God of My Tight Places



God of My Tight Places—Matt. 26:36-46

Introduction:

There are three extremely significant moments that helped propel Christ to His destiny. I believe that these moments appear in your life to help propel you to your destiny (the wilderness, the garden of Gethsemane, and the cross). The wilderness is a place of personal temptation. The cross is a place where carnality is destroyed. But the garden of Gethsemane is a place of pressing, and crushing. If you’ve never been through a tight place you won’t understand what would make you keep saying the same prayer over and over again (Lord, it’s me again, I don’t have anything new to tell you, I’m going to repeat the same old prayer). I don’t preach this text from Seminary but because I’ve come back from a cemetery. I can preach it because I’ve been pressed and crushed in my garden experience. Insecurity Causes Torment:

Jesus in a Tight Place

I can understand insecurities when talking about you and me but in my text today we are talking about Jesus. Christ is the Word of God. He knows the beginning and the end. He’s the Alpha and Omega, Omniscient. He knows how the story is going to end. If you destroy this temple…just as Jonah was in the belly….Yet face to face with the process that precedes the promise He finds Himself in a tight place. Sometimes the process can be so staggering and painful that you say Lord I wonder if there is any other way.

The Alignment of Our Will with His Will

The garden of Gethsemane was about the alignment of human will with divine will. Here the will of the Son is coming into alignment with the will of the Father. Sometimes it’s difficult to bring our will into alignment with the will of the God. Sometimes God wants things for me that I don’t want for myself and He makes choices for me without asking my opinion.

We are getting a glimpse of what it’s like to walk with God. Who has shown me the end from the beginning but not what’s in the middle. Being face to face with the middle is sometimes stressful. Isaiah said they that wait….it’s wonderful to wait but waiting can lead to great pressure. It’s difficult to wait when you realize you are a finite man dealing with an infinite God. God asks you for what you have the least of, time. God is eternal and ageless while we get old while we are waiting. Bringing our will into alignment with God means to trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not…..

The Making in the Middle

Jesus doesn’t go into the garden to find out how the story ends, He goes to deal with the making in the middle. We struggle with the middle; we have assurance of how the story is going to end but this hateful middle is a hot mess. We’re waiting on the happy ending but this hateful middle is crucial. What makes a happy ending a happy ending is a hateful middle. He comes to the garden of Gethsemane, which is a beautiful place, but it’s also a place of pressure and crushing. Gethsemane literally means a place of pressing. The place where olives are crushed and oil is secreted.

The 5,000 He fed were gone because there was no more bread of fish. When people get to where they can get nothing else from you they will be gone. The 70 elders after they cast out devils got their positions and titles are gone as well. He’s left with His inner circle (12 disciples). He tells them to wait right here, watch and pray. As pressure gets tighter you begin to separate more and more from those around you. Pressure separates you from fellowship and fraternity. You begin to realize that no one is going through this but me.

Labor Pains

When my wife was pregnant and going into labor I would check on her and go back to my seat, or go downstairs to get something to eat. Then I would go back and hold her hand and ask her if she was ok, I’m with you. We announced to everyone that we’re pregnant. You ever heard a man say we are pregnant? Their lying, we are not pregnant, she is. We are looking at the machine to see what’s going on inside of her. I had to look at the machine to see, but she could feel the pressure of the contractions on the inside. When you are under pressure nobody feels it like you can. Holding my hand and saying cute stuff doesn’t make you connected to my pain.

Feel the Pressure

So Jesus drops the 12 and is down to the 3, and they went on a little further. Now He’s down to His inner circle. These are His boys, inner circle, His confidants. He says I want you to agree with me in prayer. We do it in church too. We say I got you brother I’m touching and agreeing with you in prayer. Then they walk away and say bless him Lord. Because they don’t want to forget to pray for you. The reason they run the risk of forgetting to pray for you is because they don’t feel the pressure. I can’t forget to pray for me because I feel the pressure myself. But if you aren’t connected to me intrinsically you could forget that I’m under the amount of pressure I’m under.

Fellowship of Suffering

So Jesus went on a little further, that’s what pressure does to you. He says to the 3 pray with me. Then He comes back out just the way we do. We vacillate when we are up under pressure looking for someone to connect with on a human level. Not that He thought that they had more clout with the Father, but for the fellowship of His suffering. Would you suffer with me? Oh that I may know Him in the fellowship of His suffering. Anybody wants to know you in the power of your resurrection. But fellowship with me in my suffering (funeral). Don’t give me any quick answers or witty solutions; just suffer with me for a moment. It would give me some comfort just to know someone else can feel me.

Who are You Talking To

He walks back up on them and they are sleep. Then He goes back to check on them again. What makes you go back to something that’s not working. When we are up under pressure we have a tendency to reach for stuff that doesn’t work. We have a tendency to need people to be something they can’t be. God can’t get the glory out of your life until you remove your unrealistic expectations from people and put your eyes on Him. I can’t tell you how long that’s going to take because Jesus went back three times checking on people whose minds were on something else.

He goes from talking to the Father to talking to the disciples. He talked to the Father (if it be thy will let this cup pass from Me) and didn’t hear anything so He went back to the disciples (could you watch with Me one hour) and didn’t hear anything so He went back to the Father (not my will but yours be done), back to the disciples (are you sleep again?). But the third time He prayed through the process and the period to find the God of His tight place. You have to pray and continue to pray until you get that level of contact that will give you the break through you need to survive. When you keep talking to God and stop talking to man you will find the grace to speak to place of your frustration and with two words resolve it all…..sleep on.

My Grace if Sufficient

The bible talks about how Paul did it too. He prayed three times for the Lord to remove his thorns from his flesh, he prayed three times before he made contact, and the Lord said My grace is sufficient. He said I’m not going to move it but my grace……you don’t need what you thought you needed, all you need is me because my grace is sufficient. When you say but Lord He says my grace. Sometimes a happy ending isn’t that everything worked out the way you wanted it to. It can be that you walked with God long enough that it doesn’t bother you anymore.

The Anointing Oil

There is a grace for every Gethsemane you face. Gethsemane is a place of refinement, where olives are crushed, and consecrated. Somewhere in some trash can behind an oil refinery is a bruised, beaten, discarded, half pulverized olive who could tell you how much it cost for every drop of the oil. Something had to die and be up under pressure, agony, ostracized. Something has to be pressed above measure, beyond strength, and at the breaking point. Every time something hit it another drop came out of the olive. Some of you are so anointed because all hell broke loose and the more the enemy afflicted you the more you grew. This is how He gets the glory out of your life. By crushing your flesh, the things you think you need the most. He gets it drop by drop. You don’t know the cost of the oil in my alabaster box. Before you get envious and say I want to be her or him ask them what it cost first.

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