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Ridgecrest Baptist Church is located in Dothan, AL and exists to Reach the lost, Build the believer, and Connect people of God to the mission and purpose of God.
Today is Palm Sunday where we begin this wonderful Passion Week.
And Palm Sunday is very important, you know, it's a reverent occasion for all of the Christian world.
It's a time of memorial and remembrance and celebration.
It's one that we make much of each year this week.
And one of my favorite stories about Palm Sunday was about a little girl named Annie.
She was five years old and she had a sore throat on Palm Sunday and so she had to stay home and her mom, of course, stayed with her and
When the rest of the family came home after church, they came home caring.
palm branches or palm fronds.
You've seen that, and maybe you've experienced a service like that where they gave those out, and they came in with these palm branches, and this little five-year-old girl said to her family, said, what are the palm branches for?
What did y'all do today?
And the dad said, well, these are to reflect that people held these over Jesus' head when he rode by them on a colt.
And the little girl responded to her dad and said, wouldn't you know it, the one Sunday I'm sick and Jesus shows up and offers pony rides.
Well, today begins this commemoration of the most important events in history.
This week is about the most important events in history.
Not one of the most important set of events, but the most important events in all of history.
The death and burial and resurrection of Christ.
Today we're going to focus on the cross.
And at the end of my message, we're going to celebrate the work of the cross with the Lord's Supper.
Now, of course, next week we'll focus our celebration of worship on the resurrection.
But today, let's look at what I'm calling the pathway to the cross.
Now, how many of you opened your Bibles to Mark 13?
Well, you're in the wrong place.
It's Mark 14, verses 32 through 42.
We're not going to read a whole chapter there, but I want you to look there.
We'll read our text in just a bit.
Just go over one chapter.
But...
We're going to talk about the pathway to the cross.
The fact is you can't really understand the good news of our salvation without grasping the magnitude of this final week of Jesus.
And about that, Kevin Miller writes, he says, in the Bible there are four biographies of Jesus.
And those four biographies are written by different people with four different perspectives.
They largely tell the same story.
But they all pretty much ignore the first 30 years of Jesus.
They talk about his birth, and then they talk about the last three years, and then about 35% of those last three years are devoted in their biographies to his final week.
The people who knew Jesus best, that is Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the people who knew Jesus best felt you could not understand Jesus...
unless you understand that this week in Jesus' life, and you understand the magnitude of what it's about.
What happens in this coming week is the hot, burning center of his life, Miller writes.
That final week and that first Palm Sunday really began with a decision that was made by our Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane.
That's why I've called this the pathway to the cross.
We sometimes say without the cross there was no resurrection.
Or without the resurrection there was no need for the cross.
But listen to me.
If it weren't for the garden...
There would be no need for the cross because in the garden, Jesus would make the decision to go forward with the plan of God.
And that's what I want us to look at this morning.
Mark 14, verses 32 and following.
If you're physically able to do so, stand with me as we read our passage.
And it says in verse 32, and they went to a place called Gethsemane.
And he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray.
And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled.
And he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death.
Remain here and watch.
And going a little further, he fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.
And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.
Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.
And he came and found them sleeping.
And he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep?
Could you not watch one hour?
Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.
And again he came and he found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy.
And they did not know what to answer him.
And he came the third time and he said to them, Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?
It is enough.
The hour has come.
The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Rise.
Let us be going.
See, my betrayer is at hand.
Father, we thank you so much for the commitment of Christ, the decision that he made to go forward.
with your great plan for our salvation.
And this morning, Father, would you teach us new truths and give us new insights and precepts and principles, Father, to guide us, to govern us.
Father, would you convict us where we need conviction.
Would you challenge us and change us, Father?
And right now, Father, would you focus our hearts in on what you've done for us and what you want to do in our lives?
Cause us, Father, to hear you now, for we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thank you.
You can be seated.
I've had the privilege of standing in the Garden of Gethsemane on several occasions, and it is the Garden of Olive Trees.
It's located at the base of the Mount of Olives.
And I remember the first time I stood in that garden and looked at those olive trees, I learned something that I did not know, and that is that the very olive trees that I was looking at were there when Christ was there.
That those trees were more than 2,000 years old.
You stand in that garden, and when I found that out, it moved me.
It was an awe-inspiring moment to think that 2,000 years prior, my Savior had been in that garden praying in that place, and he saw most likely the very same trees that I was looking at on that occasion.
Not only that.
Gethsemane was a familiar place to Jesus.
We sometimes think, well, Jesus went to Gethsemane before he went to the cross.
But did you know this was, John and Luke tell us, this was a favorite place that Jesus had.
It was a place, Luke and John tell us, that he was very familiar with and that he and his disciples would often go to
when they wanted to just spend time away from the crowds, and when they wanted to seek God.
It was a very familiar place.
And it is here in this garden that Jesus would face one of his most crucial tests.
You'd arguably say the temptations in the wilderness were that first, and then this here, a crucial test, a test and a response that would change the course of human history.
And that's what I want us to look at this morning.
The first thing that I want you to notice from our passage is the heavy burden of our salvation.
You notice in verse 34, Christ tells his disciples, My soul is very sorrowful even to death.
Extreme sorrow and agony he was experiencing.
He said this to his disciples, indicating how heavy this burden upon him was.
They didn't fully understand it, but he was in agony.
He was in great, the word means to be literally distressed, almost beyond bear.
Jesus knew what was ahead.
He would suffer great physical agony.
He would be forsaken by his closest friends, and then by his own heavenly Father, all while bearing the burden of the sins of the world, the past, present, and future sins.
being cut off from God, being abandoned by his friends, and bearing this burden of our sin itself almost killed Christ before he ever got to the cross.
When you think about your salvation and you think about what he did, I want to urge you to think about three things.
Think first of all that your salvation was painful.
It was physically painful.
I don't have time to go into the pain of the cross and the literal agony, physical agony of the cross.
It was physically painful, and yet Jesus endured it in our place.
I heard a former prisoner of war from the Vietnam War say on one occasion that no matter how strong a soldier may believe themselves to be,
Eventually, they will cave to the torture and the physical abuse that they face at the hands of their enemy.
Some, he said, can hold out longer than others, but sooner or later, everyone gives in.
It's too great.
It's too full of agony and distress to hold out forever.
But there's one man who did.
His name was Jesus.
And he held out against the greatest enemy of all and the torture and the cruelty, the physical agony of the cross.
Jesus held out against the great enemy of our soul.
He did it all for us.
He did it because he loves us.
And he did it because he wants our soul to be healed for eternity.
That's why the Bible says in Isaiah 53, 5, but he was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we're healed.
A second thing I want you to remember about your salvation is not only was it painful, your salvation was purchased.
Jesus did what you could not do.
He ransomed you from the kingdom of darkness.
His death was the means to your life.
That's why the Bible says in Colossians 1, 13 and following, for He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us unto the kingdom of His dear Son, listen, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
Your salvation was painful.
Your salvation was purchased.
But listen, third, your salvation is priceless.
Now listen, don't miss this.
While your salvation was purchased, it is also priceless.
There's no amount of money or no human that can achieve for you what the blood of Christ did.
There's only one person who could ransom us from eternal death.
Your salvation was priceless because there's no amount that you could give to save yourself.
Y'all remember some of these, was it MasterCard commercials?
They would show something going on where a family or something is doing something that is costly.
But then the caption says, priceless.
Your salvation was priceless.
It was purchased, but it was priceless because it's a price you could never pay.
There was a marshal in Napoleon's army, history records, a man who was devotedly and enthusiastically attached to Napoleon, and he was mortally wounded in a battle.
And as he lay dying in his tent, he called for his commander-in-chief, and Napoleon came.
And the poor man thought that his emperor could do anything.
Perhaps he was even holding him up in a place like a god.
And so this marshal said to Napoleon, he pleaded with him, save my life.
To which Napoleon just stood there, sadly looked, and just shook his head and turned away and walked away.
And as a dying man felt a kind of cold, merciless curtain of death overtaking him, he was heard to cry out, save me, Napoleon!
Save me, Napoleon!
In the hour of death, that soldier discovered that even the powerful Napoleon could not give him physical life.
I had a man, I've told you this story before, bears repeating here.
I had a man in my church when I pastored down in Florida and I stood one morning with him in the emergency room.
His wife had passed away and she was a sweet lady.
I'm not sure he was saved, but she was a sweet lady and she was laying there on the gurney.
I was standing there with him and tubes were protruding.
They couldn't save her.
She passed away and he began to weep.
He began to weep.
And I thought, you know, I've never seen this side of him.
And he was a very successful businessman.
And he was a saint, I'm going to tell you.
And especially living with him.
But I'm staying there with him.
And he begins to sob.
I mean, he's sobbing.
And I thought, he really loved her.
And I think he loved her.
But I thought, wow, he really loved her.
And then all of a sudden he turned to me and he said, Raymond.
Raymond, with all my money, I couldn't stop this.
And it dawned on me, he wasn't crying so much because she was gone.
He was crying because his money had failed him.
that his money couldn't change her situation.
By the way, he believed that we were going to need money in heaven.
He told me that one time.
I said, why?
The roads are made of gold.
I said, hack you off a piece of street if you need some money.
You know, that's what I told him.
But listen, there's no human, no matter how powerful they are, that can save another person's life.
Your salvation is priceless, and that's why the Bible says, knowing that you were ransomed from your futile ways, inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but you have been ransomed by the precious blood of Christ like a lamb without blemish or spot.
You see, the pathway to the cross was a heavy burden that only Jesus could
could carry but not only do we see the heavy burden of our salvation here's a second thing I want you to notice from our passage and that is we see the holy commitment of our Savior look at verse 36 and he said Abba Father all things are possible for you remove this cup from me yet not what I will but what you will now I told you that we see both the humanity and the divinity of Jesus reflected in this passage and
This statement is more reflective of his divinity, the understanding what the plan of God is, not what I will, but what you will.
This passage, this particular part of our passage, affirms the fact that Jesus understood the divine purpose for which he was sent, and it affirms his commitment to fulfill it.
We see his humanity when he says, is there some way that this can pass from me?
We see his divinity when he says, nevertheless, not what I will, but what you plan, what your purpose is.
And while Jesus' human nature cried out for a different path, his divine nature submitted to the heavenly plan.
It's why the scripture says in John 18, 37, for this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I've come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.
The truth of God, the plan of God, the will of God trumped everything else, including the physical path that he was going to take.
This was a holy commitment of our Savior.
And there are a couple of things you need to know about Jesus' commitment here.
First of all, you need to know that Jesus' commitment to the cross brought upon him the judgment of God.
Never forget, when you see a cross, the cross, which is often simply worn as jewelry, represents the judgment.
We sometimes wear, I think I've told you this a hundred times, but I was on a flight with a lady.
She had a beautiful cross on, and I thought I would compliment her on that.
And I said, that's a beautiful cross.
And she said, well, thank you very much.
I said, do you know what that cross is about?
And she said, oh, this?
She said, no, it's just a piece of jewelry.
When you look at a cross, it's not just a piece of jewelry.
It's not just a prop, right?
It is a symbol of the judgment of God that should have come upon you and I, but instead fell upon our Savior.
And Jesus' commitment to the cross brought upon Him that judgment.
The curse of our sin was laid on Him.
The Bible says the wages of sin is death.
The Bible says in Galatians 3.13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
For it is written, cursed is everyone...
who is hanged on a tree.
The commitment of Jesus that he made, this holy commitment to go all the way forward with the plans and the purposes of God, this commitment was an expression of the judgment of God that you and I should have received.
But not only did Jesus' commitment to the cross bring upon him the judgment of God, listen, and perhaps for him the most painful thing, it also brought upon him the rejection of his father.
It brought upon him the judgment of God, but it also brought upon him the rejection of his father.
Jesus had been in fellowship from the very beginning.
You remember people say, well, Jesus was a kind of afterthought.
No, Jesus wasn't an afterthought.
Jesus was there from the very beginning.
He says before Abraham, I am.
He's always been there.
And suddenly this fellowship with the Father was broken.
For the first time in all eternity past that Jesus had been in a relationship with the Father, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, suddenly it was severed.
It was broken in that moment.
And Matthew records that moment in which God had forsaken Jesus this way.
He says about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
But it was necessary.
It was necessary for our redemption.
You see, Jesus was rejected by God in order that you and I might be accepted by God.
This rejection was necessary.
Stu Epperson writes and says, no greater pain has ever been experienced on any level than the hell of Christ's suffering in this very moment.
But why?
Because he carried all of that pain, sin, guilt, and shame in that moment.
Yet on a far deeper level, he was forsaken and punished for us to be reconciled to God.
One pastor illustrates it this way.
He says after a service some Sunday morning, he said, if one of my members were to come to me and say, I never want to see you or talk to you again, he said, I'd feel pretty bad.
But he said, if, on the other hand, my wife comes up to me and says, I never want to see you or talk to you again, he said, that's a lot worse.
You see, the longer the love, the deeper the love, the greater the torment of its loss.
But this forsakenness, this loss, was between the Father and the Son who had loved one another from all eternity past.
In this moment, Jesus, the maker of the world, was being unmade.
Why?
Jesus was experiencing judgment day.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
This statement is not a rhetorical question.
And the answer is, for you.
Forsaken for you.
Forsaken for me.
Forsaken for us.
Jesus was forsaken by God so that we would never have to be the judgment that should have fallen on us
fell instead on him.
It's why the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 19, that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
You see, the pathway to the cross was a pathway of commitment and rejection,
all endured by Christ for our sake.
But there's one final thought that I want to show you this morning, and that is I want you to note verses 37 and 38 describe the human weakness of our species.
It says, "...the Spirit indeed is willing..."
but the flesh is weak.
You know, Jesus says, I'm in agony.
I'm going to go be alone before the Father and talk to the Father.
But while I'm away, I want you guys to be praying here.
Peter, James, John, will you pray here?
I'll come back to you.
And when he comes back to them, we all know this story that Jesus finds them asleep.
And that's when he says to them, he said, couldn't you just watch?
Couldn't you just pray?
And then he adds something to them.
I'll talk about it in just a moment.
He says, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.
What is that all about?
But he said, I just needed you to pray and watch, be alert for just a little bit.
And he goes off again.
He comes back, and once again, they're sleeping.
He goes off again, and he comes back, and they're sleeping.
Every preacher understands this.
But the pathway to the cross was lonely.
It was a lonely path.
It was a path where our salvation is purchased.
It's a priceless kind of process, but the fact is it was also lonely.
Jesus, his associates, didn't understand the magnitude of what was going on.
We don't fuss at them for that.
They didn't comprehend the magnitude of it.
But at the time of his greatest need, at the time of Jesus' greatest human need, those closest to him weren't there.
They were asleep.
Jesus was speaking to all the disciples there when he addressed this matter.
But did you notice he calls Peter out by name?
And by the way, he uses his former name, Simon.
And he calls him out.
Did you notice there are James and John and Peter, but he speaks to Peter.
You want to know why he's called Peter by name?
Because just a few hours earlier, Peter had made this bold declaration.
It doesn't matter what others do, I will stand with you no matter what.
And here he is now, just a few hours later, and he can't even stand with Jesus in prayer.
The fact is, all of us can have a little of that in us, can't we?
The fact is, we can have the best of intentions, even spiritual intentions, but our fleshly nature is weak.
It's often weak when we are most needed.
Their flesh was weak.
Did you notice he said the Spirit is willing?
That's not the Holy Spirit.
What that means is, you have the desire, but your flesh is just too weak.
Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.
Why this statement?
Well, let me tell you why that statement.
Because what was happening in the garden in that moment, in that hour, was arguably, listen, the most significant of all the spiritual battles being waged in the heavenly realm.
In that moment, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.
This is a spiritual war.
The pathway to the cross was spiritual war at its highest, at its most pronounced.
And there are some things about spiritual war that Jesus knew that they didn't understand and perhaps we need to understand.
So he says, watch and pray that you not be, that you not enter in temptation, you not miss what's actually happening in the spiritual realm, in this spiritual battle.
And you see, spiritual war requires anticipation, doesn't it?
Spiritual war, because it's going on right now while we're here.
It's going on when you leave this place.
It's always going on.
Spiritual war requires anticipation.
The enemy is always lurking and looking for a way to undermine the plans of God.
And we have to anticipate that battle.
We have to anticipate his assault.
A shocking video captured a moment when a fisherman was bitten by a shark off the coast of Florida.
and the shark literally pulled him overboard into the water.
And that happened near the Everglades, and these guys were fishing together, and his friend even warned him about the sharks.
And this ordeal unfolded after the man leaned over the boat to rinse his hands in the water.
Even as in the background you can hear his friend caution him, I wouldn't put my hands in there.
And not two seconds after he had said that, the man replies and he says, oh, I'm just going to rinse them off a little bit.
It'll be okay.
Suddenly a shark comes up, takes his hand, pulls him literally over the boat into the water.
The shark releases its grip and the man tries to grab onto the boat with his injured hand and get back in.
He can't quite lift himself and you can hear and see the scurry as the
Guys on the boat say, get him, get him, get him, and they do pull him into the boat.
They rush him back to shore, and he was airlifted to a hospital, and he survived.
But I thought about 1 Peter 5, 8, which says, be sober-minded, be watchful.
Your enemy, your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
He's always lurking.
He's always looking for an opportunity.
And in a split second, if you drop your guard, and that's what Jesus was saying to them in the garden, can't you watch and pray so that you don't become a victim of the enemy?
Anticipation.
Spiritual war requires it.
Spiritual war requires vigilance.
Jesus knew that the enemy would attack the disciples.
when they went from the garden.
We have to stay alert.
We have to always be watching.
The Bible says in Luke chapter 12, blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.
If he comes in the second watch or the third and he finds them awake, blessed are those servants.
We have to listen.
Vigilance is a requirement.
Vigilance is essential if we are going to be successful in the spiritual war that we are not will be engaged in.
Listen, class, we are engaged in.
And some of you understand that right now because you're going through a spiritual war.
There's some battle going on in your life.
And you know what?
Jesus would say to you the same thing I think he said to the disciples, watch and pray.
Stay alert.
Be vigilant.
And then third, I would say spiritual war requires resistance.
It requires us to fight the enemy.
But we do it in prayer.
We do it in submission to God.
You see, prayer draws us into the presence of God, and when we enter into the presence of God, the Bible said God comes near to us.
War requires us to stand against the enemy, but to stand against the enemy, we have to draw near unto God.
Lexi Fowler says,
has tried just about everything to stop these crafty coyotes from killing her sheep.
She's used odor sprays.
She's put up electric fences.
She has done everything she can to try to scare the coyotes away.
She has slept with her lambs during the summer and has placed battery-operated radios near them.
She's corralled them at night.
She's herded them during the day.
But this southern Montana rancher has lost scores of lambs, as many as 50 a year.
And then she discovered something.
She discovered the llama.
The aggressive, funny-looking, afraid-of-nothing llama.
Fowler said that llamas don't appear to be afraid of anything.
When they see something, they put their head up and they walk straight toward it.
He said, that's aggressive behavior as far as a coyote is concerned.
And they won't have anything to do with that.
She's now spared her flock with the llamas, and coyotes, she said, no longer are a threat because coyotes are opportunists, and llamas take away their opportunity.
You're not going to get that in any church.
Go get you a llama.
But listen, llamas take away the coyote's opportunity.
They are aggressive, and the coyote doesn't want that.
Listen, the devil is looking for an opportunity in your life.
But you can take it away.
How?
Well, the Bible says in James, Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Listen, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
You see, you can take his opportunity away.
First of all, you draw near to God, then you resist.
Don't try to resist and then draw near to God.
But draw near to God.
Submit to God.
Resist and he will flee.
God will draw near to you.
But submission and drawing near Him are the essential ingredients of being able to resist the enemy.
Jesus is telling His disciples in the garden, watch and pray.
Pray.
Prayer brings you into the presence of God, will enable you to stand in the hour you need to stand, and will help you identify the temptations that come.
And Jesus knew that when they went from the garden, and after Jesus was arrested, they were going to be tempted, that they were going to be challenged, that the battle would rage with them, and it would for the rest of their lives, just like it does for you and I. Because of our flesh, we're weak.
We're weak.
So Jesus calls us to be vigilant.
Jesus calls us to be alert.
And Jesus calls us to resist.
We do it in prayer.
It's a pathway to our victory, just as it was the pathway to the cross and the victory of Christ.
Aren't you glad that Jesus walked the pathway to the cross?
If you're glad, say amen.
Amen.
And because He did, you and I can live.
Our sins are forgiven and our future is favorable.
So I close before we partake of the Lord's Supper with a question to you.
Have you been to the cross?
I don't mean have you been on the cross.
I mean have you been to the cross?
Have you been there?
There's an old hymn.
There's an old hymn.
I grew up singing it.
Many of you have sung it at the cross.
You remember that hymn at the cross?
It says, Alas, and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head for sinners such as I?
At the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away.
It was there by faith.
I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day.
Have you been to the cross?
Jesus was on the cross.
Thank God he's not on the cross.
He was for you and for me.
Have you been there?
Have you forgotten what he did?
Thank God for the cross.
Thank God for Jesus' commitment to the cross and to the will and the plans of the Father.
It was a pathway that forever changed history.
Not just ancient history.
Not just present history.
But future.
Everything was changed by the cross.
And we're going to partake of the Lord's Supper here in just a moment.
It is a way we commemorate His death on the cross.
After that, I'm going to give an invitation.
If you've never put your trust in Christ, there wouldn't be a better time in your life than right now today to come and say, I want to give my life to the one who gave His life for me.
I want to receive Him and know Him.
The one that shed His blood
so I wouldn't have to shed mine.
I want you to have that opportunity before we leave today and other decisions in just a bit.
But right now, let's remember what Christ did on the cross.
I'm going to ask our men if you'll come forward.