40 Days to the Cross - The Gospel is Extravagant

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Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, that is a great confession for us to make this morning that we have come to worship because the Bible says in John chapter 4, you are on the record as saying that the Father is seeking worshipers who worship him in spirit and truth.

John 4 · chapter mention

So if we've come to worship this morning, then we've come to be found by you as the kind of people that you're looking for.

You're not looking for perfect people.

We don't have to put that on a bumper sticker and drive it around town.

Anybody with half a brain knows that.

And so for us to announce something like that, it's just a it's an insult to the sufficiency of the gospel.

We get that.

Let's move on from that to other things, to bigger things.

Thought-provoking, life-shaping things that the Bible actually talks about.

And so, Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth today.

It's okay if we don't know the words to the songs.

Maybe people in this room, they're already, they've just kind of they've uh disqualified themselves.

They feel irregular and uncomfortable because, well, see, I come to church and I don't know the song.

That's okay.

You're not put off by that.

We're not here because we know the songs.

We're here because you know us.

And you know why we're here.

And the building's not going to fall down if we walk in.

You know everything about us.

The psalmist says, before a word is on my tongue, you know it.

Before a thought is in my head, you know it.

So why could we not be honest with that kind of a God this morning?

Be honest with us in the text this morning, in the Bible.

And our response is that we'll be honest in response to you.

That's our commitment.

Make it our experience, we pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You can have a scene.

If you have a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Mark chapter 14.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, let's run on your row.

Take it and crack it open.

Find the New Testament, find the book of Mark, and join in this morning.

We are beginning a new series entitled 40 Days to the Cross.

And someone stopped me and they said, I'm excited about this new series you're doing.

I said, Why are you excited?

We're going to talk about the cross.

And I said, Well, okay.

We're going to talk about 40 days to the cross.

And basically, here's what this is about.

Jesus knew he was going to die.

He knew how he was going to die.

He knew that he was going to get up from the grave after being dead.

He was going to be resurrected.

And so here's a question I want to give you to think about, maybe to talk about over lunch.

If you could know when you were going to die, would you choose to know that?

And don't answer just yet.

Some of you are like, no, no, no, that's morbid.

And if you could know when you were going to die, how would it change the way you live?

Because one of the things you see in the Bible is that Jesus, all the gospel writers, they talk about what's called the Caesarea Philippi incident.

They were in this region of the country called Caesarea Philippi, hence the name, the Caesarea Philippi incident.

And Jesus was talking to his disciples, and he basically asked this question: Who do men say that I am?

And they said, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say one of the prophets.

And Jesus kind of sharpens the focus and says, Who do you say that I am?

And Peter gets it right.

Peter says, You're the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus says, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Barjona.

Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you.

And then the Bible says this little phrase, it feels like a throwaway, but it's very impactful.

It says, From that time on, Jesus began to talk to them about his death.

That's kind of a seminal moment in the life of Jesus because here's the deal.

Now that you understand who I am, the magnitude of what I'm about to do is not gonna be lost on you.

And so he kind of sets his face like flint.

He's headed to Jerusalem from that point.

And so that's what we 40 days to the cross.

Jesus knows that he's got time.

We're gonna read from Mark 14.

Jesus, as best we can tell, is nine days from dying on the cross for the sins of the world.

He's nine days.

If he had nine days left to live, what would you do?

Would you pick a fight with your wife about nitpicky things?

What would you do?

Would you go to work tomorrow?

Or would you call in and go, hey, I'm checking out in nine days.

You guys can have it.

Click.

You see, understanding your death liberates you in the way that you live life.

And so this morning I want to talk to you in this first sermon in this series about the gospel, that the gospel is extravagant.

Jesus preaches this sermon from this text, John, excuse me, Mark chapter 14, verse 1.

Mark 14:1

It was now two days before the Passover, and the feast of unleavened bread, and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people, because the people loved Jesus.

I mean, he was the kind of person you wanted to be around.

The religious leaders couldn't stand him.

Verse 3, and while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, he was reclining at table, and a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.

There were some who said to themselves indignantly, Why was the ointment wasted like that?

This ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.

And they scolded her.

But Jesus said, Leave her alone.

Why do you trouble her?

She's done a beautiful thing to me, for you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them, but you will not always have me.

She has done what she could.

She's anointed my body beforehand for burial.

And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

And then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priest in order to betray him to them.

And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money.

And he sought an opportunity to betray him.

I want to just talk about the gospel.

Jesus, in this little exchange, Jesus kind of magnifies the message that the gospel is extravagant.

What do you mean?

I want to give you three takeaways from the text, and then I want to close by giving you four things to kind of think about just to kind of enhance our understanding.

What I well described is towards more extravagant.

Someone stopped me in the hallway and said, Hey, Pastor, how can I pray for you this week?

And I said, Pray that I live more extravagantly.

And he looked at me like, I guess you're going to talk about this in the sermon, right?

Translation, that sounds kind of creepy.

You're not supposed to say, I want to live more extravagantly.

And I don't mean richer, better house, nicer car, blah, blah, blah.

That's not what I'm talking about at all.

I'm talking about what the Bible talks about here.

First takeaway from the text is simply this the goodness of God surpasses the badness of man.

The goodness of God surpasses the badness of man.

You say, What do you mean?

Look at verse 3.

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, just stop right there.

How'd you like to be known as Simon the Leper?

Well, he was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper.

By the way, you know at work, people have a nickname for you, right?

You should go into work tomorrow and ask people, hey, when I'm not around, what do you guys call me?

I asked the staff this week that, and a fight broke out.

So if you hear about it, that's what happened.

I overcame and won.

Now the Bible says he was in the house of Simon the leper.

Now, think just for a minute, if you've read the Old Testament, you realize that people lepers were not allowed to be out in public.

They were not allowed to come to church, they were not allowed to come to worship services at temple.

They were kind of ostracized.

They had leper colonies.

They were out in the uh out in the country in the middle of nowhere when basically they're just waiting to die.

And so here's Jesus, and he is in the house of Simon the leper.

Now, if you ever get bored sometime, or maybe not bored, you just get curious, read Leviticus chapter 13 or 14, and it gives you the rules, the laws concerning about how to handle someone who has leprosy.

Leviticus 13 · chapter mention

It's an incredible list of details.

You've got to go through all this stuff, and on the off chance that you do get healed, you've got to go to the priest and prove, and he's got to kind of sign off and say, okay, you can come to church now.

You're no longer unclean because a leper was unclean.

As a matter of fact, if you had leprosy and you're walking down the road and you saw someone coming or heard someone coming, you had to get off the road, cover your face, and yell out, unclean, unclean.

And yet here's Jesus sitting in the house of a man named Simon the leper.

Now, what's this got to do with the fact that the goodness of God is better than the badness of man?

We'll get to that in just a minute.

Matter of fact, the Bible tells us in Luke chapter 17 that Jesus heals ten lepers at one time.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

And he says, Go show yourselves to the priest because he wants to fulfill the law.

Jesus says, I didn't come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill the law.

He wants to fulfill the law.

So they all take off, go and show themselves to the priest.

One of them looks down and realizes, I'm no longer leprous.

I no longer, and so he turns around and he just kind of falls at Jesus' feet because extravagance is the natural response to the gospel.

You say, okay, well, what's that got to do with the fact that the goodness of God surpasses the badness of man?

Jesus doesn't violate the law because if he broke the law, he couldn't be a sinless sacrifice nine days from now, nine days from where this text is written.

He couldn't fulfill the obligation of being sinless if he broke the law and was around a leper.

So why am I telling you this?

Because Simon was a man that Jesus healed of leprosy.

You say, okay, thanks for that profound insight.

What's that got to do with me?

There's some of you in this room have something in your life that you're so ashamed of that you treat yourself like a leper.

You withdraw, you avoid, you don't have intimate, close spiritual formative friendships.

Like I was having coffee, I was having lunch with one of the men in our church.

I said, Well, he was new to our church, and I just said, Hey, I just want to get to know you.

So we went to lunch.

I said, Tell me your story.

And he looked at me and he goes, How much do you want to know?

And I was like, Oh, now I'm interested.

And so he just said, I said, just put it all out on the table.

I said, Nothing you tell me is going to change my mind about you.

Why do I say that?

Because I believe that the goodness of man surpasses, I mean, the goodness of God surpasses the badness of man.

Most of you have never been in friendships or relationships where you could just kind of say, This is who I really am.

And so this conversation went so long that we had to go get coffee.

Lunch couldn't contain it.

We had to go get coffee.

And he kept talking.

And then he got to the to the good parts, and I was just like, and the guy was telling me all this stuff, and I just said, Man, that is jacked up.

Don't you want to have that response?

Somebody tell you that sometime?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is as jacked up as you told me it was.

And I just smiled and I said, Man, thanks for telling me that.

And I said, doesn't change a thing.

Now why?

Because I believe what the Bible says, what Jesus models and demonstrates with his lips and with his life.

What's that?

The goodness of God is bigger and better than the badness of man.

So if you're in this room today and you've got some leprosy at work in your life, you got some, well, you know, I kind of am not really proud of this, and I just want to kind of avoid that, and I rearrange the furniture of my life to cover that up so that no one sees that.

Let's just pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

I just want to say to you that the goodness of God is better than the badness of man.

The Bible's so subtle.

And these small little words and phrases that speak such a big message.

Jesus was at the house of Simon the leper.

As he was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.

There were some who said to themselves indignantly, Why was the ointment wasted like that?

By the way, notice that the Bible says there were some who said to themselves, they didn't say it out loud.

They said to themselves, Why was this ointment wasted like that?

For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor.

And they scolded her, but Jesus said, Shut your face.

Don't you wish that was in the Bible?

That's what Jesus says.

Hey, leave her alone, you withered up mean old people.

Why do you trouble her?

She's done a beautiful thing to me, for you always have the poor with you whenever you want.

You can do good for them, but you will not always have me.

She's done what she could.

She's anointed my body beforehand for burial.

And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

Ask yourself this question.

When somebody shared the gospel with you, did they talk to you about this woman?

Because Jesus says, and that's why this is the first sermon in this series, is because I want to just line my life up and my preaching up with the prophecy of Jesus.

He says, wherever the gospel is preached, people are going to talk about this.

What's this?

This is the fact that Jesus is at somebody's house having dinner, and a woman walks in, cracks open a bottle of this alabaster jar of pure nard, that just think tootie fruity Vaseline, and she just pours it on Jesus' head.

And here's what the Bible says: the Bible says it's worth 300 denarii.

Now, to bring that down to where we live, a denari was a day's wage.

Okay?

And so if there's 365 days in our year, it's kind of the modern equivalent is if you got 300 back out the weekends and vacation, blah, blah, blah, that's a year's wage right there.

300 of your paydays.

Now, all across this room, I want all of you to think about whatever you make in a year, your annual salary in a bottle, she breaks the head, cracks the neck on it, and pours it on Jesus' head, and Judas and the rest of the people in the room freak out and go berserk.

And Jesus says this one little simple phrase hey, chill out.

She has saved this for the day of my burial.

She's anointed me beforehand.

What do you mean?

It's a second takeaway from the text.

We all live our understanding.

We all live out of what we really understand.

What do you mean?

This ointment, this gnarred, it was Spike nerd, it was a fragrant plant.

It grows in the Himalayan mountains, by the way.

This is what a nerd your pastor is.

It grows in an elevation of between 11,000 and 17,000 feet.

The reason it's so expensive is it's a 6,000-mile journey to get from where its native environment is to Palestine.

Matter of fact, it was so expensive that the good stuff was$400 an ounce.

And so it was more valuable than gold.

To give you a frame of reference, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

This ointment, this gard, this perfume was worth two and a half times as much as those 30 pieces of silver.

And so if Judas is willing to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and this woman, she's got two and a half times that value in a jar, and she's just wasting it on.

He is like, oh, are you kidding me?

We all live our understanding.

Three differences in the people in the room and this woman.

Number one, they're pulled by need.

She's pushed by vision.

You could go to the boardroom tomorrow at work and roll that out.

Everybody you work with be like, ooh, Bob's been reading books.

They're pulled by need.

What?

We could have sold that and given it to the poor.

She's pushed by vision.

She understands what's fixing to go down.

Second difference in these people is that they're they're reacting to the visible.

She's responding to the invisible.

They're reacting to the visible.

If you spend your whole life living in bondage to just what you see, there will be nothing extravagant about your life.

Matter of fact, let's make that a second question we could talk about this week.

What's extravagant about your life right now?

And let's get past the fact that it feels kind of awkward saying the word extravagant, does it not?

Like the guy said to me, How can I pray for you, Pastor?

Pray that I live more extravagantly.

Is this your way of saying you're moving into a mansion?

Yes.

Like the TV preachers.

No.

No.

I just want to live a more extravagant life in relation to the gospel.

We'll get to that in just a minute.

Third difference is this they're living for what they want.

She's living in what she knows.

They're living for what they want.

John tells the same story in John chapter 12, and he says that Judas made a big protest.

John 12 · chapter mention

Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?

He didn't say that because he cared about the poor.

He said that because he was the treasure of the disciples.

He used to dip into the money bag and take money out.

He thought, hey, there's a year's salary that I'm losing right there.

I could be stealing that.

I could be embezzling from this religious enterprise we got going here.

And so I'm offended.

You're offended because you're not going to have more money to steal from.

They're living for what they want, and she's living in light of what she knows.

And by the way, the death of Jesus wasn't a surprise.

It didn't sneak up on them because three times already in Mark's gospel, Mark chapter 8, chapter 9, and chapter 10, Jesus talks about his death.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

And one point they're walking down the road and he stops and turns around and says, Okay, don't miss this.

We're going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is going to be betrayed, and the chief priests of the elders are going to put him to death, and after three days, I'll rise again.

And the disciples are all like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

You keep bringing this up.

I don't know what got to do with anything.

But one woman by the name of Mary understood.

And so they're two days from Passover, the text tells us.

Passover is where Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper.

He takes ritual and makes it relationship.

So they're nine days from the cross, and she's like, I know it's fixing to happen.

And I want this.

Can you just imagine for a second what it would be like?

Think of the cologne you wear, the perfume you wear.

If you took a year's wage of your cologne and poured it on yourself.

See, I'm gonna submit to you that what happens is that this gets poured on Jesus and notice that he's not bothered at all.

He's not, hey, hey, whoa, what are you doing?

Don't touch my hair.

I have the same response when people try to touch my hair.

He's not bothered at all.

He's kind of like, yeah, yeah.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you poured a year's worth of your like if you wore Brute 33?

Remember that?

English leather?

Remember English leather?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Can you imagine pouring a year's worth of your salary?

Let's say if you make$129,000 a year and you poured$129,000.

I mean, you couldn't pour that on you.

You could start tonight and it's gonna be pouring tomorrow.

Can you imagine what you'd smell like a week from now?

Why do you say that?

Because in nine days, Roman soldiers are nailing Jesus to the cross.

And I just think they're like, Jesus, what is that smell?

And he just smiles and says, It's understanding.

See, we all live our understanding.

The third takeaway from the text is simply this: an extravagant gospel, extravagant response.

Extravagant gospel, extravagant response.

That's the thing.

She understands.

Mary lived out this extravagant gospel.

If you look in Luke chapter 10, about verse 38 to 42, it tells the story of Mary and Martha.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

Martha's running around like a chicken with her head cut off, and Mary's just kind of sitting there at the feet of Jesus, just locked on to what he's talking about.

Extravagant gospel, extravagant response.

Here's why I say that I fear that we're short-sighted in our view of the gospel, and then therefore we're short-sighted in our response to the gospel.

And what I mean by that is we view the gospel as this train we ride to get us to Jesus.

And once we get to Jesus, we hop off that gospel train and say, Thanks for the ride.

I'll take it from here.

And that's what kills the extravagant nature of faith.

I love what C.J.

Mahaney said.

He said, the gospel isn't one class among many that you'll attend during your life as a Christian.

The gospel is the whole building that all the classes take place in.

Hear that again.

The gospel isn't one class among many that you'll attend during your life as a Christian.

The gospel is the whole building that all the classes take place in.

Rightly approached, all the topics you'll study and focus on as a believer will be offered to you within the walls of the glorious gospel.

C.J.

Mahaney.

It's a quote from a book he wrote called The Cross-Centered Life.

If you're looking for something to read, highly recommend it.

Not hard, just a small little book, The Cross-Centered Life.

Probably one of the more thought-provoking books you'll read this year.

And you say, Well, what do you mean?

Extravagant gospel, extravagant response.

Let me just begin with some of my own confession.

Sometimes my response to life is it's not extravagant.

It's not as extravagant as the gospel is.

Like, take for example, just yesterday, uh, my wife and my oldest went on a college visit, you know, took our kids a junior, and so you gotta go visit college.

And so she said, Hey, Mass and I are gonna, we're gonna bug out on Thursday after she gets out of school, and so we can be there.

We're gonna do some stuff Thursday night.

We're gonna go to this lecture at Baylor at Truett Seminary, and then we're gonna go here and go.

And I'm I'm kind of halfway listening.

I'm like, right, right, right, got it, got it, got it.

All that means is breakfast, cinnamon rolls out of a can, lunch, Chick-fil-A, dinner, Chick-fil-A, breakfast leftover cinnamon rolls, lunch Chick-fil-A, dinner Chick-fil-A.

Got it.

How hard is this?

And then she drops this on me.

Oh, I've typed up Sophie's itinerary.

Pause.

What?

Oh yeah, she's got a few things while we're gone.

And she begins to say, well, on Thursday night she's got string fling because she's the first chair violin player in the orchestra, and so I got to go to Wheeler Fieldhouse over on Lexton, if you don't know where that is.

730 kids in this district-wide orchestra.

Hell, I tell you, hell with video cameras.

Not the kids, you people, you adults.

I wanted to fight every one of you.

I got there at 6:35, started at 7 o'clock.

Man, I'm gonna get a great seat.

There was no seats left.

And people had tripods and stuff, and they're like long range.

I'm like, what?

I was like, no way.

And it's kind of sunken down, and so you're like, so I had to go up on the thing and stand up the whole time and film with my iPhone.

I felt like less of a parent because I didn't have a video crew there to film my kid.

I got an iPhone here and I'm standing up the whole time, and here's why I got to preach the gospel to myself.

Here's why the gospel doesn't just get me to Jesus, the gospel gets me to heaven looking more and more Christ like because of sanctification.

Because standing there holding the phone like this to get my kid taking picture, and I'm thinking, if my wife hadn't gone out of town, I wouldn't have to be doing this.

That thought went through my mind.

Now I know all you men, you're like, oh man, you're So selfish, shut up.

Because the next day, she goes, Oh, and by the way, that was Thursday night.

This is Thursday night.

When so we gotta go, stop at Sonic on the way home, get us flush, because yeah, that's great.

Next day, oh, I've got a church event, so we gotta go to Gattytown over Highway 6.

Have you driven Highway 6 at about, I don't know, six o'clock at night lately?

Because I want to kill some people.

Hey, just as a news flash.

There's this steering wheel, there's a steering column, and there's this little little stick on the side of it called the blinker.

If you push it up, you're going right.

You push it down when you're going left.

That's free.

I get there and drop my kid off, and I'm about out of Jesus by then.

I drove on down Highway 6 South to a Starbucks and just sat in there, didn't know a soul for two and a half hours and just drank it in.

And my alarm went out.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, pick up Sophie.

I was like, all right, go pick up Sophie.

Get home.

And the little itinerary my wife left said, Oh, Sophie has a karate tournament Saturday morning.

We got home at 9:30 Friday night.

Karate tournament Saturday morning at 9.

So I walked into the middle school gym at 9 o'clock Saturday morning and walked out at 4.07 Saturday afternoon.

I'll get you some of that.

Whoo! Yeah! And by the way, there's no backs on those chairs, those bleachers.

I'm playing there's backs up on the top row and leaning against the wall.

And the people that go to the cry tournaments all the time, they get there first and they strip and they stick out stuff.

Now, is it a cry tournament?

Because I know y'all aren't like this, but when I'm in situations I can't control, I start evaluating how this could be done better.

Start to start making a little tickler list of ideas.

Number one, have a clue.

Number two, slap some of these kids.

I mean, some of those parents roll in with rolling sound systems to their kids to do their little thing to.

And I'm like, hey, so dad's got an iPhone.

I'm gonna film this because your mom's a bad mom.

She's out of town, she doesn't care about you.

I'm here for you, okay?

I'm your sure thing.

Dad's gonna is this enough?

You need a soundtrack?

I'm good, Dad.

Just video so mom can see it.

What about dad?

Did I say we walked in the gym at nine o'clock, I walked out at 4 07 yesterday afternoon?

One point I got up and my legs didn't work.

I couldn't feel my legs anymore.

I was like, the lady goes, sir, are you okay?

It's just the first 20 steps.

They come to life after that.

I'm setting, I'm not making this up.

I'm sitting in the gym right over here at Garcia Middle School.

And this thought went through my mind.

If my wife wasn't so selfish, we could break this up.

We could do it in shifts.

She could come in the morning, I could come in the afternoon.

Yeah, I thought that.

Now, am I saying that's the truth?

Not at all.

Which is why I got to preach the gospel to myself.

Because if I just ride the gospel train until I come to Jesus and become a Christian, I'm gonna live the Christian life from the perspective of me, not the rest, not the perspective of God.

So I'm sitting there in the bleachers and I'm like, I gotta take these thoughts captive.

And so here's and by the way, I started earlier in this week just kind of just kind of thinking these things through because I don't want to forget the gospel.

So let me just give you four things because here's what we do, and then we'll be done.

Here's what we do, we preachers do.

We come to church, we come up here and we act like we gotta tell you everything to do.

Please hear my heart in this.

I am not gonna waste my life telling you every Sunday more stuff to do.

Not my job.

My job is to tell you the wondrous, glorious gospel.

And then when you understand the glorious gospel that you by nature are damnable wretches who would destroy your life if God withdrew his spirit from you, if that doesn't blow your mind and cause you to do some things that just are like crazy, like crack open a year's worth of brute and just douse yourself, then you need to get a new preacher.

But I'm not gonna get up here and say, okay, behavior modification tip number 672, try harder.

Are you kidding me?

Really?

Wow.

So, extravagant gospel, extravagant response.

I'm not gonna tell you what to do to respond.

I want to just hold up and magnify the extravagant nature of the gospel with thoughts like this.

First of all, I'm sitting there on the bleachers yesterday and I'm preaching the gospel to myself that the gospel is the power of God.

The gospel is the power of God.

Outside of heaven, the power of God in its highest density is found inside the gospel.

So therefore, it's one thing to know that, it's another thing to apply that.

Here's the way I apply that to myself yesterday, sitting on the bleachers.

Did I tell you we were there to 407?

Yeah, and then them karate moms, they got the whole top row staked out and stuff, and I'm just like, Whew, help me, Jesus.

These people worship their children too much.

What that means is they got the good seats.

So I gotta find something wrong with them because they got the good seats.

I know you're not that way, but I'm that way sometime.

So I'm sitting there telling myself, the gospel's the power of God.

What's that got to do with anything?

That means my wife can go out of town for a couple days and I don't make her feel guilty when she gets back.

And I would never say, Oh, do you feel guilty?

Here's what I do I clean the house real good and hope she notices.

Like I made the bed yesterday.

You would have thought I performed brain surgery on a child.

I mean, I stood back and looked at it like, this is going to wow her.

You know her big response?

Hey, I think you put the pillows in the wrong place.

You got to get up off of me after that woman.

Oh, help me, Jesus.

So, what do you mean the gospel is the power of God?

Outside of heaven, the power of God in its highest density is found inside the gospel.

So I'm sitting there yesterday trying to find something to do because Sophie had an event like at 948 and then at 345.

A whole lot of nothing on the bleachers, my back.

It feels like my heart's beating about right here.

My legs are numb.

It's something on my phone.

I'm like reading today's headlines, and I came across this.

The scientists have discovered this monster black hole powering the brightest lighthouse in the distant universe.

And I thought, well, that's six minutes right there I can kill.

They discovered this monstrous black hole that is 12 billion times more massive than the sun.

And I was like, okay.

You ever get the feeling something's coming and you don't know what's coming?

Kind of like wily coyote.

What's that sound?

Don't look up.

More massive than the sun, scientists have revealed.

By the way, as a point of reference, the sun is 864,400 miles across.

This is about 109 times the diameter of the earth.

The sun weighs 333,000 times as much as the earth.

It is so large that about 1,300,000 planet Earths can fit inside of it.

And this black hole is that much bigger in relation to the sun.

This extraordinary object, this black hole, is at the center of a quasar, an intensely powerful galactic radiation source with a million billion times the sun's energy output.

God bless you.

Your output is not even close to that of the sun.

And you say, well, what's that got to do with anything?

Here's what it's got to do with everything.

Because I'm sitting up in the bleachers thinking I'm like dad of the year, and my wife's off on some drunken choare in Waco and Baylor, which we cannot afford.

This went through my mind.

Why are we even looking at a college we can't afford?

And I'm reading about the sun, because I'm an idiot.

That's why.

And very clearly the Holy Spirit said, Hey, did you get all that stuff?

They said this thing was 900 million years after the Big Bang.

And I'm like, oh, give me a break.

I mean, come on.

And this little voice said, Hey, by the way, this thing that they say is a million billion times the sun's energy output.

You notice that, by the way, the name of it is S D S S J O 100 plus 2802.

And that's what I just got tickled at the name.

And I was like, those are engineers.

And the Holy Spirit said, You notice they didn't name that the power of God?

And I was like, well, yeah, why would they?

Because nothing compares.

That's why Ephesians 1 talks about this incomparably great power for us who bel that believe.

So, so here's the first to magnify the extravagance of the gospel.

You gotta, just the gospel's the power of God.

Secondly, the gospel changes my view of God's commands.

If God loved me enough to sacrifice his son for me, then he must be guided by that same love when he speaks his commands to me.

Translation, God didn't sacrifice his son so he could just have some people to order around.

Every command of the Bible is loving.

So a man came to see me a couple weeks ago.

It's actually where I left to go to Costa Rica.

And so he says, I don't go to church.

Well, I go to another church sometimes, but uh, and and I said, in the course of the conversation, I said, You seem to kind of have a problem with church.

What's your beef against church?

Well, I mean, you're just, I mean, I just uh I mean, every time I go, my preacher talks about money, makes it something we've got to give all the time.

I just got a problem with that.

And I said, This is why I'm not a good pastor.

You should vote to fire me today.

I said to this man, here's what I think you should do.

I think you should you're talking about tithing, right?

Yeah, you know, you give a percentage of your income.

Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to hold out and not give a dime until you can't help yourself.

What'd you say?

Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm the pastor of this church.

Go out there and look on the sign.

I got a sign outside my door.

Lead pastor.

And I want you to hold out as long as you can.

I want you to give a red cent.

And by the way, I say the same thing to all of you that I said to him.

Because he said, Well, are you willing to practice that here?

And I said, I'll tell them next chance I get, so here's my chance.

I want you to not give a red cent to this church.

Hold out as long as you can.

Why?

Because the Puritan Thomas Chalmers talks about the expulsive power of a greater affection.

The expulsive power of a greater affection.

In other words, I couldn't help myself.

I just couldn't help myself.

As I said to one of our ladies this morning, the staff meets to pray at 8 o'clock and look all somber and get their game face on.

And they're like, What are you gonna talk about today?

I'm gonna talk about the fact that here's how crazy this is.

I looked at this lady, I said, it's like you going home today and your husband be in the entry hall with war paint, no shirt on, a baseball hat in one hand and a chainsaw in the other.

I've been praying.

You would be moderately concerned, but you'd also be like, What's gotten into you?

That's the expulsive power of a greater affection.

B.B.

King used to sing, I did what I did before love came to town.

This is doing what you do because love came to town.

And so the man looked at me and he said, So you're saying don't give?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Until you just can't help yourself.

The Bible's full of extravagant, crazy people.

He's like, Oh, well, I want to tell my pastor.

Here, I pulled out my desk and gave him a business card.

Here you go.

Give him that.

Well, what are you?

I said, you know what, I so believe this, I don't even take up an offering in my church.

Well, how do you pay the bills?

And I said, There's boxes by the doors, and crazy people put money in there every Sunday.

And he just looked at me and he said, I'm not sure about you.

I get that a lot.

Mm-hmm.

Sure enough.

What am I saying?

I'm saying the gospel changes my view of God's commands.

God loved me enough to sacrifice his son for me, then he must be guided by that same love.

When he speaks his when he tells me what to do, when he speaks his commands, it's not like, hey, I sacrificed my son so I can have slaves.

No, he sacrificed his son so we could have sons and daughters.

I mean, we got to the Sonic the other night, Thursday night, school night.

It's late.

And I said, hey, we'll get a slush, okay?

Okay, we'll get a slush.

We'll get there, she looks at me and goes, Dad, can I get some tater tots?

Didn't you hear my big commercial all the way over here?

We're just getting a slush.

No, I didn't say that.

I looked at her, she goes, Dad, can I get some tater tots?

She would never ask her mom for tater tots.

She's had supper.

But she asked the father.

And I said back to my 11-year-old, at like almost nine o'clock at night, do you want some cheese on them?

Why?

Because I want her to get at bed at night and go, God's more generous than I've ever fathomed.

God's not the father when you go, you want some tater tots?

Tater tots! Tater tots, are you kidding me?

Have you ever had tater tots with cheese on them?

You should leave here in just a few minutes.

I'm gonna let you out and you should go get some.

It'll change your life.

Third thing, towards a more extravagant response to the gospel.

The gospel reminds me that my righteous standing with God always holds firm, regardless of my performance.

Because my standing is based solely on the work of Jesus and not mine.

If I was really a good pastor, I'd have a tattoo artist right here, and he would tattoo this on your back.

Yeah.

The gospel reminds me that my righteous standing with God always holds firm.

Regardless of my performance or the performance of your children.

Ladies, your kids' behavior is not a statement of your parenting.

Get free from that.

Learn to say, I'm a great mom, and my son smokes pot, and I want to beat him.

But but Jesus died for my son and for me, and so I'm I'm I'm cool.

My standing is based solely on the work of Jesus, not mine.

So my parenting doesn't affect the way I go to.

I give my kid cheese tater tots at nine o'clock at night.

Are you kidding me?

And before she even asked, she just looked at me and smiled because she's like, I got this man right where I want him.

Fourthly and finally, the gospel guarantees my acceptance by God and the impossibility of condemnation.

The gospel.

Hear that again.

Guarantees my acceptance.

Somebody asked me this past week.

I said, What are you hearing from the Lord these days?

I heard him singing stuck on you by Lionel Richie the other day.

You shouldn't kid like that.

Who's kidding?

He's crazy about me.

He's inscribed me upon his palms.

Were he to forget me, he would have to cut off his right arm.

That person just shook their head and walked away.

Why?

Because I want to live more extravagantly.

Not to be novel or funny.

That never crosses my mind.

I want my response to the gospel to be as glorious as I know the gospel to be.

Horatius Bonar said this, and I'll be done today.

Terror accomplishes no real obedience.

Suspense brings forth no fruit unto holiness.

No gloomy uncertainty as to God's favor can subdue one lust or correct our crookedness of will.

But the free pardon of the cross uproots sin and withers all its branches.

Only the certainty of love, forgiving love, can do this.

Terror accomplishes no real obedience.

Stop being afraid that you're going to be found out.

You're already found out.

He already knows everything you've done.

And he stands ready to receive you.

Why?

Because the goodness of God is bigger and better than the badness of man.

Suspense brings forth no fruit unto holiness.

No gloomy uncertainty as to God's favor can subdue one lust or correct our crookedness of will.

But the free pardon of the cross uproots sin, withers all its branches, and causes you to pour English leather onto the head of Jesus.

And make people talk about you.

This kind of understanding.

This kind of understanding that says the gospel guarantees my acceptance by God and the impossibility of condemnation.

There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Can't be impossible.

So just push the button and get the tater tots.

And by the way, we got home.

She stayed up till 10:15 on a school night.

Called me into her room twice to rub her feet.

First time I came in, rubbed her feet, I do it every night.

Went back on the couch, unpolished for center.

Walk in there.

She says, Mom's not here.

Can you rub for mom?

Why wouldn't she ask her father?

She asks me, knowing that I'm predisposed favorably towards her.

Both my kids know that.

My wife knows that.

They got back and they're like, hey, well, there's some other schools we want to go visit.

Little quick for that, don't you think?

Let me tell you about my weekend.

No, no.

See, because the gospel is the power of God.

The gospel changes my view of God's command.

The gospel reminds me that my righteous standing with God always holds firm, regardless of my performance.

The gospel guarantees my acceptance by God and the impossibility of being condemned.

And this, beloved, is where extravagance comes from.

Let's pray together.

If you're our guest today, you're visiting for the first time, just relax.

We'd like to preach the gospel and invite you to think about it.

And so we'll just take just a moment to think about it.

What does this mean?

How extravagant can you live this week if you believe the gospel?

Jesus said, wherever the gospel is preached, it'll be told what this woman has done.

Translation, I want extravagance to always accompany the gospel.

She couldn't help herself.

It just got the better of her.

What could you do this week if you just couldn't help yourself?

The expulsive power of a greater affection just seized you and you could not help yourself.

Let's think about this for a minute.

That's the gospel, God.

That's the glorious gospel of the Bible, not the culture or generation.

That is the gospel of the glory of God, the glorious gospel of Christianity.

It's not the false gospel of Islam.

It's the gospel of the kingdom that Jesus used to set up be preached in all nations as a testimony.

As a testimony, as an indictment upon our smaller affections and our secondary desires.

The gospel is in Christ and all in him is mine.

Oh God, give us the courage to stop apologizing for how good the gospel is.

And I just pray that you would magnify the extravagant nature of the gospel so that we could step our game up and our response to the gospel, not out of effort, but because of understanding.

That is the gospel.

It is not out of effort, it's because of understanding.

So every time we come in this building, would you increase our understanding?

That's our prayer, God.

We pray it in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Stand to your feet if you would.

And we speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

Depart now.

And do not do what you think you're supposed to do or what you're determined to do.

Do only that which you cannot help yourself or keep yourself from doing.

That, my friends, is extravagant biblical Christianity.

So let's do that.

And in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.