Lent: Extravagant Love Fuels Extravagant Worship

Well, good morning again.

This week on Monday, one of our missionaries, Richard Samuel from India, who we support as a church.

So if you give to our church 10% of that is going to missions, part of that goes to Richard in India and his ministry, Fish Hook Ministry.

So he was in the States and he was visiting different supporters.

He came by the church, spoke to our staff, and we got to pray for him.

He was sharing how they have a retreat center that they host different churches and different events for churches and ministries around India.

They do pastor trainings there, a lot of uneducated pastors that need education.

They also have a ministry, several ministries to elderly and children.

A lot of the poor families in India, they will take a trip to a temple town and they'll take all their family, they'll take their elderly.

They might take a child that they didn't expect to have, maybe they can't support financially.

They'll go to the temple, they will leave the elderly or the child at the temple, and the whole family goes home.

Like quite a vacation.

Like maybe you left somebody on accident.

They're leaving people on purpose.

And so Richard and his ministry comes along, these destitute elderly, these children left behind, where all that these people have heard is you are unwanted.

And Richard and his ministry gets to come along and say, You are wanted.

What he said to us is he said, We know they are wanted by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And so they have ministries out to these elderly and these children.

And so we asked, How can we pray for you?

Not always our staff pray for them, but also how can we, on Sunday morning, how can we as a church not just send you money, but how can we pray for you?

As he said, open doors for ministry.

He said, wisdom and safety in an environment that is um difficult to minister Christianity in, and provision for that ministry.

So as we pray for the sermon, let's pray for Richard and his ministry.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the work of the gospel around the world, that hearing about Jesus and Jesus' forgiveness and love and identity that is more profound than anything in this world is not an American thing.

It's not even a Western thing, but it is a global thing.

It is a human thing that you love people and you desire to forgive them and love them, and that they are wanted.

And we pray that Richard's ministry would educate pastors to tell this great message of Jesus' sufficiency.

We pray for open doors.

We pray for wisdom and safety as they minister, we pray for a provision of their ministries, and that this great work of Jesus in India would continue to go forth.

As we come before your scriptures this morning in John 12, radical worship, would we be all the more convinced of how much you love us and you know us?

Open our hearts, have mercy on us, especially the one who speaks.

In Christ's name, amen.

So we are in the season of Lent, those 40 days leading up to Easter.

We're in Lent week, Sunday number four.

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, and then we have Easter.

Our text this morning is John 12.

So these different Sundays, we're just reading and looking at different Jesus stories in the Gospels.

To understand John 12, we have to understand what was going on in John 11.

Lazarus, a friend of Jesus', was sick, and Lazarus was dying.

Jesus was friends with these people.

The text goes out of the way to say Jesus loved these people.

And eventually Lazarus dies, and then after Lazarus dies, that's when Jesus shows up at the home.

The two sisters hear that Jesus is coming.

One sister, Martha, she goes out toward Jesus.

The other sister, Mary, stays inside.

Why is Mary not going out to greet her friend Jesus?

Maybe she's too sad.

Maybe she felt like Jesus should have already been there.

Like, hey, my brother.

My brother was dying.

Your friend, and you didn't come.

Maybe she feels like Jesus should have or could have done something.

We know Mary was undone.

And we also know that Jesus pursues her in that.

He doesn't lecture her about her lack of faith or her lack of belief and God's economy and God's sovereignty.

He doesn't lecture her about her lack of joy in life.

What if in all the places you think you would get a lecture from God?

What if in that exact place that's where Jesus is pursuing you with compassion?

There's a scene in Les Miserables, the great novel, a musical.

The movie was made after the musical a few years ago.

Jean Valjean steals the bishop's silver.

He gets caught.

The police bring Valjean back to the bishop, where the bishop forgives Valjean and gives him two silver candlesticks in addition to the stuff he had stolen.

Valjean goes on, changes his name, starts a new life, avoids paying the penalty.

He never paid the price.

He becomes a businessman, he becomes a mayor.

This eats up the policeman Javert.

Javert begins to pursue him, thinks, hey, this successful businessman, I think this is that thief that never paid his price.

Javert's a man of absolute justice.

He has no room for mercy.

Nobody gets passed over in Javert's world.

Everybody pays their price.

So Valjean is constantly running from the law.

He's running from Javert.

And then there's this scene where Valjean has the chance to kill Javert.

Ensure his own safety.

Be set free.

And instead of executing him, Valjean shows him compassion, lets him go free.

Right?

Valjean passes him over.

This act of mercy breaks Javert, breaks his worldview.

Who does this?

What is this?

It changes him.

What we see in the story is the same thing that we saw last week in the prodigal son.

We are actually both the messy thief and the uncompassionate policeman.

It's the same story as the prodigal son, the rebellious younger son and the older self-righteous son.

Valjean and Javert.

And we're actually both of these people.

And we all need grace.

We need to be passed over.

This is our redemption we have in Jesus.

The penalty and death due to our sin, what would say this would be justice if you paid this price, was paid for by Jesus on the cross.

So what we have is forgiveness.

Now let's read our text, John 12, verse 1.

John 12:1

Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

So Jesus goes on to perform one of his greatest miracles and brings his friend back to life.

This is headed into the Passover week, the last week of Jesus' death.

Here's the point, point number one.

We are all looking for Passover, and Jesus is our Passover.

John purposefully gives us this timestamp of Passover.

He wants us to know this is Passover season.

Centuries before this moment, Israel was enslaved in Egypt.

They're suffering, they're slaves, they're calling out to God, God, rescue us, come do something.

Come on, like we are here, are we not your children?

Do something.

Finally, God fights on their behalf.

God decrees a plague to sweep through Egypt.

Anyone who does not have the blood of a lamb painted on a doorpost will lose their firstborn.

Wild, wild story.

But anyone who has the blood of a lamb painted on the doorpost, if you have that, death will pass you over.

So this event happens.

This leads to the liberation of God's people, the head in the desert, eventually they're getting back to the promised land.

That's the history of the Old Testament.

And out of that, Passover festival is formed.

That's where we're at in John 12.

This festival is a beginning.

Once a year, celebrate this deliverance, God's liberation that He passed them over.

And in that context, Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life.

I'm your Passover.

Your sin and death is put upon me.

So that justice needing to be met, that's fulfilled.

It's just not fulfilled by you or by me.

It's fulfilled by Jesus.

We're all looking for judgment to pass us over.

Wouldn't that be nice to walk around in life and not feel judgment?

Not feel judgment by yourself or your spouse, maybe.

Your cranky mom, your neighbor, your friend, the friend group you wish you were in, but they won't accept you.

You feel all this judgment.

We want to be passed over.

At first, we think we could conquer this by our own hands.

We'll just sacrifice enough lambs.

We will do the sacrificing.

And I will sacrifice whatever I have to sacrifice to have the right family and the right investments and the right look and status, the right body, the right job, the right kids.

Because then maybe then, maybe if I curate it all just right, I make all the right sacrifices, then maybe judgment will pass me over.

And all of it is sacrifice after sacrifice to try to earn favor.

But Jesus is our Passover.

He is our sacrifice, He is our forgiveness and acceptance, worth and righteousness.

Verse 2, so they gave a dinner for him there.

Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table.

Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment, like perfume, 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 perfume.

So this group's having dinner together, kind of a celebratory dinner for sure.

They've done a lot of life together, yet a transitioning is occurring in the culture, in the community.

More and more people have learned about, have seen, experienced, or heard about these miracles that Jesus is performing.

And this has begun to be a problem for the religious authorities.

So there's a sense of danger occurring.

They're celebrating, but there's a sense of danger.

They're enjoying their dinner.

In the middle of it, Mary gets her expensive perfume and pours it out on Jesus' feet.

Spices and perfumes were an investment.

They could be sold, they could be traded.

I'm not sure if they were tariffed or not.

Was that too soon?

Are we still, we're all still a little sensitive?

Verse 4, Judas states this was probably worth a year's wages for a working man.

A year's wage, a year.

Call it$60,000.

She's just pouring out$60,000.

And then she has no towel.

So she takes her hair down and uses her hair.

So this act is incredibly good.

It's radical.

Because a proper Jewish woman would never take her hair down in public.

So we have this scene that is extravagant.

It's striking.

And it's personal.

So find the most expensive, precious thing you have.

And do you hold it like this?

Or do you hold it like this?

You can have this.

My dream, my hope, my escaping, my coping, the thing I love too much.

You can have this.

Because where else am I loved?

Like that.

Because everything else seems to just be put me to work.

Point number two is this our treasure is Jesus, the treasure that loves you without requirement or limits.

We can't talk about worship without talking about love.

We all worship something.

And we worship that which gives us a sense of worth.

Or we think it loves us.

Our problem is not a worship problem.

We all worship.

Our problem is seeing what actually loves me without conditions.

Where is that found?

Where is my worth found?

Because the answer to that is what we worship.

And this is what Mary understood.

She understood, you love me like that.

You cry with me, you'll hear me.

You love me when I don't come out to you and I'm you know stubborn and kind of bratty.

You love me like you still love me, you still pursue me.

Okay, like you can have my perfume, you can have my investments, you can have my savings, you have my life, you can have the thing I love the most.

Point number three is this extravagant worship comes in the wake of extravagant love.

We don't have to keep telling ourselves, pull your bootstraps up and you need to worship, you need to worship Jesus.

You need to worship.

The more we understand how much God loves us in Jesus, the secure identity you have as God's daughter or God's son, the more you'll just worship.

You just will.

Our worship is a response to his knowing and loving us.

Theologian J.I.

Packer puts it this way: there is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that for some unfathomable reason he wants me as his friend and desires to be my friend and has given his son to die for me in order to realize this purpose.

Not merely that we know God, but that he knows us.

There's three postures for our worship that Mary does teach us.

Posture number one, we sit to learn.

We see that in Luke 10, 39.

Mary sat at Jesus' feet and learned.

So responding to Jesus' welcome, are we letting him teach us?

Worship posture number two, we fall and surrender.

We see that in John 11, 32.

Mary fell at Jesus' feet and surrendered.

Responding to Jesus' goodness, are we surrendering our hearts and lives?

Do we live our lives like this, or do we live our lives like this?

And lastly, worship posture number three, our text today in John 12, we anoint and honor Jesus.

John 12, 3, where we see Mary anointed Jesus' feet and honor Jesus.

Responding to Jesus' greatness, are we honoring him with our lives?

About 10 years ago, the amazing singer Whitney Houston passed away.

If you're 40 or above, you remember Whitney.

Right?

You with me?

Is that on key?

No.

Not a singer.

I will always love you.

I want to dance with somebody, right?

I mean, in the 90s, nobody was bigger.

Nobody.

Global fame.

The most amazing, perfect voice.

I had a crush on her.

When that movie Bodyguard came out, I was like, let's go see that again.

I loved Whitney Houston.

Whitney's life began in the church, hearing about Jesus, singing about Jesus, and then she became famous.

She became wealthy.

She did not cope well.

She had dysfunctional family, she had a horrible marriage, she became an addict.

Near the end of her life, Tyler Perry met her.

And at her funeral, Perry tells the story.

And we're gonna watch him tell the story at her funeral.

It's about three minutes long.

He's a pretty good preacher.

Just listen to the story as he tells it.

It was Pat who introduced me to Whitney a while back, and she and I uh sat in a restaurant in Atlanta, just the two of us.

Set there talking for about an hour and a half, about four years ago.

And during this time, she was telling me about her life, and I was very surprised at how candid and open and revealing she was as she was talking to her.

And she would talk about some things that she had gone through, some things that made her sad, some things that were tough.

And as I would see her talk about this, I would see this evidence come upon her.

And I'm the type of person that when I would see this with anyone, I would just want to say something encouraging.

But before I could get words out to encourage her, she would say, but the Lord.

Just when I'm about to step in, she would say But my Lord has taken Jesus Christ making the great.

It was at that moment that I knew that I would do all I can to stand with her, and from that moment to now I've been standing with the family and her, and I'm I'm just completely thankful to God for all that he has done in her life.

There are two constants that I know about Wimmy Houston, and one is that there was a great character, a great character from heaven down through the housting, a grape that bought her up through things, a grape that bought from what I was supposed to be level thing because of an incident that happened to her at the top, but there was a great that kept on character.

There was a grape that kept on character.

That's one thing I know, and the other thing I know for sure, and this is more important than anything that we've ever done in our life.

We used to love the Lord.

She loved the Lord, and when I think about it, there's a scripture that keeps burning in my heart.

I keep thinking about the Apostle Paul in Romans when he was talking about, I am persuaded that nothing was separated from the love of God.

So what I know about it is that nothing separated her from the love of God.

And if you look at what Paul was saying, he was describing her life so perfectly.

He said, Neither height, which meant no matter how far she went in the style of sphere, nothing separated her from Neither height, nor death, no matter how much trouble, no matter what she had to go through, no matter what she had to bought through, it still wasn't enough to separate her from the love of God.

Not principalities, not power, nothing, nothing, nothing but things but to separate her from the love of God.

So what I know about her is that she loved the Lord.

And if that was the grace that carried her all the way through, it was the same grace that carried her home.

So what is Perry saying?

Well, he's saying what Paul said, and that is there has to be something more profound, true about you than your record.

No matter how high or low that record is.

If anybody knew the shoulds of the world, Whitney Houston knew them.

You should be beautiful and amazing.

You should be successful, you should become the best at what you do.

You should become famous, you should marry someone famous, you should be wealthy, you should, you should, you should.

And the shoulds crushed her.

But there has to be something else true about us.

Because the shoulds don't save us.

They may be goals, but fantastic.

Have a goal.

Work for it.

It just won't love you, it can't define you.

These shoulds, they don't, they can't save us, they can't forgive us, they can't accept us.

The world's laws and religious laws can't save us.

They won't pass us over.

They will only put us to work.

The world wants you to forget that we are sinners.

And we are in need of the grace of God in Jesus.

And it's there that we have our forgiveness and our acceptance and our righteousness and our validation as God's daughter or God's son.

We must treasure and cling to God's grace to us in Jesus.

Mary should have never poured out that perfume.

$60,000.

She should have never.

Mary should have never taken down her hair.

But she did.

Because she had a treasure more worthy than the things of this world.

And that's what we have in Jesus.

If you have a question about that, there'll be a pastor down front afterwards who'd love to speak to you or pray with you about anything.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that while we are the young, rebellious son, or we are the older, self-righteous son, while we are Valjean or we are Javer, that you know us and you love us.

You love us while we're merry, stubborn, staying inside, that we don't want to come out to greet you.

And that you have pursued us and you do not let us go.

That in Jesus, just as we've seen in this baptism this morning, we are fully covered by the blood of Jesus, fully forgiven, fully righteous.

May our hearts overflow with the extravagant love you have given to us, and may our hearts respond and worship in Christ's name.