As always, the question:
Where do you go to be alone with God?
Do you have somewhere that you can go and shut out the distractions and demands of everyday life just spend some quality time with God?
We are spending a year considering Powerful Prayers, or Powerful Pray ERS and there are many books about prayer, and how we should pray,
Some authors say that you should start the day with prayer, willingly giving God the first part of our day – before we start doing anything else we can to pray.
Others say that it is better to stop at the end of the day to give God thanks and praise for the things that happened during the day
then asking Him to help you face the circumstances and situations of the following day.
The truth is that not everyone is a morning person and not everyone is able to focus after a long day of work.
It does not really matter when we pray -
what matters most is that we take the time to pray.
Do you actively choose to put aside time for God in your schedule or do you just grab a moment for prayer when it fits into your day?
Jesus often set aside time to pray, He would draw aside from the crowds, from His disciples, from His friends and pray.
Personally, I choose to start and end my day with prayer.
I start my with a short devotional, read the Bible and then spend some time in prayer.
Then at the end of the day, or sometime early in the morning of the following day, as I lay down to go to sleep I read another short devotional on my iPhone then I pray before going to sleep.
Just in case your wondering, I do pray more than twice in a day.
I pray for those who are on my prayer list and for those who the Lord will lay on my heart throughout the day.
I pray before meetings, I pray before services,
I pray before meals, I pray when I’m driving.
I even pray about situations and circumstances that my friends publicly tell the world about on Facebook or Twitter.
1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 tells us to “Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
God wants us to make praying to Him a regular habit. This doesn’t mean we will pray without a pause all day every day.
It simply means we need to develop the habit of regular prayer.
Maybe you struggle to know who to pray for or what to pray about.
You could pray for your family and friends.
You could pray for your neighbours or people at work.
You could pray for the man and woman who run the shop next door.
You could use a copy of Sunday2Sunday to pray for the different ministries and activities that take place across our group of churches.
You could pray for the eKids work - for the children and the leaders.
You pray could pray for the Sunday Youth Bible Class, or the Friday Night Gathering’s.
You could pray for Tea Timers or the women’s meetings
You could pray for the worship team or our new youth band ‘love your enemies’
You could pray for the church board and the ministers, or Keith in his work as Chaplain.
There are so many things we could pray for,
but sometimes, despite out best intentions,
life just seems to get in the way of prayer.
Are you often too busy to stop what you are doing and just pause, pray and listen to God speak into your life?
Jesus took the time to find a quiet place, a private place so that He could spend time in prayer.
If Jesus recognised the importance of spending time in prayer then shouldn’t we do the same?
Jesus knew the time to go to the cross was approaching.
He had spent time with his disciples there in the Upper Room, they had Supper together,
He had told them how His body would be broken,
He had told them about the New Covenant in His blood,
He had told them that one of them would betray Him
Jesus knew that is in a few short hours,
Judas would betray Him with a kiss,
then hand Him over to an angry mob.
With that hour swiftly approaching,
Jesus choose to make time to pray to seek the Will of the Father.
Jesus choose a garden as His quiet place,
His place of retreat before battle,
a place to be alone with Father God.
When the pressures of the world feel too much to bear, when the stress of today,
or the worries of tomorrow press down we need to take the time to turn to Our loving heavenly father in prayer.
That’s what Jesus did and we should do the same.
Tonight I want us to consider Luke 22:39-45 together and we will start with verses 39-41:
39Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives. 40There He told them, “Pray that you will not give in to temptation.”
41He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed,
Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him.
As usual… Jesus had a habit of prayer.
Luke tells us that Jesus gave the disciples directions to sit and pray; but he doesn’t go into more detail.
Matt 26:37 says, “He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John.”
Jesus took His “inner circle” further into the garden with Him.
Why did He take them further?
Maybe because Jesus wanted the support of His closest friends during what He knew would be a time of anguish.
Let me be clear though - Jesus did not need them for support, He wanted them for support!
We all know from experience, during a time of need, it’s important to have a close friend around for support.
We have different levels of friendship with people, some are acquaintances,
some are colleagues,
some people we may have encountered many times over the years, but not really developed a friendship with.
Others we may be friends, or good friends, but all of need some close friends.
As Proverbs 18:2 reminds us “. . . there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
A friend who is there for you, a friend that will share burdens, a friend who will also pray.
In the garden, Jesus moved only a stone’s throw away from His friends, then He knelt down to pray.
“A stone’s throw”- that’s within earshot of his three friends. Close by.
3 times that night Jesus returned across that short distance, and each time He found His friends asleep.
Jesus told Peter, “the spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak.”
He had told them to pray, but they chose to sleep.
How many Christians today, like these three disciples, are sound asleep, spiritually?
When we should be spending time in prayer, how often do we end up doing something else instead?
Let’s look at Luke 22:41&42 41He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Think about this moment.
We often speak about how Jesus had such close communion with the Father that He always knew what God’s will was.
If that were the case then why did Jesus pray this way? Why did He pray, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup from me?
The simple answer is,
it was because of His constant communion with the Father that He prayed that way.
Jesus knew what was about to come.
Jesus knew He was about to take upon himself the sins of all humanity for all time
Jesus knew that burden of sin would break the communion He always had with the Father.
The cup that Jesus refers to is the cup of wrath that is about to be poured out on Him.
Listen to Psalm 75:8
For the Lord holds a cup in his hand that is full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours out the wine in judgment, and all the wicked must drink it, draining it to the dregs.
And Jeremiah 25:15 says, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled to the brim with my anger, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink from it.
Think about it this way, Jesus, in His humanity, asked to avoid the cup, but in His divinity, He knew that He must take the cup of wrath for the sin of mankind.
Jesus knew what God’s will was because He was God.
From eternity, co-equal, co-existant, in constant communion and communication.
Jesus had a choice and He chose to pray.
He could have refused to go to the cross for us – but He chose to suffer in our place.
Maybe you’re thinking, “well yes, but He was Jesus…”
Yes He was.
Fully God and fully man.
Tempted in every way as we are, and yet He remained sinless.
He made the choice Knowing that He would hang on a cross and be separated from the communion He had always experienced with God the Father.
Jesus prayed “I want your will to be done, not mine.”
“He made that choice, knowing that it was the Father’s will that HE had come to do and He did it.
He did it for you and He did it for me.
Do you understand how much He did out of His love for you?
Can you see His mercy and His grace in action?
Can you comprehend what He did for you and me.
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“I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Are you able to pray that way?
What if God’s will for your life is something that you really don’t want to do?
How would you respond? How do you respond?
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Jesus was about to receive this “cup of divine wrath” to pay the price for our sin.
Speaking of the divine wrath, the preacher and bible teacher John MacArthur wrote these words,
“Divine wrath is not an impulsive outburst of anger aimed capriciously at people God does not like.
It is the settled, steady, merciless, graceless, and compasionless response of a righteous God against sin.”
This was “the cup” Jesus Christ knew He was to drink.
Is it any wonder in His humanity He was going through agony and sorrow?
In Matthew 26:38, the Bible says Jesus told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Jesus knew what He would face and the weight of that burden was crushing.
From the Gospels of Matthew and Mark we know that Jesus prayed the same prayer three times:
“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Let’s look at LUKE 22:44
44He prayed more fervently, and He was in such agony of spirit that His sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.
Jesus becoming sin for us, meant separation from the Father.
Habakkuk 1:13 says, speaking of God the Father says: “you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil.”
There in the Garden, Jesus knew the time would come when He would cry out,
“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”
“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
But, Through all of the emotion, in all of the turmoil, with all that He knew was to come Jesus was willing to say,
“NOT MY WILL, BUT YOUR WILL BE DONE!”
Jesus was willing to submit to the will of the Father.
As Christians we must also willingly submit to God in our lives.
We must follow His purpose, His direction, His will.
Let’s draw the sermon to a close by looking at LUKE 22:45&46
45At last He stood up again and returned to the disciples, only to find them asleep, exhausted from grief.
46“Why are you sleeping?” He asked them. “Get up and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation.”
Let me state for the record, Stress, anguish, sorrow, distress, emotion, and physical weakness are not sins!
Heb 4:15 says Jesus “understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings we do, yet He did not sin.”
Jesus was tempted in every way, but he still submitted to the will of the Father.
We as Christians must also be submissive to God’s will when we seek Him in prayer!
Prayer changes things...
Prayer can also changes the prayeER!
C. S. Lewis said this:
“Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men?
For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it.”
James 4:3 begins, “when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. “
and James 4:15 says, “What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”
Being submissive to God’s will is the key to effective prayer.
