Please remain standing and pray with me.
Father in Heaven, we do praise you.
We thank You that you have shown Your grace and Your mercy to us
for those who are in Christ. We praise You for that grace of
illuminating our hearts and minds and enabling us to trust
Jesus to take you, Christ at Your word, to receive You alone
for salvation. We pray, Holy Spirit, that you
would do that very work even today.
We thank you for the mission that you've called us to and the
power that you've given us to be your ambassadors all over the
world. We thank you for Nancy and Derek
too, for their work in Taiwan. We thank you for the calling on
their lives, first as your children and then to serve and
make known the name of Jesus Christ as they serve at Christ
College Type A. Father, I praise you that as we
open your word today, you have promised to be at work.
You are going to feed your sheep and as we are fed we will then
come to another feast to set at your table to partake in the
elements that you have given us, to be encouraged to walk as you
called us to walk, filled with your Spirit.
Lord, do this all for your glory and for our good.
We pray in Jesus name, Amen. Well, this morning, Derek to his
wife Nancy, they're going to be doing a luncheon right after the
11:00 service. If you don't have lunch plans or
even if you do, maybe change them and come and listen to the
work that God is doing in and through our brother and sister
in Taipei. He's going to read the scripture
passage for us today, which is in the Gospel of John chapter
13, beginning at verse 21. We're in the fell farewell
discourse of Jesus. We will be spending a number of
weeks focusing and then on John 13 through 17.
Thank you brother. All right, please remain
standing for the reading of God's words.
I'll begin reading chapter 13 beginning in verse 21 here.
Now the word of the Lord. After saying these things, Jesus
was troubled in his Spirit and testified.
Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.
The disciples looked at one another uncertain of whom he
spoke. One of his disciples whom Jesus
loved was a reclining at the table at Jesus side.
So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was
speaking. So that disciple leaning back
against Jesus, said to him, Lord, who is it?
Jesus answered, It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread
when I have dipped it. So when he had dipped the
morsel, he gave it to Judah, the son of Simon Iscariot.
Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him.
Jesus said to him, What you are going to do too quickly now.
No one at the table knew why he said this to him.
Some thought because Judah had the money back, Jesus was
telling him buy what we need for the feast or that he should give
something to the poor. So after receiving the morsel of
bread, he immediately went out and he was night.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man
glorified, and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him, God will also glorified in him, in
himself, and glorify him at once.
Little children, in a little while I'm with you.
You will seek me. And just as I said to the Jews,
so now I also say to you, where I'm going, you cannot come.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just
as I have loved you. You also ought to love one
another. By this all people would know
that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
Simon Peter. As Simon Peter said to him,
Lord, where are you going? Jesus answers him where I'm
going. You cannot follow me now, but
you will follow afterward. Peter said to him, Lord, why
can't I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you,
Jesus answered. Will you lay down your life for
me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the
rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.
This is the word of the Lord. You might be seated.
Thank you, dear, the beginning of the service.
I mentioned about my time in Florida a week ago just how
encouraging it was to see so many students praising the Lord,
asking deep questions about the word I spoke Monday night,
Tuesday night, Wednesday night. Will Washington did a remarkable
job teaching Sunday night and Thursday.
Thursday morning I had the privilege of doing AQ and a
time. I was just telling Tim Jeffers
about that this morning. Kids could ask any question they
wanted. One group from A from 10:00 in
the morning to 11. The second group from 11:00 to
12:00. And the questions were deep,
that they were really profound. What was really so shocking to
me though was when we are finished at noon, lunch was
offered and free time on the beach.
I said I'll stick around and answer any other questions and I
did. And this is not a pat on the
back, it's a praise of the Lord. For 2 1/2 hours, students stayed
in the room asking questions, confessing sin, asking how they
can know for sure that they're in Christ, asking how they can
fight the temptations that they face.
Brothers and sisters, thank you for praying.
You would have been so encouraged.
Keep praying, though, for good soil to be present.
Today we're entering into our continuing.
I guess Sam took us there last week into this farewell
discourse from Jesus. This is a very rich passage
theologically, as are the next several chapters.
Their farewell discourse is only here in the Gospel of John, John
13 through John 17. And here's what I want you to
understand. If we did not have this section
of Scripture, we would not know the emphasis that Jesus was
placing up on love as a new command.
We would not hear Jesus's high priestly prayer.
We would not have his teaching on the Holy Spirit.
Today's Pentecost in two weeks I'm going to focus on what Jesus
said about the Holy Spirit at the Spirit will discourse.
John is taking us to this meal. The Holy Spirit carried the
Apostle John along to write these statements.
These statements are profound because what John is doing is
he's narrowing his audience. The Gospel of John, he tells us
he's written that you may believe.
And from John 1 to 12, Jesus has had his public ministry.
He has done more remarkable things, so many different
miracles. He has raised Lazarus from the
dead. He has calmed the seas.
He has changed water to wine. He has done so many things in
this public ministry, and in doing so, time after time, he
says I'm only doing the will of my father.
His focus on the intimacy of that union and desire to please
the Lord and bring him glory is everything.
But now John shifts. And I want you to understand
this is kind of a survey of what's coming.
John shifts the focus. The focus moves from the larger
audience now to those who are his most intimate followers.
He is going to focus in on explaining to them how they need
to be prepared for what is coming next.
The other thing that's remarkable about this farewell
discourse is it closely follows the pattern of Moses's
discourse. And at the end of Deuteronomy,
if you want to really see the beautiful way that picture the
Scriptures connected from Genesis to Revelation, spend
some time over the next few weeks looking at the end of
Deuteronomy. Look at the book of Exodus 33
and 34. Pay attention to the covenant
language that you see, because you're going to see very similar
language right here as we move through John 13 through 17.
We are not going to rush. In fact, today I'm not going to
get through this whole narrative.
We're going to spend 8 weeks at this table seeking to understand
all that Jesus wanted his closest, most intimate followers
to understand. The audience changes.
The farewell discourse gives us profound insight to how we need
to be prepared as Jesus is preparing his disciples.
So what I want to do this morning is I want to speak about
the prophecy of the betrayal. I want to look briefly at where
Christ anchored himself. I want to look briefly at the
new command and then end with the prophecy of denial.
So let's go to the betrayal. Turn again in your Bible to John
13 verse 21. John says after saying these
things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit.
Today, when we understand what's happening in this this meal, we
already know the end of the story.
We already know that it's Judas who betrayed him.
We already know that Jesus is going to die on the cross.
But they did not know this. You have to read this with the
eyes of the original audience. So it says Jesus was troubled.
John is making sure that we don't miss the profound human
experience that Jesus was happening, knowing that one of
those who have been following him for 12 years is about to
betray him and one, the leader of the group of the 12, is going
to deny him. Jesus, John tells us, was
troubled in spirit. The word trouble has to do with
a stirring, a shaking. It's the same word that was used
to describe the waters that were turning when the invalid in John
5 sought to make his way there. It's the same word used to
describe Herod's emotional turmoil when he learned that a
king had been born. It's the same word used of the
disciples when they saw Jesus coming towards them walking on
water. It's the same word that
describes Jesus when he discovers that Lazarus is dead.
And it's the same word that Jesus uses of his own
contemplation of his own death. Jesus is troubled.
And what you and I need to understand is that trouble soul
was real. The turmoil inside Christ is a
man fully man is heavy. He's broken hearted that there's
one in their midst who is going to turn away from the living Son
of God. One who has seen what Jesus has
done, who was on the boat when he walked on the water, who was
there when Lazarus came out alive.
This man, Judas, is going to reject Christ and choose evil
and darkness. This is powerful.
Jesus is troubled. This is the fourth time in John
13 that John shows us about the betrayal.
Give your Bible and it's open. Turn to verse 2.
This is during supper, when the devil had already put it into
the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him.
Jesus, knowing the Father had given all things to into his
hands and that he had come from God, was going back to God, rose
from supper. He laid aside his outer garments
and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.
And what did he do? He began to wash their feet, but
that included the feet of the very man who was about to leave
that table and turn Jesus in. Jesus is showing this profound
humility and extreme love. The betrayal comes up again in
verse 11 for he knew who was to betray him.
That was why He said not all of you are clean.
Then again, in verse 18, Jesus says, I'm not Speaking of all of
you. I know who my whom I've chosen,
but the Scripture will be fulfilled.
He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.
And now in verse 21, John says Jesus was troubled in the spirit
and testified truly, truly, this is a very important statement.
What I'm saying is true. What I'm saying matters.
Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.
Jesus was deeply troubled. Think of for a moment in your
own life, and you're not perfect.
Have you ever been betrayed? Has somebody ever done something
heinous to you, said something to you, spoke behind your back?
Jesus never did one thing wrong, never had one wrong thought,
never did anything to Judas that would cause Judas to say I am
turning him in, I'm going to betray him.
Jesus is troubled. And what about the disciples?
The word that's used to describe the disciples in verse 22 says
they looked at one another uncertain of whom he spoke.
The word uncertain doesn't mean doubt because it's the words of
Christ, but it means they're confused.
And I think we need to understand this.
They did not know it was Judas. Judas and his duplicate
personality was able to disguise this.
They had no idea who it was that Jesus was speaking about.
They look at one another. The other gospels tell us that.
They each begin to say, is it I? They're broken hearted,
confused, looking around this table.
So let's set the table. Let's set the scene.
The table that they're at essentially is 3 tables.
It's in the shape of AU. In this time period, people
would lean on their left side with their head towards the
table, feet away from the table. The servers would come into the
middle of EU and then provide the elements for the meal.
Jesus is leaning there on his left side.
John the Baptist, the beloved one.
This is the first time that's referred to.
He's referred to that way in the gospel.
He's to the right of Jesus. Most likely.
Judas is to the left of Jesus, making it easy for Jesus then to
take the morsel that he dips and hand it to Judas.
This is a fulfillment of prophecy.
The prophecy is Psalm 41. Nine.
Listen to this. Even my close friend and whom I
trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.
These disciples don't know who it is that Jesus is speaking
about. South Peter motions to John.
John again, is at the right of Jesus.
Ask him who it is the beloved disciple.
Ask Jesus, who is it that you're speaking about?
Who is the one that's going to betray you?
Jesus does not offer a name, but he does say the one to whom I
will give this morsel of bread when I dipped it.
So when he had dipped it, the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the
son of Simon Iscariot. In doing that, the disciples
still didn't get it. They didn't know that Judas was
the one who was going to betray, John tells us.
They thought he was going to go use that to buy something from
the money bag to provide for the meal.
But John clarifies what happens. It's at that moment, that moment
that the morsel is dipped and handed to Judas, that Satan
enters into him. What a dark statement.
Satan entered in to Judas. At some point in Judas's life,
he began to make the decision that I am not going to follow
the man that I have been following for three years.
The seed had been planted, that seed had taken root.
And now as Christ symbolically and literally dips this morsel
and gives it, Satan enters him. And Jesus quietly, because the
disciples still don't understand what's happening, says to him
what you are about to do, what you are going to do, do quickly.
Now, no one at the table knew why he said this.
So Judas gets up and he leaves. And how powerful are the four
words that John gives us? And it was night.
Jesus was troubled. The disciples were confused.
Judas, here's Christ's instruction.
The reason this is important is because though Jesus was deeply
troubled in his soul, he was never out of control in His
sovereignty. The plan of God is unfolding as
this man gets up, filled with Satan, entering into the
darkness. The movement towards the hour is
now in full. He leaves the room.
It's as if the evil that was present, the disciples don't
really understand. All of it is purged.
And now Jesus in earnest begins to give his farewell discourse.
What does he say? First, it's about his glory.
Second, he issues a new command. And 3rd he makes another
prophecy. I'm just going to say a sentence
about each of these now until next week, verse 31.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, now is the Son of man
glorified and God is glorified in him?
If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him and
Himself and glorify Him at once. It might be easy to move past
that, either because we don't understand what it means or we
just think it sounds religious. This is the essence of
everything Jesus is doing. Everything that He's doing for
the glory of His Father. And His Father is most glorified
when he's radiating through Christ as Christ is troubled in
His spirit, as He has been before.
Each time He's anchoring Himself in the glory that He shares with
the Father, and the place where this glory is going to be most
radiant is on the cross when Jesus is going to do everything
that was necessary to die for sinners like us, like me, like
you. Then Jesus says in verse 33,
little children, this is an intimate statement to those who
are around the table, his most close followers yet.
A little while when I'm with you, you will seek me.
And just as I said to the Jews, and I also say to you, where I'm
going, you cannot come. And then he says a new
commandment I give you that you love one another just as I have
loved you. You also are to love one
another. That doesn't sound like a new
command. We've been told to love God with
all of our hustle, strength of mind.
We've been told to love our neighbors, ourself.
What's different? Jesus.
He's ushering in this new covenant, this new promise, and
the pattern of Moses in the Old Testament.
Moses dies not leading the people into the Promised land.
Well, like Moses, Jesus dies, but unlike Moses, he will rise,
and as he rises, as the new Joshua, he is going to lead his
people into the Promised land, the ultimate promised land, to
use John's language to prepare a place for them, which you'll
speak of in John 14. This is remarkable stuff.
Here Christ says you're to love one another, but here's what's
different, the motive and the model.
You are to love as I have loved you, laying down my life for
you, humbling myself to wash your feet, being a servant.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve
and give us life as a ransom for many.
The motivation has changed, the model has changed, and then
Jesus gives great clarity to the mission of the church by this
kind of love. All people know you are my
disciples. This is a survey.
We're coming back to all of this.
And then Jesus says in response to Peter, Lord, where are you
going? Jesus answered him.
Where I'm going, you cannot follow me now, but you will
follow afterward. Peter said to him, Lord, why can
I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.
It's almost as if Peter missed what Jesus said about love and
was focused on the statement that Christ said you can't
follow me. Peter wants to know why can't I
follow you? Why can't I follow you now and
then? Classic Peter.
And he says this because he believes it.
I will lay down my life for you. Jesus speaks prophecy of
betrayal earlier fulfilled, now prophecy of denial.
He gives Peter a question. Will you lay down your life for
me truly, truly, once again, what I'm singing to you is true,
Peter. It's important.
I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me
3 times. There's no way Peter believed
that could be true, but it was. John does not record a word from
Peter. Again, in the farewell
discourse, it's mostly Jesus speaking, but there are times
that the disciples ask a question or make a statement,
but not Peter. We'll see Peter in the Garden of
Gethsemane, where Peter will take out his sword and strike
the servant, cutting off his ear.
Then we will hear Peter speak and Peter will speak these 3
words three times. I am not, I am not one with Him.
I am not one of his followers. And on the third time of denying
that he's a follower, the rooster will crow.
This is amazing passage of Scripture, all of this taking
place around this one table. Jesus is speaking to His most
intimate followers, preparing them for what they need.
And this is just a survey of what we're going to see over the
next 8 weeks. We're going to come back to this
table and listen to what Christ is saying.
Friend, today in this place you have heard of a man who followed
Jesus for three years. He looked like he believed.
He looked the part. How easy is it for us in a
community like this to simply look like we are part of the
fellowship? But in truth, we've never really
surrendered our life to Christ. Friend, today you have heard the
good news that in Christ Jesus there's forgiveness.
Have you come to saving faith? Today's we come to this feast.
This table is for all those who trusted Jesus as their Savior.
This is a table just for those who believe in Christ.
If you don't believe in Christ, you've not trusted Him today.
Listen to what you have heard, preached, what we have sung, and
may this be the day that you would surrender to Christ and
say, I believe today. We don't come to this feast
except by the grace of God and in obedience to what He's given
us. We don't come as perfect people.
Jesus died for sinners. Isaiah 53 says We all, like
sheep, have gone astray. Not just some.
All of us, we all, like sheep, have gone astray.
Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on
him. That's Jesus, the iniquity of us
all. Friend, we come to this table
often so very troubled, troubled by our own denials, troubled by
our own patterns of sin, troubled by all sorts of things
that we experienced in this broken world.
Christ died so that the ultimate trouble of our life, a broken
relationship with Him, could be restored.
So that every time we come to this table, no matter what's
troubling our hearts, no matter what's stirring in US, no matter
what storm we feel like we're riding on, Christ reminds us
that he died to completely restore that relationship that
was broken. And why?
For his glory. For his glory, for his glory,
and if it's for his glory, for all who trust in Him, it's
always for our good. So as we come today in obedience
to Christ calling us to take and eat these elements, believer and
trust, and the one who gave us this farewell discourse, He fed
us even today with the hope of who he is.
Lord Jesus, thank you again for your word and Holy Spirit for
your illumination. Now as we get ready to come, I
pray for those who are hearing things such as this for the
first time, who may have not believed.
O Father, show mercy wherein today might be the day in which
you would profess faith in Jesus.
Simply acknowledge what you've heard today, that you're a
Sinner in need of a Savior. There's no sin that you've
committed that Christ will not forgive you for.
I pray this day you would trust him and Lord for those who are
in Christ, so many of us, we give you praise and ask that you
would bless this meal overwhelming us.
Holy Spirit, by your presence, the very presence of God in our
midst, we pray this all in Jesus name, Amen.
Please stand.