Prayer for … Believers!

Sermon Summary:

What does it look like when Jesus himself prays for us? In John 17, we encounter the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in the entire New Testament, and what we find there is both humbling and transformative. This is not a distant, formal petition — it is a deeply personal, theologically rich intercession offered on the final night of Jesus’ earthly life, when everything was on the line. He prays for unity among believers, for protection from the evil one, for joy that runs deeper than circumstances, and for a holiness that sets us apart without removing us from the world. These are not abstract theological categories — they are the very things we struggle with every single week. The prayer reminds us that God is not a distant observer of our lives but is intimately involved in every detail. As we reflect on this prayer, we are invited to ask ourselves: are we praying for one another with the same intentionality and depth that Jesus modeled? Intercessory prayer is not a religious formality — it is an act of love, and it has the power to draw us together even across our differences.

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Sermon Points:

1. Knowing God is eternal life!
2. God is intimately involved in our everyday life.
3. Obedience to God’s Word is essential for a fruitful life.
4. Fellowship with fellow believers pleases God.
5. God’s glory is to be on display through us.
6. We need God’s strength and protection.
7. We can experience the true joy of the Lord.
8. We are called to live holy lives.
9. We have been sent by Jesus on mission.

Key Takeaways:

• John 17 is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in the New Testament and is commonly called the High Priestly Prayer, reflecting Jesus’ role as prophet, king, and priest
• The prayer was prayed aloud, allowing the disciples to hear it, and functions simultaneously as intercession and theological instruction covering the incarnation, soteriology, missiology, and the glory of God
• Jesus continues to serve as our great high priest and intercessor, seated at the right hand of the Father, as affirmed in both Hebrews 4 and Romans 8
• Knowing God personally and relationally, not merely knowing about him, is what Jesus defines as eternal life in John 17:3
• God is intimately involved in everyday life, standing against the secular Western tendency to explain all of reality within a purely natural framework
• Obedience to God’s word is essential for a fruitful life, as believers are prone to follow their own desires and limited perspectives rather than divine truth
• Jesus prays for the unity of his disciples, reflecting that fellowship and community among believers pleases God and is central to the church’s health
• God’s glory is meant to be displayed through his people, not through self-promotion or personal ambition
• Jesus prays for practical provision, protection, and strength for his disciples, acknowledging the real challenges of life in the world
• Jesus prays that his disciples will experience the full measure of his joy, which sustains believers through the daily weight and demands of life
• Sanctification and holy living are central petitions of the prayer, as unholiness has become increasingly normalized in contemporary culture
• Believers are sent on mission, and prayer should include asking God to reveal where and how each person is called to live out that mission

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Scripture References:

• John 17:6-19, the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus focusing on his intercession for his disciples
• Ephesians 6:18, the foundational text for the sermon series on prayer, calling believers to pray on all occasions and for all of God’s people
• Hebrews 4, describing Jesus as the great high priest who sympathizes with human weakness and invites believers to approach God’s throne with confidence
• John 12:28, a brief recorded prayer of Jesus asking the Father to glorify his name
• Romans 8, referenced in connection with the Holy Spirit’s intercession and Christ’s ongoing intercession at the right hand of the Father

Stories:

• The pastor recounts attending the Byron Nelson golf tournament where Tiger Woods’ ball grazed his foot, leading to a brief exchange with Tiger and his father. This story illustrates the difference between knowing about someone and truly knowing someone, used to explain the relational depth implied in Jesus’ definition of eternal life in John 17:3
• The pastor references a story about a Manhattan pastor whose Sunday afternoon small group included a surgeon who commuted by train. The surgeon described beginning each week spiritually energized but feeling weighed down by Friday due to the demands of his work and life, illustrating Dorothy Sayers’ observation that “life is so everlastingly daily” and underscoring the importance of praying for joy in the lives of fellow believers
• The pastor briefly references a personal story about a new baby in his family, using it to illustrate how joy can help people endure difficult and exhausting seasons of life

Sermon Transcript:

Well, thank you again, choir and orchestra. We are grateful for your leadership and worship. And I’ll add my personal greeting to our Korean students who have joined us again for another semester. And we have new students, as Erin mentioned, and we have a number of our Korean friends who are in South Korea today who’ve graduated, finding jobs and experiencing the beauty of life there. And.

And we give our greetings to our sister church there in South Korea as well. So with that said, you know that we are continuing our journey, learning about flourishing together. And our theme for August is Prayer for Believers. And as a matter of fact, that’s actually the title of the sermon for today, Prayer for Believers. Because that to me, is at the heart of the prayer that we have found in our Bibles in the 17th chapter of John.

So if you have your copy of the New Testament, let’s look at that John 17.

Like for us to give consideration to this prayer. This is the longest prayer from Jesus that we have in the New Testament. There are numerous examples of Jesus praying in the Gospels. We read about that all the time. And we have just a handful, a smattering of actual prayers of Jesus recorded in the New Testament.

This is the longest one. And so I want us to look at it today. We’re going to begin in the second section of the prayer, begins in verse six. So if you are able, I invite you to stand along with me as we honor the Lord Jesus in the reading of the Gospel, where Jesus prays. I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world.

They were yours. You gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. Now they know everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you.

And they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I’m not praying for the world, but for those you’ve given me. For they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine.

And glory has come to me. Through them I will remain in the world no longer. But they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father. Protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me so that they may be one as we are one.

While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by the name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that scripture would be fulfilled. I’m coming to you now. But I say these things while I am still in the world so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I’ve given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of this world any more than I am of the world.

My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

For them I sanctify myself that they too may be truly sanctified. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. So you know that the topic of the month of August is prayer.

Let me read to you a couple of quotes about prayer. Here’s one from Billy Graham. He says the men upon whose shoulders rested the initial responsibility of Christianizing the world came to Jesus with one supreme request. They didn’t say, lord, teach us to preach. Lord, teach us to do miracles, Lord, teach us to be wise.

But they said, lord, teach us to pray. J. Oswald Sanders says mastering the art of prayer, like any other art, will take time. And the amount of time we allocate to it will be the true measure of our conception of its importance. In other words, how seriously do we take prayer? One of my favorite quotes is from Corrie Ten Boom.

She says, is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?

What a great question. Because we should be guided by prayer. Well, in Ephesians 6, verse 18, this is our kind of foundational text for this whole series. The apostle Paul says, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all of the Lord’s people.

So last Sunday we talked about praying. We should pray every day, every time, everywhere, in every circumstance. But Paul says, pray all kinds of prayers and remember to be sure to pray for your fellow believers. Well, that particular prayer is intercessory prayer. That’s what I want us to think about this morning, intercessory prayer.

You know, we have an intercessory prayer ministry here at our church, and I’m grateful for our prayer warriors. We have a prayer room located in the Wade Building, and we have people who pray all during the week. Right now, while we’re gathered here in this room, we have deacons who are assembled in a room who are praying right now in unity, interceding for all of us before the Lord. Charles Spurgeon said that intercessory prayer is an act of communion with Christ, for Jesus pleads for the sons of men. Jesus was an intercessor.

In fact, that’s still who Jesus is. So with all that said, let’s look at this prayer. And for several hundred years now, people, people have obviously been studying this prayer. And many scholars refer to this prayer as the high priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17. So I want you to think about the context of what’s going on here.

This is the final night of the life of Jesus. And he knows what’s just on the horizon. His disciples don’t know. They sense, I believe, that something is afoot just because of their conversations they have this evening. But Jesus knows that looming on the horizon is his death, his resurrection, and then his ascension.

And the question on the table is, how will the disciples fare without the physical presence of Jesus? Will they survive? Will this movement that Jesus has launched survive? Will these disciples stay together? Will they be strong?

Will they live a life of holiness? Will they truly understand the gospel? Will they truly understand the incarnation? And will they be able to overcome the evil one? All of those are still questions.

If you didn’t know the history and the story, if we weren’t living on this side of it, those are legitimate questions that are in play. But also in this prayer, Jesus reveals deep theological reflection and understanding. Well, duh, he’s the Son of God, but still he communicates it for us. Because the Jews in this era prayed out loud so the disciples would hear this prayer. And so Jesus is going to look into heaven, which is what the Jews did, and just pray out loud.

And even in his prayer, he’s teaching. Because this prayer is a consolidation of incarnational theology, the whole understanding of soteriology, the gospel of redemption, missiology, discipleship, the understanding about the glory of God, the pre existence of the Son of God, all is on display in this prayer. It’s deeply theological, it’s deeply personal, and it’s incredibly passionate. I hope we can somehow feel the emotion of this as Jesus is recognizing that this is the final night that he’ll be on this earth with his disciples. Now we have other prayers, as I said, recorded of Jesus in John’s Gospel.

Jesus stands at the tomb of Lazarus and he prays. He calls on his Father at the tomb of Lazarus and even says, I’m doing this so that those around me can hear this. And so he’s teaching in his prayers. John 12:28. He prays a short prayer.

Father, glorify your name. And now we come to this prayer. Jesus is a prophet. Of course he’s the prophet. He’s the king, but he’s also our priest.

And that’s why this prayer is often referred to as a high priestly prayer. He’s our high priest. We’ve read through the Book of Hebrews earlier this summer. Kurt has done an outstanding job giving us daily devotionals from the readings of the Book of Hebrews. But that reading of Hebrews sets up this conversation.

And Jesus is portrayed in the Book of Hebrews as our great high priest. So why would we be surprised that he prays a priestly prayer? Because that’s the role that he plays in our lives. Let’s just look at a passage from Hebrews 4 where the writer of Hebrews writes this. Therefore, since we have a great high priest, he’s not just a high priest.

He’s our great high priest who’s ascended into heaven. In other words, he’s in the real holy of holies, Jesus, the Son of God. Let’s hold firmly to the faith we profess, for we do not have a high priest who’s unable to empathize with our weaknesses. We have one who’s been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he didn’t sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence.

Let us pray, in other words, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. We have a great high priest. He still is our great high priest. Aaron, a moment ago read a passage from Romans 8 about the Holy Spirit who allows us to sometimes come before the Lord with groanings too deep for words, and he translates them for us. But Paul later says in Romans 8 that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God.

Doing what? Interceding for us. He is our intercessor.

Isn’t that awesome that Jesus is interceding for us? And so think about that. He is still our high priest, but he’s not like any other high priest because he was also the sacrifice. So this prayer is a powerful, powerful theological reflection, and I want us to learn some lessons from it today. So if you have your Bibles open, let’s look at it.

John 17. Typically, most scholars will take this prayer and break it into three components. That’s. That’s typically done by most interpreters. I would agree with that.

You see that reflected if you happen to have the new international version open today, it actually will divide it with headings where Jesus. This first section of the prayer is set off. And then you’ll notice right before verse six, it’ll say, jesus prays for his Disciples. Then after the text we just read, Jesus prays for all believers. And so the opening part of this prayer, Jesus prays for himself, if you will.

And in there is powerful theological reflection. Let’s look at it. We didn’t read it. But you remember how sometimes in the Gospel of John, Jesus will say, my hour has not yet come. Remember when Mary told him, why don’t you do something at this wedding?

Because they’ve run out of wine. And Jesus said, my hour has not yet come. But. But now look at chapter 17. Look at verse one, where Jesus says, father, the hour has come.

It’s now time. And then Jesus prays that the glory of God will be on display through the cross, through a reflection of God’s immense love and his care for humanity and his answer for the sinfulness of man. All that’s going to be on display. And so Jesus prays this powerful prayer in the opening. Then we come to verse six.

And then he prays for his disciples, as I said. What’s going to happen to them? Are they going to scatter? We’ve already lost one of them, Judas. Jesus mentions that in this prayer.

Are they going to be strong? Will they be able to handle the challenges of life? Will they stay together? Will they truly be holy people? These are questions looming.

And so Jesus just prays for them. So here’s what I want us to do. First, I want us to just receive some intercessory prayer lessons from the high priestly prayer, okay? Then I want to walk through a practical way that you all can pray for each other. Is that okay?

So let’s learn that from Jesus. So let’s look at what we can learn from the intercessory prayer life of Jesus. First of all, knowing God is eternal life. That’s actually in the text right before what we read. Look at verse 3.

This is eternal life. Now, if Jesus says, this is eternal life, I would concur with most theologians. We ought to pay attention to what he says is eternal life. Wouldn’t you agree? And here’s what Jesus says, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you’ve sent.

In other words, that they will have a powerful relationship with you through me, your son, who you sent. So that’s where it all starts. But then, secondly, God is intimately involved in our everyday life. The fact that Jesus even calls on the Father to intervene in the lives of these men and women lets us know that God is a part of our everyday lives. Now, you and I, we live in this Western culture.

And the Western culture has grown in its secularism and its attempt to explain the entire world just from a natural perspective. Charles Taylor writes about that in some of his writings and others have as well. It’s referred to as the immanent frame. In other words, in all of life can be framed within the natural order. And there’s no room for spirituality, there’s no room for transcendence.

That’s how much of Western society sees reality. That is not our perspective. We actually believe in something transcendent, something beyond the natural order. You and I believe in something that is actually supernatural and that is the very presence of God in this world, that there’s something transcendent about reality and about truth. And you and I have to have the eyes of faith to see it so that we can understand there’s something else really going on here.

There are, as Philip Yancey says, rumors of another world. And then third, obedience to God’s word is essential for a fruitful life. If you want to be fruitful, then you’ve got to understand that God has revealed himself through his truth, and you have to accept it and obey it. So Jesus prays that these people will be obedient, that they will receive this word. In fact, look at verse six, he says, these people, verse six, these disciples, they’ve obeyed your word.

And Jesus continues to plead that they will accept this, they will believe what they’re supposed to believe. So he prays for obedience. But then at the heart of this prayer, if you’ll notice, Jesus prays for unity, fellowship with fellow believers that pleases God. Jesus prays that we will be one, that we’ll experience this spiritual unity. And then fifth, that God’s glory is to be on display through us.

Jesus says, I have been glorified. I plan to glorify you. Even further, he connects glory in verse 10 to these disciples. The glory is supposed to be on display through God’s people. But then Jesus knows that they live in a real world.

So in verse 11, he prays for strength, for them to be protected, for provision, for them to be able to manage their way through life. But then also, Jesus doesn’t want life to be drudgery to us. Notice he also prays for us to experience the full joy of the Lord. Look at verse 13. I want them to have the full measure of my joy.

He prays that God’s disciple, God’s followers, will be joyful. And then also he prays that we’ll live holy lives, sanctify them, Jesus says. In fact, Jesus says about himself, I’m going to sanctify myself. That’s through his obedience to the Father. And then notice verse 18.

He prays for them to be sent on mission. This is a powerful prayer. There’s so much to learn from it, and I don’t have time to go into it all today. But here’s what I would encourage you to do. Spend some time in this prayer, John 17, contemplating on it, where Jesus is connecting everything together in this prayer.

The gospel, missiology, the incarnation, the glorification of the Son of God, the restoration of his glory, restored to his former glory before he took on humanity. So now, with that said, here’s what I’d like to do. Are y’ all still with me? Okay. Sometimes preachers can be guilty of telling you that you ought to do something and never offer you any instruction on how to do it.

Okay? So we can challenge you to pray and then never show you how to pray. So here’s what I’d like to do this morning. I want to show you one way to pray for your fellow believers. Is that okay?

This is not the only way, but this is a way for y’ all to pray for each other as fellow church members. And let’s take the lesson straight from this prayer. Is that all right? So let’s learn some lessons about how to pray for your fellow believers. What should you be praying for each other?

First of all, y’ all ought to be praying for each other. Okay? Pray for your fellow church members. This is your church. We want this church to be healthy, vibrant.

We want this church to flourish. We want to be obedient to God’s mission. We want. We want to be a part of something that transcends all of us. We want to be in the middle of whatever it is that God’s doing on planet Earth.

And God works through the church. We happen to be in this one, so we’re going to pray for this one. Is that okay? Is that okay? Okay, Good.

So how do we pray for each other? Well, there’s so many ways to pray for each other. Okay. But let me offer you a way. Here are the things.

You can pray for one another. First of all, pray for each other to know God. This is eternal life.

It’s not enough to know about God. We need to know God. We need to know him personally. That’s what Jesus says in this prayer. Verse 3.

To be in a relationship with him. That word know in the scripture, it’s an intimate word. It means to have deep, personal relationship with someone. And I’VE told y’ all this story before, but some of y’ all are new. When I was years ago, I went to the Byron Nelson Golf tournament.

Tiger woods was a young golfer, and he. I’m standing on the number one green, and he hit a ball right at me, and it landed right in front of me, bounced up, barely grazed me, and landed there in the rough. His dad comes walking up and he says, did that ball hit you? I said, it just barely grazed. No big deal.

And Tiger walks up and he. And his daddy said, you need to apologize this guy because your ball glazed his foot. I said, it’s not that bad a deal. Tiger said, why didn’t you kick it down on the green?

His daddy looked at him and said, why didn’t you just hit it on the green?

You got to love a dad. A friend of mine played professional baseball for numerous teams. His name was Mike o’. Berry. He and I grew up together.

I know his brother, know his mom and daddy and o’. Barry. When he came to play against the Rangers, I called his hotel room. I saw him at a football game earlier that year, and he said, wiles when? I remember when Arlington called me up.

So I called him up. I said, hey, man, I want to come to the game tonight. He said, okay. He left me tickets at the VIP window, took some friends. You know, I never called Tiger woods and asked him to give me tickets to anything.

I know about Tiger Woods. I know Mike o’ Barry and Mike o’ Berry left me tickets with my name on it with a note. There’s a difference between knowing about somebody and knowing somebody. So you don’t just need to know about God, you need to know God. So we need to pray for each other.

That our knowledge of God will deepen through the years. Second thing we can pray for each other from this prayer is to sense God’s presence. Pray for your fellow believers to have an awareness of God in their everyday lives. That they will sense God their life every day. That they will see God at work in their lives every day.

That they will experience his presence. They’ll be conscious and aware of who he is. Third, pray for your fellow believers to obey God’s word. Because here’s the thing. We’re all tempted to obey our own words.

We just are. We’re all tempted to live life according to our own desires, to just follow our own impulses, to just do what we feel like doing. Here’s the problem. There are a lot of problems there. Here’s one of the problems.

We are all Broken, fallen creatures. And we don’t always feel like doing the right thing. And when we follow our own desires, when we follow our own plan, we have a limited horizon, a limited perspective. And when we only do what we think feels right to us, it can lead us down a very disastrous path. And so pray for your fellow church members that we will truly allow the truth and the word of God to guide us.

You know, there are so many different ways to reflect on the Scripture. And you know, as a theologian, as a pastor, I spent a lot of time reading about the various views of Scripture. Here’s what I would say. I believe the Scripture is inspired by God and it’s authoritative for your life. That right there sums it up for me.

It’s authoritative for my life. So pray that your fellow Christians and church members will receive the authority of the Word of God. Next, pray for us to live in community with fellow believers. God has called us to live in relationship. He’s created us as relational creatures.

That’s a part of his image in us. And that means we’re designed to live together in community, not to live isolated lives.

We’re supposed to be social creatures, but it’s more than just being social creatures. It’s living in community with fellow believers. So find that community in the church. Pray for your fellow believers, that they’ll be one, that they’ll live together, be connected, discover healthy relationships within the body of Christ. Next, pray for your fellow Christians to reflect God’s glory.

The temptation is going to be to reflect our own glory. Human beings have a desire to make our names great, but that’s not really God’s desire. We’re supposed to be interested in God’s name being great. And if we can reflect his glory in this world, it’ll be so much more effective and than our name being great. And so let’s ask God to show us how to reflect his glory.

So pray for your fellow believers that the fruit of the Spirit will be alive in them, so that God’s glory will be on display through them. Then pray for them to experience God’s provision. Pray for each other’s needs. Jesus did that. He said, lord, protect these Father, Father, give them strength.

Well, your fellow believers in your church are going through all kinds of things. We never know what life is going to bring us, do we? We never know the challenges that we’re going to have to face. Our whole lives can be changed by one phone call, one experience, one encounter, and everything about your life gets completely reshaped and changed and transformed. That’s just how it is.

And so pray for one another, pray for protection, pray for provision, pray for strength, pray for physical needs, pray for spiritual needs, emotional needs, relational needs. Pray for our fellow believers to experience the hand of God in their lives as a provider and protector, meeting our needs. And then pray that our fellow believers will discover real joy. It’s what Jesus says, you know, life can be demanding. Years ago, I read about a pastor who was pastoring in Manhattan, and he had a small group that he taught on Sunday afternoon.

And he said one of the men in his church was a surgeon who lived outside of Manhattan and rode a train in every day to work. And he said he told his pastor one day in their study, he said, man, I love being a part of this group. I love to be in your presence. I love to hear the Word taught through you. I love our group.

And I start out every Monday just so fired up. He said, but by the time I get to Friday, the train ride in, the demands of the work at the hospital, the challenges that I’m facing, the decisions that I’m trying to make, he said, I just find life to be so heavy by the time I get to the weekend, well, you know what? That’s lived out by just about everybody. You know, Dorothy Sayer says life is so everlastingly daily, right? So guess what?

You can pray for your fellow believers joy. Because somehow or another, if you’ve got joy, it just changes your perspective, doesn’t allows you to deal with the drudgery of life in such a different way. It helps that mom of a newborn somehow manage sleepless nights. I don’t know how they do it. Just recently we’ve had a new baby.

I’m reminded once again that babies are for the young. I’ve been reminded of that. But you know what? When you’ve got that joy in your heart, it’s funny how to just reshape something. It’ll allow you to manage that situation at work.

It allow you to deal with some of those obstacles that you’re facing, knowing that there’s a deep sense and abiding presence of God that brings joy, even in the sorrow and in the struggle. When you go through those experiences of grief and challenge and difficulty, pray for your fellow believers that they’ll be joyful. Also pray for them to live holy lives.

My world is just characterized. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s just unholiness. I feel like it’s just everywhere I look, unholiness has just become normal. It’s fascinating to me.

Acceptable. You know, I’m old enough to remember when your sexuality was private and your spirituality was public. Somewhere along the way, that got flipped. It’s fascinating to me. Well, Jesus says sanctify them.

So pray for your fellow church members to live holy lives, godly lives. Because if you’re not careful, sin is so powerful. You can explain away any behavior.

You can talk yourself into just about anything and somehow look in the mirror and justify it. It’s fascinating. We all can do it. That’s why we got to pray for each other to be holy, living beyond our desires, and then finally pray for your fellow believers to live. Sent.

Jesus said, I’m sending them. We’re all sent by God somewhere to do something. So pray for each other that we’ll all discover that. Where are you sent this week? Where are you being sent to live out the calling of God?

You know what I’d say about that? If we pray those prayers for each other and live into them, you know what I’d call that? Flourishing. That’s what I’d call it. So, y’, all, let’s pray for each other.

Now, that’s not the only way to pray for each other. This is a way. But if you want to know one of the ways I pray for you, this would be it. I’ve even got a prayer here that I kept with me that I’m praying for our educators, our students, that I’m praying over them for this year. I’ve just written it down, very practically things that I’m praying for them.

Well, here is a intercessory model, and it comes straight from Jesus. Now, every day in our daily Bible readings, Kurt sends out this devotional. Have y’ all been getting that at the very end? I love this quote that Kurt has at the very end. You can do no more than pray.

You can do more than pray after you’ve prayed, but you can’t do more than pray until you’ve prayed. So that’s why we pray first, right? So with that said, y’ all know that this month we have a prayer for the whole church. We’re asking you to do this, to just pray together as couples, as families, as individuals, as Sunday school classes, however you communicate with, commune with one another. Here’s the prayer for this week.

We’ve got a prayer point for the rest of this time, all the way through Advent. Okay? So let’s look at the prayer for this week. It’s a prayer for believers. Let’s pray it out loud together.

Lord, I come before you on behalf of my fellow believers here at our church. Make yourself known to them and draw them to yourself. Amen. Y’ all pray for each other, because when you’re praying for each other, it gets harder and harder to get mad at each other.

It gets harder and harder to be divided from each other, because all of a sudden you feel yourself being pulled together, even in your diversity. And that’s what Jesus prayed. Lord, there’ll be one. May it be so. May it be so.

Let’s pray together.

Father, we love you. We thank you for this prayer from Jesus that really is a model prayer for us, that really shows us how to pray for each other. Thank you for that. And we just pray, Lord, that we’ll be faithful to pray for each other and that we’ll see those prayers answered in the lives of our fellow believers. So draw us together, Lord, in unity, in communion with one another, diverse as we may be, but called together to your mission.

And may you be glorified in and through us. And we pray that in Jesus name, amen.