Matthew 26:40-42

40And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? 41″Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.”

To “stay awake” for those who have received God’s Word means not to pause or be distracted from our seeking His Truth and to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. Our understanding of His Word and inspiration of the Holy Spirit will be reflected in our actions and how we face the fears and hardships that come our way. We will find that the only path to overcome them is through prayer. Here falling asleep means stopping our praying. Jesus is telling his disciples and us to stay awake and continue to pray. 

Jesus was at Gethsemane where he felt the weight of the responsibility of being sacrificed on the cross to deliver our redemption. Feeling great fear, Jesus prayed with all his being to the point of sweating blood. Through prayer, Jesus received power from the Lord to face and overcome the trial ahead of him. In the same way, when we face extreme hardship, we must realize that the only way to overcome it is through intense prayer – staying awake – to seek God’s help. Each day, we will meet and continue to encounter trials more difficult than we have before. The only way to overcome them is to be empowered by the Lord just as Jesus was at Gethsemane. We cannot be victorious through our own efforts, and there is no way that we will be defeated if we have God’s power on our side. If we do not want to fail these trials, pray! Even the lowest born, weakest, foolish, and least talented person will be able to overcome the most difficult of tests through prayer with God’s help. This is what Jesus is telling his disciples here. 

However, we can only see this truth if we are awake. Being awake means using the Bible through study and contemplation to guide us through each moment in our lives. The Bible will show us how to face our future. The one who views all situations and challenges using the Bible to guide them is the one who is awake. When we commit to this, then we will be inspired by the Holy Spirit. God’s Truth through the Bible and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit show us the way to persevere in the difficult tasks ahead of us and enlist God’s power to overcome them. If we are not awake, we will not see the challenges coming our way and will be unprepared to face them. When we are awake, we recognize the difficulty ahead of us. Then just as Jesus did at Gethsemane, we must pray to God with all our being and seek his power to help us succeed.

We face two forms of challenges as we grow in faith and to fulfill God’s expectations for us. One is losing something we value while the other is gaining something. Each can cause us to stray from the path God has designated for us.

An example of the former is Daniel. When his enemies plot against him, Daniel had to choose between continuing to pray or betraying his faith. Continuing to pray meant Daniel would lose not only power he had attained as a high ranking government official but, more significantly, his life. Daniel’s whole political world at the time plotted his downfall. Even Darius, his king who cared for Daniel and could not retract his edict, tries to convince him to relent. Daniel battles his fear and resists the pressure from his old self to choose to pray and face the lions’ den. Daniel realizes he cannot on his own overcome these tests. Daniel needed greater power to overcome, and this stress created his intense seeking of God’s help through prayer. 

This intense worry and pain which comes to us is important for our development in our faith because it pushes us to seek and grab onto God. This is what drives our earnest and fervent prayer. If we are threatened with losing our property, job, family, health, life, and glory, those who are awake are able to face the threat with genuine joy and thankfulness. While this is impossible to do on our own, we can do so through prayer. Evil, the world with its army of demons, and our old self with its evil spirit, nature, and habits all work to derail us by using the threat of what we may lose to cause our betrayal. 

Who can save us? God, our hope in him, and the support of all heaven’s angels. We Christians receive a lot of help from angels whom God sends to our aid. Our hope of the glory of heaven is built by staying awake. Through prayer we follow our new self, redeemed by Jesus’ redemption, the Truth of His Word, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to receive God’s power to overcome.

In Part 2, we will continue to learn about staying awake to prepare for the second form of trial which we will face in our lives of faith. 

Click for Korean sermon https://soundcloud.com/yhpaik/1980-10-24-full