A Garden Mentality
A Garden Mentality; Matthew 26:36-46 (nv 10/31/05 am)
AT: 1 Adam and Cain are walking down the road and Cain looks over into the garden and says, boy dad that sure is a beautiful place. Adam replies that’s where we use to live before your momma ate us out of house and home.
OS: It takes a ‘garden mentality’ to be the church that God wants us to be.
Not that kind of garden, but the mentality of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in our text…
Text: 2 3 4 Matthew 26:36-46
PQ: It takes a ‘garden mentality’ to be the church that God wants us to be. What is this Garden Mentality? (peace, security, purpose, significance, etc.)
I. 5 It is a “Not My will but Yours be done” mentality.
A. No doubt the ‘cup’ was dreaded. Jesus sets the supreme example.
B. Jesus was always about doing the Father’s will.
1. 6 Luke 2:49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
2. 7 John 5:30, By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
3. 8 John 6:38, For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
C. 9 Jesus was always about doing the Father’s will.
1. If you want success in your life, and if we want success in this church we also must always be about doing the Father’s will.
D. This kind of mentality overflows into our relationships
1. 10 Philippians 2:1-4 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
E. 11 It’s not about…me, church, programs, facility, … its about the Father’s will. The Father’s Business.
1. The Father’s business is people business
2. Help people know Jesus, grow to be like Him, show Him to the world.
TS] It takes a ‘garden mentality’ to be the church that God wants us to be. What else do we discover about this mentality (attitude)?
II. 12 Does it include (involve) the cup?
A. Notice the suffering of Jesus.
1. Luke – sweat like drops of blood.
2. Peter, James, & John – stay with me.
3. Over this cup?
B. Some say – physical suffering / Death? (Mel Gibson’s The Passion) Mere men have faced suffering and death with resolve.
1. Socrates in the prison cell in Athens, according to Plato’s account, took his cup of hemlock ‘without trembling or changing color or expression’. He then ‘raised the cup to his lips, and very cheerfully and quietly drained it’. When his friends burst into tears, he rebuked them for their ‘absurd’ behavior and urged them to ‘keep quiet and be brave’. He died without fear, sorrow or protest. So was Socrates braver than Jesus? Or were their cups filled with different poisons?
2. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch in Syria at the beginning of the second century, on his way to Rome, begged the church there not to attempt to secure his release lest they should deprive him of this honor! ‘Let fire and the cross,’ he wrote, ‘let the companies of wild beasts, let breaking of bones and tearing of limbs, let the grinding of the whole body, and all the malice of the devil, come upon me; be it so, if only I may gain Christ Jesus!’
3. 13 Luke 12 4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.
4. 14 Matthew 5:11-12 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
5. Not Physical suffering.
C. 15 The “cup” is synonymous with the ‘wrath’ of God. (OT/Prophets)
1. Job 21:20, Let his own eyes see his destruction; let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
2. The spiritual agony of bearing the sins of the world and receiving the Divine judgment they deserved. (Sin & Seperation)
D. 16 A Garden Mentality recognizes the reality of God’s cup of wrath.
1. That cup of wrath Jesus drank for us.
2. 17 18 …He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! The Son of Man came … to give His life as a ransom for many. Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree. Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. (Isaiah 53:5-6; John 1:29; Mark 10:45; Hebrews 9:28; 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13)
3. (“The Holy Son of God who had never known even the most insignificant sin would become sin – an object of God’s fury” John MacArthur; The Murder of Jesus)
E. 19 A Garden Mentality recognizes the reality of God’s cup of wrath.
1. If you want success in your life, and if we want success in this church we also must always be about doing the Father’s will, and be ever mindful of the reality of God’s cup of wrath.
a. Then I appreciate what Jesus did for me.
b. Sin must be extremely horrible.
c. God’s love must be wonderful beyond comprehension.
2. That is why we are in the “people” business!
3. That is why we worship and praise Him for rescuing us from such a horrendous end.
TS] 20 It takes a ‘garden mentality’ to be the church that God wants us to be. Where we are consumed with what we can do for God and others, rather than what the church can do for us. Where we are consumed with the reality of God’s cup of wrath to the point that our business is God’s business – people business. - Mission
III. Like Jesus – Our greatest fear, concern, should be separation from the Father.
A. Separation = darkness now and ever after.
1. Life now is no good without Jesus & His church.
B. The Curtain – a way is now open.
1. Now you don’t have to be separated from God.