Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, March 31st. How can you benefit from seasons of suffering? Stay with us to discover lessons we learn in Getsemani. What I want to talk about in this message is simply this, and that is. I want to talk about the experience Jesus had.
probably the longest, most difficult night of his life. I want to talk about lessons we learn in Gethsemane.
Now, usually the night in the garden was a wonderful night, but tonight it is a night of grief. It is a night of warfare and bloodshed. This is a night of all nights in the life of Christ. No night was so dark. No night was ever so long as this one.
So what we have to ask is this, what lessons can you and I learn? from the life of Jesus in just this one night of his life.
Well, I believe we can learn several very important lessons because you see the truth is all of us go through our nights of difficulty, hardship, trial, suffering, physical, emotional pain.
Now, no one will ever suffer like Jesus suffered.
Now, remember this. There are many women out there for their faith who have been martyred for their faith, who have gone through all kinds of pain and whose physical pain may have been equal to Jesus' physical pain of crucifixion because many people have been crucified in the past. But Jesus was different because, along with that crucifixion, he bore the weight of the sin of the world. Men have been boiled in oil. They have been fed to lions.
They've been crucified. All kinds of things have happened. Nothing to match the pain of Jesus because He bore your sin and mine. He died as a substitute. in your place and my place.
Now, when you and I go through difficulty and hardship and pain in our life, We certainly would like to escape from it, if at all possible. And yet, God knows what He's up to in our life. And as we said in the very beginning, it may be. That it is the will of the Father that we go through difficulty in order to prepare us for His purpose in our life.
Now, remember this. Pain and suffering in our life can be very instructional. There are some things that you and I are not going to learn in pleasure. When the times are good, when we have everything we need, everything we want in life, pain can be very instructional. What can we sustain?
How can we keep moving when everything in us, our whole being, cries, stop, stop, stop, give up and quit? And yet you and I know better than to do that.
So let me ask you a question. How have you been responding in your pain? How have you been responding in your suffering? How have you been responding when people have criticized you or persecuted you? How have you responded when you have hurt so deeply you did not know what to do next?
Which way to turn? Where to turn? My friend, you want to turn to the living Word of God and listen to what He says about His love. You say, well, how can I believe that God loves me when He allows all this to happen in my life? What you have to ask is, God, what is your goal for this experience in my life?
Because God, listen, being in the will of God does not mean that we will not suffer.
So, first of all, I simply say that God's purpose and plan for our life may include. the time of Gethsemane in our own life. The second thing I want to say is this. That when God sends us and allows us to go through those Gethsemanes in our life, We too need close friends. Even as Jesus did.
Now, think about this. The scripture says that then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and said to his disciples, Sit here while I go over there and pray. Then he talked about being grieved, and he took Peter, James, and John, his most intimate three, and brought them a little closer to him. Then he came and found them sleeping and Questioned Peter, Peter, couldn't you wait one hour? And he came back a couple of times and There they were asleep.
Think about this for a moment. They had seen and felt and touched the very Son of the living God. They had eaten with him. They certainly must have laughed with him. They certainly must have enjoyed his presence.
They'd watch miracle after miracle after miracle. They walked literally with the Son of the living God. And now In the most crucial critical moments of his life. And all those three years in the past, as you read the Gospels and you begin to look to see what Jesus was doing in this particular time. He was healing and so forth.
Jesus was always sufficient. adequate for every circumstance of life. But now, Here's where he is. This is the Lord Jesus whom they had seen. They had seen him stand before blind people and say, be healed and they could see.
They had seen him touch lepers. and they were made clean. They had seen him just speak and touch. and people's lives radically change physically. They had seen him and heard him say, Lazarus?
Come forth. And a dead man walked out of the tomb and they pull back the stone. wrapped in his grave clothes, fully alive. They had even seen him walk on water. They had watched him simply speak to the waves.
and they died in their presence. And a tumultuous sea became. Glassy. Calm and quiet. And now this same Jesus, is saying My soul is grieved unto death.
Please stay with me. Please watch with me. What he was saying is this. Tonight, I need you. That's what he was saying.
Here's Jesus in all of his transparency. Here's the Son of God. Here's God walking in human flesh. And what is he saying to those men who had been his friends for these three years? I need you tonight.
He never said that before. I need you tonight. I need you to stand with me. I need you to pray for me. I need you to be close by.
I need to know that you're there. And he went a little further and began to pray and to cry out to the Father.
Now, he certainly did not say simply quietly Heavenly Father, he was crying out to God. The Bible says in Luke 22, he fervently prayed. Here's Peter, James, and John, his most intimate ones. He had chosen them to go with him to the Mount of Transfiguration and see Moses and Elijah when the three of them met together. They had been in the inner bedroom to watch this girl raise from the dead.
They were there. And now he had chosen those three, his most intimate three. To share with him the longest, most difficult, darkest, crucial, critical, hurtful, painful night of his life. And what are they doing? Sleep.
You know why? They were sleepy, they were weary, they were tired, they were exhausted. But they were his best friends. And when he needed them, They went to sleep. Physically they went to sleep.
They were asleep. to his emotional turmoil. He said, I'm grieved even unto death. Would that not have been a signal strong enough? to stand by his side, stay awake, cry out to the Father for him.
reminding the Father of all the good things he had done for them. Reminding them that he was the perfect Son of God, that they'd never seen him sin. They'd never seen him do a wrong, they'd always seen him compassionate and loving and forgiving. Could they not? By his side.
Or at least a distance away, cry out in his behalf when he so desperately needs them. No. They were asleep. Let me ask you a question. What kind of friend are you?
Are you the kind of friend that can be counted on? When things are tough, Things are difficult, things are not popular, when it's hard to stand with, hard to support. Yeah. And maybe you don't fully understand what kind of friend are you? Are you the kind of friend Glad to see ya.
But when things get tough, You like the disciples, scatter. What kind of friend are you? A lot of farewell friends. We'll dare only when things are fair. But when things get difficult, When things get tough.
Somehow they find themselves unable to hang in there. I want to say it again. The longer you live, here's what you're going to discover. Your true genuine friends become a treasure in your life. More valuable than things.
More valuable than any material thing you could possibly own is a godly. Friend. Who prays for you, supports you, loves you, holds you up when you're imperfect, when you're weak, when you're not all that you ought to be, does not condemn. But does what? encourages, prays, supports, hangs in there with you, and allows God to use you to encourage that person.
the night he needed the most. They were asleep. God forbid that you and I sleep. when our friends are hurting and when they need us so desperately. Then I think about another principle here that's so interesting, and that's this.
That in our Gethsemanes, it is natural for us to struggle in our prayers.
Now I want you to watch something here. Jesus is struggling. He's having a very difficult time. He says, I'm grieved and distressed. My soul, he was talking about his innermost being.
He says, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch with me. He was hurting. He was feeling the pain and the suffering and the hurt. To a degree and to a depth that you and I will never understand the face of this earth.
And he was struggling.
Now, most of the time when you and I are struggling, we are struggling over whether we want to live the will of God or not. Or sometimes we're struggling over what is the will of God. And so it's normal for us to struggle in prayer. But here's what I want to mention to you.
Sometimes, when you and I are hurting and our pain is so intense, it's very difficult to even pray. It's difficult to keep from being distracted by our pain. Our hurt, our suffering, or maybe even our anger, something going on inside of us. that is so bringing us to such distraughtness. That we can't pray.
We hurt too much to pray.
Somebody says, Well, you can't ever hurt too much to pray, then you have never felt pain. If you've ever felt real, true, deep, abiding, grievous, emotional pain, you can know that even while you're praying, you are distracted. that it is difficult to pray when you're hurting badly enough. It's not a sin to struggle. It's not a sign of weakness that you and I say, Well, I'm struggling in my prayer.
This is why God, listen, this is why He has the church. This is why he has the church family. This is why he says we are to pray for one another. Encourage one another, bear each other's burdens, lift up one another. There's so many one another's in the New Testament that we're to do for one another.
And certainly one of them is to pray and to encourage and to lift up. And so When you look at the life of Jesus here, And you see what's happening? And he's struggling. He says, I'm struggling even to the point of death, crying out fervently, crying out. Remember this.
Even amidst our cries, our Heavenly Father, who will spare no effort, No experience or no pain to get His will and purpose done in our life does not mean. when you and I are struggling that he's not listening. It does not mean that he's not answering our prayer. It does not mean that he's saying no because we want deliverance right now. He's listening carefully.
He sees us, and listen, one thing you and I know for certain: whatever pain we experience in life, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has felt worse. more intense than anything you and I could ever experience. And sometimes we go through those experiences in life when we struggle. We struggle to talk to God. We struggle because we've told him over and over and over again and we don't see an answer.
And sometimes we can feel God, where are you? We can feel is strange, Twy. Because the hurt and the pain can be so intense. And we don't see any evidence that God's at work. If it could just be for one day.
Or maybe for one night. That's one thing, but when it goes on night after night, day after day, year after year, then we say, Well, God, if you really loved us, here's what you would do. And the truth is, God does love us, and here's what He does. He allows the pain and the hurt and the suffering to last just as long as is necessary to accomplish his purpose. That's the part we don't like.
Doesn't the Bible say, ask and it shall be given you, seeking you shall find, knocking, it shall be opened unto you? Everyone that asketh received it, he that seeketh findeth to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Doesn't it say that? Yes. What it doesn't say is Ask and it should be given to you right now.
Seek and you shall find it tomorrow. Knock and it should be open unto you in just a moment. doesn't say that. You know why? Because God and God alone knows how long it takes.
to give us enough instruction. purifies enough. Motivate us enough. And he knows exactly what it'll take to draw us into an intimate relationship with him. He spares no pain.
No experience and no effort to bring us to himself. All of us have struggled. I can remember times when I've. Gotten out of bed at night, got on my knees. Crying out to God.
struggling. How long do you think I struggled? I struggle. Until I was willing to say. Father, Not my will, but your will.
Father, Not my time, but your time. Father, what you want is what I want. When you come to that place, here's what you'll discover: struggle is all over, and the struggle is replaced by a sense of peace. And contentment that has no human, listen, has no human understanding because the circumstance has not changed. God didn't take anything away or put something there.
Nothing's changed. But we struggle until we can come to the place of saying, Father, Not my will, but your will. Not my time. But your time. Another principle I want you to notice here that I think is so very important.
And that's simply this. that our Gethsemane is at times of suffering and pain. Our Gethsemane is no place for blame. Listen. When you go through difficulty, hardship, and pain, and suffering in your life, and you look any other place for the source.
I didn't say it was the will of God. though he let it happen. I didn't say it was a plan of God, though He certainly permitted it. If you look to any other source, Then God, you'll blame somebody. You know what blame does in the midst of pain and heartache and suffering?
It intensifies the pain, increases the pain and the heartache and the suffering. It does nothing good. There's no profit in blaming. Blame doesn't fit. the life of a child of God when you're going through pain and suffering and heartache.
Remember, it only intensifies the pain, increases the confusion and frustration in your life, and brings you greater calamity later on if you don't deal with it. You become resentful, hostile, angry, bitter, and those emotions will destroy you. One last thing I would say about this passage, and that's this. Here is the key. They're going through difficulty, hardship, pain, and suffering, no matter what the cause.
or no matter who you may feel is the cause, here's the ultimate key. to get us through it. This is the way we can endure it, whether it's for a night, a day, or years. This is the way we're sustained. This is the way we can persist.
This is the way that no matter how deep, How dark? How long way? How anxious? Have fearful. Here's the key.
God I want to thank you. You are in control. Jesus never questioned that the Father was in control of what was happening that night. And you know what? You and I don't have any reason to doubt that he's in control of our lives.
You say, but if he's in control, why this pain? Instruction. purification, motivation. Intimacy. Think about the value of those four things by which you're not profit.
from difficulty, hardship, pain, and suffering in our life. When I remember that my father's in control. I can face most anything in life. Because I know certain things. that our loving Heavenly Father has a limitation.
on the intensity of the pain. He has a limitation on the length of the pain. He has a limitation on, listen, the nature of the pain. He has a limitation. because he has a purpose.
And that limitation of whatever he allows us to suffer must fit his purpose for our life.
So the question is this. When you go through those difficult, hard, trying times in your life, and you have been through probably many of them. Have you been responding? We had blaming somebody else. Have you been saying, God, if you love me, you wouldn't allow this to happen?
Or have you come to the place in your life to realize that your loving Heavenly Father loves you enough to let you hurt? Remember this in the pain. You do not suffer a moment of pain. Apart from the presence, of the living God. or the inside of you.
to sustain you help you, love you, care for you. and to bring you through it. Yeah. Thank you for listening to part two of Lessons We Learn in Gethsemane. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org.
This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
