Struggle
- Ashland Church of Christ
- Feb 16
- 10 min read
Guest Pastor Levi Farar
February 16, 2025
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' Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” '
Matthew 26:36-46
Click to expand the transcribed notes.
Transcribed by Turbo Scribe
And I also work with American Insurance and also inside here. And I think Lillie is just picking it up from her seat. So you already turned it on.
Hey, good morning. Like you said, my name is Levi. Hi.
I am an associate professor at the University of Michigan, Christopher Lincoln. When we first met, we talked about 26 versus 36 to 46. I'm a ESV person.
So, honestly, I've reached this average in six months. And I've reached this before, and I've reached it on my internship, and the idea from it was that the struggle is real, and that's still applicable this morning. Because I think a lot of us wrestle with that we are humans, and to be human is to struggle.
We struggle every day. We either struggle to wake up in the morning sometimes, struggle to be out of bed in the morning, but we wake up to the personal level of others. We struggle to go to work.
We deal with all the work problems, or go to school, or both. They happen to one side. We watch movies, and if there's not a struggle in it, it's not good.
We don't enjoy it. We never watch it again. So struggle is part of our everyday life and every single part of it.
And when we look at Jesus, and we see him as holy man and holy God, and we present that back to the world, people ask, how in the world does God relate to us? How can we relate to God? If he really is holy man and holy God, then how will humanity ever relate to us? We see in Hebrews that he was tempted in all the same ways that we were tempted, and I thought Hebrews was tempted in all the same ways, and that's what we follow. And I think in Ephesians 26, 36, and 46, we get at least a partial glimpse at exactly how Jesus identifies with our human struggle. And there are plenty of passages.
There are plenty of things that we can find in the Scripture to prove that, and we can talk about that now. We can go down the list, and we'll compare them all. We can do that if we want to, but we won't.
We'll just kind of narrow it down to the top of the list for now. But we'll read the text. We'll pray.
And we'll dive into it. Let's go down to chapter 26, verse 36-44. Then he just went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, Sit here while I go over there and pray.
And taking with him either the two sons of Zebe, named them John. He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.
Remain here and watch with me. And going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
And he came to his disciples, and he found them speaking. And he said to Peter, Say you cannot watch with me for one hour. But watch and pray so that you may not enter into temptation.
The Spirit in me is willing to put the flesh in you. Again, the second time he went away and prayed, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
And again he came around and found them sleeping. But their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.
Then he came to his disciples and said to them, Sleep, and take your rest later on. See you at the hour of the hand of the Son of Man, and at the trace of the hand of the Son of Man. Arise, and let us be gone by the trace of that hand.
Father in Heaven, I look to you. Thank you for the way that you provided for us, and for the way that you will provide for us. Thank you for your blessings in the past, present, and future.
I pray this morning that our eyes, our ears, our hearts, our mouths are open. May the words this morning be more than our mouths. Allow me to be a mouth.
Jesus identifies with our struggles. Especially after COVID. We know what it is to be needed.
After the separation, after being forced to be in our homes the whole time, mental health issues went up, suicide went up, depression went up, everything went up because we are a communal people. Jesus understood the importance of community. And when we can see throughout Scripture, but also in this moment, we see that Jesus had his three best friends with him.
We see that Jesus knew the importance of having community. Yes, he grew up, he probably had a friend named Andrew. Andrew turned out to be a pretty good friend.
He probably had a few other friends. He had his cousin, John the Baptist. But ultimately, we don't know a lot of other people.
We're left to assume that maybe he had a good friend. But ultimately, how many really good lifelong friends did he have? What kind of community did he have? His own neighborhoods in Nazareth turned against him when he started preaching the gospel. When he said, I am God, it's all a film, right? So even his own community turned against him there.
So how many people did Jesus really have? He understood the struggle of finding good quality relationships. Good quality. Then eventually, he had his 12.
And then there's probably a few other people that I work along with. They're like Mary, Angela, Nancy, and some other people that I work with. And then within that group, he had three closer friends.
His two sons of 17, Peter's son, James, John, and Jude. He knew exactly what he needed. He knew where his community was.
He knew that it was important for that. He knew it was important to have those friends. He knew how important it was and how valuable it was to have that close community.
What Jesus also knew in that struggle to find that quality of community is he understood what it was to have a community of traitors. He understood what it was to have the people that should care the most turn against him. We did a Bible study about a year ago about friendship, family, and spiritual progress.
And one of the biggest things that came out of that study that all of us took away was in order to really be friends, you have to have confidence. At some point, there will be conflict in a relationship. And if you survive that conflict, that's when you'll know what the real deal is.
Jesus knew in that struggle too. You know, all throughout the scripture you see how the disciples didn't listen, they didn't understand, and there was that conflict there. But in this moment, you see that his three best friends, his closest people, who should have been able to pick up that Jesus was sorry.
That he was in his deepest, darkest moment. That all he needed was for them to be friends. They knew the book of Job.
They knew that when Job needed his friends at first, the three of them were in silence and sat there with him. It was a Jewish practice to sit there and mourn people after a death. So they knew enough to pick up that Jesus was sorry.
They knew well enough, and yet, when he brought them up, just the three of them, not all of them, just the three, they failed him. He knew what it was to need his friends at his deepest moment, at his darkest moment, and to be failed by them. He understands that struggle.
When we are failed by our friends in our community, Jesus understands that grief. Furthermore, of course, we also know, and in fact, right before, right after, Judas, one of the twelve, fully betrayed from his sons, Luther and Paul. So he knows more than just, you know, my friends weren't there for me when I needed them.
He also knew the increasing betrayal. He also knows a little bit lighter betrayal, if you go right after this, denying him free time. But Jesus understands the huge struggle with death, especially in America, where we are independent, and we want to do everything ourselves, and I don't need anybody else.
He knew what it was to need the community, and what that community could mean to him, and what he could do for that community. And I think the thing that most of us almost always, always, but probably, one of the biggest pieces, people leave the church every day. Statistically, the church worldwide is true.
We are less than 40% of America now. Less than half of what they make right seems to be on a survey, even less than they were in action in prison. The most common reason for people to leave is trouble.
The most common reason for people to leave the church is that something bad happens. And they blame God for it. But there is this arrogance that we understand how God works.
That we understand that God should be better than us. That we understand all of these things are not necessarily accurate. But we think that we know better, and we know best.
And instead of having a moment of humility and saying, okay, maybe there's something else going on, we leave. We leave the church. We leave God.
We blame God. We're going through something hard. My mom's cancer.
My dad has this illness. God, I've been praying that I survive this. That we can have a baby.
That we can do X, that we can do Y. That someone survives. That someone lives a little bit longer. Nothing wrong with that.
But it's our deepest prayer. Our most adamant prayer. God, please do this miraculous thing.
And then when He doesn't answer the way that we want Him to answer, it's not wrong to grieve, but often times, we then say, God doesn't understand. He's not a good God. I'm angry at God.
How can I believe that He's a good God if He let this terrible thing happen? We forget that He understands our pain and our struggle. And we might look and say, okay, fine. Maybe He had friends.
Maybe He had family. He understood what it was to need them to wrap Him. Maybe He understood what it was to have a hard time making that community.
Maybe He understood what it was to be tempted. Maybe He understood what it was to be hungry. Maybe He understood all those other things.
He doesn't understand loss. But of course God answered all of Jesus' prayers. That's His only son.
Jesus is a holy man, a holy God. Of course. Of course Jesus got what He wanted.
But we see in these 10 verses, three times, that Jesus said, please God, I don't think we can do this. I don't think we can do this. Father, please, relieve me of this burden.
You know how hard this is. I don't want to do it. Don't make me do it.
Don't make me face it. Of course. You know that He had to do it.
Not even Jesus had all of His prayers, but He wanted them to be answered. And I find that insurmountable. Love, peace, the rest of it.
Because it doesn't mean that God is, He gets you better than us. It doesn't mean all of those other things are going to take it with it. But it means that God, that Jesus, understands in a way that none of us ever typically think about.
When we say we find the rest in Jesus, we think God has a plan. And He will redeem us. We don't think about that every day.
We don't think about that Jesus also got to know it. We just think that God and Jesus got whatever He wanted. And it was always God's plan.
But even here, Jesus will overcome. This deep, passionate prayer that He will overcome. So when we are at our lowest, when we are at a moment where we are struggling because we don't understand what God is doing, because we don't understand what's happening in God's plan, in God's will, we know that regardless, He's always with us, that He's all around us, always there, all time, all day.
But He also actually understands that struggle. He understands every struggle that we might face. Maybe not specifically with self-harm, maybe not with government, not in time, but in general, God does understand what we are struggling with at every moment.
Find peace with God. Amen. Thank you for your faith.
Thank you for your blessing. Thank you for knowing exactly what you need, why you need it. Thank you for your empathy.
Pray this morning for me and prayer to see your face at that point, so we are able to see where you are at and who is with us at any given time.
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