Easy Christianity

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Transcript:

Matthew chapter 26. I want to, how’s this first segue? I want to look at a time where somebody took care of Jesus.

I want to talk to you this morning about easy Christianity and how it’s represented by this story of a woman who tried to take care of Jesus and those who objected to her trying to take care of Jesus. And what we can learn from it, I mean, there’s the obvious interpretation, but we can also learn some things from this story and from the disciples’ response to it. Now, a lot of times it was the disciples doing what they were supposed to, and the Pharisees complaining, and Jesus having to straighten them out.

But sometimes, regular people would do the right thing, as far as Jesus was concerned, and the disciples would complain, and Jesus would have to straighten them out. And we need to remember this, because we can all, whether we’re in the group of the Pharisees, whether we’re in the group of the disciples, we can all get so wrapped up in our own ideas about what God wants that are really our ideas and not based on scripture, that we begin to criticize others and what they’re doing. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are times that things that other people need to do, excuse me, there are times when it’s okay to criticize what other people are doing.

There are times when people are doing things that are flat out unbiblical, okay? But the point I’m trying to make so inadequately is that we can all get wrapped up in our own mind, our own perception, our own rules, and we can see something that somebody else is doing and say, well, that’s not the way I would do it, so they’re doing it wrong. And we wrap ourselves up in an easy Christianity that works for us, what makes us comfortable, what we feel like we can do, and that’s the only way it works.

Now we’re going to read this story, and I want you to keep in mind that what this woman is doing is not just a gesture. The point I’m trying to make only makes sense if you remember that what she’s doing is an act of worship. Worship is not, and I know I’ve talked about this here before, but it’s been almost a year ago probably, so I don’t blame you if you don’t remember everything I said a year ago.

I don’t remember everything I said yesterday. But worship is not just something that takes place on Sundays between 11 and noon and 5 and 6. Worship is not just singing.

Worship is not just the song service of the quote-unquote worship service. If we think worship is just when we come in and sing songs before the message twice a week, then we’re not doing worship right. Worship is a lifestyle.

Worship is the way we relate to God. Worship is a life lived in submission to God and what he wants and doing whatever we can to be obedient to what he’s asked us to do. And anytime we praise him, again, praise is not just something that happens at church.

Praise is foretelling, I should say, telling the world and telling God how great he is and how good he is. When we live our lives doing that, when we live our lives telling the world how great God is and how good he is, and we spend our lives in submission to him and trying to be obedient to him and trying to live for him, that is worship. And so it says in Matthew chapter 26, verse 6, now when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment and poured it on his head as he sat at meat.

Now this is kind of a strange scenario for a couple of reasons. First of all, he’s at the home of Simon the leper. Now, leprosy is not something that we deal with a whole lot in our society.

Thank goodness. Leprosy, we mainly hear about leprosy on news reports of third world countries or Bible stories. That’s about our experience with leprosy.

But leprosy was a terrible disease. We think the flu is ravaging our little corner of the world. The flu has got nothing on leprosy.

Ebola, as terrifying as that was a few months ago, and that’s probably still a real threat to us today, but as terrifying as that was a couple of months ago, the ability to spread it was so difficult that it didn’t pose as big a threat as we were all worried it did. Because it was, I mean, you can spread it if you’re trying, but the incubation period is so long and all that. All these diseases that we look at and they’re terrifying, I think, have nothing on leprosy.

You could touch someone and catch leprosy. There was no known cure for leprosy. And it would attack the skin and you could lose fingers, you could lose a nose.

I mean, it’s horrifying. I don’t even want to describe it anymore because it’s just awful. And so they would make people live outside town.

They would have to go before them as they’re walking through and ring a bell saying, Unclean, unclean, unclean. So that people would know, clear away, the leper’s coming. You don’t want to accidentally touch him and catch what he has.

So we’ve got Simon the leper. And I would think if you had something like that, even if you were miraculously healed somehow, I would think some people would still be leery of you. You know, sort of like, you know, the nurses who caught Ebola while they were tending to people here.

I think, at least the two I’m thinking of in Dallas survived. They got better. And apparently they’re no longer infected with Ebola.

I don’t know that I want to go over to their house for supper. I mean, even though I know in my mind scientifically it may be okay, there’s still a leeryness there. So I don’t know if Simon still had leprosy at this point or not.

But he had had it at one point, if not still, to the point that he’s identified by that. He’s called Simon the leper. And far from running from him, far from avoiding him, Jesus is going to his house for dinner.

You know what? We serve an incredible Savior, do we not? Now, he could heal him.

He could heal him of his leprosy. And perhaps he did. It may even say that.

Forgive me. I may have read that at some point and just don’t remember. He could heal him, and perhaps he did.

But he’s going to his house when a lot of other people would have been leery, and he’s having dinner with him when a lot of people would have turned that invitation down. And that reminds me that we not only serve a Savior who is capable of taking care of the man’s illness, of healing his disease, but we also serve a Savior who cares about bringing hope to those who have it least and need it most in our world. Because there are those in our world who may not have leprosy, but the world looks at them and says they’re untouchable.

We don’t want to deal with them. We don’t want to talk to them. We don’t want to mess with them.

We don’t want to minister to them. And you know what? I’m guilty of that sometimes myself.

I think we probably all are. And yet Jesus would even sit down and have dinner with a leper because he came to bring hope to those who had it least and needed it most. And so while he was in the middle of dinner, it says, As he sat at meat, there came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment. Now this was a very big deal that she had this.

It’s expensive. I mean, it says it’s very precious ointment. And in the notes that I’ve seen on this passage, it says that when it refers to an alabaster box, that a lot of times in that day and age, they would call alabaster, or that what they would call alabaster was marble.

Marble’s pretty expensive. And to have a box carved of marble, full of this precious, the Bible says, expensive ointment. And this was a pretty costly thing to her.

And the Bible says she came and poured it on his head while he was at dinner. Now to you and me, that would be where the fight started. Just dumped ointment all over me while I’m eating.

Of course, they lived in a different world. I’ve heard these explanations of ointment or oil and the anointing of the head, and I think it has something to do with the climate being so dry that you wouldn’t mind that kind of thing. It would sort of be like my kids and I have eczema, and it’s really bad during the winter, and it’s just itchy on your legs.

And yet you get some aloe or some of the lotions that have oatmeal, and you put them on there, and it’s just, oh, thank goodness, some relief, at least temporarily. And that’s sort of how I envisioned this, when they would anoint each other with oil as a sign of hospitality in the ancient Middle East. This pouring the ointment on him was not making a mess. It’s not throwing a drink in his face or pouring Gatorade over his head.

It was not to make a mess. It was a mark of hospitality. It was a mark of caring.

And to do something like this and use this expensive resource that you had was clearly, to me, an act of love toward Jesus. It was an expression of love. I believe it was an act of worship.

But it says in verse 8, but when his disciples saw it, they had indignation. They had indignation. They sat there in their smugness and said, well, that’s not the way I would have done things.

Saying, to what purpose is this waste? You just wasted it. She poured it on Jesus.

If we can’t use our resources for Jesus, what can we use them for? What are they there for? To what purpose is this waste?

For this ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor. Now what they’re saying is not bad. There’s nothing wrong with selling what you’ve got and giving it to the poor.

But sometimes we let good pursuits get in the way of what’s best at the time. I have a friend from the church in Arkansas, an older man who used to always pull me aside and remind me. I think he would have been happy if I’d gotten up for the message, said this phrase, and sat back down.

I just had a message that long. Because he would always tell me, at least once a month, you know, the whole point of your message is that the good is the enemy of the best. And he’s exactly right. Sometimes our good pursuits get in the way of what’s the best pursuit.

You know, the things that get in the way of our service to God are not always bad things. It’s not always drinking and gambling and sleeping around that prevent people from serving God the way he’s called them to. Sometimes what prevents us from serving God the way he’s called us to are the good pursuits, the busy things that are not bad.

We’re taking care of this. We’re being responsible over here. I can’t do that.

I’ve got to take care of this job. And we let the good be the enemy of the best. So they said, why did she waste all that ointment? She could have sold it and given the money to the poor.

When Jesus understood it, verse 10, he said unto them, why trouble ye the woman? for she has wrought a good work upon me. Why are you bothering her?

She’s done something good here to me. She’s done something good for me. Very interesting verse here in verse 11.

For ye have the poor always with you but me ye have not always. Ye have the poor always with you. And that not only tells me that this idea that some people and some churches have that well we’ll just build the kingdom here on earth and we’ll make this perfect Christian utopia and then Christ will come back is not going to work.

Because we’re always going to have poverty. We’re always going to have poor people. There are always going to be things wrong because we live in a sinful, fallen world.

There are going to be difficulties and struggles that we cannot overcome. I know it sounds more hopeful to say we shall overcome, but you know what? There are some things we can’t overcome until Christ returns.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t stop. I mean, that doesn’t mean that we stop trying to help people. It just means we can’t hold our breath and assume that we’re going to create the kingdom of God on earth.

But ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always. He’s reminding them here again that he’s not going to be around with them forever in this physical sense where he’s walked around with them for these three years. We’re getting close on to the crucifixion because in just a few minutes after, well, we’re not going to look at it today.

We’re going to end in verse 13. And in verse 14, we see where Judas begins to plot to betray him. And after that, it’s the Last Supper.

Okay, we’re getting very close to the end of his, did I say reign earlier? To the end of his ministry. His reign has no end.

His ministry came to an end. And he’s reminding them again that, hey, I’m not going to be with you in this current situation forever. They had ample reminder throughout his ministry, which makes it all the more puzzling to me they were so surprised when he was taken and arrested and tried and killed because he told them.

And yet I probably would have been in the same boat with them, not understanding if I’d been there among them. I’m not always going to be around. So serve me while you can.

Now, in the sense that he is now, he’s always around, but we’re not always going to be around. So serve him while you can. The problems of life are always going to be there.

The problems of this world are always going to be there, but we have a limited amount of time to be able to serve him as we’re called to. So you know what? Let tomorrow worry about itself.

I’m not saying be irresponsible. I’m not saying don’t plan for the future, but as far as worrying and getting caught up in things, let tomorrow worry about itself. We have today to serve God.

This sounds familiar. This was my whole chapel message on Wednesday. Not this passage, but that part we have today to serve God.

For in that she had poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Again, here’s where we’re headed. We’re headed to my burial. Wait, you only need to be buried after you die. That should be a clue.

He said, as much as she poured this on me, she did it for my burial. They didn’t want to hear that. That was not the Messiah they were looking for. They were looking for their, for their King, that not only the disciples, the Jewish people were looking for their earthly king who was going to kick the Romans out and set up a perfect kingdom there on earth.

That’s not what Jesus came to do that first time around. She did it for my burial. Not the Messiah they were looking for. That was not the answer they wanted to hear at that moment.

Who wants to be on the side of the guy that got killed? I mean, we all, I mean, we like a winner. That’s human nature.

You mark my words. Whoever wins tonight in this game, Whoever wins tonight, their t-shirt sales are going to go through the roof tomorrow. Everybody’s going to be a fan of whichever team wins.

Everybody’s going to be on the bandwagon. Same thing happens in baseball. Same thing happens in the World Series.

Same thing happens in politics. Whoever looks like they’re winning, whoever looks like they’re ahead, that’s who a lot of people want to flock to and support. We like to side with a winner.

Who wants to side with the guy who’s about to get himself crucified? That is not the answer they wanted to hear in that moment. But he said, she did it for my burial. And he says in verse 13, Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her.

And I love pointing this out. Another Bible prophecy that’s true because we still preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and we’re still talking about this incident 2,000 years later. It’s still talked about as a memorial to her and what she did.

But as I mentioned earlier, keep in mind that what she did was an act of worship. She did it out of love for her Savior. Anything that we do in His name and for Him and out of love for Him is worship.

Worship is not a single act. It’s not a single part of our day. It should be our lifestyle.

And she was just in the very best way she knew how to do, with what resources she had. She was committing them to Jesus. And in an act of love, she did.

Did she understand the whole burial and resurrection thing at this point? Did she know he was going to die? I don’t know what she knew.

I don’t know if she traveled around with them. And so she heard the same teaching the disciples did and she got it. I don’t know.

What I do know is that she clearly loved Jesus. She clearly loved Jesus. And isn’t that the way we’re supposed to be anyway?

You know what? I don’t know how all of this. I don’t know how everything works out.

The more I study the scriptures and the more things I learn, I realize more and more how many things I don’t know. And I think I’ve told you before, this is not a cop-out answer. I remember when I went to Fayetteville in view of a call, and they were asking me doctrinal questions, and they came around to the end time stuff.

And some of you may disagree with me on this. This is fine. I told them, I said, this is not a cop-out answer.

I promise. I’m not just trying to be funny. I said, as far as I understand it, I said, I’m pre-trib and pre-millennial. That’s just, as far as I understand it, I said, but ultimately, I’m pro-millennial. And I said, what do you mean by that?

I said, whatever God is going to do, I’m in favor of. I realize I don’t understand everything about the end times. When it comes to how all of this is going to, God, what’s going to happen here?

I have more questions than I do answers. But what I do know is that Jesus is coming back again. And whatever he’s going to do, I just trust that it’s the right thing and I’m in favor of it.

And I don’t say that at all as a cop-out answer because I don’t want to answer your question. That’s just really where I am. And you know, there are quite a few things like that.

I mean, there are some things that are settled in my mind, absolutely. Salvation is only through Jesus Christ and his shed blood, by grace, through faith, without works. I mean, there are some things the Bible is abundantly clear on.

And yet there are a lot of other areas where I say, Okay, I accept this is what the Bible teaches, but there’s still stuff I don’t understand. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I think back during the summer, I taught several messages on, here are things I don’t understand.

It’s always exciting to come into church and the preacher starts off the message with, I have no idea what I’m talking about, but there you go. There’s a lot I don’t understand. And yet we’re supposed to accept things as a child.

That doesn’t mean we switch our brains off. That doesn’t mean we accept things that are obviously false, but that means I don’t have to know everything because I know my father’s got it under control. I don’t have to know everything about how this plays out or why he does what he does.

I just accept it. Now, did she know all the reasons she was anointing Jesus? I don’t know.

Maybe she did. Probably she didn’t, if I had to guess. But I don’t know.

But bottom line, something insider told her it was the right thing to do, and she did it, whether she understood or not. and it was an act of worship. Sometimes we’re called on to worship God in ways that don’t make sense to us.

I’m not talking about swinging from the light fixtures and making up languages. I’m just saying sometimes if we look at worship as a lifestyle, sometimes he’s going to call us to do things that don’t make sense and yet we do it out of love for him and out of submission to him and that’s worship. And the world’s going to look at that and criticize it.

Some within the church are going to look at it and criticize it that’s okay. I mean, from our standpoint, it’s okay. We need to continue to do things that are hard.

We need to continue to do things that don’t make sense. We need to continue to do what God’s called us to do, whether it’s easy or hard. It’s easy, if I can say this this way and make sense, it’s easy to get caught up into an idea of easy Christianity, where everything has to fit in my box and everything has to make sense to me and I have to know why I’m doing this and you can only do the things that that I think are right forget what God said if it doesn’t look right to me obviously God didn’t tell you that and a lot of times I think in America we’re caught up in an easy Christianity that is supposed to be smooth sailing all the time God never asked us to do anything inconvenient or that costs us anything or that makes people look at us and go, okay, so that just happened.

Three things that I see, three things in this passage where I see the disciples took the easy road where I think she did not and that I think we need to be mindful of and try to follow her example. First of all, it’s easier to disparage than to do. In our Christian life, it is easier.

In our Christian service, it is easier to disparage than to do. What I mean by that is it’s easier to sit around and pick apart what somebody else is doing than to get up and do something ourselves. I heard a conversation years ago between two men who were talking about different methods of evangelism.

Now that’ll cause trouble in your church real fast. Different methods of evangelism. And there was one man who went out and knocked doors. One man who went out and knocked doors.

And I’ll just be honest with you. I look for opportunities all the time to share the gospel. Going up and knocking on the door of somebody I’ve never met before is not really in my comfort zone.

Does that make me a bad pastor for admitting that? Maybe. I have done it and will continue to do it as the Lord leads, but it’s not my most comfortable thing.

You know, there are other ways that work for me. And I think God’s wired each of us differently. And there are some people who can just, hey, I’ve never met you before, but you need Jesus.

Some people have the personality to get by with that. Some of us have to take a more subtle approach. And I think God’s wired all of us differently.

And I think we all need to work the way he calls us to. but there was a man in the church who went out and knocked doors you know what not my comfort zone but that’s fine and another man was criticizing the way he did it I don’t remember what it was about maybe he didn’t take tracks with him maybe he did take tracks I don’t know something like that criticized him and he said you know I like the way I evangelize better than the way you don’t evangelize that’s a good point the problem wasn’t that that man knocked doors and that man didn’t, I mean, he could have talked to people at work. He could have talked to people on the bus.

He could have talked to his neighbors. I mean, there was something he could do. But the fact was he was not doing anything while criticizing the way this man went out and knocked doors.

It’s a whole lot easier to sit around and criticize the way somebody else is doing something for God than get up and do something for God ourselves. And where were they in ministering to Jesus? It’s not to say they had never done anything to serve him, but where were they in this moment when it came to ministering to Jesus?

Sounds to me like they were sitting around complaining, and during this period of time, not in this passage, but during this period of time, arguing about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom, and all the while criticizing this woman for the way she served him. She dumped the ointment on him to anoint him for his burial, whether she knew it or not. And they said, why did you do that?

You wasted all of that. You could have sold it and given it to the poor. That would make more sense.

Well, what were they doing in that moment to serve Jesus? What were they doing in that moment to take care of the poor? Other than criticizing what she was doing.

You know what? Even though I’m in their shoes a lot, I like what she was doing better than what they were not doing. And when I start to get self-righteous and critical, I have to remind myself, Yeah, they’re not doing it the way I would do it.

But I like what they’re doing better than what I’m not doing. That’s not to say any method goes. Make sure it’s faithful to the scriptures.

But within those bounds, it’s easier to disparage than to do. We need to avoid the easy road. Second of all, it’s easier to work than to worship.

It’s easier to work than to worship. This is a hard one to talk about because in a lot of churches in America, people are doing neither. But the fact is, could we submit our whole lives to him, strive to serve him every day, spend time with him, have life-changing encounters with him through his word and through prayer?

We could do that. It takes a lot of investment of time and energy and takes a whole lot of giving up control of our lives. Or we could serve him by doing stuff.

That seems a lot easier. And I say this realizing my own tendency for this. We can get so caught up in our church work that we forget about the worship.

Now again, a lot of people are doing neither. I don’t mean here, but I just mean out there. In the whole of America, in the churches, a lot of people are doing neither, the work or the worship.

But folks, we can’t let the work become a substitute for our worship. It’s easy to let the work we do, the stuff we do, become a substitute for a relationship with God. Let’s not think we’re close to God.

And I’m not picking on you. This is just the first thing that comes to mind. Let’s not think we’re close to God because I do the bulletin every week.

I’m doing something to serve Him. And I’m glad you do that. And I know you don’t think that way.

But, well, I don’t have to work on my relationship with God. I’ll turn the finger on me now. I don’t have to work on my relationship with God because I’m the pastor.

I get up and I serve him every Sunday by preaching the word. If I’m not careful, that can become work instead of worship. It can become another task I perform that I check off as I go through my week.

Okay, good. Got the sermon done. We’re good to go.

What’s the next thing? Oh, take out the trash. The sermon, the preaching of the word, can just be a task on the list between cleaning up the kitchen and taking out the trash.

I had a student teacher in my class on Thursday. And as she was getting ready to leave, she said, well, do you have any other advice for me other than what we’ve already talked about? I thought about it for a minute.

I’ve not been doing this this long either. I’m not that far ahead of you. I told her several times, I’m not an expert.

I’m just a few months ahead of you myself. But after I thought about it for a minute, I told her, and being Christian school, I can say things like this. I said, you’ve got to remember that what you’re doing is a ministry, teaching here.

And you know what, that’s true for a Christian teacher even if you’re in the public school as well. I just probably couldn’t get by with saying it in the public school. I said, you’ve got to remember that what you’re doing is a ministry, because if you start looking at it like a job, it will kill you.

you’ll wake up every morning I don’t want to go there I hate them and they hate me not really but there are some days it might feel like that the things we do for the Lord we have got to remember who we do them for what purpose we’re doing them for because otherwise we can let our religious good works become an end unto themselves and we can use them as a substitute for worship he reminded them you always have the poor with you. You will always have work to do, but me, you only have a limited amount of time with in his physical form being there. Now, the same thing applies to us, just in reverse, because he’s with us always, not in physical form, but he said, lo, I’m with you always, even under the end of the world.

He’s always with us, but we have a limited amount of time here. Are we going to get to the end of it and say, gee, I wish I had vacuumed the carpet at church more? Or are we going to say, I wish I’d spent more time getting to know him.

Gee, I wish I’d done more of this or that. I wish I’d studied the scriptures more. I wish I’d spent more time telling people about Jesus.

I wish I’d spent more time just focusing on him and being in love with Jesus. It’s easier to work than to worship. Work just costs us a little bit of our time and effort.

Worship costs us our whole life. We need to avoid the easy way out there. Third of all, and finally, it’s easier to enjoy than to endure.

Now there should be something joyful and enjoyable about our Christian life and about our Christian service. There are times, and I think probably Brother Shank would back me up on this, there are times in pastoring where it’s not fun, where it’s no fun at all. And you think, okay, Monday morning I’m going to go find myself another job.

But you don’t because God’s called you into it. Now that doesn’t happen all the time, but there are days like that. just like any of the rest of you at any other job to use that word, if we can use that word, I don’t like this, I don’t want to do this anymore.

There are times where it’s not always enjoyable. But if we are never enjoying the things that we’re doing for God, something’s wrong. Something’s wrong with our heart.

If we look at every bit of work that he gives us to do as a drudgery, there’s something wrong and it’s probably not the job, it’s probably the heart. So I want to make that very clear that I’m not saying the Christian life should just be like the Bataan death march. Well, it’s just something to get over and Christ will come back for us eventually.

In the meantime, we’ve just got to keep a stiff upper lip. There should be joy in our Christian life. I want to make that very clear before I get to the next point.

It’s easier to enjoy than to endure. There are people who are in Christianity for the fringe benefits, who are more interested in the joys than with suffering with Christ. And believe me, we can do both at the same time. We can both suffer for Christ and at the same time have joy in our hearts while we go through it.

We can go through some of the greatest, strongest tests of our faith and still have a peace and joy in Jesus Christ. We can do that. And if you’ve never experienced it, let me just reassure you that it’s true. But the Bible spends time warning about those who were just in it for the short term and for the easy return.

And those who when times got tough and persecution came, would step away and say, no, not part of them. I believe it’s the Apostle John who said, if they went out from us, they never were part of us. Because if they were with us,