Published: May 12, 2024 | Speaker: Mark Freitag | Series: Gospel of Mark - Part 100 | Scripture: Mark 14:37-42
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in the Andy Griffith series got to but told Andy one day all I want to do is dig a hole climb in the hole and pull the hole in after
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me sorrow the the weight the stress can can you imagine I I I think it's we we read it and I think we're so familiar with the gospel sometimes we we forget what it or not really understand perhaps
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what it would be like to follow physically follow Jesus as he ministered and went from town to town and place to place and person to person and having
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people coming constantly as the scripture tells us he had to go out into the Wilderness to pray because the crowds were pressing in upon them to the
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point where somebody there were so many much crowds one time they had to open the roof and drop him down
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in verse 40 again tells us they did not know what to answer him they they emotionally mentally could not make a sentence they they had no intelligent response and at the very least they had
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no excuse to offer and again I I think the question is what do we make of Jesus response
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what do we make of this when he says to Peter Simon can you not stay awake with me one
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hour Jesus comes to them I think with a combination of a Stern warning and with compassion he says watch and pray but he's not thinking of so much of
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him himself although it's true of himself he is watching and he is praying but he's saying watch and pray that you may not enter in
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Temptation that you may not enter into a trial that is going to truly test your faith your patience your beliefs in
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me and your listlessness your aversion to any action right now this heaviness that you feel
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will put you in danger of a trial and perhaps he means the trials that are awaiting you in the very near
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future and yet I think he acknowledges with this phrase that we hear repeated out of context in a lot of articles that you'll read people quoting from
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scripture without having any clue where it comes from the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak literally in the Greek the spirit
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eager but the flesh weak we're we're a complex of personalities we're we're not made as
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when we come to Christ we're not made robots so that we just automatically do obedience and do good deeds and do what the lord
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the lord requires Paul in Romans 7 we've just been hearing this great sermon series in in Romans still trying to wrap our my
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brain anyway around it Paul Paul says in Romans 7 I know that no good thing dwells in me that is in my flesh however we we we have to move on
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and we Rejoice to move on in Romans 8 you are not in the flesh but in the spirit if the spirit of God dwells in you the the spirit is willing the spirit
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is eager to obey Christ to endure to to overcome Temptations to overcome these things that that weigh upon
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us but the flesh the flesh is the old sinful nature and and what does Scripture say the flesh is opposed to the Spirit there there's a spiritual
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battle this this flesh wants to regain control the spirit wants the flesh wants you to forget that you are in the spirit
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and wants to com take control of the personality but he says the flesh is weak it is weak because it's
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useless it cannot combat tempt ation it it can't fight it's impotent it doesn't have what it needs to fight them
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Temptations and it's not just a weakness of body and mind it's a
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battle and he says be watching and praying that you may not come into temptation be temptation be awake be on guard be using your senses
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and call upon God to keep you and protect you in Trials see the the purpose of their watching and praying and and again I do believe they they are
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together they they have to go together they are watching and praying but again what is the purpose to guard us against the
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real and damaging entrance entrance into our lives of Temptations be on guard against yes the sloth be on guard against in
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indolence be on guard against laziness your apathy carelessness indifference I think he's looking at all of these things with an eye to this is
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what is coming here in this Garden as I deal with my own Agony and facing death Jesus desire Ires to Spur their
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Spirit the spirit of the men to action to not yield in
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Temptation do you think Peter ever forgot how Jesus and what Jesus spoke to him that night what does the master think of
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us Alexander McLaren wrote We too have often to feel how little those who think best of us know what we
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are Jesus knew Peter and yet I can't help but think there was that disappointment these three my closest friends in this life I brought
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them as a comfort and a help and they fell asleep even when they made resolutions James and John just like
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Peter Lord make us to sit at your right hand in your kingdom can you drink the cup that I'm about oh we can drink that cup they F too fell
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asleep it teaches us to distrust our own resolutions a lot of times we make resolutions in haste we make statements Lord I will follow follow you I I read
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an article this week and it it's kind of blew my mind the context of which I won't share but it was about a couple who had pledged their lives to Jesus
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together and together and now because they had gotten themselves in a bad cult Christian cult situation all thought of Jesus
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religion the love that they had pledged for Christ is gone out of their lives they made a
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vow and they did not keep that vow we make vows without understanding the
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situation beware keep watch of your own resolutions and your own
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decisions an un emotional Christian is an oxymoron I think there is an that would be an unreal person an unemotional Christian
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but an overly emotional Christian will soon become dry and dull why because the energies into that
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emotion the things the stress and the mental capacity that's not what way we were designed to live on emotions
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alone beware be on your guard another thing that some of the commentators brought commentators brought up is that it is easier at least to
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propose to do great things for God than to keep up that long steady long steady obedience see we're creatures especially
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in our in our culture we overuse words like that was amazing that's incredible that's unbelievable and why all the movies all
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the sports all the we want that incredible I think Christ is looking for the Long Hall the steady one the
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purposeful one the committed one and that's why he says Watch and Pray that you may not enter into
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temptation Jesus turns not a second time but again a third time from the sleeping disciples to his father he was practicing watching and praying he his distress is still great his disciples
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are no help so he returns to his father and many have I unbelievably they have accused him of violating his sermon
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in Matthew chapter 6 the scriptures say that he that he returned and went away and prayed saying the same words and many come down to him
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oh didn't you preach Jesus that and when you are praying do not use thoughtless repetition as the Gentiles do for they think they will be heard for their many
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words I'm not sure that that Mark meant in in the Greek and it means that he said the exact same words but what does experience tell
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you that we when we have something on our hearts and our minds these thoughts we we verbalize them with the same sense do we not we may
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not fall into a repetition but we're sinking about the same thing because the Lord has put it on our hearts and our minds when we pray
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for a loved one who has endured during an injury or an illness or something we will come back to the same phrases and things and yet always in the context of
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the father's will it's an emphatic inser assertion I think or on jesus' part an emphatic
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reassertion when he goes to the father that recoiling of human nature from Death to come is is part of him In the Flesh he's recoiling from that he
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is asking the father if it be possible that he would take that cup from him that's what Mark says and I believe that he repeated that idea but it also a
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reassertion of this not my will but thine be done and both of those have to go together let me read and it's a little bit lengthy but ja Alexander
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wrote this about Mark 14:39 if he had shrunk back from Death it must have been because he was
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impassible incapable of suffering and therefore unfit to become the substitute of Sinners doomed to Everlasting woe
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that's Hebrews is it not he he had to share our flesh and blood but but also this if he had not
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humbly consented to endure the will of God for man's sake incapable of suffering and therefore unfit to become
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the substitution of Sinners doomed to Everlasting woe if he had not humbly consented to endure the will of God for man's sake the great purpose of his
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Incarnation must have been unaccomplished but by doing both perfectly and both at once he proved himself to indeed be the mediator
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between God and man the Lord Jesus Christ he had to do both and Jesus does that here in spite of the fact that those that he brought with him to
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support him and help him and encourage him had
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slept and returning to his men I think this un except for in the garden when the one chops off the slave's ear is the last time he spoke to them
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before he went to the Cross but is it a question or is it as some call it an
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ironic imperative is it a permission or is is it a command from Jesus in verse 41 and he came to them a third time and said to them are you still sleeping and taking
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your rest that's the new American Standard the King James version says sleep now and take your rest which is it is it a question or is
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it this ironic statement from Jesus well I think it appears and I firmly believe this
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I'm not discounting the agony of the Cross but I can't help but think this is where again Jesus has dealt with his
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obedience this is where he has dealt with I'm going to drink that cup he has dealt with his father and he has bowed
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before the father to do his will fully and it appears that in a sense that his Agony has ceased and when he has come
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back his tone has changed with the disciples he sees that they have truly slept through his ordeal and now I think he is saying let
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them sleep because the hour is coming and is nigh when I will be betrayed I I think he's realizing the
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prophecy of of Isaiah in Isaiah 63 he where it says I have trotten the wine press alone and of the people there was none
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with me he's faced that alone and yet he is saying of them it is
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enough this is the place where it's done and and your sleep will definitely come to an end very
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soon we hear in the scriptures the the hour is not yet we hear Jesus saying my hour has not yet come well the
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hour is now the hour is here and again it's an enigmatic phrase what do he mean by it is enough I I I think he is saying this is done
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my Agony is spent here my face is set I know what I need to do and these men I have brought them to this place he he he
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senses the hour is now he he can perhaps already hear the men the the army that is coming perhaps he can see through the
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Gloom and the the the olive tree branches the Torches of the men coming to get him he knows the hour is now he Luke tells us this he says to the
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men when they get there while I was with you daily in the temple you did not lay hands on me but this hour and the power of Darkness are yours the hour is
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now power has been given into the hands of men who oppose God and His Christ yet Jesus will not flee
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Jesus stands his ground he will meet them soon but it is enough he has warned his disciples he's given them the command
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watch and pray and again the two are together it's not one without the other as the JC RI quote that I gave you
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in the news and notes watching without praying is so confidence and confidence and self-conceit watching out without praying says I got this I I'm going to
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pull myself up my boo traps I I'm I'm going to get my act together I'm I'm going to make my stand that's self-confidence that
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without watching he says is enthusiasm and fanaticism I'm praying God's going to protect me God's going to do these I'll never face these things I've got it watching and praying has to go
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together on on the one hand we're doing it ourselves and we're forgetting God saying I don't need you and on the other hand it's we're not doing anything we're
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not useful we're not helpful disciples start to pray like soldiers in
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soldiers in battle because you're constantly walking on enemy on enemy ground we're to pray without ceasing we're to watch
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regularly it should be a common thing that we pray and have communion with our with God through Christ every day watch and pray that you may not
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enter into enter into temptation let us pray Our Father Again these words are deep to try to wrap our minds around the
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emotions of not just Peter James and John but our Lord Christ father we we ask for help to understand what happened in the
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Garden that night and yet we know that our Lord's face was set to do that for which he was born and that for which you sent him and
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we rejoice and we are glad that he faced it in Christ's name we pray we pray amen for these rise for the
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benediction this is from a man named Peter and I think it's uh not only a benediction but also an exort ation and a doxology at the same time and please bear with me but
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Peter Peter was a giant but Peter was also a man and understood men be of sober Spirit beyond the alert your adversary the devil prows around like a l roaring lion seeking
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whom he may devour but resist him firm in your faith knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brothers and sisters who are in the
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world after you have suffered for a little while the God of all Grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself perfect confirm
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strengthen and establish you to him be Dominion forever and ever amen