Nevertheless - Series Finale

Big Ideas

Temptation of Self-Promotion

Temptation of Self-Preservation

Temptation of Personal Prerogative

Isn’t it amazing that Satan’s plan of destruction is God’s plan for salvation?

INTRO

Grateful Ryan asked me to speak

Ryan brag:

Preaching every weekend is difficult — in order to know what a community needs to hear, you need to spend deep, intentional time in your community.

In order to to know what you need to preach, you need to spend an equal amount of time with God in prayer.

This is all BEFORE you ever put pen to paper.

People ask me about Overland and why I’m here. Multiple reasons, but I describe Ryan in 3 ways.

I say that Ryan is humble

I say that Ryan trusts his team

I say that Ryan is a 6’5” red-head that laughs inappropriately loud in public place.

My last season of ministry didn’t have many leaders that can be described that way, and so while Overland is entirely different than what I’m used to, it has been profoundly healing for me.

Those qualities are why we’re in this series

Ryan takes a lot of grief from me. I would describe myself as a “refiner”. I like to increase efficiency. Quality. I pay attention to the details.

Ryan would describe me as “annoying”

In fact, here’s a little glimpse into our relationship.

TEXT MESSAGE PHOTOS

I can be annoying, and one time I was annoying Ryan and suggesting that original music should be a part of the identity of Overland, and Ryan was

1. Humble enough to listen to be pester him about it

2. Gave me enough trust to run with it and God-willing, do more of it in the future.

In case you’ve missed it, we’ve release a song. It was written after my second visit to Overland — February 12 Ryan preached a sermon titled Nevertheless, and the day after Easter 2023, I got together with a friend and wrote the song.

Now that the song has been out for a week, we’ve had a number of messages come in from pastor friends, worship leader friends, friends-friends… and the sentiment has been very similar. “I can’t believe at Overland’s age, you’ve already released a song!”

Also, “that guy singing sucks!”

We’ve also had people ask, “why do you guys do original music?”

Here’s the heart (and it’s related to our series): Living a “nevertheless” kind of life, where we’re willing to die to personal preference and submit to God’s, we’re going to need a good memory and a fresh vocabulary.

1. Songs help us celebrate and remember the work that God’s doing in our community.

2. Songs give us a fresh language to fight against the discouragement, the lies, the doubt that we confront daily. You’ve probably heard that “praise is weapon” and if the enemy we’re fighting is a liar, than the weapon we’re fighting with is the truth. And the truth is that God is for us, and beside us, and he’s worth every bit of praise we can offer Him.

BACKGROUND + PASSAGE

I don’t preach a ton, and in the past when I have, it’s typically been to middle and high schoolers so it’s often wrought with memes and fart references, and while I don’t think all of our humor is too sophisticated for fart references, I really want to focus on the passage today and I really want to focus on practical outcomes.

Not that there’s not times for really clever messages, or really topical messages, but this passage is 1. foundational to our faith and lives 2. incredibly dense.

The song “Nevertheless” was written about Jesus prayer in the garden.

Jesus is in the garden. He is fully aware of the pain and torture he’s about to endure. His full humanness and his full “godness” have competing motivations. He’s in so much agony he’s sweating blood. And instead of retreating to stay focused on himself, he continually goes to warn his disciples about the temptation they were about to face.

There were a lot of threats, forces, and temptations at hand that Jesus would have had total reason to warn against. The church leaders sold him out. Rome was coming to arrest him. There was an angry mob ready to help execute him, and YET… the warning WAS NOT against.

Enemies

Weapons

Immigrants and outsiders

WAS

Selfishness

Pride

Greed

Jesus doesn’t say that outright in Luke, so we’re going to look at how we can make that conclusion.

PRAY

OPEN BIBLES

We’ll be in Luke 22 — Luke is towards the back of your Bible. New testament, and it’s one of the 4 gospels. We’ll be in chapter 22.

Context

Tail-end of Jesus’ 3 years of public ministry

If you feel like you haven’t stepped into the fullness of your calling yet, remember that for 91% of Jesus’ earthly life, he lived in anonymity and preparation.

Trajectory of Jesus ministry leading up to the cross was a bell curve.

Luke 22 opens, and two things are happening:

Judas is meeting with religious leaders to betray him

The disciples are preparing for passover

Everyone comes back together, and they’re taking part in the Lord’s Supper which we’ve been doing for 2,000 years now — you know it as communion.

In very Jesus fashion of speaking the unspoken and making people uncomfortable sometimes, they’re ending this nice meal… everyone had some good wine. Some good bread. They’re probably moving on from the wine to a local Galilean IPA, they’re making jokes, and Jesus says this:

Luke 22:20-21 This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you. 21 “But here at this table, sitting among us as a friend, is the man who will betray me.

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of another couple fighting? And it’s super uncomfortable? I have to imagine this dinner felt similar.

For the men: do you have any memories of your wife using your full name in front of your kids? It reminded me of this TikTok trend right now where when all of the family is together, the wife comes into the room using the husbands full name.

TIKTOK VIDEO

So all the family is together, the evening is going great, and Jesus gets straight to the plot. There is someone sitting at this table right now who will betray me.

Feel the tension here.

Brothers. Lived together on the road for 3 years. It’s the last time all of them will be together like this, and Jesus cuts the festivities to “there’s a snake at the table.” MORE THAN THAT, he calls out his plan.

We won’t see Judas again until the garden, so let’s jump there.

Verse 39 — this is where the song comes from.

New Living Translation (Chapter 22)

39 Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives. 40 There he told them, “Pray that you will not give in to temptation.”41 He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. NEVERTHELESS, not my will but yours be done.” 43 Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. 44 He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.45 At last he stood up again and returned to the disciples, only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief. 46 “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation.”

And so we get to the question: What temptation is Jesus so concerned with?

As the kingdom of God is nearing. As the fulfillment of thousands of years of prophecy is about to be fulfilled. As he is about to leave physically, and leave the progress of his legacy and mission forward to humanity… he’s concerned that we’re going to be more concerned with ourselves than the God we serve.

He’s concerned we’re going to be tempted with Self-Preservation

That seems so simple doesn’t it?

That rings so TRUE, doesn’t it?

How do we get to this conclusion? Well, let’s let the Bible speak for itself.

The easiest way to pull this out of the text is just to look at Jesus himself. He’s waking the disciples up, telling them to do what he’s doing! If you want to live like Jesus, start with doing what Jesus does. He’s saying the hour is drawing near, fulfillment is coming, and you need to be praying. Praying what?

Well.. let’s look at what Jesus was praying.

New Living Translation (Chapter 22)

41 He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done.”

Jesus is telling them to pray against the very temptation JESUS is praying against. What temptation?

“Father, please take this cup of suffering away from me!”

Jesus knows what temptation is going to be detrimental to humanity because Jesus is both fully God and fully human!

Jesus isn’t the only one who’s struggled with self-preservation in this chapter.

The first and most obvious is Judas. Let’s jump back to the beginning of this chapter:

New Living Translation Chapter 22

The Festival of Unleavened Bread, which is also called Passover, was approaching. 2 The leading priests and teachers of religious law were plotting how to kill Jesus, but they were afraid of the people’s reaction.

3 Then Satan entered into Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve disciples, 4 and he went to the leading priests and captains of the Temple guard to discuss the best way to betray Jesus to them. 5 They were delighted, and they promised to give him money. 6 So he agreed and began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus so they could arrest him when the crowds weren’t around.

I think the first way we work to preserve ourselves is WE PLAY GOD

There are some distinctives about God that set him apart from every other God in the old world.

The first is that YHWY was unique in that he was CREATOR God. Other God’s were worship for the ability to manipulate existing matter, but only our God had the claim to making matter from nothing.

The other distinctive is that he assigns value. After creating, God assigned value and that value was “good.” “Complete.” But nothing was as good or as complete as humanity. Only you are deemed by God as “Very good” and as “made in the image of God.”

And what does Judas do? He assumes that role. He sells out. He declares the value of the life of Jesus, and he deemed that value to be 30 pieces of silver (probably around $350 in todays money).

And we look at Judas like he is Satan himself. Verse 3, “Then Satan entered into Judas Iscariot...” The biblical authors couldn’t even fathom a world where Judas would do something like this outside of the influence of Satan himself.

But remember, Judas has placed his desire and will above God’s and this is the temptation Jesus is warning the disciples (and us) about, so I ask “Is Judas that unique?”

This isn’t new. This is the original sin. This is the original temptation. This is the result of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We decide what is right, what is ethical, and most importantly we assume the role of assigning value. We take what should be God’s and try to do it better ourselves.

And so I ask you, “What value have you assigned God?”

I think there’s some ways we can find out.

1. The easiest one is monetary: Do you give? Yes to Overland, but I’ll broaden it even beyond that… do you give anywhere? Where your treasure is there your heart will be also, so where’s your treasure?

Are you more concerned with your retirement years than you are your eternity? AKA have you deemed God less valuable than your 401k?

2. Here’s another one: What’s your calendar look like? The latest surveys say that 10% of Christians get in the word of God daily. I just got home from 4 days away at a conference, and I am SO behind on work. Like, sweat blood in agony behind on work… but as soon as service is done, I’m going to take Lauren out for some dinner. We make time for what we value, so I’ll ask - what value have you placed on God with your time?

3. Church community. Genesis explanation. Not good that Adam is alone.. but Adam wasn’t alone. He had the ultimate relationship with God… one that was physical! And yet God deemed it not good. Is weekly church attendance… is gathering with other believers a part of your routine? God has deemed it valuable… do you?

I’m genuinely not condemning anyone for their answer to those questions, but they’re genuine questions we have to ask. My take is that we think Judas is the worst of the worst, but if I’m honest, I look in the mirror sometimes and feel like I might as well have sold Jesus out myself.

The next way we preserve self is that we WE PLAY DUMB

New Living Translation Chapter 22

33 Peter said, “Lord, I am ready to go to prison with you, and even to die with you.”

34 But Jesus said, “Peter, let me tell you something. Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.”

A little while later Jesus is arrest in the garden.

New Living Translation Chapter 22

54 So they arrested him and led him to the high priest’s home. And Peter followed at a distance. 55 The guards lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat around it, and Peter joined them there. 56 A servant girl noticed him in the firelight and began staring at him. Finally she said, “This man was one of Jesus’ followers!”

57 But Peter denied it. “Woman,” he said, “I don’t even know him!”

58 After a while someone else looked at him and said, “You must be one of them!”

“No, man, I’m not!” Peter retorted.

59 About an hour later someone else insisted, “This must be one of them, because he is a Galilean, too.”

60 But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.

61 At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Suddenly, the Lord’s words flashed through Peter’s mind: “Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.” 62 And Peter left the courtyard, weeping bitterly.

Isn’t it nice being a Jesus follower when it’s easy. When miracles are happening. When people are getting healed and getting saved. When your marriage is going great. When your kids are still talking to you. When the checks keep clearing.

It’s much more difficult when it requires sacrifice. When it loses you friends or family. When it requires personal sacrifice… financial sacrifice… sacrifice in your calendar… sacrifice in your habits.

Again, I can’t help but see myself in Peter. Jesus has just been arrested. One of your best friends is the one who betrayed him. A mob shows up to arrest him and would shortly beat him.. spit on him.. denounce him.

And now that same mob is noticing you… “Weren’t you one of his followers? Surely you are. I’ve seen you before.”

Pray against temptation. Father “not my will but yours be done.”

Isn’t it ironic that early in his relationship with the disciples, Jesus said this in Matthew 16:

New Living Translation Chapter 16

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. 26 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?

And now Peter is here, doing everything he can to avoid the personal cost of landing on a cross himself. I can’t say I’d have the faith to do any different.

You know one of my favorite things about Peter?

He couldn’t resist the temptation

He did exactly what Jesus prophesied he would do

Jesus didn’t give up on him

Peter and Judas... two disciples who decided their self-preservation was more valuable than the life of Jesus. They took very similar paths. They had very different outcomes.

We know Judas would go on to ultimately kill himself. He gave up. His 30 pieces of silver probably ran out. His grief was too much. His guilt was too much. And instead of humbly coming back home like the prodigal son, he saw no path to redemption.

Peter encounters Jesus again. And just like the three times Peter denied Jesus, Jesus asked him three times “Do you love me?” And three times Peter said yes.

Peter used to be Simon. Earlier in his ministry, Jesus gave Simon a new name and said “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”

God’s given you a new name. I believe he’s given you a new purpose. He’s put a fresh calling on your life. And spoiler alert? Your going to fail. Jesus knows it. He’s warning you “pray against the temptation to value your life and your will above mine” and still we do it anyway, but the WORST mistake you can make is thinking that you’re too far gone to come back.

I’m convinced that if Judas hadn’t have killed himself, Jesus would’ve forgiven him. The right response to running away is coming back home. And no matter how far you’ve gone, or how long you’ve been running.. it’s not to late.

How do you start? Well let’s start with the way Jesus ended: “God I want you to take this cup from me, but NEVERTHELESS not my will but yours.”