your life. 10:07 Can I say to somebody that if you want, supernatural and unrealistic favor, 10:14 all you've got to do is make your requests known unto God? In other words, you ain't got to know somebody that knows somebody. 10:24 In fact, what Jesus came to do was to dispatch with the need of a third party. In other words, in order to get to Jesus, 10:33 I'm thankful that I don't need a mediator. I don't need an intercessor, I can go directly to the source 10:41 and make my request known unto God. Is there anybody that knows that the Bible says you have not simply because you ask not? 10:52 [Congregation: Amen] 10:54 The word says that if we being evil know how to give good gifts to our children, 10:59 Jesus says, how much more willing am I to give good things to them that simply ask? 11:06 Isaiah 66 says it will come to pass that before you call he'll already answer. 11:13 And while you're yet speaking, he's already heard. I love what the Psalmist says in Psalm 116. 11:20 He says I love the Lord because he heard my cry and he inclined his ear unto me, and as long as I live, 11:31 I will call upon his name. And I guess Church, what I want to do is rebuke all politicking, stop all the secular hustling, 11:41 stop trying to cozy up to important people, stop all the deal-making because that can only get you so far. 11:49 But if you want the supernatural, if you want the exceeding abundantly, stop trying to get close to a man 11:58 and make your requests known to God. Your favor is just an ask away. 12:06 [Congregation: Amen] 12:07 Let me, let me say it this way. I remember the first time I met Pastor Wintley Phipps Dave. 12:11 Both he and I were preaching in as the parables would say a certain place, 12:17 and I remember as we were coming in on the same flight, 12:21 the conference sent the same taxi to pick us up and take us to our hotel. 12:26 And so he asked us where we were staying and I gave him the name of the place 12:31 and he and his baritone voice just begin to laugh because he knew what type of establishment it was. 12:38 And so before we knew it, we begin to wind up at this very plus, the greatest hotel there in the country. 12:46 And I said, Elder, how did you wind up here? And he says, 12:50 Pastor, you're going to learn growing up that if you want a certain type of thing, 12:55 you've got to ask and let folk know what you need because 99% of where you go is where you stay. 13:04 And so we get to the establishment where we are staying and I need you to know that when we walked into the lobby, 13:10 I knew we were in trouble because they didn't give us a keycard, they gave us a metal key to the room. 13:17 And then when we got to the room, there was an overpowering fish smell that met us at the door. 13:23 And then, when my wife went into the bathroom, she found the hair on the sink from the previous guests before we got there. 13:32 Now, normally saints I would have tried to rough this thing out, but how many of us know that if mama ain't happy, guess what? 13:39 And nobody going to be happy and so that night after I'm finished preaching. I got ready to make my request known. 13:47 I had a speech and all the reasons why and as I went to the host, I said listen, man, can you move me to the next hotel? 13:56 And before I got a chance to give all the reasons why I should, he says, Pastor surely, 14:02 we will move you and we will grant your request. And so a couple of days later, I ran into Elder Phipps, 14:10 he says, sir, what happened? 14:11 How did you get here? I says, I just took your advice and made my request known. 14:17 I got what I asked for. And how many of us know that when you make your requests known unto God? 14:25 That God is going to grant the request of his children. 14:30 And saint, let me just pause to say to some of us that sometimes we overthink religion, 14:37 and sometimes we add stipulations that are not in the scripture. See the Bible says, 14:44 friends that he goes to the Pharisee's house, simply because he invited him. 14:52 Now, as I looked at this, I initially begin to feel a certain type of way 14:58 because when I looked at how Pharisees moved and how they begin to relate to certain people, 15:04 I begin to wonder why Jesus would even go and spend time with a self-righteous Pharisee. 15:13 But how many of us know that the beauty of the gospel is simultaneously the offense of the gospel in that Jesus goes to whoever 15:24 invites him to come? The reason Jesus ate with sinners is because they invited him to come. 15:32 The reason he eats with Publicans is because they invited him to come. The reason he sat down with uptight Martha was 15:41 because she invited him to come. 15:44 The reason he would sit with the Pharisees is because they invited him to come. 15:50 And I guess church I'm trying to make this simple. 15:53 The good news for somebody today is that if you want Christ operating in your life. 15:59 All you've got to do is give an invitation for him to show up. 16:07 And see I need somebody to know that Jesus is not going to strong-arm his way into your life. 16:14 In fact, I need you to know the door has to be opened and he's got to be welcomed in. 16:21 He says behold I stand at the door and knock, and if you open up the door, I'll come in and sit with you and you with me, 16:32 I guess what I'm saying teachers is that if you want Christ in your classroom, all you've got to do is invite him in. 16:41 Couples, if you want Jesus in the marriage, you've just got to daily invite him in. 16:48 Young folk, if you want Christ in your relationship, you've got to invite him in. 16:54 And I guess the inverse is true, that if there is a deficit of the presence of Christ more than likely it's 17:02 because he's not been invited. In other words, if you don't invite him to oversee your business, 17:11 he's not going to grab the wheel without consent 17:14 and God is saying that I'm just looking for an invitation to be a part of your entire experience. 17:22 Are you with me today? And she understands the other reason that some may not be experiencing the full presence of Jesus Christ 17:32 is because too many of us compartmentalize our religion. 17:37 In other words, we have a box for our spirituality that we reserve on the weekend. 17:44 We've got a box for our work. We've got a box for our academic life. We've got a box for our social life. 17:52 We've got a box for our work life, but the problem is we don't allow one to bleed over into the next, 18:00 but you've got to get to a place friends where you don't just put Jesus in a religious box. 18:07 You've got to allow Jesus to be Lord and touch every level and every compartment of your human experience. 18:17 Are you hearing me today friends? In other words, 18:20 we want to keep Jesus in the glass box that we only break in the case of emergencies. 18:28 But you've got to get to a place where Jesus becomes 411, not just 911. 18:34 [Congregation: Amen] 18:36 You've got to let Jesus into your work, you've got to let Jesus into your dating. 18:41 You've got to let Jesus oversee every particular portion of your life. Are you hearing me today, friends? 18:48 And in fact, let me say it this way. How many of us in this space are old enough that before central air conditioning? 18:56 Do you remember the days of the window unit? Anybody remember those old-school window units? 19:04 Maybe you don't have to be old enough. Maybe just broke enough you all hearing me today? 19:08 And it's crazy because those window units would cool the room that you were in. 19:13 But guess what, they could not cool the entire house and so if you are hot on the other side, 19:21 you had to go where the unit was in order to get some relief. And see that's why I'm thankful for central air conditioning 19:29 and heating because when the unit is central to the house, you don't have to leave one room to go to the next to get well. 19:38 It sets relief to whatever room you are in. And what I'm saying to somebody today is stop making Jesus the window unit. 19:48 You've got to make Jesus central to your life. And when Jesus is central to the house, he can bless whatever room you are in. 19:58 You ain't got to go from one room to the next, but he'll send blessings to the kitchen. He'll bless the living room. 20:05 He'll bless the classroom. He'll bless the bedroom. He'll bless the dining room. 20:12 When he is central to everything in your existence. Are you hearing me today, friends? 20:20 And so, the Bible says to us here in Luke chapter six in verse 37. 20:25 The Bible says, behold a woman in the city who was a sinner when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, 20:36 she brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, the Bible says. 20:41 You see the second thing this story teaches us friends of mine is that true holiness receives. 20:49 It doesn't repel. 20:53 Okay, let me say to you all on this side, that real righteousness receives sinners. It does not reject or repel sinners. 21:07 You see, friends, Christ is the centerpiece of this particular occasion 21:12 and it's amazing that the Bible says that there is a woman who is a sinner who finds her way to Jesus in the house. 21:23 And understand that when Luke describes her as a sinner, this is not a reference to her fallen human nature. 21:33 What he is telling here is that she is a notorious sinner, that she has a reputation for being a sinner. 21:42 In fact, both the Greeks and scholars suggest that she was notorious in such a way 21:49 because she was probably a harlot or somebody that worked in the sex trade for a living. 21:56 And you got to get how awkward this situation is because when she walks into this room, 22:03 she is avoided by the men that have visited her and she is reviled by the women whose men she has shared. 22:14 And so you got to get that to hang with a group of Pharisees, this is not her crowd. That she brings tension to the room, 22:27 not by what she does, but it's made awkward just because of who she is. 22:35 And see what Luke describes is a situation where Jesus does not invite her in, 22:42 but she has been monitoring or tracking Christ's movements. She has been stalking his location, 22:49 and the Bible says that she comes for him even when Jesus does not send for her, and what Jesus does in this story, 23:01 what it does is it's got me rethinking the way that I see holiness. 23:08 I mean, is anybody seeing this amazing contrast in the room? That the woman who is sinful is drawn to a God who is sinless. 23:24 That a woman of complete filth is attracted to a God of complete holiness. 23:31 That the one who is a commandment breaker is drawn to the commandant giver. 23:38 That the one who only knows sin is drawn to the God who knows no sin. And isn't it crazy saints, 23:47 that she is made to feel uncomfortable by everybody but Jesus? 23:53 [Congregation: Clapping] 23:55 Oh yeah, you hear me. In other words, man, she is intimidated by the Pharisees, but she is received by Jesus. 24:03 She is looked down upon by the other women, but she is welcomed by Jesus. She is inspected by everybody else, 24:13 but she is received by Jesus. She is made to feel unworthy by everybody in the room but Jesus. 24:24 And see this got me rethinking friends of mine on how I see holiness and how it functions because see, 24:31 I used to think that the chief attribute of holiness was its sternness and disability to indict or intimidate sinners. 24:43 Is there anybody that remembers the old paradigm of how we talked about holiness in the church? 24:48 Because most of us, real talk are still intimidated by the word holiness. 24:54 Because we were talked that sin cannot stand in the presence of a holy God. 25:01 [Congregation: Clapping] 25:03 And see, if sin cannot stand in the presence of a holy God, that must mean Christ is not God. In other words, 25:13 Paul says that in him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily. 25:19 In fact, the primary accusation against Christ was that this man receives sinners and he eats with them. 25:28 How do I know that Jesus is God? In John one, the Bible says in the beginning, was the word and the word was with God, 25:37 and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and it dwelt amongst us. 25:43 In other words, you realize that the primary reason that Jesus came wasn't just to die on a sinner's cross. 25:53 Jesus had to come in human form to show us what God was actually like. You see friends, 26:04 I thought true holiness intimidated sinners. I thought it rejected sinners. I thought it inspected sinners. 26:12 I thought it indicted sinners. I thought it ran sinners away, 26:17 but we see no such thing in the holiest one to ever walk on the face of the planet Earth. 26:26 Is there anybody that's thankful that the Holy One did not reject sinners? But he welcomed Tax Collectors, 26:34 he sat down with prostitutes. He received the ungodly. He says all that come unto me, I will in no wise cast them out. 26:45 And let me just say this with all the bonus I can muster up that if your religion repels, indicts, inspects, or reject sinners, 26:56 it is not the religion of Jesus Christ. 27:03 Read your Bible today, Saints. 27:05 Did you notice something about Jesus preaching that Jesus spent more time rebuking self-righteousness than unrighteousness? 27:17 In other words, I need you all to understand that our savior was dealing with matters of the heart. 27:24 So he was not walking around inspecting makeup and skirt lengths, and tattoos and what you were wearing. 27:32 Jesus preached that transformation and not standards. 27:38 Thank you so much for joining us for The Breath of Life Television Ministries broadcast with Pastor Debleaire Snell. 27:45 We hope and pray that you have been blessed by today's message and that you will allow Christ to continue working in your life. 27:52 Join us next week for part two of “Let Your Hair Down”. You don't want to miss it. 27:58 (Breath of Life Theme Music) 28:23 When we look at everything that's affecting our culture, the pandemic, mass shootings, the escalating prices of gas, 28:30 someone's wondering what reason do I have for hope? 28:34 I want to invite you to be a part of the 2022 Hope rally here in Huntsville, Alabama. 28:40 We're going to start on September the 24th through October the 1st. We're going to meet each night at 7:00 PM. 28:48 If you need more information, go to our website at www.breathoflife.tv 28:55 [END] |
Revised 2022-09-15