Latest / The TakeAway / John 11:55-12:11 Why do you come to Jesus?

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John 11:55-12:11 Why do you come to Jesus? · The TakeAway

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we go to church, listen to sermons, or seek Jesus in the first place?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is it because we long to be changed, or because we are hoping to get something for ourselves?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you come is a simple question, but one that reaches much deeper than we often realize.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 12, four very different people gather around the same Savior.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Each one encounters the same Jesus, yet each one responds from a very different heart.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in their responses, we are invited to examine our own.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Join Pastor Harry as he unpaps John chapter 11, verse 55 through John chapter 12, verse 11, and challenges us with a question only each of us can answer.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Here's Pastor Harry Barens with today's message.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome again to the Takeaway.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Pastor Harry Barens, and today we're going to be looking at John chapter 11, verses 55 through John chapter 12, verse 11, where we see the crowds gathering in Jerusalem before the Passover and Jesus returning to Bethany for a dinner in his honor while Mary is anointing his feet, and Judas objects to that.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: But before we begin, I want to look at a question underneath those verses about why you're here today.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why have you come to Jesus?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you listening to a message like this at all?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now I ask that because there is a section of scripture in Ezekiel that answers that question in a way that most of us, if we're honest, we don't really want to hear.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: But we've never evaluated ourselves against it.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's the perfect foundation for what we're looking at today.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: What we see there is God speaking to Ezekiel, and he says this in Ezekiel 33, 30 to 32.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: As for you, Son of Man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses say to one another, each to his brother, Come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord, and they came to you as people come, and they sit before you as people, and they hear what you say, but they will not do it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: For with lustful talk in their mouths they act.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Their heart is set on their gain, and behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what we see is that this pattern fits Jesus with striking precision.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: He is called Son of Man throughout the Gospels, the same title given to Ezekiel.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: He is the word who came from the Lord, exactly as John told us in the very first chapter of this gospel.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're watching in this passage today is people gathering around him the way Ezekiel described, coming, sitting, hearing, but not necessarily doing.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Some with lustful talk in their mouths and their hearts set on their own gain.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some simply enthralled by a beautiful voice and a well-played instrument, moved by the performance without ever being changed by the message.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I think this is the real diagnosis behind a culture where church for many has become a place of entertainment.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And most people will not acknowledge that this is why they come.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the test is simple.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you came to be changed, that change would show up in your life throughout the week, not just for an hour on Sunday morning while a great worship set plays and a good message gets you fired up, only for all of it to fade by the time you're five minutes out the door.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the question I have for you today is this which one is it for you?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are you here to be moved or are you here to be changed?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now hold on to that thought as we walk through today's text because you're about to meet four different people in the same room on the same night, and every one of them is faced with the same question, whether they know it or not.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: But before we move on, let's do a quick recap of how we even got here.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: We just closed a three-part series on why a loving God allows suffering, walking through the delay, the grief, the resurrection of Lazarus.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And now Lazarus, the man at the center of all three of those episodes, is about to simply exist at a dinner table, alive, unremarkable in his own telling, the living proof of everything those episodes argued.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see is people coming to see Lazarus, the one whom Jesus raised.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And just like we talked about in Ezekiel's text, many who come are coming for the very same reason.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're not coming to be changed.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're coming to be entertained by a story they just heard, because not all who come to see are coming to believe.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: So as we go through today's text, it's important that we see ourselves in those who are coming, because that's the exact overlay we're carrying forward.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So with that, let's read John chapter 11, verse 55, through John chapter 12, verse 11.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, What do you think?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: That he will not come to the feast at all?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So they gave a dinner for him there.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: But Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples, who was about to betray him, said, Why was this anointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial, for the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the chief priests 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.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now look at what's happening in the city before Jesus ever arrives.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Passover is approaching, crowds are purifying themselves early, and people are standing in the temple courts asking one another, What do you think?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Will he come?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then there is the arrest order already sitting over his head.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: What we see is that even this speculation carries the same danger Ezekiel named.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Will he come?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: What will he do?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of curiosity could be nothing more than watching a story unfold, waiting to see what happens next, without any intention of submitting to what it means.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And into that exact atmosphere, six days before Passover, Jesus walks back into Bethany anyway.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then John tells us Jesus comes to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: He does not let us forget who this man is, even in the scene setting.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: A dinner is given for him there while Martha serves.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this time there's no complaint recorded, no being pulled in different directions, the way we see in Luke's account.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Lazarus is simply reclining at the table.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for those of you just joining us, that resurrection was the center of a three-part series we just finished.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: We looked at why Jesus delayed coming when Lazarus first fell sick, even though he loved him.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: We sat with the real honest grief of Mary and Martha and with the hard question underneath of it, how a loving God allows the suffering we see in this world.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then we watched Jesus call Lazarus out of the tomb.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't heard those three episodes, I would encourage you to go back and listen because everything we're building on today rests on what happened there.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Lazarus doesn't need to say anything in this scene for it to matter.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's not giving a testimony or performing his resurrection for the room.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: He is just there alive, eating dinner, and that alone is the living answer to everything we spent three episodes asking.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see right here is that the pain of losing a loved one no longer exists in that room.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: What they couldn't see back then, what Jesus was doing to glorify the Father in all of it, has now finished its work in the raising of Lazarus.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're watching is people living in the aftermath of that, no longer asking why he had to die or why Jesus let him die.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: The answer to that question is the resurrection itself.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't have to explain it to them.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to break it down or make a case for it.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: The resurrection made the case.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's greater than the death itself.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: The life God breathed back into Lazarus superseded everything death had done and answered every question they were carrying.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: The grief they had is now gone, and joy has taken its place.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now we see Mary take a pound of pure nard, an extremely costly perfume worth roughly a full year's wages, and pour it on Jesus' feet, wiping them with her hair.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now her posture itself is carrying great meaning right here.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's washing his feet, not his head.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the posture of a servant or of someone who knows exactly what she owes.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then she wipes his feet with her hair.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And scripture actually has something specific to say about that detail.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Paul tells the Corinthians that a woman's hair is her glory, using the exact same word we've used throughout this entire series for God's own worth on display.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to be careful here because our culture has taken that phrase and turned it into something it was never meant to be.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Some have taken it almost as license to idolize their own appearance, to treat their hair as something to be prized and displayed for its own sake.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not what Paul is saying.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's certainly not what's happening in this room.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Mary's hair being called her glory means it was hers, the one thing uniquely her own to give.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what makes this moment glorious isn't that she had something beautiful to offer.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's that she didn't hold on to it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: She took the very thing Scripture calls her glory and used it to wipe the feet of the only one whose glory actually deserves to be worshipped.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then the fragrance of the oil she used fills the entire house, marking everyone present, whether they wanted it or not.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to sit with the actual weight of what she gave here, because it's easy to hear expensive perfume and move past it too quickly.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: A pound of pure nard was worth roughly a full year's wages.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in that culture, the law required a tithe, and this is important a tenth, a percentage measured against what a person earned.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: That was the standard and what faithful giving looked like under the law.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: But Mary doesn't bring a tenth.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: She brings the whole year the tenth was supposed to be measured against.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So she isn't giving generously within the boundary of what was required.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: She's giving in a way the law never asked for and never could have required, because the law was built around a percentage and she gave the whole.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she gives it in the most humiliating posture available to her, on her knees, at his feet, wiping them with her own hair.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: She takes the lowest place in that room, the place of a servant, and in doing exactly that, she elevates Jesus to the highest place in that room.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Her humility becomes his exaltation.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, go back with me to the question we asked at the very beginning.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Why have you come to Jesus?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you here listening to a message like this at all?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Mary is the first answer in this room, and it's the answer every other answer in this story gets measured against.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't come to be entertained.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: She came to give everything she had, even the year she could have kept and the glory that was uniquely hers, without ever being asked and without ever calculating what she'd get back.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we need to ask ourselves this.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: When you see the first person in this room respond that way, with that kind of humility, in a way that exalts Jesus above everything else, do you see yourself in her?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you already looking ahead to the next person in the story, hoping you'll relate to them instead?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now that may be something you come to regret as we see that Judas objects and says, Why was this anointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And John tells us what his motive is.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: What we see is that this is Ezekiel 33 exactly.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Lustful talk in the mouth, gain set in the heart.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Judas is standing in the very room where glory is being poured out, and his answer to our opening question is that he came calculating what he could still extract from that moment.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, hopefully, you don't see yourself as the second person in this room.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But my fear is that many of us do, even if we never say it out loud.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is that many of us can't help but calculate what we're going to get out of following Jesus.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Ask any Christian why they believe, and more often than not, you'll get the same basic answer.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: We get saved from hell and go to heaven.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's a true answer.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it reveals the heart of someone who calculated their gain and never counted the cost.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: The thought of why Jesus had to pay the ultimate price for that gain, never even crossing their own mind.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: For many, that's simply because they were never taught.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: But for some, it's because their motive was never for the glory of God in the first place.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was always, as Paul said back in our study of Ephesians chapter 2, for the passions and desires of the flesh.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus doesn't let that objection stand unanswered.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: He turns to Judas and says, Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial, for the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: What that means is that Mary seems to have grasped, even if only intuitively, something the twelve disciples themselves have not yet accepted, that Jesus was actually going to die.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus isn't dismissing care for the poor, he's naming the urgency of this one moment, a window that will not stay open.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And now we turn to the crowd.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And here's where the full weight of Ezekiel lands.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to be clear that the crowd isn't one more clean, separate answer to our question the way Mary and Judas were, because the crowd is actually a mixture of both.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them believe genuinely, as John tells us plainly.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: But sitting in that same crowd, shoulder to shoulder with real believers, is exactly the danger Ezekiel named.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: People drawn by the marvel of it, moved by a beautiful voice and a well-played instrument without ever letting the word actually land.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: What that means is that the crowd is probably the truest picture of any room the gospel has ever been preached in, including this one.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us aren't purely Mary, giving everything without calculation.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And most of us aren't purely Judas, calculating gain in the open.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us are the crowd, a little bit of real belief sitting right next to a little bit of spectacle seeking.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And most days we couldn't fully separate the two in our own hearts, even if we tried.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see is that the response of the religious leaders isn't repentance, it's escalation.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: They plan to kill Lazarus also, because a living, breathing testimony standing at a dinner table is more dangerous to their position than an argument they couldn't debate.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same pattern we watched in the last episode now widening.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: The miracle produces belief in some and murder plots in others every single time.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before we go any further, I want to be honest with you about why we started today with Ezekiel.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: That passage isn't a prediction about this scene in John.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel wasn't looking down the centuries and describing Mary, Judas, and the crowd in Bethany.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: What he was doing was naming a pattern in the human heart, one that existed long before Jesus walked into that dinner, and one that hasn't gone anywhere since.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Paul names that same pattern in Romans when he says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he describes it further in Ephesians that we once walked in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the heart Ezekiel is diagnosing.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not a heart from some ancient culture we can safely study from a distance, but the same heart every one of us carries into the room right now, whenever we sit down to hear a word from God.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So John 12 isn't the fulfillment of a prophecy from Ezekiel.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's an example of it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: One more moment in a very long line of moments where people gather around the word of the Lord, and some hearts are set on gain, and some hearts are moved without being changed, and some hearts, like Mary's, pour out everything they have without holding anything back.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's go back to where we started and asked the question we opened with again.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Not with words, but with their lives.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Mary gave everything she had without calculation.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Judas stood in the presence of glory and priced it.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: The crowd was a mixture, some genuinely believing, others entertained by a spectacle without ever being changed by what it meant.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's Lazarus, and he's different from the other three because he isn't responding to a miracle he witnessed.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's responding to a miracle that happened to him.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's the same posture we saw earlier in this gospel with the blind man in John chapter 9.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Two men, two miracles, two very different responses.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: The blind man found his voice.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: He stood in front of the Pharisees under real pressure and testified to what Christ had done for him.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Lazarus, as far as the text shows us, says nothing at all.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: He just reclines at the table.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's worth sitting with because we're never told what Lazarus actually experienced during those four days in the tomb.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Was he in paradise?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Did it feel like the blink of an eye?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Did it feel like sleep the way Jesus described it to his disciples before he ever arrived when he said, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know, and scripture doesn't tell us because that's not the point being made.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: What we're shown instead is a man who has no words for what happened to him and doesn't need any.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's no testimony required and no explanation owed to that room.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: All that's left for him to do is keep receiving what he still can't fully understand.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you are that person.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't words for what Christ has done to you either.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't owe the room an explanation for it.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell you this that it's okay.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone in this room has to be the blind man.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you are simply meant to be Lazarus, quietly, wordlessly alive, in a way only you and God will ever fully know the weight of.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to be honest with yourself about which one of those postures you've been this week.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: The test is the same one I named at the start.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Does the words you just heard actually show up in your day throughout the week, in your workplace, or in the way you treat the people in your own house?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or does it stay behind in the room where you heard it?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: What we see is that the invitation today is to become like Mary and not like the crowd.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Worship that costs something, given because of who Jesus is, not because of what can still be gotten out of that moment.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel spoke that diagnosis over Israel, and it speaks over us today just as directly if we're honest enough to hear it.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So before we close, I'm not going to answer this for you, because only you can.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: In light of everything we've read today, why do you actually come to hear what the Lord has to say?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we don't just want to hear your word, we want to do it.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for the times we've come to be entertained rather than changed, moved for an hour and unmoved for the rest of the week.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Make us like Mary, willing to give what cost us something because of who you are.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you again for joining us today, and I hope today's message has helped you take a step closer in knowing just how much God loves you and wants you to know him.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if anything today resonated with you, or if you have any questions or comments, please visit us on our website at thetaway.faith, where you can send us an email, or you can click on the text us link in today's episode description, as we would truly love to hear from you.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in our next episode, we're going to move into the triumphal entry where the crowd shouts Hosanna to the very man some of them will call for crucifixion within the week.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: The same divided heart we saw today, now on a much bigger stage.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: God bless, and we'll see you next time on the takeaway.