Many years ago I built a house in Harford County, MD on eight wooded acres. And as part of that process I cleared a large portion of the land. There were a couple of acres of meadow at the bottom of the hill that I piled up two great big mounds of fallen trees and brush and so forth. Eventually it became time to burn these big huge piles of brush and logs. The first one I made a little fire off to the side and fed it gradually with the debris from the large pile. It took a really long time to do it that way. So when I got ready to do the next pile I decided to just torch the whole pile at once.
Being out in the country, I didn’t have any running water or any way to deal with the fire, except for a blanket and an empty five gallon bucket. But there was a very small stream that started on our property about 50 yards away that barely had enough water in it to get your feet wet. But anyhow, I didn’t feel like messing around with this pile so I struck a match and threw it on this pile of debris. This pile, by the way was huge. It was about 15 feet high by about 20 feet in diameter in the middle of a small meadow.
Well, I’ve started a number of campfires and bonfires in my day, but I have never seen a fire start like that one did. It quickly caught and within seconds it became a roaring blaze. The fire spread so fast and grew so big I began to panic. I began to pray out loud- very loudly, very fervently. Still praying, I picked up the blanket and ran for the stream. Throwing it in the water I tried my best to soak it in the little bit of water that was in the stream. And when I looked back at the burning pile, it was now this huge blaze shooting maybe 25 feet up in the air. It sounded like a forest fire, and I could easily imagine it jumping across the meadow to the ring of trees surrounding the clearing. So I began to pray even more in earnest and ran towards the fire. By now it was so hot I couldn’t get close to it, so I swung the blanket and threw it towards the flame hoping it would land on the part that was burning the fiercest. Thank God He directed the blanket and it did sort of land in a good spot to help smother a part of the flames. But then the blanket burned up. And so I ran back to the stream with my bucket. But the stream was so shallow that I could only get about half of the bucket filled up.
So anyhow, I continued to run back and forth, and I continued to cry out to God for help as much as I could considering how winded I had become. And there was a minute or two when I seriously thought it was over. I almost ran back to my truck and started blowing the horn. I was going to drive over to the next couple of houses that were in the woods and blow my horn all the way, hopefully to get them to evacuate their homes. I was sure that the whole woods and our homes were going to go up in flames. Somehow though, God kept the fire from reaching the trees around the meadow. But for the next couple of years, those trees never grew leaves on that side facing the clearing. The heat had just killed the branches facing the meadow all the way around the clearing.
James 5:16 says that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. And I have never read that verse of scripture without thinking of that day when I almost started a forest fire. I know it was only God that kept it from getting out of control. My prayer wasn’t exactly according to any sort of protocol. I wasn’t a shining example of a righteous man. But I will say that I was very fervent, and I will say that my prayer was effective, in spite of my spiritual limitations. However, I don’t think that my fervency was the determining factor, but that God was merciful and He was effective.
Today however, we are going to look at the effective, fervent prayer of the ultimate righteous man, Jesus Christ. And I hope that we will see in this prayer some characteristics that we can include in our prayer life that we too might be more effective. Last Wednesday night, by the way for those of you that weren’t there, we looked at the intercessory prayer of Abraham as our example. And I believe that was very instructive as it laid a foundation for intercessory prayer. We saw in that study that prayer should be reverent, we should be eager to do it, it should be humble, it is an invitation to God to examine us, it is communion with God, it is fellowship with God, dialogue with the Lord, prayer reiterates the promises of God, it believes in the power of God, is in accordance with the nature of God, and trusts in the justice of God, the goodness of God.
Now in this record of Christ’s prayer we are not going to see all those principles reiterated. Luke gives us an abbreviated record of this event. But certain aspects of Christ’s prayer are highlighted here, which I think are certainly indicative of an effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man. Those attributes are exactly what the writer of Hebrews was talking about in Heb. 5:7 “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.”
So let’s look at the text and notice first the place of prayer. In vs. 39 we are told that Jesus and His disciples left the upper room after the Passover meal and went out on the Mount of Olives. The other gospel writers are even more specific; they say that they went to a garden on the Mount of Olives called Gethsemane. It was the place of an oil press, used in the production of olive oil. They say that today there are eight olive trees in the place they believe to be the Garden of Gethsemane which were there in the time of Christ.
But I hope the significance of that name is not lost on us. Christ went to the oil press on the Mount of Olives, because according to Isaiah 53: 10, “But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering…” God chose to put Jesus in a place of crushing, that He might become the oil that would heal the world of sin.
And so too God often places us in a place of great stress, a place of crushing pressure, that we might turn to God for strength to be able to endure it. James tells us that it is part of the process of sanctification, that we might be made complete. James 1:2-4 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Prayer working through the stress of our trials produces the oil of endurance that enables God to complete His work in us.
One other note about the place of Jesus prayer and that is found in vs. 41, “And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray.” Listen, there is a time for corporate prayer. There is a time for leading in prayer. Christ’s magnificent prayer in the upper room found in the book of John is a great example of public prayer. But I believe our most effective prayer is often found in times of private prayer. Many times we are told that Jesus withdrew to a mountain alone to pray all night. Jesus was a man of private prayer. And on this night, when the intensity of Satan’s attack and the crushing wrath of God on sin would be poured out on Him, Jesus wanted to get alone before God His Father. Folks you don’t have to have a specific location to pray, we can pray to God at anytime, in any place. But we do need to get alone with God on a regular basis and really get down to business with Him by ourselves, all night long if necessary. If Jesus needed to do it, then how much more should we?
So God puts Jesus in the place of crushing in the Garden of Gethsemane that He might be poured out for sinners. Then we see the paradox of prayer in vs. 40, “When He arrived at the place, He said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation.’” We’re going to focus on the Lord’s prayer here this morning, but in contrast we see the disciples failed efforts at prayer. We know from vs. 46 that Jesus comes back to them and says, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
Actually, the other gospel writers add that Jesus came back another time as well and woke them up again. But Christ wasn’t desiring that they would pray for Him. He was concerned about them, telling them that they needed to pray for themselves that they would not enter into temptation. Jesus had already told Peter in the upper room that Satan had asked permission to sift them like wheat. They had been forewarned that there was going to be a special time of temptation. And now He is saying that they needed to pray to not enter into temptation. But instead they are sleeping.
Listen, the lack of prayer is a great cause of failure in the Christian life. We fall in private before we ever fall in public. In my own experience I have learned that when I am tempted to sin, I can overcome that temptation just by praying for God to deliver me. But when I neglect prayer, I find my flesh is not strong enough to resist temptation. Peter had been warned, but he was tired. It was late. He didn’t see the spiritual battle that was coming, the temptations that were going to come. He thought that he was able to withstand the sifting that Satan had desired to put him through. He was confident that he would never fall away. And yet when he was supposed to be praying, he was sleeping. And when he awoke he acted in the strength of his flesh and struck the servant’s ear with his sword. Then he denied Jesus three times at the fireside of the soldiers as Jesus was being tried.
Listen, we have been warned. The Bible makes it clear that we will endure trials, temptations and tribulations. Peter said in 1Pet. 5:8 that the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. In Acts 14:22 it says, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” And also in 2Tim. 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” We should learn from Jesus’ instructions to the disciples that we need to “watch and pray that we may not enter into temptation.” “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
I heard someone paraphrase that verse the other day which reads, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is looking forward to the weekend.” It’s amazing how low on our priorities church is today. One of the reasons we come together in church is to pray, to acknowledge our need for strength and implore God’s help. And to pray for one another, and strengthen one another. We neglect church to our peril.
So that is the paradox; a neglect of prayer on the part of the disciples contrasted with the fervency of Christ in prayer. Now let’s look at the posture of fervent prayer. Vs. 41 says, “And [Jesus] withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray…” Actually, a more complete picture is given by Matthew and Mark. They say He prostrated Himself. He fell on His face. If you combine the three accounts, Jesus left the disciples at the gate, He brought Peter, James and John a little further inside, and then continued on by Himself a stone’s throw away and knelt down to pray, then as the intensity increases in His anguish, He falls face down, prostrate on the ground in prayer.
You know, the Bible doesn’t dictate to us the posture of prayer. It was the custom in those days to pray standing up. We have the freedom to pray in whatever position we may find ourselves in. But the principle that Jesus taught concerning prayer is found in Matt. 6:5-6 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” The principle is to get alone with God and unveil your heart before Him. Because God sees the heart.
The posture in prayer presented here in Christ’s example is that of humility. He knelt down, then He fell down. That is the posture of humility. We saw Abraham do the same thing when he ran up to the Lord, bowing himself down to the ground. True prayer comes in humility, not in arrogance or pride, or with a sense of entitlement. Jesus was entitled, if anyone was. But yet Phil. 2:5-8 says, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Notice twice there in those verses the humanity of Christ is emphasized. “Being made in appearance as a man, being made in the likeness of men.” That’s very important in correctly understanding this passage in Luke. Because here we see Christ in His humanity. Christ is fully God and fully human. He had to be both in order to be a fitting substitute for sinners. In order for Heb. 4:15 to be true which says, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” He had to be made like us, to be tempted like us, so that He might intercede for us.
This dual nature of Christ is hard for us to understand. But in this hour especially, Christ is fully human, so that “God could make Him who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Cor. 5:21) So the posture of prayer is that of humility.
Next, we see the petition of prayer. Vs. 42, “And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” It’s so important that we see that Jesus is not even in this hour of great anguish asking for anything that is not the Father’s will. What He was going through was so terrible, so grievous, so stressful that it says that He was sweating profusely, and the sweat was like drops of blood. He asks if there is another way then He would like this cup to pass from Him. Now what is He talking about? Is He asking to avoid the cross? I don’t think so.
Jesus is not going through some momentary lapse of spiritual resolve here. Far from it. Jesus had said just a week before at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem that He had come for this purpose and He would not shrink from it. John 12:27 “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” Jesus’ goal was the cross from the very inception of God’s plan for salvation. I believe with His last ounce of strength He would have resolutely crawled to the cross. It is inconceivable that Christ shrank from the cross. It was the goal line, and nothing would deter Him from it.
So what then? I believe He shrank from the horror of sin. He had never known sin. He was holy, righteous, spotless. He is so holy and righteous that the prospect and the reality of having the sin of the world placed upon Him was a horror that we can not imagine. 2 Cor. 5:21 says that He became sin for us. That realization is incomprehensible to us, and violently reprehensible to Christ. 1 Pet. 2:24, “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” Peter echoes the themes of Isaiah 53 which adds in vs. 4 that “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
And Christ had never known separation from God. He and the Father were One. He had always been with the Father. But sin would cause a separation from God the Father which would cause Jesus to cry out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Jesus knew the horror of being separated from God. The horror that we are destined to endure were it not that Jesus suffered it there for us.
What Jesus was asking for was that if there was any way He could atone for sins without the horror of iniquity being laid on Him, then He would that it would pass. It was an honorable request. It was the request of a holy, righteous God incarnate who abhorred sin. Listen, the root of our confessions to God, the root of our petitions before God must include an abhorrence of sin. We must understand that our sin is an affront a holy God. I’m afraid that Christians today have no concept of how repulsive their sin is to God. That is why there is this attitude out there that God just loves everyone, and doesn’t care about sin. Love is all that God is. No, my friend. God is HOLY. God is just. God hates sin. God cannot abide sin, He must separate from sin. And as such we should remember the words of David who said, “If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.”
Thank the Lord Jesus said “But not My will, but Your will be done.” That is the key to effective prayer. Rom. 8:27 says, “He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Jesus gave us an example of prayer in what we call the Lord’s prayer. He says,“thy kingdom come, thy will be done…” For our prayers to be effective we must ask in accordance with the will of God.
I’m afraid so many Christians today use prayer as an excuse for disobedience. They say I’ll pray about it, when they should say I’ll do it. Prayer is not a substitute for obedience to what God has clearly presented in His word. Listen, we are poor judges of what is good for us. If I had gotten everything I prayed for at various times in my life I would be in all kinds of trouble. One thing for sure is that I would not be standing here today. We need to pray that God’s will would be done and then trust that His will is good. 1John 5:14 “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”
Then in vs. 43 we see the proliferation of prayer. “Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.” I confess I do not understand this fully. Why did Jesus need an angel? What could an angel do that He could not do? I can only rely on what the Bible says about angels in Heb. 1:14 “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” Somehow, in Christ’s humanity, in His anguish and separation from God, He could be refreshed by an angel so that He might endure this trial. I think Jesus had reached His physical limits in His striving against sin.
Even though it was God’s plan that He would crush Him, He also strengthened Him that He might endure the weight of the sin of the world. 1Cor. 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” This was a supernatural burden that required supernatural assistance and restoration so that there might be a proliferation of prayer. The angel strengthened Him that He might be able to pray even more. And that is what happens when we pray and reach the limit of our endurance. Rom. 8:26-27 “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
Listen, no matter how terrible the load is that you might bear, if you bring it to the Lord He will help you carry it. Jesus said in Matt. 11:28-29 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.”
Finally, let’s look at vs. 44, for the perseverance of prayer. “And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.” See, the angel came to strengthen Him that He might continue in prayer. Listen the prayer wasn’t the thing that was crushing Him so much that blood mingled with His sweat, but sin was crushing Him. Prayer was strengthening Him. Prayer was triumphing over sin. Remember what Heb. 5:7 says; “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.” Prayer fortified His righteousness which produced triumph over sin.
There are only two weapons at our disposal in the armory of God according to Ephesians 6. The Word of God which is the sword of the Lord, and prayer. And this is what it has to say about prayer as an offensive weapon against the forces of darkness. Eph. 6:18 “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit (in agreement with the Spirit), and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.”
Listen, I hear people say about a lost loved one, or someone they know that isn’t saved, “well, I can’t make them become a Christian. I can’t force it on them. They are going to have to make up their own minds.” And with that attitude we throw up our hands in surrender and resume our regularly scheduled program on the television. But folks, we do have a weapon that can prevail against the spiritual forces of evil in high places. We have been given the weapon of prayer. I don’t know how it works. I don’t know how to fly a F-16 either, but I do know it is a powerful weapon. However, God has given me and you the power of a nuclear bomb; the Word of God and prayer. And so I’m going to pray at all times in the Spirit (that means according to the will of God) an be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.
Like Jesus, I’m going to agonize in prayer for my loved ones. I’m going to pray all night if necessary that they be delivered from evil. Let me ask you something, ladies and gentlemen. When was the last time you prayed all night long for someone? When was the last time you agonized so much in your soul that you broke out in a sweat? Thank God that Christ did not shirk from laboring that night in the garden. He triumphed over evil for our sakes, so that we might be delivered from sin.
I believe the Bible teaches that we can change things through prayer. The Lord said to Sarah when she laughed, “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?” And the answer of Luke 1:37 is that nothing will be impossible with God. I could add another “P” to my list and mention the partnership of prayer. Jesus asked the disciples to pray with Him. God wants to partner with us in the business of the kingdom and one of the ways we do that is through prayer. And when we pray, the Holy Spirit prays, and Christ our great High Priest prays. We have a partnership in prayer with God. What a shame it would be to neglect so great a privilege.
Folks, Jesus is our Savior, but He is also our example. He is our pattern that we should follow in His footsteps. So we pray as He prayed. We join in the fellowship of His sufferings. As Heb. 12:3-4 says, “For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.”
Listen, we need to wake up as a church and pray that we might not enter into temptation. We need to pray for our weakness in the fight against sin, that God would strengthen us and restore a right spirit within us. And then we need to pray for our loved ones and the lost that the eyes of their heart would be opened and that the truth of God would shine in their hearts. Jesus rose up from His prayer in triumph that night. He faced His trials with confidence that God would not abandon His soul, but that He would raise Him from the dead. Jesus had confidence born out of prayer. And so can we. Heb. 4:16 “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”