Love's Extravagance

I have your Bibles with you today. Turn with me if you would to Mark chapter 14.

I think your bulletin says 1 through 11, but I'm just going to go 1 through 9. He was reclining at the table. A woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly. She broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, why was this ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor, and they scolded her. But Jesus said, leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing for me.

For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want you can do good for them, but you will not always have me. She has done what she could. She has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her. Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we have many to pray for this morning. I want to pray for Jeff and Christine Little. They received news this week that the baby does not have a heartbeat or that they were not able to determine one.

Lord, we know that that might not be the case. And we pray, Lord, that a miracle might take place and that baby is still living and will be born one day. Heavenly Father, if that is not the case, I pray that you would put into this couple's heart a peace that passes all understanding.

And that, Lord, you would let them know that this was not right for this particular time and just be with them in great power. We continue to pray for Nick Pearsall and Robin Hayes, if they would heal from their surgeries. We pray for Theresa Carter as her family grieves over the death of her mom. We pray for Jeremy Carriker and Jim Belk, for Kitty Clay and John Key and May Nzimba, Nicole Lowes, help them to complete recovery. Lord, I pray for Rita Haynes, that you will help her. She's going through horrible UTI problems right now. I pray for Fran Ruisi, who's in the hospital suffering with kidney failure. Lord, I pray for Elsie Camaro, who has just experienced deep depression and going through the effects of a stroke.

Please help her. Heavenly Father, we are looking at a passage of scripture today that should make us ashamed of just going through the motions of religion. We see in this passage a little lady who is totally abandoned to Christ. She is not seeking the acceptance of the disciples or her family or her friends. She just wants to bless Jesus.

She's given to Christ the very best that she has. She gets criticized. She gets mocked. She gets fussed at.

That doesn't matter. She has blessed her, Lord. She has touched his heart. She has made her love known to him. She has worshipped Jesus.

Lord, this story puts a lump in my throat and a burr in my saddle. It motivates my heart to love Jesus more and to love sin less. May every child of God in this room fall more deeply in love with Jesus because of Mary's example. Please help me to preach this morning. Keep my lips from error, for it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that I pray. Amen.

You may be seated. This year, we are encouraging the members at Grace Church to love Jesus more. I can't think of a better example of loving Jesus more than Mary, who's the sister of Martha and Lazarus. I've entitled this morning's sermon, Love's Extravagance. And as I was working on this message today, or this week, I realized that I don't love Jesus nearly as extravagantly as I ought to.

So my prayer this morning is that God will use Mary's example to teach us what it means to really love Jesus more. And what's the timetable here, the timing of this passage? Just a few days before this, Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus was his dear friend. Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. His body was rotting and decaying. Jesus goes to the tomb, and he looks at the tomb.

There's a huge rock in front of it. He says to the men, move the rock away. And the men complained. They said, no, no, Jesus, if we do this, there'll be a terrible stench.

Jesus said, do it anyway. They moved the rock away. Jesus looks into the darkness of that tomb, and he cries out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And all of a sudden Lazarus stands up. He walks out of that tomb covered with grave clothes like a mummy from head to toe. Jesus said, loose him and let him go.

And they do. And Lazarus is there, not only alive, but perfectly healthy and perfectly well. Can you imagine the attitude changes that took place with the people there that day? Man, man, those people had learned some things about Jesus. He is not just a great teacher. He's not just a wonderful healer. This man can raise people from the dead.

Only God can do that. What were the reactions of the religious leaders? I want to jump over to John chapter 11 and verses 49 through 53 we find out. But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, you know nothing at all, nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation.

And not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death. After this, Jesus took the disciples up to the Mount of Olives and he gave them prophecies. He prophesied about the temple being destroyed, being leveled, that not one stone would be left upon another. He prophesied the total destruction of Jerusalem and then he prophesied the second coming of Jesus Christ. This was only two days now before Jesus would actually be crucified.

I got four points that I want to share with you this morning. The first point is the plot. Look with me at verses 1 and 2. It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him. For they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people. As we've gone through the Gospel of Mark, we have been made very well aware of the intentions of the religious leaders. Their intentions were that Jesus might die, that they would have him murdered. They hated Jesus. Jesus healed a man that had a withered hand, healed him on the Sabbath, they hated that. Jesus cleansed the temple and that caused him a loss of money and a loss of reputation. Jesus told a story about the wicked vine dressers, the owners of those vine vineyards.

And he told how wicked they were and then he said these are a picture of the religious leaders. They were furious with him. They wanted him arrested right then, they wanted him to die right then. Well it didn't happen right then, why not? Because folks, Jesus' death would happen in the precise, perfect moment when God the Father wanted it to happen.

I'm going to quote from John MacArthur here because what he says here is right. I think it's very understandable, a lot of scripture. He said this, that the Passover was yet two days away indicates that it was a still Wednesday. Jesus knew in keeping with the Father's perfect plan that the time had come for him to die. As he told his disciples in Matthew's parallel account, you know that after two days the Passover is coming and the Son of Man is to be handed over for crucifixion. Jesus had spoken of his death on a number of earlier occasions, demonstrating that throughout his entire ministry he was operating according to a supernaturally ordained and controlled timetable in order to fulfill his ultimate purpose for coming to give his life a ransom for many. Over the previous three and a half years of his ministry, Jesus' adversaries had repeatedly attempted to take his life. Even when he was an infant, King Herod sought to murder him in a slaughter of male babies.

But those attempts did not succeed because they did not fit the Father's design. Because Jesus operated in full submission to his Father that he would not lay down his life until the appropriate time had come. He explained in John, and he said, I lay my life down so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down of my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down.

I have authority to take it up again. Later, when Pilate claimed to have the authority to kill Jesus, the Lord informed the pagan governor, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above. It's interesting to me that the religious leaders and the political leaders here think they're in charge.

They think they're the ones that are working out this plot and working out their agenda, that it's all up to them. They were absolutely wrong. Revelation 13, 8 says that Jesus Christ is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth.

What does that mean? That means before Adam and Eve had even sinned, Jesus was stepping off of the throne, and he was headed to the cross. Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas thought that they were calling the shots.

Let me share with you this truth. They were not. They were not. This was God's perfect plan. They were just pawns in God's hands, and God was using them to bring about his perfect will, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, that it would accomplish our salvation.

Folks, we need to understand that. Now, 1,200 years before this, the first Passover lamb was killed in Egypt. Thousands and thousands of lambs were killed after that and all the way up to the time that Jesus died on the cross. But we need to understand what that Passover lamb was back 1,200 years before.

It was a type. It was a symbol. It was a prophetic picture of the true Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

All right, point two is the anointing, and look with me at verse three. While he was at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. Jesus went back to Bethany, and he accepted an invitation for a supper that night. And the invitation came from a guy named Simon.

He called him Simon the leper. He was from Bethany, probably had horrible leprosy, and Jesus had healed him, and this was an appreciation dinner that he was giving to Jesus. Now, I might be wrong, but I think this was, humanly speaking, a meal that Jesus really wanted and he really needed. These were people that were going to be with him that night that were not going to attack him, that were not trying to hurt him.

They were not there to try to get something from Jesus. They were there to show their affection for him and their love for him. Now, who was the people that were there at that meeting that night, that dinner?

Of course, Jesus. And Simon the leper, who was the host, it was his house. John tells us that the disciples were there, and Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were there.

Now, I want you to think about it. Less than a week before this, Lazarus was lying in a tomb, dying. His body was actually rotting and decaying in the tomb. And Jesus raised him from the dead.

And now he is alive, and he's perfectly well, and he's right there at this dinner with everybody. Let me ask you something. If you had been there, you think you might have wanted to ask him some questions? I'll guarantee you we would.

What kind of questions would we ask? Lazarus, what's it feel like to die? Lazarus, were you cognizant? Were you aware?

Did you know what was going on? Lazarus, did you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Lazarus, did you regret having to come back to this earth? Lazarus, I bet you're not scared to die now, are you? Lazarus, if somebody comes up to you, these religious leaders, they say, we're going to kill you, what are you going to say?

Hey, go ahead and kill me. I've been dead before. You know those conversations had to have taken place. And not only were there conversations with Lazarus, there's also conversations with Jesus. Jesus had told his disciples, he's getting ready to be crucified. They know it's coming soon.

I believe that there were tears with his disciples. And I believe they were probably saying, Jesus, let's get you out of this mess. Let's get you away from this danger. Lord, let's get away from this.

We don't want you to die. As all that's going on, all of a sudden, Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, walks into the room where Jesus is. And as she walks into the room, she's got in her hand a bottle of expensive perfume. Mark calls it pure nard. It's kind of like a Himalayan spikenard.

Very expensive, probably between $25,000 and $30,000. Kent Hughes believed that it was probably a family heirloom of Mary. Well, she brings it and she starts walking over to Jesus. As she walks over there, she cracks the top off of the bottle. And she walks right over to where Jesus is sitting. She takes the spikenard and she pours it over his head. It flows down through his hair and down on his shoulders.

And it's just an amazing smell that's all over the room. And then we are told in the Gospel of John, that's not all she does, that she gets down on her knees before Jesus. She takes the rest of that spikenard, that nard, and she pours it over his feet.

Thousands of dollars just goes right down into the floor and is soaked up in the floor. The fragrance is just all over the house and the disciples are just absolutely amazed at what's happened. In Luke chapter 10 verse 39, we are told about the time that Mary came and she sat at the feet of Jesus. And she sat at the feet of Jesus for what purpose? To learn from him. She wanted Jesus to teach him. She wanted to take in his preaching the Word. She came to sit at Jesus' feet in order to learn. But now she's not there to learn, she is there to love. And it's worship that is unbelievable. She gives of her wealth, she gives of her time, she gives of her dignity, most of all she gives of her heart. I believe that this is one of the most beautiful pictures of worship that we have in the entire Bible.

We've got some other beautiful pictures. I think of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 6. King Isaiah had died, Isaiah was just terribly distressed about that. Isaiah had been the king of Judah for 52 years.

Now he was gone. Isaiah didn't know what was going to happen. He was unsettled, he was uneasy and the Lord said, Isaiah, go on into the temple of the Lord. And he went in and God gave him a vision of his own holiness, of his own sovereignty and a vision of worship like we hardly see anywhere else in the scripture.

I want to read you this, Isaiah chapter 6 verses 1 through 5. Later that King Isaiah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up. And the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew. And one called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory. Foundations of the threshold shook as the voice of him who was called and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me for I am lost from a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

I think of the great picture of worship that we have in the book of Revelation. John tells us about 24 elders who were there. Twelve of them represent the patriarchs of Israel in the Old Testament. Twelve of them represent the apostles in the New Testament. The Old Testament patriarchs represent all the saints in the Old Testament. The apostles represent all the Christians in the New Testament. Put them together, you have all the people of God from Genesis to Revelation. And what is the worship like?

This is what he said. The 24 elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and they worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne saying, Worthy are you our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created.

Wow! That's a picture of worship. Nothing held back the heart's desire to say, Jesus, we give you our everything. Isaiah's vision of the angels worshiping God, John's vision in Revelation of the church worshiping God challenges me and it convicts me. Mary's worship does something else. Mary's worship humbles me. It humbles me. She gives the best that she has. She humbles herself. She gets down at Jesus' feet and she not only pours the nard over his feet but then she wipes his feet with her hair.

What is that? That is unmitigated, unadulterated, extravagant love. Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name. Come brethren, follow where our Savior trod, our King victorious, Christ the Son of God.

If I had been one of those disciples, I think I'd have been pretty convicted when I saw that. I think I would have said, I love Jesus too. I follow Jesus too.

I've been going out and I've been witnessing to a lost world too. I love Jesus. I would even die for Jesus if he asked me to die for him. But then I think they would all say, I've never worshiped Jesus like Mary worshiped Jesus. Mary was giving her all to Jesus. She didn't care who saw her. She didn't care who liked it or who didn't like it.

She didn't care what it cost. She was saying plainly, Jesus, you have my all. Let me tell you something. That's a challenge to this pastor and I hope that it's a challenge to every single person who hears this message today.

And what is the challenge? Do you love Jesus extravagantly? Has Jesus got your all? All right, point three is the worldly, ungodly reaction. Look at verse four and five. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, why was this ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii given to the poor and they scolded her. John tells us that one of the disciples specifically called her out. That was Judas Iscariot.

Judas acted very offended. He said, I can't believe that you did this. What a waste for you to do this. So that you could have taken that spikenard, you could have sold it and then you could have used that money to feed many, many families for many, many months. But what did you do? You poured it over his feet. Half of it went down and soaked into the floor.

Nothing but a complete waste. Why did you do such a horrible thing? John 12, six gives a little commentary on what Judas did. It says, he said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief and having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Wow. Now, I'm not surprised that Judas would express such resentment, but I am surprised that he was not the only one. For there were some other disciples that joined in and they also scolded Mary. The word that she used there to describe what they were doing is the word indignant. You look at it up in the Greek, you'll find that it means to snort out anger.

It's a picture of a horse that's all mad and the horse is pawing the ground and it's almost like steam is coming out of his nose. Folks, how humiliating that must have been for poor Mary. I've never really thought too much about this until this week about what it probably did to her heart. She didn't do what she did to get praise or attaboys or pats on the back. She wasn't thinking about that kind of stuff at all, but now her motives are being questioned.

Her sense of right and wrong was being taken to trial. And who were the critics? The critics weren't the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the religious leaders, or even the secular Romans. The critics were some of the disciples. These were people who were supposed to be followers of Christ. These were the people who were supposed to be lovers of Jesus and they were the ones that were rebuking her, cutting her down, making her feel stupid and irrational. Scripture doesn't say it, but I have to wonder if Mary didn't just weep like a baby as all of a sudden she's thinking, I tried to give Jesus my best and now I think I have hurt the cause of Christ instead of helped the cause of Christ.

I want you to feel her heart. All right, point four, the rebuke and the praise, verse six through nine. But Jesus said, leave her alone.

Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me, for you always have the poor with you and whenever you want you can do good for them, but you will not always have me. She has done what she could. She has anointed by body beforehand for burial and truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her. The disciples thought they knew the mind of Jesus.

They did not. Jesus kind of goes in between Mary and the disciples almost like a referee and he says to the disciples, leave her alone. Quit troubling her. What she has done for me is a beautiful thing. Let me share with you three reasons why I think what she did was a beautiful thing to Jesus. Number one, because love was her motive.

Let me tell you something, if you don't think your motive is important, you're absolutely wrong. Thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, we call it the love chapter and in that particular chapter, Paul is sharing some very important truths and he said you can sacrifice everything that you've got, but if you don't have love behind it, it doesn't mean anything. Folks, love makes our gifts pleasing to Christ. I want to read you an illustration that I read this week from Kent Hughes and I absolutely loved it.

It just rang my bell, but I want you to listen to this. Years ago when my son Kent was a little boy, my wife Barbara won a beautiful cardboard decorated recipe box. It was very unusual, a conversation piece, and this became the incentive for her to organize a drawer full of loose recipes. As a result, she recopied all the recipes on cards, filed them in the box. Our little boy had watched her do this and he knew that the box was very special to her. Then came Barbara's birthday and some friends dropped by to take her out on a surprise lunch. When she returned home, she saw that the box was missing and was just about ready to call out, where's my box, when she saw Kent. His eyes were wide and she could see that he was holding something behind his back from which water was dripping.

She knew what it was and though her heart sank, she smiled. He said, Mom, I have a birthday present for you and he presented her with a wet recipe box saying, Mom, I knew you liked the box. Kent had thrown the recipes in the trash and the garbage had been picked up that day and had washed the box, scraping off the handmade decorations and lining the box with tinfoil. When she opened it, this is what she found, a nickel, a black plastic alligator and a picture of Kent. My wife still has that box and it's one of her most treasured possessions. If the house burned down, the first thing we would save are the family pictures in that box.

Why? Because the motive behind the gift was pure, innocent love. Second reason this was beautiful because she was prompted by the Holy Spirit.

Eugene's been teaching us 1 Corinthians, got to 1 Corinthians 14 a couple weeks ago. He shared with us that we need to be very, very careful about saying, the Lord told me to do this. And you do something because you thought it up and then you said, I'm doing this because the Lord told me to do this. That can be very, very dangerous.

Let me tell you what else can be dangerous. It can be ignoring a prompting of the Holy Spirit. Now, how do you know if it's you thinking or if it's the Holy Spirit?

Well, one of the ways is this. You speaking and if it's the Holy Spirit, there will never be any contradiction with what the Word of God says. Never, ever. And then secondly, if it's the Holy Spirit doing it, it will not exalt self at all. For example, we might ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit when God prompts us to sit down and write a letter of appreciation or a thank you letter to somebody that's done something kind for us. Or the Lord prompts you to tell a person how much you love them and how much they mean to you and to thank them for what they've done for you. Or maybe the Lord prompts you to give something. Folks, when we take those promptings not seriously and we just ignore them, then we miss out on an opportunity of something beautiful happening. The third reason is that Mary's actions was beautiful because it was not dominated by practicality.

Most of us would never have done what Mary did. Common sense would have said that perfume could be sold for a lot of money. We could use this for a whole lot of different things, helping a whole lot of different people. We would have said, think with your brain. That's usually good common sense, isn't it? It's usually what you need to tell people.

But you know what? Sometimes it's okay to just think with your heart. Sometimes your husband or your wife or your son or your daughter doesn't need for you to give them guidance or information.

Maybe they just need a good hug. That's a great thing to do. They need unmitigated affirmation. Mary's response was glorious. It was filled with love. It was filled with honor. It was filled with affirmation.

It was filled with affection and mostly it was filled with worship. So Jesus hears these snide, snarky remarks of Judas Iscariot, some of the other disciples as well, and he says, leave her alone. Don't trouble her.

She has done a beautiful thing for me. What if Mary had done this? What if she had gone up to Jesus and said, I'm going to put two drops of this perfume on your head, two on your right foot, two on your left foot.

That ought to be plenty. And I think if she had done that, Jesus would never have said she has done what she could. I think this is exactly what Paul's talking about, Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. He said, for I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Look what Jesus said in verse 7.

This is one of the most abused verses in Scripture. He said, for you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them, but you will not always have me. When I was in my former church over at South Side, got to church early one morning, looked out on the front lawn of the church, and there were four homeless people that were lying out there in the grass. It was a cold day. The grass was all frosty. They didn't have blankets. They were just out there.

I walked over, and I talked to them. Three of them were horribly mentally handicapped. One of them was so physically handicapped, it could never have worked. They didn't have blankets. They didn't have food.

They didn't have anything. It brought tears to my eyes. And some of the deacons came by later, and I said, guys, I want to talk to you about something. I said, these homeless people are out here, and man, they're in trouble. They need some help. What can we do to help them?

And they said, tonight's Wednesday night. Why don't we take up a love offering? We can give them blankets and tent and food and whatever.

And I said, yeah, that's a great idea. So that night, we took up a love offering. I shared with the congregation 1 John 3, 17 through 18.

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. We took a great offering that night. And we bought blankets. We bought food.

We set them up in a motel for a few nights and bought them some new clothes. And I believe with all my heart, we may have saved some lives there doing that. But I had somebody come from our church and came up to me later that evening and said, I'm not giving anything for this.

And I said, why not? He said, Jesus said, you'll have the poor with you always. And he said, we don't need to worry about them. They're always going to be around.

Don't need to get upset about them. Folks, don't ever use this verse to harden your heart against helping those that are in need. This is tremendously important that we see and understand this.

And this is what John MacArthur said about it. Opportunities to minister the poor are always available. But Jesus would be in their presence for just a short time. This was not a time for meeting the needs of the poor and sick. It was time for sacrificial worship of the one who would soon suffer and be crucified. Verse 8 says, she has done what she could.

D.L. Moody's mama died. And when his mama died, he went to the funeral director. He says, I want you to, on her tombstone, put these words, she has done what she could. What did Moody mean by that? It means that he meant that she gave her best. No looking back, no weighing the benefits against the burdens. She gave what she could.

Despite cost, despite criticism, despite confusion, she did what she could. Now, look what Jesus says in verse 9. Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

Has that happened? The Bible is the number one best-selling book in the world. The Bible is in most everybody's home in America.

Or at least it should be. And the Bible has gone out in different languages all over the world. I'll guarantee you, somewhere around the world, every single day, this verse is read, Mark chapter 14, verse 9, wherever the gospel is told, what she did for Jesus will be proclaimed. For the last 2,000 years, that prophecy has been fulfilled. As we have looked at that verse and we have been just convicted by Mary's love for Jesus, by how she was willing to forget what everybody else thought, not try to get anything out of this, but just given her heart and her all to Christ. Let me close with this. Do you love Jesus extravagantly?

And if not, why not? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I had the privilege of being the fulfillment of your prophecy. You told Mary and the disciples that wherever the gospel was preached around the world, what Mary did in her, all in Jesus' first worship, would be broadcast, and that's what's happening right now at Grace. We got a good glimpse of the infinite worthiness of our Lord Jesus. Thank Mary for us, Lord, and Jesus, thank you for the cross, for it's in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.