Easter Week 1 • Matthew 26 & 27

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If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to Matthew chapter 26, all right?

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

We've been in Luke since Christmas, and we're going to take a break over the next three weeks

and dive into an Easter series.

And so we'll be doing that Easter all the way through April 4th, and then the Sunday after

Easter.

Excited to be able to share this with you guys.

We're going to have a special guest speaker on April the 11th.

Dustin Stotman, who is our church planner that we are working with in Salt Lake City, is

going to be here.

And he called me, he said, hey man, I'm going to be in South Carolina that weekend.

I would love to come to Willow Ridge and share with the church.

And so, Justin is going to be here.

He's going to share what God is doing, but also preach that Sunday.

And so you'll make sure, you want to make sure that you're here for the 11th with that.

I do want to take a couple minutes and clarify a few things about Easter, and I hope that

I don't complicate things as I try to clarify, but I can do that from time to time.

All right, so we are having three services on Easter.

The 7.30 service is going to be an outdoor as close as we can get to as Baptist sunrise,

right?

So 7.30 that morning, all right?

And so if, man, this is a good opportunity.

Maybe since COVID's hit, you've just been worshiping online, but you want to be back and want to

have that opportunity with us, being out there to have the sunrise service with us would be

a great opportunity.

That service will be everybody, babies all the way through, all right?

We'll all be gathered outside for a time of worship together.

It will be a little bit scaled back acoustic worship because we'll be outside, but the message

will be the same and we'll be taking part of the Lord's Supper together as well during

the sunrise.

Then 9.30 and 11 is going to be family worship, but we will have the nursery available.

And again, we'll be taking the Lord's Supper for both of those as well.

A lot going on with our student ministry.

We've got the lock-in that's happening Friday night.

I told Joel from the very beginning, man, I will do anything you ask me to do during this

interim time except participate in a lock-in.

So I will not be here, but Joel's going to be leading those 6th through 12th graders.

So here's what I want you to do.

Parents, all right?

Give them airheads and Red Bull and drop them off and let Joel and his team have fun with

them.

But love to do that.

A high school Bible study on Wednesday nights are going strong.

Middle school, we're strong.

Tonight, I want to say this as I lead our middle school study.

We're starting a new study tonight on boldness, but we're going to start off with a gaga ball

tournament.

Wyatt and Joel worked hard to get a gaga ball pit for us.

So we're going to start off tonight, even before we eat, with a winner-take-all, right,

in theme of March Madness, gaga ball tournament.

If you're a middle schooler, you don't know what gaga ball is, show up tonight.

You will love it.

I enjoy it as well.

I'm usually the first one knocked out.

All right.

So Matthew chapter 26 here, let's get started here.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

All right.

Here's the deal.

The Easter story is a powerful story.

And we know that because at least to some extent, you're here this morning.

So whether you're a believer or not, you've heard the story.

You know what happens.

You know what takes place.

You know that the Easter story is filled with plot twists.

There's heroes.

There's villains.

There's skeptics.

There's followers.

There's conflict.

There's resolution, right, for us as believers of what we understand.

That the Easter story is 100% historically accurately true.

That's what we believe as followers of Jesus.

Historically proves that Jesus was a man, the crucifixion happened, and his history proves

that the tomb was empty.

And we as believers, we know the reason why, the hope.

We know that it wasn't just a man who was crucified, but it was Christ,

fully God, fully man, crucified for the sins of the world.

We know as believers that his body wasn't lost, that his body wasn't smuggled out, but that

his body that was dead for three days began to fill with blood and oxygen again.

And his lungs began to expand, and his heart began to beat.

And Jesus, who was fully dead, became fully alive again and walked out of the tomb in the

power of the resurrection.

And it's why we have hope.

It's the reason why we sing, because one day as well, our physical bodies will be laid into

a tomb, but our spirit will be risen to live with God for all of eternity.

And it's the reason why we can say, I raise a hallelujah, right, in the middle of all of

this that surrounds me, because our hope is found with Jesus.

And if you take the Easter story, and you just put it on paper and give it to someone, while

they might not believe it to be true, there would be parts of them that would resonate.

They would find out that there's a hero named Jesus.

They would find out the sacrifice that he goes through.

But also, within it, like most good stories, they would learn pretty quickly that there's

a villain.

And the story of Easter often has to be told, or not often, but always has to be told with

telling of the villain.

Now, most of y'all know this.

I know we've got some new faces.

If you don't know this, let me confess this.

I love Star Wars, right?

Like, we own multiple lightsabers at my house.

As my kids are 13 years old now, as they've gotten older, right, we've had those journeys

where we take toys to Goodwill.

And I want to tell you, as they put toys to go to Goodwill, there are pieces that dad grabs

out, because they're not ready to release them, but I'm not ready to release them, right?

And it's all the Star Wars stuff.

I love Star Wars.

And for me, what cannot be missed in Star Wars is Darth Vader.

He's the villain.

You've got to have Darth Vader in the story.

If you take Darth Vader out, and if you haven't seen the movies, I apologize, but that's what

you need to do this afternoon, okay?

If you take Darth Vader out, you still have the Force, you still have the Empire, you still

have the Rebel Alliance, you still have all of the characters that are there, but it is

pivotal, because you have to understand who the villain is to understand where the good

comes from, and to understand the hope that we have.

Now, for here, when we tell the story of Easter, you can't tell the story of Easter without

telling the story of who we believe to be the villain.

And while we're going to talk about Jesus this morning, so much of the dialogue that I want

us to have today isn't just focusing on Jesus, but is also telling the story of the villain

that we think of, the guy named Judas.

Now, when you think of Judas, those of you who know the story, how would you describe him?

What comes to mind when the name Judas is said?

You could think of a sneak, he's the guy that broke away.

You would think of a betrayer, he's the one who went and betrayed those who were closest

to him.

You think greedy, he sold out for some money and betrayed those that were closest to him

so that he could gain a financial peace.

He was a liar, he was a deceiver, he was sinister, and those are the characteristics that we think

of when we think of Judas.

But what if history, what if the Bible told a little bit different narrative?

He did all those things, we're going to look at them in just a second.

But what if those weren't the only aspects of Judas that we need to consider this morning?

What if I were to tell you that Judas, while he was all of those things, what if I were

to tell you that Judas was respected, considered trustworthy, was dependable, and was committed?

In John chapter 13, the Bible tells us that amongst the disciples of Jesus, that Judas was

John 13 · chapter mention

the one who kept the money.

So that says something to me about his character, or the perceived character about him to those

around him, right?

Like, you know this, someone at work, maybe someone in your neighborhood, someone maybe

even with your family, y'all all decide y'all are going to collect money for some purpose

or some reason, right?

Do you give the money to your sketchy uncle?

No, right?

You give the money to the most trusted individual that you know.

You don't give the money to the neighbor that no one talks to.

You give the money to the neighbor that everyone knows and that everyone trusts.

And so it says to me, when I begin to think through Judas in John chapter 13, was that for

John 13 · chapter mention

those that were closest to him, he exhibited some behaviors.

He exhibited some characteristics of like, nah, he's a trustworthy dude.

Nah, I can go with Judas.

I can take the money that we've been given, that we've been entrusted with, and I can give

that to him that he's going to do with it what needs to be done with it.

Now, there's lots of character flaws within Judas, but at least on the outside of what

people begin to see.

Here's what I'll tell you is, as Judas was on that journey with Jesus, we see a lot of

people in the three years of Jesus's ministry not stand and not make all the way to Jerusalem.

As Jesus called for, as Jesus commanded, as Jesus set for its standards, there was people

who were consistently walking away and walking away and walking away, but Judas, to some extent,

kind of perseveres and moves on through.

Here's my point.

Here's what I want us to understand as we read through the Easter story.

Judas is not like the villain that we think of in a movie.

He's not hiding back in his lair, plotting and saying, oh, there's this guy named Jesus,

and he's going to come through my town, and I'm going to form a relationship with him, and

I'm going to build this level of trust, and I'm going to work and leverage one day to where

I'll be instrumental in his crucifixion, and I'm going to do it all for money.

That's not the narrative that we see in Scripture.

We know where his path led him, but Judas experienced all of the things that we've been

looking at so far in Luke and more.

He was there when dead people became alive.

He was there when Jesus spoke and demons were cast out.

He was there when Jesus took a few fish and a few pieces of bread and performed a miracle

and fed the masses.

Jesus entrusted him to go take the food to him.

Judas was one of the disciples who, through the power of the Spirit, was given to him by God

to go into the village to heal and cast out demons and declare the good news of the gospel.

These are all things about Judas, but yet there were pieces of him that fell apart.

There were pieces of him that were broken.

There were pieces of him that don't line up with the command of what God calls us to.

And there was a piece of him who missed so many things along the way.

And my fear is that for you and I, it's easy for us to look at and say,

Jesus is the hero of the Easter story, and Judas is the villain.

But the truth is, is that when we look at our lives, there's a lot of Judas in us.

And maybe Judas isn't the only villain of the Easter story, but maybe that man who I looked

at in the mirror this morning, maybe he's got a role in it too.

And maybe he's got a part of that too.

And maybe this just isn't limited to one man and his ambition of greed, but maybe it's a condition

of mankind and what God wants to remove from us.

And so let's start reading Matthew 26.

Start in verse 6.

Let's pause for just one second here.

Verse 8 doesn't say when Judas saw it.

Verse 8 says when the disciples saw it.

And that's important for us because this conflict of what should we do and how is Jesus responding

isn't isolated to the heart of one individual, but it is permanating through all of those who

are closest to Christ.

And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, why waste this?

For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.

Verse 10.

But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, why do you trouble the woman?

For she has done a beautiful thing for me.

For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.

In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial.

Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has

done will also be told in memory of her.

And so we have this point where there's this group of followers of Jesus, and they see a

woman walk in with some ointment.

It's an alabaster flask of ointment.

It's valuable.

It could be worth up to a year's wage.

And Jesus reclines back at the table, and she comes in, and she begins to pour every drop

of it, right?

Like she's like the old Heinz 57 bottle, right?

Like she's trying to get it all out on Jesus.

And what's their response?

Why do you waste this on him?

Not some, all of it.

And notice their words.

Notice their thoughts.

Not why do you use this.

Not why do you pour this.

Why is this wasted?

Wasted on Jesus.

Now, here's a side point, okay?

This is just kind of laying here for just a moment, all right?

If you waste anything on the Lord, it's not wasted on him.

Waste your life on him, and in wasting your life on him, you will find the purpose and hope

and satisfaction and joy in your life, right?

And Jesus says, you don't get it.

You don't get it.

Everything that she's doing is preparing me for what awaits.

And Jesus says, and in fact, wherever the gospel is proclaimed, right, the memory of her will

be told, right?

The power of this act.

And the disciples, every single one of them misses it.

And what we begin to see here is this weak faith in these disciples that had an expectation.

Now, let's understand their expectation.

They didn't say, Jesus, we think we should have taken this bottle of ointment and sold

it so that we could all get new places to live.

Or Jesus, that we should have sold the ointment so that our meal situation could be taken care

of, so that Jesus, that we can be provided for.

It's careful for us to note that within this passage of Scripture, what their heart was,

right, what their motivation was, we could argue is good.

If we were to sell that, think of all the things that we could do for the poor.

This, Lord, is our expectation, but Jesus says, but you're missing it.

And what we're going to see in this Easter narrative is that when weak faith and unmet expectations

collide, oftentimes destruction comes if we miss it.

If we miss it.

When our faith is weak and our unmet expectations that we give for the Lord, when they collide,

and they don't mesh well, destruction comes.

Disciples have an expectation.

Jesus, it shouldn't be wasted on you.

But Jesus had a different plan.

When we think of the Easter story of what we'll look at through the cross, what we'll look at

through the resurrection, the pain of sins, the process of what God wants to do, the resurrection,

the hope that's found in new life, in all of these things.

But what I want us to look at this morning are there are warnings for us.

There are warnings of the Easter story that God so graciously gives us for us to look at

and examine for our lives.

Right?

It's those pieces, those warning signs where it is easy to say, Jesus died for me,

but the warning signs of Easter say, but I put him there.

But I put him there.

It's my hand who grabbed the hammer.

It's my sin that put him on the cross.

And so yes, he died.

Yes, there's freedom that we find.

Yes, there's new life and salvation and all this.

But there's the warning signs of Easter that me and you put him there.

It's our sin.

And so that's what I want us to look at.

The first warning sign that God's going to give us is beware of conditional Christianity.

Beware of conditional Christianity.

Judas had a price.

Right?

Judas had a line in the sand.

Judas had an expectation of Jesus, of what Jesus should do.

And we see this all throughout, through all of the disciples as they walk with God,

as they walk with Jesus.

They think, well, you should have handled that differently.

You should have handled this differently.

We have the expectations, and this was largely for all of them,

that Jesus would come, Jesus would establish his earthly kingdom.

Jesus does that.

We're a part of this earthly kingdom.

But Jesus also talks about a heavenly kingdom of what's there.

And Jesus' kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, both here on earth and all for eternity.

But what they wanted was a different kingdom.

They wanted to go back to the glory days of David and Solomon.

They wanted Rome removed.

They wanted to relive the time of, we're not walking out of Egypt like we did before,

but instead, Egypt is walking out of here.

And Jesus didn't meet those expectations.

And they built, and they built, and they built, and they built.

And what we see is Judas had a price.

Let's keep reading verse 14.

Then one of the 12, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest and said,

What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?

And they paid him 30 pieces of silver.

And from that moment, he sought an opportunity to betray him.

You see, for Judas, he walked with Jesus saying this,

I'll take up my cross.

I'll follow you if, if, if.

And when Jesus didn't fulfill what the other end of the if was,

that was time for Judas to say, I'm done.

Now, I want to be honest with you.

There are a lot of us in here who have that same mindset.

Judas disagreed with Jesus.

Judas didn't understand Jesus.

Judas didn't fully trust Jesus.

And as a result of that, Judas walked away from Jesus.

Now, let's be honest about ourselves in our life.

How many ifs do you have in your faith?

Lord, I will follow you if.

Lord, I will be obedient to you if.

Lord, I will trust you if.

Lord, I will release to you if.

And when God doesn't fulfill the other end of that, then who failed?

Your expectations are God.

We say he did.

But no, no, no.

It's what we did.

And we find two behaviors that come as a fruit of this conditional Christianity.

Number one, the first one, it's what Judas did.

We walk away from Jesus.

We see this all the time.

Men and women of faith, supposed faith, and they go through a crisis.

They go through an unmet expectation.

And what do they do?

They walk away from Jesus.

They walk away from faith.

They walk away from their relationship with him.

And it leads to a path of destruction that we'll see with Judas as well.

But there's another one.

There's another more passive-aggressive one that we do where it's culturally expected for

so many of us to be Christian, to say the right things, to do the right things.

So we're not going to walk away from Jesus, but here's what we're going to do.

We're going to walk away from the church.

Now, when I talk about walking away from the church, I'm going to be careful.

I'm not talking about walking away from here.

I'm talking about walking away from the church, the big C church.

Not because God creates something within you and you move from one church to another church.

Happens all the time.

God works and God moves that way.

But when we walk away from the big C church and we make foolish, sinful statements like this.

Well, I know the Lord.

I love Jesus, but I don't need the church.

I can have him without having them.

And the truth of scripture is that that's not at all the way this works.

You know, you can't claim love for the groom and not love the bride.

You can't love the father and hate the children.

Right?

For all of you who are married or have kids, like you know this.

I've been ringing around in my head, should I use this illustration or not?

So the answer is probably no, but I'm going to do it anyways.

Jesus says if somebody strikes, you turn the other cheek, right?

I get that.

Don't try it afterwards, please.

Like if you come up and you slap me, you can do stuff to me.

But you do something to my wife.

You do something to my kids.

Me and God will have to get right after.

Because you can't attack my bride and not expect the groom's heart to not be hurt.

You can't hate the kids and not expect the dad to have heartache in that moment.

And parents and spouses, you've walked through that.

And I can't help but wonder what the heart of God feels like when we make foolish statements.

Like I love God, but I don't need his church.

I don't need those people.

I don't need to be a part of that.

You can't love the groom and yet not love the bride.

You can't love the father and yet hate the children.

In a few weeks, we're going to talk about this a little bit more.

But Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24 and 25 says,

Hebrews 10:24

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,

not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some,

but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near.

So if you've bought into the lie that you don't need the gathering of God's people,

that's a lie.

That's sin.

You need God.

And you need us.

And we need you.

That there's this work of the Lord of what God does when God's people gather together.

You see, because it's not a family reunion,

but it's a family who's coming together to build, to encourage, to strengthen, to pour in.

Here's the thing, like all of you could leave here today and I could be here

and I know that God's here with me, right?

I get that.

I get whether I'm gathered in a service or I'm out on a mountain trail by myself,

God is with me.

But there's a beautiful picture of what happens in the body of Christ

when God's people gather together.

And so in this, what part, I'm sorry,

what conditional Christianity will lead us to

is walking away from Jesus, walking away from church.

Who does Judas walk away from?

Jesus and the disciples.

Both of them.

And we'll see where it leads you.

The second thing to be aware of

is be aware of partial Christianity, all right?

And Judas wasn't the only one who betrayed Jesus.

It wasn't just him.

Everything that we think about with Judas,

sketchy guy, working in dark, working in secret, is willing to betray.

To be honest with you, when I think of Peter, I think of the exact opposite.

And I believe that's kind of supported by Scripture.

We see in the interaction of the garden,

in the moment where Judas is coming to betray Jesus with a kiss,

what does Peter do?

Peter doesn't care about all of the Roman soldiers.

Peter doesn't care about all of the weapons and the armor and the shields that they have.

Peter reaches out and grabs a dagger and he takes off after them.

And he strikes one of them, right?

Peter is bold.

Peter is confident.

Peter's the one who's willing sometimes to put his foot in his mouth,

but he's the one living under the authority of God.

When Jesus says, who do people say I am?

And the disciples tell him.

And Jesus says, who do you say that I am?

And Peter says, oh Jesus, you're the Messiah.

You're the Messiah.

Right there, there's Peter.

We view Judas as the coward and Peter as the hero.

But look down at verse 69.

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard and a servant girl came up to him and said,

you also were with Jesus the Galilean.

But he denied it before them all saying, I do not know what you mean.

And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him and she said to the bystanders,

this man was with Jesus of Nazareth.

And again, he denied it with an oath.

I do not know the man.

And after a little while, the bystanders came up and said to Peter,

certainly you two are one of them for your accent betrays you.

Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, I do not know the man.

And immediately the rooster crowed.

Why would Peter do this?

Why does this man who lived in great boldness, who lived in a reckless abandonment for Christ,

who was willing to walk away, who was willing to risk his own life in the moment,

why do we find him in this moment now with two servant girls and a crowd who calls him out

because they know his accent, they know where he's from,

they know that's where Jesus is from, they know that they've seen him with him.

Why would he do this?

Well, he's afraid.

He's scared.

He's uncertain.

He's given up everything to follow Jesus.

And he just watched everything he'd give his life for get led out of the garden in chains.

And now his mindset switches.

And now it's self-preservation.

Now it's I got to look out for me.

Now I'm number one.

Jesus, I thought this would take us to the garden and then you would lead us somewhere else.

But you didn't lead us and instead you were led.

And I watch you walk out.

And so what we see is this partial faith, partial Christianity take over because self-preservation is what's there.

We've seen Judas betray.

We've seen Jesus, I mean we've seen Peter betray.

So where does this bring us?

It's the third warning that God gives us in the Easter story.

And it's beware of graceless Christianity.

Our struggle with grace.

By the way, if you remove grace from Christianity, it's no longer Christianity.

Our struggle is not that God doesn't offer or give grace.

Our struggle is believing that.

Receiving that.

Accepting that.

Walking in that grace.

We all know.

We sing about grace.

We understand that God gives grace.

We understand that God offers grace.

That's not our struggle.

Our struggle is living in that, in the failure.

Accepting that in the sin.

Walking in that freedom when we've picked up our chains of slavery and put them back on for another day.

This is what we see begin to happen.

So far we've seen for Peter and Judas.

They both turned on Jesus.

They both sin.

And before they do, Jesus addresses them about it.

It's not that they get found out after the kiss in the garden for Judas.

It's not that Peter gets found out after he denied him three times.

In fact, before those two events, before the garden happened, before the crowing of the rooster happened,

Jesus has already told them you're going to do this.

For Judas, look at verse 17.

Judas has already sold him out, right?

There's still time.

He could walk away from this.

It says, now on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying,

where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?

And he said, go into the city to a certain man and say to him, the teacher says, my time is at hand.

I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.

And the disciples did as Jesus directed them, and they prepared the Passover.

And when it was evening, he reclined at the table with the twelve.

And as they were eating, he said, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.

Like this is an uh-oh moment, right?

And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after the other, is it I, Lord?

And I have a feeling like Judas is kind of sitting over there.

You know like when your teacher, or like in Bible study, when somebody says, who wants to pray,

and you're not feeling it, and so you're like this.

Don't look at me.

If we don't make eye contact, maybe this won't happen, right?

Like I just feel that this is what's going on.

Verse 23, sorry.

He answered, he who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me.

The Son of Man goes, it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.

It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.

Verse 25, Judas, who would betray him, answered, is it I, Rabbi?

And he said to him, you have said so.

You see, it wasn't that Judas got found out after.

Judas got found out before and was told that he was found out before.

This wasn't some secret anymore.

For Judas, he knew the depth of the sin.

He knew what Jesus had said.

Jesus says to him, it would have been better if you weren't even born.

But there's also Peter.

Look down at verse 30.

And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

And then Jesus said to them, I won't get this too.

We're not picking on the rest of the disciples.

But Jesus says, you will all fall away because of me this night.

For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.

Verse 32, but after I'm raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.

Peter answered him, though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.

And look at these two different conversations.

You got one with Judas.

Judas knows it's him.

Is it me?

And you got Peter.

What was confidence may be drifting toward arrogance.

It'll never be me.

All of them, but not me.

Look at verse 34.

Jesus said to him, truly, I tell you, this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.

And Peter said to him, even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.

And all the disciples said the same.

One said, is it me?

And the other said, I would never.

Is it me?

I would never.

But they do it.

They both do it.

They were told that they would do it.

And here's the difference.

When we think about Judas and we think about Peter, it's not what they did in the moment.

It's what they received after.

It's the moments following the betrayal.

Judas betrayed Jesus.

So did Peter.

But what happens to both of them is the understanding and the application of grace.

Look down at chapter 27, starting verse 3.

Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying,

I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.

And they said, what is that to us?

See to it yourself.

And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed and he went and he hanged himself.

Judas confessed his sin.

Judas said, I did it.

Judas owned it.

There's no hiding it.

Judas isn't trying to paint a prettier picture of what he did.

I have betrayed innocent blood.

He threw it away and he went out and he killed himself.

But the chief priest, taking the pieces of silver, said,

It is not lawful to put them into the treasury since it is blood money.

So they took counsel and bought them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers.

Therefore that field has been called the field of blood to this day.

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying,

And when they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel,

and they gathered for the potter's field as the Lord directed them.

Judas did it all.

He got rid of it.

He said, I'm done with it.

He said, you can have it.

He said, I've sinned.

He did all of the confession.

So where did it go wrong?

What did Judas miss?

Grace.

He missed grace.

He messed up.

He messed up royally.

He betrayed Jesus.

He sold him out.

He broke the intimacy of their relationship.

And where Judas missed it is where so many of us miss it.

He missed grace.

He embraced the shame.

He embraced the guilt.

He kept his life in his own hands.

And his death was found in that.

And so for so many of us, my fear is we're proclaiming Christ.

We're confessing that we're sinners, but we're not embracing grace.

Jesus died on the cross for every screw-up, failure, sin that you've got.

Write your list.

Let's stack them all together.

God's bigger than that.

And his blood covers all of them.

And Judas missed grace.

Look back at verse 75 in chapter 26.

Peter.

He's betrayed.

What's going to be different?

And Peter remembered the sayings of Jesus.

Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.

And he went out and wept bitterly.

You know, Peter's broken.

But his brokenness extends beyond the words that he says.

His brokenness causes him to understand the depth of his depravity.

And to respond in a way that reveals his soul.

And from that moment, what we see, Peter's still going to have some issues.

He's still going to have some struggles.

He's still going to have some battles.

But in the early days of the church, as the church is being formed, right?

And acts through the power of the Holy Spirit as they're confronted by the religious leaders.

As they're standing there amongst the masses of lostness that's gathered in Jerusalem.

Whose voice begins to declare the gospel?

It's Peter.

Whose voice stands up to the religious leaders and says,

The Messiah you longed for, you nailed to the cross.

It's Peter.

And I can't help but ask why.

And come back and look at the difference of what we see is that Peter was broken.

You see, grace isn't just about admitting sin.

We're good at that.

We'll even brag about it.

Grace is found in living when we're broken for it.

How do you view your sin?

Do you cling to the shame and to the guilt?

And in doing that, embrace a graceless view of Christianity.

Or in your sin.

Is it about admitting?

But it's about being broken.

Before a Savior who was crucified.

So that we may be given grace.

And then go and walk in it.

Would you pray with me?

Would you pray with me?

God, the truth is for us.

Lord, we can see a little bit of Judas.

A little bit of Peter.

A little bit of all of the disciples in ourself.

We see our defiance.

We see our arrogance.

We see our bitterness.

Lord, we see our betrayal.

But Lord, you in your wisdom.

You in your holiness.

You in your love and your compassion.

Lord, you withhold.

And Lord, instead, you give us grace.

You give us grace to cover a multitude of sins.

Lord, and what we do, we walk away so many times embracing a partial gospel.

We walk away accepting a conditional faith where we're still at the center.

Lord, and what you're calling us to, Lord, and what you're calling us to is a devotion to you.

Lord, and who you are and what you've called us to.

And Lord, that's grace.

Not just admitting, yeah, I did that, and I did that, and I did that.

But I need to, I need to receive it.

And then I need to walk in it.

With every head bowed, every eye closed, I want to, I want to close with this.

The struggle with Judas led him to the end of the rope.

The struggle with Peter would take him to Jesus.

That's grace.

The question I have for you this morning is what do you choose?

Life, death, hope, despair, freedom, guilt, joy, shame.

All comes from God.

All found in grace.

Lord, I pray this morning, as we respond in song, we respond to you.

To walk, Lord, in the boldness of who you are and what you've done.

Lord, I thank you for this Easter season.

I thank you for it.

It's an opportunity where people might not understand,

but it seems like there's more opportunities.

There's open hearts and avenues to share about who you are.

But Jesus has got to begin with us.

So may we walk, live in, and experience your grace.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

In just a moment, we'll stand and respond in song.

I'll be down front here.

If you want to come and talk with me, we can pray together.

Maybe you want to talk about grace for the first time.

Maybe you want to step out of death into life.

Today will be the day that Jesus saves you.

Love to talk with you.

Love to pray with you.

Maybe you just need to come down front.

Let go of some of it.

Maybe not even, maybe not just drop those 30 pieces of silver,

but receive the grace that comes with that.

It's open.

Maybe you just need to stand and worship.

To celebrate out of a reborn spirit, a reborn heart,

who God is.

I invite you to respond in how God's leading.

Would you stand as we worship you?

Thanks again for listening to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.

We hope that you enjoyed listening to this week's message.

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We'll see you next time.