Kneling Down: The Attitude of Obedience

The Gethsemane Moment:

Son of God knelt in the Garden and surrendered to the will of the Father.

This is when he prayed, “Not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22:42).

• Jesus actually cast himself upon the ground as he prayed. He was the picture of complete surrender to the Father’s will.
• Kneeling is an expression of this surrender

The Pope’s inclination to change the Lord’s Prayer, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

• No one invites times of testing. The testing is never happy, but it brings the fruit of God’s purpose.

We all have our Gethsemane moment.

The Dying Point:

"No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." — John 10:18

“becoming obedient unto death”

• This in itself is of great significance, that he would follow the Father’s will all the way to death.
• We know of no greater love than this, that a man will lay down his life for his friends. This is what Jesus did.

“Even death on a cross!”

• The extreme commitment of Christ to the will of Father is made further known in the kind of death he was willing die—death on a cross!
• The hymn’s writer is right to emphasize the death of the cross. Any human would naturally shrink from such torture and death. He is expressing for us all the astonishment that the condescension of our Lord would carry him this far down.
• The cross is an ignoble end. He is counted among the criminals in his death. "because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:12)

Our faithfulness to God has not been tested even close to the level that Christ Jesus was tested.

• “You have not yet resisted unto blood in your striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:4). Author of Hebrews takes us to the cross as he calls us to a commitment that goes to the dying point
• This is faithfulness until we die or until it kills us.

 “I am crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20)

The Complete Offering:

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship." — Romans 12:1-2

 We Kneel Before Christ in Obedience and Surrender

 The Inevitable Surrender:

"Every Knee Will Bow One Day." — Philippians 2:10