"The Prayer Life of Jesus"

John 17.1-5



Never forget that prayer can do anything that God can do and God
can do anything! I get excited when I think about the early church as
recorded in the book of Acts. The early church was a prayer-conditioned
church! Prayer was their focus and their focus was prayer!

God took what little they had and empowered them to do great
things for Him! And for that reason, they did so much with so little.
Today, we're doing so little with so much. And for First Baptist Church to
prepare for the new millennium, we must become a prayer-driven church.

So today, we're going to listen in on the greatest prayer ever
prayed! That's right! The greatest prayer ever prayed! It's not a prayer
prayed by a saint! Nor is it a prayer prayed by a sinner! But it is a prayer
prayed by the savior!

And that prayer is recorded in the gospel according to John. So
take your Bible and join me for a few minutes tonight in John 17. For the
next few Sunday nights, we're going to be learning some things about the
prayer life of Jesus! If we're going to become a prayer-driven church,
then we need to learn some things about prayer. And I don't know
anybody to learn more about prayer from than the Lord Jesus Christ.

We're thinking tonight about

"The Prayer Life of Jesus"
John 17.1-5

Now if you keep reading down through this chapter, you're going to
find that this chapter is a prayer of Jesus. The first five verses we find
Jesus praying for Himself. Verses 6-19, He prays for His disciples. And
then beginning in verse 20 through verse 26, He prays for us!

In our time together tonight as we learn some things about The
Prayer Life of Jesus, we're going to zero in on His prayer for Himself. And
as we do, I want to raise three questions regarding His prayer.

First, I ask: Who did the Praying? Second: What did He Pray?
Third: When did He Pray?


I. WHO DID THE PRAYING?


Verse 1, "Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven,
and said: 'Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son
also may glorify You."

That's what makes this the greatest prayer ever prayed! Jesus, the
Son of God is praying! And did you notice His posture as He prayed?
John tells us that he "lifted up His eyes to heaven."

Ever since I was a little boy in the church nursery, I was taught to
pray with my eyes closed and my head bowed. Now I understand that.
Closing your eyes prevents distraction. Bowing your head provides a
backup in case you peek!

I was such a teenage rebel I once told my Sunday School teacher
that I couldn't close my eyes and bow my head when I stood because it
made me dizzy!

She said, "All right then Ernest, just hold on to the back of the pew."
I don't think she bought it! I have to tell you that some of my best prayer
times is with my eyes opened, my head tilted upward, along with my
hands, looking into the face of God!

1 Kings 8.22, "Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in
the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread out his hands
toward heaven: and he said: Lord God of Israel, there is no God in heaven
above or on earth below like you..."

Nehemiah 8.5-6, "And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the
people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it,
all the people stood up. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. Then
all the people answered, 'Amen, Amen! While lifting up their hands. And
they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the
ground."

Psalm 28.2, "Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You,
when I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary."

I can guarantee that a Baptist didn't write those words! But I can
tell you who did: an anointed Jew! It was normal for the Jewish people to
lift their hands up to God giving Him praise but also because they
expected to receive something from Him!

"Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven..."




II. WHAT DID HE PRAY?


And here's what He prayed beginning in verse 1, "Father, the hour
has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You," Jesus
lifted up His eyes to heaven and prayed, "Father." Not "Our Father",
simply, "Father." In fact, not once do you find Jesus praying, "Our Father."

Somebody says, "What about the Lord's prayer back in Matthew 6?
Didn't He pray, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be You Name?" Not
exactly. If you go back and read the whole thing, you'll find what Jesus
said was this: "This is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be Your Name."

You never find Jesus praying, "Our Father" though He instructs us
to pray "Our Father" and I'll tell why: God is our Father by grace. God is
Jesus' Father by nature. Jesus couldn't pray, "Our Father", because
Jesus is God!

You say, "Pastor, I'm having difficulty following what you're saying."
All right then consider this: three times in this chapter Jesus uses the word
"pray." Verse 9, "I pray for them." Verse 15, "I do not pray that You
should take them out of the world." Verse 20, "I do not pray for these
alone"

Now the Greek word He uses here is not the same word that's
used when we pray. This word literally means "to request from an equal."
It was used to describe somebody making a request from somebody on
the same level. That's why Jesus never prayed, "Our Father" but simply
"Father" because God the Father and God the Son are on the same level!
They are equally God eternal! Jesus Christ is as much God as though He
wasn't a man and He is as much man as though He was not God. He is
the God-Man!

So Jesus simply prays, "Father, the hour has come." What hour is
He talking about here? The hour for which He had come into the world!
The hour of His death and burial and resurrection! Prayer helped prepare
Jesus for the cruelty of the cross and the triumph from the tomb. The best
preparation for anything is prayer!

"Father, the hour has come, Glorify Your Son that Your Son may
glorify You." Now learn this about prayer: prayer is not to get our will done
in heaven, prayer is to get God's will done on earth!

Jesus could pray in the will of God because He lived in the will of
God! And if you're struggling tonight about God's will for your life, then
make sure you're living in the will of God for your life. God's will is not a
road map, it's a relationship!

It's when you're walking with God in sweet fellowship that allows
you to pray in the will of God and prayers offered in the will of God and in
Jesus name are always answered "Yes."

"Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son that Your Son also
may glorify You." The word translated "glorify" means "weight." It speaks
of that which is important and honorable. Now remember that Jesus had
shared that Glory with the Father before the world was. Verse 5, "And
now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had
with You before the world was."

Jesus, who was making this request of His equal, was requesting
the return of the glory that He temporarily set aside in order to come in the
flesh.




III. WHEN DID HE PRAY?


Well, to begin with, Jesus prayed



A) after His instruction.

For some time, Jesus had been doing some last minute instructing
since He knew that He was living in the shadow of the cross. Beginning in
chapter 13 through chapter 16, you find Jesus instructing them.

In chapter 13 He instructs them about servanthood. Also in
chapter 13 He instructs them about His resurrection. Chapter 14 He
instructs them about Heaven and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Chapter
15 He instructs them about abiding in Him and the promise of the Holy
Spirit. Chapter 16 He instructs them about the ministry of the Holy Spirit
and then in chapter 17 He prays for them.

Never forget that the Word of God and prayer always go together.
After teaching them truth, He sealed that truth with prayer! Teaching and
prayer go together like a bow and an arrow!

Acts 6.4, "but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the
ministry (teaching) of the word." Whether you're teaching a Sunday
School lesson or preaching to a thousand people, it's not enough to
present the truth, that truth must be sealed through prayer!

If you have Bible without prayer, you receive truth with no power. If
you have prayer without Bible, you receive zeal with no truth. What do
you think a fanatic is? A fanatic is somebody with a lot of heat but no
light!

That's when He prayed! He prayed after His instruction, and


B) before His crucifixion.

The way to prepare for anything is prayer. And Jesus is praying
with the cross before Him and our sins around Him. And it was prayer
that enabled Him to finish His work on earth.

Verse 4, "I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work
which You have given Me to do." By finishing the work God the Father
gave Him, He brought glory to God the Father! And pray made it possible!

That's the way to prepare to accomplish God's purpose in your life:
Prayer!! Prayer enabled to finish His work and His work brought glory to
the Father! That's the only way to fulfill God's plan and purpose in your
life! You do it through prayer!

Pray to bring glory to God! I wonder how your prayer life would
change if you began praying in such a way as to bring glory to God!

Verses 2-3, "as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He
should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is
eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom You have sent."

Now look up here for just a minute. What is eternal life?
Somebody says, "Eternal life is living with Jesus forever." Well, yes and
no. Those who experience eternal life do live with Jesus forever, but
eternal life is more than living with Jesus forever.

Jesus said that eternal life is the knowledge of God! And the word
translated "Knowledge" is used in the Bible to describe the intimate
relationship between a husband and wife. He's not talking about our
merely knowing God intellectually. Knowing about God and knowing God
are not the same thing.

To intellectually believe there is a God without knowing Him
personally through Jesus places you on the same level as the demons in
Hell. Did you know that?

James 2.19, "You believe that there is one God. You do well.
Even the demons believe and tremble."

When Jesus prays in verse 3, "And this is eternal life, that they may
know You..." He's talking about knowing God by experience! And the
only way to God by experience is through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus says in John 14.8-9, "Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the
Father, and it is sufficient for us. Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you
so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me
has seen the Father; so how can you say, "Show us the Father?"

Until you know God by experience, you don't have eternal life!!
You're looking at a man that has eternal life! I mean right now, I have
eternal life!

You say, "How can you be so sure?" Because Jesus said "this is
eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom You have sent" and that started for me as a young boy when I
yielded my life to Christ.

John 3.17, "For God did not send His Son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."