Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Encourage you to open your Bible to the Book of John. We haven't been here for a little while and so we're John chapter 12. So open your Bibles to John chapter 12. If you have a device, I guess you could tap over there. But let's all look together at John 12 this morning. In January of 2024, which was just a moment ago, I think we started John, the Book of John. The Gospel of John started in chapter one, verse one, and then we went through verse one, chapter one, verse one, through chapter 11. And we concluded that at the end of October last year. And then in November we did a few weeks in Daniel, and then in December we did a series around Christmas, Advent particularly. And here we are in January last week, hopefully you were able to listen to the message or be here. We were just reminded that we're in the year focusing on what does it look like to build a healthy church, to be a church that gathers well, that is honoring Christ as we come together, that's developing disciples in and amongst in our interactions. And we have a couple books of the quarter for this first quarter in the foyer. If you'd like to grab one in the bulletin, you can see that there is a QR code you could scan if you'd like to get that another way. But that's the focus through this year. And as we look into the book of John, the Gospel of John, particularly 12 through the rest of the book is where we're going to go the rest of this year. We'll finish the book through this year at the end of this year. And as we spend time here, this is actually just the last week of Jesus life. So the first, last year we looked at about three and a half years or so of Jesus life in chapters one through 11. And then John designates the next half of his book to the last week. So are you with me there? The first half of John is about three, three and a half years or so. The next half of John is focused on how many weeks, one week. So that tells us this last week of Jesus life is incredibly important. And we will see as we go through this year and unpack in great detail some of the things that are going to happen have happened to Jesus and also how that will help us as followers of Jesus, knowing how we can honor him, to serve him, to worship him, because as we just sung, he is and always will be a holy God deserving of our full attention. So that, you may believe, is the series that we're in in this gospel today, Starting in chapter 12, verse 1, we'll look at verses 1 through 11. Today I entitled the message, as you can see in your outline, devotion versus detest. And maybe that'll just kind of draw your attention for just a minute. We'll attach some people, some groups of people to either the side of devotion or the side of detesting, particularly Jesus, and we'll see that played out in a dinner. So let's read the passage and then we'll pray and we'll go through this together. So let's read John, chapter 12, starting in verse one.
[00:03:19] And actually, before I start, it's probably good to look at some context, isn't it?
[00:03:23] Because if you read scripture without some context, it can really give you some confusing stuff that you might learn from it. So what happened in chapter 11? Flip back in your Bibles. Chapter 11. Lazarus died.
[00:03:36] Jesus heard that he was sick. He could have gone immediately or even from a distance and healed Lazarus, but he didn't do that. Jesus promised in chapter 11 that Lazarus death or his sleep even would not lead to particularly eternal death. He would rise again. And then we see in chapter 11 later on that Jesus interacts with Mary, he interacts with Martha, and he sees, says, don't worry, I'm going to do something great. And then Jesus goes to the tomb after Lazarus had been dead for how many days?
[00:04:08] Four whole days, which Jesus has never raised anyone from the dead after they have been dead for four days. He's raised people from the dead, but it wasn't four days later. He raises Lazarus from the dead after four days of being in the tomb. And we see that the response of Mary, of Martha, and probably the crowd of people around was, this is incredible. We've never seen anything.
[00:04:32] And the religious leaders saw what had happened as well. And they also said, this is incredible.
[00:04:38] No, they said, this is terrible. We need to make this guy disappear. Because look at the crowds of people that are following Jesus. And so they see, if you look at the end of chapter 12, they say, we need to plan to kill this man. They detested him. They wanted him gone because they saw that crowds were following Jesus and no longer were they following them. And so they put a. They called together the council. They said, we need to find a way to make this guy go away, this Jesus, we need to silence him. And so what they did is they said, passover is coming. He might be coming. And they told everyone, if you see Jesus, let, let us know, because we would like to arrest him. And Jesus heard about this and he goes Away, some miles away from Jerusalem to kind of lay low for a while. And we pick up now in verse one of chapter 12. And the reason it's important to have some context there is because in the original writings of this, there were not chapter and verse separations. This was one continual letter that John is writing. So here we are, six days before the Passover. Like I said, Passover is approaching, as we see here. Six days before the Passover. Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, as we know. But just to clarify, as John offers for us here a comment whom Jesus had raised from the. What? From the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those who was reclining at the table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard. And some of your Bibles might say spike nard. We'll talk about that a little bit later. And anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her what with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. If you've been around potent perfume before, you know you can remember it, even days or weeks or perhaps months after the fact. But Judas, verse 4. Judas Iscariot, 1 of the disciples, he. He who John, again commenting about something that's going to happen later. But he who was about to betray him said, why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given it to the poor? He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. And having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put in it. Jesus answers and says this, Leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you will always have with you, but you do not always have me. Verse 9 through 11.
[00:07:20] When the large crowd learned of the Jews, learned that Jesus was there, they came not only on account of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests, we talked about them earlier, they want to make sure Jesus goes away. They want to kill him because people are following Jesus instead of them. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death, which is strange. Why would you try to kill a guy who Jesus just raised from the dead? That's a different, different story. They tried to put him to death, plans to put him to death as well. Because on account of him, many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. Well, Lord Jesus, we're here today because we like the many hear that we just read. Are going away from our old life and believing in youn. We today trust in youn as our Master, as our Lord, the One who went to the cross to pay the price that was due us because of youf death, because of youf resurrection, and because of the faith that we have, the trust that we have in youn. You have washed us clean.
[00:08:35] We are new creations in you. And we desire this morning to submit to the work of your spirit inside of us. Shape our hearts, change our minds to be in line with what you want, not what we want. Lord, I pray that you would speak through Me the things that I say would be honoring to you in line with what you want to say here today in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:08:58] Well, let's look in your outlines. You can write some of the words in. I'm going to give you a hint with the rest of the lines that you'll fill in. They all start with S. Just because the first one is you can write in the setting. So important, as I mentioned earlier, the context is important. Whenever you're opening God's Word, what's being talked about? What's the bigger picture of what I'm reading here? So we talked about that just a moment ago. But one of the things we could also see as you read through the Gospels is that they are oftentimes or many times they're speaking about other accounts that have been written about in other Gospels. The Synoptic Gospels is a term that you might hear every once in a while, particularly Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They write about situations or occasions that happen that others also wrote about. And so sometimes we can understand or learn more about a particular situation or occasion or event when we read about it in Matthew's account, Mark's account, or Luke's account, in our occasion we're reading.
[00:09:57] So what I'd like, I think is important for us to do again, to get a bigger picture of the details, what happened in this story, and to better help us understand what we can learn and glean from God's Word is for us to go back to Matthew's Gospel and Mark's Gospel for just a moment and read through this same story, because we learn a little bit more. And so let's just do that. So let's look at Mark, chapter 14, verses three and through nine, and it's on the screen. You can flip in your Bibles as well. This is the same story that we're reading, I believe, and we're going to learn some more.
[00:10:33] Verse 3. We'll just pick up. And while he was, Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper. And just to clarify, he's no longer a leper, most likely, because if he was, he wouldn't be eating with a bunch of people. Lepers were sent far away. This way they would not infect others. So most, most likely this is someone that Jesus has healed as he was reclining at the table. A woman. John tells us this woman is Mary. A woman came with an alabaster flask or jar of ointment of pure nard, very costly. And she broke the flask and poured it over his head. And there were some who said to themselves indignantly, why was this ointment or this perfume, why was this wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor. And they scolded her. But Jesus, he steps in and says, leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She's done a beautiful thing. For you're always going to have the poor with you. And whenever you want, you can do good for them, but you will not always have me.
[00:11:42] She has done what she could. She has anointed my body beforehand for my burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the world, even for us today, 2,000 years later, what she has done will be told in memory of her. Jesus said that 2,000 years ago. And here we are still talking about this. Matthew's account is similar. When Jesus, chapter 26, verse 6 and following. When Jesus was at Bethany, at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster flask of his expensive ointment. She poured it on his head as he was reclining at the table. And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant. Why?
[00:12:22] Why is this a waste? Why? Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor. But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, why do you trouble this woman? For she has done a beautiful thing. For you'll always have the poor with me, but you won't always have me. And pouring the ornament on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, ever this gospel is proclaimed in the world, what she has done will be told of it in memory of her. So we even have Jesus recognizing this incredibly powerful event. And we would do well to also give us just as much weight today as Jesus did to this occasion. So we see in your outline on the back of your Bulletin. You'll see it says, five ways to respond to Jesus. We're going to insert a bonus one in there somewhere. So stay tuned for that five ways to respond to Jesus. We're going to just walk through this and see these five, six people, actually, who respond in different ways to Jesus and the work that he had just done of bringing about life to a man who was dead for how many days?
[00:13:25] Four whole days. So we see in verse one, it's just before the Passover, Jesus is at Bethany. This is the place that Lazarus and Mary and Martha live. And so Jesus, he has gone away for a time. He's come back because they say, hey, Jesus, we want to say thank you and we want to have a dinner party for you. How many of you have been to a dinner party before? Some of them have been pleasant, maybe some of them not so pleasant. This one is memorable. Clearly this one will be very memorable for all those who are sitting there. They just want to say thank you. Thank you, Jesus, for what you've done. So on the screen, you can write this in as well. We see five ways to respond to Jesus. The first is this. You can serve him. You can serve him. We're going to see this in verses, particularly verse two. As we look in your Bibles. Look at what it says there. So they gave a dinner for him. There Martha served. And Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table. You can serve him. You can write that in as the first s there they can serve. So they being Mary and Martha, most likely are the ones who said, jesus, we want to say thank you. But we see in the other Gospels that it wasn't at their house. Whose house was it at?
[00:14:37] Simon. Simon, who happened to have leprosy before, who no longer has leprosy. So now Simon says, I want to host this. And most likely, especially if Simon was healed by Jesus before, he says, I want to take part in this in some way. Maybe Mary and Martha and Lazarus were talking. What can we do to say thank you to Jesus? And they said, well, we could have dinner. We could host a dinner and invite him. And maybe Simon is there, his house being also in Bethany, says, hey, I want to get in on that. How can I help? And they said, well, Simon, you have a nice house. Maybe we could have it at your house. So it's over. I don't know if that actually happened. I'm just saying maybe that maybe that occurred. We see also. So who's there? Simon's there. Jesus is there. Lazarus is there. Mary's there. Martha's there. Twelve disciples, perhaps other servants as. As well, Martha seems to be. You might know the story of Mary and Martha from, I think, Luke 10. There's a time that Mary and Martha are hanging out with Jesus. They're having dinner or they're having a meal together. And Martha's bustling about serving in various places. And where is Mary? Helping her sister? No, she's sitting at the feet of Jesus. And Martha, indignant at the time, comes over to Jesus and says, hey, Jesus, I'm working so hard and look at my sister.
[00:15:47] She's not. Tell her to come and work. And Jesus, he doesn't say, yeah, that's a good point. Martha, Mary, get up and start serving. He says, no, she's chosen something good. She's chosen the better thing to sit and to listen and to spend time with me. Now, notice what doesn't happen here. Martha does not get upset about not getting more help. She doesn't scold anyone, but rather she enjoys serving. Maybe she's learned from her previous interaction that God has gifted her with the desire to serve. And I just imagine maybe Martha, she goes into the kitchen, she gets some food ready, she brings it out to Jesus. She says, jesus, here's some food. You get first pick because this dinner is about you. Here's what we learned from Martha. Serving is good. Serving God is good. Treating Jesus as the honored guest. And Jesus doesn't say, oh, no, Mary, it was nothing. Martha, it was nothing. I mean, I can raise people from dead in my sleep like it's no big deal. He doesn't say that. He lets himself be honored. In the situation in which Martha and Mary desire to serve him, he demonstrates that he's willing to be honored in this way. And Martha shows her love and her care by serving. That's the key word there. As she. As Jesus, as Martha serves there Martha, probably. So we're going to see here about Mary. Martha probably loved Jesus just as much as Mary did, but she was designed differently. We see even in other places that perhaps Martha is more of the practical kind of person. Any of you more practical. And some. Some of us are a little bit more emotional. Mary might be more of the emotional one, and not that either of those are bad, she shows more emotion. We saw that in chapter 11 as Mary falls before Jesus, weeping, we see Martha asking a similar question to Mary, but we don't see as much emotion there. Both of them love Jesus greatly, but they demonstrate that. So we're going to see later on in different kinds of ways. God has designed you and I differently. And so we're going to serve him in different ways. And that is good. And so here's the maybe thing to think about or to write down somewhere is find out, spend time with God, ask him, how have you gifted me to serve you? And then do that 100%, whatever that may be. And if you're somebody else who's been gifted or you're passionate about different things, don't scold other people for serving God in different ways than you're passionate about. Just be willing to say, God designed me differently. He's gifted me differently. And so I'm gonna serve God 100% in the way that he's gifted me, that he's given me passion to serve him. And I'm gonna let you honor Christ in the way that he's designed you.
[00:18:31] Serving the Lord is what matters. How you serve him will vary. Now, that's point one. This is the one that's not in your outline. You can write in. There's a point 1A that I inserted later after I put together your outline.1 A is this one way that you can respond to Jesus is by sitting with him is by sitting. And with. Look at verse two again with me it says this. So they gave a dinner there. Martha served. That's the first S. Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table. He sat there at the table with him. Now, you might think this interesting. First off, the women of the house would have been the ones who would, in the culture particularly, would have been the ones serving. So Martha would have been serving. We see Mary doing something different, which we'll get to that in a minute. There might have been other women there who were serving at the time. Lazarus has honestly the most to be grateful for, doesn't he? He was dead a minute ago.
[00:19:24] He was also in paradise. So maybe he's like, Jesus brought me back.
[00:19:28] But anyway, he has the most to be grateful for. Yes, the others are happy that Lazarus is back, but Lazarus the most to be grateful for. Notice he's not the one running around serving Jesus.
[00:19:42] The one who's most to be grateful for. Jesus for what he has done is not doing things.
[00:19:48] He's sitting, resting, enjoying time with Jesus.
[00:19:54] And now he's not being lazy, but he's showing us that one that we can worship Jesus by being a human being, not a human doing.
[00:20:05] I can worship Jesus firstly by sitting with him and listening to him and enjoying presence with him. Before I say man, Jesus did a lot for me. I Have to go do and do and do and do and do. He shows us that, yes, there's a time and place for being physically active in the way that we serve, but first and foremost, we need to be willing to sit back and rest, sit back and enjoy time with Jesus.
[00:20:31] Also, he might also be kind of weak because he's been dead for four days. So going around running about, doing things might be kind of challenging for him. But the spiritual lesson is powerful. He had incredible.
[00:20:46] He had an incredible opportunity to serve, to do lots of things, to show his appreciation. And the way he does that is by saying, jesus, I'm going to sit with you and enjoy presence with you.
[00:20:57] Martha was doing a good and right thing, and that fit her. Lazarus was doing who was once dead, he's now alive. He's the most grateful to Jesus, and he's sitting listening to him, enjoying his presence. And maybe as we think through and before we go on to point three or point two, however you want to number that now it's important for us to think to ourselves, lord, am I grateful to you for what you've done. And do I also demonstrate that by just sitting and listening to you. We do this with people in our life that we care about, right? People that I care about. I want to say, hey, let's have coffee, or let's sit down, or my spouse or my family. Let's just sit down and not do a bunch of things, but let me just sit down and spend time with you because you matter to me. Let's do that with Jesus, too.
[00:21:41] Go on a date with our spouse. You go home and you spend time with your kids and you play with them. You go and hang out with a friend because you care about those people. You don't just spend time apart from them, doing stuff for them. But you say, because you matter to me, I will sit in silence and listen to you. Let's do that with Jesus. Maybe make a slot on your calendar in your week slot in 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes. Make it like an appointment with a, if you will, real person that you're sitting down with and say, this is the time I'm going to sit with Jesus.
[00:22:10] And that is a way to worship him. That is a way to serve Him. That is a way to show your devotion to him. So the next point, point to that, you can write in on your outline or the third one down that we're looking at is this. The next s word is sacrifice for him. We'll spend a few more minutes here. We See Mary responding in a very different way than running about and serving or sitting. Mary, therefore, in her way of showing devotion and thanksgiving, giving to Jesus, took a pound. And this is actually about 12 ounces, 12 liquid ounces of expensive ointment made from pure nard. Some of your Bibles, like I said earlier, might say spike nard and excuse me, and then took it. And we saw from the other passages that she not only anointed his feet, she also anointed what other part of his body? His head, which she can do both. John particularly notes his feet. And then she wipes his feet with her hair. We see this perfume, very potent, fills the house. Let's spend just a few minutes and unpack this. So, Mary, let's just kind of walking through this verse. She realizes firstly that. And we realize culturally that Jesus, as he would have come in from wherever he was before to Bethany, as he comes into the house preparing for dinner, there would have been something that already occurred with him. His feet already would have been washed.
[00:23:29] When somebody goes to have dinner, dinner party, the way they would have been reclining at the table, the tables would have been low, not like our tables where you're sitting up, sitting in a chair where your feet are on the ground away from everybody else. They're walking with their sandals. So. And then they're laying down, kind of reclining, maybe on a pillow. And they would have been eating as they're reclining. Somebody else's head would have been over here. My feet are out kind of next to them, if you will. My head is here. Somebody else's feet would have been here. So if I'm used to eating dinner like that, that means my feet are close to somebody else's head. How does that make you feel?
[00:24:00] And I don't ask that question often as we're going through the Bible, because really, it matters first what scripture says. But what was normal and culturally appropriate is you go into the house, then somebody would wash your feet. Oftentimes the lowest of the servants, one of the, maybe newer of the servants, would have washed their feet with water. And so here, firstly, we get this understanding that. That washing Jesus feet with water wasn't enough for Mary. He was worth more. It's not just enough that your feet were washed with water. I would like to wash them with something much more valuable. And so she takes this small jar of expensive ointment. It says of pure nard. And here's. I brought. I asked Pastor Carl if I could grab one from the museum. This is a little Alabaster jar, as your Bibles say, there, a little jar. And we see that this is what it is. And alabaster. It's a really neat thing. I'll show you this little flashlight. If you shine it in, it's somewhat translucent. You can see through it, which is really neat to be able to see. So what they would have done is this jar would have been filled with an ointment made of spikenard, which is a plant that grows in Nepal, northern India. And it's a small, really rare plant. And they would have taken. Here's a picture of it. Some of the. You can see the flowering portion at the top. They might also take some of the roots and grind them together and make an ointment out of it. It was incredibly expensive. And then this would have been imported as well, because India, northern India is quite some distance from Israel. And so this would have been very, very expensive. And sometimes. And some people believe that what they would have done is they would have taken this and this would have been applied or given to somebody and maybe even the person who owned it at their burial. This is something that was very expensive. And people would have invested lots of money into. There would have been a little cork at the top. They would have sealed that. And most like, most of the time, when you break that one, the smell is going to go everywhere because it's incredibly potent. But also you're gonna use it. So if it's on, let's say, if it's mine when I die, somebody may take this and use it on my body, as we see later on with Jesus when he's buried. They went to go anoint his body to put spices on his body. Cause they didn't embalm bodies. Then they just put various fragrances on it so that the body did not smell significantly. And so Mary had one of these. And this would have been incredibly, as we see from Judas comment later, incredibly expensive. Look what it says, 12 ounces. So would have been a little larger than this of ointment made from pure nard. She anoints his feet. And we saw earlier in his head. And you just imagine everyone's sitting there, they're having their dinner. There's what, 15 or so, maybe more people, 15, 20 people there. Mary comes in, maybe from one of the other rooms, and she breaks open this little jar.
[00:27:03] And immediately people would have smelled something beyond the food in front of them, what is going on? And they would have seen obviously, Mary approaching Jesus and taking this and pouring it out on his head. And Then moving down to his feet and pouring it on his feet. All of the chatter that happened at the table, is that still going on? Most likely everything is silent.
[00:27:30] Shocked that this is occurring. They would have known what was in there. They would have smelled that and found great significance. What is she doing?
[00:27:40] And not only that, she continues on and lets down her hair. Culturally, her hair would have been held up. It wouldn't have been let down. Especially one in public, but particularly in the presence of men that are not her family members. She lets down her hair. Jesus feet there. She would have been near to the other people and begins to wipe her hair on his feet.
[00:28:08] What an incredible moment.
[00:28:11] She shows this incredible, this extravagant gift because she realizes that Jesus is incredible and extravagant. He's worth it much more than anything that she could physically offer. It's not enough. Perhaps she was feeling for me to go and offer him food or for me to sit with him. I need to give him something that, as Judas will note earlier, about a year's wages. So today, maybe $50,000 worth of ointment in that little jar. And I'm going to spend it all on Jesus. She teaches us something here. It's good and right to sacrifice for Jesus. Amen.
[00:28:50] Think about the song from the Rock of Ages.
[00:28:55] Nothing. In my hand I bring simply to thy cross I cling naked Come to thee for dress hopeless look to thee for grace foul I to the fountain fly Wash me, Savior, o'er I die the song When I survey the wondrous cross Were the whole realm of nature mine that were a present far too small Love so amazing, so divine Demands my soul, my life, my all.
[00:29:31] Jesus also speaks about a pearl of great price hidden in a field. He says, isn't it good for someone to sell everything so that they can experience a relationship with me? Mary's actions were extreme because her love was extreme.
[00:29:48] As we think about this for ourselves, is your love for Christ extreme? And if so, do you show it in extreme ways? If not, why not? And if so, how?
[00:30:03] We see here that for some, in this case for Mary, she felt led to give financially in a great way. Great way. What we're called to do is, as Romans 12:1 and 2 says, to offer our entire lives, lay it before Jesus and say, what do you want? It's all yours. This is a proper response. So we see first the first three responses. We'll see for Jesus. The next three we'll look at pretty quickly. Here we see Martha served, Lazarus sat, Mary sacrificed, all in appropriate response to their devotion. To. To Jesus. Let's look verse four and following. We can look at this. You can write this in on your outline if you'd like. Judas response was one with stinginess or stealing. He desired something for himself. Look at what verse 4 says. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, John notes here, who was about to betray him, says, why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii? What this is is 300 days wages or about a year's wages for a laboring man. So whatever minimum wage ish or something around there times a whole year's worth of work. Obviously with Sabbath off and some of the holidays off is about 300 days. Why was this not sold and given to the poor? And he said this not because. And this is interesting note that John has here. Not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a. What?
[00:31:24] He was a. He was a thief. I wonder, and maybe you do as well.
[00:31:30] When did they realize this?
[00:31:32] When did the other disciples realize that Judas was a thief? He was the one, as we see here, in charge of the money bag and he used to help himself to it. When did they realize that he was taking some off the top? Jesus. Well, before we get into Jesus response, we see here that he does a couple things. One, he breaks the silence. Remember, everything is perfectly quiet. You have 15, 20 people in a room watching this, smelling the ointment, the perfume that Mary has just poured on. They're watching Mary, who's let down her hair, which would have been culturally shocking to them all. Not sexually scandalous, as some suggest, just shocking. She doesn't care about what everyone else thinks. She cares first. How can I show devotion to Jesus no matter what anyone else thinks? And Judas, you have been in awkward pods before, in awkward silence. This is a long, awkward silence for everybody there. Judas breaks the awkward silence. Not with, oh, that's sweet.
[00:32:34] He just kind of yells out from wherever he's sitting, why wasn't this sold and given to someone else? Here's what I hear. Maybe you do as well when he says that Jesus isn't worth it.
[00:32:44] Like, come on, Judas.
[00:32:47] That shows you.
[00:32:49] That shows us something powerful, something significant. Jesus. Judas was following Jesus not because he wanted to lift up and glorify Jesus, but because he wanted something for his personal gain. This is true of Judas. This was true later on. Paul writes about this. He says that there are some who preach the gospel so that they can gain financially not for the kingdom growth, but for their own purpose. This is true even today, isn't it that people working alongside whatever they're doing, but then also holding up church things or the Bible and really they're using the kingdom work or they're using biblical concepts or truths and even working alongside Jesus for their own gain, not for the gain of Jesus. This has been true for years, thousands of years. Years.
[00:33:41] Jesus, Judas was a thief. He looked to gain personally, not how to glorify God. We also see his greedy heart was displayed. And I saw some quotes somewhere thinking about Judas here particularly maybe jot this down. Godly and right generosity looks crazy to the greedy heart. Godly and right generosity looks greedy.
[00:34:07] It looks crazy to the greedy heart. Why would you give something like that to the church? Why would you give something like that to the poor? Why would you give something like that? You could do so much else, something different with that.
[00:34:22] Jim Elliot thinking about reaching people unreached tribes in Ecuador and talking with his parents and others in the church, they said, why don't you use your gifts here in the States? You can do so much. You are such a gifted person, use it here.
[00:34:38] He said, no, not going to do that.
[00:34:42] I'm going to go to where God has called me, no matter the cost. So he went to South America where he and four others were killed trying to tell the lost about Jesus. They did not waste their lives, though to some it looked like you're wasting your talent by going to people who won't appreciate it. There was a man in Scotland later turned into was a pastor, 1824-1907. His name was John Patton. Very gifted man.
[00:35:17] Grows up, gets married, has some kids. He feels God's call in his life to go to the South Sea, to the South Pacific. And people in his church said, what are you thinking? You'll be eaten by cannibals.
[00:35:29] Finally, Patton, John Patton. He grew exasperated with him. And he says to this one man who said this, he said this, and it's written in autobiography. He says, my dear sir, you're getting up in years yourself and soon you'll be laid in the grave and eaten by worms. If I can be, if I can live and die honoring Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter to me whether I'm eaten by cannibals or I'm eaten by worms.
[00:35:54] And on the resurrection day my body will arise just as fair as yours.
[00:36:01] Selfless devotion to Christ is what we're called towards. Not looking to gain personally, but to lay our life before him and say, jesus, what do you want to do?
[00:36:12] We see again, we're called not to Be critical of others for showing our love, or not to be critical of others, to show how they show their love to Jesus, but rather let people love Jesus the way that God has called them to. To serve the way that God has called them to and honor them in that point four in your outline here, you can write this in. Some demonstrate this superficially, their response to Jesus.
[00:36:37] As you can see now, six ways to respond to Jesus superficially. This large crowd comes verse nine, as we kind of conclude this, their response. When the large crowd, the Jews, learned that Jesus was there, they came not only on account of him, of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the. What? Who he raised from the dead. This just happened. People had heard Passover is approaching. People are flocking in from all over the place. And they've heard Jesus healed this guy who was dead for how many days? For four days. And people are like, I've never heard anyone do that before. Where is he? Well, he disappeared for a while. And somebody's like, I just heard he was in Bethany. Really? Let's go over and find this Jesus. And I would also like to talk to Lazarus, because I'd like to know what happens when you die. Because we all have that question too, right? I mean, I'm sure they did 2,000 years ago. Somebody dies. I mean, this debate goes on between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. What happens after you die? Is there resurrection? Let's talk to someone who actually was dead for four days and came back. I would like to see.
[00:37:41] What we don't see is this same crowd having followed Jesus when he was teaching hard things like lay down your life for me. We don't see this crowd sticking with him. We see a crowd running to him when he feeds 5,000 and they dissipate when hard things happen.
[00:37:57] They run to him because this is fun. They run to him because he's done something cool, but not because they're willing to lay down their life for him. Here's something to write down and to think about. If you run to Jesus because of something cool, you'll likely run away as soon as he says that it's going to cost you. And this is true all around us. If we pull people into church things or whatever it might be, religious things, hey, come to this because you'll get donuts. Or come to this because there's really cool music. Or come to this because you'll feel. Or come to this because you need some direction or whatever it might be. If we're Calling people to Jesus for any other reason than Jesus. When as soon as they're faced with hardship and they see Jesus, they're gonna say it's not enough for me to stay cause I didn't come just for Jesus, I came for my own self gratification. We call people to Jesus using Jesus.
[00:38:52] And here they came to Jesus not because of the person of Jesus, but because they wanted to be entertained. They were curious, they weren't hostile, they were just curious. And sometimes Jesus works in people's hearts through their curiosity and grabs a hold of them and they see the significance of Jesus.
[00:39:08] We see also this great crowd a few days later, shortly they will be shouting hosanna, won't they? And a little while later they will be shouting crucify him. You can see their faith is superficial.
[00:39:24] The last S that you can write down in your outline is this.
[00:39:29] There was also some because of what he had done, they wanted to silence him. They wanted to silence him. That's particularly the Chief Priests, verse 10 and 11. So the Chief priests, they made plans to put who else to death?
[00:39:42] Lazarus. Yeah. Because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in. As we read this last verse we get the picture that the chief priests, that is the religious leaders of the day, they hear about where Jesus is, they hear about people running to Jesus and they realize they have to change their plans. We can't just get rid of Jesus. That's not enough. We need to silence.
[00:40:09] To remove any evidence of Jesus work, they need to eliminate the living proof of Jesus power by Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Even if they got rid of him, Lazarus was still a witness of Jesus power. What would they charge him with in order to kill him? Perhaps raising all sorts of commotion amongst the people, inciting or disturbing the peace. And maybe the Romans would sign off on that.
[00:40:38] But we do know this.
[00:40:40] Jesus is making such a difference in people's lives that they needed to shut him down.
[00:40:47] Why? Because their religious kingdom was in jeopardy because of Jesus. And to the point on the screen here, the desire to silence Jesus is overt. Yes. Evil? Yes. And selfish. Yes. But lest we friends here today, lest we become self righteous, we too can become like these religious leaders inside.
[00:41:09] We too can get so caught up in our own way of life that when Jesus starts to act, we can look for ways to silence him or ignore his voice. When Jesus does something outside of our comfort zone, when God calls us to do something that is different, to give up something major perhaps, or to do something hard, we can try to ignore him, we can try to silence him. We can try to listen to other voices instead of him, or distract ourselves from the voice of Jesus and the work of Jesus. We can look at them and say, you crazy people, what are you doing? But we too can become like this, can't we? I have my own way of life, Jesus, don't mess it up. I am serving you this way. Jesus, don't ask me to do something else because this is a good way.
[00:41:56] We have to be aware of that. Jesus might want to do something in your life or in my life. That isn't what we're expecting, which is why we have to keep, like Lazarus, keep sitting at the feet of Jesus, resting with him and saying, what do you want to tell me? And I'm ready to listen. I'm ready to listen. As we conclude here, I'm going to think through some things with you, maybe ask some questions that you can consider today as we look at six different responses, some of which were good. The first half of them were good, the second half, not as much. Ask yourself this question. How are you responding? Some showed their devotion and some showed their detest or their desire to push Jesus away for their own agenda. Do you serve Jesus? Are you sitting with him? Are you sacrificing from him?
[00:42:51] Are you stealing what is rightfully his? He says, I bought your life, so it's mine. Are you willing to say, my life is yours? Are you saying, no, it's for my agenda? Are you content with. We're just walking through your six points there. Are you content with a superficial relationship with Jesus? I know that I have been baptized. I know the gospel kinda, and I serve every once in a while. And I read my Bible when I'm asked to open it on Sunday morning. And I attend the Bible every once in a while. I'm okay with where I was 10 years ago being the same I am today. Are you content with a superficial relationship or are you willing to step into a deeper relationship continually?
[00:43:36] And six point on your outline there. Are you silencing Jesus voice in your life?
[00:43:44] Are you ready to listen Jesus? He's responding to you and I this morning.
[00:43:52] Jesus was sent for you.
[00:43:56] For God so loved the world that he gave. He sent Jesus while we were yet sinners. He was sent to us so that for those of us who believe and trust in him, we can have eternal life, eternal relationship with Him. So he was sent for us. He suffered for us. Jesus did. He went to the cross because he said, I know they can't be in relationship with me by themselves. So I'm going to respond even before they've done anything. I'm going to engage with them. I'm going to suffer.
[00:44:34] And today we can rejoice in this, that Jesus, for those who have trusted in him, Jesus stands with you. He makes you heirs of the kingdom of God, and he promises to never leave you or forsake you. He was sent, he suffered. And he stands with us today. Jesus does. And we can rejoice in that, can't we? I know no matter what happens that I'm a child of God. I know that no matter what happens that I am not alone. And we can rejoice in that day. If you've never trusted in Jesus, if you're like, those things sound really good, but I'm still doing my life my own way. I'm never gonna. I haven't. I've never submitted to him. I may be stealing back my own time because I think I want to live my life my way. And maybe when I get older, I'll submit to Jesus, do that today.
[00:45:30] Jesus acted.
[00:45:32] He stepped into the world. He suffered. And he stands with us who trust in him. We too can respond in such a way of devotion to Jesus, not shoving him away, not detesting the work that he's done. Let's pray. Dear Jesus, we come before you this morning as a people who desperately need you each day. For those here today who have never submitted their life to you, Lord, I pray that you are grabbing their hearts right now and showing them your great love for them, your desire to move and work in their hearts and their minds. Lord, I pray that you are doing a work here as we consider your power, as we just saw in this text here, the power to bring what is dead back to life, that we would respond the right way in devotion to you.
[00:46:23] For those here today who have trusted in you, Lord, I pray that you continue to show us what the devotion you're calling us to looks like. And that we would be obedient in that way, that we would trust wherever you want to take us, no matter how much it may look like wasting our life to others, that it's worth it, no matter how scandalous it may look or strange or costly it may be. We would truly listen to your calling in our life and be wholly devoted to you because you are devoted to. To this relationship with us.
[00:46:58] In Jesus name, amen.
