Our Savior's Sorrow: The Pressure of Testing, Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42

 

Open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 26. We are going to start in verse 31, but we will have a bit of a review. What we are looking at this morning is the sorrow of our Savior when He is in the garden of Gethsemane.

 

There is so much in this section to talk about, to understand what is going on in this particular episode, because there is a lot going on; to understand the things being taught implied and brought out in terms of just understanding the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think this is a passage that brings a lot of confusion for a lot of people because on the one hand, we understand that that Jesus Christ is the perfect God-Man, and on the other hand we see this deeply personal portrait here of the struggle in His own soul with these emotions that are present in this time just prior to his arrest. And so this all connects back to understanding the purpose and the role of testing.

 

So we are going to begin this morning, were certainly not going to get through this, there's just so much here. It is so rarely taught, and very little is brought out and really developed from this episode.

 

Now the context we looked at last time. It is after the completion of the observance of the last Seder, known as the Last Supper, the Passover meal that Jesus celebrated with his disciples on the night before He went to the cross. They completed the Passover meal. He then was engaged in a time of teaching and instruction. We don't get that in the synoptic Gospels—Matthew Mark and Luke—that is brought out more by John in his Gospel—John 13:14; 15:16, 17 all take place either just prior to the departure from the upper room or along the way from the upper room to the garden of Gethsemane. So that's the context. Matthew, Mark and Luke skipped the upper room discourse, which is what that's called, and they just go straight to His time at the garden of Gethsemane.

 

In the context that we looked at last time, in Luke 22:24, we realized that after Jesus has identified Judas as the one who will betray Him, the only account of this is in Luke who tells us that once again the disciples get involved in an argument amongst themselves as to who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom. So I took us back to some of these previous discussions that they had had where the Lord is teaching them about the importance of humility, that they have to learn that it's about God's plan, it is not about their plan; it's not about who is great in the kingdom, and that they have to learn what it means to set aside their personal agenda. It's not about them; it's about the Lord.

 

This is the challenge that is once again before them, but they still don't get it. They still don't get the fact that this is all about God's plan and so they are going to get an object lesson this very night when they get to Gethsemane, as the Lord himself is going to wrestle and struggle with the same issue dealing with submission to the plan of the Father.

 

This has an important role in our understanding of the role of testing in the life of the believer. It helps us to understand more about the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is going to help us understand some things about emotion that we are often pretty confused about when it comes to the Scripture. All of this is very important.

 

Last time, as we examined the biblical teaching on this I took us back to one of the previous episodes that had occurred chronologically just about a week or two before, and that is covered in Matthew chapter 20. And at the end of this long series of events where the focus has been on teaching the apostles about having this kind of humility that was like a child, because the child was not important in that culture, it was not significant. They were to be like a child and they would realize it wasn't about them; it was about the Lord. And even at the end of that whole discussion you have a Salome, a typical Jewish mother, coming to Jesus and saying, what about my two boys? Shouldn't they set one on your right hand and one on your left when you come into your kingdom?

 

After she says that, Jesus then turns to them and makes the statement and asked this question. He says, you don't know what you ask and He turns to James and John who were the two sons of Zebedee's (Salome is the mother) and says, Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

 

In verse 23 He says to them, "You will indeed drink my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with." This is important. We are going to come back to it. We have to work through some of these terms here. What is this drinking of the cup? Because whatever it is for Jesus, it's going to also be true for James and John and the other disciples, because He says you will indeed drink my cup. So we have to ask this question: What does the cup represent?

 

And then also the there is a correlation in this baptism, this identification that takes place, with Christ on the cross for our sin. But we will get into all of that as we go along.

 

We see that as we come into the episode on the in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus is praying, My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from me unless I drink it, your will be done. He has prayed: Let this cup pass from me. So what exactly does that mean? To understand what Jesus is praying in the garden we have to understand this whole metaphor of the cup.

 

What we must understand as we get into this is that the language that Matthew uses, and Mark uses, and Luke uses to describe what is going on here is very important, and it's a language that is used to describe things that are profoundly and significantly emotional. In fact, when we look at the three keywords that are used between Matthew 26 and Mark 14 what we discover is that there are just limitations to our language trying to express how profound and deep this struggle is that Jesus is facing on the cross. Because He is anticipating a level of personal suffering that will take place during those three hours on the cross when He is identified with our sin. What we see is that as the God-Man is going to be made sin for us, this is going to have a profound impact on Him, and He is going to suffer tremendously.

 

Now we can each think about times in our lives when we had just agonized over circumstances. Maybe we will go through a time of job loss. Maybe it's a time of his death. Maybe it's something related to relationships, with marriages, or something of that nature, something that is deeply and profoundly personal. And when we think about how that affected us, and affects some people even to the point where they are on the verge of suicide, that is nothing when we compare it to the level of the suffering that our Lord is experiencing as He anticipates what will take place the next day when He is on the cross. This is the context that shapes what takes place when He is in the garden of Gethsemane.

 

As we look at that, and we look at these terms we are going understand, I hope, more clearly just the nature of what it means to be human, and especially the role of emotions in our humanity.

 

Let's go back to look at the context a little bit. Pick up verse 31, as they've had this argument already amongst themselves as to who is going to be great in the kingdom, Jesus warns them that all of them will stumble that night.

 

Matthew 26:31 NASB  Then Jesus said to them, ÒYou will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, ÔI WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP OF THE FLOCK SHALL BE SCATTERED.Õ

 

We discussed his quote last time and the details there, but what I want to focus on today is what builds from this into the next section. That is that when we have passages related to stumbling, those passages either relate to salvation, that is, there are some who stumbled—the Pharisee stumbled over the gospel that Jesus was the Messiah and that He had come to provide redemption for Israel and for the world. So stumbling can relate to salvation or the phase 1. Phase 2 is what happens after salvation, and that is spiritual growth. And stumbling also refers to what happens in the believer's life as they face certain circumstances, situations in testing, when they stumble and they fail in their spiritual life.

 

Salvation is always based on faith in Christ, and so those who stumble at the gospel refuse to believe in Jesus as their Savior. But in the spiritual life the test is whether or not were going to apply the word of God to our lives through God the Holy Spirit. And what we see in this situation—of course this is before the church age so they don't have the Holy Spirit—is they are going to stumble. They are going to be challenged in terms of their loyalty and their faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ; they're all going to fail, and they are going to fail miserably. But their restoration is foreshadowed by what Jesus says in Matthew 26:32, that after the resurrection, He will see them in Galilee. There will be for failure but it will be followed by forgiveness and restoration to ministry.

 

But in the midst of this statement He then says to Peter in terms of his stumbling, and Peter reacts as Peter does in his in his usual stubbornness. He refuses to believe that he would be one to stumble.

 

And sometimes that's true of us. We think that as we are walking with the Lord we just would not be capable of certain kinds of failure. Yet we are no different from any of these disciples. We are all capable of any kind of failure, even monumental failure, and we are all capable of the same sort of arrogance that characterized Peter and the other disciples and their reaction to the Lord. On the one hand, they want to be loyal. They believe they are loyal, they believe Jesus is who He is. But then when the challenges of life occur and that to testing or temptation occurs, we often are no different from them and we fail—maybe not so magnificent in our failure, but we fail.

 

Peter answers Jesus and he says, "Even if all are made to stumble because of you I will never be made to stumble". Now this is important because this provides a backdrop to what happens in verses 36 to 46. Matthew is drawing our attention to see a contrast between Peter's statement here, that he will not stumble—It is absurd, he thinks, to think that he will stumble—and what actually happens, not only verses 36 to 46, but what will happen when Peter does deny the Lord in verses 69 to 75.

 

Peter says, "Even if all are made to stumble because of you I will never be made to stumble". The verb is SKANDALIZO and has the idea of someone who is moving forward and they trip and fall over something. That can either be the gospel or can be spiritual growth. But what is most significant in understanding this is his first little "if" that it begins with.  He uses what's called a first class condition in the Greek.  In English when we express a condition we just say if—If this; if that— and we have to infer from the context what the speaker is saying. But in Greek there were four different ways to express this kind of condition, and that tells us something.

 

So we have and if where we say if, and the first part of that sentence called the products is the condition, we assume it's to be true. For example, when Satan was tempting Jesus in the wilderness, he said: "If you are the son of God". He uses a first-class condition because he knows that Jesus is the Son of God. Here Peter is using it and says, "Even if all are made to stumble". So he is assuming the truth of the statement for debate's sake. He is saying in effect, "Assuming you are correct, that all are made to stumble, even if that's true, and everybody else stumbles, I won't stumble". And he is adamant about this, and he uses this adverb in the Greek, OUDEPOTE, which means never, ever. It's a very strong word and it's the vocabulary to completely reject the idea that this is possible. So he says I will never ever be made to stumble; this is going to happen to me. It may happen others, but it's not going to happen to me.

 

Then Jesus looked at him and he said: "Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows you will deny me three times". The omniscient, omnipotent Lord tells him no, you are wrong; you're going to deny me three times tonight before the cock crows".

 

But Peter, showing his arrogance, isn't willing to listen to what Jesus says, and in verse 35 Peter says, "Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you". And so said all the disciples. They are just will echo chambers and they're saying, yeah that's right, me too. We will die for you.

 

When Peter says this he changes up the great grammatical construction a little bit and he uses a different way of expressing if. This is a third class condition and he is saying, I may not go this far, but even if it does go this far (the third class condition is maybe it will, maybe it won't; first-class condition was if and it's assumed to be true. Second class condition, if, and it's not assumed to be true, it won't happen. He just saying, well, even if it does go that far, I will not deny you. And this time he uses a different grammatical construction, and in Greek a double negative is a way of expressing something as impossible. He uses two different words for no, OU and ME, he puts them together and he is basically saying, well, even if it goes that far and I have to die with you, it will be impossible for me to deny. He is just adamant that he won't deny the Lord; he states it very strongly. This sets the stage for what is going to happen during the time that Jesus is praying in the garden.

 

Incidentally, remember it is Peter James and John who are up on the Mount of Transfiguration. They are the inner circle is James and John who mama Salome asked: "Who is going to sit on your right and left hand?" This is the inner circle. And it's Peter who said, "I will never ever deny you", and the others echoed him. And it's just going to be about an hour or two later Jesus says: "Watch, y'all are my personal guard; you watch and I'm going to go pray." He comes back and they have fallen asleep. They can't stay awake long enough to not stumble because they just fall asleep on Him. And this happens three times. They can't even stay awake to be with Him the whole way, and it just shows the failure and the flaws and the incapability of man in the flesh to do what we want to do. That's why at the conclusion of this Jesus is going to say that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. We are incapable, and many times we will fail. And throughout this whole episode we see examples of God's grace.

 

Now whenever we talk about denying the Lord this isn't a denial of the gospel; this isn't a denial that will cause a loss of salvation, but even as believers we can deny him. And this takes us to a very important passage in second Timothy chapter 2. As I continue to talk about Matthew 26 there are two major things that go on in this passage from verse 36 down to verse 46. The first is the agony of our Savior. As the author, Matthew has been writing his focus has been to talk about the King in the kingdom. But here is going the talk about the suffering of the King, the Son of Man, in terms of fulfilling His mission to deal with sin, to pay the penalty for sin, and that He who knew no sin is going to be made sin for us. He is going to take our place that the righteousness of God would be found in him.

 

So this section vv. 36-46 focuses first of all on the agony of the Savior, but second on the failure of the disciples; and Matthew is specifically a Gospel that focuses on discipleship, and it's going to end with the command from Jesus to the disciples to go and make disciples.

 

Remember the term disciple is not a synonym for being a believer. A believer is someone who trusts in the gospel. At that instant they are regenerate. At that instant they receive the imputation of righteousness and are declared righteous, and are declared just. At that instant that they believe in the gospel they have eternal life that can never be taken from them. They are born again, so they are a spiritual infant, a spiritual baby, and the issue at that point is whether or not that baby is going to grow or whether that baby is going to be starved to death. And a lot of what happens today is there are a lot of spiritual babies in a lot of churches that are starving to death because they're not being fed. Whether or not you're really fed and you grow is partially your responsibility in terms of your volition. That's the challenge of discipleship. Are you willing to be a student of the Lord Jesus Christ and grow to spiritual maturity? It's not inevitable, it's not going to happen just because God has a plan for your life. It happens because you as a believer decide as the disciples did to follow Jesus. That's discipleship.

 

So the first decision is, are you going to be a believer in Christ and have eternal life? The second decision is are you going to be a disciple and grow to spiritual maturity? And that is a day-by-day decision that every one of us has to face. In our best moments we want to be a disciple, we want to fully serve the Lord. But the reality is we struggle with our own sin nature, and it's a corrupt nature, and often we fail, but we are met with grace and forgiveness, and grace always provides the solution. Sometimes there are those of us that will deny the Lord. We can deny him different ways. You can deny him passively by just not taking a stand for the truth. You can deny him passively by just not putting doctrine first, putting the study of God's Word first, putting the application of God's word first. You have to have doctrine, which is teaching. It's the instruction of God's word. That's what happens Sunday morning Tuesday night Thursday night and anytime you get on the Internet, listen to podcast, whatever that is when you receive the instruction of God's Word.

 

But the instruction of God's Word is not an end in itself; it is the beginning. That's why when Paul is talking in second Timothy 3:16 he says, all Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable, valuable, for what? Teaching doctrine. Doctrine was the word that the King James used. It's instruction.

 

And so we are to learn what the Word of God teaches, and then we go on to apply; that's the process of spiritual growth. When we don't take time to read the Word, to learn the Word, to study the Word, to go in depth in the Word, when we don't take the time; that is one form of denying the Lord. That's a passive form.

 

Then there's the active form, which is what Peter experienced when he is asked if he was a follower of Jesus. He said no, not me, not me, three times.

 

Now we learn about grace when we get over second Timothy chapter two. In second Timothy 2:11-13 Timothy Paul says to Timothy: "It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself".

 

Notice each of the 'ifs'. That's a first-class condition—if and the condition is assumed to be true: For if we died with him, and we did. When did we die with Christ? Romans 6:3, 4. When we believe Jesus died on the cross for our sins, at that instant we are identified with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. We are identified with Him. We die with Him. The old man, Paul says, is dead we are now a new creature in Christ. So every believer dies with Jesus at the instant they trust in Christ as Savior. That's our identification with Him. That's the baptism by the Holy Spirit.

 

If we died with Him we shall also live with Him. So the precondition for eternal life is to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior. When you do you are identified with his death, burial and resurrection. You receive eternal life, and so you're going to live with Him. That applies to everyone who is a believer in Jesus Christ.

 

Then we go from phase one (salvation or justification) to phase two, which is spiritual growth. If we endure, is a first-class condition, assuming that we will endure. We shall also reign with him, i.e. if you grow and mature as a believer, if you endure in the Christian life, then as a result of your ongoing spiritual growth and obedience there are going to be rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. There will be gold, silver and precious stones produced in your life. That's a metaphor for spiritual works produced by the Holy Spirit that have eternal value. And that on that basis we will be rewarded and serve with Him in the kingdom ruling and reigning with Him.

 

So this next stanza says, "if we endure", assuming that we do, then we shall reign with Him. We will have rewards at the judgment seat of Christ, and we will reign with Him in his kingdom, but not everyone is going to endure. There are many believers who fall by the wayside. There are many believers who just don't stick with it. They get distracted by the cares and concerns of life and the details of life and they are not willing to put the study and application of God's Word into practice in their in their life. Career takes precedence—now sometimes everybody's job gets in the way and that's the way it is—but they let their career become the priority as opposed to spiritual life. They don't order their lives around spiritual growth and that is what has to happen. We have to order our lives around the priority, which is to serve the Lord in this life.

 

So for those that don't—either denying Him passively or they deny Him actively by failing to grow—He will deny them. That's what takes place at the judgment seat of Christ, and that doesn't mean that we lose salvation. It means we are denied rewards. There are going to be, according to first 1 Corinthians 3:12 and following, those who show up at the judgment seat of Christ who have all of their works burned up and nothing remains. There is no gold, silver, or precious stones; yet they enter heaven as by fire. There's nothing that came from their life that has eternal value or significance. They failed to grow by their life; they denied the Savior that bought them, even though they are still believers. They will be denied rewards and then the next stanza comes in verse 13.

 

"If we are faithlessÉ" That is not, if we are unbelievers; it is, if we are faithless. That again, is if there is no growth. "É He remains faithful". He is the one who keeps us saved, He is the one who provides for us, He is the one who keeps us in His hand, in His grip, so that we can never lose our salvation. "If we are faithless, he remains faithful; he cannot deny himself." He will not let us go; we can't lose our salvation. We may not have rewards, we may not reign with Him in the kingdom, but we will nevertheless have eternal life and be with Him.

 

So this is the background. We have to come to understand the importance that we do stumble, like Peter and the other disciples, but there is forgiveness and there is restoration, and the idea is to endure to keep going forward and to keep growing. This denial that will take place by the disciples when they stumble is not something that is that causes a loss of salvation, but it is a failure in their spiritual life, and they will be forgiven.

 

Now we understand this context as Matthews explained it. The next thing that happens as Matthew typically does, he says, then, which indicates that chronological progression of events. "Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples sit here while I go and pray over there"—Luke says a stones throw away, so He's going to go about 30 feet or so away where he will have a measure of privacy. There He is going to face His challenge by prayer, by taking it to the Lord in prayer, and struggling in prayer with the circumstances.

 

The term Gethsemane means an olive press. When they would harvest the olives they had a press right there where they would press the olives to make olive oil. Now that's a very interesting process, and the imagery is important because just as the olive olives are pressed and under high pressure to release the oil so Jesus is going to come under intense pressure during this time in Gethsemane.  

 

You have a two basically two different things that are going on. First of all, you have this wheel and they attach a donkey to one end and he walks in circles around the set centerpiece and this wheel goes around. The olives were put in the depression here and the wheel smashes the olives, so you just imagine what that would feel like if you put your hand under that wheel and what that would do to your hand. But this isn't the main process. This just creates the olive mash, and then they take all of that and put that in something like a burlap bag, and then they put that into the olive press itself. That bag is placed in the depression in the middle and there are these channels at the side where the olive oil will come out.

 

Then there is a long horizontal bar. It has basically three or four different vertical supports that hold a weight. You would start off with one weight, and this lowers the bar so that the flat press comes down on the olives, and that produces your first squeeze. That is virgin olive oil. Then you would add more weight to get your second release, and then your third release. The first release is the best.

 

The imagery of Gethsemane is that it is a place where pressure takes place, and this is exactly what is happening with our Lord.

 

Now will take you to two passages as backgrounds to understand this. Hebrews 4:15 NASB "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as {we are, yet} without sin".

 

The word there is the verb PEIRAZO; the noun form is PERIRASMOS. The idea there is this testing of the Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity. He is tested in an every category of testing. The word of PEIRASMOS is sometimes translated temptation, sometimes testing. Testing is something that is objective, something that is presented to you. A temptation often carries the idea of an inner subjective attraction to something. If any of you ever tried to diet, or to stop some bad habit, maybe smoking or something else—I like to use the diet. If you are consistent on your diet, you have eaten correctly, just had a healthy meal, your appetite has been satiated, and then somebody comes in and offers you some ice cream or chocolate cake. You may not be attracted to it. You are full; you are satisfied, it's easy to say no. But it has been three or four hours since you should have had a meal, and you come home and the only thing that's in the refrigerator is a piece of chocolate cake. Now there's something inside of you that is drawing you to eat that piece of cake. That's the subjective aspect, and it's hard for you to say no I'm not going to have it because you're really hungry. If you are not hungry it's really easy to say no.

 

Jesus doesn't have that internal hunger that we experience in temptation because He doesn't have a sin nature, but there is still the objective testing, the offer of that which would be an enticement to sin. This is what happened in the desert when He is when tested by Satan those three times, and it is what is happening in the garden of Gethsemane. Going through the test and the pressure of the past is not sinful. What you do with it is whether or not it is going to be sin. Jesus is going through the testing at this time and He has categorically been tested throughout his life, but one of the most intense tests comes here at the end of his public ministry.

 

Hebrews 2:10 NASB "For it was fitting for Him [God the Father], for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory [that's us], to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings".

 

The Father's plan is to bring us [many sons in the body of Christ] to glory, to maturity, to be this company of believers who will rule and reign with the Messiah in the kingdom. So it's fitting for him in bringing many sons to glory, "to make their captain/author of their salvation [Jesus] perfect"—TELEIOS doesn't mean perfect, it means mature, to make Him mature. How? Through sufferings. So that testing that Jesus is experiencing in the garden of Gethsemane, the pressure that He is under as He anticipates being made sin the next day on our behalf, is intense. And this is probably the highest past that He experienced in His life.

 

In Matthew 26:37 and the parallel Mark 14:32-33 were told how this impacted Jesus emotionally. That is something we don't always think about. Somehow we think that that Jesus is just all rational. But He is a human being. He has emotions just like we do. And this gives us a profound picture of His emotions as the perfect sinless God-Man. That is important because sometimes we think that if you have these emotions you have already sinned. Having these emotions is obviously not sin because Jesus had these emotions. It's what you do with them.

 

Three words are used in these two passages.

 

Matthew 26:37 NASB "And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed." These are intense words.

 

Mark 14:32, 33 NASB  "They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, 'Sit here until I have prayed.' And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled."

 

The words "deeply distressed" are the same in both passages, but "sorrowful" and "troubled" are two different words that indicate the intensity of the emotion.

 

Luke tells us this:

 

Luke 22:39 NASB "And He came out and proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. [40] When He arrived at the place, He said to them, 'Pray that you may not enter into temptation.'" This is the noun form of the verb that we saw in Hebrews—PEIRASMOS. [41] And He withdrew from them about a stoneÕs throw, and He knelt down and {began} to pray, [42] saying, 'Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done'.Ó

 

Jesus is praying, in his perfect humanity: "Lord, I really don't want to do this." This is not attractive; this is not something that's going to make Him feel good. That is the struggle. We see this picture of the struggle that takes place in that process of testing, and He doesn't sin. How does he handle it? He handles it through prayer and constant dependence on the Lord's provision.

 

Now Matthew 26:37, when it says he began to be sorrowful, that's the Greek word LUPEO, which is the same word the Paul uses in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, that at the time of death we grieve, but not like those who have no hope. So there is a difference between the sorrow an unbeliever has and the sorrow a believer has, but they both have sorrow. There are a lot of Christians that say, You know, if I'm walking with the Lord I'm going to have the joy of the Lord, and I'm not going to be sad or depressed or discouraged. And that's just that's just blasphemy; that's is heresy and it's going to create all kinds of unrealistic expectations about living the Christian life.

 

Jesus is sorrowful, and that word means to grieve, to be sad, to be sorrowful, and the word that is connected to it is the word ADEMONEO, translated "deeply distressed". It means to be under a heavy burden. He is weighed down. He is feeling the weight of what is about to happen, just like you and I do when we face certain issues and situations in life—we just get weighed down by them. Feeling that weight is not sin, that's reality of living in a sinful world. It's what we do with it that is important. This word LUPEO is used in the Septuagint in passages such as Psalm 42:5, 6 which many think is at least the background to what's going on in the garden of Gethsemane, and at least a type of the Messiah, were David says, "Why are you cast down, O my soul". And that is the word LUPEO. Why are you grieving? Why are you sad? Why do you feel this way? Why are you disquieted within me?

 

What's the solution? "É Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him {For} the help of His presence."

 

That is how we work through the emotion. The emotion is not the sin until we say, "I'm just going to wallow in it. I'm just going to let that dictate what I do, and that's going to be my excuse for all the other sin."

 

Psalm 42:6 NASB O my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar." He is feeling sorrowful, but he is turning to God for the solution.

 

Mark 14:33 uses that same word ODEMONEO but he uses a different word "troubled", the word EKTHAMBEO, which means to be moved to a relatively intense emotional state because of something causing great surprise or perplexity.

 

Now Jesus is not facing a surprise or perplexity, but He is facing an intense situation where He is going to be made sin on our behalf the next day. The righteous second person of the Trinity is going to receive the imputation of our sin the next day. And this is something that in His righteousness He shrinks back from, because He is perfectly holy and righteous.

 

Isaiah 53:3 relates to this: "He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him". We can relate to that. What we have to relate to is His solution and not our solution.

 

Jesus in the garden provides a profound pattern for us. We don't turn to the psychology of Freud and we don't turn to the modern psychology of all of all the different solutions that man comes up with on the basis of his limited empiricism. What we have to do is look at the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not this psychology of modern man; it's biblical psychology. The word psychology means the study of the soul, and what the Bible gives us is an accurate picture of how God created the soul and how it is impacted by the adversities of life. No human being ever faced the kind of pressure on their soul that Jesus did. Nobody ever experienced it like Jesus did. If He can handle it through the Word and the provision of God's grace, so can we. And so we have to take this apart and really come to understand what's happening here in Gethsemane.

Slides