Sermon of Sunday 23 May 2010 Praying the Bible Way - for God's will Luke 22.39-46

Luke 22. 39-46

I want you to think for a moment
about your greatest disappointments and frustrations; the really big ones,
not that Munster didn’t get any silverware this season
or that you are not a Chelsea supporter.
Things that really matter, things about which you really prayed:
like a relationship which was really special
but it broke up painfully
or a job you had set your heart on, but you got the rejection letter
or a house which you thought would be your dream home
but it went to some other buyer
or someone you deeply cared about was ill and you prayed
but there was no healing.

For times like those we need to go back with Jesus
into the garden of Gethsemane
and think about his lonely struggle in prayer.
No doubt we recognise that we are too much like his friends at this point,
tired and sleepy,
but our moments of deep disappointment may help us identify in some way
with Jesus’ time of struggle to do his Father’s will.

We have never prayed in such a way
that our sweat is like drops of blood falling to the ground
but we can still identify with that simple but profound prayer
42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me;
yet not my will, but yours be done."

Of course ‘this cup’ was a bigger thing
than our crushing disappointments in relationships or career.
‘This cup’ was the bitterness of Jesus an innocent man
suffering an dying in our place for our sin
and in that suffering being separated from his Father’s love.

We are so familiar with the Easter story of resurrection and triumph
that we too easily assume that Jesus went through his earthly life
with a light and easy step as ‘the man who is God’

Here we see the God who is man sharing fully in our dread of death
suffering more deeply than anyone else
because he knew more acutely the reality of judgement
and what it meant to be separated from his father
through no fault of his own.

We must never think of what Jesus suffered
as a quick and easy fix to save us.
In no way was it quick.
There was agony in the garden as well as on the cross.

Jesus had every reason and every temptation not to drink the cup.
He was not struggling in Gethsemane to accept the unavoidable;
his struggle was to surrender to what could have been avoided.
Jesus struggled, as we struggle, with the prospect of death;
he felt overwhelmed by the coming darkness, he sweated in prayer,
he was tempted as we are, but he did not sin.

It is not sin to have times of doubt or darkness.
It is not sin to wonder what God is doing or even if he is there at all
It is not sin to struggle against God’s will and to shrink from suffering.
Sin comes when we finally refuse to do what God wants
when we say ‘My will not yours, my way not yours.’

That was the choice of the first Adam:
He decided to disobey God to become like God to do it my way, our way?
But in this lonely prayer time, the second Adam struggled and succeeded.
He will do what his Father God wants,
no matter how great the cost, how bitter the cup,
he would be an obedient son
whose suffering will bring many sons and daughters to glory.

When we look at that struggle of Jesus in prayer
our first reaction should be to stand back and bow in awe
that Jesus went through that for us.

But we can also see this as a pattern for our own praying.
What Jesus prays here is very like a well known prayer
42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me;
yet not my will, but yours be done."

We know a prayer like that:
“Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’

We saw a couple of weeks ago that the Lord‘s prayer
is never about me and my desires.
It is first of all about God and his name and kingdom and will
and then it is about us and our needs as a community
our daily bread, our trespasses, ……

I shared with you then what I will unashamedly repeat now
what John Stott wrote about the Lord’s Prayer:
he suggests that we 'are constantly under pressure
to conform to the self-centredness of secular culture.
When that happens we become concerned about our own little name
(liking to see it embossed on our notepaper
or hitting the headlines in the press, and defending it when it is attacked),
about our own little empire
(bossing, "influencing" and manipulating people to boost our ego),
and about our own silly little will
(always wanting our own way and getting upset when it is frustrated).
But in the Christian counter-culture
our top priority concern is not our name, kingdom and will, but God's. ….'

Jesus not only taught his followers to pray like that
in the moment of crisis, as he struggled, he prayed like that himself.

But we have to keep asking
How much of our praying is about what I want rather than what God wants?

Somebody wisely said
‘Prayer is the way we blend our will with God's will
rather than bend his will to our will.

But as Jesus struggled, his disciples slept.

Luke is gentle with them: he says they were ‘exhausted from sorrow’.
It was all too much for them:
they could not cope
with all that had been happening in those days in Jerusalem
in grief and fear about the looming death of their friend;
it was the natural reaction to sleep it off

But Jesus says to us as he said to them
"Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."

A life grounded in regular submissive prayer
prayer that says ‘your will’ not ‘my will’, Father,
is a life more likely to be able to deal with trials and tests
which is what ‘temptations’ mean.

Was not one reason they were urged to pray
was that they would have clear heads to face the problems that lie ahead..
Jesus went through the turmoil of prayer
and was calm in the face of the betrayer's kiss and all that followed.
Those who slept panicked and lashed out.
From the moment of his arrest
right through interrogation and mocking and scourging
Jesus remains calm, no lashing out, no running for cover:
he knew and was doing his Father’s will, painful though it was.
But the people who slept while he struggled --
panic, cutting off an ear, desertion, denial, shame …

He who had struggled in prayer was now ready.
They who had slept and not prayed were all over the place.

Isn’t that why we too so often mess up?
Either we do not really have a close relationship with Father God
we have never personally met with him through trusting Jesus
or we have had that privilege but we have slipped back
from a free relationship into a formal religion.
Like the disciples, we have been happy to be associated with Jesus
we have even boasted about what we will do for Jesus
but when the crunch comes we are too much caught up in ourselves.

We need to learn to pray the Lord’s Prayer
rather than merely say the Lord’s Prayer
to sweat it out
to speak to God the Father and submit to his will.

Our Father God,
bring us by your Spirit into that relationship
where we call you Father truly.
We find it so easy to say the words ‘your will be done’
but so hard actually to submit.
We promise we will watch and pray but we go to sleep
and then we don’t know what to do.
As we confess our failures to follow and our failure in prayer
so we thank you that Jesus drained the cup of your judgement
to its bitterest dregs.
Thank you for the perfect obedience of your own dear Son.
Thank you that Jesus did not flinch from shame and suffering
that we, believing in him, may have life and peace
and freedom from fear of death.
Help us to pray our Father, ‘Not what I will, but what you will.’
Help us when that is hard and painful;
encourage us by your Father love,
and this reminder of the lonely struggle of Jesus.