 Turn with me to John chapter 17. This, by the way, is the final message in this summer series on the gospel of John. You might say, well, we haven't finished the book of John. No, we haven't. But coming up into spring, when we are leading into the Passion Week in Easter, we're gonna come back and pick up in chapter 18 because it's all about what takes place at the cross, the resurrection, and the great commissioning of the church. Today, we're gonna end on John chapter 17, which is all about the high priestly ministry of Jesus. John chapter 17 is unlike any other chapter in the gospels because it's all, if you have a red letter Bible, you'll notice that virtually, just a few words short, but virtually all of this chapter is Jesus' own words from his prayer. A prayer that he prayed, just as he was about to be arrested and go to the cross and die for the sins of the world as the great redeemer and savior, but before he does that, we're given a glimpse into him praying for us. And I want that to sink in this morning before we read this because we're gonna read this entire prayer that Jesus prayed, but I want you to think about this. This is Jesus praying for his followers in one of the most stressful, fearful, painful moments of his life. I think that tells us everything that we need to know about Jesus is that when he was about to experience the cross, betrayal, murder, accusation, he spent his last remaining hours in prayer for us. So look with me here at John, chapter 17, beginning in verse number one. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come, glorify your son that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given to him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I've manifested your name to the people whom you've gave me out of the world, yours they were, and you gave them to me and they have kept your word. Now, they know that everything that you have given me is from you for I have given them the words that you gave me and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me for they are yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world but they are in the world and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given to me that they may be one even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, in that name which you have given me and I've guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you and these things that I speak, I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world so I have sent them into the world and for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they may be one just as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me the glory that you have given me I've given to them that they may be one even as we are one I and them and you and me that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved me even as you loved or in love them even as you've loved me Father I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory and that you have given me because you have loved me even before the foundations of the world. Oh righteous father even though the world does not know you I know you and these know that you have sent me I may known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. Let's just take a moment and let's pray in response to the reading of God's word Lord today we're humbled in your sight to even have a glimpse into what you had in your heart for us in these moments Jesus is overwhelming and I pray that in the same way that you prayed for us in the garden that you would intercede for us yet one more time today that our eyes would be open to be able to see and to know the Father and that you would fill us in our spirit with the Holy spirit with the ability to respond to that rightly and we ask this in Jesus name Amen. How many of you have ever had somebody surprise you by telling you hey, I've been praying for you and when somebody says that to you it's different than when you tell somebody hey, we're really going through a hard time would you pray for us? We all do that and oftentimes we'll be the ones on the responding side to somebody who's in the moment of great crisis or in great need and we'll say to them I'm gonna be praying for you but how many know very often we forget to follow through on those words? But it's wonderful when you have somebody come up to you and say to you hey, I don't know why but God has put you on my heart and I've been praying for you because in that moment you know you didn't initiate it they did or maybe the Holy spirit initiated it and they've been interceding for you that's what the word intercede means it means to pray on behalf of somebody else and there's some comfort in that when you know when somebody shoots you a text or calls you and says I've been praying for you because you know that you're not in this alone but when we read the words of John chapter 17 in Jesus's final moments and you wonder how did we get the full transcript of Jesus's prayer? Well remember that in the garden Peter, James and John were just a stone's throw away from where Jesus was praying with great drops of blood that were even coming through his sweat pours because of the stress that he was under and it was in that moment that he prayed this prayer for his church and for his followers, for us and John overheard it and John was reminded of it by the Holy spirit just as Jesus said would happen in John 14 when he said the Holy spirit will remind you of all things that I've said and John indelibly was marked by this moment because in this moment he saw Jesus interceding and praying for not only the disciples but even those who would believe in the world as a result of the disciples taking the gospel and that's you and I, you know the disciples probably had no idea in the moment that they were following Jesus that their lives, their prayers and their obedience to God would impact people living in a town called Kalamazoo 2,000 years later. It was never in their heart and in their mind but can I tell you it was in God's, it was in God's heart because Jesus is praying for it. He said, I pray for them but I'm also praying for those who are going to believe because of them. So in a very real way, I want you to listen to this that in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus was actually praying for you and he wasn't just praying one time for you. Jesus' ministry, his high priestly ministry that's what a priest does is he prays or he intercedes for others and that's who the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is that his ministry after his resurrection was to continually make intercession for you and for me and for all those who believed in him. You know, when we talk about the ministry of Jesus if you ask somebody, hey, what do you think the ministry of Jesus was? They'll say, well, he preached the gospel, true, check. Well, he healed the sick, true, check. Well, he fed the poor, he fed the hungry, he performed miracles, check, check, check. He did all of that. Well, ultimately Jesus lived his life to go to the cross and to die for the sins of the world. How many believe that wherever you're at? You believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world, check. And then on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, yes. And then he spent 40 days with his disciples, teaching them everything concerning the kingdom of God. That had to be amazing. Can you imagine Jesus being your teacher for 40 days while he's in his resurrected body? 40 day Bible college condensed. I mean, eight years condensed. I guess you can get that program if you can somehow get the resurrected, glorified son of God to come and spend 40 days with you. But they had that. And then they watched him ascend up into the heavens. Everybody knows what Jesus did for 33 years. But if you ask, what has Jesus been doing for the last 2000 years? What's his ministry been for the last 2000 years? You won't get as many answers because most of the time we think, well, Jesus is just waiting. Yes, Jesus is waiting, but he's doing more than just waiting. The Bible says in John 17, what we can read and what we can decipher from Jesus' prayer is that he continually prays for us. Think about Hebrews 7 verse 25 says, since he, that's Jesus, always lives to make intercession for them. Who's the them? It's his believers. And then Romans 834 says, Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, he's the one who is raised, who is right now at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. You want to know what Jesus' current ministry is that he's been doing for 2000 years? He intercedes for you if you are a child of God. For Christians, for believers, Jesus intercedes for us. He prays to the Father. And how many know? Nobody's got a closer proximity to the heart and to the ear of the Father than Jesus does at his right hand. So you might have prayer partners in your life, people that you can call and say, hey, would you pray for me? And that's wonderful. The Bible calls us to intercede and to pray for one another. But I want you to know that your greatest intercessor is actually Jesus himself who intercedes for you. He knows you by name. Did you know that Jesus talks to the Father about you every single day? That's incredible. In fact, we have two great intercessors. Romans 8, where it says that he always makes intercession for us. It earlier says in Romans chapter 8 that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. When we pray in the spirit, it says with groanings and utterances, two deeper words, the Holy Spirit is interceding on our behalf. So that means, listen, you got two thirds of the Godhead praying for you every single moment of your life directly to the Father. I don't know how we could ever be discouraged. Think about that. We got God praying for us. And how many think God gets his prayers answered? This is Jesus in his earthly ministry demonstrating to us what he was going to do for us even after his ascension for the next 2000 years. And as we read his opening dialogue with the Father, we find out what is really essential, what he really wants for us. In verse number three, it says, and this is eternal life that they know you. The only true God in Jesus Christ whom you've sent. You see, the greatest desire in the heart of Jesus was and is that we would know him, that we would know him, that we would know the Father, the way he knew the Father. Think about that. That the love, the Bible actually says, we just read it a moment ago, Jesus's prayer was, Lord, convince them that you love them with the same love that you love me. Let the love that you have for Jesus be fully convincing in my heart that you love me that same way. This was Jesus's greatest desire that we wouldn't just know about him. Listen, our world is filled with knowledge about things that we've never experienced. Google, we've got search engines. Or if you don't like Google, you can go duck duck go or whatever those search engines are, or Chrome or Yahoo or whatever. These search engines, chat GPT where you can just punch in questions that you have. And it's pretty amazing. How many have tried like AI? Yeah, have you tried chat GPT at all? Anybody tried that? Yeah, raise your hand. It's not the mark of the beast. You can raise your hand, it's okay. I've tried it where you're like, I've actually punched in questions because I heard that there were some pastors who were like punching in a text. Give me an illustration and a 25 minute sermon based on John 17, based off of the English standard version in modern voice for people 35 to 52 years old. And in 10 seconds it will write a sermon for you. I don't do that, but I did experiment with it. I was like, all right, let's try this out. I'm like, what year did Paul write Thessalonians? What year did he did? And it's like within seconds it's like just info. Like you can't believe how many remember the days where if you wanted information to write a paper, you had to go to a library, go to a index card box, use the Dewey Decimal System, find out the aisle that it was at, pull the book out, find the page, write it on the index card in order to write your paper. Those days are done. You tell the next generation about an encyclopedia and there's like, why? Why didn't you guys just use your smartphones? Because all we had was dumb phones. They were dumb and hanging on the wall and it was shink, shink, shink. The world has changed and we have knowledge of all kinds of things, but knowledge does not always equate to knowledge. And while we may, even in the church, listen to me with the ears of your spirit, even though we may have knowledge of who Jesus is or was, that doesn't fulfill Jesus's greatest longing or the Father's greatest longing, which is that we know Him, not just know about Him. And I've seen this. I've seen, well, I know Jesus, I know the Nicene Creed, I know all about church, I know all the hymns, I've done that, but yet it hasn't fulfilled me. I've tried the Jesus thing and it did not fulfill me. You may have knowledge about Him, you may have gone to the index, pulled it out, you may have even pulled the book off the shelf, you may have read some information, but that's not the longing of God's heart. It wasn't that we would know Him through intermediaries, but that we would experience His love for us in the same way that He loved Jesus, His Son, and that in return, we would love Him back and that there would be this relationship like Jesus had with the Father, that we would be children that recognize that we come from God the Father and that He's not just the God who exists in the corner of the universe, but He's the God who dwells in us and us and Him. There's this union, this relationship that Jesus is expressing all throughout the days of His ministry, especially in John 17, where He keeps saying, Lord, just as you're in me, I wanna be them and me and me and you and you and it's this union of relationship that God longs for. And it's only by experience, the only way I can describe it is in the context of love because that's the context that Jesus gave it. If you're married, you know what it's like to travel someplace and to be gone from your family and to deeply, deeply miss them. And even though you know that they're fine and even though you know you're going to see them in a little while, you are so one together that you miss them and it's hard sometimes to hold it together because you long to be with them. You miss them, you're thinking to yourself, I wonder what they're doing right now. And if you've ever felt that longing in your heart to be with somebody that is a far distance away from you that you've never felt for anybody else, even though you know somebody else's name, you know their story, you might even call them a friend, you don't have the depth of a loving oneness relationship with them. If you've never felt that, then these words will be foreign to you, but if you've ever felt it, this is the longing, heart of God, of the Father for us. And it's the strong desire that Jesus has for us and that he wants us to have for him. You see his current ministry, even after he goes to the cross, even after he's prayed this prayer and he takes his throne at the right hand of God, the Father, is Jesus still longs for us and he's still engaged with you and I every single day and every single moment of our lives and he makes intercession for us. RT Kendall is one of my heroes in ministry. He's 87, about turned 88 years old. We just had him here for our Rai Shine Conference. He formerly was the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London under Lloyd or Martin Lloyd-Jones. He's one of the great preachers. He's also a theologian. He's also a spirit-filled man. He tells the story about when he was a young man struggling in his call, going to Bible college, going to seminary and doing ministry in a different city in Kentucky. He was raised up in Kentucky. And you gotta know RT Kendall is like Oxford educated. He's like got more letters behind his name than there are in the alphabet. I mean, he's got doctorates and honorary doctorates and letters and whatever. So he's an intellectual, but when he was a young man, he was really in a season of struggling and he encountered the Lord in a supernatural way that he recounted in his sermon when he was here but also in several of his books that marked his life forever. And it was him driving down a highway and he was praying and he's saying, God, I don't know, maybe I'm not called into ministry. Maybe this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. How am I gonna do all this? Am I gonna pay the bills? Am I gonna finish school? I'm being told to do this. And he said in a moment, he felt a presence in his car with him. And as he turned to look at the passenger seat, he had an open vision and he saw Jesus sitting there. But Jesus wasn't looking at him. Jesus had his face looking up to heaven and he was interceding for him. And he was saying, Father, give it to him. He's ready. Father, release it into his life. Father, I'm asking you, give it to him. And he said, literally for the next hour, as I'm driving, I keep glancing over and I see Jesus who's not even talking to me, but I see Jesus talking to the Father and interceding on my behalf. And he said the entire time I thought to myself, this is extraordinary. Jesus is praying for me. Why is he praying for me? What have I done to deserve him to pray for me? He said that when it was all said and done, that particular experience marked him for the rest of his life. Because God had given him a glimpse, listen to this, that he was not in this alone. And sometimes we need to know that. Sometimes we need to know that we're not making our own life happen. That we're just not somehow on the fringe of God's family that he's allowed us to tag along, that he's got his favorites at the nucleus and the core of his kingdom, but then there's the rest of us who are just kind of saved by the hair on our chinny, chin, chin. And it's kind of like some group. Yeah, I'll take that block of people, come on in. I don't even know their names, but it's all right. That somehow he's like, well, barely I'm gonna let you in. No, he knows you and he loves you with the very same longing and passion that he loves Jesus so much so that Jesus is constantly making intercession for you until he comes back. This is what Jesus does in your life. Every single day you wake up, no matter the challenge you're facing, I want you to know this, Jesus is praying for you. Jesus sees you, the Father loves you and you are not in this alone. Jesus makes it very, very clear that he's not praying for the world. Oftentimes we think, well, he just sees us, the way he sees the world. But verse nine says, I'm praying for them, that's us. He says, I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. He's talking about us, his followers, his disciples. He says, I'm not just praying in general, like some big prayer for everybody on the face of the earth. Obviously God so loved the world that he gave his son that anybody who's in the world can be saved out of the world and can be brought into his family and be a Christian. That's evident, but that's not who Jesus prays for. He prays for his believers. And there's four things that Jesus prays over every Christian's life. It's found in this chapter, you have to look forward a little bit, but there's four main prayers that Jesus prays for us that are significant every single day of our life. Number one is he prays that God would keep and protect us. That God would keep and protect us. In verse number 11, he says, Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one. God prays, or Jesus prays, that the Father would keep us and protect us in his name. That's significant because a name has authority. And Jesus prays daily for you that God would protect you and keep you. That doesn't mean, listen to me, that doesn't mean that you're never going to experience hardship or have challenges or even feel as if you are being attacked and there's moments where you feel like God, you've just left me exposed. But it means this, it means that the very soul, our soul, our relationship with God, our eternal reality is protected and enshrouded in Jesus' name. He's praying that we don't fall away. He's praying that, God, what you've started, that Philippians one, chapter six, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's praying for that. He's saying, Holy Father, while I've been here, I've kept them together and I've taught them about who you are and they've been marked by your name. And now Lord, I'm saying I'm coming to you but I'm asking Father, would you continue to keep them? Even when they feel all alone, even when they feel exposed, even when they feel like nobody's looking out for them, Father, would you keep them in your name? Did you know that the name of Jesus is marked over your life if you're a follower of Jesus? And the enemy has no access to you beyond that name. The name of Jesus is powerful. At the name of Jesus, the book of James says, demons flee at the name of Jesus. At the name of Jesus, sickness flees. At the name of Jesus, sin, accusation and condemnation cannot make its way and penetrate into the deepest place of your heart and into your life because you've been changed. You've been saved. You've been redeemed. You've been washed in the blood. You've been made a son or a daughter of God. You've been listed in the book of life. You've been seated with Christ in heavenly places. And God puts his hands on you and says, they belong to me. And every single day, Jesus is praying that over your life. Tomorrow when you wake up and you're just like, God, are you even there? You may not see God, but I want you to know he's there with you. And Jesus is interceding for you. Number two, Jesus intercedes and he prays that God would make us like him. Make us like Jesus. Look at what he says in verse number 14. I've given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of this world just as I am not of the world. Verse 15, I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil ones. See, there's that protection again. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Jesus said, listen, I'm not of this world and my followers are not of this world. If we're not of this world, where are we from? Well, Pastor Leah, I believe we came down in UFOs and those people that planted us here 5,000 years ago have now come back in little saucer planes and they're floating over New Mexico and they are not intelligent to know nobody lives in the desert. That we all came from UFOs. No, that's not what Jesus is talking about. He's not talking about UFOs. He's not talking about some other planet. He's talking about the kingdom of God. You do not find your origins in this world. You might have been born into this world but you were sent from the kingdom of God. You are a missionary to this world and he's praying that we would become fully convinced that even though we're more familiar with this world than we're familiar with heaven that the more that we're in Christ, the more we would become convinced that that is our home. This is not. That's good news, church, that we're not of this world. And Jesus even says, he says, they hate me. In the world, the world hates me because I'm not from here. Do not be surprised when the world looks at you like you're strange. The Bible in King James says we're aliens and strangers, foreigners. If you can walk through the streets of this world and go undetected as not being an alien from the kingdom of God, then you're not doing it right. We should be strange. We are strange. When people who know nothing about Christianity come into the company of Christians, they've always, throughout church history, they've called Christians strange. Their sexual ethics are strange. How come they don't do what everybody else does? They're such prudes, yep. Why? Because we believe our body doesn't belong to ourselves. It's the temple of the Holy Spirit and we believe sex is a gift from God. It's not dirty, but it's not recreational. And so Christians have always lived with a certain Christian ethic. We go into their worship services and they talk about blood and they talk about flesh and unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood, you have no part with me. It's like, that's weird. That is weird unless you know the rest of the story. It's like, I go into this church and everybody raises their hands on it. First time I went there, I thought everybody had questions and they were waiting to get called on, no? We lift up our hands in the sanctuary and we bless the Lord. We pray with our hands lifted up because it's a sign of surrender and also a childlike expression of adoration and worship. That's weird. They clap to songs and they joyfully endure persecution and they share with people without expecting anything in return. It's crazy. They believe that there's God who became a man who came to the earth and didn't destroy the earth. It actually died for the sins of the world, for those who mocked him and hated him and then he rose from the dead and they said he's coming back again. Can you just understand how strange that sounds? Why are we always trying to unstrange the gospel? We're trying to make it so palatable that it actually loses its power. The Bible says the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing but it is salvation to those of us who have gained eternal life and this is what eternal life is that we know him. So we're not of this world and Jesus is praying that we would become more and more like him. That God, notice he said this, this is interesting. He said, Father, I don't ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. That's exactly how Jesus was. Jesus didn't avoid the cross. Jesus didn't avoid persecution. Jesus didn't avoid being misunderstood. Jesus wasn't concerned if everybody liked him or very few people followed him. Jesus understood that I can come into the world and I don't have to flee from the enemy. I can confront the enemy and overcome the enemy. And in the church, we've got to get to a place where when darkness gets dark in the world, we're not saying Jesus catch us up out of here. There's too many people rapture ready and not enough people kingdom business ready. We need to be able to look at the darkness and say darkness is dark, but the light is brighter and I'm more than an overcomer. I'm a conqueror, greater is he that's in me than he that is in the world and I'm not going to be taken out of this world one breath short of fulfilling the purpose that God has for putting me in this world. That ought to be our mentality. Somebody needs a hot dog in this house. And he says, sanctify them by God's word. This is what he means by being made like Jesus that his word would begin to shape and form us. Number three, he prayed that God would unite us. Verse 21, that they may all be one just as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you've sent me. Jesus said this, that when the church operates in unity when believers are in unity it's the greatest witnessing tool to the world. Because unity is not natural, unity is supernatural. This is Jesus' desire for his church, it's for unity. Ephesians four verse 13 says that there is coming a time in the future when we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God into mature manhood. That's Jesus' prayer for the church and it's Jesus' desire and his goal for the church. There's gonna come a day before his return where the church is going to be united as one. It's not always gonna, it's not gonna be homogenous. It's not gonna look exactly the same, but our heart and our longing for his return is going to be unified. And we're gonna love and appreciate one another. We're not gonna dumb down doctrines and we're not gonna diminish our distinctives but we're gonna center our hearts on the knowledge of Jesus. There's power, there's power when the church is united. Last year when we all gathered in downtown Kalamazoo, Arcadia, amphitheater to pray together it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced, 51 churches. We pulled it together in like two weeks praying that God would hear our prayers for the life of the unborn, that he'd forgive our sins, heal our land. And we had, I don't know how many denominations the Catholic Bishop was there, Monsignor was there, we had Lutheran churches, Presbyterian churches, Methodist churches, Pentecostal churches, Reformed churches, Christian Reformed churches, Bible churches, Baptist churches. How many know when Jesus comes back for us and we get caught up to meet him in the air, how many know all of our denominational labels are peeling off, falling to the ground and we're gonna be marked as his. And Jesus prays that right now. He prays for a unity. Listen, he prays for a unity not just among believers but even in our households, even in our own church that we would be one as he and the Father are one. And lastly, in verse number 24, Jesus prays this. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am. To see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundations of the world. Jesus prays this fourth prayer that we would be with him, that we would be with him. The longing of Jesus' heart is that we would be with him, that we would see his glory. And you know, that's gonna be a day when we step out of this life either by death or by resurrection and we see him face to face. We will be with him. Jesus said that in my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. But I go to prepare a place for you. Do you know that Jesus not only is interceding for you but he's also preparing a place for you. He's also preparing a place for you so that we can see him not just from a distance but that we can know him intimately and up close so that we can know him. You can have assurance. Jesus said this is eternal life, that we know the Father and that we know the Son. We can know that we have eternal life in Jesus Christ. And we can have confidence that someday when we pass from this life, we will be with him in his glory. Because this is the longing of Jesus. He says, Father, I want them to be where I am. Do you know that? That's the mark of true love when you want somebody to be with you wherever you are. Come on, I wanna take you with me. How many phone calls have we made to loved ones over the years that we haven't seen and we've said, man, when can you come and visit? I really wanna see you, I miss you. Jesus says, Father, even though I'm coming back to you where I've had this glory and this relationship with you, from even eternity past, Lord, I want them to be where I am so that they can see the glory that you've given to me so they can see who I really am. They've only seen me on earth for three and a half years functioning as a man in the flesh, but I want them to see the full expression of my glory. I want them to see me the way I was for all eternity. And I want them to be with me. I want them to experience that glory as well. Do you know heaven's gonna be amazing? Heaven's going to be amazing. Nobody's gonna show up and be disappointed. We're gonna have no words. We're gonna stand and go, ugh, ugh. I mean, just dumbfounded. And when we see him as glory and we see him the way that he is, our heart is gonna be united with his heart. Jesus' praise for you daily. That God would protect you and keep you. That God would make you like him. That God would unite us together around him. And that ultimately God would bring us to him. If you've ever wondered if you're in this all alone, I want you to know that Jesus is ever interceding for you. You're not in this alone. You have an amazing high priest and intercessor. His name is Jesus. And I'll tell you what, if God is for us, who can be against us? Neither height nor depth, nor things present, nor things future, nor things in the past, not angels, not demons, not principalities, not sword, not pestilence, not famine, not anything that the devil's cooking up for your tomorrow, not any shame that he can dig out of your past, not any enemy in the flesh, not any demon in hell can thwart the purposes of God in your life because your father is for you. Jesus is praying for you. You're part of the purposes of God. Your salvation is secure because Jesus is not just your savior. He's your high priest. Let's all stand up together. Lord Jesus, we thank you today that you are ever interceding for us. And you're so faithful and you're so good God. Lord, we look to you. We say we need you, oh, how we need you. But today we draw strength from knowing that you are our great intercessor. That we're not praying just for ourselves. We're not trying to get God's attention. We have Jesus praying for us, the Holy Spirit praying for us. And for those of us who are children of God, Lord, what a great confidence that we have in you today. And for those of us who have not yet received you as our savior. Lord, today you're even praying for us. You're even praying for those who've not yet made you Lord of their lives because even though it hasn't happened, you're already looking at us. You've already marked us out. You long for us. And I'm praying today, Holy Spirit, you would draw those to you that you desire to be with you.