Sermons

Supernatural Transformation
Hope for the Hopeless
Matthew 26:36-56

William Rathje is a man that likes garbage. This Harvard-educated researcher is convinced we can learn a lot from the trash dumps of the world. The Garbage Project, as he calls his organization, travels across the continent, excavating landfills and documenting our eating habits, dress styles, and economic levels. Rathje is able to find meaning in our garbage.

His organization documented that the average household wastes 10 to15 percent of its solid food. The average North-American produces half-a-pound of trash per day. According to Rathje, trash decomposes more slowly than we thought it did. He found a whole steak from 1973 and readable newspapers from the Truman presidency.

Rathje doesn’t view garbage the way you and I view it. To him garbage is more than trash.

What if we learned to do the same? What if we changed the way we view the garbage that comes our way, into our minds? Don’t we endure our share of rubbish? Snarled traffic. Computer foul-ups. Nasty folks and so-forth.

Then there are the days that we all face when the dump couldn’t hold all the garbage coming our way: hospital bills, divorce papers, pay cuts, betrayals, income tax returns! What do we do when an entire truck load of sorrow is dumped on us?

Rathje, the garbologist, finds treasure in trash. Jesus does the same.

When everyone else perceived a great calamity, Jesus saw an opportunity. Remember: Because Jesus saw what others didn’t, he found what others missed.

Early in His ministry, Jesus said this about our vision: Matthew 6:22-23 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

In other words, how we look at life determines how we live our life. But then, Jesus didn’t just say this, He lived this.

Consider for a moment the darkest, most bleak time of your life, what was running through your mind? Despair and confusion mixed with the mind set of giving up. Now consider the darkest night in history, the night before the death of Christ.

Here, is virtually a landfill of woes that fell upon Jesus. Somewhere between the Gethsemane prayer and the mock trial is what must be the bleakest scene in the history of human drama.

This event had enough things going on to fill a thousand garbage dumps! Except for Christ, not one person did one good thing. If you search the scene, you won’t find an ounce of courage or a speck of character. But what you will find is a rotting heap of deceit and betrayal.

Yet in it all, Jesus saw reason to hope. There is no mention of despair, there is no mention of confusion, there is no mention of defeat.

In the example of Christ, we see that it is possible to rejoice with hope in the midst of hopelessness!

Had a reporter been assigned to cover the arrest, his headlines might have read: A DARK NIGHT FOR JESUS, Galilean Preacher Abandoned by Friends.

Last Friday they welcomed Him with palm leaves. Last night they arrested Him with swords. The world of Jesus of Nazareth turned sour as He was apprehended by a crowd of soldiers and angry citizens in a garden just outside the city walls.

Only a week since His triumphant entry, His popularity has taken a fatal plunge. Even His followers refuse to claim Him. The disciples who took pride in being seen with Him earlier in the week took flight from Him last night.

With the public crying for His death and the disciples denying any involvement, the future of this celebrated teacher appears bleak, and the impact of His mission appears limited.

God wants to Supernaturally transform our hearts from hopeless hearts to hopeful hearts.         

What would an observer have witnessed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

First, one would observe Unanswered prayer. In Matthew 26:39 is recorded Jesus’ anguished prayer to God: Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

This wasn’t a calm, emotionless prayer, Verse 37 Jesus was, “very sad and troubled.” In verse 39 we find that the Master “fell to the ground” and prayed. Luke tells us that Jesus was “full of pain” and that “his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

Never has earth offered such an urgent request and never has heaven offered a more deafening silence. To the observer, the prayer of Jesus was unanswered.

Hold on preacher! This doesn’t make sense! Jesus and unanswered prayer just don’t go together! Would the Father, God, the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, keep something from His own son? He did that night. And as a result, Jesus had to deal with the dilemma of unanswered prayer.

How about us? How many times have we prayed for something and found it unanswered? We struggle in not having our prayers answered when we want them and how we want them answered!

For many of us, unanswered prayer seen through the eyes of our heart, breeds hopelessness. And hopelessness kills prayer, kills trust, and kills faith.

But unanswered prayer was only the beginning for Christ. Look what shows up next: unbelievable betrayal. As Jesus got up from His excruciating prayer, the sound of a mob reached their ears and then the light of the lanterns the mob was carrying.

Judas had arrived with an angry crowd. When we think of the betrayer the first name that comes to mind is often Judas. But really, Judas was only one of several that betrayed Jesus that night in the garden.

There were really two groups that deserted Jesus that night. One, the crowd, the very people Jesus had come to save, had now come to arrest Him.

There are certain facts that we need to realize that may alter our impression of that night. Perhaps you envision Judas leading a dozen or so soldiers. Matthew tells us that “many people” came to arrest Jesus. John is even more specific. The term he employs is the Greek word meaning a “group of soldiers” (John 18:3). At minimum, that word was a word used to depict a group of two hundred soldiers and could describe a detachment as large as nineteen hundred!

So, if you add John’s description to the figure of untold watchers whom Matthew simply calls “the crowd”, you have a great mob of people.

Surely in a group this size there is one person who will defend Jesus. He came to the aid of so many. He preached to so many. He performed miracles among so many.

And yet, there wasn’t one person who rushed out from the crowd and shouted, “Wait, Wait, Jesus is an innocent man!” The people He came to save have turned against Him.

We can almost forgive the crowd; I mean their contact with Him was brief and casual. Perhaps they really didn’t have a chance to get to know Him.

But what about the disciples? They KNEW Him! Did they defend Jesus? One of them reached for His sword and lopped off the ear of one of the men in the crowd. But when Jesus indicated His willingness to go with the soldiers His disciples deserted Him!

Matthew is admirably in verse fifty-six, “All the disciples deserted and fled. Notice, In Matthew 26:35 But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same. All pledged loyalty, even a willingness to die with Jesus, and yet all ran.

For the observer of this incident, all that is seen is betrayal. Betrayal from Judas, yes, but also from the people Jesus came to save and the disciples who should have KNOWN Him!

What about Unfulfilled dreams, it wasn’t only the unanswered prayer, and the unbelievable betrayal that the observer might have noticed about this unfolding event. What about the dream of Jesus, being crushed! After all, hadn’t Jesus preached the coming of a great Kingdom, hadn’t Jesus Himself claimed He would free the captives.

Was He not the Messiah? What would happen to the dream now? What would happen to the plan now? Where is this great kingdom? Where is the Messiah? Seemingly, the dream has been crushed!

So, Jesus faced unbelievable betrayal, unanswered prayer, and unfulfilled dreams! Never has so much trash been dumped on one being.

Perhaps you could comprehend the weight of this garbage if you stack all the disloyalties of deadbeat dads and cheating wives and prodigal kids and dishonest workers in one pile.

From a human point of view, Jesus’ world has collapsed. No answer from heaven, no loyalty from His friends, no one who has caught the vision. Isn’t that how most of us would initially describe this scene?

But that’s not how Jesus saw it. He saw something else entirely. He wasn’t oblivious to the trash; He just wasn’t limited to it. Somehow, He was able to see something different than what we would see.

How about our church? Not many have caught the vision that Jesus has given us, but we’ll keep praying and believing and not be limited by what we see today.

God wants us to see what Jesus sees when we look at the hopeless. He wants us to have hearts filled with hope, not void of it!

You and I live in a trashy world. Unwanted garbage comes our way on a regular basis. We, too, have unanswered prayers, unbelievable betrayals, and unfulfilled dreams. But the question is, what are we going to do with it?

If we follow the example of Christ, if we let God transform us supernaturally, we will learn to see tough times differently. Remember, God loves us just the way we are, but He refuses to leave us that way. He wants us to have a hope-filled heart, just like Jesus!

So, what did Christ do with the garbage on that awful evening? He found good in the bad.

Most of us would agree that it would be hard to find someone worse than Judas. Judas decided he’d rather have money than a friend, so he sold Jesus out for thirty pieces of silver. Judas was a scoundrel, a cheat, a bum. How could anyone see him any other way? Jesus did. Only inches from the face of His betrayer, Jesus looked at him and said, “Friend, do what you came for.”

How could Jesus call Judas “friend”, what did Jesus see in the man? Surely Jesus was merely being sarcastic. And yet, we know from our previous study that Jesus doesn’t lie! At that moment, Jesus saw something good in that very bad man.

It would help if we did the same. But how can we? Jesus sets the example. He didn’t place all the blame on Judas. He saw another presence that night: 53 Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour–when darkness reigns.”

In no way was Judas innocent, but neither was Judas acting alone. Our attackers aren’t acting alone either. Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Those who betray us are victims of a fallen world. We can’t place all the blame on them. Jesus found enough good in the face of Judas to call him friend, and He can help us do the same with those who hurt us!

But not only did Jesus find good in the bad? He found purpose in the pain. Of the ninety-eight words Jesus spoke at His arrest, thirty refer to the purpose of God. 54 But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”                                                               

 56 But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.

When Jesus looked at His immediate struggle, He chose to see it as a necessary part of a greater plan. He viewed the conflict in the garden as an important singular act in the grand manuscript of God’s drama.

There is purpose to the pain! That’s what Jesus saw. Where others see gray skies, Jesus sees divine order. His suffering was necessary to fulfill prophecy, and His sacrifice was necessary to fulfill the law! There was purpose to the pain!

But what about those times when we don’t see the purpose, what about those times where the garbage dumped on us is senseless and void. Listen, the problem is not that there is so much garbage, but that our eyes are on the garbage!

When Jesus experienced the suffering He went through, He endured it because His eyes weren’t on the pain but on the joy set before Him. (Hebrews 12:2) Jesus had HOPE! Wouldn’t we love to have a hope-filled heart?

Wouldn’t we love to see the world through the eyes of Jesus? Where we see unanswered prayer, Jesus saw answered prayer. Where we see the absence of God, Jesus saw the plan of God.

But more than that, Jesus saw the Father’s presence in the situation! Note verse 53, Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

Jesus knew that even though it appeared that the Father had abandoned Him, He hadn’t! He saw His father. He saw twelve armies of angels within His sight.

Sure, you might be saying, but Jesus was God. He could see the unseen. He had eyes for heaven and a vision for the supernatural. I can’t see the way He saw.

No where in scripture does God promise to remove us from our struggles. He does promise, however, to change the way we look at them. IF WE LET HIM!

The apostle Paul writes a whole paragraph listing garbage: troubles, problems, sufferings, hunger, nakedness, danger, and violent death. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be in that dump.

Yet, Paul states their value: Romans 8:35-37 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Another translation says, “In all these things we have full victory through God” (NCV). We’d prefer something else. But Paul is specific when He says, “IN all these things”! The solution is not to avoid the garbage that gets dumped on us but change the way we see it!

God can correct our vision! All it takes is for us to say, “Lord I can’t see the good here, I don’t know the purpose, and I’m not aware of your presence, but I know Jesus can, Lord give me Your sight!”

Who’s to say that He can’t transform our heart from one that is hopeless into the heart of Christ that is filled with HOPE?   In Jesus’ Name, Amen!