Betrayed for Me

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. All of us, even Jesus' closest disciples, have abandoned him. The ultimate failure of the human race has been put on display. Jesus has been nothing but loyal to us, but for the right price, all of us sell him out. We abandon the one who never abandoned us.

Let this sink in. Judas represents you. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vinovich, and we are so glad that you're back with us today as we begin a new teaching series titled Instead of Me. Pastor J.D. is going to walk through the dramatic events leading up to Jesus' death on the cross. But before we get started today, I have a special announcement. We here at Summit Life have a strong desire to make an impact for Jesus in the country of Ukraine. So for this week only, 50% of every dollar given to Summit Life will be used to provide food, shelter, medical care, clothing, and relocation assistance, as well as prayer and counseling in Lviv, Ukraine, and other nearby cities and Poland. Stay tuned for more information at the end of our program or visit jdgreer.com right now and join with us. Let's join Pastor J.D.

Greer for a message he titled Betrayed for Me. Thankfully, I'm at a point in my life where I don't have to take a lot of exams anymore. There is still one that I have to take annually that I do not like at all. It is the annual physical. There are numerous reasons that I don't like it.

Those of you who are over 40 will probably understand some of those. But one of the main reasons that I don't like the annual physical is the blood test. I don't mind the little prick and the drawing of blood.

It's not that part that I hate. I just don't like the suspense of waiting for what those results show because I know enough people to know that I might feel fine. I feel awesome. I feel healthy and sprightly and young.

But that blood test can reveal that even though I feel fine things may not actually be fine. Well the reason I share those things is because we're going to spend several weeks looking at the events leading up to the crucifixion to see how through these events that lead up to the crucifixion God is doing an examination on the human soul. You see the Gospel of Matthew which is where we're going to be if you have a Bible I'd encourage you to take that out now and open it to Matthew 26. But we're going to see how the Gospel of Matthew tells the stories of the arrest and the trial of Jesus in such a way that we see that it is really the human race that is on trial. It looks like Jesus is on trial but when you learn to see it through God's eyes Jesus is not on trial. It is the human race that is on trial and we are the ones that are being examined during the trial of Jesus. You see we should see ourselves in these stories and as we see ourselves we'll get a bigger picture a better picture of who Jesus was why he had to come and why he had to do what he did.

Okay. Matthew 26 our first exhibit is Judas. Judas and his story starts in a very unusual place.

Matthew 26 verse 6. While Jesus was at Bethany at the house of Simon the leper evidently this was a leper that Jesus had cleansed previously and so now he's throwing a party for Jesus. There was a woman who approached him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. Other Gospel accounts tell us that this woman was Mary who was the sister of Lazarus who was the guy that Jesus had raised from the dead. Jesus was very close to their family and she felt very grateful to him and love for him so she poured this alabaster very expensive perfume on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw it they were indignant.

Why this waste they asked. You see this kind of perfume was a family treasure. It was kept in a sealed alabaster container that had no lid. The only way to get into the perfume was to literally smash it so you could open it one time and that was it. Usually was never opened it was just handed down from generation to generation as a family inheritance. The text tells us that this perfume was worth 300 denarii which is something like ten thousand dollars today. Personally I've never seen a ten thousand dollar bottle of perfume.

If you have please don't tell my wife about it but I would just I would just be nervous all the time about breaking it open it. Well this woman comes she smashes the thing and she pours it on Jesus's hair and on his feet. Well the disciples begin to object it says.

In fact I'll tell you I learned something this time around. You know these stories are very familiar to me because I literally have grown up around them but as I was studying for this one I learned something that I just never seen and that is that this objection right here where they say hey this might have been sold for a great deal and given to the poor. Matthew says that all of them were the ones asking this. See the reason I point that out is because other accounts say that Judas was the one who actually voiced this and I always thought Judas was the one who made the objection but evidently evidently it was the common consensus of the group and Judas was simply the one to express this kind of righteous indignation that this money had been wasted in this way. Verse 10 aware of this Jesus said to them, why are you bothering this woman?

She's done a noble thing for me. You always have the poor with you but you do not always have me. Now really quick when Jesus says that he is not discouraging their care of the poor saying like hey you can't do anything to actually change poverty so you might as well not even try. No his whole ministry taught us to care for the poor.

What he is telling them is this is a very unique moment and you're not going to have me for very long and you should be taking advantage of it. By pouring out this perfume on my body this woman has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world what she has done will also be told in memory of her. Now keep in mind the disciples that he's talking to are the very ones that are going to be proclaiming the gospel in the whole world so basically what he is saying to them is every time that you tell this story from now on you're going to be recounting how smart and insightful and perceptive she was and how dumb you were. Verse 14, then one of the 12 the man called Judas Iscariot left that group and went to the chief priest and said, what are you willing to give to me if I hand Jesus over to you?

So they weighed out for him 30 pieces of silver which is about seventy five hundred dollars in today's terms. Verse 16, and from that time forward he started looking for a good opportunity to betray him. You see the Jewish leadership didn't want to arrest Jesus in public because he was so popular with the crowds it would have started a riot so they needed to be able to arrest him privately when nobody was around.

But evidently Jesus was very secretive about where he was in private for a couple reasons one is he wanted to avoid arrest and secondly he probably just needed some space to get away from the crowd so that he could he could rest but bottom line is they didn't know where he was when he wasn't in public and so they needed somebody on the inside to tell them so that they could arrest him privately. Well meanwhile Jesus and his disciples have found a private place to celebrate the Passover and so Judas rejoins them there in this private chamber. Verse 21, while they were eating Jesus looks up and says, truly I tell you one of you will betray me.

Deeply distressed each one began to say to him, surely not I Lord. All right let's talk here for just a minute about Judas. Sometimes Christians in church have this idea that Judas was this sinister presence among the disciples with shifty eyes and little horns kind of poking out the top of his head you know he hissed when he talked he had a parcel tongue he was the shady disciple who slipped out after dark to smoke weed and told dirty jokes when Jesus wasn't around but that is a totally wrong picture of Judas. Notice when Jesus said somebody would betray him they didn't all kind of look at each other and say well obviously it's Judas everybody knows that. No, nobody suspected him at all. Judas was in fact one of the most respected of all the disciples.

How do we know that? Well we know that because he was the one elected by the other disciples to carry the purse and you don't choose a shady guy to be your accountant. Judas had genuinely believed that Jesus was the Messiah we'll talk about that more in a minute. So when Jesus tells them somebody is going to betray him they all start to look around and say surely Lord it's not I. He replied the one who dipped his hand with me in the bowl he will betray me. The son of man will go just as it is written about him but woe to the man by whom the son of man is betrayed.

It would have been better for him if he'd never even been born. Now you might have wondered how this didn't make a scene. John's account of this by the way says that he dipped it in and he hands it to Judas. Same thing to say it here basically the one who shares this bread with me is going to betray me and I used to read that and think well how did everybody not know at that point like Judas.

Evidently there was a lot of conversation going on around the table. It's like today you get 12 guys around the table nobody's listening to anybody else everybody's talking to one person and there's a lot of conversation and evidently Jesus says this just loud enough for one or two people to hear. Then Judas who was one of those who heard Jesus say this his betrayer he replied surely not I rabbi and Jesus responds to him you have said it. Judas may have asked this question by the way because he was still trying to work out the courage or wondering if he had the courage to follow through with this.

He may have said Lord is it I because he's just trying to see what Jesus knew. At any rate when Jesus says this Judas gets up from the table and he leaves immediately to go and get the soldiers to come back and ambush Jesus. Now what I want to do is I want to do two things with the story of Judas today. The first is I want to try to show you that Judas represents all of us. Judas is not just this lone villain out there that we're supposed to despise and hiss because he's such an evil man. Matthew is going to tell the story in a way to show us that Judas is you and Judas is me. Secondly I want to explore with you why it is that Judas betrayed Jesus and then I want to try to show you how people still do that today pretty much for the same reasons that Judas betrayed Jesus. First of all why do I say that Judas represents us?

Well you can see it in how the story is told. Matthew does things like show you as I pointed out that all the disciples have the same reaction of disgust when the woman pours out this perfume on his feet. Judas is not alone in this he's just representing all of the disciples. When Jesus tells the disciples that somebody will betray him he presents it more as a question. He doesn't say we have a traitor in our midst and there he is.

No he leaves out the who deliberately. The word he uses for betray means to hand over or to sell. Jesus is basically saying to them one of you is going to sell me out for the right price. Is it you?

Look into your heart what is the price at which you would sell me? They understood Jesus's question because notice how shaky and uncertain their response is. Verse 22 they're like surely Lord it's not I. Greek commentators say the way the question is phrased implies a decided lack of confidence. You should almost read that phrase as Lord it's not I. Is it?

Is it actually me? Jesus goes on to tell them it's not just one of you that is going to sell me out. Verse 31 all of you will fall away. They may not have each sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver but none of them is going to go all the way with Jesus.

Every single one of them has a price whereby they will walk away from him and see the point is a price is a price. Reminds me of the story that I heard years ago attributed to Winston Churchill. The story goes that Churchill was trying to make a point that England should never compromise with evil and there was a newspaper reporter who was a very fierce adversary of his. It was a lady who kept accusing him of being an extremist and a warmonger and he was going to lead England into war and so finally exasperated Churchill says to the woman, he says, man if a king offered you 100 million pounds to sleep with him would you do it? And she kind of thought for a minute and said well 100 million pounds yeah there's not much I wouldn't do for 100 million pounds. She said probably yes. Mr. Churchill said he said well if I offer you 50 pounds will you sleep with me? And she said kind of in disgust Mr. Churchill I'm not a prostitute. And he replied he said with all due respect ma'am we've already established what your identity is I just wanted to know your price.

Now I've got strong reasons to believe that that story is made up also but it still makes the point a price is a price. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer and a message titled Betrayed for Me. As I mentioned earlier today we're raising funds to send to Lviv, Ukraine to provide essential relief for those in need. So give us a call today at 866-335-5220 or go online to jdgreer.com and share the hope of the gospel tangibly to those in the greatest need right now. Now let's rejoin Pastor J.D. in today's message. The question being asked to these disciples is what is your price?

Look into your hearts and ask. Judas may betray Jesus spectacularly for 30 pieces of silver but each of them will do it eventually all of them will walk away. Peter who's the most outspoken among them will cave and end up denying that he never even knew Jesus. So again Judas's betrayal is presented as a question to you.

What is your price? When I lived overseas and I was a missionary in a Muslim country I had a situation where I thought that our presence there was going to end in prison. I thought it may end in bodily harm and might possibly end in one of us dying. There was we brought in a short-term team of missionaries while I was there to give out distribute Bibles in the region and to make a long story really short they provoked a riot. A riot of close to 3,000 people that the police ended up rescuing these guys and four friends of mine and putting them in prison. The rioting mob took both of their cars burned them to the ground and were demanding that they release my four friends so that they could kill them. I was put under a type of house arrest because they didn't have any proof that I was connected but everybody kind of knew I probably was and so they put me under house arrest and it led to one of the worst two or three four days of my life because in that kind of you know loneliness of just being under house arrest I remember saying to God I don't want to do this I just want to go home I'm tired of this I didn't sign up for this I'm not sure why I'm here can you just get me out of this and send me home. Now here was the irony of that I was very committed to Jesus I mean I was a missionary for goodness sake I mean that's like you know top of the chain I was you know varsity level in fact before we left we'd done this little ceremony where we you know you get your stick I don't know you probably never did this but you have a campfire and you go and throw your stick in the fire symbolic of the fact that you're letting your life be burned up for Jesus and then I did it with everybody else I'm like here's my stick I throw it in the fire and we all sang I've decided to follow Jesus you know the world behind me the cross before me no turning back no turning back there none go with me so I will follow I sang as loudly as anybody that night but I'm gonna go ahead and tell you guys one thing just in case you don't know this it's one thing to stand in a group around a camp fire and sing that song that I'm willing to give up my life for Jesus it's quite a thing to do it's quite another when you think people are going to show up and take you up on that offer and I what was happening in that moment it was one of the lowest times I've ever been spiritually because God revealed I had a price I had a point at which my commitment to Jesus stopped it was one of the lowest points I've ever been in and God used that to begin to rebuild me spiritually from that broken place the point is I was just like those disciples I had a price I could talk a big game I could talk a big game but when you peeled away the layers I had a price the question is what is your price you see you might be willing to follow Jesus when it is convenient for you but at what point do you stop for example maybe you downplay your commitment to Jesus in front of your friends you want to be a Christian here at church but you're a teenager you don't want to do it in front of your friends because they might mock you or think of you as strange or maybe it's just an area of your life that you just don't want to let God have control of yet maybe God has told you to go somewhere and do something on a mission trip or maybe with one of our church plants and you are resisting him maybe God has called one of your children to do something like that and you don't want to let them go maybe God has convicted you of something like your music habits or your entertainment habits or a certain relationship that you really should not be in and you don't want to give it up I mean maybe it's it's it's getting baptized right maybe it's getting baptized you know you're you're just kind of like I don't really know you know like I know that we're always talking about getting baptized but I just it's just inconvenient and messy and wet and I don't really want to do that and what an ironic thing for your commitment to Jesus to stop at the point of inconvenience that's your price for some of you you know that you shouldn't be living with your your boyfriend or your girlfriend or you know that you shouldn't be sleeping together but that's just not a lifestyle that you want right now so you're going to keep doing it and hope that God's going to be okay with it some of you know that you work too much or you neglect your family you never take a Sabbath maybe God's calling you to put him first in your finances and trust him with a tithe and generous giving and you're resisting him maybe it's simply committing to the church right I mean we got a lot of people that are just sort of sitting on the sidelines and you know what deep down you know that church is not just an event you're supposed to show up at occasionally and kind of hear a religious pep talk you know that you're supposed to be a part of the community but when you really get down to it that just feels over committed to you and it feels messy and it feels cumbersome and you like the freedom that goes with non-committal so you're just going to kind of hold on to what's convenient you're not going to do what you know God wants you to do through whatever it is that's your price that's where your commitment to Jesus stops and you sell him out right your point of commitment stops at a certain point what is that price all of us have one or all of us have had one when Mark tells the story of all these disciples forsaking Jesus which ends up happening a couple hours later in the Garden of Gethsemane when Mark tells that story he adds a curious small but I think very important detail Mark 14 51 and a young man followed him that is followed Jesus after his arrest with nothing but a linen cloth about his body that's because it's his pajamas he'd been sleeping when Jesus was arrested and they seized him but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked now here's a question why include that detail in this story two reasons I think number one it's interesting and anytime you're telling a story where somebody runs through it naked you always have got to include that detail later right I mean some guy runs through our church service naked and somebody asked you later how our church was it has nothing to do with the sermon but you're going to include that detail about the guy running through naked so that's one of the reasons but second and more importantly many commentators think that in this running fleeing young naked man is a picture right of the entire human race a metaphor for the whole human race here we've got a naked man fleeing from the Garden of Gethsemane you might remember that Adam and Eve had fled from the Garden of Eden naked fleeing from the presence of God and so what we have in this image is a picture of the whole human race all of us even Jesus's closest disciples have abandoned him the ultimate failure of the human race has been put on display Jesus has been nothing but loyal to us but for the right price all of us sell him out we abandon the one who never abandoned us so again let this sink in Judas represents you sure maybe you haven't actually done what Judas did but that's probably just because you weren't put in the same situations he was in under the same pressures but see the stuff in your heart and my heart is the same as what was in Judas's art you see the Bible teaches us that the reason some of us turn out better than others has more to do with the restraining graces that God puts into our lives than it does some inherent goodness in us sometimes when I hear the stories of people who've really messed up their lives some of them ended up in prison and then I hear them talk about the pain and the dysfunction and sometimes abuse that they went through growing up I always find myself wondering that had I grown up in similar conditions if I wouldn't have made the exact same decisions I'm not trying to excuse their crime I'm not trying to say that they're not accountable for it I'm just saying that God puts so many graces and privileges in my life that I had absolutely nothing to do with and cannot take any credit for I had parents who loved me I had good examples of character lived out before me I never faced the kind of poverty or discrimination that pushes some people to extreme action I was taught the word of God from my childhood these were all gifts of grace to me for which I cannot take one iota of credit do I really have reason to boast because of them let me say you and a friend decided you were going to rob a bank and on the way to rob the bank you stop by another friend's house and the friend said I'm not going to let you do that and grabs both of you by the hand and says both of you by the shirt your other friend wriggles free and rips his shirt goes off and robs the bank but you are you remain held by your friend and he won't let you go well your one friend goes and robs the bank gets arrested can you really boast later about not having committed the crime no because what was in your heart was in what was in his heart was in your heart it was your friend's restraining grace that kept you from doing it that's what God has done us he put graces that kept the sin in my heart from growing into fruition and destroying me yet y'all even with all of these graces even with all of those I still had a price whereby I sold Jesus our salvation is only by grace by God's unmerited favor we're not saved because of how committed we are to Jesus but because of how committed he is to us you're listening to summit life with pastor and author jd greer we're always grateful for your support of this ministry but today we'd like to expand our reach in a new way for this week only 50 of every dollar given to summit life will be given to one of our trusted partners on the ground in ukraine and used to directly provide food shelter medical care clothing and relocation assistance as well as prayer and counseling in the city of leviv ukraine with a recent invasion of russian forces the ukrainian baptist theological seminary or ubts has halted classes and it's now providing humanitarian aid to people who are fleeing west toward poland through the city of leviv most of them are women and children ubts volunteers are caring for their physical spiritual and emotional needs and in this moment of crisis ubts is a trusted partner of summit life capable of providing essential relief and committing to serving christ by serving others as you know summit life strives to give more than 10 percent of our total gifts to church planting and missions each year in fact in 2021 we were able to stretch that to nearly 15 percent because of your generosity so this is right in line with our mission of supporting the global church this time in a very hands-on way that brings both immediate relief to suffering as well as displaying the hope of the gospel in the midst of chaos it's easy to donate when you give us a call at 866-335-5220 and to say thank you for your gift to both summit life and the relief effort in ukraine we'll send you a copy of our newest devotional resource called listen up 10 devotions from the parables of jesus by pastor jd greer that number again is 866-335-5220 or you can give online at jdgreer.com i'm molly vinovich inviting you to join us again tomorrow on summit life with jd greer today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries