"To Love, Honor, And Betray!" Series

"To Love, Honor, And Betray!"

John 13: 18-30

Praise the Lord all up in this house... He is worthy of the praise, the honor, & the glory!! Hallelujiah! Glory to God! Amen... You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. Hmmm, I’ve been dealing for the last few weeks on this subject & series of "The Act Or Art Of Betrayal." And I want to kinda wrap this series up this week & hopefully bring closure to it. If you will recall we started out talking about betrayal & it’s basic definitions & what it meant to be betrayed or to be a betrayer... Ahhh, then we talked about "How To Treat Your Betrayer!" and we concluded that we should ultimately treat them with love, compassion, mercy, & grace... Then on last week boy if the Holy Ghost wasn’t all up in here with, "The Demise Of A Betrayer!" Talking about how we don’t have to worry about getting our betrayers back because ultimately they’ll hang themselves. Ahh, and on this week I want to even yet challenge you the people of God a little more and go a little bit deeper. I want to talk today from mainly verse 18, which says... (Read Scripture.) And I want to talk for at least a little bit of time from the theme or subject as the Holy Spirit shall lead & guide, "To Love, Honor, & Betray!" Look at your nieghbor & say "Nieghbor, to love, honor, & betray." Y’all ain’t coming with me already Well I guess it’s just you & me Holy Ghost, mmm, hmmmm.

This particular scripture bothers me on today and it bothers me because it’s one thing to be a betrayer, or to betray somebody, or to be betrayed, but it’s a whole nother thing to betray that which you say you love and honor, meaning Jesus. And the truth be told we’ve all betrayed Jesus in one way or another at some point in time in our walk. We’ve all done jesus wrong & turned our backs against him at some point in time. And if you haven’t well then baby just keep on living & someday you will. But my brothers and my sisters, I am convinced today beyond a shadow of a doubt that to betray Jesus is a whole nother thing.. It’s one thing to just betray your fellow man but to betray the very one who came to this world & died a cruel rugged death on the cross and who shed his blood for the remission of your sins, who went to Hell & back to get the keys of Hades, who got up early on the 3rd day morning just for you & I, that’s taking betrayal to a whole nother level!!! And my Brothers and my Sisters I am convinced that sometimes we betray Jesus without even recognizing what we’re doing or thinking about it... But this text bothered me because I’m trying to figure out how this man Judas can be soo close to Jesus, love him, honor him, revere him, take care of his money, and still YET betray him.

And so I asked the holy ghost, "What would make somebody who loves you and honors you and reveres & worships you betray you like that?" And "How exactly then do we betray Jesus?" And i’m sure many of you are asking the same questions and i’m so glad you asked because I need to lay it on you before I can get to the text, preach, and go on home. Can I keep it real for just a minute? One of the first reasons or ways as to why or how we betray Jesus is by putting our trust in other things or people besides him. Mmm, hmmm. Not too many amens today. Yeah, we initially place our full trust in him and then we betray Jesus by letting it falter & allowing it to be put in other things or people that we trust more NOW than we trusted Jesus. We put our trust in him & then take it back, and we betray him that way. Does not the Bible say, "Trust in the lord with ALL thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding?" And so we betray him by taking our trust in him back. But not only that we betray Jesus through our disobedience. Yeah, y’all getting real quiet up in here. We betray Jesus every time we know his word & what it says, and we attest to following it but yet still don’t do what it says. When we say we’ll listen to God & his word & we committ wholeheartedly to what it says and yet still do not follow the commandments in his word we are in a way betraying him.