Get Out of Your Own Way

In our text, we find Jesus in one of His most human moments! It’s the proverbial “go time.” The rubber is meeting the road, or whatever saying you want to use—it’s about to get real. Jesus has just finished the “Last Supper/First Communion,” and He has a few hours before He will be arrested and tried for treason. In previous times, people have sought to take Him before, but He would escape, or in a few situations, the Pharisees or Sadducees didn’t have the social capital they needed to take Jesus without upsetting the people. However, this time, Jesus will be taken, as He knows. He told His disciples that He was about to be taken, arrested, and killed.

With His remaining few hours, Jesus does what He has been doing His entire life on earth: He prays. Interestingly enough, we find some very important elements of a real prayer life: honesty, submission, and obedience. These appear to be the elements to getting out of both God’s and our own way!

Luke 22:42 (NKJV) “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”

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THE REVOLUTIONARY CHOICE: WHERE YOU TAKE YOUR STRUGGLE MATTERS

Before looking at WHAT Jesus prays, see the revolutionary choice He makes about WHERE to take His struggle.

Jesus is struggling with whether or not to do God’s will. And if HE—who is ONE with the Father—wrestles with this, how much MORE will WE wrestle with doing God’s will?

But here’s what sets Jesus apart from everyone else in Scripture who struggled with God’s assignment:

• MOSES struggled with God’s will—and acted OUT AGAINST GOD (hit the rock in anger instead of speaking to it – Numbers 20)
• JONAH struggled with God’s will—and RAN FROM GOD (got on a ship to Tarshish)
• JEREMIAH struggled with God’s will—and went SILENT ABOUT GOD (“I will not speak in His name anymore” – Jeremiah 20:9)

But JESUS? When He’s struggling WITH God’s will, He makes the revolutionary choice to TALK TO GOD ABOUT IT.

He doesn’t:

• Run FROM the One making the demand
• Go silent ABOUT the One He’s wrestling with
• Act out AGAINST the will He’s resisting

He runs TO the Father. He stays IN conversation. He keeps the posture of prayer—on His knees, aimed DOWN in humility.

THIS is how you get out of your own way. When you’re struggling with what God is asking of you, the WORST thing you can do is remove yourself from His presence. The BEST thing you can do is what Jesus did—bring your struggle TO Him, not away FROM Him.

There are revolutions in this prayer—moments where Jesus cycles back through the struggle, wrestles again, surrenders again. It’s not a straight line from “Take this cup” to “Yours be done.” There’s holy back-and-forth. But notice: He never leaves His knees. He never leaves the prayer posture. He stays aimed in the direction of humility—DOWN.

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THE THREE C’S OF CONSECRATED PRAYER

Jesus modeled getting out of His own way. He went to prayer—and in that prayer, He made three movements that helped Him decrease so the Father’s will could be done.

These are the three C’s of consecrated prayer:

• CANDOR – honesty
• CONSECRATION – submission
• COMMITMENT – obedience

Jesus couldn’t have done this anywhere else. He had to bring His struggle TO the Father. Because God’s will wasn’t the problem—Jesus’ will was. And only the Father could help Him get out of His own way.