Introduction:

My wife and I have recently graduated to a new stage of life; we’re raising a toddler. Toddlers are unique creatures. At that point in life they begin to learn higher forms of communication: pointing, grunting, using broken sentences and made-up words. Despite this language barrier, we as parents are (usually) able to understand and communicate back with our children. Unfortunately, and much to the dismay of our children, there are times when they don’t always get what they ask for because it’s not what’s best for them.

The scriptures teach us that we also should communicate ourselves, our wants and our needs to the Lord through prayer.

Philippians 4:6 – Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

However, there are times when we don’t feel like we can communicate clearly. Fortunately, the scriptures also teach us the Holy Spirit intercedes for us when our words fail us.

Romans 8:26 – In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.

We are given countless examples of prayer throughout scripture, and though many things can be said of prayer, the bottom line is that we should communicate with the Father and then surrender ourselves to His design. A recent show called The Chosen has this to say about prayer:

“It is the first step in getting the heart and the mind right.” – Jesus

On October 25, 2020, our church celebrated a time of recovery and reunion as we returned to our sanctuary after seven months of online worship and social distancing because of COVID 19. The first passage that was preached in our sanctuary was Matthew 26:36-56, which is almost word for word the account we’re going to be studying today in Mark 14:32-42. Both of these passages detail the same account of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to His arrest and crucifixion. Jesus, in His foreknowledge, has been warning His disciples about this for a long time, and now that moment is just around the corner. So, Jesus withdraws to spend time in prayer, which is our focus this morning: Praying Like Jesus.

So, let’s look at our passage as we continue to worship the Lord through studying His word. (Read Mark 14:32-42, then pray.)

In our passage, Jesus is moments away from the most pivotal moment in history. And as He prays, we’re going to look at three elements of His time in prayer. The first is…

Point 1: Jesus communicated His distress.

Jesus is currently enduring incredible amounts of distress, and He is open about that towards His disciples. In verse 34, Jesus confesses to His disciples that He is “…deeply grieved to the point of death.” What would cause such emotional distress?

For some time, Jesus has been preparing His disciples for His death and resurrection, which we can see earlier in Mark 8:31 – “Then he began to teach them that it was necessary for the Son of Man to suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and rise after three days.”

Jesus warned His disciples about this, and now that moment is right around the corner. However, in spite of betrayal and arrest at the hand of one of His own disciples, despite the abandonment by those who closely followed Him, the humiliation of unjust trials and the ultimate verdict of crucifixion, even in spite of the physical suffering of the crucifixion itself, Jesus is bearing the weight of something far worse; He will soon endure the wrath of God as Jesus accepts the penalty of sin of our behalf separating Him from the Father. This separation is the source of Jesus’ “…(grief) to the point of death”. So, Jesus turned to the Lord in prayer.

In withdrawing Himself to pray, Jesus also gathered His closest companions to Him during His time of distress. Verse 32-34 tells us that He not only gathered