They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, ‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.’
He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.
And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. He came a third time and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’
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Today, we’re going to focus on the
obedience of Christ.
Think about when you first heard
the term obedience. It was probably as a
child, and your parents, or some other adult, was trying to teach you how to be
obedient. We’re constantly trying to
teach this to Caleb—each and every day is filled with opportunities to teach
him obedience. He’s usually not as
excited to learn obedience as we are to teach it to him, and this results in
some battles of the will.
Think about why you obeyed your
parents—perhaps it was because you loved them so much you wanted to demonstrate
your love by doing as they wished.
Perhaps it was because you trusted them enough to recognize that they
wanted the best for you. Or, maybe it
was because you were afraid of the punishment that came after
disobedience. Any of the above is a good
reason to obey. But they are very, very
different.
Think about it this way—how many of
you have ever broken the speed limit?
Now, speeding isn’t usually a crime that is punished. I don’t know what the percentages are, but a
vast majority of people who speed never get caught. While the potential for punishment is real,
the actuality of it is so rare that many people, including myself, often
speed. The element of fear fades, and people
don’t obey that law. Now, if there were
some device that was in your car that monitored how fast you were going and
instantly wrote you a ticket the moment your car broke the speed limit, you
would be far, far less likely to speed.
But your obedience wouldn’t be based out of love, it would be rooted in
fear of repercussions, and the second the punishment was removed, you’d
probably start to speed again.
Now, marriage works a little
differently, or at least it should. I
don’t obey my marriage vows because I’m afraid of what might happen if I didn’t. I obey my marriage vows because I love my
wife and want my marriage to flourish. I
don’t remember our anniversary because she might throw me out if I didn’t, and
I don’t tell her I love her because I worry she’ll be mad otherwise. It is
obedience, but it is for an entirely different reason.
So if we’re going to talk about
obedience to God, we need to recognize that there are very, very different
motives that cause obedience. And we
need to talk a little about why we are obedient to God.
Now, some people are obedient to
God because they are afraid of punishment.
They are driven by fear to obey God’s commandments. This is approaching God with such fear that
you are afraid to disobey him. This is
the idea that is focused on being a sinner in the hand of an angry God, a
sinner whom God is seeking any reason to cast into the depths of hell. I think a lot of people view God in this way,
believing that God is constantly searching for any reason to cut us off, to
drive us out, and that only our perfection can satisfy God’s unceasing wrath.
I believe this is wrong. I believe it is an utter distortion of the
God to whom Scripture witnesses. I
believe that viewing God this way causes many people to give up completely on
the notion of God.
Imagine that you’re a painter. This requires me to use my imagination due to
my lackluster artistic skills, but some of you are talented artists. Imagine making a giant oil painting, and
imagine that some of the paint drips down to where you didn’t want it. Would you trash the entire canvas? Would you throw the paint away? Of course you wouldn’t. You’d try and fix it.
Or imagine you get a puppy. We can all agree that puppies are the cutest
thing ever, right? Imagine that you
bring this puppy home and your heart is filled with love and you play with it
for hours. Now, let’s say the puppy
chews on the corner of the couch. Would
you instantly throw it outside and never speak to it again, never show kindness
to it again? Of course not. You’d discipline it, and you’d try and get it
to correct its ways, but you’d be patient.
If we are so willing to be patient
with our imperfect creations, why don’t we think God is infinitely more patient
with us?
Therefore, we can safely say that
there is no need to obey God out of fear.
Paul tells us over and over again that our works cannot save us. Christ demonstrates that it is not our
actions but God’s love that saves us. He
tells us that our work is to believe. If
our obedience cannot save us, then we need not obey out of fear.
Leaving what?
Obedience rooted in love. Obedience rooted in trust. Obedience born out of perfect & selfless motives,
rather than trying to earn something.
That’s the kind of obedience that
we see in this story from Mark’s Gospel.
In it, Jesus is facing the most
terrible ordeal we can imagine. He is close
to his arrest, having been betrayed by one of his followers. He is hours away from a mock trial and savage
beatings. He is ever so close to his own
crucifixion, a punishment of death for crimes he did not commit.
One word, one phrase, could have
gotten him out of all of this. He could
have fled Jerusalem, disappeared to a place far from there and let the furor
blow over. With the right words to
Pilate or Herod, he could have escaped with his own life. He could have called down angels from heaven
to demonstrate his divinity and escaped the ordeal that awaited.
But he knew that it was God’s will
for him to suffer and die, and so that leads to the prayer he prays—he so
deeply loves God the Father that he is willing to do whatever is needed,
because he completely trusts God’s will.
He will undergo any suffering and endure any ordeal because he loves and
trusts God. He knows that God has good
reasons and good intentions, and so he doesn’t question the will of the Father.
He humbly prays, not what I want, but what you want.
He doesn’t want to suffer and die
on the cross. He doesn’t want to be
flogged, mocked and beaten. No one wants
that.
But he wants to obey the will of
God, because his love and trust of God is so deep that he knows this will all
take place for a reason. He knows that
God will bring human flourishing out of this event, and so he is willing to
endure it, because he trusts God. His
prayer indicates that he isn’t afraid of God’s punishment, but he wants to do
God’s will out of the love he has for God.
Jesus models the prayer that we all
need to pray. Jesus isn’t shy or timid
about what he wants. He wants this cup
to pass from him—he doesn’t want to suffer such pain. He doesn’t want to die this death. In the same way, we need not be afraid to
lift up our prayers to God, boldly praying for our desires. We don’t need to be shy.
But we also need to love God to
such an extent that we deeply trust his will.
We need to be ready to obey him out of trust and love, trusting that
what he wants for us is best for us, even if we don’t understand it all. Maybe it doesn’t make perfect sense to us,
but we trust God.
Take tithing, for example. In the church, we are called to give 10% of
our income to God. This doesn’t make a
whole lot of sense to us in a capitalistic society. We tend to believe that the more money we
have, the better, and so giving it away freely is somewhat foolish, especially
if we’re working on a tight budget.
But God tells us that if we trust
him and obey his command to tithe, he’ll bless us. He tells us to test him, to see if he won’t
open the windows of heaven and rain down blessings upon us. He doesn’t tell us that we will necessarily
have more money, but he promises us abundance if we obey him.
This isn’t just true for money—in all
of life, God promises us abundance if we obey.
He needs us to trust him, to love him so deeply that we want to obey so
that it will bring glory to him. He
wants us to be guided by a deep and passionate love, the love that he displays
time and time again, even to the point of death on a cross, so that we’ll do
whatever he wills for us to do, so that our lives can bring him glory and then
he will lead us into the abundant and eternal life that awaits us in the
kingdom.
Jesus obeys perfectly, not because
he’s excited about crucifixion, but because he loves and trusts God the Father
to bring good out of the situation. He
wants to do God’s will because he knows that God’s will leads to life, for him
and for others.
In the same way, we should so
deeply love God that we want to obey his will for our lives, because we trust
that even though it may not make perfect sense at the time, it will lead to
abundant life for us and abundant blessings for others.
Jesus says in John’s Gospel—If you love me, you will keep my
commandments.
We show our love for God by our
obedience to his will, and in so doing he leads us down the path to life.
Let us pray
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