Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

A physics professor in California learned about the power of encouragement and it changed his and many other lives.

He told of how he first began to teach back in 1960.

He would begin each semester with a hard nosed word of warning.

He told the class he expected 50% of them to fail.

It was a tough course and many will just not study hard enough to make it.

Sure enough, year after year, about 50% of his students failed.

His wife got involved with a dynamic church, and soon he was going also.

In time he opened his heart to Christ.

He had a new enthusiasm as a teacher after his commitment to Christ.

He decided that to be Christlike called for a new approach.

The next semester he started his class by saying, "I want everyone in this class to pass.

It is my job to see that you do.

It is difficult material, but if we work together, everyone of you can make it."

The astonishing result was that for the first time in his teaching career his entire class passed without any change in his grading procedure.

The difference was that he stopped his discouraging remarks, and gave them words of encouragement.

"Encouragement is oxygen to the soul."

A young man in a small northern town had been in prison for five years.

When he came back to the town the first person he encountered was the mayor coming out of the town library.

He said in a friendly voice, "John, how are you?"

just in as if he had been on a trip.

That encouraging reception killed his fear and anxiety, and he became a loyal citizen and leader in the church in that community.

History is filled with the stories of the power of encouragement.

Everybody needs encouragement.

There are no exceptions.

Every person who has ever lived has needed encouragement, and that includes our Lord.

When He walked this earth in the flesh He also needed what all flesh needs.

He needed love, support, and the encouragement of others.

So great was that need, and so rare was the recognition of it, that when Jesus received it He honored the woman who gave it as no other woman or man has ever been honored.

We are fulfilling prophecy by focusing on the daring devotion of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus.

Jesus said in verse 9 that wherever the Gospel is preached in the whole world the story of what she did for Him will be told in memory of her.

We want to honor our Lord by honoring her whom He most highly honored of all His disciples.

Let's look first at-

I. HER DEVOTION DISPLAYED.

The setting is the house of Simon the leper in Bethany.

We know nothing about this Simon, but it is obvious that he is one who had been cured by the Great Physician.

Had he still been a leper he would not be throwing a feast for Jesus.

He would have been crying, "Unclean, unclean," to all who came anywhere near him.

John tells us that Martha was serving at this supper, and Lazarus was at the table also.

Here was a great celebration of thanksgiving.

A man raised from the dead, and another made whole who had leprosy.

There may have been others from Bethany who were also products of the healing miracles of Jesus.

It was clearly a happy and delight-filled occasion.

Suddenly a woman came into the room and approached Jesus as He ate.

She filled the room with fragrant aroma as she poured a costly ointment over His head.

Mark and Matthew do not name her, for when they wrote she was still living, but John was written much later when modesty did not require silence.

He tells us it was Mary the sister of Martha.

He also tells us that she anointed His feet, and wiped them with her hair on the same occasion.

Here we see a setting where many good people were focusing on many good things, but only Mary was focusing on the best.

Martha was bustling about in service as usual, and the 12 plus those who were products of marvelous miracles were doubtless having a great time, and deeply grateful for their good health and abundant provisions.

But only one, Mary, focused on the needs of Jesus.

She had been at His feet before absorbing His teaching and His spirit.

She knew Him on a deeper level, and had a sense of what He was facing as the cross approached, as no one else did.

Spurgeon said, "I think this holy woman knew more about our Lord than all His Apostles put together."

Mary loved Jesus for giving her back her brother Lazarus from the dead.

She could praise Him for restoring Simon the leper, who tradition says was her uncle.

But she went deeper than the rest, and did not love Him only for what He could do, but loved Him for who He was.

She alone of all His followers saw Him not just as a miracles worker, and the Messiah.

She saw Him as a person; a person who needed to be loved and encouraged.

Jesus had the cross on His mind.

He was conscious that He was heading for death.

There was only one person among all His followers that gave Him any encouragement, and that was Mary, by this daring act of devotion.

Why do I call it daring?

Because of the second point we want to look at.

II.

HER DEVOTION DESPISED.

You would think that timely tenderness and lavish love for the encouragement of Jesus in His toughest hours would be greeted with cheers instead of jeers, but the latter is what came forth from those at the banquet.

Mark tells us in verse 4 that there was indignation among the guests.

Matthew tells us that some of them who are angry were the disciples.

The opinion of the majority seemed to be that this act of devotion by Mary was a hair-brained scheme of senseless waste.

No fire of devotion gets to burning very long before somebody tries to throw a wet blanket on it.

Nothing is more discouraging than to have those whom you love best throw rocks of criticism at your devotion.

The paradox is that Mary, the most praised woman in the New Testament, is also the most criticized.

Every time she did something wonderful she was blasted by good people.

You expect bad people to be against your devotion to Jesus, but what a shock when you are attacked by the best of people for your devotion.

If you think you can be a zealous Christian and not be criticized by other Christians, forget it.

Martha, her older sister, loved Jesus dearly, and worked herself into exhaustion for Him anytime He was around, but she was critical of Mary, and thought of her as a lazy shirker of duty when she devoted her time to sit and listen at the feet of Jesus.

Because she did listen closely, she grasped truth that helped her understand what Jesus had to do.

Now when she displayed her devotion to encourage Him the disciples are down on her for being wasteful.

What a strange world it is!

Truly God's ways are not our ways.

Here are the greatest leaders of the day condemning a woman who is about to be exalted by Jesus as the number one encourager of all time.

They are trying to dig a pit for her while Jesus is forming a pedestal.

If you ever want a text to prove the majority can be wrong, this is it.

Everybody was against Mary, and her devotion was labeled a waste.

She only got one vote, and that was the vote of Jesus.

This is a clear lesson that our goal is not to please men, not even the best of men, but our goal is to please Christ.

In pleasing Him you may displease many others, but that may be the price you have to pay, as Mary did.

Never assume that if everybody is critical of a person, that person must be at fault.

Jesus makes it clear that it is the complainers who are at fault.

They all voted against her, but Jesus vetoed their decision, and we see in our third point-

III.

HER DEVOTION DEFENDED.

When Jesus heard their negative response and murmuring against her, He immediately told them to let her alone and stop troubling her.

They were so convinced of her folly they could not quit bugging her.

In contrast to this criticism, He went on to praise her for her devotion like He never praised anyone before.

Jesus was very pleased with her lavish and luxurious demonstration of love, because she was the only one who did anything in preparing Him for death.

No one could take away the sting of death for Jesus.

He had to feel its full force as He bore the sins of the world.

No one could relieve the pain He had to suffer, but He said of Mary in verse 8, "She has done what she could."