John Chapter 13:27-34

What's interesting is you see the John, John and his brother, sons of thunder. They were trying to call down fire from heaven to crispy critter the guys because they didn't they didn't receive them. You remember that part? It's in there. It's in the book, guys.

I'm not making this stuff up. They said, you know what? Call down fire from heaven and fry these people were mad at them. And Jesus says, you don't know what spirit you're of. To go from that place, to go from John, who I think it was 44 times use the word love in 1st, 2nd, 3rd John to go from calling fire down from heaven to little children wanting to be encouraged, friend. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David Magee. David is the senior pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today we have in the studio with us someone that was really messed up.

D.A. Brown, welcome to the program. That's true, Bob. Well, Bob, did you know that Jesus takes us just as we are? The reality is he loves us too much to leave us that way. Today, Pastor David explains how this works as he continues in the Gospel of John chapter 13. And just to let those that don't know who you are and you're one of the associate pastors now of the Bridge, David Magee's home church. And God has done remarkable things in your life.

And listeners, he can do it for you, too. So listen now, as David Magee teaches in the Gospel of John chapter 13, the message to live for the Lord. John 13. Now, we stopped at verse 27 last week.

We finished that verse, but instead of jumping on the 28, let's let's pick up verse 27 again. Now, after the piece of bread, Satan entered him. He's talking about Judas.

And this is the upper room, the upper room discourse, some people call it. Now, after the piece of bread, Satan entered him. Then Jesus said to to him, what you do, do quickly. But no one at the table knew for what reason he said this to him. For some thought, because Judas had the money box that Jesus had said to him, buy those things we need for the feast or that he should give something to the poor.

Having received the piece of bread, he then went out immediately and it was night. Now, let's deal with something, because this is this pops up in the imagery. You see, we read the Bible and and we begin to understand the Bible.

But then we get these pictures in our head that are just really not accurate. And dealing with Judas is one of those pictures, see, because we get the picture that Judas was like, I don't know, like, you know, all the other disciples, they wore white robes. But Judas had a black robe and he wore sunglasses.

Even at night. And when all the other people, you know, they kind of laughed, ha ha ha ha ha. You know, Judas had this laugh. Oh, we get that picture in our mind. But see, that picture is not consistent with the guys looking around the room going, who is it?

Who is it? I mean, seriously, now, if there was a guy like that in the group and Jesus and Jesus says, hey, somebody is going to betray me. One of the guys would have said, Jesus, might it be the guy in the black cape with the sunglasses that has the really weird laugh? But they were confused. I'm not sure, not sure who it is. Who do you think it is?

They even said, is it me? This brings in a lot of things, see, because one of the things that it really pictures is that Judas from the outside must have looked OK, must have looked good, must have given the right answers. You remember when the money, the alabaster box was broken and Judas very nobly, very religiously, I might add, said, oh, shouldn't this money have been given to the poor?

Sounds good, doesn't it? The problem is we're enlightened that he was actually stealing out of the bag and that's why he won the money. So it looks like that Judas was, if you'll allow me the use of the term, fairly religious, fairly religious. And he had the wool pulled over the disciples eyes. They had been snowed, but you realize there was one sitting there that he had not snowed. That was Jesus.

You know why? Because you can't snow Jesus. You can't, you can't pull the wool over Jesus's eyes because he knows everything. That's why it's always amazing how we linger and wait to repent of our sins.

Because we think at the point that we confess our sins to Jesus, he finds out about them. Jesus already knows. He already knows the way you mess up. He already knows the way you've stumbled even this week.

He's just waiting for you to ask him to forgive you of your sins. And Judas looked good to everybody. That's why they were confused. And again, something I've mentioned before is really convicting. The other, the other reason they didn't know who it was is because Jesus didn't treat Judas any differently than the other disciples. Man, that is so convicting. That is so convicting because I know myself as a person. If I knew that I was one of 12 people and one of them was going to betray me.

Well, let's just say he would become, he would become many sermon illustrations, you know, I mean, well, you could be like Judas, who's going to betray me in a few years. I didn't do that. He didn't treat him any differently to the point that they were confused about who it was.

And here's another amazing thing. Jesus left it like that. He left it like that.

He told them that somebody would betray him, but they're still, even when Judas walks out, they're still wondering who it was. Jesus didn't look at the door and go, loser. He didn't do that. And you know what else he didn't do? He didn't say, you know what? Listen, I can't, you know, I can't really beat up Judas because I'm God and I'm sinless and I can't really do that.

But you know what? I'm going to walk out of the room for about five minutes, guys. And I'm going to leave Judas in here. And Peter, you still got that sword?

OK, just checking. I'm going to walk out and whatever happens in this room next five minutes, I'm not part of. He didn't do that either, did he? It's amazing when you look at the exchange between Jesus and Jesus and Jesus even ask him in the garden, friend, why have you come? Caught him friend to the last moment. That's challenging to me because you know what? Very honestly, I sometimes treat people differently because of what I think they might do.

See, Jesus knew what Judas was going to do. We never know for sure. Oh, we think we do sometimes, right? Oh, I just know he's going to do this or she's going to do that. But we don't know.

No. And we treat people differently. And occasionally I understand occasionally you will have a Judas pop up. That's OK. That's part of life. That's happened here, to be honest, more times than I care to remember. And that's all right.

That's part of life. That's even part of ministry. You know, in studying this chapter, I remember there was one couple that came here and they came and again from the outside looked good. There was a couple of warning signs, but they came and they said, oh, pastor, we want to pray for you.

We just love you so much. Can we pray for you? Sure. OK, so, you know, they prayed for me and and then they said, you know, it's OK if you share with us your struggles.

I thought, no, it's not. I mean, I'll share with some people. They weren't them. And so God finished and they said, OK, well, God bless you. We'll be praying for us. OK, great.

It's like two weeks later, man. I'm hearing they left slamming the church, slamming leadership, slamming me. So I just quit. I quit preaching and pastoring.

No, I'm kidding. I didn't quit. That's just part of the part of the package. We're a fallen human race. So don't stop serving God because you have a bad run in or something. Don't quit loving people because there's a Judas out there because there's also a Peter. There's also a Peter that may stumble a little bit, needs a needs a hand.

Needs for you to give him a break. And we see both these men. Peter and Judas, both of them messed up, but Peter repented and got back on his feet. Now, if you remember the whole piece of bread, Jesus says, you know, I'm going to dip a piece of bread and I'm going to give it. Now, there's something interesting you need to realize about the the seating here. The seat of honor was at the left hand of the rabbi or the teacher. That was the seat that Judas was at. Judas was actually in the seat of honor. That we know that because that was where he handed him the bread. And also there's another thing, and we're going to get more into this at Passover when we spend a whole night talking about Passover. But we know that John was to the right because during Passover, the youngest always sits to the right of the person who's leading Passover. And it said that John was leaning on the breast of Jesus.

Now this tells us a couple of things that you may or may not be aware of. It tells us that John was to the right, Judas was to the left, also tells us John was the youngest there. You see, during Passover, the youngest would ask questions of the person leading Passover. Why is this night different?

Why do we recline during while we're eating such questions? And so we know that John was the youngest. Do you realize that a lot of scholars, and I lean towards this, believe that John, the disciple, was 16 or 17 years old at this time? I just want to encourage the kids who are in school and homeschooled or whatever to stand up for the Lord, because you know what? You think you can't make a difference, but you can make a huge difference. Look at the difference that John made in the world. And you know what?

A lot of, especially for the youth, for everyone, but more so for the youth, there's a lot of pressure. The world is going, hey, follow me, act like this, look like this. And I encourage you to totally reject that and to follow Jesus instead of trying to fit in, stand out, be different, man, be different. So we have these things going, and notice verse 30 says, having received the piece of bread, he then went out immediately and it was night. It was more than just night, wasn't it? It was the darkest night that the world would ever see. It was the night when men would conspire against the Messiah, against the precious Son of God. It was the night, if you will, when man would conspire to kill God.

I know he laid his life down willingly, but this is what happened. That's a darkness we'll never know. We will never know the darkness of that night if we know Jesus. If we don't, if you've not asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, you're headed towards a dark event, friend. But it doesn't have to be like that.

God himself, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, walked into all this knowingly and he allowed himself to be the victim for every sin you've ever committed. There's nobody else that can do anything like that for you. There's nobody else that's ever done that for you. There's nobody else that will ever do that for you.

But Jesus has done that for you. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, Bob, we're excited about Pastor David teaching verse by verse, and we want to pray for some listeners in these cities, in our audience today. Parsons, Tabeka and Wichita, Kansas, Bowling Green, Covington, Glasgow and Louisville, Kentucky. God, we thank you for the listeners tuning in today in these cities and the surrounding areas. Lord, we pray that they would be reminded that you can heal them if they've been going through some physical stuff. Lord, that they would put their trust in you, maybe even have communion today. Lord, we pray that those that are not saved would put their trust in you today for the forgiveness of their sins. And God, we pray for revival in all these churches in the surrounding areas. And Lord, that the pastors would stick to teaching your word, perhaps even verse by verse, line upon line, chapter upon chapter.

And God, that you would bless it as they honor your word and your people are encouraged in their faith. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse thirty one, so when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him.

You know, we we read this and we have our hindsight is twenty twenty. I mean, we know what happens after this, but look at what Jesus is not saying. He doesn't even use the word crucified here.

He uses the word glorified. Oh, boy, there's a lesson in there for us, because, see, he was looking beyond the cross, he was looking to the glory beyond the cross. And you know what happens with us? Sometimes we get totally wrapped around our self-denial. And we get focused on that and we forget the glory that's beyond that. We forget about heaven and we just think about our struggles here. And you know what? I think the enemy delights in that.

I think the enemy delights in making you think or helping you to think that the struggles you're going through now, you're always going to be going through, that the hard times you might be having now, that you're always going to be having those hard times. It's not true. It's not true. There's better days coming.

You may struggle your whole earthly existence here, but if you know Jesus Christ at some point, man, your world gets a whole lot better. So don't believe that. Jesus says glorified, not crucified. And again, why did he do this? He did it for us. He did it for us. To offer us.

Oh, this is amazing stuff. To be able to offer us forgiveness, to be able to offer to us the trade. We trade our broken, beat up lives for his life. We get to trade our sinfulness for his sinlessness. We get to trade our selfishness for his selflessness. Let me ask you a question. Who comes out on the short end of that stick?

He does, but he knows and he's willing to make that transaction. In verse 32 says, if God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him immediately. The little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek me. As I said to the Jews where I am going, you cannot come.

So now I say to you. Now, here's a little puzzle, see, because when Jesus said this to the Jewish people. You can look at the surrounding verses and I think you can pretty accurately figure out he's probably talking about heaven in that place.

Not that they couldn't go, but because they would reject Jesus, they wouldn't go. Here he's talking to the home team. This is the upper room discourse. These are the disciples. So we can't be talking about heaven here.

Where's he talking about? Where I'm going, you cannot come. He must be talking about the cross. Because they couldn't go to the cross.

They could not go. It was something he had to do by himself. You know, I've wondered something, I've wondered on that day when Jesus was hanging on the cross with a thief on each side. I wonder if the mother of James and John, who had asked Jesus for a place for her children on his right hand and on his left.

Realized on that day what she had been asking for. And why Jesus had said, you don't know what you're asking. Jesus did this alone. As a matter of fact, we'll see over the next few chapters, they pretty much all left with the possible exception of John. And can you imagine just for a moment, if you will, the loneliness that Jesus felt on that cross, what he endured and the way of loneliness? I'm not sure we can even understand that I've been lonely in my life, but I don't think on that level. If you remember, Jesus from the cross spoke these words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

It's interesting because in most other places, Jesus referred to him as Father. But not at that moment, not at that time. And you have to ask yourself, why did he endure such loneliness and pain and suffering?

He did it so you wouldn't have to. See, we don't have to be lonely. Do you understand that? Oh, I know the world is lonely. People in the world are desperately lonely.

But there's a remedy for that. There's the relationship with Jesus Christ first and foremost, and then there's the fellowship that he gives us with one another. You don't have to be lonely.

If you're lonely, stop and ponder and consider and reach out to somebody. Some of us, to be honest, you know, some of us are kind of like cactuses. We got these huge, you know, spines sticking out.

Well, nobody's really close to me. We'll put down your spines a little bit because, you know, it's kind of hard to hug a cactus sometimes, isn't it? That's kind of thing you would probably only do once, right? But Jesus did all this. It would have been amazing enough had he looked at you and thought, wow, you know, you're a pretty good person. You know, you're trying pretty hard. You're getting this Christianity down. You know, I'm going to die for you. I'll give my life for you because you're basically a good person. There's that spark of innate human goodness. There's no what happened, is it? The Bible talks about innate human goodness, folks.

Short version is it says there isn't any. There's none righteous, no, not one. We have all fallen short of the glory of God.

Romans chapter three, verse 10, Romans chapter three, verse 23. Tell us that he did it even though we were unworthy. Oh, and it had been it had been something if he had done it for your neighbor or the person that lived down the street or person you worked. He did it for you. He did this for you. To give you the opportunity to respond to his offer for forgiveness.

That's why they call it the good news. That he made this available to us. Question is, how do you respond? How will you respond to this act of selflessness? That Jesus did for you. Verse 33 ends with, so now I say to you and verse 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. That's pretty convicting. Let's move on by this all.

Well, no, I'm kidding. A new commandment, now this is not new. This is new in a like this is a fresh commandment because we know from Leviticus and Deuteronomy that this concept of loving one another is not a New Testament concept, but Jesus raises the bar. When he says, as I have loved you, so love one another. Well, it's hard enough when he said, love your neighbor as yourself. But I don't know, maybe, you know, maybe there were some that still thought they could do that. So Jesus, OK, here's what you got to do.

You got to love everybody else like I've loved you guys. Now, when I hear that, there's part of me that goes, well, that's it. OK, we're done.

Can't do that. And if you're sitting there thinking you can do this of your own human effort and your human strength, oh, my gosh, may the Lord convict you of your pride. See, this leaves us in a place.

It's meant to leave us. It's meant to leave us in a place of desperation for his Holy Spirit, a place of desperation that he would work in us to love others. And we realize when we need help and we're desperate for his Holy Spirit to help us to do this, that leaves us in exactly the place he meant to leave us.

Going, OK, I'm going to need your help. And he's willing to give that help. That's the amazing thing when you stop to consider. Jesus never told anybody to do anything impossible. Because when he told them to do it, it became possible.

Now, Jesus told some people to do some pretty wild stuff. He looked at a lame man. And said, get up and walk. Now, think about that, if you'd have been standing there and you saw this guy walk over to somebody couldn't walk, say get up and walk, what would you have been thinking?

I know what I'm being honest. I'd have been thinking, that's not right. He's telling, he knows that man can't walk.

That's cruel. But see, when Jesus told him to walk, he became able to walk. And if that's not enough, Jesus looked into a grave. And told the guy to get up.

Now, you think you may have been challenged some mornings when you're wanting to sleep in. That's nothing. Lazarus was dead. And Jesus said, get up, come on, come out, called him by name. So when Jesus tells us to do something, guess what? It becomes possible for us to do it.

Becomes possible for us to do it. You know what's really cool too, talking about John, and he was a young man and John lived a long time, we're told he possibly even lived to be 90 years old. He was the only disciple that died a natural death. The others were martyred. They tried to kill John, history tells us that they tried to kill him by dropping him in a vat of boiling oil. And he lived. And so then the Romans said, you know what?

Something about this guy. Because they were fairly superstitious, so they said, you know, let's exile him to the Isle of Patmos. But what's interesting is you see the John, because remember, John and his brother, sons of thunder?

Yeah, I'm not sure that was like a term of endearment. And they were trying to call down fire from heaven to crispy critter the guys because they didn't receive them. You remember that part? It's in there. It's in the book, guys.

I'm not making this stuff up. They said, you know what? Call down fire from heaven and fry these people who are mad at them. That reminds you of some Christians today, doesn't it? And Jesus says, you don't know what spirit you're of. To go from that place to go from John, who I think it was 44 times used the word love in first, second, third John to go from calling fire down from heaven to little children love one another. Be encouraged, friend, because the Lord will do a work in us. The first life lesson. Jesus takes us just as we are, but loves us too much to leave us that way. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer. Simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days in Jesus name. Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven, you've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you pray that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit CrossTheBridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross The Bridge at P.O. Box 12-515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood through radio, through the Internet and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to CrossTheBridge.com, click on the donate button and ask God how much he would have you give either on a one time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's word continues to go out through Cross The Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Thanks again for listening and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.