Now we're going to read from the Bible. The reading tonight is John chapter 12, verses one through 11. Then six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus, who had been dead, whom he had raised from the dead, where Lazarus was, who had been dead, whom he had raised from the dead. There they made him a supper, and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray him, said, why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the money box and he used to take what was put in it. But Jesus said, let her alone. She has kept this for the day of my burial. For the poor, you have with you always, but me, you do not have always. Now a great many of the Jews knew that he was there, and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see also Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him, many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus. This is the word of the Lord. Tonight we're gonna talk about the connection between money and love. The connection between money and love, the connection between money and beauty. I had a friend who worked on a wedding quite a while ago, and it wasn't just any wedding, but this wedding was the wedding of a wealthy, a very wealthy heiress. her parents had a fortune. And so they spent a fortune on her wedding. And one of the decorations at that wedding was, it was just this, I wasn't there, but I think it was like a two or three story tall fake wall. It was just a background decoration. And just on that fake wall made out of styrofoam, they spent something like $70,000 for something that would just be used for a day and after the wedding, it was just discarded. The total cost for the wedding was something like $2 million. Is $2 million too much to spend on a wedding? You can learn a lot about yourself by looking at your money, your view of money, your use of money. The Bible says where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And so in our text today, we see three things. First of all, we see that money spent measures us. Money spent measures us. Then secondly, money stolen measures us. And then thirdly, we'll see how to calculate your worth. So money spent measures us, money stolen measures us, and how to calculate your worth. So first, money spent measures us, verses one through three. The scene here is this home in the town of Bethany, and it's just on the outskirts of the capital city, Jerusalem, and the time is the week before Passover. It's one of the high festival days in Israel, one of the three events every year where all the faithful would come to Jerusalem. All the faithful would make pilgrimage to Jerusalem for this annual observance, and Jesus has just amazed the entire town of Bethany, this town that's, maybe you could think of it as being on the suburbs of Jerusalem. He's amazed the entire town by resurrecting one of the residents, by raising from the dead Lazarus. Lazarus had been sick, and then he had been very sick, and then he was so sick that he died. And so they buried Lazarus. And then four days later, Jesus came and he raised Lazarus back to life. and Lazarus disinterred himself from that tomb. And so here's Lazarus now. He's at this feast in the house of Simon the leper, and the sister of Lazarus is there, Martha, she's serving the meal, helping serve the meal, and Lazarus is there at the table with the other guests. And maybe it is something of a celebration, a celebration that Lazarus had died, but now he's back. And it's just marvelous to be able to eat with him again, And maybe they realized, we just took for granted how wonderful it was to be able to have a meal with our friend, our neighbor, our family member, Lazarus. And perhaps it's also something of a celebration, not just of Lazarus' return, but it's a celebration of Jesus, the friend, the rabbi who raised Lazarus from the dead. Verse two, it says, They made Jesus a supper. They held a dinner for Jesus. And so the text invites us to experience this picture that's drawn here in the text. It's a dinner. It's in honor of Jesus. There's the expected smell of the dishes, the aroma, and then there are the guests at the table. And in that culture, when you were at table for a supper, for a dinner, the guests would recline at the table. They'd be lying down horizontally. and they'd be lying on their side and their heads would all be towards the table as they reclined around the table. There's Martha coming in, she's bringing in dishes, she's pouring the drink, and the disciples are there too. The disciples are there, and in those days, the dining areas, it wasn't like you've got a house, and once you're in the house, the doors are all shut. In those days, the dining areas were open. People of the town could wander through, they could watch the meal, they could interact, they could stand around and be part of the audience of the meal. And so the picture is this, into this meal, In honor of Jesus, another one of Lazarus' sisters comes in. It's Mary. Mary enters. And Mary is holding a very, very expensive container of perfume oil. It's pure nard oil from Spike Nard. And we're told that the scent of nard, it's somewhat like the smell of a gladiola. Now, I don't know if you've seen this or heard about this, but according to people who report on trends, in America, Today, teens, people in their 20s, have really gotten into fragrances, high-end fragrances, custom-tailored, custom-designed fragrances for them. And whereas in the past, teens and young adults might have dropped $300 on a pair of sneakers, and they're still willing to do that, but now some young people, male and female, are willing to spend $300 to add to their collection a bottle of luxury fragrances. One estimate said there have been 2.3 billion views on hashtag perfume talk. 2.3 billion views. And so what industry analysts are observing is Generation Z is disrupting and surging the luxury fragrance market. Just think about that. A teenage boy in America shopping for a $300 bottle of eau de cologne. So into this dinner, Honoring Jesus, Mary enters, and she is carrying a very expensive bottle of fragrant oil concentrate. It says it's a pound, and in their measure, in our measure, that would be about 11 fluid ounces. And this bottle, it's not worth $250. This container is worth $25,000. It could have been maybe a family asset, it might have been a business asset. But, I mean, you could, for $25,000, you could feed this entire church catered fried chicken every Sunday for a year and a half with that kind of money. I mean, it's a lot. And what does Mary do with this bottle? It's worth a year of manual labor. It says she pours it out. She pours it out on Jesus' feet. The other parallel text says that she pours it out on the feet of Jesus, and Matthew 26, Mark 14 tells us she also pours it out on Jesus' head. And she pours so much that it's dripping, it's puddling, and how does she kind of try to contain it? How does she wipe it? She stoops over, she lets down her hair, her long hair, and she wipes the feet of Jesus with her hair. The text invites your sensory participation in this scene. Verse three, it says, the house was filled with the fragrance of that oil. Now, what's going on here? Several things, and Mary's pouring out this expensive fragrance. The first thing that we see, we spend on what we love. We spend on what we love. years ago at our house, this is maybe decades ago, at our house our furnace and our water tank needed to be replaced. The heating system had gotten so old that they said, you know, we just can't keep repairing it. It actually needs to be replaced. And so they gave us a quote for replacements and they offered those, the way they often do it, they offered quotes on three different systems at three different price points and all of the options, the most expensive and the least expensive, all of them would have cost thousands and thousands of dollars. And we were not happy about that. We were not happy to spend $5,000, $7,000, whatever, on a heating system. But what if it was your son? What if it was your daughter? And what if it wasn't a furnace that we were talking about? What if it was he or she is missing? And there's this frantic search for where are they? And then they discover there's been an accident. There's been a vehicle accident. And they find the car in the water and it's going to require diving services. It's going to require marine cranes on some kind of platform in the water to lift the vehicle. And even once they retrieve the body, to care for the body, to transport the body back across the country for a proper burial? I mean, how much is that going to cost? $20,000? $40,000? Whatever it is, you say, of course I'm going to pay. Of course I'll pay, even if I've got to borrow the money, even if I'm going to have to work an extra side job for a year, for several years, just to pay to bring that body back. Why would you do that? Because you love that son, you love that daughter, and you will pay. to bring him back, you will pay to bring her back for a proper service. We spend on what we love. And the question is, what do you love? Whom do you love? Now, if you've grown up in church, you know what the textbook answer is. You know what the textbook answer should be. Well, I love God. I love Jesus. But here's where money is helpful. Money is a litmus test of your love. Money is the quantitative analysis of what or whom your heart wants most of all. Mary pours out $25,000 on Jesus just to show that she loves him. She may not even know that he's about to die. Jesus brings that interpretation, but she may not even be conscious of it yet. So the question is, how do you spend your treasure? What does your spending reveal about your real treasure? What would you spend just to show Jesus that you love him? What would you remove? What would you take out of your personal treasury? What would you remove from your life's treasury and pour out permanently just for Jesus? Would you give up your professional security for Jesus? Would you be willing to give up proximity to friends, proximity to family, just to get closer to Jesus? There's another angle, another way you can ask this. Not so much what are you spending, but what are you saving? What are you saving instead of spending? Like this last Friday, I went to the grocery store and I bought a package of cookies, one of my favorite cookies. And then the next day, yesterday, there was this church picnic in the backyard. And someone very kindly prepared a plate of food for me because I was somewhere else and brought me some picnic food. And imagine my surprise when two of my favorite cookies were on that plate. And that meant my favorite cookies were on the table. And when I saw my cookies on the table, I thought to myself, and I said out loud, I was saving those cookies for myself, my cookies. I love those cookies, I saved them for myself. Is there something in your life where you say, no, Lord, I was saving that for myself. That's not for you. I'll do this, I'll give you this, I'll pay that, but not this. I'm saving this for myself. Lord, I will come to worship. I'll be there on Sundays. But back home, I'm not putting down my screen use. I'm not cutting back on that. Or Lord, I will serve you. I will serve you in these different opportunities in church. but you can't get into my marriage. I'm saving that for myself. What are you saving for yourself? What are you denying the Lord access to in your life? Is there something in your life where you say, Lord, this is for me, but that is for you, and that's just the way it's gonna be? So another thing that we see, We also see this in her very costly gift. What some people find wasteful, Jesus finds beautiful. What some find wasteful, Jesus finds beautiful. When Mary pours out this asset, Judas gets angry. Verse five, Judas says, why was this fragrant oil not sold? for 300 denarii and given to the poor. And it wasn't only Judas that was criticizing her. The parallel accounts say that others around that table thought that that gift was a terrible waste of money. They're saying to Mary, don't you realize, don't you realize how many poor people you could have helped if you had sold this oil? What a lost and wasted opportunity. You wasted this asset by pouring it on the feet of Jesus. And isn't there a part of us that feels like, wow, you know, I mean, I've really got to be a good steward, a good steward of my money, a good steward of my time, a good steward in my emotional reserves and my emotional energy. I have to be a good steward. And that means I've got to get the best prices and pay the least possible amount for goods and services so that I can just extend my dollars. It's good stewardship. But Jesus says, that is not how I measure things. That is not how I measure the sacrifices that you make for me. Jesus wants to know where your heart is. Jesus wants to know the state of your heart. And I can tell you, I mean, I'm 99% sure, maybe I'm wrong, but when you get to heaven, Jesus is not going to praise you for saving 20% every week. It matters, he cares, but that's just not what's gonna come up. But he will praise you if you had a devoted heart and that you were constantly dying to self and dying to sin and pursuing the upward call and pursuing him and that you loved him with all your heart. That's what's gonna come up. Jesus is less concerned about fiscal efficiency, and he's more concerned about faithful devotion in you, in me. Jesus cares about spending time wisely. Jesus cares about spending money wisely. But even more valuable to Jesus is whether you love him most of all, and if you're willing to put your money where your heart is. I knew a minister who spent years working in another city, and at the end, the work, it just, it never went anywhere. There was just a handful of people who, over those few years that he worked there, they came and then they went, and he would spend hours and hours and hours each week just to be a faithful minister in a hard city. And the way it ended was, finally, he just had to close the work and move on. The question for this, let's call him Don. The question for this minister is, Don, if you had known that I would call you to this work and that ultimately it would close after a few years, and that ultimately you would only reach 10, maybe 15 people, if you had known how few would be touched, would you still do it for me? Or would you consider those years a waste? And if you could have known in advance what it would have been, would you have just declined, turned down the offer? Well, Mary poured out this extravagant gift, and the others watching it and smelling the aroma, they thought it stank. They thought it was a big waste, but Jesus didn't see it that way. Jesus found it beautiful. The others sharply criticize Mary, but Jesus defends her. Jesus says, leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. Now, you might be thinking, okay, so it's just like spiritual, it's just like, oh, okay, the money doesn't matter. How did her $25,000 pouring of fragrance on Jesus prepare him for the day of his burial? Well, here's one just small thing. The fragrance of that concentrate, that potent essence, that fragrance would cling to him. It would cling to him at his trial in a few days. The fragrance of the perfume would cling to him as they struck his face, the head that had been anointed with that perfume oil. And her perfume, scenting Jesus, that would still be on him. The perfume would still scent Jesus as the officers stripped him and whipped him. And even when they were driving the metal spikes through his feet, they were driving the nail through perfumed feet. And so Jesus found her gift beautiful. Not only did Jesus carry her extravagant gift through all the vicious pains of his humiliation and his death, not only did he carry it with him, But Mary carried something of it. In giving that gift, Mary also received something. Mary also carried it with her because when she wiped his feet with her hair, the cost of her gift would cling to her hair for the days after she gave it. And that her hair touched Jesus' feet and wiped his feet, her closeness to Jesus would cling to her for the days after that she anointed him. You know, there's some gifts that you offer to Jesus and they cost you a lot. They cost you greatly. You know, for some people it might be saying no to a lover because you know that this relationship is not pleasing to the Lord. It costs you. Some sacrificial acts forever will leave you diminished, will leave you poorer, and that loss, it sticks with you in the same way it stuck with Mary. For others, it might be like leaving a lucrative position, a lucrative consulting position, in order to start a non-profit that will make very little profit and entail long hours. It could involve opening your home and opening your heart to people who are falling apart. Those kinds of sacrificial acts will leave you poorer to opening your life and building relationships with people who will not advance your steps. It's a lost opportunity cost to invest that much time in people that won't be promoting you, who won't increase your capital. So believer, I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you even now. You could be a child, you could be retired. I want to challenge you to think about a gift. I want to challenge you to think about a really, really big gift that you could give to Jesus, that you would want to give to Jesus, something that might remove something substantial out of your whole life, but Jesus would be worth it. You young people here, you've got, I don't know, three to six very significant decisions coming up, and it's all gonna be compressed into a few years soon for you. Questions like, where are you going to work? What are you going to study? Should you marry? Where will you worship? How will you serve in the kingdom of Jesus? Now, the question as you make those decisions are, Are you gonna make the most cost-effective gift, the most minimal cost gift that will enable you to feel like, okay, I did something? Or are you going to make an extravagant, sweet-smelling gift to Jesus? Because to be a follower of Jesus, Jesus asks each one of us, Jesus asks each one of you the same question. Will you leave everything? everything to follow me. Will you leave father and mother, sister, brother, will you leave your home to follow me? And would you sell all that you have, completely liquidate, give it away, if that's what Jesus requests, would you? Would you? Don't waste your life. Don't waste your life. Don't waste your life spending hours or years just indulging your little desires. Foodies living for food, gamers living for games, investors living for investments. Don't waste your life. Make your life a gift to Jesus and join him. Pour out your life like that flask of fragrant oil, costly oil, pour it out. And even though it will cost you, you won't regret it. And Jesus will find it beautiful. So money measures us. Next, money stolen measures us. And I'll be brief about this. In verses four through eight, Judas criticizes Mary's gift. Judas accurately points out this oil could have been sold, $25,000 on the secondary market, and that money could have been given to the poor. And Judas and the others, they are right. That money could have been given to the poor. And let's just step back just for a moment and remember Helping the needy, that is part of our mandate, church. It's in the spirit of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 15, 11, for the poor will never cease from the land. There will always be those who are needy. Therefore, I command you, saying, you shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy in the land. It's not only in the spirit of the Old Testament, generosity to the needy is in the spirit of the New Testament. Places like Matthew 19, 21, Jesus said to him, this rich office holder, if you want to be perfect, go. Sell what you have. and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come, follow me. Church, let's just review. What is our outward facing obligation to this culture? What are our priorities? What's our call? We are to spread the gospel message. We're to bring the word of God and the glorious offer of salvation we are to spread the gospel message, and we are also to bring the works that accompany the gospel. So we support the unborn, we promote sex between a man and a woman in marriage, we welcome the foreigner, the stranger, the immigrant, We work for racial justice, and we help the poor and the weak. And I just have to say this. Congregation, I am so proud of you. You are running well. You're running well. but we're gonna continually get criticism, and there's gonna be pressure. There's gonna be pressure from the world. There will even be pressure from other believers. And I just wanna encourage you, keep doing good. Keep doing good to the needy. Keep giving generously to the poor. And you can expect that that is a beautiful aroma to Jesus. Now, let's return to what's going on in the scene. Judas speaks about caring for the poor, but Judas is insincere. Judas is self-righteous and he is not sincere in these criticisms. The text tells us that Judas doesn't love the poor. He's advocating for them, but he doesn't love them. It says Judas is a thief. In verse six, he was a thief. and had the responsibility for the money box, and he used it to take for himself what was put in it. And so the money that we spend measures us, and similarly, the money that we steal also measures us. Judas did not care about the poor who could have been helped by $25,000. Judas wanted to get his hands on the $25,000. His God was greed. His love of money had turned into greed, and his greed led him to theft. He was a disciple, and he was a thief. That's really terrifying. because Jesus selected Judas, Jesus selected this man, Jesus brought him into the 12, Jesus trained Judas, Jesus commissioned him, Jesus sent Judas out as a representative, and Judas preached, and Judas had power to heal, and Judas was a minister, he was an elder, he was a deacon, he was a ministry lead, and Judas was a thief. Do you have a secret that is hidden from the rest of the disciples? Is your public behavior in church very different from your private behavior at home? Things that you watch that no one else knows that you watch. Rules that you break and it's never been discovered. Substances that you take and they control you or they console you. Is there money or treasure in your secret possession but it's not your property? So come into the light if that's the case, come into the light, confess, turn, repent, come out of darkness and into light. Do it in community, that's part of the value of being in a community, a believing community, confess your sins to one another. We see how money that we spend measures us, how money that we steal measures us, and finally we close on how to calculate your worth. How to calculate your worth. All this talk about giving to Jesus, leaving everything to follow him, giving time, giving emotional energy for Jesus to use. Well, how can you do it? You hear all this and you think, I mean, I don't want to be poor. I don't want to have to become someone who's going to have to, you know, figure out how I'm gonna pay the bills, do I have to become some kind of miserable, fearful martyr? Here's how you can give big and give big sincerely, genuinely. You can give big when you've got a lot. You can give big when you've got a lot. In this account, Mary brings out a treasure, a flask that's worth $25,000, and she pours it out on the feet of Jesus. The size of her gift shocked the people. It was worth so much. But what if What if you knew that Mary in the next room over had a storeroom and that storeroom had many, many shelves and on those shelves there were 100, 500 other flasks in that room of similar value? Would that make the value of Mary's gift any less? No, no, the flask would still be worth $25,000. But how hard would it be for Mary to bring out the flask, one of 500 more that she's got in storage, and to pour it out, pour one of them out on the feet of Jesus? Not as hard, right? It's still an act of significant worth, but it's much easier for her to do. Here's what will make it easier for you to give the costliest of gifts to Jesus. It's when you calculate your worth and you find you've got a fortune. In financial terms, when you calculate your net worth, you add up all your money and all of your different accounts, and in your wallet, and in that box that's in the closet, and you add up the value of your property, if you've got any, your land, your home, your prized possessions, and you add up all the numbers, and that, subtracted from any debts you have, that's your net worth. And if you have a huge net worth, maybe you're a person who calculates his or her net worth, and it's $10 million. If you had $10 million, what's $25,000? It's still substantial, but it barely touches your worth. We said today that we spend our money on what we love. And in that way, money measures us. Let me ask you this. I'm not asking about you, I'm asking about Jesus. How was Jesus measured by money? How did Jesus spend his money? The gospel tells us that though Jesus was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich. Do you see what that means? What does that say about your real worth? It means, to Jesus, you're worth a fortune. We spend our money on what we love. Jesus loves you so much, he spent his riches, he spent his life on you. He was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor, that you, through his poverty, might become rich. And if you're worth that much to Jesus, that is a fortune. is your real worth. It's not a number of dollars, it's not a number measuring your weight, or your dress size, or the number of reps you're able to do. If you're worth that much, you don't have to look for your worth in what people say, or in the number of friends you have, or the number of papers that cite you. And if you're worth so much that the Son of God would leave the riches of heaven and become poor in order to make you rich, what's $25,000? What's a year of manual labor to follow Jesus? When you know that you're rich in him, then you can follow him with freedom. You can follow him without feeling like a failure, without feeling like you're behind everyone else and they're far ahead and you're just way in the back. You have a worth that cannot be touched. Even if the whole world tells you that you're worthless, even if the whole world and your past tells you you're a loser, you've got a value that can't be diminished. Even if you lose your kids, even if you never promote, even if your family falls apart, you are precious to the Lord, and no sickness can change that. No citizenship tangle can mess that up. You are free. You're free to make a big sacrifice without losing what really gives you value. When you become a Christian, this is what you say. By my sins, I made myself a mess. I made myself worthless. I deserve to be cast away. But by faith, I believe that Jesus was cast away. cast away from God so that I could have a place with God. And on his cross, Jesus was cast away for my sins. And by faith, you believe that by the good life of Jesus, God imputes to you a richness of righteousness, not of works, but of grace. God is pleased with you as if you did every good work of Jesus. One preacher often says, Jesus died the death that I should have died and Jesus lived the life that I should have lived. Matthew 13, I'm going to close with this, there's this well-known parable told by Jesus, Matthew 13. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and hid and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, In the second parable, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls who, when he found one pearl of great price, went, sold all that he had, and bought it. Now, the way that parable often is taught is we who follow Jesus, we, you followers of Jesus, we urge you Jesus is the pearl, Jesus is the treasure, sell everything to get him. And that's true, but if you read the full context of Matthew 13, the passage teaches something that's even more compelling. The context of Matthew 13 says that Jesus is the man who found a treasure in a field. Jesus is the man who found a priceless pearl and sold everything to get that treasure, to purchase that pearl. How did Jesus spend his money? Jesus sold all that he had. to gain the treasure and to purchase the pearl. Believer, you are the treasure for whom Jesus sold everything. You are the pearl. He had to have you. You are loved. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we love you. We confess that our love is often distractive, it's often not enough, but we do love you and we want to love you with all of our being. But Lord, we also believe that you love us. And the prayer in Ephesians is that we would be able to know the height and the depth and the breadth of the love of God towards us, which is unknowable, but that we could know it. Would you cause us to know it? Would you show it to us? And would it make us feel free, free to give up everything and gladly give it all to you, lose it all because we've lost nothing in doing that? And would you find the sacrifice of our lives beautiful? We ask in Jesus' name, amen.