One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Joey was staring up at the large plaque that hung in the foyer of the church. It was covered with names, and small American flags were mounted on either side of it. The seven-year-old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the boy and said quietly, “Good morning Joey.”
“Good morning Pastor,” replied the young man, still focused on the plaque. “Pastor Smith, what is this?” Joey asked.
“Well, son, it’s a memorial to all the men and women who have died in the service.” Soberly, they stood together, staring at the large plaque.
Little Joey’s voice was barely audible when he asked, “Which one, the morning or the evening service?”
1. Memorable choices
John 12:1-3a
Luke 10: 38 Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.
Luk 10:39 And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word.
Luk 10:40 But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.
Luk 10:41 And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
Luk 10:42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Taylor brother
In Yorkshire, England, during the early 1800s, two sons were born to a family named Taylor. The older one set out to make a name for himself by entering Parliament and gaining public prestige. But the younger son chose to give his life to Christ. He later recalled, “Well do I remember, as in unreserved consecration I put myself, my life, my friends, my all, upon the altar. I felt I was in the presence of God, entering into covenant with the Almighty.” With that commitment, Hudson Taylor turned his face toward China and obscurity. As a result, he is known and honored on every continent as a faithful missionary and the founder of the China Inland Mission (now known as Overseas Missionary Fellowship). For the other son, however, there is no lasting monument. When you look in the encyclopedia to see what the other son has done, you find these words, “the brother of Hudson Taylor.” “. . . he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:17).
II. Memorable Acts
A. Mary anointed the Lord with costly ointment
B. Judas betrayed the Lord for a few pieces of silver.
Mark 14:3; John 12:3 vs. Matt. 26:14
III. Memorable Motives
Mary the Memorialist vs. Judas the Materialist The world cannot understand loving sacrifice.
Motives Matter (Contrast in Motives)
Why did Mary do what she did? John 12:1
Why did Judas say what he did? John 12:6; Matt. 26:15
Judas said it but others thought it. It is a prevalent attitude.
(A contrast between Mary and Judas; Mary loved Jesus, Judas loved money)
John 12:1, 2. Lazarus is mentioned twice along with the fact that he had been dead. People who truly love the Lord will gladly break a box worth a years wages and anoint the Lords head and feet and wipe His feet with her hair.
She was criticized but she was defended. Jesus said, “She hath done what she could”
I thought I would help you know what you can do. So I started thinking. Smith’s could lend a car to a poorer church member.
Do you see what I was doing? I was helping someone else decide what they should do. This is exactly what the disciples did. It is much easier to be like those that are indignant at Mary for not doing it the way we would. We could help lottery winners spend their money too couldn’t we? Which wouldn’t be much unless I love Jesus.
At Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78, George Washington and his troops were in utterly desperate straits. He appealed to the governor of Pennsylvania for help. Jacob DeHaven was a staunch believer in the revolutionary cause and lived near Valley Forge. Hearing of Washington’s appeal, he loaned him $50,000 in gold and $400,000 in supplies.
The army survived the winter, but after the war DeHaven was never repaid. Now his descendants are trying to collect. They claim that the loan, compounded at 6 percent interest daily, amounts to $141.6 billion.
In one sense, all the money in the world could never repay DeHaven for what he did. In reality, he saved the cause of freedom for all America.
Jesus:
He gave His all, His life, His blood,
That we redeemed might be;
Oh, what can we give in exchange
For love so rich, so free? — Anon
Mary’s life was characterized by what she had gotten from Jesus.
Judas— “What will ye give me, and I will deliver him. . .” Money was his motivation for everything (Matthew 26:10-16).
Erle Stanley Gardner tells about his early days as a writer of Western stories:
“When a writer is writing at three cents a word, he is painfully conscious of the number of words. In fact, when I was typing my own stories. I had an adding machine device connected to the space bar of my typewriter, so that every time I hit the space bar it registered a figure on my word counter.
“Without my realizing it, my heroes developed a habit of missing the first five shots, only to connect with the last bullet in the gun. At one time an editor took me to task for this. How did it happen that my characters, who were chain lightning with a gun, were so inaccurate with the first five shots?” I told the editor frankly ‘At three cents a word, every time I say bang in the story I get three cents. If you think I’m going to have a gun battle over while my hero has got 15 cents’ worth of unexploded ammunition in the cylinder of his gun, you’re mistaken.’”
—The Atlantic Monthly
Judas loved money. John 12:4-6 & Matt. 26:14-16. Instead of, what do I have to give Jesus? His attitude is what can I get for Jesus. This event triggered his betrayal. Some are real close to that attitude when the only reason they want God is for what they think He is obligated to give them.
What a contrast: Mary who was a giver and Judas who was a taker. Mary the memorialist and Judas the materialist.
Look at his attitude in John 12:6. Does this remind you of politicians who are constantly passing tax increases for the poor and the children. Do the anti-smoking zealots care about the children or about the 500 billion tax increase that they put in the national treasury bag to spend as they wish.
Look at his attitude about Mary in Mark 14:4, “Why was this waste of ointment made?” Matt. 26:8 “To what purpose is this waste?” Unsaved people truly consider any money or time given to God is a waste. But worse than what Judas and the world think. Notice in Matthew 26:8 the disciples (Plural) were the ones expressing the same attitude as Judas.
Is it a waste to serve God? Is it a waste of money to give to God? I think the answer is found in your heart? Do you want to honor God? Do you love God? Or is money your real God?
It is interesting that the word translated “waste” in Mark 14:4 is translated “perdition” in John 17:12 and applied to Judas! Judas criticized Mary for “wasting money,” but he wasted his entire life!
“What a Waste,” People Said (Dick Bohrer)
Bill Borden was throwing his young life away. At least that is what many people thought. At 25, he had everything a man could want – and more. He was good-looking, single, popular, well-educated, successful. And he was wealthy. By today’s values he was worth $40 million.
But what he did in 1912 astonished everyone.
He gave his fortune away.
“Sheer waste,” people said.
With that much money he could have bought himself a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. He could have put together a stockmarket and real estate portfolio that would have made him one of the wealthiest men in the nation.
He chose instead in sail for the mission field in China.
Five months later, in Cairo, Egypt, he died.
“Total waste,” people said.
In 1904 William Borden, heir to the Borden Dairy Estate, graduated from a Chicago high school a millionaire. His parents gave him a trip around the world with Walter Erdman, a young Princeton Seminary graduate, as chaperone. Traveling through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe gave Borden a burden for the world’s hurting people. In July of 1905 they reached London and discovered that Bill’s pastor from Moody Church, R.A. Torrey was just concluding five months of meetings. At one meeting Torrey gave an invitation to those who had never publicly indicated that they had surrendered all to Christ. Bill stood up with several others and later wrote home, “We sang the chorus: ‘I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.’
When he made his decision, he wrote in the back of his Bible two words: No Reserves.
What he did in 1912 astonished everyone. At 25 he was good-looking, single, popular, well-educated, successful. And he was wealthy. By today’s values, he was worth $40 million. But in 1912 he gave his fortune away. “Sheer waste,” people said. His mother wondered if he had done the right thing in giving up everything he owned:
“In the quiet of my room that night, worn and weary and sad, I fell asleep asking myself again and again, ‘Is it, after all, worthwhile?’
“And in the morning, as I awoke to consciousness, a still small voice was speaking in my heart, answering the question with these words: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. . . .’” The thought strengthened her for that day—his departure day. He entered two more words in his Bible: No Retreats.
Borden sailed for China to work with Muslims, (He had heard missionary statesman, Samuel Zwemer, describe the sweep of Moslem influence and control throughout both the Near and the Far East. He said those 70 million people were not lost because they had proved too fanatical or because they refused to listen, but because “none of us has ever had the courage to go to those lands and win them to Jesus Christ.”) stopping first at Egypt for some preparation. While there he was stricken with cerebral meningitis and died within a month. A waste you say! Not in God’s plan. In his Bible underneath the words No Reserves and No Retreats, he had written the words No Regrets.
An editorial in a Richmond Va. Paper said, “His investment has borne rich returns already and will continue to yield its peculiar fruit. There are thousands of talented and favored young men who will, in the light of Borden’s conception of investment values, come to a new view of Christian service.”
Another editor wrote, “It was not the million dollars that came to this young American which made his life a victory and his death a world-wide call to young men and women to learn the secret of that victory.
“It was in things that every man can share that William Borden found the way to the life which is Christ and the death which is gain. And China and the Moslems world shall yet share that gain, as his burning torch is used to kindle in other lives the fires of a like passion for Jesus Christ.”
No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets.
Waste? Was it?
When five missionaries were martyred by the Aucas in Ecuador, some newspapers and magazines considered the tragedy to be a great waste of life. While it did bring sorrow and grief to friends and loved ones, subsequent events proved that their deaths were not “waste” either for them or for the world. The words of Jim Eliot were true: “He is no fool to give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose,”
Let follow through. What Mary did with money became a world wide memorial to her. What Judas did with money became a world wide unmemorial to him. You can’t take it with you right? So what happened to his money? Matt. 27:7 “. . . to bury strangers in.” Is that the opposite of a world wide memorial. So what is a waste?
What will ye give me? Everything is calculated by what we will get
What do I have to give worthy of Him? Calculated by what we got and have. One attitude is grateful one is greedy
IV. Memorable Timing
Contrast in Timing (Others remembered Jesus but it didn’t have the same meaning) Mark 14:8 vs. Mark 16:1.
Timing is the key to her memorial, Mark 14:8
When you combine all three accounts, you learn that Mary anointed both His head and His feet. It was an act of pure love on her part, for she knew her Lord was about to endure suffering and death. Because she sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to Him speak, she knew what He was going to do. It is significant that Mary of Bethany was not one of the women who went to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus (Mark 16:1).
In a sense, Mary was showing her devotion to Jesus before it was too late. She was “giving the roses” while He was yet alive, and not bringing them to the funeral! Her act of love and worship was public, spontaneous, sacrificial, lavish, personal, and unembarrassed. Jesus called it “a good work” and both commended her and defended her.
For it to be remembered the timing must be right.
. . . Now, with people crossing the ocean in hours, we’ve forgotten the thrill of what Lindbergh really did in a highly fallible, one-lung light plane. It just isn’t done. . . even today. . . crossing oceans non-stop in a single-engine aircraft. But even after Lindy, many have dreamed of reliving his triumph, his accomplishment. Now let me tell you about Clarence. Clarence Chamberlin. He, too, was fascinated with the idea of crossing the Atlantic solo.
And some might say that with the Lone Eagle to show the way. . . that after Lindbergh proved it could be done, the flight would be an easy one.
But that wasn’t the case. Pilot Clarence Chamberlin must have admired Lucky Lindy. The plane Chamberlin chose was so similar. The engine, almost identical.
Perhaps, in the same way modern-day Olympians take pride in besting past records set, Clarence would go one up on Lindbergh: He’d take off from New York all right.., but he wouldn’t stop till he got to Berlin.
There was a good deal of excitement connected with his flight plan. Movie rights were already being discussed long before Chamberlin ever left the ground. There was even a discussion as to whether Clarence himself was right for the adventure, because he wasn’t the “motion picture type.”
Before long, a millionaire named Levine put up the money, a designer named Bellanca drew up the plans, and an aircraft called the Columbia was ready to skim the Atlantic.
Chamberlin got his first good-weather map on Friday afternoon, June 3, but a last-minute check was still running and he wouldn’t take off till Saturday morning.
There were thirteen 5-gallon tins of gasoline aboard, each to be emptied into the main tank as the flight progressed and then thrown into the sea.
Keeping the weight down was important, but other necessities included a pistol for firing distress signals, a rubber lifeboat, a flashlight, two vacuum bottles filled respectively with chicken soup and coffee, ten chicken sandwiches, a half dozen oranges, two canteens of water, some army emergency rations, some chewing gum, and extra flight clothes for use at night over the North Atlantic.
Chamberlin worked on his plane in the hangar until 1:30 Saturday morning. He was back in his hotel-room bed at 2:00. . . left a wake-up call for 3:30. . . didn’t sleep. Had he forgotten anything? Would the good weather hold for the morning? How might Lindbergh have felt, he wondered, just hours before his daring flight?
At any rate, a few minutes after 6:00 A.M. Clarence was up and on his way to reliving history. And he made it. . . across the Atlantic. . . past Paris. . . and on to Berlin. . . to better Lindbergh’s record.
That you’ve probably not heard of Clarence Chamberlin can be attributed to the fact that his feat had been previously accomplished. That does not diminish what he did. It was still daring, still dangerous. . . and especially when you consider one other factor.
Had Clarence Chamberlin been first he’d have been famous. But he wasn’t first.
His name. . . and the nostalgic flight he took. . . received comparatively little attention only because another pilot, Slim Lindbergh, had made a lesser flight. . .
Just fourteen days before.
—Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story, page 130-132
The applications:
1. Dave Deford, If you want to do something for God do it now. Do it in your lifetime. The work in heaven may be done by the angels. Serve God now.
2. If you have something to say to a loved one, say it before they are sick. Talk to people before you need something.
What Mary did before the Lord’s death.
“she anointed Jesus aforehand
Judas is remembered in a bad light because of what he did afterward.
Matthew 26:13-16
12 For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.
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.
14 ¶ Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests,
15 And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
16 And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.
A monument to a man’s leg was erected on the Saratoga battlefield in honor of Benedict Arnold, one-time hero of the Continental Army but who later tried to betray West Point and then fled to England.
Because Arnold was instrumental in winning the crucial battle of Saratoga where his left leg was wounded. General Depeyster had the monument erected at his own expense. The rest of the betrayer’s body and his face were not to be commemorated!
The inscription beside the boot nowhere carries the name of Benedict Arnold. It reads:
“In memory of the most brilliant soldier of the Continental Army, who was desperately wounded on this spot. . . 7th October, 1777, winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution, and for himself the rank of major general.”
timing afterward, great things can be erased by bad acts.
I. Memorable Choices
II. Memorable Acts
III. Memorable Motives
IV. Memorable Timing
