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THE HARD PLACE – Matt. 26:36-46 
Introduction – Three places that propelled Christ into His destiny which are
    typical of what it will take to make you the Christian you ought to be.
   a.  The Wilderness – The Hindering Place.
   b.  The Garden – The Hard Place.
   c.  The Cross – The Happy Place – “…for the joy that was set before him”
1. Everyone is going to have a Hard Place.  It will be the place where you will
    keep praying the same prayer over and over.  Jesus went THREE TIMES and so
    will you. 
I.  THE HARD PLACE IS AN ABERRATION – Something we’ve never seen.
    A.  Old age can be wonderful because really you know how the story ends. 
        Cynical  - Naïve – Young people act crazy but old people see what could
        happen.  Car fast, planes crash, Thunder road, People cancer, heartaches.  Old
        age knows what could happen.
        1.  Sometimes our greatest problem is not knowing how things will turn out. 
        2.  Make plans for our children, our life because we think we know how
            things will turn out.   Babies – will them houses and properties. 
            Thousands of dollars – weddings.  Move, change jobs because they think
            they know how the story ends.
        3.  It’s a long way between 6 and 60.  Wedding cake – silver anniversary
            cake.  Job – Retirement.  Agony lies in Uncertainty – Insecure.
    B.  The Hard Places – Make you question, am I going to make it?  I’ve made
        it through that but now I’m tired.  Jesus had been through many things but
        nothing like this.  You’re not there yet though you are closer than you’ve
        been but you’re not there yet.  (Jesus’ humanity).
    C.  The Hard Place was in a Secret Place – Jesus was in the garden alone (All
        points tempted)  We can act like everything’s alright and do all the right
        things:  Smiling, attending, amen, giving, going, doing, fellowshipping and
        nobody knows you’re in Hard Place.  Going through the mechanics and my
        mind is somewhere else.
        1.  Jesus is not an Ordinary Person – Only begotten, eternal, board room,
            counsel, creator before there was a where, when, this or that, He was the
            Word when He said, “Let there be light.”  He knows the beginning and the
            end, omniscient, knows all things.  Jesus knows how the story is going to
            end.  “Temple – 3 days”,  Jonah – 3 days,  He knows it. 
        2.  Yet, Face to face with the process that precedes the promise, he prays
            fervently.  Sometimes you can have the promise but the process is so
            staggering, I wonder, I’ve seen the end, vision, victory, overcoming, but
            God, I’m uncertain.
II.  THE HARD PLACE IS AN ALIGNMENT
    A.  Garden of Gethsemane is the alignment of the Human Will with the
        Divine Will.
        1.  Illustration – Like the minute hand coming to a 12 o’clock position where
            the hour hand is already positioned.  It is the will of the Son is lining up
            through prayer with the will of the Father.  The promise is there, but the
            process is taking time.  Like 12 noon when two needles meet at one point. 
        2.  The ticking of the minute hand is just a process of the minute hand lining
            up with the hour hand until they become one at 12 noon pointing in the
            same direction.  POINT:  But no one can rush TIME because it is
            regulated by the power source.
    B.  The Difficulty – Sometimes it is hard to bring your will into the will of
        God because we want to get in a hurry and we can’t rush God.
        1.  Why?  Because sometimes God wants things for me that I don’t want for
            myself.  God makes choices for me without asking my opinion.
        2.  Illustrate – I would like sometimes for God to be the minute hand and I
            would like to be the hour hand and He would bring His power, resources,
            money, and his potential in alignment with what I want.  Let God do some
            moving because I already know how I want this thing to turn out.  Why do
            I always have to be the one to move?
        3.  I have given up my plans, my dreams, goals, expectation and who said I
            wanted to be a preacher, move, marriage, drive this same car.  POINT:  It
            ain’t going to happen!
        4.  We are watching two wills coming into alignment to form that 12 noon
            vertical position where both me and God are looking toward the same
            direction at the same time.  That is enough to drive you to fervent prayer. 
        5.  SOMETHING DEEPER – Here is an opportunity to see how it is to walk
            with God who has shown me the end from the beginning but didn’t show
            me the middle.  Sometimes confronted now with the beginning or the end
            but face to face with the middle, it becomes stressful. 
        6.  ISAIAH – “wait upon the Lord” – Waiting can be great pressure.  It is
            hard for us to wait when we are finite individuals dealing with an infinite
            God.  A temporal man dealing with an eternal God.  God’s asking us to
            wait, He’s asking us for what we have the least of, God is in eternity, He
            doesn’t have to worry about time. We’re getting old while we’re waiting. 
            God can do a million things and not worry because He is outside of time. 
            God while you’re waiting to bless me, Lord, I’m getting old.  My knees are
            going out, my back is hurting, my teeth are falling out, I’m getting old
            while you’re waiting to bless me.  You know you’re getting old when:
III.  THE HARD PLACE IS AN ACCEPTANCE – Jesus does not go into the 
    garden to find out how it is going to end but to deal with the middle. 
    A.  We know we’re saved (the beginning) and we know we’re going through,
        we’re going to get the victory, we’re going to win but in the mean time while
        we’re waiting on this happy ending, what about this hateful middle.  This
        hateful middle is a mess. 
        1.  This hateful middle is what you write books about. 
        2.  People say, “I like happy endings.”  But what makes a happy ending is a
            hateful middle.  And right now God has promised you a happy ending but
            you’re in a hateful middle. 
        3.  How long will I be in this hateful middle.  It depends on how far the
            minute hand is from the hour hand.  God has only one number (12) but
            we’ve got 12 numbers and 5 ticks between them but we’re all going to get
            to the hour hand but some of us are ahead of others and some of us are
            behind others but someday The ticking of the minute hand will line up with
            the hour hand and we will become one at 12 noon pointing in the same
            direction. 
IV.  THE HARD PLACE IS AN ANSWER – “Garden of Gethsemane”
    A.  A Garden is Supposed to be a Beautiful Place.
        1.  It is amazing how you can have a Problem in a Beautiful Place. 
        2.  Finally got a lovely house, new drapes, floral arrangements, pictures now
            you got a Problem and you don’t even look at the house.
    B.  Gethsemane means “Oil Press” – The place of pressing where the olives
        are crushed and the oil secretes.
        1.  The place in the middle between the Wilderness and the Cross. 
            a.  In the Wilderness – We have an enemy that we can argue with.
            b.  At the Cross – We have a physical problem we can see.
            c.  But in the Garden – There is nothing to be seen just pressure.
        2.  Illustrate – Bridge – West Virginia –Point Pleasant – The Silver Bridge.  It
            collapsed after many years of bearing the weight of thousands of cars.  One
            day it collapsed because of pressure.  Too many things had gone across it
            too many times without inner support.  The bridge collapsed without
            explosives or enemies, just too many things had gone across it, too many
            times.  Old Faithful became Old Fallen.
    C.  Gethsemane was a Solitary Place – Jesus is in there alone.
        1.  5,000 are gone – Out of bread and fish – When people can get nothing else
            out of you, they’ll leave you.  Pastors, Parents, Mates, Friends are gone.
        2.  70 elders – After they had gotten their titles, they were gone.
        3.  12 disciples – Wait right here and he went on a little further because as
            pressure gets tighter, you will separate more and more from those around
            you.  Little by little, you’ll realize, nobody is going through this but you.
        4.  Illustrate – Wife’s having a baby and the husband is there, eating, talking
            on the phone and you talk to her.  Somebody sees you in the hall and asks,
            “What are you doing here?” And you tell them, “We’re having a baby.” 
            The man is lying.  She is having the baby.  The husband is in there,
            watching the machine for the contraction and saying, “Here comes
            another.”  After about the fourth hour when he says that, she says, “Shut
            up, I know.”  When you’re under pressure, nobody can feel it like you can.  
            People can say, “I feel your pain, I know what you’re going through,” but
            they don’t. 
    D.  Gethsemane was a Separating Place – Jesus goes from talking to them to  
        talking to the Father.
        1.   “Not my will but thine be done” and the Clock strikes 12 noon.  But the
            third time, the minute hand lines up with the hour hand and they have
            become one, pointing in the same direction.
        2.  Sometimes you have to “pray through,” a process and a period to find the
            God of your Hard Place.  This is not going to be microwave, quick, fast,
            slam dunk easy thing to do in your life. 
        3.  Paul, three times, prayed “God, remove this thorn from my flesh, over a
            14 year period before God said, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
        4.  Every cripple does not get healed.  Every blind person does not see again. 
            Every problem may not be solved but “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
        5.  Sometimes a “happy ending” is not that it worked out like you wanted it to
            but it doesn’t bother you any more. 
CONCLUSION:  There is grace for every garden, Gethsemane, pressure, tragedy,
    crisis.  When you fill the pressure on your bridge is about to crack but God has
    given grace.
1. Like that Silver Bridge, I feel like if one more car crosses, I’m going to crumble
    and God says, “Man built that bridge but man didn’t build you by Divine
    Specifications and I took in consideration every car that would ever come
    across your bridge and I built you in such a way.  You may not be pretty, rusty,
    need a paint job, finest technology, but I’ve got strength in you that you haven’t
    even seen yet.  “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
2.  Thank him that you have a “God of the Hard Places.”  He doesn’t run off, He
    cannot fail, He never gets confused.
3.  God can get you to the “Happy Place” but now without going through the
    Hard Place.  How can you dare want in a flash what I had to crawl through
    Hell to obtain.  I’ve been rejected, ostracized, despised, alienated, criticized,
    thrown out of churches, put out of a building, hated and lied about.
4.  Gethsemane – Olives crushed – Oil came forth.  A place of refinement. 
    Healing oil.  We buy it in the store.  How much did it cost?  $4 because you’re
    not the olive.  It cost the olive its life.  Somewhere behind an oil refinery in a
    trash can, a dumpster is some bruised, beaten, discarded half pulverized olive
    who could tell you how much it cost.  Every drop of this oil says something had
    to die and be up under pressure, deal with agony, be ostracized, you can’t get
    this for $4, something has to be pressed beyond measure and beyond strength
    and every time at some breaking point, something hit it and another drop came
    out of that olive.
5.  The reason some people got anointed is because all hell broke loose in our lives
    and the more the enemy afflicted us, the more we grew.  Learned it in the Hard
    Places.  God gets glory out of your life by crushing your flesh, crushing the
    parts of you that you like the best and the parts you needed the most.  That’s
    how He gets it out of you, drop by drop by drop.  You don’t have a clue to
    know what it costs of the person you see with the anointing.  Instead of getting
    jealous, you ought to ask them how much it cost to keep smiling when all hell is
    breaking loose in your life.
5.  Amazing statement about Jesus in Gethsemane, “He went on a little further.”
    a.  Three fold prayer.
    b.  “Calling Him father while the Son is bleeding.”  Pressed to the point that
        blood oozed through His skin. 
    c.  What do you do when you’re “Bleeding in Strange Places.”
    d.  Point:  Jesus came to the place where going back and forth to sleeping
        people, looking for something they couldn’t give Him to finally get to the
        place where He comes to the place, He says two words, “Sleep On.”
    e.  I’m going to do the Will of God regardless of what you do. 
6.  If you’ll keep talking to the God of your tight places, eventually you’ll say to
    your frustrations, “Sleep On.”  This resolved it all. 
7.  Put away the pictures and say, “Sleep On.”
8.  POINT:  THREE DAYS LATER, HE HAD HIS HAPPY PLACE BUT HE
    HAD TO GO THROUGH THE HARD PLACE.
9.  Jesus rose, and found nothing to wear.  He spoke and covered Himself with a
    gardener’s outfit.  He stepped out of the tomb dressed as a gardener. The
    cross was settled in the garden of Gethsemane.  He went through His garden
    and arose and dressed as a gardener to help me when I’m going through my
    garden of Gethsemane.