By Simon ManchesterSunday 15 Dec 2024Christian Growth with Simon ManchesterFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
I read some time ago that the former archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies, very intelligent and fine man, said that when he was a young Christian, he did not like at all the idea that God was in charge. He much preferred to think of himself as a free man. But he kept reading in his Bible that God was in charge and in charge of everything. And so he went to talk to a man called John Chapman, who has gone to the Lord but was in our city, one of the great communicators and could very skillfully make complex things simple. And so Glenn Davies, as a young man, went to John Chapman and said to him, Could you please explain to me how God could be in charge of everything? And yet I could be free.
And John Chapman said to him, Glenn, if I knock you on the head and you then rub your head who made you rub your head? And with that simple illustration, Glen Davey suddenly realised that God’s actions and our actions could actually fit together.
Now this theme of God being in control, loving and powerful and us being responsible. These two themes two truths run through the Bible like two steel cables. Or, we might say, like two train tracks. God is in control, good and sovereign, and we are responsible. We’re not robots. We’re expected to use our brains and our opportunities and act accordingly. Now is this important information. It is important information because it means that whatever happens in this world, whatever happens in your life, there is a good and great God who’s driving things or using things for your good and for his glory. And you and I, My dear friends, we need to learn to rest in the sovereign love of God.
There are certain times where things just go wrong, and we have to find ourselves going back to him and saying, I trust you, Help me to trust you. I want to lean on your faithfulness. But it also means the second cable that we’re responsible people. We’re not robots. We’re not pawns in some celestial chess game. We have opportunities, we have responsibilities and we get to choose our path, and we do need to do this faithfully and carefully. If you remove God’s sovereign control from the world. Then you end up with life out of control.
If you remove human responsibility from this world, you end up with people as robots just programmed to obey God. The sovereignty of God is very comforting. Nothing is going to escape his good purposes. Nothing is going to escape. His love and the responsibility of humans is also very significant. Because God treats you and me with dignity as people who can make decisions. Now in our reading Today from Luke, Chapter 22 we’re gonna see this morning both truths. We’re going to see Judas, the man who chose his path.
A terrible path. We’re also going to see Peter steered by God on to a good path. Do they contradict each other? They do not. Judas was humanly responsible. Peter was wonderfully steered by God. So can you just blame anybody for his bad choice? No, he can’t. Can Peter brag about being led into a good path? No, he can’t.
Why are we looking at this today? Well, it’s the last in a short series of God turning people around. You may remember a few weeks ago if you were here that God used John the Baptist to call people in the world back to himself. And then you may remember, two or three weeks ago, we looked at the Apostle Paul telling a church that was drifting to turn around and come back. And then last week, we saw how God in a case study brought David back from great sin and evil King David. And today we’re going to see these two men one Judas refusing and one Peter responding.
Now, of course, Judas regretted what he had done. I mean, he betrayed Jesus. He then threw the money he’d received back into the temple, didn’t want it anymore, and went and tragically hung himself. Peter, however, repented. He had dishonoured Jesus, disowned Jesus, and that was terrible. He wept bitterly about it, but he went to Jesus, got forgiven, got reinstated, recommissioned and became extremely useful. The world, my friend, is full of lots of people with regrets. The question is, are people able to repent, turn back to God and get forgiven and get used greatly in his service. So if you have your Bible open in front of you on page 1570. So Luke 22.
Let’s think, First of all, about Judas and Human Responsibility, this is Chapter 22 and verses 21 to 22. These two verses simply focus on human responsibility, we might say at the end of the two verses, I have so many questions to ask, Why was Judas not getting better than he got?
But the text tells us that Judas had everything. So here is Jesus. He’s sitting at the Last Supper. He’s about to hand out the bread and the wine, and he says this. But the hand of him who’s going to betray me is with mine on the table. The son of man, that’s Jesus will go as it has been decreed to the cross. But woe to the man who betrays him. And do you notice the disciples don’t know who he’s talking about?
Somebody has said that in paintings of the Last Supper, that Judas is often kind of a sneaky, stealthy, malevolent, evil type of character in the corner. But that’s a long way from the Bible, because these disciples did not have any clue after three years that Judas was anything but a great disciple. So this is the first thing we need to grasp about Judas. Judas had huge privileges.
He was as physically in the team of disciples as anybody could be. I mean, there was John and there was James and there was Peter. And there was Thomas and Matthew and Judas, completely in the tin. Judas heard everything that Jesus ever said. He saw everything that Jesus did. Judas went on Mission Judas preached. Judas was given power by Jesus to perform miracles. Judas saw people turn around and turn back to God, while Judas himself never turned around.
And when Jesus says that, uh, Judas’s hand was on the table, he could not have been closer to the inner circle. He was like a man who is part of the church for so long that he has become a lay leader or join the staff team. Judas received every possible privilege. That’s the first thing. The second thing to notice about Judas is that he was at the table where Jesus was explaining the gospel one more time. You remember Jesus was about to hand over the bread and hand over the wine. And Jesus said to them, You know, this bread is like my body break and this wine said Jesus is like my blood port and Judas We can be pretty sure was one who received the bread and the wine.
I mean, talk about getting your communion one Sunday from the pope or getting your communion one Sunday from the hands of the archbishop of Canterbury, Judas got his communion from the hands of Jesus. Now we know that Communion doesn’t save anybody. But Jesus has just explained with the bread and the wine that he has such great love for people and for his disciples that he will die for them. And there is Judas sitting at the table, plotting to betray Jesus.
It’s a dark, dark moment. We’re told in Chapter 22 back in 3 to 6, that Judas had already gone to the religious leaders and offered to betray Jesus, and they had said we would love this and we’ll give you some money. So there is the table. The Last Supper. Jesus is explaining that he will hand himself over to die for people who don’t deserve it.
And there is Judas planning to hand Jesus over to die. Who doesn’t deserve it? Was Judas Sin forgivable? Yes, it was. But he never went back to Jesus to seek forgiveness. He never repented. He never went in faith to him and received the forgiveness that he could have. So he was physically present at the table, just as we’re physically present in the church.
But he was spiritually absent. He was somewhere else. He was moving away from Christ, not towards him. We know, of course, that every preacher is a sinner, a fellow sinner. You don’t need to hang around this church for very long to realise that your pastors, your preachers, are sinful. But the preacher should be a fighter against sin.
Just as every believer should be a fighter against sin. We shouldn’t be making peace with sin. I think of two occasions where two excellent preachers came from overseas to the church where I was working and they preached the most brilliant blisteringly wonderful sermons. And one of them was having an affair with a girl back home in his country. And one of them was in the process of leaving his wife for somebody else. The sermons were magnificent. Everything outward was impressive and perfect, but the heart was somewhere else. Are we capable of that? Yes, we are. Are we capable of hypocrisy? We are.
But let me tell you, my friends, the definition of a hypocrite is not somebody who knows they’re inconsistent and that there is a gap between what they say and what they do. We are all like that. A hypocrite is somebody who is pretending, who has settled down with their sin and wants to make peace with it and pretends that all is well.
And Judas, you see, is a very privileged man. He’s in the team, and he’s also plotting against Christ. And the third thing about Judas is he has a tragic role to play. We read in Verse 22. Jesus will go to his death that’s been planned, but Judas will be part of the betrayal. And Judas will not benefit because he will not now. Of course God had planned for Jesus to die from before the foundation of the world. God knew how the world would unfold. God knew that sin would enter and God knew that sin would snowball. And God knew that. Christ would come to save sinners, but Judas would play a terrible part.
He ignored all these privileges. He regretted what he did, but he never repented. And you can see Jesus. Sad comment about Judas. Woe and woe doesn’t just mean I couldn’t care less about him. Woe means this grieves me dreadfully. This is a terrible, sad thing, says Jesus, because Jesus did everything for Judas and Judas didn’t take up what he was offered. That’s Judas and human responsibility. This little cameo, these two verses are a little portrait of what it is like for a person to have human responsibility and use it for tragedy.
The second person, however, Peter, is a picture of divine responsibility, a divine sovereignty because we read in Chapter 22 verses 31 to 32. There is Peter, also at the table, about to fall into great sin. But we know that he will turn and repent. If Peter was left to himself, he might have done what Judas did. He might have just drifted away, but we discover in these verses 31-32 that Jesus prayed for Peter to turn, prayed for him to repent.
And this passage, you see teaches us the other track, which is in the Bible, which is that God is at work to do things that we may fail to do. One of the most, uh, famous examples in recent history of repenting was the man who was the special counsel for President Nixon. I realise this is going back a few decades, but, Charles Coulson was the special counsel for President Nixon. He was known as the hatchet man. He was a brilliant lawyer, ruthless. It was said that he would kill his own grandmother if she got in the way.
And he was deeply impressed by a Christian in the White House called Tom Phillips. He couldn’t quite work out why Tom Phillips just seemed to be different from the other people in the White House, and he went to see him. And Tom Phillips explained that he had welcomed Christ into his life and that it was Christ who had changed him. And he read to Coulson from CS. Lewis’s book Mere Christianity, The Subject of Pride. And as Tom Phillips read to Coulson on this subject of pride from CS Lewis’s mere Christianity, Coulson said he felt himself completely exposed. It was as if all his inner workings had been revealed.
And he went back to his car. And he says in the biography, With water running down my face, I prayed my first real prayer to God. I said, God, I want to give myself over to you. Take me, Take me. Take me. Take me. I stayed there in the car for perhaps half an hour alone. And yet for the first time in my life, not alone at all. And that is a picture you see of a man recently from a very high position being brought low by God, brought to repentance complete, thorough and wonderful. Now this is similar to what takes place in Peter’s life. Jesus says this in Verse 31. Sitting at the table. Simon, Simon – Satan has asked to sift you, sift you all. But I have prayed for you, Simon, in brackets, because you’re going to fail, that your faith may not fail. And when you turn back, strengthen your brothers. You know the word Simon. You’re going to fail badly, but I’m going to make sure that you turn back and when you turn back you’re going to be a very good pastor because you’ll be familiar with failure and forgiveness.
So this is a little window you see into the divine sovereignty of God doing what only he can do. But Judas verses teach human responsibility. God says to Judas. Turn back! No, I won’t come to me. No, I won’t. Trust me. No, I won’t believe in me. No, I won’t. But, uh, these verses about Peter teach divine sovereignty. God enabling a person to trust, enabling a person to repent, enabling a person to be forgiven. So you’ll notice with Peter that there is a spiritual battle going on for Peter and for all the disciples Satan we discover was very active as Jesus got close to the cross. He’s working in Ju Judas. He’s trying to work on Peter. He’s very active.
You notice he has to ask permission to do this. Satan says Jesus has asked to sift you. Satan has to ask because he’s not divine. He’s a creature. And his request is that he would like to sift the disciples like wheat. And this means basically damage them, separate them, shake them, rattle them, and the request is denied. That’s the first thing spiritual battle going on for Peter Second. The second thing is that Jesus intervenes, he interjects. He interrupts, this is, of course, what Jesus does. Jesus is the great. As CS. Lewis said, interrupter, here’s a bunch of people like us, and we’re heading towards judgement and Jesus interrupts and steps in.
He sees that we’ve got a long list of crimes and we’re going to be fatally judged that he steps in to pay. And here is Jesus stepping in to pray. People who’ve got no strength, no answers, no wisdom and Jesus steps in. What does he pray? He prays for Simon Peter. Not that he won’t fail. Not that he won’t sin. He prays that he won’t perish.
He says. I’ve prayed that your faith may not fail. I’ve prayed that your faith doesn’t get extinguished. I’ve prayed that your eternal life does not terminate. I’ve prayed that you will not give up. You maybe be interested to know that Jesus, According to John, Chapter 17 prayed this for all his disciples, not just for Simon Peter, and you may be interested to know that Jesus in John 17, prays for you.
It says in John 17, that Jesus prayed that all God’s people, all believers, would make it to the end and arrive safely. It’s very wonderful. The intercession of Christ for people. And so Peter’s faith did not die. Of course, he denied Jesus three times, and that was terrible and he wept very bitterly. But he stayed fixed on Christ. He ran to the tomb. When Jesus died, he found his way to Jesus. When Jesus was alive, he was forgiven. You remember Jesus turning to him and saying, Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? And he was reinstated recommissioned and became extremely useful in God’s service. And that’s why if you read the letters of Peter, you’ll see something of the pastoral skill of Peter because he writes in his letters, Christ died for you to bring you to God. The devil may be roaring around like a lion, but God is faithful, and he will help you and keep you. And Peter became exactly as Jesus predicted somebody who could strengthen the Brethren. So these two verses on Judas focus on human responsibility.
And tragically, Judas did no more than regret, the two verses on Peter show divine sovereignty, bringing him to repentance, enabling him to have a new start. This is the wonderful thing about God that God is all the time bringing people back to himself. He keeps bringing even believers back from their detours and their wanderings. Think of the two men who were dying beside Jesus on crosses each side of Jesus. One of them brought back in the last minutes of his life, one of them refusing in the last minutes of his life. Every minute of every day, people are turning back to God, just like the prodigal sons and the prodigal daughters coming home, receiving a welcome and a brand new start. Tragically, people refuse.
Winston Churchill said of a fellow politician. Every now and again, he stumbles on the truth. And then he picks himself up and he carries on as if nothing has happened. And there are so many people who are having little reminders in life that God is real and wonderful. It could be a pleasure for which they have no real person to thank, but God, it could be a pain that drives them to him for help. And yet people tragically press on without turning back.
Will they find when they eventually come face to face with God that their excuses work? They will not. That’s why we must be so grateful that God is at work bringing people back to himself all the time and every minute of every day. God’s people who drift like I do and you do are being shepherded back by this very wonderful shepherd. Little mini repentance. It’s not as though we’re coming into the family again. We’re in the family, but we’re coming back to our father again and saying to him, I’ve fallen again. I failed again and God shepherding us back to himself in order that we might be forgiven. And as we come back to him, what does he say to us? He says. The blood of my son has covered it all.
The blood of my son has covered it all. So the message of Judas in this passage in this little series about coming back to God the message of Judas kind of whispers to us, and it says dear friends don’t trifle with your responsibility. And the message of Peter says ‘Dear friends you can trust God, keep coming back to him again and again.’
Let’s Pray
We thank you, Heavenly Father, for the little window which we’re given here not only into our responsibility, which you have given us to be sensible, but also into your sovereignty. That you are a God who is able and willing to turn people around. We pray that you would help us to be a responsible people taking up the privileges we’ve received. And we pray that you’d also keep working on us where we fall and fail. For this, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.