Matthew 26:47-56
Some Things Are Just Impossible

I. Impossible Things
1. Slamming a revolving door; for 1 + 1 to not equal 2; kiss your elbow; control a teenage daughter.
2. Have you ever come across something that, even after trying hard, you conclude is just impossible?
3. God might bring you face-to-face with something that is impossible so you learn what is impossible.
4. We might think it’s impossible for the Son of God to be captured, arrested, lead away like a criminal.
5. Last week we saw that it was impossible for us to be saved any other way than the cross.
II. The Unashamedness of Sin (26:47-50)
A. Judas the Betrayer
1. We are reminded there that Judas is “one of the twelve” because it is astounding He was betrayed.
2. It seemed impossible that one of those men, so close together, would be a betrayer.
3. It should be impossible but sin has a way of making us unfaithful, ungrateful, disloyal, selfish.
4. Not only has Judas done what seemed impossible, he does it completely without shame.
5. There are many attempts to spin what he did to put him in a good light; to sympathize with him.
6. When people started getting creative with rewriting the gospel, they made excuses for Judas.
7. We have a hard time accepting the unashamedness of sin. We think everyone can see their sin.
8. We misunderstand what sin is. We think it is something we do, external to the real us.
9. We under-estimate what sin does to us when we give into it, how it hardens us to more sin.
B. Judas the Audacious
1. Sin sears our conscience, like a hot iron, burns out the nerves of our conscience (1 Timothy 4:2).
2. Judas doesn’t stand far off and just point Jesus out. He is unashamed about identifying Him exactly.
3. The kiss, Matthew writes specifically, is an intense word. It is an affectionate, repeated kiss.
4. Judas identifies Jesus it in the most demonstrative, expressive, audacious way possible.
5. Jesus says to him literally, “For this you came” (26:50). His life was about this.
6. In John 17:12, Judas is called “the son of destruction”, a term only used for the antichrist.
7. A sociopath is “someone interested only in their personal needs and desires.”
8. Little sins can make people into a big, audacious, sociopathic sinners.
9. Do you think your little sins are no big deal? They are, right now, searing your conscience.
10. They make it easier for you to fall for the big sin. You cannot play with sin without being burned.
III. The Unprofitability of Violence (26:51-53)
1. You also cannot profit spiritually by carnal means. It is unable to advance the Kingdom of God.
2. A disciple took out a sword to fight. He almost certainly intended to cut off more than an ear.
3. The disciples expected that the Messiah would take power and impose the Kingdom.
4. Jesus taught that the Kingdom is like a grain of mustard seed that gradually grows.
5. Jesus said that forceful, or violent, people lay hold of the Kingdom of God (Matthew 11:12).
6. The Roman Emperor Constantine claimed a vision of a cross with the words, “Conquer by this.”
7. We cannot, with our force, advance the Kingdom. Only God’s power can advance the Kingdom.
8. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal or mere human reasoning (2 Corinthians 10:4).
9. If He wanted to fight He’d call on twelve legions of angels, an overwhelming number.
10. He’s telling them He is not a victim. He doesn’t need any human help. He wasn’t trapped.
11. If the disciples couldn’t use violence, they would flee. The only alternative was submission.
IV. The Unbreakability of Scripture (26:54-56)
1. The disciples think they can change events with grit and determination; with swords and muscle.
2. Jesus tells them that scripture must be fulfilled, “it must happen in this way” (26:54).
3. We can never drop studying and teaching the Bible and still call ourselves a church.
4. Living the Christian life by yourself is impossible. You need the power of the Holy Spirit and a church.
V. Invitation:
1. Entering the Kingdom of God with enough of our own religion and morality is not possible. But coming into God’s Kingdom, being saved, without dedication is not possible either. You must violently lay hold of it, with all your heart; a single-minded commitment to not let go. Lay hold now, violently, of the Kingdom, knowing that your forcefulness cannot advance it. The Kingdom of God demands 100% from us while relying on 0% of us.
2. Pleasing God at all, on our own, is impossible. We need for this Jesus to be numbered with the transgressors – even though He was not a transgressor, and we are. We need Him to do for us what is impossible for us to do for ourselves.