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Go to Matthew chapter number 26. Now, this is my third time teaching this, and I know what service I'm at. And I see. I can see some of y', all, some of my 10, 15, a few of y', all, y' all stayed over. I see you. I'm looking right at you. I see you. Y' all got the bishop back. You gonna help me preach. All right, now, when I say this stuff, act like you didn't hear it at the last service now, all right? Matthew 26, verse 20 says, when evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the 12. And while they were eating, he said, truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me. And they were very sad and began to say to him, one after the other, surely you don't mean me, Lord. Jesus replied, the one who's dipped his hand in the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go, just as it was written about him. But woe to the man who betrays the Son of God. It would be better for him if he'd not been born. Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, surely you don't mean me, Rabbi. And Jesus answered, you have said so. I want to stop the reading of Scripture there and tag this title to this text family very simply, don't play in my face. Don't play in my face. For those who are unclear and unaware, the phrase don't play in my face is a cultural colloquialism that communicates don't confuse my kindness with weakness and don't confuse my silence with stupidity. It is a statement that is simply suggesting to others there is no need to be dishonest with me, deceptive with me, or disingenuous with me. I am adult enough and evolved enough to handle the truth, even if I don't like the truth. And although this is a cultural colloquialism, I believe it's a conversation we need to start having in Christian context. Because far too many well meaning, well intended and genuine and sincere saints are subjecting themselves to unnecessary abuse, avoidable exploitation, and discernible deception that sabotages their soul and destroys their destiny, all in the name of being Christian. And as a result of not being able to distinguish listen to this cultural niceness from kingdom kindness, they are ill equipped and ill prepared for inevitable encounters like we see in this text in Matthew, that every human will have that I'm calling a Judas experience. A Judas experience refers to the inevitable relational situations where you get a revelation that someone was close enough to share your Space, but not safe enough to be trusted with your heart. And to accurately understand what what this looks like, we need to accurately understand what Judas looks like. Because we may hear me say Judas and assume I mean something I don't mean. Judas was one of Jesus 12 disciples or apprentices. He is called Judas Iscariot, which suggests a couple of things. My ethnic Christian ethics professor, Dr. Max Stackhouse at Princeton said that Iscariot refers to either the town he was from and or the tribe he was a part of. The Sicari tribe, meaning dagger men or assassins. He is one of Jesus's watch this disciples who may have had watch this may have had a struggle either with lack or greed. Lack meaning he did not know how to handle seasons when he didn't have enough. Or greed meaning enough, never felt like enough. And we can say with confidence he had this struggle. Because the Bible refers to Judas being a man that was the keeper of the money bag. It means he is the equivalent of Jesus's treasurer. And the Bible says he was not only the keeper of the money bag. One translation, one gospel writer says he used to help himself to what was in it. So he was an embezzler. Right? This shows up in an instance where a woman takes precious ointment and begins to wipe and to wash Jesus feet. And Judas is the one who says we could have taken this, sold it and given the money to the poor. But the writer says he did not say that because he was concerned about the poor. He said that because he was the keeper of the money bag and used to help himself to what was in it. So he's embezzling from Jesus because he either doesn't know how to handle seasons when there's not enough, or he's struggling with greed. So enough never feels like enough. So when there's an opportunity to hand Jesus over to the officials, he sells Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver. So watch this. Pastor, why are you explaining this? Because this information should give us a revelation on who Judas is and who Judas is not. Judas is not the ops. Judas is not the enemy. The enemies of Jesus would be a group of religious leaders called the Pharisees. The enemies of Jesus. Come on. Would be a group of religious individuals called the Sadducees. The enemies of Jesus would be the officials in the Roman Empire. Judas was not an enemy of Jesus. Judas was a disciple of Jesus. Judas is not somebody who's at a distance. Judas is somebody who's close. Come here. He struggled with lack or greed. Pastor, what's the point Judas represents someone whose unaddressed and mismanaged brokenness is what leads to their betrayal. It is not a person you don't love, and it is not a person that doesn't love you. It is a person whose brother brokenness is so mismanaged that their love for you doesn't lead them in making decisions that actually treat you like they love you. Come on here. For Judas, it was. It was. Come on. It was greed or struggling with lack. But for somebody else, it's other issues that keep them from living in a way where their love is actually leading them in the decisions that. That they are actually making. And here's what's scary. Judas's actions are intentional, but his intent isn't to hurt you. Are y' all ready for this? His actions are intentional because you don't negotiate the price of betrayal without being intentional. But his intent isn't to hurt you. Because all Judas knew is that he was giving Jesus over to officials. He did not know Jesus was going to be ushered into a kangaroo court. He did not know Jesus would be convicted on trumped up charges. He did not know that even when governmental officials knew the right decision to make and said publicly, I find no fault with this man, they would be pressured into making immoral and illogical decisions to crucify Jesus. Judas just thought he was identifying, come on here. Identifying Jesus and handing him over. So his actions were intentional, but his intent was not to kill him. So he represents somebody that is so consumed with what they want and in that situation or in that season, they are not taking into consideration the implications that their decisions have on you. Did you hear what I just said? They want what they want so bad, they are willing to pursue it at your own expense. And we, we can say with confidence that this is the case for Judas. Because after Judas engaged in the activity, he got a revelation that made him so remorseful, he took his own life. Enemies don't take their life over what they did to you. But he got the coin. And once he got the coin, he realized the coin not worth giving up to Christ. And he was so filled with grief and guilt that he took his own life. Because he realized he sacrificed the superior for the inferior. And that's why some people in your life didn't get a revelation of how valuable you were until you were no longer in their life. Now they thinking, I gave up all of that for this. I gave up all of that for this. I gave up all of that for this. So Judas should not be a label we attach to every person, it should not be a scarlet letter that they wear eternally. This is why we use the word Judas experience, because they might not always be a Judas, but in that season, they gave you a Judas experience. Can y' all handle this? 12:30. Can you handle this? All right, don't. Don't miss. So. So now watch this. Judas, then, is somebody you love and somebody didn't love you. Judas experience. Don't miss this. It just means there's a situation and a season where their love doesn't lead their decision. I don't have time, but I promise you, at some point, I need to do a whole series called Friendshipology. The Bible's got a lot to say, Because sometimes people are choosing friends. Based on how much they love you, ignoring how much healing they need to do. Oh, my gosh. I know you love me. But how healed you are is going to determine whether or not your actions are going to match your love. Hallelujah. See, when we have brokenness, we have it, but when brokenness has us, brokenness leads us, and so it leads our decision making. And that decision. Decision making confuses you because you're like, how can we have all of this time together? And you have demonstrated that you really love me. So I'm confused, because in this past season, you show me you love me, but in this present season, you did something that almost killed me. It's just a Judas express experience, and everybody is going to have a Judas experience. Raise kids long enough, and your own kids will give you a Judas experience. It doesn't mean they don't love you. It doesn't mean they wouldn't give their life for you. It doesn't mean it didn't break their heart when they saw the ramifications that the decision they made had on you. But in that moment, they made a decision regarding what they wanted, and they didn't even consider that they mess up would become your cleanup. Y' all aren't talking to me. Stay in business long enough, and you'll have a Judas experience. Say now you didn't know that your lack of preparation and your. Your commitment to mediocrity is actually costing. Okay, let's stay married long enough. Stay in a church long enough. At some point, you're going to have a Judas experience where you become a victim of somebody else's imperfection. And the question is not if it's going to happen, when it's going to happen, how regularly it's going to happen, and are you equipped to handle it properly when it does Happen. Because there are three ways to handle Judas experiences. There's culture's way and culture's way is reactive revenge. Cut him off, call him out and get them back. Okay, I felt a little pretension right there. I did. I felt a little pretension. I didn't. I don't feel an environment of authenticity. I feel a little pretension right there. And we don't do pretension at this church. One of our core values is honesty. I'd rather be playing pickleball right now than playing church. So let's be honest, okay? Because nobody's perfect, nobody's third way in every area of your life. I'm third way in some areas, I'm second way in some areas. And I'm first way in some areas. And what progressive sanctification does is shines the light on areas that I'm not third way. And God by his grace, invites me into a growth process. Process where he grows me in that area. Now I'mma read first way again. Cuz some of us in this room, don't play with me. You say now pd it's some areas, I'm third way. But right here, this is my ministry in this season of my life. Cuz you cannot get to where you need to be pretending you're already there. Some of you are in the season. You want to cut them off, you want to call them out and oh, I want to get them back. And the temptation to cut them off, the temptation to call them out and the temptation to get them back doesn't mean you're evil. It means you're human. Because underneath most temptations is a legitimate need. And since the Garden of Eden, the enemy has been attempting to influence us to make decisions, to pursue a legitimate need in the illegitimate way. So sometimes to really fix a mistake, you got to get underneath and find the need. Because the mistake sometimes is an attempt to illegitimately meet a legitimate need. See, cutting him off. Underneath cutting them off is the human desire to feel protected. I want to be safe. And you have demonstrated to me that you are not safe. Now watch this. And so when I say cut off, I don't always mean cut off physically. I mean separate emotionally. So sometimes it's not about protecting my money, it's about protecting my heart. Because you just demonstrated that you are a pattern of disappointment. And so if I keep in, y' all aren't talking to me, if I keep investing emotionally in you, I'm gonna be disappointed. So I'm gonna cut off the expectation I had of you to actually make wise decisions. Because what you've shown me in this last season is you can't make wise decisions decisions. And it's not that I don't trust your character. I don't trust your judgment. I don't trust your decision making. Cut him off. Because a human wants to feel protected. Call them out. Because a human despises deception. Even a liar hate being lied to. Did you hear what I just said? Even liars don't like liars. He a liar, you a liar. But I know, but they a liar. That's human. And get them back. That's the human desire for justice, recompense. I want to know God. You're going to operate with just scales. There's no way they should let me. It's no way they should make me suffer. And they get to soar. Oh, this is humanology here. This, this human knowledge. I don't have time, but, oh, I could proof test this. I could take you to the man that God said was a man after his own heart. He didn't say that about himself. God said that about him. And this man that was a man after God's own heart. Well, I'll take you to some psalms. It would blow your mind. You read some of the stuff. David said you would need to take a walk around the sanctuary and get your. You'll be like, I cannot believe he just said that. They would. They would be like, how are the wicked prospering? How they prospering? How are they getting to do all of this to me? And I'm in the worst season of my life and I'm looking at them and they living their best life. Sa. Yeah, I got baba. Yeah. Yep. Give me Psalm 55. Give me Psalm 55. All right. Give me verse six. Verse 6. Oh, if I had wings like a dove, I would fly away and be at rest. Watch this. I would flee far away and I would stay in the desert. I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and the storm. Watch this. He's saying, listen, I want to get away from everybody. He said, if I had wings, I would walk out this house and I wouldn't walk back. Okay, y'. All. All right. Give me Psalms 109. Give me Psalms 109. Give me. Give me, give me verse one, y'. All. Okay. All right, now, here it is. My God whom I praise. Do not remain silent. For people who are wicked and deceitful have opened their mouth against me. They have spoken against me with lying tongues, with words of hatred. They surround Me, they attack me without cause. In return for my friendship. They accuse me, but I am a man of prayer. They repay me evil for good and hatred for my friendship. Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy. Let an accuser stand at his right hand when he is tried. Let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him. May his days be few. You, not, y', all not. May another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. Yeah, that's your Lord is my shepherd. David, right? He had a heart that was pure because he had a heart that was empty. And some of us cannot have a pure heart because we do not have an empty heart. Because you don't trust the Father to be able to handle the authenticity of your humanity. David wants justice. So the need to be protected, the need to not be deceived, the need to want justice is human. The question is, where will you take the need? Will you try to protect yourself? Will you try to expose others? And will you try to take justice into your own hands? Because when you do that, you've exchanged seats. Now you've gone from your chair to his throne. And he said, vengeance is mine. I will repay. Justice is my responsibility. So the. So the temptation is human. Now we decide whether we allow the spirit or the flesh to guide what we do with that temptation. I'm wrapping up here. It is. Culture's way, reactive revenge, church's way. This is passive enabling. Church can be such an environment for enabling. I grew up in this. We will see mean. Okay, I can't say this. We know sister such and such is mean. We know she running people from the church. We know when somebody get to the church that hadn't been in church and they sit in sister such and such seat instead of being glad they in church. Sister such and such and such. What you doing in my seat? And then we enable it by saying, oh, that's sister such and such. It's passive enabling. It's be nice, pray harder, and pretend it didn't happen. And this passive enabling is often supported by misrepresented and misinterpreted scriptures. This book right here is a dangerous book for Satan. But when misused, it becomes a tool of Satan. I'm not bothering. But in Matthew 4, Satan used the word to tempt Jesus. Am I in the book? This is why Paul tells Timothy study to show yourself, approve of the workman, not need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Because some of the most heinous and despicable acts in Human history have been done by those who use this in an improper way to justify their actions. Scriptures like. Scriptures like Matthew 5, 39. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, Turn the other cheek. Now, I want to teach you something about interpreting scripture. Right? Okay. I want to teach you something here because this is important. People who misinterpreted this use this scripture, this scripture as a resource to reaffirm people submitting themselves to abuse and exploitation. When 1. The way this audience would have received being slapped is completely different than we. Would you slap us? It's time to box. I'm saying you want to fight, right? This is not. This was like this. This is not their equivalent of a punch. It's like it's. It's. It's an insult. It's not saying, I want to be violent. It's saying, I don't respect you. Some of you are still like that. Mean you want a box. Same thing. Pastor, that. Jesus here is speaking in a way that is consistent with what we see throughout the pages of Scripture. Hyperbole. He says, if your eye offends you, pluck it out. Does he literally mean to gouge out your eyes? He says, if your hand offends you, what does he literally want you and I to cut off our hand? He's speaking to something larger here. Am I making sense what he is pointing to? Even in this passage here on the Beatitudes, he is pointing to the spiritual fruit of temperance, which is self control. He is. So he's using hyperbole to say, don't you allow their dysfunction to pull you into dysfunctional reactions. Am I making sense? He's saying, you need to have enough temperance and self control to act and not react when you're insulted, when you're exploited, and when people are trying to take advantage of you. Because when you do that, you put yourself in position where you are deserving of the same justice you want me to enact on your behalf and being ready to avenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. So he says, you want me to handle. That's Paul, guys. He said, you want me to handle their disobedience, but because you hadn't fulfilled your obedience, they disobedient in one area. But you took the bait, so you became disobedient. So now if I got to get them, I got to get you, too. All right, let's wrap up. Tyre. Yo, they tired. Then there's the King's way. The King's way is strategic. Strength is see clearly, respond wisely and protect purposefully. And this is what Jesus models here in this text. In Matthew 26, they are celebrating what's called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And they're having this meal in celebration of this. And the Bible says, they are sitting at this table. Jesus is reclining. And out of nowhere, Jesus says, one of you is going to betray me. So I want you to think it's friendsgiving. It's friendsgiving. Y' all having good food, good music, you playing uno. It's just. It's a great time. And then out of nowhere, somebody says, one of you gonna betray me. Do you know how disruptive to the vibe that statement would be? This is exactly what Jesus does. It's what I call a holy disruption. It is. It's not emotional. It's intentional. It is a holy. Are y' all okay? It is a holy disruption. And a holy disruption is disrupting an environment that is less than God's best. It is disrupting that which is inferior. So you can step into that which is superior. Jesus, being a man of truth, is not gonna sit at the table and say, we all sit here kikiing, and we know there's something we need to talk about. Come on here. Come on here. He's saying, we are celebrating Passover, where God delivered us from our enemies. And I'm not going to sit at the table and act like Judas is not about to deliver me into my enemies. Come on here. So he says, he says, he says, he says, he says, listen, somebody's going to betray me. And listen to Judas. Watch how he plays in his face. He says, surely you don't mean me, Rabbi. Now, second way would have said, I'm not going to say any names. Second way says, pray about it, and those who got discernment will figure it out. Jesus said, you said so. And even before that, he said, the one who dipped his whole dipped his hand in the bowl. You know what Jesus does here? This is interesting. Jesus says, a man of truth knows his silence would have made him guilty of something called guile. So in. In. In. In the New Testament, very often when people talk about sins of deception, they only talk about lying. But there's another sin of deception in the Bible called guile. And even when Jesus was calling his disciples, there's one disciple he saw named Nathaniel. And when he saw Nathaniel in the Book of John, he says, behold, there's one in whom there's no guile. He says that about Nathaniel, right? After Nathaniel had said, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? He's like, oh, you a real one? Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Was almost insulting. He said, but I don't take it as an insult. I take it as honest. I won't have to read your mind. I'm gonna know what you own from day one. I need you in my circle. Here it is. So this sin of guile is something we don't talk about here. It is biblical. Guile is when you participate in deception through cunning silence, which is knowing the truth but not speaking it. Crafty pretense, which is going along with a lie to avoid conflict. And strategic deception, which is manipulating situations through withheld information. It's a sin of deception. Now watch this. It's the opposite of what Paul tells believers in Ephesians when he says, and we grow up into him and speak the truth in love. The ability to live a g free life only comes when you step into spiritual maturity. Am I making sense? So Jesus, he's like, he's established an environment of authenticity. He refuses to settle for what Peter Scazaro calls false peace. When Jesus says, I didn't come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. He said, I didn't come to bring false peace, the world's peace. He says, my peace I leave with you. Not peace as the world gives. So he says, I want to give you something different. True peace, not false peace. Because false peace is only cool, calm, and copacetic when we don't deal with anything that causes conflict, even when it's true. So he's a holy disruptor. And what holy disruption does is it enables him to protect the people he loves. What do you mean, Pastor? Because when he says, somebody's going to betray me, people who wouldn't have examined their own heart start examining their own hearts and say, is it me? Now people start looking inward. I didn't even know. Wait a minute. Is it me? Then also, when he makes this thing clear, here's what it does. It protects those who can't discern Judas duplicity yet. Are y' all following me here? This is interesting, family, because I don't want to paint a picture like this. Didn't impact Judas, I mean, Jesus. Because when John tells this story in his Gospel, John says, and Jesus, being deeply troubled, said, one of you will betray me. I think it's John 13:21 here is troubled in spirit. So he was a human. He's like three years. And tonight I just washed your feet. Tonight. He was Troubled. So he's impacted emotionally, but he doesn't act emotional. And that's going to be your greatest temptation in a Judas experience to act out of your wound. One of the things my wife can tell you I talk to my kids about is something called relational consequences. Trying to get them to see the world's not like this house. And there might be some things we can go through and I'm gonna be there. Nobody else has that obligation. Your boss don't have that obligation. The woman you marry won't have that obligation. I'm always gonna be daddy because you came for me. But there are consequences that, that are relational. And so am I making sense. And so I love it. Jesus didn't act out of the womb. So what he didn't do is a lesson in this. Just like what he did do is. And when you're in, when you, when you got a Judas experience, I don't have seven things for you to do because I don't know what your wounds are, I don't know what your triggers are, but I got three things that everybody shouldn't do. Number one, don't misread the situation. Nothing Judas does will stop God from doing anything God wants to do. This is why Jesus could say, whatever you're going to do, do it quickly. Because you can put me in the grave, but you can't keep me there. Three days later, I'm coming out of this grave. Don't misread the situation. Number two, don't mismanage your power. Everybody look at me. You remember when they tried to take Jesus into custody? Peter took out their sword and Jesus said, you ain't got to do that. If I wanted to, I could call for legions of angels. This could be over in a minute. And one of the greatest times you'll be tempted to misuse power is when you wound it. The gifted are dangerous. Cuz the enemy doesn't just want to exploit your weakness. He wants to weaponize your strength. See, I have a teaching gift. That's a spiritual gift. You can't earn it. That's why you shouldn't be arrogant about it. You can't earn it. It's just a teaching gift that God gives you. He gives you eagle eyes. You can just see things in the table. What pictures. I don't know how I could see that. God, it's all God. It's a teaching gift. But here's the thing. The enemy. So this means I have a way with words. So the enemy doesn't just want to exploit a Weakness. He wants to weaponize a strength. And there's sometimes when I'm seeing things and people are saying things and writing things and like oh if I could. Oh if I. Because the enemy doesn't just want to explore the weakness. He wants to weaponize the strength. And God gave you, gave you your gifts to serve the right people, not to wound the wrong ones. Because some of you know you could. They have no idea what you concocted in your head. Y', all not this. Where's my real section? I know, I'm gone. They have no idea all the stuff you were planning in your head. You are about to mess their entire life. They have no idea that the Holy Spirit restrain you. Some of you, some of you should be in the CIA. You an investigator. Oh, I found this. I'm done. Number three, don't mess with your mission. When the enemy can't get you through destruction, he wants to get you through distraction. Which is another reason Jesus said, let's get this over with, I got work to do. When you're obsessed with Judas, you can't be obsessed with your assignment. This is why anybody that's hater obsessed is unproductive. Even if they can't win, they winning because they got your attention. Which is another reason Jesus said, whatever you're going to do, do it quickly. Cuz even while I'm in this grave, I'm working. I'mma go, I'mma descend to the other most parts of the earth and preach to the spirits held captive. And when I come out of this grave, I'm working. Because after my resurrection, I'm going to be with my people for 40 days and show myself by many infallible proofs. And then I'm going to ascend to the right hand of the Father. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit down on the day of Pentecost and I'm going to live forever to make intercession for you. I got to stay on mission. You're gonna have a Judas experience. And your temptation, your default wiring and setting is first way or second way. And you got to discern when you see yourself drifting that way and pull yourself to third way. Because God wants to use Judas experiences to develop you. The devil wants to use them to destroy you. But you choose who gets to use it. You don't choose if it happens, you choose who you let use it. And we're going to let God.