Worship: Are You Stingy with God? Matthew 26:6-16

 

We are going to focus on Matthew 26:6-16. Not so much on 14 through 16 primarily, on that central section, but it is a section that is framed or bracketed by the introduction that Jesus gives to His disciples in Matthew chapter 26:2, that, after two days of the Passover the Son of Man is delivered up to be crucified. That word "delivered up" is stated twice more in this section: in verse 15 when Judas asked the our religious leaders what they were willing to give him if he delivers Jesus up, and then from that time he sought to betray Him. That word "betray" and "deliver up" are all the same word in Greek. So that frames this episode and that tells us something about what is going on here.

 

There is a contrast between the religious leaders and their pseudo-worship of God, their false worship of God which is legalistic, and they are more concerned about preserving their legalistic framework, their ideas about who God is and what is necessary to have a relationship with God, than to submit to the authority of God, and respond to the grace of God. That is how this begins, and this contrast that takes place between the Pharisees and their legalism versus the grace orientation, the generosity of the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus head in verses 6 to 13.

 

There is another contrast going on here and that's the contrast between her and her devotion, to be willing to give so much to honor and respect her Lord, and reflecting her understanding of what it's about to take place, and Judas. Because she's going to anoint him with his oil that is valued at 300 denarai, over in the marked passage, which is equivalent to a year's pay for a labor. So you can equate that to something like maybe $40,000-60,000 a year in our economy. This is quite a financial sacrifice on her part that is part of her worship, and it shows her generosity. What we also see is that there is a contrast with the disciples—what a waste of money!

 

That really represents the ways some Christians think because they are not grace oriented, they're not very generous with God, which is why I've titled this message, Worship: Are you stingy with God? It is not just a financial term, stingy, but we are stingy with who we are and what God has required of us, what we will be accountable for the judgment seat of Christ. And so we're so busy with what we want to do in this life that we often and frequently ignore what God's priority is for us in this life. And the question isn't going to be, well, what did you accomplish in life? What was your education like? What did you do in the realm of sports or athletics or music or other areas of your life and involvement, in contrast to the priority set forth spiritually by God in terms of our spiritual growth and serving him in this life.

 

That is what Romans 12:1-2 is talking about: that we are to be dedicated to God were to give our lives as a spiritual sacrifice. But most people don't want to do that because they are spiritually stingy, and that applies to all of us at some time, and maybe some of us most of the time. But I'm included in that because as a result of sin nature control we all have that orientation of self-absorption, and we live on the basis of its all about me rather than living on the basis of its all about God.

 

So let's look at what we see in this passage. At the beginning get a time marker. It's at the end of the day; it's at the end of a very long day for Jesus. It goes back to chapter 21 when Jesus has gone to a number of confrontations and challenges with the different groups of religious leaders in Israel. It culminated in Him announcing seven (depending on the textual variant) seven or eight woes upon the Pharisees, and then He announces judgment on the temple and its destruction. The disciples say, "When will this be, and what are the signs of your coming?" It is talking about his coming kingdom, and He answers with the Olivet discourse is in chapters 24 and 25. Now it's at the end of that day, which tells us that this is toward the evening or maybe the sun is already gone down. But it is late in the afternoon at the very least, and what He says here is, "After two days is the Passover".

 

Now that's an important temporal marker there because the Passover is going to begin on probably Thursday night, and the 14th of Nisan comes, according to the Jewish calendar at sunset, and lasts until sunset the next night. There are some chronological problems there and I'll probably have a special lesson just on that. But He is saying here, "In two days the Passover". That's when He will be delivered up to be crucified. So that gives us a bit of framework.

 

Then there is a shift in topic in verses three through five. That is the reaction of legalism. The evil of legalism that takes place on the part of the religiosity of the Sadducees and the Pharisees. We see a contrast between the woman and the Pharisees, a contrast between the woman and Judas. She selflessly worships the Lord, and Judas selfishly follows his own agenda and betrays Christ. There's also the contrast with the Pharisees and a contrast with the stinginess and the superficiality of the disciples.

 

We read in verse six, "Now when Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper, [7] a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined {at the table.}"

 

Now this is providing a lot of information about setting. Matthew and Mark described this same incident. They frame met with the same information, although Mark's account is somewhat abbreviated compared to Matthew's. Matthew gives more detail. For example, in Matthew we have five verses at the beginning, and what happens in those five verses is summarized in two verses in the Gospel of Mark. At the end when talks about the betrayal the three verses of Matthew are abridged only two shorter verses by Mark. The intervening story is basically the same, although Mark adds some more detail. For example, the cost of the expensive perfume that the Lord is anointed with, but basically it gives us the same information.

 

Jesus is in Bethany. Bethany is on the east side of the Mount of Olives, so He hasn't gone very far if it takes place that evening. Following the Sermon on the Mount He concludes with His statement to the disciples in verse two, and then He goes home to Bethany. That's how I understand this, but my understanding is not anywhere close to the majority understanding. I could be wrong but I think nearly everybody else is wrong, and that they haven't paid proper attention to the Text.

 

In Matthew 26:6 were told that Jesus was in Bethany, and He is at the house of a man identified as Simon the leper. Now we don't know anything about this particular Simon. There's a no other Simon that is mentioned in another anointing incident that is described in Luke 7:36-50. That is a totally different episode. That Simon is a Pharisee. What happens in those circumstances are different from these circumstances, the context there is different from the context here, and at the risk of sounding like I'm not being consistent, nearly everybody recognizes that, except for liberals.

 

What happens if you come to the text and you're either full-blown liberal or you are a liberal influenced evangelical, which means you affirm inerrancy but in practice you deny it. We heard a lot about that at the Chafer Conference this last year when David Farnell talked about inerrancy and the Gospels, that there are the vast majority of New Testament scholars teaching in seminaries today, some of the traditionally solid seminaries—that basically deny inerrancy by how they handle the text.

 

So what happens is we get into this an episode like this, there are actually three different anointing episodes that are mentioned in Scripture: the episode that is described by Luke in Luke chapter 7:36-50 at the home of a Simon, a Pharisee, the episode that we have described in our passage in Matthew 26, 6-13, and also described in Mark 14:4ff. Those, I believe, are clearly identical. And then there's another anointing incident that takes place in John chapter 12:1-12 is the description of another anointing episode that is often confused with this one. It also takes place in Bethany. But if you read it you notice that there are some striking differences.

 

And I believe that even though there are many scholars—and when I say many scholars I'm talking about people that I respect: Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Stan Toussaint, Dwight Pentecost, Bible Knowledge Commentary, Moody Bible Commentary, and I could list a host of commentaries—that all say verses 6-13 are basically a flashback. They have to do that because the setting here seems to suggest at first blush that in verse two it's two days to Passover. But if you read in John, John says it is six days before Passover.

 

Now there are a lot of similarities here but one of the things that that really hit me afresh at the Chafer Conference this year was when Wayne House was talking about interpretation and identifying and understanding certain passages. He said the similarities are important, but what is really important are the differences, and even though they could be right, I could be wrong, I think the differences are important. I think there's a clear indication in chapter 26:1-16 that the whole thing is talking at the same time period, because for one thing, there's nothing here to indicate its flashback. Number two: Matthew doesn't have any flashbacks in all of his Gospel. And number three: at the beginning of verse 14 when he talks about Judas and Judas going to betray him, He begins with the word "then", TOTE, which indicates that that is following what preceded.

 

Now it is very possible that Judas could have gone to the religious leaders following this event if it occurred on the Saturday night. I'm assuming that Christ enters into Jerusalem on Sunday. If this happened on Saturday night at the dinner in Bethany, which is what John 12 talks about, that would put Judas going to the religious leaders to betray Jesus very early before their antagonism really reaches a critical mass as a result of the entry in Matthew chapter 21. I don't see that and there are a few commentaries and a few scholars that agree with me. I'm not standing out here all by myself, but the group that I'm standing with can be counted on one hand. So it's a small group, but I'm emphasizing the differences and not the similarities.

 

If this is taking place two days before Passover, that's one distinction. The other distinction is in John. John says that Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, is anointing Jesus feet with the oil, but in the Matthew and the Mark account, the unnamed woman is anointing his head with oil.

 

Now what happens is you will have scholars that come along and say he did both, because it says here that when Jesus responds in verse 12 He says. "For in pouring the fragrant oil on my body." My body would include head and feet, so he did both. And while that is possible I think that the fact that the emphasis in John is on the feet and Matthew is on the on the on the head is distinctive. I think these are two separate events. Having said that, it doesn't change our understanding, our interpretation of it, or application of what's going on here. It's just important in terms of working out, and understanding the chronology.

 

But on the liberal side what we often hear from people—and I'm talking about the liberal view, but this leaks into "conservative evangelical" side. You have the deal liberal ideas that these are three different instances or two different instances, obviously there are at least two or three or maybe more, traditions of some woman anointing Jesus on his head or His feet or His body, or whatever, and that the Gospels sort of treat these as separate, or combine them, or whatever. There is this oral tradition and the writers just put this together. See, the subtext is God the Holy Spirit isn't specifically inspiring them to write correct details. It's just their understanding of this oral tradition that is out there now.

 

What has happened in evangelicalism is we've got to be like the Israelites of old who said we want to have a king like everybody else. And the way they apply that is, we want to have scholarly credentials for our scholars like everybody else. We want to be as respected as the liberals are. So you enter into a false value. And so starting back in the 50s, 60s, and this is a repeat of what happened in the late 19th century, we are going to send our men over to Europe, they are going to go to Oxford and Cambridge and Aberdeen, and they are going to go to Bern, and they're going to go to Heidelberg and all these other universities that have prestige in the unbelieving liberal community, so that we can learn from them. And even if these men come back and they have mostly retained their orthodoxy, a lot of them picked up Trojan horses. And so they come back and little things leak out, and that may not be too bad in the first generation—which I would put the 70s, the 80s, 90s—but the second generation that would have come along, and maybe the 90s and into the 2000, they don't have as rigorous a conservative background.

 

This is become a big debate, and I say that because one of the most respected scholars and commentaries on Matthew is by R T France who is Irish—

whenever you hear a British theologian reference, 99.9 of percent of them, even the conservatives like CS Lewis and others, don't believe in inerrancy and infallibility like we do. So just automatically understand that. Americans make an issue out of that, the British conservative evangelicals don't. That's a distinction. This is what R T France says, "The complex literary phenomena are probably best accounted for by two originally separate stories of a woman anointing Jesus. John being aware of elements of both, but linking this story with the Bethany family in whom he had a special interest." He is not writing that is if he believes God the Holy Spirit is specifically revealing to John the exact details of what happened. He has fudged it. That shows a weak view of Scripture. I just thought I would throw that out for your edification and to teach little critical thinking skills.

 

Now here's what John says in John 12. "Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead." He puts it earlier. John 12:2, "So they made Him a supper there, and Martha was serving; but Lazarus was one of those reclining {at the} {table} with Him."

 

If you read that without referencing the other Gospels, where do you think they are having dinner? At Mary and Martha's house with Lazarus; you wouldn't think that they are at somebody else's home. Now, you could understand that it's that way. It doesn't specifically say their house, it just says there they made him a supper, and there it could be Bethany, and Martha serving, but it's in somebody else's home. You could work it out that way. And Lazarus was one of those sitting at the table. That might work. It's the chronological terms in Mark and Matthew that create the problem, and then he goes on to say that she anointed the feet of Jesus in verse three, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.

 

It's very similar, the only difference is the got feet instead of head, so let's just merge it; and that's basically what is attempted here. As I said, I really think that my view is the minority view, but there are few others who take these as two separate events. I think that if these two separate events, even though they are very close together, that bothers some people as well. This is on Saturday night and then we have Tuesday night. I think that what we see here is something similar to the Gospels. The Synoptics say that there it Jesus cleanses the temple and throws the moneychangers out on the day after he enters into Jerusalem. They say at the end of it ministry He cleanses the Temple. Then in John chapter 2 John says that He that does at the beginning of His ministry. And so classic liberals say, something happened at some time when Jesus did something to cleanse the temple. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke they got kind of wrong and they put it at the end. John, maybe he's the one who has a wrong, he puts at the beginning. But none of those details really matter; what matters is that Jesus did it.

 

I think that His ministry is framed by cleansing the temple at the beginning and cleansing the temple at the end. And what we see here is something similar, and that is, right before He enters into Jerusalem He is going to have His feet anointed, and then His head anointed, and that both instances reflect the value that the women placed on who Jesus is, as they worship him. And those two events basically bracket everything that happens from the entry until after until the end of the Olivet discourse, because if you take the traditional view, and this is Tuesday night nothing really happens on Wednesday, it's a dead day. Some people say, oh, how can you do that? Well if you take a Wednesday crucifixion you have got Friday as a dead day and that's a real problem, because if it's not a holy day and a Sabbath then why don't the women go down to deal with Jesus body on Friday? That's a huge problem that's never answered or addressed.

 

So if it's Tuesday night and then Jesus is basically quiet on Wednesday that would make sense. But these two events bracket that public ministry of His examination. Remember, according to the typology Jesus would enter on the 10th. That's when He is examined. I believe that the 10th is on is on Monday and that's when the entry actually was. But I'm not going to get off and all those details, we will do that another time.

 

What we see here is these two episodes that focus our attention on the same thing, which is the value of who Jesus is and what He has done. What happens is that we see in these two instances is that He is anointed with extremely expensive perfume. We have similar language in both passages. In the John 12:3 passage He is anointed with the oil of pure spikenard, which is in good translation. The word MUROU you in the Greek is a word that is often translated myrrh. But it is also a generic term for any sort of oil or cream, sort of like the folks in the South when they want to have a soft drink, else they will have a Coke. By Coke they made mean anything from Dr Pepper to Mountain Dew because cokes become sort of a generic term for any kind of soft drink. Up north they will call it pop or something else, but the idea here is that myrrh also has a generic term that could refer to any kind of oil. It's defined as an oil or per perfume of pure spikenard, which was an extremely rare and expensive oil or perfume in the ancient world.

 

Matthew 26 just uses a different word describing its expense. He uses the word POLUTIMOS, which is a different word, but it's a synonym for PISTIKOS and indicates value. It's costly and so he just summarizes it as an oil, or an ointment, or perfume of expensive oil. It's in an alabaster jar which is a particular kind of alabaster that is used in the Middle East, Egypt, Mesopotamia and all through there, formed out of a calcite. The term alabaster is also used of that which is made from a softer gypsum in Western Europe, but it is not as hard as the calcite alabaster in the Middle East. It was often used for sculptures or various vases and bowls and bottles, so this indicates how valuable it was because of what it was contained in.

 

We are told that she anoints His head as He sat at the table. This generates a reaction from His disciples, which is described in verses eight and nine. It's the same kind of reaction in the John 12 episode but we will focus on Matthew. When His disciples thought they were indignant. They are really irritated at this. This isn't just a mild sort of why did she do that? They are really upset and start arguing with each other, kind of under the breath back and forth. But Jesus is going to pick up on that.

 

None of this is in a whole lot different than some of the fights that you may have heard about or been part of at churches that are building buildings. Some of you are chuckling already, I see those smiles on your face. There are always people who want to be minimalist. Let's spend as little money here so we can spend on spiritual things like missions or feeding the poor or something like that. And then there are others who say well the building is not irrelevant—the architecture, aesthetics, beauty is every much a part of God's creation. Have you ever noticed that flowers are not built by a pragmatist, that the beauty of the world is not built by somebody who's minimalist. It is all functional, but God puts beauty into his creation in the same way. And this was clearly understood in the middle ages. They had a fully developed understanding of aesthetics. It wasn't just about let us spend a lot of money to build some cathedral to the glory of man. They thought through a theology of aesthetics and their desire was to build a place to worship God that reflected the order and beauty of God's creation, so that in a positive sense it was to glorify God, not to glorify man. And they understood that. We usually come out of a Protestant tradition that is somewhat stingier than that for a lot of different reasons.

 

Now if you don't have the money, don't try to spend it. Don't create something of beauty that you cannot afford. That's an important principle. But if God has supplied the resources one should not be judgmental and say will look at how much money they wasted. They could've just made and put in a steel building and some concrete bricks and as long as it accomplish the function then that would glorify God. They could spend the money on something else. So you see, the church has been having the same argument down through the ages.

 

Nobody goes to this passage. Jesus makes it very clear what the issues are, that there are priorities and the priority is the Lord, whether you're talking God the Father, God the Son, it is God. It is specifically in this passage, Christ centered. And so Jesus rebukes them for their stinginess.

 

This is often what happens in our own worship. We try to cut things down to the minimalist approach, and that ends up being superficial. That is the counterpart to a legalistic mentality. Legalism tries to cross the tees and dot the I's, following the letter of the law and totally missing the spirit of the law. That's what legalism is, whereas grace orientation involves a generosity, and a munificence towards people and how we relate to them in our forgiveness, our love, our concern; and especially our focus upon God. We are according to Romans 12:1 to give our lives as a spiritual sacrifice, not just Sunday morning; but all that we are, all that we have is to serve the Lord; that is the priority. Now that doesn't mean that we don't work and we don't get educated, and we don't do these other things, but that everything has to focus and be directed toward serving the Lord with our lives, and fulfilling his mission for us, so that when we are before the judgment seat of Christ we can hear the Lord say, Well done good and faithful servant.

 

So Jesus rebukes the disciples here. A lot of people would say it's good to give to the poor. Jesus would say, sometimes you choose that which is better instead of that which is good. And there's nothing wrong with giving to the poor, but it's better to understand who the Lord is and what His objectives are, and to glorify him that way.

 

Matthew 26:10 NASB "But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ÒWhy do you bother the woman? É" And then there are three fors, each translating the Greek word GAR, which means He is giving an explanation of something. He is explaining why the woman has done what she has done.

 

First of all, "She has done a good work for me". Now this word that is translated good work is the Greek word KALOS. There are two different words for good. AGATHOS is often translated with the idea of an intrinsic good, but KALOS has the idea of something that is beautiful, something that is lovely, something that is wonderful. It is more than simply she did a good thing as opposed to a bad thing. She has done something wonderful and lovely. She has focused on who Jesus Christ is to glorify Him in light of what is about to take place.

 

So first of all, He puts the emphasis on her and what she has done. She has understood who He is, and so she is going to honor who He is through what she does. Then He says, "For you have the poor with you always, but me you do not have always". They have forgotten that He is about to go, so this is something that is historically temporally focused here. Jesus is with them, the Son of God is with them, the Son of Man is with them, and He is about to be crucified and die. We have to understand that framework that comes in verse two. That's why I think another reason, not definitive, but I think another reason why these all fit together terms that timeframe and what Jesus had just said. He said that she understands I am going to be crucified. I am to die and I'm going to be buried, and the reality is that His body will not be treated or honored by the Romans were crucifying Him, as she does. She is anointing Him and anointing His body in light of His burial.

 

That's what he explains in verse 12. "For in pouring this fragrant oil on my body, she did it for my burial". She understands what is about to happen and they don't, so because she understands what's happening, she understands the grace that it embodies. She deals with the Lord in grace. In contrast, they are stingy: "We don't really have that much money, we don't want to give it, we are going to hold onto it. They are not giving of themselves. There's not only no generosity financially, there's no generosity of spirit. But she recognizes who Jesus is and that as a believer our proper response in worship to who Jesus is, is an exhibition of a generosity of spirit toward God.

 

We live in a world where there are a lot of pressures. There are a lot of things we have to accomplish, a lot of things where we pressures we put upon ourselves, of things we have to focus on as we are growing up as were maturing, and as we get older. We focus when we are younger on our education, and on our career, on our jobs. We focus on entertainment; we focus on sports. All of these things are good. None of these things are in and of themselves inherently wrong or evil, but it becomes a distraction when it takes us away from our priority, which is to worship the Lord with our lives. When we get older, there are other problems that come along, problems with health problems with spending a lot of time going to the doctor, problems with lack of energy, and things that nature. So when you're young you have one set of distractions you have to deal with; when you get older you have another set of distractions to deal with, and that's part of the test. Are we going to let the distractions define our lives, or are we going to let the Lord, the priorities of Scripture, define our lives. That's always the test in a fallen world.

 

One of the things that we need to recognize is that ultimately all this really does get down to our volition. We often hear people talk about, in our circles, negative volition or positive volition. A lot of times with people talk in terms of negative volition we think of somebody who's an atheist, who is out to destroy the freedoms of worship in this country. We think about people who have rejected Christ, we think about people who are legalists and they're trying to earn their way to heaven. We think about negative volition as the person who doesn't go to church.

 

Let me tell you what negative volition is. Negative volition says, haven't had a chance to go to the grocery store or take care of my ironing, and I can either do that tonight or I can go to Bible class. So the choice is, I need to take care of my ironing. I don't know how many times I didn't wear ironed or clean stuff, not because it was real dirty, but because I was a Bible class instead of going home and cleaning up the house. And doesn't that sound like somebody in the Bible? Seems to me that you had this issue between Mary and Martha. Mary is focused on the Lord. She sitting at the Lord's feet and the Lord rebukes Martha because Martha is so concerned about keeping everything neat and right in the house that she's not spending time with the Lord.

 

We have to understand how to work out these priorities so that it's not one or the other but that we can spend time learning about the Lord and growing spiritually. And if somehow we have to not quite get as much done around the house, with yard work, or working on the car, or education or whatever, we have to make those choices. Now realize there are times when you're working on specific things, and they have to be accomplished. Those kinds of things come up all the time. There is a time in life when we have to focus on getting our education and sometimes that puts us in a in a bind. But that's part of the test: defining how we are going to worship and not forget our spiritual life during that time of education.

 

Negative volition can take many forms. One of the most subtle is with people who say, well I know the gospel. But I can name you an untold number of friends of mine that I grew up with that have a good solid background they can witness, they understand the gospel, they understand basic doctrine, but they show up in church once in a while, once in a blue moon, because they think they've learned enough. Some of you know that I have something of a measure of education and background and knowledge of the Scripture, and I worked hard at that for well over 55 years. I don't know nearly enough. That's and a fortiori argument: If I don't know enough, then most people are listening to me really don't know enough. And you need to understand that. And I would say any of my professors, anybody that mentored me along the way, would say the same thing in comparing them to me: I'm not where they are.

 

Let me tell you something. God is omniscient. We never will be omniscient; we will always have a finite understanding. That means that you're always going to be learning more about God and His creation into eternity. So if you don't like learning about God, if you're saved, you've got a problem, and it's important that we start now. That's part of worship. Don't get sucked into the idea that I know enough, but right now I have all these demands. I know a lot of people who have a lot of demands, and guess what, that doesn't hurt their priorities in terms of studying the Word and their personal relationship with the Lord.

 

People who use their jobs and their responsibilities apart from Scripture to justify not being in Bible class, to justify not reading the Bible every day, to justify not memorizing Scripture, are spiritual failures, pure and simple. They're not growing. And that applies to you and it applies to me because we all go through these ebbs and flows in our lives. If youÕre a pastor, you have been just as much is anybody else. We all have the obligations of life. Sometimes where on top of them and sometimes they're on top of us. That's part of the test.

 

We have to keep our eye on the ball, on the priority, because one day the Lord's going to say, Well what did you do at the time I gave you? What did you do with the education I gave you? What did you do with the IQ I gave you? What did you do with the money I gave you? And we are going to say: Well I was really busy with that. The Lord is going to say: Why didn't you take advantage of these opportunities to grow spiritually? We will say: At that particular time I was really busy with my career. But what's going to happen is, as soon as we come up with that answer and say, "Yes Lord, but É." what is going appear in our soul is a realization of how vacuous any excuse is. Because when it comes to the judgment seat of Christ, the Lord's not going to ask, how well did you do in school? He's not going ask, how far did you advance in your career? The Lord's not going to ask, how much did you learn or how many football games did you watch, or how many baseball games did you enjoy?

 

The Lord's going to be asking questions related to, how well did we grow spiritually? Were we faithful with what the Lord gave us, and have we grown to spiritual maturity? And anything else that we did is not going to be an issue at the judgment seat of Christ. So we need to focus on personal worship of the Lord.

 

That's what this woman is doing. She recognizes the priority of who Jesus is and who and what He is doing and she is giving all that she can, which is an incredible amount, but it shocks the disciples. And the result is that she will be rewarded for this.

 

Matthew 26:13 NASB ÒTruly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.Ó She will be spoken of as we are speaking of her today: as an example, as a model for each and every believer.

 

In contrast to this you get the unbeliever, Judas Iscariot. He doesn't value the Lord at all. In fact, he's going to betray him for only 30 pieces of silver, which is the price of the slave. It was a very small price compared to the annual the annual wage of a laborer that is the value of that spikenard. He's going to betray Jesus.

 

What I want to close with today is some thoughts about worship—just quick summary points and then focus on application.

 

First of all worship is God centered; its Christ centered. It's not me centered. That applies to everything we do in life, because our whole life is supposed to be a worship of God. But it applies to corporate worship. Many, and if I might say, most of contemporary music and contemporary worship is all about what it does to the individual; it's all about me. You hear the first person pronoun all the time in these contemporary choruses. Worship is grounded in understanding who Jesus is, and what He did for us. That is the difference between the woman and the disciples. That means that she has an understanding of the content of Jesus' message; they don't. That's why I teach, because folks, it's not about music, it's not about how you feel; it's about the content of the Word that we assimilate into our thinking and our lives. It is to be content-oriented, not experience-oriented. We live in a world today where Christianity has been perverted into an experience based religion rather than a content-based relationship.

 

Second, true worship is not a religion; it's a relationship. It is walking with the Lord, walking by the Holy Spirit. It is based on understanding who He is from the Scripture, but having a relationship with Him. It's not just it's not limited to the Bible, but the Bible is the framework the foundation, the skeleton of that relationship.

 

Third, worship removes self from the equation. The focus isn't about me or what that message does to me—oh what that experience on Sunday morning meant to me; wasn't that wonderful, didn't that lift you up to heaven? Those are all false criteria; they are not biblical criteria. The issue is, what did I learn about God? What does He say about my response to Him, and how does that change my thinking to think biblically?

 

Fourth, true worship is grounded on Jesus as the Messiah. We have to understand who He is. That's what's going on. She is anointing His head. I'm not sure why the feet it is important, but I understand the head anointing. That is what happened to the kings of Israel. Their head was anointed, and she understands who Jesus is, as the promised and prophesied King whose has offer of the kingdom has been postponed. So true worship is grounded on Jesus as the promised Messiah.

 

Fifth, worship is grounded on Christ's death on the cross. It is the focal point of what He did. The resurrection has to do with the life that comes after, and resurrection is always connected to the new life we have in Jesus. But the death of Jesus is related to the payment for sin where the debt is canceled.

 

Sixth, worship is costly. You have to give something. If you are going to be in Bible class or take 3, 4, 5, 6 hours a week to study the Word, then you're going to be doing that instead of something else. It's always going to involve a choice and sacrifice. It may limit things that you can do to advance your career. But guess what! If God wants you promoted, God's going to get you promoted. It's amazing how many people can give so much of their time and their energy to learning about the Lord and serving the Lord and yet their careers don't suffer because they put the Lord first. He is going to take care of the other things.

 

Seventh, Deuteronomy 6:5 says that we are to love the Lord with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our whatever the word is. The Hebrew word there is just sort of undefined, and it sort of has the idea of everything that we have got. That's a framework for worship.

 

Now let me talk about another kind of worship. We talk about corporate worship, we talk about individual worship, but there's this family worship.  Under ideal family conditions the Bible says there are be two parents, a mother and a father, a male and a female, and they together rear their children. The father, though, is the spiritual head of the home.

 

We recognize that there are exceptions. There were exceptions in the ancient world. There were wives whose husbands were killed or who died and they had to raise her children alone there were wives whose husbands were traveling merchants or whatever and they were gone ninety-five per cent of the time. There've always been cases where there are single-parent homes, always. Today it is a plague on our culture. We have often heard—you've heard me say, you've heard others say—as goes the believer, so goes the nation.

 

I want to add there's something missing there: as goes the believer, so goes the family; as goes the family, there goes the nation. Because if the family is in failure—and in this country it is on life support—there goes the nation; because the family as God has built, it is that core that transmits the values of the family and the education from one generation to the other. You can't farm it out to public schools. You can't farm it out to a private school. You can't farm it out to Sunday school. The responsibility belongs with the father, not the father and the mother. In many cases in this country the moms are the ones who are, well you read the Bible story, if there is that much. It's the mother that is concerned with that. That's a home that's in spiritual failure.

 

I first recognized this in my first pastorate. I had a lot of men in the church and a lot of them were shift workers. And a lot of times they can only get to church on Sunday, maybe once a month, and so a lot of them just took the attitude, why go if I can only go once a month? They'd never show up in the middle of the week if they could. It was difficult but rather than surmounting the challenge they just gave up on trying to be part of church. And one day a mother came to me talking about her little four-year-old. She's trying to get him ready to go to church and he said: "Why do I have to go to church, I'm a man, men don't go to church." Think about that. Think about how many families represent that because the men or spiritually absent. The men are to be engaged spiritually, and fathers, when you show up at the judgment seat of Christ, the one of the issues is going to be: Did you raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

 

That's going to be the issue, it's not a matter how well you are educated, how well you physically and financially provided for the family. What matters is, Did you provide for the family spiritually, and rear your children from birth to the time they left. I didn't say from the time they were 5, 6, or 7—from birth until the time they left.

 

Ephesians 6:4 NASB "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger É" Now that is not saying don't discipline your children, it's saying don't discipline them wrongly. The father's responsibility is to discipline children, and that doesn't begin when they're old enough to understand what's going on. That is a misunderstanding that is extremely dangerous. You start educating your children the very first day, because let me tell you that little computer inside that little bitty head is just processing everything, and what whether you think they can understand you are not, they can. It's forming frameworks with in their head for dealing with life, and they are observing and observing and observing and observing, and one day they will start talking. Don't wait till then to start teaching them; you'll have waited too long. Don't wait till they can read or write, or engage you in interesting conversation or you are a failure spiritually. It starts at the moment of birth.

 

Father's, you ought to be reading Bible stories to your children from the moment they are born. They are processing that. Another thing you can do is play music, good music, hymns for your kids. They'll hear the music, they'll process those words, and when they get to 5, 6 they are going to be familiar to them, because they've heard that. See, fathers are failures because they're so focused on an idea: I gotta make my boy a good ballplayer. I don't think Jesus is concerned about that. I'm going to make my daughter great in dance or in music or whatever. Jesus isn't going to be concerned about that. I'm not saying those things are wrong. I'm saying that if you're doing that and you're not getting them to focus spiritually then you are a failure. It doesn't matter what kind of success you are between now and the time you die, what matters is what happens at the judgment seat of Christ. We should be living today in light of eternity.

 

Another thing that happens is when fathers turned the responsibility over to mothers. Then the sons will become a feminized. We have a crisis in this country of masculinity. Men don't know what it means to be men anymore, women are too sure what it means to be women anymore, and when you have that kind of gender confusion then it is going to lead to real problems.

 

Ephesians 6:4 NASB "É but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." Bring them up in training and admonition.

 

The word PAIDEIA is a word that has a broad range. It means instruction. That would be formal instruction. Discipline. That includes teaching them to be self-controlled, but it also involves the negative of giving him a swat if they if they need it, and if they require it.

 

Proverbs 10:13 says, "Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has understanding, but a rod is for the back of him who is devoid of understanding".

 

Proverbs 13:24, "He who spares his rod hates his son." I don't care what you think about corporate discipline. God says if you spare the rod, you hate your son, you hate your children; you are a failure. Period, over and out.

 

I don't care how many books you read on how to write rear children. If you're not reading The Book then you are failure as a parent, and you need to get focused on the word of God. That's what PAIDEIA means—training, education. The word admonition, NUTHESIA, has the idea of giving advice, reminding them of the truth, teaching them formally and informally, warning them about the dangers of going down different paths.

 

Deuteronomy gives a pattern. It's in the Law, but that doesn't mean it doesn't apply to Christians in the church age. God said: "These words which I command you today shall be in your heart"—in your mind and your thinking. That means parent, you need to so internalize the Word of God in your life so that you can creatively take care of teaching moments when they occur, and not go home and think, you know, I had an opportunity yesterday. Too late! This has got to be part of your training in your mind, because if you have a child your responsibility is to train that child to be it to be a believer, and to live a spiritual life and to pursues spiritual maturity. Your job is not just to make sure he's going to work out fine in this culture; that's a failure.

 

Deuteronomy 6:6 NASB ÒThese words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. [7] ÒYou shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." The word "diligently" in the Hebrew means to sharpen, to put a fine edge on them, to hold them—the things God teaches in His Word.   

 

"You shall talk of them (the things that God commands) when you sit in your house". You're sitting around in your kid says something. You say, well wait a minute. What does the Bible say about that?

 

I remember when I came home from school one day and I heard that the moon was created by some sort of explosion on the earth. My mother's said: "Well, let's sit down, talk about with what God says. Read Genesis 1." And I read Genesis one. "I guess they were wrong." That's how it works. You take advantage of those opportunities. And folks, if you not spending time with your kids you miss those opportunities. My mother was home all the time. When you get to parents working outside the home opportunities are missed. You cannot hire somebody to take your place when it comes to the these areas that happen. You will be a failure.

 

"You shall talk of them when you sit in your house when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you sit up." Now tell me any time in life that doesn't fit in sitting down, walking, lying down or rising up. That includes all your life. You take advantage of those teaching opportunities when you're when you're with your kids. But if you don't know the word of God where you can do it, then you can't do it.

 

Deuteronomy 6:8 NASB ÒYou shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead." That is metaphorical language. Your hand is what you do things with, so what you do is going to be controlled by the Word of God. And "frontlets between your eyes" is going to control what you look at and what you focus on.

 

What we have to do is to have godly parents is they have to spend time with their kids. They have to have family time. Mom and Dad need to sit down and set aside a regular time. Get up in the morning, just pray with the kids, teach them about the sin nature, teach them that you can obey God or not, you can obey your parents or not, you have volition, you have a yes but you have no button. And you need to teach them that from infancy; don't wait till you think they can understand; that's too late.

 

My mother said the first complete sentence I knew was, "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness". I learned that when I was two years old. Was I believer? No. See? Start training your kids. Don't wait until they become a believer, frontload their mind with the Word of God and Bible stories and biblical principles and memorizing verses, so when they hit God consciousness they are going to be like the daughter of a friend of mine who took her two-year-old with her two good news clubs week after week after week. And at the end of good news clubs, those of you who work with them, what is the last thing you do? You give the kids an invitation. So mother would give the kids an invitation. Often, do you want to believe in Jesus? She got in the car, her little was 2-1/2, and said Mommy, you always let the other kids believe in Jesus, can I believe in Jesus? Two and a half! She heard the gospel week in and week out from the time she was a just born infant. That's what we're supposed to do.

 

You say you don't know any Christians who do that. That's because Europe is hanging out with loser believers. The parents' job is to build good habits of thinking and priorities into the children from the get-go, not from when they think they're ready. From the very beginning that goes with manners, that goes with etiquette, that goes everything in life. We wait too long in our culture before we think kids are ready. We have already let their sin natures get real control. We are to worship as a family. That's part of it.

 

See the value here is on the focus on Jesus. Is Jesus what your life is about—occupation with Christ—, or is your life about making sure you can accomplish everything you want to accomplish in this life and, well, eternally will take care of itself. That's the issue. How you answer that determines whether you are positive or negative.

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