Sermons from Lone Rock Bible Church
Stevensville, MT
Index of LRBC Sermons: www.sermonlinks.com/Sermons/LoneRock/Sermons
January 15, 2006

Jesus, the Pray-er and Player (Part II)
John 17:20-23

Jesus prayed these wonderful words in John 17 so that the disciples could hear as He spoke to His Father. They also would witness how Jesus fleshed out His own words:

1. Jesus the Pray-er (20-21)
2. Jesus the Player (22-23)

Some words about prayer:

1. Jesus makes the believers one (22)
2. Jesus brings believers to completion (23a)
3. Jesus impresses the world with God’s love (23b)    

I think it is interesting that Jesus did not pray this prayer silently or privately. Clearly His notion was not only to communicate with the Father but to communicate with the Father in the presence of His disciples and for you and me. So He is praying and teaching all at the same time.

John 17
²⁰"I do not ask on behalf of these alone, (that is, His disciples who are hearing Him pray) but for those also who believe in Me through their word;
²¹that they may all be one; even 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 sent Me.
²²"The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;
²³I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and   loved them, even as You have loved Me.

This is not quite a poem, but a statement about Jesus, that you have probably heard before. It takes on particular meaning in light of these verses that I read.

ONE SOLITARY LIFE by Dr. James Allen Francis

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty.
Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.  

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He
never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big
city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never
did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself.

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves.

While He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He
had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave
through the pity of a friend.

Twenty long centuries have come and gone, and today He is the centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the
navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that
ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as
powerfully as has that ONE SOLITARY LIFE! Dr. James Allen Francis,

Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that timely? Christianity is only one of many religions and sects around the world. I find it remarkable that the most oppressed, backward, spiritually dark and hopeless cultures in the world are those where their religious founder only talked, only taught, only expounded and that’s it. This is where Jesus stands apart. It is so wrong, so erroneous to classify Jesus as just another great teacher, world religious leader, or so forth. Jesus not only talked, He stepped in and changed things.

I have heard the expression, speaking of some perhaps misunderstood Christian person -- That that person is so heavenly minded, he is of no earthly good. That is an interesting expression. It seems to me Jesus is our model and Jesus was the most heavenly minded of all. That is where He is from; that is where He returned. He also was the most earthly good. He who is truly heavenly minded will be truly good on earth as well.

Jesus powerfully impacted the world. We see in these verses, He not only prayed about it, He not only taught about it, Jesus stepped in and made a difference. If you will, He played the game. He got down in the middle of it, in the thick of it. He took it on and He won in behalf of you and me.

We are going to talk about Jesus the player, but before we do I want to wrap up a few thoughts from last week because I left a few things unsaid about Jesus the pray-er as our model. I have a few thoughts regarding our praying because the Bible says prayer, that vertical relationship we have with God is extremely important. I will be the first to confess I do not know how it works. I do not understand how we can go through every contortion and formula and word order possible and we just cannot seem to get what we want, can we? And yet isn’t it amazing how God has a way of always being there, always on time, always just right, always sufficient. We are told to pray.

I would suggest first of all, that when it comes to you and me praying, quantity is not necessarily the same as quality. I’ve heard, “Just pray more, just pray more.” Well, maybe. But, maybe if I just pray more, pray more, pray more, I could find myself suddenly in that category of people Jesus mentioned as those, who by their meaningless repetition, do not really get anywhere at all. We need to be careful about meaningless repetition for one, but also, “I prayed for two hours!” Prayer can be misunderstood by Christian people as a way of chalking up brownie points with God simply by sheer quantity.

We read the biographies of the saints of old and how they arose at 4 in the morning and prayed until 8 on a cold stone floor or something. I am not saying they didn’t; but I am not saying just because they did that makes us spiritual if we do. Prayer is a result, amount of prayer, time in prayer, and I am all for it as much as possible, is a result of a growing relationship with God. It is a result.

It is always a question of motive. I have heard before that prayer changes things and I say, “It does?” I think God changes things and prayer changes us. That seems to me to be more in keeping. Yes, we pray. Yes, God works. But my mere mechanical act of praying does not change anything any more than the power of positive thinking changes anything. God does the changing. I do the praying. And through prayer, God changes you and me.   And He needs to because we need it.  Is that not great!

I have three quick points and then we will talk about playing. First of all, prayer, sincere prayer, heartfelt prayer before God fosters humility and dependence. When we are up against it and we say to ourselves, sometimes with a smile, “We’re going to pray. Has it come to that?” How often is prayer our last resort? When it is, it’s because we’re stuck and now we turn to God. That’s good because prayer reminds us that He provides our needs. Prayer moves us into humility, an attitude of dependence. What is dependence if not a seedbed for faith. We must trust Him and prayer brings us back to that point of trusting Him, trusting Him continually.

Humility and dependence lead to faith and I would only conclude then that not to pray, neglecting or overlooking or not considering it to be important, not to pray reflects a heart of ignorance or perhaps, presumption, or pride. If I figure I don’t need God, I don’t need to pray and I am on my own. Prayer fosters humility.

Secondly, prayer sensitizes us to God’s agenda and His will. This is what you might say is the subjective, spiritual part, but it is there nonetheless. When we go before God in prayer and pour out our hearts to Him, we have assumed an attitude of what you might call spiritual listening. We are quiet and we are empty and we are open to hearing from Him. These are the times, in my experience, He nudges. These are the times He impresses. These are the times that lead to increased wisdom when we have a choice to make. Prayer forces us to listen and leads to peace and to joy. Acquiescence to His will, not twisting His arm to gain ours.

Prayer fosters humility, sensitizes us to God’s agenda, and thirdly, prayer sensitizes us to those for whom we pray. If I am praying for an individual, it does not matter who it is, that individual is on my mind and hopefully, in my heart. So when God brings our paths across one another, when he or she calls or I call or meet, suddenly I am aware that I am praying for this person. This person has a need. God, would you have me step in and meet it, making me both pray-er and player. Prayer sensitizes us to those for whom we pray so that we can help them in other ways, too.

1. Jesus makes the believers one (22)

Let’s talk about Jesus. These are interesting verses. He is praying specifically. He is using specific words. In prayer to His Father, He says: “The glory that You have given Me,” Father -- that obvious character that You and I share, that I brought from heaven to earth, to this world, I have given it to them. Jesus carried a gift, if you will, from heaven to earth. You have given Me glory. I have given it to them in order that three things might happen. This is where Jesus enters in. These is where Jesus, sharing His glory, that element of His character that is brilliant, shining, and attractive, that makes Him such a draw, makes a difference in three ways.

He tells us what they are. He repeats some of what He said in earlier verses, because there He is praying about it. Here, He is participating in making it happen. Jesus showed up, brought His glory, first of all according to verse 22 in order that they might be “one as we are one.” The glory of Jesus has something to do with the unity of believers. I have given them My glory first of all, to make the believers one, to foster unity among God’s people. That is the first task He accomplishes.

John 1:14
¹⁴And the Word[ that is, Jesus] became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.  

John the Baptist bore witness of Him and cried out saying, “This is the One.” He has higher rank than I. He existed before Me.

¹⁶For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
¹⁷For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
¹⁸No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father [that is, Jesus], He has explained Him.

Jesus came to foster unity among His people. Unity spiritually, making them one body, knitting God’s people together in what is called the universal church --all of us sharing the same Holy Spirit of God, in natural unity and spiritual unity.

Secondly, he came to show unity of purpose. The purpose of Jesus is to impress the world, to build His church and to grow the kingdom. We are to be yoked together with Him in that.

And then there is unity in truth. Jesus came to foster unity, to create what we might call common cause.

I think football games are interesting, not necessarily for the game itself but for what football games represent, particularly during playoffs. Sixty or seventy thousand people pack the stands and millions watch on TV and they are all pulling for Denver. What is interesting about that is a lot of those folks have never been to Denver. They have never shaken the hand of a Denver Bronco. Some are Democrats, some are Republicans. Some are 5 or 6 years old, others are 80 or 90 years old. Different emotional constitutions, different everything and yet when it comes to a playoff game, we’re there. Don’t you find that fascinating, what it takes to get people united? In America at least, it takes a football game. They may not have anything else in common and yet here they come.

In the course of history, perhaps a needy nation needs a strong leader. A guy from Austria named Adolph stands up and everybody follows him -- because that strong leader represents a draw for good, for bad, whatever. People gravitate and for a time at least there is unity.

An attack from the outside creates unity. In the history of our nation, Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought about unprecedented unity across our land similar to the 11^th of September of 2001. It happens that way. Attack has a way of drawing people together. Christians know unity as well. My sense is they knew it better 2,000 years ago than today, unless Christians are persecuted.

Hardship, whether it is persecution or illness or grief or some other oppressive force can foster unity as well and leaves God’s people where we need to be, clinging to core issues. Clinging to what really matters. I have thought about this. If we were living in a nation, in a culture, where we were severely persecuted for the sake of Jesus, our unity factor would go through the ceiling. Denominational distinctives would fall away, they would melt away, and we would find ourselves hanging onto one another and to certain truths far too precious to compromise.

For instance, if we were in serious trouble, we would hang onto the fact that God truly exists. The existence of a personal God is huge when you are in trouble. Is He there? Yes, He is. When we are in trouble we want to know if the Bible, the Scriptures of God, have integrity. Can we trust the Book? Not only is God there, but has He spoken and is it true? Yes, He has and on the testimony of Jesus, the risen One, yes indeed, it is true. We would hang onto the existence of God. We would hang onto the integrity of the Bible.

We would also have to confront and admit the lostness of people. Under certain circumstances we cannot help ourselves. When it comes to attaining right standing with God, we are helpless. Can I do it? The answer is no. He must do it. You hang onto Him and He will accomplish it. We would hang onto the Person and work of Jesus. If we were under attack or persecution, we probably would not get too hung up about the church constitution, about the budget, about the form of government, mode of baptism and who gets which room. We would care about Jesus. We would want to know about the Person and work of Jesus. Is He who He said He was? Does He really care? Did He succeed in paying for our sins? Can He come through? And indeed we know He can.

We would hang onto salvation by grace through faith alone. We would hang onto that one tightly, asking ourselves, am I in? When it comes right down to it, whether it is a death-bed experience or extreme pressure, who are you and I trusting for all time and eternity?  If you are trusting that you walked an aisle when you were a kid or “I got baptized, didn’t I?” That will not wash when the screws are turned. What will come through, what will stand in the hour of trial -- Do I know Him? Am I trusting Him? That is where unity comes in, around those core issues. What will happen if I die. Is there a heaven and a hell or was Jesus just kidding? I believe Him!   Is there hope? Indeed and amen -- there is.

Jesus stepped in and prayed and then brought about through His very Person, His very Presence, His true teaching, common cause to foster unity. If you strip away all the peripherals, all the unnecessaries in the Christian faith and once reduced I can guarantee unity is there. Preference, at times, will not matter. Jesus came to make believers one and to foster unity.

2. Jesus brings believers to completion (23a)

Look at verse 23. He also came to bring believers to completion. I like this: That they might be one, I in them and you in Me, in order that -- here is an interesting expression -- they may arrive at a state of completion and stay there.

There is a little bit of a conundrum here, a little bit of a problem, because on the one hand Jesus is praying that you and I will be complete, that is that we will arrive. I am pretty sure that if any of us were ever to arrive and were to walk into this room looking just like Jesus, acting just like Jesus, thinking just like Jesus, being just like Jesus, the rest of us would be patently impressed. I would be.

We know, in this life, it is not happening, but we also know, in this life, we are moving in that direction by the grace of God. Jesus is praying for the process and the ending. He knows the ending is in heaven. The apostle Paul made that very clear. But it is in the process that Jesus looks good as well. “That they may come in perfection into one.” That is a heavenly state, but we are now in earthly process headed that direction. He did that by providing a model in Himself. Let’s remind ourselves of Hebrews 12. How is it that He brings believers to that state of completion? How do we stay on that process? First of all, by providing a model in Himself, He sets an example.

¹Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
³For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

In Hebrews 12 we are encouraged to lay aside encumbrances, especially the sin which so easily wraps itself around our little legs. Verse 2 - the author, the beginner and the ender, of faith.

Consider Him. Jesus is our example. Jesus better be our hero and our model. Secondly, by providing a goal. Look at Ephesians 4. He provides us a goal. He doesn’t say just get out there and just be a good Christian, or get out there and give it your best shot, try as hard as you can and we’ll see what happens. No, thankfully, the Bible is a little more specific than that. The goal for God’s people is this, in Ephesians 4:

¹³until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
¹⁴As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
¹⁵but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,

Christ-likeness, we grow in maturity, understanding truth and discerning error and avoiding it.

In Philippians 3, the apostle talks about this. He says some day I will be perfect; I am not yet. But I am gaining by the grace of God.

¹³Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

He provides a model. He provides a goal and, I really like this -- He also provides the power -- the grace.  He doesn’t say hey, get out there and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Make a lot of New Year’s resolutions. Get a little mind over matter going. No, He says trust Me. Rest in Me. Set your focus on Me and watch this.

Paul says a mouthful in Galatians 2:20. It is a long verse, well worth memorizing, but it takes on a number of crucial issues. Paul is speaking spiritually of his relationship with the Lord:

²⁰"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

“I have been crucified with Christ,” so really I am no longer living. It is not the same me.  “Christ lives in me,” what a statement! What a truth!

There is an animating power in the presence of Jesus within. He makes an internal as well eternal difference. If Jesus comes and lives inside you or me He will make things different.

Philippians 1:6 the apostle writes:

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

“I am confident,” of this I have no doubt. I’m going to stop just for a second there. Maybe right now we are in a mess. Maybe we are wondering, is this ever going to end? Is this as good as it gets? The apostle says, “I’ve been there, been through it. Trust me with this. I am confident of this very thing. I have no doubt, that He who began a good work in you, He will be faithful to see it through, to bring you through to completion. It is His to do. He needs to be trusted with that process.

The apostle says in the next chapter of Philippians in the 13^th verse. Actually, he says, as you tough it out in this life as a Christian, as you go through the ups and downs and the ins and outs and the struggles, actually it is God who is at work in you. He is working in you to will and to do His good pleasure.

It is His work. So He brings us to completion, doesn’t just tell us about it. He sets an example, gives us a goal, and He animates it. But here is something else. In the process as the Lord Jesus Christ becomes more and more us, as His life characterizes ours to an increasing degree, we become more attractive to those who desperately need hope, as He changes our lives. We look better because we look like Him. I am not saying physically, but character surfaces and Jesus is seen. He brings believers to completion for the sake of the lost, “In order that the world might know.”

Here is how this works. Projects, if you want. If I am a project of God, I am fine with that. That may not sound very relational or personal, but I don’t care. If I am God’s project, He says the closer you get to done, the better you are going to look.

When I didn’t know what I was doing, I decided I was going to build our pole barn and so I had a fellow, who knew what he was doing, order the materials. I thought it wouldn’t be quite like this. The materials arrived on this big truck and the truck pulled up to where the building was going to go and just dumps everything. There were timbers and sheet metal and boxes of screws and sheeting and just stuff everywhere. I thought that looks nothing like a pole barn! So we go a step at a time. The poles are set and the stringers are run and the trusses are built. Fifty-seven trusses lovingly built by hand and set. Then the sheeting and the tin were put on. The further it went, the better it looked.

That is what He does with us. The longer He takes us, the more we look like Him, the clearer example the world has to see. He is a player to impress the world with God’s love. This is an amazing verse. “In order that they may be brought to completeness, to perfection in one in order that the world might know that You sent Me and You loved them as you loved Me.” That is an amazing truth.

Frequently, we Christians characterize the world as an anathema. “Stay away, world. We are Christians and we can’t have anything to do with you.” The world is the pool from which the saints are drawn. The world is not the enemy. The world is the victim of the enemy. We are not to play footsie with the world but we are to impact the world just as Jesus did. “That the world may know.” Two things about that word “know.” For one, it is not “know here.” It is an experiential knowing. A kid told me once, “I read a book on skiing and I know how to ski now.” No, you may know the principles, the vocabulary, but you do not have a clue about what it really is. You do not know it until you have done it.

Jesus has choices of what word to use for “know,” and He is using the word that speaks of experience. So that is first -- the word “know.” That the world may experience in an undeniable, tactile fashion, in an on-going sense. It is progress, it is linear, it is lifetime. “That one good deed I did back in 1988 . . . “ No, it is are we giving the world experiential knowledge of Him in an on-going fashion.

What does the world need to know? Here are a couple of pretty important truths. First of all, is that the Father sent the Son. This is John 3:16. “God so loved the world that He gave.” That the Father sent the Son and that the Father’s love for the Son goes beyond the Son and extended to such a one as you or me. That is amazing. Love is being held out. It does not end with Jesus. It comes all the way to you and Me. “That you loved them even as You loved Me.”

I am confident that we do not have the capacity to handle that truth. The love to the Father is eternal. The love relationship between the Father and the Son is eternal, uninterrupted, perfectly harmonious and blissful. He is saying, “Do you want a piece of that?”

You cannot do anything, you cannot earn it, you cannot deserve it, you cannot work for it. Do you want a piece of it, of that perfect, eternal, never-ending, glorious, harmonious love? Do you want it or not? He is saying, “You are invited.” “That the world may know that first of all the Father sent the Son to pay the price on the cross, the atonement, the sacrificial death paying the debt for your sins and mine. The Father sent the Son and in that act making it very clear that His love goes beyond His personal love for the Son and is extended to you and me. That is amazing. He is saying, “Do you want some?” I do.

The world is impressed when God’s people act like Jesus, when the world puts His money where our mouth is, when we do more than talk, and we go beyond knowing the facts to living the life.

God’s love was more than challenging words and good intentions. That would characterize much of world religion today. Challenging words and good intentions. Jesus went beyond and got in and played the game and won it and made the difference in His own life.

Any time God’s people act like Jesus, the world is impressed. Hudson Taylor went to China as a missionary. He did not start on the street corner handing out tracts. He started first of all by looking like the Chinese and secondly by meeting their medical needs. That impressed the world. “They care about me.” You have heard it said people don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care.

People who are oppressed, underprivileged take notice when an affluent church in the suburbs sets up a medical ministry in the inner city, when people take time out of their days and interrupt their lives in order to reach out to those who do not have what they have. People notice when Christians reach out to the hurting lost. That was Jesus’ model. It was not by accident that Jesus ate supper with tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes. That was his pool. They were the hurting lost and they knew it and they listened to Him. He deliberately went there. Those who thought they were healthy would not pay attention to Him. He targeted the hurting lost and they came to Him, just like you and me.

This is why Christian ministry is not an option. Jesus served. Jesus put shoe leather to the truth He taught. Ministry is not an option, for Jesus’ people, it is a calling. It is incumbent upon each one of us, a mark of maturity. Part of the growing is in the serving. Far too many Christians seem to be content with self-centered Christian living. “It’s all about me.” No, it is not. It is all about Him. The Bible says lose “the me”, cling to Him. He who tries to save his life tends to lose it. He who loses his life for My sake and the gospel, he it is who finds it. We find it in Him.