The passage, I seem to have this
propensity for reading long passages of Scripture. We're going to
do it again today. I'll be in Luke chapter 22, verses
14 through 39. The focus will actually be verses
24 through 38. But I think it's important we
catch the entire passage. Reading the passage, the Scripture
says, And when the hour had come, he, being Jesus, and the twelve
apostles with him reclined. And he said to them, With desire
I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For
I say to you, I will not eat, I will not any more eat of it
until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the
cup and gave thanks and said, Take this and divide it amongst
yourselves. For I say to you, I will not
drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall
come. And he took the bread and gave thanks, and he broke it
and gave it to them, saying, This is my body, which is given
for you. This do in remembrance of me.
In the same way he took the cup after having dined, saying, This
cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for
you. But behold, the hand of my betrayer is with me on the
table. And truly the Son of Man goes
as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is
betrayed. And they began to inquire among
themselves which of them it was that should do this thing. Now,
here is the focus, beginning of the focus passages where we'll
be discussing. This is verse 24. And there was
also a dispute among them as to which of them seems to be
greater. And he said to them, the kings
of the nations exercise lordship over them, and they who exercise
authority on them are called benefactors. But you shall not
be so. But the greater among you, let
him be as the lesser, and he who governs as one who serves. For which is greater? Which is
the greater? He who reclines or he who serves? Is it not he who reclines? But
I am among you as he who serves. You are those who have continued
with me in my trials, and I appointed a kingdom to you as my father
has appointed to me, that you may eat and drink at my table
in the kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel. And the Lord said to Simon, Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan has desired you that he may sift you as wheat. But I
have prayed for you that your faith fail not. And when you are converted, strengthen
your brothers. And he said to him, Lord, I am
ready to go with you both into prison and into death. And he,
Jesus, said, I say to you, Peter, the cock shall not crow this
day before you shall deny knowing me three times. And he said to
them, When I sent you without purse and wallet and sandals,
did you lack anything? And they said, Nothing. And he
said to them, But now he who has a purse, let him take it,
and likewise his wallet. And he who has no sword, let
him sell his garment and buy one. For I say to you, that which
was written must yet be accomplished in me. And he was reckoned among
the transgressors. For the things concerning me
have an end. And they said, Lord, behold,
there are two swords. And he said to them, it is enough. Verse 39, And going out according
to his custom, he went to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples
followed him also. We're breaking in on the middle
of this occasion, what has happened now, just to put it in the broad
context. Jesus has come into the city
of Jerusalem. This is the Passover feast. He
has come into the city of Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. He
has been teaching and confronting the Pharisees on the very steps
of the temple during this period. And now He has gone off to what
we call the upper room, to a quiet place to celebrate the Passover
feast with His select few, His disciples. This is the most intimate
of settings here. This is Jesus with His inner
circle, if you will. The discussion that takes place
we just read. Jesus tells them that He's instituting
the new covenant. He demonstrates His death. on
the cross, His barbaric death on the cross, the breaking of
His body and the spilling of His blood as He pictures it in
the bread and the wine. And He tells them this is about
to happen, and there is a betrayer among them. The disciples, in
a moment of bewilderment and confusion, ask amongst themselves,
Could it be me? Could it be me? They're not grasping all of this. This has somewhat blindsided
them, but they get over that pretty quickly. They go from
this point of humility to a point of arrogance almost immediately,
then starting to discuss amongst themselves, now that the kingdom
is coming, who is going to be the greatest and sit at the right
hand of Christ? As we talked about this the other
night at the Bible study and read through this, it seems a
little bit out of place. Jesus is directing the conversation
one way, and the disciples are interpreting and understanding
the discussion another way completely. Jesus has been telling them that
the direction He is going is to death, and they are hearing
the direction he's going is to victory. And they are now discussing
amongst themselves who's going to be right there next to Jesus
when the kingdom is established. They're not on the same page
as Jesus is. We've got to give them some credit
in this. They have been with Jesus. They
have been by His side. They have hung with Him to this
very moment. And they have an expectation
in Jesus, and they are certain that He will meet their expectation. But their expectation is a little
bit off in this instance. They're not hearing with the
ears of their heart what Jesus is telling them. But we've got
to look at where they're coming from. I think it's important
that we understand why the disciples hear what they hear. They have
at this point 1,000 years of expectation in a Messiah. They
have been told through the Law and the Prophets their entire
life that the Kingdom of Israel will be restored to its former
glory. The Kingdom will be as it was
when David was on the throne. In fact, it will be better than
when David was on the throne. And that's what they're expecting.
As they look out at their situation, they're expecting the kingdom
of Israel to be restored. As they can see and understand
it, these are men. These are men. They are with
Christ physically, personally, intimately with Christ. But they
are men. They are sinners. And they have
a skewed perspective on what to expect. But their expectation
is very much so a restoration of the kingdom of Israel. They
are looking forward to a king that is chosen directly by God,
as David was. Directly chosen by God. They're
looking at a united kingdom when all of God's people will be together
again in focus and unity. They're looking for a strong
kingdom that will be able to withstand every enemy. And they're looking for a kingdom
where there will be a true and honorable worship of God. None
of this has happened in Israel since the reign of David. We
talked last week about the decay in Israel after Solomon took
the throne. He started out very well, he
ended up horribly, and it had terrible consequences for the
kingdom. In fact, the kingdom crumbled and then broke into
two after Solomon died. Not since David was on the throne
has there been this strong unity within the kingdom and this focus,
this direction, and this strength of a nation. So I said Solomon
came in, the kingdom decayed. After that, the kingdom broke
in two. You had the nation of Judah and
the nation of Israel. Then you had a series of exiles
where the people were physically removed from the land and taken
off yonder. Then you had a period where they
came back home, but from that point on, they were constantly
under the domination of another nation. They were a vassal state.
Typically, their kings were appointed by somebody else, not by themselves,
certainly not by God. They had to pay tribute to foreign
nations. If they didn't pay, they would
be invaded. So they were not their own people. This was not
glorious Israel. They'd been occupied by the Babylonian
Empire, by the Medo-Persians, by the Greeks. And now, as we
look at this evening, as Christ is there sitting in the room
with his disciples, they are occupied by Rome. They are not
their own people. And they long for the day. They
long for the day that they can be Israel once again. And their prophets, the law of
the prophets has promised this. They've promised this. The prophets
have spoken about this king that will come, that will bring Israel
back to its former glory. And this is the expectation that
they had. As every king occupied the throne,
there was a new expectation. As another nation invaded and
squashed them again, there was another expectation. They were
building an expectation with hope. They were chafing under
foreign rule and their hope was getting stronger and stronger. By the time that the Romans took
them over, these people were really ready to explode. Israel
was a powder keg. I think you can read through
the New Testament accounts, the Gospels, and you can see that
Israel is just ready to explode. You've got prophecies coming
together. The astute people that were watching
could see the signs of the times, and they knew the Messiah was
coming. Then you've got all the oppression from the Romans. And
let's understand, the Romans were not good to the Jews. The
Jews were typically a stubborn people. They would not play ball
with the Romans. They weren't going to submit
to their rule. Of course, Roman rule, if you were a Roman citizen,
was a wonderful thing. Roman law was very generous with
its own people. The problem was they didn't extend
citizenship to the rabble out in the provinces. The exception
to that that we see in the New Testament was Paul. And Paul,
for whatever reason, was a Roman citizen. But that was a rare
occasion, and especially for a Jew. So all that was left for
the Jew under Roman law was oppression, tyranny, just horrible treatment. They were considered as a people
little better than cattle. There was extreme taxation. The
Romans had a huge empire that covered most of the known world
at that time, and it took a lot of money to run that empire. And they got it from their vassal
states, from the people that they lorded over. Taxation was
extreme under Roman rule. We see that a little bit in the
Gospel, in the Gospel accounts, and we see Levi coming to Christ,
a tax collector, hated by his people, and there were reasons
to hate those people. Taxation was extreme under Roman
rule. It was oppressive. Then you also
had under Roman rule the controlled movement of people groups. They
did not want People gathering up in large numbers in any one
place. That could lead to insurrection.
It could lead to a war. They didn't want that. They kept
the people destabilized by moving them around at times. This is
a common practice historically. The Turks did it all the time
under Ottoman rule. The Soviets did it throughout
the Soviet Union era, moving whole towns to Siberia just to
get them off their feet, knock them down so they couldn't organize.
We see this demonstrated in the gospel with the census order
by Caesar. Everybody had to up stakes and
go to the historic town of their people. It didn't matter where
you lived, you had to go. You had to move. You had to get up and go. Joseph and Mary were not from
Bethlehem. But they had to go. Now we understand
that the big broad picture was that the Messiah would come and
in God's providence all was moving to see that Jesus was born in
Bethlehem. But on the earthly level, the
level that we looking out from day to day see, it was a product
of Roman oppression that led to the people movement and it
was to the benefit of Rome that people moved. They destabilized. All they had to take with them
was on their donkey and they went. They were a people subject
to whatever the Roman rule said. All this to say, the people were
ready for a Messiah. They were ready for a Messiah.
At the time of Christ, there was a lot of messianic expectation. Many, many, many people in Israel
hoped that this itinerant preacher from Nazareth was the Messiah. He was talking about good things. He had signs and wonders following
him which would mark him out as a man of God. Even the Pharisees
said that, that these things couldn't be done by anybody else.
The people, many, many of the people hoped that he was the
Messiah. Some in Israel, not all, but
some in Israel knew He was the Messiah. The disciples knew He
was the Messiah. They knew it. They didn't understand
what that meant yet, but they knew He was the Messiah. They
didn't understand it yet. They knew it. There was a lot of messianic
expectation. They wanted the people, the nation
wanted Israel restored. They wanted somebody to take
the throne of David and make it into a special thing again. They wanted the nation of Israel
to be restored. There were a lot of other messiahs
running around. We focus, because we're Christians,
We focus on Jesus as the Messiah, and we should. But let's understand
if you read history, if you read Josephus, if you read other histories
of the period, you'll find out that Messiahs were pretty much
a dime a dozen. There were all kinds of people
popping up here and popping up there saying, I'm the one. I
will restore Israel. So in a way, Jesus was one of
the crowd. And I don't mean to say that
to demean our Lord and Savior, but what I'm saying in this is
that there were a lot of distractions to the truth out there. Jesus
wasn't the only one reckoned to be a possibility for the Messiah. The zealot movement, and we read
about the zealots in the New Testament. The zealots, that
was a messianic movement. It was a violent messianic movement. It preached for the violent overthrow
of the Roman government, death and dismemberment to the Romans,
but it was a messianic movement. They sought to restore Israel
to its former glory. It was strictly an earthly kingdom
based on military might that they sought, but they were messianic.
Their goal was to restore Israel to its former glory. We see one
of the leaders of the Messianic movement in the pages of our
New Testament. We call him Barabbas. Have you ever thought about the
name Barabbas? It means son of the Father. That's significant. I don't expect,
and take this for what you will, I'm going beyond the pages of
Scripture and saying this, but I don't expect Barabbas was his
real name. I expect it was an alias that
he took up for the purpose of his politics because the Messiah
is supposed to be anointed by God. It's convenient that his
name is Son of the Father. He's leading or a key leader
in a messianic movement. It's very significant that his
name is Son of the Father. All of this to say, this is the
expectation that these men in the upper room with Jesus have
in them. That's what's swirling around
in their mind as they sit down at this Last Supper with Jesus.
They have seen Jesus preach for the time. They've seen the crowds
growing. They've seen the miracles. They
know He's the Messiah. They don't understand yet what
that means. I'll say that again. But they know He's the Messiah.
They've seen Him now go from a handful of followers way back
yonder to thousands and thousands who follow Him into the gates
of Jerusalem. Jerusalem at this time for the
Feast of the Passover is full of people. Hundreds of thousands
of Jews from all over the kingdom are there to celebrate this high
holy day. And when Jesus comes in, the
crowds are screaming and hollering, Hosanna, Hosanna. They've got in their mind, the
disciples, as they sit at the table with Jesus, that it is
fixing to come undone here. Jesus is telling us He's going
to usher in the Kingdom. Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow
is the day. We're going to have our meal
tonight. And tomorrow we're going to wake up and Jesus is going
to go into that temple and He is going to say, I am here! I will take the throne of David.
I am restoring Israel. That's their expectation. That
is their expectation. But Jesus tonight is talking
about death. That's the wrong picture. Multitudes
hollering out His name, screaming that He's the Messiah. Death. That doesn't fit what they expect. Being sinners as they were, being
sinners as we are, When confronted with the facts, we most often
hear what we want to hear. And that's exactly what they
did. He's talking about the kingdom of God. He's talking about a
death that will happen. They're hearing the kingdom of
God. They're expecting the throne.
They're hearing what they want to hear. So even after a moment
of humility, humility amongst themselves where they are confronted
with the fact that there will be a betrayer, they immediately
go back to a discussion of who will be the greatest in the kingdom. They heard what they wanted to
hear based on an expectation of a restored physical kingdom. And they know that when Jesus
sits on the throne of David in that palace just right over the
hill, that He's going to have His inner circle. He's going
to have His cabinet of ministers. And it's going to be us. Which
one of us is going to be right there next to Him? Who's going
to be His right-hand man? Jesus understands that's where
their thinking is. He understands that completely.
So He starts to tell them. The kingdom is not what you think
it is. And he uses the example of their
meal. They're reclining, they're eating.
As an example, he said, now, if you've got a king at the table. Who's the greatest at the table?
Is it the one that's being served? Or those who are serving it? And of course, no, it's the king.
It's the one that's being served. He's the greatest, obviously.
No. Now, he carries a parallel a
little further because he says, no, it's not that way. We're
at this meal tonight, but I am serving you. Now, he can say that directly
because they understand he is the king. Again, they don't understand
what that means yet, but they understand He's the King. So
when He makes this comparison to an earthly king who's being
served over here, and then He says, but here it is at our meal,
and I am serving you, they don't balk at that. They don't say,
wait a minute, you're talking about a king over here, and you're
talking about you over here. They understand He's the King.
So there's no conflict of parallel there in the story, but Jesus
says, We're having this meal tonight, and I'm serving you. I'm serving you. We don't have
it recorded in this instance in Luke, but it is recorded elsewhere
in the Scripture that Jesus not only served them, He washed their
feet. Lowly act of a slave. The King
of kings washing the feet of men. He told them, the kingdom you
expect is not the kingdom that's coming. It's not the kingdom
that's coming. He said, I am going to give you
the same kingdom that was given to me. My Father gave me a kingdom. I came as a king in service to
His people. And this is the same kingdom
I'm giving you. This kingdom will not be about
who's sitting in the highest seat, who has the most authority,
who's the strongest among you. The kingdom will not be as you
expect. Then he turns to Peter. Peter tends to be kind of bull-headed. He's right up there in front.
He's got a little bit of an ego, I guess, and blurts out what's
on his mind. Jesus says that Peter's going
to be tested. Going to be tested. And Peter
throws it out there. No! No, I will fight with you. I will stand with you to prison
and even to death. And Jesus tells him, no, you'll
deny me three times before the rooster crows. Why did Peter make such a bold
statement? It's kind of confusing to me. Again, not, well, I understand
it, I think, but given the story and what Jesus has even just
said about the nature of the kingdom, it's somewhat confusing
or can be. But Peter, again, is still not
with Jesus. He's not hearing a kingdom of
servants. He's not hearing that. He's hearing
a victorious king who is going to call in hundreds of thousands
of followers tomorrow, and the host of heaven, and he's going
to restore Israel. He's still hearing that. And
Peter, in his own mind, is very willing to say he will fight
with Jesus even to prison and to death. And I will put it before
you, in his own mind, he doesn't think that's even a remote possibility. He believes Jesus is going to
restore the kingdom. I will give Peter that. I don't
think Peter doubts for a minute that Jesus is going to restore
the kingdom. And you know, when we're proof positive of something,
we can sure make some mighty bold statements, can't we? I
think, take it for what it's worth, I think that Peter does
not think there is a single chance that Jesus will suffer any level
of defeat tomorrow. He's expecting Jesus to restore
the kingdom, and knowing that, this is going to happen and it's
going to happen the way we expect it, knowing that, he can be very
bold. What does that buy him if he's
bold? buys them a good seat at the table around the throne. You don't want to think about
the disciples as petty people. But they were. They're no different than we
are. The politics involved in a group went on with them. This wasn't the only time they
talked about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom.
And Peter's vying for position here. He's vying for position. Jesus is going to wake up in
the morning, call on the masses, call on the angels. There's going
to be an uprising, and Israel is going to be restored. And
Peter was right there at His side. He's kind of giving Jesus
a little nudge here. I'll be there. I'll be there. And when it all comes down, then
he's going to be in good position to occupy a seat at the right
hand of the king. Over the years, as Christians,
we've got this hierarchy in our minds of God, Christ, and the
Holy Spirit up here. Then the apostles are just right
here below them. And we've built this stuff up
in our mind, but let's never forget these guys were dirty
fishermen, tax collectors, scoundrels. One of them was a zealot, a political
insurrectionist. These guys were trash. And when you look at them and
put them in their place, you know what? They also become a
mirror. I hate to say it, But you look
at the disciples, and you see us. Because they're no different
than we are. We would be doing the same thing.
We know the rest of the story. We know the rest of the story.
Jesus was captured. He was interrogated. He was beaten. Peter denied Christ. When it
all looked good, Like it was going to happen. We're going
to take this place over. Peter was bold as he could be. He was strong as concrete. When it turned off bad and it
looked like he might actually go to prison or maybe to death,
no, I didn't know him. I did not know that man. Their expectations in a moment
were dashed. The kingdom was not going to
happen. Their expectations were completely
dashed. And we know that. We know it
by their reactions. The Gospels tell us what they
did afterwards. They locked themselves up in
a room. They scattered. They went back to fishing. Their expectations were completely
dashed. Did Jesus fail? No, not in the
least bit. Did their expectations fail? 100%. 100%. Now, I say all this because it's
an important story. And it's an important principle.
And it applies to us even today. Throughout the nation of Israel's
history, They struggled constantly with this expectation in kingdom
and the truth in spirit. And they would get it right for
a while and they would prosper. And then they would lose sight
of the truth and they would put sight on the physical kingdom
and they would fail. It was the repeated pattern of
ancient Israel. It was unfortunately the repeated
pattern of what we call the church in history. Within a period of
300 years, a handful of disciples growing and spreading the gospel
conquered the Roman Empire. I believe it was 312 that The Edict of Milan was issued
and Christianity was declared to be the religion of the Roman
Empire. They conquered an empire in 300
years. Unfortunately, they also started
to build a physical kingdom. We call it Roman Catholicism. Their vision got sidetracked. Even as the disciples expected
a physical restoration of the nation of Israel, the church
began to expect a physical kingdom of God and they built up the
Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire. And we know from
our history the direction that took them and the abuses and
the loss of the gospel that they suffered. The Reformation happened. The
Gospel is recaptured. The focus is brought back into
clear view. Christians thrive. But again,
over time, they develop the concept of a Christian nation. And Christianity
and government became mixed. And then government became predominant. And they were led astray again.
And we look at the condition of Europe today, it's a mess. It's a mess. It's devoid of gospel,
but full of government. We look at our own country. People
came here in the founding period looking to establish a place
where God could be worshipped in spirit and truth. And it's
necessary that we have government, and I hope you don't understand
me to be saying that this is against government. That's not
what I'm saying. But the colonies had to build
a government. They just have to to get along.
But in the process, we have gone more to government than to God. We are again off balance. We're
losing the gospel, but gaining a whole lot of government. the historic struggle of God's
people. Our expectations can sometimes
go one way or another. The disciples expected one thing. Christ was telling them another. In the sinful ears of the disciples,
They heard what they wanted to hear. God recovered them. He gave them
the real vision of what the kingdom is, and they preached it with
vigor. As I said, the message went out
that conquered the Roman Empire 300 years. The struggle is ongoing. It's
always ongoing. A physical nation cannot make
a people good and productive. We have to remember that. But
good people can and will make a physical nation good and productive. But there's no way to be good
except for Christ. If Christ does indeed save us,
He makes us in His image. The goodness then that we show
forth, that we bring forth is the goodness of Christ. We prosper. Those around us prosper because
God is good. But if we lose sight of that,
we cannot make a nation good. I think we understand that there's
a lot of talk these days about America. about making us a better
nation, extending goodnesses and kindnesses to people, not
only here, but worldwide. And that all sounds real good. But we're talking about doing
it without the gospel. We're talking about doing it
in our own name. But apart from Christ, who are
we? We're just another people that come and go across the pages
of a history book. That's all we are. Israel of old went up and down. God would save
them, recover them when they were in their low points and
bring them high again. The disciples there in the very
presence of God heard the message of the kingdom, misunderstood
it, heard what they wanted to hear. were ready to take it in
the direction they wanted to go, but God recovered them as
well. And they went forth and they
preached the gospel. And it was good for the people
of their day, and in fact, we're sitting in this church today
because they did that. So we know, we have the assurance,
we have the hope to be realized that Christ saves people and
that Christ builds up a body of righteous people. The disciples
learned that and they preached it. It's my hope today that as
we look back over the history of Israel, the history of the
church, and even the history of our nation, that we too hold
to that hope, that we remember it, that we pray for it daily,
that we seek to know it right here that God saves sinners and
that if sinners are saved, nations change for the better. With that
I'll end. I thank you again for the opportunity
to speak before you. I hope it's been beneficial. We'll do this as God affords
the opportunity, hopefully not through tragedy. We don't like
tragedies, but I'm thankful that I was allowed to come up and
preach, and I hope that it's been beneficial to you. With
that, I'll end. Thank you.