Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Heart of Jesus

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

If you read the rest of the life of Jesus, he’s totally unflappable, but in the garden of Gethsemane, as he faces his imminent death, it says he’s astonished and overcome with horror. The fact that Jesus struggles with his death is not only unique in ancient history, it’s actually almost unique in church history itself. This passage in Mark 14 helps us 1) see that it all really happened, 2) understand we have a culture, 3) come to grips with the wrath of God, 4) discover a way to deal with trouble and suffering, and 5) get the power to use that method. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 11, 2007. Series: King's Cross: The Gospel of Mark, Part 2: The Journey to the Cross. Scripture: Mark 14:32-42. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

As we see in the book of Mark, the days leading up to Jesus' death were filled with the trail, pain, and mockery, but we also see the grace and love of Jesus on full display. Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller continues to show us how Christ loved us at an infinite cost to himself. After you listen, we invite you to go online to gospelonlife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll start receiving our quarterly newsletter with articles from Dr. Keller as well as other great gospel-centric resources. Subscribe today at gospelonlife.com.

Tonight's scripture reading is from Mark chapter 14 verses 32 through 42. They went to a place called Gastemini and Jesus said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. He took Peter, James, and John along with him and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death he said to them. Stay here and keep watch. Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and pray that if possible, the hour might pass from him. "'Abba, father,' he said, "'everything is possible for you.

Take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.'" Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "'Simon,' he said to Peter, "'are you asleep? "'Could you not keep watch for one hour, watch and pray, so that you will not fall into temptation? The spirit is willing, but the body is weak. Once more, he went away and prayed the same thing.

When he came back, he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. Returning the third time, he said to them, are you still sleeping and resting? Enough, the hour has come. Look, the Son of Men is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go.

Here comes my betrayer. This is God's Word. For many years, I've thought that this text about Jesus in the Garden of Gisemini is particularly helpful to New Yorkers. And what I want to do tonight is take a look at five things. This five ways this passage helps New Yorkers. And some of you are saying five. What about three? Isn't it always three? And the answer is these are New Yorkers. See,, look, New Yorkers are just like everybody else, only much, much, much, much more so.

This passage helps us see it all really happened. Understand we have a culture. Come to grips with the wrath of God. Discover a way to deal with trouble and suffering and get the power to use that method. Number one, this passage actually tells us, shows us, that the stuff we're looking at in the gospel of Mark about the life of Jesus really happened. I know an awful lot of people, especially in New York, like to say, well, you know,

the Bible, it was written by the winners, history is written by the winners, who's to say that this ever really happened. There's a lot of legendary material in the Bible. How do you know this even ever happened? Well, this passage, Jesus facing His death, is unique in ancient literature. Greeks and Romans have lots of stories of their prominent leaders and prominent individuals and figures and heroes facing death and dying, and they always were cool and dispassionate, like Socrates. You know, he had a drink of hemlock, he was executed, and the story of his and he's surrounded by his followers, but he's cool and dispassionate. He's cracking jokes almost, speaking ironically, you know. Then you can go to the Jewish culture and Jewish literature, go to first and second macabees, which is roughly at this time.

And you'll see that when Jews wrote counts of their major figures and heroes and leaders facing death, they weren't cool and compassionate like the Greeks. They were hot blooded and fearless, and they praised God as they were being sliced to bits by their persecutors. And nothing is like this. Nothing in ancient literature like this. Here you have Jesus just before he's about to die, opening his heart to his disciples, opening his heart to God, opening his heart to the readers, you know, of course. And talking about his struggles and his agony and his fears about facing death, and then

he turns to God and says, is there any way I can be left off the hook? Is there any way I can get out and get out from this mission? Now commentators and historians have said this for years, I just want to drive it home here. If you are a leader in the early church and you are making up stories about Jesus' life in order to promote your religion, you never, never would have made this story out. Never, it could only hurt because no matter who your culture was with as Jewish or Greek or Roman, no matter what, no culture understood greatness, understood major leaders who are worthy of loyalty and faithfulness,

acting like this. The only possible reason, this account is written down, the only possible explanation for this account being in the gospel of Mark is if it happened. There is no other motivation possible for including it unless it happened. And therefore it happened. And when we read these accounts of the end of Jesus' life, don't try to slither out from utter saying, well, who knows if it ever really happened? It happened.

Deal with it. 0.1. Second thing, the text tells us, is not only does it help us see that it really happened, but it helps us understand we have a culture. What? Up to now, Jesus has been completely in control. All of a sudden, verse 33, he starts to fall apart. I mean, nothing seems to have surprised Jesus up to now.

If you read the history of his life, he always knows what's going on. He's always, nothing seems to jar him, nothing ever seems to move him off course. But look at verse 33 and 34. Look at the words that are used. They're over the top. First of all, it says he began to be deeply distressed. Now, that's a word that actually means astonished.

And actually, that's astonishing. If you read the rest of the life of Jesus Christ, nothing ever seems to surprise them. He's totally unflappable. It says here, suddenly he began to be astonished. Something he saw, something he realized, something he experienced stunned the eternal Son of God and sent him reeling, shocked him. And then what could that have been? We'll get to that. Secondly, it says he was distressed, a deeply stressed and troubled. And this word troubled means to be overcome with horror.

And let's not think about this too long, this illustration, but just to give you understanding of what he was experiencing. Horror, imagine you're walking down a street, you turn a corner, and there in front of you is someone you love, killed, dead, mutilated, cut to pieces. How do you feel? nausea. Your fear is like a physical cloud rising up to choke you. That's horror and that's what he was experiencing. And what we have here in verse 34 is

him actually coming right out and saying so. He says, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. He's saying, I am so crushed with horror and sorrow and grief. I feel I'm about to die on the spot. I could. That's what he's saying, I am so crushed with horror and sorrow and grief. I feel I'm about to die on the spot. I could. That's what he's saying. Now, up to now, Jesus has totally been in control and suddenly, really suddenly, in verse 33, he begins to fall apart. He's agonizing.

He's struggling. He can't face it. He's agonizing, he's struggling, he can't face it, he's violently crying. Now, why? Well, we'll get to that in a second, we'll get to the second, but this is point two. And I want to know, how do you respond to that? How do you feel about that? How do you, you know, how do you feel about that? And your answer will tell you what culture you're in.

Because people have been very divided over the years about this. I've been teaching and preaching for 30 years or more, and I've preached and taught this text for 30 years. And in the West, in modern Western culture, it's appealing. Western people like this. They say, oh, you know, they like to see Jesus being honest and struggling and wrestling. It makes him someone we can relate to. It is his vulnerability.

We find appealing. And when people see this, they feel more ready to believe in him. But in many other cultures and many other centuries, this has been an enormous dumpling block. Because other cultures say the idea that this person will be the son of God and he would be struggling like this and he would be blubbering like this and he would be asking God to let him off the hook. That's impossible and it's a dumpling block and they don't believe it. That's impossible and it's a stumbling block. And they don't believe it. And they say, I find this outrageous

and offensive and objectionable. And if you're in Western culture, you say, well, this isn't objectionable. I like this. What I don't like, what I find offensive is where Jesus says, I am the way the truth and the life. No man come with under the father, but by me. Now, why am I pointing this out?

Some years ago, a black friend of mine said to me, you know what the trouble with you white people is? You don't think you've got a culture. I said, what? I said, yeah, you see, you think black people have got a culture. There's a black way of doing stuff and a black way of making, doing relationships, and when you get together to have churches, a black way of doing church, and then there's an Asian way of doing things. You Asian people have a culture, a Spanish people have a culture, but you white people.

The way you are is just the way things are. You see, we don't have white Christianity. You have black Christianity, we just have Christianity. The way things, the way we do things, is just the way things are. You don't know, hey, I have a culture. Well, that was actually quite, that was very helpful to me. And some of you say, could we keep going with that? I'd like that sermon, please. But no, we don't have that sermon. That's another sermon. Well, what I would like you to say, see, is that if you're New Yorkers, when they come to grips with Christianity, oh, they get offended by many things, oh, there's

this in the Bible and that in the Bible's regressive and it's offensive and I can't stand that, and they act as if they don't have a culture. They act as if the things that are offending them are just the problems with Christianity. But like, for example, if you say, and people in New York always say, I just can't believe that there's only one true religion. But now if you go to the east, go to the Middle East and say, I can't believe there's one true religion. They'd say, why not?

When you say, I can't believe there's just one true religion. That's not an argument. You realize that's just an assertion. It's just an emotional visceral reaction. There's no evidence for something like that. It's not an argument. It's just a feeling. But the reason it seems so plausible to you

is because it's such a widely felt feeling in our culture. It's just a leap in the dark. There's no evidence. You can't make any case for it at all. There's no argument at all. It's just a way to feel. But it feels like such a huge barrier to believing in Christianity, but don't you think about this for a second. If Christianity was really true, that it had come down as truth from heaven, and it wasn't the function of this or that culture. If it really was true, then it would have to offend everyone's cultural sensibilities at some point. It would offend this culture in these areas.

It would offend this culture because it's not from anyone culture. Therefore, it would have to offend cultural sensibilities at some point, but they'd be different points in different cultures. And so, what does this mean? When you, New Yorkers, say, oh, there's this and that. It defends me about Christianity.

It's so outrageous. I can't accept it. Don't let it throw you. Of course, if Christianity was true, it would be offensive to you at certain points. If it offends you, that just shows it's true. Because it's offending you at different points than somebody else over in that culture. They're offended by things that you think are kind of cool. Because it's offending you at different points than somebody else,

so in that culture they're offended by things that you think are kind of cool. See, don't let it throw you. Don't let your problems with Christianity throw you. Don't act as if you don't have a culture. Point three, the third thing this text tells us, it helps us come to grips with a wrath of God, because that's what this passage is about. We said that Jesus struggling with his death is not only unique in ancient history. It's actually almost unique in church history.

And I want to think about this for a second. This is pretty weird. There are lots and lots and lots of true accounts of Christian men and women, Christian leaders and laypeople, Christian men and women, being killed for their faith, being thrown to the animals, being burned at the stake. We have lots and lots and lots of stories, and almost all of them, I guess all of them faced their death more calmly than Jesus.

They all did a better job, at least it seems, at facing death than Jesus. You know, here at Polycar, Bishop of Smirna, he was an early Christian leader, he was actually a disciple of the Apostle John. And near the end of his life, he was killed for his faith. And he was brought up before a magistrate and they were told they were going to burn him, burn him at the stake.

And the magistrate said, I'll give you one more chance. You can reject Christianity, you can recant, or else you'll be burned in the fire. And this would polycarp said because there are people around and they wrote it down. He said, "...the fire you speak of lasts but an hour and is quenched with a little." But what do you know of the fire of judgment? So come, why delay? Do what you will. Do you see Jesus say, come on, nails, thorns, spear, come on. No. I have a question.

Why is it that almost all of Jesus' followers have died better than Jesus? Isn't that an interesting question? They almost all have died better than Jesus. Jesus is struggling. He can hardly handle it. Why? Three answers. Answer one. Obviously, logic, he must have been facing something that polycarp wasn't facing.

He must have been facing something that all the other martyrs weren't facing. He was facing something beyond physical death, even beyond physical torment, something that was so much worse that physical death and physical torment were like flea bites by comparison. Second answer. He began to experience this something in the garden. Notice what verse 33 says, it says, he began. This is very interesting verse because we're told up to this point, Jesus, nothing upset Jesus, nothing surprised Jesus.

He was unflappable and he said suddenly he was astonished. I mean, something happened, something surprised Jesus. Every, he was unflappable. And it said, suddenly he was astonished. That means something happened, something he saw, he felt he sensed something. And it absolutely shocked the eternal Son of God. Sent him reeling. He began to actually get a foretaste of what he was going to go through on the cross. Wait, you say, didn't he know he was going to die?

We're not talking about information here. Of course, he knew he was going to die. He'd been teaching know he was going to die? We're not talking about information here. Of course, he knew he was going to die. He had been teaching them he was going to die all along. If you've been with us during our journey through the book of Mark, you know that. So it wasn't new information, but he was beginning to experience. He was beginning to taste or foretaste. What that something was, he was going to experience

on the cross way beyond beyond physical torture and death. It's just like it's one thing to know something is going to be hot. It's another thing to actually begin to experience and feel the massive heat as you draw close and you sense it's unbearability. So what is that thing that he experienced on the cross? What is that thing way beyond physical death and torment? And he says it, he tells you right about it, it's at the very, very heart of what he's praying about. He says, Father, let this cup pass from me.

I can't take the cup. I don't want the cup. This cup, not that cup, this cup. it's been set down in front of him. He's beginning to feel it, taste it, sense it. What is it? All through the Hebrew scriptures, the cup is a symbol. It's the metaphor for the wrath of God on human evil. It's a metaphor for divine justice poured out on injustice.

So in Ezekiel chapter 23, we read, you will drink a cup of wrath, large and deep, full of ruin and desolation, and you will tear at your breasts. Isaiah 54, you will drink the cup of his fury and you will stagger. So what was happening to Jesus Christ? Why was he struggling in a way that none of his followers ever struggled? Because this is what he was facing. Bill Lane in his commentary on Mark puts it like this, perfectly summarizing.

He says, the dreadful sorrow and anxiety that Jesus experienced in the garden was not just the shrinking from the prospect of physical suffering and death. Thousands of other men and women face that with poise and peace. It was rather the horror of one who lived wholly for the Father and who came to be with the Father for an interlude before his betrayal, but found hell rather than heaven open before him. And he staggered, and he tore at his breast. Jesus Christ, all of his life, because he'd had this wonderful relationship with the Father, whenever he turned to the Father in prayer heaven opened, and love flooded his life, and

that's how he was able to face what he was facing. But in the Garden of Gisemini, what was so absolutely stunning and so shocking to him, was he turned to the Father and instead hell opened up the abyss, the chasm, the nothingness of the cup. You see, God is the source of all love in all life and all coherence. Sin is turning away from God to be your own Savior and Lord, so the natural consequences of sin, the absolutely fair and just judgment on sin Sim is exclusion from the source of all light and all love and all coherence. And Jesus began to experience the spiritual darkness, the spiritual cosmic, infinite disintegration that we call hell, of which the metaphors and symbols of the Bible of raging fire are

nothing compared to the reality. And Jesus began to experience that and He staggered. Hi, I'm Tim Keller. You know, there is no greater joy in hope possible than that which comes from the belief that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13 verse 4, although Christ was crucified in weakness, He now lives by the power of God. If you grasp this life altering fact of history, then even if you find things going dark in your life,

this hope becomes a light for you when all other lights go out. With Easter approaching, I want you to know the hope that stays with you no matter the circumstance. This hope becomes a light for you when all other lights go out. With Easter approaching, I want you to know the hope that stays with you no matter the circumstance. The hope that comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In my book, which is entitled Hope in Times of Fear, the resurrection and the meaning of Easter, you'll find why the true meaning of Easter is transformative and how it gives us unquenchable hope and joy even when we face the trials and difficulties of this life, which can be considerable.

Hope in times of fear is our thank you for your gift this month, to help gospel in life reach more people with the hope and joy of Christ's love. You can request your copy today by going to gospelandlife.com-slashgive. That is gospelandlife.com-slashgive. Thank you so much for your generosity. And as we prepare to reflect on the amazing love of Christ, demonstrated when he went to the cross to save us, I pray you will find renewed hope and comfort in the historical fact of his resurrection. Because the gospel changes everything. Now see, at this point, it's just the four tastes.

Because someone else has also put down like this, oh friends, if just the sight and taste was enough to throw the eternal sight son of God into violent agony, if just the sight and taste of the cup was enough to throw the eternal son of God into violent agony, what must the full experience have been? Now, New Yorkers say, I don't like the idea of the wrath of God.

I believe in a loving God. I don't like this idea of an angry mad God, sinners in the hands of an angry God. I hate that. I want a loving God. Well, I want to be respectful here, but let me just suggest two things. First of all, if you want a loving God, you have to have an angry God, because would you please think for a second, loving people get angry,

not in spite of the fact that they're loving, but because they're loving. In fact, the more people you love, and the more deeply you love people, the more angry you get. Haven't you noticed that? When you see people that are ravaged by something, in fact, if you see people who are ravaging themselves, you get mad, you get mad at them, out of love.

See if you see people ravaging themselves, destroying themselves, or destroying other people, and you don't get mad, it's because you don't care. You're too absorbed in yourself, you're too cynical, you're too hard, the more loving you are, the more angry you get. And we're told in Psalm 145, God loves everything that he's made. And that's the reason he's constantly angry because of what's going on down here. And therefore, I don't want to, with all due respect, it's stupid to say, I don't want a wrathful God and angry God.

I want a loving God. If He's loving, He's got to be angry, very angry at evil. God will do something about it. And the second thing to say to you is this, if you don't believe in a God of wrath, you have no idea your value. You have no idea of your value if you don't know a God of wrath. What? Sure.

A God without wrath doesn't need a cross. You know, I just love you. I don't need a cross. I don't need to pay for sin. I'm not angry. It's sin and evil. I just love you. So God without wrath doesn't need a cross.

And therefore God without wrath doesn't have to go to the cross and die on it and suffer this incredible agony and cost in order to love you. Here's a God who pays nothing in order to love you on my left. And here on this side is the God of the Bible, who because he's a wrathful God and because he's angry at evil, must go to the cross and absorb the debt and pay the penalty and suffer this infinity. Now, how do you know this God loves you? Well, it's just a concept.

How do you know how much he loves you? How valuable you are. Well, you don't even know it all. How do you know how valuable you are to the God of the Bible? This valuable. He would do this for you. He would go to these depths for you. He would stagger and tear his breasts for you.

If you don't believe in a wrathful God, you have no idea your value. See as Lewis was writing a man named Malcolm in a book called Letters to Malcolm, chiefly on prayer. But one of the letters, Malcolm said, I just don't like this idea of an angry God, a God who's personally angry. He says, I like to think of God's justice more like a live electrical wire. A live electrical wire doesn't get angry. If you break the rules of electricity, it shocks you.

So if you break the rules of God's justice, it shocks you somehow. But I don't like this idea that God gets personally angry. And Lewis says, my dear Malcolm, what do you suppose you have gained by substituting the image of a live wire for that of angered majesty? He has shut us up all in despair for the angry can forgive, but electricity can't. Turn God's wrath into marin light and disapproval and you turn His love into mere humanitarianism, both the consuming fire and the absolute beauty of His love, vanish. We have in His place a judicious headmistress or a conscientious magistrate, it comes from

being high-minded, liberalizing and civilizing analogies can only lead us astray. Come to grips with the wrath of God. If you want to know your value, come to grips with the wrath of God if you want to know His love. Now, points four and five, put them together. Jesus chose us away to handle a really hard path when the cultures of the world have been divided about what to do when there's a gap between the desires of your heart and the circumstances of life.

See, when the circumstances of life are giving you the desires of your heart, we find. Suffering happens when there is a gap between the desires of your heart and the circumstances of your life and the bigger the gap, the more the suffering. What do you do when there's a gap? And it comes up all the time. One of the answers is to say, change the circumstances, get out of town, break your promises, get off that path that's taking you in that direction,

and just do something else. Go someplace where you get your desires satisfied, because the desires are important, the circumstances are negotiable. Now the pagans didn't say that that and Eastern religion doesn't say that. Eastern religion and the eightfold path of Buddhism, paganism, the old Greek states that they said that it's got no integrity at all. Do you realize how stupid it is to say that when there's a gap between your desires and your circumstances change the circumstances? That's stupid they say. First, that's just there's no integrity, no virtue,

keep your promises, stay on the path. What you need to do is you need to squelch your desires. You need to ratchet them down. You need to get on top. You need to be cool, dispassionate. You need to be to come detached. That's the reason why Socrates wasn't freaking out at the end.

He didn't love life, he didn't care, he got in detached. And CCS Lewis talks about this in his famous chapter on hope. He says, what happens when there is in the mere Christianity? He says, what happens when there's a gap between the circumstances and your desires? Well, the fool's way is to try to change the circumstances, but that is a fool's way because your circumstances just will not oblige. You try that circumstance six months, you'll need another set.

But he says, the cynics ways to say, yes, I used to want to desire. I used to have desires for love and for fulfillment, and I used to have desires for adventure. I used to want all these things, but I've stopped crying after the moon. I've stopped crying over spilled milk. And you start to harden. Is there another way?

Yes, look at Jesus. On the one hand Jesus is not squelching his desires. He's pouring his heart out. He's pouring his heart out. He says, I don't want this. This is how I feel. This is my desires. He's not squ heart out. He says, I don't want this. This is how I feel. This is my desires. He's not squalching them.

But on the other hand, he is absolutely submitted to the will of God. What is this? This is neither the pagan way of detachment, squalching your desires. This isn't the fool's way, the secular way of saying, I'm just going to go get with new circumstances. Here's what he's doing. He's taking his desires and not squalching them, but redirecting them, even intensifying them and putting them in the Father's hand. He's saying, and this is

what Lewis says in his chapter, he says, look, if the circumstances of life do not satisfy the deepest desires of my heart, I'm not going to squalch the desires of my heart, I'm going to to squelch the desires of my heart. I'm going to know that they will only find they're all eventually in God. And so I've got to start on that path. And I've got to trust him. And I've got to put myself in his hands. And therefore, what Jesus does is he loves into the suffering.

He doesn't squelch his desires. He doesn't avoid the suffering. He loves into the suffering. That means he obeys for the love of the Father in the midst of the suffering. And then he turns that suffering into a vehicle for grace in his life and in the whole world's life. See, the problem with both the pagan view and the fool's view is that suffering is meaningless, not if you give it to the Father.

He doesn't squelch his desires. He doesn't change his circumstances. He takes and redirects his desires and puts them. He puts his heart. He pours out his heart. He doesn't squelch his heart. He doesn't choke his heart. He pours out his deepest desires to his Father and says, someday in you, all of my deepest

desires we fulfilled. Meanwhile, I trust you with them. My will, your will. Your will be done. You say, how do I do that? Here's the power. Why is it? Here's how you get the power. Why does God give Jesus the foretaste?

Ever thought about that? It's not very safe. You know, Jesus seems to have, you know, Jesus knew in his head what hell was like, but of course how in the world could the human Jesus Christ, the incarnate Christ? How could he possibly know what it was really going to be like? Why didn't the Father, to be safe, wait until He was safely nailed and tied to the cross? Isn't it pretty dangerous to show Jesus Christ what it was going to be like when no one is looking? No soldiers there

yet. Even as disciples of fallen asleep, he could just walk and that's the point. John F. Edwards in his great sermon, Christ Agony puts it like this, says, God brought him to the mouth of the furnace, to his raging flame, to see where he was going, so he could voluntarily enter into it and bear it for us, knowing what it was, so that when he took that cup on the cross, knowing fully what it was, so was his love to us infinitely the more wonderful, and his obedience to God infinitely the more perfect. Remember how last week we said, Jesus Christ is the Lamb.

What's the Lamb? A substitute. What's a substitute? He comes to do what we can't do for ourselves. He comes to live a life we should have lived and die. The death we should have died. Let's talk for men about that. Years, centuries ago, first human being, Adam, comes into what?

A garden. A garden, a garden. And God says, see the tree? Obey me about the tree. Obey me and you will live. That's simple enough. Obey my law and you will live. Don't eat the tree.

And Adam didn't do it. And you know what? Ever since then, we've been the same. God says, if you love one another as you want others to love you, golden rule. If every human being just followed my law, the golden rule, you would be blessed. But instead, we say, yes, that's right, follow the golden rule, and nobody does it. Nobody does it on any day of their lives. And as a result, we're cursed.

See, God says, if you obey me, you will be blessed. If you disobey me, you will be cursed. So He says, obey me. But we don't. But now Jesus Christ comes. And He, according to the book of 1 Corinthians, He, according to Paul, is the second Adam. He's our substitute. He's our representative.

And guess what? He comes into a garden too. A second garden. And God asks him to obey about a tree as well. Only this time that tree is the cross. Oh my goodness, because you see how much harder, how much infinitely harder, it's going to be for the second Adam, then for the first. Because the first Adam was told, obey me about the tree and you will live and he didn't.

He didn't obey. But God comes to the second Adam and says, obey me about the tree and I will crush you to powder. says, obey me about the tree and I will crush you to powder." And he did, he obeyed. Why? Because he loved us. Because he would rather lose himself than lose us. He lived a perfect life. And at the end of his life, he did the most single, greatest act of love and obedience in the history of the universe.

Fully knowing what it was going to cost him, because God let him see in the Garden of Gisemini what it was going to cost him. No ignorance at all. Fully knowing what it was going to cost him, he loved you and me. He obeyed his father. It was the greatest act of fulfillment of the law of God in history. You and I disobey the law, we deserve the curse. He obeyed the law, he deserves the blessing.

But you get his blessing and we get, you get his blessing and he gets our curse. God made him sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God and him. On the cross, he takes the curse for our life, and when you receive him by faith, you get the blessing for his. And he did it at infinite cost to himself. Do you see that?

If you see that, you'll know this. That's the love you've been looking for all your life. No family love, no friend love, no mother love, no spousal love, no romantic love, no professional acclaim, nothing could possibly satisfy you like that. All those other kinds of loves will let you down and this one will not. And when you see that, you'll be able to trust the Father in your suffering. And instead of squalching your desires or changing your circumstances, you'll go through that suffering, you'll love into that suffering, and it'll make you something great.

That's how you do it. This story of Jesus in the garden is like a treasure chest or it might be like a medicine chest. Are you feeling abandoned? Do you feel like God's abandoned me? Wrong. If he didn't abandon you under these circumstances, why would he abandon you now? He was, Jesus was truly abandoned by God on the cross so you could just feel abandoned

when you go through your troubles, but you're not. Are you feeling guilty? Are you saying, oh, I don't, I think God's given up on me. Look, if he wouldn't give up on you, when hell itself was coming down into his heart, why would he give up on you because you've blown it this week? You say, oh, I've got people in my life that are falling asleep on me. I've had it. People who I've asked them to agonize with you through my problems, and they've deserted me. I've got people in my life that are falling asleep on me, I've had it. People who I've asked them to agonize with me through my problems, and they've deserted me. I've got people in my life that are hard to love, and I don't want to love them anymore. Look at Jesus.

Totally let down, totally abandoned, totally let down. They fall asleep on him. What does he say? Does he say, I hate you. I've had it with you. No, what does he say? The Spirit is willing, but the body is weak. He's finding something good to say.

At a time like that, he says, I know that you meant well. Now, when you see him doing that to them, oh no, when you see him doing that to you, because how many times have you fallen asleep on him? How many times have you said you were going to be with him and you weren't? How can you give up one other people? What Jesus Christ did on the cross is like a medicine chest. We'll cure whatever ails you. Fall down at his feet, adore him for what he did, and when you get up you'll be like him. Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for giving to us this wonderful medicine chest, a balm for all our

woes, Jesus Christ, suffering for us in the garden and voluntarily going to the cross out of love for us. Help us to see what it cost you to love us so that we know the full depth, to height the width, the breadth, and the depth of your love, so that we can be transformed into the likeness of your Son, who came not to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller on the transformative power of Christ's death and resurrection.

We pray that it challenged you and encouraged you. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelonlife.com. That's gospelonlife.com. This month's sermons were recorded in 2006 and 2007. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.