Lessons from Judas

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Sometime last week, I can’t remember the exact day, but sometime last week we marked the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. And it seemed like that’s all they were talking about on the TV and on the radio and even on social media was this war that’s now gone on a lot longer than any of us thought it was going to go. And it’s been interesting to me throughout this whole thing, and no, I’m not here to talk about the war in Ukraine, But it’s been interesting to me throughout this whole thing, how many of our politicians and how many of our news reporters have suddenly become, and how so many people on social media too, have become experts on war in Russia and how to handle Russia and how to do war with Russia.

They’re taking a break from other things, I guess. I remember at the height of the pandemic, a nurse friend of mine saying, I’m so sick of everybody being experts on immunology, and I said, hey, you’ve just given me a break. Everybody’s not acting like experts on theology and constitutional studies right now, so you enjoy your time.

But right now, everybody in the media and in our political establishment, they’re all experts on how to handle Russia. I don’t think any of us know how to handle this situation. There is one thing that I know about war with Russia.

Don’t invade during the winter. And I know that only, not because I have experience with it, but only because it’s been tried so many times, and it has never worked. It has not worked once.

I looked back at where that thing we just know to be true, that experience with not invading Russia in the winter, where did that come from? Back in the 1700s, and this is not all a history lesson either. I’m going somewhere with this, so stick with me.

In the 1700s, King Charles of Sweden tried to invade Russia, and the war lasted into the winter, and it went so badly for them that Sweden has remained neutral in wars ever since then, up until about five minutes ago with the invasion of Ukraine. But it went so badly for them that they sat out the two world wars. That’s how badly it went.

So you would think people would look at that, and the reason is Russia’s big, Russia’s cold, there’s not a lot of food there if you’re not from there and you’re in the winter and you get stuck in the snow and it’s just horrible. So you would think people would learn from this and then about a hundred years later came Napoleon. You’ve probably heard of Napoleon, supposedly short guy with the big hat, stuck his hand in his coat.

He took 400,000 soldiers into Russia, he stayed there all winter and came home with about 10,000. I’d call that a really bad strategy, but it doesn’t stop there. Adolf Hitler, he did a lot of things that were not right, to say the least, but just from his own standpoint made a huge mistake invading Russia and staying there to fight on the ground in the winter.

We all know how that went for him. We would think somewhere along the line, one of these guys with all their military strategy and all their study would have learned from the mistakes of the last guy and seen how badly that went in the past and said, you know what, I’m going to learn from his mistakes and maybe we wait until the spring. Or maybe we have a plan to get out of there before the fall hits.

You know, something, but don’t stick around in the winter. It’s one of, the fact that people keep doing this is one of the greatest blunders in history. Something that we’ve seen work so badly that I, I mean, y’all chuckled.

Most of you are not history nerds, but you knew, right, that we don’t invade Russia during the winter because we’ve learned from this example. Judas, here’s where I’m going with this, Judas is another one of those people that what he did went so badly. He is such an example of what not to do that we would be foolish not to learn from his example.

We would be foolish not to look and see what did Judas do, and maybe we don’t do that thing because it didn’t work out well for him. And so this morning as we continue our study on the book of Mark, I want us to learn from history. Specifically, I want us to learn from Judas’s example.

Here are some things Judas did, and we all know the main thing he did wrong. But Judas made a lot of little mistakes before that and after that. Any one of which, if he had changed, this story might have turned out differently, at least for him.

But we’re going to be in Mark chapter 14 this morning. Mark chapter 14. We’re going to look at about five verses, I think, in Mark chapter 14.

If you would turn with me in your to Mark 14. If you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Mark 14, it’ll be on the screen here for you. But once you find it, if you would stand with me as we read together from God’s Word.

We’re going to start in verse 17 here, if I can find the number 17. There we go. In the evening, he came with the twelve.

Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with me will betray me. And they began to be sorrowful and to say to him one by one, Is it I? And another said, Is it I?

And he answered and said to them, It is the one of the twelve who dips with me in the dish. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he had never been born.

You may be seated. See, it’s a short passage. This is not the only place where the Gospels talk about Judas.

As a matter of fact, we’ll come back to Judas in a moment in the context of our study. It’ll be a few weeks. We’ll come back to actually what Judas did when he left from here, and what he does later.

We’ll see the culmination of this. But I’m going to give you a spoiler alert. If, just in case in the last 2,000 years you haven’t read or heard what Judas did, he went out and betrayed Jesus Christ just like Jesus told him he would.

Sorry if I spoiled the ending for you there, but we were going to get there sooner or later. he went out and he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The religious authorities were looking for some way to take Jesus into custody, and they wanted to do it quietly because there were enough followers of Jesus in town.

There were enough Galileans, when I say followers, I don’t mean like the disciples, although they didn’t stick real close with him through this. But I mean people who had been around his ministry in Galilee and at least were more enthusiastic about him than the of Jerusalem were. There were enough Galileans in town for the Passover that they were worried about starting a riot.

So they’re picking their brains saying, how do we get this guy? How do we get this guy with a minimum of trouble for ourselves? And the Bible says that Satan put it in Judas’s heart.

You know, I could turn Jesus in for some money. Now, people have debated whether he really thought Jesus was going to be killed, whether he thought maybe Jesus was going to be put on trial. I don’t know what Judas thought. I would think he would have to understand that Jesus was going to be executed if he was handed over.

But you can trick yourself into believing all sorts of things. Whatever his motivation was, Satan put it in Judas’ heart to go work out a deal that, hey, I will lead him to you secretly in the night. And I’ll even point him out to you.

I’ll even go betray him with a kiss. I’ll put a big kiss on his cheek so you’ll know which one is him. And so this is the plan that Judas has worked out.

Jesus knows all about the plan. If you were here last Sunday, we talked about the plan of God and how Jesus knew the plan. Jesus was in on the plan.

Jesus was carrying the plan out. So when Judas came and betrayed him, it was no surprise to Jesus. As a matter of fact, at this supper, at this time that they’ve sat down together to celebrate the Passover, and Jesus is about to teach them about why he’s going to be sacrificed on the cross, he begins after he washes their feet, which is covered in the book of John.

But he begins by pointing out, you know, I’ve been saying I’m going to be betrayed. I’m going to go and be crucified. All these things are going to happen to me.

The betrayer is right there in this room. And they all begin gasping and clutching at their pearls. And I don’t think they wore pearls.

But that sort of thing, they all begin. Is it me? Was it me?

Did I do it? You know, when I say to the kids, hey, if you do X, Y, and Z, stop it, and they all get defensive. Are you talking about me?

Did you do it? If not, then I’m not talking to you, you know, but they all start, is it me, Lord, is it me? And he identifies who it is.

He said, the one who dips the bread in the dish with me. Some other gospels give a little more information that it’s the one I dip the bread in the dish with and then hand it to him, but they all are very clear by the end of the supper who the betrayer is. Judas knows that he’s about to go betray Jesus.

He’s already worked the plan out. Jesus knows Judas is about to betray Jesus. At this point, Judas knows that Jesus knows that Judas.

. . you get the idea.

Everybody’s clear. Even the disciples, the other disciples, realize that he’s going to betray Jesus. Now, one of the other gospels tells us that they’re confused as to why Judas leaves the supper, why Jesus says what you do, do quickly.

they thought that Jesus was sending him on an errand. And we might read that and say, how did they not know? He just identified the betrayer and told Judas to go out.

And the best explanation I’ve been able to come up with is that they thought he was going to betray Jesus at some point and thought tonight Jesus is just sending them out for ice or napkins or something that they ran low on. But this is the plan, that he’s going to betray Jesus. And the crazy thing about this is up to this point, Judas has looked like a loyal follower of Jesus Christ. He’s one of the twelve.

He goes with him everywhere he goes. He was even, we find out, in the trusted position of keeping track of the money. I think it’s in the book of John where it talks about the anointing of Jesus, the oil being broken, and Jesus being anointed a few days before the triumphal entry.

And it says that Judas complains about the waste because the perfume, the oil, could have been sold and put into their treasury. And I think it’s John who points out Judas was upset because he held on to the money bag and he was skimming off the top. Not John’s exact phrasing, but that’s the point.

Judas was embezzling. So he had this position of trust. He was the one that kept control of the money, kept track of the money. He here is one of Jesus’ closest followers.

These 12 are not the only followers that Jesus has. They’re not the only ones that come and listen to Jesus. At this point, they’re not the only followers of Jesus in Jerusalem at that time.

But Judas is one of the 12 in this inner circle that has been with him all these years, that has sat at his feet, that have listened to him, and now they are invited into the Passover supper. They’re invited to this table where Jesus takes those closest to him and begins to serve them. As I said, John records that he washed their feet, even Judas’ feet.

Even knowing what Judas was about to do, he washed feet. Even knowing that Peter is about to deny him. Even knowing that the others are going to run and hide.

Even knowing that Thomas is going to doubt. Jesus washes their feet in this incredible show of service. And Judas was part of that.

I cannot overemphasize for you the intimacy of the relationship that existed among this circle. Judas was part of that circle and had been for years. He’s sitting close enough to Jesus that he’s able to dip in the same dish.

I suspect that means he’s sitting on Jesus’ left side. I don’t know that for sure, but that’s my guess. John talks about leaning on Jesus’ chest. That’s an idiom meaning he was sitting in the place of honor.

I assume that means he was sitting at Jesus’ right hand at the supper. For Judas to be that close, I think he’s either face-to-face with Jesus or he’s at his left side. And for Judas to be able to turn around and do this, reminds us, it teaches us that it’s possible to reject Jesus while looking like a follower.

It’s possible on the outward, from the outward perspective, to look like we’re doing all the right things, to look like we’re good religious people who love Jesus, and inwardly our hearts are as far from him as they can be. Now, am I accusing anybody in this room of that? No.

But it’s a reminder to us that it’s possible. That just because we’re involved in church things, just because we’re religious, just because we live moral lives, just because we have crosses up on our wall, just those things do not guarantee that somebody is a follower of Jesus. As a matter of fact, Jesus said there would be many who would come to him at the last day and say, Lord, Lord, did we not do all these things in your name?

And he will say, depart from me, I never knew you. That there is a sense in which we can do all the things outwardly that look like what a follower of Jesus would do without ever actually having submitted to Him in our hearts, without ever having put our trust in Him, without ever having been changed by Him. And I don’t say that to you this morning to shake any assurance you have or plant doubt in your mind, but we need to think about where our standing with Jesus comes from, where our standing with God comes from.

This morning, do you think you are where you are with God because you’ve done all the religious things, because you come to church, because you participate Bible study. You pray from time to time because you live a certain way. Because Judas was doing all of those things.

But a key difference between Judas and who the other disciples turn out to be is that they had a life-changing, a heart-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, and they believed what he said about himself. Judas apparently didn’t even believe enough of what Jesus said about himself to not go and try to sell him for money. But he’s one of the twelve.

He’s sitting there with Jesus as verses 18 through 20 tell us. And yet Jesus says, one of you, the one who dips in the dish with me will betray me. You say, well, what does this look like to, to look like you’re outwardly following Jesus and yet inwardly reject him?

And the Pharisees, the Pharisees were good at this with the old Testament law. And we’ve talked a lot about the Pharisees through the book of Mark. They were, they were experts at this.

The Pharisees could go along and do all these things outwardly that made them look like they were following the law, but inwardly, they didn’t give two hoots about what God said or thought. For them, God’s law and all of these religious things, they were a tool to make them feel better about themselves, to make them feel self-righteous, to make them powerful, to make them wealthy. They were exploiting loopholes in the law.

They were doing everything they could to disobey God while looking like they were obeying Him. Like if you’ve ever seen the bumper sticker, Jesus is coming, look busy. Okay, we want to look like we’re doing stuff without actually doing stuff.

That’s the idea. Okay, I’ve kind of chuckled when I’ve seen those bumper stickers. I’m not calling you out if you’ve ever had one.

I’m just saying it’s that kind of idea. We want to be known as religious. We want to be known as church people.

Maybe we’ve even served in positions of leadership. That in and of itself does not mean that our heart is right with God. Because Judas checked all the boxes.

Judas walked more closely with Jesus Christ than you and I ever will on this earth. And yet look at where his heart was. And so it’s a reminder to us to check our hearts because we can look like we’re following Jesus.

And yet in our hearts still be unchanged and be rebellious toward God. So the difference is whether or not we have ever had that life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ. And that doesn’t have to be a road to Damascus experience. I know some of you have had dramatic conversion stories about the life you lived before Jesus and how Jesus came into your life and how you are radically different.

And sometimes it’s a dramatic story. But you know what? It’s just as dramatic.

I’ll put it this way. I was embarrassed of my testimony for years because it’s not all that exciting compared to that. I was five years old.

I grew up in a Christian family. I didn’t get in much trouble because I had a healthy fear of my parents, and yet I still obeyed, but I didn’t always like it. We know how that works.

There was a problem in my heart. And one day I realized I was a sinner and that my sin separated me from God. My sin would continue to separate me from God all the way to an eternity without Him in hell.

And I understood that Jesus Christ came and bled and died on the cross to pay for that sin. so that it could be forgiven. And when I realized that, I told him I was sorry and I asked him to forgive me.

And something changed that day. Is that a dramatic story? No.

But it still changed the trajectory of my life from where it would have been to where it is. So when I say life-changing encounter with Jesus, if some of you are sitting there thinking, well, I’ve never seen the bright lights come out of the sky like the Apostle Paul. That’s not what I mean.

But I mean, you’ve had that moment where you’ve understood where you are apart from Jesus and what Jesus has done for you, and you’ve put your trust entirely in Jesus, and it’s changed the direction of your life. Judas didn’t have that. So he continued to reject Jesus even while looking like a follower.

We see here, too, that it’s also possible to reject Jesus while knowing better. Sitting there with Judas at the table, Jesus says to everyone there in verse 21, but woe to the man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he had never been born.

that is chilling to me I’m not even judas and I read that and that’s bone chilling that man would be better off if he had never been born imagine hearing that kind of warning from jesus about something you’re about to do would you not pause for a second and say maybe I don’t want to do this after all you know here’s my big red flashing warning sign that this is this is a bad idea I’m about to invade russia in the winter okay I need to call this off he realized he realized that this was not a good thing, and yet he did it anyway. He had the warning. He had this warning.

It would be better for him, after what you’re about to do, it would be better if you had not ever been born. Now, we understand that it was part of God’s plan for this to happen. We also understand Judas willingly did this.

I understand that in the Bible, God’s sovereignty is taught right alongside the free will that he created in man. And sometimes that creates a tension in our minds that we can’t resolve. And sometimes the harder we try to resolve it, the further we get away from what the Bible actually teaches in either direction.

I can believe they’re both taught without having to understand. Just like I told you a few weeks ago, I don’t have to explain to you how the internal combustion engine works or walk home. You know, I can accept that it works without having to explain it.

Same sovereign plan, and yet Judas does this in his free will and is responsible. But God’s going to hold him responsible. And there’s this statement, it’s better for him if he had not been born.

And I think we’ve talked about this before with Judas, and the way I interpret this is not him saying, oh, this is unforgivable, and no matter what you do, this is so egregious that you can never be forgiven. I think it’s Jesus acknowledging the fact that he’s going to go out and commit this terrible sin, and then he is not going to repent. That Judas is going to become hardened in his heart and refuses to repent, even after he knows he’s done wrong.

Even after he snaps to his senses and said, wait, I can’t do that. He tries to undo it, but the one thing he won’t do is repent. And so we have this warning here from Jesus that he’s about to go do something.

He’s about to reject Jesus in such a way that it’s going to be catastrophic for him. He knows how this works. He knows the ground rules.

He knows the consequences. And he goes out and does it anyway. And this is frustrating to understand.

You know, we went to, a group of us from the church went to an apologetics conference yesterday. And we learned some things about arguments for Christianity and evidences for Christianity. And if you’ve ever spent much time in apologetics, I think sometimes we get the idea that if we can just formulate the right argument, that everybody will turn around.

If we can just present the right evidence, people will just understand and they’ll come to Jesus. And I am a huge proponent of apologetics. I’m not saying we shouldn’t work on our arguments and learn our evidence.

I think those things are absolutely valuable, and the Holy Spirit uses those. But at the same time, this idea that if we could just find the silver bullet, everybody would would turn around. There are people, and I have met people, who understand what Jesus Christ did for them, who understand where they are apart from Jesus Christ, understand the condemnation that God says they are under apart from Jesus Christ. They understand the consequences of what it means to go on rejecting Jesus Christ. They know better.

Like Judas, they know better, and yet they are determined to continue rejecting Jesus Christ. And we see that and we pray that something changes. But don’t assume that everybody that rejects Christ is just ignorant. Sometimes there’s just a deliberate determination to reject Jesus Christ. It’s possible to reject Jesus while there are better options available.

And to see this, we need only to compare what Judas does throughout this story, throughout what we’ve read here, and what we know of the rest of the story. We compare that to the other disciples that I mentioned earlier. Peter is about to deny Jesus Christ. Later this night, he will deny Jesus Christ three times.

He will be surrounded by people who say, you know him, don’t you? You were with him. You’re one of them.

We can tell even by your accent that you’re a Galilean. We know you were part of this. And he is going to deny like a politician.

At one point, he gets up there and curses because he is so upset that they are putting him in there with Jesus Christ. And he does the Bill Clinton thumb, and he does the George Bush read my lips. He tells them, I do not know him. At this critical point, Peter denies Jesus.

Peter betrays Jesus in every way he can. The other disciples, they run and hide. We don’t have any record that they explicitly denied him, but they run and hide.

We read that on the Sunday of the resurrection, they don’t really know if it’s true. There’s this period where they kind of want to believe it, but they doubt. Even though he’s told them numerous times, he’s coming back in three days.

They are doubting him. Thomas, at the moment when ten other people have seen him, ten people that he knows and trusts have seen Jesus with their own eyes and have said, we saw him. And not only that, not only do we have their eyewitness testimony, but they are suddenly different.

They have gone from, I don’t know if we believe these stories or not, to, yeah, it’s true. We believe. And still Thomas says, no, I won’t believe it unless I see the nail prints.

All of these guys, hear me on this, all of these guys who were so close to Jesus Christ betrayed him in some form or fashion over that three-day period. Or at the very least, I can see being confronted by John when I get to heaven. Okay, at the very least, I can say they were not as loyal as we would probably hope we would be.

They probably didn’t demonstrate as much loyalty to Jesus as they would have hoped they would. Maybe that’s a fairer way to say that. But many of them betrayed him.

When we see the depth and the breadth and the width of God’s forgiveness, there’s nothing about it that makes me think that Judas could not have been forgiven if he had repented and sought that forgiveness. Because you look at all the others who betrayed him. Look at all the others who betrayed him.

He forgave them and he restored them to service. And he used them in incredible ways. Peter stood up and preached one of the finest sermons in the history of the church at Pentecost. And thousands of people came to know Jesus Christ. The Apostle Thomas, who so vocally doubted, carried the gospel to India.

All of these guys continued to be used. And what’s the difference between them and Judas? They repented.

They acknowledged what they had done was wrong and sought God’s forgiveness. They threw themselves on Christ’s mercy and he gave it to them. There was a better option available to Judas and he didn’t take it.

So it’s possible to reject Jesus even while we know that his way is better. There’s one final thing I want to point out to you here that we can learn from this whole ordeal. And that comes from verses 20 through 21 where Jesus says, It is one of the twelve who dips with me in the dish. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of him.

He’s talking about the betrayal. The one who dips in the dish with me is going to be the one who betrays me. But notice what he says at the beginning of verse 21. The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of him.

With all these things, it’s possible to reject Jesus and still do all this. It is impossible to dethrone Jesus no matter how much he’s rejected. Because you notice he says, I’m going to be betrayed.

I’m going to be rejected by Judas. But he doesn’t say I’m going to the cross because Judas is sending me there. Because of Judas’ betrayal. He doesn’t say I’m going to the cross because of the accusations of the Jewish ruling elite.

He doesn’t say I’m going to the cross because of the power of the Romans to put me there. He says I’m going to the cross just as it is written of me. The Son of Man goes at his as it is written of him.

He’s saying this is God’s plan. This is God’s will. to echo what he said to the disciples on the way to Jerusalem, this is what I came here for.

And all this time that they think they are defeating him, all this time that they think they’re getting his followers to turn on him and they’re putting him on the cross, they’re going to get rid of him, they’re putting him just where they want him, they are just playing into his hands. And so no matter how powerless he looks in the moment, no matter how pitiful a figure he may have cut when he was whipped and beaten and bruised and nailed to the cross and all of his closest followers have turned their backs on him. No matter how pitiful he may have looked, he was just as in control as he’s ever been.

And I think we need to understand that today as we come into a world that is increasingly, it has always been hostile toward Jesus Christ. But as the world seems to grow increasingly hostile toward him and toward those who follow him and those who heed his word, we need to understand that, that no matter how many people reject him, No matter how many people betray him, no matter how many people turn their backs on him, it does not diminish his power in the slightest. He was no less God the Son when he was on the cross than when he was seated at the right hand of the Father. He is no less the King of kings today when the Western world has largely forgotten him to our detriment. He is no less the King of kings today than he’s ever been.

And even if a majority rejects him, even if everyone rejects him, he is still the king of kings. And he will still work out his plan of redemption, just like he has promised and prophesied through thousands of years. He is still in control, and his will will still be accomplished.

And I think as much as we can focus on Judas and what went wrong with him, that may be the most important takeaway that we can have. That even when they thought he was betrayed and beaten, he was still in control.