For the Joy Set Before You

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

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   [Music] truly lord it's going to be worth it all lord everything that we go through every attack every temptation every trial every test lord it's going to be worth it all god for those who endure to the end for those who endure temptation lord those who keep turning to you lord and going after you lord and and your mercy and grace in our lives your forgiveness that we need all the time lord your help that we need all the time lord help and grace mercy lord that we do not deserve we none of us lord there's none of us holy enough there's none of us good enough there's none of us smart enough lord we need you we need you jesus we need your spirit we need your blood to wash us and cleanse us continually we need your mercy and grace we need your strength we need your power lord all the time and especially lord in this day and hour lord father i just come to you this morning and i just pray that you will speak to us this morning and that you will speak through your people as well as through me and you'll speak to our hearts and that you will help us lord that you will help us lord to grow stronger spiritually emotionally physically stronger in every area lord stronger in jesus stronger in the word stronger in our walk stronger in our witness stronger go father we we pray this this morning in jesus name amen and amen you know i know that might be a little different but you know there's going to come times you guys when um that's all we do is worship the whole service but i just could not feel a release in my spirit and i don't know something's going on i'm just i'm just going to kind of go with it but i want you to i want you to turn your bibles to um to matthew i believe it's in matthew 26 changing everything this morning after all that last night and this morning not even doing it that's all right it'll it'll be used later on you know there's something i don't guess i've ever been able to do and that is kind of just act like

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   nothing's bothering me when it is you know what i'm saying i don't know what exactly is going on but i want to read something here and i don't know maybe this will help maybe this will help us this morning but matthew matthew 26 and we're going to start reading at verse 36 and it says then jesus or then cometh jesus with them unto the place called gethsemane and saith unto his disciples set you here while i go and pray yonder and he took with him peter and the two sons of zebedee and began to be sorrowful and very heavy and then he saith unto them my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death carry you here and watch with me and he went a little farther and fell on his face and prayed saying oh my father if it be possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as i will but as thou wilt and he cometh unto his disciples and he findeth them asleep and he saith what could you not watch with me one hour watch and pray that you enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak and he went away again the second time and prayed and said oh oh father if this cup may not pass away from me except i drink it thy will be done and he came and he found them asleep again for their eyes were heavy and in another place it says that they were heavy or sorrowful because they they didn't really understand what was going on now i just want to say something this to me is something i think is probably the most overlooked um issue of the the story of the garden in gethsemane and that's where jesus said here that he said his soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death and i i think sometimes we as christians we want to always you know feel good we want everything to be peaceful and joyful and blessed and everything to be going good and we always want to feel good and have everything going our way and we don't understand that sometimes that we have to be handed even by the father we have to be handed a cup of suffering or a cup of trials and this is what jesus even jesus you know being the perfect man the sinless man the the god man man god manifested in the flesh yet when it came time for him to do the will of god to fulfill the will of god right before the resurrection there had to come the cup of suffering and this is the process that us christians we just don't want to accept that sometimes it doesn't go our way that sometimes it doesn't feel good that sometimes it doesn't um you know we

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   don't want to smile we don't want to laugh we don't want to rejoice we don't want to we don't want to even do anything that has to do with god we don't want to do it and i just you know even jesus here says his soul now think about this his soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death meaning i think and i'm just going to put this out there when he says his soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death he's almost saying i would rather die right now then go through what i am beginning to go through and what i'm about to go through and begins to pray even though he's known his whole life that his he's going to the cross i mean he told his disciples for three and a half years i'm going to the cross i'm going to suffer by these ungodly men i'm going to suffer and i'm going to die and i'm going to rise the third day he knew it but yet he gets this point where the cup is being handed to him the cup of trials the cup of suffering the cuff of the cup of of and we'll just even call it soul heaviness you know on his mind his will his emotions so much so that it began to affect his body his body it doesn't say jesus went and knelt down and said he went and fell on his face you ever felt like that you ever felt so emotionally and spiritually drained and attacked and oppressed and and trials coming at you and things coming at you it's you know when when you get out of sight of everybody else you just fall off you just fall down somewhere and in and can't hardly pray tears come out but you can't hardly and you see jesus doing this and this we just we just miss i remember years ago david wilkerson and he is a he's a precious and awesome man of god but i remember reading his newsletter i used to get his newsletter all the time and but classic message from him was was entitled the making of a man of god and he goes you know what you'll never become a man of god and for that matter a woman of god you never become that until you pass through he says the the night of confusion he said some some christian writer a long time called it the dark knight of the soul and you know it doesn't um it's not just one time you know jesus went through it here he went through it actually more than once i could show you but but this was the most severe because because this came to his most critical work his most critical work was going to be the cross and and his the resurrection and everything that was coming and so it was it was being handed to him this cup of suffering and trial and testing before the cross and before the resurrection and this is what we don't we don't want to really accept the fact

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   that if we are his disciples we're not better than he is if he went through stuff then we gonna have to go through stuff and sometimes i think the spiritual and emotional oppression or suffering or sorrow or attacks sometimes can be be worse almost i think than than if you were suffering physically in some type of physical persecution you know there's things i've gone through mentally and emotionally that i'd rather somebody punch me in the face then you know at least i'd have gotten that they would you know break my nose break my jaw that will heal and at least we know that's done right there's some of this stuff it just keeps beating on you and beating on you and beating on you and beating on you and you wonder you know i would just like for it to be over you know but here's the thing if jesus went through it and the bible says if we're his disciples we're not better than he is then we're gonna go through stuff like this times that there is exceedingly much attack much sorrow much oppression but do we know and here's the question do we know what jesus knew was he knew that the ultimate destiny was to do the will of god so that people could be saved and that he was going to be raised from the dead with a new body to never have to suffer again he knew there was there was hope and that's where what i want to say through any trial you go through that means the work just saying the word go through is mean there is a point you come out of that one you understand there is a point you come out of it but the key to it one of the keys to getting through these times is knowing where god's taking you knowing god's call knowing god's vision for your life knowing god's destiny for your life turn to hebrews chapter 12 real quick you'll see what i'm talking about jesus about enduring the cross because of the joy that was coming and this is something we christians are going to have to learn to get a hold of especially in the days that are ahead of us hebrews chapter 12. everybody there hebrews 12 verse 1. i'm waiting on you i still hear pages turn hebrews 12 1 we're going to read through about verse 4 here look what he says he says wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking unto jesus the author and finisher of

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