Faith in Crisis
Notes
Transcript
Good morning Church! If you have your Bible and I hope that you do, please turn with me to Mark 14. We are moving from the upper room where the Lord shared the Passover with His disciples into a time of intense, deliberate teaching with the disciples.
This teaching is going to focus primarily on the spiritual discipline of prayer but specifically when we are in a crisis. When you are in a crisis what is the first thing that you do? I’ve thought of four responses: there’s probably more, but four things that people do when faced with a crisis.
Freak Out. Since my mother in law is here today, I get to pick on her a bit because this is her response. I remember one time we smelled smoke in her house and instead of calmly and quickly trying to find the source of the smoke it was full blown panic! It was shouting, jumping to assumptions, grabbing the dog and running outside. When a crisis comes you might be tempted to let all reason go out the window and freak out.
Freeze. You might freeze under pressure. A few years back, a pastor friend shared a story about his first time leading a wedding ceremony. He’d rehearsed everything, but when the moment came to say, “You may now kiss your bride,” he froze—completely. The bride and groom stared at him, the celebrants held their breath, and all he could think was, “Is it ‘kiss the bride’ or ‘kiss the groom’?!” For a solid 10 seconds, he stood there, mouth open, like a deer caught in headlights. Finally, the groom, leaned in and whispered, “Pastor, it’s go-time!” The crowd erupted in laughter, and the wedding went on.
Flee. We’ve all be tempted to run away from a situation from time to time. I remember I had a friend in ministry once that was asked to come and speak at a very very large conference in Florida. He wasn’t used to speaking to a crowd of 5,000 people. He got sick to his stomach and as he pulled up to the convention center, he turned around and kept driving. He called another friend that thankfully convinced him to turn around and just carry a bucket with him on the stage and be honest about his feelings.
Respond in Faith. This is where we want to land isn’t it? Today we’re going to see Jesus at a crisis point and we are going to see four roles He meets as our Intermediary as we study Mark 14:27-42
27 And Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ 28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” 29 Peter said to him, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” 30 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” 31 But he said emphatically, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And they all said the same. 32 And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” 37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 41 And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
Our passage begins with Jesus and the Twelve departing the upper room after singing a hymn and going out to the Mount of Olives. It’s while they are on the way, Jesus informs them that they will all fall away from Him.
He is the Sovereign Prophet
He is the Sovereign Prophet
The first role we learn about Jesus’ is that He is the Sovereign Prophet. You see, Jesus knows and completely fulfilled God’s plan.
The prophets were known for proclaiming “It is written”. Daniel said it, Isaiah said it, the Psalmist said it, Jesus said it. And it was written that the shepherd would be struck and the sheep would scatter in Zechariah 13:7
7 “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,” declares the Lord of hosts. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones.
The shepherd being struck was not talking about a beating, but in reference to death. Struck down and slain.
It’s with the same confidence that Jesus knows that His disciples would flee that he continues with the fact that He would be resurrected. “But after I am raised up,” is what He says. He states it as something that will happen, not as something that could possibly happen.
Here we see “Jesus’s perfect faith which is full confidence in God’s plan”. Are you confident in God’s plan? Do you say, God’s Word says this and you’re willing to walk by it? What if the plan doesn’t seem to go the way that you want it to? Are you still willing to walk by faith?
But Peter’s always pretty dense isn’t he? “No! All these other guys? They can fall away. But me? No way!” But Jesus has such love in His heart that He looks at Peter and says “Truly,” this is truth, you can’t change truth, “this very night before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”
Peter doesn’t receive the teaching, but says it emphatically, this means being louder, many words, restating it over and over. There’s no way I would do that Jesus! “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And everyone reaffirms their commitment to Jesus and yet, Jesus knows exactly what will happen.
They all deny it and of course they will do exactly what Jesus said that they would do. This shows us the divine nature of Jesus Christ. And through these events, Jesus, in a way, warns the disciples of the sin of weakness and indecisiveness when it comes to Jesus. It’s not like the disciples planned to fall away, they all joined together with Peter in saying “We will die with you!”
Doesn’t this just show us how even though we may not plan to sin, we also don’t plan to abandon the fort when we ought to stand? Jesus knows that He will face the cross alone. There is no shelter for Him. And yet Jesus still goes with the plan in spite of the empty words of the disciples because of His great love for you and I.
And I think it’s also important to note that just as the disciples failed in their commitments you and I will also fail in ours from time to time. And yet God’s plan still prevails! He still loves us, still receives us, and still has grace toward us.
But Christ comes to Gethsemane. It’s a beautiful garden that you can still visit today. The disciples came with Jesus and remember it’s likely about 1am right now. It’s late. I can’t make it to 1am anymore. I start fading around 10pm. Blake, Dan, y’all are just getting started at that time, right?
Jesus instructs His disciples to “Sit here while I pray.” The idea was not for them to simply sit, but to do what He is doing as a disciple. So “you guys sit here, watch me pray and pray while I go and pray.” And Jesus goes further with the innermost circle of Peter, James, and John. This was the time when they would learn an important lesson about their own frailty and the necessity of prayer in the face of temptation.
And Jesus becomes “greatly distressed and troubled” That word distressed has the same meaning of being shocked and troubled is the Greek word ademoneo which means severe anguish and depression. In other words, Jesus’ sorrow is so incredibly intense that it takes His breath away. It’s shocking to His system!
John MacArthur writes, “The primary cause of His anguish was not Israel’s rejection, Judas’s defection, or the disciples’ desertion. Nor was it the injustice of the religious leaders, the mockery of the Roman soldiers, or even the impending reality of physical death. All of those considerations, as hurtful or horrifying as they must have been, were secondary. The agony and astonishment that overcame Jesus in the garden went infinitely beyond any of those things. His grief was fueled, first and foremost, by the horrifying recognition that He would soon become the bearer of sin and the object of divine wrath (2 Cor. 5:21). For the first time in all of eternity, He would experience alienation from His Father (Mark 15:34; cf. Hab. 1:13), being crushed by Him as a guilt offering for sinners (Isa. 53:10). The reality of it was nearly too much for even Jesus to survive. As He said to His disciples, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.” The Greek adjective perilupos (deeply grieved) conveys the notion of being surrounded by sorrow and overwhelmed with sadness. The wave of anguish that flooded Jesus’ mind was so intense it nearly killed Him, causing His subcutaneous capillaries to dilate and burst so that His sweat was like drops of blood (Luke 22:44).”
He is the Suffering Servant
He is the Suffering Servant
Here we see the perfect humanity of Christ and the perfect divinity of Christ. As a man Christ goes to the garden and prays “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” So as a man Christ prays for escape, but He desired the Father’s will even more because that is why Christ came to earth.
38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
So here we see the two perfect natures of Christ. RC Sproul tells the story that in the year 451, the church convened the great Council of Chalcedon, one of the most important ecumenical councils of all time. It was called to combat several heresies, the most significant of which was the Monophysite heresy. The term monophysite mean mono, “one,” and the root, phusis, is translated as “nature.” So monophusis or monophysite simply means “one nature.”
The Monophysites claimed that Jesus did not have two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, but only one nature. That one nature was neither completely divine nor completely human. It was, depending on how one looked at it, a deified human nature or a humanized divine nature. This heresy was very serious for two reasons. It denied, on the one hand, the full deity of Christ. On the other hand, it denied the real humanity of Jesus. Against that, the Council of Chalcedon declared that Christ was vere homo, vere Deus, that is, “truly man and truly God,” having two natures in one person.
If you’ve ever thought that Jesus doesn’t know what you’re going through, loneliness, depression, anxiety, fear, hurt, rejection, malice, people lying about you, betrayal. Listen, Christ knows it all perfectly and you can bring Him all of those things. We trust in Him alone! We lean upon Christ alone and He gives us strength to bear the burden and even exchange our burden for His.
We also learn that Jesus is
He is the Submissive Savior
He is the Submissive Savior
Christ’s request is not a sign of weakness, nor unwillingness, but is the response of the perfect, sinless, Lamb of God understandably recoiling at the thought of becoming sin and bearing our guilt, and suffering under the wrath of the Father’s judgment. Jesus prayed let this cup pass from me. What kind of cup was it?
The cup was a cup full of sin. He saw all the blasphemy, the jealousy, the hatred, the sinful anger, the murder, the unfaithfulness, and covetousness in the cup, and Jesus recoiled at the contents of the cup.
It was a cup full of wrath. By drinking the cup, Christ bore the sins of humanity and became the object of the Father’s wrath. 2 Corinthians 5:21
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
He also became a curse by drinking this cup Galatians 3:13
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
It’s no wonder Christ prayed for this cup to pass from Him! It’s no wonder He prayed sweat drops of blood. It’s no wonder God sent an angel to Him to strengthen Him for this time as it says in Luke.
This teaches you and I the model that as Jesus brings His needs and desires to God, He emphasizes above all else submission to the will of the Father. “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” And this shows us that prayer is not primarily about us praying for our wants and desires but about aligning our hearts and will with the Father’s heart and will. Jesus shows perfect obedience to the will of God despite what it cost Him personally.
George Whitefield, the great Reformed evangelist, faced a crisis of calling early in his ministry. As a young preacher in England, he felt God leading him to preach in the American colonies, a dangerous and uncertain journey across the Atlantic. Whitefield struggled with fear of shipwreck, disease, and leaving his growing ministry. In prayer, he submitted to God’s will, writing in his journal, “I am content to go anywhere, if it be but to do my Master’s will.” His obedience led to the Great Awakening, with thousands coming to faith in Christ.
You are going to go through times as a follower of Christ where a situation is nearly impossible. The sheer, crushing weight of circumstances should drive you to the throne of God and you will need to pray for strength and wisdom to walk in God’s will. Some of you are in that season right now and you will need to trust God’s greater purpose even in the darkness. He models for you and invites you to trust in Him, follow His example, go to the Lord for strength, and to walk in God’s will for you!
I recently heard about the 30 year old pastor with two kids that got a terrible cancer diagnosis. He had a swollen lymph node and the doctors shared that his whole body is riddled with cancer. “Let this cup pass from me. But not my will, but yours Lord, let that be done!” We do not see the goodness of God in the darkness of death immediately. We do not see the light of the glory of God while our soul is downcast. But when we come to God and pour out our soul, our hearts will be strengthened by God. It doesn’t make the darkness any lighter, but it does make the weight a bit more bearable by remembering there is tremendous purpose from God and that Christ has already born that burden on the cross.
Just as a reminder, Christ had left the disciples and went to pray by Himself. He had Peter, James, and John come a bit further and told them to do one thing: Remain here and watch. That means stay awake and watch me. In Luke it tells us that they were also told to pray at this time. and time after time Christ returns to continue discipling and teaching.
37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Three times this happens and we see this final role that Jesus is
He is the Steadfast Leader
He is the Steadfast Leader
Jesus brought the disciples to the Garden, not because He needed their encouragement. He knew they were going to abandon Him. They’re there because they still had a lesson to learn because they all would face the harsh reality of persecution and death for Christ’s sake and would need to know how to steel their hearts against the fierce persecution they would face.
When Jesus prays for a while, He returns to the three that had all fallen asleep and addresses the most vocal one. The one that would deny Him in just a few hours. Jesus doesn’t harshly scold Him, there’s an encouragement here, and a rebuke for sure, but it’s full of love because Jesus understands our human weakness and so He instructs them to pray or they will fall.
And Jesus does this over and over again with tremendous patience with His disciples and this proves to us the patience and compassion of Christ when we can be so hard headed. Have you been in a situation where your faith was challenged? If you’ve walked with the Lord for more than a couple weeks then you know what its like. And how many times has God failed you? Not once! Not once! His promise still holds true! He is still good! Even when things don’t go your way, God is still faithful! This is what we learn!
And so when your faith is faltering. When you need strength and you’re close to falling, you can lean upon the Lord, trust in Him and rely on His strength to get you through it!
Christ spent the hours in the Garden preparing Himself and His disciples for the hours and weeks to come. And as Christ took strength and encouraged the disciples to stay awake, He accepted the plan set in motion from the foundation of the world and said “It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”
And Jesus began to drink the cup the Father had for Him. They had failed in their promise to be with Him through the darkest night. Three times Jesus had come to Peter and Peter would soon deny Jesus three times. This failure was soon to become a principle of faith as they would learn how to steel themselves through prayer. Peter and James would both be put to death and John endured to the end.
Jesus is the Sovereign Prophet who knows God’s plan, the Suffering Servant who feels our pain, the Submissive Savior who obeys God’s will, and the Steadfast Leader who never abandons us. Follow His example of surrender and perseverance and when you feel like your faith is barely holding on, pray for His strength to empower your life.
Head: Jesus, fully God and man, faced the ultimate crisis through prayer, fulfilling God’s plan as Prophet, Servant, Savior, and Leader. In Gethsemane, He confronted the cross, praying to align with God’s will, showing His divine knowledge, human suffering, obedient submission, and faithful leadership. So you and I can anchor our faith in Christ’s perfect work through prayer.
Heart: Jesus knows our pain and stays faithful, so we can trust Him to strengthen us in crises through prayer. His sorrow proved He understands your struggles, yet He never left His disciples, even when they failed Him. Let this truth fill your heart with hope to pray through any trial.
Hand: Pray daily to align with God’s will and seek His strength in crises. Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane shows us how to submit to God, just as George Whitefield prayed to obey God’s call despite fear. Start with a brief daily prayer to build a habit of trusting Christ’s strength for any storm and continue to grow in specific times of prayer.
PRAY
