Well, if you turn with me and your Bibles to mark chapter 14. Gonna continue our Sermon series through the gospel of mark this morning looking at chapter 14. 43 through 52. I believe it's on page 1083 if you're going to use one of the Bibles that we have underneath the chair in front of you. And just one thing I wanted to make sure you have on your schedules before we get going this morning. The walk for live cornerstone crisis pregnancy center that we work with. And one of our ministry partners is having their walk for life on the 14th of March. And it would be really wonderful for a bunch of us to show up and go on that walk to support cornerstone. We have the wonderful news that they have now got almost all the pieces in place to have the ultrasound machine brought in and up and running and beginning to serve the people women in this community. So it's just really exciting. So mark that down March 14th and if you can plan to come out it's going to be in Blanchard Park. And so it would be a great opportunity for us to come together and support one of the ministries that we work with. Okay, let me read mark 14. 43 through 52. This is God's holy and true word. And immediately while he was still speaking, Judas came one of the 12 and with him a crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them a sign saying the one I kiss is the man sees him and lead him away under guard. And when he came he went up to him at once and said rabbi and he kissed him. And they laid hands on him and seized him. But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, have you come out against me as a robber with swords and clubs to capture me day after day I was with you in the temple teaching and you did not seize me but let the scriptures be fulfilled. And they all left and fled. And a young man followed him and with nothing but a linen cloth about his body and they seized him. But he left the linen cloth and ran away naked. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we just asked now that you would give us your spirit that your spirit would help us to see the glory of our Lord Jesus. To give us comfort as we talk about a challenging subject and we just pray Lord that you would use this time to change us to make us new to equip us to take the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. We're talking about betrayal this morning as we look at the betrayal of Jesus the night in which he was betrayed me think about how many times have you heard that line said every time we take communion we say that in the night in which Jesus was betrayed he took bread and he took wine. So it's such an important part of our story of the story of Jesus and the reality is basically probably every single one of us has been betrayed in some way shape or form. Some of us maybe have not been betrayed in ways that have been too damaging. I remember one of the times that I felt betrayed was in the fourth grade. And I had a girlfriend but you know we never saw each other outside of school and we never really even talked all that much so I don't know why we called each other boyfriend and girlfriend it was only fourth grade but anyway Tina we'll just call her Tina because that was her name. And so Tina and I were supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend and then one day I got a call from my good friend wit. And wit told me that Tina wanted to break up with me and I was you know my heart sank but then he said and it's because I asked her to go out with me and she said yes. And I was you know I was completely shocked here you know my good friend wit is like stealing my fourth grade girlfriend and and now here's the thing like my mom tells me that she remembers finding me later that day sort of laying on the floor in front of the TV just kind of sobbing kind of whimpering like a little puppy. See I don't know if she's right I feel like I walked around going I got this you know what I mean no more fish in the sea right so one of us has a has a good memory of that. But the reality is that you know not that big a deal I haven't thought about that a long long time. Some of us think about the ways that we've been betrayed all the time in fact some of us have been betrayed in ways that it has completely changed our lives it has had a terrible impact and we suffer. Because of the ways that we've been betrayed and right now you might be thinking about people who've betrayed your trust people who have done such things to you or things or to people that you love you know betrayal is when somebody who you trust and you love usually and someone who's close to you. And it's when that type of person that you expect is you know going to be someone who would care for you to love you to treat you right and then they sort of stab you in the back. Or they do something against you that hurts you and sometimes even benefits them in some way it is a very interesting and powerful pain in fact psychologists say that betrayal listen to this pretty interesting psychologist say that betrayal is one of the most painful human experiences. And neuroscience has shown that when somebody is in a high level of emotional pain like the pain that we experience from high levels of betrayal when you are experiencing high levels of emotional pain the same parts of your brain that light up and are functioning when you're in physical pain intense physical pain are actually lighting up and functioning when you're in that emotional pain. So I mean it's a real powerful pain the pain of betrayal in fact I was interested I asked our the director of our counseling center here Redeemer counseling center that we have in the other building Michael Laxon is the director there and one of the counselors and I asked him tell me about betrayal how often does betrayal come up in counseling and he said oh often he said it's very often that people are needing counseling because of the pain that they're experiencing because they have been through betrayal and so we can just you can see that it is a very very damaging thing when we experience betrayal now. So studying betrayal I was looking at some psychology websites and stuff like that and I found that you know secular psychology seems to think there's kind of an easy solution for this in fact I found a website that had seven steps to healing after betrayal. Just seven and it was very interesting they said that you got to face your feelings gain control of your emotions ask whether you can trust the person again or not learn from the betrayal and I'm just reading through this and I'm thinking this is not helpful gain control of your emotions after you've experienced that type of pain no and so here's what I was you know as I was studying this passage thinking about things that I've been through and thinking about you. I think it's just so important that we are we would we would be convinced this morning that healing does not come through the things that we do it really comes through what we believe what we believe about God what we believe about betrayal what we believe about Jesus. Okay so the focus for this morning then is going to be this that the faith in Christ brings hope and healing for those who have been betrayed. That's what we want to leave with today just remembering that that running to him faith in Christ is where we're going to find hope and healing for those who have been betrayed and I want to talk about that by looking at two things let's talk about Jesus betrayed and then Jesus misunderstood if you're if you're making an outline this is where we're going this morning because these are the two things that you see in this passage first we see his betrayal and then we see that he was very much misunderstood and when we look at that altogether in light of the reality of betrayal in this world it can be very very helpful so let's jump in looking at 43 through 46 this first part where we see the actual betrayal and one of the key things we just want to realize here is that Jesus knows what it's like to be betrayed. Okay he has been highly betrayed let me show you what I'm talking about here remember you know betrayal is when someone you care about someone you love maybe someone you trust turns around and goes and does something against you that hurts you and often even benefits them that type of experience somebody that's supposed to maybe protect you from harm. Actually goes ahead and is the cause of your harm one of the things that you want to notice is the way that Mark shows us wants wants us to be very certain about the fact that Judas and Jesus were very close friends look at verse 43 and notice that he says Judas came one of the 12 right and then in verse 44 look right next door in verse 44 he calls Judas the betrayer this is very intentional he knows we know who Judas is we've heard his name before but what he's doing here is he's making sure we understand that the person. Who betrays Jesus is one of his very very close friends they had spent almost every day together for the past three years Judas being one of the disciples had been cared for by Jesus taught by Jesus sent out on mission by Jesus entrusted by Jesus Judas was the one who even carried the money for the group. And Jesus treated and cared for all of his disciples like they were family in fact even if you remember back earlier in the gospel of Mark he said that they're my family and so what you see then is that Judas is betraying Jesus Jesus he is one of Jesus is very very close friends and the reality is if you've been betrayed you know that the closer you are to the person who betrays you the more it hurts. Some of you might feel remotely betrayed by Brian Williams right now because he forgot which helicopter he was in but you're probably not losing too much sleep over it okay right not close to Brian William well you might be I don't know what's he like you know so anyway you nobody cares so much about that but if it's someone that you are very very close to it hurts all the more and so we need to understand that Jesus is betrayed by somebody who's very close to him also Jesus Judas does this for money and just for a little bit. It's a bit of money okay that makes this even worse think about this in 44 you see that he had made a plan that he had planned to give a sign to the religious leaders and the detachment of the soldiers that had been with them and he did it for the money this is premeditated he had thought this through using what he knew about Jesus and the fact that Jesus usually took the disciples to the Mount of all of us which is where the Garden of August so many is on the Mount of all of us he uses that against him and he does this for money. In back a little bit in 14 chapter 14 10 and 11 we saw that he went and he made a deal and he received some money and it really wasn't even that much 30 pieces of silver is not a ton of money I read a story about a guy named Robert Hansen you might have heard of him he was an FBI agent and for 22 years he was selling intelligence secrets of the US government to Russia. And so in like 2001 he was arrested and convicted of 15 counts of espionage and in the end they find out that he did it all for just 1.4 million dollars across 22 years now that's that's a decent amount of money but still to sell out 300 million Americans for money you know you kind of think well who would do that and then here's Judas selling out the son of God for just a few pieces of silver. And so it's not only hurts when you know the person really well but when they do it for absolutely no reason or from some simple reason where they simply just benefit themselves totally disregarding you it hurts even worse. And then finally also Judas mocks Jesus here I didn't really realize this until I studied this passage but if you look in verses 44 and 45 when when he calls Jesus rabbi that's really a mocking thing it's really sarcastic he doesn't really believe him as a rabbi. But the other thing is the kiss look at in verse 44 he says the sign will be that he'll give him a kiss and then in verse 45 it says and then he kissed him and those are two different Greek words. And the first one is the word you would use when you're talking about just a normal kiss when if you would greet somebody with a kiss but the second one the one where it says and he kissed him is more intense. In fact here's what one author says when Judas approaches Jesus he kisses him not with modesty and reserve but lavishly even passionately and so when Judas comes up to him and kisses him he gives him some big sort of passionate kiss as if to just rub it in as if there's this vindictiveness in him that he wants to hurt Jesus not just betray him it's not like he's saying I'm sorry I'm doing this I just really need the money. He's actually vindictively very sarcastically and very cruelly mocking Jesus in this moment and when those things all come together when you're betrayed by somebody really care about when they do it for no good reason and when they when they are even cruel in the process and making it even worse on you you know how bad it is this is the type of betrayal that Jesus experienced. And so you know that one of the reasons that betrayal is so difficult so damaging to our hearts is because when you are betrayed it's not like you just experienced one emotion you have like this volcano of emotions you get very angry when you are betrayed and you can feel very scared I mean here's this person that you trusted so much suddenly they have completely broken your trust you might begin to wonder if you can trust anybody so you're angry you are scared you're embarrassed. It is so embarrassing when somebody that's supposed to care for you stabbed you in the back you feel vengeful you can feel a tremendous amount of shame you can feel foolish for trusting this person and feeling like you made a big mistake in trusting a person who would do that for you. The American Psychological Association Journal had an article in their March 2013 issue and they were talking about what they call HBT's high betrayal traumas. It's like people who go through really high levels of betrayal experience actual trauma and what they said is that people who experience high betrayal trauma very often experience depression dissociation and even PTSD. That is why it's important we understand things about betrayal because it is very very damaging the negative impact on our ability to trust people that affects that and just our state of mind it's absolutely painful and the number one thing we have to realize is when we are experiencing betrayal we cannot handle it on our own there's no way you can just grin and bear it betrayal is that damaging it hurts that bad it has that much of an effect on us and we need help. We need to we need someone who can show us it's not supposed to be this way it's not always going to be like this we need someone who can shepherd us through that and that's why we have to understand that Jesus wants us to know that he was betrayed so that we run to him in prayer with our trust that we would call out to him and trust that he threw his Holy Spirit will heal our pain of betrayal. Think about this when if you've ever gone to a support group when you go to a support group it's led by somebody who has been through what the people attending the support group are going through right and so Jesus in this passage we see him telling us I have been through that and he will walk us through our pain of betrayal when it happens it's interesting David in Psalm 55 he talks about when he went through betrayal and he's talking about how if if what had been done to him. Was done by an enemy he could handle that if it was by somebody who was trying to kill him he could deal with that. But he says what he's going through was done by his equal his companion his familiar friend he says we used to take sweet counsel together within God's house when we walked and so you have this imagery of David King David from the Old Testament he's in this moment where he's experiencing this high level of betrayal and he does exactly what we should do he just calls out to God there's 16. And 17 he says but I call to God and the Lord will save me every evening and morning and noon I utter my complaint and moan and he hears my voice so the very first thing then we just really want to see here is that Jesus has been through this he knows what we're going through he wants to shepherd us through the pain of betrayal how does he do that. Now I want to talk about Jesus being misunderstood and this is if you thought the first part of this was hard this work gets harder okay but when we when we recognize some of the things that we see in this passage and in the whole scripture that's when we can really find hope and healing through faith okay so let's talk about the fact that he's misunderstood because what you have in 47 through 50 and really even down to 52 is you see some misunderstandings the religious leaders misunderstood Jesus and even Peter will see. We'll see very much misunderstood Jesus in this moment what do I mean by that well really what we see here is you know we Peter we find out in the gospel of John it's Peter in verse 47 he pulls out a sword he cuts off somebody's ear Jesus then says have you come out against me as a robber with swords and clubs he says you know every day I was in the temple why don't you come to me and take me then and what this is exposing is that they didn't really understand him at all think about this they came after him. Like he was leading some sort of big in insurrection some revolution if you look back at verse 43 when Mark says that Judas shows up with a crowd that word literally means multitude this is a big group of people armed with swords and clubs okay this is like a small army in fact some scholars say there was probably between 200 and 600 people that were detached to go and put down this insurrection. So this is not what you do when you think you're taking in some peaceful religious teacher right and so that shows that they do not understand him they did not understand what he was really doing. And so his comments in 48 and 49 totally exposes that when he says you coming out with me as if I'm a robber that word literally also means insurrectionist and so he's saying are you coming after me like I'm leading some violent revolution you really need these swords and these clubs because the reality is they had brought all this firepower in order to protect themselves from him but he had absolutely no intention to protect himself from them. One soldier could have walked up and said Jesus come with us we're taking you into custody and he would have said lead the way and even Peter didn't understand this. Peter we know from the gospel of John is the one who pulls out a sword and cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest and Jesus tells him no. And so in view then we have this misunderstanding of both the nonbelievers the religious leaders come into arrest them they don't really understand Jesus. And you even have Peter the believer who's already confessed that he's the Christ and he doesn't understand what's really happening in this moment. And you see Jesus who you would think would fight against this is actually a willing person in this moment and this is part of the challenging reality of Jesus teaching. And there's so many times in the gospel that we've already seen the gospel of Mark where the teaching of Jesus seems to go against the way we normally think right I mean he's told us that if you want to be first you don't want to be first you actually want to be last because the last will be first. And he tells us in other places that if we want to save our life we have to lose it and if we want to be great it's not about how many people are serving us it's about how many people we're serving. And so there's all these places where we are transformed by the renewing of our mind where we are getting a right understanding of how things actually are as we look at Jesus. And this is one of those moments because the kingdom of God did not come the way a kingdom normally comes you know when we think how does one king how does one kingdom invade and take over another kingdom. Well the king and leads an army and the army the army puts down the opposition with force with violence right that's the way things work in the world and what we're seeing here is that the kingdom of God. It comes not through a conquering king but through the suffering and death of a king who came to be conquered on across to pay for the sins of his people. And that helps our understanding be shaped right that Jesus did not come to be a violent forceful conqueror he came to give himself up to be a sacrifice. So what does that do how does that help us well there's there's some questions that we tend to ask when we are experiencing really great struggle especially when we've been betrayed we might ask you know does God love me. If if this has happened maybe God doesn't love me and we wait we may wonder that but think about this for a moment. Jesus was betrayed we see him being betrayed here and we know for a fact that God loved him we saw that in the very first chapter when God said from him this is my son whom I love with whom I'm well pleased sometimes. We might wonder whether God is in control or not. We might wonder could God was he unable to stop this from happening. And when we look at Jesus we see well Jesus was betrayed but he also he knew that it was part of God's plan that he would be betrayed we saw that back earlier in chapter 14 17 through 21 he told his disciples one of you will betray me. So when we're experiencing the pain of betrayal we can know that God still loves us we know that God is in control another thing we might ask is if we're being punished. What did I do to deserve this we might feel and the reality is here's Jesus he's never sinned once in his whole life we talked about that last week to Hebrews 415 he's without sin right never done anything wrong yet he is experiencing this pain of betrayal and then the pain of the cross. And so when we ask ourselves these questions we can say it does God love me yes I know that does it is God in control yes the Bible teaches that by being punished know why because Jesus was punished that's the beauty of the cross the beauty of the cross we deserve to go through way worse than betrayal we deserve what Jesus received on the cross but Jesus receives it for us and if we have faith then we receive that sacrifice and we are forgiven we are reconciled to God because our Savior came to be conquered. So that you and I would not be conquered by the wrath of God but then why still betrayal why would things like this happen to us and one of the things about the scriptures that is really hard to swallow and it flies in the face of like the prosperity gospel and the idea that everything should be wonderful all the times is that when we look at the scriptures what we see is that the kingdom of God comes through suffering through hardships in our lives and in the world as well. Think about this in Acts chapter 9 you see the conversion of Paul right he goes from Saul to Paul and one of the things that God says in that process Acts 9, 15 and 16 he says go for Paul to chose an instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel for I will show him how much he must suffer for my sake. So here's God placing his love on Paul and choosing to save Paul but he's also going to show him that he's going to suffer. Look at Acts 14 21 through 22 I've got this on the screen for you it says when they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples they returned and they were strengthening the souls of the disciples encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. Peter says in 1 Peter 4-12 the love do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. And Jesus himself says I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace in this world you will have trouble or tribulation but take heart I have overcome the world so what's the point the point is that if we are believers if we believe Jesus is the son of God if we are Christians if we are followers of Christ then we know for a fact that everything that we go through even the pain of betrayal everything that we struggle through somehow God is using those things for a good purpose he is using those things to bring us into the kingdom and then to equip us for living and serving in the kingdom. We are called to trust that God in his infinite wisdom and his infinite power he is glorious enough to bring tremendous good out of the tremendous evil that takes place in this world. Some of you might have seen the video that was going around to viral video by an atheist named Stephen Fry and a commentator or an interviewer asked him you are an atheist and if you die and find out God does exist what are you going to say. And he said I would tell him that he is a monster and that he is stupid and the reason he would say that is because of all the evil and brokenness in the world and in his mind if God exists then there is no way things would be as bad as they are. Think about this that is so unbelievably small minded why because just because you and I can't readily see how God could use the worst things imaginable to bring about the best things imaginable just because we can't see it doesn't mean that's not the case. And what's amazing is if we look at things through the lens of the cross if we look at the reality that Jesus was betrayed and then Jesus suffered on the cross he was murdered right so these terrible things that happen brings about the best possible things reconciliation between God and sinners our debt being paid our debt for sin on the cross you have to look at things through the lens of the cross especially when we are betrayed. Because then we are able to see and find hope and healing the fact that God in his infinite wisdom and power is able and does bring about tremendous good out of tremendous evil the cross is the proof of that. And so when we know that anything that we've gone through that's really difficult will somehow bring glory to God and bring the kingdom of God and ultimately have a very good purpose that we will very clearly say yes. Then we have incredible hope because you know that every bit of pain of experience has tremendous meaning now I don't expect that to make you just go okay great I feel so much better but I promise you over time when we believe that God is sovereign that he is good that he's working out a plan that he does bring tremendous good out of tremendous evil when we believe that over time it really changes you and it equips you to even see. Glimpses of how that takes place I want to share with you about the time when I was betrayed worse than any other betrayal I experienced I've I think I've told you about this before but I want to it's betrayal the more I thought about I realize it was total total betrayal it's my first memory this is as far back as I can go I can't remember anything before this I was four and a half years old and somebody that was supposed to be watching over me and caring for me and protecting me did something evil to me and said I was molested by a babysitter and I can't remember anything before it but I can remember the moment I can I remember I can see the hallway in my mind and the stairs at the end of the hallway wondering why I'm not wearing clothes and I'm not wearing clothes. For a long time I let that make me doubt God the pain that I experienced from that and the way it's affected me and affected you know my sadness I let that drive me from God but then in time God began to reveal to me that part of my journey part of how I wound up in the kingdom was bearing that pain and never finding anything. That could actually relieve it at all until I got to know Jesus and the more that I knew Jesus who had been betrayed the more I realized how God had used such a terrible thing to bring the best possible thing for me that I would be forgiven of my sins through faith but not only that he also it took about 30 some years but then I began to realize that that God not only used that to draw me to himself but also to equip me to be able to minister to people I'll never forget when one of my really good friends came to me and he was sobbing he was beside himself with grief because he believed that his four and a half five year old son had been molested by a babysitter. And I immediately started saying oh it's going to be okay here's what you're going to do and here's what you should say and here's what was helpful in my parents did this for me and so on and so forth and I was going on and on and I was so excited to be able to serve him in that moment and he stops me and he says wait wait this this happened to you and I said yeah I'm almost the exact same thing. I said it's such a relief he said it's so relieving because you're like you're normal and I was like well the biggest fear he had was that this was going to completely destroy the life of his son and if it weren't for God and the reality of Scripture and the reality that I know for a fact that God brings good out of evil God brings tremendous good out of evil if I didn't believe that I would be a complete wreck. I would still be a complete mess but it's I've experienced so much healing through that reality through being able to identify with Jesus because he was betrayed as well and to know that through the lens of the cross I know but God uses the even the worst things that happened to us it's part of a plan and in the end we will see how he is so unbelievably wise and powerful and glorious beyond our world. That's where hope and healing comes from through believing that in his infinite wisdom and power he is able to bring and he will bring if he hasn't already tremendous good out of tremendous evil in the cross is the proof. Listen I want to read the if I get emotional when I talk about this is because I'm not suffering through it anymore you know and I want you to I want you to hear these things in Romans 3 I'm sorry Romans 5 3 through 5 Paul says we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us in Romans 818 he says for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in other words whatever we go through now it just is this tiny little drop in the bucket. Drop in the bucket compared to the reverse of it compared to the unbelievable bliss and joy we will experience so much so that none of us will look back on anything we suffered and say I wish I hadn't gone through that we will say I would go through all of that 50 times over to have what I have in the new heavens newer. Romans 828 and we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose that these things believing these things letting the cross be the lens at which through which we see the things that we've suffered through even the betrayal that we've experienced and knowing that God guaranteed he's going to bring good out of it if he hasn't already we're going to sing. A song that we've sung many times before here's the middle two verses and I want to read them to you so that when we sing them I want you to be thinking particularly if you have been betrayed and I know I'm your pastor I know when you guys are hurting at least often I do and so I know that we've had some betrayed people we're going to sing when darkness seems to hide his face. I rest on his unchanging grace in every high and stormy gale my anchor holds within the veil his oath his covenant his blood support me in the well-meaning flood when all around my soul gives way he then is all my hope and stay the best part about all of us is the guarantee that if Jesus would go and face betrayal and then the wrath of God on the cross for us there's one thing you know Jesus will never do to you or to me you and I will never ever experience betrayal at the hands of Christ but we will through faith experience hope and healing from the betrayal we have experienced in this life and so let's stand and let's sing.