How You Relate to Jesus

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Yeah, sing and say things like that.

We're not saying that hard times aren't gonna come, that stuff's not gonna happen to us as your people.

What we're saying is we're not gonna be shaken by what happens.

Uh, we're not gonna be flighty, uh, shallow, circumstantial people.

Uh that when everything breaks out and it gets difficult around us, we're gonna look to you.

We're gonna realize, hey, this is just the way we fight our battles.

We're not overwhelmed, we're just surrounded.

So we lift up our eyes to the heels from where our help comes from.

Our help comes from the Lord.

And so, Lord, we build our life on you.

We bank everything we have on you.

You are the sure and certain foundation upon which we're intended to do life.

That's why, Jesus, you said, hey, when you set out to make a plan for your life, you better dig down past the sand to the rock and build on this firm foundation.

That's why we open the Bible because it's this unchangeable reality that governs all of life.

Now, Lord, let it affect how we think and relate to you, how we think about you and how we relate to you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

You can, if you have a Bible, uh take it open up to John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

We're going through the Gospel of John.

Uh we get to chapter 12.

By the way, chapter 12 is the last public teaching in John's Gospel of Jesus.

This is the last thing he says to a crowd of people in John's Gospel.

After this, he he's preparing, getting ready to go to the cross, and so things begin to kind of take on a different shape and a different focus.

I'm gonna talk to you this morning about your style of relating to Jesus.

Your style, asks you the question, how do you relate to Jesus?

Now, when I say a style of relating, uh what I mean is it's kind of like a personality.

Everyone has a personality.

Uh, you know what I mean when I say everybody has a personality.

If you do, raise your hand.

Hold it up real high.

Okay, everybody has personality, put it down.

How many people know people that have a personality that gets on your nerves?

Raise your hand.

Now you're listening.

Okay, I'm just making sure you were there this morning.

In the same way, you have a method and a manner of relating to Jesus, whether you realize that or not.

And it was shaped by different things in your life and experiences.

Like in my own life, there was an experience I had with my father that shaped the way I thought about and related to my dad.

My dad was a hard man, he was a hard-working man.

He expected you to do what he told you to do.

He did not repeat himself.

If he had to repeat himself, he repeated it while you were getting a whipping.

And so there was a lot of, oh, oh, yes, yes, yes, I remember now.

Let me go.

Uh no.

He whipped you like a pinata.

He just beat you till candy came out.

Uh and my friends were like, Neil's getting whipped, let's go, candy.

Uh but so I was kind of afraid of this man, respected him, all that kind of weird mix of respect and hatred and whatever.

And one day I was getting ready to catch the bus, and at school, you could order these little books and magazines, and there was a magazine called Bananas back when I was in like the third grade.

And that was the thing.

All the cool kids ordered and paid a dollar for it.

Might have well been$10,000.

We were just dirt broke poor all the time.

And my dad was in the bathroom where my dad went, there were five kids.

My dad and my stepmom, we had one bathroom, two bedrooms in our house.

All five of us lived in one bedroom.

We all shared the bath.

My dad would go in the bathroom, and the thing I remember about that was our bathroom door was about that far from the floor, and so light would shine out from under it, and I just remember thinking, what's he doing in there?

What takes so long?

Now that I have kids, I realize my dad was escaping from the chaos.

But I was getting ready to catch the bus, and I was like, had worked up the courage to ask my dad for a dollar to buy a magazine, to order a magazine at school, because that day was the deadline.

And so I was standing outside the bathroom door, staring at that yellow light coming under the door, and I was like, and my mouth wouldn't work.

I was so afraid that my dad was gonna be like, What do you mean, a dollar?

We can't afford that.

And after about three minutes of standing there, which is an eternity, while my old brothers are screaming, my older brothers are screaming, hurry up, more on, we're gonna miss the bus.

Thank you for the loving affirmation this family brings to me.

Uh, I stepped up and knocked on the door and I said, Dad?

And my dad's like, Yeah.

And I said, Uh, dad, dad, it's Neil.

I know who it is.

Not going well.

And I'm like, I am trembling.

And I said, uh, Dad, I I wanted to, oh, I was, I was, I was wondering if I could order these books at school.

Uh and and and and and and and and I I don't I don't know what I was saying.

And my dad's like, boy, come out with it.

What do you want?

Uh uh well uh I want to know if I order books.

I know you want to order books.

What's the deal?

Do you need money?

How much are they?

I said, well, it's a dollar.

What happened next?

Change the way I related to my dad.

There was like an awkward pause, and I was like, uh, what's he doing?

Is he loading a gun?

Is he gonna shoot me through the door?

What's gonna happen here?

All these scenarios going through my mind, and then all of a sudden I heard this, which was my dad sliding his bill fold on the floor under the door.

And then he said this, take whatever you want, son.

And I didn't even touch it.

I just looked down at it and started crying.

I was like, never in my life had my dad said to me, Take whatever you want.

We were the poor white trash family that went out to eat every once in a while, and my stepmom, who was a three-headed dog that guards the gate of hell, she would say, You're not getting a drink.

You're gonna drink water, okay?

Or if we got a coke, I had to share it with my brother Mitch.

That's a good idea, parents.

Drink your brother's backwash.

I would get like one sip and go, Rush is mine.

I hated that.

I'd rather drink water.

At least you could get all you wanted.

So I'm staring down at a bill folder, I'm like, uh, uh, uh, uh.

And my dad, who's been a while, he goes, Boy, you still there?

I just reached down and I took a dollar out.

Slid back under the door.

My dad slid it back.

Is that all you wanted?

They had snacks in the cafeteria, too.

I never bought a snack.

I opened it up.

All the ones were gone.

Now there was more in there when he first slid it under.

My dad had taken other ones out.

Slid it back and said, Is that all you wanted?

So I had to pick something bigger than a one.

I took a$10 bill.

I thought, number one, I'd robbed Fort Knox.

Number two, I don't have to work the rest of my life.

I remember thinking that.

Walking to the bus stop, I was just floating.

I was like, suck us, I am rich now.

It lasted about two days and that was over.

I related to my father.

It was, it wasn't, it was still dysfunctional, it was still crazy, but I realized he wasn't this maniacal monster that was out to just punish me every time I screwed up.

In the same way, everyone in this room has these impressionable experiences upon you that have affected the way you think about and therefore relate to God.

I want to read John chapter 12, the first eight verses, and they're gonna list off four people.

John 12 · chapter mention

And I'm gonna do something different.

I'm not gonna yell at you.

You know, you come to church, typically we yell at you, make you feel guilty, make you feel bad.

Come back next week and I'll do that then, okay?

Uh today, here's what I want to do.

I don't want today, we are a shower people.

Most of you in this room take showers.

Today I want us to take a bath.

You know what a bath is?

Remember that?

Y'all are like, what?

Uh let me just read.

And here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna read the passage, and then I'm gonna talk about each of the characters.

They represent a style of relating to Jesus.

They ask us a question, they have a word, and then they have a statement, and then I'll give you kind of a composite of this person's style of relating.

Let's read John chapter 12, verse 1.

John 12:1

Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

So they gave a dinner for him there.

Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table.

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.

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples, who was about to betray him, said, Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?

He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was the thief, and having charge of the money back, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

And Jesus said, Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.

For the poor you will always have with you, but you do not always have me.

Now, there's four people listed apart from Jesus in this story, and I want to take them in the appearance that they that they show up in this little story about this dinner.

The first one is Lazarus.

And the question that Lazarus asks us today is simply this What does Jesus know about you?

What does Jesus know about you?

Now, in the previous chapter, chapter 11, Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead.

Lazarus was dead for four days.

There was a kind of a uh this myth mystical teaching in the Jewish culture that said the spirit, when a person dies, the spirit leaves the body and hovers right over the body for three days.

And so Jesus waits for four days, so there's no doubt in anybody's mind how this happened.

This isn't some kind of Jewish mysticism.

This is the power of God unleashed on a dead person, and the dead per the person that was dead is brought to life.

Now, by the way, you never get over that.

Have you ever been around somebody that that that that beat cancer, that survived the cancer treatment, they've given this horrible diagnosis, we don't know how long, and all of a sudden they go to the doctor and they go, There's no tumor.

You get around that cat and you you you you you can't talk about a bad day.

You're just kind of like, because they have a perspective on things.

They've gone from death to life.

Lazarus is this way.

And so the question he asks us is, hey, what does Jesus know about you?

Our translation, are you aware that he knows everything about you?

He has seen you at your absolute worst.

The word that Lazarus would would choose for his life that defines his style of relating is experience.

Experience.

He realizes Jesus has seen me at my absolute worst.

I was powerless to do anything about my life, and yet the power of God did something about my life.

The phrase that he would say to us is presence is the language of appreciation.

Presence is the language of appreciation.

He doesn't write a check to the church.

Lazarus is just smitten with Jesus.

The text says it like this uh that the six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany there that where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

So there was a dinner given for him.

Martha served, and Lazarus was among those reclining with him at table.

Now, boys and girls, uh, when the Bible says he was reclining with them at table, uh, how many of you in this room, don't raise your hand or anything, but have your mom and dad ever told you to sit up at the table?

Like, sit up, sit up, sit up.

In the Bible, they never sat up.

Now, you can't use this against your mom and dad.

When they say set up, you can't go, well, in the Bible, they didn't set up.

In the Bible, they laid down and they leaned back on one on their left arm and they ate with their right arm, their feet kind of facing away from the table.

They would just sit there and they were just eating.

The Bible says Lazarus was among those reclining at table with Jesus.

And so the more you realize, here's why I go into that, because the more you realize that Jesus has seen you for who you really are, you stop trying to manage his impression of you, and you just sit down on the inside and you can be at ease in his presence.

Here's some things that characterize a kind of a character sketch of a man or woman who has a Lazarus style of relating to Jesus nowadays.

It'll come up on the screen.

Don't try to write all this down.

You can get your phone out and just take a picture of this snapshot.

Here's a composite of this person style of relating.

Uh, they can't tell you how to get it because they just experienced it.

People come to these people and basically say, How'd you get this way?

And there's not a formula or a fact.

It's just, hey man, I was dead, but now I'm alive.

Um, his or her life was a threat to the religious subculture.

If you read down in verses 9, 10, and 11, you'll see that the Jews did not only want to kill Jesus, they wanted to kill Lazarus because of Lazarus' life and testimony, people were leaving them and going and putting their faith in Jesus.

And so these people are a threat.

You don't want these people on a committee at your church because they ask really awkward questions.

Uh, here's the third thing.

Uh they he he forgot the score.

You you'll you'll you'll one thing we'll talk about is how they like like Judas keeps the score.

Uh Lazarus forgot the score.

He has a deep faith that they often, this person has a deep faith that they often cannot explain in ways that make sense.

Uh people appreciate this person that has this Lazarus style of relating from a distance, but seldom let them get close because people are appreciated, uh, they're appreciative of Elizabeth, but they're kind of intimidated because you never know what they're gonna say.

It's like, uh they have this mindset, it's all gonna be all right in the end.

Again, it's a person that survives cancer.

They don't worry about uh things that we worry about.

It's kind of like, oh man, dinner's gonna be 20 minutes late.

Is that the biggest problem you got?

A friend of mine sent me a little gift for whatever it's called the other day.

It was from the set of the Passion of the Christ, and it's the director Mel Gibson sitting there in street clothes talking to Jim Caviezel, the God place Jesus, while they were filming the crucifixion scene, so he's beaten and bloodied, and they're sitting there talking, and the caption said, So, Neil, tell me about your hard day.

I wrote back, Thanks for the perspective, you jerk.

Uh here's the here's the uh, but Lazarus has this sense it's all gonna be alright in the end.

Here's the last thing about a person that has this style of relating.

Uh, they linger long after dinner.

They linger, there's a dinner given in Jesus' honor.

A person with a Lazarus, they linger long after dinner.

In other words, you have them over for dinner at six.

It's time to go about 8:30.

About nine o'clock, they're like, You want to play Monopoly?

And you're like, dude, that game takes forever.

Put on some coffee.

They just they're not in a hurry.

This is what a person that has a style of relating that, like Lazarus, this is the way they relate to Jesus.

The second person in the text is Martha.

The Bible simply says this.

Verse 2, so they gave a dinner for him there.

Martha served.

That's all the Bible says.

A two-word summary of the way she shows up and relates to Jesus.

This isn't the only time.

The question that she asks us today is, what does Jesus need from you?

What does Jesus need from you?

And in Martha's mind, what Jesus needs her to do, what Jesus needs from her is he needs her to serve, he needs her to do, he needs her to get up and kick it into gear.

So her word is effort.

Effort.

And the phrase that she says to us is, I express my understanding through my effort.

Uh Martha exerts a lot of energy around serving.

She knows what needs to be done, and she doesn't have a sense of what God is doing, but she knows what needs to be done in the moment, but she doesn't see the big picture, all right?

Uh most of the time you see her, she's mentioned her serving.

Not only here, but in Luke chapter 10, about verse 38 to 42, there's a story of Mary and Martha, the two sisters.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

Uh, and Jesus, Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus, just listening to Jesus talk, just kind of like, yes, just focused on everything Jesus is saying.

Martha comes out of the kitchen, Lord, don't you care?

My sister's left me to do all the work.

Tell her to help me.

Remember what Jesus said?

He said, Martha, Martha, you're upset and worried about many things.

But only one thing is necessary.

Mary has chosen that which is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

When you choose that which is better over what is just an option, but when you choose the better, God reveals things to people that choose the better that He doesn't reveal to everybody else.

And you'll see it when Mary shows up here in just a little bit.

But Martha is here and she's kind of her question is, what does Jesus need from you?

And she thinks, hey, here's Martha.

We're just saved to serve.

I'm just saved to serve.

That is not the gospel, beloved.

Yeah, is service a part of that?

Absolutely.

But the apostle Paul's talking to these people in the city of Athens in Acts chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

He's trying to explain to them what God is like.

And he says, God does not live in temples made by human hands, and he's not served by human hands as if he needed anything.

Martha thinks, man, I am bringing it in.

I am making it happen because of what I am doing.

She lives from the outside in.

Here's some characteristics: a thumbnail sketch of a person that has a style of relating like Martha.

Has one tool, one response, and one way of doing things.

If you say to Martha, I'm depressed, she's like, Can I make you a meal?

I think my husband's leaving me.

How about a cake?

You're like, my kid's smoking pot.

We had to put him in rehab.

Oh man, can I bring over a salad?

Martha does for you.

She does not enter in with you and sit with you in that.

Lady came up to me after the first service and she goes, My gosh, we were talking about Martha.

That is me.

I mean, but what happens if I stop doing everything?

I said, Why don't you stop and find out?

She goes, Well, my kitchen will never get cleaned.

Yeah, it will.

You might have to say to some people, hey, I clean this all the time and I resent you for the fact that you never volunteer to help.

Marthas are noble martyrs.

They're just no, no one knows how hard they've got it except them.

They typically feel underappreciated.

They're busy but rarely joyful.

They obsess over possible outcomes.

Uh they cannot score enough points to feel secure enough to sit down on the inside.

They give lip service to the idea of change but rarely changes.

Service is like an armor which protects them from the vulnerability of being known.

Put a star by that in your mind.

Martha's don't have very many good, close, intimate friends who know all the details of their life.

Because there's just so much to do.

Who's got time for friendship?

That's just inconvenient.

Martha cleans up after dinner.

Lazarus lingers long after dinner.

Martha cleans everything up.

Then Mary shows up.

The Bible says it like this.

Verse 3 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.

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

Do you hear that?

The house was filled.

Everybody had a sense that something was going on bigger than them.

And they were like, What in the world is happening?

The question Mary asks us is, What does Jesus want from you?

What does Jesus really want from you?

Does he want you running around frenetically serving, meeting every need there is?

Her word is intimacy.

Intimacy.

If you just had to say, this is the word that characterizes my life, the way I relate to Jesus, for Mary it was intimacy.

In Luke 10, she's just sitting at Jesus' feet, listening to him talk, hanging on every word.

In John 12, six days before Passover, she has a sense of what's happening in the big picture.

And so she does what nobody else knows to do.

Which was when Jesus says, hey, leave it to Judas Iscariot.

Leave her alone.

She saved this for the day of my burial.

By the way, the crucifixion narrative starts in the next chapter, chapter 13.

Mary has a sense.

If you ever get tired of not getting it in life, you probably need to think about relating to Jesus more like Mary than Martha or some of these other people.

Her question is what does Jesus want?

Her word is intimacy.

Here's the phrase that Mary would say to us today.

Commitment is what you're willing to do, what you're willing to do, but intimacy is about what you're willing to do without.

Commitment is about what you're willing to do.

Oh God, I'll do this and I'll do that and I'll do this.

And that's great to a certain degree.

Intimacy is what you're willing to do without.

Allow me to demonstrate.

In the Bible, the text we read, it says that she walks in with a pint of pure nard and expensive perfume, and then it gives us a numerical value we don't understand.

It says this.

It says it was worth about a year's wage or 300 denarii.

300 denarii is a year's wage.

So do not write this down so your neighbor can see it.

But in your mind, I want you to think, how many in this room you know what your annual salary is?

Raise your hand.

Hello?

Put your hand up.

Of course you do.

Rest of your liars like, I don't know.

I just trust God.

I look at that envelope every two weeks and go, that's it.

Man, they think that the people are the Baptists are paid, working me like a dog and pay me like one, Jesus.

I told my friend Wyatt in the lobby.

He said, How's it going, Neil?

I said, You know, the Baptists that work me like a dog and pay me like one.

Tell Jesus next time you talk to him in prayer about it.

And my friend Wyatt went, Absolutely.

See, y'all are in trouble.

Anyway, get the number in your mind, okay?

Think about it.

Don't act like I love Jesus so much.

Yes, you've added it up.

You know what you make, and you've probably looked around your job, your workplace, and thought, I hope that rascal ain't getting paid what I'm getting paid.

Because they sure don't work as hard as I do.

But leave them alone right now, stay on yourself.

Just think about because the Bible says this.

Mary shows up, she has this uh because because because Judas makes this big objection.

She's got this expensive ointment made from pure nard.

Okay, here's two words that never should go together in the English language expensive ointment.

That's just gross.

This is like, what?

It's like 2D fruity Vaseline or something.

No.

Then Judas tells us how much it was worth.

He says, uh, in his objection, he's like, hey, verse 5, why was this ointment I sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?

300 denarii was the annual salary of the average person.

So go back to what I said a minute ago.

You're like, where are you going with this?

Commitment is about what you're willing to do.

Most of you, your entire life, as you the way you relate to Jesus, is by telling him what you're willing to do.

Intimacy is about what you're willing to do without.

And to put it in our just whatever that number was, Mary's willing to do without something that cost that number to you.

And that's why Judas freaks out.

She lives from the inside out.

Her understanding is a byproduct of slow intimacy.

She's like Moses.

The Bible says that God showed his acts to the children of Israel, but he revealed his ways to Moses.

She sees the way.

She sees what's going down here.

And so she does what nobody else knows to do.

I mean, can you imagine?

I mean, this is six days before Passover.

She dumps out a year's.

Let's just say if you made$50,000 a year, and some of you make much more than that.

And glory to God, I hope you get a raise tomorrow, okay?

Don't hear me getting after you.

I hope you make more money than you could ever ask or imagine.

But can you imagine that much perfume being poured out on you?

And then you walk into work tomorrow, what you would smell like?

I mean, that's beyond shaking hands with Johnny Williams, one of our greeters here.

Some of you are laughing, some of you are.

If you shake Johnny Williams' hand, that brother got the English leather gift pack, the lotion, the cologne, the aftershake.

He puts it on.

I don't know what it is, but it smells like berry white.

That's all I know.

You shake his hand, and I'll be home tonight having supper, and I'm smelling my hand.

I'm not wondering, oh, you shake John and Williams' hand.

Yes, yes, I did.

His brother just always smells good.

Can you imagine a year's worth of cologne being dumped on you?

I mean, that could marinate you in that and you not absorb it all.

But this wasn't cologne.

This was like an ointment.

There's that word again.

Everybody's got a least favorite word.

Mine is ointment.

It just reeks of infection.

I'm like, no, I'm good.

No.

But I mean, he is just slathered in this.

Six days from the Passover.

Passover is when they arrest Jesus and they begin to put him on trial.

I'm gonna tell you, I think they're nailing Jesus to the cross, going, what is that smell?

And Jesus just smiles and says, It's understanding.

Go ahead, do what you got to do.

Why else did Jesus say, She's prepared this?

She's kept this for the day of my burial.

Mary understood what Richard Foster, who wrote a book called The Freedom of Simplicity.

And in the book, Richard Foster says this just about when I say her understanding is the product of slow intimacy, this is what I mean.

Foster says, after a certain amount of, he's a very popular writer and speaker.

He says, after a certain amount of immersion in public life, I begin to burn out.

And I've noticed that I burn out inwardly long before I do outwardly.

Hence I must be careful not to become a frenetic bundle of hollow energy, busy among people, but devoid of life.

I must learn when to retreat like Jesus and experience the recreating power of God.

We are told that Peter tarried in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.

Along uh and along our journey, we need to discover numerous tarrying places where we can receive heavenly manna.

Mary was always tarrying in the presence of Jesus.

Wherever Jesus was, she was.

And so God revealed things to her that He didn't reveal to everybody else.

Because she lives from the inside out, not the outside in.

She saw the big picture, not the little picture.

She sensed what was coming.

Here's some of the characteristics of a person that has a style of relating like Mary.

Live with a sense of devotion to God, to who God is and what he's doing.

Doesn't just look to understand, but to be involved.

Engages in behaviors that do not make sense of the moment but make a big difference in hindsight.

Now let me just put a start by that.

Engages in behaviors that do not make sense of the moment but make a big difference in hindsight.

I I was at a conference, a bunch of us are speaking at, and we're standing around backstage in the groom, we're just kind of talking, and there was an older, old back then, he was like 60.

I was like 25, okay.

He was like not a die any minute now.

Now, he was in midlife.

And so he's standing there, and and someone said to him, Hey, how do you how do you deal with your sin?

And he just was stepping a cup of coffee and he just said, and we all kind of gathered around him, and he said, Well, I don't sin like I used to, and I don't sin as much as I used to.

Matter of fact, sin doesn't really interest me that much anymore.

And so the way I deal with sin is not really the goal of my Christianity.

And I thought two things.

Number one, oh, you're just being arrogant.

Everybody sins.

But I didn't say that.

And he just kind of looked at us and he said, Hey, you boys are confusing, okay?

The entrance into Christianity is I'm forgiven for my sin, but the experience of the gospel, he said, you enter the gospel by being forgiven of your sin.

But the experience of the gospel is the life that you get to live that's not ruled by sin.

And I remember we were all at a loss for words.

This cat was like Mary.

We were like, said, what?

And the way he talked about things.

Like he said out of his mouth, yeah, sin just doesn't really interest me anymore.

And I remember thinking in my 25-year-old mind, you're just bragging now.

And then he went on to say things like this yeah, uh, I find the life that I get to live in my faith is much more satisfying and enjoyable than sin ever was.

So why would I go back to that?

So, no, I don't relate to God based on sin management.

I relate to God on the basis of what God wants done in the world, and that I get to be a part of that.

And it is humbling.

So humbling, in fact, I don't boast, but I do experience.

And I remember thinking, you're talking in riddles right now, old man.

He's like Mary.

They're often misunderstood.

They're seen as different, they live with a low-grade sense of loneliness and aloneness.

Something about this person that makes people want to be around them.

Uh somebody that relates to Jesus, like Mary, they're slow.

And I mean in the best of ways.

They often see a often seen as a lack of planning skills, but in reality, this person is just not done with the moment when everybody else is done.

Doesn't even know there's a game going on, much less the score.

One of my kids walked in last night, I'm watching a Tech-Stech game, and she goes, Oh, what's this?

I said, March madness.

And she said, What's March madness?

I have failed as a parent.

That's Mary.

Mary didn't know that score of this game.

What?

What in the world's going on?

Remember, we started off, Lazarus.

He stays long after dinner's over.

Martha cleans up after dinner.

Mary leaves the dinner without anybody noticing.

No fanfare.

She just slips in, slips out.

The last one is Judas.

Judas' question to you and I today is what do you want?

What do you want from Jesus?

Pay careful attention because there's a lot of Judas in the church today.

What do you want from Jesus?

What do you mean what I want from Jesus?

Now, what do you really want?

His word is agenda.

Agenda.

And here's his statement.

An agenda is impossible to hide and even more difficult to lay down.

And at the end, he could not get away from it.

So much so that at the Last Supper, Jesus dips a piece of bread into a cup of wine and passes it down.

The disciples are like, who's going to betray you?

And he's like, I know who it is here.

It's the one I pass this bread to.

And Judas takes it and eats it.

He goes, Whatever you've got to do, go and do quickly.

He cannot get away from his agenda.

It's the same reason many of you are deeply impacted by the way you relate to God because you have an agenda you can't lay down.

You just can't.

I mean, by golly, this better happen.

It's either around you or around your children.

It's impossible to hide.

And it's even more difficult to lay down.

He has a better way of doing things.

And if Jesus doesn't come around, then Judas is going to have to take matters into his own hands.

He lives with a strict sense of justice.

But this is just a thin veneer that covers his greedy self-interest.

Here's a thumbnail sketch of this style of relating.

Has a set of expectations which are to be met, and if not, then he always has another plan, a better plan.

He keeps the score.

Mary doesn't know there's a game going on, much of the score.

Judas keeps the score.

This thing, this is worth 300 denarii.

We could have sold this and given the money to the poor.

No, we couldn't have.

You just wanted to put that money in that money in the money bag so you'd have more money to steal later on when no one was looking.

His faith is in himself and his plan.

Can be a pathological liar who simply sees lying as a means to an end.

Or it sounds like this well, that's just the price of doing business.

Motivated by personal gain.

What's in it for me?

Evaluates everything but rarely experiences anything.

Life is transactional and never relational.

Pitches a fit over how much the dinner cost.

Looks at your husband and says, Why'd you let the kids order soda?

They don't need soda.

They could have water.

Just goes crazy.

Why?

Not because you don't want your kids drinking soda, which is probably a good thing they don't drink soda, but it's going to mean less is left over for you.

The Judas style of relating lives with fear that you're not getting everything you deserve.

You can't fathom a God that just slides his billfold under the door and says, take whatever you want.

And so because you can't fathom that, then it depends upon you to get everything you think you deserve.

I told you earlier that we like to teach them, and I know this is a little bit different sermon for you today.

And that's okay.

It's good to take a bath every once in a while.

Just settle in and just kind of, huh?

Hadn't thought about it like that.

Here's some questions I want us to think about and reflect upon this morning before we dismiss.

Number one, what do you do to relax in God's presence?

Number two, is there anything that you wish you could quit doing but have yet to figure out how?

You don't think Martha ever looked at her sister Mary and thought, man, what must that be like?

Oh, I wish I could stop taking responsibility for fixing everything and just enjoy what's broken.

Thirdly, where are your tarrying places?

The Bible says that Paul would tarry at the home of this Simon the Tanner.

Where do you tarry?

Fourth, what are some of the bigger agendas in your life these days and how many of them are necessary?

And lastly, if you wrote down a one-sentence summary of what you take away from this morning, what would that sentence be?

Here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna voice a prayer.

Clyde's gonna come and play.

And you just reflect on these questions for a few moments and then we'll be dismissed.

Let me pray.

God, thanks for the word that it's uh it's confrontational and it's comforting all at the same time.

And we're not afraid of either side of that.

We want to be comforted by the gospel today, we want to be confronted by the gospel today.

And so, Holy Spirit, just brood over us while we think just for a moment and ask ourselves what we take away.

What was said and what it stirred up in us.

We do all of this now in Jesus' name.

Thanks for slowing us down.

Uh it's been a full weekend around here.

And it's good to slow down.

It's good to have our children with us.

Most of all, it's good just to be with you and to be mindful of you and the way we relate to you.

Lord, bring comfort where comfort is needed.

Bring confrontation where confrontation is needed.

But whatever happens, increase our capacity to trust you and to enjoy you.

This is our prayer.

We pray it in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you're a guest, I want to say thanks for being part of our service.

Hopefully, in your seat back, you've had an opportunity to pull one of those guest cards and fill it out.

Uh, if you have it, would you take one now uh and fill it out before you leave?

There's a lot of different things going on in the life of our church.

You saw some of that uh on the first part with our video announcements.

Uh, Holy Week is coming up, and we want you to understand what our schedule for Holy Week is.

So we have a brief video we want you uh to partake of before we're dismissed this morning.

There ain't no grave can hold my body down.

There ain't no grave can hold my body down.

Easter Sunday is easily the most well-known Sunday worship service in the church year.

But the week leading up to Easter Sunday has three other services that are important for preparing us and understanding the significance of Easter Sunday.

We call this week Holy Week.

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday.

On this day, we remember the triumphal entry, where Jesus fulfills Scripture by entering Jerusalem on a donkey as crowds lay palm branches at his feet.

On Thursday, the church celebrates Maundi Thursday.

Maundi comes from the Latin word mandation, which means commandment.

In John 13, Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment that they love each other, just as Jesus has loved them.

This new commandment is given on the evening when Jesus gathered his disciples in a room to share a meal with them and wash their feet.

Our Maundi Thursday service will involve elements of foot washing, communion, singing, and prayer.

Friday is the day we remember the crucifixion of Jesus.

It is called Good Friday.

This is a service filled with celebration, sobriety, and reflection on what was accomplished for the church at Calvary.

Palm Sunday and Easter will take place at our normal service times, with an additional early service on Easter.

Maundy, Thursday, and Good Friday will take place at 7 p.m., and childcare is provided for ages five and under if you register online.

We look forward to a meaningful week of worship together.

And if these wings don't fail me, I will meet you anywhere.

Ain't no grace.

We would love for you to be a part of any or all those services that you can.

Think about it like this you need the whole Easter experience, which is not just Easter Sunday.

You need Good Friday, but that's not all you need because it's about the suffering of Christ.

People that just get stuck on Good Friday, everything has to be hard for them to feel spiritual.

It's just if it's hard, that must be God's will.

But you also need the doubt and uncertainty of Saturday.

And then you need the joy and the miracle of Easter Sunday.

And so we get asked fairly rarely, hey, as a Baptist church, you guys have like Monday, Thursday, and Good Friday?

Yes.

Because we want to have the whole experience.

Palm Sunday is two Sundays from now, and then the rest of it is the week after.

You'll be getting more information via email.

We'd love for you to be a part of as many of those services as you can, okay?

Now let me say this before I dismiss you.

We have an invitation every Sunday, and the invitation is this is that if you heard anything today that you're curious about, that you're confused about, that you radically disagree with, come up to us and just say, Hey, I had a question about today.

Or if today you God put a desire in you to kind of take the next step with him, whether that be church membership or a relationship with Christ, come up to one of us, myself, some of our pastors and elders will be available down front.

We would love to help you process what God's doing in here, okay?

So that's why we're standing here.

If this is your first, second, or third time to visit our church, we just want to meet you.

We just want to, hey, put a name with a face.

Uh there's a guy named Travis.

Travis, are you in here?

Uh Travis is our connections pastor.

There he is right there.

Uh Travis will be standing right over here.

And so if you have any questions about church membership, how do I get involved?

He's the guy that is that is over that process, okay?

Stand to your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

Your God is not a God of the cold shower.

Your God is the God of the hot bath.

So sit down.

Slow down.

And go down to eat and experience what you're created for.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.