Then He said to them, “My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me.”Then Jesus said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with me.”Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here, and watch with me.
3 sermons cite this verse
… one-man superstar show. Even Jesus needed a small group for support. You remember that when he he went to the garden of Gethsemane before the cross in Matthew 26, verse 38, Jesus said to his disciples, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. That's severe stress. And here's his antidote. Stay here and keep watch with me. Even Jesus needed people to pray with him. Even Jesus needed the support of a small group when he was in a crisis. Why don't we accept help from other people? Well, there's a couple of reasons, insecurity and pride. And it is insecurity, it's our own insecurity and our own pride that we don't accept help from others. So we stay stressed out. Here's the secret. Join a small group. If Jesus needed one, you need one. And the fact is, stress is increasing in our culture. So you have to take these seven intentional steps to counteract it. It's not going to go away. Your life isn't going to get less stressful by accident. It only is going to get less stressful, more manageable, and you're going to have greater resilience if you choose to do these seven things that Jesus modeled. Now, I want to close by reading again the passage that we started with in Hebrews 12, one to three. Listen to it again in light of the seven things that I gave you as a model from Jesus. …
… and he confides to them he says my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death stay here and watch with me then he goes a little further and he fell on his face and he prayed saying oh my father if it is possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as you will Then he goes back to the disciples because he wants to know whether or not they did what he asked them to do. He asked them to stay here and watch with me. And he goes to the disciples and he found them sleeping. Because even the ones he thought could stick with him in a hard season couldn't even keep up with him. And he says to them, what, could you not watch with me one hour? This was just one hour of prayer and you fell asleep. Some of us can't make it in the prayer closet five, ten minutes. Jesus says it was just an hour. Watch and pray. …
… And He took Peter and two sons of Zebedee along with Him. Now listen to this. And He began to be sorrowful and troubled. And then He said to them, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." In theology we like to use Latin phrases and Latin expressions, and one that I've always found particularly meaningful are the words passio magna, which means the great suffering. We speak of the grand passion of Christ, that it was Christ's vocation from the very moment that He was born that He was called of God to suffer and to die. Do you remember His mother Mary when Jesus was just a baby and Mary and Joseph took Jesus into the temple for circumcision, for purification, and they met this old prophetess there and this old prophet that God had said that he wouldn't die until he had seen the Lord's Messiah. His name was Simeon, and Simeon sang the Nukta Minas, the song. He said, Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen the glory of Israel. …