Sermon Tone Analysis

Pre-Introduction:

At this time, we invite any children who desire to join my dear wife for a children’s service to follow her where you can hear a wonderful bible lesson and sing some uplifting songs about Jesus.

For those joining us online, you’re listening to the joint Services of the First Baptist Church of Westminster.

This is the Co-Pastor bringing the Sunday Morning message entitled "Judas Is as Judas Doesn’t”.

We invite you to follow along with us in your Bible in the Book of John, chapter 13, and verses 6-11.

Introduction:

[Start Low]

A. Get Attention - Striking Statement:

Eric Liddell, Scottish Missionary to China once said, “Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives and God’s plans, but God is not helpless among the ruins.

Our broken lives are not lost or useless.

God’s love is still working.

He comes in and takes the calamity and uses it victoriously, working out his wonderful plan of love.”

[Craig Brian Larson and Brian Lowery, 1001 Quotations That Connect: Timeless Wisdom for Preaching, Teaching, and Writing (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2009), 107.]

B. Raise Need - Illustration:

Both Peter and Judas are on a collision course with losing everything for their eternity.

One will make it, the other will not.

One will submit to let Jesus be his pilot, the other will be driven off the proverbial cliff by Satan.

The raw material of a devil is an angel bereft of holiness.

You cannot make a Judas except out of an apostle.

The eminently good in outward form, when without inward life, decays into the foulest thing under heaven.

You cannot wonder that these are called “perilous times,” in which such characters abound.

One Judas is an awful weight for this poor globe to bear, but a tribe of them must be a peril indeed.

Yet, if not of the very worst order, those are enough to be dreaded who have the shadow of religion without its substance.

Of such I have to speak at this time: from such may God give you grace to turn away!

May none of us ever be spots in our feasts of love, or clouds without water carried about of winds; but this we shall be if we have the form of godliness without the power thereof.

[C.

H. Spurgeon, “The Form of Godliness without the Power,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol.

35 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1889), 302.]

C. State Purpose-

I hope to lead you today to dedicate/rededicate yourself and all the resources under your control (time, talent, and personality, etc.) to Jesus.

D. Orient Theme-

Jesus wants to cleanse you for service now, so He can reward you afterward.

1.

We may not fully understand what Jesus does in our life sometimes to get us where He wants us to be.

2. Learn to trust Him; failure to do so means missing out on your “part” with Him.

3. Jesus wants you whole; Satan wants you partial.

Main Thought:

More specifically, I want you to do three things: first, learn to trust Jesus for every unknown; second, submit your WHOLE self to Him for cleansing so you can serve Him ONLY; thirdly, I want you to leave today whole, don’t be a Judas!

Sub-introduction:

Dirty Jobs

A popular cable television show with a different twist is Dirty Jobs (and its later version, Somebody’s Gotta Do It).

In each episode of this show, the host finds himself embedded in a job circumstance that includes disgusting or dangerous elements.

Situations have included sewer inspector, pig farmer, hot-tar roofer, bat guano collector, roadkill cleaner, and sausage maker.

There are many dirty jobs in our world.

The circumstances of these jobs make a difference in our willingness to tackle them.

But when we consider a job to be below us, are we really honoring Jesus?

[KJV, SLC, 2020-2021]

Washing and Death

It is commonly agreed that Jesus’ act of washing his disciples’ feet represents a prefiguration of the cross.[332]

This is probably indicated by the double entendre involved in loving his disciples “to the end” and its temporal context in John 13:1,[333] and by the “laying aside” and “taking” in v. 4 (cf.

John 10:18).[334]

But it is more explicit in Jesus’ explanation of the act, which merges into an announcement of the betrayal (John 13:11–30)[335] and of his going away to glorification (John 13:31–38).

To call his disciples to follow his example of service (John 13:14–16) and love (John 13:34–35) was to summon them to lay down their lives for one another; the commandment was “new” (v.

34) not because love was a new commandment (cf.

Lev 19:18), but because the model to be followed (“as I have loved you,” i.e., in the cross) was new.[336]

Such unity would be necessary to stand in the face of the “world’s” hostility which the community was facing (John 15:18–16:4), which made the apostasy of secessionists (cf.

John 15:6) all the more grievous.[337]

Those who were truly part of the community were already clean (John 13:10; 15:3; cf.

Rev 7:14; 1:5 [v.1.]),

but needed to continue to be cleansed (pruned, John 15:2, is καθαίρει; cf.

John 13:10; 1 John 1:7, 9).

To continue to be cleansed meant to continue to abide in Jesus the vine, and thus in the community with the true Christology (John 15:4),[338] the community united by the fruit of love for one another (John 15:5–14; cf.

John 15:8 with John 13:35).

[332 Cf.

G. G. Nicol, “Jesus’ Washing the Feet of the Disciples” ExpT 91 (1979) 20–21.

The “servant” motif here may be linked to that of Isa 53.]

[333 Brown, John, 2.550; Michaels, John, 231.

Glasson, Moses, 74, cites the Jerusalem Targum for an interesting parallel, but Johannine style is sufficient to explain the double entendre here.]

[334 Brown, John, 2.551; Sanders, John, 306; Hoskyns, Gospel, 376; Fenton, John, 141–42.

Schnackenburg, Gospel, 2.510, thinks this suggestion reads too much into the narrative.]

[335 Cf.

K. Grayston, The Johannine Epistles (NCBC; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1984) 81.]

[336 Cf.

Lee, Thought, 246–47.]

[337 F. F. Segovia, Love Relationships in the Johannine Tradition (SBLDS 58; Chico: Scholars, 1982) 124–25, 133–79, assigns the love passages of the Farewell Discourse to the Sitz im Leben of 1 John, differentiating them (perhaps too much) from earlier parts of the Gospel (contrast his helpful later work reading narratives as a whole).

A. Lacomara, “Deuteronomy and the Farewell Discourse,” CBQ 36 (1974) 75–77, finds the background for the love passages, as for much of the rest of the discourse, in Deuteronomy.]

[338 In early Judaism, the vine usually functioned as a communal symbol; Israel was both vineyard (Isa 4:2; 5:7; 27:6; Matt 21:33; 3 Bar.

1:2; Mek.

Pisha 1.162 [Lauterbach, 15]; Pesiq.

Rab Kah 16:9; Exod.

Rab.

30:17; 34:3; Song Sol.

Rab.

7:13 §1) and vine (Ps 80:8; Hos 10:1, 4, 11–13; 14:5–8; 4 Ezra 5:23–24; Ps.-Philo 12:8–9; 23:12; 28:4; b.

Hul.

92a; Gen. Rab.

88:5; 98:9; Exod.

Rab.

44:1; Num.

Rab.

8:9; Esth.

Rab.

9:2; cf.

1QS 8.5; 2 Bar.

39:7).

Thus one thinks of the golden vine in the temple, significant enough that the pilgrims should remember it (Jos., J.W. 5.211; Tac., Hist.

5.5).

Many commentators recognize the community symbol as important to John 15: e.g., D. A. Carson, The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1980) 91; Barrett, “Old Testament,” 164; id., John, 472; Morris, John, 668; Fenton, John, 158; Strachan, Gospel, 176; J. A. T. Robinson, “The Destination and Purpose of St. John’s Gospel,” NTS 6 (1960) 121–22; C. van der Waal, “The Gospel according to John and the Old Testament,” Neot 6 (1972) 36; C. J. A. Hickling, “Attitudes to Judaism in the Fourth Gospel,” in L’Évangile de Jean, 353; Hunter, John, 148; id., Message, 78; Sanders, John, 337; Painter, John, 48.

John probably does not intend the vine to evoke Sukkoth imagery (b.

Sukka 11a; cf.

22b).]

[Craig S. Keener, The Spirit in the Gospels and Acts: Divine Purity and Power (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 161–162.]

Body: