Gethsemane: Lessons in Prayer, Matthew 26:36-46

There are a couple of things I didn't say yesterday at the memorial service that I'd like to comment on for the congregation. There times when a pastor sort of functions a little bit like a parent. Shepherds are like that, and we live in an era today when there times when people have just sort of lost an understanding in congregations of proper protocols and etiquette, and certain traditions that really were more characteristic of an older well-churched, well-mannered culture than we have today. These things get have gotten lost. And Sally exemplified this. Sally was one of two ladies in this congregation who practice a form of etiquette that has sadly disappeared.

My first church was a church of a lot of older people. The mean age and that congregation was about 55, and that included all the bed babies, and one of the things I appreciated from the very beginning is that there would be folks, usually ladies in the congregation, who were little more mindful of these kinds of things, and they would on occasion, usually at Christmas or my birthday or something like that send a little thank you note. Sally was always consistent with that. There's another lady in the church or does that as well and frequently she might put a small little check in there or gift card or something like that, that's not really the point, but it is very much appreciated by pastors to have those notes of appreciation. It just so happens—I didn't plan it this way—that October is pastor appreciation month. You probably didn't even know that October was pastor appreciation month, but it is. And Sally was the often thoughtful that way. And that just shows a level of her grace orientation and her appreciation. I don't say this so much to expect that in the next week or two I'm going to get flooded with thank you notes or anything, but I also know that in our live streaming audience there are a lot of people who listen either the live stream or they let listen later on to the lessons on the Internet and they go to other churches. And their every one of us needs to be challenged a little bit in our less than genteel, often uncivil society to be to express appreciation and gratitude to a lot of different people for the way they serve the Lord in local churches.

We can think of the deacons, Sunday school teachers that often are not noticed and not mentioned and yet give a tremendous amount of their time to be here to teach the kids to serve as on the deacon board or to even be in the choir. And so it's a good thing for everyone to be reminded to show little appreciation in different ways for the service that is done in the local church.

The second thing that relates to that, that many people don't know about Sally. It reflects upon her dedication, a level of dedication that sadly is also rare to find in congregations. We have several people again who rise to this level, but it's a challenge for all of us. Sally was 87 when she went to be with the Lord. When I came back here 13 years ago we began this church that would mean that she was 74, a time when many people think that they are retiring from the Christian life. I often think as I observe people in congregations that retirement from your business world is your opportunity to go full-time in terms of serving the Lord. I've seen this happen with many different people that once they are able to retire or not work, 40, 60, 80 hours a week. Then they get really involved in the local church in different ways, ways in which they can help. Sally was getting into her senior years and like many of us she had began to notice that her joints and her fingers did not move like they once had. She suffered from terrible arthritis and if you ever saw her hands they were pretty gnarled, and it looked like the last thing she could do was play the piano or play the organ.

Sally loved this congregation. She loved this church she loved being able to use her talents to serve the Lord here. She would get up every Sunday morning and go through a series of things to prepare. She would have to soak her hands. She would have to put various creams on them to deal with the pain that came with the arthritis. She would go through various exercises to stretch and to limber up her fingers. She did this and nobody knew, and she did this every single Sunday. Many people would just say I'm too old, my fingers are too stiff, I just can't do that anymore. And she would come every Sunday in order to play and to serve in this congregation. And again I want to thank those of you who were able to take the time out of your busy schedules yesterday to be here to show your appreciation and gratitude for her for what she is done and to express our love, the congregation's love, for her to her family and the support that they gave.

Well this morning we're back in Matthew chapter 26 studying Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. We are looking at these lessons on prayer specifically. In this lesson were looking at this phrase that Jesus uses related to the hour and the cup. He prayed to the Father to let if possible, this hour and this cup pass from Him. We need to come to understand this. There are lots of different things going on and Gethsemane and in the record of these things given to us in the synoptic Gospels in our two previous lessons we took the time to probe into what was going on in Jesus spiritual life.

Jesus suffered in tremendous ways in the garden. The language, as we saw, that is used to describe His emotional state tells us a lot about the fact that He's genuinely human, and that He experienced some extremely intense emotions. He had this turmoil as He anticipated what was coming at the cross, so much so that when he gets alone with his disciples, He fell down on his knees and then on His face as He pleaded with God in this prayer. It is dramatic. It is intense, and the emotion is so powerful that Luke the physician recalls and records that He sweated great drops of blood. This is not a phenomenon that is not unknown to modern science, and that this happens under severe distress to different people because the capillaries just under the skin are under such pressure from the emotional stress that it pushes blood out through the sweat glands. And so Jesus comes into the garden and in the garden. He prays three times. There is a progression, as we will see, from prayer to prayer, and He prays that God's will be done. When we really understand what's going on here that is a statement that is so profound. It is often repeated in prayers by believers almost as a throwaway line where we pray to God, Lord I really want these five things. And then we say, but if it's your will. It's sort of like, we just canceled out our prayer and we use it as a throwaway line. We don't understand the context of how Jesus is using it in this particular prayer. We need to look at that some more as we go through this.

As we went through the previous two lessons we examined the emotional pressure on Jesus, that the motion itself is not a sin. There are some emotional sins but intense emotion is not inherently or necessarily sinful. Our response to that emotion may be sinful. That is part of Jesus' test in the garden of Gethsemane, how he is addressing that emotion.

In the previous lesson I talked about the will of Jesus, because He talks about not my will but your will be done. Does Jesus have His own will, a distinct will from the Father? How does that relate to the Father's will? And so we did a study of the hypostatic union, that Jesus is one person. He's the God man is two natures, but he's one person. The one person hungered; the one person thirsted. Often you will hear people say very wrongly, Well, Jesus hungered out of his humanity, as if the split Him. That's heresy: one side is doing something and the other side isn't. The one person hungers, thirsts, is tired; the one person is sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus had his own will, but it is not independent of the Father.

This section begins in Matthew 26:36 where we are told that Jesus came to a place called Gethsemane. It is a picturesque term, for Gethsemane in the Greek means the place of an olive press where the olives were taken and put under pressure in order to squeeze out the oil. And so it is a visual representation of what is going to transpire spiritually in Jesus' life. I make a point out of that because one of the areas where there is a tremendous lack of thought and development in theology is in the area of what is called in philosophy, aesthetics. Aesthetics has to do with that which is of beauty, and is usually applied to areas of the arts; areas of musical arts, areas of the visual arts, areas related to the expression in theater of different things, all of which is part of God's creation. And one of the key factors that many people today have lost is that every area of God's creation is corrupted by sin. Every area of human intellection is corrupted by sin. There are no areas of human activity that are neutral. Music isn't neutral, art isn't neutral, and the dramatic arts aren't neutral. Everything is either going to be the result of a divine view or human viewpoint, and yet you find very few people who willing to think and probe in these particular areas.

Sally understood this, she was a classically trained musician and she worked hard at making sure that music that we saying conform to the words that were put to that music, and she composed things and put things together in order to elevate our own consciousness in singing and in worship; not writing that which appeals to the lowest common denominator and what is publicly popular, but that which is designed to elevate our thinking in terms of God and in terms of His creation. That is also true in areas of the visual arts, and this is why in children's books you see illustrations you see illustrations, and in many Bibles as these are to portray these biblical stories, these biblical narratives in order to bring out these particular points. And one of the points that is often brought out in art is the area of this episode in Gethsemane, and the intensity of the emotion at this particular time, and what is going on.

Jesus' will conforms to the Father's will. In John 4:34 He said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work." So Jesus clearly says He has a will, but His will is to do the Father's will; they are united together. We are going to tie this together but it is important to be reminded of these things. Then in John 5:30 He said, "I can of myself do nothing. As I hear I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me." He's not ever, before the incarnation or after the incarnation, operating independently of the Father.

John 6:38, He says again, "I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me." So when we get into the analysis of this prayer where He is praying, "Father if it's possible let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will but as you will, we have to interpret that in light of these other statements.

One of the things I want to do is kind of a little shift in our focus and concentration right now and to talk a little bit about where I've been the last couple weeks. We went to Italy. We probably went to over 20 churches looking at art, we went to well over 10 museums, a lot of Rome just as an outdoor museum. One of the things that I've noticed and learned over the years is that Protestant Christians, and especially American Protestant Christians, just sort of have this knee-jerk negative reaction to anything that comes out of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance as being just inherently wrong. And there's some justification for that because a lot of the art that we saw just communicates a lot heresy. I can't tell you the dozens and dozens of pictures, artwork that we saw, where Mary is at the center or she's above Jesus and she's got a crown on her head. That depicts a heretical doctrine in Roman Catholicism that Mary is the queen of heaven. But we often throw out the baby with the bathwater. There are many things that are significant about the art of that time.

There are a couple things to think about. First of all, about 90 per cent of the artwork in Christendom during this time was biblical art. The other 10% was mythological, representing different Roman and Greek myths, but most of it was biblical. And whether you like one piece or not, or even agree or disagree with some of its theological implications, perhaps we might think of it in a different way. They were attempting to portray the biblical stories and its impact, usually on the artist, or how he thought it should impact the person looking at it. Think about this. Ninety per cent of that artwork was an attempt to portray the Bible.

Compare that to the art that's been produced in the last 200 years. Would you rather be studying and trying to think through the biblical art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, or thinking about some of the contemporary art where you have the crucifixion of Jesus in a glass of urine? Think about these things. So maybe we jump to too many conclusions and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

What was going on in many cases was that the artists were working to understand the Bible and to present a visual representation of what was going on in the text. In many cases, two things are going on in the artwork. First of all, you have the artist on spiritual struggle. He recognizes his need for grace. In many cases we are critical of the Catholic crucifix because it keeps Jesus on the cross. I understand the theology there, that in the mass Jesus is crucified again and again and again and He died once for all for all sin. We understand that. There's another thought going on here and that is an emphasis that people needed to think about what Jesus was doing on the cross, and a lot of the artwork was designed to be a focal point of meditation on what was happening in the Bible. Now because it's visual art it needs to be understood biblically, just like the distinction between general revelation and special revelation. We can understand that that they may have used it wrongly, or they may have had some bad theology, but the depiction of the biblical event is just that; it's a depiction of a biblical event. So sometimes it's talking about and expressing elements that relate to the artist on spiritual struggle to understand grace and forgiveness, and at other times it is just a visual presentation of the biblical event that focus was to get people to think about the biblical event, to go back to the story in the Bible to reflect upon that.

Another thing is that as we approach this kind of art from our background of biblical knowledge we can use this in some cases to better portray Scripture, to add an element to Scripture that maybe challenges us to think in terms of this artist application, because sometimes it was quite good. But often there are problems with the art just as there are problems with today. Nothing that any human being creates to present the Bible is going to be inerrant. So there are things that we can learn from history.

A couple of examples: First, I have a copy of Caravaggio's Jesus on the Mount of Olives. You see Jesus. The central focal point here is on this figure that is Peter. And you have Jesus waking Peter up in the garden of Gethsemane. It's a little dark but you see two other figures here, and they are James and John.

Now, as we first look at this one the first thing that struck me was that this is all about Peter, it's not about Jesus. Caravaggio came out of a horrible and a rough background. This guy was trying to compete with Paul in terms of being the chief among sinners and he's very concerned about forgiveness, so he wants the focus to be on Peter, that Jesus is forgiving. And here's Peter who such a failure. Just before this episode we remember earlier in chapter 26 he tells Jesus he can be tested but is not a stumble, and here you can even stay awake—sort of like some people in Bible class.

When we look at this and it captures a moment in time, if you're biblically alert you're thinking, what happened after this is Peter is going to deny Jesus three times. And so a big element of looking at this portrait is its emphasis on grace and forgiveness, and that comes across. That focal point isn't on Jesus, it is on Peter. Now you look at this and you might say, well Peter was a young man at the time, and if you look at it when you can see it more closely James and John are both young, but why is Peter portrayed as an old man? Because in this period of time that's how Peter was often portrayed: in his maturity.

Now if you look at the fresco on the right, which was in the church of St. Mark in Florence, they had these cubicles where the fryers and the monks would go, and each one of them had these frescoes painted on the wall, and there was some tremendous art that was there. This is from a Friar Angelica; the FRA stands for Friar. It is called the agony in the garden, and basically there are three sections to this. Now he's painting much earlier than the Caravaggio. Caravaggio, you see real people that you could recognize on the street; here there more idealized. You have on the lower right Mary and Martha. You think: they aren't even mentioned in Gethsemane. Well this is actually another scene; they are in their home.

At the time Jesus takes the disciples and goes to Gethsemane. Where have they been staying? They have been staying at the home of Mary and Martha. So Mary and Martha are back home where Jesus and the disciples were staying. He pictures them as praying and staying awake. There's a definite contrast between them and the three disciples who can't stay awake. They can't pray. And so what he wants you to think about is, who do you identify with? This is all about application in thinking through the implications of the story, and he is presenting that through his artwork. But he labels them, and you can see their little halo. In the little halo he has their name so you can identify each person, and he has Jesus in this sort of third panel where Jesus is separated from the three. Then this figure here is an angel that is strengthening Jesus. So he's got the biblical elements there. But he doesn't know what the garden of Gethsemane looks like on the Mount of Olives because it's never been there, so he puts this within a more Italian Renaissance context. Part of the reason for that is because he's talking about the fact that even though this happened centuries ago it has significance for today. We fit into that in the same way.

These are just some of the things to think about here and they relate to our topic and what were what were studying. Next time were going to talk a little bit more about what's really portrayed in this in this Caravaggio, and that is Jesus challenged them to watch and pray, to stay awake, and His statement that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. That will be our final study in the Gethsemane.

So what happens in the Matthew story in the first prayer is Jesus prays, "Oh my Father if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will but as you will." In the second prayer He prays the same thing. He's praying, but He says it differently. He says, "oh my Father, if this cup cannot pass away from me unless I drink it, your will be done." And then in the third prayer Matthew simply says He said the same words. So what is the significance of this request to let this cup pass from Him? Let me give you a little warning here. Sometimes it's just fun for me as a pastor and teacher to see how some different things come together that I'm teaching. Because who is one of the major players here? Peter. What did we study on Thursday night? Peter. What have we been studying? The substitutionary atonement. That directly relates to the cup, and these things are going to tie together in a significant way when we get into first Peter chapter three. The Scripture hangs together and it's very important to see how these things fit.

Jesus is praying that this cup—whatever that is, for some people think is generally suffering; some people think it's more specific, the atonement of Christ when He is pays the penalty for our sins on the cross; other people have other strange ideas—His is prayer is to avoid the cup. What's going on here? In the Mark passage we are told He went a little further, fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. This is the indirect discourse or indirect description of what Jesus is praying. And then we have the direct quote in verse 36 where Mark says He said: "Father, all things are possible for you, take this cup away from me." You see a difference in how he expresses Jesus' prayer between verse 35 and verse 36. In verse 35 He says, "that the hour might pass" from Him, and in verse 36 it's "take this cup". So what we see here that these are really talking about the same thing.

If we look at verse 39 and in Matthew, the "if" is a first class condition, and the "if" down here is a first class condition. Now usually the way we hear the first class condition is "if and it's true". Greek has four different ways to express conditions if, and it's true; if, and it's not true; if and maybe it's true, maybe it's not. And the fourth is if and I wish it were true. But that is an oversimplification that often a pastors fall into. Actually, as Dan Wallace defines it in his Greek grammar Beyond the Basics, the first class condition indicates the assumption of truth for the sake of argument. It may be true, it may simply be assumed to be true for the sake of argument. That is probably what we're seeing here. Jesus is saying if it is possible, assuming that you could do this, and He knows that it is impossible. Jesus has said again and again and again He's going to be going to Jerusalem where he is going to be betrayed, where He is going to suffer and He's going to die, and He's going to rise from the dead. He has said that again and again. He knows this is His unavoidable destiny, so he's not really expressing this as a genuine possibility, that He can avoid it. He knows he can't avoid it.

So when we pray for something and then we say, Well Father, your will be done, we are not saying the same thing. Jesus already knows that it's not possible but He is praying this because of the situation, the pressure, His anticipation of what the cup entails.

Luke expresses it this way in Luke 22:42, "Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me; nevertheless, not my will but yours be done". The way Luke expresses it makes it clear that it isn't God's will, but it also makes it clear that Jesus' will is the same as the Father's. The way many people read these statements is as if there are two requests. First of all, If it's your will take it away from me, and secondly, nevertheless you let your will be done, whereas the grammar makes it impossible to take the second clause as a second petition; they are tied together. It is one request not two requests. Jesus' will never was disconnected from the Father's will, it's always the same. The point of application is, don't make a prayer and then close out saying, nevertheless, your will be done and not mine. That is not what this is doing. It may appear that way in English, but it's not that way. The first clause assumes that the request is Christ's will, the request to past the cup, but it is precisely the Father's will.

A better way to take the last clause would be to see it as more of a declarative sentence, filling it in by stating it, "But this is not what I will but what you will". So He is affirming the Father's will throughout this particular clause. He's not operating on His own initiative or on His own will; He is not wanting something apart from the Father's will at any point.

What we see here with Mark 14:35, the use of the hour is the timeframe in which this would happen, and then it's defined as the cup. But what exactly is Jesus asking for? We need to look at the significance of the cup. That obviously is some sort of figure of speech because He's not talking about a literal cup, He's talking about what it stands for. Jesus has talked about a cup just a few verses earlier in Matthew 26, where He is the Lord's table, and He talks about the cup. He said, "This cup is the new covenant of my blood". So there is a connection there, what is happening in terms of this phraseology for the blood of Christ.

Now those of you who've been around a while know that I repeat this every time we have the Lord's table, that blood is a symbol of a violent form of death. Jesus' death on the cross, His physical death, was a physical punishment or penalty, but His spiritual death, which is what pays the penalty for sin, was also a punishment. It is God the Father is imputing to him our penalty for sin, our spiritual death on Him. This is basically what He is anticipating because He will be for the first time not ontologically separated from the father that can never happen. Not in terms of his being or his essence. But He will be judicially separated from the Father as He who knew no sin is made sin for us. It is not the anticipation not of the horrors of the flogging and the beatings and the crucifixion and all of the physical trauma but the anticipation of this judicial separation from the Father, is what He is stating; this is what He is talking about.

We saw this in an even earlier chapter in Matthew 20. This is where we see significant application for us. This is that episode we covered, maybe a year ago where Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee, the mother of James and John—remember who are the three guys in the garden, Peter James and John—the same three that were out on the Mount of Transfiguration. Two of the three are the focus of this episode—comes in and she wants to go to bat for her kids to make sure that they have a good place when Jesus comes in the kingdom. She asked, verse 21, "Grant that these two sons mind may sit one on your right hand, the other on the left in your kingdom". But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" At this point he is not just talking to her, He is talking to these two boys. "Are you all able to drink the cup that I'm about to drink and be baptized with the baptism that I baptize with?"

What is this cup? It is the same cup, that cup of His being judged on the cross. "… and be baptized with the baptism that I baptize with that baptism?" That is identification with our sin. In the next verse He says, "You will indeed drink my cup, and be baptized with the baptism with which I baptize with." How does that happen?

First but we need to understand the metaphor here. There are several words for cup in the Old Testament. The word that is translated cup here, the Greek word POTERION, the word that used here in the Septuagint, is the Hebrew word kos. Because in the Hebrew word there are several different words for cup that can be used. But this word kos is the word that is consistently translated with the same word for cup that we have here.

Second point is that kos occasionally means a literal cup. Frequently it is used to represent the pouring out of God's judgment on wrath on sinful people. We have some examples. In Psalm 11:6, "Upon the wicked he will rain snares; fire and brimstone, and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup." The cup represents the pouring out of God's judgment. In Psalm 75:7, "But God is the judge"—the judgment is the context—"he puts down one and exalts another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup and the wine is red"—that red color depicts blood, violence—"It is fully mixed and he pours it out. Surely it's dregs shall all the wicked of the earth, drain and drink down." That imagery comes back several times in the book of Revelation.

But then we have another great passage in Isaiah 51:21-23, Therefore, please hear this, you afflicted, Who are drunk, but not with wine: Thus says your Lord, the LORD, even your God Who contends for His people, “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling, The chalice of My anger; You will never drink it again. I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, Who have said to you, ‘Lie down that we may walk over {you.}’ You have even made your back like the ground And like the street for those who walk over {it.}”

Jeremiah 25:27, “You shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Drink, be drunk, vomit, fall and rise no more because of the sword which I will send among you.”‘ The cup is receiving that judgment.

Jeremiah 25:28, 29 “And it will be, if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, then you will say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: “You shall surely drink! For behold, I am beginning to work calamity in {this} city which is called by My name, and shall you be completely free from punishment? You will not be free from punishment; for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth,” declares the LORD of hosts.’"

Worldwide judgment also fulfilled in the future.

So what we see here is the Old Testament background to understanding this word, it is a word that relates to divine judgment on sin. So when Jesus prays, let this cup pass from me, He is not talking about his physical suffering, He is talking about his spiritual suffering when He is going to be bear the punishment for our sins on the cross. That substitutionary atonement is emphasized in passages like Romans 5:8, that "God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died on our behalf." He is our spiritual substitute on the cross. This is emphasized in first John 2:2, "He himself is the propitiation", He satisfies the justice of God. Why? Because He is judge for our sin.

Now here's another point. When you go back to many of the Old Testament passages that are talking about wrath, what you run across when you hear some people is they can't understand how God is going to be so angry with Jesus. This is the problem with making God's wrath emotional. It is an emotive term, but it is a figure of speech. God's wrath is often portrayed with what is called an anthropomorphism. Literally in the Hebrew means God's nose burned. God doesn't have a nose. Neither does God get angry in terms of emotion. It is an expression though that into emphasized the severity of God judgment. You may go to court, and you may say I don't want the judge to throw the book at me, and you know no judge worth his salt is going to pick anything up and throw it at the defendant. It's a figure of speech that you hope that he is not going to fully unload the full penalty of the law on you. You don't want to experience the wrath of the court. Now if he is a good judge he is not to get angry. He is going to read the law and tell you what your penalty is. So the term wrath of God is a dramatic way of expressing the fullness of God bearing the fullness of God's judgment. That's what propitiation is. God judges Jesus on the cross and His justice and his righteousness are satisfied.

We see this in 1 Peter 2:23, "Who, when he was reviled not revile in return when he suffered, he did not threaten …" But notice Peter uses a more generic term for suffering because he's going to take the specific kind of unmerited suffering that Jesus experienced on the cross and use that to apply to us in terms of our unmerited or undeserved suffering. This is how we should respond. We can't suffer as Jesus did, so he doesn't use a more precise term, he uses a more general term because then he can make application. Verse 24 he himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed." There's the application: that we might live for righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21 "For, he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him". This is the cup. Jesus is identified with our sin and He is therefore judged for that.

This is the background for understanding Matthew 20:22, 23. Jesus is going to drink the cup of bearing our sins on the tree. He will die in our place; He will bear our penalty on the cross. That is the baptism that He is baptized with. He is identified with our sin and therefore He died spiritually for us. That is applied to the disciples. They can drink that same cup; they can die for us; they can't be identified with our sins. So how were the disciples connected? How did they drink this cup, and how were they baptized? It's not clear they; weren't clear on the concept. They probably scratched their heads about that initially, but then as things develop they forgot about it.

What does He mean that we are going to drink His cup, and be baptized with that baptism? Later revelation makes it clear. In Romans 6:3 Paul says, "Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death". When we trust in Christ as Savior we are identified with His death, burial and resurrection.

But there's a reason for that. It is not just a nice little theological truth. It is so that we will live differently. That's what Jesus is getting at with those disciples. Again and again through Matthew He is challenging them to be disciples, and to follow him no matter what. Paul is looking at it a little different way but he says the same thing. He says, "Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we should also walk in newness of life". See Jesus is identified with our sins. That's the cup. But when He applied that to the disciples what He is saying is, are you willing to be identified with my death?" In other words, are you willing to carry that out and walk in newness of life? Because ultimately the point of our salvation isn't just going to heaven. That's great and that's wonderful and we don't do anything to earn or deserve it, it is simply by faith in Christ. But the point is, as believers in this life that's the starting of the new life. Because Jesus conquered death we then can live in newness of life.

The challenge for us is not to let this end and sort of a stillbirth. We are born again, we will have eternal life, we will never lose that, and we will spend eternity in heaven; but there's a reason for that birth, and that birth is to grow to spiritual maturity, to study the word, to learn all that God has for us, and not be satisfied as I've heard some people say, "I'll just be glad to be in heaven. I don't care if I'm in the ghetto or in the rich part of town, as long as I'm there". That is not a biblical attitude. That's what Jesus is getting at. That's what Paul is getting at: that the purpose for our salvation is to live in newness of life, and it's only the Bible and the teaching of Scripture that transforms our lives into what God wants it to be, away from slavery to sin, to the freedom that we have in Christ.

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