Several verses toward the beginning of the fifth chapter. And we are in a good place to finish out that series by the end of the year. We also have Thanksgiving and Christmas that will enter into our schedules. But the next part of 1 John chapter 5, to be honest with you, gets into some theological complexities. that are gonna require some extra time. And this morning, in view of the Lord's Table, I thought it'd be better to set that aside for a week and give our attention to something that is, I believe, immediately devotional and a good preparation for our observance of the Lord's Table. So here we are in Mark chapter 14. I'm sure you've heard the expression at least popularized by Dr. Ken Collier, just two choices on the shelf, pleasing God and pleasing self. Those are the options that we face as we make our way through life and look at individual circumstances or think about the overall direction of our lives. Are we gonna please the Lord? and live a life of devotedness to him, like what the choir just sang, or are we going to live for self? That contrast is really at the heart of the passage that we are considering this morning. But it's all kind of intertwined in a way that might be a little hard to grasp. This is an example of a feature of the Gospel of Mark that I've talked to you all about from other passages, something we see about nine different occasions in the Gospel of Mark, where he will begin by telling us a story, but he won't give us the outcome of the story. He will interrupt it with another story that seems to be a rabbit trail and have maybe little to do with what has just been recounted, and then after that second story is wrapped up, he will return to the first story and give you a few verses at the end, give it a sense of closure. And these have been famously called Marx sandwiches, because There's like two pieces of bread that go together and then the meat in the middle. And the point is these actually are working together even though it seems to be disconnected or disjointed. When I think of that, I think of experiences that we had as a family actually many times coming up the highway to go to church or heading back home of listening to audio books. If you ever have struggles keeping your kids from fighting in the car as you're traveling around, that would be my first recommended strategy. Play something that they're interested in. It kind of varies by age what they're interested in, but if you can get their mind on something else, something positive, that will be a good way to get their minds off of themselves, maybe, and off of heaviness. But anyway, we did that a lot. Very often, as we were traveling around or even driving to church, we listened to some famous stories, audiobooks, we listened to the whole Narnia series that way, we listened to the whole Lord of the Rings series, all of it for hours. We listened to the Hobbits as well. And at that point, I think our kids had grown up and they didn't need the distraction. So we kind of gave it up. But anyway, I remember listening to the Lord of the Rings on one of those trips. And it was the point where Frodo had been attacked by Shelob, the monster spider. And he was all wrapped up in her web and looking like he was going to die. And he was captured by these orcs and taken up to this tower. Everybody's wondering, what's going to happen to Frodo? You're on the edge of your seat, and you come back to the next chapter, or whatever it was, and it's not about Frodo. It goes off on this just ridiculously long discussion of, I don't know what else it was, I don't even remember, but it was like every time we turn this thing back on, what happened to Frodo? Frodo's going to die. Frodo's stuck in that tower. Time is running out. What's going to happen? and eventually, after a really, really long, what seemed like a rabbit trail, came back to Frodo, and thankfully, after, I don't remember exactly how, but everything worked out. He was delivered, I suppose, by Sam, and he recovered from that near-death sort of experience, but the point is, those sorts of rabbit trails may seem like a distraction, but in the mind of the author anyway, it's all kind of interwoven, and it's all designed from a literary standpoint to keep you reading, to keep you in suspense, to keep you looking forward, and to keep you not just engaged, but trying to make connections, and trying to come to right conclusions. Well, thankfully, it doesn't take us hours and chapters to get there, but that's what's happening in these kind of combinations of stories that Mark tells us. And in this case, I mean, the headings in my Bible make it pretty obvious, where chapter 14 begins by saying, the plot to kill Jesus. And then it says, Jesus anointed at Bethany. But you didn't find out what happened with the plot to kill Jesus. It's interrupted by this situation at Bethany. But then at the end, in chapter 14, verse 10, it says, Judas to betray Jesus. And that's where you find out what happens with the plot that began at the outset of the chapter. These stories, one that is negative and despicable, and one that is so touching in its humility and its devotion to Christ. These two stories, Mark wants you to put them side by side. He wants you to see them as mutually self-interpreting. He wants you to make the comparisons and the contrast in terms of how the response of this one lady is so different from the response of the people in power and even one of Jesus' own disciples, Judas. It is a deliberate contrast between two responses to Jesus. And that's what I want to speak to you about this morning, contrasting responses to Jesus. It's what the passage challenges us with, and I'm going to go ahead and read it first, and then we'll consider it in making the comparison and contrast. Chapter 14, verse 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. And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at 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? For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor. And they scolded her. But Jesus said, leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has 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 has 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. Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the 12, went to the chief priests 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." Contrasting responses to Jesus. And we're going to contrast them in several areas. First of all, these two different responses are different in their origin, where it came from, what was driving their interaction with Christ. Think about where the act of betrayal came from. It came from the people that you would least expect it from, perhaps. Those you think would have supported Jesus because of their knowledge of the Bible, because of their position of spiritual leadership and their great experience in dealing with the things of God, where you would have expected they would have had special insight as they're observing the great works of Christ, as they're comparing it to what the Old Testament had said about the Messiah. the act of betrayal came from them. It also came from one of the twelve. He's the one who clinched the deal. His name was Judas, and he was one of Jesus' closest associates, and again, where you least would expect it from. And yet, In scripture and in history, sadly, that is often the kind of reputation that people in the highest echelons of power, those who are the officials, including those in the religious realm, that is often the kind of direction their life goes and the kind of reputation that they have, which should move us to discernment. not only about religious leaders, but about ourselves to personal evaluation. As we consider kind of what bucket am I in in these stories and what sort of response am I making to Christ, a reputation for being spiritual, a position of spiritual leadership is no guarantee that we will respond correctly to Jesus. It's not even a guarantee that we are truly his disciples. On the other hand, where did the right and memorable response come from in this passage? Where did the act of devotion come? It came from somebody who in that society would have had some of the lowest status of all, she was a woman. And usually in Jewish culture, women would not participate in banquets with men. it would have been considered inappropriate and offensive for them to show up there and act like they belong and certainly to interrupt a meal unless they were the ones serving the food. This was culturally unacceptable and yet Jesus receives her devotion. He gladly receives her effort to show him attention and tender care. And in fact, that is just maybe the climactic example of a whole little theme that has been going on throughout the Gospel of Mark, where sometimes the people who are elevated as examples in discipleship are actually the people of the lowest rung socially, including women. There is a woman with a hemorrhage of blood in chapter five who pursues Jesus and is aggressive to get to him and express her faith in him to be healed. There is a Syrophoenician woman in chapter seven, who as well is before Christ seeking deliverance from her demon-possessed daughter. And then there is another little heroine, if you just go across the page, at least in my Bible at the end of chapter 12, it is the widow giving her might, who is presented as the example over against those in religious leadership. And on top of that, where is it that this story that this incident occurs? It is in the house of somebody called Simon the Leper. We would imagine, we would conclude that that is not somebody who presently had leprosy, but somebody who had been afflicted with that disease and perhaps even had been healed by Jesus himself. Whatever the case, that's his reputation. That's the name, the title that attaches to him. Here's a guy who was a leper. Society defining him in terms of his past despised condition. And yet this lowly man again is memorialized here as the one who hosted this feast. And along with this woman, Simon the leper is the one who is remembered for the act of devotion. It's not the people that you might expect it from, the people who knew the most about Scripture, who had the most sway in the world, but it is just as Jesus, through Paul, revealed later in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty. Why? So that it's clear that any boasting that's going on is boasting in God, and he gets the credit. Now, why make this point about how these different activities toward Jesus are coming from different sorts of people? I would say that that, among other things, ought to minister hope to us. When it comes to discipleship, when it comes to God valuing our efforts, when it comes to whether we're quote-unquote qualified, or whether our service will be accepted, or whether God will pay attention to our efforts to serve Him and to sacrifice for Him. What he's looking for is not somebody who has a lot of personal inherent qualities or some kind of high status. And those are the people that really get to serve the Lord. Those are the people that look worse in this passage. The people that are elevated as the models of discipleship or the people that are nothing in the eyes of the world. This is the kind of savior that we're dealing with. And this is the kind of people that he's looking for and the kind of devotion that honors him. And so these responses to Christ are different in their origin. They're also different, secondly, in their motive. Why did they respond? What was going on in their hearts? Well, look at chapter 14, again at the beginning, when it says that they were seeking how to arrest him, for they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people. And that kind of language has shown up before. They had been concerned back in chapter 11 when he came back at them regarding John the Baptist. They were afraid to actually say what they thought because they feared the people. These men were clutching onto their position. And they knew that to disrupt the masses was going to be eventually a threat against them and their position. They were looking out for themselves and they were looking for a way to betray Jesus that would somehow be able to escape the threat of the crowds and get the authorities on their side instead of against them. This really was a very tense moment for something like the killing of Jesus to happen. And it's been estimated that normally Jerusalem would have been populated by anywhere from 60,000 to 120,000 people. But here you are at the Feast of the Passover. You have all these pilgrims who've made a journey there. And at that point, the population estimates are anywhere from 85,000 to even up to 300,000 individuals gathered together. The possibility for mob violence and rioting was at the highest level at that moment, so they've got to be careful, and they're looking for a way whereby they can get rid of him and maintain their position. In fact, chapter 15 and verse 10, even Pilate, it says, what an indictment, it says that even Pilate knew that the chief priest had delivered him for envy. They were jealous of his following. They viewed him as a threat to them maintaining their position of authority. That was their motive. Now, what about Judas, who gives them a way to carry out their goal? We know Judas and what's important to him and where he's coming from. And to him, this was a financial exchange. This was all about money for him. That was the self-oriented impulse that led him to turn Jesus over. Whether you're thinking about ambition, like the leadership there, whether you're thinking about greed, like in the case of Judas, Basically, these people were looking out for themselves. Their motive was selfish. It was about advancing and about protecting their own petty kingdoms, which ought to be a warning to us, particularly in heated moments when our emotion is high. and pressures are exposing some selfish motive. Greed and ambition can lead us to do extreme things that maybe we never would have anticipated. Just two choices on the shelf. We have seen the pleasing self side. The positive is in the act of devotion that is demonstrated by this woman. And she clearly is motivated by love. She wasn't looking to get something from Jesus like Judas was. She was looking to give him something, in fact, the most valuable earthly possession that she had. We read in verse 3 that what she used to anoint him was ointment of pure nard, which was an oil derived from a root. that was grown way over in India and was used as a perfume. And we're told that it was very costly. In fact, the assessment that is made in chapter 14, verse 5, is that it would have generated 300 denarii. How much money was that? Denarius, we understand to be about the amount of money that a common laborer made in a day. How many days are there in a year? And you take out the number of Sabbaths where they're not working. You take out the number of days where they had other festivals going on and where they weren't working as well. And basically, you're talking about 300 days worth of work, which is pretty much a year when you remove all of these other non-working days. So translate that into your personal finances right now. How much money do you bring in in the course of a year? To make that comparison. Nobody answered. Think that in your mind. Whatever it is, some ballpark figure. And now just imagine taking all of it and just dumping it in front of somebody. Purchasing something expensive like this with that amount of money and just handing it over entirely to another individual. Imagine working a whole year and then giving it all away. And one of the ironic things is that we know from other passages the amount of money that Judas made from his exchange was 30 pieces of silver, that's been estimated to be about a 120 denarii. What he made from his betrayal wasn't even half of what this woman just poured out freely on Jesus. Where did she get that kind of money? Why would she have something so expensive? It is unlikely that it was just the result of her own wages. I mean, these women didn't make money as we think of it today. Typically, it was the men. It may be that this was some kind of an expensive family heirloom, that it took generations to accumulate enough money in the family to buy something this lavish. Think about some antique possession, maybe some really expensive car that somebody inherits from their great-grandfather, and it's passed down two, three, four generations. And then all of a sudden, the current person owning that thing just decides to sign it over to charity. or to sell it and take the proceeds and just give it all away. That really is the mindset that this woman had. In fact, it says that she broke the flask, which makes it sound like she actually had to break the bottle and make it unusable in the future. She didn't have a bottle anymore. There's nothing left. The stuff in it and the bottle itself just totally given over to Christ. Somebody says, that is very touching, it's compelling to see somebody being so generous toward the Lord, but man, I don't have anything of that value. I don't have that much to give. Well, look at how Jesus defines what she's done. It says in verse eight, she has done what she could. He doesn't focus on the amount. He doesn't focus on how lavish it was in that culture and in that economy. He focuses on this is the capacity that this one woman had and she did what she could with what she had, which is exactly the same thing that he said about the widow giving the mite. And even though what that woman gave was just a pittance compared to what this woman gave, he describes her in the same way. Chapter 12, verse 44, she has put in everything she had, all that she had to live on. The point is not the greatness of the amount or the impressiveness of the gift. The point is the extent of the sacrifice that's involved. Not in terms of how much was given, but in terms of, in this case, economically, how much it hurt, how much it hurt financially to give that gift. Now, with that woman being willing to do that, it makes you wonder, who was she? What was her maybe back story with Jesus? Why did she come to love him so deeply to where she was willing to make this gift? How did she even know him anyway? Well, there is another story of Jesus being anointed at an early point in his ministry that's recounted in Luke chapter 7. We would have talked about that a couple years ago in our study of the Gospel of Luke, but this is not the same story. This is, of course, toward the end of his life, and we have a parallel passage in John chapter 12 where it also mentions things going on in Bethany And this was the house, or this was the woman anyway, that we know from John as Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus. You can look at John chapter 12 to the parallel passage to see how similar the contexts are in this situation at Bethany. Maybe some might suggest that Simon the leper was actually the father of those siblings. Whatever the case, these people did have a history with Jesus. They were his hosts on more than one occasion. They had a long-standing relationship with him. This was not some kind of impulsive or just emotional decision on her part. This was the result of a sustained period of experiencing his ministry and becoming intimately attached to him. Of course, what Mark also tells us is that this was after the miracle Jesus did to bring Lazarus from the dead. And in that context, we read the statement in John 11 5, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. which gives us the perspective we need to appreciate what's happening here. And this goes along with what we were considering in 1 John, actually on several different counts. But you remember that I've been stressing the point that God is the one who initiates love. that our love for him is a response to his, that we love because he first loved, that's precisely what's happening here. In other words, yes, be impressed by this woman and her sacrifice, but if you ask where did the depth of her love come from, it tells us in John 11 that Jesus loved her. And what then do we learn about the nature of discipleship and the sacrifices that are required? that it is rooted in love, that it is a response to love, and that our love for the Lord is only going to grow to the degree that we really get His love for us. We were here Wednesday night and I was talking about something similar from Ephesians and the prayers of Paul that God would open our eyes to new levels of understanding of his love for us and the different blessings of the gospel that his love has obtained for us. and that it is from that well of divine love that Paul then turns around and starts urging these people to make great sacrifices in their discipleship and to pursue change. It's all by way of responding to the Lord's initiating eternal love. And so these responses are first of all different in origin, they are different in motive, and then they are also different in purpose. What was the goal that was being sought? In terms of the act of betrayal, the intent of the religious leadership was unashamedly malicious. They wanted to put Jesus to death. The leaders, it says, they sought how to do this. And the same term is now used for Judas in verse 11, that he was also seeking a way to do this. And they were doing this at the time of Passover, which was, of course, the celebration of the mighty deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt. And the picture of that sacrificial lamb and deliverance through the application of the blood of the lamb. Here these men were who were leading that whole Ritual about the lamb and everything, their selfishness blinded them to the reality of what it was they were supposed to be celebrating. And God uses the wrath of men to bring praise to him, and their malicious act of betrayal ends up actually fulfilling the glorious truth of the Passover. But what do we see about the purpose that the woman had, that Mary had? These men were urging and seeking to kill him. Her act had to do with death as well. But Jesus says actually in verse 8, that she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. That was her purpose. They were trying to kill him. she was preparing him for the burial that would happen after he got killed. And the way that that statement reads, I take it to imply that she knew his death was imminent, that she was expecting him to die somehow, and his body needing to be prepared for burial. Apparently, she was one of the few, maybe the only one, who actually had some insight into what Jesus had been saying for months now. and what he had been instructing his disciples about, that the day was going to come when he was going to be arrested, and executed, and buried, and on the third day rise again, and it just went totally over the disciples' heads, and they're arguing with Jesus about it. Their hearts were hardened. It wasn't until after the resurrection that they began to understand, but somehow, evidently, this woman got it. She had some insight and accepted that those predictions were true, whether or not she understood how it all fit into the prophetic picture of the Old Testament. You say, how could she get that? How did she have access to that truth? Well, remember another famous story about her, where at that point, the contrast is actually between her and her sister. And her sister is the one that's so busy about the affairs of the house, And what do you remember about Mary? Mary is the one who would sit at Jesus' feet intently listening to our Lord's instruction. And maybe she was the only one who got it. But she did apparently get it from that kind of openness and eagerness and humble heart, letting the Lord determine what his purposes are, not insisting on my way, but just humbly taking in and yielding myself to the truth as the Lord is getting it across, which is another lesson we ought to infer about discipleship. that true discipleship pays careful attention to the teachings of Jesus and follows them even when they don't make sense initially. Even when they entail some very painful things. This woman had just seen her brother die and resurrected. Now Jesus is saying he's going to die but also be resurrected. And she is apparently okay with that. Why this has to be this way, what the purpose is, how this fits into the Old Testament, what about the angst and the confusion, the anxiety that that's going to cause us. In the meantime, I don't know. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Jesus said he's going to die. I'm going to prepare him for burial. That seems to be her spirit. That's her purpose. And then finally, we see a contrast as well in the outcome of these different actions. What about the response, the act of betrayal? Immediately, it looks like a success because when Judas shows up, we read in verse 11, they were glad and promised to give him money. Judas is successful in that venture pretty quickly, as you read on in chapter 14. Chapter 15, verse 37 records that Jesus was killed so that they did accomplish their intent. And yet we know that appearances aren't everything, and appearances aren't the final story. Within three days, Jesus had risen again. Within 40 years, the religious system that these men were so greedily clutching onto was entirely destroyed. And we see a fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament. that are constantly trying to help God's people deal with this struggle of, why are the wicked prospering? And we read statements like in Psalm 37, don't be anxious about that. They're going to be cut down like grass. They're going to wither as the green herb. They're not going to be successful. Just hang on. Wait on the Lord. We see it happen in this case. And even in the wording, you have a little bit of a warning about them and an assurance of how God views them and that he's going to deal with them, look with me quickly at verse 11. It says that they sought an opportunity to betray him. It could also be translated an opportune time or a convenient moment or just the right circumstance when he could betray the Lord. You realize when is the only other time when that terminology shows up in the Gospel of Mark about people looking for a convenient time to do something terrible? It's actually back in chapter 6 and verse 21. And it speaks there of the convenient day for Herodias. She had been waiting for it for a long time, just the right moment to have John the Baptist killed. She got her day in the sun, her opportune moment. These people did as well. Mark is lumping the religious leaders with the likes of the immoral and murderous Herodias, and he is using that association to urge us to keep reading and waiting for the outcome. And what about in the case of this woman and her generous act of devotion? In her case, appearances, we could say, are also deceiving. Because on one level, as far as how Judas and maybe some of the other disciples were thinking, what that looked like was a royal waste of money. And those funds could have been directed toward a more practical purpose, supposedly. It looked like a waste, but Jesus says, what looks like a waste to people, I am actually viewing it, verse 6, as a beautiful thing. He went on to say that this woman would be memorialized wherever the gospel was preached, which is being fulfilled right now. And here we are 2,000 some years later, and we are meditating on this woman and her heart for the Lord. That was the outcome. The outcome is even what we're doing this morning. One other little connection here with Mark's storytelling. In verse 3 we read that this woman with that alabaster flask of ointment, she broke it and she poured the ointment over his head. That's the only time the word pour, this word, occurs in Mark. But there's a very closely related word that also shows up only one other time, they sound very similar, and it's in chapter 14 and verse 24, which is where Jesus says, this is my blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many, or shed for many. Just like I said a moment ago, Mark wants us to associate the religious leaders with Herodias, I believe that other terminology connection would lead us to associate the pouring out of this woman's costly ointment with the pouring out of the blood of Christ to inaugurate the new covenant. The point is, the woman becomes closely associated with Jesus in that she did the same thing he did. He poured himself out fully, including his blood. She poured herself out fully in terms of the most expensive thing that she possessed. And the outcome of that was not just that Jesus was prepared for burial. The outcome was also that in the grace of God, this woman is elevated as a model of discipleship that we are still discussing today. She got out of it more than she intended. All she wanted to do was anoint Jesus for burial. That happened. She was blessed beyond that by Mark telling us her story and using her as an object lesson for the heart of a disciple And we view this woman as a model to follow, which leads me to modify our opening quote a little bit. To say just two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self, is a good way of confronting us with choices. and of challenging us not to live a selfish life. However, it doesn't tell the whole story. Because when we put it in those stark terms, pleasing God or pleasing self, it sounds like you don't get anything out of it. Like you're dying to yourself, and this is just going to be miserable, is how often people think when they're being challenged with dying to self. You just gotta deny yourself and stuff your feelings and you don't matter and doesn't matter how you feel. Well, there's a sense in which you do have to deny yourself. But in the end, self-denial is actually for your self-benefit too. The glory of God is intertwined with what is best for you. And you are not in discipleship putting self-interest aside in its entirety. What you're doing is you are choosing to limit your pleasure now and deny certain things now along the way of greater pleasure and greater blessing. It may not be for a long time. It may not be till eternity. But either way, now or later, this is actually what is best for you. So two choices on the shelf. Pleasing God for your ultimate self-benefit. Or pleasing self immediately for your ultimate destruction. Now, that's not very poetical. We've got to find a way to get across that whole concept. But you understand what I'm saying. This woman, in the end, did not lose out. She knew Jesus. She was attached to him. He loves her. He's blessing her. He's honoring her. We're honoring her this morning. So to bring all this together, What have we seen about discipleship from these contrasts? First of all, discipleship does not depend on your social or religious status. It doesn't matter who they are or where they came from. That's not the issue. Secondly, discipleship is about love responding to love. It is about love responding to love. Thirdly, Discipleship, like Mary, involves listening carefully to the instruction of the master and letting his instruction be the determiner of how you look at situations that immediately may not make a lot of sense. And finally, discipleship brings surprising rewards. They may be delayed, they may not be right away, but it brings surprising rewards. All those truths we see in the little microcosm of these individuals here. But as I close, I want to remind us that actually that little set of lessons there is actually playing out on the larger scene of the entire Gospel of Mark and the experience of our Savior. Because Mark begins by elevating Jesus as this mighty authoritative figure. And yet he comes and he says in chapter 10, I have come to serve and to give my life a ransom for many. But that's not the end of it. At the end of the book, he is exalted and recognized as the majestic son of God, even by one of the Gentile centurions that had a part in his crucifixion. And what you see in the Gospel of Mark is you start out here with Jesus in this miracle-working, elevated status, and then he's down at the bottom being crucified. And then it jumps immediately back up, even at the cross before the resurrection, where it says, he is the Son of God. People are beginning to recognize this. And the point is, our discipleship and all these moments of self-denial and then eventually reward and this constant battle of being a servant and denying ourselves, What we're doing is we're following in the path that Jesus himself first trotted out in his own experience. May the Lord help us to grow in our heart for Christ. We're presented here with some pretty stark contrast. that ultimately, though the devotion might look different ways for different people, in different circumstances, ultimately these really are the only two options. It is either I love the Lord, my life belongs to Him, I want Him to use me, or you're betraying Him by seeking a life for self and for your immediate enjoyment. As we come to the Lord's table, We're going to be taking in these elements that speak to us of how Jesus himself underwent this experience. And we're at the same point that we were last week in 1 John. As we're talking about all this about love and how hard it can be and how self-denial is required, and yet John keeps coming back to the love of God, the sacrifice of Christ, The nature of the gospel, this is the impulse that leads us to live the lives that the Lord has called us to. So let's dwell on that and let's pray about that as we partake of this ordinance. I'd like to invite the men to come and to prepare the table for us.