When In Need

Well, good morning again. Glad that you’re joining us for worship this morning again. My name is Ben. I am one of the pastors here, and it’s my privilege to share from God’s word with you this morning as we kick off into a new series that we’re going to be in for the next number of weeks as we seek to learn a little bit more about what it means to pray, and in particular, how we can pray like Jesus. And so, again, to welcome to anyone that may be a guest and any guests that are joining us online too. Thanks for tuning in and joining us as well. And so as we kick off into this, I just have a simple question and you can feel free to answer, call back. You know, tell me what you think the answer to this is. What types of situations caused us to pray for this illness here? Every fear. Thanks. Thanks and pain, gratefulness, illness, illness. I mean, there’s a mix of emotions. I think a lot of times this maybe just might just be me. But oftentimes if there’s not a vibrant prayer life for someone, it is those moments of want. It’s those moments of need where there may be sickness, financial distress, trouble at work, trouble and family, whatever it may be. When there’s a problem. 

That’s the thing that drives us to prayer, that everybody will pray that there is no such thing as you maybe heard the phrase, there’s no atheist in a foxhole right? That all of a sudden everybody has a god all of a sudden, like, we’re going to pray when there is a need, when we feel like maybe we might be even threatened throughout Scripture and in particular, if we look at the Book of Psalms, this is not the complete list, but here’s just a number of different ways that we can pray is that we can confess. Nobody mentioned that one thing, that there can be intercession, which means that you’re praying on the behalf of someone else. And I love this one. Did you know you can complain in prayer that actually, if you look at the Psalms, this isn’t the only one. This is just one example in Psalm ten. But you can complain to God that you have the creator of the universe on the other side of the line, and you can just complained to him, but you can also offer him thanks. You can offer him praise. And what we’re going to be looking at today is we’re going to be looking at that final one, this idea of request making a petition when there is a need, a desire of our heart, some sort of want that’s not being fulfilled, that we go to God and we lift up that request to him in the weeks moving forward. I’ll just give you a quick snapshot of the other things that we’ll be talking about as it pertains to prayer today. 

We’ll be talking about what, again, it means to be in need when we are in need. Next week. As you heard from the video, there’s an outdoor service. Would love for you to join us that will kind of deviate from this series a little bit, but then we come back on the 18th. We talk about how do you pray when you don’t know how? How do you pray before big decisions? And then when being tempted, but wanted to kick off this series with When in need? Because I believe that’s again, it’s just instinctual inside of all of us almost that when there is a need, then we pray and sometimes it’s not the first thing we do, though often times self admittedly it isn’t the first thing we do, but in my own life I find it’s always the last thing I do, that if something goes sideways that I will try a whole bunch of other things. And then when I finally land on praying, then I don’t need to try anything else. Or if I actually start with prayer, then I don’t need to go chase down other ways to try to solve the problem my own, because I’ve already handed it over to God. We’ll actually see how that looks like in the life of Jesus here today. And before we jump into the text to one more quick reminder too, that this series is meant to be a blessing to you and to your family. 

And so we have a couple of resources for you. You can go on to our website or the Church Center app. You can join a group that, over the course of the next few weeks, will give you words of encouragement and reminders throughout the coming weeks to be in prayer. You can also find there, too, that there are a couple of book resources that we’re encouraging those that want to to purchase. You can download them. There’s a book for adults. There’s also books for those that have kids anywhere from the age of kindergarten through sixth grade. We encourage you to get those and follow along and reading that as well, as we hope that over the course of these next few weeks that your prayer life that maybe right now is non-existent, maybe it’s a little bit stale, that it would become more vibrant and you would see the immense value and the blessing that comes from praying. So today we’re going to we’re going to jump right in, right into the middle of a story, right in the middle of the story of Jesus on the night that he was betrayed. 

And here Jesus had just instituted the Lord’s Supper in the upper room with his closest disciples. He had just told the disciples that one of them was going to betray him. He had just broken up an argument again that the disciples had regarding who which one of them was the greatest. And he also had just told them in that upper room that he was going to die again. And so leaving that upper room, this is where we pick up into our text. So we’re going to be in Luke 22. We’re looking at Jesus as he came out and he went, as was his custom this whole Holy Week, from the time of the triumphant entry entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. So here in this moment, we’re told that it was his custom. To go out of the city, to go to the Mount of Olives and to pray. And so here we see as it was his custom, he’s doing this every night throughout this week. And the disciples followed him, and he came to a place. And he said to them, pray, giving them clear instruction. This is what I want you to do. You followed me out here. 

Here’s what we’re going to do. You are going to pray, and they’re not going to just pray any prayer. But I want you to pray that you may not fall into what temptation. Now, what temptation is Jesus speaking about? So his disciples are following along. But if you follow along in any of the gospels, Jesus, sometimes he’ll explain things very clearly, but his disciples just don’t get it. Sometimes it’s a little bit vague and they they don’t get it either. And here he’s telling them, pray that you don’t fall into temptation. Some sort of temptation is going to come your way because Jesus understands and is actually having conversations on a spiritual realm, even here and now, that they’re not fully aware of, because just a few moments ago in the upper room, he told Peter, he said, Saint has asked for you. But I’m not going to give you. I’m not going to hand you over. He wants to sift you like wheat, but pray that you don’t fall into temptation. There’s something going on in the spiritual realm that the disciples had no comprehension of. 

And actually, if you go back in the book of Luke and to another time of temptation, we actually see what might be taking place here. We’ll talk about this text in our final week in this series, but maybe you’re familiar, maybe not. But after Jesus was baptized, he went in the desert for 40 days and he fasted. And there he was, tempted by the devil three times. And at the conclusion of that story, it says this in Luke chapter four verse 13, when the devil had finished all this tempting previously, he left Jesus until an opportune time. What we’re seeing here in the garden with Jesus and his disciples is this opportune time. Jesus understands that Jesus knows that the disciples don’t know. And so Jesus is telling them, there’s a time of temptation that’s coming your way, temptation for you to fall away, temptation for you not to believe that that Jesus is in fact the Messiah. A temptation to believe that he does not eventually rise from the grave, a temptation to to completely desert everything that they had been following along with Jesus for the last three years. 

And the first thing that we can glean as we look at this text, and we see how Jesus is setting this up, especially for his disciples, is this expect the need. All too often, I think in our lives that we we are caught off guard. We’re on our heels and all of a sudden something goes sideways in our life and we say, well, I didn’t see that coming. But really, Scripture tells us that, that this world is going to have troubles. We’re going to have trials. It is not perfect. It is tainted with sin. Even our own flesh. And so when illness comes, when loss happens, when there’s conflict in family or at work, it should come as absolute no surprise to any believer that we should actually expect these things. These things are to come when we see division in our country politically. We should not be surprised. Expect these things. They are going to come. Amen. We can do a lot better with the weather, I believe, than we can do with some of these things. As a michigander growing up, my whole life, there was a blizzard coming. Everybody would head to the store and they would get three things. 

They would get what? Bread, milk and and eggs. Right? Because everyone knows if there is a blizzard, you need to make French toast. That’s the way to survive. Well, we can expect it. You get that, you get the report. Okay. There’s a big blizzard coming in. Maybe power is going to get knocked out. So you need to be prepared. You have to have some food. You have to have some water. I understood that as far as blizzards, ice, maybe thunderstorms, but for a little while I didn’t live in Michigan. I was living down outside of Houston, Texas, had just moved there in 2000 and the summer of 2017, and late in the summer of 2017, there was a storm that was going to roll through the Houston area. And I wasn’t familiar with this kind of storm. It’s what you know, is it was actually had a name. It was called Harvey. And I remember my coworkers the day before Harvey was actually it was already landfall, but we are a little bit north and it was coming our way. And they were like, are you ready? Like, ready for what? Like, you know, what’s what’s this hurricane thing all about? 

This kind of seems like a big deal. There’s sure enough I mean, shelves are cleared off at the stores, and they were then the coworkers. You have water? Did you fill up your bathtub? Yeah. Fill up my bath. I don’t need to take a bath because a hurricane’s coming. No, no, you need to fill up your bath because you need to have drinkable water in case all the power goes out and all the water is not safe to drink anymore, because it’s going to flood quite a bit. And thankfully, a coworker of mine actually brought a cooler to my house filled with bottled water. We filled up our bathtub. We did some of these preparation type things, and thankfully we did because power did go out. I don’t know if you do think back that long right? This was the scene not far from where we lived, and thanks be to God, we were actually one of the higher points in the county where we were living, and so we didn’t have flooding. We’re right directly where I live, but roads were flooded out. I mean, it was crazy. Power went out, tornado sirens were going off in the evenings. We should have expected it. That’s what they forecast is that’s what they told us. 

These things are going to happen. And so we needed to at least prepare for what was going to be coming our way, or potentially could be coming our way. It is no different in your spiritual life whatsoever. Why is it that we and when it comes to our spiritual life, that we want to be reactive rather than proactive, that Jesus himself tells us these things are going to come? So he could be we could be proactive and we could pre pray for the things that are going to be coming our way and be prepared for them, expect them and not be caught off guard and on our heels. So that’s the first thing that we can see as Jesus is preparing his disciples, saying, you don’t see this thing, but this is coming your way. So I want you to already be in prayer for this temptation that’s coming your way. And then we see that Jesus withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and he knelt down and praying. A couple interesting things to note here. I mean, there’s there’s not a single word of Scripture that’s not significant. It’s a stone’s throw away, maybe roughly 30 yards or so. 

So they’re potentially within earshot of what Jesus is going to be praying. But Jesus still wants to seclude himself so he can pray to his father, but he also wants them close enough that they could potentially hear what he’s saying. But then the other piece of this is it’s highlighted right there that he knelt down. Elsewhere in the New Testament, what we know of the Jewish people during this time is it was not their custom to kneel. Actually, we know that there’s a story, a parable that Jesus gives, and he talks about a Pharisee who prays, standing up, boisterous about how he’s not like other sinners. But then there’s also another man, a tax collector, who’s standing up and beating his chest about how he is a poor, miserable sinner. But here Jesus kneels, and in that story he’s talking about the posture of their heart. But here we’re actually seeing a change in Jesus’s physical posture, because posture is important right now here during the Olympics, if you saw someone cross the finish line, go to the end of the pool and they throw their hands up in the air, you know that they just. 

But now here in this text, we see the creator of the universe. The second person of the Trinity, God in flesh, the Alpha and the Omega. Here it is fully man, but also fully God. And here he comes. And rather than throwing his hands up in the air, he drops to his knees. And what I believe is taking place here is this is showing us not only this physical posture, but of showing us the posture of his heart. And it’s also showing us this clear picture in this clear moment where, unlike almost any other place in Scripture with exclusion of the cross, is the humanity of Christ willing to come forward to His father in humble submission by taking a physical posture of submission, of need, of desperation. That we know him to be Almighty, powerful God. But also here we see him, Jesus fully man at the end of his rope, nowhere else to turn except his father. So I ask you this morning, how is your posture? When you’re in need, when something comes your way, whether you expected it or not, and you finally get to that place where you’re going to go to your heavenly father in need, how’s the posture? 

Not only physically, but how’s the posture of your heart? You take like our Savior God in flesh, Jesus Christ a humble posture, or do we sometimes come before God saying, God, I expect you to fix this for me. God, I want my will to be done. God, I see how things should go, and I want you to kind of catch up with where I’m at. You should fix this financial situation. You should make this relationship right. You should fix this illness. God, I don’t know why you’re not with the program yet. But we see from Jesus himself as he takes the posture of humility. And then from there he gives a two sentence prayer, which is profound. Kneeling there in the garden, crying out to his father, father, if you are willing to remove this cup from me. Jesus knew this need was coming. Jesus. Jesus knew that this was this opportune time, and all of a sudden, the devil wants to try to pull him away from the path and purpose that he has, which was the cross. But here we again see Jesus’s humanity, where he’s completely God, but he’s also completely man in his human will. 

Here in this moment, is calling out to his Heavenly Father and saying, remove this cup. So then begs the question, what cup? In Isaiah and in the book of Jeremiah, also in Matthew and elsewhere throughout Scripture, when it speaks of the cup of God, it’s not talking about some of the attributes that we like to talk about God, or we could talk about, well, God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, God’s love, God’s mercy. We’re happy to talk about those things. It’s also not simply just this cup of God’s justice. Scripture tells us that the cup that Jesus is referring to is the cup of God’s wrath. Something that we don’t like to talk about as much. But if God is certainly all the things I just mentioned, merciful and gracious and loving, but we also recognize him as this, as a just God and a holy and righteous God. Then anything that is contrary to him or to his will is unrighteous, is not wholly and is not good. And because of that, it needs to be separated from him which is set apart, holy and right and good. And because it’s set apart from him, it deserves his wrath, separation from him, punishment for sin. 

And if you go and you look at these text where it talks about God’s wrath, this is a terrifying thing because Jesus has foreknowledge. He had just told his disciples in the upper room yet again that he was going to go to the cross and die. But Jesus isn’t just simply speaking about going to a cross. He’s not simply talking about being deserted. He’s not simply talking about being betrayed. He’s not simply just talking about being nailed to a tree. He is talking about in this moment, God’s wrath being poured out on him. And a wrath that you and I deserved. A separation from the Heavenly Father. That Jesus, who is holy and righteous and good and sinless and blameless, would take not only on our sin, but would take upon himself the wrath of God for our sin. It is too much for Jesus’s human will to take in this moment. So he’s going before God, and he sees and it is impending. Not again, not only cross, but the separation from the father, the wrath of God to be poured out on him for the sin of the entire world. And it’s something that thanks be to God, we don’t have to face. 

But again, something we can learn from this moment is that while he knows this, while the father knows this, Jesus still takes the time to go humble himself in prayer. He expected the need, and then he named the need God. He’s the God. The father already knew this was the plan. Jesus already knew, but he’s still going to have this conversation with his Heavenly Father to lay it before him, that he might find some solace, that he might find some comfort and peace in that conversation. We can do likewise as well. Well, God already knows there is a value to going to God in prayer, even if your circumstances don’t change. Over the course of the last couple of weeks in particular, it was actually coming out of the school year, coming to a close, and there were a few weeks that followed the school year coming to a close that all of a sudden one of our boys. Would get really sad every night. He’d have great days. He would do water balloon fights and run around and do bike rides and all this fun summer stuff that kids do, having a great day. And then all of a sudden we would mention it’s time for bed. 

His whole demeanor would change, and it wouldn’t change in the way that you necessarily thought. He wasn’t being resistant to the fact that it was time to go to bed. He would just become downcast. He become sad. Many nights he’d actually cry, come close to the point of crying himself to sleep. My wife and I struggled through these days and weeks as he would come back out crying, and he’d say that he was just going to miss you, just going to miss mom. So we’re all still in the same house, but he would like. We’re just a couple of rooms over. You’re just gonna go to sleep. You’re gonna wake up the next day. We’re all still going to be here. No. No matter how we try to comfort him, no matter how we try to explain it, no matter even trying to pray together with him. Nothing seemed to work. So after this had gone on for a couple of weeks, I finally came to this place where he came out for the second or third time in tears. Just upset. Upset that he was again. He couldn’t fully articulate to me what was going on, and I couldn’t fully address all the needs that he had. 

And I said, I need you to do two things, and I do need you to go back in the room. I need you to go up into your bed, put your blankets on. It’s number one. I need you to go back in there. And then number two is I need you to promise me that as soon as you get up into your bed and you have your covers on, I need you to pray. And I need you to pray on your own. And I told him I need you to recognize. I said here, your earthly dad doesn’t have the answers. And in this moment, you need to go to your heavenly father, and you need to go and tell him what’s on your heart. He knows the need. He knows why you’re upset, even if you can’t articulate it, and that he will actually meet you in your need, and he’ll meet you in your need on your own. And it was astounding. But it shouldn’t surprise any of us. It was like flipping a switch. He did not come back out. He has not come back out. He needed to go to the Heavenly Father. 

He needed a name, the need that he had. He needed to go to someone who could do something about it. And that person wasn’t me. Which is a terribly humbling thing as a parent. But how thankful am I that he now knows, and I can learn alongside him that this is where you need to go and we are no different. I mean, it made sense that he would want to come to me, made sense that we would try to explain it and try to figure out his emotions and what’s going on and talk through it. But what really needed to happen is he needed to pray. And all too often we do the exact same thing. Well, it really makes sense, doesn’t it, that if the problem is X, Y, or Z, then I’m going to go try to figure it out? I’m going to go and ask someone. I’m going to call someone. I’m going to go online and try to figure the problem out. I’m going to start working harder. I’m going to address this need myself. I’m going to pull other people into it. And we are so terribly willing to go to great lengths to try to solve our own problems. When the first stop we should be at is going to our Heavenly Father first, going to him and just naming the need to him, it doesn’t mean that you don’t do any of those other things eventually, but this should be the first stop for all of us. 

It’s the place and the person that can actually do something about what our needs are. Jesus continues forward in this and he he prays this second sentence of his two sentence prayer starting off again, father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will. But yours be done. Jesus again showing us on display his human nature and his human nature. Recognizing this, that God’s will is far more important than his own will. That he doesn’t want to take on sin. He doesn’t want to drink of the cup of God’s wrath. It’s only logical that it would be far better for him to not do that. Yet in the spiritual realm, in the divine, that he sees that this is the only path. What I think is also unique about this. Just a quick side note, but I just find this so curious in Matthew and in Mark it tells us which disciples are closest Peter, James and John. The last time that Peter, James, and John were near a mountain where Jesus was praying was the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus was seen in all his divinity. And now here near the Mount of Olives, Peter, James, and John 30 yards away, Jesus now in all of his divinity, like on the Mount of Transfiguration, but all of his humanity. 

No more human than here in this place where he is asking for this to be removed, but still being willing to take it upon himself. And in this we recognize this, that we need to learn from this and understand how we have to trust God with our needs so we can come to him expecting that we can name the need, but then we actually need to trust it and hand it over to him and trust that whatever the outcome may be, that he is still good and he is still God. A good number of times now, as I’ve had the privilege of going and visiting our members when they’re sick, when there’s an unexpected heart attack, when there’s an unexpected expected stroke, when there’s an accident, whatever it may be. I am so encouraged by our membership because what they’ll say to me more times than not when I go and visit them and I’m looking to share a word with them, I’m looking to encourage them. I’m looking to pray for them and what they tell me has been so good. Either way, I’m going home. Either the doctors and nurses figure this thing out. 

Either the thing heals. Either this is all solved and I get to go step back into my house and see my family and hug them again. And I get to be here. Am I going to be home or. The thing that we dread, the doctors and nurses, they don’t figure it out. Things don’t work. The medication doesn’t work, things don’t heal. But what so many of my members have told me is that this is still good because they get to go home. And this might be an extreme example, but why is it any different for any of us that when we go to God with our need, whatever it may be? But all too often I think, I mean, we’re going to him, but we’re really want him to answer in the way that we wanted answered. And we’re not willing to sometimes accept the answer that there might be a no, there might be a no to our request or. And that we can trust that God is still good and he’s still sovereign, even if he doesn’t answer in the way that we want. But it doesn’t stop us from praying, though in Hebrews five seven it actually talks about this moment when Jesus is praying during the days of Jesus’s life on earth. 

He offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save and to his father from death. And he was heard because of his reverent submission. Again we see this thing. He’s submitting his will to him. He’s praying to God, and he’s crying out. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with falling to your knees and crying out to God because he can handle it. He can handle us, not understanding. He can handle our lack of trust, but he wants us to still come to him, just as we see in Jesus that Jesus is going to cry and he’s going to sweat, and he’s going to lift up his voice to God, but ultimately he is going to submit to him. We can do likewise. We don’t need just pray soft, safe prayers. We can pray angry prayers. We can pray sad prayers. We can. We can really let God have it, but ultimately come back to the place of recognizing that he is the one. He’s not only the one that can save Jesus from the grave, but he’s the one who saved you as well. And again, here we see Christ’s humanity on display in these two verses that follow, then appear to an angel from heaven, strengthening him and being in agony. 

This word agony in the Greek. This is the only time in all of Scripture that this word agony is used that can mean to wrestle with, but it also means this emotional, spiritual, physical struggle that Jesus is going through here in this moment. And he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. I don’t know if I can ever think of a time that I sweat from praying, but here he is calling out. He’s wrestling. He is struggling in prayer. Again, this is showing us just how much strife Christ was going through in these moments leading up to his passion, his betrayal, his crucifixion, and his death. And in this, I think we need to find encouragement. Because he felt agony, he felt emotional strain. He felt physical strain. He felt spiritual strain. And how many of us are any different? But you have a God who has struggled in the same ways that you struggle. He’s wrestled in prayer with his father in the same way that you may wrestle in prayer. Yet through all the wrestling, he was still faithful. 

And while Jesus is going through all this while, while he is in turmoil. He rises and he goes to his disciples, who again are just a stone’s throw away. He came to them and he found them sleeping. He said, then why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter temptation. Is too much for them. It was almost too much for Christ. It was just too much for them. They couldn’t handle it. They couldn’t stay awake an hour. And the other text in Matthew and Mark, they show us that it wasn’t just one time that Jesus found them sleeping. Not two times with three times. And Jesus was the one that told them, don’t fall into temptation. Which then reasons this question. Then why? Why did he tell them to pray at all? I mean, if they’re too weak to pray, then well then why are they praying? And I think for us today that we do that same thing. Well, if it’s that if God’s is going to do whatever he wants anyway, then why don’t we pray? Or why wouldn’t he answer my prayers? Because if you answer my prayers, then this question is underneath it. 

Why doesn’t God just want me to be happy? He’s powerful right? He’s loving right? So why doesn’t he want me to be healthy? Why does he want to fix the relationships of my family? Why does he want things to be easier for us? Isn’t that what he ultimately came for? Doesn’t he want me to be happy? But if we just for a moment, just back up, just just a second, what we see on display here, when we think those thoughts. Because I don’t think I’m alone in that. Doesn’t God just want it to work out? Is here the second person of the Trinity by through and two all things have been created is on his knees in a garden and in human flesh, crying out to his father, father, will you let this cup pass from me? And God’s answer to the son was. No. Then why do we believe that when we come to God with the things that we think are big, but in the grand scheme of things are far more minuscule than what Christ was facing here in these moments, if God the Father is willing to say no to his own son, and that his son is willing to submit to the will of his father and take on the wrath of God, then why do we for a second believe that God doesn’t have the right to say no to your prayer request? 

Because there are times here in this world where he will say no, and where the the family never doesn’t get better, where the job is lost, where the house is sold, where you have to move, where you have to face whatever is before you. And the answer, even though you may pray fervently, you may pray in tears just as Christ did. You may sweat in your prayer, and he still might come back to you. And he might still say, no. You have to recognize that underneath that prayer, that there’s so much blessing in just the fact you can come forward to him. And Hebrews chapter four, it says this we have one who is Jesus, who has been tempted in every way. Here in the garden we see it tempted by Satan himself in every way, just as we are. Yet he did not sin. And because of that, because he was tempted and he did not break, he did not sin. And he went to that cross that we deserve. Now let us approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we might receive everything we want. And he’ll answer every prayer as long as we lift it up in faith. So we may receive mercy and grace in our time of need is what it says. 

That when your time of need comes and again, first point, expect it. The time of need is coming if it’s not already here. And I imagine for some that are listening this morning, you’re in the middle of a time of need and you might not have the answer. You might get this thing that feels like a resounding no from your Heavenly Father. But understand this while he might say no to the situation, he doesn’t say no to yourselves that he’s giving you abundantly more than you could ever ask, think, or imagine because he’s giving you mercy. He poured out the cup of his wrath solely upon his son. So you don’t have to. You get mercy. You don’t get what you deserve when it comes to sin, and at the same time, you also gives you grace on top of that, that now not only are you not punished for your sin, but you’re given the gift of the Holy Spirit. You’re given the forgiveness of your sins. You’re now called his child, and now you have the hope of heaven. And so that while it might sound like no right now. The relationships aren’t mended. The illness continues to plague. Cancer rages the body. We have a God who we go. 

Where are you? Why aren’t you answering this? That his answer to us, for all the promises throughout Scripture are yes and Amen in Jesus Christ, that he’s answered those greatest needs and that any eternity in heaven, when we see him face to face, there is no more sickness, there is no more pain, there is no more suffering. And so here and now, it sounds like a no. And we experience, in a very real way is a know may very well be a yes, but not yet. Yes. I want them to be well, too, and they will be in heaven. Yes, I want those relationships demanded be mended, and they will be in heaven. Yes, I want to answer the desires of your heart, provided they align with my will. But the world is still plagued with sin. So we need to trust in God, not just model our prayer life after him in the way that he’s prayed, but trust that he went to this moment, that he prayed, this prayer that he wrestled here in this moment, and the reason that he wrestled, the reason that he sweat, the reason that he cried and called out to his father was because of you.

That in that garden and on that cross that you were on his mind, that the pain and suffering that you were going to face here in this world was on his mind, that the sin that you continue to fall in again and again was on his mind. Yet he said it was still worth it for you. So let us recognize that that in Jesus Christ, through his death, his resurrection, that our prayers have been in fact answered. And now we can, like it says in Hebrews, we can go to him with confidence. We can go to him knowing that he is good, he is merciful. And if we even don’t see the answers we want now, we know that we eventually will see them as we see him. Amen.