(Text and Audio)
Title: Blood Money, Part One
Anyone here like cheesecake?
How big a piece of cheesecake can or should you eat? Why?
Todays sermon may very well be cheesecake. Not that big, but very, very RICH.
“seeing that he had been condemned”
Was Judas surprised that the Sanhedrin decided to kill Jesus?
Did he not realize the severity of their hate for Jesus?
Remorse Vs. Repentance
Judas becomes remorseful once Jesus has been condemned. So you can see a scenario where Judas is saying to himself “I never thought it would go this far, I am so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused.” But that is precisely the issue. Jesus being condemned is what triggered Judas’s remorse. It wasn’t until it had gone “too far” that he became sorry.
Friends, this is not repentance, this is just remorse, and we must understand the difference between the two.
Remorse is when you are sorry you did something.
Repentance is when you change the way you live.
Packer: The first command of both Jesus and John the Baptist in the Gospel of Matthew is “Repent!” Repentance is not just sorry for sin, but a decisive change, a turning away from sin and to a life of obedience. “Repent” translates the Old Testament call to Israel to “return” to faithfulness in the covenant. It does not mean self-punishment, depression or remorse. Judas was sorrowful and distressed, but not repentant.
“I have sinned”
Yes, Judas acknowledges his sin, but that is not repentance. We see that Judas returns the silver but that is not repentance. (we will talk about the chief priests and elders in a moment) We see that he then goes and hangs himself in a field, but that is not repentance.
So here is my $25,000 question this morning.
What is repentance?
More specifically, what would repentance have looked like for Judas on this day? (Take Answers)
- Acknowledging the sin before those he sinned against (Jesus, the Apostles) NOT acknowledging the sin before those he sinned with.
- Choosing to live a life fully devoted to God in faith and grace.
- Accepting the consequences for his actions, trusting that he is sealed in God’s will.
What Judas does, while apologetic and tragic, fulfills NONE of these requirements.
Close: The Predictable Response of the Chief Priests
There is a foreshadowing element to the manner in which the chief priests respond to Judas’s attempt to right himself.
They essentially say, “It’s not our problem, it’s yours.”
Notice they did not deny that it was sin. They can’t claim indifference because they were the ones that paid the blood money for Judas’s betrayal. They are attempting to pass the issue of responsibility on to Judas alone saying, “Just because we paid you didn’t mean you had to go through with it. Don’t try to put this on us. If you thought he was innocent you should not have betrayed him.
Where is the foreshadowing?
Well, in just a few weeks we will see Jesus appear before Pilate, after Pilate insists that Jesus be freed and he will say to the people, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.”
You see, both Pilate and the Chief Priests are guilty of the same crime. They are both guilty of rationalizing their own sin away on the basis of, “well, I didn’t pull the trigger.”
Friends, God sees through all of that. He judges the intention of the heart. We must remember that verse I just can’t stop quoting from this pulpit in Hebrews 4:13 “All things will be uncovered and laid naked before the eyes of a God to whom we must give account.”
Pray/Q&A