Open your Bibles, if you would, to Mark chapter 14. The title of today's message is Sacrificial Giving. We're going to be talking about giving today in a way that is modeled by Noah. As we're turning to Mark chapter 14, however, we're going to see this type of sacrificial giving taking place right in front of Jesus, and we're going to see how he honors those who honor him. We're going to pick up the text in verse 3, and the context is the period that's happening immediately before Jesus goes to the cross. So, again, we're going to join it at verse 3, and we're going to see Mary of Bethany bringing a very costly gift to the Lord. Verse 3, And while he was in Bethany, At the home of Simon the leper, in reclining at the table, there came a woman with an alabaster jar of perfume, a very costly pure nard, spikenard, and she broke the jar and poured it over his head. So this woman approaches, a woman whose brother was raised from the dead by Jesus, She approaches Jesus with what is about the same amount of fluid as in a can of Coke, 12 ounces. She breaks the jar, the alabaster jar, and she anoints his head, and in other accounts it says the house is filled with the smell of the perfume. It's a very strong odor and aroma. And interestingly, that perfume would have been on Jesus This whole time that He's going to the cross, everywhere He went, everyone He talked to, from Pilate to Herod, the disciples, the Pharisees, they all could smell this on Him. Now, this is an extremely extravagant gift. It costs about 300 days' wages. That is an extreme gift, and she committed. She smashed that jar, and she poured it over his head. Now, as you may have noticed over time, when somebody appears holy, other individuals may not appreciate it as much. People don't like to be outholied, as I've heard somebody say. And that's what the disciples, they're going to be indignant that this extravagant gift makes theirs look kind of small. Verse four, but some were indignantly remarking to one another, why has this perfume been wasted? Think of that word, wasted. This perfume might have been sold for over 300 denarii and given to the poor. And they were scolding her. People don't like to be outholied. They want to make themselves look better in comparison by putting others down. Instead of seeking to mimic that kind of generous heart and lauding it, as Jesus is going to do here in a moment, they put her down, they scold her. What are you doing? You could have given this to poor people. That's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing at all. But Jesus is always better. And Jesus honors her. Look at verse six. As he vindicates what she has done. It says, Jesus said, let her alone. Why do you bother her? She did a good work to me. For you always have the poor with you. And whenever you wish, you can do good to them. But you do not always have me. She has done what she could. She has done what she could. She anointed my body beforehand for the burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what this woman did will also be spoken of in memory of her." We're talking about it today, 2,000 years later. The Lord vindicates her faith. He protects her. from their self-righteous indignation, and he validates what she's done. She did what she could while she could. It was a precious aroma that was well-pleasing to the Lord, and so he honored her for honoring him. Ultimately, Christ promised that wherever the gospels proclaimed, this woman's gift would be remembered. She gave what she could. She loved with her whole self. As we turn our thoughts toward Noah's great gift, we need to understand that the Lord honors those who honor Him from the heart, not a contrived gift, not a manufactured forced thing. No, we're not to give grudgingly. We're to give from the heart. God loves a cheerful giver. So we're going to talk about giving today. We don't do this very often. This is probably the second sermon in the last year on giving, and so I hope that it's meaningful. We don't often do that, mainly because there's a lot of abuse that takes place. But because we go through Scripture verse by verse, chapter by chapter, Giving comes up often, and so we're gonna look at giving from a biblical perspective. How should we give? We should give sacrificially, and we've seen that modeled. We're gonna see it modeled in just a few moments, but before we get to that, we're gonna look at the context. Just a brief reminder, most of us are aware of the narrative that has been happening with Noah. The flood has ended. Noah's been in that boat, that barge, for over a year. He sends out the birds. The birds help him understand that the land is dry. He waits on the word of the Lord. The Lord says, you can leave now. And so he departs. He's gonna make this sacrifice. He's gonna make probably the most extravagant sacrifice that we can even cognitively understand beyond that of Christ. He's gonna sacrifice a massive portion of the animal population as they leave the ark. And we're gonna understand as we go through this that that generosity is what God has. He has a generous giving heart. And so what Noah did mirrors what God does. So after we go through the message, we'll hit a couple of takeaways. We'll look at some directions for how to give biblically. and two things not to do, and just a thought. So we'll take all of that from 2 Corinthians 9, and then we'll conclude by going to Philippians 2 and understand, hey, you know, God's generosity and giving, we're actually called to mirror that ourselves and in giving up ourselves. So that's our roadmap. That's today's message in a nutshell. Let's open in prayer. Lord God, you are a God who loves. We did not love you first. You loved us first when we were unlovely, when we were still in our trespasses and sins. You did what was necessary to make people right with you. Lord, we understand that we cannot please you. on our own. We cannot please you with trifles, for this whole world is yours. It takes you to please you, O God. And we know that you pleased yourself by sending your Son to make the payment that we never could. We thank you for the pleasing aroma his sacrifice was to you. How your wrath was soothed. Lord, I pray that we would look at Christ's sacrifice, understanding its magnitude, and seek to respond to you as grateful individuals who love you. and are eternally indebted to you. Lord, help us to learn stewardship. Help us to learn generosity. Help us to see what your word has for us today as we look at Noah and this sacrifice. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. All right. We'll turn, if you would, to Genesis chapter 8. I'm just going to do this in. We're not going to read each verse. I'm just gonna call out a couple of things. Now that the flood has finished, now that a year of washing away humanity and its wickedness has concluded, the flood is over. At long last, after 110 days, the flood is over. And as we've seen in the past couple of weeks, what we're having now is a restart of the creation order. Days 1, 2, and 3, where God put a space between the water, and he separated land from water. Those have all been reduplicated as we saw earlier in Genesis chapter 8. And then we also have days 5 and 6 also duplicated as Noah and the animals, they come out of the ark to repopulate the earth. So creation's order is being reinstituted. And now Noah's passengers, at long last, are finally leaving the ark. What is gonna happen at this point is Noah, in grateful recognition of the Lord's deliverance, he's gonna offer this extremely large sacrifice. So, let's stand. I'm gonna read the three verses that we're gonna be studying today. In Genesis chapter eight, verses 20 through 22, we're gonna honor the word of the Lord. And then we'll begin preaching through it. Genesis 8, verse 20-22, Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And Yahweh smelled the soothing aroma, and Yahweh said to himself, I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done. while all the days of the earth remain, seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. This is God's word. May we joyfully obey. You can have a seat. I've broken our text into three points. Our first point is just verse 20 as we look at Noah's offering. Again, Noah has just come out of the ark. Verses 18 and 19 tell us, Noah went out, and his sons and his wife, and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, every bird, everything that moves on the earth went out by their families from the ark. They've just left. And what happens immediately after they leave? Noah sets up a sacrifice. It says, Noah built an altar to Yahweh and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. He didn't wait a month. He didn't wait a week. He immediately left this barge that had saved him and his family and been the means by which God delivered him over a year-long process, he left and he put together an altar to the Lord and he slaughtered some of every clean animal and every clean bird. If you go back with me just a little bit, let's see, to chapter, Seven, let's see. Yeah, chapter seven, verse two. The Lord has specifically instructed him in Genesis seven, verse two, you shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female, and of the animals that are not clean, too, a male and his female. So he has these extra animals that God had told him to put on the ark for this future sacrifice that he's going to do. Noah's been caring for these animals for over a year. He's been preparing them. He's been thinking of them in advance. That may not sound like a big deal, but for Noah, that's an indication. You're going to leave, and you're going to worship me. and I'm gonna provide you the means by which you will do it. And you'll do it in the way that I've prescribed, on an altar. Think of that as we consider our own worship. The means have been provided. The means have been ordained. God has provided a specific way he wants to be worshiped. It's not just up to Noah. He can't sacrifice whatever he wants. He can sacrifice what God has ordained, what God has prepared, what God has supplied, what God has preserved. That's what Noah brings out. And the very first thing he does is he prepares this offering. It's generous. He's not hoarding it for himself. It's from every clean animal. You think of that as a percentage of the population that is on the earth? This is an extravagant offering that the Lord has prepared in advance for him to give. Okay, just hang with me, because we're going to develop this. Think through what is happening here. This offering was probably not Noah acting solo. Noah is acting as a priest king, like Adam acted like a priest king over God's domain. Okay, if Noah is acting like a priest king, he's also training up another priest king behind him. His family is probably there, participating in this sacrifice. He gives whole offerings. He doesn't try and claw back some for himself. He offers it up in smoke. He doesn't take his cut. He turns it over entirely to the Lord. It ascends in smoke to the heavens. This is a personal offering. He spent time with these animals. He fed these animals. He protected these animals. He cared for these animals. They're God's animals. This was a personal sacrifice. It was given as prescribed on an altar which Noah made specific for the purpose. Noah gave the precious ones, the clean ones, those that could have been consumed as food. when there's not a lot of food on the earth. Undoubtedly, he gave this sacrifice gratefully because God had delivered him using God's supplied means. Think of what this sacrifice looks like. Now ask us, is this what our giving looks like? Is this what our giving looks like? Turn with me if you would back to the gospel of Mark chapter 12. The Lord delights in heartfelt gifts. In Mark chapter 12, I'll pick it up at verse 41. Jesus, He's observing people coming into the treasury. They're loading up the treasury, the rich people, with large sums of money. A widow comes in and she brings what equates to about a penny and a half. Not much. I mean, they discontinued the penny this last week. It doesn't even seem to be valuable. She comes with one sixty-fourth of a day's wage, not much. Verse 41, he sat down opposite the treasury and began observing how the crowd was putting money into the treasury, and many rich people were putting in large sums. And a poor widow came in and put in two lepta, which amount to a quadrants. That's 164th of a day's wage. And calling his disciples to him, he said to them, truly I say to you, this poor widow, put in more than all those putting money into the treasury, for they all put in out of their surplus. But she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on. What a gift. What a gift. What a worthy expression of worship. This poor widow gave, and Jesus rightly says she gave more. This is all she had to live on. Now I'll ask you, do you think the God of the universe observing this worship forgot to feed this little sparrow on that day? Do you think he failed to provide for her on that day? He hadn't up until that point. I am confident, although it is not written, that the God who feeds the sparrows and feeds us took care of that widow. He loves widows. He loves orphans. God delights in heartfelt gifts. and we can see a great example of that in Mark chapter 12. Let's go back to Genesis chapter eight for our second point, Yahweh's mercy. So Noah's offered this offering. Now the Lord is gonna respond to it. It says in verse 21, Yahweh smelled the soothing aroma. And Yahweh said to himself, I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done. Think of what has just taken place. Noah offered an acceptable offering. The Lord accepted it. And then he makes a promise, a promise not to destroy humanity, a promise that we enjoy still to this day. Sometimes we look at these extravagant gifts and we and we say, well, that's for that's for them. we forget there's something for us here. We're a beneficiary of Noah's extravagant gift, which the Lord provided for him. Maybe I'm just simple. That is profound to me, that I could be a beneficiary of something that happened 4,000 years ago. It says that the Lord smelled the soothing aroma. Now, the Lord is spirit. We'll do a little bit of theology here. The Lord is spirit. He doesn't have a nose, right? He doesn't have a physical body. We have the incarnated Christ who is the Son of God, but the Lord There's a metaphor here. It's an expression. The Lord smelled the soothing aroma. He doesn't have a nose. Why? Why does it say this? Hang your hat on that question. We're going to follow that up. The Lord does not have a nose, but he is omniscient. He knows the heart of Noah. He knows the expression of his worship. And so he responds with this promise. I will never again curse the ground because of man. Not gonna do it. Why? Because mankind is good all of a sudden? Nope. Our depravity is a biblical reality. Now that doesn't mean that we can't do good things. It doesn't mean that we can't know what good things are. It means that we're utterly incapable of helping ourselves. The Lord says, the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth. Despite the fact that we are depraved, the Lord has not set the ball in motion for us to be periodically wiped out. The Lord is merciful. Think of what has just happened. Noah's priestly work precipitated the Lord's promise of patience with parameters that we're gonna see. It's a lot of peace. I'm gonna say it again. Noah's priestly work precipitated the Lord's promise of patience with parameters we can still perceive. The Lord smells the soothing aroma and despite the fact that mankind is evil and utterly incapable of helping himself, the Lord promises, I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done. Okay, so if Noah's functioning in this priestly role How much more, and the promises are still good, how much more Christ, who's on the right hand of the Father praying for us right now as our great and merciful high priest praying for us, how much more effective are those prayers? How much more effective was his sacrifice on our behalf? Is the Lord pleased? He is. God the Father is pleased. Does he listen? Oh yeah, he does. Well, I had you hang your hat on this concept of the Lord smelling a soothing aroma. Go with me to Psalm 103. It might sound funny to some of us, but this literal translation of the patience of God being slow to anger, it's a concept that literally is rendered long of nose. Long of nose, what is long of nose? If you're like me, when you get angry, you go all apoplectic, your face gets all bright red, cherry red, your eyebrows get hot, and you steam up, right? Have you seen people do this? Maybe it happens to you too. It says that the Lord is long of nose, meaning it takes Him a long time to get angry. So when the Lord is Inhaling this soothing aroma, it's this pacifying effect. There will be a sacrifice that will come that will deal with depraved humanity in the right time. I have you turning to Psalm 103 because these concepts blend together in this passage. Psalm 103 verses 8 through 14 says, Yahweh is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loyal love. He will not always contend with us, and He will not keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, and He has not rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loyal love toward those who fear Him. as far as the East is from the West, so far as He removed our transgressions from us as a Father, has compassion on His children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our form. He remembers that we are but dust. We are a depraved humanity. We are in need. Only God can please God. Only God can supply a sacrifice that will please Him. Our best moral effort, our best day, we don't do anything wrong, does not give the Lord satisfaction. Our sin really is that bad. God has to provide a sacrifice, like he provided Noah with a sacrifice that will please him, that will soothe him. God wants to do this because he's compassionate, and he's kind, and he's abounding in loyal love. Think of the goodness of God. I can tell from your expressions, maybe it's been a rough week. Maybe it's been a hard week. Things have not gone according to expectation. There's been trials. There's been hardships. You can turn to the Lord. We can turn to him. He knows our form. He knows that we're dust. We don't have anything he needs. Earlier in Psalm 50. You don't have to turn there. I'll just read this. The Lord is totally sufficient. He says. Every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird on the mountains and everything that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you, for the world is mine as well as its fullness. We need to go to the sufficient one and say, provide. And when he does, we need to acknowledge that. Has he given you a trial over this last week or multiple weeks or multiple years? Okay, He's causing all things to work together for your good. We can be grateful that He's doing that in our life. There's hard things in scripture. Noah had hard things. The Lord proved his goodness. So I can tell that maybe today's a rough day. Stay tuned. We're gonna keep going and see the duration of God's promise. So let's go back to Genesis chapter eight. In Genesis chapter 8, the Lord, he institutes the duration of this promise not to destroy humanity, even though it's going to be evil from conception. He says in verse 22, I know there's a lot of paranoia about the end of the world, zombie apocalypse, those kind of things, that the sun and the moon are going to fall out of the sky. The Lord gives a commitment that is Word is going to be good and firm, and these things are going to continue. I hope you don't lose sleep over those things. I really hope that you can entrust that to the Lord. Let's wrap up this by going to Jeremiah. We can trust the Lord because He keeps His word. He's not like people that talk out of both sides of their mouth. Now in Jeremiah 33, the Lord affirms just how durative His covenant is. by saying it would be more possible for day and night to not be where they're supposed to be than for him to break his covenant. And he repeats it twice in these just couple of verses. In verse 20, it says, Thus says Yahweh, If you could break my covenant for the day and my covenant for the night, so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, then my covenant may also be broken with David my servant. so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne with the Levitical priests by ministers. We find that fulfillment in the Messiah, the son of David. Jesus is never going to take a day off. That's how durative... these covenants are. Look just a couple more verses down. Look at verse 25. If my covenant for day and night stand not, and the statutes for earth and heaven I have not established, then I would reject the seed of Jacob and David my servant, not taking from his seed rulers over the seed of the people of Israel. The Lord keeps his word. The Lord keeps his word. He's not like us. that are not always faithful and following through what we've committed to do. With a God as good as the Lord and as kind and as merciful and giving as He is, one who keeps His word, what is an appropriate response to Him? who gives so abundantly, giving even his own son. Many of you have this first memorized, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. How generous, how giving is God? He is so generous. He is so kind. He is so giving. So if we're to mirror God in holiness, in conduct, in character, what kind of a generous, sacrificial spirit should we have? We're gonna have some directions here, and we're gonna find them all in 2 Corinthians 9. So if you would turn there, we'll go through 2 Corinthians 9. Just a handful of verses, verses 6 through 11. Paul is providing instructions, directions to the Corinthian church on how to give. He could have given these as commands. He could have made them orders. He could have made it an imperative, do this. Lots of churches give imperatives like that. You must give this. That's not what Paul does. He gives directions, and he entrusts it to the Corinthian church to respond. So, we're gonna look at verse six, and we're gonna see the first direction that he gives is to give generously, not sparingly. Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows with blessing will also reap with blessing. Anybody here garden? Okay, most of us probably don't garden like a whole field, right? But we can understand the concept. Let's say you want a lot of carrots. Are you going to put three seeds in the ground? Probably not. That's self-defeating. No, it doesn't even make sense. The farmer sows as much as he possibly can because he's anticipating a future harvest. The more he can put in the ground, the more he can expect later. The health, wealth, and prosperity preachers, they get this all wrong. They think that if you sow a seed of faith, send me $1,000, God's going to give you $50,000. That's not what the Lord is saying here. No. He is committed to provide for us. But if we don't put in what He has already supplied, That just means that we're miserly, hoarding, and that's what he doesn't want us to do. We're supposed to be doing this purposely, not begrudgingly. Look at verse seven. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Why? Why does God love a cheerful giver? Because he's a cheerful giver. He's a cheerful giver. Have you ever gotten a gift from somebody who didn't want to give you a gift? And they grumble, and they side-eye you, and like... How unnerving is that? Just take it. I don't want it. Fine. No, we would expect that people that are giving us a gift would do so joyfully, cheerfully. Why? Well, it's bad manners to grumble while you're given a gift, and God doesn't do that. That's terrible. No, we give cheerfully, joyfully. Why? Because the Lord does. And lastly, in our directions, our acrostic is GPS, we are to seriously grasp our own stewardship of God's resources. These are God's resources that have been entrusted to us. Look at verse eight. God is able to make every grace abound to you, so that in everything, at every time, having every sufficiency, you may have an abundance for every good deed. For what? For every good deed. For what? You have enough for every good deed. You have how much? I don't have enough. I can't, I can't. God gives enough to participate in His work. Ephesians 2.10 tells us that these good works the Lord has foreordained from before, before salvation, before the beginning of the world, these were before creation, so that we may walk in them. He says further, it is written, he scattered abroad, he gave to the needy, his righteousness stands forever. Now, he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your wealth. Your bank account. No, your righteousness. The only thing that really truly matters in the presence of the holy God. You will be enriched in everything for all generosity. What's generosity? Hoarding, misery. No. Stacking cash. No. For being generous, which through us is bringing about thanksgiving to God. Would you be the means by which people glorify God? We gotta give, like God gives. Ultimately, our giving is to reflect God's giving. How does God give? He gives his most precious, most beloved Son. Say, I can't do that. Okay? Maybe consider this. Maybe think about it from this perspective. Often we think of giving as just related to money, right? Write a check. No, as we often hear, God expects us to give of our time, our talents, and our treasure. These are all resources that the Lord has provided to you, to steward. Others might give thanks to God for it. I don't want to make this painful, but I do want to encourage us. Are we giving our time? Are we giving our talents, our skills, our spiritual gifts, are we giving our money, our resources? I know we're going over, but I just want to make it clear. Romans 12, verse 1. says, I exhort you brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. God doesn't want just an hour on a Sunday morning. He wants your whole existence. So give it to him, you'll enjoy what happens. All right, because we're bumping up against the clock, I'm not gonna do a recap. We'll go right into Philippians 2. If we are called to mirror, truly mirror God's giving, let's see that take place. In Philippians chapter two, verse five, Paul writes an overt exhortation. Have this way of thinking in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. Christian, have this way of thinking in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. Think the same way that he did about this. Verse six, who although existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a slave, by being made in likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. That is a generous God. That is the example of true generosity. I look at this and you know what I think? It'd be really cool if by the time I left the Lord's earth, my bank account was at zero. It was all gone. I was completely poured out like Jesus. That's what I would like to do. I would like to have just that much in there so that I come scraping and skidding on into glory. I don't want... A gigantic bank account. I don't want wealth. It's His. I want the Lord to use it. I hope that you want that as well, because there's glory. There's glory reserved. for the Lord, and also, I would say, as an indication of glory for those that give in the same manner. Therefore, God also highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The Lord recognizes his generosity. He recognizes his gift of himself totally unreservedly and he rewards him intensely. It's a model. It's a good model. I would encourage you to not just push it off and like, okay, well that was interesting information and go about your day. Think about these things. If we are made in God's image and we are to mirror His conduct and His character, we're to be like this. And we're going to be happy when we fulfill that purpose. Let's stand and I'll close in prayer. If you have further questions about what it would be to give biblically, I cannot commend Dan high enough for that. Please reach out to him or you can reach out to another member of the Elder Council. We'd love to open God's word and give a little bit more instruction on that. Let's close in prayer. Father God, you are the giver of every good and perfect gift, and we recognize that in Christ. We're grateful that you accepted his perfect sacrifice on our behalf, and that those who believe are given his perfection in exchange for their sin. Lord, thank you for positional righteousness. Thank you for grace. Thank you for Jesus. It's in his name we pray, amen.