SUCCESS OR FAILURE DEPENDS ON YOUR PRAYER LIFE

The Gospel of Mark #47

Pastor Dennis Clanton

Woodland Church

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Jesus’ prayer brought me victory over sin and death.

If I fail to pray, I will fall into the same trap as the disciples.

(Mark 14:32–42, NLT) “They went to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, “Sit here while I go and pray.” He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became deeply troubled and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then he returned and found the disciples asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Then Jesus left them again and prayed the same prayer as before. When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open. And they didn’t know what to say. When he returned to them the third time, he said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But no—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”

1. A Trial is either test that strengthens or a temptation to failure

(James 1:13-14, NLT) “And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.”

(Psalm 66:10-12, NLT) “You have tested us, O God; you have purified us like silver. You captured us in your net and laid the burden of slavery on our backs. Then you put a leader over us. We went through fire and flood, but you brought us to a place of great abundance.”

2.  Jesus’ prayer to overcome his temptation is my example

(Mark 14:35-36, NLT) “He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

a.  Jesus’ need

b.  Jesus’ intimacy with the Father (Abba)

c.  Jesus’ honesty

d.  Jesus’ submission

e.  Jesus was confident in God’s will

f.  Jesus’ victory

3.  The disciple’s failure to watch is my lesson

(Mark 14:34, NLT) “He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

a.  To watch is to recognize the hour. (The times and seasons)

b.  Jesus was faithful in the hours of success and crisis

c.  To watch is the present state of my heart

d.  To sleep is to stop praying, to become slothful, and presumptuous

“I saw then in my dream, that he went on thus, even until he came at the bottom, where he saw, a little out of the way, three men fast asleep, with fetters upon their heels. The name of the one was Simple, of another Sloth, and of the third Presumption.

Christian then seeing them lie in this case, went to them, if peradventure he might awake them, and cried, you are like them that sleep on the top of a mast, Proverbs 23:34, for the Dead Sea is under you, a gulf that hath no bottom: awake, therefore, and come away; be willing also, and I will help you off with your irons. He also told them, If he that goeth about like a roaring lion, 1 Peter 5:8, comes by, you will certainly become a prey to his teeth. With that they looked upon him, and began to reply in this sort: Simple said, I see no danger; Sloth said, Yet a little more sleep; and Presumption said, Every tub must stand upon its own bottom. And so they lay down to sleep again, and Christian went on his way.

Yet he was troubled to think that men in that danger should so little esteem the kindness of him that so freely offered to help them, both by awakening of them, counselling of them, and proffering to help them off with their irons.”

-Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan

 “If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner to pray.” –Cyprian