Jesus and Reactions to Revelations
Notes
Transcript
We all know how expensive everything is getting but have you seen the price of chimney’s? They’re through the roof!
We all know how expensive everything is getting but have you seen the price of chimney’s? They’re through the roof!
You know why dark is spelled with a K? Because you can’t c in the dark
Something of unrecognized value…
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EXPOSITION
EXPOSITION
1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
Remember, in chapter 11 verse 57 we read the pharisees had issued a warrant for Jesus arrest, which we see here is he therefore goes back to bethany. He is going back to the town he had just left to go into hiding. He is about to enter into his last days, he knows his time has finally come, so he is entering into the danger instead of away from it. This is it… this is six days before the passover… soon, they will sit around a table, and Jesus will share communion with them and he will change the passover meal into the meal that we will take today at the end of this service, our communion, and he will pay the ultimate sacrifice for us so we can spend an eternity with him.
2 So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table.
So this is a meal FOR Jesus… this is a meal of gratitude… think graduation meal with friends and family, but graduation from DEATH. fThis was not just some meal where they all happened to be in the same place at the same time so everyone got to gether. This meal has been put together quickly, and efficiently if you ask Martha, in my head I picture this about as quickly and efficiently as we put together meals for a wake… everyone comes together to make sure it can take place. to be sure there is a time they can honor Jesus for the work he has done. He is being put on display because he has raised Lazarus from the dead… and as they sit and eat with Jesus and all of the people there, also Lazarus sits among them. Surely no longer wearing the grave clothes, but living a life and walking away from the death he was bound by before Jesus came along and changed everything.
Martha like we have seen is the one that is busy… she has kept herself on task making sure all the things are in place, its what shes good at, keeping things in order and making sure things get done in the way they should. And Mary is about to express her heart and feelings to Jesus in a way that some people are going to have an issue with. We talked a few weeks ago about how Jesus showed his love for Mary by entering into his human emotions and showing her how grieved he was in the situation they found themselves in, so isn’t it interesting to see here that Mary is about to come and show how overcome with emotion she is for all the work Jesus has done… its almost as if Jesus knew exactly what her heart needed to feel at home by knowing exactly how she would respond.
3 Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
And as we talked about a few weeks ago, these transition word are so important… verse two told us they gave him a dinner… and this verse says therefore… she did this… because they were giving him a dinner… because this dinner was for him, because it was to honor him for the work he had done for her brother… she therefore sets out to honor him with this ointment that has great value… you can think of this as a retirement meal… Im all about the meals today… and you think about it as the person has worked long and hard so you put a meal together for them and you give them a watch, or a big plaque or something like that… because this meal was for Jesus in his honor… she wanted to give him something.
We aren’t sure where they got this immensely valuable gift to give Jesus. We are given no indication they come from money, we aren’t told they got all of their money together to pay for this for Jesus, it could even be this ointment was in their family for years, like a tucked away savings for when it would be needed, but however it was acquired, Mary decides now is the moment for it to be used…
Notice how different the two ways these women thanked Jesus for his work are… Martha at work making it all happen… Mary at his feet in an act of heart worship… similar to the way Jesus had revealed himself to them… remember he knows you intensely, he knows how you react… he knows exactly what you need specifically…
And you can see this amazing response to Jesus and his value and what we think about him and how we honor him… these women are coming to honor him in response to the revelation of who he is…
But look at what Judas says
4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said,
5 “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”
And this seems like a great thing to think about… because this shows just how expensive this stuff was worth… the flask was worth about 300 twelve hour days at minimum wage… which is about 32,000 with a 7.25 minimum wage
Thats a lot of money…. thats a lot of work that can be done… and we see this all the time in the christian church…
I think all the time of how often we see people going on missions trips, or going to live their life as missionaries and people inside the church question… why would you go and do that, you know there are people right here who need help we need to share the gospel here…
I remember my mom telling me once beforeI went to Haiti… and I wasn’t even going there to live… just go to grundy…
and that’s a great point but we kind of get stuck in the weeds and find ourselves in the place of Judas as we will see… forgetting the fact that the Great commission calls us to do ministry here there and everywhere all at the same time… but we find ourselves in this same situation as Judas because what we see is…
6 He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.
And what you are seeing is Judas knew the worth of the perfume, and he knew if they had sold it all off and given money to the treasury he would have been able to steal even more… pouring this on the feet of Jesus isnt going to get JUDAS anywhere… he can’t go and wipe that off Jesus feet to get anything for it… so he isn’t asking because he actually cares about the poor… unless he is thinking of himself… he is not seeing how valuable Jesus is even though he has walked with him, and he is mad because in this instance he isn’t going to be able to make himself any wealthier… so its all selfish its for himself…
And what we find is a lot of the time we are complaining just for the sake of complaining… its not that we are wanting to steal from people like Judas… but we have the same heart… we have no intent to do the ministry work here that we wan’t our missionaries to do… we just are complaining and hoping someone will save us from the work Jesus has called us to do here…
This is the thing you often see in churches while I am at it… there are two different types of christian churches in America… the liberal and the conservative… and we find the two arguing with each other… the liberal churches are concerned with social justice … and the conservative churches are concerned with biblical truths and being pro life… and we argue about which one of us is right… and what if we could both fight for the gospel in what we think God is calling us to byt not saying the other is wrong… and before you hear me wrong, I’m not talking about championing things that aren’t biblical… those are the easy things we talk about when we disagree with the other side… but its okay to fight for basic human rights… and fight that those rights be protected in the womb… why can’t we do both…. why cant we do wHat God has called us to to fight for him and allow others to do what God has called them to… its kind of what we are seeing in this story with Mary and Martha… but I digress…
And Jesus is about to blast Judas with three different reasons why he just needs to leave mary alone….
This is important… Y’all
Y’all wont always have me with you.
John 12:8 (ESV)
8 For the poor you always have with you, but you(y’all) do not always have me.”
And what we need to see here is the word used here for you is plural… so as you can see I added the y’all… its not just Judas who won’t always have him there… he’s saying he won’t always be in person with us… as we well know and as we will see Jesus tell us later the spirit will be with us… but he in body won’t always be here… and JEsus is saying if you really know me, and see me, and hear me, and fellowship with me, you will see how infinitely valuable I am. I am beyond worth.
and this shows us how special he is and goes along with what we hear in Jn 1:14
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
And Jesus is telling them without them realizing this moment where God is living in flesh and dwelling amopng them is almost over… its coming to its for sure end.
The other side of that is of course that Mary DOES see how much Jesus is worth… she does see how valuable he is… she has poured out 32K in an instant because her brother is alive and Jesus is so important, and he is saying Judas look at how amazing I am…
The thing most amazing about all of this is Mary has come and has poured this on what is the most dirty part of Jesus… they would have walked throughout the city in their sandals and unsocked feet, as it should be, and Mary has come and has poured this perfume out on the dirtiest part of Jesus because even the dirtiest part of Jesus is worth more than she can begin to even imagine. Its a picture of how great He is and Jesus is telling Lazarus cant you see she is in the right here…
Not only that, she is rubbing her hair, the part of her that would have been her most beautiful and cleanliest part she is rubbing the best part of her on the worst part of him, and showing how valuable he is… it is this beautiful picture and we can see how she is seeing how worthy Jesus is… its a complete contradiction to the way Judas has responded to Jesus..
You always have the poor with you.
8 For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”
And I love this… because Jesus is saying… let me just pretend Judas like you are really wanting to help the poor… even though John has explicitly told us that he does not… but Jesus is like, just for truths sake let me say I do believer you and you actually care about the poor, Judas you can serve them for the rest of your life… they will always be here…. but not me… I won’t… You can do THAT all you want … but what she’s doing there is only so much time left for…
And really what he is telling him is what Paul will tell Tim in 1 tim
7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.
8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
and listen there are a lot of things that we have in this world that can be good things on the surface that keep us from seeing the worth of Jesus… and in this case for Judas it was his love of Money that stopped him from really seeing Jesus for all that he was worth.
Keep it for the day of my burial.
7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.
Its almost as if he is afraid that Judas will infect her with his poisonous words… this is probably why we need to look out for wolves in sheeps clothing…becasue they can destroy the flock…
YOU
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Do you see Jesus for his true value? Are you understanding of how valuable he is and how much we are able to give for him… because we are going to look next week and answer the question, are you following him for the right reasons?
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