Sermons from Lone
Rock Bible Church Prayer for Peculiar People (Part II) Jesus’ heart concern for His
disciples and His friends is that the Father keep and preserve them once Jesus has gone.
Two more reasons for His request are the following 4. They need
to know the heavenly unity (17:11) The prayer in John 17 is all about
what Jesus wants. He is pretty clear at the end of His earthly ministry. He wants His
people kept, preserved. He wants those who are His to be perpetually and eternally and
decisively safe. That is part of His prayer. We are covering the reasons that is so. Today
we will cover reasons 4 and 5. John 17 There are a couple quotes from
yesteryear I would like to take issue with. One of them is this: “Parting is such
sweet sorrow.” I disagree. I think parting is just plain painful. I think it hurts.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” I think absence just hurts. I think it
makes us grow sadder. Perhaps these are the attempts of poets to soften the blow of what
comes into our lives sooner or later, frequently or infrequently; that is, there is a time
to say goodbye. There is a time when people who have a close relationship part whether
temporarily or forever. I think it is difficult. Separation from a loved one is not
pleasant. Often it draws out important words, last words, a swan song. What do we say when
we know it is time to say goodbye? That’s where Jesus is with this
prayer. There is something unique that we need to understand about this prayer. First of
all it is His prayer to His Father. This is heavenly, divine communion, if you will. Jesus
is talking to His Father and the Father, of course, is completely in harmony and
completely in tune with what Jesus is saying. Jesus is doing this, deliberately, in the
presence of His disciples. They are hearing this, they are remembering, they are
recording. That’s why we get to read it. He wants them in on it. He wants them to
understand what is on his heart immediately prior to His going home. We also are party to
this as have been generations of believers down through the years. Jesus knew that the
same truth the disciples had to have, we need also. So we are here today to receive it.
This particular portion of Jesus’ prayer
is that His disciples be kept, preserved, guarded. I really like that notion. That is one
of the reasons He prays. Today we are in reason four and five. These are powerful reasons.
Jesus has concerns. 4. They need to know heavenly unity
(17:11) Imagine if God did not prevail by His
Spirit and through His Word among God’s people. Things might be in a greater mess
than we might already think they are in the kingdom of God. There are countless issues,
points of disagreements, strife, different agenda, and all that goes on. Jesus is saying
heavenly unity is needed. In chapter 17, verse 11, notice He
says: “that they may be one even as we are.” Here is part of the problem. Less
there be any confusion, we need to remember that unity does not equal uniformity. There is
a serious difference between unity and uniformity. Uniformity means everyone looks and
acts the same. Uniformity is the trademark of an organization, where because it is fairly
narrow in its stricture, looking alike and acting alike are prerequisites. We are
comfortable with it in the church but sometimes we get confused because we think every
Christian ought to look alike and every Christian ought to act alike because we are called
to unity. If we all just look alike and act alike we will have unity. Correct? We are
comfortable with that to a degree, some more so than others. Why? Because it is outward
and observable. It is behavioral and appearance oriented. We are comfortable with that. It’s
something we feel like we can get a handle on. It is also enforceable. “You don’t
look like you are supposed to.” “Get a haircut.” “Let your hair grow.”
“Do something to look like the rest of us, if you would.” It is predictable. We come in with
other people and we like to know that everybody is on the same page and everybody is
exactly in the same point of development. Everybody has the same priorities. Everybody has
the same agenda. We like the notion of uniformity. However, with all the possible plusses,
there is real downside. It is deceptive because we cannot see beneath the surface to the
heart. A relationship with Jesus Christ is fundamentally an issue of the heart, not of
appearance. We will get to heaven someday and we
will see who is walking those streets of gold. My hunch is they are going to be dressed a
lot differently from one another. I think some are going to be wearing long robes and some
are going to be wearing turbans. Some may not be wearing much at all if you watch what is
happening in Papua, New Guinea on the mission field. Uniformity and unity are not the same
thing. We kind of love packaged religion where it is predictable, enforceable and all the
same, but that is not what Jesus has in mind in His prayer. He is interested in unity. Let
me offer a definition of unity. Uniformity means that everyone looks and acts the same.
Unity is when everyone has common roots and a common destination, shares common ground in
truth, a common spirit and are heading for a common end. While uniformity may characterize an
organization, unity characterizes an organism. A living, growing entity requires that
there be unity. Unity is organic. It is not imposed from outside. It springs from within.
It springs when people from all kinds of backgrounds come together on common ground, are
born again with a common origin by the same Spirit. They grow into a common nature. They
adopt the same purpose. They set their eyes on the same goals. They grow in common love
and common devotion to a common end. That end is Jesus Christ. It is a growth thing and a
changing thing. I like how this prayer compares and
touches down in part with what is called the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. In the Lord’s
Prayer, Jesus starts it off saying “Our Father in heaven. May Your name be held holy.”
Here He prays “Holy Father.” We are talking, obviously, to the same God. Then He
says, “May Your kingdom be on earth as it is in heaven.” My strong sense is that
the kingdom of God in heaven is marked by true unity. If we understand at all about the book
of Revelation and those things we have not yet experienced, we see people from every tribe
and tongue and nation and we see them basking in the common light of the Lamb. All of them
under the common blood of the Savior, all of them worshipping and all of them praising and
all of them exalting, not in what they have done or what they have accomplished or how
they have grown or how they have conformed but in who Jesus is and what He has done for
them and that alone. He is the rallying point. “May your kingdom come and may
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In other words, may they be one on
earth even, Father, as we are one in heaven. Jesus is looking for unity, not uniformity.
Think of the imagery that the Bible gives us having to do with the people of God. The
imagery is that of a body. The body of Christ is the analogy the apostle Paul uses more
than any other, when talking about God’s people. In I Corinthians and elsewhere he
points out that the body is one body but has lots of parts
-- toes and fingers and ears and hair. There is not a lot of similarity
between hair and toes, but they are all part of the same body and all moving in the same
direction and all redeemed by the same one. There is diversity in that unity, in other
words. There is room for people to be different and people to be in different stages of
development, for people to come from
different backgrounds to bring different experiences, different emotional constitutions. Jesus is looking for unity, not
uniformity. In Revelation 21 John turns, looking for a bride, and what does he see? He
doesn’t see a bride at all. He sees a heavenly city coming down out of heaven. It has
gates and foundation stones. They are all different but it is one city. It is the people
of God represented there, representing a vast span of human history, lots of different
places as the nations of the world are represented there. The kingdom of God and heaven
are about unity, not uniformity. In verse 11, Jesus’ prayer for
organic unity is based on two different characteristics; one is God’s holiness. It is
very interesting that He pauses here in verse 11 and says, “Holy Father, keep them in
Your name.” We need to remember what this notion of holiness is all about. The
holiness of God is His fundamental attribute. It is who He is when reduced to the simplest
we can get our hands and our heads on. It is His separateness, His uniqueness, His one of
a kind-ness, His exclusiveness as He reveals Himself to be in the pages of the Bible. Holy
Father, separate One, unique One, in a class alone and apart. He is not talking here about
some human-generated eclecticism like “your God,” “their God.” No,
this is not a plea for the ecumenical movement or for some sort of eclectic handle on the
faith. It is a rallying point around the God who is self proclaimed to be distinctively
different from any other rivals. He is the One to whom we must go. “Holy Father, keep them in Your
Name.” Again, let us be reminded that the name of God has a capital “N”
because in this culture, in the Scripture, the Name of God represents the person of God,
who He is. It is traceable to His dealings, first of all with Moses, but back to when He
first raised that miracle nation. He is the promise-making and the promise-keeping God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God with an agenda. He is the God who means what He
says and says what He means and is utterly faithful at following through. “Holy Father, keep them in Your
Name.” Lock them in Your plan, in your purpose, heading in Your destination. This is
not a prayer for some sort of willy-nilly good feeling, good time religion thing. It is a
prayer that those who know Him will hang on to Him, be kept by Him, pursuing His eternal
plan. His and His alone. The Bible is pretty clear that there is only one true God and
that truly He does have an agenda and that He is working it out flawlessly in time and in
eternity. Keep them in that, in Your kingdom agenda. Thinking about it in human terms,
there are certain times when unity more readily occurs. I can stand up here and say,
“Let’s all have unity.” I could even pass out a card, “Check the box
if you are for unity.” We could say, “That church really promotes unity.”
Then Sunday morning worship is over, we go out into the world and probably will forget
about it until the phone rings or we get an e-mail. We cannot trump up unity; however, let
there be conflict and we find out about unity. Unity occurs almost naturally when
people pursue a common goal. We are going to hear from Wally Tucker next week on the
persecuted church. They know something about unity we don’t know because they are
facing a common adversary. They close ranks and put what is most important first. They don’t
even worry about the trivial stuff right now. They understand in a very practical fashion,
there is unity because they are meeting a conflict that is threatening from without. Another time is when we meet a
challenge. You can take five different individuals from different homes and different
parts of town, put them all on the same basketball team and they will rise to that
challenge and demonstrate unity if they want to win. It simply happens that way. Unity occurs when we pursue a common
goal. The minute we forget what we are here for we are going to have problems with unity.
If our church is about a building, we are in serious trouble. If our church is about
elders or pastors or ministries or programs, we are in trouble. However, if our church is
about impacting the culture with the good news of Jesus for the sake of the kingdom we are
going to be fine. Then we are tracking with where God is already going. Jesus is praying
that He will keep us in that. Would to God that he keep us in that. That is where we need
to be. Unity occurs when the parts do their
parts. When all the different parts, whatever our role, wherever our ministry, whatever
our station in life, when our agenda is that of Jesus and of knowing God and making Him
known, we will not have to worry about unity. Think about this. The disciples were not cut
from the same cloth. Uniformity would not have marked them. They might have had the same
trade language, but that was about it. And they were Jewish. But from standpoint of
personality and vocation and so forth, they were a disparate bunch. If they had said
uniformity is where we have to be, I don’t know where we would be today. How about the early church? When Jesus
said you have to take the gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of
the earth. First thing you know there are people of all kinds of different backgrounds
crashing the walls of the church. What if, in fact, Jesus’ plea for them had not been
unity. What if unity was not an issue? What if it was all just a matter of ethic identity
or something like that? Confusion would reign and the church would suffer. How about right here? There are as
many backgrounds in this room today as there are people. Personalities. Some have been
Christians a long time. Some not. Some have had pain and others not as much. God has
brought such a vast variety of people into this church and yet His Spirit is knitting
together a united body to reach the community for the sake of the kingdom. We are not
touting uniformity; neither did Jesus. We are learning and growing in unity. There is a chapter in the Bible we don‘t
have time to cover, but the early church knew all about this, particularly the church in
Rome. In the church in Rome about two thirds of the people were slaves and only a small
minority were Jews. Their biggest problem was unity. As a matter of fact, you can trace
that theme through almost every one of the epistles of Paul in the New Testament. Folks
struggled with unity because their backgrounds were so different so Paul wrote Romans. The
Jews had been in trouble in Rome. The Romans considered the Christians to be like the
Jews. Paul said it is so important for you people to have unity, that you keep your focus,
that you put first things first, that you not worry about making everyone else act and
think and behave just like you. Romans 14 talks to those who will not
eat meat because that would be a sin to them, and to those who will eat meat. He says do
not let this group judge that group and do not let that group look down on this group
because you serve a common master. It is not right to judge another man’s slave. You
pursue Jesus. He will sort out the details. Our training plan for unity -- love
one another and trust God. There is more to come in this John 17
prayer with regard to unity and we will cover it again from a different angle later. 5. They will no longer have Jesus
with them (17:12) Finally, in verse 12, Jesus is praying
and saying I won’t be there any longer. They will no longer have Me with them. Look
how verse 11 reads: I am no longer in the world; but these are in the world. I am
coming to you. Our lives, if you will, our destinies in the providence of God are
taking us in two different directions. We are approaching that dreaded moment of time to
say good bye. Holy
Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one
even as We are. 12"While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name
which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of
perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. I only lost one and that one was never
found to begin with. What He is reflecting here is a heart burden. He is saying, “I
kept them. I was with them. I have an investment in them.” He is saying that His
heart goes out to them because first of all, He knows what they will go through. He has
already warned them. “You are going to have problems. They are going to reject you.
They are going to persecute you. They are going to drag you into court. You are going to
have to stand and I will not be with you.” He knows what they will go through and
He is also reflecting on his investment in them. This is something that we Christians need
to get more and more into our minds and to our hearts. That is that Jesus’ concern is
based on a relationship that He has with them. He has loved them. He has gotten to know
them. He has spent time with them. He has invested in them. It is very similar, I believe,
as it is with parents whose children grow and reach a point where parents release them
into the adult world. There is genuine heart concern with that. First of all because
parents know what their kids are going to go through. They know they are going to take
hits. They know they are going get hurt. They know they are going to drop the ball. They
know they are going to struggle. And the parent won’t be there for them, or shouldn’t
be past a certain age because it is time to grow up. But in the growing, in the
developing, in the change, there is a certain amount of pain. Parents who release a child to the
adult world know what that child is going to go through. The parent is also thinking about
the investment they have made in their children. That is why is hurts to part. There is
some pathos there and Jesus is expressing it. He says, “I Myself.” He is
reflecting back over the span of years He has spent with these disciples and He says I was
watching out for them. I was keeping them. I myself was taking care of them. Remember -- they were out on the Sea
of Galilee and here comes a storm. Jesus is weary and sleeping. The waves are washing into
the boat. Some of the disciples are seafarers and they are alarmed. Jesus is there with
them and He awakens and calms the sea and rebukes the wind. He was there for them. That
was early on in their walk and had much to learn and many places to go. Can you imagine at the end of that
destination, that storm at sea, as they pull up on the southeast bank of the Sea of
Galilee, a demonic or two meet them. They were so far gone that they could not be held by
chains or shackles. They were not allowed to live in town, they had to live in tombs.
Everybody was scared to death of them. Imagine when these two characters came down to the
shore to meet Jesus and His disciples, I can just see them all getting behind Jesus. Jesus
has a dialogue with the demonic powers and
casts them out. The disciples think I’m sure glad He was here. What if He had not been here for us? But He was. Jesus protected them and He kept them
from the Pharisees’ error. The Pharisees would come along and raise a confusing
issue. Why are you not washing? Why are you plucking grain and doing what is not lawful on
the Sabbath? Jesus was there to explain to them the washing and the Sabbath and their
mistaken notions about divorce and their totally missing the point on salvation. Jesus was
there and He explained it all and He walked them through it. He was there protecting them
from leaven of the Pharisees. He was also there protecting them from
each other because there were times they were not getting along very well. But Jesus was
there. He told them not to be mad at James and John. Their mother had a legitimate request
about their future exaltation. They just don’t understand what is really going to
happen. Jesus helped them with each other. He was constantly teaching. He was
constantly among them. He was constantly applying truth. He was constantly correcting. He
was constantly demonstrating all the truth that they needed to know. Now He is leaving and
He is saying, “Keep them, because I will not be there.” Except for Judas. The
only one who perished -- and there is a play on words going on here -- the only one who
perished was the son of perishing. That was in order that the Scripture may be fulfilled.
Very interesting reference in the Bible. Judas is the exception. While the training was
going on, while Jesus was demonstrating His power over evil spirits, on the shore of the
Sea of Galilee, or at the base in Caesarea Philippi, at the Mount of Transfiguration. He
came down from the mountain and there was this afflicted boy and the disciples had been
powerless to cast out that demon. Jesus took care of it without any trouble whatsoever. It is interesting that rather than
trusting the One who had power over the demonic, Judas, on the other hand, yielded to it.
Judas himself had some experiences with casting demons out. He was one of those who went
out two by two. They came back flushed with victory. “Even the demons yield to us at
Your Name.” Judas was among them and yet he turned away from Jesus when the time
came. Judas suffered the pride of life. Judas yielded to the error of the Pharisees. It
was an alarming thing given what he had seen and heard. If Judas does not do anything else for
you and me, he should make take us take a long, hard look at ourselves. If he could be
with Jesus and go through all this and hear all this and do all this, then come down to
the end of the line and say, “I think I’ll take thirty bucks.” The Bible is
a tremendous commentary on the person and character of God. The Bible also is a tremendous
commentary on the capacity of the human heart to go against God. If nothing else, Judas
serves as a warning to us to check ourselves and ask the question, “Am I a Christian?”
Sure, I’m in church! Really? Am I a Christian? Have I put all my
trust only in Jesus for now and forever. Not your Jesus and my Jesus, but the Messiah
Jesus of the Bible. That is the question. Judas failed that test in spite of everything.
It is kind of like the Israelites. Sometimes we sit in our sanctified, advantageous
position and say we would never do that, we are Christians. They go through the Red Sea,
the armies of the Pharaoh were drowned, they could reach out their finger and touch that
wall of water. They walk through the Red Sea on dry ground. They get the fire and cloud
and thunder and lightening and the voice of God, all kinds of the miraculous things
following the ten plagues. Moses is on the mountain a few days and they are making a
golden calf. Judas is just like them and apart from
the grace of God, so are you and so am I. It is just our nature. That is why Jesus’
prayer -- and we are intended to hear it -- is “keep them.” Hold them because
they cannot keep themselves and they cannot hold themselves. They must be kept by God
Himself. Specifically with regard to Judas, it
is well to point out that his god was money. Remember Jesus even made the remark about you
cannot love God and money. Judas made his choice. His god was money. He was impressed
certainly, with the power of Jesus. Of course, everybody was looking for a Messiah to
bring prosperity among other things and Judas was right in there with them. He saw what
Jesus was capable of. He saw His potential as Messiah and he figured he was hitching his
wagon to the right star. Jesus could even pull a coin out the mouth of a fish. Judas was the treasurer among the
disciples, John tells us. He got to carry the money box. He had to have been really smart
and persuasive and probably quite winsome. If you are a thief and they are trusting you
with the box, somebody has a problem and it is not the guy with the box. He had them
convinced. They had their suspicions, but he had the money box. Remember when Mary broke the alabaster
jar and poured the perfume on Jesus, anointing him for his burial. Judas said it was a
whole year’s pay. It was right after that Judas decided, “I’m out.”
John says Satan put it in the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus. And out he went.
The last verse of John 18 says, “It was night.” It was a deliberate, symbolic
reference to the spirituality of Judas, the betrayer. It was a dark, dark time and indeed,
Judas was a key player. It happened and then he sold Jesus out for money. Jesus said this is in accordance with
Scripture. Probably the Scripture He is most likely referring to is Psalm139. It is a
Messianic Psalm and it has to do with the Messiah being encircled by a company of those he
assumed to be his friends, but found out he was going to be betrayed. That is likely the
Scripture He is referring to when He said “that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” There is another verse in the Bible
about the Scripture being fulfilled. It is in Mark 14.
It is a very interesting verse. Scripture is fulfilled with regard to Judas,
who was the betrayer, but that is not all. It is not as if the arrest and betrayal and
crucifixion and all that happened, that we would say, “Not good.” It was all in
God’s plan. God had it completely in control. How is it that He could use Judas? Very
simple. All He had to do in order to get Judas to turn against Him was to do nothing. He
understood the natural inclination of the heart and how some are naturally going to prefer
personal well being over allegiance to a holy God. Apart from the grace of God, that is
where anyone would go, so what God did was basically nothing and Judas pursued his own
fallen ends. In Mark 14:46, “They laid hands
on Him and seized Him” after Judas gave Him a kiss. They had to identify the right
one. It was very dark. So Judas identifies Jesus. He is seized. Someone swings a sword,
probably Peter. They had a problem with an ear. Luke says Jesus fixed the ear. 48 And Jesus said to them, “have you come out with swords and
clubs to arrest Me, as you would against a robber? “That the Scriptures might be
fulfilled.” What Jesus is saying is that this looks pretty grim, but it is perfectly
in keeping with precisely what God has in mind. Jesus is not surprised. God is
not saying, “Oh, no!” This is perfectly in the control of God. Jesus knows what
is coming. He knows His disciples are going take some lumps. He knows they are going to
make some mistakes. He knows they are going to have their doubts and struggles. But He
also knows His Father is going to keep them, preserve them, because God has a plan. It has
worked out perfectly. We have every reason to believe that will not change because God is
a God of eternity, not limited to those things which limit us. All glory to Him for His saving and for His keeping work. "Scripture
taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Jim Carlson 2005, Lone Rock Bible Church, Stevensville Montana, USA |