Abandoned for Me

Today on Senate life with JD Greer the physical suffering as bad as it was, was not the essence of the cross. The essence of the cross is abandonment by God in Gethsemane Jesus Lord full into the cup of God's wrath against our sin had overwhelmed him so badly is literally squeezing the life out of him back to life. As always, I'm your host Molly Witte Mitch you Jesus was well accustomed to getting a clear response from God when he prayed he truly had the first and only real hotline to have. But there was one time when God was completely silent today.

Pastor Jenny continues our new teaching series called instead of me and shows us how necessary it was for Jesus to be abandoned for me and for you as always, if you miss any of our programs or if you're in search of our featured monthly resource you can find it all online@jdgreer.com and don't forget that 50% of all gifts given between April 4 and eighth are going straight to meeting physical and spiritual needs in Ukraine right now to join with us in the hands and feet of Jesus to those in need in our world. Grab your Bible independent and let's join Pastor JD in Matthew chapter 26 verse 30 we left Jesus last week. It offered to his disciples the bread and the cup that represented his body and blood given for them. Verse 30 after singing to him. They went out to the Mount of olives.

Then Jesus came with them.

Verse 36 to a place called Gethsemane and told the disciples that here while I go over there and pray that you long Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. He began to be sorrowful and troubled.

He said to them, I am deeply grieved to the point of death remain here and stay awake with me going a little farther, he fell facedown he prayed my father if it is possible, let this cup pass from me did not as I will but as you will then be came to the disciples, and he found them sleeping. Yes Peter so could you not even stay awake with me for one hour Peter stay awake and pray so that you will enter into temptation.

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Again a second time he went away and prayed my father. If this cannot pass unless I drink it in your will be done. They came again and found them sleeping because they could not keep their eyes open. Verse 44 after leaving them, he went away again and prayed 1/3 time say the same thing once more than he came to the disciples and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting. See, the time is near. The Son of Man is betrayed in the hands of sinners get up let's go see my betrayer is near, and while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the 12 suddenly arrived this account a passage where I feel like there's just not a lot in here for me to really be creative with them the right response here is not for me to try to organize this into a teaching line the outline with a lot of illustration application.

I feel like it's in there primarily for two reasons for us wanted is to confront us with the magnitude of what Jesus was about to do for us in the number two to show us the response that you and I are supposed to have what Jesus did for us you want the first things I think we have to acknowledge about this scene is that Jesus does not appear to be going to his hour of death with the defiance and the bravado that we might have expected.

In fact, if I could be so bold, he almost appears weak, even scared a lot of the world's other great martyrs. By contrast, died with their fist in the face of the evil Empire defiantly saying things like, I'm not afraid of you.

I'm not afraid of dying. Bring it on. Give me your best shot.

I'll never back down.

Think of. Seems like the ones that are portrayed in movies like gladiator or Braveheart, Socrates, for example, was cool and stoic when he went to his hour of execution, Plato records the scene tells us that when Socrates was handed a couple of hemlock to drink so that it would kill him. He told his face did not change it. Even crack a few jokes. He was defiant to the end. We know that many Jewish heroes who died around the time of Jesus died in much the same way. People like Spartacus or Maccabees. We know that many of Jesus's followers have gone to their hour of death defiantly and bravely.

One of my favorites is the story of Polycarp, who was the student of the apostle John when he was 86 years old is when the emperor sent soldiers to get them to execute them and then went to his house and the ones who were there said that Polycarp was was sitting there very calmly and when the soldiers came in and told him that they were taken away so they can burn them at the stake Polycarp asked for up to minutes alone to pray in the got out of his knees right there in the presence of the soldiers and prayed very calmly for 15 or 20 minutes and finally they took them off and took them into this Coliseum where there were thousands of people gathered in the emperor was there and they tied into the stake there so they can burn them at the stake and asked him if there were any last words that he had Polycarp very calmly looked up at the emperor Ernie. He said in the presence of all these thousands of people you think that I'm afraid of this fire. You think I'm afraid of this fire. This fire burns for just a moment and then it is extinguished, you emperor, you should be afraid of the fires of hell.

I'm not scared of these temporary flames.

You should be afraid of the eternal ones come on boys. Bring on the fire.

That's all I want to go out right that's a hero that's a martyr yet here we see that Jesus is approaching death with a different sort of spirit he is trembling he is stammering. He is going back and forth frenetically between God and his disciples is asking God if there is any other way. Matthew even says at one point, verse 39 that he falls facedown. He is too weak even to stand up Martin Luther observed, he said, never, we see a man go to his hour of death, fearing death like we see this man, fearing death. What's really strange about this whole thing is that everywhere else. Jesus is the one who shows unflinching courage in the face of danger right before this.

For example, Jesus's disciples are trying to dissuade him from going to Jerusalem because it was so dangerous for him there and there were people who wanted to kill him. But Jesus said no this is my destiny. This is where I must go right after that she's going to stare Pilate in the face. He's going to tell Pilate that Pilate has no authority except what heaven gives him and he's gonna say that was stone cold resolve to the question we have to ask is what is happening at this moment. That makes it different wears this defiance and bravery that we see another point in Jesus's life. Verse 37 gives us a clue. It says that as Jesus prayed, he began to be sorrowful and troubled began began means that Jesus saw something they are in the midst of praying that wasn't there before. As he was praying something is revealed to him that he had not seen up until this point. The word translated sorrowful is a very strong Greek word that can mean horrified especially when you couple it with the word troubled.

One scholar says it indicates the kind of feeling that you would have.

For example, if you came home and found your entire family mutilated whatever Jesus all in this moment was so troubling that he said he almost died from EC verse 38 and deeply grieved to the point of death remain here and stay awake with me. Jesus was not one prone to exaggeration a moment like this, which meant that Jesus in this moment saw something that was so horrifying that he literally almost died from it. Luke would take this a step farther and explain what was happening. He says that Jesus was under such strain that he began to literally sweat great drops of blood condition. The doctors now call he might try doses where your under such strain that the capillaries in your face and extremities begin to burst. I never really understood what that meant to one of our pastor told me a story.

He said when my sons were younger he is. Three boys is a my wife and I were at our community pool was that we were the last ones there is no lifeguard on duty since my wife and I took our three sons went to get in the minivan to go home since we got the minivan. We realize that two of our sons were there. One of them was not. So we turned around to go back. He said I walked into the pool area and I saw he said, what is the most horrible thing that I cannot erase from my mind's is also my my youngest son who was about five years old lying still at the bottom of the pool, he said. I jumped in there after my picked him up like put them onto the deck. He said will begin to revive him. We call the ambulance is about. Thank God we actually did revive him in the ambulance got there they took him to the emergency room and the city unity was. He was breathing again and everything was fine. The doctor said you got to them just in time is going to be okay right else that he said they asked if they could keep him overnight just to observe them because I wanted to make sure that every thing was okay and he set up to the doctor left the room. He says my son was resting.

There are several sleeping and I noticed that all over his face. Were these little purple blotches is call the doctor back in as a doctor, what's what are these things, what's wrong with him and he said there's nothing wrong with him. He said I don't know exactly what happened but the best I can tell is that when your son was drowning when he was going under the water. He was screaming so loudly and so fervently for you or your wife that that these little capillaries all over his face would get a bursae was under such strain.

Once you let this sink in for just a minute that here in Matthew chapter 26 we see the son of God, the eternal word of the father who spoke the world into existence walked on top of angry waves who could speak in a calm storm to stare down demons and disease who can literally raise people back to life from the dead. Under such a regime under such strain that he feels like he's going to die and the capillaries in his face begin to burst. What is he seen what is Jesus saying that troubled him so the real question is what he had not seen this either. Verse 39 when Jesus calls out to God.

His father, as he had numerous times throughout his life, what you will see that is unique in this situation is he gets no response. He refers to God as the Aramaic word for father which indicates a term of closest intimacy. But for the first time in all of eternity in all of eternity. God the son calls out on the name of God the father and the father is silent. You see, up until this moment Jesus had enjoyed the closest intimacy with the father.

So much so that he consistently withdrew to be alone with God in a time of trouble to draw strength and comfort from the presence of God the father had always radiated back toward Jesus with openness, sometimes even affirming them publicly, but now for the first time in eternity.

Only silence. And so Jesus stumbles back to his disciples, looking it seems for some kind of comfort from him.

He hasn't received from the father answered always going to his disciples as we wakes him up and he says guys just need you to be with me men are something that's tender about this. It almost reminds you of a child who scared at night he goes to his is is mom or his dad is let mom to stay awake with me, or maybe a child can ready to go to surgery and they're scared of a lot mommy just hold my hand. Jesus just need somebody to be with him, but the disciples aren't there to help them because they're asleep, asleep, while the most significant moment in history unfolds in front of them utterly unaware of the significance of what is happening disloyal to the one who is been nothing but loyal to Bim asleep when heaven and hell are in the balance, nor can I stop for just a minute to say what an revealing picture of us asleep under the most significant of circumstances. Unaware of the magnificent things are taking place in front of them. That's another sermon for another day and night. You're joining us this week as we committed to joining with a trusted ministry partner to provide humanitarian and spiritual support in Ukraine.

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Why are you not responding.

If there's any other way. Save me from this. Again, only silence what's happening what is happening William Lane. The New Testament scholar says that the only explanation for these events is that here in Gethsemane. Listen, God has already begun to turn his face away the judgment for our sin has already begun before the first nail was driven into Jesus's body. Jesus soul was being abandoned by God. Jesus had lived his entire life. You see, with the approval of of the father. And now, in the moment that Jesus most needed his heavenly father God is turning his face away and Jesus staggers under the weight of it, almost to the point of death. William Lane says this is the horror of one who live holy for the father who came to be with his father for a brief interlude before his death and found hell rather than heaven open before and that moment he faced aloneness utter aloneness never felt alone. I mean really alone maybe came on the heels of the betrayal.

Betrayal by a trusted friend or maybe a spouse giggles when you walk through some dark trial that nobody was there to walk through with you and everybody forgot about you. Or maybe it was you were going into some kind of medical thing that nobody around you can really understand the kind of fear that you felt in the kind of aloneness and the pain that you struggled with on a day-to-day basis. Jesus felt that in Matthew 26, not just aloneness but also rejection never been really really rejected really rejected. I think about what it would have been like for me to of turned away from one of my children in a moment when they needed me that one of my children look to me in a moment of pain or weakness and for me just to turn away from them in scorn and say you're not even my child can you imagine how crushing that would be to one of my children that my children of only known me for a few years and I am not a perfect father. What must it have been like to lose the infinite love of the father that you have known unbroken for all of eternity is impossible even to describe this and I feel like there's nothing that I can say that Alexi make us understand what Jesus is going through no illustration that enables us to feel the magnitude of the way that this any human analogy that I come up with only takes away from the darkness and the bitterness of this moment. This is the horror of one who live holy for the father who came to be with his father for a brief interlude before his death and found hell rather than heaven open before him. Somehow, in that one moment Jesus got a glimpse of an eternity in hell for us because see that's what the essence of hell is the essence of hell was complete abandonment by God. You see, when I was younger I always thought that what made Jesus's death so bad with the physical horrors of the cross and yes they were terrible, the Roman historian Cicero tells us that one of the Romans goals and crucifixion was utter humiliation has ended, began a crucifixion process by beating the victim to a point that they were barely recognizable.

Cicero said that when they use that cat of nine tails with book pieces of bone and glass event that would lodge into the skin and can rip it off as they beat the person he said it was not uncommon to see a rib did Elio Witt get a hold of one of his ribs, and it would go flying from the frame of the manner they were beating, they save is very likely that when they got finished beating Jesus, he was at least partially disemboweled, and they put 9 inch nails to his hands and his feet into the crown of thorns of an inch and 1/2 long each and shut down into the skin between his four head and his skull. The prophet Isaiah said he was beaten so badly that he didn't even look like a man anymore.

You would have known who he was. Had you had not already noticed face was so swollen and being many was mailed up on a cross naked in a public place in the full light of day.

So yes the physical horrors of the cross were terrible, but listen, that is not in Gethsemane.

What made Jesus Dr. what made Jesus stagger was the abandonment by God that he faced that was the horror of the cross for him. That's honestly why the gospel writers don't go in the much gory detail about all the physiological aspects of the crucifixion still going to detail because the physical suffering as bad as it was, was not the essence of the cross. The essence of the cross was abandonment by God in Gethsemane Jesus looked full into the cup of God's wrath against our sin and it overwhelmed him so badly that it almost killed him. Just the sight of it. Gethsemane means an Aramaic oil press and that's exactly what's happening here to Jesus, the reality of God's wrath.

The reality of hell is pressing in on Jesus, and it is literally squeezing the life out of him not hesitate to use this because I want to cheapen this moment it all but it's like remind me that seen in the force awakens. When Ray is rolled to Luke's lightsaber to know why she's drawn to it. But as soon as she touches it seems he reaches out and grabs if she gets this swift but overwhelming glimpse of what is about to happen in her future.

That is so overwhelming that it knocks her to the ground. You find Jesus. Get down on his knees to pray and find comfort in the arms of his father and he gets a sudden but overwhelming glimpse of the wrath of God against our sin and he almost dies from it. Just the sight of three praise three times father if there's any other way. There's any other way. Let this cup pass from me. Had Jesus ever prayed another prayer that had not been answered yet this one is not answerable for me because there was no other way.

I say 5117 describes God's wrath against our semi-Toxic cup, a cup of wrath.

You have drunk the dredge the bowl of wrath & a couple staggering. What you're seeing is Jesus drink this cup of wrath and it is literally making them stagger that cop was going to be offered to you when I get is eternity apart from God because of our sin and Jesus step in the way and he said I'll take that cup when he drank it for us.

Jonathan Edwards describes this moment like like it like being in front of a gigantic dam, but that breaks I am with you was a ministry Nevada one of the days I was at the Hoover dam. You may have seen it this magnificent structure. This just holds back a body of water that is hard to get your mind around how big it is. Imagine that you were standing a few hundred feet down from that dam in the valley below. It you look up and I shot a crack begin to form in the dam and then one of the brick spring out of it been five or six and then go entire thing breaks open on the wall of water five or 600 feet high, comes rushing down that valley you got nowhere to go. You cannot run it. You know that death is is certain that were says is that wall of water is coming to you about the sweep you away. Suddenly the ground before you opens up a gigantic chasm and all the water goes into the chasm beneath you, so that not a drop of it touches you said this is what Jesus did in Gethsemane as the wrath of God was coming against our sin and Jesus step in the way and said I'll take every drop of its or not a bit of it remains for them. The cup was offered and Jesus took it. He drank it to the drag she turned it over on the table. He said it is finished. If I had been there and I had tried to stop Jesus about a segment of what you doing don't do that Jesus would've said no there is no other way. Either you drink this or I drink this and if you drink it that your apart from me forever. I'm going to go on to the cross and I'm going to drink the cup of God's route because your salvation is something only I can accomplish your Jonathan Edwards the Puritan theologian went on to ask the question is, or why what you think God showed Jesus this in Gethsemane. Why give them a glimpse before it actually began. I mean it's almost cruel. It's almost a little dangerous rule risky because what if Jesus had lost his nerve at the site where Jesus had back down. What if he had not gone through with the cross.

Why not wait until Jesus was secured by nails to the cross to then give him the glimpse of this terrible reality Jonathan Edwards answer, which I think is correct in a paraphrase, but it is answer is this so we look at this so we can see Jesus go to the cross voluntarily, knowing full well what he was about to experience so that his love for us to be put on display even more, God wanted you and me to see Jesus see the wrath of God to see what he was about to experience and voluntarily choose to go into it so that we would know that it was not this situation that he just got caught up in to exactly what he was going to face Verizon and he chose to do it with eagerness and joy because of his love for us.

He wanted us to behold what manner of love the father has given to us that we would be called the children of God, because God was demonstrating his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. No, there may he was truly handed your listening to pastor and author Jeannie Greer on Summit life pastor JD this week we began a new teaching series titled instead of me with the picture that we should be seeing as you teach Molly in this series were to stay all in the gospel that won't work in the sea is that in the events leading up to the crucifixion that God actually gave us a profile.

The human heart and he gave us several individuals around the events of the cross that we can see ourselves and and as we focus on the cross and the resurrection of Jesus. As we get closer to Easter.

We got a book of 10 devotions that we've written that I put together that will help you. We focus on the gospel teaching Jesus. It takes five of Jesus's key parables and over 10 days walking more deeply into them and how to apply them to your own life if you go to JD grid.com copy to become one of our gospel partners and become a part of this ministry. Be sure to get in touch with us today to reserve your copy of 10 devotions from the parable it comes with our way of saying thank you Jenny ministry and don't forget the percent of every dollar given will be used to help meet me emerging from the warring crane just how he thinks that by T-20 or you can get a requested new devotional resource bank pastor JD online clear.com I'm only inviting you to join us again tomorrow night