Wonder Week: Thursday - Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast, mind you, at the perfect time in your life, uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoyed today's message.

MetaCurch, I want to welcome you to week three of our online services.

We are not meeting in our venues, uh, but we are still gathering in our homes.

And I gotta be honest, I could not really have imagined or anticipated that we would still be doing this three weeks in.

Um, but you guys know what's going on in the world right now, all the precautions that we're taking, and uh some of just the the state and even federal things that are kind of uh causing us to have to act in certain ways.

And so um it can be difficult.

And I'm sure at this point in whatever level of quarantine you are doing for yourself, uh you can become a little stir crazy and maybe even lose hope.

And so I want to tell you when it comes to us not being able to meet together in our venues, uh, where I'm holding on to hope.

And that is that although I know I could never have imagined that we would still be here three weeks in, I also know um that God did know it was coming, and that nothing comes up and surprises God, that God is not on his throne and is like, man, that one kind of got away from me.

I didn't see the coronavirus coming, I wasn't keeping a watchful eye.

God sees it all and he's working in it, and he wants to be working through it.

And we have seen some incredible things as meta church.

And just because we're not sitting in chairs and seeing each other and sitting shoulder to shoulder and singing songs together, it does not make us any less a movement, does not make us any less meta church.

And in fact, we have invaded and infiltrated our community in our city with hope in unprecedented ways right now.

Not only that, but our digital reach is growing.

I believe it will continue to grow, and I hope that you will play your part in that by hitting that share button, whether you're watching this on a stream or whether you're watching this after it's posted, to continue getting messages of hope out.

We are in week five of our Wonder Week series.

This is the fifth of seven days that we are looking at leading up to Easter, the most important moment in history, the moment that changed everything.

And on each of these days of Wonder Week, we're seeing new ways that Jesus is preparing us to really understand the full effect of what Easter means in our lives.

We started all the way on Sunday of Wonder Week, day one, and we saw Jesus as King.

On Monday, we saw Jesus as prophet, Tuesday, Jesus as rabbi.

Last week we saw Jesus teach us how to move from victim to victory, and now we are on day five, it's Thursday of Wonder Week.

And on Thursday, we see Jesus as human.

This is an incredibly important part of not just the Easter story, but the story of Jesus' entire life here on earth.

In theological terms, we call this the hypostatic union.

And what that means is that in in one being, Jesus, the hypostasis, the very foundation of being, in one being, there were two complete holes.

Jesus was all God, 100% God, and he was all human, 100% man.

All God, all man.

100%, 100%.

And you guys think you're doing really good out there because we're like, you know, trying to be real and be real honest.

Jesus was keeping it all the way 200, like he was on a complete another level, and it's it's so critical.

Because at Easter, at the moment when the separation between God and man that was caused because of our sin, when that gap is finally bridged, it could only be God that could live a perfect enough life to actually qualify as the sacrifice that would pay the price of our sins, but it could only be a human to pay the price because it was humanity that strayed from God, all man, all human.

And we've seen, we've seen evidence of God as human all throughout Wonder Week.

If you really think about it, on Sunday, Palm Sunday, he rides in.

It's the coronation.

Everyone wants Jesus to be king, but he rides in and we see his humility.

On Monday, we see his righteous anger as Jesus acts as prophet and turns the tables on the money changers and flips the table on all of religion.

On Tuesday, we see his wisdom and his cunning.

We see him engaging in these battles of the mind.

We see Jesus as rabbi.

On Wednesday, we see Jesus relaxing.

We see him in the home of friends.

Jesus had friends, he's human.

But there's no other day that we see Jesus humanity, and perhaps no other time in Scripture that we see Jesus' humanity, like Thursday of Wonder Week.

Thursday is a big day.

And as you guys who have been following the series know, we've been building some dimension back into the story.

It's Passover week in Jerusalem, and so Jesus and his disciples, along with about a million other Jewish people, had all descended upon the city of Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

It's a huge moment.

It brings all the way back hundreds of years earlier when Israel was enslaved in Egypt and God came and he rescued them by the first Passover, where they had to take the blood of their most perfect lamb and they had to wipe it across the doorposts of their home, and God used that moment to free them from Egyptian bondage, and so they come and they celebrate, and Jesus is there.

And most people stay in Jerusalem, but Jesus stays in Bethany, two miles to the east, and so he has a rhythm.

And on Sunday, they travel the two miles in, and in the evening they travel the two miles back, and on Tuesday they repeat it.

And it isn't until Wednesday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, that they break the pattern.

On Wednesday, they stay in Bethany.

On Wednesday, they relax.

On Wednesday, only one person goes to Jerusalem.

Judas.

And he goes there to betray his Savior.

The journey from Bethany to Jerusalem is beautiful because the first thing you do is you ascend what they called the Mount of Olives, and then it's a descent down the two miles into Jerusalem.

On the way back, it's a little more difficult, a little steeper climb, but eventually you come to the top and you descend down into Bethany, the home village of some of Jesus' great friends.

This is the pattern and this is the rhythm.

Thursday is no different, except that Jesus sends some disciples ahead to procure a room, a room that we know today as the upper room.

And they go in the upper room, and this is where they have the first communion.

The communion was the Passover meal.

It was about Egypt and Moses, but no longer.

Now the Passover is about Jesus.

And the disciples are a little bit confused.

Like, Jesus seems a little bit different right now.

He keeps talking about dying.

And he took the cup and he said this is his blood, and now we're supposed to drink his blood.

And then he broke the bread, and he was like, My body's gonna be broken.

And they're kind of like tripping out a little bit, like, what is this all about?

His body and his blood, and we're drinking it, we're eating it, and like, man, this is all a little bit strange.

And the meal gets even more awkward because Jesus calls Judas out.

Calls him out and sends him out to do what he's gonna do.

If that wasn't bad enough, he then turns to Peter, perhaps the most famous of the disciples.

He tells Peter, before this is all over, you'll deny me three times.

Of course, Peter's indignant.

I would never deny you.

I mean, I would rather die.

I'll go right to death with you, Jesus.

If you're talking about dying, I'll die with you.

No, Peter, you'll deny me.

Very somber mood, a very strange evening.

And they head out of Jerusalem, but they don't quite make it to Bethany.

They stop at a garden called Gethsemane.

Gethsemane translates to oil press.

It's the Mount of Olives, and it's surrounded by beautiful olive trees.

It's a quiet place and a peaceful place.

And we pick up the story in Matthew chapter 26, verse 36.

Matthew 26:36

It says, Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane.

And he told the disciples, Sit here while I go over there and pray.

The moment is tense because Jesus knows what's coming.

He realizes that these are his very last moments of freedom.

Within a few hours, Judas will find him.

And Jesus really isn't hiding.

I mean, you think about where he stopped, uh, kind of on the lower part of the Mount of Olives, where the trees are still growing tall and create this nice grove.

But it's right in between Jerusalem, where they've been going, the destination every day, and Bethany, where they've been staying.

It's literally on the path.

It won't be long till Judas finds him.

And what Jesus wants in his very last moments is to connect with his father, to pray, and he also wants to be around his friends.

In verse 37, it says, taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, that's James and John, he began to be sorrowful in trouble.

And he said to them, I am deeply grieved.

I am grieved even to the point of death.

Now, some people have mistaken this.

They they read this as if Jesus is ready to die.

Like he has so much grief that he wants a way out.

But we're gonna see a prayer that he prays very soon.

And it's obvious Jesus isn't actually ready to die.

When he says he's grieved to death, it's like a common expression for us.

If we are the most scared that we could possibly be, we say, You scared me to death.

It's a statement of the most extreme form of fear.

This is the most extreme form of grief, and we begin to see glimpses of Jesus' humanity.

It's so critical.

So many people who have never really dug in and actually spent time in God's word, they have this version of Jesus in their mind who is just always stoic, always unflappable, almost robotic.

He just moves through life and heals and feeds and walks on water and just everything is just according to the plan.

It's like we get the point of him being God and we focus on it and we should, but it's also critical that we understand that he was 100% human.

He's grieved.

He's grieved to the point of death.

And what he asks is for Peter, James, and John remain here and stay awake.

Jesus, in his last moments of freedom, wants company.

And Jesus, who always was, who is eternal, who is God Himself, Jesus is like the powerful agent that creates the sun, moon, and stars.

Jesus says, Let there be man and make him in our image.

And Jesus says, Yes, sir, and gets to work and creates in an instant.

And as Jesus created the very humans that he would one day become, he built them hardwired for the need of community.

And it's so crazy because as I'm preparing for these messages, I'm seeing the sermons that I wanted to preach, and I'm also seeing the context of how they apply to us today because right now, even before the virus had us all quarantine, loneliness was an epidemic, and now it's like an epidemic on steroids, and we have this human need for community, a need for companionship.

I wonder during this time of crisis, who do you need?

And if we're honest, it's a lot easier to just binge like some Netflix than it is to get on FaceTime and really reach out.

And maybe you're a little bit embarrassed to admit your need.

And maybe it just feels weird, and maybe there's some distance, and maybe what's weighing on your mind is there are is a relationship in your life and there's now distance or there's hurt, and maybe they caused it, or maybe you caused it, but man, just a call, just a FaceTime, just a check-in.

Some of your lives would be exponentially improved during this time and during this season.

If you would just start your day off with a FaceTime and end your evening with a FaceTime, if you just got in some community and did not try to go at this thing alone, Jesus was human.

And in these moments of such intense pain and agony, he asked for his friend, stay here, stay awake, just stay with me.

In Luke's gospel, he fills in some more detail about this level of grief and this level of agony.

He said that Jesus was so grieved, he was in so much emotional pain that the capillaries in his forehead and face began to burst, and blood began to mingle with his sweat, as if it looked like he was sweating blood itself.

I can remember uh when I got into high school and I first started lifting weights, and I was in there like I could, you know, barely bench the bar, and I was in there with some guys who were monsters, and this one guy put like almost 400 pounds on his back and he wasn't a lot bigger than me, and he went down, and I could tell about three-quarters of the way out, he had already pushed all the oxygen out of his body, but he wasn't gonna give up.

And he made the final push through, and he he struggled so hard.

And maybe you've seen this before, that he bust a blood vessel in his eye, and it was like his entire eye went blood red.

It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen.

I remember in that moment thinking about the garden, thinking about the amount of pressure.

Jesus calls Peter, James, and John, stay with me, stay awake.

In verse 39, it says, going a little farther, Jesus fell face down and he prayed, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.

Yet not as I will, but as you will.

A two-sentence prayer that teaches us almost everything we need to know about being human and living a spiritual life.

The imagery of the cup of suffering is a metaphor that is used over and over and over again throughout the gospels.

Jesus talks about it over and over that no one else can drink this cup that is his.

It is a cup of suffering, it is a cup of execution, a cup of being beaten, a cup of being stripped, being naked, humiliated, spat upon, nailed to a cross, and losing his life.

And Jesus was human.

And he kneeled down and put his face to the ground.

And he connected with his father.

And he said, if there's any other way, if it is in any way possible for us to do this a different way, what he's asking for is a miracle.

That this plan, that all of space and all of time, all of all of history and all of humanity, everything has been racing to the culmination of this one moment we call Easter.

And Jesus just has to ask if there is any other way.

It is the deepest insight into the humanity of Jesus.

See, the hard thing about being Jesus is that he's 100% God.

And so he knows what's coming.

He doesn't just know that he's gonna die, he knows how he's gonna die.

The hard part about Jesus is that he's 100% human and he knows how that death will feel.

Jesus grew up a carpenter, as his stepdad, Joseph, was a carpenter, shouts out to all the stepparents out there, and and and so he was raised around the wood shop, and eventually he'd become like an apprentice.

But I can imagine, you know, Jesus, like I remember my first real splinter.

I remember it, it was deep, it was in my foot.

We actually had to go to the doctor to get it out.

And there's nothing quite like a splinter.

It's so invasive, and it's kind of a different kind of pain.

It's like it doesn't really burn like fire, or it doesn't really like cut like a knife, and it isn't really like a dull pain, like a punch or or a kick.

It's it's very intrusive and invasive.

For me, a splinter actually makes me really claustrophobic, especially if I struggle to get it out.

It's just it's a very weird, very different thing.

It's very painful.

And maybe Jesus remembered his first splinter in Joseph's wood shop, and it would be the first of hundreds, if not thousands, as a professional carpenter all the way up to 30 years, and maybe he remembered that first time just running his hand down a piece of unfinished wood and just the tiniest piece of that wood lodging into his skin.

It's a pain that Jesus as human is just unbelievably familiar with.

And Jesus is God.

And he knows what's coming.

And he knows that there is fewer things that are as crude as a Roman cross.

And he knows that his lacerated body will be filled from neck to the bottom of his feet with splinters.

And worst of all, he knows that those splinters will be the least amount of pain that he'll experience that day.

Jesus, you need to get this.

Jesus was human.

The book of Hebrews says that Jesus was tempted and tried in every way that we are.

We do not have this Savior who is not able to understand, who's not able to get on the same level, who cannot empathize with what we deal with.

Jesus was human.

He hurt.

He hurt so much that he asked his father.

He asked God the Father, who in this Trinitarian relationship with, he is one with, and yet they are distinct, and yet they are one, and yet they have different roles, and they are one, and yet we call them by different names.

And he says, Is there any other way?

Can we change the cosmic plan of all time?

Jesus is human, but Jesus is God.

And he ends his prayer by saying, Yet, not as I will, not as I will, but as you will.

And maybe you grew up and you memorized this first the way I did.

Not at my will, but at thine will be done.

And it brings us back.

This is the end of Jesus' ministry, it brings us back to the beginning.

Towards the beginning of Jesus' ministry, his disciples said, Jesus, how should we pray?

Man, we hear you pray.

It's crazy.

We don't like we don't know how to talk to God like that.

Teach us how to pray.

And he said, Pray like this.

Our Father.

Father, if there's any way that this can pass, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.

Thy will be done.

If there's any other way.

But at the end of the day, we make a choice.

And if you have been to our venues and maybe you've needed prayer, and I'm not afraid to pray for a miracle.

Jesus prayed for a miracle, I'll pray for a miracle.

There's miracles in scripture.

And I've had so many people come up to me, and there's cancer in the family, or there's divorce that's imminent, or there's some other disease, or there's there's some malfunction, or there's someone stuck, or there's there's some terrible situation, and we'll pray for a miracle and we'll ask for it.

And we will have the faith to know that we have a God who can pull off that miracle, and we will say, God, we believe in you, and we are asking you in the name of Jesus to eradicate this disease out of the body in a way that is so powerful that the doctors will see it and salvation will come to the hospital, and then before we end our prayer, we make a decision.

Not our will, but your will.

And we acknowledge that your ways are higher than our ways, and your plans are greater than our plans, and in our little broken, finite humanness, there's no way that we can actually see forward the plans of God.

It's a template.

It becomes a template of how to deal with our humanity, and and Jesus prays this prayer and he goes back to his disciples and and and he just wants company, he wants companionship in this moment, and we see the real frailty of the human condition.

In verse 40, he came to the disciples, he found them sleeping, and he asked Peter, So you couldn't stay awake with me for one hour.

Verse 41, he said, Stay awake and pray, so that you won't enter into temptation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

And I've heard the story so many times.

I I mean, I've been to Easter every year of my life, and I've probably heard it some in between there, and I've read it as I try to read through the Bible, you know, uh cover to cover, you know, I try to do that uh as often as I can.

And it's like I've always thought that the disciples falling asleep was for the benefit of Jesus.

That he he kind of like got onto them for his own benefit.

Like, don't you see what I'm going through?

Can you stay awake for me?

And I I finally got it.

He did not challenge them to stay awake for himself, he challenged them to stay awake for them.

Jesus is God and he knows what's coming.

Jesus is human and he knows how hard it will be in their humanity to face what's coming.

He says, Stay awake, or you will fall into temptation.

He says, This incredible thing.

He says, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

It's insight into what Jesus is doing in his prayer.

He is battling his flesh in order to be led by his spirit.

And the disciples want to stay awake.

They want to be there for Jesus.

He's been there for them.

But man, it's late.

It's been a long wonder week.

Two miles in, two miles out to Bethany almost every single day.

All kinds of commotion, really no time for rest.

They're trying, but they're just human.

Stay awake.

It's not for Jesus' benefit, it's for theirs.

They've been asking Jesus, we'll stay with you, we'll stand by you.

You're gonna die, we'll die with you.

We wanna be on your left and be on your right.

And he said, You don't know what's coming.

Stay awake.

And sometimes our physical posture can be indicative of our spiritual posture.

Stay awake.

Stay ready.

Stay alert, pray, because what's coming, you're going to need to be ready for.

If you sleep through this and don't join me in battling with your flesh, you will not be able to walk with the spirit, and you may not know this.

But when Jesus was arrested, everyone ran.

Everyone fled.

Everyone was weak.

Peter denied him.

Not just once, three times.

They'd been in the company of Jerusalem's most wanted man.

Their spirit was willing, but their flesh was weak.

Their flesh won out.

Meanwhile, Jesus is doing battle with his flesh.

He goes back again to pray.

Verse 42, again a second time he went away and he prayed, My Father.

And it's such a subtle shift, but it's so important.

My father, if this cannot pass, unless I drink it, unless I die, unless I'm beaten, unless I'm executed, your will be done.

Two changes.

Number one, the first prayer, he said, if there's any other way, and he's he's looking for another option, he's looking for a way, if there's any other way, if it's possible at all, this time it's not.

If we can change it, this time he says, if it cannot pass.

And we see him wrestling, and we see him fighting through the flesh, and we see him coming to terms, and then he says, Your will be done.

No mention of his own will.

At first he said, Not my will, and he's speaking against his will, not my will, but your will.

And now he leaves his will out because the spirit is willing.

Not your will, my will.

Your kingdom come, your will, not my will.

The spirit is willing, the flesh.

The flesh is weak.

Verse 43, he came again and he found them sleeping.

Because they could not keep their eyes open.

And after leaving them, he went away again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more, going back once again, doing battle with the flesh, doing battle with humanity.

Verse 45, then he came to the to the disciples and he said to them, Are you still sleeping?

Are you still resting?

You see, the time is near.

The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

And the last verse we're going to look at today.

Get up.

Let's go.

And I imagine him pointing through the grove of olive trees as they can see just the faintest flicker of torches in the background.

Do you see it?

The betrayer.

The betrayer is near.

Jesus goes and he fights and he pleads with them: stay awake, stay alert, don't fall into the temptation.

Do work with me, battle this flesh with me.

Three times they fall asleep.

And now time is up.

Jesus knows he's going to die.

And he knows that he's going to die alone.

Judas comes along with the religious elite, the enemies of Jesus.

Judas comes to Jesus.

He betrays him with a kiss on the cheek.

That's the signal.

This is the one.

They arrest him and the disciples flee.

They run for their lives.

The spirit is willing.

But our flesh, our flesh is so weak.

And this is the condition of every follower of Jesus.

You need to understand the reality that if you have put your faith in Jesus, if you have believed in him, then you have the spirit of God inside of you.

We're not Jesus.

Jesus was 100% God from the beginning of time, from the foundation of the world, and before that, before all eternity, he was, I am 100% God and 100% human.

We're not God, I'm not God, you're not God.

But we do have the Spirit of God inside of us, and the Spirit is willing.

The Spirit is willing to find the opportunity in the opposition of a quarantine crisis.

The Spirit is willing to go out and to serve the world around us, even if it means risk to our own lives.

The spirit is willing to stand up against your addiction.

The spirit is willing to fight through, to fight for your marriage, to fight to be a good parent.

The spirit inside of you is willing, but our flesh, our flesh is so weak.

And the apostle Paul talks about just this war that wages inside of him, the life of the spirit who is just prompting him into this life that is rich and significant and powerful and impactful and shakes the foundation of hell and brings people into the kingdom of God.

And then he has his flesh, which is just sabotaging him at every turn, and he he doesn't do what he wants to do, and he does what he doesn't want to do, and it's the battle of every believer.

And so look to Jesus because Jesus was human.

And to live the life that we've been created to live, Jesus shows us on day five of Wonder Week, Thursday of Wonder Week, He shows us that to live the life we are called to live, we have to be ready to fight our flesh.

We're in an interesting, interesting season right now.

And maybe maybe in one sense it it makes this battle look different.

But in another sense, maybe it actually magnifies exactly what we need to do.

The spirit inside of you is willing, it is ready, it is wanting to lead you into the significant life that you were created to live.

But God loves us enough to give us the freedom, the freedom to follow our flesh, the freedom to live as mere humans while the spirit of God dwells inside of us.

And oftentimes the spirit of God is whispering, and if we're not taking the time to stop and listen, to fight past the flesh, fight past the addiction, fight past the pride and the lust, fight past trying to get our own way, fight past all the ways that the world tries to trip us up.

If we're not willing to fight, we may live an entire life headed to heaven because we've believed in Jesus but missed the opportunity to live a spirit-led life where we start seeing, even in a pandemic, even in a crisis, even in quarantine, where we start seeing glimpses of heaven right here on the earth, you are human.

But if you've believed in Jesus, you are spirit.

And we look to Wonder Week to see that if we will fight our flesh, then we will find the life we were created for.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you and we pray for strength.

And I know this isn't easy.

And I thank you that in your word we have recorded this unbelievable scene in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I thank you that you did not shield us from Christ's humanity.

God, I thank you that we can wrestle with you, and it is not sin.

And we know this because Jesus did not sin, and here he is wrestling, and here he is asking boldly for miracles.

And so, God, I pray that we would live lives where we are not afraid to approach your throne, to wrestle through difficult things in life, to bring anything and everything to you, anything we're feeling in this time, any anxiety, any worry that we bring it to you.

But God, I pray we would also choose that we would make the decision that we will trust you.

God, our spirit is willing.

And I believe that MetaCurch will be a movement of people who are willing to fight our flesh so we can be led into the significant spirit-filled life.

We love you.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

MetaCurch, a couple of things really quickly before uh this stream ends that we want to connect with you on is listen, uh, I know we're getting close to Easter.

I know we've been at this for three weeks now.

We are making these decisions week by week, and we are listening to everyone.

We're taking in all the relevant information and data.

We are being led by God.

And wherever we're meeting, we will keep moving together.

Invite and invest.

Hit that share button.

Man, I I I bet you won't share this every single day of the week.

Like, like, like Monday, Monday through next Saturday, if you would just share this, if you would tag friends who need a message of hope during this time, we have an opportunity now that we're live streaming to share this, whether it's the stream or the posted video.

And every week our digital presence is growing.

I expect that to continue.

We also invest.

And listen, if you're out of work, you're off the hook.

We give out of what we are given.

But if you're still getting a paycheck, you might want to consider what it would look like to stand in the gap for the people who can't give right now.

We still have a mission, we are still a movement, and we are still moving forward.

So make sure that we're all doing our part to invest in what we believe in.

I love you guys.

Go and be the movement.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

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If you want to get connected further with what MetaChurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take the next steps.

You can learn where the different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.