His Will Be Done

Covenant Baptist Church

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Obviously, it's not a normal week and the world is moving.

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It's one of those deals where in the same week where I think most of us of a certain age remember 24 years ago what was happening on September 11th, where in many ways the world changed.

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I think this week is one of those. I will confess with Charlie Kirk that I knew that he was a voice on the right.

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I somewhat didn't pay much attention to him because I deemed myself to be far to his right.

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No counter signaling, so full disclosure. There was things he said where I would be like, oh yeah, okay,

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I mean we're all kind of fighting the same way. But this week as he was assassinated, kind of a retrospective and start to realize just how important he is, what a man of God he is, how faithful he is, and also how as we would expect a

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Christian from one degree to another that he was moving, that he was growing closer to Christ and he was sounding more and more like the scripture sounds as any brother would.

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And so when we see the forces of evil act with murder like their father does,

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I think it causes us to step back. It hurts, it makes us despair, it makes us afraid, and I think in many ways there's much to be afraid of as the country seems to come apart, and it seems that the civil state that we've had for a long time starts to come unraveled.

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These verses come to mind, there will be many preachers that are preaching out of this text this morning. Psalm 73, 25 says, whom have

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I in heaven but you, and besides you I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever.

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For behold, those who are far from you will perish. You have destroyed everyone who is unfaithful to you.

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But as for me, the nearness of God is my good. I have set the Lord as my refuge, that I may recount all your works.

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The wicked seem to prosper. The wicked seem to get away with it.

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They seem to grow in power, and yet what a Christian has to understand is that the Lord has not only foreseen their evil, but he uses their evil.

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And what men intend for evil, God uses for good, and he has done that from the very beginning, and he's going to do it again.

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I think for us, the big question as Christians is where do we go from here and what do we do? I would,

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I will tell you, like I think that moments like what happened this week when people are shaken up do demand pastors to not hide behind the cloak of expository verse by verse preaching.

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I think that it is cowardly and can be a form of cowardice to sit behind passages because it's the next one in the series.

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Whenever the world is burning, and we have had a lot of that in our movement, where we don't speak to the issues that are going on in a timely way.

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But this morning, as God would have it, I cannot imagine a better text for us than where we landed in Mark this morning, which is about bravery, and it's about the threat of sin, and it's about the power of prayer, and it's about the greatest man and the manliest man who ever walked the earth and how he carried himself.

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And so, we're going to honor our betters that way by looking at Christ in Gethsemane.

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But for us, what do we do? Well, I'm going to tell you a lot of that in the sermon today, but I think what we do now is as Christians, I think we need to stop waiting until things are on fire to try to react to it.

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I think that we need to rediscover a positive vision for what we're going to do.

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And I will quote Solzhenitsyn, who lived and was in prison in the Soviet Union, and he said the biggest thing that topples the wicked is to not live by lies.

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Live not by lies. Don't let lies pass at your dinner table. Don't let lies pass with your co -workers.

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Don't let lies pass with your friends. It's going to be difficult. You're going to have text messages.

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You're going to have dinner conversations. You're going to have co -workers who say snide things, even sometimes 16 -year -olds like I had this week.

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And the temptation is to let it slide. The temptation is to feel like, man, these guys constantly hold me hostage.

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And the reality of the situation is if we want to honor a man like Charlie Kirk, what he was most known for was going right into the belly of the beast and with a cheerful attitude and with love, engaging the enemy and trying to win them to our side.

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And I think we honor a man like that this morning, and we should aspire to be like that.

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That is the model of Christian courage. That is the model of what we're called to do, is we're not to be afraid and we're not to sit and eat the lie, because when we eat the lie, we'll continue to eat bigger ones.

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And so that is how I want to honor him this morning. I definitely don't want it to slide by. He will be mentioned this morning many times.

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And I'm sorry that I didn't recognize his greatness earlier and that it was a shock like this to see it.

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And as I've seen the retrospective this week, we lost someone who is in many ways irreplaceable.

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And so that's where we sit. So, church, let's let's pray. You're going to hear some imprecation in this prayer this morning, and you'll also hear some hope.

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And then when we are done with that, we will stand as always and read the call to worship together. Let's pray.

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Lord, we as your people, we have. We have been silent. We have gone about our lives and we like to complain.

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And we like to dream about a utopia on earth, all the while doing nothing to make disciples, doing nothing to proclaim your word.

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Lord, we will sit in silence as your enemies will run roughshod over us. And we will cloak it in piety.

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Lord, forgive us for that. Lord, forgive us for our cowardly actions in letting the lies slide by and in fact eating and sometimes nodding our heads along with the lies as your enemies grow bolder and bolder and they take more and more ground.

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Lord, I pray that your people would have a spine of steel, that we would live the command to fear only you.

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Lord, would you give your people the faith that we would fear you and fear no one else, that we would not fear death, that we would not fear your enemies, but instead,

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Lord, that we would give the words of life that you have given us through your word. Lord, I pray that there would be a great harvest from this event or that many would see the crumbling foundations of democracy and all of the ways that we have exalted ourselves in this country and set ourselves up as being higher than you.

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And Lord, that those would be torn apart and that the plans of the enemy would be laid bare and that many would repent.

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But Lord, how will they know if they don't hear and how will they hear if we don't preach?

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So Lord, give your people a fire to evangelize. But not to leave it at that, not to leave it at converts, but to teach them all that you have commanded and to baptize them in the name of the

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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And Lord, as your people are doing that, may you crush the teeth of your enemies.

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May all of their plans and the condemnation that they've stored up above themselves fall down and crush them under the weight of iniquity.

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Lord, I pray that the people would understand that it's repent or perish. And we cry out to you,

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Lord, how long will the wicked prosper, knowing the answer that it is as long as it takes to accomplish your divine and good purposes.

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So Lord, we trust you, even when we don't, we profess it or that we trust you and we need you.

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And we pray for your spirit to be strong among us, that we would not be afraid, but that we would be energized.

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Lord, we pray for the Kirk family that in an unimaginable loss, that that Erica would be at peace,

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Lord, as she talks to her kids, as unimaginable conversations are happening.

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Lord, that you would protect those kids, that you would protect her. And Lord, even in the midst of evil, we see the unimaginable good of government agencies putting out videos where the gospel is clearly proclaimed from the

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White House. And Lord, we see the power of your gospel. So make that great and protect that family and be with your people this morning.

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Amen. Please remain standing for the reading of God's word. Our passage this morning is in Mark chapter 14, verses 32 through 52.

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Then they came to a place named Gethsemane, and he told his disciples, sit here while I pray.

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He took Peter, James and John with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.

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He said to them, I am deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake.

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He went a little farther, fell to the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass for him.

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And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me.

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Nevertheless, not what I will, but you will. Then he came and found them sleeping. He said to Peter, Simon, are you sleeping?

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Couldn't you stay awake one hour? Stay awake and pray so that you won't enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

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Once again, he went away and prayed, saying the same thing. And again, he came and found them sleeping because they could not keep their eyes open.

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They did not know what to say to him. Then he came a third time and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting?

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Enough. The time has come. See, the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up.

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Let's go. See, my betrayer is near. While he was still speaking,

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Judas, one of the 12, suddenly arrived. With him was a mob with swords and clubs from the chief priests, the scribes and the elders.

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His betrayer had given them a signal. The one I kiss, he said, he's the one. Arrest him and take him away under guard.

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So when he came, immediately he went up to Jesus and said, Rabbi, and kissed him. They took hold of him and arrested him.

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One of those who stood by drew a sword, struck the high priest servant and cut off his ear. Jesus said to them, have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a criminal to capture me?

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Every day I was among you teaching in the temple and you didn't arrest me. But the scriptures must be fulfilled.

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Then they all deserted him and ran away. Now, a certain young man wearing nothing but a linen cloth was following him.

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They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth behind and ran away naked. Let's pray.

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Father, we thank you for your word and the power that it brings.

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Lord, the Lord and how it shines through on our lives every day.

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So God, I Lord, first, I pray for for Pastor Josh as he delivers a message that your spirit would work in us, that it would bring conviction and encouragement or that we would always have our hearts turning toward you or that your spirit would work in us to help us to repent of sin or to be right with you or to grow in courage, to grow in conviction and to be steadfast people of God.

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Lord, as we've seen in the theme of this week, give us courage. May your spirit stir in us steel spines that do not waver from the power of your word.

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Lord, you've told us that man can come and kill the body, but the man cannot cast the soul into hell as you can.

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And so may we fear your everlasting power. But may we also embrace your eternal grace and mercy.

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Lord, just give your pastor words this morning to speak truth, to speak clearly, to give us conviction and encouragement as we live our lives out in this world, that we would not be afraid of your word.

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Lord, just give us grace as we hear your word proclaimed this morning. Amen. This week will mark the two year anniversary of this church.

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A lot has happened in two years and in many ways, I think we sit and we have an inflection point and like in many ways, the providence

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I was thinking about this morning, you know, Samuel arranges songs months before. And this morning, as you notice when the songs come out, it's all about the peace of God.

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It's about his sovereignty. It's about basking and trusting in what he's ordained to happen.

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And that doesn't happen by accident because God is ordaining and ordering all events, all events according to his will.

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But back to the founding of this church, when Bart and I were talking about how to be elders, what is the plan here?

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What is the through line? What is the force of the mission? A thing kept coming back, really two things.

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There was two mantras. One is that we are not going to be a church that's about survival. We're going to be a church that's about aggressive action.

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And yet two years in, you feel the force and the tendrils of this will to survive.

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Right. This thing where when you go from a church plant where I remember, I think it was the first time we were in this building, we were reminiscing this morning.

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There was no air conditioner and it was 92 degrees in here. And Bart preached a sermon and was in an absolute flop sweat.

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It was hot. It was really hot. And then we ate sandwiches after out there.

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And if it was possible, it was even hotter out there. And I think back and I think that that was very uncomfortable, very, very uncomfortable.

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And I remember the first time I preached at what is Covenant Baptist Church, that I was standing behind a

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Weber grill cardboard box preaching to my family, mostly with Bart.

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And the thought was, you know, this is kind of weird. There was a thought in my mind.

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And yet when you get two years in, there's faith that we have people here.

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It's awkward when there's six people. There's some strength and some comfort and looking around and there's familiar faces.

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And then we have this human tendency. And I feel it as an elder all the time. The human tendency is to hold on to what we have and don't mess with it.

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Just keep it. I like the way things are right now. And we don't have that luxury.

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That's part and parcel. The second part that Bart and I talked about often was if we're going to be a church that forces aggressive action, that is ready and ready to make war and to to go out and to take land.

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If we're going to do that, there is a very simple truth in place that powers that mission. And that is this as men, we can hold up cloth sails, but we can't make the wind blow.

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If the church is going to go anywhere, if anything it does is going to be anything other than the vanity of man, then the power of the

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Holy Spirit has to propel the mission. And the way church that the power is that the mission is powered is through prayer.

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And it's that simple. And when we look around at the landscape of the world that we live in, the decay of the evangelical church in America, which

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I've spoken much of the apathy of Christian leaders, as you look this week, there was a lot of disappointment among our

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Christian leaders who have media voices. And I think what we can see if we draw a through line to it, what we have done is we have become apathetic, comfortable, wealthy, at ease, and we have forgotten to pray.

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We have fallen asleep. And be careful, because as this passage tells us this morning, when you fall asleep, the enemy is after you.

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And he is working and he is prowling. So let's look at the story of Christ this morning, and I think that the garden of Gethsemane is a is a story.

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It's a real story, but it's a story of bravery and cowardice.

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It's a story of loyalty, absolute loyalty contrasted with betrayal and desertion.

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It's a true general and a true king who will bind up the faithless ones around him and bring them back into the fold versus the one who wants to he wants to abandon his post and he wants to run as fast as he can and he loses heart and he's embarrassed about it and it's hard as he may never come back.

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So let's look first this morning at verses 32 through 36 of Mark 14, which

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I have titled The Horror and Anguish of Our Lord. Our English language has a difficult time conjuring up what

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Christ is feeling in Gethsemane, which is Gethsemane itself is a transliteration of oil press.

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So this is the this is the this is oil press garden. And so Jesus is going to be pressed out.

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And as he prays, he gives his disciples his inner circle. These are his best friends. He gives his very best friends in the world simple instructions.

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And that is while I go to pray, keep watch. Keep watch for what?

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Well, we know Jesus knows that his hour has drawn near. He is taught in the temple. He is healed.

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He has exercised demons. But he knows that this very night that the hour for the

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Son of Man to be betrayed and delivered over has come. And so he asked his best friends to stay up and keep watch.

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But he doesn't just ask them. He tells them something. He gives them a window into who he is and what he's doing.

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And he says these words, my soul is deeply grieved to the point of death.

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Remain here and keep watch. Imagine if your best friend said that, especially your best friend who never lies, who never exaggerates.

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Jesus tells exactly the truth. Jesus is not whining. Jesus is distressed.

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He is grieved in his soul. And there's a reason why he's grieved. And it's a reason that we can only get taste of because Jesus in the garden is not only about to take all of the weight of sin on himself and be crushed for it and to feel the pain of the most awful, humiliating death humans have devised, which is to be stripped naked, scourged and beaten and hung on a tree for everyone to see.

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That's not what he's most grieved by. What he's grieved by is that the eternal community of the

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Trinity is about to be disturbed. Because as he takes the sin of the world on his shoulders, the father is not going to be able to look at him.

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See, Jesus, through no action of his own, through no fault of his own, through no lawlessness of his own, will be so disgusting in the sight of his father that his father is going to turn his back on him.

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And that is a grief that's hard to bear. My mind, it's a taste. It's nowhere near.

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We can't understand what Jesus was doing. We look at this passage and it has contempt from familiarity.

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We've read about the garden of Gethsemane. We've heard it, not my will, but thy will. And we pray that stuff as though we mean it.

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And we use these slogans and we say these words and we don't understand what our Lord was doing. I can tell you this and you'll see the power of it even in a funny story.

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It's kind of funny, but it's not funny to me because 28 years ago there was a hole burned through my belly and a thing that I remember to this day and I remember it in clarity.

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I was with two friends in Kansas City. We were on a on an FFA trip and a buddy of mine, he was pretty incorrigible.

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He he liked mischief and we were in a hotel room. He was disappointed about something and he made a mess of the room and I did nothing.

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I sat there, me and my friend. We sat there. We did nothing. We watched him do it. We left. We got on the bus. But the teacher who happened to be my father found out about it.

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And I remember to this day that he called us off the bus. And we sat on opposing beds in that hotel room with the debris around us.

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And my dad looked at me and he said. Said, I'm so disappointed in you.

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And here we go, right? Like it's it's hard for me to even think of that story without the horror of it, right?

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There there was one feeling that I grabbed on to you in that moment and that that emotion, that powerful surge of emotion was

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I never want to be here again. What do I have to do to avoid ever being here again?

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That's a taste, a taste of what Jesus is going through in Gethsemane.

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See, we have a great high priest who can sympathize with our weakness.

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Hebrews 4, 14 says, Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,

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Jesus, the son of God, let us take hold of our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things like we are, yet without sin.

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Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Do you see the garden of Gethsemane is a story about a great high priest who understands the suffering of those who are around him.

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He understands it even to a far greater extent that they could never understand. And so what is the result of this?

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We should draw near. We should hold fast to this confession and we should draw near to our great high priest.

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And this story in Gethsemane is a story about Jesus's best friends, how they drew far from this confession.

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They denied the confession and they ran far away. And we think to ourselves, how could they do that?

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And let me tell you, brother, you wouldn't have even been there. He wouldn't have even asked you to stand watch.

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These three men are probably the greatest men of the church age, James, John and Peter.

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These are lions of the faith. We will be in glory someday and we will see them sitting on a throne and we will be in awe of their wisdom and their faithfulness.

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We won't worship them, but we will pay homage to them. These three, these three.

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But fear grips the soul. You see, we think sometimes we are so self -absorbed that we think sometimes, well, how can

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God even understand? And we ask the question and it's a fine question to ask in weeks like this. God, why would you not protect this man?

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The answer is this. This man, if he knew the full plan of God, Charlie wouldn't have even wanted to be protected because he wanted to do the will of God and the will of God is laid out and is always for the good of those who love him.

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You see, our temptation that we struggle with and that binds us and enslaves us and that pulls us down and makes us look what it does.

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Remember, when we give in to our temptation, it makes us run far from the confession that we're supposed to hold to.

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And so when we run far from that confession, we rationalize and we soothe ourselves by saying, this temptation is so hard.

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I can't bear it. I can't bear it. Friends, we don't understand. Our temptation to sin is nothing to what

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Jesus was tempted by in the garden. See, he is perfect in an eternal communion and his temptation is to disobey his father.

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His temptation arises out of a natural hatred of death, but most of all, his temptation was to cast off a weight that we could never imagine bearing.

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See, Jesus, the manliest man who ever lived, the temptation was to literally throw off the weight of all of his people who betrayed him's sins and to save the world.

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The Garden of Gethsemane is the fulcrum of history. And in the story, our writer,

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Mark, he as he does, he has such brevity in his pen and it flows and he's immediately and we get the action shots.

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But in this, there is a there is the edge of a knife, right, where at this point is Jesus going to fail in the mission?

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And he's praying to God, don't miss this. The son of God, the perfect lamb of God, God incarnate, the eternal one, is praying that he will stay with what his father has called him to do.

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He's praying that he would be obedient and he cries out. And we keep the Aramaic in this text that Mark keeps it,

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Abba Father. This is an indication not only to the relationship between the son and the father, it basically the best we could do with it is it's a very familiar term.

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It would be like calling your father daddy or something along those lines. It's a very intimate term.

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We can't really do it justice in the English language. But guess what this does. If we are adopted into the kingdom through Christ and through his work, if he calls him

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Abba Father, so may we, because we are friends of Christ and Jesus has given us access to God.

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Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So three times, don't miss it, three times

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Jesus goes and he lays prostate stricken with grief, knowing exactly what's about to happen.

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Have you ever prayed that way? Have you ever prayed to be let go of temptation when you know exactly what's going to happen?

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See, we can't relate, can we? Jesus knew who was going to betray him. He knew how he was going to betray him.

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He knew that his boys were all going to leave. He knew that he was going to put on public spectacle. He knew that the sun was going to be darkened, that the temple was going to be opened, that God the

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Father was going to turn his back on him. He knew that he was going to preach before the captives in darkness and that he was going to lead a procession.

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And he knew that the only way out of death was through death. He knew there was no avoiding it.

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And Jesus gives us the words that are echoed in history that are said over and over that Christians aspire to.

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Not my will, but yours. And church, we say we have to pray. We say it over and over again.

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What's the key part of the Christian life? You have to pray. And yet we don't pray. And when we do pray, we pray as one who doubts, tossed to and fro by every wave of doctrine.

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We pray for wisdom and we don't receive it because we doubt, even though we know in Scripture that the prayers of a righteous man availeth much.

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So when much is not being availed, what can we infer? Righteous men aren't praying.

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Praying is not a nice grandmother thing that you say that gets printed on a coffee mug. Praying is not a nice thing that we put on Instagram to virtue signal to everyone else.

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Had a wonderful morning in prayer this morning with our steaming coffee. You look like a fool.

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We know that we have to pray and we don't do it. And the reason we don't do it is because we don't draw near to the confession and we don't see the desperate situation that we're in.

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But friends, it's even worse than that. The reason we don't pray is because we do not see the awesome power of God.

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All authority has been given to him to make disciples go, therefore, make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them all of the things that I have commanded.

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And lo, I am with you. I will be with you always, even to the end of the age. Christ is with you.

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He longs for you to make disciples. When you pray that you would make disciples, guess what? He will answer that prayer.

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If you abide in him, then he will give you everything that you pray for. Friends, when we pray to love the law of God, he will answer that prayer.

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When we pray to be sanctified, he will answer that prayer. When we pray to believe in the midst of our unbelief, he will answer that prayer.

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When we pray that we would flee from sin instead of playing with sin, he will answer that prayer. When we pray that we would lead our families, he will answer that prayer.

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When we pray that we would love him more and that we would be stirred in our affections, he will answer that prayer.

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Just like when Jesus prayed that if any other way could happen that this cup of wrath, this frothing, boiling, unmixed, undiluted cup of wrath that the

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Father had held because all of the sins of all of God's people forever, David's awfulness with Bathsheba, Abraham's lying about his wife,

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Adam's sin in the garden, the awfulness of everything that happened in the judges is in this cup and everything that you've ever done, every thought, every word, every disgusting, perverted action you've ever done, every time you've sinned against your brother, it was in the cup and Jesus knew about it and he was going to drink it all the way down.

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And so he understandably prays, Lord, if there is any way for this cup to pass from me, would you please do it?

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But not my will, but thy will. That is not a bumper sticker. It is a grieved plea by the

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Son of God. And don't miss this. Jesus' prayer in the garden is answered. It's answered.

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See, Jesus prayed to avoid death and find another way. Let me ask you, did

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Jesus avoid death? Yeah, not like we can, but in a way that eternally rings out in power.

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Jesus didn't avoid death. He went through death and he gained victory and power over death. Jesus is the

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Lord over death. We don't fear it because he conquered it. Jesus was granted this final victory because of his faithfulness and it was the end of God's righteous wrath against the sins of his elect.

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Did you know God has no wrath for you today? Zero. It would be unjust of God to have wrath for your sin today if you're in Christ, because it has all been drunk full.

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The cup is empty for his elect, but the cup overflows with his wrath against the unelect.

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And we see it this week and we are confronted with the shrieks of demons on social media who bask and revel in glory in the death of a man of God.

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And we should be angered. But we should also understand that they are filling up the cup of wrath.

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And we don't want anyone to drink it. But if you don't repent, you will drink it. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.

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And we say that all the time, don't we? Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. That can become a slogan. But the reality of this is what?

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What did he do to seek and save the lost? We see the magnitude of his humility in taking on flesh in this passage.

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Because before Jesus condescended, before he became man, this couldn't have happened.

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But when he takes on flesh, when in his humility, he comes in the form of a broken man, a man who has flesh that gets tired, right?

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Jesus came and he took on that body and he obeyed God to the point of death on a cross.

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We can trust that God's will is going to be accomplished because Jesus accomplished God's will.

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And he would have never done anything but because he is perfectly faithful, just like his father is and just like the

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Holy Spirit. He is perfectly faithful. He will do what he says every time again and again and again.

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So that is the story of bravery, is it not? Because we know what does Jesus do after he prays the prayer three times, three times, and he finds his guys asleep.

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They're not keeping watch. And then what does he do after he has prayed and he knows that that cup is not taken away from him?

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Does Jesus run away from the garden? No, he walks down, he gets his guys and he says, the hour is here.

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And he goes and he looks at him. And Judas doesn't come up to him from behind.

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Judas walks up and kisses him on the face. And Jesus looks at his accusers.

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He looks at these murderers in the face and he starts to ask them the conscience penetrating questions.

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Why do you come with weapons? You were afraid to take me then. You'll take me now in the cover of darkness.

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Do you do right? This is what is implied. Jesus goes and he meets his enemies head on.

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Jesus makes war with sin and death and Jesus institutes the church.

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He instituted the new covenant at the supper and he goes out and this is going to be a story.

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I know this. Do you think James and John and Peter remember this moment? If I remembered a moment 28 years ago when

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I was a teenager, I assure you this moment was not only a memory for James, Peter and John, it was an

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Ebenezer. It was a turning point because it's going to get worse for them before it gets better.

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But when it gets better, they will never be cowed this way again. Watch out.

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Watch out. Sin is after you. It crouches at your door.

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Its desire is for you. It wants to be the master of you. But in Christ, sin has no power here.

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So let's let's have a look in on the guys. Verse 37, and he came and found them sleeping and said to Peter, Simon, are you sleeping?

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Could you not keep watch for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation.

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The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again, he went away and prayed, saying the same words.

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And again, he came and found them sleeping for their eyes were very heavy. And they did not know what to answer him.

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And he came a third time and he said to them, are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough. The hour has come.

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Behold, the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up. Let us go. The one who betrays me is at hand.

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See, Jesus provides our template and our model for handling temptation. Friends, when you are in when you are gripped in the throes of temptation, when the sweet, disgusting, poisoned meat that looks so good to eat, the sin is laying in front of you and you have almost convinced yourself this is going to this is going to taste so good if I just eat it.

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Do you get down on your knees? Or do you willpower it?

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Or do you just give in and think, God will forgive me later? That's the most horrifying response to it.

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See, what does Jesus do? He is in the greatest temptation that any human being has ever, ever encountered.

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And what he does is he goes alone and he doesn't do the traditional Jewish prayer of hands uplifted.

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He's in a prostate prostrate position of desperation for an hour at a time.

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Three different times. Complete prayer. Three times. Number of completion.

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And he gives an accurate picture of the weight of sin. You see Jesus in his temptation. He understands the deadly struggle that's going on and he gives the sin its due.

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He understands its deadly power. He understands how it works on the natural man. He understands that men always want the easy way out.

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Always. We always want to just make it go away. And what he does is he goes all the way through it.

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And so what he does is just like Daniel of old, he repeatedly goes to God in prayer until he gets an answer.

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And then he gets his answer after the third hour and he's ready to meet his purpose. David cries out similarly in Psalm 51, one of my very favorite

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Psalms. It's hard to read, but it's one of my favorites. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your

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Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.

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Is that not the cry when we face temptation? Men, when you sit in your idleness and the allure of what's on that electronic device starts to creep into your mind.

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And you feel that gut wrenching temptation. And you remember the pleasure, the fleeting pleasure that you've had many times before.

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And you think it's just an itch. I got to scratch it. It'll go away if I scratch it. And then what you know is it will not go away.

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It will come back seven times as strong over and over and over again. Understand that David sees it clearly in Psalm 51.

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He sees that with sin, it casts you away from the presence. Remember, it's the opposite. It's the opposite of holding fast to the confession.

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It's running away from the throne of God. Christ shows us what to do. Are you going to do it,

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Christian? When you meet temptation, pray. Pray that God would deliver you from the temptation.

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Pray that he would give you the means. And in your prayer, name what you're being tempted by. Don't use church colloquialisms in your private prayer life.

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Do you understand how absurd that is? You are embarrassed of your own sin. Why don't you act like it? Lord, I am tempted to dishonor my vows, to be disgusting and a pervert right now.

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And I am tempted by this awfulness and this lust to turn away from you.

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Lord, help me to not be a pervert today. Lord, help me to honor my wife.

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Have you prayed that prayer? Or do you just go, Lord, Lord, help me with this. We do it all the time.

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It's so bad. We have to name the stuff. That's what Jesus is doing. He names, he knows what the cup is.

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It's the cup of God's wrath. But what are the boys doing? You understand this? Mark, it's so funny the way he squeezes these things together.

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Because what did we just see Peter doing in the last section? I'll never deny you, Lord. I will never deny you.

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No matter what happens, I would die for you. And all the rest of them said the same thing, right? They all said likewise.

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But what happens? Jesus asked them to keep watch in the middle of the night, and they can't pay attention for an hour.

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But see, they don't understand the real danger. The danger is not the people that are coming to get Jesus. The danger is the temptation for safety that is lurking in the hearts of these men.

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We know. The boys, James and John, they had loudly proclaimed in chapter 10.

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Jesus said, you do not know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism which

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I am baptized? And they said to him, we are able. And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink you shall drink, and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which

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I am baptized. That was a prophecy. But see, James and John, in their own strength and in their zeal and their love for their

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Lord, who's sitting right by them at a table, like he's sitting there and everything's peaceful. And in peacetime, it's easy to make bold declarations.

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Of course, we'll do it. Of course, we're able. We're with you. And Peter, he said,

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I will not fall away, even though anyone else, even though all may fall away, I will not. And Jesus said to him, truly,

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I say to you that today, this very night before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny me three times.

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Do you see what Jesus did with both of them, with all three? Said, you're going to have to drink this.

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And he warned them. But when it came time to it, the natural man won out three times in Gethsemane.

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Bold words followed up by apathy and complacence. And that, guys, does that not define the right in this country?

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Bold words with nothing behind them. Apathy and complacence.

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Let me, allow me to be bold. The reason men don't do anything in this country is because we're afraid.

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The reason we're afraid is because we are conspiracy theorists and we know that they know everything we're doing on our electronic devices.

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We know that they know and we do it anyway. And we are terrified of what somebody will bring out of the darkness into the light about us.

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And so when you hear a pastor who will not boldly proclaim the truth, you know why. When you hear men complain loudly, but never do anything and step into the arena, you know why.

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It's because we hold sin in our heart. And see, James, Peter and John, they had bold words, but there was nothing to back up the words because they were afraid.

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Are they helping each other out in the garden? Where is the iron sharpens iron in the garden? Jesus told them to stay awake and watch, and yet they're all sleeping.

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Why does one of them, Peter, he likes to talk, doesn't he? Why isn't Peter going, hey, guys, wake up. Jesus told us, he told us to stay awake.

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And even if the first time, hey, he told us that last time, stay awake. Let's watch. Nope, they're all sleeping together. And so it is that we like to get together and we like to complain together, but then we embolden each other to do nothing.

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Well, you know, you got to be wise. Let me put it this way. The desire for sleep wins out over the commands of God.

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Many such cases. The desire for sleep, the desire for rest, the desire for comfort wins out over the commands of God.

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And the reason why is because Peter, James and John do not see the reality of the spiritual battle. Jesus is not asking them to watch out for Judas.

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This is a time of spiritual unrest. I think there's probably demonic oppression on the three. Their highs are heavy, right?

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They are put in a spiritual dullness at this moment. Is that an excuse?

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No, they should have prayed. Do you think Jesus was under some demonic oppression in the garden?

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Yeah, I think so. If if Satan was going to tempt him in the desert, how much more would he be tempting him in the garden when the fulcrum of history was about to happen?

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We often in the church, we often do not connect our apathy with our sin.

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The apathy is flowing out of the sin and we are apathetic to our sins, so we are embroiled in them more and more and more.

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So here comes the test, Jesus says it enough. In some ways, you could take it enough of your failure.

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The time has come. I'm not going to chastise you again about this. I've done it three times.

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Peter, you're going to do what you're going to do. James and John, you're going to do what you're going to do. You know,

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Peter, I think Peter saw the crucifixion, but he didn't see it up close. He was far away. He was afraid to be seen.

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Jesus has seen his prayer answered. He walks in submission and obedience, but the disciples have not prepared for the test.

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So what are they going to do exactly what they don't want to do? It recalls Romans 7, does it not? I do the things that I don't want to do and I don't do the things that I want to do.

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Who can save me from this fleshly man that I am? And the answer is

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Jesus can save you and Jesus will save these men. But see, these disciples, they're not prepared for the test because they were asleep.

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They weren't studying when they should have been studying. They weren't praying when they should have been praying. And so when the test comes, the prophecy is fulfilled.

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The shepherd will be struck down and the sheep will scatter. We saw that last week. How can anyone, let me ask you, church, how can anyone expect any spiritual victory when we don't pray?

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What gets in your way? Is it sleep? I think oftentimes it is. You don't want to wake up early?

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You want to wake up early and get straight on the phone? See, the phone gives you that comfort, doesn't it? It soothes you.

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It gives you interest. Prayer to the spiritually weak man is boring.

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Have you ever thought that? I will confess. Gone to many prayer meetings in my younger days and thought this is boring.

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Does that say something about prayer or does it say something about me? Prayer is the power of the

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Christian life. We saw it in Mark, haven't we? Over and over again. What happens when

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Jesus ministers and then runs into opposition? What does he do? He goes out into the desolate places and he prays.

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What does Jesus do to prepare himself for the cross? He goes to the garden and he prays.

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What do we do in the church to defeat temptation? We will power harder.

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It's not going to work. The sheep scatter. Verses 43 through 52 tell us a sad story of what happens to Jesus's best friends.

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What happens to a man that was with him for all of his ministry, who is carrying the money and he comes up face to face and he betrays the

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Son of Man with a kiss. So what is the betrayal? I think we miss in context. There would have been a lot of people camping in this area.

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There would have been tents everywhere. Remember, 500 ,000 people in the city of 50 ,000. It's the

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Passover week. It would have been very difficult to impossible to find one person at night for these temple guards.

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And so Judas comes up in the dark and he identifies his Lord with a kiss and a sign that was pre -agreed upon.

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It's the kiss of death. It recalls the verse, profuse are the kisses of an enemy, but sweet are the hard words of a friend.

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Jesus doesn't have any friends in the garden. Where are his friends? Stricken, smitten and afflicted, left desolate, alone, forsaken.

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This verse stuck out to me and it's haunted me all week. Verse 50, it's a very simple verse. Look at it.

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Verse 50, and they all left him and fled.

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And in our day, it would be difficult. What is the sum totality of your ministry this last three years?

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Do you understand what happened? He spent all his time with these men for the last three years. And they're gone.

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They fled. How horrible it is.

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And this is the cosmic betrayal of man. Judas is an avatar for what we are under the prince of power of the air.

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We would absolutely betray the son of man with a kiss. Humans do it every day. They will say, oh yeah,

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I think Jesus, he was a great guy. And they don't honor anything he says. That's betraying the son of man with a kiss.

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I'm going to say nice things about him and ignore everything he says. I might even say he's God and then not come and be among his people as he commanded.

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I might not give him any loyalty at all. And yet when something bad happens, cry out to him in agony.

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Here's the deal. He doesn't hear you. They all left him and fled.

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Look at the depth of the betrayal. He's betrayed with a kiss by one of his close friends. It was the sins of the elect that nailed him to the cross.

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It was his family that nailed him to the cross. It was the people that he came to adopt.

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You and me. The stroke of justice was given by us as he would drink the cup of God's wrath.

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The whole event is caused by the betrayal of Adam, the very first man. And we are sons of Adam unless we're sons of Jesus.

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And the only way to be sons of Jesus is faith in his gospel. Were it not for the grace of God, we would constantly betray him to our own destruction.

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And guess what? We would blaspheme him as we do it. We saw it this week. People are gleeful in their sin.

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The powers that be will seize him as though he is a violent rebel. Look, it's lesser. It's kind of like the story

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I told today about my past, but we see it on display this week. What did Charlie Kirk do?

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What did he do to enrage an enemy, to shoot him in the neck, and to kill him in front of his children?

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What did he do? Why do they come with weapons as though Jesus is a violent rebel?

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I will tell you this. It's because the message of hellfire is hateful to a people who have no regard for God at all.

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All kinds of schemes today are carried out in darkness and with undue force to punish the brothers. And your

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Christian bettors, your Christian leaders will tell you, we just got to be patient.

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Don't take the bait. Don't worry about it. It's a call to inaction.

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We don't carry the sword of vengeance like Peter did. Look what Peter did in his zeal.

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He took out a sword and John spills all the details, right? He cut off this little kid's ear. All right.

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Big man. And Jesus tells him, those who live by the sword will die by the sword. God has ordained one entity to carry the sword, and that is the government, the civil magistrate.

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Christians, we don't carry the sword of vengeance. That's not what we can do. But what we can do is fearlessly not flee our

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God. Come close to him. Draw close to his table.

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Draw close to him. Everyone flees. They're gone. And then one man, and guys,

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I think this is open handed. I think the man who flees naked, I think it's probably Mark.

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The reason I think that is I think that it's probably his parents. I think this is his kind of like disciple who Jesus loved that John puts in his gospel.

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I think Mark probably heard of the plot, ran ahead to the garden from I think that the last several was probably at his parents' house.

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He runs to the garden and he's in his bedclothes. And then once he gets there, he sees that this is all going on and he pulls a reverse

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Joseph with Potiphar's wife. Remember where Joseph, he rightly flees and leaves his garment because he's being tempted unto death by this adulterous woman.

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And so he rightly flees and leaves his garment behind. See Mark, or whoever this is, wrongly flees and leaves his garment behind because he's fleeing from the only one who could save him.

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It's an awful thing. But it also fulfills the prophecy of Amos 2. I won't read the whole thing.

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But verse 16 says, even the most courageous of heart among the mighty men will flee naked in that day, declares the

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Lord. The most courageous among the mighty men will flee naked in that day.

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See, we are to flee sin and temptation, but we also have to understand that our natural bent is to flee

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God himself. Our desire is to flee. We see it with Adam and Eve when they sin, what do they do?

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They hide. They hide. What we do immediately is we jump to speaking instead of praying.

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And the reason we speak is because it makes people go away. And if you've been in the church long enough, you know the words to say that will make people go away.

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You know how to hide your sin behind churchy words. We've been well practiced at it because, you know, somebody's going to ask you how things are going.

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And we know exactly how to dodge that one. And then we know how to dodge the next one, too.

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Oh, I'm just struggling. What does that mean? We don't name the thing, do we?

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And we definitely don't pray about it. We jump to defense and excuses immediately instead of repentance.

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Do you understand? Peter, James and John, they fashioned themselves to be bold, but they knew that they were weak inside.

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They knew it. And so what do they do? They project and they put bravado out there to hide what their heart really was telling them.

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And then finally, we lean on our own understanding instead of finding wisdom. We need a lot of wisdom in these days, do we not?

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It's hard to decide what to do. It's hard to decide where we're supposed to go from here. It's difficult to know how we're to act.

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But what we have to do is seek God. And I want to leave us with this. I'm off notes, so it's scary.

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Friends, God answers prayers. Jesus promises that if we abide in him, that everything we ask for, he will give us.

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And you know, that's in John 15. And then in John 17, two chapters later, which is maybe the most remarkable piece of scripture in the

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Bible. And that's saying a lot. We get an inner dialogue within the Trinity.

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But think of it this way. He tells us to abide in him and he will answer all that we ask. And then he shows us in John 17 what exactly that looks like.

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Did he not show us in Gethsemane what that looks like? Jesus abides in the father and he asked his father.

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And he is given what he asked. And what does Jesus get given? What does the father give him? The strength, the courage and the assurance to do what he's supposed to do, to do what was prophesied.

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Church, if we start praying, if we start praying that disciples will be made, that we will be courageous, that we will build things.

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If we pray that we will fear nothing but God, he will answer those prayers and it will frighten us.

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It will frighten us because there's problems that come along with it. There's demands on your time.

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There's going to be people who are frustrating, who don't get it, who want to meet with you so you can explain it again.

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And then time and time again, they won't listen to you and you'll keep telling them and you'll keep reasoning together.

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And over time, maybe they get some of it and it changes their life. That is the life of discipleship. Can you imagine the frustration that Jesus could have felt with these men following him around?

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They don't get it. Isn't that the highlight of Mark all the way? They're partially blind the whole time. And Jesus walks with them and he teaches them over and over and over again.

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And we're not willing to do it. Be careful, Christian. If you pray that God would use you to make disciples, he will do it.

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And it will take you out of comfort and you will have to make sacrifices and you will have to make decisions that are difficult.

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You're going to have to make decisions with your time and with your effort that are going to be difficult. If we pray that God will use this church mightily.

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The enemy is not going to take that line down and he will strike back. We live in anonymity right now.

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I live in anonymity. But if this church starts to become a force, there are many things that are recorded online that the enemy is not going to like about what gets said here.

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So what am I going to say and what are you going to say? Are we going to flee?

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Are we going to go headlong into it? Friends, hold me to task.

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Hold me to account. But we have to, we have to go into it.

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So follow me in it and lead others. And let's pray this prayer and songs will be on our lips and it will be glorious because you know what

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Charlie knows today? He knows that it was all worth it.

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There's not a question in his mind as he sees the Lord and he has no pain and he sees with his eyes the

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Lord and he is glorified forever. That's what awaits us.

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So what are we afraid of? Don't flee. Don't flee. Hold to the confession and draw near to that great high priest who has wiped out anything that would make us fear.

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Let's pray. Lord, we are confronted by the scripture.

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We see in Jesus the one who perfectly fulfills the law. Lord, that's not a fun churchy thing we say.

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We see it happen today in this text as he has the awful reality of the consequences of sin and death looming before him that he prays.

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He prays that if it could be taken away, it would be taken away. But then in his ultimate obedience and submission to you in his ministry, he prays that your will would be done.

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Lord, dare we pray as this church that your will would be done through us knowing what that might entail.

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Lord, that there will be enemies. That there will be fatigue. That there will be worldly snares that try to weigh us down.

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That are going to have to be cast off to our great discomfort. Lord, that people will come and people will go.

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That there will be friendships made and friendships lost. That there will be hurts and betrayals. But there will also be richness and fellowship and rebuke and encouragement.

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Lord, are we afraid? Help us in our fear. Lord, help us to rightly fear.

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To fear you. The one who can damn the soul. But also the one who can save us from death and sin and from Satan.

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Lord, help us to follow your banner. Help us to not run away and help us when we run away to not run far.

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Lord, as we see these men, they didn't run to the ends of the earth. They ran away that night, but then they came back.

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Glory to your name that they came back and they wrote and they preached. And a fire took off across the world from these men who fled for their own safety.

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But then they repented. And Lord, if we have fled today, may we repent. May we come back knowing that you will use us.

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Lord, help us. We need you. We depend on you. Amen. Amen.