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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Sacrifice

David Wright

Life: The Final Goal of All Sacrifice

The Reproach of Those Closest

God Wants To Hear You Sing

Salvation: An Expensive Gift

Sacrifice: Leftovers or Copper Coins

Never Enough

Sin Spotters

Sacrifice Required

Sacrifice for the Gospel

Well, have you ever experienced road rage?

There was a particular time that I was leaving and I was headed for home, but I was in a hurry.

I think I must have had to come back later that night or something, and I take the back way out to Haywood, and over there by the Dollar General or Family Dollar, whichever it is, I don't know, there's several lanes and a light, and there was a big semi-truck pulled up in the center lane, and I thought he was turning left.

Well, I must have failed to see that he had his blinker on to turn right or something, I don't know, because the lane on the right side was empty, and so I took it.

And he was trying to keep it open, I think, to turn.

So I'm sitting there in my right lane, trying to see around this truck so that I can turn, and all of a sudden, this truck beside me starts to move, so I'll never be able to see, and it starts to come closer and closer and closer, and I just am waiting for it to push me completely off the road and into that big ravine right there.

And you never know what you're gonna do in those situations.

I can tell you what I did as I saw that truck just moving in on top of me.

And right before he was about to run into my truck, he stopped and the whole truck did this big jerk like this and I was kind of in a panic and I tried to pull out and get out of his way so that he could continue on, which he did and barreled down behind me on Haywood, right on my back bumper.

Having a hard time breathing, and I get to Rugby and Haywood, that cross road there, and there is a red light.

I'm thinking I don't need a red light I need green please turn green turn green nope it was red and I stop and the truck stops right behind me and this big guy, he must have been 8 foot, you know, 10 and a half, steps out of this truck and he marches over to my window which I maintained in the up position.

And he proceeded to tell me what he thought of me.

And then the light turned green and I kept telling him, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

And I continued on my way, trying to get the adrenaline to calm down.

In fact, the Madison University, James Madison University in Virginia, did a study also with the University of Toronto, it was a joint study, and they told us something I think that we already know, that we see others' faults before we see our own.

They say this in their little report, it says, when considering the irrational choices of a stranger, for instance, we are forced to rely on how they behave.

However, when assessing our own bad choices, we tend to engage in elaborate introspection.

We study our motivations and search for relevant reasons.

And then they talk about this road rage example as if when we're driving down the road and we see some crazy behavior, we have no context of what's going on, yet if it's something that we do, we rationalize.

We say things like, well, I'm late to a very important meeting, I don't often speed, this is a rarity, whatever, on and on and on.

And so we're easier on ourselves, but without the context, we're very hard on other people.

Have you found that to be the case in your own life?

If someone cuts you off in traffic, there's 1 simple, observable explanation.

Another study, New York Times Magazine reported this, only 17% say they are overly concerned about themselves.

This is talking about pride and all those types of things.

But 60% think that most people are overly concerned about themselves.

You have the problem, I don't have a problem.

And I'm real easy and quick to see and discern your problems, and depending, I might just tell you your problem.

And it usually starts like this, you know what your problem is?

And I'm at license to tell you the problem because I don't have any problems.

Pride, friends, can be a major blind spot if you haven't noticed.

Now perhaps there's been a time that you've been humbled, perhaps there's a time that you've been put in your place so to speak, something happened at work or wherever else and you are feeling very humble.

It's at those moments that you can see a little more clearly your own faults, your own flaws.

If you brought your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me.

In fact, this 1 story is found in all 4 Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

But we're going to turn and look at John's rendition of this story in John chapter 12, beginning in verse 1.

While you're turning there, of course, we can remember this verse, Proverbs 16, 18.

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Why do you suppose pride comes before I fall?

I was too busy, focused on the wrong thing, probably myself, or my accomplishments, or what I've done, and I don't see this very simple thing laid out for me, and I stumble and I fall.

So we're in John chapter 12, verses 1 through 80I skipped this whole section here.

Yes, we're going through talking about sacrifice and the different parts of sacrifice, but I'll spare you that.

Then 6 days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany.

Passover is on a Friday so this would most probably be a Saturday night.

Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was who had been dead.

Do you often times eat meals with people who had been dead?

This is what they were doing on this particular occasion.

You remember Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

Verse 2, there they made him a supper and Martha served, but Lazarus was 1 of those who sat at the table with him.

And if you look here at this picture, you'll see a little bit of the idea of the type of table.

Your feet were oftentimes very dirty, and so those were put as far away from the food as possible in some kind of a U-shaped type of a couch, if you will.

And so a servant could come in in the middle and serve the food, and then everybody would sit with their feet to the outside while they ate.

Verse 3, then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil." Now 1 thing I want us to look at here is that pride tends to look at self.

And we're going to see that here in just a moment.

Spikenard is a root of India, a plant that grows in the Himalayan mountains, and it's in the same family that we get valium from and so forth, but it was reserved for kings.

A very expensive and lavish fragrance with relaxing qualities.

And here we have, if any of you get any type of essential oils, you know how expensive they are for a few ounces, But here the text tells us that Mary took a whole, how much?

Pound of very costly, I would say so, oil of spikenard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

And the house was filled with the fragrance.

And so we'll continue on, verse 4, but 1 of his disciples and several of the other gospels, Mark and Matthew, talk about the disciples grumbling, but it's John that tells us, I believe, who starts the grumbling.

But 1 of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray him said, why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor.

And just to put it on the feet of somebody, we could have taken this and we could have sold it and we could have supported so much of it for the poor.

Other gospels talk about this as 300 denarii.

When's the last time you're going through the mall and you went through that fragrance shop that you can't miss, and you stop in there, oh, this is nice, I like this, how much?

Thousands of dollars, whatever your income is.

This is Judas's point, this is absurd, this is over the top, This is a waste of something that we could have used for the poor.

Now the text here makes it seem as if he's looking out for somebody else, but let's keep reading.

Verse 6, then he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a what?

A thief and had the money box and he used to take what was put in it.

So here Judas in his pride is looking down on somebody else for what they're doing and this beautiful act by the way, Because he thinks it should have gone into the treasury for the quotes poor, aka Judas.

Pride always looks out for number 1, for self.

Series

Sacrifice

Sin Spotters

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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