The Prediction of Betrayal
Notes
Transcript
ME
ME
Charis birth
Maybe you have had moments like that, maybe you have been to a place where in the moment everything seemed good, and fantastic like nothign could ever take you down, but then in the very next moment it was like the darkness creeped in and everything went downhill quickly.
And while not exactly the same, that is pretty much what is happening in this mornings scripture… we have just come through some of the most amazing piece of scripture where we see John telling us that we who follow him and call upon him as Lord are his own… that we are united with him… and this beautiful moment where Jesus humbles himself down and washed the feet of the disciples to make sure he was showing them the way for us to live our lives… and most of the first 17 verses of our scripture last few weeks were really amazing and supportive and happy, minus verse 11 that looks forward to the betrayer and today what we are going to be taken off of that cloud of happiness and thrown into the midst of the betrayal of Judas… and that is where we pick up the story this morning…
EXPOSITION
EXPOSITION
18 I am not speaking of 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.’
19 I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.
And I can only imagine what this must have felt like to the disciples sitting at the table… they are eating and he is letting them know who it is that is going to betray him… and what is so amazing about this, the thing I think is hard for us to wrap our minds around comes in verse 18 when Jesus said, I know whom I have chosen.
And this isn’t some kind of new information, this has been mentioned over and over again in the scripture, they were all chosen, and even Judas he was chosen, obviously for a different reason than the rest of them. From the beginning of the world, Jesus knew who it was he would chose that would be the one to betray him. And we can’t wrap our minds around that… I am sure you and I if we knew someone would be the person that would sell us off to our death we would not select them to be in our closest circle… but Jesus says Judas must do that so scripture can be fulfilled… what scripture is he talking about? IT comes from the words of David in Psalm 41:9
9 Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.
And if you do a little research on this Psalm what you will find is this Psalm was written as a response of David to one of his friends betraying him… Ahithopel… and it speaks of all the things his enemies have done and said against him, and then says even my close friend has betrayed me… the one that was supposed to be my friend… what I find interesting if you trace this story is Ahithopel also hung himself after betraying David.
And what Jesus is telling these people around the table is while David was writing about Ahithopel in this Psalm, it wasn’t just about him… really David was looking forward and prophesying about the betrayal of Jesus. And by quoting this verse and saying it must be fulfilled Jesus is saying that HIS betrayal was forecast long ago…. And then he dives in a little deeper in verse 19 and says, Listen guys the whole reason I am quoting this to you and letting you know what is about to happen is so when it does happen you won’t be surprised.
If you follow the greek there, what we translate in English as I am HE, is really “I AM” He was quoting himself,.. he was pointing to his divine identity. He is showing them in language they couldn’t be able to miss… and he is trying to show them that it was no accident… its not that he is the accident caused by Judas’ actions, but becasue this was foretold so long ago what you can see is it was all completely the plan of God and in line with exactly what he wanted.
Jesus concludes all of this with Jn 13:20
20 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
And we should love this, and we should see this and be motivated… because Jesus is drawing some parallels to his life and calling with the father and our life and calling with him. He wants us to realize relatively quickly he is sending us in the same way the Father sent him…
Think about that for just a moment… Jesus wants us to realize this huge calling the father placed on him to go into all the world with the gospel, is the same calling he is putting on those who follow him.
I want to pause for just a minute for effect. Let that sit on you. Feel those words… feel the emotion of it, understand what following Jesus means.
And its almost as if he understands and knows how some of us will feel as we go about that mission of doing what he has called us to do… there are so many people I know who share the gospel and when people reject it and push it away they feel as if they have personally been rejected and it hurts them a little bit and it makes them less apt to share the next time we get the opportunity, because rejection hurts.
I assume most of us in this room already know that, if not you are one of the lucky ones… but we get rejected and we tend to want to be less shary in the future… but here Jesus pretty much predicts and tells us it is going to happen… he lets us know we can expect nothing less than to be rejected because he was rejected…
I actually heard Sydney Mclaughlin tallking about sharing her faith and testimony after winning the gold this week… she said of course people will reject her.. but she knows that they aren’t rejecting her… they are rejecting the gospel… and everyone has to come around in their own way and it may take a few times for some people. And the thing the holy spirit hit me with this morning is we see things like this on television and we love it, and we wonder why more people in her position don’t talk about Jesus with that kind of platform, but the truth is, we all have a platform.. God has given us all a place to speak and share the gospel, so if we want that out of her we should want that out of us as well
But you can follow this idea of rejection of the gospel even further… it goes deeper than just the rejection of the message… the world hated Jesus, it also should hate us… in fact that is basically what he is going to tell us in a few chapters…
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
And sometimes I wonder if I am hated enough. Like does the world know where I stand and how I feel about Jesus and the gospel enough to hate me. I’m not talking about people hating you because of your politics… or your daughter in law hating you for your parenting advise… there are lots of times the world can hate us, but does the world hate me enough for the reasons Jesus told us the world would hate us… because we were following him… because we were doing what he called us to… and thats a tough question… I think about the homeless man I shared with you… that was a clear and over the top example…
And I’m reluctant to think the world hates me and call persecution for the little things we do in this country… but maybe we need to be hated more…
And when it happens Jesus tells us not to be surprised by it… its like he’s telling us, I’m just saying its coming…
And it should make us question… if I am not hated and not experiencing any opposition is it because I am walking in the same direction of the one who should be my opposition… is it because I am so much like the world that I need to worry because they can’t tell a difference in me?
And I love how next John gives us this human glimpse of Jesus…
21 After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
And I think it is something we need to pause and really look at. This isn’t some friend he had in high school that is replying to one of his posts on facebook that he hasn’t talked to in twenty years that is saying something hurtful to him. Judas is one of the twelve… he is in the deep inner sanctum… he is family… they share this same breath and desire he would have thought
Some of you remember that pain… a spouse betrayed you… and left you with a wound you cannot cover…
And it is no wonder that here again we see Jesus troubled… just like outside the tomb of Lazarus, we see his human emotion… and I think its understandable… one of the people close to him is about to betray him… Im sure you have had moments when those closest to you have stabbed you in the back and you remember how it feels, for most of us we don’t know that it is coming before it happens so this makes it a little different… Jesus is aware of the pain of the wound before it happens so it troubles him…
And just for a moment put yourself into this room… put yourself into one of those seats… you have spent nearly three years of your life following Jesus… Listening to him… seeing him do miraculous things… there is no doubt that you loved him you have given everything up to follow him… and he has told you and pointed to his hour over his ministry and told you what awful thing would become him and here he is saying, its time… I am going to go… but not only that he is telling you that one of you… one of the ones who you have spent the last three years with will be the one that sells him out… and look at what they say…
22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.
Jesus says hey listen one of you are going to betray me… and they look at each other like how can this be… who is it… and I want you to understand something… you don’t always know who the deceiver is going to be… years of ministry have taught me that well…Judas hid it very well… and this uncertainty is what prompted this quiet conversation between two of them…
23 One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side,
You have to love when John refers to himself this way….
24 so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.
And in the world I am living in right now, in my time of life I think about when the big brother or big sister gets the little one to go ask they question… Peter doesn’t want Jesus to think something of him so he says, “John, you know what you should do… ask him who it is…” And John says, “No way Peter you do it…” no… thats not it
25 So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, “Lord, who is it?”
John pushes up against Jesus a little bit more and says, My Lord, who is it… which one of us…
And I LOVE the way Jesus responds… He doesn’t just say a name, because that could have caused problems… he basically says let me show you in details…
26 Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.
And as we will see in a few verses it seems that Jesus is whispering this to John, or at least speaking in a level only John can hear what he is saying…
27 Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”
28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him.
29 Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or that he should give something to the poor.
And this leaves so many questions… why didn’t John Tell Peter what Jesus said… why didnt John try to stop Judas… and its most likely because no one knew why he said it… John just didn’t grasp how deep the betrayal was about to be… he didn’t really get it.. he knew he would betray him but not until after did he really get it…
And this also is the first introduction of Satan in the gospel… and if Satan had JUST entered him that would lead us to believe that all Judas had done up to this point to get to the place where he could sell Jesus out he had done completely on his own… it wasn’t that Satan worked through him the whole time… It was at this point Judas had went to far to go back… he had completely went to the other side…
And thats how the enemy works in our lives… I love the way JC Ryle says it…
“First he suggests, then he commands. First he knocks on the door, then once admitted he takes complete possession, and rules the whole inward man like a tyrant.”
And what we can see and what we can learn from this is we need to resist… we have to resist the attempts of the evil one in our lives… we have to push and fight back so we don’t find ourselves in a place like Judas… now what we need to realize is he has already been defeated.. there is no need to fear…
30 So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
And as Judas leaves… everyone in the room is troubled…
And it ends with And it was night… And i think Yes it was night time… but I think it also illuminates what is happening in the events… darkness is falling… its no good… darkness is entering the world as these events spring forward….
YOU
YOU
So what does this story mean for me pastor… it means even in the middle of it all… Jesus knew what was to happen… his betrayal… and his hurt and pain… and he knows what it is like for us to be betrayed… and in the darkness of betrayal… see his light… see what he has and can doo
WE
WE
