The Cost of Worship
Mark 14:1-11
Message #52
Does your worship cost you anything? It might seem like a new concept to you to talk about the cost of worship. What we most often think of as worship is when the “worship team” is playing and we are singing. And please hear me, I am at the front of the line of people who love that time on Sunday mornings.
But I need to tell you, what we do during the first thirty minutes of the Church service is a very narrow definition of worship.
Today, we’re going to look at a deeper level of worship and we’re going to ask the question “Does your worship cost you anything?” because today we look at worship that goes far beyond music and singing.
The day after the Triumphal Entry Jesus cleansed the Temple of the religious “money makers” for the second time and that’s when those religious leaders really stepped up their plans to kill Jesus – that was Mark Chapter 11.
Then, the parable of the Evil Farmers (which was directed at the religious leaders), started the barrage of attacks that we called the multi-round cage fight between Jesus and those religious leaders – Mark Chapter 12.
Then, as a kind of an “interlude” to all the madness, Jesus paused on the Mount of Olives to help us be ready for the end-times – Mark Chapter 13.
So, since the day after the Triumphal Entry, Jesus has been barraged with attacks that will ultimately end in his death. And right in the middle of all that hate and anger, Mark drops what may be the most beautiful act of worship in the New Testament.
In Chapter 14, Mark sandwiches this unparalleled act of worship between two pictures of evil. And even in the midst of this incredible worship experience, we see the sin nature of man.
What a perfect place to put on display the true cost of worship, while Jesus is absolutely surrounded by murder, deceit, and man’s sin nature. This is a perfect setting to ask ourselves, does your worship cost you anything?
Let’s first see the “evil sandwich” that this costly act of worship is set in the middle of. Look first at Mark 14:1-2.
Mark 14:1–2 (NLT)
1 It was now two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The leading priests and the teachers of religious law were still looking for an opportunity to capture Jesus secretly and KILL HIM.
2 “But not during the Passover celebration,” they agreed, “or the people may riot.”
So, on the top half of the sandwich, we have religious leaders plotting murder.
Then, look at the bottom of the sandwich.
Mark 14:10–11 (NLT)
10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests to arrange to betray Jesus to them.
11 They were delighted when they heard why he had come, and they promised to give him money. So he began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus.
On the top half – the murderous plat of the religious leaders. On the bottom half – the betrayal of one of Jesus’ own facilitating his murder.
And in the middle – what Jesus himself calls, “a beautiful act of worship.”
And in the middle of that whole thing, we see what the high cost of worship is.
So, after all the madness, and the anger, and the attacks, Jesus finally gets out of town. He crests the hill of the Mt. of Olives and arrives back at Bethany, his home away from home while in Jerusalem.
Jesus never stayed a night in Jerusalem until the night of the arrest. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. Jerusalem is the very center, the centrifuge, of all spiritual activity on this earth. (It really is.) And when you go there with us, you can feel it. Jesus would never stay there because for him it was the ultimate battleground. That was the battlefield where he would beat Satan, where he would beat sin and death and the grave. And so, he stayed outside until he couldn’t. And he stayed in Bethany.
This was the only place that Jesus could be comfortable while on the battlefield in Jerusalem. Bethany is where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived (his dear friends), and it’s where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus needed this night of refreshment with his friends because he knew full well what the next two days held. And so, we read back up in Mark 14:3a,
Mark 14:3(a) (NLT)
3 Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy . . .
The assumption is that Jesus had healed Simon of leprosy and he had now become the friend of Jesus.
The same event is recorded in both Matthew and John, although John places it on a different day of this same week. And John tells us Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were also at this dinner. So, Jesus is with his Disciples and his best friends in Bethany where Jesus stayed every night of his last week – except the night of his arrest – and tonight at Simon’s house everything was in place for an evening of friends, fellowship, and refreshment.
These meals, when Jesus comes here, it’s not sitting around a table like we view it. The chairs aren’t the chairs that we sit in, they’re cushions. And they don’t sit up all formal – in the Middle East, they recline. You actually lay down, on an elbow. So, this was an evening of friends, fellowship, and refreshment.
And then, something remarkable occurred.
Mark 14:3(b) (NLT)
3 . . . While he (Jesus) was eating, a woman (John says it was Mary) came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head.
John adds the house was filled with the incredible fragrance of this most costly perfume.
One commentator wrote the fragrance of the expensive perfume may have stayed with Jesus all the way to the cross.
And then, John 12:3 adds,
John 12:3 (NLT)
3 . . . and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair . . .
In that day, a woman’s hair was considered her glory, and so Mary was anointing the head of Jesus as her King, and giving him all her “glory” by wiping her feet with her hair.
This was an incredibly costly act of worship by Mary as she broke open and poured out on Jesus what was almost certainly the most valuable thing her family ever owned – in a phenomenal display of worship and sacrifice to Jesus two days before the cross.
And verse 3 says this occurred “while Jesus was eating” but the word is actually reclining because the meal was more of a long, relaxed conversation. It was a communion (a fellowship) of friends and each person would recline on cushions around a very low table (talking, eating, and being together).
And John says Mary brought in this beautiful alabaster jar of very expensive perfume which would have been imported from India. This was a marble jar with a long neck with a very small hole in the top that you would get just one drop of the perfume out of it. John describes the size of the bottle, and it was enough to last more than a lifetime.
And both John and Mark set the value of the perfume at one year’s wages, which even using minimum wage is $28,000. And every drop of it was poured out on Jesus in an extravagant act of worship.
Verse 3 says Mary had to break the neck of the bottle in order to pour out her offering of worship on Jesus. But – some would say – (and they will here in our text) – Mary, why pour out the entire offering? The bottle had a small hole at the top. Mary, you could have just put a dab on your finger and done the sign of the cross on Jesus’ forehead. That would have been enough, Mary. Then you could’ve put a dab on each foot and the fragrance would’ve been so nice and it wouldn’t have cost you so much, Mary. Mary, it’s not necessary to lavish all of your worship on Jesus. Nobody does that, Mary.
Mary, you don’t have to sacrifice it all to worship Jesus, why not balance it a little? Why not just pour out a few drops on Jesus then you can keep the rest for yourself? That would have been the prudent thing to do, Mary. Don’t be so extreme Mary, you don’t have to give it all to Jesus, do you?
And certainly, there were those more prudent people at the table, because Mark 14:4 says,
Mark 14:4 (NLT)
4 Some of those at the table were indignant . . .
The word for “indignant” means: to feel a violent physical irritation. Let’s read verse 4 again – with the definition of indignant inserted.
Mark 14:4-5 (NLT)
4 Some of those at the table [felt a violent physical irritation]. “Why WASTE such expensive perfume?” they asked.
5 “It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor!” So they scolded her HARSHLY.
Why waste such an expensive outpouring of worship? You know, something really productive could’ve been done with all that money? Mary, why did you waste all of that on Jesus?
And they were violently irritated at Mary’s extravagant, costly worship.
But the worst part is, those “violently irritated” and “scolding harshly” people were the Disciples of Jesus.
John makes it clear; it was Judas Iscariot leading this rebuke. But when Mark says at the end of verse 5, they scolded her harshly that puts at least some of the other Disciples in this group of harsh criticizers of Mary’s costly worship of Jesus.
So, how is Jesus going to respond?
Mark 14:6 (NLT)
6 But Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. (I like that part) Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me?
Both the ESV and NIV say, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.”
What some of the Disciples called a waste of worship Jesus called “a good and beautiful thing.”
And then Jesus expands on how he feels about this extravagantly costly act of worship.
Mark 14:7 (NLT)
7 You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me.
Jesus is not making light of helping the poor. There are well over a hundred verses in the Bible about our requirement to help the poor. That is NOT what THIS is about.
And so, then Jesus tells his Disciples (who should have known) what this is about.
Mark 14:8 (NLT)
8 She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time.
Jesus had told the Disciples over and over exactly how this week was going to end. They didn’t get it because they didn’t want to get it. But Mary got it, and she was doing something about it. Look again at the beginning of verse 8. She did what she could.
Mary knew that she had the opportunity – right then – to give all she had to Jesus in worship. And … she did.
Worship is an action. It is a verb. It is something that we do.
Mary did what she could with all that she had in an extravagant act of worship.
And Jesus promised his critical and tight-fisted Disciples that the value of Mary’s worship would last as long as the Word of God lasts… (which is forever).
Mark 14:9 (NLT)
9 I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.”
And we are remembering it and discussing it today.
And so, what about our worship? Should our worship cost us something?
Let’s look at a few “personal application” scriptures to close.
Let’s start with a similar act of extravagant worship. Just a few verses up from our verses today, in Mark 12:41, Jesus sat down in the Treasury to watch people worshipping with their money, and a poor widow came in and gave God all that she had. In an equally extravagant, costly act of worship, this poor widow put in two small coins equal to a penny, and Jesus gave her the same accolade as Mary – because “she gave all that she had – in worship.”
After a costly sin in King David’s life, he wanted to buy the threshing floor on Mt. Moriah in order to make offerings to God (ultimately, the Temple was built). And Arunah, who owned the land, offered to give it to King David. But in 2 Samuel 24:24 King David replied,
2 Samuel 24:24 (NLT)
24 “. . . I will not present . . . offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.”
Have we ever thought about the cost of our worship? Have we ever asked ourselves, does my worship cost me anything?
A sacrifice is something that costs us. It’s something given up in the worship of God.
But remember, God is not looking at the amount. God is looking at your heart. So, it’s not really a financial thing. It’s really a heart thing.
The widow’s two mites got the same response as Mary’s $28,000 perfume because they both gave their all in worship. They both did what they could.
Romans 12:1 (NLT)
1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies (all that you are) to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
What part of all that you are has been given as a sacrifice to worship God?
Some of you are thinking I’m talking about just money, and certainly, money is involved in many acts of worship in the Bible. But the bigger picture is this, it is very clear in all the Bible that worship is centered around an action of giving to God what would otherwise be valuable to us.
Worship is about giving up what we think is valuable in order to gain what is truly valuable.
R. Kent Hughes says (paraphrased):
Jesus wants something beautiful from us. Beautiful because it comes from our hearts and beautiful because it is done solely for his glory. Jesus wants us to put him before anything else. He wants us to do what we can. He wants every last drop of our devotion.
What will that level of worship cost you?
But I need to tell you, what we do during the first thirty minutes of the Church service is a very narrow definition of worship.
Today, we’re going to look at a deeper level of worship and we’re going to ask the question “Does your worship cost you anything?” because today we look at worship that goes far beyond music and singing.
The day after the Triumphal Entry Jesus cleansed the Temple of the religious “money makers” for the second time and that’s when those religious leaders really stepped up their plans to kill Jesus – that was Mark Chapter 11.
Then, the parable of the Evil Farmers (which was directed at the religious leaders), started the barrage of attacks that we called the multi-round cage fight between Jesus and those religious leaders – Mark Chapter 12.
Then, as a kind of an “interlude” to all the madness, Jesus paused on the Mount of Olives to help us be ready for the end-times – Mark Chapter 13.
So, since the day after the Triumphal Entry, Jesus has been barraged with attacks that will ultimately end in his death. And right in the middle of all that hate and anger, Mark drops what may be the most beautiful act of worship in the New Testament.
In Chapter 14, Mark sandwiches this unparalleled act of worship between two pictures of evil. And even in the midst of this incredible worship experience, we see the sin nature of man.
What a perfect place to put on display the true cost of worship, while Jesus is absolutely surrounded by murder, deceit, and man’s sin nature. This is a perfect setting to ask ourselves, does your worship cost you anything?
Let’s first see the “evil sandwich” that this costly act of worship is set in the middle of. Look first at Mark 14:1-2.
Mark 14:1–2 (NLT)
1 It was now two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The leading priests and the teachers of religious law were still looking for an opportunity to capture Jesus secretly and KILL HIM.
2 “But not during the Passover celebration,” they agreed, “or the people may riot.”
So, on the top half of the sandwich, we have religious leaders plotting murder.
Then, look at the bottom of the sandwich.
Mark 14:10–11 (NLT)
10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests to arrange to betray Jesus to them.
11 They were delighted when they heard why he had come, and they promised to give him money. So he began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus.
On the top half – the murderous plat of the religious leaders. On the bottom half – the betrayal of one of Jesus’ own facilitating his murder.
And in the middle – what Jesus himself calls, “a beautiful act of worship.”
And in the middle of that whole thing, we see what the high cost of worship is.
So, after all the madness, and the anger, and the attacks, Jesus finally gets out of town. He crests the hill of the Mt. of Olives and arrives back at Bethany, his home away from home while in Jerusalem.
Jesus never stayed a night in Jerusalem until the night of the arrest. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. Jerusalem is the very center, the centrifuge, of all spiritual activity on this earth. (It really is.) And when you go there with us, you can feel it. Jesus would never stay there because for him it was the ultimate battleground. That was the battlefield where he would beat Satan, where he would beat sin and death and the grave. And so, he stayed outside until he couldn’t. And he stayed in Bethany.
This was the only place that Jesus could be comfortable while on the battlefield in Jerusalem. Bethany is where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived (his dear friends), and it’s where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus needed this night of refreshment with his friends because he knew full well what the next two days held. And so, we read back up in Mark 14:3a,
Mark 14:3(a) (NLT)
3 Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy . . .
The assumption is that Jesus had healed Simon of leprosy and he had now become the friend of Jesus.
The same event is recorded in both Matthew and John, although John places it on a different day of this same week. And John tells us Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were also at this dinner. So, Jesus is with his Disciples and his best friends in Bethany where Jesus stayed every night of his last week – except the night of his arrest – and tonight at Simon’s house everything was in place for an evening of friends, fellowship, and refreshment.
These meals, when Jesus comes here, it’s not sitting around a table like we view it. The chairs aren’t the chairs that we sit in, they’re cushions. And they don’t sit up all formal – in the Middle East, they recline. You actually lay down, on an elbow. So, this was an evening of friends, fellowship, and refreshment.
And then, something remarkable occurred.
Mark 14:3(b) (NLT)
3 . . . While he (Jesus) was eating, a woman (John says it was Mary) came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head.
John adds the house was filled with the incredible fragrance of this most costly perfume.
One commentator wrote the fragrance of the expensive perfume may have stayed with Jesus all the way to the cross.
And then, John 12:3 adds,
John 12:3 (NLT)
3 . . . and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair . . .
In that day, a woman’s hair was considered her glory, and so Mary was anointing the head of Jesus as her King, and giving him all her “glory” by wiping her feet with her hair.
This was an incredibly costly act of worship by Mary as she broke open and poured out on Jesus what was almost certainly the most valuable thing her family ever owned – in a phenomenal display of worship and sacrifice to Jesus two days before the cross.
And verse 3 says this occurred “while Jesus was eating” but the word is actually reclining because the meal was more of a long, relaxed conversation. It was a communion (a fellowship) of friends and each person would recline on cushions around a very low table (talking, eating, and being together).
And John says Mary brought in this beautiful alabaster jar of very expensive perfume which would have been imported from India. This was a marble jar with a long neck with a very small hole in the top that you would get just one drop of the perfume out of it. John describes the size of the bottle, and it was enough to last more than a lifetime.
And both John and Mark set the value of the perfume at one year’s wages, which even using minimum wage is $28,000. And every drop of it was poured out on Jesus in an extravagant act of worship.
Verse 3 says Mary had to break the neck of the bottle in order to pour out her offering of worship on Jesus. But – some would say – (and they will here in our text) – Mary, why pour out the entire offering? The bottle had a small hole at the top. Mary, you could have just put a dab on your finger and done the sign of the cross on Jesus’ forehead. That would have been enough, Mary. Then you could’ve put a dab on each foot and the fragrance would’ve been so nice and it wouldn’t have cost you so much, Mary. Mary, it’s not necessary to lavish all of your worship on Jesus. Nobody does that, Mary.
Mary, you don’t have to sacrifice it all to worship Jesus, why not balance it a little? Why not just pour out a few drops on Jesus then you can keep the rest for yourself? That would have been the prudent thing to do, Mary. Don’t be so extreme Mary, you don’t have to give it all to Jesus, do you?
And certainly, there were those more prudent people at the table, because Mark 14:4 says,
Mark 14:4 (NLT)
4 Some of those at the table were indignant . . .
The word for “indignant” means: to feel a violent physical irritation. Let’s read verse 4 again – with the definition of indignant inserted.
Mark 14:4-5 (NLT)
4 Some of those at the table [felt a violent physical irritation]. “Why WASTE such expensive perfume?” they asked.
5 “It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor!” So they scolded her HARSHLY.
Why waste such an expensive outpouring of worship? You know, something really productive could’ve been done with all that money? Mary, why did you waste all of that on Jesus?
And they were violently irritated at Mary’s extravagant, costly worship.
But the worst part is, those “violently irritated” and “scolding harshly” people were the Disciples of Jesus.
John makes it clear; it was Judas Iscariot leading this rebuke. But when Mark says at the end of verse 5, they scolded her harshly that puts at least some of the other Disciples in this group of harsh criticizers of Mary’s costly worship of Jesus.
So, how is Jesus going to respond?
Mark 14:6 (NLT)
6 But Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. (I like that part) Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me?
Both the ESV and NIV say, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.”
What some of the Disciples called a waste of worship Jesus called “a good and beautiful thing.”
And then Jesus expands on how he feels about this extravagantly costly act of worship.
Mark 14:7 (NLT)
7 You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me.
Jesus is not making light of helping the poor. There are well over a hundred verses in the Bible about our requirement to help the poor. That is NOT what THIS is about.
And so, then Jesus tells his Disciples (who should have known) what this is about.
Mark 14:8 (NLT)
8 She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time.
Jesus had told the Disciples over and over exactly how this week was going to end. They didn’t get it because they didn’t want to get it. But Mary got it, and she was doing something about it. Look again at the beginning of verse 8. She did what she could.
Mary knew that she had the opportunity – right then – to give all she had to Jesus in worship. And … she did.
Worship is an action. It is a verb. It is something that we do.
Mary did what she could with all that she had in an extravagant act of worship.
And Jesus promised his critical and tight-fisted Disciples that the value of Mary’s worship would last as long as the Word of God lasts… (which is forever).
Mark 14:9 (NLT)
9 I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.”
And we are remembering it and discussing it today.
And so, what about our worship? Should our worship cost us something?
Let’s look at a few “personal application” scriptures to close.
Let’s start with a similar act of extravagant worship. Just a few verses up from our verses today, in Mark 12:41, Jesus sat down in the Treasury to watch people worshipping with their money, and a poor widow came in and gave God all that she had. In an equally extravagant, costly act of worship, this poor widow put in two small coins equal to a penny, and Jesus gave her the same accolade as Mary – because “she gave all that she had – in worship.”
After a costly sin in King David’s life, he wanted to buy the threshing floor on Mt. Moriah in order to make offerings to God (ultimately, the Temple was built). And Arunah, who owned the land, offered to give it to King David. But in 2 Samuel 24:24 King David replied,
2 Samuel 24:24 (NLT)
24 “. . . I will not present . . . offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.”
Have we ever thought about the cost of our worship? Have we ever asked ourselves, does my worship cost me anything?
A sacrifice is something that costs us. It’s something given up in the worship of God.
But remember, God is not looking at the amount. God is looking at your heart. So, it’s not really a financial thing. It’s really a heart thing.
The widow’s two mites got the same response as Mary’s $28,000 perfume because they both gave their all in worship. They both did what they could.
Romans 12:1 (NLT)
1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies (all that you are) to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
What part of all that you are has been given as a sacrifice to worship God?
Some of you are thinking I’m talking about just money, and certainly, money is involved in many acts of worship in the Bible. But the bigger picture is this, it is very clear in all the Bible that worship is centered around an action of giving to God what would otherwise be valuable to us.
Worship is about giving up what we think is valuable in order to gain what is truly valuable.
R. Kent Hughes says (paraphrased):
Jesus wants something beautiful from us. Beautiful because it comes from our hearts and beautiful because it is done solely for his glory. Jesus wants us to put him before anything else. He wants us to do what we can. He wants every last drop of our devotion.
What will that level of worship cost you?