Introduction:
Knowing His Value: When Your Actions Reveal Your Heart (John 12:1-11):
- Three Marks That Jesus is Highly Valued By You. (John 12:1-3)
- You Serve Him. (John 12:2)
- You desire His Presence . (John 12:2)
- You Sacrifice for Him. (John 12:3)
- Three Marks Jesus is Not Valued By You. (John 12:4-11)
- You are quick to Criticize . (John 12:5)
- You are fixed more on Getting than giving. (John 12:6)
- You want to remove anything Associated with Jesus. (John 12:10-11)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:55-01:03
We are getting back to our series, "Knowing Jesus." And that's what we're going after in this church.
01:04-01:09
Not knowing about Jesus, but knowing Jesus.
01:11-01:21
Because Jesus said, "Eternal life is knowing God and Jesus Christ." So, that's what we're going through the Gospel of John.
01:24-01:26
John chapter 12, are you there?
01:28-01:41
Many years ago, when we were interviewing to be part of the Harvest Bible Chapel Church Planting Fellowship, they flew us out, they flew Aaron and I out to Chicago.
01:42-01:46
And they put us up in a host home while we were out there for our interviews.
01:47-02:03
I remember Aaron and I, we went down to Pittsburgh International Airport, we got on a plane and we got the rental car and they said, "You're going to stay with this host family." I think the guy, he owned a bunch of magazines that were published things about certain cities.
02:04-02:06
Like each city had their own version of this guy's magazine.
02:06-02:08
He was a big shot.
02:09-02:13
We pulled up in this, it was a pretty sweet house, huge house.
02:13-02:16
We pull up, we're exhausted from traveling all day.
02:16-02:17
You know how that is, right?
02:17-02:19
I mean, it was just Chicago, but still, when you travel all day.
02:20-02:25
And we show up and we knock on the door and there was no answer.
02:26-02:27
There were no lights on.
02:28-02:28
So we knock.
02:30-02:31
There was no answer.
02:31-02:31
There were no lights on.
02:34-02:35
We didn't know what to do.
02:36-02:40
So we parked our little rental car in the parking lot of a movie theater.
02:41-02:42
And we just waited.
02:42-02:43
And we took a nap.
02:43-02:44
And we tried calling the people.
02:45-02:48
and there was no answer, and we just hung out.
02:50-02:57
And finally, much, much, much later, we tried calling again for the umpteenth time, and they answered the phone.
02:58-03:02
We're like, yeah, Jeff and Aaron Miller, we're supposed to be staying with you guys this week.
03:03-03:05
Oh, yeah, we forgot.
03:06-03:12
Yeah, yeah, Caitlin had a dance recital, and we went to that, and we completely forgot.
03:14-03:16
Awesome. All right, we're heading there now.
03:16-03:25
So we show up at their house and they let us in and they're like, "Oh, you're going to be staying in this room here." They show us to this room we're staying, and they just left us there.
03:25-03:28
After a while, Aaron's like, "I am so thirsty.
03:28-03:38
Can you get me something to drink?" I went downstairs where the husband and the wife were down there, and the kids, they had teenage kids, were just hanging out.
03:40-03:42
I said, "Hey, my wife's really thirsty.
03:42-03:45
can we get a glass of water?
03:45-03:47
And the wife was like, oh, sure.
03:47-03:50
And she opens up the cabinet and pulls out a glass.
03:50-03:51
And her husband goes, no!
03:52-03:58
And we were all just like, that was quite the overreaction, sir.
03:58-03:59
He goes, no!
04:00-04:01
Give her a plastic cup!
04:05-04:09
And the look on this man's wife's face was just like, what the heck's going on here?
04:10-04:11
She's like, OK.
04:11-04:28
And he goes, "If she drops the glass on the floor, it's going to make a mess." And I'm like, "You realize I brought my wife and not a toddler, right?" But we had our little plastic Donald Duck cup with the water.
04:30-04:35
And it was not as much fun as I'm making it sound.
04:36-04:41
But I'll tell you, the best part was the following morning, the best part was when we got to to watch them eat breakfast.
04:42-04:56
Yeah, we went downstairs and sat at the table while everybody was sort of getting their own food, and we're just sitting there trying to be gracious guests, and nobody offered us anything.
04:58-04:59
And I was so hungry.
05:01-05:07
And I dare not try to fill my tummy with a glass of water, but I was so hungry.
05:07-05:12
There was a jar of Nutella sitting there.
05:13-05:19
And I said, "Oh, Nutella!" I said, "I've always wanted to try that." Hint, hint.
05:20-05:25
"I've always wanted to try Nutella." And the guy said, "Oh, it's delicious." And just kept on going.
05:28-05:34
"I'd like to try some of your Nutella." Anyways, I could go on and on.
05:36-05:37
but I'm not going to.
05:41-05:48
But Erin and I left this house with a lot of questions, and to this day she's convinced that was part of the application process.
05:49-05:53
They're like, let's see how much they'll endure before they run out, and we're like, we're staying!
05:57-06:33
We left with a lot of questions, but there's one question that we didn't have, and that was, how did those people feel about us. Were we highly valued guests to them? Not so much. We were a little more than an annoyance it felt like. And that takes us to our passage today. We left off in chapter 11 when we were in John. Lazarus was raised from the dead and the Jewish council got together And they're like, "This is the last straw.
06:34-06:37
Jesus has to die. Get the Word out.
06:37-06:45
We can't have Him running around resurrecting dead people." So, Word's out. They're after Jesus now.
06:45-06:46
Like, final straw, this is it.
06:47-06:53
And when we get to chapter 12, we see that Jesus is heading back to Jerusalem.
06:53-06:54
Like, didn't you know?
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He knew.
06:59-07:00
And he knew that his time was coming.
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Which is why he headed towards Jerusalem.
07:08-07:11
But as we look at this passage today, we're going to see there are two kinds of people.
07:12-07:13
You hear that a lot, right?
07:13-07:14
There are two kinds of people in the world.
07:14-07:18
But when it comes to Jesus, that's always absolutely, certainly true.
07:19-07:21
But there are two kinds of people in the world.
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There are those who believe in Jesus Christ and love Him, And there are those who do not believe in Jesus Christ, hate Him.
07:31-07:40
Whether that hatred is outwardly expressed or it's inwardly kept, they don't want anything to do with Jesus.
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We're going to get even more specific today as we look at this passage, because you're going to see this so clear in God's Word.
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There are really two kinds of people in the world.
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There are people that recognize Jesus' worth.
07:55-07:58
And there are people that do not recognize Jesus' worth.
08:01-08:21
There are people that say, "Jesus is everything to me." And there are people that would say, "Jesus isn't even worth giving Him a glass of water with a glass." and they have such little esteem for Him.
08:25-08:26
Recognizing Jesus' worth.
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And we're going to hit this hard because this is what determines whether or not somebody will receive Jesus Christ.
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What is it? What is it that makes somebody receive Jesus?
08:38-08:39
It's this.
08:39-08:41
It's when they recognize His worth.
08:43-08:46
Jesus talked about this in two little parables.
08:46-08:47
Matthew 13.
08:47-08:53
He said the King of Heaven is like a guy He sold everything he had to buy the field to get the treasure.
08:54-08:57
He said that's the Kingdom of Heaven. That's Him.
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He's worth everything.
08:59-09:06
He said the Kingdom of Heaven is like this guy that was selling pearls, and he saw the greatest pearl of all time, and he sold everything he had to buy that one pearl.
09:07-09:08
That's Him.
09:10-09:15
And Jesus, in those parables, and you're going to see it in His passage, it all boils down to this.
09:15-09:17
You recognize His value.
09:20-09:29
Because when you do, you'll give or do anything for Jesus Christ.
09:31-09:37
You might be sitting here right now going, never really thought about it that way.
09:37-09:38
Do I value Jesus?
09:38-09:41
Well, here's the thing, I can't answer that for you.
09:42-09:43
I can't see your heart.
09:46-09:48
I can only see your actions.
09:51-09:57
And it's really hard for you to evaluate your own heart because the Bible says that your heart is deceitful, above all things.
09:59-10:06
So what I want you to see very clearly in this text is what you really think of Jesus always shows up in your actions.
10:06-10:06
Right?
10:07-10:13
You're like, "Do I value Jesus?" always shows up in your actions if you do or not.
10:14-10:17
And it's just so clearly on display here.
10:17-10:27
So in your outline, if you're taking notes, "Knowing His value when your actions reveal your heart." Very simple outline today.
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First of all, we're going to see three marks that Jesus is highly valued by you.
10:33-10:36
Then we're going to see three marks that Jesus has no value to you.
10:37-10:39
So let's get to the first one.
10:39-10:44
"Jesus is highly valued by you." Verses 1-3, let's take a look.
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It says, "Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
10:55-10:57
So they gave a dinner for him there.
10:57-11:02
Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table.
11:04-11:14
Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair.
11:14-11:21
The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume." Stop right there.
11:22-11:29
In just those couple of verses, we see three things, three marks that Jesus is valued by you.
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You do these things, these are indicators that Jesus is highly valued by you.
11:36-11:41
"Hey, jot this down, you serve Him." Like how do I know Jesus means something to me?
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You serve Him.
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Like Martha, valuing Jesus makes you want to serve Him.
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And you see serving Jesus in His church as a way of expressing your love for Him, as a way of demonstrating His worth to you.
11:58-12:15
Whether it's leading a small group or teaching and harvest kids, leading worship, putting out the signs, working security, greeting people at the door, Whatever God has called you to do, I'm doing this because of how much Jesus means to me.
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That's my motivation.
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It's not out of compulsion.
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And it's not out of obligation.
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It's an attitude like Martha that says Jesus is worth anything and everything and what I can do for him.
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Knowing his worth makes you want to serve him.
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That's just the way it is.
12:42-12:44
Some of you know my missionary friend Barnabas in Thailand.
12:45-12:55
When I was over there the one time, he took me to the border of Thailand and Burma, and he was showing me where the boundaries were.
12:59-13:30
As a matter of fact as anything, he said, "Yes, I found up there, drive your truck for several hours and then the roads are too bad to drive so you're gonna walk for a couple of days after that he goes I find a tribe up there that nobody had ever found before like they were kind of isolated and he said I found them up there and he said I took them I took them fish and I'm like hang on when he said that I was like like Long John Silvers right you took and I took them fish.
13:31-13:36
And then I was thinking, "Well, Barnabas, how did you keep the fish from going bad?
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It took you days to walk there.
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How did you keep the fish from going bad?" And he looked confused for a second.
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He goes, "No, no, no, no. Live fish." Then he was going on with his story.
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I'm like, "No, no, no, no, stop. Stop." "How did you take live fish?" He said, "Well, they..." Again, matter of fact, he said, "Well, they were putting a pond in their village, and they wanted fish, so I took them fish." I'm like, "Live fish?" He says, "Yes, I took them live fish." And it's just not registering to me.
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I'm like, "How did you do that?" And he looked at me like, "Dude, how stupid...
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Are you Americans?" He says, "I put them in bags with water." I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." I'm like, "All right, so you're telling me that you walked for several days carrying an aquarium." And he's like, "Well, they said they needed fish." And I walked away from that going, I am the lamest servant of Jesus ever.
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Like, what would compel a man to do something like that?
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Unless you're on some kind of a reality TV show or something.
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But he wasn't.
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What would compel somebody to do that?
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He told me one time, the thing that motivates him, 1 Corinthians 9.23, "I do all things for the sake of the gospel." That's his thing.
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In other words, Jesus is worth anything I do for Him.
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That drives me.
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And according to Jesus, by the way, greatness in the kingdom is serving.
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We tend to evaluate greatness based on who gets served.
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"That guy's got a lot of servants, a lot of butlers and maids and people working for him." That's how we evaluate greatness.
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But Jesus evaluates greatness based on how you serve.
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I'm going to say a lot more about that, but we're going to be hitting that pretty hard in chapter 13.
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But that's a mark that Jesus is valued by you.
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You serve Him.
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Anything that I can do in the name of Jesus, for Jesus, because of Jesus, you don't have to ask me, even if it's carrying an aquarium through the mountain jungles of Thailand.
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Letter B, "You desire His presence." We saw what Martha was doing.
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Did you see verse 2?
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It says, "Lazarus was one of those reclining with Him at the table." And you can't just dismiss this as a passing statement.
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It's pretty significant when you consider that Jesus is now a wanted man.
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It would have been real easy for Lazarus to say, "Hey, I already died once.
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I'm going to keep it safe.
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Right? I'm going to keep it safe.
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But Lazarus was more concerned with fellowship.
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I know it's not safe to be near Jesus right now, but that's where I need to be.
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And I'm going to be with Him.
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Fellowship.
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Lazarus just wanted to be in Jesus' presence.
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And that's true of everyone who receives life from Jesus.
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We just want to be with Him.
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In His Word, in prayer, with His people.
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There's no place I'd rather be in the presence of Jesus Christ.
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Every minute I spend with Him is worth it because He is worth everything to me.
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And that's another mark.
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That Jesus has value to you.
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Not a hard sell on Valentine's Day, right?
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When you love and value someone, you want to spend time with them.
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And I think that certainly applies more to Jesus Christ than anyone.
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You desire His presence.
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you sacrifice for Him.
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You sacrifice for Him.
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Let's talk about Mary for a second.
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Again, this would be real easy to just sort of read through quickly and gloss over.
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It says, "She took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and ointed Jesus' feet, wiped His feet with her hair, and it was potent, it filled the house with the perfume." "Mother Mark, that Jesus is highly valued by you as you sacrifice for Him." Mary was actively expressing her heart by anointing Jesus.
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We're going to find out here in a second.
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This ointment was worth a year's wage for a laborer.
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How much does a laborer make in a year?
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Forty, fifty thousand dollars?
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Is that a conservative number?
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Does that make sense?
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Okay, I see some people shaking their head, yes.
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Okay, just to give us sort of a frame of reference.
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She had a $50,000 bottle of perfume.
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And she says, "Here, Jesus, this is for you." And according to Matthew and Mark, it started at his head and went down to his feet.
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And she's like, "This is for Jesus." She dropped a $50,000 bottle of perfume on Jesus.
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This was the kind of stuff that was usually used for burial, but it had a prophetic significance.
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We're going to see she was anointing Jesus' body for burial.
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You'll see that here in a second.
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Like what in the world would possess a woman to spend a $50,000 bottle of perfume on Jesus Christ.
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Well, you know, in those days, foot washing was an act of hospitality.
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But this obviously goes way further than hospitality, right?
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This goes way further than "can I take your coat?" For Jesus' love, for His teaching, for raising her brother from the dead, she's like, "I'm worshiping, and I'm lavishly worshiping, and I am - and you've got to catch this - I'm sparing no expense." What's the price limit on your worship?
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For Mary, there was no hesitation and there was no regret.
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I don't see Mary with that bottle of ointment thinking about anointing Jesus going, "Is he worth it?" I don't know.
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We don't see the hesitation.
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And we don't see the regret either.
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We don't see Mary leaving supper going, "What is it that I've done?" Because love doesn't care about expense.
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Love doesn't care about expense.
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We're talking about our love for Jesus Christ, wives, so don't use this as some kind of Valentine's Day hammer to say, "Pastor Jeff said love doesn't care about expense, therefore..." But when it comes to worshiping Jesus, when it comes to valuing Jesus Christ, you will never regret sacrificing anything for Him.
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You will never regret that.
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I'm trying to tell you.
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It was hard when I was putting this outline together, I was trying to think of a different word for sacrifice, because when I talk about the way we show love to Jesus, I don't like using the word "sacrifice." Because He sacrificed for me.
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And it almost feels like I'm comparing our sacrifices.
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Like, "Jesus sacrificed for me." I'm like, "Well, I'm sacrificing for you, Jesus." "Really?" Everything I am, everything that I have, Everything that I ever will have comes from Jesus.
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He gave everything to purchase my salvation.
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We're going to compare sacrifices?
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I just couldn't think of a better word.
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But anything that people consider valuable that you give up for Jesus as Mary did this perfume, you will never regret that.
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Weekly giving?
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You will never regret weekly giving.
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If you feel that God has called you to sell something that you own of value in order to support missions, do it.
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And I promise you, if this is motivated by recognizing Jesus' worth and showing love for Him the way Mary showed love for Jesus, you will not regret that.
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He's getting a bonus from work and saying, "I'm donating this for kingdom purposes." You will not regret that.
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Because He's worth it.
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He's worth it.
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And really, all of this is worship in various forms, right?
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There's no pep talk, there's no coercion.
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They didn't need a guilt trip, they didn't need begged to do what they did.
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For Martha, for Lazarus, for Mary, I said, "Hey, Jesus is worth all my service, all time spent with Him, anything I sacrifice to worship Him, Jesus is worth it." It was just joyful worship.
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If any of those things resonate with you, like, "Yeah, I see these things in my life!" That's a great indicator that you value Jesus Christ.
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On the other hand, First remark is that Jesus is not valued by you.
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Again, it's right in the text.
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Look at v. 4.
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It says, "But Judas Iscariot..." See the shift there?
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The first three verses.
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It's like worship. Jesus is awesome.
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I'm going to give everything.
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I'm going to do everything.
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It's like, "But Judas..." Wah, wah.
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Like, we're taking a turn here.
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It says, "But Judas Iscariot..." of the disciples, he who was about to betray him, said, "Why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii 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.
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Jesus said, "Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial." "For the poor you will always have with you, but you do not always have Me." When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came not only on account of Him, but also to see Lazarus whom He had raised from the dead.
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So the chief priest made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him, many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.
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Okay, so maybe you don't value Jesus.
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And here are three very clear signs.
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If you can take an honest assessment of yourself, if this is you, maybe you don't value Jesus like you think you do.
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Letter A, you're quick to criticize.
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to criticize. Here comes the bucket of water on the fire of worship. Mary, worshiping Jesus as lavishly as she could, and Judas is standing there going, "What a waste. What a waste." Just criticizing. You know, like David's wife in 2 Samuel 6.
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Remember, David was dressed down, he was dancing, with all his might before the Lord as he worshiped, and David's wife scolded him.
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She said, "You're supposed to be the king.
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You don't act like that!" And I've got to tell you, David's wife, Michal, and Judas Iscariot, they're sitting in churches everywhere this morning.
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The passionate worship is happening, instead of participating, they criticize.
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Worship was too long.
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The sermon wasn't that great.
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The coffee was terrible.
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I don't like that little system they have to check your kids in, and the kids thing, and you get your little sticker.
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I don't like that.
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When I hear those things, they sort of translate in my head.
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Because what you're actually saying is, I'm not here to value Jesus, I'm here to offer my expert analysis.
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And I need to remind you that criticism is not a spiritual gift.
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In fact, it's the opposite.
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If you can come in God's presence with God's people and worship and get in the Word and pray scholarship, and your big takeaway is criticism? That says a lot about your heart. You're quick to criticize. Letter B, mark that Jesus is not valued by you. You are fixed more on getting than giving. You're fixed more on getting than giving. Did you see in the text that And John lets us in on this little secret.
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None of us were really shocked when we read it, but John lets us in just to clarify.
27:59-28:04
He's like, "Judas didn't really care about poor people." Are you shocked?
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Does that shock you, boys and girls?
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Judas was like, "This could have been given to the poor!" And John's like, "He didn't care about the poor at all." He cared about money.
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And in Judas' mind, what he was seeing, think of it from Judas' perspective.
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When he saw Mary anointing Jesus, do you know what he saw?
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He saw just buckets of cash going down the toilet.
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That's what he saw.
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Oh, what a waste!
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Oh, oh, oh, the whole thing!
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Oh, the whole thing!
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Oh, this is horrible!
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I can't believe somebody would do that!
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Oh, come on!
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What a waste!
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John says he was a thief.
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Judas was a thief.
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I was thinking about that a lot this week.
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I'm sure that Judas justified his thieving in his mind.
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I'm sure that he did.
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I don't think that Judas was off in a corner like Dr. Doom's snidely whiplash going, is going to be my plan to get rich." I think Judas was following Jesus, and I think eventually Judas got to the place, like all thieves, he justified it.
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He goes, "You know, I left everything to follow Jesus.
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I deserve something." Right?
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"I could have been making buckoo bucks back home.
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I deserve something.
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I mean, they gave me the job of being the team accountant.
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I mean, shouldn't I get paid for that?
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Don't you think I deserve some compensation for being the accountant?
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I mean, other accountants get paid.
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Why shouldn't I get paid?
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You know what, if they're not going to do it, I'll just pay myself.
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I'm sure it was justified.
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You're like, "Dude, how could he do that?" And I would say, "Oh, it still happens." It still happens.
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There's too many people looking at the church as a place to get, not a place to give.
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And that's a problem.
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I knew of a pastor way up north who would join the offering counter.
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You know, the people who would take the offering and count it?
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And if there was any cash whatsoever, the pastor would take it and put it in his pocket.
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He said, "That's for me. Cash is for me." You can deposit the checks, and the cash is for me." You've heard stories of ministry leaders on the news, even very local, that use church funds for personal use, and they call it "misappropriating funds." Do you know what the Bible calls that?
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Being a thief!
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And you're like, well, shame on those people that would do something like that.
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Shame on them.
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I would say yes, but hang on a second.
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you don't have to be pocketing cash or misusing the company credit card in order to have a Judas heart.
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All you need is the attitude of looking to get from the church instead of giving to the church.
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That's all you need.
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You've got a Judas heart.
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And you whine about, "Well, the church should be doing something for me." The church should be giving me what I want.
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There needs to be more programs and things for me.
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And why aren't things more to my preferences?
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Why isn't everything in that church how I like it?
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You're not here to worship.
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You're here for yourself.
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And I would say you're not being a Mary.
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You're being a Judas.
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Because recognizing Jesus' value moves you to give to Him, not take from Him or His church.
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So what's your attitude?
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You're fixed more on getting than giving?
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Maybe you don't value Jesus like you thought you did.
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Letter C, you want to remove anything associated with Jesus.
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I don't want to remove anything associated with Jesus.
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I've got to tell you, as I was reading this passage, and since Dan spoke last week, I had two weeks.
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If the sermon seems long, that's why.
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Two weeks to work on this one.
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I shouldn't have said that, because if it tangs, you're going to be like, dude, that was two weeks worth?
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But I've got to tell you, I was thinking a lot about this, and watching the news and trying to stay tuned in to all the stuff happening in the news.
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And I realized, you know what, there really is nothing new under the sun.
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There is nothing new under the sun.
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Even the latest trends that we see now happened in the Bible.
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For example, one of the big things people talk about now is virtue signaling.
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Did you see it in the passage?
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That's what Judas was doing.
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He was virtue signaling.
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You know what virtue signaling is?
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When you make these statements, trying to sound humble, but really your intention is to brag about how virtuous you are.
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For example, virtue signaling is when you say something like this, "I wear my mask because I care about you.
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I just love the people around me so much that that's why I wear a mask." And look, wear a mask, don't wear a mask, but that's obnoxious to announce it that way.
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I'm such a compassionate person.
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Do you see how big my heart is?
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That's virtue signaling.
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And that's what Judas did.
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Judas pretended like he cared about the poor, and he sure didn't.
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Another common thing in our day that we see in this passage is trending.
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You know what trending is?
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Something's really popular, like on the internet, social media, people are sharing, you know, whether it's a meme or a hashtag or whatever.
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It's trending, it's very popular.
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And we see in this passage, Lazarus was trending.
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He was second only to Jesus.
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Everyone wanted to see the dead guy who resurrected.
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But I think one of the most obvious things we see in this passage that kind of struck me is cancel culture.
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You see that?
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The chief priests were doing cancel culture 2,000 years ago.
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They couldn't deny Lazarus' resurrection.
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I mean, they had to acknowledge that Lazarus resurrected because the dead man is walking around, so what did they do?
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Well, they put a plan together to try to destroy the evidence.
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You realize if Lazarus was alive today, you know what the plan would be.
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You're going to cancel his Twitter account.
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You're going to cancel his Facebook account.
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Don't let him on Instagram.
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That's what canceled culture does.
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We don't like what you represent, so we silence you.
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The first century canceled culture, because they couldn't just hit a switch and close down his Twitter.
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The first century canceled culture was, yeah, we have to kill him.
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That concept in and of itself is baffling.
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What was Lazarus' big crime?
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He resurrected from the dead.
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That's what he did.
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He resurrected from the dead and these chief priests, instead of them saying, "If Jesus can raise the dead, we better take a closer look at Jesus.
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We better take a closer look at Lazarus because we're dealing with some very serious, crazy stuff here.
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If dead people are walking around, they didn't do that.
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They said, "You know what?
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Because Jesus doesn't fit our narrative, we're going to have to not only get rid of Jesus, we're going to get rid of Lazarus too." So there's nothing new under the sun.
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When you refuse to recognize Jesus' worth, you'll want to shut out anything that brings your attention to Jesus, anything that testifies to who Jesus is.
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We've got to get rid of it. We can't have it around.
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That's why you look for excuses to avoid church.
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That's why a small group can't be an option for you.
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That's why you can't tolerate any worship music.
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You get in the car, your wife was in the car, she had the worship music on, "I've got to turn this.
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I can't stand even being exposed to this." Why? Because these things are to you What Lazarus was to the chief priests, reminders of Jesus.
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And you think, I'll just eliminate these reminders.
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And out of sight, out of mind.
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Well, if you don't want to deal with Jesus now, keep in mind that you do have an appointment to deal with Him someday.
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At Harvest Bible Chapel, we spend some time talking about our four pillars through the month of January, but something else that's distinctive about our church is our mission is to make disciples.
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And we believe that a disciple of Jesus Christ does three things.
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Worships Christ, walks with Christ, and works for Christ.
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And did you see all three of them show up in this passage?
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Worship Christ - that's Mary.
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Walk with Christ - your fellowship with Jesus - Working for Christ? That's Martha.
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So what does Jesus mean to you?
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What does Jesus mean to you?
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I mean, I could stand up here and tell you what the Bible says Jesus is worth.
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I could tell you all that.
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He's the only begotten Son of God.
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Jesus is the heir of all things.
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Jesus is the name above all names.
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That's what the Bible says Jesus is worth.
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But today I want to ask, what's He worth to you?
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Because like Martha and Lazarus and Mary, like Judas and the chief priests, His value to you is going to show up in your condom.
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Let's pray.
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Father in Heaven, I just simply ask that You would give us eyes to see the glory and the beauty of Jesus Christ so that we strive to value Him as we should.
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And Father, I'm not sure that it's possible that we can value Jesus as He deserves.
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I don't think we have the capacity to value someone like Jesus all His glory and sovereignty and splendor.
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I don't think we have the capacity to sort of max out our value.
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And maybe that's why heaven is eternal.
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Because we'll have all of eternity to continue to know, understand, and worship Jesus as He deserves.
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God, show us.
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Show us, Father, the worth of Jesus Christ.
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Show us that He is the treasure hidden in the field.
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Show us that He is the pearl of great price, Father.
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And let us esteem Him as that.
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And Father, let our conduct reflect the conduct of people who recognize the worth of Jesus Christ.
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In His glorious and incomparable name, Father, we pray these things to You.
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Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 12:1-11
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
If Jesus knew Judas was a thief (John 12:6, and see John 2:24-25), why did Jesus allow Judas to be the treasurer and steal from their funds?
Explain Jesus’ statement in John 12:8. What was He saying about worship? What was He saying about taking care of the poor?
Why did the chief priests want to kill Lazarus (John 12:10)? How is this like “cancel culture” in our day?
How would you show an unbeliever Jesus’ worth?
Breakout
Pray for one another to demonstrate how you value Jesus, as Martha, Lazarus, and Mary did.