The Prayer Life of Jesus: Praying for Your Spouses’s Desires (Luke 23:44-49)

The Prayer Life of Jesus:
Our and Our Spouses Desires
Luke 23:44-49

INTRODUCTION:
When Rachel and I first met and married, she did not know how strongly we would be pulling for the Alabama Crimson Tide football team throughout our years of marriage. In fact, early in our marriage, or rather through most of our marriage, she could not have cared less about football. I even wasn’t all that interested for many years. I did not watch football much when I was a teenager, although Mom and Dad would have the games on during the fall.

Alabama won the national championship in 1992 under Gene Stallings - who, incidentally is a member of the church of Christ - and I was excited about watching that game and pulling for them because they upset the Miami Hurricanes and there was another man at church who was pulling for Miami.

But then Alabama got really bad and we were living in Tennessee and then TN won the national championship in 1998 and it was exciting to pull for a winning team. And we were seeing orange all around us.

While we were in Romania, my mom sent me boxes of VHS tapes on which she had recorded Alabama football games and NFL games - Sunday night football, Monday night, and Thursday night football games. Daren Schroeder, our team mate, would come over to the house and we would watch football together and fast forward through the commercials.

When we moved back to the states, Nick Saban was hired at Alabama and that’s when my interest in Alabama football really took off - especially because now I had two girls who could share the excitement with me. But Rachel…? No.

After we moved up here, Rachel still did not share my passion for football or for Alabama football. Until we went to our first game two years ago. And she experienced the excitement and the energy of being in the stadium there in Tuscaloosa. That changed everything. Now, not only does she want to watch Alabama football, but she even watches some other football games with me. And she’s starting to pick up the “lingo” of football!

I never really thought about praying that Rachel would share my interest in football, but when you pray for your spouse and you pray that you will grow closer together, doesn’t that include growing in your mutual interests and desires that you want to spend time together with each other? As we finish our series on the “Prayer Life of Jesus,” today we will focus on that - praying for ourselves and our spouse that we’ll grow together in mutual interests and desires.

The Gospel accounts present Christ as praying 15 times; we have looked at most of them in this series. Matthew records 3 of those times, Mark and John record 4. Luke - records 11 prayers of Jesus!

Today, we’re going to look at three specific prayers of Jesus, all of which He prayed while He was on the cross. Two are recorded by Luke while one is recorded by Matthew and Mark…

FORGIVENESS - Luke 23:34:
Jesus has been lead to the place called “The Skull,” in Latin it is called Calvary (23:33). Scholars do not know why this location was called “The Skull.” Two suggestions are offered: maybe it was a little hill that looked like a human skull, or maybe it was because there were a lot of crucifixions there and there were a lot of skulls lying around. There, the Roman soldiers crucified Jesus. Verse 34 notes that Jesus prayed to the Father, the first prayer we’ll consider today, that God would forgive those who had crucified Him. They were pursuing a path of ignorance.

Earlier when Jesus was on trial, the governor Pilate stated that he found no charges worthy of death in Jesus nor did King Herod. Therefore, he was just going to let Jesus go. But the Jews cried out, “Away with this man! Release for us Barabbas!” (ver. 18). Pilate made a second effort but the Jews kept calling out, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”(ver. 21). Pilate yelled back at them, “Why, what evil has He done?” But they did not answer that question; they cried out with loud voices calling for Jesus to be crucified (ver. 23). Pilate gave in.

The Jews had allowed themselves to fall under the wicked influence of Satan. They were allowing Satan to manipulate their hearts, because Jesus did not fulfill their expectations, their mental image of what the Messiah would do and what He should be. They did not accept Him for whom He identified Himself to be. They were doing what they were doing, in ignorance. Later, Peter will tell the Jews as he preaches the gospel to them that they crucified Jesus in ignorance of God’s plans (Acts 3:17).

Jesus prayed that God would forgive them because they were simply ignorant of God’s plans. Of course, when Peter preaches the gospel to them later, they will be immersed for the forgiveness of those sins (Acts 2:41).

In this series of lessons, I have already done a study on praying for our spouse’s obedience, so I’m not going to focus on the “forgiveness” aspect, which we all desire. I’m focusing on praying for our spouse’s dreams.

Everyone has dreams. Some of our dreams are spiritual - like wanting forgiveness of our sins. Some of our teams are material / physical / or earthly in nature. That doesn’t mean they are wrong. It just means that they are lower down on the priority level. But, sharing interests with our spouses is not low down on the priority level. Or it should not be. Are you praying for that?

Otherwise, do you pray for your spouses dreams? Isn’t it interesting how you can live in the same house with someone for years and never know the deepest desires of his or her heart? Often times, that’s because we never ask. Sometimes our dreams are so deep that we never verbalize them. Or, we might think the desires and dreams are so remote that we can’t imagine God fulfilling them and answering those prayers.

But it is almost a sure thing that if we don’t ask, we will not receive.

SAFETY - Luke 23:46:
Between Jesus’ first prayer on the cross and this second prayer, His clothes were distributed by the soldiers. Criminals were normally crucified naked; perhaps because of the Jews’ sensibilities, they allowed Jesus to continue wearing a loin cloth. But, they might have added insult to injury and crucified Him completely naked.

Then He endures the taunts of the crowd - “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One” (ver. 35). Even the soldiers mocked Him. The criminals crucified with Him also mocked Him, until one of them had a change of heart and Jesus promised him that they would see each other in the spiritual world.

Then, Jesus hang on the cross for three grueling, painful hours (ver. 44). His body weight sagged against the nails in His hands. He probably had a piece of wood that He could gently lower His body on to rest just a bit, but with His arms stretched out, He would have to lift Himself to be able to take a breath. But when He lifted Himself up, He pushed against those nails in His feet and that shot pain through His body every time He needed to take a deep breath. For three hours.

And total darkness. The sun was obscured as God placed His hand over the warmth of the sun and turned His back on His Son. We’ll go to Matthew’s account of that in just a moment, but here, we note prayer #2 that Jesus prays: “Father, into your hands I commit My spirit.” Jesus prayed that He would be in the safe hands of His Father as He approached death. This prayer reflects everything about the character of Jesus from the very beginning - He always left His life into the hands of the Father. Again, I have already had a sermon in this series on praying for our spouse’s safety. Here, we are talking about praying for our spouse’s desires, as Jesus expressed His desire for safety in the Father’s hands.

Husbands, if you want a happy and fulfilled wife who is a joy to be around, ask her if there is a dream within her heart that she longs to see fulfilled. Listen openly as she describes it, with no judgment, no condemnation, and no lecture on why it’s not possible. Pray that she will be able to surrender that desire to the Lord and allow Him to work things out as He knows is best. When we surrender our lives to Christ, in all of its aspects and forms, then Jesus will either take the desire away, or He’ll work to fulfill it in His way and in His time. Either way, she will find peace.

Wives, you should do the same…

PRESENCE - Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34:
Either before or after Jesus prayed this second prayer, He utters prayer #3. And Jesus speaks Aramaic, a dialect of the Hebrew language. “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?” And Matthew and Mark translates their language into Greek for their readers: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” There are some scholars who reject the idea that God the Father actually turned His back on His Son. But that denies the plain understanding of the text and there is no other passage that would suggest we understand this any other way.

Why did God turn His back on the Son? Because at that moment, hanging on the cross, Jesus was bearing the sins of all mankind (2 Cor. 5:21). God could not look at His Son who was carrying our sins. God turned His back on His Son so He would not have to turn His back on us. Once again, I have already had a lesson in this series on praying for our spouse’s spiritual condition and relationship with God. Here, we’re talking about praying for our spouse’s desires.

Are you truly present in your spouse’s life and heart?

I read of a woman who had a deep desire to travel and see other interesting places. Her children were out of the home and as adults, did not need her much anymore. Her husband was the CEO of his company and business was his way of life. He was devoted to his company and did not put too much thought into what his wife’s desires were. He wasn’t a bad man; he just was not present for her - you might question if she was present in his heart. The man was living his dreams, but he had not asked about her dreams.

But she was lonely and unfulfilled. She would look at travel magazines and books and watch TV and dreamed of what life could be like. One day, another man looked into her eyes and he saw her. He gave her the attention she should have received from her husband. He wanted to know what she thought and what her dreams were. That nearly destroyed two marriages. But it was a wake-up call to the husband. They went to counseling and the husband neglected that he had been neglecting his wife and he started listening to the cries of her heart.

They began to travel together, fulfilling a lifelong dream she had. Their marriage was saved, but it took years of struggle to repair it.

Do you pray to be present in your spouse’s life and that your spouse will be present in your life?

PRAYER IDEAS:
Pray that your spouse will know if the dreams in his / her heart are right with God.
Pray that your spouse will share those dreams with you.
Pray that your dreams will be compatible with each other.
Pray that you and she will take an interest in each other’s dreams.

LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF THE LORD:
Psalm 37:4 - “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Psalm 107:28-30 - “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distresses. He caused the storm to be still, so that the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they were quiet, so He guided them to their desired haven.”

Psalm 145:16 - “You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

Psalm 145:19 - “He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them.”

Take home message: Pray that your and your spouse’s dreams can coincide and that you can work to fulfill those dreams. It will strengthen your marriage and better prepare you for the challenges ahead.