Big Idea:

Jesus knows our struggles and is our Great High Priest

2 Parts

1) 27-31 Peter’s denial foretold
2) 32-42 Prayer in Gethsemane

“So little do we know how much we shall act in any particular position until we are placed in it! So much do present circumstances alter our feelings! Let us learn to pray for humility. “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Prov. 16:18.) There is far more wickedness in all our hearts than we know. We never can tell how far we might fall, if once placed in temptation. There is no degree of sin into which the greatest saint may not run, if he is not held up by the grace of God, and if he does not watch and pray.”

J.C. Ryle

2 Parts

1) 27-31 Peter’s denial foretold
2) 32-42 Prayer in Gethsemane

“It was no mere fear of the physical suffering of death, which drew them from our Lord’s lips. It was a sense of the enormous load of human guilt, which began at that time to press upon Him in a peculiar way. It was a sense of unutterable weight of our sins and transgressions which were then specially laid upon Him. He was being “made a curse for us” He was bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows according to the covenant He came on earth to fulfill."

J.C. Ryle

“Jesus wasn’t asking for permission to let humanity perish in hell; He was asking the Father, “If there is any other possible way to save humanity other than the agony which awaits Me at the cross - let it be.” Yet there was no other way, so Jesus went to the cross. This prayer of Jesus eliminates any other way of salvation. If there is another way, His death was not necessary, and His prayer was not answered.”

David Guzik

“In the garden of Gethsemane, he turns to the Father and all he can see before him is wrath, the abyss, the chasm, the nothingness of the cup.... Jesus began to experience the spiritual, cosmic, infinite disintegration that would happen when he became separated from his Father on the cross. Jesus began to experience merely a foretaste of that, and he staggered.

Timothy Keller, King’s Cross 176

“Jesus prayed to overcome His temptation for three hours, repeating and rehearsing His desire to escape His destiny, each time yielding to the will of His Father. It is important to remember that this is where Jesus struggled, not on the cross. The cross became the place of victory. There He dealt the ultimate deathblow to death, winning the victory over sin, the grave, and the devil. His struggle took place in Gethsemane, where temptation told Him to slip away into the night and disappear like vapor. This is where evil pitched its last, desperate battle to derail the redemptive plan of God. Evil lost the fight. Jesus emerged the victor over temptation. Adam succumbed and dragged all of humanity into slavery to sin. Jesus triumphed, and through His obedience made a way for humanity to approach God, to find release from bondage to sin, and to be lifted up from depravity."

Charles Swindoll