1. "A sign is never as important as what it signifies. We respect the symbol as a part of our respect for what it symbolizes."

2. "The supper is the window. It's not the glass that we stare at. We look through it at the work of Christ done for us."

3. "Through the centuries, God had ordained the very practices of the Passover specifically in order to prepare his people to understand what Jesus was doing right now."

4. "The miracle at the meal that night wasn't transubstantiation. The miracle was that the Son of God was there in the flesh, proclaiming that at the cross, the pouring out of his blood, he was going to bear the penalty for his people's sins."

5. "The cross would not be some human tragedy derailing God's attempts at sending a Messiah to deliver His people. It would instead be the very means of God using even the most crooked of sticks for his good purposes."

6. "The voice that spells forgiveness will say, you may go. You have been let off the penalty which your sins deserve. But the verdict which means acceptance will say, you may come. You are welcome to all my love and my presence."

7. "At the cross, Jesus didn't just show us the way, but he made himself the way for sinners."

8. "Our sins were the reason that Jesus would suffer so at the cross. And His suffering would be sufficient. That blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins would not fail to achieve its end."

9. "If we would like a religion in which there is no persecution, we need a different religion. Our Savior went to the cross. If we would follow Him, our lot is not only suffering, but there is a period of time in which we die to self because we trust that God then gives us new life in Christ."

10. "The point of the supper isn't the supper. The point of the supper is the cross and all that Christ was to achieve in it, which he taught us by means of the supper."

Observation Questions

1. In Luke 22:7-13, what specific instructions did Jesus give Peter and John for preparing the Passover, and what did they find when they followed His directions?

2. According to Luke 22:19-20, what two elements did Jesus use during the meal, and what did He say each one represented?

3. In Luke 22:22, how does Jesus describe the manner in which "the Son of Man goes," and what does He say about the one who betrays Him?

4. What contrast does Jesus draw in Luke 22:25-27 between how Gentile kings exercise authority and how His followers should relate to one another?

5. In Luke 22:31-32, what does Jesus reveal about Satan's intentions for Peter, and what does Jesus say He has done in response?

6. According to Luke 22:37, what Scripture does Jesus say "must be fulfilled" in Him, and how does He describe its status regarding His life?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that Jesus chose the Passover meal—with its historical connection to the Exodus from Egypt—as the occasion to institute the Lord's Supper and explain His coming death?

2. What does Jesus mean when He says in verse 20 that the cup is "the new covenant in My blood," and how does this connect to Jeremiah 31:31-34's promise of a new covenant?

3. How can Jesus hold Judas fully responsible for his betrayal (v. 22, "woe to that man") while also affirming that the Son of Man's death was "determined" by God's sovereign plan?

4. In verses 28-30, Jesus promises His disciples they will eat and drink at His table in His kingdom, even though He knows they will all abandon Him. What does this reveal about the basis of their future acceptance with God?

5. How does Jesus' citation of Isaiah 53:12 ("He was numbered with the transgressors") in verse 37 explain the purpose and meaning of His death on the cross?

Application Questions

1. The sermon compared the Lord's Supper to a wedding ring that causes us to look back at promises made and forward to promises fulfilled. When you participate in the Lord's Supper, what specific aspects of Christ's work do you tend to remember, and what future hope does it stir in you?

2. Jesus defined true greatness as serving others rather than exercising authority over them (vv. 25-27). In what specific relationship or setting this week could you practice this kind of servant leadership, and what would that look like practically?

3. Peter was overconfident about his loyalty to Jesus, yet Jesus still interceded for him and planned for his future ministry. How does knowing that Christ intercedes for you (Romans 8:34) affect how you respond when you fail spiritually or are tempted to give up?

4. The sermon emphasized that following Christ means being willing to face opposition and rejection as He did. Where in your life—at work, in your family, or in your community—might faithfulness to Christ cost you comfort or acceptance, and how can you prepare for that?

5. Jesus told His disciples that what was written about Him "has its fulfillment" (v. 37), demonstrating Scripture's reliability. How might this truth about Scripture's trustworthiness shape the way you read and respond to difficult or surprising passages in your own Bible reading this week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Exodus 12:1-14 — This passage provides the original instructions for the Passover, showing the foundational event that Jesus reinterpreted as pointing to His own sacrificial death.

2. Jeremiah 31:29-34 — This prophecy of the new covenant, which Jesus explicitly fulfilled through His blood, explains the nature of the forgiveness and heart transformation available through Christ.

3. Isaiah 53:1-12 — This servant song, which Jesus quoted at the Last Supper, describes the substitutionary suffering of the Messiah who would bear the sins of many.

4. Hebrews 9:11-28 — This passage explains how Christ's blood established the new covenant and accomplished what the Old Testament sacrificial system could only foreshadow.

5. Acts 4:23-31 — This early church prayer demonstrates how believers understood Jesus' death as both the result of human sin and the outworking of God's sovereign plan, echoing Jesus' teaching at the Last Supper.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Lord's Supper as a Sign Pointing to Christ's Death

II. At the Cross, Jesus Made a New Covenant (Luke 22:7-20)

III. At the Cross, Jesus Submitted to His Father's Will (Luke 22:21-23)

IV. At the Cross, Jesus Reestablished Our Relationship with God (Luke 22:24-30)

V. At the Cross, Jesus Suffered for Our Sins (Luke 22:31-34)

VI. At the Cross, Jesus Proved the Scriptures True (Luke 22:35-38)

VII. The Reformation's Recovery of the Gospel Message

Detailed Sermon Outline

As you open your Bibles to Luke chapter 22, let me just say what a joy it is to be back home. Three weeks ago I was here leading the service, had the joy of leading the service with Mike McKinley preaching from 1 Peter chapter 1, you may remember that. But then I headed out that night and the last two Sundays I've been elsewhere. Two Sundays ago Ryan Townsend was at Bangkok City Baptist Church in Thailand and I had the joy of listening to Zane Pratt preach at Gospel City Church in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And then last Sunday we were together in Singapore at Eugene Lowe's church, Grace Baptist Church, where I had the joy to preach from Matthew chapter nine.

Well now we're back here, good to be back home. We're in Luke, once again we're in Luke chapter 22, and some of you are actually wearing my introduction. Let me explain what I mean. Let me give you the basic line of thought of approaching this passage. In Luke 22.

It's a famous passage beginning at verse 7 about the Last Supper. Many, many volumes of Christian theology have been written out of the verses that we're looking at this morning. But I think if we take an overview of it, we'll see that both the Old Testament Passover that we heard Brittany read about earlier from Exodus 12, and the New Testament Lord's Supper can be illustrated on one level by a wedding ring.

So some of you are wearing a wedding ring. Just think of it for a moment. The Lord's Supper is like the Passover. In fact, the last supper which we're looking at here in Luke's Gospel was a Passover meal. What are all of these things that we mentioned but signs?

Of course a sign is never as important as what it signifies. We respect the symbol as a part of our respect for what it symbolizes. So for example in the Old Testament God teaches a about His holiness by food requirements, by regulations about ceremonial cleanness in worship at the tabernacle in the temple, which physically separated the most holy place from the unholy worshipers. So the Lord's Supper symbolizes. It's done in memory of Christ's death and what He was doing in His death and is a proclamation of His return.

The supper helps to make present those events of the past and the future. So the illustration, if you have a wedding ring or someone around you does, just look at it for a moment. If you're not around somebody, just remember one you've seen.

The wedding ring shows us that the same thing can make you look back and look forward. You look back and you remember the promises made one certain day, and then you look forward through the days and weeks and months to come, and you anticipate those promises continuing to be fulfilled. You can remember a promise.

At the Passover, the Israelites remembered God's deliverance of them from slavery in Egypt. And they looked forward to the Messiah's future deliverance of them completely, particularly as the prophets through the Old Testament period added prophecy after prophecy, promise after promise to God's provision for his people. At the Lord's Supper, Christians remember Christ's body being broken and his blood being poured out to establish a new covenant for sinners with God. And we look forward to the return of the King and the final and full establishment of God's kingdom, celebrated by feasting with Christ as we rule and reign with Him. That's what Paul says in the next chapter in 1 Corinthians from what we read over in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 26.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Well, all of this is in our text this morning as we come to the last evening Jesus had with His disciples before He was executed. Our text is Luke chapter 22, verses 7 to 38. If you're using the Bibles provided, it's found on page 881. Turn with me there now.

Listen as I read.

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?' 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, and 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.

And when the hour came, He reclined at table and the apostles with Him. And He said to them, 'I have 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. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, 'Take this and divide it 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 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. And they began to question one another which of them it could be who was going to do this.

A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And He said to them, 'The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater?

The one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves. You are those who have stayed with me in my trials. And I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table.

In My kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Simon, Simon, behold Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.

Peter said to Him, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death. Jesus said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you know Me.

And He said to them, When I sent you out with no money bag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything? They said, Nothing. He said to them, But now, Let the one who has a money bag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that the Scripture must be fulfilled in Me: 'And He was numbered with the transgressors.' For what is written about Me has its fulfillment.

And they said, 'Look, Lord, here are two swords.' and He said to them, 'It is enough.' Friends, this is the vast text we want to look at this morning and consider. The things that you're wondering about that I do not answer in the sermon, I'll be at that door over there. Or if you want to save time, Bobby will be at that door right there. There are other pastors around at the other doors. We would happily interact with you about anything that we've not addressed.

What I want to try to do is pursue with you the main thing in this passage. And the main thing in this passage is not the supper. It is what the supper points toward. It is what Christ said the sufferer was to function as. That is teaching about His death, explanation of His death that was to come.

The sufferer is the window. It's not the glass that we stare at. We look through it at the work of Christ done for us. So this morning I want you to notice five things. That Jesus was going to do at the cross and that he was teaching his disciples about at this last supper they shared.

Let me go ahead and share with you my outline so you can be following along. This is the summary. At the cross, number one, and I'm gonna repeat this after I do it so that everybody who wants to can take it down. Number one, at the cross Jesus made a new covenant. It's verses 7 to 20.

He made a new covenant. Number two, at the cross, Jesus submitted to His Father's will. It's verses 21 to 23. He submitted to His Father's will. Number three, at the cross, Jesus reestablished our relationship with God.

He reestablished our relationship with God. That's verses 24 to 30. Number four, at the cross, Jesus suffered for our sins. It's verses 31 to 34. Verses 31 to 34, Jesus suffered for our sins.

And number five, Jesus proved the Scriptures, verses 35 to 38, Jesus proved the Scriptures. So at the cross, Jesus made a new covenant, Jesus submitted to His Father's will, Jesus reestablished our relationship with God, Jesus suffered for our sins, and Jesus proved the Scriptures. So let's jump in now and understand what Jesus was doing at the cross and the night before in eating this meal with His disciples, which symbolized and explained the significance of His death for them. And I pray that as we do, you'll understand more of what God is doing in your own life today. Let's begin with this.

At the cross, number one, Jesus made a new covenant. Look again at those first couple of paragraphs. In the first paragraph there, Jesus directs His disciples to prepare for observing the Passover, the meal together that night. I mean, even that is amazing to consider. If you go back to then, what is Jesus doing?

He is preparing for His own sacrifice. This was part of God's plan. Jesus knew about the state of the rooms for them to use. He was the Son of God incarnate. Through the centuries, God had ordained the very practices of the Passover specifically in order to prepare his people to understand what Jesus was doing right now.

So friends, just get that in your mind. So what Brittany read us earlier from Exodus 12, those instructions, those instructions all those centuries before had been given specifically because of what God Himself planned to do through Christ this very time, in this night, in the day to come. That's why those rules, those practices were there. The Lamb to be slain was to foreshadow the fate of the Lamb of God, the Messiah, which fate even now was being worked out in Jesus' life. For those of you who aren't longtime church attenders, let me just take a few moments to remember how and why this annual meal of unleavened bread and the Passover lamb, how it began and why.

If you go back 1,500 years before Jesus, the descendants of Abraham had grown into a nation. They had come through Abraham's grandson, Jacob, to be multiplied and they had followed one son, Joseph, down into Egypt. And after a few centuries there, the Bible says they had multiplied greatly and became became exceedingly numerous so that the land was filled with them. Well the Pharaohs, the rulers of Egypt, enslaved the Israelites and oppressed them with forced labor and worked them ruthlessly. Through some amazing acts of God, he raised up Moses and working great wonders he made the Egyptians fear the Israelites and fear their God and even desire to be rid of them.

But the Pharaoh did not want to lose his labor. So God sent an angel of death to kill the firstborn son of all the families and to show conclusively that he was God alone and that it was his will for the Israelites to be freed and that will was to be obeyed. And this is where we come to the Passover itself that we read about. The judgment for disobedience would befall everyone in Egypt. Except for God's own people who followed His instructions to prepare to leave.

They were to make bread in a hurry so they weren't going to be using leaven because they didn't have any time. And they were to kill a lamb and eat it. The loaf and the lamb. Furthermore, the lamb's blood was to be put around the entry to the house, thus marking all those inside as those for whom the lamb was slain. And as those who were therefore to be spared from God's judgment that was about to befall the land and all its inhabitants.

So the lambs were slain and God's judgment came, but it passed over... it passed over all the houses marked by the lamb's blood. Did you hear that? One of the last verses that we just heard from Exodus, chapter 12. Verse 13, the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are and when I see the blood, I will pass over you and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

The judgment came, the firstborn died, the Egyptians wailed and mourned, and the Pharaoh finally obeyed and let God's people go.

The Israelites left in the great migration called the Exodus. And every year at that time, they observed such a feast that God had appointed for them to recall God's deliverance of them, His ransoming them out of slavery when He had made them His own special people. So for centuries, the Jews had observed the Passover rituals annually in the month of Nisan, in the spring. The days of Moses, It became ancient history, as did the days of Joshua and the judges and of Samuel and of David and Solomon, too, and the kings and prophets that followed them. But through it all, the Passover was kept annually in the spring.

Lambs were slain. Deliverance was remembered. Faith in God and His provision for His people was encouraged. Even in the dark days of the people in exile in Babylon, they came and went as God removed his people from their land and then restored them to it. For hundreds of years after the last of the Old Testament prophets had prophesied, this annual feast had been faithfully observed, partly still in memory of what God had done partly in hope of what God would still do.

Foreigners conquered the land, Greeks and then Syrians and then Romans too. It was in the days of the Roman rule that the one came whose life we've been studying in Luke's gospel, Jesus Christ. His family had brought him as a faithful Jewish family to observe the Passover in Jerusalem when he was 12 years old. Moses had told them in Deuteronomy 16 to sacrifice as the Passover to the Lord your God an animal from your flock or herd at the place the Lord will choose as a dwelling for His name. Well that place was Jerusalem where David had planned and Solomon had built the temple of the Lord where the Ark of the Covenant was kept and the sacrifices offered.

Now in the last year of His ministry, in the last week Jesus would spend with His disciples. He began the last day of His incarnate life. Remember that the Jews counted the beginning of the day at sunset. So just as we read Genesis 1:5, and there was evening and there was morning, the first day. So what had been Thursday all day with the going down of the sun becomes Friday night.

His last Thursday was a special day, the day of preparation for the Passover, the day on which thousands and thousands of lambs would have been offered in sacrifice at the temple of the Lord. As the blood flowed, then the Israelites would bring the meat to groups of 10 or 12 that would have gathered in those family groups to celebrate God's goodness. They would gather to remember the first Passover and how God had brought them out of Egypt in slavery and they would hope that God would again deliver them and send them the promised King who would deliver them fully and finally. Our passage this morning finds us on that Thursday of the preparation day. And the beginning of that last day of Jesus' earthly life, the celebration that night of the Passover, only what the disciples didn't understand when they prepared the meal, or even when they sat down to it, would be that this was the last Passover meal.

And Jesus' last meal with them before he would be killed. And the first celebration for what we've come to call the Lord's Supper, our regular preview of the great celebration of the marriage supper of the Lamb. In verse 14 we read, Jesus and the apostles reclined at table, and Jesus said explicitly what he was intending by his coming death is suffering, as he called it there at the end of verse 15. This is the suffering that's symbolized in the Lord's Supper. In verse 16, he seemed to allude to a future meal he would share with them.

More on that in a moment. Verse 17 is one of three or four cups that they shared during a Passover meal. Verse 18 makes it clear that this would be Jesus' last such meal with them. But in verse 19, Jesus reinterprets the Passover, turning its focus from deliverance under Moses to the deliverance He was about to undertake for them. Jesus was coming to die, as He says in the end of verse 20, to make a new covenant.

But even the supper that night wasn't establishing a new covenant. As Jesus said, it would be His blood poured out. That would become the basis for a new arrangement between God and His people, a new covenant. And no blood was poured out at the table that night. Jesus' blood continued to circulate in Jesus' body.

Jesus here took the language of Jeremiah 31 to explain His own death. Look back at Jeremiah chapter 31, beginning at verse 29.

In those days they shall no longer say, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.' But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest,' declares the Lord, 'for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.' you' can make a note to read more about that in Hebrews 8 and 9 this afternoon.

There's clear explanation. About what the Lord was doing there. There we read in Hebrews 9:15 about Christ, He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. And in Hebrews 9:26, He has appeared once for all time at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. So friends, just understand very clearly, the miracle at the meal that night wasn't transubstantiation.

A medieval idea, first constructed centuries after Jesus. The miracle was that the Son of God was there in the flesh, proclaiming that at the cross, the pouring out of his blood, he was going to bear the penalty for his people's sins. Friends, what do you think will protect you from God's wrath against you? Because of your sins. What sufficient answer or shield do you have for that good and right wrath?

The good news is that God has provided such an answer for our sins, such an answer to His own righteous demands of us as those made in His image. He has sent His only Son to be a sacrifice bearing his right and just and good wrath against all who violate his image, who don't trust him as he should be trusted. Jesus has freely taken on that role, has lived a perfect life that we should have lived, a life of trust, and has died specifically in the place of all of us that would turn in trust. In him. That's good news.

He calls you to come to know this forgiveness for your sins through faith in Christ. Jesus' death on the cross was the sacrifice that ratified this new covenant which was foreshadowed in the Passover of old and all the sin and guilt offerings of the Old Testament, but which exceeded and replaced them all. All the promises made in the sacrifices in the Old Testament were about to be fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus. Prefigured in this meal set before them that evening, Jesus who had come in order to die to establish the new covenant at the cross. That's the main thing we learn in this passage.

And the main thing we learn specifically about what Jesus was doing at the cross. But Jesus also stresses something here At the cross, the second thing, Jesus submitted Himself to His Father's will. Jesus submitted Himself to His Father's will. Look again, beginning verse 21, But behold, the hand of Him who 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!

And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this. In verse 22, Jesus' reference to the Son of Man is a reference to Himself.

And then the verb goes, the Son of Man goes, is a reference to the course of events, particularly in this matter of His blood being poured out on the cross. But see how He describes it here, as it has been determined. This is the same idea we're going to run into in our next study in Luke's gospel when we come to his prayer on the Mount of Olives. When Jesus is praying there to his Father, and he refers to the cup of his suffering that he was about to drink in the prayer, Not my will, but yours be done. That was a personalized form and application of the very prayer he had earlier taught his disciples to pray, Our Father in heaven, your will be done.

The Apostle Peter would echo this same language soon after Jesus' resurrection and ascension in his sermon at Pentecost, in which Peter in Acts 2:23 referred to this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. So this night at His last supper, Jesus taught that His crucifixion and even the betrayal that led to it was a part of that which had been determined, had been determined by whom? By the one whom Jesus addressed down in verse 42 as Father, by God Himself.

Now, understandably, the disciples that evening were shocked by Jesus' statement that He would to go to his death in some sense by the betrayal of one of them. But keeping our eyes steadily on that, we kind of fail to notice his language of it having been determined, insisting on it as the sovereign plan of God throughout. Now, if your mind is immediately surrounded by questions of, well, how is Judas responsible if God has sovereignly determined this? Those are great questions. Which I am right now about to not answer.

But I remind you of a series of four sermons we had earlier this year on Job chapter three, the three on Job three and then the overview sermon of Job. I would encourage you, if you're really wondering those things, go and listen to those sermons on Job chapter three and particularly that overview sermon where we looked at Job one and two, where I think we see a more extended treatment of exactly this question. But friends, for our purposes now, just see the incarnate Son of God faced the temptation to sin, to make His will different from His heavenly Father's, as we'll consider again next time when we come to Jesus' prayer after this on the Mount of Olives. But in the language Jesus used here at the supper, He is insistent on seeing all this as the determined plan of God, and it is a plan that He is fully planning on submitting to and bringing to pass, and thus seeing the new covenant established by the pouring out of His blood. Now, of course, in verse 22, that man, that man, that's Judas.

And Judas was responsible for his terrible betrayal of Jesus. We thought about that some in our sermon last time. We considered how sinisterly important Judas was because the Romans had the power and authority in an earthly sense to kill Jesus, but Jerusalem's religious leaders were the ones who wanted Jesus dead and they had no power to do it. They needed Roman power for that. And they would need to deliver Jesus to the Roman authorities quickly.

And they were nervous about the crowds destabilizing the situation, so they seemed to understand a need to act quietly and in secret in getting Jesus. But to do that, they would have to know how to find Jesus apart from the crowds. And that meant they needed knowledge they didn't have. They needed insider knowledge, and that's where Judas comes in. He was the key to the religious leaders bringing their plans to pass.

But friends, don't misunderstand. The cross would not be some human tragedy derailing God's attempts to sending a Messiah to deliver His people. It would instead be the very means of God using even the most crooked of sticks, a greedy, lying hypocrite of a disciple, so-called teachers of God's law, in fact conspiring to kill his son, occupying Roman forces that would value short-lived peace and order over justice and righteousness in killing an innocent man, all of these crooked sticks would be taken up and used sovereignly by God for his good purposes. Look at the believer's prayer in Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4.

This is not that long after this evening we're looking at. See how they summarize in prayer this action, beginning Acts chapter 4, beginning verse 24. Acts 4, beginning verse 24. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, 'Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. Friends, this is very much again like Job chapter 1. So if you wanna think more about this thorny question, this prayer, Acts chapter 4, could be helpful for you to meditate on later. You see that there is real responsibility. Now Judas had real responsibility.

His disobedience in this passage though shouldn't distract us from Jesus' obedience. Which is the main thing in these verses. Brothers and sisters, I pray that we can find that same trust in God to inspire that same kind of complete obedience today. The Son perfectly submitted himself to his heavenly Father at the cross. That's the big news.

More than the means which got him there, the betrayal of Judas. At the cross, number three, Jesus reestablished our relationship with God. At the cross, Jesus reestablished our relationship with God. Look again at our passage beginning with verse 24. A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.

And He said to them, 'The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table?

But I am among you as the one who serves.

You are those who have stayed with Me in My trials. And I assign to you, as My Father assigned to Me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

I have gotten more comments this week in emails from you about this than anything else. People wondering, why did they go into this discussion about greatness right after he said that someone would betray him, one of them would betray him? Well, friends, I agree it seems like a strange time, but I just want to point out that Luke doesn't say that this is when this discussion happened. Very interesting. He simply says there in verse 24, a dispute also arose among them.

And when we look at the parallel accounts in Mark and Matthew, they don't mention this dispute going on right then. They don't mention this dispute happening after Judas has been pointed out in Jesus's words. They both record it, but they record it as having happened a few days before. Luke 2 records an argument like this is already having happened back in chapter 9. Apparently the disciples tended to fall into these disputes about who was the greatest among them, about status comparatively.

Luke references it here, I think, to contrast the supreme greatness of the supreme servant, Jesus Christ, as he comes down to his supreme act of service to lay down his life as a ransom for many with the kind of greatness that was expected of a promised Messiah at the time. The Messiah they thought would lead to military conquest, political independence. But that's the world's expectation. That's what the disciples had reflected in their own discussions of human greatness. That's why I think Luke recounts the discussion here.

The most amazing thing here though is that statement that stretched across verses 28, 29 and 30 about the disciples eating and drinking at my table in my kingdom. Though he was going to die, Jesus was confident of his ultimate victory. He's just said one of their number would betray him. And according to John's gospel in John 13:30 we see Judas left at that point. As John remembered the drama of the night, John records, After receiving the morsel of bread, Judas immediately went out.

And it was night.

But of these disciples in front of Jesus that night, sharing his table, though they would shrink away from him in the coming hours, and Peter would even deny him, still, because of what Jesus was doing, by sacrificing himself on the cross, the relationship of all of us sinners, including these very disciples, including many of us here today, Those of us who are his disciples, who are sinners, yes, but repenting sinners, and trusting in him, that relationship with God would be reestablished. And so reestablished that here Jesus could paint the picture of a joyful future feasting together at his table in his kingdom forever. As Marcus Loane has put it so memorably, the voice that spells forgiveness will say, you, may go. You have been let off the penalty which your sins deserve. But the verdict which means acceptance will say, you, may come.

You are welcome to all my love and my presence. Friends, this is the all-access pass purchased by Jesus for those of us who trust in him, who repent of our sins, and put our faith in Him. We are the ones who trust in the one who has poured out His blood for many, for the forgiveness of sins. This is the fellowship between God and man that's reestablished here, that He accomplished at the cross. The Passover meal began to take on more explicit aspects of what Revelation 19:9 calls the marriage supper of the Lamb, the final feast that we share together in the presence of God.

We are promised to eat and drink in Christ's table, even to be rulers with him. Brothers and sisters, we have a great future ahead of us in Christ, all because of Christ's work on the cross, Christ's reestablishing our relationship with God at the cross. That's what's going on here. Another thing that we can see from this account at the cross, number four, Jesus suffered for our sins. Jesus suffered for our sins.

Look again at verses 31 to 34, verses 31 to 34.

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Peter said to Him, 'Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death. ' Jesus said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until three times you deny that you know Me.

Oh, friends, do be cautioned by Peter's distorted self-knowledge.

My dear wife always says about me, always confident, sometimes right.

She knows me well. We might say the same about Peter. What about you this morning? Friend, are you confident? Are you right in your confidence?

What relationships do you have in place that will help to undo the distortions a wrong confidence might bring in your own life?

Brothers and sisters, be encouraged by the fact that God uses repentant sinners. How heartening is this account?

He's so clear with Peter here. He not only predicts Peter's denial, but he implicitly predicts Peter's repentance, and beyond that he exhorts Peter to have a ministry of strengthening his brothers. Friends, in this church we recognize that Satan's full-time work is to accuse the brethren. He does it all the time. Sometimes the accusations are true, sometimes the accusations are false.

But to accuse the brethren is what he does. It's his work. What a comfort it is to know that Jesus is powerfully interceding for us today, if we are his own, even as he did for Peter. Remember Paul's words in Romans 8:34, who is to condemn? Christ is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Romans 8:34. That wasn't a special perk merely of Peter alone. That's the perk of all of us who are of His people, His chosen, those that He has owned. The people that Jesus was about to die for were sinners. In fact, He was dying for them because they were sinners.

These particular men were sinners. Peter, the leader of all the disciples, had agreed to sin that he was just about to commit coming up. In fact, commit three times. All of the disciples would forsake Jesus though. It wasn't just Peter.

You look down in Luke chapter 22, looked at the betrayal and arrest of Jesus later that night. You see that paragraph 47 to 53? Well, Matthew in his account adds one more sentence at the end of it. Then all the disciples left him and fled. It wasn't just Peter.

Peter did that, but so did everybody else. At the cross, Jesus didn't just show us the way, but he made himself the way for sinners. Jesus denying sinners like Peter, he made a way to believe in him, to turn again after sin, to be forgiven by this one because of the one who at the cross had suffered for our very sins. Can you imagine a more sufficient Savior?

If you've got something better to do, all right, but if you don't, this afternoon, read 1 Peter, short letter, and just think of the man who wrote this letter. He had this encounter with Jesus, and then he writes these words in chapter 1 of 1 Peter: This is how he expressed it to other believers: Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.

That's not merely a theological image. That's a man He knew. With the precious blood of Christ. That's a man. At his crucial hour, he denied knowing.

I remember one friend telling me of the guilt he felt as a teenager having a sadly typical teenage exchange with his father. His father's dropping him off at school. He yells at him some terrible phrase like, Dad, I hate you. And he gets the call during the day that his father's died of a heart attack.

The timing of Peter's denial couldn't be worse. It's at the very time where Jesus is going to die for us doing things like denying him. And yet Peter can write about the precious blood of Christ. Paul summarizes to the believers in Corinth, I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Jesus didn't just suffer for our sins in the sense that humans like us betrayed him and denied him.

It's not just that the sins of humans like us led him to the cross, though we were the circumstances for that, but paying the debt of our sins, substituting himself for us as the object of God's right wrath was Jesus motivation for going to the cross in that sense. Jesus died for us. He died for our sins. It was the love that Jesus had for sinners like Peter that would let him look at this disciple boasting of courage who was in fact a coward and tell him of his defense of Peter against Satan's demands and of his prayer for Peter. And of such confidence in Peter's future repentance that he could even look past this coming denial and encourage Peter in a future envisioned ministry of strengthening his brothers.

Friends, can you imagine such a love for someone who has wronged you? And you and I all deserve to be wronged sometimes. But from one like Jesus, who's never been anything other than perfectly good, perfectly righteous, perfectly loving, to be treated as Peter did, and yet to then be able to look on Peter with such love, such grace, such mercy towards people like us, people who have sinned against him as Peter did.

Our sins were the reason that Jesus would suffer so at the cross. And His suffering would be sufficient. That blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins would not fail to achieve its end. At the cross, Jesus' substitutionary suffering would so fulfill the law's demands, the demands of God's own righteousness, that sinners like Peter and like you and like me could be welcomed forever into God's presence. No longer enemies, but now friends adopted and beloved, all because of Jesus, God's wrath and justice satisfying death on the cross.

Praise the Lord for who it is that has loved us and for how he has loved us. One more thing to notice that Jesus was teaching that He would do at the cross. Number five, Jesus proved the Scriptures true. Jesus proved the Scriptures true. Look again at verse 35.

And He said to them, 'When I sent you out with no money bag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?' and they said, 'Nothing.' He said to them, 'But now let the one who has a money bag take it, and likewise a knapsack; and let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in Me: 'and He was numbered with the transgressors.

For what is written about Me has its fulfillment. And they said, Look, Lord, here are two swords. And He said to them, It is enough. The Scripture that must be fulfilled that He's referring to here is back in Isaiah, chapter 53, turn there. Isaiah, chapter 53.

Look at the last two verses of this now famous chapter.

Isaiah 53, beginning at verse 11: Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied; By His knowledge shall the Righteous One, My Servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. That's the bit Jesus cites. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. What Jesus is saying here in these somewhat enigmatic verses is that the Messiah of Israel, would be Himself in His own body made an offering for the guilt of His people.

This is not how the nation of Israel had been thinking of the Messiah that was to come. They had imagined a less radical problem and needing a less radical solution. They thought they needed something merely military, merely political. They didn't realize that their own sins had so alienated them from their holy Creator that they were piling up for themselves God's righteous judgments that would sink them forever. And their only hope was a righteousness as big and complete and perfect as Jesus is.

The only perfect righteousness in our fallen world enough to be numbered with the transgressors treated like them that is, even though he was not one. Righteous enough that he could carry the sin of many and pray effectually for all of us who would trust in him even as he had earlier prayed for Peter and so spared him the spiritual destruction that he that he deserved and that Satan desired for him. That is what the Scripture said would happen. That the servant of the Lord, the servant of the Lord, would be, ironically, unjustly, numbered with the transgressors. And yet by being so counted and treated as a transgressor, by that very crucifixion, he would bear the sin of many.

And Jesus would once again show the accuracy and the reliability and the trustworthiness and the truth of even the most surprising prophecies in the Bible. How would the servant of Yahweh be numbered with the transgressors?

This is how. This is what was happening at the cross. The servant of the Lord was numbered with the transgressors. The other language here in these verses, in verses 35 and 36 and verse 38, seemed to be about the hostility that Jesus' followers were about to face. So Jesus, who had just entered Jerusalem triumphantly to shouts and cheers days before, was about to be rejected.

With shouts and jeers as a transgressor. And if the disciples continued to follow him, they had better be prepared for a sea change in what it was going to be like. Because when the 72 were sent out earlier, they didn't need to take anything because people were glad to have them. They would care for them. But it would not be like that going forward.

A persecution would follow. Even as it had followed Jesus Himself to the cross. So Jesus here is giving His would-be followers a sharp warning that they cannot deify themselves and ungod Jesus by demanding comfort and popular acceptance. If they're going to follow Jesus, they can't demand those things that Jesus Himself did not receive, not if they're going to follow Him. Just as Jesus was about to be rejected, so if they truly recognized him for who he was, they would have to be willing to lay down their own lives in following him.

They were just hours away from experiencing this in the temple officers, the crowd with swords and clubs mentioned down in verse 47 and following. In Romans 8:17 Paul wrote that we are heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Paul knew something of such. Sufferings for following Christ, didn't he? He writes to the Corinthians about imprisonments with countless beatings, often near death.

He goes on and he states that for the sake of Christ then I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. Friends, one of the joys of the travels I've just had was seeing various friends who've been members here who now live in India, Malaysia, across Southeast Asia and even East Asia. Just this morning, I was getting a text from one of those pastors who used to be in the internship program here, who's in a large country in East Asia where his church has been being harassed, people being threatened to be taken away because they're meeting regularly. But friends, this is not finally surprising to him because he reads his Bible and he sees what Jesus taught his own followers. So if we would like a religion in which there is no persecution, we need a different religion.

Our Savior went to the cross. If we would follow Him, our lot is not only suffering. It's not like a Buddhist entire self-abnegation. It's not at all what Christianity teaches. But there is a period of time in which, yes, we die to self because we trust that God then gives us new life in Christ.

We follow Christ and we take the opposition that Christ faced. Jesus proved the Scripture true even as he died on the cross. What the Scripture predicted would happen. Friends, this is a rich passage. We have just scratched the surface, but we should conclude.

The Lord's Supper, which we intend to celebrate together next Sunday night, So go ahead and mark that on your calendar, change some plans if you need to. We do it each month. We do that in obedience to Christ's command here, to do it in remembrance of Christ. As Jesus taught here in verse 19, the point of the supper isn't the supper. That's why this hasn't been a sermon on the supper.

The point of the supper is the cross and all that Christ was to achieve. In it, which he taught us by means of the supper. Over 500 years ago, this coming Tuesday, God kindly used the Reformation to stop many from staring blankly and blindly at the window of the Mass and to look through it to what Jesus said the Lord's Supper was to do, to cause his people to remember his death You see, for many years, in many countries, distorted symbols of Christ's death, a butchered celebration of the supper where the cup was never given to the people. It was told that virtue came by seeing the hosts, the victim elevated. Bleeding statues, fanciful sermons, Luther Mock said, about blue ducks, things that were just made up, mangled the gospel.

Even in so-called Christian churches. God used Martin Luther, among others, to have a single-eyed focus on the question of how he, a sinner, could be declared okay by and with God. And the answer was only through faith in Christ and what he had done on the cross, only through the very message set forth at the supper. As the message was recovered, new life broke out. And the news of it spread.

And for the first time in too long, people were being told that they could know that they were forgiven by God. Friends, do you realize that for centuries, people who came to churches that thought of themselves as Christians were told that it was a sin to believe you could confidently know that you were forgiven and in a state where you could know that you would be accepted by God? But now they began to be taught the Scriptures. And they could see that they could know this not because of their own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of Christ that was given to them. This was glorious news and it turned towns and cities and whole countries upside down.

And this message of forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ has never been fully eclipsed since then. And it comes down to us today as we read the Bible in our own language. Even us doing that here today is a result of that reformation. And as we study it together every Sunday, more fruit of the Reformation, that we have sermons like this. As we have the Lord's Supper next Sunday night, more fruit of the Reformation.

That was not happening before the Reformation. Friends, so in our individual lives, as we hear testimonies like Clark's last Sunday, as we hear what God has done in our lives, we are changed forever because of Jesus Christ and what he did at the cross. Do you see that? Do you see all that the supper is beginning to show us? Listen now to this great hope captured in the words of our final hymn.

You'll find it on page 15 in your bulletin. Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears. Before the throne my surety stands, that is my promise.

Before the throne my surety stands, my name is written on his hands. Five bleeding wounds he bears, the hands, the feet, the side. Received on Calvary, they pour effectual prayers, they strongly plead for me. Forgive him, oh forgive, they cry, nor let that ransomed sinner die. The Father hears him pray, his dear anointed one.

He cannot turn away the presence of his Son. His Spirit answers to the blood and tells me I am born of God. My God is reconciled. His pardoning voice I hear. He owns me for his child.

I can no longer fear with confidence I now draw nigh and Father, Abba, Father, cry. Let's stand and sing together.