SPEAKER_00: You'd be seated.
SPEAKER_00: So last week we had this great story in John chapter 11 about Lazarus and his two sisters.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to review it a little bit because this week ties into last week.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, chapter 12 of John begins, NIV takes this word out, which is a little bit of a shame as it says, therefore, which means you gotta remember chapter 11 because this story coming up ties in to what was going on in chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: So chapter 11 is this story about Elizabeth's two sisters, and Lazarus gets sick, and so the two sisters are just distraught, uh, overcome with sadness.
SPEAKER_00: Their brother is dying.
SPEAKER_00: They are good friends with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has been performing miracles, so they understand him to be a healer.
SPEAKER_00: They believe him to be the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And so they send a messenger to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, your friend, Lazarus, he's sick.
SPEAKER_00: He's dying.
SPEAKER_00: Please, please come, please come.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Lazarus dies in the meantime of the messenger getting there, and Jesus doesn't come for a couple days, and during that time, uh Lazarus dies.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus eventually shows up.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and when he's on his way first, remember this from last week first.
SPEAKER_00: Martha comes out to Jesus, and she is distraught.
SPEAKER_00: But she she's she's ready to she's ready to voice some things here, and she's like, You should have been here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you should have, Jesus, you should have been here.
SPEAKER_00: You weren't here, and you should have been here.
SPEAKER_00: We we we know this moment.
SPEAKER_00: And and Jesus, he he confronts her with truth.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he just comes right up to her with truth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that was first interaction last week.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and then Martha eventually they have a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Martha leaves and goes back, and then Mary comes to Jesus, and and Mary is completely undone.
SPEAKER_00: She is brokenhearted, she's distraught, and she sees Jesus and she falls at his feet, and and she says the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Should have been here.
SPEAKER_00: Should have, if you were here, things would have been different.
SPEAKER_00: And but she is brokenhearted and she is on the ground and she is weeping, and we get this great moment where Jesus doesn't give the lecture.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't it's a different conversation than he has with Martha, with Mary.
SPEAKER_00: He just he cries with her.
SPEAKER_00: And do you remember the words last week that that Mary's crying was a wailing?
SPEAKER_00: And and Jesus' crying was a silent, quiet crying with her.
SPEAKER_00: And eventually they leave that and he says, I'm I'm gonna bring some new life out of this.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes and he raises Lazarus from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: This was this was this was his great miracle.
SPEAKER_00: This is what was sending him from this point on in the book of John.
SPEAKER_00: From this point on, he is headed toward his own death.
SPEAKER_00: So many Jews were starting to believe in him, and the Pharisees and the Jewish rulers said, we're ending this.
SPEAKER_00: We are ending him.
SPEAKER_00: And so we get to chapter 12, and Jesus has been saying, Hey, I'm telling you here, I'm here to lay it down.
SPEAKER_00: He's been very clear about this.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody takes my life from me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to lay it down.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're conspiring, and they're gonna, but I'm I am laying it down, and he's been saying, this is all headed toward my funeral, so that at your funeral there can be hope.
SPEAKER_00: And he's been saying, death is not the end, darkness is not the victor.
SPEAKER_00: I have victory over death, so that when you die, you can still have life.
SPEAKER_00: And so we get chapter 12, and we get a party.
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus has been raised from the dead, new life has come out of darkness, and we get verse 1 six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's there, and a meal develops at Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and they're there.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a party.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if someone raises somebody from the dead, you should probably have a party for him.
SPEAKER_00: That would be fitting.
SPEAKER_00: Throw the guy a party.
SPEAKER_00: But Passover's coming.
SPEAKER_00: So Passover is six days coming.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is Jewish, he knows Passover and a little bit of history so we can get an idea of what Jesus is thinking about, what everybody else is thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: So Passover, a little bit of history.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the people of Israel were taken, they're enslaved in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: They've been crying out to God, deliver us from being enslaved in this foreign land.
SPEAKER_00: Please take us back to our land, set us free, and and it's just been quiet.
SPEAKER_00: God's been quiet.
SPEAKER_00: And this has been going on for years and years and years.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, finally, God begins to answer the prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And in that process, and you can read the book of Exodus to see this whole story, which is just a fantastic story of liberation.
SPEAKER_00: It's our story, even today.
SPEAKER_00: And so Passover is when God is putting judgment on Egypt for not letting his people go.
SPEAKER_00: You remember the story?
SPEAKER_00: And so judgment's coming on the people, and so the firstborn of all the Egyptians, the firstborn is going to die.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says to his people, Hey, sacrifice a lamb, put the blood on the frame, the doorpost of your house, and when death comes across this land, I will pass over your house.
SPEAKER_00: And so eventually the people of Israel, God's people, they come out of Egypt, they go into the wilderness, and that's Moses leading them out, and then Joshua leads them out of the wilderness into the promised land, and so they get into the promised land, and a festival develops, a remembrance of this.
SPEAKER_00: And it was once a year, and it was seven days, and each household would sacrifice a lamb to account for their sins.
SPEAKER_00: See, God is just, sin must be dealt with.
SPEAKER_00: We understand this, sin must be dealt with.
SPEAKER_00: We're the same way.
SPEAKER_00: If we see something going down and it's unjust and it's horrible, we know we should do something about it in the name of justice.
SPEAKER_00: God, perfectly just, he's going to do something about sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so each family is sacrificing a perfect, unblemished lamb.
SPEAKER_00: And in the blood, the spilling of the blood is life, that the lamb takes their guilt and makes them pure.
SPEAKER_00: And so every year, sacrifice after sacrifice, every year you have to maintain this.
SPEAKER_00: You have to keep this up.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is thinking about this Passover.
SPEAKER_00: He knows he's headed toward his death.
SPEAKER_00: And what he knows is he knows he is the final sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: He is the Passover lamb.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus is our Passover.
SPEAKER_00: So death can pass over us.
SPEAKER_00: But right now there's a party.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor.
SPEAKER_00: Martha served while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him.
SPEAKER_00: Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume, and she poured it out on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair.
SPEAKER_00: And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
SPEAKER_00: See, the the the party got weird.
SPEAKER_00: It got it got interesting.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is like this is like when the wacky ant has had too much to drink, and it got really strange and weird, you know, you know, but but Mary hadn't had too much to drink.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm sure people were thinking maybe she had too much to drink, because she has just broken open a jar of perfume that is equivalent to a year's salary.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so so think about a$50,000 bottle of perfume, and to break that thing open and to pour it onto Jesus' feet.
SPEAKER_00: See, find the most precious, expensive, important thing you have, and you pour it out.
SPEAKER_00: The thing that gives you security.
SPEAKER_00: The thing that you find meaning in and rest in and security and you break that open in the statement of saying, I don't need this anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I've been undone.
SPEAKER_00: I've been undone at the feet of Jesus and loved in that place.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need this for my security.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need this anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I will pour it out on you.
SPEAKER_00: You did all of that.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you all this.
SPEAKER_00: If you're here, you've been concerned about maybe the amount of lavish grace that we we like to preach here.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be concerned about that.
SPEAKER_00: See, see, the grace of God, true, unrelenting, salvific, new word, maybe perhaps, salvific grace that causes salvation, that births new life.
SPEAKER_00: It creates a response.
SPEAKER_00: And here we have one in Mary.
SPEAKER_00: This week on Monday, we were in Orlando.
SPEAKER_00: Christy's parents have a house in Orlando, and so we wake up Monday morning, we're going to Disney World.
SPEAKER_00: Big day, right?
SPEAKER_00: Big day for a five-year-old and a three-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: Big day for us to watch the five-year-old and the three-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: And so we wake up, and of course, I wake up late.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I wasn't awake praying for you, forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: I wake up later than everybody else, and then it's kind of rush, rush, rush, and we get in the car, and we're in the car and we're driving to Disney World, and Christie says something like, um, you know Disney World is the happiest place on earth.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've all heard Disney World's happy place on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, me, of course, the realist, the Debbie Downer, I said, and I said, you know, and the girls are like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And I and of course I say, Well, I mean, do y'all really think Disney World is the happiest place on earth?
SPEAKER_00: And my five-year-old's having none of this.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Yes, dad.
SPEAKER_00: It is.
SPEAKER_00: I have heard it is the happiest place on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And it was as if, how dare you come against Disney World today?
SPEAKER_00: And so we get there and we park and we get the stroller out, and you know, immediately there's argument, you know, who's in the back of the stroller, who's in the front of the stroller.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey, listen, listen, happiest place on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have the happiest day of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be unbelievable, happiest place on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And so we get into the park and we're like the first bunch in, and so you're all rushing, you know, you're to perhaps we can get a couple rides without a line, that would be amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And so we do a couple rides, and eventually we're back in front of the castle for a show, right?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you remember this, or maybe you've been recently, and so all the characters are up on the stage, and he is there.
SPEAKER_00: We know Mickey is there, and Izzy's up on my shoulders, and I'm catching a few, my little three year old, I'm catching a few glimpses, and it is he is he is there, and she is wide-eyed, and she's amazed.
SPEAKER_00: And I start looking around at the other little kids, and they they're he he is there.
SPEAKER_00: There's admiration, there's awe, there's amazement.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's worship, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is, I mean, they are like, I'll give you my heart, Mickey, and anything you ask, I'll give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: And why here's why?
SPEAKER_00: Because this mouse, every morning, 7 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: on Disney Channel, he is there for me, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like, he's speaking love to me.
SPEAKER_00: When dad is mean and walks out of the room, Mickey doesn't walk out of the room on me.
SPEAKER_00: He is always giving me love.
SPEAKER_00: Mom is demanding, makes me change my clothes.
SPEAKER_00: You know, but Mickey doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and now we are here, and he is there and he has been so good to me.
SPEAKER_00: Like this, this is Mary's moment, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is Mary's moment.
SPEAKER_00: Like, Jesus is here, he's been so good to me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he cried with me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he brought new life to my family.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary, in this moment, at this dinner at this house, she is like the little kids at Disney World.
SPEAKER_00: She is wide-eyed, she is absolutely undone.
SPEAKER_00: She was just undone before, weeping.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus met her there, and now she is undone again.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see here is extravagant worship comes in the wake of extravagant love.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary knows he loves her.
SPEAKER_00: She knows she can be weak and beloved.
SPEAKER_00: And worship is a response to that knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know that Mary's life was perfect from here on out.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have we have to assume, I mean, at her best, Mary was a human, and at her worst, Mary was a human.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of us processing our friend Stuart's death this week, and we go, man, I mean, I knew this about him, I knew this about him, and at best, Stuart was a human, and at worst, Stuart was a human.
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we saw some extravagant worship from him.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean there's not pain, it doesn't mean there's not hurt, it doesn't mean there's not loneliness to deal with and to process and to be honest about and ask for help about.
SPEAKER_00: See, see, life is not a never-ending John chapter 12, verses 1 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: Well, would that wouldn't that be great?
SPEAKER_00: That'd be fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: You still get you still get chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not like chapter 11 happens and then and then chapter 12 is just the forever rest of your life, and it's an endless, you know, upward mobility to greatness and uh, you know, perfect peace forever, and there's no problems or no hurt or no pain.
SPEAKER_00: You still have chapter 11's occur.
SPEAKER_00: You still have your your brother die.
SPEAKER_00: Like that still happens.
SPEAKER_00: You still have that hurt, and you still have that pain.
SPEAKER_00: But we remember chapter 11 because what we remember is even in the hurt and in the pain, that God is the suffering God who is there with us, and that the extravagant love is what bursts the extravagant worship.
SPEAKER_00: So perfume is on his feet, it's on the floor, and there's so much that she reached, Mary reaches up and she undoes her hair.
SPEAKER_00: Not a big deal to us, but to a Jewish lady back then to unbound her hair in public.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this would have been a display, an undignified display.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if if the breaking of the jar, if the being on the floor, if if all of this was not a scene enough, now she is undoing her hair and she's wiping his feet with her hair.
SPEAKER_00: This is undignified.
SPEAKER_00: But people's approval or disapproval is the last thing on her mind.
SPEAKER_00: In her mind, she was undone before, and Jesus met her there, and because of his grace and love, she's undone again, and she has such grateful joy.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see is we see in her worship, we we begin to see a little bit of the freedom she's experiencing.
SPEAKER_00: So we see two things in this text.
SPEAKER_00: We see number one, we see she is free from the control of money.
SPEAKER_00: And then we see she is free from the need of people's approval.
SPEAKER_00: So let's hit the first one.
SPEAKER_00: We'll come back to that second one.
SPEAKER_00: Free from the control of money, verses four through eight.
SPEAKER_00: But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?
SPEAKER_00: It was worth a year's wages.
SPEAKER_00: He did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.
SPEAKER_00: That's a keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
SPEAKER_00: Leave her alone, Jesus replied, it was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.
SPEAKER_00: You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.
SPEAKER_00: So we see two people.
SPEAKER_00: We see Mary, a person free to give generously without fear, because her identity is not tied to, I need to hold on to that jar.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's worth a year's, I got I have to hold on to that, I can't let that one go.
SPEAKER_00: And then you have Judas, who is bound by the need of money, to feel important or to feel secure.
SPEAKER_00: And she's at his feet, and she can just say, have it all.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't need she doesn't need the monetary to define her.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing we see in the text, so we see the freedom from the control of money, and then we see the freedom from other people's approval, that letting the hair down.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would have caused such little whispering in that house.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if I'm in that room and I'm in that situation, I'm gauging the room.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gauging the mood, like what's acceptable and what's not.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sort of hedging my way of, you know, let's let's give some worship to Jesus, let's let a little bit out, let's, let's, let's really be all surrendered or all in, but I'm also gonna kind of gauge the room.
SPEAKER_00: Like, who's here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, Randy from the club's here, so let me play it cool a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: He's here, Nancy from down the street's here, you know, Joe the Senator's here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna play it a little bit cool.
SPEAKER_00: How do I look?
SPEAKER_00: And what are they thinking?
SPEAKER_00: Do they like me?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: When I was at in front of that castle at Disney, none of the little kids are looking at each other like, I'm I wonder if she likes me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not gonna be too amazed by Mickey up there.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm really considering, you know, Cindy over there on her dad's shoulders, who I don't know, but for some reason I really care about what she thinks about me, right?
SPEAKER_00: We you know what I'm talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we do.
SPEAKER_00: Adults do.
SPEAKER_00: Mary's not doing it.
SPEAKER_00: She's just going, whatever they think, they'll think.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever they think about my family, whatever they think about what I drive, or what decisions I make, or how I handle a situation, or what education I decide for my children, or what I wear, what activities I participate in, or the ones I choose not to participate.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever they think, they'll think.
SPEAKER_00: I don't I'm I'm not gonna live my life based on other people's approval.
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm at the feet of Jesus and I let my hair down, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: If people whisper on me, people whisper at me, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00: But we see this sense of freedom from the control of money, and then we see this freedom from other people's approval.
SPEAKER_00: See, I listen, this is kind of closing it down.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, guys, work with me on the metaphor here.
SPEAKER_00: You can let your hair down.
SPEAKER_00: We hear that all the time.
SPEAKER_00: You can let you you can you can let your hair down.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm praying is we become more and more aware of how close he is to us, and we will let our hair down, be absolutely unbound by his love and the need of money and the need of people's approval to support our identity, which has become less and less and less.
SPEAKER_00: And his secure love for us, which is known in the cross, secured on the cross, would be where we find ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Extravagant worship and freedom come in the wake of extravagant love.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, we confess that we use money to support our identities, to feel important, and we use other people's approval, and a lot of times these these two things consume us.
SPEAKER_00: We also really wish that life was John chapter 12, but we know that chapter 11 will come back around.
SPEAKER_00: And what we know in all of this is we know that we need to rest our hearts and minds and your extravagant love for us.
SPEAKER_00: Give us faith to rest in you in greater and greater ways.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.