This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to week 28 of our look through the book of Matthew. Just a
few weeks left as we head towards the end of the book, chapter 26. And in
chapter 26, as we start day one in this chapter today, everything in this
chapter is in light of the first five verses.

Listen to how this chapter starts. When Jesus had finished saying all these
things, he said to his disciples, "As you know, the Passover is two days away,
and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified. And then the chief
priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest,
whose name was Caiaphas.

And they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him, but not during
the feast, they said, or there might be a riot among the people. " These verses
set up everything that's going to happen in this chapter. We're heading towards
the cross, and these are all the events that happen right before the cross.

In this chapter, we're going to see an anointing, a betrayal, a supper, a
sorrowing, a trial, and a denial. All in this chapter, all leading up, heading
towards the fact that Jesus is going to sacrifice his life for you, for me,
because of his love for us. It begins in a very positive way with an anointing,
beginning in verse 6.

We see Jesus being anointed by a woman for his burial, even before it happens.
Listen to what happens. When Jesus was in Bethany, in the home of a man known as
Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive
perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

When the disciples saw this, they were indignant, "Why this waste? " they asked.
"This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the
poor.

" Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has
done a beautiful thing for me. The poor you will always have with you, but you
will not always have me.

When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I
tell you the truth. Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what
she has done will also be told in memory of her.

" And that prophecy, that truth that Jesus told is coming true again. We're
talking about her as we talk about the gospel. John tells us that the woman who
did this was Jesus' friend Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus.

And here she is in her spirit of worship, extravagantly giving to Jesus. And
Jesus affirms how important it is. So important that it would be told
everywhere.

Now when he says the poor you will always have with you, he's not saying you
should just put up with that. The Bible again and again tells us to care for the
poor. No, he's saying you need to care for the poor, but you also need to
recognize the importance of what she's done.

You can worship extravagantly and also care for the poor. Jesus says it's not
either or. It's both.

And this woman has prepared my body, he said, even in advance for burial. Mary
sacrificially worships. She sacrificially gives to Jesus this day.

And as I look at this, the question I have is what about you and I? What do we
have to do? What has to happen in our lives to be like Mary, to give such
sacrificial worship to the Lord?

Because your values are always going to show up in your actions. Your values
will always show up in your actions. You've probably seen that silly bumper
sticker.

My wife said it's either her or fishing. I'm sure going to miss my wife. That
guy's values showed up in his actions, what he valued the most.

And Mary says here that she values Jesus the most. What does it take to make
this humble and extravagant sacrifice for Jesus? Well, let's learn from Mary,
some things that she did.

First she had the ointment. She kept the ointment. So the first thing it takes
is it takes a costly preparation.

You have to prepare your heart. You have to prepare your life to make such a
sacrifice. Worship is a heart transformed that expresses love regardless of the
cost.

And that transformed heart causes you to be ready for these moments. Now in
studying the kind of ointment that was used in that day that was so expensive,
it was probably a pure nard, an aromatic herb that was grown in the high pasture
land of the Himalayas beyond Tibet and India. And the fact that it was rare, so
rare, caused it to cost probably about a year's wages for this amount.

So when the disciples were upset, there was a reason they were upset. This was
an extremely expensive act of worship. And whether she had bought it or it had
been given to her, this was a treasure that had been given to her and she had
somehow paid the price to keep it for this day.

She had, without even knowing it maybe, planned for this act of devotion. And
sometimes to be prepared for an act of devotion means you have to plan in
advance. You have to plan in advance.

It is a wonderful thing to say I'm just going to extravagantly in this moment do
what Jesus asked me to do. But it's also wonderful to prepare for it in advance.
So the person who says hey I'm in debt, I need to be ready for whatever God
asked me to do and they get out of debt and because of that they're able to go
on the mission field when God asked them to go.

They prepared in advance. Which is more an act of devotion, giving the last $20
in your pocket just as an expression of love or saving $20,000 to give to the
Lord? They're both an act of devotion but don't forget the preparation part.

And Mary prepared for this moment. And then she brings it to the table. In every
extravagant act of worship, of sacrifice, there is an intentional decision.

There's a moment of I'm going to worship Jesus. I'm going to do this. She goes
and gets it.

She brings it to the table. That is the moment when you're saying my values, my
value of worship, my value of love for Christ. That is what's going to reign in
this moment.

And she made that decision as she did many times in her life. She brings it to
the table and she breaks the jar to pour it on Jesus. So there's this
intentional decision that leads to this moment of sacrifice.

Love so extravagant that it was shocking. When she broke that jar was it a
terrible waste of money or an extravagant expression of love? It all depended on
the values.

Some looked at the value of the perfume, but Jesus looks at the value of Mary's
action. He looks at the value of Mary's heart, what she is valuing in that
moment. One of the biggest questions in my life and your life is not what do I
think is the most valuable, but what am I going to value?

What am I going to value? What's going to be the most important to me in life?
And she breaks this jar saying there's nothing more important than Christ, this
sacrificial moment.

Sometimes, in order for us to have this moment of pure sacrifice, something does
need to be broken in our lives. A materialism in our lives that's had a grip on
us has to be broken or an unforgiveness in our lives. We haven't been able to
let go of that hurt.

It has to be broken or some pattern from our past that is all rooted in
selfishness. It has to be broken. There is a deep, deep lesson here in the
brokenness of what she did that needs to happen when we make this sacrifice.

She broke the jar, this moment of sacrifice, and then she poured it on Jesus, an
action of love, this ceremony of perfuming the head and body. It was a rare
ritual preserved only for royalty. It was the most lofty honor that you could
bestow on a common person because it was really meant for a king.

So she is saying this is a king that's going to die in this moment. And as she
pours it out, this action of love, this fragrance fills the house. But think
about it.

That wasn't all. Wherever Jesus moved during the next week, the next few hours,
this perfume would go with him into the Passover, the Lord's Supper, into the
Garden of Gethsemane, into the priest's home where there was the trial, into
Herod's Hall, into Pilate's Praetorium, onto the cross. The crude hands of the
soldiers that divided Jesus's garments, those garments still had the fragrance
upon them.

This fragrance was taken into the tomb with Jesus. She anointed his body for
burial. But that wasn't all.

Jesus says this anointing, wherever the gospel is preached, the love that she
expressed that day is seen, is smelt, is heard wherever the gospel is preached.
That is the power of what she did. That's the power of an extravagant, humble
expression of sacrificial love.

And we learned some things from this experience that Mary went through. We
learned that sacrificial love for Christ motivates extravagant commitment. An
extravagant commitment, a commitment that doesn't care what other people think
sometimes but knows what God wants you to do.

We also learned that sacrificial love for Christ is an easily misunderstood
motivation. So many are so caught up in their own selfishness, and you and I are
even caught up in our own selfishness so many times, we miss a humble,
extravagant expression of love because we're thinking of it through the eyes of
our selfishness. Or others miss your expression of love because they're thinking
of it through the eyes of their selfishness.

Don't get focused on them. Keep focused on Christ. That's why you gave like you
gave.

Because the third thing we learned is that sacrificial love for Christ motivates
us to accomplish things that are beyond our reach. Mary could have never known
that day that what she was doing, what she was doing was anointing him for
burial, but was also going to be heard wherever the gospel was preached. These
sacrificial moments of love, Jesus has a reason for asking us to do it.

But through what you do, he's going to express his love to them. So let's take a
moment as we think about this kind of love to ask, to ask Jesus to lead us as
only he can lead us. Jesus, we come to you.

And we know we don't have this kind of love in us, but you do. You are
overflowing with sacrificial love. So I pray that you would teach us to have
this kind of worship.

Bring it more and more into our lives. Make us men and women who look to you for
ways that we can extravagantly give to you. There's so many ways to think about
extravagance in this world.

Extravagant things and extravagant foods and extravagant vacations. Lord, let us
think more and more about extravagant worship, we pray. And we pray it in Jesus'
name, amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to see together the beginning of a betrayal and Jesus
beginning the Lord's Supper.