He Prayed All Night Long: An Exposition Of Luke 6:12-16

He Prayed all Night Long: An Exposition of Luke 6:12-16

Jesus’ ministry was certainly a busy one. He went from village to village, mostly in Galilee, and here this passage is followed by a mission trip to Tyre and Sidon in Gentile territory. We can only guess how exhausting this was to Jesus. When He went up into the mount for the night, it would seem to be a good time to get some much-needed rest. The disciples might have gotten some sleep that night, but not Jesus. The text says Jesus stayed up all night long in prayer to God. He had also spent all night in prayer at the end of the first chapter of Mark. The bulk of the first chapter of Mark is presented as though it happened on a single day which must have been exhausting. We also see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane making a fervent night prayer while His disciples slept. These examples show that Jesus was a man of fervent prayer.

When we consider who Scripture reveals Jesus to be, fully divine as well as fully human, we might ask why prayer would be so important to Jesus. As Sovereign God, the Son, why would He need to pray at all. This same problem with prayer also persists in some Reformed circles which emphasize God’s Sovereignty who ordains all things which come to pass. What can prayer avail with a God who foreordains everything? This is indeed a difficulty, but it is necessary to affirm God’s absolute sovereignty as well as predestination. It can be argued whether predestination and election are based upon God’s foreknowledge of all events or whether foreknowledge is based upon the decree of God. But our hope has to be founded in a God who is able to save as well as willing to save. To reduce God from the “all powerful” to “most powerful” is a great heresy as a most powerful God could be overthrown by the collective power of lesser powers whose combined power might be greater than the power of God. This is exactly what Satan and his angels are trying to do. And humanity as a whole try to overpower God as well. But as the second Psalm states, God will laugh them to scorn. All the difficulty involved in praying to a Sovereign God is far less than praying to a God who may or may not triumph in the end. Wishy-washy prayer based upon this concept of God is weak nd avails little.

Seeing then that we worship an “all powerful” God who ordains all that comes to pass, how should we see prayer? It would be correct to see as suggested that God has ordained prayer as a means of communication. But it has to be more than just going through the motions of prayer, being careful to observe the proper reverence, form, and orthodox posture. Formal prayer does not avail much either. We have to pray, expecting God to hear and respond to our prayer. James tells us the effectual and fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much. As much as we might have to realize that our righteousness is quite lacking in respect to God, we cannot make that claim about Jesus. His prayers to God would be effective. Here, He was certainly persistent in prayer.

We must also remember that Jesus is fully human as well as fully divine. There is a great mystery here that is beyond our understanding. The human Jesus grew in grace and favor with God and man, even though as God He knew all. I am not going to try to solve this mystery. Let it be sufficient that it is mystery. As a human, Jesus was subject to fatigue, temptation, rejection and other human emotions. He did not sin, but as a human, He felt the full force of what we face. This means that like us, Jesus had to pray. We know that Jesus’ ministry was not in the power of His own person but was led by the Holy Spirit. Jesus did His mighty works in the power of the Spirit, just was we are called to be led by the same Spirit in our ministry. Jesus then serves as the example of the Spirit-filled life that we are to live. So as He prayed, so must we.

We are told in this passage that Jesus had a big decision to make. It says there were many disciples in His company which means more than the Twelve. On the next day, He chose twelve from this number to be Apostles. The Greek says He “elected for Himself” these twelve men. Certainly, this was one of the biggest decisions Jesus would have to make. God would have already foreknown the selection of them, but here the mystery of the two natures of Christ come into play. Jesus prayed all night long to decide which of the disciples He would choose for this special mission. One of these was Judas. The God who knows all knew all about Judas. His betrayal was prophesied in the book of Psalms centuries earlier. The end of the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus who had chosen the twelve said “One of you is the devil.” Jesus knew is advance. So why did Jesus choose Judas. If we judged by human standards, we wonder why Jesus, who had a large group of disciples would choose such a person. We should remember that what Judas did, he did willingly. Judas betrayed Jesus as was prophesied, but it was Judas who decided to do it.