Title: “9 Unimaginable Words that Should Guide Every Prayer” Script: Mt. 26:36-46
Type: Series Where: GNBC 7-26-21
Intro: Shortly before his death as a martyr at the command of Spain’s Phillip II, the principal author of the Belgic Confession, Guido de Brès, wrote from prison the following words to his wife Catherine: “Your grief and anguish, troubling me in the midst of my joy and gladness, are the cause of my writing to you this present letter. I most earnestly pray you not to be grieved beyond measure.… If the Lord had wished us to live together longer, He could easily have caused it so to be. But such was not His pleasure. Let His good will be done then, and let that suffice for all reason…. I pray you then to be comforted in the Lord, to commit yourself and your affairs to Him, for He is the Husband of the widow and the Father of the fatherless, and He will never leave nor forsake you….Goodbye, Catherine, my well beloved! I pray my God to comfort you, and give you resignation to His holy will. Your faithful husband, Guido de Brès.” De Bres knew that God had a sovereign plan for his life and even in the face of martyrdom, that assurance gave him bold confidence to trust in Christ.
Prop: Examining Mt. 26:36-46 we’ll realize how Christ’s attitude should guide our every prayer.
BG: 1. Garden of Gethsemane. Night before arrest, trial, and crucifixion.
2. Christ’s prayer in the garden is recorded in the 3 Synoptic Gospels (Mt., Mk, Lk).
3. Prayer is speaking to God. As Christians we can trust that God has a plan for your life.
Prop: Let’s look at Mt. 26:36-46 to see how Christ’s attitude in prayer should guide our prayers.
I. The Precursor to the Prayer. Vv. 36-39
“My Father if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”
A. What was the Context of this Passage?
1. Christ is about to Face His Life Calling at Calvary.
a. Illust: As Matthew unveils the drama, Christ is with His disciples in the olive grove of Gethsemane. Nearby are Peter, James, and John and yet emotionally our Savior is alone. Gethsemane meant “Olive press” and the last emotional drop of Christ’s life is being pressed out of Him now as He knows that His time has come to be crucified for the sins of the world. In v. 38 we see the Bible states that Christ was “deeply grieved to the point of death” – Literally: “Very sorrowful is the soul of me, even to death…” The reader can almost se Christ staggering under the load of the world’s sin, stumbling and finally falling as the horrors of the cross play out in His mind.
b. What contributed to the perplexity of Christ’s predicament? It was not merely the thought of the physical pain He would endure. It was also the malice and perversity of the Jewish leaders. It was their conniving wickedness that brought His death. It was the treachery of Judas that He knew would soon be played out. It was the desertion of His disciples. It was the sacrilege of the Sanhedrein. It was the soldier’s slaps and slander. It was Pilates looming punishment. It was the fickled pliability of the people whom He had loved. When Christ face the unimaginable, He looked to His Father in prayer.
2. We Like Christ Can Take our Grief and Cares in Prayer to a Loving Heavenly Father.
a. CS Lewis said: “I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God. It changes me.”
b. The old Hymn writer said it well: “What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh what peace we often forfeit, Oh what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry, Everything to God in prayer.”
B. What Does the Context of this Prayer Teach Us?
1. This Prayer teaches us that Xst was praying in Response to the Sovereign Plan of the Father.
a. In II Pet. 2:4 we learn that God cast the rebellious angels into hell for eternal judgment. Reading that we realize that God would have been perfectly just to have left us in our sin waiting our eternal judgment. However, when in His great love, God decided to save some men, then, according to the Bible, there was no other way for this to be accomplished but through His Son. You see, the atonement wasn’t absolutely necessary. Rather, the atonement was a consequence of the Father’s decision to save some. Yet as a result of that consequence the atonement was absolutely necessary. Some theologians call this the “Consequent Absolute Necessity” (Grudem, p. 569). Thus the Garden was necessary. This prayer was essential.
b. We see in the Garden how Jesus prays: “If it is possible…” Now, we can be certain that Jesus always prayed according to the will of the Father, and that He always prayed with a fullness of faith. I think that Matthew is showing us in all of its stark reality, that That it was not possible for Jesus to avoid death on a cross if He was in fact going to accomplish that which the Father had sent Him to do.
2. We may Extrapolate in times of Great Distress, knowing that Our Heavenly Father has a Sovereign Plan for our lives as well.
a. Illust: “In The Life of D.L. Moody, William R. Moody records his father’s reflections on his experience aboard the Spree, a passenger ship that was to take him from London to New York. During the voyage, the Spree’s shaft broke, putting a hole in the hull. The ship began to sink. Moody described the experience: “The officers and crew did all that they could to save the vessel. But it was soon found that the pumps were useless, for the water poured into the ship too rapidly to be controlled. There was nothing more in the power of man to do, and the ship was absolutely helpless, while the passengers could only stand still on the poor, drifting, sinking ship and look into our possible watery graves.” After a few days of this the situation seemed increasingly dire. Moody entered what he called “the darkest hour of my life.” Yet, even in that dark hour, Moody turned to God. It was in that moment that he found peace: “I could not endure it. I must have relief, and relief came in prayer. God heard my cry, and enabled me to say, from the depth of my soul, ‘Thy will be done!’ Sweet peace came to my heart. Let it be Northfield or Heaven, it made no difference now. I went to bed, fell asleep almost immediately, and never slept more soundly in all my life. Out of the depths I cried unto my Lord, and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears. In reflecting on Moody’s experience at sea, I am reminded that God is with us in the midst of our troubles, and that He is not constrained by our troubles. His limits are never challenged. There is never a moment when there is nothing more He can do.” (James Spencer, April 6, 2020)
b. Dear ones, this is not an easy world we live in. There are pains and disappointments too numerous to name. However, our source of solace is still the same: Christ! (Read Ps. 46).
C. Applic: Do you have anxiety or stress or worry or fears? Phil. 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
II. The Prayer: Five Words of Recognition. Vv.40-42
“Yet not as I will…”
A. Although Christ prayed for What He desired, He resolved to Submit His Will to the Father.
1. As We See in the Passage, Christ prayed for what He desired.
a. “If it’s possible let this cup pass from me…” This passage demonstrates to us that we have desires, we never desire our own discomfort, but it also demonstrates that as believers in Christ we are no longer in charge of our own life.
b. Christ had to live a life of perfect obedience to God in order to earn righteousness for us. He had to obey the law for His whole life on our behalf so that the positive merits of His perfect obedience would be counted to us. Something this is called Christ’s “active obedience”, while His suffering and dying for our sins is called His “passive obedience” (That which was done to Him.). In Phil. 3:9, Paul says that it was his goal to “be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of his own, that was based on the law but that which was through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God received by faith.” You see, it wasn’t moral neutrality he knew we needed from Christ, i.e, a “clean slate”. Rather, we needed a positive infusion of moral righteousness. (Loosely quoted from Grudem p..570-571)
2. As Christians it is fine to pray for that which we desire.
a. George Mueller, the 19th-century evangelist, was known as a man of great faith and prayer. He said, "The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety." It has also been said that worry is unbelief in disguise. Yet, we should never make prayer into an Aladdin’s lamp or a personal wishing well. This takes place when we determine, along with Christ “Not as I will…”
b. I think of how lonely this event must have been in the life of our Savior. Here are His closest friends, asleep in His hour of need. The weight of the world is upon Him. He sees the cup of suffering before Him. He wants it to be removed, but even then, He prays: “Yet not as I will…”
B. Like Christ, the Believer must be willing to Submit his/her will to the Father’s.
1. We are Called to Do No less than Christ Did in this Passage.
a. Christ constantly lived in complete, prayerful dependence upon the Father! He was the Son of God, God incarnate, the perfect man and the absolute Creator God who also as the God-man adequately and continuously fulfilled every expectation of God for man. He was the constant delight and joy of the Father’s heart. He always pleased the Father. Now, thinking of Him as such, ask yourself this question. How much did He personally, as man, contribute to His mighty works, deeds, and ministry? NOTHING! Christ Himself gives us the answer, “. . . the father abiding in me does His works” (John 14:10). And how did that come
about? Through prayerful dependence on the Father!
2. Are you and I submitting our will to the Father or are We Stubbornly Resisting?
a. Illust: Horses and mules have never been famous for their cooperative spirit. They may know you well enough to have no reason to doubt you when you give them directions. Yet they have a problem: STUBBORN!! It’s always there and you never know when or how it will erupt. The horse may simply stop. Sometimes he starts galloping home toward the barn and there is nothing you can do to stop him or to change his direction. The mule usually expresses it by refusing to go. You can pull him, push him, yell as him, or tease him with carrots, but he will not budge. Neither one of them can ever know the destination to which you want them to go, nor what you will allow them to do there, while they are exerting their own will. That is exactly why God said, “Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding.” The greatest obstacle to knowing God’s plan for our lives is the persistence of our own unbending purposes and preferences. Dealing with that stubborn will may be the most important single factor in discerning and doing the will of God in our lives.
b. How do we submit our will to the Father? Paul said: Rom. 12:1ff “I urge you, to offer yourselves as living sacrifices.” That word offer literally means “to place beside.” It was used of a worshiper placing his sacrificial animal on the altar as an act of consecration to God. To offer that animal in sacrifice was to give it up completely to God, to surrender all rights to use it as the offerer pleased. It was no longer his but God’s. God had the prerogative of doing anything he pleased with it. God wants us to offer him our bodies, not to be killed and burned on an altar, but as “living sacrifices.” He wants all the rights to our total person. He wants the privilege of doing with us as he pleases. “Give me your body,” he says, “so I can use it as the vehicle for accomplishing my will.” And with our bodies goes everything we are and have—our time, our abilities, our resources, our personalities, our plans, our desires, our aspirations, our affections. He wants us to give them all to him to use as he desires.
c. C. Applic: Can you pray those first five words of Christ’s prayer in the Garden?
III. The Second Part of the Prayer: 4 Words of Acceptance.
A. These 4 Words of Christ’s Prayer Demonstrated His Trust in the Superceding Sovereignty of the Father. “But as Thine wilt”
1. Even in the Deep Distress that was Gethsemane, Christ prayed: “But as Thine wilt”
- Christ sought the Father’s will above His own comfort and pleasure. When we go to God in prayer we need to state – and then deliberately set aside for the moment -- our own preference, lest we run the risk of "hearing" God say what we want him to say. It is important to sort out what we want and ask for that -- it is not wrong -- before submitting to God's will, whatever that might be. Our will may very well be God's will. But it may not be. To discern God's will, we must state our own will and then surrender it to God -- become neutral about the outcome if God were to desire some other outcome than ours. That is real surrender. That is what we see of Christ in the Garden.
2. Can you and I honestly say that we always pray this prayer: “But as Thine wilt..”???
a. Illust: All of us, at one time or another—perhaps right now—have clasped our grubby little fingers too tightly around our kids, possessions, money, hopes, and expectations and then demanded that God uphold our agendas, incessantly “inviting” him to bless our ambitions. All of us are like that little boy and that grown man: our wants come first and pity the person who gets in the way, including God. “It’s our way, or the highway.”
b. This is not the pattern of the Christian life that our Lord demonstrated for us and to which he summons us. He enjoyed unadulterated and uninterrupted peace in his relationship with the Father for he learned obedience through his sufferings (Heb 5:8). Rather than turning his heart away from God in angry defiance and demandingness, he submitted to the One who loved him. “During his earthly life Christ offered up both requests and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Heb 5:7). (Greg Herrick, “Not My Will”) Reverent submission. Did you and I hear that? Reverent submission.
B. Like Christ, We Can Trust in the Superceding Sovereignty of God the Father.
1. We need to Recognize that God’s Plan may include my personal discomfort.
a. Christ diligently prayed with His own life’s blood that this horrible cup might pass. However, the Father’s plan included that suffering. Christ prayed that the Father would change the course of redemption. However, when He did not, Christ prayed: “But as Thine will.”
b. Illust: What do you and I need to pray “But as Thine will” today? Loss of relationship? Employment? Major change in life? Health crisis? I know it can be very, very, hard to do.. but let’s put ourselves in the position of submission to God’s perfect will for our lives.
2. Let reverent submission characterize our lives as it did Christ’s.
a. Is “reverent submission” the pattern in our lives? Based on scripture I can tell you that this is precisely the pattern the Lord is diligently seeking to establish in your life right now, so that heaven may not be a strange place to you later. Hell is filled with human will, heaven is filled with His will. Hell is a place where people are free to continue to exert their defiance, but know for sure, “there’s no peace for the wicked.” Heaven is for those who have gone through Gethsemane with their Lord and have emerged proclaiming, “Not my will, but yours be done, O Lord!” The strange thing about reverent submission is that in the releasing process we become fully human, not less. And when we stubbornly refuse to submit, hoisting our clenched fist defiantly into the air, we become ugly and something less than fully human.
b. Is Christ taking you through a season where you need to learn submission to His will? Are you and I struggling with desiring “our will” over all others, including Christ’s? Illust: Bobby Bowden, one of the winningest football coaches in NCAA history, has been diagnosed with a terminal medical condition, he announced Wednesday. “I’ve always tried to serve God’s purpose for my life, on and off the field, and I am prepared for what is to come,” Bowden, 91, said in a statement to the Tallahassee Democrat. “My wife Ann and our family have been life’s greatest blessing.” I can trust God.
c. Applic: Today we’ve looked at the great prayer of Christ in the Garden. Either we will learn to pray and talk to God or we will become disheartened with this life. Let’s follow our Lord’s example and pray: “Yet not as I will, but as thine wilt.”
