April 6, 2025 "The War of the Ages: Jesus' Final Instructions"

Music.

Thank you, Ben. So last week we started a new series in our lead up to Easter,

and it's titled The War of the Ages.

I'm going to start these things here. Here's some notes or just something you may want to look at.

We're not listening to go over all of it, but as it's getting handed around,

Jesus gave some last-minute instructions.

He gave some last-minute instructions to his disciples. Right before he was

the Lord, he had the first Lord's Supper, and then he went and he prayed.

And that's what we're going to look at today is his Christ's last minute instructions.

So on the back of this sheet here, you have, it's kind of a small writing,

but the three different passages we'll be looking at.

Luke chapter 22, verse 39.

Luke 22:39

He went out. This is right after he had, Judas had already left here.

He said, Judas is going to, or there's going to be one of you that's going to betray me.

And so Judas left. The disciples were still clueless about what Judas was about to do.

So this is that time window between that, between the Last Supper and Christ

being taken by the Jewish leadership.

So he went to the Mount of Olives, which was a regular place he went to, verse 39 of Luke.

He went out and made his way, as usual, to the Mount of Olives.

And the disciples followed him.

And when he reached the place, he told them, pray that you may not fall into temptation.

Then he withdrew about a stone throws away. he knelt down and began to pray.

He says, Father, if you are willing to take this cup away from me.

Nevertheless, it's not my will, but it's yours, be done.

Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthening him.

And being in anguish, he prayed again, more fervently this time.

And his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.

And when he got up from prayer and came to his disciples, he found them sleeping,

exhausted from their grief.

And he asked the question, why are you sleeping? He asked, get up and pray so

that you won't fall in a temptation.

Then we have the next passage in Luke or in Mark. And of course,

it's not going to click for me.

Let's try it here. Christian, can you just bounce the next one? Thanks.

In verse 33, then they came to a place named Gethsemane.

They told his disciples, sit here while I pray.

And we find out who he took with him. He took Peter, James, and John with him.

And he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. And he said to them,

I am deeply grieved to the point of death.

He says, remain here and stay awake. He went a little bit further and fell to

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

And he said, Abba, Father, or it's a very personal name.

It would be like Jack and Lyle or Tinley saying, Daddy, Dad, Dad, or Dada.

It's very personal. He says, if it's possible, all things are possible for you.

Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but you will.

And then he came and found them sleeping

and he said to peter simon are

you sleeping couldn't you stay awake an

hour stay awake and pray that

you won't enter into temptation the spirit

is willing but the flesh the flesh is

weak and once again he went away and prayed and said the same thing and again

he came and found them sleeping because they could not keep their eyes open

they did not know what to say to him they came a third time and said to them

are you sleeping and resting.

He says enough the time has come see the son of man is betrayed and exactly

why this was happening judas was coming he was handed into the the hand of sinners

he says get up get up let's go he says my betrayer is near.

Jesus, I pray as we dive into your word and we look at these three different

points of view of this event,

God, I pray that we would get past the narrative of it, that we would get past

the story, but we would understand exactly what your last instructions were

and what you were going through in the example that you showed us.

Jesus, we pray for your Holy Spirit to make your word come alive.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen In the last, Matthew chapter 26 Then Jesus said to them Tonight,

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

all of you will fall away because of me,

So he is remembering and bringing back to their memory A passage that was prophesied

back in Zechariah It says, I will strike the shepherd And the sheep of the flock will be scattered,

but after I have risen, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.

And Peter told him, even if everyone, even if everyone falls away because of

you, I will never fall away.

And Jesus said, truly, I say to you, Jesus said to him tonight,

before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.

Then Jesus came with them into a place called Gethsemane.

And he told his disciples sit here go

while i go over there and

pray taking along peter and the two sons of zebedee he began to be sorrowful

and troubled he said to them again i am deeply grieved to the point of death

remain here and stay awake with me.

From a little bit farther on, he's crying out again to my, he said,

my father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me.

Yet not as I will, but as you will.

And then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping again.

So you couldn't stay awake even with me for an hour.

Stay awake and pray so that you won't enter into temptation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh, the flesh is weak.

And the second time he went and prayed, my father, if it's possible,

let this cut pass from me.

But again, it's your will be done. Verse 43, and he came again and found them

sleeping because they could not keep their eyes open.

And after leaving them, he went away again and prayed a third time,

saying the same thing once more.

Then he came to the disciples and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting?

See, the time is near. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up.

On the sheet you have in front of you, this also includes the Gospel of John's

lineup to what's happening here.

But on the back side with the verses, you can see where each of the authors

here records what God led him to write.

But I want to go back here and really focus on this last minute instructions.

You see, Jesus, as you study through the Gospels, and you study through all

of his ministry with his disciples, he is telling them, look,

and he's been praying for them over and over and over again.

And he's having these conversations with God. He says, God, I want,

you've given me these disciples, you've given these, and I've been praying for

them. and I have kept them from the evil one.

But now he is going to be dying. They still don't understand it.

They still don't realize.

They're thinking, they really just don't understand exactly what's about to unfold.

And so Jesus now takes him out and we see here this pattern.

What does the scripture tell us? It tells us that this was a regular place.

Judas knew exactly where he was going. Judas had already left, but Jesus had a pattern.

This is where he would go. So he would go to these olive groves,

where these olive trees are, and he would pray.

This was his place where he would go and pray.

And so Jesus is praying and he bears his heart to three of his disciples and

he tells them, look, look.

My heart is so grieved. And he uses this hyperbolic, this way of saying it.

He says, almost to the point of death.

I feel like I'm almost to the point of death.

And he says, I'm so grieved. My heart is so grieved.

He says, sit here. The word here, stay awake, stay alert, be aware.

And it's the interesting thing here in the Greek because it's an intense word.

Because Jesus is saying not just a phrase, but he's actually giving a command.

So he's saying, look, you guys, you need to pray and not just pray,

but you need to stay alert.

I mean, just stay awake. You need to awake and be alert and be on guard.

That's the idea here is you need to be on guard. He's warning them about their

weakness of their flesh. He knows what's about to happen.

He knows that he's about to die at the cross, and he knows that he's about to

be resurrected back into heaven, and they're going to be alone.

This is his last bit of instruction before he sees him after the resurrection.

So he's telling them, look, you're all going to be scattered.

It's not just Peter. Peter's got a bigger mouth than the rest of you,

but all of you are going to leave.

You're all going to leave me. You're going to desert me. I'm going to be all

alone because God, in his perfect wisdom, already prophesied that this is going to happen.

And I'm fulfilling that. So all of you are going to desert me.

You're all going to desert me, and here I'm going to be left alone.

But before that happens, he goes and he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane,

and he gets on his knees, and he lays his face to the ground,

and he cries out to his God. He cries out to his Father.

He already has been having this relationship with his Father,

and he cries out with deep emotion over and over again.

God, I know this is a plan. I know this is a plan.

For redemption. But if there's a way for this cup of suffering,

this suffering that I'm about to take place, if there's a way for that to pass, please let it happen.

If there's some way that you can just pass this, but it's not my will.

I'm going to submit to you.

And he comes back and he finds them sleeping and he gets on them and he goes

back and prays again even more.

He says, Abba, Father, Dad, Daddy, please, if it's just possible,

please don't let this, if it's possible.

But not what I want. It's what you want.

And he comes back and he sees that. He tells him, look, your spirit is willing.

Your spirit wants to. Your spirit, you want to continue on.

It's fervent. It's eager. but your flesh is weak you're weak you're frail i

know you're weak i know you're frail but you still have to stay awake you still

have to stay alert because the evil one is coming.

And he goes back and prays again and prays the same thing father if it's possible

let this pass from me and he comes back and finds them all sleeping again and

at this point he can see Judas coming.

Judas is coming. He's got his betrayers.

He's got his people with him, and they're coming to take him.

As we look at these words that are being used, we see one, a pattern that Jesus

is using, one that he is going to the Father on a regular basis.

He's going on a regular basis, and he has this intimate relationship with God.

Sometimes people have this idea that prayer has to be this thing you do in church

and it's, you know, it's done with fancy words and all of this stuff. It's not.

Prayer is talking to your heavenly father. If you are a follower of Christ,

if you have been born again.

Then you are a child of God now and you have this access that other people don't have. of.

If you've made Jesus Lord of your life and you've confessed your sin and you've

asked for forgiveness and you've asked Jesus to rebirth you into his family,

God says that now you have this access to Jesus that others don't have.

And he tells us now, look, you need to be aware, just as I have been doing this,

I have been spending time with my father, and I have to pray. I have to pray.

The idea here behind all these words as it is weaved through these three accounts

of the gospels is that Jesus recognized that he could not do things apart from God.

And he is telling his disciples, look, you must find your strength from me,

not from your flesh you must find

your strength from me your flesh

is weak you're already tired out and already sleeping you must and you must

be alert you must stay awake and it's not an ask it's a command so Jesus is

saying here I command you to do this to stay alert,

stay awake he's warning them.

I was thinking this morning what Christ may have been thinking in his heart and mind.

And you see this pattern that he talks about throughout the gospels that Jesus

talks about that, how he has kept his disciples from the evil one.

And he tells them what's about to come. The Holy Spirit's about to come.

The comfort is about to come. He's going to help you.

But he's warning them, look, I can't be with you anymore. I can't fight the fight for you anymore.

You guys are going to have to man up. You are going to have to man up and get

on your knees and realize that your flesh is weak.

You can't do it alone. You have to get on your knees. You have to pray.

You have to reach out to God. You have to ask things in my name and I will listen

to you and I will give these things to you. You have to do this.

And he's giving them this command. This is what you are to do.

So Jesus' last instructions are this Is that we are to pray His instructions

are we are to go before God And realize that our flesh is weak.

We cannot survive alone Ben

can't survive alone He's got to do it with God Christine can't survive alone

She has to do it with God Gretchen this week as she was praying Just last week

we were praying for Jake week and there was a nervousness that this appointment

was coming this week and the cancer could be there.

And anyone hears that word cancer, that's a freaky thing.

God met Gretchen and Jake in their moment, and smaller, and maybe stage one, or maybe nothing.

You and I have life that's going to happen every day, and our flesh is going to be weakened.

Jesus is telling us, look, Sheldon, look, Dominic, look, Abel,

look, Zach, you cannot survive alone on your own. You can't shoulder life by yourself.

You idiots. You cannot shoulder us, and I'm talking to myself here.

I can't shoulder life on myself.

But so often, that's what I do, my default mode, until I can't handle it anymore.

And then I have to give it over to God.

Well, that's moronic, right? That's stupid.

When Jesus is telling me that I should stay awake and alert because the evil

one is going to attack like we talked about last week, he's unrelenting,

he's never going to stop.

Then how do we combat that? We combat that with God's word, we combat that with

time with him, and we combat that in prayer.

We have to pray. And that prayer there that Jesus is talking about,

there's this word that's being used here, this praying.

It's going to God, talking to

God, asking God, and here's the cool thing that's used here in this word.

The idea is that you pray for your own benefit.

He's not talking about money. He's not talking about what you can get from God,

but he's literally saying, look, your flesh is weak.

So you need to pray for your own benefit, that you can actually survive these

trials, that you can actually survive, that you can, you can be sustained.

You need to pray for your own personal benefit. It's not a wrong thing to do

to pray for yourself, if you're always praying for everybody else and not yourself, you're missing out.

Tells us to always be interceding. We're supposed to be actually interceding

for ourselves, asking God for ourselves.

So when Leah is feeling overwhelmed, when Judy is feeling overwhelmed with life

and she's concerned about her sisters and her travels,

she needs to go to God and say, God, I have no control over my sister and where

she's at, but just I pray you'd keep her safe.

And those are great in interceding, but Judy can pray for herself.

God, as I look at your word, I pray that I would understand your word more and

more, that I can apply it even in my life right now.

Even though I know all these things about you, I want a little more.

When Paul talks to God, he prays for his grandsons.

He prays, God, I pray for these grandsons. But before he does that,

Paul asks God, please, God, help me.

Let me take your word. Let me apply it to my life.

When Zach is there going back and forth to work, and he's listening to God's

word and he's listening to messages.

He prays and says, God, please let me apply what I'm learning to my everyday

life that I might give you everything.

And this new position he's got that it's as the foreman thing that God could use that.

But again, Zach can't hold it on his own shoulders. I cannot hold things on

my own shoulders because our shoulders are dust.

Dusty's shoulders are dust. Daryl's shoulders are really dusty, right?

Our shoulders are dust and we can't handle them ourselves.

So God gives us, Jesus gives us this command.

We see all these different things that go through, is going on.

He finds him sleeping. He tells him, you need to pray. You need to pray.

You need to pray. You need to pray.

I'm about to go into the war of the ages.

That's what he's about to do. He is about to go into the war of the ages because

the evil one wants Jesus to fail.

The evil one wanted Jesus to fail. The evil one wanted all of humanity to be

there with him in his cursed way.

And Jesus is about to enter into that. And what does he do? He's praying.

He's going to his father.

So our last minute instructions are, stay awake, alert. We're to pray for our own benefit.

We pray this because the spirit, our spirit, it's eager.

We're flesh, we're weak. God says because of that, we are to pray now and pray

always. That's the word that's used. It's not just a one-time deal.

It's not just Dusty praying for his son when he's not sure what's going to happen.

Not just once. It's not Holly just crying out to God, God, please help me in

this situation or whatever it is.

It's not a one-time thing. The idea here is God is saying, that Jesus is saying

is, look, you need to pray now and you continually pray.

We are never meant to hold life on our own shoulders.

And you're an idiot and I'm an idiot if we think we can.

We are never meant to hold it on our own shoulders. The reality is people look

at Christians and they think they got their crap all together and they look

so nice and tidy and they think they're perfect and they think there's nothing wrong with them.

The reality is, past that facade, everyone's a giant mess.

No matter how together we all look,

no matter how long people have been believers, we're all a giant mess.

We're actually honest with ourselves and God. God knows what a mess you are.

God knows how you doubt. God knows all of these things.

Lift the pride. Get rid of the stupid

pride, because it's Keeping you from digging deeper into who God is.

And realize, look, stop shouldering life yourself.

Stop acting like you have it all figured out. But come to me.

You know what? Because I am right there.

I am right there. I have not gone anywhere. And we have to cry out to God.

Jesus, I pray. I pray for my friends today. God first I pray That one They wouldn't

just be friends But they would be siblings in you.

Jesus, my heart's desire is that everyone in this room would be a co-heir,

a co-sibling into eternity.

But only they and you know that. So Jesus, if by some reason,

one of my friends here is just struggling and they've never made you Lord,

they've never put their faith and trust in you and they're trying to shoulder

life all by themselves or they're afraid of the fear, or whatever the evil one

is trying to do, do this, I pray the blood of Jesus over them.

We confess you as Lord over their mind and their heart, God,

that they would realize that they need you and you alone.

Not what they can do for you.

So Jesus, I pray they would not just be a friend, but they would be a co-believer,

a co-child of God, a sister or a brother.

And God, if they don't know you, I pray that they would come to me,

come to Ben, come to Dusty or someone else and just be real.

And then God, I pray for my sisters and brothers. And they came in these doors today, beaten down.

The evil one is not stopped all week and has been one thing after another.

And they come weighed down.

Jesus, I pray that you would show yourself real in their life.

And not just real, Jesus, I pray that you would help my sisters and my brothers

to realize that we cannot shoulder life by ourselves, but we must release it to you,

and we must pray, and we must stay alert.

God, I pray that you would awaken our minds where we are depending on our flesh.

Jesus, please awaken our hearts and minds where we are depending on us instead of you.

Jesus, I pray that for your Holy Spirit. Only your Holy Spirit can show that

to my brothers and sisters today and to me.

Jesus, please show me where I am depending on Sheldman instead of on you.

Jesus, I pray for my sisters and brothers to say that we would see something

this week where we are putting the trust in ourselves and on you.

Pray for the attacks that are going to continue to happen from the evil one.

God, I pray that we would find our source in you, and that we'd be daily in

your word, daily crying out to you.

Jesus, we thank you for what you are about to do here and what you did for us

and you went through for us on the cross to make a way.

You battled the evil one on our behalf.

And as that song we're about to sing says, Jesus, that the battle was yours

and the blessing was ours.

We get the rewards from the battle that you were just about to go through.

So Jesus, again, I pray for someone maybe that's just searching.

I pray that they would not be ashamed to ask.

I pray for my sister and brother, that they would stop, depending on self,

Jesus, but depending on you,

that you would amp up all of our prayer lives, that we would cry out to you,

and that we would pray for everything.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Let's stand and sing a song we've learned, The Battle and the Blessing.

Ron, will you close in the purse, sir? I'm my partner. We love you.

Thank you for the sunshine outside. We thank you for the light of your word.

Here, we thank you for the Bible, for what the miracle of it is.

We thank you for Josh and his ministry here to this body, for his words is mine,

and your word to us, this man.

One, he needs you. Like I saw in the cellarier, he needs you.

And, boy, how is it he in the word? How is it he? The prayer.

The union and fellowship with ye for our days, and should live in your strength and our way.

In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Have a great week.

Music.