In-Between The Community & Abandonment

Well, good morning everybody. Welcome to Gateway Church. My name is Carlos Ortiz, and I am our senior pastor. If you are in the room, help me welcome everybody who’s watching online from around the country. We have a lot of people who are in business or travel, or are visiting family, and we’re so glad that you’ve joined us. You can always participate by just putting stuff in the chat; we have some great volunteers online, so we appreciate you.

I want to learn from an earlier service a mistake I made. Not the mistake that I wore this shirt, but I didn’t explain the shirt, and now it distracts people. It’s basically a channel on a bike, and it says, “I’m back”. I figured on this Palm Sunday, as Jesus comes into Jerusalem to get it right, he’s like, “Oh, I’m back”. So that’s the shirt. Don’t judge me.

We’re in this “in-between” series as we’re walking through this week of Jesus going into Jerusalem, preparing to die on a cross for you and for me, intending to be the resurrection, which we celebrate next week at Easter time. We want you to really posture your heart this week. This week we started a brand new series of scripture reading on the Gateway app. Different pastors are doing videos to guide you as we learn about Jesus encountering people. Isn’t that what we do all day long? We encounter people—friends, family, coworkers—and we get to learn about this Holy Week that Jesus experienced. What do we learn about who He is, who God is, and what we learn about ourselves as we hear these stories?

I want to start by telling you a quick story. Twenty-six years ago, Libby and I got married. We were just kids—babies, really. Our parents put together our wedding and invited all of their friends, so we had over 650 people there. Most of them I did not know, and neither did Libby. We stood in a line and shook hands with every person who came. We got a lot of presents, and presents are good, but finally, we went on the honeymoon. We came back home, and on the first full day, we looked at each other and said, “Now what?”

Until then, our life was about everybody else—friends, family, and invitations. We found ourselves in this moment alone saying, “Okay, now we’re supposed to build a life together. What does that look like?” If you know our story, that was the beginning of a really hard three years of trying to rebuild a marriage in all of our brokenness. We felt alone.

We’ve all had that moment where the light bulb goes off and you realize: I have friends, I have family, but I might just be alone in this situation. It’s that night you find yourself in a hospital waiting room and nobody is showing up. It’s the day after a tough conversation with a boss, and you’re in the car not knowing what to do. It’s not a proximity issue; it’s that moment when you lay down at night, look at the ceiling with a hundred thoughts running through your mind, and feel the heaviness of being alone. Internally, spiritually, and existentially, we feel alone and inevitably ask, “Where is God?”

The claim for those who follow Jesus is not that you will be spared from these moments. The claim is that when you and I have these moments, we are not alone. We want God to step in and make the thing go away, yet we forget: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me”. It doesn’t mean you won’t face difficult things; it means as you face them, He is with us.

In Matthew chapter 26, we read what Jesus went through. Starting in verse 36, Jesus went with His disciples to a place called Gethsemane. He said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray”. He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be sorrowful and troubled. He said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me”.

Going a little further, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will”. Then He returned to His disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” He asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”.

He went away a second time and prayed the same thing: “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done”. When He came back, He found them sleeping again. He left them a third time to pray. Finally, He returned and said, “Are you still sleeping? Look, the hour has come. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer”.

Jesus was not surprised by what was happening. He knew He had to give His life. All He wanted was for people to be with Him as He was suffering. Here is what we learn from this:

1. Jesus felt the weight of loneliness and fear

It is poetic that He went to the Garden of Gethsemane, which means “the oil press,” a place of crushing. If we’re not careful, we see Jesus only as an angelic figure, but we forget He chose to take on flesh. He chose the human experience. When you love something and then you lose it, it is crushing—and Jesus was sorrowful to the point of death. Luke 22:44 says that being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood. He didn’t hide; He went to His “confessing community” and told them He didn’t want to be alone. He asked them to just be present while He went through the process of crushing for all of humanity.

2. Honest prayer is not weakness; it’s intimacy

If Jesus felt this weight, honest prayer is where He went. We call this “lament”—inviting God into the process of our sadness and sorrow. Jesus fell with His face to the ground. It takes a lot for someone to say, “My soul cannot even be upright right now,” and to fall on their face at the lowest point. He cried out, “God, I cannot handle this assignment. Is there a Plan B?”

How many times have we had nowhere to go? How many times has your marriage been such a weight, or your business down to its last ten cents, or the cancer came back? Jesus models for us that the best thing you can do is fall on your face and invite God into the process. In relationship with God, honesty is not only allowed; it is welcomed.

3. God’s silence doesn’t mean God’s absence

This is where the tension gets deep. Jesus prays for the cup to be taken, but He doesn’t hear anything. Crushing sometimes involves silence. We live in a distracted world where we need to record ourselves crying on social media, but we need to take it to the Lord instead. Jesus, the perfect Son of God, prays the most honest prayer imaginable, and heaven is silent.

Later, on the cross, He quotes Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But if you read the rest of that Psalm, it says God is faithful, God hears cries, and God is present. There might be silence in suffering, but He hears. There is a difference between silence and abandonment.

I remember when I was a troubled teenager, an addict, and I was apologizing to my mom. She just sat there crying in silence. She didn’t give me the distraction of words; she gave me her presence. Sometimes God says, “You want relief, but I want you to want Me”.

4. Surrender is the pathway through the “in-between”

Sometimes the only way forward is to surrender. I once took thirty teenagers to Vietnam, and we went to the tunnels used during the war. They were tiny. I went into one on my hands and knees, thinking I had an exit plan to go backward. But then a student who was 6’3″ and 300 pounds crawled in behind me. I realized I didn’t have the option to go backward; I had to move forward.

How many of us are spending all our energy fighting the thing behind us because we don’t want to surrender to what is in front of us? Gethsemane is about surrender. Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to death. He was humble and obedient—even to the cross. What is your “even”?

Surrender is not passive resignation; it is actively placing our lives and fears in the hands of a God who is with us. It is a paradox: through surrender, we find strength; through letting go, we are held; through obedience, we find freedom.

God is asking you to drink of the cup He has given you. When you surrender and move forward, you have no idea what God has planned on the other side. When you feel truly alone, you aren’t outside the story of God—you’re probably more in it than you realize. Your honest prayers are an invitation to intimacy. When God feels silent, He hasn’t stepped away; He may be closer than you realize.

Let’s pray. Lord, I pray for my friends today who need the strength to move forward and surrender to the cup they’ve been given. Help us to feel Your presence even when we don’t hear Your words. For those surrendering their lives to Jesus for the first time, give them the strength to take the next step. Thank You for being at work in our lives. In Jesus’ name, Amen.