Sermon Tone Analysis

Title: The love of Christ Compels me

Theme: Live in the love of Christ and love others as Christ would.

Test: ;

Goal: That we might understand God’s love and that it might compel us.

ME: ORIENTATION: FIND COMMON GROUND WITH THE AUDIENCE

ME: ORIENTATION: FIND COMMON GROUND WITH THE AUDIENCE

Who are you?

What controls your life?

I would think at different stages of live it might be different as to what can control us?

WE: IDENTIFICATION (MAKE IT CLEAR THAT YOU STRUGGLE)

I believe as we look at our text we will see a variety of people struggling at this time, with priorities.

Let us look at the players and understand what is happening.

Can we also see the call of God’s love in our life and how we should respond.

GOD: ILLUMINATION (THE GOAL IS TO RESOLVE THE TENSION

I. What is going on?

12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 So they gave a dinner for him there.

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

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.

4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said,

5 “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” 6 He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.

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

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

A. The players not mentioned in our text

a. Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin

authorities had made him in effect an outlaw ().

So great were the crowds who came to the Passover that they could not all possibly obtain lodging within the city itself, and Bethany was one of the places outside the city boundaries which the law laid down as a place for the overflow of the pilgrims to stay.1

authorities had made him in effect an outlaw ().

So great were the crowds who came to the Passover that they could not all possibly obtain lodging within the city itself, and Bethany was one of the places outside the city boundaries which the law laid down as a place for the overflow of the pilgrims to stay.1

b. political power

II.

Jesus, Passover, and Lazarus

12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 So they gave a dinner for him there.

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

A. Jesus knew the path he was walking

a.

He had told the disciples that his time was short.

b.He was telling him that he is the Son of God.

c.

Many other says that began to separate the believers from the rest.

d.

Destruction of the temple.

e.

He has challenge the jewish leadership.

B. Passover

Jesus had used the Passover to his advantage.

Jesus had used the Passover to his advantage.

The Passover of the Jews was at hand..

Jesus over tuns the tables of the money changers in this Chapter.

He was also present in Jerusalem 2:23

at a feeding of the multitudes it was at the time of the Passover according to John.

You add to that the unnamed feast as a Passover you have 3 1/2 years.

Lazarus had been raised from the dead in Chapter 11.

In 12 Jesus has his feet washed by Mary.

C. Lazarus He too would be a player because of the Miracle .

In order to calm things down he was to be put to death.

I find no history where this was carried out.

III.

Mary and Judas

B. Mary

When Jesus came to Bethany, they made him a meal.

It must have been in the house of Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus, for where else would Martha be serving but in her own house?

It was then that Mary’s heart ran over in love

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.

a. Mary:

It may be a kind of trade name, and may have to be translated simply pistic nard.

It may come from a word meaning the pistachio nut, and be a special kind of essence extracted from it.

In any event, it was a specially valuable kind of perfume.

With this perfume, Mary anointed Jesus’ feet.

(2) There is the character of Mary.

Mary was the one who above all loved Jesus; and here in her action we see three things about love.

(a) We see love’s extravagance.

Mary took the most precious thing she possessed and spent it all on Jesus.

Love is not love if it nicely calculates the cost.

It gives its all, and its only regret is that it has not still more to give.

O. Henry, the master of the short story, has a moving story called The Gift of the Magi.

A young American couple, Della and Jim, were very poor but very much in love.

Each had one unique possession.

Della’s hair was her glory.

When she let it down, it almost served as a robe.

Jim had a gold watch which had come to him from his father and was his pride.

It was the day before Christmas, and Della had exactly one dollar eighty-seven cents to buy Jim a present.

She went out and sold her hair for twenty dollars, and with the proceeds bought a platinum fob for Jim’s precious watch.

When Jim came home at night and saw Della’s shorn head, he stopped as if stupefied.

It was not that he did not like it or that he no longer loved her; for she was lovelier than ever.

Slowly he handed her his gift; it was a set of expensive tortoise-shell combs with jewelled edges for her lovely hair—and he had sold his gold watch to buy them.

Each had given the other all there was to give.

Real love cannot think of any other way to give.

(b) We see love’s humility.

It was a sign of honour to anoint a person’s head.

‘You anoint my head with oil,’ says the psalmist ().

But Mary would not look so high as the head of Jesus; she anointed his feet.

The last thing Mary thought of was to confer an honour upon Jesus; she never dreamed she was good enough for that.

(c) We see love’s unselfconsciousness. Mary wiped Jesus’ feet with the hair of her head.

In Palestine, no respectable woman would ever appear in public with her hair unbound.

On the day a girl was married, her hair was bound up, and never again would she be seen in public with her long tresses flowing loose.

Marry gets it and understands Jesus well enough that I think she was aware of his death.

This was an annoting.

It too may have been a gift because her brother was back or anointing for his death.