The Sacrifice of the King Pt 1

Good morning, good morning. Would you all stand on this brisk Sunday morning? Welcome to Calvary Chapel this morning. We also welcome those of you who are joining us online. We want to welcome you.

Would you join me in prayer? Father, we ask for your blessing now on our service this morning, Lord. May we just sing as unto you, Lord, and pour our hearts out.

You're good to us. You love us. We come just as we are this morning, Lord. We've all had each individually different things going on through the week. Distractions sometimes, sometimes not. We thank you for your faithfulness, Lord, for your love, your grace, your mercy, Lord, your sovereignty. Father, I'm reminded of that acronym of grace, God's riches at Christ's expense.

We thank you for that. That taught my chains as well.

My sin has ran my sin.

Praise the Lord. You may be seated. That grace, Lord.

We also thank you for that mercy. Not giving us what we deserve, Lord. Thank you. Thank you.

Jesus, in name ever saved.

Beside Jesus, the only.

The word that says, the Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save. He will rest in his love and joy over thee with singing. We praise you, Lord. He's with us, Lord. But there are those times that it's more noticeable. It's because we're more open. It's not you that doesn't show up. It's us. So, Lord, we just give you praise. We thank you, Lord.

Lift up each one here, Lord. You know each heart, Lord. If there's somebody hurting, Lord, comfort their hearts. If someone rejoicing, Lord, we rejoice with them.

We thank you, Jesus.

For this time, as we worship in song, now may we continue this to worship as we study your word together. As we live these lives in you, our Savior. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's have some fellowship, y'all.

Good morning. If you could begin to locate your seats. Grab your bulletin. We'll get ready to go over some announcements together. As you can see, our mountain is growing over here, which is a beautiful thing. Amen. Amen. God is good. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let me to remind you that each of those boxes represents 10 souls that could potentially be affected by the gospel.

So, pretty amazing what's going on over there. Okay. Some announcements. Welcome to Calvary Chapel. Glad you're here this morning. Over on the left-hand side of your bulletin, as always, are the things that we have happening through the week. So, take a look down through there. See what might interest you and get plugged in. Over in the middle section of your bulletin,

some things to pay attention to. Fellas, we have our men's breakfast coming up. this Saturday the 19th at eight o'clock in the Agape room. Also Saturday the 19th in the evening, Lewis is going to be taking the young adult group up to Calvary Wichita for a worship night with the young adult group up at Calvary Wichita. So if you are in the 18 to 20 something range and

you're interested in that, talk to Lewis afterwards. Also just a reminder that the women's conference is coming up December the 3rd and that sign up sheet is out there. Again, a free conference. They just need to have an idea of how much food to prepare. And then last, but certainly not least, we have five spots. Are there still, where's Jana? Is Jana in here? There

you are right there. Still got five spots available for the trip to Dallas. So if you're interested in going to Dallas to work at the distribution center in a couple of weeks, talk to Ross and Jana afterwards because we'd love to take the full, there'll be 40 people if we fill it up all the way, 40 people down there to work. So that's pretty amazing. Also, listen, I know some of you all are what we call procrastinators. Matter of fact,

some of you all live by the same philosophy I do. You'll procrastinate later. And so perhaps, perhaps you did not get your box in for this morning and you were like, oh no, I missed it. Hey, listen, Arc City Christian Academy, and I'm looking back at the video booth to make sure I'm not overstepping my bounds. Yep, we're good. Arc City Christian Academy will be collecting their

boxes on Wednesday morning at First Southern Baptist. So if you're like, oh shoot, I missed it. You didn't. You can still fill up that box sometime before Wednesday morning. If you'll take that and drop it off at First Southern Baptist Church, which is over on Kansas Avenue, right behind the funeral home there, Kansas and A, you can still drop off boxes there. So just a reminder for all

of you procrastinators, I'm sure you're all much better than me, which BTWs, we did get our boxes in on time. I just want to throw that out there. So I feel good about, I feel good about that. I feel good about that. I feel good about us because usually I'm like, it's okay, sweetie. We can take it with Aka's group too. This year we didn't do that. So, all right. Those are the things. Yeah. Yay. Those are the

things. It's the little victories. Those are the things that are going on. If you would make sure that your mobile device is silenced and for our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 13. Psalm 13. We'll be looking at the new American standard. If you need a copy of that, there should be one in a row. If not, it's time to make a friend.

As you are turning to Psalm 13, if you would stand in the honor of the reading of God's word,

I will read the odd verses. If you will follow along with Pastor Allen and the even verses. Psalm 13 for the choir director, a Psalm of David. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy, be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord, my God. Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep

the sleep of death. And my enemy will say, I have overcome him, and my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted in your loving kindness. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. And Father, we do thank you for that. Even though, there are times where we think, Lord, have you forsaken us? We can

rest in that loving kindness, and we can trust in you. And so, Lord, I pray that we would be able to do that this morning. And Lord, I pray that you would tune our hearts into what your Holy Spirit wants to speak to us this morning. Father, we so desperately need that working of your Holy Spirit. Lord, I know that there has been attack in different areas this morning,

both technically and in other ways. And so, I just pray that you would anoint, Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, the words that come out of my mouth. May they be of you, and not of me. And Lord, may you give all of us as your church ears to hear what it is that your Spirit wants to minister this morning. In Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. If you would open up in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 26. Matthew,

chapter 26. Today, we move into a new section in the book of Matthew, one of the last sections of the book of Matthew. And the section that we move into today, is the sacrifice of the King. As a matter of fact, the title of this morning's message is The Sacrifice of the King, Part One. And as a little subtitle, you could put The Preparation. Because that's what we're going to see take place as Jesus begin to be prepared

for his sacrifice on the cross. It's been an interesting unfolding of Jesus' life that we've been following through the book of Matthew for quite some time now. We saw the birth of the King in that miraculous way. We saw the presentation of the King as he was both baptized by John and the temptation in the wilderness by the enemy. We saw the teaching of the kingdom as he presented

the Sermon on the Mount to us, showing us exactly what it looks like to be a kingdom citizen. We saw the miracles of the King as we saw those chapters where he performed all of those amazing miracles. We saw the parables as he taught us in parabolic form about what the kingdom looks like. And we saw his confrontation with the religious leaders as he confronted the dead religion of the day. And of course, last, we saw the parables of the King as he taught us in parabolic form about

the future as he showed us the signs of the times. But now it's time to get back to the work that he was sent to do. The work of the redemption. Because while Jesus was a great teacher, he didn't come just to be a teacher. While Jesus was a great example, he didn't just come to be a great example. And while Jesus was a great servant, he didn't just come to be a great servant. He came for the

singular purpose of redeeming humanity from their lost state of sinfulness. And that's again, exactly what we're going to see as we move into the next few weeks with this series in the sacrifice of the King. And so today, as we look at these first 16 verses, we're going to see three things. We're going to see the plot, we're going to see the anointing, and we're going to see the deal made with Judas. And so we pick up with the plot in chapter 26, verse one. It says,

when Jesus had finished all these words, he said to his disciples, you know that after two days, Passover is coming and the son of man is to be handed over for crucifixion. Then the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest named Caiaphas. And they plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth and to kill him. But they were saying not during the festival, otherwise a riot might occur among the people. And so as we begin this

section on the plot, the first thing that we see is really a process. And so we're going to see the prediction by Jesus of his crucifixion. Jesus has been doing this in the last few months of his life. He's been trying to prepare his disciples for what's coming. He's been trying to prepare them for this coming crucifixion so that they would not be shocked when it happened. They,

of course, are not as spiritually in tune as they should be. And so they're not always picking up on it, but he does prepare them for it by declaring to them this truth. I want you to notice how this chapter starts off. When Jesus had finished all these words, what are all these words that he had spoken of? Well, all these words that Matthew mentions here are the words of the two previous chapters, the words of the signs of the times.

Now, I think it's really fun to speculate about the signs of the times. It's really fun to think about the coming of Jesus. It's really fun to have our hearts focused on the second coming of Christ. And it's fun to speculate about all the things, the antichrist, what do these things mean? Where will he come out of? And so we're going to look at the signs of the times. And we're going to look at

all those kinds of things. But there comes a point in time when we as believers have to stop speculating about what we don't know and focus on what we do know. To stop speculating just about the future and start living for the redemption that needs to take place right now. Because Jesus had finished all of the sayings about what was coming in the future, but now it was time for him to get back to the work that he was sent for. And that was the work of redemption. I fear that

sometimes as Western culture believers, they get interested in prophecy and start paying attention to the signs of the times that that can become our focus instead of our focus being on preparing the world for the coming of Christ. Instead of our focus being on the fact that there is an entire unbelieving world that doesn't know Jesus. You see, I'm reminded of the words of Jesus to his disciples right before he ascended into heaven. If we fast forward about 45 days in the future, we'll find that Jesus will be once again on the Mount of Olives. And as he's on the Mount of

Olives, he's about to ascend into heaven. And his disciples ask him a question, Lord, will you at this time establish the kingdom? And do you remember what Jesus told his disciples? He said, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the father has put into motion, but you tarry in Jerusalem until the coming of the spirit, until the coming of the spirit. And then

you be witnesses of me to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to understand something. The coming of Jesus is near. I believe it wholeheartedly, and we should be watching for the coming of Christ. But while watching for the coming of Christ, we must not forget that we still have a job to do here on

this earth. And the job that we have to do still here on this earth is to be witnesses of him to Jerusalem, to Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Because brothers and sisters, whether you realize it or not, we live in a fallen world full of a bunch of very fallen people who are so lost. And the hurt is sometimes more than I can feel. And I believe that we need to understand

that I can know how to bear in my own self, because sometimes the hurt is so great that it just overflows, and I don't even know what to do with it. And the only cure that there is for all of that hurt, the only cure that there is for all of that hopelessness in the world that we're living in right now, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And while we are excited about the second coming of Jesus, until he comes again, let us be about the business of the Father. Let us be about the business of redemption in the lives of those that are around us. Amen?

And so he tells his disciples, listen, he finished all these things, and he tells them the work of redemption is about to take place. He says, you know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is about to be handed over for crucifixion. He gives them the timing. You need to pay attention to what's coming. What's coming is the Passover. What's the Passover? Well, the

Passover was a time when the entire nation celebrated their deliverance from the nation of Egypt. It is the Old Testament equivalent of redemption, because the nation of Israel had free from the nation of Egypt, from the bondage of slavery. And in that time when they would celebrate their bondage from physical slavery to the nation of Egypt, Jesus would set them free from the spiritual slavery represented by sin. He said, in two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over for the crucifixion, because he wants them to be prepared. Now,

unfortunately, they're not as prepared as they should be. They're not as in tune as they should be, but he wants to make sure that he has done it. He wants to make sure that he has done it. He wants to make sure that he has done his part. But now comes the plot. It says in verse three, then the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of

the high priest named Caiaphas, and they plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth and to kill him. Now, what we've seen take place over the past few months of Jesus's life is a continued hatred from the religious leaders, a hatred that boiled over into a desire to kill him, that boiled over into a desire to catch him, that's now boiled over into a desire to kill him. And so, a plot to kill him. They don't like who he is. They don't like what he stands for, and they don't

like how he has upset their religious apple cart that represents all of the powers that they have. And so, they have formulated a plan. Let's come up with a plot to kill him. Only they'd put a little bit of a governor on this plan. They'd put an asterisk on this plan because they said, but listen, in the midst of this plan, we need to understand something. It cannot take place during

the festival, or as we would say, during the Passover period. It can't take place during that because during that point in time, the nationalistic spirit of the nation of Israel was at an all-time high because, after all, that was when they celebrated their freedom from the nation of Egypt. As a matter of fact, that was when their religious spirit was at an all-time high. And this man, who many were viewing as the Messiah, who many were viewing as the Son of God, if they did something to him, they knew that a riot could potentially ensue. And so, they knew the absolute wrong time

to put Jesus to death. Would be during the Passover. But isn't there kind of an interesting contrast that's presented to us here? Jesus had just told his disciples, in two days is the Passover. And what's going to take place during the Passover? The Son of Man will be handed over for crucifixion. And yet, the religious leaders had said, we need to put him to death, but it can't be during the Passover. I'm reminded of

something, and perhaps the first point I would like to make to you, and that's that we serve a sovereign God. Because God was sovereign in this situation. You see, man had made their plan, but God had already established the course. Man establishes their plans, but God sets the course. And it was true in the time of Jesus. You see, they knew the wrong time to put him to death was the time of the

Passover. But according to what God had already set in motion, listen, before the foundations of the earth, Jesus was to be put to death during the time of the Passover, because he would be the ultimate Passover lamb. And I'm reminded of something, that if that was true about Jesus and his death, then it's also true about the things taking place in our world right now. Because am I right in thinking that sometimes things in the world feel mildly well, shall we say, out of control? That sometimes things in the

world, we find ourselves going, Lord, is there a plan in anything that's going on right now? But we can rest in the fact that there is. Because if he was sovereign in the affairs of man, when it came to the crucifixion of Jesus and his first coming, then he's also going to be put to death. And I'm also sovereign in the affairs of man with the things that are going on in our world right now to prepare for his second coming. But you know what? Not only does it sometimes feel like things are

out of control in our world politically and globally right now, perhaps sometimes in your own life, things feel like they're just a little bit out of control. And you're going, I don't understand what's happening in my life. I don't understand the things that are happening to me. And it feels like life is spiraling out of control. May I tell you that there is a very

significant, very significant, very significant, very significant, very significant, very significant, sovereign God who is absolutely aware of all of the things that are going on in your life right now. And he has a plan already in place to bring about your good and his glory in the midst of all of those things. Because if he was sovereign in the creation of the world, if he was sovereign in the first coming of Christ, if he's sovereign in the second coming of Christ, then is he not also sovereign in your life? Brothers and sisters, we can rest in a God.

We can rest in a God who is in control. And so while they had set their plan, God had already established the course. And so the plot has been set. They were wanting to seize him by trickery. They wanted to seize him by stealth, by deceit and kill him. But God already knew what he was going to do. And so we pick up in verse six with the anointing. It says, now when Jesus was in

Bethany at the home of Simon, the leper, a woman came to him and said, I'm going to kill you. And she came to him with an alabaster vial, a very costly perfume. And she poured it on his head as he reclined at the table. But the disciples were indignant when they saw this and said, why this waste? For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the

poor. But Jesus aware of this said to them, why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me. For when she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.

Now, this is just an interesting, neat little story, is it not? It's a beautiful story of worship. A story that didn't necessarily have to be told. And yet a story that did have to be told because this act of worship performed by this woman would not only be the first preparation of Jesus for his death and burial, but it would be an example to the church in the future of what true worship was supposed to look like. And so as we approach

this story, I would like to take it verse by verse and discuss a handful of things. It says, now when Jesus was in Bethany. Now, Bethany was a city located just outside of the city of Jerusalem. Bethany is kind of a special place in the heart of Jesus. It's, if you will, a refuge for him, a sanctuary for Jesus. Some amazing things have taken place in the city of Bethany.

It's in the city of Bethany that Jesus would attend the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. And at that home, they would prepare a dinner for him, a dinner that was just for him because it was his place of sanctuary. It would be at this dinner, you know the story very well, where I feel like Martha gets a little bit of a bad rap, but it would be at this dinner that Martha would be so busy preparing all of the meal that she would find herself a little frustrated because while she's doing all of the work, Mary and Lazarus are sitting at the feet of Jesus. And Martha says, Jesus, tell Mary that she should be helping me. And of course, Jesus says, Martha,

you're all worked up about things you don't need to get worked up about. Mary's chosen a really important thing to do. She's chosen a really important thing to do. She's chosen a really important thing to do. And I'm not going to take that away from her. It was in the city of Bethany at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus that Lazarus would find himself fallen ill. Mary and Martha would send

a messenger to Jesus and say, Lazarus, the one whom you love, has fallen sick. And of course, Jesus waits a couple of more days. And unfortunately, in that time, Lazarus passes away. And as Lazarus passes away, Jesus tells his disciples, Lazarus is asleep now. It's time for us to go see him. And he says, I'm going to go see him. And he says, I'm going to go see him. And

his disciples say, if he's asleep, doesn't that mean that he'll get better? And Jesus, realizing that they weren't picking up what he was putting down, said, Lazarus has died. And it's good that we weren't there when it happened, because now you're going to see the works of God in a way that you never have before. And Jesus showed up in the town of Bethany, that place of sanctuary for him. And he said, would you lead me to the tomb? And as they led him to the tomb,

they rolled the stone away. And Jesus shouted, Lazarus, come forth. And out walked Lazarus, completely whole. See, Bethany was a very special place to Jesus. And in all of the battle that took place in Jerusalem, Bethany was where he found his sanctuary. And so as he's in this place of sanctuary in Bethany, it tells us where they're gathered. They're gathered at a place called

the home of Simon the leper. Now, I tried to do a little research on Simon the leper to see if there was anything else that scripture has to say about him, but there's no other mention of him in scripture other than this exact same repeated story in another gospel account. Other than that, we don't know anything about Simon the leper, except for two things. We know that his name was Simon, and we know that he was a leper. Those are the two things that we know about Simon the leper.

But you know, there's something kind of interesting for us to pay attention to, because I think that this is a beautiful scene that's painted for us, because it's a beautiful scene of redemption that's painted for us. If you know anything about leprosy, you know that leprosy was a skin disease. A skin disease that at the time of Jesus was an incurable skin disease. An incurable skin disease that always, started small. But as it started small, it would inch its way through your entire body,

and as it would inch its way through your entire body, it would begin to destroy your body. And as it began to destroy your body, it would not stop until it had completely destroyed you and put you to death. Leprosy in scripture is always a picture of sin, because sin does the exact same thing to us. Sin oftentimes in our lives starts off very small. But soon, that small bit of sin begins to spread throughout the rest of our body, and as it spreads

throughout the rest of our body, it will eventually consume us until we are totally and completely destroyed. Because the wages of sin is death. Now there was something that was true about every leper. Every leper was not supposed to dwell among the people in the city. He was supposed to dwell outside of the city. And as he dwelled outside of the city, if anyone even got remotely close,

every leper knew that, they had to do one thing. They had to cry out, unclean, because they were a leper. Because everybody needed to know if you go anywhere near them, you could potentially catch what they've got and nobody wanted that. And yet, where is Jesus eating a meal right now? He's eating a meal at the home of Simon the leper. So what should this tell us about Simon the leper? What can we

naturally deduce from this? That Jesus must have at some point in time healed this man. At some point in time, Jesus must have healed this Simon the leper and set him free from this leprosy. If you will, the sin that held him down, Jesus has redeemed and cleansed him from. But you know what else is amazing? We find from the Gospel of John's account of this, which by

the way, if you want to write a little in the side margin of your Bible, if you want to write a little cross-reference, write John 12, because that's the other place where this story is told and it gives just a little bit more detail than the book of Matthew does. In John 12, we learn that someone else is there. We learn that there's another guy there by the name of Lazarus. And remember what we just said about that? We learned that there's another guy there by the name of

Lazarus. Lazarus, who was at one time dead and now he's alive. You see where I'm going here? You see, in the home of Simon the leper, you have one who had been cleansed from sin and has now been made brand new again. And you have one who was dead and who has now been made alive and sitting in the midst of the one who had been cleansed from sin. And the one who'd been made alive was

the very Savior who had cleansed him from sin and brought him back to life. Is that not the most beautiful picture of the redemption of the Gospel you could ever imagine? Because Jesus is the one who cleanses from sin and makes us alive. And I would venture to say that there's some of you in here this morning that don't feel very alive right now. I would venture to say that there's some people watching online who don't feel very alive right now and

you need the touch of the Savior. You need to hear the Savior's voice call out, come forth. And I'm here to tell you right now, if you're here this morning and you are dead in your trespasses and sins, if you are dead because you've never put your faith in Jesus Christ, then today is the day calling your name to say, come forth because he wants to make you alive. If you're here this morning and you feel like you're absolutely wrecked from sin because sin is eating you away slowly but surely and nobody even else knows about it, I want you to know that Jesus wants to cleanse you. Then he wants to make you brand new again so that you are no longer identified the way that

you were before, but you are now clean. And he wants to do that in you. I'm a little extra geeked up this morning, kids, because I did a very hard funeral yesterday and I'm going to tell you right now, my emotions are right on the hair's edge, okay? So if I burst into tears at any moment, just know that that's why. But it is so hard for me to see people whose

lives are destroyed by sin. It's something I will never get used to. It's something I'll never get used to because it hurts so bad to see. And what hurts even worse is when you declare that truth and people get up and walk away like they never heard a thing.

Because Jesus is the place where there is hope. Jesus is the place where there is cleansing and Jesus is the place where there is life. The lyrics of a song have been running through my head this week as I've been preparing for the service I was supposed to do yesterday. The lyrics of the song come from a Chris Rice song, one of my favorites of his. And no, it's not the cartoon song, even

though that's my second favorite. It's called an untitled hymn or come to Jesus. And I looked up the lyrics, because sometimes I'm really good at screwing up lyrics. And as I looked up the lyrics to this song, I thought, what a perfect picture of what's being spoken of right here. It starts off like this. Weak and wounded sinner, lost and left to die. Oh, raise your head because love is passing

by. Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus and live. And then it goes a few verses down, kind of tells the story of life. And then I love this next part. It says, sometimes the way gets lonely and steep and filled with pain. But when the sky is dark and pours the rain, then cry to Jesus. Cry to Jesus. Cry to Jesus and live. It says, Jesus sat in the home of Simon the leper

next to Lazarus, the one whom he'd made alive. I'm reminded that there is nothing that's too hard for my Savior, that there's nothing that's too big for Jesus, and that there is always hope in him. Well, in the midst of this scene, this beautiful scene of redemption, we come to verse seven. It says, a woman came to him with an alabaster vial, a very costly perfume.

She poured it on his head as he reclined at the table. In Matthew chapter 12, or in Matthew chapter 26 here, it just says that she was a woman. And then it tells what she did. She took alabaster vial. It's referred to as very costly perfume. John 12 gives us just a little bit more detail. He tells us how much it would have been worth, which was about a year's wages for the

average working man at that point in time. Let's say the average working man at this point in time, let's say it makes about 10 bucks an hour. So you're talking maybe $20,000 a year, $20,000, $25,000. So you're looking at, say something that costs $20,000 in our world. That's a lot of money. For some people, that might be a lot of money. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money.

Their life savings. And essentially, that's what this woman does. Because the only reason a woman of low income like her would have a bottle of perfume that was this precious is because it represented all of her financial security for the future. So what she does here is a very precious thing. What she does here is a very sacrificial thing. She takes this bottle, this vial of very

precious perfume, and she puts it in her hands. And she puts it in her hands. And she puts it in her hands. And she puts it in her hands. And she puts it in her hands. And she puts it in her hands. And she probably undid some sort of a seal, perhaps broke some sort of a seal that would have had this sealed up. The moment that she unsealed it, you know what happens when somebody breaks a

bottle of perfume. The aroma fills the entire room, right? It's almost overpowering how strong the smell is. Now, imagine a room full of a bunch of dudes, right? That live in the Middle East and don't wear shoes, right? And this, this aroma overpowers the stench that probably would have been in the room at that point in time. And it just fills the entire room. And what does she take with this? Well, she comes to Jesus who

is lounged at the table. Now, I don't know how you picture Jesus and his disciples ever eating, but it's probably not how you picture it. You see, we have this picture of the Last Supper. I know this isn't the Last Supper, but that's usually the picture that we have, right? Of a bunch of guys sitting around a table and big winged back chairs, right? That's not how they ate at that point in

time. That's not how they're eating. Meals were an event to the Jewish people. Now, as someone who eats incredibly slow, I really appreciate that. As a matter of fact, for my daughter, the entire meal is an event. It might take the entire afternoon. But, but she, but they would just sort of lounge at the table. They wouldn't be sitting straight up. They've kind of laid over

on their sides, almost like a, almost like they're on a pillow. Again, my youngest daughter eats this way all the time. And I find myself going, Nora, you need to sit up while you eat. And then I'm like, Jesus did it. What the heck? Right? So, so he would kind of lounge like this. And as he was lounged like this, she comes up with this bottle of perfume behind him. She just begins

to pour it on his head. As it begins to soak down his hair, the gospel of John tells us that she also took some of it. She washed his feet with it. It was incredibly wasteful. It was incredibly extravagant and incredibly sacrificial. And yet it was in her heart to do this. Why? Because there was something in her, perhaps a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that told her something's

coming and I want him to be prepared. I want to lavish as much love on him as I can because I know what's coming. And as she does this incredibly sacrificial service, this sacrificial act of worship for Jesus, I want you to notice how the disciples respond. But the disciples were indignant and they saw this and they said, why this waste? This perfume might've been sold for a

price and the money given to the poor. Unfortunately, the disciples completely missed this entire scene. They missed the point of the entire thing because all they saw was a giant waste. All they saw was something that actually was good for nothing. She just took something that was worth a lot of money and just wasted it by pouring it on Jesus' hair. Jesus isn't going to see it this way, but the disciples did. You know,

sometimes we miss things like this, don't we? Now, again, if we were to look at John's account of this, we would find that this complaining, it was actually headed up by one disciple. Matthew's just a little bit more generous about this, a little more gracious about this than John is. But John lets us know who was behind all of the complaining. It was actually Judas. Judas was the one who was leading the pack with the

complaining. Because what we learned in the gospel of John is that Judas was the one who held the money bag. And Judas had a tendency to take a little out of the money bag for himself. And so Judas leads the complaining. And notice what the complaining is. We could, we could have sold this and given the money to the poor. We could have done something really beneficial with this. Isn't it funny how everybody's always generous with somebody else's

stuff? Isn't that funny, right? I'll leave all the rest of the comments to myself, except this one. It's funny how people act about things sometimes, right? I don't know if y'all heard about this or not. I can't help it. Hypocrisy is something every now and then I like to point out. There was a climate accord this last week. And if I remember, I don't remember the exact number of jets, private jets that were taken to a climate accord.

That should cause you to go, huh? Right? All these private jets that were taken to a climate accord. If I read the article correctly, and I'm pretty sure I did, it said it was 1000 tons of greenhouse gases. They said that the rocket that sent people to the moon used 75 tons of greenhouse gases. But all of these people care about the climate. That's sort of what's going on

with the disciples here right now. They don't care about the climate. They don't care about the right? They're going, we could have sold that and given all the money to the poor. And Judas is going, and I could have taken a little for myself, right? Because they missed the point of the whole thing. I want you to notice how Jesus responds because Jesus wasn't indignant at all. Jesus

says, verse 10, but Jesus aware of this said to them. Now, before we get into what Jesus said, I want you to take note of the little commentary that's given. It says, but Jesus aware of this. Now, what should that tell you? How were the disciples doing this? They were doing it under their breath, right? They were doing it to where nobody else could hear, right? They were, if you

will, gathered in a little room off to the side. Can you believe she did that? That's crazy. Who, who wastes that kind of money on things? Because we don't ever complain in front of people. We always complain behind people's back. And so that's what happened. But here's what we need to know. Two things. Number one, not only when we complain, does it end up getting back to the

person we're complaining about always, but we need to know that every time we complain, who always hears it? Jesus does, right? He hears all the whispers. I know sometimes we think that if we get in a room with few enough people in it, Jesus won't hear, but he does. He hears them all. It's great. And sometimes he tells other people about it. He heard all of their complaining.

And as he hears their complaining, Jesus aware of this said, why do you bother the woman? She's done a good deed to me. You always have, the poor with you, but you do not always have me. For when she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will be spoken of in memory of her.

I love how Jesus starts us off. He says, why are you going to bother her? Why are you giving her a hard time? What business is this of yours? She has done a good deed. She has done a beautiful thing. He goes on to say, you always have the poor with you. You know what that means? You have opportunity to do good every single day, every day. Take advantage of the opportunities you do have, not the one she didn't take. Now, this isn't to say that we should

ignore the poor. The last section we just went through said the exact opposite of that. When Jesus said, as much as you do it to the least of these, my brother, and you do it unto me, and as much as you don't do it to the least of these, you've not done it unto me. The point is, use the opportunities you have. Don't mock her for the opportunity that she had to worship me. He said, what you don't realize is, is that she did

this to prepare me for burial. Now, if you don't know very much about a Jewish burial procession, there was a great deal that went into it. There was a lot of anointing of spices and perfumes to prepare the body to be put into the tomb. And if you remember, Jesus was taken down from the cross in a very hurried way. As a matter of fact, there was a lot of anointing of spices and perfumes to

prepare the body to be put into the tomb. And as a matter of fact, all of the typical burial preparations were not able to be taken. If you remember correctly, the reason why the women were the first ones to learn that Jesus had risen from the dead is because the day after the Sabbath, they showed up with what in their hands? They showed up with perfume and spices to properly anoint the body of Jesus. And as they did so, Jesus was gone. He says, she did this

because she knew there probably wasn't going to be time. She was aware of something that no one else was aware of. Matter of fact, she wasn't even fully aware of because she did this to prepare his body for burial. And then I love this last part that Jesus says, everywhere in the world that this gospel is preached, what this woman has done will be shared. Isn't it great? The things that we oftentimes do in secret, the things that we

oftentimes do simply to glorify the Lord with a heart that's meant to worship him, God can have a tendency to blast from the rooftops. And so he says, this is a beautiful thing that she's done. And I'm so glad that she did it because now we have this beautiful story of worship that's been told to us. And if you will, a lot of things that we learn about the heart of worship. And as a matter of fact, as I was studying this, I fully intended to go much

further in this section that I'm going this morning, but I couldn't help it. The Lord slowed me down and said, I want you to share some things about the heart of worship. Because I think as we look at Mary, which by the way, this is Mary, the sister of Martha, that's doing this right now. We learned that from John's account. As we look at Mary and her true heart for worship, I think there's some

things that we as believers in Jesus Christ need to learn for ourselves. And so there's several things, five things about the heart of worship that I want to point out to you this morning. Number one, she was sensitive to the spirit. She was sensitive. She was sensitive to the spirit. And a heart of worship is a heart that is sensitive to the moving of the Holy Spirit. It's always interesting how the Holy Spirit's always moving on our hearts to

do things. The question is, are we paying attention to the way that he's moving? The Holy Spirit is having a tendency to move on our hearts with the things that are going on in the world, to move on our hearts with the things that are going on with people around us, to move on our hearts when it comes to our own personal worship time with the Lord. The question is, are we listening to what the Holy Spirit's doing?

Are we being sensitive to what he's speaking to our hearts? It can be so hard in the world that we live in today to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit because the world that we live in today is so full of distractions, distractions that pull us away from the Holy Spirit. But you know what the greatest distraction that pulls us away from the Holy Spirit today is? It's called sin. Sin will always

dull our hearts to the Holy Spirit. It will begin to create a callous in our hearts towards the things of the Holy Spirit. Because if I continue to live and sin, the Holy Spirit's saying, no, don't do that. Don't do that. But for me to continue to sin, I have to harden myself to that work of the Holy Spirit. In order to harden myself to that work of the Holy Spirit, it begins to create a callous inside of my heart.

And it prevents that sensitivity. The only way I know to peel away those callouses is to start repenting of that sin and confessing that sin to the Lord so that I can once again be sensitive to what his Holy Spirit is teaching. Because you may have a hellish heart if I keep Paulo saying that sin is to you but wooss s o p e ho h o just that 30 minutes that takes place before the Word is taught. We think that that's worship.

That's a part of worship. It's called praise. It's an important part of worship. I don't want you to get me wrong, but worship is so much more than that. Worship is our entire life. You see, worship is me sacrificing my time, perhaps getting up a little bit earlier in the morning so that I can spend time with my Savior in worship of Him by studying His Word and by

seeking Him through prayer. Worship is me getting outside of my comfort zone and reaching out to my neighbor in love and showing the love of Jesus Christ to the people that are around me. You see, that's worship unto the Lord. Worship is me choosing to set aside my own personal time to serve at my church or to serve at a local food bank or you name the place where you can serve.

That's worship unto the Lord. Worship unto the Lord is sometimes giving to God a sacrifice of praise. That's what the book of Hebrews calls it. A sacrifice of praise. Why is it called a sacrifice of praise? Because brothers and sisters, sometimes I don't always feel like praising God, whether it be sometimes when I come in here on a Sunday morning or sometimes in my own personal praise time. And I do hope

that you have personal praise time. I hope that you take time besides Sunday morning to praise the Lord in song. You say, Ryan, I can't sing very well. Me neither. Therefore, you should get alone on your mower. You should get alone in your house, in your car, in your car, wherever you need to. And you just belt it out to Jesus. I think it's an incredibly important

thing to do. The pastor that I served under in Johnson County, who BT dubs has been home with Jesus for a year now. Sometimes when I think about that, I'm like, man, he's been praising Jesus with a much better voice than he did on earth for over a year now. He used to always encourage all of us in the church. He said, you should write your own worship songs. He goes,

they don't have to make sense to anybody but you, but you should write your own praise songs and you should do it. Whether you feel like it or not, because we offer to God a sacrifice of praise. Do you realize that sacrifice is actually what worship was all about? If you look at the old Testament, because every time they came to the Lord and they built an altar, it was called worship because what they would bring to God was the best of their flock. And it was a sacrifice.

Perhaps we need to ask God to show us where we need to make those sacrifices of praise and worship unto the Lord. She sacrificed all of her financial well-being and an extravagant act of worship unto the Lord. Number three, worship should be focused on Jesus. Oh my, how we get our focus on the wrong things today. We get our focus on all of the things of the world. I shared with first service, I assume the issue is still going on with the soundboard

back there. Yeah, pretty much. We had issues with the sound, but there was every possibility for us to be focused on everything but worshiping Jesus this morning. We got here during the first service and they're like, hey, fun times, we have no control over anybody's vocals. We cannot control what comes out with the vocals. Sometimes it may work, sometimes it may not. So we had a little meeting right before first

service and I said, you know what gang, I don't care if the sound system's working or not, belt it out as loud as you can. And they were like, okay. And so, you know, you have the choice to make. Is the focus on whether or not the sound system works or focused on whether or not we're worshiping Jesus? Those of you on this side of the room may have learned the heater on this side of the room

isn't working. My bad. So, and they quit working yesterday in the middle of a funeral, right? And so you go, well, what's our focus on? Whether or not it's warm enough in here? Sorry, I wore a heavy flannel today. I should have told you to do the same things. Anyway, or is our focus going to be on Jesus? Because Jesus is the most important thing. We make our focus on all of the wrong things in

our world and the focus should be on Jesus because he's worthy of all of our praise. You see, she wasn't focused on what the disciples were going to say about what she did. She wasn't focused on whether or not they were going to accept Jesus. She wasn't focused on whether or not they were going to accept Jesus. She wasn't focused on whether or not they were going to accept what she did. She was focused on one

thing, pouring out all of her love to Jesus. Number four, your worship will sometimes be misunderstood by others. Extravagant worship will often be misunderstood by others. Listen, oftentimes people of the world will look at you as you continue to worship God more and more with your life and they'll say, man, you're a freak. And you are, it's okay. The quicker you accept God,

the better it's going to be. But what's even worse is sometimes people in the church, when you start getting downright dedicated to Jesus in the worship of your life, whether it be through the songs that you sing or the way that you live, they will say, quit being so radical. You're taking this too seriously. And they will misunderstand you. Because listen, if I've learned

any lesson over the past few years about following Jesus, it's that the closer you get to the top of the mountain, the smaller the crowd will be. And so, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you a story. The closer you get to the top of the mountain, the smaller the crowd gets. The closer you get to the true heart of worshiping of Jesus, the smaller the crowd gets. And brothers and

sisters, you need to realize that when you make a stand for Jesus, you automatically invite misunderstanding from people. That is one of the hardest pills that I've ever had to swallow. It actually started for me with a quote on leadership. And the quote on leadership that started with was this. There's a pastor down in Texas. His name is J.P. Pecluda. And he put this quote out on the Instagram here a while back. And he said,

when you take a position of ministry, you invite the opportunity to be misunderstood. And I thought, that is a true story. But I've come to realize that it's not just in positions of leadership and ministry. It's in positions of standing for Jesus. And when you take a strong stand for Jesus, whether it be through the worship of your life or whether it be for standing for

what's true, you invite the opportunity to be misunderstood. Number five, a heart of worship comes from sitting at the feet of Jesus. Remember who we said this is that poured out this perfume on him? It was Mary. Where do we always find Mary? We always find Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, right? We always see her hanging out there. Now, you and I, we can't go sit at the feet of Jesus right now, right? Physically, he's not here with

us. We know he's here with us in spirit because the Holy Spirit is here among us right now. I can feel it here this morning. But you and I can't just go hang out at the feet of Jesus. Matter of fact, sometimes for dudes, that sounds weird, right? We're like, sit at the feet of Jesus. That just sounds creepy. It sounds weird, right? Let me tell you what's meant by that. The phrase to sit at the feet of is a Hebrew idiom meaning to learn from.

Matter of fact, a disciple would sit at the feet of his master. All of the 12 disciples should have been sitting at the feet of Jesus because they were learning from Jesus. Well, since Jesus isn't here among us physically, how can we be learning and sitting at the feet of Jesus? Well, we can do so through the word of God. We can do so by sitting and hearing everything that God's word has to say

because that will tell us all of the truth. We can do so through the word of God. We can do so by God's heart for us because if we want our hearts to be in tune with the spirit, if we want our worship to be what God wants for it to be, then we must sit at the feet of Jesus. And the only way that I can do that in this stage in the ball game is to allow the Holy Spirit of God to speak to me through the word of God. I read a wonderful story about a great theologian named Donald Gray Barnhouse

this week. Donald Gray Barnhouse, one of the greatest Bible teachers to ever live. There was a story told about him when he was a young man. He was a young man. He was on a train and he was sitting next to an older gentleman that he had never met. And he was sitting next to an older gentleman that he was traveling with. Donald Gray Barnhouse was reading a newspaper. The older gentleman sitting

next to him was reading the Bible. He says, Donald Gray Barnhouse put down his newspaper and looked at him and said, man, I wish I knew the Bible like you do. The guy sat down in his Bible and said, if you'd spend less time in the newspaper and more time in the Bible, you'd know as much about the Bible as I do. Fast forward because there's another wonderful story about the same theologian.

One time, the same theologian, Barnhouse, was speaking to a group of seminary students. And as he was speaking to this group of seminary students, one of the students came up to him afterwards and said, I would give anything to be able to teach the Bible the way that you do. And Barnhouse looked at him and he said, good, because that's exactly what it will cost you. Brothers and sisters, if we want to know what this says, it's going to cost us everything. And it means we got to get into it. It means we

got to know what it says. It means we got to hear what God's speaking to us, not just the words on the page, but the heart behind the words on the page, not just the words on the page, but the spirit that wants to speak the words on the page into our hearts. Sit at the feet of Jesus so that you can have the heart of worship that God calls for you to have. Brothers and sisters, if we want to have a heart like that, then we must spend time with our Savior. Well, unfortunately, we now move

into a sad portion of the story, the deal with Judas. Verse 14, it says, one of the 12 named Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and said, what are you willing to give me to betray him to you? And they weighed out 30 pieces of silver to him. And from then on, he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus. I love the way Matthew puts this. He calls him one of the 12. I think it's an important statement that's made

because as one of the 12, it meant that he had been involved in everything. He had seen everything, that Jesus had done. He had been a part of Jesus's ministry. And if you remember, Jesus sent his disciples on a short-term mission trip. And do you remember what happened when they went on that short-term mission trip? It says that they healed people. It says that they cast out demons

in Jesus's name. They have seen all of the things that Jesus has done. Judas would have seen Simon the leper be cleansed. He would have seen Lazarus raised from the dead. And yet he found himself in a place where he was willing to sacrifice his Savior. For whatever they could give him. Now, if you read some commentaries on this, they'll give you lists of reasons why Judas did this. I don't know why Judas did this. Perhaps it's because of his

greed. We're certainly led to that conclusion to an extent because of what he's willing to accept. But for whatever reason, he decides he's willing to sacrifice Jesus for something that he can have right now. And so he goes to them and he says, what will you give me if I give you him? And they can imagine them looking at each other going, well, who would have thought this would

land in our laps? I said, we'll tell you what, we'll give you 30 pieces of silver. And he says, deal. 30 pieces of silver. Now we're not told how big the pieces of silver are. They could be worth a lot. They could be worth a little. We're only given the number 30. And that number I think is really important because if you've been with us at all on Wednesday nights, you know, from Exodus,

Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, we're only given the number 30. And that number I think is really that 30 pieces of silver was the price for the redemption of a slave. The price for the redemption of a slave. And he says, deal. And he starts looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. Now, as we wrap up here this morning, my question for you is somewhat singular.

What kind of a heart do you have right now? You see, we've seen three different types of hearts presented here this morning. One of them is the heart of Jesus. One of them is the heart of Jesus. We first of all saw the heart of the disciples. Now the disciples, the followers of Jesus still had the wrong view of what Jesus was. They still view Jesus as a political Messiah, which is why

every time he would tell them about the crucifixion, they'd go, la, la, la, la, we can't hear you, right? Because they didn't want to believe that this political Messiah who was going to set them free. And we know that because even after he rose from the dead, they were like, you know, I mean, you know, now the kingdom, right? So they still were looking for this political, Messiah. And their heart was not in tune with the real work of the Holy Spirit, which was to set

people free from sin. They were instead looking for freedom on this side of eternity. Too many of us in this world right now are still looking for a political Messiah. We're still looking for someone to give us a good world on this side of eternity. Brothers and sisters, there's no such thing. We are looking for a kingdom that is not here, which is why our,

our job is to give out the gospel because it tells us of a kingdom beyond here. But perhaps that's where your heart is this morning. The second type of heart that we saw was that of Judas. Judas, who was willing to sell Jesus for what many consider to be a pretty low price. He had no heart to worship his savior. He was instead willing to trade his savior for the temporary riches of this world.

What do you oftentimes find yourself willing to trade Jesus for? What do we sometimes find ourselves willing to say, I'll give up Jesus for this. But then there was that third heart, Mary. Mary, who was so in tune with the Holy Spirit, whose heart was always focused on learning from her savior so that she could worship him with all of her heart. Listen, if you find yourself in the place this morning where you tend to be a little

bit more focused on this world instead of the things to come, then it's time to gain a heart like Mary. If you're here this morning and you find that you have a heart like Mary, a tendency to trade Jesus for the temporary pleasures of this world, then it's time to gain a heart like Mary. Brothers and sisters, the only way that's gained is by spending time with our savior, by spending time at the feet of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Okay. I think in just a few

moments, they are going to be bringing the kids in. Although these windows are helping me because I don't see any kids coming down the hallway just yet. So I'm hoping they're working their way this way because what we want to do, is all of the kiddos are going to grab some boxes and then we'll probably need some help from all of you adults as well. And when the kiddos come in, they're going to grab a box and we're going to pray over all of these boxes. Because as we said before, the most important thing we can do for

these is pray because these are going to be going to little lives all over the world that will be reached with the gospel. And after we pray over these boxes, the kiddos and anyone that wants to help, we'll usher them out and load them into the back of Ross and Mary. And we're going to be doing that a little bit later. So we're going to be doing that a little bit later. So we're going to

Do one of you want to go check and see where the kiddos are? Because I don't see them coming this way. In the meantime, I'd like to invite the worship team to come on up. And while we're waiting for them, we'll close in prayer and sing our last song. And then when they get in here, we'll do that portion of it. So if you would bow with me. Father, we come before you and we thank

you for the time that we've had in your word here this morning. And Lord, I pray that you would minister to our people. And I pray that you would minister to our people. And I pray that you would hearts as you see fit. Lord, as I started, I end, and that is anything that's of me would fall aside, and that only the things of you would remain. And Lord, minister to us in the way that

only you can. Father, we thank you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, let's get those boxes handed out to some kiddos. Look at all of them. Kiddos and boxes. Maybe some not-so-little kids that want to help. Maybe some grown-up kids that want to help. So as soon as everybody gets the boxes, we will pray over these. There we go. Now we're getting some grown-up kids helping. There's one of my favorite ones back there. Good job.

Yep, probably the right thing to do. All right, let's pray. Father, we come before you, and Lord, I thank you so much for every box that's here today. Lord, for the lives that we know that it will touch. And so, Lord, I just want to lift these to you and just pray, God, that you would prepare, Lord, the young person for these, that you would prepare, Lord, those who will pack and ship these things, and that you would work through all of these

things, Lord, we pray. And God, reach the lives of many people with your gospel. Father, we thank you and we praise you for who you are. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, let the parade commence. Lord bless. Have a great week.