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Jesus Hosts the Last Passover for Sinners in Need of a Savior

March 4, 2018 Preacher: Series: The Passion of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew

Scripture: Matthew 26:17–46

Key Truth: Jesus saves and uses those who are selfish, break promises, and fail Him in their devotion to build His church for God’s glory.  

 


Introduction:


If you were starting something from scratch, what kind of people would you want to
be involved to make it successful?

 

“Jesus is not very fastidious about the company he keeps.”

Richard John Neuhaus,
Death on a Friday Afternoon:
Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross

 

 

The Last Passover: Selfishness in the Presence of Selflessness:

Matthew 26:17-29

“The little company to which the bread and wine were first administered by our Lord, was composed of the apostles, whom He had chosen to accompany Him during His earthly ministry….They knew but little of the frailty of their own hearts. They thought they were ready to die with Jesus, and yet that very night they all forsook Him and fled. All this our Lord knew perfectly well. The state of their hearts was not hid from Him. And yet He did not keep back from them the Lord’s Supper.”

J.C. Ryle,
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Vol. 1: Matthew — Mark

 

In the midst of a difficult situation, what are often your top concerns?
What are
Jesus’ top concerns in his last Passover with the disciples?

 

 

The Mount of Olives: False Declarations and A Better Promise to be Kept:

Matthew 26:30-35

“To be forgiven means that the disciples’ betrayal, our betrayal, is subsumed by God’s more determinative redemptive purpose for his creation. To be so redeemed makes possible the recognition of our betrayal, because sin is bounded by God’s more determinative purposes. Forgiveness, therefore, is not a simple exchange between God and us, but rather the naming of a people who have become participants in a history that is an alternative to the history of the denial of God — a history of death that leads to more death.”

Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew

 

What grand promises and declarations have you made that you haven’t kept?
What 
are the ways in which God communicated His love for you in the midst of those failures?

 

 

Gethsemane: Losing in the Flesh and Conquering in the Spirit:

Matthew 26:36-46

“The contrast is profound, and the reader is thus prepared for the different responses of Jesus and his disciples when the crisis comes: his prayer will have restored his sense of purpose and his authority, while the disciples, after an initial futile attempt at resistance, will simply give up and abandon him.”

R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew

 

What empowers you to regularly use the means of grace?
What makes them
effective in your life?

 

 

Matthew 26:17-46 teaches us that:
- while we are selfish, Christ is selflessly concerned for God’s glory and our redemption
-while we make promises we can’t keep, Jesus keeps His promise to see us again
-while we fail to watch and pray, Christ was prepared to be crucified on our behalf

 


Benediction:

1 Corinthians 15:50-57

More in The Passion of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew

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April 1, 2018

Jesus, the Crucified, is Risen!

March 25, 2018

Jesus Crucified, Dead, and Buried