03/29/18 JESUS PRAYER IN GETHSEMANE
(notes from my video)
Not the same message I recently posted about Jesus Was Heard, though it deals with the same subject and there is overlap, but it is a totally different approach and message.
Jesus' Prayer in Gethsemane, the prayer that Jesus asked the Father to let This Cup Pass From Me.
A lot of people say that the cup was His death on the cross.
Jesus was asking to be delivered from death, but not death on the cross, but rather, He was asking to be delivered from death in the Garden, which would have kept Him from death on the cross.
We know that He got His prayer answered, therefore the Father granted His request, whatever it was. If His request was to NOT die on the cross, then Jesus did not get His request.
You may respond by saying that Jesus got His OTHER request, which was, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done." But the Bible says that the Father always heard Jesus' prayers.
The NEVERTHELESS prayer was a secondary prayer, based on what Jesus did not know, whereas His LET THIS CUP prayer was based on what He did know. He knew it was the Father's will for Him to die on the cross.
John 8:29
29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
John 11:42
42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
Jesus, and later John said, that God will hear, grant our requests
Matthew 21:22
22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
Luke 11:9-13
9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
John 14:12-14
12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
John 15:7-10
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
1 John 3:21-24
21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
24 And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.
1 John 5:14-15
14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
We may say that we don't always get our prayer requests granted. Maybe we are not meeting the conditions.
There are conditions to having our prayers answered.
BUT JESUS MET ALL CONDITIONS. He always obeyed the Father.
Jesus and the Father were always of one mind; They always agreed. They never disagreed, EVER.
Jesus had preached throughout His ministry that He would go to Jerusalem, suffer, be crucified dead and be raised from the dead. He had said this just before He went to the Garden to pray.
So, why did Jesus go to the Garden? What was He wanting to do in the Garden?
Notice, JUST PRIOR TO His arrest, His trial, His crucifixion, Jesus went to the Garden. He took His disciples with Him and took three of them with Him into the Garden.
You may be thinking, "He went to the Garden to pray that He might escape the cross." NO, NO, there is nothing in the entire passage that says He went to the Garden in order to ask that He should not die on the cross. Not one thing even implies such a thing.
We can get an idea of why He went to the Garden from Hebrews 4 and 5, since that gives us more information about His praying in the Garden than any other passage.
Hebrews 4:14-16
14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
The High Priest of Israel would make blood sacrifice for the sins of the people, but first he would make sacrifice for his own sins.
Jesus made sacrifice for us, as the High Priest, and also as the Sacrifice and also as the Altar. Jesus did not make sacrifice for His own sins because Jesus did not have sin. He was a man, He was human, but He was without sin. This is fundamental to the Christian faith.
IN HEBREWS 5 (there is no chapter 15), in 5:1-3 we are told that the high priest made sacrifice for himself and for the people of Israel.
Hebrews 5:5-7 tells us that Jesus was chosen to be High Priest. Jesus was not part of the Levitical priesthood, He was not part of the Aaronic priesthood. Jesus was chosen aside from natural lineage.
In verse 6 we see that Jesus was likened to Melchisedec, who predated the Aaronic priesthood. There is no record of the father or mother or the origin or the destiny of Melchisedec. Likewise, Jesus had not beginning, no ending.
In verse 7 we are told that Jesus, during His earthly ministry, offered prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears to Him Who was able to save Him.
This passage aligns this prayer with His High Priestly office. Jesus is High Priest, without beginning and without end.
Jesus was heard when He prayed to be saved from death. BUT WHAT DEATH?
People say that He was in the Garden praying because of the burden of carrying the sins of the world or the fear of dying on the cross. IT DOES NOT SAY THIS.
This passage does say He was praying;
it does put Him in His High Priestly office;
it does say that His prayer was heard.
If His prayer was to escape the cross, then His prayer was not heard, because He did not escape the cross. This contradicts the passage.
People say He went to the Garden because He was burdened with the prospect of being the sin bearer, the prospect of death on the cross.
I believe He was burdened, as the sin bearer, as the High Priest, with the spiritual needs of the disciples, of the Church. He went to the Garden to pray for His followers. He could have also been praying for Himself to fulfill all that the Father wanted Him to in His death, but He did not go to the Garden to pray for deliverance from the cross, and He did not turn from the cross while praying in the Garden. IT DOES NOT SAY THAT.
You may ask where I get this.
Well, that is what High Priests do. They pray for the people.
That is what loving parents and family members do. They pray for loved ones.
Jesus did not go to the Garden to pray for escape from the cross. Where does it say such a thing? It is not said before the Garden. Everything before the Garden was commitment to go to the cross, to do the Father's will, to fulfill His mission. EVERYTHING.
Jesus did not change His mind about His mission while He was praying in the Garden. If He did, then where and when did such a monumental shift take place?
Jesus was at the Garden praying. He had talked to the disciples often, concerning their faith and relationship with Him and His plan to die on the cross and be raised again. They had shown their weakness and failure by backing out from time to time and they had boasted that they would not back out, only to back out.
Jesus was praying for His disciples. He actually told them to pray. He went to pray, and at some point He came to them and found the sleeping. He told them to pray, because He was so wrung out in His prayer battle that He was in great sorrow and on the verge of dying. HE WAS ABOUT TO DIE IN THE GARDEN. They went back to sleep and He went back to prayer.
Jesus returned again to the disciples and was bleeding through the pores of His skin. He was about to die as He battled in the Garden. Again He told the disciples to pray; pray that they would not enter into temptation. His concern was for them, though He was about to die.
As a parent, you know what it is to pray for your child if they hare in a drastic situation. You pray more energetically, more vigorously, more emotionally, more determinedly, more sorrowfully for your child than you ever prayed for yourself.
Jesus went to the Garden to pray for His disciples, the Church and for His own ability to finish His sacrificial death. He did not go there to escape the cross.
Jesus did not change His mind, before the Garden, about dying on the cross. He did not change His mind, while in the Garden, about dying on the cross. That would have been disobedience to the Father. That would have been breaking unity with the Father. He and the Father had always been of one mind, one purpose, they always agreed.
If Jesus backed away from the cross, WHERE AND WHEN DID IT HAPPEN?
If Jesus came back His plan to die on the cross, WHERE AND WHEN DID IT HAPPEN?
Some folks blame His falling away from the eternal plan of God because He was human. NO, it was not just a human frailty to reject the cross, it was a rebellion against the will of the Father, and against His own commitment.
Jesus, as a man, did have weaknesses, infirmities, but He never sinned.
Jesus did not turn from the cross. He did not ask the Father to change His mind, His plan, His only way of salvation. IT DID NOT HAPPEN.
Jesus was in the Garden praying for His disciples, the world, the Church. He did not go to the Garden to get out of going to the cross.
Jesus was not praying in the Garden, and then suddenly decide that He did not want to go to the cross.
However, in His praying He was so spent in supplication, spent in spiritual battle with darkness that He was about to die. It was becoming evident that He might not make it out of the Garden and therefore He would not be able to make the sacrifice for sins.
This is where we see the humanity of Jesus. Not in trying to escape the cross, but in His weakened physical condition it looked like He would not make it to the cross. Though He held on to the cross as long as He could, His life was slipping away.
Jesus was under attack. Satan had always wanted to kill Jesus before the cross, beginning with Herod's decree to kill the infants. Satan wanted to kill Jesus on various occasions and this might be his last opportunity before the cross.
Jesus said He was sorrowful unto death. It was not hyperbole or a cute colloquialism, IT WAS AN APPARENT FACT. He was about to die.
This spiritual battle in the Garden was so violent that angels were sent to strengthen and minister to Jesus. This is why Jesus prayed, Let this cup pass from me, let this hour pass from me.
Mark 14:33-36
33 And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;
34 And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.
35 And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.
36 And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.
If Jesus sought to escape the cross, because of His humanness, He needs to apologize to Peter because when Peter spoke against His death on the cross, Jesus called Peter Satan and reproved Peter for savoring the things of the world rather than the tings of God.
If Jesus was turning from the cross in the Garden, He was doing the same thing that Peter did.
Jesus never showed remorse for His "human lapse." Jesus never apologized for calling Peter, "Satan."
JESUS DID NOT TRY TO ESCAPE THE CROSS.
"His prayer was heard, in that He feared."
The Father did not hear Jesus because He feared the cross.
The Father did not save Jesus from death on the cross, because Jesus did not ask to be saved from death on the cross.
The Father saved Him from death in the Garden.
JESUS LEARNED OBEDIENCE... (vs 8-10)
NO. He did not learn to obey the Father about going to the cross because that was never the issue. The passage does not say He learned to be obedient by surrendering to the cross, while in the Garden.
The passage says that He learned obedience.
The Divine nature of the Son of God did not have to learn obedience.
The Divine nature of Jesus always existed, the human nature of Jesus had not always existed.
There is only One Son of God, but the Son of God has two natures. He is Divine and He is human.
The Human nature of the Jesus had to learn obedience.
It is not that the human nature of Jesus had ever been disobedient. He had to learn obedience, even when it would be costly.
Jesus, being on the verge of death, continued to fight against death and tried to reach the cross. But it was becoming more evident that He probably would not make it out of the Garden alive.
Jesus prayed, to the end, that He would survive the Garden, BUT, He realized He was about to die. In His human weakness, in His human infirmity He did not know what was about to happen, and in desperation He cried out one more time, asking that the Father save Him from death in the Garden, NEVERTHELESS, NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE BE DONE.
This is where He learned complete trust. He wanted the Father's will, even if it conflicted with everything He knew and understood concerning His mission. This surrender to the Father concerning the unknown is what perfected Him as the Author of eternal salvation.
