Weekly Sermons

A Beautiful Thing for Jesus!

There are 89 chapters in the 4 gospels; 29 of them (33%) cover the ten days between Jesus’ arrival in Bethany on the Friday before Palm Sunday and His Resurrection from the dead ten days later on what we call Easter.

And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the 12 disciples aside, and on the way said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and He will be raised on the third day.” - Matthew 20:17-19

The disciples did not grasp the implications of Christ’s death and resurrection until after Jesus rose from the dead (John 20:9). But there was a lady who understood, and Jesus said whenever you preach the gospel she should be talked about!

Mark 14:1-9

Different feelings about Jesus on the outside and inside - V. 1-3a

Mary’s costly act of worship - V. 3ff

https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/242003/536435/main-image

What Mary had done was an act of worship. The word worship derives from the word for worth. When we say that Jesus is worthy of worship and everything we have, we are expressing how much we value Him!

Mary wasn’t concerned with the cost of her act of worship, she was thinking about how worthy Jesus is of her worship!

Judas’ criticism shows him for the hypocrite he was - V. 4-5

Be very careful about criticizing the worship of others. You are not called to be the worship police! You are called to worship Jesus in Spirit and in truth.

Jesus’ rebuke of Judas (and some of us)    - V. 6-7

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”    -John Piper, Let the Nations be glad!

Jesus highlights Mary’s beautiful act of faith & worship - V. 8-9

Mary recognized the inexpressible worth of Jesus’ death for sinners before it happened!

Mary recognized the inexpressible worth of Jesus’ death for sinners before it happened! When we partake of the Lord’s Supper we are doing the same thing after it happened!

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though He die, yet shall He live.”    - John 11:25

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? - 2 Cor. 2:14-16