Message Series: Through It All
Week 5
Scripture:
Group Check in:
How is it with your soul?
Prayer Request? Praises?
How has God shown up in your life this week?
Icebreaker:
If you are having a bad day, what cheers you up?
Who is the greatest example of someone you who have witnessed that lived like Jesus?
Overview:
What’s this message about? Jesus meets intense distress with intense prayer that is intimate, authentic, confident and obediently submissive. He didn’t arrive at this kind of prayer by beginning to pray on his day of distress. He spent a life cultivating a relationship with the Father that prepared him for this trial.
It is during this particular prayer where we see Jesus’s humanity in profound fashion. We often think of the cosmic Christ that saved us from our sin, but this picture of Jesus is more than any other scene in His life and it reminds us that Jesus was one of us. It is in this moment that what He does is going to matter immensely for how we approach similar moments in our own lives.
Jesus responds to the situation by throwing himself into prayer. Jesus is Not stoic, dignified, controlled, or composed like the custom of the day (standing, hands uplifted), but instead, Jesus is literally throwing himself to the ground: this is a Biblical lament as he lays his life before his Father in complete honesty and trust.
Jesus’s intense distress is met with intense prayer that is Intimate: Matthew 26:39- His relationship with God didn’t just start that day. Jesus authentically plead to be spared. He was Confident in God’s power to change the future & He was Obediently submissive to God’s will.
In the hardest times of our lives, when we’re lost and alone in deep sorrow, suffering, and pain, remember Gethsemane. God knows the agony of suffering/death and He promises that the darkest day will not be the last day. A day of hope waits for us beyond the midnight prayer of anguish. We can now pray more deeply, with a greater trust in the Father who strengthens us for the task to which he calls us.
Discussion Questions:
Jesus took others with him to keep watch and pray at the Garden of Gethsemane. How can the presence of other believers help you through trials and hardships during your life?
Jesus prays for the cup of suffering to pass from him if possible. We know that this did not occur and instead he endured the cross. Have you ever felt like your prayers were not being answered? How do you respond in those situations?
What does the depth of Jesus’ anguish tell us about what He is about to face at the cross? Is Jesus, in this particular moment, more relatable?
How should Jesus’ experience in Gethsemane encourage us when we feel overwhelmed, depressed or anxious?
How can we be faithful like Jesus when things are hard?
Stay updated on upcoming PTCUMC Adult Group Events/Opportunities at PTCUMC.ORG/GROUPS
State of the Church: Join us for a conversation on Sunday, April 23rd at 2PM about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re headed as a church. We’ll spend significant time on our identity/direction, financial position and metrics of fruitfulness within our church. This is a day to look forward with hope!