Palm Sunday Message: Restore What Was Lost - Luke 22:45-51

Jesus came to restore the lost and knew he had to go through a painful experience for mankind.

Jesus' human traits and frailties made him stressed out before his crucifixion.

Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking God to let the cup pass from him.

Jesus' willingness to go to the cross for mankind is a model for Christians to live in prayer and seek God's will.

Jesus came to restore the lost. Okay? You know, Jesus coming into the world, and he was basically at the end of his journey. Okay? He had fed multitudes. He had opened blinded eyes. He has caused the death to hear. He had done so much in the world during this time. He cleansed lepers. He raised up the dead. He dispelled demons out of people. He had done so much. He walked on water. He had done so much in his very, very short time in this world. but his journey was coming to the end at this point he knew what he was about to do he knew that he was about to have to go through one of the most painful and most humiliating experiences that any man would ever have to go through and he knew he was going to do it for mankind It was going to be tough to do this, but he was willing. Something that we forget about is that he is God, but he's also man. Born of a human female. So he had human traits as well. He had human frailties of emotion Our emotions can cause us more troubles than anything, right? When we get nervous, it causes our bodies to just go haywire, right? A doctor will tell you that If you get nervous, if you get stressed out It will affect every aspect of your body It will You start getting stressed out You get headaches You get pain in your forehead In the back of your neck In your shoulders In your ears You can get all this Your blood pressure will go skyrocketing Your blood sugar will go up All this will happen from stress Jesus was stressed out Because he knew what was coming So he went to the garden the Garden of Gethsemane. He went there and he began to pray. He told his disciples, he said, you stay here. Watch out. Pray with me. I'm going to speak to my Father. Please pray with me. He goes into the garden and he begins to pray. And he begins to pray and he begins to plead with God and he begins to ask God, please, Father. if there's any way any possible way that I don't have to go through this please don't let me have to go through this I can understand Jesus' concern because it must have been horribly horribly scary to think that he was going to have to go and lay himself on a cross and have big humongous spikes like this shoved into his hands into the wrist basically of his wrist, of his arms, and into his feet. He was going to have to have these big spikes put through him, bleeding in agony and anguish. To think of this had to be stressful. So the Cuban part of him said, Father, please, if there's any way, any possible way, let this cup pass from me. Don't let me have to go through this. I don't want to go through this. I can understand that. If I was him, I would have probably been doing the same thing. Well, let's be honest. Let's be totally honest. If it would have been me, I probably wouldn't have gone through it. But I love what Jesus did when he went through this prayerful cry out to the Father. He finished with it. nevertheless not my will but yours be done he did that for us he willingly went to the cross for us he didn't do it because he didn't have nothing else to do he left the splendor of heaven for us for mankind Jesus went to the cross for us for mankind for our redemption of our sins it wasn't his sins he was sinless he went for us Jesus prayed in the garden he bled in the garden literally drops of blood from the stress that he cried out to God Jesus came when he finished up he came out in verse 45 it says when he rose up from prayer and he was come to his disciples he found them sleeping for sorrow I thought about that and I thought and I thought and I thought about that for a long time I've heard the story for years and years but then it really hit me today that this is very very much so us in this generation. There was a stressful time going on. The disciples were going to lose Jesus. The disciples were going to have to see their Messiah, the one that they had been following, crucify on a cross and be put in a tomb. And they were very stressed out. And what did they do? They fell asleep. And I thought about that and I thought, you know what, this is a very stressful time in this generation. We're seeing governments completely turn their back upon God. We seeing the world being filled with hatred and so much going on in this world And what is the church of the living God doing What are we doing We have what Fallen asleep. We're not praying anymore. Am I telling a lie today? We don't spend as much time in prayer as we used to. The old generation were prayer warriors. they spent their time in prayer they had bruised knees because they spent their time on knees before God praying for their churches praying for their preachers and leaders praying for their government praying for their families praying for their friends they continuously lived in prayer but here in this generation we have about a two minute prayer three minute prayer and that's fine that's all we need to do for God It's okay. I looked at this and when I read this, it dawned on me what this is. We are right now the church of Sardis in this generation. The church world is the church of Sardis. We have fallen asleep. We're just as bad as the disciples that were sitting outside the garden where Jesus was praying. And we have fallen asleep. We're no longer awake. we have fallen asleep. We've got into this situation where it's like, well, the government's going to do what the government's going to do. My family's going to do what my family's going to do. The people in this world are going to do what they're going to do. There's nothing I can do about it. I say, hogwash, today is the day that we begin to pray. If we begin to live in prayer, prayer changes things. And that's the truth. Prayer changes things. We have seen it time and time again. Oh, we need a blessing from God. We need somebody healed. We pray about it and God heals. We need a blessing from God. We pray and God answers the prayer. What makes us think that God can't hear from heaven? Answer our prayers and even as much as heal this land. The Bible literally says it. If my people which are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, interpret their wicked ways, then will I heal from heaven, forgive their sins and heal their land. That is in the Word. There is nothing in the Word of God that is alive. Not one thing. And if God said it, you can believe it. but the problem is this generation the church world and this generation we've fallen asleep we've got complacent we've got to a point where we said you know what it's just going to be I refuse to have that mindset oh it's just going to be I refuse to live that way I refuse to believe that way I refuse to say, oh, well, you know what? It's just going to be. I say no. If God can hear from heaven, what makes us think that he can't change things? God can change things. My family is completely messed up. If we live in prayer, God can change it. My financial situation is so messed up, I don't know what I'm going to do. If we live in prayer, God can change it. My physical body is breaking down and I don't know what I'm going to do. If we live in prayer, God can change it. My church, I just am not happy with my church, the way things are going. If we live in prayer, God can change it. But we're like the disciples. We're like the church of Sardis. We fell asleep. It's time for the church world to wake up. It's time for us to wake up and realize we need to start living in prayer. He comes and he finds them asleep. And he said unto them, why? Sleep ye. Rise and pray. Lest you enter into temptation. Here Jesus is telling us how we can have victory. We want to have lives of victory, right? Every one of us want to be a victorious Christian. I don't think any of us today would sit there and say, I want to be a defeated Christian. Nobody wants to sit there and live defeated all the time, continually have to go back to God saying, you know, well, Lord, I messed up again. Well, Lord, you know, another thing happened, and here I am again. It's me again, Lord. You know? Here I am again. None of us want to do that. We want to be victorious. We want to live above sin. We want to live on the victory side, not on the losing side. And Jesus tells His disciples and us in turn how we have victory every day of our lives. He said right there, pray. Pray. The Bible tells us pray without what? Ceasing. In other words, continuously live in prayer. I've talked about it before, how that never ends your prayer, right? The way we normally end our prayers is with amen. Let it be so. I never end my prayers. I end my prayers here like if I'm having a prayer for the church. But when I'm praying to God, I never say that word, amen, as in. This is the end. Amen. Concluded. I don't do that. I keep my prayers open. Finish up and get through what I need and what I'll praise him about. Then I just say, all right, Lord. Let's go. and then we just start walking and then if I need the prayer line communication is open I never finished it I leave the communication open so that at the moment notice I can talk to you Maybe some people would say well that a little stupid No I don know but it is I think that's, at least to me, I think it makes it really better because I never say to God, okay, I'll talk to you later. No, I want to talk to you whenever I have a problem, whenever there needs something. I want to just be able to say, Lord, here I am, right here, right beside you. I ain't never left. You know, I want it to be just like that communication all the time. See, we need to have a prayer life that never ceases. And that's exactly what Jesus was talking about. He said, why are you sleeping? Rise and pray unless you enter into temptation. While he was speaking, behold a multitude. And he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before him and drew near unto Jesus and kissed him. you know a kiss on the cheek is a very very compassionate and very very loving sign right you sit there and kiss your mom on the cheek say love you mom love you dad spouse child whatever you know you do that it's a very very sweet and compassionate thing. It's a loving thing. Not here. Not here. Judas came and kissed Jesus on the cheek as a way to say, here he is. Take him down. Jesus knew what was happening. He knew that from the get-go. He knew who was going to portray him. You think this took Jesus by surprise when the multitude came towards him? You think this took Jesus by surprise when Judas came up and kissed him on the cheek? You think that didn't surprise him? He knew what was going to happen. He knew what was going to happen. And Jesus said unto him, unto Judas, Judas, betrayest thou the son of man with a kiss? The tenderness of sweet, compassionate thing is completely turned around into a betrayal and a condemnation of death. Jesus, at this point, is condemned to death with a simple kiss. Or when they which were about him saw what would follow they said unto him Lord shall we smite with the sword? Jesus they're saying should we take him down Lord? Should we destroy him? Should we take up arms? Should we do the work of the Lord? Should we destroy them to save your life? Should we do the work? Should we take these all out? Of course, what would Jesus have done? If he would have had the time, what would he have said? No. Of course not. Because it was all part of God's plan. But before he could even say anything, one of them smoked a sermon of the high priest and cut off his radio. Can you imagine that? Having your ear cut off. Sliced right off your head. Can you imagine that? The pain that must have been in that. Horrible. Sometimes I get cut when I'm open. I did that the other day. I was opening the can and got my finger and I got it just on the edge of the can, the can lid that I opened up and went, and I cut my finger. And I was like, ah! And I was like, ooh, that hurt. And I thought about that when I cut my finger and I did that. I thought, yeah, can you imagine having your ear cut completely off though? Can you imagine a pain in that? This poor man, I mean, let's be honest. I mean, yes, he's coming to help to arrest Jesus and have him be crucified. I get that. But I mean, can you imagine the pain that this poor man went through? Having the ear cut off? Horrible. See, we all go through painful loss. Just like this man, he got his ear cut off. He lost his ear, right? I mean, here, we all go through painful losses. every one of us today every one of us today could sit here and say I have went through loss maybe it's a loss of a mother or a father or a spouse or a brother or a sister or a child or whatever the case may be we've all gone through loss every single one of us has gone through a loss whether it's physical loss of even our health I mean, oh, I used to be strong. I can attest to that. I used to be strong. Now, you know, my hips are bad. My shoulders are bad. My back is bad. My knees are bad. My body is broken down, right? As the years have went on, my body has gotten a little bit sicker. So I know the loss of physical health to a degree. I didn't do what I once did. Oh, I wish I could. I can't do as much as I used to do. I wish I could. I've got pains. That happens. It's the loss of physical health, right? Maybe there's loss of financial problems that we've got in our lives. Whatever the case may be we all gone through loss Jesus here sees this man lose his ear through the cut of a sword Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye this, the sword. He touched his ear and he healed him. see Jesus restored to this man what was lost and that was Jesus purpose for coming to restore what was lost what was God's purpose in the beginning of the world to have communication to have this relationship with his creation, mankind. Satan creeped in the Garden of Eden. We've got a connection here. You notice this? We've got a connection here. Satan came into the Garden of Eden and began to whisper. You know, there's a beautiful tree there filled with some amazingly delicious looking fruit. you know maybe just maybe you should take a bite of that oh but God told us not to oh the reason he's doing that is because he knows that if you take a bite of fruit then your eyes will be open and you'll be just like him that's why he's doing this what was Satan doing in the garden of Eden he was trying to destroy mankind and that's exactly what he does in this generation. I want you to understand this. This is exactly why Satan is in this world. He is trying to destroy the church. Jesus said in John 10, in verse 10, he said, the thief comes not but to steal, kill, and destroy. That's the whole purpose of why Satan came. That's why Satan creeped into the Garden of Eden and destroyed the relationship between Adam and Eve and God. And that's why they ended up having to leave the Garden of Eden. And from that point on, what was God's purpose? His purpose was to restore what was lost. See, Adam and Eve, the beginning of mankind, lost the Garden of Eden. a place where they could worship and be with God on a one-to-one basis. They had to leave. They lost the garden. Jesus came into this world to restore to us, mankind, that relationship that was lost at the Garden of Eden. That's why Jesus came. The thief comes but to kill still and destroy. But I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. Jesus wants to restore to you that that you lost. He wants to restore to you the joy in your life. Whether you've lost a loved one or something. I mean, He's not going to bring them back to you, but He can bring you back the joy. He can bring you back the blessing of peace. He can bring back to you the blessing of a walk with Him. He wants to bring you back that joy. It's just a matter of will you accept it? Will you say, yes, I'll walk with you. Yes, I will talk with you. Yes, I will live in the garden with you. Yes, I will be with you. Yes, I will do this every single day. I will spend my days in prayer. It is up to us as the church of the living God to begin to live in prayer. It is up to us as the church of the living God to live with God. To walk with God. If we want the joys of victory, of sins forgiven, of blessing, of hope. If we want these things. If we want to see our churches built. If we want to see our families saved. if we want to see our friends transform, if we want to see our lives to be victorious, we must live in prayer. It's not enough to just pray a little simple two-by-four prayer every so often. We've got to live in prayer. We've got to bless Him in prayer. We've got to bless Him with our praises. We've got to do that all the time. It's what we've got to do. Jesus said it right there. Pray. and you're falling to temptation. Pray if you want to see victory. Pray if you want to be blessed. Jesus came to restore that which was lost. Hallelujah. That was the purpose of him going to a cross. for us to restore to us victory in life. We accept it today. We accept it today. We say, you know what, Lord, I'm going to live in prayer. I'm going to live in blessing. I'm going to live in hope. I'm going to live walking with you every day. I want to not be part of the church of Sardis. I want to be the church of the victorious. Thank you. Thank you.

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