Man's Evil Design, God's Ultimate Good
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
Opening illustration about Pastor Wise’s Roman 8:28 sermon
One week later, Pastor Wise was diagnosed with brain cancer.
Soon after, our youth pastor’s son was diagnosed with leukemia.
Is this good?
Terrorist attacks
Political assassinations
Financial collapse
Military invasion
Atomic bombs
Pandemics
Slave trading
Religious wars
But no matter how evil any of these events may seem. There is one day that eclipses the darkness of any other day. It took place on a hillside in Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago.
Despite all the horrors of human history, never has a judgment been so unfitting because never has a man been so unjustly treated as the one who was worthy of all praise became the object of utmost scorn.
Yet, when we remember this day, we call it Good Friday.
Transition: How can this be? Tonight, let us turn our attention to remembering how the most purposefully evil act in human history was also God’s most purposeful act of redemption for His glory and our good.
Judas’s Intentional Evil
Judas’s Intentional Evil
Judas’s intentions weren’t always evil. Like many Jews at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, Judas believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah. He saw Jesus’ power over Satan and his ability to command the physical world. He heard him speak with authority in a way he had never heard anyone else speak, and He watched him live a life that no one else lived. Jesus had authority, confidence, and power. Yet, over time, he came to realize that Jesus was not going to fulfill his earthly ambitions. As the other disciples began to realize that very same reality, their hopes in Jesus became less about liberation from Rome and more about liberation from sin and death.
But not Judas! When Judas began to realize that Jesus had not come to deliver them from Rome, his heart began to fill with hatred. Jesus refers to this hatred as early as John 6:70 where He says, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”
And so, as the time of Jesus’ crucifixion drew near, Judas’s hatred was complete. He had followed Jesus out of hope for power and wealth, but now he imagines that he had been tricked. Three years of money-making potential gone down the drain. And for what? So, near the end of Jesus’ ministry, he turns to the one thing he thinks will make up for his lost time. How can he leverage his position in order to cash out?
As these thoughts swirl in Judas’s mind, just before the triumphal entry, Jesus did the unthinkable.
There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
By this point Judas had positioned himself to hedge against any additional financial loss. How could Jesus do do this to Him? This was the last straw.
But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”
Even when he begins to reveal himself for the selfish devil he is, he crafts it in such a way that the other disciples agree with him.
But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste?
Looking back on it John reveals what Judas’s true motives were.
This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it.
Even as Judas’s hypocrisy begins to crumble, Jesus lovingly rebukes him.
But Jesus said, “Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always.”
For Judas, there was nothing left for him to do but see how much the chief priests would give him if he turned Jesus over. Immediately after Matthew’s account of this story, he records the following:
Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?” And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. So from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him.
He likely wanted more, but thirty pieces of silver, the price of a slave, was all he could get. So as Jesus is anointed out of overwhelming love, He is also betrayed out of Judas’s overwhelming hatred.
Transition: Judas’s intention was for evil, but he wasn’t the only one. Ironically, so did the Jewish religious leaders.
The Jewish Religious Leaders’ Intentional Evil
The Jewish Religious Leaders’ Intentional Evil
Jesus himself had foretold that the chief priests and the scribes would also condemn Him.
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again.”
In the most twisted act of irony, God’s chosen Messiah is delivered over to the Gentiles to be unjustly executed by the official religious leaders of God’s chosen people.
And it was clear that they intended great evil. Even Pilate could see it.
For he knew that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy.
They were the opposite of John the Baptist, for as Jesus’ influence increased, so did their hatred and fear that they might decrease. And so, both Pharisee and Sadducee put aside their differences, working together to ensure Jesus’ execution.
Transition: The religious leaders’ intentions were for evil, but the disease spread even further. Pilate also had his part to play.
Pilate’s Intentional Evil
Pilate’s Intentional Evil
As the Roman official presiding over the trial, Pilate had the authority to call the whole thing off. Pilate knew the truth. In fact, during the trial, he repeated that his objective findings were “I find no fault in Him.”
Ironically, finding no fault in Him became the guilt that Pilate would have to bear Himself. Under his authority, the Romans released a notorious criminal while sentencing the guiltless to a cruel, unjust death.
Transition: Pilate’s intentions were evil, but even he had his co-conspirators. For the people, also rose up against their Messiah.
The Mob’s Intentional Evil
The Mob’s Intentional Evil
When given a choice, the people chose to identify themselves with a convicted criminal in the place of their anointed Messiah. Peter spoke truly of them in Acts 3 when he preached
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.
In a shocking twist, the Jewish and Gentile world put aside their differences in order to accomplish the greatest evil in the history of the world.
And whenever we read the Scriptures, it also becomes plain that it wasn’t only Judas, the religious leaders, Pilate, and the people who are implicated in this catastrophic event. In the horrible acts of Good Friday, we also see our own guilt.
Jesus died for my evil.
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
Jesus was delivered over for my trespasses.
who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.
He bore my sins on the tree.
who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.
Transition: Yet, while all of humanity banded together in evil rebellion against their Lord, this was God’s design for our ultimate good.
God’s Intentional Good
God’s Intentional Good
In the darkest moment of human history, Jesus, our ultimate Savior, was lifted up as the light of the world. In humanity’s darkest hour, God was doing His greatest work to save us from our most horrifying evil.
Truly the early church prayed:
“For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.
In and through and around the great evils of that day, God took the rebellion of man and exchanged it for redemption in His Son. If man had his way, this would be Evil Friday, but over it all, God meant it for good.
Conclusion: Even today, in our own lives, how can it all work for my good? Romans 8:18-23 give us the answer.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
All the sufferings of this present time, are designed for us to long to be delivered from this evil world and to force our gaze to Good Friday. Because of the great exchange of Good Friday, we can look forward to our future great deliverance.