So now turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew. This morning we'll be looking at Matthew chapter 26, verses 36 to 56. If you're using your Pew Bible this morning, you should be able to find this on page 1058. Matthew 26, beginning in verse 36 through verse 56. Hear now the word of God. Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, Sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me. And going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, My father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but you will. And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. He said to Peter, So could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, My father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, He went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then He came to the disciples and said to them, Sleep, and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, The one I will kiss is the man. Seize him. He came up to Jesus at once and said, Greetings, Rabbi! And he kissed him. And Jesus said to him, do what you came to do.' Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father? and he will at once send more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled? That it must be so. At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. and all the disciples left Him and fled. Let us once again go to the Lord and seek His blessing. Our great and almighty Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord, for these words that You moved Your Gospel writers to write that we might know the events leading up to our Savior's death. We pray, Lord, that as we look at these words, that You would uphold us by Your strength, that You would inscribe Your truth upon our innermost being, and that You may bless my mind and my mouth, that I may think and speak clearly this morning. It is, Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ that we do pray. Amen. As we begin this morning, I want to start by asking us all a question. myself included, for us to think upon briefly. First of all, how do you and I respond when things don't go our way? How do you and I respond when things don't go as we have planned or as we would desire? We have before us this morning a beautiful example for us to follow in those situations. We have for us in the night that Jesus was betrayed, a picture of our Lord, the sovereign creator of heaven and earth. The One who, with His Father, before time began, and the councils of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, agreed upon and worked out this plan of redemption and the salvation that He would lay down His life for His people. And on the night in which all that was about to come to a head, when the fullness of time was fast approaching, We see our Lord, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, feeling the full weight in His full humanity of what that plan would cost Him. And for lack of a better term, we see in these pages and putting together the other counts of the Gospels, He was terrified. Our Lord was scared. he knew what was coming. And so we see him pleading with his father. As one of the other gospel writers puts it and describes the condition, he was under such distress and such sorrow and turmoil of soul like none of us have ever experienced that what happened to him was a physiological condition where those small capillaries in his body burst and blood entered into his pores and so he sweat drops of blood. That was the turmoil that he was enduring and he pleaded with his father that if there was any other way it would be done. But we also see in this account Jesus setting the trail, blazing the trail for us of how to respond who has no doubt a painful will of God for him. Something that we might, nothing like we would endure in pain and suffering. But yet we do in our lives experience areas of, or times where God's providence, his will for our lives, does in fact bring pain and suffering. And what Jesus gives us in those instances, and here, as we approach those times, is a path by which to follow, an example to heed of how to respond to our Father when He brings those times of pain and distress to our lives. It's a call, brothers and sisters, to the hard and impossible task in our own strength to submit in humility to the will of God, regardless of how painful it might be. It's a call to submit to the God's will and humility, regardless of how painful it might be. We'll be looking at this text before us in four points. First of all, God's will can be painful. But then the last three points are looking at proper responses to painful providences in our lives. First of all, response number one, which is point two, humble submission. Thirdly, a proper response. Number two, confidence. And lastly, a proper response. Number three, prayer. So first of all, God's will can be painful. Now in verses 36 through 50, we see here Jesus has entered the Garden of Gethsemane. This was after the initiation of the Lord's Supper and their observance of the Passover. and they go into the garden and he is under great sorrow and distress. And he leaves the rest, Judas and Argonso, there was 11, so he leaves eight of the disciples and takes three with him, Peter, and then James and John. Matthew just says the sons of Zebedee, but those are the brothers, the sons of Zebedee, James and John. Now he says to them, this inner circle among his disciples as they go further into the garden, that he is under such distress, almost to death. So he asks them to watch and to pray with him. And then he goes on a little further. And then we see this intimate moment between father and son, where he pleads that the cup of God's wrath might pass from him. Now, what was setting the stage here was not only the physical pain that he would endure. And just so you know, The crucifixion, it was so horrendous, and I'll describe a little bit in a few moments, but just to kind of lay the foundation a little bit, it was so horrendous that a new word had to be coined to describe it. The word that we use and say something is excruciating, that is a word that literally means and translated it out of the cross. Something so painful, They decided we had to have another word to describe the level of pain and suffering, physical pain and suffering, upon a cross and in a crucifixion. So when we say something is excruciating, that's a word connecting to and saying that this is the most painful thing I can think of in the world. Now, the physical pain that Jesus would have experienced, and I've referenced a book and I again recommend it to you called A Case for Christ. by Lee Strobel. In that book he interviews various experts and gets their testimony on various aspects of the crucifixion and the life of Christ. And one was an expert on the Roman Empire, the Roman civilization at this time, and he knew through his study quite intimately what was involved in the crucifixion. And as I mentioned before, this condition, the distress that Jesus was under where the capillaries in his body burst, and so he sweat drops of blood out of his pores. What this one doctor in this book says is that this condition would have left his skin with a heightened sensitivity for what was to come. So imagine then, not just the devastation of what he experienced, in the normal course of things. But now the beatings, the placing of the crown of thorns upon his head, the slaps across his face. As you have no doubt probably at times heard described, the whips they used is called the cat of nine tails. It was a short thing that had nine leathery fingers coming out of it and woven in that were like shards of glass, beads, various sharp fragments. And this is what they whipped him with, from the base of his neck all the way to the top of his buttocks. That whole area of his back. Each whip ripping away pieces of his flesh. So that most likely, this expert said, his spine may have been exposed in parts. His intestines along the sides may have been exposed. That is the physical suffering that he went through. And so that when they're actually then nailed to the cross, the nails piercing a nerve in our wrists that would have pinched and been an excruciating pain in and of itself. The nail going through both feet in a similar fashion, piercing a nerve. But what killed people on the cross was not so much the loss of blood. It was asphyxiation. When we're in this position with our arms raised up above our heads for extended periods of time, it becomes increasingly impossible for us to take a breath. And this would have been the natural position of those on the cross as the strength of their legs was weakened and they were down like this. They would have had to push on the nail in their feet, raising up the nail in their wrist, turning in them to lift up to take a breath. and then sink back down. That raw tissue of their back scraping against a hard vertical post of the cross. That is the physical suffering that Jesus went through. There's also a spiritual suffering that Jesus went through. For all of eternity, Father and Son, together in perfect harmony and union and love, Yet as we'll get to in a few verses, Jesus cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? For a moment in history, the eternal Son of God and God the Father were separated. As God the Father poured out His wrath, His hatred of all of our sin and wickedness upon His perfect Son. So more than the physical suffering and pain that Jesus was anticipating and enduring, I believe that agony of seeing His beloved Father turn His back upon Him and reject Him, even for a brief moment in human history, was probably far more than any physical suffering that He endured. Why did He go through this? And why, brothers and sisters, do painful experiences come into our life? Well, the Children's Catechism question number three. The first one is, you know, who made you? It's God. The second one is, what else did God make? All things. And the third question is, why did God make you in all things? For His own glory. That is why. The cross is there. Believe it or not, such a painful display, such a humiliating display, such a cursed display, gives glory to our God. Because He did that for us. For you and me. The love that He has displayed for us is on the horror of the cross. He did it for His glory. God doesn't need us. Not to burst anyone's bubble here. God does not need you. God does not need me. He would have been perfectly self-sufficient in enjoying the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from eternity past to eternity forever. He did not need to make us. But He did. And why? For His glory. We are called, brothers and sisters, to glorify God. That is why we have been made. To give Him glory. To give Him praise. To give Him worship. And every single painful experience in our life, as I've described in the crucifixion, pales in comparison to what our Savior endured for us. But like that circumstance, the painful areas in our life are given to us for the glory of God. And that these painful experiences, brothers and sisters, are for the purpose of drawing us closer to Him. That we rely upon Him all the more. That we find our strength upon Him. And we rest upon Him. And even for those who do not yet believe, if there be any here among us this morning that don't yet believe, every single experience that you have endured, every painful experience is also to drive you to God. That you might realize that you don't have the strength or the ability to have your own salvation, to earn your own salvation. If we can't handle these painful circumstances in our life without our own strength, how can we please a sovereign God and earn our salvation on our own? Psalm 119, verses 71 and 75 say this, It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. I know, O Lord, that Your rules are righteous, that in faithfulness you have afflicted me." God brings affliction into our lives to mold us more into the image of Christ, to teach us His ways, to draw us closer to Him that we might glorify Him. Because of these painful experiences in our life, these providence of God that cause affliction in our lives, how then are we to respond to them? What are we to do in these painful times, in these times of affliction and deep sorrow? Well, Jesus here gives us what to do in His own example. First of all, our second point of proper response is humble submission. Three times Jesus asks, but each time He submits to the will of His Father. It's important for us to understand that this submission was not simply, OK, I'll do it. You might add, as we're growing up and our parents tell us or give us a task to do, or maybe in the workplace, we're given assignments to do, or in school, we're given assignments to do. We do them. We're submitting. But more often than not, at times, we're doing a kind of grumbling along the way. Like, I don't like doing this. I wish I didn't have to do this. Not Jesus. He submitted. And He was all in, we might say. He didn't go to the cross half-heartedly. He did so willfully for the joy that was set before Him, we're told. When we grumble and submit, that's what I might call prideful submission. Sure, on the outside, we're submitting, but we're still grumbling and declaring our own sovereignty and ability. Now, that's been violated, and I don't want to do this, but I'm doing it anyway because I have to. But not Jesus. His submission was a humble submission. A desire to fulfill wholeheartedly His Father's will. Samuel Rutherford, in reference to hard providences that come into our life and the responsibility that we have to humbly submit to God in these times, writes this, when the Lord's will blows across your desire, it is best in humility to strike sail to him. So the imagery there is of a ship at sea and you're going in one way, but in his day, you know, they didn't have gasoline engines to propel them along. So they're dependent on the wind. So you might be at sea, but a crosswind would come, kind of disrupting your plan and your pattern. But what he's saying here, it's best not to fight against that, but instead to turn your sails to catch that wind and to still be propelled forward. It is best in humility to strike sail to him and to be willing to be led any way our Lord pleaseth. You know not what the Lord is working out of this. but you shall hereafter." What he is saying there, it is hard. And these providences that God brings at times that distress us and are afflicting us, although they are for our good, as God promises in Romans chapter 8, yet in the midst of them there are a tumultuous sea of pain and suffering. And what we're called to in humble submission is to trust in the goodness of God, that He knows what He's doing, and in His sovereign care. God's will can be painful, but we must remember, brothers and sisters, that it is always, always good. God's will for our lives may be painful at times, but it is always, always good. And our call is to humbly submit to it. The second proper response that we see in these verses is what I call confidence. We see this in verses 51 to 56. Here, as Judas comes, he says to them energetically, Greetings, Rabbi, and kisses Jesus. We're told, not here, but in another gospel, that it was Peter who drew his sword, not surprisingly, and attacked the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Now, in that other account, we're told that Jesus picked up the servant's ear and put it back. And he tells Peter then this, not to put his sword back, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels? So he tells Peter, don't fight on my behalf. And then he says, God can give me more than 12 legions of angels. And just so we're clear, a legion is around 1,000 troops. So the picture that we have here is almost the army of heaven, more than 12,000 angels, at the ready, with their arms bared, maybe, and their swords in hand, just waiting for the call, just waiting for the word to say, go, get my son. You know, that call never comes. And Jesus, as we saw as he prayed to his Father, got the answer that, no, this must happen. So when Jesus says this, as he also points out, that the scriptures must be fulfilled. From Genesis to Malachi, the prophecies and the history and the redemption unfolding throughout God's working through his people, all pointing to this moment when Christ would lay down his life. And the very first proclamation of the gospel is in Genesis chapter three, when Adam and Eve had just sinned and God had pronounced the curses upon them. And he said that the seed of the woman, although his heel would be bruised, would crush the seed of the serpent. What we're about to witness in the pages of Matthew is the bruising of the son's heel. The bruising of the seed of the woman's heel. as He crushes the head of the serpent. What this shows for us, brothers and sisters, is that what Jesus was resting upon, what He in His humanity, as He had all the weaknesses that we have, yet never sinned, as He was frail in His humanity, in the distress that He was experiencing, was resting squarely upon confidence in who His Father is, in the will of His Father. His confidence was not placed in man. His confidence was placed in His Father and His will. See, brothers and sisters, the doctrine of God's sovereignty is actually one of the most comforting doctrines that we can have. The fact that God is in control of every detail of our lives. He has decreed our days. He has written them down before there was yet one. All of this is unfolding according to His sovereign plan. And as Job says in Job 19, verses 23 to 26, Oh, that my words were written. Oh, that they were inscribed in a book. Oh, that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever. For I know that my Redeemer lives. and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God." These words were just after Job recounts to his friends all the suffering that God brought into his life. Yet he rested in the confidence of God's goodness and that he would stand wholly before God one day. And that is what we have, brothers and sisters. It's not just simply humbly submitting to the will of God, but then also resting and placing our confidence in the truth that God is good and His will is good. He is working out all things for the good of those who love Him. So even in the most painful of circumstances, let our confidence be in God alone. Our fourth and final point, proper response, number three, is prayer. This point is really the foundation of the first two. We cannot humbly submit to God's will on our own strength. We cannot have confidence in the goodness and will of God in the midst of difficulty and turmoil on our own strength. The only way that we can do this is through prayer. Ephesians 6, verses 18-20. After Paul spells out the armor of God, the thing he closes with is he pleads for his brothers and sisters to pray for him, that he would have boldness. And here too, Jesus gives the same admonition in 26, verse 41. Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. I believe this was not only something he said to his disciples and how tired they were, but it was also something he was saying to himself. He was being tempted, brothers and sisters. The evil one was well at work in the Garden of Gethsemane trying to get our Lord and Savior to go a different way. And so He admonishes His disciples to not only to pray and to be watchful, but also He's encouraging His own actions as He continues to pray and to rest upon His Father's goodness. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh was weak. Jesus, in His humility, was at a moment of weakness. But we see through His example that through resting in God and prayer, praying that we might humbly submit to God in His providences, praying that He would maintain our confidence and trust in Him. The only way we can do this is through prayer. It is, brothers and sisters, the greatest weapon that we have been given. We've been given two weapons as Christians, the sword and prayer, the Word of God and prayer. And though the world may look at us on our knees in weakness as we pray to God, it is the most strong and strong tower that we could ever be in. As we pray to our Father, we may humbly submit to His will and rest in Him. And so, brothers and sisters, as we consider how do we respond when things do not go our way? Let us trust in our Heavenly Father. Let us rest our confidence in Him. Let us humbly submit. But only, brothers, we can only do this by seeking His strength and the fruit of His Spirit evident in our lives through the power of prayer. Amen. Our Heavenly Father, we do, Lord, we thank You We do thank you for the hard and difficult circumstances that you bring into our lives. Lord, what these afflictions do is draw us close to you. They make us and force us to humbly rely upon you as you prune away various things that keep us and hinder our growth that we may grow more fully into the image of Christ. Pray, Father, that you would give us the strength and give us the fruit that we might humbly submit, following the example of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That we, also following His example, would continue to trust and place our confidence in You, knowing that You are good, knowing that You are sovereign. May we, Father, be victorious in those times when we are tempted to turn from You, following our own ways. but instead Lord to humbly submit to your will and purpose in our lives. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.