John 12:1-8 (Robbing God)

John 12:1-8 and the Kingship of Christ

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you. As we spoke about last week, the narrative in the Gospel of John is shifting. The first 11 chapters of the Gospel of John was about Jesus, the prophet, the true prophet, who called the nation to repentance, who warned them about the coming judgment that was soon to break upon them.

The prophet, who in the spirit of Elisha, was the one who did the greatest miracles, who spoke to the kings and queens of that group, the Pharisees, who ultimately, like all the prophets before, rejected him.

That's what we saw in John chapter 11. The very end, the city rejects Jesus a final time. They create this delegation where they're going to destroy Jesus, where they're gonna put him to death, and Jesus abandons Judah, we saw last week, where he leaves Judah.

He goes to Old Testament Israel, Ephraim, and he reconstitutes Israel with his 12 disciples, a new Israel that will rise in Jesus's resurrection. Paul even says that we are a part of this new Israel of God in the book of Galatians.

So today, if we are Christians, we are Abraham's offspring, and we are a part of the Israel of God brought in, grafted in by Jesus Christ. So John 11 tells the story of how the old people, the old covenant people, rejected him.

Now what I find fascinating about this is that God promises to Abraham in Genesis 15 that 400 years are gonna happen before his people are brought out of the land of Egypt. Those 400 years were so that the sins of the Canaanites could be filled up to the full.

Did you know that for Malachi, the final prophet to Jesus, was about 400 years? Then the prophet comes, then Jesus comes, because their sins were filled to the full. The symmetry between the Old and the New Testament is astounding.

Just as the Canaanites were destroyed for their sins in the Old Testament, the people of Judah, shockingly, had filled their sins to the full, rejecting God's one and only Son, and they were like the Canaanites, destroyed.

In AD 70, when the temple was burned, the city was destroyed. Their transgressions were complete. Now today, we begin a new section in the Gospel of John, which is the kingly section. Jesus is anointed as king today in this passage.

Jesus rides into the city as king next week. Jesus talks about his throne being on a Roman cross in four weeks from now, and then we also learn that Jesus is the king who's gonna draw all nations to himself.

He's gonna have a global, international kingdom that's going to span every single era until he returns. So John 12 is really getting at the fact that Jesus is king. Now today, I just want us to accomplish three things as we begin this new section of John.

I want us to see how John 12, 1 through 8, is introducing this royal dinner that Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are throwing for their king. This astounding, beautiful meal where they give everything that they've got to honor Jesus.

The second thing that I want us to accomplish is I want us to see their radical devotion to Jesus. I want us to see how Lazarus is radically devoted. I want to see how Martha and Mary are radically devoted.

I also want to see how Judas is radically opposed to Christ here in the narrative of John 12. And then finally, I want us to examine ourselves. I want us to examine us if we are the kind of people who look like Lazarus, Mary, and Martha in the way that we worship, in the way that we serve, and in the way that we give.

Or, do we have the heart of Judas who robs from God? That's what we're gonna be doing today. So let us turn to John 12, 1 through 8, as we examine these passages together. Verse 1, Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

So they made him a supper there, and Martha was serving, but Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, the one who was intending to betray him, said, Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii, and given to the poor people? John tells us now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.

Jesus, therefore, said, Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we see here a beautiful demonstration of love, a beautiful gift of this banquet that was offered to you 2 ,000 years ago by your servants Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.

Lord, I pray that we would see the heart that these men and women offered to you, how you were their chief and greatest treasure, how they were willing to give everything for you. Lord, also pray that we would examine our own hearts today.

Lord, I pray that none of us would be found having the heart and the mind of reprobate Judas. Lord, we all sin, we all fall short of the glory of God, and there are times where we slip into the sins of Judas, where we slip into the affections of Judas, where we slip into the mind and the patterns of behavior of Judas, and Lord, we know that our sins are not held against us because of the cross, but Lord, we also know that by your Holy Spirit conviction must come.

Lord, if there's any of these ways that we have slipped into the thoughts and the hearts and the behavior of Judas, Lord, I pray that today as your people we would repent joyfully and that we would worship you like Lazarus, that we would serve you like Martha, and that we would give with all our hearts like Mary.

It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. The text tells us, Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Now, we know that he's just left Ephraim.

He's just come to Bethany. Bethany is a suburb of the city of Jerusalem, and the text intentionally tells us that there was six days until the Passover. Now, six days is a number that is highly significant in the Bible.

There's all kinds of six-day allusions that we could pull out of that. They're found all over the Bible. They're found even in the Gospel of John, and we should pause when we see such a number and consider what it means.

Now, you remember the original creation was made out of six 24-hour days, not long periods of time. We're not old earth creationists. We believe in six literal 24-hour days sometime in the past that God made the earth.

John's introduction. Did you know that John begins his book with, in the beginning? He's telling the story of a new Genesis. Genesis begins, in the beginning, and then John begins with, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

He's telling us a new Genesis story, which is why John very carefully and very meticulously details in John chapter 1, Jesus's first six days. It's not obvious. You have to dig around in there, and if you want, you can go two years back into the sermon catalog, and you can hear how we got there in John chapter 1.

But it's there. The original work week was patterned off of six days. Think about it. We complain about our work. We work five days a week. The original work week was six days. Six days to keep the ground, work it, till it, conquer it, subdue it, and have dominion.

That's Genesis 128. The blessing of man is to have dominion over the earth for the glory of God. You talk about six days. Six days is the day that man was created, where God literally fashioned man out of the dust and then breathed the breath of life into man.

It was the sixth day that represented work, the sixth day that represented the formation of the human race. It was the sixth day that represented all of the benefits and the joys and blessings of old creation, and yet we know that old creation fell.

So is it any coincidence at all that Jesus is coming back with six days left? Sort of book-ending creation. Creation began with six days, and then Jesus, before his world-changing, creation-shifting resurrection, he has six days to close out the old creation.

You see the bookend? Creation begins with six days, the old creation is going to end with six days, and Jesus is going to rise as the author of a new creation. It's astounding. Now we know that these events happen.

We're not just adding theological fodder to this because we like to nerd out on that, although there is some truth in that. But John's not making this up to support some esoteric point. It actually did happen.

Jesus really did come to the city with six days before the Passover, so it's a historical fact. But we have to remember that God is sovereign over every detail. That Jesus could have ridden, or he could have came into the city with five days left, he could have came into the city with four days left, he chose to come into the city with six days left.

Why? I think to give us some beautiful theological details of what Jesus is going to accomplish. Remember, I just said that he's the author of a brand new creation. The old world, temples, feasts, and priests are all passing away.

That old world of being in our sins, separated from God, that curse that lasted from Genesis all the way to John chapter 19, chapter 20, where we can't know God fully because of our sin, that's going away because when Jesus rises from the dead, he's going to bring about new creation.

It says that he's the first fruit of a new creation. That means if we're in him, that we're crucified with him, buried with him, raised with him, raised to what? New creation. New creation. I think there's also some aspects to this that have to do with work.

Did you know that work was not a part of the fall? We think it is. I don't want to go to work today. What a curse. It actually wasn't. Work was never meant to be a part of the fall. Work was before the fall, before sin, before the failure.

Work was meant to have fruitfulness. Work was meant to multiply blessings, to bring life to the earth. Work was meant to cultivate and to bring life. So when sin came into the picture, futility came into work.

So that now, men can't get the fields to produce and oftentimes women cannot get their wombs to produce, the curse affected both. The curse affected work. Pain, sweat, blood, tears, and labor. Futility were added to this thing called work so that it's cursed from Genesis 3 onward and yet we see Jesus coming.

To Jerusalem with six days. Why do you think that is? I think because Jesus is going to redeem work. I think that Jesus is going to rise on the first day of a new week. Why? Because there's new work to be done.

There's new work that has never been able to be accomplished that will be done after Jesus's resurrection. It's a new kind of work, a work that is that Jesus crafts, cultivates, and commissions for his church.

Now, I'm not talking about the old work of thistles and thorns. Your garden still has weeds and it will be so until new creation. It says that creation is groaning right now because it is anticipating the kind of redemption that you and I have already experienced.

So I'm not talking about Jesus has redeemed that because there's still thorns and thistles and earthquakes and tidal waves and everything else. What I'm talking about is a new work that Jesus has given his church through the resurrection.

A new work that Adam was supposed to accomplish. A new work of fruitful, multiplying, ruling, subduing, taming, and having dominion over the earth in Christ. Jesus has reinstituted the very first blessing of Genesis 128 so that now we multiply by making disciples.

We are fruitful by being faithful. We subdue the earth by preaching the gospel. We have dominion by extending the kingdom of God and we labor for our King. And it says that even the gates of hell, even the serpent can't slither in and destroy that work.

There's been redemption that's happened to work. Work in the kingdom that will be successful because of Jesus. I think there's also some elements there of new humanity. On the sixth day was old humanity made, formed by the breath of God.

Do you know the same word for spirit is breath? It's panuma. It's a breathy word. Even in the Old Testament, it's ruach. It's another breathy word. God breathed into Adam. God spirited Adam. Adam fell.

What is the first thing that happens to us when we're a Christian? Christ has redeemed us and then the spirit, the breath of God comes back into us. Now we're new humans again. We're no longer fallen humans after the race of Adam.

We're now made new and transferred into the family of God instead of the family of Adam. We've been made new. There's so much I think that's encapsulated here by six days that Jesus comes into the city.

So much imagery, but we have to move on because we've got seven more verses to cover. But I think it's beautiful. I think it's a foreshadow of what Jesus came to accomplish. There's also some truth in here that needs to be explicated.

Jesus is coming to the city as Passover lamb. Six days until the Passover. That's significant. As we talked about last week, the original Passover in Exodus chapter 12 was instituted for the people of God as a meal for the people of God to be saved by the wrath of God.

So you have Jesus coming into the city just like the lamb would have came into the home of the Old Testament Jewish family. In Exodus chapter 12, the lamb would come into your house for four days and he would stay there.

And the lamb would play with the children. And the lamb would probably snipe some of the food on the table. I mean, we don't know. The lamb would frolic in the little courtyard inside the home. The lamb would probably snuggle with your toddlers when it was time to sleep.

The lamb would be a part of the family, experience every single aspect of the family for four days. And then on the fifth day, the father would take the lamb out, would hold the lamb, the lamb's head in his hands.

He would look the lamb in the eye and he would speak the family's sins over the lamb. And then in a in a very quick jolt of a knife, the lamb would bleed and die for the family. Then the lamb's flesh would be roasted for the family to nourish the family.

And then the lamb's blood would be painted over the doorpost so that the spirit and the angel of God would not come into the home and crush the family by killing the firstborn son. The lamb was a substitutionary sacrifice that pointed forward to what Jesus Christ would do.

He came into the city. Next week we'll learn that with and he stays there four days as Passover lamb. He experiences everything that the city experiences for four days. Jerusalem was known as the house of God.

So what does the father do? On the fifth day, on the crucifixion day, the father takes Jesus, speaks the sins of the nation over his son, and allows his son to be crucified. His blood painted on the wooden cross, his blood painted covenantally over the doorpost of our heart, his flesh consumed by the people of God at the Lord's table.

All of this is imaging Christ as the true Passover lamb who takes away our sins so that the wrath of God will pass over us. And now like the people of Israel, we're heading towards the promised land where we live forever with Jesus in New Jerusalem, led by the Spirit, until Christ returns as King.

The imagery is so beautiful. Now we know that the city at this time in John chapter 12 is starting to fill up. It would have swelled to a population that was well beyond its ability to to complement that kind of people.

Maybe a million, maybe a million and a half people. There's different numbers that are given in history on how many people would have actually filled in the city, but the city's population normally would have been about 150 ,000 -200 ,000.

So it would have swollen to a massive size. There would have been a large population of diaspora Jews. These are Jews that have been spread out all over the Roman Empire. I actually read this week that the population of the Roman Empire was 15 percent Jew.

That's a massive amount of people who lived in the Roman Empire, from all over. And they would have been traveling to the city of Jerusalem to experience the greatest feast in all of Israel, which is the Passover.

Now, lots of them would have actually arrived early. So we're six days before the Passover in this passage. They would have already been arriving because you could have never predicted how long it would take for you to travel in the ancient world.

A lot like Boston today. Some things actually just haven't changed. Many of them would have come for early purifications. Many of them would have come to participate in the pre-feast rituals and activities, but the city would have swollen to a disproportionate and unbelievable height.

Now what we see in this passage as we move now to the passage proper is that Jesus and his disciples are preparing for a public feast by having a private banquet. The city that wants to kill him at the public feast is going to happen next week.

Today, we look at his friends and those who love him who have a private feast in his honor. Verse two tells us, So they made him a supper there, and Martha was serving. But Lazarus was one of those that was reclining at the table with him.

I can't help myself but to remember back to the the first miracle that Jesus accomplished, which was the wedding at Cana. Jesus introduced himself as prophet to Israel. Then after that, he went away with his chosen disciples in chapter one.

Then he attends a banquet in chapter two, and then he enters Jerusalem with authority right after that. There's sort of a pattern there. Because now in John 12, he introduces himself as king. He goes alone with his disciples in chapter 11.

He attends a banquet in chapter 12, and then he marches into the city with authority. Do you see? All four of those exactly one for one. Because we're in a new section of John, he shows Jesus doing the same things.

It's the same thing that's going to happen in John 13. He's going to reveal himself as priest by getting away with his disciples. Then he's going to attend the meal of Passover, and then he's going to be taken into Jerusalem with the authority of God to accomplish redemption for the saints.

John is doing this because he's revealing to us that Jesus is prophet, priest, and king, which is what we talked about last week. Now John 12 is all about his kingship. He's the anointed one by Mary who will ride into the city as king.

He's the one who's elevated on a cross-like throne. He's the one who's going to have dominion over all the nations. He's the one who's going to provide a feast for his people. Isn't it interesting that in John chapter 12, people provide Jesus a feast, and in John chapter 13, he prepares a feast for us.

John 12, it's his friends making him a meal. John 13 is him making a meal for his church, which we'll learn about in a few weeks. This passage today is meant to show us who Jesus is, and it's also meant to show us what it means to be a citizen of his kingdom.

If this passage is about Jesus being king, then all of the people in this passage are going to be showing you and I what it's like to either be a citizen of this kingdom or to be a Benedict Arnold of this kingdom.

And we're going to see four examples of that today. Now, John names people intentionally. There's more people than four people at this feast. There's the 12 disciples. There's maybe some larger group of people who are coming because they're curious that Lazarus was dead, now he's alive, and they want to see this meal.

But John intentionally names four people because he wants us to examine these four people. He wants us to understand these four people and to find our place. Are we like these people? Are we like Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, or are we like Judas?

Again, John does this intentionally. Now, what I find so fascinating about this is that it'd be interesting to have him list Peter. It would have been interesting for him to list James or John. The very first person who's mentioned in this passage is Martha.

It's Martha. What a non-traditional court that this king is assembling for himself. And I don't mean because Martha wasn't talented or she didn't have great acumen and skills. I mean that in that time period it would have been scandalous to list a woman as a part of your royal court as the first one.

And yet Jesus lists her. Then he lists Lazarus, the man who was raised from the dead. Then he lists Mary. All of these are positive examples. If you want to know how to treat Jesus as king, this is the master class.

How these three men and two women treated Christ. And if you want to know how to reject him, Judas gives us a great example as well. Now today we're going to study these three characters in order. We're going to look at the positive ones first, then we're going to look at the negative one.

So let us go now to verse two through six as we see how this all plays out. So they made him a supper there and Martha was serving. But Lazarus was one of those that was reclining at the table. And then Mary took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples who was intending to betray him said, why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor people?

Now he said this not because he was concerned about the poor but because he was a thief. And as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it. In a book full of negative examples, it's a beautiful thing that there's three positive examples here of how to approach Christ.

The first one is Lazarus. It tells us that he was reclining at table, which is a shocking thing because he was dead just a few verses before. Every cell in his body was dead. His heart was dead. His brain was dead.

His blood was clotted. His arteries were hardened. His muscles were stiffened. This man was not mostly dead. He was all dead. And yet now he wasn't. Now he's alive. What a point of conversation. Can you imagine you arrive at the table and you're like, what's up Lazarus?

How's it going? How do you feel? I mean, we think about it. They would have been natural points of conversation that they would have had. You would think that the people who were sitting at the table would have been like, now tell me again one more time what it was like when you opened up your eyes for the first time and you realized that you weren't dead anymore.

And he's like, well, I mean, I opened them up and I couldn't see anything because my head was wrapped with all these bandages and I came stumbling out and you're the one who took the bandage. I mean, what else do you mean to say?

It had been a fascinating meal to be at. It would have been an interesting sort of conversation to be on. If you could be a camel or you could be a fly on a camel's back, you'd want to be at that conversation, right?

Except the camel wouldn't be in the meal. Now it says that he was reclined. I think that's fascinating. He wasn't in the kitchen helping Martha serve. He wasn't in the cupboard helping Mary pull down this expensive bottle of perfume.

He was seated reclining at the table with Christ. Now that doesn't mean that he was kicked back in a lazy boy, but he was sitting in the most royal posture that was available to him at the time. In those days, there was three ways that you could eat a meal.

There was the low cushions at the table. You would sit at a low table and you would sit on cushions and you would eat a meal and that was a very informal way to eat a meal. It would almost be like today when we grab our leftovers and we go to the couch and we watch a basketball game or you know, we're just in our pajamas and we don't feel like going to the table.

So we just kind of we're roughing it on the couch eating leftovers. That's kind of this sort of informal way of eating at a low table with cushions around the table. That's not what was happening here.

There's another way to eat where it would have been a little bit higher table with chairs sitting around the table. This would have been more formal. This would have been like eating thanksgiving dinner at the table.

This would have been a much better way to to welcome a guest into your home would be at the high table with the high chairs. But that's not what was happening here either. What was happening here was that they were reclined at these couches these elaborate beautiful couches.

This would be like taking out your nice plates, your polished silver, your fancy chairs and eating a bougie meal. That means nice. This was the most formal way that you could eat a meal. This is a way that they were basically offering Jesus to celebrate him that fact that he rose Lazarus from the dead.

This would have been an expensive meal. This would have been a meal where they were reclining on beautiful chairs with their bodies faced towards the table and their feet away from the table because that would have been the most polite way to orient your body to this meal.

And it was a way of prioritizing Jesus. It was a way of saying you are worth my very best. It would have been like today if you throw a meal for your friends and you have steak and lobster and and you have you know hors d 'oeuvres and and you your whole family is involved in serving this guest like a dignitary has come from out of town and they've chosen to to meet with you and your family.

It would have been the best meal that you've ever thrown. That's sort of what's happening here. Lazarus was there reclining at the table doing what Lazarus was supposed to be doing fellowshiping with Christ.

Now this word reclining also has religious undertones to it. If you look it up in the Greek it can mean reclining at the table on a fancy meal, but it can also mean reclining unto worship. It can mean orienting your body in a committed way in a devoted way in a fully attentive posture of worshiping that thing.

I think that those undertones are there for a reason. Lazarus is offering Jesus the very best devotion he's ever offered anyone. Lazarus is communicating how much Jesus means to him by giving him every bit of his attention and affection and worship.

Instead of getting up and running around he prioritized simply being with Jesus. How often do we need to learn from the posture of Lazarus? The man who gave up everything to be there in that moment with Christ.

There's many things that he could have done to show his gratitude. The one thing that he did was sat in the presence of Christ and enjoyed him. That's what worship is. And how often do we have the opportunity to do that and we take it for granted?

You know, we've been raised from the dead too. We've been resurrected out of the dead. We were in the tomb. We were lost. We were found. We came out. We have an opportunity every single week to recline at the feet of Jesus.

Do we do it like Lazarus? With rapt attention, with full passion directed at the face of Christ. We have an opportunity every week to recline at the Lord's table to receive the blessings of God. We have an opportunity every single week to fight for time with him.

Do we awake in the morning for focused prayer to recline with Christ? Do we spend time in his word upon the couch in the morning while our eyes are still bloodshot? Do we spend that time focused and dedicated with Christ?

Or we hit our alarm and snooze until reading the Bible doesn't make sense and we just go off to work. We have opportunity after opportunity to prioritize, to lay down our calendars, to lay down other things that keeps us from the presence of God.

Do you know every single week we have the opportunity to come and to recline in the presence of God when the church gathers on Sunday? And yet, how often do we all prioritize other things? How often do we all, I think it's Hebrews 10 24 that says do not neglect the gathering.

The Bible had to say that because we're prone to neglect the gathering, aren't we? If we remember that we were the ones that were dead and that we were raised from the dead and brought out of the tomb, the joy that Lazarus has would be our joy.

But yet, don't we often forget when we do that we rob from God? He's owed our dedication and our devotion. He's owed our mornings and our evenings. He's owed our sunrises and our sunset. Every joyful allegiance that we have belongs to him.

He's the very best and we owe him our very best and yet when we don't give him our best we are robbing God of his due. I'll give you an example. If we decided to pay half of our mortgage payment because that's what we wanted to do, the bank would say that we were robbing from them and they would sue us.

So we very carefully make sure we pay our mortgage. If we're on our phones and our children are talking to us, it would be right if we were if someone accused us of robbing our children of our presence because we're so focused on something else that we can't be focused on the things that matter.

How much more so God? When we're distracted by the things of this world, when we're distracted by entertainment or we're distracted by social media, we're distracted by the news or we're distracted by the things that we have going on in our life, the cookouts, the barbecues and everything else, when we're not directing our gaze at Jesus Christ, we're robbing the king of what is due to him.

Lazarus did not do that. So the question I want all of us to ask ourselves is how does our life compare to that? Do we prioritize being in the very place where God has promised that he will dwell with his people, which is the gathered church?

Do we prioritize that? Do we fight to spend time with him in his word? This is not legalism. Lazarus, it would have been a funny thing if someone came up to Lazarus. Now, Lazarus, you're getting a little bit too crazy here with this dinner.

You're acting like a legalist. Lazarus would have been like, what is wrong with you? I love Jesus. I want to give Jesus my best. I'm not doing this to impress him. I'm doing this because I'm grateful to him.

Well, how much more so does when we are filled with love for Christ that the purest devotion comes out of our heart? When we're filled with passion for the Savior, we don't give him our leftovers. We don't give him our crumbs.

We give him everything. How many of you felt that before where you were just enraptured with Christ, where you were passionate about Christ? There's a moment in your life where Jesus had every bit of your affection and your attention, and you know what I'm talking about.

Because in that moment, it was easy for you to give to him. It was easy for you to serve him. It was easy for you to worship him. All I'm saying is that if we fall from that place, let us repent. Let us repent, not because we're shameful creatures.

Let us repent because we want to be with a great Savior. And we don't want to miss that. We must learn from Lazarus when it comes to worship. That's the first one. The second is we need to learn from Martha in regards to being a servant.

The text tells us that she made him a supper there. They made him a supper there and Martha was serving. Martha gives us a glimpse of the second kind of behavior in the way that she is offering this to her king.

Now the word here is very fascinating. It's diakoneo, which means deacon. Martha is performing the role of deacon here. She's serving. She's waiting at the table. This is the same word that's used of Peter's mother.

Peter's mother, who is sick, Jesus heals her, and then she jumps up immediately and she begins joyfully serving Jesus in the book of Matthew, in the book of Mark. Now this was a strong pejorative word in the Greek culture that they were living in.