Bible Guys Classics: Luke 22:39–46

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Well, good morning. Good morning. We talk the whole night through. Good morning. Good morning to you and you and you. We made it. We made it. It's Friday. It's Friday. I'm saying good morning. And I never, well, hardly ever do it on a Friday. Yeah. But today is a good day. Yeah, it's a great day. And you know what makes today amazing? What makes today amazing? Phenomenal. What makes today amazing? Stupendous. Wow. I'm trying to put out all the adjectives here. Wow. What makes today amazing? absolutely, utterly amazing is it's the thing that everybody waits for. I don't believe this every time people do this. There is someone at home right now, a tear, a single tear is going down their face. It's crawling down their eyes. It's crying. Because it's a segment of segments. What made Chris mad this week? I just hate that intro. But you know what? I got to be honest. That was the best intro to this segment ever. A single tear on somebody's side of their face. That is so funny. Okay. They want to know, the listeners are wondering, what made Chris mad this week? Well, it only took me a few seconds to think about it, Wesley, because it happened this morning. Okay. All right. So it made me mad. And I'm going to take a different, it's going to be a radically different take on the question. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, so buckle up, ladies and gentlemen. Here it is. Ready? Ready? Today I got mad at myself. Oh. For being selfish. Oh, man. Yeah. This might be a record right here. That's right. That's right. Instead of being mad at the world. Yeah. Right. For the world, because normally I'm like, hey, I'm mad at this thing. I'm mad for everybody else. Today, I'm going to say, let's everybody else take time to sometimes be mad at ourselves. Yeah. Because sometimes we can be pretty selfish. Yeah. So let me tell you why I was mad at myself. Let us know what happened. I was mad at myself for being mad at other things. So I started off by being mad at my lawn guy. Right. Because here's what happened. So literally in this particular case, we started filming the Baba guys at 9 a.m. And we filmed five of them back to back. Right. And so I was due here at Heritage Church. This is our stage at 9 a.m. And so what did I do? I get in my car. I was heading back. I was heading to my car probably about, I don't know, maybe 12 minutes or 15 minutes to nine. I'm heading out to my car or my truck. And then there's a guy who sprays my lawn. And he's only been spraying it for like maybe six months or so, a new company. And this guy walks out and sees me walking out to my truck and says, hey, it is you, Pastor Chris. He goes, I saw your name and I've been spraying your house for months. And I saw your first and last name and I thought, I wonder if this is the same Chris Zarbaugh, which by the way, I got news for you. There's no other Chris Zarbaugh except in Texas. Yeah. Like literally in the whole United States, except for in Texas. Yeah. So anyway, and he's a lawyer by the way. Yeah. So, uh, but anyway, he, uh, he goes, he goes, I thought it was you. He goes, I used to be, uh, I used to go to your church and now I don't go anywhere. And you were my pastor for years and years. And I was like, wow. And I was like, that's cool. So we talked a little bit about it. And he goes, and I'm thinking to myself, like, okay, I got to go. I got to go. I got somewhere to be. And he goes, hey, so let me just ask you a question. He goes, can I just tell you about my marriage? And let me ask you, can you pray for me? And so he just starts unloading all these legitimate, like good things. You know, and I'm just like, okay, what am I going to say? Yeah. Hey, I'm late for. Yeah, I got to go. I got to go. I can't pray for you. Right. Yeah. So I'm like legitimately listening to this guy. So you already know the answer to this. So I texted you saying, hey, I'm going to be late. Yeah. Because I'm doing this. And I figured that's the better choice. Right. It's definitely worth me being late 10 minutes for me to spend time with this guy. Right. Yeah. So I made the choice and I stayed like 20 minutes talking to this guy. But in the entire time, I'm like, I'm sort of mad at him for making me late. Right. And I'm like, okay, so I get in my car. And I'm heading here and then all of a sudden I get in this bumper to bumper traffic jam. Now, normally this is the place where At like a five o'clock, it would be the place where the traffic jams. Yeah. It's coming off of, you know, a freeway, which turns into a main road. And that's normally where it's bumper to bumper traffic, but only normally like at 5 p.m. Yeah. So here it is at 9 a.m. I'm thinking we're past the window of 8 a.m. Why is this jammed up? And it is seriously jammed up. Yeah. So I'm late another 10 minutes. I'm behind schedule another 10 minutes. And the whole time I'm mad at whatever's happening there. Up there, right? Until I get up there and I realize somebody, this poor guy smashed his truck. It looks like a brand new 2025 GMC white truck, full-size truck. And he smashes it into what looks like a 2025 unbelievably beautiful Jeep Renegade. Oh, man. And one smashes into the other. These poor people are on the side of the road and they're just like, Like, you know, like probably their lives are devastated. Yeah. But I'm angry that I'm another 10 minutes late. Right. And so I, so then all of a sudden I went from being angry at my long guy to being angry at whoever's causing this traffic jam to, oh, it's those guys up there with the traffic, with the, with the lights in the tow trucks to all of a sudden being angry at myself going like, why am I so selfish? Right. I mean, I'm a few minutes late and those guys whole lives have been turned upside down. Who knows? Maybe that guy has whiplash. He's going to struggle with his spine for the rest of his life. Right. You're mad about 10 minutes. But I'm mad about 10 minutes. of my meeting because I didn't plan for more cushion or margin. Yeah. Right? Because I could have been here at 8.30. Yeah. Right? By the way, I would have ordered everything if I had just come at 8.30. Right? That's it, ladies and gentlemen. Chris made Chris mad this week. That's right. That's what it was. Yeah, you know what? Instead of being mad for the world, I'm challenging the world to be mad at themselves every once in a while because we can lose perspective. Yeah, that's true. Right? That's very true. So I'm mad at Chris today. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Mark that in your calendars. It happened this day. Well, I'll tell you what. For the years that I've been doing this, I've never been mad at myself. Well, I have, but I've never talked about it. Yeah. Right? So that's it. That's good. Yeah, that's so funny. All right. Well, you want to come up with a transition? I'll give you a couple seconds. I know that you weren't thinking of a transition, but I'm going to put you on the spot. I'm going to give you like 10 seconds to come up with a transition because this is about Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Another thing that you can be mad at is when people don't pray. Okay. That was terrible. It was terrible. That was terrible. It's a good thing that this is terrible segments. Yeah. Right, terrible segments? Yeah, because actually that has nothing to do with anything. Well, sort of. Jesus was telling them that, you know, if you could stay awake and pray with me for, you know. But how does my story have anything to do with prayer? I don't know. I'm just trying to tie it in. Wait, the fact that I didn't pray? I don't know. It was bad. It just was bad. We're just going to let it die. No, no, no. Let's resurrect it. Let's resurrect it. Listen, listen, listen. I should have prayed while being on the road. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And the fact that I didn't pray is just like this story. There we go. We're going with that one. Okay. That's what we're going with. All right. Oh, man. So funny. Luke 22, verses 39 through 46. Yeah. So this is only like seven verses. Yeah. So it's super short. It says, then accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives. There he told them, pray that you will not give into temptation. He walked away about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed. Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine. Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood. Verse 45. At last he stood up again and returned to the disciples, only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief. Why are you sleeping? He asked them. Get up and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. Yeah, you know what's interesting is that we have covered this exact passage, it seems like, a few times recently. So we did, we did the gospels and then we covered it in the gospels. And then what we did was we did a series, basically famous sayings of Jesus. Like what if Jesus had a podcast, he would cover his famous sayings. Yeah. And then, and it just seems like just a few weeks ago, we went ahead and talked about this. So we sort of revisited it like, you know, maybe, I don't know, a couple months apart. And then we, We had a choice on whether or not to include it in this podcast. And you know what we all decided? We have to include it because you can't have a new series called Dangerous Prayers without this prayer. The one from Jesus, yeah. Because this is perhaps one of the most dangerous prayers of all. Yeah. And so it is the goat of these moments, right? So we're like, well, you know what? We're going to talk about it again, maybe from a different angle. Because, again, there's always something new to learn from the same passage of scripture. By the way, have you ever done that? Have you ever read, for instance, like John 3.16 or something, and something stands out to you and you're like, wow, that's amazing. And then you go back and you read something as basic for salvation as John 3.16 again. then somehow something else completely comes to light. Yeah, it just kind of jumps out at you. Yeah. And what's always interesting about the scripture is that sometimes you'll read a verse and it may even have the same meaning. but then somehow it applies to an entirely different thing that you're going through. Yeah. Right? And that's the beauty of reading God's Word daily because I can't even tell you the number of times where I've thought to myself, oh, I've read this before. Yeah. And yet it's like, man, that applies directly to what I'm going through now. And the last time I read this, I wasn't going through anything like that. And how could this apply to this? And it's like, well, that's just the magic of God's Word. God's Word through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Bible says it's alive, it's living, it's active. It's profitable for teaching, for correction, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness. And it cuts to the joints and the marrows. It divides the thoughts, the intents of the heart. And it's just amazing to me how, again, the same passage of Scripture can apply to what we're going through in a totally different way. Yeah, that's very true. Isn't that funny? Verse 40 is where it says, There he told them, Pray that you will not give in to temptation. And I love that because every single person watching today has some form of temptation in their life. Whatever that thing is, Jesus is telling us that we can pray about that thing. Oftentimes, people will struggle with their temptations. For someone, it could be drugs. For someone, it could be alcohol or whatever that thing is. You can find help in your time of need. You can pray and ask the Father to help me with this temptation, and God will. That's the beauty of it. But oftentimes, when there is a temptation or an addiction or something like that, asking God for help with that temptation is oftentimes the last thing that people would do. Yeah, that's right. And they'll seek out other means to try to get relief. Yeah. And, you know, when you ask God for help, sometimes the answer that God gives is more practical than supernatural. Yeah. Right. So it's like it's like so, for instance, you were saying something like alcoholism, which, as we all know, is extremely powerful disease. Right. So, you know, you're praying like, OK, God, tell me what this temptation is. you know, to drink or not. The simple answer that God may say is, well, your first step is leave the bar. Yeah. That's true. Just walk out. Yeah. Right. And that bottle that you have at home, pour it out. Pour it out. Yeah. And you're like, well, I don't have the strength to do either one of those choices. Okay. Well, then that's why we have others in our lives. And of course, in that world, You know, most of us know it as sponsors, right? So there's the practical sponsor, and then there's, you know, the spiritual advisor, and oftentimes that person is one and the same. Yeah. But anyway, all that to say, when you pray, God, help me with this temptation, I guess what I'm really trying to say is, it's not as if God is going to magically always remove the temptation. Yeah. Right? God would oftentimes just say, just make this choice so that you... so that the temptation removes itself. Yeah. Right? That, you know, remove yourself from the temptation, right? Have it being removed from your life just by making these guidelines or these rules or these systems, you know, put them into place. You know, we call it accountability. Yeah. Right? We call it prevention. All these different types of things. So I think that, you know, pray that you will not lead me in temptation isn't always just God supernaturally saying, changing our desires and our hearts, it is providing us with a means to escape. Yeah. Right? And oftentimes it's a process. You know, it's not kind of like what you're talking about. It's not instant. It's not just poof and then you're, you know, instantly transformed or something like that. Oftentimes, think of it this way for those of you who are watching. It took you a while to get into it. So it may be a process to get out of it. You know, it's not always going to be just instant and then you walk away from the thing. Now, I have seen some miracles happen in people's lives where they did have some instant things happen. But for most of us, it's going to be a process for the transformation that you're seeking in your life. It's not going to be just instant and then boom, it happens. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. You know, James 1, verse 12 says, is one of the first verses. In fact, it may be the very first verse I've ever memorized. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, I think it is. Okay. But I want to read it though. Yeah. Because we- You said this is James 1 for the listeners? Yeah, James 1.12. Okay. It said, God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterwards, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. And remember that when you are tempted, do not say, God is tempting me, God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These give birth to sinful actions, and when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. Beth, so don't be misled, dear brothers and sisters. So then it goes on. You know, it's interesting how the King James Version, I memorized it in the King James Version. And so it says, blessed is the man that endureth temptation for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life to which the Lord has promised to them that love him. And then there's another one. You know what? Now that I'm reading this, there's another one, 1 Corinthians 10, 13. And again, I memorized everything in the King James Version, which is the Old English Version written in the 1600s. But it says, but there is no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. Yeah. But God is faithful. who will with the temptation always provide a way to escape so that you may be able to bear it. Yeah. Right? And the reason why that came to mind is because there is an implication there that, again, God may not necessarily remove the temptation desire, right? Yeah. So the reason why I read those two is because the first one in James 1.12 said, It's not God's desire that he placed in you. Yeah. God doesn't tempt you. Yeah. We can't blame God. Right. It comes from your desires. Yeah. So when you pray, pray that you will not lead us in temptation. Don't expect God to necessarily change your desires. It says in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, that he will give you a way to walk away. It's kind of like a life raft. Yeah. He'll give you a means to escape. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's really, really good. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And then the other dangerous part of the prayer is, And of course, the main thing is, Father, not my will, but yours be done. Yeah. Right? We talked about the cup of suffering. And if you'll let this cup pass from me, a few weeks back, we talked about this. And we talked about how the cup can be symbolized in Revelation. But oftentimes it was cultural. And I believe it was more cultural. When you're sitting around a campfire, they pass you a cup and you can choose to partake or not. Yeah. And he's saying, I don't want to partake of what you're offering me. You know, sometimes we feel like God says, do this thing, be a part of this. And if we recognize it's God's will, there are just times where we say, God, I don't want to do this. Yeah. I don't want to. It's too hard. It's too difficult. It's going to cost me too much. Yeah. Yeah. But then the dangerous part of that prayer is the comma. That says, God, even though I want to acknowledge this, I want to also say, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Yeah. Total surrender. I think the important thing here, too, to remember, along with what you're saying, Chris, is at a very practical level. Yeah. When you say that prayer, oftentimes what God will have you do will not make sense. There's a verse in the Bible that talks about my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts. Yeah, Isaiah. Yeah. Oftentimes when God asks you to do something, it will not make any sense whatsoever. You're not going to want to do it, but you just have to trust that he knows the better route or the better path. Yeah. But he's God and it's oftentimes not going to make sense to you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think it is worth spending a minute talking about God. And if you were journeying with us for the whole week, think about the quality of these different calling prayers, okay? So on Monday we talked about, and a lot of people did not listen, so this would be beneficial. On Monday we talked about how Samuel failed to recognize God's voice. And when he did, he said, speak and I'm listening. And so to the non-Christian or to the new Christian, it's important to learn how to recognize God's voice And to the mature Christian, it's important not to ignore his voice. Yes, that's true. Right? That was the lesson. That was the dangerous calling prayer in day number one. And then day number two, we talked about Nehemiah. And what Nehemiah said was, hey, God, I'm going to acknowledge my responsibility and all the consequences I find myself in. I'm going to own it. I'm going to acknowledge your promises. And then I'm going to then ask for your favor. Right? Right. And that's a bold request because Nehemiah felt called to do something big. Yeah. And so that was his setup to... being a part of that. It was the dangerous calling prayer. And then, uh, Wednesday we talked about James chapter one. We talked about asking for wisdom, right? And basically it was, it was acknowledging the fact that, uh, the context is persecution perfects our faith. And in those moments saying, God, give me wisdom more than anything else and how to do that. And then yesterday we talked about Peter and John asking for boldness. Yeah. Right. Boldness to do what is right, regardless of the cost. And in this case, even when it does cost you. Yeah. Right. And then today it is the prayer that Jesus prayed that says, I surrender fully to what I want. And God, I'm gonna express to you what I don't want. Yeah. But ultimately, I'm gonna say, I'll do what you want. Yeah. And that's a bold prayer. Yeah. And great things always come from doing what God told you to do. You know, when you think about it from that, there's something on the other side that maybe you don't even see yet. That's really good. But even in the case of Jesus, on the other side of his death on the cross, was basically salvation for humanity. That was on the other side of this very difficult thing that he's toiling with in the garden. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, real quick, just for funsies, I'm going to tell this quick story. Yeah. In 2004, Dave Wilson asked me to do the chapel for the Philadelphia Eagles. Oh, wow. And so I sat on.. You mean for the Lions? Well, no, no, no. I'm sorry. They were playing the Lions. Yes, yes. And so they were the visiting team. Yeah. So oftentimes, the visiting chaplain... can't travel on a Sunday because their church isn't as big as our church was. Oh, so he actually had you do it for them. Yes. Because Wilson used to travel with the team for 30 years, 33 years. And because our church was big enough for him to do that. But a lot of the chaplains couldn't travel. So consequently, when a team comes to Detroit, they would need a chaplain and they would call him and say, get a chaplain. And oftentimes he would ask me. So anyway, so he asked me to do the Philadelphia Eagles. Well, back then it was like, um, Like Brian Westbrook was the running back and, oh gosh, who was it? Was it Cunningham? Yeah, Cunningham was the quarterback at the time. And I remember they were there at the chapel and I gave a message and it was exactly what you just said. You said, oftentimes God has something for you on the other side. Yeah. And I talked about crossing to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, the spies crossing over the promised land and crossing the Red Sea. They had three crossings. And I talked about all these different things, but the theme was, is that the same thing. It's like God calls us to the other side of heartache. God calls us to the other side of forgiveness. God calls us to the other side of doubt. And on the other side, God has something for us. Yeah. Right? And that was these examples in the scripture. So anyway, I gave this message on Saturday night. Sunday morning, they gave me tickets. And surprisingly, it's on the 50-yard line directly behind the- Oh, yeah. Those are good seats. And it's right up against the fence. Yeah. And against the rail. And actually it's three rows back. And everybody says that chaplains get the worst seats. They really do. They give us like nosebleed seats. The Lions do. But for some reason, the Eagles gave me these premier seats. So I'm sitting there with my buddy. And then, and unfortunately the Lions lost and the Eagles beat us, but it was a preseason game. So who cares? And the Eagles went for two points. Okay. So they scored a touchdown and then they went for it and they ran it in. Yeah. And then they get back into the huddle and Brian Westbrook, looks up into the audience or the crowd, and sees me and recognizes me from the night before, which is amazing, right? That didn't even happen. And he looks over, runs out up to the wall and says, pastor, pastor. And I'm like, oh my goodness, this is amazing. So I get up out of my seat and everybody around me is thinking, what is happening? This guy, right? So I get up and I sort of like, you know, walk down the aisle toward him and he goes, pastor, pastor, come here. So I went over to the edge and he goes, you'll never believe what just happened in the huddle. I said, what happened? He goes, we all got in the huddle. And then when the call came in to go for two points, he said, the quarterback looked at everybody and said, gentlemen, God is calling us to the other side. Oh, wow. That's what he said. That is hilarious. And I was like, yes! I was like, that could be one of the coolest, even though that wasn't the meaning of my message. It wasn't the exact meaning. No, it wasn't my meaning. But one of the coolest moments ever was that moment. No, that's cool. So I was just like, that is so cool. The fact that they even were thinking that together. Yeah. Which means they must have talked about it. Yeah. Right. They had to have talked about the message. Yeah. So it wasn't just like, hey, did you like that message? It had to have been processed. Right. Yeah. And so it's for him to make that analogy in the huddle. That's awesome. It's kind of cool. No, that's really good. So anyway, I thought that was fun to share. So, hey, that is our time for sure. Yeah, this was a great week. It was a great week, and hopefully you've been challenged, and hopefully you'll tune in back in with us on Monday on The Bible Guys.