Anguish

I'd like to invite children in kindergarten in first grade to primary church. For those of you not going to primary church, you can find the text on the back of your order of worship where you can follow along in your Bible, if you'd like. And starting on chapter 12, verse 27, you hear the word of God. Now my soul is troubled and what shall I say? Father saved me from this hour, but for this purpose, I've come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it, and will glorify it again. The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. And others said, an angel is spoken to him. Jesus answered, this voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out? And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to show what kind of death he was going to die. So the crowd answered him, we've heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the son of man must be lifted up? Who is this son of man? So Jesus said to them, the light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, less darkness overtake you. The one who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of the light. Let us pray. Father, I pray now as we consider your word that you would open the eyes of the blind in the ears of the death. What does it mean for Jesus to be troubled? What does it mean for us to look upon that? What does it say to us? Father, I pray that you would be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding, in my mouth and in my speaking. Christ's name, we pray these things, how man and a man. Well, the past few months at our house, between the hours of, I don't know, six o'clock and eight o'clock, it's been pretty rough for everyone else but me. You see, around six o'clock, I mean, I get home from work, we have dinner, and I immediately in the past few months, I can't help, but sit in my chair and watch the news. I've become like a news junk. I've got to see what's going on, and you know, it's one of those kind of things where, you know, I'm sitting there with the road control and someone will say, that's, that's, that's, that's, Tommy? Honey, what is it, you know, what's got me so drawn to the news, and it's basically all the financial stuff that's going on. The bailout packages, tarp one, tarp two, stock market, all of these things, and it's just driving me crazy. And it's gotten, you see, no matter where you are with bailouts, you know, whether you're on the side that says, bailouts by the government will work or you're on the side that say the bail, bailouts from the government won't work. Everybody is worried about the amount of money being spent and the debt that's being gathered. You can't help when you look at a huge debt, you can't help but be troubled, can you? And I was thinking about it this week and, you know, people say, this is the greatest debt in the history of the world, the greatest bailouts in the history of the world, and as I was thinking about it, I realized it's not. There's a bigger bailout, a bigger bailout that happened, it wasn't financial, but spiritual. You see, the greatest bailout in the history of the world was, was overtaken by Jesus. That's what we're going to look at today. You see, remember last week we started looking at John chapter 12 and Jesus had basically just been rejected by the Jewish leadership. Finally, they decided they were going to put him to death and then the Gentiles came seeking Jesus. And he took that as a signal and said, now my hour has come. In other words, this was a huge debt to be paid by all these people, not just the Jews, but by all different types of people in the world. And now is the hour. Now is the hour for that debt to be paid. And how does Jesus respond to that? Or what's that due to Jesus? It does the same thing to him that looking at a big debt does to us, it troubles him. This morning, we're continuing on, the passage I read, we're going to look at three things this morning. We're going to look at the agony of Jesus number one. The second thing we're going to look at is the crisis, the crisis of the cross. And the third thing we're going to look at is the promise of the gospel. So let's look first at the agony of Jesus. If you look at verse 27, just the first sentence there, Jesus has now, my soul is troubled. His hours come. Now my soul is troubled. And to put it lightly, that's an understatement. You see the Greek word, there's is Tarasso. And it's not a bad translation. It's just that Tarasso means so much. It's hard to quantify into one word, because the word there where it says, now my soul is troubled. That's the word Tarasso. And really what that means is anguish, shock, revulsion, horror, the worst possible thing that you can think. And that's what it means. Agony, anxiety, fear. In other words, Jesus was shaken in his boots is what it says there. So when Jesus is now, my soul is troubled. It's more than him going, it's going to be rough. This is John's version, if you will. It's not the Garden of Gesemini, but the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke had record Jesus in the Garden of Gesemini. John doesn't, but instead John records this. And so we see that the Garden wasn't the only place where Jesus was troubled. This, he began to contemplate the cross. There was something that troubled him so much that it caused him great anguish. What was it? What, why was his soul so troubled? Why was his soul in such anguish about this hour? And the answer is, it was because it was the hour of his death. And on one hand, you know, you say, well, everyone dies, is that big a deal? But really, Jesus was looking at two different aspects. He was contemplating his death from two different perspectives. On one hand, he was troubled because of the way his death would be carried out at the hands of men. Right? Imagine, would you not be troubled if you knew in the next few days that you would be arrested unjustly, that you'd be mocked, that you'd be beaten, that you'd be spat upon, that you would be flayed with a cat in nine tails, and ultimately, you would be spread out on a wooden cross, and your hands and feet would be nailed to that cross. And then the cross would be taken and just dropped into the ground, and you would spend the next, who knows how long, dying a very slow death by suffocation. Would that worry you if that was coming? If you knew what it was, Jesus was troubled. But you know, the crucifixion, the mocking, the scourging, the beating, the spitting, the crown of thorns, the bloody robes, the nails in the hands, that was the easy part. That was the easy part. You see, that's what he would experience at the hands of men, but I think his soul was more troubled because what he would experience at the hand of God. You see, because at the hour of Jesus' death, he wouldn't just be crucified, but in fact, he would be bearing the full brunt of God's wrath. I mean, first of all, he, the Apostle Paul says that he who knew no sin became sin. In other words, on the cross, Jesus became so identified with the sin of the world, with your sin, and with my sin, and with your guilt, and with my guilt, that he would become it. That would be bad. I wouldn't want to foist upon anybody, my sins, or my issues, and have to have them deal with them, and yet Jesus takes all of that unto himself, and then on top of that, he will bear the full brunt of God's wrath against those sins.

In the passages in the garden against Seminy, it says that Jesus was so agonized, and Luke's gospel says that he sweat drops of blood.

You see, he wouldn't be just bearing God's wrath, but he would be breaking fellowship with God. You see, most of us remember when Jesus is on the cross, his very famous line where he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And I know most of us have been taught that in that moment, the reason that Jesus screams, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me is because in that moment, God, the Father, turned his back upon the Son. I don't believe that. I don't believe that's why Jesus was in such agony. Because in that moment, the problem wasn't that God turned away from Jesus, the problem was that God turned toward his Son, the Son whom he loved, the Son whom he had perfect fellowship with, the Son whom he had done nothing wrong, and he poured out all of his anger and all of his justice proactively onto the Son. That would be much more disturbing to me than the Father just turning his back for a while. You could live with that, but to bear all of the hot wrath of God, Jesus would do that. And because he would bear all that wrath on behalf of sinners, his soul was troubled. He, if soul was in agony. And so how does he respond to that? What does he do? What can he do? He prays. Notice what he says. He says, now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? Father saved me from this hour? But for this purpose, I've come to this hour. Father glorify your name. That's actually pretty tricky passage. He says, my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? And then the next line is, all the commentators I read, and I read a lot of them this week, they're basically split down the middle on whether that's a question or whether that's a statement. In other words, is it a rhetorical question where he says, my soul is troubled. What shall I say? Father saved me from this hour? Question mark? That's why I came, rhetorical question. Or if it's consistent with the rest of the gospels, he's praying, Father saved me from this hour. And he hears the same thing here that he hears in the garden of Gesemini when he prays the God. Because remember in the garden of Gesemini, Jesus prayed three times. Father, if there's any way, if there's any way for this cup to pass for me, please let it be. And what does he hear back? I have a sound effect. Yeah? That's what he hears. That's the response that he gets to his prayer to be delivered from his hour of death. Crickets, nothing. God doesn't respond. God is silent. And so in the context of God's silence, what does Jesus do? In the garden, he says, not my will, but your will be done. And he says the same thing here. He says, what shall I say? Father saved me from this hour. No, rather, this hour is why I came. Father glorify your name. In other words, he submits himself to the will of the Father. You see, it's one thing, it's on one hand, it's not wrong to pray God deliver me from this. Jesus does that. On the other hand, he says, you do what you're going to do. And what does that lead to? It leads to the crisis of the cross. Jesus's submission to God's will. Let's look at the next thing. Verse 28, Jesus prayed, Father glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven. I have glorified it and will glorify it again. The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had funded. Another said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus answered, the voice has come for your sake. Not mine. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out? Okay, that had to be pretty wild if you think about it. To get an immediate answer to your prayers of vocal, Father glorify your name. I have, I have glorified it and I will glorify it again. What's interesting is the only person apparently that understood it was Jesus. Some heard, heard, everyone heard something and some said it sounded like thunder and others said sounded like the voice of an angel. Yet apparently no one understood it, which leads to a problem of course with the next verse because Jesus says that was for your sake. Not mine. How could it be for their sake if no one understood it? And most commentator, most people aren't really sure other than to say probably after the fact that it was for their sake, that after the resurrection, that after the disciples had began their ministry, they could look back and say, I remember when Jesus prayed, Father glorify your name, God answered him. He answered him so we could hear it. So we knew that God was affirming what he was about to do. What's bigger yet is whether or not they understood it, Jesus goes on to explain the urgency of what they've heard. And what does he say? He says, Jesus says in verse 31, now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out? Now is the judgment of this world. The Greek work for judgment, there's crisis. Now is the crisis of this world. Now is the judgment of this world. What does he mean by that? Because if you read through John's Gospels, Jesus says over and over, I didn't come to judge the world. I came to say the world. Why does he now say, say now, the hour that I might of my death now is the judgment of the world. It's a judgment on the world in two ways. One of them is really bad news and one of them is really good news. On one hand, it's the judgment. The cross is the judgment of this world in the fact that the cross judges you and me guilty. When you look at the cross right there, when you look at a cross, what you see is your guilt. That's bad news. You see the people that crucified Jesus, the people who were there and crucified Jesus thought that they were getting one over on him. They thought that they were judging him and they thought they were passing judgment on him as being a reviler and being a false prophet and being a blasphemer. But in the course of crucifying him, what they really did was judge themselves. They showed themselves to be guilty. The same is true for you and me that Jesus would not have gone to the cross where it not for our sins. You and I are not only guilty of our sins. We're not only guilty of our transgressions of the things that we do that both are contrary to God's law or omissions from God's law, but we're actually guilty of crucifying Jesus. In the book of Acts Peter looks at the crowd and he says, you crucified him. The people who crucified him probably weren't even there. What does he mean by that? Your sin and my sin are what put Jesus on the cross and so your guilty of your own sin and you're actually guilty of the crucifixion. Now here's the beauty of it. The very thing that causes your guilt is the very thing that is able to deliver you. The irony of the cross, the crisis of the cross is the cross. When you look at the cross, it shows you as being guilty, not only of your own sins, but guilty of that very act, but the very act is also the thing that is your mode of deliverance. The cross is where the judgment of the world is taking place. On one hand, the judgment of the world is taking place in the sense that the world shows itself as guilty. They're judged as guilty. On the other hand, the judgment of the world is taking place in the person of Jesus. The God is judging the world on the cross and he's judging the world in the person of Jesus and he is pouring out his wrath and Jesus is taking the punishment for the sins that you and I deserve. And in the place of those sins, he offers two things, forgiveness and righteousness. When you trust Jesus, you trust you look at the cross and you say, I believe that he has taken my sins upon the cross, then he in fact will forgive you for those same sins. Not only that, but he gives you all of Jesus' goodness. That's the crisis of the cross. On one hand, the cross shows you as guilty. On the other hand, the cross is the only way you can be forgiven and that leads to the promise of the gospel. Did you notice what Jesus said after that? Verse 32. Jesus says, when I am lifted from the earth and I, when I am lifted from the earth, will draw all people to myself. First thing you see there is he says, and I, when I, he's basically saying, Amy, Amy, it's an emphatic, that he's the only one who can do this. And he says, when I am lifted up, I will draw all people unto myself. What does he mean by that? Well, first, what does it mean for him to be lifted up? The Greek, there's an interesting word because it can mean one of two things. It can mean a negative or it can be a positive. On one hand, it can mean to be lifted up in the sense of the way you would lift up a criminal by either hanging him by the neck or pinning him to a tree or crucifying him. That's one way to use the word there that means lift it up. That's how the crowd took it. The same word, however, can also be used for exaltation, to be high and lifted up, to be made into a king, to be glorified. And Jesus probably means both things here. When I'm lifted up, I will draw all people to myself. When he's lifted up on the cross, he'll draw all people unto himself. And when he is lifted up after the resurrection, and when he is taken to the right hand of God, he continues to draw all people to himself.

Now, there's a word here I want you to catch and the word is draw. Did you notice it says, when I am lifted up, all people will come to me. Or when I am lifted up, all people will come running to me of their own free will. Jesus says, when I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself. And what does he mean by that? If you read through John's Gospel, John makes it pretty clear that you do not come to Jesus unless he first draws you. You see because he says, I will draw all people to myself. Jesus can't mean all people without exception because the context of this very passage is judgment of the world. So what is he talking about when he says all people? He probably means no doubt, all people without distinction because the whole way this monologue kicked off is because the Gentiles had come to him. So in other words, when Jesus says, I will draw all people to myself. What he is talking about is all kinds of people. Jews and Gentiles without distinction, not all people without exception. So what does it mean for him to draw? It means just that. Unless Jesus draws, you won't come to him. How do you know if Jesus is drawing you unto himself? How do you know if he has drawn you unto himself? It's just pretty simple actually. And if you see, if you've seen the movie Kung Fu Panda, it will be even simpler. Kids, you'll have to explain this to your parents later. I watched Kung Fu Panda with my daughters on Friday night and I was like, that's it right there, you know. If you've seen, basically the movie Kung Fu Panda is about a Kung Fu Panda named Po. And he's basically this big fat, lazy panda who somehow gets tapped to save the world. And there's an evil villain named Tai Long who's coming to basically crush this village and crush this temple and all these things. And the key to winning the battle, the key to understanding and to gaining all the power is that the dragon warrior rests in this thing called the dragon scroll. In the movie Celarius, you're right to watch Po training and all this kind of stuff. And finally, he's given the dragon scroll and the villain is coming to get the dragon scroll. And he thinks by opening and reading the dragon scroll that he will in fact gain all the power to be the dragon warrior and he opens the dragon scroll. Do you remember what was in it? Nothing. Actually, not nothing. It was a mirror. And when he looked in that mirror, he saw two things on one hand that he was first horrified. He said, oh, on the other hand, he went, oh, like I'm the man. This mirror is showing me that I shouldn't be the man, but I am the man. And then toward the end, further on the movie, the villain gets the same dragon scroll and he opens it up and it poses, what do you see? And he looks at it and he doesn't see anything. You see, he doesn't get it. How does it do the cross like that dragon scroll? How do you know if Jesus is drawing you to yourself? It's because you know when you look at the cross, just like when you look at the dragon scroll in Kung Fu Panda, you either see something or you don't. You know Jesus is drawing you if you look at the cross and at the cross, you're both horrified and you're exuberant. When you look at the cross, you see your guilt. You know that you don't deserve that on one hand. On the other hand, you rejoice because you know that Jesus is there for you. If you see that, Jesus is drawing you and I beg you come. Trust him. If that's what you see, trust him. Put your trust in him. Put your faith in him. And if you just look at the cross, it really doesn't mean anything to you. I'd ask you to keep looking until it does. Think about that. Let me pray for us. Father, I prayed this morning that you would open our eyes to see the cross of Jesus. I prayed that you would draw us unto yourself. I prayed again that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. Christ's name we pray these things. Amen. Amen.