From Jesus’s times of prayer with the Father, followed by His obedience to the Father’s will as revealed in those times, Jesus did not fail in anything God gave Him to do. Because He always listened to His Father’s agenda and was always obedient, the Father was free to fully accomplish His eternal purposes through the Son.
Jesus knew that the Father had eternity in mind each time He prayed. This is revealed at the most crucial moment for the accomplishment of the Father’s will through the Son on the night of His prayer in Gethsemane in Luke 22:42 when said “Not My, but Yours, be done.” It was settled, God’s great salvation for the world would start to unfold. Eternity was about to be start unfolding. Eternity was now to be gloriously affected.
In many ways, Gethsemane was the Father’s moment. He had eternally planned and purposed salvation. History was made that night because it all came to a point that night. If Jesus had not come to this in reverent submission, God’s eternal plan to redeem the world would have been lost. God waited and Jesus in reverent godly submission, submitted making certain that God’s eternal plan for our salvation was set into motion that night in Gethsemane. This was the climax of Jesus’s driving motivation in His life. He made this motivation clear many times:
John 4:34 “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.”
John 5:30 “I do not seek My own will but the will of Father who sent Me.”
John 6:38 “I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent me.”
His never wavering commitment to God’s plan and purpose is the reason He could say to the Father at the end of His ministry: “ I have finished the work You have given Me to do (John 17:4).” And to cry out from the cross in John 19:30 “It is finished!” Let’s go back for one last look at Hebrews 5:9, the passage that shows us the essence of Jesus’s prayer life in the days of His flesh. After showing us His constant and passionate prayers, and that His prayers were heard because of His reverent submission, and that Jesus learned submission by the things He suffered, the passage ends with this statement about Jesus: Hebrews 5:9 “And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.”
Through this all-consuming process of continual prayer, submission, and obedience in the midst of suffering, Jesus was made perfect!! For the Father to accomplish His plan for the world’s redemption, there had to be a perfect and complete sacrifice for sin. In His prayerful submission to the Father, Jesus was made complete by the Father. Prayer in the Son’s life gave the Father the opportunity to shape Jesus to be His perfect and acceptable sacrifice for sin. This was the Father’s activity in the local prayer life of Jesus, and the redemption of the world depended on it.
In the very same way, prayer in our lives is purposed by God to change and shape us to His will and purpose so He can accomplish His redemptive will through us. The redemption of the world now rests on this activity of God is us, as a result of our prayers, while the Father works to perfect us and shape us into the image of His Son. Our immediate and full submission, even when it costs us greatly, is the Father’s purpose for our individual lives, for our families, and for our churches that the world may come to know and experience God’s great salvation.