What’s In A Difficult Week?
Luke 22:39-46NKJB
Have you ever had a difficult week? Have you? I certainly have, Sometimes I’ll get like, “What’s the use!” No one will escape a difficult week in losing a loved one. Grief over-the-top, not seeing your way out. “We’ve all had difficult weeks.” Moreover, more are ahead. P.H.
Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. 40 When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
41 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” 43 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. 45 When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. 46 Then He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.”
This garden was called Gethsemane which means oil press. (More about that in a minute).
Nothing was glamours about Jesus’ final week. He contemplated, Sought His Father’s will, laid His agenda down, and experienced deep devotions within and throughout.
As we look at such suffering we ask, “Why would God forsake His love for His only Son?” “Why would He turn His back on the very One to whom He said, "This is My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him?”
Isaiah 53:10NLT Sums up God’s love for His humanity. 10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush Him and cause Him grief. Yet when His life is made an offering for sin, He will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in His hands.
The crucifixion of Jesus brought about more than anguish to His soul. It opened the doorway to Heaven. He who was humiliated, is raised on high in glory and majesty and is ready to share His victory and its glorious blessings with all who will follow Him.
Remember this, A difficult week will either leave you with a good testimony, or it will leave you with a sour taste in your mouth, and ready to quit.
It is held early on in the 3rd week of First Phase – before the Navy makes an expensive investment in SEAL operational training. Hell Week consists of 5 1/2 days of cold, wet, brutally difficult operational training on fewer than four hours of sleep. Hell Week tests physical endurance, mental toughness, pain and cold tolerance, teamwork, attitude, and your ability to perform work under high physical and mental stress, and sleep deprivation. Above all, it tests determination and desire. On average, only 25% of SEAL candidates make it through Hell Week, the toughest training in the U.S. Military. It is often the greatest achievement of their lives, and with it comes the realization that they can do 20X more than they ever thought possible. It is a defining moment that they reach back to when in combat. They know that they will never, ever quit, or let a teammate down.
Jesus contemplated. He went into the Garden of Gethsemane. This was a garden that was filled with olive trees. Inside this garden laid an oil press, a place to take the olive’s and squeeze or extract of the oil from them.
Oil is a type or shadow of the Holy Spirit.
Again, Nothing was glamours about Jesus’ final week. 1) He contemplated. 2) Sought His Father’s will. 3) Laid His agenda down. 4) He experienced deep devotions within and throughout.
The first thing we can see as Jesus entered that last week before His crucifixion is that, He began contemplating and accepting the future.
Moreover, Before you can go ahead you got to accept the past. Before the oil of the Holy Spirit could flow there had to be a death of a will.
Contemplation.
It took Jesus contemplating with a total surrender to lose His will.
Listen to Matthew 26:39TM Going a little ahead, He fell on His face, praying, “My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?”
Hear this, The deeper you go with the Lord the more contemplating and surrounding you do.
Isaiah 10:27KJ And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.
This scripture like hundreds, if not thousands more, have at least a two-fold meaning. God was saying through Isaiah the prophet, that soon the Assyrians will have no yoke of burden on Israel’s necks!
However, presently, God is telling His church that He can and will remove any yoke- of sinfulness, condemnation, depression or sickness, off your neck because of the anointing you can be delivered!
Here’s a word I want everyone to heed to: “During this last week heading into Good Friday, and then Jesus’ crucifixion along with His Sunday resurrection, do some contemplating.” P.H.
The second thing we can see as Jesus entered that last week before His crucifixion is that, Jesus sought His Father’s will.
Okay, have you come to the place where you can stop asking God and just say I want to know Your will?
In other words, Listen. Get quite. Stay in a mode of “Lord I’m listening.”
Jesus cried, “Father, not My will but Your will be done!”
Seek the Father’s will. When you accept the Father’s will, everything else get’s easier, because everything else becomes secondary.
Have you heard of the story about a man who was looking for work without any luck for many weeks?
He decided to take a break and visit the zoo. While he was at the zoo, he asked the zookeeper if they had any openings.
The zookeeper motioned the man over to a tree and whispered, "Our gorilla just died last night, and we’re expecting a group of children to come this afternoon. They will be very disappointed if they don’t get to see a gorilla. If you’re willing to get into a gorilla outfit and just swing around in the cage, I’ll pay you $15 an hour."
The man thought about the children, and thought about the money, finally he said, “Yes, I’ll take the job.”
He got into the gorilla suit and entered the gorilla cage. Just then, the children began to file by. The man decided he was going to give the children a show by swinging on a tire. He swung so high, that he landed into the next cage, the lion’s cage.
Immediately the man in the gorilla suit began to scream and rattle the cage. The children also began to scream as the lion slowly approached the gorilla. When the man in the gorilla suit thought all was hopeless, the lion said, "Mister, you better shut up before we both lose our jobs.”
This man wanted to live, and not be eaten; therefore, everything else became secondary.
Say this, “Lord, I’m listening, I desire Your will!”
The third thing we can see as Jesus entered that last week before His crucifixion is that, He Laid His agenda down.
Matthew 26:39NLT He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, "My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Whose will is really important?
Luke 22:44NKJB And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground
Jesus cried out, “Your will be done.”
Jesus was facing temptation.
A story about a little boy in a grocery store .... I believe illustrates ... the nature ... of temptation.
The boy was standing near an open box of peanut butter cookies.
"Now then, young man," ... said the grocer as he approached the young boy.
"What are you up to?"
"Nothing," replied the boy:
"Nothing." ... "Well it looks to me ... like you were trying to take a cookie."
"Oh you're so wrong, mister, .... I'm trying not to!" (Pause)
Now Beloved ... that's temptation!! ... I'm trying not to.
Again, Jesus cried out, “Your will be done, ‘Here’s my agenda!”
The final thing we can see as Jesus entered that last week before His crucifixion is that, He experienced deep devotions within and without.
When you’re doing the Father’s will, devotion becomes priority.
Remember this, As devotions come within, new freshness filters its way out onto others.
John Stafford tells about an old well that stood outside the front door of their family farm house in New Hampshire. The water from the well was remarkably pure and cold. No matter how hot the summer or how severe the drought, the well was always a source of refreshment and joy. The faithful old well was a big part of his memories of summer vacations at the farmhouse.
The years passed and eventually the farmhouse was modernized. Wiring brought electric lights, and indoor plumbing brought hot and cold running water. The old well was no longer needed, so it was sealed for use in possible future emergencies.
One summer day, years later, John Stafford had a desire for cold, pure water. He unsealed the well and lowered a bucket for a nostalgic taste of the delightful refreshment he remembered. He was shocked to discover that the well that once had survived the severest droughts was bone dry! He asked local residents why their well had gone dry. He learned that wells of that sort were fed by hundreds of tiny underground rivulets which seep a steady flow of water. As long as the water is drawn out of the well, new water will flow in through the rivulets, keeping them open for more to flow. But when the water stops flowing, the rivulets clog with mud and close up. The well dried up not because it was used too much, but because it wasn’t used enough!
For the long haul, for every haul, you need deep daily devotions. P.H.
As the believer reads Isaiah 53, they quickly notice that this was the end results of Jesus’ preparation the week before.
Isaiah 53:3-7KJB He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
Benediction.
