Two Acts of Worship
Notes
Transcript
Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead.
There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him.
Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said,
“Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”
This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it.
But Jesus said, “Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial.
For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always.”
Now a great many of the Jews knew that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.
But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also,
because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus.
The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,
took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ The King of Israel!”
Then Jesus, when He had found a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written:
“Fear not, daughter of Zion; Behold, your King is coming, Sitting on a donkey’s colt.”
His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him.
Therefore the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead, bore witness.
For this reason the people also met Him, because they heard that He had done this sign.
The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, “You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him!”
INTRO:
INTRO:
AG:
TS: The text today opens up six days before passover. We are entering the last week of Jesus’ life on Earth before His crucifixion. Jesus returns to Bethany, His base of operations near Jerusalem.
RS:
1. Anointed in Bethany (12:1-11)
1. Anointed in Bethany (12:1-11)
The People
The People
There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him.
Jesus and His disciples enjoy a meal with Lazarus, Mary, and Martha.
The Perfume
The Perfume
Mary anoints Jesus with expensive perfume
Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
“Nard” was an oil extracted from the root of a plant grown in India.
It was very costly
They ate a a low table and reclined.
Their fet extended away from the table and were easily accessible for Mary to anoint.
We see here Mary’s humble devotion and love for Jesus
It was an act of extravagant worship!
300 denarii- 1 denarius was a day’’s wage for common laborers This is a years wage! (since no money was earned on Sabbath and other holy days)
The Protest
The Protest
The Denouncing of Mary
Judas Iscariot rebukes Mary
Cites the cost John 12:4-5
But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said,
“Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”
Reason John 12:6
This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it.
Judas was a crook!
He wanted to skim money off the top and keep it for himself!
He wasn’t generous! He had his hand in the till
The Defending of Mary
John 12:7-8 Jesus
But Jesus said, “Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial.
For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always.”
Jesus gives the real reason for anointing
Preparing for His burial
Like Caiaphas’ prediction that Jesus (one man) would die for all, Mary’s act had a foreshadowing of the coming burial of Jesus
1st century, Funerals were often extravagant with expensive costly perfumes to cover smells
Mary did’t know it, but she had already begun the preparation
He in no way is saying to ignore the poor, but at this time and place, there was a greater need.
Jesus’ time was near and He would no longer be on Earth in the flesh
The poor would always be here and can be taken care of
The Popularity
The Popularity
Now a great many of the Jews knew that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.
But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also,
because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus.
Lazarus was a focus of people
His story was unique
He had been raised from the dead!
Many came to see Him as well as Jesus
This led to saving faith!
During His ministry on earth, Jesus reacted strongly to several acts of faith (Matt. 8:10, 15:28; Luke 5:19, 20), but His reaction to Mary stands above them all. He said, "Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her" (Mark 14:9 NASB).
No wonder such an act should go hand in hand with the gospel, for this is how everyone should respond to Jesus! Mary either read the Old Testament or heard from Jesus’ mouth that He was to die and she believed it. She knew His death was of such magnitude that she should be willing to do anything to express her faith in Him. She displayed submission of both her material possessions and her own body; she surrendered everything to Jesus.
Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.”
AP: Mary is a picture of worship
Like Mary....
1 Worship should come from the heart
I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, And I will glorify Your name forevermore.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
We shouldn’t gather here out of habit
We should be so in love with God that it overflows into worship!
Every day.
2 Worship should be sacrificial
It doesn’t have to be $
Give yourself (all you have)
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Worship with all of your being
time
talent
treasure
2. Acclaimed in Jerusalem (12:12-19)
2. Acclaimed in Jerusalem (12:12-19)
Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is one of the few events in His life recorded in all 4 gospels.
MacArthur Study Bible NASB (Commentary)
By this action, He presented Himself officially to the nation as the Messiah and Son of God.
The Sanhedrin and other Jewish leaders wanted Him dead but did not want Him killed during the Passover time because they feared stirring up the multitudes with whom He was popular (Mt 26:5; Mk 14:2; Lk 22:2).
Jesus entered the city, however, on His own time and forced the whole issue in order that it might happen exactly on the Passover day when the lambs were being sacrificed. As the Scripture says, “Christ, our Passover, also has been sacrificed” (1 Co 5:7 ).
Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
In God’s perfect timing (see 7:30; 8:20), at the precise time foreordained from eternity, He presented Himself to die (v. 23; 10:17, 18; 17:1; 19:10, 11; cf. Ac 2:23; 4:27, 28; Gal 4:4 ).
But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
The Parade
The Parade
The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,
The people line the roadside to welcome Jesus
Jesus had arrived in Bethany on Saturday, then on Sunday many Jews visited Him, angering the Jewish leaders.
Monday, is the day we are now on
Jesus enters Jerusalem publically through the East gate of the city
The Praise
The Praise
took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ The King of Israel!”
“hail to the King of Israel
Date palms grew in plentiful supply
The waving of palm branches was a national symbol for them.
It signalled fervent hope that a messianic liberator was arriving on scene.
Hosanna - Hebrew word meant give salvation now
It was part of the Hallel, Pss 113-118.
It was sung each morning by the temple choir during the Feast of Tabernacles.
It was also associated with the Feast of Dedication and especially the Passover (which was the current season)
After shouting “Hosanna” they shouted Ps 118:26
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.
In the original context, Ps 118 was apparently used as as a blessing upon the Davidic king.
They were welcoming Him as KING and ready to follow Him politically
After His Ascension, the disciples grasped the full meaning of this parade:
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
The crowd here is welcoming Jesus as a political deliverer, as one who will throw off the shackles of Rome.
These people want Jesus to be their king in the same way (and for the same reasons) that the Galileans wanted Jesus to be their king after He had fed the 5,000 (John 6:15).
As William Barclay says, “Jesus approached Jerusalem with the shout of the crowd hailing a conqueror in his ears – and it must have hurt him, for in him they were looking for that very thing which he refused to be.” [William Barclay. The New Daily Study Bible. The Gospel of John. Vol II. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 2001) pp. 136-137)
The crowd wanted a king, but they wanted a different kind of king, they wanted a king with a sword!
For thousands of years the Jewish people had been looking for a Messiah. They were expecting a great military leader, who would overthrow all of their enemies and restore Israel to its former greatness and glory.
What they did not expect was that their king would appear as the son of a carpenter.
That when he appeared that he would not possess any weapons, no army and no political power! They certainly never expected that he would end up crucified as a common criminal another victim of their cruel oppressors.
The Prophesy
The Prophesy
Then Jesus, when He had found a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written:
“Fear not, daughter of Zion; Behold, your King is coming, Sitting on a donkey’s colt.”
His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him.
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.
The Popularity
The Popularity
Therefore the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead, bore witness.
For this reason the people also met Him, because they heard that He had done this sign.
Jesus planned and carried out this formal presentation to to the nation.
That gathered the crowd and opened the path to what the Pharisees had feared: general acceptance of Jesus
The Protest
The Protest
The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, “You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him!”
The Pharisees are furious over Jesus’ popularity
They hated His popularity
AP: Public Worship
It is easy to worship in a crowd, but we are called to worship in a congregation
Crowd: goes with what is popular
right message, right music, right movement,
seek to meet the crowd’s expectation
Congregation:
Gathered believers bound to Christ and each other.
Purpose is worship GOD and encourage each other to live for Him
Congregations never honour God more than when they reverently listen to his Word, intending not just to hear but to obey in response to what he has done, is doing and will do for them.
Geoff Thomas
In a congregation, we can and should worship publically!
Worship for the world to hear!
We are gathered today to worship!
1 Awakening
Often we come into corporate worship feeling a sense of spiritual fog. During the rough and tumble of the week, the hard knocks of real life in the fallen world can disorient us to ultimate reality and what’s truly important. We need to clear our head, recalibrate our spirit, and jump-start our slow heart. Martin Luther found corporate worship powerful in awakening his spiritual fire: “at home, in my own house, there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through.”
2 Assurance
A second benefit is the community dynamic — which means not only meeting our good desires for belonging and shared mission (fellowship), but also providing a catalyst for our assurance.
3 Advance
Corporate worship also plays an indispensable part in our sanctification — our progressive growth in being conformed to the image of Jesus (Romans 8:29).
Corporate worship is for our general “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” ( 1 Corinthians 14:3 ) , but also in beholding Jesus together: “we all . . . are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
Like Mary, we should worship if there is no other audience
Like the crowds, we should worship openly where all can see