Three Betrayers

There is no shortage of backstabbers in literature and cinema, both past and present. If I ran you all the way back to some of the classics like Shakespeare, you could pretty much pick your play and you're going to find somebody who's a backstabber or a betrayer. Maybe the most famous one would have been in the ides of March in Julius Caesar with Brutus betraying Julius Caesar. You remember the phrase, "et tu Brute?"

Or, maybe it's something a little more recent like maybe Edmond Pevensie, one of the Pevensie kids in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe who was willing to betray his brother and two sisters for some Turkish delight from the White Witch. That he was willing to betray them and sell them out for a little bit of candy.

Or maybe it was in the Lord of the Rings where you would see Gollum around very turn virtually, betraying Frodo. Or maybe if you're old school, maybe Fredo Corleone in The Godfather who betrayed his brother Michael and some of you remember that well. Some of you were in the movie, as I recall. Or maybe something super recent like for those of you who watch Thor, Loki. Loki is pretty much selling Thor out all the time, is betraying him constantly and so there is no shortage in kind of cinema and literature around this idea of a betrayal or betrayer.

That makes good sense to me because it seems that that storyline is one that we know really well in human history, in real life kind of. We know this really story really well because at work in our world there is a betrayer who we call Satan and we've been studying, over the last number of weeks, the idea of evil and of Satan, of what he does and how he tries to do it and how we are to respond as a result of that.

We know that Satan has been trying to set himself up as God from the very beginning. That he's trying to take away the glory of God. He's trying to take eyes off of the glory of who God is and instead is trying enthrone himself to be worshiped as God and we see that from beginning to end. This is his MO. But one of the things, kind of one of the big picture ideas that we have learned over the course of this last month and a half, as we have studied the idea of evil and of Satan of sin and all of those things, we've learned something that's really important that I don't want you to miss and want to reiterate with you today and it's this, that God is sovereign over Satan and sin. God is sovereign over Satan and sin.

Now, this is a big statement and I need you to let this sink in because you've got to make room in your mind and in your heart for the reality of this idea that God is sovereign over Satan and sin. In other words, not Satan, not evil, not sin is going to thwart the eternal purposes of God in Christ. It is not going to happen because God Himself is sovereign over all of these things.

We even have to remember as those of us who are a part of the people of God, those of us who've been transformed by the grace of God, that God's purposes, that whether it's Satan or sin or evil, God is actually going to utilize all of that to form us into the image of Jesus. Nothing will stop God from doing that. In fact, it's a truth that Paul taught in Romans chapter 8. I don't want you to miss this. Here's what he said, "And we know that in," say it with me, "all things." How many things? (All.)

How many things. (All.)

All. That's a really interesting breakdown in the Greek language 'cause the word all in the Greek language means all. It means everything. Everything, everything. How many things? (All.)

All things. We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God for knew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. In other words, what Paul is reminding us of is this, is that nothing is going to stop God's plan for forming us into the image of Christ. And in fact, even when Satan is involved and he's trying to get into everything, and even when sin finds its way in, even when evil is present, God is still going to and has the capability because He's sovereign. That He can work how many things? (All.)

All things ultimately for our good and for His glory because He's God and no one else is.

God is sovereign over Satan and sin. We've been reminded of that. I've eluded to some stories as we've been working through this series, for those of you who've been here. I've eluded to some stories like Joseph's story where Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers and they told the dad that he's dead. And then years and years go by between Potiphar's house and then ended up in Egypt with the Pharaoh and then he ends up becoming second kind of in charge. Overseeing Egypt during a time of famine where people that are in Israel, functionally like it's not quite Israel yet but more of less. His family who is maybe going to die of famine and they come to Egypt looking for help and who's there? It's Joseph. And of course they thought, oh, I didn't know that was Joseph and dad thought, I thought he was dead. And here's what Joseph said, "What you all meant for evil, God meant for good." Why? Because God is sovereign over Satan, over evil, over sin.

Or, we could look at how history unfolds. Israel had a 1,000 years where they didn't have a king. From the time of Abraham on. That they didn't have a king. Why? Because God was their king. God was leading His people as He is apt to do but Israel got all selfish, got all backwards, got all upside down and they were like, "Hey, we want a king like everybody else. All the nations around us, they've got a human being sitting on a throne who's got a staff and who's going, 'Do this, do that.' We want one of those because we've just got this invisible God and that's not good enough for us anymore. We want to see somebody with skin on who's sitting on a throne just like all the other nations 'cause we want to be like them."

And of course, God's like, "Aw man. This is not really what I want for you because I'm your king. I've always been your king. I've been a faithful king but okay, I will condescend to your level and I'll give you one." The first one He got was Saul. He wasn't such a good one. But do you know that even in the midst of the rebellion of the people of God, even in the midst of the sinfulness of the people of God, choosing something so selfish like this and saying no to an invisible king who was leading them faithfully and yes to a present king, do you know that God still worked in the midst of that? And through King David came the line of messiah. Why? Because God was actually going to show up in skin and He was going to be king all along. Even through their mess they didn't realize that. Even through their selfish sinfulness, they didn't realize that but God did. Do you know why? Because God is sovereign over Satan and evil and sin.

Have I made my point? All right. There's more I could tell you. Thank you. Thank Jesus. This is His stuff. There's more we could talk about when it relates to that but this truth that God is sovereign over Satan and sin is really important for us. It's a good reminder here in Passion week. It's something that we should keep at the forefront of our mind during this time of celebration because on Palm Sunday when all of the crowds gathered and they waved their palm branches and they celebrated Jesus coming in as the messiah. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. A day that we celebrate like today, this Palm Sunday.

What we know is that very soon, some of those believers would feel the heat of resistance to Jesus. There were maybe some in that crowd who were celebrating Him but maybe for the wrong reasons and maybe they were some of the ones who turned on Jesus but probably a majority of the crowd, they were really celebrating Jesus. These were people who had followed Him for many, maybe even many years and now were in Jerusalem, celebrating the king coming back into Jerusalem.

But the tide would turn and they would feel the heat of resistance. As Passover approached, so too did betrayal. We know the story all too well. Some of you are going, "Yeah. You're going to talk to us about the betrayal during the Passion week." No, not just that. I'm going to talk to you about three betrayals and three betrayers. Some of us are so stuck in our heads that we only think about one where the Bible actually reminds us, I think of three.

We're going to look at all three of them today and we're going to begin in just a moment, finding ourselves in John's gospel in chapter 13. If you have a Bible, I'd encourage you to turn there. I want you to see what we're going to be studying. If you have a device, you can pull it up on that as well. John chapter 13, you know the story. It's the time of the Passover which is approaching and now they're going to have a meal together. Jesus and His disciples. Some of us call it the Last Supper.

Jesus is now with them and He is washing their feet. He's demonstrating to them what servant leadership actually looks like and how they are supposed to love one another and serve one another. And in the midst of that conversation, Jesus makes a prediction about something that's going to happen and this one is very familiar to you. In John chapter 13, beginning in verse number 18, Jesus says, "I'm not referring to all of you. I know those I have chosen." But this is to fulfill this passage of scripture. "He who shared my bread has turned against me. I'm tell you now before it happens so that when it does happen, you will believe that I am who I am. Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me and whoever accepts me, accepts the one who sent me."

After Jesus said this, he was troubled in spirit and testified, "Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me." His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them He meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, that's John referring to himself, was reclining next to Jesus. Simon Peter motioned to John and said, "Ask Him which one He means." Leaning back against Jesus he asked Him, "Lord, who is it?" Jesus answered, "It is the one whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." Then dipping the piece of bread, He gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

Jesus told him, "What you are about to do, do quickly." But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival or to give something to the poor. But as soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out and it was night.

We know this story. We know the story of one who is going to betray Jesus. But one of the things that oftentimes we don't think about is that John when he writes this gospel, doesn't want us to just see this in the singular. John actually wants us to see this as the tale of two betrayers because in the verses that follow this story, he immediately tell another story of Jesus' interaction with His disciples at this time of the Lord's supper.

Notice what he goes on to say in verse number 31. "When Judas was gone, Jesus said, 'Now the son of man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in Himself and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now, where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you so you must love another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.'"

Simon Peter asked Him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied, "Where I'm going, you cannot follow now but you will follow later." Peter asked, "Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you." Then Jesus answered, "Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times."

All of this is together in John's gospel. He wants us to see the betrayal of two people out of the 12 disciples, there are two of them that Jesus predicts before it happens. He says of Judas, "This one is going to betray me and the one who dips the bread is going to betray me." And then He says to Judas, "What you're going to do, go do quickly." And he leaves and all the disciples are still confused. Is he going to get some stuff for the festival? 'Cause he keeps up with the money so maybe he's doing something for the poor. And they're all thinking to themselves, wonder that statement about Jesus, what He was just making about somebody's going to betray Him? They're not putting it all together.

And then He says of Peter, He says, "You're going to deny me three times." Tonight, this is going to happen tonight before the rooster crows. Three times. You're going to say you don't even know me. And of course Peter's like, "What do you mean? Are you kidding me? I will lay down my life for you." And Jesus says, "Wait a minute, you got this backwards. You're going to lay your life down for me? I think is going the different direction. I'm going to lay my life down for you."

And so we've got this tale of Judas and Peter and Jesus actually predicted both at this meal. Judas and Peter. One of them, was really well trusted by all of the disciples. That's why he got to handle the money. If you've ever served on a board or a committee or anything like that and you've ever had a treasurer, those generally aren't the people that you go, "Let's see. I think we should find the most unreliable, least trustworthy person to handle the money." You don't do that. You say, "Who can we count on? Who's not going to be crazy about all of this? Who's responsible? Who can handle this? Who is trustworthy?" The disciples actually, whether Jesus appointed him or whether they together they decided, he was the handler of the money and he was looked at accordingly. That was Judas.

The other one's Peter. Peter's bold and boisterous. Peter is the kind of man that every man would be willing to follow. He was a man's man. Yeah, he'd get into it occasionally but he's also get out of it somehow. He was Peter. And both of these, Judas and Peter, ended up, that night, betraying Jesus. Now, you can imagine that Satan was probably involved with both. Or that he wanted to be. No doubt that's true. We know that Satan had some involvement with Judas. In fact, the scriptures testify it. Not only in John's gospel in chapter 13 that we'll look at in just a moment, but also in Luke chapter 22, which is the companion gospel to John chapter 13.

In fact, look what it says in chapter 13 at the beginning in verses in 1 and 2. It says, "It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas," that can literally be translated that the devil had already put into the heart of Judas, who was, "the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus." As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

Jesus told him, "What you are about to do, do quickly." John testifies to the fact that Satan was involved. He had already put it into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus and then the Bible tells us that Satan entered Judas. Now in Luke's passage it says this, "Now the Festival of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was approaching, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priest and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and they agreed to give him money." It was actually 30 pieces of silver, if you recall. The price of a slave. Wasn't even a lot of money really, to be honest with you. "He consented, and he watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present."

Now, you can see that Satan is getting involved in what's going on with Judas. Here's what happened. Satan didn't just all of sudden out of no where, Judas is just kind of standing around like, hey everything's cool. What's up? What's going on? Boom. That's not what happened. That's not what happened. That's what happens like in your head or in a movie or in a cartoon. That's not what happened.

Judas actually opened himself up to Satan. Somehow, some way, I don't know exactly the rationale and the reasons behind but somehow Judas had opened himself up to Satan. There's could have been a number of different reasons. Could greed have been one of those motivations? Well of course it could. We learn about Judas anyway in John chapter 12, notice what it says, it says, this is by the way, after this woman has poured out this expensive perfume on Jesus and then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot who was later to betray Him objected and said, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." He didn't say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

You see, we know a thing or two about Judas. He didn't care about the poor, he was looking all spiritual. Why didn't we sell this and give it to the poor? What he was saying is, "Why didn't we sell this, put in the money bag so I had more to get for myself because I'm a thief. I'm a dirty, rotten thief, that's what I am." He didn't say that. I'm saying that.

Could it have been greed that motivated Judas to do what he did? Possibly but 30 pieces of silver, that's not that big of a deal. What else could it have been? It could've possibly been Judas' unbelief. You say, "Wait a minute. You think Judas didn't believe?" I'm saying, I'm just telling you what Jesus said. Listen to what Jesus said in John chapter 6. He said, "Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. I'm just telling you what Jesus said about Judas. Jesus knew from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray Him.

Could've been greed. It could've been unbelief. It could've been a combination of the two or knowing that Judas was a zealot which meant he was really involved in political things. He really wanted to see Rome overturned and the empire upside down and he wanted to see a Jewish kind of empire itself led by what he considered the messiah was supposed to be so is it possible that Judas was really disappointed in where this was all going with Jesus?

Because what his hope was, I'm latching with this guy because this guy is going to flip everything upside down. He is going to launch a rebellion, we are going to now be in power and it's going to be the kingdom, not of Rome, not the empire of Rome but of Israel. Maybe Judas was disappointed because Jesus didn't behave like he thought Jesus was supposed to behave. I don't know if it was one of those things or if it was a combination of all of those things but whatever it was, Judas opened himself up to the activity of Satan in his life.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, why would Satan do that? Why would Satan? Does Satan need a Judas? Yes. Did Jesus need a Judas? Not necessarily. In other words, Jesus certainly understood that prophecy was going to be fulfilled and the word of God was going to be fulfilled by what Judas was doing but it wasn't as if, if there was no Judas that the teachers of the law and those that were out to kill Jesus couldn't have found Him. He was a popular figure. People would've know where He was. All they would have had to do was just ask around and they would've been able to find Him.

Jesus didn't necessarily need a Judas to point out where He was but Satan needed a Judas. Why? Well, you might be thinking to yourself, why would Satan want to do that? Why would he want to find a betrayer to betray Jesus so that Jesus goes to a cross? Doesn't Satan know that the cross is going to be his undoing? Maybe to a degree he does. In fact, when I was teaching you recently about Jesus and the temptations in the wilderness. You remember what Satan was trying to get Jesus to do? He was trying to get Him to shortcut the cross. Just bow down and worship me. Don't bother with all this cross stuff because maybe he understood to some degree that what Jesus would do in dying for the sins of humanity would not only free up people who were in the bondage of the enemy but would embarrass the enemy completely.

Why would Satan do this? Well, maybe Satan realized that he was getting no where with Jesus. This was going to happen. It was that time. And there's was nothing he could do about it so he just wanted to make sure Jesus hurt as much as possible. And what hurts more than being betrayed by someone so close to you?

You see, the interesting thing about evil is that it's senseless. When people use the terms, I hear it all the time, that was just a senseless act of evil. Every act of evil is senseless. There's no sense to it. In fact, evil can take, listen, evil can take what seem to be really smart, really cunning, really manipulative people and make super stupid. For instance, a being like Satan really cunning, really manipulative, Father of Lies. He not only knows how to lie, he invented lying. When you're the inventor, you know how to do this upside down. You are a ninja at lying. And at planting seeds of lies. This is how good he is. This is how cunning he is. This is how incredibly manipulative is.

Yet, he hates Jesus so much that even realizing Jesus is going to make his way to the cross and it's going to be Satan's undoing, Satan still participates in it and tries to hurt Him as much as possible. You know why? 'Cause evil just hates for the sake of it. Just for the sake of it. It doesn't even have to be well thought out. It doesn't even have to be logical. It's hey, I know that this is going to be my undoing and I don't care. I still hate your guts and I want to make you hurt as much as possible.

Satan got involved with Judas but he also wanted in on Peter. You remember what Jesus actually said in Luke chapter 22, he said this, "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat." He not only wanted in on Peter, he wanted in on some of the other disciples. You say, "Okay, well why would Satan have wanted in on Peter?" We know what he was doing with Judas the betrayer, what did he want to do with Peter?

Can you imagine? Peter, a man's man. The guy that everybody has a tendency to follow. Right or wrong, they just have a tendency to follow this guy. And don't you think that Satan wanted to be able to announce to everyone everywhere in both the visible and the invisible realm that if he could get Peter to punch out on Jesus, that he could announce to all of the principalities everywhere, "See! Even those closest to Jesus, He can't even protect them. Look at how impotent He is and look at how powerful I am. I should be worshiped as God."

This is where Satan was going. And he asked to sift Peter like wheat. Now of course, there's an interesting statement in there. He asked. I wonder if Jesus' response was, "No knucklehead. You can't have them." Now of course, Satan did get involved and used the tool of fear in the life of Peter and he wanted to strike fear in everybody else so that they would fear and bow down to him.

Judas and Peter, they had a lot in common. Think about it. They walked with Jesus for three and a half years. Both of them, who knows? They might have even shared a basket when they were cleaning up all of the leftover bread after Jesus had fed the 5,000. They both were putting that all into baskets. They both were together when Jesus had risen people who were dead and now brought them back to life. Where people who were born blind, Jesus now allowed for them to see. Peter and Judas were both there. People who's ears were closed and they couldn't hear anything, now able to hear. Those who couldn't walk, who were lame in their legs or in their feet who Jesus healed and were now jumping and dancing and running and walking.

They saw all of it. And both of them, both of them, ended up betraying Jesus. Judas betrayed Him for a price. Peter betrayed Him for fear. Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Peter betrayed Him with a curse. He started cursing saying, "I don't know Him." But the issue for me is not a big surprise that this happened. I hope it's not for you either. I hope you don't look back on this scenario and go, how could they?

I'll tell you how could they? These are human beings that are frail and fragile and messed up and disordered. You know how I know that when I look back at this passage that I don't get so freaked out at the fact that they did this? It's because I know they're human beings and I know human beings. I'm one of them. And I've been around a lot of them. And I have seen the potential for failure and I've watched it play out in my heart and in your hearts over and over and over again. This is not what shocks me so much. But what I think that we should do is opposed to just fixating on, I can't believe that they did this, I can't believe that they betrayed, maybe we should pause and we should look a little bit deeper and maybe we could learn something about how they responded to their failure.

That's what I want you to see. Because when we look at how people respond to their betrayal or they respond to their failure, we start to now see their true selves as opposed to potentially the inauthentic self. Both of them, Judas and Peter, they both shed tears for what they did. Judas and Peter, both showed remorse for what they did. But Judas, took his, listen to this, took his regret into his own hands and ended up taking his own life, never even seeing Jesus go to the cross. And Peter, took his regret and ultimately put it in Jesus' hands.

Judas regretted, Peter repented. Don't miss this. Judas regretted, Peter repented. I'm going to see if I can show you the difference between those two things by something that Paul helped us to understand. When he was writing a letter to the Corinthians, the second letter to them, he probably wrote three but we've only got two. But when he wrote that, he was writing to people who had messed up in a number of ways very royally. Some of us have messed up in really huge ways and some of us have messed up in less seen ways but he's writing to people who had messed up in some serious ways in a number of ways.

I want you to understand what he said because he's referencing the first letter that he wrote which was basically confronting them on some of their sin and how they responded. Notice what he says in Second Corinthians chapter 7. Paul says, "Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I don't regret it. Though I did regret it, I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while. Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us." Listen to this, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death."

You see, here's the difference. When worldly sorrow encompasses us and I believe that Judas genuinely felt remorse for what he did. I don't know where the remorse came from, I just know that he felt some. Now listen, the guy was a dirty dog. The guy was a thief, he was living like a thief. The guy was not really believing but he was seeing all of these things that were happening so he flirted with the enemy. He was probably disappointed in Jesus and he flirts with the enemy and Satan enters into him. Puts it in his heart to betray Jesus for whatever motive that might be or whatever combination of motives that might have been. And he does. For 30 pieces of silver. The price of a slave. And he takes that money and then he finds out that he goes and kisses Jesus. You know hey, good to see you Rabbi. Jesus says, "You betray me with a kiss." This sign of respect for a teacher. You're going to show me sign of respect as you put a knife in my back.

When I grew up in the South that's what I call, I call it honey on the end of the knife. Here in the north, one of the things that I appreciate that if people don't like, you usually have a good idea. 'Cause they just tell you, "I don't like you." That happened to me early on when I was here. Hey why don't you go back to Georgia? We don't like you. And I was like, "Okay, I'm going to stay so let's see if we can be friends. I'm planning on being here. I'll grow on you, I think. Do you like grits?"

But in the south sometimes it's like, "Oh sweetheart, so good to see you." I call it honey on the end of the knife. Oh baby doll, sweet possum face. They just call you kind of names. Praying mantis lips, you're so sweet, just come over here. I don't even know where they come from.

You've got Judas through whatever motivation, has now offered this symbol of respect to Jesus by giving him a kiss as his teacher but there's honey on the end of that knife and he betrays Him through whatever motivations or combination of motivations, he betrays Him. Then he gets the money and he realizes after a while, he's not happy with what he's done and he takes the money and goes back to the religious leaders and says, "No, no, no. I'm giving this back." And here's them, the height of hypocrisy, the height of hypocrisy, "Oh no we can't touch that, that's blood money." What? You morons. You've just conspired to kill a man and now you're like, oh we can't touch that because that's blood money. It's like, what are you stupid? This is craziness. This is the height of religiosity and gross hypocrisy.

And so Judas is like, "Well you take it." And they're like, "No, we're not taking it." So he just throws it into the temple area. He just throws it in there. I'm not taking it. He just throws it in there. He knew what he goes and does? He goes and hangs himself. He takes his own life. He took all of the remorse he had and tried to deal with it himself. And do you know listen, do you know what sorrow that is worldly kind of sorrow does? It puts us in a toilet bowl of despair. And we try and solve it somehow ourselves and he tried to do that by taking this into his own hands and just saying, "I'm going to check out."

Peter did something very different. Peter who also betrayed Jesus. Three times, by the way. Cussing, I don't frickity fracking know the man. That's what he was doing. And then do you know what he does? He melts down. He cries. But do you know that ultimately he does? There's a time after the resurrection where they had heard word about Jesus being alive but they'd gone and checked and He wasn't there and they're like, what's going on? I don't know what's happening. And then they just went back to fishing. Why? Because Peter was a fisherman and everybody just followed him because he was the man and they were back fishing.

And while they're out there fishing, they see a man who is on the shore, building a fire and calling out, "How's it going? You guys catching anything?" And of course as usual with Peter he's like, "We've been fishing all night. We haven't caught anything." And then he realizes, that's Jesus. Do you know what Peter does. He doesn't run from Him, he runs to Him. He rips off, he jumps in, he's heading right to Him. Here's the difference between Godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Godly sorrow leads to repentance. That means this, it means you stop having your back to Jesus and you turn your face to Him.

That's what Godly sorrow does. What Judas did, listen to this, Judas took his sorrow and it was a worldly sorrow and he ran away from Jesus and away from Jesus' people. Peter who also betrayed Jesus, brokenhearted, crying and remorseful, listen to this, he runs to Jesus' people. I've blown it guys. I have blown it. I told Him I would give my life. I just checked out on Him. I acted like I didn't even know Him. I have blown it. He ran to Jesus' people and then when he got an opportunity to see Jesus, he ran to Jesus.

You see, that's what Godly sorrow does. Godly sorrow leads us to repentance. It means we run to Him instead of running away from Him. That's why Judas regretted but Peter repented. It's all a function of what you do after you fall down. You see, but all this reminds me that God is sovereign. What Judas did, what Peter did, Jesus had already said this was going to happen. Didn't He? This was already going to happen. He told them that night at dinner. At the Passover meal. One's going to betray me, he's going to fulfill the scripture. Oh yeah, and Peter, you're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows. Before it's morning, you're going to deny me. He told them about both things that were going to happen. Do you know why? Because he's sovereign over everything that's happening.

None of it's sneaking up on Him. None of it's causing Him to go, what is going on? But do you know that looking at the lives of Judas and Peter, God's sovereignty ought to do something to us. I'm going to actually tell you two things that it ought to do to us. Here's the first one, God's sovereignty should humble us. I'm going to explain to you what I mean by that.

When I look back into John 6 where Jesus is talking to His disciples about those who are going to check out on Him and even what Judas was going to do and what you see is you see two primary people talked about. You see Judas and Peter in John chapter 6. Listen to the conversation. Jesus says, "Yet there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, 'This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.' From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him." Not the Twelve, but other disciples. "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God." Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil." He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.

You know what this should remind me of? The sovereign God in the person of Jesus knew what was going down and He had chosen these, these Twelve, to be among Him, to travel with Him and to basically flip the world upside down but one of them was a devil. The interesting thing is, is that rest of those disciples did not pick up on that. Jesus did, but they didn't.

What should humble us however is what Jesus said when He was talking to them. He said, "Hey, I want to remind you of something. Nobody can come to me unless the Father has enabled them." Listen carefully to what I'm saying to you. You cannot be saved outside of grace. God is the initiator. God is the giver of grace. Only one way. Those people that sit in a chair today under the sound of my voice or maybe you're driving in your car or you're wherever you are, well I'm thinking about this salvation thing but I'll just do it when I'm ready.

Listen carefully to me, Jesus said, "No one comes to Him unless the Father has enabled them." Do you know why? Because it is by grace that we are saved through faith and this is not of ourselves. It is the gift of God so that no one can boast. Do you realize even your faith was given to you by God to put back in Him? We are saved by grace through faith and this is the gift of God. You don't just get to do everything that you want whenever you want to. The gracious God draws you by Jesus Christ to Himself and in so doing, demonstrates that this is a gift of God so that no one anywhere can ever boast. That means, for those of us that ever look down our noses at everyone else, and say to them, "I can't believe that they haven't responded to the gospel. I can't believe that they didn't get saved."

Man, after hearing that message pastor, I can't believe anybody would ever turn away. Why? Why can't you believe that? Jesus had 12, one of them was a devil. The sovereignty of God should humble us. We've only come to God because God has been gracious enough to grant us the grace to do so. Does that mean we don't have free will? Not at all. We certainly have free will. That's as clear as can be when you look at the garden story in the book of Genesis but your free will never usurps the sovereignty of God. Because God is not only sovereign over Satan and sin and evil, He's also sovereign over free will because God is God. He's sovereign over everything. Everything. But you and I, just like Judas, we're accountable for our decision making because we do have a role in that. But it starts with God.

The sovereignty of God should humble us. But, the sovereignty of God should also comfort us. It should also comfort us. When we look at Judas and Peter's story in particular. God's sovereignty ought to comfort us. In fact, look at what Jesus said in Luke 22 again. "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat but I have prayed for you Simon. That your faith may not fail and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

Do you realize this? Jesus not only predicted Peter's failure, He predicted his restoration because here's what Jesus was saying. If they are one of mine, that I have called and that I have rescued and that have given themselves to me, I will protect them and I will see them through. They many fail. They may stumble but here's what they're going to do. They're going to turn their face back toward me because I'm going to bring them to a point of restoration. It's good news. It is good news that God in His sovereignty, when He captures us, that He keeps us by His power and His love.

I have heard too many times people that live their life so messed up because they're concerned that they're next sin means that they're going to lose their salvation. Listen carefully to me, number one, you could never know that in your entire life. Which one is it? Is it sin number 27? Is it sin number 343? Is it sin number 1,127.2? Which one is it? You going to live your life like that? Or, are you going to recognize that the one who saves us, that we didn't initiate, is the one keeps us by His power and the one who will carry us all the way through to the end. He knows His own and He will protect and care for and persevere in and through His own.

You say, "Man, but I've known people Jerry, I've known people, they've been in the church and they do all the church stuff and they sing all the songs and they know the stuff and you know dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. I know them all. I know them all." And then they just punched out. Now they say they don't even believe. Hey, a faith that falters at the end was flawed from the first. They just never were regenerated. They've come up to it, they've basked in the light of it, they've learned the lingo but never regenerated.

Judas. That's Judas' story. Jesus said this in John 17, He's praying to the Father. He said, "While I was with them, I protected them and I kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled." Jesus' power is strong enough to save those who His, are His and His power and His name and His protection is on them, all the way to the end. He will cause us by His power in us to persevere to the end.

Well, we learned a lot about God through these two betrayers. But I told you there were three. Who's the third? Us possibly. I can't think of a more appropriate application because we're a people who are near to Jesus, who've seen Him work, who hang out with people who are Jesus' people. Just like Judas and just like Peter. I can't help but imagine that of all the people that are listening or watching in whatever space or venue that you're in, I'm pretty sure that there are both Judases and Peters. I know a 100% sure that there are Peters 'cause I'm here. I know my own heart. I know there have been times in my heart where in my heart I should have and could have and felt God prompting to stand for Jesus and I didn't. Out of fear.

Nah Jerry, you couldn't have done that. You're the pastor guy. You're the one that we should be following. Yep, and so was Peter. And when he was in a courtyard, he pulled out a sword and he cut off a guy's ear going for his head because he said, "I'll never do something like this. I'll never do something like this." Of course Jesus said, "Put that away." And then he picked the guy's ear up and put it back on which is awesome.

That same guy, the bold, I'll die for you Peter, within just a few minutes after, is cussing and saying, "I don't know Him." It's in all of us. It could be any of us and probably has been most all of us at some point in our lives. Maybe not for all the world to see like it is with Peter, maybe not quite as bad as it was with Peter but nonetheless, same kind of thing from the same kind of heart of fear that we have betrayed Jesus.

There's probably a whole host of Peters, everybody. What about Judases? Got to be. Got to be. I don't know who they are. You don't know who they are. Jesus taught us that the wheat and the weeds grow up together until the time of harvest and you can't always sort them out. The harvester knows. Sometimes we don't.

John, when he wrote his epistles later in life, he said, "There are those who have gone out from us because they were never of us." I don't know how all of that works. What I do know is this, is that you probably can tell those people by a function of how they respond when they fail. That's often what we see. And Simon, Peter and Judas, these aren't just characters in the story of Passion week that we look back on and go, "Well this is just part of the history so we've got to tell their story a little bit." They're not just, listen to this, they're not just historical figures. For us today, they're mirrors. We look at their lives to see if we see any of ours.

And maybe that comes when we do that to us asking ourselves a whole lot of questions. Like, how do we respond when we fail the Lord? Do we hide? Do we cover up? Do we take matters into our own hands as if we could fix it? Do we run from Jesus instead of running to Him? What about when Jesus disappoints us? When He doesn't behave like we think He's supposed to behave? Well then what are you willing to trade for it? What are you willing to replace Him with? Judas was willing to do it for 30 pieces of silver. What's our price? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves and I'll tell you why. Because what the enemy wants us to do is to fail. Even greater than that though is he wants to wallow, he wants us to wallow in our failure and despair and try and solve it ourself. Do you know why? Because that's ultimately the great shortcut around the cross that he was looking for.

See, Jesus went to that cross and died in our place so that we didn't have to live in our sin and our failure and our regret and our shame for the rest of our lives. So when you fall down, turn around and throw yourself the mercy of the cross because what God has done in His Son by an act of grace and an act of extraordinary love is to say this, "That while you were a sinner, Christ still died for you and that you don't have to live in that circling drain of despair anymore. Find your way back, repentance means we're going to turn our back on our sin and turn our face to the cross because that's where our freedom is." That's why Jesus went there. For people like you and me.

Lot of questions to ask ourselves. How will you respond? What do you see? And what are you going to do as a result? Let's bow our heads together. We're dismissed in just a moment. You might be here and you might be new to church. New to the Bible, new to this story. Here's what I want to remind you of that all of us have sinned, all of us have failed. Maybe haven't all denied Jesus like Peter did but maybe we just trusted in ourselves to do our thing. Maybe to clean up our own mess. Maybe to make ourselves presentable.

Know this, we cannot save ourselves. We will never be able to save ourselves and so the quicker that we give up trying to do that the better because it will then remind us that we need a savior and that's exactly what God has done in Jesus Christ. That He went to a cross to die for our sins and to satisfy the justice of a holy God. And He did it in our place so that through that sacrifice and His resurrection, we might put our faith in what Jesus has done for us so that we could be reconciled to the Father. We could have forgiveness of our sins and we could know what it means to walk in freedom and that even if we stumble, which we don't have to because of Christ's power in us but even if we do, we can turn in mercy to what Jesus has already done in paying for our sins.

If you've never done that, I want to encourage you when we leave in just a moment to come by the Fireside room, we'd love to talk to you about what that means. It's just right outside in the atrium and you can see it clearly marked.

Father, for all of us, we know that when we look into your word it is a mirror and that we need to look into it and evaluate because oftentimes we believe the lie of the enemy that when we fail, that we have to live in that failure forever. And that we could never go to God's people and we certainly could never run to Jesus. But in fact, the cross tells us the exact opposite. Peter's life tells us the exact opposite. That what Godly sorrow will do in our hearts is cause us to run to God's people but most importantly to run to Jesus.

Would you help us to remember that story as we think about Passion week? And think about the multiple betrayals of Passion week of which we could certainly be a part. And instead of looking at this story as how could they? We have to look at this story and say, "How could I?" And be able to look at the world around us that have yet to come to know the grace of Jesus and ask the question, "Lord, could you use me in their lives as an act of your grace?" May you enable us to do it even this week as people are so very open to talking about Jesus during this time of the year. And may you glorify yourself in our hearts as we recognize your sovereignty and are humbled by it and comforted by it. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.