Here is the Son of God. who spoke the worlds into existence. Who would speak to a legion of demons and they would flee, who called to dead men in their graves and they got up. Here is that son of God crying out under such strain that the capillaries in his face begin to burst. What's happening here?
Hey friends, welcome to the Summit Life podcast. I'm Molly Bitovich. Whether you're listening on your commute, at home, or somewhere in between, it's a privilege to bring you clear, gospel-centered teaching each week, walking with you as you grow in your faith. And if you're looking for ways to stay encouraged beyond this podcast, one simple option is to connect with Pastor JD on social media. On platforms like Facebook and Instagram, he regularly shares scripture, short reflections, and timely reminders of gospel truth designed to meet you in the middle of everyday life.
You can find him on Facebook by searching for Pastor J.D. Greer and on Instagram at Pastor JD Greer. It's an easy way to stay rooted in God's Word, revisit themes from the teaching you hear here on Summit Life, and bring a bit of biblical encouragement into your daily scroll. And if you'd like to learn more about this ministry or access past messages, you can always visit us at jiddygreer.com. Today we're looking at one of the most shocking statements ever made when Jesus asked his Father.
Why have you forsaken me?
So grab your Bible and let's head back to the book of Mark. No. I will confess to you that where we are about to go in Mark chapter 14 this weekend is a deeply mysterious place. I would say it is one of the most mysterious places in all scripture. It is a holy place.
It is the kind of place, honestly, that I get a sense that I ought to come into on my knees because there is nothing that I could say here that would do anything really except for take away of the majesty of what is happening in these verses. The Apostle Paul called the things that we are about to look into, he called them the unsearchable riches of Christ. If they are unsearchable, then who am I to stand up here and try to search them out with you? Paul said that these were things that you could not know. Paul, in fact, prayed this in Ephesians 3: that God would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation, that we could know the love of Christ.
How wide, how high, how long, how deep is this love, which surpasses all knowledge? When you think about it, it's kind of a contradiction. How do you know something that surpasses knowledge? What Paul means is that what you need is not a good explanation of these things. What you need is revelation of these things.
I am unable to give you revelation. I can give you explanation, but only the Holy Spirit can give you revelation, which is why we need to pray. You see, I feel especially helpless this weekend to share these things with you because a lot of times when I stand up here, I've got a concept to communicate. I figured out how to explain it, how to apply it, got a few funny stories that go along with it. I got none of that this morning.
None of it. Which means that if the Holy Spirit, the real preacher, does not open this in your heart, I could stand up here all day long and talk with the most eloquent words, and you could sit out there and listen as attentively as you want to, and it's not going to do either of us any good.
So, could we just pray and ask God to open the eyes of our heart and allow us to see what human ears cannot hear and to perceive what a human tongue cannot explain? Bow your heads with me. God, I pray that a spirit of revelation would be given this weekend that we might know how high, how wide, how deep. How long is the love that you have for us? We need not explanation, God.
We need revelation.
So Father, I pray that you might give that. I pray, God, that we might be overwhelmed. God, as we look into Oh well. That is deeper. and wider than we ever have imagined.
And that we might sense, not know, but sense deep in our soul. The love that presses in. that is communicated. in this mysterious scene. I pray and ask that, God, in Jesus' name.
Amen. Mark chapter 14, verse 32. And they, that is the disciples and Jesus, went to a place. Called Gethsemane, which literally in Aramaic means oil press. And Jesus said to his disciples, Sit here while I pray.
And he took with him Peter and James and John, and he 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 on 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, Daddy. All things are possible for you. Remove this cop from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. And he came and he 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, your 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.
And he lifted up his eyes, and the disciples looked, and they are coming in the distance with. torches in the night. Was Judas and a group of armed soldiers coming to take Jesus away to the crucifixion?
Now, one of the first things that you have to observe about this scene. If I could be so bold with you. Is that Jesus does not die? Like many of the world's great heroes have died. He does not have the defiance, the bravado, the bravery that we would expect for him to carry into the hour of his death.
I mean, think of scenes like the ones depicted in movies like Gladiator or Braveheart, where you've got a hero that is staring down the emperor saying, You can do whatever you want to me. I will have my vengeance in this life or the next. You do not scare me, you cannot touch me. Many Jewish heroes died that way. We know at the same time that Jesus died, there were a lot of Jewish heroes that were executed, and a lot of them would die on the cross proclaiming God's victory over their enemies and the coming judgment on God's enemies.
Plato, when Plato describes Socrates dying. He says that when he was given the hemlock to drink, he says the color in his face did not change. He was very calm. He even cracked a few jokes after he drank the hemlock. That was his way of defying the empire.
Um, Polycarp, one of Jesus' own disciples that would die shortly after Jesus. Polycarp was a student of the Apostle John. When he died, he was 86 years old. They came and brought him, drugged him out to be burned at the stake, and they got him in front of this entire Roman Coliseum. Polycarp's last words, 86 years old.
He took him up, tied him at the stake. Before they tied his hands down, he gestured to the crowd. He said, You think I'm afraid of this fire? You ought to be afraid of the fires that burn in hell. This doesn't scare me at all.
This is temporary. In a few moments, I will be standing before Jesus. Come on, boys, bring on the fire. But that's not. If you're honest.
How Jesus goes into the scene, is it? He appears weak. Dare I say. Almost scared. Did you catch that?
He's trembling. And what's really strange about it is that everywhere else, everywhere else in the Gospels, Jesus shows unflinching courage. in the face of danger. He was the one just a few chapters before that the disciples were saying, You can't go to Jerusalem, you'll die. And Jesus said, Nope.
And he set his face, Mark said, like a flint toward Jerusalem. And he could not be deterred. He was the one that always had courage, he was the one that defied everything. What is he doing now? And by the way, it's not like he's withering in the face of pain because the first aspect of torture has yet to begin.
Verse 33, there's a very strange little phrase. Says he began To be astonished and troubled. In Greek, literally, what it says is: suddenly he began to be astonished. All at once. In other words, there was something there in verse 33.
That had not been there in verse 32. Suddenly, all at once, he saw something and he was, it says, troubled by it. The word troubled is a very strong Greek word that means... overcome with shocking horror. One scholar says it's indicates the kind of feeling that you would have if you came home one evening and Found your entire family murdered.
mutilated, strung up against a wall. Is the word that's being communicated here when Jesus saw it? all at once. It was so overwhelming to him. Listen.
That he almost died from it. Did you see that, verse 34? He said to them, my soul is very sorrowful even to death. Jesus does not exaggerate. He almost died.
What he saw almost killed him. Luke says that he was under such strain that he began to sweat great drops of blood. A medical condition that doctors call hemotridosis. Where you were under such strain of some kind that the capillaries in your body burst under the strain. One of our pastors, Rod Dale.
Said his wife, And his three sons, the youngest of whom was three years old, were leaving the Neighborhood pool where they're swimming. They were the last ones there. His wife gets the three boys out to the van. As she's putting in the older one and then the middle one, she notices that her younger son is not there.
So she kind of walks back down the path, goes into the pool area, and saw something that. No parent. I mean, this is like... The worst scene a parent could ever imagine seeing. There is her father.
Three-year-old son lying still at the bottom of the pool. She jumped in, got him out, yelled, got somebody else's attention. Got this boy up on the deck. They administered CPR with him, called the ambulance. Miraculously, they're able to revive him.
The ambulance comes, picks him up, takes him to the hospital. They run all kinds of tests on him. You know, the short answer, the good news is he was fine. They got there just in the. the right amount of time.
Roddell was not with him. Roddell said, I came back, got to the hospital. It says, when I walked into the room, my son was lying there now asleep, my three-year-old, and I could see on his face. He said, I look very closely, and you know, these little purple blotches everywhere all over his face. And I asked the doctor, what is this?
And the doctor said, evidently, right before your son lost consciousness at the bottom of the pool, he was screaming for you. Or four. His mom, and he was screaming with such strain that the capillaries in his face burst.
Okay. under the strain of not being able to get the attention of his father. I cannot imagine my kids being under such strain. That they were calling out for me in that way, and I could not hear them. Here is the Son of God.
Who spoke the worlds into existence. Who created universes? As easily as you and I speak words. Who walked on top of angry waves. who spoke to storms and they dissipated.
Who would speak to a legion of demons and they would flee, who spoke to people with the gravest diseases and they would be healed, who called to dead men in their graves and they got up. Here is that Son of God. Crying out under such strain that the capillaries in his face begin to burst. What did he see? What did he see?
Keep reading, verse 36. Notice what he prays, Abba, Father. Daddy. All things are possible for you. Remove this cup.
From me. He calls God daddy, Abba, Abba, Daddy. Which is the term of Closest intimacy with God. But look at this. For the first time.
in his life. For the first time in eternity. There is no response. See it verse 37? Actually, what you don't see in verse 37?
Silence. You see, up until this point, he has enjoyed an intimacy with the Father. He often withdrew to be alone with God. To draw strength, and the father had always radiated with openness to him, sometimes even affirming him publicly: this is my beloved Son. in whom I am well pleased.
Yet now In the hour that Jesus needs his father most, only. Silence. And so he stumbles back to his disciples. Looking for some kind of comfort. There's something weak there, is there not?
It's tender. He just needs somebody. And they're asleep.
So he wakes them up and he says, guys, I need something. I need somebody. I need you to be with me. But they're asleep. And so in verse 39, he goes back again to the Father and he says the exact same thing.
And again, a second time only. Silence. What's happening here? What's happening? William Lane.
New Testament scholar. Says that the only explanation Is that God had already begun to turn his face away. The crucifixion had already started. Before the first nail was driven into Jesus' body. His soul.
had been abandoned by God. Jesus had lived his life, you see, for the approval of the Father. And now In the moment that Jesus needed his father most, God, the father, turned his face away. And Jesus staggered under the weight of it. Almost to the point of death.
William Lane says, This is the horror. Of one who lived wholly for the Father, who came to be with his Father for a brief interlude before his death and found hell. Rather than heaven. Open before him. Utter And total Aloneness.
Have you ever been really alone? I mean really alone. Maybe a close friend turned their back on you. Maybe a Spouse betrayed you. Maybe your parents failed you.
Maybe your kids no longer allow you to see your grandkids. Jesus felt that kind of aloneness. And not just aloneness, by the way, but. Rejection. You ever been really rejected?
Here's one thing I know. The closer the relationship, the more painful the rejection. I mean, I get letters of rejection from time to time as a public figure. I mean, I get letters from people I've never met telling me that I'm the worst possible person. It honestly doesn't bother me that much because I've never met this person.
I know that it's really not reflective of me, it's reflective of them. But you let a close friend do that? You let somebody in my family do that? Then it becomes much more painful. I mean, I think about what it'd be like to do this to one of my kids.
One of my kids who look to me in the moment that they're in pain, when the moment that they're hurting, when the moment they feel alone, turning to me and not only not being there for them, but also walking away from them, walking away in scorn and saying, you're not even my child. I'm not a perfect father, and I've only known my kids for a limited amount of time. What's it like to lose? The affection and the closeness and the intimacy that he had known with God the Father for all eternity. Is there any human analogy I could give that could come up with something that would communicate that?
There is none. Anything that I would say by way of analogy. Just takes away from the majesty of what's actually happening in this moment, the tragedy.
Somehow, in that one moment, Jesus experienced the equivalent. of an eternity in hell for us. And in that moment, Revelation says, all of the hay of heaven fell silent, all the angels. And put their hands over their mouths and did not know what to say because they could not comprehend what was happening. In Gethsemane, Jesus stared into the horror of hell and he almost died from it, and then he voluntarily went into it for us.
You see, that's what hell is. Hell is complete abandonment by God. You see, I'd always thought that what made Jesus' death so bad were the physical horrors that went along with it. And they were terrible. Cicero said that one of the Romans' goals in crucifixion was complete and utter humiliation.
So they would choose a public place like the mall. For us. And there they would strip men naked and they would beat them and they would crucify them. It was so painful that men would weep and vomit and urinate all over themselves. Cicero said they would precede it by a beating that Killed a lot of men before they ever got to the cross.
The Roman historian Cicero said that it was not uncommon to see a rib off of a man's. Frame go flying off of his chest because of the way that they beat them. If what Cicero says is true, then we are. Pretty sure that when Jesus went to the cross, he was at least partially disemboweled. Many of you have seen the Passion movie.
There's probably something in there that gives you a glimpse of a little bit of it, but. If what Cicero says is true, then it's much worse. Cicero said that they used to, when they really wanted to make a point, they would crucify women. He says, but when they crucified women, they'd always turn them around backwards so they were facing the cross because the Roman soldiers could not bear to see the look of anguish on the woman's face. Because of the kind of pain they put them through, Jesus was nailed up on a cross naked in a public place in the full light of day.
So, yes, the physical horrors of the cross were terrible, but listen, that is not. In Gethsemane. What made Jesus stagger? It was the abandonment by God that he faced. That was the horror of the cross for him.
In Gethsemane, Jesus looked full into the cup of God's wrath, and it overwhelmed him so badly that it almost killed him. And he said, Father, if there's any way, let this cup pass from me. Isaiah 51:17 describes the wrath of God given to us like a cup. A cup full of toxic poison. That was the wrath of God for the rebellion that you and I had lived with, for the way that we had chosen our way instead of God's way, for the fact that we wanted to make our own rules, the fact that we didn't want to give God glory, we wanted to give ourselves glory, that God's righteous wrath, the wrath that we deserved, was stored up in a cup that He was going to give to us.
And Jesus in Gethsemane stepped in the way and said, No, I'll take it for him. I think it was Jonathan Edwards who said that the wrath of God was stored up for us, rightful wrath of God, like water behind a dam. Imagine you're standing in front of a gigantic dam, think like the Hoover Dam or something, and as you're standing a mile or so away from it. You watch, and to your horror, there, you see this crack begin to come down the top of the dam. And in a matter of a few seconds, the entire dam is broken open and water, a wall of water several hundred feet high, comes flooding down that valley.
There's nowhere for you to run. There's nowhere to go. Death is certain. It's going to sweep you away. And then, as this wall, this 200-foot wall of water is coming at you.
The ground in front of your feet suddenly splits open and opens up, and all the water goes underneath it so that not a drop touches you. Jesus stood in the way of the wrath of God. He took the cup, he took it in our place, he drank it to the dregs, he turned it over, set it down, and said, It is finished. By the way, Would you really, would you really entertain the idea that there are multiple ways to God? As if God, you know, Jesus says to God, if there's any other way, let the cut pastor me.
And God's like, Well, actually, there is another way. There's actually lots of other ways. You just got to be a good person, be sincere. You'll be there fine. What greater insult could you possibly give to Jesus Christ?
Here he is in the hour when he calls out for his daddy. If there's any other way, and God said, There is no other way. God had determined to save us, and this was the only way. If you and I had been in that garden. And we had stood beside Jesus and said, no.
No, don't touch this. Jesus would have said, I have to. This cup is your cup. And I am drinking it in your place so that you will not have to. He was despised and rejected of men.
He was in this garden a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Surely, though. He was bearing our sorrows. Yeah, we esteemed him Stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The price of our peace was upon him, so that by his stripes we would be healed. All we, like sheep, you see, had gone astray. He had turned every one of us, we had turned everyone to our own way.
So the Lord laid on him in that moment the iniquity of us all. He drank that cup in my place, so that not a drop would be left for me. You see, that's what the gospel is in its purest essence. The gospel is one word: substitution. The way we say it around here is four words: Jesus in my place.
Jesus drank the cup that I deserved. He had lived the life that I should have lived. He died the death that I should have died. He drank this cup in my place so that no condemnation will be left for me because now I'm in Christ Jesus. It's not that God is just feeling merciful to me now.
It's not that he's in a good mood. It's that every bit of the condemnation got poured onto Jesus.
So there's nothing left for me. And it's offered to you and I as a gift. Here's the question. Have you received it personally? Because it's a gift.
It's a gift where he took, somebody will pay for your sin. Either you will drink this cup on your own, a cup that was so bad that it almost killed Jesus, just looking at it. No. Or Jesus will take it in your place. Have you received it as your own?
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Now, let me tell you what it means for you. As you walk through the dark valleys of pain and loneliness. And then I want to tell you, really quickly, right toward the end, what it means for us as we think about the mission that God has given to us. Here's number one. I'm going to borrow the words of another pastor here for this first point.
Number one: you must stand amazed at his love for you in his darkest hour. You must stand amazed at his love for you in his darkest hour. The cross, Paul says. Put on display for us the depth of the love of God. That's why the angels, Peter said, long to look into it, because in there they saw something about the love of God that could not be captured in words.
The angels who look into God's face every day long to get a greater glimpse into what you and I are looking into right now. Jonathan Edwards. Ask this question. Think about this. He said, why?
Why is it that the Father gave Jesus this glimpse before he got to the cross? Why show Jesus in Gethsemane? Why give him a glimpse of it before he gets there? In fact, he said, you think about it, it's actually kind of dangerous. Because maybe Jesus could have changed his mind having seen it.
Why? Why did he give Jesus a glimpse before he? Why not wait till he was securely fastened to the cross before giving him that glimpse? Here was his answer. It was so, watch this.
We could see Jesus go to the cross voluntarily. Knowing full well what he was about to experience.
so that his love for us would be put on display even more. The circumstances of the cross were designed to put God's love for you on display. God turned his back on his most beloved son because God so loved him. The world. You.
The Gospel of Luke says that right toward the end of this encounter, an angel. Came to minister to Jesus. How did the angel minister to Jesus in that moment? We don't know. We don't know what the angel said.
But I wonder If Hebrews 12, 2 gives us an... A hint. Hebrews 12, 2, for the joy, listen to this. For the joy that was set before Jesus, he endured the cross. Joy.
Maybe he said something. That helped give Jesus joy. As he went to the cross.
Well, the joy of what?
Well, here's another way of asking that. What was The one thing that Jesus would have after the cross that he did not have before. What was the joy set before him that gave him the capacity to endure? What Would he obtain on that side of the cross that he did not have on this side of the cross? What was that thing?
The approval of God, the pleasure of God? Already had that. The kingship of the universe. Already his. What was the one thing that he would have after the cross?
that he did not have before it. Yeah. Yeah. He was doing this. to save.
You. Isaiah 43 says he went to the cross because we were. precious in his sight. Precious, I've told you that word means. You give up anything else on earth for it.
Told you my kids are precious to me.
Okay. There's nothing on earth that I have that I would not give up for my children if I found out that my children had a disease. A disease that could not be cured except by one medicine, a medicine that had not been approved by insurance. And the doctor said: to get this medicine, you're gonna have to sell everything that you ever had, everything you're ever going to have. and go into debt for the rest of your life.
Without the slightest hesitation, I would turn my back on all of it. To obtain that medicine, why? Because my children are precious to me. Isaiah 43:4, the God who created the universe, who could have created 10 million more universes with just a word. That God thought of you.
It's precious. Isaiah 43 and 4, I gave up the world for you. 1 John 3:1, Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the children of God. See, sometimes there's not an explanation. That's what John said.
You just behold it. You just behold the wondrous mystery, Christ the Lord, upon the tree. In the stead of ruined sinners hangs the Lamb in victory. And can it be that I should gain an interest in my Savior's blood? Died He for me who caused His pain?
For me who him to death pursued? Amazing love. How can it be? that thou my God should die for me. Or an older hymn that we don't sing much anymore.
Could we with ink the ocean fill? And were the skies of parchment made, where every stalk on earth a quill, and every man ascribed by trade to write the love of God above. Would drain the ocean dry, Nor could the scroll contain the whole. They stretch from sky to sky. There is no explanation.
You just kind of feel it. And you get a sense of it. in your life that you have experienced this the most. Maybe it came to another person. Maybe it was the love he had a good father.
Maybe it was a good father's love, and you thought this is something like the love of God. I see what it reminds me of. It reminds me. When I'm at my with my kids at the beach. And you know, they're young, they're not great swimmers yet, not strong swimmers.
And so we go out, and all of a sudden, the wave comes and it. He comes over their head and they're kind of distraught. And one of them will say to me, Daddy, too deep, too deep. Daddy, how deep? It's just too deep out here.
And I'm like, we're in four and a half feet of water. And about you know, not far out that way, it's six miles down. You're thinking four and a half feet is deep. You have no concept of the depth. The greatest you've ever experienced this is like one of my children saying that when.
The love of God is deeper and wider. And longer and richer than you and I have ever possibly comprehended. You stand amazed by his love for you in his darkest hour. And that leads you to number two. You believe in his love for you in your darkest hour.
You believe in his love for you in your darkest hour. You see, because Jesus faced utter aloneness, because he was rejected by God in my place, I listen, never have to fear really being forsaken by God. Because that's what the whole idea of substitution is. He took my place. He took my condemnation.
He took any rejection, any aloneness that I deserved. He took it.
So now I can say there is no condemnation for me who is in Christ Jesus. Why? Because all the condemnation, the entire cup. was taken by Jesus. For God to give me a cup of condemnation would act like Jesus hadn't done it.
So now I say there's no condemnation. It's not that God is just favorably disposed to me, it's that there's nothing left. He took it all in my place.
So that now, when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I can say, I fear no evil. Why? Because you are with me. And you took the evil in my place. Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
Why? Because evil and wrath were taken by Jesus, so goodness and mercy would be left for me. Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. That's not a nursery rhyme, that is a reflection on what happened at Gethsemane. There's nothing left for me but goodness and mercy.
Nothing. I know many of you have gone through some tremendously terrible things. And I knew that during those times, it felt like God had abandoned you, like you were alone. You weren't. This shows it.
It's even popular among Christians. I've heard some say this. I'm just going through my Gethsemane. I do not mean to minimize your pain, but no, you are not. You will never have a Gethsemane.
Never. Because Jesus went through the only one. You will never be forsaken because he was forsaken.
so that you would never be.
So when you say, where is God? Why didn't he stop this? Why didn't he do something? I talked to a guy this week who said that. Where was God when my dad died?
Where was God when the church that I was a part of turned its back on my mother, now a widow? Where was God? Why wasn't he doing something about that? Gethsemane shows you that the one thing you never need to doubt is his love. This is where he was.
John Owen said that in light of the cross, the greatest unkindness you could ever give to God is to doubt the intensity of his love for you. We do not understand all that God is doing in our darkest hour any more than the disciples understood what was happening here. But we can never, we must never doubt his love. While we slept in sin. He voluntarily went into hell for us.
You ever feel like God's sleeping in your life? You're like, where's God? I feel like he's asleep. See, what this garden shows you is actually the opposite. While you and I were sleeping comfortably in sin, that's the very moment that Jesus was awake all by himself.
And that's where he went into hell voluntarily while you slept.
So, when you feel alone, when you feel like nobody cares, when you feel like you are forgotten, look to the God of Gethsemane. If God did not abandon you at this point, when hell was literally squeezing the life out of him, do you really think he would abandon you now? If you feel abandoned by God, you're wrong. You have to be. You see, on a sunny hillside in Galilee, Jesus taught us to pray, Our Father who art in heaven.
And then in the dark garden of Gethsemane, he taught us to pray, Our Father, my Father, who has gone through hell for me. Therefore, I know that he can never forsake me. He never could because he didn't do it at this moment. Isaiah would ask it this way: Can a mother forget the baby at her breast or have no compassion on the child she's born? Is that even possible?
That's what I say. Is it even possible for a woman who just gave birth to a baby to be so callous and hard toward that baby that she forgets that baby? Isaiah answers his question, though she may forget. Maybe there's a situation. Where even that tender of a relationship, maybe there has been a situation.
Where even that relationship had been forfeited, yet I will not ever forget you. See, I've engraved you on the palms of my hands. You see, maybe you have been forgotten or forsaken by the most tender human relationship. Maybe it was your mother. Maybe it was your father.
Maybe it was a spouse. Maybe it was a friend. Maybe it was your child. But your God, your father, this Savior, cannot and will not. He went through Gethsemane.
He went through hell. And he has literally engraved you on the palms of his hands. See from his head, his hands, his feet.
Sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did ever such love and sorrow meet? Or joy compose so rich a crown. Joy. Joy of obtaining you.
And so, when you are discouraged and when you feel alone, when you feel abandoned, when you feel despondent, you have to come here, you have to come to the Garden of Gethsemane, and you have to preach the gospel that is presented here to yourself. You got to tell yourself, I feel abandoned, but I am not. The gospel of Gethsemane proves it. When we say preach the gospel to yourself, that's what we're talking about. David modeled this for us in Psalm 103: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
Some Psalms are written to God.
Some psalms are written to other people, right? Bless the Lord, all you people. Who did David write this psalm to? Himself. Right, bless the Lord, oh, not oh, my people, or oh, my God, but bless the Lord, oh, my soul.
Don't you forget his benefits, he's telling himself. What you've got to do is you've got to come and say, bless the Lord, all my soul. Don't forget his benefits. Like when I was asleep in sin, that's when he went into hell for me. When I was condemned, that's when he took my condemnation.
And you got to say to yourself, if he did not withhold his son in this moment, how would he not also freely with him give all things? Is there any good thing he would withhold from those of us who know him? Can anything separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus? You got to preach the gospel to your despondent self. You need to stop listening.
Listen, you need to stop listening to your fearful, doubting heart and start preaching the gospel to it. Listen, here's what people say. They're like, oh, well, you got to get in touch with yourself and kind of get down. That's the last thing you need to get in touch with. You don't want to be listening to what's going on out in there because that's a fallen heart, and it will lie to you every single time.
You got to stop listening to your fearful heart, and you got to start preaching Gethsemane to your heart. And do not mumble when you do it. Be long-winded if you have to, be longer-winded than I am. And you defy those feelings of despondency with faith in the gospel of Gethsemane. And then you'll start to say things like this with Paul in pain.
Though the outward man perishes, the inward man is being renewed day by day. Though I am poor, yet in him I am rich. Though I have nothing, yet in him I possess all things. You stand amazed at his love for you demonstrated in his darkest hour. Then you believe in his love for you in your darkest hour.
Number three, what it means for our mission. We must read the Great Commission through the lens of Gethsemane. We got to read the Great Commission through the lens of Gethsemane. The great commission is that we would go and make disciples of all the nations. Many of you are going to have a chance to be able to engage somebody that is outside of God, outside of Christ.
With the gospel, with the invitation to come here and hear the gospel. And you need to understand. That the God you are asking to give you help is the Savior of Gethsemane. Is there anything that you could ask that would exhaust the limits of his matchless love? Do you realize what Gethsemane shows you about his willingness to save sinners?
Is there anything too great to ask him? Is there any help you could not call in his name for? You and I do not honor Jesus by asking for small things. When he has gone through Gethsemane, we honor him by asking for large things. That's why John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, said, Thou art coming to a king, so with thee large petitions bring.
For his grace and power are such that none can ever ask too much. Is there anything that you could not ask him that he would not give you help? You want to see him work in the life of your friends? You want to see him work in your school? Why don't you come and take the gospel of Gethsemane seriously?
And why don't you realize that this is the Savior who said, ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. Is this Savior not ready? Is he not worthy? Is he not willing to see the nations worship? Isaiah 53, 11, God says, I will see the suffering of his soul and I will be satisfied.
You know what that means? It means there's nothing else you need to present to God that would coerce him to begin to work here on earth. He's satisfied in Jesus. There was one time I heard about one of our unreached people groups that He was a person not who wasn't from our church, but a person, a Christian servant over there that was martyred. And I was praying for that unreached people group shortly after that, and I said this to God.
I said, God. This person has sacrificed their life. Please, on their behalf now, please pour out your power. And it was one of those moments where I heard the Holy Spirit of God speak to my heart, and he said this. I understand what you're going for.
Do not insult my son. By acting like there was something else that would move my heart. for these people. that was greater than the sacrifice my son gave. I will see the suffering of his soul and I will be satisfied.
Jesus Christ shed his blood so the nations would worship.
So here's my question for you, Summit Church. Did the size of your prayers mirror the size of his sacrifice. Jesus did not die so that you could ask him small things. He died so that you could ask him large things. He did not die.
So you could ask him for trinkets. He died, so you could ask him for treasures. It's time to pray fearlessly for God's glory to be shown. If today's message stirred something in you, our team would be honored to pray with you. You can send us a prayer request at requests at jdgreer.com.
Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries. Yeah.
