Prayer
The Prayer of Giving Up Control
Pastor Tom
September 28, 2008
We are continuing our series on prayer today. We started by looking at simple prayer. It involved recognizing God as God and we’re His creatures. We also learned we needed to embrace our dependent role as God’s children. Then we looked at confessional prayer because closeness to God, yields clarity in sin. As we grow in prayer, we realize prayer is not all about getting things from God. It’s about getting to know God. It’s about a love relationship with God. As we get to know our loving God, we discover we must come to Him when life overwhelms us. Jesus spoke His giving up control prayer in a desperate situation. It was hours before His arrest. . . the Last Supper is over; Judas has left to betray him; the full weight of what is about to happen hits Jesus. Sorrow and anguish overwhelm Him. Jesus faced a day where much suffering would be inflicted upon Him by sinners. But more fearsome was the wrath of God that would be poured out upon Him on the cross. Jesus knew it was coming. Yet His humanity recoiled in horror at it all. How would He gain the strength to stay and face His betrayer? How would He go to the cross knowing what awaited Him there? He shows us how He gave over control to His Father through his agonized prayer in Gethsemane. Today, we are going to learn the basics of the “giving up control prayer”
