Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 22:24-38
Just a couple of thoughts before we jump in to Luke 22, when you go through a book of the Bible, like we're going through Luke, there's some weeks where I begin to prepare and you know the passage you're familiar with the passage and you just sort of immediately know the direction you want to go and the things that you want to talk about and the points that you want to make. Then there's some other weeks, I hope this doesn't disappoint you, where I look at the passage and I think, what do you tell the people about that? What do you say about these verses? How do you tie them all together and make it into a sort of one coherent message? And that was my experience this week. Looking at these verses and I've outlined our time in Luke many many months ago and I looked at it this week and I thought why did you put all of these things together? All of these little snippets of stories and as a reminder to me of the value of going passage by passage verse by verse through a book of the Bible because the truth is if I'm just going to pick the passages I like, this is probably not one I'm gonna pick. It's not that it's bad, it's not that it's super challenging in our lives necessarily, it's just looking at these verses and trying to hold them all together and think about how it applies to our lives is a tricky thing. So before we jump in, let me remind you of the setting. We have entered the last week of Jesus' life and here's how it plays out. On Sunday he rides a donkey into Jerusalem, we call this the triumphal entry. On Monday he clears the temple, it's the second time that he did that. He did it a few years earlier but now he's done it again, he drives everybody out, clears out the money changers. On Tuesday he's teaching in the temple complex and it's sort of an interesting back and forth on Tuesday because you've got on the one hand some of Jesus' enemies, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes coming and trying to trick Jesus, trying to trap Jesus and Jesus responding to their questions but then you've also got Jesus turning around in teaching about different things. On Wednesday is a quiet day, on Thursday he celebrates the Passover, we talked about that last week and then he goes out to the Garden of Gethsemane, we'll talk about that next week. On Friday he is tried, crucified, and buried on Saturday he's dead and on Sunday he rises from the dead. In our passage right now we're right in between this Passover celebration on Thursday and Jesus going out to Gethsemane. The last few moments that Jesus spends with his disciples in the upper room and before I give you the big idea, I just want you to think about some of the chaos swirling around Jesus as he's with the disciples in the upper room on this Thursday night. As they celebrate the Passover, the Pharisees and the Sadducees are in the same city, maybe just blocks away, literally planning the final details of how they will arrest Jesus and murder him. At the moment that Jesus is celebrating the Passover, his enemies are blocks away plotting this is how we're going to get him, this is where we're going to get him, this is when we're going to get him and he's dead before tomorrow's over. They're planning that at this exact moment. Judas is left, the Bible tells us that the disciples think he's gone to give alms to the poor but you know that he's gone to betray Jesus to make this plan with his enemies. Jesus is left with the other 11 in the upper room and as we'll see in just a minute, they're arguing, they're fighting. 11 grown men plus Jesus and the 11 grown men are having an argument, a bickering match, a childish debate right after they celebrated the Passover with Jesus and he changed the Passover into the Lord's Supper. They're arguing, they're fighting. We'll see in this passage, not only has one of the disciples gone to betray Jesus but another one of the disciples is going to deny Jesus before the next morning comes. All of this chaos and turmoil, enemies plotting against him, friends about to betray him, friends about to deny him, his inner circle fighting when they're supposed to be worshiping and here's what you see in the midst of all of this. Jesus is in complete control of every single bit of it. Humanly it looks like it's spinning out of control but the big idea of this passage is very, very simple. The Son of Man was in complete control of the events that led to his death. Humanly you look at these verses and you say it's just it's unraveling, it's coming apart at the seams. But when you really think about what Jesus is saying and who he's saying it to in the situation in the context you realize it's not coming apart at the seams, it's all coming together. All the prophecies, all the predictions, all the promises that God gave to his people, they're all coming together perfectly in God's time in Jesus is in complete control of all of it. So look with me, Luke chapter 22 beginning in verse 24 and we're going to go to verse 38. Word of God says this, "A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest." And he said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and those in authority over them are called benefactors but not so with you. Rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as one who serves, for who is greater? One who reclines at table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves. You are those who stayed with me in my tribes and I assigned to you as my father assigned to me a kingdom that you may eat and drink at my table and my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Simon Simon behold Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat but I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." Peter said to him, "Lord, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death." Jesus said, "I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you know me." And he said to them, "When I sent you out with no money bag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?" They said nothing. He said to them, "But now let the one who has a money bag take it and likewise a knapsack and the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me." He was numbered with the transgressors for what is written about me has its fulfillment and they said, "Look, Lord, here are two swords," and he said to them, "It's enough. Let's pray." Father, open our minds to see what Luke is saying to us, to understand what you through your Holy Spirit are saying to us. Help us to see clearly how it applies to our lives and how it's good news and it gives us hope and it gives a certainty about the future. Father, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So this morning we're just going to walk through these verses. We're going to break them into small chunks and I just want you to see five examples as you go through each section of how humanly it appears that things are coming apart at the seams, the wheels are coming off the vehicle, everything's coming unraveled, but really Jesus is in complete control of everything that's happening and so we're just going to move through the passage section by section. The first thing I want you to see is this. I want you to see an example of greatness in the midst of ego. The ego is the 11 arguing about who is the greatest and the true example of greatness, of course, is Jesus. Go back and think about the setting here. This is the inner core of Jesus' group, 12 men. Judas is left so now you're down to 11. The true, the 11 true believers and they just sat at a table or reclined at a table and celebrated the Passover with Jesus, but you remember last week we didn't read about a lamb. Jesus is changing the celebration and He's saying to them, "Look, you do this now and you remember me. You don't look back to Egypt anymore. You look back to me, to my blood that brings the new covenant, to my body that's going to bear your sins." We celebrate the Lord's Supper and we think of it as a sort of a somber, a serious, a solemn celebration. These guys get done with the Lord's Supper and immediately they start bickering like kids. Like these are the kids on the playground who say, "Well, my dad's better than yours. Well, my dad can beat up yours. Well, my dad makes more than you. Well, my shoes are cooler than yours. Well, I have an Xbox. Well, I have a place." And they're just back and forth the bickering about who's better, who's more important. That's these 11 guys. I mean, you can just imagine the frustration felt by Jesus after three years of pouring into them and then having this final celebration. He said, "You remember last week? I have earnestly desired to eat this meal with you. I have been longing for this exact moment to let you guys in on the secret about what's happening here. It never was about the Passover. It was always about me and they have the meal. This moment that Jesus has earnestly desired and as soon as they're done with the final prayer in the meal, here they go. I'm the greatest. No, I'm going to be more... I'm better. No, no, no. You don't... Back and forth. I told you last week I was coaching some basketball teams. One of them is a kindergartner basketball team. And so the way this league works, they give you eight kindergartners and they say, "You have one practice and then a game." One practice. Eight kindergarten kids who have never played, they don't know up from down and back from back court and front court and they don't... My kids can't even dribble. They say, "You've got one practice and then we'll see you for the game." And you go to that first game and you just think, "This is going to be chaos. What can happen? I'm just going to yell at them and they're going to run around and the ball's going to... I mean, it's total chaos. That's the upper room. I don't know if you've ever thought about the upper room as chaos. But Jesus has invested in these guys for three years. He has this celebration within the Passover that he's earnestly desired to eat and then a fight breaks out. An argument like kindergartners bickering, "Who's the greatest? Who's the greatest?" And Jesus says, "Look, guys, I think you've missed it. I think you've totally missed it. I am serving you. You've got to redefine your ideas about greatness." You know, in the Gospel of Luke, we've talked about Luke 19-10, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." In the Gospel of Mark, it's Mark 1045, that's the theme verse. Mark 1045 says, "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." He came to serve. You see it in Philippians 2 where Paul says to the church in Philippi, "I want you to count other people as more significant than yourself. I want you to look not only to your own interests, but I want you to look to the interests of others." And how does he motivate them to do that? Does he just say, "Try harder." He says, "Look, you've got to be like Christ." He humbled himself by becoming a servant, the one who was on the throne of heaven, humbles himself by becoming a servant, and then he humbles himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. So you look at it humanly and you say, "These guys, he's coming apart at the seams." They're having an argument right after the First Lord's Supper. You look at it from Jesus perspective and you say, "He's teaching them." And he's not just giving them a lecture about what greatness really is. He's giving them a living example of what true greatness is. "I am here as the one who serves you," he says. He's in control. Here's a second place you see it. You see it in the promise of a kingdom in the midst of defeat. Think about this from a human perspective and look at what Jesus says in verse 28. He says, "You guys have hung with me. Just as God has given to me, the Father has given to me, I'm giving you a kingdom." Kingdom. You're going to eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and you're going to sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. I have a kingdom coming and you're going to be part of it and you're going to have authority there. Now look at this from a human perspective. Jesus of Nazareth is about to be betrayed by Judas, his treasure. He's going to be arrested by the temple police. He's going to be hauled before, among other people, Herod Antipas, a two-bit low-level puppet king propped up by the Romans to make the Jews happy so that they can say, "Look, you have a king." He had no power. He had no real authority. He couldn't really do much of anything and everyone thought he was a joke. That guy's going to have the chance to get Jesus out and he's just going to pass him on. Then he's going to stand before Pilate a couple of times. We say, "Well, Pilate, he worked for the Romans." He did work for the Romans but what we know about Pilate from history is that he was pretty much a fool. He made stupid decision after stupid decision after stupid decision and his neck was always on the line with the boss man back in Rome because he just did stupid things. We also know that no one who worked for Rome wanted to be sent to Judea. He's at the armpit of the Roman Empire. No one wants to be there. He's the lowest on the totem pole. These two low-level politicians are going to allow themselves to be manipulated by an angry mob of Jewish people and they're going to put Jesus to death. You look at it from a human perspective and you say, "Sure doesn't look like Jesus is winning." It looks like these two half-baked politicians are about to take Jesus out. They're going to take him down. They're going to let this mob do whatever they want to do to him. But you roll back the curtain and you think about what Jesus is saying and he's saying, "Look, I have a kingdom. You know what he's going to say to Pilate? My kingdom's not of this world. Look, you can have your armies and your soldiers and your banners and all your stuff. That's great. I have a kingdom not of this world. In one of these days you're going to see that kingdom invade this world. And right here in the upper room he's saying to the disciples after he puts this fight to bed, he says to them, "Look, my kingdom is coming. I know it looks like I'm about to die." He knows what's coming. The disciples have no clue and he's saying to them, "Whatever happens in the next day, just know that I have a kingdom and you're going to be part of it. This is not spinning out of control. This is not the wheels coming off the wagon. This is going exactly like I want it to go. I have a kingdom and a promise you'll be part of it." You see the same sort of idea in Revelation 2. Jesus promises the church in Thyatira, "You will rule with me over the nations." He promises the church in Laodicea, Chapter 3, "You will sit with me on my throne in my kingdom and you will rule with me." Paul tells the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6, 3, "You better get your act together because one of these days you're going to be entrusted with the job of judging the angels." And all these passages you step back and you say, "Look, you have two choices. You can live by sight and what it looks like now. The power Christians have now, the influence Christians have now, or you can live by faith and you can believe that we have a kingdom that's coming." And in this moment it looks like Jesus is about to lose royally. He's going to be defeated and what he's saying is in the midst of that you've got to have confidence that a kingdom is coming and you're going to rule with me and you're going to reign with me. He's in control. Number 3, "Jesus promises the hope of endurance in the midst of failure." Notice what he what he calls Peter in verse 31. He doesn't call him Peter which was the name Jesus gave him. He calls him Simon and he says it twice to emphasize it. Simon Simon. You remember that Jesus renamed him Peter and he said, "I'm calling you Peter because you're going to be the rock. We're going to build this thing on you." But here he calls him Simon and it's an interesting verse here in verse 31 and 32. You don't really see it in the English because we use you and your and you guys. We use them in the text the same way you can't tell if they're singular or plural but look at verse 31. He says, "Simon, Satan has demanded to have you and that first you, Satan has demanded to have you is plural." He's talking to Simon but he uses a plural. He's saying, "Simon, Satan has demanded y'all, all of you." And then he goes on and he says, "I have prayed for you." That one's singular. Simon, I have prayed specifically for you. Satan has demanded to have you guys but I've prayed specifically for you so that when you singular have turned you can strengthen your brothers. Satan has demanded you but I've prayed for you so that when you turn you can strengthen your brothers. Think about what's about to happen. These eleven men in just a few hours are going to run away terrified. They're going to tuck their tail between their legs and they're going to run off into the night scared. One of the group, the treasurer, Judas, has already put in in motion the plans to betray Jesus. The other, the CEO or you could say the leader of the group, Peter, the spokesman of the group, he's going to deny Jesus before the sun comes up. Judas will never recover spiritually. He never repents. Peter becomes the rock that Jesus always intended him to be. What's the difference? To one Jesus says, "Woe to the one who makes this decision." Judas, to the other he says, "I've prayed for you." You say, "Well, was Peter sin a little bit worse than Judas's?" I don't know how you come up with that. Judas betrayed him for money. Peter called down curses on his own head, damnation on his own head, that he did not know Jesus. Both pretty bad. Jesus looks at Peter and he says, "I have prayed for you." I know it looks like this whole thing's about to fall apart. You're all going to run away scared and you're the guys I'm going to start a church with, but I've prayed for you. I know exactly what's going to happen. I've prayed for you, Peter. Not that if you turn, but when you turn, you can strengthen your brothers. You say, "Wouldn't it be great to know that Jesus is praying for me?" If you're a believer, he is. You read this in the book of Romans. Paul says in Romans 826 that the Holy Spirit intercedes for the Christian with words that we don't even know how to utter. He says just a few verses later in 834 that Jesus is interceding for us, praying for us. In Hebrew 7, Jesus lives forever to make intercession for those that he's saving. The promise of John 10, "I'm holding you in my hand and no one can snatch you from my hand." I've prayed for you. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you can hear Jesus saying those words to you. I know what you're going to do tomorrow. I know what you're going to do next week. I know all of it. None of it's a surprise to me, but I prayed for you that you would stand and that you would repent and that you would endure. So there's this hope of endurance in the midst of failure. Number four, there's a change of mission in the midst of betrayal. You remember a few chapters back, Jesus sent out two short-term teams. He sent out the 12 and then he sent out the 72 and he gave them some instructions. Do this and don't do this. Most of those instructions he gave in those chapters were trip-specific, situation-specific, meaning when we go on trips today, we don't follow those because they were only intended for that particular trip. Now Jesus is getting ready to change the mission. He's not sending these guys out on one short little trip where they come back and report to him. He's sending them out to never come back. You're going to the ends of the earth and so he gives them some instructions. He says, "You're going to need a money back. You're going to need a knapsack. If you don't have a sword, sell one of your extra cloaks and buy a sword." Interesting this week when I read these instructions, this change in the mission. Almost every scholar that I read says, "That's not a real sword, by the way." It's a figurative sword. I thought, figurative sword and one guy had this explanation and one guy had that explanation and one guy said this, one guy said that. None of them agree about what the figurative is referring to. He's not telling to take a real sword. What's interesting is that they all think he was talking about a real money bag, not a figurative money bag, and they all thought he was talking about a real knapsack, not a phony one, and they all said that that cloak you're going to sell to buy your figurative sword is a real cloak, not a figurative cloak. Look, at the risk of going against a whole bunch of smart guys, I read that and I say, "I think he's talking about a real sword." And he's saying to them, "You're going out and you're not coming back." This is it. You're going out. It's a dangerous world out there. Take a sword with you. Now some people get really fired up and say, "Yes." Second amendment right here in the Bible. I love it. Jesus was a Texan. So I'll just remind you, I think it's a real sword, okay? At no point in the gospels do these guys pull it out to defend themselves when they're persecuted for their faith. The one time it happens is just a few hours away where Peter takes it out in the garden and takes a bad swipe at somebody's head and only gets his ear and Jesus says, "Simon, stop it. Put it up." I'll remind you that you can read through church history and you can read about these early Christians and some of the things that they experienced. You can read lots of stories about these early Christians dying for their faith and not very many of them. In fact, I don't know of any in the first century of them fighting back when they were persecuted for their faith. So if you want to argue about that or debate that later, we can. I'm just telling you, this is a change in the mission and he's telling them, "You need a real money bag. You need a real backpack. You need a real sword." You're going out on a real mission. It's different. You say, "What is the significance of that? How does it fit into this passage?" It looks like in the midst of this betrayal, everything is coming undone and in the middle of all of it Jesus is saying, "Look, I know what's going on and I have a plan for you. Will you just calm down and listen? Here's the plan. The mission is changing. You're going out and this is what you need for the mission." Again, he's in complete control of everything happening to him. And then finally, fifth, this is the real heart of the passage. There's a word of fulfillment in the midst of death. Verse 37 says, "I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me." And then he quotes from what we read earlier, Isaiah 53, 12. Here's the quote, "This must be fulfilled. He was numbered with the transgressors." He's numbered with the transgressors. On the surface, we read that and we say, "Okay, so you're talking about he was crucified between two criminals. There was transgressors with him in one, two, three. That's not what Isaiah is talking about at all. And it's not at all what Jesus is talking about. Yes, he was crucified between two criminals, two transgressors. But if you go back to Isaiah 53, 12, you understand the point very, very clear. He was numbered with the transgressors, the very next words. "He bore the sin of many." It's not just saying, "I'm about to be killed amongst two bad guys." What he's saying is, and this is earth-shaking, vitally important stuff. "I'm going to become a transgressor for you. I'm going to become a sinner for you." Look, it's not just in Isaiah 53 that we talk about this. 2 Corinthians 5, 21, "God made the one who knew no sin to be sin for us. He became our sin." Why? "So that in him we could become righteous." Galatians 3, especially verse 13, "He was cursed. He became a curse for us." The curse of the law fell on him so that it wouldn't have to fall on us. 1 Peter 2, 24, "He bore our sins in his body on the tree." And Jesus is saying to his guys, just moments before it happens. You know that scripture in Isaiah that talked about the servant being numbered among the transgressors, the one that said he was going to bear the sin of many. You remember that one, Isaiah 53? That's me. That's what's about to happen. Don't think for a second that all of these events are spiraling out of control and it's not going down the way I want it to go down. I'm in complete control of this. This is the mission that I came to accomplish to seek and to save the lost. And if that's going to happen, I've got to be numbered with the transgressors, meaning I have to bear your sin on the cross. If that doesn't happen, you have no hope and you have no life. John chapter 10 sums it up pretty well. This is on your on your outline. Jesus, talking to his disciple, says, "For this reason the Father loves me because I laid down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me. No one takes it from me. I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my father." Nobody's betraying me into something that I didn't know was going to happen. Peter, you're not going to say anything that I didn't know you weren't going to say. None of this is catching me off guard. This is the plan. This is why I came. When you look at this passage and you see how Jesus is in control of it, two very simple thoughts. These are not on your outline, but two simple thoughts I'll leave you with. If in the darkest, most wicked, most evil moment in the history of humanity, which is what we're reading about, if in that moment Jesus was in complete control of the circumstances in his life, understand that today whatever your circumstances are, he's in control of him. The most wicked few hours in the history of humanity, Jesus is in complete control of it. Whatever it is that you're dealing with or facing today, Jesus is in control of that also. And more importantly, understand this. Because Jesus was in complete control of these events leading up to his death. Today, regardless of who you are or what you've done, he can offer you life. It's not because he's just going to take all your sin and sweep it under the rug and pretend it's no big deal. It's because he was numbered among the transgressors. It's because he bore the sin of many. It's because Isaiah 53, it was the will of the Lord to crush him so that we could live. This morning, if you don't know Jesus Christ and you don't know hope and life and certainty and eternity through Jesus Christ, our prayer is that you would know it. And we're not minimizing your sin or the things that you've done wrong but we're saying the death of Jesus Christ is more powerful. And the fact that we read this story and we see him in complete control of every circumstance leading up to his death allows us to look at you with certainty and to say he's offering you life. He's offering you forgiveness. He's offering you eternity. He's calling you to believe, to turn from your sin and to trust in him. And that's our call to you today. To repent of your sin, to turn away from it, acknowledge it as sin and to put your faith in Jesus Christ. Let me pray for you. Father, what a great, a great certain hope that we have through Jesus. And it's an amazing thing to look at the darkest moments of Jesus life and to see him in complete control. He's not panicked. He's not fearful. But he's confident that the plan that you had with him from before the foundation of the world is about to be fulfilled, that the scriptures are about to be fulfilled. Father, for those of us who are followers of Jesus, it gives us great, unshakable, certain hope. And Father, we pray this morning for those who are here who have never put their faith in Jesus. Maybe they've been very religious. Maybe they've gone to church for years and years. Maybe they've done things that they think are unforgivable. But Father, we pray for those who are here this morning who have never trusted in Jesus and we pray that they would do that today. That they would not trust in their own ability to be good. That they would not trust in their ability to say that they're sorry or to change their life. But that they would simply trust in the finished work of Jesus. That they would see Jesus as more valuable and beautiful than anything else in this world. Father, we're grateful for your word. We believe that it's true and we believe that it should change the way that we live today. And so as we look and we see this glimpse of Jesus, we pray that it would strengthen our faith. Father, we pray that our songs and our prayers as we finish this service would be pleasing to you. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.