If you would now turn to your scriptures as we are making our way through the Gospel of Luke, we're in Luke chapter 22 we're going to be looking at verses 39 through 46 this morning. Luke, 22 being in verse 39 reading the verse 46 let's go to the Lord in prayer. Let's pray, Father, we thank You that You've given us your word, that you are not silent, and that you speak to us, Lord, I pray that you will give us eyes to see Jesus this morning, to behold Him, to love Him, to hold fast to him. Lord, be merciful to your people. As we come to your word. Give us your spirit, as we just said that we believe in the Holy Spirit. And Lord, we need your spirit here to work in our hearts, lest we are here in vain, and it's in Jesus's name we pray. Amen, people of God hear God's word for you this morning from the Gospel of Luke beginning in verse 39 and he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives.
And the disciples followed Him.
And when he came to the place, he said to them, pray that you may not enter in the temptation.
And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him, and being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to his disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
He who has ears, let him hear the Word of God. Please be seated. You.
Polycarp was a man that lived in the year 69 to 155 he was a disciple of John the Apostle, and Polycarp was arrested for his faith in Christ and soldier.
When soldiers came to his door to arrest him because of his love for Christ, he said, God's will be done, they told Polycarp after they arrested him, if you revile Christ, if you will forsake Christ, we will let you go. And he answered, for 80 and six years, I have been his servant, and he has done me no wrong. And how can I now blaspheme my king who saved me?
They threatened then Polycarp with fire, we will put you to death unless you forsake the LORD Jesus Christ. And he said in response, you threaten me with a fire that burns an hour and is soon quenched. So you know what happened to Polycarp.
They stripped him of his clothes, they bound him and they lit him on fire, and in the year 155 he was burned to death for his faith in Christ. Have you ever thought about how you might respond if you were put in a situation like Polycarp? Would God grant me such grace to be as courageous as he was for what I whimper in our text today, we get a look at the inner thoughts and the emotions of our Lord Jesus Christ, as death is facing him, and this is one reason why I love the Psalms so much. We're not looking at the Psalms, but the psalms are getting at the heart of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and they, they help us to know his inner thoughts and his inner wrestlings. And the Gospels they they tell us about the life and the words of Jesus, but here in our text, we actually are, in the gospels, are getting an inner fault and inner emotions of Our Lord as He is facing death, he's weighed down with anguish. And I think that's one of the questions I want you to ask yourself, and I hope that we will answer it. But why is Jesus crying out in distress? Why isn't Jesus going courageously like Polycarp and even other martyrs? What's happening here to Jesus that it even seems like Jesus is. Jesus is wrestling, and Jesus is in anguish and even terror. A hint for you, I won't give you the full answer now, it's just so you stay awake, but Jesus is facing something that you and I, who are in Christ, will never have to face in death. And it's because of what Jesus faces here in our text that you and I can live and die in comfort and in peace. We first see in our text the separation of our Lord Jesus Christ in verse 39 he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed Him. So if you remember, he came out of the room from which he instituted the Lord's Supper. He put himself on the table. The last Passover, the Passover lamb, is now there he instituted the Lord's Supper. And remember what happens immediately following the supper, as Jesus is laying himself out, arguing, who's greatest? I'm better, you're no, I'm better. Then he also foretells of Peter's denial. And now in our text, he goes to the Mount of Olives, and he's going to pray. He's going to be alone with his father. And this was Jesus's custom, going to the Mount of Olives, and certainly going to pray, was his custom.
And wouldn't that be wonderful if that could be said about all of us, you know, so and so. What are they known for? Well, they're custom they pray. Well, that was known about Jesus. He was a man of much prayer, and it was his custom to pray. And so much so that Judas knows that Jesus is a man of prayer, and one of his favorite places to pray is the Mount of Olives, and Judas knows this is exactly where he can find Jesus, apart from the crowds, so that the the chief priests and the scribes, they can come and arrest him.
And Jesus is also aware that this is where Judas will betray Him. But Jesus doesn't deter he isn't detoured. He goes, as was his custom, to the place where he liked to pray and to be in fellowship with God, knowing that this will be the place. He is betrayed, and he is then captured and taken to the cross.
And he goes, he knows he's about to be betrayed, he knows that he's about to be crucified, and he knows that he's about to die.
And what does Jesus do? Pray.
Have you ever thought about if only I this scenario, if you only had 24 hours to live, what would you do? How would you spend that time? You know, sometimes I ask people that question, and the typical answers are, I would eat whatever I wanted to eat. You know, I, you know, I've been trying to not cut back on the ice cream. I'm gonna eat a whole lot of ice cream. Often you'll hear, you know, I would want to spend time with my loved ones, with family, with friends, those who are most meaningful to me.
But I think maybe not many of us would say I would spend most of the time in prayer, and that's what Jesus does because he spends that time with the One who is most important to him, the relationship that is most crucial to him, the one that he loves the most, that is his father, and he prays and in times of distress or misery, I think we follow Jesus As an example here that the first friend we ought to ring, the first friend we ought to call, is God. The first message we should send out in times of distress should be a heavenward message. And if Jesus needs communion with his father in times of trouble, again, how much more should we James Five, Verse 13 tells us, is anyone among you suffering? Are you suffering? Is anyone among us suffering? What does James say?
Let them pray. Let us pray. The night before Jesus is crucifying, he kneels down to pray, and he kneels, I don't think so much out of reverence, though he honors his his God, the Father He is as the second person of the Trinity, submitting himself to the will of his Father. But I think he.
Kneeling here out of exhaustion, out of sorrow, a reminder of of his humanity, that he is the God man, that at this point in the garden, the weight of the cross and the weight of purchasing your redemption is being pressed down upon him at this time, also at this time, Jesus desires friendship. He desires companionship. He desires fellowship. In his time of need.
Have you ever gone through a time of anguish or pain or despair, you had to do it alone?
Well, it's 1000 times harder.
How much better is it if you have a community and people around you, supporting you, praying for you, and you know it. And he asked his disciples, here, would you be in prayer with me? But they don't. The disciples don't support him, as we know, Peter will deny him.
The disciples will then flee from him, and Jesus will go it alone. He will go it separate from everyone else. And I think what we have here in the garden is a partial fulfillment of what's happening on the Day of Atonement. Back in the old testament, on the Day of Atonement, there was different sacrifices and things that occurred, but one of them was that there would be a scapegoat, and the high priest would lay his hands on the scapegoat, and at that time, it was a picture of transferring all of the sins of the people onto that goat, and that goat would then be left out in the wilderness, go out into the wilderness alone, to die. And if you're an Israelite, you want that goat to die because it represents all of your sins. And that's what's happening here. The weight of your sin is being pressed upon Christ, and he's being sent out alone.
No one is coming with him. When it comes to accomplishing your salvation, the disciples or anyone else, and not even yourself, have the slightest to help. Christ will go forward alone from here, and he will save you alone. Not only is he separate, he is your substitution. He said, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me again, him mentioning father. We sometimes take this for granted, because we so often pray in this way, as Jesus taught us to pray, but recognizing the special relationship that Christ had with his father from all of eternity, that he calls him father, he says, if you are willing, he is laying out his heart's desire. And this is prayer us going to our father, offering our hearts desire to him, and that's what he's doing here. And he says, remove this cup. Well, what is the cup?
Well, if you've been here, you've probably already know what Jesus is talking about because Jesus has already talked about another cup in this chapter. If you remember, when he instituted the Lord's Supper, he gave his disciples a cup, and that cup was the cup of blessing, as Paul says, the cup of blessing that we bless. It's the the new covenant in his blood that is blessing for you, that when you hold it, it's a cup of blessing to His disciples who don't deserve it, and He blesses them, and He blesses them, and He blesses them. But in the garden, Jesus has a different cup put in front of him. It's a cup of God's judgment and wrath on sin, not Jesus's sin. No, he's perfect, Tempted in all ways that we are, yet without sin. Sin, it's your sin and my sin, and Jesus has placed before him a cup filled with all the sins of all of his people. And sins deserve judgment. The wages of sin is death. And the weight of every sin ever done, that you and I have ever done, has been placed in this cup, and it is placed before Jesus in the garden, and the father says, drink all of it to the last drop, you and only you, if you remember, back in the Garden of Eden Adam was told you can eat of all the trees of the garden except one. But what's happening here? The Father is saying there is only one tree that you will eat from you. It's a bitter tree, it's a cursed tree, but that's the tree you are going to go to, and it will be painful. It will be anguish. It will be hell. You remember in the book of Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, remember those guys?
Remember they are brought to the furnace for worshiping God, and the furnaces, we're told is made seven times hotter than it had ever been made, and so hot that men coming near the furnace are dying by its heat. It's heat radiating but times that furnace by a million, and you have not even come close to the furnace of God's judgment on sin. And at this moment, Jesus is peering into that fiery furnace before casting himself into it. He is bearing a weight here in our text. He is bearing a weight of suffering and of judgment that you and I can never imagine. And so the question that I asked even at the beginning is, what should cause Jesus, who has been fearless in the face of danger, Jesus that the way he interacts with the Pharisees and scribes, he he is fearless. People come to take his life, and he is fearless. What should cause Jesus to now tremble and be in bitter agony God's righteous hatred and wrath against sin as it's imputed to Him, imputed that is, it's something given to him, that is you and my sin is is being weighed and credited to his account, and it is weighing him down with great anguish, as Isaiah says, But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. We should also learn in this text to the sinfulness of sin, to look at this text and be reminded that this is what our sins deserve, that our sins lead the Son of God, Son of man, to sweat great drops of blood, to be in such anguish and pain, Jesus is not just in agony thinking about the physical pain, but facing the wages of sin as he is becoming now the Lamb of God. And the the wages of sin is death. And again, it's not just physical death, but spiritual death, and spiritual death is being utterly forsaken by God. Some verses for us that I think, summarize well what is happening in this text. Second Corinthians, 521, for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Galatians, 315, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. ISAIAH, 53, six, all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. This is what's happening in verse. 44 and he began to be in agony as he prayed, even as he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
Again, it was your guilt and my guilt, your shame, my shame, that made even the eternal Son of God to sweat great drops of blood and cry out in tears. John Calvin, that pastor, theologian, said his horror was not then at death, simply a passage out of this world, but because he had before his eyes the dreadful tribunal of God and the judge himself, armed with inconceivable vengeance, it was our sins, the burden of which he had assumed, that pressed him down with their enormous mass and tormented him grievously with anguish, and in his agony, we are told that an angel comes to minister to him, to strengthen him. How did the What'd the angel do? I don't know. I don't I'm not sure what happened. But we don't know a lot about the angelic worlds, but we know that they are our ministers, and they are messengers, and here they.
Ministering to Jesus. Maybe they're reminding him of the promises of the prophecies, but even here, Jesus is humbling himself to be served by a creature, by an angel, because remember, Jesus is the Creator.
He created the angels. If Jesus wanted this all to stop, he could have called a legion down of angels to cast judgment upon the entire world, and said, No more, I'm done judgment upon you, not on me.
But he didn't. He was willing to suffer the horror that would accomplish your and my salvation, and he chose to drink from that bitter cup that our sins deserve. And he submits himself, lastly, perfectly, to his father. And he says, Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And we think, why did Jesus even have to ask this question? What? Why did he even have to pray this in his prayer?
I mean, didn't he? Didn't he know when he was born, what was going on and what was happening?
Didn't he know what he was getting into? I mean, isn't Jesus God, after all? And I think there's something in our text we have to remember again again, that Jesus not only is God 100% but he is also man, 100% two distinct natures in one person, two distinct natures in one person. That is our Lord, being both God and man. Jesus had a divine will, and he also had a human will. And we can't divide Jesus up, but at times we can distinguish between between these two natures and the one person. And what we have happening in our text is a battle of the wills. The Divine Will is lockstep with the father from all of eternity past. They are one. But those human will is wrestling with the divine, but we'll ultimately submit to it. I mean, it's a good desire to want to preserve your life. It's a good desire to not want to die, and the humanity of Jesus is feeling this. It's a good desire to not want to be forsaken by God. In fact, it would have been sinful for Jesus to want to lose fellowship with the Father. And what he's saying is, is Is this your will, for me to be separated, to take on curse, to receive curse, to be forsaken, is this your will? And there's a mystery in this text that Jesus is bringing his human will in line with the divine. There's a mystery of His suffering too, that we cannot adequate, adequately explain what's happening to Jesus in the garden, but God is welcoming you and I into the garden to see what's happening, to see in our text, the Son of God, the Son of Man, kneeling in agony, preparing to hang on the cross.
And Why has God given us this text and giving us a glimpse of what Jesus is going through as he prepares to save you so that you might come to him, no matter how great your sin might be, because we are just like these disciples, Jesus asked us to pray and we don't fall so we don't fall into temptation. This is a lesson we should learn. We should be praying, especially when we feel afraid, discouraged, worried, despondent. We should be praying that we don't fall into temptation. We should be praying if the bitter cup is before us, not my will, but Yours be done again. We are just like these disciples, too, we sleep, and what do we do? Fall into that temp, fall into temptation, and that's what they do, sleep, and then they fall into temptation.
But this text reminds us that Jesus is carrying all of your sin into the garden, and he carries it to the cross, and He puts all of it to death, and he buries it in the grave. He's bearing your sins at this time so that you don't have to bear them. What should not happen in this text, what should not happen today and after you hear this sermon, is to feel now pity for Jesus. What should not happen is that you feel sorry for what Jesus is going through here. Is what you should be doing right now. Believe, put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who willingly went to the cross and died for your sins. And what should you do in response to this text, praise God, glorify Him that He did what I I would not and I could not do. I sleep and I fall into temptation. But Jesus takes the weight of all of my sin. He bears it upon himself, and he goes to the cross, and he nails it there that I don't bear it anymore. Allow this text to allow yourself to see his great love for you and what Christ did for you willingly, that he opened up the heavenly garden for you, and that he prays for you even now, making intercession as he did for Peter, that your faith will not fail to also remember that in the Lord Jesus Christ, although you deserve curse, you get blessing upon blessing, that all the promises of God we find are yes in Christ. And so just like Polycarp, who when we too are faced with death and maybe even torture. We can say, you threaten me with a fire that burns an hour and is soon quenched. And Why could he say that? And why could even you and I say such a thing is because Christ quenched the real fire of God's judgment, and that now death is but an entry to glory to the heavenly garden. So how can we be comforted in life and in death now? Well, I want to end this sermon by actually doing it responsibly. So if you would turn to your hymnal page, 872 How can you now find comfort in life and in death? 872 question one of the Heidelberg Catechism I'm ism, and we'll read it together. I'll read the question, and we'll spawn in unison with the answer, what is your only comfort in life and in death, that I am not my own, but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ, he has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has delivered me from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven.
In fact, all things must work together for my salvation, because I belong to him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, also assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
Let's pray, Father, we, we thank you, that in life and in death, we can be comforted because Christ took the wages of sin upon himself. That is death.
That death now is in many ways a blessing toward the Christian, that we can go boldly in to death knowing that our curse has been taken and that there's blessing that just waits, blessing that waits for us in Christ, Lord, I pray that you will help us to look at this text and see the seriousness of our sin, that we will despise it all the more, that we will not take it lightly, but let us love our Lord Jesus, Christ, who willingly cast himself into the furnace of God's wrath that We might be saved in full, in Christ alone, and it's in Jesus's name we pray, amen.
Amen.