How Much is Jesus Worth?
Kingdom Come (Matthew) • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Taken Movie
Taken Movie
I went to see the movie “Taken” my my father-in-law when it was in theaters in 2008.
You remember it? Liam Neeson’s plays and ex-cia agent whose daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers.
The money is all about him using his mad skills to track down the kidnappers and save his daughter.
You remember the iconic scenes when he is on the phone with the guys he is about to hunt down:
WATCH THE CLIP.
I didn’t have daughters at the time, but I can say without hesitation, I 100% understand where he was at in that scene and wish very much I possessed those same skills.
To what lengths would you go to save your child from danger? What limit would there be to the amount of money you would spend to protect your child, friend, or loved one from something like that?
The question is really: How much is someone worth to you?
Said another way: How much is TOO much to give?
We are going to read about three very different value assessments made of Jesus.
And we are going to be challenged with the question: How much is Jesus worth to me?
1 When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he told his disciples, 2 “You know that the Passover takes place after two days, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”
3 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the courtyard of the high priest, who was named Caiaphas, 4 and they conspired to arrest Jesus in a treacherous way and kill him. 5 “Not during the festival,” they said, “so there won’t be rioting among the people.”
6 While Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, 7 a woman approached him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. She poured it on his head as he was reclining at the table. 8 When the disciples saw it, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. 9 “This might have been sold for a great deal and given to the poor.”
10 Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a noble thing for me. 11 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me. 12 By pouring this perfume on my body, she has prepared me for burial. 13 Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”
14 Then one of the Twelve, the man called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15 and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” So they weighed out thirty pieces of silver for him. 16 And from that time he started looking for a good opportunity to betray him.
Jesus ends His last message to His disciples with a reminder that in just two days Passover Feast would come.
This was the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar, commemorating God saving His people from slavery in Egypt.
And that is the day, Jesus tells them, that He will be delivered up to be crucified.
Throughout the Gospel, Matthew has slowly zoomed in further and further on Jesus’s life, and now he zooms into the last few days.
All the Gospel writers do the same thing, highlighting these last days, understanding their importance, not only in the life of Jesus, but for all of human history.
And so we are too will be walking through these last days with eager intentionality over the next several weeks.
Seemingly at the same time Jesus is saying this to His disciples, Matthew cuts to a conversation among the religious leaders in the palace of the High Priest.
For 3 years Jesus has clashed with these Religious leaders.
They had tried on multiple occasions to trick Him into saying something that would discredit His ministry, or even to give them reason to arrest Him. But they had failed each time.
But He had now become too much of a problem to let Him continue. They had to come up with a plan to get rid of Him for good.
The issue the Religious leaders had with Jesus is revealed in verse 5, they were worried He was getting too popular and too influential.
If Jesus started too much of a following He would threaten the stability of the relationship the Religious leaders had with the Roman government.
Jesus was threatening their security, their power, and their comfort.
They saw Jesus as competition needing to be eliminated.
1) COMPETITION to be ELIMINATED.
1) COMPETITION to be ELIMINATED.
There is a podcast I listen to occasionally called “Business Wars” that tells the story of competing companies throughout history.
One of my favorite series they did was between Hersey Chocolate and Mars Candy.
They tell the story of how each company started and how each of their products came into existence.
But the heart of the show is the competition between the 2 to become the biggest candy maker in America.
And the battle is ruthless.
Because there is only so much market share for selling candy.
This is the struggle the Religious leaders were having with Jesus.
Jesus didn’t have value in their eyes,
He was a threat to what they valued most.
A threat to their way of life.
We all start here with Jesus in some degree.
The Gospel, though it is incredibly good news, is still confrontational.
There is a cost to our personal lives.
An uprooting of our worldview and our values.
And a realization that we have built our entire lives on a bad foundation and we have to start all over.
Saving faith is coming to the realization that Jesus is worth it.
In verse 6, Matthew jumps back in time a bit, to Saturday night before Palm Sunday, when Jesus was in Bethany.
Before we get there I want to jump down to verse 14.
Shortly after Jesus finishes teaching on the Mount of Olives and makes the declaration about being given over, Matthew tells us that Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests.
Judas had followed Jesus for for 3 years.
He has heard Him teach, witnessed His healings and miracles, and had shared meals and person time with Jesus.
He had believed Jesus to be the Messiah, the promised one, the Savior; and he had given up 3 years of his life to follow Him and serve Him.
But Judas had started to doubt whether Jesus actually was the Messiah.
He believed the Messiah would be a conquering King, who would overthrown the Romans and reestablish the Jewish thrown in Jerusalem.
And he believed being in His inner circle was going to be a lucrative and powerful place to be.
So 3 years of traveling around, not knowing where they would sleep, or if they would eat, would all be worth it when Jesus took His thrown.
But they were, outside of Jerusalem, with little left in the bank account, running from the authorities, and all Jesus will talk about is His impending death.
Judas had started to see Jesus as a Bad Investment needing to be sold ASAP.
2) BAD INVESTMENT needing to be SOLD.
2) BAD INVESTMENT needing to be SOLD.
When Pam and I first moved to North Dakota, my dad found a great deal on a 4x4 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Since we got a lot of snow, he wanted us to have something we could get around in easier, so he drove it up and brought Pam’s Camry back to KY to sell.
I was pretty exited about the Jeep. It was newer, had lower miles, more space, and 4 wheel drive! It would last us for years and we could get anywhere we wanted.
It started off good too. We had a lot of snow that first winter and the Jeep did really well.
But within the first year or so we began to have problems.
It started overheating randomly.
The O2 sensors went bad.
The ABS messed up
And then we had a ongoing squeaky wheel that I never could get figured out.
What seemed like a great investment, ended up being a frustration.
Judas went to the chief priests, the very guys looking to get rid of Jesus, and asked them how much they would give him if he gave them Jesus.
Jesus looked like a great investment at first, someone that could really make his life better.
Someone that could help him accomplish the things he wanted to accomplish and get the things he knew would make him happy.
Judas wasn’t an evil person, he was a confused person.
He was confused about who Jesus was.
But he was even more confused about what he needed in life.
Judas thought so little of the worth of Jesus that he was willing to betray him for meager price of 30 silver coins.
The amount of silver today would be worth around $300.
When we come to Jesus in order to get things we think we need we run the risk of ending up just life Judas, disappointed, frustrated, and ready to sell out to something else we think with make us happy.
Saving faith is coming to the realization that Jesus is so much better than anything else.
Now back to verse 6.
Matthew inserts this account purposely between these other two accounts.
One group is plotting to kill Jesus while another is cashing out by delivering him over to them.
And then there is Mary...
Matthew doesn’t name her, but John gives us her name in John 12.
Though there are details of the stories that don’t line up, there is enough similarities that most believe John 12 and Matthew 26 to be talking about the same event.
Jesus is reclining at the table with His disciples at a dinner party in Bethany, the hometown of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha.
At some point during dinner, Mary brings an alabaster flask full of perfume that is worth as much as a whole years wages.
She breaks the flask open and pours it on Jesus (John says His feet and Matthew says His head, which means maybe both, depending on where you are watching in the room).
The significance of her action is seen in the reaction from the disciples (predominantly Judas from John’s remembrance).
They are indignant, outraged that she would waste such an expensive bottle of perfume.
It could have been used to take care of the poor.
It could have also been used to care for the needs of Mary’s family.
It could have been used to find her a husband one day, as families would have considered wealth as a part of a marriage arrangement.
It could have been used to establish Mary’s children and grandchildren in the future.
But Jesus is quick to defend Mary.
He understood Mary’s heart and new her intentions.
She had made a value assessment of Jesus and she had decided He was a PRICELESS SAVIOR worth SELLING EVERYTHING for.
3) PRICELESS SAVIOR worth SELLING EVERYTHING FOR.
3) PRICELESS SAVIOR worth SELLING EVERYTHING FOR.
Mary was willing to give up her past, present, and future in worship of Jesus.
She knew He was worthy.
She had heard Him teach and knew Him to have the words of life.
She knew Him as a conqueror of death, having watched Him raise her brother from the dead.
She knew Him to be a faithful, powerful, and compassion Savior who was worthy of all of her life.
How much is He worth to you?
How much is He worth to you?
What’s the deference between these three reactions to Jesus?
It boils down to relationship.
The religious leaders didn’t know Jesus, they simply judged Him by the assumptions they had made about Him.
So He was worthless to them, only a hindrance to the life they wanted to live.
But Judas knew Jesus right?
He spent 3 year with Him, heard Him teach, witnessed His miracles, and was even able to ask Him questions.
But it was not really about knowing Jesus and loving Jesus for Judas.
It was about what he would get from following Jesus.
For Mary, she knew Jesus is a way that radically changed her and radically shifted the way she valued everything else in her life.
What motivates a follower of Jesus to consistently choose a path of righteousness?
What prompts someone to give generously of their money?
What leads a single man or woman to choose the way of Jesus in dating and sexuality in opposition to the world?
What causes a follower of Jesus to joyfully suffer in the name of Christ?
What causes someone to get on their knees and say “Jesus I can trust you!”
It is the incomparable, eternal worth of Jesus.
It radically changes what we value and thus radically changes the way we live.
Jesus is viewed as worthy of so much or so little depending on your heart toward him.
How much is He worth to you?
So if you know Him, I hope today is a reminder of just how valuable He is.
But if you don’t know Him, my prayer is that your eyes and hearts would be opened right now to see how valuable He truly is and that you won’t reject Him.
