Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 1 - The Church Begins

It's good to see everybody. Hope you guys had a great week in the Lord. This morning, we are going to be looking At the Portrayal and Passover of Christ. We're gonna be in Matthew 26 if you wanna open up there.

And we'll get to our. Icebreaker question here in a second, but let's go ahead and pray. Lord, thank you so much for this wonderful time for us to be together, to study Your word. We thank you how your word, gives us what we need for our spiritual food.

We thank you for the power of Your word to convert our souls, to change our minds, to humble us so that we could not be resisted by you, but to find your grace. We thank You, Lord, that as we submit ourselves to you and resist the devil, he will flee from us. And that when we humble ourselves, even just a little bit, we find your grace in our lives. And so we come to you humbly this morning admitting our need and that we need your word.

Where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And so fill us now as we fellowship together around your word. We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen. All right. Hope you guys had a great week. One of the things we talked about last week, we looked at Luke 4.

What were the responses to Christ's ministry as we saw in Luke 4? And how do we account for those responses? So, let's test for understanding. Anybody recall?

What we talked about last week. We looked at 3 responses to Christ's teaching and healing. Joe, Yeah, so one town wants to throw him off a cliff. What else did we see?

Anybody know what town that was? Nazareth, there you go. Capernaum, Capernaum was the other one they believed and they wanted him to what. Yeah, they want them to stay, they want him to stick around.

And then we looked at one other entity. That also had a reaction to Christ. It wasn't a person. The devil, and so, great.

So that's basically covers what we talked about last week is the devil attempted to coax Jesus. Nazareth tried to kill Jesus, Capernaum wanted to keep Jesus. And one of the questions for us is, how can we be more like Capernaum than Nazareth, right? So, Yeah, so, really good stuff.

This week, we began a new series called The Church Begins. Something happened with my Little thing of a boer there. oh, this isn't gonna be good. My, transparency, I made that background very transparent and like where you could barely see it.

Now I can see it really good. It's gonna block out all of my text. I don't know if you guys are able to. Get that transparent again, that background.

so, anyway, we're gonna be looking at Luke 26. We're starting a new series called The Church Begins. And in this series, we're basically gonna cover, the Passover. We're gonna be looking at Christ's death, his burial, his resurrection.

We're gonna be looking at Peter's denial. We're gonna start moving through Pentecost and, the first half of Acts, basically, all the way up to, Saul's conversion. That's what we're gonna do over the next 12 weeks. So, basically looking at Christ initiating, really, starting the church, so he's, he gets the church rolling, and then he commissions the church to go out and preach, and then how is it that Christ cares for the church in the interim.

lots of really awesome stuff that we will cover. so this morning, the big idea is we're gonna be looking at Christ's, instructions as we move into that last supper. So, we're gonna look at like the Passover and then the Passover 2.0. When we say Passover 2.0, we're talking about the Lord's Supper and some of the goings on that happened during this, this meal.

And if you took a look at the curriculum, they've got like a few different chapters we asked you to look over for background. We're gonna spend most of our time in Matthew 26. And so, why don't we just start right there. I'm, I'm basically broken down, we're gonna look at the 1st 30 verses.

I'm breaking it down into 7 portions that, that involve this whole Last Supper, Passover thing. And we're gonna start in verse 1 with a prediction. So let's look together and we'll make some comments as we roll. Now, it came to pass when Jesus had finished all these sayings that he said to his disciples.

The sayings that we're talking about are the previous three chapters basically called the all of it discourse where Christ has been answering the question, when is, when are all these things gonna happen? What's gonna, what's gonna be the sign of your return and so on. So then in verse 2, he says, that after 2 days is the Passover. And the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.

So, this is the prediction. The disciples had heard this type of language before, but Jesus is reminding them again, there's only 2 more days, we're gonna be heading towards the Passover, and then I'm gonna be delivered up to be crucified. Let's talk about just for a moment, the Passover, the Jewish Passover. this would have been in the Jewish, month called Nissan or Nissan.

It's around, March slash April on our calendar, but it's technically the first month of the Jewish calendar. And this kicks off, really, there's 7 feasts in the Jewish calendar and the Passover kicks off the year, and it kicks off what's called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And so there's, sometimes it can be a little confusing when you're reading through the Old and New Testament. It looks like, sometimes it seems like the Passover and unleavened bread are separate.

Sometimes they talk about them as one. Sometimes, Passover means the feast of Unleavened bread, sometimes unleavened bread means Passover. So you're like, what is all this? And the long story short is, is when the Jews went up into Babylon and came back down, somehow the Passover and unleavened bread had got joined.

And so, the Passover is kinda like, almost like the night. before the Feast of Unleavened bread begins, and sometimes Jews would just think of them as just one big thing. And so, the Passover is gonna occur, and you guys remember, do you guys recall what the Passover was all about in the Old Testament, the Old Testament scholars? What do you guys remember about the Passover?

Yes, sir. Yeah Awesome. tell me your name again, Steve and Jeannie, Steven Jeannie, great. So Stevie has just reminded us that it's, Pharaoh was, and, with all the threat that he was bringing upon, Israel and And Moses there were not letting them go.

God said he was going to kill the firstborn, but if the Jews would put the lamb's blood, or in some cases goat's blood, on the threshold of their doors, the angel of destruction would pass over instead of kill the firstborn. And And so that's, and that was celebrated throughout the Old Testament, and then up to the time of Christ, they are getting ready for that Passover week. So that takes us to the, so the prediction, now let's look at plot number 1, starting in verse 3. Then the chief priests.

The scribes and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas and plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill him. But they said not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people. So they gather together in this palace of the high priest, which is interesting. That's not really where the Sanhedrin would normally meet, we know historically.

And so some people ask, why are they meeting in the palace or home of the high priest? Probably for privacy or secrecy. And so they're gathering together to basically plot the capture and murder of Jesus. They want to try to do this in a non-public way because there are Thousands and thousands of people in town for the Passover slash Feast of Unleavened Bread.

So, how can we do this in such a way to not rile up all the people? And so you've got this plot that's that's going on against Christ. Which brings us to what we're gonna call the pouring versus 6 and following. And when Jesus, starting in verse 6, was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper.

Simon the Leper, probably this is not that he was currently a leper, but that he had been a leper and had been healed. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't be hanging around all these people. but he's showing Christ's hospitality. And a woman, verse 7, came to him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table.

This woman almost certainly is Mary, the sister of Lazareth, also the sister of Martha, and, as we compare to the other, the other passages, and, And then, so she brings this alabasker. This is like a, a marble-like type of thing from Egypt and a flask of other other gospels tell us this is sparknard, oil, very costly, very fragrant, 300 denari. Remember, like a denari would be the average wage for an individual at this time. So 300 denari is almost a year's wages.

So, if you put that in today's terms, pick, pick the average person's wage today in the United States, this, almost a year's worth of wages is how expensive this was. she, puts it on his head at the table. Parallel passages, if you look over at John, there is probably the head and the feet, but there's another completely different anointing where only his feet are anointed, in front of a Pharisee. And so, sometimes we can confuse those two, but it does seem like there's two different anointings.

One is about 6 days before the Passover. This one's only 2 days before the Passover, OK? So, So, that, so there are two different anointings when you compare the, all the relevant passages. And so she comes and does this.

Notice in verse 8, but when his disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, why this waste for this fragrant oil might, might have been sold for much and given to the poor. So the, the disciples are, are upset at the waste of oil being poured out. And it's hard to tell exactly what, who are they upset at. Are they upset at Jesus?

Are they upset at the lady? Are they upset at just the situation? clearly, they feel like this is not appropriate. the amount of that this oil would cost, how it could be used for the poor.

When we compare this passage, however, to John 12:4, we get a clue that the instigator is Judas, because in John, it's Judas that vocalizes the angst, and then it seems like the other disciples join in. You guys know how that goes, right? You're driving around somewhere trying to figure out somewhere to eat. All of a sudden, one of your more dominant children says, we need to do this.

And then all the other children join in. Yes, yes, we need to go by McDonald's, not go there. And then now you've got this little mini riot on your hand that was all started by the dominant child, right? And so, Judas has gotten everybody riled up because we all know that Judas really cares about the poor, right?

No, we hear it, we see in the Gospel of John, that that is not the issue. Let me flip through these slides real quick and get us caught up. So, you can see that we're moving into our new study, that's where you talked about, that's what we're gonna be covering. By the way, there is no Sunday school next week, but I've already emailed you guys the lessons for the following two weeks after that.

And. So, yeah, so Passover and betrayal, this is the passage that we're on. all right. So let's see Jesus' response in verse 10.

Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for me. For you have the poor with you always, but me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on my body she did it for my burial.

Assuredly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her. And we're reading about it in the Gospel, so it has been memorialized that Mary, in all likelihood, the same lady that sat at the feet of Jesus, wasn't helping out Martha, right? She had the wherewithal to bring almost a year's worth of salary in this very expensive spikenard oil, pour it on the Lord. She seems to know something that the other disciples haven't caught on to, that Jesus is gonna die.

And she's willing to give up, probably this, you would have to think this would be her life savings perhaps, that she pours over the Lord and then in the parallel passage also onto his feet. And, and so Jesus does not rebuke her. he says, we're, you're always gonna have opportunities to bless the poor. Jesus is not telling them, don't help the poor.

but he is saying that there is something of value about love, devotion, and worship. This does teach us, I think, a side lesson that goes beyond our full purposes for this morning. But it is not a waste to give of your wealth for the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ and to give of, of your goods for His glory and honor. we, we had some of these discussions even as we were praying about where to move and to move over here to Burns and Some of what dawned on us is sometimes whenever we would start to look at a particular facility, a lot of times the question would become, well, what will it be used for?

Can we use this facility to do this good work and that good work and another good work? And somehow the idea of gathering together to worship God didn't seem like that was enough to justify the expense of a facility. I want to suggest to you that. Historically, that's just not true and biblically, it's not true.

Look at all of the money that God called upon Israel to bring together in order to establish the temple and the, what is the main purpose of the Old Testament temple? Worship, so that God would be their God and these people would be His people. And yet God was pleased that great expense would be, would be exhausted on the temple. And, we can talk about the theology of buildings and how that established, that's another lesson.

But I think the, the big idea is don't feel guilty about bringing your goods in your storehouse house for the honor of the Lord, however it is that the Lord may May, may call you to do that. so, so we, so we have this, in this opening section, we see Jesus is predicting his, crucifixion. There's a plot from the Jewish leaders about his death, and then now a pouring of oil to prepare or to anoint him for his death and burial. Let's look at plot 2.0.

that involves Judas starting in verse 14. Then one of the 12 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 30 pieces of silver. So from that time, he sought an opportunity to betray him.

Now, this is not accidental that the gospel writer has informed us of these facts right after the rebuke of the, of the pouring of the oil upon Jesus's head. It does seem like Matthew is putting this in the historical order, but he is also drawing attention to the fact that right after the disciples led by Judas is all upset about oil being poured on Jesus' head, He's now going and selling out Christ for 30 pieces of silver, which is not nearly the amount of cost of this oil.

so how much did Judas really care about the poor? what was Judas's real intentions?

And we find out in the parallel passages when you compare like Luke, you can write down Luke 22:3, that when, Judas went off to, to plot with the chief priest that says Satan entered him. Satan entered him. And then when you compare it to, John chapter 13, it says that Satan had already put it in Judas's heart to betray Jesus. And, and then it seems that, that, as you track chapter 13 of John, that the exact moment of the entering of Satan would be when Jesus handed him the sop or the piece of bread.

So, it seems like Matthew's telling us generally speaking, he just says that Judas went out and plotted. Luke tells us that it was satanic in its, in its origin. John seems to give us the exact moment that Satan actually entered him. It had already been put into his heart by Satan.

do you guys remember that text in 13 where it's obscure because when you compare all the different passages, it's hard, sometimes it's hard to really figure out what's going on and why some of the disciples don't seem to know why Judas gets up from the table and so on. Remember in John 13, they're all sitting around the table. Jesus says, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. Somebody, one of you is gonna betray me.

And nobody knows who it is. You would think by this time, everybody, everybody, everybody's eyes would be like looking over at Judas like out of the other, we know who it is. It's a guy that's been robbing the, the treasury. Nobody knows.

They all start asking one by one, probably because they all know their own sin. Right? They had been at some point during this whole trek, they've been arguing about who is the greatest. And so they're all like, oh man, is it me?

And then several of them start to verbalize that, Lord, is it me? Is it me? And then I love this scene. It, there's a movie, that, have any of you seen the Gospel of John movie?

OK. The Gospel of John movie is really killer, but they, they do this scene, I think, pretty well, actually, to, to demonstrate why some people know and that other people don't know at the table what's going on. John tells us that Peter is somewhere in the room, and he looks over at John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who's probably seated, he's definitely seated in the position of honor. Remember in Jewish dinners, everybody's seated in a certain order.

So John is right there in the honorable position because he can lean in right on Jesus's breast. Judas is probably in the next honorable position because Jesus just reaches over and gives him the sop. Does that make sense? So you have the most honorable and then the second honorable position, which says something, by the way, about the way Jesus is treating Judas, even leading up to his betrayal.

Jesus washes Judas' feet, and then puts him in the 2nd highest place of honor at the table. That says something, whatever we wanna say about the prediction of Judas and the fulfillment of scripture, Jesus is still reaching out to this guy that's gonna betray him. And so, anyway, so the scene is, is basically this, Jesus says, somebody's gonna, one of you is gonna betray me. And in this text, it tells us, they, they start asking, is it I?

Is it I? He says, it's the one who has dipped with me in this text. Well, that could have been anybody, cause they all had a common bowl. Throughout the evening, they had been eating and they all, Jewish people, they all dip their bread.

It's not like a soupy thing. It's like a, it's almost like a hummus type of thing that they would have had. And so they're all dipping. By this point in the evening, every one of them had probably at some point dipped.

Into the bowl with Jesus. So now, they're still kinda like, OK, is it I? They still don't know. At this point, comparing John chapter 13, Peter's looking over at his buddy, John, and he's kinda like, You're like, hey, ask him.

And so then it says, John leaned in to Jesus. And so you get the idea that he's like, real close up, like whispering, Lord, who is it? And then Jesus says to John, It's the one to whom I'm going to hand the sop. The sop in Jewish culture and a Jewish meal is you would take a particular piece of bread, wrap it up, and you would give it to the guest of honor to say, I am particularly honoring you.

And so at that point, John is probably the only one that heard this. Jesus grabs the sop, he picks it up, and he hands it to Judas. And then Judas just seems like he just probably just eats it. Doesn't, he does not, there's no indication in the text that he's really aware of what has happened.

The only person that knows what that meant is whom. John, which is why John's the only one that records it. Does that make sense? Nobody else records that particular detail.

And so when John comes along to write his gospel, you'll notice you'll find a lot of material in John that's nowhere else in the other gospels. Why? Cause John, his job was not to rehash everything that everybody already knew. He wanted to write things that people hadn't really heard about, except maybe through his preaching ministry.

And so by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he tells us that detail. He may have kept that locked up in his heart for years, who knows? And then now it's coming out on the pages of scriptures that we can all hear about it. So Jesus gives Judas the sop.

And then he leans into Judas and says, what you do, go do quickly. Over, if you look over at John 13, which we're not gonna turn there, when he handed him the bread, it says Satan entered him. That was the moment that Satan entered him. Up until this moment, theoretically from a human perspective, Judas could have repented.

Why do I say that? Jesus washed his feet. Jesus put him in a place of honor. Jesus gave him the sop as an indication of honor and grace.

And then, Judas takes it, eats it, no change of heart. Jesus knows there's no change of heart, so he says, what you do now go do quickly. Jesus gets up or Judas gets up, leaves. Nobody at the table, if you look over at John on your own, John 13, they have no idea what he's going to do.

They think that he's just got up to take the money bag to go give money to the poor, or to go make some more preparations for the feast. By implication, the only other person at the table that would have known what that meant is whom. John. So John, the one who wrote the gospel, it's, it's implied that he's accepted from the ignorance.

Does that make sense? But everybody else has no clue what has just happened. This accords with the Old Testament concept. How many times do we see in the Old Testament where prophets are prophesying judgment upon Judah or Israel.

This is going to happen, you are going to die. But then if people repent, all of a sudden God turns. And so theoretically, if Judas would have repented. He could have been saved, but he doesn't repent.

Satan enters him, he goes out, and then he fulfills scripture. And it begins to, betrayed. So we've jumped a little bit ahead of ourselves here. Let's, let's finish up this, Well, we, yeah, and we did.

Did we finish reading to verse 16? That's what happens when preachers wax eloquent. Let's look at versus, yeah, so let's look at, Verse 15 again and said, what are you willing to give? OK, we just said that.

So from that time, he sought an opportunity to betray him. So then verse 17, so let's move now into what we're gonna call the preparation, preparation for the Passover. Now, on the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, so there's an example where the Passover is called the first day of the feast of Unleavened bread. So it gets joined.

the disciples came to Jesus saying to him, where do you want us to prepare for you the Passover? Exodus 12. He said, go into a city, a certain, 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.

So don't even tell us the name of this person. But he says, go to, go to this person's house. And notice he says, my time is at hand. So many other times before this, he said, my time is not at hand.

Remember when they were at the wedding and he's there at the wedding and, and all of a sudden his mom comes up like a good Jewish mother and says, hey, they're out of wine. And then what does he say to his mom? Woman, my time has not yet come. And then she turns to other people and says, whatever he says, do it, right?

She already knew what powers he had, right? My, at my house, sometimes, I, sometimes it is, I, I have been described as a person who won't ask directly. I'll just say things like, boy. I sure am hungry.

And then people like, well, what would you like? So that's, that's what Jesus' mother does in that case. But, so the point is, his time had not been at hand so often, but now he's saying, my time is at hand. It's time, I've, I've been betrayed.

We are moving towards, this crucifixion. So the disciples, verse 19 did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. By the way, just as a side, so you guys see how this fits into the, I don't know, I don't know if you guys can really see all those. There's 7 basic Jewish feasts.

so the Passover kicks off the religious year. It's weird in, in, in Israel today, there's a difference between the religious New Year and the beginning of the New Year. So, the religious New Year is Nissan and the Passover kicks all that off. So, the way I've tried to memorize the seven feasts is Puffwitat, Puffwitat.

I thought I saw a puffy tat. I did, I did see a puffy tat. I just do weird things like that to help me memorize things. And, so you got Passover, unleavened bread, first fruits, weeks, trumpets, atonement, tabernacles.

So the, the first three happen in a real tight clump, right? Passover andleavened bread are the same week. Then first fruits kicks off the harvest. Then you have 50 days later, you move to the The feast of weeks, that's Pentecost, then you really don't have anything else until around September.

It's the 7th month for them. For us, it's around September, so, and from a Christian perspective, what we have is the 1st 34 feasts seem to talk, predict Christ's first Advent. The back end of the feast seemed to have something more to do with Christ's Second Advent. Maybe we'll come back and hit the feast at a later time.

Let's go back here. so let's, so let's move into The actual Passover, so verse 20 following. When evening had come, he sat down with the 12. Now, as they were eating, he said assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.

And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to him, Lord, is it I? Really, you can really sense the sorrow and the heaviness in the room. Jesus keeps saying he's gonna die. You have some lady who's anointing him for his burial.

And they don't know it at this point, but Judas is out betraying him. And, and they're all probably sensing their own weakness. so then he says, he answered and said, he who dipped his hand with me in the dish will betray me. Here, it's dipped, Eri tense.

I think it's in Mark or Luke. It has a dips, and this is probably because they're speaking Aramaic, and when you bring it back over to the Greek, as it dips or dip, the idea seems to be it's the, the one who has been dipping or the one who dipped, looking at it as a whole action, which really would not have necessarily answered the question for the disciples. Does that make sense? if we're all, if all of us had a big meal at my house, and we're all eating, using forks and knives, and we're drinking, and somebody is like, all right, we're gonna play a special game.

I want, I want the one person in here who used their fork to stand up. Like everybody's gonna stand up. And so, so this is like what Jesus does a lot of times is he doesn't always answer the question directly. He'll speak sometimes in mysteries, and he wants them to think through.

Almost certainly what Jesus is doing is he wants them to examine their own hearts. Is it really me? Is it? Cause who else is gonna betray Jesus?

Peter, and everybody else is gonna run away. So, in one sense, all of them are gonna abandon him, but we know that the particular person that Jesus is talking about is, is specified in verse 24, the Son of Man indeed goes just as it has been written of him. But woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.

I, I don't know if you can have a more damning description in all of Scripture than for Jesus, the Son of God, to say to you, it'd be better if you had never been born. This implies that Judas is completely responsible for his actions. We always have to keep this in mind, that when the Bible talks about prediction of prophecy, it never, never, never indicates that people are not responsible for their actions. This is the doctrine of divine compatibleism.

That because God is so much bigger and so much wiser than us, there is what the Westminster Confessions calls first and secondary causation. God is the first cause of all things. Jesus dying on the cross was not an accident. It was not Plan B.

And yet, all of the people that were implicated in bringing Jesus to the cross, including Judas, who betrayed him, including The Jewish leadership who plotted against him, including Pilate and the Roman guards and everybody else, they all are responsible for their actions, but they just fell backwards into God's divine plan, right? In fact, hold your finger right there and turn over to ax. Let's look at X. Let's look at 2 verses in Acts.

Acts chapter 2, 1st of all, This is a very difficult concept for us, especially with our Western philosophy, where we just think that human beings are the beginning and end all of, of what happens in life, right? It's all about free will, it's all about our choice, and everybody's life is determined by your choices. The Bible says, yes and no. You are responsible for your actions, but you are not somebody who's just off doing your own thing with no other causes.

So, look at verse 22 to 23. This is chapter 2 of Acts. Men of Israel, this is Peter speaking at Pentecost. Hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, the man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, signs which God did through him in the midst, as you yourselves also know, him being delivered, that idea of delivered means delivered up to the cross by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God.

You have taken by what? Lawless hands and crucified and put to death. God put him on the cross. You took him with lawless hands and put him to death.

How in the world can Peter say that those two phrases in the exact same verse? Because it's true The cross was not Plan B. It was planned by God, but yet people had lawless hands. That means they sinned in putting Jesus on the cross.

God is the first cause of all things. Human beings are completely responsible for their actions. God can judge them for their actions. Just like God called Babylon, or he calls Babylon to attack Assyria, right?

And then Babylon comes down and judges Israel for their sins, and then God comes along and judges the Babylonians. God has the right to do that. Read the book of Habakkuk. That's what all of Habakkuk is about.

What's Habakkuk about? You guys, you guys remember reading it? Habakkuk is basically, Habakkuk's like, God, why aren't you gonna punish your people? They're so evil.

God says, I am. I'm bringing Babylon down to punish them. Oh, man. How can you take evil people to punish evil people?

Because God can punish a bad nation with a worse one. Let me say that again. God can punish a bad nation with the worst one. So he says, God, that's not right for you to use Babylon.

They're terrible people. God says, oh, don't worry, I'm gonna punish Babylon. And then he just scratches his head and he says, you're God. I'm not.

And, and that's, that's the, that's the answer. Look at Acts 4. We see the same concept in a prayer a little while later. Yeah, look at 4:27.

All the Christians are filled with the spirit and they go to prayer. Verse 27, for truly against your holy servant whom you anointed both Herod, the Jewish leader, Pontius Pililate, the Roman leader, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were gathered together to, what would you expect to be the next couple of words, to do all kinds of evil. To sin in causing Christ to be crucified, which is all true, but what does it say? To do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done.

That's divine compatibleism. People are completely responsible for their actions. God can hold them accountable for their actions, and yet there's a first cause of all things, and that is God Himself. And so, all that to say that Judas is completely responsible for his actions, even though he fulfilled scripture.

Do we understand this completely as finite human beings? Shake your head and say no. We just believe it because it's in the Bible and God is bigger than us. If, if we could understand everything about God, we'd be God ourselves.

And so, that is what transpires in the first part of the Passover. Now we get to Passover 2.0, verse 26. The Passover as in the Jewish sense, has now come to an end. This is the last real Passover.

For a little while, you're gonna still see Jews do some semblance of the Passover, but it has no more of the same meaning. because the Messiah has come, he's died, he's been resurrected. Jesus gives us the Passover 2.0, that is communion, verse 26. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread.

Blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples, said, take, eat, this is my body. This is my body. we would say as good Protestants that this must be a metaphor, this is my body because where was Jesus at the time that he said, this is my body? He's right there.

He's in the room. His body is right here. He says, this is my body. He's not denying the fact that his physical body is right there in the room.

And so it must be a metaphor. This is my body. So, then he says, then he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, drink from it, all of you. So if you didn't like wine, tough luck.

all of you must eat of this. If you didn't like the unleavened bread, tough luck, eat it. drink it, all of you, verse 28, for this is my blood of the new covenant. Not all the translations say new, but that's definitely implied.

This is a different covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. So, there's a different covenant now from the old covenant, and this is going to be for the remission of sins. It's gonna replace the sacrificial system that was done. To commemorate and point forward to Christ.

Now, I'm giving you my blood in this cup, that's given for the remission of sins, verse 29, but I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until the day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. So this is the last time I'm gonna drink of this until we come into the kingdom that's described as my father's kingdom. This is one of the indications that quote unquote, the kingdom is future, not present. Jesus is not drinking of the fruit of the vine right now.

He's waiting for the future in order to drink of it. Then verse 30, and when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. So singing a hymn would have been part of the Passover, and it was also part of the early church communion service. So that's, that's the text.

We've got Jesus predicting that he's going to die. after the Passover, we've got plot 1.0 by the chief priest. We've got pouring of oil of Mary to prepare Christ for his death. We've got plot 2.0 of Judas.

Then we have the preparation for the Passover. We have the Passover proper, and then we have Passover 2.0, i.e. the Lord's Supper. Uh-huh.

this Totally, yeah. No, I think when you compare all the gospels, it appears that that Judas would have left after verse 25. So, I think we can say pretty safely that Judas was not there for the, the bread in the cup. he was there for the Passover, proper Passover 1.0.

but then once he's handed the sop, so to speak, the devil enters him, Jesus says, what you do, go do quickly, he gets up. And then if you look at John, there's a whole lot of discussion and teaching that happens after that portion of John 13. That Judas is not around for. He doesn't hear anything about the vine and the branch.

He doesn't hear anything about the Holy Spirit coming. He doesn't hear anything about how I'm gonna guide you into all truth. he does not overhear the high priestly prayer, even though he's in the high priestly prayer, right? The section where it talks about the Son of Perdition, I've, I've kept, I haven't lost anybody except for the Son of Perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled.

And so on The next time we see Jesus, it's when he shows up with a bunch of troops and gives Jesus a kiss. And And betrays him, which is befuddling, because remember in John 18, we won't have time to look at this morning. John 18, they all come walking up with their clubs. Jesus walks out, says, whom are you seeking?

They say, Jesus is Nazareth. He says, I am. And what do they all do? They all fall over.

And then Judas still gets up and betrays the Son of God. After even that miraculous display. So, let's, let's talk about some points here for reflection. In application.

Let me see if I can get to this. Yeah, so for prayer, consideration, repentance, and obedience, I, you hear it said, a lot of times, if you're out evangelizing, you talk to people about the gospel, people say, well, if God would just show up and appear before me, And do some miracle, then I would believe. I don't buy that for a second. How do I know that?

Because God did show up. Jesus walked the planet for 33 years. He was with these 12 disciples intimately relating with them for 3 years. And yet you have a guy named Judas Iscariot, who clearly would have known that Jesus is a pretty special individual.

And yet his heart was so hardened. He's sitting there at the table with Jesus, who washes his feet. Puts him in a place of honor. Gives them the sop.

And then he still goes out and betrays the Son of God. At that person, that, and part of what we see here is, it's interesting on the pages of scripture how the choices we make are never choices we make alone. We may make certain choices on the front end alone, but eventually, Satan is always around. Satan and his demons.

What Judas does here and what we see, obvious, I don't think everybody gets the number one demon, Satan, his personal attention, but Judas got his personal attention because it had to do with Jesus Christ. Judas hardens his heart, probably just like Pharaoh, we see a parallel between the Passover and communion. Pharaoh hardened his heart, God hardened his heart. Judas hardens his heart.

Satan enters in. He goes out and is satanically inspired to kiss the Son of God and to move against him. And And so I think, as you're, as you're gospelizing people, as you're evangelizing people, and people are saying, oh, if God would only show up, one of, one of my responses is he did, and they killed him. And what, Jesus is gonna come back in the second coming.

He will destroy his enemies, set up a perfect kingdom. There will be no atheists on the entire planet during the millennial period. that? There will be no agnostics, because all you gotta do is go over to Jerusalem, you can meet Jesus face to face, and he will reign in perfection for 1000 years.

Then the devil will be released at the end of 1000 years, and what's gonna happen? There will be untold thousands that will join and align themselves with the devil and try to fight against Christ. Why does that happen? What does that establish?

It establishes God's righteousness to judge that even given the perfect environment, even looking at the Son of God face to face, there's no doubt that there is one God. Mankind will still every time rebel against Almighty God. There's some sickness in our heart where we say, I'm gonna rebel against that guy, yeah. Yeah, totally.

Yes, Adam, Noah, totally, yeah, so Adam and Eve, they're put out. The one difference with Adam and Eve though is they're, they're in, untested innocence, so they're put out into the garden, so they don't have a sin nature yet. They're not depraved yet, so they are in a little bit of a different category because there was nothing inclining them other than the temptation of the devil to sin. So theoretically.

There was nothing in their nature yet that drove them towards that decision. s It's a good point. Yeah, they didn't have this in nature and they still chose against God. Yeah.

And I think part, part of what, the question that it begs is how do any of us get saved given those types of statements? It's only by the grace of God that any of our eyes are opened and we're able to be humbled. Remember, was it 2 Timothy chapter 2? We're, we're supposed to like be very humble as we dialogue with people that are in opposition to us.

Why? Why should we not quarrel and be humble with people? Because they've been taken captive by the devil to do his will, and we're waiting if God perhaps may grant them repentance so that they can come to their senses. We always have to keep that in mind when we're talking to unsafe family members or people at work or friends, is they're in the same state that we were in.

They're in the domain of darkness. They've been taken captive. They think they're free. They're exercising their will, but their will has been controlled by the devil.

They don't know that. And so when we're dialoguing with people, we want to be very patient. Because we don't know when's God gonna wake them up? Is God gonna wake them up?

are they gonna be set free? Will they come to their senses? So none of us in this room can say that we're born again and following Jesus because we're smart enough, we're good enough, and people like us. No, none of us have, have fallen into that category.

Yeah, Steve. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Repentance and obedience, we can see that how Yes. nowadays. As we sit here today, there's people. Oh yeah.

Yes, Yeah, so Steve's talking about, look at us as even believers, how sin still clings to us, though we've been delivered. How, how powerful is sin that the Bible describes it as crucified, and yet it still rummages around within the confines of our body. and yet, so the unbeliever, How, how, how much is their will and their desires been totally overtaken by sin and, and the devil. And so we have every reason to be very compassionate on people that we're talking to, whether it's family members, even, there's lots, there's several folks in our church here where you, you, you've grown, you've raised your kids and they've gone off to, to not serve Christ.

Well, guess what? not everybody's children are promised to come to know Christ. Look at God. God raised up Adam and Eve, they rebelled.

God's sitting there having this conversation with Cain. He's talking to Cain like a rebellious teenager. Am I my brother's keeper? And I don't know if I, if I was the Lord, I'd be like, you're out of here, dude.

Instead, he puts a mark on his head and protects him for the rest of his life. All the examples of people that, who do respond and then don't respond, and so on and so forth, ultimately, I think we, we do have every reason to be compassionate, and we need to speak the truth, but we're ultimately waiting for the Lord to awaken our friends and family members to the gospel. And what is the thing that God is using to awaken people? It's the gospel.

So, as we open up our mouths with compassion, To speak the gospel in humility, the Lord can take that. And, and use it. And he does, so we see 11 out of the 12 end up following the Lord, even though they all scatter, right? Like a bunch of cockroaches, the night in the garden, and then Peter goes off and denies him.

What do you think Peter was thinking when he denied the Lord? Cause remember, nobody has any clue why Judas got up from the table and left. I, I, I, I, I, I really didn't think about this till this week, but I, I have a suspicion that Peter probably thought he was the one. Right?

Cause everybody's asking, is it I? Is it I? He didn't know what Jesus had said to John. He didn't know what the sop meant when Jesus handed it to Judas.

He was also ignorant when Judas got up and left. He, he was one of the ones that was like, oh, maybe he went out to give some money to the poor, because we were all upset about the poor a few minutes ago, or a little while ago. So then Jesus or Peter goes running off, he, he runs out into the darkness too, starts to fall along, then denies Christ three times. What must he have been thinking?

I'm the one. I'm the one That was to deny him. I betrayed Christ. And so he goes off and he's crying.

And you can just imagine, maybe in the midst of his tears, at some point, maybe he, he starts to recall Jesus' words in Luke, Satan is asked to sift you his wheat. But I have prayed for you, and when you return. You're going to strengthen my sheep. Maybe at some point, the Holy Spirit brought that back to his mind because he would have heard Jesus spoke that right to him, remember?

And the disciples also overheard Jesus's high priestly prayer in John 17. So Jesus would have heard, or Peter would have heard Jesus praying for him. So at some point, perhaps that came back, but we know that There is a point in the book of John. The resurrection and they haven't seen Jesus resurrected yet, or it's a little confusing what the order of everything, but at some point, Peter's probably still a little discouraged, still thinking about his failures, and he turns to his buddies and he says, Well I'm going fishing.

Right? What's that basically? I'm just going back to my old job. I have totally messed this up.

I am not worthy to be called a disciple. Whatever Jesus was talking about, about this apostleship thing. It clearly isn't me. I'm going fishing.

And a coup, at least a few of the guys say, and we're going with you. And so they just go out, right? And they're out there fishing. And all of a sudden, you guys know the story.

John looks out and sees Jesus on the shore, and he says, it's the Lord. What does Peter do you? Jumps into the, the water and just swims and Jesus has already made breakfast. Jesus probably making breakfast as the post-resurrected Christ.

He's just like, breakfast, right? And, and then you have that whole scene of, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?

And so the Lord just wooing Peter back and then, and then the opening scenes of Acts as we're gonna see are just amazing. How the, how that just had to build Peter's faith. Here, I just completely messed up. I, I deserved exactly what Judas got.

But Christ had compassion on me, and here he is appearing to me, who am I? And you can just feel the humility of Peter there in that scene on the beach. And what does the Bible say? God resists the proud, but what gives grace to the humble.

So now this grace starts just dumping out on Peter. And now he's able to submit to God, resist the devil, the devil flees from him. He's off like doing this crazy ministry that I'm sure he would have never thought in a million years that he'd be involved in. And that's what God worked that humility.

And that's my final challenge to all of us is, is where are we all out at right now as we speak this morning. With that, with the grace, humility, quotient. That grace, humility, quotient. If it is true that God resists the proud, he clearly resisted Judas, he clearly resisted Pharaoh, and those guys got some just Terrible, we're talking horror film type of treatment, right?

But what I've noticed in my life is my pride might be this big. But all I gotta do is this much humility, and God wants to dump His grace on me. God's not asking me to get this much humility. I, I, I can tell you so many times in my life, I've got this much pride.

And then, by God's grace, I take a little tiny baby step of humility, and it's like, boom, God's grace starts coming down. And now, I'm like, Lord, why are you so good to this prideful man? Because that's the savior he is. He is so kind and compassionate to thousands, right?

He will be by no means cleared the guilty. But he is kind. He keeps his covenant love with thousands and thousands. And so I just wanna encourage you this morning that you made, a lot of us, one of the things, my wife's been reminding me about is it seems like a lot of our sins and troubles can boil down to pride.

And hopelessness. One of those two. It's either we've lost humility or we're losing hope. And, And I know I default towards the The lack of humility side.

But what's the cool thing about that is that's a prayer that you absolutely know that God wants to answer. If you say, Lord, humble me, help me confess my pride, help, help me walk in humility. Do you think that's a prayer that God wants to answer? Jesus says, whatever you ask of the Father, he'll give it to you.

Do you think that fits in that category? Lord, give me humility I, I'm absolutely convinced of it. there's other prayers that I don't know that God has been Necessarily wants to answer. Give me season tickets to Angel Stadium next year.

I'd love to have season tickets just Arrive in my mailbox. I don't know if the Lord's really interested in answering that prayer. All the time I would waste just at Angel Stadium all the time instead of doing sermon prep, right? That's not really, I don't think God's design.

but if I say, Lord, humble me. Help me confess my sin. I feel so much pride right now. I don't want to admit I'm wrong.

I don't want to confess my sin to this person or that person. Scott wanna answer that? Absolutely, he'll answer that prayer. Let's go, let's go ahead and go to the Lord in prayer and then Next week, we'll be getting in, well, no, wait, I don't wanna deceive you guys.

Next week, there is no Sunday school. The week after that, we'll get into lesson two, then lesson three. So that's December 30th, January 6th. so, let's go ahead and pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for this amazing text of scripture and just your wisdom., what's befuddling to us is that you knew all along that you were walking right towards the cross, and yet you went willingly. When Judas and these troops show up, you could have obliterated them. And yet you just turned yourself over. For us.

You gave yourself up to these sinners that we're gonna put you on the cross and died for the very sins of the men who arrested you. And so we thank you, Lord, that you did humble yourself, that you came in your first Advent to save, not to judge. So that any who believe could be saved. We pray, Father, that you would grant us the humility that you gave to Peter.

And that while he did deny you and run from you, Lord, you brought about in him tears of repentance. Lord, you pursued him when he had just decided to go back to his old job. Lord, thank you so much for the grace that we see. And we also just pray, Father, that You would protect us and our loved ones from the fate of Judas.

Judas made clear choices to align himself with the devil rather than the savior of the world. Lord, may you protect us from aligning ourselves with the devil. Even as Christians, we know that we could fall into the fate of Peter, where at different points, we could align ourselves with the will of the devil, where Jesus would say, get thee behind me, and we would find ourselves being resisted by God, as we will in pride, but keep us low before you. Keep us in your hands.

We thank you, Jesus, for the ways that you have prayed, not just for the disciples, but for all who would believe in them. We thank you, Lord, that although it's hard for us to understand how you've made your children double clutched in your hands and unpluckable by the devil, we pray all this in Christ's name and all God's people said, Amen.