Transcript
Speaker: Well, hi, I'm Pat Twink and I'm so thrilled that you're listening in with me today at Root Like Faith. It is our deepest desire to encourage and equip men and women to be rooted in God's word, transformed by the love of Jesus and moved by his mission in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing is more important. Well, I am flying solo today and I can't wait for today's episode. We're going to be talking about, I think, just a really relevant
Speaker: subject. And that subject is how to pray when you find yourself in trouble. And so we're going to be looking at one example from Jesus's life as he finds himself confronted with the reality of the cross. We're going to be looking at how he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane and what we can learn from the way that he prayed when he found himself in trouble. And so let's get started.
Speaker: Well, welcome again. It's just me today. And as you know, if you listened to, I think it was the last episode, Ruth was flying solo. And so it is my turn today. And so I'm going to be talking about just how to pray when you find yourself in trouble. And so I was thinking about this recently. And, you know, as I think back to
Speaker: some of the early prayers that I prayed or some of those that I can remember. I don't know if you've ever done this. Just sort of think back to some of those first prayers that you can remember. And I remember, I don't think I've shared this before on the podcast, but I remember as a kid praying for my parents. And I would pray that God would allow me to get older, to get married, to have kids.
Speaker: before I lost either one of my parents. And so for whatever reason as a young child, I thought about that. And those were some of the earliest prayers that I can remember praying. And I can remember sort of some comical prayers as well when I was in junior high praying for a girlfriend or those kinds of things. And yet there's also some very serious prayers that I prayed. The one that I shared or just even over the last couple of years as Ruth and I have faced my diagnosis. I mean, we all find ourselves in different situations or seasons
Speaker: or a set of circumstances that we realize we can't fix. We don't have the power to change them. We don't have the wisdom to figure out whatever the mess that we're in is. We don't have the wisdom or the strength or the power to get out of that particular situation. And so we begin to pray. We begin to cry out to God. And I love that there's a great book by Paul Miller called A Praying Life. And he uses a phrase in that book
Speaker: to describe one of the aspects of prayer. And he says that prayer is just bringing our helplessness to God. And I just love that description. It's, of course, one aspect of prayer where we just again recognize that we're in trouble. We don't have the wisdom. We don't have the strength. We don't have the power to fix whatever it is that we're facing. And so we begin to cry out to God. And we'll never take prayer serious as long as we think that we can do life on our own. And so at some point we all
Speaker: Face that reality that there are things in life that that we can't fix that we can't change We can't figure out and so we begin to pray and so I want to share today just briefly How to pray when you find yourself in trouble or what should we do and I want to just share three things
Speaker: from Luke chapter 22, and it's really an example of Jesus praying when he's in trouble. He's praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knows that the cross is on the horizon. It's before him, and he goes with some of his disciples to pray in the garden, and of course they fall asleep on him, but he knows what's coming, and he's agonizing over it. He withdraws.
Speaker: from those that he's closest to, to his family, to his friends, and even his disciples to be alone with his father. And I think there's just a great picture there, maybe a great example is a better word of what it looks like to pray when we find ourselves in trouble. And so I want to just look at that passage and just highlight three things that we see in that example.
Speaker: from Jesus. But in Luke chapter 22, if you have a Bible, if not, that's OK. Let me read it for us. But Luke chapter 22, verses 39 through 46, say this. It says that Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives. And his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, pray that you will not fall into temptation.
Speaker: He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed. Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done. An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him." It's interesting that there are only two places in the Gospels.
Speaker: that tell us that an angel came and ministered to Jesus. The first reference is in Matthew 4 where Jesus has been led by the Holy Spirit out into the desert and he faces that temptation by the devil and of course is victorious. He overcomes the temptations of the devil and then Matthew tells us that an angel came and ministered to him and Luke here is saying essentially the same thing here that as Jesus is facing the cross and he's alone and he's praying that an angel comes
Speaker: and appeared to him and strengthened him. Verse 44 says, and being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly. In other words, the greater the anguish, the more intense Jesus' prayer became. And his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. And then finally, verse 46, why are you sleeping? Jesus asked them.
Speaker: Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. I mean, Luke is describing this scene for us of what it looked like for Jesus as he found himself in trouble, if you will. He found himself, again, confronted with the reality of why he came to go to the cross out of his love for us to lay down his life. I mean, nobody kills Jesus. I mean, he lays down his life for us. It's absurd for us to think that anybody could nail God to a tree. And the only reason that Jesus stays on the cross
Speaker: is because he wants to be there and out of his love for us. He suffers and he endures the mockery and the beating and the crowning of the thorns and the humiliation of having his clothes stripped from him and he does it all because he loves us and he's laid down his life for us so that by our faith and belief in him we might be forgiven, we might experience new life. And so Jesus
Speaker: is here not long before he's going to be arrested. He's in the garden with his disciples and he's praying to his father. He's found himself in a very difficult situation. And so I think this is just a great example of how we can pray when we find ourselves in trouble. And so I want to just highlight three things for us here.
Speaker: that I think are just good reminders, things that we can do when we find ourselves in a situation where we don't have the strength, we don't have the power, we don't have the wisdom to fix it. Here's the first thing that we see Jesus doing. We see him withdrawing. And so the first thing is that Jesus withdraws. I mean, Luke 22 verse 41 says that he withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them and he knelt down and he prayed. Now,
Speaker: I'm not a Greek scholar, but I can read the commentaries. One of the things that the commentators say is that this phrase, well, first of all, it only appears one other time, this idea of withdrawing. It's found in Acts 21, verse 1.
Speaker: where Paul is leaving the elders there and the church in Ephesus, and he's withdrawing from them. And the commentators say that this is actually in Greek a very forceful word. It's a very forceful phrase. It's much more accurate to say that he was ripped away from them. So you think about Paul saying goodbye to his close friends, or you think about how painful it is. You know, when you go home for the holidays, maybe you're
Speaker: You've been away for a weekend seeing some friends that have moved out of state and it comes time to say goodbye and that feeling of being torn away or that relationship, having to say goodbye, your love for them, you're being severed, if you will. That's the idea here that's being described by Paul or about Paul in Luke chapter, I'm sorry, Acts 21, verse one, where he's torn away
Speaker: from the elders and from the believers there in Ephesus. It's the word that's used here by Luke. Jesus is torn away from those that he is closest to. He's torn away from his disciples. He withdraws to be alone with his father. And so the first thing that we see Jesus doing
Speaker: when he finds himself in trouble as he withdraws, he's torn away from sort of the normal relationships that comfort him and the people that are close to him. And he's not just withdrawing from somewhere, but he's torn away in order to be with someone, namely with his father. And it's interesting to me as you read the Gospels, you just notice how often
Speaker: Jesus talks about the Father. Maybe one way of saying that is that when we look at the life of Jesus, he doesn't just go around saying prayers. He really lives a life of prayer. Prayer can be defined as communication or communion with God, and we just see this life that is rightly oriented.
Speaker: to God the Father. And He's just always living in a right relationship with His Father. He's always living in communion with His Father. And so Jesus doesn't just say prayers. He really lives a life of prayer. He lives a life of communion as the Son.
Speaker: the eternal son of the Father. He's just always in communion, but here you see Him being torn away or withdrawing to be alone with His Father. And as you read the Gospels, you notice how often Jesus talks about this communion with the Father. Let me just give you a couple examples. Jesus' first recorded sentence at age 12 is about His Father. You can read about that in Luke chapter 2, verse 49, when He says, Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?
Speaker: Father is the first word in the Lord's Prayer, right? The disciples come to him and they say, hey, how do we pray? You know, you pray different than we do. And so teach us to pray. And he says, this then is how you should pray. Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Father is the first word Jesus utters in despair in the Garden of Gethsemane, which is what we just
Speaker: Read here in Luke chapter 22 verse 40 to father if you are willing remove this cup from me and Jesus prays It's the first word on the cross, you know historically the church has taught there's been seven words that Jesus uttered from the cross and it's the first word that Jesus utters from the cross when he says father forgive them for they have no clue what they're doing father forgive them for they don't know what they're doing that's Luke 23 verse 34 and of course, it's the last verse
Speaker: of his seven words that Jesus utters on the cross when he says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, this act of surrender or entrusting his life into the love and the care of his Father. That's Luke chapter 23 verse 46. And so we see this great example
Speaker: of when we find ourselves in trouble, or as we're walking through life, just how necessary it is to be in that habit of withdrawing, of just being alone with the Father. And one of the great obstacles to prayer is that we're just so connected to other things. I mean, one of the biggest obstacles to prayer
Speaker: I think in our day and age is distractions, and we're just so connected to other things that we find it difficult to be connected to God. And so we see this great example in the life of Jesus that if we want to know how to pray when we find ourselves in trouble, or if we just want to know how to pray in general, one of the first things we need to do is withdraw. We need to be torn away or ripped away from all of the things that maybe we look to.
Speaker: to find comfort, to find strength. There's always a course of time to be in community with other people, to be in relationship with other people, but there's a kind of withdrawing that is necessary to be alone with the Father, to go to Him.
Speaker: to allow Him to love us and to speak to us and to give us His grace in a unique way. And so the first thing that we see when we find ourselves in trouble that we really need to remember is that principle of withdrawing to be alone with the Father. Now here's the second thing that I think is just really powerful. We're reminded that Jesus agonizes. He not only withdraws to be alone with the Father, but He agonizes to the Father.
Speaker: Social media, I feel like I have a love -hate relationship with social media. I'm always asking Ruth, should I share this? How many pictures of the pug is too many? I think one of the most humbling features on Facebook is that memory feature. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but it pops up every day and it shows you what post and what status.
Speaker: you posted a year ago or five years ago or eight years ago or 10 years ago. And I always look at those and sometimes I go, oh, look how big the kids have gotten since then. Or sometimes it's really fun to see those. But then there's other times where it pops up and it reminds me of something just absolutely silly that I shared 10 years ago or 11 years ago. I'm like, why did I ever share that publicly? What was I thinking? How do I delete that?
Speaker: And we just live in a day and age where everything that we're going through, everything we experience, we love to just put out there publicly. And don't hear me wrong. I mean, I am all for sharing things. And of course, we do that all the time. But I have a love -hate relationship with social media. And there are all sorts of benefits to sharing things publicly. I mean, we had thousands of people that were sharing for us or praying for us when we were sharing about my stem cell transplants, for example, or if you're involved in a local church.
Speaker: just the ways that a church can find out what you're going through or what's happening in your life. You share that on Facebook or on Instagram and it's a great opportunity to stay connected to people that you don't see on a regular basis. And so there's all sorts of benefits. But one of the downsides is that sometimes we can take our agony, we can take our hurt.
Speaker: to the wrong place and we can just share it publicly and so just reminded here that again there's nothing wrong with sharing things publicly but if we're only sharing things publicly then we miss taking our hurt to the one who really has the power and the strength to heal us and to change us and to love us and so I just reminded here as we think about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
Speaker: We see him not only withdrawing, but we see him agonizing while he's alone with the Father. Luke 22, verse 44 says this, and being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly. His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Speaker: In other words, Jesus got alone with the Father. He was all by himself. He was completely in private, and he's just pouring his heart out to his Father. The text says that the greater the anguish, in essence, than the greater the prayer. He was in anguish, and he prayed more earnestly. There's maybe another example of this in the Old Testament. In Psalm 62, verse 8,
Speaker: where the psalmist says, trust in him. Trust in God at all times, you people. Pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. And here the psalmist is instructing the people of God, the Israelites, to take their hurt, to take their worry, to take their concerns to God because he's a refuge.
Speaker: In the phrase that he uses here in Hebrew, he says, pour out your hearts to God. And that phrase in Hebrew is oftentimes used to describe the shedding of blood. And it's this picture of someone or a group of people literally
Speaker: Pouring out their heart. It's like their heart has been ripped open and they're they're just gushing Whatever it is that that is going on inside of them. They're just pouring out their heart to God They're agonizing to God. I just love this picture again of Jesus It's not wrong to share things in the context of your small group or with a family member or spouse but but I think the reminder for us is that that oftentimes when we find ourself in trouble and
Speaker: The one who can help us the most, the one that can heal us, the one that can comfort us the most is our Father in heaven who loves us and who cares for us and who gives us grace and strength and who empowers us by His Spirit. There's a great quote by Faustina or Saint Faustina. She was a Polish nun and she didn't live.
Speaker: very long. I mean she suffered pretty significantly in her short life and I read a book by her just several years ago and there's a great line in one of her writings that says this, she says, set a guard over my lips so that the fragrance of my suffering may be known and pleasing to you alone.
Speaker: I read that again. She says, set a guard over my lips so that my fragrance or the fragrance of my suffering may be known and pleasing to you alone. And really the heart behind what she's saying is she's saying protect my words, protect my mouth from speaking to the wrong people or in the wrong place. And God, I want even my suffering, I want my agony to be like a fragrant offering to you. God, I want
Speaker: the gushing of my heart or the pouring of my heart to be to be to you and to you alone. And not that she never shared that with the sisters that she was living with or the community that she lived in, but she's really touching on something again that we see modeled here in the life of Jesus and his relationship with his father.
Speaker: And she understood that there's really only one person that can fully know her and understand her and satisfy her deepest longings and desires and bring healing and joy and strength to her. And so she says, set a guard over my lives, protect me from taking my words or my agony or my hurt to the wrong people or sharing those things in the wrong place or in the wrong way. I want my suffering, I want my agony to be like this fragrant offering. And I want it to be known, God, but I want it to be known by you.
Speaker: I just love that. Again, we see that in the life of Jesus, where He withdraws number one, but number two, He agonizes, but He agonizes to His Father. He takes His hurt and His agony in every way, on every level, to His Father. And then here's the third thing, the last thing that we see, is that ultimately we see Jesus surrendering.
Speaker: Luke chapter 22 verses 41 through 43. We've read this already, but he says, he withdrew about a stone's throw away beyond them. He knelt down and he prayed. Father, if you're willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done. And then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. You know, oftentimes in the Bible,
Speaker: when somebody kneels, it's an act or an expression of submission or reverence. And here you see Jesus not just saying he's going to obey the Father, but he kneels down as a physical act of saying, I'm going to be obedient to you. I surrender to you. I trust you, Father. And it's interesting that Jesus
Speaker: Luke chapter 23, if we had time to look at that whole section where Jesus is on the cross and we see his last and his final word from the cross, which is, you know, Luke describes that. He says in verse 46 of Luke 23, Jesus called out in a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. I mean, this is an act of surrender and we see Jesus
Speaker: surrendering here in his prayer in Luke 22 and then we see him fulfilling that in Luke chapter 23 from the cross but Luke tells us that that Jesus cries out in a loud voice and that expression in the Bible in the New Testament is sometimes associated with a loud voice of praise so for example in Luke 1 verse 42 you see that example
Speaker: That expression of crying out or raising your voice is an act of praising God. That same phrase is used of demons crying out in a loud voice when Jesus is expelling them from someone.
Speaker: But you also see it as an expression of hope or confidence. So when Jesus calls for the Lazarus from the grave and he hears Jesus's voice come forth, you know, with a loud voice, I mean, that's that voice that we will all hear one day if we are in Christ. It's an expression of hope or confidence. You are told in the New Testament, First Thessalonians chapter four, verse 16, that an archangel will announce with a loud voice the coming of Jesus, that when he returns, it will be announced with a loud voice.
Speaker: voice. And so when Luke is saying that Jesus cries out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. I mean, this is an act of surrender or trust, but it is one of absolute hope and confidence. In fact, take some time at some point today and go back and read Psalm 31. I mean, Jesus, when he says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
Speaker: He's quoting from Psalm 31. And so when Jesus cries out in this prayer, this proclamation from the cross in Luke 23, this is an expression of confidence and hope that no matter what they do to him and no matter what he faces, he knows that his father is going to take care of him, that his father loves him.
Speaker: Again, I just see this as such a great example of how to pray when we find ourselves in trouble. We're called to get alone, to be alone with God and to pray with Him and to listen to His voice and to read Scripture. We're also called, secondly, to agonize, to take our hurt to Him.
Speaker: to pour out our heart to him, but we're also called to ultimately surrender because we have this incredible hope, this incredible confidence that even though we can't maybe see what the outcome is going to be, we're not sure what next week looks like or next year or five years from now, we have this incredible
Speaker: confidence that we have a Father who loves us, and more important than knowing God's will is knowing God's heart. I remember years ago when I was a youth pastor, it was the very first church I was on staff at, and Ruth and I had been there for a couple years, and we were approached by a dear friend of ours to plant a church. And after praying about it and talking about it, we decided that we were going to resign
Speaker: from the church that I was on staff at and we were gonna go and we were gonna help be a part of this church plant. And so that's what we told the elders. We went before them and I said, this is, I think what God is calling us to do. I think this is God's will for us. And long story short, it wasn't long after we resigned and I transitioned from my pastoral role there. The dear friend that we were going with, if you've read our book, you know, In a Boat in the Middle of a Lake and talking about Michael Spencer, he was diagnosed with stage four throat cancer.
Speaker: And so that obviously was devastating on a variety of levels. But I just remember thinking that, boy, I thought I knew what God's will was. I thought he wanted us to resign. And so how did I hear that wrong? And I remember not long after that, just as I was praying and reading the scriptures, God just reminded me, you don't need to know my will. You need to trust me. I know my will. I know what I'm doing. But what I need from you is for you just to trust me.
Speaker: And I think that's what God is asking us to do when we walk through difficult seasons and seasons or circumstances where we may not be able to see the outcome. And again, as we find ourselves in trouble and we're praying, ultimately, it's an act of expressing our confidence and our hope that God knows what he's doing and God loves us and he's going to take care of us. And so we can surrender to him. And this is exactly what we see Jesus doing in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Speaker: And it's what we read and see Jesus doing from the cross. And such a great reminder that when we find ourselves in trouble, we're called to withdraw, we're called to agonize, but ultimately we're called to surrender. And so I don't know where you need that the most today as you're listening to this, whatever it is that you're going through, you know, maybe for you, it's just getting into that habit of that discipline of getting alone and withdrawing more often with God.
Speaker: to be with Him and to listen to Him and maybe to pray scripture, to pray through the Psalms, or maybe for you, you recognize, well, I've been taking my herd and my agony to maybe the wrong people or expressing that in the wrong way. And so I need to get alone with God and really take my agony to Him and just to be alone and allow Him to love me and allow Him to just change me by His grace.
Speaker: Maybe you've just been wrestling with God and you just need to come to a place where you kneel like Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane. Maybe you just need to right now physically get down and kneel and say, Father, I don't understand what I'm going through. I don't even like what I'm going through, but I trust you and I know your heart and I know that you are going to treat me in the same way that you treated your son. And so when I look to the cross, yes, he walked through difficult seasons.
Speaker: And he walked through pain and agony. But I also can look at the cross and know that you raised your son from the grave. You exalted him. You did not abandon him. And if that's how you treat your son, then that's how you'll treat me. And so maybe for you, as you're looking at whatever it is that you're facing or walking through, that needs to be your posture. And you just need to surrender and say, Father, I surrender to you. And again, I don't like what I'm walking through. I don't understand it. I can't see through the fog, but I know you. I know your heart.
Speaker: And I know how you treat your son. And so that's how you're going to treat me as a son or me as a daughter. And so I surrender to you. I trust you. I have great hope and great confidence in you. And so I just encourage you today, maybe as you think about that, that theme of how to pray when you find yourself in trouble, where
Speaker: Out of the example of Jesus, do you need that reminder the most? And I just pray that that would be a great encouragement to you, that you would maybe take some time to just meditate and reflect upon and reread Luke 22 or the account of Jesus' crucifixion in 23 as he entrusts himself to the Father and how the Father raises him and exalts him and does not abandon him. And so I just pray that that would be a great encouragement to you as you continue to walk through whatever it is that you're walking through today.
Speaker: Well, thank you again for joining me on today's podcast. We are so grateful to have you listening in. If we haven't met already, we would love to get to know you. And so be sure to follow us on Instagram at Patrick W. Schwank and at Ruth Schwank or on Facebook. Also, don't forget, everything that we talked about will be at rootlikefaith .com. Again, we welcome you into our family here at Root Like Faith. Would you do us a big favor and leave us a review or rating and share this podcast with friends?
Speaker: It just takes a second and it's a tremendous help to us as we spread the word about root like faith and be sure to tag us on social media when you do that. And so we're so grateful for your help in getting the word out. And so again, thank you so much for joining me today. We hope that you have a great week.
