24: The Garden

ways, though they were with him bodily, he was very much alone. It was in this way, that Jesus entered the Garden of Gethsemane.







Scripture: Luke 22:39-45

“Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40On reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation." 41He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." 43An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. 45When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow.”

How to Pray Like Jesus

1. Acknowledge that ultimately, God is in control of your situation.

Statement: The relationship was right. The first thing that Jesus did when He began to pray was acknowledge that God was ultimately in control of His situation. Whatever happened, Jesus

-Jesus opened his prayer with, "Father, if you are willing…”

-This also tells us that Jesus accepted the fact that God wasn’t necessarily going to answer His prayer.

2. Accept the fact that God may not answer your prayer.

Illustration: A minister noticed a young boy kneeling off to the side of the room after youth group and praying very fervently. As the preacher came within earshot of the boy, he was surprised to hear the boy saying: "Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo."
After the boy finished his praying the preacher approached him and said, "Son, I was very pleased to see you praying so devoutly, but I couldn’t help but overhear you saying something like ’Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo.’ What was that all about?"
The boy replied, "Well, I just finished taking my geography test in school, and I have been praying as hard as I can that God would make Tokyo the Capital of France."

Statement: Now I’m going to say something next that I find very uncomfortable, and so I want to say something before I get into the body of the sermon itself. I want to make it very clear that I’m a strong believer in prayer. I believe that prayer is one of the most powerful tools we have and that prayer can give us the power to change the circumstances of our lives.
I BELIEVE THAT.
I’VE SEEN THAT
And I KNOW THAT IT’S TRUE.

But I also know, there are going to be times when prayer will NOT change what’s going to happen. I mean, God can do whatever He wants to do, and He can change whatever He desires to change. But let’s face it, unless God really has a good reason to do otherwise: Tokyo will always be the capital of Japan… not France.

-Now, I know I’m pretty young, but I can honestly say that even at this point in my life, I am a better person because God has not answered all of my prayers.

-Now listen, we’ve all been there. We’ve all had prayers go unanswered. We’ve all prayed that God would heal someone we cared about and He didn’t. We’ve all prayed that God would open a door and it was closed. We’ve all prayed that God would bless us with fill-in-the-blank-whatever…and He didn’t.

-Those unanswered prayers can turn us into bitter people and drive us away from God if we let them. Because the enemy just loves to whisper in our ears in those weak moments when we realize a prayer isn’t going be answered,