EXTRAVAGANT WORSHIP

Introduction

-As you turn to John 12 today, you noticed in the video the repeated theme that HE IS WORTHY! Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior, Our King, is worthy. Worthy of what?

~Honor…glory…praise…devotion…complete commitment

~And how do we demonstrate this worth? That is what worship is. Worship is us demonstrating or reflecting back to Christ His worth?

-Of how much worth is Jesus Christ? Of how much value is our Lord?

~Obviously words fail us to completely describe the worth of Jesus Christ, and so the worship that we give to Him ought to reflect that fact.

-That is why I use the word extravagant when it comes to worship. The word extravagant has many definitions:

1a: exceeding the limits of reason or necessity

b: lacking in moderation, balance, and restraint

c: extremely or excessively elaborate

-Sometimes the word is used in a negative connotation when it means something is over the top. For example, that pastor flying around in his own, personal $75 million dollar jet is a little bit extravagant. {Not me, by the way.}

~Sometimes the word is used neutrally, for example: Jean’s party was quite extravagant with all the fancy decorations and food and such.

-But then there is the implication of the word that I find in the passage we are reading today. It describes the worship that Mary had for Jesus just because of who He was—because of His person and His teachings and His actions—and it was prophetic in looking forward to what Jesus would soon accomplish on the cross and His resurrection.

-It is extravagant in that it exceeds human reason. It is extravagant in that it has no moderation. It is extravagant in that it lacks restraint. It is extravagant in that it is extremely elaborate. And those are good things exactly because JESUS IS WORTHY! Jesus has exceedingly, unlimited, unrestrained, elaborate value.

-And because that is the case, why then do we hold ourselves back from worshipping in a biblical manner? Why do we put restraints on ourselves when it comes to worship?

-Yesterday, between about 2:30-6:00 there was a whole lot of unrestraint going on over a football game. There were a lot of extravagant reactions. There were shouts of joy, shouts of anger, and all sorts of unrestrained expression going on. Over a football game. These expressions came in reflection of the worth of that game in the eyes of the one giving expression to their emotions.

-And then when it comes to worshipping Jesus we can barely get a YAY JESUS out of anyone. Jesus isn’t worthy of a little bit of worship. Jesus is worthy of extravagant worship. So, today, I want to release us / free us to live lives of extravagant worship as we see how Mary gave her worship.

John 12:1–8 ESV

1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. 3 Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” 6 He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. 8 For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”

-Let me give you a little bit of background to the passage. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are friends and disciples of Jesus. Lazarus became sick and died. Jesus came and raised Him from the dead. Jesus went off into the wilderness for a time, but returned to their village, and a large feast is given where He is the guest of honor. While the feast is going on, Mary, in front of everyone, expresses her extravagant worship. Unknowingly to her, she does this action six days before Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. But by her actions we learn how we too can give this same worship.

~Let’s consider four marks of extravagant worship:

(1) Extravagant worship is spontaneous

-As you look at the passage, this was not some sort of religious festival, it wasn’t a religious service, it was merely a dinner, albeit one that may have been of decent size.

-The point being that there was no prompting to Mary’s actions. The Bible is silent about her motivations. It wasn’t a specified time or a forced time—that hour was not designated as the praise Jesus hour.

-So, if I may have a moment of sanctified imagination and give a conjecture—Mary saw Jesus reclining at the table, and so that presented itself as an opportunity, and what prompted her actions was merely the love that she had for Jesus. She spontaneously gave her worship.

~She didn’t wait for instructions, she didn’t wait for an appropriate hour, she didn’t wait to get permission, she didn’t wait for anything—she decided, as the praise song says, COME, NOW IS THE TIME TO WORSHIP

-Now, by talking about a spontaneous action of worship, in no way do I take away from what it is we commonly call worship at a church service in singing His praises. That most certainly is worship and it is special because it presents an opportunity for us to come together as fellow believers in Jesus Christ and join our voices together to lift them up to Him. And that time of worship prepares our hearts to receive His Word.

-But, I guess, I have a question in light of this:

Is that the only time that you choose to worship? ~Now, mind you, worship is more than just singing songs on Sunday morning. That’s part of it, but why, for most of us, is that the extent of our worship. Is Jesus only worthy on Sunday morning? No, Jesus is worthy all the time. Are songs the only expression of worship? No, anything that we do or give in reflection of His worth is worship.

-But how do we spontaneously give extravagant worship outside of the corporate worship services? This leads:

(2) Extravagant worship is responsive

-You see, Mary’s extravagant worship was in response to what she truly felt about Jesus at that time. Since it was a spontaneous worship, it may not be because of a long time of reflection on her part, but what she did was in response to what Jesus meant to her.

-Extravagant worship reflects the value that the worshipper holds for the recipient of worship—because Mary thought so much about Jesus, in her eyes He was worth more than anything she could give Him, but she gave what she did and what she could in response.

-Do you express His worth to Him when you are not with the corporate body of believers in the church just in response to how great He is? Are there times when your heart reflects on the infinite value of a Loving Savior?

~When you see a colorful sunset, do you merely reflect on the sunset, or does it cause your heart to praise Him in response, saying: Lord Jesus, you are Creator of all things, and you made this beautiful sunset and it reflects your beauty, and I praise you.

-Or even when you go through the mundane routines of life, do you take time from the overflow of blessings in your life to reflect on the worth of the Savior who provided you with everything you have.

~Sure, you may think your job or school or boring or routine or whatever, but Jesus gave you that job, Jesus gave you that school, and you are able to work and to study because He so deemed it to be possible. Without His blessings you would be able to do nothing. Do you recognize that value and worth, and does it overflow?

-But another question is how are you going to worship a Lord that you don’t know? Or, how will you know what to value in Him if you don’t spend any time with Him?

~When you read God’s Word, does it then echo into a response of worship? When you see who He is, what He did, and what He provides, do you respond? You can’t respond to someone you have no interaction with.

-I think of Mary and am amazed by her—whenever Jesus was around, He had her full attention. The more she was around Him, the more of Him she wanted, and then she expresses His value to her.

~I think of Luke 10 where Jesus is in Mary and Martha’s home and Martha is all busy trying to be the hostess with the mostest, but Mary couldn’t help but sit at Jesus’ feet. Why? Because she valued Him.

~And now, however long after that incident, here is Mary anointing Him as an act of worship in response to what she really thought about Him.

(3) Extravagant worship is sacrificial

-From the overflow of that love that she had, Mary brought what the ESV describes as “an expensive ointment from pure nard”—the word for expensive there means valuable

~Nard was not cheap to come by in Judea because it was not indigenous to the region—in fact, scholars believe that it had to have been imported from the region we now know as India.

-This was not some cheap cologne she found at Walgreens. This was expensive ointment that she felt led to anoint Him with in response to the value that she put on Him.

-Judas, who is the exact opposite of Mary because he had held Jesus at no value or worth, complained that what she had done was used an ointment that was worth 300 denarii. That is a year’s wages in the 1st century. Imagine, then, that this ointment was worth roughly $40,000 in our day and time.

-Can you imagine doing that—taking something worth tens of thousands of dollars and pouring it out, never to be regained, all because of the love and value you have for somebody?

-This ointment could have been a family heirloom, maybe something given to her by her father. And she held Jesus to be of more value than that, so she willingly sacrificed it on His behalf.

~Or, quite possibly, this was part of her bridal dowry—something she was holding on to for her wedding to give to her future husband. Mary held Jesus to be of more value to her than getting married and she was willing to sacrifice even that for Jesus.

-You see, Mary didn’t give Jesus second best. She didn’t give to Jesus a worship that cost her nothing. If she would have given Him a worship that cost her nothing, then that is a reflection of what she would have thought about Him—NOTHING.

~But by pouring this nard on Him she was saying: Jesus you are worth more to me than anything else that I have, and I am willing to sacrifice everything for you.

-And here we are, the richest Christians that have ever lived in history, and what do we give Jesus? Well, I guess I can spare an hour or two to put up with church services—but I’ll watch hours upon hours of football and TV.

~We’ll sacrifice time with family to stay at work and make money, we will sacrifice time and money for our kids to play sports, we will sacrifice money to have every streaming service imaginable—BUT WE WON’T SACRIFICE ANYTHING FOR JESUS.

~We want a Jesus that costs us nothing, and that is a reflection of what we think about Him—NOTHING.

-In 2 Samuel 24, after sinning against God with a census, God tells King David to go to the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite and build an altar and give sacrifice to God. So, David goes to Araunah and says he wants to buy the threshing floor. Araunah tells David that he can just have it and offer to God whatever he sees fit to offer. Listen to David’s response:

24 But the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing." (2 Sam. 24:24 ESV)

-Why, because to David God was worth the sacrifice—what does our sacrifice in life say about the value that we place on Jesus Christ?

IV) Extravagant worship is carefree

-Mary is so fixated on Jesus that she does not care about what other people think about her or her actions—she is going to express to Jesus exactly what she thinks about Him

-Now, mind you, this is the 1st century Ancient Near East, so the culture was different than ours, and it was very patriarchal—male dominated. It was a social faux pas for a female to approach a male publicly in the manner that Mary did. But that didn’t matter to Mary because she just had to worship Jesus.

~And during that time it was another social faux pas for a woman to have her hair untied and hanging loosely like it had to have been for her hair to have wiped his feet. In fact, loose hair was often a sign of loose morals. But Mary was not worried about her reputation. Her worship was unhindered—it was carefree. It had to be expressed and it truly didn’t matter what other people thought.

-I wonder how much of worrying what other people think hinders our worship? We don’t raise our hands because that just doesn’t seem right. We do raise our hands because we don’t want other people think we’re unholy.

-I don’t want people to see me singing in my car—they’ll think I’m crazy. I don’t want to do this or that or the other thing because what will people think.

-You know, all of that will just fade away when the concentration is set on the value of Jesus. When you are so focused in on Christ’s worth, it really won’t matter what people think.

~So, people think I’m crazy for doing whatever—who cares—I’m demonstrating to my Savior that He is just so worth it.

Conclusion

-I want to read these lyrics from a song that describes this extravagant worship from Mary, and then reflects what our heart ought to be:

One day a plain village woman

Driven by love for her Lord

Recklessly poured out a valuable essence

Disregarding the scorn

And once it was broken and spilled out

A fragrance filled all the room

Like a prisoner released from his shackles

Like a spirit set free from the tomb

{Chorus}: Broken and spilled out

Just for love of you, Jesus

My most precious treasure

Lavished on thee

Broken and spilled out

And poured at your feet

In sweet abandon

Let me be spilled out

And used up for thee

Lord you were God’s precious treasure

His loved and His own perfect Son

Sent here to show me the love of the Father

Just for love it was done

And though You were perfect and holy

You gave up Yourself willingly

You spared no expense for my pardon

You were used up and wasted for me

Broken and spilled out

Just for love of me, Jesus

My most precious treasure

Lavished on me

Broken and spilled out

And poured at my feet

In sweet abandon

Let me be spilled out

And used up for thee

-Is Jesus your most precious treasure? What will you pour out to Him to worship Him?

-{Prayer/Invitation}