Trusting the Father: In the Suffering

It's good to be with you this morning. If we've never met, my name is Josh, and I'm glad you're here. And you should know that you just walked into a room full of broken people who are here today to pursue Jesus and draw near to him, not with all the answers to all the questions, but seeking Him. And so whatever you came in with today, your struggles, your baggage, your worries, your openness to God, whatever level that is today, you're welcome here. Because we want to be a place where everyone can find hope and care and community and get to experience the healing power of God in their lives.

We love to help people take their next step. And if you would like to take a next step here, whatever that is that could be getting connected in community or finding a place to serve, we would love for you to head out to the information desk out in the foyer and meet our team there. They'd love to get you connected, answer questions that you have, and like I said, find a place to use your gifts for God to serve other people and make a difference in someone else's life. And speaking of doing that, next week is Easter. We've got our regular services at 9 and 11 o', clock, and we still need a little bit of help.

And so I'm here asking if you're waiting for your sign, maybe this is your sign. We still need some extra help in Whitewater kids. At 9 o', clock, we need just a couple more volunteers. And at 11 o', clock, we still need seven volunteers for kids ministry. We got a few volunteers who serve almost every week that aren't able to be here next week.

And we could use some extra help. And so if you'd be willing to serve and be a smiling face to families and hang out with some kids and tell them the greatest story that's ever been told, our Next Gen team has done all the legwork, all the heavy lifting to make it as easy as possible for you to do that. So if you're available, please stop by the information desk and let them know. And then this week, we got a few things going on. One you probably saw on your way in, on the side tables on your way in is a Holy Week prayer map.

And it's just a daily prayer guide. It's got scripture and some prayer prompts for you to pray through the week up to the resurrection. And it's very simple. You can do it with your family, you can do it on your own. You can get a digital version of it here@whitewatercrossing.org Easter as well.

But grab one of those. That's our challenge for this week. Next is Thursday night. We have our Whitewater Eats Maundy Thursday meal and we'll provide the main course. We just ask that you let us know that you're coming by registering on the Easter page or our events page and bring aside to share.

It's going to be a great night. We'll share in communion together and kind of prepare our hearts for the next thing, which is our Good Friday service. Both of these things will be held at 6:30pm Whitewater Eats is right out in the foyer. And good, Good Friday service is in here. It's a really somber, focused service that's built to sit in the weight of the cross so that we don't lose sight of what's been done on our behalf, so that we have salvation and we have hope.

And so we hope that you'll join us for that. Can't encourage you enough. That was one of the first things that I got to be a part of here as the senior minister at Whitewater last year was this Good Friday service. So I hope you'll join us. But today, today we're in week three of a series we've been calling Trusting the Father.

And this series is all about following Jesus from the beginning of his earthly ministry all the way to the cross and to the grave and to his resurrection, but specifically to the cross. Week one we looked at Jesus baptism. He was fasting in the desert and Satan came to test him, to tempt him, to entice him to step off of this path to the cross. He said just step off Jesus. Just avoid it, just go around it.

But Jesus stayed and he proved that he is the Son of God and that his path was chosen and that he was staying on that path. And just as Jesus begins his path path with fasting. We have been fasting as a church, a churchwide season of fasting and prayer. Not so that we can follow a bunch of rules. Because there's something valuable about practicing denying what our flesh desires.

We don't do that very often. And there's something powerful in that. On top of the mysterious spiritual power of fasting that the Bible talks about, that it gives us access to things that we don't have access to otherwise. And this past week many of us added to a food fast with a media fast where we cut out all non work related media from our lives to have some attention space for God. And I hope that you took part in this and you got the Experience of opening your phone and going, oh, oh, yeah, I wasn't going to do that.

Or you got the experience of being bored.

That's good. That's good. You got the experience of being bored and then not filling your time with more media. And while we're talking about fasting, I want to take a minute to talk about something that was brought to my attention this past week, something that I hadn't even really considered. And I'm really grateful that one of our Whitewater family sent me an email to put this on my radar.

They let me know that they have been walking their whole life. They've walked a long road of having an eating disorder, and that someone in their family is walking that road, too. And as they help me see, for those who do struggle in this area, a fast that centers around denying ourselves food, even for spiritual reasons, can kind of stir up some confusion, some anxiety, maybe even open some old wounds. And I just want to say this with all the love and the grace that I can. If it's unhealthy for you to do this, don't do it.

Don't do it. Your value is not in what you eat or drink. The heart of fasting is not about restriction at all, actually. It's about reorientation. It's about shifting things around to intentionally make space for God, to trust him more deeply, to surrender more of ourselves over to him by saying no to our flesh and relying on Him.

So whether your fast is food based or media based or schedule based or something else entirely, I want you to hear this. God's not impressed by how well we fast. He's not. He is moved by. By hearts that long for Him.

That's what he is. That's what he wants more than anything. So if you're walking through the struggle of having an eating disorder, then let your fasting, whenever you do it, look like whatever helps you reduce your reliance on the things of this world and turn your heart toward Jesus. Ultimately, our pursuit of a fast is on the way to emulating Him. He first showed us how to do this.

His time of fasting in the desert prepared him to begin his ministry and step onto the path that led to the cross. The path laid by the Father led him to the garden of Gethsemane, where we met with him last week. Gethsemane, that place where the olives are pressed and squeezed out, is where Jesus was pressed to with agony and grief and sorrow. God the Father was pressing Jesus out so that he would be emptied of his own will and Be ready for the cross. And even in this pressing, Jesus stayed on the path, the path of obedience, trusting the Father.

But it came at a tremendous price. Last week we ended this section with the moment that Judas, Jesus, betrayer, comes to the garden and and comes with people to arrest him. And then all of his disciples who promised that they would be willing to give their own lives for Jesus, they all scatter and they leave him. And today I want to go back just a few minutes in that story because there's something we skipped over last week that I don't want us to miss. It's one of the most significant parts about this that Jesus says.

And before we read that, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we look to you because you are all the hope that we have. Because our money will always run out, our time will always run out, our strength will always run out. Even others around us will let us down, but you never will. And so we look to you as the one who provides and leads and cares.

And we ask today that you teach us through your word. We ask that you continue to strengthen us, those of us who are fasting from food and media and anything else, that you would strengthen us to stay on the path, to stay strong in you. And I pray that you will speak through me today. Words that matter beyond this moment, words that actually matter in kingdom things for eternity, in Jesus name. Amen.

So Jesus has been pressed three times in the garden. He's resolved on going to the cross. He gets up and he comes back to find his sleeping disciples for a third time. And he wakes them up and says it's time. Judas, Jesus friend and betrayer, shows up with temple guards and religious leaders to arrest Jesus.

And then we read in Matthew 26, starting in verse 50, then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Now I find it really interesting that Matthew, Mark and Luke leave the guy swinging the sword unnamed. But John, John's account throws Peter squarely under the bus. John says it was definitely Peter.

And if you know much about Peter, this isn't a surprise. This is very much inside of his character and his personality. And Luke tells us in his account that Jesus places his hand on the side of the man's head whose cut off and an ear grows back. He heals him. And not only is that amazing, on top of that, when you stop to think about the situation that Jesus is in and what's happening to him right now.

The fact that he would take the time to do this is exceptional. Think about the gentleness and the care that this expresses in the moment. He's getting arrested. He's going to the cross. He's going to die the next day.

And he takes the time to perform one last miracle and make this servant not an important person. He makes a servant whole. Then he says, put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. And then this is the part I don't want us to miss. This is so significant.

He says, do you think I cannot call on my Father? And he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels. That's 60,000 angels. But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way? Jesus isn't posturing here.

He's not puffing up his divine muscle or flexing. Instead, it's almost like he's saying, peter, don't you get it, man? I'm not weak right now. Weakness is not the problem. I'm not weak.

I'm submitting. I'm not powerless. I'm giving in on purpose. Because one whisper to the Father in this garden becomes a war zone. But that's not the way.

That's not the path. And here's what hit me. Jesus didn't just stay on the path because he's perfect. He didn't just stay on the path because he's strong. He stays on the path because he knows the heart of the One who made the path.

He stays on the path because of his faith in the Father.

The power of his obedience doesn't come from his perfection. It comes from his trust. And what about us? How often do we reach for the sword when we feel threatened? When the path goes to a place that we really don't like, we're uncomfortable with, when we don't understand?

How quickly do we grasp for control in a moment like that, rather than surrender to the path that God has us on? And here's the truth for those of us who have walked the path with God for a long time, we can testify to this. The longer and the more times we practice staying on the path with the Father, the more sure we become of the Father's faithfulness. Amen. And I can tell you in my experience, just as the path gets the hardest and just as I'm convinced that I can't stay there anymore, and just as I'm exhausted and weary and discouraged, and just as I take that step one step beyond the place that I thought I could go, that place, that's where God does His best work.

Because that's the place where we cross over and we make ourselves available to see the that his power is made perfect in our weakness. But if we step off the path before we ever get to that place, then we never get to taste his rescue. It's only by staying on the path with the Father, just beyond the place that we can go on our own. That's where we get to taste his goodness. So if you feel like you might be on the brink of your breaking point today, maybe you can't stay on the path any longer today, let me just encourage you and call you to keep the course, stay on the path.

Just keep taking one more step and one more step and one more step and allowing God the chance to meet you in your weakness. Not on your terms, but his. And my experience is he always shows up. Almost never when I want him to show up, but right when he's on time. Right on time.

Several years ago, I worked at another church, and we hit this season. It was frustrating. We had a leader who seemed to be off the rails, and then we had a whole leadership that didn't seem to be doing anything about it. Staff morale. I couldn't see a way that I could stay on this path.

And every night I'm laying in bed, I'm frustrating. I'm praying to God that He'll do something about this. And every day I show back up to another grueling day on the path. I was this close to quitting. I really was.

And one day in the middle of all this, I was talking to one of our older guys on staff who had been in ministry for about 40 years at this point. And as I ranted and complained and bemoaned everything, you know, what he saw, everything I saw, too, except he was perfectly at peace.

He was just completely calm. Completely at peace. And I was completely annoyed that he was completely calm.

And I thought to myself, how could you be so calm when all this terrible stuff is happening? We got to do something about this. And he looked at me and he said, josh, I've seen way worse. He said, God has everything he needs right now to do everything he wants to do. Just be patient.

I ended up staying there almost 10 years after that. 10 years of paths with the Father. Many of those paths, I whined and complained like a big baby the whole way. But that calm moment, that calm moment with someone who had walked a thousand paths with the Father before me, always Echoed in my head, just stuck with me. And the truth is, those 10 years, they formed me in ways that I will probably never appreciate, never fully understand.

This is what Jesus knew about the Father on the path. Trust grows on the path. Trust grows on the path. And if we step off the path, we never get to see his faithfulness. Jesus knew the cost, and he took each step in agony, absolute agony.

But he knew the character of the one who laid the path. He knew the Father had everything he needed to accomplish everything he wanted to do. And he stayed on the path. And Jesus shows Peter and he shows us that true strength isn't the ability to fight our way out. It's the courage to stay.

It's the courage to stay on the path. When everything in us is screaming to run. It's the faith to say, if the Father laid this path, then even if it hurts, I will stay. I will keep walking. Because the same Father who laid the path to Gethsemane, this pressing in Gethsemane is the same Father who extended that path to an empty grave.

But Jesus path on this earth after Gethsemane is only going to get narrower and harder and steeper and more difficult. From this point forward, Jesus is bound and taken away. The disciples all flee in the dark. And the Bible says that very early in the morning, before the sun rain rose, Jesus is taken before the high priest to basically have a trial in front of the church. They're looking for a reason to kill Jesus.

Several people come forward. They give false testimony about Jesus and all these nasty things that they say about him. Jesus says nothing. And then the high priest, he gets right to questioning Jesus identity. You might remember, I said, this is a theme all throughout this arc.

Jesus identity is constantly at question. Matthew 26:63. The high priest said to him, I charge you under oath by the living God, Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God. You have said so. Jesus replied, but I say to all of you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds with Jesus, says, I am the Messiah.

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, he has spoken blasphemy. Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you've heard the blasphemy yourself. What do you think he's worthy of death? They answered, luke tells us that the guards holding Jesus beat him and taunt him.

They put a blindfold on him and say, if you're a prophet, tell us who's hitting you. As they beat him, they want to kill Jesus, but because of Roman law they aren't allowed to do it themselves. They know that if they want Jesus killed, then they're going to have to convince the Romans to do it. So they take him in front of a roman governor. John 18:28 Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas, that's the high priest, to the palace of the Roman governor.

By now it was early morning and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness, they did not enter the palace because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. I want to stop right here for a minute. This is how blind, legalistic and insane these religious leaders are. Even though there's no law in the Torah, that's their law. They're Old Testament.

There's nothing in the Torah that says that they can't enter into a Gentile's home. Up with their own extra rules that said if you go into a Gentile's house you will be unclean. And then that would keep them from being allowed to eat the Passover meal. Think about this. They're avoiding a gentile doorway, thinking this will keep them clean and righteous and close to God while God himself is with them.

They're doing everything they can do to avoid being defiled so that they can eat a meal that's all about the redeeming blood of the lamb, when the one true spotless lamb is the one that they are falsely accusing and sending to be slaughtered. Legalism and self righteousness blind us Church. We must be careful. So the Roman governor's name is Pilate. It's early in the morning.

I imagine him coming out hearing a ruckus out on his yard. And he comes out with his robe and his eyes are groggy and a cup of coffee and he's mad that they're on his lawn. And he tells the Jews, just kill him yourself. And they say, yeah, we'd love to, but we can't. The law and everything.

So he brings Jesus inside. And again Jesus identity is being questioned. Verse 33. Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, are you the King of the Jews? Is that your own idea?

Jesus asked, or did others talk to you about me? Am I a Jew? Pilate replied, your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it that you've done? Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place. You are a king then Said Pilate. Jesus answered, you say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.

Everyone on the side of the truth listens to me.

What is truth? Retorted Pilate. So Pilate goes back outside and says he has no reason to kill Jesus. He finds out that Jesus is from Galilee. And to get out of having to convict Jesus to death, he tries to wiggle out by saying, well, send him to the governor of Galilee.

This was a guy who happened to be in town because of the Passover. So they take him in front of Herod Antipas. Herod Antipas is actually the son of Herod the Great. Herod the Great is the guy who was ruling in the Christmas story, who tried to kill Jesus when he was a baby. Luke 23:8.

When Herod. This is Herod Antipas saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased because for a long time he had been waiting, wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort of. He's like, jesus is here. The guy that does the tricks.

That's awesome. I'm excited to see him. Maybe he'll pull a rabbit out of a hat or something. He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer. The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there vehemently accusing him.

And then, because Jesus doesn't do any fun tricks, they're done with him. Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him, dressing him in an elegant robe. They sent him back to Pilate. So back to Pilate, Jesus goes. Pilate tries another tactic to get out of this.

He reminds them that during Passover, the law allows that they can release a Jewish prisoner. And instead of releasing Jesus, they say, no, we want to get rid of Barabbas. Release Barabbas. Pilate says, how about I just flog him, beat him a little bit and then let him go? They say, no, crucify him.

Crucify him. So Pilate has Jesus beaten, making sure not to kill him. And they place a crown of thorns on his head. They place a purple robe on his ripped skin, and they kneel down and. And pretend to worship the king, mocking him.

Pilate, still trying to get out of sending Jesus to his death, asked Jesus, don't you know that I have the power to kill you or free you? And Jesus says in John 19:11, you would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. That's just savage. So good. Jesus says, don't you think for one minute that you have caused or will cause any of this.

This is the path. This is the path the Father has laid. And the only power you have, Pilate, is whatever power my Father has given to you to accomplish the purposes that he has in mind for me today. And then Jesus is handed over to be crucified, and he carries the beam of his own cross. I imagine him gasping for air, skin ripped in the hot sun.

People mocking and spitting, jeering. The Gospels tell us that a man named Simon of Cyrene was forced to carry Jesus cross too, presumably because Jesus didn't have the energy anymore to carry it himself. His hands and feet are nailed to a cross.

He's hoisted up into the air so that everyone can see his naked, torn body on display. His mother, Mary, she's there. Mary Magdalene is there. His disciple John. These are the only three that the Bible mentions are anywhere around.

Everyone else is gone. And in his final hours, as he hung there, just this constant onslaught of questioning his identity. Matthew 27, starting in verse 39, those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, you who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself. Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God. In the same way, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him.

He saved others, they said, but he can't save himself. He's the King of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross. We'll believe him. He trusts in God.

Let God rescue him now if he wants him. For he said, I'm the Son of God. And once again, Jesus could have called down 12 legions of angels. And he didn't. He stayed on the path.

This path that is at this point narrowed so tightly that there seems to be no way through. He stayed on the path not because he had to, but because he chose to. He stayed on the cross when he could have spoken a word and all of his enemies would be dead in a second.

Instead, he absorbed the mockery, the shame, the abandonment. He breathed in the insults and he exhaled mercy. He exhaled mercy. And with his final breath, he gave up his spirit. No one took it.

He gave it up. He willingly. His work was finished. And then Matthew 27 tells us that the earth shook, the rocks split, tombs broke open. The holy of holies in the temple.

That was the place in the inner intersection of the temple, where only the high priest, only on certain days was allowed to go in there at all. That's where God's presence was. There was a giant curtain that separated that space. It was really tall and it was ripped in two from top to bottom. Not bottom to top like man reaching up to God, but top to bottom like God reaching down to man.

In that moment, the Father was making something clear. The sacrifice of the Son is enough.

Access to God is no longer restricted to the elite or to only the priests. It is now open to everyone who will come and believe. And if that weren't enough already, Matthew includes this wild detail that we often overlook. When Jesus died, tombs broke open. It says the tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.

And they account for this because they go into town and they go talk to people. Everybody knew that this happened. Think about that. Even at the moment of Jesus death, he's bringing life. The grip of the grave started to loosen.

The moment that Jesus gave up his spirit, death couldn't even wait till Sunday. Resurrection started right then and there at the foot of the cross, with the earth quaking in the sky, darkening in the curtain tearing in the tomb's opening. A Roman centurion of all people, a hardened soldier who had seen death up close, probably watched hundreds of men breathe their last breath. He looks up at Jesus and he said what no religious leader, no person in the crowd, no mocking voice would dare to say. He echoes the words that we began this series with the words of the Father at Jesus baptism.

Surely he is the Son of God. Surely he is the Son of God.

All the church people missed it. But a Roman centurion, he didn't miss it. And this beautiful picture of this curtain being torn, access to the Father is now for even a Roman centurion.