The Cost and the Beauty of Worship

Introduction

What’s up guys!

Honor the church, honor Pastor John.

Acknowledge anyone new at the church.

Today we’re transitioning out of our series that Pastor John just wrapped up last week: Simple Gospel. I’ll be doing an in-between series message today on a broad and beautiful topic in the Church which is ‘Worship”. We’ll be dealing with a classic passage today on the topic of worship.

Introducing the Passage + Driving Point

If I could condense all of this sermon into one sentence it would be:

“Our worship of Jesus should be driven by a heartfelt love and willingness to worship Him extravagantly, this is often inconvenient and costly but it’s beautiful and fitting and He delights in our sacrifice.”

I hope to capture today, not so much of us in the focus, but to rather open our eyes to more of His beauty and let that draw us to a posture of adoring and worshipping Him as He is worthy.

This Scripture is ripe with good fruit (that we’re allowed to eat), it’s God’s Word and it’s His spoken commandment. So let’s dive into it today.

Pray.

Scripture

Matthew 26:6–13 NKJV

And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table. But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.” But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.”

Context

This passage in Matthew doesn’t reveal it, but in John 12, John reveals it to be Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus. Mary is also know in Luke 10:38-42 to be the woman who sits at the feet of Jesus to learn from Him while Martha is busy at work to serve Him. I believe Matthew did this intentionally so that we would better be able to insert ourselves as the woman in this story.

Contextually in Matthew this passage is place rather oddly but also intentionally where it has been by the Gospel author. In the previous verses the pharisees are plotting to kill Jesus and then in the verses following Judas is found betraying Jesus. In fact chronologically the two probably went together, but Matthew deliberately inserts this story here.

Why? Jesus is being shown as the anointed King and Priest, yet for burial…slain for our sins. However, in this anointing He is also being anointed for His death. He is the slain King of Israel!

Worship’s Costly Nature

Matthew 26:6–7 NKJV

And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table.

“a woman”, Like I mentioned earlier Matthew leaves her unnamed. The woman did not worship Jesus with the expectation or desire to make a name for herself, she did it because she loved Jesus and wanted to worship Him more than anything else.

The oil she pours out at Jesus’ feet was valued at nearly a years’ wages.

Illustration: Imagine having a ring that’s valued at a years’ wage and you see the person you love and you freely and joyfully give it away to them because you love them. Not only do you give it to them, but you get down on your knees in a posture of surrender. Giving the ring with joy to the person you love that you have deemed worthy of this gift. Some of us have given more worship and adoration and respect to other people or ourselves, than what we have given to Jesus. I don’t say this for the sake of shame unto despair, but instead I say it for the sake of begging you to offer worship that is valuable and costly to Jesus.

When you give something away that’s valuable it reveals the way that you esteem and value that item.

This woman saw and knew Jesus, and her heartfelt, gut reaction is to pour out her years’ wage oil that she has saved for onto His head! May we not wait till we meet Jesus in heaven to give Him the praise and worship that He is worthy of.

When we meet Jesus, our hearts will be so captivated, so appalled, so in awe of His beauty that we will get to when we see Him and we will wish that we gave more away for His Names’ sake. May we never hold onto what we have whether monetary possessions, our own dignity, a job, a relationship, or anything else in this world so tightly that we’re unwilling to cast it before Jesus’ feet!

“I wish we were all of us ready to do some extraordinary thing for Christ — willing to be laughed at, to be called fanatics, to be hooted and scandalized because we went out of the common way, and were not content with doing what everybody else could do or approve to be done.” - C.H. Spurgeon

Jesus has revealed Himself to us. His grace is so great and His kindness has led us to repentance. His beauty is what draws us to worship Him.

Mark 14:3 mentions the purity of the nard/perfume. Our worship of Jesus is not to be stained by the worries of this life around us or the difficulty of our current life circumstances. It’s unblemished but only because of our surrender to Him and His purifying work.

Sometimes we might not understand what it is we have to give Him, sometimes we don’t want to give that valuable thing up, sometimes it seems like a waste. The disciples thoughts were similar as they saw this woman…

Worship’s Provoking Nature

Matthew 26:8–9 NKJV

But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.”

The disciples were Jesus’ closest followers and friends on the planet! There is no one else that has spent anywhere near the same amount of time that the disciples had. Yet, when the woman comes and worships Him in the way He says is Good, they are angry and call it a waste!

This was deeply convicting for me as I prepared this message. I can remember times at worship services in my life when I have looked at someone pouring their oil at Jesus’ feet and I looked at them and thought to myself, “They need to chill out, it’s just a worship service”. How grieving it must be to the heart of God that I would come to Him with a stingy heart in my worship of Him. But how much He must love us that He would reveal His grace to me again and again!

For the woman, there’s nothing that could’ve been “wasted” on Jesus. When worshipping the Savior, is there ever any form of costly worship that will ever be called wasted when we meet Him face to face?

Worship of this kind puts us in a place of greater trust and faith in Jesus than any intellectual activity can bring. The disciples KNEW Jesus intellectually but when true worship of Jesus was occuring it ANGERED them? As Jesus’ church today we need to be in a place that we intellectually know Jesus well enough that it drives us to a place of undignified worship of Him. Let Jesus loveliness, His gentleness, His lowliness bring us into worshipping Him exposed and vulnerable at His feet.

What the disciples called a waste, Jesus calls a “good [or beautiful] deed”

Jesus’ Reaction

Matthew 26:10–13 NKJV

But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.”

Jesus praises the motive for what the woman did rather than the action itself. As he notes that she has done a “good” or “beautiful” deed for Him, which was done out of spontaneous worship and adoration.

The anointing of Jesus in this passage is a prophetic moment before Jesus death. The woman didn’t even realize that what she was doing was prophetic, she was simply worshipping Him. Of course she plays a different and significant role that is recognized by Jesus in such an honor that her story will go everywhere the Gospel does. But sometimes worship leads us also, directly into God’s will and into perfect obedience. Sometimes obedience means simple adoration of Jesus and who He is and we don’t even realize that we’re sitting exactly where He wants us.

Sin caused man to separate from fellowship with God. Now we come exposed to Him because He exposed Himself before humanity and its evil so that we might be clothed!

Where once sin caused us to hide from Him because of our inadequacies, Jesus causes us to run to Him because of them.

Jesus doesn’t ask us to do anything that He didn’t first do Himself.

The monument of her love and devotion is now as eternal as the Gospel itself! (v. 13)

What does it mean for us today at Denial Church?

This sermon doesn’t have a direct and clear altar call or implication that fits just right for every person.

It’s not universal, this woman had an alabaster jar of a years’ wage of oil in it and her worship and obedience depended on that.

We need to be people that worship Jesus with what we have. We all have different giftings, financial situations, jobs, skills, families, and friendships. But what we have in common is our desire to worship Jesus.

What drew this woman into worshipping Jesus in this way was just seeing Him.

So I’m going to invite us as a church to worship Jesus right now. I know this is a little different than our normal ending but I’m going to play a worship song myself as we end and there’s no expectation I want to put on us in this time other than to focus your attention and devotion on Jesus. Worship Him as you see fit, do something that has made you uncomfortable. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you and come with a willing heart to give what you have to Him!