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This fall we’re talking about this thing, JUSTIFICATION =how you, a sinner, can stand before God and God say to you, “You are righteous. You are perfect. And you deserve to live in heaven forever with me.”
Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 33: What is justification?
“Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”
Let’s read Mark 14:32-42 the story of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.
[Faithfulness] You’ve got two pictures of faithfulness here. One is good faithfulness = Jesus. One is bad faithfulness = Jesus’ three best friends, these disciples. Now, some have objected and said, “Wait, play the comparison game and Jesus doesn’t look at that faithful here”?
Jesus looks like he’s freaking out. It says he’s sorrowful and troubled. He says himself he’s so sad he feels like he’s about to die. And no one wants to say it out loud, but Jesus really did not die all that well. He’s begging God to get him out of this.
vs.
His friends may have copped out but there are tons of stories of other Christians throughout history who went through terrible torture and gruesome deaths and they died a lot better than Jesus did. At peace, calm. They didn’t even have to be restrained. No falling on the knees crying out to God asking God for a way out of it. There are tons of stories like this all throughout church history of Christians dying terrible deaths but totally at peace.
So how is Jesus freaking out and we’re saying he’s a picture of total faithfulness?
Because Jesus and the disciples ARE NOT in the same situation here. The words “sorrowful” and “troubled” are disturbing words. In the Gospel of Mark it says Jesus here was, “sore amazed.” In the Gospel of Luke it says he was in “agony = filled with horror.” Imagine something horrible, and the horror, fear, nausea, suffocating shock, choking you of breath. That’s what Jesus is experiencing. Jesus means it when he say she’s so overwhelmed he’s starting to die.
[Cup] Jesus tells us three times in his prayer to God, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me….” What is this cup?
Two cups in the Bible. There is the cup that you want. The cup we read about in Psalm 23. The cup of blessing that overflows - the love of God that so overflows in your life forever and ever that you don’t ever have to actually worry or wonder if God is for you. You drink drink drink it in and amazingly your cup is still overflowing and always will be. The cup that fills Jesus with horror is not that cup.
There’s another cup. Psalm 75:8, “For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.” This is a cup you do not want; the wrath of God against sin, the cursing that sin absolutely, justly deserves. Isa 51, “Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering.” Ezek 23, “You shall drink this cup, a cup of horror and desolation... and tear your breasts.”
What is the worst thing that happens to Jesus?
What Jesus is facing here is beyond the physical pain of his torture and his terrible death on the cross; this agony here in the garden is beyond the emotional pain of being abandoned by his friends and disciples; and the utter humiliation and shame of being crucified naked on Jerusalem’s highway in front of his enemies and his mom. This is infinitely beyond anything any Christian has ever experienced. Jesus didn’t have a “good” death because he was facing something totally different.
[Objection] Here’s another objection: “The disciples didn’t know what was coming when they fell asleep. Jesus knew this was coming. He was constantly telling his disciples he was going to die and he even hinted at what kind of death he was going to suffer. And he knew why he was going to die =that he was going to suffer for sin. And he isn’t taking the cup of hell herein the garden, he’s not on the cross yet. So why was is this such a shock to Jesus here?”
[Answer] Because here God puts the cup right in front of Jesus. Jesus can smell it, and what’s to come on that cross =he’s tasting the wrath of God right here against sin. There’s this amazing sermon by an 18th century American pastor and philosopher, Jonathan Edwards called “Christ’s Agony” and he explains why God does this to Jesus here and now. It’s because on the cross Jesus is nailed. He’s in public surrounded by enemies, family, friends, disciples. On the cross it’s as good as done. The wrath comes. There’s no going back. Here in the garden Jesus gets a foretaste of what’s to come and….there’s no one around. He’s all alone. His friends are asleep. The betrayer and soldiers are not there yet. He’s in a remote place. He could take off right now and escape and no one would know.
So the Father comes to Jesus and shows him the cup and says, “This is what you’re in for. If you don’t drink this cup of wrath, then they have to drink it themselves. Either you take the wrath or it will fall on them. And look at them. You asked your three best friends to stay awake with you in your greatest moment of need and they couldn’t do it for one hour. Are you sure you want to take all of their hells, their eternal horror, pain, and isolation?” And Edwards says Jesus could have responded, “Why should I, so glorious, infinitely greater than all the angels of heaven, Why should I plunge myself into such dreadful torments for worthless wretched worms that deserve to be hated by me, not loved? Why should I, who have been living from all eternity in the enjoyment of the Father's love, go to cast myself into such a furnace for them that can never repay me for it?...Who can’t even stay awake with me for an hour in my greatest need?” But that’s not what Jesus said. He looked at the cup and said, “Yes, I’ll do it for them.” Why? Because Jesus loves you, but do see how much? Edwards says, “Jesus had full view of the furnace, its fierce and raging flames… he saw what the cup was before he took it and drank it....which means when he took that cup knowing what was in it so was his love to us infinitely more wonderful.” This is the love and faithfulness of Jesus, our Mediator.
Why aren’t the disciples praying with Jesus?
[Disciples’ Sorrow] Back here in the garden Jesus is sorrowful and troubled. And even though it sounds like the disciples are just really sleepy, that’s not right. It says in v.43, “Jesus came and found them sleeping, for the disciples’ eyes were heavy.” “Their eyes were heavy” is an expression in the Greek meaning they’re exhausted from weeping, they’re weighed down from sadness. So just like Jesus the disciples are really sad. This is really clear in Luke’s Gospel: “Jesus rose from prayer, came to his disciples, and found them sleeping for sorrow.”
Why are the disciples so sad?
For the past few weeks everything has fallen apart. The disciples thought Jesus was going to deliver Israel from the Romans.
But instead of Jesus mounting a revolt,
-he refuses to let the people crown him king;
-instead of going after the Romans, he tells everyone to pay their taxes to Caesar;
-he goes after the Jewish religious elite, calls them phonies, provokes them;
-causes a huge scene in the temple, makes a public nuisance of himself;
-tells everybody he’s the Judge of the universe and whoever doesn’t believe in him he’s going to send to hell.
Jesus does everything to hurt “their cause.” And now the disciples see their master crushed, in great sorrow. And they get it that Jesus is on a suicide mission and they can’t understand WHY! They have lost all hope, and they feel abandoned by Jesus - he is not the God they expect or want.
What do you think is people’s greatest fear? Buried alive, being kidnapped, prison?
[App - Loss of Control] We get sick of waiting on God when God does not operate on our calendar, life is not going according to plan. And when God does not act like the god he should we elevate ourselves to a position to make God act like god and voila we fashion god the way we want - into an idol meaning, into something manageable. God is now immediate, controllable, malleable, sizeable, customized.
This is sin at its most basic level - sin is the elevation of the self to the place of God. Sin is to think, say, act like I will call the shots. I will acknowledge that you are there, God, but in the position that I put you, meaning I can tell you what you are like meaning I am in the position of real supreme authority. Sin is you substituting yourself for God.
[God Offends] This is why the gods of the prosperity gospel, the heath, wealth gospel gods that make you feel happy are so super duper popular - because they’re customized to only encourage you and affirm every desire and decision you want to make. That’s relating to a robot, a made up fantasy, figment of your imagination, an imaginary friend, a golden calf.
What’s one of the ways you know you’re in a relationship with a real person vs an imaginary friend?
One of the ways you know you’re in a relationship with the real God is when God contradicts you, when God actually offends you. When God says something in his word that troubles you. So what God says about sex, identity, success, pleasure, suffering, about love, about justice and truth, about family, community, the church, about heaven and hell - should offend us modern, hypermodern 21st century westerners. If it doesn’t offend you, rub you the wrong way, make you make a weird face - then we’re not listening carefully. Our God is a God who will talk back to you, contradict you, offend you and if you experience then you are relating to the real God.
How does Jesus’ faithfulness help us be faithful?
First, expect loss of control and suffering.
Second, your loss of control and suffering is NOT the wrath of God.
Third, you may not be in control but God is SO your suffering is not meaningless.
Fourth, look to Jesus.
But don’t look at Jesus just as an example to you for faithfulness. Look to Jesus for faithfulness itself.
What we do way too often is we look for this assurance that we’re saved and good with God and we do it by looking at ourselves and how faithful we are. Your faith is not the object of your faith. What is the object of your faith?
Jesus. Receive him. Rest in him. That means you can’t be faithful enough for God to accept you. God accepts you because Jesus was faithful completely FOR you - you have to just believe that.
What does Jesus’ ultimately pray.
Jesus ultimately prays that God would curse him so his enemies will be saved.
[Foolishness of the Cross] Which raises that very good question: is that foolishness on Jesus’ part? Is it foolishness on our part that we boast in the cross of Jesus? Is it foolishness we boast in our own weakness?
God’s ways seem foolish to us. Even the good things God has given to the church to strengthen us and help us - prayer, the Bible, pouring water on adults and babies, eating tasteless bread, little sips of wine, worship, preaching a sermon.
What’s weaker than the church? Who’s going to find any of this church gospel stuff attractive? Who wants to hear what we have to say about the meaning of life, the beginning and end of the one story we’re all apart of, what’s right and wrong, what sin and death really are, what our real problem is and what our only hope is - who wants to hear any of that from us? Those that Jesus has conquered and taken for his own.
God will accomplish his victory without us compromising his gospel and without us having to deny our weaknesses.