The Way of Jesus 15.0

So we are continuing uncovering the way of Jesus.

And we are continuing also in our sub theme that we were

exploring last month about prayer.

So uncovering the way of prayer, as a part of this larger theme of uncovering

the way of Jesus and what is this way of Jesus, where it's leaning into

what Jesus says in Matthew seven.

you know, enter through the narrow gate.

Why is the way that leads to destruction narrow is the way that leads to life.

So Jesus portrays these two ways of living in this world.

In the world.

There is a narrow way that leads to life his way, and there is the wide way, of

the world, the flesh, the devil that

leads to destruction.

it's not always obvious.

As it says in Proverbs, there is a way that seems right to man, but

in the end that leads to death.

Often, the wide way can seem like the good way.

It simply will not lead us to the life that Jesus came to give us.

And so huge part of the way of Jesus is the way of prayer.

Remember, Jesus is our rabbi.

He is our teacher.

He is the one that we follow.

If you're a follower of Jesus here, then that is to say you

are an apprentice of Jesus.

And what is it to apprentice to someone?

It is to come alongside them and to see how.

They live to see how they do what they do.

And so when it comes to this idea of prayer, we have

been exploring this idea of.

Choosing to see Jesus through this lens.

He is our master.

We are his apprentice.

How do we see him praying?

What can we learn from the way that Jesus prayed?

So last month we looked at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and we saw

how Jesus prayed in this moment of crushing and pressing, and we saw the

way that he cried out to the Father, and we learn different things from that.

And if you weren't, if you didn't hear that message, you can go

back and listen to the podcast.

I won't go into it now.

So today what we're gonna do is we're going to tune into Jesus's

prayer that is found in John 17.

And this is a really famous passage of scripture, and it's

the longest prayer that we have recorded in scripture of Jesus.

It's what's known as the high priestly prayer of Jesus and.

Just to tap into that, who's, who's familiar with that phrasing?

The high priestly prayer of Jesus for John 17.

Yeah, so it's something you hear quite often when you hear, people

speak from this particular passage that's found in John 17, which we'll

go through bit by bit in a moment.

But why is it called a high priestly prayer and, well, one of the

reasons is it's prayed by Jesus, and Jesus is our great high priest.

Yes.

But it's also because he's doing this prayer.

He's doing what priests do.

He is interceding on our behalf, on the behalf of actually himself, on behalf of

his disciples and behalf of the world.

And we'll come to see that or behalf of those who would come to believe in him.

And we'll see that as we go through it in a moment.

And this is what makes this a high priestly prayer.

It is a prayer of intercession.

And so to say, you know, what is it?

What do we mean by a prayer of intercession?

A prayer of intercession is just when we pray on behalf of another.

And if you take this idea of priest, you know, what is a priest?

If I was to ask the question this morning, you know, who is the first priest that

we see talked about in the Old Testament?

Because it is more of an Old Testament word perhaps than a New Testament.

Although if you go into the book of Hebrews, you will see it talked

about quite a lot.

but this idea of priesthood, we first see, come on the scene in

the Old Testament and you might think, oh, well the first high priest, well yes,

the first official high priest was Aaron.

but actually we see the priesthood demonstrated first with Adam and

Eve because actually the Garden of Eden is God's first temple.

If you think of the temple as the place where heaven touches earth, well that

was the Garden of Eden and the tabernacle that was to come and the temple that was

to come effectively imaged the garden.

And so when the tabernacle and the temples came along, what did we suddenly have?

We had priests came on the scene then, and that's where we first see Aaron

being commissioned into this priesthood.

But even before that, we also have this strange guy called Mel Ek.

And, my cousin, that man is a mysterious character.

That one.

Why is he mysterious?

Well, because he just kind of appears on the scene and he's outside of

the lineage of the Hebrew people, and yet he's been referred to by

scripture as a royal priest, and he's a, and then you go to Hebrews.

Hebrews got a lot to say about Jesus being a priest in the order of melek and is one

of these mysterious parts of scripture that does not easily fit into our nice.

Neat boxes that we like to construct at all.

But Adam and Evo were actually served as the first priests.

That priestly role, while they might not have been called it,

that's the role they functioned in.

And the reason why I'm harping on about this idea of priests for for a bit

here is because if you are sitting here this morning and you would say, I am a

follower of Jesus and the holy Spirit dwells within me, you too are a priest.

So did you know you're sitting next to a priest?

See, I think in church context, we, and it's one of the biggest struggles in

the New Testament church context, in our church context today, is we like to think

of the priest as the guy in the robes.

Or even, you might think, oh, who fulfills the priestly role here at Red Door?

Oh, well it's, you know, it's Luke, it's Adam and Dal now.

Sorry.

No.

No, no.

You don't get to abdicate that responsibility.

You ask because what it says, you know, in the New Testament, the testimony of

New Testament is that through the coming of Jesus, what Jesus did was he actually

inaugurated this reality where we are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

And so in one Peter it says, chapter two, it says, as you

come to him, the living stone.

So speaking of Jesus, rejected by humans, chosen by God, precious to him.

You also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy.

Priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's

special possession, so that you may declare the praises of him.

He calls you out of darkness and into his wonderful light.

So as we sit here, as the church, remember what Peter Peter's

writing to the church here.

So what is true of the church that Peter was writing to?

It's true of us today.

We sit here this morning as a royal priesthood.

When was the last time you woke up in the morning and went, I'm No, I priest.

And I think that's part of our struggle too.

It's why, so we sometimes struggle to behave.

In ways that honor Jesus.

'cause we fail to recognize who we actually have been made to be.

So if you were to, I imagine if we were to all get up in the morning and

put on priestly robes, I wonder how differently we might conduct ourselves

in the world, have a different in expect expectation of ourselves,

of how we are to be in the world.

Because one of the roles of the priest, and let me to bring this full circle back

to where we're going this morning, was to minister before the presence of God.

And to offer prayers to God on behalf of the people, to be this conduit

between heaven and the people, God and the people to bring, heaven to earth.

And so what, this is what we see Jesus doing in this prayer, by

the way that he is praying, right?

He is coming before the Father and he's preying on behalf of others.

So you, my friends as priests.

If you are, I'm not presuming everybody in here this morning.

I don't know you all intimately say and testify to your relationship with Jesus.

Maybe you, you, you haven't taken that step yet.

But if you say, Jesus is my Lord and Savior, then you are part of his

royal priesthood and you have been called in this world to function as

a priest, and that means you have been called to offer prayers of

intercession on behalf of others.

Those that God has entrusted to you, but the world as well.

I mean, that's effectively what Jess was doing this morning when she came forward.

She was offering a prayer of intercession.

She was engaged in a priestly role in that moment.

Does that make sense?

How?

How many

people this week communicated to someone else?

Oh, I'll be praying for you this week.

Just riff, lift your hands up.

Welcome to the priesthood.

Yeah, welcome.

You would engaging in a priesthood.

I'm praying for you.

We,

we we're inter we, we are presenting, we're giving to God these requests

from earth to heaven in a sense.

Yep.

Which is in contrast to a prophetic role, which is the voice of heaven to earth.

Does anyone see that distinction?

The priest is earth to heaven.

A prophetic or

prophetic function is, heaven to earth.

This

is what the Lord is saying.

Yeah,

sorry.

No, no, no.

That is very, very good.

And so what you'll hear in a moment as we go through this prayer of

Jesus, and I want us to consider this, you know, what is this?

This place that Jesus finds himself as he's operating up

this prayer to the father.

Is he is about to go to the cross and he's not quite at the

Garden of Gethsemane moment yet.

So we've taken a step back from where we were last month, where

we were, we're observing Jesus in the garden and how he prayed.

Here he is, his disciples are there.

So they are observing him, praying in this way.

and so what is his motivation?

What is his deep, deep desire?

And it is the same as we see throughout the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus' desire is that people would know eternal life.

And he says it in this prayer, eternal life is knowing the Father.

Everything that Jesus did can be framed through that lens, and

this is the heart of his prayer.

And there's many things he prays through this prayer, but his deep, deep

desire is that God would be glorified.

And that all people would come to know God and that the life and the love of

the Father would be in those that God calls his own evident to the world around

them and that they would be witnesses.

There's actually so much in this prayer, but what undergirds it all

is a deep, deep motivation in Jesus that the Father would be glorified

and that people would know the Father through the life of his children.

And so the first part that Jesus is praise.

Let's bring this up.

Jesus actually begins here by praying for himself, and this

is really, really important.

Do you want me read the scripture or do you want me to?

Sure.

You go.

It says this from verse one.

After Jesus said this, he looked towards heaven and prayed.

Don't miss that.

He looked towards heaven.

We talked about posture of prayer.

Looking up this time, garden of Gethsemane.

Face down.

Yeah.

Different postures.

Can I just point something out here before you go on?

Please do.

Please

do.

So.

It says, after Jesus said this, and there's many stuff, many things

he's just said about the Holy Spirit being sent once he goes and

him having to go and all of this,

many, many things, he looks towards heaven

and he prays this thing that we do when we pray about closing our eyes.

And bowing our heads, right?

It's not really in the Bible now, it serves a function to

stop us from getting distracted.

But when was the last time you pray with your eyes open?

Looking to heaven?

Yeah.

It actually really can change your posture in prayer and how you pray.

And so there's nothing wrong with closing your eyes and bowing your head

and adopting that posture, but it's not what Jesus does here and he's our rabbi.

And I think sometimes it is good for us to lift our eyes.

Up and to look.

It's not that like the ancients believe that God actually

dwells out in outer space.

Right.

And so we're looking towards outer space 'cause that's where God dwells, right.

You know, God is.

In all

things.

He is everywhere.

but there is something

that puts us in a really good posture when we open our eyes and look up

and acknowledge the greatness of God.

I think in a way it's very good.

Continue.

So good Dale.

He looked towards heaven and prayed.

Father, the hour 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 those who have give for those you have given him.

Now, this is eternal life that they may know God, the only true God

and Jesus Christ, whom you have.

Cent, I have brought you Glory on Earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.

And now Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had

with you before the world began.

That's, that's verse five,

isn't it?

Yep.

That's it.

Yep.

There is a lot there.

The world glory is a, that used a lot there.

That the word glory is a really, it's a

really tricky word, 'cause it has kind

of multiple layers to its meaning and um.

It's a word we can use, but it's like, oh, what do I actually mean by that?

But in a sense it means honor and praise.

So the heart of Jesus is that the Father would be honored

and praised by all people.

But the word glory, in its, I guess it's

simplest sense, actually means a weightiness.

And so when something has glory, there is a weightiness to it.

And so I think another way of framing Jesus's desire here is that

the father, the weightiness of the father would be known by all people.

Yes.

He goodness.

And his power, and.

All that

makes him who he is.

the weightiness of

that would be known.

That's

very good.

Yeah.

I heard it described that, you know, did you, you know, read Jesus' words?

They seem very succinct.

It's like he doesn't take half an hour to explain something.

Unlike some of us.

Yeah.

Like all like me and Dale, I met me, right.

And I heard someone say.

Because Jesus, when he spoke, what was coming out of him was more

about who he was than what he said.

So the weight of his character, the weight of the substance of who he is, is so big,

so huge, so vast, that as he speaks, he doesn't need to explain himself so much.

'cause people are getting downloads from heaven just out of the sheer presence

of his glory in the midst of humanity.

That's a powerful thought.

And so what's happening here is Jesus is praying for himself.

So before Jesus can pray for others, before Jesus can go to the cross,

before he can face betrayal, before he can face the wrath of God, before

he can face satanic temptation and face accusation, he needs the glory of

the Father to be experienced in him.

He needs that himself.

The whole thing starts with intimacy, with an identity in the Father's love the

whole thing, and that's true for Jesus.

That's gotta be true for us.

Would you agree?

That we've gotta be established before we can start praying for others,

which we'll get to in a minute.

This is a model which says, before we can pray for anyone else, we've gotta make

sure we are getting into our own hearts.

The love of the father, the intimacy of the father in us, that we are melting

in the father's arms, just dwelling with him, knowing that he loves us.

That's gotta be critical point, 0.1 to make.

He prays for himself.

He anchors himself,

anchors himself.

He's anchoring himself here in the heart of God's love for him.

And I think, you know, if Jesus needs to do that, as he steps into

this space of intercession, as he's praying before he goes to the cross.

You know, how much more do we need to take this time and this

posture in prayer to be anchoring ourselves in the love of God for us?

Giving ourselves that sense of assurance?

Because when that is the foundation upon which you stand, that you are

loved by the creator of the universe, you, I was hearing this this week.

You know, we, we have this amazing thing called the sun.

I mean the SUN Sun, right?

And that we can't even look directly at because it is such a powerful source of

light that if we try to, our naked eye just can't take it in, then we'll actually

experience this at darkness, won't we?

If we try to step, don't go out and try it all right?

If we try to stare directly at the sun.

But there are so many other suns in so many other galaxies.

That actually far exceed the power of our son, that make our son look tiny.

And it's kind of mind blowing that the God who created all of this, that

mankind is considered his crowning achievement and that this being.

Has his affection set upon you and I and his deepest desire is that

we would know him and we would exist in eternal relationship,

loving relationship drawn into the

love of the Trinity, father, son, and Holy

Spirit.

This God that makes sons.

So much bigger than our son that we have here on earth sets his affections upon us.

And these are things worth pondering, right?

Because they are simultaneously profoundly humbling realities and profoundly

edifying realities, and we all need that.

We all need every day to be deeply humbled and to be deeply edified,

encouraged, and it is only the truth of God's love and the gospel of Jesus Christ

that is able to bring these two things together in this beautiful harm harmony.

You know what most religions do is condemn you, shame you to get you to conform

into a certain kind of moral behavior.

But not the Christian faith.

The Christian faith should not do that.

Yes, it humbles us, but at this, as much as it humbles us, it exalts us

and edifies us and reminds us of how precious we are on the side of a God

that is so insanely big and powerful.

It's a beautiful thing to meditate on.

It's good though, and it should bring us to a deep, deep sense of security and

groundedness in this world because really.

If that is true, if that is true, if you are loved by a God this powerful

and you are held by him and his desire is that you would be drawn into the

love of the Trinity, what on earth have we really got to worry about?

What can man do to us?

What can this life do to us?

Yeah.

Most of us start with our noble prayer lists.

When we come to God.

what I'm trying to

say to you is start with the father.

Start with intimacy with the father.

Start dwelling on his magnificent love for you, and then allow prayer to bubble

up out of this deep love that he has.

For you.

'cause otherwise, if you just start with your prayer list, what's gonna

happen is you are not, praying out of a deep

desire and love just to be with him.

You'll start praying a list out of obligation.

And obligation when it runs its course will start to lead to resentment

because that's what it does.

That's what the human heart does.

So we've gotta stay in that place of.

Just affection towards him because he first

talking about Luke's, you know Yes.

And Amen.

Yeah.

We, he, he, he started it.

He gave his, he gave us his.

Yes.

And so we can give him his, we can give him our, yes.

This is

really, really important, that we really take

this to heart of anchoring ourselves in the love of God, the

mercy of God, the grace of God.

The sacrifice of God, all that

he did to bring us, to a place of being

at home with him.

Because if we do not, we will end up praying, serving, whatever it is,

out of pride or out of good works.

And this is where prayer can go so very wrong, right?

We can turn prayer into a form of a gospel.

Like thinking if I, I've just gotta pray more so that God will be happy with me.

We feel this sense of, oh, God's disappointed with me.

Oh my prayer life is so bad.

I'm such a terrible Christian, so I need to pray more.

To get God to be okay with me to alleviate my sense of shame or

guilt or condemnation before God.

And we can so easily slip into that mindset.

And then prayer just becomes this good work to try and

earn the favor of God, right?

And it's no wonder it sucks a life out of it in that place.

Don't pray to earn God's favor.

We pray knowing that we can boldly enter his throne room

because of what Jesus has done.

We don't have to pray,

we get to pray.

And, and I think it's when,

when you ground yourself in the love of God

first and foremost, that's then becomes

the natural consequence of that.

But when we fail to consistently ground ourselves in the love of

God, we just tip into think using

things like prayer as good works.

That's

very good.

All right, let's move on to the next point.

'cause this is quite a big point and adds got lots to say on it.

So

the problem is, and I wanna get to 0.2 because I wanna make sure you've got one.

Yeah,

you don't got one.

We're not going to two.

You want everyone got one.

Oh, I don't think you have.

I'm just gonna say it

because I wanna get outta here at some point.

So we're gonna read chapter 17, six to 19 here, and Dale's gonna read that.

All right.

So this is where we see Jesus shift in his prayer, and he now

begins to pray for his disciples.

So 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 that 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 prayed for them.

I'm not praying for the world, but for those you have

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.

This is astounding what Jesus is saying.

You remember, he's in the company of the disciples here and he's

really honoring them in his prayer.

They've really not behaved terribly fabulously.

We should all be greatly encouraged by this about Jesus'

perspective on things, right?

Because they've not been terribly obedient, but Jesus is honing in on

their willing obedience where it has been evidence like Jesus is great.

The other thing I wanna point out too is how often the word gave or given comes up.

Through this prayer.

And this is a thing that just echoes the very nature of God himself.

God is a God who gives.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's just give you, gave you give.

You've given.

Anyway, we continue.

All I have is yours.

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'm 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 that name

you gave me, none has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so

that scripture would be fulfilled.

I am 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 with them.

I have given them your word and the world has hated them for they are not of the

world anymore than I am of the world.

My prayer is not that you would take.

Them out of the world, but that you would 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 truly sanctified,

well read.

So here Jesus is

praying for those who, has been entrusted

to him.

Right.

And so Jesus is firstly, we're seeing, he's grateful for those people

that love him and believe in him.

He's praying that they'll be strengthened in their confession, that have courage,

that have revelation about who Jesus is.

They'll be kept from the evil one.

And when you read this, there's no escapist

prayers here.

This is, a prayer of protection

and sending.

No prayers of retreating, actually prayers of sanctification.

Prayers of make me make them holy prayers to get the word of God

into them, into their hearts.

I just wanna just pause on there.

'cause you know, sometimes we use these words like sanctification.

You are sitting going, what on earth does that word mean?

And yes, it does mean to make holy.

Does that really help?

You know, you understand it.

Yeah.

Because you know, when you say, well, what does holiness mean?

We often have really awful understandings where our minds goes of holy.

And we think of, you know, if I was to say to you, imagine a holy person, you

know, and you might think of somebody who never swears only watches, G rated

things, doesn't drink is very pious.

Yeah, we can think of somebody

who's very moral, but that is to really miss

the true nature of what it is to be sanctified, what it is to be made holy

because holiness is deeply relational.

Holiness is about becoming the kind of person who loves like Jesus loves.

And so sanctification is the word that defines the process of becoming more

and more holy, more and more a person who loves in the world like Jesus loves.

So it is a highly relational world

word.

It's very good.

Dale,

as we keep tracking, on your.

Chairs is

something that looks like this and it's entitled the Pattern of Battle.

I've got a QR code that if you want to use your device, you can go straight there.

My encouragement to you is get this thing on your phone.

Okay?

Because you'll want to refer back to this.

I've just given you a printout because you know, some of you aren't

technically advanced.

but that's okay.

Harsh.

No, I'm just telling you.

But anyway, there's a, there's a hot link as well.

Tiny cc slash pray

prayer flow.

Okay.

reason why I've put

this out is when you gotta remember, we're now not in a praying for

intimacy with the father mode.

We're actually now praying for others.

And so understand a few foundational ideas.

This is just a guide.

This is

not like a formula.

this is about pre praying, in the authority of

Jesus' name.

This is about more about praying out of the authority

of who we are than having the

right words to say.

this is about,

a, a battle guide, not an intimacy guide.

This is about a warfare guide, not a listening

guide, so to speak.

and so I'm just gonna

quickly go through these.

This is a, this is a daily personal prayer flow guide.

Not only for yourself, but for those who are above you.

Think about those who are in authority over you at work.

Think about peers beside you.

Think about those below you because when we think about praying for others,

we've gotta consider all directions around how we pray for others.

John 17 is just summarized there, which is what we're going through today.

The first two, just a little bit of care because most of the time we pray,

these two probably relate more to.

Ourselves, but you can word this in a way that helps us pray for others.

So I'm just gonna

quickly go through these.

the first one is confess.

I confess Jesus is

Lord, I bring my life under his lordship.

I'm a child of God.

the next one is Crucify.

I crucify the flesh.

I repent and renounce sin, Satan in the world.

I'm not my own.

I've been bought with a price.

Now they're kind of more sort of self dynamic.

I'm praying for myself, but you can word these as

praying for others.

I'm gonna pick on Luke

today and I'm gonna say, Lord, I pray for Luke that he would confess the

name of Jesus as Lord, that Luke would bring his life under the Lordship of

Jesus, that Luke is a child of God.

Help him to see that Father.

And God, I pray that where the flesh, where the world, where Satan is

ruling and reigning in Luke's life.

I pray that he would crucify that.

See what I'm doing there?

I'm shifting it from prayer for self.

I'm shifting it into a prayer for others as we continue.

Cut.

I cut off.

Sorry, Luke.

I cut off every demonic assignment, agreement and attachment.

Now this is getting a bit heavier now, aren't we?

Woo-hoo.

Welcome to the war.

It's called the Battle Plan.

Okay, so I cut off every demonic assignment.

Understand we have an enemy that enemy wants to steal, kill and destroy.

Do not be ignorant to this fact.

And this is consistent with John 17.

'cause what does he pray?

He says, I pray, not that you would take them out of the world, but you would

protect them from the evil one, right?

So this cutting idea.

Let me just give you a little bit of an interesting picture

in Nehemiah chapter 20.

The references are there.

The, the context of Nehemiah is that they're rebuilding the wall, but

they're also sort of battling at the same time as they're rebuilding

the wall, the assignment that God's got for them, and there's an enemy

wanting to stop them doing so.

And in two 20 it says You have no portion, no right, no claim.

The enemy system is a very legal system, and the enemy wants to

take a claim over your life.

Usually how he'll do that is he'll tell you a lie.

He'll want to tell you a claim over your life.

It's not true, but he'll have a crack anyway.

When we agree with that claim or that lie, we also give now the enemy a right.

And then when he has a legal right, he'll take a portion of your life

ultimately to steal, kill, and destroy.

So this is a very battle orientated prayer where we're

declaring over the Satanic forces.

You have no claim.

No.

Right, no portion or another way of saying it.

I cut off every demonic assignment agreement and attachment over Luke's life.

Sorry, Luke.

Cancel.

Cancel.

I cancel every curse.

Spoken or generational blockages.

I cancel every hex and vex.

Whoa.

Here we go.

What the heck is a hex?

What is a vex?

Have you ever heard the word vexed?

And we go

firstly to the word vex, vec.

When you're vaccinated,

you have an internal distortion or interpretation about

someone else or an issue.

You are vexed.

And that is not just purely a physical, self orientated thing.

There's also a spiritual battle at play.

So I cancel every curse.

Every hex is how others wrongly perceive you.

Where if you ever had that mate, that is not just a physical, relational space.

There's a warfare going on for you to be misunderstood.

So I cancel every curse, every hex, every vex.

If you're getting, concerned about any

of that, you can come and talk to me afterwards.

Just a way of describing what we're canceling in Jesus' name, right?

Confusing or removing every scheme, system, strategy, structure,

and snare of the evil one.

They, they, before they touch my life.

And so this idea that when the enemy's coming to attack you, actually

those schemes would be disrupted.

Does that make sense?

Confusing cover.

Oh, I was supposed to be picking on Luke still.

Sorry.

Luke.

Lord confuse and remove every scheme, system, strategy over

structure and snare over Luke's life.

In Jesus' name, over his family, over his children.

In Jesus' name cover.

Cover cover Luke.

In the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus speaks a better word.

The cover one is kinda like more of a declaration prayer moment we're

declaring Cover, cover, conceal, hide.

Luke under the shadow of your wings.

Psalm 91, the classic thing, hide in the he's.

He's our refuge.

He's our fortress.

Cover them.

Conceal him under the shadow of your wings canopy.

I place a canopy in Jesus' name, A wall of fire around and in Luke's life.

In Jesus' name.

Clarity.

I pray for clarity that Luke would hear the word of God.

See, God have the wisdom of God, the revelation of God.

You're getting that right now.

Luke, can you feel it?

Very good conviction, A fresh conviction of the spirit to see where his life

is not in alignment with God, that he would see it clearly and his faith to

follow Jesus would be stirred afresh.

Celebration.

God, I pray that Luke would celebrate the joy of Christ, that Vic Jesus'

victory is his victory in Jesus' name.

So this is just a pattern.

You can literally do this in 30 seconds,

maybe a minute.

You can literally do this in 32 seconds.

Okay, now.

You don't have to spend.

This is a guide.

I'm not saying this is.

Please hear me.

This is not a formula.

This is a way to prompt battle pattern prayers for others, for those above you,

for those beside you, for those below.

You understand when I say below, I'm meaning like when you're, when you

are leading others, those who are you are, you wanna do a great job,

but pray for them.

this also includes

your family.

I'm starting to pray this pattern over my own life.

Like I cut off in Jesus' name off me.

Every demonic assignment agreement and attachment a cancel, confuse,

cover, conceal, canopy, clarity, conviction, and celebration.

11 Cs.

That's how you know it's from God.

Imagine if, yeah, that's true Alliteration.

It's very holy.

It was a joke.

Just so you know.

But you know, you think about the people in your world and you imagine the time

that we often spend getting frustrated, complaining about others getting offended.

If we actually take that time and pray this way for them,

imagine how things might shift.

First and foremost, your

own heart.

Come on.

and it is such a very

simple tool and can I ask church family?

You know, this is a prayer for those that God has entrusted to you.

So, so think about that.

Who, who, Lord have you entrusted to me?

And it can be your spouse, your children, friends, coworkers, your family.

Here we have been entrusted to one another.

That's what it is to be family, right?

And so we are now being more intentional to pray this way for you all, but

we would ask, we have been entrusted to you as well as those who have

been charged with that shepherding role within the body of Christ.

And so would you be praying for us in this way as well?

Lord knows we need it, do we not?

Please, please,

I'll give you permission, authority to pray this way over my life.

Help me, Jesus.

Please, please know that I've got scripture references for all those.

If you really want to dive a bit deeper into each one of those and, and, and this

is just a guide, so just if, if you've got other things you wanna add to it.

Like develop it, develop the thoughts there,

but it really does tap into the heart of how Jesus is praying in that

middle section of John 17, and just gives a little, some more practical

scaffolding for how we can pray.

Practical scaffolding.

That's very nice.

That

way as well.

We are really like, I mean, it comes from Psalm 101, verse eight, which says,

every morning I will put to silence all the wicked in the land, I will cut off

every evil doer from the city of the Lord.

It's really taking the wisdom from that.

Psalm there and making it very practical.

How do we put to silence all the wicked in our land?

Well, we pray.

We do what we see Jesus, our rabbi doing.

We pray, we intercede.

All right?

Just understand, just as we go before we go to the 0.3, just

understand that sometimes we can operate with a sense of autopilot.

Well, we can just think that this battle is being won, that Jesus

is interceding on our behalf.

He is by the way, but that doesn't mean we remain silent in the battle that's waging.

It's, it's, it's active, it's real.

Well, that's, that's

because we are meant to be little Christs.

Correct.

So his intercession for us is that we would be little Christ

very good,

and therefore we intercede as well as little Christs.

And the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

The question is.

Are you gonna step into that?

Are you gonna be activated in that?

Stirred in that?

I'm trusting today as I'm sharing this, that the Holy Spirit is stir

you to go, oh, I wanna lift the bar.

I wanna lift the game.

I want be stirred up.

And then you go, oh, I prayed this way before Adam and nothing happened.

Yeah, well, you don't know what actually happened when you prayed, mate.

You could have shook heaven and be completely un unaware of the

earthly implications of the fact that you are doing spiritual war.

And you didn't even know it, right?

Does that make sense?

All right.

Let's just bring this home with this final part of this passage.

And so this is from verse 20, and this is where Jesus now prays.

He shifts from those that have been personally entrusted to

him, but now he shifts to praying

for all believers, so presently before

him as he prayed, but, or who would come to believe as well.

So that is for us.

Too.

So he says, my prayer is not for them alone.

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message

that all of them may be one father.

Just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.

So the world may believe that you have sent me, I have given them the glory that

you gave me, that they may be one as we are one I in them, and you and me, so that

they may be brought to complete unity.

Then the world will know that you have sent me and have loved

them even as you have loved me.

Father, I want those you have given me to be, to be with me where I am, and

to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the

creation of the world, righteous father.

The world does not know you.

I know you and they know that you have sent me.

I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order

that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in.

Them all right.

There's actually quite a lot there, and clearly unity matters greatly to Jesus.

He's a huge part of his prayer in John 17 is this prayer for

unity, his prayer for oneness.

But as we bring this home this morning where I would really like

to land, this is actually just in that last verse there, that, um.

You will continue to make, I will continue to make you known and in order that the

love you have for me may be in them.

And this has been

something that has, I've been sitting in

this

week.

I've been in, earlier passages in

John, John 13.

And this really hit me the

other day as I was, just meditating on

John 13.

Jesus has just washed the

disciples feet.

And, he gives them these

words.

After doing so, which really connect to the last part of this prayer in

John 17, in John 13, verses 34 to 35, he says this a new command I give you.

John 13:34–35

Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

And what really hit me the other day as I was meditating on

this passage was the word must.

We, you must love one another.

You must church.

We must, okay, not in order to get God to be happy with us, right?

But because we have Jesus in us.

And this is a must ness for Jesus and therefore it needs

to be a must ness for us.

And as we talk about the way of Jesus, the way of Jesus is the way of love.

Must.

Love.

We cannot say we know him and not be a people who must love, you.

Know, love isn't this optional thing.

It's a must thing, not out of obligation, right?

Not as this onerous duty, but as, as an absolute joy and delight.

A must the world depends on the people of God.

Loving must Lee, having that sense of deep conviction that this is

something I must do, consider those that God has entrusted to you.

Do you must love them?

Is that how you view them?

I must love you.

I must love you.

Not because I have to, right?

But because I have every resource within me too, and that will bring glory to.

My Heavenly Father I, this is why Jesus says must because this

is what will glorify the Father.

This is what will save the world.

This is what will bear witness to the world of who the father is.

Our must ness around love.

So think about the rest of your day.

What does I must love look like for you as you go out into the rest of this Sunday,

as you consider the week that lies before you, as we step into a Monday tomorrow?

What does I must love because this is the commandment that Jesus has set before

me because this is what will bring life.

To myself and life to the world around me.

Eternal life, it'll bring glory to the father.

I must love, think about the person who is giving you the biggest

source of itts right now, right?

Because the mustiness of the love of Jesus extends even to enemy.

Not just to those that we like.

So who must you love?

And a way that you can love them is by praying the way that Adam

has just talked about, right?

So you thinking, I can't love them.

You can pray that for them, that you can begin to do and you can grease the wheels.

Of love in your heart.

As you pray this way, you'll watch your heart posture shift

as you begin to pray this way.

And so I want this word must to haunt you, church, family.

Yeah.

And, and to who must I love, not.

To earn my salvation, not for a second, but because Jesus is in me, his life is

in me, and that is the way that the life of Christ directs me to be in the world.

A person who must, must love,

are you picking up the motivational driver on the must comment there.

So love must fear.

It is not the motivational driver.

No,

right?

Love is the motivational driver.

Love will push you into a must posture, not a must, because you're

trying to get God to love you.

That's a fear driver.

Do you see the difference?

But I've so been loved so completely, so perfectly, so holy that I must

respond in the way I love others.

Here's an example, right?

Your bladder gets full.

Okay, here we go.

What must you do when your

bladder's full?

What wa what must you do?

Hold on.

You must, at some point you must go pee.

Right?

When you are full of the love of God, what must you do?

You must go love others.

It's just a natural response, right?

My wife always has the best illustrations.

That's great, isn't it?

It's

not bad, it's just a little bit sort of organic, you know?

But it wipes

back to the beginning of the prayer, right?

Jesus is grounding himself with the love of the Father.

That's absolutely.

He becomes so full, you're like a full bladder of love.

That now must relieve itself on the world.

Yeah.

Oh, this is good.

It's good preaching.

I should write a book.

Yes.

Let me just say

a bladder full of love.

Unless the world sees an, if they don't see a loving community around them,

Jesus is literally giving them an excuse to not believe in the claims of Christ.

That's how compelling this is.

Right.

So what we're saying is if we don't have a loving community, what that

means is we're actually a divided community and division in the church

is breeding atheism in the world.

Did you hear that division in the church where a lack of loving community

looking underneath the bonnet of the church and going, oh, do they really

love each other is a butterfly, right?

If they don't see it, Jesus, literally in John 17, giving them permission

to reject the claims of Jesus.

Literally division in the church is breeding atheism in the world.

But the positive dynamic of that, 'cause that sounds quite negative, the positive.

If Jesus is praying for it, it means it's possible.

It means it's plausible by the power of the Spirit and all of us who love

the way he loves us, that we could reveal the same unity that is seen

in the Trinity is revealed through us together, our togetherness.

We must love one another.

We

must bring this home right now.

We must.

We must.

So just close your eyes for a minute.

Must the team come up?

Must the team come up?

They must.

Yes, they must.

They must

come.

I wish Johan was here.

He always saying, oh, Johan

always uses that word.

Johan.

Yeah.

Johan.

Must

I do that, Adam?

Yes, you must do hun.

You must

just close your eyes for a minute or look to heaven, one of the two.

Father, we just wanna ask God that your spirit would come and help us to

receive that perfect love that the F the perfect Father has for his children.

God, help us to melt in the arms of the father's love right now for those of

us who have created barriers and and distractions and those things that would

prevent us from leaning into your love to receive it, to have that intimate moment.

God, breathe upon us by your spirit.

Soften our hearts that we would know who exactly who we are.

We are the beloved children of God.

Father, I thank you that that's not a work of the flesh, but

it's a work of the Spirit.

Holy Spirit.

We ask God that even this week you would

bring to each of us, in our minds, the others

that we, that you're calling us to pray for.

That when we pray, God, we would pray out of that assurance that we belong

to you, that we are children of God.

We would pray out of an authority declaring that the kingdom of light

is breaking into those that we love.

Father, help us to pray.

Anoint us to pray.

Grace is to pray for others this week.

And Father, as we consider your church, we pray today in alignment

with this high priestly prayer.

Jesus, you pray that we will be one Father, we pray we'll be one over

us here today, this red door family that we would have unity across our

church family from youngest to oldest.

There would be a deep love for one another, but we're bold enough

to pray that the church of Jesus in the city of Perth would love

one another as you have loved us.

That there would be deep connection, respect, love, and encouragement to

one another across the body of Christ.

Father, use us to help facilitate that kind of oneness, that kind of

love across the body of Christ, that the world would know that the father

had sent the son, that the world would see Jesus as you really are.

And Father, help us to model the way of Jesus in our every day,

in our every breath.

And that we would truly find a deep love, a deep desire, a, a new

fresh appetite to live in alignment

with Jesus Your ways.

In your heart, father, bless us to live that way.

In Jesus' name, amen.