Episode Transcript
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Let's give our attention to John,
Chapter Twelve, of verses one through eleven.
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Six days before the Passover, Jesy
Jesus therefore came to Bethany where.
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Lazarus was whom Jesus had raised from
the dead, so they gave a dinner
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for him. there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining
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with him at table. Mary therefore
took a pound of expensive ointment made from
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pure nerd and anointed the feet of
Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.
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The house was filled with the fragrance
of the perfume. But Judas is
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scary, one of his disciples,
he who was about to betray him,
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said why was this ointment not sold
for three hundred Dinari and given to the
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poor? He said this not because
he cared about the poor, but because
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he was a thief and, having
charge of the money bag, he used
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it to help himself to what was
put into it. Jesus said, leave
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her alone, so that she may
keep it for the day of my burial,
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for the poor you always have with
you, but you do not always
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have me. God bless his word
to us. He may be seated.
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This is a remarkable story almost every
detail of this story is remarkable in some
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amazing way, and usually at many
different levels. I don't think there's any
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possible way that I could cover all
that I would like to cover this morning,
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so forgive me if there are UN
if I leave you with unanswered questions.
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But the good news is you have
lots of brothers and sisters around you
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and you can continue to discuss,
and I hope you will afterward. These
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things are worthy not of only of
discussion, but of reflection and of treasuring
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in our hearts. There are some
very significant contrasts in this passage. You
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Have Judas, for example, helping
himself and Mary acting as a helpless one
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at the feet of Jesus, giving
her everything to him. One Who helps
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himself and takes care of himself through
his own way is and another WHO's entirely
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dependent and in love with the Lord. You have this concerned for the poor,
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false pretend righteousness and, of course, a true understanding of our times
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and places. Jesus also wants to
remind us of the Times he will be
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with them and the Times that he
will not. This, of course,
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doesn't mean that our Lord is absent
from us even now, but he speaks
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in terms of his humanity. He
and his humanity is not here. If
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he were, then he wouldn't be
somewhere else, and which is, as
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we have confessed, is in heaven. Is True. Human Nature is like
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our human natures, only in one
place at one time. Of course,
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in his divinity he is everywhere,
present and always present. But here he
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speaks according to his humanity and he
says, I won't always be here,
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and so there's a time for some
things and not a time for some things.
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The poor you will always have with
you, he says, but you
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do not always have me. In
this he grounds marries surprising and remarkable actions
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in something that's special and extraordinary.
I'm. He doesn't give Mary's example.
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Is something that is to be I'm, followed and done, for example,
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every Sunday at Church or in our
homes, every time we meet. This
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is he grounds it in something that
is particular and extraordinary, his time there
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and, even more narrowly, his
death. He says in verse seven,
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leave her alone so that she may
keep it, or this may be better
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translated, as you might see in
a footnote. Leave her alone. She
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intended to keep it, or this
was to for her to use, as
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he says in the other gospels,
for my burial. She recognizes somehow the
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Jesus is about to die and for
this purpose she anoints him. One of
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the most important contrasts, another one
that we see in this book, is
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the contrast between different ways in which
people approach or connect with Jesus, if
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I could use those terms, very
general ways, the way we react when
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we encounter him, not just Judas
and Mary, but the crowds as well.
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We see in the crowds waiting to
waiting for Jesus to come to Jerusalem.
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Will he come? What's going to
happen? They're curious, they're excited.
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It's the thing in the news.
They everybody wants to to follow and
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find out about. Many want to
know about Jesus. Are Reacting to him
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and his presence in the world with
the interest of Gawkers, with the interest
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perhaps of persecutors. There are many
who are trying to arrest but then there
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are others like Mary and Martha and
Lazarus and, as we know from the
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other gospels, a man named Simon, who in whose house they are,
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who aren't there to Gawk at Jesus, aren't there to arrest him. Aren't
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there to just sort of be moved
along with the crowds, but to serve
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him, to love him. I
love this little note of hospitality in Verse
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Two. So they gave a dinner
for him there. It's very simple right.
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Jesus came to Bethany were Lazarus was, so they gave him dinner.
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I love that. The Westminster shorter
catechism, one of the standards of our
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faith, one of the ways in
which we confess our faith, rightly tells
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us that our chief end are the
purpose for which God made us was to
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glorify him and to enjoy him forever. Don't you see that in Mary's actions
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here? She is very excited,
very consumed, we might say, with
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glorifying the Lord and enjoying him.
Compare that with Judas, who is only
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concerned about himself, only concerned about
himself. In Judas we see a great
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tragedy as he is consumed by his
own desires, as he is missing the
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most important thing that has ever happened
in the history of the world, Jesus
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Christ, the son of God incarnate, right there the same room with him.
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He a disciple of Jesus. John
says, one who followed Jesus was
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hearing Jesus, knowing Jesus. He
had just seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the
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dead. He had seen Jesus forgives
sins and do miracles. He had seen
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Jesus Prophesy things which had come true. He had seen Jesus speak with authority.
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He had heard the word of God. He was a disciple. And
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yet, of course he was also
not a disciple, not a true disciple,
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not a disciple in his heart,
maybe just in his feet. But
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in Mary we see something very different. She takes the a pound of expensive
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ointment of pure Nord it says.
Perhaps you've seen some sort of expensive oil
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for sale. They usually don't come
in the pound, right, they usually
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come in tidy little vials, right. That would fit in your pocket or
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your purse or something like that,
tiny little things. Mary takes a pound
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of the stuff. She it's held, other gospels tell us, in this
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alabaster flask. She breaks it over
his head. There's so much of it
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that it runs down even to her
feet, where then she bends down in
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this incredibly intimate act and wipes his
feet with her hair. No wonder the
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whole house smells this fragrant smell of
this of this expensive Nord. How expensive
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was this? One commentator I read
calculated the figure in two thousand in the
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Ar two thousand. If I'm remembering
right, I think it was Tenzeros,
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so even more now. This is
a lot of money. Everything about this
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action, the amount of it,
the strength of it, the smell,
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the purity of it, the way
in which it runs over his body,
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the use of her hair, the
costly of it, everything is extraordinary about
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this. Now, why did she
do this? Well, it says that
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she was a remembering for the day
of his burial. She was anointing his
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body for death, not how did
she know this? Are He's not dead
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yet. How did she know this? Some suggest that she was moved by
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the Holy Spirit to this action through
some kind of special revelation. I think
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it is because she was moved by
the Holy Spirit, but it's because she
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took the spirit of God's words,
as others heard them too, seriously.
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We don't have it here in John, but Jesus tells us in the other
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gospels. He tells the Disciples Multiple
Times I'm going to die, I'm going
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to be buried and I will raise
from the dead. Nobody ever seemed to
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listen to this. Nobody ever seemed
to believe him about this. Everyone was
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shocked and surprised when he was captured, died, buried and rose from the
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dead. Thomas, one of the
disciples, didn't even believe it after it
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had all happened, after the others
were even testifying to him that it had
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happened, that Jesus was alive from
the dead. Mary, this amazing disciple,
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believed Jesus. She believed his words. She could see it happening all
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around her. That hasn't John testified
to us that the Jews were trying to
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arrest him, the Jews were trying
to put him to death. She could
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see what was coming in God's Providence, all around her and in the words
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that Jesus had previously spoken. So
maybe the better question, instead of why
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did she see this, was how
did everybody else not see this? And
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that tells us that faith is extraordinary. Faith is an extraordinary thing. If
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we truly believe, as we must, that it is a gift from God,
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then we will confess this. If
we believe, as the Prophet of
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Ezekiel says, that our hearts are
changed because God changes our hearts, because
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he takes stone cold hearts and turns
them into hearts of flesh but live and
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breathe and beat for him. If
we believe that, the Mary's actions and
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the lack of action on the rest
of the world, in Judas's actions at
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all, makes perfect sense. Mary's
act is extraordinary because the grace of God
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is extraordinary. It is miraculous.
Now, if we don't think of faith
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in this way, if we don't
think of a faith in this way,
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if we always think it as within
our power, then Mary will surprise us
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and all others who put their faith
in Jesus in this way. But what
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does the word say? It says
that faith comes through hearing, and hearing
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through God's word, not man's.
John told US earlier in the Gospel that
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we are born not of the will
of man but of the will of God.
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We are not born into God's presence
and his love and his pleasure because
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we're so smart or good looking wealthy. We're born as children of God because
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of his love, because of his
will, and that is a miraculous thing.
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And if you want to know how
big the changes all you have to
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do is look at Judas see how
much the flesh rebelion ells against God.
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It's not just Judas to the other
disciples are having all kinds of problems too.
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In the other gospels and in other
places we learn about James and John
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Coming to Jesus and saying, Hey, when you ascend to your throne,
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can you put us on your right
hand and left? We want to be
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powerful in this kingdom, the sons
of thunder, they were known. As
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we see Peter Denying the Gospel in
such a way that Jesus says, get
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behind me, Satan. Jesus is
disciples are struggling. We might say at
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this point in the coming chapters we
are going to learn the marvelous outpouring the
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Holy Spirit and how these things will
be changed. But here we look at
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Judas and we see what the human
heart in its sinfulness, does, what
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evil there is in spite of the
goodness that is poured out on man in
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Jesus Christ. What is Judas do? He puts his hand and then a
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money bag that was intended to serve
this company of people and those whom they
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were serving, and he takes it
for himself. When the Lord of Heaven
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has said to peep other people in
his presence. I am the bread of
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life. Believe in me and you'll
be saved. I give you living waters.
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Judas says, I think I'll take
care of it myself. I think
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I'll help myself. Of course he
does that, in this sinful way,
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taking what does not belong to him. You Mad. On top of this,
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Judas is great greed, on top
of a perhaps we might say,
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agreed for a good reputation, despite
the fact that he's an evil man.
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Notice how he covers hiss. He
doesn't just sort of sulk in the corner
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and say yeah, as a lot
of night could have been had. What
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does he say? Can you believe
this? He says, why was this
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ointment not sold? It could have
been given to the poor. This pretend
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righteousness. What is she she doesn't
care for other people. She's wasting this
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money. It could have been done
for good things. It could have been
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given to the poor. How righteous
he sounds. And we know again I'm
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borrowing a lot from the other gospels
here. The story occurs in all of
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them. On the the the writers
of the other Gospels indicate that the other
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disciples sort of work good poor Judas. He in a way represented them.
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They were all a little bit upset
about this action. Judas leading the cause
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of Calvin and other commentators of a
good comment here on this, and they
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remind us how we shouldn't be quick
to judge how the disciples, so disciples
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foolishly throw their lot in with Judas's
opinion and not with Mary's. We ought
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to be careful and how we judge
the actions of others. They got it
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all wrong. They thought Judas was
the righteous one, but of course it
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wasn't. It was Mary. This
is how the flesh hates God, this
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is how it rebels against him.
When we consider Mary then, and we
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consider this example, that who had, that she shows us, we see
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guests, great actions and we see
the work of God. In her,
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we find a great model of faith, an example of faith. Not only
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is she as an example of it, but is God uses her to show
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the kind of work that he does
in this world. As we contrast these
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two ways of approaching and connecting and
reacting to Jesus, Judas is and Mary's,
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let Mary be your teacher. She's
a much better theologian here. She's
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a model of faith. It's no
wonder that Jew or the Jesus would tell
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us that her name would be known
for generations and throughout the world. So,
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as we consider this faith, this
marvelous work of God's faith in her,
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as we see the sins of greed, the abuse of the poor,
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the judging quickly all of these things, how do we how do we follow
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Mary and Avoid Judas? It's a
very good question, it's a very important
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one. The answers we do it
by turning toward Christ, by sensitizing ourselves
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to his words, his plans,
his ways, by giving our complete selves
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to him. Think about two groups
of people and all conclude this way and
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ask yourselves which does your heart belong
to? Some people attach themselves to Christ
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because it's the easy thing to do. It's what their parents do, it's
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what their friend friends do. There
are people today who attached for themselves to
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Christ because they are ambitious. They
want to make a name for themselves in
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his church, theologians, pastors,
writers, twitter Maven's committee chairs, or
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maybe they want to find something into
the church to help themselves, networking for
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one's business or something else. Some
people attach themselves to Christ because they are,
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in fact abusers of other people.
They abuse the poor, abuse the
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weak, abused children. They seek
out weak and vulnerable people, people that
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are willing to trust and give the
benefit of the doubt and give a second
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chance, so that they might prey
on them and fulfill their evil lusts.
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Judas was like this. He hid
and cloaked what he did in plausible righteousness,
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I'm one of you, so that
he might prey on those he was
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called to serve. And then,
over these goats and wolves, there is
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another group of people, Christ's true
sheep. These attach themselves to Christ because
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they love him, not because they're
trying to get something out of the institutions
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that he is created or the external
things in the world, but because they
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love him because their heart belongs to
them, because he has their savior,
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because he has opened the door to
the jail and set us free and to
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the land of the living. They
love him because he is given them peace
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and their hearts and peace with God
and peace with men, because he's poured
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out every spiritual blessing on him,
on them when they didn't deserve it.
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They loved him when they were unloving
and unlovable. They love him because they
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know him to be God's sacrifice that
are tones for their sins and gives us
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peace. Those in the first group, who come to Jesus in this wit,
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in these ways, will eventually find
that it is not easy to follow
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Christ. It's not the easy thing
to do. In fact, it's one
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of the hardest things in the world
and involves suffering and challenges and rejection and
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persecution and sometimes even death. Those
who come in this first group because of
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worldly things will eventually lose it all. How did Judas's life end? Suicide
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and loss of everything he had tried
to gain. And those who come to
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harm God's loved ones ought to know
that they will be judged by God,
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that he does not look lightly at
those who would persecute his people, but
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to those who come and receive the
bread of life as beggars, who bow
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down at the feet of Jesus and
see him as their everything, who are
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willing to follow him whatever cost,
whatever price, who give all of themselves
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and recognize that they do that only
because of God's grace already at work within
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them, who are, in their
whole lives, beginning to end, recognizing
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God's amazing grace. These people find
the scriptures say forgiveness in the salvation of
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their souls. They may suffer all
kinds of hardship but, like the Apostle
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Paul, they'll count at all loss, the good and the bad, for
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the exceeding value in knowing and belonging
to Christ. So which group do you
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belong in? It's right for us
to test our hearts and if you find
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yourselves lacking in any way, which
I do and I'm sure we all do,
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go to Christ, who gives himself
freely to you that you might receive
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him, know him, love him
and belong to him. Amen.
