Please turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 22. We'll just continue our series this morning in Luke's gospel and we're reading from Luke chapter 22 from verse 39 to 46. It's just a short passage. And Jesus came out and went as was his custom to the Mount of Olives and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed, saying, father, if you're 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 to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow. And he said to them, why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation. Amen, and may God add his blessing to the reading and the preaching of his word this day. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for what we've been reminded from our confession this morning, You are indeed a God who continues to speak through your precious word that Christ, the final prophet, delights to reveal the truth to the minds and the hearts of your people. So we pray now, Lord, that you would again be pleased to do so by the work of your Holy Spirit. And we pray that you would help each one of us to have our minds focused on your Word. We pray against any distractions. We pray for the young girls among us, that you would help them to have understanding. And we pray, O Lord, that you would accomplish for your word that which you have planned from before the beginning of time. We ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. When it comes to thinking about the subject of human suffering and human pain, I'm sure most people would agree that there's really no end to the different examples that you can think of from throughout the course of human history. I suppose most people would maybe think first of the Holocaust and the so-called concentration camps of Nazi Germany. the millions of Jews who were so brutally executed in places like Auschwitz. We might think about the experience of a more recent event, those firefighters and the thousands of people who happened to be trapped in the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on 9-11 in New York City. Those who have been falsely imprisoned, tortured under some brutal regime or dictatorship over a period of many decades. Or we might simply think about the many Christian martyrs, men and women who have stood so bravely for the faith and who have suffered the most unimaginable things at the hands of evil people down through the centuries of this world. But as dreadful as all of those things, those events, those different experiences surely were and surely are in our memories, what we really need to understand as Christian men and women, without wanting in any way to be insensitive or to downplay those particular events, is that none of these things come even close of suffering that was experienced by our Lord Jesus Christ as he faced the cross of Calvary. There is actually a sense in which, as I said in prayer at the beginning, we'll never truly be able to plumb the depths of all that Jesus suffered on behalf of his church. There is here a darkness which is darker. There is an anguish that is more severe, there is a shame more profound than anything that has been suffered by another human being. And probably the place in our Bibles where the reality of that suffering becomes most clear to us, where it is most tangible in our Bibles, is not actually just in the different accounts of the crucifixion itself that we see in the different Gospels, but it's actually here in the experience of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. We're told that shortly after what would be the Last Supper, and on the night before Jesus died, he withdrew to the Mount of Olives and to this secret little garden called Gethsemane. It was a private garden, possibly it was owned by one of Jesus' own followers. And of course, we know that Jesus loved to go to this place at nighttime during what we call Passion Week in order that he could pray to his father in order that he could withdraw from the people, from the crowds, and especially those who were conspiring to have him put to death. We're told that on this occasion, his disciples followed him there to the garden. And Matthew's gospel tells us in Matthew 26, he kept three disciples closer to him than the others, those being Peter, James, and John, the kind of inner circle of the disciples, as it were. Jesus instructed those men to pray that they might not enter into temptation, verse 41. He then withdrew about a stone's throw from the men. And what follows then thereafter from verse 42 onwards is surely one of the most solemn and one of the most clear accounts of all that it means to speak of the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing that we're drawn to is the reality of what Jesus faced, the reality of what he faced. We're told that Jesus knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Now remember, this is the Lord the night before his execution. This is Jesus looking ahead to that very moment planned in eternity past and that moment for which he knows he's coming to the world in the first place. And so when he prays about this cup, we need to be clear that this is basically a symbol of everything that Jesus would have had at that time in his mind concerning all that lay before him. The question is, what is it that this cup is intended to symbolize or to portray? Psalm 75, verse eight. In the hand of the Lord is a cup filled with foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out and all the wicked of the earth will drink it down to its very dregs. Jeremiah 25 verse 15 says, the Lord, the God of Israel said to me, take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. Isaiah 51 verse 17, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering. Then in Revelation 14, an angel of the Lord says this, he says, if anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength in the cup of his anger or displeasure. And so when Jesus knelt there in this garden, when he considered all that was about to take place, what stood at the very forefront of his mind was not a plank of wood and some nails, nor was it the spitting and the mockery. Instead, it was the experience of having all the sins of the elect imputed to his pure and righteous person, and then suffering the full force of God's holy justice, his wrath for those sins. John Calvin said his horror was not then at death simplicitare, as a passage out of the 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 fear and anguish. What a heinous thought it must have been for the sinless, pure, undefiled Christ to take upon his undefiled person the absolute mass of our sin, first of all, and then to contemplate the necessary punishment of God for that same wickedness, for that same rebellion against him. You think about all the different elements at work here. You have a Christ who was totally pure and devoid of sin, and yet about to take upon his being the full corruption of his people. You have a Christ who had never experienced anything but unhindered fellowship with his Father. and yet here you're about to experience the feeling of absolute enmity from him. And then you have a Christ who deserved only glory, about to face the holy wrath and the hell that was due to us for our sins. Never in the history of this world has one so great and so glorious suffered something so dreadful. And this leads us on then to what he actually felt, not only what he faced, but what he felt on account of what he faced. It says in verse 44, and being in agony, He prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like drops of blood on the ground. And being in agony, it says. The word for agony there, agonia, is a word which really speaks of something much deeper than just physical pain. It speaks of extreme mental anguish. It speaks of a fierce fight that was taking place in the soul. A deep wrestling, a turmoil in the very core of his being. Jonathan Edwards said the word here implies no common degree of sorrow. But it implies such extreme distress that his nature had a most violent conflict within it. As a man that wrestles with all his might with a strong man. Then it says his sweat became like drops of blood on the ground. According to one commentator, he says the suggestion here is of a rare condition known as haematidrosis, which is characterized by blood oozing from the skin. It is most frequently caused by extreme mental and emotional strain, causing capillaries to dilate and burst, releasing blood to mingle with sweat. Now remember, this is Dr. Luke that's recording all of this. The only gospel writer who mentions this particular detail. I think that's pertinent. And so this is not hyperbole or metaphor. This is the actual physical reaction of our Lord's body to the turmoil and the anguish that he's experiencing in the depths of his being. It was as if all of the foreboding and the grief was just so intense that his body began to spill out these drops of blood onto the ground. Friends, this is actually very important for us to see and to understand at one level because it's actually here that we're given a very clear glimpse into Jesus's true and total humanity. Sometimes, you know, we're maybe tempted to believe that Jesus doesn't really understand what we actually feel like and what we experience as human beings when we suffer times of great physical and emotional turmoil or pain. But it's here we're surely able to see That whatever pain, whatever turmoil we face in this lifetime, we can rest absolutely assured that in Jesus Christ, we have a Savior and a Friend who has been to the very end of that road of human suffering. It is simply impossible to travel further on the road of pain and turmoil and anguish than is already marked out before us by the footprints of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Now this humanity of Christ is actually then underlined further when we turn to thinking about what he prayed. First what he faced, then what he felt, third what he prayed. In verse 42, we're told Jesus said, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Now when Jesus says, if you're willing, remove this cup from me, he's not saying there, I am no longer willing to go through with this. I no longer think that it's right for us to do things in this way. Elsewhere in John chapter 12, Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. He's just said back in verse 37, remember last week, for I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me. And he was numbered with the transgressors. For what is written about me has its fulfillment. And so this is not Jesus changing his mind in some way or deciding that he's no longer willing, he's no longer going to fulfill God's plan of redemption. But what's happening here is really two things. First of all, there is, again, this sense of holy revulsion. There is a recoiling on the part of Christ as he considers the bearing of sin and guilt itself. The one who knew no sin surely had to be repulsed as he considered the reality of becoming sin for us. And then secondly, there is also here the expression, the natural expression of dread, of foreboding, as he considers the reality of God's judgment for that sin. You see, again, I think we can sometimes slip into thinking that because Jesus was so perfectly obedient in his humanity, and before this whole event was planned, before the beginning of time, we can fall into thinking that this was just a kind of automatic process. There was no experience here. There was no experience of wrestling and of anguish and of great pain and inner turmoil. But if you think about that, if Jesus never experienced this real trepidation at the thought of all that lay before him, This looking to the Father and effectively saying, Father, if there was any other way, all things being equal, I would ask that you make that possible. If he didn't respond in that way, then he simply would not be human. And friends, if he was not fully human, he could not possibly be the substitute who would bear our sin and secure our salvation. Professor MacLeod once wrote, 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. In other words, Jesus not only died in our place for our sins, but he did so as a human being who felt real and physical human pain. He did so as a man who experienced the terrors of the soul. He did so as our brother who suffered mental anxiety and the darkness of oppression. And yet even in that moment, in the darkest of darkness, he looks to his father and he says, yet not my will. but yours be done. Jesus said in John 4, 34, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. In John 6, 38, he said, for I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. In Matthew 6, as he taught his disciples how to pray, he summed up the first half of that entire prayer by saying the words, Thy will be done. And here in Luke 22, as he considers the weight of human sin, and as he considers the full force of divine justice, he kneels down, it says in verse 41, the posture of absolute humility and submission. And he says, not my will, but yours be done. Do you see, friends, do you see the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ in his humility, his faithfulness, his submission, his steadfastness? He is a Savior who not only suffered in the most unimaginable of ways, but who did so out of his great love for his people and because of his unflinching obedience to the will of his Father. Now, before we close this morning, there is one final thing that we need to notice in this text. And that is the great contrast that we see between God's response, not only not only the contrast between Jesus himself in the garden and the disciples in the garden, but between God's response to Jesus on the one hand, to his grief and in response to his prayer, and the response then of his disciples on the other. We're told in verse 43 that there appeared to Jesus an angel from heaven strengthening him. What's pertinent about that is that this is actually just the second time in the life of Christ that we read of an angel attending to him. The first, remember, was during his 40 days of temptation at the hands of Satan, where we read in Matthew chapter 4 that angels came and were ministering to him. The second time is here in Luke 22, where it says an angel appeared from heaven, strengthening him. And so you see that both at the beginning and at the end of Christ's ministry, These two crucial junctures, these two crucial moments when Jesus needed to resist the devil to maintain his righteous obedience and to fulfill the will of God. It's as if God acknowledges the reality of that very real and human struggle. The pivotal nature of these two moments in the obedience of the Son. He acknowledges all of that by giving him the grace and the strength and the support that he needs by way of an angel from heaven. It's as if God is responding here to the prayer of Jesus by saying, yes, you must continue on. Yes, we must go through with this, but I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm not going to leave you to face this fiercest of battles in your own strength here in the garden this night as you contemplate all that lies before you. So this is God's response on the one hand, a steadfast focus on the plan of redemption, no turning back, coupled with the faithful and the gracious upholding of his beloved son. But then we turn to the disciples themselves, and what do we see them doing? Well, they were asleep. It says in verse 45, and when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow. And he said to them, why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation. Now where it says there that Jesus found them sleeping for sorrow, the intention there is really to say that they were so overwhelmed with grief at all that was taking place before them that their human response was to kind of go into shutdown mode. The NIV actually paraphrases this verse by saying the disciples were exhausted from sorrow, but actually I think that's probably an overemphasis. because it kind of overly legitimizes their sleeping, as if to say that it was purely a physical thing because of tiredness. I mean, they would have been tired, of course, and we should acknowledge and be sympathetic about the grief that they would have felt as they thought about all that was about to happen to the Lord. But that's not the only or, I would suggest, the main reason for their sleeping. What's being said here And the reason Jesus rebukes his disciples in verse 46 is that having just said to them in verse 40, pray that you may not enter into temptation. And having just sweated these droplets of blood on the ground, just a stone's throw away from these men, he's then turned round only to find that the way they're dealing with the situation is not to fight fear with faith, by joining with him in prayer, thereby encouraging him in this great hour of tension and battle. Instead, they had closed their eyes and were effectively shutting out the world and its immediate problems. As if to underline the point in Mark's gospel, we read there of Jesus saying to his disciples, are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. It's as if he's saying there that whereas beforehand there was this time, there was opportunity to pray and to prepare for battle. Now he's saying the battle is at hand. There's no more time to pray. There's no more opportunity to be prepared. And so what happened? What was the consequence of all of this? Well, whereas Jesus himself did pray and remained steadfast, and therefore he was equipped and ready to face the enemy and to fulfill the duties of his ministry. What do we read of the disciples? Every single one of them faced the same enemy, but suffered defeat. Jesus said in Matthew 26, verse 31, You will all fall away because of me this very night. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. As you think about that solemn chain of events in the scriptures, I think it's here we're reminded of the great need there is on our part to maintain a balanced understanding of divine sovereignty on the one hand and human accountability on the other. That whereas Jesus had already prayed for his disciples, as we saw last week back in verse 32, such that they would never fall away in the ultimate sense, yet at the same time there is still this great responsibility for the disciples to exercise their faith through prayer. So that, like him, they would be strengthened of God and able to withstand the assaults of Satan, the flesh, and the world. You see, it's very easy, isn't it, to be kind of fatalistic about all of this. To say, well, but God is sovereign and we know that it was actually prophesied hundreds of years beforehand that these disciples would fall away after Jesus was arrested. But the thing we'll probably never know is whether these men would have fallen away on that particular night or after that particular night if they'd simply done what Jesus told them to do. The thing we'll probably never know is how much pain they might have removed from Christ's own experience in the garden if they'd actually remained alert and joined him in intercession before the Father. And so do you see that whilst on the one hand we are given here the most wonderful and glorious picture of the faithfulness and the steadfastness of our Savior and our Lord, which is articulated and revealed to us in these most solemn of terms, in the immensity of what he was prepared to suffer and his response to that suffering, his obedience to the end. Yet at the same time, we're also surely reminded, are we not, that when it comes to Christ's people, the Spirit is always willing. But the flesh is always weak. And that is why, friends, we must exercise even that mustard seed grain of faith in our daily lives. And we must make sure that we not only appreciate and understand the obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ, the faithfulness, the steadfastness, the humility that caused him to say, not my will but yours be done, even knowing all that lay before him. but to respond to that knowledge by pleading for the grace of God and for the same help that was given to him that we too would be steadfast and alert and focused on the prize for which we have been called heavenward in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. our Father and our God in heaven. We are overwhelmed. We find it staggering, Lord, to consider all that has been done for the sake of our souls. We are mesmerized as we think of the obedience of our Savior, Lord Jesus Christ, What a faithful friend you are. What a glorious Savior. We worship you and we thank you for your obedience to the end. We thank you for your willingness to face not only the mockery and the accusations of wicked men, to face not only an agonizing physical death on a cross, but that you would submit yourself as the great high priest you are to that holy wrath of God, such that we who are sinners could be justified, so that we could escape that condemnation which each and every one of us most surely deserves We deserve that condemnation even for the sins of this past week. The things that we have thought, the things we have done, the things we've said, the things we've failed to do. Our failure to worship you with all of our heart and soul and strength and mind. Our failure to love our neighbors as ourselves. Oh God, we fail you every day. And yet all of that failure was placed upon your only begotten son, such that he would suffer its punishment. Lord, we worship you for the glorious truth of your grace in the gospel. We thank you for the love which you have lavished upon your saints. And we pray that you would indeed help us to respond with lives which are diligent and upright and faithful and true. We pray for an alertness of the mind. We pray that you would orient our will daily to your kingdom and to the purpose of your glory. We pray that you would fill us anew with the power of the Holy Spirit, such that we would exemplify Christ and all that he is to this dying and dark world. We pray, Father, for the church in our own land, and we pray for every church where your Bible is Honored and where the gospel is proclaimed we pray for an outpouring of your holy spirit that you would revive your people That you would grant an increase in holiness sanctify the souls of the saints we pray And we ask that you would strengthen all who preach and teach the glorious riches of christ and the whole council of god That you would keep them from error and from falsehood And we pray, oh Lord, that your word would go forth in power with a demonstration of the Holy Spirit. And we pray that as it does so, lives would be changed up and down the length and breadth of our land. Father, we thank you for the privilege of being able to come to your throne of grace in prayer and by faith and through Christ. We thank you that you are the eternal God who knows all things, whose power is beyond measure. And we therefore simply want to commit our own lives to you afresh through the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, asking that you would keep us, asking that you would continue to bless our fellowship this day. For we ask all of this in Jesus' holy name. Amen.