What Jesus Prayed For
Call to Worship- Julie - OGHS
PRAISE SONGS Seek Ye First # 1, Change My Heart, O God # 7, The Worship Song #8
Children’s Time Hold up a picture of yourself, and ask the children, "How many are in this picture?" They'll answer, "One." Then hold up a photo of your family, and ask, "How many are in this picture?" They'll count the family members and give you a number. Then shake your head and say, "No. There is only one in this picture: one family." Talk with the children about the different ways of being "one" - one person, one family, one class, one church. See if they can name the things that make a group of people united as one. Then point out that Jesus prayed to God that his disciples would be "one," just as God and Jesus were "one" (John 17:11). Suggest that he wanted the disciples to be united in love, in holiness, in mission, in identity. Close by encouraging the children to be one with each other in the church, and one with God and Jesus as well.
GREETINGS
# 629 Lord Listen to your Children Praying
INVOCATION /
O Lord Jesus, stretch forth thy wounded hands in blessing over thy people, to heal and to restore, and to draw them to yourself and to one another in love. O God, you are one; make us one.-Prayer from the Middle East, from the worship book of the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Vancouver, Canada, 1983.
Pardon
Through the love of the only true God, the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are forgiven. Glory be to God!
O God, some of us have come upon a time of suffering. We offer it up to you, yet not fully understanding just how that honors you. In truth, we do not understand how to make sense of suffering in a world whose creator is the God of love, yet we accept this reality and pray for you to use this difficult time to make us more able and more worthy to serve you. In Christ's name we pray.
praise
troops
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mourn
new pastor LORD’S PRAYER SUNG
Hymn # 629 Lord Listen to your Children Praying
Scripture Reading Acts 1:6-14
SPECIAL MUSIC rick Irish The Holy City
Offering
Hymn Sweet Hour of Prayer
Scripture text John 17:1-11 Jesus Prays for Himself
1After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: 2"Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
Jesus Prays for His Disciples 6"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. 7Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8For 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. 9I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11I 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.
Sermon What Jesus Prayed For
What do you pray for? Let's assume that sometime, somewhere, somehow, everybody prays. Someone with the voice of experience said, "There are no atheists in foxholes." There are no "non-pray-ers" when the only thing left to do is pray. So, whenever you do pray, whatever do you pray for? What I want to know, really, what I want you to know for yourself is: What do you pray for? Another way to put it is: What do you want? What do you want out of life? What do you want out of God? What do you want badly enough that you'll talk to the ceiling (or to the floor) to get it? Whether you raise your face to see if God is there, or lower your head in fear he might be, or in deference if he happens to be, what do you ask, what do you say, when you pray?
Do you pray for Affluence, a Big Bank Balance, a new Car, or a new Direction for your life? How about an Easier life for you or someone you love? Some people seem to want a Free ride! Someone once said that around stewardship time in church it looks like a lot of folks expect to go to heaven on a scholarship! So do you ever pray for increased Generosity? (And not just for someone else, but for you, too?) Some people pray to go to Heaven, out of fear God will get them and they'll go to Hell. I know folks who pray because they're Insecure, including some folks who look and sound anything but.
Just one more chance is what some prayers are prayed for. Just one more chance with my kids, my spouse, my parents, my job, my life. Some people pray to be Kept safe and secure. Others to be Let Loose from suffocating security. Money is always on some people's list. And the prayer is always for More. / No more of whatever it is that's driving me Nuts gets prayed for a lot. New Opportunities, new Possibilities, answers to old Questions, and Relief from old Regrets, all get mentioned. Some of us pray for Something Secret down deep in our Souls we've never shared with anyone.
Terrible things get lots of attention. Anybody paying attention to this world of ours, knows we have a lot praying to do. The Usual things get prayed about. They're on everyone's list and they should be: sickness, suffering, sadness, circumstances beyond our control. We pray for Victory for the good, in War with the bad, as a nation, as concerned parents, in our neighborhoods, on our streets. We pray for eXcellence (I cheated!). We pray for Yet another chance. We pray for ZZZZZ's, because everything else we pray for keeps us awake at night. A to Z. We pray. Sometime, somewhere, somehow, we pray.
And when we can't pray? Well then, the Scriptures say, Christ prays for us - not just about us but on behalf of us, when we can't pray.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't pray for ourselves or for others, but that we have more going for us than we might think. Even when we might be thinking in our praying of giving up. I like mystery stories but there's no mystery in how we need to live. We need to pray. And we need to "never, never, never, give up."
Dame Agatha Christie told this story in her autobiography. It's about frogs. But it's really about what it means to lead a prayerful life which is more than just mouthing a lot of prayers. // It seems two frogs jumped into a bucket of cream on a dairy farm. "May as well give up,'' croaked one after trying in vain to get out. "We're goners!" "Keep on paddling," said the other frog. "We'll get out of this mess somehow!" "It's no use," said the first. "Too thick to swim. Too thin to jump. Too slippery to crawl. We're bound to die sometime anyway, so it may as well be tonight." He sank to the bottom of the bucket and died. His friend just kept on paddling, and paddling, and paddling. (And probably praying and praying and praying.) By morning he was perched on a mass of butter that he had churned. There he was, with a grin on his face, eating the flies that came swarming from every direction.1
Prayer is about not giving up on yourself or on God. The prayer Jesus prayed was prayed at a time when giving up would have been easy. Jesus prayed his prayer between dinner and death. Between having dinner with his disciples (one of whom would deny him, all of whom would desert him) and dealing with the political realities that would lead to his death, Jesus prayed. But he did not pray for a way out; he prayed for a way forward. What Jesus prayed for when his praying time was running short was not what you'd expect. Not that long list I made.
He prayed first that in what was happening to him God would be glorified. We pray like that when we pray like him: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name" "Glorified be your name." He told us to pray that first. In all of the stuff I've got to talk to you about, God, may there be some glory in it for you.
Then he prayed for his disciples. He prayed for those he loved. He prayed, "Father, I don't ask you to take my followers out of the world, but keep them safe" (John 17:15 CEV). The great preacher Phillips Brooks once said, "Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks" (Source unknown). That's what Jesus prayed for his disciples. Power to handle the problems ahead. But he also prayed for something else. Something important for us to hear. He prayed it for the disciples. And he prayed it for you and me. And he was rather insistent about it. It was the last part of the last line I read from the lesson. He prayed: "that they may be one, as we are one" (John 17:11 NRSV). "We" was Jesus and God. "They" were Jesus' closest friends. Jesus prayed for his friends a closeness, a sense of in-it-together-ness, a reality of oneness like that of God and himself. And he also prayed that for you and me. In the part of the prayer we didn't read Jesus prayed: "I ask...that they may all be one" (John 17:21 NRSV). "that they may be one, as we are one" (John 17:22 NRSV). "that they may become completely one" (John 17:23 NRSV). Three times in three sentences Jesus prayed that you and I might be of one mind and one spirit - the mind and spirit of God.
Most on Jesus' mind and in Jesus' prayers the night before he died was you and me, and whether you and I would get it together. Whether people like you and me would ever come to understand that we're in-it-together whether we like it or not. That that's the way life is. And that the way to live life is not "every person for himself," but "all-for-one and one-for-all." That's two cliches in one sentence. So be it. It's true. That's what Jesus prayed for.
That which divides us is that which destroys us. Jesus knew it - it was destroying him. Be it the color of our skin, the color of our money, or the subdivisions in which we live, division will do us in.
So, in the urgency of that time between dinner and death, Jesus prayed that we would not be divided. He prayed that we would be one - and not just with each other, but with him. The sense of oneness Christ prayed for us with each other is the same oneness he prays for us to have with God. There's a vertical relationship between God and me and a horizontal relationship between you and me and they should be - in Christ will be - the same. Just think what a world this would be if my relationship with God were like Jesus' relationship with God, and that was mirrored in my relationship with everyone around me. Jesus prayed for what still seems impossible: that the kind of love we see in the relationship Jesus had with God would be the kind of love in all the relationships of our lives. Was he asking too much? It might seem so. But he didn't think so. That's why he prayed for it. As I read Jesus' prayer, I thought about a prayer, it's part of the prayer for a new couple - a word which itself means "coupling," or putting together, or making one.
It goes: "Grant that their wills may be so knit together in your will, and their spirits in your Spirit, that they may grow in love and peace with you and each other all the days of their life."2
Does it always happen? No. But that's what Jesus prayed for you and me, the night before he died for you and me: that what he knew we couldn't do, God would do. He prayed God would make us one with each other and with him. That means you and I can pray no less. We sing no less. The hymn says: In Christ there is no east or west, In him no south or north; But one great fellowship of love Through-out the whole wide earth.3
We sing it. Jesus prayed we'd learn to live it - right here where we live together.
1. Agatha Christie, Autobiography. 2. Book of Common Worship, p. 848. 3. John Oxenham, "In Christ There is No East Or West," The Presbyterian Hymnal, no. 439 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press).
HYMN In Christ there is no east or west # 697
Benediction
L: God sends you into the world. Go! Keep alert, for the adversary of our souls is looking for someone to devour.
P: We go, steadfast in our faith, for we know God. And we know that our brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of temptations.
L: God sends you into the world. Go! Because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting upon us.
P: We go, in the power of the Word and the name.
L: The strong name of God, the salvation of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit go before us. Amen.
Bind Us Together
J. Wallace Hamilton used to tell the story "Mother Goes To The Mountains." It's about a farm family whose mother was tired from her years of hard work, helping on the farm, raising several children. She needed a vacation, but the family couldn't afford a real vacation. Instead, they cleared out their unused attic, furnished it with a bed, some chairs, a small refrigerator, and a television, and Mother went up to the attic for a few days' vacation. The agreement was that Dad would look after things while Mother was gone. All went well for two or three days. But one fine morning, as Mother was looking out the window, she noticed that two of the kids were fighting, the baby hadn't been changed, Dad was inefficiently trying to hang the laundry on the line. Dr. Hamilton said along about then, Mother began to understand how God feels, looking at the world. The agreement was that Mom would stay in "the mountains" for a week. But she wanted awfully badly to go back down and get things straightened out.
"Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education." -- Fyodor Dostoevsky
I have never seen a dirty car on a used-car lot. We all know, of course, that shiny cars eventually collect streaks of rain, globs of mud and bird droppings. Yet American marketing wisdom insists that every car for sale, no matter how old and battered, be presented at its shiny best. Lift the hood and you'll probably find that even the engine has been scrubbed clean of grease and dirt.
Realism kicks in only after you buy the car and begin to drive it. A few weeks later, the door to the glove compartment sticks, the valves rattle during acceleration, and a cloud of blue smoke puffs out the tailpipe. Somehow the car dealer found a way to mask those symptoms until you signed the contract.
It occurs to me that the church reverses this tried-and-true marketing wisdom. In certain ways, unwittingly or otherwise, we present our very worst image to the outside world, and then ask insiders to swallow a heavy dose of unreality ... .
I have interviewed dozens of Christians, and heard from hundreds more, who tell me that their church presents a glowingly unrealistic picture of life with God. From sermons, Christian education and praise choruses - but not from the Bible - they are led to expect a steady spiritual ascent that includes diminished temptation, a fulfilling prayer life and an increasing sense of God's presence. Alas, life with God often turns out to involve far more struggle and ambiguity than is sometimes advertised. ...
I do not find this pattern of reversal in the New Testament. In John 17, Jesus prays for unity "so that the world may believe."
-Contents reprinted with permission of Philip Yancey, "Honest church marketing," Christianity Today, October 22,
2001, 112.