[0:00] Music So reading this morning from John's Gospel John's Gospel chapter 12 We're going to read the first 11 verses this morning John's Gospel chapter 12 beginning at verse 1 Have you all got your Bibles with you?
[0:43] We were just talking about Is everyone rummaging at something? Okay let's read the word of God Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany Where Lazarus lived Whom Jesus had raised from the dead Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honour Martha served While Lazarus was among those Reclining at the table with him Then Mary took About half a litre of pure nard An expensive perfume She poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet With her hair And the house was filled With the fragrance Of the perfume But one of his disciples Judas Iscariot Who was later to betray him Objected Why wasn't this perfume sold And the money given to the poor?
[1:37] It was worth a year's wages He did not say this Because he cared about the poor But because he was a thief As keeper of the money bag He used to help himself To what was put into it Leave her alone Jesus replied It was intended that she should save This perfume for the day of my burial You'll always have the poor Among you But you will not always have me Meanwhile A large crowd of Jews Found out that Jesus was there And came Not only because of him But also to see Lazarus Lazarus Whom he had raised From the dead So the chief priests Made plans To kill Lazarus as well For on account of him Many of the Jews Were going over to Jesus And believing in him This is the word of the Lord Amen Amen Let's pray shall we
[3:03] Lord as we turn to your word This morning We pray Lord That you would speak to us In a very special way As we think of the fragrance Of the perfume That filled that house We pray Lord That we might see something Of the fragrance Of your glory this morning That we might know What it is to follow The Lord Jesus Christ To be different from other people To be different from the world That Lord we might follow you And that we might commit Our lives to you More and more each day As we look forward To that great day When we will be with you In glory Speak to us Lord This morning we pray Help me to speak Help us to hear your voice Together for Jesus sake Amen God's given us Five senses Seeing Hearing
[4:04] Touching Tasting And smelling He tells us of the importance Of the ears When we read in Romans chapter 10 That faith comes from hearing And hearing Through the word of Christ Let's never despise them Or underrate the importance Of the word Let us never underrate The power And the importance Of preaching As God's appointed means Of proclamation Dance Drama Music Are no substitute For the God Given act Of preaching But that's not to ignore The other senses We have the ordinances Of baptism And of communion Which to us Are visual signs Which speak to us A powerful message Of the work That God's done In our lives And in our world And smells too Can be very evocative Our senses Can be moved By memories They conjure up From the past
[5:04] A particular perfume Which evokes Romantic memories Or perhaps current memories Of your dearly beloved one The smell of steam railways Like on the North York Moors Railway The smell of steam railways So often reminds me Of family holidays Which we spent As a young child In the Isle of Man And being down And going on The Narrow Gauge Railway In the Isle of Man Or the smell of freshly ground And brewed coffee Is said to be psychologically A good way to sell your house Someone comes into your house And they're hit by that aroma And that smell And they think I've got to have this house I've got to have it And no doubt There'll be other smells That you find evocative In some ways Well when I was reading John chapter 12 In a recent quiet time I got to verse 3 And I just stopped Verse 3 says this John chapter 12 And verse 3 Which says this
[6:05] Mary therefore Took a pound Of expensive ointment Made with pure nard And anointed the feet Of Jesus And wiped his feet With her hair And then it says this The house was filled With the fragrance Of the perfume Wow That verse Just hit me So powerfully Every time I read that It always does I'm sure Hopefully it always Will continue To do so Just the thought In that verse And I just Wanted to just Stop there And I just Wanted to think About Mary I wanted to think About those words About that thought The fragrance Filling the house Here's a beautiful picture Sadly in a sense Verse 4 Brings in negativity Verse 4 Brings us down to earth Because there we read Of Judas Iscariot And how he Is so naked Seven Of course he goes on To betray the Lord
[7:07] Now as all scripture Is important It has something To teach us And we can't Ignore that fact And so we will touch On Judas this morning But I want our main Emphasis this morning To be As it was When I paused And mulled over Verse 3 I want our thought To be on Mary And upon the beauty Of the perfume Of the fragrance And what it tells us About our love For the Lord Jesus Christ Let's just pause This morning And let's just Together Take in That fragrance What Mary did In anointing Jesus' feet And head Actually Released a fragrance Which was so powerful As Jesus Said in Matthew 26 And Mark 14 Accounts of this story Jesus said It's so powerful That when the gospel Is proclaimed Around the whole world What Mary has done Will be told In memory of her And that's true It is It's in the gospel
[8:07] We're talking about This morning 2000 years later We're remembering That beautiful act That she did Not that we can Center our thoughts On Mary So much as On the saviour That she brought That perfume to Who knows The effects Years later Of one event Of one encounter Who knows The effect Of one encounter That's out of Beach mission We might have One summer With somebody On the beach Of Whitby We don't always know The outcome Of our labours For the Lord This time Of the side Of eternity I remember A number of years ago We were just On the last day Of the mission The Friday afternoon We were just Clearing up on the beach And a boy Of about 17 18 years of age Came along the beach With his father And said Oh is it the beach mission Is still here They just arrived that day They said Oh is it the beach mission Is still here That's wonderful And he went on To tell me a story About 8 or 10 years previous That young boy
[9:08] When he was younger Had won one of our Prize CDs On the beach With songs and stories And all the way home From the holiday They were playing that In the car And it went on That after that The young boy Went to a good church Joined a Sunday school And a short story Is this Through that one encounter Now the whole family The parents The brothers and sisters Had all come to trust In the Lord Jesus Christ Who knows What the effect Of one encounter Can be And there's a lesson Here for us then From Mary Our deeds Like Mary's May be known Into the future But will our deeds Be remembered For good Or for bad Not that Mary Was seeking praise For herself That would have been Out of keeping With Mary That would indeed Have spoiled the whole act Of what she was doing How will we be remembered What do we seek Deep down Inside
[10:08] What do we seek Are we seeking What we do for the Lord Personal recognition Very easy to feel Important And we need to remember Those words That John the Baptist Spoke He Jesus Must increase But I Must decrease May you and I Just sink Into the background That our glorious Lord Might be the one Who's glorified And that was the whole point Of what Mary did Though she's remembered She's remembered For bringing glory To the Lord Jesus Christ And it's good You see To give Words of encouragement To people We're human And the Lord Knows that Now there's a view In some circles I've heard You never thank The preacher You never give the preacher Any good feedback Why?
[11:04] Because People are afraid That the preacher Might give glory To himself And not to God It's been awkward Saying this really When I'm standing here As the preacher This morning And I'm not looking For glory But you see We're quick enough To criticise Sermons aren't we?
[11:21] May we also seek Like Mary To be an encouragement May you continue Week by week To be an encouragement To your pastor As he brings to you The word of God But let's return To that scene In the house now Of Simon the leper The healed leper Simon the leper Because Mark And Matthew And their accounts Both placed a story In that house John doesn't tell us Where it took place But he's writing Of the same incident And Jesus Now is in the Last week Of his earthly life Before the horrors Of his crucifixion Come upon him The mood was no doubt Heavy in some way Oh how different From the opening Of Jesus' public ministry Three years previously Back in John chapter 2 We read of the account Of the wedding feast At Canaan In Galilee There the mood Was buoyant Even exuberant There was anticipation Amongst the disciples Of this newly launched
[12:22] Mission Of the Lord Jesus Was this Jesus The one who was going To politically Liberate The Jewish nation From their Roman occupiers And overlords Oh the disciples Had much to learn Didn't they That's what they Were expecting They were going To be disappointed Maybe that's what Happened with Judas Maybe it wasn't What he expected But now with Bethany Three years later The mood is Significantly different Dark heavy clouds Are massing On the horizon Do you have that Phenomena in the sky Here a couple of weeks Ago when the storm Ophelia passed by And it brought That gloom And darkness And that's happened Here in Whitby Certainly in Darlington It did And it became Like an eclipse During the day And it was such a Strange and eerie Feeling to be there It was like night time And all the street lights Came on automatically That darkness That oppression Of that cloud
[13:23] Bearing in upon us And the clouds Are gathering now In the life In the life of the Lord Jesus There's a burden In the heart of Jesus The celebration now Is somewhat muted The talk is more Of burial Than of renewal Yet even here There is a note Of optimism There's a sense Of celebration As Jesus refers To the memory Of what Mary did As I said She did it As a sense Of anointing His body For burial But also The memory Of her act Wherever the gospel Is proclaimed In the whole world Matthew wrote In his account Of this In my 26 Verse 3 Of Matthew's gospel Truly Jesus Says Truly I say to you Wherever this gospel Is proclaimed In the whole world What she has done Will be told Will be told in memory Of her
[14:24] But Jesus Comes to Bethany And he wants To spend a quiet Time now With his friends With Mary With Martha With Lazarus And he'd recently Raised from the dead And with other Of his friends He wants to spend A quiet time Together with them Before the horrific Days that he knew Lay ahead But we should examine Our own hearts Our own homes And ask ourselves Whether when Jesus Comes amongst us Are we bringing Joy to the heart Of Jesus By our worship By our work By our witness Oh the benefits Of sweet friendship We all need friends Even Jesus did At this dark And gloomy time In his life So let me ask you Are you a friend To someone And as a friend To someone Are you An encourager Don't shun Somebody away Because
[15:24] Oh I'm too busy now I'm too tired I've got a lot on I can't be bothered With you now We might not say To somebody I can't be bothered With you Does that sometimes Go through The back of our minds Why now Why has this person Turned up now Jesus needed friends At this time of need How much more Do other people Remember a friend In need It said A friend in need Is a friend indeed Jesus said Whatever you do For the least Of these little ones You do it For me And so as we look Together This morning At really the first Eight verses Of John chapter 12 I want to give you Two main headings And each of those We'll break down Into three sections First one is this Contrasts To Mary And secondly The characteristics Of Mary Contrasts to Mary Then
[16:24] There are three Well actually four People Three headings That we'll see here People I want To compare Mary to Firstly then There's the sinful woman In Luke chapter 7 And verses 36 to 38 Which we'll read that In a moment She has an account In each of these Four gospels Of a woman Who comes to Jesus Who pours perfume On his feet Who anoints him The accounts In Matthew 26 And Mark 14 Refer to the same Incident As John chapter 12 There are some Differences in the Accounts In the accounts Of Matthew And of Mark The ointment Is poured on Jesus' head In John's gospel It's on his feet I think we can assume There's enough of it To be poured in both Places When the gospel Writers write They each come With a slightly Different angle And remember A different bit Of the story And we often Piece it together
[17:25] To get the full Picture But we tell And remember Something We remember The bits That struck us Most When John Writes here About pouring On Jesus' feet What he wants To then draw out In the story Is the attitude Of Judas Because John's Going to go on To show how Judas Was the betrayer Was the betrayer Against the Lord Jesus Christ Well the gospel Is recorded Exactly the same Details of the story Why would the Lord Have given us Four gospels In the Bible And so We can learn From each of these So there are Some differences But it comes together To give one United picture Matthew Mark John All telling The same story But when we turn To Luke's gospel Luke chapter 7 In verse 36 It's about somebody else One of the Pharisees Asked him to eat with him And he That's Jesus Went into the Pharisee's house And took his plate To the table And behold A woman of the city Who was a sinner When she learned That he was reclining At the table In the Pharisee's house
[18:25] Brought an alabaster Flask of ointment And standing behind him At his feet Weeping She began to wet his feet With her tears And wipe them With the hair of her head And kissed his feet And anointed them With the ointment Now when the Pharisee Who had invited him Saw this He said to himself If this man Were a prophet He would have known What sort Who and what sort Of woman This was Who was touching him For she's a sinner And he stands there In condemnation Of that woman Now between these two accounts These two events There are similarities They both take place In a house Of a man called Simon But we can't read Too much into that Because it was A very common name Peter himself Was known as Simon Peter Another Simon Both involved The pouring of perfume And drying with hair Both involved women And who were aware Of their own destitution Their own need of Jesus Sinners and friends alike Need Jesus In fact we're all sinners
[19:27] By nature Even if we've come To that point We trusted Christ As our saviour We become daily Probably more and more Aware of our sin More aware of our failings More aware of our need For Jesus And then maybe Mary's actions Were in some way Prompted By what the other woman Had done Perhaps Jesus and the disciples Had recalled That instance They'd been talking They'd been talking And she knew of it And maybe That had prompted her We don't know That's speculation But that's where The similarities end Look at some of the Contrasts Luke's story Takes place in Galilee The other gospels Place the story Of Mary of Bethany In Judea Luke's story Takes place In the home Of Simon the Pharisee But the other story Takes place In the home Of Simon the leper A common name In Luke We see a sinner Perhaps Speculation is She was a former Harlot Prostitute But she was a sinner But we read
[20:27] Of Mary of Bethany Of a virtuous woman We read no reference To her sin Though of course She was a sinner She was very aware Of that That's why she'd come In thankfulness to Jesus But we see a different Aspect Of that woman In Luke We see a woman Who's a type Of a true Christian Penitent But on the account Of Mary It's a type Of a true Christian Worshipper In Luke's story We see a woman Who in her tears Inadversely Wets Jesus' feet Pourses the perfume And then She dries them Because she's Inadversely Wets them with her tears And then she anoints them But in Mary's account Mary deliberately Washes his feet With her perfume And then dries them With her hair So the order Is slightly different So we have two accounts Of two different women Yet each stood In need And in awe And in worship Of Jesus You know
[21:28] Whatever the state Of your heart And of your soul This morning You stand As I stand In need of Jesus We come to him And we worship him And we worship him You may be someone You're honest You realise You realise The world Knows what you're like People see How bad you are Like the sinful woman In Luke's story You can come to Jesus With your sin And you can be assured Of his love His forgiveness You come to him You lay your sins You wrongdoing With the foot Of the cross And he will forgive He will take his sin Upon yourself He will be your sin bearer Your sovereign Your Lord And the word of God Promises That we put our trust In Jesus He will not reject us He will not send us away He says Come to me All you who are Burdened Heavy laden He says I will give you rest
[22:28] If you never come To the Lord Jesus Christ Today this morning Come to him Seek his forgiveness But maybe this morning You're one Who knows That you are In a steady And a virtuous Relationship with God They come like Mary This morning Yes come as a sinner We're all sinners But maybe you're further Along the Christian walk Than some other people Don't be arrogant About that None of us Is there yet We walk daily Through life We're on life's pilgrimage So one day We will reach heaven And we will see Then the glory Of all that we've been Looking forward to For now We walk on that way Continue on that journey Continue on that walk But as you live for Jesus Don't let yourself Or your witness Or your Lord down Don't let him down By not walking closely With him each day As you know you ought
[23:28] And of course remember That this contrast Applies to men As much as to women Gentlemen We so often Reading the Bible Don't we The stories all seem To be about men And the ladies You're expected to listen And say Does this apply to me I'm not a man I'm a woman So isn't it nice To find a story The other way around Gentlemen This story this morning Is about a lady But it's aimed to us As well Because whether you're Male or female Young or old You stand in the same Relationship And you stand in the Same need Of the Lord Jesus Christ How refreshing Perhaps to see The parallels reversed So there's the woman There's the woman In Luke's gospel Who came But second comparison Judas Iscariot It'd be nice now If we didn't have to Stop and look at Judas His comments Even as the beautiful Fragrance of the perfume Still pervades that home His comments Bring us Down to earth With a bump It brings us
[24:29] Down to the reality Of what's going on In these days When I looked at this Chapter in my quiet time I just wanted to linger Here at verse 3 And take in the beauty Of the fragrance That filled the house With the presence of Jesus But no matter How wonderful We perceive the gospel To be As we dwell upon The beauty of the Lord The gospel will continue To have it detract us We can't just ignore Judas Indeed he's there In the Bible To teach us A lesson Somebody posted A wonderful testimony As they often do On Facebook this week Of how the Lord Had changed their life It was a powerful testimony And lots of people Were replying to And wonderful Praise the Lord That's great But there are other people Who are putting comments in It's a load of rubbish You're deceived Your God doesn't exist And all the rest of us Don't we face Those sorts of comments
[25:29] Day after day Don't we feel That more and more people Do not want to know God They want to say That we are mad Are you mad? So be it If it's mad To follow Jesus Enjoy being mad Because when it comes down To the mad ones Of those When they get to the Gate of eternity They'll realise It was right And that's not a laughing matter Is it?
[25:57] We long To take the gospel out To these other people To the Judasers Of this world To go out to them And to say Here is Word of God Trust it Yesterday Today as we were Doing the leaflet Distribution You were to say To someone Here's a Christian leaflet Oh don't want to know They prejudge They have preconceptions And misconceptions Just give them the leaflet Let them stick Wherever it is In their pockets And pray the Lord Will cause them To read it And to be moved Circumstances today Might be a bit different From the events of Judas But we meet The same source Of carnal attitudes And their unrepentant hearts What was the problem With Judas?
[26:37] Judas' problem Was a love of money No doubt perhaps A disillusionment That Jesus wasn't The sort of earthly Liberator you'd been expecting But he was a thief He had his hands In the money bag He was the treasurer Of the apostles See that in John 13 Verse 29 Some thought That because Judas had the money bag Jesus was telling him Buy what we need For the feast Or he should give Something to the poor You see He was a thief He should have done The right thing He did the wrong thing And so he was quick To come in here And moan About the waste Of the perfume Yeah It certainly wasn't Rubbish perfume That she brought Mary hadn't been down To Sainsbury's And bought Sainsbury's basic perfume As the small price Or something like that She hadn't been down To super drug She brought the best That she could It was worth A whole year's wages And yet in one moment
[27:38] Of exuberance Madness Whatever She blew it all Some would say She blew it all She just poured it What a waste On Jesus' feet Oh how wrong Judas was How wrong he was And he even led The other disciples To complain In Matthew and Mark's Account We see the others Are complaining It seems that Judas Was the ringleader Why wasn't his money Perfumed sold Why wasn't it given To the poor On the face of it We might be tempted To concede That Judas has a point But John goes on To reveal something More sinister In Judas His real motive He did not say this Because he cared About the poor But because He was a thief As keeper of the money bag He used to help himself To what was put Into it John couldn't be More blunt Could he He was a thief He wanted the perfume To be sold So the money Are going to the money bag And he could take A cut from it
[28:38] How warped Can a person's view be Judas has just seen An act of Unsurpassing Loveliness And he calls us An extravagant waste He was an Embittered man And Had An embittered View of things What he was like Outwardly of course Was a picture Of what his heart Was like And so he could See no good In what Mary Had done Other times We find ourselves Becoming critical Of others Criticizing the acts The things That they do Looking for Unworthy motives Even when somebody's Done something good What do we say Oh but they had An ulterior motive They didn't really Do it for that reason We Can we Tempted to become Critical Do we sometimes Become critical Of other people Even within the church You know If we start to think Like that We need to stop We need to stop Right here We need to stop
[29:39] For a moment And stop examining Other people And start to look At our own heart And say What's my heart like Why am I saying The things that I am saying And that's that the Lord Would change Ourselves within What a stark contrast Then Judas stands in When compared to Mary While Mary Nailed at Jesus' feet In adoring love And extravagant devotion Judas sat in Condescending arrogance Questioning Mary And her motives While Mary was a worshipper Judas was a thief Whilst Mary gave In sacrificial honour Judas Saw personal gain Whilst Mary Demonstrated The way of grace Judas Demonstrated The way of sin What way are you on This morning Which side of this Division are you on Where do you fit Into this contrast Are you a Mary
[30:39] Or are you a Judas As simple as that You can't sit on the fence With Jesus Which side Are you on this morning And Jesus Draws out that division Strongly When he comes out In defence Of Mary And her actions In verse 7 He draws out The meaning of her action That she was preparing him For his burial In a sense She was shown her devotion To Jesus Before it was too late Warren Weasby Said this She was giving the roses While he was yet alive And not bringing them To the funeral She had some insight Perhaps what was going to happen But she brought her devotion There and then To Jesus It's impossible to know How much She understood The significance Of her action But it's noteworthy To see that she took An opportunity Whenever she could To sit at the feet Of Jesus And to learn from him Remember when Martha Was busy Serving And fussing
[31:40] And saying Jesus Why isn't Mary Helping me He says Mary has chosen A better thing She's sitting She's learning At the feet of Jesus We take every opportunity To learn from Jesus More we learn from him More we love him More we follow him Do we take that opportunity In a personal quiet time In Bible reading In meditation In prayer Do we take the opportunity To gather With the people of God Weekly And whenever we can In the church Let me ask you a question Are you planning To be here this evening There will be some of you Who can't make it this evening Very genuine reasons Of childcare Or some other genuine reason Can I challenge you If you weren't planning To come this evening And you can't think Of a good reason Then why don't you Come here this evening Not because I'm preaching But because This is the Lord's day This is not the Lord's morning Is it This is the Lord's day
[32:41] And we should give The whole of it to him Now the Bible doesn't say Thou shall go to Two services each Sunday But it is his day And we should rejoice To take every opportunity To come together And hear the word of God So you're not planning To come this evening Please change your mind And come And be with God's people This evening We learn from Jesus In fellowship With other believers And in reading Good books One of the joys for me The theology course I'm studying at the moment It's forcing me To read books That wouldn't perhaps Otherwise have read And there's a blessing In reading And on this point Then finally About the contrast With Judas Jesus said You'll always have The poor among you But you'll not always Have me Two extremes To be avoided here Jesus is not teaching The giving to the poor Has no place In the disciples Obligation Mark draws out The thought
[33:41] In chapter 14 In Mark's gospel In verse 7 He says Whenever you want You can do good for them So not following Coming to Jesus Doesn't mean we can't Help other people John makes reference To giving to the poor At the time of the Passover Chapter 13 But on the other hand Jesus is certainly Not dismissing The centrality Of his personal Self-sacrificing Mission For sinners The two go together We're devoted to Jesus We will want to give And help other people We can't separate them Bruce Milne says It will be in fact Part of the fragrance Of the gospel Which is destined To fill the whole world The two go together But in a third contrast Martha and Lazarus Here's the third contrast Two people together now There's Mary's sister And brother Martha who served And Lazarus Who'd been raised From the dead What Mary did Was a beautiful thing And yet there's nothing Negative in the contrast Here with her brother And sister
[34:41] Mary represents worship Significantly She's mentioned Three times in the gospels And always in association With Jesus' feet In Luke 10 She stitched his feet Listening to his teaching In John 11 She folded his feet And dependence on him When she grieves The death of her brother And now in chapter 12 She anoints his feet As an expression Of her devotion She's at the feet Of Jesus Such is the fruit Of a humble spirit Can we come To the feet Of Jesus But note Her sister Martha Martha represents work Mary represents worship Martha represents work We know that When everything is busy And all that's going on There's Mary Martha busy serving The people And doing a very Practical thing And then Lazarus Though there are no Recorded words Of Lazarus In the Bible His miraculous life Is an effective witness For the Lord Jesus And we too Are to walk
[35:42] As Romans 6 says In newness Of life So for the Christian life There's to be A beautiful balance Of Mary And of Martha And of Lazarus Beautiful balance Of worship Of work And of witness So that's the first point I'm conscious of time So I'm trying to move quickly now The first point That's the contrast We see of Mary To those other people But secondly Some of the characteristics Of Mary We've already Covered or implied Much about Mary's character already By contrasting her To the others In this story What else can we now Add about her We might sum up Her love And her worship In these few words Her love Her worship Was public It was spontaneous It was sacrificial Remember in 2 Samuel 24 When David insists On paying Aaron For his threshing For and he says this In verse 24 Of 2 Samuel 24 I will not offer Burnt offerings To the Lord my God That cost me nothing
[36:42] It's easy to give Jesus The fag ends Of the day The bits and pieces That nobody else wants The 10-peen The collection Or whatever We need to give Sacrificially to him And Mary's love And worship Is lavish It's personal It's unembarrassed And so we can see here Three aspects Of Mary's love We see love's Extravagance We see love's Humility And we see love's Unselfconsciousness Love's extravagance We've already seen The cost of the perfume And a criticism It received We see Mary understood That the words Extravagance And waste Are irrelevant Where Christian devotion Is concerned Because the death Of Jesus Was no waste The death of Jesus Took him to the anguish Of the cross And when we see The anguish Of the cross Anything we give Is nothing Compared with that What's your response To God this morning
[37:43] Remember the famous Words of the missionary CT stud He said this If Jesus Christ Be God And died for me Then no sacrifice Can be too great For me To make for him And somebody else Has said of Mary She knows distinctively That high heaven Rejects the law Of nicely calculated Loss Or more We can have all sorts Of formulas How much I give And all the rest of it But when we look To heaven And we look To the Lord Jesus Once crucified On the cross Now risen The glory of heaven Surely Our love Should be Extravagant How extravagant Are you With the Lord Jesus Christ But we see in Mary Not just loves extravagance But loves humility When Mary poured the perfume Over Jesus' feet Over his feet Over his feet Stresses humility It was a servant's job To wash the guests' feet
[38:44] Mary wasn't a servant In the home She was one of the guests And yet She came to the Lord Jesus And in her act She offers a spirit Of humility Without At least trace Of ostentation And then we see Love's unconsciousness Having anointed Jesus' feet Mary proceeds To untie her hair And use it To wipe his feet This was to do His etiquette Of the day Most unseemly A woman did not Let her hair down In public Remember Paul wrote In 1 Corinthians 11 And verse 15 As a woman's long hair Is her glory And in that sense What Mary does She humbles herself She lays her glory At the feet of Jesus What do we lay At the feet of Jesus?
[39:37] Are we conscious What other people think? Yes she'd be misunderstood Yes she would be criticized Isn't that what usually happens When somebody gives His or her best To the Lord Why are we criticized?
[39:51] Why are we misunderstood? It's this People don't understand Because it makes People feel uncomfortable Because sometimes We are inadvertently Showing up Other people's failings We don't mean to do that We don't want A court controversy For the sake of this We don't want to make Ourself feel like Martyrs Who have been victimized So we can say Look at me I'm suffering Look at me I'm a martyr For the cause We don't seek that But it happens We have a new And a radical Motivation now That of gratitude We're saved By The undeserved Grace of God And so we're moved And we should be To give ourselves In His service In all that we possess So the actions of Mary Represent a model Of service to Jesus For every generation
[40:52] And so what she did Will be remembered For the years to come When the gospel Goes across the world What are we remembering About Mary We're not glorifying Mary and Bethany But we're seeing in her A model for you and I How we should show To Jesus Our love Our love Which is Extravagant Our love Which is brought In humility Our love Which we bring Without self-consciousness We're saying In conclusion Well How sweet There's no question This is a statement Of excitement How sweet Was the fragrance Which Mary Released into the room That day How sweet it was Beautiful verse That is And if we follow Jesus With the same love And desire That Mary did Then the fragrance Of what she did Will also live in us What she did We're told Has been told In memory of her Not to bring her glory
[41:54] But to bring Ongoing glory To her Lord And our Lord We need to make sure Then You are more like Mary Than you are like That other woman In Luke chapter 7 We certainly need To make sure That we're more like Mary Than we are like Judas We don't want to be Judas It's interesting People call their children Mary Who will call their child Judas He's a betrayer And we should share In the worship of Mary Being like her And her extravagance In her humility And her own self-consciousness But not forgetting The role of Martha And of Lazarus We come Bringing Our worship But like Martha We should bring our work For him That should flow out Of our worship We should bring our witness Like Lazarus That should flow out Of our worship for him And why do we do All of this For the same reason That Mary did it 2,000 years ago In bringing
[42:54] Her worship To the feet of Jesus It was to bring glory To the great God And Saviour To her great God And Saviour And you're in Jesus This morning To your great God And Saviour And so we come to him We come To the feet of Jesus Metaphorically as well We come to the feet of Jesus Are we laying ourselves Before him Are we open to him Saying Lord Jesus Take me Use me For your glory Amen And now to him Who is able to do Far more abundantly Than all we ask or think According to the power At work within us To him be glory In the church And in Christ Jesus Throughout all generations Forever and ever Amen меш Regardless Vil Of lken In the church Attention From here To her
[43:57] To her demain