The Betrayal of Judas and Its Lessons

Judas was a man given special opportunities, but he made one great mistake, a mistake that every one of us can make, and every one of us who come to church are really tempted to make, a mistake that led to his destruction. The story that I want to read is from Matthew chapter 26, beginning with verse 17. On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover? He replied, Go into the city to a certain man and tell him the teacher says, My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house. So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover. When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the twelve. While they were eating, he said, I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me. They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, Surely not I, Lord. He replied, The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him, but woe to the man who betrays the Son of Man. It would be better for him if he had not been born. Then Judas, the one who betrayed him, said, Surely not I, Rabbi. Jesus answered, Yes, it is you. In this story, Judas, a man of great benefit from God, fails to make one of the most important decisions in his life correctly, his relationship with Christ himself. Now when you look through the story of Judas, there is not very much in the Bible about him before this incident. You have to look at what happened to all of the twelve since he was one of them. I don't know if you have ever thought about what it would have been like to have been one of the twelve followers of Christ, to have been in on all the things that took place. Judas was there for all of it. You might think if you were there and you could see everything Jesus did, and you could see his facial expressions and be with the people who were there, that you could do a better job of living for God. Judas was there for all of it. I don't know how many people there were that wanted to follow Jesus, but Jesus picked twelve. Of all the people that were around him, he picked twelve. Judas was one of them. What an honor it would be for someone who claims to be the Messiah to ask you to come and be their follower. Soon after Judas was chosen, Jesus gathered all of his disciples around him, and he gave them power to cast out demons and heal people. Think of this. You found somebody whose life was completely out of control, completely controlled by forces outside of themselves, so they couldn't resist at all, and you could walk up and put your hand on their shoulder and say, Lord Jesus, deliver them from this addiction. Deliver them from this habit, and they would be clean for the rest of their lives. What power that would be. Judas was given that ability. All the twelve were. Then Jesus teamed them up in pairs and sent them out to announce to all the communities around them that the kingdom of God was at hand. And Judas was one. He went out into villages he'd never been to before and began to say to people he didn't know and had never seen, the kingdom of God is at hand. He's witnessing what we would say witnessing, that Jesus Christ was there. He saw all the miracles Jesus did. He saw him touch the eyes of a blind man he could see, he saw him take a man who couldn't walk and had never been able to walk all of his life and suddenly have the strength to get up and walk. I mean, his muscles weren't even having to be trained. He got up right then and walked. He saw Jesus speak and the storm stilled. Can you imagine being in a house when these tornadoes coming down the road and someone standing out on the porch saying, be still, and the tornado just stopped where it is, the wind stopped where it is. That had to be overwhelmingly impressive to Judas. He saw the power of God as none of us have ever really seen it. He saw Jesus take just a few fish and pieces of bread, blessed and feed five thousand men, their wives and children, and then had twelve baskets left over. What would it be like to be able to see something like that and just all the rest of your life and in your mind just know that this was the truth. Judas saw all of those things. When Jesus was teaching to the crowds that were around him, Judas was part of that. And whenever he heard all the teachings of Jesus, all the things that Jesus had to say, but there was more than that. Whenever Jesus wanted to talk to them about what the parables meant or to give them information the rest didn't have, he called the twelve aside, the scripture says. He called the twelve aside and he taught them. And Judas was in that secret group. Everything Jesus did they saw and they knew. Judas saw all of that. There wasn't anything that was there that Judas hadn't been a part of. He knew the Bible. And you know what? He knew more about Jesus than any of us would know. John says there are more things that Jesus did than he wrote down and there was not enough space in the whole world to say everything that Jesus did and said, but Judas was there and he saw all of that. Now normally we would think if you read the Bible a lot and you studied the Bible a lot and you knew the Bible back and forth and you knew who Jesus was, that you would be a follower of Christ. Well then we have this story. Now what happens here is Jesus is going to celebrate the most holy day in the Jewish calendar, the Passover. The Passover was a time in which the people of Israel would gather to remember what God had done for them, the great and powerful thing he'd done. It was a powerful ritual. These men all gathered together. A lamb was killed only at a certain hour in the day and they would take the lamb and prepare a meal for themselves. The meal was a ritual. It was intended to remind them of the great redemptive power of God. It was intended to remind them that God wasn't through with history, that in one day, some place, some time, God was going to send a Redeemer and Savior. That's what this meal was about. They meet together. They had a glass of wine together and then gathered on the table was water with salt in it. They would take the bread that had no yeast in it and they would dip it in the water with salt and they would eat it. It reminded them of the tears of their people in Egypt and in slavery. We do not want to forget the terrible things that our people went through in slavery in Egypt, how the power of Pharaoh controlled them, how miserable their lives were, how they were abused and beaten. We don't want to ever forget that. Then on the table was a bowl that had crushed nuts and had crushed fruit in it. It was kind of like a sauce and they would dip their bread in that as they ate and the lamb too, they would eat that and dip it in the sauce. It was in the middle of the table, sort of like when you go to a restaurant and you have a salsa in the middle of the table, everybody takes their chips and dips them in them. That's kind of what it was like. The meal was that way, except it wasn't the extras. That was the meal. They would use this fruit as a way of reminding them of what the people of Israel had to eat very little. And then there was the bitter herbs that were on the lamb. They had bitter vegetables or herbs that were on the lamb and so they would eat the lamb and it had a bitter taste to it. That was to remind them of the bitter things they went through on their journey out of Egypt and into the land of promise. They were hungry, they were thirsty, they thought they were going to be killed. All of these things took place. Now as part of the story, they would ask questions. Why is this day special above all the other days? And then the leader would answer it. Sometimes the people who came to these meals were all dressed in white to describe their purity. Sometimes it was just the leader who was dressed in white. And the leader would answer the questions, which it would have been Jesus here. Now they get to the place where they're answering the questions and then the story of the exodus is told. The leader tells the story about all the things that happened in the exodus. And then in the final, they end it with a glass of wine together. Somewhere in this meal, Jesus turns to them and says what we find in this story. I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me. In this solemn occasion, it had to be an explosion of emotion. They come to Jerusalem now knowing that Jesus is going to die, so they've been prepared for that. But now he says to these twelve who've lived together for three years, have all pledged to be faithful followers of Jesus, have all been through the difficulties and trials that he's been through, and he looks at them and says, one of you is going to betray me. Each one of them begins to ask Jesus if it's them. Now in our language, in the English language, we say, surely not I, Lord, is the way it's translated here. The Greeks have a little different way of saying that. If you have a contrary to fact question, like you know the answer should be no, then you start that sentence with the word no. No will I betray you. So you've given the listener a clue right up front that you don't think that this is true for you. So they say to him, no, surely it's not me. I'm a follower of yours. But I've committed to do this. And they expect a negative response from Jesus. He doesn't respond to any of these questions. Just before this meal in the chronology of Jesus' life, Judas has gone to the Jewish leaders and he said, I will help you. I will identify this man and help you to find a time and a place when you can catch him without anyone knowing. They were afraid of the crowds that followed Jesus if they took him. And Judas said, I can find a time and a place that's quiet and secret. And then he comes to this meal. I'm sure he didn't think there's anybody new of his plans. So he's in the meal with them because he has to be there. It's what the disciples are supposed to do. And he has to celebrate the Passover anyway somewhere. And this is where he's going to celebrate it. All of them ask the question of Jesus. Maybe not all at the same time, but different times during that part of the meal. And Jesus replies to them, the one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. Jesus means this bowl with the nuts and the fruit in it as people are dipping it in. And there's one person here who's going to dip his hand in this, and that's the man who's going to betray me. And then he told them, this great plan of God for the redemption of the world had to come to pass. It was inevitable. But a curse, that's what the word woe means. Woe means the worst things impossible, may the worst things impossible happen to you or the worst things in the world are going to happen to you, a curse on your head. But woe to the man who does this. It would have been better for him had he never been born. Now Judas is there. He's already gone and gotten the pay for what he was going to do. The plan had already been made. What must he have felt like? This man knows what I'm up to. I can't sit here in this group and not say something. You'll notice the other disciples said, surely not I, Lord. Judas' reply, his question was just a little different. Still starts with a negative, surely not I, Rabbi. Judas asked a question in a different way than the others did. Judas was asking a question identifying Jesus in a different way than the other disciples did. The word Rabbi was really a word that showed honor and respect for someone who was a teacher. You would go to the Rabbi for instruction and for teaching. The word Lord was reserved for people with greater authority and power. You could use it for an emperor, or you could use it for someone who was head of the state, but the people of Israel preferred not to do that. They reserved this word for the one who was in charge of the universe. But it wasn't a word to be taken lightly, for the word Lord said two things. It said something about the person to whom you addressed it, and it said something about you. It said you are the person in a position of ultimate authority, and it says about you, I submit myself to that authority. Each of the other eleven used that word to address Jesus. They were saying in a very simple way, we accept you as the divine one sent by the Father to this world, the Messiah. And we accept you not only as the Messiah, but we accept you as people who are committed to follow the Messiah. Exactly what we talk about in the act of baptism. We used to live a different life, then we met you. We changed our careers, we changed our life direction, we left our families and homes, we've come and began to live and follow you. You've taught us what we should do, you've corrected us and we've accepted it. We have tried to mold ourselves after your nature because you are the guide for our lives. All the way through this, Judas has heard the same things they've heard, but now we see that there was a little bit of a difference in attitude. You are the teacher. You can go to a class on philosophy and listen to the teacher, but you don't have to follow his philosophy. You can go to a class on any kind of subject and listen to what they have to teach, but it's up to you to decide what you're going to do, if you're going to become a disciple of that person or you just gather the information so you'll have it. Judas through all of these things was listening to Jesus, listening to what he had to say, but was making his own choices by his own authority and in his own way. So Jesus was a teacher of information for Judas and not the Lord of his life. And so at this juncture he's decided, all these things I've heard Jesus say and everything that's taken place, I've listened to all of this, but I do not want to follow it. Now this would be an interesting thing if it wasn't for the story Jesus told about the judgment day. He says on the last day when people stand before him, he will say to some of them, depart from me, I don't know who you are. And they will say, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, we have taught people about you, we've even performed miracles in your name, and we have done great things in your name. Sounds like Judas, doesn't it? I know who you are, I've witnessed for you, I've taught about you. And Jesus said, depart from me, I don't know you. Now Jesus didn't mean in that story that he didn't know their names. He didn't know who they were. What he didn't know about them was he did not know their submission to him. You can do a lot of things for God. You can learn a lot of things about God. You can come to Sunday school classes and Bible study classes and preaching services and hear all these things and simply listen and say to yourself, I'm going to do what I think of all these things I should do, instead of having a passion to say, these are the words that will guide my life. It's an awfully easy thing to do in our country to go to church, it's popular, people approve of it, places in the world where that's not true. So it's easy to slip into the pattern of listening to sermons and never changing your life. Going to Bible studies and listening to the Bible taught and living the same way after the Bible studies you did before. It's awfully easy even to read the Bible out of curiosity and interest and when it says something that we don't want to hear, just to pass it off. What Jesus was interested in was his disciples listening to who he was and what he said was the truth and what he gauges us about as to which one of these people we really are is based on what he told about them. You see, you can become a church member, active in a church, and as long as you don't rob the bank or steal anything or do anything really socially bad, you can mix in with the group pretty well. But what God wants from every one of us is a passion to be like him. And every part of our life that is not like him becomes a major issue to God. Now he told us what he wanted from us. You go back to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus was talking about what it was and their everyday kinds of things. He said to the people, I want you to be the kind of person that's reflecting to the world my character. You can come to church and sit in a service, listen to the sermon, help in vacation Bible school, and even teach Sunday school class and not have the character of Christ in you. So when you get in the car to go home, you're angry, mad, you're calling people names, and when you go to work you can be lazy and you can be irresponsible and you can do all kinds of things apart from the church that are contrary to what God wants. What he said was, if you're really following me everywhere you go, you reflect my character. You have people say to you, your life is sure different than most of the people around me. That's what he's talking about. Now if nobody says that about you, does it worry you? See, that's the issue that's at stake. Does it bother me that my life does not measure what Jesus said I should be? He said to them, I want you to be sure, not that you just don't kill people, but I want you to control your anger. I want you, whenever people do things that are making you mad, instead of flying off the handle, getting angry with people, I want you instead to not do that. I want you to turn the other cheek, okay? Think about that. Do you have the same kind of temper after you professed your faith in Christ that you did before? When things really get bad, you can excuse that, talking about how bad the circumstances are, but what God said was, I don't want you to be angry, because anger is the root out of which murder grows. So I want you to get rid of that in your life. Think about this last month. Did you really lose your temper with somebody? I know they deserved it, I'll give you that, but what Christ said was, it doesn't matter if they deserved it or not, I don't want you to do it. And so he showed us, if they nail you to a cross, stick you with a spear, put thorns on your head, don't get mad. Now I've heard people say, well, that's just my nature, it's my temper, that's a nature that's not controlled by Christ. See, what Jesus was talking about with his disciples, I don't want you to learn these things, I want you to live them. I don't want you to be a student of my teaching, I want you to be a practicing, living example of my teaching. Jesus tells all these things about us. It's not a matter of whether or not you've committed adultery with somebody. Do you watch pornography until your lust gets hold of you? Do you look at other women and men and do you say, I desire to have sex with them, in your mind you keep thinking about that and thinking about it and thinking about it, that's what Jesus said, you must quit that. Maybe nobody in the world knows but you and your computer what you watch, but God does. I do not want your heart to be possessed by the power of this temptation and lust. And if that's a part of your life, you should realize that if you practice following Jesus, this will be something you hate in yourself, that you pray for daily to be removed, that you're willing to do the things that are necessary to get this out of your life. Like putting your computer where everybody in the house can see it all the time. Steps that are required to allow you to be free from the power that grabs your heart. Jesus said, I want you to have the kind of marriage that shows love between husbands and wives. I want you to be able, when you make a promise, that you always keep it. I want you to be the kind of person who does the right thing at all times. If someone strikes you on the right side of the cheek, turn to him also and let him strike the other cheek. Do not retaliate in your life. He said, I want you to find the people that don't like you and I want you to make sure that they become the people that you are focused on doing good things for. Love your enemies. Everyone can love your friends. I want you to love your enemies. You have somebody that doesn't like you? You don't want to be around them? You want them out of your life? Or do you say, this is the person that I must learn how to care for more than anyone else in my life? Do you make a regular pattern of prayer, Jesus said? Do you make your spiritual things more important to you than even food in your life? Are you making sure that the most important things in your life are the spiritual things that will live past death? The only thing that's going to be in heaven out of this world are people. And when you invest your life in people, you're investing something that's eternal. Your house, your car, your money, all those things, you're going to leave here. But if you only focus on this world, you've missed what Jesus is saying. So what do you think about all the time? What you can buy, what you have, what you own? You take the amount of time you spend on that as opposed to the amount of time you spend on spiritual matters, what would it look like? Imagine how much time Jesus spent on all of those things, the material as opposed to the spiritual dimension. And when you find people are not doing the right thing like you think they are, do you judge them? Do you criticize them? Do you tell people about it? You make sure everyone knows just how bad they are? Do you pray about things a couple of times or do you keep on asking and asking and asking and asking until God gives that to you or do you give up? See all these are the things Jesus told us we must do. Is your life built on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ as the ruler of your life? Now you see, Judas had heard all this stuff and he was a pretty good guy. He knew the Bible, he was a religious guy, but he just wasn't willing to say, my life is completely yours God. And so he betrayed Jesus. Now I want to point something out to you. What Judas did was he said to these people, you want to arrest Jesus. I'll tell you what I'm willing to do for you. I know you don't want to arrest him in public because he has a lot of followers and you're afraid of the fallout. I'm on the inside of this group and I can tell you whenever he's alone by himself so you can arrest him with nobody watching. I'm not going to arrest him. I'm not going to do anything bad to him. All I'm going to do is tell you where he is when you can arrest him. You know what Peter did? After Jesus was arrested and he was on trial, Peter was standing in the outside courtyard and a young lady came up and said, you're one of those followers of Jesus, aren't you? And he said, no, I'm not. A little while later she came by and said, well, you talk just like you're from Galilee. Like you'd say, you talk like you're from New York or South, the South. You have the same kind of language that Jesus has. Surely you know him. He said, no, no, I don't know him. And then the third time and he actually cussed a little bit. You know, people will believe you if you cuss like it's a bad thing that you would know that person. Who are the two people, if you were to see their lives side by side, would you say did the worst thing? Judas never denied that he knew who Jesus was. He never denied his affiliation with him. He just cooperated with those who were the enemies. But what was wrong with Judas was he acted like he was really a follower of Jesus when he really wasn't. And he had no remorse. He had just gone and made a deal to sell Jesus, to sell this opportunity to arrest him. Jesus confronted him at this meal, told him he knew what was happening. And Judas had a chance to go back and say, guys, I can't go through with this. But he didn't. Peter, when he was standing in the yard, he looked through the courtyard and he saw Jesus and Jesus looked at him and Peter broke down crying. His heart was broken that he had failed his Lord. Judas' heart was not broken that day. He was just doing what his teacher told him not to do. There was no commitment on Judas' part to Jesus as Lord, but there was on Peter's. Now I have to ask you, when I went through this sort of litany of Jesus' instructions on the Sermon on the Mount, did one of them strike you and you say, now that's mine, I have that one problem? Were you like Peter or were you like Judas? You say, well, yeah, everybody's got problems and that's mine. Or did it break your heart that you're not exactly what Jesus wants you to be? You come to this service today hoping to find a word to help you live a better and different life or did you just come? What is a goal for your spiritual life, to be good or to be as obedient to Jesus Christ as you can? It's a difference, you see, between saying Jesus is my Lord and saying Jesus is a teacher. It would be better, Jesus said, if you'd never been born than to think this way because the eternal destiny that you face is eternity without me in hell. For life is given to those who say openly, publicly, Jesus Christ is my Lord and then to those who passionately desire to live for Him day by day by day. Would you bow your heads for a moment? How often does it occur to you, am I living the way Jesus wants me to? Never. Then you know where you're at. It doesn't matter if you come to church, it doesn't matter if you know the Bible, it doesn't even matter if you've memorized it. That's not what Jesus is concerned about. It's better to know one verse and do all that you know than to do a thousand and do five of them. Because you're picking and choosing, you see. Not saying Jesus, I want to do every single one of them. What Jesus is looking for are people that believe in Him so much that they will say I want to live my life the way you tell me I should live. I trust you more than myself. Today, I want to ask you if that's the promise that you've made to God. If so, it makes you one of these followers. You may make your mistake, well you will. But every time you do, it will bring tears to your eyes to know you failed. If you've made that promise to God, I want you to just ask God right now, what is it in my life that's most important to you for me to change? Listen to what comes to your mind. This is God telling you, as your Lord, what He wants different in you. Will you make a promise to Him? I'm going to ask you for strength to do this or to avoid it. I'm going to keep asking for you to deliver me from this until you do. This will now become the passion for me to let you have this part of my life. That's what a follower of Jesus does. A student of Jesus says, well, he says that's wrong, but a lot of things are wrong in the world and concern. This morning, you may know several things God wants you to do. You may know that He wants you to make that promise to Him. You may feel like this is a place where you ought to be a part of this church family. People who have committed to follow Christ as Lord of their lives. God may have told you something that He wants you to do in terms of the work of the church or a friend or a neighbor. Right now, if those words come to you, this is your Lord speaking, what will you do? Father, thank you for sending Jesus into this world who's taught us how to be able to live and the difference between living according to our own standard of approval or living by the standard you've given us. I'm asking you, Lord, of this group of people who are listening, I want to ask you to call those that you're seeking today to a level of obedience they've never had before. In the name of Christ, I ask this, amen. If you feel there's some need that you have to make a promise to God and it helps you to make it out loud to someone else so that they can check on you once in a while to see what's going on, this is a time in our service when we ask you to do it. You can do it yourself right where you're at. Or if you feel a need, God has impressed you, you ought to do this. You can come and share it with me or come and share it with Debbie. Would you stand please while we sing this song? If God has talked to you this morning, we ask you to say to Him, Yes, Lord, I will obey. I can hear my Savior calling. I can hear my Savior calling. I can hear my Savior calling. Take my cross and follow, follow me. Where He leads me, I will follow. Where He leads me, I will follow. Where He leads me, I will follow. I'll go with Him, with Him all the way. I'll go with Him through the garden. I'll go with Him through the garden. I'll go with Him through the garden. I'll go with Him, with Him all the way. So, Lord, you have heard our promise to you that where you lead us, you will follow because you are our Lord. You've heard us say that whether it's in the garden where there's easy things to do or through the valleys where there are hard things to do, we will obey you because we believe that you are the Lord, the ruler of heaven and earth. I ask for each person who's listened to you today, heard you point out in their lives some things that you are interested in seeing different, that this would become the passion of their lives to be obedient to you. For each person who said to you, yes, Lord, I will do this, I pray your strength for them, your wisdom for them, and your guidance. We are leaving here trusting you as the Lord of our lives. It's in the name of Jesus we have courage to pray and to live for you. Amen. Let it be said of us. That we finish. The power of the risen Lord. Let the cross be our glory and the Lord be our song. By mercy made holy by the spirit made strong. Let the cross be our glory and the Lord be our song. Till the likeness of Jesus be through us made known. Let the cross be our glory and the Lord be our song. Amen. Amen.