You’re Going to Break It or Worship It

I’ve seen and have been a part of so many different types of churches– relevant churches, traditional churches, hip churches, formal churches, house churches, city churches and country churches. But I am so thankful that I’ve had the opportunity as a visitor and as a member to experience a few churches that welcomed, fostered, and created atmospheres of reckless abandon to God.

We see this kind of church in a small home in Bethany. Jesus was there as well as the religious, the healed and the curious.

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. (Cost of a slave) She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume?

 

The question posed by the indignant onlookers is still asked today. Should a Christian be wasteful?

Absolutely.

We should encourage each other to waste our lives, our resources and our destinies at the feet of Jesus just like this woman did. The economy of heaven is much different from the economy of earth.

It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you,and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.
Mark 13:5-6

The choice:

1. Waste your life on Earth for Christ and save your soul for eternity
2. Save your life on earth and waste your soul for eternity.

Your alabaster box is exquisitely built over time. It is beautifully plated in the things you have treasured. It is sealed in your talents. It sits on the altar of the life you’ve built for yourself.

Break it or worship it. It’s your choice. 

 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

Matthew 6:19-21

 

You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
Revelation 3:17

We want to acquire so that we can feel we don’t need anything.God wants us to waste our lives on him so that we are in a constant state of need and faith.

TREASURE: For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
Mark 8:36

TIME:  “But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’
Luke 12:20

TALENT: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1

Broken people connected through Jesus produces a beautifully broken church.

Here are 6 basic characteristics og the opposite– an unbroken church.

1. The unbroken church is passive during worship services
2. The unbroken church is rarely daring in finances
3. The unbroken church is concerned more about itself than those far from God.
4. The unbroken church longs for structure over substance
5. The unbroken church is sheds no tears, vies for power, and worries about its reputation
6. The unbroken church refuses to change

 

• Is Jesus worth it?
• Is Jesus enough for my circumstances?
• Is Jesus enough to trust with everything?

What do you think about more than anything else? What do you fear more than anything. Look and your thoughts and your fears and chances are you will discover the alabaster box in your story that must be crushed.

• Your life is your alabaster box.
• Our church is an alabaster box.
• If we refuse to be broken the alabaster box becomes an idol.