Providence Church

Why did Judas betray Jesus? We may never know the full answer to that question. “How” could Judas do it? Well, that question is one we don’t even need to ask Judas because we know how it can happen all too well. The truth is that betrayal happens when someone’s own agenda is more important than the other person. Judas’s focus was all about him. In contrast, as Jesus brought his disciples together and told them how his own body and blood would be poured out for them. Jesus’s faithfulness to us never waivered and held firm as he loved us to the end.

It’s important to remember what is secondary and what is primary. Getting those two reversed can lead to missing the whole point. When Jesus talks about things that will happen “at the end,” the temptation is to focus on the details. Unfortunately, that can often make us miss out on the bigger picture. The details are important, the bigger picture is what all those details are designed to do- to make us live our lives differently. When you keep the end in view, it should teach you to live a life that reflects that truth.

Holding the flashlight for your dad can be a dangerous task. You wouldn’t think it would cause so many problems, but almost universally it does. Why? Because it would be easier for your dad to do it by himself than involve you. This is true of our Heavenly Father too. Yet he chooses to use us for his work- to our joy. The problem comes when we start to think that because we held the flashlight that we are actually the ones that did the work. When the Pharisees held their heads high as their money dropped into the temple treasury, they had made a critical mistake….they thought God needed them.

Sometimes, we can get so caught up in the things that we want that we completely miss the most important things that we should’ve seen. After Jesus’s opponents set multiple traps for him, he turned the questions back on them. When Jesus does it, he doesn’t try to trap his opponents but to teach them. He wants to show them just who this Messiah was supposed to be and why they’ve missed the obvious truth right in front of them.

You can’t just get rid of religion in a country. When you take away Christianity, as American has done at an alarming rate over the last several decades, something has to fill the void. For so many, what has taken the place of church and Jesus is political parties and candidates. When Jesus’s opponents tried to set Him up, he was ready to teach them about the nature of our faith, the temporary nature of our world, and the eternal nature of God.

Jesus is for everyone. This is the message that Luke has driven home over and over again throughout his gospel. It can make it easy to think that means we all get our own “version” of Jesus just for us. But when we say that Jesus is for everyone, we mean that ALL of Jesus is for everyone….the one that weeps over Jerusalem and the one that cracks the whip in the temple.

What we want is a God that shows up and gives us everything we ask for, everything we desire, everything we want. What we have is a God that loves us enough to give us what we need most, even if we didn’t even know we needed it. As Jesus rode into town on the back of a donkey, he had the expectations of a city that was buzzing with anticipation. Instead of bowing to their desires, he continues to move to the cross in order to give them what they need. Which teaches us the pattern for our lives- he doesn’t remove the suffering, he redeems it.

The goal of every investor is to find a way to make money where they don’t have to do anything to make it. It’s the holy grail of investing- passive income. Everyone wants something for nothing. For most church-goers in America, that’s what we want out of Jesus too. Put in a minimum investment and then just sit back and reap the rewards. Jesus makes it clear, though, that discipleship doesn’t work like that. He has jobs for us to do, assignments to complete, and investments to make. While the rewards may be significant, they are anything but passive.

When a celebrity rolls into town it can cause a bit of a scene. Everyone wants to be near them, to see them, to see what all the fuss is about. Sometimes they’ll go to extreme measures to makes sure they don’t miss out on the spectacle. When this happens, most just expect to be passive observers. For Zacchaeus, he thought he was just going to catch a glimpse of the show. What he got was an unexpected dinner guest that changed the rest of his life.

Distracted or Desperate? Sometimes the most obvious things are right in front of us and we can’t even see them. And in the case of one man in Jericho, the one that couldn’t see was the one that could see better than all the others. Which one are you?