Destiny Seized
Destiny Seized
Mark 14:27 – 42; 66-72
In today’s reading we come to a very crucial juncture in our discipleship journey. Remember that we are focussing this year on imitating Jesus Christ in 2008. We are focussing on living a Christ-like life. So as we read this passage today we are not reading this Scripture to see what Jesus has done for us … but rather we are looking to see how we will be able to imitate Jesus in practical ways. So what do we see Jesus doing in this passage? Well essentially we see Jesus living victoriously through a time of unspeakable temptation. His very purpose in life was to go to the Cross. That is why He came. Yet as the moment approached He faced the unbearable burden of having to DECIDE to be obedient. Did He have a choice? Yes, He did. He was not forced to go to the cross. He could have turned away. But if he wanted to save the world, there was no other way to do it. Would He go through with it?
Have you ever been tempted? Ever failed? Ever overcome? You probably answered yes to all of those. The truth is that we will all be tempted … especially if we are setting out to imitate Jesus … and today’s lesson is about how we can overcome temptation. Now this was obviously an extreme temptation for Jesus, and we won’t face this level of temptation every day of our lives … but we will certainly face some degree of temptation every day because there is an enemy called Satan out there who hates it when we walk in the footsteps of Jesus … and there is a world out there that is so clearly committed to principles that oppose what Jesus stands for … we will be tempted.
If, for example, you set out not to lose your temper, you will meet an idiot driver along the road … or maybe watch a Springbok rugby match. If you set out to do good deeds to the poor, you are going to come across an arrogant and demanding beggar. If you decide to overcome an addiction, you are going to have people who do the same thing pressurising you to join them. If you decide to obey the call to go into mission, you will have relatives discouraging you. If you decide that you will never, ever deny Jesus … you will soon find yourself in a situation where standing up for Jesus is going to cost you friends, popularity, or even a great business deal. Decide that you are going to overcome lust … and you will soon find yourself being ambushed by images on the TV or in the newspaper or down the side of the street that will tempt you to indulge your lust. Everyday in both big and small ways, we WILL be tempted. How can we overcome? We’ll learn that lesson from Jesus.
And from our fellow-disciple Peter’s behaviour in this same reading, we will learn how to fail to do so. In fact we should probably start there. Peter gives us a great example of how not to overcome temptation.
How to set yourself up for failure
In v.27-31 Jesus warns Peter and the fellow-disciples that they are all going to desert Him. This is the temptation they will face … to turn their backs on Jesus and run! What they should have done was stand firm with Him, accompany Him to His trial, speak in His defence … and if He was ultimately crucified anyway, they should have been there praying for Him until the end. And that is the choice they will soon face. That is the cross-road at which they stood. Jesus predicts they will fail the temptation … and with hindsight we know that they did. But why?
1. Underestimating the severity of the battle: Peter and the others were totally over-confident. Peter says so boldly: “Even if all fall away, I will not. Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” But Peter did not have a clue. He thought it was going to be a walk in the park. He underestimated the severity of the battle. He was so relaxed that when Jesus left him in the garden and went off to pray, Peter chilled out and fell asleep. Maybe that’s why Peter would later write that “your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Pet.5:8)
2. Underestimating Jesus warnings: Did you notice how Peter believes Jesus doesn’t know what he is talking about. Jesus says, “I tell you the truth … you yourself will disown me 3 times.” But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with You, I will never disown You.” Even in the garden, when Jesus returned to Peter and told him, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation,” Peter chilled out and fell asleep again. Maybe that’s why he would later write in the same verse in 1 Peter: “Be self-controlled and alert.”
3. Overestimating your own courage and readiness: In Romans 12, Paul would later write that we should have a sober estimate of our faith. Peter had an inflated opinion of his faith. “Even if everyone else falls away, I WILL NOT.” He was setting himself up for a fall. He believed in himself. Later, with the wisdom of this experience behind him Peter would write that we are to “humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift us up in due time.” In other words … don’t trust yourself … humble yourself. In a book aptly titled “The anatomy of a secret sin”, Obadiah Sedgwick writes: “Believe that your own strength is not sufficient. Even the strongest ship, left to itself, cannot venture far, but it is upon the rocks and sands. Anything may prove too strong for him who conceives himself to be too strong for anything.”
4. Denying your own weaknesses: Despite Jesus warning Peter, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” Peter still chills and falls asleep. He was in denial over his own weaknesses. Only later would he realise this truth stated in 2 Peter 1:3, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him.” His power … but at this point Peter trusted his own power, not the power of God.
Peter was, at this point in his life, a Christ-follower who was about to fail because he was living in the flesh. He was trying to follow Jesus out of his own strength, determination, courage, and faith. Later he would wise up, but right now Peter was headed for a fall. And listen up now … every single one of us will also head for a fall into temptation if we have Peter’s self-sufficient attitude.
Peter hadn’t listened when Jesus had said: “if anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me.” And so instead of denying himself … Peter denied Jesus.
Make no mistake, Peter was sincere. He really intended to stay committed to Jesus. It didn’t even enter his mind that he would fail Jesus. And in that moment his guard was down … “I don’t know or understand what you are talking about” … “I am not one of them” … “I don’t know this man you’re talking about.”
Getting set up for victory
So that’s Peter. But then there is Jesus. This awesome King we serve faced off against all the powers of hell in Gethsemane and in Jerusalem that night. And He overcame. He faced the greatest temptation of all time. His cross-road was exactly that a choice between fleeing into the night to disappear back into obscurity in Galilee … and standing for Who He was when He knew that this would ensure His death on a Cross.
Unlike Peter, Jesus recognized the severity of the battle and He knew that dangers out there facing Him that night. Of all people who have ever lived, Jesus is the One person we would expect to be self-confident in the face of temptation. After all He had overcome Satan in the desert 3 years prior. But Jesus knew He was up against a roaring lion. He knew the battle would be fierce. And so He … Jesus … does what we should all do in times of trial:
1. Fellowship: He gets with fellow-believers. Instead of just going off alone, Jesus calls for Peter, James and John to be nearby. They couldn’t handle the battle of the soul FOR Jesus, but they could be nearby supporting Him by their presence and their prayers. Jesus was no lone-ranger like Peter. He knew He could only do this with the support of His friends and companions. Its far easier to overcome temptation if we know that someone else knows about the temptation we are facing and is rooting for us and praying for us.
2. Prayer: Jesus, so intimate with the Father at all times, doesn’t rest on the laurels of that intimacy. Instead He falls to the ground time and time again that night to beg for God’s help. The greatest defence to sin is intimacy with the Lord. If Jesus is with you and you are experiencing His closeness then its jolly difficult to go to that nightclub where you know drugs are on sale … or where alcohol is served to teenagers and pretend it doesn’t matter … its jolly difficult to watch that pornographic movie … or pay your worker an unfair wage … or use God’s name in vain … or take the bribe. Build your intimacy with God through prayer and you will be building a wall against temptation.
3. He recognized His weaknesses: You say to me, Jesus had no weaknesses. Well He had to have some because He was tempted in every way as we are … the only difference is that he did not give in to His weaknesses. So when Jesus goes to Peter and says: “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” Jesus is not talking only about Peter … he is talking about Himself as well. He is pleading for the disciples to pray for Him and with Him because He shares their human condition and ours … our inner person desperately wants to obey God … but our bodily nature leads us astray by its desperate desire for comfort and ease. Jesus recognized this and stood on guard against it.
4. He trusted the power of God: Right at the start of this whole event Jesus showed unspeakable trust in the power of God. He says to Peter: “After I have risen, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.” Do you see the faith this reveals. Jesus is going to hand Himself over, willingly to die in our place … and He is going to be completely out of control … His life is going to be utterly in the hands of the Father … but He believes that even if the Father takes Him through death, the Father will also bring Him out on the other side … will raise Him from the dead.
And so Jesus stands His ground … with fellowship, prayer, humility and faith … trusting only in the power of God to sustain Him … Jesus stands at the cross-roads and chooses the will of God: “Not what I want but what You want, Father,” says Jesus. There it is, right there … victory. The victory over temptation was gained right there in the garden by Jesus. Right there the battle was won for your soul and mine. The decision was made … there was no turning back … and Jesus OVERCAME.
Conclusion
And so here we have a contrast between life in the flesh and life in the Spirit … between a life lived trusting in myself … and a life lived trusting in the power of the Lord. One life leads to failure, the other to victory.
Let’s remember, however, that Peter rose again. And Peter himself became a model of victory over temptation. And the same can happen for us. If we are honest with ourselves then we are far more often just like Peter than just like Jesus. How can I be more like Jesus? We need the same intervention from Jesus that Peter had. We need to be filled with and totally dependent on the Holy Spirit of God!
This Christ-following life cannot be done through our own strength or determination … that is just a fleshly attempt to earn our own righteousness. We have to depend solely and completely on the Holy Spirit within us.
It’s back to that old choice that I spoke about 6 weeks ago. We will fail if we try to follow Jesus by trying harder!
We will succeed in following Jesus if we try to do so by following more closely.
Fellowship … prayer … humility … trust in the Holy Spirit. These are the elements of a victorious Christian life. Getting into fellowship in a cell group … spending the morning time of prayer and Bible reading … living in full awareness of our weakness and vulnerability to sin … and yet trusting in the Holy Spirit to always show us the way out of every temptation and to give us the power to take that way out.
