Not My Will But Yours

Introduction:

You’ve no doubt heard the expression “between a rock and a hard place” before.

I was curious where that phrase came from. It is a pretty basic expression that doesn’t need a history lesson to understand, but it is still interesting to know how certain phrases came to be in our language.

It turns out that the expression gained popularity during the Great Depression in the 1930s. It comes from the financial hardships that people faced where they had to choose between going hungry or having clothes.

The rock and the hard place describes two unequally bad situations.

That is really where all of us as Adam’s descendants found ourselves before Christ came. We were sinners which meant separation from God and a future of eternal punishment in Hell. We couldn’t save ourselves.

We might say that the things we wanted to do we didn’t do like Paul in Romans 7, but the truth is that before we had Christ, we didn’t want to do anything good. Our desires were sinful, always.

Jesus came to the earth for this very reason. He had to be like us to sympathize with us as our great High Priest so that we could come to Him and receive His help, and He had to die for us and experience God’s wrath upon Himself so that we did not have to.

In fact, we could not endure God’s wrath on our own.

This morning we are going to travel back to the Garden of Gethsemane and see Jesus pouring out His soul to the Father. He was between a rock and a hard place. He could not save us and save Himself, so He chose to give His life for you and me.

Matthew 26:36–46 ESV

36 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.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 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.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. 45 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. 46 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

Pray

As we go through this passage together, I am going to first give you some principles for when you and I face temptation and the difficulties of obeying God in this world. What doe we do when we are called to surrender our will to that of the Father and do hard things?

However, I don’t want to leave us there. I want us to not become so self-absorbed that we only look at the Scriptures for what we can gain for ourselves from them.

We must see Christ.

We must see His humanity as He was broken for us.

We must see His relationship with His Father and see how that carried Him through the darkest hour and trial of His life.

We must see how much He loves us.

1. Go to God for Strength (v.36-38)

Matthew 26:36–38 ESV

36 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.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”

Jesus went to Gethsemane

Means place of the Oil Press

Jesus would be pressed and poured out soon and here it was that He would be pressing out His soul in agonizing prayer

Jesus often went here with the Disciples (this is why Judas knew were to go)

He went with friends

He went to pray and gained strength

It is interesting that His body lost strength in some way. He was so agonized over what He was to face that His sweat became like drops of blood

Compare Jesus with others who willingly faced death

Jesus was not afraid of death (knowledge of what happens and what is on the other side, takes away the fear of death)

Jesus was about to face the wrath of God (He was about to endure Hell for all of the elect)

Jesus was about to experience the Father turning His face away

Explanation of “face to face” as a term of relationship

God can never truly separate from the Son, but Jesus became sin for us and God turned His displeasure on the Son for our sins, even as He accepted the offering of the Son for our sins

We to often don’t feel this separation from God when we sin because we’ve become used to it.

The Puritan preacher, John Owen, said,

“If we neglect communion with God, we shall quickly lose the sense of it.”

Illustration

So many of us have so long been separated from communion with God that we do not know what it is for us to have it broken. To miss fellowship with God would be like us not getting to eat Brussel sprouts or takin cod liver oil.

St. John of the Cross describes the “dark night of the soul” as:

A painful, purifying season in which God removes the believer’s emotional comforts so that faith rests on God alone.

Jesus went through this dark night on that night in the Garden, and you and I, if we follow Christ, will go through these dark nights as well.

However, what gets us to morning is fellowship with God in prayer.

Application

When we are facing the dark night of the soul, we must come to the garden of prayer and fellowship there with the Father.

We must bring our needs to Him and remember that Christ knows what we are going through and what we need.

God will send His ministering spirits to us to help us in our time of need.

2. Rest in the Sovereign Will of God (v.39)

Matthew 26:39 ESV

39 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.”

Jesus asked the Father if there was another way, but knew that there was not.

He asked in order that we might know that Jesus is the only way to the Father.

Jesus resolved that God’s will must be done and not His own.

Application:

Have you surrendered your will to that of your Heavenly Father’s?

I have mentioned this before, but I think it is important to say it again. Henry Blackaby in his study, “Experiencing God” points out that God never gives us His plan B

Plan B is for when Plan A fails. We might wish for the best of the best, but we settle for less and take plan B.

God never gives us His second best, only the best. That means that whatever we are going through, was personally selected as God’s best for you and me.

We must surrender to the fact that God knows what is best for us.

Jesus surrendered to the fact that God’s plan was not for His own happiness, but that we might be one with God and have fellowship with the Son through the Spirit.

Jesus was not on a happiness crusade, but on one for our holiness.

What about you? Do you care more about your happiness than God’s holiness?

Do you care more about your best life now or about the kingdom of God and bringing lost souls safely to the heavenly harbor?

3. Resolve to Obey (v.41-42)

Matthew 26:41–42 ESV

41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak

We may have a desire for holiness, but the only way to achieve it is through a life of prayer. Prayer activates the work of the Holy Spirit in us by communion with the Father.

Jesus said He came to do the will of the one who sent Him (John 6:38).

John 6:38 ESV

38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

JC Ryle, Holiness

He must fight the flesh. Even after conversion, he carries within him a nature prone to evil, and a heart weak and unstable as water. That heart will never be free from imperfection in this world, and it is a miserable delusion to expect it. To keep that heart from going astray, the Lord Jesus bids us “watch and pray.” The spirit may be ready, but the flesh is weak. There is need of a daily struggle and a daily wrestling in prayer. “I keep under my body,” cries St. Paul, “and bring it into subjection.” “I see a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity.” “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” “Mortify your members which are upon the earth.”

You and I must take action and fight to be holy.

We have to enter the war

We have to resolve before temptation comes to obey God

If we wait until the temptation, we will fall for the bait of Satan. He is a deceptive enemy

He that will play with Satan’s bait, will quickly be taken with Satan’s hook.

Thomas Brooks

Satan is very clever; he knows exactly what bait to use for every place in which he fishes.

Arthur Pink

4. Take Action (v.45)

Matthew 26:45 ESV

45 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.

Jesus said that the time for praying was over and now it was time for action.

Jesus faces His task and approaches the soldiers and Judas

Application

We can pray for so long and then the time comes that we must act.

Once we know what God has called us to do, we must then get to work

Doing the will of God is sometimes the hardest part of knowing the will of God.

What keeps you from doing the Lord’s will?

Is it that you are afraid?

Is it that you are unsure?

Is it that you have not spent the needed time in prayer?

Conclusion

It would be easy to make this a message about what we need to do when faced with stress or trying times in our lives. But the point of the passage is not us. We are not the center of everything.

All of the Bible points to Christ.

I want us to close by considering again the scene before us. Would you close your eyes for a moment and see Jesus on that dark night.

See Him throw his body down in agonizing prayer.

See Him wrestle with facing the wrath of God to be poured out on Him for our sins.

See His sweat become drops of blood.

See Him ask His Father for mercy, knowing that He cannot have mercy and save us.

See Him submit and obey.

Now, after seeing this, would you scorn the sacrifice that Jesus made for you?

Would you dare trample the precious sacrifice that Jesus made thinking that there was another way and the Father did not let His Son escape?

Turn to Christ and be saved.

Look on Jesus and weep over your sin and turn to Him in faith.