Bravado and Bravery

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Don Filcek; Matthew 26:30-46 Bravado and Bravery

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and it really is a joy to my heart to gather together with you this morning.
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I hope it's a joy to you as well. We get to connect with God by faith through his word.
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That's a fundamental reason we get together is that our faith grows in the gathering of his people. We get to worship him by singing together with others who love him, and we get to be reminded that we're not a solitary project.
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You can go ahead and look around the room right now and recognize that you are not alone, and that is a big chunk of the battle, right, is how many of you sometimes just feel alone during your week?
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Like, you just feel like, is there anybody else out there that's fighting the same battle that I'm fighting? Is there anybody else that's struggling with sin?
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Is there anybody else who is struggling to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus, and you gather together in this place, and that's part of the cadence of life as a
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Christian, is that he calls us to gather together so that we can connect and see that we are not alone.
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Amen? That's a joy. I hope you find an increase in faith, an increase in joy, and even an increase in courage to face the world because we have been together this morning in church.
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One of our core values here is authenticity. You see replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.
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That's an acronym for recast, but the A is authenticity, and I would explain authenticity as it relates to relationship.
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So when you're kind of wondering what that core value means, it could be a little bit mysterious, like we think we're the authentic stamp of approval on this church, like we're the real one or something.
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Like, we don't mean that. We mean it in regards to relationship, and a contrast might help to clarify what we mean by authenticity by clarifying and thinking about the opposite of what would it mean to be inauthentic in our relationships.
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And inauthentic relationships could be defined, there's a metaphor in our culture that's used frequently about wearing a mask, putting on a mask, like that would be a good metaphor for an inauthentic relationship, pretending to be something that we are not, and that's something we don't want to do in this gathering.
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I think that many of us have quite likely experienced religious context. I know I did a bit in my youth in which it felt like we needed to pretend to have it all together before we gathered together with God's people.
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Even a few times in my youth, I may recall my mother saying, put a happy face on, we're going into church.
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Anybody ever, anybody be able to relate to that? After a lot of yelling and screaming in the minivan on the way in, like, wipe those tears away.
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You know, we're going to church. Okay. We want to be a place where our friendships form down the lines of honesty and authenticity, where I can tell you
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I don't have it all together, and you can share the same with me. Where I say I'm not fully the man that I want to be, but I'm a work in process, and you agree, and I'm not fully the husband or the father that I want to be,
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I'm not fully the friend that I want to be, and I can share that with you. Because God has got me on a journey, and He has you on a journey as well.
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And I'd just be honest to say I need a little help from my friends. Real friends, not what the
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Beatles meant when they said friends, but it's helpful to segue from the idea of getting by with a little help from our friends, because when push comes to shove, we all have some place we prefer to turn for help when we need to get by.
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And the Beatles inferred, or maybe even more explicitly declared, what they meant when they said, especially with the line,
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I get high with a little help from my friends, what they were talking about, but we see in our text,
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Jesus at His lowest. Jesus at His lowest. As a matter of fact, the depth to which his soul plunges this week caused me to actually reach out to my theology professor to seek his advice on whether or not there are words or guardrails that I ought to put in place about the way that I speak about Jesus in this
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Garden of Gethsemane moment. Because I fear that this is right up against the possibility of speaking poorly or wrongly about Jesus in this moment.
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Is it fair, ask yourself these questions as we're going to come into the garden with Jesus here in a moment.
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Is it fair to say that the Son of God is scared? Is it fair to suggest that He can relate to what it means to have a panic attack?
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See? Yeah. They're suggesting no, I don't know,
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I think that He can relate to us in our panic, right? I feel super uncomfortable with any terminology, though, that would imply that Jesus is ever out of control, right?
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How many of you would raise your hand and say, I'm uncomfortable, Don, if you're going to stand up there and suggest that Jesus is out of control. I don't think
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He's out of control. But yet in these moments we're given an intimate glimpse. Our text demonstrates for us,
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I would suggest, a mix of holy terror, and love, and resolve, and bravery, and obedience all mingled together there in that place of deep resolve to pay the price for you and me.
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As D .A. Carson says in his commentary on this text, he says, here in this text we enter into a holy moment.
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We enter into a holy moment. It brings us right up to the edge of what I have, I've never heard this phrase,
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I think I invented it, maybe someone else out there, you could Google it and find it somewhere, but I think of it as emotional voyeurism.
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It comes right up against that. For in this moment we're beholding our Lord in His deep, deep, deep grief and sorrow.
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And if the phrase emotional voyeurism doesn't make sense, I feel like this is what I've seen and experienced, and the way
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I define that word is kind of similar to when you see parents losing a child and it's in a national spotlight, and it's a school shooting or something like that, and in their moment of grief a reporter shoves a mic in their face and says, how do you feel?
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How many of you ever just feel dirty in that moment? Like, why am I watching this?
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This is a holy moment between them and their maker, this is a holy moment between them and their grief and their sorrow, and why in the world does the nation need to see this right now?
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And I wonder if this moment doesn't come right up against that. God's word has recorded it for us, so it is a holy thing.
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It's something He desires for us to enter into, but it is right up against that kind of moment.
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What we're going to read here in a moment, it ought to not be familiar in the sense that it is common for us what we're about to read.
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It ought not to be unmoving to us what we are about to see and behold, because we are entering a holy place this morning.
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So as we enter this text, we know, of course, that the grief that Jesus experiences here in this moment is multiplied by deep spiritual realities, the reality of what
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Jesus will do mere hours from the events we are reading this morning, and that this is the place where He resolves to do it.
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So as we turn in our Bibles, we're going to enter holy ground. Church, we're entering a holy garden.
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We're entering a holy place where Jesus shows us the places He turns in the moment of His deepest grief and His deepest terror, and He will turn to His Father, and He will turn to His friends, turn to community, and turn to prayer.
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So let's peer into these things with hearts ready to behold His deep anguish, pressed out because He loves
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His Father, and He will be glorified. He did not do this. I want to clarify. He did not do this strictly because He loves us, though He does.
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Amen? I'm going to be glad He loves you. He's going to express something deeper than that.
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It's going to be a coming to the Father and an agreement with Him and obedience to Him and love for Him that's going to push
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Him over the edge. It doesn't say anything in His prayer about, well, I really do love Him, so I guess
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I'm going to do it. Not my will, but Yours be done is going to be the conclusion to His prayer because, you see,
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He is going to be glorified. The Father will be glorified, and the Spirit will be glorified in the resolve that His passage shows on the part of Jesus Christ, the very
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Son of God. So turn in your Bibles, if you're not already there, your devices, your apps, to Matthew chapter 26, verses 30, verses 30 through 46.
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Again, Matthew 26, 30 through 46, God's holy and precious Word. Let's just take a pause before I read it.
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And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of Me this night.
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For it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will scatter.
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And after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter answered Him, though they all fall away because of you,
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I will never fall away. Jesus said to Him, truly I tell you, this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny
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Me three times. Peter said to Him, even if I must die with you,
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I will never deny you. And all the disciples said the same. Then Jesus went with them to a place called
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Gethsemane. And He said to His disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and troubled.
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And He said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death, remain here and watch with Me.
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And going a little farther, He fell on His face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.
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Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping.
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And He said to Peter, So could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
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The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again for the second time, He went away and prayed,
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My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, Your will be done. And again
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He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, He went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.
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And He came to the disciples and said to them, Sleep and take your rest later on. See the hour is at hand, and the
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Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.
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Let's pray. I don't even think that words can express the gratitude that's in my heart right now for what
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Christ endured for your people, for me. A holy moment here in the text.
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And just as all of your Word is holy, we recognize that there's nothing that's different about this than any other text of Scripture.
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It's all holy, it's all sacred, but we see something deep about the heart of your relationship with your
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Son. We see, peel back a portion of what
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He endured for us, a portion of His grief and sorrow in the cup that He drank for us.
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So Father, I pray that in His sorrow, just as so many paradoxes are found in the cross, life out of death, but for us, joy out of His sorrow.
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So Father, I pray that this would not rest on us as a major downer this morning, but rather as a major opportunity and movement in our hearts to exalt and to rejoice and to be glad because He endured so much for us.
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And although we in our sin deserve the punishment, deserve the sorrow, deserve the pain, deserve to drink every drop of the cup of your wrath reserved for us, now placed on the
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Son, no longer any condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.
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I pray that that would be the foundation of our worship, the foundation of our very lives lived in this next week because of what
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Christ has done in His love for you, obedience to you, and love for us.
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We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. It's significant that this passage begins with the acknowledgement and quite direct prophecy that all of His disciples are going to forsake
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Him that very night. So that very night, all of His disciples are going to scatter, and we're going to see a few of themselves here at the start, and then we're going to see quite a bit of Him at the end.
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He knows the outcome. Jesus Christ, our Lord, knows the outcome of this evening. They have just participated in the final
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Passover meal that they will take together. Then they've left Jerusalem out to the east, gone down a little hill, and then up another one, and they're on the
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Mount of Olives up on the hill on the east side of Jerusalem, a place that overlooks the temple, a place that you can go today.
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If you go to Israel, you can go to the Mount of Olives. The majority of our text is going to take place in what
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John, the gospel writer John, records for us as a garden. In verse 36,
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Matthew doesn't add the word garden to his description. Gethsemane was a common place that disciples all knew where that was.
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We have a pretty strong indication of where this place actually is. There is an olive grove there where some of the living trees right now are alive there, and they're dated to be over 1 ,000 years old, so it's an ancient place.
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But the context in this olive grove is in the middle of the night, in the darkness, in this place just on the east side, on the outskirts, outside of the city wall of Jerusalem.
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Our outline is going to be an outline of two contrasts. In the first, we see ourselves. The first is going to be bravado, verses 31 through 35, and the second is bravery, verses 36 through 46.
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We're going to see a big contrast between those two. Starting with bravado, it might not be a word that you use very frequently, but here in our first section,
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I want to be clear that I'm following a definition of bravado that is routinely derogatory. We don't usually use the word bravado in a positive sense.
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Merriam -Webster's Dictionary defines bravado as blustering, swaggering conduct, or pretense of bravery.
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In other words, pretense means to pretend. It's a pretend to be brave, and that's what we're going to see here in these first few verses.
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Jesus interjects into this night. They're probably pretty weary. They're pretty exhausted. This is late in the night, and it tells us that they took the meal together late already, and now they've had to wander outside of the city walls, up a hill, and they are ready to call it a night.
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In that context, darkness, there's this statement to the already exhausted disciples that they will fall away, all fall away, because of him this very night.
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Jesus backs up his assertion, so they're exhausted. They're like, really? Are we going to talk about things again right now?
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Can we just go to bed? He backs up his assertion with an Old Testament prophetic quote from Zechariah 13, verse 7.
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Most of us late at night are lucky to get the TV turned off before we get to bed, right?
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Here's Jesus quoting from Zechariah. Put that in context, right? Most of us haven't even read the book of Zechariah, and he's quoting from it.
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Zechariah 13, 7, and in the context in which Zechariah 13 occurs, it is a picture of a future shepherd of God's people, and God speaking to his own sword.
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God having a dialogue with his sword, and speaking to his own sword, and commanding it to strike his own shepherd, which will result in the scattering of his sheep.
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A pretty clear context of what is actually being fulfilled here in this moment. Jesus sees, of course, in this night, a fulfillment of that very prophecy.
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The disciples didn't get everything that Jesus said, but this prediction, this prophecy, that they are all going to scatter is the one thought from this entire discussion that lodges in their mind.
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They understand the verb, fall away. It's their language. They know this word in Greek, images, has a word picture attached to it, and a large rock right in the middle of the pathway that causes people to stumble.
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They further understand in Jesus' words, on my account, you're going to stumble on my account.
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They understand he's saying they're going to be tripped up by him. This very night, all of you are going to be tripped up by me.
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He already said that one of them is going to betray him. Now he's saying all of them are going to fall away and trip over him that very night, and he's actually going to predict here in just a moment that one of them is going to betray him as well.
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And they will all, of course, be scattered as he, in this prophecy, is somehow struck.
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That's what they understand, but they don't really get. But Jesus went on quickly to what I can imagine amounted to a fairly cryptic statement in verse 32.
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You can see it in the text. After I'm raised up, I will go before you into Galilee. Galilee was home to many of these guys.
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This had to be an encouraging word, even if they didn't fully grasp the phrase raised up. I'm not sure that northerners love being in the south in this context.
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The reverse is somewhat true, where the south was kind of the aristocrats, and the political power was all there in the south, and everybody thought of kind of the north as the country bumpkins would have been the idea, and they're out of their element down in Jerusalem.
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They are eager to get back to Galilee, and I'm sure that that word was encouraging to them, but they didn't really fully grasp what
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Jesus was saying. I imagine that they at least understood in verse 32 here that a rendezvous point was being established, so they have some expectation.
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We're all going to get back together again up north in Galilee. We're going to be scattered, but we will all see
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Jesus again up there. Now, it's quite possible that an expectation that they would be getting together in Galilee after the dust settles of this week may have played into their scattering in the first place.
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Think of it this way. Can you imagine if the man that you thought was the Messiah and the Lord, you pledged your life to him, you followed him around the countryside for three years, watching him do miracles and all kinds of things, listening to his teachings, hearing his prophecies, and he says, we're going to meet back up in Galilee, and then he's crucified, and the next day he's buried, and he's in a tomb.
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How many of you go, that would rattle me. That would shake me to the core. I'd just be like, what did I just do?
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What did my last three years for? What did I just do? What just happened? I mean, this is going to be a whirlwind of 24 hours for these disciples.
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Can you blame them for doubting everything? Of course not. We ought not to.
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But rather than focusing on the positive and asking questions about that, which would probably be more fruitful for them, if they were to ask, well, how are we going to get to Galilee?
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When's that going to happen? What happens between now and us in that rendezvous point? You see how that might be more fruitful?
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Those are the kind of questions they should be asking instead. They are really going to focus in on the falling away.
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When's that going to happen? We wouldn't do that. Peter, who's always quick to speak his mind, lets
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Jesus know how it is. Peter, did you hear me? Peter lets Jesus know how it is.
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He says, this is the way it is, Jesus. First of all, you're wrong. Even if all these jokers stumble because of you,
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I will never fall away, says Peter. Sound like Peter? Any of you follow Peter? Any of you read anything that he says?
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This is just like Peter correcting the Lord, right?
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Well, let me just set you straight on this point, Jesus. I'm never going to fall away. Note the competitive edge to Peter's statement here.
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In comparison and contrast to all of these guys, I'm good with you.
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Note the clear pride on Peter's part. Note the air of bravado.
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How do we know it's bravado? Well, we'll see it here within just a few verses.
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It doesn't come to fruition. He is not as brave as he thinks. An air, a bluster, a pretense, but this is not bravery.
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Also note the impulse, though. I think we can miss this because a lot of times we can just be so down on these disciples and we think they're there to tell us what not to do, but I think there's something beautiful here.
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There's an impulse within Peter's chest. He has a desire, a deep desire to stick with his
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Lord. You see that here? He doesn't want to fall away. There is a dose of pride, of course, in his comment shown by his willingness to compare himself to others and the other disciples, but there is also something noble expressed in the desire on his part to stay with Jesus.
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But the edge needs to be knocked off his bravado, and Jesus is always faithful to not let us sit in our sin or our arrogance.
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He tells Peter, he tells Peter, tells him, no, Peter, this is the way it is.
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In verse 34, so they're having this back and forth and each one correcting the other. In verse 34, Jesus says, okay, really, no joking aside.
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Ha, ha, ha, that's funny, Peter, I get it, but truly I tell you, this very night, before your alarm clock goes off in the morning, you will deny me not once, not twice, but three times.
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You will tell people three times you didn't even know me. Three times,
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Peter, that's going to happen, and it's you. Now I want you to consider. Consider you're there.
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Put yourself in Peter's shoes. Do you have the chutzpah of Peter here in verse 35?
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He comes back at Jesus again with another attempt at telling
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Jesus how it's going to be. No, no, no, Jesus, I'm telling you this is the way it's going to be.
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I'm going to die with you. I will never deny you. I'm going to clarify that this was not a private conversation.
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All the disciples were listening in to this. Who does Peter think we are? All the disciples agreed.
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They all echo Peter's bravado.
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They all echo Peter's bravado. And I want to point out a couple of things about this bravado before we move on to see the bravery of our
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Lord. By the way, the intention in all of this is to make sure you see yourself firmly rooted in the camp of bravado.
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I will fill in the blank. How many times have you told the Lord, I'm going to read through the
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Bible in a year. I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to do that for you. Good things, right? How many of you have done something like that before?
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Only to find that it was bravado. It was bluster. It wasn't the real thing.
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We all have that in us, some commitments and some desires and some holiness. How many of you would just like to say,
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God, I won't sin again? Raise your hand if that's really your heart.
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Like, I don't want to sin again. And then what are we going to be doing this afternoon? Right? Maybe even another drive home.
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Maybe arguing with our spouse and putting her down or putting him down or telling the kids to be quiet because it makes us happier.
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Whatever it might be, right? So, some things to notice about the bravado before we move on to the bravery of our
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Lord. The first is to note that Jesus chose weak men. Jesus chose weak men.
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And He didn't choose weak men as over and against powerful men because there's no such thing.
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So, He chose people to follow Him. Now, I want to point out, like, I want to be careful and make sure you understand.
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I'm talking spiritually weak, not physically weak. I wouldn't want to go toe -to -toe with a single one of His disciples.
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Peter, James, and John were hardened and seasoned fishermen with much more calloused hands than mine. They survived in an ancient context without any of the things that make my life soft and easy.
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They did not have hot showers, no toilets that flush, no internet, which means, of course, no streaming services. But also, little to no effective treatment to get rid of fleas, bed bugs, no air conditioning, no gas stoves.
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I think you get my drift. These guys were tough because they were raised and born in a time that you had to be tough to survive.
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You get what I'm saying? I don't want to go toe -to -toe. These were tough guys. So, I don't mean weak in the physical sense at all.
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And yet, He picks men who will fall away on the night He needs them most. Here in just a moment, they will be asleep when the only thing
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He has asked of them is, stay awake with me. How weak is the flesh?
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The spirit might be willing. With bravado, the spirit is willing and speaks.
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But the flesh is indeed weak. He knows what His disciples are made of, though, and He loves them.
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He knows what these 11 men are made of, and He loves them. Let's bring that into the room.
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He knows what His disciples are made of, and He loves us.
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And He loves us. Jesus chooses weak things like us.
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Let that settle on you this morning. The second thing that we need to get out of this bravado is that God did not get a deal with you.
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Let's make it even more personal. My life with Christ can never, ever settle on me thinking that God got a bargain with me, man.
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He's getting more bang for His buck than anywhere. It's not, hear me carefully, own these things.
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It's not our initiative. It's not our power to stay with our Lord. It's not our ability to die with Him. It's not our ability to identify with Him in His suffering.
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It's not our ability to face persecution for Him. It's not in our ability to share the gospel or to read the
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Bible faithfully every single morning or to pray faithfully with Him. It's not anything in us, and He knows it.
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And so do these original 11 disciples who He keeps because the Father has given them to Him to keep.
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Why are these 11 men rescued? Is it because of their faithfulness? No, He includes this prophecy and fulfillment of this prophecy of them scattering, leaving their
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Lord to die on His own. Why is that recorded in Scripture? So that we might take solace in recognizing that there is nothing in them?
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These are the guys handpicked by our Lord to follow Him, and they couldn't stay with Him. Would you argue with Jesus and try to convince
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Him you're made out of better stuff than Peter? Or in humility, will you stand with me in slack -jawed wonder that He would keep a rebel against His will like you and me and rescue us from our own falling away, scattering, denying
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Him ways? But enough about us. Enough about our bravado.
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Let's look into the second movement of this text which contrasts the bravado of us, the bravado of His disciples, with Jesus and His authentic and honest bravery.
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In this text, we see a major contrast between the 11 disciples who utter easy words of bravado and Jesus who wrestles with the
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Father in terror. He knows the full weight that is coming to Him in just hours from now.
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And in verse 36, He asks His disciples to sit here among the olive trees a while as He goes a little way off to pray.
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And He takes His three closest friends, Peter, James, and John, with Him, the sons of Zebedee, James and John. And according to verse 37,
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He became sorrowful and troubled, and not just a little bit. Not just a little disturbed, not just a little sorrowful, not just a little sad.
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His distress became visible. And He tells His three closest boys, My soul is very sorrowful.
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And not just very sorrowful, but even to death. And He commands them to stay here and stay awake.
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The phrase, watch with me, in the English Standard Version, has at its roots the concept of a guard watching the night.
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Now the fundamental task, the fundamental requirement of somebody who is set is to set the guard and watch.
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What's the fundamental thing, the first thing that they must do in order to be an effective watch? Stay awake.
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That's all you've got to do. Your ears will work the rest, your eyes will be looking around, because if you're awake in that ancient time with the darkness, how many of you know the sounds are going to get to you?
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Every little creak, every little crackle, you're going to be like, what's up? You're going to be looking every which way, right?
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You're going to be thinking it through. So all you've got to do is stay awake for that to happen. Now I want to point out that the fact that Jesus likens
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His deep sorrow to proximity to death here. He says, I'm very sorrowful even to death.
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Seems to indicate He's having a pretty severe physical response to His emotional state.
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His heart is racing. And though it might sound trivial to relate this event to a mere panic attack,
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I think the way that some humans seriously have physical manifestations of emotional stress,
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I think it highlights that Jesus can truly relate to us in a wide variety of struggles that humans face.
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I've encountered people who felt deep shame over having panic attacks, and I'm like, no, your body responds to the stress and the emotion that's going on in here.
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I don't even know what I'm talking about. Have any of you ever just had stress just run with your heart? And it literally is like pounding out of your chest, and you're just like,
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I think I either need to knock off the caffeine a little bit, or I need to figure out a new job or something, right?
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I think we've all been there. But Jesus can relate to us in those moments of deep stress where our bodies are responding to the stress that we're under.
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Now obviously this is intense for Him, but He knows turmoil. He knows panic and fear.
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He is not out of control as we see here in this context, because He's under control enough to turn to the right places, but His body is reflecting what
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He's feeling inside. And the focus of His deep emotion that is called sorrow and trouble or agitation here in the text is focused on one thing.
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There's one deep concern for Him. It's what He calls in this text the cup.
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He's concerned about a cup. He's concerned about something He needs to drink. Now knowing that His primary emotion is identified as sorrow and that the object of that deep concern is a cup helps to define for us exactly what has
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Jesus so worked up here in the garden. In verse 39, He goes off with an earshot, earshot of the disciples, and He falls on His face praying,
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My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.
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There's a cup. He will drink the cup. And the thought of drinking that cup is producing within Him intense sorrow, and the sorrow is so utterly deep that He feels like He might die of a broken heart here in this garden before He ever drinks of it.
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So let's carefully, I would suggest to you figuratively, take our shoes off and walk around this scene together on holy ground.
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Let's hit the pause button here in this moment and take a field trip to this place where the heart of our
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Savior is so raw and exposed. Because here in this garden, He will expose us deeply to His relationship to His heavenly
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Father. First, let's consider what you see off to the side, the posture of His friends.
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What do you see there as we've hit the pause button in this moment? He has turned to them in this moment.
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He has asked for help from His friends. He asked them to stay close to Him. Eight of them,
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He said, sit tight, while the closest three He asked to keep watch with Him.
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Now, they're all going to falter. They will be unreliable, and they will all fall asleep.
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Not once, not twice, but three times, He will come back to them, wake them up and say, stay awake, and they'll fall back asleep.
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And in the middle time, He even commands them to stay awake and pray. And He asks them to pray specifically that they will not be led into temptation.
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That's the prayer. That's where we get this epic phrase, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
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He knows that their faith is going to go through the toughest trial that very night. And soon, and here at the crux of history, their eyes are heavy, and they slumber.
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But I love that He acknowledges that their spirits are willing, but their flesh is weak. Apparently, Jesus knows us too.
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I want so desperately to please Him. I'm guessing that many of you do too. We want to worship
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Him in pure integrity and in holiness. And yet in my flesh, I am so prone to sin.
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I think I know the same to be true of you. Ought we not all to watch and pray more fervently and frequently that we might not enter into temptation?
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Because, as our Lord knows of us, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
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What's the answer to that? What's His answer to that? Stay awake, stay alert, and pray.
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Stay alert and pray. Their eyes are more heavy this night than me trying to get through a
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Disney movie after 930. The flesh is weak indeed, right? So the posture of these men of bravado, the pretense of bravery, asleep when all that their
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Lord asks of them is stay awake and pray. And I want to say in this context, really,
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Peter? Really? Die for Him? When all
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He asks for is stay awake. And He even says it. Peter, you couldn't even stay awake an hour with me?
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He's not being snarky. He's being sorrowful. So we look at the context and the posture of His friends, but now let's second look at the context of His prayer.
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This is the night before He will drink down full the cup of the steaming hot wrath of God for the sins of all the redeemed.
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This requires some explanation. The cup that Jesus refers to in verse 39 and the drinking
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He speaks of in verse 42 is an Old Testament metaphor mentioned in some of the prophets, including Ezekiel, a metaphor for God's judgment against sin.
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Why is He sorrowful? Ask yourself, why is Jesus sad and moved about this cup?
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And I suggest to you it's because the drinking of this cup means the wrath of the Holy Father placed squarely on His shoulders.
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It is not merely physical torture or death that He fears. Many have faced death bravely.
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But it is the spiritual wrath where instead of the Father, and hear me carefully, church. This is a little fundamental.
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This is not just merely a little sticky thing for me. It's kind of been a little bit of a major, and the drumbeat on this for me has been getting louder and louder.
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But we have this phrase in a song, I think we might even sing it here, where the Father turned
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His face away. I don't like it. And here's why. Because instead of the
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Father turning His face away, the Father will turn with eyes of fury and all torment of just judgment on the
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Son who here submits to His will on our behalf. It's a bit passive to say that the wrath of God is just merely expressed by kind of like a, you know,
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I'm done with you. It's more than that. The phrase the Father turns His face away misses the central teaching that we get from Isaiah, that He was stricken by God and smitten by Him for our sins.
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God didn't turn away but instead fixed His full attention on the Son, spending the hell that we deserved on Him there that day.
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That is a cup that none of us could drink down for each other. You get what
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I'm saying? It's pretty heavy. And by asking, here in this text, look at His plea.
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By asking for any other way, Jesus is letting us know something very simple. He wants another way.
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You ever thought about that? Simplistic to say, but Jesus here wants another way.
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He is willing to complete the plan of redemption that they have discussed in eternity past, and we don't know the inner workings of the
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Trinity and how the Trinity comes up with plans and plots and all that. We just know that the
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Son of God was slain from the foundation of the world. It was a plan in place prior to the fall, but He is here expressing a genuine interest in making sure that there is absolutely no other way to save us.
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There's a chance that we could get this done in another way. Could we do that,
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Father? Could we look into our options one more time? That's the context of this prayer.
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Now, look at the third thing. Look at the posture of our Lord here in the text. He's not standing.
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He's not even kneeling like a lot of the pictures want to show us. If you type in a Google search, images
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Jesus in the garden or something like that, you're going to have a lot of pictures of Him on His knees, but that's not what the text tells us. He is face down, face in the mud, posture pleading.
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There is, I would suggest to you, something that's applicable and important for us to grasp from this.
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There is something about physical posture that can reflect emotion, but there's also something about posture that at times can help us arrive at the right emotion.
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What I mean is that there are times in prayer that we ought to kneel to remind ourselves where we are in relationship to the one we are addressing.
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We ought to be in a posture, a physical posture of subservience to Him, and I would even suggest that there are times that might be good for us to get down and smell the carpet, get our face right down in it.
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Now, have you ever done this? I'm looking for a show of hands, but have you ever done it? I think by now that most of us, it's a strong statement,
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I think by now most of us should have. If you haven't, you should have. If you've never been so wrecked by your own sinfulness, or so troubled by this fallen world, or so grieved over what your sin has cost
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Him, then I recommend this posture for you at some point, maybe even this week, maybe even this afternoon, where you lay face down in the carpet and grieve or pray or plead with God.
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Our posture can have a powerful impact on our effect because we are physical beings and our bodies can sometimes help our hearts to reflect where we truly belong.
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Where do we belong, church? Our faces before our God. The posture of our
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Lord, the fourth thing. Now look at the repetitive nature of His prayer. He prays three times about the same thing.
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Do you think the first time was enough? He prays three times. Our Lord, our
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King, our Master, the Son of God, talking to the Heavenly Father, and He says the same thing three times.
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It's not that Jesus has any expectation that the Father is going to be forced to answer Him because of this repetition, I'm going to get my way if I say it enough.
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Instead, I believe we see in this repetition something of relationship with God and something of His desperate need.
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Something that His mind and His heart keeps grabbing this fear again and again, and I think we can relate to that, right?
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How many times do you need to bring your troubles to God? Well, as many times as it takes to get the trouble gone. So three times
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He goes back. As many times as it takes to place your trust in God for whatever is troubling you, keep coming back to Him.
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Let Him know the outcome you want. That's what we do in prayer. We say, I'd like it to go this way.
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I'd like this cup to go away. But be sure to keep letting Him know that you trust Him to do what's best.
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Not my will, but yours be done. And sometimes when we utter the not my will, but yours be done, you mean it less the first time than you do the third time.
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You know what I'm talking about? Sometimes the first time seems a little rote. Sometimes the first time seems a little memorized.
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And sometimes by the third, fourth, fifth, tenth time, it starts to settle in your heart. You'll be okay.
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I'm gonna be okay because God's got this. I'm gonna be okay because He's gonna do what is indeed best.
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The fifth thing we look at is here in the text, the address of His prayer. A little bit shorter, but He is speaking to, who does
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He address His prayer to? My Father. On the eve of drinking down the cup of the
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Father's wrath, Jesus is in this with the Father. His Father isn't forcing some kind of abuse on the divine
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Son. Even here in the throes of sorrow, He speaks lovingly of the one who will strike Him, who will smite
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Him with our sins to the scattering of the sheep. My Father, His address.
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And then sixth and finally, look at the conclusion of His prayer. Three times, He ends with the same words.
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Your will be done. Your will be done. Your will be done.
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This prayer at the very crux of all human history is wise to adopt as our conclusion this morning.
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It is the paragon of all human prayer, the apex and quite nearly the exposure of the very purpose of prayer.
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You see, what happens here in this prayer with Jesus is nothing changes the next day He will indeed drink the cup.
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Nothing changes in the circumstances of the Son of God as a result of His prayer. We do not pray to bend
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God's will to ours. But what this prayer does is center Him for the end of His life and the greatest hardship a human could ever face.
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Here Jesus is clearly placing His trust in His Father.
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He comes into this garden more than a bit unsettled and He leaves with resolve, having expressed
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His ultimate faith in His Father to get it right. No, we don't come to prayer to get
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God to do what we want. We come to prayer to express our desire and then align ourselves with His perfect will.
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That's the purpose of prayer. Let Him know what you want. That's fine. Let Him know what you want and then say,
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I'm going to be okay if your choice is other than that. That's always got to be in there.
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Not my will, but yours be done. And now that His resolve and bravery is renewed by loving communication with His Father, He goes back to the disciples, wakes them up one final time, and tells them, you're going to have time to sleep later.
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He says, in essence, let's get the show on the road. The betrayer is here. Now how much does
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He love us? How much does Jesus love you? Well, God loved the world this way.
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He sent His Son so that whoever will believe on Him will not be eternally condemned, but instead will have everlasting life.
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So let's celebrate that by remembering together this morning, if you've been rescued by the sacrifice of Jesus, if you've repented of your sins and accepted
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His drinking down the cup of the wrath of the Father for you, then I encourage you to come to the tables this morning to take the cracker to remember that His body was broken in your place.
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And take the cup of juice to remember His blood that was shed for us, we, His people. And then consider this final call this week to surrender your bravado for humility.
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Surrender your I will never betray you and exchange it for a much deeper thank you for holding on to me.
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And enter into prayer this week, church. Consider the example of our Lord who entered the garden of prayer distraught and left ready for the nearly incomprehensible task of drinking that cup of wrath that we all deserved.
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He shows that the Father is worthy of our trust here in this text. So let's express that this week with our own echoes of His prayer.
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Not my will, but yours be done. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice that does not only contain the nails through His hands, the thorns on His brow, the lashings on His back, the asphyxiating crucifixion and final death, but the anticipation of all of those things as well.
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The grief and the sorrow of drinking down the cup of your wrath with your blazing eyes of fury and all hell let loose on the
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Son there in that place for us. So much more than mere physical suffering, so much more than mere torture, but hell itself that we deserved placed on His shoulders.
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Father, we thank you, we thank you, we thank you for the plan that you brought forth to remain just and to remain gracious and to remain
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Savior. Father, I thank you for the rescue that we have, and I thank you for the time that we have as a church to remember that by coming to these tables and taking that cracker to remember the body of Jesus Christ broken in our place.
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Remember and take the juice to remember His blood shed in our place. Father, I pray that you would strike bravado from us and instead replace it with dependence on you.
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For it's through your bravery and through the sacrifice and through the prayer and the willing decision to go through with it for us and for your
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Father that we have hope. And so Father, I pray that you would instill within us a hope in you, not any trust in our flesh, not any trust in ourselves, and that we would trust even in your
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Spirit to overcome our flesh moment by moment that we might increasingly say no to sin and yes to your