He Prayed For Us! Series

He Prayed for Us

CCCAG December 2nd, 2018

Scripture- John 17

It was May of 1996 when 17 people walked into a classroom to take the state test to qualify for their paramedic license. It had been almost a year since they had begun the process that got them to this point. Almost 2000 hours of classroom instruction, hundreds of hours of ride time and clinical training at the hospital, and now they needed to prove to the state of Wisconsin that they can operate in the back of an ambulance when somebody's life was on the line.

At the end of the day, everyone had passed their test and before we all left to our individual celebrations our lead instructor brought us back into the classroom for a few final words.

He told us congratulations on passing your test and that he knew we would all make excellent paramedics. He also left us with one final piece of advice. Paramedic school wasn't about just being able to put a Patch on your arm and a license in your wallet.

He said this last year hasn't been just about teaching you how to pass a test.

This last year has been preparing you to be the person that stands between your future patients and death. Remember the privilege you have earned, and the responsibility you now bear.

Those were our chief instructors last teaching to us.

Today we're going to be looking at Jesus’ last teaching to his beloved disciples. John chapter 17 is the end of the upper room discourse and this chapter of the Bible has its own special designation.

John chapter 17 is known as Jesus’ high priestly prayer.

Stop and think what is going through Jesus’ mind right now- he is walking toward Gethesmene where He will wrestle in prayer against the devil himself. He also knows on the other side of that- Judas and the guards are coming.

Jesus doesn’t pull out a motivational book, he doesn’t psych HIMself up for what He is about to go through- he stops and gathers his friends around HIM to pray.

I think that's pretty significant.

This morning we are going to look at Jesus’s high priestly prayer. What we will learn from it how we can pray for ourselves, pray for our friends and our families, and even pray for those who don't know Jesus yet.

I do want to make one point before we begin this morning.

This entire message assumes that you are a person who prays.

If you don't get anything outside of today's message, I hope you would get this one point right now you need to be a person of prayer.

I'm not talking about just someone who prays over there meal or whispers a short sentence before falling asleep at night. I am talking about someone who is committed to spending quality time with God both in Bible reading and just talking to him.

This whole message this morning will be instructional of how to make that time with God the most special time of your day.

Let's start by asking God's blessing in prayer

Prayer (last days imperative)

Whenever you bring up Jesus to somebody the topic of conversation often revolves around what he did for us, specifically him dying for sins and rising from the grave so that we know that whosoever would believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

And that is good news!

However, when we look at the life of Jesus we see a common theme throughout all the gospels. The gospel speak of his miracles, they record his words and we get a glimpse into his personality.

But the one thing we often miss is how often Jesus prayed.

The gospel writers would record that Jesus would be off praying somewhere but it would be such a short little verse we often miss that vital fact that Jesus is life. Jesus did not do anything without spending considerable time in prayer.

Some notable examples-

Jesus spent 40 days and nights in the desert praying before confronting Satan

Jesus prayed before he fed the 5000

Jesus prayed before raising Lazarus from the dead

Jesus felt prayer was so important HE gave His top three leaders Peter James and John a glimpse into his prayer life on the Mount of transfiguration

Many books have been written about the prayer lives of Saints who have gone before us; mighty men and women of God who absolutely should be emulated in what they accomplished for the gospel and the Kingdom of God.

But how much more should we look through the author and perfecter of our faith- our LORD Jesus in seeing how we should pray?

This morning we're going to start out by looking at how Jesus prayed for himself