Mark 14:32-42

Have you ever been pushed beyond your breaking point?

Some of you are the kind of people, I'm tempted to say crazy

people, who train for and run marathons.

You start by running 6 miles, 8 miles, 10 miles.

You get up to 12/15/16. Somehow you have this big giant

leap on the day of the race where then you run 26.2 and

whether in the training or in the race itself, you are

constantly pushing through barriers you thought you

couldn't make it through, whether physical, mental,

emotional. You hit a breaking point and

somehow you keep going. That's very admirable.

It's not for me. My idea of running is a very

occasional 5K. That's plenty more of us, more

of the time get pushed past our breaking point.

Not by something you try to do, but by something that happens to

you. Something you didn't want,

something you didn't ask for, something you didn't choose, and

something you would gladly unchoose if you could live long

enough. And it is only a matter of time

before you encounter a trial that pushes you past your

breaking point. What used to get you out of bed

in the morning does not do it anymore.

What used to motivate or encourage you no longer seems to

help. You're coming apart of the

seams. Emotionally, physically, maybe

spiritually, The trial is beyond your strength to endure.

You're being crushed under its weight.

When you get pushed past your breaking point, what do you do?

What can you do? This morning we continue our

series in the Gospel of Mark with Chapter 14, verses 32 to

42. If you don't have a Bible, you

can feel free to raise your hand and someone will bring you one.

And if you don't have a Bible at home, you can read.

Feel free to take that home and read it.

It's a gift from us. Our passage tells us about the

last night of Jesus's earthly life.

In the passage just before this one, which we studied last week,

Jesus confidently predicted his death, and his disciples equally

confidently predicted their undying loyalty to him.

But in our passage, Jesus gets pushed to and beyond his

breaking point, and both his resolve and his disciples

resolve seem to crumble. But there's an absolutely

crucial difference between how Jesus responds to the trial

ordained for him and how his disciples respond to the trial

ordained for them. What is that difference?

Please follow along as I read Mark 1432 to 42.

And they went to a place called Gethsemane.

And he said to his disciples, Sit here while I pray.

And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be

greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is

very sorrowful, even to death, Remain here and watch.

And going a little farther he fell on the ground, and prayed

that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.

And he said, ABBA, father, all things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me yet not what I will, but what you will.

And he came and found them sleeping.

And he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep?

Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not

enter into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing,

but the flesh is weak. And again he went away and

prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found them

sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not

know what to answer him. And he came the third time and

said to them, Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?

It is enough. The hour has come.

The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.

The first 3 verses of our passage set the scene in the

garden. They show us that Jesus is

greatly disturbed and troubled, and he's going to retreat to

pray. That's verses 32 to 34.

Then there are three cycles of Jesus retreating to pray and

then returning to his disciples. The first one is told in the

most detailed. That's verses 35 to 39.

The other two cycles are told much more briefly.

What's going on here? What Jesus faced in the Garden

of Gethsemane was his greatest trial yet.

It pushed him past his breaking point.

And yet he passed the test. How?

Here's the point of our passage in one sentence.

Submissive prayer is how Jesus passed his greatest test for you

and how you can pass your greatest tests for him.

I'll say that again. Submissive prayer is how Jesus

passed his greatest test for you and how you can pass your

greatest tests for him. In our passage, both Jesus and

his three closest disciples are being tested.

For both Jesus and his disciples, this is a preview of

a still greater test to come. He passes, they fail.

How did Jesus pass his greatest test for you, and how can you

pass your greatest tests for him?

We'll walk through the passage in five parts to answer that

question .1 the test, the test. We see the nature of the test

and its impact on Jesus in verses 32 to 34.

Look again at verse 32. And they went to a place called

Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, sit here while I

pray. This is just after the Last

Supper, same night Jesus and his 11 remaining disciples are on

the Mount of Olives and they go to a garden or an olive Grove

called Gethsemane. John 18 two tells us that Jesus

often went here with his disciples.

Presumably he went there regularly so that he could pray

privately, just as he's going to do now.

And so Jesus leaves the bulk of his disciples behind and retreat

some distance to pray in private.

Verse 33 And He took with him Peter and James and John, and

began to be greatly distressed and troubled.

So we learn more detail. He left 8 disciples further off

and brought the remaining three with him.

Why these three? One reason is that He

deliberately formed them into kind of an inner circle.

He granted these three even deeper, more privileged

revelation of Himself at a couple of times in the Gospel.

It was these three disciples who saw Jesus's glory revealed on

the Mount of Transfiguration. It was these three disciples,

plus Andrew, whom Jesus taught about the destruction of the

temple and his own second coming throughout chapter 13.

So He is going to give them yet one more intimate revelation of

His glory as He allows them to overhear His private prayer to

the Father in His darkest hour yet.

But there's another reason He brings along these three.

There's something these 3 disciples have in common.

Just a few verses ago Peter proclaimed, Even though they all

fall away, I will not. And he said, if I must die with

you, I will not deny you. 4 chapters ago, at the end of

chapter 10, Jesus asked James and John, are you able to drink

the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with

which I am baptized? And they said to him, we are

able. Peter, James and John are

confident in their ability to suffer with and for Jesus.

They are confident they can handle whatever trials Jesus

lays on them. So Jesus takes them aside to

show them what faithfulness to the cross is going to cost him

and what faithfulness to the cross is going to cost them.

As Matthew Henry puts it, it is fit that they who are most

confident should be first tried, that they may be made sensible

of their folly and weakness. Peter, James, and John singled

themselves out by their confidence.

So Jesus singled them out for testing.

The end of verse 33 tells us that Jesus began to be greatly

distressed and troubled. This is strong language.

Jesus is disturbed, alarmed, astonished, frightened.

He is not emotionally composed. He is not stoically confident

and detached. He's troubled in the very depths

of his heart and soul. In the beginning of verse 34,

Jesus himself tells the three disciples how he's feeling.

My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.

The Greek wording of that phrase, My soul is very

sorrowful, closely matches Psalm 42, five, which Carissa read to

us a little bit ago. Why are you cast down?

Oh, my soul, Jesus soul is cast down.

He has been pushed to and beyond his emotional breaking point.

The question is why? What is it that pushed Jesus

beyond his breaking point? He has confidently predicted his

coming death throughout the Gospel.

Just a little while ago at the Last Supper, he predicted his

death again. He knows Judas is in the process

of betraying him. He knows that's the divine plan.

He's been resolutely marching toward it ever since he set his

face to go to Jerusalem. So what's changed?

Why does he hit a breaking point now?

I think the reason becomes clear in verse 36 when he asks the

Father, remove this cup from me. The cup is God's wrath.

The cup is the judgement of God against all the sins of His

people. The cup is not merely death, but

suffering the wrath of God against sin.

Here, in His agony in the Garden, Jesus begins to have an

anticipation of what the cross is going to feel like.

He begins to sense, to feel, to experience just how horrific his

sacrificial death is going to be.

He begins to feel the weight of what the sin laid on his

shoulders is going to do to him. And it undoes him.

It crushes him. Jesus is distressed not by

anything that has happened, but by what he knows is going to

happen. The Scottish theologian Donald

McLeod to put this point beautifully.

He said what? When Moses saw the glory of God

on Mount Sinai, so terrifying was the sight that he trembled

with fear. But that was God in covenant,

God in grace. What Christ saw in Gethsemane

was God with the sword raised. The wonder of the love of Christ

for his people is not that for their sake he faced death

without fear, but that for their sake he faced it terrified.

Terrified by what he knew and terrified by what he did not

know, He took damnation lovingly.

And so with the weight of of that coming sin bearing

sacrifice beginning to grind him into the ground, Jesus begins to

withdraw, to pray. And he tells his disciples in

verse 34, remain here and watch. When he says watch, he means

that they're to remain spiritually alert through

prayer. They're to stay awake

physically, take that for granted, but they're also to

stay awake spiritually, to be watchful.

They're to watch out for their own souls and watch over their

own souls. In his hour of greatest need,

Jesus relies fundamentally on God.

That's why he retreats to pray, but he also enlists the help of

his closest followers. Matthew 2638 tells us Jesus said

remain here and watch with me. And verse 34 Jesus tells his

disciples my soul is very sorrowful.

Note the next phrase even to death.

Jesus is saying that his inward sorrow is severe enough to kill

him. The weight of grief he is under

could undo him, not just emotionally, but physically.

One other evidence of that we see in Luke's account, Luke

2244, reports that during his prayer, Jesus sweated out drops

of blood. Jesus is sad enough to die from

it. Have you ever been so sad that

you thought it might kill you? Or an experience right next door

to that. Have you ever been so

overwhelmed with grief that you would have preferred simply to

die rather than to bear whatever was crushing your soul?

I don't necessarily mean that you were suicidal, not wanting

to kill yourself, not intending to kill yourself.

Just that you were so sad that some part of you would have

preferred non existence to having to keep going through

what you were going through. Brother, sister, if you have

ever been that overwhelmed with sorrow, if you are that

overwhelmed with sorrow right now, come join your Savior in

the garden. See what he suffered, See what

he endured. See how he responded.

Jesus has been there, and he passed that test.

Here at his greatest test, Jesus proved faithful.

If you have been sad enough to die, or sad enough that you

wished you were dead, Jesus has suffered sorrow that great and

greater. Jesus has suffered darkness that

deep and deeper. No matter how far down the well

of sadness you find yourself, Jesus has been there and He's

been down deeper. He endured it all for you, and

He endured it all with perfect faithfulness, so that even when

the force of his sorrow threatened to RIP his soul from

his body, He entrusted himself perfectly to God.

Jesus has been there. He went there for you.

He suffered it all for you, and He emerged out the other side

into everlasting life. That's why we can confess that

we can draw near to Him, confident that He's been tempted

in every way as we are, yet without sin, and so He can give

us grace to help in time of need.

He's been through an even more extreme need, and He endured it

faithfully. Therefore, He can help you in

your most extreme need. Jesus knows your suffering

better than you know it yourself.

Jesus loves you more than you love yourself.

Your sorrowing soul is safe in His hands.

No matter how broken your life seems, it is never beyond

Jesus's ability to repair. Jesus can mend more than you

know. Kids in the congregation, what

are you afraid of? Jesus knows what it is to be

scared. Our passage teaches us that he

was terrified and he faced down the wrath of God, the most

terrifying reality in the universe, so that if you trust

in Him, you would have literally nothing to be afraid of.

Jesus was passed what was pushed clear past His breaking point.

Why? So that He can be all you need

when you are pushed past your breaking point.

Whenever God's Providence. Has pushed you clear past what

you can handle. Come to Jesus for help.

Verse 34 ends of the command watch while Jesus goes off and

prays. They have to remain spiritually

alert. Jesus has set an exam for his

disciples. He's given them a test.

Watch is a test for them, and the whole experience is a test

for him. Why does it take place in a

garden? Because Jesus is the second

Adam, the last Adam, the true and better Adam.

Adam failed to obey in a garden. Jesus passed the test of

obedience in this garden. Jesus succeeded where Adam

failed. Next question is how?

Point #2 The submission The submission.

We see Jesus submit to his Father in verses 35 and 36.

Look at verse 35. And going a little farther, He

fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the

hour might pass from him. Jesus retreats a short distance

away from the three disciples to pray.

Note his posture. He fell to the ground.

A normal ancient Jewish prayer posture was either standing with

raised hands or kneeling. Jesus instead falls flat on the

ground. The weight of the cross is

already beginning to crush him. He's so burdened he feels like

he's going to die. What can he do under such

weight? Only one thing.

Pray. That's all Jesus can do.

And when you're past your breaking point, all you can do

is pray. When it seems like there's

nothing you can do, prayer is the one thing you must do.

Jesus asks that if it is possible, the hour might pass

from him. Note that even in this request,

he's submissive. He says if possible, if it's

God's will, if there's any way in keeping with God's will, he

prays that he will not face down what he is facing down right now

by asking that the hour might pass from him.

He's asking if there is any way in which God the Father will

permit him to escape the cross. And then we get the request in

his own words, repeated in verse 36.

And he said, ABBA, Father, all things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me, yet. Not what I will, but what you

will. Note that Jesus begins by

acknowledging God's infinite power.

All things are possible for him. So again, Jesus is not asserting

His will over God's. Instead, he's asking if there is

any other way for the plan of salvation to be fulfilled

besides his going to the cross. That's why he speaks of the cup.

This cup in the Old Testament cup can have happy connotations

of celebration, joy, blessing. It can describe the measure of

joy and prosperity that God assigns to a person.

But it also frequently refers to God's wrath poured out in

judgement, a cup that makes people stagger.

Jesus is about to raise this cup to his lips, and he can already

anticipate how infinitely bitter it is going to taste.

So he asks if there's any way for him not to have to drink it.

Note that Jesus isn't giving up on being his people's savior.

He's not trying to contradict God's plan of salvation.

He's not saying big mistake here, let's call the whole thing

off. Instead, he's asking if there's

any other way for the same end to be achieved by different

means. What's the answer?

No, there is no other way. That's what God's silence

throughout the passage is going to show.

That's what Jesus rising to meet his hour in verse 41 is going to

show. If sinners are ever going to be

saved, the only way is through the sin bearing self sacrifice

of the Son of God. God did not have to decide to

save any of us. God would have been perfectly

just to condemn every human being to an eternity of torment

as judgement in hell. God is perfectly righteous, and

as much as our hearts resisted, as much as our minds rejected,

the penalty for our sin is infinite.

The punishment for our sin is infinite.

What we deserve from God is only to be rejected by Him,

condemned, punished, separated. God was under no obligation to

save anyone, and yet from all eternity, He freely chose to.

He freely purposed to because He's infinite in mercy.

He's rich in mercy. Given that God freely decided to

save an innumerable company of people from every tribe, tongue

and nation, how could that take place?

Was it kind of like there's a range of options here and you

could sort of go for, you know, like you're buying a car.

There's kind of like the, you know, there's the deluxe option

with all the fanciest technology and seats that warm and

whatever. And there's the kind of like

bottom dollar option, you know, where the door still opens and

shuts manually like it used to when I was a kid?

Is there a range of options laid out here that God could have

just picked and choose from to save people?

What our passage is teaching is that only the Incarnate Son of

God bearing the weight of God's wrath on the cross as a

substitute for His people, as a sacrifice for his people, only

Him giving his life in place of ours, only Him suffering the

death we deserved, only Him suffering the wrath we deserved.

That's it. That's the only way to be saved.

That's the only way God himself could accomplish your salvation.

Jesus himself received that news as the silent answer to his

prayer. Only one way to be saved.

So if someone says to you, aren't all religions basically

the same? Aren't they all trying to go to

the same place in the end? Gethsemane says there's only one

way. There's only one way to be

saved. There's only one God like this.

There's only one fully accurate diagnosis of our problem, that

it's our sin incurring God's wrath.

That is the most fundamental issue we all need to deal with.

And who is a God like this? Even if you say you believe in

one God, OK, And maybe it's shared in common with these

other religions. Who is the God who himself comes

to earth to bear the weight of his people's sin?

Who is the God who ordains his own self substitution for the

purpose of self sacrifice, so that all who trust in him would

be saved free and clear forever? No other religion claims that.

No other religion offers that. Only Jesus praying in the garden

and submitting to his Father's will, not my will, but yours, be

done. Not only that, but only Jesus

bore the wrath, drained the cup, submitted to death, and then

emerged out of death out the other side three days later

victorious. No other religion gives you

that. Only Jesus rose from the dead in

the middle of history to prove the truth of all He said, to

prove the worth of his sacrifice and offer you eternal life if

you will turn from sin and trust in Him.

Because Jesus drained the cup of wrath for you, by faith, you can

drink the cup of rejoicing with Him forever.

Because Jesus submitted to death for you by faith, you can have

eternal life with Him forever. Because Jesus suffered hell for

you by faith, the joys of heaven can be yours forever.

In Gethsemane, Christ suffered God's abandonment in an

anticipation of what he'd suffer on the cross.

What he faced in that garden is what you'll never face if you

trust in Him, because He faced it for you.

Not how Jesus addresses God in prayer as ABBA Father.

ABBA is the Aramaic word for Father.

It's a respectful form of address, but it's also uniquely

intimate. It was not a typical way for 1st

century Jews to pray. It's not that nobody prayed like

that, but it was distinctive of Jesus to pray like this so

often. Not a normal way for Jews to

pray, but it is how all who trust in Christ get to pray by

offering himself force on the cross.

Jesus made his Father our Father in Romans 815.

In Galatians 46, Paul preserves these exact words of Jesus, ABBA

Father as the prayer. Every Christian gets to pray.

Every Christian has intimate access to God in prayer.

Every Christian has the guarantee that God will hear and

answer our prayers. Why?

Because of the obedient sacrifice of Christ.

Because Christ submitted himself to God the Father in prayer.

Look again at the end of verse 36.

Yet not what I will, but what you will, not my will, but yours

be done. Jesus is God the Son Incarnate.

He remains truly God even after becoming truly human.

He possesses both the divine nature and a human nature.

This means he has both a divine will and a human will.

The human will naturally desires life.

Life is our natural good, our most basic good.

It is the good without which you don't have any other goods.

Even if part of you is so sad you wish you were dead, it's

because you would actually find that preferable to what you're

going through right now. To be a human being is to desire

and seek and preserve your own life.

Unless there's something higher, deeper, better you're willing to

put even above life itself, it's natural to preserve your own

life. It's supernatural to be willing

to lay down your life for the sake of some higher, greater

good. That's essentially what's going

on in Jesus prayer. As a human being, he sinlessly

fears death. He sinlessly shrinks from the

prospect of suffering God's wrath as a human being.

He naturally sinlessly asks to be spared from death.

And yet he also obediently submits that desire to something

higher. He submits his desire to live to

his desire to please the Father and fulfil the divine plan of

salvation. He submits his desire to live to

his desire to obey the Father. He submits his desire to live to

his desire to save you. When he says not what I will,

but what you will, he's saying if this is the only way that he

can save you, he'll do it. And it is, and he did.

It's also important to note that while God denied Jesus's request

that the cup would pass from him, there is a sense in which

he answered Jesus prayer. He did return an answer.

Jesus request was denied so that you and I would be saved.

Because he was denied life. We received it.

There's the answer. And yet also Jesus prayer was

answered both with the implicit divine instruction that he must

and will endure the cross, and by the fact that God raised him

from the dead afterward. Because Jesus's request was

denied. Blessings than anything you

could ever ask for are stored up for you in heaven.

And the new creation, God's know, was for the sake of an

infinitely greater yes. So in prayer, when you pray, ask

God for what you know is good. Ask God for what your heart

desires. Ask Him for natural and

spiritual blessings. And then trust that whenever he

says no, it's for the sake of an infinitely greater yes.

Submit to Him. Declare your desires, then

submit your desires, make your requests, and then submit your

request to God's will. Entrust your burdens, your

wants, your desperate yearnings to Him, and then trust that your

deepest and truest desires will all one day be more than

satisfied in the new creation. What can you do when you're

pushed past your breaking point? Spiritually speaking, the one

thing you can do is the one thing Jesus did Submit to God in

prayer. When you submit to God in

prayer, you learn by experience to patiently accept whatever God

sends You. Learn to approve what God

ordains you. Learn to bear up under sorrow

because you know God is the one sending it.

You learn to stay afloat when all God's Breakers and waves

crash over you, because you know God is the one sending them.

You learn to sit still, to quiet your heart, to wait for God.

You learn to long for God more than you long for anything else

that God may or may not give you.

Whenever sorrow pushes you past your breaking point, pray until

you can say from the bottom of your heart, yet not what I will,

but what you will. That is how Jesus passed His

greatest test yet, and He did it all for you.

And that is how you can pass whatever tests the Lord ordains

for you. It's the only way.

Which is why when Jesus returns to his disciples, he gives them

.3 the warning, the warning, verses 37 and 38.

As I mentioned, our passage has three cycles of Jesus retreating

to pray and then returning to his disciples.

We've just seen the first retreat.

Here's the first return. Start with verse 37.

And he came and found them sleeping.

And he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep?

Could you not watch one hour? Jesus pauses his prayer and

returns to his disciples. Because he is motivated by care

for their souls. He comes to them with sharp

words, but all those sharp words are motivated by love.

Even in his hour of greatest weakness and need, Jesus is

going to show his disciples how they can get the spiritual

strength they so desperately need.

Simon begins by questioning Peter.

Simon, are you asleep? This is like God asking Adam in

the Garden of Eden. Adam, where are you?

God knows, but he wants Adam to answer for it.

Jesus knows and He wants Peter to answer for it.

He knows Peter has failed. Jesus question is not for the

sake of his own information. Jesus question is meant to

reveal Peter to Peter. So Jesus here rebukes Peter for

falling asleep, but he's also addressing the other two.

The imperatives Jesus going to issue in verse 38 are both in

the plural. He's talking to all three and so

he exhorts them. Watch and pray that you may not

enter into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing,

but the flesh is weak. That phrase at the end there

gives a reason for why the disciples need to watch and

pray. It's because they are a mess of

contradictions. Some spiritual part of them

wants to obey Jesus and be like Jesus and be present for Jesus

in his hour of greatest need. But another part of them is

weak, not just physically weak. Jesus is not just warning them

that if you eat a big dinner, you're going to be tired

afterward and drowsy. It goes much deeper.

He's he's Speaking of both physical and spiritual weakness.

And so often our physical weaknesses prey on and exploit

spiritual weakness, and vice versa.

We can't neatly separate the spiritual and physical in us.

Both aspects are weak. Both are prone to failure.

The better you know yourself, the better you will know your

own weakness. The better you know yourself,

the better you will understand just how little it takes to push

you past your breaking point. So what's the solution for a

willing spirit but weak flesh? Where can you get the strength

you need? Only from God and only in

prayer. Prayer is how human weakness.

Turns into divine strength. Prayer is how God pours his

omnipotence into your feeble flesh.

The only adequate solution for your weakness is God's strength,

and the only way to get that strength is through prayer.

So Jesus says, watch and pray that you may not enter into

temptation. What temptation?

Well, of course Jesus teaching is true in general.

This is one of the key dynamics of the Christian life.

Being watchful in prayer is how we refuse to let temptation suck

us in and take us captive. But Jesus also has something

specific in mind. In the last passage we studied

last week at the Last Supper, Jesus has just predicted his

death and their desertion. When he is put on trial and then

crucified, his disciples are going to flee from him in an

attempt to save their own hides. Jesus is going to suffer the end

time judgement in his own person.

When he does, it's as if the end time tribulation is going to

come looking for his disciples, hunting them down 1 by 1.

When Jesus undergoes his final Test, his disciples will be

tested like they've never been tested before, and they will

fail. But here in verse 38, Jesus is

teaching them ahead of time. This is how you can pass the

coming test. This is how you can endure the

coming trial. This is how you can escape from

the coming temptation. He's showing them the way to the

life raft. He's showing them the means by

which God is ready and willing and able to deliver them from

their temptation. But they have to make use of

those means. Prayer is how you enter the

lifeboat that delivers you from the shipwreck of temptation.

In the garden, Jesus prays and perseveres.

If the disciples do what Jesus did, they will have spiritual

strength to endure. But he prays and they sleep.

He endures, they fail and flee. Watch and pray that you may not

enter into temptation. One of the great effects of

prayer is that it changes you in the very moment.

If you're weak, pray until you get new strength.

If you're discouraged, pray until God shines some ray of

encouragement into your soul. Try praying through a Psalm.

You might find that the darkness a Psalm often begins with

resonates with where you're at right now.

Keep reading through the Psalm. Keep praying through the Psalm

until the hope that arises in the Psalm resonates with your

soul just as much. If you're doubting, pray until

God strengthens your faith. If you're overwhelmed with

sorrow, pray until God lifts at least some of the weight from

your soul and replaces it with a sense of His presence and His

peace. Watch and pray that you may not

enter into temptation if you are in a prosperous, relatively easy

season. You need to solidify habits of

private prayer now. You need to make private prayer

a load bearing part of your life now.

You need a solid structure of private prayer in place so that

you can keep at it when God unexpectedly adds some 20 ton

trial. Pray now.

You're going to need to pray later.

Why should you devote yourself to private prayer?

To confess your sin, to receive God's strength and place of your

weakness, to pour out your soul to your loving Heavenly Father

whose ear is always open to you, and to have communion with the

God who loves you and who is saving you.

The more spiritually mature you are, the more spending time with

God alone will be like spending time with a close friend.

Do you yearn to be with God through meditating on His word

and praying? Do you want to be with Him like

you want to be with an intimate friend who you don't get to see

enough? Ellen Lakshmi Gora was born in

India in 1853. After her mother died when she

was an infant, she was adopted by English missionaries.

She was raised in England, and when she was an adult, she

returned to India as a Christian missionary.

She wrote many poems that got used later as hymns.

One of them is a poem about communion with God, which she

titled My Refuge. It's become known as a hymn with

the title In the Secret of His Presence.

Sandra McCracken recorded a beautiful version of it 20 years

ago that holds up well. Here's the first verse in

Mccracken's version in the Secret of His Presence.

How my soul delights to hide. Oh, how precious are the lessons

which I learned at Jesus side. Earthly cares forever vex me

while my trials lay me low. But when Satan comes to tempt me

to that secret place I go. How can you endure when God

pushes you past your breaking point?

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.

Go to the secret place with your savior.

Stay there, wait there. Jesus prayed 3 times.

You can manage that too. Keep praying even when it seems

like God isn't listening .4 The silence, the silence.

That's what we see in verses 39 to 40.

These two final points will be brief because Mark's narrative

moves much more quickly after. As I've mentioned, the first 3

verses set the scene. We have these three cycles of

Jesus retreating and returning. Here's the second one.

Mark goes much more quickly here.

And in this second cycle of retreat and return, the dominant

note is silence, verses 39 and 40.

And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.

And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were

very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him.

In terms of what Jesus did. All we know is that he prayed

the same thing, made the same request.

He apparently received no immediate answer the first time,

so he tried again. Prayer #2 Still no answer in the

face of the desperate request of God the Son.

Heaven remains silent. And then Jesus returns to the

disciples and finds them sleeping again.

They're failure #2 and note that they're also silent.

They did not know what to answer Him.

They have no good reason for their failure.

No excuse to offer. This is precisely what Jesus

warned him against back at the end of chapter 13 when he's

talking about his personal return.

Verses 35 and 36 Jesus says therefore stay awake, for you do

not know when the master of the house will come in the evening

or at midnight, or when the rooster crows are in the

morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.

Jesus is teaching that He himself will return personally

at a time none of us know, so we as Christians need to stay awake

at all times. The only way to do that is

through persistent prayer. Jesus return to his disciples in

the garden is a preview of his final return.

He found them asleep. Will he find you asleep?

If he does, there will be no excuse.

You can offer him in that hour. If you're not a believer in

Jesus, what reasons would you give for not believing in Him?

Are you confident those are really reasons, or are they more

like excuses? When you start to realize the

poverty of your excuses, you're a huge step closer to receiving

the riches of Christ. So the disciples failed Jesus

again. What should you do when you fail

Jesus? Repent.

Confess your sins. Receive his forgiveness again.

Trust in the fullness of his sacrifice in prayer.

Seek from Him the strength He supplies for renewed obedience

in prayer. Seek a fresh resolve to obey Him

no matter what it costs you. Which brings us to the last two

verses. Our final points .5.

The resolve. The resolve.

In verses 41 to 42, we see that as a result of His submissive

prayer, Jesus rises to meet his fate with perfect renewed

resolve. Look at those two verses 41 and

42. And he came the third time and

said to them, Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?

It is enough. The hour has come.

The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.

Notice that this implies a third cycle of retreating to pray and

return, but Mark doesn't explicitly mention the prayer.

Jesus prays again, but they're not.

There's no answer. Or rather, Jesus knows the

answer. The answer is that the cross is

the only way to save his people. The answer is that he must drink

the cup. His circumstances haven't

changed. His path ahead hasn't changed.

But he has. He now rises from prayer,

resolved to meet his fate and fulfill his mission, as Calvin

put it. By these words, he declares that

after having prayed, he was furnished with new strength.

When Jesus says it is enough, he's saying that the time

allotted for the disciples test is over.

Time's up. Pencils down.

Pass your blue books to the front.

Whatever is in that packet is what you will be graded on.

What grade will the disciples get A zero?

An F? They failed to pray and so they

failed Jesus, which also means they're going to fail the test.

It's coming, but not Jesus. Jesus sees his betrayer coming

and rises to meet him. Jesus sees his betrayer coming

and tells the disciples to get up with him.

I'm going, you come with me. Jesus is resolved.

Note that in verse 35 Jesus asks that the hour pass from him, and

here in verse 41 he says the hour has come.

The hour came and the man came who could meet the hour?

The only man who could meet the hour came, and part of what

enabled him to meet the hour was that prayer he just prayed.

Jesus didn't receive from God the answer he sought, but he did

receive the strength he needed. Jesus will now endure being

handed over to death. He will be delivered into the

hands of sinners, and he will become sin for us.

He will become a curse for us. He will take God's judgement on

himself and exhaust it. Jesus prayed until he was

resolved to submit to all that God ordained for him.

So you pray until you're resolved to submit to all that

God ordains for you more often than any of us would like.

What God ordains is that you be pushed beyond your limits.

God knows where your breaking point is.

He knows that better than you do.

And in his mysterious sovereign wisdom, he decides where and

when and how to push you over that line.

He knows what it'll take to break you, and in His wisdom

there are times when He ordains that you be broken.

But the breaking you have to endure is very different from

the breaking that Christ endured on the cross in the garden.

And on the cross, Christ was broken by divine wrath.

It was the weight of divine judgement that threatened to

break his soul and that would break his body.

But what breaks you if you're in Christ?

It's only God's design to sanctify you.

It's only God's intent to conform you to the character of

Christ. It's only God's purpose to

prepare for you an eternal weight of glory beyond all

comparison. What is God doing you doing when

He pushes you past your breaking point?

He's teaching you to submit to Him in prayer.

He's teaching you to be able to say from the bottom of your soul

what air my God ordains is right.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you

for your grace. We praise you for the wisdom of

your plan of salvation. We praise you for enabling your

Son to endure drinking the cup for us.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen.