Introduction

Luke 22:39-46 ESV  And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him.  (40)  And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”  (41)  And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed,  (42)  saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”  (43)  And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.  (44)  And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.  (45)  And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow,  (46)  and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

• We are now on part three of our 3 part series about praying like Jesus…
  • You know, Pastor Jared brought this up in his last sermon and I thought it was so good that I am going to steal it…

James 5:16b ESV  The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 

• The King James Version puts it this way “The Prayer of a righteous man availith much”
  • I think we can all agree that this is true… the righteous when they pray… there is power in that prayer… amen?
  • And who is more righteous than Jesus?
  • Therefore does it not stand to reason that the prayers of Jesus Avaliath much?! That the prayers of Jesus have great power in their working?! And if that is the case, then ought we… the followers of Christ… those who strive to be more and more like Christ…
    • Ought we not want to pray like Jesus prayed…
    • Ought we not want to live righteously like Jesus lived…
    • That our prayers would have great power in their working?!
  • That’s why this series is so important… and it has opened up new pathways of prayer and power even in my own life!
    • Never before had I daily prayed against temptation… but I do now, and so many of you have already shared testimonies about how just that simple prayer… lead me not into temptation, has had miraculous power in your life!
  • I have also had testimonies flowing in about having a prayer custom and how people are starting to be disciplined to pray more and more…
    • And as a pastor that is so exciting… because that means that I get the honor of pastoring a praying church!
• But we don’t want to be a church that prays vain, weak, or worthless prayers…
  • We want our prayers to be powerful and effective…
  • And today we are going to focus on the best way to get your prayers answered… if there was ever a trick to having God say “yes” time and time again to your prayer… this is it…

• PRAY THE WILL OF THE FATHER!
• That’s the secret… pray the will of the Father…
• Now before we go further… let me just remind you the outline of this series…

This sermon series has Four Parts:

1. To Pray Like Jesus: Have a Prayer Custom.
2. To Pray Like Jesus: Pray that You May Not Enter Into Temptation
3. To Pray Like Jesus: Pray the Fathers Will
4. To Pray Like Jesus: Pray with Passion

Point One – To Pray the Will of the Father You Must Know the Will of the Father

Luke 22:42 ESV  saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

• Let me just quickly set the scene… I know we have been in this passage for a few weeks now, but it is so important that we keep the context of this prayer in mind… because the context emphasis the importance, the power, and the passion of this prayer…
  • Jesus is in the garden, He has just finished the last meal He will eat before being crucified.
  • He knows exactly what is going to happen, He even called Judas out as His betrayal…
  • He knows He is facing death, it is what He came to earth for after all, to die for the sins of mankind… but His flesh is screaming out “I DON’T WANT TO DIE”.
    • Note that I say His flesh is screaming that, not His spirit…
    • Because we as human beings are designed to not want to die… we are programed to seek survival at almost all costs…
    • So Jesus’ flesh not wanting to perish is simply his body working the way God designed all flesh to work…
    • This is not a moment of weakness for Christ… this is not a moment of doubt…
      • This is not some Crisis of faith that Jesus must overcome…
    • This is Just Jesus being 100 percent man and 100 percent God… and we see exactly that in this prayer… we see the 100 percent Man side of Christ crying out “Father if you are willing remove this cup from Me”
    • Then we see the 100 percent God side of Christ following that up with “Never the less, not My will, but yours be done”.

Luke 22:42 ESV  saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

• That “nevertheless” word is important… someone say “nevertheless”…
  • It comes from the Greek word “plen”… which means… well… it means nevertheless…
    • It means, regardless of what I just said, the truth is actually this…
    • Regardless of what my flesh want’s, the truth is that you want Something different God, and I submit to that.
•  See what we need to understand, if we want to pray like Jesus… is that Jesus was not having a crisis of the faith in this moment, NOR was Jesus adding a contingency plan to His prayer with “Not my will but Your will be done”.
  • Because some people use that phrase as a cop-out to their prayer… as a “Just in case God doesn’t show up… just in case God says no… I don’t want to look like God doesn’t answer my prayers… so I will end my prayer with “your will be done”.
    • This generally happens around really faith filled prayers asking for big things…
    • “Father would you heal gram-mamma gertrued of the gangrene in her toes caused by that foot fungus? Would you completely heal it so the doctors don’t have to amputate! I CALL HEALING INTO GRAM-MAMMA’S LITTLE PIGGIES AND DEMAND THIS FUNGUS TO LEAVE!… unless it’s your will that she loses her toes, then your will be done.”
    • Now I am being obtuse on purpose, we should be praying faith filled prayers asking for miracles… and it is good to humble ourselves and understand that God’s will is higher than ours…
  • BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT JESUS IS DOING IN THE GARDEN!
    • When Jesus says “Nevertheless, not my will but your will be done” Jesus is not saying “Just in case you don’t deliver me from this evil, then I guess I will still give you credit for Your will being done”.
    • There is no “Just in case” about this prayer! Because Jesus already knows it is the will of the Father that He is to be arrested and Crucified.
      • He told people it was going to happen time and time again! He prophesied it, the Old Testament prophets prophesied it.
      • So when He prayed “Your will be done, He did so already knowing God’s will”.

James 4:2b-3a ESV  …You do not have, because you do not ask.  (3)  You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly…

• You have not because you ask not…
  • You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly!
  • What does that mean? It means that you asked according to some other will other than the will of God… in the context of this verse it was because they were asking for their own selfish desires… they were seeking their own will.
  • But when you ask, and do not receive… it is very likely because you are asking wrongly, not always, but very often this is the case…
    • Again, the wrong way to ask is to ask according to your own will.
• Here is a biblical, black and white truth, God hears prayers that are in line with His will and He gives us what we ask for when we ask according to his will!

1 John 5:14-15 ESV  And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.  (15)  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

• This church, is how, we get our prayers answered, when we pray according to the will of God!
  • And in Order to pray according to the will of God we must KNOW the will of God.
  • I can hear some of you saying “But pastor… but pastor, we can not know the ways of God! His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts”.
    • Well dear saint, you are right and wrong… It is true that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts…
    • But that doesn’t mean we can’t know His will… that doesn’t mean we can’t understand His ways and His thoughts…
    • Why? Because we are so smart we can figure out?! Of course not. No man is smart enough to figure out God…
    • BUT GOD IS SMART ENOUGH TO EXPLAIN HIMSELF TO MAN!
    • Yes Gods ways, thoughts, and even His will are above our understanding… SO GOD DID US A SOLID AND WROTE THEM ALL DOWN IN A BOOK!
      • THEN HE PROTECTED THAT BOOK FROM AGE TO AGE…
      • AND HAD THAT BOOK TRANSLATED INTO A LANGUAGE WE CAN UNDERSTAND.
      • AND THEN SENT HIS HOLY SPIRIT TO HELPS US UNDERSTAND THAT BOOK.
      • AND THEN CALLED OUT PASTORS AND TEACHERS TO TEACH AND EXPLAIN THAT BOOK.
    • God has given us everything we need to understand His revealed will.
      • Is there stuff going on in heaven and in God’s ways and thoughts that are not revealed? Probably, but we don’t need to worry about that… we have 66 books of the revealed will of God.
    • Therefore we can absolutely know the will of God because all we have to do is read it and study it.
• Now I have a video clip to share of the late Reverend Billy Graham… turns out he was a pretty good preacher, and he says it better than I could.

BGPrayerAndReading.MP4

• I absolutely love this sermon by Rev Graham, it’s called “How to Live the Christian Life” and I posted it to Facebook this morning if you want to watch the full message… but it just sounds better coming from someone other than me, because I hit on it so often…
  • I want you to know this is not just something pastor Christian says… this is something all Christians should say…
• And I don’t care who you are… you can not live a victorious life if you neglect Bible reading and Bible study. Everytime a person comes to me and says “I’m not getting my prayers answered, I have no victory in my life, I have no joy in my life, I don’t have the peace in my life that I know that I should have as a Christian” I ask them one Question “Are you reading your Bible daily and studying your Bible…” -Reverend Billy Graham
• I can’t say it better… you must be in the Word of God, to discern the Will of God, so that you can pray according to His will, THEN YOU WILL SEE YOUR PRAYERS ANSWERED
• Now that brings us to point two this morning, and I will try to keep this second point brief…

Point Two – To Pray the Will of the Father You Must Submit to the Will of the Father

Luke 22:42 ESV  saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

• This is a prayer of submission… Jesus is praying “Not only do I know your will, but I submit to your will”.
  • “Even though my flesh is fighting against it, I submit to Your will Father.”
• You heard that song by Crowder? I have referenced it before… “I got something make the Devil gonna run… run devil, run devil, run!”
  • You know what that something is? SUBMISSION TO GOD!

James 4:7 ESV  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

• You want the devil to run from you?
  • You want him out of your life? You want him to stop meddling in your affairs?
  • YOU CAN MAKE HIM RUN!
  • Not by being the most aggressive person…
  • Not by being the loudest person…
  • Not by being the most fiery, pumped up, ready to fight “let’s go, Satan” person…
  • No, you want to make the devil run… then you don’t need to be the toughest person in the room… you need to be the most submissive person in the room!
• And not only will submission make the devil flee… but it will actually bring you into a place were you are granted EVERY SINGLE DESIRE OF YOUR HEART! Seriously…
  • You want your hearts desires granted by God… great, let me show you how!

Psalms 37:4-5 ESV  Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.  (5)  Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.

• Delight yourself in the LORD… commit your way to the Lord… LOVE SUBMITTING TO HIM!
  • And God will grant you the desires of your heart…
  • Why? Because when you delight yourself in God, when you love serving Him, and submitting to Him, and following Him…
  • THEN SOMETHING AWESOME HAPPENS… THE DESIRES OF YOUR HEART BEGIN TO ALIGN WITH THE DESIRES OF HIS HEART.
  • YOUR WILL TRANSFORMS AND STARTS TO LOOK MORE AND MORE LIKE HIS WILL.
  • AND WHEN YOU PRAY ACORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD, WHAT HAPPENS?!

1 John 5:14-15 ESV  And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.  (15)  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

• Can I ask this of you church… fellow saints…
  • Can you decide right now that you are going to submit to the will of God?
  • Don’t wait until you have already trashed your life…
  • Don’t wait until you have already sown a bunch of bad seed…
  • DECIDE RIGHT NOW! “I WILL SUBMIT MYSELF TO GOD AND HIS WILL… I WILL LOVE HIS WAYS AND DELIGHT MYSELF IN THEM”.
  • DECIDE RIGHT NOW…
    • If God says “Don’t date that person” THEN DON’T DATE THEM! Don’t leave this room without ending that relationship.
      • Don’t wait to see what will happen…
      • Don’t wait until you are married with kids to decide “Man I really shouldn’t have married this person”
    • If God is telling you to move… don’t sus out the situation to see if it is a good idea…
    • If God is saying “Stay” then ignore anything and everything that might make you want to go.
    • If God is telling you to quit your job because it is causing you to sin, the start looking for another job RIGHT NOW.
    • If God is telling you to end that friendship… then pull out your phone, block them on facebook if you have to, send them a text, EVEN RIGHT NOW, and tell them “My relationship with God is the most important thing in my life, and I can’t have you dragging me down anymore. I am praying for you, and if you want to hang out then Join me at church on Sunday.”
    • If God is saying have kids… don’t wait, do it now.
    • If God is saying you need to stop this activity, or stop that hobby… THEN DO IT.
      • Don’t wait until your dumb decisions start ruining your life to decide to submit to God…
      • DECIDE RIGHT NOW TO SUBMIT BEFORE YOU ARE STUCK WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR REBELLION.
  • Because the only other option is rebellion, you are either in submission to God or you are in rebellion to Him.
  • So decide “I am going to learn the will of God by reading and studying His word… I am going to pray the will of God… and I am going to submit to that will”.

Conclusion

• Gospel Call