I want to read our Scripture with you today from Mark 14, and then let's talk about it a bit. In Mark 14, starting in verse 27, we pick up where we left off last week.

We're in our series, the series that's looking at how everything in the scripture is pointing us to Christ. And now we're at the time of Christ and the time of his life. Suffering is at hand. His crucifixion is at hand. And as we look at this, as we're seeing it, what we're noticing here is that Jesus, even though he's with others, he's walking a path that, humanly speaking, he's quite alone.

He's in a place where his friends are about to abandon him, and he's going to share this with them. Jesus said to them, you will all fall away. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and. And the sheep will be scattered. But after I am raised, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.

Peter said to him, even if everyone else falls away, I will not. Jesus said to him, I tell you the truth. Today, this very night, before a rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. But Peter insisted emphatically, even if I must die with you, I will never deny you. All of the other disciples said the same thing.

Then they went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, Sit here while I pray. He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became very troubled and distressed. He said to them, my soul is deeply grieved, even to the point of death. Remain here and stay alert. Going a little farther, he threw himself to the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour would pass from him.

He says, abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. For those who were here last week, remember the cups? There was a cup at the Passover meal. And he says, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Now he's saying, if it's possible for this cup to be taken from me, that's what he wants, he says, but nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will, Father. Not what I want to happen, Lord, but what you want to happen. Then he came and he found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, simon, are you sleeping? Couldn't you stay awake for one hour?

Stay awake and pray. Stay awake and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again and prayed the same things. When he came again, he found them sleeping.

They could not keep their eyes open. And they did not know what to say to him. He came a third time and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting? Enough of that. The hour has come.

Look, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up and let us go. Look, my betrayer is coming. A little over 3,000 years before today, before our time, right now, a little over 3,000 years ago, there was a king named David. He was the second king over the nation of Israel.

And David was known as a man, the Bible tells us, after God's own heart. And then when we read his story, we think he was one of the good guys. How bad were the bad guys? He did a lot of things that were pretty terrible, made a lot of bad leadership decisions, and yet at the same time, he always returned to following God. He truly was chasing after God's heart even when he got it wrong.

Some of you can feel that in your life, you're like, above all things, I want to serve God. I want to follow him. I want to live for him. And yet so many times I find that the circumstances of my life, even the decisions I make, because there's still that part inside my heart that's broken and chases after the wrong things and I get astray and I get away from God, and yet I always find my way back to following him. And that's where David was.

That's the kind of man that he was. He would get off track and he would go sit down sometimes in a very bad way, in a very wrong way that actually cost many people their lives. And yet he returned to God every time. If there's hope for David to be known and remembered as a man after God's own heart, there's hope for you and me. Amen.

So David is this guy, though some of the decisions that you have made, some of the things that you have done, you might be like, you might be forgiven, you might not be doing that thing anymore. But it might have had long lasting consequences in your life and in your family's life. One of the things that David did, some of the ways that he lived, trickled down into the fact that one of his own sons named Absalom decided that he should be king and not David. It seems as if Absalom were willing to even have his father killed in order to secure the throne. As a parent, that hurts my heart.

Like, I can't imagine that. But for whatever his purpose is, Absalom was ready to do this. And so Absalom had been playing the long game, setting up a coup. For a while, he would go and he would actually ride around from town to town and he would set up a tent and he would say, hey, anybody that hasn't had justice for their cause, for their concern, come to me and I'll make sure something happens. I'm the son of the king.

I'm thinking, I'll be the next king when my father dies. So you can come to me and let's just set up court here right now. And so Absalom won over the hearts of the people because he would listen. How many of you have ever tried to talk to somebody on the school board or the city council or the county commissioners and gotten nothing out of them? Anyone called a state senator, US Representative of some kind, hoping to maybe share a cause or a concern that is affecting the people in your life and in your family, and you got their full attention, and they were listening to you and said, we're going to do something about that.

Anybody? No, it seems like every time you do that, they're just like, oh, okay, thanks for letting me know. And then they go on their merry way and meet with the people that have big money to donate for their reelection campaign or something along those lines. And so it's like, you know, this is what Absalom was doing, was he was saying, I'll come and listen to you. You have my ear, you have my heart.

My heart is with you. I'm one of the people here. I am with you. I'm not in a palace. I'm under a tent, ready to meet with you.

So what Absalom did was he won over the hearts of the people. Then he began getting some of the other people, like some of the priests that were heavily involved in deciding the direction of the nation. He got the priests involved and got them over on his team. He got some of the guys in the military involved. So now he's got military might, he's got spiritual force behind him, and then he's got the hearts of the people.

And it is reported to David in the palace that his son Absalom is gunning for him. David takes his wives, takes some of his kids that are young. He takes some of the priests that are still loyal, takes the Ark of the Covenant of God with them, and they begin heading out. They head out of the city, and they're weeping and mourning and wailing as they go. I'm sure David wrote a poem about it, or a psalm, we call them.

He wrote a lot of psalms and he wrote some Psalms about it, too. And so he does that. But as they're going, they're leaving. They're walking through. And they leave the city of Jerusalem where his kingdom was, where he had the throne.

They leave the city of Jerusalem. They go down into a place called the Kidron Valley, to the east side of the city of Jerusalem. They enter down to the Kidron Valley, weeping and crying as they go, wailing and mourning about what's going on. They go down into the Kidron Valley. It goes down about 250 or 260ft down in elevation.

And as they cross over the stream that's there, the river that's there, they come back up and. And they ascend another about 300ft up to the Mount of Olives. And there they also stopped to mourn their situation. David would take that route. And as he is journeying there, weeping as he goes, he is unsure what is about to happen to him, and he is in deep distress.

And then, sometime later, Jesus walks the same path. Jesus, as we saw last week, he had been with his disciples at what's called the. We call it the Last Supper. They were celebrating the Passover meal, which was commemorated from way back when, when God had brought the slaves, the children of Israel that were slaves in Egypt, brought them out with his mighty hand and brought them out of Egypt. And on that night, they celebrated the Passover meal.

And they were to commemorate that annually, to remember what God had done for them. It's a reminder for us as well that it's good to look back at the things God has done for you and to recognize that God has been with you all along the way. We just sang the song. All my life you have been faithful. All my life you've been so, so good.

Even when I wasn't good, even when I turned my back on God, God has been there. No matter how far you've walked from God, it's only one step back to Him. You might have thought, I've been running from God for years, or I've been doing my own thing for years, but it's just too turn around and God has been with you the whole time. You've dragged him through some pretty bad places, haven't you? He's never left you, no matter where you've taken him.

So Jesus, with his disciples, he commemorates that meal. But he says it's an important meal because he says, I've got a new meaning for what we've been celebrating. You see, what happened in Egypt all those centuries before was just a little bit of an echo, just a little foreshadowing of. Of what God was going to do through Jesus Christ now. And Jesus, as he shares his meal with them.

And they would break this efficamen, this bread, this flat bread they had. He says this bread is actually representative of my body. The little holes that they had in the bread. He says those holes represent the holes they're gonna put in me. They're gonna nail me to a cross.

Now, the disciples didn't understand this yet. He says, they're gonna put thorns on my head. We've always called it this crown of thorns. Like it's this neat little wreath, you know, it was actually more like a helmet of thorns, like a motorcycle helmet that they would pound all over Jesus head. They pounded a whole helmet of thorns on him.

And all of those holes that are there. He's saying that bread, that you've seen the holes in it for centuries, is representing me. I'm the one that's broken for you. And then they would have these cups and they would have the wine in them. And it's red, of course.

And he says, this wine actually represents something that I'm gonna do for you. This cup represents my blood that's going to be spilled out for you. They're going to beat me. They're going to beat me within an inch of my life. You know, there are times, several times where Jesus should have been dead.

Did you notice in the prayer, in the time where he was praying in our scripture this morning, that he said, I'm at the point of death. He was in such anguish of soul that he was almost dead. And then there's a time where they beat him and he should have almost died there or should have died there when he was on the cross. Of course, that was the goal with the crucifixion, was for his death. And it was actually amazing to Pilate, the Roman leader that had sentenced him to that, that he would actually have died so quickly.

Well, it's no wonder. Look what he had been through this whole time leading up to that. Of course, he was ready to be expired at any moment.

So last week we saw Jesus with his disciples and they got up and they left. And I've actually got. It won't be big enough for you to see on the screen, but we're putting it up there anyway. There's a map on your screen now. Down in that bottom left corner of it, there's kind of a little.

Kind of a teal green square if you look just down and to the Right from that you'll see some little arrows pointing to the place. There's one that says the upper room. And that is where we believe Jesus had celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. He would have gone up towards that kind of pinkish colored square on the. On the middle right side of the image, it says temple.

And they would have gone through that whole kind of rectangle that surrounded as the temple complex with the temple itself being there in the middle of it. And they would have gone through the temple complex. There was actually stairways that would go up onto the floor and you could walk across and then back down the other side. And there were actually. It's not really underground, but it's in the building itself.

There was kind of passageways underneath of it that they could go through and then go out the other side. And then following that course up to the right, there's an arrow from the top that comes down that says Gethsemane. And that's over there on the hill called the Mount of Olives. And in that, Jesus had made this journey with his disciples. He's been telling them what's about to happen to him.

If you read all four gospels, you start to get different details, some of which the Gospel of John tells us a little bit more than the other ones. And John tells us that Jesus was talking the whole time. He's preparing his disciples for what's about to happen. Some of the other ones, Mark especially is he likes the short version of different things. And so he just tells us a few details, like Jesus left the Passover meal and he walks with his disciples to this place, this garden place.

But Jesus lays some truth on him along the way. He says, tonight you're going to betray me. You're going to disown me, you're going to leave me behind. Now, Judas was the ultimate betrayer, right? Judas actually sold Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver.

And most of us think, I would never sell out for Jesus or never sell out, you know, sell Jesus out. It's like, yeah, but so many times we allow so much to get in the way of our pursuit of holiness and righteousness that it's the same thing. We say, oh, well, I would never let anything get in the way of doing what's right before God. So many times we have something that comes into our life, into our world, and we focus on that thing so much that God becomes the last thing that we care about. So Jesus tells his disciples, like, you think Judas is the bad guy for running off to betray me?

Of course, they didn't realize what that would look like yet. That happens in a few hours when Judas comes up and betrays Jesus with a kiss to have him arrested by the Romans. But the other disciples, Jesus says, you guys are going to disown me. You're going to abandon me. You're going to act like you don't even know me.

I remember, of course, we've had so many school shootings in our day. But I remember as a teenager when the first real big one happened that I remember was in Columbine in Colorado. And there was a gunman that came around, and his big thing was he didn't like these people that were Christians. And he would go up to these students and he would say, if you. If you believe in Jesus, let me know.

And they said, yes. And then he would shoot them and execute them.

Jesus says to his disciples, if you were in that scenario, you would say, I don't know the guy. And that's the scenario they were in. Peter later will find out he's at a place, he's hanging out outside where he can see where Jesus is, where he's brought into trial. And he'll say, when a servant girl comes up to him and says, hey, aren't you with that guy? You sound like him.

You've got a Galilean accent. You don't sound like you're here from Jews, from Judea, from that region. He would say, I don't know that guy. I don't even know him. I've never met him.

He starts cursing. He's a fisherman, right? Like a sailor. Like, he starts talking his native tongue, you know, he's like, I don't know him. I swear I don't.

Jesus is warning Peter about these things, and he's warning the other disciples that you guys are about to do this very thing. You're about to act like you don't know me. You're about to act like you haven't been with me for three or four years. You're about to act like I mean nothing to you. Can you imagine even knowing that, just how much that hurt Jesus, even to say it?

Have you ever been betrayed by somebody close to you?

Can you imagine carrying that pain? Like, if you knew in advance that they were going to do that? Can you imagine carrying that? Like, knowing that and just still living with it? Would you just.

Wouldn't you just kind of cut the situation out of your life and leave it? Like, if you were in a relationship, maybe some of you have been divorced. If you had known how it would end, would you have even gotten into that relationship? Some of you have had the pain of having children abandoning you. And you think if you had known they were going to do that, you might have done something different in the past.

Some of you, it might have been a close friend, maybe an employer that promised you the world and delivered nothing and left you jobless. Whatever it might be, if you had known what was going to happen and how you would get betrayed, you might not have gone down that path. You might have done something totally different. Sometimes we wish we knew more about what the future holds, right? Sometimes we wish we could kind of see around the next bend, go over the next hill then.

That's why I'm terrible when it comes to, like, hiking or kayaking or bike riding, because I go out in nature and I do this stuff, and I always want to see just what's around the next bend, what's around the next loop in the trail or over the next hill. I just. I want to keep going. And then I find myself, like, really tired, and I still have to get back to my vehicle. You know, like, it's like, oh, no, what have I done?

And so sometimes without bringing water with me, you know, I'm like, oh, my goodness, I'm really thirsty and tired now. They're gonna find me out here sometime, you know, like, it's not gonna be good because I always want to see what's just ahead. I'm just curious like that. And so many times that's the way we are in life, is we just want to know. Like, if I could only know how it's going to turn out.

Well, I'm thinking about, you know, switching jobs, but I don't know if it's going to work out. And is the job that I've got safer than the one that I'm looking at? Or maybe. Maybe you're in a relationship and it was abusive and you're like, I don't know, though. There's some stability here, but it's kind of abusive thing.

But I'm looking for the future. Maybe it's good to stay here. Maybe it's good to go ahead and get married to that abuser. People think these things, and it sounds crazy at the time, but that's how our brains work. We just wish we could know how it's going to turn out.

And so all these things that are going on in our world and in our life, we always want to know more. Sometimes it's the very grace of God that you don't know so many times. I can promise you. You've prayed this prayer. Because I have too many.

Lord, how's this going to work out? Am I making the right decision? Am I going the right path? And you want to know beforehand if it's going to work out so that you say, that way I don't make the wrong choice. You've done that, haven't you?

You've prayed for that wisdom, for that knowledge, that foresight. Correct? Okay. Sometimes it's the grace of God that he actually won't let you know the outcome. He'll be with you all along the way.

He'll stay with you. Karen pointed out to me earlier, and I hadn't noticed this, like, I've seen it, but I hadn't really thought about it. In the Gospel of Luke, it says that when Jesus is praying this prayer, and we saw in Mark telling it, like, just his agony, the agony that he has coming back and forth, talking to the disciples, why are you asleep? And then he goes back to praying. We also find out that he had.

He was sweating drops of blood. His blood was actually leaking out of his pores. It's called hematohydrosis. I put it in my notes. You guys have a copy of them?

If you got your sermon guides. If you don't have one, let me know and I'll get you one. I have to print them. There was two last week and they're gone. So whoever took them, thank you for doing that.

I hope they're being a blessing. We need to make more now. And I love that I printed so many of these because I love that people take them and use them. That's my prayer, is that you use this sermon companion guide and that it's, like, beneficial to you through this journey. But Jesus, as he's doing this, as he's going back and forth, he knows what's about to happen with him.

He knows that the disciples aren't staying with him, but he carries that burden of just, oh, he's so much anguish through the situation. And he prays to his Father. That is. Oh, I know. I was saying about what Karen had pointed out in Luke.

He tells us that the. That an angel came and strengthened Jesus. And it's interesting because you don't see that all the time, right? Like, what was it you said? In the wilderness of temptation, the angels came and ministered to him and possibly some other times.

But have you ever been in such anguish in prayer over a situation that you would have to have angel of God come there to give you the strength to even take another step. Have you ever been in such a difficult place that you're anguishing in prayer so much, not just of what's happening to you, but that you would get at the heart of God in that situation so much that you would need an angel to come strengthen you? You see, because even Jesus, like you, would think that he would command the utmost devotion, right? Like you would think that if you walked with Jesus personally, you would be devoted to Him. His disciples thought the same thing.

They said, even if everybody else leaves, I'll never leave you. Even if everybody else abandons you, I won't abandon you. Jesus says every one of you will. He knew that. He had known that all along.

He still chose them. Jesus has known every time that I was going to sin, every time that I was going to turn my back on him, every time that he set up a divine appointment for me to share the love of Christ with somebody, to spread the word of the Gospel with somebody, and that I chose not to. Or I just didn't do it because it was easier. Because it was just. I was a little too cavalier about it.

I was a little too. Just kind of like, ah, maybe I don't want to push it because maybe I'm trying to, you know, get to be friends with this person first before I really lay the gospel thing on him, you know? And so I'm just not going to push it with them. I know more than God does about that. Jesus knows every time that I was going to abandon him, every time that I was going to deny him, and he's chosen to love me anyway.

And one of the things, this isn't really in my notes, it's just kind of in my heart right now is we read this and it says that it looks like Jesus is trying to negotiate with his Father not to have to go through this. And we think, come on, dude, this is why you were born, right? Jesus knew that. He understood that. Just to be clear, he told his disciples it was for this reason that I came here.

Like, all the stuff that Jesus did, all the good stuff, the stuff that we might call social causes or social justice, all the healing, driving out demons, causing lame people to be able to walk, deaf people to hear, blind to see. All. All these things that Jesus did was like. It was just like, to prove that he could come and forgive sins. Remember the story where they cut a hole in the roof and lowered a guy down in front of Jesus because there wasn't any room to carry him in?

And I always. That bothers me because I'm like, roofs are expensive, first of all. And second of all, like, you know, we could have waited. He would have stopped talking eventually, and those people would have left. And then you could bring the guy to Jesus.

He's been paralyzed a while. What's another hour or two, you know? But they saw this urgent need to get their friend to Jesus. Do you hear how important that is? They say, jesus has what this guy needs.

He needs something. Let's put the two together. They cut a hole in their roof. They lower the guy down with ropes on a mat, and they put him in front of Jesus. Like, here you go.

You know what to do now, right? And so Jesus looks at the guy, and you know what he says to him? Does he say, get up and walk? Not yet, no. He says, your sins are forgiven.

That really ticks some people off, by the way. Probably the guys that had done all the work, probably the owner of the house who now has a hole in his roof. He probably wasn't too happy about that. And then for sure, the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, the religious nuts, those guys, they're like, you can't forgive sins. He's like, you think not?

They said, no, only God can do that. He's like, okay. Also, only God can do this. Hey, guy, get up and walk. And then the guy walks, and they're like, shoot.

You know, he caught us on that one, didn't he? Like, he really got us there. And Jesus was proving. He says, I do have the authority to forgive sins on earth because I also have the authority to tell the man to get up and walk. I can take command over these things.

So Jesus literally gives the guy a new walk. He sets him on a new journey.

Jesus had come specifically for the purpose forgiveness of sins. And the way that that would happen is by his death on the cross. He knew that the only way to do it was to suffer and die. And yet he prays. Abba, Father.

Abba is a very personal term that simply means father. Like, not just a father, I'm a father, but I'm specifically Emma's father. And that's an important role that I have. It's something I cherish. Jesus relates to our Heavenly Father in a very personal way.

And just as a side note, that's something that you each need to learn to relate to God as your father, regardless of any conception you have of what a father on earth looks like or does or sounds like. Your heavenly Father loves you so much, and you've got to believe that in this moment, when his son, the one that he's spoken from heaven on multiple occasions and says, this is my son that I love. Listen to him. I'm pleased with him when he's begging his father, if there's any other way than what has to happen next, then please make that happen. But if not, I'm willing to submit to you, Father.

Jesus knew why he had come, and he knew what moment was important.

And in this moment, that he's at his most broken place ever. He gets up and he goes to find his disciples, and they got no clue. They're sleeping.

He's like, I needed you guys. You weren't there for me when I needed you most. It's okay. I've got my father. He goes back and he prays.

He comes back and he sees him, they're asleep again. He's like, come on, guys, wake up. I'll read my daughter's stories every night. Something in a book somewhere, sometimes a scripture, sometimes it's something else reading from a book. And I'll fall asleep because I'm laying there on her floor and I fall asleep.

And she'll be like, dad, the story. Huh? Oh, yeah. I wake up, I take right back off and I fall asleep. Dad, the story.

I'm like, you're supposed to be asleep, you know, like, fall asleep, child. Sometimes the story's too good. In this case, the disciples weren't aware. They didn't understand what was going on. They didn't have a grasp of the enormity of the situation, and they kept falling asleep.

Jesus says, couldn't you just pray for one hour? Whenever I read that, it pricks my heart. Couldn't you just pray for an hour?

Has anybody ever, like, in the last year, tried to just pray for an hour? I don't mean when we had a prayer meeting here or something like that. I mean, just, you know, just shelter yourself down in a little corner somewhere where nobody's going to bother you, hopefully. And you just say, I'm going to spend an hour in prayer. Did you get through that hour without pulling your phone, trying to find something to read or this or that or to daydream or to plan.

It's tough, isn't it, though? Jesus speaks to these people and he's like, I told you guys, you're going to abandon me, and you'll officially do that when I get arrested and run away. But right now it's as if they've already abandoned him, even though they're right there with him, you know, it's possible to attend every week at a church service. It's possible to serve the lost, to serve people that are hurting and broken. It's possible to do all these things and still do it.

Apart from being with Christ. You can sit in here every week and pretty much ignore God. I wouldn't recommend it, but I'm saying it's possible. It's possible to be right there with Jesus, just a stone's throw away from him and just be asleep on the job, just ignoring what he's got going on.

The place where Jesus was, of all places, we call the Garden of Gethsemane. It comes from a couple words that means. And I gotta look at my notes on this one. I think it's in your notes, Agathemenem. And I've got a couple pictures.

One is, it's got like a little round stone that runs in a round track. And that would be where they would put olives. As they would harvest them, they would put them in there. And that was the first pressing. The first pressing of olive oil would be used for lighting lamps, especially in the temple complex.

It was the purest of olive oil. And Jesus went to this place where gat is a press. It just simply means a pressing place. And sheming is oils or olive oils. So it's literally the place of the olive pressing.

Now, the interesting thing with this picture that you've got is you can see that kind of that log with some weights hanging on it. And then there's these round, like wicker baskets. And they would put olives in them. They would stack them after the first pressing was done. That was where they were crushed and bruised and broken.

But now they're broken down. Their shape is marred and disfigured. Now they're put into these baskets. They would stack the baskets up and in a little round base. And then the weights would pull down on them.

And as the weight is crushing them and continues just pressing them more and more and more, the oil starts flowing out of them. Jesus truly was being crushed and pressed for us in the place of the pressing. He was being pressed and crushed in the place where the oils would flow out of the olives, which actually looked a lot kind of blood red color when it would first come out of them in that place. Jesus was sweating drops of blood for you. He was doing this for you.

And as he did that, as he allowed himself to be pressed and crushed, he was drawing close to his father, saying, abba, Father, if I don't have to go through this. I'd really rather not. But if this is what you want for me to do, then I'm willing to do it.

How many times have you gone through a trial of some sort, kicking and screaming, just begging God, just get me out of this. Like, God, I don't want to be here right now. You don't tack on like, but if this is your will for me, then so be it. You just say, lord, get me out of it. And then when it doesn't happen, we either question our faith or we say, I don't understand God.

I guess. I don't know. There's some people that they have lost their faith in God. They turned away from God and ran away from him because they said, I don't know why God would allow that to happen. Me, I don't know why he would allow these things to take place in my life.

And so I just don't know if I want to walk with him anymore. And we walk away from God. We run away from God. Jesus didn't run away from this moment. He didn't run away from the task that was at hand, the pressing that was at hand.

The way I see his prayer to the Father is this. He in the human side of Jesus, he has a sense of dread. Not just the physical pain of it, but the abandonment of it all. But what Jesus was doing as he's praying, as he's going off into the garden alone with his disciples close by. And he's going off into this.

We call it a garden or this area, this grove of olive trees where they would have the pressing place going on. What he was doing was in his human flesh. He was doing what he had to do to prepare for the spiritual battle ahead. He was submitting himself as a human being to his Father, saying, right now, I'm dwelling in this human flesh. I'm a man.

Yes, I've got. Jesus is fully divine, but he's fully human. And so he's saying, I'm a human and I need your help, Father. I need your presence to be there with me this whole time, or I won't make it through.

He's dealing in the human to prepare for the victory in the divine Jesus, the fully human and fully divine, the God man. He's knowing that his flesh has a weakness in it, and he doesn't want to fail in the flesh. His disciples are about to. He knows that. He knows they're about to leave him.

He knows they're about to deny them. He knows they're about to turn on him, but he knows that that's not an option for him. And so he's not going to do anything to allow that to happen. And so he goes and he falls on the ground before his heavenly Father and lifts up his heart to him and says, father, protect me from this potential failing away. I will not do it.

That angel comes and strengthens Jesus. And then at that point he knows that it's time. He goes back to his disciples the third time and he says, okay, you guys, it's time to get up. No more chastising them for falling away and falling asleep. He just says, it's time to get up.

My betrayer is at hand.

So here's where I want to go with this. I know this is true for me, but I've got to ask of it of you guys.

Have you been to the place of pressing? I mean, the place where like everything gets shaken in your life? Maybe it's a housing situation, an income situation, a health situation, mourning the loss, the death of somebody close to you, mourning the breaking up of a relationship, having your children abandon you and run off doing who knows what, feeling like God isn't actually present in your life in the way that you at least want him to be.

The times when everything falls apart, the times where everything feels like it's kind of failing on you in your life, in that place where you just feel like you're just getting crushed, like this weight is just pulling you down, like the gat's sheminim.

You're just in a basket getting crushed and your life is pouring out of you and you've got nothing left to give. And then somebody comes around and just pulls a little harder on that lever and crushes you a little bit more and life gets at you and it crushes you a little more and it just keeps pulling down until you feel smaller and smaller, like you've got nothing left and there's just requiring more and more out of you. You cry out to God and say, father, help.

When you're pressed, something's going to come out of you. When you're squeezed, something is going to come out. Is it going to be like the presence of God oozing out of you? Are you going to be spent? Have you spent enough time in prayer beforehand, preparing for those moments that are inevitably to.

Have you spent enough time preparing in the good times, the peaceful times, the calm times, so that when you're in the place of the pressing, you've got a spiritual wealth built up within you that God's presence is There with you so much that you can cry out, abba, Father, save me from this hour. Remember, Jesus allowed himself to be broken and crushed and his blood to be spilled out so that you don't have to go through that. There certainly will be times of pressing, but not like what Jesus went through. He did that on your behalf. And you know, so many times when we get on the other side of the pressing place, when we get on the other side of the place that has squeezed everything out of us, we say, okay, I can breathe again.

Got that weight off my shoulders, everything's getting better. And we kind of like, forget about God in those moments. We kind of forget about the path we've been and we go right back to doing things the same way that we had been doing them, right? You been there, you've done that. Don't do that again.

Don't do that again. Because God, even though he's been with you through all of that, like, don't forget him in those good times and say, okay, God, thanks for that. Now everything's good. I'm just gonna kind of go on my own way again. I'm gonna go sailing down through life and everything is going to be great.

Rely on God. Spend time with God, calling him, so that in those times you can call him Abba, Father, so that you can know that the presence of God is with you through that place of pressing. Regardless of whatever else is going on in the world around you, whatever is pressing you today, bring that to God. One of the other things, you've got a group of people around you that care. We're going over next door for lunch in a few moments.

And in that time we get to share with one another. And so many times, and I encouraged you earlier, like, get to know somebody you don't know, but perhaps there's something that you've got just burning within you that's weighing you down. And you might say, like, can you just listen to me for a couple minutes? And for guys, what that means is somebody's about to say something that might sound crazy to you. Don't try to fix it.

Because some of us are going through a pressing right now in this very room. Something is pressing on them and crushing them. And in that moment, they need a friend close by them. Will you be that friend for them? Will you be that one that says, let me help connect you to the presence of God, Sam.