Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to The Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Lofton, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you were joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, good morning. If you are new, I'm Charlie, I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm really glad that you are worshiping with us today.
And if you are new, have a little thing in the back, we call it First Step, there's a gift that I'd love to give you, I would just love to meet you. We can help you get better connected whenever it is you're ready. We can get you on our email mailing list. Anyway, we'd just love to meet you, connect with you, and just really, really glad you are here. Our mission here is we're inviting Northwest Arkansas to know Jesus, to build meaningful relationships, and to share his hope with the world.
And so so glad that you are are here with us today. Glad all of you are here today, just kind of as we as we as we try to live out this awesome mission that God has given us. Shout out to the women on the women's retreat. I know that some of you've made it back, and I'm hearing great stories. There are a lot of our women that are that are still there for bonus second night, really excited about that.
And a shout out to all the dads who survived, both survived and made it and made it here. I knew you would because you needed an hours with the kids. But regardless, it doesn't mean you don't get the points for it. You get all the points. And really excited to hear even more about awesome things that God is doing in our women's ministry at the women's retreat.
So thankful for that opportunity. People have been asking me in a very consoling way, how am I doing after last night's basketball game? And I'm a big Razorback basketball fan, new people. And I'm wearing a Disney World shirt, and I have my Chick fil A cup. So I am just choosing other coping mechanisms to kind of get through it today.
So I'm doing fine. So those of who were here last week, you know that we were not here last week. And Spencer, our youth pastor, spoke here for the first time. And many of you, I got a lot of unsolicited texts that he did a good job, and I know you guys were very loving and kind and supportive of him, and thank you for that. And thank you, Spencer.
He's up with our youth right now for filling in and kind of kicking off that series, kicking off this series for us. You may want know where we were, well my wife and I, I serve on the board of a national college ministry, and they were having a donor event, kind of for some of their higher end donors raising money, and they invited and Heidi and I to come and for me to speak at one of the sessions. And so we had a really, really good time. We were not the target audience of this. I was a speaker.
We are not a high end donor, but it was a very nice place. Like, thank you for inviting us to this. I will accept this invitation all the time. It was a very nice place, very, very everything was great. But not being somebody who got a traditional invite to this, I didn't really know what all the what the schedule was going to be.
I just knew, you know, when I was speaking, and there's different things. And the emcee gets up the very first night, Thursday we're there from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon. The MC gets up there on Thursday night, and it was like, yes, and later and later in a couple nights, Stephen Curtis Chapman is going to put on a concert. Right? Okay.
So here's what I was thinking all week, thinking about it. I was like, if there's any group that I could share this with that would absolutely not get it, it is you. And so I share it with you anyway, because probably there are not many people here in the room that were really into contemporary Christian music in the '90s. But if you were, if you were, you might be marginally as excited about it. I looked at my wife, was like, are you kidding me?
Like, this was great. I've not had a long history throughout a lot of my life of really being into Christian music. But in the '90s, I definitely was, and he was it. I mean, he was the best. I probably saw him maybe five or six times in concert, probably the person I've seen in concert the most.
The fact that he was going be here at a small venue, about 100 people, I was so excited. I mean, was a great thing. And then it was like putting, you know, sharing his story and intermixing it with all of these songs that I feel like I kind of grew up on. I mean, it was like, it started for me in college. And so I say grow up, I mean kind of pre just right before adulthood into early adulthood, and he's going through all these songs, and I'm crying.
I'm crying, which is not unusual. I am a crier. I cry. Okay? What really caught me off guard is when I look this way, and my wife who is in fact not a crier, she's crying.
Right? And I was having a hard time really just kind of articulating what was going on in here. And then we were talking to some people after the concert, and my wife, who just has an incredible way with words and thoughts and connecting thoughts to emotions and these sorts of things, she said, like, it was just really emotional for us because it was like He was playing the soundtrack of our life. And there really is, there's this kind of ten year window from, like, kind of our second half of college, you know, right after we really started walking with Jesus is when we first started listening to Him, and some of those songs were really meaningful to me as I was thinking about what kind of life I wanted to live, and then we got married, and then there's some of his songs about marriage, and inspirational songs like this really critical window of our lives from midway through college to being married five or six years, this really critical decade of our life. And these really was, it really was.
It was the soundtrack of those times, and it was just really emotional. It really got me in this place of just deep reflection, both that night and the days since then, and just really kind of, you know, when when you were just kind of thrown into the emotion of kind of where I started all of this journey for those ten years. Like, who was I then? What what kind of led me to become that person? And who was that guy?
And and who I've become? And what's happened in the thirty years since some of that? And just got me just real reflective about who I was, who I am, who I want to be, and just feeling all of this overwhelming deep emotion. I bring all this up, one, because I just wanted to tell you that I got to see Stephen Curtis Chapman in concert, even if you don't care. Right?
But number two, I bring it up because that really is kind of where we are in this series. Spencer kicked it off last week, and we're at this place with Jesus where, you know, he he grew up with with Mary, with Joseph, with his with his with his brothers and sisters, and then starts this ministry and calls these disciples. He's been walking and living with them for three years, And now he is on the verge of what he knows is going to be a very difficult time emotionally and certainly physically. And he is now at this transition point. He knows that later tonight is when he is gonna get arrested.
And he's gathering together with his with with his people one last time. The last time he's gonna really get to to be with them at all until after the resurrection. And he's gotta he's gotta prepare them for that, and also just kind of start to prepare them for who they are going to be once he's gone for good. And at the same time, you can just feel, and we'll see it in this passage today, deep emotion that he's feeling about everything that has led to this point and what is about to come. And as he is thinking all of this about all the emotions, who I am, where I'm going, these guys, who do I want them to become?
It started with foot washing. The very first thing that he wanted to communicate to them, like, here's who I am. You know who I am, and I'm a washer of your feet. You have to do the same thing. He knows that that after some time, they're gonna be the leaders of a pretty significant movement.
Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people in a relatively short amount of time are gonna be looking to them, and it is the kind of thing that can very easily go to your head. And he's setting the table. This is what it means to lead. This is what it means to be great, to be a servant to everyone, to wash each other's feet. And now we kind of now you're gonna we're just gonna see.
He's reflecting a little bit on the significance of that for him and for them, and it's now about to move into kind of just some time of of teaching and explaining kind of what he wants to see from them. But in the meantime, we're kind of in this little transition period. They just washed their feet, and He's thinking and reflecting on that and what it means. He's about to communicate something very significant to His disciples. We're gonna pick it up right where Spencer left us last week, John 13, starting with verse 18.
We're gonna go through verse 30. We'll just work our way through the whole passage and just read it all as one, because I think it's really pretty powerful. Then we'll just come back to different parts of it for the message. Verse 18, John chapter 13. I'm not referring to all of you.
Okay, what's he talking about here? Just make sure that you guys are supposed to go out there and wash people's feet too. Follow my example. And then he's like, I'm not talking about all of you. I know those I have chosen, but this is to fulfill the passage of scripture.
He who shared my bread has turned against me. I'm telling you now before it happens, so then when it does happen, you will believe that I am who I am. Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I sent, accepts me, and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me. After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, very truly, I tell you, one of you is going to betray me. His disciples stared at one another at a loss to know which of them he meant.
One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to his this disciple and said, ask him which one he means. Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, it is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish. Then dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Jesus, the son of Simon Iscariot.
As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. So Jesus told him, what you are about to do, do quickly. But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. Since Jesus since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival or to to give something the poor. As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out, and it was night.
I hope you can feel just kind of the emotion of that, that kind of Jesus is going through, talking to his disciples about somebody's about to betray him and then to con then to confront him. Right? And in this picture, in this brief little story, I think we learn a lot about this Jesus. We talk about we're asking we're wanting to invite Northwest Arkansas to know Jesus. We're sharing the hope of Jesus with the world.
We get an incredible glimpse of who this Jesus is that we're inviting people to know and to follow. And it starts with, again, I think the thing that is is it's it's the most popular thing to think about and talk about with this passage. The thing that on some level is incredibly shocking. Jesus knew all along. From the time he called Judas Iscariot, from the three years that they were together, all the way up until this moment, including having just washed his feet.
He knew exactly who Judas was and what he was gonna do, and we'll say it this way, that Jesus knew that one of his closest followers would betray him. He knew this. He wasn't caught off guard by it. It wasn't something he suspected. It wasn't something he feared might happen.
He knew. He knew when he called him. He knew when he loved him. He knew when he taught him. When he included him into his deepest, most intimate followers, all the way up until the point that he invites them up to this room together where they're gonna have this last meal and he's gonna talk to them, all the way up until the point to where he serves him by washing his feet.
Jesus knew that this guy in particular was going to betray him, and yet kept him in the circle the whole time. Now we use this word when we talk about Judas. We use it in other contexts too, betrayal. He was going to betray Jesus. And a lot of us, probably most of us, on some level have experienced some level of betrayal.
Some things where it's but but really betrayal is more than just a friend of mine disappointed me. My spouse hurt my feelings. Right? Something like that I lost a friendship. Betrayal is something deeper.
And again, this points to just how significant it is that Jesus is continue has been continuing for years to build and have a relationship with him. Betrayal is someone that I know, someone that I love, someone that supposedly loves me, at some point, is going to actively and intentionally try to cause me harm. And Jesus invites this man in to his deepest circle knowing that even as they become really good friends, that there's going to come a point where Judas is going to actively intentionally try to cause Jesus harm. He has been he has been out there, and he has final he has sold information to the people who want to kill him. You're looking for a quiet, discreet place to arrest him where the crowd won't get stirred up.
I know exactly where he is twenty four seven, and I can bring you to where he is for a relatively small amount of money. He betrays Jesus. I've experienced this. I've experienced some levels of betrayal. Very first pastoral job I had right out of college was pastoring with some friends.
The lead pastor was a friend of mine, the worship pastor was a friend of mine, and three of us were kind of best friends doing this thing together. And it wasn't necessarily going great, it was going okay, it wasn't going great, it wasn't going great. And some of you know, at least parts of the story, you know, that after a few years, it wasn't going great, my friend, the lead pastor, he ultimately decided that this was all my fault. I was the reason why that this wasn't going well, and I needed I needed to go, so he fired me. And at the time, at 33 years old, 33 years old, I mean, that's a it felt like, that felt like betrayal.
I mean, you live long enough, you kind of look back on it, it's like, I don't know that he handled it the best way, but sometimes people need to get fired. I mean, it's like, it wasn't going great, it's some things needed to change, That really wasn't the betrayal. He could have handled it better, really hurt my feelings. He didn't handle it well. He didn't handle it like we were friends.
Wasn't great. But when I think about betrayal, I don't think about that. I think about what happened next. As these two men began to work their way through the entire database of our church, and I could tell that they were going about it in alphabetical order based on the calls that I was getting, first with people whose last name started with a, then b, and then c. And it was the same call every time as they are telling me that my two best friends are going around to all of my other friends to tell them that I am someone with a raging anger problem, who is constantly hurting people.
And you may not see it because you think that he is such a nice guy, but he is actually deeply troubled, and we had to get rid of him. Every one of my friends heard that, and they're going around doing this. And even though I've reconciled with them since then, I can still I can still feel it. I can still my body is remembering what it was like to receive those phone calls, to sit and have lunch with people. And and and and and and the pain, the hurt that I went through.
And thinking about this passage and what Jesus is doing here and and having Judas be a part of his inner circle, knowing this was gonna happen, I asked the question if, what if I had known? Would I have done things differently? And in fact, there was a guy, one of the guys in the church, he was trying to have a real spiritual moment with me and trying to help me have perspective, which was a bad call on his part. And he was like, if this is Charlie, knowing everything that you know now, would you have still come to St. Louis?
And I looked at him, I didn't even think about it. Was I, you know, absolutely not. No. No. Absolutely no.
No. And he was again, he was trying to give me perspective, like, man, just think about all the good things that God did and how God moved and all these things. At 54, I would answer that question differently. At that time, I had no perspective. Like, why would you willingly step into a situation knowing your friends are going to betray you?
Now I know Jesus' situation is different. He mentions it. Right? There's a scripture that's going to have to be fulfilled. But that doesn't take away from the emotional weight of what Jesus is communicating to his disciples, to Judas, and to us two thousand years later about who he is and what he is like.
Because what we learn here is that there is no situation. There's nothing you can do, there's no one you can be that would put you outside of the love and acceptance of Jesus. When we say we're inviting people to know Jesus, this is the Jesus we're talking about. And one of the most heartbreaking things that I can hear people say is that somehow I'm not yet worthy or ready to be accepted by Jesus. I want to follow Jesus.
I want to be a Christian. I want to believe, but I'm not good enough yet. I'm not good enough yet. I've got some things I need to work on, and then if I work on them, then maybe I can be good enough to to receive Jesus. And what Jesus is saying here, it does not matter what your past has been.
I want you to become a follower of mine. I want to forgive you. I want to bring you life. I I I want to heal you. I want to make you new.
There is no prerequisite so bad that Jesus will not forgive and heal you. I know some of us may think that we've got some really bad track record, but it is unlikely that anything that we have done would be worse than this. And here Jesus is all the way to the very end, loving and serving him, knowing what he is about to do. But it's not just Judas. Not just Judas.
This is this is an incredible story. You know, he he says, hey, one of you is gonna betray me. This is Jesus really troubled. It's like one of you is gonna betray me. And there's this, this is, it's a it's a it's a funny moment to think about, for me anyways.
And it says that the disciple that Jesus loved is kind of leaning up against Jesus. So they're all just kinda sitting there, sitting there on the floor at the table, kind of eating, the one that Jesus loves kind of leaning next to him, and we'll just pause for now because they're not really doing a whole series in John. It's about, it's kind of unusual that the author is talking about himself. This is how he's describing himself. He doesn't say me, doesn't use first person pronouns, he uses name.
He describes himself as the one that Jesus loved, which on the one hand is kind of weird, but on the other hand, it's actually kind of cool that that's how he identifies himself. That's how he thinks of himself, as someone that Jesus loves. Now if you start thinking about is he saying, is there a comparative statement there? Then it gets kinda like, oh, what's really going on here? But the idea that that's how John thinks of himself.
I think of myself as someone that Jesus loves. So he's kinda leaning up against him like this. And then Peter's over here, and he's like, ask him. Ask him. Ask him how it is.
Ask him how it is. Yeah, this scheming, if you have multiple kids, you've seen this play out before, right, where you can tell there's a little plot over here about which one of them is going to ask, and which one of you they're going to ask. Like, they're trying to triangulate you against each other, but then also trying to figure out what is the most strategic way to kind of get the answer that we want to hear. You ask him. Ask him which one.
And so he said, hey, so which one are you talking about? Who? And then Jesus gives a very, what seems to be a very clear answer to this question. I'm going to take this bread. I'm going to dip it in the dish.
And the person that I give this piece of bread to, that's the one that's going to betray me. See, this piece of bread, this piece of bread, I'm going to put it in this dish. And when I do that, I'm going to hand it to somebody. And that person that I hand it to, that's the one. And so he puts it in the dish, hands it to Judas, and he says, what do you got to do?
You go do it. And then he leaves, and the disciples are like, I wonder what he was talking to Judas about. That's kind of weird. That kind of weird, actually. He's like, I mean, he's got this is the money guy.
He's like, he's going to go buy supplies? Is he going give money to the poor? That was kind of weird. We asked him who was going to betray him, and then he did that. I wonder what that means.
And it's easy, it's easy. And this was kind of in this reading of it for me, this is the kind of thing that stood out the most to me. Obviously, the idea of Judas is the biggest piece of this. But for me, this really kind of stood out. Of these guys who's not here, like, it could not have been clearer.
Who is it? The one I give the bread to, Hans bread. And they're like, what's they don't know. But there's a piece that we're missing a little bit. Because what Jesus does here there's like, if you are the host of this kind of meal, and you take a piece of bread and dip it for someone and then hand it to them, that is a tremendous way of showing someone honor.
That is what the host would do for the guest of honor at their dinner. And so they're saying, who is the one that is going to betray you? It is the one that I'm about to honor above all of the rest of you. Does it? Okay.
That doesn't make sense. I don't I don't I I don't understand that. I don't think that they're necessarily thick as much as as it is that just Jesus kind of blew their worldview a little bit. That preconceived ideas. I mean, if Jesus said, which one is it?
It's the one I'm about to throat punch and throw out of here. Oh, I bet it's Judas. He just punched him and threw him out of here. I'm gonna put him in a headlock, I'm gonna put him noogie, throw him out, say a few curse words, that's the one. But this honoring that happens, it doesn't it makes it okay.
That could not have been the answer to the question because then what you did doesn't make sense. And and I I feel like I'm like this all the time, asking questions. God, why this? God, why aren't you doing this? Why are you allowing this to happen?
Why this? Why this? Why this? And the answers are everywhere, but I won't see them. This is a difficult thing to kind of put your your foot into to only talk about a little bit, but it's been a very troubling forty eight hours or so in the world.
And it is very common, like, when especially when there's so much kind of so many religious elements to it, it seems to spin around. It seems like that God would be more involved in this than other things. It's like, God, why would you God, why would you let this happen? Why would why would you do this? Where are you?
The scriptures already have plenty of good answers to this. Says that everyone is an authority, has been placed there by God, and he is kind of, at least on some level, managing that. And it also says that the world is gonna get a whole lot worse as as as things start ticking down, especially in that region. It says that. Jesus said it.
Old Testament says it. Later, New Testament says it. But there's something about our worldview. Right? That God God is about prosperity.
God is about peace. God is about everything being good. And so we can't we can't see God in that. And then it becomes even more so when it becomes to me. God, why would you let me lose my job?
Why would you let these people say these bad things about me? Why would you let this happen? And the answers are always there about God wanting to teach humility, about God allowing us to go through trials to make us better on the inside, But a very clear picture of what God's priorities are from this to this? There are answers to some of these questions, but we can't see them. We can't see them.
We can't see them. We don't wanna see them. But I think about it from Jesus' perspective. You've got his closest followers, his closest disciples just weren't listening to him. They just weren't they just weren't listening.
And in the same way, this Jesus who extends so much grace to Judas is the one that we're appointing people who don't know him to know. This Jesus who is tolerating such nonsense from his disciples, this is the Jesus that he's called us, that we're being called to follow. He is incredibly gracious and patient with his followers when they don't get it, when they don't understand, when they're not even really listening, when they can't get over their own worldview to be able to even see that sometimes these things happen because the world is desperately broken, that we can't see that even in our grief and in our worst that God is there with us. No matter how far we may drift, no matter how he is always loving and calling us back. And in the middle of kind of these two anecdotes, verse 21 says this, and after he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit.
So, he knew, he knew. He knew that one of his closest followers was going to betray him and he's sitting here living out for the hundredth, two hundredth, five hundredth time that his disciples just aren't quite listening. This is what he's going through. He's troubled. And I think if we put all of this together, this picture of what we learn about Jesus, we get this, that Jesus was both troubled and gracious.
We've got a picture of a Jesus who no matter how bad Judas was, no matter what he was about to do, Jesus continued to show love to him. And no matter how much his real followers, his real devoted followers were clueless and walked away and weren't listening, weren't paying attention, wouldn't change their thought processes to merge with what Jesus, no matter what they did, he continues to love them, teach them, shepherd them. He is incredibly gracious. There's no question you can ask. There's no trial you could go through.
There's no reaction that you can have that the god of the universe would not graciously forgive you. And we rest in that. I do not have to worry that at some point, I can undo the love that god has shown me through Jesus Christ. There is no obstacle keeping me from that love and then once I have it, there is no wandering I can do to diminish it and I rest there. I rest in his graciousness.
But Jesus was also troubled. It bothered him. He was hurt it hurt him. And so I rest in his grace, but I am motivated by his heart. I do not obey him.
I do not follow him. I do not do this job. I do not try to be a good person. I don't give. I don't serve.
I don't do all of these things out of some fear that the love of god will diminish in some way. I rest fully knowing that god's love for me through Jesus Christ is secure. But I do give, I do serve, I I do pursue holiness, I do try to live and be the person that god has called me to, not because I must out of fear but I must because the one who has loved me is worthy of my love. I do not want to trouble the one who has given me so much. I want to please him.
And the longer I live, I am becoming more and more fully convinced that the that one of the most significant keys to following Jesus Christ for a lifetime is learning these two different things and putting them together. I rest and trust in the unconditional love of Jesus that comes from his forgiveness, just made possible by the cross. And I am motivated by who he is and his love for me to be the person that he has called me to be. Let me pray. Amen.
God, I thank you. I thank you for Jesus. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for his heart. I thank you for his love.
I thank you for the grace that he shows to Judas who is close but outside. And God, how you're begging all of us who are on the outside to find grace and forgiveness. And God, I thank you for the grace that he shows to those of us on the inside as we just continue to struggle. And God, I pray that we would learn to rest in that unconditional love, but then to also be overwhelmingly motivated by it, to be who you've called us to be, to do what you've called us to do, and to invite people to know this Jesus and to share that hope with the whole world, and it's in his name that we pray, amen. Thanks again for joining us on our sermon podcast, and you can learn more about us at thegrovechurch.org.
If you go to thegrovechurch.org/connect, there's a form you could fill out. Just let us know that you've been listening. And if you wanna dig deeper on some of these topics that we cover in our sermon podcast or just another issues of dealing with culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our cultivate podcast. It's on the same feed, however you found this particular podcast. So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.