Better on the Inside
Notes
Transcript
SCRIPTURE.
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
INTRO.
Does anyone in here like to hike?
Shelb and I LOVE to go hiking. In fact, we’ve built a couple of vacations around being able to hike in some awesome places.
[Hiking Pictures]
We’ve hiked in Glacier National Park in Montana, we’ve hiked in Acadia National Park in Maine, but by far our favorite place to hike was in Banff National Park in Canada. Lake Louise is legitimately the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!
TENSION.
Now, something I’ve learned from hiking is that gear is important. You need the right gear to be set up for success. You need a good hiking backpack, you definitely want to make sure you’ve got some comfortable hiking shoes (make sure they’re waterproof. You’re welcome in advance), you need a LOT of water and snacks, and obviously you to make sure you wear comfortable clothes.
In almost every place that Shelb and I have gone hiking, most everyone you see has the right gear. And honestly, most everyone has the same gear. They all went to REI before they got to the hike :) But, even if everyone looks the same from the outside, once you’re on the trail, you can tell whose body is actually trained for hiking on the inside…and it doesn’t take long.
A while back, I was on a hike with a large group of people, and it was BY FAR the worst hike that I’ve ever been on. It wasn’t that the hike didn’t have a great view - it did! It wasn’t because the weather was bad - it was gorgeous! It was the worst hike I’d ever been on because there was a person on the hike who had all the right gear for the hike, but whose body wasn’t actually trained for the hike. Once we actually got on the trail, it didn’t matter how ready they looked to hike on the outside, they’re lack of training their body on the inside was exposed.
Shelb and I have lived in GA for 5 years now, and honestly, one thing that I appreciate about GA is that it’s in the Bible Belt. When it comes to church the south is built different than the north. There is a certain exposure that people in the south get to Jesus that just isn’t true in the north where I’m from. I think it’s a strength of the south.
But every strength comes with a weakness. And I believe the weakness of living in the Bible Belt is that people have so much exposure to Jesus. It’s not that exposure to Jesus is wrong, but I think being around the things of Jesus from a very young age presents a temptation that I’ve had to personally navigate. I didn’t navigate that temptation because I grew up in the south, but because from an early age I was around the things of Jesus. And the temptation is to become a hypocrite.
You know what I mean when I say hypocrite, don’t you? Maybe you’ve even experienced this personally where someone who looked like a follower of Jesus on the outside really wasn’t like Jesus on the inside.
It’s the person who posts Bible verses on their accounts, but is drunk every Friday night.
It’s the person who gets caught up in the presence of God in worship and then goes home and chases a different kind of high.
It’s the person who talks about the love of Jesus and then makes hateful comments to the transgender person or racist comments to a person of color at their school.
The temptation is real to look like a better follower of Jesus on the outside than we are on the inside. And that’s exactly why tonight I want to look at the story of Judas in a message that I’m titling: Better on the Inside. In high school, he would’ve been voted as biggest penny pincher [Judas AI Slide]. He was cheap, but not in the cool way. He’s not out thrifting because he’s cool. He’s more like the guy who keeps signing up for 30 day free trials of Netflix with a different email.
TRUTH.
Judas is a pretty infamous character in Scripture. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to probably have at least heard of Judas. He was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus. Which means that for 3 years of his life, he would’ve been side by side with Jesus as he traveled, taught, and performed miracles. Judas was around Jesus constantly. And I’m a little jealous of Judas because he would’ve seen some pretty epic stuff.
One of the wildest things that Judas would have seen happened in John chapter 11. Jesus got a message from some friends of His - Mary and Martha - to let Him know that their brother, Lazarus, was really sick. Not long after, Lazarus died from the sickness and had been dead for a couple of days by the time that Jesus showed up to Mary and Martha’s house.
But then, Jesus walks over to Lazarus’ tomb and literally raises him from the dead! The same guy who was so sick that he died a couple days before walked himself out of the tomb that his sisters had buried him in. And Judas would’ve seen the whole thing!
So naturally, once word got out that Jesus did that, the crowds start to swarm Him, and He has to leave town and go to the countryside to escape. But some time later, Jesus and the disciples come back to Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ town.
And this is where our story in John 12:1-2 picks up…
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him.
So a dinner gets thrown in honor of Jesus, and in attendance at the dinner was Lazarus! Think about that for a second…every person at this dinner was sitting down and eating with a man who was dead for 2 days not that long ago!
And Mary certainly hadn’t forgotten that.
Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
I like to imagine that while Jesus was away, Mary had thought about how she could ever say thank you to Jesus for raising her brother from the dead. And wouldn’t you if He had done something so miraculous?
So she takes this perfume and she anoints Jesus’ feet with it.
Have you ever had a really expensive bottle of perfume or cologne before?
My roommate my freshmen year of college had a tiny bottle of Aqua Di Gio that his parents got him for Christmas. I was just wondering this morning what it costs, a small bottle of that stuff costs $75! It’s expensive! And $75 was way more expensive when we were broke college kids you know? We didn’t have NIL deals yet ;) So I remember watching him use as little as he possibly could so that he could extend the life of it because it was so expensive.
Mary also has some expensive perfume. But she was unconcerned with saving it. Matthew and Mark tell this same story, and they say that she anointed Jesus’ head with it, but John says that she anointed His feet with it. I think that means she used every last drop and anointed Jesus with that perfume from head to toe.
And that drove Judas NUTS.
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
You can tell Judas was a penny pincher because he IMMEDIATELY knew how much that perfume cost. And by the way, Mary’s perfume was more expensive than my roommate’s Aqua Di Gio. Her perfume cost 300 denarii. A denarii was a measurement of money and it was equal to a day’s work. So, Mary’s perfume was worth about a year’s salary - and Judas knew that.
So, as she is anointing Jesus with this perfume, all Judas sees is a year’s salary going down the drain. What a waste.
So he speaks up and he says, “this should have been given to the poor.” And on the outside, that seems like the right answer. Judas the disciple, always so philanthropic, thinking about those less fortunate than himself.
But don’t be fooled. Just because Judas said “this should have been given to the poor,” what he meant was “this should have been given to me.”
Judas was in charge of managing the money that people would give to Jesus for His ministry. This the money they would use to buy what they needed…and Judas was embezzling it.
He didn’t actually plan on giving any of that money to the poor…he planned on giving it to himself.
Don’t be fooled by what Judas said, the true test of Judas’ discipleship wasn’t what was on the outside, it was what was on the inside.
And the next thing that Jesus says is very revealing of where Judas stood in his discipleship to Jesus.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
What Judas saw as a waste, Jesus saw as worship.
Judas and Jesus were int he same room watching the same thing go down, but their interpretations were wildly different.
Mary wasn’t being wasteful, she was worshipping. after seeing someone go from being dead to being alive, Mary understood that there was no greater treasure than Jesus.
All the while, Judas also watched someone go from being dead to being alive, but what he saw was an opportunity to use Jesus to get more treasure. Judas wasn’t surrendered to Jesus, he was siphoning off of Jesus.
Here’s the point: Being around the things of Jesus doesn’t mean you have the heart of Jesus.
APPLICATION.
And as I read this, I just find myself asking: how could someone be around Jesus and be so far from the heart of Jesus?
Does the Bible give us an answer to that question? And if it does, how do we learn from Judas’ story to make sure that we don’t become people who are around Jesus but far from His heart?
I think Scripture answers that question back in verse 4
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
Judas was a thief. He was embezzling money from Jesus.
That matters because sin always creates separation between us and God.
Have you ever had a guilty conscience before? A friend of mine told me a story where when he was on his first date with the girl who eventually became his wife, they were talking about growing up and he told her about how he used to play football and how good he was at it when he played. What he didn’t tell her was that he stopped playing in 5th grade. She thought he played in high school. And so the guy said that for months he wouldn’t bring up anything to do with sports or high school when he was with her because he didn’t want to get caught in the lie.
Sin of any kind, whether a lie or stealing, creates separation. I think Judas was so far from the heart of Jesus because the sin he willingly allowed to stay in his life created separation between he and Jesus.
So on one hand, that’s terrible news, because Scripture tells us that all of us have sinned. But the good news of Jesus is that, through His death on the cross He has paid for our sin and made a way for us to no longer be separated from Him.
And for a lot of us who have grown up in the Bible Belt or have just been around the things of Jesus quite a bit, the temptation is to hear that and think that that’s not a word for you just because you responded at a Winter Retreat when you were in middle school.
But I’m concerned that there are MANY of us who look better on the outside than we are on the inside.
The thing we see in Judas’ story is that being around Jesus doesn’t mean we have the heart of Jesus. But the thing that we can learn from Judas’ story is that being around Jesus presents opportunities to have our hearts transformed to look like Jesus. We can be better on the inside than we even look on the outside.
James 4:8 says,
Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
So how do you draw near to God when you are already “around” Him?
You get rid of the thing that is separating your heart from His: sin.
The way to get rid of sin: confess and repent.
To confess sin simply means to acknowledge that we are guilty of it.
Repentance is changing direction and walking away from our sin and walking back to God.
The invitation of Jesus is not just to come to church. It’s not just to be around church people. The invitation of Jesus is to have your heart transformed from the inside out to where it actually looks like His.
So here’s my question: what part of your life looks better on the outside than it really is on the inside?
May we not be a church that looks better on the outside than we are on the inside. May we be a church who is around Jesus AND has the heart of Jesus. May we be a church who is even better on the inside.
Let’s pray and then we’ll head to groups to talk about it.