John 18:4-14: Times of Testing (Part 1)

John 18:4-14: Times of Testing (Part 1)

Please take your Bible and turn with me to John 18. If you’re using one of the Story Bibles we provide, that’s on page 749. We’ve been working our way through the Gospel of John passage by passage, and this morning the passage we come to is John 18:4-14. You may remember from the last time I preached two weeks ago that we’ve now come to a point in Jesus’ ministry that might be called “the beginning of the end.” Judas Iscariot has just sold Jesus out to his enemies, and that ushers in a series of events that will lead to Jesus being crucified in just a few hours. In fact, since it’s been a few weeks, let’s review that betrayal from verses 1-3. John 18:1-3: 1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. 2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. 3 So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. So that’s what we looked at last week. Now, this week, we pick up with verses 4-14: 4 Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” 5 They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. 6 When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. 7 So he asked them again, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go.” 9 This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken: “Of those whom you gave me I have lost not one.” 10 Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) 11 So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” 12 So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. 13 First they led him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. 14 It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people. 

Have you ever noticed how trials in our lives have a way of revealing things about our spiritual condition—perhaps things we weren’t very aware of prior to the trial? Several months ago, a violent storm came through Pittsburgh. And the winds of this storm were so violent that it appears as though they actually blew down a very large tree in the small field behind my house. I didn’t actually see the tree fall, but I remember looking out our back window a day or two after the storm and noticing that there was this huge tree that had fallen down in the field back there. And I didn’t see any burn marks or signs of lightning hitting the tree, so I’m guessing that the winds of the storm were simply too strong for this tree to withstand. The other trees were able to withstand the winds but not this tree. This tree fell down. And had it not been for the violent winds of the storm, we probably would have never known that this tree was weaker than the trees around it. The trunk of this tree looked strong and healthy; there were no obvious signs of decay. But the winds revealed that this tree wasn’t quite as strong or stable as the other trees around it. 

And that’s very similar to the way trials function in our lives. Every once in a while, as Christians, we’ll experience a trial or a time of testing. And the reason we might refer to these experiences as “times of testing” is because they test our faith. They reveal what we’re really made of spiritually and how deep the roots of our faith really go. And that’s what we see happening in our main text this morning. The main thing we see in this text is that times of testing reveal the depth of our faith. Times of testing reveal the depth of our faith. Just like the violent winds of a storm reveal the true strength of a tree, times of testing reveal the true depth of our faith. Because whenever those times come, we have a choice to make. As we respond to the circumstance, will we trust in our plans or will we trust in God’s plan? That’s the decision we have to make. Our plans or God’s plan? And our text this morning gives us an example of both of those responses.

Trusting in Our Plans

So first, let’s look at that first response: trusting in our plans. That’s what Peter did when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus. Verse 10 records that “Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)” So make sure you understand what’s going on here. Judas has just betrayed Jesus and led a group of soldiers, under the cover of night, straight to the place where Jesus would frequently meet with his disciples. Then Peter sees the soldiers coming, anticipates what they’re about to do, and decides that he’s not going to let that happen. So without seeking any guidance from Jesus, he takes things into his own hands and attacks the guy closest to him, who happened to be the servant of the high priest. This verse says that he cuts off the guy’s right ear. Now just pause for a moment and ask yourself, “Does anybody swing a sword at someone with the intention of simply cutting off an ear?” Not usually. I don’t think Peter was trying to show off his great skill as a swordsman in an attempt to ward off this group of soldiers. Remember, Peter’s just a fisherman, not an expert swordsman. He’s not Zorro. So when he swung his sword at this servant, who was apparently standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, Peter was probably trying to split the guy’s head open and just didn’t have very good aim, so he ended up cutting off an ear. 

And I’m inclined to believe that Peter had the best of motives in doing that. He was trying to defend Jesus. But he was following his own plan rather than God’s plan. His own plan consisted of Jesus rising to national prominence, overthrowing the Roman government, and ushering in a new golden age for the nation of Israel with Peter right there as his right hand man. That was Peter’s plan, but that wasn’t God’s plan. God’s plan involved something much different—namely a cross. So Peter’s mistake here was that instead of looking to Jesus for guidance and remembering the predictions Jesus had made about his arrest and crucifixion, Peter took things into his own hands and trusted in his own plan. 

As I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think of Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old who has confessed to the recent school shooting in Florida. It seems as though Nikolas had a pretty difficult childhood. His parents weren’t a part of his life, then his adoptive parents both died. So as a boy, Nikolas went through some really difficult things. I imagine he carried around a lot of pain and hurt and anger. But instead of dealing with those things in an appropriate way—namely in God’s way and by trusting in God’s plan—he dealt with them in his own way and trusted his own plan. And that involved acting out in this very tragic way. 

Now you and I may not ever do anything even remotely similar to what Nikolas Cruz did, but if you think about it, we still have that tendency of taking things into our own hands and trusting in our own plan. And I think there are at least four kinds of situations where we often respond in that way. First, when we want to escape from something. Maybe we want to escape from a difficult marriage. And so we convince ourselves that God wants us to be happy, so it must be okay to get a divorce even if the Bible says divorce is wrong in that particular circumstance. We trust in our plan instead of God’s plan. Or maybe a young woman has an unplanned pregnancy, and she wants to escape from that situation. But instead of trusting in God’s plan, she resorts to her own plan and has an abortion. Or maybe we have some kind of inner pain we want to escape from. And so, instead of trusting God’s plan and turning to God for healing, we self-medicate through drugs or alcohol. All of those things are examples of taking things into our own hands in an effort to escape from something. 

Another kind of situation where we often take things into our own hands is when we want to control something. Maybe we have a spouse who’s not acting the way we want them to act or a child who’s not behaving the way we want them to behave. So in an effort to control them, we might use manipulation or we might lose our temper and blow up at the person or maybe we’ll try to guilt them or pressure them in a way that’s not very appropriate or helpful. All of those tactics are examples of taking things into our own hands and trusting in our own plans.

Then sometimes we want to achieve something, and that leads us to trust in our own plans. Maybe we’re not advancing in our career the way we want to, and so we lie or cheat in an effort to get ahead. Or maybe we devote ourselves to success in our career so excessively that we neglect our family. That’s also an example of following our own plans.

And then finally, this isn’t really a neat category like the others, but there are various situations where we just want to be happy in life as we see happiness. We want our life to be the way we want it to be, so we follow our own plans in order to make it that way. Maybe as a Christian we get lonely in life and decide that we’ve waited long enough for a Christian spouse to come along, and so we marry someone who’s not a follower of Jesus. Or maybe another example would be when someone gossips about us, we want to protect our reputation, so we take things into our own hands and gossip about that person. The scenarios are truly endless. 

And here’s the thing about all these responses. They all grow out of a fundamental misunderstanding of what God desires to do. Think back to Peter in our main text. Peter had a fundamental misunderstanding of what God was doing through Jesus. He thought Jesus should pursue earthly prominence and an earthly triumph. But really, God’s path involved Jesus experiencing an earthly defeat followed by a heavenly triumph that was infinitely greater than anyone could have imagined. But Peter didn’t get that. And just like Peter, we typically don’t understand what God’s really up to. We think God wants our lives to be free from any kind of pain or difficulty when, in fact, God frequently wants to use our earthly difficulties to accomplish his eternal purposes—purposes that are vastly superior to anything we’re thinking of. And following God’s plans will accomplish those purposes, but following our own plans won’t. That’s why we have to trust and follow God’s plans. I think the verse that says it best is probably Proverbs 3:5. It says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” If you’re leaning on your own understanding, you’re not trusting God. 

Trusting in God’s Plan

So moving on to our second point this morning, instead of trusting our own plans, we need to trust in God’s plan. And the way we do that is simply by following the principles for living we see in the Bible. You see, we may not understand God’s plan, but God knows what he’s doing. He’s not just taking a guess at what’s going to be best; he knows what’s going to be best. So just trust him. More specifically, we might say, entrust yourself to him. Looking back at our main text, notice how Jesus’ response contrasts with Peter’s response. Peter, if you remember, trusted his own plan and took his sword and tried to kill the high priest’s servant. But Jesus trusts the Father’s plan. Look at verse 11: “So Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?’” In my opinion, the most striking thing about this entire passage is that verse right there. Jesus voluntarily allows himself to be arrested. He could have easily used his divine power to get out of that situation in a thousand and one different ways, but instead, he entrusted himself to the Father. 

This past summer, I took my son Caleb to the pool a few times to try to teach him how to swim. And normally, I’d let him play in the water with a life jacket on. But when I was teaching him how to swim, I had him take the life jacket off. And that made Caleb very anxious. He was scared—because he knew he couldn’t swim. So when I had Caleb take the life jacket off, he had to trust me a lot. He had to trust that I was going to make sure he didn’t sink. And it’s not a perfect parallel, but that’s similar to what Jesus does here in verse 11 when he says, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” Jesus entrusted himself to God kind of like Caleb entrusted himself to me. And notice how he describes God as “Father.” Of course, that’s the way he usually referred to God, but think about the view of God that’s behind that. Jesus believed God was strong like a Father, good like a Father, and wise like a Father. He trusted God in those three areas as his use of the word “Father” implies. He trusted God’s strength to deliver him, goodness to care for him, and wisdom to know what was best. And going back to Caleb again, those are really the qualities Caleb had to trust I possessed also. When I had Caleb take his life jacket off, he had to trust that I was strong enough to hold him up, good enough not to do anything malicious while I was holding him up, and wise enough to know that everything would turn out okay. Strength, goodness, and wisdom.

And that’s what you have to believe about God in order to choose God’s plan. You have to believe first that God is infinitely strong—that everything in this world is under the umbrella of his sovereignty, that nothing happens by accident, fate, or chance but that everything is perfectly orchestrated by God to accomplish his eternal purposes. You have to believe that. And times of testing have a way of revealing how extensively you actually believe that. Then, secondly, you have to trust God’s goodness. You have to believe that God’s for you, not against you. He loves you so much that he sent his own Son to pay for your sins on the cross. And finally, you have to trust in God’s wisdom. That means believing he has a plan and that it’s a wise plan, even if you can’t understand it. And if you believe those three things about God—his strength, goodness, and wisdom—when that time of testing comes, you’ll be able to entrust yourself to your Father just like Jesus did. You’ll be able to trust in his plan rather than your own.

About a year and a half ago, I was searching for a place for our church to meet. At the time, Redeeming Grace Church didn’t exist. It was just a group of us meeting on Sunday evenings for a Bible study. And I had my sights set on Brentwood as the location for the church. It was where I lived and the place where I thought God was calling us to start a church. And since we couldn’t afford to meet in the schools because the rent was too high, the only other place that was available for us to meet on Sunday mornings was a community room. This was a room owned by the borough that could be rented out at a very affordable rate for various community events. And it was the perfect size for us. But there was just one problem: the person in charge of renting out the room didn’t want us there. And as I examined the rental policies, I couldn’t find anything that would prohibit a church, as a nonprofit organization, from using that room. At the very least, I, as a taxpaying resident of Brentwood, should have been able to personally rent that room. So I was ready to fight this rather unfair prohibition. I felt like we were being discriminated against. So I had it in my mind to take the issue up a level to the borough manager. And if that didn’t work, I would argue my case before the borough council. And then, if that didn’t work, who knows, I might even get a lawyer. But then something within me said to me, “Don’t do that. That’s not the right way to approach this.” So I looked elsewhere—outside of Brentwood. And lo and behold, I stumbled on this Methodist church that you’re sitting in right now. And I saw the sign on the door advertising their worship service Sundays at 9:30am. And I thought to myself, “Can that be right? Would a church really not be meeting at the traditional 11:00 hour and the building be available at that hour?” Well, needless to say, it was. And the Methodist church is renting us this building right now for $200 a month. That’s unheard of. And not only that, but meeting here has opened up a whole new geographic area for us. I think the majority of our people now actually live south of here and probably would not have started attending the church had we been located in Brentwood. And of course, this room is much nicer and has a much larger capacity that that community room in Brentwood. Do you see how God had a plan? And do you see how his plan was better than my plan? What do you think would have happened if I had insisted on my plan? I think we would be half the size that we are now, in constant conflict with our landlord, and with no room to grow. But praise God, he had something different in mind. His plans are always better. So whenever you find yourself in a time of testing, trust God’s plans rather than your own plans. And remember, we do that as we follow the principles God’s given us in the Bible. Trust God enough to follow those principles. Trust that he’s strong enough, good enough, and strong enough to take care of you if you’ll approach things his way.

Conclusion

And of course the greatest and most fundamental way we do that is by trusting Jesus for our eternal rescue. You see, human wisdom would tell us that we’re able to somehow be good enough for God through our own efforts. It would tell us that if we just try really hard to be a good person and help people in need and be devoted to our family and maybe be involved in church, then—if we try really hard to do those things—we can be good enough for God and go to heaven when we die. That’s what human wisdom would tell us. But that’s an example of us trusting in our plans rather than God’s plan. The Bible makes it very clear that even if we look okay on the outside, we can’t even begin to be good on the inside. Romans 3:10 says that “none is righteous, no, not one.” And Romans 8:7-8 says, “7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” So if you’re “in the flesh”—in other words, if you’re in your natural spiritual condition apart from God—you “cannot please God.” It’s impossible. And that leaves us in very serious situation. It leaves us sinful and condemned before a holy God—and powerless to do anything about it. We can’t do anything to help ourselves or rescue ourselves.

But that’s what makes the gospel so amazing. The gospel is the good news of Jesus and of what he’s done to help the helpless and rescue the sinful. You see, in our main text, Peter failed to understand it, but God had a plan for Jesus being arrested. His arrest wasn’t an accident or some unfortunate turn of events. It was all a part of God’s plan. After Jesus was arrested, he was killed in the most inhumane way ever devised in history—by being crucified on a cross—even though he had done nothing wrong. And he did that to pay for our sins. You see, somebody had to pay for the sins we’ve committed. God wouldn’t be righteous or truly good if he let those sins go unpunished. So Jesus took that punishment on himself as he died on the cross, and he then rose again three days later in order to secure his victory over sin and death. And the best part of the story is that his victory can be our victory as we put our trust in him. That means we have to turn away from everything in our life that displeases God, including all of our efforts to be good enough for him apart from Jesus, and put our trust in Jesus alone to rescue us and forgive our sins and bring us into his Kingdom. Maybe you’d like to do that even this morning. You can. 

And if you’ve already done that this morning, just think about this as you consider again this great gospel message. If God could use even the death of Jesus to accomplish good, can he not use your suffering and your difficulty to accomplish good also? Jesus being crucified was the most terrible thing that’s ever happened, but God used it to accomplish the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened. Don’t you think he can do the same thing through your circumstances? So trust him. When that time of testing comes, and it will, don’t trust your plans, trust his plans.