(We showed “full court press” schematics on the overhead. We found them at http://cldj.tripod.com/221fc.html)
OPEN: Up on the screen you’re going to see a few basketball diagrams. Does anybody know what basketball strategy these diagrams are illustrating? (full court press)
According to “Maven’s Word Of The Day” (www.Randomhouse.com) The usual practice in a game is to allow the offensive team to get halfway down the court (which is called a half-court press) or wait til the other team is near the basket before applying strong defensive pressure. But THIS tactic (the “full court press”) involves “pressing” the other team “the entire length of the court.”
Now… I’ve watched basketball games where teams would use this full court press. BUT I never realized they were as complicated and well planned out as this. And whenever a team uses this tactic, the announcers will become edgy and imply that the team with the ball could be in trouble if they can’t get the ball down the court rapidly. Apparently, it’s an extremely effective strategy.
But I’ve noticed that teams usually won’t use this strategy unless they are in serious trouble, or when the game is down to the last few minutes and they desperately need to force a turn-over. You’d think - if this is such an effective tactic - why don’t they do it all the time? But they don’t. Why? Well, as one expert noted: “a full-court press takes a great deal of effort”. Using the full court press can literally wear your team out if you do it too often.
APPLY: When I originally started working on this sermon, I literally picked its title out of the air. Since I’m using basketball imagery in this series of sermons… and since the Garden of Gethsemane is the final action of Jesus before His arrest… I felt a need to use a basketball term that described something a team would do when their game hung in the balance. And “Full Court Press” was the first thing that came to my mind.
Then, as I did study on the text, and I asked myself:
What exactly does the word “Gethsemane” mean?
That’s when I discovered that it meant: “Oil PRESS”
(olive press pictures)
Gethsemane was an Olive Grove. And olive oil was a very precious commodity. Ancient peoples would use oil presses like the ones pictured here to crush the olives. The olives would be placed in large round stone basins like the one we see here, and then they’d be “crushed” by another large round stone that was rotated around the basin by oxen or other domesticated animals.
Full Court PRESS… Olive PRESS. This was almost too good to be true. I thought to myself: there’s gotta be something to this… and there was!!!
1st – Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane was literally a full court press.
This was not a time of casual prayer for Jesus. This wasn’t one of those “arrow” prayer times we so often engage in as Christians.
You know the type of prayer I mean.
We’re driving along in the car and we’re casually talking to God about something concerns us.
Or we’re laying in bed and we’re talking to God and we pray till we nod off to sleep…
You see, this was the kind of praying that the disciples were used to.
Jesus spends an hour in intense praying and we’re told “…he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Simon,’ he said to Peter, ‘are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?’” Mark 14:37
For three years these men had been with Jesus. They’d spent every waking moment listening to Him teach and observing how He lived. But even after these three intense years of being with Jesus, Peter and the others still haven’t gotten the hang oft his “full court press” kind of praying. They seemed to be more worried about asking Jesus “how to pray”
They were a lot like us. Too often we get hung up in “how we pray”… or what to say when we pray.
Karen Earhart wrote the following poem about this (kearhart@hotmail.com)
"The proper way for a man to pray," said Deacon Samuel Keys,
"And the only proper attitude is down upon his knees."
"No, I should say the way to pray," Said the holy Dr. Wise,
"Is standing straight with outstretched arms and rapt and upturned eyes."
"Oh, no, no, no" Said Elmer Slow. "Such posture’s way too proud.
A man should pray with eyes fast closed and head contritely bowed."
(pause) "Well… last year I fell in Hitchkin’s well, headfirst” said Cyrus Brown,
"And both my heels were stickin’ up and my head was a pointin’ down.
"And I made a prayer right then and there, the best I’d ever said.
The prayin’est prayer I ever prayed was standin’ on my head."
You see, a "full court press" kind of prayer is often the one we pray when our heels are stickin up and our head is pointing down.
It’s the one we pray when we’ve run out of options.
When our lives have been turned upside down and we don’t like the direction things are headed.
These are times when our hearts are literally breaking and our prayers become intense because we are hurting.
It was just BEFORE His time of praying at Gethsemane that Jesus told His disciples: "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death…" Mark 14:34
That’s the time when we’re most prone to pray this kind of prayer.
2ndly – a “full court press” kind of prayer is when we feel the need for others to pray with and for us. Most of the time when Jesus prayed He went off by Himself. For example: Matthew 14:23 tells us “…he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray…”
But this time, Jesus takes Peter, James and John into the heart of the garden with Him
It’s fairly obvious that He desires… He expects… He needs them to pray with Him.
This was a time when He felt the need to have His friends join Him in His struggle.
ILLUS: Lee Bracey, the director of Woodburn Christian Children’s Home up by Ft. Wayne,
told of overhearing a conversation his dad had with a friend of his named Glen.
“Glen,” he asked, “do you pray for me every day?”
“Yes,” Glen replied, “I do.”
Lee said his dad paused… and then asked “Sometimes do you pray for me on your knees?”
Lee’s father sensed the need of Glen’s prayers so intensely that he wanted to know if his friend was seriously committed to praying for him. He was asking if Glen was so involved in that prayer that he spent that time on his knees.
(full court press diagram)
The nature of a full court press is that it requires more than one player to make it effective.
Jesus said: "I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” Matthew 18:19
There is power… literal power to be found in group prayer. That’s why we take seriously - our time in worship - where we focus on praying. The prayer leader doesn’t just get up here and offer a flowery prayer from the pulpit. That always frustrated me when I would visit another congregation. Some guy would get up and “lead” us in prayer… but he’d never give me a chance to spend that time in my own personal prayer. Then I visited a congregation in home town and this guy gets up there and gave the church a long period of time where they could silently pray their own concerns to God. I thought: “This is great! This is exactly what I think ought to be done.”
When we do this kind of public praying together… when we gather in God’s presence to pray in unison… it’s like we’re part of a great and majestic choir. When God hears our voices joined in prayer - agreeing in prayer - it’s like music to His ears. And He promises to act upon those prayers.
ILLUS: (Guideposts May 93 p.13) A husband and wife from Scranton, Arkansas wrote to Guideposts to share how their marriage had been saved from the destruction of divorce. Married for 4 years with 2 boys, they met at a restaurant one April night to discuss child custody and property settlements. They ended up in a fierce argument which ended in an odd silence. Then the husband looked up and quietly said something that shocked even himself: "If we want this marriage to work we will have to give it, and ourselves, to God."
Over the next few months the wounds healed. Then in a conversation with a woman he was doing plumbing for, he was asked if his wife’s name was Allyson. When he nodded, she went on to explain that a friend of theirs had asked for a special time of prayer for their family and they had prayed for two hours one night for their marriage.
"What evening was that?" asked the plumber.
She thought a moment and then answered with conviction: "It was the 1st Friday night of April" - the very night the couple was having their argument.
That’s the power of praying in unison.
Now, you’d think we’d know that.
You’d think when life is difficult and our backs are against the wall and we just know we’re losing in this great game of life. You’d think that prayer-especially full court press kind of praying would be the 1st thing we’d do
But we don’t
Preachers don’t. Elders don’t. Sunday School teachers don’t.
And it’s because we’re so used to “doing” things to solve our problems.
We used to thinking that prayer just seems to be a waste of time.
When Jesus was betrayed by Judas, we’re told:
“Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, ‘Lord, should we strike with our swords?’ And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.” Luke 22:49-51
Something had to be done - and swords seemed to be the right way of fixing the problem. Prayer wasn’t their 1st choice because these were men of action. They were fishermen, laborers, workmen. Prayer - to them – didn’t seem like they were “doing” anything. It frankly just seemed to them - to be a waste of time.
QUOTE: But Charles Spurgeon once noted:
"Sometimes we think we are too busy to pray. That is a great mistake, for praying is a saving of time.”
Praying seems like a waste of time, because prayer doesn’t often look like its doing anything. And that’s often because prayer doesn’t seem to be doing what we want done.
3 times Jesus prayed for the cup to be taken from Him
3 times, Jesus asked the Father to find some other way for Him to do His mission
3 times He asked if there were some other way - other than going to the cross.
But that didn’t work! Jesus didn’t get what He’d prayed for. So obviously, this praying stuff had been a waste of time…
(pause) But was it?
You see, when we pray hard… and things don’t turn out the way we want. And then we get disappointed and frustrated – even angry that shows a lack of understanding about what “full court …” praying is all about.
When a basketball team uses “Full court pressure” that tactic doesn’t always get them back into the lead immediately. But it’s still effective because:
· it helps to change the tempo of the game. It puts their opponent “back on their heels” and slows the game down.
· And full court pressure serves to give the team a sense of control in the game.
When full court pressure is done right it brings about decisive results and can turn the tide of the game.
So, what did Jesus’ prayer DO??? What did His “full court praying” accomplish?
Well… first, Jesus got an answer.
The answer was (pause) “NO”
No - is an answer.
And yet, this was answer that Jesus needed.
He needed confirmation that the cross was the ONLY way to accomplish His mission.
He needed confirmation that it was only by going to be thru the pain and the struggle and the loss of what lay ahead… that His game plan was going to succeed.
It was only by the pain of the cross that Jesus would be able to save us from our sins and win the game that He had come to earth to play.
His prayer bro’t confirmation. And once that confirmation was given Jesus’ prayer literally helped Him to change the tempo of the game.
It took the control of the coming events out of the hands of the Jews.
It took the control out of the hands of the Romans
And it took the control of the coming hours out of the hands of Satan himself.
And it placed that control of the game back where it belonged: in the hands of God.
That’s why - when Jesus ended His prayer He said: “Yet, not what I will, but as You will." Mark 14:36
ILLUS: One preacher noted: “If we had witnessed Jesus’ struggle that night, we might have said, ‘If He is so broken up when ALL He is doing is praying, what will He do when He faces a real crisis? Why can’t He approach this ordeal with the calm confidence of His 3 sleeping friends?’ Yet when the test came His 3 friends fell apart and ran away… but Jesus walked to the cross with the courage.
Why? What gave Jesus this confidence… what gave Him His courage?
Well, Jesus spent His time in prayer…. and His friends spent theirs sleeping.
Jesus had courage and confidence because He depended upon a “full court” kind of prayer.
He did DO something.
He did the most important thing He could possibly do in His circumstances.
He prayed the “full court” kind of prayer. And once He’d prayed that prayer He went to the cross for you… and for me.
Romans 4:25 says: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
And Titus 2:14 tells us Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.”
This is the kind of praying that accomplishes the most good for us. Not because it necessarily changes our circumstances… but because it changes us.
CLOSE: Billy Graham once noted:
“Prayer is not about using God it is more often about getting us in a position where God can use us.
I watched the deck hands on the great liner United States as they docked that ship in NY Harbor. First they threw out a rope to the men on the dock. Then, inside the boat the great motors went to work and pulled on the great cable. But, oddly enough, the pier wasn’t pulled out to the ship; the ship was pulled snugly up to the pier.
Prayer is the rope that pulls God and us together. But it doesn’t pull God down to us… it pulls us to God. We must learn to say with Christ, the master of the art of praying: ‘Not my will; but Thine be done.’”
