Sermon Tone Analysis

I would like to open this morning by looking at Philippians 4:4-7.

Paul is closing his letter to the Philippian church and here he encourages them to keep on praying.

Look with me at Philippians 4:4-7, he writes this;

Last week we looking at the most agonizing prayer ever recorded in Scripture.

It was the prayer of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It was Jesus giving His submission over to the Father and knowing the trial and the physical pain He was about to endure He still went to the Father asking if there is another way if God could implement His redemptive plan than let that plan come about.

If there is another way for all of God's wrath to be poured out or taken from His people that God could put that plan in place instead.

But Jesus knows God's plan and He submits to this plan regardless of how much pain He will endure.

Jesus knows the power in Prayer just like Paul knows the power in prayer and that is why Paul tells the church in Philippi to, Rejoice in the Lord always, and to be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."

There is something very powerful in prayer and I want to once again stress that in prayer your problems don't magically disappear the may very well still be there and even at times feel like they are getting harder or worse but as we are going to see today when you pray and you are following after God and truly seeking to be in His presence as Jesus did and as Paul tells the Philippians to do then one thing is for sure even in the midst of any trial God can give you an attitude of peace.

We will look at this attitude this morning as we explore Jesus' reaction to His arrest.

We will see by His example that we must have a Peaceful Attitude in Trials.

Marks of Peace

We see this peaceful attitude of Jesus' in our text this morning in Luke 22:47-53

Now as we look at this text we see that it is broken up into three very simple parts each dealing with three different audiences.

Jesus deals first with Judas, than the disciples, and finally His enemies.

What we need to keep in mind through out this entire event of the Jesus' arrest is His peaceful response and also you have to keep in mind that even as it looks like Jesus is losing here, He is in control of the entire situation.

Let's look at Jesus' peaceful attitude in this text.

And as we look at verses 47-50 I want you to keep this in mind; Jesus demonstrates Peace in sorrow.

Peace is Marked by Patience

Lets look at verse 47 and 48 we read; "While He was still speaking, behold, a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them; and he approached Jesus to kiss Him.

(48) But Jesus said to him, 'Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?'" Luke keeps the scene the same picking right up where we left off last week.

Jesus has just finished praying, more than likely weak and tired already from this agonizing three hours of prayer and here comes this mob in the distance.

I am sure the night sky was lit bright with the torches these men were carrying.

We know there were a great deal of them as John the Apostle has recorded for us in his account of this very event.

John writes this in John 18:3

Now you see John writes that it was a Roman cohort which is about 600 men and there were the religious leaders and they were carrying lanterns and torches.

They are coming to arrest Jesus and we see that Judas is taking charge of singling out Jesus.

Judas was not the leader of this mob but he did take the lead so he could point out to those who wanted to arrest Jesus just who He was.

Why would Judas need to signal to them who Jesus was? Wouldn't they have known Him? Well yes they would have known Jesus but it was very obvious these people were coming with malice.

It was dark and there were a lot of people in this crowd and Jesus was with His twelve.

The point of Judas kissing Jesus is one of letting the people know this is the one.

They wouldn't have to worry about the others with Him and they also didn't have to worry about His twelve being martyrs and jumping in Jesus' place so Jesus could escape.

That is a possibility.

There are many people who lead rebellions and they have people who follow them who would take the fall for that individual so to be sure this didn't happen Judas went in first before the crowd and he provided the signal to the army as to who it was they were to arrest.

This has to be one of the worst ways to betray someone.

It is one thing to stab someone in the back, and even to do something against them when they are not around but to betray someone with a kiss it has to be the most heartless form of betrayal possible.

First of all this is a symbol filled with such care and love for another person.

It is a symbol of deep rich intimate relationship.

Like a greeting between family members or in this case between a teach and a pupil.

Judas chose a means of love and affection as a way to signal who Jesus was to His enemies and the soldiers who followed to arrest Him.

Second because a kiss is so deep and rich and because a kiss is face to face.

Judas had to actually look Jesus in the eye as he is going to Him with such a clandestine and malicious plan in his heart to turn Him over to His enemies.

It take a special kind of evil to do something this horrific and detestable.

To turn on someone who has done nothing to you but show mercy, compassion, love, grace and tenderness.

Even when He was rebuking Judas or the others I am sure those men felt as though they just disappointed their father than feel like they were being unjustly treated.

That is just how Jesus made people feel.

He made them feel like they were loved and I can guarantee Judas didn't feel any different.

Yet here he looking his Lord and Savior in the eye and in his heart telling Him, "yeah I know you showed me the deepest of mercy, compassion, love, grace and tenderness but I want to give all that up for a bag of silver."

Ouch.

What a horrific and terrible thing to do to the Son of God to look into the face of God and by his actions say to Him, "you aren't enough."

Yet Jesus was able to look at him straight in the eye and not turn His head knowing Judas' heart and intention.

This must have pained Him deeply.

Here is a man who has been given over to his lusts given over to his flesh and there is no indication that Jesus stopped him or Jesus turned from him all He did was look Him in the eye and call out his hypocrisy.

Where we would probably get angry and possibly even become extremely emotional in respect to some one doing something like this to us Jesus doesn't.

In fact even though this event is painful He still demonstrates such a deep sense of peace in the midst of the pain of the betrayal of a close friend.

There was no accident that this event happened immediately after Jesus' most agonizing moment in prayer.

Jesus had just finished communing with the Father and asking for a different way but knowing this is the will of the Father and this is how it was always supposed to go down and Jesus being the perfect sinless Savior Son of God follows God perfectly.

And even in an emotionally painful situation as a being betrayed by one of His closest friends Jesus can still have peace in the midst of this pain.

What an example for us.

Now I know this is Jesus He is perfect we are not.

But never the less we are to be Christlike, we are to be ambassadors of Christ so why not look to this example and see the peace He had through the pain of being betrayed and know that through prayer He can bring this same kind of peace upon our hearts and minds in our situations.

What Jesus had and what we can have as well when we pray is peace in the midst of the pain.

Or we can be patient with the way we are treated by others.

Even when we are being stabbed in the back with the person looking us right in the eye.

Solomon understood this he knew about patience and how peace leads to patience.

Look at what Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 7:8-10

Solomon tells us it is better to have patience in any situation no matter how bleak it seems from the onset because the end of the situation is better then the beginning.

Paul also tells the Ephesian church in Ephesians 4:1-3

Now notice here Paul is writing from prison.

He knows what it means to follow after Jesus and he is imprisoned for his faith still he implores the Ephesian church to continue to walk in righteousness, Christlikeness.

He even tells them what it looks like, "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

No matter what people do to you, you need to be at peace and have patience in the situation and with one another.

Don't worry about what the person is doing to you worry about how you react.

Jesus knew Judas' intentions, we don't have that luxury.

I think if we did we would handle things much more differently.

Jesus even when being hurt by a friend still had peace and this peace was demonstrated in His patience with Judas, the disciples and even with the religious leaders who were coming to arrest Him.

So we see here the immediate result of Jesus' prayer.

He is at peace and it is demonstrated in His patience.

Now as we look at a contrasting attitude by the disciples you will see at the end of this Jesus' attitude of peace also leads to compassion.

Peace leads to compassion.

Peace is Marked by Compassion

Let's go ahead and look at Luke 22:49-50, he continues and writes, "When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?"

50 And one of them struck the salve of the high priest and cut off his right ear." See here we have Jesus' disciples who are with Him and they are watching this crowd coming on fast and as they watch they begin to figure out what is going.

They are coming for Jesus.

They recall the conversation they had in the upper room, the one they misunderstood concerning the swords.

Now with their adrenaline pumping their fight or flight response kicks in and they automatically jump to fight for their Rabbi, Lord and friend.

They think this is the time Jesus was talking about concerning fighting and they are ready to physically fight to defend Him.

We see they ask if they should strike with the sword.

They want to know what to do.

One of them doesn't wait for a response he takes the sword and cuts of the ear of one of the slaves of the high priest.

The one who does this shouldn't come as a surprise is Peter.

We know this from John's account of the story.

You see the turmoil and confusion that surrounded the disciples.

Very different from the attitude Jesus had.

Do you know what the difference was.

Not one was God and the others mere humans.

The difference is what they did in the garden.

Jesus prayed and the disciples didn't.

Prayer isn't going to change your situation but it will change how you handle it.