We turn this morning to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 26. We're going to be in verses 36 through 46. Let's read the passage. Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, Sit here while I go over there and pray. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be grieved and distressed. And then he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch with me. And he went a little beyond them, and he fell on his face and prayed, saying, My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will. And he came to the disciples and he found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, So you men could not keep watch with me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, My father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, your will be done. Again he came and found them sleeping, and for their eyes were heavy, And he left them again. and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. And then he came to the disciples and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand. Lord, we pray you'll speak to us by this word and change us this morning. Give us understanding. Let no one leave here not believing in you, in your word, in your offering of yourself. Well, in Matthew's gospel, it's still Thursday evening. It's the night before Jesus will be executed. The chief priests and the elders of the people have been desiring to catch Jesus and kill him. They've been plotting to do this. They've paid Judas 30 pieces of silver to that very end. Jesus and his disciples have just concluded eating the Passover meal. They've sung the last hymn of the Passover feast. They've headed out to the Mount of Olives. And Jesus departed the upper room, now with 11 disciples, and He's on His way to the cross to offer Himself as the Lamb of God to reconcile sinners to God. So they begin this walk toward an olive grove along the Mount of Olives called Gethsemane. This was a familiar place to Jesus and His disciples. They knew this place. Along the way, Jesus told them, as we saw last week, that that very night they would all fall away from Him. They would all be unfaithful to Him. He cited the prophecy of Zechariah. I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered. And remember, the one who will strike down the shepherd by the hands of godless men is Yahweh Himself, who will give His Son unto death, as He had asked Abraham to do, in a picture of what we see here. And He would do this for the salvation of sinners. We're all sinners here. He did this to save those who would believe in Him. And when He does this, His own sheep will abandon Him. His best friends, all of them, will turn against Him. But Jesus, as He was speaking to them, also gave them assurance, which they all seem to have missed, that even though they will abandon Him, and even though He will be killed, He's going to meet them again in Galilee. He's told them several times by this point that he would be killed and be raised on the third day. It's clear, though, they have not grasped these things. Well, last week we also saw Peter's boast. Jesus told them, you're all going to be unfaithful to me. Peter said, maybe the rest of them will. Lord, not me. I would never do such a thing. I will even die with you. And Peter was sinning, of course. He didn't believe Jesus when he said he would fall away. Peter revealed an attitude of prideful superiority over the rest of the disciples. I'm a better disciple than them, Lord. These other guys may be weak and faithless and disloyal. Not me. And Peter may have spoken from a genuine sense of loyalty to and affection for Jesus, but what he really had was a false confidence in his own self. His belief at that point was not in his Lord, it was in Peter. Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. Jesus said, truly I say to you, this very night before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Peter was defiant. And it appears that Jesus did not answer Peter again. Matthew tells us, though, that all the rest of the disciples, which would include himself, Matthew, said the same thing. And think about this, and I may have mentioned this last week, but it's important, so I'm going to mention it again. When people want to cast doubt on the authenticity and the truth of what is written in the Scriptures, in the Gospels, notice Matthew's willingness to incriminate himself as a coward, as a faithless coward here. He was one of those eleven who boasted he would never abandon Jesus, but who, before the night was over, ran away from Him. Did exactly that. Look, nobody writes falsely about their own failings. Nobody makes up things about how they were cowardly or disloyal. So the fact that we find this confession from Matthew here lends great weight to the truth of his gospel. So Jesus and his disciples now continue walking toward this place called Gethsemane. And the gospel accounts show us that Gethsemane was a large, secluded grove, probably an olive grove, and it was familiar to the disciples. In John 18-2 and Luke 22, we learn this was a place that Jesus often went with his disciples. Judas knew the place. John 18 too, Judas also who was betraying him knew the place for Jesus had often met there with his disciples. So Judas knew the place and Jesus knew Judas would lead his captors there. Jesus knew what was going to happen in Gethsemane that night. He hadn't come there to have some quiet teaching with his disciples on this occasion. These were going to be the last few hours of freedom on earth for Jesus. And he was facing not only an agonizing torture, but the wrath of God. He had death, torture, and God's wrath ahead of him. And so he told the disciples to remain where they were while I go over there and pray. And for Jesus in that moment, facing all He was facing, His desire and His great need was what? It was a time of prayer, alone with His Father before this terrible ordeal that was coming. as Judas is probably already on his way at this point with the Romans. So he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. Who are they? That's James and John. John, the writer of the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. James, his brother, was the first to be executed, we believe. But it says he began to be grieved and distressed. Remember, this is the eternal Son of God. But he's the eternal Son of God made flesh. So they apparently walked a little farther. Jesus instructed the three now just to stop and keep watch with him. So they're closer in proximity to Jesus than the other eight. And then Jesus again went a little farther, putting a short distance, what Luke will later tell us was a stone's throw, between himself and these three, but apparently remaining within eyesight of them. Now, why these three? Well, from his initial calling of his first disciples, these three, Peter, James, and John, the latter two the sons of Zebedee, have been what most describe as the inner circle of Jesus, the ones closest to him. They're often mentioned together as a group in the Gospels. And Jesus had taken these same three with him two other times into the house of Jairus when Jesus raised Jairus' daughter, Mark 5, 37, and at his transfiguration. These are the three he took with him. And even after he was transfigured and they saw this heavenly glory before them, he told them, tell no one about what you saw until I have risen. But why would Jesus take any of his disciples with him into this grove? What was the point of that? He did it because he was not only God, he was human. I think we fail to truly grasp the humanity of Jesus sometimes. He needed food and drink and clothing. He needed shelter and sleep. And you know what else he needed? He needed human fellowship. He needed human companionship. He needed human support. He needed friends. He needed brothers. He at all times remained fully divine, but he also was and remains fully human. Hebrews 4.15, we don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. We have one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. And so we see here, he began to be grieved and distressed. Sad and worried, one translates it. But these words connote a sense of uneasiness and dread. This is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is uneasy and he is in dread. As they walked with Jesus, these three disciples saw Jesus now in this distressed condition. The one who could calm the seas with a word. The one who could walk across the seas. The one who could make the lame walk. The one who could cast out and demonstrated his authority over demons as well as nature. But now they see him in this distressed condition. They don't see at this moment the almighty power that he had so frequently demonstrated. To their eyes, he was in great distress. He was in great trouble. From Jesus' perspective, he had only one recourse. Prayer to his father. He went to his father in prayer. It's the same recourse that sometimes we are left with. The one recourse. Prayer. And that's what he did. Because he was made flesh, he had human feelings. Being truly a man, he trembles at what lay ahead. And what lay ahead was not only torture and death, but the outpouring of his father's wrath for sin. And now, after 26 chapters of this gospel, he's at the very doorstep of this wrath. He's at the very doorstep, the very hour has come for which he had come. All of this that has gone before was for this. His horror was not at the prospect of death or even at the brutality of his suffering and death. but because he had before his eyes and could see the dreadful justice of God, which was about to be poured out in vengeance for our sins against Him. You only benefit from this if you're believing and trusting in Him and surrendering your life to Him, turning from your sin, repenting. But he saw this dreadful justice of God and he knew it was coming on him. The guilt of our sins, which was about to be laid on Him, was pressing down on Him with its great weight. So there's no reason to wonder that our Lord would be in grief and distress, that He would feel a great sense of desolation and anguish. Think about the things that He knew at this moment. He knew that Judas, one of His closest friends, had already betrayed Him. He knew that Peter would soon deny even knowing Him. As he's in this garden praying, he knew that all 11 of his disciples were about to abandon him. And as events progressed, we see Jesus being driven farther and farther into greater and greater isolation. He's all alone. The one who's about to die for the sins of his people is about to find himself almost totally alone. Think about not even knowing anybody, and everybody you do know turning on you. Worst of all, on the cross, what's he going to be crying out? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Even his father. In Gethsemane that night, he knew all these things. He knows this is all coming. That the tidal wave of God's wrath, because of our sin—not anything he did—was on its way. Well, then our Lord describes this distress in His own words. And His words convey that He knows He's not only now approaching death, but God's wrath. Then He said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. He expresses to the three disciples, he tells them the dread and the grief he's experiencing. Exceedingly sad is my soul unto death, one renders it. Another, my heart is ready to break with grief. Don't forget he was fully human. He would be one with sinners and sin in this death. He was about to experience the punishment that is due sinners. And as Jesus ponders that, knowing what it is, if he's so fearful, shouldn't we be fearful of this punishment? That's the lesson here. I didn't mean to jump to the last page, but that's it. He is terrified of what is coming upon every non-believer in this world. And he's all-powerful. And yet he's in terror of this. tells the three, remain here and keep watch with me. Matthew wants us to understand the three were near enough to provide company and support while Jesus prayed alone. And there's a sense in which He had to be praying alone because only He could understand what was about to occur. And only He understood what that meant for sinners who would believe in Him. Sinners who had all been separated from God as He was about to be. But Jesus also seems to have drawn strength from the presence and fellowship of his closest friends. He didn't ask them to pray, you notice. He asked them to watch. Just stay here with me. And what happened next is one of the most remarkable occurrences in all of Scripture. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God made flesh. He went a little beyond them. He fell on his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. He asks, is there some other way? Is there some other way? If there's some other way to redeem these sinners, then please do it. Yet, not as I will, but as you will. He's gone to Gethsemane for two purposes. First of all, this is the place that God had ordained he's going to be taken into custody by the Romans. This is the spot. He's there. And second, he had come to Gethsemane to pray to his father. And look at his posture for prayer. He fell on his face, this demonstration of humility, of utter and total dependence on his father. But this posture, falling on his face, not just on his knees, but on his face, his posture and his words are an act and words of submission. This is what Christianity is all about. Submission to the will of God. He does the work in us. We respond in submission to Him. He approaches what will be the most agonizing, anguished day anyone had ever experienced. Whatever we've all been through, add it up, multiply it by any number you want. This was worse. And with this ahead of him, he falls in submission before his father. I trust that lesson is clear to us. And he addresses the one he prays to in the most intimate possible manner, my father. My father. Only Matthew uses this address from the lips of Jesus. And it was important for Matthew to emphasize Jesus' intimate relationship with his father. Now what about the prayer? If it's possible, Father, to redeem sinners without drinking this horrible cup that you have laid out for me, then relieve me of it. He prays for the avoidance of this wrath. But only, only, only if that was in accordance with God's divine plan. Only if it was in accordance with God's will. That's how we should be praying. We have to keep in mind that in prayer, this may seem a little contradictory, but our thoughts and prayers aren't always well-organized thoughts and treatises. We move from one prayer to another, one emotion to another, and back. Sometimes our prayers are even contradictory. And as His human nature cried out to His Father, we see in Jesus these same traits. His prayer as He moves between conflicting desires. I'd like to be spared this, but I want to do Your will. And those two things are in conflict. His desire to be spared the wrath of God and His desire to do the will of His Father. For us, as for Him, the latter should always be the one that wins out. And it should also be the greatest desire of our heart. That's why His law written on our hearts will match our desires. There'll be no more conflicting prayers once His law is fully written on our hearts in the New Jerusalem. And he uses the symbol of the cup. That's an Old Testament symbol of suffering and wrath of God. I put three places in your scripture sheet where we see this. But in Hebrews 5, 7, we see that these words of prayer in Gethsemane were uttered with loud crying and tears. Sometimes we need more than one little passage to get the full sense of something. Loud crying and tears. In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one able to save him from death. He was heard. because of His piety. So here we see Jesus' full humanity and the extent to which even He could be tempted and in need. And yet Jesus declares without qualification that He will comply fully with His Father's desire. Now, this may have been an answer to prayer or maybe not, but Luke 22-43 tells us that an angel from heaven appeared to Him strengthening him. Also tells us he was in agony, he was praying fervently, his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground. That's the agony he was in. So God gave him some strength. He sent angels who are ministering spirits to him. The human nature, even in Christ himself, has attendant to it sufferings and fears which belong to it. We all have them. Christ's fear was different from our fears in one respect. His fears were completely free of sin, whereas our thoughts, emotions, words are never totally free from sin as his are. Well, verse 40, he came to his disciples and he found them sleeping. He speaks to Peter, but these verbs are all plural, so he's speaking to them all. And he said, So you men could not keep watch with me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation. And then he says these words that have become a proverb even outside the church. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So he returns to these three disciples whom he had asked to do one thing, keep awake and keep watch with me. But their nearness provided him with no comfort and no support. They were asleep. And Jesus addresses them, couldn't you stay awake for one hour? Here's Peter who's promised to die with Jesus, not even staying awake with Jesus. And Jesus' words reveal his disappointment. Now, there was nothing unusual in sleeping in that hour. It was probably quite late at that point, especially after all that had occurred that evening. Think about everything that's occurred in the upper room. First, Jesus washing all of the disciples' feet. Gospel of John. Then the revelation that one of them was going to betray him that night. Then they have a ten-course Passover meal, during which Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper. Then we have an announcement that he's not going to dine with them ever again until he does so in his father's kingdom. Then he tells them that all of them are going to be unfaithful to him that night, that they will abandon him. And then we have Peter's protest and Jesus' prophecy that Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crowed. It was a long day. Can you ever remember a day when so many things of such magnitude happened? I don't think so. But they should have stayed awake. And if they couldn't stay awake, if they were having trouble staying awake, what should they have done to help them stay awake? Should have done the very thing he was doing. They should have prayed. Pray that you may not enter into temptation, he says. So the fact of these three disciples having fallen asleep in this pivotal moment in all of history reveals the solitude in which Jesus found himself. He's all by himself. He is alone as He approaches the cross where He's going to receive all the punishment for all the sins of those who would believe in Him. You don't get forgiven unless you believe in Him. He took the punishment for those who believe. Those who don't believe in Him and trust in Him are going to receive their own punishment. Keep watching, he says, and praying that you may not enter into temptation. What were they keeping watch for? Well, they didn't know, but he did. Jesus knew Judas and the Roman soldiers would soon be coming. The temptation for the disciples would be to be unfaithful to him. And now we see they did not remain alert, they did not earnestly pray, and therefore they fell to the temptation to flee when the trouble came. Spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. Imagine if Jesus was experiencing the weakness of his own human nature, we can be sure this was also true of them. Spirit, that's man's invisible, eternal identity. Our spirit never dies. Flesh here refers to the human nature, not the sin nature, per se, but the frailty of human nature. Flesh here doesn't refer just to the body, the human body, or to that sin nature. It refers to simply the weakness of being human. To the disciples, here they are, fatigued and asleep, wanting to do as their Lord has said. They've got this battle between their spirit, which is eager to do what's right, and so remain on guard against temptation, and their flesh, which just wants to go to sleep, and which flees in fear. Jesus recognizes that the disciples wanted to do as he'd asked, but they weren't strong enough. It's been well stated that at the very time that Jesus was showing the victory of his Spirit over the flesh, in them we see the victory of the flesh over the Spirit. Jesus words are relevant for us as well here because we learn here because of the frailty of our human nature we have great need for prayer this is what he did when he was in distress he prayed if it's right for him it certainly must be right and necessary for us a willing spirit is not enough that's what we see here in the disciples It has to be supplemented by earnest prayer. A few minutes in prayer with God every day will pay off benefits beyond calculation. You've all been blessed by the prayers of others, even in times you may not know it. Failure of His disciples here wasn't caused by cowardice. That's coming before the night's over. It was just sheer weariness. But they're going to face this more serious temptation to deny him and That test they will fail. Well, verses 42 to 46, he went away a second time and prayed again, said the same thing. Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, your will be done. He came back to them. He found them sleeping again. Their eyes were heavy. He left them again. He went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more. And then he came back to the disciples and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting? And then the time of the most significant event in all of history had now arrived. As that time arrives, he says to them, Behold, the hour is at hand. Yahweh is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up. Let's be going. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand. The hour was now at hand. Jesus had said on more than one occasion, what? My hour is not yet come. Or the gospel writers tell us he did something because his hour had not yet come. John 2.4, 7.30 and 8.20. But now His hour had come. John 12, 23. John 13, 1. John 17, 1. The hour's come. And now they're going to go out and meet Judas and his henchmen. Well, there's still one question here that we have not addressed. And that's this. What would motivate Jesus to ask His Father if there was a way out of this? He knew what was at stake. So what was it that he foresaw with such dread? There's different explanations given. And part of the difficulty in understanding these things is that we don't have any ability to understand the mystery of the union of the divine nature and the human nature in Jesus. But I believe that what Jesus dreaded most And what He prayed to be spared was separation from His Father. On the cross, He would say, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? For Jesus, that sense of having been forsaken by His eternal Father was the worst of all punishments. And folks, that is what it is to be an unforgiven sinner. What he was dreading is what awaits all those who are not trusting in him. It means that a person is separated from God to be forsaken by him, the creator and source of life itself. What Jesus did was to put himself in the very same position as all unforgiven sinners. That's why he was in such dread. That's why he was terrified. That meant not only the suffering, the outpouring of God's wrath and the physical torture, but separation from His eternal Father. And I believe it was that above all else that Jesus prayed He would be spared. He would take the whips. He'd take the jeering and the mockery. He'd take the pain. He would take those railroad spikes driven into His wrists and ankles by ruthless Roman soldiers who laughed while they were doing it. but separation from his father, his father, soon to abandon him. For even a short time brought Jesus to a point of grief and distress we can only imagine. Why would he do that? He would do that so that all who would believe and trust in him and his sacrifice and follow him would not have to endure that same punishment. And for those, it's for all eternity. That's why he did it. The horror that Jesus saw ahead of him and that caused him such grief and dread is what lay ahead for all those who reject him. There's no nice, polite, gentle way to say that. He said it. And he rose from the grave. These eleven guys, these eleven cowards, went to their own deaths by crucifixion, by beheading. by being boiled, by being dragged through the streets by horses, rather than deny that he had risen from the grave. These unfaithful men refused to recant. And this that he dreaded would have been our eternal destiny if he had not come and offered himself as he did. This is one of the most important passages, obviously, that we've had of 120 sermons now in Matthew. And so I say to all of you, it's my prayer that every one of you will leave here today with a profound sense of gratitude for what he endured. And what it means for every true believer If you're not a believer, if you're just pretending to be His disciple, you have every reason to be in just as much dread as Jesus was that night. And unless you've placed your trust in His offering of Himself on the cross that following day, and turned away from serving yourself, and turned to serving Him and His people, you are in grave danger of experiencing the very thing that Jesus dreaded that night, only for all eternity. That's what the Bible teaches us. That's what Jesus preached. And that's the truth. In submitting to His Father's will, even to the point of having all the wrath of God for the sins of believers poured out on Him, Jesus accomplished the salvation of millions of sinners, people from every nation, tribe, and tongue. And He taught us what is the essence of Christ's likeness. And so, if you've not fully surrendered yourself to Christ, or if you're not sure you've done so, I call on you in this very moment to come to Him. He will not turn you away. He won't turn anyone away. And if you do, you'll have life and joy everlasting in His presence. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your sacrifice. We thank you for the truth and justice and righteousness that is only found in you. I pray, Lord, that this word this morning has been heard by all who are gathered here and all who will hear it in the days to come. that it will take root, and that each one will respond in faith, gratitude, worship, repentance, and obedience to you for your kingdom and for your glory. In Christ's name, amen. Amen.