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Mountainside UMC October 20, 2014
All Your Soul – Part 2
Matthew 26:37-39 (NKJV) And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
Today is the second of a two part series on “All Your Soul” and we are looking at matters of the soul and If you missed last week or have forgotten some of what we said about the soul I want to review a few things about that as it will help ramp up to what I want us to look at today. So last week talked a little about it’s usage in our culture with such phrases as “Soul Food”, “Soul-Man”/woman,, Soul Brother/Sister Soul Mate, and Soul Winners. A Few others -Heart & Soul. God Rest her/his soul. We looked as different definitions of the soul. I then suggested looking at the soul as collection, combination and integration of the will, mind, body and the heart(emotions and relationships).
One of the most important attributes of the soul is that it is eternal. It is an amazing gift that God has given to us and our soul came from God as a gift. God gave something of himself as he gave us an eternal soul and we would do well to give thanks to God for the eternal reality of our soul. So we walked and actually prayed through that in the message. My goal in that was to help us experience the reality that the soul thrives and grows on thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the oxygen the O2 of the soul. I want re-emphasize that again this morning. Let me suggest that one of the best uses of your ten fingers is to each day count out Ten things you are thankful starting with God giving you an eternal soul that by Christ’s Grace this soul has eternal life. Sit w/
I also talked about how our increased understanding and appreciation of the soul will work to connect or reconnect us to the reality of God and his glory. This is opposed to our cultures focus on our self which works to drive us away from the wonder and glory of the human soul made in God’s likeness.
One of the ways that our soul helps us to connect to God is that it’s very nature is a reminder our need for God. Thomas Aquinas wrote that the neediness of the soul is a pointer to God. We are limited in virtually every way: in our intelligence, our strength, our energy, our morality. Every area of our life has limits except one.
There is one area where human beings are unlimited. We have unlimited desire. We are ridiculously needy. No matter how much we have, we always want more: more of everything.This is the soul crying out. We never have enough. What if the soul’s infinite capacity to desire is the mirror image of God’s infinite capacity to give. What if the real reason we feel like we never have enough is that God is not yet finished giving? The unlimited neediness of the soul matches or is a mirror to the unlimited grace of God.
So with that little understanding about the matters and qualities of the soul that we talked about last week, this week I want to focus on one thing that Jesus said about his own soul that might help us move from a unhealthy or disintegrated soul to one that is healthy and growing and a blessing to others.
Leading up to this, I want to point out and John Ortberg in his book Soul Keeping highlights this reality is that God has given us an eternal soul that can Bless the Lord. Psalm 103…Bless the Lord Oh my SOUL and all that is within me Bless his Holy Name.”
Understand I am not just saying that we can say we bless the Lord but we are actually being a blessing to the Lord in what we say and actions. Our souls expression of Blessing to the Lord actually has an affect, a blessing affect on the God of Creation and possibly a far greater effect on God than you or I might want to acknowledge.
To understand this I believe it would be helpful to grasp something about the soul of God. Let’s look again at Matthew 26:37-38 (NKJV) And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. (This is God Almighty) Then He said to them, “My soul (God’s soul. God has a soul. It’s right there and in other places in the Bible. God has a soul and you have a soul because as I highlighted last week God gave part of himself to bring your soul into existence. We are notomeba’s or ape’s that morphed into a humans. We are eternal soul’sliving out through abody both of which came from God’s own being and design) is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”
Repeat - and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” Why was Jesus sorrowful, deeply distressed even to the point of death? Let me say something when I was praying over this sermon the Lord really had me wrestle with this passage basically saying you are going to camp here until you understand something about me that you are currently not seeing. So I am praying over these verses
Again why was Jesus so sorrowful, deeply distressed even to the point of death? Some would say it was because he was about to face the cross. I personally do not believe that. I don't believe that because Jesus as God in the Flesh was the most bold and courageous person that ever walked that face of the earth. People with far less courage faced the cross and even flogging with far greater boldness and fearlessness. I don’t think it was the cross. If not the cross then what in the world could it have been.
Here is what I believe or would suggest that was the source of Jesus’ experienceof exceeding sorrow, deep distress even to the point of death. In order to focus on this source I need to back up a little bit in the Bible and into the Old Testament writings.
One of the recurring themes throughout the Old Testament is how God loves his creation but in particular loves his people made in his image and yet the recurring reality is that his people and the often highlighted Israelites rejected and betrayed their God.
Look at these verses, a few of many that reflect this truth.
Jeremiah 2:31-32 – “You of this generation, consider the word of the Lord: Have I been a desert to Israel or a land of great darkness? Why do my people say, ‘We are free to roam; we will come to you no more’? Does a maiden forget her jewelry, a bride her ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number.”
It is difficult for us to sense the brokenness of God’s own heart over the rejection by his own people whom he cares for more than anything in all his creation? I want you to do something. I want you to recall a memory that most of you probably have. If you don’t you can try to imagine it. I want you to recall a time when you were betrayed or rejected by someone you loved or cared for deeply.
You may have been betrayed by a family member whom you completely trusted but they betrayed you or abused you and you carry that memory of betrayal. It may have been a friend who was closer than a brother or sister and one day without explanation abandoned you or betrayed you. King David wrote about in Psalm 55. Some of you know the pain of being betrayed by a spouse, you may know the indescribable pain of a spouse committing adultery.
If you could just capture that emotion for a moment where a person who mattered most to you turned their heart away from you to someone else and there was an intense experience of brokenness and jealousy. That is a fraction of what God feels for you and me.
Are you saying God is Jealous? Yes. Do a word search on Jealous and Jealously and there is no question about it. Deuteronomy 4:24 says that “God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” He is Jealous toward us because you are from him, our soul came from His soul and when we turn away and chase after things that break that relationship God in his humility and vulnerability expressed in Jesus becomes jealous like a spouse betrayed. God feels that pain. God feels that pain because he loves us that much. Real love does not come without a real cost/Pain.
I believe what Jesus was exceedingly sorrowful about and deeply distressed to the point of death and why he sweated drops of blood. It wasn’t the physical cross, it was I believe the fact that our our wandering away, our betrayal to God’s love, our sin had to be consumed. So you take the pain of betrayal of an entire life/eternal life and multiply it times billions, however many souls have and will exist on this planet. That to me is what caused Jesus to be indescribably exceedingly sorrowful.
Because at the cross, he consumed all that and when he walked out from the tomb alive and resurrected he could point back to the cross and say every failure, every betrayal, anything and everything that was a source of a fracture your relationship with God is gone and was eternally consumed at the cross. It is gone. The bridge between you and God is 100% restored.
Here is our task…Believe.
In John 6:29 - Jesus -“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” Am I suggesting that believing is more important than doing? Doesn’t the book of James say that faith without works is dead? How is believing so important?
It’s like this. It’s the matter of who is doing what we are doing.
For example if my words and actions flow from a thankful heart and soul, if my soul knows to the core of it’s being that I could become the most successful, prosperous, effective person, father, pastor, whatever and all that is a goose-egg in comparison to the gift bestowed to me by Jesus through the cross by restoring my relationship with God and an eternally awesome status.
If my words and actions flow from a soul that realizes that I can’t add or do any good that would add anything to my right standing with God any more than what Jesus already did for me, then I can speak and act from a soul that is healthy and whole and from the overflow of a healthy soul God can give life to others through you and me.
BUT – BUT if my words and my actions flow from a soul that relates to God such a way that I BELIEVE I can never meet God’s standards, I can never do enough good to please him, I can never feel Good about being with him because I am only going to be reminded of how I failed here and failed there then why bother ever taking time to pray and with God. Who wants to make appointments with people who are only going to criticize and point out everything I’ve done wrong. Not going to spend anytime with God if I am never going to be good enough.
So if I avoid a relationship with God because of that mindset. I still have this terribly needy soul that is shriveling up by the hour in need of affirmation, encouragement, value, significance, meaning, purpose, direction and hope. Instead of being a source of God’s living water to others we become a drain.
We then take this needy soul and then carry itto those around us and start to drain the stinking life out of every relationship that God has given us. Instead of giving life we become a drain, demanding that others meet needs in our life that they were never designed to do so to begin with.
The result is that we end up with a shriveled up soul that is taking, and taking and taking and God is saying come first to me, let me heal you, let me restore you, let me show you what I have done for you that you could not do for yourself. Let me fill you up and then from the overflow of my life in you I will overflow into others.
Yes, what we do is important, but far more important is who is doing what we are doing. Is it the “who” who can’t do anything more to add to what God has already done or is it the “who” who is never good enough, never sufficient, never….
Now understand we don’t get to this place of a healthy soul overnight. I keep praying God please remove, please judge those sick, demanding and pathetic parts of my soul and so often it feels like I may only make one degree changes at times. However one degree over time can put you in a much different place than no degree. If you’ve ever flown a plane you’ll know that.
Okay, there is one more part of this passage on the soul that I want to look at. Matthew 26:37-39 (NKJV) And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
Here is a picture of a healthy soul. Does everyone believe that Jesus had a healthy soul? Just because you have a healthy soul doesn’t mean that it won’t be exceedingly sorrowful. It won’t always be that way but there will be seasons. It’s temporary.
Here is the last thing I want to highlight about Jesus’ healthy soul. He basically says, “Whatever you need from me Father, that I will do.” Even Father if it is the hardest job you managed to find.
Think about this…In the Bible, God never gives anyone an easy job to do. God never comes to Abraham or Moses or Esther and says, “I’d like you to do me a little favor, but it really shouldn’t take much of your time, it won’t cost you much. I really don't want to inconvenience you in anyway.” God never gives an important easy job to do but instead his assignments are intrusive, IDEOdemanding, exhausting and overwhelming at times. Sometimes God’s assignments as Bill Hybels often says will “wreck your life.” Why do them?
I believe it has somewhat to do with that is just the type of work God does and he invites you and I to do it along with him and its our choice to either work with him or not. One of the things I have learn and am learning is that when I work on something and I get a sense that I am doing it all by myself, I get really weak really fast.
On the other hand, If I can get a clear sense that I am with God on something and he is with me, then I have strength at times that even I don’t understand. In fact there is only one time that Jesus ever used the word “easy” and it was in Matthew 11:28-30
28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Our souls were created to be yoked up with Jesus. Being yoked with Jesus, he will teach us on how to say yes to the Father and to all that he allows in our life and to all the blessings of obedience. There is no relationship that meets the neediness of your soul as there is no one who has the generosity of Jesus other than Jesus. He is our true soul mate and the fresh stream and the river of life for our soul.