Sermon Tone Analysis

The Battle of Quebec, The Battle of Saratoga, The Battle of Gettysburg, The Battle of Marne, D-Day.

These all have one thing in common.

Though there were many battles that comprised the French and Indian War, The Revolutionary War, The Civil War, WW1, and WW2, these battles are almost unanimously recognized as being the 5 battles that was the turning points of these war.

I have actually had the privilege to go to two of the 5 battle grounds and observe the different monuments and here the history behind the Wars and the battle.

I’ve only been to one of these battle fields, so that is the one I will tell you about.

June 6, 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces invaded Normandy France and took the beach.

This allowed for France to be liberated from Germany, and the Allied Powers went on to win the war.

The common theme of any turning point is that the direction changes.

In reality though acts as half way point in the book of John, it serves as a movement toward the end.

Jesus is back.

Just a few days prior as we have just go through explaining over the past month, Jesus has raised Lazarus and with Lazarus, Jesus also raises quite the uproar.

As we discussed last week, due to Jesus’s raising of Lazarus, the Jewish leaders have came together in the Sanhedrin, and have counseled together against Jesus Christ.

Caiphas has stepped up and has presented and the entire council have approved a plan to capture and kill Jesus.

From this point forward in the book of John, it seems that the purpose shifts.

John in the first 12 chapters, has made it his aim to tell of some of the works and signs of Jesus.

We each passing chapter, the hope is that our belief in Christ will grow stronger and stronger.

Since we are at the half way point let me just remind you of where we have been so far in our study through the book of John and who we have seen Jesus to be through this book.

In , Jesus is the eternal Word of God through whom all has been made, and according to the last Old Testament prophet, JTB, He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

In , Jesus has shown he is God through creating wine from water, and we see Jesus as the one who will cleanse us all through his cleansing of the temple.

In , Jesus is the only begotten Son, through whom, we have eternal life.

In , Jesus is the living water that heals the nobleman’s son.

In , Jesus is the one who gives us life instead of judgment and John the Baptist, His Works, His Father, and the Scriptures all tell us this.

In , Jesus is the bread of life that, if eaten, will lead to eternal life, and according to Peter, Jesus is the only one who has the words of eternal life.

In , He is the great Teacher who divides.

In , He is the Light of the World who is the Great I AM.

In , He is the restore of sight to the blind.

in , He is our Good shepherd, who calls us out by name and knows us.

in , He is the resurrection and the life, and we ended last time with reality that despite all of this , all of this that Jesus has done, the sanhedrin has come together and plotted to kill Jesus.

So now Jesus has shrunk back from the crowds.

and the next place we see him is back at Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’s home.

And just to recap John gives us a summary of the events that happened in chapter 11 in verse 1

Couple of things here:

Jesus is back in Bethany.

This is really where we see this turn from the signs to the cross.

Lazarus is there and alive.

We take this for granted.

We know this story and at times, because of its familiarity, it can lose some of its awe, but this man was dead a few days ago, and he was dead for 4 days, and now he is here.

He’s alive and He is eating with Jesus.

Look in verse 2

Jesus is here having a meal with the guy he raised from the dead.

This particular event is recorded in all the Gospels.

John at times records different events and has a different purpose with his record.

In two of the Gospels, we are told that they are actually not at Lazarus’s home.

They are at a guy named Simon the Leper’s house.

Matthew

and

Martha is serving.

Luke tells us of a similar event where Martha is serving and worried about all kinds of things other than being with Jesus.

In that case she is rebuked.

In this case she is not.

It is certainly not a negative thing to serve our Lord.

We are called servants many times throughout the New Testament.

In fact, Jesus himself says that he came to serve not to be served.

Martha is serving.

Mary is at the feet of Jesus.

This is the second time she has been at Jesus’s feet.

The first time in

Now, she is there for a different purpose.

Look at verse 3.

She is there

First a pound in Roman measurements around this period is about 12 ounces, so this is a lot of perfume.

The perfume was made of pure nard.

Fun fact here: Nard was imported from Northern India, so it was considered to be very expensive, because of the distance it had to travel to get there.

So lets look at what she is going to do with this expensive perfume.

She anoints him with this costly perfume.

This is service to Jesus.

I just want to highlight a few aspects and attributes of her service, because I believe her act here give us a pattern that we should follow with our service.

Her service is humble.

Mary takes the form of servant.

It was degrading to touch the feet of anyone in this culture.

It was the job of the lowest rung slave to wash feet.

But her mind is not on her own pride and appearance.

Her mind is on one thing, and that is serving her Lord.

She humbles herself because she know that he is worthy.

She has seen his power.

She has witnessed his sovereignty over death, so this leads her here to humble service to God.

How we doing with that?

Humility in service.

Have we came to the point where our awe of Jesus pushes us to our knees in service to Him.

CJ Mahaney defines humility as “honestly assessing yourself in light of God’s holiness.”

When we think of it that way, we really aren’t much at all.

When we think of it that way, we never could deem our selves too old, too busy, too tired, too sick, too good, to high, for any position of service.

Think about that this week as our nominating committee searches for people to serve in the church.

Her service is sacrificial.

Again, the perfume was costly.

Some say that this perfume probably made up a considerable amount maybe even a majority of everything Mary had.

She gave without regard to herself, because of the worth of the one who she was serving.

She sees her “stuff” in light of Jesus and realizes that serving him means much more.

We see this same type of sacrificial attitude in David in

David visited a man named Araunah and David is building an altar there at Araunah’s house, Upon building the altar, Araunah offers David to take any of his oxen and he offers his ox yokes as wood unto David, all for free.

But listen to what David says:

We see this principle develop in Scripture, that sacrifices are sacrifices.

That if we are seeing who God is properly, then it will provoke us toward a heart toward costly giving that expects nothing.

Let me tell you Mary got for her perfume offering.

Nothing.

but it wasn’t what she got, it was what she gave and who she gave it to that matters.

Her sefless service places the attention on Christ.

She is a state of humble service, wiping his feet with her hair, the fragrance of the perfume filling the air as it comes off of Jesus.

Her service is to Christ

Her humility is because of Christ.