Praying for Others: Part One | Chris Chadwick | John 17 — Chris Chadwick

John chapter 17. We're gonna do a little Bible study as I introduce this series. Now, I'm noticing the clock. I promise you I'm not gonna preach long tonight, and I mean that. I'm not trying to be funny. I will curtail it to have your kids... 'cause I mean, I know tomorrow's a busy school day with Labor Day. If you're homeschooling, you probably have in school, your kids don't even know that Labor Day is a day off, because you're gonna take a normal school day off. And so whatever the case may be, I promise not to belabor it. so find John 17. That'll be where our text is. But before we jump into John 17, would you turn with me to, Romans chapter 15, Romans chapter 15. And for the record, we could have put the verses on the screen. I told John not to do it, because I feel like I want you to learn how to turn pages in your Bible more quickly, all right?

So it's kinda like a Bible sword drill, or whoever can use their app the fastest, all right? Whichever one. and I just wanna help us there, in that way. I'd like us to be analog just for a little bit tonight. Romans chapter 15, verse number 30, "Now I beseech you, brethren," we've studied this not too long ago in our study of Romans. "Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me. That I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judea," Paul was under persecution from them. They were attacking the work of the ministry, "and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints," that the church members in Jerusalem would receive the offering that Paul was taking them, "that I may come to you, unto you with joy by the will of God and may with you be refreshed. Now the peace of God be with you all."

Amen. I just wanna focus for a minute in verse number 30, and where Paul says, "Brethren, I beseech you," I beg you. The word beseech, beg. I plead. I plead with you brothers, sisters, "for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, for Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit," the Holy Spirit, "that you strive together," or work with me, "in your prayer to God for me." Paul is asking that the church at Rome would pray for him, and he literally, you can see it in the text, you, he literally said, "Strive together, work together, be engaged in this, heavenly, holy event together in your prayer to God for me." Now, we might think, "Well, that's 'cause that's the Apostle Paul." Okay, keep that in mind. Let's turn over to Ephesians chapter 6, just to the right a little bit in your Bible, not much. I tried to pick just a couple of verses here. I could, I picked more, but I...

It's Sunday night, and we're trying to keep our service focused on prayer and then a Bible study or devotional length of message. Ephesians chapter 6, verse number 18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. So does Paul ask us to pray for him and the church at Rome to pray for him? And we could even make application and pray for those that are in spiritual positions of spiritual authority or spiritual need as they're striving to share the gospel. I think a direct application could be made to the Allens, to the Corleys, to others in their Creative Access Nation that they're going to. And we come to verse... And we could say, "Oh, yeah, them, but I mean, that's them." No. Notice what Paul says.

"Praying always," present tense, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance," or continuing to pray, not stopping to pray, "with all perseverance and supplication," for who? "For all saints." Well, for all saints everywhere, Pastor? God wants me to pray for every believer everywhere in the entire world? How would I ever do that? Well, to be honest with you folks, that's untenable. There's no way in this world you could pray for every believer in the whole world. You could pray all day long. You wouldn't even know all the believers in the whole world. Like, it's just impossible. Well, then what does he mean? Well, answer this question. In the book of Ephesians, who is Paul writing? Who's Paul writing? He, is Paul writing, just anywhere believers in the middle of Madagascar?

No, Paul is writing the church at Ephesus, and the all saints that he's referring to here are the members of the church at Ephesus. Ephesus is the object or the the focus, if you will, of the letter, and all the saints are the members who are there in that church. And then Paul goes on to say, "Pray for me that utterance may be given unto me," and he's an ambassador and all of that. He wants prayer. He needs prayer, and he's begging people to pray for him. Look over just a few more pages to the right, 1 Timothy chapter 2 First Timothy chapter two, verse number one. Paul, who is the older preacher, is writing Timothy, the younger preacher. Paul is the mentor. Timothy is the one being mentored. And Paul says, "I exhort therefore that first of all supplication, prayers, intercession, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for all that are in authority that you may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty."

So Paul wants us to pray for authority. Again, we're learning something here, that we're to pray for those that are in political authority or positions of power, but we're also to pray for all men. Well, who is Timothy? Timothy at this time is the pastor at the church at Ephesus, and Paul is saying, "Pray for them." Turn over to James chapter five. Keep going to the right a little bit, and then we'll go back to John, and we'll give our attention to the Book of John. James chapter five Verse number 16 The Bible says, "Confess your faults one to another." If you struggle with something, confess that one to another. Get some accountability. Have some people in your life that can pray for you. "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Most people wanna pray.

Matter of fact, I would submit to you that the greatest frustration probably in my own life is wanting to pray and then knowing that I'm not doing a very good job at it. We often pray for things that might simply be personal preferences as opposed to what might be spiritually helpful. Let me illustrate it this way. Sometimes it's easy, and I'm not gonna point out a group, I'll just point out our young adult men, 'cause they've got thick skin and they can handle it. And sometimes people will pray for our young adult men, but they don't pray for our young adult men from the perspective of something spiritual because we're, it's not unlocked to us yet. We pray for them based on their personality traits that get on our nerves So you find the most grating thing about them, let's just say, is their jocularity, or they just joke around way too much. I wish they would stop joking around so much. If they'd just stop joking around.

So you pray for them, and you run out of things to pray for in about three seconds. Lord, be with Buford at church. just be with him. In Jesus' name, amen. Or you pray something like this. Lord, be with Buford today. I wrote a poem. Here it is. Lord, be with Buford today. He thinks he's funny in every way. I love him, Lord, but I have to admit, sometimes his jokes just don't quite hit. So help him, Lord, to know when to quit, and if that's too much, Lord, just humble him a bit And then we close our prayer book and we go on feeling like we did Jesus and the world a great service. Well, someone might even argue, "Well, Pastor, that's not really a wrong way to pray. Maybe he does joke around too much." Well, maybe he does or maybe he doesn't. Hard to say with the personality God gave him, especially when you're irritated. If we're praying for something, "so Pastor, there's no wrong way to pray." Oh, I think there is.

There's a lot of wrong ways to pray. If you're praying something that would violate scripture, that's the wrong way to pray. Amen. That's a wrong way. Don't pray for something that violates scripture. If you're praying for something that might magnify self and not Christ, wrong way to pray. If you're praying, as I have prayed before, as a means of venting, wrong way to pray. How many of you ever vented in your prayer time? Like, you're not really even praying. You're just knelt over the chair, and before long, you've torn the chair apart and didn't even realize it. You're really just venting. Wrong way to pray.

Or if you're praying for something about the person that God has given them or desire for them that you just simply don't like This, Sometimes happens when maybe a spouse prays for their spouse and that personality trait they found cute while dating now they find repulsive in marriage And we begin to pray that these areas of long-standing personality that are not issues of sin or even sanctification would change, and we just don't like something about them. God has called us to a better way of praying. And it, there's some examples. There are times when folks will ask us to pray for them and we commit to praying for them, and sometimes we pray for people without thinking biblically about the consequence. And we pray for folks simply because they asked us to pray for them, and we just, "Okay, I'll pray for you" in that way. so something like this. Again, being silly, proving a point.

I'm trying to truncate a little bit of the message, so pray for me as I'm speaking to have the grace to know what to, what to overlook. So this will happen sometimes, and this has happened to me. "Pastor, pray for this guy to ask me out." "okay. Well, why should I pray to ask you out?" "Because he's a Christian." "Oh, so that's the only reason you want him to ask you out, because he follows Jesus? Because you're in our church, we have single dudes that follow Jesus, and you've never asked me to pray for one of them to ask you out. You just want this dude to ask you out? What's up? Why are you asking me? I've been doing this a while, so why?" "Well, he's a Christian, and he's hot." "Okay. Okay. He's a professing Christian, and his attractiveness is debatable because no dude's gonna say another dude is attractive. It goes against the grain of dude-ness." I needed more amens there. I'm worried about some of you brothers. Talk to us.

Talk to us. Okay, I'll say it again. No dude is gonna admit another dude's attractiveness. It goes against the grain of dude-ness. Amen. All right, all right. Thanks, Bernardo, for having a deep voice. He professes to be a Christian. Okay, whatever. But he's had five girlfriends in four months. He's 28 years old. He lives with his parents. He got fired from his last job, and his LinkedIn account says he's a full-time, part-time phone scammer Maybe a better scenario would be pray, to pray that you would be attracted to godliness because godliness with contentment is great gain "Pastor, pray I get this job." "Well, tell me about the job."

And come to find out the job will take you away from your church family, move you to a part of the country with almost no spiritual support, put you in compromising situations on a regular basis, have you traveling and living out of hotel rooms, and it's gonna be incredibly difficult for you to walk with God. I'm sorry, brother, I don't really feel like I can pray for you to get this job. How about if we pray a better way and that you would be content where you are until the Lord opens a door for you to get a job where your spiritual life will not be hampered? Sometimes I'm just overwhelmed in praying. I have a friend who calls the membership directory of their church the second most important book. The Bible, the most important. Membership, the second most important. I use our membership directory every single day to pray, except Sunday because I'm here.

But Monday through Saturday I've divided it up, our membership directory and our missionaries into six sections and I pray just alphabetically through it every single day. And sometimes we grab our membership directory and we go to pray and we're overwhelmed and we just start looking through the number of people that are here. And John Chifus is making this directory smaller and smaller pictures 'cause we keep having people join, and before long they're gonna be like tiny little thumbnails on one page. But you've got 'em and you've got 20 people per page and you just look at it and you're like, "I I don't even know half of these people. I don't, I don't even know what to pray for." So you do something like this, "Lord, be with the church and protect everybody and give them what they need. In Jesus' name, amen." And you kinda put the directory away and you're like, "I'm done with that."

Let me tell you're not alone Even as a pastor, I find it daunting and overwhelming on how I should pray So I was, had my membership directory at, on sabbatical, and I was praying, and because I have maybe more insight than most people on how to pray, I said, "Lord, would you, would you teach me just how to pray for our church family better so I don't feel like a failure every time I open up the membership directory and pray through stuff?" And I really believe the Holy Spirit directed my mind to Paul's prayers for others and Jesus' prayer for others, and seeing how they prayed for other people. And as I began to pray, the windows of my heart began to open and it just became a wonderful joy to pray.

And tomorrow morning, as I wake up early to spend time with the Lord in prayer for you as a church family, it has become not a drudgery, but other than reading the the reading a book or the Scripture and praying with Debbie, it is the highlight of my day. Literally. Why? Because I know every single prayer I pray is in accordance with the will of God, and God desires to answer. This is not an arrogant statement, but a biblical one. God desires to answer every single prayer I have prayed for you for the last five months. Amen. Every one. "Well, Pastor, what are you talking about?" Well, John cha- 17 helps us here. In John 17 is a critical movement in Christ's life as he approaches Calvary and his departure from the world to the Father, and he loved his disciples to the end.

And rather than recording Jesus' teaching or demonstrating kingdom power, John 17 invites readers to listen to a divine prayer which Jesus speaks to completing his earthly work and what we're gonna focus on is his earnest prayer for his disciples and the following believers that would come. John 17:9, Jesus said this: "I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me for they are thine. All are mine-- All mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them." Skip down to verse number 20 real quick. I want you to notice this. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me throughout-- through their word." Friends, this is a miraculous thing to consider, but when Jesus was praying, he was praying with us in mind. He was praying with you in mind. He wasn't just praying for the 11 disciples.

He had, he had called-- He'll call out Judas as the son of perdition in this text. He wasn't just praying for the disciples. Verse number 20, he wasn'Just praying for them alone, but for them which would also believe on him through their word. You are saved, you were saved through the, what we would call apostolic succession of evangelism. The apostles shared the gospel with somebody who got saved. They share the gospel, they share the gospel, they share the gospel. And for 2,000 years, Christians have been sharing the gospel with people who don't know Christ, like Donovan and Noah, and people are getting saved, and then they continue to share the gospel. Why? 'Cause they're trying to introduce unsaved people to a Savior who will change their eternity. Amen. And he's praying for us. Well, how did he pray? Super quick. Look at verse number 14. "I have given them thy word."

And the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. By the way, if you're striving for the world to like you have to do one of two things. You have to compromise the Scripture or reject the Scripture, 'cause the world hates the truth of God's Word. That's right. And you're gonna have to live in acceptance of that and be willing to walk alone. I've given them thy word; and the world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world. Notice this text. But that thou shouldest keep them from evil. Here's point number one. You could pray this prayer for everyone. Jesus prayed for our spiritual protection. Jesus prayed for our spiritual protection. Friends, the world we live in is evil.

And I don't have time to deal with every single verse that I have, but you can go home and study First Timothy 4:1, Second Timothy chapter two, 16 and 17, Second Timothy two verse number 13, Second Peter 2:20, Second Peter 3:3. just for the sake of time, I'm not gonna read all those, but we understand. I'll read Second Timothy 3:3. Knowing this first: that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts. We live in a day filled with people that mock the truth of the Scripture. In the name of Jesus, they mock the truth of scripture. We live in an evil, ever-present evil world, and that doesn't even begin to talk about the people who hate Christ. I'm gonna give examples, but I don't want you to lose the broader truth of praying for spiritual protection of others based on these meager illustration. We have a lot of people in our church who go to college. Young people, older people that are going to college.

I'm just telling you, I'm not praying that you'd leave college. It's not my desire at all. I am praying that you would be protected from the evil one while you are in college. Amen. My heart's desire is that you would be protected while you are there, and that the Holy Spirit would minister to you and protect you in a wonderful way. Pray for people's spiritual protection. We have a lot of guys in the military. The military can be, does not have to be, but can be an incredibly difficult place to work and to live because of the spiritual condition of the folks. It can be incredibly difficult. You can be confronted with all kinds of sin and all kinds of attacks. I'm not praying that you would get out of the military because it's difficult. I'm praying that you would be protected from sin while serving. Pray for spiritual protection. You say, "Pastor, how would I do this?" Well, here's what I've done.

this is not, this is not my church directory. I had Christian print one up. I left mine at home because I want it to stay protected. But we give a new directory every, new members' meeting. You'll get a new directory on our members' meeting the 20th for all of the members of Canyon Ridge. If you're not a member, you don't get one. it's for members only. And, in our members' directory I write down first week of the month. And by the time we're done with this series, we'll have, I think, six different messages that we'll preach out of. So you'll pray through this twice a year.

Number one, first week of the month, here, I'm gonna pray for one thing, and this is what I'm gonna pray for: The spiritual protection. And every single person at our church by name, I'm gonna pray for spiritual protection. I'm gonna pray for our staff. I'm gonna read through or look at our church covenant, pray for our church at large. And then I'm gonna pray for the right number of people to divide this up, and I'm gonna pray every single day for every name mentioned here, their spiritual protection. And if God brings something more to mind, I'm gonna pray for that as well. But my focus is simply praying for Natalie and Judith Chadwick's spiritual protection or John and Christian Scheifus' spiritual protection that God would keep them from the evil one.

Or Lance Cantu while he's on deployment, and Dana while she's here by herself raising kids, that she would be spiritually protected from the onslaught of Satan who wants to destroy families while men and women are deployed. That's week number one. And then week number two I'm gonna write this: Jesus prayed for church and Christian unity. Jesus prayed for church and Christian unity. Look at verse number 11 of our text in John 17. I'm gonna go five more minutes, and then I'm just cutting it off. Verse number 11, "And now I am no more in the world-" But these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those thou hast given me and that they may be one as we are one. Verse number 22, And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one. Pray, Jesus prayed for church or Christian unity. You say, "Why church?"

Well, Jesus had started the church, and the first members of the church were the disciples, Matthew chapter 16. He had started the church. The first members of the church were the disciples. It's going to explode in a few short days after the resurrection. It's gonna explode. There were other believers, but the first members of the church were those that were with him in Matthew chapter 16. And the principle here of saying church unity, there is one all Christians everywhere should be in unity, but the reason that the statement has much more to do with praying for unity within the church is we have a clear responsibility to be unified in the church. Why? Well, to the best of our ability, we have a measure of assurance that within the local church, every member is a believer. Why? 'Cause they've given clear testimony of what the gospel is and their salvation.

We don't have anybody who joined Canyon Ridge who gave a weak gospel presentation. Some give way better than others, but nobody is a member of Canyon Ridge Baptist Church who has denied the faith, rejected the faith, doesn't even know what the faith is. No, they are all professing true followers of Jesus Christ, so unity is not simply expected in John 17 verse number 11, verse number 22. Unity is commanded Right? You're commanded to be unified. "Well, I'd rather do my own thing." Right, that's why Ephesians 5:22 commands us to be submitted one to another. It's a command. And by the way, unity doesn't mean unanimity. For those of you that English is your second language, unanimity simply means complete agreement. I can have unity but not be in complete agreement with someone. There are things I can see differently that you could see differently. There are there are some areas of disagreement.

and we pull foolish illustrations out, but, like, you're allowed to root for whatever sports teams you want. but I mean, my opinion's the right one. For me, for me. But yours is right for you. So we can have unity without unanimity. Adrian Cardoza likes the Dodgers. His parents love Jesus and like the Padres. We don't know why Adrian is in such sin. We don't know. That's right. He's allowed to believe... I don't know, he's around here somewhere. I don't believe he's probably out... Oh, there. Yeah, there he is. Yeah, there he is. So, we don't know why he is the way he is, but, he is. And so we don't have to have complete agreement, but we do have to have unity. And then finally, I gotta be super quick, verse number 17. Jesus, this is His prayer, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." Jesus prayed for their sanctification.

The word sanctify means to render clean in a moral sense, to purify to set apart God I pray that Danny Ortiz would live a sanctified life. Yes. Amen. I'm just, I'm just... Danny was just the first good-looking dude I saw in here. Amen. Amen. Lord, I pray for him that he would live a sanctified life. Yes. Here's the beauty of this to me, and it's not a... People have been praying the Bible forever. I don't know, I'm just a slow learner But here's the beauty of it, is that every time I get on my knees or I sit in my chair, however, and I pray for you, I know that God wants you to live a sanctified life. I know that God wants us to be unified. Yeah. And there's no doubt in my mind that God wants to protect us spiritually and commanded us to pray for it. Yeah. So why would I find any other way to pray? Now I, again, I could pray for other stuff. Don't get me wrong, I can pray for other stuff.

It's not wrong to pray that Danny and Valerie would have a great marriage. We'll see that in weeks to come. Or it's not wrong to pray, that Alex Maharo would enjoy his job. It's not wrong to pray for people's health or even their prosperity. We'll see that's in the text as well, in the Scripture as well. But it's right, it's absolutely right to pray for spiritual protection, Christian unity, and sanctification Why would we pray for that? Because Jesus loves you, and He died for you, and He'll give you heaven as your home. And if you're here tonight and you don't know Christ as your savior... "You're talking about prayer and all of that, Pastor Chadwick. What's it all about?" It's all about the fact that Jesus loves us, and He died for us, and He wants to give us heaven as our home, as we sang about, as we talked about, as we prayed about, and as we opened the Word and we saw it.

And if you're here tonight and you don't know Christ as your savior, after the service, there'll be a bunch of pastors in the back you could talk to, or you could talk to the person next to you or in front of you, and they would love to take the Bible and show you from God's Word how heaven could be your home. And if you have questions they don't have answers to, they'll go to someone who can have, who has the answers, and they want to share the gospel with you. You're in a room full of people who love Jesus and love you and want you to go to heaven. Amen. And our prayer is that you'll talk to somebody tonight and let them show you from God's Word how heaven can be your home.