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| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Dr. Wes Bredenhof > The world may seem out of control, but our Saviour God still rules | Previous Next Print |
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) Hymn 77 Psalm 102:1,5 (after the Law of God) Psalm 66:1,2,5 Psalm 46:1,5 and Hymn 55 Psalm 98 Scripture reading: Isaiah 43:1-13 Text: John 18:1-11 |
Beloved congregation of Christ,
Sometimes it can feel like we live in a world of chaos. One day you’re going about your daily business and the next day your home is being threatened by a bushfire. Or your day just seems to be going normally until you get that phone call no one wants to get. Examples are easy to find. It’s definitely a broken world, but it can also seem like an out-of-control world.
Imagine being in the shoes of the eleven disciples as they crossed over to the Garden of Gethsemane that evening. Even though Christ had warned them that this was a going to be a different night, what unfolded caught them off guard. Here was the one who revealed himself to be the Christ, the Son of God. And now he was surrounded by his enemies and there didn’t seem to be any way of escape. How could this happen to him? Things were spinning out of control.
Yet in our passage, if we look carefully, we see Jesus completely in control. He’s not a hapless victim, taken by surprise in the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ has it all orchestrated, planned, managed. And as he does this, he reveals what God is like to us – he’s not only a sovereign God who rules over everything, but he rules out of love and for our good.
So I preach to you God’s Word this morning and I’ve summarized the sermon with this theme: The world may seem out of control, but our Saviour God still rules.
We’ll see that this is:
- Despite the resistance of both Christ’s foes and friends
- Revealed through what Jesus says and does
Judas Iscariot has been mentioned several times before in John’s Gospel. The first time he was mentioned was back in chapter 6. Jesus said that one of the twelve was a devil and then John adds that Jesus said this about Judas Iscariot who was going to betray him. In chapter 12, he was mentioned as a thief. He helped himself to the money Jesus and his disciples received to support their ministry. Now here, in this passage, he appears one last time, doing the thing he had left the Upper Room to do: betray Jesus.
Judas knew it was likely Christ would be in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was a place Jesus liked to go to spend time with his disciples. Perhaps on previous Passover evenings they had a habit of going there after the Passover meal. So Judas brought some soldiers and representatives from the Jewish religious leaders and led them to the place.
The last time Judas gets mentioned in the Gospel of John is in verse 5. It’s a telling statement there at the end of that verse. “Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them.” He had been a disciple, but now he was standing with them, with the enemies of Christ. The language here reminds you of Psalm 1. In Psalm 1, the Holy Spirit says the man who is blessed does not stand in the way of sinners. And here’s Judas Iscariot, the son of destruction, standing in the way of sinners. He’s standing with them under God’s curse, as he leads other sinners to kill Jesus. He guides the soldiers and officers right to where he knew Jesus would be.
They came with the appearance of men in control of the situation. We’ve got a squad of Roman soldiers, soldiers with a fearsome reputation for disciplined violence. We’ve got all these other Jewish men. There’s the control that comes with numbers. They’ve got lanterns and torches – if Jesus tries to run and hide in the Garden, they’ll find him. They have control over the lighting. Then they also have weapons, definitely swords and maybe spears. With all this control over the situation, Jesus is helpless – or so it seems.
But note what it says in verse 4: “Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him…” None of this is catching him by surprise. He had a perfect foreknowledge of how his betrayal would happen, where it would happen, and by whom it would happen. Christ’s enemies think they’ve at last outwitted him. They’ve finally got him cornered, taken him by surprise. He didn’t see this coming – except Scripture tells us explicitly that he did. And even though he knew it, Jesus still went to the Garden that evening. They think that by arresting and killing him they’re going to put an end to his influence, his power, his followers. They have no idea.
But on the other side of the fence we have the friends of Jesus, his eleven disciples. In particular, the Holy Spirit puts our focus on Simon Peter. Peter was carrying a short sword. Seeing his Master Jesus about to be arrested, Peter springs into action. He pulls out his sword and lashes out with it. He strikes a man named Malchus, the servant of the High Priest. Peter slices off his right ear. The Gospel of Luke tells us that Jesus healed Malchus, his last act of healing before the cross. But it’s only John who tells us the name of this servant and it reinforces the fact that John was there as an eyewitness. He witnessed all this first-hand.
And so he also witnessed Jesus’ rebuke to Peter. Christ tells Peter to put the sword back in its scabbard – don’t resist. In Mark 8, we have this remarkable contrast with Peter. One moment he’s confessing Jesus to be the Christ. And the next moment, after Jesus speaks about his coming suffering and death, Peter takes him aside and rebukes him. How can the Christ talk about suffering and death? How unbecoming of the Messiah! But Jesus turns around and delivers his own rebuke to Peter. It’s a harsh one, probably the harshest rebuke Jesus uses with his disciples: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Here in John 18, Jesus isn’t as harsh with Peter, even though Peter is still resisting the way things have to go with the Christ. He has good intentions, but he doesn’t understand the mission Jesus has to die in the place of sinners.
So both foe and friend are trying in their own way to resist Christ. The Jewish religious leaders want Jesus to die and they think that by having him dead, they’ll put an end to his constant undermining of their control and influence. Peter doesn’t want Jesus to die and he thinks that by taking up the sword, he can stop it. In his mind, the Messiah has to continue living for him to carry out his mission to be king over Israel. But over both sets of human beings, Christ rules. He knows his death isn’t going to do what the religious leaders think it will. He knows his death as the Christ is necessary, contrary to what Peter and the other disciples might think. He has a road to travel which he knows he needs to travel and which he will travel.
Let’s look at his sovereign rule revealed through what he says and does in the Garden of Gethsemane. We see him in total control of the situation.
It’s already evident in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 18. He intentionally went to the Garden of Gethsemane even though he knew Judas Iscariot knew that was a likely place for him to go. If Christ didn’t have his heart set on the cross, he could have gone somewhere else and hid. He could have stayed away from Jerusalem at Passover in the first place. But he didn’t. He was intentionally there and he was intentionally in the Garden of Gethsemane at this precise moment.
Next let’s look at verse 4. After saying that Jesus knew everything that would happen to him, John tells us that Jesus “came forward.” He didn’t try to hide behind his disciples. He didn’t run away to try and hide in the Garden somewhere else. No, Christ confidently stepped forward to face what was coming. He knew what had to be done and he was going to do it.
Then there’s this interchange between him and those who’ve come to arrest him. Notice who starts this interchange in verse 4. Jesus is the one who says, “Whom do you seek?” He has the first word here, taking control of the conversation.
When they reply, “Jesus of Nazareth,” he doesn’t hesitate to identify himself as that person. In fact, the way he replies underlines everything we’ve seen about him so far. Verse 5 tells us that he said, “I am he.” But if you look at verse 5, you’ll see a footnote in the ESV. And if you look at the bottom of the page it’ll tell you that what Jesus said in the original is “I am.” This is really important because this connects to how God revealed himself in the Old Testament. When Moses asked him his name, God told him that he was “I am who I am.” And God told Moses to tell the people of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.” In John 8, Jesus told the Jewish religious leaders, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” Do you remember how they responded to that? They picked up stones to stone him to death because, in their minds, he was blaspheming. He was claiming to be God. So when he says this here in John 18:5, it’s as if he’s saying, “I am almighty God. I am sovereign over this, over you, over everything.” And he is. He’s showing us what God is like in his control over seemingly out-of-control situations.
But this time rather than pick up stones to stone him, there’s something different that happens in response. This is in verse 6. “When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he’ [‘I am’], they drew back and fell to the ground.” This was an instinctual reaction to being confronted with the majesty of God himself, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Even though they won’t confess with their lips that he is God, their actions reveal what they know to be true in their hearts. They are before divine majesty. And if he wanted to at that moment, he could have walked away, he could have struck them down dead, he could have caused the earth to open and swallow them up, he could have brought down lightning from the skies or lions from the wilderness. But though he could, he did nothing of the sort.
Instead, he asks them again, “Whom do you seek?” When they reply the same way as before, he again confirms that it’s him and he doesn’t deny it. But then he adds something in verse 8. In the High Priestly Prayer in John 17, Christ prayed for the protection of his disciples. He said that not one of them had been lost and he prayed for their ongoing protection from the evil one. He has plans for these men, plans that could only be carried out if they live. So he tells the people who’ve come to arrest him to let his disciples go. He doesn’t ask. In fact, he commands them to do so. He does that authoritatively, as the one entirely in control of the situation. They obey. The disciples are free to go.
But before they do, we have Peter slicing off the ear of Malchus. We need to look a bit further at what Jesus says in response in verse 11. After rebuking Peter and telling him to put the sword back in its scabbard, he asks a rhetorical question. This is a question where the answer should be obvious. The question is: “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given to me?” Let’s look at this.
First of all, what is this cup he’s referring to here? This is Old Testament language. We find it in places like Psalm 75:8, “For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, with foaming wine, well mixed…” The cup there and elsewhere is a picture of the wrath of God expressed in judgment. Christ is going to drink that cup – not because he is forced to, but because he wants to. What’s more, it’s not his cup properly speaking. This cup doesn’t belong to him. Instead, it belongs to you and me. It’s the cup of God’s wrath against your sins and my sins. That’s the cup Jesus chooses to drink. He drinks it so we don’t have to.
Second, notice that it’s a cup given to him by the Father. This refers back to what we call the covenant of redemption. The covenant of redemption is the agreement between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for our salvation. In eternity past, God the Father chose a certain number of people to salvation, the elect. He then gave these people to God the Son, with the understanding that the Son would bear the wrath they deserved for their sins. The Father has given him the task of suffering and dying for the elect.
Now here’s the important thing: the Father gives him that cup and he willingly takes it. “Shall I not drink the cup?” he asks and it’s a rhetorical question. Can you imagine the Son of God refusing to drink the cup the Father has given him? Impossible. There’s a direct connection here to what Christ said in John 10:17-18, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” The crucifixion isn’t an accident. And Jesus isn’t a victim. He lays down his life for sinners, because it was what he agreed to do.
But more than that, he also does this out of love. Back in John 10, Jesus referred to the hired hand who runs away when the sheep are threatened. He said the hired hand does that because he “cares nothing for the sheep.” But the Good Shepherd cares everything for the sheep and that’s why he’s willing to lay down his life for them. He’s in control of what’s happening here in John 18. Christ has sovereign power to manage everything, but it’s being used here out of love for you and me, for everyone who believes in him.
The life and death of Jesus Christ are at the center of history. Still today, we have a calendar that’s oriented to his coming into the world to suffer and die. It’s A.D. 2024, the year of our Lord 2024, approximately that many years after his time here on earth. What we’re reading about here in John 18 and what follows is so momentous. We’re getting into the suffering and death of the Son of God. And over it all, Jesus is revealing here that our Saviour God was in control. The Son was in control, so was the Father, and so was the Holy Spirit. The Triune God had this whole momentous event completely managed from top to bottom. Nothing happens by accident. Human beings get surprised as events unfold, but God never does. It’s all going to his plan and it’s all under his hand.
Loved ones, that’s a comfort for us if our world seems to be spinning out of control. The God who had this event completely under control, even down to the smallest details, he’s the same God today. He loved you as he managed the betrayal of Jesus, he loves you today as he continues to manage whatever’s going on in your life.
Think of what he says in Isaiah 43. There God is speaking to the Jewish people exiled to Babylon and Assyria. He says to them, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.” Beautiful words to people who felt like things were going to be upside down and sideways forever. God promised them his presence and his protection. He would use his sovereign power for their ultimate good, to restore them and ultimately to redeem them.
That’s been fulfilled for us in Christ. As we look to the cross, we can see how God uses his sovereign power in love to be our Saviour God. The sufferings of Christ are literally earth-shaking, but the King is still on his throne unshaken and he still loves his subjects. The death of Christ seems chaotic and messy in all kinds of ways, but our Father is still calling all the shots and out of love for his children. What makes you think he would abandon you now or in the future? If he can take something that big and manage it for good, surely he can manage for good whatever you’re facing.
Loved ones, look to Christ and you know you can trust God when the world seems out of control. I can’t imagine anyone would want to live in a world that really is out of control. Can you imagine believing that everything is random and nothing happens for a reason? Can you imagine believing that nothing is being managed, that’s there no plan, there’s no purpose? This passage from John 18 shows us that such a world requires imagination. You’d have to imagine it because such a world doesn’t exist. It can only be a fantasy. The reality is what Jesus reveals to us: our Saviour God still rules and will never stop. AMEN.
PRAYER
Almighty God and loving Father,
Thank you for revealing yourself to us in your Son Jesus Christ as the Saviour who rules in love. Thank you that he was in control in the Garden of Gethsemane and that shows you’re in control too. We’re grateful that we don’t live in a purposeless world, a world out of control. We worship you for being good, for being wise, and for being all-powerful. If anyone in our congregation is currently feeling like life is chaotic and out of control, we pray that you would comfort them with these gospel truths of who you are. Help them to look to the cross so that they would see your almighty power, your love, and your grace. Father, we thank you for the Saviour who drank the cup of your wrath, the cup that was meant for us to drink. We praise you that through him, we know you in a peaceful and loving relationship as our Father. In that relationship, please continue to encourage us with who you are and what you’ve done and what you continue doing. Help us with your Holy Spirit to rest in your loving Fatherly hands at all times, also when we pass through the waters and through the rivers. When we walk through fire, remind us that you are there and you still love us and you’re still almighty God.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Dr. Wes Bredenhof, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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