SPEAKER_00: Our sermon text this morning comes from Mark chapter 14 verses 32 to 52.
SPEAKER_00: We're coming down to Jesus' final days.
SPEAKER_00: Let's give our full attention to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And they went to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, Sit here while I pray.
SPEAKER_00: And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.
SPEAKER_00: Remain here and watch.
SPEAKER_00: And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.
SPEAKER_00: Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.
SPEAKER_00: And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep?
SPEAKER_00: Could you not watch one hour?
SPEAKER_00: Watch and pray that you may not enter temptation.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
SPEAKER_00: And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.
SPEAKER_00: And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy.
SPEAKER_00: They did not know what to answer him.
SPEAKER_00: And he came the third time and said to them, Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?
SPEAKER_00: It is enough.
SPEAKER_00: The hour has come.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Rise, let us be going.
SPEAKER_00: My betrayer is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: And immediately while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.
SPEAKER_00: Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, The one I kiss is the man.
SPEAKER_00: Sei him and lead him away under guard.
SPEAKER_00: And when he came, he went up to him at once and said, Rabbi, and he kissed him, and they laid hands on him and seized him.
SPEAKER_00: But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, Have you come out against me as a robber with swords and clubs to capture me?
SPEAKER_00: Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me.
SPEAKER_00: But let the scriptures be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: And they all left him and fled.
SPEAKER_00: And a young man followed him with nothing but a linen cloth about his body.
SPEAKER_00: And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant word.
SPEAKER_00: Father, this is a hard story to take in.
SPEAKER_00: And nothing inside of us, nothing in our flesh, wants to even do that.
SPEAKER_00: But your spirit is here to open our minds, to give us faith to believe, and to give us courage to listen, even when we don't want to listen, because it's just too much.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't too much for your son.
SPEAKER_00: And because your spirit is here, it's not too much for us.
SPEAKER_00: So help us.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to understand and believe.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we saw Jesus and his disciples in the upper room.
SPEAKER_00: The Last Supper.
SPEAKER_00: And now they're moving on from the upper room to the place called Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: It means translated the olive press.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that an interesting, appropriate title?
SPEAKER_00: The oil press.
SPEAKER_00: At the foot of Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus turns to his disciples and he says, Sit here while I pray.
SPEAKER_00: And then he takes his inner three, Peter, James, and John, and he says, You come with me.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the third time that the Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus is praying alone, in each of these situations that we've seen through the sermon series, each of these three times, it's a time of crisis in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel tells us, in going a little farther, a stone's throw.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of interesting, keep that in mind.
SPEAKER_00: A stone's throw away from his disciples, he prays.
SPEAKER_00: He falls on the ground and he prays, and this is his prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Father, if it's possible, let this hour pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: One commentator put it like this: the prayer is, Abba, all Father, all things are possible for you.
SPEAKER_00: Remove this cup from me.
SPEAKER_00: Papa, Father, you can, can't you?
SPEAKER_00: Get me out of this.
SPEAKER_00: Take this cup from me.
SPEAKER_00: But please, not what I want.
SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
SPEAKER_00: The request we're looking at this morning from Jesus on the ground with tears and blood, as Luke tells us, pouring through his pores from the stress.
SPEAKER_00: This is his prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Father, would you please take this cup from me?
SPEAKER_00: What was in the cup?
SPEAKER_00: We looked at that last Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: What was in the cup?
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 75, verse 8 tells us it was the cup of God's judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The pouring out of God's wrath on sinners like us.
SPEAKER_00: 580 times in the Old Testament we find a reference to God's wrath.
SPEAKER_00: It's all over the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And we wonder why, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We hardly know about God's wrath.
SPEAKER_00: Theologian J.
SPEAKER_00: C.
SPEAKER_00: Ryle said, how can we account for the deep agony which Jesus underwent in the garden?
SPEAKER_00: When many, many Christian martyrs have suffered more heroically, who didn't fall apart, who kept their courage as they were being burned to the stake, as they were being slaughtered by animals in the Colosseum.
SPEAKER_00: How do we explain Jesus falling apart on this occasion?
SPEAKER_00: There is only one satisfactory answer.
SPEAKER_00: Because unlike anybody else who ever died for their faith, Jesus was carrying the burden of a world's imputed sin.
SPEAKER_00: Puritan Richard Baxter said it was not the fear of death, but from the deep sense of God's wrath against sin, which he, Jesus as our sacrifice, was about to bear, is greater pain than anyone else, simply dying.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the way John Calvin put it.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus had before his eyes the dreadful tribunal of God, and the judge himself armed with inconceivable vengeance, it was our sins, the burden of which he assumed, that pressed him down with their enormous mass and tormented him grievously with fear and anguish.
SPEAKER_00: When we see Jesus kneeling and pouring out his heart and his tears in Gethsemane, we really see how much it would cost him to hang on Calvary.
SPEAKER_00: Another theologian says it like this how dreadful then must the idea have been to Christ, who had from eternity loved and lived in the most intimate relationship with his father, in unbroken commitment with his father, that he would have to endure all of this.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting the picture, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is not just another death.
SPEAKER_00: This was the only death where the one dying was facing what he faced.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon said like this in his sermon since it would not be possible for any believer, however experienced, to know for himself all that our Lord endured and mental suffering and in hellish malice.
SPEAKER_00: It is clearly far beyond any preacher's capacity to set it forth to you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Himself must give you access to the wonders of Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: As for me, said the preacher Spurgeon, I can only invite you to enter the garden.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good prayer right now.
SPEAKER_00: The preacher can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus by the Holy Spirit can do that.
SPEAKER_00: He can take you back to that garden right now.
SPEAKER_00: From the Word of God by the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we struggle to understand this, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because nobody here has ever hated sin like God hates sin.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody here has seen the evil consequences that have come because of sin, their sin and our sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want us to consider three reasonable responses to this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, the reasonable response from God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That was a reasonable response from the Father, because of all that had been written, because of all that had been explained, the purpose of Jesus coming, leaving heaven to come to earth.
SPEAKER_00: This was his mission.
SPEAKER_00: We could turn to many places in the Word of God to support this.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 2 is one such place.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2, verse 1, and you, you, you, me were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.
SPEAKER_00: Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our faith, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.
SPEAKER_00: We were by nature children of wrath.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that you were a child of wrath?
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
SPEAKER_00: We were children of wrath.
SPEAKER_00: God's wrath was aimed and directed at us until one stepped in front of us to take it for us.
SPEAKER_00: Richard Nibor, theologian, put it like this: this is the problem with today.
SPEAKER_00: This is the problem with so many churches why this isn't really hitting home.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: They see, they think that the Bible presents us with a God without any wrath, who brought men without any sin, any real sin, into a kingdom without any real judgment through the ministry of a Christ without a cross.
SPEAKER_00: And that, my friends, is why people go to church week after week after week and year after year and year, and they're not ever changed.
SPEAKER_00: It's religion.
SPEAKER_00: Go to church, get a little inspiration.
SPEAKER_00: They're not gospel churches.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Anselm, centuries ago, said, You have not yet considered how great is your sin.
SPEAKER_00: That is what explains why so many people today are underwhelmed by this story.
SPEAKER_00: Are you underwhelmed by this story?
SPEAKER_00: Does it just seem confusing to you?
SPEAKER_00: Does it just seem disarming to you?
SPEAKER_00: Does it seem I don't know what to do with that.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think I really am going to engage with the story.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be that person.
SPEAKER_00: The reasonable response from God the Father to his Son was, Son, there is no other way.
SPEAKER_00: You must drink the cup.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, let's look at the reasonable response from Jesus Himself.
SPEAKER_00: We find in verse 36.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, in the midst of the pain and the agony, the pain and the agony, it says that he was greatly distressed and troubled.
SPEAKER_00: That word troubled means overcome with horror.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been overcome with horror?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody here who would say, yeah, there was a time, or there have been some times when I was overcome with horror.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you, not like his.
SPEAKER_00: Because the horror that you saw was nothing compared to the horror that he saw.
SPEAKER_00: The judgment and the wrath and the punishment of God that was going to be poured out on him.
SPEAKER_00: The reasonable response from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Abba.
SPEAKER_00: Father, please take this cup from me.
SPEAKER_00: Yet not what I will, but what you will.
SPEAKER_00: Abba, this is a term that nobody in their right mind used to pray to God in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It was forbidden.
SPEAKER_00: He was Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: I am who I am.
SPEAKER_00: Don't come close.
SPEAKER_00: It'll kill you.
SPEAKER_00: My holiness.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the one who came closer than anyone who cries out, Abba, this term of intimacy, trust, affection, yet boldness.
SPEAKER_00: Like a little child who sees the love of a parent and doesn't know enough to not ask for whatever they want.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody said this presents us with a uniquely human interplay between the heart of the Son and the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed it does.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed it does, the one who would be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: It's been said it's one thing, fearful as it will be to answer for our own sins one day before a holy and almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: But who can imagine what it would be like to stand before God to answer for all the sins and crimes, all the acts of malice and injury and cowardice and evil in the world that would be directed to God's redeemed people?
SPEAKER_00: In acquiescing to the Father's will, Jesus necessarily experiences an abandonment and darkness of cosmic proportions.
SPEAKER_00: The worst prospect of becoming the sin bearer for humanity is that it spells complete alienation from God.
SPEAKER_00: An alienation that will shortly echo on the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: Not his own mortality, but the specter of identifying with sinners so fully as to become the object of God's wrath against sin.
SPEAKER_00: It is this that overwhelms Jesus' soul to the point of death.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is no dispassionate actor.
SPEAKER_00: He's not playing a role.
SPEAKER_00: He is all in.
SPEAKER_00: Gethsemane rather presents us with a uniquely scene of what he's fully facing when he says, take this cup from me.
SPEAKER_00: The plea of Jesus suggests that he is genuinely tempted to forsake the role of the suffering servant.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: And we think, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: No, not Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know he has two natures?
SPEAKER_00: This was the human nature.
SPEAKER_00: The human nature of Jesus was crying out, get me out of this.
SPEAKER_00: Because he looked into the cup and he knew the torture that was awaiting him.
SPEAKER_00: The human nature of Christ was tortured.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout his ministry, he has disavowed every exit ramp from the pathway of being a servant.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reasonable response from Jesus, as hard as it was.
SPEAKER_00: This was the plan that he and the Father had agreed upon from eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing it in your head is one thing.
SPEAKER_00: Experiencing it in your heart existentially is a different thing.
SPEAKER_00: Jerry Bridges put it like this Jesus exhausted the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: It was not merely deflected and prevented from reaching us, it was exhausted so that it could not reach us.
SPEAKER_00: God held nothing back.
SPEAKER_00: During those hours when Jesus hung on the cross, the cup of God's wrath was completely turned upside down.
SPEAKER_00: So there was not one drop of God's wrath that remained for his people.
SPEAKER_00: For all who trust in Jesus, there is nothing more in the cup.
SPEAKER_00: The cup is empty.
SPEAKER_00: The wrath is satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he does for his people.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he did for his people.
SPEAKER_00: What a profound irony Gethsemane conceals, for when Jesus feels most excluded from God's presence, he is in fact closest to God's will.
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: When he feels most excluded from God's presence, when he feels most excluded from God's heart, he is in fact closest to God's will.
SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
SPEAKER_00: How did he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Out of love.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, out of obedience to his father, but out of love for his brothers and sisters, he did that.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, at Gethsemane this night, the night before his death, it's the prelude to the next day at Calvary on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: As it's been said, for in a valley beneath the city of Jerusalem, Jesus allows his soul to be crucified first before his body will be crucified the next day.
SPEAKER_00: He is willing to take on death in his soul.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it would never have happened to his body the next day on Calvary.
SPEAKER_00: Donald McLeod put it like this: it's not that Jesus faced death without fear, but that for our sake he faced it terrified.
SPEAKER_00: Terrified by what he knew and terrified by what he did not know, he took damnation lovingly into his own heart.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think many churches talk about this today.
SPEAKER_00: Because they don't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: They don't take their sin seriously enough.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't take your sin seriously enough, you're never going to take the love of God seriously enough.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be underwhelmed by it all.
SPEAKER_00: Are you underwhelmed by all this?
SPEAKER_00: Is your life changing?
SPEAKER_00: Are you being transformed by this powerful truth?
SPEAKER_00: Or is this just something you got to kind of keep at bay?
SPEAKER_00: As Spurgeon said, no preacher can take you to the garden, but the Holy Spirit can take you to that garden.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit can take you back to that garden right now to see what was really going on.
SPEAKER_00: And to say, Jesus, give me faith to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Give me faith to believe that this was the cost for my redemption.
SPEAKER_00: This was the cost for my salvation.
SPEAKER_00: This was the demonstration of your love.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you hold that off?
SPEAKER_00: This good news is good news for all who have faith to believe and will receive that this is what Jesus has done for his people.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, in closing, what's the reasonable response from sinners like us?
SPEAKER_00: Well, as I've already suggested, an unreasonable response would be to be lukewarm.
SPEAKER_00: That's a very, very unreasonable response.
SPEAKER_00: To be lukewarm about your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Are you lukewarm about your faith?
SPEAKER_00: Does it grab you at your soul?
SPEAKER_00: Are you being changed by this gospel?
SPEAKER_00: This gospel is powerful when it's presented and received in the center of our soul, and we don't just kind of keep it out there.
SPEAKER_00: Are you being changed from the inside out?
SPEAKER_00: This is why Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come just to give us a little inspiration, to give us a little religious lift.
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding?
SPEAKER_00: You think he went through all that for this?
SPEAKER_00: He went through all that to give us new life.
SPEAKER_00: Lori Ann, thank you for reminding us of that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You are a changed woman.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have the new birth and you have new life.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for reminding us all of that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: An unreasonable response would be a lukewarm thanks.
SPEAKER_00: A lukewarm gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: And oh yes, lukewarm worship.
SPEAKER_00: There's no place for lukewarm worship.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Romans chapter 2, verse 4, or do you show contempt for the riches of God's kindness and tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance.
SPEAKER_00: God has been very, very kind, and God has been very, very patient with some of us.
SPEAKER_00: But don't play it and don't play him.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to last forever.
SPEAKER_00: You must respond.
SPEAKER_00: You must respond to his gracious, generous offer.
SPEAKER_00: Come to the one who wrestled on the ground with loud cries and tears so that you could know Jesus and you could come to Jesus and you could be saved by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You come to him.
SPEAKER_00: A repenting heart?
SPEAKER_00: I've had to sit in this passage all week.
SPEAKER_00: I've had to prepare all week.
SPEAKER_00: It's been good for my soul.
SPEAKER_00: And I have had to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's too many times when it just doesn't reach my heart.
SPEAKER_00: I've had to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes my lukewarmness.
SPEAKER_00: How about you?
SPEAKER_00: An appropriate response is a repenting heart.
SPEAKER_00: An appropriate response is a rejoicing heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you see the cost and the price of your redemption, that's how much he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if anybody else is going to tell you that this week, but I'm going to tell you now.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you run from that?
SPEAKER_00: An appropriate response is to sense the love of God in new ways into your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know that.
SPEAKER_00: I know that.
SPEAKER_00: Do you?
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, a response of a reasonable, a reasonable response would be a grateful heart.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We ought never to stop thanking him for what he has given us.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Is there a day in your life where you don't thank him for your salvation?
SPEAKER_00: I try, I try not.
SPEAKER_00: I try not that there's not a day in my life when I don't thank him again.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly, a reasonable response.
SPEAKER_00: And this might be the hardest.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Might be the hardest.
SPEAKER_00: A surrendered will.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus surrendered his will.
SPEAKER_00: Can you surrender your will?
SPEAKER_00: Are you still just holding on like you're the owner?
SPEAKER_00: Mark's intention in writing this gospel was to strengthen and prepare Christians at Rome and beyond under great persecution to give us a sober warning to watch and pray, just like he told the disciples at that night.
SPEAKER_00: Stay awake.
SPEAKER_00: You know what he was saying was, he wasn't saying, hey, I need you to pray for me.
SPEAKER_00: He was saying you need to be praying for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: How much do you pray for yourself against temptation like this?
SPEAKER_00: He was saying you need to pray for your soul.
SPEAKER_00: So that you don't lose hope, that you don't lose faith, that you don't cave.
SPEAKER_00: We cave far too much, don't we, friends?
SPEAKER_00: With hardship.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not that it's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at you people.
SPEAKER_00: I know you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that you're it's not that it's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: I get it, it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: But do you have to cave?
SPEAKER_00: Do I have to cave?
SPEAKER_00: You know the only time we cave?
SPEAKER_00: When we're looking at ourselves and we're not looking at him.
SPEAKER_00: That's the only time we cave.
SPEAKER_00: He says, stop looking at yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Stop looking at your problems.
SPEAKER_00: Like they're insolvable.
SPEAKER_00: Stop looking at your problems in life like it's all on you.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
SPEAKER_00: He's in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory.
SPEAKER_00: Look up.
SPEAKER_00: Look at him.
SPEAKER_00: Look what he did to demonstrate his love for you.
SPEAKER_00: And he'll get you through.
SPEAKER_00: Anything.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking at people I know from being a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at people I've seen him get you through a lot.
SPEAKER_00: You look at him and he'll get you through.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll learn how to surrender your will in a new way.
SPEAKER_00: When you stop looking at yourself and you start looking at him.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to close with a true story.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Jim Boyce, pastor at 10th Presbyterian Church for many years.
SPEAKER_00: Got diagnosed in the year 2020 with inoperable liver cancer.
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks later, he stood in front of his congregation that he had served many years.
SPEAKER_00: In his remarks that morning, Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Boyce looked at the face of death, but he followed his example, his Savior had set before him.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he said to his congregation that day.
SPEAKER_00: You have been praying, certainly, and I've been assured of that by many people.
SPEAKER_00: A relevant question, I guess, when you pray is, what should I pray for for you?
SPEAKER_00: Should you pray for a miracle?
SPEAKER_00: Above all, I would pray for the glory of God in my life.
SPEAKER_00: If you think of God glorifying himself in history, and you say, where in all of history has God been most glorified?
SPEAKER_00: He was most glorified in the death of his son.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't by delivering him from the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It was by being with him to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Don't you think I could call down from my father twelve legions of angels for my defense?
SPEAKER_00: But he did not do that.
SPEAKER_00: And yet that is where God is most glorified.
SPEAKER_00: Then Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Boy spoke about submitting to the will of God as we prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Never one to miss an opportunity, he told the congregation this.
SPEAKER_00: If I were to reflect on what goes on theologically here in our church, there are two things I would stress.
SPEAKER_00: One is the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_00: We believe in this church that God is sovereign over all things, over all details, over all circumstances, in all of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about the sovereignty of God here forever.
SPEAKER_00: God is in charge.
SPEAKER_00: When things like this come into our lives, they're not accidents.
SPEAKER_00: It's not as if God somehow forgot what was going on and something slipped by him.
SPEAKER_00: God does everything according to his will.
SPEAKER_00: We've always said that.
SPEAKER_00: That yes, God is in charge, but he doesn't seem to really care about me.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not that.
SPEAKER_00: Everything he does is good.
SPEAKER_00: If God does something in your life, would you change it?
SPEAKER_00: If you would change it, you would make it worse.
SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't be as good.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the way we want to accept this news and move forward.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, who knows what God will do.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a Father.
SPEAKER_00: Not my will.
SPEAKER_00: But your will be done in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Because my life and your life is about his glory.
SPEAKER_00: I think we need to pray this in.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we hardly know.
SPEAKER_00: We still hardly know what you experienced that night and the next day.
SPEAKER_00: But what we do know with confidence, it was the Father's will.
SPEAKER_00: And what we do know with certainty is that you submitted to your Father's will.
SPEAKER_00: You took on the greatest evil ever perpetrated in this world to accomplish the greatest good that's ever been seen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This morning again, we just want to thank you that you submitted to your Father's will.
SPEAKER_00: And thereby you saved and redeemed a host of people, including us.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to be together forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Because you did.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
SPEAKER_00: Give us faith to live for you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, keep us from looking for the easy exit ramp in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We can't wait to see you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.