Brothers and sisters, I'm going to invite you to stand this morning to hear God's word and to hear the Lord himself call us to worship. I'm going to be reading this morning from Psalm 148, so hear the word of our God. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Praise him, all his angels. Praise him, all his hosts. Praise him, sun and moon. Praise him, all you shining stars. Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever. He gave a decree, and it shall not pass away. Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth, young men and maidens together, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted. His majesty is above earth and heaven. Again, this is the word of our God who calls us to worship him as his people, as we're doing this morning. So I'm gonna invite you to turn to hymn number 110, and we're gonna sing hallelujah, praise Jehovah. Alleluia! Praise Jehovah! From the heavens praise his name! Praise Jehovah in the highest! All his angels praise, proclaim! All his hosts together praise him! Sun and moon and stars on high! Praise him, all ye heavens of heaven! ♪ And He floods above the sky ♪ Let them praise His King Jehovah ♪ For His people know His love ♪ And His glory is exalted ♪ And His glory is exalted ♪ And His glory is exalted ♪ Far above the earth and sky Praise His gift, Jehovah They were made at His command And forever He established His decree shall ever stand From the earth, O praise Jehovah All He sees, He monsters all Fiery hail and snow and vapor, stormy winds, the year is gone. Let the praises give Jehovah, for His name alone is high. And His glory is exalted, and His glory is exalted, and His glory is exalted far above the earth and sky. All you fruitful trees and cedars, all you hills and mountains high, creeping things and beasts and cattle, birds that in the heavens fly, kings of earth and all you people, princes, great earth's judges all, Grace has named young men and maidens, aged men and children small. Let them praise His kid Jehovah, for His name alone is strong, and His glory is exalted, and His glory is exalted, and His glory is exalted far above the earth and sky. Amen, amen. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we come before you this morning to join with all of creation and with the heavenly host that surrounds your throne to praise you as our creator and to magnify your great and holy name and to declare that you alone are God. For we, your people, confess with the psalmist this morning that your name alone is exalted and that your majesty is above earth and heaven. But Father, as we come before you this morning, we come not only to praise you as our creator, we also come to seek you as our redeemer. We come, our Father, as worshipers to offer to you the praise that you deserve, but we also come as needy worshipers, worshipers who struggle each day in our battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil, worshipers who love you and yet who often struggle to put you first and to treasure you above all other gods. Father, we know that you know all of this. You know all of our needs and all of our weaknesses. And as we come before you this morning, the eternal and almighty King, and as we bow before you, the King over all of creation, and confess that you are Lord, and as we praise you for redeeming us and adopting us as your children through Jesus Christ, we also humbly ask that you would minister to our needs this day. We ask that you would look on us with favor and that you would increase our delight in you, our God. For Father, we know that this is what we need. We need a greater affection for you that would diminish our affection for other things. And Father, this is what we pray for now, that as we come into your presence this morning, and as we hear your holy word, that you would lead us to love you more, and to delight in you more, and to hunger to know you more. so that we would not just worship you formally on the Lord's Day, but would worship you every day in all that we do, that our great desire and our greatest joy and our greatest delight in all of life would be to bring you glory. Father, we pray that you would hear our prayer and that you would have mercy on us, your worshipers, and that you would lead us, even through this worship service, to truly live for Christ. And Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Brothers and sisters, I'm going to invite you to take your bulletin and to turn to the inside cover. You'll see printed there the words of the Apostles' Creed. And we're going to use these words to confess our faith together this morning. Please join me in this. Christian, what is it that you believe? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Well, brothers and sisters, we come now to the part of our worship service where we have the opportunity to confess our sins to the Lord. And what I have begun to do is to use the Ten Commandments for this. So last week we looked at the First Commandment and confessed our sins around the First Commandment. And this morning I want us to hear the Second Commandment in the Ten Commandments. So I'm going to read now. God's standard of righteousness from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 5, verses 8 to 10. Again, hear the word of the Lord and the law of the Lord. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Again, this is the word of our God. Let's go before the Lord now in light of what we've just read and confess our sins to him. Our Father, No, that we are not supposed to worship you according to our own ideas or desires, but that we're supposed to worship you only in the way in which you tell us to do this in your word. And Father, we know as part of this that you command us not to make images or representations of you because there is no image that we could make that could ever even come close to representing you, our triune God, in your infinite perfections and in your matchless character and in your spotless holiness. And that when we do this, even in our minds, we make you out to be less than you really are, for we bring you down to our level. and make you out to be like us instead of lifting up our eyes and minds to behold you and to worship you in all of your glory as you are revealed to us in the pages of your holy and eternal word. And Father, while we know these things and while we know that worship is not something that we should take lightly, Father, we must confess this morning that we don't take your worship as seriously as you do and as you call us to do. That we neglect your worship by not always attending the services and activities of the church as we should. That we diminish your worship by not always coming before you with reverence and awe. And Father, on top of this, we confess that we often misrepresent you in our words and in our minds and don't esteem you as highly as you deserve simply because we don't make use of the means of grace that you have given to us as we should in order to know you rightly and to worship you rightly as the Most High God. And Father, in light of this, we ask you once again to have mercy on us, your people. We ask you to forgive us for our irreverence and for our neglect of your worship. and for making you out to be like us instead of falling before you in humble adoration and worshiping you for who you are as the immortal and invisible God. Father, we pray that you would help us to truly fear your name and to worship you rightly with reverence in all, knowing that we are but your creatures and that you are the creator and that from you and through you and to you are all things. For Father, we know that we were made to worship you and that we find our greatest delight when you are truly glorified in us. Father, we pray that you would help us to worship you in spirit and in truth and to make your worship the most important thing. And Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, brothers and sisters, having confessed our sins to the Lord, I want you to hear these Words of pardon and assurance, they come from the book of Romans, chapter five, verses 20 to 21. Now the law came to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Brothers and sisters, praise the Lord for this. that when our sin increased and our sin is great, God's grace abounded all the more, that God's grace is greater than our sin. And we're going to sing about this now. So I'm going to invite you to stand. And we're going to sing Wonderful Grace of Jesus, hymn number 467. With the grace of Jesus, greater than all my sins. How shall my tongue describe Him? Where shall His praise be heard? Taking away my burden, setting my spirit free. For the wonderful grace of Jesus, reach and feed. Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus, deeper than the mighty rolling sea. Wonderful grace, all-sufficient for me, for even me, greater than the scope of my transgression, greater far than all my sin and shame. O magnify the precious name of Jesus, praise His name. The wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching a mighty home. God, I have been pardoned, saved to the uttermost, redeemed and torn asunder. ♪ Giving me liberty ♪ And the wonderful grace of Jesus ♪ Reaches me ♪ Wonderful, the matchless grace of Jesus ♪ Deeper than the mighty rolling sea ♪ Wonderful grace, oh sufficient for me, for even me Greater far than all my sin and shame. Oh, magnify the precious name of Jesus. Praise His name. Wonderful grace of Jesus. ♪ Reaching the most divine ♪ ♪ Buying strength, forming power ♪ ♪ Making Him God's dear child ♪ ♪ Purchasing peace in heaven for all eternity ♪ ♪ And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me ♪ Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus, deeper than the mighty rolling sea. Wonderful grace, oh, sufficient for me, for even me, broader than the scope of my transgression, greater for than all my sin and shame. Oh, magnify the precious name of Jesus. Praise his name. Amen. I know you can say amen to that. Amen. You may be seated. Brothers and sisters, we're blessed as we come before the Lord. and worship each Lord's day to hear his word. We're blessed that our God meets with us and he speaks to us through his holy word. And our scripture reading this morning comes from the book of Philippians. Philippians chapter two, verses one through 11. Philippians two, verses one through 11. You'll find this on page 1,200. and 48 in your pew Bibles. If you have participated in some of our Wednesday night prayer times, you'll know that these verses are about Jesus' humiliation for us, for our elder Tom has been teaching on this passage on Wednesday nights and is gonna continue to do that. But I want us to read these verses this morning. So again, Philippians chapter two, verses one through 11. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, Any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. that each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Again, this is the word of our God. Brothers and sisters, let's go once again to our great God in prayer. Our Father, we thank you once again that we can come before you this morning to join our voices as your covenant people to sing your praises and to seek you in prayer, to learn of you and to hear your word. And by these means that you have provided for us to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And Father, as we do all of this this morning, we are sadly very much aware of the fact that we are still worshiping you under certain restrictions that have been put in place because of the coronavirus and that some of our members have still not returned to worship. And Father, in light of this, we come before you to ask you to change all of this and to pray to you for two things this morning. First, our Father, we continue to pray that you would bring an end to this virus and all of the ways that it has changed our lives and the life of the church, ways which have not aided our spiritual growth or helped us to be the church you call us to be. For Father, we know that there are ways that you have used this virus for our good. And Father, we thank you for this. We thank you for your faithfulness to us in the midst of this pandemic and for all the ways that you have sustained us as a church and have even brought growth and new zeal to us through the coronavirus. But Father, we also know that there are ways that this virus has not aided our spiritual growth. Ways in which it has restricted our worship and has limited our fellowship as brothers and sisters in Christ. Ways in which it has isolated us as Christians and has even impeded our spread of the gospel and our service of Christ. And Father, with these things in mind, even more than our own safety or our own physical health, we ask you again that you would end the spread of this virus. We do ask that you would continue to protect our members as you have done and we thank you for this, for your constant care of us, your people. We also ask that you would enable us once again to be able to live our lives and to live in community as your church without masks and without social distancing and without restrictions and without fear. And Father, as part of this, in light of the diminished cases of this virus in our area, we ask that you would move our politicians and our leaders so that they would remove the current restrictions that are still in place regarding how we can worship you. And Father, we pray especially that you would do this if it is the case that these restrictions are motivated in any way, not by a desire for our good, but by political agendas or by a lust for power. Father, if this is the case in any way, we pray that you would bring this to an end so that we would be able to worship you without limitations and live as the new creation community that you call us to be and even to be able to express our affection for one another as you call us to do. And Father, we pray as well this morning that you would help and encourage all of the members of our church to return to worship. For Father, we know that the body of Christ is not the same when we are not together, when we are divided by location, where some members are watching the service online and others are attending in person. And so, our Father, we pray again that you would encourage and help all of the members of our church to be able to return to worship. For Father, we know as you tell us in your word that every member of the body of Christ is indispensable, and that we need one another, that we cannot be a holy nation that displays the transforming power of Christ to the world, and we cannot be an army that takes the gospel to the nations without the gifts and participation of all of the members that you have redeemed. that we cannot love and serve one another and even learn from each other when we are not together living in fellowship as one body. And so we pray that you would help all of the members of our church to return to worship, that whatever obstacles there may be, that you would remove these obstacles so that we would be able to be the church you call us to be, to worship you together and to exalt your name as one body where we are all present together on the Lord's Day, encouraging each other in the worship of your great and holy name. Father, we thank you for your faithfulness and mercy to us as a church and to all of our members. And we thank you for the way in which you have used even the coronavirus for our good and for our growth. But Father, we do pray that you would bring us through this now and that you would end our isolation and that you would bring all of us together again in worship for the sake of your great name. And Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, brothers and sisters, we come now to the part of our worship service where we get to hear the preaching. of God's Word. I've been preaching through the Gospel of Mark, as you know, and we come this morning to Mark chapter 14, verses 32 through 42. I encourage you to turn there. You'll find this on page 1,083 in your Pew Bible, 1,083. This is an important passage where we see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. It's quite a rich and deep passage with a lot to teach us. And so I'm actually going to preach two sermons on this passage. One sermon is going to be focused on what we learn about the Lord Jesus in this passage. And then the sermon next week will be focused on what we learn from the Lord Jesus in this passage. So there's ways we need to see Jesus and what he's done for us in this passage, what we learn about him. There's also ways Jesus is an example to us in this passage, ways we need to emulate him, and we'll look at that then next week. So again, Mark chapter 14, verses 32 through 42, hear the word of our God. And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch. And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again, he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again, he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough, the hour has come. The son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. Again, this is God's word. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. We need him to bless the teaching of his word, we need him to teach us this morning. So let's ask for it, please join me. Our Father, we know that we need you to meet with us in worship. That we could come here, we could have the perfect songs, we could have the perfect sanctuary, everything could run perfectly smoothly, but Father, if you were not here to meet with us, all of this would profit us nothing. Father, this is what we need more than anything else, to come into your presence, to behold your glory and to be changed by it. And Father, I pray that you might do this through the preaching of your word this morning. And I pray that you would use me as your servant. And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, brothers and sisters, as a preacher, I want to tell you this morning that there are certain passages that preachers can feel reluctant to want to preach on. And the reason for this is not what you might think. This is not because these passages are controversial or hard to understand or because they teach things that people don't want to hear. There are certainly passages like that in the Bible, but that's not what I'm talking about. There are passages that preachers are reluctant to preach on, not because they're controversial or convicting, but because the preacher feels that he is unable to do justice to the divine mysteries and the divine majesty that is contained in their revelation. that they present the transcendent glory of the character and the purposes of God in such a way that to try to explain them or to unpack them almost seems to do them an injustice to lessen the eternal glories that they reveal. And so the preacher actually finds himself almost at a loss for words, recognizing that as he comes before such a passage that he stands on holy ground. that there is almost nothing he can say that can seem to convey the splendor of the truth that is before him. And brothers and sisters, the passage we're looking at this morning, when we see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, this is one of these passages. This is where we see Jesus in his two natures as our Redeemer, like nowhere else in all of the Gospels, or we could really say like nowhere else in all of Scripture. Charles Spurgeon said this about this text. He said, here we come to the holy of holies of the Lord's life on earth. This is a mystery like that which Moses saw when the bush burned with fire and was not consumed. And then he said this, he added these words, he says, no man can rightly expound such a passage as this. It is the subject for powerful heartbroken meditation more than for human language. And brothers and sisters, I say to you this morning that Charles Spurgeon is right. There is a sense in which no man can really expound this passage. And yet this is my task this morning to do what is almost impossible. And I pray that the Spirit of God would help me to do this, that the Spirit would use me to lead all of us to greater awe and to greater worship. into greater devotion to Christ, which is really the only right response to the text that we have before us this morning. As I already said, there is really nowhere in all of scripture like we see Jesus as we see him in the Garden of Gethsemane. This passage really is holy ground. Gethsemane is holy ground because it forces us to think about what it meant for Jesus to serve as our Redeemer and to represent us both in our humanity and in our sin as he became the sin bearer for us. Brothers and sisters, Gethsemane is also holy ground because it presents like nowhere else in all of scripture, God in the person of Christ in anguish and distress. And this is almost hard for us to understand, to see Jesus here in this way. In Gethsemane, if you think about it, everything changes for Jesus. One commentator has said that it almost seems as if all of a sudden a black cloud comes over Jesus as he enters the garden of Gethsemane. Up to this point, if you think about it, everything that Jesus has done and everything that he has faced, even in the announcements that he made to his disciples about his death, even in the declaration that we looked at last week, that all of them would fall away and that Peter would deny him three times in all of this. Jesus is presented to us as the teacher. He's presented to us as the shepherd. He's presented to us as the miracle worker, the one who has divine authority and seems to be in control of everything that is taking place. Brothers and sisters, when Jesus enters Gethsemane, everything immediately changes. We no longer see Jesus in this way. He's no longer presented to us as the miracle worker. We no longer see him as the one who seems to be in control of everything. Now all of a sudden, we see Jesus as the suffering servant. We see him for the first time as the lamb who is going to be led to the slaughter. We see Jesus sweating blood in agony as he prays to God, his father. And as I said, there is nowhere else in all of scripture that we see Jesus like this, troubled, in anguish, wrestling in prayer as we see him here in the Garden of Gethsemane. And the craziest thing about this is that none of this seems to make sense based on what we know of Christ and what we have seen of Christ in the Gospels. Think about it. Why would one who is divine struggle here as Jesus does? And think about this question. If Jesus came to serve as our Savior, that this was God's eternal plan, why all of a sudden here in Gethsemane does Jesus almost seem reluctant to want to do this? If this was God's plan from the beginning, if this is why Jesus came for this very purpose, why all of a sudden here does it seem as if Jesus doesn't want to go to the cross for us? You see, either Gethsemane reveals that Jesus was not who he claimed to be, or it reveals what it truly meant for him to serve as our Savior in a way, brothers and sisters, that should lead us to profound worship and a praise of Christ, our Redeemer. You see, Gethsemane makes no sense apart from an understanding of what Christ became for us and what he bore on our behalf as our Redeemer. And if we're going to try to make sense out of this text this morning, the place where we need to begin is really an understanding that this passage, like nowhere else in the Gospels, reveals Jesus to us in the fullness of his humanity. Think with me for a minute about what Jesus does in this passage and about some of the things that were told about him. We're told that he was troubled and greatly distressed. In Luke's gospel, we're told that he was in agony to such a point that an angel appeared to him to strengthen him. And we're also told not just that Jesus was in agony, he was sorrowful, and he was deeply grieved. And on top of this, we're told that Jesus had to pray, that this was a need he had, that he had to go to God his Father in prayer. And we see him praying here like nowhere else in all of the Gospels. He falls on the ground and prays. He prays over and over again, not just once, he does this repeatedly three times. And Luke tells us that the more Jesus prays, the more earnestly he prays. His prayers become more fervent and more desperate. And what stands out is what Jesus prays for. He prays that God would remove the cup or the path of suffering for him. And his prayer is a prayer of submission. You see, what stands out more than anything else is that Jesus here had to submit to the will of God, and that he wrestled with this. Jesus had to deny himself here in the garden for us. He had to pray, not what I will, but what you will. Not my will, but your will be done. And brothers and sisters, what's hard for us to understand about these things is they don't fit with how we tend to think about Jesus. We tend to think about Jesus as the son of God, the one who has divine power. We think of him doing the great deeds and miracles that he does in the gospel, but here in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is suddenly presented to us as helpless. He appears almost to be more like us than he appears to be like God. Brothers and sisters, think about this for a minute. These things that I just listed, that Jesus experienced, that we're told about him here. These are the things that we experience, not the sort of things that God experiences. We're the ones that are distressed in this life. We're the ones that are sorrowful. We're the ones that need to pray to God. It's not as if God needs to pray. We're the ones that have to submit to God, to pray not my will, but your will be done. And yet we see here, these are the things that Jesus is doing, the very Son of God, the very same sort of things that we have to do as God's children. And brothers and sisters, what this shows is this, that Jesus was not a theophany. Jesus was not like the theophanies we have in the Old Testament. A theophany is where God would appear for a temporary time in the form of an angel or the form of a man in order that he could communicate with certain people and speak to them. But it wasn't as if God really became human or became man in those theophanies. He only appeared to be in the form of God. But with Jesus, it was entirely different. As our confession says, he took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul. And this is what all the things that we see Jesus experiencing in the Garden of Gethsemane point to, that he was fully human, that as we confess as his people, he became like us in every way, though without sin. And brothers and sisters, this was necessary because if Jesus was going to represent us, if he was going to be the second Adam, if he was gonna serve as our substitute, he had to be fully human. He had to be like us. Think about it, if Jesus was going to redeem the human race, if he was going to undo what Adam did in Eden, then he had to become human. He had to defeat Satan and win the victory for us as a man. To save us, to overturn the curse that God brought on the world because of human sin, Jesus had to do the opposite of what Adam did. He had to trust God, he had to obey God, and he had to do the will of God. And brothers and sisters, he had to do this as the perfect man. This is what we see in Gethsemane. This is what Gethsemane shows us. We see Jesus here in his humanity, praying and submitting to God. is because Jesus came to serve as our representative. This is what Gethsemane is telling us, that Jesus came to save us by offering to God in our flesh the obedience that we are unable to offer to God. And to do this, you see, Jesus had to trust in God. Jesus had to submit to God. Jesus had to do the will of God. Jesus had to do everything. as a human that we see him doing here in this text in the Garden of Gethsemane. But brothers and sisters, there's something else that you must understand. We have to add something to this. While we see Jesus here in Gethsemane and his humanity experiencing the same sort of things that we experience, we must recognize at the same time that Jesus' experience was unique. That in some sense we can say that his experience here was like ours, but in another sense we must also say that it was not like ours at all. That it was like nothing that we have ever experienced or will ever experience because in Gethsemane Jesus was serving as the world's redeemer. He was serving as our Savior. He came to bear our sins. And to understand this, there's two things that I want you to think about that can be hard to understand when we look at this text and it raised certain questions for us. The first of these is the sorrow of Jesus. I want us to think together here for a minute about the sorrow of Jesus. As I said earlier, we see Jesus here in the Garden of Gethsemane in sorrow and distress like nowhere else in all of Scripture. And we see Jesus here in sorrow at a level that even we ourselves never experience in this life. And brothers and sisters, this raises an important question for us that we need to consider. What was the sorrow of Jesus all about? Why was Jesus so sorrowful? Why was he so filled with grief and anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane? And the first thing that we could say about this is that Jesus' sorrow and anguish had to come from something more than just the realization of his impending physical suffering and physical death. Brothers and sisters, we know this is the case because there have been human beings that face great physical suffering and death with less distress than Jesus does here in the garden. We also know this is the case because of the language that scripture uses here. The language that scripture uses points to this. The language here is too strong to simply be expressing the distress that Jesus might experience over knowing that physical suffering and physical death awaited him. We're not just told here that Jesus was sorrowful. We're told that he was sorrowful in his soul and that he was sorrowful even to death. So that the idea is that the anguish and distress of Jesus is so great that even his sorrow here is a threat to his own physical life. He can barely stand here in Gethsemane under the weight of the anguish that is upon him at this point. Donald MacLeod says this about the word in verse 33 where we're told that Jesus was distressed. He says that this describes someone in the grip of shuddering horror or terrified surprise. And another commentator says this about the combination of Greek words that are used here to describe the state of Jesus. in the Garden of Gethsemane when we're told that he was sorrowful and troubled and distressed. He says that these words depict the utmost degree of unbounded horror and suffering. This was no minor anguish here in Gethsemane. It couldn't have been that Jesus was just distressed because of the physical pain that he knew he was going to experience. There has to be something more than this. And brothers and sisters, to make sense of this, to make sense of the extreme language that is used here to describe Jesus' state in the garden, you have to understand that the real horror of Jesus' suffering was not in the pain that he experienced, as great as that pain must have been. The real horror of Jesus' suffering came in the fact that he had to bear all of the sins of all of his people. Second Corinthians 5 and verse 21 tells us that Jesus had to become sin for us. Think about that for a minute. He had to become sin for us. The language there is unique. We talk about Jesus taking on our sin, but it says that he became sin for us. The idea is he had to associate himself entirely with our sin, to be identified completely with our sin. He had to take up the shame and the disgrace of our sin. He had to bear the consequences of sin and the curse of sin and the wages of sin. As Martin Luther said, Jesus became the greatest sinner that ever was, even though he was without sin, because all of the horror and all of the consequences and all of the shame of our sin was put upon him. And this is what's so important to understand, that Jesus didn't just become man to save us. We often talk about this. But if that's all you think about when you think about the humiliation of Jesus, that he came to this earth, that he took on our humanity, you haven't thought deeply enough. That's only the beginning of Jesus' humiliation. Brothers and sisters, what's important to understand is that Jesus did not just become man for us to save us. Jesus became as if he was the worst man that ever lived, as if he was the worst God-hater that ever lived, the worst liar that ever lived, the worst thief that ever lived, and the worst adulterer that ever lived. This is what Jesus became for us. This is how he was treated. He became sin for us because all of the horror and the shame and the consequences of our sin were put upon him. Brothers and sisters, even this doesn't fully explain the sorrow and the anguish of Jesus in Gethsemane in the face of what lay before him. Even that doesn't explain the sorrow of Jesus unless you also understand this, that in becoming sin for us, Jesus had to be forsaken by God his Father. This was the price of him becoming the sin bearer. You see, to be identified with our sin, to become sin for us, was to be cut off from the holy presence of God his Father. God is a holy God. He is righteous in every way. He cannot dwell with sin. And for Jesus to become sin, to be completely identified with our sin and to bear its consequences, there had to be a rupture in the communion between God the Father and God the Son. And brothers and sisters, it is in this that we begin to understand the anguish of Jesus and what he experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane. A man by the name of Klaus Schilder, he wrote a trilogy many years ago, three books on the passion of Jesus, one on the suffering of Jesus, the trial of Jesus, and the crucifixion of Jesus. And what Klaus Schilder argues is that already in the garden, this rupture was beginning to take place. This is why Jesus is in anguish here. He says that the beginning of Christ's sorrow coincides with the beginning of God's departure from him. And that this is actually what explains the change that comes over Jesus here in the Garden of Gethsemane, this black cloud that seems to come on Jesus, this extreme anguish that he experiences almost to death. Because already, you see, as Jesus entered the Garden of Gethsemane, God was beginning to remove his comforting presence from Jesus. He was beginning to remove his assurances. Jesus was already beginning to know what it meant to be forsaken and to be entirely alone. And brothers and sisters, if you think about it, this is something that Jesus had never, ever experienced. In all that he had to face and in all of his ministry, God the Father was always there to reassure him, to comfort him with his love. You see this in Jesus' baptism. And in the mount, when Jesus is on the mount of transfiguration, it's there that God the Father speaks to him, a voice from heaven, saying, this is my son with whom I am well pleased. God the Father was always reassuring Jesus. He was always there to comfort him. But now, for the first time in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus begins to realize that God is not there in the same way. That what Jesus must face, he must face alone. That he will be forsaken, not just by his disciples, that he will be forsaken by his own Father. And brothers and sisters, in his humanity, Jesus shudders at this. Jesus can barely stand, the scriptures are telling us, under the weight of this reality, that God's presence and that God's comfort and that God's assurances are going to be removed from him. Brothers and sisters, think about it for a minute. It is one thing to be forsaken and rejected by men. Many of us have experienced that. We know the pain, the wounds that come with being forsaken by other people. But it's one thing to be forsaken and rejected by men. It is quite another thing to be forsaken and cut off from God himself. You see, it was not the physical pain. that Jesus would experience that brought on this anguish. It wasn't the fact that he was gonna be rejected by men. It wasn't even the fact that he was gonna bear our sins. It was the fact that God was not gonna be there in the same way, that Jesus was gonna have to bear our sins alone, that he was gonna be forsaken, not just by men, but even by God, his Father. But brothers and sisters, there's actually even more to it than this. To really understand what Jesus experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane, what he did for us, there's actually another thing that we need to think about. We've thought about the sorrow of Jesus. But we also need to think about the submission of Jesus. And particularly, we need to think about Jesus' prayer of submission that he prays in verse 36. Not what I will, Jesus says, but what you will. And the question Jesus' submission in this prayer really raises is this. Why, if Jesus was God, did he need to submit to God? Again, this can seem strange. It doesn't really seem to make sense. If we think of Jesus as the Son of God, why does Jesus here need to submit to the will of God? And to understand this, what you really need to understand is that there were two wills in Jesus. just like there were two natures in Jesus. There was a human will that was just like ours. Jesus had real human desires, just like we have. But there was also the will of God. And for Jesus to serve as our representative, for him to serve as the perfect man and to save us from our sins, his human will had to submit to the will of God. And brothers and sisters, there is nowhere in all of the ministry of Jesus that this was tested as it was tested in the Garden of Gethsemane. You see this in the prayer that Jesus prays here. His human will had to submit to the will of God, but there was nowhere that that was tested as it was here in the Garden of Gethsemane. In his anguish, What Jesus does here is he asks God the Father to remove, he says, this cup from him, to allow him not to have to drink the cup of suffering that God had actually ordained that he would drink. This is how much Jesus is wrestling here with submitting his will to the will of God. And to understand this, you have to understand that everywhere in scripture, this cup refers to the wrath of God. To drink the cup that Jesus is talking about here is to experience the wrath of the Almighty God. In Jeremiah 25, 15, God tells Jeremiah that he's to take, he says, the cup of wine of his wrath, and that he's to make all the nations drink it. Brothers and sisters, this is what Jesus had to drink. in order to serve as our Redeemer. This is what Jesus had to submit to. This is the horror that he faced in Gethsemane that even made him sweat drops of blood. It wasn't just the reality that God, his father, was going to forsake him, that he was going to be alone. It was the reality that God was going to bring the full fury of his holy wrath for all of our sins on Jesus. That the father he loved was going to become his judge and his executioner. He was going to condemn him and sentence him to death and put upon him the reality of hell that all of us deserve for our sins. Brothers and sisters, Jesus in his humanity shuddered under the weight of this realization and this reality. It seemed to be almost more than he conceived that he could bear and he prays here in the Garden of Gethsemane that God would remove this cup from him. You see, Jesus in his humanity was tempted here like nowhere else in all of his ministry and all of the gospels to turn from the will of God, to follow his own human instincts and to seek a path that was easier than this. Jesus was tempted this way in the Garden of Gethsemane. Brothers and sisters, he didn't do it. He didn't do it. Yes, he asked God here. He prayed that if it was God's will, if God would do it, would he remove this cup? Jesus couldn't conceive that he could bear what he was going to have to bear. But then he prayed what is possibly the most important prayer in all of scripture, certainly the most selfless prayer in all of human history, the prayer that secured our salvation. Yet not what I will, but what you will. Not my will, but your will be done. Brothers and sisters, think about it. If Jesus didn't pray that prayer, if Jesus didn't drink the cup of God's wrath, then we would have to drink it. If Jesus didn't submit to the will of God in the Garden of Gethsemane, then God's wrath would come upon every one of us. Jesus was tempted. To turn from the will of God, it was real, just as we so often in our lives are tempted to turn from the will of God to seek an easier path. We know the harder way is to follow the will of God, and we're tempted to seek an easier path. Jesus was tempted here the same way. He was tempted in his anguish, knowing that God was gonna crush him under the weight of our sin. And yet this is the prayer that Jesus prayed. This is the prayer that saved us, not what I will. but what you will. This is what Jesus prayed, not my comforts, my father, but your will, not my life, but your glory, not my interests, but the interests of your people. Brothers and sisters, this is what Jesus did for us. In the face of incredible sorrow, Jesus exhibited incredible submission in order to save us from our sins. Brothers and sisters, based on everything that we've just looked at, based on everything we see about Jesus that he experiences in the Garden of Gethsemane, everything that he had to undertake as our Redeemer, I want you to think about some things that I think this passage provides for us as his people. It's very interesting, if you think about it, if this was the only passage of scripture we had, or this was the main passage of scripture we had, brothers and sisters, I still think that this passage would provide us some amazing things as God's people and as his church. Think about this, first of all. It provides us the comfort of knowing that Jesus is truly our great high priest and that he can sympathize with us in our weakness. Think about it for a minute. Jesus knows what it's like to have to trust God in difficult circumstances more than any of us will ever know. Jesus knows what it's like to pray in anguish when we're overwhelmed. And Jesus knows what it's like to have to submit to God. to fight against the temptation we all face to choose our own will instead of the will of God, to choose the easier path because we know that following God is really the harder path. Jesus knows all of this. Brothers and sisters, what this means is that you can never say that no one knows what you're going through. Isn't this how we often feel when we're in trials and difficulties? But no one knows what it's like. No one knows what I'm going through. Brothers and sisters, Jesus does, for he endured far worse than you will ever endure, and he did it for you. You could almost think of anything, there's almost anything that you could name that you experienced, and Jesus experienced it far worse. Physical pain, your physical pain is nothing compared to the pain that Jesus experienced. Temptation, the assaults of the enemy, Jesus experienced them far worse. Distress, sorrow, abandonment, Jesus experienced it all. And this means that he knows what you experience because he endured all of this for you. You can never say that no one knows what you're going through because Jesus actually does. But there's a second thing this passage provides us. It also provides us with really incredible assurance that God will never forsake us and that God will never condemn us, that we will never experience the wrath of God that we deserve for our sin. Brothers and sisters, we know this because Jesus, knowing that all of this would fall on him, submitted to the will of God for us, and he experienced all of these things for us and in our place. place. Donald MacLeod says this, that what Jesus faced in Gethsemane, the cost of atonement and redemption, we shall never face. And we shall never face it precisely because he faced it, offering his body as the place where God should affect the condemnation of sin. Think about that. Jesus drank the cup. He already drank it. He drank the cup of God's wrath. And because this, we are assured that we will never have to drink it. We will never experience the wrath of God, because Jesus experienced it for us. But there's a third thing that this passage, I think, really provides us. It provides us with every reason we need to worship God all of our days. But brothers and sisters, think about it. It tells us that God the Father willed that his son would suffer in our place. God the Father willed that the cup of his wrath would fall on Christ so that it wouldn't fall on us. This is what Isaiah 53 tells us, that it was actually the will of God that he would crush his own son for us. But this passage also tells us that Christ willingly submitted to this. That while he knew all of the anguish that awaited him, he refused to seek his own interests over our interests or the glory of his father. And that when he was tested, he chose to experience hell for you and for I, for me, so that we could be saved. Brothers and sisters, I say this to you this morning, if this does not move you, to profound gratitude, if this does not move you to fall on your knees in worship and to praise the Lord all of your days, I say to you that nothing ever will. There is nothing that God could do in your life that will ever lead you to truly worship him if this does not. If God did all of this for you, it should lead you to profound gratitude, to live your whole life as an expression of worship to God the Father and to God the Son. But brothers and sisters, there's one more thing that this passage provides us. It also provides us with the basis and motivation for our own calling to self-denial and to cross-bearing and to accepting reproach and disgrace for the sake of Christ and in order to make his name known. For this is actually what Jesus did for us. Think about it for a minute. If Christ suffered the agonies of hell for you, would you not suffer disgrace for him? If he denied himself to carry your sin and shame all the way to the cross, would you not deny yourself to carry his gospel to the world? If he was willing to be forsaken even by his father for you, would you not be willing to be forsaken by the world or even by your family to bring glory to Christ, to bring glory to his great name. You see, what Jesus calls us to sometimes in the gospel seems so hard, to lay down our life for him, to take up this path of service, it seems like such a great sacrifice. But brothers and sisters, if you think about it, it's nothing compared to what Jesus did for us. You see, what he asks us to do is really nothing. compared to what he did for us even here in the Garden of Gethsemane. Well, brothers and sisters, before I close this morning, there's actually one final thought that I want to leave you with regarding this really remarkable and wonderful passage here in Mark 14. It's actually quite fascinating if you connect the Garden of Gethsemane with the Garden of Eden. Think about it with me for a minute. Two gardens, the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane. It was actually in a garden, the Garden of Eden, that Adam, our first representative, when faced with temptation, turned away from the will of God. He chose the path of disobedience. And by this, he actually brought the wrath of God on us all. My brothers and sisters, it was also in a garden. the Garden of Gethsemane, that the second Adam came, Christ, our representative. And when he was faced with far greater temptation and with the very anguish of his soul, he submitted to the will of God and chose the path of obedience to undo what Adam did and actually to free us from God's wrath by bearing that wrath for us. And this is what I want you to think about as I close this morning. If you don't know Jesus, as your Lord and Savior. If you have not repented of your sins and turned to him, then this means that Adam is still your representative. You're still with Adam. And this means that you're still under the wrath of God and that you will die in your sins and that you will experience that wrath in hell for all eternity. I say this to you this morning. If you repent of your sins, if you ask Christ to be your representative, then you will never experience the wrath of God because Christ drank the cup for you. He experienced it in your place. Brothers and sisters, think about it. We have all experienced the effects of the Garden of Eden. But the most important question is whether you have experienced the effects of the Garden of Gethsemane. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, as we come before you having heard Such a passage this morning, having seen Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Father, it's hard to know even how to pray. How could we ever express enough gratitude to you? How could we ever praise you enough? But Lord, it does lead us to come in our neediness and to ask you to make us greater worshipers of Jesus. Father, if Jesus did all of this for us, Father, we stand in shame before you in all of the ways that we make excuses not to serve Jesus, not to give our lives fully to him. Father, we pray that you might change us in this, that the effects of Gethsemane would be seen powerfully in our lives, that we would be more willing to give up anything for Jesus, knowing that he bore the cup of your wrath. for us. We pray that you might do this work in us, that we might glorify Christ who gave up his glory for us. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. I'm gonna invite our ushers to come forward and we're gonna take up our tithes and our offerings. you Brothers and sisters, I'm going to invite you to stand and we're going to sing hymn number 247, Sacred Head Now Wounded. ♪ With grief and shame weighed down ♪ ♪ Now scornfully surrounded ♪ ♪ With thorns thy holy crown ♪ ♪ O sacred head, what glory ♪ The best deal now was won. Yet though despised and gloomy, I joined him coldly now. was all for sinners gain. Thine, Thine was the transgression, but Thine the debt became. Oh, here I fall, my Savior, ♪ Look on me with thy favor ♪ ♪ Now say to me, my grace ♪ ♪ The language shall I follow ♪ ♪ To thank thee, dearest friend ♪ ♪ For this my dying sorrow ♪ ♪ My pity without end ♪ ♪ O make me Thine forever ♪ ♪ And should my fainting be ♪ ♪ O let me never melt ♪ Brothers and sisters, you may be seated. As we've been doing each week, I want us to take just a few minutes for silent prayer. If you've been humbled by God's word this morning, convicted, well then, this is what we need to do. We need to go to the Lord and confess this to him. If you're at all convicted that your life should be different in light of what Jesus has done for you, that you're even not moved enough by what Jesus did for you, or that you haven't been willing enough to deny yourself for Christ when he denied himself for you to be forsaken even by others when Christ was forsaken by you. Or in light of what Jesus did, if you're convicted that there needs to be more worship in your life, more willingness to serve Christ and to live for his glory, then what we need to do is go before the Lord and confess these things to him. So let's just have a few minutes of silent prayer. Father, I pray that you would hear the prayers of your people this morning and that you would cause your word to bear new fruit in us. Father, I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Brothers and sisters, having heard God's word, having confessed our sin to him, we're blessed to be able to come to the table of the Lord's Supper, to be able to partake of this together, to receive more of the grace of Jesus that we need. I say this repeatedly, if you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus, I ask you not to partake of these elements, because to receive the grace of Jesus, to commune with Jesus, you have to know Jesus as your Lord, and this means the first thing you need to do is to acknowledge your sin to him. Ask him to save you. Ask him to be your Lord and to give you the gift of eternal life. But if you're here this morning and you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I invite you to partake of these elements this morning. Brothers and sisters, I remind you as a minister of the gospel that Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath for you so that you wouldn't have to drink it. This is what the table of the Lord's Supper assures us of, even as we partake of the cup of wine. You see, we're reminded that Jesus partook of the cup of God's wrath for us. I say this to you this morning as you partake, as you remember this, Worship Jesus for this this morning. Praise him with all that is within you. For you would not know him. You would not have the gift of eternal life. You would not be freed from the curse of God unless Jesus was willing to submit to the will of God for you and stand in your place. So worship Jesus, but also ask him to help you to be more willing to serve him, to give your life for him as he gave his life for you. So let's go to the Lord in prayer, and then we'll partake together. Our Father, we do thank you again for Christ, for the ministry of Christ, for the grace of Christ, for the life of Christ, for the humiliation of Christ, for the suffering of Christ, for the sorrow of Christ, and Father, for the submission of Christ on our behalf. We praise you, Father, as well, that we not only remember what Jesus did for us in this sacrament, but Father, we come to this table, as we come to this table, we come to the living Lord Jesus, we come to commune with him. And Father, as we come this morning as your people, we confess to you that we need more grace. If the Garden of Gethsemane, if what Jesus has done for us is to be evident in our lives, Father, we need more grace. And we pray for that this morning, that as we come in obedience to you, that you would pour out your grace upon us, that you would cause your word to bear new fruit in us, to your glory. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Well, brothers and sisters, on the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it and he gave it to his disciples. As I'm ministering in his name, I'll give it to you. I only ask that you hold on to yours and we'll all partake together.