IN THE RED | WEEK 1
“Worship Counts”
Pastor Rory Chance
Worship Counts
“Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.” —John 12:3
Math is supposed to be universal. Two plus two is always four. But we don’t all count things the same way. There’s girl math, where a $400 purse is a steal if you carry it every day for a year—that’s only a dollar a day. There’s dad math, where instead of paying a professional, you buy $300 worth of tools to do it yourself. There’s even pastor math, where “five more minutes” means an undetermined amount of time.
We all use the same numbers, but we don’t always count the same things. And most of us are wired to count losses, not blessings. Psychologists call it loss aversion: losses hit us about twice as hard as equal gains. Find $20 and it’s nice. Lose $20 and it ruins your whole day. Stephen Covey called it a scarcity mentality—the belief that life is a fixed pie, so if you get more, I get less.
Here’s the thing: scarcity isn’t based on what you have. It’s based on what you count. You can have plenty and still live by scarcity math, because your life is focused on what you don’t have. It bleeds into everything. In marriage, we count what they didn’t do. At work, we count what we didn’t get. In life, we count what’s missing. When we stop counting blessings, we start keeping score. We complain about things we used to be thankful for, compare ourselves to others, and grow bitter, until our whole world shrinks down to us.
That’s why worship is so transformative. Worship takes my eyes off of my needs and puts them on my supply. God doesn’t need our worship—we need to worship God. Worship was designed to break the math of anxiety, the math of fear, and the math of disappointment. Life isn’t perfect, and there’s plenty to worry about, but there’s also plenty to worship about. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4).
In John 12, six days before Passover, a dinner is held in Jesus’ honor in Bethany. Lazarus—the man Jesus raised from the dead—is at the table. Mary takes a jar of perfume worth a year’s wages and pours it on Jesus’ feet. Judas calls it a waste. Jesus says, “Leave her alone.” In that moment, Mary shows us how to flip the flow of our lives.
Stop Counting the Cost, Start Counting Blessings
Judas and Mary were both in the room to honor Jesus, but they were counting different things. Judas was counting the money: 300 denarii, a year’s wages. Mary was counting everything Jesus had done.
Lazarus was in the tomb for four days—long enough for the smell of death—and now the house was filled with fragrance. Jesus waited two days before coming. Mary remembered the delay, and she remembered that He came anyway. Jesus wept with her one time—He met her in her pain before He fixed her problem. He walked toward Bethany, just two miles from Jerusalem, where people had just tried to stone Him. One brother who was dead was now alive at the table. And Mary was at Jesus’ feet three times: learning, grieving, and worshiping.
What is 300 denarii compared to that?
“What can I offer the LORD for all he has done for me?” —Psalm 116:12
A scarcity mindset makes worship transactional: what do I get from this? Gratitude makes worship sacrificial: what can I pour into this? To one person, worship looks like a waste. To the other, nothing we bring could ever repay what He has done. If you struggle with worship, go back to gratitude. Remind your soul of all Jesus has done.
Stop Living to Please People, Start Living to Bless God
This was a dinner of honor with strict social rules, and Mary broke every one of them. She crossed to the men’s side of the room. She touched a rabbi in public. She let her hair down. She took the servant’s spot at His feet. And she spent a year’s wages in front of the disciples’ treasurer.
You can’t worship God and try to please people at the same time. If you live by the praises of people, you’ll die by their criticism. Mary’s critics weren’t outsiders—they were insiders. The disciples thought it was too much. But caring what people think keeps us across the room, and worship brings us to the feet of Jesus. Praise only seems crazy to people who haven’t added up all their blessings.
“Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.” —Mark 14:6
Judas said it was a waste. Jesus said it was beautiful.
Stop Holding Back, Start Pouring Out
A jar like that was often kept to store family wealth. Mary didn’t use it when Lazarus died. She held it back for years, but it had a purpose in God’s plan. She had been calculating its value until she realized its purpose was worth more than its cost. It was never created for the shelf—it was designed to be poured out. On the shelf, it blessed Mary. Poured out, it blessed God. As Jesus said, “She has done what she could” (Mark 14:8).
What’s sitting on your shelf that could bless God? For some of us, it’s resources. For some, it’s talents. For some, it’s our song. We know it has value, but we’re still holding it instead of pouring it out.
Think about an abacus—the original calculator. No batteries. No Wi-Fi. Just beads on rods. Slide them over and you’re counting, and you get to choose what you count. Maybe it’s time to rework the math in your life: magnify God and minimize the frustrations, disappointments, and limitations.
Stop counting the cost and start counting blessings. Stop living to please people and start living to bless God. Stop holding back and live a life poured out.
When Mary broke that jar, the whole house was filled with fragrance. Everyone could smell it. Everything that had flowed into her life was now flowing out. When we flip the flow, we fill the world with a fragrance, and everyone will know how good Jesus is and how worthy He is.
Because in God’s math, nothing poured out on Jesus is ever wasted.
