Pray Through When You Can’t Pray Around

Pray Through When You Can’t Pray Around

By Tanner Walton

Text – Matthew 26:36-46

THT – Prayer will get you through what it won’t take you around.

Purpose – To encourage our teens to pray and submit to God’s will in the face of adversity.

Introduction

1. Prayer is asking for things.

2. Prayer is the right of all those who have trusted in Jesus as their Savior.

3. Prayer may not always get you what you pray for, but prayer will always prepare you.

4. Prayer is the battle, what comes after prayer is the reward.

5. You are going to go through difficult times. You may not be able to avoid them, but with God’s help you can get through them.

BO

1. In this intense scene we find Jesus and his disciples just having participated in the first ever Lord’s supper. (April 5)

2. Here he is taking a few of his closest companions to pray.

I. Jesus prayed to the Father to see if he would allow the cup of his wrath to pass from while, while submitting to God’s will to drink the cup himself.

A. Jesus was sorrowful and heavy.

1. Jesus was grieved and in distress.

2. Gethsemane - This is just east of the temple mount area in Jerusalem, across the ravine of the Brook Kidron, and on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives. Surrounded by ancient olive trees, Gethsemane means “olive press.” There, olives from the neighborhood were crushed for their oil. So too, the Son of God would be crushed here. (Enduring Word Commentary)

3. As He came to Gethsemane from central Jerusalem, He crossed the Brook Kidron, and saw in the full moon of Passover the stream flowing red with sacrificial blood from the temple.

4. Matthew 17:23 “And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.” – this verse gives us the idea were grieved over things pertaining to the future.

5. Matthew 19:22 “But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.” – the young man that wanted to follow away Jesus but couldn’t because he didn’t want to relinquish his money was sorrowful.

6. Philippians 2:26 “For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick.” – Epaphroditus was grieved over the people of Philippi.

B. Jesus took his burden to the Father.

1. The burden of Jesus was the cup that was staring at him right in the face – the cup of God’s wrath. Psalm 75:8 “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; It is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: But the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.”

2. The cup is God’s wrath poured out on the atonement for sin.

3. If there is any way possible…

4. Jesus prayed three separate times. The text indicates that he prayed for an hour.

C. Jesus submitted to His Father’s will.

1. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t decided before.

2. This struggle at Gethsemane – the place of crushing – has an important place in fulfilling God’s plan of redemption. If Jesus failed here, He would have failed at the cross. His success here made the victory at the cross possible.

3. The struggle at the cross was first won in prayer in Gethsemane. Jesus fell on His face, and prayed.

D. The prayer of Jesus didn’t serve to get him out of drinking the cup of God’s wrath but served to get him through the drinking of that cup.

II. Sometimes we pray to get around difficulty when God wants to use prayer to prepare us to get through difficulty.

A. There are things that make us sorrowful and heavy.

1. There are going to make you sorrowful and heavy.

2. Test results for a parent

3. A sick kid

4. An agonizing talk

5. Time away from someone

6. Someone else’s sin

B. We can take our burdens to our heavenly Father.

1. Philippians 4:6 “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” should be in the arsenal of every believer.

2. Jesus purchased this right for you.

C. We should submit to God’s will whether he changes our circumstances or not.

D. Prayer can be used to get us through difficulty rather than around difficulty.