Sheryl Brady - This is No Ordinary Worship

Says «Now Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper. They came unto him, a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment. She poured it on his head as he sat at meat. When his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, 'To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor.' When Jesus understood it, he said to them, 'Why trouble ye this woman? She hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.'» In other words, this moment is much bigger than you recognize. And because of what she has done, verily I tell you, that wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, what this woman has done, be told for a memorial of her. Whenever you talk about the gospel, you have to talk about worship. Wherever you talk about the gospel, you talk about worship, because Jesus said what this woman has done will be told as a memorial of her.

Look at somebody and tell them, «This is no ordinary praise.» Sit down; I’m going to take just a few minutes and I’m going to talk to you from my heart today. Kalon, take Gavin; will you clap your hands? I thank God for him; we thank you, sir. We thank God for the anointing on your life, for his pastor, Pastor Marcus Boone. Love you, sir. They’ve wrecked our house, and now they’re going to have to leave because I’ve got a flight to catch. But we just prayed the blessings of the Lord on their life. Amen. Come on, stretch your hands that way and say in the name of Jesus, «Cover, keep, protect, watch over.» In Jesus' name, we say amen. Amen, amen. Thank you to our praise team, to everyone. Bishop, I honor you today; thank God that you are in the house with us. It should not surprise us that when the presence of God blows and flows in like it did here today, because if you can recall, it wasn’t long ago that we received many prophetic words that said we were called in this region to host the presence of the Lord.

Now, if you’re going to host a gathering, it is so much different than if you just become a part of the gathering. If you’re going to host, it means you’re going to have to put up some effort, and you’re going to have to put up some strength, and you’re going to have to do some things that the average participant would not do. This is what we have to understand as a church: that as God has called us to host, embrace, and welcome his presence, it will not get easier; it will only get stronger. It will not get easier. You cannot just come in and sit in your seat and just be the average person in the average church. This is not that church. Somebody say, «This is not that church.» Say it with authority: «This is not that.» Don’t do it again. This is not that church; we’re called to host the presence of the Lord. Some people just enjoy his presence; other people are those who are called to worship until he fills the room. And even if it makes you feel like you’re in an awkward moment, it doesn’t matter; you just do it until God does what he’s going to do. It’s because we are not just enjoyers of his presence; we are hosts of his presence. So if we’re going to be a host, we have to be hospitable.

Look at somebody and ask them, «Are you hospitable?» It takes a lot to be a host because you have to make sure that your guests feel welcome. You have to ensure that they feel received, that they feel well-fed, and that they feel warm. It requires certain skills if you’re going to be a person that can host an event. Their ability to accomplish these things is what made Mary and Martha one of the best hospitality teams of the Bible. Both of these women belong in the gallery of famous Bible women; they have a legacy of their own. The facts that we know about them are very few. We know that they are sisters; we know that they are the sisters of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, and we also know that they live in a little town called Bethany. Bethany was a quiet little village; it was southeast of the Mount of Olives and beside Jericho. Whenever Jesus came to Bethany, it was as if he gravitated to their house. I just have to think that whenever Jesus comes to Frisco, that he feels pulled into this house. If he was looking for a place to rest, would he come to your house? Would he come to my house? He did when it came to this family in Bethany. He felt comfortable in their house; he felt respected in their house. He felt like they knew how to host him. And this is the thing about him: he had to be hosted on two different levels. He was full of humanity, but he was also full of divinity at the same time. Mary knew how to entertain his divinity, but Martha knew how to entertain his humanity. And make no mistake about that: he had a dual nature; he was 100% God and 100% man at the same time. So he needed hospitality on both of those levels, and Mary and Martha were quite capable of providing it.