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Introduction
In the Garden of Eden, we glimpse a scene that is perplexing to most of us.
God has created paradise.
There are fish that fill the sea, birds that fill the air, and animals that fill the earth.
The land is lush and painted with a beauty that gave insight to God’s wonder everywhere that you could look.
There was no crying, no hating, no dying.
God made all that was, and He made it good.
And, above all else, He created mankind in his image, the hallmark of beauty and brilliance, highlighting God’s own glory.
God created them in his image so that they could know and understand the wonders of his promises and his presence in a way that no other creature could know.
He created mankind in his image so that mankind might realize the unique goodness essential to his very own character.
Is there anything more painful than betrayal?
God presents the Garden to the man and woman as a gift to them where they are to rule with a delegated dominion that shadows God’s rule over the galaxies.
And so, in response to such wonder and goodness and glory, mankind betrays the goodness of God.
Adam and Eve become convinced that God has been stingy in his blessings to them and that they could not be satisfied with relationship with God, but rather they required equality with God.
And yet, even though every one of us have been born in the lineage of God’s betrayers, God has resolved to overcome our treachery so that we might know his goodness yet.
This is why Jesus came.
Jesus came to overcome your treachery toward God so that you might be turned from betrayer to child.
And so, as we come to Thursday of Passion week in , we come to the story of Judas.
We come to the story Jesus’ betrayal, and it’s in this painful and dramatic event that we glimpse the betrayal of mankind toward God, where we glimpse our very own stories.
If you’ve ever been betrayed, you never forget the feeling.
God’s Word
Read
The King Sold as a Slave
“What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” It’s no accident how Matthew puts together his book.
He’s wanting you to see the difference between a true disciple of Jesus and a counterfeit.
In Mary, we see a true disciple.
She comes to Jesus with the most precious thing that she owns.
She comes to him with something so valuable that she’ll never be able to own another again, and she breaks it open and pours over Jesus’ head because He was more precious in her sight and she wanted him to know.
This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
It is for Jesus to be so precious in your sight that nothing else you can do or have or know can even compare to the wonder of your relationship with him.
But then, just as we are challenged by the unmeasured generosity of Mary’s offering, we are struck like a bolt of lightning by Judas’ treachery.
Judas wasn’t just any disciple.
He was one of the twelve that had walked with Jesus for more than three years.
He had eaten every day with Christ and sat under his divine teaching.
Just imagine what Judas has seen Jesus do.
He’s seen him take five loaves of bread and two fish and feed 20,000 people.
He was in the boat when Jesus walked on water.
He thought he was going to die and his ship sink, when Jesus was awakened and calmed the storm.
He was there when the lame began to walk and the blind began to see and the deaf began to hear.
He was there when Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth,” and a dead man was alive again.
He had witnessed Jesus predict the future and watched as it was fulfilled.
And yet, here he is, not blessed by Mary’s offering, but provoked toward ultimate betrayal.
And so, he goes to chief priests and asks them, ‘How much is Jesus worth to you?’
That is, ‘What do I stand to gain from the world if I betray Jesus?’
“And they paid him thirty pieces of silver” The leaders of the temple, the very people meant to represent God to man and man to God count out for him 30 pieces of silver, a modest sum of four month’s wages.
In , we learn that 30 shekels of silver is the price of a slave, and so for the price of a slave the King of Glory is sold out by one of his nearest friends.
What’s Your Price?
APPLICATION: What’s your price?
Could you be bribed to turn your back on Jesus?
Is Jesus to just hold you over until something more exciting, more sought after comes along?
Maybe for you, it’s not 30 shekels of silver.
But, you could you be bought by the right relationship?
If Mr. or Mrs. Right came knocking, would you be willing to abandon your convictions, your standards, and, ultimately, your Lord because that’s what your heart really wants?
If the right promotion or the right bonus was dangled in front of you, would you be willing to eliminate your walk with God so that you can walk in a pair of shoes most can’t afford?
Or, is a picture-perfect family your price?
When you have to choose, and you will, will you choose for your children to be well-rounded in the eyes of the world rather than firmly grounded as a disciple of Jesus?
Can you be bought?
Is there any wonder that the disciple who gained the most financially lost the most eternally?
Every time we choose between Jesus and the world we reveal the value system of our hearts.
Oh, brothers and sisters, may we not walk the way of the people around us.
May we not be so easily pleased that money or sex or friends will do.
May we not sell out Jesus like Judas, may we sell out ourselves for Jesus like Mary.
May we not come to Jesus to ‘add’ him to our lives.
May we come to Jesus and offer him all of our lives.
The New Family, The New Exodus
“Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
It’s Thursday, and it’s time to prepare the Passover.
The unleavened bread had to be made.
The room, in a town that is filled far beyond its capacity already, must be secured.
The wine must be purchased.
And so, Jesus amazes his disciples yet again by telling them to go and find a man with a jar of water (John’s account), and he will have a room for them.
Jesus is determined to worship God with his disciples on the eve of his own massacre.
The Last Supper is Jesus’ most intense and intimate setting.
The Passover meal was a meal that was typically shared with your family who lived together.
It was intimate worship with an intimate family.
They came together to celebrate how God had delivered them from the hand of Egypt in the Exodus, to celebrate that God had caused the angel of death to Passover them.
But here, we have Jesus inaugurating a New Exodus.
Tonight, He will eat the Passover, but tomorrow night He will offer himself as the last and ultimate Passover Lamb.
He will go to the cross so that God might cause death to Passover his people and deliver them from an enemy far greater than Egypt — their own sin and grave.
But, with this New Exodus, Jesus creates a New Family.
A family that will worship together, and a family that will love him together.
He creates a family that will be delivered by his death and carry on his Name.
Oh, don’t miss the beauty here!
Jesus has taken this group of ragtag disciples, and He has made them into a family that will be bound together through his death by his Spirit with the hope of his resurrection.
The discipleship community is the early prototype of the church.
An Intimate Family
APPLICATION: Church, don’t miss how wonderful this is!
The Church wasn’t designed to be a business.
The Church wasn’t designed to be a production.
The Church wasn’t designed to be a political platform.
The Church was designed to be a family — a family bound together through the blood of Jesus and held together by the Spirit of Jesus.
The Church was designed to be a place of vulnerability and intimacy, a place where it’s okay that you’re not okay, a place where you don’t have to pretend or put on airs so that others will love and accept you.
The Church was built around the table of Jesus that we could gather together, look each other in the eye, and know that our love is as unshakeable as Jesus’ himself.
I don’t know where I would be without my church family.
This week, I have survived on the strength of our elders.
I have emptied out my heart to John and Andrew and Alan and Tony and John Hall.
They have loved me and ministered to me and lifted me up.
Oh you’re going to face betrayal in this world and you’re going to face meanness in this world and you’re going to face wickedness in this world, but, if you live according to the will of Jesus, you will never face it alone!
For He died and was raised that you might have a new family that is stronger than your bloodline — a new family that is held together by his bloodline!
Betrayed By Faking Family
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