Mark 14:43-72 :: "Who would forsake Jesus?"

[Music] good morning church it is a good morning it is an exciting day today it is sunday of week one of the nfl season which i am excited about but i'm far more excited to be here worshiping with you and opening up god's word together this morning uh we are going to be in mark chapter 14 we're going to be looking specifically at verses 43 through 72 so you can flip there if you haven't already but all of us who are sitting in this room this morning have a confidence and a conviction in the things that we believe and i'm not just speaking of religious things everything that we believe in we have a confidence and a conviction for and so that may be who your favorite or who you think the best football team is that may be your views on science that may be your views on history that may be your views on politics and that may be your views on religion or on who jesus is but we have a confidence and a conviction in our faith and i would like to believe that most of us who are sitting in this room right now or who are watching online have a confidence and a conviction in our faith in jesus that he is the way the truth and the life we just got done singing that and so we have this confidence we have this strength in our faith in jesus we have a confidence that the word of god is true and living and we can abide by it and live in him and this is a good confidence for us to have however often times when seasons get difficult or challenging and fear creeps in our confidence begins to waver in the things that we believe and oftentimes it can cause us to live or behave or act in a way that is actually contrary to our convictions and our beliefs and so it's important for us to understand that oftentimes when fear creeps in we can act out of our own pride in self-preservation rather than in a humble trust to jesus and there is a day that stands out in my mind from when i was a kid that i will never forget i was in fourth grade and uh my dad told me i could sign up for any sport that i wanted to however i had to make the agreement with them that on sunday mornings that was our time reserved for the lord we would gather as a family and go to church together and we would worship and my dad was a pastor still is a pastor and he instilled a lot of strong christian beliefs and even as a fourth grader i would say i had strong conviction and confidence that i knew who jesus was that the bible was true but that rule in fourth grade i had just signed up for a roller hockey team and i don't think that i don't know if that's a thing out here in california but that's like kind of like t-ball for ice hockey right it's like before you get to ice hockey you play roller hockey and so i had signed up for a team and i didn't know anyone on the team it was just like one of those open sign-ups so i signed up and um shortly after the season began they had a game on a sunday morning and so my dad was driving me to practice and he said hey you just need to remember um to tell your coach and tell your team that uh you're not gonna be at the game on sunday so i said okay and i went in and i told my coach and i told my team hey i'm not gonna be able to make it on sunday and the coach in front of everyone and i remember like this kind of panic and fear that i was struck with he says why aren't you gonna be there and i said well uh i have church and that's he didn't ask any more questions but i remember feeling this like sort of fear and i had this confidence in who jesus was and how good god was but for some reason there was this fear that was like welling up inside of me and sure enough like 20 minutes later we were at a water break and these two boys skated over and kind of like in this like accusatory voice they were like so do you really believe in god and jesus and all of that stuff and like in that moment i just wanted like to say yes i do but i was overcome with fear and self-preservation and in my pride i just said no that was the only thing that i could get to come out of my mouth and so i went home that night and i remember being in bed closing the door behind me to go to bed and i just started sobbing in my room this is like so seared into my memory i i just started weeping and i was like oh my goodness i denied jesus i was like i don't even know what the punishment for that is but i might have just got kicked out of heaven like i didn't know what it meant and and so my parents came in and they were like what is going on and i told them the story and they assured me that there's grace and forgiveness in jesus which is great um but i just remember sobbing and weaving because i was like man i just i denied jesus and in my pride the only thing that could come out of my mouth was no i don't believe in him and that's what we're going to be looking at throughout our passage today is that oftentimes our pride can get in the way of our humble trust in jesus and so we're going to be looking at mark chapter 14 verses 43-72 and the subject that we're going to be looking at is that jesus is betrayed forsaken and denied jesus is betrayed forsaken and denied and what i really believe that god wants us to walk out of here with this morning is that we would humbly trust in jesus that we would humbly trust in jesus so in verses 43 through 45 as we get started we're going to see the betrayal of jesus and i'll read those first three verses to you it says this and immediately while he was still speaking judas one of the twelve with a great multitude with swords and clubs came from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders now his betrayer had given them a signal saying whomever i kiss he is the one sees him and lead him away safely as soon as he had come immediately he went up to him and said to him rabbi rabbi and kissed him now it's important for us to understand verse 43 begins by saying and immediately while he was still speaking so we have to understand the context of this passage what was jesus saying where was he as you know if you've been tracking along with us for the last several weeks jesus and his disciples were in jerusalem to celebrate the passover and on this night that this betrayal event is happening jesus was in the upper room with his disciples celebrating the passover meal he broke the bread and he gave them the cup and shortly after knowing what was ahead of him he went out into the garden of gethsemane which was just outside of jerusalem with most of his disciples not all of them with most of his disciples he went out and he began to pray he was pouring himself out before the father because he knew what was ahead of him and so he begins to seclude himself even more from the majority of the disciples bringing with him peter james and john and he asks them to watch and he goes off and he prays and he comes back and they've all fallen asleep and he wakes them up and again in verse 38 he says watch and pray and he goes off again and he prays and he comes back and they're asleep and the third time it happens where he returns and they have fallen asleep so jesus says this to them in verses 41 and 42 are you still sleeping and resting it is enough the hour has come behold the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners rise let us be going see my betrayer is at hand and that's where we come in at verse 43 and immediately while he was still speaking judas who was one of the twelve judas was one of the twelve men that had been following jesus for the past three years listening to the teachings of jesus watching the miracles of jesus had been away from the rest of the disciples with the chief priests the scribe and the elders and they pre-established this sign that whomever i kiss he is the one that you are to arrest and it immediately causes us to question well wouldn't they have recognized jesus like the man that they want to arrest well first of all they're in the garden of gethsemane this is late in the evening it would have been dark and there are no like walmart parking lot lights there right so it's dark so it just the fact that it's dark would have been hard to recognize who jesus was but also there was no google images at that time there were no cameras you couldn't just pull up like the picture of what jesus looked like so they could be like all right we're all on the same page here's the briefing this is the one we arrest if they had never heard him teach or seen him perform miracles they wouldn't have known what he looked like other than someone's description of him and we're told in isaiah 53 verse 2 that he was a very common looking man there was nothing that stood out about him so judas pre-establishes this sign that the one whom i kiss is the one whom we are to arrest and it's fascinating to me because the words that come out of judas's mouth and the action that he performs is so contrary to the entire situation of what's going on he is about to betray this man that he followed for three years and yet the words that come out of his mouth are rabbi rabbi or teacher teacher or master master the words that are coming out of his mouth acknowledge that jesus has authority over him that he is subject to jesus's authority so the words that come out of his mouth don't don't model what is actually going on in the situation he's betraying jesus but he says rabbi rabbi and then he approaches him and kisses him this intimate greeting of deep friends this is the action and the words of judas that are not lining up with what is actually going on and so in this jesus is betrayed by judas we don't necessarily know for sure the motivation that judas had in betraying jesus it doesn't seem likely that it was a financial motivation because it wasn't like a life-changing sum of money it doesn't necessarily make sense that it would be like him he's trying to gain some sort of status or clout with the chief priests or elders or scribes what most scholars agree on is that jesus did not really fit into the box that judas wanted him to fit into he wasn't really the type of messiah that judas was hoping for he didn't come and overthrow governments and establish power and dominion here on this earth with authority and that's what judas was hoping for in his messiah and how often in our lives do we have a box that we want to fit our god in and he does not neatly fit in there he is who he is and we as his followers have to understand who he is so that we can humbly trust him we read things in scripture and we're like yeah i don't really like that part so god doesn't really fit into that box i'm gonna throw that part away or god does something in our lives that we're not really okay with and we don't really like it how often do we try to fit god into the box that we want him to fit into it doesn't work and that didn't work for judas even just last week pastor chris was teaching us on prayer and he said that oftentimes we approach god in this fashion of some sort of magical genie that we only go to when we need something when we want something because we have a box that we want him to fit neatly in and that's the god that we want to serve but that's not the god that he is the god that he came to love and to serve and to lay down his life for his people that is a god that we can humbly trust and judas after years of following had lost his humble trust in jesus and in his pride goes to betray him he forsakes jesus and he betrays jesus but he's not the only one who forsakes jesus in verses 46 through 51 we see the forsaking of jesus it says then they laid their hands on him and took him and those who stood and one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear then jesus answered and said to them have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to take me i was daily with you in the temple teaching and you did not seize me but the scriptures must be fulfilled then they all forsook him and fled and what we see here is that they arrest jesus they laid their hands on jesus and at that moment that they've arrested jesus they've taken him into custody we're told in verse 47 that one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest cutting off his ear in mark's account of this gospel we're not told exactly who that is but according to john 18 10 we're told that that was peter he takes out his sword and he swings it at the head of one of the servants of the chief priest it's a pretty bold move out of peter but what's interesting is in that moment peter seemed to be doing what he thought was best he seemed to be acting out of some sort of conviction of his beliefs but it was so misaligned with the way of jesus jesus did not come to cause violence and to hurt people that's not what jesus was doing and we don't know peter's motivation here either he's just gotten done literally just gotten done being woken up three times by jesus so we don't know if it was him trying to earn some sort of respect back and taking his sword out and trying to keep this arrest from happening we don't know if it's because when he was in the upper room with jesus jesus tells him that he's going to deny him three times before the rooster crows and he says i will die with you before i deny you but in this moment peter is acting out of his pride out of his flesh out of how he wants to behave rather than humbly trusting in jesus and this is not the way of jesus this is not the desire of jesus and so what does jesus do according to luke 22 jesus picks up the ear and he heals the man because that's what jesus came to do he came to love and he came to serve he did not come to hurt and cause violence so peter in his belief system thought he was doing something but it was completely misaligned with jesus's desire he was acting out of his own pride rather than a humble trust of jesus and so jesus says these words have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to take me that word robber doesn't carry the same weight in our language as it did in the original language because that would have been punishable by death and so a better understanding would be like an insurrectionist have you come out against me as an insurrectionist is that really who i am to you that you would seize me as a robber as an insurrectionist that you need clubs and swords to take me i was with you every day teaching in the temple they knew the message of jesus but he says the scriptures must be fulfilled the scriptures must be fulfilled jesus had foretold a lot of things about what was going to happen at this time in his life he says in mark chapter 9 verse 12 the son of man should suffer many things he says in mark 14 verse 21 for the son of man goes just as it is written jesus is fulfilling the prophecies that he foretold about himself and then we look back to the old testament and see all of these other prophecies that jesus is fulfilling in this moment we look at isaiah 53 this passage on the suffering servant this prophecy that jesus is getting ready to fulfill in this moment jesus says the scriptures must be fulfilled because he is trustworthy but what strikes me and like makes my heart sink is verse 50. then they all forsook him and fled and i can't help but think back to that day like when i was in fourth grade and it may seem so insignificant or trivial but like in that moment i had forsaken jesus i had fled from jesus humble trust in jesus does not forsake and it does not flee yet in this moment these men that had been following him for three years that had just pledged their allegiance to him in the upper room their confidence in their faith was so strong just hours before and what happens when fear sets in what happens when the circumstances change what happens when things get difficult they forsake him and they flee and it says all forsook him and fled it says in mark 14 verse 23 then he took the cup and when he had given thanks he gave it to them and they all drank of it and again in mark 14 verse 31 peter says if i have to die with you i will not deny you and they all said likewise all the disciples are on the same page they have a confidence and a faith in what they believe they believe that jesus is worth following to the point of death and in this moment when their circumstances change the fear creeps in the hardship is there and present and all of a sudden in verse 50 we see that they all forsook him and fled and this weighs heavy on my heart because how confident am i in my faith in jesus how confident are we that we can come to service on a sunday morning and sit here and lift up our hands and praise the king of kings the way the truth and the life and yet when our circumstances change when we find ourselves in a season of fear when we find ourselves in a season of doubt when we find ourselves in a season of hardship or difficulty are we still willing to humbly trust in jesus or in our pride do we forsake him and do we flee out of self-preservation we can sit here confidently and proclaim the name of jesus but when those challenging circumstances arise are we willing to humbly trust him we are so blessed to be in a place where we are not persecuted physically for our faith but there are people all around the world that do have to fear for their lives if they profess jesus in afghanistan right now there are people who if they claim the name of jesus they will be killed on the spot we don't have that fear in our lives by god's grace but there are things in our lives that cause us to forsake jesus or to flee from jesus whether that be the the pressures of our occupation or our employer you're not allowed to talk about that here you're not allowed to mention the name of jesus here whether that be the pressures of our our reputation and upholding those well i don't want people to think i'm like different or i'm some sort of like weird jesus person the pressures of their views of me are going to shift if i humbly trust in jesus so i'm going to act out of my pride and out of my self-preservation and i'm going to forsake and flee it's so challenging to me but the good news is that we are supposed to humbly trust in jesus and that jesus is trustworthy the one that we are told to trust in is absolutely trustworthy and we see that in verses 53 through 65. jesus is trustworthy in 53 through 59 they lead jesus out of the garden and they take him to the house of the high priest who is caiaphas and they lead him into the upper room and they put him on trial before the sanhedrin but we're told in verse 54 that while they are leading him away peter follows at a safe distance that is convicting because when we forsake jesus or when we flee it's easy to follow him at a distance that feels safe to us you know i'm going to follow jesus but not if it's going to cost me too much i'm gonna follow him at like this distance yes i'm a follower of jesus i love god i love neighbors i make disciples but i'm gonna follow like at a safe distance i'm not gonna get too close because then they might associate me with jesus i might lose my job i might lose my reputation i might lose my friends i might lose my family members so i'm just going to follow at a safe distance and that's exactly what peter does he followed him at a distance to the house of caiaphas and jesus is taken upstairs he is put on trial but nothing was sticking they were trying to accuse him and nothing was sticking they brought in false witnesses and nothing was aligning and so finally the high priest who has every right in this moment stands up and in verse 60 says this do you answer nothing what is it these men testify against you but he kept silent and answered nothing and again the high priest asked him saying to him are you the christ the son of the blessed jesus said i am and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven then the high priest tore his clothes and said what further need do we have of witnesses you have heard the blasphemy what do you think and they all condemned him to be deserving of death then some began to spit on him and to blindfold him and to beat him and to say to him prophesy and the officers struck him with the palm of their hands you see caiaphas asked him a question point blank are you the christ the son of the blessed there was no confusion in that question it was crystal clear saying are you the messiah term blessed to us seems like ah well was that a little bit foggy no that was not foggy in jewish culture that was a very clear name for god are you the messiah are you christ are you the son of god are you the son of the blessed this was a crystal clear question as clear as he could ask it so many times we hear from people in our culture today well jesus never really like claimed to be god directly it doesn't say that he ever said i am god in the bible so we don't know this is as crystal clear as we could possibly see and what is jesus's answer to this clear question he says i am i am yes i am the christ yes i am the son of the blessed and if you're familiar with the old testament in exodus chapter 3 we see moses standing before god who is speaking to him in the burning bush asking him to go to egypt to deliver his people from the hand of pharaoh and moses asks the question who should i say sent me and god's response is i am who i am tell them that i am sent to you what jesus says here is a response that is so clear claims to his deity he says i am i am the christ i am the messiah i am the son of god i am the son of the blessed i am i am and if that wasn't enough he goes on to say and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven this is a direct reference to daniel chapter 7 where we see the son of man coming with all power and all authority to reign and rule and judge which is fascinating because what jesus is doing is he is presently on trial being judged by the council and he's claiming i am god and i am the son of man and i will return with all power to judge you so the response is so clear there's no fogginess to this at all and it's obvious because the high priest then does what tears his robe and says this is blasphemy and every single person in the room condemned jesus to death but what we see here is that we serve a god who is trustworthy the claims of jesus are true he goes to the cross and he raises again three days later conquering death and sin we serve a god that is alive he ascended and is seated at the right hand of the father we serve a god who is trustworthy that we can humbly trust every day of our lives jesus is trustworthy and he further begins to fulfill the prophecies of isaiah 53 and verse 65. some began to spit on him and to blindfold him and to beat him and to say to him prophesy and the officers struck him with the palms of their hands and while all of this is happening while this trial is happening while jesus is being convicted guilty of blasphemy while he's being sentenced to death peter is in the courtyard he's in the courtyard of the house of the high priest and what we see in verses 66 through 72 is we see the denial of jesus we've seen the betrayal of jesus we've seen the forsaking of jesus and here we see the denial of jesus verse 66 says this now as peter was below in the courtyard one of the servant girls of the high priest came and when she saw peter warming himself she looked at him and said you also were with jesus of nazareth but he denied it saying i neither know nor understand what you are saying and he went out on the porch and the rooster crowed and the servant girl saw him again and began to say to those who stood by this is one of them but he denied it again and a little later those who stood by said to peter again surely you are one of them for you are a galilean and your speech shows it and he began to curse and swear i do not know this man of whom you speak a second time the rooster crowed then peter called to mind the word that jesus had said to him before the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times and when he thought about it he wept when he thought about it he wept man this takes me right back to that day when i was in fourth grade and i know that may seem like a long time ago when i was a kid but like i heard that rooster crow because i denied jesus in my own pride in my own self-preservation i had denied jesus and peter in this moment was afraid of what would happen to him if he was associated with jesus he follows at a distance and then he denies jesus three times he acted in a way that was best for him out of his own pride instead of humbly trusting in jesus and how often do we act in ways that are best for us in our own pride instead of humbly trusting in jesus throughout my life i have prayed for family members and friends and loved ones to come to know jesus but when i'm sitting across the table from them or i'm standing next to them or i'm watching a game with them or whatever it is am i willing to humbly trust jesus and actually bring it up or do i let my fear and my pride overrun my faith because i can sit here today and say i am so confident that i believe that jesus is the only way but when i'm with the people who i want to uphold a good reputation with are with me am i willing to talk about jesus am i willing to share the gospel am i willing to make disciples am i willing to truly love them by giving them the gift of eternal life in christ our command is to humbly trust in jesus and when i was a kid growing up i had two sort of groups of friends i went to a christian school and had a group of friends there but they were like 30 minutes away and then i had another group of friends in my neighborhood and one lived right behind me one lived across the street and there were others right in my neighborhood there and man i spent hours and hours and hours every week with these guys like every week for 10 years of my life i spent so much time with them and they knew i was a christian they knew my dad was a pastor they would like come over to my house sometimes and see like you know the christian artwork that my mom had hung up and whatever like on the mantle and so they knew they knew what i believed but i had spent years of my life with these guys and i never truly told them like jesus is the only way he is the truth he is trustworthy i never actually explicitly had those conversations with them and i remember in college my senior year of college after i hadn't been with them for a few years i had maintained relationship but i hadn't been spending that consistent time with them i remember that day where this rooster in my mind crowed and it was the spirit convicting me just saying you denied me for years with these guys you did not live in a way where you were humbly trusting me but you were acting out of your pride and self-preservation because you didn't want them to think differently of you and i remember calling each one of these guys that i had stayed in contact with and i just said i just want to apologize to you like for years of my life i didn't tell you about the thing that's more important to me than anything else we talked about sports we played games we played video games we got together we hung out all the time and i never told you about what was most important to me and that's jesus and i truly believe that he is the only way he is the only name by whom we are saved and i truly believe that when he saves us there will be a day where there is no more mourning or pain or crying or death or anything and we will be able to celebrate with him and all of creation worshiping our god and by god's grace i know today that some of those men will be worshipping with us but that moment of conviction set in that moment where the spirit was convicting me that the rooster was crowing am i living my life in a humble trust towards jesus or am i acting and behaving out of way that is just prideful that is self-preservation that i'm so concerned and consumed with what other people will think about me or am i willing to be obedient to what god has called me to do so i don't know if you associate with with trying to just fit god in the box that you have created him to be you want him to be this specific way but that's not who he is maybe you've had instances in your life where you have denied jesus or maybe it's just manifested itself through your actions and your negligence to talk to him talk about him with anyone maybe you've been following jesus but it's been at a very safe distance so it didn't truly impact you yeah i believe it it's true but i'm just gonna maintain this safe distance so that it doesn't disrupt my life i've got a pretty good thing going on here maybe you've taken out that sword and you've acted in a way that is completely contrary to jesus thinking that you were doing something that you were supposed to be out of your pride how often does that happen in our lives where we do things and we're like yeah i think this is what god would want and we never ever thought to think like god is this something that you're calling me to do is this something that aligns with your word is this something that aligns with the way that jesus came to teach us how often have we forsaken and fled from him how often have we denied him time and time again and my hope is that jesus this morning would be the one that we see as the ultimate source of trustworthiness like we can place our faith and our trust in jesus no matter what he is not going anywhere every word that he said is true and he is worth our humble trust so i just want to encourage you this morning let's take a moment and let's allow the spirit to just like soften our hearts and show us the ways the relationships that we have in our lives that we can live in a more genuine humble trust of jesus that we can share the good news of jesus that we can go and make disciples who make other disciples that we can love our neighbors as ourselves let's soften our hearts before god and ask him to show us the ways that we've been living in our pride seek repentance seek forgiveness and tomorrow and the next day and the rest of our lives strive to live in a humble trust of jesus let's pray together heavenly father god you are so good and you are so trustworthy and we know that your word is true we know that jesus is who he said he was we know that he is seated at the right hand of you right now god we know that you are a god that we can trust and father i just want to repent for the times that in my own pride in my own self-preservation i have acted in ways that are not honoring to you i have acted in ways that are contrary to what you have called me to god i just want to repent for all of those relationships in my life where your spirit was prompting me to talk about jesus but i was too concerned with what other people would think god show us how to humbly trust you today god give us the confidence to not follow at a distance but to follow right next to you jesus lord we love you so much and we want to honor you every day of our lives with every word that we speak so teach us how to humbly trust it's in jesus name we pray amen [Music] you

Channel: Calvary Nexus

Views: 57

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, God, Bible, Book of Mark, gospel, betrayal, denial, humility, trust in Jesus, trust, adoration, love God, love neighbors, resist temptation, intimacy, remember, Calvary Nexus

Id: JagQHkETsEI

Length: 39min 19sec (2359 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021