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.