Into the Garden - Part B

When that same Jesus died on that cross and when he died on that cross, Peter's hope died with him. Peter had never been so hopeless than the day that Jesus died on the cross.

We know the story. Three days later, Jesus got up again and appeared to Peter and the other disciples. And in one fell swoop, Peter went from hopeless living to living hope, like that. So when Peter writes, living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, he knew that he would now have a hope that would never die. Jesus' resurrection gave us the ultimate hope, the hope we can be set free from sin and have victory over death. But today on Connect with Skip Heite, Skip shares about the complete hope and restoration you can find right now in Jesus alone.

Now we want to let you know about a resource that will encourage and challenge you to fulfill your purpose to impact your world with the truth of Jesus Christ. The desire to fit in, to be thought of as normal, is a basic human instinct. But would you believe that children as young as three years old already want to follow the crowd and fit in with the group? That's what researchers found in a Duke University study. Yet in the Bible, we learn that some of the people who've made the most impact have done so by defying normal.

Here's Skip Heitzig. I think the Bible calls us to a holy defiance of the status quo. Paul the apostle said, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So what does it take to go from conformed to transformed? Find out in Pastor Skip's book, Defying Normal. Our thanks to you when you give $35 or more to help expand this Bible teaching ministry. And when you give today, we'll also include the booklet, What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren.

Get your copies of these two bold resources when you call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, let's join Skip Heitzig for today's study. When Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane, there was nobody there because the olive pressing is done in the fall of the year. Jesus gets there in the spring of the year. The place was a ghost town. It was abandoned. So it's a perfect place for him to go to and to retreat with his disciples.

By the way, just a little FYI, this is no extra charge. Now, if you were to go there today, and I encourage you to do so because we take people to the Garden of Gethsemane, we walk through it and have a little service there. But there's a part of the Garden of Gethsemane that's run by the Franciscans and they have these old olive trees there, eight of them, eight ancient olive trees. And they'll make a big deal out of the fact that olives grow for hundreds, thousands of years if preserved. And they have these old olive trees that they say are a couple thousand years old that were there no doubt in the time of Jesus. Jesus may have leaned against this tree or that tree. They have eight of these old trees. They preserve them. And it's beautiful.

It's a great setting. The only problem with that theory is a thing called history. History tells us that when Titus, the Roman general, surrounded the city to destroy it in 70 AD, Josephus, the Jewish historian, said that Titus cut down all of the trees around Jerusalem for timber, for lumber, to build his siege works against the city. So the Garden of Gethsemane being that close to the ancient city, these trees would not have been spared. So they may be almost a couple thousand years old, almost from the time of Christ, but not quite. So just a little FYI.

None of that is germane to our study story today. I just wanted to throw that in and to say what was really the most important is that it was in Gethsemane where the Son of God was being pressed, crushed like the olives. Like the prophet said, He was crushed for our iniquities, pressed for our sins, and the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. That's the second garden, the Garden of Gethsemane. Now, Jesus came into that garden as He often did with His disciples.

He spent regular time there. But on this particular night, the Bible tells us that when Jesus was in the Garden of the Olive Press, He was sweating. And it says He was sweating great drops of blood. Now, when you read that He was sweating, you might think, well, you know, it's the Middle East, it's springtime, it must have been really hot. No, in fact, it was really cold.

John's Gospel chapter 18 verse 18 says it was so cold that people were lighting fires to take the chill of the night air away from them. But yet Jesus was sweating. And the reason He was sweating and the reason He was sweating great drops of blood, that's not a figurative statement, He was literally sweating blood, is because doctors, medical experts, will tell us that there is a condition that a person can experience when they are in extreme mental anguish. It is where the tiny capillaries around the sweat glands in the head burst.

If a person is under incredible duress, this condition known as hematidrosis occurs where the capillaries burst and the person sweats drops of blood. That's what Jesus was going through. In fact, He said to His disciples, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. When Jesus was in that garden, He even prayed, Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Jesus prayed that in His humanity. He didn't want to suffer. He knew what was coming. He didn't want to go through that. If there's any other way people can be saved other than this happening to me, let it happen.

Let this cup pass. But in His deity, He prayed this, nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will. And there in this second garden, Jesus began to experience the suffering that sin had brought from the first garden. So Jesus in the garden of affliction was suffering because of the sin that was brought in the garden of creation.

But someone else came into the garden that night. His name was Judas, we are told in the text. And just like Satan who entered the first garden, Judas entered the second garden to betray his master.

And he brought with him a Roman contingent of soldiers. And there Jesus was arrested and He stood trial, not one trial, not even two trials. Jesus went through six, no less than six trials, beginning immediately and ending the next day before Pilate.

Three of his trials were religious trials and three of his trials were civil trials until finally he was condemned to die on a Roman cross. And then when he died on that cross, Jesus went into a third garden to undo what happened in the first and second garden. Now this third garden is the garden of resurrection. It is a garden-like place that was owned by a wealthy Jewish man named Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling class. He owned this garden and he was also a secret disciple. We are told this in John chapter 19.

I'm reading now John 19 beginning in verse 38. After this Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus but secretly for fear of the Jews asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took the body of Jesus and Nicodemus who at first came to Jesus by night also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes about 100 pounds. So they're bringing stuff to bury the corpse of Christ. It says in verse 40, they took the body of Jesus bounded in strips of linen with the spices as the custom of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and in that garden a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. So there they laid Jesus because of the Jews preparation day for the tomb was nearby.

Now Jesus did not walk into this garden. Jesus was carried into this garden as a corpse. He was dead. He had spent six hours on a cross on a Friday afternoon. There he died and he died earlier than most victims. Romans were going around to break the legs of the victims so they could get the bodies off the cross because of the Jewish Passover. Jesus was already dead after six hours on the cross.

He gave up his spirit and the bodies were taken down so that the Jews could go home and have their party, their Passover celebration. By the way you can visit this garden today. In fact I'm not trying to pitch our tours to Israel but we are going to do one next year.

I get asked that all the time. And the last day of the tour we take our group into what is called the Garden Tomb area. It is preserved by the Garden Tomb Association, a group out of England that for years have preserved it. And there they, like the biblical record, have found a tomb. Many believe it is the tomb from which Jesus rose again. And they have preserved this garden so we'll take our group into that garden and take communion together around the open tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's a very, very moving time. But this garden was a garden of hope. If the first garden brought despair and if the second garden brought death, then this garden brought deliverance from both death and despair.

It was a garden of hope. Because this is the garden where death was conquered. You see when Jesus rose from the dead, death died. Death died. That's where death got killed. Blew death out of the water. Death is gone.

Now people can live forever. Because though Jesus was carried into this garden by friends, He walked out of this garden by foot. Which meant that all of those promises that Jesus made about living forever, eternal life, everlasting life, suddenly all those promises were true. I mean without a resurrection, a lot of the things Jesus said, you'd listen and go, huh? Oh, He must have meant that figuratively.

That must be some kind of deep spiritual analogy. Until He rises from the dead and it's like, oops, I guess He really meant that. Promises like, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will never die. Okay, check.

That's real. How about this one? I am the resurrection and how about this one? I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Or this one? He who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has everlasting life. Once Jesus got up from the grave, every promise He made about eternal life now made sense.

Now it was real. And this is what Peter referred to when he wrote 1 Peter chapter 1 and he called the resurrection a living hope, a living hope. Listen to what Peter writes. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has abundant mercy, has begotten us again, or we are born again, to a living hope, listen, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Let me unpack that really quickly for it. Peter said, now that Jesus is alive from the dead, I have a living hope. So before Jesus and Peter got together, what was Peter's job? What did he do for a living? He was a fisherman. So it sounds like, wow, it sounds like a dream, right? That's what a lot of guys, everything's a dream until it's your daily job. So Peter would get up early in the morning on the Sea of Galilee, put on his little fisherman's hat, his little vest, put his nets in his boat, go out, fish all day, catch a bunch of fish, go home in the evening, sell them all, go to bed, get up the next day, do it all over again, get up the next day, do it all over again, get up the next day, do it all over again, six days a week, one day off, they were Jewish.

Month after month, year after year, it's pretty boring. Peter probably even thought, is this all there is to life, work, being a fisherman? You know those bumper stickers, I see them on cars every now and then, I'd rather be fishing? Peter would not put that on his car. First of all, Peter did not have a car to put it on, but let's say he had like a chariot, he wouldn't put that bumper sticker on there because that's what he did for a living. It's like every day until one day, a man named Jesus walked up to him and said, Peter, put your nets down, dude.

I'm going to make you a fisher of men. And he went like, what, what, what does that mean? So he started following Jesus and listening to him and watching him perform miracles and helping him maintain crowds who were coming to Jesus and fishing for men. And something grew inside Peter, it's called hope, hope.

Now he's hopeful, now he has purpose, man, life has never been better than this. And for three years, it was so good until one day, when that same Jesus died on that cross, and when he died on that cross, Peter's hope died with him. Peter had never been so hopeless than the day that Jesus died on the cross.

But we know the story. Three days later, Jesus got up again and appeared to Peter and the other disciples. And in one fell swoop, Peter went from hopeless living to living hope.

Like that. So when Peter writes, living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, he knew that he would now have a hope that would never die. So, Peter's hope would never die. So, the first garden brought a death sentence. The second garden is where Jesus submitted himself to the death sentence. And the third garden is where death was conquered by resurrection. Which takes us to the fourth and final garden, that is the garden of restoration. And I'm speaking now of the paradise of heaven. Jesus came into this garden, the fourth garden, by an ascension. The Bible tells us in Acts chapter 1, Jesus Christ was on the Mount of Olives and he ascended up into heaven. And his disciples watched him go up. Now, do you remember, in the upper room, disciples were all bummed out and Jesus said, he said, let not your heart be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house there are many abiding places. And then he said this, I am going to prepare a place for you. Now, think of those words, I'm going to prepare a place for you.

Jesus said that 2,000 plus years ago. Now, when you step outside on a day like this and you look around at this beautiful place God has created, and you can even drive up to the mountain, see the pine trees, you can drive to a river or a lake if you can find one, you can drive of 800 miles and go to the ocean, it's a pretty stellar place God created for us, right? It's pretty awesome.

Even in its fallen state, it's a pretty awesome place. He did it in six days. He just said, let there be this, let there be that, I'm going to make this, I'm going to make that. So he, six days, now imagine if he had like two months, what it would look like.

But this is pretty good for six days, pretty awesome. For 2,000 years, he's been preparing a place for you. Can you imagine what that place must look like? Well, Jesus said this to one of the churches in Revelation chapter two, to him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. That's a description of heaven, the paradise of God. Now that word paradise is a very important word. According to William Barclay, Bible scholar par excellence, said the word paradise literally means a garden, a walled garden.

It was a word the Persian kings would use when they wanted to honor somebody of renown or make that person renowned. The king would invite that person to walk with him in his private walled paradise, paradiso, walled garden. And that person became a companion of the garden, especially honored by the king to fellowship with the king. So in the final chapters of the Bible, it tells us of the final phase of heaven known as the new heaven and the new earth. And it is described as a restored garden. In fact, the description sounds very much like the Garden of Eden on steroids. In fact, it is even complete with the tree of life.

Listen to Revelation 22. And he showed me a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore 12 fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him. I love the fact that in heaven, like in Eden, like in the first garden, it's going to be this garden-like environment.

In fact, there's going to be the tree of life and I love this. It bears fruit monthly. So what variety?

It's like, well, welcome to heaven. This month we have mangoes. You like mangoes?

I love them. But come back next month because it's going to grow apricots, you know, and then guava and then banana, whatever, 12 fruits, one each month. The curse that was once placed on the earth in the first garden will be gone forever in the fourth and final garden. If the first garden was paradise lost, then this garden is paradise found, paradise restored. Because of what Adam did in the first garden, Jesus had to do in the second garden. And because Jesus going into the second garden is why he was buried in that third garden. But because of his work in and between the second and third garden, he can invite you and I into the fourth and final garden.

And he does. In Revelation 22, it says, the Spirit and the Bride say, come, let him who hears say, come, let him who hears say, come, and let him who is thirsty come, whoever desires let him take of the water of life freely. God is inviting you into no less a place than the garden of eternity, the place of restoration, the place of peace and rest and no curse and eternal life.

The question is, will you come into the garden? You remember when Jesus was on the cross, the Bible says that there were two criminals crucified with him, one on the right hand, one on the left hand. And one of those criminals had a change of heart and cried out to Jesus and said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus turned to him and you remember what he said? He said, today, assuredly I say to you, today you will be with me where? Paradise. Paradise.

So same word. Today you will be with me in the walled garden. Today I am inviting you to be a guest of the king, a companion of the garden and to have the honor place of walking in fellowship with me in my father's house. That is God's invitation to you and I. And I would be remiss to not extend the invitation to some of you who have come to church but perhaps have not come to the Lord personally. Maybe you are a very traditional person.

You want to go to church on Easter. I'm glad. I really am glad for that. That's noble.

That's awesome. But the pressing question is, have you come all the way into a personal relationship with God through his son, Jesus Christ? Have you submitted to him? Have you personally said, Lord, be my Savior, be my master. I want to walk with you now as well as in eternity. Your life can change now. He can plant hope in your heart today that will grow throughout your life and then icing on the cake, heaven, paradise later on.

That's what he's offering you. That wraps up Skip Heitzigs special Easter message called Into the Garden. Now here's Skip to share how you can keep these messages coming your way to connect you and many others around the world with the gospel.

God sent his only son to die on a cross for our sins just so we could be with him forever. That shows us just how amazing his love and grace really is. Well, we want to take that great news to more people around the globe. You can help make that happen. Here's how you can help connect even more people with the gospel. To give today, simply call 800-922-1888. That number again is 800-922-1888 or give online at connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Your support is vital to help connect more people like you to Christ.

So thank you for giving generously today. And did you know there's a great biblical resource available right at your fingertips through your mobile device. You can access several of Skip's Bible reading plans in the YouVersion Bible app and dive deeper into several books of the Bible to gain new insights. Just search Skip Heitzig in the YouVersion Bible app. Be sure to come back next week as Skip Heitzig shares insight from scripture about God's purpose for all people, including you. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.