Deo Gloria
April 9, 2020
Sermon for Maundy Thursday
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Luke 22:47+48
Theme: The Battle is Personal
- The struggle within Judas
- The struggle within us
It’s called a Trojan horse. You get an official looking email, informing you that you’ve won $10 million dollars or that some long, lost, overseas relative has left you millions of dollars in their will or that your iTunes account has been hacked. And all the information you need to claim your prize or your inheritance or repair your iTunes account is contained in the attachment. So you open the attachment, and soon you realize that your computer is now infected with a malicious program that is attempting to steal your bank account information, your passwords and all your other personal information too.
This kind of malicious program gets its name from the Trojan War, a war fought many centuries ago between the Greeks and the Trojans. The Greeks built a huge wooden horse and left it outside the walls of Troy before they left. When the Trojans saw it, they pulled it into their city, not realizing that there were Greek soldiers hidden inside. Later that night the Greek soldiers snuck out of the horse and opened the gates of the city so the returning Greek army could get inside and capture the city.
Our text tonight is the tragic account of one of Jesus’ disciples, a man named Judas, a man who had walked with Jesus and talked with Jesus and listened to his sermons and witnessed his miracles, and yet who betrayed him. Satan had inserted a Trojan horse into his heart, gained control, and turned him against Jesus.
As we examine this case, we clearly see that this battle with Satan is a personal battle, a battle in which Satan is trying to use our own sinful flesh to turn us against Jesus too. How desperately we need Jesus, our great and mighty warrior, to help us in this battle! We can lock our doors to keep out thieves and robbers. We can carry mace whenever we go out jogging to ward off attackers. But more often than not we discover, like Judas, that the greatest danger and the fiercest battle is not the one out there. It’s the one in here, in our own hearts.
It was right after Jesus and the disciples had celebrated their last meal together. They had gone out to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed and the disciples slept. When he had finished, Jesus returned to the disciples and woke them up. And while he was still speaking, Luke tells us, “a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, ‘Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?’”
Can you believe it? Judas was about to betray Jesus with a kiss. A kiss was a sign of friendship—still is in many cultures around the world. When you greet a family member or a friend, you don’t just wave or say, “Hi.” You go over and give them a kiss on each cheek. That’s what Judas was in the process of doing, only his was by no means a friendly greeting. It was his way of singling Jesus out in the darkness of the garden and betraying him to his enemies. How could that happen? What Trojan horse had Satan used to turn one of Jesus’ own disciples into a traitor?
From other parts of Scripture we learn that the insidious virus employed by Satan was greed. John tells us in his gospel that Judas had been the treasurer for the disciples and that from time to time he helped himself to the money. Apparently, as time went along Judas came to love the money more than Jesus. Then just a couple of days before this, we’re told that Satan prompted Judas to go the chief priests and offer to betray Jesus for money. They were delighted and gave him 30 pieces of silver. Then just a few hours earlier, Jesus had mentioned in the Upper Room that one of the disciples would betray him and indicated that this was in fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy, but Judas had ignored the warning. Finally, after Jesus gave Judas the piece of bread he had just dipped in the dish, we read these ominous words: “As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. So Jesus told him, ‘What you are about to do, do quickly’”(John 13:27). What a sad and tragic story! It’s obvious that a huge struggle had been going on inside of Judas, a struggle for loyalty, a struggle for control. And Satan had won. Using the sinful nature within him, Satan gained control over Judas’ heart and led him to commit the worse sin ever committed by a disciple of Jesus. Can you think of a sadder legacy than that of Judas?
When Jesus told the disciples in the Upper Room that one of them was going to betray him, did they all turn and look at Judas? No. They didn’t know who would betray Jesus. Instead John tells us that they all “stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant”(John 13:22). Why do you suppose they did that? Why do you suppose they became suspicious of each other and kept looking at each other? Was it Peter? Was it John? Was it Philip? Was it Thomas? Why? Because they all knew. They all knew their own weaknesses and their own sinful nature, which Satan could potentially use to turn them against Jesus too. Yes, they knew this was a personal battle. You and I know it too.
That same night Jesus issued another warning. He warned them all that they would desert him. He even gave a special warning to Peter, who had boldly declared that he would never disown him. And yet, what happened that night in the garden when the soldiers arrested Jesus. They all fled, didn’t they? Oh yes, Peter swung his sword at first, but in the end he ran away like everyone else. And then what happened in the courtyard of the high priest when those standing around accused Peter of being one of Jesus’ disciples? He denied it. In fact, he swore with an oath that he didn’t even know who Jesus was. Peter became a betrayer too. This time it was the Trojan horse of fear that Satan used, that he used to turn even Peter against Jesus.
I think about that when I look at my own life. You too? I ask myself, “What kind of Trojan horse will Satan use in my heart? I’m just like you…just like Peter…just like the apostle Paul who said, “In my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?(Romans 7:22-24)
Did you catch his reference to the spiritual war going on inside him, going on inside each of us? I so want to trust Jesus. And I want to follow him with all my heart, but my faith is under attack. And my sinful flesh is weak.
And so is yours. Sometimes it’s guilt from the past that batters your heart. You get flashbacks. You feel dirty inside and unworthy of Jesus and wonder if you really are forgiven. Or maybe it’s sinful or lustful desires that launch the assault, desires you have fed at times with pictures on the internet. Or maybe it’s negative and depressing thoughts that bombard your faith as you struggle with this whole social isolation business. Or maybe it’s fear, fear that you might get sick too and end up in the hospital. Or maybe it’s just plain laziness, spiritual laziness. You can hardly remember the last time you sat down and read your Bible. And your Sunday worship has become pretty pathetic too. Do you see the Trojan horse within you?
So here’s the good news. We have a Savior, a warrior who defeated the devil and all his Trojan horses, a warrior who promises to be with us and help us in our daily battle with the devil. His name is Jesus. As Paul exclaims, “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”(1 Corinthians 15:57).
Though he was betrayed in the garden on the evening of Maundy Thursday, Jesus didn’t betray us in the garden, did he? He certainly could have. His struggle that night was enormous. His struggle was intense, so much so that his sweat became like drops of blood. He could have said forget it. He could have caved to the fear and the pressure and the shear horror of the suffering he was facing, but he didn’t. He remained faithful to his Father and faithful to his mission and faithful to us. He went out to meet Judas and the soldiers as they entered the garden even though he knew why they had come and where they were going to take him—to the Sanhedrin and to Pilate and ultimately to Calvary. He knew about the beatings too and the whipping and the mocking he would endure along the way and the horrible death he would die on the cross. And yet he still was willing to go through it, still willing to suffer, still willing to die because of his great love for you and me. And by his death and resurrection he did what you and I could never do: He defeated our enemy, the devil, and set us free from his power and control. As Paul said, “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
But it doesn’t stop there. Jesus knows about the battle we face with the devil in our daily lives as well. And he supplies us with the weapons we need to fight against him and his evil Trojan horses.
The first is his powerful Word, a double-edged sword that on the one hand cuts through the lies and the self-deception and all the stuff we try to keep hidden and on the other hand cuts away the guilt and assures us of our forgiveness. Use it, friends. Use it every day to drive Satan back and strengthen your trust in Jesus.
A second is the special meal we call the Lord’s Supper, a meal in which our Savior gives us personal assurance of forgiveness and personal strength for our faith. Whenever I feel like I’m slipping in my struggle with the devil, this meal points me back to Jesus. In it he gives me in a personal way the forgiveness and salvation he won for me on Calvary’s cross. Yes, my battle against Satan is personal, but so is this Supper: It was given and shed for me, for the forgiveness of my sins. And I don’t know about you, but I’m sure looking forward to the day when we can celebrate this special meal again, together.
And thirdly, he has given us one another, fellow Christians, fellow soldiers of the cross, people who are in this battle with the devil each and every day just like I am, people who can empathize with me and pray for me and encourage me and remind me of my Savior and his great and faithful love.
So don’t be discouraged, friends. You have nothing to fear from the devil and his Trojan horses. You have a victorious Savior and all the weaponry you need to send him packing. Take Paul’s words to the Christians in Ephesus to heart: “Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand”(Ephesians 6:13). Amen.