What Does Prayer Really Do?
Luke 22:39-46
39
And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and
his disciples also followed him.
40
And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not
into temptation.
41
And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled
down, and prayed,
42
Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless
not my will, but thine, be done.
43
And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
44
And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it
were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
45
And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he
found them sleeping for sorrow,
46
And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into
temptation.
INTRODUCTION
• 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."
o How many of you think that boy’s prayers will change the
Capital of France to Tokyo?
 Not going to happen is it?
• Now I’m going to say something next that I find very uncomfortable,
and hear me out…
o 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.
o I BELIEVE THAT…
o I’VE SEEN THAT…
o 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.
o I mean, God can do whatever He wants to do, and He can
change whatever He desires to change.
o 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.
• And so as I was thinking about the needs of the church and the prayer
that needs to be prayed I thought about the possibility that our prayer
MAY NOT change the situation but sometimes the prayer will change
ME!
• And so I found myself asking the following three questions…
o 1. What happens when God doesn’t answer my prayers the way
I want them answered?
o 2. What do I do when God says no?
o 3. What good does it do for me to pray if I’m pretty sure those
prayers may not change my circumstances all that much?
I.
Here (in Luke 22) we have Jesus praying for God to take a “cup”
from Him
• What does that mean?
o What is this cup?
o I always thought I knew the answer to that question.
• But as we look back into the Old Testament we find that this image of
the cup was not a new idea at all.
o Isaiah 51:17 says “Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, you
who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his
wrath, you who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes
men stagger.”
o Jeremiah 25:15-16 says much the same thing: when it
declares, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to
me: Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my
wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink
it…”
o The “cup,” Jesus asked be spared of was the cup… of God’s
wrath.
 The reason Jesus came to earth…
 The reason He took on the form of a man…
 The reason He had preached and taught and healed the
crowds for 3 years…
 Was to come to this very point of His existence.
• Jesus came to die for us.
• He came to be our substitute.
• He came to pay the price for our sins. (pause…)
 Jesus came to drink the cup of God’s wrath so we would
not have to taste it for ourselves.
• That’s why He was born.
• That’s why He came.
• And That’s why He died on the cross.
o And now, just hours before the deed is about to be done, Jesus
prays "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me..."
Luke 22:42a
• The Gospel of Matthew also tells us about this Garden prayer, but
Matthew goes into greater detail, telling us that Jesus didn’t just pray
this prayer once…
o He prayed 3 separate times saying pretty much the same thing
every time: “Father, take this cup from me.” (pause…)
• Did Jesus think His prayer would change His destiny?
o Did Jesus believe that there was some other way to get the job
done?
 I don’t think so…
• So why pray the prayer?
o If Jesus knew His request would be denied why did He pray.
o If Jesus knew His prayer wasn’t going change His destiny on
the cross…Why pray the prayer??? (pause…)
• Because prayer isn’t ALWAYS about changing our circumstances
and fixing our problems.
o Sometimes prayer is about laying hold of God…
 Laying hold of His strength.
 Laying hold of His comfort.
 Laying hold of His Will in our lives.
II.
Too often people see prayer as if it were a magic incantation
• If say the right words, in the right way, at the right time –
o Abracadabra, presto chango, everything becomes better.
• A couple of years ago, Isaac Bruce, a receiver for the St. Louis Rams,
was talking to Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly about his
game-winning catch in Super Bowl XXXIV.
• Speaking about that catch, Bruce said, "That was all God. I knew I
had to make an adjustment on the ball, and God did the rest."
• Something about that answer troubled Reilly and he went on to ask
Bruce about a recent car accident he’d had.
• Bruce’s vehicle had flipped several times, but he walked away
unscathed because, as he claimed, he invoked Jesus’ name during the
tumble.
• Reilly then asked Bruce if another professed Christian - golfer Payne
Stewart - would have survived his plane crash had he done the same
thing.
• Bruce replied, "Oh, definitely."
• Reilly then asked him about another professed Christian athlete,
Kansas City linebacker Derrick Thomas, who would (soon after) die
from injuries sustained in a wreck, and about the Columbine High
student who was shot after affirming her belief in God to the person
who kill her.
• Like a prosecuting attorney, Reilly probed and questioned until he had
exposed the shallowness of Bruce’s understanding of prayer.
• A commentator at the American Family Association web site
observed: ”… for Bruce to assume that yelling "Jesus!" was a surefire
way for everyone to avoid tragedy was simply bad theology….
• Athletes, like many infant Christians, believe God to be a cosmic
convenience store where all the good things in life are readily
available.”
• Rick Reilly repeatedly faced Isaac Bruce with the obvious foolishness
of the theology of viewing prayer as if it were a magic talisman… an
incantation that would ward off evil.
III.
So why pray?
• If I can’t always get what I want when I pray...
o If I can’t always avoid danger or pain or sorrow or death…
o Why pray?
• Well, the easiest answer is that sometimes prayer indeed does change
our circumstances.
o I’ve seen times when prayer has brought healing…
o I’ve seen times when prayer has brought people back from the
brink of death…
o I’ve seen times when prayer has defied the belief that
NOTHING will change…
• BUT I’ve also seen – and I’ve experienced – times when prayer has a
different kind of purpose.
o A purpose that stands strong in the face of circumstances that
MAY NOT change.
• This “purpose” of prayer is best summed up by the following poem I
once read:
o “Sometimes God stills the storms of the sea, At other times, He
stills the storms within me.”
• That night in the Garden, Jesus felt a need for that kind of calmness.
• WHEN Luke 22:41 said Jesus, “withdrew about a stone’s throw
beyond them, knelt down and prayed” the Greek word for
“withdrew” was in the “passive voice”.
o It literally says that He “was withdrawn”.
o It was as if Jesus were drawn… physically pulled down on his
knees to pray.
 He HAD to talk to His Father.
• The Flesh had to talk to the Spirit.
• Sometimes our Carnality, our Flesh, needs to talk
to the Spiritual…
 He HAD to share the anxiety of what was being laid
upon Him.
o Luke 22:44 tells us Jesus was “in anguish, he prayed more
earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the
ground.”
• One wise preacher observed: “Where was it that Jesus’ sweat was like
great drops of blood?
o It wasn’t in Pilate’s hall.
o And it wasn’t on his way to Golgotha.
o It was in the Garden of Gethsemane.
o There He "offered up prayers and supplications, with
vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him
from death" (Heb. 5:7).
• If we had witnessed His struggle that night, we might have said, "If
He is so broken up when all He is doing is praying, what will He do
when He faces real crisis?
o Why can’t He approach this ordeal with the calmness and
confidence of His 3 sleeping friends?"
• And yet when the time for the test finally came, Jesus walked to the
cross with the courage, and His 3 friends fell apart and ran away.”
o What made the difference?
 It was that time of prayer.
 It was that time of prayer that gave Jesus His strength…
 It was that time of prayer that gave Jesus His courage…
 It was that time of prayer that gave Jesus His power to
face the pain, the humiliation and the horrors of the
cross…
• That’s the kind of prayer that we need to learn how
to pray.
• It’s a type of prayer that can give us ability to face
the hard tests of life.
• There is a key element to prayer that can help give us the strength and
courage we need in the difficult times of our lives.
• The element of Jesus prayer was His honesty.
o When Jesus prayed in the Garden He was brutally honest.
o There were no religious platitudes, no sugar coating what He
knew was about to occur.
o Jesus prayed: "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from
me..." Luke 22:42
 He knew what was about to happen…
 He knew what had to be done…
 But He still prayed three separate times essentially
saying: “I don’t know if I really want to do this.”
• There are people who believe that somehow they’ll offend God by
being too honest with Him, by telling Him their fears and their
disappointments.
o They’re afraid to be open with God about their questions and
fears.
 I mean, life has already turned against them.
 The last thing they need is for God to turn His back on
them.
• You need to know that only God is big enough to bear the pain we
may be feeling.
o But also understand that simply being honest with God is not
enough.
o Honestly by itself can be dangerous.
o Honesty – by itself - can destroy the power that we really want
to have in prayer.
 Why? Because honesty, left to itself, used all by itself,
can become an expression of hidden bitterness and
anger.
• In order to be useful as a prayer tool that give us God’s strength this
honesty must be coupled with the second half of Jesus’ prayer:
"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; YET NOT MY
WILL, BUT YOURS BE DONE." Luke 22:42
• Jesus’ prayer was a prayer that “PRESSED INTO” the Heavenlies.
o His prayer had power to give Him strength because it hinged on
accepting God’s Will.
• The prayer that can transform our times of weakness into times of
strength are the ones that are less concerned with moving God to
our will…as they are in moving us toward God.
• “I have watched the deck hands on some of the lasrgest ships in the
world as they come to dock at the pier.
o First they threw out a rope to the men on the dock.
o Then, inside the boat the great motors go to work and pull on
the great cable.
o But, oddly enough, the pier wasn’t pulled out to the ship; but
the ship was pulled snugly up to the pier.
o Prayer is the rope that pulls God and us together.
o But it doesn’t pull God down to us; it pulls us to God.
o We must learn to say with Christ, the master of the art of
praying: ‘Not my will; but Thine be done.’”
Illustration of the High Priest
CLOSING
• We need to realize that Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane was not a prayer
of hopelessness and defeat.
o It was a prayer of surrender to God’s Will.
o And in that surrender, Jesus found the strength to overcome.
• It was when Jesus prayed that prayer that He was comforted.
• It is when we pray that the Heavenly Father comes and comforts us.
• Luke 22:43 tells us: “An angel from heaven appeared to him and
strengthened him.”
o It’s that kind of supernatural strength from God that I want in
my life.
o But first we must be willing to pray the way Jesus did.
• A Sunday school teacher once asked her group of children if any of
them could quote the ENTIRE 23rd Psalm. A little four-and-a-halfyear-old girl raised her hand. But the teacher was a bit skeptical that
this child could really quote the entire psalm. But she told her to go
ahead and try: The little girl hesitated a moment and then said: "The
Lord is my shepherd, that’s all I want.