Please open your Bibles now to Matthew chapter 26, Matthew chapter 26. And while you are turning there, I will remind you, I hope that you do take a moment to read your bulletin and to take it home with you to remind you events of the week. I notice a lot of people put their bulletins back after they're done, but they're meant for you to take them home so that you know what things are happening at church. And this last week, we canceled or postponed, really, our days of prayer because of the weather. And so they're taking place this week. on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings at 7.30, our regular prayer meeting time, and we want to commit the year to the Lord, so do join us. This year will be nothing without the blessing of the Lord Jesus upon His church, and we crave that blessing, and we should gather together to pray with the saints that the Lord will guide us into the coming year and that he will bless especially the preaching of his word to the saving of many souls. So Tuesday evening we want to pray for our country, for our governments, those who reign over us, rule over us. We want to remember on Tuesday night the work of evangelism and missions. and our individual missionaries throughout the world and the persecuted church as well around the world. And then Thursday evening for our own congregation that the Lord will bless us in the coming year. So do mark your calendars for those days. Matthew chapter 26. We will begin reading at verse 17. Now the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover? And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them, and they made ready the Passover. Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve, and as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. and they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The son of man goeth as it is written of him, but woe unto that man by whom the son of man is betrayed. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? And he said unto him, Thou hast said. As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and break it, and gave to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. Then said Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night. For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. Peter answered and said unto him, though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto thee, that this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise said all the disciples. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, we pray that Thou wouldst grant that our eyes may be opened to have a clear and sound understanding of Thy gospel message for us this day. We pray that the words of the scriptures may be unto us a living word by the power of thy Holy Spirit to deliver us from evil, to show us our sinful ways, and to show us the peace and love which Christ does grant. We ask, Lord, that thou wouldst be pleased to bless the preaching of thy word. We pray that in the infirmity of thy servant, The Lord Jesus Christ may be exalted and magnified in our midst and held up for worship and for service. Lord, hear our prayer. We ask in the name of Christ, our precious Redeemer. Amen. Beloved congregation, One of the difficulties that we have, that mankind has had through the history of the world, is the problem with the will. We have a conflict between our will and God's will. Man lost the freedom of his will in the Garden of Eden. He had freedom of choice. He could have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or he could have left it alone as God commanded him, but he chose to eat. And when he chose to eat of that fruit, he lost his free will. After that, he could only do evil. He could do kind deeds, but he had no will to serve the Lord. He had no desire to serve the Lord. We call that the doctrine of total depravity, not that Everyone is as evil as they could be, but every part of you is affected by sin. There's no part of you that has not been affected by sin. It is thorough, it is complete, it is entire. One of the things that then we battle with the will of God. We want our will, but God says, no, my will will be done. And that's why even as Christians, well, one of the things that happens then is that when God exercises his will, James 1, of his own will begat he us. It's God's will that you be saved if you are believing in the Lord Jesus Christ today. That is the work of God's will. God will always exercise his will, he will always do his will. And that is why as part of the Lord's prayer, which we probably should come into the habit of praying together, but part of the Lord's prayer, we pray, thy will be done. Not my will be done, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So we pray for God's will, we pray for submission to God's will, because we're at odds with him. So that when you are converted, when a soul is converted, his free will is restored to him. He now understands in submission to God's holy law what pleases and what displeases God. The unbeliever is bound to sin. Everything he does, the plowing of the wicked is sin. Everything he does is rebellion against the Lord. A Christian says, now I know what God approves and what he does not approve. I know now what is sin. It's the transgression of God's law, and I don't want to sin anymore. I want to obey God. I want to obey the one who not only chose me, but sent his son to die for me. And so here is the exercise then of free will, so to speak, amongst Christians, and yet our wills are untrustworthy. The things that we desire to do, Paul says that as his testimony in Romans 7. The things that I want to do before God, I read his word, it's open to me, the things that I want to do, I should be a better Christian, I should be more faithful, I should be more diligent. The things that I want to do for God, I end up not doing. I wake up and I say I'm gonna be better today, and it doesn't happen. And we say, and then conversely we say, I don't want to do certain things. I don't want to indulge in sin. I don't want to disobey God. I want to be a faithful servant. I don't want to do even those things that within my own heart I know continually and very often, too often lead me away from the Lord. And those are the things I end up doing. And you can just feel, if you're a Christian, you can feel that frustration of Paul. Can you identify with that? The things that I want to do, I don't do. The things I don't want to do, the things I'm trying to avoid are the things I end up doing. And that's a struggle. It's a struggle that's peculiar to the Christian. The unbeliever says, I don't care as long as I get my own way. Isn't that right? He doesn't care. And beloved, you must care. You must care to serve the Lord. You must care to do his will. So our wills are unstable. Unstable is water. They go this way and they go that way. We want to do a thing and it doesn't really matter. I'm not going to do it. Whatever. There's so many things that get in the way. But beloved, let me assure you this morning that God's will is always done. God will always perform his will. And so one of the ways we can see that when we look back and something has happened, we can say that was God's will. As we look forward, we question what God is going to do and how he may perform. We have desires, expectations that we lay before the Lord. We hope that he will perform them. Incidentally, if you haven't picked up this month's copy of At the table talk, the theme is following God's will. And I encourage every family to pick up a copy of that and pursue that, following God's will. We need to work, as it were, to do that. And you need the power of the Holy Spirit. So here in the passage that we've read from verses 26 to 35, we have the will of Christ, who at this point is both man and God. He has taken on human flesh. His will is one with the Father, but he has two natures. Here is the will of God the Father and the will of Peter the sinner. Actually, all of the disciples, but Peter is representative of the disciples here in a particular way. So the human will is weak, but the divine will is always wise. And so Christ expresses his resolve as he institutes the Lord's Supper. And we don't have all the words of institution here the way that we do in 1 Corinthians 11. That's the longest passage about the Lord's Supper, the most detailed passage, even though it's given by the Apostle Paul, who wasn't physically present at the Lord's Supper, but by the Holy Spirit, he gives us instruction about what happened that night and how that supper was instituted. And Christ here then expresses his love for his church. As they were eating, and they're gathered for the Passover supper, but after that Passover supper, he institutes the Lord's Supper. In verse 26, as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave to his disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for the remission, shed for many for the remission of sins. And so he gives this supper at a time when he knows what's going to happen in the next few hours. He knows that his deep humiliation is going to begin in the Garden of Gethsemane. His heart is going to be very, very heavy. We'll look at that in the weeks to come. He knows that he's gonna die. And he alludes to that here as well. But in the midst of all these, what we might call human anxieties, Christ thinks about his church. When all of these distractions, have you ever been to something, an event that you know is going to, you're going to be front and center and you're very, very nervous and you don't want any distractions at all. You don't want anyone just reminding you about this or that or the next thing. You just want to Focus on whatever you're doing, memorizing your lines or your piece of music or whatever it is. And Christ doesn't have that. He knows it's coming. He's still thinking outside, very much outside of himself for the good of his church. and he institutes for them the Lord's Supper, which is going to bring meaning to his church, to his disciples, concerning an event which is still a few hours away. He's going to die, and here he lays out bread and wine to symbolize, to give to his church a means of grace, to not only remind them of the death that was given for them by which the blood was shed for the remission of their sins, but that it was going to be for eternity, or for until he returns once again. So here is that expression of love towards his church and the ongoing care of his church. Do this, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, that Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me. In these words, this could have been a whole separate sermon, but I'll just allude briefly to the controversy. There's been tremendous controversy over how to observe the Lord's Supper, what it means, what's our participation in it, what do the words mean. This is my body. And Luther very famously stood his ground here. It's not the doctrine of the Roman Catholics that says that somehow this bread changes by accidents into the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't look like it, but it is. You just believe that by faith. That's the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. They re-sacrifice Christ. That's really the tragedy and the wickedness of the Roman Catholic mass. Re-sacrificing the Lord Jesus. This is my body. They really believe that it becomes his body. The other extreme is that it's simply a memorial. It's just a way of remembering and reminding ourselves that Jesus died for our sins, which is a good thing. And it's obviously part of it because Jesus says that, this do in remembrance of me. The Reformed view says that Christ is present. The, sorry, I missed the Lutheran view, didn't I? The Lutheran view says that Christ is in with and under the elements, that he is present because of his omnipresence, what they call the ubiquity of Christ, that even though he is physically present in body as our savior in heaven, that he still, that body has a, has an omnipresence at the same time, which is a very difficult doctrine, I believe, to defend. But Luther, he said, he pointed to these words, look at this, this is my body. That was his, this is my body. What else can that mean? And he apparently had one colloquy, just took the table and turned it over. He was just so furious with people's inability to understand what he was trying to say. And he held to that view extremely passionately. But the Reformed view is that Christ is present at the Lord's Supper. And he is present, essentially, by the faith of all the participants. So the Lord's Supper is not for unbelievers. It is for believers. I believe at this point that Judas has already left the room. What thou must do, do quickly. He leaves. And again, that's not an entirely accepted point amongst all believers, but I believe that he is no longer in the room. So here is the Lord Jesus giving this meal. The only good that it does is when you partake by faith. So to simply say there's a blessing in eating bread and drinking wine at the Lord's Supper and therefore I'm going to partake as a merely outward element, there's no blessing in that for you. And we read in our catechism, we recited together the answer to our catechism question where it says due preparation needs to be made. We need to come with understanding. We need to come with self-examination. We need to come with a question, am I repentant? Am I repenting of my sins as a way of life? Am I endeavoring after new obedience? Am I trying, with the Lord's help, to follow after the commandments of the Lord? So these are the controversies that surround. When we partake, this is why we call it a means of grace. In the same way that the preaching is a means by which the Lord's blessing comes to His people, that's why preaching is important. That's why the Lord's Supper is important. It's a means by which your soul is blessed by Christ being present there, for one thing, by saying, as you reach forth for the elements, you reach forth for the cup, you take the bread, you say, this bread represents the body of Christ, which was broken for me, the blood that was shed for me. And it's an act of faith to take those elements. and to know then that together we do that as the Lord's people. So he institutes the Lord's Supper and declares his will. This is what must be done in my churches. We have some churches that say, we're not going to bother with the Lord's Supper because it's just controversial. People just argue about it. If we start with it, we're just gonna have fights about it. That's sin, and it's rebellion against God because Christ has given the Lord's Supper, and he's given for your good. So he institutes the Lord's Supper, and then he prophesies abandonment. He says, all ye, verse 31, then Jesus saith unto them, as they depart and go out into the Mount of Olives, all ye shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad." And I don't know if we can really understand the emotions that might have gone through the heart of the Lord Jesus as he expressed these words. Not only am I going to lay down my life, not only am I going to die willingly to save the individuals of my church, but I'm going to do it in a very lonely, lonely way. I'm going to do it when those that are closest to me are going to flee from me." And he tells them that that's what's going to happen. He tells them furthermore that it's happening as a fulfillment of a prophecy in the Old Testament. And the prophecy is from Zechariah 13, verse seven. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. Jesus just quotes the last part of that verse. But what does the first part of that verse say? Awake, O sword, against my shepherd and against the man that is my fellow says the Lord of hosts, says Jehovah of the armies. And so here's a sword that's lying there in a metaphor. The sword is lying there, time to arise, God says. Time to arise and awake because you're going to kill my son. and you're gonna put him to death because his death is required for my church to be established and to exist. And Christ quotes that verse. So in the context, of course Christ is supremely aware of the context, much more than his followers for sure. Christ himself is aware of this context. That God, his heavenly Father, who he is one with, says, Awake, O sword, the time has come. The sword's going to be lifted up, it's going to strike my heart. And in the sorrow of all of that, it's about to grip him as he enters into the Garden of Gethsemane. So here's a reminder, a sacrifice is going to be given. But in the scandal of that sacrifice, all of the people my disciples are gonna be scattered. God says all of your disciples are gonna be scattered, and here as he fulfills, is about to fulfill the prophecy, he says to his disciples, you're gonna leave me, you're going to abandon me, you're gonna be scandalized by me. And they are, they don't expect that, do they? We just had a nice fellowship meal. We've had the Passover. We've had the Lord tell us interesting things about his body and his blood. And here we are walking to the Mount of Olives, and he's telling us that we're going to be scandalized. We're going to deny him. So the feeling wells up in their heart. How can you say that? We're here with you. We've already gone through all kinds of opposition with the scribes and the Pharisees over the last number of weeks. Everything has just been kind of heightened, and here we are standing with you. We've prepared this supper with you, and really, we plan to stay with you to the end. I don't think it's unfair to think that the disciples at this point felt very, very close to the Lord Jesus Christ. They felt very intimately connected with him on a number of levels. So they've experienced his special love over the last three years. And he's shown his love to many, and he's shown his love to many who have come and gone, right? 3,000 people come and gone, 5,000 people that he fed come and gone. And here are 12 that have stuck with him. And they're aware of the benefits that he's brought to them. obviously they're aware, they're not questioning. We saw last week, they've questioned themselves about their loyalty, about their faithfulness, they've questioned themselves about their ability to possibly betray the Lord Jesus. But here, they're coming to an establishment of their love for him. So for everything that they misunderstood, and they still misunderstand a lot, Christ is talking, spoken about his rising again, verse 32, but after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. And nobody asks him about the rising again. Nobody's inquisitive about that. There's many things that they don't understand at this point, but they love the Lord Jesus. They do know that. They love their Savior. And so Peter then expresses his resolve. He said, I would never do such a thing. You don't know me. How can you say that about me? I would never leave you. I would never deny you. And he's saying, in effect, you can count on me. and all the other disciples join in that chorus. They all say, I'm with Peter, you can count on me, though all the others would deny you, I would never do that. And Peter's the foremost. We learn that from the last chapter of John, when he's reconciled. Peter is the one who's singled out for reconciliation, but Peter says, I would never deny you. I love you, don't you know how much I love you? But in the end, he is scandalized. And it's a reminder, beloved, that you don't know your own heart. Only the Lord knows your heart. And you never know what's going to come up in your life that's going to offend you, that's going to challenge your faith in Christ. And there's a foolish man that says, I will serve you to the end. And yet, it's a very admirable resolve, isn't it? Does it touch your heart, what Peter says? Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. We have that hymn, maybe we should have sung that this morning. Oh Jesus, I have promised, I think this is Horatius Bonar also. Oh Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end. But I need you to help me. I need you to be my strength and my friend because I can't. What may seem strange to a lot of people is in the Assembly of the Saints is where we learn about our weakness. Because as you neglect the Assembly of the Saints, you feel and may think yourself to be strengthened, but In the assembly of the saints, we're reminded continually that we are sinners, that we do need Christ, that we do need the Holy Spirit, we do need his help. We can't do this on our own, because our resolve can so easily be a human resolve. It's weak. In 1989, when I was going to seminary, we had an invitation for someone that we could live in their home in Roy, Washington. I was excited. He took me to see this place. It was beautiful. It was on five acres. It had a beautiful view of Mount Rainier out our front window. It was just gorgeous. I was so excited. And I told Ginny, start packing up, because we're moving. This is going to be great. And I went back, and we finished everything packed up. We got our trailer. We loaded it up. And it was, I don't know, what was it? In the evening, anyway. It was already evening, 7 or 8 o'clock at least, maybe later. And I said, let's go. And Ginny said, oh. I've been packing all day, and I'm exhausted. So let's just get a good night of sleep, and we'll go in the morning. It'll be fine. I said, let's just go. I can do this. And you and the boys can sleep. And so, OK, we got in, and we made it through the border. There was no problem. And probably about an hour on the other side of the American border, I was so exhausted that I had to pull over and sleep. And Ginny was justifiably angry with me. I had expressed my resolve. I had expressed my will. I can do this, and we're going to make it. Because I wanted her to see what was on the other end. I was so excited for her to see that. I can do this. And I was just so exhausted, I couldn't go any further, and I pulled over and slept. I don't think she slept, because she was so angry with me. But it just shows the weakness of the human will. You may have other stories in your life like that, where you resolve to do something. Something good, something honorable, something right, something beneficial to others. But you just can't bring it to pass because you don't have the ability. And here was Peter professing his love. What a beautiful profession of love. And I hope that testimony resonates with you. I would say those things. I want to be able to say those things. Though all desert you, I would never desert you. I love you. Jesus, I've promised to serve thee to the end. I have promised. And I want to do that. I want to be faithful to you because you've done everything for me. You've purchased my redemption on Calvary's tree. And it is a salvation that I can never over-appreciate. I can never give enough thanks for. So we make these declarations. They are very bold sometimes. Some of those declarations are made in our own hymnal. And we sing things sometimes that maybe we shouldn't or that we should sing with some reserve or hesitation or a realization that we're weak, we're not able to do those things. I remember when Brother Wartstra and his dear wife Anne became members of the church. And they were up here and reciting their covenant vows. Do you promise to do this? Do you promise to do this? I remember Lloyd saying, with the help of God. With the help of God. Because they're firm promises. They're difficult promises to keep. You can only do it with the help of God. And it's something to be reminded of. What can we do? In our own strength, we can't. It's a great thing to be a Christian. I mean, it's a great challenging thing to be a Christian. If you think you're serving him in your own strength, you're not serving him. And you're far from it. You're really just trusting in yourself. So what is your resolve then as we consider these things before us? Christ has expressed his resolve. He's given you, beloved, graciously the Lord's Supper. There's not many physical things related to the Christian faith. we have water of baptism, we have the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper. Those are the physical things that Christ has given us. And we ought to treasure them and value them and use them well. And so we ought to honor Christ. We don't often call it the Eucharist, do we? But what does Eucharist mean? It's a Greek word for thanksgiving. And it ought to be a Eucharist, it ought to be a table where we give thanks to the Lord for the shedding of his blood, for the laying down of his life, and we ought to be eternally grateful, humbly grateful, in the light of all of our sins, that we lay at his feet, that he has done this for us. So beloved, you honor the Lord Jesus Christ when you come together to eat the Lord's Supper. Paul says in Corinth, when they came together, it was not to eat the Lord's Supper. They actually desecrated it, and they should be doing it more mindfully. But beloved, can you also admit the weakness of your strongest expression of love and devotion for the Lord Jesus Christ? We bear these treasures. and earthen vessels, Paul says. It's a great treasure, it's a valuable treasure, but we hold it in earthen vessels. Not just that this body is one day going to be laid in a grave and is going to decay and rot and be fed to the worms. That's going to happen. But the frailty of your own will. The feebleness of your declared intentions. and your need then for the Lord to enable you to do the things that you have promised. This is the cry of the psalmist throughout the Psalms. I'm going to come to the worship of the Lord's people to fulfill my vows. I made promises, I'm going to come to fulfill those vows, and he cries to the Lord to give him strength and desire and ability to do that. There's a great danger in self-assessment. It's extremely subjective. I don't know if you're like me, but sometimes you get these wonderful ideas in your head. You just get these, oh, this is just, everything just clicks. And then I mention it to my wife, and it sounds so stupid coming out of my mouth, right? It was all made a lot of sense in my head. But when I say it out loud, all of a sudden, yeah, OK, that's not going to work. It's pretty clear now. That's why we need the fellowship of the saints. That's why we need to commune together, so that we can know to help each other. And we can know that the fancy ideas that we sometimes have may or may not be as biblical as we thought. It's that subjectivism of staying to yourself that will ruin your spiritual life. So it's the allowing of the opinions of others. What do you think? this passage teaches. And we don't have to be completely agreed on everything. There are some things that are more open to interpretation. There are some that are absolutely not. We don't argue about them, because to argue about them would be heretical. But there are other things that we can have differences of opinion on. And we can talk, and we should talk about them, driving us into the word. All of this begins, beloved, with a deep devotion and love towards the Lord Jesus. To love Him with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. To be devoted utterly to the Lord Jesus so that offenses are not going to matter to you. Doesn't that arise out of a love for the Lord Jesus? Your devotion, your appreciation for what He's done, and then the scandals, it doesn't matter anymore. It's nothing because I love Christ because he's first loved me, and he's loved me intensely. And then to lean on the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill your vows. Vows are not sinful. We can say that what Peter said was not sinful. What Peter said was not sinful. But he didn't stop to consider the seriousness of the vow that he'd made. And he should have asked the Lord to give him that strength. He should have had more of that spirit, Lord, is it I? But here he says, no, I will never do that. He was leaning on his own understanding. And again, we looked at that just a few weeks ago. Lean not unto thine own understanding, but in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Beloved, where is your love and your devotion? Is it towards the Lord Jesus Christ in all things, in all ways, excluding all others? We say that in our marriage vows. How am I going to love my wife? By excluding all others. If I start thinking about other women, then there's no hope for my marriage. And I vowed to do that, excluding all others. and I need the Lord's help to do that. Isn't that what, is that your devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ? Excluding all idols, including everything that would interrupt my fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. I want Him and I want Him only. And that is your true devotion. Beloved, let us lay aside every distraction, every idol that would distract us, and be fully devoted completely to the Lord Jesus Christ, with His help alone. Let us pray. O gracious God, we have often boldly said things as Peter has said them, and Thou has shown us that we are weak, even as Thou did show the Apostle Peter. But, Lord, the desires of our heart are given unto us by Thy Holy Spirit. The doing of them is also the work of Thy Spirit. Lord, will Thou awaken us to strengthen the things that remain in the might of Thy Holy Spirit. Lord, teach us to walk in dependence upon Thee, pleading Thy help and the power of Thy Spirit to walk before us. Lord, we do pray that Thou would deliver us from every scandal, that Thou would deliver us from every offense of the Gospel. We pray that we may do so as Thou wouldst give unto us a deep and abiding love for the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us eternally upon the cross of Calvary. Hear our prayer. Sustain our faith. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.