WEDNESDAY: THE CONSPIRACIES

Well, hello and good morning. Thank you very much. My name is Mark, one of the TLC pastors. I want to welcome all of you here in this room who sounded so lovely during the worship. And those of you singing along with us at home or wherever you are on our live stream, welcome to you as well. "Seven Days" is the message series we're in on the final week of Jesus. And man, I just got to say, already this service has been powerful. We need to thank the worship team for leading us. It was amazing. I was next door over at TLC and Español as well. They got a kicking band today. It was really fun. I had to tear myself away. But it's been such a full morning already. We could probably just close a prayer or something like that. Some of you are like, yeah, you should do that.

We had a few other things coming, first of all. And in particular, before we dive into the message, we need to pause and acknowledge what the impact of the recent rains have had on in particular the Pajaro area. Kind of a neglected spot because it's Monterey County, but it's really Watsonville, right? And so a lot of folks suffering hardship, displacement, still not able to go back to their homes in the thousands. And so you need to know that our Twin Lakes local outreach team has just been on overdrive this week. They have been providing food in various shelters, clothing, other supplies, connecting people with essential services. And they represent this church. And so let's again encourage and thank them for all of their efforts and just amazing.

I want to pray for that situation. But before I do that, if you need assistance, know someone who does or would like to be part of helping others out, just go to our website, tlc.org/relief. There's information about all of those things there. But let's pray about those who are -- or for those who are impacted right now. Heavenly Father, we come before You on behalf of all of those facing damage to their homes, businesses, a critical infrastructure that allows them to go about their lives. And Lord, we ask that right now You would provide comfort, care, protection, material assistance. And Lord, would You empower this church and every other church in this area, Lord, to respond in love, compassion, and tangible assistance? And Lord, I pray that along the way, people's hearts and lives would be touched as they see a glimpse of Your love through them reflected through Your church. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ and all God's people said. Amen.

All right. Now I want to invite you to grab your message notes as we continue in the final week of Jesus. And you may recall on Sunday, Jesus rides into Jerusalem, really an echo of Judas Maccabeus, the last great Jewish revolutionary, about 200 years prior to Jesus. And then on Monday, Jesus condemns the temple leadership and says, "You guys are a den of thieves." Tuesday, He's back in Jerusalem and they are on the attack. In fact, they try to bait Him into various controversies, polarizing the crowd. And yet every time they try to do this, it just backfires, blows up in their face because the crowds are amazed at how Jesus responds.

And so as the public favor of Jesus continues to rise, so does the intensity of the opposition, which brings us to Wednesday, and the conspiracies to get rid of Jesus once and for all. Now, like René said last weekend, the heat's coming from a number of different sources, groups like the Pharisees, Sadducees, the Herodians. Just checking to see if you're awake. But other groups like the chief priests and the teachers of the law and even more than that. And they don't believe the same things. They don't have the same agenda, but they all agree that when it comes to Jesus, He needs to go. And I think this is because Jesus has a way of exposing what's going on in human hearts. And He's exposing what's going on in the hearts of, especially the leadership of these groups. And it's making them very uncomfortable, threatened even.

Now, full disclosure, the passage that we are in today, you might find a little bit disruptive, because it's penetrating. And it exposes what's going on in our hearts, if we allow it to. And this is because Jesus loves us, loves you so much that Jesus doesn't just want part of you. He wants all of you. And that brings us to the question that I've really been asking myself this entire week, as I've been grappling with this text. And it's like this, if Jesus wants all of me, if He loves me that much, I ask myself, how much of Jesus do I want in return? It's really the question at the core of this passage we're going to see. It's in Mark's Gospel, Chapter 14. So I invite you to buckle up. We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 11.

And in these first 11 verses, Mark serves up what some have called a story sandwich. And what's meant by that is that he begins with a little story, and then he interrupts it with another story line, only to return to the original story line at the end. So the first and the third are like two slices of bread, and in the middle is the meat. And it's going to be a bit longer, a little more involved, and it's going to require that we kind of digest it and chew it a little bit more slowly. And you're going to see what I mean as I read it. Please follow along, Mark 14, starting at verse 1. "Now the Passover and the festival of unleavened bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill Him. But not during the festival, they said. 'Or the people may riot.' Now watch the switch. 'While He, Jesus, was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the leper, a woman with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on His head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, 'Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor, and they rebuked her harshly.' 'Leave her alone,' Jesus said. 'Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want, but you will not always have Me.' She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her."

Now back to the first story. "Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priest to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money, so he watched for an opportunity to hand him over." You know, one of the things that this passage makes crystal clear is that what we believe about Jesus will lead directly to how we respond to Jesus. And the chief priests and Judas, they couldn't be more different than this woman that anoints Jesus. But it's more than just what they think up here. It's also about what's going on down here. There's always more than just what our opinion might be. And so today we're going to look at three heart responses in response to Jesus, and they, again, are very different. And the first one is obvious. It's opposition.

In fact, you might even call it strong opposition or hostile opposition because it's not like with the chief priests and Judas there at all ambivalent about Jesus. It's not like they would say, "Well, you know, you believe what you want. We've got other ideas. He doesn't really check all the boxes for us." You know, just kind of live and let live in a kind of pluralistic way. No, they're beyond just agnostic. For them, it's personal. And that's because Jesus is a threat to them. He's a threat to their authority, to their teaching, to their temple, to the money the temple has been raking in for them. In fact, he even threatens the sway that they have over all the common people.

And so, for example, after Jesus raises a guy named Lazarus from the dead, you can read about this in John 11, after he does that, and they don't dispute that he's done this at all. You would think that they might go, "Wow! I mean, if Jesus can raise people from the dead, he might have some things to say. We might want to actually check him out." But they don't do that at all. Instead, they get together and they say this. They say, "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him." I mean, wouldn't that be a tragedy? And the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation because Jesus is upsetting the spiritual and the social order. And not only that, but he's threatening, at least in their eyes, this delicate balance between the religious rulers and the Romans.

And that's when Caiaphas, who's the high priest and chief instigator of the conspiracy, he says this, "Well then, it is better for you that one man die for the people than the whole nation perish." And he doesn't know in this moment that he's basically summing up the reason that Jesus would die on the cross, because Jesus indeed did die for the people, and he died for us, which means that before Jesus would ask for our hearts, thank you, Kyle, excuse me, he's already given us his, right? Before Jesus ever asked for your heart, he already gave his to us with complete abandonment.

But even so, 2,000 years later, you know it's still possible to kind of try to kill Jesus in a way? We do that by marginalizing him, some do it by ignoring him or mocking him. In academia, it's not uncommon for there to be books or papers that basically say, you know, the real Jesus, the historical Jesus, he's not the one you read about in the Bible. That was kind of a fiction that his church made up. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for rigorous academic study. But what's become popular among some critics, again, is this notion that the gospels are largely Christian propaganda.

And so, for example, Dr. Bart Ehrman is an American academic scholar, and he's famous for books over the years like this one. This one came out some years ago, "The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot." And you're like, "The Lost -- Judas wrote a gospel? Man, they didn't tell me that in my Sunday school class." Well, this is actually a Gnostic manuscript that dates to about 300 A.D. And the Gnostics had a radically different worldview than that of the Bible. But 300 years later, this manuscript, at least it's dated at that time, it bears the name Judas. And Dr. Ehrman says that this gospel of Judas, it marks a turning point in the history of the Christian understanding of Judas. And then by implication, if it changes our understanding of Judas, then it changes our understanding of Jesus. Can you really trust what Matthew, Mark, and Luke have to say about him? Doesn't that just kind of bring him down to the level where he's no longer authoritative anymore? He's kind of a tame Jesus. He's a Jesus who really just kind of lets us be whatever we care to be.

But then, at the end of Ehrman's book, like literally just a few pages before the very last page, he offers up this disclaimer. He says this, "It will be important for people to constantly bear in mind what this gospel is not. It is not a gospel written by Judas or one that even claims to be. It is a gospel about Judas. It is not a gospel written in Judas' own time by someone who actually knew him. It is not a historically accurate report. It is not as ancient as the four gospels. It is not a book, therefore, that will provide us with additional information about what actually happened in Jesus' lifetime or even in his last days leading up to his death. And so, one may be tempted to ask if the book doesn't give us any historical information about Judas or Jesus, why in the world should his discovery matter? Great question. Thanks for buying my book."

Again, it just kind of serves enough doubt to kind of try to render Jesus no longer the figure that the Scriptures claim he is, no longer to pursue us in the ways that he does. And you know, in the case of the real Judas, I want you to think about this. Judas, who was with Jesus for three years, who followed him, do you think that he would really just betray Jesus merely for 30 pieces of silver? Really? I think there's much more to it. I think, in fact, that there came a point, as we get into this last week and sure in the days leading up to it, that Judas realizes that Jesus is leading him down to the path that ultimately he does not want to go, that he's not content to leave Judas to his own devices. And at some point, Judas says, "No, I'm out."

And here's the truth. The truth is, is that Jesus loves all of us. Jesus loves you just as you are. And you know what? He loves you too much to leave you that way. He just does. Like I said, Jesus wants all of us. The question is, but do we really want all of him? And this brings us to the next heart response. If not opposition, the more subtle response is moderation. Moderation. And in the middle of the story is this guy named Simon the leper in the meal that's at his house. And you have to say, man, of all the luck, you know, Simon had leprosy at some point in his life, and now for the rest of it, he's ever reminded that he is Simon the leper. You know, too bad. And yet there were so many people named Simon back then they had to kind of keep track of all of them.

I mean, just in the New Testament alone, there's Simon Peter. There's Simon the zealot. Both of them were among the original 12 disciples. Jesus had a brother named Simon and a brother named Judas. There's Simon the Pharisee, Simon and Garfunkel. I know there's not a -- but Simon of Cyrene who helped carry the cross of Jesus. And here we meet good old Simon the leper. And Jesus is at his house with other guests. Mark doesn't tell us who these guests are, but Matthew does. In chapter 26, they're the disciples. They're the followers of Jesus. So this is a very pro-Jesus crowd here. And they're reclining around the table when this woman approaches Jesus with an alabaster jar of pure nard.

And you're like, no way. Pure nard? Nard is this perfumed oil that came from India. Super expensive. Very, very likely the most expensive possession this woman ever had or ever could have. And so when she breaks the bottle and pours the oil on Jesus, what do the disciples do? They just freak out. They cannot believe why this waste of this perfume -- I mean, it's as if to say, that's even too extravagant for Jesus. And then maybe they've got to kind of backpedal a little bit. And so they kind of go all sanctimonious. And they say, well, what we meant to say is that it could have been sold and the money could go to the poor. And so Jesus, that's where our passion's coming from. We're just so about, you know, reaching out to those less fortunate. And you're like, uh-huh, right. Right.

The truth is, they do think it's too extravagant. They do think it's just too much because that perfume that is dripping down Jesus' head, it was worth over a year's wages. But not anymore. Not anymore. Now, let me ask you, in our day, what would amount to over a year's wages? Let's just be conservative. Let me shout something out. What do you think? What? 100,000. Okay. Yeah, I mean, 100,000 doesn't go super far in Santa Cruz, right? So think about it. 100,000 dollars in that alabaster jar and she breaks it and pours it on the head of Jesus. And the disciples were like, no way. And so they rebuke her. In fact, they rebuke her harshly. And the word that Mark uses for rebuke in the original Greek, it's a word that's also used to describe when a horse snorts in anger or annoyance. So can you picture this? They're like, pfft. What a waste. What a waste of money.

And yet, this is about way more than just money. This is where the disciples are revealing their hearts about Jesus right in this moment, aren't they? In fact, I would say this. I would say that at this point, the disciples' hearts had yet to catch up with their confession. Wasn't it their leader, Peter, who said, several months before, looks Jesus in the face and says, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Well, if that's true, is anything too precious, too extravagant for the Son of God? And so while they're just railing on this woman and Jesus interrupts and he says, "Hey, leave her alone. Stop bothering her." What he's really saying is, "Hey, guys, time out. I'm worth it. I'm actually worth it." And not only that, but if you saw me the way that she does, you'd be applauding her, not rebuking her. Now, only Jesus can say that, right? "I'm worth everything you could ever give me and more." Only Jesus can say that. Do you believe that? Yeah.

And so that really brings us to this third response, which is adoration. When you see Jesus for who he is, you can't help but adore him. And this isn't something that you can manufacture. You can't really will yourself into this. You can invest in it by seeking him out in his Word and being a part of his body of the church. But ultimately, it's a gift of grace when Jesus just captivates your heart. It's kind of like being overwhelmed with awe. Have you ever been just overwhelmed with awe at something? I remember seeing the Aurora Borealis years ago and it just blew me away, absolutely blew me away.

I'll give you another example of this. In the summer of 2017, there was a lunar eclipse. And one of the best places, in fact, the best place to view it in the United States was in Carbondale, Illinois. And so this local TV station sends their weatherman, a guy named Tom Skilling, to go out and cover the event, like the news outfits often do. Well, I want you to see what happens to Tom Skilling when he witnesses the lunar eclipse. Watch this.

Oh, that is so cool. Oh, look at that. Look at it. Yeah, it's nighttime. Look at that. Look at that. Oh, my word. Wow. This is amazing. What do you think of this guy? Wow. You did it. Congratulations. Where are you going to be in seven years? I don't know. I think we're going to be back here again. All right, all right. We'll see you back here. Look at this. Oh, my word. I love that. He just can't get over it. And that's kind of like what triggers the adoration of Jesus when, you know, we are getting a glimpse of the one who prior to his incarnation created the sun, the moon, the stars, the entire universe.

And so when you marvel, you know, at a glorious sunset or the beauty of snow-capped mountains or find yourself just lost in towering redwoods, bear in mind they all derive their beauty from him, and they all declare his glory. And as you grow in your relationship with him, your heart will yearn all the more to adore him. And it's been my experience that some people just have a gift in this area, you know, that just kind of comes easier for them. In fact, years ago, we had a dear lady in this church. Her name was Trudy. And Trudy, here she is here. She was all of about four feet tall, and she would sit right down here in this seat every Sunday.

Sometimes if she was feeling particularly festive, she would bring helium balloons with her, which we kind of had to say, "Trudy, put them underneath a bench. People can't see." But during the worship time, Trudy was amazing because she'd stand up like everyone, and she would get pretty advanced in age, but she wouldn't stay here. No, she'd start working the area down here in front of the stairs, and she'd sing, and she'd dance, and she would wave her hands. Part of it was kind of like hula dancing, and part of it she had her own sign language because she had a different interpretation for every song, and she wasn't mostly facing this way towards the stage. No, she's facing it out over y'all, right? She's kind of blessed in this section, and she's blessed in that section.

And the cool thing about it is that she wasn't really trying to draw attention to herself at all. It was really all about Jesus, and that was the blessing that she was to all of us. How many of you remember Trudy? Yeah, she was such a dear person, and she's with Jesus now, and so I don't think that she misses us. But I miss her. I miss the gift that she was, and I think what was going on with Trudy, Trudy did not become a follower of Jesus until she was 70 years old. Yeah. In fact, we made kind of a big deal about her 80th birthday. We sang "Happy Birthday" to her right on the stage here. She wouldn't have it any other way.

But I remember her saying, "I'm now 10 years old in the Lord." And she was so grateful. She just adored the fact that what Jesus had done for her, and she just didn't have decades to become just oh-so accustomed to it all. You know what I mean? It just stayed fresh, and I'll put it this way. When it came to Jesus, there was nothing moderate about Trudy. Not at all. Nor was there any moderation when it came to this woman who anoints Jesus with this precious oil. She has no status. She has no impressive credentials or power. Mark doesn't even tell us her name. And yet Jesus says, "She's done something beautiful." What his disciples would call a waste. Jesus says, "That was beautiful."

Well, Judas is preparing to sell out this woman. Hey, she is completely sold out. You know what I mean? And when I look at the example of this dear sister of ours, I think, I've been compelled to think over the course of this week, Mark, what's your heart response to Jesus? I mean, honestly. And by God's grace, I don't think that it's opposition. I hope it's not. But I'm pretty convinced I live most of my life right here in moderation land. You know, be respectable. Be a respectable person and pastor. Be responsible. You know, stop for people trying to cross the street. You know, be nice to my neighbors and other people. And you know, that's all well and good.

But the question that I've been reflecting on this week, and I encourage you to do the same in this coming week, is to ask this question. What do my actions say about my affections? What do my actions say about my affections? Because the truth is, every single person in this story we've seen, their heart was revealed by their actions. And that's because as Scripture says, everything we do flows from the heart, right? That's the wellspring. And so if you really want to know what's going on inside of yours, I dare you to just pay attention to where you devote your time, your energy, and yes, even your resources, because those actions will reveal your affections.

And if you're like me and you find yourself longing to have deeper affection for the Lord that you believe in, the Lord that you love, if you have that same yearning, just ask the Spirit to empower you through the eyes of faith and holy imagination, the Lord's beauty, His majesty, and His boundless love. In other words, say, "Lord, give me a heart that adores you above all else." Because here's the thing. Someday, my friends, we will look into the face of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you do, you are going to be overwhelmed beyond imagination, man, you're going to be so full of joy, you just won't think you can even feel any more joyous in that moment. And that day is coming. And so may you and I, may all of us live in anticipation now of that day then. Amen?

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this opportunity to just peer into Your Word and look for the glimpses of, Lord, Your love, Your beauty, Your grace, informing us, Lord, of what matters, what's actually worthy of worship. And so, Lord, I pray that we would not be distracted, but that we would be focused, focused on You. And, Lord, we can't do this in and of ourselves, but we welcome that, we receive that. And we pray that You would fan the flames of faith and devotion in our hearts today and each day, Lord, as we live in anticipation of Your return. And, Lord, I pray for any here in the sound of my voice in this room or on our live stream, and they feel like they're kind of sitting on the sidelines. They don't know everything that there is to know about You, but they know they want to be counted among Your followers. Maybe they're like the guy that said You, the thief on the cross said, "Jesus, just remember me. You know, count me in." And if that's You, you can simply just say, "Lord Jesus, I admit I need You. I believe that You died on this cross for me, and so I want to follow You this day and every day going forward." If that's Your desire, You can just affirm that right now in Your heart. Lord, Thank You for the blessing of being here today and being part of Your family. May we never take that for granted. In Jesus' name, all God's people said, "Amen, amen."