By Worshipping Jesus Fully

Good morning, Faith Church. Last week Pastor Viars walked us through John 11. John 11 is the point to the end of the spear pertaining to Jesus’ miracles. In raising someone from the dead was such a tidal wave to so many impacted by what they saw, that even the chief priests and the Pharisees convened in a counsel together and made plans to plot his death…

John 11:48, “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

He needs to die…but by killing Jesus would play into the sovereign hand of God in bringing about the salvation of many people and…

Enjoying Life in His name by worshipping Jesus fully

*Read John 12:1-26

So with our time this morning lets look at,

3 ways we are called to worship Jesus

I. Worship Him above any earthly gain (vv. 1-11)

Why are we to worship Christ above earthly gain?

In order to answer that question, I need to give you the setting for why that’s the case.

God specifically told the people of Israel their Messiah would indeed come, and he even gave them specifics in relation to his first coming (read).

Even the Apostle Peter wrote that the “the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, ¹¹ seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.” – 1 Peter 1:10-12

In other words, the prophets searched the scriptures because they wanted to know more about the promised salvation, and as one pastor put it, “they could not fully understand what was involved in the life and death of Jesus Christ.” - John MacArthur.

That is to say, all of the OT prophets knew Messiah was coming – they just didn’t know who it would be. All of the OT prophets prior to Daniel were not privy to the divine revelation that he was given – so they weren’t certain of when the promised salvation would come.

They weren’t certain of when the suffering Servant would come….and they weren’t certain of the glories to follow, But Daniel did because the angel Gabriel opened the divine curtain, as it were, revealing six divine events that would shape the course of Israel’s history (and ours) clear all the way until the end – out of the 6 divine events, two of those divine events would be (1) the coming of the Messiah; and (2) the atonement for sin (Daniel 9:24).

In other words, Daniel - ‘I have come from God to tell you when your Messiah will arrive – when he will make his entrance in Jerusalem as the promised Messiah…in 483 years….and after that happens…he will die…(Daniel 9:26 lit. “cut off”)

I want you to know that this doesn’t just have specific application for Daniel’s people, but for us today in John 12. For in John 12 we get the answer to the WHY we are to worship our Lord…

Above all kingdoms above all thrones
Above all wonders the world has ever known
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
There's no way to measure what He’s worth

Hang your thoughts now to John 12.

Jesus is with his disciples make their way to Bethany, which is two miles from Jerusalem, to the home of Simon the Leper (Matt. 26:6; Mark 14:3). Passover is six days away and Jesus’ earthly ministry is about to come to an end. At this point in his ministry, Jesus is a wanted man. The Scribes and Pharisees didn’t know where Jesus was staying.

He didn’t lay his head in Jerusalem yet because they were seeking to kill him – after all, his time had not yet come.

In fact, we read in John 11:57 that the “chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where He was, he was to report it, so that they might arrest Him.”

Jesus knew this! He knew that the time for him to make atonement for his people was right around the corner because he was on a divine timetable. That’s why we read in Luke’s Gospel that “when the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem.” – 9:51

Transition: Our Lord was on a divine timetable recorded by…the Daniel the prophet. In honor of Jesus, they prepared a dinner for him. And while there were those who didn’t worship Jesus above all earthly gain in his day, there were still those who would…

A. See Jesus for who He is

Verses 1-2: “Therefore, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² So they made Him a dinner there, and Martha was serving; and Lazarus was one “of those reclining at the table with Him.” (stop there)

Now, there’s a Sandlot Clan of people if you ever saw it, right? You have a former leper, a former immoral women, a former workaholic, former fishermen, and a former dead man who was just raised from the dead!

So then, this dinner comes right on the heels of his resurrection! Wouldn’t you have a dinner in his honor and above all earthly gain and seeing him for who he is if you had been raised from the dead? Or, if you had been healed from leprosy – or even better – forgiven your sins and transferred from the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of Christ “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1:13)

Transition: So that it what they are doing in honor of Christ, and the spotlight is first on Mary at the dinner…

John 12:3 - ³Mary 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.

There’s such a number of layers to this verse that I want us to consider: Why would Mary take a half a liter of a costly oil and pour it all upon her Lord? Why would a Jewish woman put her hair down in a culture that said if you did that you were indicative of that kind of women in the marketplaces? Jewish woman seldom did that?

And what was the purpose of the nard anyway? It’s called spikenard today. After all, you don’t lay around an imported oil from India (enough to support a year’s wage) unless you plan to use very little of it for something extraordinarily special, right? To put this value in some perspective, in 2007, the cost of this pure nard oil was 12,000 dollars!^[1]

I mean, this family must’ve had some level of status in their society because you won’t typically find that kind of oil anywhere except among the aristocracy or upper class Jewish or high priests.

But Mary knows something that the rest of the disciples are missing – you see, she prioritized the teachings of Christ and his Word above all else and everything of lesser cost. She

Transition. She listened to her Lord who taught that “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. ³² He spoke plainly about this…” – Mark 8:31-32

B. Respond to Him regardless of the cost

Mary believes who Jesus is and what he says he is going to do….he’s going to Jerusalem…to die – he’s going to Jerusalem to be ‘cut off’ – but in doing so will make an actual atonement for his elect. When you think atonement – think AT-ONE-MENT. That is to say, at one with God.

And what does she do? She took out her very expensive alabaster vial containing half a liter of oil and “broke the vial and poured the perfume over His head.” (Mark 14:3)

Not just on feet – but his head as well! And then she pulled the pins from her hair to drop her hair down so that she could wipe away his feet with her hair in a culture that said she is not supposed to do that!

What was she saying – what was the family saying, because Mary and Lazarus because they didn’t stop her – what did they know?

Because you see, that oil was also used by the high priests to anoint…kings. What they saying? What was she saying to her Lord. In affect, she is saying this:

Jesus – you are my Lord and my God. You are so very precious to me - And I value you above everything I own. And I am dependent on you…for life my King and my God. And I don’t care what the culture dictates or says, I will be a fool for Christ (1 Cor. 4:10).

For she knew what we all know today that…

Guilty, vile, and helpless, we,
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
Full redemption—can it be?
Hallelujah! what a Savior!

But unbelief doesn’t work this way. That which is born of sin lies an incredible darkness that denies the reality and purpose of the Cross of Christ. That’s why Judas was such a selfish and self-seeking individual.

Unbelief is not concerned about the denial of oneself, taking up one’s cross and following after Christ since unbelief denies the reality of the Cross, let alone self-denial.

Unbelief will pilfer from the money bag of God’s grace, all the while saying, “The Lord doesn’t see.” (Psalm 94:7)

Verses 4-6

⁴ But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, *said, ⁵ “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor people?” ⁶ 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.”

Judas asked a rhetorical question – he wasn’t looking for an answer.

Did you see the contrast between belief and unbelief? Belief is always associated with a life of devotion and worship, while unbelief betrays its Maker with a kiss. It’s always self-seeking and never believing. Eventually, unbelief will always come home to roost.

“The sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins follow after. ²⁵ Likewise also, deeds that are good are quite evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed.” – 1 Timothy 5:26-27

Transition. This didn’t happen to Mary and neither did it happen with her family – So well did she understand her Lord’s mission and purpose that her act did more than just indicate the worth of Jesus in her eyes…it pointed to something that was to come….you see.

C. The anointing foreshadows Christs death

John 12:7–8 - ⁷Therefore Jesus said, “Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of My burial. ⁸“For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.”

D. Beware of fake piety that is not Christ centered

The fact that Jesus uses the second person indicates that Judas had also aroused the rest of the disciples in criticizing Mary for her actions toward Christ in the breaking of the alabaster flask of oil on Christ – so he had to tell all of them to leave her alone.

Even then, Jesus took this opportunity to explain to them her motive and further explained to his disciples that if caring for the poor were truly their concern, then they had plenty of opportunities to do that – but their time to be with Christ was short lived and he will not be physically present with them for much longer. To put it simply – keep your priorities straight!^[2]

One of the things that disturbs me like nothing else is Judas’ defection.

Here you have a man who was with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry. Here you have a man who was exposed to such much divine revelation and explanation.

Here you have a man who bore witness to the many miraculous signs that accompanied Christ and his ministry. Here you have a man who shared life with the Creator of his soul.

Here you have a man who reclined at the table with Lazarus – the man whom Christ miraculously raised from the dead! Yet, he didn’t believe…can you believe that? All of that light…all of that revelation.

Perhaps you were raised hearing the words of the Lord. You were raised by people who although not perfect by any means, do demonstrate a life being shaped and changed. And for whatever reason, you defected. For whatever reason you have not placed your faith in the Christ of your salvation. The Lord knows your heart just like he knew the heart of Judas

Listen to me: Jesus will not strive with you forever – you can have him now while you still have opportunity. But God has determined a time for you in which he will say no more to your pilfering of his common grace in your life.

And for you followers of Christ, I’m under no allusion that there will be providential circumstances in our lives in which we will stumble and fall and the crowing of unbelief will alert our hearts about the words of the Shepherd, in much the same way Peter was reminded about the words of his Christ that he will deny his Lord.

May I remind you this morning by the sweet words of John Newton

Begone unbelief, My Savior is near,
And for my relief Will surely appear:
By faith let me wrestle, with God in the storm
And help me my Savior, the faith to adorn

Though dark be my way, Since he is my guide,
'Tis mine to obey, and His to provide;
Though cisterns be broken, And creatures all fail,
The word he has spoken will surely prevail.
Begone unbelief, The Savior is here

Though cisterns be broken And creatures all fail
The word he has spoken will surely prevail

Since all that I meet will work for my good,
The bitter is sweet, The medicine food;
Though painful at present, will cease before long,
And then, O! how glorious, The conqueror's song!
And then, O! how glorious, The conqueror's song!

Begone unbelief, The Savior is here
Begone unbelief, The Savior is here
Begone unbelief, The Savior is here

Though cisterns be broken And creatures all fail
The word he has spoken will surely prevail
The word he has spoken will surely prevail

Listen, Faith Church – It took the faith of Abraham to raise your soul to life by the risen Christ. And it will also take the faith of Abraham to walk in your pilgrim’s progress – to walk in your life of faith in Christ. The word he has spoken will surely prevail!

Mary believed this. Martha believed this. Lazarus believed this.

Now note Verses 9-11

⁹ The large crowd of the Jews then learned that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead. ¹⁰ But the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death also; ¹¹ because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus.”

Oh now, this is going well…now, you have the elephant standing in the middle of the room – Lazarus. Word had spread that Christ was at Bethany – next thing you know, a large crowd had formed and many were coming to faith in Christ.

So what do the chief priests do? It’s a given at this point that they are planning to kill Christ – all it takes is a traitor to set those things in motion.

Now, they want to kill Christ’s testimony – Lazarus! But isn’t that the nature of fake piety? It suppresses the “the truth in unrighteousness, ¹⁹ because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” – Romans 1:18

Transition: Unbelief does that! That’s what’s going on here with Lazarus, right? They want to kill him because he is a signpost pointing to Christ!

The fake pietist of Jesus’ day were locked into a worldview that denied the Person and Work of Christ! William Barclay said it well.

“For many people, self-interest is the most powerful motive in life. Many discoveries which might produce cheaper goods never see the light of day because the patents are bought up and rendered inoperative by those whose products they threaten. Self interest dictates policy and action. In order to maintain their own place and their own influence, the priests and Sadducees were prepared to destroy the evidence for the truth. Things have come to a sorry pass when people are afraid of the truth and set their personal prestige and profit before it.”^[3]

But the application we can draw out of from this kind of fake piety is to…

II. Worship Him above your worldview (v12-19)

A. The values of the world

John 12:13–15 - ¹³took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.”

- Take note of this: the crowd is quoting from

B. The servant King riding on a donkey

John 12:14 ¹⁴Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written, ¹⁵“Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”

C. The Testimony of the Disciples [v.16]

“These things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him.”

All they understood was significance of the triumphal entry after the cross….that the people were looking for a leader to take away the crosses of Rome, not carry a cross of Rome.

In fact, my friends, it wasn’t only the disciples who didn’t understand the significance of why the King had come to die. It was also the crowd screaming “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.” They too didn’t understand!

How so? After all, they seem to understand when they are laying out palm branches and calling him the Messiah, right? Well, it sure looks that way…

I mean, Jewish families were taught growing up Psalm 118:25-26. Psalm 118 is a messianic psalm – The Word Hosanna literally means “save now.” In other words, the crowd was looking for Jesus to save them now….but in a military sense.

Can you imagine the crowd chanting that? SAVE US NOW! SAVE US NOW! From who? From the Romans! Understand that they were taught that when Messiah came, he would be a military conqueror to redeem them from the oppression of the Gentile world.

But they were not taught from Daniel the prophet that the Messiah would be “cut off.” They were not taught from Isaiah the prophet that the Messiah would be the suffering servant!

They were taught by and large of the glorious conqueror to come – yes, but not the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

And when Christ did not give them what they wanted, it was this very same crowd that would scream for his blood saying, CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM!!

There’s a lesson here that I think is best summarized by the late RC Sproul^[4]

“This should be a lesson to all of us who come to Jesus with our agendas, making our demands of Him, only to become disappointed, angry, and sometimes bitter when He doesn’t do things the way we want Him to do them.”

And that’s why Jesus wept upon entering the city

Luke 19:41-44

“When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, ⁴² saying, “If you had known on this day, even you, the conditions for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ For the days will come upon you when your enemies will put up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, ⁴⁴ and they will level you to the ground, and throw down your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

What time of visitation? The day Jesus presented himself in Jerusalem as their Messiah!

“behold, your King is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” – said the prophet Zechariah 9:9

“Then after [483 year] the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing,” – said the prophet Daniel 9:26

They should have known! They should have known when their 4 of July celebration would have been. Had they known it, as the Apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” – 1 Corinthians 2:6-8

But unbelief rejected Christ and his Word and his worldview and replaces it with their own.

Ultimately, that’s why I personally believe Judas defected. Yes he was a thief – but again, he only followed after Christ for his own self-interests!

But when Christ began to talk about the fact that he was going to die, he couldn’t take it any longer! He could not believe in…the Scriptures. He elevated the values and worldviews of his prior teaching and not in the teachings of Christ!

Because a crucified Messiah was definitely not in his self-interests, and that says nothing about the fake piety of the Scribes and Pharisees – that would be a profitable loss for them too!

And following after Christ will always cost something! But we cannot suppress the truth of who he is. He is Lord!

John 12:17–18 - ¹⁷So the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify about Him. ¹⁸For this reason also the people went and met Him, because they heard that He had performed this sign.

Now, notice verse 19: “So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are not accomplishing anything; look, the world has gone after Him!”

This is what happens when the truth of the Gospel is unleashed. This is what happens when the truth of who he is taught and explained. And this, my friends, is what happens when worldviews begin to crumble under the weight of Christ

III. Worship Him above your very life (v20-26)

A/ The fruit of the Messiah

Note verse 21 – “sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Now, the Gentiles who live outside of Jerusalem are beginning to hear about the Christ – now they are coming to see Him. And the disciples don’t seem to know what to do, so they take these Gentiles to see Jesus.

He sees these Gentiles and sees the foretaste of the salvation of many people that is about to burst at the seams.

But in order for that to happen, he must first be “cut off and have nothing.” So he said

John 12:23–24 - ²³And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…” (stop)

In other words, his glorification was less than one week away – it is right at the door!

Jesus often said that his hour had not yet come, his hour had not yet come – now, he says to the many who met him that it was now time for the Son of Man to be glorified, applying a Messianic title to himself by alluding to Daniel 7:13-14. The Jews would have understood full well what Jesus said!

“I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a son of man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. ¹⁴ And to Him was given dominion, Honor, and a kingdom, so that all the peoples, nations, and populations of all languages
Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.”

And his next statement to the crowd will shatter the dreams of the crowd who expected Christ overthrow the Romans by giving them an illustration of his death.

²⁴“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

That is to say, like a seed that’s planted into the earth only to rise up to produce a rich harvest, so then his death and resurrection will bring about a salvation harvest of many people.

In other words, he wasn’t going to overthrow, but to redeem – the time for redemption is now – today is the day of salvation! His disciples needed to understand this and they needed to surrender their understanding to the will of Christ.

Transition: Then our Lord concludes this section with a very important lessons…it is ….

B. The discipleship lesson of the grain

John 12:25–26 - ²⁵“He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. ²⁶“If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

At this point, his disciples got a handful of teaching from their Lord. No doubt Jesus’ teaching was hard to bear or even understand at times

But the point is that if you do not view your life as most important, and you instead worship Jesus, and trust Jesus…the good news is that he offers the free gift of eternal life. But someone who lives for their own life, they trust themselves, and they will not turn to him in faith…well they lose their life, because they trust themselves.

Judas, the Scribes and Pharisees, and the crowd all had their own expectations – and Jesus turned that all upside down.

His own disciples believed in Jesus, but were hesitant at times to embrace the hard sayings of our Lord.

He said that they were

“O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶ Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory? Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” - Luke 24:25-26

They almost missed it! But it took a lot of teaching by Christ for them to finally get it! And my hope and prayer is that the more you continue to read the Gospel of John, the more you believe that Jesus is worth everything…that he is more valuable than all your possessions…more valuable than how you want your life to go, and more valuable than your life itself, and that you would enjoy life in his name.

^[1] “Spikenard,” Plant S.I.T.E., last modified, https://ww2.odu.edu/~lmusselm/plant/bible/spikenard.php.

^[2] John MacArthur, The Macarthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008), 9. See also Colin G. Kruse, The Tyndale New Testament Commentary (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017), 3-5.

^[3] William Barclay, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 133.

^[4] RC Sproul, St. Andrews Expositional Commentary: John (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2009), 225.