March 30, 2025 • 30 mins
Jamie Peterson March 30, 2025 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Please turn with me to Luke, chapter 22, verses 47
through 53.
As you're turning there, ifyou're here with us for the
first time or maybe not aware ofthe series that's been going on
here in 2025, Jason has beenleading us through a series on
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meals with Jesus.
In Luke, it looks like Jesus iseither going to a meal, he's at
a meal, or he's coming from ameal, and that's taken up a
large portion of this year.
But a few weeks ago we startedto turn our attention away from
meals with Jesus to walking withJesus, a walk with Jesus that
is eventually going to lead toHim dying on the cross for His
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people.
Most of us in this room I don'tknow exactly how many, but I
would say it's a large numberwe've all been to a large, big
college professional sportingevent, and one of the highlights
of those big events that you goto is the National Anthem is
played and within just a secondor two after that last note of
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the national anthem, there's astealth bomber, a squadron of
F-16s, apache helicopters orwhatever are flying over the
stadium, whipping the crowd upinto a froth, and as great and
as majestic of a scene as thatis what has always baffled me,
and if you're a pilot you'reprobably thinking this isn't
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that complicated, but for me itis.
How in the world do they getthose planes to fly just at the
right time, right when that songis about to end, with such
precision?
This is the precision we needto look at with regards to
Jesus's life throughout theGospels.
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Jesus never woke up, stumbledout of bed each morning, letting
the day come to him.
Everything that we see takeplace in the Gospels any of
those things aren't written wasa divine appointment.
It was him not within a secondor a couple seconds.
It was right, at the right time, of Him having an interaction
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that was divinely appointed fromthe beginning of time.
When he comes across thefuneral procession of the young
man whose mother is now a widow,going outside the city gates,
he knew from the beginning oftime that he was going to have
that interaction and raise himfrom the dead, this meeting that
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we saw a few weeks ago with therich young ruler, and then not
only that, but his interactionwith Zacchaeus and all these
other things.
They were not by accident.
They had a specific purpose,and we have to understand here
too, as we are about to readabout Jesus' betrayal and arrest
.
It's very easy for us to lookat this and think, okay, things
are spinning out of control.
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What I want to remind us of isthat Jesus has every bit of
control of what's going on here,with His betrayal and arrest,
as he was in creating theuniverse, restoring the sight to
the blind, feeding themultitude, raising the dead to
life.
And that's what makes thispassage, as well as others, so
amazing, as we see the beautyand the control of Jesus and how
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he uses it for God's glory andfor the good of His people.
So, before we look at thispassage, let's now go to Him and
ask Him for His help.
So, before we look at thispassage, let's now go to Him and
ask Him for His help.
Father in Heaven, we come toyou today as people who are in
deep need of help on every levelimaginable, and we need your
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help in understanding your Word,lord.
We come in here with skewedideas, not fully understanding
the broader context of whatYou're doing.
So, lord, I pray that You'dgive us laser-sharp focus on
your Word and what You're doinghere through your Son and Lord,
how you have been glorifiedthrough Him and how you are
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being glorified through Him inwhat seems to be His darkest
hour, in His betrayal and arrest.
Lord, give us eyes to see, giveus ears to hear your Word.
This morning we pray all thisin Jesus' name, amen.
Luke, chapter 22, beginning withverse 47, and we'll go through
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verse 53.
Hear the Word of the Lord.
While he was still speaking,there came a crowd and the man
called Judas one of the twelvewas leading them who drew near
to Jesus to kiss him.
But Jesus said to him Judas,would you betray the son of man
with a kiss?
And when those who were aroundhim saw what would follow, they
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said Lord, shall we strike withthe sword?
And one of them struck theservant of the high priest and
cut off his right ear.
But Jesus said no more of thisand he touched his ear and
healed him.
Then Jesus said to the chiefpriests and officers of the
temple and elders who had comeout against him have you come
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out?
As here ends a reading of God'sWord.
At a church where I servedseveral years ago, I had the
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privilege of getting to know afellow who's a little bit
younger than me.
He had been at the church justa few years before I had gotten
there and he had bottomed outrecently due to his addiction to
drugs and alcohol.
A number of the deacons at thechurch where I was had rallied
around him, had helped him toget through rehab, had gotten
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him plugged into the church, hadhelped him find some good
housing to be able to find a job, just to try to help him be
able to get back up to his feet.
But as I got to know him alittle bit further, I was, and
still am, humbled by his story.
You see, this fellow is a lotlike many of us.
He grew up in a good home.
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He went to a four-year school,he got out, started working in
construction and after a fewyears of working in construction
he was able to have his ownresidential construction company
and was doing really well, sowell that he was able to take a
ski vacation out west with somefriends.
And while he was out there hehad an accident.
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I can't remember exactly whattype of injury that he had, but
it was bad enough.
He had to go see a physicianafter he'd gotten back home.
And it was even worse in thefact that he had to take some
very powerful pain meds to dealwith this injury.
It put him out of work, it puthim by himself, and many of us
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have probably been in thissituation or know someone who's
been there.
His addiction to the pain medsand addiction to alcohol started
to spin his life out of controlto the point where he was
eventually homeless and wasliving for his next fix.
And I'll never forget, as he wastelling me this story, he says
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I never thought something likethis would happen to someone
like me.
We have to be very careful whenwe say that something will
never, ever happen to us or thatcould never happen to me,
because it certainly could.
And when we read biblicalaccounts like the one that we
have here, with the actions ofJudas and the disciples, we need
to be very careful to not thinkthat we are not capable of
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doing something like this.
If we have any doubt of ourcapabilities to be a Judas,
think of all the things thatwere afforded him.
He was one of the twelve.
As we see here in this passage,jesus chose him to be a
disciple.
After a night of praying overthis decision, he was personally
taught by Jesus for three yearsand, to put it here in our
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faith Presbyterian terms, he waspart of Jesus' grace group.
He witnessed Jesus' miracles.
He served as treasurer of thetwelve.
He had been in the upper roomwith Jesus just a few short
hours before, where he had dinedwith Jesus, and Jesus had
washed His feet before they ate.
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And by piecing together thedifferent parts of the Gospel we
get a clearer picture ofperhaps what's going on with
Judas that led him up to thismoment, as we see in the Gospel
of John.
In John 12, we see at Mary'sanointing of Jesus' feet that
Judas is appalled by this.
He says you know, this is 300days wages.
This was basically $15,000 thatcould have been spent on
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feeding the poor.
In other words, thousanddollars that could have been
spent on feeding the poor.
In other words, he's saying isJesus really isn't worth it?
And we know from otherscriptures that Judas was taking
from the coffers for himself.
And he became so disillusionedwith Jesus that right after that
anointing of Jesus' feet byMary, he goes out to the chief
priest to see what he can getfor Jesus and said Mary, he goes
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out to the chief priest to seewhat he can get for Jesus and
we'll give you 30 pieces ofsilver and put that in today's
term, we'll give you 250 bucksfor Jesus, and this is what
Judas does.
It's almost as though Judas hasbecome disillusioned with Jesus
and who he is.
He's running a program that Idon't like.
His kingdom is not what I havein mind, and this is a fire sale
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.
I need to get out of him what Ican while the getting is still
good.
So he sells him out to the highpriest.
And because Judas had walked soclosely with Jesus, he knew
exactly where he could be found.
He could be found praying.
And to add insult to injury, heidentifies Jesus with a kiss.
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We may be asking ourselves well, why does he do this?
Well, we're going to see thatthere's a big, huge crowd, the
disciples are whipped up into afroth, there's a lot of
confusion and he wanted to makesure that they got the right guy
.
He couldn't just go, walk up tothe disciples as they're
praying and point it out,because there may be some
confusion and they may get thewrong guy.
He says I'm going to show youwho he is by going up and giving
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him a kiss.
And to that, insult to injury,this kiss was a common greeting
amongst Jesus and his disciples.
It was a show of intimateaffection, and this is what
Judas uses to point him out.
It reminds me of a story ofseveral years ago, when I and a
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bunch of my friends recentlygraduated.
I had one friend who hadstarted dating a girl.
They had developed an affinityfor this one particular
restaurant they liked to go tofor special occasions, for
birthdays and to celebrateanniversaries and all this stuff
, and eventually he came to thepoint where he wanted to break
up with her.
He just didn't feel like it wasgoing anywhere.
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But where does he take her togo break up with her other than
their favorite restaurant?
What Judas does here isinfinitely worse than that.
With this display of affection,a way in which they have
greeted one another throughoutthese three years, this is the
means that he uses to betray theSon of God.
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And while the disciples weren'tbetraying Jesus in the way that
Judas did, they demonstratedtheir own lack of trust in Jesus
.
Remember that while Jesus waspraying, the disciples were
sleeping and Jesus was warningto them and said you need to
pray, you need to see that youneed to depend upon God for His
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sustaining power over you,otherwise you're going to be led
into temptation, you're goingto be tempted to cling to your
own devices.
And that same attitude, thisself-sufficiency, showed itself
when the crowd came up and theycame and took their swords.
And they came and asked Jesus,should we come and defend you
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here?
And before Jesus can evenanswer them, peter comes along
and chops off the servant of thehigh priest's ear and, as we
will see again soon, jesus is incontrol of the situation, but
the disciples aren't doing Himany favors.
Jesus has come to bring peace,but the disciples had fallen
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into temptation.
I think the question we have toask ourselves is how do we
misrepresent Jesus in our ownfashions?
I think about the number ofblack eyes the church has
received through the years,trying to impose Christianity on
people through force andlegislation, and those are too
many to count.
But the power that we possessas Christ's church is through
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the Word, it's through the powerof the Spirit, it's through
service, it's throughdeclaration, it's allowing Jesus
to be Jesus, allowing God to beGod.
And we see Jesus doing thatvery thing here by willingly
laying down His life for Hissheep, with this arrest and
betrayal which will lead to Histrial, death and resurrection.
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God's kingdom is not like ours.
As such, our hope is not to befound in ourselves and the power
that we possess, but to befound in Jesus.
As we see here, through Judasand we see through the disciples
, we cannot be trusted.
We will mess things up, we willdestroy our lives apart from
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Jesus, we will ruin our witness.
We will destroy our lives apartfrom Jesus, we will ruin our
witness, we will be poorrepresentatives of Christ.
But what we see here is we seethree things that we can count
on, that we can hang our hat onwith Jesus, and the first one is
Jesus' control.
The second one is Jesus' heartand the third one is Jesus'
purpose, with a major leaguebaseball season heart.
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And the third one is Jesus'purpose, with the Major League
Baseball season having justbegun.
A few days ago I saw a video ofan interview that was done
recently by Eddie Perez.
He's a former catcher of theAtlanta Braves.
During a large portion of histime with the Braves he was the
personal catcher for Greg Maddox.
Greg Maddox I know it'ssomewhat debatable, but you
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could easily put him in the topfive greatest pitchers of all
time.
He didn't have overpoweringstuff.
He never really threw it intothe 90s, but he was so, so smart
and Eddie Perez tells us onestory about when they were
playing the Houston Astros.
It was a blowout game.
They were winning eight tonothing.
And Jeff Bagwell another futureHall of Famer power hitting
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first baseman comes up to theplate and the scouting report
they had decided on before thegame is is we're not going to
pitch him inside, we're going tothrow everything outside.
Well, they're winning eight tonothing.
Greg Maddox calls a timeout.
He calls Eddie Perez to come up.
He says I'm going to give thisguy an inside fastball.
And Eddie Perez is thinkingwhat in the world are you
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thinking?
He's going to kill it?
And he said to himself he saidwell, it's your game, so sure
enough.
Greg Maddox goes back to themound, he throws an inside
fastball and Jeff Bagwell hitsit 1,000 miles.
He gives it up.
So, anyway, they finally getout of the inning, they go
walking off the field and EddiePerez came up to him and says
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what in the world were youthinking?
He says hey, we're a good team,they're a good team, we're
probably going to face them inthe playoffs.
And what we need to do is weneed to set ourselves up to win
a playoff game when it reallymatters.
Sure enough, three months later,bases are loaded.
They're playing the HoustonAstros.
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Greg Maddox is up on the mound,eddie Perez is behind the plate
.
Bases are loaded two outs.
It's the bottom of the seventhinning.
Greg Maddox throws him threeinside change-ups, three-pitch
strikeout on Jeff Bagwell.
They come walking off.
Greg Maddox gets Eddie Perez'sattention hey, you remember that
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game three months ago?
And Eddie Perez says I'dtotally forgotten about it.
He said this is what I had inmind.
And Ed Perez says I'd totallyforgotten about it.
He said this is what I had inmind.
This is what Jesus is doing and, to use today's vernacular,
jesus is playing chess wheneveryone else is playing
checkers.
While a surface reading of thisaccount would believe that
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Jesus has lost control in hisbetrayal and arrest, he's every
bit as controlled as he's everbeen in the midst of this.
And to get a broader contextagain, I think the Gospel of
John adds so much color toLuke's account of this.
We see Jesus and the disciplesin the upper room In John 13,.
Jesus looks at Judas and sayswhatever you must do, go, do it
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quickly.
He knows what's going on and hetells hey, go and do it.
Whatever you have to do go anddo it quickly.
And as soon as he leaves theroom, the door closed.
Jesus looks at His disciples.
Now is the Son of man glorifiedand God is glorified in Him.
If God is glorified in Him, godwill also glorify Him in
Himself and glorify Him at once.
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This is Jesus' hour.
The time of his death had come.
The next we see Jesus' controlover the crowd.
If we go back and look at theGospels, we see where the crowd
is often used as a bufferbetween Jesus and the religious
leaders that want to kill Him.
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He eases into the crowd, heuses the crowd for His purposes
until His hour has come, untilit was time for Him to die.
And not only that, but he wouldalso use the crowds as an
opportunity to teach, to showcompassion, to heal and to feed.
But this time the crowd isdifferent.
Compassion to heal and to feed,but this time the crowd is
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different.
This time we see Jesus handinghimself over to the crowd and
this posse of sorts had come toarrest him.
Why?
Because his hour had now come.
And then we see another levelof Jesus' control over the
situation in verses 52 and 53.
When it says Jesus said to thechief priests and the officers
of the temple and the elders whohad come out against Him.
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Have you come out as against arobber with swords and clubs?
When I was with you day afterday in the temple, you did not
lay hands on Me.
But this is your hour, thepower of darkness.
What Jesus is telling me isthis the only reason you're
coming to arrest me now isbecause I'm letting you.
Day after day, I was in yourtemple.
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What you see is what you get.
I was speaking truth.
You had opportunity to take methen in broad daylight.
Now you're like a bunch ofkeystone cops or barney fife
coming here at night with clubsand swords, thinking that this
is what you've got to do inorder to be able to take me.
They just here.
You've got me, I'm the onethat's in control.
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This is what he's saying is.
The only reason you'rearresting me now is because I'm
letting you All this other stuff.
You coming here at nightbringing clubs and swords,
treating me like a robber.
You know better than that.
I'm letting you do this.
It's very easy for us to look atour lives and the world around
us and think that everything isout of control, but in God's
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kingdom.
Not everything is, as it seems,not on the surface.
Indeed, part of the answer tothe first question of the
Heidelberg Catechism is what isour only comfort in life and in
death?
And part of that answer is thathe preserves me in such a way
that, without the will of myheavenly Father, not a hair can
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fall from my head.
Indeed, all things must worktogether for my salvation.
Jesus is in control of thissituation and he's working in
and through it for the glory ofhis father and for the good of
our salvation.
Next thing, as we see Jesus'sheart, if you've seen the movie
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Private Ryan, you remember thatone of the first scenes that we
see in that movie is you see agroup of soldiers on a Higgins
boat going across the oceangetting ready to make the
landing on the beach at Normandy.
And one of the things I'llnever forget about watching that
movie is there's not a wholelot of chatter on that boat.
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Everybody is stone cold.
Still, there's no one that istalking, and really the only
thing that you can hear is youhear the drones of the boat's
motor in the background, asthese group of young men knowing
that many of them will soon die.
Is that not how we all are insimilar situations?
Maybe not that extreme, butwe're in the waiting room
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waiting on a loved one who ishaving life-saving surgery.
There's not a lot of chatterSitting in the library moments
before a big exam, waiting inyour car in the parking lot
before a big interview, sittingin the locker room before a big
game.
When we face situations likethat, stressful situations, our
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tendency is to turn inward andshut out the rest of the world
around us.
Not so with Jesus, as we havealready seen.
He knows His hour is at hand.
Last week we saw how this greatmoment of tension, even to the
point of Him shedding blood,sweating blood Jesus was turning
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His thoughts towards the Fatherand His will.
And then he turns His attentionto the disciples, exhorting
them to pray so that they mightnot fall into temptation.
And as His crowd, this mob, isstanding upon Him.
We see in verse 47 that he isstill turning His attention
towards the disciples.
As I think about my own sinfulself and again take this for
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what it's worth, trying to putmyself into Jesus' shoes.
And I knew what was about tohappen, that I was about to be
arrested.
I'd be off in a corner bymyself, but we see Jesus' heart
and His heart for the Father.
We see His heart for His people.
And then we also see Jesus'heart and how he addresses Judas
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in verse 48.
Judas, would you betray the Sonof man with a kiss?
It's impossible to overstatethe weightiness of this
statement.
Jesus refers to him as Judas.
He doesn't refer to him as aturncoat, as a traitor, you spy,
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you spawn a Satan.
He uses his name to address himand then, with the name that
Jesus attributes to himself isespecially significant.
He doesn't use the word me,would you betray me?
But he uses the Son of man.
There's no shortage of inkthat's been spilled over what
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this term means, but it was thedesignation that Jesus used to
refer to Himself as the Son ofGod, to refer to Him and to His
deity, that he is God, no less.
It's this phrase that was usedin the in daniel's dream in
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daniel 7 that we heard jasonpreach back in october of last
year.
Again, it's a name that jesusused in reference to himself,
more than any other name, torefer to his deity, his power
and his dominion.
And what the weightiness ofthis is is that Jesus is looking
at Judas and said Judas, areyou really going to betray God?
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And we see Jesus' heart furtherin Peter in 2 Peter 3.9.
Peter, who was there in thebusiness of chopping off
people's ears during this time,says this in his second epistle
in chapter 3.9.
It says the Lord is not slow tofulfill His promise, as some
count slowness, but is patienttoward you, not wishing that any
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should perish, but that allshould reach repentance.
And this is what Jesus is doing.
I'm giving you the weightiestquestion I can possibly give you
.
And what this shows is itdemonstrates just how
spiritually dead Judas was, andthis should sober us up and it
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should frighten us.
We also see his heart in thehealing of the high priest's
servant, in reattaching his earthat had been chopped off by
Peter.
It was a foreshadowing of thehealing that he provides through
His life, death andresurrection.
And what we see here is that,even in the midst of His darkest
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hour, we see Jesus' heart.
We see His heart for His Father, we see His heart for His
disciples.
We even see His own heart inHis words to Judas and that he
would repent.
Indeed, we see the gentle andlowliness of His heart in this
passage that he did not come forHimself but came to serve and
willingly give Himself as aransom for many.
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Look at what Jesus is steppinginto.
It's a zoo and he ran headlonginto it.
And, as Dane Ortlund says inhis book, gentleman Lowly, he is
not any more repulsed by yoursin than the sickness repels a
parent away from going andcaring for their child.
The reason he came into thisworld is to address our sin and
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to save us from it, which leadsus to the third purpose, jesus'
purpose.
One of the many blessings thatwe have here at Faith are the
number of children that the Lordhas put under a care.
We are reminded of this throughthe number of baptisms that we
have on a regular basis, throughthe communicants that come up
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to claim Jesus as their ownthrough their profession of
faith.
As we pray privately andcorporately for these children,
it's our prayer that they wouldgrow to live a ripe old age,
that they would discover theirtalents and gifts that God has
given them to be a blessing toHis church and to the world
around them, that they would getmarried, that they would have
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other covenant children andthose children would have
children and those childrenwould have children, and that
they would live to a ripe oldage.
Jesus' purpose, on the otherhand, was not to live a life
that we pray for for ourchildren and a vision for them,
but it was to die, to dieintentionally and purposely.
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He tells His disciples to cutout their plan of the defense
for two reasons.
First is that he must die and,as we saw in Luke 22 and even
more explicitly in Matthew 26,in this account God's Word must
be fulfilled.
I'm here to do this becausethis is what I came to do, this
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is my purpose.
And then, not only that, he hadto be perfect, he had to be
above reproach.
And what's going on right here,and why Jesus is telling them
to cut this out, is I'm no rebelrouser, and if you go on with
your silly little games, withyour clubs and your swords and
this sort of thing going tofight for me, you're going to
give them reason to draw me upon charges, and we know Jesus
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could never sin.
But what he's doing is he'sgetting control of this crowd so
that he could be above reproach, so that he wouldn't have
anything attached to Him, anysort of a stigma, so that he
could indeed go before His trialand to be tried and to go and
be the Lamb without sin, withoutspot, without blemish.
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I had a friend that went on amission trip to Africa many
years ago.
I can't remember exactly whichcountry it was, but they went
way back off the beaten path andthey brought a generator and a
projector and they were going togo show these people a Jesus
video.
As many of you know, the Jesusvideo was very popular back in
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the 90s and it was basically adepiction of the gospel of Luke
and they showed it to this tribeand after they got to the end
of the movie, this Jesus video,everybody was crying their
eyeballs out and themissionaries who were there
thinking, oh, my goodness, we'vegot a mass conversion here,
there's a revival that's goingon here with this tribe.
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But as they sat down and theystarted having a follow up with
them, is that the reason theywere crying was because this
innocent man had been killed.
They hadn't come to grips withtheir sin, they didn't know why
this man had been killed.
And what I can say to you isthis as we get closer to Easter
and we read these accounts yes,it is sad, but don't cry for
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Jesus.
Lament your sin.
Lament your sin that broughtHim there, that brought Him to
this earth to come and die.
See in yourself the propensityto be a Judas, to be one of the
disciples.
Lament that.
Weep over that, a godly sorrowthat brings repentance.
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Pray for that and then look toJesus, the one who is in control
, the one who has a heart foryou and the one who gave himself
for you.
Let us pray, lord in heaven.
We thank you for your Son,jesus Christ, and how you hold
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this world in your hand.
There is nothing going on,nothing that has ever gone on,
that's outside of your control.
And, lord, we thank you for howJesus was in control of this
situation, how he used Hiscontrol to give His life as a
ransom for many.
Lord, we pray now that youwould prepare us to come and to
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meet with Him around this table.
These elements have beenprovided so that we may be
strengthened in our faith tolean more and more into Him.
We pray all these things inJesus' name, amen.
Please turn with me to Luke, chapter 22, verses 47
through 53.
As you're turning there, ifyou're here with us for the
first time or maybe not aware ofthe series that's been going on
here in 2025, Jason has beenleading us through a series on
(00:20):
meals with Jesus.
In Luke, it looks like Jesus iseither going to a meal, he's at
a meal, or he's coming from ameal, and that's taken up a
large portion of this year.
But a few weeks ago we startedto turn our attention away from
meals with Jesus to walking withJesus, a walk with Jesus that
is eventually going to lead toHim dying on the cross for His
(00:44):
people.
Most of us in this room I don'tknow exactly how many, but I
would say it's a large numberwe've all been to a large, big
college professional sportingevent, and one of the highlights
of those big events that you goto is the National Anthem is
played and within just a secondor two after that last note of
(01:07):
the national anthem, there's astealth bomber, a squadron of
F-16s, apache helicopters orwhatever are flying over the
stadium, whipping the crowd upinto a froth, and as great and
as majestic of a scene as thatis what has always baffled me,
and if you're a pilot you'reprobably thinking this isn't
(01:27):
that complicated, but for me itis.
How in the world do they getthose planes to fly just at the
right time, right when that songis about to end, with such
precision?
This is the precision we needto look at with regards to
Jesus's life throughout theGospels.
(01:48):
Jesus never woke up, stumbledout of bed each morning, letting
the day come to him.
Everything that we see takeplace in the Gospels any of
those things aren't written wasa divine appointment.
It was him not within a secondor a couple seconds.
It was right, at the right time, of Him having an interaction
(02:10):
that was divinely appointed fromthe beginning of time.
When he comes across thefuneral procession of the young
man whose mother is now a widow,going outside the city gates,
he knew from the beginning oftime that he was going to have
that interaction and raise himfrom the dead, this meeting that
(02:30):
we saw a few weeks ago with therich young ruler, and then not
only that, but his interactionwith Zacchaeus and all these
other things.
They were not by accident.
They had a specific purpose,and we have to understand here
too, as we are about to readabout Jesus' betrayal and arrest
.
It's very easy for us to lookat this and think, okay, things
are spinning out of control.
(02:53):
What I want to remind us of isthat Jesus has every bit of
control of what's going on here,with His betrayal and arrest,
as he was in creating theuniverse, restoring the sight to
the blind, feeding themultitude, raising the dead to
life.
And that's what makes thispassage, as well as others, so
amazing, as we see the beautyand the control of Jesus and how
(03:16):
he uses it for God's glory andfor the good of His people.
So, before we look at thispassage, let's now go to Him and
ask Him for His help.
So, before we look at thispassage, let's now go to Him and
ask Him for His help.
Father in Heaven, we come toyou today as people who are in
deep need of help on every levelimaginable, and we need your
(03:37):
help in understanding your Word,lord.
We come in here with skewedideas, not fully understanding
the broader context of whatYou're doing.
So, lord, I pray that You'dgive us laser-sharp focus on
your Word and what You're doinghere through your Son and Lord,
how you have been glorifiedthrough Him and how you are
(04:00):
being glorified through Him inwhat seems to be His darkest
hour, in His betrayal and arrest.
Lord, give us eyes to see, giveus ears to hear your Word.
This morning we pray all thisin Jesus' name, amen.
Luke, chapter 22, beginning withverse 47, and we'll go through
(04:20):
verse 53.
Hear the Word of the Lord.
While he was still speaking,there came a crowd and the man
called Judas one of the twelvewas leading them who drew near
to Jesus to kiss him.
But Jesus said to him Judas,would you betray the son of man
with a kiss?
And when those who were aroundhim saw what would follow, they
(04:44):
said Lord, shall we strike withthe sword?
And one of them struck theservant of the high priest and
cut off his right ear.
But Jesus said no more of thisand he touched his ear and
healed him.
Then Jesus said to the chiefpriests and officers of the
temple and elders who had comeout against him have you come
(05:04):
out?
As here ends a reading of God'sWord.
At a church where I servedseveral years ago, I had the
(05:24):
privilege of getting to know afellow who's a little bit
younger than me.
He had been at the church justa few years before I had gotten
there and he had bottomed outrecently due to his addiction to
drugs and alcohol.
A number of the deacons at thechurch where I was had rallied
around him, had helped him toget through rehab, had gotten
(05:48):
him plugged into the church, hadhelped him find some good
housing to be able to find a job, just to try to help him be
able to get back up to his feet.
But as I got to know him alittle bit further, I was, and
still am, humbled by his story.
You see, this fellow is a lotlike many of us.
He grew up in a good home.
(06:10):
He went to a four-year school,he got out, started working in
construction and after a fewyears of working in construction
he was able to have his ownresidential construction company
and was doing really well, sowell that he was able to take a
ski vacation out west with somefriends.
And while he was out there hehad an accident.
(06:31):
I can't remember exactly whattype of injury that he had, but
it was bad enough.
He had to go see a physicianafter he'd gotten back home.
And it was even worse in thefact that he had to take some
very powerful pain meds to dealwith this injury.
It put him out of work, it puthim by himself, and many of us
(06:52):
have probably been in thissituation or know someone who's
been there.
His addiction to the pain medsand addiction to alcohol started
to spin his life out of controlto the point where he was
eventually homeless and wasliving for his next fix.
And I'll never forget, as he wastelling me this story, he says
(07:13):
I never thought something likethis would happen to someone
like me.
We have to be very careful whenwe say that something will
never, ever happen to us or thatcould never happen to me,
because it certainly could.
And when we read biblicalaccounts like the one that we
have here, with the actions ofJudas and the disciples, we need
to be very careful to not thinkthat we are not capable of
(07:36):
doing something like this.
If we have any doubt of ourcapabilities to be a Judas,
think of all the things thatwere afforded him.
He was one of the twelve.
As we see here in this passage,jesus chose him to be a
disciple.
After a night of praying overthis decision, he was personally
taught by Jesus for three yearsand, to put it here in our
(07:58):
faith Presbyterian terms, he waspart of Jesus' grace group.
He witnessed Jesus' miracles.
He served as treasurer of thetwelve.
He had been in the upper roomwith Jesus just a few short
hours before, where he had dinedwith Jesus, and Jesus had
washed His feet before they ate.
(08:18):
And by piecing together thedifferent parts of the Gospel we
get a clearer picture ofperhaps what's going on with
Judas that led him up to thismoment, as we see in the Gospel
of John.
In John 12, we see at Mary'sanointing of Jesus' feet that
Judas is appalled by this.
He says you know, this is 300days wages.
This was basically $15,000 thatcould have been spent on
(08:43):
feeding the poor.
In other words, thousanddollars that could have been
spent on feeding the poor.
In other words, he's saying isJesus really isn't worth it?
And we know from otherscriptures that Judas was taking
from the coffers for himself.
And he became so disillusionedwith Jesus that right after that
anointing of Jesus' feet byMary, he goes out to the chief
priest to see what he can getfor Jesus and said Mary, he goes
(09:05):
out to the chief priest to seewhat he can get for Jesus and
we'll give you 30 pieces ofsilver and put that in today's
term, we'll give you 250 bucksfor Jesus, and this is what
Judas does.
It's almost as though Judas hasbecome disillusioned with Jesus
and who he is.
He's running a program that Idon't like.
His kingdom is not what I havein mind, and this is a fire sale
(09:27):
.
I need to get out of him what Ican while the getting is still
good.
So he sells him out to the highpriest.
And because Judas had walked soclosely with Jesus, he knew
exactly where he could be found.
He could be found praying.
And to add insult to injury, heidentifies Jesus with a kiss.
(09:49):
We may be asking ourselves well, why does he do this?
Well, we're going to see thatthere's a big, huge crowd, the
disciples are whipped up into afroth, there's a lot of
confusion and he wanted to makesure that they got the right guy
.
He couldn't just go, walk up tothe disciples as they're
praying and point it out,because there may be some
confusion and they may get thewrong guy.
He says I'm going to show youwho he is by going up and giving
(10:11):
him a kiss.
And to that, insult to injury,this kiss was a common greeting
amongst Jesus and his disciples.
It was a show of intimateaffection, and this is what
Judas uses to point him out.
It reminds me of a story ofseveral years ago, when I and a
(10:32):
bunch of my friends recentlygraduated.
I had one friend who hadstarted dating a girl.
They had developed an affinityfor this one particular
restaurant they liked to go tofor special occasions, for
birthdays and to celebrateanniversaries and all this stuff
, and eventually he came to thepoint where he wanted to break
up with her.
He just didn't feel like it wasgoing anywhere.
(10:52):
But where does he take her togo break up with her other than
their favorite restaurant?
What Judas does here isinfinitely worse than that.
With this display of affection,a way in which they have
greeted one another throughoutthese three years, this is the
means that he uses to betray theSon of God.
(11:13):
And while the disciples weren'tbetraying Jesus in the way that
Judas did, they demonstratedtheir own lack of trust in Jesus
.
Remember that while Jesus waspraying, the disciples were
sleeping and Jesus was warningto them and said you need to
pray, you need to see that youneed to depend upon God for His
(11:35):
sustaining power over you,otherwise you're going to be led
into temptation, you're goingto be tempted to cling to your
own devices.
And that same attitude, thisself-sufficiency, showed itself
when the crowd came up and theycame and took their swords.
And they came and asked Jesus,should we come and defend you
(11:56):
here?
And before Jesus can evenanswer them, peter comes along
and chops off the servant of thehigh priest's ear and, as we
will see again soon, jesus is incontrol of the situation, but
the disciples aren't doing Himany favors.
Jesus has come to bring peace,but the disciples had fallen
(12:18):
into temptation.
I think the question we have toask ourselves is how do we
misrepresent Jesus in our ownfashions?
I think about the number ofblack eyes the church has
received through the years,trying to impose Christianity on
people through force andlegislation, and those are too
many to count.
But the power that we possessas Christ's church is through
(12:44):
the Word, it's through the powerof the Spirit, it's through
service, it's throughdeclaration, it's allowing Jesus
to be Jesus, allowing God to beGod.
And we see Jesus doing thatvery thing here by willingly
laying down His life for Hissheep, with this arrest and
betrayal which will lead to Histrial, death and resurrection.
(13:07):
God's kingdom is not like ours.
As such, our hope is not to befound in ourselves and the power
that we possess, but to befound in Jesus.
As we see here, through Judasand we see through the disciples
, we cannot be trusted.
We will mess things up, we willdestroy our lives apart from
(13:28):
Jesus, we will ruin our witness.
We will destroy our lives apartfrom Jesus, we will ruin our
witness, we will be poorrepresentatives of Christ.
But what we see here is we seethree things that we can count
on, that we can hang our hat onwith Jesus, and the first one is
Jesus' control.
The second one is Jesus' heartand the third one is Jesus'
purpose, with a major leaguebaseball season heart.
(13:55):
And the third one is Jesus'purpose, with the Major League
Baseball season having justbegun.
A few days ago I saw a video ofan interview that was done
recently by Eddie Perez.
He's a former catcher of theAtlanta Braves.
During a large portion of histime with the Braves he was the
personal catcher for Greg Maddox.
Greg Maddox I know it'ssomewhat debatable, but you
(14:16):
could easily put him in the topfive greatest pitchers of all
time.
He didn't have overpoweringstuff.
He never really threw it intothe 90s, but he was so, so smart
and Eddie Perez tells us onestory about when they were
playing the Houston Astros.
It was a blowout game.
They were winning eight tonothing.
And Jeff Bagwell another futureHall of Famer power hitting
(14:37):
first baseman comes up to theplate and the scouting report
they had decided on before thegame is is we're not going to
pitch him inside, we're going tothrow everything outside.
Well, they're winning eight tonothing.
Greg Maddox calls a timeout.
He calls Eddie Perez to come up.
He says I'm going to give thisguy an inside fastball.
And Eddie Perez is thinkingwhat in the world are you
(14:59):
thinking?
He's going to kill it?
And he said to himself he saidwell, it's your game, so sure
enough.
Greg Maddox goes back to themound, he throws an inside
fastball and Jeff Bagwell hitsit 1,000 miles.
He gives it up.
So, anyway, they finally getout of the inning, they go
walking off the field and EddiePerez came up to him and says
(15:20):
what in the world were youthinking?
He says hey, we're a good team,they're a good team, we're
probably going to face them inthe playoffs.
And what we need to do is weneed to set ourselves up to win
a playoff game when it reallymatters.
Sure enough, three months later,bases are loaded.
They're playing the HoustonAstros.
(15:41):
Greg Maddox is up on the mound,eddie Perez is behind the plate
.
Bases are loaded two outs.
It's the bottom of the seventhinning.
Greg Maddox throws him threeinside change-ups, three-pitch
strikeout on Jeff Bagwell.
They come walking off.
Greg Maddox gets Eddie Perez'sattention hey, you remember that
(16:03):
game three months ago?
And Eddie Perez says I'dtotally forgotten about it.
He said this is what I had inmind.
And Ed Perez says I'd totallyforgotten about it.
He said this is what I had inmind.
This is what Jesus is doing and, to use today's vernacular,
jesus is playing chess wheneveryone else is playing
checkers.
While a surface reading of thisaccount would believe that
(16:24):
Jesus has lost control in hisbetrayal and arrest, he's every
bit as controlled as he's everbeen in the midst of this.
And to get a broader contextagain, I think the Gospel of
John adds so much color toLuke's account of this.
We see Jesus and the disciplesin the upper room In John 13,.
Jesus looks at Judas and sayswhatever you must do, go, do it
(16:47):
quickly.
He knows what's going on and hetells hey, go and do it.
Whatever you have to do go anddo it quickly.
And as soon as he leaves theroom, the door closed.
Jesus looks at His disciples.
Now is the Son of man glorifiedand God is glorified in Him.
If God is glorified in Him, godwill also glorify Him in
Himself and glorify Him at once.
(17:09):
This is Jesus' hour.
The time of his death had come.
The next we see Jesus' controlover the crowd.
If we go back and look at theGospels, we see where the crowd
is often used as a bufferbetween Jesus and the religious
leaders that want to kill Him.
(17:30):
He eases into the crowd, heuses the crowd for His purposes
until His hour has come, untilit was time for Him to die.
And not only that, but he wouldalso use the crowds as an
opportunity to teach, to showcompassion, to heal and to feed.
But this time the crowd isdifferent.
Compassion to heal and to feed,but this time the crowd is
(17:52):
different.
This time we see Jesus handinghimself over to the crowd and
this posse of sorts had come toarrest him.
Why?
Because his hour had now come.
And then we see another levelof Jesus' control over the
situation in verses 52 and 53.
When it says Jesus said to thechief priests and the officers
of the temple and the elders whohad come out against Him.
(18:13):
Have you come out as against arobber with swords and clubs?
When I was with you day afterday in the temple, you did not
lay hands on Me.
But this is your hour, thepower of darkness.
What Jesus is telling me isthis the only reason you're
coming to arrest me now isbecause I'm letting you.
Day after day, I was in yourtemple.
(18:36):
What you see is what you get.
I was speaking truth.
You had opportunity to take methen in broad daylight.
Now you're like a bunch ofkeystone cops or barney fife
coming here at night with clubsand swords, thinking that this
is what you've got to do inorder to be able to take me.
They just here.
You've got me, I'm the onethat's in control.
(19:00):
This is what he's saying is.
The only reason you'rearresting me now is because I'm
letting you All this other stuff.
You coming here at nightbringing clubs and swords,
treating me like a robber.
You know better than that.
I'm letting you do this.
It's very easy for us to look atour lives and the world around
us and think that everything isout of control, but in God's
(19:23):
kingdom.
Not everything is, as it seems,not on the surface.
Indeed, part of the answer tothe first question of the
Heidelberg Catechism is what isour only comfort in life and in
death?
And part of that answer is thathe preserves me in such a way
that, without the will of myheavenly Father, not a hair can
(19:43):
fall from my head.
Indeed, all things must worktogether for my salvation.
Jesus is in control of thissituation and he's working in
and through it for the glory ofhis father and for the good of
our salvation.
Next thing, as we see Jesus'sheart, if you've seen the movie
(20:06):
Private Ryan, you remember thatone of the first scenes that we
see in that movie is you see agroup of soldiers on a Higgins
boat going across the oceangetting ready to make the
landing on the beach at Normandy.
And one of the things I'llnever forget about watching that
movie is there's not a wholelot of chatter on that boat.
(20:26):
Everybody is stone cold.
Still, there's no one that istalking, and really the only
thing that you can hear is youhear the drones of the boat's
motor in the background, asthese group of young men knowing
that many of them will soon die.
Is that not how we all are insimilar situations?
Maybe not that extreme, butwe're in the waiting room
(20:50):
waiting on a loved one who ishaving life-saving surgery.
There's not a lot of chatterSitting in the library moments
before a big exam, waiting inyour car in the parking lot
before a big interview, sittingin the locker room before a big
game.
When we face situations likethat, stressful situations, our
(21:11):
tendency is to turn inward andshut out the rest of the world
around us.
Not so with Jesus, as we havealready seen.
He knows His hour is at hand.
Last week we saw how this greatmoment of tension, even to the
point of Him shedding blood,sweating blood Jesus was turning
(21:32):
His thoughts towards the Fatherand His will.
And then he turns His attentionto the disciples, exhorting
them to pray so that they mightnot fall into temptation.
And as His crowd, this mob, isstanding upon Him.
We see in verse 47 that he isstill turning His attention
towards the disciples.
As I think about my own sinfulself and again take this for
(21:56):
what it's worth, trying to putmyself into Jesus' shoes.
And I knew what was about tohappen, that I was about to be
arrested.
I'd be off in a corner bymyself, but we see Jesus' heart
and His heart for the Father.
We see His heart for His people.
And then we also see Jesus'heart and how he addresses Judas
(22:17):
in verse 48.
Judas, would you betray the Sonof man with a kiss?
It's impossible to overstatethe weightiness of this
statement.
Jesus refers to him as Judas.
He doesn't refer to him as aturncoat, as a traitor, you spy,
(22:40):
you spawn a Satan.
He uses his name to address himand then, with the name that
Jesus attributes to himself isespecially significant.
He doesn't use the word me,would you betray me?
But he uses the Son of man.
There's no shortage of inkthat's been spilled over what
(23:02):
this term means, but it was thedesignation that Jesus used to
refer to Himself as the Son ofGod, to refer to Him and to His
deity, that he is God, no less.
It's this phrase that was usedin the in daniel's dream in
(23:22):
daniel 7 that we heard jasonpreach back in october of last
year.
Again, it's a name that jesusused in reference to himself,
more than any other name, torefer to his deity, his power
and his dominion.
And what the weightiness ofthis is is that Jesus is looking
at Judas and said Judas, areyou really going to betray God?
(23:48):
And we see Jesus' heart furtherin Peter in 2 Peter 3.9.
Peter, who was there in thebusiness of chopping off
people's ears during this time,says this in his second epistle
in chapter 3.9.
It says the Lord is not slow tofulfill His promise, as some
count slowness, but is patienttoward you, not wishing that any
(24:12):
should perish, but that allshould reach repentance.
And this is what Jesus is doing.
I'm giving you the weightiestquestion I can possibly give you
.
And what this shows is itdemonstrates just how
spiritually dead Judas was, andthis should sober us up and it
(24:34):
should frighten us.
We also see his heart in thehealing of the high priest's
servant, in reattaching his earthat had been chopped off by
Peter.
It was a foreshadowing of thehealing that he provides through
His life, death andresurrection.
And what we see here is that,even in the midst of His darkest
(24:55):
hour, we see Jesus' heart.
We see His heart for His Father, we see His heart for His
disciples.
We even see His own heart inHis words to Judas and that he
would repent.
Indeed, we see the gentle andlowliness of His heart in this
passage that he did not come forHimself but came to serve and
willingly give Himself as aransom for many.
(25:15):
Look at what Jesus is steppinginto.
It's a zoo and he ran headlonginto it.
And, as Dane Ortlund says inhis book, gentleman Lowly, he is
not any more repulsed by yoursin than the sickness repels a
parent away from going andcaring for their child.
The reason he came into thisworld is to address our sin and
(25:41):
to save us from it, which leadsus to the third purpose, jesus'
purpose.
One of the many blessings thatwe have here at Faith are the
number of children that the Lordhas put under a care.
We are reminded of this throughthe number of baptisms that we
have on a regular basis, throughthe communicants that come up
(26:04):
to claim Jesus as their ownthrough their profession of
faith.
As we pray privately andcorporately for these children,
it's our prayer that they wouldgrow to live a ripe old age,
that they would discover theirtalents and gifts that God has
given them to be a blessing toHis church and to the world
around them, that they would getmarried, that they would have
(26:27):
other covenant children andthose children would have
children and those childrenwould have children, and that
they would live to a ripe oldage.
Jesus' purpose, on the otherhand, was not to live a life
that we pray for for ourchildren and a vision for them,
but it was to die, to dieintentionally and purposely.
(26:50):
He tells His disciples to cutout their plan of the defense
for two reasons.
First is that he must die and,as we saw in Luke 22 and even
more explicitly in Matthew 26,in this account God's Word must
be fulfilled.
I'm here to do this becausethis is what I came to do, this
(27:14):
is my purpose.
And then, not only that, he hadto be perfect, he had to be
above reproach.
And what's going on right here,and why Jesus is telling them
to cut this out, is I'm no rebelrouser, and if you go on with
your silly little games, withyour clubs and your swords and
this sort of thing going tofight for me, you're going to
give them reason to draw me upon charges, and we know Jesus
(27:39):
could never sin.
But what he's doing is he'sgetting control of this crowd so
that he could be above reproach, so that he wouldn't have
anything attached to Him, anysort of a stigma, so that he
could indeed go before His trialand to be tried and to go and
be the Lamb without sin, withoutspot, without blemish.
(28:06):
I had a friend that went on amission trip to Africa many
years ago.
I can't remember exactly whichcountry it was, but they went
way back off the beaten path andthey brought a generator and a
projector and they were going togo show these people a Jesus
video.
As many of you know, the Jesusvideo was very popular back in
(28:27):
the 90s and it was basically adepiction of the gospel of Luke
and they showed it to this tribeand after they got to the end
of the movie, this Jesus video,everybody was crying their
eyeballs out and themissionaries who were there
thinking, oh, my goodness, we'vegot a mass conversion here,
there's a revival that's goingon here with this tribe.
(28:48):
But as they sat down and theystarted having a follow up with
them, is that the reason theywere crying was because this
innocent man had been killed.
They hadn't come to grips withtheir sin, they didn't know why
this man had been killed.
And what I can say to you isthis as we get closer to Easter
and we read these accounts yes,it is sad, but don't cry for
(29:12):
Jesus.
Lament your sin.
Lament your sin that broughtHim there, that brought Him to
this earth to come and die.
See in yourself the propensityto be a Judas, to be one of the
disciples.
Lament that.
Weep over that, a godly sorrowthat brings repentance.
(29:36):
Pray for that and then look toJesus, the one who is in control
, the one who has a heart foryou and the one who gave himself
for you.
Let us pray, lord in heaven.
We thank you for your Son,jesus Christ, and how you hold
(29:59):
this world in your hand.
There is nothing going on,nothing that has ever gone on,
that's outside of your control.
And, lord, we thank you for howJesus was in control of this
situation, how he used Hiscontrol to give His life as a
ransom for many.
Lord, we pray now that youwould prepare us to come and to
(30:21):
meet with Him around this table.
These elements have beenprovided so that we may be
strengthened in our faith tolean more and more into Him.
We pray all these things inJesus' name, amen.
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