take your Bibles and turn to Mark chapter 14. Mark chapter 14, and we will continue our study in Mark's gospel. It was pleasant this last week to be reminded by Facebook that I have now crossed the four-year mark of being in Waterville. And I just wanted to say what a joy it is to have the privilege of being your pastor and holding up the good news, the banner of Jesus Christ here in Waterville. And I look forward to it, by God's grace, for many years to come. As I told some folks earlier, I have not yet bought my burial plot here in town. But we did recently change Rachel's phone number to 315. So we have made some real maneuvers to show ourselves to be New Yorkers, all right? And just want to say thank you. These have been precious days, and I am thankful for the times that we've had to grow closer together, especially for the times to look at God's Word together and have it change us. It's the great delight that we have to know that the Word of God changes us. We don't get changed to be a better person because we associate with better people, and they rub off on us. We associate with God's people who are sanctified by God's word and they minister God's word to each other and God makes us what he wants us to be. So that is a precious joy that we have together. I am not on because I don't have any batteries. I'm seeing red. So, do I need to say all those things I just said again? Technology always works at the finest times and misses it. I don't know what I missed, but I hope you got my point. Good. All right. I've already said, will you please turn to Mark 14, and we'll have the privilege of studying verses 1 through 11 together. If you don't have a manuscript, maybe Ray can get one to you if there's any left, but we'll study this passage together. And this morning, I want to consider uncalculating sacrifice for Jesus. Uncalculating sacrifice for Jesus. In our previous passage, chapter 13, verse 32, we saw how Jesus told us about the rapture, and we have a great need to be ready for the rapture. And we would be ready if we would find ourselves being about the Master's business because He has left us things to do. So we need to apply that text, the fact that Jesus could come at any moment to our lives by being ready for Him to come, by staying awake, not being lethargic, but being alive to His things. And I hope that it was a challenge to your heart as it was to my heart that if the Lord were to come today, is there anything that you would need to change before you gave your account? And by God's grace, we dealt with those things and are walking with the Lord. And today, my dear brothers and sisters, let's consider uncalculating sacrifice. Let's pray and ask for God's help. Father, use your word to sanctify your people. Use your word to bring an unbeliever to saving faith in you. We ask for that this morning in Jesus' name, amen. In school, we learned how to calculate figures. As you can see, this is not my calculator, but my wife's. But we learned our math, and we learned practical things to do with math, because we learned that if we're going to live life not in the red, we have to consider our deposits and our debts, and hopefully come out in the black. So we learned how to calculate, and that was a really good thing that our teachers taught us. Math is a very good thing for life. A calculation in religion can be quite problematic. Perhaps your mind is running to that Bible passage which says, well, you need to count the cost. And that is true. Before you become a follower of Jesus Christ, you need to count the cost. Because religion is so often given as something very simple. As an insurance plan, you can just kind of sign in to as some kind of email list that you can just join. And that's not the case at all. So there is a place for religion saying we should count the cost. But as a follower of Jesus Christ, the truth is that there is no sacrifice too great for me to make for thee. And that's what the missionary David Livingston said. And that's what we find in Mark chapter 14. I want you to look at this passage with me and notice all the references to calculation. You look at the first verses and you see that the religious leaders are gathering together to calculate how to oppose Jesus. And then we find a woman who does something that is very expensive, verse 3 says, because that perfume was very costly. And then we have other people calculating what she did in verse 4 and calling it a waste. And then they actually say and calculate exactly how much her act cost. It was very expensive. It says 300 denarii. And then we see Jesus in turn calculate the opportunity to do good to the poor versus the opportunity to do good for him, to sacrifice for him. And finally we see the one who joins with those who are opposed to Jesus and he begins to calculate how to bring Jesus down. There's a lot of calculation in this passage. And what we're faced with from this story is that we ought to, like Mary, like the woman in this passage, give to God. And I'm not trying to say this in a very narrow sense of what we ought to give on Sunday morning during the offering. I'm actually talking about all of our lives. How much does God desire from us? How much does God deserve from us? Loosely said, how religious am I supposed to be, preacher? Well, this passage tells us, this story of Jesus anointing tells us. And as we go through this passage, we're gonna see it in three sections. You see the three sections marked by the different paragraphs in your Bible, and those give us three kinds of people. In the first two verses, you see the enemies who are opposed to Jesus. In the verses three through nine, you see the followers who sacrifice for Jesus. And in verses 10 through 11, you see those who are traitors to Jesus. Let's first consider the enemies of Jesus who in verses one and two scheme to eliminate him. And it was the Jewish religious leaders who planned on killing him. You see, people who are enemies of Jesus oppose him. That's why the Jewish leaders were plotting against him. Verse one says, now it was 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. Now they did this on Tuesday night. And that was a couple days before two significant Jewish celebrations. The first celebration you see there is the Passover, which was a single-day celebration on Nisan 14, and it was celebrated to commemorate the angel of the Lord passing over the Jews and striking down the firstborn of the Egyptians. That's what the Passover talks about. And the point of that was that the firstborn of Israel was spared. Why? Well, because they shed the blood of the Lamb. And therefore we look beyond that Passover festival and feast and celebration to Jesus Christ who is the ultimate Passover Lamb who is sacrificed for our sins, 1 Corinthians 5.7, 1 Peter 1.19. So these people are about to celebrate the Passover. They're also about to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was not a single day celebration, but a week-long celebration that began with Passover. It commemorated the Jews hastily leaving Egypt. And the New Testament significance of this passage is that the Jews are supposed to remove all the leaven from their homes. That is applied in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul, to the Corinthian church, and the apostle Paul commands the church to remove from their membership those whose lives were not transformed by Christ. Although they profess Christ, they hadn't been transformed, so Paul says, remove the leaven. That's how that is applied. But what's ironic in the story before us is that the Jewish religious leaders are not trying to get rid of the leaven in their homes. What are they doing? They're trying to get rid of Jesus. They're plotting to get rid of him. Now, the chief priests were mostly Sadducees, and the scribes were mostly Pharisees. We know those names. We've read about them in Mark's Gospel. And they've actually been plotting against Jesus for a long time, all the way back to Mark 3, verse 6. That's the first year of Jesus' ministry when Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath day. They've been opposed to him since the very beginning. But we read in chapter 11 of Mark that they were really getting together to plot against him because of what he did on Monday when he cleared out the temple. They didn't like that at all. And if you were to read the other accounts chronologically, the other gospel accounts, you'll realize that just previously Lazarus has been raised from the dead, John chapter 11, and many people are believing in Jesus, and therefore the religious leaders are going crazy. So they're opposed to Jesus, but not just to marginalize him. Now they want him to die. Just on this last week, Tuesday, this day, they had openly called Jesus teacher. They did that again and again, Mark 12, 14, 19, 32. This was a title of respect. But they secretly opposed Jesus. You say, well, why did they do that? Why don't you turn forward in Mark's gospel to the next chapter, chapter 15, verse 10, because we have an inspired commentary on the reason why they opposed Jesus. And it's Pilate who draws this out. Mark 15, verse 10. Why did they want to get rid of Jesus? Well, Jesus was gaining power. so they had to defend their religious power. This is what we call a classic power play. And in a power play scenario, it is a very important thing to control the flow of information and popular perception. You can't be overt about things or you're going to lose your influence over people. That's why they hesitated in being openly opposed to Jesus, and that's how enemies of Jesus are. They're not overtly opposed to Him, but they are secretly opposed to Him. Why? Because they want to make sure they keep influence. They're afraid of, in this case, the crowds. They say this in verse 2, for they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people. What we find among the most religious in Israel is that they could not stand Jesus, but they realized that they couldn't afford to be rash, given the situation. They realized that the feast was about to begin, and once it had begun, they couldn't do anything, and they couldn't stomach waiting till after the feast before they acted. They wanted to act as swiftly as possible, but the problem was they lacked opportunity. The opportune moment would have been to arrest Jesus when He's not surrounded by people, but He's teaching in the temple when everyone's there to hear and see Him. It'd be so much better if they could arrest Him at night when the crowds weren't there, but how would they find out where He would be at night? That's where... Mark's account of the religious leaders of Israel brings us. The suspense of the story has been built up, and we as readers are very eager to learn, well, what's going to happen? But before we learn what happens, let's briefly reflect on what we learned so far in the passage, which can actually be of importance for us today. First thing I want us to learn is that we need to be aware of the fact that people are still opposed to Jesus today. This is not something unique to Jesus at His time. Like the religious leaders of Jesus' day, leaders today who oppose Jesus aren't openly defiant of Him. In fact, it's often hard to spot these kinds of people. because they seem to be respectful of Jesus. You ask most people about Jesus, they'll say that he was a good person, a good teacher, a great example of sacrificial love, and they'll even parrot Jesus's golden rule. They do that at school, but they would never tell you that it's actually his rule. They don't believe that Jesus is God. They don't believe that he, in any way, ought to dictate anything that we ought to do. And the sad reality is that most churches do not teach that Jesus is the creator God, the only savior, the king of kings. So Jesus, even today, is opposed by good, respectable, religious people as he was in his own day. That's especially seen in how the world treats Christ's church. You see, in our society, even in American society, the church has no place. The only thing the church ought to do is pray blessing on the nation. That's the only thing we're allowed to do. So we learn is that we shouldn't be surprised by the fact that people still oppose Jesus today. 1 John 3, 13 says, in summary, do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. So, as we read these words, don't be surprised. The same is true today. But secondly, this is what we need to do in response to that opposition, that is to stand for Jesus. Our devotion to Jesus Christ shouldn't be a private matter. Our faith ought to be public. It's, let's not, let's decide not to be known as someone who is good and a church-going person and a respectable person, but let us be like the disciples and acts who stood for Jesus Christ boldly because we are Christ's church who have been purchased by His blood. Stand with Jesus Christ and proclaim forgiveness of sins in His name. Don't be like the enemies of Christ who oppose him. Well, Mark has left us in suspense about the plot against Jesus, and now he's gonna magnify that suspense even more by taking a vent that already took place on a previous Saturday, which is recorded in John chapter 12 chronologically in order, but it's out of order here in Mark. He takes an event and he puts it here. So then what he's gonna do is make a stark contrast between those who oppose Jesus and those who follow Jesus. So as we look at verses three through nine, we'll find the followers of Jesus. And these are they who sacrifice to do what they can for him. This is where we find the story of a woman who anointed Jesus for his burial. And I don't know about you, but I remember reading this story as a young person and thinking, in particular as a man, I wouldn't want a bottle of perfume poured on me. Who wants to go around smelling like a flower? I don't know if you thought that years ago in Sunday school, but I have thought about that. Just to encourage you, nard is not a flowery smelling perfume. It's a musty perfume. I know that because I bought a bottle on Amazon this week. And if you wanna smell it, you may come up after the service. But regardless of all that, what the text shows us is that a woman anointed Jesus, verse three. When did she do this, where did she do this? Verse three tells us, while he was at Bethany. And that seems to be that hub location where Jesus has been in this Passion Week. It says, in the house of Simon the leper. And don't be struck by that. He certainly was not a leper at this point, or he wouldn't be entertaining them. He would have been quarantined. So this is Simon the former leper, perhaps having been healed miraculously by Jesus Christ. We also know from John 12 that Lazarus was there, Mary was there, and Martha was there. But Mark tells us, at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman, John tells us, Mary. You see that in your cross-reference, hopefully, John 12, three. A woman came with an alabaster flask and an ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. So instead of just removing the stopper and pouring a few drops on Jesus, as a hospitable act, she broke the flask and emptied its contents upon Jesus. This pure nard, as compared to references to spiked nard, which would have been diluted, it said that this comes from India. Of course, you wouldn't know that from the text, but what you do know from the text is that Mark states that this ointment is very costly. You say, how expensive was it? Well, we find out in verse five. You see in verse five that it's said to be of a value more than 300 denarii. And then you see a cross-reference in your Bible or a footnote. And the footnote says that a denarii is a day's wage. So 300 would have been about a year's worth of wages. And it's that financial detail that is a key. so that they knew and so that we know that this woman has made a tremendous sacrifice, a year's wages. What does that mean in your home budget? That's a lot of money. How did the people around this woman respond to her and to her sacrifice? Well, notice the contrasting conjunction at the beginning of verse four. I say contrasting, you'll only find it to be contrasting if you have the New American Standard, which is the right translation of this word, the New American Standard. It says, but. You see, there's a contrast between this woman and the people that follow. And it shows us that there are some who criticize the sacrifice of Jesus' followers. The disciples are the ones who are critical of the anointing of Jesus. They found fault with what she did. Look at verse four and five. But there were some who had 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 he scolded her. And from John 12, verse 5, we learn that it was Judas who first said these critical words. He was the one who suggested that this could be done. As you read a chronological account of the Gospels, these are the very first words that we ever hear Judas saying. And John goes on to explain that Judas didn't say this for the sake of the poor as if he really cared for the needy. Instead, he said this because he was the treasurer of the group and he was a thief. And Judas seems to have influence on the other because what Mark records for us is that it was a group who had this negative person, not Judas alone. And what the focus of the criticism is upon the value of the nard. And it highlights the great sacrifice that Mary has made. And what they say of her sacrifice is that it is a waste. And they scold her for it. They thought that it could have been much better managed by themselves. Something so expensive should have been better spent. That sounds like the proverbial committee meeting. And as you stop and reflect on the story, you can only imagine how Mary felt at this time. She's just, sacrificed greatly for Jesus Christ, and it's followed by harsh criticism of Jesus' followers. What are we to think? But I'd say as readers, we are greatly encouraged by the next three words. which are, but Jesus said. You see, some people criticize the sacrifices of Jesus' followers, but Jesus commends those who sacrifice what they can, verses six through nine. He commended the woman who anointed him. She had done a noble deed, verses six and seven teach us. Leave her alone, Jesus said. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing for me. For you always have the poor with you, and whatever you want. "'You can do good for them, but you will not always have me.'" What you find Jesus doing here is defending her action, her sacrifice. Did you notice that three times in Jesus's response, Jesus referred to what she had done? Verse six, verse eight, verse nine. And it is Jesus alone who sees her act for what it was, a beautiful thing. And then he obviously deals with the objection to what the disciples have said, and he says that there is always poor people to give to, but the same isn't true for him. You say, what does that mean? Jesus has already told his disciples three times, Mark 8, verse 31, 9-31, 10-33-34, he has told them three times at least already that he was headed for Jerusalem where he'd be delivered over to the religious leaders and killed and then he would rise again in three days. He's told that to them again and again and again. And if he's told them that his life is coming to an end, what would you do for someone who's said that he is about to die in a very short time? You would do what you can for the man. That's what the woman did. She did what she could. Verse 8, she has done what she could. She has anointed my body for beforehand for burial. And that's what Mary seems to have understood that the people, other people, didn't get. Jesus goes on to say, 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. How is that told? Well, the story of what happened is recorded for us in the scriptures. So we find Mary is gonna be well known because she's recorded in the Bible here. That's how it's proclaimed in her memory. As we look at what Mary did, what are we supposed to learn about sacrifice for Jesus? There are a number of points I wanna share with you now. First, many criticize sacrifice for Jesus. And what is most sad is that even followers of Jesus Christ criticize the sacrifice of followers of Jesus. The disciples in this story are not examples of what we're supposed to follow. They were fault-finding. like most people. Most people are like the natives in the island of Malta. You remember in Acts chapter 28, that's where the apostle Paul had come and he builds a fire and amongst the sticks of that in preparation for the fire is a snake. The snake bites him and the natives conclude immediately, well that person must be a murderer. He's bit by a snake, must be a murderer. Quickly judge. Of course, when Paul's not harmed, they say he's a god. But people quickly come to conclusions, and we learn from passages like this, and passages like that, and throughout the scriptures, not to be hasty to criticize. We would learn the axiom to be constantly in fear of misreading things, lest we call good evil and evil good. Fault finding is not a great thing to be good at. That's the first thing. Secondly, if someone finds fault with your Christian devotion, with your Christian sacrifice, you may not be wrong. Mary wasn't wrong here. And so those who sacrifice for Jesus' sake may be exactly right. It's just that other people find that your devotion to the Lord is unusual. It's not what they would do. Perhaps it's beyond what they would do. But don't be discouraged. You see, so often you and I perform the most mundane Christian acts, like going to church, and people balk at that. They look at us and they say, you go to church every Sunday? Are you kidding me? And us who grew up in church, we're like, what else do you do on Sunday? Or you hand out a gospel track and people today think you're crazy. And even a Christian may think you're extreme if you do that kind of thing. And if you'll just reflect on those moments when you're criticized, when people give you those looks, even among God's people, you really wish that God would speak up from heaven and verbally defend you, your devotion and your sacrifice for his sake. That's what you really wish you had. Because that's what Mary had on this occasion. She sacrificed for the Lord and the Lord spoke up for her. We don't have Jesus here today to speak up for us audibly. But brothers and sisters, if you are sacrificing for the Lord, this passage is God speaking to comfort your heart about your sacrifice for Him. And this is Him saying, don't worry about the criticism. Sacrifice for my sake. You are doing a beautiful thing. This is God's validating word. to so many missionaries who leave the comforts of their home and go to pagan lands, perhaps never to see their family again. And the examples could be multiplied. I guess the question then is, well, how do you know if your devotion to God is actually right? Or how do you know if your devotion is actually just crazy? How do you know your sacrifice for God is what he desires and what he deserves? Well, thirdly, true sacrifice springs from sitting at Jesus's feet. Mary anointed Jesus's feet because She sat at His feet, and she heard His words, and she believed them in her heart. She believed that Jesus was to be betrayed, to be killed, to be buried, and to rise in three days. So in response to what she heard Jesus say, she sacrificed without calculation. What she did was a response of belief and faith. And that's why it wasn't out of place. It was appropriate. And so it is that all who sit at Jesus' feet and hear God's word, they realize how great God is and therefore, they do what they can for God. We look at what Mary did. She sacrificed something that cost a year's salary. Clearly, Mary was a person of means. to even have that kind of thing around. But what she does is what she can, using the means that God had given her. And the same is true for us. But don't sacrifice for God if you haven't sat at his feet and listened to his word. That's the key. Don't just do something that pops into your mind. But if God has spoken to you through his word, prompted by the Holy Spirit, then just do what the Lord wants you to do. followers of Jesus are gonna sacrifice what they can for Him. As we go on in the passage, we're gonna find out that not all followers are genuine followers of Jesus Christ. There are certainly some who miss what Jesus says from time to time, and therefore they're critical of other Christians who don't miss what Jesus says. Yes, we see those disciples who are wrong in this case, but there are some disciples who just aren't followers. They're actually hypocrites. And eventually, a hypocrite will show his true devotion. It lies somewhere else besides Jesus Christ. And that's what we find in verses 10 and 11, that traitors to Jesus substitute something else for Him. And that's where we see Judas betray Jesus for money. I want to remind us of the fact that this story follows verse 2, in time. that the religious leaders are conniving against Jesus, and then it's solved by what's to come, but this story also follows verse nine as a contrast. Verse two has built up the suspense that Jesus's enemies are opposed to him and want to eliminate him, but in verses three through nine, we've seen the example of sacrifice, and Judas wasn't interested in sacrifice, and that's why he left Jesus. And that's what traitors to Jesus do. They leave Jesus, verse 10. And Judas Iscariot, who was one of the 12, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. Judas left Jesus, and he left those who follow Jesus. He chose to change sides. And Luke provides us a little more color for this. Luke 22, verse three and four. Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who is one of the number of the 12. He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him. I cannot spend much time on this point, but I will say briefly, it is Satan's work which causes a follower of Jesus to leave Jesus and to leave his people, the church. That is Satan's kind of business. Of course, the enemies of Jesus were delighted with what Judas did. Verse 11, and when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money, and he sought an opportunity to betray him. So Judas is selling out Jesus for silver. And that's what any person who's a traitor to Jesus does. They sell Jesus out. Judas is just doing what so many have done. They associate with Jesus for a time, they associate with his church, they associate with religion, and then they choose something down the road that brings them more joy, brings them more pleasure. And in Judas' case, it was money. But the point is that Judas was always in religion, not for Christ's sake, but for his own sake. And as we think about Judas, we think, but that person had privileges that we wish we would have had. He was the one who was able to spend over three years with Jesus, walking in with him and talking with him and asking him questions. Judas was the one in Bethany having dinner at the house of Simon the leper where Lazarus was sitting. Lazarus who he has just seen raised from the dead. We wish we could have seen that. But he turns from Jesus. What that simply shows us is that apart from the grace of God, people turn away from God when even they're faced with very plain evidence. Why? Because they can't stomach They can't stomach sacrificing for Jesus because it doesn't, in their minds, bring any kind of return that they want. Instead, they'd rather sacrifice for other things that bring them pleasure in life. What we see in Judas is that his calculating was dead wrong. In school, we learn math, we learn calculation. That helps us with a lot of very important things in life, like staying in the black. But when it comes to religion, we can't be nickel and diming, we can't be pinching pennies. What we have to do is sit at Jesus' feet, which means practically we read and we hear the Bible, and then we learn the greatness and grace of God, and therefore we're motivated to make great sacrifices for Him. You see, the need today is not Ointment, perfume, nard for Jesus's body. The need today is the fact that Jesus is now in heaven preparing a place for us and his body, the church, has great needs. And he has said that our family and our community who are unbelievers have great needs. They need to be evangelized. So what we must do as we sit at Jesus's feet is evaluate the greatness and grace of God. Evaluate the opportunities to sacrifice for him. But don't calculate the cost of that sacrifice. Just sacrifice like Mary did. Let's pray. Father, as we are challenged by this, as we are challenged by what Jesus said will be told for years to come, May our hearts be ready to sacrifice for you, because we know how great you are. That no sacrifice would be too great for me to make for you. We ask for that in Jesus' name. Amen. Those are the words of David Livingston, who was a missionary in Africa. So often those words are given for the one who would follow the Lord in full-time service, especially as a missionary. But perhaps that's not what God has called you to today, so I'd have you apply this text very simply. Do something great for God, sacrifice greatly for God by talking about him at home, by reading God's word in your home, by coming to church, by representing outside of your homes the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you will have done a great sacrifice and work for the Lord. Father, give us that grace necessary to do that. Help us to show our love for you in our homes, our love for you in our communities, our love for you here as we gather together as your people. We ask for that in Jesus' name, amen.