Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] What a joy to be together today. Amen.
[00:00:06] We are continuing this closing series in the Gospel of Matthew that we're calling the Passion of Jesus. I have been really looking forward to these texts together. These. These next few chunks of text are so core to the Christian message. They're so deep down into what it actually means to be a follower of Jesus. Earlier this week, my kids all watched how to train your dragon. Have you seen this movie? Not the new one, the original animated one. Okay. If you don't know the story, it's great. It's about Vikings that want to kill dragons. But one of the Vikings is like, no, we should be friends with the dragons. And he adopts one named Toothless, which is, like, black and has yellow eyes. And it's designed to be like a kitty cat. It's great. I and my family, you may know this, we have a black kitty cat with yellow eyes. And so as my kids are watching this movie, I'm in the kitchen cooking dinner. Kids are watching the movie. They become so enraptured, so invested with Toothless the dragon, because he's like our kitty cat, right? But then we had a problem.
[00:01:15] See, we hit the part of the movie where the conflict really revs up.
[00:01:20] And I'm not going to spoil it for you, because you should watch it, right? But the Vikings capture Toothless, and they don't like dragons, and so they're going to hurt him and torture him and kill him and do all the things Vikings do, right? And I'm in the kitchen, and I hear an actual calamity arise amongst my children. There is weeping and gnashing of teeth. There is sorrow. There is no. They can't do that to Toothless. And my children start begging me to turn the movie off.
[00:01:48] They're going to hurt Toothless. We can't watch this movie. I don't like this movie anymore. And so I, being a good parent, said, no, you have to finish the film.
[00:02:02] Because we know that's the tension, right? Like, that's the climax of the story. And it doesn't end there. It's going to have a happy ending. And so you have to push through all these sad, terrible scenes to get to the happy part. And my children looked at me and said, you're cruel. You are a cruel father. And I said, maybe, but you need this. And so I forced them to finish the film, and by the end, it has a happy ending. And now they're all, this is my favorite movie. And they've asked. I rewatch it several times, okay? Great. Why did I share that terrible aspect of my parenting decisions with you guys?
[00:02:34] I share that because that's the part of the story we're at in Matthew.
[00:02:39] We're at the part of the story where it gets bad. Most of the texts for the next several weeks will be plainly unpleasant.
[00:02:50] We're going to read about Jesus's sorrow, his the injustice of his arrest, his betrayal and torture, and ultimately his horrific death.
[00:03:00] But you have to work through this part of the story. The unjust death of Jesus is necessary to understand the Gospel. The cross is the road to forgiveness, the road to heaven. It's the road by which Jesus saves us. We must face the horror of the cross fully and without blinking so that we can understand Jesus's choice to bring us from death to life.
[00:03:31] And so I would invite you guys in the coming weeks, let these texts be difficult.
[00:03:38] Let them be painful. Don't shy away from how these texts poke at you and make you uncomfortable. Stick with us. It may be Friday, as they say, but Sunday is coming. There may be sorrow, but joy comes with the dawn.
[00:03:57] And so today we're going to talk about, I think, one of the most painful aspects of the entire Passion story. We are going to talk about betrayal.
[00:04:06] Now, we're going to be forced back to this theme several times in the next few weeks because of the sheer immensity and intimacy of the betrayal of Jesus. But we're really going to zone into it today by talking about Jesus's relationship with his disciple, Judas.
[00:04:23] So if you have a Bible, open up to Matthew 26. We're going to be in Matthew 26 today. If you don't have a Bible with you today, we have house Bibles around the room. Just look underneath the chairs in front of you. They are around. We really believe in the importance of access to God's Word here, Dominion, fellowship. And so if you're here today and you don't own a physical copy of God's Word, I'd strongly encourage you to just snag one of those pew Bibles or even talk to one of the pastors. We will get you a nicer Bible that maybe has slightly larger brains. But we're going to be in mass of 26 today. And my main point today, all of what we're talking about today, it comes back to this simple idea. We are all Judas.
[00:05:02] We are all Judas.
[00:05:05] I think that's what we'll see in Matthew 26 today. And guys, listen, I understand.
[00:05:12] I understand that for many of us, that is an incredibly difficult pill to Swallow.
[00:05:18] I understand that when I speak in a context like this, a room this size, many of us have stepped into this space with deeply painful and heavy stories that might make that statement harder to take in.
[00:05:34] If you guys don't know, my wife Kim works with one of our missional partners. She works, she assists with spouse care at First Light Ministries. If you don't know, First Light is a ministry that helps people struggling with unwanted sexual behavior and addiction through group therapy and community. And Kim's role in that organization is to work with spouses who have experienced the pain and betrayal of their spouse acting out in their sexual addiction.
[00:05:59] So her day to day at first sight is to sit with women who have experienced some of the deepest and most intense and painful betrayal. It has wrecked their lives, their marriages, their understanding of themselves.
[00:06:11] I mention that because the reality is plainly this.
[00:06:16] All of us, every single one of us as human beings has been the victim of betrayal at some point.
[00:06:23] We all have.
[00:06:25] Now it may have been relatively small friend ditched you for a different friend group or whatever. And by the way, don't hear me downplaying that experience because as we'll see, all betrayal shakes us, shatters us, jacks us up.
[00:06:40] But I also say that because I know some of you in this room have been betrayed in life shattering ways, ways that have left scars and wounds in your heart that you may very well feel that nothing will heal.
[00:06:55] That is you. Today.
[00:06:57] I want to ask you to stick with us.
[00:07:00] I know it is a bitter pill to hear me say that we are all Judas. But please stick with me.
[00:07:08] Because what we will see in our text today is that ultimately this text is not actually about Judas, it's about Jesus.
[00:07:15] That Jesus experienced betrayal on a level that very few of us can actually even imagine.
[00:07:20] He had his entire life support structure ripped apart by his closest friends, his chosen family.
[00:07:27] You victims of betrayal today, hear me.
[00:07:31] Jesus knows your pain, knows that pain. And he can bring beauty and meaning from that wound.
[00:07:43] And this is not me speaking some feel good spiritual cliche to you.
[00:07:48] The beauty and meaning of the gospel is hard fought. It is stained with the blood of suffering. But it is real, is meaningful, changes our lives. The gospel of Jesus redeems even betrayal.
[00:08:05] It redeems betrayers.
[00:08:07] The gospel is exactly for the likes of Judas. And we beloved are all Judas.
[00:08:14] So pray with me and we're gonna jump into this text. Jesus, we need you this morning.
[00:08:20] We need you to be our discipler. We need you to be our teacher, our encourager. For those of us in this room today who are hurting. Lord, be the balm of our comfort, of our healing for those of us in this room today who need to be pricked and challenged and convicted. Lord, we pray that in love you would cut through the calluses of our self justification in the way we have numbed ourselves to our sin, and you would convict us afresh that we might fall at your feet and find the redemption that exists for all of us. Traits.
[00:08:50] God, we love you, we trust you, we need you for this work. So we pray it in your name, Jesus.
[00:08:55] Amen.
[00:08:58] Matthew 26. We're going to start in verse 17, and we read this.
[00:09:02] On the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?
[00:09:11] Go into the city to a certain man, he said, and tell him, the teacher says, my time is near. I am celebrating the Passover at your place with my disciples. So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover. And when evening came, he was reclining at the table with the 12.
[00:09:28] Okay, if you missed Jim's sermon last week, first off, go back and listen to was good. But we're officially into what is called the Passion Narrative of Jesus. The title, that word refers to the story surrounding Jesus's last day on earth, his betrayal, arrest, and unjust death. It's called the Passion because we'll see over and over and over in this story. Jesus is the one in control of this narrative. It is his story. He is choosing this death, and he chose it because this has been God's plan of redemption from the beginning. Jesus was able to face the horror of the cross with joy because it was what he had actually planned. It is his love, his passion that carries him through the 24 hours leading up to his death.
[00:10:21] And so our text picks up with an incredibly boring setup to what will be a pretty intense couple chapters.
[00:10:31] The setup is it's getting dinner ready.
[00:10:34] What's nuts about this is in 24 literal hours from when we read this part of the story, Jesus will be abandoned, beaten, and actively being tortured to death by Roman soldiers.
[00:10:45] But in our text, he's a guy with his friends in Jerusalem during Passover, and they're talking about dinner, which is wild.
[00:10:53] Now, there's two big theological and contextual issues here that I think we really don't have time to dig into, but we need a little bit of them to get a full understanding of the text. So let me walk through these real quick. First one Is this. This takes place during what is called the festival of Unleavened Bread, or Passover. And we're going to dig into a little more of this tradition and this history next week when we talk about the institution of the Lord's Supper. But for our purposes today, you need to understand a couple things. In Jesus's day, the festival of. The festival of Unleavened bread and the Passover had essentially morphed into one large celebration. And they're used synonymously to mean the same thing.
[00:11:29] Passover was what was called a pilgrimage feast in Judaism in the first century, which meant as many folk as reasonably could were expected to literally physically travel to Jerusalem to experience the festival there. Jerusalem's population would increase 7 to 800% during Passover.
[00:11:46] During this time, Passover was culturally similar to, like, what we think of as, like, Thanksgiving, but add more religious structure into it. It was a joyful time of family celebration and traditions and big meals and meeting up with relative relatives you haven't seen for a while. But it was simultaneously stacked up with theological meaning, as the Jewish people used Passover to commemorate God's freeing of Israel from slavery in Egypt. For our purposes today, it's important to note that you're supposed to eat this meal with your literal immediate family.
[00:12:18] But in line with his travel, Jesus chooses to have this meal with his chosen family, his disciples, his closest friends.
[00:12:27] The second issue is way more hairy, and I mention it because if you Google this or are researching this on your own at all this week, this will come up. I might make a blog or a video or something about this in the next week or two. But there's actually a really large debate amongst theologians about the dating of Jesus's last day before his crucifixion. Matthew, Mark, and Luke seem to present it as being a day after John presents.
[00:12:50] Doesn't seem on the surface like they're saying the Last Supper happens on the same day. John makes sure that we know Jesus was crucified at the same time the Passover lambs are being slaughtered. Well, Matthew, Mark and Luke seem to say that it was the day after that. There's a lot going on under the hood there. A lot of different interesting theological theories and reconciliations that we just don't have time to get into right here. And so I may write something up about that. But for our purposes today, what you need to know is this. Jesus is planning to have a Passover Seder dinner with his closest friends. Like, that's. That's the setup. Regardless of if he does it a day early or does it on the day Jesus is planning to have a Passover Seder with his closest friends. And he's choosing to do this literal hours before his betrayal and death. And so the disciples approach Jesus, they ask him, hey, what are we doing about Passover? And Jesus gives them some instructions to go set up dinner. And if you've been in Matthew with us, this seems kind of strangely similar to the scene where Jesus gives them instructions to get the donkey right before the triumphal entry, right? Go talk to a certain man and do this and then this, this will happen. And it almost seems like this weird kind of miraculous setup where Jesus is like setting up this series of strange supernatural events that may be the case. I actually think it's probably much more likely a really down to earth reason why it reads like this. And follow my train of thought here, right? Jesus has at this point set up this very public confrontation with the religious leaders in Jerusalem. And he knows they're actively hunting him, they want to arrest him and kill him. Everyone knows this. His disciples know this.
[00:14:24] The text actually tells us that before Jesus goes to Jerusalem, the disciples all kind of gang together and they're sitting, talking, going, so if we go there, they're going to kill him, right? Like, like, if we go there, he's going to die. And like, should we go, should we not go? And they're kind of debating back and forth and it's Thomas who goes, look, let's go and die with him. Like if, if this is our Lord, if he's going to go get arrested and killed, let's go with him and do it. So they know this, they know the score. They know that Jesus is actively being hunted. And we know from how Matthew's telling the story that Jesus is purposefully not staying in Jerusalem. He goes into Jerusalem during the day to teach and then he's heading out into the countryside. And this is a time when thousands upon thousands of extra people are in the city and so it's easier for him to kind of slip in and out. I think what's most likely happening here is that Jesus has used his network of connections to preset up his Passover dinner and that he's just now telling his disciples about it to keep it kind of mysterious, not to like trick them, but because they don't, he's not ready to be arrested yet.
[00:15:26] And the way the other gospels tell it, it actually gives us some extra details where he's like, go to this place and you'll find a guy Standing, doing this, that's the guy. Go talk to him. Like it kind of sets it up that way. When you look at Luke's telling of it, I think what we're supposed to see here is that Jesus has purposefully set up this Passover dinner and he's just, this guy has already prearranged it and he's waiting for like, you know, the high sign to get them all set up.
[00:15:52] So when we, when we get to this part of the story in Matthew, Matthew skips over most of it. He just kind of goes, they went, they found it as he said. And then they started eating their Passover dinner. The other, the other gospels fill in some more details. We know from John that this is the moment when Jesus washes the disciples feet. Right, is right before this meal. But Matthew leaves this part of the story incredibly brief. There are a million things he could have zoned in on in the preparation and the experience of this last meal. But Matthew only focuses on two, which is why we're dividing this chunk of the text into two sermons. Next week we're going to finish out this text talking about Jesus instructions regarding the Lord's Supper. I think that'll be really interesting. But today we're looking at this other aspect that Matthew zones in on during this narrative and it's specifically the betrayal of Judas.
[00:16:44] Matthew skipped over a lot of details. He could have included remember Matthew is one of the gospels written from a first person perspective. As an eyewitness he is remembering his experience as one of Jesus's 12. He ate this meal, right, but he skips past most of the details and just sets up the scene. Jesus is sitting with the 12 reclining at table. Now I want to help us imagine this scene. I've said this a couple things, this a couple times before, but you have to remember 1st 1st century Palestinian Jews didn't really eat sitting in chairs the way we do today. They had adopted the Greek style of eating where tables were very low to the ground, almost like our modern day coffee tables. And they would lay on these large pillows on their left elbow and they would use their right hand to reach over and feed themselves. They'd have their feet splayed out behind them. Here's a picture of what it might look like, kind of silly to us, but this was a really normal way to eat meals back in that day. And Matthew fast forwards through all of the stuff, the washing of the feet, the setup of the meal, any discussion and he just brings us straight to this scene.
[00:17:55] And I think there's probably a reason why, I think crossing cultural boundaries, crossing history, crossing the weirdness of how they sit at tables, all this stuff. I think most of us, if we start to imagine this part of the scene, it just brings up a real immediate memory.
[00:18:13] These are best friends sitting at dinner during a holiday, laughing and eating and singing and enjoying a meal and telling stories. And most of us can go, oh yeah, I remember that meal.
[00:18:25] Maybe it was Thanksgiving when I was a kid, maybe it was when I was in college and my roommates. Like we can think of that moment sitting at the table, glasses clinking, laughter, sharing a meal. And Matthew, I think, wants to put us in this space.
[00:18:42] Dinner with friends, good smells, big smiles. And then Jesus shatters this moment with the Revelation. Read on with me. In verse 21, while they were eating, he said, truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.
[00:19:00] Deeply distressed, each one began to say to him, surely not I, Lord. And he replied, the one who dipped his hand with me in the bowl, he will betray me. The Son of man will go just as it was written about him. But woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better for him if he had not been born.
[00:19:17] Judas, his betrayer, replied, surely not I, Rabbi, you have said it. He told him, what a painful scene. You can imagine the sounds of clinking at the big dinner. And it all freezes as Jesus makes this announcement.
[00:19:37] One of you will betray me.
[00:19:41] You can imagine that icy shot of adrenaline that moved through Judas veins in that moment.
[00:19:48] Does he know? Does he know?
[00:19:51] But everyone in the room is distressed and the room kind of blows up. They're. They're all worried.
[00:19:56] And we get what I think is this incredibly strange interaction.
[00:20:02] One by one, the disciples begin to ask Jesus about his betrayal. And then look how they speak to him. This is the part that's so weird to me. If I were in this position, I don't know, but I think if I were in this position and Jesus said that someone's going to betray me, I think my response would be to go, who?
[00:20:20] Who the heck would do that?
[00:20:22] But look what they say.
[00:20:24] They go to Jesus one by one and say, surely not I.
[00:20:29] That's a really interesting thing to say.
[00:20:33] Wouldn't you think they would know that they're not the betrayer?
[00:20:38] Right?
[00:20:39] But remember the context.
[00:20:41] There are folk who are actively trying to arrest Jesus. He's being secretive. I think the disciples hear Jesus's announcement and their first thought is, oh no, did I screw up?
[00:20:53] Did I say something? To the wrong person.
[00:20:57] Did I spill? Is it me?
[00:21:01] Maybe I've blown our cover. They move straight to the possibility of their own failure.
[00:21:06] I think there's something there.
[00:21:08] It's powerful that we'll come back to.
[00:21:11] But look how this scene concludes. It comes to Judas, who just absolutely has to be sweating, right? Like, that's gotta be a real rough moment to be sitting there like. Well, everyone's talking, hoping we know. At this point, he's already implied he'd already been employed as a spy of those hoping to arrest Jesus.
[00:21:35] But here's the thing that's interesting. Those who have employed Judas want to wait until after Passover.
[00:21:42] They've already told him this. They want to wait until the crowds disperse. They want to wait until there's less witnesses to arrest Jesus. That's the plan they've already set up with him. But that is not Jesus's plan.
[00:21:55] He knows now is the time.
[00:21:57] And so in this moment, he actually puts the pressure on Judas. It forces the issue. He's publicly confronted the religious leaders, essentially forcing them to react. He knows Judas is the betrayer. He knows the plan is to wait. And so now he forces Judas to act.
[00:22:16] Judas is sweating it out as the disciples all ask their questions. And so he kind of blends in, but he takes his turn.
[00:22:24] And notice that Judas alone calls Jesus rabbi or teacher rather than Lord, surely not I, rabbi. And Jesus looks dead in the eye and says, you have said it.
[00:22:37] This is a phrase that doesn't translate super easily in English. It's a very typical Jewish rabbi type of phrase. That's a way of saying, yes, but. But it's a way of saying the way you said the. It's a way of saying the way you ask the question shows me you already know the answer.
[00:22:55] It's a very specific way of saying, I know you know.
[00:22:59] It's actually, by the way, the same response Jesus will give to the Sanhedrin when they ask him if he's the Messiah.
[00:23:06] But he looks at Judas and goes, you know, you know, I know you know, I know you know.
[00:23:15] I don't want to overplay this part of the text, but there's some drama we need to experience here.
[00:23:22] Like, I want you to. I want you to put yourself in this moment. I want you to imagine this space, the noise, the smells that they've been going through.
[00:23:31] The noise as people are speaking over each other, trying to ask Jesus, is it them? When Jesus locks eyes with Judas in that moment and they both know, Jesus knows, and yet he doesn't call him out.
[00:23:46] He doesn't command the disciples to restrain him. Instead he just lets him go.
[00:23:55] One of the most famous paintings that exists is Da Vinci's Last Supper. There's a picture of it. There's a lot of problems with this painting in terms of its historical accuracy because, you know, Da Vinci wasn't trying to make a historically accurate Near Eastern painting. But what it does perfectly, the reason I'm showing it to you is he perfectly captures the chaotic energy of this moment as the 12 disciples are all reacting and reacting differently.
[00:24:24] The only serenity in the picture, if you like, zoom in and look at it close, is Jesus, who is resolute in his mission.
[00:24:32] And then Judas, who's quietly given over to shadow. He's the only one not speaking, not moving, Right.
[00:24:40] The other gospels let us know that when he's exposed, Judas leaves. He goes to betray Jesus location, right? Then he goes to let the religious leaders know and. And the other disciples, like, they don't catch this interaction. They miss it somehow and they assume that Jesus or Judas is being sent out to go like, buy more supplies, get more wine or something.
[00:25:01] So we're going to pause the text here for this week. That's as far as we're going to go.
[00:25:06] And it leaves us, I think, with this absolutely awful moment, but also this huge question, why the heck would Judas betray Jesus?
[00:25:17] Why would anyone do that?
[00:25:20] Oh, it's awful.
[00:25:22] Why?
[00:25:23] There are lots of theories about this.
[00:25:26] I think it's easy when we read it to kind of just see Judas as the black cat bad guy in the story, right?
[00:25:33] I mean, the gospels actually tell us that he was also the treasurer, the keeper of the purse for the ministry, and that he stole regularly. So maybe he's just the greedy bad guy, right?
[00:25:42] But I think that answer falls short because Judas traveled with Jesus for three years.
[00:25:50] Judas was sent out by Jesus two by two. He shared the gospel with the lost. He cast out demons, he cured disease in the name of Jesus. He passed out food to the 5,000. He sat in the boat as Jesus walked on water and called the storm. And he joined the disciples and saying, who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him? He sat on the mount as Jesus taught the wrapped multitudes. It's hard to believe that he could take all that in and then be like, you know, I mean, I'd really like a few thousand bucks, so I think I'll just kill him.
[00:26:28] Some theologians theorize that Judas was increasingly dissatisfied with Jesus's description of his messianic Ministry.
[00:26:36] We know the Jewish expectation and the expectation of the 12 disciples was that Jesus would be this new kind of King David who would unite the religious leaders and overthrow Rome. And Jesus's constant insistence that his ministry was different, that he had. That he would actually die, that he had zero interest in unifying the religious leaders or overthrowing Rome, that confused all of the apostles.
[00:27:00] And so maybe that drove Judas away.
[00:27:03] Maybe he was trying to force Jesus hand. Maybe he was trying to get Jesus to act like the Messiah he believed him to be. That might explain how quickly Judas had remorse for his decision to betray Jesus.
[00:27:18] We don't know.
[00:27:19] And interestingly enough, the Bible doesn't tell us Judas's motivation. I feel like it's the biggest hanging question for me when I read this text and the Bible's just not interested in answering it.
[00:27:32] And I think there's a really important reason for that.
[00:27:35] You see, Judas isn't the point of this text.
[00:27:40] Jesus is.
[00:27:43] Jesus even says here, this isn't about the betrayer.
[00:27:47] This will go for Jesus just as God has planned the whole time. Now Jesus is quick to point out, this doesn't absolve Judas of his guilt. He made his own decisions, he'll bear his own consequences. But it isn't about that.
[00:28:00] It's about Jesus.
[00:28:03] This text gives us Jesus looking his betrayer in the face and giving permission for Judas to begin his betrayal.
[00:28:14] Beloved, this is the absolute heart and soul of this passage.
[00:28:22] Jesus looked his betrayer in the face. He looked his suffering in the face. He faced it and he chose it.
[00:28:32] This is our gospel imitation. Hebrews 12 says, for the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus chose his own betrayal for you and for me.
[00:28:48] Beloved, I don't want you to magically zoom past this part of the text.
[00:28:52] Jesus didn't use some kind of robot powers to magically turn off his heart and not feel this literal. Minutes before this scene, Jesus had washed Judas's feet.
[00:29:07] He had told him how he loved him, how he was his friend. They had shared years together.
[00:29:14] Remember the story back in Matthew chapter 12 where Jesus is sitting in a circle with this exact same man, this big smile on his face while people are gathered around and he's teaching and he says, right here, this, this is my family. These are my mother and my brothers and my sisters.
[00:29:30] Judas was family to Christ and Judas betrayed him.
[00:29:37] Jesus felt every ounce of that.
[00:29:42] And our sweet Jesus chose the gospel in the face of Betrayal.
[00:29:49] He chose to forgive and save us Judases.
[00:29:54] Our God is not content to allow the curse of sin the final say over his creation. And so he steps in for the traitors.
[00:30:02] He absorbs our injustice and wrong, and he gives us his love, his forgiveness, his own righteousness. And hear me, church, this is not some light spiritual cliche.
[00:30:16] I think there is a reason that Matthew chooses to focus in on the idea of betrayal and abandonment in his telling of the Passion story. Above all else, there is something primal, undestructed about betrayal.
[00:30:31] There's a relatively famous psychologist named Jordan Peterson who talks a lot about betrayal. And listen, please know that I am not recommending that you build your political framework from Jordan Peterson. Please, especially don't construct your biblical framework from this guy.
[00:30:48] But he is a psychologist.
[00:30:50] He speaks a lot about this idea. And I think he actually brings up a helpful thought, focuses a lot of his work on betrayal, and says the betrayal is the fundamental and deepest hurt a soul can experience.
[00:31:04] The reason he says that is that betrayal is a complete inversion of what we call relationship.
[00:31:11] Human society can only function in the context of a web of relationships. And human relationships can only happen when individual humans choose both trust and vulnerability.
[00:31:22] To trust, another human is to open oneself up to pain.
[00:31:28] This is betrayal.
[00:31:30] From the relatively small betrayals of a friend being mean or ditching you to the massive betrayals of abandonment and infidelity. All of them share the common and bloody thread of turning a relationship on its head, where trust and vulnerability, instead of being protected, are exploited.
[00:31:52] Betrayal fundamentally damages a human's ability to engage in relationship with other people.
[00:31:58] It hurts us, wounds us on a spiritual level. It taps into the depths of the curse, leaves us groundless, leaves us in a space where we don't know who we can trust or how we can trust. We don't know if we can live in community and vulnerability. And those of you who've experienced deep betrayal, you know what I'm talking about.
[00:32:20] It leaves you a mess.
[00:32:24] You and I were made for relationship. We were made for intimacy. Our soul calls out for it. We are communal creatures by design.
[00:32:34] Community with God, community with one another.
[00:32:37] But betrayal leaves us not knowing how to do that.
[00:32:42] It leaves us groundless, not knowing whether or not we can live in community. And in the absence of the stabilizing force, most people simply crumble inward.
[00:32:55] They put up thick walls, they lose themselves, they lose their design.
[00:33:01] They put up protections and say, not again.
[00:33:04] I will not feel that again.
[00:33:06] Christ, beloved, hear this.
[00:33:09] Christ experienced this kind of betrayal.
[00:33:13] He experienced it in the garden, when men and women believed the worst about him, that he was holding back good from them instead of taking care of them.
[00:33:22] He experienced it again when he came to find them. And they hid and denied and blame shifted.
[00:33:28] God could have walked away from his creation at this point. He could have put up his own walls and said, never again.
[00:33:35] I won't be wounded and fought of and treated that way.
[00:33:40] None of us would really blame Him.
[00:33:43] But our God has responded to betrayal with compassion.
[00:33:47] He feels the wound of betrayal and chooses vulnerability and intimacy again and again and again.
[00:33:58] The story of the Bible is the story of God taking steps back toward relationship and reconciliation with us, only for humanity to reject him and betray him again and again and again and again.
[00:34:14] Because here's the catch, beloved.
[00:34:16] We are all Judas.
[00:34:21] Every single one of us.
[00:34:23] We choose sin, and then we choose sin.
[00:34:28] And then we choose sin.
[00:34:30] And then we choose sin.
[00:34:32] I know many of you, especially the victims of major betrayals, you don't like that accusation.
[00:34:39] Hurts to hear.
[00:34:41] Sure, I may mess up sometimes, but I'm not like a Judas.
[00:34:45] But here's the problem. When I say this in love, you are.
[00:34:50] You are.
[00:34:52] We sing a song around Good Friday called One Righteous Man.
[00:34:55] You guys may remember, it has this line that says, judas sold you for 30, but I would have done it for less.
[00:35:02] As painful as it may be to consider, beloved, this is the truth of our sinful hearts.
[00:35:10] We know. We know fundamentally that God has better for us. We know that God loves us and cares for us. But when push comes to shove and we're sad or we're bored or we're anxious, we turn to sin. We turn to the flesh and we choose betrayal. Over and over and over. You, beloved, me, beloved. We choose death over life.
[00:35:34] We take relationship that God has made us for and we invert it. We take his trust and vulnerability and we turn it on its head. Can we be honest enough to admit this together?
[00:35:48] Oftentimes, our sin is not a slipped up. It's not a mistake. It's our plan.
[00:35:54] How many of you have ever scheduled your sin on your calendar?
[00:35:59] Planned out your moments of sin?
[00:36:02] Have you ever had that moment Judas had where God in his grace, reminds you of your sin, puts it in front of you? I know you know. I know you know.
[00:36:13] But you still decide. I just want this right now.
[00:36:18] I know this isn't right. I know this isn't what you have for me, but this is just what I want right now.
[00:36:24] There's a famous prophecy that we're going to Reference a couple times over the course of the next couple weeks where the prophet Isaiah looked forward and saw Jesus's sacrifice on our behalf. It'll be familiar to a lot of you because we read it on Christmas. But let me read this chunk of Isaiah 53 to you guys. In verse three, it says this.
[00:36:41] He was despised and rejected by men.
[00:36:45] A man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from. He was despised and we didn't value him. Yet he himself bore our sickness and he carried our pains. But we in turn regarded him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. Punishment for our peace was on him.
[00:37:12] We are healed by his wounds. Verse 6. See this church? We all went astray like sheep. We have all turned to our own way and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us.
[00:37:28] Beloved, we are all Jews, each and every one of us.
[00:37:34] So what the heck do we do with that horrible truth?
[00:37:38] Yay. Happy Sunday.
[00:37:41] What do we do with that?
[00:37:43] I'm going to give you two thoughts to lean this out today.
[00:37:47] The first one is simple, Beloved. Fall at the feet of Jesus today.
[00:37:54] Come to him in repentance. Beloved, Jesus chose the cross knowing the depths of your sin. He saw every evil you've done and every evil you still have to do.
[00:38:05] He still went to the cross for you.
[00:38:08] He washed Judas feet, knowing full well he would betray him. And he went to the cross knowing full well that you would fall short. So come to him.
[00:38:17] Come to him in confession. In repentance. Today, beloved, you will find love, acceptance, grace, forgiveness and restoration. You will.
[00:38:28] And secondly, and this is the one that probably needs a few more minutes to consider, I want us to all consider our own relationship with betrayal.
[00:38:39] As I've been talking, I am confident that many of you in the room, if you're actually listening, you've been thinking of specific people.
[00:38:49] You've had specific faces popping in your mind. People who have betrayed you and people who you've betrayed.
[00:39:00] They've been sitting there, big ways and small ways.
[00:39:04] That's you today.
[00:39:06] Can you stop with me for just a moment as we land out today? And can we just imagine what God's good future for you may look like?
[00:39:18] I promise you the Gospel of Jesus means that Christ has a good future for you in mind.
[00:39:28] I wish so badly right now that I could sit with each of you one by one and let you know this truth.
[00:39:37] There's hope healing in Christ for you, there is.
[00:39:44] You are not alone.
[00:39:46] You are not given over to destruction and sorrow and brokenness.
[00:39:52] Your Jesus knows what it is to be betrayed.
[00:39:56] He knows what that feels like. He knows how destabilizing that was for you.
[00:40:02] He was with you when you found out.
[00:40:05] When you realized he wept with you. He felt the anger and hurt. With you.
[00:40:11] He's with you even now.
[00:40:13] Even now.
[00:40:15] I know you feel like you can't trust. I know you feel like you must build up your walls and hold everyone at arm's length. Why wouldn't you even genuinely hurt?
[00:40:26] But Christ invites you to tear your walls down to be with your sweet Jesus. He sees past them anyway.
[00:40:35] He sees your real heart behind them anyway. And hear me, beloved. Hear me in this. Your pain is not wasted.
[00:40:46] It isn't.
[00:40:48] Jesus doesn't erase your pain.
[00:40:52] He also didn't cause it.
[00:40:55] But it does do something beautiful.
[00:40:58] He brings meaning out of it.
[00:41:00] He brings purpose out of it. When Christ rose from the dead and his followers met him in his resurrected body, he still had the wounds of the cross in his perfect, glorified body. There were still holes in his body from the wounds inflicted on him by Roman soldiers.
[00:41:20] I think Jesus did that for us on purpose. Those wounds follow him into eternity. And the reality is, your wounds will not magically disappear.
[00:41:31] But I promise you, Christ can redeem them.
[00:41:35] He can give them purpose. He can use even that evil. Even that evil.
[00:41:43] Christ can use that to bring about his own glory and your vitality.
[00:41:49] You need only trust him. You need only surrender to him, to open the gates of your fortress, to let him in and let him reign. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you, never betray you. He is for you, beloved. The gospel brings hope to the betrayed, but the gospel also brings hope to the betrayer.
[00:42:14] Jesus wasn't the only one who sold Jesus up the river.
[00:42:18] Peter and Thomas were big talkers.
[00:42:21] I'll die for you, Jesus.
[00:42:23] Until the soldiers actually show up and they run away and hid and denied him.
[00:42:28] And I know in this room, as we've been going through this, some of you are squirming.
[00:42:36] You've had no trouble hearing me say that we're all Judas because you were eaten up by your own failure and the betrayals you've committed.
[00:42:44] Not just your sin patterns and the ways you betrayed Christ, but the very real relationships you have destroyed with your own selfishness, broken promises, abandoned friendships, unfaithfulness, adultery.
[00:43:00] Some of you are imagining that face right now, and it is eating you alive.
[00:43:05] That is you today, please stop with me and imagine the hope that Christ has for you.
[00:43:14] The good future that Jesus has for you.
[00:43:19] It is real.
[00:43:21] There is no pit so deep. The love of God is not deeper still. There is hope for you. There is healing for you. There is redemption for you. Let the weight of that sin break you upon the rock of ages, fall at the feet of. Of Christ.
[00:43:35] In other words, let the weightiness of that sin draw you to Jesus's grace.
[00:43:41] I promise you he has forgiveness for you.
[00:43:44] Doesn't mean your consequences may magically disappear. You bear the scars of your sin into eternity like everyone else. But I promise you, Jesus can redeem them.
[00:43:54] Jesus can bring meaning out of Him.
[00:43:58] Band, if you want to come back up, you need to know, no matter who you are today, no matter what your story is today, no matter what you have done, Jesus accepts you exactly as you are.
[00:44:11] He bids you come to me exactly as you are. You need do nothing to clean yourself up.
[00:44:18] Simply come to Him.
[00:44:20] But also know that in his love, he will make you more than you are.
[00:44:24] He will transform you.
[00:44:27] I want to invite each of us to take a moment this morning to meet with Christ.
[00:44:33] I say this every week, but I want you to hear this today.
[00:44:37] I want to encourage you to find a posture of prayer in this space today.
[00:44:43] If you can do that sitting in your seat, that's fine.
[00:44:46] But I want to encourage you to find a way for yourself to connect with Christ through prayer. Maybe you want to get on your knees and put your elbows on your chair and take a few minutes to pray to the Lord. Maybe you want to step out and get on your knees somewhere or come forward to the altar or grab one of the pastors, whatever that looks like. If you're like, there's no way I'm sitting in my chair, that's fine.
[00:45:06] But I want to encourage you, find a way for you right now to sit in the quiet with Christ, to actually connect with him, to actually speak to Jesus today.
[00:45:20] Beloved, he is our Savior. He is our hope. He chose us when we were traitors.
[00:45:28] So, beloved, take a few minutes to meet with Jesus today, see what he might say to you.
[00:45:34] And then we'll finish out our response time with communion.
