Intro:
Last week we were able to learn that Satan is only a voiceless roaring lion who wanted to set fear and worries in us by using his defenseless roar. That’s why, if we recall our theme this month “I am Vigilant, I am Prepared for Eternity” we are called to be watchful and be on guard always as the devil would like to strike us while we are caught unaware of his schemes. We’ve learned the characteristics of Satan and his schemes. Then we were encouraged to respect his ability to deceive us, recognize his schemes and lastly to resist him while we draw near to God.
This is our 2nd week of this month August and still we are called to be vigilant on those devil’s work that are trying to prowl around us. However, if we can only know how to be effective in our vigilance, then we will surely defeat the devil and share God’s victory over Satan. Today allow me to share…
Keys to Effective Vigilance
Matthew 26:36-46
Yes, after we knew, what Satan can do to harm us should, we are not aware of it, we ask ourselves how can we guard ourselves and our loved-ones against his attacks and activities? The answer is that we need to be vigilant and not just be vigilant, we need to be effective in our vigilance over Satan.
Our text is found in Matthew 26:36-46, but on the earlier verses, particularly in verses 17 to 35 (which we will not read anymore), we can see the last supper Jesus had with His disciples. There He revealed about the coming sacrifice that He need to suffer and that one of them is going to betray Him. Also here in this scenario is the emotional scene between Jesus and Peter where Peter is about to disown or deny Jesus 3x.
Now what was the reason why Jesus needed to gather His disciples for the last time and say all these things to them. He can just go the Jewish officials and submit Himself to their authority without hurting His disciples with Him and go to the cross and die. However, Jesus taught them an important aspect of a Christian life – and that is to be vigilant in a coming danger and difficulties that time.
In these verses, we can see the keys to effective vigilance as Jesus showed them an example and from there, we can see the victory that God is also expected from us. Let us read our text:
36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” 40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” 43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. 44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. 45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
After an emotional scene with His disciples, especially with Peter, Jesus taught them…
What are the keys to have an effective vigilance?
The first key is to…
1. Know when to Pray – v36 “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”
The first thing to do in our vigilance is to know when to pray. At the height of the tension that Jesus felt at that time, He opted to go into the presence of His Father. He wanted to seek shelter from His beloved Father Who sent Him.
Before Jesus went to suffer, He needs the strength that comes from His Father. This is not the first time Jesus needs to face a battle and won. If we remember in Matthew 4 where He was tempted by the devil 3x, He was in prayer and fasting with His Father before He could start His public ministry. And now, before He end His mission, He needs to seek His Father’s strength in order to seal that victory.
In order to have an effective vigilance over Satan, we need to seek God’s strength for we cannot stand alone the power of darkness without the help coming from God. And the only place we can have that strength is when we draw near to God in prayer.
Zechariah 4:6b “‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
As a vigilant person of God, we are called to be a “watchman”.
“On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest,” -Isaiah 62:6
As a watchman, we need to be in our position which is the top of the wall, meaning we need to be at the height of our vigilance because this is where we are called. And if we see danger coming, we will cry for help.
Psalm 121:1-2 “1I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? 2My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Psalm 91:1-2 “1Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most-High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
Prayer will always be our first option and not the last before facing dangers in life.
The second key to effective vigilance is to…
2. Encourage our Pals for support – vv37-38
7He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with Him, and He began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then He said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me.
Here we can see that Jesus brought His 3 closest friends with Him: Peter, James and John. And we noticed that after being with them, that’s the time that He began to sorrowful and troubled, but with other disciples, He did not want to show this kind of emotion to all of them except for the 3 closest friends who might understand Him and get support. That’s why He said to the 3 of them to stay with Him and keep on watching Him.
Besides prayer, another key to achieving effective vigilance is through having support from pals, friends or from our brothers and sisters in Christ. Just like what Jesus had felt, it is normal for us to feel tension, stress, and sometimes even fear, especially when we know that something is about to happen though, we do not know yet when will it happen.
Aside from God, people can also rely on others when they need support, encouragement, and especially a companion to share the tension with. Because there will be times that we cannot stand tensions, stress, or fear that we feel and we tend to trip and fall down. That’s why it was said in…
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
“Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”
In Christian life, it is blessed for us to have partners that can support our calling and ministry. What a sigh of relief if we have our own confidant, our friends that we can go to in times of need and difficulties. By giving us understanding and support being a watchman sometimes we can tap them to be on our side during times of weakness because we are not afraid of exposing our weak or soft side with them as we know we are accepted whoever we are.
"We shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone: it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave." - Anonymous
Jesus knew this, however, when He need it that time, His friends could not support Him at all because they could not stay awake and pray together with Jesus. This is the problem if we too much rely on human wisdom and strength because we are bound to be disappointed.
Look at verses 40 to 41 of our text:
40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
If they only knew that this will be the last hour that they could be with their Lord, they would sacrifice their time to sleep just to be with Jesus, but they failed Jesus for the last time. And so, the only source of support which Jesus can get that time is our third key.
The third key is to…
3. Yield in the Power of God – vv.39, 42
39 Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.”
42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may Your will be done.”
Look at how Jesus came to His Father’s presence, in verse 39 said “He fell to the ground” as if He was so burdened that the Father may see His pending sufferings. In Luke, it was mentioned that sweats like blood came out from Him as He prayed to God. Yet after all these gruesome situations of Jesus, He could still say to His Father “Yet not as I will but as You will; may Your will be done.”
See how Jesus depends on the power of His Father over the sufferings He need to take. Likewise, To be an effective vigilant person of God, our strength depends on God’s power over us and we need to let Him guide and operate within us.
In times of being vigilant, we spend most of our time waiting for an expected incident to happen. On the other hand, when we deal with unexpected incidents, we use most of our time preparing ourselves to be ready for no matter the circumstance. During these times of waiting and preparing, we tend to ask God why? Why must we experience such incidents?
Have we remembered Job when God allowed the devil to strike him? At first Job was still right in his own realization, but while the degree of difficulty becomes more, he started to question God. And we also plead to God so He would allow us not to experience such incidents. Even Jesus pleaded to His Father, so that He would be spared from the pains and sufferings that He would have to endure.
Yet in order to be an effective vigilant, we should therefore ready to accept that all things are based on the knowledge of God for us and that He is sovereign with the right authority over us. We could not simply direct our own lives through our simple wisdom,for He said in His word in...
Isaiah 55:9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
We are not capable of thoroughly comprehending God’s plan. But like what Jesus did, He did not focus on continuing to bargain with His Father, but instead Jesus had put all of His trust to the Father through obeying Him and letting the His will be done.
Ephesians 1:19-20
and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.
As Jesus yielded in His Father’s will, we must also trust and give way for God’s power to take over, for it is the power which resurrected Jesus from the dead after three days and it is the power that we should use in order for us to be led to effective vigilance.
Last key to being an effective vigilant is to…
4. Stand firm in the Point of difficulties – vv45-46
45 Then He returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.46 Rise! Let us go! Here comes My betrayer!”
After Jesus surrendered His will to His Father, He went back to a discouraging scenario to the disciples because they were still sleeping and could not stay with Him any longer. Yet this did not discourage our Lord Jesus to take a stand against the coming sufferings and difficulties. Instead, He said to them, “Rise! Let us go! Despite of the negative situations that time, He was able to encourage His disciples to stand up and face the enemy for the battle was won already when Jesus accepted to fulfill His mission on earth.
Peter remembered this scenario together with James that’s why Peter mentioned this to his epistle in 1 Peter 5:9-10 “9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 10 And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
We share these points of difficulties with other believers according to Peter and he knew that this is not permanent, but only temporary and after that God will restore us and make us strong and steadfast.
James 5:8 “You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”
For James, what He saw is the importance to stand firm for the 2nd coming of the Lord is drawing near. We should be vigilant by standing firm not just for Satan’s scheme, but be patient for the Lord’s coming is nearby. That is the hope that we are holding on to up to this day.
For Paul, though a disciple of Jesus even when though Jesus was not physically present, said about the hope he was holding on to…
Colossians 1:23 “if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
1 Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
Let us hold on to the hope to the gospel of Jesus that has been proclaimed to each and every one of us, and that is to stay standing firm in our faith to God despite the difficulties we are facing because we know that our labor being vigilant will never be in vain.
As an effective vigilant for God, we should be steady, immovable of the calling God has set upon us, and that is to be ready to stand firm in our faith in the midst of difficulties in life. Even during these days of a pandemic, we will head on to our journey, hold on to Jesus and hide in His presence.
Conclusion:
To be an effective vigilant Christian, we should hold that key to victory over Satan. And that is to…
K-now when to Pray
E-ncourage our Pals for support
Y-ield on the Power of God
S-tand firm in the Points of difficulties
The Lord, who overcame the devil and shows us the way to overcome him, commands us to watch. For therefore He encountered with Satan the first, second, and third time, to instruct us how we should fight against the enemy of mankind. He overcame him for us, that we should not despair of ability and power easily to overcome him, since he is already weakened and wounded. By faith, doubtless, we shall overcome him; for by faith, we are knit unto Christ, and by faith we draw the Spirit of Christ, by the force and virtue whereof we shall triumph. – Heinrich Bullinger, a reformist, a protestant pastor in 15th century.
Are we ready now to hold on to our keys of victory against the devil? We better know how to use these keys so we can be an effective vigilant!
