Urgent Adoration

1. The first attribute of urgent adoration is that urgent adoration is unrestrained.
2. The second attribute of urgent adoration is that urgent adoration is impractical.
3. The third attribute of urgent adoration is that urgent adoration is irreproachable.
4. The fourth attribute of urgent adoration is that urgent adoration is unsurpassed.

MATTHEW 26:6-13

When was the last time you had your breath taken away? I’m not talking about the last time you got the wind knocked out of you. I’m talking about the last time you saw something so wonderful that it took your breath away. When was the last time? It seems that those times are very few and far between in our lives, doesn’t it? The first time I remember feeling that way was when I was in high school. A group of us guys went backpacking in the Rocky Mountains. I remember feeling that way when I saw the awesomeness of the night sky from our campsite at 13,000 feet elevation. I have still never seen a night sky like that one. A few years later, I got that same feeling when the wedding march sounded and my bride-to-be came around the corner from the hallway of our church and walked into the sanctuary. She absolutely took my breath away. The other times I remember are each time I held one of our babies for the first time. Breathtaking moments. Each of us have had them. You can’t script them. You can’t prepare for them. You can’t make them up. They are virtually indescribable. But they are unmistakably real. As real as those encounters people in the Bible have had with entering the presence of the Lord. You remember what happened when Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah 6. When he saw the Lord, he was completely undone. Being in the presence of the Lord made him cry out, “Woe is me! For I am undone. Because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King—the Lord of hosts.” When Ezekiel saw only the “appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord,” What happened to him? He immediately fell on his face. In the book of Revelation, when John saw the risen Jesus in all His heavenly glory, what did he do? He said, “I fell at His feet as dead.” I guess it would be an understatement to say that those were breathtaking moments. Moments of pure, unhindered worship. Moments of adoration of God in all of His Trinitarian glory. But do we have to wait until we see Jesus face to face to have breathtaking moments with Him? Do we have to wait for some time in the future to adore Him? To worship Him? No—as a matter of fact, that is the kind of relationship we are supposed to have with Jesus right now. We talk about worship all the time. But do we really know what worship is? If we’ve never had a breathtaking experience with worshipping Jesus, then we probably don’t. In our passage, Mary had a breathtaking experience with Jesus. From the parallel passage in John 12, we know that the woman in our passage was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. This is the same Mary that hung on Jesus’ every word while her sister Martha was busy doing the housework. Mary urgently adored Jesus as her teacher. The housework could wait. She was going to give her full, undivided attention to the Living Word of God. And in our passage, Mary urgently adores Jesus as her Lord and Savior. Nothing was going to stand in