Our Failure and Christ’s Faithfulness
Matthew 26:31-46
To encourage a timid young preacher, Paul wrote to him the timeless truth, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13). This fragment from an ancient hymn resounds with powerful truth for us today. We all know that we are prone to faithlessness. Robert Robinson in his hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (1758) expressed his own faithlessness, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love.”[1] I don’t suppose there has ever been a follower of Jesus who has not at some time been faithless or failed the Lord. The Bible is very transparent about the failures of even its most famous men of faith. Noah, a man who was called “a righteous man, blameless in his generation” (Gen. 6:9, ESV), was guilty of drunkenness (Gen. 9:21). Abraham, the father of faith (Rom. 4:16), feared for his life and practiced deception (Gen. 12, 20). Moses, the great law-giver, disbelieved the Lord and disobeyed in his anger (Num. 20:11-12). David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14), committed adultery and murder (2 Sam. 11).
In contrast to men’s failures, God is always faithful. Psalm 36:5 says, “Your mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” Psalm 89:1, “I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever; With my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations.” And Jeremiah writes in Lamentations 3:22-23, “Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”
These two contrasts of our unfaithfulness and the faithfulness of God are nowhere better illustrated than in our text this morning, Matthew 26:31-46.
1. We are faithless (Jesus predicts His disciples’ failure) – Matt. 26:31-35
Jesus and His disciples had just finished the Lord’s Supper, and they were making their way to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives was about a fifteen minute walk from where they celebrated the Passover in Jerusalem. It was late in the evening. Remember that during the supper, when Jesus revealed that one of them would betray Him, the disciples all “were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to Him, ‘Lord, is it I?’” (Matt. 26:22). Of course, we know Jesus was speaking about Judas Iscariot. But now on their walk to Gethsemane, Jesus predicts that they all will abandon Him. This is …
A. The Shepherd’s Announcement (Matt. 26:31-32)
31 Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ 32 But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee.” (Matt. 26:31-32).
Can you imagine the shock that the disciples experienced when Jesus spoke this warning to them? In spite of all the times Jesus had predicted His impending betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection, they refused to accept it. Now that the time was here, because they refused to believe what Jesus said, they could not accept the truth of their role in it either. So when Jesus said, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night,” it seemed impossible to them. Yet, Jesus warns them that not just the betrayer, but all of them would “be made to stumble,” or “be offended and fall away”.
The reason Jesus gave that they would stumble that night is “because of Me.” Because of the sentence of death upon Him, because Jesus would willingly go to the cross, they would all stumble in relationship to Him. That night, they would falter in the face of the extreme pressure of His arrest. Even though Jesus had prepared them and warned them, His arrest in the Garden would catch them off guard. They did not want Jesus to suffer and die; they wanted Him to reign as king. It wasn’t that they were intentionally rebellious. They just could not grasp the necessity of Christ’s death.
Yet, Jesus shows its necessity by quoting the prophecy of Zechariah 13:7. Jesus said, “for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’” (Matt. 26:31). In Zechariah 13, the prophet speaks of how the Lord God will cut off idolatry and false prophets from the land. But suddenly, in Zechariah 13:7, the Lord Himself speaks about His Shepherd,
7 “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, Against the Man who is My Companion,” Says the LORD of hosts. “Strike the Shepherd, And the sheep will be scattered; Then I will turn My hand against the little ones.” (Zech. 13:7).
It is Yahweh, the LORD God Himself who calls for the shepherd to be struck. The LORD would strike the Shepherd, the Father would smite the Son on behalf of a rebellious race of sinners. The result is that the sheep would be scattered. This is how the LORD would remove idolatry and false prophets from Israel. In the next few verses in Zechariah, the prophet tells how two-thirds of Israel will “be cut off and die” (Zech. 13:8). But, one-third of Israel will be refined as silver is refined and tested as gold is tested (Zech. 13:9). Though they all are scattered, Zechariah promises a return of some of them. This is what would happen to the disciples. They fell and were scattered. But, they repented of their desertion, called upon the name of the Lord (Zech. 13:9), and were restored.
The Father strikes the Son in the justice-absorbing death of the cross. His sheep are scattered. But that is not the end! Jesus indicates their restoration in Matthew 26:32, “But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee.” Jesus knew that the cross would not mean defeat, but victory. Everything would happen according to the divine plan of His Father. Nothing was a surprise to Him. “Because of Him” they would falter, but also because of Him they would meet again in Galilee. Jesus knew that after His resurrection He would restore and commission His disciples to carry the gospel to the world.
So, Jesus announced that they would all stumble that night. But even though Jesus warned them, they would all fail because of …
B. The Disciples’ Overconfidence (Matt. 26:33-35)
33 Peter answered and said to Him, “Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble.” 34 Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” 35 Peter said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!” And so said all the disciples. (Matt. 26:33-35).
When you and I read these words, we inwardly groan. We know what’s about to happen. And yet, when Peter spoke them, I’m sure he absolutely meant what he said. He even proved his resolve in the garden. When they came to arrest the Lord, Matthew 26:51 tells us that “suddenly, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear” (Matt. 26:51); and John’s Gospel tells us that this swordsman was none other than Peter himself (John 18:10). The Lord rebuked him for this, and commanded him to put his sword away. But it’s clear that Peter was prepared to fight to the death to protect His Lord. He truly intended to make good on his boasted devotion to Jesus.
And yet, after Jesus was seized, Peter, along with all the others, fled and deserted the Lord. As we’ll see in greater detail later on in Matthew 26, Peter would follow along to see what would happen to the Lord—but at a distance (Matt. 26:57). And within a few hours of his boasted devotion, when a servant girl would ask if he was with the Lord, he would say, “I do not know what you are saying” (Matt. 26:70). Later, when another girl would identify him as one of Jesus’ followers, and he would say, “I do not know the Man!” (Matt. 26:72). Finally, several bystanders would affirm that he truly was one of Jesus’ followers, and Peter would curse and swear and say, “I do not know the Man!” (Matt. 26:74).
Peter and the other disciples were all clearly overconfident of their devotion to the Lord. Look at Matthew 26:35 again, “Peter said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!” And so said all the disciples.” Peter devalued the commitment of others and exaggerated his own. All of them boasted of their exceptional devotion. Instead of being clothed in humility, they adorned themselves in pride and self-importance.
The failure of Peter and the other disciples here should warn us whenever we’re tempted to boast of our devotion to the Lord. Remember what Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and disparately wicked; who can know it?” We may think we will always stand for the Lord, and that we’ll always be devoted to Him; but the Lord Himself knows how easily our own hearts can fool us. So, Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 10:12, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” All the disciples thought they were invincible when it came to being faithful to Jesus. All of them failed because they were overconfident in their own ability to stand.
We need to understand our own weakness and need for Christ. How many times have you promised the Lord that you would do something, only to regret it later when you failed to carry it out? In my own walk with Christ, there are many things I have determined to do but have failed to follow through. I have pledged to be bolder in my evangelism. But, when the moment came to be bold, I lacked the courage to speak out boldly. I have preached many things that I, myself, have failed to do. My prayer life is not what I want it to be. Prayer often gets squeezed out of my schedule in the busyness of the day. Failure is what happens when we foolishly trust our own heart, lean on our own understanding, and are overconfident in our own strength.
We are often faithless. But the good news today is that …
2. Christ is faithful (Jesus faithfully prays in Gethsemane) – Matt. 26:36-46
Matthew 26:36 takes us to the garden of Gethsemane, which means “oil press.” It’s a great name that describes what happened to Jesus in the garden. He was squeezed to the uttermost. It’s there that we see …
A. Christ is faithful in intense sorrow (Matt. 26:36-38)
Matthew writes, “Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.”” Perhaps Jesus stationed them there to guard His privacy in prayer.
Then Matthew says that Jesus “took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee” (Matt. 26:37a), that is James and John. These were the “inner three” of the 12 disciples. I believe Jesus took special time with these men and allowed them to see what the others did not see because each of them would become special leaders in the church and would teach others what they had learned. Just as Jesus drew them near to Himself so they could see His power and His glory (Matt. 17:1-5), He also drew them near to Himself to behold His time of deep anguish.
As they walked deeper into the darkness of the olive grove, “He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed” (Matt. 26:37). Jesus knew what was coming. He knew He had been born for this purpose. He knew that He would “save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21) by His death and resurrection. However, the full emotional impact of what was about to transpire “began” at that moment to flood over Him.
Here we see the great contrast between the attitude of Jesus and the attitude of the disciples. Alfred Plummer writes in his commentary,
The Apostles are so sure of their own strength that they will not allow the possibility of failure, even when they are forewarned of it by Christ. The Son of Man is so conscious of the weakness of His humanity that He prays to the Father that He may be spared the approaching trial. He feels the need of being strengthened by prayer.[2]
Jesus was fully human in every way except that He had no fallen, depraved sinful nature. He experienced every human emotion just as we experience them. Even so, it is hard for us to understand how Jesus felt at that moment. John MacArthur describes it in this way,
“Never was so much sorrow emanating from the soul of one individual. We could never comprehend the depth of Christ’s agony because, frankly, we cannot perceive the wickedness of sin as He could. Nor can we appreciate the terrors of divine wrath the way He did. The sorrow He expresses in the Gethsemane prayer is therefore beyond our comprehension.”[3]
As if to further drive home the point of His intense sorrow that must have been so visible, Jesus said to them, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even to death.” “Exceedingly sorrowful” means “grieved all around.” Jesus was surrounded in sorrow. He was drowning in it. He was so overwhelmed with what would happen that it brought Him to the point of death. We cannot comprehend the limitless depths of Jesus’ sorrow that night. Hebrews 5:7 speaks of Jesus, “who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear.”
Our Lord, in His humanity, couldn’t help but recoil from the cross. But I believe it was much more than that. I believe He was sorrowing—almost beyond description—because He Himself was unspeakably holy; and yet, He was about to bear the sin of all of humanity upon Himself. The hymnist, Charles Gabriel expressed it so powerfully in the hymn My Saviors Love. The second verse says,
For me it was in the garden
He prayed, ‘Not My will, but Thine.’
He had no tears for His own griefs,
but sweat drops of blood for mine.
How marvelous, How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous, How wonderful
Is my Savior’s love for me.”[4]
Jesus was faithful in His intense sorrow. Then we see …
B. Christ was faithful in His agonizing supplication (Matt. 26:39-44).
Matthew writes, “He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”” Though Jesus was shaken, He still stood firm. The cup is clearly symbolic of the suffering of the wrath of God that would come upon Him. Many references in the Old Testament use this metaphor. Isaiah 51:17 says, “Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem, You who have drunk at the hand of the LORD The cup of His fury; You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, And drained it out.” Jeremiah 25:15-16 says, “For thus says the LORD God of Israel to me: Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it. And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.”
It was not just the physical torture of the cross that drove Jesus to His angonizing prayer, but the full understanding that He would within a few hours “bear the sins of many” (Heb. 9:28). He who “knew no sin” would “be sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21). He would bear “our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24). He would become “the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Isaiah 53:6 says, “The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Not only would His sinlessness be polluted with our sinfulness, not only would His divinity be engulfed in our depravity, the Father would impute every one of our sins upon Him and let Him endure the wrath meant for us. This is what Isaiah 53:10 means when it says, “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin …”
Fully understanding all this, fully feeling the emotional and physical effects of such horrible knowledge in His body, Jesus prayed, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.” Jesus knew there was no way the cup could pass. He knew He came into this world for the express purpose of draining its bitter dregs. Yet, this prayer is the honest expression of the dread He felt at that moment. Though He would never give into sin, He felt the full effects of sin’s temptation.
How wonderful is the grace of Jesus in that He also prayed, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Jesus gave Himself over to the will of the Father. He remained faithful.
But what about the disciples? Matthew 26:40-41 says,
40 Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What? Could you not watch with Me one hour? 41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matt. 26:40-41).
Jesus had told them to ” Stay here and watch with Me” (Matt. 26:38). But, they failed in their task. This brings us back to our first point: we are faithless. Here was Jesus in His hour of greatest need, being left alone by the failure of His disciples.
The response of Jesus is amazing. He rebukes them, “What? Could you not watch with Me one hour?” He warns them, “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.” And He gives them the reason for their failure, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” All of Peter’s resolves were sincere in his spirit at the time that he made them, but they were limited by his own power in the flesh to fulfill what he resolved to do. Peter and the others were depending on the weakness of their flesh rather than the strength of the Spirit of God. What immeasurable patience Jesus must have for His weak, fallible followers! I’m so very glad that I can rest upon His long-suffering spirit toward us; because I fail Him often too.
Matthew tells us that Jesus went back “a second time” to pray saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done” (Matt. 26:42). Again, He prays for the impossible and resigns Himself to will of His Father. He knew He could not bypass the terrible cup. He knew the only way we could be saved was through His sacrifice.
This is why no one can be saved any other way than through the sacrificial death of Jesus. If someone could be saved by other religions or by doing good works, Jesus’ agony and sacrifice would not have been necessary. But He knew it was. Jesus was fully aware of what was taking place. He was faithfully praying for the Lord’s strength, with the weight of the world’s sin upon His shoulders. But the contrast is these disciples, who couldn’t even lift an ounce. (I assume that our eyelids weigh about an ounce).
Sadly, the disciples were just as faithless as before. Matthew 26:43 says that He “found them asleep again” and adds that “their eyes were heavy” indicating that it was a deeper sleep than before. Because they would not “watch and pray,” seeking the Father’s help for what lay ahead, they fell into deep sleep.
Jesus then “left them” and went back to pray for “the third time, saying the same words ” He repeated the same thing again and again. f you are ever in doubt as to whether or not you should pray repeatedly for something, let Jesus be your model and be assured that you should. If you are ever in doubt as to whether or not you should pray to the Lord with passion, let Jesus be your model, and be assured that you should. If you are ever in doubt as to whether or not God hears your prayers, let Jesus be your model. He was heard ” because of His godly fear” (Heb. 5:7).
Finally we see …
C. Christ is faithful in His unconditional surrender (Matt. 26:45-46).
After the third period of prayer Jesus came back to the disciples. I think He must have looked different at this point. He had labored in prayer and surrendered Himself fully to the Father. Though the plan of God had not changed, the sorrow and distress that had almost killed Him has passed. Now, after prayer, He was fully prepared to drink the “cup” that would be given to Him. His surrender brought back His strength and confidence. It must have shown.
He woke the disciples, chiding them by asking, “Are you still sleeping and resting?” Then He announced, “Behold, the hour is at hand” (Matt. 26:45) His time had come and He knew it. He said, “The Son of Man is being [present tense] betrayed into the hands of sinners.”
Perhaps while Jesus was speaking these last words, he could hear the voices and see the torches of Judas, the religious leaders and the temple guards as they came to the garden gate. Jesus said, “Rise, let us be going. See. My betrayer is at hand.” (Matt. 26:46). Matthew 26:47 says the mob that came to arrest Him arrived “while He was still speaking.” Having spent this dark night of suffering and anguish of soul in prayer of dedication to the Father, as our sinless Substitute, Jesus stepped bravely forward and gave Himself into the hands of those who would lead Him to His crucifixion.
It wasn’t in the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus became our Redeemer. It was at Golgotha that He accomplished our redemption. But it was at Gethsemane that His beautiful character as our faithful Redeemer is revealed to us.
Jesus is faithful even when we are unfaithful. As Paul wrote to Timothy, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13). The disciples abandoned Jesus, but Jesus never abandoned them. Jesus died for drowsy disciples like you and me who fail Him repeatedly. So, lean on His grace. Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation. As John writes in his first epistle,
1 My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2).
We are weak. We are faithless. But Christ is faithful. And He is full of grace toward us in our weakness and failure.
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[1] Robert Robinson, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, https://hymnary.org/text/come_thou_fount_of_every_blessing
[2] Alfred Plummer, An exegetical commentary on the Gospel according to S. Matthew, Scribner, NY, 1910, p. 368.
[3] John MacArthur, The Murder of Jesus, Nelson Books, p.65
[4] Charles Gabriel, My Savior’s Love, https://hymnary.org/text/i_stand_amazed_in_the_presence
