“Then he said, ‘Look, I have come to do Your will.’ He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect.” – Hebrews 10:9
As we have looked at the last few days, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray and plead to His Father, “if there is any other way to save the sinners, let’s do it another way.” But the Bible is clear, this was the ONLY WAY. But Jesus pleaded with God to not go through with it.
However, with perfect humility, He accepted His Father’s will. Matthew 26 shows three different verses that reveal Jesus’ acceptance of God’s will. Verse 39 said, “… Yet not as I will, but as You will.” Then He said in verse 42, “… Your will be done.” Then in verse 44, “After leaving them, He went away again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more.”
I want you to notice that there was no effort to escape the cross. Jesus knew His hour had come, and it was His acceptance of the Father’s will that gave Jesus peace and a perfect calmness as He moved forward to meet His betrayer and begin His journey to the cross.
Even in His anguish and in His appeal, He fulfilled the words of David, recorded in both Psalm 40 and Hebrews 10:9, “See, I have come to do your will.” He always knew what He came to do.
Jesus said earlier in John 4:34, “My food is to do the all of Him who sent Me to finish His work.” Jesus was on a mission from heaven, a mission that He knew would have to be fulfilled on a bloody cross and with an empty grave. And Jesus accomplished that mission!
In Gethsemane, Jesus experienced grief so we could experience grace. He set aside His comfort to fulfill the Father’s calling. He experienced agony so that we could be accepted.
Jesus did not want to die on the cross, but He wanted to fulfill the will of His Father. Can you say the same? We have spent extensive time going over the emotional state and feelings Jesus experienced right before He would have to die the most painful death anyone has ever had to experience. Yet He said, “Not My will, but Your will.”
If Jesus can say that about His own death, who are we to reject God’s will?