Please turn your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 22. Luke chapter 22. Luke is the historian, but he's also the physician. He often picks up things with regard to man's humanity, even what you would call medical perspectives or diagnosis. And when we come to the garden, He says something here with respect to Christ's sweating drops of blood that none of the other gospel writers mention. But here, Luke chapter 22, let me pick up the reading at verse 39. And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, Pray that you may not enter into temptation, And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done. And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he arose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow. And he said to them, Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation. Well, let's again look to our Lord. Father, we again are thankful we can come and come believing that you are here in our midst. Here, according to your gracious promise, you have said, wherever two or three meet in my name, I will be there. And so, Lord, we are thankful that we can be aware and conscious of that reality. And we do pray we would have a felt sense of your presence, that you would come by your Spirit, that you would help us to see more of our Savior even tonight. We thank you for all that He has done for us and all that He continues to do for us. And we pray again that You would give us ears to hear. We need ears of faith. We need eyes of faith to hear and see. And so we plead, Lord, that You would be gracious and kind and meet with us tonight. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. If you want to be the best at what you do, One simple word. It was a word I often heard from my hockey coach. Practice, practice, practice. That's true of almost anything in life, whether it's playing a hockey game or learning to skate, throw a football or playing a guitar. But to be the best of the best, there's something else you must do if you're going to be the best of the best. You must learn from the best. If you really want to be the best basketball player, you probably should get in touch with LeBron James or Kobe Bryant. If you want to be the best football quarterback, you probably should contact or get to know Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. And they would tell you how to throw a football. They would tell you how to grip a football, how to throw a spiral, how to position your feet, how to step into the pocket and launch what they call a Hail Mary. Yes, the best way to learn is to practice, practice, practice, but also learn from the best, whether it's a concert pianist or a football quarterback. And when it comes to the Christian life, there's something very similar, isn't there? Practice or discipline is required. Paul could say to his friend Timothy, train yourself into godliness. Discipline yourself for growth. 1 Timothy 4, you need to establish godly habits. Those who are the most holy are men and women who have learned to practice those spiritual disciplines, private and corporate, what we often call the means of grace. But there's something else you must do if you're going to be the best kind of Christian. You must learn from the best. You need to learn from your Lord and Savior, Jesus. Not only is He the best, but He's the perfect one. The Apostle Paul, as godly as he was, set himself before his church people as a man that they could model. He said, imitate me, but he also said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. There's no better one to learn from than Jesus Christ. And one area where we constantly need to learn when it comes to the Christian life, and we can learn from our Lord Jesus especially here, is learning how to pray. You find Jesus, more than anybody else, giving us examples of his praying. He was an expert when it came to prayer. And even his disciples, you can sense, were in awe of Jesus and his prayer life, because not only did he teach them once about prayer, but he taught them another time. And the second time he taught them was when they came to him and said in Luke chapter 11, teach us how to pray. If anyone can teach us how to pray, It's Jesus. No doubt they had been learning from Jesus. They had been watching Him, listening to Him, spending a lot of time with Him. But they realized, even though they'd been with Him for well over a year and a half, two years, in Luke chapter 11, it's the back end of His ministry. They asked Him, teach us how to pray. We still need to grow. And I don't know of a Christian, maybe you do, who wouldn't say, I need to grow in my prayer life. I need to grow, I need to improve in how I pray. And when it comes to prayer, Jesus, again, isn't just a coach standing on the sidelines. He's actually a man of prayer. And Luke captures his prayer life more than any of the other Gospels. Luke's Gospel has even been called the Gospel of Prayer for that reason. I think at least nine times, Luke spotlights Jesus If I had to go to one place, and only one place, to learn how to pray from Jesus, I would go to Gethsemane. Gethsemane is where you see Jesus' prayer life, you could say, in high definition. As dark as Gethsemane is, this is where His prayer life shines the brightest. So, let's look at His prayer life tonight through this place called Gethsemane. We're going to consider the holy place of prayer. the great challenges to his prayer, and then the wonderful triumph of prayer. So the holy place, the great challenges, and the wonderful triumph. Number one, the holy place of prayer. Gethsemane has been described as the most holy place concerning Christ's prayer life. It was a private garden, And many think that probably one of his disciple friends actually owned that place and allowed Jesus to make good use of it. Luke tells us he went there as was his custom. This was a familiar place, no doubt. Again, other disciple friends allowed him to have that upper room to use on that night of his betrayal. but also other material possessions and belongings. Remember, some had probably given him that donkey to ride. So, he had other disciple friends who were very generous with their material possessions and belongings. In all likelihood, this garden belonged to a friend, a disciple friend. Where was it located? Well, it was located, we're told, there at the bottom of the Mount of Olives. And again, Luke tells us that he went here quite a few times with his disciples, probably that whole Passion Week. He'd gone there each night with his disciple friends. If you'd asked the disciples, where's the most favorite place to go with Jesus? They probably would have said Gethsemane. We all have favorite places, right? Growing up, children probably have a favorite place. My dad would take us every summer to cottage country or rent a cottage and it was a place of wonderful memories. Maybe it's a favorite beach house. Maybe it's the grandfather's farm. Maybe it's Cedar Point. If you'd asked the disciples, where's the favorite place? They would have said, Gethsemane. A wonderful place where we go with Jesus. We get away from all of the crowds. It's a wonderful time of fellowship. singing and laughter and joy. It was their favorite place, but not on this night. It would be a different kind of night. It would be horrific, to say the least. They will see Jesus in a way they've never seen Jesus before. It will unnerve them. It will frighten them. It will bring, you could say, a bout of depression and sorrow upon their souls and their minds. We're told here they fall asleep for sorrow. If you've ever been really depressed, you find it's very easy to sleep. They often go hand in hand. Notice that Jesus makes it clear in Luke 22, verse 40, that he wants them to help him or support him. That comes through in the other gospel writers as well. Luke 22, 40, and when He came to that place, He said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation. This is what you could call a 911 kind of call to help them or to help Him. And He's asking them to pray. It's an emergency kind of praying. And Jesus Himself will pray in that garden, perhaps in a way He'd never prayed before. On this night, His prayers will go to a height and a depth that they've never gone before. They're in the Garden of Gethsemane. But that's where he is. He's in this garden. It's the place of prayer. But secondly, the great challenges of prayer for our Lord. He brings these three disciples. We know that. His more intimate circle of friends. These three disciples, Peter, James, and John. He brings them into the deeper recesses of that garden. And he asks them to maintain a prayer vigil. And then Jesus, you could say, he goes into his closet of prayer. Luke tells us he withdraws about a stone's throw. That would be a figurative language to let us know about a few yards, far enough from his disciples where they could still see him and probably still hear him. So they can see Jesus at a distance. No doubt Jesus wants three of them to come into that garden to actually have some sights and sounds of what will take place in that garden because Jesus knows that in the ear of two or three witnesses, He knows that what takes place in the garden is of such importance that He wants witnesses. He wants this put into the Bible. He wants this to be recorded. He wants ear and eye witnesses. He wants them to later share what they saw and what they heard in Gethsemane. And they will see their Master. They will see Him under the shadows of those gnarled olive trees. They will hear His prayer from a distance. They will see His blood-stained brow. And they will hear Him talk in terms of death and sorrow. And what makes this prayer so difficult is three factors. Number one, the loss of personal comfort and support. Ecclesiastes says two are better than one. If one falls down, his friend will pick him up. That's what friends are for. Friends are to be there when you need them. A friend is someone who sticks closer than a brother. A friend is born for adversity. And he brings his three closest friends, you could say, into the garden, into the deeper recesses of that garden. But all three of them, all three of them will fail the friendship test. They don't help him. You could argue they become more of a burden. They add to his sorrow. Jesus finds them asleep. And you get a sense of the disappointment. Mark puts it this way. He found them sleeping and he says to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? When he needed them the most. He finds no one there, no one helping him, no watching eye, no listening ear. God never intended us to live the Christian life on our own. And even Jesus had a sense of his need of friends, his need of companionship. It's obvious here, but Jesus is all alone and his friends, his three friends, will succumb to the weakness of their flesh. That's one thing that makes this prayer a challenging prayer, a challenging time. There in Gethsemane, his friends are not with him. They don't support him. Another reason why this was a challenge there in the garden to pray as he prays is the supernatural element. Jesus was keenly aware of the devil. He's keenly aware of the devil's devices. Paul tells us not to be ignorant of his devices. And Jesus, even the language he uses with his friends, tells us he's keenly aware that the devil's on the prowl. Pray that you not enter into temptation. He knows that the power of darkness will be in full force. There in Gethsemane, remember the devil had tempted Jesus back there earlier on the front end of his ministry. There in the wilderness, that forty-day fast. He comes and he tempts Him. Jesus takes Him on. Jesus wins the battle. But Matthew tells us He departs for a while. He's coming back. He's coming back, and he comes back in the garden. He probably came back on a lot of other occasions, but he clearly comes back in the garden. This was the ideal place to tempt Jesus. Think about it. The first sin of man took place in a garden. The first Adam. The first Adam. The devil overcame the first Adam in the garden. The first Adam ended up sinning, running from God, hiding among the trees. So here's the big question. Will the second Adam – that's how he's described in Romans 5 – will the second Adam fail? And will he end up running away? Or will he walk out of that garden as a victor? As a loyal son, or a rebel sinner. The devil doesn't want Jesus coming out of that garden alive. Jesus even says, I have a sorrow unto death. He doesn't want Jesus coming out of that garden obedient with his full integrity, submitting to the will of his Father. And something of a battle takes place in Gethsemane. The powers of hell, you could say, are like a tornado or a hurricane. They come in upon his soul and his mind there in the garden. The forces of darkness unleash an attack upon Jesus, doing everything to discourage him, to frighten him and depress him. And Jesus was an ignorant. of the enemy's devices and he picks up the greatest weapon he has, prayer. Jesus knows the best way to fight this battle is to fight on his knees and to go to the Father for help and strength and comfort. And all the gospel writers All the synoptic Gospels, we call them, the ones that approach the life of Jesus from the same basic perspective, Matthew, Mark and Luke, they all let us hear Jesus calling to His Father. He loves His Father. He needs His Father. And He seeks His Father. Matthew 26, My Father. Luke 22, Father. Mark chapter 14, I have a Father. And even though John's Gospel doesn't give those vocals, In terms of the garden, John doesn't take us actually into the garden itself. John does tell us there in John chapter 17, before he even goes into that garden, that his whole prayer posture was one in which he was constantly looking to his Father. John 17 verse 11, he lifted up his eyes and said, The Father, the hour has come to glorify your Son. The Son may glorify you. This prayer in the garden is a challenging prayer. Why so challenging? Well, he loses the support of his disciple friends. It's challenging because of the adversary, the devil. He's up against the dark world of principalities and powers. But there's another reason. Another reason why praying in the garden would be such a formidable challenge to our Lord and such an intense struggle. He must go to battle against himself. To understand Gethsemane, you have to understand Golgotha. Gethsemane literally means the crushing or the place of crushing, a place where these Olos were crushed for their oil. And when Jesus kneels down to pray in that garden, you have to understand who Jesus is, and always was, and always will be. He's the God-Man. He's a man, 100% man. He possesses a full, full, complete humanity. A perfect body, a perfect soul, a perfect human body, perfect human soul and mind. And what becomes into focus there in the garden is the cup. The cup that His humanity must drink from. Matthew 26, My Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from Me. Mark 14, Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Remove this cup. Luke 22, Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me. Jesus is picking up Old Testament language, the figure of speech of this cup, which is referenced several times in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 23, Jeremiah 25, Isaiah 51, and it's always put there in those three passages as a figure of divine wrath. I have a cup here tonight. If I said, children, come up here and drink from this cup and then maybe you came out from a pretty hard intense time out there in the parking lot and you're pretty tired and pretty weary and you said well that'd be great I'd love to have a drink of water and you take it and you drink it right no problem but what if I told you in this glass is poison arsenic Nitroglycerin. And I want you to drink it. Now what would you do? You'd say, no way. I won't drink that. You'd look at that cup very differently, wouldn't you? And Jesus in the garden, he sees into the cup, probably in a way he never has before. It's almost like God pulls back the veil, allows his son to see into that cup and to see his role as a sin bearer. And when he sees what is in that cup, his humanity, which is a real humanity, feels everything humanity would feel. Dread. Fear. Take this cup from me. His flesh is recoiling, recoiling, shrinking back from the cup. That's why he's sweating those drops of blood. That's what Luke tells us here. Luke even tells us that he sweat these drops which were like blood. There's even a medical term for this. It's a thing that can actually happen. I know someone who's quite close to me. When he gets very, very sick, begins to vomit, there's actually a bruising that takes place on his face. It's like blood vessels break because of the intensity of his vomiting. And Jesus in the garden, his blood vessels are breaking. They're constricting and they're bursting under the pressure and the agony of what he sees in the cup, the agony of soul. Mark tells us, Mark uses a different description here, but he lets us know that Jesus was certainly impacted in a great way, not only psychologically, but physically. He fell to the ground. He uses the imperfect tense. He fell and he fell and he fell. This one incident in Gethsemane should convince us that Jesus not only was a man, but he's the man of sorrows. Matthew tells us he began to be soreful and deeply distressed. Mark says he began to be troubled and deeply distressed. Luke uses an interesting word, it's the word agony, which comes from the Greek to describe the intense emotional trauma that would take place on a battlefield. Someone has put it this way, never was there so much sorrow emanating from the soul of one individual. We could never comprehend the depths of Christ's agony, frankly, because we cannot perceive the wickedness of sin, and we cannot appreciate the terrors of divine wrath. the way Jesus did. The sorrow expressed in Gethsemane is beyond our comprehension. Think of all the sorrow that must have flooded Job's heart when he lost all his family. And I'm in no way trying to minimize or trivialize what Job or anyone else feels when they lose a son or a daughter or a wife or a father, but there's only one Gethsemane. And there's only one man of sorrows. But you see, Gethsemane doesn't make sense unless you understand Golgotha. If there was no Golgotha, no Calvary, there would be no Gethsemane. The holy place of prayer the great challenges to prayer, and thirdly, this might sound very strange, but I hope I can prove it from the Bible, the wonderful answer to prayer. The wonderful answer to prayer. Jesus prays, if possible, that this cup would pass from Him. We saw that in, what, all three of those Gospels. In other words, He's asking God to take away If there's any other possible way to save the human race without the cross, without me suffering as a sin bearer, suffering the very wrath of God, is it possible? Could the cross be averted? And the answer is no. Only one way. to satisfy the wrath of God. And there's only one person who can satisfy the wrath of God. It has to be a God-man Redeemer. You have to become the sin substitute. And Jesus will go to the cross. He will bear the full weight of infinite wrath. He will drink every last drop from that cup. But looking at Gethsemane and the prayer that He brings to God in Gethsemane, you would be tempted to think that the prayer of Jesus was not answered. But turn to Hebrews chapter 5, because I think we can look at it differently if we understand what the writer of Hebrews is saying here. Hebrews chapter 5, verse 7. Hebrews chapter 5, verse 7. Notice the words, in the days of his flesh, that's when Jesus partook of flesh and blood. He had all of the human frailties and weaknesses that belonged to human beings. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears. with loud cries and tears." That sounds like Gethsemane, doesn't it? Loud cries and tears. If you read any of the commentators, even the Puritan friends of ours, they would take Hebrews 5 verse 7 and say, make a beeline right to Gethsemane. John Owen takes us there. He says, this prayer refers to the supplications that took place in Gethsemane. Matthew, Henry, It says that's what this is about. It's about the prayers of our Lord in Gethsemane. Every preacher, every commentator I read takes us to Gethsemane via Hebrews 5, verse 7. But notice something else here in Hebrews 5, verse 7. We are told, his prayer was heard because of his reverence. The writer of Hebrews is saying God heard his prayer in Gethsemane. But how was his prayer heard in Gethsemane? It doesn't sound like he heard his prayer. He didn't take the cup away. Well, I believe Luke gives us the answer. Notice Luke again, Luke 22, verse 43. Luke 22, verse 43, here is Gethsemane, Jesus is praying, and after he prays, look what happens, Luke 22, verse 43, "...and there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him." Matthew Henry. His human nature was ready to sink under the heavy load and would have sunk had he been quite forsaken of help and comfort from God. But God heard and supported him under the agonies of death by this angel. Some think that Jesus would have died in Gethsemane unless God had come to the rescue. He would never have made it out of the garden. the pain, the anguish, the sorrow was of such an intensity, so overwhelming, he said, I have a sorrow unto death, that his humanity is starting to crumble, starting to crumble in the garden. And so the question, will his feeble human nature survive? And will Jesus submit to the will of His Father? Will He go to the cross? How can He withstand the pressure? How can He step out of the garden and go joyfully and submissively to Golgotha? Well, God gives Him the grace He needs. God gives Him the strength He needs. God comes and ministers by way of that angel. He gives him the help and the grace he needs. Jesus now is able to march out of that garden with unwavering obedience. And the last words we hear from Jesus before He's taken captive by His enemies are marked with calmness. You could say a sweet surrender of submission. No agitation, no fear, no dread. I like what Mark says here. puts these words on his lips. Jesus says this in Mark 14 verse 49, let the scriptures be fulfilled. The last snapshot we have of Jesus, there in the garden, is a man of calm composure, a man who is willing to go to the cross. Let the scriptures be fulfilled. He won the battle by prayer. He didn't capitulate to his fears. He submits with every fiber, every fiber of his perfect humanity in the garden, trembling, afraid. But he comes to that place of submission to the will of God. and says, not my will be done, but your will. That's a prayer warrior. There would never have been a Golgotha without the earnest crying and praying of Jesus in Gethsemane and a wonderful answer to that prayer. God wonderfully answers that prayer. How do you know? He went to the cross. He submits to the will of God. Do you want to be like Christ when it comes to your prayer life? Put this prayer upon your lips. Not my will, but your will be done. Not an easy prayer to prayer. And God will bring into your life, I guarantee you, not to frighten you, I guarantee you, trials, challenges, things that you wish were never there. And you can pray and pray and pray and they don't go away. Like the thorn in the flesh. But he answers prayer. Remember what he does for Paul? He didn't remove the thorn. He gave Him grace, sustaining grace. That's what He does for Jesus in the garden. He doesn't deliver Him from the cross, but He gives Him the grace to bear the cross and to endure the cross. You and I will never be more like Jesus than on our knees praying that prayer and embracing it from the heart. Thy will be done, not my will. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we thank you again for your Son Jesus, for the pattern and example that he is to us. We thank You most of all for what He suffered for us, for going to the cross and dying on our behalf. We thank You that He was willing to go into that garden and to pray this prayer and to shed sweat, those drops of blood, and still submit to Your will. And we pray, Lord, You would help us to even imitate our Lord Jesus in this regard. as we face our trials, carry our burdens in life. Help us, Lord, to pray this prayer and give us the grace, Lord, to submit to you and to bear our trials in a way that would please you. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.