Matthew 26:36-37 (ESV)
36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
My new friends, quite obviously I am not Christy. I am also
decidedly not a woman, which matters given the possibility that most of you who
visit this forum are ladies. Some might suggest that I have nothing of
practicality to offer you. Aren't I so from Mars—made too much of snips and
snails and puppy dog tails—that my best attempt to connect you more deeply to
Christ would fall short of perfectly relating? We're as different as night and
day, you and I are. You think differently, reason differently, feel differently,
plan differently, and fear differently, so there's no way my personal journey
with Jesus can truly connect with you in yours...
...except if you bring that assumption into the lamplight,
you quickly see how untrue it is. For all of our differences, we are exactly
the same. In Jesus Christ, we are saved from the same penalty, saved for the
same eternity, and saved into the same reality. We'll always approach how we
face this reality uniquely one to another, but the core reality is the same,
along with the problems it introduces, the insecurities it exposes, and
especially the sorrows it frequently produces. Actually it's your sorrows and
troubles I'd like to discuss for one brief moment today, asking you a simple
question: within your journey growing with
our Savior and Friend, how do you handle them?
Do some snooping in Gethsemane today and you’ll see how
Jesus handled his. Amidst those vineyards and presses you’ll find unblemished
deity willingly clothed in full humanity, taking atonement’s final steps to the
cross in utter anguish over their impact within his relationship with his
Father. More so than at any other time in his recorded life, our Redeemer shows
here how intimately he understands our core reality. “A man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief” the prophet labels him (Isaiah 53:3), and notice how
God’s Son handled his. Yes, he emptied his heart to his Father in prayer,
coming to perfect, trusting surrender to God’s wisdom and will, but he did this
in connection with others—just a small group, to be sure, but notice how Jesus
took them deeper, how he bared his soul to them, and how he asked them to walk
with him into reality’s battle. How interesting that even in Jesus’ perfect
relationship with our Father there is a clearly demonstrated need for relating
with others.
Resist the temptation to withdraw, you man or woman of God.
It is away that your sorrows and discouragement will take you, perhaps
persuaded that isolation is better than intimacy. Hear, though, the squeak of
this critical hinge on the door of our personal discipleship: walking and
growing in him means walking and
growing with them. You were saved for a community, not a
convent. No season in life proves this like one of pain, and without your
community you cannot mature as his disciple.
How have you experienced growth in your relationship with
Christ as you walked through the days of your reality in partnership with a
small group of other Christians? How would you counsel a fellow believer who
seems drifting in the loneliness of sorrows?
Michael and his family find themselves transitioning in their pastoral ministry. Having married in 1996, he and his wife, Dale, began their journey at seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, ultimately making pastoral stops in Alabama, Kentucky, and most recently Knoxville, Tennessee. Now they and their children, Abigail and Daniel, have returned to their hometown of Tullahoma, waiting as God moves them toward a next assignment. Let us partner with them in prayer, asking our father to open for them "a wide door for effective work" (1 Corinthians 16:9), the kind of which He blesses and uses to transform Christians and churches into forces for attracting and impacting the unchurched with the gospel.
Michael and his family find themselves transitioning in their pastoral ministry. Having married in 1996, he and his wife, Dale, began their journey at seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, ultimately making pastoral stops in Alabama, Kentucky, and most recently Knoxville, Tennessee. Now they and their children, Abigail and Daniel, have returned to their hometown of Tullahoma, waiting as God moves them toward a next assignment. Let us partner with them in prayer, asking our father to open for them "a wide door for effective work" (1 Corinthians 16:9), the kind of which He blesses and uses to transform Christians and churches into forces for attracting and impacting the unchurched with the gospel.
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