<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>, a.k.a. Music Sharing, license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

The Supervillain Within

Happy Sabbath everyone Wanted to turn with me to the book of John The 13th chapter John 13 and starting at verse 18 John 13 and verse 18.

The scripture reads, I speak not of you all I know whom I have chosen but that the scripture may be fulfilled he that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me now I tell you before it come that when it is come to pass you may believe that I am he verily verily I say unto you he that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.

When Jesus had thus said he was troubled in spirit and testified and said verily verily I say unto you that 1 of you shall betray me.

Our message this morning is entitled, The Supervillain Within.

Father God, we thank you Lord for this opportunity to read and understand your word.

I ask Father God now that you fill this place with your Holy Spirit.

That the words that are spoken are not mine but that father you hear these words and speak these words that Lord we might be changed as our prayer in Jesus his name amen Jesus and his disciples are at the Last Supper They're in an upper room in Jerusalem, specially chosen and prophesied about.

As they reach this place, the table is set and bread and wine is prepared as is customary for Passock or Passover as we now call it.

As they are there and they begin to get ready to fellowship and to eat together a strange thing happens.

Jesus begins, he walks to the side and pours water in a basin.

He takes off his outer coat and and is left with just a t-shirt kind of apparatus on and and takes this basin of water after he is filled it and begins to go around the table washing the feet of his disciples.

This is unheard of because Jesus is master, he is the leader, he is the figurehead of the group and it is seems crazy that he would be washing anyone else's feet.

To wash feet in that kind of clothing was to be relegated, as it were, to be a slave.

Not even a Jewish slave, but a Gentile slave, because the Jewish slaves at least wore better clothes than just an undergarment.

As he made his way around the table, washing each of the disciples' feet, he gets to Peter, and Peter pronounces in a loud voice so that everyone could hear him that he would not allow Jesus to wash his feet.

He figured, I'm sure that Peter figured that by saying this and being so loud that he would gain brownie points with Jesus.

You see, Peter's objective really was to get a key position in the newly to be established kingdom of God.

Peter was always working the political and always looking to to get the spot.

He wanted to be the vice president as it were.

He didn't want to be the director, he wanted to to really be above that.

He wanted to be Jesus's right hand when the kingdom was established.

So he utters this thing that he would he would not at all accept Jesus washing his feet but Jesus's reply kind of rebuts that when Jesus says that if I don't wash your feet you have no part with me." But then Jesus, then Peter replies, then Lord don't just wash my feet but wash all of me.

Seems like a good response like he's doing the right thing but again Peter is probably just positioning himself politically trying to make statements to impress not just Jesus but the other disciples of his worthiness to be elevated above everyone else.

Interestingly enough Jesus's response is powerful for Jesus says, look if you had bathed at home, there would be no reason for you to be washed anywhere but your feet.

Peter's responses, Peter's attitude is 1 that sometimes we reflect.

It is where we are almost as if we are trying to use our Christian experience and being a Christian not so much for how we can serve God but more how can God serve us.

So we line up with enthusiasm sometimes to do what God asks us to do, almost fanatically at times, jumping in to do whatever God says do it and wanting to seek the front and the spotlight.

Not understanding that God wants something different for us.

You see Peter wanted to be pushed to higher heights but Peter was not even yet converted.

Peter had not even really had an experience with Jesus.

Because he was too busy trying to become the first of the disciples to understand the power of humility that God was calling him to.

He didn't understand that it was sometimes the low seat, it was sometimes being the 1 who washed everyone else's feet that ultimately in the kingdom of God caused you to be elected to a higher position.

It wasn't being flashy It wasn't getting the spotlight that did it it was having the kind of humble spirit and heart that allows God to use You even when you're going to be put in the line of fire of Satan.

And I'm here to submit to you that the devil does not always shoot bullets of destruction, sometimes he shoots bullets of prosperity.

Sometimes he destroys you by giving you your heart's desire.

The devil will sometimes come at you and what sometimes we think is that when these blessings quote-unquote are coming to us we think that somehow God has favored us and don't realize that sometimes what is offered to us is a curse wrapped up in the package of a blessing.

Well let's make it plain, let's make it simple.

You see, every man, young lady, that you meet, just because he's handsome and has the potential of earning a six-figure salary, it doesn't mean that God sent him.

Oh his broad shoulders and his strong chin might be quite attractive, but in reality he could be working for the enemy and and he might just be the guy that causes you the turmoil necessary to make you ineffective as a vessel of God.

Ah because if you didn't pray for him, if you didn't agonize for that relationship, If it wasn't God who you most conversed with over who you would spend the rest of your life with, the devil is just as quick to produce your dream man as God would like to be.

Oh and of course young men the same applies.

Yeah she might be very pretty and and her figure may make the Coca-Cola bottle of old times be revived in your mind, but you have to remember that it isn't simply where the flesh falls on her that God is so concerned with.

Instead God is concerned with you marrying someone who will elevate both of you to a higher spiritual place.

You see, because the next thing is careers.

It seems as if we go to school and we work so hard and and when we're finished like Peter, after all of the years of being with Jesus and and receiving some kind of criticism, I'm sure, for being with Jesus, he wanted to make sure that his three-year investment with following Jesus paid dividends at the end.

And like Peter, some of us, after 4 years or 6 years or 8 years or 12 years of post high school education, we kind of begin to think, I deserve this better job or I deserve this better position.

I deserve it because I worked hard for it, I paid the dues and so we want to, we long for the job with the most status and the most pay and and we often do not seek God's guidance first because again when the devil sends you that job offer and you jump on it.

The job is often what will end up making you ineffective as a vehicle and a vessel in the army of God.

So yeah there are blessings that can come but understand that the enemy is just as good almost as God is at sending you blessings, at least especially when you're only trying to perceive those blessings with your 5 senses and with your carnal mind.

So it is imperative before you jump on anything that comes your way that seems like a good idea that you first consult God to make sure that the stamp on the item you're receiving says, made in glory.

Because even the devil took Jesus to the highest point he could take him to and showed him the entire world and offered it to Jesus.

If you simply bow to me, he said to Jesus, the whole world will be yours.

We can end the great controversy right here and now and you can have this world Jesus if you simply bow to me.

I submit that the devil will take some of us with the brilliant minds that are in this room and with all of the training and expertise that some of you have, God, the devil will take some of you to the highest point he can take you and simply turn and ask you if you would simply bow to me now I will give you the world.

Can you tell the difference between a blessing and a curse?

You see some of you cry over blessings and rejoice over curses because you can't tell the difference.

That young man left you young lady he He didn't treat you right and left you and left you brokenhearted and you cried, you were angry with God that he left and you didn't realize that God had just allowed him to do you the biggest favor.

You cried over the curse and rejoiced over the blessing.

You've got to know Peter didn't understand what Jesus was really offering him.

He didn't understand that when Jesus bowed to wash his feet, what Jesus was trying to tell us, all of us including his disciples, is that your feet get dirty in this life because your feet are a reminder of where you have been.

And since we aren't always going where we're supposed to go, even if we bathed at home like Jesus says, even if we took care of that stuff at home, when we walk out into the world, our minds wander, our hands wander, but it affects our feet because they take us there.

And Jesus was trying to remind us that even though you get dirty sometimes, Jesus is still in the washing business.

And so even though you're not perfect, it's okay because you have a God who even when you sin and ask his forgiveness in sincerity, he will wash you and make you new.

But he wants to only be washing your feet on a daily basis.

You ought not need to be baptized 30 times in order to make it to glory.

God was making a statement about mercy and grace and Peter was trying to position with it.

But there was another man at the table and so Jesus began to kind of mention him.

And in verse 18 he begins to talk to them and he says, I speak not of you all, I know whom I have chosen, but that the scripture might be fulfilled.

He that eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.

Now I tell you before it come, that when it come to pass, you may believe that I am he.

He mentioned this thing to the disciples so they would latch on to it and they would understand prophecy was being fulfilled in what was going to take place.

And Jesus in verse 21 says when Jesus had thus said he was troubled in the spirit and testified and said verily I verily I say unto you that 1 of you will betray me.

I don't know if you can imagine that when Jesus says that 1 of the 12 who had followed him through thick and thin was going to betray him there must have been a commotion among the disciples.

Who after seeing him raise Jairus's daughter from death, who after watching Lazarus walk from the tomb, who after seeing him heal the eyes of so many blind and make the deaf ears to hear again who after seeing him feed the 5000 and the 4000 who in their right mind would betray him.

But you see when you really study this thing, as Ellen White points out, Judas thought he would be doing Jesus a favor.

He thought that by bringing the challenge to Jesus he would force the kingdom of God into existence.

He thought that Jesus having all of the powers that he had would never allow himself to be taken or destroyed.

The Bible says in verse 22, then the disciples looked 1 another doubting of whom he spake, they in a commotion, and it was leaning on Jesus's bosom 1 of the disciples whom Jesus loved.

This would be John who's writing the book.

It is Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.

He then lying on Jesus' breast being John said unto him, Lord, speaking to Jesus, he's laying on Jesus' breast.

The way that these tables were set up, they were low to the ground and you kind of lean back on 1 elbow on a pillow and so you kind of in a in a centrifugal way make a row around the table and so there'd be 1 disciple going all the way around kind of leaning back so 1 of them would inevitably be leaning kind of close to the heart of Jesus.

So Peter whispers, you know, he kind of signals to him kind of in that gossipy way, find out who's gonna do it, let me know.

Peter figured he had to know because he was gonna be the vice president, he had to protect Jesus.

But when Jesus answers, he says, he it is whom I shall give a sop when I have dropped it, dipped it.

And when he had dipped the sop he gave it to Judas Iscariot the son of Simon.

I wonder if John really told Peter what he had found out.

But here the secret is let out that Judas is gonna do it.

Back to Menu

The Supervillain Within

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine