Reverence and Relationship
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Matthew 26:36-46
Matthew 26:36-46
Good morning, CCMP!
I am so thankful that you have decided to join us this morning!
If you are a visitor, we ask that you fill out one of the connection cards in the back of the seat in front of you and put it in the offering bucket. We would love to send you a thank you for joining us note and see if you have any questions about the church.
My name is Brian McDowell and I am blessed to be the pastor of Connection Church at MP. Make sure to say hello before you leave today.
The last couple of weeks we have been asking some questions.
Two weeks ago, we asked the question, how did God intend to have a relationship with mankind? How did He design it? and we looked back to the garden of Eden and looked at how God created us to dwell with Him.
Last week, we asked the question, what went wrong? Sin went wrong. Sin separated mankind from having a relationship with God and still hinders us today.
This morning, we are going to look at the relationship that Jesus had with His Father and how we are called to have the same kind of relationship with God that He had.
The message is titled, the balance of reverence and relationship.
AW Tozer, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
He goes on to talk about how our view of God and our relationship with Him effects how we live our lives, how we view ourselves, and how we interact with others in this world.
I believe this to be true.
If our perspective of God is incorrect, we are worshipping a false identity of who He is!
Our views of the Lord must be based on God’s Word and Jesus’ life.
I believe that Jesus has a view and relationship with His Father that balanced reverence and relationship.
Now, I want you to imagine a pendulum. A weight on a string.
Now a pendulum can be pushed to extremes if you keep messing with it and touching it.
But a pendulum will come to rest in the balance of the extremes if you just stop touching it.
In our example this morning, we are going to be talking about how mankind can push our views of God and our relationship with Him to extremes.
And in our example this morning is the extremes of reverence or the extreme of reverence. Over-emphasis at the expense of the other has caused denominational divides for centuries.
But I believe there is a balance that can be found in Jesus’ live that we are called to live in. In the balance of reverence and relationship.
Let us read our text this morning and see the balance of the two that Jesus had in His life.
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
Luke’s Gospel says that Jesus was so torn between what He wanted and what the Father wanted that His sweat became like drops blood dripping to the ground.
Here in a different garden, I believe we see Jesus walk in the balance of reverence and relationship with His Father in one of the hardest moments to do so.
A moment that Jesus knew He was about to not only face horrible physical torture and pain, but He was also about to experience the full depths of the wrath of God poured out on Him and the worst part, separation from His Father.
Horrible pain and suffering, division between Himself and the Father!
Jesus is trying to balance how to respond, how to be obedient to His Father’s will knowing that all of this would be happening to Him.
Let us first look at the reverence Jesus showed to His Father.
Jesus’ Reverence
Jesus’ Reverence
Our text says that Jesus was so grieved by this perspective suffering and separation that He was desperate to get alone with His Father to pray.
And when he did, He fell on His face.
That is a violent action. Jesus crumbled before His Father.
In humility and reverence for His Father and Jesus’ life that was fully devoted to obedience to Him, Jesus falls on His face in respect for who He was talking to!
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.
In this moment, Jesus was not being irreverent to came before God and ask Him to change His mind about the path that He had to walk.
Hebrews tells us that because of His reverence for God, God listened to His prayer.
But Jesus’ reverence for His Father and who He is lead Him to be obedient still to the Father’s command.
Jesus knew who His Father was and that His commands were to be obeyed.
He said, “But not My will but Your’s be done.”
He knew that the Father’s will was right and good, even through He was going to have to suffer, physically and spiritually!
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Jesus’ humility to His Father’s will led to absolute obedience. There was not an option for Jesus in the garden that He even considered disobedience. But He asked His Father to change His will and then He would be obedient to that changed will!
The Father listened to His request because of His reverence but His will was not to be changed. His path for salvation was not to be changed.
I want you to think about that, Jesus is God in the flesh. He knew how long they had been planning this mission. He knew that God designed this plan for Jesus to die on the cross since before sin even entered into the world. He knew that it was the only way that salvation would be offered to the world.
He knew that He was the only way to the Father. He knew that His blood was going to mean the salvation of mankind and restoration of a relationship between God and man.
He is God and He knew all of this.
And yet,
Jesus’ Relationship
Jesus’ Relationship
Jesus knew that He had an intimate relationship with His Father that He could come freely to ask Him to change His mind, to find another path for His will to be accomplished.
He was so sure of His relationship with the Father and had such intimacy with Him that He knew that He could make such a huge request. If disobedience wasn’t an option and that if He approached the Father in reverence, God would hear and consider His prayer.
Wow, that is a powerful level of relationship with God.
Now, right before this prayer in the garden, Jesus gives His disciples His final message and prayer for them.
John captures this in chapters 14-17 of his gospel. We call it Jesus’ farewell discourse.
In it Jesus talks about over and over again about His relationship with His Father. The intimacy that they had.
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.
I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Previously, Jesus said, I can not do anything unless I see my Father doing it. and I can say nothing without my Father telling me first.
I want you to see the level of relationship necessary for these verses to be true!
Jesus got alone with the Father, was led by the Spirit, and saw the Father moving and listened to what the Father was saying.
That is a deep intimate relationship with God!
Do you see the balance of reverence and relationship that Jesus had with His Father?
Jesus knew who the Father was and that His will and commands were to be obeyed absolutely.
Yet, He knew that He had a deep intimate relationship with His Father that in reverence, He could ask the Father to led Him down a different path.
But His life had proved that He would only do what His Father told Him to and say only what the He told Him to say.
Jesus’ example in His life for a balance between reverence to God and deep, intimate relationship with God.
Now, we, as followers of Jesus are called to have the same relationship with God.
Jesus prayed for it!
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
We are called to have same level of reverence and relationship that Jesus had with God.
Our problem is that humans love to mess with the balance and pendulum.
Religion has most often over-emphasized either reverence or relationship at the expense of the other.
There are denominations that so over emphasize the reverence aspect of our view of God that they teach that we can not pray to God ourselves for forgiveness. That we need to go through a person or saints to do that!
Even in other denominations, there is an emphasis put on the legalistic demands of obedience to rules, restrictions and regulations and never teach or talk about the intimate relationship with God available to us through Christ!
They never talk about how we can approach the throne of God confidently in our time of need.
Unfortunately, many have been mislead by this type of teaching and believe that the way to eternal life is through keeping the commands, doing all of the things but never knowing God.
Jesus said in Matthew 7,
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Jesus basically said, if you over-emphasize doing and reverence to the point that you don’t have a relationship with me or know me, then you have missed the point!
Yet, on the other end of the extremes is the emphasis on relationship without reverence.
Growing up, this was the seeker-sensitive movement. When I was in youth group, it was Jesus is my homeboy. Jesus is my buddy and friend. Or the bumper sticker, Jesus is my co-pilot.
There has been a tread and denominations that over-emphasize relationship with Jesus at the expense of never talking about sin, obedience, reverence, fear of the Lord or being willing to sell all of your processions to follow Jesus.
Out of fear of rejection and sounding legalistic, we have watered down the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We talk about Jesus being our Lord and Savior yet we never talk about making Him the LORD of your life means surrendering your life and following Him!
Jesus said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
He also said, Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Take up His cross daily, die to self. Die to your desires and obey what I tell you to do and say what I tell you to say. Just like I did in my life, you must do as well!
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
That about sums it up!
If you say, “I know Jesus! I prayed a prayer years ago when I was a kid.” But there is no evidence in your life of keeping His commands in your life, if you have never walked in the same way that Jesus walked, you have to ask the question, am I truly abiding with Him?
I’m not saying this to scare you or make you question your salvation. I’m saying this because Jesus walked in submission to God’s will and with great reverence and He was God in the flesh!
He did that to show us how we should walk! With great reverence and obedience to God’s instructions and commands.
He also showed us in His life the depth of intimacy and knowing God that is available to us!
How can we say what He wants us to say like Jesus, or do what the He wants us to do apart from a intimate relationship
