Marcel: My name is Marcel Hall, and I have the honor and privilege
of being able to speak today.
So grateful for the opportunity, humbled by that.
We wanna thank all those who have helped lead our worship service,
from the AV, the ushers- … the, welcome table, the singers.
Thank you so much.
We appreciate that.
And, I just wanna share something.
You know, the other day it hit me in a profound way just how grateful, well,
it led to me being grateful, but how blessed we are for our church family.
Yeah.
We are truly blessed.
Amen.
You can go ahead
We are blessed and highly favored.
We don't realize how good it is that we have it.
We have, and those of us who've been around for a while, even if you've been
around for just a little while, the opportunities that we have to have not
just a church community, but to have a church family in which we are known
by people, and we know people, and we strengthen one another, we encourage
one another, we support one another, we help one another, and when needed,
we challenge one another to grow.
That is very unique.
That's not happening all over the place.
And as I got home the other night, as I had a, a time with
the winds and the barbers, I just thought, "Man, I am so grateful."
I wouldn't be the husband that I am, I wouldn't be the father nor have the
family that I have if it wasn't for God blessing me with this church family.
Amen.
I wouldn't have the character that I have if it weren't for the
relationships that I've been able to have for the last 25 years.
And so you, I just wanna encourage you, you are a treasure.
You are a blessing, and you are blessed and highly favored by God Almighty.
So look personally to your right and to your left and tell them, "You're blessed."
And then tell them thank you
Because we are so blessed.
And I just wanna encourage you, church, we've been a part of this
now church family, we were part of our church family in LA, and
I am just so in awe of how God…
And yes, we've had highs, and we've had some lows, and we've had some challenging
times, but what we have is special.
Amen.
And may we never forget what we have in Christ in the church.
Amen.
And so I wanna encourage you, you are awesome.
Sometimes we can hear how much we need to grow.
Yes, you might need to grow, but you're awesome.
Yeah.
And keep being awesome.
Amen?
Amen.
You know, speaking of family, I just, uh, we just had a family vacation where
we had a family reunion on my mom's side, and it was out in New Orleans.
Whoo.
And we drove to New Orleans.
Whoo.
Yeah, exactly.
What were we thinking?
But my mom, my mom came, and we had a California contingent.
We came in a couple different cars, but my mom convinced me somehow, and she
has this way where I say no, and then all of a sudden I'm doing what she says.
And she says, "Let's go on a road trip."
Whoo.
So we went on a road trip.
That's about, I don't know how, I, I checked, it's supposed to be 27 hours.
Uh, we drove about 30 hours.
I don't know what we were doing, but we did stop in New Mexico, and
we stopped in Houston, had a blast.
And then we got a chance to see family.
It was about 70 or so members of the fam- at least 70 members of our family that
showed up from all across the country.
Such a rich time.
I had such a joy and such an experience that I just feel like,
wow, I am, I, I, I'm just blessed.
I got a chance to meet family members I had never met before, some
I haven't seen in 13 or 30 years.
That's right, your boy is that old.
And we just had a blast, and I thought, man, and then I got home,
and I started getting the receipts.
I'm doing my finances, and I thought, "This was a costly trip."
I started looking like, "Karina, how much did we spend?
I didn't think we were spending that much."
You know what I'm saying?
And I started wondering, I said, "Man, we had a good time, but was it worth it?"
You know what I'm saying?
And then I realized it was worth it.
And we ask that question, is it worth it, a whole lot, don't we?
We ask it at least a couple times a day.
Is that outfit worth that price?
Is that vacation worth saving up for?
Is it worth my time to stop at the Starbucks?
Yes, I'm late.
Yeah, of course, it's always worth it.
Is it worth that exper- is the experience worth the time and the convenience?
The question that me and Karina and the kids have to go back and
forth with, is the AC worth it?
Kids are getting excited.
They want to have the AC on 24/7 because they don't pay for it.
You know what I'm saying?
And I'm like, "Look, I want to be cool, but I don't know if I
want to spend that extra $2.37
on that AC."
Come on.
Because it's get, it gets costly.
And so we constantly ask ourselves, "Is it worth it?"
And when we think it is, what will we do?
We'll spend.
We'll spend the money, we'll spend the gas, we'll spend the time, we'll spend
the energy, we'll spend the attention, the comfort, and the opportunity.
We'll sacrifice.
Why?
Because we deem it to be what?
Valuable.
We deem it to be what?
Worth it.
And so now let's think about our faith.
Let's think about Jesus.
Is Jesus worth it?
The title of the sermon today is He Is Worth It.
He's worth it.
Let's go to the Father in prayer.
Father in heaven, thank you so much for already the chance to, be able
to have communion, the chance to give to you, the chance to sing to you.
And Father, just as we sang a couple of minutes ago, you are worthy,
and God, we're grateful that you are a God who is worthy of our
time, our energy, our everything.
And Father, I'm excited about your Word here today.
I pray that you will touch every soul, meet every soul where they are, allow
them to see you for who you are, and be able to respond to who you are.
We pray this in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
All right, let's go on over to Matthew chapter 26.
Brothers and sisters, are you with me this morning?
Yeah.
Matthew chapter 26, we're gonna read here.
We're gonna see, uh, a couple of examples.
We're gonna walk through Matthew 26, and we're gonna walk through,
uh, some scenarios, some characters, and we're gonna see their view
of Jesus and see whether they think Jesus is worth it or not.
And so we're coming up on the last week of Jesus's life here before his crucifixion,
and we come here in Matthew chapter 26.
The Book of Matthew, or what we call the Book of Matthew, is a letter written by
the Apostle Matthew, who was a follower of Jesus, and he's really giving a
breakdown of Jesus's life and ministry.
And so we take it up in verse six.
It says, "While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman
came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on
his head as he was reclining at the table.
When the disciples saw this, they were indignant.
'Why this waste?'
they asked.
'This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the
money given to the poor.'"
Verse 10, "Aware of this, Jesus said to them, 'Why are you bothering this woman?
She has done a beautiful thing to me.
The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.
When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.
Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout
the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.'"
Let's stop right there for a second.
And so here's the scenario.
Jesus is about to have the Last Supper with his disciples.
This woman is there, and the Gospel of John gives us an indicator
that this woman is actually, uh, Mary, the sister of Martha.
And so she comes in, and she pours this expensive jar of perfume on his head.
And so what we learn from the other Gospels that, that this jar, what
she had spent or what the amount and value was, was at least a year's
wages that she just poured on Jesus.
Now, think about this for a second.
Here you are for your whole year, your salary, your wages.
You put that in a jar, and you pour that whole thing out.
Would you do that?
Some of y'all, "If I did it, I wouldn't pay my light bill."
I understand.
And so we see here what she was doing was this extravagant offering.
She goes and she says, "I don't care.
I'm going to do what I think He is worthy of."
Now, we continue in the story right after this.
Oh, let's go back here.
Here we go.
Matthew 26:14, it says, "Then one of the 12, the one called Judas
Iscariot, went to the chief priest and asked, 'What are you willing to
give me if I deliver Him over to you?'
So they counted out for him 30 pieces of silver.
From then on, Judas watched for an opportunity to hand Him over."
Compare and contrast.
Do you see a difference there?
Yeah.
Did you catch the difference between this woman and Judas?
Judas now is one of the apostles.
He's one of the chosen 12 by Jesus to learn from Jesus, to be taught
by Jesus, to walk with Jesus, to be sent out by Jesus, and he betrays
Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
What can we learn from this?
I believe the main thing here that we want to talk about today and that
we can see is how you view Jesus will determine how you respond to Jesus.
Right.
How you view Jesus will determine how you respond to Jesus.
That's good.
You see, the woman recognized Jesus's worth, however
Judas reduced Jesus's worth.
The woman saw Jesus as the true treasure, however Ju- Judas saw
Jesus as a means to a treasure.
The woman asked, "What can I give because of how valuable Jesus is?"
Judas asked, "What can I get in exchange for Jesus?"
Right.
You see, how you view Jesus will determine how you respond to Jesus.
Right.
And so now the question for me and you is this: What is Jesus worth to you?
Wow.
What is Jesus worth to you?
How do you view Jesus?
Is He worth everything?
Is He worth your offering and your devotion, or is He negotiable?
Is he something that you can easily exchange if you find something you
deem to be better, more entertaining, more fulfilling, more to your liking?
Or is he priceless, worthy of devotion?
You see, all of this comes back to how we see Jesus.
Yeah.
How we view him.
Who is he and what's his relationship to me?
This would answer the question of what Jesus is worth to you and I.
Brothers and sisters, are you still with me this morning?
Yes.
Yeah.
So now let's continue, and let's look a little bit more.
Again, we're gonna keep Judas in this story, and we're gonna also have some
other characters come involved now.
And we're gonna see some more about how our view of Jesus will
determine how we respond to Jesus.
Matthew chapter 26, we're gonna jump on down now, uh, to verse, uh, 20 here.
Uh, here we go.
Here we go.
Uh, sorry about that.
Very, there we go.
All right, it says Matthew chapter sc- 26 verse 20.
They've had the Last Supper, and so Jesus here with his guys, and now we
get to the end of the, uh, uh, uh, um, we, we, we get here to the, to the
Last Supper, and a discussion happens.
It says, "When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the 12.
And while they were eating, he said, 'Truly I tell you,
one of you will betray me.'
They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other,
'Surely you don't mean me, Lord?'"
We're gonna jump on down to verse 25.
"Then Judas, one of the 12 who would betray him, said,
'Surely you don't mean me?'
'Rabbi,' Jesus answered, 'you have said so.'"
Did you notice something there?
Let's go on over to verse 47.
Church, are you still with me here?
So now we go to the garden, and so now Jesus, uh, they've
already finished the Last Supper.
Judas has already agreed to betray him.
He's already given the indication of where he's gonna be, and so now
we're gonna have Judas and his crew come where Jesus is to arrest him.
And let's read.
It says, "While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the 12, arrived.
With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief
priests and the elders of the people.
Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them.
'The one I kiss is the man.
Arrest him.'
Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, 'Greetings, Rabbi.'
And kissed him.
Jesus replied, 'Do what you came for, friend.'
Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him."
Did you see the difference?
Did you catch the difference between how Judas and the others viewed Jesus?
You see, we'll go ahead and we'll go back here, and we'll see it.
The apostles go and say, "Hey, it's not gonna be me,
Lord, who betrays you, right?"
And what did Judas say?
"Hey, it's not me, Rabbi."
Did you catch that?
And even when Judas come to betray, he says, "Greetings, Rabbi."
There's a difference between what the apostles were saying
and what Judas was saying.
Right.
You see, Rabbi means teacher.
That's a good thing.
Jesus was a rabbi.
There's nothing incorrect in that statement.
However, it's interesting to note the one who betrayed him said Rabbi, while
the ones who stayed faithful said Lord.
Yeah.
Is there a difference between Lord and Rabbi?
Yes, there is.
Yeah.
You see, a rabbi is a teacher.
However, a lo- the Lord meant master.
It meant status.
It, it, it showed to his authority and to his divinity.
Yeah.
You see, I view my teachers different than I view my mom.
Don't you?
Yeah.
I hope you do.
I don't view my teachers the same way I view Karina, my wife.
There's a different understanding.
I view them differently.
What they say, that's cool, but what my wife and my mom say, as you can tell, will
lead me on a 30-hour trip to New Orleans.
We didn't fly back though.
We drove in and we flew back, so we got the best of both worlds.
Amen?
You see, when someone's lord of your life, that's a big difference from
someone being the teacher in your life
You see, the apostles at this point, and they didn't even understand
fully, but what they did get was that Jesus is special and he's unique.
And they said, "Lord."
At this time, Judas no longer sees Jesus as Lord, he sees him as Rabbi.
Judas quits on Jesus, but the disciples remain faithful.
Now, they're a hot mess.
We all know that.
It only takes a couple more sentences and we see the type of
mess they get themselves into.
But what do they do?
They return to Jesus.
Why?
Because he was their Lord and not just their Rabbi
How you view Jesus will determine how you respond to Jesus
This helps us to see that we must be in close relationship with Jesus.
Close relationship, and what I mean here is intimacy, not proximity.
What I mean is in, i- i- i- uh, uh, um, uh, um, excuse me, uh, a
relational intim- int- relational intimacy and not physical proximity.
Yeah.
We've all had that.
You've been around somebody, but that doesn't mean you are close to that person
Now you can be away from your best friend for years but still feel what to them?
A deep connection.
Why?
Because it wasn't about the physical proximity, it was
about the relational intimacy.
And what we see here is that we need to ensure, we need to make sure that you and
I have relational intimacy with Jesus and not just physical proximity toward Jesus.
Not just being at a church gathering, not just being at a small group
gathering, but I am walking with the Lord- Amen … daily in my life.
You see, Judas, here's the thing, Judas was one of the 12.
Did you catch that?
12.
He was there.
He was chosen.
He was there from the beginning.
He saw the miracles, he saw the teaching.
Jesus not only had him witness it, he had him participate in it.
The gospel teaches and tell us that the apostles went out, preached
themselves, and casted out demons.
So Judas was a part of the mission.
However, at this point in time, Jesus was no longer Lord, he was just rabbi.
The relational intimacy had faded.
Now he was physically there, but he wasn't really there with Christ in relationship.
Do you understand what I'm saying, brothers and sisters?
And so this means that a relationship with Jesus, we can have a relationship
with Jesus, but it doesn't mean that we have a good relationship with Jesus.
Yeah.
You see, Jesus had a relationship, if you saw from the outside, if
you were somebody else, you'd be like, "Oh yeah, he's one of the 12.
He's with them.
Oh yeah, he's good to go."
Yeah.
However, he wasn't.
And so that should be a warning.
That should humble us.
I can't just be there, I need to be with Jesus.
I need to be lock in step with Jesus, and Jesus can't be my
rabbi, he needs to be my Lord.
It's a different relationship.
I know before I became a true Christian, Jesus, he was my rabbi.
I went to church.
I, I, you know, at first I used to sleep in the back of the church,
but then I started paying attention.
And I would go to church and, and I would, I would even…
I even got religious at one point, and I decided I'm gonna stop doing
all the certain bad things that I was doing even though I was still,
uh, I wasn't maybe knee-deep in sin, but I was calf-deep in sin.
And I was…
Jesus was a good idea, Jesus was a good influencer in my life, but when
it came to submission, he was not Lord.
Yeah.
I was lord.
When there was a tug of war, there was a wrestle, or there was a conflict
in views, guess who was reduced?
Jesus.
That's who I was.
That's my relationship in the past with Jesus before people
studied the Bible with me and God showed me, "I can't be your rabbi.
I need to be more than that.
I need to be your Lord."
And I praise God for that happening 25 years ago.
But I have to be careful now not to reduce Jesus to a job.
You see, I'm in a full-time ministry, so everything I do is, quote unquote,
"spiritual," at least in theory.
And so what Jesus can become is my boss, my employer, my routine.
He can be part of my tradition or my culture.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And so I have to be careful of this.
What do you need to be careful of as well?
Can Jesus be reduced to a rabbi in your life?
As I studied this out, I was like, man, I, I, I, I can't let Jesus be reduced
even though this temptation is there.
But Jesus must remain my life.
Jesus must remain my hero.
Jesus must remain my best friend.
Jesus must remain my inspiration and my destination.
Jesus must be my everything.
Jesus must be my Lord
He can't be a mere rabbi, 'cause that's not who He is.
That means I have a incorrect view of Jesus.
If He's a religious figure, then my view is totally off.
If He's just a good teacher, then I'm incorrect.
If He's just a, a person that's only a landline, then I have failed the
tests, because Jesus is more than that.
He is Lord of all.
Yeah.
Amen.
You see, the disciples, they gained and they maintained the right view of Jesus.
That's why, why we even have the Gospels.
That's why we have the New Testament.
It's because they were able, by God's grace, to see Jesus clearly, and
then respond to Jesus accordingly.
And I believe that's the same response me and you should have from
this reality, is this: To see Jesus clearly and respond accordingly.
See Jesus for who He is, and then respond to Him as Lord.
And so whether you're young or, or maybe you're coming now and you're, you're,
you're studying the Bible, you're, you're seeking this whole religion
thing, this Christianity thing here, I wanna encourage you to continue
to discover who Jesus is, but then also what that means for your life.
Yeah.
For those of us who have been around, the call for us is to have and to hold on to
this truth of Jesus and who He is, to grow in our relationship and appreciation, but
to continually, daily respond accordingly.
Because again, I will respond differently if Jesus is Lord than if He is my rabbi.
And how?
We build up to intimacy with Jesus through the scriptures, understanding who
He is, what He's like, through prayer, praying to Him, connecting with Him.
And not just, "Jesus, can you help me today?"
There's a song I like: I need just a little bit more Jesus.
I like that song, but I'm like, "I don't need just a little bit more Jesus.
I need a whole lot more Jesus."
I wanna know you.
I wanna be close to you, and most, I wanna be like you in
my character and in my nature.
You see, we also need other disciples of Jesus.
We need each other.
I don't know how much I've grown, I've shared a little bit earlier,
because of others' relationship with Jesus that helped me,
shaped me, mold me, and teach me.
So this is why we need to gather as often as we can, share all that
we can, and spiritually strengthen and encourage one another.
Yeah.
Model for one another what it looks like.
Support one another when we get down.
You see, this is how we're gonna build this intimacy and respond accordingly.
And as a church, we're gonna start, I believe we're starting next week,
we're gonna start a sermon series out of the Gospel of John called Come and
See, where we can all collectively be reminded and have a fresh view or renewed
view of who Jesus is, but also how to respond to the Jesus that you and I see.
Amen.
You know, Jesus lifted up the woman.
Did you see that?
Wherever the gospel is preached, so for thousands of years all
across the globe, Jesus honors this woman because she honored him
And what does she have?
She builds an everlasting connection to the Son of God.
Brothers and sisters, that is available for you and me today.
We too can be like that woman, honoring Jesus, and Jesus going,
"I'm gonna honor you for eternity.
You're gonna build with me, or you're gonna stay connected
with me for all of eternity."
And so this week, I want you to answer that question: What is Jesus worth to you?
What is the Jesus that you are seeing and building, what does He deserve from you?
And others, is Jesus still Lord, or has He become a rabbi?
And whatever the answer is, answer honestly, because God can work with that.
God's not mad, because God's calling you back into deep fellowship with Him.
And so now we have an opportunity to grow and grow and grow in Christ,
where He's not just a mere rabbi, He is the Lord God Almighty in the flesh
How we view Jesus will determine how we respond to Jesus.
Jesus is more than a rabbi.
Jesus is the Son of God- Amen … the exact representation of God the Father.
He's the Word of God in the flesh.
He is the author and perfecter of our faith.
He is the word of life.
He is Lord, and he is Savior, and he's all that and then some.
Yeah.
That's who Jesus is.
Jesus is not negotiable.
He is the treasure, priceless and worthy of our devotion.
Amen.
Let's close out in Matthew 26.
Brothers and sisters, are you still with me this morning?
Yeah.
We go back to Matthew 26.
In verse 13, Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached
throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her."
Judas exchanged Jesus for 30 pieces of silver while she gave extravagantly
because she saw Jesus as priceless, worthy of devotion, and Jesus honored her.
May we see Jesus as she did, and may our lives reflect
that Jesus is worth it to us.
Brothers and sisters, amen.