Be Generous!

<sup>This is a very famously quoted verse, in Luke 16:

10</sup> “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹ So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

These verses tell us that God has entrusted you with much because you have shown that you can be entrusted with that smaller amount. These 2 verses overshadowed the other verse which i find interesting...


⁹ I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

This would be a shocker, i mean everyone would want to hear that God wants to give us more riches to manage(after all all are His), if we can manage the smaller portion. 

But to use worldly wealth to gain friends? To be generous and gain favour from people? That is not well thought to be, well Jesus used this parable of the master who commended the dishonest managers because of his shrewdness in expense of his master. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it pays to be generous! Not only to the church, but to everyone else! Be Generous!

Faith, what kind do we have?

⁵⁴ When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

 We can have a lot of different levels of faith. Seen here, the centurion doubted that Jesus was the Son of God at first. Similar to the many jews then who saw Jesus also doubted. Why did they doubt? Firstly let us not blame them, for most of them did not see Jesus' miracles first hand nor experience His power. Moreover, some of them did not even meet Him before! There there were also many rumours of Jesus. probably good and bad.  Given these conditions, i would say it is hard to believe. These people do not even have a relationship with Jesus. 

Now the question is do YOU have the faith? You may have experienced Jesus in your life, in some way, maybe directly or witnessed His power through friends or healing of people. The question is after experiencing God in all kinds of ways, do you still doubt that Jesus exist? After the centurions witnessed the mighty power that Jesus commanded, they proclaimed that Jesus is the Son of God. The question that for you, how many of these kinds of instances does it take for you to believe, to just have the faith?

Judas Iscariot!!

^{Matthew 26:14-16}

Judas Agrees to Betray Jesus

¹⁴ Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. ¹⁶ From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.


This passage always intrigued me for the following reasons: 

1. The biggest question: Why would Judas betray Jesus?
2. Why did Judas still betray Jesus?
3. What was Judas's intention(different from why)?

Before we look into these 3 questions, we need to examine Judas, his personality and his attitudes towards life. After some research, 

John 12:1-6, Mark 14:1-10, Matthew 26:6-13

Jesus Anointed at Bethany

12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. ³ Then Mary took about a pint^[a] of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

⁴ But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, ⁵ “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.^[b]” ⁶ He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

 Note: this is not the same woman mentioned in Luke 7:38

Btw, a pint is 1/2 a liter.

All 3 passages correlate very well with each other. Note that in Matthew and Mark it was mentioned that some disciples, means not all but some...

⁸ When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked.

But in John we see that Judas along was mentioned. You know like how a convo or opinion started because someone led the conversation? Someone suggested something. Like how we always decide where to eat after LG but always end up eating Macs, because there are some who started the conversation with Macs, suggested Macs. So, in this case Judas was the one who probably started the conversation, that say hey why not we sell and donate?  

From here we see that Judas was probably a very practical man, and sly at the same time. He was practical because he thought that that money would be better used in that situation(and from this we know that he knew and understood the value of money, hence the suggestion), but again, he probably had thoughts of stealing the money. 

We observe in verse 6 that he was also the treasurer! But he was not very honest with the money! Hence, we can say that he values money and also has no qualms about stealing. 

Hence we have some understanding of his personality and now we see the passage deeper with all these in mind. 

Question 1:
Why did Judas betray Jesus?
Given his personality, if i were him, i would try to hog wealth. I would want to always launch myself to any opportunity to earn myself or steal to get that money. In the case of Jesus, we observe also in the passages that concern Jesus and Judas, there was no mention of Judas calling Jesus LORD/Master/God. Which most likely means that he only saw Jesus as a teacher, a Rabbi. (see Matthew 26:49). This deduction is very important in our answer here. Judas, a person who loves wealth, saw Jesus as a teacher of the law. 

To answer this fully we look at question 3: What was Judas' intention?
His intention, which we can extrapolate from his "teacher" belief that he was expecting Jesus to be a king, a physical king. Because Judas heard Jesus talking about this new kingdom and all the prophesy about Jesus being king and people PROCLAIMING him to be a king, he probably thought that Jesus will be a worldly king and then he will be given a place in the kingdom, probably Chief Finance in the kingdom. 
So, that answers his intention, we now go back to Q1.

He at this moment probably notice and come to realization what the other disciples long deduced by faith, that Jesus is Son of God and His kingdom is the heavenly kingdom, not the worldly one. So all his discipleship with Jesus has come to waste, he was not going to be chief of finance. All his planning and scheming has come to waste and he was thinking of ways to cash in(being a practical man). His chance came when Jesus made a ruckus in Jerusalem, in the temples and courts. He must have thought, this is chance to cash in in my investment, after all i spent so much time with this man and it all amount to nothing, now at least i can get something out of it.
Now we have answered question 1.

The second is the most intriguing question. Jesus already said quite explicitly here in John 13:

25 Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”

26 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 Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” 28 But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. 29 Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. 30 As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.

Judas knew that he was going to betray Jesus, why did he still do it? I hear you say because of Satan! Nope, you cannot blame it on Satan. Sure, Satan can encourage you to do bad things, but it is your will that matters. What you want to do? What does your heart desires? Desires Sin? In that situation, there are so many disciples why Judas? probably because of his heart condition. In the same way, then Satan can help you get to the sin. If we keep our heart with God and build a relationship, we can guard against Satan, not that we would 100% not sin anymore but we know our identity and are letting the relationship with God change your heart. Because ultimately if it is something you have no desire of doing and  do not will to do it Satan cannot force you to do it, he can definitely entice you, tempt you but not force you.
Then why did he still do it, since he knew he was the one to betray Jesus. Its the same thing like Julia, when she is choosing her university and I (as Jesus) tell her hey you are going to graduate from University of Melbourne. Would Julia still do otherwise? In doing do losing her free will. Because that is not her deciding but me. This is a very good question because this is a cyclic argument and there is a answer to it, but i will leave it to all of you as homework. When i was preparing this sharing, i felt HS telling me to concentrate on the point about sin and heart condition and not this even though i really want to share this.
Back to the point about sin. Now friends, we may now sit here and think oh if i am in Judas' shoes i would not sell Jesus for just 30 pieces of silver. Oh i caught you. just 30 pieces of silver? We may not sell Jesus for 30 pc of silver which in today's money should be around 10k. How about 100K? 1 Million? 1 Billion? 1 Trillion? Its exactly the same situation as Judas faced that we are facing today, who is your god? Judas failed with Jesus in front of him as his discipler and as a physical being. How much more are we likely to fail? Judas worshiped money. That was the god that Satan used to do his work against Jesus. It is so important to do the things that Judas failed to do and the rest of the disciples did. I will share a few things:

1. Recognize that Jesus is God over your life( this is  easy to say but really hard to execute)
Judas only recognize Jesus as teacher. Who is Jesus to you? Recognize that Jesus died on the cross, he is Savior, King of kings of the universe, Jehovah-Shammah(omnipresent), Jehovah-Shalom(peace), Jehovah-Rohi, Jehovah-Rapha(healer), Jehovah-Jireh(provider), Jehovah-Nissi(love), Yahweh. Most importantly He wants to build a relationship with us, just like how he built relationship with the disciples.

2. Come clean about your sinful desires before God
Notice this is different from fixing your sinful desires then going to God. Note this is also different from sin, i said sinful desires. Any desires that can lead you to sin. Judas held on to his desire to be come rich and that over powered him, and then sin.

3. What takes precedence over God? Judas made wealth his god, what is yours? What would you trade Jesus for when no one is watching?

Whatever that you put in today may be a few dollars to God's bag and you may just forget about it tomorrow. The question here is when something else comes along, like a bag that represents wealth comes along how much would you put into the bag and how would it compare with what you put into God's money bag? How about success' money bag? And so be clear, the money bag can be replace with time bad and it would still work. Give you an example God's time bag is ministry. Now all of those who are done with BMT and DNA, now God is like passing his time-bag around and it reaches you, would you give? These time-bags will pass around periodically like cafe serving and planning for outreach and more. All of us can only encourage you(like Andy said previously about serving in the lifegroup), but the choice is yours!

Judas made his decision to put his time and money into the wealth money pouch, now its our time to make the decision.

The End.

24 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ² “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

³ As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
⁴ Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵ For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. ⁶ You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷ Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of birth pains.
⁹ “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. ¹⁰ At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, ¹¹ and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. ¹² Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, ¹³ but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
¹⁵ “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’^[a] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. ¹⁸ Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. ¹⁹ How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! ²⁰ Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
²² “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. ²³ At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. ²⁴ For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵ See, I have told you ahead of time.
²⁶ “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. ²⁷ For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ²⁸ Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
²⁹ “Immediately after the distress of those days

“‘the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
    and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’^[b]

³⁰ “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth^[c] will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.^{[d] 31} And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

³² “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. ³³ Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it^[e] is near, right at the door. ³⁴ Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ³⁵ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

As i reflected on this passage, a sense of joy and sadness descended upon me. Firstly, joy because after the end times, there will be a new heaven and new earth! Like this is a huge signpost for the new heaven and earth to come. Then there will be no weeping. 

However, these are very scary times, look specifically here:

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷ Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of birth pains.
⁹ “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. ¹⁰ At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, ¹¹ and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. ¹² Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, ¹³ but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Wars and rumours of wars. Then there will be world war and there will be killing and there will be a lack of food because of that. Then Christians ( i believe God was trying to say Christians as it said you, which referred to Matthew, who is a Jew but believe in Christ, so technically a Christian. Many would lose faith in God. 

Then the gospel will be preached and the whole world will know. I wonder how is it done, television? Hmm.. i don't know. In fact no one knows expect the Father. 

All we can do right now is to keep the faith and share the faith, and keep building up the faith, in case, just in case this is happening in our life time. 

If it does, the question we need to ask ourselves is, can we keep the faith? We can in peace and prosperity, but how about in war and famine?

The faith. (Part II)

That is not all! He did not mean that gentiles are stray dogs but domesticated dogs. In other words pets!

Now consider this situation, you are the owner of the house and you have children and you have pet dogs in your house.

The Children would always eat first before the dogs get food.

²⁴ He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
²⁷ “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

The food was meant for the lost sheep of Israel. Now in this perspective, Jesus is the owner of the house, the Jews are his children and the pet dogs are represented by gentiles. 

Jesus came to bring the good news first to the Jews then through the Jews they were to make disciples of all nations. Jesus' ministry was the Jews and not the gentiles and the ministry of gentiles belonged to the Jews! In a way Jesus was letting His disciples take the charge, decide and He wanted to see how they reacted.

In the end they responded by saying 


“Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

and even opened the door for the woman to come in to meet Jesus. 

That was probably a satisfactory response as His disciples stepped up, as He kept quiet.

²⁷ “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
²⁸ “Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Then when the woman came in, her response really impacted me. She humbled herself and mentioned that she was equivalent to this pet dog in this parable.  Really! Such humility!!

I really do not understand how much faith and conviction that this woman possess for her to answer this way to Jesus. 

Firstly similar to the Army commander who came to Jesus, she understood the nature of Jesus' power and had great faith. 

Secondly, she had insight to Jesus' parable and Jewish faith.

Thirdly, she humbled herself before Jesus. 

Through the whole process, Jesus did not deny her, only telling her it is not time. 

The disciples understood through the parable that their mission was to: 

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Lastly, the woman was healed and was not insulted through the process.