Experience TRUTH - #34

Speaking of hangry, we got something going on at the Truth Network that's going to help the world not be so hangry. Yeah, he's talking about just needing God's Word. He said, please help the Truth Network send Bibles to Africa.

And we know that they need God's Word. We have until the end of the month, just $5 gets a Bible in the hands of a poor, impoverished believer all over the African continent with the help of the Bible League. Just $5.

Just think about that, Robbie. Just $5. So please give. If you can give more than $5, man, we'd love for you to do it. And the number to call is 1-800-YES-WORD. 1-800-YES-WORD. 1-800-YES-WORD. This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast.

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. The plan to betray Jesus is underway, and the plan to set up for the Passover Feast is also underway. And that's what we're tackling today in Luke chapter 22, verses 1 through 13 on Experienced Truth.

I'm Stu Epperson. Welcome to our time in the Word—this time in the Word, by the way— that you're listening to on the radio and some of our many awesome radio affiliates that carry this program is also taught weekly by myself and about 10 other guys at a men's group for a bunch of messed up guys like me that are going through the Bible called Wednesday in the Word at a restaurant called Dario that doesn't normally serve breakfast. They make us a breakfast. It's awesome. And it's also kind of weird to talk about unleavened bread in a burger joint, you know, because imagine that I said this to the guys, bringing out a big burger, but on crackers.

They're like, guys, can you imagine that? But there was something significant. We're going to get into that today. With me is Robbie Dilmore, my colleague and brother in Christ, who's also the Christian car guy, and he has agreed to come back for another week to journey through us in Luke chapter 22. Robbie, read the passage, and then we'll pick up kind of where we left off in that third question.

Okay. Now the feast of unleavened bread drew near, which is called Passover, and the chief priests and the scribes sought to how they might kill him, for they feared the people. Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and the captains how he might portray him to them. And they were glad and agreed to give him money. So he promised and sought opportunity to portray him to them in the absence of the multitude. Then came the day of unleavened bread when the Passover must be killed, and he sent Peter and John saying, go prepare the Passover for us that we may eat. So they said to him, where do you want us to prepare? And he said to them, behold, when you have entered a city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house which he enters. Then you shall say to the master of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? Then he will show you a large, furnished upper room.

There, make ready. So they went and found it just as he had said to them, and they prepared the Passover. So that is the Word of God, and last time we talked about why they wanted to kill Jesus in this ongoing battle, in this ongoing planning and conniving and plotting and entrapping of Christ. But what prevented them, of course, the crowds.

They were afraid of the crowds. And they were even worse off after Jesus got through with them, besting them in rhetorical combat on the Temple Mount there, asking them questions they couldn't answer, refuting the Herodians, refuting the Pharisees, refuting the scribes, the lawyers when they came to him. The Sadducees asking him a question to try to undermine the resurrection, and Jesus comes right back at them and uses the Word of God, and just as powerful. And literally over and over again it says they marveled his wisdom.

Over and over again it says they couldn't do anything to him. The crowds ate it up, and he was exposing them. He turned the tables over, exposing their financial fraud, and now they've found an inside track with Judas. It says Satan entered Judas, Robby.

Just what a question. Ask that question to get us going, and then we'll jump into these others and try to get through the rest of the passage. How could Judas, who walked with him all that time, become a traitor, and what does it mean that Satan entered him? So we see the hand of evil directly involved with this. Also, we see Satan has no care for people. He hates people.

He hates you. He comes to steal, to kill, and destroy. He comes, like 2 Timothy 2, 21-23 says, he comes to put you in his snare, in his bondage. He wants to chain you and destroy you, like he did with all those in Pilgrim's Progress. You see the evil one coming at them.

Bunyan graphically demonstrates that. Robby, you've read Pilgrim's Progress. But you also have Judas being complicit.

You have Judas opening the door. Was it an appeal to his greed? Was it an appeal to his power? Did he feel like, man, Peter, James, and John, they're getting all the love here.

What about me? But over and over again throughout the ministry, he's exposed as a son of perdition. He's exposed as someone who loved money more than he loved the things of God, over and over again.

So this isn't the first time we knew about this. Matthew and Mark record the anointing incident, when the woman came and poured out, broke out the brilliant, expensive perfume and washed Christ's feet with her hair. And Judas' response to that, that incident happened right before this. So you have Judas, that set this up.

That may have put him over the top. So here we turn the corner, Robby, and ask this next question. It's going to get us into this plan for the Passover. So what's significant about Jesus' precise instructions? Yeah, so here Christ gives instructions starting in verse 7. The day of the unleavened bread came, and the Passover feast was also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the Passover must be killed. He sent Peter and John.

Interesting. Now, a couple things interesting there, Robby. First of all, he sent them in twos. He always sent his disciples in twos. And someone was telling me about how their daughter is so excited and bold for faith, and she goes into some rough places to share her faith.

I said, well, make a rule. They said, how do we stop her? I said, don't stop her, but make a rule that she can only go with another brother or sister in Christ.

Jesus, is she smarter than him? He sent the disciples in twos. Twice in Luke's Gospel, he sent them out on missions, and they did some miraculous things.

But they went in pairs. But it's interesting that Peter and John aren't paired together that much until later in the ministry of Christ. And I believe it's because Jesus used them mightily under the power of the Holy Spirit in Acts to be the ones that were leading the church. And they went to the temple, the two of them did, in Acts chapter 3, when they healed that guy that was crippled for 40 years. Peter and John went to the temple. Peter and John were arrested and thrown in jail. Peter and John stood in a defense in front of the Sanhedrin who said, don't ever speak the name of Jesus again. It was Peter and John together then.

But ironically, they weren't similar. John was more quiet, more pensive, more introverted, more tender, more of the beloved disciple. Except for when he and James wanted to be the sons of thunder. But other than that, John has a different personality than this loquacious, loud, alpha Peter who's a kick-the-door-down, open-mouth-insert-foot guy all throughout Scripture. So it's interesting how Jesus, of all the two disciples, he didn't send James and John, he didn't send Peter and Matthew, or pair Peter up with another go-getter or another zealous type person. He sent Peter and John together, which is really neat.

And the power of discipleship is so much in there. But he sent them and he said, go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat. So they said to him, this is a great question, they said to him, where do you want us to prepare it? Imagine the vague nature of this command of Jesus.

Go do this. They're looking in the city, they're like, there's a whole lot of places. There's a whole lot of places we can get the food, there's a whole lot of rooms we can get.

So where in the world are we going to go? It's a good question, and it speaks to Christ's divine plan. So often we tell him our plans and he laughs, right Robbie? And so often we have to have this thing sewn up, Robbie. We need to know all the answers before that meeting, don't we?

We don't want anything unchecked, unfiled, uncovered. And here Peter and John are like, wait a second Lord, what's with this plan? So it's very interesting. So Christ gave some very precise instructions.

And why is that significant? Because if anyone knows the plan, it's the planner, right? The maker of heaven and earth, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So then ask this next question, Robbie, because it gets more into it. Who do you know that plays a significant role, just like the unnamed water jar carrier? Yes, we have this obscure figure in the middle of this event dialogue exchange. It says, When you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house which he enters. So this is the water jar carrier guy. And then you shall say to the master of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? He'll show you a large furnished room they will make ready. So they went and found it just as he said to him.

Those words are so good, just as he said to him. So who do you know that's in the order of the water jar carrier, Robbie? You do the Jesus' labor of love, you do help a lot of the widows and the orphans, you've done a lot of kingdom ministry. But what is it about this? No one knows this guy's name. But he played a role in the redemptive story of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.

Yeah, it's kind of cool. It says that he greeted them. He didn't just carry the water, it said he greeted them. So clearly he was looking for them. It's like, there's something coming today and that's going to be good.

And a couple things on that. It's uncommon for men to carry water jars. The women were typically the water carriers. Remember the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4? And so here you have a man carrying.

So that would stand. You're like, how am I going to find this guy? And you think about it. You've got two plus million people in the Jerusalem area. It's Passover feast. Everyone's looking for somewhere to stay. Everyone's looking for somewhere to eat.

Everyone's carrying water, because there's a whole bunch of water involved in that feast. Yeah, it's like saying, I'm going to go to the Atlanta Braves game. Jesus says, now look for the guy with the Braves cap. And follow that guy. So imagine how befuddled in flummox these disciples were at this. Again, you think he narrowed it down, well he really didn't. But he had it planned.

He knew exactly where they were going to go. So it took faith on their part to follow his destructions, which maybe weren't as precise as you may think they were. But it says they found just as he said to them. Isn't that how it always works when we finally listen to what Jesus says? But it involves characters that may be heroes in heaven that are nobodies on earth. Just some guy played a role. We'll see the Da Vinci picture of the Last Supper, which we'll talk about next time.

We'll see movies made about this. We'll read the scripture. And every time we gather and we celebrate the Lord's Supper, and we celebrate what he did for us on the cross, we remember those powerful moments and we do the New Testament Passover feast. Every time we do that, remember there was an obscure, ignomious, no-named water carrier who got them to that room. These two, Peter and John, followed there, who God used.

Just a little piece on the great puzzle, a little thread in this giant tapestry that we called a message of redemption in the gospel. Part of that thread was an unnamed... One of my mentors, a basketball guy, Mike McKee, used to preach a sermon. I heard him preach it more than once, and I could hear him preach it a hundred times. He called it the order of the water jar carrier. He did it, and it was great because he would praise the guy that came to camp, like Bob Evans, to cook. He made the best hot dog you'll ever put in your mouth.

He would go and cook a slave in the kitchen for all of us snide-nosed campers. Like, what in the world? Where's their credit? But their credit was seeing these kids on Friday night go forward and throw a stick in the fire and give their life to Christ.

Many of those kids that did that are now leading churches and preaching all over the world. Because someone cared enough to be an unnamed water carrier. And anytime you carry Jesus, by the way, you're carrying water. Because he is, A, the living water, but also in Hebrew. The letter for the Messiah is the Mem, and the way you spell water in Hebrew is Mem Yud Mem. So when you think water, you think Jesus. And so in a way, when Bob Evans is cooking for people and carrying water, he's carrying Jesus.

So really, the question is, and we wrap up, Robbie, that very last question at the very bottom of the page, read it to us and we're done. How have I experienced firsthand the Passover sacrifice of Jesus in my place? How am I trusting Him to order my steps in both the big and little details and plans in my life? Have you seen what this means? Has Jesus Christ become your Passover? Have you trusted Him? John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world. Has He taken away your sin? And is He involved in every little tiny iota plan of your life? The big plans, the little plans, it's not your plan, it's not your life, it's His. Trust Him with all that stuff. This is Experience Truth. I'm Stu Epperson. Join us next time on Experience Truth.