Micah McCormick: To Matthew 26.
Micah McCormick: Matthew 26.
Micah McCormick: If you're using one of the Pew Bibles there in front of you, you can turn to page 881.
Micah McCormick: Matthew chapter 26.
Micah McCormick: Doug and Royal are away this morning.
Micah McCormick: They'll be back, and we'll look forward to seeing them again next week.
Micah McCormick: But we're continuing on in this Gospel of Matthew.
Micah McCormick: We're going to be looking particularly at the first 16 verses of Matthew chapter 26 this morning.
Micah McCormick: Matthew 26, verses 1 through 16.
Micah McCormick: This is what Holy Scripture says.
Micah McCormick: When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he told his disciples, You know that the Passover takes place after two days, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.
Micah McCormick: Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the courtyard of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they conspired to arrest Jesus in a treacherous way and kill him.
Micah McCormick: Not during the festival, they said, so there won't be rioting among the people.
Micah McCormick: While Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman approached him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume.
Micah McCormick: She poured it on his head as he was reclining at the table.
Micah McCormick: When the disciples saw it, they were indignant.
Micah McCormick: Why this waste?
Micah McCormick: They asked.
Micah McCormick: This might have been sold for a great deal and given to the poor.
Micah McCormick: Aware of this, Jesus said to them, Why are you bothering this woman?
Micah McCormick: She has done a noble thing for me.
Micah McCormick: You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.
Micah McCormick: By pouring this perfume on my body, she has prepared me for burial.
Micah McCormick: Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.
Micah McCormick: Then one of the twelve, the man called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?
Micah McCormick: So they weighed out thirty pieces of silver for him.
Micah McCormick: And from that time he started looking for a good opportunity to betray him.
Micah McCormick: Let's seek the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Father, we want to be those who are filled with true hearts, with pure hearts, with sincere hearts, with overflowing and fragrant hearts of love.
Micah McCormick: So we're asking that you would guard us, guard us from the deceit that could be in our own hearts, guard us from distractions that would take us away from Scripture and this beautiful portrait we find that you would stir our hearts this morning.
Micah McCormick: We pray in Jesus' name.
Micah McCormick: Amen.
Micah McCormick: Different cultures over different centuries have different rituals associated with embalming and preparing someone for death and burying someone.
Micah McCormick: I did just a little bit of reading this week.
Micah McCormick: It's really interesting.
Micah McCormick: You can find, you might think naturally of Egyptian mummies and pyramids, but there's more than that.
Micah McCormick: You can find cultures that pack bodies with salt or honey or even vegetable powder.
Micah McCormick: You can find dances for the dead, laments for the dead.
Micah McCormick: You can find funeral burials at sea or tomb burials or even burials where bodies are put up on a pole for the birds to eat.
Micah McCormick: In verse 12 of our passage for this morning, Jesus says the woman who pours this perfume on him has prepared him for burial.
Micah McCormick: Already that should strike us as a little bit strange.
Micah McCormick: In the cultures and other practices I alluded to, they take a corpse, they take a dead body and prepare the dead body for burial.
Micah McCormick: Jesus is not dead, he's very much alive.
Micah McCormick: Eric Anderson is our resident funeral industry expert.
Micah McCormick: So if you have really specific questions about embalming or those kind of processes, don't ask me.
Micah McCormick: I don't know.
Micah McCormick: You can ask Eric.
Micah McCormick: He's the one who's reading scripture for us this month.
Micah McCormick: But I'm gonna make a strong assumption that when they're training people in the art of embalming, they don't take someone who's maybe on their deathbed and then embalm them.
Micah McCormick: They wait and they they apply that to corpses, or maybe they practice on people, but but not in that kind of complete way.
Micah McCormick: But here's Jesus being prepared for death with this oil that's poured on him.
Micah McCormick: And he's not dead, much less on his deathbed.
Micah McCormick: He's very much alive.
Micah McCormick: He's a man in his 30s, he's preaching, he's teaching.
Micah McCormick: So if you just came to this passage and you hadn't read or heard anything else in Matthew, you might find it very peculiar.
Micah McCormick: And Matthew presents it in that light.
Micah McCormick: But we've already seen in Matthew that Jesus has the constant awareness of his coming death.
Micah McCormick: Here's an example, Matthew 16, verses 21 to 23.
Micah McCormick: From then on, Jesus began to point out to his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.
Micah McCormick: And do you remember when Jesus says that?
Micah McCormick: Peter takes him aside and begins to rebuke the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Oh no, Lord, this will never happen to you.
Micah McCormick: Jesus turned to Peter and told him, Get behind me, Satan.
Micah McCormick: You're a hindrance to me because you're not thinking about God's concerns but human concerns.
Micah McCormick: Jesus came on a mission.
Micah McCormick: He knew he had to die, but his own disciples struggled to interpret the events of his life in light of his coming death.
Micah McCormick: But not this woman.
Micah McCormick: She does seek to cherish him and adore him, and Jesus himself interprets her action in light of his coming death.
Micah McCormick: We're pressing on towards the climax of Matthew's gospel, and that climax is the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: So we just finished a large block of Christ's teaching.
Micah McCormick: We're not going to have any more large blocks of Christ's teaching.
Micah McCormick: He'll speak, but no large blocks of Christ's teaching.
Micah McCormick: But now this drama is unfolding.
Micah McCormick: It's like the monologue has been given, and now the curtain's opening for this climactic act.
Micah McCormick: And here's the first scene that we come to here in John and Matthew chapter 26.
Micah McCormick: Jesus prepares himself for death.
Micah McCormick: This woman helps to prepare him for death.
Micah McCormick: And she adores him.
Micah McCormick: The death of Jesus should compel us to adore him.
Micah McCormick: That's the big idea for this morning.
Micah McCormick: The death of Jesus should compel us to adore him.
Micah McCormick: We're going to explore today this very true story, and we'll look at the setting of this story.
Micah McCormick: We'll consider the characters and the plot.
Micah McCormick: And then finally, what's the significance of this story for our lives?
Micah McCormick: With that big idea in mind, always in the background, and we'll come to it again and again here.
Micah McCormick: The death of Jesus compels us to adore him.
Micah McCormick: That was what this woman offered.
Micah McCormick: What about you and me?
Micah McCormick: Be thinking on that question as we go through this passage.
Micah McCormick: So, first, the setting.
Micah McCormick: Verse number two.
Micah McCormick: Jesus tells his disciples that he will die at the time of Passover.
Micah McCormick: That's not a coincidence.
Micah McCormick: That's a divinely orchestrated setting to this story.
Micah McCormick: When you or I think of Passover, it's still celebrated today.
Micah McCormick: We might think of it's a holiday, you get some time off of work, maybe the kids are out of school for Jewish friends that they have, they renew some acquaintances and they have some rituals with their extended family.
Micah McCormick: But if we think about when this Passover festival was first instituted, it was not something that Moses came up with himself or Abraham.
Micah McCormick: God himself institutes Passover back in Exodus chapter 12.
Micah McCormick: You don't have to turn there, but just by way of reminder, what's going on in that passage when God first brings out this festival of Passover?
Micah McCormick: The people of Israel are enslaved in Egypt.
Micah McCormick: And God has sent a number of plagues on the Egyptians as judgment on them.
Micah McCormick: And he's threatening one great final plague.
Micah McCormick: He's threatening to kill all the firstborn sons in the land.
Micah McCormick: And then he gives instructions about celebrating Passover.
Micah McCormick: And then he follows through on that threat.
Micah McCormick: And the Egyptians find that the firstborn child in each household has been killed.
Micah McCormick: So if we go back to the very beginning of Passover, it's not in that first instance a time of just simply celebrating with family and friends.
Micah McCormick: It's a death memorial.
Micah McCormick: Now, it was for God's people a time of thanksgiving because their homes weren't visited.
Micah McCormick: And that brings us to the instructions.
Micah McCormick: So God instructed the people take a firstborn animal and kill that firstborn animal and smear the blood over the doorframe.
Micah McCormick: And then as the Lord was passing through the land of Egypt that night, pass over, pass through, the homes that had blood smeared on the doorframe, he would pass over those homes.
Micah McCormick: He would pass by and not visit the judgment on those homes.
Micah McCormick: And that's what the Israelites were to commemorate year after year after year after year with the Passover.
Micah McCormick: And here in our passage, Jesus intentionally links his own coming death with this time of year of the Passover.
Micah McCormick: And if we think about what's going to happen, the blood smeared on the wooden doorframe becomes the blood of Christ on the wooden cross.
Micah McCormick: The slaughtered firstborn lamb becomes the slaughtered firstborn son.
Micah McCormick: God passing over the homes and the death and the judgment of those who applied the blood becomes God passing over the eternal judgment that you and I deserve because He has crushed His firstborn son.
Micah McCormick: And we find life in him.
Micah McCormick: That's what time of year it is here, as the story unfolds for us.
Micah McCormick: We also find that this setting is at a home.
Micah McCormick: We're told in verse number six Jesus is in the home of Simon the Leper.
Micah McCormick: Uh that might sound like you know a really cool name for a rock band.
Micah McCormick: I can assure you, no one wanted to be called a leper of any kind.
Micah McCormick: It was a disastrous disease to have in this time period, any time period, but particularly then, the people normally had to be isolated away from others.
Micah McCormick: And that's interesting because here, Simon the Leper's home, there are people there.
Micah McCormick: What's going on with that?
Micah McCormick: Well, it's possible that Simon had died, and perhaps this was still the name of his home.
Micah McCormick: I think probably more likely is that Simon had had leprosy and then he had been cured.
Micah McCormick: So it was okay for Jesus and these others to be in his home, but he still carries that name with him.
Micah McCormick: Even once you've been cured, once a leper, always a leper.
Micah McCormick: We don't know exactly all the people that were there in this home.
Micah McCormick: Matthew tells us about Jesus and his disciples.
Micah McCormick: If we bring this passage together with John chapter 12, John records a very similar anointing of Jesus in chapter 12.
Micah McCormick: And so if we bring those stories together, John tells us that Mary and Martha and Lazarus were there in the home.
Micah McCormick: And John specifically mentions that Lazarus was the one that Jesus had raised from the dead.
Micah McCormick: So you've got, and Kevin and Sarah aren't here today.
Micah McCormick: Kevin is preaching at a church, and the pastor's name is Larry Lazarus.
Micah McCormick: Isn't that just a great name for a pastor?
Micah McCormick: I'm jealous of him.
Micah McCormick: So you have what's most likely Jesus in this house of Simon the leper, this house of death.
Micah McCormick: You have possibly there alongside of him a walking corpse in Lazarus.
Micah McCormick: Do you hear all of the death that's happening in this passage?
Micah McCormick: That's the setting.
Micah McCormick: The death time of year and the house of death.
Micah McCormick: What about the characters?
Micah McCormick: Have you got a good drama?
Micah McCormick: Every good drama and story is a cast of characters.
Micah McCormick: And here we find in verses three and four chief priests and elders of the people that are conspiring to have Jesus arrested and killed.
Micah McCormick: So these are the villains of the story, these Jewish leaders.
Micah McCormick: And it's not anything negative about all Jews.
Micah McCormick: Jesus himself was a Jew.
Micah McCormick: He's the hero of the story.
Micah McCormick: But we do find right here that these Jewish leaders are trying to betray and kill an innocent man.
Micah McCormick: But it gets worse than that because one of Jesus' own disciples is even worse.
Micah McCormick: He's not just a villain, he's a traitorous villain.
Micah McCormick: Judas himself.
Micah McCormick: In verse number one, Jesus says the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.
Micah McCormick: Verse 14, Judas asks the chief priest what he will get if he hands over Jesus to them.
Micah McCormick: Then in verse 16, we're told that Judas began looking for opportunities to, and the word here is betray, or yours might say deliver him up, but it's the same Greek word, hand him over.
Micah McCormick: Jesus predicts his betrayal, Judas inquires about the betrayal, and then Judas seeks to execute the betrayal.
Micah McCormick: What about the other 11 disciples?
Micah McCormick: Well, here in this story, they're not exactly villains, they're not trying to betray Jesus, but they're also not exactly presented as heroes in the story.
Micah McCormick: They're not presented in the most positive light.
Micah McCormick: It tells us that they're indignant with this woman.
Micah McCormick: You see that there in verse number eight.
Micah McCormick: One commentator pointed out these men, many of them were fishermen.
Micah McCormick: They were blue-collar guys.
Micah McCormick: They probably weren't the wealthiest people in the world.
Micah McCormick: So perhaps they had a little special hesitation about something extravagant being poured out or how money could have been used.
Micah McCormick: They might have had a sincere heart, many of them, for those that were poor.
Micah McCormick: And yet, Jesus doesn't commend them for their indignation, he corrects them for their indignation.
Micah McCormick: Because when the Lord of glory is present, everything should be focused on him.
Micah McCormick: And they don't see it the way that they should.
Micah McCormick: That leaves two main characters in the story.
Micah McCormick: This woman who's devoted to the Lord that Matthew doesn't name.
Micah McCormick: But again, if we bring in John chapter 12, he says it was Mary, sister of Martha.
Micah McCormick: The one who had sat at Jesus' feet and learned from him.
Micah McCormick: If that's the case here, it shows that she's believed what she's heard.
Micah McCormick: She's not just there because she's got a sick child, and maybe if she does something extravagant for Jesus, her sick child will be well.
Micah McCormick: She's there because by faith she's grasped hold of what Jesus has been teaching all throughout the Gospels.
Micah McCormick: She's got eyes to see the Son of Glory, and she wants to show it.
Micah McCormick: She understands how soon he will be departing, and she wants to show her love for the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Christ is the anointed one.
Micah McCormick: In the Old Testament, kings had oil poured on them.
Micah McCormick: Matthew's presenting Jesus all the way along as the king.
Micah McCormick: And so isn't it interesting that there would be this woman who has eyes of faith that perhaps even in this action is trying to express something of her belief that he indeed is the Messiah.
Micah McCormick: He indeed is the anointed one.
Micah McCormick: So of course she must too anoint him.
Micah McCormick: And that brings us to Jesus.
Micah McCormick: Time and time again, Jesus is the central character in Scripture.
Micah McCormick: Time and time again, we find that he's the hero of the story.
Micah McCormick: As the passage opens in verse 2, he refers to himself as a son of man.
Micah McCormick: And that's a title that often speaks of his authority, his power in judgment.
Micah McCormick: That's how it's used back in Daniel chapter 7.
Micah McCormick: It's given a dominion and rule and reign.
Micah McCormick: In Matthew chapter 24, Jesus says he will come as the Son of Man with power and great glory.
Micah McCormick: Yet here, he says the Son of Man's going to be handed over to be crucified.
Micah McCormick: And he doesn't say he's going to do anything about it.
Micah McCormick: Here's the one with all glory and power and ability, and it's as though he's going to allow himself to be crucified.
Micah McCormick: What is this that someone with such great authority would allow this to happen to himself?
Micah McCormick: But he does.
Micah McCormick: There's the paradox.
Micah McCormick: He's the Lord of Lords, yet he's willing to suffer and be killed.
Micah McCormick: If you were watching, you know, this play out at a movie theater, you'd have right at the top of the marquee with the stars, there's Jesus' name first.
Micah McCormick: He says in verse 11, You always have the poor, but you don't always have me.
Micah McCormick: Jesus himself highlights his own significance.
Micah McCormick: Listen to what Deuteronomy 15, 11 says.
Micah McCormick: That is why I am commanding you, open your hand willingly to your poor and needy brother and your land.
Micah McCormick: Do you hear the contrast there?
Micah McCormick: Moses says you're always going to have poor people.
Micah McCormick: And his response is, well, not don't worry about it, just who can do anything about it?
Micah McCormick: Moses' conclusion is you're always going to have poor people, so be ready to help them.
Micah McCormick: And it seems like that's what the disciples were thinking, right?
Micah McCormick: We've got poor, let's be ready to help them.
Micah McCormick: Jesus doesn't say that we shouldn't care about the poor.
Micah McCormick: That's not the point.
Micah McCormick: But he says you're always going to have poor people in the land.
Micah McCormick: And the implication is be thoughtful of them, try to help them as you can.
Micah McCormick: But he he does something different than Moses.
Micah McCormick: He says, but you're not always going to have me.
Micah McCormick: And as long as I'm here, I have to take center stage.
Micah McCormick: If Jesus wasn't really God, wouldn't that be an audacious claim to make?
Micah McCormick: You know, sometimes you'll hear people say, Well, I don't know if Jesus was God, but you know, he was such a nice guy, so so humble, and he cared for the poor.
Micah McCormick: That doesn't work from our passage.
Micah McCormick: Jesus says, Yeah, the poor, but me.
Micah McCormick: If he wasn't God, he's not a nice guy.
SPEAKER_01: He's an insufferable egomaniac.
Micah McCormick: Or he's telling the truth and he's giving people what they really need to take him, to view him, to prioritize him, to love him, to adore him.
Micah McCormick: Jesus' death compels us to adore him.
Micah McCormick: And let me just put in one church application here.
Micah McCormick: I know we haven't gotten to the significance yet, we'll we'll come to that.
Micah McCormick: But just as a church, we have To prioritize Jesus and his death and his entire work.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't specifically mention his resurrection and ascension here, but that's that's part of the grand conclusion.
Micah McCormick: But we as a church have to prioritize Jesus and his death above everything else.
Micah McCormick: You know, I know this is kind of getting to baseball season, and you've got some churches where it's like if you think about it, like a baseball team, it's like, all right, we've got starting pitcher, the new children's wing.
Micah McCormick: And then we've got starting at first base, caring for the poor, and starting at pitcher is the music ministry.
Micah McCormick: None of those things are bad.
Micah McCormick: If you want to uh um I started to say if you want to die and give us money, I don't want anyone to die.
Micah McCormick: So let's let's not don't if you want to give us money to help the re revamp the white building next door, we'll we'll take it.
Micah McCormick: Those aren't bad things, but we have to prioritize Jesus, most of all.
Micah McCormick: We don't want it to be like, you know, where's Jesus?
Micah McCormick: Where's his gospel?
Micah McCormick: And it's like, well, okay, I think I see him.
Micah McCormick: He's in the upper deck, he's selling peanuts, he's got an apron that says, I died for you.
Micah McCormick: So this is still a gospel team.
Micah McCormick: This is great.
Micah McCormick: All right, but no, we want Jesus to be front and center of our life, of our ministry as a church.
Micah McCormick: And then those things come alongside as a support to lift up who Jesus Christ is.
Micah McCormick: We've taken a look at the setting, this place of death, and these different characters with Christ Himself at the center.
Micah McCormick: What about the plot of how this unfolds?
Micah McCormick: You know, at first glance, it might seem like those verses I read are kind of disconnected.
Micah McCormick: You have some people wanting to kill Jesus, you have a woman dumping perfume on Jesus and some controversy about that.
Micah McCormick: Then you have Judas trying to betray Jesus.
Micah McCormick: So we see the first and last part of that, how they work together, but what's what's going on in the middle?
Micah McCormick: Well, I've already mentioned this, but again, we see this threat of death as the plots unfolding.
Micah McCormick: Verse 2, Jesus predicts his death.
Micah McCormick: It takes place during Passover, this feast associated with death.
Micah McCormick: In verse 4, the villains are trying to conspire and kill Jesus.
Micah McCormick: Jesus in the house of a leopard, he's probably alongside a resurrected dead guy.
Micah McCormick: In verse 15 and 16, Judas is conspiring to get Jesus killed.
Micah McCormick: And then right at the heart of the passage, right in verse 12, this woman, Jesus says, has anointed him for burial.
Micah McCormick: So you've got this threat of death, but we see a contrast in the plot of this story and the way that people approach his death.
Micah McCormick: Jesus is preparing himself for death.
Micah McCormick: The chief priests and elders, they want to prepare Jesus for death.
Micah McCormick: Judas wants to prepare him for death.
Micah McCormick: And the woman wants to prepare him for death.
Micah McCormick: But they're doing it in all kinds of different ways.
Micah McCormick: Some from hearts of hatred and betrayal.
Micah McCormick: In the case of the woman, from lavish devotion and love.
Micah McCormick: You can see the actions that happen there.
Micah McCormick: Judas is willing to hand the Son of Man over.
Micah McCormick: We know from scripture he's going to betray the Son of Man with a kiss, and the woman's going to use her hands to take the perfume and anoint Jesus with love.
Micah McCormick: You see it too in the value that's placed on these actions.
Micah McCormick: That's a little harder for us to see.
Micah McCormick: It says that Judas agrees to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
Micah McCormick: Now I know in our day, whenever you hear like silver coins, you're thinking of a pirate's treasure chest, and you read a story about some woman that found a silver coin in her attic that was worth$300,000 or whatever, and like 30 silver coins.
Micah McCormick: That's pretty amazing.
Micah McCormick: Silver was a fairly common currency in Jesus' day.
Micah McCormick: And what Judas agrees to is really not life-altering money.
Micah McCormick: Some people value it at a few hundred dollars.
Micah McCormick: Some people say maybe it was a few thousand dollars, but either way, it's not life-altering money.
Micah McCormick: Judas is willing to betray the Lord who walked with him for three years and gave him friendship and teaching and encouragement.
Micah McCormick: And he's willing to do it for a flat screen TV.
Micah McCormick: You see how little the value is he places on Jesus?
Micah McCormick: Contrasting that in the plot is the woman.
Micah McCormick: It says in verse 7 that the perfume is very expensive.
Micah McCormick: And then in verse 9, the disciples say that it could have been sold for a great deal.
Micah McCormick: Now, again, I know we don't think of perfume as that valuable.
Micah McCormick: If you're on Let's Make a Deal, and Wayne Brady says, All right, behind curtain number one, we've got some perfume.
Micah McCormick: Curtain number two's got some silver coins.
Micah McCormick: We won't tell you how much and how valuable it is.
Micah McCormick: What do you think you're going to take?
Micah McCormick: People are going to go for the silver coins, of course.
Micah McCormick: But Matthew's intending to show that this is very valuable.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't tell us exactly how much, but it's it's a contrast to the coins.
Micah McCormick: Uh John mentions it's valued at 300 denarii, which is more like a year's salary.
Micah McCormick: So you've got, you know, maybe 500 or even maybe$5,000 compared to$50,000, or it could be as great a difference as$100 compared to$100,000.
Micah McCormick: And people in this day and age didn't generally have bank accounts with a lot of savings.
Micah McCormick: Here's a regular ordinary woman.
Micah McCormick: How she got this, if this was given to her, we don't know, but this is her valuable assets.
Micah McCormick: And she's willing to give it all up for Jesus because she loves him so much.
Micah McCormick: The story is designed to draw us in to the claims of Christ about this woman.
Micah McCormick: She's prepared me for burial.
Micah McCormick: She knows who I am.
Micah McCormick: What about us?
Micah McCormick: Do we recognize the Lord?
Micah McCormick: And does it show in the way that we live?
Micah McCormick: Does it show in that kind of an outpouring of devotion?
Micah McCormick: That brings us finally today to this significance of all of this.
Micah McCormick: If we said, well, what's the moral of the story?
Micah McCormick: That's too trite.
Micah McCormick: But what does this mean for us?
Micah McCormick: Let me just suggest three applications here as we draw towards the close.
Micah McCormick: First, we should marvel at the sovereignty of God in directing world history.
Micah McCormick: Why do I start there?
Micah McCormick: Well, you go from the time of Passover, which calls to mind an event that took place more than a thousand years before the coming of the Lord, slaughtered lambs in ancient Egypt.
Micah McCormick: Then you've got this home and this everyday normal woman and her actions.
Micah McCormick: And you've got what Jesus says, wherever the gospel is proclaimed, what she did is going to be told in memory of her.
Micah McCormick: So we're helping to fulfill that prophecy today by just talking about this woman.
Micah McCormick: We're fulfilling what Christ said was going to happen everywhere in the world, even on a place like Long Island, way away from the Middle East.
Micah McCormick: This is being fulfilled today.
Micah McCormick: So we've got hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus to this woman to preaching on Long Island.
Micah McCormick: What could bring that all together?
Micah McCormick: Only the Lord.
Micah McCormick: And what's the thread at the heart of all of that is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: You have to marvel that God in his sovereignty would plan redemption, would accomplish redemption, would now allow redemption to be proclaimed everywhere.
Micah McCormick: Second application.
Micah McCormick: And that's just one story.
Micah McCormick: This is just one story.
Micah McCormick: There's all kinds of stories in the Bible that do just that.
Micah McCormick: They bring us to Christ.
Micah McCormick: Second, we should be believing that Jesus came to bring life to the dead.
Micah McCormick: Yes, there's a lot of death in this passage, but he's coming to affirm this woman.
Micah McCormick: He's coming to receive her devotion.
Micah McCormick: Even the disciples that are kind of confused here, they're going to one day see more and understand more.
Micah McCormick: And the same Jesus that's preparing himself for death is not going to remain in the grave.
Micah McCormick: He's going to be alive.
Micah McCormick: He's ascended to the Lord's right hand even now as we proclaim him.
Micah McCormick: The disciples don't want to accept this woman, but Jesus sees her heart.
Micah McCormick: He vindicates her amidst all of her accusers.
Micah McCormick: Do you feel sometimes as though you're not vindicated before the eyes of the world?
Micah McCormick: They want to leave you out for dead, but Jesus vindicates his people.
Micah McCormick: And he says, Well done.
Micah McCormick: Romans 5.8.
Micah McCormick: God commended his love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Micah McCormick: If that's his love for us, no love on our part could be too great to express to him.
Micah McCormick: We sing the song from heaven, he came and sought her to be his holy bride.
Micah McCormick: With his own love, he bought her, and for her life he died.
Micah McCormick: Jesus comes to bring life, and he does it through his death.
Micah McCormick: What a glory.
Micah McCormick: And then last, and coming back again to our main idea, we must adore Jesus and His work with everything we have.
Micah McCormick: So I already touched earlier that we as a church have to make Christ, the crucified one, our priority.
Micah McCormick: That's not just true of us as a church, that should be true of us individually.
Micah McCormick: This is a very personal and individual story.
Micah McCormick: One woman's lavish love.
Micah McCormick: She's enraptured with love.
Micah McCormick: And think about what she does.
Micah McCormick: What if you had perfume, a bottle of perfume that was$50,000 or maybe more?
Micah McCormick: What would you do with it?
Micah McCormick: You know, maybe got a date coming up.
Micah McCormick: This guy could be the one.
Micah McCormick: I'll get a dab.
Micah McCormick: Promotion at work.
Micah McCormick: All right, I'll take a dab.
Micah McCormick: Promotion at work.
Micah McCormick: Maybe your wedding day, like I'm going four dabs for the wedding.
Micah McCormick: Okay, this is this is serious stuff.
Micah McCormick: She doesn't, there's no dabbing here.
Micah McCormick: She doesn't parcel it out over time like we do.
SPEAKER_01: She just, she just pours it out.
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is it.
Micah McCormick: Well, how can I worry about the future when Christ is here right now and I love him so much and I've got to show it right now?
Micah McCormick: It's more than just prioritizing Jesus.
Micah McCormick: Now I know I use the word priority.
Micah McCormick: It's a fine word to use as long as we recognize how how much she is abandoning herself to the Lord.
Micah McCormick: It's not like there's my adoration for Jesus, and then he's number one, and I got some other things that are kind of right near it.
Micah McCormick: There's no close seconds.
Micah McCormick: This is not, if I said I love ice cream, I've got a priority for Hagendas, but Ben and Jerry's is like right there.
Micah McCormick: It's like number two.
Micah McCormick: It's not what's going on here.
Micah McCormick: There's no close seconds.
Micah McCormick: The Lord is it, she's enraptured with love.
SPEAKER_01: And this woman is a spectacle.
SPEAKER_01: She's a spectacle of emotion and devotion, and it's beautiful.
Micah McCormick: The apostle Paul writes in Corinthians that the apostles have become a spectacle to the world.
Micah McCormick: We're fools for Christ.
Micah McCormick: And what beautiful fools they are.
Micah McCormick: What beautiful fools we are.
Micah McCormick: If the world sees us as reckless and foolish and well, we love our Lord.
Micah McCormick: So of course we'll sacrifice.
Micah McCormick: Of course we'll do and attempt great things for him because we love him.
Micah McCormick: The death of Jesus compels us to adore him.
Micah McCormick: So does the way you live your life cause others to say, wow, what that's that's bizarre.
Micah McCormick: They could have used their time or or their money or or their or their possessions, they could have used it like in more valuable ways than that.
Micah McCormick: What's gotten into that person?
Micah McCormick: Is that what others would think?
Micah McCormick: Is that they see you living your life?
Micah McCormick: There's a cost.
Micah McCormick: I mean, this woman suffered financial loss.
Micah McCormick: This I was talking to Kevin this week.
Micah McCormick: He's like, this was probably her nest egg that she's giving up here.
Micah McCormick: Maybe, but definitely she incurred significant financial loss.
Micah McCormick: But she adored the Lord.
Micah McCormick: For some of us, there's gonna be perhaps even bodily cost.
Micah McCormick: Jesus has already said back just two chapters ago, Matthew 24, that they're gonna hand you over, they're gonna hand him over, they're gonna hand you over to be killed.
Micah McCormick: Most of us haven't had to face that level of bodily cost for following Christ, but we don't know what the Lord's gonna have us in the future or now.
Micah McCormick: There's always gonna be some measure of social cost.
Micah McCormick: Again, Jesus says, you'll be hated by all nations for my name's sake.
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, the cost is like it's so little compared with the love we can have for the Lord.
Micah McCormick: So, what is it in your life that you can just just pour out in service to Christ?
Micah McCormick: I don't mean get rid of.
Micah McCormick: This is not a competition to say you can just get rid of the most things.
Micah McCormick: And it's also, this is not about, well, this woman, it was her perfume, her money.
Micah McCormick: She had a right to do with it what she wanted, and the disciples should have stayed out of her pocketbook.
Micah McCormick: It's it's not about that.
Micah McCormick: It's about what can we do to show our love for the Lord?
Micah McCormick: How can we how can we pour out the valuable things in our life and give it a fragrance of him everywhere?
SPEAKER_00: Are there things that would tempt you to be ashamed?
Micah McCormick: Don't be ashamed.
Micah McCormick: Jesus justifies this woman before her accusers.
Micah McCormick: Jesus in the final day will justify your lavish love for him.
Micah McCormick: This woman had faith, and may we too have faith, because again, as we as we close here, think about what she's doing.
Micah McCormick: She's she is in the presence of Jesus, but she's seeing something that hasn't happened yet.
Micah McCormick: She's anointing him.
Micah McCormick: They're all there with Jesus, but they don't all see what she sees.
Micah McCormick: She's got a measure of faith that has grabbed hold of God's word.
Micah McCormick: And we, even though we don't have Jesus here, we're still called to have the same faith that grabs hold of the word of the Lord, that said he would suffer and die and rise again.
Micah McCormick: And we by faith believe that.
Micah McCormick: We trust that.
Micah McCormick: We we know if we know the Lord that we've experienced that.
Micah McCormick: And if you haven't, consider what you are living your life for.
Micah McCormick: Are you saving up a little dab here and there?
Micah McCormick: And then what at the end of your life?
Micah McCormick: Come to the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Come to his mercy.
Micah McCormick: Come and prepare for the great wedding feast of the Lamb.
Micah McCormick: 1 Peter 1, 8 and 9.
Micah McCormick: And I think Peter later came around to fully appreciate that woman.
Micah McCormick: He probably proclaimed her quite a lot when he was teaching after he saw the end of her faith and the salvation of her soul.
Micah McCormick: 1 Peter 1, 8 and 9.
Micah McCormick: Though you have not seen him, you love him.
Micah McCormick: Though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because you're receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
Micah McCormick: Oh Father, oh God, give us this overwhelming love, a love that stretches into our words, but beyond our words, into our actions.
Micah McCormick: A love that comes from sincere hearts, not wanting to receive the praise of men, but out of a passion for you, that we must live our lives for your glory.
Micah McCormick: Lord, if there are any here today who you would you would urge them to even even consider where the gospel hasn't been proclaimed, and to proclaim this woman's story where no one has has heard.
Micah McCormick: Let that be a sacrifice of praise that we could consider and and pray through and send.
Micah McCormick: Lord, as we're going out into the world, help us not to cling so tightly to our possessions that others would look at us and think that really our number one priority is our future, our hope, our comfort.
Micah McCormick: Let them know that amidst all of the right wisdom there is and planning and preparing, that yet what's at the center of our life, what drives us is love for the Savior.
Micah McCormick: Lord, grow our adoration.
Micah McCormick: We have your love in our hearts.
Micah McCormick: We have the fruit of love from the Holy Spirit.
Micah McCormick: We want that to grow.
Micah McCormick: We want adoration to take hold of us and move in us and to bloom over and over again in us.
Micah McCormick: Father, you're worthy, and the Son is worthy to receive blessing and honor and glory and power.
Micah McCormick: And you're worthy to receive our lives and everything about us.
Micah McCormick: So Jesus Christ, please be kind to us.
Micah McCormick: Please free us from the tyranny of others' opinions.
Micah McCormick: Free us from hesitation in our love for you, that others would see and know that indeed you are Lord, and you are the altogether lovely one.
Micah McCormick: And so we say, We love you, Lord, and we lift our voices in praise to you now.
Micah McCormick: In the name of the Son, we ask all these things.
Micah McCormick: Amen.