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Teach Us to Pray Part 2 By John McCallum

 Let us continue then our studies in prayer from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 26 where we have this episode of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and before we come to consider further from those verses we want to read in the Gospel according to Luke chapter 18 and from the beginning and this time I am reading from the Authorized Version. I have got the NIV up there in front of me as well. Luke chapter 18 and he spoke a parable unto them to this end that men ought always to pray and not to faint saying there was in a city a judge which feared not God neither regarded men and there was a widow in that city and she came unto him saying avenge me of mine adversary and he would not for a while but afterwards he said within himself though I fear not God nor regard man yet because this widow troubleth me I will avenge her lest by her continual coming she weary me
and the Lord said hear what the unjust judge says and shall not God avenge his own elect
which cry day and night unto him though he bear long with them I tell you that he will
avenge them speedily nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh shall he find a faith on
the earth and he spoke this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were
righteous and despised others. Two men went up into the temple to pray the one a Pharisee
and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself or as we've already
heard to himself God I thank thee that I am not as other men are unjust extortioners
adulterers or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week I give tithes of all that
I possess and the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto
heaven but smote upon his breast saying God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you this
man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone that exalted themselves
shall be abased and he that humblest himself shall be exalted and so on. And then we turn
now to the 26th chapter of Matthew and again we have this episode of Christ in the garden.
Now we're reminding ourselves of Christ's experience in a sense as an example and of
course there are aspects of Christ's life which can never be emulated by us and this
experience in the garden of Gethsemane of our Lord is a unique experience. No man ever
experienced anything like this but nonetheless it is a human experience. It is the experience
of a Godly faithful praying man who is under temptation and under stress and we have already
learned from this portion of scripture the three first lessons that I wanted to emphasize
the need to actually to engage in prayer, the need to go away privately separating ourselves
from others as Christ did in order to pray and then the confidence with which he prayed
my Father and we too if we would ever pray aright must have these ingredients in our
prayer life so these things that I'm trying to bring out are not merely instruction they
are I hope motivation and encouragement because all of us find it difficult to pray.
Well I want to draw attention to further aspects of this prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ in
the garden of Gethsemane and the first thing I want to emphasize now is the reverence and
the humility with which Christ prayed. We're told in verse 39 that after he had gone apart
from his disciples he went a little further and we're told he fell with his face to the
ground and prayed and this is our most instructive record that we have here before us because
it reminds us not only the fact that Christ engaged in prayer privately and confidently
but also he engaged in prayer reverently and I think that again we have difficulties here.
The scripture speaks of the Pharisee who will come and boldly assert his righteousness
before God but on the other hand there is the publican or the tax collector who smites
upon his heart because he knows that he is an unworthy creature and he asks that God
would be propitiated toward him. There is humility in the prayer of the publican or
the tax collector. There is no hint whatsoever of any humility or reverence before God in
the prayer of the Pharisee who stood and boldly prayed thus with himself and I'm suggesting
that until we understand who God is and how we stand as creatures in relationship to God
we are never going to enter into this sentiment of true humility and reverence and godly fear
that we have exemplified in the life of Christ and indeed in the life of all the saints of
God throughout the Bible and you will find if you read the prayers of the people of God
in the scripture there is always this note as well as on the one hand they have confidence
there is always this note on the other hand of reverence and of godly fear and Christ
is not the first man in the scripture of whom we find him falling down before the Lord in
worship and in prayer but it is our most instructive thing that our Lord Jesus Christ
himself would so humble himself as to fall prostrated with his face actually to the ground
and we are reminded again quoting from Hebrews chapter 5 which we left off quoting last session
of that godly fear that reverence that whole demeanor of dependence and fear that fact that
although he was a son or because he was a son rather because he was a son he had to learn
obedience through the things that he suffered and he had to learn through much affliction what he
was as a man before God as a creature in the sense that his flesh is the flesh of his mother
the Virgin Mary he is a man amongst men and one of the great things about the prayers of God's
people in the scripture whether it's Abraham's prayer or Daniel's prayer and so on we find them
coming with this reverence and with a godly fear and this is something that is inculcated right at
the very heart God will not have us for one moment address him as if he were our equal and God will
not have us for one moment stand in his presence as if we had some kind of inherent claim upon him
and that we can speak to him as if he were just simply one other or a greater extension of
ourselves and we've already been reminded of that when Mr. Siebert was speaking of a very common
misconception about God and that is that he is some kind of benevolent flabby grandfather a
Santa Claus somewhere up in heaven someone who is just as it were like ourselves but simply a
greater and more powerful and more pure a version of ourselves and the Bible when it emphasizes the
being and the characteristics of God emphasize his uniqueness he is sui generis he is the only
one of his kind and again and again the scripture poses to us the question who is like unto God who
are we going to compare God with in Isaiah 40 the Lord poses that question through the Prophet whom
are you going to care to compare with like unto me because there is nothing in the whole of
existence that is remotely like God you and I in a sense are like God we are made in the image of
God and there are certain characteristics about us a quick reflect upon certain characteristics
about God but there is much more about us that is unlike God than there is that is like God there
are little areas where we resemble God we are made in the image of God but there is an eternity and
a vastness of a difference between what God is and what we are between what God is and between what
God and all other things are and this is why the holy angels for example who veil their faces
before him this is why they veil their faces they have never sinned and yet they recognize that here
is a being here is a person who is high and holy and holy and holy and he is of eternal power
duration he never began to exist he always will exists he is everywhere present he is all powerful
we could go on and on but God is great God is glorious according to the scripture and there is
nothing in heaven or in earth that is ever to be made as an image of God because there is nothing
in the whole of creation that is like God one thing we can say about idols is that they don't
resemble God and that is why the commandment forbids us to make images of anything under the
earth in the earth in the sea above the earth don't make an image of anything and then imagine
that this thing resembles God because the only thing we can say about an image is that God is
not like that image God is not like anything that you and I have ever seen in this present world and
God is not like anything that ever exists everything that is depends upon God he is the
living the only living and true God and when we come before him we are invited to speak to him
but we are invited to speak to this great God who is high and holy and who is lifted up even in the
earthly relationships if you and I come into the presence of some a august person or even if we're
in the presence of someone who has an authority over us a schoolteacher or a policeman with this
gun on his hip we show him respect and we show them reverence because they have power over us
they can do things to us here is the great being and he can snuff out our life in a moment we exist
by his permission we exist for one reason only to glorify and to enjoy him we exist because he
decided that we would exist our breath is in the breath of our nostrils is in his hand he is the
one who numbers our days he determines the days on the bounds of our habitation you and I have
life today because God has decreed that we should have life a today we exist because he has
determined that we should exist we breathe because he gives us life with which to breathe we depend
upon him the scripture is so full of all of these teachings and ramifications and when we would come
before this one and he says to us come to me speak to me I want to hear what you have to say
concerning your troubles or concerning your aspirations or your plans I want to listen we
must come with that due reverence and with that godly fear and that is precisely what Christ is
doing my father there's the confidence but my father is still father and he is one who is above
me and in the realms of his human living in this world our Lord Jesus Christ recognized that the
father is greater than I and your God and my God he is greater than we are and he will not allow us
to come and he will not listen to us if we come with a certain presumptuous and unholy boldness
that characterizes ignorance of who he is and what we come to do and on the holy ground on which we
stand when we come to pray and to speak to this God and so our Lord Jesus Christ fell on his face
now I'm going to touch on something with this regard because it's in the text here it's brought
out in various places in the scripture and that is that posture in prayer is important and they
indeed the whole demeanor with which we pray is important the way that we dress is important
men for example say well God looks upon the heart men look upon the outside but the Bible says God
looks upon the heart that is true but God doesn't only look upon the heart God looks upon the inward
man where men cannot look but God also looks upon the outward man God does take note whether we wash
ourselves when we come into his presence what we wear do we come casually do we come with that
slouch laid-back approach to the presence of God or do we come with a respectful demeanor into the
presence of God and I'm saying these things because I think myself that in our day and
generations Christians are very slack in many areas especially in the area of worship and I
believe myself that according to the teaching of the scripture and experience of these things
reading about it speaking about it it is because there's a lack of understanding who God is and
what he actually requires of us as we come before him in worship and in prayer you remember for
example in the book of Exodus chapter 19 just as an example where the people of God were to gather
and they were to become the Covenant people of God the Holy Nation and you remember the the first
stipulation there was that for three days they were to go they went to come immediately they had
been traveling through the desert for some three months now and they had accumulated the dust and
the dirt of the desert traveling and so on and the Lord told them to go away and to wash their
clothes to change their clothes to clean themselves up and then come into his presence that is simply
part of this whole complex that the Bible teaches about a proper demeanor and attitude when we come
to God of course we can come with sincerity of heart and with say the outward stains of the
world upon us but woe betide us if we imagine that that is a the way that God would prefer that we
come it is not so and I emphasize these things because in this portion of scripture our Lord
Jesus Christ is exemplifying our most careful and fearful demeanor of very posture as he comes
into the presence of God now in the scripture we find that there are several postures actually
mentioned in terms of how we conduct ourselves in the presence of God in prayer and for example the
most common a posture in prayer in the scripture is in fact standing that is a something that was
very common we were reading in Luke chapter 18 for example of how the Pharisees stood and the
publican stood and you remember in Mark chapter 11 it is our Lord says when you stand praying you
must forgive if someone has committed a trespass against you then you must be willing to give a to
forgive so when you stand pray so standing was an accepted a form of prayer and indeed day we
read in the Gospels of how on one occasion our Lord Jesus Christ looked up into heaven and indeed
we also read of how he raised his hands and so probably the Jewish form of prayer was to stand
with the eyes open and to look up into heaven and a to pray but then we also find that there are
those occasions when men knelt in the presence of God and in Acts chapter 20 for example you
remember the apostle called the Ephesian elders and how they all knelt he and the elders they
knelt together on the beach and they prayed as they were saying farewell to Paul you remember
how King Solomon for example at the dedication of the temple when he would come before God we
read of how he knelt down in the presence of God and there are other places I'm just mentioning
them just as they to indicate that the Bible has something to say about a posture and then we're
also told in a couple of passages in the Old Testament of for example David sitting before
the Lord second Samuel chapter 11 for example speaks of David a sitting now that's not the
only place but sitting in the scripture is not a frequently mentioned as a posture to adopt when
we pray to God and I'm simply mentioning these things posture is not an unimportant aspect of
prayer but here we find Christ engaging in the most humiliating and the most fearful of all
postures he's not standing there were occasions when he stood or sitting or kneeling he is
prostrating himself face down in the dust when our Lord Jesus Christ was praying in the garden
of Gethsemane he was lying flat on his face with his face in the dirt in the garden of Gethsemane
and that is spoken of in several places in the scripture and it speaks of the lowest demeanor
that being struck down with the circumstances and with the occasion in which the prayer is
offering his prayer we were reading earlier this morning about the conversion of Saul of Tarsus
and in Acts chapter 9 we're told of that we were considering that this morning but you remember how
the Apo- Saul of Tarsus in verse 4 of chapter 9 and the Acts of the Apostles were told he fell to
the earths now I just don't recall how the NIV puts it but in all probability there the Apostle
Paul was a fallen into a posture that was a similar to prostration and the Apostle Paul
did not fall into that posture simply because he was afraid and he was struck there are those
commentators who say that he was simply as it were struck down by the light and the sound from
heaven and he was struck in fear and he became a sort of a paralyzed a condition that I do not
believe at all is remotely why the Apostle fell to the earth the Apostle fell to the earth
precisely because he was a good Pharisee and he knew his Old Testament and he knew that there
were such things as theophanies and he knew that there were times when God spoke to men and when
God appeared to men and the very first thing that the Apostle says in this experience which
he recognizes as a theophany he knew that God was speaking who are you Lord who is this I am Jesus
I am the Lord who I'm speaking to you the Apostle knew that God was saying something to him and that
in his condition as this grievous sinner before God he must bow very low in the presence of God
now I am not insisting for one moment in emphasizing these things that the outward
posture is the main thing but I am indicating I am saying and insisting this that the outward
posture is often indicative of the inward posture and what I am outwardly reflects what I am
inwardly and someone who is slouching and untidy and dirty in the outward appearance are that in
their outward appearance because inwardly they are dirty and slouching and careless also and we
dare not be slouching and careless in the presence of God Most High and it's not enough that we have
this confidence where we speak to the Father in heaven he is the Father but he is in heaven and
our Lord Jesus Christ is recognizing that he himself is a man upon the earth and he is
identified with sinful men and he is being identified with the sins of sinful men and
that God is great and that God is in heaven I remember when I was a student in Aberdeen many
years ago one of the fellow students and he asked the question I suppose sincerely he has now long
abandoned the Christian faith sadly but nonetheless I remember him asking he was a student for the
ministry also I might add and he was a great reader of Banner of Truth books and if you met
him he would say and how is your soul today and this was his way and I remember this fellow asking
us is it right because he thought that it was right he began to have very strange ideas but
to call God daddy the scripture does not call God daddy the word Abba is the familiar term of a son
to the father but it is a term of respect it is not a term of over familiarity when the Hebrew
child would call his daddy father he was showing respect to his father father Abba yes confidence
but the recognition that his father is over him and that his father is greater than he and Christ
here is entering into that humble frame of mind where as a man he would pray to God and exemplify
that humble attitude of mind by laying himself as low into the dust he must have felt great fear and
reverence and Martin Luther commenting on this passage generally says never a man fear death and
never a man feared God as the Lord Jesus Christ fear death and fear God and I'm suggesting to you
that when the holy fear of God burns in our heart we won't come presumptuously calling him daddy
we'll be prostrated into the dust and we'll be glad to have him hear us on any terms reverence
and godly fear Abraham fell before the Lord Daniel was down before the Lord we must be careful in the
posture that we adopt as we come before the Lord that's the first thing I want to emphasize on this
particular occasion and then the second point on this session about the prayer of Christ is that I
want to emphasize the petition a element in this prayer and I'm emphasizing this because if you
read the prayers of the Bible carefully and indeed from our own experience we know that this is so a
great deal of our prayer life is taken up with petition indeed by far the greatest proportion
of our prayer activity is taken up with asking God to do things now I'm going to suggest to you
that that is not a sinful selfish thing to do in the life of prayer and I'm saying it because there
are those who teach prayer and who write books on prayer and preach about prayer and they say that
they our prayer life should be largely taken up with adoration and with confession and with
Thanksgiving now there is no doubt that a great deal of our prayer life ought to be taken up with
adoration and confession and Thanksgiving there's no question of that the Bible makes that
abundantly plain our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name but if you look at the
prayers that are actually recorded of God's great sense in the Bible and the prayer of Christ in
this portion of Scripture here he is not engaging in great lengthy sections dealing with adoration
or confession or Thanksgiving he is making requests from God and you find in the Old
Testament and the New Testament and the teaching of Christ prayer is largely taken up with petition
and I'm saying that so that when you and I engage in prayer and when we ask God for things and when
we ask God to do things we will not feel guilty as if we are doing something that is selfish and
unsanctioned by the scripture that is not so when our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 6 would
teach us how to pray after this manner pray ye the prayer the Lord's prayer is largely petition it is
mostly petition give us this day our daily bread forgive us our sins lead us not into temptation
deliver us from evil and so the Lord's prayer is largely a petitionary prayer and in Matthew
chapter 7 when again our Lord Jesus Christ would encourage us to pray it is in terms of
asking and knocking ask and you shall receive seek and you shall find knock at God's door and the
door will be opened unto you we were reading in Luke chapter 18 of how men ought always to pray
and that is a parable of someone making a petition God's people cry unto him day and night and they're
asking God to do things and yes there's a there is a danger that our prayer life may degenerate
into a whole list of things and we forget to give God his place let us begin as we come to pray let
us by all means begin with adoration hallowed be thy name and the scriptures full of adoration and
confession and there is much to give thanks for but there is also much that we need to ask God
to do and to give us and that God is willing to give ask and you shall receive you're not
receiving says James because you're not asking our Lord Jesus Christ in this portion of scripture
he is asking God to remove the cup from him if it be possible that this cup and three times he
made that a petition will touch on that on another occasion when we speak of the persistence that is
necessary for prayer in the scripture you and I are encouraged and we are commanded to ask if any
man lack wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not if you
and I seek wisdom let us ask for wisdom let us ask for the forgiveness of sin we are commanded
in Scripture and we're encouraged in Scripture to pray for the Holy Spirit for more and more of the
Holy Spirit ask for the Holy Spirit not as the Charismatics would emphasize over and over again
seeking the baptism of the Spirit I might add if you're a Christian believer you have already
received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and you never receive that again there is no command in
Scripture to pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit if you're a Christian that has already
taken place there is a command in Scripture to pray for the Spirit to guide us to fill us to be
filled up and to be filled through with the Spirit and that is an ongoing experience day by day we
need the Spirit in order to mortify the flesh and so on and the Lord says ask and you shall receive
there are many things in our prayer life which we are specifically commanded to itemize before God
as a lawful request because God desires to give good things unto his children and that's the point
he desires to give those good things how much more will your father give the Holy Spirit and do you
know that there is a wonderful thing that we find when we do come to God and we look at the
scriptures and we pray according to the will of God and in the name of Christ and for the things
that God promises to give he does give those things wisdom from above there may be times when
what we need is an insight into understanding our sufferings of this present time and the
temptations and Christ here is learning something in prayer as we shall see for himself in this
crucible of affliction and there are times when wisdom from above is not given in terms of great
revelations it's not given in that way but it may be just a perception that God is dealing with us
even in the hard things of life where men of the world would imagine that to believe in God is
bunk and we are beginning to understand with heavenly wisdom that God is chastising us in
disciplining us because he loves us and not because he's against us and every son whom he
saves he chastised and it takes great wisdom to see that and to understand that in the midst of
all these fiery trials God's love remains undiminished indeed that it is being expressed
how can I understand that unless I have wisdom that comes from above and so on with a forgiveness
of sin God delights in mercy and he has no desire that any man should perish but the door should
come unto him and live and when he invites us and commands us to turn all the ends of the earth
what is he asking us to do look unto me what's he asking he's asking us to ask for mercy because I
am a Savior I am God and there is no other come to me and I'll give you and we could go on all day
but you see the point petition and nothing be anxious says the Apostle in Philippians chapter
4 and nothing be anxious in all things in all circumstances in all affairs of life with prayer
and supplication make your lecture requests be made known unto God and the peace of God which
passes all understanding shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ his petition don't you
be afraid to ask God for things that God has promised to give be very fearful of asking God
to give you things that he has not promised to give there is a prosperity gospel and there are
those who teach that if we ask for a special kind of wife for a special kind of husband or a special
kind of child or a special kind of elevated income or occupation in life where we'll have
respect and position then God will give because ask and usually the scripture does not give us
that blank check it tells us the kinds of things and it may be that God will never give us health
or wealth or what men would call happiness but that does not mean that God is not giving to us
what he has promised he has promised us forgiveness of sins the Holy Spirit wisdom from above he has
promised us that he will give us his presence and more and more of his grace grace to help in time
of needs the time of need may be all the days of our life and our hard afflictions may never pass
away but there will be grace given for the time of need and before I pass on to my final point I
would just make a couple of observations on this for God to delay answering our prayer does not
mean that God will never answer our prayer and I say that because our Lord Jesus Christ what does
he what is he asking what is this petition this cup and you might say well this cup didn't pass
from this cup did pass from him he drank the cup but it was a temporary cup death passed from him
the wrath of God passed from him yes he drank the cup and he drank the bitter Greg's and he
drank damnation for us and in that sense the cup never passed but the cup did pass on the third
day he rose again and entered into newness of life the cup did not pass from him that day but
it passed from him and he lives now by the power of an endless life I was dead I was dead but I'm
alive now forevermore the cup is in the past it's passed away the cup of wrath and it may be that
you and I will have to wait for eternity to come before those ultimate longings of our hearts will
be experienced in those things that we ask of God but they shall be experienced by us God will give
us grace and he will give us the spirit and the day comes when we will be imbued with heavenly
wisdom and the forgiveness of all our sins will be a real accomplishment and another comment I
would make also in this for God even to reject our prayers in this world does not mean that God is
rejecting us he was still the Son of God and God was saying to him this cup must be drunk the cup
that the Father has given me shall I not drink it but God was not rejecting him any more than
the than God was rejecting the Apostle Paul you remember when three times he made a petition that
the thorn in the flesh would pass from him my grace Paul this thorns going to remain but my
grace God was not rejecting Paul but he was saying no to a particular request of Paul in the same way
as you and I our children come in and they want they want whatever children want we know what they
want they want sweets they reach sweets all day long are we going to give them everything that
they ask and we say no and we must say no firmly and let it be clear to them no the answer is no
but we don't love them the less we don't reject them we don't put them out of the house they are
still our beloved children and we're jealous for them and we still desire to give them good things
and so it is with God there are wonderful ramifications in these passages of Scripture
Christ made a petition his prayer on this occasion was occupied with asking God to do something for
him and a great deal of your prayer life and mine will be taken up with asking God to give
or to do for us for his own glory and for our good I must go on to the third a point that we
have here in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 27 the prayer of Christ we've looked at the reverence
with which he prayed the petition and then finally and very briefly now I want us to look at the
perseverance or the persistence with which he prayed this prayer because we're told here that
he went away and he prayed the same thing the third time we were reading in Luke chapter 18
you remember and in verse 7 there the Lord makes a comment upon that man who came that individual
who came making the particular request how he says you remember will God not vindicate his
elect who cry unto him day and night persistence you remember Abraham's prayer in the book of
Genesis chapter 18 how he went back to the Lord again and again praying over the cities of the
plain who were doomed to destruction he came with fear but he came with persistence pursuing his
suit before God and there may be times when you and I will have to pray long and hard before we
understand whether the answer from God is that he will give or refuse the thing that we are but the
point is this whether the answer is no or the answer is yes it doesn't matter the point is in
praying itself in the persistent prayer we come to understand for ourselves what the will of the
Lord is apply this to Christ and then to ourselves Psalm number 40 at verse 8 supremely written of
the Messiah to do thy will I take delight thy law is within my heart and that applies to the
Christian and that is what Christ is expressing here nevertheless not my will but thy will be
done and in the act of persistent prayer in the act of praying itself we are pleasing to God and
we are blessed by God because what does prayer itself do to us I've already touched on this this
morning prayer is for my benefit prayer is not to change God's mind about me my prayer must be
for me to change my mind about God and to change my mind about me and it may be that in prayer I've
got to learn that God's will is going to be done and that my place is not to make demands upon God
but to learn that God's will must be done when you and I are praying as we are commanded to
pray in the Lord's Prayer that petition thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven that is an
easy petition to recite in unison or in private but have we ever considered the ramifications
of that when the Lord says this is how to pray thy will be done what is God's will God's will
includes suffering God's will for us includes dying to sin and living unto righteousness God's
will for us read includes reading the scriptures searching the scriptures serving one another in
love seeking not our own things but the things of others God's will for us includes those occasions
of turning the other cheek and giving away our second coat and walking a second mile
God's will for us means spending time and spending of our talents and of our substance
to defend his cause and to expand his cause in the world God's will for us at times means
identifying with a little group of despised Christian believers the Church of God in that
particular occasion just as Moses you remember in Hebrews 11 the son of Pharaoh's daughter heir to
everything that his eye could behold and he chose rather to suffer with the people of God and there
are times when God's will for us when we go into a community is that that little group in the back
street in the little rundown shack that's the Church of God that's the church when the Apostle
Paul you know was writing and when the Apostle John was writing to the churches in Asia the
Apostle Paul writing to the various churches he wasn't writing to big lavish esteemed
traditional congregations they used to have house meetings because the congregations at times were
so small that you get them all into one little room and archaeologists have dug up early Christian
buildings and some of them are much much smaller than this building here today little groups we
don't know how large the church at Philippi was but we do know it began just with Lydia and a few
others a jailer a Philippian jailer and others the brethren of call the Church of God at Corinth
seemed to be a more lavishly endowed Church but even there who knows how big the church at Ephesus
how how big but that was the church the Church of God must learn not my will but thy will be done
thy laws within my heart and the act of praying and continuing to pray clarifies the issues for
us and it subdues our heart and makes us willing that thy will be done because God's will must
become my will and that is what Christ is learning in a new way he learned obedience to the will of
God learning obedience by the things that he suffered as you and I come to pray we are entering
into that increasing humility dependence submissive this pliability to the will of God prayer is good
for us prayer is a means of grace as well as a mark of grace and our Lord Jesus Christ here is
teaching us how to pray setting before us an example of prayer reverence petition and
persistence he taught a parable you remember that we ought always to pray and not to faint
because he knows that we do faint and we need to be encouraged in this most holy and blessed
activity and it is this kind of praying that makes prayer possible and makes prayer pleasant
to the soul may God instruct us in these things for Jesus sake