Charles Stanley - Where the Battle Is Won
Jesus is the pattern in the life of every single believer for every aspect of life. In relationship to God the Father? Obedience. In relationship to others? Love. In relationship to things; He always used those to the glory of the heavenly Father. Even in those battles in life that He had to face He is your pattern and mine in facing the conflicts and battles in life. Now once in a while when we say, "Well Jesus is the pattern for anything". Somebody says, "Well, but wasn't He God? And didn't that make Him an exception"? No, because not only was He God but He was also the God man.
That is, Jesus Christ was God clothed in human, sinless flesh which meant that He felt the same things we feel, He hurt just like we hurt, and He felt the same kind of pain that we feel. And so, when we think about Him being a pattern, the area in life that I want us to deal with in this message is the battles that Jesus fought and how He fought them and how He won them. And the title of this message is: "Where the Battle is Won". And I want us to go to the most crucial, pivotal point in Christ's life when it comes to battles and see how He won that crucial battle, the most crucial of all, and it is found in the twenty sixth chapter of Matthew beginning in verse 36.
So, if you'll turn there and let's read that beginning in the thirty-sixth verse. And let me give you a little background of what's happening. You'll recall that Jesus has been with His disciples in the upper room and they've been experiencing the Passover and a number of things have gone on. It's been a very confusing time for the disciples, not understanding exactly what was happening. And so, following that the Bible says that they went to the Mount of Olives and to the garden of Gethsemane which was the place Jesus often went. We'll see in a few moments how often He did go there. And this is where they're going to spend the evening.
And beginning in verse 36: "Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples, 'Sit here while I go over there and pray. And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, 'My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.' And He went a little beyond them, and He fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt.' And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, 'So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.' He went away again the second time and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done.' And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. Then He came to the disciples, and said to them, 'Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of the sinners. Arise, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!'"
What I want you to notice is that the garden of Gethsemane was Jesus's favorite place in Jerusalem. It was His favorite place. It was His custom to go there and talk to the Father. It was His place to pray. And I believe, in the garden of Gethsemane here, when Jesus fought His most terrific battle it is in this place that you and I discover and get a glimpse of Jesus's humanity. Now I'm going to say this several times this message because it's so important. Because what we do is... Satan whispers in our ears and says, "Well, now wait a minute. That's Jesus and He was God. Why do you think you're going to act like Him? You can't act like Him. I mean, after all, He is God".
But now, listen carefully. Not only was Jesus God but He was human. And I want to say that again, because you see, it is in the garden of Gethsemane you and I see the humanity of Jesus reaching its peak. Here's a man who's hurting, who's suffering, who's feeling what you and I feel in the very ultimate of His capacity to feel grief and sorrow and hurt and pain. In the garden of Gethsemane, we find the key to victory and winning these battles, these conflicts that we face in life. While you and I will never struggle over the same subject we will struggle in the same way. We will have similar feelings, similar conflict, being pulled in two different directions, wanting to do desirous to do the right thing.
And sometimes the difference in us is we will want to do the right thing but something in us wants to do the other thing. We will want to do the right thing and want to do the wrong thing. Jesus never wanted to do the wrong thing. It is the pattern, it is the process that He went through that I want us to see that is so very significant to us. So, here He is now in the garden with His disciples and I want us to see, first of all, here in this passage, the place of His struggle. We said the place of His struggle is the garden of Gethsemane.
Now, I want you to turn to a verse of scripture. If you'll think about Jesus, and you know the chapter in Mark 1. He says that He was up early in the morning, alone, out praying. But here is a very significant verse I want you to look at in this twenty-first chapter of Luke. Notice, if you will, in verse 37. Verse 37 says, look at this: "Now during the day He was teaching in the temple, but at evening He would go out and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet".
Now here's what I want you to see. Here is one of the most significant things about the life of Christ. Are you listening? Say amen. He spent His days with people. He spent His nights with the Father. He spent His days with the people, teaching in the temple, going here and yonder. He spent His days with people. He spent His nights with the Father. I believe that is one of the most significant statements in the entire Bible about Jesus because, you remember what He said to His disciples in that fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth chapters of John? He said, "I don't do anything on My own initiative". He said, "I just do what I see the Father doing". He said, "It's whatever the Father does. I just take My cue from Him".
Jesus spent His evenings in the garden of Gethsemane with the Father, fellowshipping with Him. Now, He wasn't always in Jerusalem so sometimes He was on a mount or somewhere else alone praying. Jesus fought the most significant, crucial battle of His entire life in this garden where it was the habit that He would go in the evenings, where it was the custom that He would go, where all of His disciples expected Him to go in the evening. Something about that Mount of Olives, where He could look over the city of Jerusalem. And, on this particular night, naturally they ended up in this place. It was here that He determined to fight this most significant battle.
Now, most of the time we think in terms of Jesus fighting his battle and saying, "Well, it was the cross and so forth". But I want you to see something a little more significant than that right now. And that is, you'll notice when He got there, if you will look in the thirty-ninth verse: "And when He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt.'" Now, listen, when Jesus got to the garden the Bible says He separated Himself from the eight remaining disciples and then the other three, Peter, James, and John, He took with Himself. Here's what He did. He didn't go walking around in the garden saying, "Now Father, I've got something on My mind I need to deal with".
I think it is significant that the Bible says that when Jesus went to the garden what did He do? He fell on His face before the Father. Now, I want you to think about this. All of us can stand up and pray. We can ride down the expressway and pray. But when you and I come to the place of prayer in our life, when I think about the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the perfection of God, the infiniteness of God in every area. If Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humbled Himself before the Father and fell upon His face before Him, are we not also, when we struggle with Him, when we go through these battles, these significant times in our life, instead of getting yourself in some easy chair should we not, likewise, prostrate ourselves before Him? At least to kneel before Him, acknowledging in our very form that we acknowledge that He is God, and we are sinful flesh?
That we are talking to the God who is the only God, the God of heaven and earth, the omnipotent God of life? He fell upon His face in that place. The second thing I want you to notice here in this struggle with the life of Christ is the subject of this struggle. Now, when you first look at it you think, "Well, certainly I know what that struggle was because it's very evident what He was going through". But, if you'll notice, also in this thirty-ninth verse, again what it says: "He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.'"
Notice what He didn't say. He didn't say, "Let the cross pass from Me". He could have. I mean, why didn't He? That was the most glaring thing to you and me as we think about where Jesus was and what He was facing. And He certainly knew that that was coming. But notice the only thing Jesus mentions. The subject of this struggle is a cup. That's what He says. "Let this cup pass from Me". Now, what was the cup? I want you to go back, if you will, to Psalm 75. In the seventy-fifth Psalm, here is one of a number of scriptures that remind us that the cup was, oftentimes, used, in the Old Testament, as a symbol of holding the wrath and the judgment of God, drinking of this cup of the wrath and the judgment of God.
Look, if you will, in the eighth verse of this seventy-fifth Psalm. He says, "For a cup is in the hand of the Lord, and the wine foams; it is well mixed, and He pours out of this; surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs". He's speaking of a judgment and the condemnation and the wrath of God. So, the subject of this struggle here in the garden is very singular. He says, "Let this cup pass from Me".
Now, the question is, what was in the cup? I want you to turn, if you will, to a passage that I think most of us are familiar with in 1 Peter. Look, if you will, in 1 Peter chapter 2. In 1 Peter, chapter 2, Peter makes this statement about Jesus bearing our sins. And he says it this way. He says, in the second chapter and the twenty-fourth verse: "And He Himself bore our sins," where? Where? "In His body on the cross". Now, so sometimes we look at that passage and we think, "Well, we look in that in light of the fact of maybe, like, some burden that the Father placed on Him. That here He is... we talk about Him bearing the sins of the world".
Then I want you to look in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. And if you'll notice in that fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians what Paul says. He says, in the twentieth verse: "Therefore, those of us who are believers: are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating others through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God". Now, I read all that verse to get ready for the one I want you to notice. "Reconciled to God". And it is God, he says: "He made Him," that is Christ, "who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that," you and I, "may become the righteousness of God in Him".
Now, when He looked into that cup what did He see? He saw all the wickedness, all the vileness, all the filth, all the sinfulness, all of that spiritual garbage and absolute total filth that the whole world with all of humanity in all of its sinfulness, if you could think of every possible type of sin possible. When He looked into that cup He saw all of that and saw this which absolutely overwhelmed Him. He saw, when He looked into that cup, that He was going to have to drink of the cup. That is, that He, Jesus, this sinless, perfect person was going to become sin. Now I recognize that it's impossible for you and me to conceive, in our minds, what it would be like for absolute, perfect holiness and perfect purity to feel the sinfulness and the wickedness and the vileness and the dirt and the filth of the sin of mankind.
It had never even touched Him. He had touched sinners but sin had never touched Him. He'd healed lepers. He had talked to the most vile and the most wicked. Gadarene demoniac, absolutely, totally demon possessed. No sin had ever touched Him and here He was looking into a cup and the Father was saying, "You're going to have to drink this. You not only are going to bear the sin of mankind. You are going to become sin. Listen, bear sin in Your body. Not something on Your back, in Your being. You are going to become the sin of the world". That's what He saw. That's why He said, "I don't think I can handle it". When we say, "Jesus died for our sins and He saved us". That is so surface.
Think about what He suffered. The battle that Jesus fought was not on the cross. The battle was won before He ever got the cross. The battle Jesus the crucial, pivotal battle of His life was here in the garden when He and the Father were wrestling through this. The intensity of this. And so, His place was the place of prayer. And the subject of this struggle was the cup. Now I want us to look at the intensity of this battle. I want you to watch these words. Look, if you will, beginning now in the thirty-seventh verse. And I want you to turn to a couple of scriptures with me. He says that He came to Gethsemane.
Eight disciples stayed here. Judas had already gone. The other three was closer by and then He went a little further away. Verse 37 says that "He took with Him Peter," James and John, "the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be grieved and distressed". Now, this is the effect it had on Him. He said He began to be grieved, that is, sorrowful. Listen, feeling the pain in His mind. "How can I handle this"? In His emotions, absolutely ripped apart and torn. In His body, in His mind, in His emotions. Then He says, grieved and distressed. That is, a mental anguish that was absolutely overwhelming. This is why He said, look at this, verse 38: "Then He said to them, 'My soul,'" is not only grieved but, "'deeply grieved, to the point of death...'"
Then I want you to look in Mark chapter 14. Mark chapter 14 uses a little different description but it's the same story and the same things are going on here. In the fourteenth chapter, this is his account. He says, if you'll notice, in verse 33. Verse 33, he says, "And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed," same word as we saw a few moments ago, but this time he says, "and troubled". Now what does that word troubled mean? It means He was amazed, He was alarmed. He was astonished. Listen to this. When He looked into the cup He didn't say, "Oh, yes".
When He looked into the cup He must have jumped back in His soul. Alarmed, amazed, astonished, what? Dying on the cross? That's one thing. Being the Lamb of God? One thing. Becoming sin and being separated from the Father. "No"! I want you to go to the sixteenth chapter of Mark. And here is the way that word is used again. The word that is used here by troubled, it is the same Greek word in the sixteenth chapter of Mark and the fifth verse. It says, at the resurrection tomb: "And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed".
That is, they were shocked! They didn't know what to do! They were overwhelmed. Jesus wasn't there, here was an angel. It is the same word used here to describe the effect that it had upon Jesus when He looked into the cup and saw what He was going to have to drink. That is, this overwhelming tidal wave of grief and turmoil and distress and anxiety and anxiousness. Is it any wonder He prayed what He prayed? Now the intensity of the intensity of this battle is revealed in two ways. First of all, by the grief that He bore which we just saw. The second thing I want you to notice is the other way it's revealed is in the fact that He repeated this prayer. In the intensity of His grief and the repetition of this prayer.
Now notice what He prayed, in verse 39: "He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt.'" Now is Jesus praying? Is He praying, "Father, I don't want to do this"? In other words, He wasn't objecting to the Father's will. Here's what He was asking. He was asking, "Father, I know I'm going to die because I'm the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world".
And you see, He knew that He was going to have to die a bloody death. He couldn't have died of pneumonia because every sacrifice in the Old Testament had to have the shedding of blood. He knew where He was headed. What He was asking is this: "Father, is there any other way for Me to die for the sin of mankind and bring them to salvation"? And what was the answer? The answer was silence from heaven. The Father never responded. He says, "If it's possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet, not as I will, but as Thou wilt". So, He wasn't wrestling with the will of the Father. He was wrestling with the fact, "Is there any other way"? Verse 40: "He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, 'So, you men couldn't watch with Me for one hour?'" You just couldn't do it. "Keep watching and praying, that you enter not into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak".
Then, verse 42: "He went and prayed again, 'My Father, if this cannot pass away lest I drink it, Thy will be done.'" When the Father gave Him no answer He said, "Father, if it can't pass, if this is the only way, I'm willing". He came back again the third time and prayed this same prayer. "Father, if it just can't be any other way, then I am willing". Here He is, in this prayer, this repetition of His praying. What is He doing? Crying out to the Father, "I'm willing to die. I came to die. I'm the sacrificial Lamb. I've known that! Is there any other way to do this"? And the answer was, "No, there is no other way".
Now I want you to see, also, the loneliness of this struggle. And if you'll notice what happens here when He comes to the garden of Gethsemane in verse 36. "Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples, 'You sit here while I go over there and pray.'" But then He took with Him His intimate friends, Peter, James, and John and He said to them, "He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. And He said to them, 'My soul is grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.' He went a little beyond them and fell on His face..."
Now, what I want us to see is this: He needed their support. That's why He had them there. And in this crucial time, you know what He needed the closest to Him? He needed the most intimate three friends He had, Peter, James, and John. So, He included them in this crucial battle of His life. But you know what He did? He even separated Himself from them until, finally, it was just Jesus and the Father. And I'm sure, invisibly, around Him the demons of hell were having their last, big fit.
And if Satan offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world back in His early part of His ministry during the temptation what in the world do you suppose Satan was doing and all the demons of hell were doing at this critical, crucial moment but trying to get Him to do anything, anything, anything but fulfill the Father's will? It was never a question in His mind. But here's what I want us to notice. In this pivotal, crucial moment of His life when this is the battle of battles, where is He? Alone on His face before the Father, crying out to the Father.
Now listen to me carefully. All of us need the counsel of other people about things. And it's wonderful to have a husband or a wife or sons and daughters or parents or friends to pray with you through difficult, trying times. But is it not true that, ultimately, you have to find the mind of God for yourself? Now listen. If you frequently come to the Father about issues in your life when you come to the big, crucial, critical, major decisions with lifelong consequences you won't feel quite so alone if it's been your habit to be alone with Him day after day, week after week, month after month over the years.
Now I want to conclude by simply saying, what were the consequences of this struggle? And here's the key. Listen carefully. Write it down. Listen to it. Rub it in. What is the key to winning the battles and the struggles of life? Here it is. I want to say it before you write it down. I want you to look this way. I want to say it first. It is being alone with the Father on our face fully surrendered to His will. Alone with the Father on our face fully surrendered to the will of the Father.
When Jesus walked out of that garden, He walked out a winner. Did that mean He wasn't going to have to drink the cup? No. Does that mean He was going to somehow avoid the crucifixion? No. Would He avoid the flogging of those Roman soldiers? No. A trumped up trial, condemnation, jeering, hanging there half naked between two thieves? No. But He walked out of that garden an absolute winner. Because you see, He knew the secret to winning every battle in life, alone with the Father on our knees until our will is fully surrendered to His will.
Now why does that make me a winner? Here's the key, because when my will is fully surrendered to His will I have placed the consequences of my decision into the hands of an all wise, loving, Almighty, All Powerful God who will only do what is best for me. You cannot lose for winning if you follow the pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Father, we want to tell You today how grateful we are for Jesus being willing to walk through that deep, dark valley, the most intense of struggles, loneliness we would never be able to fathom, grief and inner pain beyond our comprehension. But, because of His love for all of us He made that awesome, awesome eternally consequential statement, "Father, not My will but Thy will be done". Thank You for loving us enough to give us a Son who was willing to pay that price in our behalf. Is our gratitude to You today, in Jesus's name, amen.
If you've never trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, I want to remind you of one thing, that when you stand in the judgment and you will one day, do you know who you're going to face? You're going to face the one who drank the cup of your sinfulness and your separation from the Father, so you wouldn't have to. When He paid that price, He made it possible for us to be righteous and He made it possible for us to spend eternity with Him.
But if you reject Him then you must bear the weight and the guilt of all of your sin. And you must bear the responsibility and accountability of being eternally separated from the Father. There's only one way to change that and that is to accept by faith the person of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of your sins and simply confess your sins to Him and ask Him to forgive you, not on the basis of your better conduct, but on the basis that He paid the price at Calvary as the ultimate, substitutionary sacrifice for your sins. And if you're willing to ask Him to forgive you and to save you, He'll do it right now.