It is always great to be together on Sunday. It is great to be together this week after we spent time with family and friends
specifically giving thanks for the goodness of our God. I am glad to be with you all today.
If you’re visiting today, if you’re looking for a church family – a church home – I welcome you. I know it is a difficult thing
to step into the unknown and try out a new church. Today God has moved you to come here. On our website, you will
find lots of information about what we believe and what happens here. In that green handout, you see some specific
activities. This morning, you will hear and see a lot of things that will give you some indication of what we’re about.
It is important to feel safe and welcome and cared for in a church family. We seek to BE that kind of church family. It
makes no difference to us what your life is – what sins you find yourself committing, what your weaknesses are – we are all
in a similar boat. We all deal with areas of life that we show our lack when compared to God. That’s the only comparison
we can make. It does no good to compare to one another – you and I might have different sins, but sin is sin is sin is sin.
Yours is no worse than mine and mine is no better than yours.
The place we go to find our comparison is God’s Word. The Bible tells us who God is and what He’s like. The Bible tells
us who WE are and what we’re like. We find in God’s Word the absolute truth and the basis of life the way it should be
lived. That’s what you’ll find here. You may not like all the music – that’s OK. You may find it difficult to meet new
people – we know. But as a welcome center for the Kingdom of God, you will hear and, as much as we know how, you
will SEE the truth of God in us and from us. And we will work hard to help you feel at home. So welcome.
We’re going to think about some difficult questions today. How can God have no beginning and no end? What is the
relationship between the Father, the Son and the Spirit? How did God inspire people to write His Word? Why did God
call the Israelites to kill off everyone in the Promised Land as they came in? What does God want me to do for Him?
Many of us have lots of questions about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We have questions about things God has done
that don’t make sense to us. We have questions about issues we struggle with that God seems silent about. We have
questions about what happens for all eternity after we die. Lots of questions.
May I encourage all of us – God is able to handle and answer every question we have. He has ALL the answers. He
might give us the answers and He might not (in THIS life). But He DOES have all the answers. So bring your questions to
Him. He won’t get mad at you. Being the loving Father He is, He knows what we can understand, what we can handle
and WHEN we need to know the answers. As we seek Him with all our hearts, He communicates with us. So if you have
questions, pursue answers in His Word. That’s where He communicates first.
Since we are in Luke 6 in our series looking at the life of the Lord Jesus Christ – a REAL Human Life – where Jesus names
12 of His followers to be apostles, and He includes Judas Iscariot in that group, let’s look at some of the questions we have
about this choice and this man. Before we get to those questions and the Word of God, let’s ask for our Teacher’s help.
PRAY
If Jesus spent the whole night in prayer to the Father before He appointed His 12 apostles, why was Judas Iscariot
chosen? What was it about Judas that God wanted as Jesus chose His closest followers? Is Judas saved? Is he in heaven
or hell? If God knew what Judas would do, why did He choose him? Did God MAKE Judas to go to hell, if he’s there?
If God did something like that with Judas – couldn’t He do something like that with ME? Is that the kind of God I want to
serve?
These are difficult questions, but God is not scared of us asking and He is not hiding anything from us to keep us in the
dark. God is the God of full disclosure – everything we need to know, we CAN know.
We had a brief introduction last week to Judas. We know that he was from the town of Kerioth. I mentioned last week
that Iscariot was not his last name – I was wrong. In Luke 22:3 it says that Iscariot was his surname – his last name or his
family name. It still means “from Kerioth.” So it is true that Kerioth was his hometown or where his family was from. His
father’s name was Simon. John 12:6 says that Judas was a thief. He had the control of the “money box” of the followers
of Jesus. We don’t know how that came to be – whether Jesus put him in that position or he wormed his way into it.
We don’t have a lot to go on as far as his personality except that he was a thief AND that he didn’t like it when right before
the crucifixion, a woman poured some really expensive perfume on Jesus AND that he made a deal with the religious
leaders to turn Jesus in. Some of the Gospel writers make it sound as though Judas went to the religious leaders with a
scheme to make a financial benefit from turning in Jesus. I think it may be safe to say that Judas was a money worshiper.
Not unlike some of us, I might add.
Let’s deal with one of our questions – why would the Father lead Jesus to invite a person like Judas into His inner circle?
He is a thief and a money worshiper. He pretty clearly didn’t have many friends among the other disciples – no one speaks
of him with any hint of acceptance or compassion. Why would the Father put a person like that in this kind of important
position?
Here’s our starting place for an answer – what other kind of person did the Father have to choose from? If you had been
there among the followers of Jesus on the day He appointed the apostles, would you have been a better candidate? What
makes you think that? If we see ourselves as more valuable to God than some other person, we may be under the
impression that God has a point scale for sin. If He does, I’d like to see it. It’s not there. Judas was flawed and sinful,
yes. So was Peter. So was John. So was Paul. So are YOU.
Everyone Jesus chose – under the direction of the Father – had sin issues in his life. We talked a little bit about that last
Sunday. Matthew was a cheating, gouging tax collector. Simon the Zealot was a legalist who took it upon himself to make
sure that “sinners” against the Law of Moses got what was coming to them. Bartholomew was prejudiced against people
from Nazareth. Every one of the other men had their internal struggles with sin. I imagine as fishermen, Peter, Andrew,
James and John had certain words that they probably didn’t want Jesus to hear.
So why would God the Father lead Jesus to choose Judas? Why would God the Father lead Jesus to choose ANYONE?
In choosing any of us, He immediately has sin to deal with. Judas was no different. A sinful man, a person who saw
something interesting in Jesus and began to follow Him. Obviously, since Jesus chose the 12 from out of His disciples,
Judas was a disciple – a learner/follower. Since he was also a money worshiper, he may have been a follower because he
saw some possible financial benefits to hanging around this miracle worker.
Why would God the Father lead Jesus to choose ME? Why would He lead Jesus to choose YOU? Should we start
talking about the areas of our lives where we sin and fail God and trust in ourselves? Maybe we should – actually, James
tells us to. Not necessarily in church to a large group, but James 5:16 says to “confess your trespasses to one another that
you may be healed.” Our point right now is that Jesus chose Judas because God had plans for Judas – the same kind of
plans He has for you and me. Jeremiah 29:11 in the NASB says, “For I know the plans I have for you – plans for good
and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” This was just as true for Judas as it is for anyone. What happened?
Reality is that Judas didn’t believe. He never relinquished the control of his life to the Lord. Jesus says in John 15:10, “If
you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love.” In fact, turn to John 15. Jesus had just identified Judas as the
one who would betray Him. Judas had left the group and Jesus went on to teach some extremely important truths that WE
can also apply. John 15:1-8. READ. Judas didn’t abide in Jesus, so, as a non-believer, he was cast out.
So was Judas saved? It doesn’t seem like it. In other places Jesus refers to him as a devil and as the son of perdition or
son of destruction. And if Judas wasn’t saved, then he did not take advantage of the free gift of the forgiveness of sins that
Jesus offers. I will say, though, that the determination of whether a person is saved or not is NOT up to you or me. God
knows who are His (2 Timothy 2:19). It is not our job to try to assign people to heaven or hell. Our job is to love people
and show them the living Jesus in our lives. Judas literally SAW the living Jesus and rejected Him.
Did Judas have any chance of NOT being the one who betrayed Jesus? Did God choose him for that purpose and
guarantee that he would be lost? Some of us may not be too comfortable with the answer to these questions that I’m going
to submit. God is God and He does what He pleases (Psalm 115:3). His ways are not our ways – they are higher than our
ways (Isaiah 55:9). We do know that God is not willing that ANY should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance
(2 Peter 3:9), so could He have chosen Judas to be lost?
Turn to Romans 9:14-23. READ. Regardless of how WE think, it looks like Judas had just as much opportunity to trust
Jesus as anyone else (a LOT more than us – he was FACE TO FACE with Jesus for 3 years). In the whole sphere of
God’s predestination and foreknowledge – which is difficult, if not impossible, to understand – the fact remains that God is
FAIR and JUST and RIGHT and LOVING. He is who He is, no matter what may make us think He is not. There is no
question that when Judas stands before the judgment seat of God he will NOT be able to claim he had no choice. We may
not see it clearly or understand it fully, but by FAITH, we believe it.
One of the questions this whole issue may bring up – if God caused Judas to be that way, could God cause ME to be that
way? My answer to that is, most likely not – but one thing you and I can do to kind of give us a guarantee against that is to
stay as close to Jesus as we know how. If I am tiptoeing as close to sin as I can get, I SHOULD have a lot of questions
about my relationship with God. But if I seek to follow Jesus as closely as I know how, those questions probably aren’t
going to be part of my thinking. And we know that we stay close to Jesus by getting to know Him through His Word.
There are some general principles we can learn from Jesus and Judas Iscariot, too. One of them is that some people –
some church people – may appear to be true followers of Jesus for a while, but all of a sudden, or slowly over time, they
seem to drop out. It happened with the 12. It happened to Jesus. Did Jesus like it? I don’t think so, I think He reached
out to Judas until the last moment. So if we see people drifting away, we ought to pursue them. And we should realize that
it is their own decision to follow Jesus or not follow Him. Jesus finally let Judas go do what he had in his mind to do.
Another general principle we can see is that if we don’t yield ourselves to Jesus, we can be carried off by our temperament
or our personality to make poor choices. Every personality trait we have – even the negative ones – God is able to use to
accomplish His purposes if He’s given the chance. Judas was a money worshiper. God could have used Judas to be an
example of generosity if Judas had yielded himself to Jesus. But he never gave it up. Each of us should examine how we
are made and submit each trait to our Maker for Him to use for His purposes.
Today as we close, I want to encourage all of us to take stock of who we are and how we’re made. The difficult questions
we asked about Judas could just as easily be asked about us. We are no different than him. Our sins are no less offensive
to God than his or than any other person’s. If we apply some kind of point scale to sins, we are making ourselves into
Pharisees – hypocritical religious judges. Our rating system of sins probably excuses our sin and holds the sin of others
higher. The truth is, we have nothing God needs for Him to be complete. He is not impressed with our abilities or our
cleverness. He MADE us.
We can certainly learn from Judas Iscariot to give ourselves fully to the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do
not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths (Proverbs 3:5,6).
We can and will avoid a lot of heartache and a lot of sin and a lot of difficulty if we will live by the principles of those 2
verses. We do not want to be those who betray Jesus or give Him up to the enemy. We do not want to fall away. We
desire to be fully devoted followers of the Lord Jesus, giving Him ourselves totally for His glory and honor.
He has done so much for us – we should all have many of those blessings and advantages in our minds after recounting
them this week together. Let’s devote ourselves to Jesus our Savior and allow Him to reach many others with His message
by using our lives – the lives of real human beings.
PRAY
As we come to the end of the Gospel of Luke, we will spend a little more time looking at the betrayal of Jesus by Judas.
Next Sunday we will go back to Luke 2 to look at the birth and delivery of Jesus the real human being.