Do you approach God as an employee might approach his or her employer? Knocking on the boss’s door and saying “Excuse me, are you busy?”

Do you approach God like a small child who gives a tug on the adult’s pants leg to get their attention?

Do you approach God with sighs or whines?  With complaints or praise?

With requests or thanksgiving?  With concerns of your own or concerns of others?

The Bible contains every kind of approach to God that is possible. From lonely souls crying their heart out to God to a nation of people praising God with one voice. I am confident that in the book of Psalms alone you and I can find a prayer that reflects our every attitude and situation that we could possible experience in this life. What the book of Psalms teaches is that the only wrong way to pray, is not to.

The book of Psalms also teaches us that God hears our prayers, whether they are desperate pleas for help cried out in a loud voice as Jesus cried out,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”

Or they are a passionate prayer for God’s will be fulfilled in our lives like Jesus’ prayer in John 17, our scripture for this morning.

There are three parts to Jesus prayer. He prays for himself, for His present disciples and for His future disciples.

His prayer for himself is that God would restore Him to His original place of honor and authority before He humbled Himself by becoming human. Jesus knew this was not for Himself, but for your salvation and mine. His death, resurrection and ascension would be all the evidence that humanity would need to know that God and Jesus were one. That Jesus was sent of God for our salvation. Jesus’ prayer for Himself was ultimately for us so that we would have eternal life.

Jesus then prayed for his present disciples.

He prayed that His disciples’ lives would reveal His character and presence to the world.

He prayed that His disciples would be united in harmony and love as He and God, the Father are one.

He prayed that His disciples would be joyful.

He prayed for protection for His disciples because the world will hate them. They would be hated because His disciples would be a living accusation against the worldly immortality.

He prayed that His disciples would be sanctified (set apart for sacred use) through believing, and obeying God’s Word and daily applying it to life.

Jesus then prayed for you and me. His prayer for us is not different than the prayer he offered for the disciples that were gathered around the table with Him.

Jesus’ prayer for oneness appears to be the common thread through out His pray. He prayed to be return to God to be one with God before His incarnation. He prayed for His present disciples to be one with each other as He and God were one. He prayed that we would be one with Him and each other.

“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.”

I can compare Jesus’ prayer for unity with the responsibility that Diane and I had in raising Adam and Greg.  When Adam was born, like any parent we loved and cared for Adam’s every need.  We became one family.  When Greg was born, we didn’t turn our back on Adam to care for Greg, nor did we not love and care for Greg’s every need because we had Adam.  The challenge was to love both equally and become united as one family.

This is the challenge of the church to blend the old and new believers together as one family. The old members should not feel threatened by new members, nor should the new members feel more important than the old.  Like Jesus prayed for his present and future disciples, we need to be doing the same.

“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.”

It is evident by this prayer that Jesus’ great desire is for all of His disciples to become one.  Can you imagine what a powerful witness of the reality of God’s love we could make if every believer, every disciple of Jesus Christ were united.

Can you imagine what a powerful witness of God’s love we could make if we did not unite in prayer only when there is a crisis?

Jesus wanted us to unite in prayer for our sake and well-being. When we unite in prayer the church becomes like a forest of giant redwood trees. When you look at the magnificent height of the redwood you have to wonder how deep the tree’s roots go down into the ground.  Actually they don’t go as deep you would think they do. Instead of reaching far down in the ground they reach out to the roots of the surrounding redwood trees and interlock their roots with each other. The strength of each individual tree is found not in itself but in the roots of the surrounding tree.

This is why Jesus prayed,

“that they may be one as we are one.”

There is great strength when believers unite in prayer. So if you want to get God’s attention be humble and be united one with each other in prayer