The Cross and the change it brings

Matt. 26:36-46

rosspaterson

The word Gethsemane means crushed olives.

There met together:

His perfect work: His obedience and love

and

Our miserable failure: Our rebellion and sin

The single question is what would be the result of that

meeting?

If, as Paul says, the glory of God has been shown to us

“in the Face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6),

then the portrait in

Gethsemane shows

that Face covered in

tears.

Olives from Jordan (Wikipedia)

Confluence of the Jialing and Yangtze Rivers in Chongqing, China

(1) Gethsemane is where your

prayers are not answered

as you’d like them to be.

God understands how you

feel, and He has a better

plan in mind.

The depth of Gethsemane:

(2) Gethsemane is

where those closest

to you cannot help.

You go on alone.

(3) Gethsemane is where you feel the full

weight of God’s will. Jesus was “in anguish”

and “His sweat was like drops of blood falling

to the ground” (Luke 22:44 NIV).

So that my darkness and sin and

pit of despair….

The

divine exchange

….might be replaced by His life

and friendship with the Father

Gethsemane

us…

i) He is aware of

our secrets but

does not run

away.

ii) He has answers

to our ‘worst

stuff’

iii) He has a destiny

and a future

for us.

Gethsemane shows the way

out of our fallen state:

i) ADMIT sin and

failure

ii) REPENT of it

iii) BE HONEST re. the

pride and

dependence on

self that lay behind

it

Give up that old life

When a debtor presented a bill for payment, it was customary, after the money had been handed over, for the creditor to write across the bill tetelestai – paid in full. This word is in the perfect tense in the Greek, and so it means “it has been and will for ever remain finished”. C.H. Spurgeon described them as “the greatest words ever”.

“Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on a town garbage heap; at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew (the language of the religious), Latin (the language of the barbarian) and Greek (the language of the cultured). It was the kind of place where cynics talked smut, thieves cursed and soldiers gambled. But it’s where He died, and it’s what He died about.”

The Father’s

Acknowledgements…

Some of the pictures used in this Powerpoint presentation are the intellectual

property of Free Bible Images and we acknowledge their source.