The King Is -- Our Submissive Lamb -- 03/28/2021

The King is our Submissive Lamb

March 28, 2021

“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36, NIV)

Like last week, I will use only one image slide for the sermon. For those of you who like to take notes, let me give you the broad flow of today’s message on one slide. You can make some quick notes. I will not make a point of saying when we are moving from one point to another. Here’s the general flow of today’s message:

• The King is A Lamb (Review of series)

• Our Submissive Lamb (introduction)

• Engaging Suffering Like Jesus

• Abba, Father

• Everything is possible with you

• Take this cup from me

• Yet not what I will

• But what you will

• What does this mean for us?

THE KING IS A LAMB

To this point in our series, we have seen Jesus, our King-Lamb enter Jerusalem with a heavy heart. Jesus has a heavy heart because the evil and perversity of his generation blinded people, so that while they shout, “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”, they do not understand who he is and what he is doing. The way out of this confusion is remaining in Jesus and his word remaining in us. Next, we saw King Jesus as our Unblemished Lamb through the image of the Passover Lamb in Exodus 12. Through this image we saw that God requires perfection we don’t deliver, then makes us perfect in Jesus so that as individuals, as families, and as a church family, we do His will and bring Him glory by living where we live and doing what He daily gives us to do. Last Sunday, through the Words of the prophet Isaiah, we saw King Jesus as our Suffering Lamb. This suffering Lamb “was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Today, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see that King Jesus is . . .

OUR SUBMISSIVE LAMB

Mark unfolds for us a dramatic story taking us to the moment of Jesus’ betrayal. In this story, Mark intends to contrast Jesus’ faithfulness to the Father’s will with His disciple’s inability to fulfill Jesus’ command to share in his suffering by watching and praying with him.

The action of the drama unfolds like this: Jesus commands his disciples to watch and pray with him. Jesus leaves them to pray. When Jesus returns, he finds his disciples asleep. Finally, Jesus steps into his hour of suffering alone as his disciples flee in fear.

In John 16:33, Jesus tells us, “In this world you will have trouble.” The Greek word translated “trouble” carries the sense of distress, an oppressive state of physical, mental, social, or economic adversity. In other words, Jesus tells us that we can expect distress in every dimension of life. In Mark 13, Jesus tells his disciples that we can expect trouble specifically because we are his disciples. Jesus told them, “Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus shows us how to engage suffering for God’s glory and our wellbeing. The Good News is that when we give ourselves to the Father’s will, our suffering transforms us into the image of Jesus.

ENGAGING SUFFERING LIKE JESUS . . .

. . . will change our entire approach to life. Our life shifts when with all our heart we cry out . . .

Abba, Father

Jesus falls to the ground and prays that this hour of suffering might pass from him. Jesus cries out, “Abba, Father”. This intimate and distinctive way of addressing God teaches us the importance of having an intimate relationship with God before we suffer.

Jews called God their Father, but they rarely addressed God has their Father in prayer. Yet, Jesus addresses God as his personal Father, signifying his intimate relationship with God the Father. Even more radical, Jesus taught his disciples to address God in prayer as their personal Father. This revolutionary way to pray stresses God is not in the distance, vaguely aware of us and our needs. We have a Father in Heaven that knows us personally, who loves us deeply, and who is attentive to us. Our foundation for moving positively through suffering is an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father, which we bring to our suffering.

Because Jesus has an intimate foundation with the Father, he knows who God is. He knows . . .

Everything is possible with God

This absolute confidence in the sovereign power of God teaches us the importance of knowing and trusting the sovereign power of God before we suffer.

Nothing is impossible for God. Jesus promised his disciples in Mark chapter 10 God would do the impossible, by bringing the least likely persons into his Kingdom. Jesus told them, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Amazed, the disciples asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus responded, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Jesus then predicts his death and says, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus knows it is God’s will to bring the least likely persons into the Kingdom of God through his death and resurrection. Yet, when the hour of personal suffering is upon him, Jesus imperatively prays,

Take this cup from me

Jesus’ pointed request challenges the known will of God. This teaches us that there is no request, no struggle we cannot bring to our heavenly Father.

Commentator Craig Evans points out this must be the authentic cry of Jesus. No pious Christian writing to put a favorable spin on Jesus would mention Jesus struggling with the will of the Father and seeking an alternative that did not involve his personal suffering. Here we do not see God pretending to be human, but God in human flesh struggling with the horrible pain and suffering coming to him. Beyond this, the cup Jesus wants taken away is not simply the horror of death, but the horror of the wrath of God for the sin of all humankind that will fall on him.

“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Now, in the garden, we hear the cry of a faithful servant,

Yet not what I will

It was Jesus’ will that His Father take from his hands this cup of wrath and suffering. Nevertheless, Jesus lays aside his own will. An intimate relationship with the Father, which leads us to trust our Father’s sovereign goodness and power, enables us to lay aside our will when the moment of suffering comes.

In Mark Chapter 8, Jesus taught his disciples that the religious leaders will reject and kill him, but He will rise again. Upon hearing this, Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked him. Looking at all his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” In setting aside his will for the will of God, Jesus shows us what it means to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him.

Jesus ends his prayer in complete submission saying,

But what you will.

As it was with Jesus, so it is with us. Our intimate relationship with God, our knowledge of God’s character, and our trust in the goodness of our Heavenly Father’s will, allows us to say with Jesus, “not what I will, but what you will.”

How do we know God’s will? For most of my life, I’ve struggled with this question. I often wondered and questioned, “Am I doing God’s will? How will I know if I am doing God’s will?” Over the past 10 years, God has led me to understand that His will is that which He sends to me in the present moment.

In the drama of Gethsemane, at the moment His betrayer was upon him, Jesus knew the answer to his prayer, God’s will, and what he must do. I’ve learned if I trust my Heavenly Father’s goodness and sovereign power, I can receive each moment as it comes whether it brings work or leisure, responsibility or freedom, pain or pleasure as God’s good will for my life.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US?

Jesus’ prayer helps us to engage suffering for God’s glory and our well-being in five ways.

First, we learn it is important to cultivate an intimate relationship with God before we suffer. Then, when suffering comes, we naturally know to whom to run. Second, when we have an intimate relationship with God, we know both from God’s Word and our experience that God is good and that He is sovereign over all things. Therefore, we can trust that whatever comes to us is a part of his good plan to make us more like Jesus. Third, knowing that our Heavenly Father loves us and cares for our every need, we lay our hearts out before him in complete transparency. We can even question what God allows in our life and ask God to take away our suffering. Fourth, trusting our Father’s sovereign goodness we can lay our own will aside to take up our cross and follow him. Fifth, we can know God’s will by trusting that everything that comes to us in the present moment, our Father filtered through his sovereign loving fingers to make us more like Jesus for his glory and our wellbeing.

Jesus’ prayer helps us to engage suffering for God’s glory and our well-being, but also the prayer within the context of the story of Gethsemane helps us to know . . .

How Jesus expects his disciples and his church to engage suffering until he returns

In Mark Chapter 13, Jesus told his disciples what the time of his second coming would be like. Jesus concludes his prophesy with these words,

At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.

Mark intends that Jesus’ disciples, and his churches understand that engaging suffering faithfully in the way Jesus modeled is one way we are to live so that when Jesus returns, he does not find us asleep.

Jesus told us in John 15, If we remain in him and his words remain in us, we can ask whatever we wish, and it will be done for us. This will be to the Father’s glory, that we bear much fruit and prove ourselves to be Jesus’ disciples.

Let us remain in him and do all we can to have his words dwelling in us so that before the time of suffering comes, we have an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. Then we will trust his sovereign goodness and power. We will be unafraid and unashamed to speak honestly with him about our fears, our suffering, and all things that concern us. Then we can pray with sincerity, “yet, not my will, but your will be done.” God will answer that prayer every time. We will see how God uses what he brings to us in every moment of our life to cause us to bear much fruit and prove ourselves to be Jesus’ disciples. Then, when King Jesus returns, he will find us fully awake and fully alive in Him!