SPEAKER_02 0:10

Today's scripture reading is taken from Mark chapter 14, verse 32 to 42. Mark chapter 14, Jesus prays in Gethsemane. Verse 32, and they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. And he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch. And going a little further, he fell on the ground and prayed that. 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. And he came and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Verse 39. And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 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. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Thank you, Sylvester, for the scripture reading this morning. Church, this morning we are continuing our sermon series on the gospel of Mark. In Mark 10, 45, Jesus spoke of the purpose of the Son of Man, which is to give his life as a ransom for many. So that was the objective description of his purpose, what he came to do. Now in Mark 14, 32 to 42, we hear the subjective experience of it. In Gethsemane, Jesus must make the first payment of that ransom, the will to become the sin bearer for humanity. Today we'll be exploring together how we can choose God's will over our own through agonizing, wrestling, prayer with God. Let us pray. Father, I pray may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be pleasing in your sight. O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. In the Last Supper, Jesus spoke of the bread and wine as representations of his body and blood poured out for many. Jesus gave his body to us holy and without reserve. He also gives his blood, his very life, to us. However, the giving of his body on the cross depends on the prior surrender of his will to the Father. So we see this recorded in Mark 14, 32 to 42, Jesus in Gethsemane. The word Gethsemane is derived from the Hebrew word meaning olive press. Gethsemane is derived from the word olive press, and an olive press is a place where harvested olives are being transformed into liquid olive oil through a sequence of washing, crushing, mixing, and separating steps. Gethsemane was Jesus' finest testing hour. He's being crushed, tried, and tested in his resolve to embrace the cross fully. In Gethsemane, Jesus is besieged with intense spiritual afflictions. The range and number of expressions describing his sorrow in this passage rival the lamentable description of the demoniac in Mark 5, verse 2 to 5, in which we read that he could not be bound, the demoniac cannot be bound with shackles and chains, and was crying out night and day and cutting himself with stones. Jesus began to be deeply distressed and troubled. The words distress and trouble are rare words in the New Testament. The first carries a sense of alarm, being alarmed. The second means to be troubled or distressed. So Jesus is alarmed, troubled and in deep distress. Jesus' words, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, echoes the haunting lament of the downcast and dejected soul of Psalm 42, verse 5, 11, and Psalm 43, verse 5, with the recurring reframe, Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why in turmoil within me? The words overwhelmed with sorrow, again a rare word, means to be burdened with grief, and in the present context, to be so burdened with grief that he despaired unto life. So Jesus is burdened with grief and he is such that he kind of despaired even to the point that he desired to die. A commentator writes that nothing in the Bible compares to Jesus' agony and anguish of Gethsemane. Neither the laments of the Psalms, nor the broken heart of Abraham as he prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis 22 verse 5. Nor David's grief at the death of his son, Absalom. Luke 23 verse, Luke 22 verse 44 tells us the intensity of what Jesus went through in Gethsemane, such that Jesus' sweat fall to the ground like drops of blood. There's an intensity, there's a crushing weight that was confronting Jesus. As described in Mark, the decision to submit to the Father's will will cause Jesus greater internal suffering than the actual physical crucifixion on the cross. Let me repeat again. In Mark, the decision to submit to the Father's will will cause Jesus greater internal suffering than the actual physical crucifixion on the cross. How we infer from that, we read the text before us, we see the amount of words describing the anguish. Jesus was distressed, he was alarmed, he despaired unto life. All this tells us he was in deep grief. Whereas if you read Mark's account of the crucifixion of Jesus, it merely records more factual uh events, what happened. You know, the soldiers took him, they scourged him, they crucified him, and the only point came where he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The rest of the narrative is just a physical record. But I believe Mark has a purpose of showing his readers the deep anguish and pain that Jesus went through, the great distress that he bore, that he that he bore on himself in Gethsemane. So withdrawing from the disciples by going a little further, Jesus collapses on the ground in prayer to the Father that the ordeal might be avoided. Jesus prayed in Mark 14, 35, if it were possible, Lord, the hour, let the hour pass from him. If it were possible, Lord, spare me from this hour. The hour in uh biblical writings and especially in what we call the apocalyptic literature, which talks about the unveiling of the end times, refers to always to the ultimate purpose of God associated with the end of time. So the hour associates with the ultimate purpose of God. And in the context of Mark, it is for Jesus to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10, verse 45. And such that the handing over of the Son of Man to sinners is needed in order to redeem sinners. So why does Jesus, who has foreseen his death three times in Mark 8, verse 31, Mark 9, 31, and Mark 10, 32 to 34, now quell before it? Why does he shrink back? Even though he knew and he told the disciples three times that, yes, the Son of Man will be sick will be uh crucified on three days he will rise again. Why did why was he so sure that that would happen? And now he seems to be shrinking back from that decision. One commentator writes that the answer must be that Jesus was keenly aware that he was facing something more than simply his own death. Jesus was facing something deeper than just his own death. It is one thing to answer for our own sins before a holy and almighty God. Who can imagine what it would be like to stand before God and to answer for the sins and evil of the whole world? Jesus necessarily experienced an abandonment and darkness of cosmic proportions as he would be bearing the sins of the whole world on the cross. So when Jesus was crucified, he was bearing the sins of the whole world on the cross. And the irony is this the one who had no sin, the one who was sinless, the sinless Son of Man, will now have to bear the sins of the whole world on his shoulders. Right? Not just dying, not just physically dying by crucifixion, but bearing the sins, the burdens of the whole world and having evil, having to absorb evil on himself. Scares him. And I believe none of us would like to be in the position. I think we would, it would also scare us tremendously. Have you experienced being falsely accused for something you had not done or been treated shamefully by a person when you only meant good for the person? I'm sure the feeling is yucky, right? For example, you do good for someone, but the person turns back and jab you in the back or do something evil against you. How will you feel about it? Would you feel good? Would you think, wow, this is good? Let me experience more of such evil or such injustice where I turn, I'm I do good, yet evil is turned against me. Perhaps that occurs often in the workplace today or different contexts where we do good, yet evil comes upon our lives. How did you feel about it? I mean, times where I've experienced that I certainly don't feel good, and I feel anger towards the person who I've been good to. How can you do this to me? After all, I've been good to you. Right? And it's not human to absorb evil. It's not human to absorb evil when we do good to others. Imagine the feelings you feel multiplied many times forward to include the sin, accusations, and evil of the whole world upon the weight of your shoulders, even though you did no wrong. What would you do if you discovered that you are the one called to bear the weight of sins you did not commit on the cross? What would you be thinking and feeling? Perhaps the worst prospect of becoming the sin bearer for humanity is that for Jesus it spells complete alienation from God the Father. An alienation that will echo from Jesus' mouth when he's on the cross in Mark 15, verse 34. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus shivers and shrinks back from the possibility of identifying with sinners so fully as to become the object of God's wrath against sin. As he bears the weight of the sin of the whole world on the cross, Jesus will also bear the full wrath of his beloved father, whom he intimately addresses as Abba in Mark 14, 36. Interestingly, only in the Gospel of Mark does Jesus address God as Abba in the account of the Garden of Gethsemane, the Gospel, the other Gospel records of the similar account. Only in Mark, Jesus calls God Abba. And Abba, Abba is an Aramaic word of addressing your father in a sense of a word of intimacy, of trust, of affection. In other words, Jesus shrinks back from such a separation from his beloved Abba. So to be separated from his beloved Abba and to become the object of God's wrath against sin by bearing sin and evil fully absorbed on himself. It is this that overwhelms Jesus so to the point of death. It is the most devastating experience of his entire life because he's now having to confront the reality that this will soon take place. So the prayer of Jesus to take this cup from me suggests that he is genuinely tempted in the Garden of Gethsemane to shrink back from submitting to the Father's will, which is to give his life as a ransom for many. God's will, God's kingdom come, God's will be done. Not my will come, not my will be done. So what about the disciples? Jesus' words to his disciples in Mark 13, verse 36 to 7 to 37 on the coming of the Son of Man was a reminder to them. He says, Therefore stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning, least he comes suddenly and finds you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake. This is from Mark 13, 36 to 37. And immediately in Mark 14, a few verses down, we see that in Gethsemane the disciples failed to stay awake and they fell asleep. Three times Jesus warns them to watch and pray so that they will not fall into temptation. Three times Jesus only rose to find them asleep. We will see later that Peter would also deny Jesus three times. Thus, we see that the crisis before Jesus, what he was going through, what he was battling deep within his own soul, was dismissed by the disciples as they were consumed by their tiredness. The events leading up to Passover and the lateness of the hour probably had set their energy. Coupled with the Passover meal and the wine, they were physically fighting off slumber. They were not fighting with Jesus and watching with Jesus, but they were fighting off slumber. So the third time Jesus finds the disciples sleeping, he then retorts, it is enough. So this phrase, it is enough, is likely an utterance of exasperation. In other words, some translations, instead of saying, it is enough, says, What's the use? I mean, you are just found sleeping. Just get up on your backs. Let's let's go, rise, let us go. And so with these words, Jesus resolves to meet his fate. So, what is the implication of Mark 14, verse 32 to 42 for us today? How does all this, what Jesus experienced, apply to us in our lives each day? Before that, I would like to say that everything was at stake in Gethsemane. Without Gethsemane, there wouldn't be the cross, there wouldn't be a Good Friday, and consequently, there wouldn't be an Easter. Right? So Gethsemane was Jesus' finest testing hour. Would he yield to his own will or to the Father's will? What would happen if Jesus had shrunk back from the cross? What do you think will happen? If Jesus had shivaled and shrunk back, there'll be no salvation for the world. We will all not be sitting here and worshipping uh Jesus who has risen. And God's redemptive purpose will not be achieved through him. So everything hangs on his willingness to subject his will to the will of God. Gethsemane was Jesus' finest testing hour. So Mark 14, 32 to 42, the passage before us, when applied to us, to our lives, is really about the struggle of our wills. The struggle of our wills, what we will and desire versus what God wills and desire for us. Understandably, the disciples were overcome by their physical limitations, their tiredness after a long day. However, as we reflect on this passage, the answer for the disciples and for Jesus is the same. It's prayer. It's prayer and prayer. And it's uh coincidentally, I we didn't kind of arrange this, but when Pastor Richard uh just gave his uh farewell speech earlier, he mentioned about prayer, about the need for us to maintain vitality through prayer. And how how much more, you know, how true it is in terms of emphasis. Prayer is the heart and soul of our Christian life. The answer for the disciples and for Jesus is prayer. Jesus exhorted his disciples to watch and pray so that they will not fall into temptation. He himself, at his most Crucial moment in his life, a very pivotal strategic moment, he was found praying at Gethsemane in his moment of greatest need as the cross looms near. The answer to us is if we were to overcome our flesh and physical limitations, the answer is really to watch and to pray. It is in prayer that we develop a firm resolve to do God's will as we struggle and battle with our human limitations and the weakness of our flesh. We see that Jesus truly struggled to embrace God's will fully. Because he, being fully man, he had to struggle in his human nature to fully comprehend and accept the weight of sin and the wrath of God upon himself. And I'm always reminded, whenever I find it hard to forgive someone who has hurt me, or when someone does bad things against me, and uh I feel angry, I always remember Jesus on the cross. You know, he bought the sin of the whole world. All the injustice, all the evil is brought by him. So, what is my petty unforgiveness? So and so irritated me. I won't talk for the person for the next 10 years. I mean, what is that? So that is why for Christianity the cross is the defining uh defining mark of our faith. That is why forgiveness is so central in the Christianity. Because Jesus died this way, he died this way and took upon us the sin of the whole world and all the evil. And and consequently, because of that, 1 Peter, James, and all the epistles, if you read carefully, can exhort followers of Jesus to do good, even while you are persecuted. Someone is harsh, never mind. Maybe I won't say I wanted to say suck it up, but I mean uh kind of just enjoy it, sorry, enjoy it. And because Christ has suffered for you, so just find strength in God and find a resolve to overcome that hatred in your heart. Why? Because of the cross. The cross has made it possible for us to embrace evil and uh bad things that happen to us when we do good to others. So we see that Jesus truly struggled to embrace God's will fully, to become the object of God's wrath against sin by bearing sin fully on himself and to be consequently separated from his beloved Abba. He needed to develop the resolve of choosing God's will above his own. Above his own will through prayer. Similarly, for us, for us, for us, in order for us to truly choose God's will over our own, we need to lock in and pray. When was the last time you brought the struggles in following Jesus and forsaking the world, the flesh, and the devil and wrestled with God in prayer for breakthrough? Breakthrough doesn't come sometimes without intensity of prayer. If Jesus, the Son of Man, if his life is an example to us, like what the theologians will say, Jesus' life is a model for us, then we should pray. If Jesus needed to pray at his final testing hour, how much so do we? As we go through trials, as we face challenging decisions, how much more should we pray? How can we choose God's will over our own? The answer is prayer. And at times, agonizing, wrestling prayer with God. I'd like to suggest to us some ways or some action points which we can do to choose God's will over our own. Firstly, we need to develop a daily pattern of following the example of Jesus. Develop a pattern of daily prayer following the example of Jesus. If we are not connected to Jesus in our daily life, when a crisis hits us, do you think you will pray? Do you think you will pray? Maybe you will. As a last resolve, like no choice, maybe just pray. But the whole idea is what we build up consistently through our daily prayers become like a reservoir. When we face crisis, we know instinctively this is what we need to do. Pray and pray and pray. Develop a pattern of daily prayer following the example of Jesus. Daily commit your cares and concerns to Jesus in prayer. Don't let the devil deceive you that God is too busy to care about your needs, your real needs. Right? Sometimes you think, ah, God is the cosmic creator of all. Why would he bother that, you know, today I have no money for lunch? I mean, why would he bother? Or I'm facing this issue or this crisis. Sometimes because of our hurts in the past, because of maybe an absentee father or mother that tells us, ah, you go fend for yourself, I'm gonna give you this amount. Either you survive or you die. Of course, we are not in such a situation, but people who live with such survival mode will tend to depend a lot on himself or herself to survive. Right? And we will not pray unless it's a last resort, because we are trained from young to develop our own resilience. Yeah, but this has to change because we need to learn to come before God as our Abba, as our Father in heaven. So I I learned this more and more as a pattern for my own life. Um, because most of my time is spent, or rather, quite regular rhythm is spent preparing for sermons or short sharings. Sometimes in a week I have up to three sharings to prepare. So each time, as I mentioned, each time I open the Bible, it's actually in some sense work because I'm thinking about a sermon or thinking about an outline, you know. So I find for me, applied to my situation, what is most important is my daily rhythm of prayer. I need to engage God, lock in with God for the day, commit what I'm going to do for the day to the hands of God and say, God, will you give me wisdom? Will you guide me? So usually, as I shared with us, I will meditate on a on a verse. Uh sometimes it's Matthew 11, 29, uh, sometimes it's other verses, but I usually use a Bible verse to frame, uh, meditate on it, and then go into a time of prayer. And I need God's wisdom each day to make decisions and to discern his will for the church, for my own life, for my family, for the challenges, for all of you, as I keep you all in my prayers. Those of you who have shared with me your prayer needs or your struggles with battling certain issues, health issues. Yeah, all these are brought to God in prayer. And this is so central in my life. And I like to propose to us bring your daily cares and concerns to Jesus in prayer. Not no issue is too small. No problem is, ah yeah, God won't care. This is a small issue, don't bother him. I suspect a lot of us from a particular generation have that kind of thinking, right? Uh yeah, so I think we should renew our minds, throw away that kind of thinking, or gradually uh renew your mind with the thinking of God, which is that Jesus longs to hear us pray to him. He longs to, he cares for us, right? You just read Matthew 6, uh the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount, you know. God cares for the details of our lives. Uh if he watches over the lilies of the field that grows and spurns, uh, how much more will he care for us? Right. Then thirdly, take an extended retreat to pray over issues that need more time for discernment. Uh this is essential because in Singapore we live in a very fast-paced society. We want to make a major decision, but we are caught up in work, the cycle of work. We cannot break free. So the only way is to force ourselves is to take leave or take a day off, right? Go to Changi, uh Changi Cove or Changi village. You know, just take a stroll along the Changi Beach or anywhere East Coast or even Sambawang. Some of us stay in Ishun Canberra. You know, just take time away, right? These are major decision points, a career move that will affect your family, that affects the trajectory of your life. We need to pray. It's not decided, it cannot be decided when you're constantly in that mode of work. Discerning suitability to date someone of the opposite gender. This is a life decision, right? It's not I just date and try out and see whether it works. But Lord, is this the person you have for me? Give me courage to move, right? So, yeah, because that will probably affect the trajectory of your life also, right? You marry the wrong person, that's it, right? So, how do we discern that? Take a day off, fast, pray, seek the Lord. Discern is we'll read scriptures. A family or work issue, uh, something that you can't resolve in your family or work. You need God's wisdom to come upon you. Take time off. If it's troubling so much and bothering you, then take time off. You know, ask the us, come come to us, we will pray for you, right? But also take time. Extended time, extended retreat to pray over issues. And I think it's okay for even for spouses to leave your husband or wife away for a day or so to pray through issues because they may need that time to wrestle with God and find an answer. You know, uh the struggling, the wrestling must happen. Otherwise, you know, we are just on the red race, right? The hamster's will, you know, life just keeps going on and on. Right? So choosing God's will over our own begins with a pattern of daily prayer. We are building up a reservoir, a capacity for us so that if we pray daily, when crisis hits, it will not hit us so bad. Because we know who we can turn to. We know God will hear us, we know we can cry out to God and He will answer us. So it begins with a pattern of daily prayer followed by extensive periods of prayer and sometimes fasting to discern God's will over our own. Again, the pattern for all this is not what I say, but what Jesus shows us. Right? The pattern of Mark's gospel, Jesus often withdrew from the crowds to spend time with his father. Right? While we were still dark, I think it's Mark 1, 35, 36, if I'm not wrong, right? Jesus went out to a quiet place to pray, right? The pattern of his life. However, when he needs to choose the 12 disciples, he took a whole night in prayer, and the next day he appointed them. So Jesus set the pattern for us: time alone to commune with his Abba Father, and time, extended time, for major decision points. So one point in Mark's gospel is the choosing of the child. The other major point would of course be the text before us today. Gethsemane. Facing his finest testing hour, he agonized and wrestled in prayer to choose the will of God over his own. I'd like to suggest to us to prioritize prayer, not so much as often perceived as a religious duty. You know, sometimes prayer seems like uh a religious duty and regrettably, and that's why uh uh prayer meeting attendance usually doesn't pick up because either we are too busy to prayer or we see prayer like just a duty that I can do without. But it's not so. Prayer is not just a religious duty, prayer is our lifeline, it's the pattern and the means of our vitality with God. So I'd like to exhort us to prioritize prayer, not so much as a religious duty, but as a pattern and a fundamental orientation of our lives, as a daily pattern and a fundamental orientation of our lives. We can't help but pray because we are Christians. We can't help but breathe because we need the air. So prayer is like our lifeline. Pray. The epistles would tell us pray without ceasing, keep praying. It's not limited to the quiet time, but pray all the time. When you face a crisis, pray. When you are worried, pray. Pray, seek the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

We pray that you've administered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.