Sermon Tone Analysis

Have you ever ridden the carnival ride “The Scrambler”? <<show picture>>

I remember when the fair used to come to the mall parking lot every year and we would ride it.

They still have one at Dollywood and other places.

If you can’t remember what it is, it’s a ride where you sit in seats that rotate around a pole, and that pole rotates around a pole, so you are constantly changing directions and feeling like you are going to get squished by the person next to you or slam into the other seats that keep whizzing by.

As a child, it feels random and disorienting.

It still is dizzying as an adult, but when you step back and look at the entire contraption, you see that it is actually specifically designed to maximize those feelings of flying around and almost hitting the fence or other people.

If you don’t like those kinds of rides, you would hate this one.

Does it ever feel like your life is just one giant Scrambler?

Disappointments, conflict, and bad news seem to set you spinning around and you constantly feel like you are getting crushed or are just inches away a catastrophe.

Unlike the people operating the Scrambler, God isn’t just trying to make you nauseated and dizzy.

However, is it possible that what seems disorienting and confusing to you is actually part of God’s plan that he has been working throughout history?

Could it be that what feels out of control to you is the exact thing God is wanting to do in and through you?

In John 18, Jesus is about to go through times that would certainly seem from the outside to be completely out of control.

However, these are the moments the entire book of John has been leading up to.

From the miracle at Cana on, Jesus has been saying that the hour had not yet come.

Now, it has.

The events of the next few hours will be the most unjust moments in human history.

The only fully innocent man in all of human history is going to be arrested and put through a series of unfair trials, ultimately executed for crimes he did not commit.

Much like the Bible itself, these events begin in a garden—not Eden this time but Gethsemane.

Today, we are laying the foundation that will carry us through the next several weeks.

As we watch Jesus getting arrested in the garden, we will see that Jesus is absolutely in control the entire time.

At no point during Jesus’s arrest, trial, or crucifixion, do things get out of hand and Jesus become a victim of unstoppable tragic circumstances.

Instead, Jesus is fully aware of what is happening, he is actually controlling the situation, and he is ultimately submitting to the Father’s will.

As we see that this morning, I have two main hopes for you:

The first hope is that you will see just how incredible God really is.

Jesus is much more than a tragic martyr; he is the God who is and has been working throughout all of history to accomplish his purpose.

Even in the most evil moments in history, God was working his plan.

That leads to my second hope, which is that you will be challenged to worship God through submission, just like Jesus did.

Whether you are worried about the world or what is going on in your own life or a combination of the two, you and I need to remember that the God who worked in the garden and the cross and the grave is the God who is working right now.

Nothing that is happening in your life or in the world around you is outside of his control.

As we will see, we have a responsibility to respond to his work in a particular way.

Let’s get into the text this morning.

Start with me in verses 1-3...

The soldiers are coming to arrest Jesus.

The other gospel writers record Jesus’s prayer in the garden, but John doesn’t include those details.

Instead, he focuses first on the fact that...

1) Jesus is fully aware.

Read verse 4 with me...

If you have been with us through this study, those words might sound familiar.

Look back a few pages at chapter 13:1-3...

John is showing that Jesus has been fully aware this entire time.

Nothing about his betrayal, arrest, trials, or crucifixion have caught him off guard.

We are going to draw some principles from this in a moment, but don’t rush too quickly to that.

Think about what we are talking about here—the events happening in this passage form the dividing line of history.

This is God’s plan of redemption that we first hear about in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned, and it is the moment we all look back at now to find eternal life.

All of history had been building to this moment, and Jesus went into it fully aware of what it would cost.

He knew he was about to be mistreated, maligned, and murdered for my sins and yours.

Yet, he willingly goes.

Isn’t that incredible?

Although this was a unique moment in history, God’s awareness of the circumstances wasn’t limited to this moment in time.

He is always aware of exactly what is going on.

He never misses anything!

Two weeks ago, we set our clocks forward.

For the next week, I felt groggy and kinda disoriented at times because my schedule was all off.

Do you realize that God never gets like that?

How many of you have been sitting at your desk and that 3 o’clock slump hits and you realize you have been staring at your screen blankly for five minutes, or that you have read the same paragraph half a dozen times and you still have no idea what it says?

God never has that experience!

He is fully awake, alert, and aware at all times.

The psalm writer reminds us of this when he says:

Isn’t that great news?

Not only does he know everything that is going on right now, he also knows everything that will ever happen!

Think about what that means: God knew the exact day you would be born.

He knew who your parents would be, he knew whether you would marry, what your first job would be, where you would live, and even how many days you will have on earth before you die.

He knows that for every person on the planet throughout all of human history!

What does that mean?

It means that he knows exactly what is going on in the world today.

He knows exactly what is going on in our nation today, in our state, in our community, in our church, and in your apartment or home.

There is incredible comfort in this understanding, isn’t there?

The God of the universe is fully aware of what is going on.

However, there is a challenge as well.

That means God is also fully aware of how that person was going to hurt you, or that you were going to lose your job or that your marriage was going to go through that difficult patch.

If God is fully aware, why doesn’t he stop it?

Why doesn’t he keep abuse from occurring or preserve health?

To be honest, I wish I had the answers to those questions, but I don’t.

Here’s what I do know, though: God sees you in your pain.

I think about the story of Hagar in the book of Genesis.

She was an enslaved woman in Abraham’s household, and she was told to sleep with Abraham to bear a son for him.

Hagar got pregnant, and Abraham’s wife became jealous and mistreated Hagar so badly that she ran away.

God appeared to her by a spring and made her a promise.

In calling her to go back to face Sarah and bear her child, he promised that he would care for her and her son.

Here’s how she responded:

She was in for a difficult road, but she knew that God saw her.

I can’t answer the “why” questions, but I can say that there is a God who sees, a God who is fully aware, just like he was in the Garden that night.

Not only does Jesus show that he is aware, he also shows that even in the garden when everything was going wrong...

2) Jesus is fully in control.

Remember, we said that Jesus is in control of the events surrounding his arrest and crucifixion.

We see that displayed in a few different ways in this chapter.

Think back to verse 2 - Judas knew to look for Jesus in the garden, because that’s where he always met his disciples.

Why didn’t Jesus go somewhere else and hide?

Because this was how it had to be.

He knew he needed to allow himself to be arrested and crucified, so he went to the place where Judas would expect him to be.

Jesus had already told the disciples that he would lose his life, but that it was by his control.

Remember what he said in chapter 10?

Even as out of control as the next few hours may seem, Jesus had every ability to stop the arrest, the trials, and even the crucifixion itself.

In case you need a second glimpse into why we know he was in control, look back at verse 4-6.

Notice that Jesus didn’t wait for them to come get him; he went out to meet them, knowing exactly what was taking place.

Then, it gets even better!

Jesus asks who they are looking for, and they say they are looking for Jesus.

How does he respond?

By saying, “I am”.