"9 Unimaginable Words That Should Guide Every Prayer"

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.