Our memory verse this week is Colossians 4:2. You’ll find it each week on the back of your bulletin entitled: Words to Live By.
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.
Can you say that with me? “Continue earnestly in prayer… being vigilant in it with thanksgiving… Colossians 4:2”
Regarding this verse, I’ve just started practicing something for about a week and a half now that is a blessing for me and I would like to pass it on as a suggestion for others. If any of you have one of those watches that can be set to beep every hour, this is a great idea that I got from someone else. Set it to beep on the hour, and every time you hear it go off say a prayer. This is a great reminder! If you’re like me, there’s a big list of people that you want to continue to pray for. This helps a lot. Some I pray for every time I hear the beep and others I spread throughout the day. Try it! It will help you to obey God’s command here in Colossians 4:2 that the NKJ says rather literally…
“Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.”
This verse says what Jesus tells the disciples to do twice as we see it here in our text today. Luke 22:40 and 46. We ought to mark those verses in our Bibles and remember them.
Pray… why? There are a lot of reasons to pray, but Jesus gives us one particular reason that all of us need to apply… “So that you will not fall into temptation!” In other words, there is great protection for the person who patiently, persistently prays. You really don’t want to miss this blessing for your life! God gives strength and armor for the prayer warriors of his kingdom. Jesus himself is our best example.
The setting we enter at this point in Luke’s gospel is one of the deepest and most difficult hours of Jesus life. Knowing what is before him, Jesus does the one thing that every one of us needs to learn to do. He goes to the Father and pours out his heart.
Notice how this all occurs. Luke tells us the setting that leads up this lesson on prayer.
Pay attention first to the disciples. Jesus has just shared this Passover meal with them. In this meal Jesus reveals that there is a betrayer among them. He has to instruct them in their need to serve one another and to quit arguing about which of them is the greatest. He encourages them and promises kingdom positions for each of them. Then he warns them about the terrible trials that are before them and how Satan has asked for them to sift them as wheat. Will they survive? Jesus speaks directly to Peter and tells him he has prayed for him, that his faith may not fail. The disciples see the struggles but are oblivious to what lies before them. It has been a long day. This is Passover evening. It’s getting late. They are emotionally drained. Jesus seems so intense! He keeps saying things that sound like the end of the world is upon us! He has washed their feet, and embarrassed them, then he blew them away by breaking the Passover tradition calling the bread his body and he cup the new covenant in his blood! And this announcement that one of us will betray him! How much more can we take in one evening! Judas he seems to send off on an errand telling him to do it quickly… but there was something in his eyes when he said that! What was it??? Who knows? Their minds must have been spinning as Jesus led them out again to the Mount of Olives. But instead of finding a place to sleep like last night, he wants us to stay up and pray. But just look at him. Jesus has never been like this before. He is always in control. They’ve seen him sad, mad, glad, and a host of other things, but tonight Jesus is more intense and emotional than he has ever been before. I think at least some of the disciples were afraid. They’ve been afraid before, but this is different. Somehow this is off the charts. Jesus calls them to pray with him. He takes Peter, James and John on a little farther and opens his heart to them.
Marks gospel tells us that Jesus said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death!” Keep watch with me while I go over there to pray. Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus said, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation."
41 And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray,
42 saying, "Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Thine be done."
43 Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.
44 And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.
45 And when He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow,
46 and said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation."
Think for a moment. What is the most fervent prayer you have ever prayed? Perhaps it was at the bed of a loved one who was dying. Perhaps it was in the wake of a sudden awareness of some terrible crisis in your own life or someone close to you.
It is amazing what comes out of us when bad things happen and we realize that everything is far beyond our control. Most of us go to God. We cry out, we may beg and plead, sometimes we may even demand help from heaven. What happens when the answer is “no?” Where do you go from there?
The Bible says that Jesus learned obedience from the things that he suffered. This struggle in the garden was in some ways as painful as the cross. God the Father is saying “No” to the Son. What Jesus is asking for and pleading fervently in prayer about with sweat pouring from himself like drops of blood, is to remove something that will slowly and painfully crush the very life out of him. To be our sacrifice this Lamb of God must not only be perfect, he must also submissively and obediently accept the death he faces.
The good shepherd must lay down his own life for the sheep. As Jesus comes into this time of prayer he is struggling with this. The temptation he faces is overwhelming. I believe a great part of the temptation was that things were not at all out of his control! Jesus wasn’t begging God because he couldn’t do anything about it. He was begging God because he could! The thing he wrestled with was not the ability to have what he wanted! The thing Jesus faced was embracing something he did not want and was given the power to refuse. It was a battle of obeying when he didn’t want to and when he had the power not to. Jesus was tempted all through his life, but nothing compared to this time. Everything in his being screamed at him that this cup must pass! Didn’t Jesus know that he must do this? Didn’t Jesus already know what the Father’s answer would be? Of course! He’s not in the garden because he’s confused about it, he’s doing what he told the disciples to do. He’s overcoming temptation through prayer, the same way we are supposed to.
Now, we all have to do things we don’t completely want to do. Do you know what I’m talking about? There are things we do on a daily basis that we wish we didn’t have to do.
There may even be someone here today that didn’t really, fully and completely want to get up this morning and come to church. I remember when I was about 10 years old how much I wanted to stay home and watch Bullwinkle on Sunday mornings. Every time I was sick enough to stay home from church I’d tune in and watch Bullwinkle and Rocky at about the same time the preacher was getting up to preach. I remember getting a whole lot more out of Bullwinkle than those long sermons! I enjoyed my Bible class and even the singing, but that sermon time was a bag of rocks that I’d just as soon trade for a good cartoon show any day. Can any of you young guys identify? Are some of you kids with me?
Now I want you to take that and multiply it times infinity. Jesus was facing something so terrible and horrible, he could barely walk. It was killing him just to know it was coming!
What’s the very worst thing you’ve ever dreaded? We can dread some pretty bad things, can’t we. The older we get, the bigger the things we know how to dread. But this was the Son of God. We can’t even imagine things that he would dread! What Jesus faced was the worst thing that God himself had ever dreaded.
Think about it. Jesus could ride on a boat and sleep through a storm that scared his disciples to death! These were grown men with grown up fears. They were terrified, but Jesus wasn’t. He even rebuked them for their lack of faith. He wasn’t afraid. Jesus is the one that constantly had to tell them… “Don’t be afraid!” Jesus was so incredibly calm in the face of danger and terror. He could stare down the demons of hell themselves and not be afraid! He did it! Things that would scare everyone else into total panic, Jesus just walked up to and said a few words and everything was fixed and fine!
Jesus! Wow! What could ever scare him? His disciples had never seen Jesus like this before. He was actually afraid. Jesus understands stress attacks. This was not the devil’s wrath he was about to face. Jesus could handle that anytime. This was something, far worse. Something I hope we never have to experience. Jesus was going to face the wrath of Almighty God against sin. The Lord would lay on him the iniquity of us all. Then the Lord, God the Father, would punish him fully for it and Jesus would have to pay the full price for our sins.
That… That cup… was something so terrible, that even the Son of God recoiled and begged not to have to drink.
So what could Jesus do? How could he deal with this terrible ordeal before him? Where on earth do you get strength in a time like that?
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving. God has given us a place to go to get strength to face anything this world can throw at us.
