A Meal to Reveal the Heart - Part A

If we were to step into that dinner scene we're about to read about, we would discover familiar faces around a table. There would be Jesus. He's the guest of honor. There would be Lazarus.

He's back from the dead and eating a meal. There's Martha and Mary, the sisters. There are the disciples following Jesus.

It's one week before His death on the cross. If you could step into the hearts of all of the people that I just mentioned, you would find different things, different motives, some good, some bad. Welcome to Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. Movies based on Marvel comics have recently become quite popular. Captain America, X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, they all seem to boil down to one theme. The world is saved from certain destruction because a hero with amazing superpower overcomes their natural weakness. Well, today we'll see some people that were perhaps superheroes of a sort in their own time. People that Jesus healed from everything from debilitating sickness to death over the course of His ministry, and they're all having dinner at one table. Today's message is titled A Meal to Reveal the Heart, and we'll get started here in just a moment.

But first, let's see what's going on at the Connect with Skip Resource Center this month. Here are some of the titles in the End is Near series by Pastor Skip Heitzig. Israel Must Survive, Rapture Ready, and Russia's Coming Invasion. Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants, the prophets.

So when God is going to do something, He warns His people, He sends a sign so His people will know that He's going to do something. Skip Heitzig's teaching series now has a companion study guide available to you. The End is Near guide covers all 26 messages that Skip recently presented. We can just look at the chessboard.

The pieces are all lining up in interesting fashion. The End is Near study guide includes notes, summaries, and questions for group or personal study. We need to understand the times, and this study guide will aid in this effort. With your gift of $50 or more to connect with Skip Heitzig, you will receive a copy of the End is Near study guide from Skip's in-depth 26-part series. Your gift will support the production and expansion of the Connect with Skip broadcast. Call 1-800-922-1888 or go online to connectwithskip.com.

That's 1-800-922-1888 or connectwithskip.com. You'll want to open your Bibles to John chapter 12 as we join Skip Heitzig for today's message. I'd like to talk to you this morning about your heart. Your physical heart, your real heart, is an amazing organ.

It weighs about a pound or a little less. It's an amazing workhorse. It pumps 100,000 times every day, and it pushes 2,000 gallons of blood through 60,000 miles of arteries and capillaries and veins. That's your physical heart. But as a figure of speech, the Bible speaks about the heart of men and women as the very core of their being, the very center of their being. It's the place where you decide and desire and deliberate. We even speak about the heart of the matter or I love you with all my heart.

We use the same metaphor as they did in the Bible. It is that heart, that core of your being that I want to talk about today. The Bible says you're to keep your heart with all diligence for out of it precede the very issues of life. And according to the Bible, it's that core, that center of your being and mine that was affected by the fall of mankind back in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.

So that now Jeremiah sums it up in one sentence. The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? Well, the answer to that is God knows how bad it is. And in this paragraph, God shows how bad it is.

He deals with hearts in the first paragraph of John chapter 12. I heard a story about a woman who was looking for a parking place in a mall. It was around Christmas time. She was in her Mercedes. She was an elderly gal. And she was pulling around the corner of the parking lot.

All the places were taken. But she saw a man walking out of the store with packages in hand. And she thought she would just sort of wait till he got to his car, which she did.

He put the packages in. He got in the car and he pulled out. She had been waiting the whole time. And as the man pulled out and went away, before she could maneuver her car in, a young man, a young kid in a shiny Corvette, swiped her space, pulled in, and parked. Well, she was livid. And she rolled down the window. And she said, hey, I've been waiting for this space for some time. And he just smiled, grabbed his keys in hand and said, well, that's how it is when you're young and quick. Well, before he could walk away, she grimaced in her face and she floored it. And her Mercedes just jammed right into the right rear fender of that shiny new Corvette. Of course, this kid was livid again.

And he said, you can't do that. And she smiled and said, that's how it is when you're old and rich. Whether you're young or old, rich or poor, the same truth applies. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Some people live their whole lives with their hearts unchanged, unchallenged, unaltered, unsaved. Others meet Christ.

And when they do, they discover that he changes from the inside out, from the heart out. If we were to step into the house at Bethany, where this setting takes place, if we were to step into that dinner scene we're about to read about, we would discover familiar faces around a table. There would be Jesus. He's the guest of honor. There would be Lazarus.

He's back from the dead and eating a meal. There's Martha and Mary, the sisters. There are the disciples following Jesus. It's one week before his death on the cross. And then outside we'll gather a crowd of people who are just really interested in what has happened with Lazarus and Jesus.

That's if you could step into the house. Now, if you could step into the hearts of all of the people that I just mentioned, you would find different things, different motives, some good, some bad, some grateful hearts, some greedy hearts, some loving hearts, some angry hearts opposed to Christ, all of them at the same meal. This, then, is a meal to reveal the heart. Let's begin in verse 1. Then six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus, who had been dead, whom he had raised from the dead, there they made him a supper, and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. And then one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray him, said, Why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the money box, and he used to take what was put in it. But Jesus said, Let her alone. She has kept this for the day of my burial.

For the poor you have with you always, but me you do not always have. Now a great many of the Jews knew that he was there. They came, not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

But the chief priest plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him, many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus. This is a meal to reveal the heart. There are four dynamics going on at this meal.

They're mentioned and written in your worship folders. There is diverse relationship. There is dangerous discipleship. There is divine stewardship, and there is diabolical censorship. Those are the dynamics, and all four of them reveal the various hearts of the people that have gathered. Let's take them one by one.

First of all, there's diverse relationships. That is, there are people who love Christ. They're gathered around the table.

They're so thankful, and they're loving Jesus in their own unique individual manner, their own personal relationship. We're not told here, but there are two other gospel accounts, Matthew and Mark, and one of them tells us that the house that this meal took place was not the house of Lazarus. This text doesn't say which house. But in Mark, it tells us it was the house of a man named Simon the Leper. Simon the Leper. That's all we're told.

Now, I'm going to put a few things together. Given the fact that lepers don't eat meals in homes with people, unless they're healed, because of the contagion that would spread, and given the fact that they were ostracized from society 2,000 years ago, I'm going to guess that this was a guy who was an ex-leper, and his leprosy was cured somewhere along the line by Jesus. It was at his house.

Why? Maybe it was a bigger house. There's a lot of people, at least 17, that I can count at this meal.

Mary, Martha, Lazarus, Simon, Jesus, and his 12 disciples. That's at least. You're probably picturing that they sat around a table in chairs and had knives and forks. That's because that's what we do. 2,000 years ago in Israel, they didn't do that at all. They reclined at a meal. It's a cool way to eat, honestly.

I've done it when I've been in the Middle East. You lean on one side on a pillow around a low table called a triclinium, a U-shaped table. You're leaning on one side so that one hand is free, your feet are to the side and toward the back, and everybody leisurely would recline around that meal. I want you to notice three people, first of all. All love the Lord. First is Lazarus.

He sat. Second is Martha. She served, not surprised. And there's Mary.

She pours out this ointment. Let's consider Lazarus, first of all. Here's what's interesting about Lazarus. Never once does the Bible record a single word he spoke.

Now, we know he talked. He was one of Jesus' friends. But no word of Lazarus is recorded in the Bible. And once again, he's here.

They're having probably a great meal, great conversation, but not a word is recorded. And yet, Lazarus is a witness. He's a witness. He's a witness. All he has to do is sit there and eat, and he's a witness. Because verse 9 says, there's a bunch of people that gather just to see Lazarus, because he was this living testimony of the power of Jesus through resurrection. Can you imagine the conversation around that table?

I'm going to guess. Simon says, you know Lazarus. There's a real drag being a leper. They kicked me out of society. Scabs grew on my body.

I couldn't see my family. I was put away. I was smelly. I lost feeling in my fingers and my toes. Some of them began to fall off over time, and I didn't know it because I lost feeling. My hair fell out.

Eyebrows fell out. And then one day, Jesus touched me. I reached up, and I could feel my eyebrows. My fingers came back.

I had feeling in them. I was totally cured. It was awesome. Man, it was awesome. And then Lazarus could have said, well, that's cool, but I was dead.

That sort of takes the cake on that one. And I was four days in a tomb. And I got to tell you, I was in paradise, my spirit. I saw Abraham and David. And then suddenly, I was brought back. And I stood in front of the tomb I was buried in, and the first person I saw as they unwrapped me was Jesus, who raised me from the dead.

I'm just guessing. Good food, good fellowship, good friends. Jesus loved to eat, we're told in the Bible. That's Lazarus. Second, you'll notice it says that Martha served. She served. Now, please don't fault Martha for doing this. Listen, that's what she loved to do. To put it in modern vernacular, this was her love language. She liked to serve, she loved to cook.

I can just imagine that the night before, she pulled out her best recipes and prepared meals in advance so that on that day, she could bring meal after meal or course after course in a meal. And Jesus loved every one of them. Let's stop here. Let's compare something. Let's compare this story with the very first time we read about Martha. And this is where she gets the bad rap from.

Let's compare these two events, these two dinners. Go back one book to Luke. Let's take a look at Luke chapter 10. Yeah, I know. Luke chapter 10.

Turn back. What a great sound that Bible pages. Luke 10 verse 38. Now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him, Jesus, into her house.

This is some months earlier. It's at Lazarus's house, Martha and Mary's house. And she had a sister called Mary who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?

Therefore, tell her to help me. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed. And Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her. Compare what we just read with where we're at in John chapter 12. In those months, something happened.

I'm guessing the resurrection of Lazarus. I'm guessing all the lessons she learned from point A to point B. But clearly, she's changed in John chapter 12. She is not the same woman. First of all, she's not complaining and she's cooking for at least 17 people now. You've got to give her that. She's not complaining.

Jesus is not rebuking. She's still serving, but now with a whole different attitude, an attitude of gratitude. Love is in her heart. She's expressing her worship through her work, through her service.

I think that's important. If you cook, if you do laundry, if you fix tires during the week, if you work at a desk job, all of those activities can become activities of worship if you have the right attitude. If you're not complaining and it's for the Lord and I'm doing this under the Lord, that can be a form of worship.

That's part of your relationship with Him. I love the sign that one creative woman puts above her kitchen sink that reads, divine service rendered here three times daily. She saw the meals that she cooks for her family as part of her worship for the Lord. So we have Lazarus. We have Martha. Now we have Mary. Mary busts out the perfume.

She probably thought, man, I want to honor Jesus. I want to show Him how much I love Him and how grateful I am that He raised my brother from the dead and I've had this perfume. It costs a lot. I'll get to that in a moment.

I don't care how much it costs. I'm going to break it out and I want to use it on Him. So she pulls out the perfume. It's called Oil of Spikenard.

Let me explain what that is. Oil of Spikenard came from northern India. It was shipped in 2000 years ago in little alabaster boxes sealed in flasks or boxes. The plant, Spikenard, was a plant that shoots out fibrous roots about three to 12 inches in length. Once the plant is rooted, it then shoots out between 30 and 40 spikes out of the root that pierce the ground.

And so when you're walking along, you see these little spikes. The spikes are penetrated and extracted from those spikes is a sweet, spicy, musty kind of an oil that was used typically by the wealthy for baths and for burial. And it was used by the wealthy for burial to mitigate against the smell that would be in the first few days. Now it's costly. According to Judas, it could have been sold for 300 denarii. Now 300 denarii was what a typical laborer earned in a year.

So let's just throw a figure at it for the sake of argument. Ten thousand bucks. This could have been sold for ten thousand dollars and the money given to the poor. She broke it out. She pours it on Jesus' feet. She wipes Jesus' feet with her hair. That was her gift. That was her relationship.

That's what she did. Not Martha. Martha's worship was perspiration, work. Mary was perfume. She was into that stuff.

Martha, I could probably care less about perfume. It was work, service, labor. That's fine. It's valid. Both are valid. Both are valid and both honor Christ. So you got three people with three unique individual relationships with Christ, all which are beautiful and valid.

Here's my point. Let's allow for the differences that exist between one Christian and another Christian, between one group and another group in their relationship with Christ. Let's not be so narrow in our thinking.

You say, what do you mean narrow? Well, church leaders can sometimes be narrow. Sometimes church leaders can have conversations and it's sort of like, oh yeah, they now go to that other church, but this is really the real church. And if they were real believers with real spiritual desires, they would be here. There's a good Greek word for that, hogwash.

It's nonsense. It's too narrow. That narrowness also comes up within individual churches among individual members who are involved in a particular kind of a ministry. It might be the prayer ministry or the helps ministry or that group or this group. And all of them would love to see more people involved in their group. And they might think or even say, boy, wouldn't it be great if there were other spiritual people like us who thought the same way we do, who can do the same work that we do and do it as unto the Lord this way.

We've got to be careful against that. Last time I checked, God loves variety. Listen to what Paul writes, 1 Corinthians 12, verse five and six. There are different kinds of service in the church, but it's the same Lord we are serving. There are different ways that God works in our lives, but it's the same God who does the work through all of us. So can't we allow the individual relationships based upon the individual persons with God, as long as it's biblically based, they're not violating the scripture, it's a true relationship.

Why do we think that once we see people saved, we have to stick them in a mold that says, this is the version of the Bible you must now read. This is the music you must now listen to. And this beat of music you must now listen to.

These are the clothes and the appropriate attire you must now wear. You've probably heard of that clever, cute little legend about all the tools in Jesus carpentry shop having a convention one day. And it was presided over by Brother Hammer. And as Brother Hammer began to noisily share his view, the other tools protested saying that Brother Hammer needed to leave because he was too noisy. And Brother Hammer said, well, if I have to leave, then Brother Screw also has to leave because you've got to turn him around and around to get him to do anything. Brother Screw then took umbrage to that, and he said, well, if you want me to leave, then Brother Plain also has to be kicked out of this meeting because, well, look at him.

He has no depth. All of his work is surface work. And Brother Plain piped up and said, well, if you want me to leave, then Brother Rule also has to leave because he's always measuring everything and everyone by his own standard.

He thinks he's the only one right. Brother Rule spoke, and he said, well, okay, but if you want me to leave, you've got to kick out Brother Sandpaper because, well, he's so rough, and he rubs people the wrong way. As they were arguing, in walked the carpenter of Nazareth, Jesus, to build a pulpit of wood from which to preach, and he employed the hammer and the screw and the plane and the rule and the sandpaper, all of the tools together to make this singular work of ministry. Wow, what an encouraging teaching from this edition of Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. It's part one of A Meal to Reveal the Heart, and part two is coming up tomorrow. As we bring our time to a close today, I want to remind you that if you'd like a copy of today's study, it's available for just $4 plus shipping. And at that price, you may want to get an extra copy to share with someone you know and to help them grow in the Lord. Call now 1-800-922-1888 or write us at P.O. Box 95707, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87199. More from the message A Meal to Reveal the Heart next time on Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.