We're going to focus on verses 36 to 46 tonight, but we're going to begin reading in verse 26 for context. God's word says now while they were eating, Jesus took some bread and after a blessing, he broke it. And giving it to the disciples, he said, Take eat. This is my body. And when he had taken a cup and given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink from it, all of you. For this is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. And after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night, for it is written, I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered. But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. But Peter answered and said, even though all may fall away because of you, I will never fall away. Jesus said to him, truly I say to you that this very night Before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Peter said to him, even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And all the disciples said the same thing too. Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be grieved and distressed. Then he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch with me. And he went a little beyond them and fell on his face and prayed, saying, My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will. And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping and said to Peter, So, you men could not keep watch with me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, My father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, your will be done. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And he left them again and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us go. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand. Let's seek the Lord's face before we study his word. Heavenly Father, our Father, the one to whom our Savior prayed to in this great hour of testing, I pray, Father, that you would allow us by your Spirit to see Some measure of the glory of this passage, Lord, knowing that we cannot plummet steps. Show us something of our Savior's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Lord, allow us to see the weight that He bore, Lord, as He tarried toward the cross. Lord, allow us to see the spiritual battle that He faced, knowing the price that He had to pay for our sins. Lord, let us see Him sanctifying His will, submitting to Your will, Lord, for our sake. And as we observe Him, as we observe the spiritual power that came through prayer, Lord, let us learn to pray as He did. Lord, teach us the dangers of the flesh in submitting to the flesh. I ask, Lord, that You would attend to this meeting this evening. Lord, that I would not stand to my own strength this evening. There's no eloquence that I can rely on. There's no power in this flesh that I can rely on. Lord, allow me to diffuse a fragrant aroma of Christ, one that would be pleasing to you. Lord, help me to speak from sincerity. Help me to speak from you in Christ. I ask in Jesus name. Amen. So tonight we observe supplication and slumber in the Savior's garden of sorrow. Charles Spurgeon said. Here we come to the holy of holies of our Lord's life on Earth. This is a mystery like that which Moses saw when the bush burned with fire and was not consumed. No man can rightly expound such a passage as this. It is a subject for prayerful, heartbroken meditation more than for human language. May the Holy Spirit graciously reveal to us all that can be permitted to see of the king beneath the olive trees in the garden of Gethsemane. The Prince of Preachers said these words before he preached this very text to his congregation. And by admission of the Prince of Preachers, this novice preacher has a mighty task before him tonight. And though we will not even reach the foothills of the glorious mount before us this evening, I pray that God would show us something wondrous from his law. Matthew here records a pivotal moment in redemptive history. Throughout his gospel account, he presents the evidence that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, that he is the promised King of Israel. And this Messiah, while the King, came to inaugurate his kingdom as the suffering servant. And in Gethsemane, we see this vividly. The suffering servant and his disciples came to Gethsemane late on the Thursday of Passover week in A.D. 33. Gethsemane was a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives and its name aptly meant Olive Press. And according to Luke's Gospel, it was his custom to come here with his disciples for fellowship and prayer. But this time is different. His public ministry has come to a close. He celebrated his last Passover meal with his disciples, and now he begins to feel the full weight of his role as the final and true Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. He, the good Olive, has entered the Olive Press, and is pressed by the weight of what is to come, that oil might flow to all whom he would redeem, as he is crushed by his father's wrath. And there is no moment in Olive history like this one. The fate of mankind, the fate of all creation, hangs in the balance as the long-awaited Redeemer faces the fiercest onslaught of temptation that Satan has ever carried through with. There has been no hour of prayer like this one, and may we, this evening, be brought to worship the man of sorrows and learn to pray from him. Though we do not face an hour of temptation equivalent to that which Christ faced mere hours before his crucifixion, each of us faces inevitable temptation, both as individuals and as a corporate body. As we remember Gethsemane this evening, may we learn both the right and the wrong response to the knowledge that Satan prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. As we observe Jesus and His disciples, may we see that submissive supplication results in spiritual victory, while stagnant slumber results in spiritual vulnerability. So first, in verses 36-39, we see that submission to God through supplication is our sure stronghold in times of sorrow. Verse 36 says, Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to his disciples, Sit here while I go over there to pray. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. And he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch with me. And he went a little beyond them, and fell on his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as You will." So we see Jesus, when struck with sorrow, He resorts to supplication, to presenting His request to God in prayer. As He enters the garden, He leaves His disciples to go and pray to His Father. He has them sit at the entrance, possibly to keep guard, to keep anyone from possibly interrupting this crucial time of prayer. But He left them certainly so that He could be alone in prayer. He left them at a distance, like a soldier would leave his wife and his children as he goes forth to battle. He spared the disciples and their weakness from attending too closely to this great spiritual warfare. Yet He takes His three choice disciples, His inner circle, Peter, James, and John. Because these three had previously seen His glory, had seen His transfiguration on top of the mount, it was fit for them to also see His agony. And Jesus does not bring them along for His benefit, but for theirs. There was no assistance that they could offer Him in this grave hour, Yet He had a lesson to offer them. After they, along with the rest of the disciples, had declared their unwavering loyalty, that they would not depart from Him in His great hour of testing, He had a lesson to teach them in poverty of spirit. While they trusted in their own strength for what Jesus told them laid ahead, Jesus would cast His dependency upon His Father. He desired to show them the right response to temptation. We cannot face and withstand Satan's schemes by placing confidence in ourselves and our own strength. We face temptation with confidence in God, pleading with Him to show Himself mighty in our weakness. And as Jesus makes His way toward a spot for communion with God, He begins to be grieved and distressed. And this grief is emphatic. He grew exceedingly sorrowful. And this word distressed in the Greek carries the connotation of heaviness. It literally means to be heavy. And as prophesied of the suffering servant, Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Grief and distress were not new to him. As God incarnate, throughout His entire life, He experienced sorrow over sin and death to a degree that we cannot even imagine. Scripture never speaks of Jesus laughing, but it does speak of Him weeping. When Lazarus died, Jesus wept because He had an upfront and personal view of the effects that sin had in His own creation. He has experienced sorrow his entire life, and now it is growing to a climax as his death draws near. Luke says in this text that he was seized with anguish. Mark says that he trembled. He began to experience real and true grief and distress, true sorrow over his impending death. And this may cause some to raise the question, how could Jesus, if He is God, be afraid of death? Well, it's a fair question. According to Scripture, Jesus is the Word of God. He's God Himself, and He is life itself. And yet, having taken on flesh to dwell among men, He allows the flesh to feel what belongs to it in this garden. And as truly man, He trembles at the thought of death. Even still, Why should he, who is life himself, the author of life, the one who had the authority to lay down his life and take it back up again, why should he fear? Is it because in his omniscience he saw his scourging, the cat of nine tails ripping flesh from his bones? Is it because he could hear in his omniscience the insults that would be hurled his way? Is it because he knew that his clothes would be that the soldiers would cast lots for his clothing and as nails were driven into his hands and his feet and he was hoisted up to hang there suffocating and dying that sinners would walk by wagging their heads hurling insults? Is it because he knew the agony that he would face physically? I'm sure in his humanity he felt some sort of anxiety over these things. But in this garden he is in no way hiding from them. He's not cowering here. He is in a place where he frequently met with his disciples. A place where his betrayer expected him to be. Jesus is not cowering and hiding from the crucifixion. His grief and distress over death may have been induced because He is truly man, and He experienced the things that are exclusive to man, yet they were brought on and even magnified because He is truly God. His divinity in the garden magnified His sorrow. As God, the creator and owner of mankind, He has felt indignation towards sin every day since Genesis chapter 3. Psalm 711 says, God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation every day. As the seraphim proclaim in their angelic song, He is holy, holy, holy. As the psalmist expresses in Psalm 5, that He is not a God who delights in wickedness. that He abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. He hates the sinner, abhors the evildoer. He hates all workers of iniquity. It is sin that has caused the separation between man and this very God. Yet, this holy, sin-hating God put on flesh and dwelt among sinners to reconcile them to Himself. In this time, dwelling among his creation, he was a man of sorrows because he experienced the temptation to sin, and he directly saw and felt the ruinous effects of sin. As he healed the sick, dealt with the hard-hearted masses, experienced the grief wrought by death, and now in the garden, his sorrow is climaxing because of what he had to do to atone for this very sin. He experienced this exceeding sorrow and this great heaviness, ultimately because of the spiritual reality that would take place within mere hours. As He hung upon the cross of Calvary, and God would make Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us. The Holy God in the flesh, who was utterly repulsed by sin, would be made to be sin. The one who is pure and spotless and undefiled would be cloaked in filthy leprous rags. Jesus would take on to Himself what was the very opposite of His nature. He would not become a sinner, but He would bear the full weight and vileness of the sins of mankind and would be crushed upon the cross bearing them. the sinless one would be treated as a sinner. And Jesus was grieved and distressed because he, wearing our sin, would receive the wages of our sin. He would be condemned before his father, the one whose nature he shared, experiencing the very hatred, the very wrath toward sin that he himself also possessed. He was intimately acquainted, he had an intimate knowledge of the very wrath that he was to bear. He, as truly God, knew the full force of what was to come. And as truly man, he became grieved and distressed as it drew near. as the mortal son of man, the undying son of God, would have to take death upon himself at the hands of his own father. He then expresses this sorrow to his disciples, that his soul is deeply grieved. He is truly man suffered in his very soul. His soul was in agony as he prepared to bear what damned our own. With this reality imminent, Jesus was met with Satan's fiercest onslaught of temptation. Satan knew that Christ's obedience would mean his own destruction. Before this time of temptation in Gethsemane, John records Jesus saying to the disciples, The ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in me. But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded me. As Paul explains to the Colossians, in his letter to that church, that when Christ was crucified, as He yielded up His Spirit, the spiritual beings that exalt themselves against Christ were made a mockery of. They were disarmed. And so Satan tempted Jesus, here in Gethsemane, attempting to cause Him to disobey His Father and leave the world damned. Jesus had experienced temptation his entire life. He began his ministry in Matthew chapter four, being tempted in the wilderness. He experienced it throughout his ministry, and yet nothing rivaled the agony of this temptation in the garden. And as a result, his soul is not just grieved, but he says grieved to the point of death. His grief is a killing grief. The groaning in his soul in the midst of this temptation makes the groaning in his stomach in Matthew chapter 4 seem insignificant. He here, in this agony, his soul grieved to the point of death, is at the very threshold of death. If he were a mortal man with this grief, with this heaviness, he surely would have died. He would have died had he not been preserved for the death that God ordained him to die. And as he expresses this sorrow, as He contemplates, experiences grief to the point of death, contemplating the death that He must die. He expresses His sorrow to His disciples and charges them to keep watch with Him. And this was the special duty of the hour for the disciples, to remain and keep watch with the Savior, awake and prepared for the trial to come. And after this charge, we see in verse 39, He goes to pray alone. Although He brought His inner circle with Him, His three choice disciples, He went forward to the throne of grace alone. He, weighed down by sorrow, could only find refuge in His Father. There are times when communal prayer is necessary. There are times within our Christian life where we must bear one another's burdens. But there are times when we must alone venture into the prayer closet and bear and lay forth our burdens before our Father. And as Jesus does this, He prays with reverence and humility. He fell on His face and prayed. He falls on his face prostrate before his father. He does not come haughty or demanding, but in all submissiveness and dependence upon his father. As the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 5, 7, he in the days of his flesh offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. Some believe that reverence toward God diminishes in intimacy in our prayer. A sort of intimacy in our prayer that Jesus here expresses. Reverence does not negate familiarity. He says, my father. Nowhere else in the gospels does he pray saying, my father. We see as the agony, as the grief, the heaviness intensifies, Jesus presses in further to his father. He increases the intimacy of his prayer. The more that Satan attempts to divert Jesus, the more he draws in to his stronghold. And where else could he go? Where else could a child in grief go besides their father? Where else could the only begotten go besides the one who sent him into the world? Christ with his soul weighed down with so much grief that death felt imminent. He goes to his father alone in reverence and in intimacy and offers up supplication to him. And he supplicates. If it is possible, let this cup pass from me. And this is clear that this is in reference to his impending death. And so this leads us to ask, what is in the cup? Jesus, with this great grief and sorrow weighing him down, so much so that he leaves to pray alone. And he supplicates, let this cup pass from me. What is in the cup? Throughout the scriptures, God's wrath and punishment are often pictured as a cup to be drunk. Psalm 75 verse 8 says, For a cup is in the hand of Yahweh, and the wine foams. It is full of His mixture, and He pours from this. Surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs. The prophets used this language in describing God's wrath and judgment. This cup that Jesus speaks of is full of the wrath of God Almighty. And here's the astounding thing. The very Son of God is in this garden pleading with His Father that if it is possible the cup be removed. And yet we as sinners have lived our entire lives as if we are incredibly thirsty. We have lived our lives demanding for a drink from this cup. Every time we exalt something or someone in place of the one true God. Every time a lie passes from our mouth. Every time we look with lust. Whether we know it or not, we are crying out to the God of the universe, I am thirsty and I will not be satisfied until I take a drink of the cup that is owed to me. While Jesus, with first-hand knowledge of that cup, reeled at the very thought of its contents, our lives beg for it. Yet He came for the purpose of draining and drinking down its dregs in our place, as He was made to be our sin upon the cross. With knowledge of the wrath that would be poured out upon Him, He requests that the cup pass from Him if it is possible. only if it is possible. That is, if God may be glorified, if man may be saved, and if all the ends that God intended may come to pass some other way, He desires to be excused from drinking the cup, and if not, He would drain it. Some may be led to think that because of this request, His will is not aligned with the Father's will. However, in this prayer of supplication, he does indeed pray according to the Father's will. He says, not my will, but your will. And my will and your will show that Jesus truly was being tempted. Not that he had a different will, but that he was being tempted. Though he was unable to sin, he clearly could be brought into the real conflict of temptation. And yet while His human nature shrinks back from the cup, He shrinks back even more so from being disobedient to the Father's will. And in this prayer we see two acts of Christ's will. In the first act, His request that the cup might be removed, His will is not adverse or averse to the Father's will, it is diverse. He does not oppose the Father's will, He simply asks if there may be another way. And in the second act of His will, He freely submits Himself to the Father's will. His total willingness is grounded upon the Father's will. We see the disposition of David when he wrote Psalm 40, particularly verse 8. He says, I desire to do Your will, O my God. And Jesus Himself said in John 4.34, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. Again, in John 5.30, he says, I can do nothing from myself. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And in John 6.39-40, he says, Now this is the will of Him who sent me. that of all He has given me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise Him up on the last day." His reason for submission here in the garden is His Father's will. He came to do His Father's will, and He is in no way averse to it in the garden. Although He is brought to an exceeding sorrow and a killing grief in His very soul, He's not rejecting His Father's will. In this time of sorrow, He comes to His Father in submissive supplication. Drawing into His Father and expressing submission to Him. And we must realize, Christians, that just as Christ drew into the Father in private, reverent, intimate, submissive prayer in His time of sorrow, that we may and must do the same thing. Can not our sorrows, which are absolutely minuscule to the sorrows that Christ bore in this garden, can they not also be borne by God? In times of sorrow or even ease, do you take all things to the Lord in prayer? Do you lock yourself in your prayer closet before the throne of God, bowing down to Him in reverence, calling out to Him as your Father in familiarity and in intimacy? Do you there express your desires and needs, humbly submitting to His will? Do you pray? Do you truly pray? Or when prayer is most needed, when the spiritual most needs strengthening, Do you disregard your spiritual need in order to satisfy the cravings of your flesh? Do you pray? Or do you sleep? While submission to God through supplication is our sure stronghold in times of sorrow, submission to the flesh through slumber is our sure demise in times of spiritual need. Verse 40 through 41 says, And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping and said to Peter, so you men could not keep watch with me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So after his first supplication, Jesus finds his disciples asleep. Although Jesus in His omniscience was not surprised to find them sleeping, it surely did not help to alleviate the sorrow that He was enduring. He confronts a loneliness that no other man has ever experienced. His Father and all the holy beings of heaven were about to turn their face from Him as He took on the sin of mankind. And now, mere hours before he faces this great trial, his disciples, the ones whom he has fed, led, nurtured, taught, sleep. They displayed carelessness and carnal security that were unaffected by Jesus' earlier warnings that they would be scattered. They expressed carelessness and carnal security knowing the agony that He had expressed to them verbally. They expressed carelessness and carnal security in light of His command to keep watch. And it's so easy to look at them and wonder what they were doing. But how often do we find ourselves in the same state? Are you asleep? Careless, unconcerned, in a time of sorrow or in a time of ease. Are you asleep in a day when the name of Christ is misrepresented? When the Holy Spirit is blasphemed? When the Holy Spirit of God is grieved over disobedience within the church and quenched by pragmatism? Are you asleep in a day when revival is prevented by spiritual ignorance, the peddling of the Word of God, and disunity among the saints? Are you asleep as a great hour of testing approaches and is imminently upon us when false Christs and false prophets will arise doing signs so wondrous that if possible it could deceive even the elect? Are you asleep while the tempter looms, plotting and preparing his devices, bending back his bow, ready to unchain your favorite pet's sins, preparing his accusations against you? Are you asleep? If so, like the disciples, despite the warnings of the Word of God, you see no need to seek God's strength and protection. The perfect, sinless Son of God knew His need for prayer, but the sinful, weak disciples often do not. They are trusting in their good intentions, mistaking them for strength. As Paul Washer often states, our problem is not that we are weak. Our problem is that we don't realize how weak we are. And in these times, what Jesus now says to His disciples directly applies to us. In verse 40 we see that He subtly rebukes them. And he directs the rebuke toward Peter, the spokesman of the disciples, the one who made the loudest assertion of his devotion. He says, I would die for you. Jesus says, could you not keep watch with me for one hour? Could you, my disciples, whom I have loved and cared for and taught, are you so uncaring that you cannot awaken yourself for slumber out of the one who awoke for you when your faith waned and you thought your ship was sinking, and yet I awoke and caused the waves and the wind to be still? Can you not keep watch with me? When David had to flee to Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 15, he came and wept at this very mountain. And his followers came and they wept with him. And yet, as the son of David weeps here, his followers sleep. Even his enemies are awake, about to take action, but his disciples slumber. A love and a concern for their master should have prompted their vigilance. And a love and concern for our master should likewise prompt our vigilance. Just as Jesus warned the disciples of their scattering, Scripture warns us of falling away. As the author of Hebrews writes, See to it, brothers, that there be not in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another while today is still today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." And after this rebuke, Jesus admonishes them. He says, keep watching and praying. These verbs are in the present imperative. There is continuous action being denoted here. The need for spiritual vigilance is not occasional or momentary, it is constant. Whether, like these disciples, we face grave circumstances or everything is looking up, whether we're being hit in the face by the winds of adversity or the breeze of ease is at our backs, we must keep watching and praying. Why? Jesus says, so that you may not enter into temptation. There is an hour of temptation drawing very near for Christ and the disciples. The trials that Christ would face would be temptations to His followers to disbelieve, distrust, and to even deny and desert Him. The only way to keep from being engulfed in temptation is to be aware of Satan's devices and not only flee to our Father's throne when we are assaulted, but even in anticipation of the assault. We are so prone to enter into Satan's temptation because we are so prone to believe his lie that prayer is not a true priority. The desertion of the disciples that Jesus predicted did not begin when the soldiers came and they arrested Him. The desertion begins here. And like them, how often do we presume upon our own strength and so abandon Christ before the tempter even comes? It may be here that Peter first learned the lessons that he expresses in his epistles. He says in 1 Peter 5.8, be of sober spirit, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And he also says in 2 Peter 2.9, the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial. Satan and his schemes cannot be overcome by the flesh or by our own strength. We must fortify ourselves in prayer. We must rise in the morning and immediately bombard the throne of grace. We must go about our day constantly praying as the scripture commands us to do. We must, before we lay our heads down at night, again seek the Lord in prayer. Let our prayers be the first and the last things that exit our lips each day. Prepare for the battles of the flesh and of the mind with submissive supplication. Jesus says, pray then in this way. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. We must beg of God to keep us awake by His grace when Satan would so tempt us to drop our guard. When we are drowsy in the worship of God, when we are unmotivated to read His Word, when we are averse to falling to our knees in prayer, we must deny the flesh and plead with God to give us watchfulness. Lord, quicken me in Your way. Let me not indulge in a sin that would lead to an inroad for many more. Lord, keep me awake. Keep me from stumbling. We must pray for vigilance. With the tempter always lurking, always prowling, we have a great need to remain in constant watch and prayer. And Jesus admonishes us to do so. And then following this admonition, he expresses his understanding. He says the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. As Psalm 78, 39 says, He remembered that they were but flesh, and when that goes and does not return. As He rebukes and then admonishes His disciples, He considers their frame. As truly man, He knows the weakness of the flesh. Although He never gave in to temptation, He knows what it is to be man, to be weary, to suffer sorrow and temptation. He understands. And it was likely very late, after a long and eventful day. They had walked around a mile to the Mount of Olives after eating a large meal. And the need for sleep was natural. And Luke, in Luke 22, 45, specifically notes that they were sleeping from sorrow. So while sorrow prompted Jesus to an awful agony of earnestness and prayer, it sent the disciples to sleep. And sleep is often a means of escape. They could have been sleeping out of frustration, out of confusion, out of depression from what Jesus had told them about His death. Rather than sleeping out of pure apathy. The truth of what would happen to their Messiah overwhelmed them. And rather than keeping watch with Him, they resorted to sleeping. However, this does not excuse their lack of vigilance. Their love for their teacher should have produced a wakeful obedience rather than a stagnant or sorrowful slumber. Jesus told them that His death must take place in accordance with God's will. And their discontent with the situation should have been met with the same prayer that Jesus offered up. Not our will, but Your will. And had they taken Jesus' prediction of His death and their desertion seriously, they would not have slept. They would have obeyed His command to keep watch and followed His example in submissive supplication. They may have been willing in spirit and they clearly and adamantly declared that they were willing in spirit. And yet, their flesh proved its weakness. And it is one of the great burdens of the people of God that our weak flesh cannot keep up with our willing spirit. Even if the spirit is disposed to what is good, the flesh proves to be indisposed. It's the same burden that caused the Apostle Paul to cry out, Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? This impotency, this spiritual impotency is our great infirmity. We as new creations in Christ have a true and earnest God-given desire to please Him, and yet we often do not do the things that please Him. Jesus graciously, however, considers this infirmity. He, our advocate, pardons the weakness and infirmity of our flesh if there is truly a God-given willing spirit within us. This is our solace. as we battle the flesh. However, we should not mistake it for him excusing us. His expression of understanding cannot be separated from his rebuke and his admonition. It is not an excuse to disregard his admonition and take his rebuke lightly when he expresses understanding. Rather, he rebukes us so that we will take his admonition seriously And He admonishes us to provide a remedy for our area of weakness in which He expresses understanding. So Jesus knows, He understands, and provides grace for our weakness. Yet He still rebukes our disobedience and provides instruction for our obedience. Because the flesh is weak and vulnerable to temptation, we must keep watching and praying. Prayer will help the watch and watching will aid the prayer. They are enjoined for the purpose of not entering into temptation. And Jesus, in complete contrast to the disciples, returns to prayer for this very reason. And we see that submission to God through supplication is our sure means to see our will sanctified and our hearts satisfied. Verse 42 says, He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, your will be done. So Jesus again enters into private, reverent, intimate prayer. As the temptation and sorrow continue to intensify, Luke mentions that His sweat became like drops of blood. In the garden called Olive Press, the weight of what was to come was pressing heavier and heavier upon Him, with greater and greater force. And with His grief intensifying, He still did not lose sense of His Sonship, and He called out once again to His Father. In the second prayer, His supplication is coupled with resignation. This time he does not expressly ask for the cup to be removed as he did in the first prayer. After the willing submission displayed in his first prayer, he simply speaks of the Father's will and declares, your will be done. Matthew Henry says, though we may pray to God to remove an affliction, yet our chief errand, and that which we should most insist upon, must be that he will give us grace to bear it well. It should be more our care to get our troubles sanctified and our hearts satisfied under them than to get them taken away. The true prayer is the offering up not only of our desires, but also our resignations. When we are in distress or at ease and we commit our way and work to God in prayer, we are offering up an unacceptable prayer. If we offer up supplication without resignation, we commit spiritual insubordination. It is in resignation that we see our wills sanctified. Proverbs 3, five through seven states, trust in Yahweh with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes. We must lean on His understanding alone in sweet resignation. Many of you know about, all of you know about my mentor, late mentor, Ed Lacy, who caught COVID-19. And for months, two months, we prayed. We had prayer meetings for Ed Lacy that he might be healed. Ed was praying for his own healing. And yet, in the last few hours of his life, he wrote down, in resignation, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Though we thought it was better for Ed to remain with us for a little while, we had to submit in resignation, not our will, but thy will. In resignation, we see our wills sanctified, aligned with the Father's. And we also see our hearts satisfied. Psalm 37, four through five says, delight yourself in Yahweh, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to Yahweh, trust in Him, and He will do it. So if you find your delight in Yahweh, His Word does not promise to give you whatever you desire if it is carnal. He promises to literally give you your desires. If we delight ourselves in Yahweh, we will desire what He desires, and we will be satisfied. We must commit our ways to Him, trust in Him, and know that He will do it. In any and every circumstance, we must relinquish what we deem best and see our will sanctified and heart satisfied in sweet resignation. 1 John 5.14 says, and this, this is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And where is God's will found? It's found in His Word. And as Jesus, here in agony in the garden, pressed down, heavy with grief and sorrow, He knew God's Word. Jesus resigned to all that God said concerning this hour. He knew that His heel had to be bruised. He knew that His hands had to be parted and pierced. He knew that He had to be mocked and scoffed at by sinners. He knew that He had to be pierced for our transgressions. He knew that He had to be numbered among the transgressors. He knew that the striking that was due us had to be aimed at Him and it would please the Father to crush Him. And He resigned to this. And as Jesus offered up this prayer, drawing deeper into communion with the Father, as the heaviness of His grief increased, the disciples continued to sleep. And from their examples, their example we see, submission to the flesh through slumber is our sure means to see our wills shackled and our hearts stupefied. Verse 43 says, And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. Clearly the flesh had overcome the spirit. It is made evident that submission to the flesh shackles the will. They slept because their eyes were heavy. This is the same Greek word that is used to describe Jesus' distress. Jesus, to the very depths of His soul, was heavy. Heavy with grief. Heavy with sorrow. And yet He remained awake and endured in prayer. And yet these weak disciples, because their mere eyelids were heavy, submitted to the flesh. How tragic would it have been if Christ, heavy to the depths of His soul with sorrow, had given in. Had not kept watch. Here we see Christ as our clear Savior. He, in this garden, does what we cannot, what we often fail to do. We see here our Savior triumphing in a way that we often fail to triumph in. And yet we also see the danger of letting carnal security prevail. Once it prevails, it is no easy thing to shake off. That first time those disciples went to sleep, oh, it was much easier for them to fall back asleep. If you let yourself grow cold and uncaring, it is a hard thing to recover. When your eyes and affections begin to be drawn to the distractions and the things of this world, it is a hard thing to restrain them. And how many of us are in the habit of sitting for hours? doom-scrolling on our cell phones, sitting in front of televisions, spending our days mindlessly attending to lesser things? How many of us sink into the slew of despondency when sorrow comes and we waste our days in cold unfeelingness? How many of us find it easy to let the alarm ring in the morning while our Bibles lay untouched and the throne of grace unapproached? If you find yourself in this state, your eyes have grown heavy. And as hard as it may be, you must wake up. As we submit to the flesh through slumber, not only are our wills shackled, but our hearts are stupefied. Our affections and desires are totally misconstrued and misplaced. Our hearts grow cold, and how difficult it is to rekindle a cold heart. On a cold night when a fire has been built, has sufficient wood and is being carefully attended to, it won't die out. Its flames will be consistent and its warmth will be felt. However, if the one attending to that fire were to fall asleep or to go to bed, they would wake up in the morning to find nothing but ash and a few hot coals. And it's a much more toilsome thing to rekindle that fire than to keep the lit fire attended to. So I would say, do not let your flame go out, dear saint. Attend to what is there. If it is dying, fan it into flame. Add the wood you so desperately need for vitality and consistency, which are the Word of God and watchful, submissive prayer. If your fire has gone out and a few glowing coals remain, as Jesus said to the church in Sardis, wake up and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. So remember what you have received and heard, and keep it and repent. Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know which hour I come to you. So as Jesus says, keep watching and praying. For submission to God through supplication produces a supernatural strength in times of trial, while submission to the flesh through slumber produces a spiritual stupor in times of trial. Verse 44 says, and he left them again and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us go. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand. So Jesus enters into private, reverent, intimate supplication a third time. He prays for the Father's will to be done yet again, and after this prayer, His battle with temptation has been won. He remains in perfect harmony with the will of His Father. Meanwhile, the disciple's submission to the flesh has produced a spiritual stupor in the time of trial. Jesus woke up prepared. He stands up prepared and he goes and wakes up the unprepared disciples. Because they neglected their spiritual need and slept through the time of prayer, they would be groggy and unprepared for the time of trial. Temptation would come and they would yield. They fled when Jesus was arrested. And Peter, despite his earlier vehement argument, denied Jesus three times. Spiritual victory, we see, goes to those who are alert in prayer and depend upon the Father. Unpreparedness and self-trust, self-confidence results in vulnerability and defeat. While the disciples are in a spiritual stupor, Jesus, through prayer, has gained a supernatural strength for the time of trial. The crushing and the olive press has ended. While the disciples were awakened, unprepared because they met the flesh's desires at expense of the Spirit's needs, Jesus went forth, divinely strengthened to meet the trials that awaited Him. He set His face like flint toward Jerusalem. And James writes, be subject to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. James 4, 7-8. And this is what Christ has done. And he now rises to meet his enemies. While our first father Adam succumbed to temptation in the Garden of Eden, damning our race. Christ triumphed over temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane, divinely strengthened to finish the work that would redeem our race. For the joy that was set before Him, He would endure the cross, despising its shame. And having been made to be sin upon that cross, bearing the Father's wrath, dying and being resurrected on the third day for the justification of all who will turn from the sin that He agonized over, and place their faith in what He has done, they will be reconciled to God forever. And for those who are reconciled to God, Jesus, this One who prays in the garden, now is at God's right hand praying for you. So let not His time of submissive supplication be in vain. If you have not come to Him on His terms of repentance and faith, come to Him. Because the cup that He had to drink, That full wrath of God poured out upon sinners. If you do not come to Him, there remains wrath for you to drink. But if you come to Him, clothed in His righteousness, it has been drained. It has been drained. By observing Jesus and His disciples in the garden, It is made evident that submissive supplication results in spiritual victory, while stagnant slumber results in spiritual vulnerability. So Christian, submit yourself regularly to God and privacy, reverence, and intimacy. Fan your dying embers into flame and keep watching and praying. Look to the Savior who triumphed in the garden, atoned for your sin, and was raised for your justification, and now mediates for you at the right hand of God. There is nothing that hinders you from the throne of grace, except for that sinful flesh you must put to death, and you can only put it to death at the throne of grace. Let us pray. Father. We thank you, Lord, for this great example. For the great sorrow that your son endured on our behalf. And in doing so, he taught us to pray. Lord, I pray that you would apply these truths to our hearts. that we would be watchful, that we would be prayerful, that we would not neglect the throne of grace made available to us by the tearing of the flesh of the Son of God, that great heavenly veil parted that we might enter. Lord, I pray that you'd bless your saints. Lord, strengthen us for the time of trial that awaits. In Christ's name we pray, amen.