[0:00] Amen. Please turn back in your Bibles to the passage of Scripture from which we took our Scripture reading.
[0:24] Matthew's Gospel, chapter 26. And we will read again verses 36 to 39.
[0:38] Matthew's Gospel, chapter 26. Reading again verses 36 to 39. Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane.
[0:56] 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.
[1:14] Then he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here. And watch with me.
[1:27] And going a little further, he fell in his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
[1:44] Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. The cup to which our Lord refers here in verse 39.
[2:14] This cup that he prays will pass from him. He, a little later, identifies, John 18, verse 11, as the cup the Father has given me.
[2:34] Our Saviour's Father has put a cup in his hands. And it is his will that his son should drink it.
[2:50] Now, it is not, of course, a literal cup. This is a metaphor, an image, picture language for an experience through which he is about to pass.
[3:06] And obviously, it is not a pleasant one. King David in Psalm 16 speaks about the Lord having assigned him his cup.
[3:19] And in Psalm 23, he speaks about his cup overflowing. And in both of these Psalms, the reference is to blessing.
[3:32] David's cup makes him glad. But not this cup. Drinking this cup is going to mean suffering for the Lord Jesus.
[3:47] suffering so intense that the very thought of it is overwhelming. Matthew tells us that when he entered the garden, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
[4:04] Mark that he began to be greatly distressed and troubled. So amazed. You notice too what he says to those whom he takes with him to the place of prayer.
[4:21] Verse 38. My soul is very sorrowful even to death. Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane feels as if the sorrow that is pressing down on him is crushing the very life out of him.
[4:41] And that is just in anticipation of the cup. The mere prospect of it. Almost more than he can bear.
[4:57] So what is in it? This cup that the Father is placing in his hands. Well, the Apostle John gives to us a very helpful pointer to the answer.
[5:14] A little later on, the Lord Jesus is going to say something to the Apostle Peter when Peter offers resistance to his arrest.
[5:24] Put your sword into its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?
[5:36] It is the language of resolve. He himself is going to offer no resistance. He is going to place himself in his enemies' hands.
[5:50] Knowing all to which it will lead. The trial. The condemnation. The crucifixion. With all of the sufferings that that will entail.
[6:02] All those things foreshadowed in that portion of Psalm 22 that we have just been singing. He is going to go through with it. Why?
[6:15] Because it is the will of God that he should. This is the cup that the Father has placed in his hands. And he is determined to drink it.
[6:30] Well, it is around this cup that we are going to gather our thoughts as we prepare our hearts for the Lord's table. And here is what we see as we picture this cup being put into our Saviour's hands.
[6:52] We see him recoiling from it. That's the first thing. But not refusing it. That's the second thing.
[7:04] And then afterwards, emptying it. And as we look at these things, we are going to apply what we see to the cup that God sometimes puts into our hands.
[7:24] Our cup. Your cup. And sometimes our cup is like David's cup. In Psalm 23, it's overflowing.
[7:37] Our lives are full of joy-giving blessing. But at other times, it's a very different cup that the Father puts into our hands.
[7:52] A cup that resembles the cup that is being put here into the hands of the Lord Jesus. At least in this respect. The thought of drinking it is painful indeed.
[8:09] And so too, the drinking itself between the believer and the Saviour. There is fellowship at such times.
[8:21] A fellowship of shared experience. And that is why Gethsemane, for all its uniqueness, is such a helpful place to visit.
[8:35] And I pray that it will be helpful for us to visit Gethsemane afresh this morning. So let's think about our Lord.
[8:47] What do we see as we picture this cup being put into his hands? Well, first of all, we see him recoiling from it.
[9:02] Verse 39. And going a little further, he fell in his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
[9:18] So overwhelming is the thought of drinking this cup. The suffering that he anticipates so extreme that he pleads with the Lord to be spared.
[9:34] If it be possible. If there is another way. If Calvary's goal can be achieved without Calvary's suffering.
[9:47] Let this cup pass from me. Now you appreciate that there is a point beyond which we simply cannot go in our endeavours to understand this language if it be possible.
[10:11] Because we recognise and affirm that all the way through our Saviour's earthly life, he and the Father have been working to a plan.
[10:25] A plan agreed on in eternity. A plan of which the Old Testament prophets had written. A plan foreshadowed in all the Levitical offerings.
[10:41] A plan that would involve the very suffering from which he is recoiling and from which he is pleading to be spared.
[10:52] There are depths in that that we simply cannot fathom. But there is something that we can do.
[11:05] At least a little. And that is to try and enter sympathetically into why our Lord should so shrink back from the sufferings of Calvary.
[11:21] And in particular from what represents the climax of those sufferings. The awful experience of being forsaken of God.
[11:35] It is helpful to remember that it is the very nature of sin to separate. George H.
[11:47] Morrison minister in Glasgow the end of the 19th beginning of the 20th century preached a sermon once entitled The Loneliness of Sin.
[12:04] It was based on those words in John 13 concerning Judas Iscariot he went immediately out and it was night and Dr.
[12:19] Morrison in his sermon speaks about three separations for which sin is responsible how sin separates us from our ideal the man or the woman that you so wish that you were and how sin separates man from man we know all about that and above all and worst of all how sin separates from God and that it is what it is going to do to the Lord Jesus he simply cannot be the sin bearer without the sin that he is bearing separating him from God without experiencing in some way or other the loss of God as God in wrath and revulsion toward the sin that he is bearing turns away from him do you understand at least a little why that should have filled our saviour's heart with dread that separation that the very thought of it should be so crushing it was necessary for the father to send an angel from heaven to strengthen him our saviour's father was his life they were one and all through the years of his earthly pilgrimage there had been the profoundest love between them he had never been without
[14:21] God all the way through this intimate togetherness of father and son and of course lying back of that the eternity in which they had been together and in the course of his earthly life a moment by moment reality over which not even a flicker of a shadow had ever been his inexpressible joy every day that he lived to have communion with his father in heaven those of you who are believers you know something of the pleasantness of walking with God we would not give up our walk with God for anything how much more the pleasantness of walking with God on the part of the son in whom there was no sin between whom and
[15:35] God there was the most precious and delightful fellowship and now he's facing the loss of God more than that he's facing the very opposite he's about to become an object of the father's wrath I think of those words that one day he himself will pronounce depart from me he cursed he is just about to hear as it were those very words ringing in his own ears little wonder that he should recoil from it that having known the heights of fellowship with God his heart should shrink from plumbing the depths of God's abandonment now hear us what follows from that at least one thing that follows and that is the profoundest sympathy on our
[16:56] Saviour's part with all of the heart shrinkings with which his people his beloved people are so familiar the dismay that we feel at the father's cup for us now it is never the case and we will come to this at the end that the cup that the father gives to us has in it what was in Christ's cup that cup has been emptied but our own can be bitter enough and not just the drinking of it the very anticipation of it you have been have you not just where our Lord Jesus was in Gethsemane recoiling from the cup and praying that if it is possible that cup might pass from you perhaps that's where you are this morning the thought of what is or what might be the father's will for you almost unendurable certainly so painful some very difficult duty that you would so much rather not have to face some sorrow looming that you would so much love to pass some loss that you anticipate that you would so much rather not be some physical condition perhaps that you fear is about to worsen you know the kind of things to which
[19:01] I'm referring they haven't happened yet but they are appearing they're on the horizon you see them coming or you fear that they are coming the unwelcome even dreaded will of God for you and you find yourself perhaps as I say where you are this very morning doing what the Lord Jesus did praying that if possible this cup might pass from you that you might not have to do or to endure what you see might so well be the Father's will for you is that where you are this morning let me assure you that you have your Saviour's deepest sympathy because it's where he has been and you may be assured that that sympathy is no mere fellow feeling but a sympathy rather that will prompt you to be prompt him to be your strength a sympathy that will bring him very near to you so that in the strength that flows into you by virtue of your union with him you may be equal to all that God has ordained for you so there's the first thing as we picture this cup being put into our
[20:54] Saviour's hand we see him recoiling from it but secondly for all that he recoils from it he does not refuse it verse 39 my father if it is possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as you will verse 42 again for the second time he went away and prayed my father if this cannot pass unless I drink it your will be done verse 44 so leaving them again he went away and prayed for the third time saying the same words again see the picture see the picture yes but not refusing it we're touching here on what was our
[22:05] Saviour's uppermost concern not his own will not his own wishes but the will the wishes of his father that was the thing that was of supreme importance to the Lord Jesus what the father wants it's all bound up with what the Saviour was or with what the Saviour came to be the servant of the Lord remember how it is put in Psalm 40 I have come to do your will O my God it is our proper place as human beings to live in submission to God and he has entered into that fully he has embraced it completely so our salvation is to be accomplished through the obedience of the servant of the
[23:15] Lord and here to the climax of it all it is the deciding factor what matters most the passing of this cup or the doing of the father's will the doing of the father's will not as I will but as you will your will be done the cup that the father has given me shall I not drink it there's determination firm resolve he recoils from it but he does not refuse it and the great question that faces us is this what will bring us to be of Christ's mind to submit in the same way to the cup that the father places in our hands we acknowledge the authority of
[24:19] God unquestionably he is God and it is our duty to do what he commands and to submit to what he ordains and to do so trustfully and uncomplainingly to say as we bring our own petitions to him your will be done not what I want father but what you want but the question is still there what will help us to do that to be reconciled to his father's will when we know when we fear that it will be so opposite to what we wish well I think there are some things that we can see things that we can imagine our Lord saying which are so very helpful to us as we endeavour to be reconciled to our cup say first of all my father loves me who is this son into whose hands this cup of suffering is being placed the son whom the father loves there is no contradiction whatsoever between the contents of the cup and the love that is in the father's heart you cannot argue from the bitterness of the cup to a father who does not love or who is acting unlovingly lovingly father's bitter cup and the father's loving heart perfectly compatible with each other and so in your case and so in mine whatever hard thing is approaching whatever sorrow you so wish to be spared don't question the father's heart it is as loving it is as incapable of acting cruelly towards his beloved children as it was in the case of his own beloved son
[27:01] Jesus say my father loves me and then say this my father will be with me that was Jesus comfort as he anticipated the cross as he thought about the disciples leaving him all alone he would not be alone his father would be with him and that hope was not a vain hope he wasn't alone even amid the darkness of forsakenness unseen unfelt the father was nevertheless there underneath were the everlasting arms that had borne him up all the way through Hebrews tells us that it was through the eternal spirit that he offered himself unblemished to God the God who in one sense turned away from him separated from him on account of the sin that he was bearing in another sense there upholding him carrying him through until the whole ordeal was passed and so it will be with you and so it will be with me as you think about what may be ahead for you as you think about what will be ahead for you say to yourself my father will be with me he will no more sever the connection between himself and me than he did in the case of his beloved son he will no more cease to uphold me than he upheld him you may fear that he has gone and there will be times when you will feel that he has gone and in his inscrutable providence he may withhold a sense of his presence and of his love and that's when we need to come back to the unchanging word of
[29:30] God and the unchanging character of God our God has bound us to himself and assures us that there is nothing that can separate us from his love to us in Christ Jesus and then there's a third thing that you can say my father has the best of reasons for this the best of reasons wasn't that how it was with the Lord Jesus your will be done what was the father's will that he should give his life as a ransom for many that he should make his soul an offering for sin that he should be obedient unto death even the death of the cross the whole Calvary ordeal that was the father's will and what an end the father had in view one altogether worthy of
[30:38] God the eternal salvation of a multitude that no one can number from every nation tribe people and tongue and in that great redemptive work his own everlasting glory and you may argue similarly in your own case true God has nothing remotely as big in view in the things that he ordains for you or for me but he has the best of reasons reasons that are just as worthy of himself we may not see it but we can be sure of it as a writer of a bygone day puts it by the very anguish we may suffer we may measure the greatness of the end to be wrought by it and the intensity of the joy with which
[31:51] God will compensate us the best of reasons say it with faith so we're in the garden of Gethsemane this morning and we are picturing this cup being put into our Saviour's hands by his own Heavenly Father what do we see we see him recoiling from it that's the first thing but not refusing it that's the second and then thirdly we see this we see him afterwards emptying it emptying it he prays your will be done and when it has settled in his mind what is the will of God there is no turning him the cup that the
[32:59] Father has given me shall I not drink it the crisis of decision is over he's going to go through with it and he does on and on and on he goes deeper and deeper into the darkness and the pain until at last he emerges into the light with those great cries it is finished father into your hands I commit my spirit that bitter cup love drank it up and did so until it was empty and that has profound implications for our own cup it tells us for one thing that this cup our saviour's cup will never never be our cup and I'm speaking to the many of you here who are believers there is a cup of wrath that men will drink a cup that they will never drain there is an everlasting punishment into which men will go a separation from God that will never end hear that but not for the believer not for you if you are a believer whatever
[34:49] God puts into your cup it will never be what was put into the saviour's cup no that cup has been drained the cup of God's wrath for us that cup is empty it's one of God's best blessings for those who come to Jesus for salvation what you will not have to endure a cup that you will not have to drink because our Lord has drunk it for you and and Ross cousin death and the curse were in our cup oh Christ it was full for thee but thou hast drained the last dark drop it is empty now for me but there is another implication of our saviour's work for our own cup what will fill it by and by we've been thinking this morning about what is in it now or what will be in it and it can be very bitter sometimes the cup that the father puts to his children's lips is full of very great suffering as you so very well know but it won't be so always it won't be so forever that is the great thing about
[36:55] Christ emptying this cup it means that our own cup one day will be full of joy bringing blessing David Psalm 23 his cup overflowing how it will be with us one day how it will be with us eternally think about it your loving heavenly father placing into your hands a full and over flowing cup of holy joy for you to drink to his glory forever and ever and ever think about it as you take up in a moment or two the cup of remembrance say to yourself this cup so full of suffering for him so that one day my cup my cup might be full and running over perfect glorious joy and oh if there are any of you here this morning unconverted this is the cup of blessing that is offered to you you dash it from your lips and there will be another cup of which you will be compelled to drink the cup of God's wrath forever and ever the madness of it dashing from your lips this cup of blessing so freely offered to you by a loving father in his son's precious name you take that cup of blessing that is offered to you in and through the Lord
[39:20] Jesus that to all eternity may be no cup of wrath and sorrow and woe but one of endless God glorifying joy let's pray together our father we are humbled before the savior accepting this cup that he might drink it for us so that for us there would be a cup of blessing to be everlastingly enjoyed grant gracious God that as we eat the bread that speaks of his body given for us and as we drink the cup that speaks of his sufferings unto death it may be with deepest thankfulness that we praise you for the blessing that through him will come so freely to us hear us and help us as we continue on in our worship as we sing and as we come in just a little to the table itself we ask these things for
[41:05] Jesus sake amen I'm going to sing the sing psalms version of psalm 23 and you will find this on page 28 of the psalter the sing psalms version of psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd no want shall I know verse 5 in the sight of my enemies a table you spread the oil of rejoicing you pour on my head my cup overflows and and I'm graciously fed sing psalms psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd no want shall I know the lord is my shepherd no one shall
[42:07] I know he makes me lie down where the green pastures grow he leads me to rest where the calm waters flow my wandering steps he brings back to his way in strength of all righteousness may he be say and this he has done his great name to his way though I walk in death valley where darkness is near because you are with me no evil I fear your rod and your staff bring me comfort and cheer in the sight of my enemies
[43:14] I stable you spread the oil of rejoicing you pour on my head my cup overflows and I'm graciously fed so surely your covenant mercy and grace will follow me closely in all of my ways I will dwell in the heights of the Lord all my days as we examine ourselves as we ought and as we put to ourselves the question is it right for me to be at this table think about this on whom or on what are your eyes set yourself and your own works or on
[44:46] Christ and Christ alone here is a beautiful verse from Horatius Boner telling us on whom his eyes were set upon a life I have not lived upon a death I did not die another's life another's death I stake my whole eternity is that where you are this morning is it Christ and Christ alone to whom you are looking for righteousness for salvation well then that settles the question the table is for you you may come to it with confidence with full assurance of your saviour's welcome please take your psalters and turn to psalm 118 in the
[46:08] Scottish psalter psalm 118 and we're going to sing from verses from verse 15 onwards and we will continue to sing until the elders have placed the elements on the table in dwellings of the righteous is heard the melody of joy and health the lord's right hand doth ever valiantly psalm 118 verses 15 and following in dwellings of the righteous in dwellings of the righteous is heard the melody of joy and health the lord's right hand the right hand of the mighty lord's right hand of the mighty lord exalted is on high the right hand of the mighty lord doth ever valiantly i shall not die but live and shall the works of god discover the lord ringing into of
[48:32] Open unto me the gates of righteousness. Then will I enter into them, and I the Lord will bless.
[48:57] This is the gate of God by it, the just shall enter in.
[49:12] Be well, I pray, for thou me helpst, and ask my safety be.
[49:26] Amen. Amen.
[50:26] Amen. Amen.
[51:02] God prompts it that I've oils for you and I have more declarative, segments to moi The comfort of the sin, this comfort of sin, and the covenant of love.
[51:17] Through this, I often be faithful in the remembrance of you. For the Lord, who is he to stand, and faith to come, he proclaims the Lord's name, until he comes.
[51:34] Through this, whoever has for peace, the bread of the peace, the Lord, in an unworthy manner, will be guilty of the pain of the body, and the love of the Lord.
[51:49] For the Christ may stand in the self-dain, and the soul of the dead, and the name of the Father. Father, King, just put some relief on the experiencing.
[52:01] For the Lord, King, just put some relief on the self-dain, and the spirit of himself. So the Lord, come down , O Lord, come down, who are simply alive.
[52:22] So be near all of JMuslimas alright, and above him, to our Savior's kingdom.
[52:34] We thank you for a great feeling of you. And bless all the people. We have come away from ourselves.
[52:49] We live in our hearts and minds nothing. We commend ourselves to our life, our love again, to the love of the Savior.
[53:08] We thank you for the deliverance of our Savior's body given for us and his blood shed for us.
[53:21] And we pray that as we and we will receive somewhat more than the physical. We pray that we may be a great blessing.
[53:39] God himself ministering grace and mercy come to us and we pray that we can't come to us. Giving us to peace and more of himself.
[53:53] Strengthening us with all might in our ability. Filling us with the spirit that we want. Continue on our and to face all that he comforts and grace of passion.
[54:17] God, you know the special grace of which we need you to comfort us to go to assurance perhaps of salvation and of the certainty of forgiveness and of fresh forgiveness for the sins of this past need.
[54:40] In the grace that the name of us will be to give peace and not to give peace of the gospel for in your hearts in our truth at this time and the day and we have made come to us and let us in our name.
[55:11] words from another of the Christian former students Holy bread and Holy one yet paid the sovereign son of hand and divine we give thee thanks for all.
[55:37] Thanks. Do you recall the incident absolutely in the gospels where ten lepers cried to the Lord for mercy all the friends and give everyone to be glad to give thanks and for our speaker's response in heaven to touch and mourn now it was heart full of thanks to him we are not all friends we are the mine not and and pray to God inside this border my invitation to each of us my fill my fill and son for his assust not one not any not 50 not 50 not 100 but all giving thanks and praise to
[56:46] God the food has shed blood may have been planted from something difficult in most years for the leprosy that that one man was any were friends born we cried for mercy and the Lord heard and friends are mercy and not by mere acts of power but on the basis of the shared love of your place in harmony walks away and so same way and he might have said thank you Lord Jesus for this day Lord Jesus on the night of the bread and when he had given time to the prophet and said this is my body and it is to do do this in your hands in the same way he took the cup thing that has cut first in covenant and by blood birds and all come into their roots with the influence and house
[58:58] Thank you.
[59:28] Thank you.
[59:58] Thank you.