30 Pieces of Silver
Transcript
All right, well, it's good to see you all this morning. My name's Matt. I'm one of the pastors here. And if it's your first time hanging out with us, let me be the first to welcome you. We are absolutely glad that you're here. Last Sunday, we finished up a seven-week series where we kind of engaged with what our culture has to say about gender, about marriage, about sexuality, about masculinity, femininity.
And then we went to the Bible so that we as Christians can learn how to follow Jesus well in terms of having a theology of sex. And I will say this for me personally. I think it's one of the most helpful series we've ever done. And I heard tons of feedback coming back out of our groups, just discussions, really submitting our lives to Jesus. And it was great. And now, today we're starting a three-week series because we've got three weeks leading up to Easter and celebrating our baptism party.
And for us, as we're approaching Easter, we're going to spend the majority of our time talking about Jesus. Surprise! But you didn't see that coming. We looked at Jesus' interactions. We're going to look at things that he said and things that he did. But we're going to go about it a little bit differently this year.
And here's why. The reason the cross is so beautiful, so compelling, is that on it, Jesus died for terrible sinners just like us. That the reason the cross is beautiful is because on it, Jesus died for sinners. That his death pays for our sin and he rose from the grave so that we might have life in him. That's why the cross is beautiful. And so what we're going to do is take three weeks to look at Jesus' specific interactions with some sinners that would kind of fall into this category.
Here's what we're going to try to do. That as we see their sin, as we see their denial, their rejection of Jesus, what we're going to see is that it actually is going to hit a little bit closer to home than we might care to admit. That if we're actually honest with ourselves, more often than not, we're like the people who mistreat Jesus than we are like Jesus himself. So that by looking at these interactions, by looking at these people that Jesus has conversations with, that their actions absolutely impact his own life. What we're going to see is that we're going to align with them. That we're going to see some of our own sinfulness, our own brokenness in them.
And as we see that, as we look at that sin and kind of come face to face with it, the hope would be by the time we get to Easter, we've actually got something to celebrate. We're more excited because we understand the cross of Christ so much more because on it, Jesus died to save sinners. That by the time we get to Easter, we can't help but shout and stand and sing the good news as people are going to be baptized and we're going to lose our minds and we're going to eat a whole bunch of fried chicken. Amen? Amen? I mean, that's worth, it's good news.
It's good news worth celebrating. And so we're going to take these three weeks specifically and try to look at our own sinfulness in light of some of Jesus' interactions with people on his way to the cross. And so to kick off the series today, we're going to be looking at a guy by the name of Judas Iscariot, who is one of the most negatively portrayed people in the Bible. And maybe you've never hung out with a church before. You may not know really anything about Jesus, but you have probably, in some form or fashion, heard about Judas and what Judas does to him. Judas betrays his friend Jesus.
He sells his friend Jesus out so that if you're, you could watch a movie or you're reading a book. Anytime someone commits treason or sells somebody out or is a snitch, you may hear them turn the phrase, man, such a Judas. What a Judas. And the reason being is because that seems so unthinkable that Judas would betray the Son of God after all that he had seen. But we're not so unlike Judas ourselves.
And though we may sometimes treat Jesus the same way that Judas did, we don't have to share his same fate. That though we may treat Jesus the same way that Judas did, we've actually been given another option. And so as we actually look at his story, his interaction with Jesus, my hope is that we would see our sin more clearly and that the cross would actually become more compelling. And so I'm going to pray for us and we'll kind of jump into the text and see what God has to say to us this morning. Let's pray together.
God, we don't have the ability to comprehend your word and I don't have the ability to clearly articulate your word outside of the move and work of your Holy Spirit. And so God, I ask that this morning as we, as we open your word, God, that you would be faithful. God, that you would help us see our own sinfulness, our own brokenness, and you would help us see Jesus for who he truly is. The savior of the world, the one who dies for our sins so that we might have life in him. I pray that would be abundantly clear this morning as you speak to us. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, so grab a Bible. You can grab one of the Bibles on the chairs and go to Matthew chapter 26. That's going to be on page 539 in the blue and white Bibles. If you don't have a Bible, please just take that one with you. When we're done today, we want everyone to have a Bible, to be reading it, to be growing. And in fact, if you're looking for something to read, I would encourage you that in the coming weeks, in the three weeks or so leading up to Easter, to actually jump into Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and read from about where I'm going to begin summarizing because you'll get a picture of the last week of Jesus' life as recorded by four people.
I think that would be a great way for us all to just kind of prepare for Easter. But here's the background. Here's what we're getting into. Jesus has just come to Jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the Passover. And the Passover is just one of the big Jewish festivals, one of the big celebrations that they had every year. And Jesus and his disciples had come to Jerusalem for the Passover before, but this time is markedly different.
Jesus' fame and renown had spread. He had been doing ministry for years now, for three years, and people had heard about his miracles and they had heard about his teachings. They knew who he was. And as soon as he starts coming into the city, the word begins to spread. People come out to where Jesus and his disciples are coming in, and they take their coats and they lay him on the ground, and they take palm branches and they wave him in the air, and they're shouting things like, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Blessed is the Son of David. Blessed is the Lord. And what all of these people are celebrating is that they believe that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah that the Old Testament is talking about. They're celebrating him. He's the long-awaited rescuer, the redeemer, the one who's going to come and save them. And they can't help but celebrate it.
But what we're going to see is that not everyone shares the same sentiment when it comes to Jesus. And so where we're jumping in, we're jumping in to chapter 26. This is a couple of days later. Things have settled down just a little bit, and we're going to find Jesus talking with his disciples. So we'll pick it up there.
Chapter 26, verse 1. When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, you know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. Okay, so it says that Jesus had just finished talking. He just finished saying these things. Jesus was talking with his disciples about what will the signs of the end of time be? What will be the signs of the end of the age?
And he kind of leaves that idea, and he comes back to the present, and he says, the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. And Son of Man is just a phrase that he used for himself on a regular basis. He says the Son of Man is going to be delivered up to be crucified. And this isn't the first time that he's told this to his disciples. The Gospel accounts tell us that he's been telling them this all along the way. But you've got to imagine.
Just imagine with me. Every time Jesus says that, that we're going to Jerusalem, and I'm going to be killed and crucified, you've got to imagine the disciples are kind of like, sure you will, Jesus. Yeah, right. Not really, though, right? This is one of those parable things, right, where we just don't understand, but you're telling us that this is actually. And the reason that was so difficult is that they had just watched the city erupt in celebration as Jesus and his disciples came in.
And now in a couple of days, he's going to be nailed to a cross. The most painful and torturous of Roman deaths reserved for the worst of criminals. And they just couldn't see it. But there's actually more at play. There's more at work here than meets the eye. And our passage kind of continues to show us that.
Pick it back up, verse 3. Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people. Okay, so time out. At the same time that Jesus is meeting with his disciples, talking to them, the religious leaders of the people have kind of convened a meeting together to figure out, what are we going to do about this whole Jesus situation? The Jesus thing has gotten out of control.
There are people standing in the streets within earshot of the temple complex saying that this guy is the Messiah. And these religious leaders have come together and said, the only thing that we can do is arrest him and he's got to be killed. And immediately we start asking questions because we're going, hey, time out, time out. All right, so there are people who believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And these people are the religious leaders of the people. Why in the world are they trying to kill Jesus?
That's a question that immediately comes up. And the truth is that this animosity between the religious leaders and Jesus didn't happen overnight. This has been going on for near three years now. The religious leaders have been in significant conflict with Jesus, warring with him over what faithfulness to God actually looked like. That Jesus showed up on the scene and he stepped into their territory and he began to challenge them on what they believed, what they were teaching the people, how they were leading, what their hearts were centered on. And as Jesus shared, he had the miracles to back up everything that he was saying because the religious leaders were tasked with teaching the people how to follow God.
And these guys had got focused on their own things. They were absolutely focused on outward appearance, the outward signs. They would go to the Old Testament law and they would take the law and then they would create rules that would keep them from breaking the law. But so that they didn't break those rules, they would make more rules on top of those rules so that they didn't even get close to breaking the law. And needless to say, Jesus showed up and didn't play by their rules. Jesus showed up and wanted to show people what does it actually mean to follow God?
What is the heart of God actually about? And so they would have conflict and debates about the things that Jesus did. They would get mad at Jesus for healing people on the Sabbath because they considered that somehow work and they were missing God's active work in the midst of them to bring about healing for people. They were missing it. They always wondered why Jesus would hang out with sinners and with tax collectors and the people that were ostracized from society because they believed that those people made you unclean. But what they didn't realize is that God was in their midst coming.
Jesus was coming to make people clean. The people who were supposed to be closest to the heart of God were convened in a room together trying to figure out how to kill God. Don't miss that. Don't brush past that. These guys knew the Old Testament backwards and forwards and some of them had even memorized it. But they were so concerned with their own power, with their own authority, their own way of doing things that they absolutely missed what was right in front of them.
And now they're huddled in a room ready to kill God. And so the story kind of continues on going into verse 6 where Jesus and his disciples go out to a certain area to share a meal with some friends. But we're actually going to kind of skip over that part of the story because I want us to follow the progression of events that has just kind of started with this meeting. We're going to follow that thread of people who don't see Jesus for who he actually was. And so we're going to kind of skip down over those verses and we'll pick it back up in verse 14. Verse 14 says this, Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?
And they paid him 30 pieces of silver. And from that moment on, he sought an opportunity to betray him. Okay, so we're used to this. For the majority of us in the room, you may be familiar with this story. But don't let your familiarity with the story take away from how shocking and how terrible this actually is.
Judas was one of the twelve, meaning Jesus' closest followers. And he just went to the people who were trying to figure out how to kill him about how he might turn them in. How he might betray Jesus to them. And I want you to just think for a second about Judas and all that Judas had seen, all that he experienced. We know that from early on in the Gospels, Jesus went up on a mountain to pray and when he came back down from praying, he handpicked twelve guys that he wanted to follow him throughout his entire ministry to serve alongside of him, to love alongside of him, to do ministry beside him and learn from him.
There was James and John and there was Andrew and there was Peter and then there was Judas. Jesus looked into the eyes of Judas and said, You. I choose you. Follow me. And he did. He followed Jesus.
He ended up with Jesus on a mountain where they were surrounded by thousands of people. Thousands of people who were hungry and the only thing that they had were two fish and five loaves of bread. Not near enough even to really feed one or two people. But Jesus took those elements and he blessed it and he handed it to the disciples and he said, Go pass this out. Go pass this out. And so Judas walked her out.
Judas walked around handing out food and handing out food and handing out food and handing out food until every one of those people were fed. Jesus had done the miraculous. He had fed thousands of people and then he said, Okay, go back with a basket and collect all the leftovers. And so Judas had to do that too. We know that Judas was in a room with Jesus and a whole bunch of other people and the house that they were in, the tiles, they started pulling the tiles out of the ceiling and these friends who were desperate lowered down their friend who was crippled into the room just hoping, desperate for Jesus to do something.
And at a word, the man was healed and he picked up his mat and he walked out. This was the real deal. This wasn't a gimmick. There were religious legal storm came down on them from the mountains on the Sea of Galilee threatening to capsize the ship. And Jesus walks up on the bow and rebukes the wind and the waves and everything ceases and the sea goes back to being calm. Even nature bent to his words.
He had watched as Jesus walked up to the front of a tomb in it, a man who had been dead. It was Jesus' friend Lazarus. He'd been dead for four days and Jesus said, Roll the stone away. Lazarus come out and a man who had been dead for four days had been brought back to life. It was amazing. Just think about all that Judas had seen.
And now here we find him walking into the palace of the chief priest ready to sell him out for 30 pieces of silver. And we know that at the time 30 pieces of silver was equal to about five weeks wages. Judas basically sold out the son of God for an all expenses paid trip to Disney World. 30 pieces of silver. And you start wondering, did Judas just miss it? After bearing witness to all that Jesus had said and done to betray him like this?
Did he really not understand who Jesus was? Story continues. Verse 17. Now on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying, Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover? He said, Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, The teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.
And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and they prepared the Passover. Okay, so the Passover was a week-long celebration, but there was also an aspect of it that was a meal. And so Jesus is going to be sharing this meal with his disciples. Verse 20. When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. And as they were eating, he said, Truly I say to you, one of you will betray me.
And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, Is it I, Lord? He answered, He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. Judas, who would betray him, answered, Is it I, Rabbi? He said to him, You have said so.
What happened here? This seemingly comes out of nowhere. There's no big story of conflict. It should be shocking to us when you get to this part of the story, you're going, this just doesn't add up. And so we find Jesus with his disciples in a room sharing this meal and I want you to take just a second. Jesus was fully God and fully man.
And so sometimes we forget that Jesus felt emotions. So I just want you to remember and think about what Jesus was feeling. Jesus knew of his impending death that was coming. He knew that somebody was about to betray him. and now he's here with his friends, the guys that have really been with him through thick and thin for the last three years. And he looks at him and he says, One of you is going to betray me. You see, the disciples knew that the religious leaders didn't like Jesus.
They knew that they were in danger any time they came to Jerusalem. and they know that Jesus has the ability to predict the future and so they just go ahead and begin to suspect themselves. They begin looking at Jesus and saying, I'm not the one who does that, am I? Is it I? Is it I? And then you get to Judas. Judas looks into the same eyes that three years earlier had called him to follow him and he says, Is it I, teacher?
And Jesus says, You have said so. Jesus basically looks at him and says, You guessed it. And you get to the end of that passage and you're still just left with this question, Why would Judas so easily betray Jesus? Did he just completely miss it? Did he just really not realize who Jesus was? Did he just really, did he really not believe?
Maybe Judas was like a lot of people at this time and they thought that the Messiah, when the Messiah came, he was going to be this conquering warrior king who was going to come in and lead a charge, lead a rebellion and kick the Romans out of their territory and reset up Israel's kingdom. There were a lot of people at the time that thought that's what the Messiah was going to do but this guy's talking about he's going to die? Well certainly he can't be that kind of king. Maybe it was that Jesus was profitable for Judas. We know that in their ministry people would give them money to support them.
They were away from their homes for long periods of time and we know that Judas was the person who was actually in charge of the money bag and so over time maybe Judas just slipped himself a few over time. Maybe Jesus was just profitable for him. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was the prominence. Maybe it was just the sense of importance he got by being one of the twelve. Maybe it was the sense of adventure of getting to just go along with Jesus on this.
And while we don't know exactly why scripture doesn't tell us exactly why there's a couple of things at play that we can see in Judas' motivations a couple of realities that we can see in his actions and they're really similar but I want to parse them out for us. The first one is this number one Judas never ceased to be the king of his life. Judas never ceased to be the king of his life. That though Jesus had looked at Judas three years ago and said come follow me come be a part of what I'm doing lay down your own life your own wants your own desires and come follow me. Judas walked behind him physically and had completely missed out on the spiritual reality.
That instead of walking alongside with Jesus and helping others Judas was really just helping himself instead of serving people with Jesus Judas was just serving himself. Judas had never ceased to be the most important person in his life. Jesus was never king because Judas never stepped off the throne and it goes hand in hand with the second reality which is this Jesus was just a means to an end. That since Judas never ceased to be the king of his life Jesus was only a means to an end. Which means that Jesus was good only as long as he was directly benefiting Judas. And as soon as Judas had other opportunities he swapped out Jesus.
The reason he was willing to trade Jesus for 30 pieces of silver was because Jesus wasn't priceless to him. He had limits on Jesus' worth. I mean you got to remember he was the one who handled the money and he's calculating the whole time and if it had seemed that staying with Jesus would have been more beneficial would have been more lucrative he would have done it. And as soon as Jesus no longer benefited him he was off to bigger and better things that he could just swap Jesus out for something else. And this should be terrifying to all of us. That Judas could walk side by side with Jesus God in the flesh and completely miss out on what was right in front of him.
That he could be so consumed by his own passions, his own desires, his own ways that he would sell out the son of God for chump change. That somehow something became more valuable, more important to him than Jesus did. So the truth is for those of us in the room who would say we're Christians, Jesus has come to us and he said follow me and we responded to that call and we said okay I'll follow you. I'll follow you Jesus. But following Jesus isn't always easy.
There are tough times, there are times where we're going to face suffering and the truth is as we begin to look at the life of Jesus and then look at the life of Judas what we're beginning to see is we're actually a whole lot more like Judas than we care to admit. When we really let it begin to hit home we like Judas are willing to swap Jesus out for other things to use Jesus just as a means to an end. Even though we've said Jesus you're my king not all areas of our lives have actually been submitted to his rule and his reign. Let me show you how this shows up a little bit. So for those of us in the room who've said we're Christians we're trying to figure out what that means as a church and so we gather together on Sunday and we exist together as family in our community groups.
That you as a Christian you're trying to read your Bible and you're trying to pray. You're trying to look for opportunities to build with the people that God has placed you around. And then when life gets tough and things get hard and something seemingly better comes along we'll stand right beside Judas and we'll swap Jesus out for something else. Maybe it's something better that comes along. Maybe it's that we really were using Jesus as a means to an end. And we start looking at our life and we start going he's not doing it the way I want him to.
Jesus sure you're my king but you're not doing what I want you to do. We'll say things like this. Jesus how could you let me lose my job? You're supposed to take care of me. Jesus how could you let my girlfriend cheat on me? She's supposed to be a Christian.
Why weren't you protecting me? We say things like God I trusted God and he didn't come through. Which is basically saying I only trust in God as long as he does what I think is good and valuable and important. You see that? That he's not actually king. He's not actually king when we say that.
That I'm in only as long as my relationships are getting better. I'm in only as long as I'm still getting a promotion. I'm in only as long as my children are learning how to behave. I'm in only as long as it's about me. That's what Judas was saying. And the problem with that is that Christianity is not about us.
It's about Jesus. And what we've just revealed is that in these areas, in these moments, we actually weren't following Jesus because of our devotion to him. Our words and our thoughts portray that Jesus really was just a means to an end. That we liked Jesus and would follow Jesus only so far as he would do what we wanted him to do. That instead of serving Jesus as God, we want Jesus to serve us as God because we're the most important person in the equation. That we can say all we want to Jesus, you're my king.
But until he has rule and reign of every aspect of our lives, that's the thing that we're willing to swap him out for. That's the thing where we're using Jesus only as a means to an end because we've got limits on where Jesus gets to have rule and have reign. And it's obvious in Judas' life. And here's what the Bible is going to say about that kind of as a whole. From Genesis to the Ten Commandments in Exodus to Jeremiah to the words of Jesus himself all the way to Paul in Romans, the Bible is going to say that humanity's biggest problem is that we were created to worship God. God.
But instead of worshiping God, we've swapped him out and decided to worship something else instead. We've decided to worship and pursue lesser gods. That we moved God out of his rightful place and something else in our lives has become more important, holds more sway, holds more motivation for how we do things. And the Bible is going to call this idolatry. The Bible is going to take the stance that all sin is idolatry that we've swapped God out for something else. And Chet put this scripture on the screen and talked about it last week and I'm just going to summarize it for us.
Here's what Paul says in Romans chapter 1. He says, although they knew God, although they knew God, although Judas knew Jesus, although we know God, it says they did not honor or worship him as God. It says although they knew God, they didn't honor or worship him as God, but instead worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. The Bible is going to take the stance that anytime anything begins to hold ultimate sway and weight in our lives, we have stepped into the realm of idolatry. The Bible says our biggest problem is that something else has become primary. Something else has become the most important thing.
And here's why that's so scary. Here's why it's so tricky and deceptive. It's not just the bad stuff that the Bible calls sin that can get there. We can actually take good things and put them in the place of God and we've got a problem. That something that's good, that is inherently good by itself, something that's a good thing can become a God thing and we're in trouble. And we've fallen away from God's original design, which means we have followed in to the sin that is every sin since the beginning, which we've swapped God out for other things.
And it's not just the bad stuff, it's the good stuff too. For those of you who have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, for those of you who are married, maybe it's your husband and spouse, let me show you how this shows up. Because it's hard to see. When a person, when your spouse or significant other has the ability to, when things are going good with them, your mood's up here. You're excited, you're happy, you feel like you're loved and blessed and that when things aren't going well with them, you kind of trickle down to the bottom and you're depressed and you're not feeling good. And your emotions, your whole well-being rises and falls with a person.
You have based your life on that person. They've become ultimate. It's in a relationship with Jesus. When Jesus is primary, that you're not swayed by your emotions because your identity comes from him, not from another person. You can begin to look at how do you spend your time? What's the thing that has the biggest grip on my time?
What influences my decisions? If the answer is not Jesus, watch out. It may be that that is something that we've set up as an idol. And again, it can be good things. And this shows up all over the place. Spouses do it with each other.
Parents, we do this with our children. We'll do this with our children who we're called to love and to protect and care for. But when all of life begins to revolve around them and around their schedule, they've become ultimate. They've become primary. And we've ceased worshiping and trusting Jesus. And we've put our trust in something else.
Athletes do this with their sports. Students, students, you do this with your majors and your job path. With your career path, you go, nothing, nothing else matters. I mean, I'm in school right now. I don't have time. I don't have time to hang out with a community group.
I don't have time to read my Bible. I've got to study. I've got to see it. Something that is not bad, that is actually inherently good when turned into a God thing becomes sin and ultimately will destroy us. With our bosses, with our work, with our dreams, with our desires, anytime they actually become ultimate, what we've done is we've walked into the priest's palace with Judas and said, what can I have for him? We're just negotiating for something different.
Judas wanted 30 pieces of silver. Maybe we just want our marriage to be good. Maybe we just want to get the job that we want to get so that we can make the money. And the Bible says that that's idolatry. So the truth is we're actually a whole lot more like Judas than we care to admit.
And Judas, we know that this night Judas leaves and the disciples leave eventually too and they go to a garden of Gethsemane but Judas leads the temple guards to the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is arrested. And then through that night and into the next day, Jesus is mocked. He's beaten. He's spit upon. He's given a sham trial. He's whipped.
And then eventually he's nailed to a cross where he would bleed out and die. And we've got this tendency to look at the situation and go, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm not like Judas. I didn't betray the Son of God. I didn't have the Son of God murdered.
Oh, yeah. Why did Jesus have to go to the cross? Sin. Who did Jesus die for? Sinners. Sinners just like me and you.
Even for those of us who have submitted our life to Jesus and say, I want to follow him. There are these pockets. There are these areas in our lives that we just haven't quite submitted to Jesus yet. Where we haven't allowed him to be king. Where we have a propensity to take good things and turn them into God things. That when it's not going our way, we'll just move Jesus to the side and pursue something else.
But here's the good news for us this morning. Here's the good news of the gospel. That though we may sometimes treat Jesus the way that Judas did, our fate does not have to be the same. That though we may reject him and deny him and swap him out for other stuff, Jesus has actually offered us another option. So I want us to jump back into the text, jump back into it.
Verse 26, because Jesus continues talking with his disciples after Judas leaves. And what he's actually giving us is a picture of what he's going to do. So let's pick it back up. Verse 26. Now, as they were eating, Jesus took bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat. This is my body.
And he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. Okay, what we said earlier was that they were gathering to share the Passover meal together, but we really didn't talk at all about what Passover was and what they were actually celebrating. What they're celebrating is a tie back into Israelite history all the way back to the time in the book that's recorded in the book of Exodus where the Israelites were in slavery to the nation of Egypt.
But Exodus tells us that God heard the cries of his people and he goes to Moses and he said, Moses, I want you, I've heard the cries of my people. I want you to go and lead my people out. I'm going to rescue them. I'm going to pull them out of slavery. So Moses goes to Pharaoh and he asked for him to let the people go and he doesn't do it.
His heart is hardened. And so God sends terrible plagues, terrible plagues to show his glory and to ultimately motivate Pharaoh to let the people go. And he doesn't. He doesn't relent until the tenth plague, which would be the worst. The tenth plague was that God was going to send the angel of death, which is just an angel that causes death to go through all the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn sons. That was the tenth plague.
But God says to Moses, Moses, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take a lamb, a spotless lamb without blemish or defect. And I want you to sacrifice it. And I want you to take the blood of that lamb and I want you to put it on the sides of the doors and over the top of the door. And when the angel of death comes through, I will see the blood of the lamb and I will pass over and your firstborn sons will be spared. Be inside your home with your sandals on, your bags packed, eating unleavened bread, because tomorrow you're coming out of Egypt.
I'm going to rescue my people. And so that night the angel of death comes through and any door that had blood on it, the angel of death passed over and there were many, all the firstborn sons of the Egyptians died and there was weeping and wailing. And the next day Pharaoh looked at Moses and Israelites and he said, get out. God had come and he had rescued his people and we know that he led them through the Red Sea and they spent time in the wilderness, but eventually they would make it to the promised land. Passover was a celebration that God instituted for his people to remind them of the deliverance that he had provided.
In the Passover, a lamb had to be sacrificed so that the firstborn sons could go free. Are you seeing it now? That the entire Old Testament was talking about this and the celebration of the Passover was ultimately finding its fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is the lamb and the son who would be sacrificed so that we could all go free. The Passover finds its fulfillment in Jesus. And that's the good news.
That's the good news. That's why our fate doesn't have to be the same as as Judas is because we can trust in the lamb that would be slain. That Jesus would come and his body would be broken and his blood would be shed so that our sins could be forgiven. The cross is beautiful because on it Jesus died for terrible sinners and he just calls us to repent. And so he sits here with his disciples and he said, here's the bread that provides nourishment and sustenance and life. It represents my body.
My body that is broken for you. My body has to be broken for you. And then he takes the cup. He said this cup, this wine that was to represent the blood of the lamb that was placed over the doorpost. No, no, no. This now represents my blood that would be shed for the forgiveness of your sins.
That the forgiveness of your sins would be accomplished through his death. I'm going to be the Passover lamb. I'm going to be the one that swaps places for you. Swaps places for you even though you have a tendency to swap me out for other things. And that's the good news of the gospel. And that's why this morning as we think about this, as we see our own sin in relation to Judas, there's good news for us that our fate doesn't actually have to be the same.
That Jesus' body was broken and his blood was shed for all the times we swap him out for lesser things. Where we take a boyfriend and they become ultimate. We take a job and it becomes ultimate. And it takes the place of God. Jesus died for that. So that as we celebrate communion, which is what this is, this is the Lord's Supper.
And we know that in Scripture the church is commanded to take communion as a reminder of the sacrifice of Jesus. So that every time we as a church take communion, we're remembering our sin. That Jesus' body was broken for it. That his blood was shed for it. That he swapped places out for us. This is something that we do on a regular basis as a church.
And we're going to start doing it more. Because it's wonderful. It's wonderful to sit and to actually be reminded of our sinfulness and that Jesus' body and his blood, it was broken and shed for us, for our sin. The Bible just calls to us to repent. That's the invitation to the table. Was that Jesus was broken for you.
You just need to repent and place your faith in him. In fact, every time we take communion, it's our chance to confess in two ways. We confess our sin and we confess our Savior. We confess that I'm a broken sinner, but he was broken for me. We confess that I'm covered in shame, but now I'm covered by his blood. We confess that I've swapped him out for so many things, but Jesus swapped himself out for us.
And so we celebrate the good news of the gospel as we take communion. And we're actually going to do that this morning. We're going to celebrate communion together. And communion is for Christians. So in the room, if you have placed your faith in Jesus, you've already been invited to the table and you've accepted the invitation.
The Bible does call us as Christians that as we approach taking the bread and the juice, that we would remember, that we would examine ourselves, that we would look inward, that all of us have areas where we have a tendency to swap Jesus out or to not let him be king. And the Bible's called us to repent, to repent and then take of the bread and the juice. Maybe you've been hanging out with our church for a while and you've been thinking about who Jesus is. You've been hanging out with a community group and you've been wrestling with, is this true? That you've begun to actually look inside yourself and you realize, I am sinful.
I am broken. I am in need of a savior. Today would be a beautiful day for you to place your faith in Jesus and accept the invitation to the table. And if that's you, if you're going, I know this is me. I know I need a savior. We're going to take some time to pray here in just a minute.
Repent. Repent. Repent. Confess your sin to God. Confess your brokenness, your neediness, that you need a savior. And then ask him to be your savior.
Place your faith and your trust in him. And then go to the back of the room and take communion for the first time. And then tell somebody and then probably go to the baptism class, which would be fantastic. But there may be some of us in the room who are still just, we're skeptical. We don't quite understand who Jesus is. We're still wrestling with this.
And here's what I would challenge you to do kind of during this time as other people are praying. I want you to ask yourself the question, are the things that I'm chasing in my life, are the things that I'm basing my life on actually filling me up? Actually, actually giving me joy, actually giving my life, actually giving me life. And just consider, just consider what, what giving your life to Jesus might actually look like. So Bianca is going to come back up and, and here's what's going to happen.
Bianca is going to sing a song over us. She's going to sing a song called the power of the cross. And the words are actually going to be on the screen because I want you to see the beauty of what she's singing about. Here's what I want all of us to do. I want all of us to just take some time and pray. I want us to confess and to repent of all the things that we allow to get in the way of our total devotion and allegiance to Jesus.
I want us to spend some time repenting and confessing. And when you've had a chance to do that, then I want you to go to the back of the room and I want you to take the bread and I want you to dip it in the juice and remember, remember what Jesus did for you so that your sins could be forgiven. So we're going to take some time and we're going to pray. And when you're ready, when you're ready to go to the back of the room, you can do that. You can take the bread and the juice and remember what Jesus has done for you. And then I invite you to come back to your seat after you've done that.
We're going to, we're going to sing. We're going to praise the lamb that was slain for us because the good news of the gospel is true that Jesus died for sinners. God, I ask that you would help us to, to clearly see our sin. God, that we would see our brokenness and our neediness in it. And it wouldn't drive us to put up a wall, but it would drive us to repent. To repent of all the things that we've, we've swapped you out for, that we've put in your place.
Cheap substitutes for a mighty God, for a loving God. God, would you convict? Holy Spirit, would you move throughout this room? Would you lead us to a place where we would repent and accept the invitation to the table? Our invitation that was purchased by Jesus shed blood in his broken body. So as Bianca sings, I just want us all to sit and to pray, to ask the Holy Spirit to show us where we need to repent.
And then when you've had an opportunity to do that, I invite you to the back of the room to take communion. And you can return to your seat and sing praises to the lamb. Amen. Amen.
