Live Free with Josh Howerton - The Beginning of the “End” | Ep. 285 | Friday, March 8, 2024

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

As people headed to Jerusalem for the Passover, many would stop to see Jesus and Lazarus in Bethany. They had heard of the amazing miracle and wanted to see it themselves. Because of this, the Pharisees were plotting to murder both men, all in the name of God. Their actions would set in motion the epic events of Passion Week. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.com. dot church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive. I'm Mike Bro, and we hang here every weekday for just a few minutes diving into God's Word so that we can get to know him better. And since the start of the year, we've been diving into the Gospel of John, the fourth book in the New Testament of the Bible,

looking at the life of Jesus. John was one of Jesus' original disciples, and it was part of that smaller group of three who were the closest to Jesus. So John was an eyewitness. The soul was a witness. The soul many amazing things that Jesus said, and Jesus did. In fact, he tells us at the end of his gospel, I could have written down so much more, but there's just no room for all the stuff I could have written, but what I did write, hopefully, will help you believe, and that by believing you would have life in the name of Jesus. Well, we left off yesterday in Chapter 12 with another close friend of Jesus, a woman named Mary pouring out her love, her devotion, or affection, or gratitude and worship in the form of expensive perfume. She pours it out all over.

Jesus. And I was just thinking, maybe John left out the part about Martha, saying, oh, great, somebody's going to have to clean all this up now. That probably didn't happen. But you know she probably thought it. John does include, however, Judas's indignant response to this extravagant act. He feigns compassion for the poor. He objects and says, this is so wasteful. This could have been sold, and the money donated to the poor. John then tells us that Judas was a thief, and he had zero concern for the poor. And then Jesus weighs in and says this, verse seven, leave her alone. Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. Now, perfumes such as this gnarred were used

to mask the smell of death and decay back in those days, and of course no one's thinking death at this dinner party. But Jesus is. They don't know, but he knows. It's coming, and it's coming very soon. And Jesus is not saying here, hey, the poor don't matter. That would be so contradictory to everything he ever taught or did. He made it clear that the poor and those people on the fringes, they matter to God immensely. And he set that example as he moved among them,

and he plainly instructed his disciples to care for the least of them. He's just telling them in this moment that those chances to care for those kinds of people will be all around them every day for the rest of their lives. but this would be the last chance for Mary to do something like this. So he says, leave her alone. Leave her alone. Don't chastise her for doing this.

This is a beautiful act from a pure heart. This will not be wasted. An acts of sincere devotion and adoration and worship. They never are. Well, this dinner party concludes with the fragrance of gratitude and the stench of phony indignation

both wafting in the air. And then it says a bunch of people start crashing the party. Tons of people were coming to Jerusalem for the Passover, and Bethany was on the way. It was very, very close, kind of a bedroom community for the city of Jerusalem, and most likely a bunch that, you know, like book the VRBO in that area. Because word had been traveling about what had happened, so all kinds of people wanted to stop and stay there

and just meet Lazarus and Jesus for themselves. John writes in verse 9, when all the people heard of Jesus' arrival, they flocked to see him, and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. Then the leading priest decided to kill Lazarus too. What? I mean, dude just got his life back.

For it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus. Oh, let me read verse 11 again. For it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus. There we have it. Many of the people had deserted them and swung over to Jesus. Jesus was given the people hope.

He was given them fresh words, true words, powerful, life-changing words. Jesus was giving them a glimpse of the true and living God. He was winning them over to the Father and pulling the people away from them, away from their traditions, away from their rules, their kingdom, and their version of God. So, these guys, who supposedly upheld the Ten Commandments,

or at least their interpretation of them, were plotting to break number six, and murder Lazarus and Jesus. Plus, they will do it all in the name of God. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to take God's name and name. So this begins the final week of Jesus' life, and we'll take our time through it, and we will ask God to speak to us each day

so our hearts could be more like Mary's and less like Judas and theirs. And I hope you have a great weekend. If you're not plugged into a local church, go find one and like Mary. Just pour out your heart in worship, adoration, and gratitude. And I'll see you back here on Monday. Thanks for tuning in today.

For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. For more information, visit lakepoint.combe.church slash daily drive.