The Cost of Following Jesus

I was about in the 4th or 5th grade, there used to be every day after school a series of radio programs, they called them serials, they were just 15 minute programs. I remember Sky King, he was the guy that flew in an airplane and solved mysteries and caught the bad guys. And then there was the Lone Ranger, he was always on 15 minutes. And then the Green Hornet was on every day after school. One time the Green Hornet program, he got some kind of mystery and he had a secret decoding ring where you could read the codes of the evil people and tell what they were doing and you could catch them. And he offered to all of us copies of one of his secret decoding rings. You had to buy a box of cereal, cut a piece off of it, and then mail it in with a dime or something and you'd get a secret decoding ring. I couldn't wait for that. I wanted a box of cereal my mother didn't normally get, but finally she agreed and we got it. I cut that off the top or whatever it was and mailed it in and couldn't wait. When it came, it was a wonderful day. But I discovered when I took this secret decoding ring out that I had no secrets to decode. Sort of a letdown. What you could really do was write something on there, which you already knew, and then you could run it under the ring which had kind of a plastic in it so you could see through it and you could read your own secret that you wrote down on the ring. I don't think I fooled with that very long, it soon was not of interest to me. Something that was so important and then became worthless. Maybe it's happened to you, something you really wanted, you really thought it was great, you thought it would be wonderful, and when you got it you thought, eh, what is this thing? Or maybe you've had some people who were your really close friends and you thought that they'd be your friends forever. They were nice to you, you were nice to them, but you discovered that they kept growing away from you and being less and less interested in you. And then you would hear that they talked about you. And then you would suddenly discover that your close friends were not your friends really at all. It's a painful thing to have happen to you, either when you're disappointed in something that you really thought was invaluable or whenever someone else becomes disappointed in you so that you no longer are valuable to them. In this story, the man who is the center of this story is a famous man because his name has become known all over the world for someone who turns against another friend. I don't know that I've ever heard of any parent naming their child Judas. But you still hear on the television, on the news, or in the conversations around you, when someone turns against a person, that they'll still call them Judas's. This is a story that started all of that. Chapter 26 of the book of Matthew, beginning with verse 14, then one of the 12, the one called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest and asked, what are you willing to give me if I hand over to you, if I hand him over to you? So they counted out for him 30 silver coins. From then on, Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over. Matthew starts this with this phrase, then one of the 12. He does this because he wants us to understand that Judas was not someone who was doing what he did in ignorance. He's not someone who did what he did just by accident. Judas was a man who was on the inside. Jesus himself had personally asked Judas to become one of his followers. And Judas agreed. He agreed to say, I'm going to come and follow you, learn what you want me to do, and live in obedience to what you tell me. He was there to hear the words of Jesus that are recorded in the Bible, all of these words. He was sitting there when the Sermon on the Mount was given, listening to those words from the very mouth of Jesus himself. He heard Jesus speak, and he listened to the authority with which Jesus spoke. Roman soldiers came to hear Jesus and said, we've never heard anyone speak with the kind of authority this man has. Jesus was a commanding person by what he had to say. He spoke as if what he was saying was really the truth and he knew it. Judas heard all that, just like all the others did. He saw when Jesus walked up to someone who was blind and touched them and they were healed and could see again. Even people had never been able to see their whole life. He was there when Jesus was able to heal a man who'd never been able to walk ever his whole life and saw him get up and run away. He's even there whenever Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. What would it be like to go out to the cemetery and hear someone call a man's name and them get up from the dead and walk around alive? He saw all this. Let's don't be deceived into thinking that if you teach people the Bible that they're going to live the right way. Don't be deceived into thinking that if you teach people how to be able to read the scriptures and they come to church and they learn all these things, they're going to live the right way. It's not a matter of knowledge. And don't think that if people can see what a wonderful, miraculous thing God does, it's going to change their life so that they'll follow him forever. There was a man, one of the twelve, who's on the verge of turning Jesus into his worst enemies and assisting in his death. What you see in the story is that the reality comes this way. No one ever becomes a faithful follower of Christ by knowledge or by information, but by faithful commitment of their selves to him. By saying to Jesus, You are the ruler of my life. From this time on in my life, I'm going to try to make all the decisions I have to make based on what You want me to do. It's a commitment that's powerful and deep. That's what happened here to Judas. He was faced with that choice, but in the end, he turned his back on Jesus. Of course, there's a lot of speculation as to why he would do something like that. And it is just speculation. None of these things are really true. We don't know what was in his mind or his heart. But I think the speculation that comes about Judas is because we look inside of ourselves and see, why is it that sometimes I'm faithful to God and sometimes I am not? What causes me to turn my back on God? So people say, Well, maybe Judas wasn't a bad guy. After all, he was with Jesus all this time. Jesus chose him. Jesus called him. But he was really trying to help out. He started following Jesus and he believed like all the other people in Israel at that time that when the Messiah came, he would rally an army. He would get that army together and he would drive the Romans out of the Holy Land and then the Jewish people would be able to rule their own homeland again as God had promised in the Old Testament. And so they were eager for this to take place. Some speculate that Judas was tired of waiting. After all, he started following Jesus, left everything behind, was walking around following Jesus, listening to him. Year one went by, year two went by, year three now is here. Something's got to happen. So the speculation is, he said, I'll push his hand, I'll make it take place. I know what's supposed to happen, I'll make it happen. I'll turn him into the authorities, then they'll lock him up in jail and he'll have to exercise all that divine authority and power that I've seen him have and break out of jail and rally his soldiers together and drive the Romans out or he'll be killed and surely he won't want to be killed. None of us want that. So I'll call his hand. What he really intended to do was to stir up rebellion and drive the Romans out. If he'd wanted to do that, he wouldn't have accepted the money. I don't think that's really what happened. It's true that a lot of us get tired of waiting on God. I can see why someone would speculate that. Haven't you ever prayed and prayed and prayed about something to take place and then you just get so anxious for it to happen, you say, I don't care, I'm going to do it anyway. You get out ahead of God, trying to make something work that's not really ready to work, and you have a mess on your hands. You're unusual if you haven't tried that. I can see why someone would speculate that about Judas, but I don't think that's what happened. I don't think he would have taken the money if that was the case. He didn't need that. That wasn't what he was after if he wanted rebellion. And then some speculate that Judas really got in this deal and found out it was something he didn't want. He started following Jesus and he saw exactly what was going on. He heard Jesus speak with authority to huge crowds of people, and he could see that Jesus was the perfect commanding general for a rebellious army against the Romans. I mean, he spoke with authority, thousands of men were willing to hear him and listen to him. He had a crowd of 5,000 men, no amplifier, speaking to them. They were listening, ready to do whatever he asked. Think about that. Jesus would go across the land and draw all the people and men together and say, we're ready now to take our land back, and they would be willing to fight for him. Judas and others could see that this was happening. All the disciples thought this was what was going to take place in the beginning. And they could see Jesus and the power that he had. I mean, if you had a soldier, a group of 5,000 soldiers, that's all you'd ever need. You send them out to battle, a thousand of them come back wounded, you lay your hand on them and say, be healed, they're healed, they go back out and fight the next day. I mean, you can't beat that for a military general. And if some of them got killed, you just go over and grab them by the hand and lift them up and they're alive and back out to the battle they go. I can see how they would see in Jesus, this guy can do anything, and enough food to feed them. Or if you had a few fish in a little basket, you could feed all of them in one meal with plenty left over. What more could you ask? And someone that could make sure his army never lost a man, was always well fed and taken care of, and the people were willing to do anything they wanted for him. You can see how Judas would have thought this was great. But what happened when the crowd started following Jesus, he said to them, some of you are just here for the food. Unless you deny yourself and take up your cross, you can't follow me. You must leave your families, your homes, your whole life, and follow me. And when he began to say that to people, the scripture says they began to drop away. And the disciples watched as, one after another, the crowds were smaller and smaller and smaller. And now Jesus started saying just before he got to Jerusalem to them, I'm going to go to Jerusalem and I'm going to be turned over to the chief priest and killed, and I'm going to die on a cross. That's not the way your commanding officer talks. That's defeat. The disciples were more and more confused about what Jesus was doing, but they believed what he said, that he had the words of life. He asked them one time, are you two going to leave me? When the crowds were dwindling, and they said to him, you alone have the words of life. They didn't understand it, but they said, we're in this for the whole length, no matter what it takes. But Judas was having other ideas perhaps. I've wasted three years of my life and this is going nowhere. When this is all over, he's going to be dead, I'll have three years out of my life, and I won't have anything. If I go and turn him in, I won't have to kill him, I won't do anything to him, I'll just tell them where he is and when they can find him so there's no crowds around so they won't get in trouble, and I'll get my money. Thirty pieces of silver doesn't sound like very much because the biggest piece of metal silver coin we have is a dollar, I think. Thirty bucks? No. It's a thousand dollars that he was given. It's enough, about half of a salary for a year for a person to give him a start, a new business, a new life, a new direction. After all, Jesus was closing this operation down, and he might as well get what he could out of it. You know, it seems cruel what Jesus did, but there's a lot of people in life who start out talking about God and following God and going to church, and then one thing after another happens where their life doesn't turn out the way they want it to, and they don't go to church anymore. They don't read their Bible anymore. They don't talk to God about what to do. You've heard it. I don't know how you could worship a God like that who lets this kind of tragedy like in Boston happen. How can you go to church when your God can't even take care of these people? What he's saying is, this is what I think God ought to do, and if he doesn't do it the way I think he ought to do it, I'm out of here. That's exactly what Judas did. You see, what Judas did was to say, I have in my own mind what God ought to do, and I'm committing myself to God because I think he's going to accomplish in my life what I want to have happen. But when he discovered God had his own plans and he wanted Judas to change his plans to fit God's plans, then he wasn't ready for that. I meet a lot of people who say, I don't go to church anymore because the people in the church did this or that or the other, something happened. You see, there are people who say, if God doesn't make my life work out exactly the way I want it to work, I'm through, I'm quitting. What they're saying is, my plan is better than God's plan. What they're saying is, if God does not follow my plan, I'm not going to have anything to do with him. I am in charge and I expect God to do the things I want him to do or I'm through. See the fundamental thing that makes a person a follower of Jesus Christ is when they say, I will follow you no matter what. I give up my plans for yours. I give up my will for yours because I believe that you alone are the ruler of the world. See becoming a follower of Christ is placing Christ in the position of ultimate authority and power in your life and trusting him for every single situation, that he is always at work for the good in your life even though you can't see it, that his plan is always better than yours and that it will always be accomplished if you cooperate with what he asks you to do. That's what it means to be a follower of Christ. Judas' sin against God was not telling the people where he was, but saying in his own mind, Jesus is not working this right. He is not following my expectations. He placed himself above Jesus. And so he took care of himself, went off on his own way, followed his own plan. But I don't really think that Jesus' failure to do what Judas wanted was really the heart of this whole thing. There was something different in this. Now Matthew does not tell the story exactly as John does. In John chapter 12, John tells the very same story that's found here. Both stories are set in a situation where Jesus has just been to Bethany and the woman who was there had taken very expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus' head and then John says poured it on his feet and dried this perfume off with her own hair of her head, let her hair down, which would have been a very insulting thing or a risky thing for a woman in that time to do. Here's the way John tells the story. Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume, she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected. Why wasn't this perfume sold in the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to whatever was put into it. Suddenly another picture arises. Judas is in this thing for himself. He said he joined up with Jesus' group, but evidently he had in mind that some way this would be financially beneficial to him. And so he started following Jesus, listening to all the things that Jesus said, watching the miracles, seeing all these things taking place, and they chose him to be the treasure of the group. He was the one that carried the money bag around. Now Jesus didn't work, nor his disciples worked, but he only had money because people gave money to him. And the scripture says there were many women who gave money to Jesus. And you know, they wouldn't have had a lot of money, women didn't work in those days. Their husbands were wealthy and they had what they could give that way. So they didn't have a lot of money. One time when they had to pay a tax, Jesus told one of his followers, go down to the lake and catch a fish and in the fish's mouth will be a coin with enough to pay our taxes. Now that's poor when you're down to the place where you can't even pay your simple, not property tax, but your head tax, poll tax we call it. They didn't have much. But Jesus was helping himself out of the bag for his own personal benefit at the expense of the group. Now Jesus had already done some things I'm sure that Judas didn't approve of. A rich man came and wanted to join the group. He had lots of money. He was very wealthy. He said, I'm ready to follow you, Jesus. And Judas made it so hard that he couldn't go. The man wouldn't go with him. He said, I want you to sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come and follow me. And the man just left. And I'm sure as he left, from what we see about Judas, he was seeing the money going out the door. How can we get by if we don't attract these people with the money to help us? Now he comes to this last event in the house with the lady who gives perfume worth $15,000 in our money today. And he watches Jesus let the woman walk in the room with this expensive perfume, break the neck of the bottle and pour it on him. And he sees their cash flow going down the drain. That perfume, Jesus, could have been sold for years' wages, and we could have helped 300 poor people for one day's pay. Why in the world did you allow this to take place? Jesus then turned to him and said, you know, he's going to have the poor with you, but I'll only be with you a while. And he put Judas down publicly in front of the whole group. The next thing you know, Judas is out the door and he's talking to Jesus' enemies and he said, what will you give me if I'll help you get him in a place where you can arrest him? The thief, who's in it for himself, who's looking out first for his money, is exposed. There are many people who start out in their Christian life sincerely saying, I'm ready to follow God no matter what. I'll live for him. I'll follow him. And then when they hear preaching about stewardship or tithing, they're out the door. I hear a lot of people. I don't go to church. All I want is your money. In other words, giving whatever it is that God says they should give stands in the way of them following Jesus. It's a money issue with them, just like it was for Jesus, Judas. So when someone says, I'm not going to go to church because all they want is the money and they know the Bible says you should go to church, they're saying, God, I'm not going to do what you tell me to do because I don't want anybody to ask me for money. So money becomes more important to them than obedience to God. That's exactly where Jesus, where Judas was too. There's some people, you know, who don't do that. They start out following God and they start learning about what it means to pray and read the Bible and put into practice the Christian faith. I can't tell you how many I've seen this happen to. And then the first thing you know, they get, their life cleans up, they get more faithful in their work attendance, and then they get a promotion or they get an offer of another job. But the new promotion or the offer of another job means they have to leave town maybe. They're not going to be able to be faithful in the work, the things at the church that they're supposed to be doing. So they say, I'm just so busy with my business and my life and my work that I can't work in the church anymore. And then they quit coming to one meeting and another meeting and soon they're not coming at all. Their whole life is poured into their money-making business. When Jesus said to them when they started, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and I will provide all you need to live in. But suddenly they don't believe that. They believe they have to do this because God is not going to. That's exactly what Jesus, Judas did. God is not going to provide for me so I have to steal and I have to get whatever I can or I can't make it. Sometimes people get so involved in the life of their work that they quit their spiritual growth. They don't study the Bible, they don't pray, they don't have time for the things of God because their business, their career, their lifestyle leaves no place for God's authority or control. That's exactly what Judas did. None of us want to be Judas. We don't want to be seen as someone who turns our back on God and turns Him in and causes Him to die. But being Judas is more than just seeing Jesus on a cross physically. Being Judas means that you say to God, I don't believe that you can deliver for me what I need to live. I don't believe you're going to do the things that are important to me, deliver our country from its enemies. I don't believe you're going to do what I need to do, have enough money for all the things I want in my life. So I am going to start doing what I think I ought to do, even if it means I cannot do the things you tell me to do. You see, the real sin in Judas' life was he did not trust God. He didn't trust God to fulfill the promise of the Old Testament, I will restore my kingdom greater than it's ever been. And it's true, today there are more followers of Jesus around the world than there ever was in the day of Judas' life. He didn't trust God to provide for his needs. He wanted God to provide for things that he thought was important when they really weren't things that God thought he needed to have. You see, at the very heart of this, being like Judas means trusting yourself more than you trust God. That's what it means to be Judas. What is it that God asks of you? And then you explain to him why you cannot or will not do it. That's what it boils down to. Look at your own life and see how much time you spend listening to God every day. Do you have a time set aside so you open the scriptures, everything else put aside and you just listen to what God is saying out of the Bible? Do you write it down when you know that there's something you're supposed to do and then it becomes the top of your priority list for that day and you make sure that you do it? Do you keep on being faithful to God no matter what happens around you, if people don't do the things they're supposed to do, if the church is not exactly the way you think it should be, if everything around you is not what you want? Do you keep on being faithful to what you know God has asked? You see, all of those are signs that you trust God enough to do whatever he tells you all of your life. God asks us to believe this one thing, that he is the creator of the universe. He made everything that there is. That the day is coming when he judges all of us based on whether or not we have lived our lives in obedience and submission to him. He sent his son to explain to us exactly how we should live and to live the way God himself lives so we could see God in flesh. You copy your life after this man and you will find life. Now do you believe that? If you do, you say, Jesus Christ, I give my life to you and you begin living in obedience to him. That's the one thing he asks. Sometimes God will not do the things you want him to do, but you have to believe in him, not yourself. Sometimes things will seem like they're never going to happen the way you want them to. You have to believe that God does things in the right time. And sometimes it will seem like doing the things God tells you to do is really destructive to you financially, in terms of your time, and you'll be tempted to say, I'm not sure doing what God says is the right thing. This is where your faith in him is tried and tested. You have a choice. Keep on doing what the eleven did or do what Judas did. That's what it means to be Judas. To believe only when God suits your plan, your desire, and your goal. Being a follower of Jesus is a promise to him that never can be shaken, no matter what happens. And so the scripture holds before us this path, the road of Judas or the road of the eleven. Would you bow your heads please for a moment? Here is the test. What God asks you to do will always be a little bit different than what you think you ought to do. I'll tell you why that's true. God's just a little bit smarter than every single one of us. That's why his plan will be different than what you think. The other difference is God can make his plan work, you can't. How foolish to trust yourself in place of God. So I want to ask you if you've done the first thing you have to do. Can you ever point in your life to a time, or can you say right now, Lord Jesus, I make a promise to you to live my life in obedience to you, no matter what happens. I'm going to read the Bible to find out what you want me to do. I'm going to be in church so I can hear what you want me to do. I'm going to try to put in practice day by day the things that you tell me are right and good and wholesome. And no matter how impossible it seems, I won't ever stop. That's what God asks of all of us. If you've never done that, I encourage you to do it. This is the way of life. It's the only way you'll find life. You can do that right now where you sit, you just say to God, from now on out, you're the boss. You tell me what to do and I'm going to do my best to do it. Maybe you've made that promise to God, but you're kind of looking around and you see God hasn't done the things you want him to do and you've grown cold and indifferent. Maybe you've taken on too many things in your life so that you're making money and making a living and you don't have time to do what God wants. Something stood in your way. You can look back now and see that you used to be close to God, following him, but now you're not. Don't do that to yourself. This is a time for you to say again, Lord, I want to renew my promise to you. You may be in our community and not have a church family. What God wants in the church is a group of people who've all said we are going to live for Jesus no matter what. We encourage each other, support each other, teach each other, train each other, help each other to follow God. That's what we do. And God is saying to you, this is the place you need to be. The doors of our church are open for you to come and say today, I know God wants me to be a part of this family of faith. That's God speaking to you. And when you do it, you follow the 11. When you have an excuse, you follow Judas. And so, Father, I ask that you would help me today to know the things this week that you want me to do with my life. And nothing would keep me from doing those things. I ask for all of the people listening that you would take each one of our lives and you would mold us into the person you want us to be. Give us submissive, surrendered hearts to you. If any of us need to make new promises to you today, make that clear to us so that we know this is what you're asking. Give us this heart that's submissive and obedient to you, that we might walk with you to the very end of our lives. In the name of Jesus, I ask this. Amen. I want to ask you if you would stand, please. We're going to sing an invitation hymn, closing hymn, inviting you if God has asked you to do something and you feel like, I don't know why, but I think I need to go to the front and tell that guy that this is what God wants me to do, this is your opportunity to do that. And as we sing this hymn, you just step out from where you are, you come and tell me or you come and tell Debbie what your promise is to her and to me. Let God guide you. Let thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark spot, to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Debbie, do you have something you want to say? She just wanted to ask for a prayer request. Okay. I'll give you mine, but it's a little short. Okay. Some of my cousins died and I've been praying, so. She's lost some of her cousins and she's very concerned about that situation, so she would just like for us to lift her up in prayer and I told her as a body of believers in her church family, we would do that. Lost in the, what do you mean by that? I'm not sure. Some have died. Okay. We'll remember to pray for your family in this time of that loss. Okay? Join me in prayer. And so we ask, Father, that you would help us to learn from the lessons of other people's lives. Judas did a terrible thing that he later paid for. And all through history, his name has stood out as someone we don't want to be like. Satan is so deceptive and subtle that sometimes he convinces us to be like what we don't want to be. So help us to see his hand, hear his voice, and avoid him. Help us to be able to hear your voice and to always listen to you and to believe that no matter what takes place, when we trust you, we will find life in its fullest. In the name of Jesus, we give thanks for this great truth. Amen. Amen. My life is in you, Lord. My strength is in you, Lord. My hope is in you, Lord. In you, it's in you. My life is in you, Lord. My strength is in you, Lord. My hope is in you, Lord. In you, it's in you. I will praise you with all of my life. I will praise you with all of my strength. With all of my life. With all of my strength. All of my hope is in you. My life is in you, Lord. My strength is in you, Lord. My hope is in you, Lord. In you, it's in you. My life is in you, Lord. My strength is in you, Lord. My hope is in you, Lord. In you, it's in you. In you.