"Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Him." John 12:1, 2.
Remember that we are in the closing moments of our Lord's life here. They made Him a supper. Beloved, that should be the goal, the desire of our hearts, to make Him a supper. You know we are so apt to get man and his needs before us, so apt to think of the gospel side of things (and God forbid that I should say anything to discourage interest in the gospel); but you know in the Word of God that worship, God's portion, comes first always. God has the first portion, worship, then service.
In the 2nd chapter of 1 Peter we read about priesthood; we read about holy priests, and we read about royal priests. Holy priests offer the sacrifice of God, the sacrifice of praise to God continually; that is worship. Holy priesthood precedes royal priesthood. Royal priesthood is testimony, but let us never forget that God puts the holy priesthood first. Which are we putting first in our lives? We see a sad condition existing in Christendom today. Men are saying that the great thing to be desired, the thing above all other aims in the Christian's life, should be to bring sinners into the good of the gospel; and this thing is repeated so often that a lot of people get to believe that is the truth, that the great goal, the great object, is that men might be saved. But when we search the Word of God, we find repeatedly that God demands His portion first.
In the 4th of John, in that wonderful interview with the woman there by the well, we find the Father as a seeker, God as a seeker. What is He seeking? Is He seeking service? No, He is seeking worshipers, worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. Things have become so confused in Christendom today that the very word worship is little understood. We see on various buildings the announcement that worship will take place at such an hour. We find that the so-called worship consists in ministry such as we are having here this afternoon, but ministry is not worship. Ministry may create worship in the heart, but ministry itself is not worship. In what we have brought before us here, we find the Lord invited into the home of Martha where we have one of the most beautiful examples anywhere in the whole Word of God of a real worshiper. Do we wish to know what a worshiper is? Do we have the desire to be a worshiper? We can learn it here from this little scene at Bethany.
"Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment." John 12:3.
Can you imagine a scene more fitted to the delight of heaven than what we have before us in this third verse?—Christ the center of the scene! Mary, this dear devoted child of God on her knees at His feet again. This is the third time we have found her there. Is she there with a request? Is she there to beseech the Lord about something? Oh, beloved, she is just there to pour out upon those blessed feet the best she had. She had this box of ointment, very precious. We learn from other scriptures something of the value of it, and I suppose that a conservative estimate would be to say that box of ointment was worth in purchasing power the equivalent of several thousand dollars in American currency today; and yet, nothing was too good for Christ. She was there anointing His feet and wiped His feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. Oh, beloved saints of God, there is no odor like that—the odor that comes from the owning of the loveliness of the Person of Christ.
The whole house was filled with the odor—worship ascending up to God. That is what the Father is seeking—worshipers—not service, but worshipers. If we come into His presence as worshipers and dwell there as worshipers, it fills our hearts with the loveliness of Christ; and then we want to go out and tell someone else about the Savior we have found.
What we do for Christ goes on forever. It is multiplied into infinity. Whosoever loves this life shall lose it, but whosoever hates his life in this world for His sake, shall keep it unto life eternal.