Busting Up Idols (Mark 14:1-11)

Scripture Introduction:

Your bulletin says that we are going to be preaching on Luke 19 this morning. I think, Lord willing, we are going to do that next week. There is something going on in that text that I just can’t quite put my finger on and so I’m just not comfortable enough to preach the text. But as I was going through this another text—that I think is kind of similar…and a principle that we see with Zacchaeus—this other text seemed to be fitting for this week. It’s in Mark 14:1-11.

When I was a boy I had a friend who was moving away and I wanted to give a gift as a parting gift. But I’m in like 5th grade and so it’s not like I have a ton of money to go to the store to buy something. So, I’m likely going to give him something that I already possess. I remember that I collected baseball cards and he collected baseball cards. I liked Bo Jackson. He liked Bo Jackson.

And so here was in my room looking at my baseball collection. And there it was. Staring right at me—the Bo Jackson black and white card. Very rare. Going for about $25 per card at the time. One of the best cards in my collection. I want to bless him but….oh man, not that card. Maybe my dog-eared Rollie Fingers card that my dad used to put in his bicycle spokes but I’ve now inherited. But not my Bo Jackson card.

I kind of wonder if Mary—this sister of Martha—experienced a similar thing. Jesus is coming over for dinner. This is a big deal. So what do you do to show your appreciation for Jesus? How do you bless him? How do you show him that you love him and are grateful for him?

I can picture it now. Mary going through all of her possessions. She ruffles through everything…nothing seems to fit. Nothing quite does it. And then she sees it. The most valuable possession in their house. A family heirloom. Expensive perfume. Pure nard extracted from an Indian or Arabian root. It was worth about a year’s worth of wages. It’s the best things she’s got…what will she do?

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Sermon Introduction:

She did it. She broke the flask and poured the whole thing on Jesus’ feet. Mark is the only one who mentions that she broke the flask. What does that mean—it means that this perfume isn’t going to be used again. It’s not just a little dab on his toe. She uses the whole thing. Her most valuable treasure is spent for Jesus.

We’ve been saying through this whole series that Mark likes sandwiches. Here is another example. Look on both ends of the story. You’ve got religious leaders trying to kill him by stealth but they don’t want to make the people mad so they’ve got to do it by secret. And then you’ve got Judas—one of the twelve—who agrees to betray Jesus. He sells him out for money. Those stories bookend the story of this woman who anoints Jesus with costly perfume.

What’s going on here? What are we supposed to see?

What we’ve got here in this passage is a contrast between the religious leaders and Judas with this devoted woman. This passage is about worship. It’s about responding to the truth that there really is no greater thing than Jesus. This passage is about our hearts deepest desires. What or who really rules our hearts?

I like the way Tim Keller says this:

Most people spend their lives trying to make their heart’s fondest dreams come true. Isn’t that what life is all about, “the pursuit of happiness”? We search endlessly for ways to acquire the things we desire, and we are willing to sacrifice much to achieve them.

We’ve all got treasures. We’ve got things we value. Some of them—in and of themselves are morally neutral. But it’s when they become God-replacements that they become idols. And then they are no longer morally neutral.

The question for us this morning is what do we do with these desires. We are all perhaps like Mary—taking inventory of all our stuff, Jesus is coming over for dinner, and so what are we going to do. Are we going to bust up our idol for the sake of Jesus or bust up Jesus for the sake of our idol? That’s what we are going to ask this morning. Two major points this morning—which is really one. First, we will look at Judas and the religious leaders and see that the idolatrous heart will always bust up Jesus to worship the idol. Then we will see that the Jesus-captured heart will always bust up lesser loves to worship Jesus.

I. The idolatrous heart will always bust up Jesus to worship the idol.

What do I mean by “bust up Jesus”? I mean forsake him. Sell him out. Sin against him. Even use him as a means to get to your real treasure.

Consider the religious leaders. What was their greatest desire? You can see it even here in the first two verses. They wanted Jesus dead. Why? Maybe some of them thought he was guilty of blasphemy and so they had what they thought was righteous indignation. But Jesus gives us a clue as to what is really going on in his scathing review of them and their ministry. Why is he sitting opposite the temple and the treasury? Why is he saying the temple is going down? Because of their hypocrisy, they are like the fig tree. Advertising life but inside they are filled with death.

But what makes somebody do that? Why do you advertise life if you’ve got death inside? What makes you fake it? What gives birth to a hypocrite?

People pleasing. The fear of man. They’ve made an idol out of people and their acceptance. They want to kill Jesus because he’s gotten more popular than them. They don’t like a “Jesus is in charge” type of world. They like a scribes and Pharisees are in charge type of world. And so they want to get Jesus arrested and killed. They want him done away with. One problem—the people seem to like Jesus and so they don’t want to create an uproar. Besides, it’s Passover and you just don’t do that type of stuff during Passover. So they try to get what they want by a stealth operation.

Now let’s consider Judas. We read in verse 10 that he goes to the priests in order to betray Jesus. It’s not like he just kind of falls into this thing. He is actively seeking out betraying Jesus. Verse 11 is a chilling voice it speaks of the scribes and Pharisees joy at Jesus’ betrayal. We haven’t seen much joy on their part until now but here they are excited about Jesus going down.

But why does Judas do this? What is his idol? It’s a bit difficult to see this from the gospel of Mark but when we look at John we see a bit about Judas’ heart orientation. When Mary pours out this expensive perfume, Judas says, “what are you doing? We could have given this to the poor! Of course Judas could care less about the poor—and we see why he cared. He was dipping into the moneybag. What was ruling Judas’ heart? Money.

What did Judas betray Jesus for? Money. 30 pieces of silver. And I doubt he was going to give that 30 pieces to the poor. This was ruling his heart. He’s willing to betray Jesus in order to get to his hearts true treasure—wealth.

We see in the scribes and Pharisees that the human heart—the idolatrous human heart—will always bust up Jesus/forsake Jesus/ignore Jesus/sin against Jesus in order to get to the hearts true treasure.

And we see here with Judas that we are tricksy in serving our idols. We can even hide behind theology. Everybody knows that ought to serve the poor. And so you can get around obedience by doing things like this. Well what about “this” or what about that. It’s a way to distract from the real idol of the heart.

Super spiritualizing in order to serve our own idols. But isn’t this what the idolatrous heart will do. Serve its idol and even try to use God as an excuse for doing this.

So what about us? What idols do we have that is causing us to “bust up Jesus”, to betray Jesus, to not follow the path of Jesus? What will we sin in order to get? What causes us deep anger? Those types of questions can often help us get to the root of some of these things that might be trying to rule our hearts.

If you take Zacchaeus, who we will see in Luke 19—next week, Lord willing, before he meets Jesus his idol is money. He’s a tax collector—and a wealthy one at that. He’s likely taken money from his own people. A notorious and hated sinner for the way he has treated others. He’s “busted up” the narrow way in order to get a quick buck.

But then he meets Jesus...

And when Jesus captures someone’s heart…well, that’s our second point...

II. The Jesus-captured heart will always bust up lesser loves to worship Jesus

For Zacchaeus he busts up his wealth in order to get Jesus. He sees that this idol is standing in the way of really seeing Jesus. And so he gives half of it away to the poor and then promises to pay fourfold to anyone he has sinned against. He makes restitution. Why?

Because Jesus is a greater treasure. His heart is captivated. Let’s turn back to our story in Mark and see this with Mary...

A couple of things to notice about this story. Mark is the only one who says Mary broke the flask. She doesn’t just dabble a bit on the toe she breaks the whole thing. Total devotion to the Lord. He gets it all. She isn’t saving a drop.

And Jesus calls this a beautiful thing.

Let’s not get too crazy. Let’s have balance. Jesus calls this worship a beautiful thing.

And he says that what she has done will be shared whenever the story of Jesus is told. We are seeing a fulfillment of this here. The gospel writers writing it is fulfillment.

I think there is a little side point here about leaving a legacy. You could look at this text and say, wow, I’d like to be remembered like that lady. Consider the legacy that Judas left and the legacy that this woman left. She is remembered for her total devotion. Judas is remembered as a back-stabbing traitor. Which legacy do you want to leave?

But I also want to say this—she didn’t pour out the oil because she wanted to be remembered as a Jesus-lover. She poured out the oil because she loved Jesus. She likely didn’t have a legacy in her mind at all. It was worship. An over concern with legacy will leave you in danger of being a Pharisee and a scribe—they were the ones worried about legacy.

This leads to our next question. Where does this passion come from?

The work of Christ. He makes us a new creature. Look at what happens in the gospel.

1) Always idolatrous. If you don’t know Jesus this is your state. This is your heart. Something else has your heart captured. It might change from day to day but at the end of the day what really has your heart is you. Self. That’s what sin has done to humanity. Causes us to turn inward and to worship the wrong thing.

You see it in Judas. See it in the religious leaders. See it Zacchaeus.

And I think it’s important to say here too that there is away in which the heart can see value in Jesus—you don’t really think it’s proper to “bust him up” you aren’t breathing out murderous threats—but you also want to keep your battle of perfume, keep your baseball card, give that Rollie Fingers card instead of the Bo Jackson one…so that you look nice, you look like you care, and you get to keep your treasure. Best of both worlds.

You pull the Judas. Jesus is passionate about the poor, you think! And so you shout out, “we could have spent that money on the poor”. You look the part. You look like you’re following Jesus…but you’re still hanging onto that idol. It still is captivating your heart. You get to convince yourself that you’ve got Jesus (fire insurance) and you’ve also got to keep that treasure in your pocket.

2) A new heart.

But that’s not what happens in conversion. That isn’t what happens when Jesus captivates your heart. Perfume wasn’t Mary’s treasure anymore. Wealth wasn’t what captivated Zacchaeus’ heart anymore. He doesn’t deliberate. He just responds in obedience.

That’s what happens when your heart is changed by Jesus. Don’t hear me wrong…there is at times a wrestling. Especially as you grow in the faith. But do you want to know whether you are saved or not? First, do you have these battles?

If there isn’t a battle and you’re just happily serving idols, then that answers your question. But what happens when the Lord shows you something. What happens when your heart is revealed? You might cling to that idol for a season…you might wrestle and get miserable and be foolish…but at the end of the day you’re going to say, “Jesus, you win.” You’re going to bust up that idol for the sake of Jesus.

No matter if it’s wealth, appearance, comfort, status, power, politics, the need to be right, addiction, work, pornography, anger, relationships, possessions....whatever...

When Jesus captivates your heart…those things aren’t just stowed away for later. They are busted up. It’s not that you’re adding Jesus to an already comfortable life. You see that those aren’t compatible and so you do what Mary did, what Zacchaeus did. You bust up that idol because Jesus is better.

“From this we may gather that man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols…Man’s mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and an empty appearance as God.” –John Calvin, Institutes, 1.11.8

I’ve read this quote a few times in books that deal with idolatry. It is no secret that the human heart has a propensity towards idol worship. Calvin is really saying no more than what the apostle Paul said in Romans 1:18-25—because of the fall, humanity worships and services creation instead of the Creator.

We are idolaters. With that statement I agree totally. Furthermore, I believe with Keller, that “idolatry is always the reason we ever do anything wrong”. It’s the root of all our problems.

Yet, I still have to wonder if we aren’t misreading and wrongly applying that Calvin quote. I don’t think “perpetual idol factory” is an accurate description of the heart of one transformed by Jesus Christ. Nor do I think that is what Calvin, or more importantly the apostle Paul, is saying. The reference for Paul—and Calvin after him is one that has not yet been redeemed.

To say that we are still churning out idols at a perpetual rate is, in my mind, to deny the transforming work of the Spirit within us.

The Image I Prefer

I believe the Scriptures teach that we were idolaters, but we have been washed, we were sanctified, we were justified (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). In other words, our idol factory was bought out by Someone else. We have a new owner. The factory that is your heart has a sign on the door that says, “Under New Ownership”.

Yes, you still churn out some of that old product. The new boss hasn’t gutted out the entire place. He hasn’t fired every one. He even uses some of the same machines that used to produce idols. The transition is a slow process. As such the factory sometimes goes back to its old way of working. That’s why you still produce idols.

But it’s still different. When you produce an idol it is now considered a defect. What once was celebrated is now met with disappointment. The Manager calls the workers to the side and disciplines them. He reminds the crew that this factory doesn’t produce idols anymore, and slowly points to the sign that reads, “Under New Ownership”.

Some day all those old machines will be replaced. The workers will no longer even know how to produce idols. The factory will be totally and completely His. And on that day we’ll all rejoice because our new Boss is marvelous. He’s given everything to ensure that this takeover will not result in business as usual. We love our new Boss and want this factory to look exactly as He designed it.

One day it will…

How about you?

Is your heart under new ownership? If you are still churning out idols without rebuke, without battle, then that tells you something. You haven’t been bought yet. You’re still an idol factory. You need a new owner.

You need Jesus.

If your management has changed, let’s stop paying homage to our old boss. Let’s stop pretending that our heart is still an idol factory. It’s not. It’s a former idol factory that is being slowly transformed into a factory that serves it’s new owner. May we not forget that.

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And someday our hearts will be entirely redeemed. Jesus told Mary that he was preparing him for burial. The disciples didn’t get this yet…they thought they were going to Jerusalem to rule. And that’s where we will see next week Jesus corrects this with the Parable of the 10 Minas.

But Mary does get it. She understands something about what Jesus is going to be doing. He is going to die to put death in the grave. He is going to die in order to bring about the new covenant…a new covenant that would be sealed with the Holy Spirit…a new covenant that would give us new hearts....a new covenant that would change the ownership of these idol factories.

So where are you at?

1) Not captured? Here is the gospel…Will you respond to this?

2) Not battling sin-what would it look like if Jesus had everything?

3) Jesus really must be precious