All four Gospels record the extravagant and costly Service of Mary to Jesus when she anointed his feet with costly ointment for His upcoming burial. It was by her a prophetic act. Jesus insists that the story is to be heard everywhere the Gospel message is given. Genuine Christian service flows from a heart transformed by Jesus Christ. While many churches emphasise activity and programmes, true discipleship begins with sitting at the Lord’s feet and learning from Him, as Mary did. Her costly offering of perfume presents a powerful pattern – she served extravagantly because she loved deeply, having experienced Christ’s life-changing power in His raising her brother Lazarus from the grave. The Lord desires this same depth of relationship with all His followers, where service springs naturally from a heart of gratitude and love. Theologically, we should always keep the Gospel together with the call that discipleship makes for us to serve. The Gospel works both to turn people into disciples and to motivate their service.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Now let me just say that a book that I’m planning to write, or I’ve been writing it for some time, is maybe a theme that’s something that I’ve learned from the Lord and from the scriptures, which is somewhat revolutionary compared to the teaching that you find in a lot of theological colleges and seminaries. And it has to do with discipleship, and the heading of the book is to do with the missing application of the gospel, because I believe the scriptures teach that discipleship is done when we teach the gospel at depth. It’s not something other than the evangelistic imperative to get out the gospel. It’s rather a part of what it means in the very meaning of the word make disciples, which doesn’t mean, as the King James Bible thought, to teach people.

[00:00:54] And the common mistake that used to be made was to say that evangelism is to get them converted and discipleship is to get them to live it out or be strong. Now it’s not what the meaning of the word in the original language to make disciples means other than to gospelize them. And that’s the reason why our four gospels are ones that are not shallow and nor are they just small, but evangelism that just gets a small content over and gets you to sign the dotted line isn’t truly what is example by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Anyway, I’ll go on more about that when I eventually finish the book and you get a chance to look at it. I’ve been teaching this anyway for a number of years and I keep on meeting up with people

[00:01:47] who used to be my students at the college. And at a recent time, at one of the assemblies, there was a group of people there and a woman who sat next to me didn’t remember that she had been one of my students and so she talked to me as a fellow tender at the assembly about how she was a pastor and was going to be giving a sermon this Sunday. And then I had a chance to speak and she realized who I was and she then said, I’m actually going to give some of your lecture notes for the sermon, so I felt flattered by the fact that someone remembered them and was still gospelizing as a mechanism to get people to become disciples. Tonight, I want us to look at a passage in the scriptures which indeed speak in a way

[00:02:39] that some people think my thesis is denying. They think that I’m saying just keep on harping on the gospel and it all happens. I think the truth is that discipleship does involve there being something that we do. It does involve the fact that there can come into your life a call of God to be serving him in some place. And indeed it’s something that shouldn’t be made separate from the gospel but should always be kept alongside the gospel proclamation. Now Jesus had a way to make sure that that should happen and the way that he chose is in the storyline that we’re looking tonight. As we go, I’m going to take you through four Bible passages and while I’m doing it be asking yourself why did Jesus pick on these four passages, what did Jim pick on these four

[00:03:30] passages about how Jesus spoke, in order to prove his point, there’s a very obvious thing that will suddenly go boing, you’ll realise why those four necessarily are there making the point that I’m making tonight. So we’ll start in Matthew, and in Matthew’s Gospel as you see it up on the screen, Chapter 26, is about Jesus going to the house in Bethany, which once was led by Simon the leper. By the way, it’s not certain, but interpreters of the scriptures assume that Simon the leper, when he was alive, probably was the leader of the house where Martha, Mary and Lazarus were people present. We’re not sure who’s who but there’s the people of the house. That’s not necessarily the case but it’s the common assumption a lot of the commentaries make. So Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper and a woman, came to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment,

[00:04:33] and she poured it on his head as he reclined at the table. Reclining at the table was that your leg stuck out behind you because the table was down at the floor level, a little bit up above it, so you couldn’t put your feet under it but your feet draggled back and you leant on one side like so, and that’s how things were back then. Not always, but that is most likely the case. She poured it on his head as he reclined at the table. And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant saying, Why this waste? Why this waste? Here’s my first point for the night. For this could have been sold for a large amount of money and given to the poor. But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, Why do you trouble a woman? For she’s done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have with you the poor, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment

[00:05:33] on my body, she has done for me to prepare it for burial. Truly I say to you that wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she’s done will also be told in memory of her. Most immediately, Jesus is commending what Mary has done and making sure that it goes down on the annals. But a secondary motive I’m sure that he also has is that he’s tying the service of Mary to the gospel proclamation. Because by saying wherever this gospel is preached, what this woman’s done is going to be told. I’ve said that the four places that I’m taking you through tonight will sort of prove my point. Because one’s in Matthew, one’s in Mark, one’s in Luke, and one’s in John. I don’t know whether you get the point. But they’re the four gospels. And this, indeed, this happening is recorded in all four because Jesus is the one that said it, that the gospel will be tied to this example of Mary in her discipleship,

[00:06:39] in her service for the Lord. When we preachers make up sermons, sometimes we make up titles. I’m told at home because Michelle’s an expert at communication and teaches in English about how to give a good speech. She often tells me that I fail to do a few things. And one of them is to have a good title. The only trouble is for tonight I’ve thought up four titles and they’re appropriate. And one of them I could say, this is about the beautiful service of Mary. Because discipleship involves your service. And God wants us to learn as Christians not only to be on the receiving end, the recipients of what Jesus has done for you, but there’s a part to play where you get to be the people who serve Jesus. It happens when, as we get further sanctified, that things move in our lives by His Spirit. We end up serving because He leads His Christian people that way. And service is a part of what it is to serve back to Jesus because of how He

[00:07:49] served you. And surely that is how… I’m very weary by the way, so every now and then I might cry a bit in the sermon, but don’t take any notice of the crying. But this story really comes home to me. What did Mary have to be so thankful to Jesus? And if you haven’t already spotted it, you will see that it’s because it was only a short time that Jesus came to that same home when her brother had died and Jesus raised him from the dead. And he is actually sitting there. We’ll see that in some of the other gospels. In this time when dinner is had, made by the family, probably the father is missing. I don’t know for sure, but the leprosy might have got him. But anyway, there’s at least Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And Mary has every reason to be thankful to Jesus because He raised her brother from the dead. He’d been a common visitor in that house and she was known and it’s recorded how she would spend

[00:09:08] her time listening to His teaching. And by her listening to His teaching and examining someone that’s taking on the gospel from the lips of Jesus, she also now examples such as giving a magnificent service in return. And that’s why you could call this passage the beautiful service of Mary. Well, let’s go to the next passage which is in Mark and chapter 26 verses 6 to 10, I think. Mark and chapter… Have I got this right? No, sorry. That’s the wrong one. It’s Mark 14. And is that what you’ve got? See, you’re doing better than me. Thank you, Andrew, Matthew. I keep calling him Andrew, I don’t know why, but his real name’s Matthew. Anyway, in this particular passage it’s the same event, but as I said, the four gospels all include this one thing that Mary did because Jesus said that the record of service goes with the proclamation of the gospel as well. The two

[00:10:22] are connected. While there was a Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining a table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure naad. We’re learning a few more details, very costly. She broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii. Now that’s almost a whole year’s wages for a servant person in their times. And they saw what Mary did as waste. You know, you can pick the difference in styles of Christianity by what they think is important, so where to spend your money. I know the old English. We get a lot from the British people in terms of a good method of constituting a country, by the way. I’m not advertising or saying that I disrespect the inheritance we have politically from England. But in their church life,

[00:11:32] Church of England has been good in some times and not in others. But in their church life, one of the features that you found is that when you had a family, and go back a few decades and families usually were bigger than what they are today, but you’d find if there are a number of sons, if the son was really capable, the community believed you shouldn’t let them do anything other than go into politics or business. They were not quite so exceptional, probably a suggestion of going into the armed forces and serving a country would be suggested. But if they were pretty poor material, the suggestion would be he could go into the church. And if you had someone really capable, but they went into the church, the general attitude was it was a waste. If you’ve got the talent, you’d better spend it somewhere important and uplifting and taking a person further than just into the church. That still is an attitude to some people. If you tell them,

[00:12:38] I know, if you get on a plane and someone next to you asks what you do, you get differing responses depending on when you tell them that you’re a preacher. But some of them think if you were a more capable person, then you’d probably find something better to do. And I often hear that coming out of the conversations, that they think that I’m a waste of talent, and they sometimes get cheeky enough to ask about your qualifications, and I’ve got a few qualifications, and when they find out I see it in their demeanor, they think I’m wasting myself of being a preacher. I think it is one of the signs of poverty-stricken Christianity that we look at serving the Lord as something that’s a bit of a waste of time, or a waste of your talents. Do it if you know there’s nothing else you can do, you might as well serve the church. But if you look at times where God has mightily moved in a nation, whether it be overseas or in good times, even in Australia,

[00:13:45] where there are people who volunteer to serve the Lord, the reverse is often the case. It happened in England, I could have chosen many different examples, but because I like cricket, and I had a grandfather who played cricket for South Australia, and I’m still boasting about, but because I like cricket, the story of C.T. Studd in England is a beautiful one. He happened to have come from a very wealthy family, so then eventually the inheritance came to him, it was 7.5 million that he had to dispense. He also was such a good athlete, he was one of the English cricketers who was quite famous. He had a history of being in normal type of religions, but something happened, him and two brothers, the three of them, had a minister tell them off, because they didn’t really have much of a commitment to Jesus. Apparently he succeeded, and the whole three got converted and became Christians.

[00:14:48] That was when he was 18, C.T. Studd. When he turned 25, he had volunteered to be a missionary to China. In fact, he joined a group of Cambridge seven men who agreed to join with Hudson Taylor to win the Chinese people to Christ. They went to the Chinese inland mission, where eventually he died at the age of 70, having served out his time not being a cricket hero, not spending all of his billions, but he was there serving, winning Chinese people to Christ. C.T. Studd, and his example is one of the great things that happened that put the missionary movement on the calendar from many Christian people, who saw that it’s not a waste, just give your life to serving the Lord. I could give you other examples, and there’s heaps of them to give, but it’s an amazing thing how people think that service is something you do with your spare time, or something you do in order to fulfill some religious commitment that

[00:16:06] you know should be had by people going to church. But service actually is something that comes from the impress of Christ in the heart. This morning my message was one where there not only is the fact of Jesus’ death, the efficiency of his blood that’s important to bring to us forgiveness of sins, but also there is in our salvation the provision over what is the principle of sin, the dynamic of sin that we all struggle with. And the answer to that is one to be available where you have actual sins to bring them in confession to Christ if we confess our sins. He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not only the sin’s plural, but the sin in its principle is answered, and the Apostle Paul taught this in many of his spots, his letters that we have in the New Testament, for me to live is Christ. And the answer to the sin question, and it’s the teaching of the middle of the book of Romans, is in the person of Jesus and your trust in him as a

[00:17:16] person. Not just that he died for you, because that secured your forgiveness, but that he lives for you. And there is something that happens to a lot of people that makes them truly disciples, is when they seek, having become a Christian, to add a little bit of service because they’re able so to do, and then they find a bit of a flop. Or they seek to walk the Christian life, but things don’t work out. And I had someone just last week, no this week passed, telling me of how they had come to the Lord and were walking with him. And then something didn’t work out, and they got so disappointed that for several years, they walked away from the Lord, and they’d come back. I’ve met that again and again in West Australia. There was an occasion of a girl who had a terrific witness in her church, and I had a crusade in this church, was told about her, and I could see that she was someone that was really serving the Lord

[00:18:20] now. But she went through a time, because she had a boyfriend that he was planning on hoping to marry, but he had two girlfriends. And one of them was a bad girlfriend. She was a good girlfriend. When she found out he’d been sleeping with the other one, she got so disillusioned and so hurt that she stopped walking with the Lord and had a time away from him. And that can happen to people who are unawares of the fact that we need Jesus to help us to recover for when something’s gone wrong and we’ve been disillusioned. And Mary is a person who took her discipleship through to the place where she gave it all to Jesus. And that is why if you work your way through the book of Romans, though it is the gospel outlined very visibly at the beginning, it goes through the middle, the struggle with sin, singular.

[00:19:21] Remember I said the forgiveness of sins is the first part of the gospel. But overcoming sin, singular, the dynamic in your life, because we don’t get over that till we get to glory, it’s through the person of Jesus. And when you find you can’t, the apostle Paul had to come to a place of desperation and then he discovered the answer, Thanks be to God through the Lord Jesus Christ he goes on to say. Because there is a part of our salvation that comes from Jesus in his person. Just as much as a part of our salvation, his completion of dying for all our sins on the cross. But for Jesus to deal with the sin nature that we still struggle with, particularly in the flesh. And if you have a culture that pushes you into the flesh, all the time is even worse and our culture’s going a bit that way. but the flesh has sin involved that’s an ally of the devil to get you away from serving Christ.

[00:20:24] But the answer is Jesus. And so the book of Romans finishes with that beautiful part in the end about I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him, which is a reasonable service that you’ll do. And that service is a part of what discipleship is about. And the reason why I believe that this beautiful example of Mary is here in the scriptures is because this example is that service is a part of the discipleship that comes as a consequence of following, if you like, the book of Romans all the way through. So give it all to Jesus. And it’s when we come to the place of saying to him, Lord, I can’t do it. I’ve tried hard enough. I’ve got nothing left to try. Jesus, you better do it or it won’t happen. And when you cast your awe on Jesus and trust in you, it is amazing what the Lord brings about. The third Bible verse I want to look at

[00:21:29] should be in Luke. Is that what I’ve got given to you? It is good. We’re reading just the four occasions in the Gospels where this story of Mary and the alabaster-flast-avoidment is told. And it’s because Jesus said everywhere the Gospels preached, then this will be told for her. Now I was thinking of her in the first instance, a memorial to her. But I think he had in mind also not to ever let our service get separated from what he has done for you. How you serve him is very much related to how much you realize what he has done for you. Your service is linked, you do for him because of what he’s done for you. Isn’t that what Mary was doing? Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered the village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had her part to play and she had a sister called Mary. I’ve always pictured Martha is more in control. Maybe Simon has died and

[00:22:37] Martha is the one who’s calling the shots. If ever you took Michelle out of our scene, Heidi would always have been the person who was telling the rest of the kids what to do. Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. And what we learn here is that the discipleship with Jesus works best when you give yourself the opportunity to lap up his teaching. I’ve made it a bit of a thing to do, going around to different places to study and several different institutions to listen in to what the people that I see whose lives show this diversion to serve, to hear what was the thing that got them serving. I met an Italian fellow, a fellow student. He was older than me. He was actually over 30. I used to think that was old. I don’t anymore. But this fellow and he was there

[00:23:39] learning at Wheaton grad school. So I got him talking and he said that he divided his life up into certain sections. He got the idea from some famous businessman and he said the first so many years, I think it was 30 or something, he was going to give it to learning. The next 30 he was going to give it to learning service, finding somewhere to serve, and the final bit to, you know, capitalist off to make the service right. He had it worked out his whole life, was going to be to prepare to be able to serve the Lord. And by going to the Wheaton Grad School, he really learned about the scriptures and about the gospel. It’s a fantastic, it was when I was there, in place, probably he still is, but I was just speaking for a little time back. It was somewhere where they loved the Word of God and they had the actual training in what was

[00:24:32] called the Billy Graham Building, because the Graham Institution had given them this big building and the whole floor was the grad school. I loved the place because the lecturers all were of different styles and some of them different church backgrounds, but they all loved the propagation of the gospel. And that made some unity in that place, it was fantastic. And here were students who were going to learn and learn about the scriptures and the gospel deeper and deeper so that they then be discipled enough to be effective in their service. That’s what Mary did. And she sat at the Lord’s feet and she listened to his teaching. I’m pretty sure, I’m not going to be able to give this message without there being someone here to whom the Holy Spirit’s going to say to you, what you need to do is to sit at Jesus’ feet, listen to his teaching. Martha was distracted, that’s an interesting word, distracted with

[00:25:39] much serving. So there is a type of service that you can fall into that takes up all of your energies and gets you doing things. What actually is a requisite, an earlier requisite is that you sit at his feet and listen to his teaching. The Lord is more interested in going deeper with you than getting a maximum amount of labour out of you as a subservant. The idea of serving him is not that that’s what he wants to make the church run, he can flick his fingers and make a church come alive. The Holy Spirit does that every now and then and works in some churches. I don’t have programs that are very good but the Holy Spirit can do what has to be done. But what he wants of us personally to be people who sit at his feet and listen to his teaching. Martha was, and look at that word, distracted with much serving. And in Baptist churches, because of the way our Baptist churches are,

[00:26:43] we do have a big heritage about serving, it’s one of the strengths of the Baptist Church movement, it’s also one of our weaknesses. That you often get people who for a whole lifelong long have done jobs in a Baptist church and yet haven’t actually got very mature. There used to be, when I was younger, a song that was sung on a Christian song and it was about being a fat baby. I’ll think of who the singer is in a minute. And the idea of there being in churches fat babies who are still like they were spiritually as a baby and have just done jobs. When what Jesus wants you to do is to sit at his feet, Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Now there was a sense in which she spotted that it would be nice if the sister could join in. Sometimes those of us who sit at

[00:27:45] Jesus’ feet have to recognise a place for us to join in the practical things too. Tell her then to help me. I understand there’s a certain rationale for what Martha said. But look at what Jesus says. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and trouble about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary’s chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. And I think it’s something that God does that if you make yourself someone who goes the second mile in listening to Jesus’ teaching, you allow yourself to go deeper with him. The service that he leads you to will be something far more precious to him. And Martha was complaining about Mary’s not helping in the kitchen, but Jesus said Mary’s chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. You can draw your own conclusion as what that means is most important. It’s more important

[00:28:55] that you walk with Jesus and listen to him than that you do jobs. I think if you walk with Jesus and listen to him he’ll lead you to do jobs, but it’s not the jobs that are important, it’s that you do it as a service. Remember the heading for this sermon. Martha’s, Mary’s beautiful service or Mary’s service that Jesus said is the good portion which will not be taken away from her. Let’s go to the Gospel of John. And I think I’ve done this right. We were in Luke then, were we? Good, we’re in John. Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore

[00:29:42] came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Imagine all the people in the nearby houses where they’re having quite a strange understanding. There’s the house next door where the bloke was dead and he got raised to life again. Now the man who called out, Lazarus, come forth. He’s there. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were looking in through the cracks or the windows

[00:30:09] to see Jesus and Lazarus sitting together. Anyway, they gave, they being the people of the house, gave a dinner for him there. And Martha served. And Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment. Now she’s going a second hog, a second mile. She not only spends all the time at Jesus’ feet, but now she has something so much to be happy to thank him

[00:30:43] for. So she takes this pound of expensive ointment made from pure nad. I don’t know what that is, but it’s apparently expensive. And she anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. Now you can hear, if you picture it in your mind, you can see the devotion she has. I imagine she’s got a young woman. She’s got long hair.

[00:31:09] And she’s wiping his feet with her hair. It’s a devotion. With every wipe, she’s saying, oh, how I love him. There’s something about. The service of a person who does it out of love. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. And one of the things that happens in church life, when there are people who serve Jesus out of that deep love, it creates, as it were, I call it a spiritual perfume. I remember a time down in Launceston

[00:31:45] when I was meant to be doing a crusade at the Central Baptist Church there. And as soon as I got going, it was going to go for about three months. The senior pastor took his opportunity to resign. And he says, I’ll just leave it all with Jim. I didn’t know that was going to happen. I was young. I’d never been in charge of a church then. And I was thrust into being the person’s first.

[00:32:09] Pretty quick, there were deacons meetings. And I didn’t know what to do in a deacons meeting. I’d seen a few examples of it done well, and many examples of it done terribly. And anyway, I didn’t quite get it all together. My expertise is not really all the details at all. And anyway, during the week when I’d had a failure of a deacons meeting, I came and knocked at the door. And this old man, a little old man with a bald head,

[00:32:43] and he looked quite, because he was small, but he looked someone that you would overlook very easily. He came and says, Jim, he said, because he was one of the deacons, and he says, I’ve come to teach you what to do in deacons meetings, because I can see you don’t know. And this next time, because they had them fairly regularly, and I was going to be there for at least three, four months. And he would tell me, this is what was going to happen.

[00:33:09] This is what you have to do. This is where you’ll sit. And he just told me everything. I went along, the other people didn’t know, and he didn’t do any boasting, but he saved my vacant in that church. And he just had a beauty about him. He did it all without needing any thanks or any help. And his service to Jesus, to help me, was like a fragrance in those Deacons meetings. Not a literal one. I don’t know whether you know what I mean, but there are times when something happens and people serve Jesus and you suddenly recognise Jesus in their service. The fragrance of Christ in what we do is a fantastic thing. It comes out all sorts of places for people in the church who serve the Lord and you sense that

[00:34:04] the Lord is in it. Well, Mary had a fragrance, literally, fill the house as she anointed the feet of Jesus and she wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, who was about to betray him, why wasn’t this ointment sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? He said this because he didn’t care for the poor but because he was a thief and he used to hold the money bag and he used to help himself to it. Jesus said, leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. He was soon to die and that time was coming soon. So there was something prophetic in the ministry of Mary in doing this just prior to him dying. Jesus said, leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day. No, she didn’t keep it, it was already on his feet but the fact of his burial, the fact that he’s anointing of it would keep for the day of his burial. For the poor you

[00:35:21] always have with you but you do not always have me. He gives a bit of a priority. Evangelicals recognize that the priority isn’t just helping the poor. You’re not being a perfect church just because you go and serve the community. You’re being a better church if you serve Jesus and if you have his death and resurrection a much higher occasion to celebrate and to demonstrate and to talk about than what you may do to help the community. Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor, you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” Now I know Jesus meant that in the sense that he was going to die and go to Hades and be resurrected and go back to heaven, so in a sense this was near the end of his ministry on earth.

[00:36:18] There is a spiritual application of that to us, and that application is that there’s a priority of what’s most important, serving Jesus, or doing that which will always be present with the Church to do as a help. And it is to put Christ first and what he leads you to do as the greatest imperative and the highest priority in your life. You don’t always have the opportunity. And as far as it comes to our finding things to serve, one of the things I’ve found is that if you walk with Christ, if you keep in step with the Spirit, as the book of Galatians tells us too, often they come upon you opportunities that are rather unique. Ones that you don’t get if you’re too much doing your own thing, if you’re too much not

[00:37:12] letting the Spirit lead. But if you let the Spirit lead, there come opportunities that are just special and precious, in which you get to serve in ways that you’ll miss if you’re not a person that puts Jesus and his recognition first and walking with him the most important. And this is all demonstrated to us in what Jesus says to Mary and what she’s done. This is important, but the service that is going to make the biggest difference is the service when you take Mary’s line to listen to Jesus more than just doing things for jobs. I found this a fascinating sermon in the Bible, which I can’t add any more to than just showing you that it’s in the four Gospels because what Jesus said of Mary is what’s happened in our four Gospels.

[00:38:12] You can’t separate the Gospel of coming to Christ and his dying for us, etc, etc, from also what do we do for him. And so in terms of a title for this message, I not only had the idea of Mary’s beautiful service as one title, but I had some other titles and another one was the two halves of discipleship. One has to do with what he’s done for us, but the other has to do with what we get moved to do for him. But you could have another title as well and it is what has Christ done for us and what will we do for him. Ask yourself the question, what will you do like Mary did because you love him?

[00:39:02] And the best service of all, when someone has something they do and someone else asks why do you do that? And they can reply and say it’s because of what Jesus has done for me. And the love of Jesus is a tremendous motivator. I got greatly moved and witnessed to and helped as a young teenager when a fella came to be at the college my dad was working at and I was a teenager at school and he had a question, do you love the Lord Jesus as your own personal saviour? And he kept asking everybody. He never did ask me. He knew I was a Christian and I was scared that he would ask because I knew that I knew him but I wasn’t much of a Mary. I don’t know that I could have honestly said at that stage, do you love him? What would I say? And that has made an enormous impact on me. So seek out how to be a person who loves Jesus and the explanation for how you serve is because it comes out of your love for you. Let’s pray. Well Father, I pray for this

[00:40:18] record of Mary in the four gospels. It’s rather interesting to see Jesus said every place the gospel is pronounced that they’ve also told her story. It’s not a very big one in terms of incidents in the gospel records but it’s one that’s in all four gospels. And Lord, it comes down to us that discipleship isn’t only about what he’s done for us and our learning that for our sakes. It’s also what it moves us to do for him. Come follow me and I will make you to be fishers of men. Some of those disciples back then heard. Lord, may we be those who insert in loving Jesus. Find somehow that we’re led to where we can serve him out of that love. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.