Almighty and most merciful Father, we come into your presence, oh God, with hearts and minds full of praise. Holy Father, as we enter into a new year, we consider your absolute sovereignty over all things. Job 42, we know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Proverbs 16, every decision is from the Lord. Isaiah 46, even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry. I have made, I will bear, I will carry, I will save. Ephesians 1, Lord, you work all things according to the counsel of your will. Acts 17, for in you, O Lord, we live and move and have our being. Colossians 1, in Christ all things were created. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Father, thank you for these passages that remind us of your sovereignty over all things. And Father, the Lord Jesus tells us to ask, to seek, to knock. James says that you have not because you ask not. And Paul tells us to let our requests be made known to God. So Father, we pray for the year 2025. Father, you sustained us in 2024. You took care of all of our needs. You provided for us. You never once let us down. And now, oh Lord, we anticipate your blessings in 2025. Let us cling to your sovereignty. Let us hold fast to your lordship. May we praise your mighty providence. Father, we do pray for our church in the new year. We pray for our session, our diaconate, We pray for all those in our congregation. We pray for our presbytery, the North Texas Presbytery. We pray for our denomination, the PCA. May we lift high the name of Jesus in our church. Gracious God, we do pray for our sanctification. We ask that you would continue to use the exhibition of Mark's gospel to comfort us, to convict us, and to conform us to Christ. Father, help us to always wrestle with Paul's questions in Romans 6. Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? How can we who have died to sin still live in it? Father, we do pray for the downcast and the discouraged. We ask that you'd grant peace to the anxious, that you'd give healing to the sick, that you'd grant encouragement to the depressed, that you would strengthen the weary and the heavy laden, that you would remind us all, Lord, that not a hair can fall from our head apart from your perfect will. Father, these things we ask in Christ's name and by the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen and amen. You may be seated. Now please open your Bible to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 14, verses 32 through 42. Our sermon text is Mark, chapter 14, looking at verses 32 through 42. We will continue our verse-by-verse study of Mark. We've entitled this sermon series, Be a Devoted Disciple. Let us give our full attention to the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Mark 14, beginning in verse 32. 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 hand of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Heavenly Father, Romans 10, 17 tells us that faith comes through hearing. and hearing through the word of Christ. Father, grant unto us eyes to see and ears to hear. This we ask in Christ's name and by your spirit. Amen. Not too long ago, I came across a poem about the Garden of Gethsemane. To me, it really summarizes our text this morning. Let me just read part of this poem to you. It says, the Garden of Gethsemane, they all gathered there. The Christ and his disciple friends, the sheep beneath his care. But when the shepherd needed them, come, watch, and pray with me. Their heavy hearts and eyes prevailed in dark Gethsemane. Gethsemane's intensity, revealed in blood-like sweat, led Christ to pray, for he would pay sin's awful crushing debt. My father, find another way to set the sinner free. Your will, not mine, be done, he said in Gethsemane. Gethsemane's tranquility returned again that night, The conflict moved to Calvary. Jesus won the fight. There is no cup for us to drink, no curse, no penalty. To know the lavish love of God, recall Gethsemane. The title of our sermon this morning is Grief in Gethsemane. And I've given it this title because we get a glimpse of the grief that Christ experiences. We are aware of the agony that he faces and the distress that he endures on our behalf. I mean, listen to the language in this passage. Verse 33, Christ is greatly distressed and troubled. Verse 34, he says, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. In verse 35, he's on the ground, face down, praying. Verse 36, he says, remove this cup from me, yet not what I will. Oh, you will. Over in Luke 22, 33, it says that his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. Matthew Henry writes that you must read this story with reverence and a holy fear. J.C. Ryle, he says, no preacher can really fully explain what's going on in this passage. That's true. You can't really truly explain what's happening. of the Scottish preacher Alexander White. He says the first thing he wants to do when he gets to heaven is to better understand what exactly happened to Christ in Gethsemane. As Sinclair Ferguson, he states, this is one of the most sacred and solemn scenes in the entire Bible. So the disciples sleep and slumber, but Christ suffers in sorrows. You could say the disciples flounder and fail, Whereas Christ is faithful to follow His Father's will, no matter the cost. With the Spirit's help, here's the main point that I want you to see from today's text. Christ suffered God's wrath for the sins of His people. I repeat, our main point, Christ suffered God's wrath for the sins of his people. Again, as the poem puts it, there is no cup for us to drink, no curse, no penalty. To know the lavish love of God, recall Gethsemane. Five points, five headings, you can see them there on your outline. Let's look first at the place. For this point, we'll consider just verse 32, and here we'll see the place where Christ and the disciples go. So where are they? What's the place? Verse 32 says they went to a place called Gethsemane. Now, just as a reminder, it's Holy Week. It's often called Passion Week. It runs from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. So on Palm Sunday, Christ rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. On Monday, He cursed the fig tree and cleansed the temple. On Tuesday, he gave his famous Olivet Discourse on the Mount of Olives. On Wednesday, he did some more teaching while the Sanhedrin plotted to murder him. And that brings us to today, Thursday. What have we seen just so far on Thursday of Christ's Passion Week? Well, in verses 12 through 21, Christ and the disciples celebrated the Passover meal. Remember, they were in the large upper room in Jerusalem called the Cynical. The Cynical is right there in a compound next to Herod's Temple. Next, in verses 22 through 26, Christ gave us the Lord's Supper. Remember, the bread represented his body, and the wine symbolized his blood. And then a couple weeks back, in verses 26 through 31, Christ foretold Peter's disciple. Peter said, not me, Lord. I will never, ever deny you. And Jesus says, you will deny me, three times. So it's Thursday, and they're at a place called Gethsemane. What's that, and where's that? Well, the word Gethsemane is either a Hebrew or an Aramaic term that means oil press. It's either Hebrew or Aramaic, and it means oil press. It was an orchard or a field on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives. In his account, John clarifies that this was a garden of sorts. So Christ and the disciples, they've left Jerusalem at night through a stairway, they've crossed the Kidron Valley, and now they've made their way to the Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane was probably an olive grove. It contained a mill for pressing or grinding olives. That's because olive was a very precious resource at this time. Luke 22, 39 says that it was Christ's custom to go to Gethsemane. It was His custom. And some commentators believe that this particular spot was someone's private grove. And so Christ may have been granted special access to go there to pray. If you've ever seen a picture of an olive tree, they're kind of a big, scraggly, bush-like tree. They provide pretty good cover, and so you can go to an olive grove and hide out amongst them for privacy. So an olive tree, an olive grove, would be a good spot for a walk. You can go there to meditate, to pray. You can do some good thinking in an olive grove. Now the first century Jewish historian Josephus, he says, and you know this, that the Romans decimated Jerusalem in 70 AD. And when the Romans laid the city to waste, they cut down all the trees and all the forests around Jerusalem to procure lumber. So it's hard to know for certain where Gethsemane is at today. There's a lot of speculation. But the traditional site is on the lower western slope of the Mount of Olives. There's a Catholic church there today, it's called the Church of All Nations. You might look that up later, the Church of All Nations. Supposedly there's a large rock in the church's nave, and allegedly that rock marks the spot where Christ's blood-like sweat fell as he prayed. So it's Thursday night, they've left Jerusalem, they've crossed over the Kidron Valley, and now they're headed east to the Garden of Gethsemane. And then Christ gives this command to his disciples, verse 32. He says, sit here while I pray. Probably that means that he left some of the disciples near the entrance of the garden, and he went in further along to pray by himself. That's the place, how about the people? Look at the first part of verse 33, and here we'll see the people that accompanied Christ. Verse 33, and he took with him Peter and James and John. So again, Christ probably leaves the other disciples at the entrance. Remember, Judas is gone by this time. And then Christ takes Peter, James, and John along with him. In fact, Luke 22, 41 says that Christ withdrew from them about a stone's throw. So he's far enough away to be alone, but he's close enough that the other disciples can most likely hear him pray. Now, why these three men? Why Peter, James, and John? Some think that this satisfies the Old Testament requirement to have two or three witnesses. You can read up on that in Deuteronomy 19.15. Others believe that since it was these three men who went with Christ on the mountain at the Transfiguration, well, that they should be with Him as He prays. My view is that He probably wants company as He prays. He needs friends to be with him. He needs guys around him. By the way, that's a great application for you this morning. You can't do the Christian life alone. You can't be a lone wolf Christian, a solo Christian out there by yourself. You can't resist temptation by yourself. You can't grow in your faith without others. You can't bear certain burdens without other believers. You need the church. You need community. You need Christian friends. If I could have it my way, I would assign everybody at Redeemer a prayer partner. I would have the older men pray with the younger men, and the older women with the younger women. Because the Christian life is just too hard to do alone. You need others, and others need you. It's like the guy who said, a true Christian friend will multiply your joys. and divide your sorrows." I love that. A true Christian friend will multiply your joys and divide your sorrows. So, again, I think Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with Him because He needs friends. That's our second point. That's the people. Thirdly, the pain of Christ. We'll look at the second part of verse 33 and verse 34. And here I want you to see that Christ, your Savior, endures much difficulty and pain. Notice his angst, verse 33. Listen to this language. And he began to be greatly distressed and troubled. The word greatly distressed means to be moved to an extreme emotional state. It's a word that denotes intensity. A strong feeling. The word troubled depicts a sense of weightiness and heaviness. In fact, the King James says he felt very heavy. The old Geneva Bible says he had a great heaviness in his inner soul. So Christ knows that he must go to the cross and it distresses him. He knows he must bear the penalty for sin and troubles him. He knows he must become a curse for his people and it weighs him down. It's like that hymn, O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, written back in the Middle Ages. It says, O sacred head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, now scornfully surrounded with thorns, thine only crown. O sacred head, what glory, what bliss, till now was thine, yet thou, although despised and gory, I joy to call thee mine. How about his anguish? His angst, now his anguish. Look at verse 34. And he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Now this verse teaches us three things, three truths. Number one, Christ is truly human. So yes, he's truly divine, but he's also truly and fully human. I think that's one thing this passage teaches us, is that Christ is truly man, he's truly human, just like us, except for sin. Number two, Christ has a human soul. Notice in verse 34, he says, my soul. Your soul is the immaterial you. It encompasses your mind, your will, your affections. And so Christ, just like you and I, has a human soul, again, because he's truly human. Question 22 of the Shorter Catechism says that Christ has a true body and a reasonable soul. A question 37 of the Heidelberg Catechism states that Christ has a body and a soul. And then number three, Christ has real human emotions, real human feelings. Notice again, verse 34. He says, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. So Christ grew physically. He ate, drank, slept. He grew tired and weary. And here in verse 34, our Lord experiences genuine sorrow. In fact, Isaiah 53 verse 4 says he was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Here's how one commentator describes verse 34. He says, Christ is sorrowful and overwhelmed with sadness. The wave of anguish was so intense that it nearly killed him. I think that's right. His pain here in the garden is so intense it nearly kills him. You might call this a deadly grief, a deadly sadness. One time I went to Rwanda, Africa on a mission trip. I got to go to the Rwandan Genocide Museum. It was a memorial to the roughly one million Tutsis who were murdered for their race. Actually, my father-in-law went to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. That's where nearly one million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis. When you go into places like that, the grief and the suffering is almost palpable. It's so intense, you can feel it. It's too much to bear, too much to carry. However, I don't think that captures the anguish that your Savior is experiencing here in Gethsemane. Verse 34, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. The Holman Christian translation says, my soul is swallowed up in sorrow. You could even loosely translate verse 34 as, my soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Lastly, the admonition, verse 34. He says to the disciples, remain here and watch. So he's saying, stay spiritually alert, don't snooze, be vigilant, be ready. So the place, they're in Gethsemane, the people, he's with Peter, James, and John, and the pain he experiences, he feels deeply troubled in his soul. So that brings us fourthly to the prayers. We'll look at verses 35 through 42, and here we'll see that Christ prays three times, three prayers. By the way, Mark loves threes. Remember there's three boat scenes, there's three passion predictions. There's three denials by Peter, and here we'll see three prayers that our Lord prays. So we'll look at the first prayer, the further prayer, and then the final prayer. So the first prayer that he prays, 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. What's the posture of his prayer? He's on the ground. Presumably he's face down on the ground in reverent fear before his father. What's the content of his prayer? He asks if the hour might pass from him. So Christ knows that he must suffer greatly for your sin. He knows he must bear the unbearable weight of your guilt. He knows that he must die at Calvary for his people. So I think he knows Galatians 3.13. that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by what? By becoming a curse for us. I think he knows 2 Corinthians 5, 21, that he who knew no sin, what? Became sin for us. He knows Isaiah 53, verse five, that he was pierced for our transgression, he was crushed for our iniquities, upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by his wounds we are healed. His first prayer goes on, verse 36. He said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. That means God is omnipotent. He's all-powerful. The word Abba stems from the Aramaic word for Father. Aramaic was like a dialect of Hebrew. You'll notice that Mark translates the Aramaic for you. He says, Abba, that is, Father. Next, he continues his first prayer. Verse 36, he says, remove this cup from me. What's the cup? Well, in the Bible, the cup is a metaphor for God's wrath. It's a picture of God's punishment. It's an image of His judgment on sin and iniquity. Remember, back in Mark 10, 38, Jesus asked the disciples, are you able to drink the cup that I drink? And the disciples said, yes, we can do it, no problem. And Jesus basically says, no you can't, hush. There's no way you can drink the cup, not the drink of the Father's wrath. Then he goes on in his prayer, verse 36. Yet not what I will, but what you will. The main thing to keep straight here is that Christ submits to his Father's will. So in his human nature, Christ obeys and surrenders to his Father's will. Over in John 6, 38. Christ says, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. What does Christ find as he prays? What does he see? Verse 37, and he came and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? You do not watch for one hour. I think Peter is the spokesman for the disciples. That's typically the pattern, right? When Jesus addresses the disciples, it's usually Peter because he speaks collectively for them. But I think he's personally rebuked because, remember, back up in verse 31, Peter said, Lord, I will never, ever deny you. No way. And here in verse 37, it's almost as if Christ is saying, you're so weak that you can't even stay awake for one hour. You can't even stay awake and watch for one hour. Verse 38, he says, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. Here's a good application for you. Prayer is one way that you can beat the sin of temptation, sin and temptation. You commit yourself to the discipline of prayer. That's why you pray in the Lord's Prayer, lead us not into temptation. J.C. Ryle, in his commentary, he says, that should be your daily life motto, that we're to watch and pray lest we fall into temptation. 1 Corinthians 10, 12 says, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall. And then lastly, he makes kind of this proverbial statement, verse 38. He says, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The spirit here is not the Holy Spirit. Rather, it's the human spirit. And of course, the flesh is not your literal flesh, your skin. Rather, it's the frailty and the vulnerability of our humanity. That brings us to the further prayer. So the first prayer, and now the further prayer. Verse 39, and again, he went away and prayed. So this is the second prayer, saying the same words. In Matthew's account, we learn exactly what Christ prayed the second time. Mark doesn't record it, but Matthew does. Matthew 26, 42 says, again, for the second time, he went away and prayed. My father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. What's he find? What does Christ see upon return? Verse 40, and again, he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. In the church that I pastored in North Carolina, there was an older gentleman who slept through most of my sermons. We'd get five minutes into the sermon, and he would lay his head back on the pew and take a nap. So again, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The disciples weren't watchful. They're not being vigilant, and so they fall asleep. Lastly, there's the final prayer. So the first prayer, the further prayer, now the final prayer, verse 41. And he came the third time and said to them, are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It's like the story of the guy who slept through Paul's sermon. Remember over in Acts 20, Paul was preaching. Then Acts 20, verse nine says, a man named Eutychus went to sleep, fell out of the third story window, and died. So I guess the moral of the story is, don't sleep during church. You could die, right? But Jesus prays a final prayer. He comes back and he finds the disciple to sleep once more. Then he adds this, verse 41. It is enough. In other words, it's settled. It's done. The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. As you know, there are three passion predictions in Mark's gospel. Remember, three times Christ predicts his own crucifixion and death. Well, the time has finally come. The moment has arrived. He knows he must suffer. He knows he must go to the cross to save his people. Verse 42, he says, rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. So I think Christ sees that Judas is coming. The several hundred Roman guards, the Jewish temple police, He sees the crowds with their swords and their clubs, their torches and their lanterns, and this mob of people, they're coming to Gethsemane to arrest Him. Well, fifthly, we'll consider the practical lessons of this passage. Here I want to pass on to you some personal application, a great reminder that the Bible is applicable to us today. So let me just close with a few handful of practical lessons. Here's our first application. We must be a praying people. We must be a praying people. Jesus prayed. He prayed three times. So since Jesus prayed, you and I ought to pray. It's like what the great Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield once said. He said, do you pray? How much do you pray? How much do you love to pray? What place in your life does that still hour alone with God take? So let me ask you, how is your prayer life, Church? Are you praying? Are you spending time with your Heavenly Father? Do you praise and worship God in prayer? Do you confess your sins to Him? Do you thank Him for all the blessings that He has given to you in your life? Do you tell them your needs and your petitions? It's like the guy who said, a five minutes of prayer is worth more than an hour of scrolling through social media. As Spurgeon says, if you're living without prayer, you're living without Christ. So Jesus prayed, therefore we have to pray. A second application, you need to be persistent in prayer. You need grit in your prayer life, you need endurance. So think about it, Christ prayed not once, not twice, but three times. I've told you before that one of my favorite figures in church history is George Mueller. He lived in the 19th century and he took care of thousands of orphans in Bristol, England. Well, I like what Mueller said on endurance and prayer. He said, beloved brethren and sisters, go on waiting upon God. Go on praying. Go on, therefore, praying. Expect an answer. Look for it. And in the end, you will have to praise God for it. He says, the great fault of the children of God is that they do not continue in prayer. They do not go on praying. They do not persevere. If they desire anything for God's glory, they should pray until they get it. I am only a poor, frail, sinful man, but He has heard my prayers tens of thousands of times. Jesus says, Matthew 7, 7, ask, seek, knock. He says in Luke 18, 1, we ought always to pray and never to lose heart. Paul says in Romans 12, 12, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Paul says in Ephesians 6, 18, we're to be praying at all times in the spirit. Here's a third application. Following Christ requires spiritual vigilance. It takes attentiveness. It takes diligence and effort. So in verse 38, Christ says, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. So spiritual vigilance in your life requires watchfulness. It demands, again, a prayer. So you know this, the Christian life is spiritual warfare. So you must be alert like a soldier. You are in enemy territory. You have to always be on guard against sin and Satan. The New Testament is full of commands that you're to be spiritually active, alert, awake, lest you fall into sin. Matthew 24, 42, therefore stay awake, for you do not know when your Lord is coming. Luke 21, 34, watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life. 1 Thessalonians 5.6, let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. You know, somewhat humorously, Peter snoozes in this passage. But in 1 Peter 5.8, Peter says, be sober-minded, be watchful. A fourth application, Christ knows your trials. your struggles, your sufferings. He knows your ups, your downs. He knows your highs, your lows. Remember, he's truly human. He knows what it's like to be human except for sin. He's like you and I in every way. So this passage should remind you that he cares for you. He loves you. He prays for you in heaven. He knows what you go through. He knows your pain. He gets your suffering and your hardship. What does Hebrews 4.15 say? We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 5, 2, Christ can deal gently with the wayward and ignorant since he himself is beset with weakness. It's like that line in the hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. We'll sing it in a few moments. Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Let me just leave you with this fifth and final application. You must remember Christ's suffering and substitutionary death on the cross. That's what this passage teaches us. He suffered for us. That's our main point. Christ suffered God's wrath for the sins of his people. So he suffered in our place. He took our sin on his shoulders. He bore our sins and we were given his righteousness. He was the propitiation for our sins. He bore God's wrath. He drank the cup, the wrath of God, so that you wouldn't have to. Isaiah 53, 6, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him, as on Christ, the iniquity of us all. 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteous of God. Galatians 3.13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. 1 Peter 2.24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you've been healed. Let's pray together.