Mark 14:1-21 - Charity Gone Wrong and God's Provision

Well, welcome to another week of Tabernacle Talk. Hope that you're having a good day so far.

And if it's a early morning for you, then I am happy to be with you. I don't know if it's bright and early, or if it's dark and early. I know some people, they're getting up at 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, and it's not quite bright yet.

So thank you for joining us today. For others of you that are doing this at night, it might actually be still light out, so bright and late to you. We are in Mark chapter 14 today, and we are in the very, very last week of Jesus' life.

And last episode, we walked through Mark 13, seeing how Jesus interacted with talking with his disciples about the last days and what was important for them to know and what was important for them to do because of Jesus' return again one day.

Mark 14 in verse number 1 starts off like this. It was two days before the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a cunning way to arrest Jesus and kill him.

Not during the festival, they said, so that there won't be a riot among the people. Here they knew they couldn't do it during the middle of the day. Everyone would be upset.

They needed a secret way. And I think of Jesus' words to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 where he said that men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. And this is how this was happening.

There can sometimes be a little bit of an overstatement that some people make and they say, if you wouldn't do it in front of, you know, Jesus, if you wouldn't do it in front of your dad, then you shouldn't do it.

And frankly, sometimes well-intentioned, but there is a kernel of truth there that would say, if we are seeking to hide our actions, to hide things that we're doing either from others, from those that would maybe be in authority or spiritual

authority over us, if we're doing things that are kind of underhanded, that should be a very clear indication to us that we are not on the good path. And that should have been the clue for these chief priests and scribes that they'd go, hmm, well, if

the people would riot if we did this, if we have to do this in a sneaky way in order to make it happen, maybe it's not a right thing to do. Verse number three, while Jesus was in Bethany, which is nearby to Jerusalem, a city, while he was in Bethany

at the house of Simon the Leper, as he was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar, a very expensive perfume of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured it on his head. But some were expressing indignation to one another.

Why has this perfume been wasted? For this perfume might have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor. And they began to scold her.

Okay, let's all take a step back. What in the world is happening? So Jesus is here.

It's just a couple days before Passover. He's with this man, Simon, who it would appear from reading the text. He had healed him from leprosy.

And so he was enjoying time there. And this woman comes with a very expensive perfume. She breaks the box and pours out the oil on his head.

Here she is anointing him. She is proclaiming him as worthy of ultimate value. As they scold her for, this perfume was worth about a year's wages worth of work.

And they have the disciples, the people around her have a lot of, oh, what in the world is going on? Why did you do this?

If you look at some of the other Gospels, it mentions Judas or one of the Pharisees being some of the ones that kind of chimed in at this. And it can seem like a waste to give of ourselves to the Lord.

It can seem like a waste to the world around us to give to a church or to give to the needy or to give so that others can have even if it costs you. But Jesus views sacrifice in a much different way. And we can see this in verse number six.

Jesus replied, Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a noble thing for me.

You always have the poor with you, and you can do what is good for them whenever you want. But you do not always have me. She has done what she could.

She has anointed my body in advance for burial. Truly, I tell you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her. Here, Jesus views what's done as valuable.

What he says is that it is noble. And here, he gives us a very important statement, I think, as it relates to our finances. Not everything that is good to do is always the best thing to do in a given moment.

Here, Jesus says to the objection that she could have sold this and we could have helped out the poor, like, for days and days and days and days and days. This was over a year's worth of wages, so why couldn't we have done this good thing with it?

And here, Christ lets them know there's an order of importance in what you do. And God is obviously ultimately most important. And here, that's what Jesus is saying, is that what we do for God takes preeminence.

Perhaps if maybe you were a person and you love charity, you love being able to help out the poor, you love being able to make it so that those that do not have clothing have clothing, you're able to make it so that those that don't have food have

food, all those types of things, that would be a wonderful, amazing thing to do. But I would encourage you, if your love for charity supersedes your love for God, it needs to be reordered.

Okay, even as I say that, I know there will probably be some people that recoil a little bit and go, what? Here's what Jesus is saying. He's saying God takes preeminence.

If your charity work makes it so that you can never join with other believers, then it is damaging to your soul. It's damaging to those that are supposed to be in the same church body as you, but never see you.

It's an encouragement to them that, oh, I can leave just like so-and-so, and I don't have to be with God's people. I don't have to assemble with God's church. None of that, like it's not really important.

Look how much good so-and-so is doing in charity. That might be one way in which life needs to be reordered so that we place importance, we place priority on what God values.

Hebrews chapter 10 verses 24 and 25 says this, do not, oh, and let us remember to stir up, to provoke one another to love and to good works.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, like some people are in the habit of doing, but meeting more and more as you see the day approaching. God values his church. Ephesians 5 says that the church is the bride of Christ.

Jesus died for the church. He gave himself for it. 1 Peter chapter 2 would tell us that we are the chosen people.

We are a holy nation so that we would be set apart for the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. We ought to have an importance on what God puts importance on.

Perhaps if we give so much to charity that we never give to God's work, we never give to gospel proclamation, we never give for the benefit of those that are in need in our own church bodies, if we never give so that churches might be planted or

missionaries might be able to stay on the field, we ought to have a reordering of our giving. Why would I say that? Is it just because I just want like a bigger, better something for a tabernacle? No, not at all.

Frankly, it's one of the weirdest things of knowing, okay, here's what God's word says, so I'm going to tell you all what God's word says, but I'm also involved with what God is doing, so it makes it weird. But I'll just say this.

I know that we have some people from a variety of countries.

We have some people from other portions of the state of Maryland that listen to this, and I'm talking to them right now, that God does not have human charity or governmental charity as like your top priority. That's not God's plan A.

The church is God's plan A.

All of the other things that we're able to do to help out with the needy, everything that we're able to do to help with perhaps medical research and care for people who are undergoing diseases and cancers, all of that is amazing and valuable and

wonderful. But do we place an importance on God's plan A, which is His church? Do we work to help the church be able to go forward? So, Jesus here says, she has done what she could.

She has anointed my body beforehand for burial. Normally, after a person was dead, then you would anoint their body with different oils and things so that they would not stink. There would be decomposition and all those things that would happen.

And so the anointing would be able to stave off some of that until all of the different funeral elements were done. And Jesus says she has done a good work. And wherever the Gospel is preached, what she's done is going to be preached about also.

Which I think is an amazing prophecy that 2,000 years later, I'm still telling you about this woman who loved God so much that it didn't matter when people were deriding her.

It didn't matter that people, Jesus' disciples and Pharisees and all sorts of people were scolding her. It didn't matter because she was worshiping the Lord and placing an importance on him, and that was what mattered most.

Verse number 10, Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. And when they heard this, they were glad and promised to give him money. So he started looking for a good opportunity to betray him.

Man, as we would read about in some of the other Gospels, John actually takes a little moment out of his narrative, I think it's in John 6 or 7, to specifically tell us that Judas was a thief and that he was the one that had the money back.

And as Jesus and all of his disciples, as they would travel around, you would obviously need at times to buy bread, to do all these different things. And Judas was the one that they had entrusted to take care of the funds.

And here, Judas, after seeing how Jesus interacts with this person, that quote unquote, wastes over a year's worth of money, he goes straight to the chief priests and they promise him money.

And man, what a curse, greed and covetousness is in our life. How many times, perhaps, have we, because of an opportunity for money, neglected to love the Lord?

There have been people that have completely poured themselves into business and finance to the detriment of their souls, that people that once said that they were part of a local assembly of believers, that their schedule just got so busy with work

and even some other people. And I'm not talking about, perhaps, if you're in maybe an extenuating circumstance where you're in a job where your schedule is not your decision, it's not your choice, and so you are unable to perhaps make it on a Sunday.

That's not the type of thing I'm specifically talking about right now. But those that voluntarily could choose, I'm going to join with God's people, or I'm going to do this thing to try and make money for myself.

Those people that choose money over the Lord. I think of what Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 6. He says, but those who will be rich, those who pursue riches, fall into temptation and a trap and into the condemnation of the devil.

And I also think of what he says at the very, very end of 1 Timothy 6, where he says, charge those that are rich in this world, that they do not be arrogant or set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God who richly provides us with all

things to enjoy. Instruct them, the rich, to do what is good and to be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share, storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the coming age.

So that they may take hold of what is truly life. Let's not be like Judas, the greedy, the covetous.

Let us be like this woman who gives it all, that she gives it all to the Lord, that there is still a generosity to be had for others as well, as Paul instructed Timothy to tell the rich people in his church there in Ephesus. Let's not be hoarders.

Let us be generous with everything that God has given us. And let us value God above finances. Let's value people above finances.

Here Judas valuing finances above the life of Jesus, and valuing, as we would look at some of the other gospel accounts, valuing money and finances over loving other people. Verse number 12.

On the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples asked him, Where do you want us to go and prepare the Passover so that you may eat it?

So he sent two of his disciples and told them, Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him.

Wherever he enters, tell the owner of the house, the teacher says, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.

So the disciples went out, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. Here I just find it so amazing. Jesus knows the details before any of us do.

What a comfort when there are times when we are scared, when we don't know, God, what are my next steps here as with the disciples? Where do you want us to go and prepare the Passover so that we can eat it? And Jesus says, I've already got a room.

I've already got it furnished. It's already ready. Go there.

And there is where you will make the preparations. That Jesus isn't taken aback by any circumstance in our life so we can trust him and we can ask him to show us what he already knows. I think of James 1 and verse 5.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask from God who gives to everyone generously, and he does not upbraid you. He's not going to deride you for not having the wisdom.

All we need to do when we don't know what life is going to bring, when we don't know the steps that we need to take, we need to turn to the Lord.

I think of Psalm 37 that says, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way. Though he falls, he will not be utterly cast down because the Lord upholds him with his hand.

Then, in closing today, verse 17, when evening came, he arrived with the twelve. While they were reclining and eating, Jesus said, Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.

They began to be distressed and to say to him one by one, Surely not I. So here all of the twelve, they're going by and saying, Not me, Jesus, right? I'm not going to be the one to betray you.

He said to them, It is one of the twelve, the one who is dipping bread in the bowl with me. For the son of man will go just as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed.

It would have been better for him if he had not been born. Here, Jesus, knowing what Judas was going to do, he doesn't even bring like this condemnation against him. He just knows what Judas is going to do.

He doesn't tell the disciples to capture Judas and stop him. Jesus was not the victim of any other person. At any moment, Jesus could have said, Nope, I'm done with this.

This is not how I want it to go, and it would have happened.

You could look at the rest of the Gospel accounts of times when people wanted to stone him, times when people wanted to throw him off of a cliff, and they couldn't because Jesus, as God, he is all-powerful.

Jesus is not the victim of humanity or of God the Father. He chose everything that happened so that we could be reconciled to God. He is not our victim.

He is our Savior. And yes, it came at incredible cost to him. It came at the cost of being betrayed, not just by Judas, though certainly by Judas, but by the rest of his disciples abandoning him.

It came through his own people rejecting him. It came through the nations of Rome and of Israel and their rulers delivering him over to be crucified.

And yet, with all the sin of the world on his back, with all of our guilt and our shame placed on him, Hebrews 12 would tell us that he endured the cross and despised the shame for the joy that was set in front of him.

And now he sat on the right hand of the throne of God on high. What an incredible Savior. We're going to pick up in that last night, that Thursday night into Friday morning next time.

Thank you for joining along with this journey. This is kind of an interesting episode, even as we see some of these things.

It's the shock and the affront of the Gospel that there is all of human wickedness, of greed, of betrayal, of self-centeredness, of ridicule and scorn of others.

It's all wrapped up in here, but we see Jesus' heart in it, that He has a love and a care. He values those that place importance on Him and on people. He has a love and a care, even for those that will betray Him.

He is one that looks out for our every need, knows ahead what path we need to go down. Will you turn to Him in faith today? Will you thank Him?

Will you ask Him for wisdom? Will you turn from your own greed or covetousness or perhaps ill-ordered life or generosity? And will you say, Jesus, whatever you want from me, that's what I'm going to do.

Thanks for tuning in. See you tomorrow.