Luke 22:39-46
copy of God’s Word to Luke chapter
22. Our reading is verse 39 through
verse 46. As you’re making your way there, I will make a pastoral comment,
and when I do this, I’m gonna get in trouble, I know, because
I’m gonna make a promise I can’t keep. Over the last several weeks,
the service has gone a little longer than many of us would
wish. Our desire is to have a one-hour service. You can get it done
in 59 minutes and still have a good sermon, all the rest.
Now, typically, when we have the Lord’s Supper, it may go
a little longer, but I know some fear and trepidation has entered
some of your hearts. Our goal is an hour. Now, don’t hold me to it, but
that is the goal. So I just wanted to put that
in front of you because I think in about the last month we’ve
had about four services go pretty doggone long. The Baptist beat
you to the buffet and that troubles many of you, I know. Our reading from God’s word is
Luke chapter 22, and we begin at verse 39. Here, the word of
the living God, speaking of the Lord Jesus. And he came out and
went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives. And the disciples
followed him. And when he came to the place,
he said to them, Pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about
a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if
you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not
my will, but yours, be done. And there appeared to him an
angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed
more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood
falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer,
he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow.
And he said to them, why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that
you may not enter into temptation. Pray with me. Lord, may your
word be a blessing to your people. And to that end, we pray that
you would open our eyes Soften our hearts, clear the clutter
of our minds, the to-do list, the grocery list, the lunch hour
even. Clear our minds and our hearts
so that we might sit and listen and hear and receive and be blessed
by your word and let every intention of your word land squarely upon
us this day. So we ask your help, your blessing
through Christ and may the spirit do his work. And we ask this
in Jesus’ name, amen. You may be seated. Most people, when you speak to
them about death, are not afraid of death. They’re not afraid
of being dead. It’s the process of getting there
that scares them to death, you might say. It’s the process of
dying. And that’s, in a sense, what
we face here in our passage with the Lord Jesus. He knows because
He is the eternal Son of God. He knows because He made the
eternal pact or covenant of redemption with the Father and with the
Holy Spirit in eternity past. He made a pact of redemption
to suffer and die for the sins of the people. He knows that
death is inevitable, but this night in the garden, this night
on the Mount of Olives, He sees the tempest brewing. He sees
the storm on the horizon. He knows Judas will be coming. And with Judas coming will be
the chief priests, the scribes, their soldiers, and they will
take him away, and this night is only beginning. The next many
hours for the Lord Jesus will be terrifying. They’ll be full
of agony and pain and torment, and not just physically, but
spiritually. This next day for the Lord Jesus
is scaring him and he is in agony in the garden. And we come to
a passage that has a couple interesting lessons, a couple interesting
points of theology for us. And so we want to explore this
passage by asking and answering several questions. The first
question we want to ask What was in the cup? What was in the
cup that Jesus prayed to his heavenly father, if it is your
will, let this cup pass from me. But immediately without skipping
a breath, he says, but not my will, but yours be done. Jesus
knows the inevitable. He knows that on the morrow,
he must drink that cup. What was in the cup? Well, we
catch a glimpse of that in Psalm 75. God is a God of judgment. He judges the wicked. We know
that our God will by no means clear the guilty. He sees sin
and He must punish sin. And so Jesus on the next day
is facing this cup of God’s wrath. Fast forward in the scriptures
to the New Testament to the book of Revelation chapter 14. There’s
the image of the grapes of wrath being trampled in the winepress.
And the grapes of wrath as they are trampled in the winepress,
the blood of the wicked on this earth are trampled down and the
winepress, it says, overflows with the judgment of their blood
and for some nearly 2,000 miles to the height of a horse’s bridle,
the blood of the unrighteous fills the land as God judges. Have we lost a sight? and a sense of who God is. Do we forget that he is a holy
God and that he made the world and everything in it and he gave
a law to his people? To Adam and Eve, he says, if
you obey me perfectly, you will live forever. But in the day
you disobey and you eat of the forbidden fruit, you will surely
die.” Well, we know the story. They were tempted. It was a delight
to their eyes. It was good for food. They loved the autonomy
that Satan promised. God will no longer be the boss
of you. You can live as you wish. You’ll know good and evil, and
you’ll have a really grand time. And so they ate, and sin entered
the world. Curses entered this world, and
God said to Adam and Eve, you will surely die. Now one of the
great blessings we know is that God has delayed the punishment
of sin. He’s delayed it ultimately to
the last day for the wicked who will not repent and come to faith
in Jesus. But He delayed sin, even through
the Old Covenant, even through the sacrifices, the blood of
bulls and goats, even through all the rituals of cleansing
and cleanliness and all the rest, He delayed His wrath. These were
placeholders until Jesus would come. And so here now is Jesus
on the night in which he has observed Passover with his disciples. On the same night in which he
inaugurated the new covenant, he took the cup of the Passover,
he took the bread of the table and said, this is my body given
for you, this is my blood, this is the new covenant. We understand
Jesus’ ministry progressing this night as they’ve left the table.
They’ve gone as was custom to the Mount of Olives and Jesus
knows his arrest is imminent and so he says to his disciples,
let us go, let us watch, let us pray. But the central theme
of his anguish and his prayer in the garden is the cup. What
is this cup? What is in it? God is angry at
sin. And in order to redeem his children
from sin, the wrath of God must be satisfied. You young people,
you’re learning to do your chores, you sweep the kitchen, right? And what’s the biggest shortcut
in sweeping? You sweep all the dirt under the rug. You don’t
see it, it’s gone, right? But where’s the dirt? Is it in
the trash? Is it carried out to the curb?
No, it’s swept under the rug. And we live in a swept under
the rug culture, do we not? We don’t repent of our sin. We don’t apologize for our wrongdoings. We don’t make wrongs right any
longer. Someone comes to us and says,
you did something wrong, we put our fist up, we scream and we
yell and say, how dare you? How dare you say this or that
against me? God says judge not and all the
rest. But remember this, while our
justice may wax and wane in our culture, While we may not hold
people to standards in our homes or in our church or in our workplace,
God is a righteous God. And he can by no means clear
the guilty. He can’t say, oh, don’t worry
about it. I know what life in the garden
is like. You get tired, you get worn out. And yes, I know Satan,
I’m aware of him. He’s a slippery little devil.
And I know that he could persuade you and just don’t worry about
it. That is not who God is. Sin in His eyes must be dealt
with. And so when we come to this garden
of agony and see Jesus praying over the cup, He is facing the
spiritual reality of what will take place the next day. Maybe
some of you have seen Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, and
you’ve seen all the violence and the hideous treatment Jesus
received in the flesh from the Jewish and the Roman authorities,
all the abuse and all the rest. Terrible stuff. But what does
Hebrews tell us? It is a terrible thing to fall
into the hands of an angry God. And for us, Christ fell into
the hands of an angry God on that next day at the cross. And
Jesus facing that says, I can’t handle the hell. I can’t handle
the torment of all hell being turned loose on me. I cannot
handle the father turning his back on me. I cannot handle the,
The weight of sin, he who knew no sin, was made sin for us in
order that we might become the righteousness of Christ. So what
is in the cup? What is in the cup is the wrath of Almighty
God for all the sins of those Jesus would save. Could you even
handle that cup for your sins alone? You couldn’t even get
your lips near it. The danger of that cup and what
was mixed in it by God’s anger would kill you before you got
near it. And yet Jesus took that cup on
the morrow, on the next day, for all the sins of his children. Most people aren’t afraid of
death, but they are afraid of dying. And now you see why Jesus
was afraid of dying. He was afraid of the cup. He
was afraid of the torment and the wrath. And so he is in agony.
He is kneeling in prayer. He is calling out to Almighty
God under the weight. under the weight of the judgment
that will come. But notice one of the blessings
in this passage. Jesus is attended to by an angel. God knows the burdens we bear
in life. And we don’t want to for a second
say, well, what Jesus was going through, oh, I’ve been through
it. I’ve been through my hardships. But let’s stop for a moment.
We do endure hardships. For the cause of Christ, yes,
we do endure hardships. Our bodies are in pain and we
suffer, we go through relational struggles, all those things.
And if God did not care for His own Son in His darkest hour,
will He not also care for you and your painful hours? What was in the cup? It was the
full wrath and judgment of Almighty God. Second question to think
of here, what was Jesus’ prayer? Jesus’ prayer, if possible, Father,
take this cup from me. If possible, let this cup pass. Now, you could stop there and
you could make a real mess of your Christology. You could make
a real mess of your soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. You
could make a real mess of the mission of Jesus. You could say, Jesus was asking God to do it
another way. Maybe sweep it under the rug. Let someone else be the scapegoat.
But we remember, don’t we, the will of God is for our salvation. The will of God is that not a
one of us would be lost. The will of God is that He would
redeem a people for Himself in order that we might be His children.
We might be His ones in whom He delights and sings over and
has joy over. And so Jesus’ prayer was, thy
kingdom come. His prayer was, thy will be done.
His prayer was, let’s get this finished. Let’s get through tomorrow. Let’s get through the suffering
and the agony and the pain. Don’t you know that Jesus went
through much? But how hard it would be, and
you dads get this, to turn your back on your own child. What a hardship that would be,
Jesus’ prayer. Let’s keep going, Father. Let’s
keep working out your holy will. Let’s keep working the covenant
of redemption. A third question in our passage,
what’s in the cup? What was Jesus’ prayer? What’s
wrong with the disciples? That’s a good question, isn’t
it? And really, the question is a mirror. What’s wrong with
us? What’s wrong with we who are followers of Jesus? Well,
what’s wrong with the disciples? They’re not awake. In our house,
when we get a storm alert, We get ready. You know, the phone
buzzes. There’s a text from the Alamance
emergency. There’s tornado warnings or watches
or whatever. I can’t remember which is which.
So, you know, we get the flashlight, the pillow, the weather radio.
We get in the hallway. We get ready for the storm. Now,
I’m the disciple of the house. Oh, it’s not gonna come. Let’s
just go to bed. Sleep’s always a good thing. But when a storm
is pressing down upon you, you get ready. And that’s what Jesus
is saying to the disciples, the storm of hell is soon going to
come upon my life. Not only my body, but you, the
band of disciples. Now Jesus knows, strike the shepherd
and the sheep will be scattered. He knows they’re all gonna go
off into the night. He’s already told them that at dinner. But
what’s wrong with the disciples? Can’t you not stay awake? Can’t
you not watch? Can you not pray? Can you not
see that a storm is brewing and stay with me and encourage me?
That’s how weak we are. That’s how unaware we are at
the work of God and the world. In the other gospel passages
that tell this same story, a few different details, Jesus says
to them, your spirit is willing, but your flesh, is weak. And we could take the same lesson
today, couldn’t we? We are children of the living
God at work in the world. Christ is ascended. Christ is
in heaven. He’s left us here to be His witnesses on earth,
and we’re asleep. I was reading an article this
week about the whole woke movement. You know, to be woke means you’re
aware of cultural issues. And the person writing the article
says, no Christians were the first woke people. Awake, old
sleeper. Why do you sleep? Why do you
slumber? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of
the hands, poverty will come upon you. Or Jesus says, night
is coming when no one can work. Stay awake, be ready, be watchful. And really the woke movement
ought to be the character of Christians throughout the world.
Jesus is coming, he will judge, proclaim the gospel, serve him
while you can. But like the disciples in the
garden when Jesus needed them most, where were they? having
a little snooze, a little slumber while the storm was brewing.
One last question, and it’s not a question in this passage, but
I think it’s a question this passage demands us to ask and
answer. And the question is, what is
your need today? Well, I wanna answer that with
three answers. What is your need today? The
first need you have is to be awake. Be awake, be aware of
what is going on in the world. This is our Father’s world. He
is the Lord of heaven and earth and He is the Lord of history
and God in Christ. is gonna make all things new.
He’s gonna come and judge the world. He’s gonna judge the wicked
and the righteous. And those who are found in Christ
will be rewarded. Those who are not found in Christ
but are continuing to live in their wickedness will be judged
and cast into eternal punishment. And so your need is to be first,
to be awake. Be aware spiritually and biblically
what is taking place in this world. The second answer to that
question, what is your need? And this is one not to miss.
You need to know of the gravity of your sin. You need to understand
that every sin, whether small or great, deserves the wrath,
it deserves the curse, it deserves the punishment, and it deserves
the full range of what God placed on Christ. It is deserved by
you. And so if you are a Christian,
if you have faith in Jesus, if your sins have been forgiven,
you lay hold of the work of Jesus at the cross, you need to be
keenly aware acutely aware that every day
you sin, every day you decide like Adam and Eve to do it your
way, every day you decide to close your Bible and say, no
thanks, every day you decide, I want it this way. I know the
good I ought to do, but that’s no fun. and I will follow my
heart as we like to say in our American culture, you need to
understand the gravity of that. Not only does God tell us that
we quench the Holy Spirit who is in us and who teaches us and
persuades us and even enables us to do the right thing, but
it’s an offense to almighty God. to transgress His laws, to fall
short of His glory. And we give thanks, yes, that
in Christ Jesus, all of our sins are forgiven, past, present,
and future. And we love to quote Romans 8, 1, don’t we? That for
anyone who is in Christ, there is therefore now no condemnation. But we don’t want to be anti-nomens.
And that’s a 50 cent word, that’s a fancy word. We don’t want to
be anti-law. We don’t want to say, Jesus has
saved me, blessed Lord. Now I can live like I want. As
long as I say my prayers at night, that is not the way to live the
Christian life. But that is so often the way many Christians
in this nation have been saved. God will never hold it against
me. He’s so full of grace, so full of grace. I can live as
I wish. I just need to make sure I cover it at night when I go
to bed. That is not the way God has called us to be. The gravity
of sin ought to always be on our minds. Thankful that Jesus
has paid for it. Blessed to be a child of the
Holy Spirit and able to live more and more unto righteousness.
But never losing sight of the gravity of sin. Our confession
of faith affirms what scripture teaches. You can get into a pattern
of sin so deep that God in His wisdom, God in
His fatherly providence will say to you, all right, I’ll let
you have a shot at it. It’s a story of the prodigal
son, isn’t it? Give me what I want, I’ll run
with it, and I’ll be just fine, thanks. How does that story turn? when the boy came to his senses. He remembered what was good,
what was right, and what was true, and he said, I will return
to my father. And dear brothers and sisters,
you do not want a seared conscience. You do not want to be one who
walks past your Bible, walks past Sunday by Sunday, and who
quenches the Holy Spirit and says, I am forgiven, I’ll live
like I want, and I’ll say my prayers at night. You want to
be a faithful Christian. And so what do you need? You
need to be constantly aware of the gravity of sin. Yes, that
Christ has paid for it. but sin is not something to mess
with, it is dangerous. It is an offense to God, it’s
a stench in his nostrils, and it puts you in a desperate situation. What is the third thing that’s
an answer to this question? What do you need? You need to
be awake, be spiritually aware. You need to have a sense of the
gravity of sin, of course, but you need to have faith. You need
to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And here’s why. Maybe some of you haven’t come
to the Lord Jesus just yet and you’re hearing this about cups
and wrath and God is angry at sin and all the rest. If Jesus doesn’t drink the cup
for you, you will drink it one day. And if Jesus was tormented
in his prayers, Lord, let this cup, if it be your will, pass
from me. Are you willing this day to continue
on in your sin apart from Christ and say, I’ll take my chances?
I can handle the cup. I’ve handled everything else
so far in life. If he gives me a cup of his judgment drink,
I’ll be fine. Maybe it’ll be nasty. Maybe it’ll
hurt going down. Maybe it’ll make me sick. Only Jesus could handle it because
he was human and he was divine. The confessions and catechisms
tell us it was necessary for Jesus. It was necessary for him
to be both human and divine. The human nature to be the sacrificial
lamb, but the divine nature to hold up the human nature under
the weight of the wrath of God. Friends, at the last day, you’ll
be on your own. And that cup will be coming. And you have
no divine nature to hold you up. The full wrath of God for
your sins will come. And so what do you need? You
need faith. You need to trust in Jesus alone for your salvation. You need to believe that He has
lived and died in your place. And that the death of death that
He experienced on the cross, when He drank the wrath, the
cup of God’s wrath, you need to believe that it was for you.
and that God no longer holds your sins against you because
he held them against the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is a passage
with lots of questions and great and wonderful deep and big answers. And it’s my prayer this day that
you will deal with these in your own mind, in your own heart,
and you will come to faith in Jesus and rest in Him alone for
your salvation. Every week, at the end of our
service, we pronounce the benediction. The Lord bless you. The Lord
keep you. The Lord cause His face to shine
upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance
to you and give you peace. And we need to remember that
in order for that blessing to be ours, We need to put our faith,
our hope, our trust in the one who on the cross, his father
did not say the Lord bless you, but he said the Lord curse you.
He did not say the Lord keep you, but the Lord cast you away.
He didn’t say the Lord let the countenance of his face shine
upon you, but he turned his back on his own son. And the cup of
wrath was given to him to drink down to the dregs. And the Lord
did not give his son peace that day, he gave him hell. Every
bit of it that you deserved. And so we need to put our faith
in the one who can bless us, keep us, cause his face to shine
upon us, and be gracious to us. Pray with me. Our Father, we
thank you for the willingness of the Son to do the work of
redemption. He was not one who would shrink
back or fall short. When the storms of hell, the
shadows of hell were all around him, he, though tormented, remained
resolute. And we give you thanks, we bless
you for this, and we pray that our faith would be strong And
for others in this room today, that their faith would be new,
that they would see Christ and his work of redemption as a necessary
thing, and that they would lay hold of it by faith, forever
trusting in you. Help us. We pray in the name
of Christ, amen.