"Window on the Will of God"
Introduction:
Tonight we are setting aside this time to welcome back to this place of worship a very vital part of who we are as a church. We also remind ourselves of it’s message beyond the beauty of it’s design, material or history. For the window is a story beyond the story of those who purchased it, the families it honors or the tradition it recalls. It is for us a window to compel us to remember, to remember how painful it was for Jesus to do the will of God.
Windows are designed to allow a person to look outside from the inside of a room or building. They usually let light in to brighten an area in a structure. They originally let air in and kept unwanted insects out. This window however now does none of those things. You can’t see outside on Jefferson but you can see an event in Jerusalem in 33AD that was conceived in eternity. It lets in no light that can be measured but it lets in truth that cannot be denied. It allows nothing from the outside to come in but it’s story allows God to speak to our souls. When our human light source shines upon it at night it is dark and it’s figure and story indistinguishable. Yet in the day the light of the sun shines upon it and we can see. Human hands damaged it, accidentally. The hands that are seen resting upon the rock though were broken and pierced, deliberately, by human hands.
Our window on the will of God is found not in a home but in a garden or we might think of it as a park. It’s called the garden of Gethsemane. It’s located just outside modern Jerusalem on the east on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. If you go there today, it’s impossible to tell exactly where Jesus was in the garden but we are sure that it was near there where Jesus and the disciples spent their final hours together. Gethsemane means "olive press." Scholars believe that the Gethsemane Jesus visited was very likely a private olive grove that offered to Jesus a place of quite rest and reflection. It most likely was fenced by stone and was a place familiar to the disciples. (Luke 22:39-40…and Judas knew where to find him. John 18:2)
The Last Supper has been shared and sometime after midnight Jesus led his disciples from that upper room through the quiet street of Jerusalem to the place where I believe we are allowed to see the greatest battle Jesus would fight. It’s hard for me to look through this window for I believe, like nowhere else in the New Testament, that we see our Lord’s humanity exposed. It is a holy moment.
I feel presumptuous adding to what has already been written. Yet I am drawn powerfully to the scenes where the prayers were uttered, and I invite you to watch and listen with me. I think I can say that the invitation comes from God rather than from me. If such solemn scenes are described and such solemn words recorded, it follows that we must all watch and listen whether we would like to or not. Only let us do so with our hearts bowed.
What does this passage say about Jesus? It tells me that Gethsemane is the place where Jesus won His personal struggle with knowing His Father’s will and doing His Father’s will. What does this say to me today? The hardest struggles we face are between knowing God’s will and doing God’s will.
Jesus entered the upper room with twelve disciples. During the meal Judas would leave to betray Him. He left the upper room with eleven. When he arrives at the garden He tells eight to stay by the gate and takes three, Peter, James and John, on further with Him. He reaches the place and tells them to stay behind and goes about 50 yards further. What Jesus does then shows us just how deeply he felt. Notice what he says: "Sit here while I go over there and pray" (v. 36) "And going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from em. Yet not as I will, but as you will’" (v. 39). He prayed. The agony he endured was done so with prayer.
Why was he so filled with sorrow? Because He knew what God’s will for him would be and the thought of it broke His heart. What was that will of God for Him? That he would bear our sins on the cross.
The will of God for Jesus was to die on the cross bearing our sin for us. He knew it but doing it was a battle. The only way he knew He could win was to pray.
It is no different for us. God reveals His will to us…It is not so much that we do not know what to do, it’s doing what He wants that’s tough. You will not win the struggle by reading about it, listening to tapes, sermons, counselors , talking about it. The real way, the only way, to win is in prayer. What is it that is God’s will for you? The struggle inside is resolved only in prayer. If you are not praying you will not win.
The conflict between knowing the will of God and doing the will of God is only resolved in a lifestyle of prayer.
Throughout Jesus’ prayers notice the words He uses over and over: "My Father…" Mark has it, "Abba, Father"—a very tender word meaning "Daddy." The relationship Jesus had with God was unique. It was that relationship that he depended on throughout His ministry.
An unbroken fellowship with His Father causes Him in this crucial moment to go to His Father. It would be as He prayed that while that fellowship with the Father would be broken and He would cry out, "My God, my God…." Yet He was strengthened that God was still His Father and He was still His Son. He could do the Father’s will because of the relationship with His Father.
The will of God for us is not often easy. It is painful. It is unclear what the outcome will always be. When it’s hard and when it’s tough we must remember whose child we are. God is our father. What He asks of us may be difficult beyond our imagination but we must remember He loves us, He loves us, He loves us! That love will never be broken! Romans 8:31-39.
The tension between knowing and doing the will of God rests in a unique relationship – He is "my Father."
One unmistakable principle that comes out of this passage is that Jesus was being tempted to avoid the will of God by dying on the cross. Luke has Jesus saying at the first, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." As Matthew records Jesus, he prays, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (v 39). "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak" (v. 41). "My Father, if it not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done" (v. 42). "When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and want away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing" (v. 43-44). Three times the same prayer and woven into His own petition is a plea to the disciples to not even come close to temptation.
What was Jesus’ temptation? It was to go from the present to the kingdom without the cross, to gain the glory without the pain. He had been there before.
Jesus was tempted to avoid the cross, its pain, its shame but most of all the bearing of sin. It was real, it was a place of pain but in prayer he overcame.
If you’ve never been tempted to avoid the will of God, then you’ve never walked far in your walk with Jesus. There are those moments when what is God’s will for you appears so painful, so hard, so overwhelming that you cry out, "Dear God, isn’t here a better, easier, quicker, painless way?"
The answer, though, is clear—you must walk this path, do this task, go to this place, experience this crisis for his will to ever be accomplished. And in prayer you know what it is to be tempted to gain the will of God some other way. The truth is the battle between knowing and doing the will of God is a real struggle with temptation.
Jesus was struggling with knowing and doing the will of God. To say that it wasn’t a real fight, a real temptation is to deny the true humanity of Jesus. Yet because Jesus was God there was a total commitment to doing the will of God! (v. 39b, 42).
The storm in Jesus’ soul screamed and howled but each time he prayed it seems there was a lessening of its intensity so that finally he could return to his sleeping disciples and say with an overwhelming resolve, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners" (v. 45). You see, while the storm decreased his strength increased! So much so that when he said what he said in verse 45 I don’t think the disciples heard Him! They were asleep. In fact the commentators I read pointed out that there most likely was a lapse of time between His resolving the battle and the return of Judas. What did He do? He cared for his sleeping friends until the light of the torches was seen. Then with humble confidence he could say, "Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!" (v. 46).
Just because we decide to do the will of God doesn’t mean the storm will stop. That it will get easier. What we do find is that there is in us a resolve to go on regardless. The battle is resolved by a total devotion of life to do the will of God. There may be many awards and comments that could be made about your life but there is no greater than to say, "I’ve done the will of God. When the smoke has cleared and the guns are silent and the battlefield is quiet, the medal for you will be that you have said and done the will of God.
Conclusion:
The window on the will of God has reminded us of the stress and difficulty between knowing the will of God and doing the will of God. The struggle is one that is resolved in prayer, rests in a relationship with the Father, will call for a resistance to temptation and will finally be overcome with a life devoted fully to Him.
I was reminded of another character who struggled with doing the will of God, Abraham. You recall the scene in Genesis 22 where Abraham is told to offer his son Isaac on the altar as a human sacrifice. The scripture tells us that it was a test to see if Abraham was fully devoted to God. At last when he was prepared to do what he knew God, God spared Isaac by sending a ram for the sacrifice. F. B. Meyer writes in his book on the life of Abraham of the application for a Christian, "Think not, O soul of man, that this is a unique and solitary experience. It is simply a specimen and pattern of God’s dealings with all souls who are prepared to obey Him at whatever cost. After thou hast patiently endured, thou shalt receive the promise. The moment of supreme sacrifice shall be the moment of supreme and rapturous blessing. God’s river, which is full of water, shall burst its banks, and pour upon thee a tide of wealth and grace. There is nothing, indeed, which God will not do for a man who dares to step out upon what seems to be the mist; though as he puts down his foot he finds it rock beneath him."
It’s only glass, color and metal but oh, it is a window to our heart and our life. If you look closely you may see your face instead of His.
Sunday, October 10, 1999 – Evening Service
Dr. Bruce Tippit
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The eight windows in our sanctuary are copied from eminent works of art painted by European artists who lived after 1800. The artists did extensive research in order to present authentic backgrounds and the overall validity of their compositions. Each scene is based upon a scripture in the Bible. The windows are 18 feet tall and 7 feet, 4 inches wide.
The window being featured tonight was donated to the church in memory of William J. Witt and his wife Sidda, both of whom died in 1910. They were my great, great grandparents. Sidda (Cynthia Busby) moved here from Tennessee with her sister and brother-in-law when she was just 14, and in 1858 when she was 22, she married a neighbor's son, Ebb Mangrum.
Sidda Mangrum was left a widow with two tiny daughters when her husband was killed in the Civil War. A few years later, she married William J. Witt, who was a widower. Both were devout members of the Philadelphia Baptist Church, and upon their marriage they moved their letters to what is now Jonesboro's First Baptist Church. Sidda's daughter, Mollie Mangrum Sharp, and her husband Jacob, had been one of the 10 families at the Philadelphia Church who had earlier moved their memberships to our church in order to strengthen it.
In the eary 1880's the name of our church, which had begun as Bethany Baptist Church in 1852, was changed to First Baptist Church. After worshipping in several locations during the years between 1852 and the 1890's, the congregation built a lovely red brick church--complete with a steeple--catty-cornered from where we are now. That building burned when my daddy was a little boy, and he remembers being glad because he thought he wouldn't have to go to Sunday School. Now he wishes he were able to be here.