Who in their right mind would say, oh boy, I'm going to be tortured today and I'm going to love this.
There would be something very wrong. And so he is identifying with us, making us witnesses of his sufferings so that we could know how to suffer ourselves. And this is why he told them about what he was going through, to watch, to pray with him.
His going through it, no other. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Gospel of Mark.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will continue his study called Agony in Gethsemane as he teaches in Mark chapter 14. With vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and was heard because of his godly fear. Vehement cries, we don't get that from the Gospels. The writer to Hebrews tells us that he wept in the garden.
It was not just an emotional agony that was internal, it was external also. And he says he made his supplication in Christ to him who was able to save him from death, but did not. You could say, you could make an argument for that Jesus experienced an ungranted prayer. And of course when he says, not my will, your will be done, and God says, of course that's how we planned it, but this is for us.
It's not for God, this is for us. And in being in the humanity that he assumed he had to go through this, it was not something he could bypass, nor would he. When he was on the cross it wasn't as though he somehow blocked out the pain.
He took it all, he drank the dregs of the cup. Three times we read of the Lord weeping in scripture, the Lord Jesus. At the grave site of a friend named Lazarus, at the site of a spiritually doomed city, there in the Greek desert he was heaving tears.
And then here in the garden, the first time for a friend, the second for a city, but here it is for himself. We get that again from Hebrews 5-7. And not only facing the horrors of crucifixion, he was facing the wrath of God for sinners, for all sinners. So not only did he suffer life and death, and he suffered death too. He had friends that died early, he had neighbors that were afflicted, he suffered life like the rest of us do, not maybe to the same extent because I don't know that the Lord was ever depressed emotionally as some of us can be, we can be from time to time, but he suffered alongside of us and yet his suffering was beyond, far beyond what we know. And so where it says here that he said to them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death as God has become a man. This is self-inflicted pain for somebody else though.
That's what makes it a sacrifice and a substitute. Romans 15, where even Christ did not please himself. Look at that, because I sure like to please myself. How would he have pleased himself? Well, first we stayed in heaven. Second, created other beings to love him. Second, that he could have called legions of angels to put an end to this, to what was coming. Paul continues in Romans, for even Christ did not please himself, but as the scripture says, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. Those who are against God, those who are against the Father, those who have violated the commandments of God. The judgment for those people, which would include us, fell on him and not them.
So that when Christ dies on the cross, he dies in my place as me, taking my punishment. Not just that physical torture of the cross, but the spiritual wrath of God, which is something that according to human eyes, he had never seen before. In his humanity, he faced it. Verse two of Hebrews 12, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. As I mentioned, he was the architect of our salvation.
And when he planned it out and he's mapping it out for, if you could just look at him as an architect would, he's, well nowadays it's all with keyboard and mouse. And he says, you know, I'll start in Bethlehem and I'll do this in Galilee and I'll make my way to Jerusalem. And then I'll pray in agony. I'll let the processes run their course upon me, knowing what's coming. And the part that's knowing, again, not the spikes, the nails, but the wrath of God.
The Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani. That's the part. And yet he says it has to be this way if I'm going to love the sinners. And so looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, for the joy that was set before him.
That's your face and my face in heaven. That's the joy set before him. Because if that doesn't happen, there's no joy set before him. It's a mission accomplished kind of a joy. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. That's why he took it.
It was worth it to him. I have no self-worth. I don't want self-worth, but I have the love of God on me.
Self-esteem, the opposite of self-esteem is not self-hatred. It is the esteeming of God. It is the exaltation of God in my life.
That covers so many things. It reduces so many problems. But I pray to the Lord sometimes I have such a frustration with what he does and doesn't do in my flesh. And God has spoken to me many times, not whenever I want him to. But one thing liberating, he said to me, and I hope you understand this, Rick, you are my slave.
You don't have a vote. I am your God. What makes that work? Love.
Nothing short of love. Because again, in the New Testament, and when Paul talks about a bondservant and a servant of Christ, he's saying slave. That's the Greek word that he's using in a society that had as many slaves as three people, if not more. They identify with Paul. When he said, okay, you were a slave to some Roman who had the right to kill you on the spot without explanation.
That's how far their rights went. Paul says, I'm a slave, but not to that Roman. I'm a slave to Jesus Christ. And so when he writes his letters from jail, he doesn't say I'm a prisoner of Caesar, which on a human level he was. He says, Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, a bondservant.
That means willing bond. He's making the Hebrew event and he's applying it to slavery and Gentile world and he's saying, I am the slave of Jesus Christ and willfully so. That stops a lot of arguments with God. Because then you say, well, wait, if he is the master and I have no Caesar, it's out of my hands and I will then trust his character because I don't have a Roman for a master. I have the God of love and I don't like the, you know, when he tells the church in Smyrna, suffer till you die. That's what he tells that church, but I'm going to make it good. That's what faith, then faith then kicks in. Okay, this belongs to God.
Not an easy place. It's an impossible place to come to in your own strength. It's something that is a spiritual event that God gives and many times when God gives us something, it has to be maintained. And this is also significant when Peter says, kept by the power of God.
Paul talks about God running the universe continuously because he does in Ephesians. Anyway, the joy that is set before him enduring the cross, hating the shame, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. He is in total control and I must submit to that and that's what we're getting out of this agony in Gethsemane. He is submitting to God's will and it hurts and it hurts immensely. But this resolve in the shadow of this suffering and death, others have suffered more. His resolve is mentioned by himself in John's gospel, my soul is troubled and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour but for this purpose I've come. Well, now the hour is here.
As I mentioned earlier, the time that you've been waiting for, the moment has arrived. Isaiah, who wrote so much about Messiah more than anyone else as far as volume goes, he says, just as many were astonished at you, that's the captivity of Israel. Then he says, so his, now it elevates, it's typical of Jewish writers to float in and out and leave the context to make its point. He says, so his visage was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men. Marred renders the individual unrecognizable, disfigured. Christ subjected himself to this for us. However, others have suffered more physically.
You can easily refute that. There have been those who have been eaten alive, burned alive. Some of them have not been fully eaten alive and survived maimed. There are those that are visually more disfigured, have been, than the Christ but not one comes close to spiritual disfigurement, to suffering the invisible and this is what happened to him, the disfiguring. It's relative to something.
You have a figure then you have a disfigure. Well, relative to a before and after. Well, the before is the perfect Christ in heaven, holy and undefiled. Then you have him walking this virtuous life amongst men, holy and undefiled and then you have the wrath of God on him and everything is now understood from Isaiah. So his visage was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men and Isaiah who previously said my servant and that's how we know he's talking about Messiah goes on in Isaiah 53, wounded for us, our transgressions, chastisement for our peace upon him. By his beat down I am saved and it was a beat down on the cross. He continues as Isaiah does and he says earlier, surely he has borne our griefs, our sickness, the spiritual sickness.
It wasn't like surely he's gotten a cold for me. No, this is something so far beyond all of us that when you stand and you preach it to somebody whether you're witnessing or in a pulpit you say, who am I to say these things? I'm the cause of the death. And yet woe is me if I don't preach the gospel. He explicitly tells them he is in trouble. He says to them here in verse 34, then he said to them my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death and I don't want to watch this alone.
Watch with me. They never saw him in trouble so they don't understand. They're not getting it. They're missing it. He doesn't want to panic them. What more can he say? This is killing me.
That's what he's saying. I am troubled unto death. Prayer warriors can die on battlefields. That's one of the lessons. We get that not only from the Christ. We get that from Peter. We get it from Paul, these men. James who is one of the three that are supposed to be witnessing these things but they're missing it. James the first apostle moderate. Not James that wrote the letter to James. Prayer warriors can die on battlefields.
We're not owed survival. It's hard to just take that in mentally. I need more.
I need it emotionally. That's one of the fruits of singing songs to the Lord is that there's that emotional connection that we should have. In the early days of early Christianity after the apostles, let's just say in ancient Turkey for example where there were many Christians. Paul did so much work in what's called modern Turkey Asia Minor if you will in the New Testament. A lot of those people were illiterate. They could not read or write. So how did they learn these Bible stories? Yeah well those who could read and write would tell them but also the artist would draw pictures on the walls, on the ceilings, anywhere they could that would tell the story. And you could look at a picture of Christ washing the feet of his disciples and you can understand better.
Those pictures became emotional. Of course in time Satan got in and abused them but early on they were for illiterate people much like we do with our children. Unless you become like little children crying out Abba Father. So he says stay here and watch. He is still telling his believers this. Luke 13 so in this parable he is the master and they are the servants and so he called 10 of his servants, delivered to them 10 minus and said to them do business till I come.
Watch and work until I return or you come to me as the case might be. Verse 35 he went a little farther and fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass from him. It's something we must realize that there was no way around this for him and he knew it. He had to go through it but he's still expressing through his humanity. Who in their right mind would say oh boy I'm going to be tortured today and I'm going to love this. There would be something very wrong and so he is identifying with us making us witnesses of his sufferings so that we could know how to suffer ourselves and this is why he told them about what he was going through to watch to pray with him. His going through it no other. Acts chapter 4 verse 12 and I know I read this verse a lot but it's worth reading.
It's kind of the thing that if it were a runner on the floor it would be worn down because it had so much traffic go over it. Nor is there salvation in any other for there is no other. So I'll read the verse. Nor is there salvation in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
There is no salvation anywhere else from anywhere else. Again how do we stand and preach this? Paul said to the Corinthians not that we are sufficient of ourselves but our sufficiency is from God. Acts chapter 20 verse 27 he said to the Ephesian elders I'm not shunned to declare to you the entire council of God. Again to the Corinthians he says for if I preach the gospel I have nothing to boast for.
Necessity is laid upon me. Yes woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. You come to those times where you feel like you're not worthy to share the gospel.
Well you're just recognizing truth. You're not worthy but you're qualified by the blood of the lamb. He's not entrusted the gospel to sinless angels. He's entrusted the gospel the good news preaching it to sinners. And so we go back to Peter. Peter just argued with him.
Peter forgot that whole I'm the slave thing and he's the master. Yet Christ still takes him and will still use him and will rebuild him. We're not to think just because we can read first and second Peter and his exploits in the book of Acts that we know all about what he did.
He certainly did more than what anyone could ever write. Jesus did not waste his investment on these men. Even Judas was not a wasted investment but a redirected investment. God was able to say you see and how many lessons we have from Judas. Who wants to be a Judas Iscariot? Incidentally Mark does not refer to him again as Judas in this gospel. He is now the betrayer.
Name is identity. He does not identify with praise. That was a glorious name for the Jews to name your child Judas or Judah or Jude. Very rending of the same Hebrew word praise. Now here in verse 36 and he said Abba Father all things are possible for you take this cup away from me nevertheless not what I will but what you will. You read that once you never forget that kind of a thing but this informs us of what where he says Abba Father. What is that telling me? Why do I need to hear this? It informs us that he was in emotional agony.
Why is that? Abba. It's an Aramaic word which is an Aramaic language was richer than the Hebrew. It has some Hebrew in it but it was much richer. The Hebrew actually is traced back to the Canaanites.
You get into ancient languages and the impact on modern language in various cultures. It's intense but it brings you right back. It brings you right back to your translated Bibles.
It is amazing. God knows what he's doing. Only God could overcome such a madness of language.
Only God could rule over what he did at Babel. Anyway, so Abba is our equivalent of Daddy. So he's saying Dad, Father. He's joined the two together.
Why is that? Well D.L. Moody in a sermon on Abraham offering up Isaac. This is amazing what Moody his conclusion is.
If you don't know who D.L. Moody was or I should say is because Christians don't die. We just relocate. Better neighborhood.
Location, location, location. Anyway, Moody was one of the world's greatest evangelists but mainly here in America. He says there was a time when I used to think more of the love of Jesus Christ than of God the Father. I used to think of God as a stern judge on the throne from whose wrath Jesus Christ had saved me.
It seems to me now I could not have a falser idea of God than that. Since I have become a father I have made this discovery that it takes more to love and to sacrifice for the Father to give up the Son than it does for the Son to die. It hurts God more. It hurts God the Father more. If we want to put this in emotional language for us and theological truths for us then we realize it would hurt me more to watch one of my children suffer. I'd rather suffer in their place. Unless it's like you know you got to do your homework and you're suffering.
Go ahead kid, you're going to have a good time with that one. But we're talking about real pain. It continues, Moody does, he says, is a father on earth a true father that would not rather suffer than to see his child suffer? I mean one of the worst parts of parenting is when your child will suffer. And so we consider the father in heaven.
We see Jesus suffering in agony. It's not by accident he says Abba Father. He cries out but he joins the two expressions not only dad but also the formal father. It is a fuller expression of his relationship.
It is a fuller expression of what the father is going through. Therefore Calvary hurt God for us. You brought this on yourself by Eden and God would say you really are stupid.
You really really are. Yes he brought it on himself but when we get to heaven he's going to simply say you see and that will satisfy it all. It was an imperative of Jesus Christ with this prayer being made public to these sleeping disciples. He had to have told this to them after his resurrection or else how else would we have this?
They were sleeping. They weren't there and he spent time with them and he did minister to them and he did choose what things he wanted preserved on record and this Gethsemane agony is high up on that list. He says all things are possible for you and he's talking to the father Abba Father you can do anything.
You're my dad you can do anything according to humanity his humanity that he has taken on. What would happen if he just dismissed his humanity? Well he's going to do that on the cross when he gives up his spirit and his humanity is gone forever. No more flesh for him no more dying for him or suffering. He then resumes his place in the Godhead in full force but for now he's hindered by this flesh and the flesh of course has two meanings depending on the context.
One is the carnal nature and the other is just flesh and blood and that's what he is right now. So he says all things are possible but in this case there is no alternative no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. It would be cruel otherwise if there were an alternative and God didn't take it then God would not be a God of love.
He would be a strange God but this was the route that salvation came to us through. This is the avenue right here. No way out of this painful life into the painless life.
No other way. No other service of Savior. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry visit our website crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of Mark right here on Cross Reference Radio.
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