Turn your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark. Mark chapter 14. Mark chapter 14. Let me pick up the narrative at verse 32. Verse 32 of Mark 14. And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, Sit here while I pray. They 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 soreful 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 hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. Well, let's again look to the Lord. Father, we are again conscious that we are in your special presence on this special day. We have before us your special revelation. And so we pray, Lord, that you would grace us with your presence by your Spirit. We know we are dependent upon you for everything we live, move, and have our being in you. And so we cry again. We cry acknowledging our weakness, our frailty, even our sinfulness, which can cloud our judgment. And we pray, Lord, that you would again show yourself to be faithful to the cries of your children. Grant us what we need in this hour, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. If someone asked you what are the most favorite places that you've been, ever visited, or would like to visit, what would you say? If you were thinking of a more exotic place, you might say Hawaii, the Bahamas. Maybe you might think of the place where you were raised. You might think a favorite place for me would be England or Scotland or Australia or Canada or Zambia. Maybe your favorite place would be where you spend time with your favorite people. Maybe visiting your family, your grandparents. Maybe your favorite place would be a restaurant. Maybe when you think of your favorite place, you might think of a sports team, a football field, a hockey arena. But most of those places that we call our favorite places are associated with good feelings and good memories. Now, there are other places we don't like to go. Who likes to go visit the dentist? You always experience discomfort or pain no matter who that dentist is. Hospitals are not easy places to visit. Sometimes you have to look at someone who's on a respirator, needles and tubes all over the place. That can be very disturbing. Funeral homes aren't always nice places to visit. And sometimes the harder the place to visit, the best place it is. Ecclesiastes tells us it's better to go to a house of mourning than a house of feasting. It's better to go to a funeral home and stand in front of a casket than a birthday party. Why? Well, we're reminded, are we not, of the most important things. Funeral homes remind us of the brevity of life, of the certainty of death. The funeral home experience takes us to a place or allows us to think at a deeper level. We're often forced to think of things we typically don't think about. But if you're a Christian, there are other places you love to go and visit. Not physically, but in your mind and in your heart. And if I were to ask you what are the two most favorite places, or the places that I think we as Christians should go to regularly, make regular rendezvous with in terms of maintaining spiritual health and vigor, I would say Calvary. That's certainly the greatest place to go, where you survey the wondrous cross and see the Prince of Glory. But there's another favorite place that we should go to, and that's Gethsemane. Now, I don't think when we think of Gethsemane, we would think of it that way. When you see Jesus, you see him at his weakest. intense emotional pain and anguish. He will say here, my soul is exceedingly soreful, even unto death. This is the darkest place for our Lord. It's also a mysterious place to visit. It's a place of agony. It's a place of sorrow. It's a place of conflict, but it's a place of prayer, and it's a place of victory. It's a place of triumph. Jesus prays in that garden, and it's argued that this is the greatest prayer he ever prayed. Well, I want us to focus on the prayer of Jesus. And we're going to look at it from four perspectives. Number one, the place of prayer. Number two, the pattern of prayer. Number three, the perseverance of prayer. And number four, I came up with a four P. the posture of prayer. There we have four Ps. The place of prayer, the pattern, the perseverance, and the posture of First of all, the place of prayer. Now, before we actually get into the garden environment, we probably should look at the clock on the wall to appreciate the context. Earlier in this evening, Jesus has shared that meal, that Passover meal, with his disciple friends. That Passover celebrated that great historical event where God had set his people free from Egyptian bondage. And this Passover remembers that great event. And Jesus here in the upper room, you might recall, he institutes a new Passover meal. And it's interesting, he even picks up that word exodus in one of the Gospels. He uses that word when he's on that mount of transfiguration. But it's at that supper meal that Jesus will articulate or give these words, do this in remembrance of me. And if only that one thing, the institution of the Lord's Supper, if that was the only thing that happened on that particular evening, that would certainly be an evening never to forget. But there's a lot that happens on this Thursday evening. After they finish the meal, John tells us they leave that upper room, and they are singing one of the Psalms, and they go across the Book of Kindred, and they enter a garden. John doesn't tell us what the garden, where it was, or really the name of that garden. Matthew does, and so does Mark. They pinpoint the location. You'll see here in verse 32, the disciples go to a place called Gethsemane. That word comes, or what it really means, is oil press. Just like a wine press. That's where you would crush grapes. This is probably where they crushed olives. An olive press. But there will be a greater crushing, won't there? A greater bruising. Our Lord Jesus will experience an intense bruising or crushing, you could say. So much so that he will suffer from what the medical profession would call hematitrosis. That's where he actually sweats drops of blood. That's found in Luke's gospel. Luke, the physician, tells us of Jesus actually sweating drops of blood. But coming back to this matter of prayer, someone has said, what a man is on his knees, that is what he is, and nothing more. And when we see Jesus on his knees, We see truly the man that he really is. He's a man of great trust and faith in his Father. But let me tell you a little bit more about this prayer. It's not what you would call a normal, quiet kind of praying. If you turn to Hebrews chapter 5, we have what some think is a commentary on this incident in the Garden of Gethsemane. I tend to agree. But look what it said in Hebrews 5 verse 7. It describes his prayer in this way. Hebrews 5 verse 7, He offered up prayers and supplication with loud cries and tears. This was an audible prayer. It wasn't a silent prayer. And no doubt Jesus wanted his disciple friends to hear him pray. That's why he invites three of them into the inner sanctuary of that garden. He wants them to be not only eyewitnesses, but earwitnesses of what took place in Gethsemane. And they will see Jesus in a way they've never seen Jesus before. Jesus, you could say, sinks or goes through the deepest, darkest valley that he's ever walked through. Notice the variety of terms that Mark employs here to capture something of the emotional distress and anguish or this intense spiritual affliction. Verse 33, troubled with deeply distressed. Verse 44, exceedingly soulful. One of the words carries the idea of alarm. Fear. We just heard about fear. Another word here carries the idea of burden, grief, despairing even unto death. Gethsemane will become a place of intense agony, emotional agony and agonizing prayer. The place of prayer. Secondly, the pattern of prayer. When you think of Jesus, you think of his prayer life in general, you would say Jesus was the perfect model, wasn't he? You read in the Gospels that no one spoke like Jesus. Well, you could say no one prayed like Jesus. He had this amazing level of consistency. Luke's Gospel tells us that on at least 11 different occasions we find Jesus praying. That was probably just the tip of the iceberg, but we see him praying on a mountaintop, we see him praying in a desert, we see him praying before he chooses his disciple friends as apostles. We see him praying in isolation, withdrawing from the crowd, even from his disciple friends. And that's what happens here. He withdraws from his disciple friends. This is a closet prayer in one sense. And it's a prayer, again, if you think of Hebrews 5, it's not a dull routine kind of praying. It's a passionate, earnest kind of praying. I think Hebrews 5 captures the prayers of Jesus not only in Gethsemane, but probably characteristic of his prayer life. He prayed with tears. He prayed with tears. One of the Puritans said, pray until you've prayed. A lot of times you pray and you say, have I really prayed, right? Pray until you've prayed. There's a difference, isn't there, between saying words and really praying. We can have dry-eyed prayers and not tear-stained prayers. And this is a tear-stained prayer. I got that one. Jesus prayed with tears. There was passion. There was fervency. This was what you would call an emergency kind of praying. Who better to learn from? than Jesus. And you remember on one occasion, the disciples recognized that. They came to him in Luke chapter 11 and said, teach us how to pray. And what did he do? Well, he taught them how to pray. And how did he teach them? Well, he gave them a prayer called the Lord's Prayer. It was to help them pray. It was to help shape their prayers. And there are a full number of commentators that would When they go into Gethsemane, they believe that Jesus actually makes use of the Lord's Prayer when He comes into Gethsemane. That that prayer was on His mind and on His heart. In Matthew's Gospel, even before He begins to pray, He tells them about temptation. Pray that you enter not into temptation. Mark's Gospel has that happen. A bit later, but that certainly is one aspect of the Lord's Prayer. Lead us not into temptation, but there are a number of parallels or corresponding expressions here that would tie us back to the Lord's Prayer. Notice what he says in Mark 14, verse 36. Abba, Father. There's this matter of intimacy. Our Father which art in heaven. And Mark adds another element of intimacy. Abba was the Hebrew word for Daddy. the most intimate words to describe your relationship with your earthly father, Abba. It captures the filial closeness that Jesus had with his father. There was a prayer marked with intimacy, Our Father which art in heaven. And Jesus also has a sense, here does he not, of the greatness of His Father, verse 36, all things are possible for you. But Jesus is clinging to His Father, perhaps in a way He never has before. You could call this holy desperation. Another part of the prayer, and the main part of this prayer that ties us to the Lord's prayer is that He focuses upon the Father's will. You find that in Matthew and Luke and Mark as well. Thy will be done. Jesus is praying here according to the Father's will. That brings us to our third consideration of this prayer, the place of prayer, the pattern of prayer, the perseverance of prayer. When you think of prayer, probably the word that often comes to mind is the word Duty, right? Because you're commanded to pray. That's a legitimate way to think of prayer. Prayer is a duty. We are commanded to prayer when Jesus is praying in this way. He uses an imperative verb. It's a command. We are duty-bound when it comes to prayer. But there's another way to think of prayer. Not only is it duty, but it's a delight. We should delight in prayer. You're speaking to your Heavenly Father. God is to be our greatest joy, our greatest delight. And the Bible frequently speaks of delighting in God. And you can surely say that Jesus, that that's the one who He delighted in the most. He delighted in His Heavenly Father. Jesus delighted in prayer. But prayer also has, as you know, a cost factor, a pain element. Remember how Jesus teaches us to pray in Luke chapter 18. He begins with these words, men are always to pray. There's the command, and not lose heart. And then he goes on to describe prayer by way of a parable of a widow who goes before a judge. He's teaching us perseverance. Perseverance is a word of struggle. It's a word of difficulty. It involves pain. And Jesus, in that garden, three times, Three times he gives himself to prayer. In between those two times, he comes back to his disciple friends, and he finds them sleeping. Verse 37. That would have been a little discouraging. But he goes back to prayer. Comes back again. He finds them sleeping again. He goes back to prayer. He persevered in prayer. That would have made it difficult, just the fact that his disciple friends were not supporting him. Something else would have made it difficult, the devil's opposition. Remember what he says in Matthew's gospel, he says, when they've captured him and arrested him, he says, this is your hour and the power of darkness. Jesus was well aware that the devil was engaged, engineering this whole thing. Jesus, had to persevere in prayer, he didn't have the support of his friends, his disciple friends, he had the intense opposition of the devil, but also, think of this, his emotional and physical well-being. He was at his worst, physically and emotionally. When do you find it most difficult to pray? Don't you find it most difficult to pray when you're in physical pain? or emotionally distressed. Pain can be disorienting and terribly distracting. Simple concentration can be a challenge when we are not in our best state physically or emotionally. Jesus doesn't give up. He perseveres in prayer. The place of prayer the pattern of prayer, the perseverance of prayer. But the fourth thing here is the posture of prayer. This is really the most important aspect of his prayer here in the garden. It's his heart attitude, his disposition. True prayer engages the heart. Remember, one of the complaints that God had against His old covenant people was, you draw near with your lips, but your heart is far from me. True prayer engages the totality of our humanity, our body, but also our soul, our mind, and our heart. And you get a sense that Jesus is engaged at the deepest level. He is wrestling in prayer. Even the sweating of those drops of blood tell us something of that. Matthew's Gospel, again, he tells his disciples, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful. This prayer was run out of soul agony. Something of a hurricane or a tornado, you could say, of emotion and anguish has swept over his soul. And all the while, he's praying. He's praying to his Heavenly Father. The question that people ask, the question that I'm sure you've asked is why is Jesus so disrupt? Why is he so overwhelmed? Why does he speak of a sorrow unto death? Well, it's because of the cross. Jesus is afraid of the cross. Jesus is terrified of the cross. Look what he says. Listen to his prayer. Verse 39, my father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. The cup. What's he talking about? The cup. Well, it's figurative language. It's metaphorical language. Jesus is using his Old Testament Bible. That's what this cup reference is about. It's an Old Testament. It's used metaphorically. It's used figuratively in the Old Testament. There are at least four Old Testament texts that speak of the cup. Isaiah 51, verse 17. We have these words. We read the cup that belongs to God. It's called the cup of wrath. Jeremiah 25. God says, take from my hand this cup, the wine of the wrath, that I will make you drink. Ezekiel 23 describes the cup of horror, desolation. Jesus knows exactly what's in the cup. He knows that cup is a cup full of divine wrath. And he prays. He prays, Father, Father, if you are willing to remove this cup from me. Jesus, in a sense, is the reluctant Messiah. He doesn't want to suffer wrath. There would be something wrong with his humanity if he did. His humanity, His real humanity is recoiling. It's recoiling. Yes, He wants to do the Father's will. He wants to save sinners. He wants to reconcile the world to Himself. He made a covenant with His Father. But is there another way? Is there another way? Can I save the world? without the cross, without enduring the wrath of God. Is there another way? He knows that God is a God of omnipotence. All things are possible with you. Remember how God answered Abraham's prayer? Abraham was told to take his son Isaac up a mountain and slay him. Take up a knife plunge it in your sod, and Abraham went up that mountain. He was obviously prepared to do it, but God provided another way, didn't He? God provided another way. God provided a ram stuck in a thicket of thorns. Is it possible that you can provide another way? Yes, all things are possible within the limits of your truth and within the limits of your holiness. But is this possible? Is this the only way to reconcile a lost world? Is this the only way to vindicate God's holiness and God's righteousness? And what is the disposition? What is the hard attitude of our Lord? What is the posture of His heart? Well, here it is. Not what I will, but what you will. It's perfect, perfect submission to the Father's will. He will obey the Father, as someone has said. His will to obey the Father is stronger than His desire to serve Himself. That's really what it comes down to. My will or your will. Ever had that dilemma? My will or your will. And heaven's silence provides the answer. God says my will is the cross. My will is forsaking you on the cross. And Jesus knows the answer. He's knocked on heaven's door and there's been a resounding no. And once Jesus realizes that is God's will, the struggle is over. Perfect submission and resignment to God's will. Not my will, but your will. And there wasn't one moment of hesitation, one more question. He will go to the cross voluntarily, submissively, perfect submission. Knowing exactly, he knows exactly what's going to be in the cup. He knows Isaiah 53. He knows He will be despised and rejected by men. He will be the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He will be pierced for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The innocent one must suffer for guilty ones. The holy one must suffer for unholy ones. Jesus, the Savior, Jesus, the Son, will be abandoned by His Father. He will bear the full, infinite, undiluted wrath of God. On the cross, He will bear the full weight of God's infinite judgment against sin. Remember on the cross, Jesus is given another cup? to sort of mitigate the pain, maybe something of a sedative, he refuses that cup. He refuses that cup. But this cup he will drink, he will drink it right down to the last drop. He drinks every drop on Calvary. So you and I, could be spared from drinking the cup. We have another cup, the cup of salvation. We don't have to drink that cup of wrath. That's why this is a favorite place to go. When you come into the garden, you get to see your Savior, your blessed Savior. You see a suffering Savior, sweating drops of blood, you see a reluctant Savior, Father, Father, is it possible, take this cup away from me, and you also see a submissive Savior, not my will, but your will be done, and you also see a triumphant Savior. He walks out of that garden a victor. He triumphs. over all of his emotions, all of his fears, and all of his apprehensions. And so when you go into the garden and walk out of that garden of Gethsemane by way of meditation and reflection, we can say, can't we, this singing, Hallelujah, what a Savior. You shouldn't be able to walk into that garden and not walk away thanking Him for what He has done for us. He bore the punishment that we deserve. He became a curse for us so that we could be blessed by His Heavenly Father. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you.