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And uh if you have a Bible, go ahead and take it out. Uh we're gonna continue our series in John, um at John chapter 11, 45, verse 45 rather, uh, through 12, verse 8. And this is definitely what you call an album cut, not a hit single, but I'm excited for it because, you know, I mean it's one of those texts that you maybe overlook, and there's a lot here that's really awesome. So let's pray before we begin. Lord Jesus, I pray that as as we open your word this morning, we would have ears to hear, we would have spiritual eyes to see, we would have hearts that are open, that are soft, that are not hardened towards your word, but that we would hear and respond with our entire heart. In Jesus' name. Amen. Um, one time when Jesus was publicly teaching, you know, this would be a decent-sized event. You know, he had it, he had a lot of disciples that would follow him around, probably some curious onlookers. And, you know, this was this was um, you know, for ancient uh Judea or Galilee, a high-profile rabbi, that's like a rock concert, you know, there, or or a Taylor Swift concert. I should, I should uh be more specific, because rock concerts don't pull that much anymore. Um, and so during this public teaching, there was a young man who we're told is an expert in the law, meaning he's like an aspiring rabbi or a junior rabbi, something like that. And he asks Jesus a question. He says, Good teacher, what must I do to have eternal life? Now, perhaps it was partly a sincere question, but what's definitely going on is this this is what rabbis do for each other. This is bump set spike time. Okay? So when you when you're a junior rabbi, you ask the senior rabbi a nice lava-in-ther question so they can just, you know, flex, basically, you know, so that so that you can kind of see what this rabbi has got on this question. And and Jesus answers him. He says, Hey, you know the commandments, keep the commandments, you'll be fine. And the the the the young man that that that we know as the rich young ruler says, Well, I have. And there's no doubt to for us, you know there's no reason for us to doubt that he was, you know, never was perfection uh in keeping the law and expectation, but that he would embrace from the heart, and he surely did. Right? This was a this was a pious guy. This is a guy with good theology. He loved his Bible, he definitely went to synagogue, he would attend all the festivals at temple, he did everything. And he says, Well, well, I have. And Jesus says, Well, that's good. He says, You lack one thing, and this is where you see Jesus seeing into a person. He says, Go sell all that you have, give it to the poor, come follow me. And we are told that this rich young woman went away sorrowful because he had great wealth and possession. He had the right answers. He knew his Bible, he was a he was a faithful attender, lived a good moral life, and yet, when it came down to it, when he was presented with the choice Jesus or what your heart truly treasures, he chose what his heart truly treasures over Jesus. It's possible that you could believe the right things, live a moral life, and not receive Jesus because there is something that the heart treasures above Jesus. A lot of the time I run into this a great deal. People will talk about Jesus as if he's sort of a nice addition to life. You know, there's a lot of talk right now in conservative circles, unbelieving conservative circles, where they're like, well, we need we need Christianity to give our society a moral compass. We sure do, but right, like that's sort of uh, hey, we need you to perform this task for us, Jesus Roomba. You know, turn you on, go. Roombas are still a thing, right? Okay. Or someone's like, hey, I I um I live like whatever. I gotta do whatever, but I I really like the vibes I get when I pray. I get good spiritual vibes, so Jesus is like my vibe provider. Or it's just my fire insurance. Yeah, I'll accept salvation, but you know what, that whole heart commitment thing, um, you know, I've got my reservations, and and and there's a lot of different things that our heart might treasure above commitment to Jesus. For many, it is money and possessions, just like the rich young ruler. Look, there's a simple fact. There's a lot of ways of making money that aren't available to someone who's committed to Jesus. Okay? Right? There are whole industries that prey on people's harmful addictions. There are entire industries that depend on leveraging the desperation of the desperate. That's not an available thing for a Christian to do, and a lot of that is legal. Or, you know, I mean, you're not gonna maximize your earning potential. You can't abandon your family or be only about work or only about amassing wealth upon wealth upon wealth and never being faithfully generous. That's not available to a Christian either. That's a hard one. And so for some of us, it's like, I'll say yes to Jesus. But man, I've got to this is my whole life, this is my security. It's what your heart truly treasures. It might be your own autonomy, and this is a big one in the West, right? Like, I wanna do what I want to do with my body, with my time, with my stuff, with my life. I'm gonna believe what I believe, and I'm gonna think what I think, and God can't tell me otherwise. Right? That that's that's that's treasuring our autonomy over commitment to Jesus. Saying yes, I'll accept, I'll accept Jesus, I'll I'll say yes to the basic things, but you know what? I'm not gonna change my thinking, I'm not gonna change my heart commitments or anything like that. It might be status. Let's talk facts. For some of you in the industries you're in or the professional areas you're in, to be like a whole-hearted, embarrassing Christian, like not not kind of like that, you know, the arm's distance, yes, I have a I'm a person of faith. Like a real, actual, heart-committed Christian is like professional suicide to some extent. You lose your credibility. It might damage you socially, right? Like, hey, my my social group, there's a lot of things, a lot of problems they have with Christianity. And if I if I hold to those things, I, you know, my my status here really declines. And that might be something your heart treasures above Jesus. Jesus doesn't send anybody away. He didn't send the rich young ruler away. He said, Come follow me. But in order to follow him, he had to let go of something he treasured above Jesus, and he wouldn't do it. Jesus sends no one away, but for a lot of us, we walk away because there is something we treasure above him. Now, in this text, we're gonna see what people actually treasure and how it causes them to respond to Jesus. So last week we talked about the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Okay, it's the big daddy miracle. Jesus has been doing miracles, he's been doing signs throughout the book of John, and this is just this is the finale, you know. Top that, right? Oh, he does, but later in the book. And his public ministry is on the verge of wrapping up, and we kind of get this section here, which is is like um, has everybody played Texas Hold'em or know what it is? You know how you're waiting for those, yeah, all the dudes are like, oh you know how you're waiting for those cards to come out, and then when the last one's out, then you have to make your final bets. And there's a lot of questions before that, but when the cards are out, now it's time for final bets. Well, the ministry of Jesus, the miracles and the teaching, he's laid the cards out, and everyone has to now make their bets, and they do. In verse 45, it says, Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, that is raising Lazarus, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Maybe they were informing, maybe they were just like, This was cool, guys, but we we're not sure. But it's more about how these leaders, these religious leaders, respond to this incredible miracle. It says, So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. Now, uh something that a lot of us uh may not know is that the the chief priests and the and the Pharisees were actually two rival, not just rival factions, but they were like enemy factions, and you know, hatred of Jesus has brought them together. So that's a feel-good moment. They they're taming up what do we do about Jesus. Now, one thing I want you to notice is they do not contest whether or not the miracle was real. Is that a little mind-blowing? They didn't, they were contesting whether he healed the blind man earlier in John, but this raising of Lazarus, the king daddy of miracles, they're like, they're like, oh wow, he raised someone from the dead. What do we do about this guy? It's an odd, that's an odd uh response. And the thing is, is um we see what their actual treasure is. When we look at verse 48, it says, if we let him go on like this, what? Everyone will believe in him, the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. So what they're concerned about is that this guy, you know, whether or not he's the Messiah, they're not asking. They're saying he's gonna get a following, he's gonna start the revolution, and then the full weight of Rome is gonna come down on us. It's gonna take away the little autonomy that we have as a nation, it's gonna take away our place. Now, that can mean two things. It can mean the actual temple, which was the foundation of the chief priest's power, or it could mean their status in the society, maybe a bit of both. Right? So you see what their treasure is. But but real quick, are these guys asking the question, could this actually be the long-awaited Messiah? They're like, no, not super worried about that. Yeah, he could he performs miracles, which would indicate God is with him. To oppose him is to oppose God. Do they care? They're like, no, why? Because there's a treasure that they value above what God is doing. Their own place in their society, their own, the security of their own nation. Verse 49. But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, he was actually high priest for 18 years, said to them, You know nothing at all. I was thinking about doing a voice for him, but thought better of it. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death. This didn't even get like a, hey, are we sure we want to kill God's Messiah potentially? They're like, good plan. Kill one guy instead of the whole nation getting destroyed by Rome. Sound logic there. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, we're gonna fast forward a little bit to chapter 12, verse 1, just just right after this. It says this six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Now, Jesus' stock in the town of Bethany after raising one of its prime citizens, Lazarus. You know, he is his status is sky high. So they gave a dinner for him there. Now, dinner undersells this. This was a whole town giving a celebratory banquet. Maybe it was at Lazarus' house, maybe it was at the richest guy in town's house, we don't know. But but something like that. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Now, that just seems to be Martha's vibe. She's very, very proactive in making things happen. That's Martha for you. Um, but it says reclining at table. So you've got to picture this in your mind for the next little bit to make sense. The way an ancient dinner, like a formal banquet like this, would work, is you would have the people being served, don't think, you know, like like the Last Supper, where it's everybody on one side of a table in chairs. That's not what they did. Um, instead, the table was very low to the ground. Everybody got a pillow, and you would you would lay down on your side and one elbow on the pillow, and you'd be eaten like this. Right? This is really, you need to be served in this position. That's part of the point. And everybody's legs are sticking out from the table like like spokes from a wheel. Got it? Okay. This makes sense of the next part. 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. Now, this doesn't hit us like a ton of bricks, but let me just explain about what she's doing. This ointment, this whatever, this perfume, this little bottle was worth about one year's wages of full-time work. So imagine what you make in a year in one bottle. Is that valuable to you? Right? Worked hard for that. So it had to be among the most precious things that were in that household. And if you if you had this, you know how you would you would use it? You'd be like, like drop, you know, very, very sparingly. What does she do? She pours it out on the feet of Jesus. What does this say about her treasure? She's showing that her greatest treasure is Jesus. She doesn't think twice about pouring out this entire vast amount of wealth on him, on his feet, no less. Why? Think about her story in the book of John. So this can't be repeated enough. She was a woman, and Rabbi didn't take women disciples. Jesus did. He took her as a disciple. Not only that, but when her brother had died tragically, which not only is grievous as a loss, an emotional loss, but it's also a material loss. He was head of household and her guardian. That's a disaster for her and her sister. And Jesus restored him. So for Mary, Jesus is the most precious thing in her entire life, and her actions say so. Now look at the other end of the spectrum in verse 4. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, who was about to betray him, said, Why was this anointment not sold for 300 to Daria and given 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 into it. Jesus said, Leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me. For Judas, we also remember it's mentioned he's about to betray Jesus. For what? Like people are always trying to speculate, what was really driving Judas? The answer is money. That's the only indication we get of what Judas was about. He treasured money over Jesus and was willing to betray him for it. So all the cards are out, they're making final bets. The leaders who should who are expecting the Messiah say, let's kill this dude who could be the Messiah. Mary says, I believe wholeheartedly. I give the best thing I've got. He is my treasure. And for Judas, he says, you know, money is a greater treasure than Jesus. Now, for the hearer or the reader, what is what is our what is the call to us from this text? It means if holding on to Jesus, if grabbing hold of Jesus requires you to let go of your treasure, what's it gonna be? And that we need to surrender our treasure to have Jesus. Now, does this mean we can't love anything? Sometimes I hear this as a conclusion. Well, if you love your spouse, if you love your kids or you love music or something like that, that is sin and an idol because you like it. It's like, no. Actually, you know, like having a spouse or kids or enjoying trail running or ice climbing or I don't know, whatever crazy stuff you guys do. Hold my breath under water in a freezing cold lake for 10 minutes. Uh, whatever that is that you're into. Those are those are good things. Those are blessings from God that are part of a godly life, but yet we can turn those things into gods, can't we? Now, the answer to that, if you've turned your spouse into an idol, is not to say, Well, I gotta get rid of you. It's instead to repent and to say, Jesus is my greatest treasure. But then there are some things that are flat out contrary to what Jesus requires. You know, whether it's in terms of lifestyle, whether it's in terms of belief, and those things, are we willing to let them go? You might say, but wait a second, doesn't what about grace? Doesn't the Bible, doesn't the book of John say believe and have eternal life, period? Absolutely it does. That is the whole point of John, that you would believe in Jesus and have eternal life. But the where we where we can miss is on what the Bible means by believe. It doesn't just mean I give intellectual assent. Yes, I agree that that's true. It's talking about life commitment as well. In the book of James, you know, James says the demons believe Jesus' Lord and they tremble. Right? That's not actual belief. Instead, it's commitment. I brought a little picture that illustrates this. So when we were on a family trip, we went to uh something called a cenote. And you guys know what this is? So there's an opening, right? And and it's a huge cave, and there's water at the bottom. This is Soji, who like this this drop was so big, you could see people down there already. It's such a long drop that you have time to think about how long it is. You're like, you're like, okay, here we go. Still going. Still going. I'm not sure I did the right thing here, right? It's that long of a drop. And for Soji, you know, she's only this tall at this point, so it's it's double for what it would be for us. And so so she's like, okay, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. And she's pumping herself and believing I can do it, but you know what? The action of I can do it is that right there. I mean, come on. Step brighten your day, a little bit of brightness mine. I love just I love that picture. That is biblical belief. It's not just saying I think it's true, but I'm gonna I'm going to commit to it being true. No, the why here. Why do we have to surrender our treasure? It's because Jesus is the greater treasure. Jesus is not asking us to take a loss here. He's asking us to surrender our treasure for a greater treasure. And and we that's actually hinted at. We could pull in a lot of text from the Bible to talk about this. We're gonna look just at what the high priest said. Because, did you notice that? I love this. It says you know, this guy who's advocating killing Jesus is actually being used. By God to utter a prophecy. What does it say? He says, You don't understand anything, nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish. So the first thing we see, because we're told this is a prophecy, right? This is telling us what Jesus is about to do. He's gonna do what? He's gonna die for the people. He is going to, he's going to first of all take the punishment for our sin that is rightfully ours. He's going to restore relationship with God through the cross. Look, if it wasn't for Jesus going to the cross, the one dying for the many, instead of us perishing, as the high priest says, what that means, if he didn't do that, we all face God's judgment. We are all eternally lost without that. Jesus is treasure because he reconciles us to God. He is the one who dies in our place. But not only that, Jesus is eternal life. Remember, the miracle that overhangs this whole thing is that he raises Lazarus from the dead, which of course points forward to his resurrection. We see he has the power to give life and he himself defeats death. How is that treasure? Guys, I can't help but notice a great deal of pessimism in our society. Because we're looking to economic systems or political solutions or whatever else for hope. And every time we try something, we say, that sucked. Let's do something else. And, right? Like we've been doing this for a long, long time, and young people especially are starting to feel like they're running out of options. Running out of new things that can be tried that are going to be better than what came before. But what gives us hope is that Jesus is the answer to death. Right? That no matter what befalls us, no matter how bad the world falls apart, no matter how bad things go sideways in your life, whether you you fail to achieve the American dream or you get cancer at 32, right? You have hope that allows you to carry on, and it is that Jesus defeats even death. And that power is active in your life. That is treasure. That is a treasure that can't be bought. It can only be received from Jesus. But also, and I I love this. In verse 52, it says, and it says that the he prophesied Jesus would die for the nation, not for the nation only, meaning the Jews, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad, meaning you guys. Not just you, but people on the other side of the world from where this happens, people in the far-flung reaches of history from where this happens. Jesus had in mind, God had in mind to gather the scattered children of God to himself. Let me ask you this. What's Jesus' upside in the cross? Do you know what it is? What did he gain that he didn't have already in the cross and resurrection? Do you know what he gained? You. Us. His children. Do you feel like he didn't get a very good deal? To him. To him, he says, worth it. I'll go to the cross. I'll suffer humiliation and death. For you. For me. To gather the scattered into one people. How is that treasure for us? Have you ever asked yourself the question, what makes me matter? Why is my life matter? If I disappeared tomorrow, would anybody care? Would anybody notice? To me, the best thing about Western culture is that you could go out right now, you could ask anybody, hey, is a human life sacred? And almost everybody is gonna say yes. And they ask, well, is the human life of someone who is sick, who is uh, you know, uh mentally not all there or whatever, poor and and degraded and all that, is their life worth more than a you know a multi-million dollar skyscraper or a F25, $30 million jet? And we'd say yes. If you have to choose between that person who, you know, has all kinds of things going on, and and the jet, you choose the person. We'd all say that. Almost everybody you meet would say that. My question is, where do we get that from? Why would we believe that? Where does it come from? Well, not only are we made in the image of God, but each and every human being is Christ's reward, is a person that he laid down his life for. That means that your life matters. It means that you matter. It means that regardless of your social position and the material wealth that you've gathered up, right? A solid, real reason to believe in your infinite value is Jesus. We need to surrender our treasure to lay hold of Jesus. We have, again, Jesus is not asking us to take a loss. He's asking us to lay down what we consider treasure for something so much greater. There was one time uh when I was in seminary, my final, my final semester of seminary, and for those of you who who don't know, um, by necessity, I hold the speed record at Covenant Seminary. I did everything way too fast because we didn't have money to stay longer. So I had to I had to take way too many classes, and what that meant is when your final papers, which were doozies, come along, you your stress level can't be any higher. And so I'm like, all right, we had an infant at the time. We did everything right. Um and so I remember sitting down at our shared computer. We had one computer between us, it was one of those old white Mac clamshell guys, remember those? Oh yeah. And so I'm feverishly working on the paper and the thing shuts off. And I was like, that's not good. And so I get it to start back up through, you know, voodoo sacrifice and that sort of thing. And then I'm working again and it shuts down again. I was like, oh no. So I hurry down to the Mac store at the mall and I said, It's not working. Can you fix it? Um here's my situation, and I'll have it for you tomorrow. I'm like, okay. So I get it back the next day, and I'm like, all right, no more interruptions. I'm locked in. This is how I type. And and I'm going, right? And as I'm working on my paper for I don't even know what anymore, there's a little black line that started in the top corner, starts to creep its way over. And I was like, I'm is that part of the program? Or something bad happening? And and as I'm thinking that, another one starts on the other side and starts making its way, and then another one here, and then another one here. I'm like, what happens when these lines all meet? The answer is they stay there. And the computer wouldn't turn off and it wouldn't reboot, and I couldn't close anything or force quit anything or anything. It was just it was just a bunch of black and white lines interlocked on the computer screen, and the the computer giving me like just these pathetic noises. And so I go back feverishly, you know, to to the maximum. Like, look at this, and uh, and the the guy in there says that wow. That's one for the books. And uh, and then after some back and forth, the the manager comes out and and he said he says, you know, I I've never seen anything quite like this. But I'll tell you what, you give me this, and I'll give you this. And what it was was a brand new MacBook Pro, like the whole every I don't even know the language for this anymore, right? He said, you just have to hand me that old one. That's a pretty good deal, isn't it? It's not saying, Jesus is not saying to us, take a loss, give me your treasure and I'll give you something worse. He's saying, lay down, something that is broken, something that will not satisfy for the greatest treasure there is, Jesus. Please pray with me. Lord, I pray that you would set us free from these things that we think of as treasures that we hold, that interfere with our commitment to you, that we even hold instead of you. I pray that your grace would set our hearts free to pour out our treasure like Mary instead of betray you like Judas. Let us see you as the great treasure for us, as as the one for whom there's no treasure greater than. In Jesus' name. Amen.