Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Well, my name is Dean Anon, and if we still haven't met, I'm the discipleship pastor here at Village Church. So I'll be right down here afterwards. I'd love to meet you and get to know who you are. And so, yes, all good things come to an end. This is the fourth and final part of our four part series called Red Lines and Red Lines. It's an idiom. We're we're talking about this line, this boundary, really, that sometimes you and I decide not to pass it. It could be, uh, something, a line where we feel there's too much discomfort or maybe there's loss or something we have to give up that we don't wanna give up. It's not the other side. But in this, uh, series, uh, in John, we're using John chapter 12 through 14. We've been in different parts of that. We'll continue to do that.
Speaker 1 00:00:48 What we're doing is we're approaching these red lines as a line of obedience, something that Jesus is on the other side, and he's calling us to and past that red line. And he says, you can trust me. Jesus says, you can trust me. Why? Because he's trustworthy. We don't just trust anybody, right? We, we trust who is trustworthy and because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we know he is trustworthy. So the question that we've been using on and on throughout this, uh, series often is this question, what stands between you and Jesus? When you think about these, these red lines and what keeps you from crossing that line? But the beginning of this sermon, let me just throw out a couple things. First of all, it might be Jesus just trusting Jesus for salvation. Maybe you can't say that yet today. Maybe you're, you're wondering about that There's this red line of salvation, something that might be holding you back, where you're not willing yet to come to Jesus for forgiveness of sins.
Speaker 1 00:01:47 For some it might be that sometimes what we see around the world in churches today is people in ministry, doing ministry. And it looks like this. Look at Matthew chapter seven on the screen there, verse 21. And this is a warning that Jesus gives. He says this, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did not we prophecy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name. And then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. What a way to start a sermon <laugh>. This isn't quite the Jesus of the holding the little lambs and the blessing the children.
Speaker 1 00:02:38 Is it? Yes, this is the same Jesus, because out of love, he wants us to take a look and understand that a saving relationship in Jesus Christ is never about coming to Jesus for what you want and then doing what you want. It's about always coming to Jesus, Jesus for what you need, which is forgiveness of sins and eternal life. And then doing as this verse says, the will of the Father. Isn't that beautiful? You know, the, the idea of a, of a fence or of a fence sitting Christian at least the way, playing it out now about mere affection and knowledge of Jesus. That's no Christianity at all. So what stands today between you and Jesus? Have you crossed the red line of faith? Well, sometimes you have some, some people have crossed the red line of faith and they're, they're believing in Jesus, but they feel stuck.
Speaker 1 00:03:32 They almost feel like they're glued to their seat and they can't move. They're for some reason. But you know that Jesus is calling you to that next step of obedience, whatever it is, but you still feel stuck, not able to move. And there's some tension, there's a challenge. And it's a good place to be when you feel it. Sometimes. It's, uh, what can stand between us and Jesus is this idea of power and greed. We'll see more of that today. When me, Mr. Beaver said this, <laugh>. Yeah, I said, Mr. Beaver, from the pulpit, uh, the reason there's no use looking said Mr. Beaver, is that we know already where he is gone. Everyone's stared in amazement. Don't you understand? Said Mr. Beaver, he's gone to her, to the white witch. He has betrayed us all. Who's this betrayer, as some of you know who this is, it's Edmond Pcy and Edmond.
Speaker 1 00:04:26 He's this young boy in CS Lewis' story, the lion in the witch in the wardrobe. Some of you love it, some of you don't like it so much. But what Edmond is known for is his greed. And he's known for this, this hunger for power, really. But he's also known for betraying his siblings. He betrayed his siblings over to this evil character, this antagonist, the white witch. And where we're going today along those lines is, is just this idea, this idea of betrayer believer or both. And so we're gonna be in John chapter 13. We've been in parts of that. Looking at it today, it's a little different angle, John 13, 10 through 30. Not all of it, but that's our primary text. We'll be there. Then we'll go other places, then we'll come back for sure. Uh, we're gonna examine and unpack this and look at Judas, Peter, Jesus, and then us.
Speaker 1 00:05:20 Now I wanna set the scene. John chapter 13. This is the Passover. It's Jesus', uh, last Passover here on earth. And, and it's his last supper in the upper room. And he had already told the disciples, we heard this some weeks earlier. We already told the disciples, he told them, my deaths about to come. It is coming. They should know this, absolutely. And this time when we're in verse or chapter 13, we see Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. That's interesting because in that day, even Hebrew slaves weren't required necessarily to wash the feet. That's how low of a job this was to wash the feet of the guests. But Jesus did that to all of them. He demonstrated exceptional love and humility. So now as we get up to verses 10 and 11, we see in verse 10 and 11, Jesus has already washed the feet.
Speaker 1 00:06:12 We see that Judas is labeled as a betrayer. Even back in verse two of this same chapter, Jesus has already called a betrayer many other places in the gospel of John. John loves to call Judas the betrayer. And verse 10 says this, and this is Jesus responding to Peter. He says, the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean and you are clean, but not every one of you. For he knew who was to betray him. That was why he said, not all of you are clean. Now, in verse 10, when Jesus said, not every one of you are clean. And then in verse 11, Jesus also says, not all of you're clean is referring to Judas. Judas who has not been converted. He has not gone past the want to what he really needs in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 00:07:01 And yet, Peter, he does say about Peter, you are clean more on those two later. I wanna get back to those two. But Jesus knew who his betrayer was and he called him the devil in verse two. Well, so Jesus, in all of this is still completely in control. And we get to verses 18 and 19. These are two of my favorite verses in this entire chapter. And so sometimes I think they're kind of overlooked. So let's look at verses 18 through 19. Because Jesus here is speaking of his betrayal. Who's going to that? He'll be murdered later by the officials. And here Jesus is singling out ju Judas. Now remember where we are, context, sometimes they say in interpreting scripture, context is king, right? So it's just a, just a phrase. But what's happening here, remember, is the last supper, the table, the bread with friends and the cup.
Speaker 1 00:07:55 All this is happening. Now, verse 18, Jesus is speaking. He says, I'm not speaking to all of you. I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me. I'm telling you all this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you will believe that I am He. Uh, just as an aside here, this phrase lifted his heel against me is important. It's, it's a sign of contempt in that day. All right, so, so, so what is this about first, the beginning of verse 18, as he's speaking, Jesus is saying this, I know of whom I have chosen. I know whom I've chosen. He's saying I'm in charge. That's what the point is. Here I am in charge. Yeah, I I know it's Judas. I know he's the betrayer. I chose him for this task.
Speaker 1 00:08:43 It is my plan. A, you know what's interesting is you and I, we might have a plan, a plan B and a plan C. Jesus always has one plan. <laugh> it's plan A, it's will of the Father, it will always happen. It's plan A. That's it. This is his plan. He's in charge. It's not a mistake that he chose Judas. He's in charge number two. It's, he's also saying, here's you get in the second part of verse 18, in through 19, he's saying, you can believe this plan and you can believe in me. What's about to unfold? Believe me where it says this, but the scripture will be, see that fulfilled. What's that about? When you go back to a psalm of David, Psalm 41 will have it on the screen. Psalm 41 verse nine, David, this is one of his psalms. He says this, even my close friend in whom I trusted who I ate, who ate my bread, has lifted.
Speaker 1 00:09:37 Here it is, has lifted his heel against me. See, king David is pointing back to a very sad time in his life. It goes back to, you can find it in Second Samuel verse 16. And on, you can see this character named Hth. Say that 10 times, please. Hth Heth sat at the king's table at King's. They were close. He was a counselor of his. He loved the hit othal. But Hth betrayed King David. He shared bread with him, one of his trusted friends. And now in Psalm 41, 19, we see the foreshadowing of what we see in our scripture today instead of King David. It's Jesus. And instead of the hth, hell, it's Judas. And Jesus is telling all this stuff in verses 18 and 19 on purpose. So that when he is betrayed, they'll see that like what happened to King David is happening now to him.
Speaker 1 00:10:32 Why? Again? Because they want, he wants them to believe in him. Once this happens, they'll see the truth of who he really is. So let's look again, just even verse nine says, I'm or 19 I'm, I am telling you now. So before this takes place, what does take place? You may believe in me as Messiah. So we have Judas who's part of the plan where Jesus will be betrayed and sacrificed as the lamb of God. This is the last time that a lamb will ever need to be sacrificed. And this time it's Jesus cuz Jesus's deal here is to take care of all the sins of this evil and fallen world at the cross. He will be the one who takes care of it. And he's saying these things in this verse 19 and even earlier, so that they will believe, remember the book of John? You might, you might know this, the Book of John chapter 20, verse 31 talks about why John wrote this again. So that people will believe so that you may believe that Jesus is the crisis son of God. And that by believing you may have life in his name. If you're taking notes, that's John 20 verse 31. All right. Next, all what I wanna do is spend some time talking about Judas, talking about Peter. Cause oftentimes in this passage, people that those two guys come to mind, betrayer, believer or both.
Speaker 1 00:11:55 So when we talk about betrayal, we have to be honest about how much that hurts, right? If you've ever been betrayed, some of us may be more than others, some of us even right now. But when we talk about Judas and his betrayal, oftentimes we do think about Peter because we remember that Peter denied Jesus three times publicly while Jesus was on trial. And, and Jesus predicted this up in, in chapter 13, towards the end, Jesus says this truly, truly, he's saying this to Peter, truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. And then in John chapter 18, we see that Peter actually denied Jesus. So Peter denied his rabbi. And so sometimes, you know, earlier I was, when I was looking at this, yet again, I was thinking, okay, here we go. We have Peter denied Jesus.
Speaker 1 00:12:47 Okay, that's kind of bad, but Judas betrayed Judi. Jesus. The funny thing is, there's, there's something a little off here. I was at, at preaching prep with some of the other people on our staff. And, and one of the, uh, few weeks ago, one of the pastors pointed out to me, what a betrayal this was by Peter to his rabbi. Because if you go back in time and look at relationships between Jewish rabbis and their disciples, the disciples were all in for their rabbis to publicly, let alone private, but to publicly deny your rabbi was about the worst slap you could do publicly to anybody. Horrible thing Jesus went through. This really hurt. So we can say Peter betrayed his rabbi, he betrayed the master. It's an awful thing. Just think of the pain Jesus felt, and he did. And now comparing and contrasting these two, I wanna look at Judas and Peter, and we're gonna look at some similarities and then some of the differences. And, and really we're gonna look at how they viewed Jesus. And then we're gonna look at, um, their interaction. Again, we're looking at this, this spectrum of these two and the believer, or the betrayer believer or both, and kind of wanna look at where they fall in this. And you might say, Dean, it sounds like you're going a little theologically off rocker here, because I think what you're trying to say here is that are you saying by looking at the works and what they've done, that you can determine whether they're a believer or not?
Speaker 1 00:14:19 Let me read this instead. Let me go to what the Apostle Paul says, because what he says is directly from God. And, and he's talking about a, a saving faith. A saving faith in Jesus shows evidence perfect life. Oh no, of course not. But look what he says in set in Corinthians 13, five, examine yourselves. The apostle says, remember, this is out of love. Examine yourselves. Examine here literally means that it's, it's like our word examined. It's it's testing to make sure of something. That's exactly what it is to see whether you are in the faith. Meaning, are you a believer in the Messiah, a true believer test yourselves, or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail to meet the test. Paul saying, the content of our lives are very lives and our actions will be perfectly known, but we'll be in harmony, a trajectory towards Jesus and our faith in Christ.
Speaker 1 00:15:15 So now I know that's, that's rough sometimes, but we need to examine ourselves. Let's look at this a little bit deeper. I wanna point out some common things. We'll put a little mini list on the screen here. Some of the similarities that they had, these two men between them, Judas and Peter, one of the things, they were Jewish, which meant a lot because culturally they kind of un understood things. The same through the Hebrew scriptures. They kind of understood that they were taught by the rabbi. Jesus for three years certainly spent years together in ministry, arm and arm, beautiful time. It must have been saw miracles, saw Jesus forgiving people who trusted in him over and over again, going to the lepers, all raising Lazarus from the dead. All these things. He saw these miracles together. Both these men, Judas and Peter and many others who loved him.
Speaker 1 00:16:05 They ate together with Jesus. This is the third Passover. They were together in Jesus' public ministry. And he, he washed Jesus, washed their feet. Both of these men, they had that in common. They also had this commonality of betraying Jesus. But then here's what I wanna look at. They were also broken. The last one, they were both broken, broken men. They both expressed remorse. We see that in Matthew chapter 27, verse five, I have it up there. It says, then when Judas, his betrayer, the betrayer of Jesus, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priest and the elders saying, I have sined by betraying innocent blood. That's remorse. Matthew chapter 26 talks about Peter, how Peter looked at it and Peter remembered the saying of Jesus earlier, Jesus has said this to predicted this to Peter before the rooster crows. You will deny me three times. And he went out. It says Peter and he wept. Doesn't say that. It says he wept bitterly. He was torn up full of remorse. They're both filled with sorrow. Both did ministry with the Rabbi Jesus, years and years. And yet they betrayed him. And they felt horrible about it. But if we dig deeper, if we go a little deeper, there's a sha sharp, uh, distinct clear difference between these two as to whether or not they were in the faith or not.
Speaker 1 00:17:42 So betrayers, believers, or both. Let's look at the contrast differences. A couple things between these two men. One is their relationship with Jesus very different. And then second response to their remorse was also very different. Those two things. First, the relationship. Remember that Judas and Peter three years together, right? Doesn't necessarily mean that Judas was in the faith. Remember Matthew seven headed up there earlier at the beginning, Matthew seven. Uh, some are gonna say something like this along these lines, Hey, Jesus, look what I've done. Look at the many mighty works in your name. I've done, and Jesus will reply, I never knew you depart from me. See, doing ministry doesn't make us Christians. It's a response to being a Christian, but it doesn't make us a Christian. Judas never had this relationship or a saving relationship with Jesus. You know, I think that what Judas may have been doing is looking at Jesus as the new c e o startup of something great in all Judea, something, uh, beautiful, something amazing, exciting, intriguing, unique, just the power.
Speaker 1 00:19:00 He showed the miracles he was working and Judas is hitching his wagon to that. He's hitching his wagon to that. But clearly we see as it moves on and the story goes, we see that greed was his God. He betrayed him, as we saw earlier, for 30 pieces of silver. And Judas has even described as a devil. And Satan entered him. Look at John chapter six, verse 70 on the screen that says, Jesus answered them. Did you not? Did I not choose you? The 12. And yet one of you, he's referring to Judas is a devil. And then in our passage today, verse 27, John 1327, then after he had taken the Mor soul, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, what you're going to do do quickly, you see these, these descriptors along with the rest of scripture show something very different in their relationship with Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 00:19:56 What about Peter? That was Judas. Now, Peter's relationship with Jesus, I love this back in John chapter six, we'll have it on the screen. Jesus was teaching about personal faith. Now this is where the, the, the crowds are. And Jesus is talking about faith and atonement and that it's not your work, but it's the work of God. And all these, even these really hard teachings, the crowd was hearing in John six. And the crowd is having difficulty taking this in. The crowd has decided to give up following Jesus. And so John chapter six, verse 66 says this, after this, after what? After that hard teaching that they heard many of his disciples, meaning those in the crowd who were following him up to that point, no longer walked with him, they just turned away. It's too much. That's it. We're out. Verse 67 says this.
Speaker 1 00:20:47 So Jesus said to the 12th, do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. I love these verses. If, if we've prayed together, maybe personally, you've probably heard me say this more than once. I love these words, Lord, whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life so beautiful along with the holy one of God. What a confession. So Peter, I think is saying three things in these few short verses. One is, he's saying this, I'm sticking with you, Jesus. There goes the crowds, they're going their way, but I'm sticking with you. Maybe you're younger and uh, or college age or before and earlier, maybe high school, maybe middle school.
Speaker 1 00:21:31 You know, the crowd goes one way. Peter here is saying, no, Jesus, I'm gonna go your way. Jesus. Second is, I think that Peter here is being very clear about he wants truth, but he knows it's a need. It's more than a want because it's eternal life. He knows that Jesus gives, he knows he's seen him forgive people sin. He knows he's a sin. He knows he needs forgiveness of sin. He's going because Jesus has truth. He's sticking with him and he wants this eternal life. He knows that is actually his real need. The motivation here is about truth and eternal life, not about His mere wants. Third, I think when he says the holy one of God, this is certainly a clear confession that per Peter is saying that you are the Messiah. The one sent the holy and anointed one. This is clearly a confession of faith.
Speaker 1 00:22:25 So Judas and Peter, their motivation about the relationship were different. It's it's power versus truth. It's want versus need. It's greed versus God. It's all these things. But there was no relationship basis Judas, on Jesus. And over time it just showed it was different. What stood between those two? What was the red line between Judas and, and Jesus? We could simply put greed if nothing else to fill in the blank. He never moved from his want to the need he had for his savior ever. That was his red line. So another contrast that was talking about the relationship, we're talking about contrasts talk about relationship or relationship. Let's talk about something else, a second point. And that's their response to their remorse over the fact they betrayed Jesus. And this is big. We saw earlier that both men were broken, right? Both men had remorse.
Speaker 1 00:23:22 They didn't like what they had done. I think it was Judas over greed. It was probably Peter over fear, not wanting to go through the same thing that Judas Jesus was going through. Here's something important though. Their brokenness, over their betrayal led them in different directions because of their relationship or not relationship. Their brokenness over their betrayal led them in different directions. You know, that broken people, they go towards those they trust, right? Because they're vulnerable, right? If you ever been broken, then you know that you can only go towards people you could trust because you're so vulnerable and, and you can only trust people who are trustworthy or you have a close relationship with. So one in our story ran in despair. The other ran back towards Jesus. Now with ju with Judas. And what he did with his remorse, I don't want to go into to detail really, but in Matthew chapter 27, verse five, we see that Judas hanged himself out of despair.
Speaker 1 00:24:22 He had no hope cuz he had no Jesus, he had no hope, cuz he had no relationship with Jesus at all. And certainly he had no repentance. But Peter's response to remorse was different because of the relationship. He returned in repentance to Jesus. He was reconciled and then reinstated beautifully, beautifully. You know, after the resurrection, Jesus confronted Peter, right? Do you remember that? Peter con <laugh>. Peter was confronted by Jesus like awkward. If you'd have been there and see that, that would've been really hard to see. But Jesus is restoring publicly Peter to ministry three times. He asked him, you might remember this, Jesus, do you love me or Peter, do you love me? And he says, three times, you know that I love you. And so when we, we blow it, this is the same Jesus that we love today. When, when you blow it, when I blow it, and Jesus says this, do you love me more than these?
Speaker 1 00:25:20 You have to fill in the blank. Whatever these are for you. Do you love me more than these? Do you say? And do you respond in repentance? Especially if you have sinned in repentance? Do you say, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. You know that I love you. It's John chapter 21. So what is your these? Maybe you have some of these things that are holding you back from that next step of obedience. Pass the line, whatever it is. You know what it is? I mean, I I, something always comes to my mind and I, yeah, here he goes again. He's talking about food. <laugh> seems like every time I'm up here, I'm talking about, so for me, it's, it's, it seems to be one of the, not so profound maybe, but in another ways profound for me. It's my love relationship with my refrigerator.
Speaker 1 00:26:04 Um, this, it's beautiful. This, uh, I, you know, the light goes on when you open it up and there's a freezer on top and our refrigerator's on the bottom. So I usually have to get on one knee. I'm not worshiping it. I just get down so I can see underneath. But that's true. It's, uh, uh, but I'm there. I'm looking for food or something actually. And my wife Chris will say, Dean, are you hungry? No, she's not condemning me, but it's convicting <laugh>. Dean, are you hungry? Oftentimes the truth is no, I'm not hungry. I'm looking for sola <laugh>. I'm looking for comfort. It's there, isn't it? I think it's not, food is a great thing. I love food. Thank you God for food. But sometimes I just go to it for the wrong reasons. I mean over, that's maybe one of my, these I'm sure you have these and I have many other these.
Speaker 1 00:26:59 The difference in our story today is that one of the men ran in despair and the other returned and repented. That's the difference. What is your these, you know, the result of remorse for a Christian is repentance perfectly. No. That's why we need each other. We need each other's help. Frankly, when we have remorse or grief maybe of something we've done, when we know we've blown it, when we know it's just been bad, we move towards repentance. That's the free offering all the time. Come to Jesus. Every, every time. You know what's interesting is the second Corinthians seven 10 will have it up on the screen there. It's, it's interesting because this passage is very much sounding like Peter and Judas look, it says, for godly grief produces a repentance. Your remorse, godly grief produces repentance That leads to salvation without regret. Whereas worldly grief produces death, spiritual death, for sure.
Speaker 1 00:27:58 Now, if you feel broken today, uh, some of you might feel broken because of your own sin. And some of you might feel broken because of circumstances. You know, it happens, right? Circumstances either way, there's a line there. Move away, deny, run, whatever, or, or move towards Jesus. Come to him. Know that through his supernatural strength, you can cross that line. He comes, even ask him to come across a line of car you across, or even today at the prayer banner or out there in the foyer. I've seen this over and over. Village church. I love this. Brothers and sisters in Christ praying with one another, helping others to cross. Whatever that line is, it's beautiful thing. Come to him. Here's something that's important. I think I would say sometimes, uh, actually probably most of the time, our brokenness is the perfect opportunity for God to give us more of him, more spiritual growth.
Speaker 1 00:28:56 To cross that next red line of obedience to the Savior, to meet your need. And what you need is more of him today trusting in him. What a beautiful thing. All right? So far what we've seen is, uh, Jesus is in charge. Even if his own betrayal talked about that, talked about, um, betrayal hurts, right? Especially if someone close to you. Absolutely true. Third is we compared these two, Judas and Peter's response to their remorse, which was very different. And through it, we examined what a believer looks like, um, and how a believer comes to Jesus. What a believer he or she does with their regret, their remorse, their brokenness. And what do they do? Let's look at this slide.
Speaker 1 00:29:46 Betrayal destroys trust and inflicts and extreme pain, right? Amen to that. Number two hurts even more the closer the relationship. That's true. How about this one breeds bitterness. You know, bitterness is a trap. It will kill you spiritually. Absolutely. Bitterness has a power to rob all of your peace. And, and maybe you're thinking of a time already during this sermon and these passages today, you're already thinking of a time when you've been betrayed. Or, or maybe can you think of a time when you've been betrayed and what's your reaction been? Anger, bitterness, vengeance, revenge, whatever it is. Maybe it was someone in school. Maybe you're in middle school and a friend was a friend, and the next day they're not your friend anymore. And you're wondering why, how about at work? Figuratively speaking, somebody stabbed you in the back. They sent that email out about you about that. Why would they do that? Or maybe a spouse, maybe a spouse has betrayed you and you wonder why. How do we handle these things?
Speaker 1 00:30:52 I wanna talk about handling betrayal next and looking at our scripture. We're gonna be back soon in John chapter 13. But first, our nature. Let's be honest, our nature is what we wanna set things right? Our nature is to repay evil for evil. But the apostle Paul says in chapter 12 of Romans repay, no one evil for evil. As believers we're taught right to do good, to even to those who harm you. No, I'm not talking about abuse as Christians, we don't tolerate abuse <laugh>. We don't, we don't tolerate criminal activity, right? And we also don't tolerate suppressing the truth. Of course not. I'm talking about some other interpersonal type of relationship things and how we deal with them and how the way I wanna take our attitudes right now. Let's try to get our attitudes, our hearts, our actions and all that. We're gonna look at two ways to handle betrayal.
Speaker 1 00:31:47 First of all, the right attitude we're gonna need. And after we're done with that, we're gonna go to right actions. Because when we do these things, we honor God and we move towards physical, spiritual, and emotional healing. All three of those will happen. So right attitude, let's start right away. Look at Psalm again. I love PSMs. Let's go back to Psalm, Psalm 55. David is writing again. And look what he does with the pain in his heart. He's betrayed and, and so many other things awful have happened to him. People trying to kill him. Look what he says. But I call to God and the Lord will save me evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint to God or en moan and he hears my voice. So take your pain to God. That's so important. Number one take, take it to God.
Speaker 1 00:32:36 He's showing. David is showing what it looks like to have faith confidence in God because you have a couple choices, right? You either take your complaints to God, by the way, that's faith. Just so, so we we're clear about that. That's faith when we lament to God. But not going to God is not faith. So for me, maybe it's the refrigerator or take my complaints there, maybe it's Facebook, whatever it is, but is that faith. Second thing of the right attitude is praying for those who've hurt us. Matthew 5 44 says, but I say to you, love your enemies. Jesus is talking and what? And ignore them. No. Pray for those who persecute you. So soak your mind in prayer. You're wondering what to do today. If you're having bitterness towards somebody, do this. Soak your mind in prayer for them. Pray for them, not vengeance.
Speaker 1 00:33:28 Let's add to the prayer. How about forgiveness? Look at Luke 2334. We'll have that up there too. This is Jesus, right? He's been betrayed on justly. He's on the cross. Yet he is willing to forgive anyone who will come to him. He says this, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Do you see this unmatched love, this unmatched beauty, this unmatched grace. I love this. That's the right attitude. It's what we're as believers to shoot for this kind of love. Yeah, it's crazy. You know, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, that means the gospel has changed you, certainly your eternity. But friends, I wanna remind you of this. It's so true. Every day I pretty much preach the gospel to myself. I have to, I have to preach the gospel to myself. Cuz life is hard and, and sometimes people hurt you and you can give the gift of forgiveness to someone else.
Speaker 1 00:34:19 You do not have to hold retribution over them. And you can give a gift to yourself too. And what's that gift to yourself? A grudge free life. I'll let you know a secret. You don't wanna be around me if I'm bitter, if I'm angry, I'm not a nice person to be around and friends, neither are you. <laugh>. If you need help getting over bitterness, talk to somebody about it. Help brothers and sisters through it, cuz it's, it's just weighs us down. It hurts so bad. And as Christians, we, we wanna be filled with joy. It's hard though, isn't it? Sometimes we wanna be filled, filled with joy. We don't wanna be filled with bitterness. So from the right attitude, we talked about to the right actions. Now here's where we're going back to John chapter 13 again. First Jesus, he felt betrayal. Remember it talked about the pain, right?
Speaker 1 00:35:06 That was real pain. Now he's fully divine. We know that Jesus is fully divine. That means he knew all what was coming and he knew who was gonna do it to him. Yet fully human means He felt like you and like me, he felt, he felt the pain. Verse 21 says this in John 13, after saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified truly, truly, I say to you, one of you'll betray me. Make no mistake, make no mistake at all. This, uh, troubled isn't some fancy Greek word here. It means stirred, agitated. He's really troubled. He felt this pain. So he felt the pain. And that's okay. But second, here's the kicker. Despite his pain, he chose to love. That's our response to betrayal. Love at least two ways we see, and I'll just, I'll just pick on what's in our passage today, at least two ways.
Speaker 1 00:36:10 Despite Jesus's emotional pain, he chose to love his betrayer with extreme humility and friendship. Let's start with humility. Now we're we're in John 13, right? This was the foot washing always talk to talk about lowly a job that was to do. Now he knows every single person that he washed the feet there and one of them was Judas. Imagine that for a moment, right? If you haven't thought about that for, just think about it for a moment. You're washing the feet of somebody who's about to go to the officials, to unjustly take you to trial, to murder you, and you don't deserve it. And you're washing that person's feet.
Speaker 1 00:36:50 Yet he did that. And in verse 15, you'll see he's talking about Jesus is setting this example to do this kind of thing, to adopt this kind of attitude of extreme humility, a self-giving servanthood approach. He didn't just show humility only He also showed friendship. And that's the second thing. He showed friendship in some interesting ways. So we'll have to have to look at this. This verse 26 is, is interesting. Jesus answered. Now this is, um, this is Jesus responding to Peter the Apostle. John was kind of nudging in in chapter 13. You'll see he was kind of nudging Peter to saying, Peter, he must have been sitting closer to Jesus. Say, Hey Peter, ask, ask Jesus, who's gonna betray him? And so Jesus here in verse 26, is responding to Peter's request. Jesus answered it. Is he whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it?
Speaker 1 00:37:49 So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. He was the betrayer. Judas was. And so, yes, Jesus is doing this to point out who it was clearly. But there's something else happening here, something that's beneath it. Culturally. If we go back when you dip meat or if you dip, uh, bread or something else and you give it to somebody, that's a sign of friendship. You know, we don't normally do that. It's kind of gross, right? No. Did you wash your hands? You put this hand sanitizer <laugh> you. It's a sign of friendship. It's a sign of honor. Jesus. With this cultural, uh, thing he's doing here, sewing friendship, I, it just kind of blows my mind. This is that crazy upside down kind of kingdom living that Jesus does and teaches as an example to his disciples and to us today. To top it all off though, if you go forward in the book of Matthew, you'll see that when Judas the betrayer brings 600 Roman soldiers, that's a cohort and chief priest and other officials with to finally arrest Jesus. What is, do you remember what Jesus called Judas? He called him his friend. Crazy.
Speaker 1 00:39:10 But handling betrayal in a God-honoring way is something. Friends, we can do supernatural power for sure, but we need to be honest about our pain to get through it, have the right attitude, pray for others, forgive them. Certainly the offender. Act like Jesus in all humility. Sometimes if possible, not always even be friendly, you know, maybe it's toxic and you're unable to, but, but we see what he's teaching us, right? It's not about us. It's about honoring God in all this. And so just a few. So what's, before we leave today? Some things to ponder. The first would be examine yourself. Examine yourself to know that you are a believer in Christ. Maybe you've never come to Christ or you're still kind of feeling on the fence. Don't know about life or God or Jesus, but maybe you're even in ministry. Examine yourself. The apostle Paul said, just examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. He says, test it. Look at the relationship you have with Jesus, your motivation. Why are you even there?
Speaker 1 00:40:16 Now we did examine Judas and Peter. This was the apostle's warning for us, right to everyone. Everyone. He extends his blood. Everyone. He extends forgiveness. Who will come to him. Remember in this, it's about moving from what you want outta Jesus. Jesus, will you fix something for me? He's not your plumber. Uh, he'd probably make a great plumber. He's a great carpenter. Probably make a great plumber too. But I mean, it's not the want, it's the need. And what do we need? We need forgiveness of sins and then we do the will of the Father. So examine yourself. Number two, how about if today you are down or broken and maybe it's even sin, whatever it is, take that step across that red line as we finish this series. What is it? You know, don't give up. Peter didn't give up. Don't give up. If you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, saving relationship, there's nothing holding you back.
Speaker 1 00:41:15 Whatever it is, drop it. Get rid of it, throw it out. Stop watching it. Whatever it is, get rid of it. Come to Jesus Christ. You know, Peter came to Jesus because of his relationship. And if you're saved by the blood of the lamb, Jesus, you have that same relationship with Jesus Christ, come to him. So cross that red line and ask for help if you need it. Third, show the world, the real Jesus that's in you. And love your enemies as Jesus did in all humility and and service. You may not be the best of friends afterwards. You know, some of you can extend that friendship depending on what that relationship looks like. But be like Jesus, not like the world. This is kingdom living. It's completely different. It will change your schools. It will change your family. And literally, please, we always forget this. It feels like start with your family. Start with those in your family. Sometimes it's easier with a neighbor than it is with our own family, isn't it? Start with your family and then from there, move out.
Speaker 1 00:42:22 What helps me to do this is that I realize I'm not God. You know, friends, you're not God either. Amen, <laugh>. And because I'm not God, I don't have to enact ultimate justice. It will come that's on his shoulders. And this, this is so hard because we are living in pain, aren't we? There are time. You might be in a season of a good season that is great, but not all the time. Freedom and joy comes from living like Jesus as hard as it is. But please, today, don't hear this. Don't hear this. Don't take on more guilt today from me. I'm not trying to give you guilt. If you're struggling with the bitterness and the pain, I get it. It is real. Know what Jesus is showing us here. Know his love and come to him with whatever you have. Amen.
