Northside Church - Sydney
24 Hours// That Changed the World – Week 2: Gethsemane
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Why won't you answer my prayers? How would you know what I'm going through God? How am I supposed to deal with my grief? Why can't I forgive this person? Why won't you get rid of this pain? These are the questions that just about anyone will ask himself whether a Christian or a non-Christian in any given year. In fact, some of you might have been asking that question this morning. And really in the Bible, do you see a passage that pretty much covers them all? And that's what we see here in the Garden of Gethsemane. We've come to a passage today that is in the final 24 hours of Jesus' life. Within 24 hours, he'll be nailed to the cross. He's just had dinner with the boys, with his boys in an upper room in the city. He's told them mind-numbing truths that they're still trying to comprehend. The hour is late, probably after midnight. And they move across out of the walls of Jerusalem into an olive grove upon the hill, which is still there today. The Garden of Gethsemane. And so here we see a prayer, God to God. And yet for the first time in eternal history, the conversation is one-sided. Two key verses, or a number of verses stand out for me, verse 38. And Jesus says, "My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death." And then in verses 39, 42, 44, he says, "Three times my Father, if it's possible, take this cup away from me, yet not as I will, but as you will." We have these funny images here of his boys, of his BFFs, of his friends, asleep underneath a tree. And who could blame him at this time of night? And then we see the Son of the living God, totaled. Two questions arise from this text this morning. Why the trauma? And what is this cup that he keeps talking about? Why the trauma? Because in verse 37 to 38, he says, "Look at this." He took Peter along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled, and then in verse 38, he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." From Luke's perspective in chapter 22 of Luke's version of the account, it says that he's sweat was literally like drops of blood. We've got a guy here saying, "I feel like I'm about to die. I'm sweating drops of blood." But what's happening here? Jesus was literally in a physical state of shock. Now why was that happening? Why is in the olive of grave? Why is he praying? Why is he in a state of shock? Many probably say, "Oh, it's because he's thinking about the cross. He knew that he was going to die. He knew that the Son of man would be lifted up. He's thinking about the cross, and he's nervous, he's anxious, he's fearful." I say, yeah, but there were many early Christians who were slaughtered in as much a gruesome manner as Jesus would soon be 24 hours later on that cross, and they faced that death with far more bravery, with far more resilience. I mean, Ignatius said, "You can kill us, but you can't do us any real harm." Agreathen, who was a martyr in the 1500s, he said, "My lords, save three stakes. We can all four die at one, for we're spiritually one mind." I mean, is it me that there seems to be a magnitude here that is exceeding the physical pain that he's about to experience? I mean, what is the pain on the cross? Is it the nails? Is it the poking of spheres? Is it the thorns? Is that the real pain that he's going to experience? I mean, look, those things are flea bites, in comparison to what he's going to experience in 24 hours. I mean, the cry recorded at the cross was not, "Get these nails out of my hands." The cry was, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The pain at the cross, he'll feel, he'll feel, in 24 hours will be hell. You probably think, "Come on, you're over exaggerating, and where's the lava lake? Where's the fiery, fiery demons, and all that sort of stuff that's happening?" Where's all that imagery? And yet, 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1, verse 9 says, "Here it says, 'They will be punished with everlasting destruction, and shut out from the presence of the Lord, and from the majesty of his power.'" You hear that? They will be shut out. How will I still put it? I remember, clearly, a couple of months back, little kid, admire at the Macquarie Centre. He exhibited many of the same things that Jesus had. He was traumatised. He was wandering through the shops, screaming, "Daddy, Daddy," and he was streaming down his face, and he was lost. Why did it always seem to happen in shops? I mean, I've got 3 or 4 different examples of kids getting lost in shops, and you know what they're like. They're watching kids when you're seen with their parents, because mum's flicking through the rack at a nice new dress, or if they're with Dad, he's in the electronics section, looking at the new PlayStation. And kids, when they're, as a male, you see them, when they're through the shops, they tend to get lost like this. They wander away a little bit, and they get distracted, but every now and then they turn back, and they can see their parent, and so they keep going, and they walk off, do their own thing. They look back, and yep, Dad's still watching. And then it's that moment, isn't it? And they look back, and he's not there. And that gut-wrenching feeling of, oh my goodness, Daddy, Daddy, and it takes them over. I mean, has anyone here done that in their lifetime? And the kids being lost, yeah, many of us have been there. Here's what hell's like. Here's what 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 9 is saying. Take that split second if you've felt that. Two second gut-wrenching feeling, and multiply by a billion and then stretch it for all eternity. That's what hell is like. And that's what his experience, when Jesus walks into the garden, he was not some rebellious kid who kept looking back to see if Dad was watching. We're talking about a guy here who was always by his daddy's side. He never left the side of the Father. He was always doing the right thing. And in the garden, Jesus looked up in his darkest hour. He looked up and the face that he was so used to was no longer there. I mean, you know what kids look like when they come to that realization? There's tears, there's fear, there's panic, there's trauma. And for the first time in his pre-existent life, Jesus was beginning to feel lost. He was in the garden praying and he needed him badly and he looked around and he's saying, "Daddy, Daddy." That was the trauma. The trauma for Jesus in the garden was the beginning of his experience of the cross which was absence from his Father. It was hell. He was beginning to experience hell. And that's why he was in a physical state of shock, a state that exceeded what was coming at him physically. Why the trauma? Well, next question we want to ask then is, "Well, what is this cup that he talks about?" You know, you're saying, "Sam, you know, you're over exaggerating a bit. You're getting a bit too poetic with this this morning, son." But here's the question, "What is this cup that he keeps going on about? Why is it that in three separate times he prays to his Dad, 'My Father, if it's possible, may this cup be taken from me yet not as I will, but as you will?'" It meant me to keep using the kid analogy. But in essence, the Bible story is like this is that when the Bible says the West sinners, it's not saying that you're worthless or you're rotten or you're an inherently bad person. What it's saying is that you're a wandering kid. Humanity just has it. It is inbuilt desire to wander. Now, we see it all the time. I saw it a couple of weeks back at a family do with my little nephew, Jake, and he's just learned how to walk. So as a result, he's discovered this marvelous thing called a DVD player. Not only that, as I told you, he's discovered there's a little button called the eject button. If you hit it, then the tray would slide out. If you hit it, again, the tray would slide back in and out again and back in. It was just this would keep him entertained all day. He absolutely loved it. Until, of course, his parents, there's a real risk that this thing's going to break. So, of course, his father picks him up from the DVD player and he puts him back down here and he says, "Jakin, no." And of course, Jake wanders a little bit and does what all kids do, wait to see if the father's watching and back across again. And Jake can know, and if he does it enough time, you know, any good parent picks him up and said, "I've told you no enough times, come here, smack." And smacks him on the hand if you're a new age parent. This is not the time to debate whether smacking children is the dumb thing. These days, but when I was a kid back in the '80s, you got smacked, right? If you did something wrong, you got smacked. There was punishment there, but you see, why is this moment? Why is this moment so exhilarating for a little Jake? Because when he's learnt to walk and he hears that no, for the first time in his life, he's realized that there's both the choice and the ability to either do the father's will or my will, the father's will or my will. And you see, look, for little kids, you know, Greg, my brother-in-law, he's not doing that to kill Jake and he's fun, is he, you know, he's not doing that. But look, to say no to a DVD player is one thing, but to say no to him walking out on the road is something totally different, right? So when we come to the Bible, when we come to see what is happening here, Jake ends just a hint of the bigger story in that sense, that moving away from his father's will is in some way moving away from the very things that is going to keep him safe, going to keep him well, going to keep him healthy. And when he violates that, that smack upon the hand or the bottom or the naughty court or whatever you want to call it, what's he experiencing his father's wrath? He's settled opposition to the things that aren't best for his child. He's experiencing Greg's wrath. And so the Bible story is, look, it's just a much bigger picture of that scenario that in all human relationships with God, we're just like Jake and his father, Greg, that we wander, we're wanderers, verse 40, look at the wanderers in verse 40. Hopefully they weren't wandering too far, but then Jesus returns to his disciples and he finds them sleeping and he says, "Could you guys not keep watch with me for one hour?" He asked Peter, "Watch and praise that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." And they fall asleep again, by the way, it's late, come on. But the disciples, they're ambassadors for all of the human race in this passage. And they're like all of us, we're good intentioned, but they struggle to obey. And in other words, we wander. They had wandered off. Jesus willed that they would stay and pray with him and watch out for him and support him in his time of need, and yet their will crossed his and they slept. And the result is for them and the human race, someone deserves a smack, right? And God's will is crossed and I know it sounds like childish language, so we'll take this seriously. Here's what the smack means, here's the smack. Verse 39, 42, 44, "Take this cup, my Father, if it is possible, may this cup." What is the cup? We'll go back to the Old Testament, Ezekiel 23, verse 32, "This is what the sovereign Lord says. You will drink your sister's cup, a cup large and deep. It will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much you will be filled with the drunkenness and sorrow, the cup of ruin and desolation." In Isaiah 22, see, "I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger, and from that cup the goblet of my wrath. You will never drink again. I will put it into the hands of your tormentors." And then Jeremiah 49, verse 12, "This is what the Lord says, 'If those who do not deserve to drink the cup must drink it.' Why should you go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, but must drink it." But the cup is the divine wrath of God, the cup is God's smack. And that's what Jesus was staring in the face while he's best friends sleeping under a tree. The story is that the Bible is not really worthless or you're rotten or hopeless, but the story is that we all wander, that God constantly says to us, "No, no." And yet we're constantly trying to touch the DVD buttons of our lives and the things that enthrall us and thrill us and take us away from his will. And we're constantly wanting to do that, and it deserves a smack. If it's true of parents, then how much more of the cosmic level is it true of our heavenly father? And the question throughout all of history was, "Well, if humanity deserves a smack, who's going to get it?" and for the first time in history, in Jesus, in the garden, humanity, God, it's answer. Why the trauma? Why the cup? Jonathan Edwards, the great Reformed preacher, put it this way. The thing that Christ's mind was so full of at the time was, without doubt, the same with that which his mouth was so full of, it was the dread which his feeble human nature had of that dreadful cup, which was vastly more terrible than Nebuchadnezz's fiery furnace. He had, then, a near view of that furnace of wrath into which he was to be cast. He was brought to the mouth of the furnace that he might look into it and stand and view its raging flames and see the glowings of its heat, that he might know where he was going and what he was about to suffer. This was the thing that filled his soul with sorrow and darkness, this terrible sight as it were overwhelmed him. Some people say, "Oh, how can you say there's a God of wrath, and how can God be that mean? I gave that God up a long time ago. I don't read the Old Testament anymore. I believe God's a loving God. Yeah, how can you say that, well, I'll come to it later, but let's just quickly look at what it is for us and really what does Jesus show us in the garden that we can take away this morning quickly. First of all, he's the epitome, he's the ultimate, he's the perfection of prayer. Look at the style of Jesus's prayer. I mean, was it calm and brave? Was it stoic? I'll take this on the chest or at the other end of the spectrum. Was he overly optimistic? Is he out there shouting praises to God? Just trying to claim it all that I'm going to be saved and I'm just going to claim it. No, Jesus's prayer, it's real and it's raw and he says, "Look here for me, your will father, please take this cup from me, please take this away from me." And then the honesty of Jesus in the end, he says, "Thy will be done." What I love about it is Jesus is modeling to us that the prayer is not so much about trying to bend God's will, but bending our will to God's will. It's not stoicism and it's not overly optimistic, it's right in the middle, it's raw. Guys, can we say that we pray like that? Can you say that you pray like that? The other thing is the epitome of obedience. You know, this is not the only garden that the Bible talks about. There's another one. Remember right back in the beginning? This guy Adam that's in that and God says to Adam, "Adam, if you obey me, you get to stay in this garden and you will live, you will live forever with me." And yet he says to his son, the second Adam, Jesus, "Son, you go into this garden, you obey me and surely you will die." I mean every part of the Bible when God says, "Obey me," he's saying, "Obey me and you will live." To obey God is a positive and a wonderful thing. This is the only time in the Bible where God says, "Obey me and you will die." And if the Son of God, if Jesus, God in human form can obey the Father, perfect obedience with that vision of death in mind, how much more are we to obey him with the vision of life? He's the epitome of obedience. He's also the epitome of forgiveness. Does anyone here been let down by a friend in their lifetime? That's a bit of a rhetorical question, isn't it? Maybe you're currently being let down. I don't know what you do with it, but sometimes it just makes smoke come out of your ears. And look at how Jesus handles someone who was letting him down, a dear friend, his best friends, and he goes under the tree and they are asleep in his moment of need and he shakes his head at them and he says, "Oh, boys, the spirit's willing, but the flesh is weak. Guys, you have majorly let me down, but I love your heart. I love your good intentions." How do we react with friends that have let us down? Get out. I hate you. I never want to talk to you again. I don't want to deal with you. We shut them out. And yet here we see Jesus being let down in the ultimate of ways and still he says, "I forgive you." And so therefore the question for us as follows of Jesus, that for all of us, when the disciples are just a microcosm or the macrocosm, they're just a smaller picture of the bigger picture here, that we all have let Jesus down in some way in our life. And look at the way that he treats us, he says, "If you fail me, I will forgive you. And therefore if we are followers of that Lord, who will we to treat friends that have let us down? Who will we to shut friends like that out when we as his friends are brought right back in and forgiven? But also he's the epitome of suffering. There's a slab of concrete at Beacon Hill Primary School that has the initials SH forever etched into them." That's their my initials by the way, I'm Sam Haddon, and they're etched in there forever for everyone to see and the reality is that I never got caught. That wet cement was just way too tempting when I was in year three or year four and I never got caught for it and I just thought it would be good that I confess that to my friends this morning here at church, it's not funny how we often remember the punishments that we don't deserve and received and it was so easy to forget the punishments that we do deserve and were missed. You know the world is full of injustice, it's full of innocent people who are being unfairly treated this morning as I preach, full of undeserving people who are being afflicted through no fault of their own. And yet each and every one of us, if we want to be real this morning, each and every one of us here has a concrete moment if you know what I'm saying. Each and every one of us has a wrong, a moment of disobedience that a punishment deserved that's been missed and yet in the garden here's the ultimate innocent person and it's God himself and he's being handed an unfair sentence, an undeserved sentence, a Jeremiah 49 sentence where the Lord says if those who do not deserve to drink the cup must drink it, why should you go unpunished? It's a reason why, it's because Jeremiah was prophesying it was going to happen in the garden here, that there would be a truly innocent person that didn't deserve to drink the cup who will be undeservingly punished and suffer for what others have done. And so guys, when we see the model of suffering, the epitome of suffering in Jesus Christ, when we look to him drinking the big cup, the ultimate cup, the cup of God's divine wrath, the cup of Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace into the very depths of his soul, when we see him drinking that big cup then friends, maybe we can drink our smaller cups of pain and of suffering and injustice in our lives. He's also the epitome of one more that I don't have on the slides because it's too big to put on the slides. I come back to that question, Sam, how can you say that God is a God of wrath? Because Jesus is the epitome of God's love. Ironically, people want to get rid of that God of hell and of judgment and of wrath and in doing so, they think I want to get rid of that one, I want a loving God and in doing so they actually make God less loving. Here's why. Here's how. Like, love doesn't work unless it costs you something, right? Love doesn't work unless there's vulnerability. Love doesn't work unless you know that the person that you love deeply and loves you, if they left, it's going to hurt them and there's going to be pain and it's going to cost, right? Like, love doesn't work that way. No relationship works that way. And so if you want a God who is all just love, here's my question for you this morning. If you want a God who's just love, what did it cost your God to love you? What's happening at the cross? What did it cost this God, the God of Christianity, to love you this morning? What is the cross? The cross is the cost of love. At the cross we see God smack once and for all, the smack, that all of humanity deserves. Every person the Bible says, come pouring down upon one person poured out in its totality upon him and at the cross, Don Carson says it's at the cross that we see the wrath of God and the love of God kiss. What did it cost your God to love you and God's family? There are lots of children in God's family who go wandering through DJs and Maya of this world, who don't even bother to look over their shoulder, whether to see their lost or not and yet have an older brother who had been by the father's side the whole time. It was left by the father and shut out from his love who receives the smack, the punishment in advance for their wandering so that they could come in. What did it cost for your God to love you? Look, if you see the cross for what it really is, if you see the cross for what it is then you have to ask yourself this morning, what's it going to cost me to love him? Maya the trauma, what is that cup? It's saying you can get a sense this morning of what it cost him to love you. Look at him praying in the gardener, agony, the drops of blood, the pain in the anguish, the darkness, the shutting out, friends, the story of the Bible is that you're not worthless, you just wander and it deserves a smack and yet in Jesus we have an older brother who never left the father's side once. In the garden at the moment where he needed his daddy the most, it was the first time that he looked around and found out he wasn't there. In the garden Jesus lost the watching face of his father in that moment of darkness so that at that moment you little explore you, you little wander you. At that moment when you feel that first drop of hell begin to rise up within you, that lostness, when you feel that begin to emerge and you look around in desperation, you turn into a face and daddy's there, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray now that the way that your son prayed in that garden, the beloved one, our older brother and yet father it's through his work and through the blank that he drew in that unanswered prayer that we can pray to you right now in this moment father, daddy, and you watch over us and you hear us, Lord we pray through your Holy Spirit that you might make your costly love ever more real to us this week, make it ever more real to us in this moment, we may understand how much it costs you to love us and in turn father me we may reflect on what it might cost us to love you, but for that relationship for the way that you have brought us in, for those that call you daddy also, we praise you and we thank you, we may never have to experience that feeling of your absence, that through this time and this service and through your spirit we know that you walk with us, watch over us forever more. We thank you for that, we love you, we pray this now in Jesus' name, Amen. [ Silence ]