Fellowship Church Messages
9/15/24 - John 18:4-11 - "I Told You That I Am"
Don't you love hearing all the small feet going out the back? Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. Again, we thank you for this beautiful weather that you've given to us. We thank you that we are in full swing in September. People has resumed, our various ministries are resuming this week, and we want to rely fully on your strength. That is the only way we can start strong, both with the school year and with the various ministries that you have entrusted to us. Not only with that, but Lord, you're relying on your strength. This is the only thing we have to get through everyday life, to go through each day, to tackle the tasks and mountains that come up before us. Lord, we thank you for your word. Your word is life. It breathes life into us. It breathes strength into us through the Holy Spirit. We thank you for giving it to us. We don't need to wander wayward directionless. You've already given us everything we need to live for you and to live these lives. I thank you for your word, I pray you bless our time this morning, and I pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right, who here enjoys putting together jigsaw puzzles as a way to unwind maybe after a long day? Okay. But I wonder if any of you here has put together puzzles such as these. In 2011, a woman named Minkip Winkerprins finished putting together a 60,000-piece puzzle. And by coming anywhere close to that, 60,000-piece puzzle. It depicted a map of the world, took her two months to complete, measured a total size of eight feet high and 29 feet long, and when she put the final pieces in, she threw a party to celebrate. If anyone here is interested in doing something like that, apparently at the time, maybe you could find it on eBay now, that at the time you could find the puzzle at Costco. You know, makes sense, Costco saw his puzzle for $470. No? All right. If you can believe it, that's not even the biggest jigsaw puzzle on record though. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the completed puzzle with the most pieces ever was completed in 2011 by students at the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, with a total of 551,232 pieces. And according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world's largest puzzle in terms of size was completed in Dubai in 2018 and measures at least at almost 66,000 square feet. Now you might think, well, that means nothing to me, but to put that in perspective, the total area in American football field, including end zones, is only 57,600 square feet. Now who snuck that specific team's field in there? That amount of completed puzzle square footage is just mind blowing though, isn't it, bigger than in American football field? In last week's message, we talked about all the tremendous meaning and background of the location and history of Jesus walking from the upper room in Jerusalem across the Kidron Valley and into the Garden of Gethsemane on the western slope of the Mount of Olives. And if you missed that, I encourage you to check that out on our website or Facebook page or podcast platform. This week we're going to be looking at what happened that night. In that olive tree grove, while also adding the puzzle pieces from the other synoptic gospels of Matthew and Luke to try to get a full picture of what happened that night with into our Lord. And we'll see how that connects to our faith in Jesus as his disciples today. Like last week, we have a lot to cover this morning, so I hope everybody had their second cup of coffee and let's jump right in. The way we'll handle this is a little bit different from the way we dig into passages other times. Before we get into this morning's passage, like I already mentioned, I want to put together some puzzle pieces from the other gospels as to what happened before the first verse in this morning's passage, and then we'll connect those pieces after that. So in Matthew 26, verses 36 through 39, we read this, this is from Matthew's account of what happened in that garden that night, then Jesus said to them, came with them to a place called Gethsemane and told his disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." And he took Peter and two sons of Zebedee with him and began to be grieved and distressed. Then he said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch with me." And he went a little beyond them and he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will." This is what happens when they first get into the garden here. As has been noted, this is an extremely personal time of anguish for Jesus. We see some of his human emotion coming through here through the words grieved and distressed and deeply grieved to the point of death. He knew what crucifixion was. He'd seen men writhing and excruciating pain as they died a tortuously slow death. And he knew that that's what was coming for him in only mere hours. If you knew you were going to die, who do you want to be around you in the hours just before that? Well, obviously, those closest to you, right? Family members, close friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, you would want those you loved the most and who you knew loved you the most with you in your final moments, right? That's exactly the sentiment that Jesus is feeling here. He knows he's going to die and die in the most tortuous and humiliating way possible. And so he wants the presence and support of those whose hearts he knew loved him and his mission the most, Peter, James and John. This isn't to say that the other 11 were unloving idiots, but that Jesus had a special place in his heart for these three. And he knew from their hearts that they felt the same way. Like we read, Jesus says that his soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. I can't think of any better description of what Jesus was feeling at this point in words. The word used here for deeply grieved literally means to be encompassed with grief, encompassed with grief, in other words, every aspect of who Jesus was, every part of who he was was engulfed in heart wrenching pain. This was the most intense time of spiritual, emotional and psychological torture, Jesus being 100% God, but also being 100% human had ever experienced in his life. We can't ever fully describe what Jesus was experiencing with mere human language, but we can get a bit of a better understanding with Luke's physical description of Jesus' innermost torture. As I read and being an agony, he was praying very fervently in his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground. As noted by scholars, seeing as Luke's occupation was being a physician, this could be a description of hematridosis, a condition where when one is under extreme physical or emotional distress, the capillary blood vessels that connect to the sweat glands rupture and that person will experience drops of blood exiting out of their pores where sweat normally would. It could be that and would be very understandable. It could also be simply a description, especially with the way the Greek is written, that Luke is describing that Jesus engaged in such intense prayer, wrestling with the unseen spiritual world that sweat is just pouring down his face like there were gashes in his face and blood was just pouring down his face. Either way, if you saw either one as a physical description of someone, you would recognize the unspeakably agonizing time of prayer this person was going through, right? Luke also describes that Jesus' torment was so racking physically, emotionally, psychologically and beyond all of that as he was God, spiritually, that an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. God, the Father, in his grace and mercy towards his beloved fellow member of the Trinity, sent an angel to give encouraging words to strengthen Jesus in his spirit. Remember, this is what the entire hope of humanity was hinged upon, whether Jesus would give into the temptation to running away from what he knew was coming or follow through with all of it in obedience to the Father's will and so the entire force of Satan's kingdom of darkness were coming against Jesus, were attacking Jesus all at the exact same time. When we're tempted to sin, according to God's word, it's usually our own fallen human flesh doing the tempting or perhaps a demon doing the whispering into our ear but I highly doubt any one of us has been tempted to sin by Satan himself nor the entire power of his entire kingdom of darkness laser focused on us but that's exactly what Jesus was going through at this moment. I hope we're seeing, even if it's just a glimpse, the sheer vastness of Jesus describing his soul as deeply grieved even to the point of death. We can see why he wanted his closest friends there with him. So when Jesus and the other 11 disciples arrive in the garden that night, he left eight of them somewhere else there and went a little further on with three of them, then left them and as Luke explains about a stone's throw, he went away to pray by himself. Now these three had to be close enough to hear him in spiritual and emotional anguish and see him in physical agony and before Jesus left them, he implored them to keep watch him prayer alongside of him where they were. He implore them, please pray. Jesus deeply wanted that prayerful support from them for him but when Jesus came back to the three, what did he find? Found they were asleep and not just asleep but as noted by one scholar, Luke describes that they were so disturbed by what they saw Jesus going through that they fell asleep from their own emotional exhaustion, their own emotional turmoil after seeing what their master was going through. They physically could not take what they were watching Jesus going through. So their bodies just shut down and they passed out. Nevertheless, when Jesus found them asleep, he rebuked them for it and said, keep watching and praying, keep watching and praying so that you do not come into temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Even though as has been pointed out elsewhere, Jesus recognizes the limitations of human nature and physical weakness, Jesus doesn't want to use it as an excuse. He needed them to intercede for him but they were allowing their human weakness to rule over them instead. Jesus then went a stone's throw away again to pray again and again he came back to find the three in the same place, asleep. Matthew describes that he let them stay asleep this time and went away to pray a third time. The point of Matthew recording all of this, as has been noted, is that Jesus wanted the three, especially Peter, remember Peter here. He wanted the three, especially Peter, to pray that they wouldn't fall into temptation. Specifically that they wouldn't fall into the temptation of denying following him. Remember specifically Peter, so is anyone picking up on the significance that Matthew records Jesus wanting specifically Peter to pray against this temptation of denying him and finding them, again specifically Peter, asleep three times instead. Anybody catch that significance? As we know famously it's the same number of times Peter indeed denies following or even knowing Jesus. As one scholar points out, Jesus praying three times and during the third time, praying and struggling against the entire spiritual world of darkness fighting against him, doing it completely alone. This stood in blatant contrast to the disciples' sleep and unaware of everything Jesus was going through. What were these three prayers that Jesus prayed? Matthew tells us and he went a little beyond them and he fell on his face and prayed saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will." And the second time, he went away a second time and prayed saying, "My Father, if this cup cannot pass away, unless I drink from it, your will be done." And he left them again and went away and prayed a third time saying the same thing once more. So what is Jesus saying to the Father in these three prayers all similar to one another? The cup that Jesus is referring to is the cup of indescribable suffering he knew lay ahead of him. So no coincidence that Jesus had just a little while ago during the Passover observance he and his disciples had together before they left that upper room to make their way to this garden, instituted the Lord's Supper of Communion using the cup of wine to symbolize the blood of his imminent suffering and death. John biblical scholar put Jesus' prayers this way, which I think succinctly sums up the point the best way possible. He wrote, and I quote, "Jesus was not asking to be released from the purpose from which he had come, but he was voicing the perfectly understandable desire to avoid the suffering he was about to face. The full brunt of what he knew he was about to face." As Jesus is wrestling with the highest powers of darkness in the unseen world, Jesus is crying out to his Father not to be spared from the cross at all, for that was already prophesied, but that if it was at all possible that he be spared from the full brunt of suffering he was being called to endure. As the scholar wrote, that's perfectly understandable, but at the same time Jesus was also committing to something very important that we need to lodge in our brains here. Even though Jesus was expressing a perfectly understandable desire to the Father, that he be spared from the absolute worst of what could and what would happen to him, how does he leave it? He leaves it as both, yet not as I will, but as you will, and your will be done. In his most extreme agony, Jesus still fully surrenders to everything. His Father's will included, no matter what that was. We'll come back to that. As we touched on last week, this whole time that Jesus is praying in heart-wrenching torment, greatly desiring his closest friends to also see for him and themselves, but being abandoned by them instead, and surrendering everything about and in him to the Father's will, no matter what that included. Like we talked about last week, Jesus can see the torches and lanterns of those coming as the ones who would put him through that excruciating pain, coming down from the Antonio fortress, across the way, going down through and across the Kidron Valley below, and starting to come up the hillside of the Mount of Olives to straight towards him. Like we talked about last week, he could have escaped very easily, very easily, but his commitment to glorifying and obeying the Father's will for saving humanity, in spite of the harrowing torture he knew he would be going through, and only a few hours, he stayed, he stayed, he stayed for you, and he stayed for me. At the end of Matthew's description up to this point, we read that Jesus wakes up the three who are still asleep, presumably rejoins the rest of the eight, and all of what we talked about so far brings us to where John picks this back up in his gospel in this morning's passage. So if you brought your Bible with you today, please turn to John chapter 18. If you didn't, that's okay. There should be one located in the pew in front of you. Please also turn to John chapter 18. We're going to pick up in verse four, or look this up on your favorite Bible app on your smartphone. This is what we read. So Jesus, knowing all the things that were coming upon him, went forth and said to them, whom do you seek? There's several hundreds of Roman soldiers, as well as those Jewish soldiers who join them, show up in the garden. They finally arrive. Notice how verse four starts, even knowing everything that he was about to go through. Jesus doesn't shy away from their arrival. In fact, he's the one who steps up as the leader and approaches them first, asking them who they're seeking. As noted by one scholar, Jesus is obviously not being aloof. He knows exactly why they're there and who they're there for. The point of Jesus asking them who they're there for is to set up for their release of his disciples. Remember who's still with him at this point. They could have easily rounded all of them up. If he willingly goes with them, then they have no reason to detain his beloved followers and they can be released unscathed. Even at this point, Jesus is not thinking about himself. He's thinking about his beloved disciples. Now as noted by one scholar, everything that happens after verse three. That's where we ended last week. Everything that happens verse three, starting from verse four onward was most likely very chaotic and most likely all pretty much happening at the exact same time. John doesn't record for us what Matthew does in Judas approaching Jesus with his greeting and kiss as a signal to the soldiers that Jesus was the one to arrest. So it's entirely possible that as Jesus was stepping ahead of his disciples and proactively asking the commanding soldiers who they were there for, Judas was also coming towards him and greeting him with a kiss at the same time. So as both of these things are happening, verse five is also happening. They answered him, "Jesus the Nazarene, He said to them, 'I am He and Judas also who is betraying Him was standing with them.'" As the commanding officers are coming towards Jesus upon seeing Judas' signal, they're replying with Jesus the Nazarene and all of a sudden Jesus' the chaos stops for a moment. Jesus' reply stops everyone in their tracks, verse six. So when He said to them, "I am He," they drew back and fell to the ground. All of a sudden there's a pause in the chaos, even if it's just momentary. Your version of John may or may not include the word he, but as has been noted, the word he is not found in the Greek, that's not there. This combined with the result of uttering these words, no doubt is meant to express his deity. Jesus referred to himself as "I am," the very same name God used for himself to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus. His disciples may not have fully realized who Jesus was and the Roman soldiers certainly didn't, but Jesus did. And He made sure to make everyone in the garden that night aware of who He really was. The creator of the universe, the one through whom the gospel of John explains in the very first chapter, everything that exists came into existence from galaxies that we still haven't even discovered yet, down to the smallest particles that make everything up, from natural laws and forces to the human understanding and capacity for love. That was the one they had come for, thinking they had any power over whatsoever to place in their custody through their strength and their weapons, and Jesus was reminding them exactly who they came for. So Jesus gave them a tiny glimpse as to the unimaginable power he could wield if he so chose to wield it, he both declared who he truly was, "God Himself as I am," and through that simple declaration knocked everyone off their feet. In other words, by Jesus declaring who he really was, not just Jesus the 100% man from Nazareth, but also Jesus the 100%, one true living God, and backing it up with this glimpse of His power, rendering them powerless for a certain period of time, he was showing them who was really in charge of what was happening at that moment. They were not in charge. They were not arresting a weak and powerless, mere man, they could wield their weapons over. He was the one in full and complete control, and he was only going with them because he had made the choice to go with them to fulfill his own plan and his own mission. As such, somewhere in this chaotic moment, Jesus says to Judas Iscariot, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" In other words, Judas, do you really think you have any power over whom the prophet Daniel saw as the Son of Man who would rule over an everlasting kingdom? With a kiss, no less? Judas thought he was the one with the power of betraying Jesus, and say in possessing Judas at this point thought he was the one winning, but both of them were merely pieces of God's plan for the saving of souls. And just so that truth of who was really in control could sink in for good measure, Jesus asked them the same exact question again, verse 7, "Therefore he again, they are trying to get up on their feet, and as they are still trying to get up on their feet, he asks them again, "Whom do you seek?" And they said, "They still said it, Jesus the Nazarene." And Jesus was setting up who was really in charge, and therefore setting up for his disciples to escape at the same time. And so when the soldiers again replied that they were seeking Jesus the Nazarene, verses 8 through 9, Jesus answered, "I told you that I am he." So if you seek me, let these go their way. To fulfill the word which he spoke, "Of those whom you have given me, I lost not one." The impetus for this fulfillment only happened a little while before this, during Jesus' high priestly prayer of John 17 on Jesus and his disciples way to and right before all of this occurred at Gethsemane. He started the prayer with, "While I was with them, I was keeping them in your name, which you have given me, and I guarded them, and not one of them perished except the son of destruction so that the scripture would be fulfilled." Firstly as pointed out by one scholar, by John recording it this way, he is recording that the words Jesus spoke as recorded in his gospel in John 1712 were to be seen on the same level as the rest of Old Testament scripture. Isn't that cool? By John recording that again in John 18 to fulfill the word which he spoke and he's referring to Jesus' own words that were recorded just a little bit before this. It's just one more piece of evidence that the New Testament writers fully intended the books and letters that the Holy Spirit authoritatively moved them to write be recognized as the same authoritative scripture as the Old Testament. Going back to the context, Jesus wanted all of his disciples except one to escape destruction. It's because the son of destruction was already prophesied about. The son of destruction would befall the consequence of his own evil and the fallen angel possessing him would befall his own destruction someday. But ultimately while Jesus was providing for the escape of his beloved disciples at that point and even though they would all pay the price of martyrdom or exile someday, they would all escape the judgment and wrath of God. That same judgment and wrath of God awaits every soul who rejects finding their refuge in the saving and sparing blood of Christ. In his mercy and by his divine authority, Jesus was securing the escape of his followers. But as what often happens with us as humans, we like to mess things up, don't we? One of those followers had other plans and thought that he knew better than to simply run away, which God had provided the escape for, verses 10 through 11. Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's slave and cut off his right ear and the slave's name was Melchus. So Jesus said to Peter, "Put the sword into the sheath, the cup which the Father has given me. Shall I not drink it?" In the chaos of the moment, Peter went with his human knee-jerk reaction to what was happening. The one whom he loved and gave up everything to follow and fully believed was the Messiah was being arrested by the worst people he could imagine arresting him. In Peter's mind, the messianic deliverer could not defeat the Romans, deliver God's people from Roman rule and kick the Romans out of the land God had given to his people if he just stood by and let those very same Romans brutishly arrest him and do who knows what with him. So Peter did the only thing he could think of, he grabbed the sword he apparently had on him, noted by scholars as most likely what was referred to as a short sword, hidden underneath his clothes and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant. As has been pointed out, the fact that John records his name, the servant's name, when the other gospels don't, gives us the good chance that John probably knew Melchus personally before this point. But this whole response seems a bit strange, doesn't it? Peter aiming for Melchus's ear? We may have read or heard this account so many times that the oddity of what Peter chopped off may have been lost on us at this point. No one sets out to just go chop someone's ear off of all things. That certainly doesn't render anyone incapacitated in the heat of the moment, does it? So why did Peter chop off Melchus's ear? According to one scholar, it's unlikely that Peter meant to only lop off Melchus's ear. There are only two possibilities for what Peter was trying to do and it ended up the way it did. One, Peter swung his sword vertically down, intending on halving Melchus's skull. Or two, Peter swung his sword horizontally, intending to chop off Melchus's head or slice his neck open badly at the very least. In either case, Melchus dodged his head out of the way at the very last second and it spared his life and he only lost his ear. Peter fully believed Jesus needed him to save him. Peter fully believed that Jesus needed Peter to save him and prevent him from being arrested. But Jesus called Peter's and everyone else's attention to who was really and still in control. Only Luke records that Jesus being the one in control and being God had mercy on Melchus and healed his ear. As has been pointed out, this was Jesus' last miracle of his ministry other than raising again from the dead. Jesus then turned to Peter, told him to put his sword away and that God's plan for his mission is what needed to happen. Nothing will thwart God's plan. In Matthew's account we read, then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place for all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? How then would the scriptures be fulfilled which say that it must happen this way?" As one scholar notes, Jesus is not promoting passivity which preaches non-violence in every single circumstance. But he's making a statement on the fallen world that they all, including he at the moment were living in, responding with violence and a fallen sinful world will almost always result in more violence. In Peter's case, if Jesus allowed him to continue wielding a sword around, the Romans would have almost certainly run Peter through on the spot. But greater than that, Jesus says both at the end of John's and Matthew's accounts of this event that God's sovereignty is what ruled over all and ruled over all what plans of anyone else in the garden that night were, including Judas, the Roman soldiers, the Jewish officials, or even Peter. If Jesus really wanted to escape what he knew God's plan was, he could have already escaped before they even showed up. Or as we just read, he could have called twelve legions of angels to fight for him, which if you remember from the numbers of Roman soldiers we talked about last week, as has been pointed out and you add all those up, that comes out to 72,000 angelic warriors. But that's not the point, Jesus says. I have to drink the cup, the Father already ordained for me, and nobody here in the garden can do anything about that. The Scriptures have to be fulfilled in this way. The Father's will for me and for the world must happen no matter how heinous excruciating it will be. I think we can all let go. Thank you Lord for following through with and fulfilling all that God the Father's plan and the Scriptures said must be fulfilled in order to win our salvation for us. And extending that to us as Jesus's followers, we must surrender ourselves to whatever God the Father's plan entails for us. There will be heartbreaking events. There will be times when we too are wracked with spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical pain. There will be times when we don't understand or see what the point of our torment is. But like Jesus as our example, we too must come to the place where we surrender it fully and say to God, not as I will, but as you will. We can fully trust that whatever the trial is we're going through, God is always, always, always using it for our sanctification. He's using it to reveal something about himself to us, to stretch and grow our faith, which by the way, according to God's own word, is the way he grows our faith, in which we would never have grown in our faith had he not used that trial in our life. He will always use that trial to teach us more of what his word really means, to release the grip of this world on us, and show us that we were created to seek him, know him personally, and long, long for the eternal state of dwelling with him forever. All of this is wrapped up in these famous verses, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared. They're not even worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Now in the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we should, and that's okay, because the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this personal glimpse into what you were experiencing in the garden that night, and we thank you that even though you were facing the entire force of the kingdom of darkness against you, to get you to quit, even though you were facing the overwhelming temptation to leave, even though you were facing such anguish, you stayed. You stayed, you reminded everyone there who you were, and that you were the one who was in control. God's plan was sovereign overall, and that the only reason you were going with them is because you were choosing to. Thank you Lord, thank you for staying, thank you for going with them, thank you for enduring all that you endured to win our salvation for us. We look forward to you coming back for us some day, we look forward to spending all of eternity with you, and pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen. Please stand with me as we close out our time this morning.