Have You Ever Cried Yourself to Sleep?

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast. Our show, Stories of Hopelessness, Turned into Hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

So have you ever cried yourself to sleep? That's exactly what happened to the disciples on the night Jesus Christ, their Lord, was betrayed. I'm Stu Epperson, this is Experience Truth, and I'm so glad you're with us as we go through the Word of God. We are in the Book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke, and I'm so excited to get in.

It's the longest book in the New Testament, is the Gospel of Luke, and the second longest is the Book of Acts, which is a sequel to Luke, which we'll be going through after we finish up Luke. I'm going to read you the passage of Scripture. We're going to go through a few questions here and talk about Christ praying in agony, sweating great drops of blood, as it were.

Here are the verses, Luke 22 verses 39 through 46. Coming out, he went to the Mount of Olives as he was accustomed, and his disciples also followed him. When he came to the place, he said to them, Pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and he knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me.

Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Then an angel appeared to him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. Then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. When he rose up from prayer and had come to his disciples, he found them sleeping from sorrow.

Then he said to them, Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation. So this is the word of God.

So in what ways does prayer play a role in guarding us from temptation? Jesus said to his disciples, he took them to this place. He was very familiar with the Mount of Olives. He would go to pray there and spend time with his disciples in the evening. This is Holy Week.

This is Good Friday morning, real early in the morning. The wee hours of the morning, the late hours of Thursday night, they'd had that special final Last Supper with the Lord. But all week long he's been teaching the disciples more intimately and praying with them on the Mount of Olives. And then he's been in the temple openly preaching and teaching and ministering there and healing and doing some powerful works and telling some remarkable parables, which we've gone through in Luke. But here he's in the Mount of Olives. He's got his disciples with him, and the prayer is the central focus here.

This is what he says to them. He says, Pray that you may not enter into temptation. The power of prayer to avoid temptation. The power of prayer. Can you be sinning and praying at the same time? That's a great question. And how we have all throughout Scripture.

In Ephesians, Paul says after giving the great armor of God, he gives us that final piece of armor that we don't talk about a lot in verses 18 through 20. He says, Pray. How do we pray? Pray always and often. Pray in the Spirit. Pray for me, that boldness will be given to me, that open doors will be given me for the Gospel. So Paul, prayer.

One of my Bible professors in college used to always say that if the armor of God is like a massive suit of armor, prayer is the warrior that fills that armor. Prayer is the fuel. What good is a sports car? What good is a $300,000 Lamborghini when the gas gauge is on empty? There's no firing that engine up.

There's no horsepower burning down the road 200 miles an hour if there's no gas in the car. Prayer is the fuel. The power of prayer.

All kinds of stories. All kinds of miracles. Prayer is what accesses God. Prayer is not necessarily what gets my will done in heaven, or God's will done on earth for me. Prayer is what gets God's will in heaven enacted and done on the earth. Prayer. Jesus Christ taught his disciples how to pray.

Luke 11, they came to him. They didn't say, how can we perform miracles, Lord? How can we teach? How can we preach? How can we do these phenomenal things you do?

No. They said, Lord, teach us to pray. And the Lord gave this awesome model, our Father. And so Christ has taken them and he says, pray. This is the hour of his trial. This is the greatest battle Christ would face. We always talk about the passion being on the cross. Well, these hours before the cross where he's laboring in prayer are the hours of his travail. And he says, pray that you may not enter into temptation. Verse 41, he knelt down and he prayed. It's a powerful thing to do, to kneel in prayer. And I have knelt in prayer before many times, but is it necessary to kneel in prayer?

Well, not always, because God hears your heart. You can be walking with God as Enoch did and not praying. It's hard to not kneel. It's hard to kneel and pray. It's hard to kneel and walk at the same time, right? Of course, I'm a basketball player. I can hardly chew gum and walk at the same time myself.

I'm not super coordinated. But I can tell you this, that kneeling shows the posture of the heart. And Jesus Christ knelt down and he prayed. And here's his prayer. Father, this is hundreds of times Christ goes into the presence of God with the words, Father, if it is your will.

So he's centered on God's will. Take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Can you say those words with me? Not my will, but yours.

Not my will, but your will be done. What a great prayer. This was the prayer of the Lord's Prayer.

Then an angel appeared from heaven to him, strengthening him. Luke's account is unique from the other Gospels. The other Gospels don't record Christ sweating, as it were, great drops of blood, which we see in verse 44. They don't record Jesus Christ being comforted, being strengthened by the angel. They don't record as much discussion about the two sources of blood and swords. And this conversation he had just prior to this, which we spent more time on last time here.

But these are unique to Luke. And then, look at what happens. Verse 45, when he rose up from the prayer and came to the disciples, how did he find them? He found them sleeping, but there's a good important statement here, from sorrow. And I asked the question at the beginning, have you fallen asleep crying before? Have you ever been so overwhelmed emotionally?

Maybe you've been mourning the loss of someone very close to you, and you literally wept yourself to sleep. Well, the disciples were in trauma. They were tired. They hadn't seen the Lord this traumatized before, or this intense, maybe. And here they are, praying with him, not too far away, a stone's throw away, but also just so emotional, so tired. They'd been through so much. And this dinner, and all the dialogue, and the conversation about him being tortured, and being betrayed, and being killed. And so they are tired. All the battles of who's going to be first in the kingdom, all the jockeying around, having their Lord actually wash their feet.

So this is a powerful example of how emotionally traumatized they were. But this is also the need to watch and pray. Watch and pray, Jesus says, lest ye enter in a temptation.

That's how he says it in Matthew's account. Does that mean if you're driving down the road praying you should have your eyes open? Absolutely. Does that mean you can pray for someone while you're looking at them?

Absolutely. Allow our eyes to inform our prayer life. What a great thought. Lord, break my Lord, break my heart for those things that break your heart. And this is what it means to watch and pray. Why were the disciples sleeping at such a critical moment?

You know, we always pick on those pesky disciples, don't we? What about you and what about me? Would we have been sleeping ourselves? Would we have drifted off? Have you ever fallen asleep sleeping?

You know, there's two versions by there. I've heard two primary addresses to falling asleep while praying. Number one is, it's the best thing that could ever happen because you're falling asleep in the presence of God.

But number two would be maybe along the lines of what's going on here. They weren't falling asleep rustling in the presence of God. They were supposed to be laboring in prayer with their Master, their Savior, going through his traumatic time. And they fall asleep. So I guess they fall asleep. They did fall asleep in the presence of God because the God-man Jesus was right there. So it's a safe place to fall asleep.

But they were supposed to be laboring with him, bearing his burden, holding up Christ, which the angels were sent to do, and they were sent to strengthen him. So would we have done the same thing? Are we prone to wander? Are we prone to get weak?

Are we prone to drift off? Absolutely. So let's finalize. Let's end this discussion today with some questions. We always like to ask questions at the end of our time here on Experience Truth. This is a Wednesday in the Word study we do every Wednesday morning at an awesome restaurant in North Carolina called Dario. If you're ever in North Carolina, it's a men's group, 8 a.m. Wednesday mornings.

Go to any Dario location and you'll find us there. Free breakfast and a great time in the Word. Here are the final questions. What's your greatest temptation?

Wow. How is your prayer life? By the way, those two questions, as you have probably already deduced, are connected. How am I passionate about God's perfect will? What prayer does is it focuses us on his will. Christ prayed, focusing on the Father's will. This is so burdensome. The idea of carrying the sins of mankind.

Let this cup pass me. Nevertheless, the focus, the recalibration there, not my will, but thy will be done. Prayer ultimately says those words, not my will, but God's will.

That's what it is. Pray that with me right now. Father, not my will, but your will be done. Boy, that takes the pressure off.

That changes everything. And finally, how deeply am I impacted by Jesus' agony in the garden? Who was he praying for? He was praying for you.

He was praying for me. He was doing the intercession work. He is the one who ever makes intercession for us, Hebrews tells us.

And he was making intercession then, and he's making intercession now. 1 Peter 2.15, there's one mediator between God and man. It's not some patron saint, it's not some pope or some pastor or whatever you've been taught. There's one mediator according to 1 Timothy 2.15, and his name is Jesus Christ. He is the mediator. He is the great high priest. He is the one that's blown open heaven for us, that's opened heaven's door. And now we are his forevermore, like that Christmas carol.

This is why we say good Christian men rejoice with heart and soul and voice. He has opened heaven's door for us to reign with him, to live with him. He's our intercession.

He's our intercessor. He is our great high priest, our advocate. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Son, who's gone ahead of us. Which is why Hebrews 12.2 says this, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. Think about what he endured in this moment, praying with his Father, endured the pain of just before the cross, he's enduring in this travail. He endured the cross, despising the shame, and now he's set forth, he's set up, he's exalted to the right hand of God the Father.

What a great truth. The focus is on the hero, Jesus Christ. Focus on who he is, what he has done for you, and are you grateful that he drank the cup of God's wrath for you? I'm grateful he drank the cup of God's wrath aimed at me, that Christ, the friend of sinners, bore my sin in his body on that tree of death so that I could live in him. Do you know him?

Have you found him? Have you gone to God in prayer and asked for him to forgive your sins? Have you repented of your sins and asked him to give you faith in the Son and through Jesus' sacrifice to heal you of your sin and to make you his child?

You can do that right now. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Call upon his name, trust him. I'm so grateful for what he did for me. The gospel is not about what I do for him or what I can do or have done or what I haven't done. The gospel is all about what Jesus Christ has done for me.

Isn't that awesome? Luke 22, 35 through 46, read it, study it, memorize it, meditate on it. Share this word with someone today.

Invite them into a relationship with Christ, which is the only relationship that will set them free from sin and death and change their life forever. We'll see you right here next time. I'm Stu Epperson. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all the social media. Please thank the awesome outlets, radio stations, and different places that carry this program. This is the Truth Network.