Gethsemane

the reading of God's Word, gospel of Matthew, chapter 26, beginning in verse 36, then Jesus went with them to a place called 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 and he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful even to death, remain here and watch with me. And going a little farther, he fell in his face and he prayed, saying, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping and he said to Peter, so could you not watch with me one hour, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, for the second time he went away and he prayed, my father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. And again, he came and found them sleeping for their eyes were heavy, so leaving them again, he went away and he prayed for the third time and saying the same words again, then he came to the disciples and said to them, sleep and take your rest later on. See the hour is at hand and the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners, rise. Let us be going. See my betrayer is at hand. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated. We live in a dangerous time. Today calling yourself a Christian, doing Christian things, going to church, doing Christian activity has perhaps never been as easy as it is right now in our culture. And yet, actually living as a Christian, following Jesus, dying to yourself, taking up your cross has never been harder. Never has Christianity been so popular in our culture, and yet never has Jesus and his cross been so obscured, so lost, lost in what Bibi Warfield called Christless Christianity, that is a Christianity without redemption in the blood of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for soon. You see, all of us have our own personal Jesus. And if we're going to be honest, this personal Jesus looks a little bit more like us than it actually looks like Jesus of the cross. You see, we have a Jesus of success, a Jesus of good behavior, a Jesus of sound doctrine, a Jesus of wise teaching. But none of these are the real Jesus, the Jesus of the cross. Maybe this morning this describes you. Maybe you don't know him. Maybe you've sat in this church for years and you don't really know the real Jesus, or maybe you're just like me. Maybe, although you know him, you find it so easy to forget who he is. Even the hardest skeptic believes that Jesus lived. But what you believe about why he died will change your life. You see, you cannot know the real Jesus apart from the cross. If there is no cross, there is no redemption, there is no forgiveness, there is salvation. Without the cross, there is no Jesus. And today, the Garden of Gethsemane gives us an unfiltered, unobscured view at the real Jesus. You see, in this honest and moving portrayal, we see a picture of Jesus on the night before he died. And we get a glimpse of Jesus' own understanding of what he came to do. We get a glimpse of Jesus' own understanding of the cross. Christ came to die on the cross as a sacrifice for sin. And at the Garden, we learn three things about the cross and those three things are these. But the cross of Christ was not simply death. It was judgment. Second, we learn that the cross of Christ was necessary. There was no other way. And third, we learn that the cross of Christ was the ultimate betrayal. So first, the cross of Christ was not simply death. It was judgment. In verse 37, it says that in taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. And he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful even to death. Remain here and watch with me. In verse 39, it says in going a little farther, he fell on his face and he prayed, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. The Bible here says that Jesus was sorrowful and he was troubled. Literally, he was overcome with a profound heaviness. The gospel of Luke says that Jesus was so overwhelmed that he was sweating drops of blood. It is almost as if Jesus here in the garden was anxious. Is that possible? Can Jesus be anxious? Can the king of kings be so undone and we must ask ourselves, what was it that had Jesus so sorrowful and so troubled? Jesus tells his disciples, my soul is sorrowful to the point of death. It's amazing to consider Jesus's openness, so so raw, so unfiltered, nowhere else in the gospels do we see a display quite like this where Jesus is so undone. So what was it that made Jesus so undone? What was the cross? But what was it about the cross that made Jesus so undone, so sorrowful, so troubled to the point of death? Yesterday we heard Julian speak of the cross and it's torture, it's torment. Could that be it? Could Jesus be overwhelmed by the thought of such a painful and agonizing death? And yet we know that many martyrs came after Jesus who were tortured, who were beaten, and did so with courage. Could the king of kings be overwhelmed at the thought of a painful death? Or was it something more? See the cross is not simply about death. The cross is about judgment and we see this in Jesus's prayer. He says, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Jesus had mentioned this cup before. He knew what was coming for him. A little earlier in Matthew 20, the sons of Zebedee come with their mother, the same sons of Zebedee who are here, are supposed to be praying with Jesus in the garden. And she asks, along with her two sons, she says, say that these two sons of minor to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in the kingdom, and Jesus answers, you don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I'm to drink? So today that's the question that we must ask ourselves. The question posed to us, are you able to drink the cup that Jesus was able to drink? Throughout the Old Testament, the cup was described as the wrath of God poured out as judgment for sin. Jeremiah 25, 15, take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath. Back at 216, drink yourself, show your uncircumcision, the cup and the Lord's right hand will come around you, and shame will become of your glory. Isaiah 51, 17, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord, the cup of his wrath. Most people will have an incredibly difficult time thinking about the wrath of God, but you can't understand the love of God unless you understand his wrath. His wrath flows from his love, and let me explain what I mean by that. The things that we care most deeply about, the things that we love the most are the things that anger us the most. If a father did not punish his children for wrongdoing, would you call that love? Or would you call that apathy? See the opposite of wrath is not love, it's apathy. Why would we want an apathetic God? Could it be that we're just as apathetic as we want him to be? Our God is not apathetic. He's far from it. He is filled with a deep and profound love, and out of that love is a deep hatred of sin. You cannot know the love of God unless you understand his wrath. Why? Because then you don't really know what Jesus came to do. He came to drink the cup of wrath in your place, because you couldn't drink it. There's no way you could have. He drank the cup that was supposed to be yours to drink, and this brings us to our second point that the cross was necessary. There was no other way. In verse 40, it says that he came to his disciples and found them sleeping. He said to Peter, so could you not watch with me for one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter instant temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, for the second time, you went away and prayed, my father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. He told his disciples, watch and pray so that you don't enter instant temptation. She liked you, the disciples, like me, the disciples, they didn't get it. They didn't really understand what Jesus came to do. They didn't understand what was at stake. They didn't understand the wrath of God. They didn't really understand his love. They didn't really understand the depth of their own sin, so they couldn't possibly understand the cross, and so they slept. In the middle of Christ's greatest battle, they were sleeping. I want you to think for a moment about the power of sleep and try as hard as you want to, to stay awake. It just overtakes you, doesn't it? Your eyelids become heavy, and just as the weight of the cross was heavy on Christ's back, so equally, the weight of the disciples' apathy was on their eyelids, and we see this incredible contrast, Christ anguish, and the disciples' apathy. And so it is with us. We can't possibly comprehend the wrath of God, and so we can't possibly comprehend his love, and it lulls us into the spiritual slumber. Atathetic self-centered, totally unaware of what Jesus did for us on the cross. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. It says that He prayed again, my Father, this cannot pass unless I drink it. Your will be done. There was no other way. Because of this, because of our condition, there was no other way, Jesus had to go to the cross. There are some that think Jesus died in the cross as an example. To show us the most profound example we could ever see of sacrificial love. The problem with this is we could never follow His example. Are you able to drink the cup that He was able to drink? We could not drink it and survive. He did not die as our example. He did not drink the cup of wrath as our example. He did it in our place as our substitute. The Bible says, all of us have gone astray, all of us have sinned, all of us are apathetic. All of us deserve punishment. He drank the cup of punishment. In your place. In the same way that there was no other way for Jesus. Other than to go to the cross, there is no other way for you than to go to the cross. Try as hard as you might, you cannot earn His grace. You can't earn His favor. No amount of good deeds will ever make up for it. Why? You cannot drink the cup that He was to drink. That brings us to our final point. The cross was the ultimate betrayal. On verse 43, it says, again, He came and found them sleeping and their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, He went away and prayed for a third time, saying the same words again. And He came to His disciples and He said to them, sleep, take your rest later on. See the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See my betrayer is at hand. Ultimately, to understand the cross, you must realize that you have betrayed Jesus. Jesus says, see the hour at hand, the Son of Man is to be betrayed into the hands of sinners. In just mere moments, Judas will arrive and He will betray Jesus with a kiss. Judas, a follower, a disciple. Think about this. Judas was there. He heard Jesus preach. He was there at the feeding of the five thousand. He was there when Jesus healed a blind man. He was there when Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead. How could have Judas have seen everything He saw and heard everything He heard Jesus say? And He had still betrayed Jesus for a handful of silver. Yet are we so different? After all, we have seen and we have heard and yet you and I betray Jesus every day. We play the role of Judas and we betray our Savior. We trust ourselves rather than the cross. We place our hope in our own successes rather than in Christ. We look to false saviors. These Jesus's made in our own image. We think that money, success, children, jobs, grades, the right girl, the right guy, happiness, that that's going to fix it. Like Judas, we betrayed Jesus for just a handful of money. So I wonder today, do you really know the real Jesus? Do you really know Jesus Christ or have you been following Him as Judas did? And yet the chance to get what you really want deep down would you betray Him with the kiss?

How many of us are just like Judas? We acknowledge Him with our minds, but we betray Him with our hearts. So to understand the cross, you must realize that Jesus was willingly betrayed for you. In the last verse, verse 46, Jesus says, rise, let us be going. My betrayers at hand. Do you realize that Jesus knew what Judas was going to do? When he picked Judas to be his disciples, he knew what Judas was going to do. As he sat there and prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, he knew what was going to happen. He knew that he was about to undergo the wrath of God for you and for your sin. And yet he willingly got up and he said, rise. My betrayer is at hand. He willingly left the Garden. And he went to the cross. He did all of this knowing that one day you would betray Him too. Paul says in Romans 8, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So knowing that one day you would reject Him, Jesus became man and took on flesh. Knowing that one day you would doubt his promises, Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead. Knowing that one day you would trust in your own righteousness, Jesus spoke in parables and rebuked the Pharisees. Knowing that one day you would love money more than the kingdom, he chose greedy Judas to be his disciple. Knowing that one day you would choose comfort over holiness. He gave himself up to be arrested. And knowing that one day you would sin against him and thought word indeed, he was beaten whipped and bruised. Knowing that he would be punished in our place and bear the wrath of God for sin, he willingly left the Garden of Gethsemane and he went to the cross. May you know this Jesus, the real Jesus, who died for your sin, who drank the cup of wrath on your behalf. May you know this Jesus and what he's done for you on the cross. Amen.