How To Face Injustice

Scripture from Matthew chapter 26, if you find that in your Bibles. Jesus was not only a great teacher, he was a person who lived what he taught. It's really helpful whenever you hear instructions, if you have them written out, or if someone will actually do that, so you can look at it and see exactly what it means to do it. Sometimes the written instructions are a little hard to follow. Sometimes they seem impossible to follow, really. But Jesus made a point of making sure that the things that he taught, he actually demonstrated exactly how to do that. Jesus talked a lot about how to treat people, even your enemies, to love your enemies, to return good for evil. Those are good words for people to be able to have. But our world is filled with conflict. People are always fighting with each other. Jesus gave a very simple way by which we are to deal with conflicts in our lives. But he not only told us how to do that, he showed us in the most difficult circumstance he faced, exactly how to begin to put that in practice. I want you to notice, in the two passages I'm going to read today, what happens to Jesus between the first one and the second one. Jesus is confronted in the Garden of Gethsemane with his death. Soon to come. Then Jesus went with his disciples, verse 37 of chapter 26. Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to them, Sit here while I go there and pray. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him and began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me. Then I want to skip to verse 47. While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs sent from the chief priest and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them. The one I kiss is the man. Arrest him. Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, Greetings, Rabbi, and kissed him. Jesus replied, Friend, do what you came for. Then the men stepped forward and seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for the sword, drew it out, and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Put your sword back in its place, Jesus said to him. For all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father? And he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scripture be fulfilled that said it must happen this way? At that time Jesus said to the crowd, Am I leading a rebellion that you've come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I've sat in the temple court teaching and you did not arrest me. But this has taken place that the writing of the prophet might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples deserted him and fled. There's a story of Jesus in the most difficult times of turmoil in his life. He never told us very much about what he thought or what was going on inside of himself. He never told us those things. But here he reveals a little bit about what's happening inside of him. He says that he's torn with sorrow, torn with the grief that comes from what he's about to face. He called it, he began to be sorrowful, the scripture said, and troubled. You know what it means when you're troubled. You think about your problem, you think about all the things that are going on and you don't think about those things if you can solve them easily. So he couldn't solve them. He thought about these things that were overwhelming him. He says, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Some people describe this as being depressed. I'm so overwhelmed with the events of life that I just wish that it would stop right now. Jesus is in a state of turmoil and confusion and depression. Then when you look at chapter, at verse 47, you see an entirely different Jesus. He's calm, he's not distressed, he's not disturbed. He's just acting as if it's an everyday event in his life. What happens between this section and the next one? We don't know for sure all that Jesus said in his prayers. The scripture says he came and prayed three different times. He prayed for a while and then he quit and came to share with his disciples what he found and found him asleep. He went back and prayed again and came to see them and challenged them to pray and watch themselves that they not fall into temptation. And then he went a third time and prayed again. Now, Jesus was a man of prayer. The Bible talks about the way he prayed and we're not privileged to his prayers, most of them except in John 17 where he prays for us. But Jesus prayed at important and significant times in his life. Now, the covenant God makes with us to guide us, provide for us, protect us, and give our lives meaning and purpose and value were the same covenant Jesus lived under as a human being in this world. And when he was getting ready to go into his ministry and pick his disciples, he went and prayed all night long. He was looking for the guidance to be able to choose the right people to be a part of the twelve. All night long he prayed, asking the Father to give him wisdom, I suppose, to show him who it was, to bring the people he needed, to give them the willingness to do it. Now, when you pray all night long about these things, you have to go in detail about all the details that you're concerned about. I mean, that takes a long time. And Jesus was used to talking to his Father that way. When Jesus was getting ready, he fed the 5,000, and then his disciples went across the lake on a boat. And the storm came up, and Jesus was on the mountain praying. I don't know what the Father said to him, but what came as a result of that was he went out and started walking on the water. Now, you know, if the Father said to me, Doyle, I want you to go walk on the water of the lake out there while people are watching you, I would need a whole lot of confirmation from the Father that that was his will. I would need to have some kind of evidence from the Father that he was able to do that before I would undertake such a venture. Now, Peter did that. He walked on the water kind of one step, but Jesus went all the way out there through the heavy storm to the boat. He was asking for God's provision for him. Take care of me as I do this. I want to know that you want me to do it, but I want to know that you're going to take care of me. Jesus' times of prayer came in places where he was trying to make a decision or trying to do something he thought was really critical, and here was another one. What Jesus might have looked at was, in this passage, he talks about the fact that the Scripture had told him what he should be doing. And as he went to kneel before the Father, he was thinking about the Bible, the Old Testament, and what it said. He knew that he was the Messiah of sin, and he had to live up to what the Father promised the Messiah would do. So we know from this passage that he was thinking about the Scriptures. What does the Bible say my purpose is? What does the Bible say my goal is? What does the Bible say is the Messiah I'm supposed to do? He was finding in the Scriptures God's plan for him. We know that from what he was talking. He quoted the Scriptures, said he was trying to fulfill the Scripture. Now, Jesus was sweating in agony and sorrow and distress. Why do you do that? You want to make sure you're doing the right thing. You don't want to do something that's wrong, that costs you your life. He's trying also to make sure that he had the courage and strength to be able to do this. And he knew he didn't have it on his own, but he probably remembered all the times that the Father would ask him to do things that were impossible, and every time the Father was able to make it happen. And I think Jesus was remembering what the Father had done for him. How he had taken bread and multiplied it in an unusual way to feed thousands. He'd given him the ability to walk on the water. He'd even given him the power to raise the dead, and given him the power to people to be healed. All those mighty, miraculous, powerful things he'd done. Until through that hours in the night, Jesus became convinced that this was the will of God for him. That God had the power to make sure that his death would not end there, but he'd be raised to life. And that he was convinced that the Scriptures had told him that's what he should do. It was the will of God. And the Father was going to take care of him, and give him the strength to do it. And so when he comes to the second section, he's completely at ease. He knows what the Father's told him to do is right. He believes the Father's going to give him the ability to go through it. And he believes that there is a resurrection, even though there's never been one in the entire history of the world before. There is one now. And so he faced this as if it were not even any issue at all. Now disciples, on the other hand, had been told that they were going to face a disaster too, just like Jesus. He was going to face his death. Theirs wasn't death, but it was a disaster. Jesus said to one of them, one of you are going to, he said to all of them, one of you is going to betray me. Each one asked if it was them, as if they thought it might have been, some circumstance come up that they did. Now if someone told you you were going to betray them, wouldn't that disturb you? Wouldn't you want to think back and say, why would I do that? Why would anyone do that? So they were warned about that. Just before this, in the middle of this passage, Jesus said to them now, I want to tell you that every one of you, before the night's over, you're going to abandon me. They didn't believe Jesus. They said to him, no, we're not going to do that. They said, we will, every one of them, we said, we will fight for you till the death. They were determined to do whatever was necessary to protect Jesus. Now, Jesus told them that they should watch and pray, that they would be able to resist temptation. Now, he told them that they were going to deny him, but they didn't pray about that. They went to sleep. It didn't seem to concern them that Jesus told them that bad things were going to happen and they would be a part of it. They went to sleep. So when the betrayer came, they were unprepared for this. They thought they were prepared. They thought they were prepared by saying, we will fight to the death to protect you and defend you. But they weren't prepared for what came to them. When they came to attack Jesus, when they came to get him, Judas arrived. Judas had already made an arrangement with him. He had with him people with swords, which would mean there were some Roman soldiers. Jewish people were a nation under captivity and weren't allowed to be armed in that way. And there were people with clubs, which was the common Jewish tool for fighting. So there were some Romans and some Jewish people all loaded up with weapons to come to fight Jesus. He saw them coming and Jesus had announced, here comes my betrayer. And there they were. The betrayer had arranged in advance a signal. Now it was dark, it was a Passover time, so there would have been a full moon, but they were in an olive vineyard, olive orchard. And at the night, the last thing that the chief priest and the Romans wanted to do was arrest the wrong person, get him back where they could see him in the light and discover it wasn't even Jesus. So Judas's deal was, I'm going to go up and I'm going to kiss him and that's a sign for you that you know who he is and you arrest him right away before anything happens. Judas comes in, goes up to Jesus and the way the language reads here, it's sort of over exuberant greeting, you know. If you ever met somebody who seemed like they were too nice to you, being real sweet to you, and you begin to think, whoa, something's happening here. That's the way the language reads here. In our text, it's not translated to let you know that, but he says greetings and it's a word that's used for a joyous greeting. And then he calls Jesus a rabbi again, not the Lord, the ruler of his life, but just the teacher. And he goes up and kisses him, which is a common greeting that you would give to your teacher. Judas has done his job. Jesus knows now that everything is in place. So he says to this man who's trying to deceive him, acting like he's his great friend, he says, friend, do what you came for. Go ahead. It's okay. That's all Jesus' response was to this man who was deceitful and who was betraying him and was going to, had already turned against him. The disciples, however, saw the circumstance quite differently. As the men stepped forward to seize Jesus and arrest him, with that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out, and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. The book of John says it was Peter that did this. Now, all of the disciples had already said, we will die before we'll let them get you. Peter had the courage to act on what he really said he was going to do. I will protect you. I will stand beside you. You see, the normal human thing whenever we're attacked is to attack back, defend ourselves, get on the offense. The normal thing when somebody attacks a friend of yours is for you to attack that person. And that's what Peter did. He acted out of his own human nature. Why didn't Jesus react in a defensive way? Well, he says it was because the scripture says this must take place. He had already found out from the Father what was supposed to happen, and his reaction to what was happening was an act of obedience on his part. This is what the Father says should happen. I will not fight it. Jesus, standing there, sees his disciple take the sword and cut off the guy's ear. There's going to be a fight. It's going to be a bloody fight. Jesus steps in, takes the ear, puts it back on, and the man is okay. The fight is stopped. Jesus turns to his disciples and says, if you take up the sword, you die by the sword. If you take your sword here and this mob that's here, they're going to attack you. Now, we use this to say a person that lives by the sword dies by the sword as if you should never fight at all. Jesus is using this, I think, in that way, and also a little different way to say, when you're faced with a situation where there is conflict, if you attack back to people, you will simply create a fight. Or if you come into a room and you attack someone, whether it's criticism or anger or resentment or bitterness, whatever it is, they will normally respond in the same fashion. If you want to start a fight when you walk into your home, all you have to do is walk into your home and say some words that you know that will automatically cause the person in that house to react to you. If it's a woman, you say, why didn't you ever mow the grass, Ryder? If you're a man, you say, why isn't supper ready for me? And when you say it in that kind of critical tone, you don't get, yes, honey, back. You get conflict and a fight. And one attacks the other, the other attacks back, one attacks more, the other attacks more back, one attacks greater, the other more, until finally the fight is so fierce that you just give up both angry, resentful and bitter. That's what Jesus is saying. He was trying to say the other side of what he'd said before, that whenever you're attacked by somebody, you should turn the other cheek. He was trying to say what he'd said before, that you should pray for your enemies, that you should return good for evil. And now he was putting in practice before all of them a perfect example of how to do it. My friend who's betrayed me has come and identified me so I will be killed. How am I going to treat him? I'm going to say, friend, go ahead and do what you're going to do. The chief priest and all of their compatriots have come with swords and clubs after me. What am I going to do to them? I'm going to let them do whatever they need to do. I have found out from the Father that this is supposed to happen and I will not resist. Now sometimes things come to us and we know in advance that we're going to face a tough situation and we talk to God and we find out as Jesus does, now this is going to happen, it's going to be bad, but I just want you to be braced for it and here's how you should treat it. Sometimes it comes on us all of a sudden like it did to the disciples. They hadn't spent their time in the garden praying so they hadn't talked to the Father about how they might betray Him or abandon Him. They had not talked about the strength to be able to resist whatever it was. They were right in the middle of this fight and their instinct and their human nature said fight back and they did. Jesus said, I want you to understand something. Do you think that I don't have the authority to say to the Father, send me 12 legions of angels? The legion is 6,000 soldiers. There would be one whole legion, 6,000 soldiers for each of those people there, 11 disciples and Jesus. No one with clubs and swords would be able to defeat 6,000 angels. I could get out of this if I wanted to, Jesus said, but there is something here at work greater than me for the scripture has said this must take place. Jesus saw in this the will of the Father. Now in some of the conflicts you get into, you may not think this is the will of God, it's just some mean person who is attacking you. But you have to remember that sometimes in those situations God has a purpose for your life just as He did Jesus' life. What happens when you go to a place and your boss attacks you? Well, you mouth off back to them and you get fired. What happens when you go someplace and people don't treat you exactly the way you want them to and you lash out at them and they lash out at you back and there's hard feelings between you? What does Jesus want for us in those circumstances? He wants us not to fight. Turn the other cheek. Return good for evil. Pray for your enemy. Why does He want that? He wants that so that they will see in our nature, in our character, exactly what the love of God is like. As Jesus was to demonstrate to everyone what God's love for sinners was really about, so we in our world are to do the same thing. Losing your temper whenever somebody gets angry at you is the same thing as Peter did by picking up the sword and whacking the guy zero. I will not allow someone to treat me this way. That's what your anger says. And so it boils up and boils up until you lash out. Jesus gives us a perfect example of what it takes to face those circumstances. Is God with me in this situation and does He want to help me? If you have Christ in your life, He certainly is with you and He certainly wants to help you. What does God want me to do in this situation? Turn the other cheek? Return good for evil? Do I have the strength to be able to do that? Of course I do if God gives me that power. So no matter how angry people are around you, no matter what bad things they say about you, you can do exactly what Jesus did. To say, God says I should turn the other cheek. God says I should return good for evil. And in this situation that He's placed me in, God didn't cause all these things to happen. Satan causes them many times to take place as He did in this one. But here we are under Satan's attack. We have to decide if we're going to deal with it as our human nature, our sinful human nature wants us to or the way God says He wants us to. Now Jesus in this situation shows us that even when the end result is our own life at stake, we are to stand by what He said. Live as I have told you. These things will work. It wasn't that those who came to see Jesus were converted, but for those of us who read the story, we see what power Jesus' love has. Now the poor disciples were caught in the middle of this. The scripture says that when all of this took place, they ran away and hid. They were prepared to fight with whatever it took, even if it cost them their life, but they were not prepared to suffer with no response. I think that defines sometimes our own Christian natures. We're ready to tell people off if they do the wrong things. We're ready to tell people off if they sin. We're ready to tell people off if they don't treat us right. But it's really difficult when people are critical of us, when people say things about us, when people do things that hurt us, to simply accept the suffering and to return good for evil. You talk to very many people who've been in church for some time. You'll run across a number of them who've left some church because people did something they didn't like, and they're just like the disciples. They ran and hid. They were not willing to face the suffering that God asked them to face. They were not willing to go through the humiliation of standing there as men and watching their master be taken away without doing something a man would do. Sorry, Jerry. They were not prepared to do it. What God often asks us to do are not things that seem courageous to others, but things that seem courageous to God. I am so proud of you because the insult that you took today, you didn't strike back. You turned the other cheek. And here you are on your knees praying for the person who misused you. I am so proud of you. See, the disciples thought they had taken care of the fact that they would deny Him. They thought the fact that they were willing to fight to the death took care of it. But they were praying the wrong way. They should have been asking, not how can we protect Jesus, but how can we obey Jesus? He taught them, turn your other cheek. Pray for those that despitefully use you. Pray for your enemies. Return good for evil. And they watched Him His whole life do that. But they never ever caught it themselves. You know, the church is one of the worst places in the world where people get mad at each other and quarrel and fight. I don't know why it is, but it is. It looks like it ought to be the place where this happens least of all. But it's not true. And the reason is because we don't know the will of the Father. And we don't believe if we turn the other cheek that it's going to be the right thing to do because God's told us it's the right thing. We believe we're going to lose or we'll look bad or we'll be shamed or something bad will happen to us for obeying Jesus. What God wants from His people are people so determined to be obedient to Christ that they would even look foolish, stupid and weak in doing it. Jesus said, if you want to fight, start a fight. You'll get one. That's what it means by if you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword. You want to fight, you can find one. If you want peace, you have to make it. What Jesus did in that moment was to show us what it's like to live in the middle of people who hate you and want to kill you and can't stand you and still have peace. Jesus not only told us this would work, but He showed us it would. Who won here? Judas thought he won because he did his job and he got money. And after it was over, he was so ashamed he killed himself. Who won here? The chief priests and the scribes who came out and caught Jesus and killed Him? They thought they won, but we forgot them. And Jesus is now the ruler religiously of the world. Who thought they won? The Romans? They're going to get rid of this problem. The Roman Empire is gone and the Kingdom of God is thriving. Yeah, you can win that little battle. Fight as hard as you want, but you'll lose the big one. Or you can win the big one by losing the little one. Obedience to Jesus is the way of life. In this story, Jesus helps us know how to face life. Believe that it's God's will for you to do this, turning the other cheek step. Believing that God will give you the strength to do it and being convinced that if you do it somewhere out there, it's going to be better than if you fight. Could you bow your heads please for a moment? You may be in the middle of a fight now with someone. I want to ask you to pray about this. Are you ready to give it up? Are you ready to lose for the pleasure of God at seeing you do it? You may face one today or tomorrow. Are you ready for the conflict that's going to come? Are you braced yourself to say, Okay, I won't fight. You see, all of this is based on whether or not you trust Jesus. You can't do this unless you believe in all your heart that Jesus Christ is the Lord and He has the power to make things change. So I want to ask you, do you really believe in Jesus? Enough to love your enemy. Enough to turn the other cheek. Enough to return good for evil. If you don't trust Him that much, then you don't trust Him. See, this is not a simple matter. It's very, very important. For here you discover when you really do trust Jesus. If your life is filled with conflict, maybe today you ought to stop and say, Lord, I want to promise you I'll let you control my life. You do that right now. The Lord will give you the strength, wisdom, and power to live for Him. But He'll never do that unless you want to live for Him. The church is a congregation of people who are determined to live for Jesus. We're going to have differences of opinion, all of us are. But how we handle those reflects whether or not Christ is Lord of the church. Do we gossip? Do we talk? Do we quarrel? Do we get mad? Or do we love each other? The church is open to people who want to come and say, I want to be a part of the fellowship that God is in control of. Showing to the world what it's like for a bunch of ordinary people with the power of God in them to live a life of love. I want you to ask God, what is it that you want different in my life? Father, we ask for you guidance today. If there's sin in our life that you pointed out to us, help us to confess it, ask for forgiveness, and renew our determination to live in obedience to you. We've never yielded our lives to you. Make that clear to us so we'll know that today is the day we can say to you, Jesus Christ, I want to live in obedience to you. Father, if there's someone here that you're saying, this is the church that you should be a part of, make that clear to them. Make them willing to come and say, this is what God has told me and I don't care what anybody thinks. Make us so open to you that whatever you want for us, we joyously do it regardless of what people think, that we might experience the joy of the full life you promised. Amen. We're going to sing an invitation to him. I'm going to ask you if you would stand for just a moment. It may be that God has talked to you this day and you know already what he wants you to do. This is the time you want to say to him, okay, God, I know what it is. If you want us to pray with you, you come and simply tell us what it is you want us to pray for. God told you what he wants, the decision he wants you to make, you come and we'll help you know what to do next. This is the time in which you say to God, I know what you want, like Jesus did, and no matter what the cost, I will do it. Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands before you, full of pity, love, and power. I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms, in the arms of my dear Savior. Oh, there are ten thousand charms. Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify. True belief and true repentance, every grace that brings you nigh. I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms, in the arms of my dear Savior. Oh, there are ten thousand charms. I want to give us just a moment. Is there anything you want to say to us? Anything you need to say? Carrie came this morning and asked for us to pray for her cousin Sam, who isn't feeling well, and Brad would like to treat people that he works with in a more godly way. Would you pray for Sam? I will. Father, we thank you for Carrie and for her concern for all of her family, and we just lift Sam up to you and we ask for you to surround him with your love and put your healing touch on him. And we just ask that you would heal him in a way that would bring glory and honor to your name, that all who see it would know that this came from you. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Mary came this morning saying she has had a baby and not married. And growing up in the church, that's a very embarrassing, difficult circumstance. When she looked at this, the whole world looked black for her. She came and said to us, I don't want to be a Pharisee a long time ago. She's trying to be faithful in what God's asked her to do. Step by step, everything's just fell into place. She's got a job here in town. Lennon's come to her beautiful child. She wants to give thanks to God for the faithfulness he's been in helping her through this situation to come to this place. God helps us even in the most difficult things in what courage it takes for you to come home and be with your people that you've been around and be faithful to the Lord. It's an example for all of us. And we give thanks to you for your courage and your strength. And we give praise to God for his provision. No matter how bad your situation is, if you're faithful to God, he'll work it to your advantage. And so, Lord, we praise you for this. We praise you that you can do the most difficult things in the world if we do the right things. We praise you that no matter how much we fail you, when we turn to you and live in obedience to you, you come and you help us in ways that we can't even imagine. Help us never to give up on you. We give thanks for Meredith and ask that you would guide her life. She raises her child. And Lennon might grow up to be a wonderful servant of yours, too. We pray for Brad and ask that you would help him to control his temper and treat the people around him right. We want this to show how you have power to change people's nature. In the name of Jesus, we ask this. Amen. [♪ music begins ♪ Be strong in the Lord and be of good courage, and your mighty defender is always the same. Mount up with wings as the eagle ascending. Victory is sure when you call on his name. Be strong, be strong, be strong in the Lord and be of good courage for he is your guide. Be strong, be strong, be strong in the Lord and rejoice for the victory is yours.