His Comforting Will

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Don Filcek; Matthew 26:47-56 His Comforting Will

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here. And it's really a great thing to be together in worship, together in this gathering.
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That's obviously a fundamental thing that churches do. As a matter of fact, the word church means the gathering.
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So that's what we do, and that's fundamental to our walk with God. He's made us communal beings.
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We need community. We need relationship. And so as we gather this morning, it's our goal to grow together in our faith, and together is not a minor part of that.
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But the way that God has given us to grow in faith is by taking in his word. We need to take in his holy word, listen to it, study it, believe it, and then leave this place here, applying it and with a plan to live it out.
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And that's what growing in faith means. Faith really only applied in the direction of the way that God has revealed himself is a way, a method, the means by which our faith grows is taking in his word, trusting it enough to go out and live it.
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And so as we become more and more saturated with his word, we live more and more in the knowledge of his love, and we live more and more in the knowledge of how he wants us to live, and then we live more and more in the desire to follow him from hearts that are eternally his through his great sacrifice for us, that the word reveals to us and keeps bashing us with.
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So how many of you would just say, sometimes during the week, I grab my problems and hold them close.
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I begin to think by Friday, I need to do this all myself. It's all on my shoulders.
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It's all my effort. And by coming back to the word regularly, I'd encourage you daily, not just waiting for Sunday, but by coming back to the word, it reminds us, oh wait,
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I'm loved. Oh wait, the gospel is true. Oh wait, I'm forgiven. Oh wait, it's the power of the spirit that gives me the ability to live for him.
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How many of you need those reminders regularly? That's what I mean by growing in faith, by coming to his word and remembering what it says is true, because the world is giving you a different message, isn't it?
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It's all on your shoulders. You've got to make it happen or it's not going to happen. And then there's all kinds of obviously much worse messages than that that the world is trying to give us.
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As we walk through the text of the Gospel of Matthew, we draw slowly but increasingly closer to the crucifixion.
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This last few days of Jesus and the hours stretch on in the Gospel of Matthew. We're going to be here for a little while.
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The text wants us to be here a while, wants us to sit in these hours and in these moments with the disciples and with Jesus.
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Every event gets a lot of detail. We're going to see that here in our text. This morning, we pause and consider his betrayal and his arrest in the garden.
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And it's from Matthew's perspective, obviously. We have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All four Gospel writers record this event from their own perspectives.
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The Gospel writers don't all four record every event in the life of Jesus. They picked and chose based on their personalities, the things that stuck out to them, and then the spiritual revelation.
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But it's always intriguing to me when all four Gospels share the same account.
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It kind of grabs my attention. It's like, wow, this is an event that grabbed all four of these writers and really had a dramatic impact on the way that they viewed the world.
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So our text shows such a contrast in Jesus from the text last week. Is this thing still on?
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I felt like it cut out there just for a second, just my ear. The text shows a real major contrast from last week, all the way to the degree that it just seems like something radical has shifted in Jesus.
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And I'm going to suggest that a major application from our text this morning has to take into account the transformation of Jesus from the text that we looked at last week, from sorrowful, troubled, pleading with God in prayer in the garden, to where we see
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Him now at the start of our text, still in that same garden, in control, commanding, confident, and using
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His arrest even as an opportunity to rebuke His accusers. Something has changed in Jesus.
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Something has shifted in the way that He's viewing the task that is in front of Him. I've titled this message,
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His Comforting Will, capital H, God's Comforting Will. His Comforting Will, because the only thing that has transpired since Jesus entered the garden last week, distraught and sorrowful and beside Himself, the only thing that's changed is
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He's prayed. And in prayer, He submitted Himself to the will of His heavenly Father. We saw that last week.
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He has asked the Father if it's possible to rescue humanity in any other way that doesn't include Him drinking down the cup of the fierce and hot wrath of the
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Father. If there's any other way, let's do that, Father, says Jesus. And yet the three times
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He prayed, He ended His prayers with this phrase, yet not my will, but Yours be done.
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This statement is a demonstration of His faith and trust in His Father to get this right. And so from this point on, we're going to begin to see many clues over the course of the coming weeks that Jesus takes
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His comfort in these coming few hours from the knowledge that the
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Father will be working out a plan that has been prepared in advance.
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He will mention twice in our very short passage that we're going to be in this morning that the things that are happening that very night are fulfillments of what was previously written in prophecy.
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What I want to point out is that it's as if Jesus is breathing a sigh of relief at every turn, reminding
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Himself and repeating to Himself, according to the Father's plan, according to the Father's plan, according to the
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Father's plan, with each step that leads Him closer to the cross where He will sacrifice
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Himself for us. He begins in our text down that road into unspeakable horrors for us.
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This is indeed the very beginning of His sacrifice in a physical sense. He's going to actually be hurt in this passage, the beginning of that physical pain and suffering that He's going to go through.
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But I want to point out that this is not the beginning in a very technical sense of the sacrifice and what
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Jesus gave up for us. Let me remind us all before we open up and read that the
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Apostle Paul would remind us that His sacrifice began quite a few years prior to this arrest in the garden when
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Paul wrote this in Philippians 2, verses 5 through 8. Again, Philippians 2, 5 through 8 says this, quote,
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Have this mind among yourselves, speaking of humility, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Think like He thought and act like He acted.
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Because He, who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied
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Himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
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And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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So I just encourage you to think in terms of context that the humble sacrifice of Jesus began when
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He stepped down from heaven and took on the likeness of sinful humanity. He will indeed become obedient to the
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Father to the point of death, even death on a cross. But Jesus had been living out the sacrificial obedience to the heavenly
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Father for 33 years, and we see Him draw great strength and comfort in trusting
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His Father with a plan that they have both agreed on, that is the direction that His life is going here near the end of His ministry.
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So let's open our Bibles, open your devices or your apps to Matthew chapter 26, verses 47 through 56.
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And if you don't own a paper copy of the Bible and you're interested in one, you can talk with them during connection time out there at the welcome table, and they would love to get you a copy, a physical copy of the
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Bible to take home with you to have for yourself. You can do that at the end of the service as well. But we want everybody to have a copy of God's Word to be able to read and take it on.
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Just like I mentioned earlier, the way we grow in our faith is by reading it. That'd be great if you had one at home to be able to do that too.
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Matthew 26, verses 47 through 56. While He, that He is
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Jesus, while He was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the elders of the people.
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Now, the betrayer had given them a sign saying, the one I will kiss is the man, seize him.
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And he came up to Jesus at once and said, greetings rabbi, and he kissed him. Jesus said to him, friend, do what you came to do.
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Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.
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Then Jesus said to him, put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.
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Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father and He will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?
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But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so? At that hour
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Jesus said to the crowds, have you come out against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me?
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Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the
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Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples left
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Him and fled." Father, I thank
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You for Your Word that records for us the actual events, the history of these final hours in the life of our
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Lord and Savior. The way with which He moved forward after that prayer in the garden with confidence and trust in Your goodness and in Your plan of redemption.
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A plan that cost Him so very much and a plan that has granted us so very much.
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He who was righteous and deserved no death took death for us.
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He who had not sinned took upon His shoulders our sin and paid the price that they deserved.
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So Father, I pray that from that reality, from that glorious truth, from that glorious redemption, from that place of salvation,
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Father, that You would light us on fire with gladness, with joy, with emotion, with a genuine movement in our spirits,
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Father. I pray that these things would never, never, never be things that we would get over and move on to bigger and better things and deeper spirituality, but Father, that the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the good news that we are okay with You because of what
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Jesus did there in these closing hours for us, Father, I pray that we would just never get over it.
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That it would be expressed in our worship, that it would be expressed in the way we parent our children or the way we respond to parents or the way that we respond to our neighbors and our co -workers, the way we drive our cars, the way that we discharge our responsibilities to our employers, the way that we do life would be impacted by the glory of what
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Jesus Christ has done for us. Father, let worship rise out of us and boil over in us because of this great salvation we have.
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And I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Yep, go ahead and be seated. And I do ask that you reopen your device or your
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Bibles to Matthew chapter 26, verses 47 through 56. We're going to be jumping into that and walking through that.
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If at any time during the message you need to get more coffee or juice or donut holes, take advantage of that back there. You're not going to distract me if you need to get up.
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We're going to jump right into the outline. I know that some of you would like to know where we're going so you can get it into your notes and kind of get that idea and that structure down.
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So our passage, verses 47 through 56, are going to break down this way.
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The first is the arrest, verses 46 through 50. The second is the sword, verses 51 through 54.
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And the third part is the rebuke, verses 55 through 56. So arrest, sword, and rebuke are the three main components of our text this morning.
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But before we jump into the specifics, let me remind everyone that the primary purpose of this particular text is to let us know how these things actually went down.
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We are reading a theological history. This is indeed historical events.
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And yet within this history, we see Jesus and His disciples and the mob that came to arrest Him behaving in ways that are instructive to us.
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We see Jesus calm and in command, and that is informative to us about our Lord and Savior. We see the crowd sent out to arrest
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Him, and Judas obviously acting and behaving badly. And that has something to say to us.
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And we see the disciples scatter here at the end of our text, and that is a fulfillment of a prophecy that Jesus has just recently predicted, that when the shepherd is struck, the sheep will scatter.
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When we read the narrative of Scripture, we ought to be looking for more than mere history lessons. You ought to be looking for more than when you leave here, just knowing a little bit more about how
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Jesus was arrested on that night. We're looking to understand how we fit into this context.
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What is God trying to tell us about Himself? What is He trying to tell us about us? And what is
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He trying to tell us about human nature in general, and what He desires of us? So here in the first movement is the arrest, and we're going to kind of look at it and take it apart and kind of dissect it and walk through it in a way that hopefully brings forward some application for your faith as well.
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But Jesus just wrapped up prayer. And when He saw the torches, I mean, He wrapped up prayer, and that's at the very point when
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He saw the torches and heard the rabble coming up the hill to arrest Him. He went to awaken the disciples.
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Of course, He had already asked them three times, stay awake with Me, keep watch with Me. They've fallen asleep, and they're in the middle of the night, and they're all exhausted.
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They've had a long day. And so He wakes them up and says to them, behold, you can sleep later.
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Right now is the time. My betrayer is at hand. And while He repeats those words that are found in verse 46,
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Judas appears in the campfire light. Judas is identified as one of the twelve here, and although it's not necessary for Matthew to say so, he does.
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And I don't think he does it so much, he doesn't identify Judas as one of the twelve primarily because he assumes that we're oafs and haven't caught up so far in what he's written.
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He knows that we know, and yet he is still emphatic to remind us that this very
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Judas who betrays Jesus on this night is one of the twelve who walked around, one of the closest disciples of Jesus.
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And I think it's because it's so stark that one of the closest people in life to Jesus here on this earth is the one who betrayed
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Him. And I think it was stark to Matthew. I think it was shocking to him. I want to say a smidge about Judas just by observation.
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John, the disciple who writes the Gospel of John that we have recorded, tells us that Judas was trusted enough to be the treasurer.
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Now think about that. You've got twelve guys and the one who carries the money around is Judas. Now I don't know about you,
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I really don't, but I don't give access to my finances to just anyone. Anybody with me on that?
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Like how many people do you share the passwords to your bank account with? How many people have that kind of authority?
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How many people can write checks from your bank account? How many people have an extra debit card for your account, right?
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Like how many of you are a bit, raise your hand if you're a bit choosy about who you share your finances with? I think that's all of us, right?
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And it ought to be all of us. So either you have one of two options in front of you. Either the disciples are complete idiots for trusting
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Judas and he was like casting off mad like thief vibes and they didn't catch them, right?
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Like that's one option, probably not likely. Or Judas completely had a fabulous reputation.
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Among the 12, he is selected to be the one who carries the coin purse.
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I believe Judas was considered by the others to be way above board.
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Think that through. Like is that shocking to you? It ought to be, and yet I think there's something informative here.
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There is, by the way, no indication that the disciples knew that the betrayer was Judas until this very evening.
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Now where it is in the siding and all, Jesus says, I'm going to be betrayed and Judas pops up and leaves the room and then he's not there during this entire night.
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I wondered if they started to put things together, but it's hard to tell. And the reason I'm pointing this out is merely to remind us how deceived we can be regarding to true allegiances to our
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Lord. It's really hard to be able to determine the allegiances of others. I want to just tell you directly, an application for this to me is
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I can be fooled. I'm letting you know that. I'm not ashamed of that, I just am fallible.
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I'm a human just like any of us in the room, and I'm pretty quick to accept a credible account of conversion.
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You come to me and you tell me that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, and I'm like, brother, sister, but maybe without the hug.
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But I'm welcoming, right? And we're called to be a welcoming people like that. But Judas here in the text, he's made arrangements with the chief priests.
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There was an exchange of 30 pieces of silver, and all Judas is tasked to do for 30 pieces of silver, modern day equivalent of about $3 ,000, and he is tasked with the responsibility of leading the chief priests and the authorities to Jesus at an opportune time to arrest him.
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Opportune meaning away from the crowds that are gathered there in the city for the Passover feast, and Jerusalem was busting at the seams, and they didn't want him to gain notoriety, and this is a weekend where he's obviously already shown himself.
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He's, at the beginning of the week, he rode on a donkey into crowds, like laying down palm branches, shouting at him,
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Hosanna, save now, Lord. They are, I mean, crowds were starting to follow him.
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The ruling religious leaders who oppose him are worried about what this weekend might spell.
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They want him out of the way as soon as possible, but an opportune time is away from the crowds.
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An opportune time is under the cover of darkness so that they can do this away from the eyes, the prying eyes of others.
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And Judas, in this moment, has delivered well for those who are paying him.
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He leads them to a place outside of the city walls, a place that Jesus and the disciples frequently slept, a place that they frequently went to camp, and it's likely after midnight they can quickly arrest him, get him to trial before sunrise.
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A lot can happen and a lot will happen on this night before the city of Jerusalem awakens to the
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Passover festivities the next day. The chief priests have brought along a large crowd, the text tells us, and it's kind of interesting.
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Some of the words that are used in here help to describe and define the crowd that comes out to arrest Jesus on this evening.
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It consisted likely primarily of hired temple guards, which were Jews who were paid to basically carry clubs and whips and non -lethal weapon type things to basically keep people in line.
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They were the temple guards. They did not have Roman approval to carry swords, and that's informative in this time.
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They did not have the ability to put others to death. Though it's possible that Jews, like Peter, is able to get a sword, here we see that.
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He's breaking the law, he's breaking Roman law by possessing a sword as a Jew, but it's possible that that happened, though unlikely, especially in a formal arrest like this.
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The temple guard would want to follow the Roman rules and make sure that they were not the ones to die this night. This leads me to conclude that as the text tells us, that there were at least a couple of swords in the crowd that were coming out to arrest
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Jesus, that there were likely at least a couple of Roman babysitters who tagged along to make sure that these
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Jews were not up to no good. That was pretty routine in this time and era.
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I mean, oh my goodness, the Roman guards at the walls see a rabble of Jews carrying clubs and torches heading out to the east of Jerusalem.
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They take off out the city gate and it's like, hey, you and you, go tag along. Follow along.
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Find out what's going on. So that's probably how you would end up with a couple of Romans and a couple of swords in this group.
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The swords carried by the Romans, all the rest of the implements legally carried by the Jews who were going out to arrest
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Jesus. By the way, the Roman soldiers were planted all throughout Jewish society to keep order and some were even assigned to the temple guard themselves in order to keep them in line, so they might have been with them from the beginning.
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Judas had set up a sign that we're all likely well aware of. What's he going to do? What's the sign that he set up?
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A kiss. We know that. Judas will give the routine kiss of greeting, a kiss on the cheek to the one that they were to arrest.
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He says, I'm going to kiss that guy on the cheek. He's the one you are supposed to seize. This has always seemed like overkill to me.
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Anybody else like, why doesn't he just say, hey, that's Jesus? Like that one. And then they arrest him.
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Why does he need this intimate sign of friendship and closeness to Jesus?
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It seemed like overkill in my mind until I started thinking about it and what would it be like in that ancient time to go out and arrest somebody in the darkness of night?
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Think pitch darkness of night. This would be scary even if you were in the crowd carrying a club.
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What are we going to encounter out here? We don't know what chaos is waiting for us at the camp.
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Do they know we're coming? Are they going to be prepared? Is this going to be a fight? What's it going to look like? Are you getting all of that? So, they don't know what they're going into.
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Judas has a little bit, and I'll tell you in a second, that he has a pretty good indication and has probably clued them in that this is not going to be as bad as you think, and part of it is the kiss.
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He's putting his neck on the line here. Well, Judas would have known the camping habits of his friends, and they likely camped out under the stars or camped out under lean -tos and makeshift tents that they carried around with them.
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Some even suggest there are some caves on the Mount of Olives near the place that we think the
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Garden of Gethsemane is today. You can go there, and there are some caves there, so it's possible that maybe some of them slept in caves, some of them slept in tents, but they would have been spread out throughout this garden, sleeping.
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Judas doesn't know exactly what to expect, but he does know it's going to be dark. He does know there's the potential, at least, for it to be chaotic, as many men are sleeping, and some are going to wake up, and some are not, and they're going to be groggy, and they're going to be disoriented, and he wants the crowd to be able to just simply follow him in the night directly to their mark.
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The simplicity of the instructions help me to understand the sign, the sign that's given, and also the heart that Judas wants to convey to those, the calm and peace that he wants to give to the people that are along following him to arrest
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Jesus. You see, no matter what happens, no matter what else happens in the scenario, the soldiers only need to pay attention to the movement of one in this night.
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They need to follow the movement of Judas to get to Jesus. Follow him, stay with him, watch him, all attention there, whoever he greets with a kiss is the one.
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Simple and done. Do you get it now? I think you're understanding why this is a very simple plan that Judas comes up with, regardless of the darkness, whatever chaos, however spread out the camp of the disciples actually is,
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Judas will identify Jesus in the night, and just follow Judas and arrest the one he kisses on the cheek, you're going to be good to go.
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I think it's more simple than what the soldiers and maybe even Judas likely expected, though he did not, and it's very clear he did not expect resistance.
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Judas is able to immediately go up to Jesus, greet him with a traditional kiss, and identify him.
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The text tells us in Matthew right away. Now, some scholars of Jewish culture have identified, by the way, that this is a significant affront to Jesus in even the way that he is betrayed.
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It was not acceptable under any circumstances for a student to greet his rabbi or speak to him first.
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Always wait to be spoken to by your teacher, by your rabbi.
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If this is correct, and these Jewish scholars, modern Jewish scholars are correct, then even the method of betrayal is an added insult to Jesus.
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As Judas initiates this greeting with Jesus, once again, even skipping the term Lord, as all the other disciples used for Jesus, and calling him, once again, merely rabbi, merely teacher.
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He is not the Lord of Judas, at least not in Judas' heart. Now, I think that it's so familiar to us that it's kind of like, yeah,
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I mean, some of you could probably preach this message. You know, I mean, you even can identify, wow, this betrayal is stone cold, and we can say it with like a stone cold look on our face, right?
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Like it's just like, oh yeah, he betrayed him, and he betrayed him with a kiss. Well, that's rough, and move along to the next text.
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But the proximity of this betrayal is only made possible, and I want to clearly express this, is only made possible by the expectation of peace from the
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Lord. In other words, Judas has every anticipation that he can get that close to Jesus without reprisal.
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Judas has no expectation. Think about it. He does not believe for a second that Jesus is going to be hiding a little dagger and shiv him as he draws close to betray him.
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What does that tell you about our Lord? What does that tell you about the method and the way in which he conducted himself?
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That Judas has no expectation of any reprisal whatsoever this night by drawing near to the one he's going to betray.
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He doesn't expect violence. He doesn't expect a fight, and this is worthy of serious mention because the sign given that this is
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Jesus, it's a close symbol. It's an intimate symbol. It's like a hug between close friends, and it presumes upon the kindness and gentleness of our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Judas who had spent so much time with Jesus had formed an opinion of him that expected absolutely zero physical reprisal from Jesus at his betrayal.
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Let that settle in. He didn't keep his distance for safety and go like, the guy over there, don't want to get close to him.
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He drew near and kissed our Lord on the cheek without fear of even a simple backhand.
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Really, Judas? Slap. How many of you just think maybe that would be an expectation? Like, really?
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This is the way it's going to go down, Judas? Maybe give him the other cheek, too. I don't know. Instead, Jesus does indeed take command of the situation, literally commanding
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Judas in this moment. He calls him friend and tells him, yep, do what you came to do.
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Get it done. It's go time. And where I'm tempted to see the word friend as sarcastic,
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I believe Jesus' heart is better than mine. I think Jesus is heaping on what has only ever been true in his relationship toward Judas from the beginning.
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He has only ever treated Judas as friend. Judas has no reason to do this, and Jesus is here identifying that.
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We've been friends, right? You know I have always been your friend.
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I think Jesus is heaping on what has only ever been true in this relationship, and Jesus has only ever treated him as friend, and this address is meant to sear that into the conscience of Judas.
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Jesus commanded him, friend, do what you came to do. And the physical suffering beginning, the sacrifice of our
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Lord begins in this very moment, the kiss and the arrest. And you might not see it because, unfortunately,
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English translators sometimes use a little bit more common phrases that we might be able to grasp in terms of arrest, but it's a lot more physical.
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They laid hands on Jesus. They seized him. These Greek words express a very physical nature of the arrest itself, not merely like take it.
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It's not like just saying they took him into custody. They are not gentle with him at all. These are not gentle, kind, like, okay, we'll turn around and could you put your hands behind your back kind of thing, and, you know, like, don't want to get too close.
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The word laid hands on can mean to strike, but it can also imply throwing to the ground.
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It has a striking nature to it. So to force with the hand can mean to force to the ground with the hands, or it can mean to strike with the hand.
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It is violent in its nature. I think it actually means they threw him to the ground. Like they physically grab him, manhandle him, throw him to the ground.
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Seize is to hold fast, physically constrain or subdue. They throw him to the ground and make sure he can't get up, make sure he cannot move.
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Jesus here in this text is certainly violently taken into custody by the
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Greek words that are used here. And with this, Jesus will remain in custody until he is killed on a
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Roman cross the next day. He's arrested. Judas is complicit. The crowds arrest him.
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While our Lord reminds his betrayer of the friendship and love he has received from our
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Lord. Judas has been treated as friend, and he has proven himself to be the son of evil.
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The son of evil who would betray an innocent life for money. I would suggest to you that we can vacillate on two fronts, and I would suggest to you that Judas is indeed, he is indeed a tragic figure.
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How many of you think it's just a tragedy all around? He's a tragic figure, but don't miss the fact, don't let that be the only thing that settles on you because he is not merely a tragic figure, he is also a monster.
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He's a monster. He is a wolf looking for a chance to eat the sheep.
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He is a model of the depth of the depravity that rests in every single human heart.
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He here is reenacting something. He's reenacting a rebellion of another garden, right?
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This happens in a garden, but we know what happened in the other garden. The Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane contrast.
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There is that garden, Garden of Eden, where Satan's lie was accepted over God's truth.
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Here in this garden again, Satan's lie of self -centered gain is accepted over God's truth.
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He just happened to be in physical form at this time. Satan loves to have his way in the human heart, loves to promulgate lies, and at the
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Grammys last week we saw that Satan's way is indeed alive and well in a culture that wants to lie and say we're shooting.
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Our target, our target in society is irreligious secularism. Really? That looked an awful lot like pagan
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Satan worship to me. But irreligious secularism, is that what irreligious secularism looks like?
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Because it looked a lot like Satan parading on a stage. Some of you don't know what I'm talking about. Don't look it up.
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If you know, you know. The second movement of this text after the arrest is the sword.
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In Matthew 51, Matthew records for us what we know from the other gospel accounts is actually Peter. Other gospel accounts identify who it is.
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Matthew doesn't. Peter grabs a hidden sword, strikes the ear of the high priest's slave.
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I want to point out that it's interesting, I mean the ESV says servant, it's the same word for slave. He's quite likely leading the entire posse here.
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The high priest is definitely, definitely, definitely in bed at this point. He's asleep. He's getting his beauty sleep.
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He's got the little thing over his eyes. He sent other people to do his dirty work here, and in this case, probably his own servant is the one who is out leading this rabble to make sure that everything represents the chief priest's desires to a
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T. I want to point out how unfair we might be to Peter and even just say to you that I mentioned in my message last week about bravado and bravery and the distinction, and there's a bravery in Peter to a point.
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I think we all recognize how we can be a hodgepodge of, like I mentioned bravado, and there's sometimes where we get it, right?
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Like we say we're going to read through the Bible in a year, and that's more than bravado. We actually get it done, right? You know what
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I'm talking about? I mean, not everything that we pledge to God is mere bravado, and here Peter actually takes some steps to try to make good on his bravado.
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Now we'll see him fall away in such a way that we actually see that it was mere bravado.
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He's not going to stick with his Lord this entire night, but he tries, and give him some credit for that.
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He's told by Jesus in the text last week that he's going to fall away. He says, no,
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I won't, and he's told he will deny even knowing Jesus, and he says, no, I won't.
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And then here at the moment that he sees Jesus manhandled to the ground, he draws a sword to make sure he doesn't fall away or deny
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Jesus, and he obviously even risks dying with our Lord here. What do you think?
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That's like, good job, Peter. Is there something that's noble about that? This isn't a trick question.
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Raise your hand if you think that's noble. I mean, he's there to defend Jesus. He's there to defend the innocent. He is taking action.
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There's so much of Peter that I can relate to, just kind of like doing the wrong thing, kind of for mixed motives, but trying.
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Anybody? There's a lot of that, right? A lot of that. So I give him some credit for that, and he does actually risk, in this moment, by the way, he does risk dying.
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I'm fairly confident that if I'm right and there's Roman soldiers and commentaries, by the way,
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I'm not alone on that. Every commentary that I read, identified, there's likely Roman soldiers in this posse.
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These soldiers could make a strong case for killing Peter in this moment. How many of you think that if you're there and you're a
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Roman and you see the sword come out and the sword stroke and it cuts somebody's throat, how many of you think that it would be pretty easy for the
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Romans to just kind of, that's done. We're done, Peter. You're a fisherman. We're trained soldiers.
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Okay, everybody go about your business, right? But I would suggest to you that everybody in this case has a bit of an uphill battle, and I've wondered, how does
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Peter survive this night? Anybody with me on that? Pulls out a sword in the presence of Romans and in the presence of the temple guards.
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How does he get away? Like, how in the world does he get away with this? Now, I want to point out that there's a lot of factors that play into this as I studied it that kind of make it likely that Peter gets out alive.
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Anybody who actually strikes him and kills him is going to have a little bit of a problem on their hands. They're all mostly, the majority of the crowd are
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Jews who do not have the right to kill anybody for anything. They have to go to the Romans for permission.
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So the Jewish soldiers have no right to kill Peter, and further, all the
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Jews in the crowd only have clubs. What's Peter brandishing? A sword.
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You want to go up against a guy with a sword with a club? Probably not, right? Especially Peter. I don't picture
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Peter to be a small man. Maybe he was, but I don't think so. So they would have had an uphill battle to take him down, and it would have turned more chaotic than they were certainly hoping for.
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He has a sword, but further, you need to understand that the Romans that could have easily dispatched Peter are there for the ride.
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They're kind of babysitting. And in a sadistic way, I came to the conclusion this week that I'm quite sure the
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Romans could have popped some popcorn and watched if Jews wanted to stand around and kill each other. I'm not joking.
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The handful of Roman soldiers could have dispatched Peter in his clumsy attempts with a short sword, but they have no interest in ending what might prove to be a few
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Jews dead in a garden that night outside of Jerusalem. I'm saying this to help us all understand how in the world
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Peter gets off scot -free this evening. He's no threat to the Romans with his cute little sword, and he attacks a fellow
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Jew and cuts off his ear. All right. Peter was not likely, by the way, a weak man.
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And if a sword cuts off an ear, it had to be swung pretty close to what I would call the neckle region, like ear, like not so much here or here, but about right here.
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If you know, you know. The rest of you, don't worry about any of that. Ryman got it.
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Peter will indeed stay close to Jesus this night. He will indeed avoid arrest by obeying his
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Lord and dropping his sword, but he will also show his disillusionment with Jesus. And I suggest to you probably a deep disillusionment by denying he even knows the man three times this night, knowing that, oh, wait, were you the one with the sword in the garden?
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Nah, I don't even know the people, I'm just here watching. I think Peter genuinely thought that this arrest was the moment, this was the time.
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Here we go. Jesus is going to start the insurrection that leads to his kingdom, and we are going to be there on thrones with him.
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And Peter is ready to be the one who fired the first shot, only to be shut down by the Messiah.
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Put your sword away. This makes what Jesus says in verse 52 more important than merely a generalized statement about self -defense as it's often used.
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This verse has been used out of context by so many. And without the context, I suggest to you it will always be used out of context, always come to the wrong conclusion if it is taken out of context.
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It will always be used to say something it doesn't mean if we don't study what's going on when Jesus utters these words.
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Jesus tells Peter, here at the beginning of his ultimate sacrifice for the sins of his people, to put the sword away.
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He says, my movement will not be defined, my movement will not be driven, my movement will not be advanced by the sword.
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This is not a sword movement. Put the sword away. We're not zealots here.
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This is not a zealot group that's going to go and attack Roman garrisons. Put it away.
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Put it away. If you want this movement to die tonight, keep fighting because the
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Romans will be out here in a second. You want to take up the sword? This very night you're going to die by the sword.
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If you want to go that way, guys, go get your swords and let's go because this is not going to end well for anybody.
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So put it away, Peter. Why? Why does he tell him to put it away?
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Because all who take the sword up to use it will perish by the sword. Of course, this is generalized truth and it's a way of saying in context if our movement turns violent, it will be put down by the sword of the state.
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The kingdom of God will advance on the shoulders of these 11 men who scatter this very night, but they scatter to regather, to live, to fight another day.
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And their fight will prove throughout the book of Acts to be a fight not with swords, not with guns, not with spears, not with tanks, not with missiles.
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They will be fighting with truth and with hope and with love and with self -sacrifice.
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I find it interesting that from this point on we see nothing of violence among the 11.
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We see nothing in the book of Acts about them attempting to overtake a Roman garrison.
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We see nothing about them trying to put down the Romans or try to kill Gentiles or anything like that.
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Here Peter was ready to go and Jesus here effectively shuts that down with a few words.
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My movement is not one of the sword. This movement is not going to die on the edge of a sword. That's not how we roll.
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The kingdom of God will indeed advance with these 11 men, but Jesus isn't talking about how to, in this text, think about it, of course not,
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Jesus isn't talking about how to respond to a nighttime intruder in your home in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2023 here.
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He's speaking about the values of his kingdom and the way his people will advance his message and his purpose.
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Now to be clear, I would suggest that it's possible, whoa, hold on a second. We're in Michigan.
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I'm still going to say it. I would suggest that it's possible to be too committed to your guns. Even the great warrior
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David declared that some trust in horses, some trust in chariots, but where was his trust?
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The name of the Lord our God. He who could sling a stone and fell giants knew that the battle belongs to who?
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The Lord. And so it would be good for each person here who owns guns, not asking for a show of hands, but it is many, maybe even myself.
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All of us who own weapons, I mean, we're in Michigan, let's just say, I mean, don't bring it here, right?
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Like, I think we're a pretty well -armed church, but that's a different thing.
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All of us who own weapons, this is a genuine thought. I think we all need to wrestle in our own hearts.
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We must be cautious about the bravado and trust that can come with gun ownership.
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Be careful in your hearts, folks. By the way, I take for granted that we're not at risk of disobeying
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Jesus in this. I assume that none of us have any aspirations of spreading the kingdom of God through violence.
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I certainly hope not. I can't imagine that any of you have that kind of thought in the back of your mind, like, you know what the church needs?
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We just need to take it to the world. If that's where you're at, come and talk with me because you're like, stocking ammo just to take out the world.
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If that's you, really, seriously, like, coffee this week, I'm buying, we're talking.
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But this teaching of Jesus has impacted us through these first followers who are going to obey him in this very command in the coming weeks and months and years.
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Let me point out that this incident and this teaching from Jesus had to be a radical, radical shift, incredible shift in the thinking of these 11 men.
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These 11 men who probably were raised their entire lives, they were raised their entire lives under Roman rule, and probably every single one of them at some point had a little sword in which they practiced with the little wooden swords playing, and do you know what they didn't play?
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They didn't play cowboys and Indians like some of us did when we were little. What did they play? Jews and Romans.
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That's what they played. That's what the little boys did with their little swords. Oh, I don't want to be a
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Roman again. Somebody's got to be the Roman. Come on, let's go. You know what I mean?
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Simon was a zealot committed to a life of overthrowing the Roman oppressor through any means possible.
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That's what it meant to be a zealot. Simon, one of the 11 disciples here on this stage, how was he not the one that pulled out the sword?
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I don't know. None of them are recorded in the coming years as expressing an ounce of violence in the establishment of the church of Jesus Christ.
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As a matter of fact, to the contrary, they were all, except for John, be martyred for their faith.
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Now, John was attempted to be martyred. They just couldn't kill him. Jesus expresses in verses 53 and 54 that his trust here in this moment comes from the will of his father, comfort in his will, the will of the father and the plan laid out in advance.
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He has access to backup forces that the disciples cannot even imagine. I don't even know what's meant by 12 legion of angels.
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I don't think it's that important. He's just saying, I got access to power you boys don't know about. You think a couple of little sharp tools are going to solve the problem?
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Do you realize what I could do in this moment? Think about what Jesus is declaring about his awesome power here to not go to the cross and demonstrating clearly his will in the matter.
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He refused to access those angels because he is now laser focused on the mission that is clearly unfolding through the pages of prophecy.
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The prophecies are advancing now toward his certain sacrifice. Lastly, we see the rebuke in the final two verses as we wrap up.
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Jesus here turns to the crowd and the soldiers arresting him and calls them out. Now, maybe they threw him to the ground, bound him and now they've stood him back up and he says to them that he's been in the temple teaching every day.
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They could have arrested him in public. And so the secretive nature of his arrest and the method of coming out in force is nearly laughable.
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Jesus says, really? As if he was a brigand holding up in some fortification somewhere, flitting from shadow to shadow trying to hide from the authorities.
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No, he was no shadow dweller. He was out in the open regularly. He was just in the temple yesterday. They didn't need to pay 30 pieces of silver to find him.
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Let's just go to the temple. That's where he is. Out in public every day with crowds around him like, you had to pay to find me?
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Really? And once again in verse 56 he reminds his disciples, and I think also himself, that all of these things are happening according to schedule, according to the plan of God.
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And at this final reminder that these are things formerly prophesied, the disciples finally throw up their hands.
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What do we do then? What are we supposed to do, stand by and watch and Jesus is left alone to his accusers as his disciples, as prophesied, all scatter and he is left alone.
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There are a lot of places to turn for application, but let me focus our primary attention here at the end on the comfort that Jesus gains from the will and plan of his
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Father because, church, we need that. We need to draw strength day by day and moment by moment and crisis by crisis in the will and plan of a good and loving and sovereign
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Father. If you trust, this is a big if, but if you can come to the place where you can say God is good and God is in control,
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God is good and God is sovereign, then you are more than halfway to being able to suffer whatever might come at you with your faith intact.
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So let me encourage you to lean as much as possible, how many of you would raise your hand and just say, it's a relatively good time for me right now.
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This season of life is relatively good. Your spouse is watching, so you might want to raise your hand, but I don't know. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
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But if it's a relatively good time, then let this be a season of leaning hard into God is good and God is sovereign because a day is coming when you need it, a day is coming when the only thing that you will have left in your hands is whatever you have built during this season in terms of God is good,
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I believe it. Even though he took that, he's good and he's sovereign.
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That means he's got a plan and he's working out something that is good because I believe that he's good and so in his sovereignty, these things have come at me and they haven't come at me without his knowledge and without some good plan that he is working out.
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You guys get what I'm saying in that? Let this be a season of leaning into the goodness of God and his sovereignty, especially if this is good.
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By the way, the reason I'm saying that, if you raise your hand and it's a good time is because it's almost too late when you're in it.
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When you're in the crisis, that is not the time to establish, are you good God? Yes.
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Or we could just say amen and let it go right there because yes, he is good. He is so good.
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But you're going to be left questioning that and how strong you lean into that in these good seasons are going to be what's going to carry you through the crisis, through the dark night of the soul where you're up at three o 'clock in the morning and not even praying, not even able to pray but just wracked with pain and sorrow.
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Say, but you're good because I've seen it and I've seen it in the good times. I've leaned into it and I've trusted and I've studied your word and I believe it and so you are no less good today because A, B, or C happened because I know you have tasted the goodness and the grace and the mercy and I believe that you are working all ends to good for those who love you and are called according to your purposes.
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Jesus here in our text seems to take solace through this suffering in the plan. He keeps mentioning prophecy and I believe that it's a place of grounding for him in this dark and desperate night.
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We should learn to find comfort also in the reality that the things we face are all passed through the hands of the almighty creator who is working a plan for ultimate good toward his people.
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And so I want to just take a moment to read a little bit of a passage in closing. Consider what faith looks like for some in this famous hall of faith passage in Hebrews chapter 11, 35 to 38.
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This is a passage all the way from really Hebrews 11, 1 just spells out a bunch of what a sampling of the kinds of things that faith looks like in the life of his people demonstrating that faith is not going to look the same for you as it's going to look for me as it's going to look for him.
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It's going to look different for each one of us. Each one of us have a unique calling, a unique walk in life.
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And the fact of the matter is we have a tendency, we have a whole brand of churches in America today that are exporting it to Africa and Asia and all around the world that basically says faith always looks like you getting wealthy.
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Faith always looks like you being healthy. Faith will always result in just the goodness of God being poured out on your life.
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But that's not what this passage says. So I'm going to start and leave it in kind of the dark places of what faith sometimes looks like.
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Look at Hebrews 11, 35 to 38, don't have to turn there, just listen. Faith sometimes looks like, verse 35, quote, women receive back their dead by resurrection.
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Sounds pretty good. Right? Oh wait, you're going to start there? Like that sounds really good.
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Like some people receive back their dead by resurrection, thinking of like Elijah and the widow and her son died and Elijah goes and prays over him and he's revived.
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Women receive back their dead by resurrection. Good so far. Some were tortured. Oh, that's the next sentence.
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Not so good. We've taken a bad turn here, God. Can we get back to the good blessings? No. Women receive back their dead by resurrection.
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Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment.
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Verse 37, they were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with a sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, end quote.
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Does faith sometimes look like that? According to the Bible, it does. So as we're being called in this passage to trust like Jesus in the good and the bad, to trust in the sovereign will and plan of our good, good, good, good
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Father, let's consider where this trust leads Jesus on our behalf. It leads to the cross, the cross that we seek to remember every week and then taking the cracker and the juice to remember
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His body and blood given up for us. And yet it leads through all that deep pain and suffering to a joy that was indeed set before Him, where He was raised up to new life on the third day, where He is now ascended to the throne above all thrones, the very right hand of the
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Father, from which He will return one day to receive the eternal sinless kingdom. And I'd love to remind you, sinless kingdom, where sin will be no more, where there will be no more death, there will be no more suffering, no more ends and no more goodbyes.
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If Jesus is your Savior, if Jesus is your Lord and your King and your Master and you want to follow
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Him, then go to the tables to remember together. And then let's go out from this place this morning taking our greatest comfort from trust in God, trust in God that He is working a sovereign plan that leads
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His people to glory, even if some of our days look like suffering, look like the garden, look like an arrest.
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We are not those who live for the day, we are those who live with eternity in our eyes.
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Let's pray. Father, I pray that there would be a movement of faith here in our hearts, even from hearing this passage and reflecting on what
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Christ did and the great comfort that He seems to consistently draw from the plan, the prophecies, the will that you are working things toward a good end.
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And He knows, He knows, He knows that resurrection is coming, but He also knows what the next day is going to hold for Him is not going to be fun.
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It's not going to be a joy to bear our sins on His shoulders, to face your fierce hell and wrath there on the cross on our behalf.
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So we rejoice as we see His steadfast resolution to trust you with the plan as He marches towards paying the price for us.
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Father, I pray that we'd remember that, we'd remember what He endured for us as we come to these tables now.
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During this next song, Father, I pray that you would help us to reflect on you, to think rightly about you, to think about the great forgiveness that's been given to us, and then also the great call to obedience that comes from hearts that are given to you in love because you have loved us first in such an awesome and glorious way.
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Father, I pray that you would go before us and help us to live for eternity this week. In Jesus' name, amen.