Turn with me in your copy of the Scriptures this morning to Matthew 26. And I'm going to read the Word of God for us. If you're able, stand with me out of reverence to this Word. Then Jesus went with them, that is His disciples, to a place called Gethsemane. And He said to His disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray.' And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful even to death. Remain here and watch with me." And going a little farther, He fell on His face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will. And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping and said to Peter, So could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, my father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. And again, he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then He came to the disciples and said to them, Sleep. Take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand." Please be seated. And pray with me. the author of these words, the words that we were so blessed to just read, we ask now for your abundant help. We plead, Lord, that in these moments, as I, with my feeble attempts, give voice to the glory that is found herein, that you would bless it to your people. Lord, that we, under this Word, would find things which are marvelous. Things which capture our attention. Things that delight our souls. Things that convict us of sin, Lord. Things that set our gaze on the One who came, that is Jesus. Lord, I pray with the sufferings of your Son, we would weep. With what was necessary to bear the curse of our sin, we would be confounded. With the greatness of our Lord, may we rejoice, Lord. With the weakness of our flesh, may we be greatly warned. And with the boldness of our Savior, may we be strengthened, Lord. I pray that in these moments, as we look to your word, you would unite our hearts with your body abroad, Lord, with all those who in your name take refuge this hour, with all those who by your blood have found deliverance from sin and are stirred on to say, amen, hallelujah, glory to the name of the Lord. be united in one spirit and rejoice. I ask that any stammerings and stumblings would be but an indicator of the weakness of the servant and go to show the greatness of our Lord and Savior. For in our weakness then you are strong. I pray that you would help us in our weakness now, Lord. Our flesh is not able to set our minds on these things as we desire. There are many circumstances, there are children, there are noises, there are smells, there are commotions, there are thoughts, all of which, Lord, are pleading to our flesh to take our attention away. But may we with each one capture the moment, delivering our neighbor and our own souls over to this word here for the next few minutes. I pray in your name. Amen. The aim of our text this morning is to see that the Spirit of Christ finds supreme consolation in the Father's will. And I'll say that again. The aim of our text this morning is to see that our Lord and Savior finds supreme consolation in the Father's will. Look with me to the text, will you? I want us to have our minds in this text. I want us to look at it and to see what is there. And so I want you, for a few minutes, to walk with me through this. passage. Jesus, with His disciples, now goes to that place called Gethsemane. And they have been there many times together. Jesus goes there with His disciples to this garden, and He goes there intent on praying. And He says to His disciples while He comes, He says, sit here while I go over there and pray. We see our Lord putting some distance between Him and His disciples, because His mind, as we will see shortly, was greatly sorrowed, and He was to be giving Himself up to the Father in prayer. So taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, these were the inner three, the three that had seen Christ many occasions more explicitly than the others, those who are with Christ in the Mount of Transfiguration, he takes those three and he brings them with him, and notice these striking words, then he says, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. And it's noticeable, it is noteworthy to see that Jesus, as he ascends this mount, now gives his particular focus and attention to that trial which is set before him in his life. Jesus, having all his ministry, proclaimed that this was coming, that this hour was upon him, that there would be a day when he would be crucified. Yet his service, his whole time, had been given to the good toward goodwill towards his disciples, toward building them up, towards preaching to them, towards loving them, towards revealing his own mercy toward them. And now in this hour, it is appropriate and he has with that control of his affections given himself over now to truly bear the weight of that agony which awaits him. He began to be sorrowful. We shy away from sorrow many times, do we not? But here we see there are times when it is quite appropriate to be sorrowful. It is quite appropriate to see that we must set ourselves about doing what God has given us to do. And in that, it at times comes to us with great sorrow and trouble. And he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. And so it was even from these three that he would take his leave. Jesus leaving those three, bidding them, watch with me. Now it's interesting, Jesus having entered this garden and with the end of this story of Christ in a garden, we ought to think or have in the back of our mind that garden where the whole story begun, that garden which was close fellowship with God, with Adam and Eve, and in that garden there was great glory until the tempter entered in and with Adam all humanity fell into sin. And so now it is in this garden Jesus bids his disciples Watch. Watch with Me. But what is He watching for? We would think if He was in isolation and here to pray, there would not be so much a command to watch as there would be a command to sorrow with Me or to be with Me. But here He leaves them and He says, Watch with Me. And then going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed. Notice this is beyond our normal saying, you know, to drop to the knees and pray. Here Jesus falls prostrate before the Lord. He, in his sorrow, gives himself up wholly to the Lord, to his Father, and he prays, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." And we're struck by these words because we think, Jesus, would You struggle in this way? Surely, You were all about doing only what was right and good. But let us not think that Jesus came as some kind of Superman, but Jesus was fully man. Jesus was fully man, like you and like I. Yes, without sin, but no, not unlike us in our flesh. And Jesus with His flesh says, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Do you realize that Jesus, as He looked down at that which was given to Him, that cup which God the Father had given to Him, He was greatly sorrowed. And in His soul, He said, I want, as it were, nothing to do with that agony. If I could make the choice of my own flesh, I would not take this cup, Lord. Now He knows. He knows more than we do. He understands more than we do what this cup entails. This cup which He had just given a portion to His disciples moments earlier, remember, now He comes to bear. That cup which was given to them at the Lord's Supper as a cup of blessing and a covenant with them, Christ now drinks Himself in agony. Do you realize the cup of the Lord is to you great blessing and to Him it was great wrath? This cup which was measured out and apportioned for our Lord and Savior, now Jesus goes to drink. And He understands that this is not merely the agony of nails through His hands and nails through His feet of shame and of spitting and unflogging. He understands that this is to be the agony which will lead Him to cry out, He knows that in the depth of this trial, He will lose something of that sweet comfort and fellowship with the Father that He had enjoyed for eternity. There is something about the darkness of that hour which hides and veils from Jesus in His flesh that sweet communion that He had with the Father. And it was this separation, if you will, this trial of perplexing providence that Jesus so greatly mourns over here as He is sorrowful. And yet notice with me that the words which he prays here are intent, not as we might think, wholly on removing this trial from him, but what is the main aim of his prayer? The main aim of his prayer is, Lord, your will be done. And then he goes to the disciples, and he found them sleeping. and notice what he says. First, who does he say it to? He says to Peter. Now, why does he say it to Peter? Doubtless because moments before, if you remember last week, we spoke how Peter was particularly bold in proclaiming his own steadfastness. Peter says, all will deny you, Lord, but I will not deny you. All will fall away, but I will not fall away. Peter is the one who was bold to Christ, and so now it's to Peter. Jesus says, So could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation." Now we understand something of what Jesus had told them to be watchful in. He brought them to the garden and He said, watch. But what were they to watch for? Well, Jesus, knowing them, knowing their weakness, He says, that you may not enter into temptation." You see, Jesus understood the weakness of His own flesh. He understood, Lord, if it be possible, take this cup from me. But Jesus also knew the greatest pleasure, the greatest good was found, not My will, but Yours, Lord. I will be found not doing My own will, but Your will, Father. He understands that in this moment of trial, in this great difficulty, there is a great and grave danger, a temptation that would lead these disciples in the next hours to forsake Him. He knows there is great temptation in leaving Christ and wanting to flee the will of the Father for the sake of our own pleasure, our own desire. And Jesus bids His disciples, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. And then He says this sentence, which I believe is the center point of this entire passage. This is the paradigm on which I think the whole passage hangs. He says, the Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh. is weak." Again, for the second time, He went away and prayed, My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, Your will be done. We see it again. Only this time, Jesus prays, Look, I understand Your revealed will. I understand that I must bear this cup. And so Jesus prays, If this cannot pass from me unless I drink it, Father, your will be done. And again, he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. Now when the text says a little detail like that, their eyes were heavy, we ought to take note You know, the writers, they write in such a way by the Holy Spirit that we might understand, we might see something of what's happening here. Their eyes were heavy. Think with me, if you will, of other times where we've seen some turn of phrase like this. If you recall in 1 Samuel, it is spoken of that priest, the high priest Eli, that his eyes grew dim. This was the priest who would not rebuke his sons for their perversion in the temple. And he would not defend the house of God. And it says his eyes grew dim. Doubtless he was old in age, but it is used as a metaphor to help us understand not only that his eyes did indeed grow dim for age, but that his discernment was leaving him. And here, the disciples, their eyes were heavy. They lacked the discernment to see the very danger which Jesus here pushes them on to see. They were not able to see the great temptation in the way that Christ saw it, and they could not bear with Christ. Their eyes were heavy. And Jesus, this time leaving them again, leaving them to their sleep, he goes away and prays for a third time, saying the same words again. Now, if Christ says something once, we listen. If Christ says something twice, we better listen. And if Christ says something three times, we know that this is to be emphasized. This is of primary importance. What does he pray again? Not my will, but your will be done, O Lord. Then he came to his disciples and said to them, sleep, take your rest later on, see the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going, see my betrayer is at hand. Now, if it's helpful, we may take this text and break it down into four things, but four things that don't all bear similar weight. And I'll explain what I mean. There are primary things, and there are secondary things. But break this text into four with me for just a moment, OK? We have the cup of the Father, which bears down upon the soul of our Savior with acute difficulty and sorrow. So we have the cup of the Father, which Jesus is there aiming to bear. Second, we have the Spirit of Christ. We have the Spirit of Christ who, in spite of this great struggle, is there bearing up under the weight saying, Lord, not my will but yours be done. And we see in the manner and the matter of our Lord's Prayer that He is taking great consolation in the fact that God the Father's will must be done in Him. And then we have this great contrast, do we not? There is the strength of our Lord's Spirit in this hour, and there is the weakness of the flesh of his disciples in this moment. And it contrasts like a black backdrop to the white light of Christ, and we see that their flesh is indeed very weak in this hour. And all of this seems to land upon us with particular urgency because of the pressing imminence of His betrayer. Notice, the hour has come. His betrayer is at hand. He is turned over into the hands of wicked sinners. And so all of this comes upon us with very potent urgency. We must get what Jesus is saying to us. It is urgent for us that we might hear this. And what is He saying then? What is he drawing our attention to? Well, I want to broach that subject by asking this one question. What is it that drives our Lord and Savior here to pray? What is it that really drives him to the Father? What is impelling him or compelling him to go and fall on his face before his God in this moment? And we might say, well, surely it's the sorrow. Or surely it's the cup. Surely it's the greatness of that moment which did it. And there is something there that is true. But there is something there which is nothing more than the circumstance in which Jesus finds himself in. But what drives Jesus particularly to pray here is the willingness of His flesh to be in the Father's will and His knowledge of the weakness of His own flesh in wanting to flee the Father's will. Do you see that? If Jesus, His whole passion here is to do that which is the Father's will, and He wants to be found in the Father's will, and if it is the trial of His flesh that He wants to say, If possible at all, let this cup pass from me. What drives him to prayer is this desire to be in the Father's will, to take delight in the Father's will. Now what does it mean to take delight in the Father's will? How do we know what the Father's will is? Well, let us see this. Let us see this, because the Father's will has been revealed, has it not? The Father's will is given to us. And here we find, just as Christ did, great consolation for our struggle. To be in the Father's will is the greatest delight and the greatest blessing that ever could be. Here, in this text, we see something that revives not merely the body of a man, but the soul of a man. Do you languish in your will? Are you dull in your affections? Is there turmoil in your conscience? Here is a cure for you. Not only this, but are you foolish in your ways? Are you slothful in your thought? Do you feel yourself to be a simpleton with the things of God? This is given to you that you may be made wise. Are you sad to your core? Does your heart beat with lifelessness? Does your portion make you feel drab? No, this portion rejoices the heart. Are you fading or faint? This refreshment is clean and endures forever. It is good and desirable. It is sweet and safe, rich and makes rich. This is the will of your Heavenly Father as we find it testified in Psalm 19, the law of God. Psalm 19. Let me read this to you. And remember that this is God's declarative Word. And it speaks and says true things about what it is to be in the will of the Father. What the will of the Father is. The law of God. Notice with me from this psalm, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. Psalm 119. Again, the revealed will of the Father that is revealed to you that you may know what is right in the eyes of God, that you may know where should I set my feet, where may I find consolation and a clean conscience before God is in the will of the Father. Psalm 119 helps us again to see these great realities. Psalm 119. And v. 14-16. In the way of Your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts. I will fix my eyes on Your ways. I will delight in Your statutes. I will not forget Your Word. Psalm 119. We read near there this morning, let Your mercy come that I may live, for Your law is my delight. Further, Psalm 92, if your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. Notice how this whole psalm began. Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways. Brothers and sisters, it is a delight, a blessed thing, a wonderful thing to be found in the will of God. And I tell you this morning, Jesus Christ delighted to be in the will of God. In that moment of His trial, Jesus took great consolation in the fact that He was in the Father's will. Notice with me, Notice with me how the writer speaks of this in Psalm 40. Psalm 40, verse 4, blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after lie. You have multiplied, O Lord, my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us. None can compare with you. I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. In sacrifice and offerings you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.' Then I said, Behold, I have come in the scroll of a book. It is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart." The writer, the inspired writer of Hebrews, says this refers to Jesus Christ himself. In quoting this passage, it says, Jesus Christ came and it is spoken of him in the book, I delight to do your will. I have the law of God in my heart. And so Jesus Christ here takes utter consolation in the fact that he is in the Father's will. Notice here, it is the Spirit of Christ that is willing to do this. It is Jesus, whom as the writer says in Hebrews, in the days of His flesh, offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to Him who is able to save Him from death. Jesus was crying out to His Father and crying out in the Spirit, Lord, may Your will be done. Christ, delighting to do the Father's will, prays in earnest. He prays fervently. He prays to the one who is able to deliver Him from death. In the Spirit of Christ, Jesus finds His great sufficiency. Though all His disciples leave Him, here He finds great, sufficient comfort in the Father's will. And so, brothers and sisters, I ask you, or rather, I say to you, that Spirit of Christ, that desire to do the will of the Father, that Spirit is in you. You say, wait, that same Spirit? That same Spirit, which would forbid him from partaking in all the pleasures of the flesh, that Spirit of Christ is in you. What do I mean by that? Turn with me to a couple places. Titus chapter 3, Romans chapter 8. Titus chapter 3, Romans chapter 8. You can find those. I want to read with you what I'm speaking of. Beginning in Titus chapter 3 and 4, we read this. Chapter 3, verses 4 through 7. But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is the point of what I'm saying here. When one turns to Christ and trusts in the Lord for all His salvation and hope, and the Holy Spirit comes and regenerates that man so that he may turn to Christ, and fills that one with the Spirit of Christ, you have that Spirit, which Christ here poured out in the garden, given to you. That is, your flesh, which was obstinate and which did not want to do that which was the will of the Father, you now have in Jesus. He has made your spirit willing. And we see this in Romans even more clearly, Romans chapter 8. If you are there with me, we may read together Romans chapter 8, starting in verse 9. You, however, this is Paul speaking to Christians. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, although this body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Do you see what he proclaims? He says, if you are in fact in Christ, then you do indeed have the Spirit of Christ in you, brothers and sisters. And so, with all the joy that we see Christ finding, all the strength, I should say, that He's finding here, there is something of that Spirit in you that has made your spirit willing to forsake your own flesh and to pursue the law of God. It is there. The Spirit is willing. But Christ then says to His disciples, does He not? What warning does He give them? He says, the Spirit is willing. but the flesh is weak. See, there are some of us here today who our tendency is to be so down on our own flesh and so drab about our own spiritual condition that we need to be told that brother, sister, the spirit of Christ is in you. He has made you willing. You are given a new spirit in Christ that you may find sweet joy and consolation in the will of God and following after the law of Christ. And there are some of us who are much more likely to find great confidence in our flesh. We are much likely to be like Peter, who said, Lord, if all reject you, I will not reject you. If all walk away, I will not. And so we need to be reminded, brother, sister, do not forget your flesh is weak. Your flesh is weak. Do you not see the danger that lurks? Do you not see the great temptation that comes? It's in those moments that we think, ah, I have got this. I know. I love the things of God. And I have a great Christian walk. And it's in those moments that we do not see our great need to be pouring ourselves out to the Father and finding great strength of renewal to God because we do not see the temptation that presses in upon us. And so, this is the great paradigm, I believe, of this passage as we look to it. Christ Himself, first and foremost, is that Man who when all were forsaking Him, He found great joy and delight in the Father's will. And He then is the One that we... it's in that picture that we see something of the Spirit of God which we have in Christ. And yet, there is something of a grave danger which is presented to us in this passage. A grave danger of trusting in our own flesh, of saying, I am strong, I am strong apart from Christ, and we must be told, your flesh is very weak. Now I ask, one of the great questions that comes to us is, How do I know that I have the Spirit of God in me? How do I know? Because when you say all these beautiful things about the law of God and walking in the way of God, I find within myself quite a propensity to be discouraged in it. Quite a perplexity about why my life looks so unfamiliar to the way that Christ lived. Why am I so sinful? Why is the law of God so weak in my life? And then I declare the, if I am the one declaring these things to you, and you say, you tell me I have the spirit of Christ, but I don't see it. I don't see it. My condition is such that I don't feel like I have that sort of spirit in my life. Well, I would point you first again to that law and say, brother or sister, you must look harder at that law. Your condition is worse than you think it is. You fail in that law more than you think you do. You are insufficient in yourself to do any of that law. And you say, wait, you would beat me down again with the law of God? And I would say, yes, brother. But in Christ, when you read that law, do you feel anything of the trembling of God? Do you tremble at the threatenings of God? Do you read in those passages all of your sinfulness and do you think, my state truly is miserable before God? If so, then I say, do you not look and see in your Savior great and wonderful things, great provision made for you? Do you not see there that all your weakness has been atoned for in Christ and in His righteousness? Do you see that His righteousness is yours? And if you say, yes, brother, yes, sister, I see that I have great hope in Christ, then I say to you, with the divine Word of God, His Spirit is in you. And it is this spirit, it is the fact that this spirit is in us, that we have great duty laid upon us to go to one another and to encourage one another, to pray for one another in that hour of temptation. We read in Ephesians, as we already did, where the Apostle Paul exhorts us to be always fervent, praying in the spirit, making supplications in prayer for our own temptations and for those of our brothers and sisters. Well, upon what basis do we do that? We do that upon the basis of the fact that each one of us has the Spirit of Christ given to him or to her. We may say rightly to one another, here, this is the law of God. You must do this. You must take great delight in this law. And we trust that that resonates with each one here because God has not left you in your flesh to wallow, but has given you a new spirit. And we must say, brothers and sisters, do you not see that there is great danger remaining in your flesh? Do you not see that there is great need for you to be fervent in prayer? Now, notice with me, if you will, how this text lays out. We started asking the question, what is it that drove Jesus to prayer? Well, it was this great desire for Him to be in the Father's will and this great reality of the danger which lie there at His door. Well, I would say to you, brother or sister, do you know the weakness of your own flesh? Have you really reckoned with the fact that there is great danger in your temptation? And do you find great delight in being in the Father's will? It is those two things which will drive us to prayer. stir us up more fervent toward God. You see, if we just know our own weakness and we think, ah, I'm weak, I cannot do anything, that drives us nowhere. But if we also only see I am strong, it does not drive us to prayer. But it is when we see both of those things, both I am weak and yet I delight to do the Father's will, it is those things which drive us together and to our knees to say, Father, your will be done. And so all prayer is given in the Holy Spirit then. All Christian prayer is not merely the prayer of, God do this for me, God do that for me, but the essence of all Christian prayer is this, Lord, Your will be done. Many times in our prayers, we want to say, Lord, do this or that for me. We want to say, Lord, cure them of their cancer, or Lord, deliver me from this trial, or Lord, do not let this come to me. But the great sobering reality, the great delighting reality, the great reality that gives us joy is the reality of saying, but not my will, yours be done, Lord, in this moment, in this trial. We must, as brothers and sisters, be pushing our minds and hearts toward this affection. That is, when a brother says, I am downcast today. I have no spirit in me. I can do nothing. We must press them on and say, brother, no, you have the Spirit of Christ. And you look, the law of the Lord is good. And you will find your delight there. And if there is a brother and sister who is living with neglect towards the things of God, we must say, brother or sister, do you realize that your flesh is weak? Do you realize you must take precautions? You must be fervent in prayer in these hours where you are tempted and tried. But more than anything, brothers and sisters, we must always say, Do you know that Christ is the one who in the hour of his temptation and in his trial found greatest consolation and greatest hope in doing that which was the Father's will? Do you know that he is yours? Do you know that this Christ is your Savior and your Redeemer, and if He is yours, you have that Spirit in you, and you must pay more close attention to the things which He has given you, the path that He has given you to walk in. So brothers, let us not walk with our eyes closed and heavy as if there is no danger in the spiritual life, as if there is nothing which drives us in our hours of temptation to realize that we are in great need of the Father's strength. Let's not walk like that, but rather let us walk with our eyes open, knowing the dangers that are there, and knowing that we have the Spirit of Christ in us that is willing to do what is right, but we are greatly encumbered with the flesh. And we must hold these things together and set all of our affection, all of our trust on Christ for us. Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you that in the moment of your trial and your temptation, you bore this cup for us. You would not be dissuaded or persuaded of going any other way but toward that which you came to earth to do, that is to live the life according to the law, your life according to the law of God and to bear the curse of our sin for us. Lord, if it was not for your life, your righteousness, and your bearing of this cup, we would be left to our sin. And we would have no hope, no consolation. We would only be those who hate you. But Lord, you have given us great hope. You have made our spirits willing to go after God, to find great delight in the law of God. May we not be ignorant of the weakness of our flesh. May we be sober about these things as we persevere with one another in you. And may you delight us in the law of God. Because the law of God is no longer that which condemns, but it is that which in Christ was kept for us. that we may take greater joy and greater delight in it by your Spirit and by the Spirit, Lord, offer up prayers of thanksgiving, yes, but also prayers of great supplication for help in our time of need. I pray these things in your name, amen.