Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. the founder and perfecter of our faith. Mary did the unthinkable. She broke a jar of pure nard and poured it on Jesus. A year's salary was spent as the scent permeated the room.
Many were quick to criticize her action, but Jesus defended her costly gift. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, today you're beginning a series on commitment to Christ. And to tell us what commitment means, you're retelling the story of Mary Magdalene in John chapter 12.
Dave, I absolutely love this story and I'll tell you why. When Mary did that, she had no idea that she would still be talked about. in 2000 years. Imagine that Jesus never shows us all the good that we do. What we do goes on and on and blesses people even after we die.
I'm holding in my hands a resource I would really like you to have. It's entitled Grace Awakening by Chuck Swindahl.
Now most of us know Chuck Swindahl, at least through his ministry. It's been my privilege to know him personally. But let me tell you about this book. This book, Grace Awakening, the subtitle is Believing in Grace is one thing, but living it is another. There are many people who are bound by legalism.
To them the Christian life is do, do, do, do, and there is no end to everything that we are supposed to do. What this book shows us. is that under grace we are unconditionally loved and motivated. To serve the Lord in a way that is enjoyable, in a way in which we ourselves. participate with God, yes.
but with a real sense of freedom. I believe that this book is going to be used by God to all who read it. and that we will understand grace much better. For a gift of any amount, we're making it available for you. And at the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you that contact info.
Oh no.
Sometimes in churches you have various families. This past week I read of a church that had the Tater families that attended. Here they are listed with some of their characteristics. Uncle Dictator had some very lovable characteristics. And he is usually easy to get along with, especially if he is allowed to have his own way.
The truth of the matter is that he's going to have his own way or else. His policy seems to be that of rule or ruin, and he usually ruins. That's dictator. The aunt of the family is Hese. Hesitator is an amiable wife of Uncle Dictator.
She too has some very lovable qualities, but her greatest fault seems to be that of always waiting for someone else to go ahead. This characteristic is probably due in part to the dominant attitude of her husband. Cousin Emma. Is quite an attractive young lady and has some qualities which are not seen by other members of the family, but her greatest lack is that of originality. She always wants to do what other people do.
That's uh of course imitator. Cousin Aggie, Agitator, is the other girl in the family and is quite different from her mother or sister. Although she seems to be possessed of unflagging zeal and unlimited energy, she is constantly stirring up trouble.
Well, finally the last member of the family is cousin spec, spectator. He is the only son in the family and seems to be obsessed with the idea that he is outnumbered by the feminine portion of the family. He's a quiet, humble, unassuming sort of fellow. His worst fault is that he never does anything. He simply sits or stands quietly by and looks on without much comment.
That of course is spec. Today I want to speak to the specs, the spectators. Do you know that a person who did hundreds of churches, he studied hundreds of churches, he discovered that there is a 20, 30, 50% rule in most churches. 20% of the people give 80% of the money. 30% give the other 20% and 50%.
Give nothing. And this man says that the same is true for involvement and work at the church.
Okay. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. 30% do the other 20% of the work, and 50% do nothing. They are the spec. Taters.
We're living in a day and age of low commitment, and people don't have a whole lot of loyalties. We're living at a time when people are very selfishly oftentimes asking, what is in it for me? And they ask that question about their church as they do about their job and about their country. And because of that low commitment to the cause of Christ, suffers. The 14th chapter of Mark, I want you to turn to that passage of Scripture, remarkable one indeed.
Where a woman by the name of Mary is in the house of Simon the leper in Bethany. And this is the Mary that sat at the feet of Jesus and heard his word. You say, well, how do you know it's Mary? Because Mark doesn't say that. It's because John tells us that it's Mary who sat at the feet of Christ and heard his word.
It is she that anoints the Lord with ointment. And it says that while he was there at the house of Simon the leper, a woman with an alabaster vial of costly perfume. of pure nard. She broke the vial or the flask and poured it over his head. Interestingly, John says that she poured it on his feet.
That's not a discrepancy, it just means that she took that flask and she broke it, and she allowed the perfume to fall all over the master. About a pint of perfume, if you please. of the very expensive Spike Nard. which was taken from some of the leaves of a plant in the Himalayas. And she allowed that pint nearly 16 ounces of perfume to be totally Falling across the body of Christ.
And Jesus said that wherever she goes in the world or wherever the gospel goes in the world, she will be spoken of. in memory because of what she did. High commitment. But before I speak on this passage today, I want all of us to pray together. Because I realize that there is nothing that I can say that will be of profit to you apart from the Holy Spirit of God burning into our hearts the lessons.
that come to us from this passage of Scripture. You may be a young person, you may be an older person, whoever you are, you may be a Christian, you may not be a Christian. Would you just bow in prayer in this moment and ask God? to speak to your heart. Let's pray together.
Thank you. Our Father, we want to thank you today for this lovely story of commitment and of love. And we ask that in these moments, that as we speak on this topic, that your blessed Holy Spirit will take these words and make them real. Cause them to explode and every single heart bowed in your presence. We pray for those whose love has been dwindling.
We ask that you will rekindle it. We pray for those who do not know you as Savior. We ask that you will draw them to yourself. We pray for the young people with their temptations and with the struggles that they have in the right use of their time. We ask that your Holy Spirit will speak to them as well.
And we ask that each of us will be able to say that we are different. Because we have heard from the king. We ask in his name Amen. When Mary took that flask and broke it, and the perfume poured over the body of Jesus. Jesus in commenting on that said she has done a good work.
Don't you want to do a good work for God? Wouldn't that be wonderful if God were to say to you someday, you have done a good work, and He would be able to say, Well done, thou good and faithful servant? What are some of the lessons that come to us from this story about what constitutes a good work? The first lesson that we learn is that commitment to Christ, that loving commitment that we're going to talk about today. That commitment costs.
It costs. You know the rest of the story, she did this, and it says that some verse 4 were indignantly remarking to one another, for what purpose has this perfume been wasted? For this perfume might have been sold for over 300 denarii and the money given to the poor and they were scolding her. Remember that a denarius was a little silver coin that represented the wage that a working man would receive for one day.
So if the cost of this perfume was 300 denari, we are talking about an entire year's wage. in those days. Did you know that perfume was sometimes purchased and it was kept in these little bottles as an investment? People would buy it, they wouldn't necessarily buy gold coins, but they would buy perfume. Because if you had perfume it was worth a lot of money and it could be put away and it didn't occupy a lot of space and people would buy these expensive perfumes that were imported and then they would keep them and it would be their retirement fund.
Some people think that Mary gave all she had. It may well have been her life savings. 300 denarii in this flask. About 16 ounces, about the size of a pint. What an investment.
Love for Jesus Christ meant for her. What a cost it was when she realized that she was giving this so joyfully. And so spontaneously because she loved the Master, because of all the good things that Jesus Christ had done for her. It cost her money, first of all, and secondly, it cost her some misunderstanding. Notice that the people, and this was begun by Judas and then it was carried out by others, they all were indignant and they said, this could have been taken and it could have been sold and the money could have been given to the poor.
They all said. And so the text of scripture here is very clear. They thought that she had done something that was a waste. Do you remember when Jesus was going to feed the multitude, or before he did, Philip said to him, Two hundred denarii is not worth enough to feed all this multitude? And what they were saying was that it would take more than 200 denarii to feed 5,000 people.
Perhaps 300 denarii would have fed a couple of thousand people. And so what they said was, this could have been sold and it could have been given to the poor. Suddenly they have this heart concern for the poor. I doubt whether They would have sold their own flasks if they had any and given it to the poor, but they saw Mary doing this and their comment was, what waste. And, my dear friend, whenever you commit yourself fully to Jesus Christ and you love Him joyfully, you will find that there are people who will say to you, what a waste.
I've known young people who have gone to the mission field and they've said, you could have had a good career here at home, you could have been a computer operator, you could have gotten ahead in business, and there you are. You are out in Africa, or you're out in India, or you're in some remote part of the world with all that ability. What a waste! My dear friend, don't you realize that when Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, that his death was a sacrifice for sin, and from now on, nothing that we give can be a waste. Nothing.
You know that we as Christians are not very committed, I'm afraid. A couple of months ago, I caught a cab here in the city of Chicago, caught it from the church here to go downtown, and struck up a conversation with the driver, found out he was a Muslim from Damascus, Syria. I said to him, I said, Do you know the Quran by memory? Oh, yes, he said, I read it every day. I didn't know that he had a Quran with him, but he took it off the dashboard.
And he showed it to me and then he laid it back. And as soon as he laid it back, he said, always that I forgot to kiss it. And then he took it from the dashboard and he kissed it. I said, do you always kiss the Quran? He said, every time I lay it down, every time I pick it up, took it again, kissed it.
He said, I read from it, and I knew this was going to happen. This is designed here so that I can't use my right hand. They said, don't use your right hand, and we're going to make sure you can. We're going to set it up on the right side.
So, thank you, it worked. Yeah. But I said to him, do you read it? Do you memorize it? He said, every day I read it during my spare moments.
And then he said, you know, this April, he says, I'm going to go back to Damascus, Syria, because he said, in Syria, among the Arabs, among the Muslims, he said, there is such a closely knit community. He said, no matter what your need is, somebody will help you. But he said, it's not like that in America. He said, Here, everybody does his own thing. Everybody is hurrying and stepping over people to get ahead.
He said, I find much more community. in Syria. And I thought to myself, Oh my. Oh my. How many Christians are there who take the New Testament and who say, I kiss it, I read it every single day, I carry it with me because this is my life, this is my bread, this is my butter.
My friend, that's what commitment to Jesus Christ really is. Commitment is saying no matter what the cost is, no matter how much is involved, I love him because he first loved me and I give it to him gladly and freely because he is worthy of everything. He's worthy of money. He's worthy of being misunderstood. The first lesson is that commitment costs.
The second lesson is that commitment pays. It pays. What benefits did Mary receive as a result of this experience?
Well, for one thing, she blessed a lot of people. You wish that they'd have accepted the blessing with a little bit more dignity. But the Bible says in John that the fragrance filled the whole house. Isn't that beautiful? I mean, you take a pint.
of genuine, pure, concentrated Spike nard. And you pour it over the body of Jesus Christ, and the whole house is filled with the fragrance. What a beautiful thing. To think that that fragrance was blessing the lives of everyone that was in the house and giving that house an attractiveness that other houses on that block didn't have. That's one thing, is she blessed the lives of others, but also and more importantly, she received the commendation and the defense of Christ.
I love this passage. It says that this perfume has been wasted. It might have been sold for over 300 denarii and given to the poor, and they were scolding her. Verse 6, but Jesus said, Let her alone. Why do you bother her?
She has done a good deed for me. And then Jesus said, She did this in anticipation of my burial, and wherever the gospel is preached, this story is going to be preached. And my message today is a fulfillment of Jesus Christ's words. Many commentators look at this passage and they say, you know, I don't think that Mary knew that Jesus was going to die. She didn't have that in her mind that she was doing this, anointing him previously or before his burial.
She just did it, and then Jesus gave the act. that extra meaning. That's a possibility. Maybe she didn't quite know what she was doing. I like to think that the commentators are wrong.
Okay. Remember that this is the Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus Christ and she heard his word. Jesus never had a better listener than Mary. And I'd like to think that Mary knew a whole lot more possibly than the disciples did, that there at the feet of Jesus Christ, she knew that he was going to die. And in those days, the body, after it was dead, was taken and washed, and then it was perfumed.
And she was doing this in anticipation of his death and his burial. And she perhaps knew what she was doing. But then Jesus did say something that she couldn't have possibly anticipated. He said to her, wherever the gospel is preached, he said, this story is going to be preached too as a memorial to her. That she could have never dreamt about.
Think that 2,000 years later we'd be talking about the event. Isn't it wonderful how you do something for the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus is the one that adds to it in ways that you can never possibly anticipate? You do a good deed and you don't know it, but perhaps God has set up a whole string of dominoes and you hit one of those dominoes and you find a whole series of good events that flow from one decent, sane, loving act that was done without any fanfare and you find out that it has repercussions in eternity. That's just like God, isn't it? My friend, what you do today will have repercussions throughout all of eternity.
Make the best use of today. One of the things that the doctrine of grace does is grace not only saves us, but it helps us to live. It motivates us. It does not lead us into unrighteousness, but teaches us how to avoid sin. and to serve God with a sense of anticipation, without the need to think that serving God is simply a duty.
The book written by Charles Swindall, entitled Grace Awakening, really gives us a balanced view of grace. Rather than simply misinterpreting it, it helps us to understand what the Bible is speaking about. and how it applies to our lives, to our marriages, to our giving. For a gift of any amount we're making it available for you. Here's what you do, and I certainly hope that you have a pen or pencil handy.
You go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-888. 218-9337. And I want to thank the many people who support this ministry. It's because of people just like you that running to win goes around the world.
But I want to give you that contact info again because I do believe that this resource will be very freeing. Even as it helps all of us understand grace. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com, or you can pick up the phone and call 1-888-218-8. ninety three thirty seven.
It's time again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life. Today's question, Dr. Lutzer, comes to us from Peggy, who lives in Nebraska. This is her story. I am in such despair I'm afraid I've condemned myself for all eternity.
When I was around twelve years old, I became obsessed with the fear of selling or losing my soul to the devil. One night I woke up. There was a red light coming through the window on to my wall. I was petrified. My vivid imagination thought it was aliens or something horrible.
my mind kept saying, Would you give your soul to the devil now to make the light go away and be safe? I answered yes in the darkness. The next morning I was fearful of what I had done, but never talked to my parents or any one about it. I was sorry. I've asked forgiveness from God.
Did I really give my soul to the devil when I did this? does the devil have the power to take and keep my soul? I want so much to be a Christian and be with God. But I'm so afraid it's too late for me. does a deal you made with the devil before becoming a Christian stop you from becoming a Christian?
Or does it become void once you are a Christian?
Well, my dear friend Peggy, I'm so glad that you wrote and asked this question because Even as I think about your letter, I can just feel your incredible distress over this. Imagine as a 12-year-old girl doing this and telling no one and having to bear that in your soul all by yourself. God bless you. I believe that I have some words of hope for you, Peggy. The answer to the question that you asked, you asked a number of them, but the sins that you commit before you become a Christian, or, quote, selling your soul to the devil as you think you might have done, that should not prevent you from becoming a Christian, and most assuredly it does not mean that you cannot become a Christian.
God is stronger than the devil. And if you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, the promise that you made to the devil is instantly null and void. Because what you have done is you have changed the ownership of your life. And if Jesus is your owner, If Jesus is your Lord and King, Then Satan may come and try to claim you and insist that somehow you belong to him, but the promise made is invalid. Let me give you an illustration.
Let us suppose when my child was we have three children, my wife and I but let us suppose that when one of them was four or five years old, someone came to me and said, You know, we just sold your child to the devil. What do you mean? You're not the owner of that child. My wife and I are the owners of that child in human terms, and ultimately the child belongs to God. You have no right to do that.
Now listen carefully, Peggy. If you're a believer in Jesus, you belong to Jesus. Any promise that was made to the devil? Any insistence by the devil that you should continue to give yourself to him, just rebuke it and I hope that you can pray with others who can help you rebuke it. Satan has no authority over you if you understand who you are in Jesus.
accept these words of hope. and move on. Thank you, Peggy, for that question, and doctor Lutzer, thank you for that thorough answer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, you can go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer. Or you can call at 1-888-218-9337.
That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running2Win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Erwin Lutzer has now begun a six-part series on commitment to Christ, and he'll tell us how it impacts every area of life.
Next time, more about what commitment means. Plan to join us. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
