Bread and Betrayal

Call to Worship: Revelation 5:11-14 // Prayer

Adoration: Our Lord, you have freed us from the fear of death. You have made the end of life the beginning to us of true life. For a time, you lay our bodies down in the grave, but you will awaken them again on that final day, and transfigure them fully into the image of your own body, immortal to dwell with you forever. You have saved us from the curse and from sin, since you became both for us; you broke the head of the dragon that had seized us because of our disobedience. You have broken the gates of hell and shown us the way of resurrection. We walk safely in the shadow of your cross!

Confession: And yet, though safe from hell by your grace, we stumble in this life, as you know better even than us. We find in ourselves miserable shadows of sin we did not even know where there; we find the lie of pride and the evil of selfishness, and we see their ugly fruit in lust, in harsh words, in greed, and in many other sins that we have done. Father, forgive us, for in these things we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: Yet we know that we have your forgiveness, because you sent your Only Begotten Son for our salvation, and we have believed in him; and you have promised us that whoever believes in him will not be destroyed, but will have everlasting life; and your promises can never fail.

Supp: And as we delight in the promises of your gospel, and the grace that we have through them, we ask that you would give us help in passing them on to the next generation: we ask that you would make us faithful as a whole church body, to pass on the gospel to those growing up among us, and we ask that you would help the individual parents and sometimes also the grandparents among us as we strive to practice regular family devotions and ongoing family discipleship, and also to live out genuine faith and holiness in front of the young folks in our homes, who know all of our faults so well—Lord, please graciously use us as instruments in your hands for their salvation! // and for Hope Reformed Baptist Church, we this same work—that their whole congregation and their individual families would receive power and help from you for this task of passing on the faith to the next generation // and for our two Oregon senators, we pray first that you would bless them along with their families also, and second that you would guide their hearts by your sovereign hand toward wisdom and justice in all of their law-making activities // and for the saints in Afghanistan, we plead for your mercy and help—please protect them, we pray; please give them relief from persecution; please spread your gospel through them in spite of the darkness there, that you might be glorified in that country // and now, as we turn to your Word, please give us clarity in its truth that our eyes might be lifted up to you and our lives conformed to you…

Announcements

I’ll be out of town January 11th and 18th; Jeff will be here and leading those services, Lord willing; two trusted brothers - Caleb Pulatie and Peter De La Rosa - will preach for us on those Sundays; then Jeff + fam will head out and we’ll be back in town for the 25th

Potluck prayer

Benediction

Isaiah 60:19–20 ESV

The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.

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Intro

Why do we sin?

Maybe, in your experience, there’s a thousand different reasons.

One friend of yours cursed his boss behind his back the other day;

Another got drunk last night;

And then there’s the ugly shadow of pride you discovered in your own heart recently…

And these all happened in very different circumstances, provoked by different things. But the funny thing about sin is this: the more you realize what it’s doing, the more you see that it all follows the same pattern. And for Christians, knowing the spiritual pattern of sin is a key ingredient for defeating sin as you walk with Christ.

So, what is that pattern?

Well, a huge part of it comes to us in our passage today in the sin of Judas—a sin which some have called, “the most spectacular sin in history.” It’s the sin of betraying Jesus over to death. It’s the arch-sin of all sins, a climax of human evil. Though actually, in this passage, we don’t see the sin itself. That comes a bit later. What we see here is the preparation for the sin—the spiritual dynamic happening behind the scenes.

And while your sins and my sins may be far less spectacular than this sin of Judas’s, yet as we will see, our sins still operate in the same, dark pattern.

And there’s something hard about this: looking into the pattern of Judas’s sin and finding in it a mirror for the things we do.

But there’s something good about it also. It’s kind of like stumbling across a secret envelope containing your enemy’s battle tactics: now, you’re much wiser for the fight. You’ll know much more what to do next time you’re locked in combat.

So then: What was the pattern of Judas’ sin?

Judas Devalues Jesus

It began with an appraisal—a negotiation over the value of Jesus. Look at verses 14 to 16:

Matthew 26:14–16 ESV

Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

So here’s Judas, one of the 12 disciples Jesus had chosen and appointed, and so, one of Jesus’ closest companions. And yet, here he is, going to the chief priests, who were Jesus’ enemies.

And he says, “What will you give me, if I deliver him over to you?” — he’s fishing for a price tag. And they name one: “Thirty pieces of silver.” And for Judas, the price was right.

And so, from that moment on, he was scheming to betray Jesus.

Now, at this point, it’s helpful to recognize something about how Matthew is telling the story: he’s set this up as a deliberate contrast.

Last week, in the 8 verses that came right before this, we saw the story of a woman who anointed Jesus with extravagantly expensive oil. In her view, the value of Jesus’ body was beyond estimation, and so, she gave him the highest honor she could personally give. She anointed him with that alabaster flask of extremely costly ointment, worth something like a year’s paycheck.

But now, here’s Judas on the other hand, and he’s agreed to an exact price tag for Jesus: 30 pieces of sliver. And while it’s hard to know exactly how much 30 pieces of silver was worth back then, it wasn’t a whole lot. It was an insultingly low amount—probably much less than a month’s wages. And so, it’s already bad enough to put any kind of price tag whatsoever on the Redeemer of the World. But 30 pieces of silver?

Unlike the woman, who treasured Jesus far above her flask of extremely expensive oil, Judas appraised Jesus as being worth about 30 pieces of silver… and he preferred the 30 pieces to Jesus.

On a spiritual level, we just met Judas’s god: money. Money, when it came down to it, was what mattered to him. He valued Jesus so lightly, and he loved money so deeply, that he was quick to make the trade, even for a mere 30 pieces of silver.

Now, let’s think about that for a moment. It’s not that the woman’s act was gloriously good while Judas’ plot is gloriously evil—no. Instead, there’s a contrast between the glory of her act and the pitifulness and stupidity of Judas.

I mean, come on! If you’re going to betray the Lord of the Universe, shouldn’t you demand a few more pieces of silver? But this is what sin’s always like. You rush into the situation and you say or do the thing because you wanted the prize sin promised you, but when you look back later, it was pitiful and stupid—not worth it at all.

Alcohol and lust and drugs and angry words are like that…

And I know I bring this up a lot, but so many of us struggle with this, and so I’m going to call it out again: escaping into a screen is like that. It promises peace, but it delivers numbness and rots out your ability to love God and others…

And for Judas, money was like that: it whispered sweet promises to his heart, and he treasured those promises above the promises of the gospel

And that’s what’s happening in our hearts as well when we sin: we’re devaluing Jesus and then trading him for whatever prize is falsely promised by sin.

And so that’s how the pattern of Judas’ arch-sin begins: devaluing Jesus, and setting his heart on something else. And because of this, he had now prepared himself to betray Jesus.

Jesus Prepares to Give Himself

But even as Judas had prepared himself to give Jesus over, Jesus was also preparing to give himself up. Look at verses 17-19:

Matthew 26:17–19 ESV

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’ ” And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover.

Now, a note about what’s going on here. The “first day of Unleavened Bread” was the day of the Passover Feast, and at the same time, also the beginning of the 8-day Festival of Unleavened Bread. And so the disciples, as faithful Jews, were coming to Jesus wondering, What were his plans for them all to celebrate the Passover?

And the Passover Feast itself, as we heard last Sunday, was a feast revolving around a lamb that was slain to atone for the sins of God’s people. Originally, this was to redeem them from Egypt; but it was also a symbol pointing forward to the True Lamb of God, who would redeem them from sin itself.

And with that in mind, notice what Jesus says there in verse 18: “My time is at hand.” His time had come—his time to die, as he had been teaching them. And by God’s design, that “time” was at the same time as the annual Passover Feast. Why? Because Jesus had come to be the True Passover Lamb, the one the feast had always been pointing toward. That’s why Jesus ties the two things together there in verse 18.

And so, even in this short scene, we see something of the value of Jesus that Judas has missed: here is the Lamb, the Redeemer long promised. Even as Judas was planning to betray him, he was planning to be betrayed, that he might take away the sins of the world.

Judas Eats With His Victim

But now, we switch back to Judas. Jesus had instructed his disciples to prepare the Passover Meal at a certain man’s house. And now they are all gathered there, eating the meal together in verses 20. And in verse 21, Jesus broaches to them the ugliness of what’s about to happen. He says:

Matthew 26:21 ESV

“Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

And the disciples respond in anguish. It’s a moment of horror. How could it be that betrayal would be found in their inner circle? And who could possibly do it? And you can see the pain and confusion in their responses: “Is it I, Lord?” Or you could translate that, “It’s not me, is it?!” or, “Surely it’s not me!”

But the situation is worse than they are thinking—look at how Jesus responds to them in verse 23:

Matthew 26:23 ESV

“He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me.”

Now, to get the point of this verse, it helps to know that this was part of how you’d eat back in that culture. There would be a common dish between all of you at a meal, and everyone would dip out of that common dish with your own piece of bread. And so here, Jesus and his twelve disciples are all dipping out of this common dish as they share the Passover Meal.

And we understand the significance of this in our culture—to share a meal with someone is an act of fellowship. But back then, that sense was even stronger: to break bread together and dip out of a common dish was to enjoy a very close moment together—a family moment. It was to practice and to signify your unity with everyone else at that meal.

And so here’s the horror of it: of the twelve hands that dipped into that dish with Jesus, one of them was already turned against him.

There was, in their midst, a bread-dipping betrayer: a man invited into fellowship with Jesus, and even still pretending friendship and allegiance, but scheming to sell the Lamb of God for 30 pieces of silver. And it’s the moral darkness of this that launches the next verse. There Jesus says:

Matthew 26:24 ESV

“The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

Woe to him!

The darkness of his sin can be measured by his closeness to Jesus, yes; but it can also be measured by how Jesus condemns him: ‘It would have been better for that man if he had not been born!’

And then here, even with his eternal destiny explained clearly before his face, what does Judas do? He says, verse 25, “Is it I, Rabbi?” And Jesus gives him the cryptic answer, “You have said so.” And that’s it. No repentance. No turn from his wickedness.

And so we have Judas’s sin, which he is now poised to commit. It’s the arch-sin—the climactic sin of all sins. But again, how did it start? What’s the pattern here?

First, he devalued Jesus. He looked at Jesus, and then looked at money, and suddenly he was meeting with the chief priests to barter over how much he could get for selling the Messiah. Or to put that another way: money was the God he worshipped. And so, he became willing to do anything in service of his god.

Second, this drove him so far that he did not merely betray an innocent man, but a close friend, and not merely a close friend, but the Lamb of God. And then he sits there, sharing the Passover Meal with him, pretending loyalty while plotting betrayal.

That’s the pattern of his sin: first, he devalued Jesus and fixed his desire on something else; then, he betrayed him.

And Judas’s sin, as the arch-sin of history, in one sense is unique. He was the one man of Jesus’ 12 disciples who betrayed him, handing him over to the enemy at the climax of in the history of redemption.

But in another sense, it’s not unique: every sin committed by someone who has at least heard about Jesus follows this same pattern—even for believers: sin promises you something, and you place a higher value on that thing than on Jesus; then, the next thing we do is betray him, casting aside how he’s called us to live and following our own ways.

Many of us, for example, value our personal peace more than Jesus. And so, when someone interrupts our peace, we trade in sharp words.

Or, we care more about what others think of us than about what Jesus thinks. And so, we compromise to gain approval.

And so we can see, in the arch-sin of history, a pattern that marks much of our own sin: that Judas’s devaluing of Jesus made him willing to betray this most precious of all companions.

Jesus Gives Himself as Sacrifice

But we’ve got one step left to really grapple with the pattern of Judas’s sin—maybe the most important step of all: to see the full horror of it, we cannot look only at Judas himself; we have to contemplate also the value of the One he de-valued. And that value is put on display for us in verses 26 to 28. Listen to verse 26:

Matthew 26:26 ESV

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

Here Jesus identifies himself as the True Passover Lamb, using the bread as a symbol for his body. And then he gives it to them, and commands them to take it and eat it, as they would have been used to eating the normal body of the regular passover lamb, roasted for the meal.

And so, for them to take and eat the bread was for them to identify with Jesus, signaling union with him, so that by his death, the wrath of God against their sins might ‘pass over’ them, so that they might be redeemed instead.

But then verses 27 and 28 take this beautiful truth and make it into a multi-faceted diamond. They say:

Matthew 26:27–28 ESV

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

So just as they all ate the bread, now he commanded them also to each drink out of this single cup of wine, one by one.

And he described it as, “my blood of the covenant,” — a history-changing statement. He was indicating to his disciples that his death would finally bring about the New Covenant God had promised long ago—a covenant based on the pure mercy of God in forgiving sinners.

And then he also described this cup of wine as blood “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”. This was a reference to the sin offerings of the book of Leviticus, animals that would be slain and offered up to God to atone for the sins of the people in the Old Covenant.

Except, of course, that the blood of bulls and goats could not actually atone for sin…

These animal sacrifices, just like the passover lamb, were pointing forward to the True Sacrifice, who would actually and finally remove the guilt of God’s people forever.

And at the same time, these words also referred back to the suffering servant, prophesied by Isaiah long before Jesus’ time. Listen to this from Isaiah 53:12:

Isaiah 53:12 ESV

…he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

So then, at this Passover Meal, Jesus took two normal parts of the meal—the bread and the wine—and made them into symbols of who he was and of what he had come to do. He was the true Passover Lamb, the true Sin Offering, the long-awaited Suffering Servant who had come to bear the sins of many in their place as he died, and so to redeem them from sin.

He had come to bring forgiveness to the guilty,

And freedom to those enslaved to sin.

And not only did Jesus make the bread and the wine into symbols of his crucifixion, he then also gave them to his disciples, and commanded them to take and eat and drink. And to eat and drink, for the disciples, was to say, “we have a share in this salvation; we’re going to be saved by what’s about to happen” — whether they fully grasped that or not. That’s what he gave them in the bread and the wine.

And so the value we see in Jesus, if we try to sum it up in human words, is this: a love giving itself over to death in place of guilty sinners; a power able—through death—to save us. The Divine Son becoming truly human, that he might taste death for us, giving us life in exchange. The supremely valuable body of Christ, far more than worthy of the woman’s extremely costly ointment that she poured on his head, and yet to be broken for us like bread, that we might take and eat and live.

That’s the treasure that Judas valued at 30 pieces of silver.

Jesus Gives Himself in Union

Though actually, we haven’t really measure the treasure yet. Because verses 29 says something that forces us to re-interpret everything we just read. Listen to what Jesus says there:

Matthew 26:29 ESV

I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

What in the world is he talking about?

The phrase ‘that day’ speaking of the ‘Father’s kingdom’ means the final day, when all things are made new and we finally behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ—infinite beauty, filling up our little souls far past overflowing forever!

Why would we share with Jesus, on that day, a cup that remembers how he was brutally murdered?

Stop and think again about the immeasurable value of Jesus’ humanity. How was it most gloriously displayed? Not by raw power or riches or health, but by a cross and a grave. By his scars, and by how he was buried. That is how Jesus displayed to us God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.

And that means that the cup Jesus shared with is disciples was not only a sign of how they were about to be rescued from sin; it was also a sign of how they would be united to him in extremely close fellowship by a bond of unbreakable love.

And so, when they drank the cup and ate the bread, they were looking forward to the consummation of that divine love at what we often call “the marriage supper of the lamb” — the feast of heaven.

When we drink the cup with Jesus on that day, we will experience the scars of Jesus from when his blood was poured out and his body broken not merely as symbols of our past rescue, but also as eternal symbols of the Love of God in Christ as we commune with him in joy forever.

And that thought brings us a little closer to the true horror of Judas’s sin, because that was love that he rejected and the treasure that he devalued.

Conclusion: Betrayal vs. Fellowship

And as horrifying a thought as this is, it has a lot of wisdom to give us. And if we stick with it for a few minutes, it will bring us up to a brighter truth beyond.

Let’s start with this: again, Judas’s arch-sin was unique, yes; but the pattern of his sin was not. Like him, when we sin, we are devaluing Jesus in our hearts. We are marking him as less valuable than whatever little prize sin has promised to give us in that moment.

But then, Judas’s problem was not merely that he sinned, but also that he did not repent. Even directly confronted by Jesus, he did not repent. On the other hand, the mark of a true believer isn’t that you don’t sin, but rather, that when you find that you’ve sinned, you repent back to Christ.

And so, the point of recognizing our own sin in the pattern of Judas’s sin is not to make us hopeless—unless you take the road that Judas did, of refusing to repent. But if you’re repenting and battling sin, there’s massive wisdom here for you.

Because if sin comes from de-valuing Jesus, then holiness comes from valuing him. Brothers and sisters, who among us does not battle with sin? We all do, do we not? And so, this is a critical issue for all of us. How do you fight sin? By treasuring the Passover Lamb, slain for you. That’s step one in fighting sin.

Now, you might ask a very fair question at this point: “That sounds good, but how do I do that? I want to treasure him more, but how?” Let me give you two practical pointers, both directly from this passage of Scripture:

First, treasure the Lamb by contemplating what the Bible tells you about him. The Bible is not a book of random religious facts or rules. It may contain facts and rules, but they are all summed up in one person: the Lamb of God, slain for you.

Meditate on the truth of his purity and righteousness

Meditate on the beauty of his humiliation

Meditate on the goodness of his love

That’s what this very passage of Scripture we’ve been looking at is pushing us to do. That’s ultimately what’s at the heart of the Bible.

Second, treasure the Lamb by contemplating him in the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus took the bread and the cup and gave them to his disciples in this way, he was setting up a regular pattern for the church: a pattern where we also share bread and a cup together, on a regular basis, as a way of contemplating him. And so, we’re now going to do that: we’re now going to share the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper.

**Invite servers to come forward.**

And as we prepare to do this, let me point out three things from the passage today, to help us contemplate the value of the Lamb in this bread and in this cup:

First, just as the Bible teaches us the gospel with words, so also the Lord’s Supper teaches us the gospel with symbols: as you eat the bread, it teaches your heart about Jesus’ body, broken for you; as you drink the cup, it tells your soul about Jesus’ blood, poured out to redeem all his people.

Second, just as these symbols point our faith backward to the cross, so also they point our hope forward, to that day when our love-union with Christ will be completed in glory: the bread and the cup are foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb.

And third, notice that Lord’s supper is NOT and individual act—it was all of the disciples together who ate and drank. And this especially stands out, because in the traditional passover meal, you each had your own cup. But Jesus changed that. He commanded them all to drink from the one cup. And so, the Lord’s Supper is only something for a congregation to do together—because it symbolizes our unity in Christ.

Now, this means that if you are not a believer yet, or not yet baptised to symbolize the beginning of your union with Christ, [we are so glad you are here] but you shouldn’t partake in the bread and the cup yet. Instead, you should watch, and think about what these things mean: that Jesus gave himself up to death, so that all who trust in him find forgiveness and life.‌

But if you are a baptized believer, and are in good standing with your congregation [whether you’re part of Scholls, or part of a different gospel-preaching church] you should join us with joy, as we participate in this Supper.

‌[invite congregation to come forward]

‌‌[Passing out the bread + Cup]

‌‌‌‌‌1 Corinthians 11:23-24 “…the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.””

‌‌1 Corinthians 11:25 “In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.””

‌‌‌1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

And as we proclaim his death in this way, may it teach us to treasure him, so that in the moment of temptation we would see clearly that sin’s promises are hollow, but that our Lord is valuable beyond measure.

[prayer]