Not My Will, But Yours Be Done

I've often found as we're working through the book of Luke, especially toward the end, that it's very heavy because it's a difficult thing that's going on. When you're studying in the life of Jesus and you're seeing the miracles and you're hearing his teaching and stuff, you can get excited and it's invigorating to see what he's doing and to see the power and the authority that he teaches with and that he heals with. But as you come to the end of the story, it's almost as if it casts a shadow over everything that's come before because you know what's coming at the end. There's a deep valley, a dark valley that he goes through. And so even when you're studying earlier on in the book where you see Jesus doing all these amazing things, there's a sobriety to it because you know what's coming. Well, now we've moved past those times and we've moved into this humbling time, this dark time for Jesus.

We've been studying his conversation with his disciples in the upper room when they celebrated the Passover, when they ate the Last Supper. And in that time, he tells Judas that he's going to betray him. He tells him to go and do it quickly. And we look at it and we go, what a terrible thing. How could Judas do that? And then we see in our own hearts, I do understand how he could do that. Woe is me. And you hear Jesus comfort his other disciples and teach them and work to prepare them. for what's coming. And this morning, we're going to be studying the very last thing that Jesus did before he was arrested. It goes very quickly from here on through the rest of the gospel, just a couple of days of time elapses. Jesus is arrested at night. He's put to death in the morning. It goes very quickly. And so our text this morning is the very last thing that Jesus did before he was arrested, after he'd eaten the Passover with his disciples.

And so what we're studying this morning is Jesus going into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. What did Jesus pray? What was going through his mind? What was he dealing with as he faced his imminent arrest and murder? That's what we're going to be studying this morning. There are a lot of things we could pay attention to in this passage. A number of times the disciples are mentioned. Jesus tells them repeatedly not to fall asleep, but to stay on the alert and to keep watch. And if you've read the passage, you know that they fall asleep a number of times. And Jesus comes back to them and wakes them up and wakes them up and wakes them up until Judas comes with the crowd. And yet what I want to spend our time this morning focused on is the content of Jesus' prayer. What he says to his father as he's preparing to be put to death. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from Luke chapter 22.

verses 39 through 46. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. And he came out and proceeded as was his custom to the Mount of Olives. And the disciples also followed him. When he arrived at the place, he said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw. And he knelt down and he began to pray, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done. Now an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. And being in agony, he was praying very fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground. When he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow. And he said to them, Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated now.

There are two main points that I want us to consider this morning, and they both have to do with this prayer. One is general, and then we'll move into what's specific, okay? Remember that Jesus, as I've already said, had just finished eating the Passover. He's left the upper room, which he observed just outside of Jerusalem, and he goes on a walk. And he walks to the Garden of Gethsemane, probably somewhere less than an hour away. So not next door, but not a long walk. And this is the place, you know, with Jesus knowing all things, he knows this is the place that I'm going to be betrayed. This is the place where they're going to come and get me. And he's willingly going to it. You know, you would think if you were writing this story, when Jesus tells Judas, go and do it quickly, you know that Judas leaves during the supper and goes to them and says, I know where he's going to be later tonight. He's going to be in that garden. He's going to be praying. That's where we can go get him. There won't be any crowds. He'll be alone.

And so the first point I want us to see this morning is that prayer, which is what Jesus was in the custom of doing, is what our text tells us. He came out of the house and he proceeded as was his custom to the Mount of Olives. Jesus had a habit of going to pray, especially with him bringing his burdens before the Lord. And don't know that this is our first response. This is not a natural inclination. This is something that we have to learn as God's people. That when we have burdens, we would bring them to the Lord and we'd submit them to him.

And so it was Jesus' custom to go and to pray. Now, what is prayer? This is a question we have to consider. What is prayer? What is Jesus doing? It says that he's going to go, he's going to pray. So what's he doing? Prayer is simply taking time to talk to God about what's on your heart and your mind, bringing your burdens before him. Now, here's the thing about that. If you're like me, when I say prayer is a time for you to bring your burdens and your cares before God, that creates pressure in you. There's a way you're supposed to do that. Now, we may all feel that pressure a little differently. How am I supposed to pray? This is the story in the background. What's it look like to bring my prayers and my requests before God? And I want to come to answering that question because we're going to look and see how Jesus did it. But first, I want you to see that that is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to bring your cares and your burdens and the things that are troublesome to you before the Lord in prayer.

You're not to bear them alone. You can't bear them alone. Jesus is about to be put to death, and his response is to go to the Lord, to his Father, and tell him what's going on. And did you catch the sweet thing that happened when he went and prayed? Look at the text. What's the sweet thing that happened? In verse 43, an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And I want you to see that the reason he went to pray was because he needed strength. He was weak. You remember when he ate the Lord's Supper, he says, I've earnestly desired to eat this meal with you. And when we studied that text, we understood that the reason he was eager to eat that meal with them is because he wanted to be encouraged and strengthened by those that he loved the most as he was leaving the earth. He wanted to be with his brothers. He didn't want to suffer alone. And I said to you guys, do any of you really want to suffer alone? And some of us were like, well, maybe. And I said, but what fools are we that we would want to suffer alone?

And so Jesus now, even though he's gone out, he's gone to pray, the disciples have followed him, and he's stopped them at a distance and given them instruction and then gone on a little further. He's still not alone. As he prays, the Lord sends an angel from heaven to strengthen him, to encourage him in this time of weakness. Prayer is considered, or we should think of it as what's called a means of grace, okay? And some of you may be familiar with that phrase, means of grace, and some of you may not. But I'd like to explain to you what it means. A means is simply a way, a way to do something. And so there are a number of ways God communicates his grace to us. And one of them is prayer. Another one would be reading his word. Another one would be coming to church, singing, worshiping, fellowshipping with his people.

These are all means of grace. These are ways that God communicates to us his mercy and his kindness to us. And so prayer is a means of grace. And that means that God is obliged to meet with us through prayer and to strengthen us. That when we pray, we're not just talking to the space or we're not just thinking thoughts in our mind, but we're actually speaking to our Father in heaven who hears and is concerned with the things that are going on in our lives and is concerned in such a way as to not turn away and be like, well, you'll just have to deal with that on your own.

Even here, his son, his perfect son, he sends an angel to encourage him, to strengthen him in his hour of weakness. And so prayer is what we must do as Christians when we're weighed down with heavy burdens. We must make time for prayer. We must give ourselves to it. Another way of saying this, I can say you need to make time to pray, and you're like, yeah, I've heard that before a bunch of times. But let me say it to you this way. You need to make time to process the things you're worried about. And you go, oh, well, I don't really like to think about that stuff. I don't really like to talk about that stuff. And I say, yeah, I understand. I get it. But that's what prayer is. When something difficult is going on in your life, you need to make time to process it with the Lord. Not simply to ignore it. Not simply to make excuse about why you don't have time. Not to busy yourself with a hundred other things. Prayer, when you're in the midst of a trial, is something you have to make time for. And what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to pour out your heart then before God, here's what's up.

Here's what's going on. And to the extent that we don't want to acknowledge our burdens, how are you doing? I'm fine. You sure you don't look fine? No, I'm just tired. Long week at work. How often is that just, are we just lying? How many of us are judging whether the person we're talking to actually wants to know? We're aware of our burdens. We're aware they're hard. We know they're there, and we're trying to decide whether or not we want to talk about it. And we put the burden on the other person. You've got to prove to me that you want to hear what I've got going on. Otherwise, I just don't want to tell you. And if we do that with one another, we should not be fooled into thinking we don't do that same thing with the Lord. Prove to me that you want to hear. What a foolish thing for us to do. To think that the Lord who made heaven and earth and who sent his son to save this world doesn't want to hear what his children are dealing with in this world full of sin. And yet too easily, we give in to these thoughts. And the result is we don't pray.

We don't bring our burdens before the Lord. And yet Jesus is our example here. He's about to be arrested. He's about to be put to death. And he continues on with his custom. Now, we may think, well, yeah, when I've got time, I pray or I normally pray. But when things get really hard, you know, I don't know. I don't have time. Jesus knew exactly what was coming. He knew what his next 12 hours were going to look like. And he did, as was his custom, he went and prayed. And he actually prayed about what was about to happen. And so Jesus is our example.

He took time to retire, to pray, to go away, and to speak with his God. Consider for a moment that this was Jesus' custom. What do you think Jesus prayed about regularly? We can see from this passage, Jesus has a prayer life. He has a regular prayer life. He's regularly bringing himself and his petitions before God. What did he pray about? Well, we know in our passage, we'll get to, he prays about what's coming up for him, but he also prays that his father's will would be done. You remember when the disciples asked him, Lord, teach us to pray. He says, okay, pray like this. Our Father who art in heaven. And he tells them how to pray. And he's telling us, in large part, how he prays, what he prays for. And we could go through the Lord's prayer, and we could take each one of his petitions, each one of his requests before God, and we could open them up and say, these are the things we ought to be praying for. Suffice it to say now that he came to earth to do his Father's will. And I'm absolutely convinced that he prayed daily, that his Father's will would be done on earth as it was in heaven. I'm also convinced that he prayed for his disciples.

You remember when we studied Peter's temptation? And what did he say to Peter? When he says, Peter, you're going to enter into temptation. You're going to deny me three times. But Peter, I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail. Then afterwards, you turn and you strengthen your brothers. And so we see that Jesus prays for his disciples. Scripture also tells us that he sits now at the throne of his father, interceding for us, talking to his father on our behalf, in our stead. bringing our requests and our burdens and our cares, the things that are sometimes too deep and too heavy for us to even put words to, that he brings those requests and those concerns before his Father and intercedes for us. Jesus knew what was going to happen to his disciples. He was warning them about how it was going to become difficult. You remember last week where he had told them, I told you to go out before, and I told you don't take any resources with you, but now you need to take your resources and a sword too, because it's going to get tough.

These are all the things that Jesus prayed for. We could continue to list things that we know that Jesus prayed for. But I want to turn our attention now to the content of our text's prayer. Jesus prayed to have his imminent death removed. He prays, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done. I want to take this prayer and I want to divide it up into two parts. We'll study the first and we'll study the second. So the first part is, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me. And I want us to consider for a minute, what is Jesus requesting here? What is this cup? What does he want removed from him? When he speaks of this cup, I want you to think of medicine. Okay? Taking your medicine. All right? If someone in the house is sick and they've got to drink their medicine, it's their medicine. It's nobody else's medicine. And oftentimes they don't want to drink their medicine, but it's theirs. No one else can have it.

No one else can drink it for them. They're the ones who need to take care of it. And so Jesus has a cup, and it's his cup. It's nobody else's cup. And we know that nobody else can do what Jesus is about to do. No one else can die to save the world. Plenty of men could die. Any man can die. Every man will die. But only one can die to save the world. No one else can drink Jesus' cup, his cup of suffering. But his suffering and his death are only the start of the description of his cup. I want you to consider this question for a minute. Was Jesus asking not to die? Was that his request to his father? Please don't kill me. Don't allow these wicked men to kill me. Is that what he's asking to be removed? And we think, well, kind of, sort of. And it kind of depends on what you lump together with his death, right? But just consider him dying.

and nothing else along with it. What did death mean for Jesus? What did it represent? What death represented for Jesus was his reunification with his Father in heaven. Jesus wasn't going to go to hell. Death was his passage back to heaven to be with his Father, to take up his glory and to resume his spot at his Father's throne. That's what death was for him. And so it couldn't be that Jesus was asking simply for death to be removed from him. Think of it this way. When you have a family member who's sick and in the hospital and you're afraid that they're going to die and you're praying for them, do you only pray that they don't die? I just pray that Bobby doesn't die. No, you pray that Bobby doesn't die and you pray that Bobby gets better and you pray that Bobby gets back to what he was supposed to do and that he's able to continue to live, that he's healed. That's what you pray for. Jesus wasn't afraid to die. If you've ever watched someone finish their life,

sometimes you see them finish well. And sometimes they don't finish well, meaning that they struggle as they die. And it's a very painful thing to watch. But Jesus was not afraid of death. Death for him meant that he was going to be back with his father. And actually, that's the same for us. Paul writes in Philippians chapter 1, he says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I'm to go on living in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me, and I do not know which to choose. And what does he not know what to choose between? Life and death. I don't know which to prefer. That's the thrust of what Paul is saying here. I have a choice. If you ask me, do I prefer to live here on this earth, or do I prefer to die and go be with Jesus, I don't know which to choose.

He continues on, but I am hard pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, which we have to understand is a desire to die. Not because he loves death or is obsessed with it, but because he understands what death is. Death is the end of his struggle, the end of his burden, the end of his toil, and the beginning of his eternal joy and rest. I have desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better. yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. And so when you process what does Scripture teach about death, it teaches a number of things. It teaches that it's an enemy, that it's the final enemy, that it's the wages of sin, that it's the culmination and confirmation of the fact that every one of us has sinned and is going to die as a result. But for the Christian, death is an end to that struggle and that difficulty.

And it's the beginning of their joy and their rest and their receiving of the promises that have been made to them through Jesus. And so it's not something that we ought to speak lightly of or frivolously about, but it's also not something that we ought to dread. And this is not what Jesus would have been asking to have removed from him. There's more to it. Hebrews 9.27 says, It is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment. And so we understand that death doesn't, you know, when we die, we don't simply disappear. We don't simply become nothing. But that there will be a judgment. And that all will stand before God in judgment. And in that judgment, some will be welcomed into the joy of their master, having loved Jesus and served him. And others will be condemned to hell, to the second death. So death doesn't travel alone. It comes with the judgment of God.

Now consider yourself for a moment and think, do you want to stand before God, before his judgment seat and give an account for your sins? And you say, if you're a Christian, you say, apart from Jesus Christ, I have no hope and I don't want to stand before God in judgment. I don't want to see his wrath unleashed against sin. No way. But as a Christian, you have hope that when you stand before God in judgment, he'll look on his son Jesus and not you. What did Jesus have to look forward to when he went to die? What he was heading towards was the judgment that you and I and every person who will be in heaven, every one of their sins, that's what he was going to stand before his Father and take. Jesus, this perfect, spotless Lamb of God, came to take away the sins of the world. And the way that he did that was by taking the penalty and the wrath and the...

full-on justice of God on himself when he died so that you and I might be able to live and not endure that for ourselves. And so when Jesus says, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, it's not death that he's asking to be removed. It's him looking square in the face of the judgment of his father coming to him for our salvation. And he says, if there's any other way, if there's any other way. And in one sense, you listen to it and you're like, I understand that. I don't even want to face God myself. And here he is facing God for the sins of the whole world. And you understand the request. It makes sense in your bones that you would say something like that. But then right on the heels of that, you go, but why would he request that? Isn't this what he came for? What are the implications if God says yes? What if his father had granted that desire?

where would we be? We would have no hope in this world. When Jesus makes this request, does he desire our destruction? Is that what he wants? And we all say no, and I say, but he asked. How do you reconcile that? I want to fix in your minds that from the time that Adam and Eve sinned and God met with them in the garden and cursed them, it has always been God's way and his plan to save his people from their sins by sending his son into this world to die in their place. That has always been his plan. And so when Jesus makes this request, he's not asking for a change of plan. He's not saying, I think we made a mistake, Dad. It's going to be too much. You and I live our lives often not knowing the full weight or consequence of the choices that we make. But this is not true with God. This is not true with Jesus. He knows exactly. At the time that they were speaking to Adam and Eve, he knew what was coming for him. He knew what his place would be.

And yet now the time has come. And when Jesus came to earth, he laid aside his glory, and he was made in the likeness of man. He was made like you and like me. And he understands what's about to happen to him. And if there is any way for it to be avoided, he asks his Father to do it, knowing that there is no other way. You remember at the beginning I said when we have burdens, our place is to come and to pray. not to hold our burdens to ourselves, but to bring them before the throne of God and to ask for his mercy and to ask for his help. And I said to you that when I mentioned that, my concern was that you would have in your minds this conception of what that looks like and that what it looks like is that it's polished and it's controlled and it's moderate and it's theologically correct and all of that. Consider Jesus' prayer. Polished? Moderate? Even keeled?

If you do great and if you don't, that's all right too. I'll be okay. No, our passage describes him as praying very fervently, praying to the point that sweat was pouring off of him like drops of blood. Was he indifferent about this request? No. He had a really, really intense desire, a real difficulty and a real temptation that he was bringing to his father, and yet not sinful. And so I want you to see when you're in the midst of whatever... troubles are going on in your life, and you say, enough, enough, I can't take anymore, enough, that you can pray in that frame of mind, and you ought to. Understanding that Jesus is perfect, and that he didn't sin in the way he prayed, and that you may, but what good is it for you to take your actual burdens, your actual trials, your actual worries and fears, and suppress them? Does this produce holiness in you? Does this increase your faith? Does this help you through the season of difficulty?

Is God glorified when we do these things? And to all of these things, the answer is a resounding no. God's not glorified when you withdraw and recoil from him when you face burdens in your own life. He's glorified when you submit them just as they are to him by faith. And then at the end of it, you say what Jesus said. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. We live too often as though if we're going to submit ourselves to God's will, we actually can't have... a real desire of our own. I don't want to get my hopes up about this because if that's not God's will, I don't want to be disappointed. And I go, what a miserable way to live. That's awful. It really is awful to live that way. Because all you're doing is, you've got a champagne bottle and you're just holding that cork on and just shaking it up, and at some point it's going to pop. It's just going to. You're not as strong as you think you are. You're not as smart as you think you are. You don't have the endurance that you think you do.

You're weak and you're feeble. And if Jesus can go to his father and can say, if there's any other way with sweat pouring off of him like blood, then you ought to as well. You ought to bring a request before God with the full intensity that you're feeling. What if I sin when I do it? And I say, oh, well, will you not sin if you don't? Can we just admit that we're sinners and Jesus isn't and that he sets an example here for us as sinners, even though he's perfect about us. And the condition that we're in when we ought to bring things before his father and ours. You're to pray in the midst of your struggles. You're not to recoil and withdraw. I don't know what to say. And I say, that's okay. Scripture said that you wouldn't know what to say. The question is, will you bring those cares and those concerns before the Lord? Or will you bear them yourself because you don't trust him to deal with them? Do you think that he lacks power or interest to minister to you in your time of need? Satan would have you believe that that's the case. But Jesus would have you believe otherwise.

Prayer is making our requests known to God, such as they are at the time that we feel them. If you wait till you get all cleaned up, you'll never pray. You'll never pray. You'll bear all your burdens alone, and you'll isolate yourself not only from God, but also from his people. Pray like you are right now, and trust God to meet you in it and to work with you through it, to comfort you as he did his son. The sweet part of Jesus' prayer is the second part. The first part's honest. The second part is sweet. And it's sweet because he submits his will, which he holds very dearly. It's not like, yeah, well, if you can, that'd be great. If not, it's okay too. I got another plan. He submits his life to the will of his Father. Not my will, but your will be done. And that teaches us something further about prayer. Prayer is not simply a way for you to communicate your demands to God. That is not prayer.

Prayer is not you demanding that God do what you think he ought to do. Prayer is not a negotiation between you and God. I'll do this if you do that. Give me this and I'll consider this other thing. Prayer is not a veiled threat or a passive-aggressive assertion that believes that you know what's best for you. You don't. And that's the difficulty of being a man or of not being God. We often don't know what's best for us. And how often do we know what's best for us and choose to do something else anyway? I mean, it really is quite astounding. I know what's best for me. Okay, did you do it? Well, no. Okay, well, then shut up. I mean, it's kind of what I want to say. It's like, okay, well, just humble yourself then. Just acknowledge that you, even the stuff you do know that's right, you don't do it. Not like you know you should. So why not submit your desires to the Lord of heaven and earth and trust him to work it out the way that he sees best?

in his time, with his outcome, not your outcome. When we pray, we can't trust our own hearts. We can acknowledge them. We can acknowledge what's going on inside of them, and indeed we should. We should tell God just exactly what we're feeling and what's going on. And after we've said our whole piece, we submit it to the Lord for his work, to do with it what he will, and we rest. If there was ever anyone who could have petitioned God, the Father, to reconsider. Or if there was ever anyone who had a case to make about why what was going on was unjust, it was Jesus. Here he was about to die for the sins of the world, not his own sins. And he lays down for us a strong example of what our prayer life ought to be like and the boundaries that our prayer life ought to observe.

Not my will be done, but your will be done. You say, but what if the bad thing happens? And I say, then God will not have abandoned you in that bad thing and he will meet you. Even if you die, he will meet you on the other side and welcome you into his heaven and you'll receive your reward. It takes faith to believe this. It takes faith to pray this way. It doesn't make sense to our minds. It doesn't make sense to our flesh. You can think about this for the rest of your life and never will you come up with the conclusion that I should submit my life to God and if I die, then...

I'll have won. I'll have come out ahead. And yet this is what Scripture teaches us. That when we follow Jesus' example, when we submit our lives to the will of his Father, to his rule, to his authority, to his plan, we win. We become the victors. We receive the promises that have been made to us because Jesus came to die and to be raised again. And so I want to end by saying to you, you have to trust God the way that Jesus did with your life. Your burdens are not so big that you have reason not to trust God. And they're not so small that God doesn't care. So submit them to him by faith. Tell him what's going on and trust him to work it out for his glory and your good. You say, well, I don't know how it's going to end. And I say, you don't know how it's going to end if you were the one in charge either.

And that's what it means to be clay and not a potter. He's made you. He's given you life and breath and every good thing. He's given you his son, that you might have life in his name. You can trust him with your burdens. You can trust him to bear you through them and to see you safely to the other side. In whatever path he chooses for you, you can trust him to not abandon you or forsake you along the way. That's the hope of a Christian. When it's all stripped away, that's their hope, is that God will not leave me or forsake me, but that he who sent his son into this world to save me will see me through to his presence and will receive me with joy. Romans 8.32 says, He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Let us pray.