Alone With God in the Secret Place | Prayer

Jesus often slipped away to quiet, solitary places to be alone with the Father—and there's a special strength that comes from that hidden time with God. Pastor Cameron looks at how private prayer shapes who we really are, settles our identity, and steadies us for whatever life brings.

Matthew 6:5-8 | additional: Mark 1:35-38, Luke 5:15-16, Luke 9:28

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Host

Cameron Lienhart

Cameron is the Senior Pastor of Conduit Ministries

What is Conduit Ministries?

We are all about helping people get closer to Jesus.
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Okay, all right, would you join me in prayer as we kind of center our hearts on this?

Lord, we're asking this morning that you would come and make this place your home.

That your presence, Lord, would be in the room and in the hallways and in the parking lot. Lord, that your presence would be in the purple room, the red room, the green room, the orange room, would be in the kitchen right now, Lord. Any place where a conduit sets foot this morning, Lord, may they be encountered by your presence. Lord, make us a people of your presence.

We thank you for your word to us this morning, Lord. We eagerly await a readiness to respond in Jesus' name. Amen.

We do not pray for prayer's sake, meaning we do not pray simply for the goal of praying.

Prayer, as we talked pretty extensively last week, prayer is a means or an invitation to intimacy with the Lord, all right? So we pray as both an overflow of intimacy with the Lord and to receive the invitation from the Lord to enter into intimacy with Him.

Prayer is for God's sake and for intimacy's sake. We're gonna read this morning to begin with out of Matthew chapter six, verses five through eight.

Maybe. Listen, no laughing out there. The peanut gallery knows why I'm adjusting my... Yes, I do have bifocals now, whoever said that. If you see me trying to read like this, no, you didn't see me trying to read like this.

Matthew chapter six, verses five through eight. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth. They have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen. Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him.

We are people who live in extremes. We, for whatever reason, do not seem to like living

In the middle of two things. We like either this extreme or we like that extreme or in some cases we'll pick a third or a fourth extreme to live in. We talked a little bit about this last week when it comes to prayer. Some of us want to live in the extreme of believing that we must pray. If we're gonna be serious about prayer then we must pray. Get up at 3 a.m. And pray for four hours like Martin Luther did every day. Get up at three and pray for four hours so we can get our four hours of prayer in before we go to work at 7 a.m. And that's the only way to go about having a prayer life. If you're not up early, if you're not praying for four hours, what's wrong with you, man? Like what's going on? Do you even believe in God? Right? We live in this kind of like an extreme over here. Like and this is the type of world over here where like if you're praying for four hours a day even if you're up at 3 a.m., people are gonna know.

People are gonna see, people are gonna experience, people are gonna know, man, that guy's serious about prayer. He is like getting after it in prayer. There's another extreme over here that says this. Like, listen, I only pray in secret. I only pray in private. No one even knows that I've ever prayed in my entire life. That's how secret it is. That's how private it is. I take the words of scripture, Matthew chapter six, verses five through eight. Seriously, Jesus says, pray to your father is in secret and your father who sees what you do will reward you. Do not keep on babbling like the pagan. So anyone who stands up and prays out loud for everyone to hear and everyone to see, obviously they're a hypocrite just like the Pharisees that Jesus was talking about in Matthew chapter six. And there's not really a whole lot of conversation given to the middle space. It's either one's extreme or it's the next extreme. But the truth is, is that scripture, the whole council of scripture shows that Jesus actually did both types of extremes. That Jesus prayed for long times, a long time, and a short time, and he prayed out loud.

And that Jesus went off into solitary places by himself and prayed only to the father where we really have no idea what he actually said or what that intimacy was like, only that we have reference in the gospels to Jesus going off into a solitary place and praying so he could pray to the father. We have both types of examples.

Matthew chapter six has kind of as a surface reading of it and with, if we're not careful, can kind of fall into that attitude of that says, well, all prayer that others can see or hear is bad.

But as if we read a little bit more clearly and try to understand some context to what Jesus was talking about here, what the situation was is that there was among some a religious attitude that desired to present themselves,

People who desired to present themselves as super spiritual and super faithful to God through the means of exuberant and flashy prayers that everyone could see.

Jesus actually said the same thing earlier in Matthew chapter six about the act of giving,

Of those who would make exuberant and flashy displays of their giving so that others would be inclined to say, wow, how faithful, how spiritual that person is. Look at what they're doing. This is the same attitude that Jesus was combating both in the act of giving and in the practice of prayer here. And so when Jesus came to the Sermon on the Mount and he begins to communicate about these things, he came to communicate that things like giving, things like prayers talked about in Matthew chapter six were again what we talked about last week and what we'll continue to talk about this week, were a means to the goal of intimacy with the Father in heaven. That the way that our giving is a means to intimacy with the Father in heaven is a way that we connect our heart with the heart of the Father. That prayer is a way that we connect our heart with the heart of the Father. We do not pray just for prayer's sake and so that other people can see our prayers and we do not give just for giving's sake or that other people can see our giving.

We do both in a way to develop and walk into a greater intimacy with our Father. And so if we are without a heart that actually desires intimacy with the Father, we are more likely to lean towards the direction of the Pharisees that preferred the praises of men

Rather than a pursuit of the Father and was ultimately, Jesus says, a display of hypocrisy.

And so Jesus wasn't discounting praying out loud, totally and completely saying, you can never do it. You should never do it. It's bad all of the time. We know this because of one, the general context that we just, it's clear throughout the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus had a particular thing that he was talking about in a particular audience in kind of like this hypocritical action or use of prayer as an end in itself rather than a means to pursue intimacy with God. But we also have a multitude of examples where Jesus himself prayed out loud for others to hear

That in the gospel itself, we see Jesus praying out loud. And in some cases, we see Jesus praying out loud and saying, Father, I'm glad that we can do this so they can hear it.

So even that example alone should help us to read back into Matthew chapter six, that it wasn't like a full, it wasn't a full condemnation of praying out loud. It was praying out loud in a way that draws attention and praise to me rather than glory to the Father

And intimacy with the Father. Some examples of Jesus praying out loud in the gospels. First John chapter 11, verses 41 through 42, this was at the death, I guess you can call it the resurrection of Lazarus. So they took away the stone and then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you have sent me. Jesus flat out saying, hey, like Father, thanks for hearing me. By the way, thanks for letting them hear me. They needed to hear it. They needed to know Lord, that you had sent me. Prayer out loud for others to hear. We don't have a reference on the screen, but if you go to John chapter 17, the first whole portion of John chapter 17 is Jesus praying for other groups of people. Praying for us, those who would come to believe in his message, praying for the world, praying for his disciples, praying for others. Now, why do you think, how do you suppose that we have an account in the gospel of John for what Jesus prayed for those three groups of people?

Because someone was there to hear it, right? Presumably John, the author of the gospel of John was at least there to hear it 'cause he knew what Jesus was praying for. He's like, that's good. I'm writing that down, that's in the story.

And so it's clear that John at least was there to hear it. This is not, John's gospel is not the only place in the gospel of Luke chapter 10, verse 21. We read this, it says, at that same time, Jesus full, I love this, Jesus full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. The Trinity's not in the Bible. Well, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Father all show up in this prayer, right? At that time, Jesus full of joy through the Holy Spirit said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned it and revealed them to the little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. Again, Jesus praying out loud for all of those to hear as an example. Listen, that not all prayer out loud is bad. It just needs to be done with the right heart and with the right motive, okay?

But listen, this is not about the public prayers of Jesus this morning. This is actually about the opposite of the public prayers of Jesus.

Alongside these public types of prayers was a prayer discipline in Jesus' life that not everyone saw,

But that was intentionally private and extraordinarily powerful. This prayer discipline or place of prayer has been known in kind of like Christian language as the secret place.

This is, of course, taken from the language of Matthew chapter six where Jesus references doing that your father sees what is done in secret and will reward you.

What I hope to show us in the scriptures this morning is that there is a special power

And reward that comes from the special place of being alone with God in prayer.

Listen, not all prayer needs to be done in secret, but much of it should be done alone with God.

This is how we develop intimacy and keep our spiritual pride at bay. The reality is that we live in a world and in a culture unlike any other culture and world that has ever existed. Listen, we live more of our lives in public than any group of people has ever lived their lives before.

Just by the connectivity that we have in the digital internet age type of world of being connected, our lives are no longer like lived in private, right?

If a leader screws up halfway along the world, halfway around the world, right? Even 70, 80 years ago, it may be months before you know.

Today, you would know before his family would know. 'Cause someone would be tweeting it out.

We live our lives more in public and more in view of everyone else than any other group of people ever to exist. We are a public facing person all of the time. Even if you don't have social media, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, X or whatever, whatever it is, our lives just by virtue of being living in the 21st century Western world is more on display than any other group of people ever before.

And even though our lives are lived more in the public than anyone's has ever lived before, the truth is that many of us do not really know who we are.

And I'm here to tell you, who we are when we are alone with God in the secret place is who we truly are.

We are not the people that we present ourselves to be to the world. We are not the people that we make our social media profiles look like we are. We are the people that we are when we are alone with God. That's who you truly are.

And so prayer in the secret place becomes a way of counter formation against a world that wants to pull everything that is in us out into the public square and put it on display.

And instead the retreating to the secret place pours into an interior life with God that cannot be shaken and that cannot be taken from us.

Let's look at some instances where Jesus often withdrew to solitary places to pray. First is in Mark chapter one, verses 35 through 38.

When did Jesus pray? Here's one example. Very early in the morning before it was still dark or before while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed. So right at the beginning of Mark chapter one, like very early in the morning while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, went off to a solitary place where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him. And when they found him, they exclaimed, "Everyone is looking for you." Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else then "to nearby villages so I can preach there also. "That is why I have come." What is the context here of what is happening? Well, if you read in the verses right before this, Mark chapter one, verses 34 and those previous two, that you will have heard or seen that Jesus came into the village and began to heal people of their sicknesses, began to cast demons out from them,

Began to lay his hands and pray on people and word got out quickly. And it says that the whole village came to the house where Jesus was staying and the crowd was so thick that Jesus could not get out, that everyone was pressing in on him and the needs and the demands of his time and his energy and his ministry were as high as they had ever been. And so what was Jesus' response to the significant need that there was for his presence, for his ministry, and for his power in that moment?

His response was to say, "I'm out." He got up early in the morning before the crowd had regathered.

He left the house and went off to a solitary place where he begins to pray. Simon Peter, the chief disciple, comes looking for him and be like, "Bro, everyone is looking for you. Where are you at?" Now you can read kind of the intention into Simon's words, right? You got responsibilities to take care of. There are people who have these needs. They expect you to be there. You healed all their friends and family yesterday. Where are you right now? Get up off of your knees. Like, let's finish up this thing you're doing. Let's go back down the mountain top. Let's climb back into the house and let's continue building this ministry of prayer.

And Jesus is like, "Yeah, I think we'll go somewhere else." I think it's time to leave.

Listen, I want you to hear these things. It was in the secret place with the Father. It was when Jesus got alone with the Father in the secret place of prayer that he rid himself of the demands of men

And where he received the marching orders for his life and calling. Jesus used the time in the secret place to reorder his priorities and ensure that he was not just responding to the demands of men, but to the call of God upon his life.

Simon, Peter, and probably the rest of the disciples and the whole crowd were pressing down on him with expectations of what should be important to him. Jesus, this needs to be important to you. Jesus, this is the priority for your ministry. This is the priority for your life. Let's get on with it, Jesus. Let's get back to this healing thing. And Jesus was like, "I don't think you understand. "I have heard from my Father in the secret place of prayer. "And I am going to the nearby village "for that is why I have come."

The Father established the priorities of Jesus when he met with him in the secret place of prayer. And so he now was no longer living under the bondage of expectations of men.

And so many of us live under the pressure of expectation of the world. Do this, do that, go here.

Make sure you say that, make sure you don't say that. Participate in this, participate in that. Spend your life doing this, spend your life doing that. This is important, that's not important, right? And listen, this is important. This is important, that's not important, right? And listen, have you gotten to the secret place to ask the Father how he would reorder your priorities so that they aligned with his heart rather than aligning with the expectations and pressures from the world?

Because I'm going to tell you what. I know a pastor alive who would be like, oh yeah, I was healing everyone yesterday. They want me to come back and heal them today, but I'm just gonna go, I'm out, I'm good, I'm going.

No, we would be giddy with opportunity to pray. But listen, there was something supernatural about the intimacy that Jesus had with the Father where he was like, listen, I know, and it's good. And what we're gonna see in a few instances is that this was not an uncompassionate response from Jesus. It's actually that in the secret place where Jesus bolstered his compassion for the lost.

But this was simply like a no, I am so, my eyes are fixed like flint on the path that the Father has for me, and I will not be moved from where he has called me to and what he has called me to.

And if you're feeling under pressure, loaded down with the expectations of the world, the expectations of other men and women in your life, I'm gonna tell you right now, get into the secret place with the Lord and ask him to reorder your worldly priorities so that they align with the purposes of his heart for your life.

So you no longer live in bondage to the path that the world wants you to walk down.

James says in his epistle, James chapter one, verse five, he says, "Do any of you lack wisdom?" And I don't know what I should do. I don't know what my priorities should be. I don't know what God has for my life. It's hard for me to know and to get in the secret place. Listen, James says, "Do any of you lack wisdom?" You should ask God who gives to all without finding fault.

He doesn't just give to all, he gives what? Generously to all without finding fault.

Another example, that was Mark chapter one. Another example is Luke chapter five, verses 15 and 16.

It says this, "Yet the news about him, Jesus, "spread all the more, so that crowds of people "came to hear him and to be healed of their sickness. "But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed."

Ever been at a party? Big, full house, full party. Came with a friend, or you saw a buddy, or maybe one of your family, or something like that. And you're having a good time, the party's going on, and then all of a sudden you look behind you, like, "Where'd he go, where'd he go, where'd he go?" And you realize that somewhere along the line, it was just like, it didn't say goodbye to anyone. Didn't let anyone know where he was going. It just was like, and just peaced out.

Room full of people, all the fun, all the joy, all the happiness, and for whatever reason, this person's just like, "I'm gone, I'm out." This was Jesus here, right? This was Jesus. The way that Luke describes this is incredible. Okay, he says Jesus often withdrew to what? Lonely places and prayed.

Jesus forced the loneliness of the world upon himself so he could experience community with the Father.

Most of us here are scared to death of being lonely, of being alone, because when we are alone, we begin to discover things about ourselves that we don't experience when we're with people.

The noise starts to come down. The chaos starts to come down. The distraction of other people starts to come down. When we go off into lonely places, right, the voices inside of our heads, so to speak, begin to speak, and we don't always like them. What they say.

But what is clear here is that Jesus found something, not magical, miraculous in the lonely place.

Jesus pursued the loneliness of the world so that he could enjoy the company of God unencumbered by any distraction at all. Now, I tend to think that even though Jesus didn't live

In a digital world that he still had plenty of distractions that he was fighting against. Certainly the distractions of the expectations of other people, the distractions of his ultimate mission, for sure, the distractions of those who are like enmity with him, the religious leaders, right? The distractions of the day, right? And that's not to talk even about the distractions that we have, right? The distractions of our phones, right? And even if we set our phones down, a lot of us have watches that connect with our phones, right? So it's not like when we're away from our phone, we're not even away from our phone. We're tethered to the phone, right? And to leave it someplace to actually, to willfully go into loneliness,

Loneliness of the world, loneliness from the world, so that you're unencumbered by the world and now can experience communion and fellowship with God is not a practice that most of us take upon ourselves.

Listen, in a culture that is seeking additional and continued connection, we must force loneliness into our lives so that we can be consecrated to God and God alone.

When we are alone with God, we have all the company that we need. Also Luke's gospel, Luke chapter nine, verse 28.

This is on the Mount of Transfiguration, Luke's account of Mount of the Mount of Transfiguration.

And we're gonna actually read a portion of this. So take out your Bibles. It's not gonna be on your screen. Luke chapter nine, starting at verse 28, it says this, "About eight days after Jesus said this, "he took Peter, John, and James with him "and went up on a mountain to pray." Okay, so Jesus already has a practice of getting off into solitary places to pray with the Father. And now he's like, okay, guys, Peter, James, John, you're coming with me this time. We're going up the mountain. We're going to the secret place. You're gonna learn what this is all about. Like, I'm gonna teach you how to pray. This is me teaching, right? This is me displaying. This is me showing. And this was the Mount of Transfiguration. It says that they went up on the mountain as as he was praying, the appearance of his face changed. His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Moses and Elijah, they showed up. They appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. Peter and his companions, classic, were very sleepy.

But when they became fully awake and they saw his glory and the two men standing with him, Peter, so overwhelmed by the experience, when Moses and Elijah tried to leave, he was like, ah, Lord, should I build three houses for them? And we can all just kind of stay up here and like this kind of like miraculous cloud of glory and wonder.

Verse 34, while he was still speaking, and this is so important here, okay? Do not miss this, please. While he was still speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. They are in the secret place. They are alone on the mountain top in prayer, right? There's so much glory in that place that literally Moses and Elijah show up. They're like buddy-buddying it with Jesus. And Peter, James, and John are like beside themselves, not knowing to do with the weight of what they're experiencing here, and then the cloud of God comes into sense upon them, and a voice comes from the cloud in the midst of the secret place, in the midst of the intimacy, and says what? This is my son, whom I have chosen.

Listen to him. If it's true for Jesus, it's true for us, why don't you hear this, you receive your true identity from the Father in the secret place of prayer.

You receive your true identity from the Father in the secret place of prayer. In Luke's gospel, there are two things from the Father in the secret place of prayer. In Luke's gospel, there are two places where God says who Jesus is, and both of them are in the place of prayer. Luke chapter three, verses 21 and 22, and here in Luke chapter nine, verses 28 through 36. In the only points in the gospel of Luke where God the Father says, this is who Jesus is, this is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased. This is my son, whom I have chosen. Listen to him, both instances are in the context of prayer. It is in prayer that we receive from the Father the identity that he has defined, described, declared, and created for us. And if you get nothing else from all this, get this, we do not create our identities. We are given an identity from our Father.

We live in a culture that is convinced that we can decide who we are, what our identity is, and that we can change it any time we want, depending on how we feel in the moment. But I want you to hear me say this. It is God who names us. It is God who has formed us. It is God that breathed his life into our existence. It is God who knows us in and out, backwards and forwards. And until we find ourselves in him, we will always be vulnerable to creating an identity outside of him, rather inside of ourselves.

If you want to know who you are and have God speak to you about your identity, you need to get into the secret place of prayer so he can tell you.

To get away from the world and to get with God, he will reveal who you are and who you were created to be.

Matthew's gospel is not without examples as well. Matthew chapter 14, verses 13 through 14. The context is this. John the Baptist has just been beheaded. He's just been executed. John the Baptist was both the cousin of Jesus, the forerunner of Jesus, and the one who baptized Jesus, and just a friend of Jesus. Jesus said he loved John the Baptist. John the Baptist was his friend. His cousin, he was close to him. And so Jesus, the news that John the Baptist was beheaded has just gotten to Jesus. And here's what it reads, Matthew chapter 14. When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

First thing I'll say is this. In the moment of his grief, in the moment of his pain, in the moment of his sadness, what did Jesus do with all that he was feeling in response to the news of the loss of John the Baptist? He ran to the solitary secret place with the father, or rather he rode.

He got in a boat privately to a solitary place. Jesus took his grief to the father in the secret place of prayer.

Here's what you need to know about the secret place, is that the secret place is a place of raw emotion.

It is not a place where we have to put on a mask and pretend that we are full of faith and I am full of hope and I am full of joy in this moment. Like we all come here on a Sunday morning, right? How was your week? It was great.

I've been completely drained of life. I have no hope. I'm doubting a lot. I don't know exactly why I'm here. Actually, I was drugged here, but listen, I'm faking it till I make it. God bless you, brother.

Like this is not the secret place. The secret place is not a place of masquerading or falsity. It's not a place of like disintegration between our words and our actual life. The secret place is a place of raw emotion where we can take the mask off, where we can take the heaviness off and we can come in a state of anguish and pain and grief and doubt and hopelessness and we can say, Lord, this is me. Here I am. What is going on? What are you doing? Meet with me and I'm confused. I am overwhelmed. Where are you?

The secret place is a safe place. Listen, as 20 years of being a pastor right now, I can tell you that most people who deal with significant grief or hopelessness or pain

Over long periods of time usually deal with it because of a refusal to bring it out into the open, to examine it, to talk about it, and then to release and surrender it.

But instead they hold on to that grief. They hold on to that pain. They hold on to what was done to them. And they say, I don't have a place or a person that I can talk about this with, that I feel safe with. And so they crumble it up like a ball of paper and they swallow it.

And what is swallowed in pain, infects our souls. But what is surrendered in pain to the Lord, he brings healing.

He brings hope. He brings a future. Jesus took his grief to the Father in the secret place because it was a place of raw emotion. Where he could be safe.

What we also see from this example in Matthew chapter 14 is that Jesus' time in the secret place did not equal him being less compassionate with the people that really needed him. It says that when Jesus landed and saw the large crowd, he had compassion on them and he healed their sick. Listen, escaping to the secret place does not make us less compassionate to people. It is in the secret place of prayer with the Father that we get equipped and powered up to love people and pursue our callings faithfully and fully.

It is in the secret place where we are, where a heart of love to others is restored. Where what is deflated, what is taken away, what the world gradually saps from our souls, the heavenly Father restores to us a heart of love for people, restores to us a posture of compassion to those in need. If you are like compassion fatigued out, get to the secret place

'cause it is there that God will restore your love for others. This is our last biblical example here from the gospels. Luke chapter 22, verses 39 through 46. This is Luke's account of, this is Luke's account of the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives and his disciples followed him. Reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation." 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 and being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly. What do you do when you're in anguish?

And his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. When he rose from prayer, he went back to his disciples. He found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. "Why are you sleeping?" He asked them, "God, get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." What's happening here? Some beautiful things happening here that we don't see in other accounts of the Garden of Gethsemane. I wanna point out one, Luke's account says that God sent an angel to strengthen him. Like I wanna be on that plan.

I don't know, listen, I don't know about your life. I don't know what you deal with. I don't know what you experience, but what I wanna know, what I wanna believe, the reality of life that I wanna experience is like, man, I need to get to the secret place of God so that an angel can restore me and strengthen me. What? You're telling me that's a thing?

We can do that? You're telling me God sends his angels to the secret place of prayer to restore and strengthen those who are in anguish? I am in.

I don't know what that looks like. I don't have a box to put that in. I don't even know what that would feel like or a category. But listen, Lord, if you're doling out angels for people in the secret place who are in periods of anguish, I will take three.

Give me three, please. What a gift. Oh my goodness. The riches of heaven poured out for his sons and daughters. Like, why are we not praying for this?

Why are we not asking for this? When I'm about to go on a boat, I need an angel. Help me, please.

Help me, please. And this is the whole push of Jesus here in the garden, right?

What do we see as he, and being in anguish, he did what? He folded under the pressure. He said, "I'm so painful that I just quit.

I give up. God's not here. The situation is hopeless." It's like when pressure came, Jesus got more earnest. He got more serious.

He began to be in anguish. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, so earnestly that his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground, an actual medical condition. This is not just some like euphemism for miraculous occurrence.

Probably most significantly interesting to me here in this, is like, why in the world? What's up with the disciples?

Come on. Jesus, we're turning three times. Hey guys, could you stay awake, please? Could you pray? Could you pray and not sleep? Need you now, friends. Need you. Pray for me, please. We're in a secret place with the Father. Pray, please. Here we are. And they kept falling asleep, falling asleep, falling asleep until Luke kind of reveals what happens at the end of this section. He says, "He found them asleep, " verse 45. He found them asleep exhausted with sorrow.

Why were the disciples asleep, exhausted from sorrow? I believe because their internal capacity for prayer

Could not bear up under the external pressure of what they knew was coming and what they heard Jesus himself praying for, just a stone's throw away, it says.

They knew exactly what was coming. It wasn't 'cause they were coming. They weren't sleeping because they were just like laissez-faire about the whole thing and didn't have any idea of what was coming. They knew exactly what was coming and their internal capacity to pray in an earnestness like Jesus faltered under the pressure and they were exhausted with their own sorrow and fell asleep. They had witnessed Jesus in the secret place, but as his anointing over them was being drawn back and preparing for his ascension, they recognized we don't have what it takes to do this.

I'm gonna read this quote from Haddon Robinson. Talks about the garden. This is beautiful.

"Where was it that Jesus sweat great drops of blood? "Not in Pilate's hall, nor on Golgotha. "It was in the garden of Gethsemane. "There he offered up prayers and petitions "with loud cries and tears "to the one who could save him from death.

"Had I been there and witnessed that struggle, "I would have worried about the future.

"If he is so broken up when all he is doing is praying, "I might have said what will he do "when he faces a real crisis? "Why can't he approach this ordeal "with the calm confidence of his three sleeping friends? "Yet when the test came, "Jesus walked to the cross with courage "and his three friends fell apart and fell away.

"It was in the secret place of prayer "where Jesus laid all of his anguish before the Lord "in an earnestness that no one has ever seen before, "that he then received the courage, the stamina, "the vision and the passion to walk with confidence "into the public ministry that God had given to him.

"And the disciples couldn't hack it in the secret place "and they fell asleep. "And so when they went into the public place, "they fell apart.

"I said only one more scripture, I'm sorry." Jeremiah 17 verses five through eight. Then I'm gonna close, okay? Well, kind of.

I'm sorry. I'm not sorry. This is the word of the Lord, okay? Listen. This is what the Lord says. "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, "who depends on flesh for his strength "and whose heart turns away from the Lord. "He will be like a bush in the wastelands. "He will not see prosperity when it comes. "He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, "in a salt land where no one lives. "But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, "whose confidence is in him. "He will be like a tree planted by the water "that sends its roots by the stream. "It does not fear when heat comes, "its leaves are always green. "It has no worries in a year of drought "and never fails to bear fruit." Let me tell you what. The secret place of prayer is where we put down deep roots to reach the streams of living water from the heavenly Father for the inevitable time of doubt, pain, and drought in our lives. It is in the secret place that we find nourishment from the Father.

It is in the secret place that we find streams of living water. It is in the secret place where those roots of our lives can crack down through the arid soil of the world that we live in and find that sweet relief that is Jesus, the water of life.

As I close, we go back to Matthew chapter six where Jesus says, "And your Father who sees what you do in secret "will reward you."

There's rewards for the secret place? What could they possibly be? What could they possibly be? Certainly, He is our reward, right? That God the Father is our reward. The intimacy with the Father is the reward.

And we see that in the life of Jesus, the fruit of intimacy with the Father created incredible freedom.

Look, these things. Number one, He was no longer in bondage to the fear of man, right? God had established our purposes so we no longer live in response to man's expectations, but God's purposes in the secret place. You're free from the expectations of man. In the secret place, our identity is established on the granite truth of God's word to us. When we know who God has said that we are, we will not believe the lies that tell us we are something else. That is a reward.

A reward of the secret place is that we are more fully equipped to love people, even under great responsibility and expectation for our lives. We are, our love for people is restored when it has waned.

A reward of the secret place is that it is a safe place to take our hurt, grief, and pain.

A reward for the secret place is that we literally get heavenly and angelic support. Like, I am so serious. I am on this plan for prayer this week. Like, angels please.

And finally, we get strength to move through the most difficult circumstances of our life. Listen, where's Ellen and the rest of their team? Come on, help me lay on this plane.

Listen, get to the secret place with God. Get to that place with the Lord.

Get to that place unencumbered by the distractions of life. Get to that place where you are, where you have forced the loneliness of the world upon yourself so you can experience community and intimacy with the Father unencumbered by the world. Get to the secret place so that the intimacy with the Father can restore you in your grief. Get to the secret place so that you can live a life free from the pressure of the outside world, walking in confidence of his heart and passion and mission and like purposes in your life. Get to the secret place in prayer and meet the Father.

Get to the secret place, he will meet you there. Lord, we carry all these things to you in prayer.

Lord, we know that you will meet with us there. Father, thank you for the invitation to prayer, which draws us, Lord, into intimacy with you.

Lord, we know that we will seek you, Lord, and we will find you when we seek you with all of our heart. We seek you with all of our heart, Lord. We wanna meet with you in that secret place. We can't wait to see you there, in Jesus' name, amen. Conduit, have a great week, you are loved.