A Night to Remember - Last supper
A Night to Remember; Matthew 26:14-30; nv 10/16/05
OS: 1 An 80 year old couple were having problems remembering things, so they decided to go to their doctor to get checked out to make sure nothing was wrong with them. When they arrived at the doctor’s, they explained to the doctor about the problems they were having with their memory. After checking the couple out, the doctor tells them that they were physically okay but might want to start writing things down and make notes to help them remember things. The couple thanked the doctor and left.
Later that night while watching TV, the old man got up from his chair and his wife asks, "Where are you going?" He replies, "To the kitchen." She asks, "Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?"
He replies, "Sure." She then asks him, "Don’t you think you should write it down so you can remember it?" He says, "No, I can remember that."
She then says, "Well I also would like some strawberries on top. You had better write that down cause I know you’ll forget that." He says, "I can remember that, you want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries." She replies, "Well I also would like whip cream on top. I know you will forget that so you better write it down."
With irritation in his voice, he says, "I don’t need to write that down I can remember that." He then fumes into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes he returns from the kitchen and hands her a plate of bacon and eggs. She stares at the plate for a moment and says, "I knew you should have written it down - You forgot my toast."
-Most of us say we don’t have the memory that we used to have. As you get older, they say, you remember funny things like stories from childhood, but can’t remember what you had for breakfast. Maybe that’s why the Bible tells us to remember things on purpose.
We celebrated a memorial a few moments ago that was instituted by Jesus Himself, and that is our text for this morning. We find Jesus on His final night passing on to His disciples a new memorial that provides meaning to the events to come. Matthew 26:14-30 ( 2, 3, 4, 5 )
6 An event filled with betrayal and commitment, hatred and love, a covenant of promise, and a memorial from what is most common. All rests on the fulfillment of a long work begun in the beginning after the fall – a long work to provide an answer to the most devastating problem of mankind; sin. Truly a night to remember.
Meaningful ideas in the text -
Passover, Lord’s Supper, New Covenant, Forgiveness of Sin, Betrayal
TS] What lessons do we learn from…
I. 7 High Priest – (Inductive)
A. High Priest – representative of rulers…
1. :263 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, 4 and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. 5 “But not during the Feast,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.”
B. This group of people had a lot to loose.
1. Power, Position, Money, etc.
2. 30 pieces of silver? (price of a common slave!) for the Son of God.
C. Maybe this is the lesson – 8 Don’t mistake the value of Jesus for your life. (Don’t sell Him short)
1. Remember – Nothing compares to the greatness of Knowing Christ Jesus.
2. Popularity, Power, Position, Prominence, etc.
TS] Just as Jesus was before them, He is before us!
II. 9 Judas (Inductive)
A. What was going through the mind of Judas?
1. :John 12 4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
2. Could the lesson have something to do with greed? (30 pieces of silver)
3. 10 Matthew 27 3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. 4 “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” “What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.” 5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
B. Lesson – 11 Don’t confuse the things that really matter.
1. Motive? We don’t know – but we do know he was mixed up about what needed to be done, and what really mattered.
2. We all live busy lives and it’s easy to get so busy with the urgent that we neglect the important.
C. (Tombstone – “I told you I was sick”) Here are some questions you can ask to zero in on your core values.
• If I knew that tomorrow would be the last full day of my life, how would I spend the day?
• At the end of my life, what do I want to look back and say I’ve accomplished?
• If a list of adjectives were compiled to describe my life, what words would I like on that list?
• Is there any person or cause I would be willing to die for?
• If I were to write a letter to my children about what was most important in my life, what would I tell them?
• If only a single word could be written on my tombstone, what would that word be?
James Emery White, You Can Experience a Purposeful Life (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000), 65.
TS] Just as Jesus was before them, He is before us – He is most important.
III. 12 Twelve (Inductive)
A. They had been with Jesus
1. :Response - 22 They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely not I, Lord?”
2. 13 Matthew 26 31 Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: ”‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ 32 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” 33 Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.”
B. 14 Lesson - There is a fine line between betrayal and commitment.
1. 1 Corinthians 10 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!
C. That lesson affects two things.
1. Keep your guard up.
2. Affects how you view others who fall. “That could be me”
TS] Just as Jesus was before them, He is before us – There is a fine line between betrayal and commitment.
IV. 15 The Many – Sin is the universal problem of mankind.
A. : 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
1. “Nothing but the blood of Jesus – Nothing can for sin atone”
2. God in His infinite wisdom – a God of Love, and a God of Justice could only pay the price Himself.
B. A Los Angles Metrolink train wreck that killed 11 individuals and injured several others on January 27, 2005, left an indelible impression on Firefighter Captain Rosario. Hours after the rescue began, hope for finding other survivors was diminishing. Then one passenger indicated that another man was trapped under the debris. Using the jaws of life, rescuers were able to extricate a man named John from the wreckage. That's when Rosario saw the message. While John was pinned under a train seat and other debris from the crash, he wrote a message to his wife and children using his own blood. John was having trouble breathing and feared he would die. "With whatever energy he could summon and a heartbreaking economy of words, he scrawled a farewell in blood on the seat. 'I ♥ my kids. I ♥ Leslie,' he printed. The blood ink seemed to be running out as he got to the second sentence." Captain Rosario discovered that message, and as he later related the story for TV cameras, the firefighter choked with emotion.
1. "The fact that this guy in this situation had the amount of love he had for his family, and for him to realize 'I'm possibly going to die here,' how could any words explain it?"
2. In a similar way, God communicated his love for the world with the blood of his Son. David Slagle, Decatur, Georgia; source: Charles Ornstein, "Crash Survivor ♥s Family," LAtimes.com (1-29-05)
16 2 Corinthians 5 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
A Night to Remember
Have you forgotten?