SPEAKER_00: Throughout Scripture, God is always at work, accomplishing his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing takes him by surprise.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is outside of his control.
SPEAKER_00: From the first sin in the Garden of Eden to the final restoration of all things when Christ returns, God has been in the driver's seat.
SPEAKER_00: His will has been at work all along, predetermined from the very beginning of time.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't have a backup plan because he doesn't need one.
SPEAKER_00: Everything he wills is certain, and nothing, no human rebellion, no power on earth, can stop it.
SPEAKER_00: His plan is always plan A.
SPEAKER_00: And yet He calls us to act.
SPEAKER_00: He calls us to obey, to trust, and to pray, and to walk by His Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We live in the tension between God's perfect plan and our own responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Theologians call this God's sovereignty and human responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: We often feel caught between God's control and our own weakness.
SPEAKER_00: It shows up in our daily lives.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever planted a garden, watered every seed, and weeded day after day, only to watch pests or frost destroy the crop.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you've worked tirelessly on a project, given it your best, and still fallen short.
SPEAKER_00: You know what it feels like when your best efforts aren't enough and things are out of your control.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever prayed faithfully, served consistently, or fought temptation only to fail again, you understand the frustration of human weakness.
SPEAKER_00: You've done your part, but it still isn't enough.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly the point.
SPEAKER_00: God never intended his kingdom to depend on our strength.
SPEAKER_00: He calls us to act in faith, to serve, to pray, and to obey, but always by his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation, victory, and the success of his kingdom are his work, not ours.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout the Old Testament, God gave his people signs, lambs, sacrifices, covenant meals, to show that his plan is sure, and that he provides what we cannot.
SPEAKER_00: These signs pointed to a faithful substitute who would act in our place, so we could walk in obedience, trusting not in ourselves, but in him.
SPEAKER_00: This morning, as we pick up where we left off in Mark fourteen, we see the shadows of the Old Testament find their true fulfillment in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In the upper room, the Passover finds its fulfillment in the faithful Lamb who is about to be slain.
SPEAKER_00: A new covenant is established in his blood.
SPEAKER_00: The old is passing away, and the new is coming with the arrival of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: In this kingdom, God's people are called to trust, obey, and walk by the power of the Holy Spirit, where our weakness is covered by the faithfulness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So let's open our Bibles to Mark chapter 14.
SPEAKER_00: We will be covering verses 12 through 52.
SPEAKER_00: Our Advent series has been preparing us for everything we're about to see as we near the end of Mark's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We already know this truth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was born to die, to give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: As we move through Mark, we draw closer and closer to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: But before we reach Golgotha, we must first pass through Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: And before Gethsemane, we begin in the upper room.
SPEAKER_00: So before we turn to verse 12, let's take a moment to go before the Lord in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Father in heaven, as you have revealed through your word, we know that it was necessary for your Son Jesus to suffer and to die.
SPEAKER_00: And this is good news for us, because had He not done this, there would be no way for our sins to be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we turn to your word this morning, let us come to you with gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Let us see your grace this morning and worship you as you deserve.
SPEAKER_00: We ask for your help as we turn to your word.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 14, beginning with verse twelve.
SPEAKER_00: And on the first day of unleavened bread, when the Passover lamb was being sacrificed, his disciples said to him, Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?
SPEAKER_00: And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water.
SPEAKER_00: Follow him.
SPEAKER_00: And wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, The teacher says, Where is my guest room in which I may eat the Passover with my disciples?
SPEAKER_00: And he himself will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
SPEAKER_00: Prepare for us there.
SPEAKER_00: And the disciples went out and came to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
SPEAKER_00: This should remind us of how Jesus previously sent two of his disciples to acquire a particular cult for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It's quite possible that these are the same two disciples again.
SPEAKER_00: And just as everything that Jesus said about the cult came to pass, we see the same thing happen again with the preparation of the upper room for the Passover.
SPEAKER_00: And the main point is clear.
SPEAKER_00: God is fully in control, down to the smallest detail.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing surprises him, nothing escapes his plan.
SPEAKER_00: The Passover meal commemorated God's deliverance of Israel when he brought them out of slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Each year, families relived the Exodus, walking through the story while eating and drinking specific elements, bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and lamb, to remember hardship, God's provision, and the sacrifice that spared them.
SPEAKER_00: But Passover was more than a historical remembrance.
SPEAKER_00: It also looked forward with hope, much like Advent does today.
SPEAKER_00: While celebrating God's faithfulness in the past, the Israelites also anticipated that one day God would free them from future exile and lead them into his kingdom under a messianic king.
SPEAKER_00: They longed for the day when a new covenant would be established, where sins would be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: At the time, they could only see in part what God would soon reveal fully in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as Jesus leads his disciples into the upper room, he is about to reveal something profound that he is the Passover Lamb, the true Passover Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see this for ourselves as we turn to verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: And when it was evening, he came with the twelve, and as they were reclining at the table and eating, Jesus said, Truly I say to you that one of you will betray me, the one who is eating with me.
SPEAKER_00: They began to be grieved, and to say to him, one by one, surely not I.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, It is one of the twelve, the one who dips with me in the bowl.
SPEAKER_00: For the Son of Man is to go just as it is written of him.
SPEAKER_00: But woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.
SPEAKER_00: It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.
SPEAKER_00: And while they were eating, he took some bread, and after a blessing he broke it and gave it to them, and said, Take it, this is my body.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had taken a cup and given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.
SPEAKER_00: Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Everything in this Passover meal, God's provision, his deliverance, his covenant faithfulness, now finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Even as Judas moves toward betrayal, God's plan is not derailed.
SPEAKER_00: Redemption is advancing, even through human weakness, setting the stage for the greatest gift, his body and blood given for us.
SPEAKER_00: Here in the upper room, Jesus does something remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: He institutes what we now call the Lord's Supper within the Passover context.
SPEAKER_00: He does not abolish the Passover but fulfills it.
SPEAKER_00: He transforms it.
SPEAKER_00: The meal that once remembered God's deliverance from Egypt now points to a far greater deliverance, the salvation accomplished through his death on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The unleavened bread now symbolizes his body.
SPEAKER_00: The wine now symbolizes his blood.
SPEAKER_00: He takes the familiar elements of the Passover and he reinterprets them, showing his disciples that the true Lamb has come.
SPEAKER_00: What once looked back to the Exodus now points back to Christ's atoning sacrifice, and forward to the blessings of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Because of what Jesus has accomplished, God's people no longer need to celebrate the Passover as it was done in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's Supper is the new feast, the ongoing remembrance of redemption in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Through this meal, we look back on his sacrifice with gratitude, and we look forward with hope to the consummation of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus takes the cup and says, This is my blood of the covenant, he is using unmistakable covenantal language.
SPEAKER_00: Every Jewish ear in that room would have known what he meant.
SPEAKER_00: Covenants are ratified in blood.
SPEAKER_00: And here Jesus is not renewing the old covenant, he is inaugurating a new one.
SPEAKER_00: This is the fulfillment of what God promised through the prophet Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, days are coming, declares Yahweh, when I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Not like the covenant which I cut with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, but I was a husband to them, declares Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: But this is the covenant which I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, declares Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
SPEAKER_00: And they will not teach again each man his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, No Yahweh, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares Yahweh, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.
SPEAKER_00: This new covenant isn't written on tablets of stone, but on the hearts of God's people, no longer requiring repeated sacrifices, but one that brings full and final forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Under this new covenant, God's people are not defined by birth or ethnicity, but by grace.
SPEAKER_00: They are a people who know the Lord, not merely outwardly, but inwardly, because their sins are remembered no more.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is good news, because it is not founded or sustained by our obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It is founded and sustained entirely by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: His blood secures what our obedience never could.
SPEAKER_00: And this covenant will stand forever, because he stands forever, reigning on an eternal throne, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_00: One of the first things we learn about this new covenant is that it creates a new people.
SPEAKER_00: Not a perfect people, but a redeemed people.
SPEAKER_00: A people whose standing before God doesn't rest on their own faithfulness and righteousness, but on the faithfulness and righteousness of another, the perfect mediator, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let's continue with verse twenty six.
SPEAKER_00: And after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives, and Jesus said to them, You will all fall away, because it is written, I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
SPEAKER_00: But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter said to him, Even though all may fall away, yet I will not.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, that today, this very night, before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny me three times.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter kept saying insistently, If I have to die with you, I will not deny you.
SPEAKER_00: And they all were saying the same thing also.
SPEAKER_00: Mark tells us that immediately after the meal, they sang a hymn.
SPEAKER_00: Jewish sources from the Second Temple period tell us that this would have been the Halel Psalms, Psalms 113 through 118, songs of praise celebrating God's redeeming power.
SPEAKER_00: Let's think about that for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: After announcing his betrayal, after instituting the Lord's Supper, and knowing the cross lay directly ahead, Jesus leads his disciples in praise.
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus transforms the Passover into the Lord's Supper, it is fitting that God's people continue this pattern.
SPEAKER_00: Here at Hillside, we often sing after coming to the table, typically the first verse of Amazing Grace, a reminder that what we've just proclaimed in the meal is the grace of God that saves us through the cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But the singing doesn't mean the struggle is over, as evidenced in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as the new covenant is announced and praise is offered, the old pattern reappears.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells his disciples, they will fall away.
SPEAKER_00: Peter boasts of his loyalty, and once again, the flesh proves weak.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what makes the new covenant so profound.
SPEAKER_00: Even when God's people fail, the covenant itself doesn't fail.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because it doesn't depend on God's people holding up their end.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do.
SPEAKER_00: But in the new covenant, God says, I will forgive, I will write, I will remember no more.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant was a covenant of works.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is a covenant of grace.
SPEAKER_00: And in this new covenant, Christ Himself is our faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul captures this tension beautifully in 2 Timothy two verses eleven through thirteen.
SPEAKER_00: Listen carefully to his words.
SPEAKER_00: It is a trustworthy saying, for if we died with him, we will also live with him.
SPEAKER_00: If we endure, we will also reign with him.
SPEAKER_00: If we will deny him, he also will deny us.
SPEAKER_00: If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
SPEAKER_00: That statement, if we will deny him, he also will deny us, is not a contradiction of grace.
SPEAKER_00: It is a warning against false faith.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture is clear that there are those who deny Christ, not in weakness, but in unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: John tells us that some were among us, but not of us.
SPEAKER_00: They walked with Christ outwardly for a time, but never truly belonged to him inwardly.
SPEAKER_00: Their denial reveals what was always true.
SPEAKER_00: We see a clear and sobering example of this in Judas.
SPEAKER_00: But that is not the same thing as Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Peter denied Christ out of fear and weakness, not out of settled rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: And because Peter belonged to Christ, his denial was not the end of the story.
SPEAKER_00: He wept, he was restored.
SPEAKER_00: God's grace pursued him.
SPEAKER_00: But the warning Paul gives is real.
SPEAKER_00: Apostasy is real.
SPEAKER_00: Denial has consequences.
SPEAKER_00: But so is this promise.
SPEAKER_00: If we are faithless, he remains faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because Christ cannot deny himself, and those who truly belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: Him are united to him.
SPEAKER_00: Under the new covenant, God's people place their entire confidence in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We die with him, and so we live with him.
SPEAKER_00: We endure, not because of some strength in ourselves, but because Christ endures in us.
SPEAKER_00: We will reign with him, not because we are worthy, but because we have been made heirs according to the promise, that we may also be glorified in him.
SPEAKER_00: Our faith may falter, our obedience may stumble, but Christ remains faithful, and because he stands, the covenant stands.
SPEAKER_00: Let's continue with verses thirty two through forty two.
SPEAKER_00: Then they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, sit here until I have prayed.
SPEAKER_00: And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death.
SPEAKER_00: Remain here and keep watch.
SPEAKER_00: And he went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground, and began to pray that if it were possible the hour might pass from him.
SPEAKER_00: And he was saying, 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 said to Peter, Simon, are you sleeping?
SPEAKER_00: Could you not keep watch for one hour?
SPEAKER_00: Keep watching and praying, that you may not come into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
SPEAKER_00: And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words, and again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and 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 resting?
SPEAKER_00: It is enough.
SPEAKER_00: The hour has come.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Get up, let us go.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Here in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see one of the clearest portraits of Jesus' humanity.
SPEAKER_00: As the hour approaches for him to suffer and to die, he is in deep anguish.
SPEAKER_00: He is not calm and collected the way that we might expect.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is so troubled and distressed that he looks for comfort in the presence of his disciples, but they can't stay awake to be of any help.
SPEAKER_00: Luke's gospel adds the detail that his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: The weight of what lies ahead presses down upon him as his hour draws near.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is already getting a taste of being alone.
SPEAKER_00: As his disciples sleep, he persists in prayer as his only comfort.
SPEAKER_00: He pleads with his father, saying, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.
SPEAKER_00: Remove this cup from me.
SPEAKER_00: But even in this prayer, Jesus knows what must be done.
SPEAKER_00: This cup, this cup of his father's wrath and judgment must be poured out upon him, so that he would carry out his mission to save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus is not like the disciples who fail under the pressure.
SPEAKER_00: He remains obedient, even as his flesh feels the full weight of weakness.
SPEAKER_00: In the same breath of his prayer to the Father, he declares, yet not what I will, but what you will.
SPEAKER_00: Some have wondered how Jesus could speak of his will in distinction from the Father's will.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture doesn't present this as a conflict of purpose, but as the costly submission of the Son.
SPEAKER_00: In his humanity, Jesus recoils from suffering.
SPEAKER_00: In his obedience, he submits fully to the Father's will.
SPEAKER_00: As one theologian has rightly said, prayer consists not in changing God's mind, but in finding our own alignment with God's will.
SPEAKER_00: And that is exactly what we see here.
SPEAKER_00: Where Adam failed in Eden, and where the disciples failed in Gethsemane, Christ obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is secured through his faithful submission.
SPEAKER_00: Let's close out with verses forty-three through fifty-two.
SPEAKER_00: And immediately while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, came up, and with him was a crowd with swords and clubs, who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.
SPEAKER_00: Now he who was betraying him had given them a signal, saying, Whomever I kiss, he is the one, seize him and lead him away under guard.
SPEAKER_00: And after coming Judas, having immediately gone to him, said, Rabbi, and kissed him.
SPEAKER_00: And they laid hands on him and seized him.
SPEAKER_00: And one of those who stood by drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answered and said to them, Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me, as you would against a robber?
SPEAKER_00: Every day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me, but this has taken place in order that the scriptures would be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: And they all left him and fled.
SPEAKER_00: And a young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body, and they seized him, but he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked.
SPEAKER_00: The key verse in this passage is when Jesus says, This has taken place in order that the scriptures would be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Let that sink in.
SPEAKER_00: Even as Jesus is betrayed by one of his own disciples, even as he is arrested by his own people, even as everything seems to be unraveling, none of this is outside God's control.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing takes him by surprise.
SPEAKER_00: The mission is never truly in danger.
SPEAKER_00: Every step of this dark night unfolds exactly as God had ordained, in order that the scriptures would be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: What man intends for evil, God intends for good.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what happens next.
SPEAKER_00: When the pressure finally comes, they all flee.
SPEAKER_00: Every disciple.
SPEAKER_00: Not one stands firm, not one remains faithful.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus doesn't flee.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't resist, he doesn't call down legions of angels.
SPEAKER_00: He stands alone as the faithful son.
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't interrupt God's plan, it confirms it.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant isn't built on the courage of disciples, but on the obedience of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In the darkness of this moment, we learn the greatest comfort of all.
SPEAKER_00: When everyone else fails, Christ remains faithful.
SPEAKER_00: As we come to the end of this passage, the message is unmistakable.
SPEAKER_00: God's plan has not failed.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples have scattered, the flesh is proven weak, but the covenant stands because it rests on Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant was written on stone and broken by sinners.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is written on hearts and secured by the faithful Son.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is our Passover, Christ is our faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And by the Holy Spirit we are being formed into the people of God, not by our strength, not by our might, but by his grace alone.
SPEAKER_00: As God's people, we respond to His grace with trust, prayer, and obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Trust by not relying on ourselves, but walking in dependence on God.
SPEAKER_00: Pray rather than panic, in weakness, going to the Father, just as Jesus did in Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: Obey even when the way is hard and others fail, following Christ faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: So as we prepare to partake of the Lord's Supper in just a few moments, let us be encouraged and strengthened, not in ourselves, but in the one who stood faithful when all others fell away.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is our faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, so often we rely too much on our own strength.
SPEAKER_00: Even as Christians, we confess that we often fail to go to you in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We often fail to depend on your strength in and through us.
SPEAKER_00: God, would you forgive us?
SPEAKER_00: And would you equip us through your Holy Spirit to always depend on you?
SPEAKER_00: God, we're so grateful that you have given us the new covenant, a covenant not based on our works, but based entirely on the faithfulness of your Son Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And as we partake of the Lord's Supper, we remember what He has done for us through His suffering on the cross, His precious blood that was shed for us, the mark of the new covenant, for the forgiveness of sin, not just in general, but forgiveness of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you, we praise you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.