You're Human, You Pray • Luke 6:12-19

58:53 Teaching begins

Notes

Jesus experienced really bad opposition as He served the Father.

He showed Himself to be the Son of Man with power and grace and healing; no man ever spoke like this Man. His enemies refused to believe Him, and plotted to kill Him.

Jesus really is the Son of Man. He’s a human being who is equal to God. But those men who rage at Him will succeed, they will kill Jesus.

Because Jesus is human He prays. And God gives Him orders and the strength to do them.

Because you are human, you also pray.

I’m reading from Luke 6 verses 12-16.

1. “In those days” was a hard, tough time for Jesus.

A. The last chapter or so is about the Pharisees having problems with Jesus. They asked Him, why do You do this, why do You do that? They weren’t happy with the answers and they were not open to considering Jesus’ claims or hearing things they didn’t want to hear.

B. It wasn’t Jesus’ fault. No man ever spoke like Jesus, He spoke gracious words, His actions gracious.

1. He said, “That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins I say to you, get up, take up your bed and walk.” The guy gets up!

2. Jesus reasoned with the teachers of the law. “Is it lawful to do good or to do evil on the Sabbath, to save life or kill?” All they thought was, “He is going to break the Sabbath by healing this guy.”

C. He healed the man to prove His authority. He is the Son of Man, equal to God. He’s here. They go away furious, planning what is the best way to kill Jesus?

D. Jesus knows they will oppose Him at every point and they will succeed in killing Him.

2. Knowing all these things, Jesus goes off to the mountain to pray.

A. Here is how a human being reacts to unfair opposition and enemies. You pray to God. Jesus really is the Son of Man, He is equal with God the Father, yet He is fully human and so He prays.

B. The very act of prayer is holy.

1. Notice how Jesus goes to the mountain? Nobody would go up there. There’s no farming, no herding, no reason to go up there. Jesus is getting away from disciples, from crowds, from masses of people.

2. He’s also drawing near to the Father.

3. This is the idea of holy, separating yourself from all that defiles and drawing near to God.

4. In prayer you draw near to God, you integrate with Him. You coordinate with Him, you seek His will and align yourself with what He wants. You unite with God.

5. That would explain why there is such opposition to praying. Have you noticed that you get opposition when you want to pray? The devil opposes you drawing near to God.

C. Notice that Jesus is praying urgently. This is a crunch time for Him. This situation requires decisive action. It’s not going away if He ignores it; He has to face it. So He prays.

D. Prayer is costly. Jesus couldn’t get away during the day. He doesn’t have that luxury. Nighttime is the only time He can find so He takes it.

E. Notice that prayer takes time. He spent time with the Father anyway, but this is extreme. You think, Jesus is the Son of God! But He prays all night. How long would that be? From 6 pm to 6 am? Anywhere from 8-12 hours? Jesus prayed because He needed answers and direction and that’s how long it took. Think about the Apostle Paul: he had a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him. He prayed on three separate occasions for God to take it away. Why did it take so long? I don’t know. Prayer takes time, and Jesus and Paul gave it time.

3. God’s direction through prayer, His answer, is to go forward on His mission. He is to select twelve of His disciples and designate them apostles.

A. An apostle is first, a messenger sent on a mission.

1. The messenger represents the sender and delivers the sender’s message as if he were the sender. He is to embody the sender, represent him like a power of attorney. He legally represents a person as if they were that person.

2. Paul spoke of this in Galatians 1:15-16 But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, That’s Paul’s apostleship: Jesus revealed in me that I might preach Him.

B. The next point about an apostle is that he has the message of the sender, and that is the message of the New Testament.

1. They had to preach that message, which means to proclaim it.

2. They had to deliver it accurately and not change it in any way. They had to know it and know what they were talking about. They had to know what is the gospel and what is not the gospel.

3. They had to know Jesus personally, and be a witness of Jesus beginning with the baptism of John. Everyone Jesus picked here had seen and heard John, and repented at his preaching. They had to be witnesses of Jesus’ death, His resurrection, and His ascension into heaven.

C. They had to be so shaped and formed by Jesus and the message that they would not change for any reason, under any kind of pressure, even to save their life. This embodies Jesus, who did not change His testimony to save His life.

D. In answer to prayer God says to Jesus, “Don’t let them stop You. Multiply Yourself times twelve. Go forward.”

4. When day came, Jesus called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them whom He also named as apostles. Look at the guys He chose. These guys are not very much like Jesus.

A. Simon, Andrew, James, John. Two sets of brothers. All fishermen, ordinary guys. They have ambitions. James and John get their mom to ask Jesus to give them place of honor on His right and left hand. The other guys are angry because they didn’t think of doing that. Jesus nicknamed James and John “Sons of thunder”. Does that sound like Jesus? I don’t think so.

B. Matthew was a tax-collector who worked for the Romans. Simon the Zealot was at an opposite end of the scale.

1. Zealots were not a distinct political party aiming at getting the Romans out of the country. The idea goes back to the Maccabean revolt in the 2nd century B.C. It described the zeal for Torah and willingness to resist and die for the principles of the word of God. Maybe even kill for the principles of the word of God. Before he met Jesus Paul was extremely zealous for the traditions of the fathers so that he tried to destroy the church. Misguided zeal is not like Jesus.

2. At the other end of the spectrum Matthew basically sold out his country to get rich. He lost what it means to be Jewish: all his relationships, most likely, access to a synagogue, and maybe even the possibility of being saved.

C. Jesus drew a line under all their past. Whatever they were before they weren’t that now. They were going to be what Jesus wanted them to be.

D. You can see that Jesus is taking on a big job. For the rest of His life and the rest of their lives He will train them, teach them, rebuke them, make them think, until they so embody His Spirit and message that they will never change. Like Jesus they will suffer in humility to build up others.

E. And Jesus will get them where they need to be. It doesn’t depend on them, it depends on Jesus and His Spirit. Not by power, not by might, but by My Spirit, says the Lord.

5. All will be faithful except one of them, Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor, but Jesus chose him as well.

A. First, Jesus chose Judas in obedience. The Father said, “Pick Judas.” Jesus obeyed, knowing that Judas would betray Him. John 6:70-71 Jesus answered them, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him. Jesus knew what He was doing when He picked Judas.

B. Second, Jesus chose Judas in order to fulfil Scripture, John 13:18-19 I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, “He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.” From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He.” This fulfils Psalm 41, written a thousand years before by David, and it is part of the proof of prophecy, that you can know this is God, who knows the end from the beginning. This is not a made-up story.

C. Third, Jesus demonstrates the love and patience of God.

1. He taught, Matthew 5:43-48 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

2. Jesus practiced what He preached without anyone knowing it.

3. Judas was one of twelve closest to Jesus, to be with Him as much as humanly possible. He heard Jesus teach, he saw Jesus heal multitudes, feed multitudes, cast out demons, calm a storm, and raise people from the dead.

4. Jesus didn’t treat Judas differently from the other apostles. You never read the other disciples saying, “What’s with Jesus treating Judas so harshly? It’s like He has it in for him.” In fact, Jesus warned Judas to not betray Him. He said, “One of you will betray Me. It would have been better for that man if he had never been born.” He was telling him, “I know what you’re going to do, don’t do it.” No one knew that He was talking to Judas. No one suspected Judas was a traitor  from the way Jesus treated him. He loved them all.

D. That means that for over three years Jesus loved His enemy with the love and patience of God. Jesus did absolutely no wrong to Judas. That awful betrayal came completely out of Judas’s own heart.

6. So what?

A. You’re facing terrible opposition today. You have to deal with mistakes, failures, setbacks. You’ve sinned against God and you realise, the devil wants me dead. This life is no game, this is real. Things break and go blooie.

B. You could withdraw and lose hope. You can lose energy and spirit. Kind of like getting the wind knocked out of you and you can’t breathe.

C. I’m only human, you say. Okay, then, because you are human, you pray.

1. You re-align yourself with God. You renew your union with God. He’s not against you, He is your Father who is in heaven. You are His beloved. He has decided to love you with all His patience. He’s not going to change His mind.

2. Get away from the opposition, like a boxer going to his own corner, to get a drink, a rubdown. Listen to what your manager says, look out for his right hook, keep your guard up, you got this.

3. Maybe you don’t feel like you can pray on your own, okay, get with people, a few or a lot. Sometimes praying in a group makes it easier to pray; you warm up in that spirit of prayer. Get a few people around you, praying for you. Take walks and pray.

4. You have to give prayer time. Prayer is not instantaneous. Jesus the Son of God prayed the whole night. Paul the apostle prayed three times. Keep in prayer until God answers. Prayer is God’s answer in your weakness. That is Jesus, that is apostolic.

D. As you pray God will give you back the breath that got knocked out of you. He’s going to re-align you with His plan for your life and help you go forward with Him in spite of really bad opposition.

Let’s pray.