Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 22:1-23
take a Bible this morning and find Luke chapter 22. Luke 22, this morning our passage is going to be verse 1 all the way to 23. This morning you have to listen to my voice with the with the crud and I'll just tell you I sound a lot better today than I did yesterday and I learned something yesterday. I couldn't really hardly talk at all yesterday which I was kind of nervous because I'm coaching two girls basketball teams for my two big girls and I thought there's no way that we can win if I can't yell at them and somehow we won both games. I didn't hardly say a thing and somehow they did it so we got lucky. Luke 22, "Men, I want you to play it cool and what I'm about to tell you, okay, take a breath, play it cool. Today is Valentine's Day." And if that is news for you then I have some good news for you and some bad news. The bad news is my guess is if you go to Albertsons or H.E.B. or Walmart as soon as church is over they've already destroyed Valentine's and set up for Easter. That's the bad news. And your wife does not want a chocolate bunny for Valentine's Day. The good news is you don't even have to go back and check that seasonal aisle. You just need to go to the clearance bucket right up at the front and they're going to have the nasty stuff but it's going to be Valentine's Day and so you can go to the clearance bucket and pick something up but you better hurry because the guy next to you might beat you there. Valentine's Day started as the Feast of Saint Valentine and there's a Catholic painting. There's Saint Valentinus down there on the bottom and he's receiving a rosary from the Virgin Mary obviously we wouldn't agree with the theology implicit in that painting but you get the idea. Saint Valentinus and he had a feast day and for a long time it was just like any other feast day for any other saint in the Catholic church but in about the 1700s a poet named Chaucer started to write about this feast day and in his writings begin to associate it with the idea of romantic love and since Chaucer to the present you can either say we've come a long way or it's been all downhill since then however you want to look at it. Here's what I do know about Valentine's Day the estimate for this year for spending on Valentine's Day is 19 billion with a bee and like I said some of you are going to contribute to that out of the clearance bin here in about 30 minutes, 19 billion dollars that's a lot of money a lot of money and you know as well as I do from listening to songs watching television going to movies that we live in a society that really is even though I joke about it really is very confused about love and what love is and certainly the Bible has some important things to say about what love between a husband and a wife ought to look like but let me just back up and let's talk about even more foundationally what love is here's some scriptures I just want to share with you before we jump in first John 4 10 this is love it's not that we loved God but it's that he loved us and he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins that word propitiation means that he came and he took the wrath of God that should have fallen on us that's how God showed his love for us and that's the definition of love it didn't start with us towards God it started with God towards his people next verse Romans five eight God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners Christ died for us those two verses fit pretty well with Luke 19 10 Luke 19 10 doesn't explicitly have the word love in it but it certainly communicates what we've read in those other two verses the son of man came to seek and to save the lost we've talked about that verse every week in the gospel of Luke that's the big idea that governs everything that we read in this book and that's certainly true this morning it fits perfectly with the verses that we're about to look at more narrowly though let me give you the big idea of Luke 22 1 to 23 it's really simple Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the Passover celebration we're about to read about Jesus and his disciples and the role that Judas plays and how this all unfolds and we're going to read about this last Passover that Jesus celebrates with his disciples and the point in all of it is Jesus changes the celebration as he changes this hundreds of year old ceremony just changes it apparently just instantly is that it never really was about the Passover to begin with it was always about Jesus and so Jesus is the fulfillment look at Luke 22 and let's begin in verse one we'll read to verse 23 scripture says this now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near which is called the Passover the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death for they feared the people then Satan entered into Judas called the scariot who was of the number of the 12 he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him to them and they were glad they agreed to give him money so he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd then came the day of unleavened bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed so Jesus sent Peter and John saying go and prepare the Passover for us that we may eat it they said to him where will you have us prepare it and he said to them behold when you have entered the city a man carrying a jar of water will meet you follow him into the house that he enters tell the master of the house the teacher says to you where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples and he will show you a large upper room furnished prepare it there and they went and found it just as he had told them and they prepared the Passover when the hour came he reclined at table in the apostles with him and he said to them I've earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer for I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God he took a cup and when he had given thanks he said take this and divided among yourselves for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes and he took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them saying this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me and likewise the cup after they had eaten saying this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood but behold the hand of him who betrays me betrays me is with me on the table for the Son of Man goes as it has been determined but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed they begin to question one another which of them it could be who was going to do this let's pray Father we ask for wisdom this morning we begin to feel the weight of the seriousness of the last few days of Jesus life on earth we begin to feel the tenseness in the storyline we begin to sense the magnitude of what's about to take place and in a real sense we feel like we're approaching holy ground and we just pray for humility to see ourselves as we truly are and to see you as the great God that you are as we look at this familiar story before we take a familiar meal we just ask that you would help us to see it clearly maybe for the first time today Father we pray in Jesus name amen the story is familiar and we're just going to walk through it this morning and there's just two questions as I looked at this story two two questions that popped into my mind and I want to ask them and we're going to try our best to answer them according to what we see in the text and then we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper together this morning so look at verse one Luke twenty two one Luke talks about the feast of unleavened bread and he talks about the Passover and he makes a distinction between the two but then he also sort of says that the feast is called the Passover technically these are two different Old Testament celebrations and on the 15th and Nissan they celebrate the Passover and this is the the celebration to remember that God passed over the first born of Israel on the night that he killed the first born of Egypt so they do that on the 15th and Nissan the week that follows that is the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Unleavened Bread is a celebration or is a feast a week long feast remembering that God brought his people out of Egypt so obviously these two things are very closely connected and in Jesus's day in Luke's day as he's writing this the Jews just sort of talked about the whole thing as the Passover so there is a distinction but they're very closely related and Luke says that at the Passover this is verse two the chief priests and the scribes were seeking not to put him to death they've already made that decision they are going to put Jesus to death what they're seeking at this point is how are we going to do it and Luke specifically makes the point to say to us that they feared the people this is where Judas comes in as the great arch villain of the story they feared the people you can go back and you can read ancient sources that talk about how many Passover lambs would be slaughtered in Jerusalem for a Passover celebration all of these pilgrims coming to Jerusalem and all of these lambs being slaughtered and you can sort of make a pretty rough guesstimate saying how many people would eat a lamb together multiply that by the number of lambs that we know that were killed and by some ancient sources we get the number of there may have been close to three million people in Jerusalem to celebrate a Passover well over a million easy just tons and tons of people to a city that was not normally nearly that big all of these pilgrims crammed into the city from all over the area all over the region and they're there to celebrate the Passover and one thing we know from the gospels as we read through the story up to this point is that the crowds pretty much like Jesus okay there's times for example in the gospel of John that the crowds come to Jesus and he says some things that are very hard for them to understand and they say that's it we can't take it we're done with you but for the most part they like Jesus and they like him for two reasons they like him number one because he can perform amazing miracles if you get in trouble and you need a miracle they know who to go to at this point in time they also like Jesus because he is constantly exposing the religious leaders and the religious establishment in Jerusalem he's exposing their hypocrisy they're being too faced they're being disingenuous all of these things Jesus is putting on display for the people and so for the most part they like him and the dilemma that the scribes and the religious leaders have is this we want him dead and we want him dead now think about some of the things that have happened in the last week all of these millions of pilgrims in Jerusalem Jesus walks into the temple throws everybody out flips the money tables over and calls everybody snakes they're mad they come and they try to trap Jesus with trick theological questions and every time he turns the tables upside down metaphorically this time and makes them look foolish they're embarrassed and they're just about to explode they want him dead immediately but they know millions of people in town this is the biggest holiday of the year we don't want to ruin it for all these pilgrims we don't want to cause some sort of riot if we do something that they don't like but we want this guy dead and here comes Judas into the equation and Luke tells us that Judas is looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus in the absence of a crowd you look at the story at this point in the gospel of Luke we haven't read a whole lot about Judas and you just asked this question why did he decide to betray Jesus you'd be amazed at the speculation if you just google that question I mean some really ridiculous answers why did he do it everything from he was trying to force Jesus's hand to to bring Jesus out of some sort of Messiah King to Judas is actually the hero of the story depending on some sources you look at why did he do it biblically we only have two thoughts we can speculate all day long you can try to put pieces together biblically these are the only two things that we can go with number one the Bible tells us that Judas worshiped money I'll be honest it doesn't say that word for word but that's the picture that's painted and so you can look here in this passage at Luke 22 5 it says that they paid Judas to betray Jesus you can look at Matthew 26 15 that says what they paid him was 30 pieces of silver not insignificant but really not all that significant either when I think about Judas getting these 30 pieces of silver I used to think about when I used to work at a credit union and I was a teller and they would let us keep so many thousands of dollars in your your drawer at a time and every now and then newly married had no money at home I would look at that drawer and think I got more money in my drawer than I have in the bank I got more money in this drawer than I could make in a year and you just start today dream how far would that money take me the honest truth not far enough not very far that's kind of what you're talking about with Judas here I mean it's not just peanuts but really what are you going to do with it Judas it's not going to get you that far but it was enough because he loved money and we know that he loved money because John 12 5 to 6 tells us that he was the treasurer of the disciples he kept the money back and we know that there was some ladies and some men who contributed to Jesus's ministry who supported his ministry there was some people of means who supported Jesus as he walked around and preached I mean those guys had to have money from somewhere and Judas was in charge of that money and John tells us in chapter 12 that he used to help himself to the money used to steal from Jesus right under his nose he worshiped money that was part of the motivation but when you read it in the gospels there's more to it than just Judas loving money here's the second thing that the Bible tells us Judas was used by Satan Luke 22 3 is kind of a frightening verse not kind of it is a frightening verse it says Satan entered into Judas called a scariot who was of the number of the 12 he was one of the 12 people closest to Jesus when he walked on the earth and Luke just sort of drops that bombshell and says Satan entered into him he entered into him one thing that's worth pointing out is that when you read about Satan entering into Judas it's not like a lot of the demoniacs we read about in the in the gospels right I mean you know the stories where Jesus is encountering these people who are to use the literal Greek word demonized not so much demon possess but the Greek talks about being demonized these demonized individuals and you think about the guy at the at the cemetery right he's running around naked and he's breaking chains off and he's cutting his body think about the guy who was in the synagogue when Jesus was preaching and he just starts screaming out we know who you are we know who you are you're the one that's come to destroy you just think of these uncontrollable outbursts that's not what we're talking about with Judas right it's not like that he's not at the dinner and then he rips his clothes off and breaks a chain and cuts his body and says I'm going to betray you it's way different than that this is the kind of thing you read about in 1 Peter 5 8 where Peter says that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking people to devour to destroy it's the kind of thing you read about in Acts 5 where you read about a couple who is coming to church giving money from a piece of land that they just sold but he enters their heart and they lie about it they tell everybody they gave all of it when really they only gave part of it and they die right there in church first the husband and the wife and the explanation is that Satan filled their heart to lie to God and to lie to man it's the kind of thing you read about in Ephesians 4 26 to 27 where Paul says to the church in Ephesus you need to be careful about the issue of anger because if you let that fester in your heart you are giving a foothold to the devil being a bitter person and holding a grudge gives Satan himself a foothold a toe in the door in your life and Luke tells us here that Satan entered into Judas called a scarion this is a man that gave himself over to the love of money for so long and he was consistently unremorseful and unrepentant and unwittingly unknowingly without any plan to end up being possessed by Satan that was not on his radar he opens up his life and the end result is that Satan enters into Judas called a scarion who was of the number of the twelve so listen forget the latest Hollywood movie that's going to come out maybe this next Halloween or sometime this year and that's going to talk about possession and heads are going to be spinning and vomiting and crazy things and spooky things okay put the Hollywood mumbo jumbo out of your brain and I'm even telling you to take the stuff that you read in the gospels and to set it aside just for a minute okay the stuff about guys running around naked at the cemetery tearing chains off screaming out in Jesus uncontrollably throwing children down into fires I'm asking you to take that aside I'm not saying that that stuff's impossible I'm saying history has shown us that it's not as common today as it was when Jesus was on the earth when Jesus is walking the earth the forces of evil know who he is they're the only ones in the gospels who do know who he is the apostles are clueless and the demons are saying we know exactly who you are you're the holy one of God you're the son of God that's going to destroy us we know who you are and it's an all out final blitz last ditch effort to assault Jesus in his mission is a unique thing in the gospels so set aside Hollywood set aside these wild demonization stories and just let this rest on you in your life if you unrepentantly give yourself over to a sin be it the love of money be it bitterness be it lust be whatever sin you want to fill in the blank with you run this danger and for some reason a scary guy running around naked breaking chains is more fascinating and frightening to us than what you just read about Judas a man who looked very respectable and hung out with God fearing people and he thinks he has everybody fooled and he gives himself over to this one sin long enough that a foothold becomes Satan entering into his life and he becomes a tool of the devil himself why did he do it he worshiped money and he was used by Satan so they're going to celebrate the Passover Jesus sins Peter and John into the city and he gives him some interesting instructions he says I want you to look for a man carrying the water that really doesn't strike us as odd if we had been Peter or John what we probably would have said is Jesus women carry water men don't do that remember Jesus in the woman at the well John chapter four the women are going out to get the water that was the task of a woman and that culture men did not do it and Jesus says look you go into the city it's going to be evening you find a man carrying water I know that's unusual I've set it up that way you follow him into the house and you tell them the master needs it and it'll be ready you get the Passover ready and you read that little detail and you say why the secrecy there's three million people in town why not just march into town and go celebrate the Passover well I have to play like James Bond secret agent sneak around town listen Jesus knew exactly what Judas was up to he knew that Judas was looking for an opportunity to betray him in the absence of a crowd and when Jesus was ready for that to happen he's going to let it happen but it's going to be on his timetable not Judas's timetable and so he says look you two guys Peter John guys I can trust the leader and my best friend you go you find the guy you follow him in you get it all set up so they do that and then I want you to look at verse 15 thought about this verse all week Luke 22 15 he said to them I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer I've earnestly desired it Jesus knows that when this meal is over he's hours away from experiencing the worst thing that any person has ever experienced or will experience in the history of everything hours away and he knows when it comes time to eat the meal and we get to this point in the storyline it's coming it's coming and if I try to put myself in Jesus's shoes which is a dangerous thing to do sometimes and it comes time to eat this meal I'm looking around the table saying and I know I knew this day was coming I've been dreading this day all my life it's going to be the worst moment in the history of humanity that's going to come crashing down on me Jesus knows that he is about to be made sin for us the one who has never said anything done anything or thought anything sinful knows within the day I become sin for you and he knows Galatians 3 I'm about to be made a curse for those who are under the law I'm going to be cursed for them cut off and he knows 1 John 4 10 this is love not that we love God but that he loved us and he sent his son to be what the propitiation for our sins he knows in a matter of moments the full weight of God's anger towards sin is going to come crashing down on me it's coming and instead of saying I've been living in fear of this my whole life I've been wishing that this didn't have to happen I've been trying to avoid this I've been dreading this he says to the guys sitting around the table this is a great night I have eagerly desired to eat this meal with you and the question is why why not dread it why earnestly desire it and let me just give you four answers and then we'll take the Lord's Supper answer one suffering of Jesus for sinners was God's plan from before the foundation of the world meaning from before anything that exists even was spoken into existence this was the plan from before God opened up his mouth and said let there be light this was the plan this has always been the plan and it finally comes to the exact moment in space and time and maybe the the guys who figured out Einstein's gravitational waves and all that stuff this week maybe they can explain that to me I don't get it but in this exact space time instance Jesus says this is the time it's been the plan forever literally for ever and now we're here we're not going to flip to these passages I want just want you to think about them and look them up later Matthew 2534 says that God prepared a kingdom for Jesus and he prepared it before the foundation of the world not after he died on the cross he started getting the kingdom ready I've been preparing you a kingdom since before the world was founded John 1724 the father has given to the son a group of people to save and he gave those people to the son again before the foundation of the world this has been the plan for a long time Ephesians 14 we talked about this first Wednesday night as we look through the book of Ephesians says that God chose us in Christ when before the foundation of the world same idea first Peter 120 says that there was a plan of redemption and Jesus the Redeemer was known those two things redemption in the Redeemer known before the foundation of the world Revelation 13 and 17 God has written the names of his people in the book of life and he wrote them before the foundation of the world that's backwards to us we read that and we say no no no first Jesus has to die then we get into the book and he says no no that's not how it works this has been the plan for a long time and it's all been leading up to this one moment this one culminating event all of history has looked up to it and everything after it will look backwards to it but this is the one moment that the plan from before the foundation of the world comes to fruition and because that's true Jesus looks at the disciples and he doesn't say I've been dreading this for the last 30 years or for the last 30 eons he says I have earnestly desired this moment right here why because this is the plan it says it right in the text right Judas is taken care of what he needs to take care of in verse 22 says what the son of man is going as it has been determined is Judas a villain he is is this somehow spinning outside of God's plan absolutely not this has been the plan from before the foundation of the world reason to why is Jesus eager to eat this meal he came to earth on a mission to seek and to save the lost by suffering for sinners that's why he came right we go backwards to the plan and we move up into the present we say this was the reason he was here he was on a mission to seek and to save the lost do you remember Luke 931 probably don't it's been a while Luke 931 is the transfiguration of Jesus Peter James and John go up the mountain and they see Jesus his glory unveiled as it were and two people show up and they talk to Jesus do you remember who it was it was Moses in Elijah and of all the gospel writers Luke includes a detail that no one else tells us about in Luke 931 he says there's Jesus and all his glory and Moses here in Elijah here he says Jesus is talking to Moses they're having a conversation during the transfiguration and the conversation is about the Exodus but guess what they're not talking about Egypt Moses is talking to Jesus about Jesus's Exodus not talking about the book that comes after Genesis talking about what's about to come in a matter of months and Moses is saying look man the Exodus that I led out of Egypt was pretty sweet but the one that you're about to lead is going to be amazing it's going to happen when you leave this earth you're going to lead your people out of sin and death just like I let them out of Egypt it's going to be fantastic they are talking about that in Peter James and John and Elijah get to listen in on the conversation and then just a few verses later it's not a coincidence that these two things are so close and Luke just a few verses later after Moses is there essentially encouraging Jesus Luke 951 Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem I'm going that's why I came to lead this Exodus to accomplish a mission Luke 1910 to seek and to save the lost that's the very reason he came and he's hours away and he looks at his friends he's not filled with dread not filled with regret but he says to them I've earnestly desired to eat this meal with you reason number three why is he glad to eat this meal we gladly endured the suffering of the cross the Bible says for the joy that was set before him this is a big one this is something I talked to you about a lot when we take the Lord's Supper because too many times we gather together to take the Lord's Supper and we turn it into I think I'm supposed to feel really bad that Jesus had to do this for me like Jesus he didn't want to do this but he did it because there was no other way and he's probably really cranky about it and has some hard feelings about it and so while they're passing the stuff out what I'm supposed to be doing is telling God how sorry I am that this had to happen should you be sorry for your sin yes should you feel sorry for Jesus no because the Bible says in Hebrews 12 that he endured the cross and he scorned it shame and he sat down at the right hand of God why because there was joy set before him joy no one twisted his arm no one forced his hand nobody backed him into a corner he did what he did for the joy that was set before him what's the joy saving his people being with his people removing the one thing that stands between him and his people fulfilling the plan that had been the plan from the foundation of the world that was the joy before him accomplishing the mission that brought him to the earth that was the joy that was before him so he gladly endured the cross and all of its suffering and all of its shame Hebrew says because there was joy in front of him one last reason why is he glad to eat it he knows he knows not he thinks he knows that there will be a day when he celebrates this meal with his people in the kingdom Luke 22 16 in our passage he says I'm not going to have this meal again until it's fulfilled in the kingdom of God it's not that he says this is the only time I'm going to do this with you he says I'm not going to do it again till the kingdom comes a day's coming where we're going to do this again and you can look up later what you read in Luke 12 37 it's a pretty amazing verse and it's a pretty cool verse it says that when we have this meal in the kingdom I'm not going to be serving neither are our elders or our deacons Luke 12 37 says Jesus is going to serve it he's going to wrap a towel around his waist and he is going to serve his people a meal in the kingdom and you get to the book of Revelation 19 when the kingdom comes and the king comes and the first thing that happens out of the gate after people are done worshiping is the marriage supper of the lamb a meal a celebration just like we're talking about right here I'm going to take the Lord's Supper this morning just a minute I'm going to have our guys go to the back and the band come up front here's where I want you to understand when we take the Lord's Supper it really has zero to do with how worthy you are okay there's a passage in the Bible that says before you take the bread and the cup you should examine yourself look at your life you need to do that you need to take a few minutes not to examine have I been good enough to take what they're about to pass out to me what you're examining is do I acknowledge my sin is sin and do I trust in Jesus as my Savior yes or no because I can just answer the first question for you if we're evaluating on terms of worthiness we can just move on to the next part of the service you're not worthy and I'm not worthy you never will be that's why the son of man came to seek you and to save you so when we take this supper when we take of the bread we take of the cup we eat this old meal that started out as a Passover celebration and then Jesus changed it and made it all about himself here's what we're remembering when we take the bread and we take the cup we're here today worshiping Jesus because God had a plan to save people and he had that plan from before the foundation of the world and he sent the son of man to seek us and to save us by dying on the cross as the propitiation for our sins that was his mission and he knows that a day is coming when we're going to eat this meal with him in his kingdom and Paul tells the Corinthians look here's how you take the Lord's Supper and you do it this way until Jesus comes back until he comes in his kingdom so this morning if you're a follower of Jesus you've come to the point in your life where you've confessed your sin as sin you've trusted in Jesus and who he is and what he's done for you on the cross you've obeyed his command to be baptized you're a follower of Christ we love for you to participate this morning we love for you to celebrate with us and remember who Jesus is and what he's done for us so you bow your heads and I'm going to pray and as I pray the band can come up and our deacons and our elders can make their way to the back of the room Father what an amazing passage guard our our hearts as we know that we're prone to chase so many foolish unsatisfying idolatrous sins and remind us of the spiritual influences that we open ourselves up to when we unrepentantly give ourselves over to sin so father we see the warning in this passage but we also see the hope and we celebrate the hope what an amazing statement that Jesus earnestly desired to eat this meal with his friends and that today we look back and we remember the life of Jesus the death of Jesus the hope that it brings us father we just begin before we put anything into our mouth and we admit and acknowledge and confess that we are unworthy we are sinful people in our deeds in our words in our hearts and we don't come and sing songs and listen to sermons and take communion because we're good we we do it because you are gracious and you're faithful and you had a plan and Jesus accomplished his mission and we have hope of eternity of celebrating with you in eternity because of who Jesus is and what he's done for us we sang earlier that our hope is built only on Jesus and his righteousness it is not built on ours and so as we take the cup and as we take the bread we are reminded that his body was broken for us that his blood was poured out to ransom us and we're grateful and we're thankful and we worship you we pray in Jesus name amen.