Jesus is always on mission. He's going places, but if you
will cry out to him, he'll take detours and visit you.
Luke chapter 10, verse 38. We're going to, we're going to
look at a family. We're, we're entering into the,
the Easter season. You know, we're, we're next week
is going to be Palm Sunday and then we have Easter.
I can't believe it's already upon us.
So I want, I didn't want to start a new series because we're
going to get into the Easter season.
So I want to look at a family that LED right up to the passion
narrative. The passion narrative is that
Passion week where Jesus suffered.
You know, the word passion literally means to suffer.
So ladies, if your husband says I'm passionate for you, baby,
that means he's willing to suffer for you.
Amen. That was an opportunity for you
ladies to wave your hankies and say Amen.
Woo. So we're we're willing, you
know, when we're passionate for God, we're willing to suffer for
him. And so we're going to look at
coming right up to this passion narrative and there's a family I
want to look at this morning. It's interesting how God will
move through families. He'll deal with families.
Do you recognize that in in Scripture, we have a number of
families that God would call one and reach the others?
History is replete with stories of one or one man or one woman
that encountered God, and God swept through their entire
family many times. There were many healings and
miracles in that family. God restoring the generations
and out of that family would become story after story of God
touching the nations of the earth through one family.
And so God is a family God. Do you know that there's a
reason he refers to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob? He refers to himself
generationally through this one particular family.
And now that's not isolated to the patriarchs.
That is, that is how God operates in the here and now.
I told the first service that in a very real sense, in the
spirit, there is a coat of arms over your, your family.
You know, a coat of arms was the, the old English people.
They would have a coat of arms and they would have different
icons. They would have different words
that summed up the legacy and the calling, the assignment of
that household. And they would live with that
over them. They would, they would
understand that this is what we are called to.
They were called to nobility and courage and so forth.
And there's a very real sense in which God has that for families,
that God moves through families and wants to operate through
them. And in this passage, we're going
to meet this family. It was made-up of three
siblings. They may have had more, but we
don't know about the others. But we do know there was two
sisters, Mary and Martha, and a brother, Lazarus, and they were
a family. And in this passage, Jesus is
coming through. He's on the move.
He's on his way somewhere. And the older sister, Martha,
says, hey, would you come to our house?
And so Jesus drops by and comes to their house.
And so another passage that there's three primary passages.
And then there's a parallel passage that speak of this
family, these siblings. One of the passages say that
this house belongs to Martha. It's the one we're looking at
right now. But another passage says the
house was owned by Simon the leper.
And many scholars believe that Simon was probably the father of
Mary, Martha and Lazarus and that indeed, Jesus healed him.
And that's he would, that's how the family met Jesus.
And they're very close to Jesus. And you'll see after this
passage where Jesus, Martha says, hey, come to our house.
Jesus will find his way back to their place again and again
because he was welcome there. And I don't know about you, but
I want my house to be that kind of house.
I want our church to be that kind of church.
Jesus is looking for places he can visit.
Look at, listen to what it says here.
This is beautiful, verse 38 of Luke chapter 10.
Now as they went on their way, so it's saying Jesus was in a in
a, in a village. He was ministering to a group of
people. They went on their way and Jesus
went on his way. It says Jesus entered a village.
So Jesus came to town. You know, Jesus visits cities.
He still does. There are cities that have been
touched by the Spirit of God, nations that have been touched
by the Spirit of God. There's such a thing
theologically as God's omnipresence.
God's everywhere present, but there's such a thing as his
manifest present. And those are two different
things. There are places that God will
come to more. He'll be there more than he is
in other places. And so Jesus entered a village
and a woman named Martha welcomed him in him into her
house. And so even though he was in the
city, he needed a homeowner, somebody to say, hey, come to
our place, somebody that would host his presence.
And that's still the way God operates.
God will visit places. He'll be passing through and,
and you see it throughout Jesus ministry that he'll be on his
way somewhere and someone will intercept him and invite him or
call out to him or and petition him.
You know the blind Bartimaeus, he yells out, Jesus, son of
David, do not pass, ask me by. Jesus is on his way somewhere,
but he ends up taking a detour and doing a miracle.
And you'll see that throughout Jesus's ministry, Jesus was
easily interruptible in his schedule.
He really was, and he still is. Jesus is always on mission.
He's going places, but if you will cry out to him, he'll take
detours and visit you. But he only visits the places
where he's invited to visit. He didn't go to everybody's
house. He went to Martha's because
Martha stepped up and said, hey, come to our house today.
And so he came to a city or a village and then he came to a
house because he was invited. He was on his way.
And often you'll, you'll see this, we don't have time to
develop this, but you'll see this in the ways of God that
Jesus will be on his way and he will almost walk by enticing you
to call out. You know, when, when the the
disciples were in the boat and Jesus walked on water, he wasn't
coming to them, He was walking by and they cried out.
And then he answered Moses. Moses is watching his the sheep,
and he looks up and he sees a burning Bush and he's wondering
why is it not being consumed? He sees something supernatural.
We don't know how many shepherds saw something supernatural
happening on the mountainside, but it says Moses said to
himself, I must see this thing, why it does not consume.
And when he turned aside to go, the Lord spoke to him.
And so there's this thing of God capturing our attention and we
capture his. And God will do things
supernatural in your vicinity to see what are you going to do
about it? Are you hungry for him to pass
by? Are you content to just be in
the house when he's there? Because listen to what happens
here. This is this is disturbing and
insightful at the same time, OK. It says Martha welcomed him into
her house and she had a sister called Mary who sat at his feet
and listened to his teaching. So even though Martha invited
him in, she was a good host. She invited him in, she failed
to sit at a seat. You can be in a visitation of
the Lord and miss out on what God is saying.
You can be the one that invited him to come and be so busy
serving the move, serving the visitation that you miss out on
what he's really doing because Martha.
It says verse 40, but Martha was distracted with much serving.
She was the one who invited him to come and then was distracted
from him when he arrived. There comes a point and when God
visits that everything else has to be laid aside.
He has to be the one necessity. He's the one portion you go
after. And those are the words that
that Luke uses here. So Martha was distracted with
much serving and she went up to him, Jesus, and said, Lord, do
you not care? My sister has left me to serve
alone. Isn't that interesting?
She's complaining, Lord, don't you care?
She was frustrated with her sister and judged her sister.
And then she began to be frustrated with the Lord and
said, Lord, don't you care? We've got to be very, very
careful in judging the motives of brothers and sisters because
we can attribute, we can see someone do something and think
if I was doing that, this would be my motive.
Impose our motives on them when that's not their motives.
And then we get wonky. We get sideways.
You know, Wonky's a real world, real word.
We can get wonky with a brother and a sister, she says.
Lord, do you not care? She was accusatory towards God
over a perceived injustice. Inaccurate assumptions will
always lead to more inaccurate assumptions.
Repentance over the secondary assumptions won't hold unless
you get to the primary one. That's for another day.
But she says my sister has left me.
Her accusation towards the Lord was rooted in an accusations
towards her sister. She felt abandoned in the work
and when in actuality this could not be further from the truth.
While she was accusing her sister of laziness and
selfishness, she had actually Mary had actually been motivated
by a higher set of values, a hunger for God.
When we attribute motives to others actions, we come to wrong
conclusions and then we take those to God and accuse him as
well. So she says Lord tell her false
assumptions lead to inaccurate accusations and cause us to try
to dictate to God things that he should do, and we pray prayers
he'll never answer. She had accused her sister and
then dictated to the Lord how he should solve it.
But she diagnosed the problem wrong.
She had a wrong description, so she had a wrong prescription and
the Lord wasn't interested. So it it's interesting, she
says, my my sister has left me. And Martha's frustration.
She misunderstood Mary's motive. She assumed that she simply did
not want to work. She failed to understand that
there was a greater desire motivating her.
She wasn't running from work. She was pursuing intimacy.
She wasn't trying to get out of something.
She was trying to get into something and while Martha
claimed it was Mary leaving her, Jesus framed it as Mary choosing
him. This.
There's a difference of motive. Frustration will always cloud
your discernment. So the Lord said it says the
text says but the Lord said but it's a conjunction introducing
an unexpected response or turn of events.
The Lord's activities are often introduced with a But you ever
notice that we're praying one thing and but the Lord, and he's
correcting us in His activity. Listen to what the Lord says.
But the Lord answered Martha, Martha, you are anxious and
troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.
Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken from
her. So he said if, if there's out of
all the portions, all the things we can do, we need to make sure
we choose the one thing. And if we don't have room for
anything else that we hold to that one thing and that one
portion is sitting at his feet. And the, the irony is, is that
you can actually get God to visit your house and because of
his presence, you get so caught up and serving the, the
visitation that you fail to really receive.
I've heard of men of God admitting that they backslid
while hosting revival. It's not that they went out and
got into sin, It's that they lost their intimacy with the
Lord. And so Martha had to learn a
strong lesson here. And so Mary had chosen that
which was necessary. And so it's a, it's a beautiful
passage, but it's a, it's a warning for all of us that we
can attract his presence through our hunger and then get so busy.
In fact, when you attract God's presence to your life, when God
begins to visit you, when, when you posture your life in such a
way that he really does encounter you, what will happen
is something will be imparted to you that will make others want
to pull on that thing. They're going to, they're going
to want to put a demand on what you received.
And the danger is the irony is this, that the very thing that
being with him makes others want to be with you and can act their
desire and the demand they place upon you can actually pull you
from the source of what you originally got.
So you get a portion and then other people want that.
And it takes greater discipline to stay in the secret place when
people are putting a demand on what you carry than it did in
the 1st place to get it. Hope that makes sense.
I hope you know where I'm going with that.
And so there's a discipline. And the tragedy is there's a lot
of men and women who initially they have a hunger for God.
God touches them. There's there's a fresh touch, a
fresh anointing comes on their life, a fresh revelation, fresh
perspective that they carry. And other people begin to put a
demand on that and they get so distracted that they lose the
source of what they once had. And what they become is an echo
of what they once were. They serve moldy manna.
They don't have a fresh word. And so we've got to make sure
that we're staying in the secret place.
And in fact, it takes greater discipline to stay in the secret
place once God has touched you than it did in the 1st place.
And Mary is an example to us. She's a beautiful picture of
someone who never lost her hunger.
She was impacted. This is a family who was
impacted by God early on. And then she in fact, what we're
about to read, it says that this will never be taken from her and
this story of this woman will be spoken of wherever the gospel
goes in all the earth that was Jesus words.
It's going to be a tribute to this woman because of her heart
posture towards me. She'll be talked about from now
until Jesus returns. There's something that happened
with her. Listen to what he says here, and
then we're going to go to another passage.
We're going to have to skip the middle one.
But it says one thing is necessary.
Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken
from her. He said something has been
imparted to her which she'll never let go of.
Something has happened. She wasn't just in a visitation.
She found intimacy in the middle of it.
It's not good enough to be in a house where God's moving.
Do you have a personal relationship?
Do you have a personal hunger in your heart that you are putting
yourself before Him and you're wanting to hear His voice?
You want to hear Him speak to you because those are the things
that can never be taken away. You can be in the midst of a
move of God and witness tremendous miracles and you can
fall away from God. But if you will learn to sit at
His feet and commune with Him personally, and God minister to
you, the things that will never be taken from you are the things
you hear from Him. It's not the sermons you hear or
the meetings you are in, but it's the things He ministers to
you personally. And so there's something was
imparted to Mary. So we have the next passage.
Just real quick here, I'll give you the outline so that you can
go back and look at this yourself.
But there are three primary passages that talk about these
siblings. OK?
There's Luke 1038 through 42. We just talked about it.
And this seems to be where they met him, or at least where the
first time they're mentioned so much so that Luke says there was
a woman named Mary. Well, you and I have it.
Knowing the word. We're very familiar with Mary
and Martha and Lazarus, but it was the first time they were
introduced and Martha enticed him and said, hey, come to our
house. We want to we want to host you
on your way to where you're going.
Don't pass us by then. John 11, John 11 is where they
send word. Now they've developed a
relationship with him such that it says in John 11, Jesus loved
Lazarus, He loved this family. There was something significant
that had been forged in their relationship Jesus had with them
that he didn't have with others. And so when crisis hits, they,
they send word for Jesus and they said Lazarus is sick.
And rather than responding immediately, Jesus waits 3 days.
And then on the third day he tells the boys, OK, guys, saddle
up, we're going to Bethany. Lazarus is sick.
He's been sick and now he's asleep.
And they said, but Jesus, if, if he's asleep, if he's sick, he
needs to sleep. And I said, no, essentially he
said, this is euphemism. He's dead and we're going to go
raise him. And they're like, Lord, you
think this is a good idea? They're about a mile walk
outside of Jerusalem. And they're like, Lord, do you
really think this is a wise thing to do 'cause you're,
you're a wanted man, they're going to try to kill you?
I think it was Thomas, the man of faith said, OK, let's go die
with him. You know, real faith.
You know, you had committed what he lacked in faith, he had in
commitment. Let's go die with them.
And so they go and Jesus comes and Martha, they, she hears,
well, he's still coming towards the town, the masters here.
So Martha gets up, but Mary, the one who sat at his feet, doesn't
move. She's so disillusioned.
Her heart is so wounded by sending word and having a delay.
You ever been there? And in fact, sometimes the
worshippers are more vulnerable to that woundedness than the
servers are. And so Martha goes and out to
Jesus and she has a theological discussion with them.
She actually they start talking about eschatology and the
resurrection at the end time and Jesus engages her.
But both of them come to Jesus with the same question.
They said, Jesus, if you would have been here, he wouldn't have
died. If you would have this, this
wouldn't have happened. That painful dialogue that
probably every believer throughout all of history has
had with the Lord. Lord, if you, then this wouldn't
have happened. And Jesus walks her through and
then he says, where's Mary? Martha goes back, says Mary, the
master's calling for you. And only then when she is called
by him does she get up. And she says the same thing as
her sister. But this time Jesus doesn't talk
eschatology or any theology. He weeps with her.
Scripture is very clear that we're to weep with those who
weep and laugh with those who laugh.
And when somebody's going through a crisis, they don't
initially need a theological discussion.
Martha engaged Jesus theologically, so he engaged
her. Mary came and her heart was
heavy, and so Jesus wept. And it's the shortest verse in
all of Scripture. It's a beautiful passage.
You go back and look at it today, John, Chapter 11.
It says these two words. Jesus wept, and he wept just
before he was going to call Lazarus out of the tomb.
He knew he was about to turn this grieving funeral into a
celebration, a party, and yet he wept.
Why? Because he was grieved over
seeing the effects of sin on all these people and he knew this is
not what they were created for. His heart was broken and he
grieved. He, he prayed, he cried out.
Matter of fact, in the Greek, there's, there's one part word
in there that says that he groaned in anger, this
frustration with what he was seeing.
And then he healed Lazarus. He raised him from the dead.
CS Lewis famously said that Jesus is the tears of God, that
God is not some distant deity immune to our our struggle.
That he entered into our affairs and he became one of us.
And he, he feels the feelings of our infirmity.
He's moved by what we go through.
Don't ever let the enemy lie to you.
That God is uncaring and unknowing with what you're going
through. I was telling the first service
one of I have this huge regret from about 20 / 20 years ago.
Now it's 1 of this huge regret. I was driving to a cemetery to
do the funeral for a stillborn child.
It was heartbreaking. This family was so excited to
have a baby and it didn't make it.
And so now it was time for the burial and I'm driving to the
cemetery and the Lord spoke to me and he said, as you close the
service, he said you're to announce this on the front end.
As you close the service, it's going to begin to gently rain.
And you tell the family that those are my tears and I failed.
I didn't say it. I thought, oh man, Lord, what
you know, what if it doesn't and had this wrestling with God?
But nonetheless, as I'm just closing the service, all of a
sudden, the most you know how the rain when it starts just
sounds pitter patter. It just started raining like
that and I shared with the mother later.
I'm sure it would have meant more to her to hear on the front
end. I deeply regret I didn't say it,
but the fact is it was a vivid lesson to me that God wanted me
and wanted them to know. I am moved by what you go
through. I'm touched by the feeling of
your infirmities. And Jesus didn't stop crying
when he sat on the right hand of the Father.
God has emotions in Scripture. We can grieve the Spirit.
God has anger. He looks in the earth and he's
he's angry about things. God is the ultimate multitasker,
OK? He's extremely happy and joyous
about things. He's looking on.
Scripture says he's laughing, but he's also very grieved and
weeping all simultaneously. And he can relate with what
you're going through. And don't ever let the enemy lie
to you that God is not touched by what you're going through.
And so we see this in Lazarus is now resurrected.
This is the second installment of the Mary, Martha and Lazarus
narrative. And so now we move into the
passage we wanted to get to and we've got 8 minutes.
So let's look at John chapter 12.
Listen to this. So it says I'm sorry, I got to
get there, John chapter 12 and it says 6 days before the
Passover. So this is the Passion week.
This is the time where Jesus is entering into what Jesus, in
another passage describes as the hour when darkness reigns, where
he allowed himself to be subjected to the evil intentions
of man and the very real fallen Angel named Lucifer, and he
allowed himself to be subjected to that for our sake.
Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany.
Isn't it interesting that he returned there?
Nobody else understood what Jesus was about to go through.
He had told them. He had said, hey, listen, guys,
I'm going to be arrested. I'm going to be crucified,
turned over, crucified. And on the third day I'll raise.
And it kept going over their head.
They couldn't compute because they had saw all that he had
done and they thought, man, we're in the ground floor of
this emerging Kingdom. He is the Messiah.
This we're going to take over. This is going to be amazing.
They're arguing about who gets to sit at his right hand and
he's telling guys, you don't understand, I'm going to be
crucified. But Jesus understood.
And so where does he go? He goes back to Bethany because
he found a place that he was welcomed, that he was hosted.
Well, I really do believe that God looks for those who will
weep with him when he weeps. I believe that God looks for
those who will answer his emotion with our human emotion.
God is looking for friends. You know, I, I have friends that
I laugh with and I love, love friends that I laugh with.
But there's, there's some friends that I cry with and
those are the guys that I look for when I'm really going
through something. There's an intimacy in the
fellowship of his sufferings that Paul talked about.
Paul said, I want to know him in the power of his resurrection.
We're all in woo and in the fellowship of his sufferings.
There's an intimacy there where we enter into the emotions of
God and Jesus was looking for those type of people.
He went to Bethany and if you look throughout Jesus life,
there was this one place. Scripture is very clear.
He had no place to lay his head. He didn't have a home.
But if he had a place he returned to, it was Mary and
Martha and Lazarus's house, because they had his heart, and
that's what explicitly says, and he loved them.
And so he returns there, going into the hardest week he'd ever
have as a man, 6 days before the Passover.
Jesus therefore came to Bethany when Lazarus was where Lazarus
was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
We know at the end of the last chapter that the Pharisees, the
ruling class, that the religious rulers now had a price not only
on Jesus head. They weren't only trying to off
him, they were, they had a price on Lazarus's head because it's
hard to discredit a man's ministry when you've got someone
he raised from the dead walking around testifying about it.
It's kind of a pesky reality you need to rid yourself of if
you're going to discredit them. So Lazarus was reclining.
So listen to this. Martha served.
There she is, do it again. Martha served.
Lazarus was reclining with him at the table and Mary took a
pound of expensive ointment made from Piernard and anointed the
feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.
The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
This is the beginning of Passion Week.
This is how it starts right here.
Jesus retreating to the House of some people that just wanted to
entertain him just wanted to hear his heart just wanted to
minister to him. So when he was entering into his
last and hardest week, where does he gravitate towards the
house at Bethany and what does he find Martha serving him.
Lazarus hanging out. Can you imagine?
So this family, you got to understand if, if scholars are
correct, and I think it's probable that Simon the leper,
who was no longer a leper, owned this house and his kids,
probably their first encounter with this Rabbi Jesus was their
dad who they could no longer hang around.
Suddenly he's whole, he's back home and they're like, man,
we're hanging out with this guy. We're going, we're, we're, we're
going to be his disciples. And then he comes to their house
and he imparts something to Mary that's never going to be taken
from her. Then Lazarus dies, He doesn't
answer their call because his delay meant there was going to
be a greater breakthrough. It's always that way, by the
way, whenever God says no, it's because there's something
greater he's looking to give us. That's a sermon for another day.
But that that needs to make you shout a little bit.
So there he he's delayed. Now they're sitting here at the
table of Simon, the former leper and their brother who the King
James Version so eloquently says he stinketh.
He was decomposing. Jesus waited so there was no way
medical science could discredit what he was about to do.
He literally just decomposing. And there he is sitting at the
table next to Jesus eating bagels or something.
I don't know, lamb, you know, they're just hanging out.
I mean, what an amazing setting. And Mary, the one who'd been
given something she would never recover from.
She just, she couldn't handle it anymore.
She just had to do something extravagant.
She and she remembered I've got this jar, this alabaster jar, an
alabaster jar was like a translucent marble and they were
very beautiful. And actually they were more like
a flask and there was a long thin neck They would carve and
and it would be sealed to protect this very, very
expensive stuff. Now in this case, it says she
has a pound of it. Usually it was sold by, by a
little less, a little more rather than an ounce, just over
an ounce because it was very, very expensive and it was very,
very potent. And so it was used in burial.
It was used for special occasions, even to anoint kings
and so forth. But she had a pound jar.
I don't know where she got this. They, they think that this
substance likely came from India.
So it wasn't readily available. Very expensive, very strong
smelling and she's got a pound of it in a jug and she just she,
she can't hold, hold it anymore. She gets up, goes and gets this
thing, breaks it open and dumps it on his head.
And then she begins to wash his feet with it.
It says the whole house filled with the smell and she she pulls
her hair down and she starts cleaning his feet with this
perfume. Now, I don't know about you, but
I would have been a little uncomfortable.
That's a little much, to be honest.
I'm just warning you. You ever come to my house and
start washing someone's feet with your hair crying?
I'm going to be a little bit uncomfortable, let alone to be
the one being washed. And Jesus, she's down there, you
know, and, and there's all this symbolism here.
Hair for a woman. She wouldn't show her hair out
in public. They usually kept their head
covered. Now indoors in her own home, she
could have her hair shown, but she usually wouldn't let it
down. Usually that was for the husband
in the bed chamber. It just wasn't something like
matter of fact, Paul, if you remember in First Corinthians,
he said a woman's hair is her glory.
So what does she do? She is so this gratitude, this
praise, this affection for him erupts within her and she looks
and she she goes and gets this jar, breaks it open and she just
begins to weep and she pulls her hair down.
She doesn't have a cloth. She just starts using her hair
and she's cleaning his feet and Jesus is just kicking back,
letting her do it again. I told you I was uncomfortable.
I'd be uncomfortable. Listen to what it says of the
disciples. But Judas Iscariot, one of his
disciples who was about to betray him, said, why was this
ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?
I want to say it was the Matthew passengers.
A corresponding passage. It says in that that the
disciples were indignant, they were ticked, they were this is
unjust. And and the, the idea behind the
heat, the Greek word we translate it had the idea of
this is unjust. This is this is just you're,
you're wasting stuff. And it literally says in that
passage, why this waste? Now I want you to think about
that. They're saying, Jesus, this is
too much. You're wasting it on Jesus.
What is waste? Waste is using something of
greater value on something of lesser value.
And so it's wasted. And essentially they were
saying, Jesus, man, we think you're awesome.
But this is a bit much. If you do the math, this
ointment was worth almost a year's wages.
Now I love that it's almost a year's wage.
See, your year's wages are different than mine and yours
and yours. And we all have a different It's
not about we're not competing. Who gives one more dollar in the
offering or shouts a little louder and worship.
But what it is, is how much is it for us?
And she was willing to just, in one fell swoop, break this thing
open and pour it out on him. And she loses it.
And the whole house is filled with the Roma and the disciples
say, why this waste? They are offended by this
extravagance. And what does Jesus say?
And and they say, why don't you give it to the poor?
You know, it could have been sold for the poor.
You ever heard someone say that they drive by someone with a
nice house or a nice car? Oh yeah, they drive that or they
live in that, you know, You know how many poor kids that could
feed in Africa? You notice they never say that
about their house. They're saying it about the guy
who lives in one bigger They're always thinking about how
someone else's income or someone else's money or someone else's
house could be sold to feed the poor.
And so Jesus addresses that. He says this is not because they
cared about the poor, but because he was a thief and
having charge of the money bag used to help himself.
So Jesus said leave her alone that she may keep it.
She may keep it for the day of my burial.
So this is what he says. He said listen what she just
did. She's going to keep it.
Keep what what she just did. She's going to remember this on
the day of his burial. She's going to take that with
her because she's got the fragrance in her hair.
She's been it's on him, it's on her.
And when she sees him die, her whole world is going to come
crashing down. And don't you know, if she
wouldn't have given that extravagant offering, she would
have so regretted she didn't understand what's going on.
But she would have thought if I just would have gave him my all,
if I would have let him know what he meant to me.
But now she gave it and she's got something.
And on that day, she's going to comfort herself with that.
She doesn't understand the resurrection thing yet.
All she knows is I love this guy.
I, I, I just want to, I want to give everything to him.
And the fragrance of her offering is still in her hair as
she's watching him die. And she's going to.
So this, this encounter, this extravagant offering that she
gave was going to be for his burial for her personally.
But Matthew says something else. He says she has done this to
prepare me for the day of my burial.
And the Greek, it's ego. He's he's saying she did it for
me so that I will be prepared. Man, I've been thinking, Lord,
what does that mean? What, what kind of preparation
would Jesus need? And I'm convinced that in the
frailty of his humanity, in the midst of that beating, when he's
being whipped, his hair's hanging down and matted with
blood, he can still smell the fragrance and he's comforted.
You know, Mary was one of the only ones that stayed with him
at the cross. And if she's standing there, he
could still spend this is this is some heavy stuff.
This is like the guy who comes in and whoa, way too much
aftershave that Jesus had this fragrance that was coming with
him and she could smell it and he could smell it and he's
comforting himself by her worship and her commitment to
him. You say, does God really need
comforted? He did in his flesh.
He needed there was a reason the angels came and strengthened him
and she was he was strengthened by the sacrifice of this woman.
Go ahead and stand so you know I'm going to quit.
Listen to me. God is moved by your past
sacrifices. Laura came into my office.
I want to say it was Friday and she said, pastor, I was
listening to this worship album by a certain guy and she said,
man, we she used to listen to it when we were in a season of
outpouring. And she said, it just made my
heart long for those days. And she was telling her, Lord, I
would love to go back to that. And then she's correcting
herself. Yeah.
But Lord, I know we can't live in the past.
And, you know, we need to look towards the future and enjoy the
moment. And the Lord said, Laura, I like
those memories, too. I like to look back at those
times as well. Do you know that you have
memories with God that he loves to go back to and remind you,
and you can enter back into that moment?
Those sweet nothings he whispered in your ear, those
mean something to God. God is not an unemotional,
distant deity. He's moved by those things.
We've talked about it before, but it bears repeating.
Psalm 132 is very, very clear. Solomon is dedicating the
temple, and he begins his prayer like this.
Oh, Lord, remember David. Parentheses my dead father and
the suffering that he endured. Lord, I'm asking that you would
make good on the promises and he reminds God, God remember the
price my dad paid and it moves God's heart in the moment.
Listen your journey, the hardship you've been through and
that you're still going after him.
The, the, the, the times where God has revealed himself in that
eruption of just affection that you have, the, the fact that you
want him to come to your house, the fact that you want to sit at
his feet, all of that means something.
Even the episodes of those encounters from years ago, God
still remembers those things. We've got to get our head around
this. The emotions of God.
God can be grieved, he can be angered, He's happy.
And we there's this affection that we come into the orbit of
when we begin to realize God is very much emotional towards us.
Amen. So Passion Week begins with him
retreating to the House of somebody who just wanted to host
his presence. I don't know about you, but I
want, I want, I want to rename my street Bethany and drop by
here. Lord.
Hey, thanks for watching. At Heartland Church, we love to
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