Introduction:
Knowing His Prayer: What Jesus Wants for You (John 17:20-26):
- He wants you to be Unified . (John 17:21-23)
- He wants you to be With Him . (John 17:24-26)
1 John 3:2 - Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:53-01:11
Open up your Bibles with me please to John chapter 17, as we continue our series, "Knowing Jesus." This past week I lost a very good friend, who passed away last Sunday night about 11.30.
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And he was a man who, he attended our church before, but he was a member of another church, and he actually worked in this building.
01:19-01:42
And one day, about, I want to say, three years ago or so, he just showed up at my office, and he's like, "You're a pastor, right?" I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "Will you pray with me?" I'm like, "Yeah." And from that day, every day that we were both here in the building, he would meet with me for prayer.
01:42-01:56
And there were times he'd say, "Can we go pray in the chapel?" and he bought a mat, and he would kneel right here, and I would kneel over here, and we would spend an extended time together crying out to the Lord.
01:57-02:07
And this man would pray for our families, he would pray for our churches, he would pray for the president, the governor, and the local leaders.
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And he would pray weeping.
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And for him it wasn't just a matter of saying your prayers, You know, "God bless Grandma, traveling mercies, be with me today, Amen." That prayer time was prayer time.
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And you know, I got to know him pretty well over the last three years, because you can learn a lot by a person by the way they pray, right?
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And that's never more on display than it is in the life of our Lord when we get to John chapter 17, because we have this insight.
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This is the only extended prayer of Jesus in the Bible.
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And we see examples of Him praying, but this is the only example where we get insight to what He is praying in extended prayer time.
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We knew He was constantly in prayer, but here we get a glimpse, right?
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And the main thing that Jesus was praying for, where we started this last week, the main thing Jesus was praying for was for the Father's glory.
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And it's my hope as we go through this prayer that we would grow as prayers ourselves.
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Because knowing Jesus - which is our theme - knowing Jesus should include us knowing how to pray for the things that Jesus prayed for.
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And last week, we saw Jesus prayed for authentic disciples - of God. Jesus prayed that we would be protected from the world that hates us because it hated him and from the evil one, the devil, and Jesus prayed that we would be sanctified by the Word. In other words, used by God, being set apart by the Word of God.
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And you have to see when we get to verse 20 that Jesus, his prayer originally in the last for the eleven disciples, and they were principles for us.
04:14-04:20
But here, Jesus' prayer is for you specifically, not you generally.
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Jesus is praying for you specifically.
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Look at verse 20, Jesus continuing His prayer.
04:26-04:30
He says, "I do not ask for these only," meaning these apostles.
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"I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word." as those apostles go out and preach and ultimately record the Word of God, there are going to be people that come to faith in Christ through their ministry.
04:46-04:57
And Jesus says, "Okay, now I'm praying for them. Now He's praying for us here." This is a statement that covers a couple of thousand years.
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And it's a statement that covers how many millions of people through those couple of thousands of years.
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At all times, every age, every culture, Jesus is praying for people who weren't even yet born.
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Like, okay, so Jesus is praying for us, and we should be praying for us the same things that Jesus was praying for us.
05:20-05:26
So on your outline, knowing his prayer, what Jesus wants for you.
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Alright, so write this down first of all.
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Number one, or if you were here last week, you can write number four, because this is an extension of the same message from last week.
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I broke it up into two parts.
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Say thank you.
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You're welcome.
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But if you're here for the first time, it can be number one for you if you're here last week, number four, if you wanna build off of last week's.
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Number one, he wants you to be unified.
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He wants you to be unified.
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Look at verse 21.
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Jesus says, again praying for us specifically, "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 have sent Me, the glory that You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one.
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I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me." He wants you to be unified.
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Did you notice?
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Three times in just those couple of verses, Jesus was praying, "They may be one.
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Father, that they may be one.
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You and I are one.
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I want them to be one." We're talking about spiritual union.
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You see, the Father and the Son share life.
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And believers in Christ share the same life that is in the Father and the Son, because the life of the Son is in us.
07:14-07:22
But in v. 22, Jesus says, "The glory You've given Me, I've given to them." What is He talking about?
07:24-07:29
What is this glory that He was given that was given to us?
07:30-07:35
You're like, "Jeff, what is that?" And the question is not what is that, the question is who is that?
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Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit.
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The Bible says that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, right, like Luke 4, verse one, for example, many other places, meaning Jesus literally had all of the attributes of God.
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And in giving us the Spirit of God, We share those attributes.
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That's what Jesus was talking about back in chapter 15.
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I am the vine, you are the branches.
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Abide in me because apart from me you can do nothing.
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It's the exact same concept.
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It's the same life flowing through, right?
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That's what he's talking about.
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And this is what he's praying for.
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He's praying for unity for the church.
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He's praying for oneness.
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Let's talk about oneness for a couple of minutes here.
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What is oneness?
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Well, I wanna tell you what it's not.
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Don't you love it when preachers do that?
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Like, well, what is it?
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Well, I'm gonna tell you what it's not.
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Well, I'm not here to know what it's not.
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You have to know what it's not so you know what it is, right?
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But it's not ecumenical.
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Many years ago, I was part of a group of churches and religious organizations that were doing this community outreach thing.
08:48-08:57
And one of the people that was involved in organizing it said, "Look, we just gotta get the kids together, and we gotta do good things for the community.
08:58-09:13
So look, praise Jesus, praise whoever, it doesn't matter so long as we take care of the kids." I was like, "Whoa." I said, "I'm really not comfortable with the concept of praise Jesus, praise whoever.
09:14-09:21
I'm just not comfortable with that." But you see, some people think that's what Jesus meant by oneness.
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Like, "Look, we all get along.
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Look at those churches and mosques and synagogues and Mormon temples.
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They're all getting along just like Jesus prayed for, they're all one." And some people think that that's oneness.
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We just all get along.
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That's not what he's talking about.
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And some people think it's uniformity.
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Like, look, we should just get rid of every denomination and brand and flavor of Christianity and all be uniform.
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And He's not talking about that either.
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He's talking about a oneness of holiness.
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He's talking about being pure and holy.
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He's talking about being set apart.
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He's talking about, because we are not of this world, we are citizens of heaven, that identity is the thing that should unify us and set us apart.
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You're like, "Well, what does that look like?" If you've been with us through any chunk of this sermon series, through John, we've seen what that looks like.
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Because there's a oneness that Jesus brings up here in this passage.
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There's a oneness that exists between Him and the Father.
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Right?
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Jesus and God the Father, they had the same authority, they do the same works, they have the same will, they preach the same doctrine, they have the same glory, They're both sinless.
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They have this unity exist between the Father and the Son, and Jesus here is praying that His people are brought into that unity.
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"God, I want them to be part of this!" That's what He's praying for.
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You're like, "Well, why?" Well you probably noticed verses 21 and 23 are very similar verses.
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There's in general three parts of these verses.
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Jesus prayed about the Father being in Jesus.
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Jesus talked about the Father and Jesus being in us.
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And in both verses, he says so that the world believes, so that the world knows.
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And he said, "What's the purpose of unity?" The purpose of unity, church, is seeing people saved.
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Jesus made it very clear.
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The purpose of our oneness, he said it twice.
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The purpose of our oneness is so that the world sees the oneness we have with each other and with God.
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And they're like, "Jesus Christ must be real, because look at how He changed those people." That's what He's talking about.
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Convincing the world that Jesus is God.
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And it's not merely unity for the sake of unity.
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Let's just all get along.
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It's unity for the sake of evangelism.
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the world sees oneness, the world sees set-apartness, and the world is attracted to that.
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You're like, "Well, how does that work?" Have you ever read the Gospels?
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Have you ever read the Gospels?
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I would ask you, "What made Zacchaeus climb that tree?" You're like, "Oh, because he was short." Okay, smart aleck.
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What made Zacchaeus climb that tree?
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What drove the disciples to leave their jobs and their families to follow some Jewish rabbi?
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Why?
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What made Nicodemus come at night to understand who this Jesus of Nazareth was?
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What was the draw - and I could go on and on, but I won't - what was the draw With all of these people pursuing this Jesus, people could see that he had a oneness with God that made him stand out from the rest of the world.
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And when you read your gospels, you see people flocked to that.
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This guy is not like anybody who's ever walked on the earth.
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I gotta see who he is.
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He has a oneness with God.
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I've got to know more about this.
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And Jesus is saying, "This is what I want for my church.
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Stand out in holiness, united, that the world will look at our unity and say, 'Jesus must save, Jesus must change.' That church isn't just some religious club.
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Those people are different.
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It's a holy oneness.
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It's a holy oneness.
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That's what he's calling us to.
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And this is just a point of church life and doctrine and practice that just gets so messed up.
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This past May, the Evangelical Lutheran Church elected the first transgender pastor.
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And we're seeing more and more and more and more churches getting woke to such things.
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And what does that communicate?
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You see, for the people on that side, it communicates this makes us look relevant.
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This makes us look real, right?
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We're relevant with our culture.
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We're up with the times, we're woke like you.
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We're accepting, right?
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That's what they think it communicates.
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You know, doesn't this make us look relevant?
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No.
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It makes you look unholy, is what it makes you look like.
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Because what happens is the world, whether they want to articulate it or not, whether they even want to admit it or not, deep down they know it's true.
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When the world sees that garbage, they know!
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When they look at this church doing such wickedness, the world's like, "Okay, what I'm seeing is a mix of holiness and unholiness at the same time." They're hypocrites. They're hypocrites.
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Because I know a sense of what the book says, and these people aren't even living by their own book.
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That's what the world sees. Hypocrisy.
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And church, I hear it all the time. I heard it last week.
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Last week, from a friend who doesn't go to church.
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You know, I grew up, I went to a church growing up, and a bunch of bad stuff went down, and the pastor was having an affair, and these people were fighting, And that's why I don't want anything to do with church.
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You ever hear somebody like that?
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I'm sure everyone in this room and everybody watching this stream has heard or knows somebody like that.
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That the church has ruined the testimony of holiness and oneness because we don't act according to how we say we should believe.
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And shame on us for that.
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Before we start pointing fingers at churches with, You know transgender pastors or rainbow flags look look we're not exempt in this church Okay, we can be just as guilty claiming to be Christian, but living an unholy lifestyle And when we do that Whatever our favorite sin is in our churches when we do that what we communicate to the world is the gospel is not effective It's either a scam or a sham, but Jesus Christ ain't really changing people down at that place is what we communicate.
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Because the gospel ultimately is about transformation.
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It's seeing God save people.
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It's seeing God change people.
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It's seeing God dwell in people.
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And the testimony is to be, you know, "Hey, Jesus saved me from my sin!" And the response is, "Did He really?" "Did He save you from your sin?" "Because you look like you're still living in your sin." "What exactly did He save you from?" Do they see the power of God in you?
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Or does the world see you living in an ungodly way?
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And church, shame on us.
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Sometimes we're engaged in the same sin.
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We're telling the same dirty jokes.
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We're using the same perverted language.
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We're applauding the same perversity.
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And like I've heard my pastor say often, he says, "Just when the world needs us the most, we become just like them." And that is the exact opposite of what Jesus was praying for here.
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"Father, unify them, set them apart so the world sees us in them, and that is going to draw the world." So we're one with Jesus Christ, but I have to remind us here, it's not just that, we're one with each other.
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And at this point I have to remind us that biblical New Testament Christianity is a corporate thing, not an individual thing. Hang on.
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Hear me out. Because so many people get this idea that your walk with Christ is just a me and Jesus thing.
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Right? It's just me and Jesus. I don't need a church, I don't need another believer, I don't need a small group.
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It's just a me and Jesus thing. It's me and Jesus. That's my religion, that's my church.
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And I would say that is... First of all, I would say don't talk like that.
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Second of all, I would say that is nowhere in the Bible.
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Now, yes, listen, don't misunderstand.
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Your salvation is an individual matter, meaning your grandma can't save you, your pastor can't save you, your small group leader can't save you.
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That is a between you and Jesus thing, because it has to do with your personal sin.
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Yes, absolutely true.
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But, at the same time, when you are saved, You are called to be a part of a body of believers.
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Otherwise, what was Jesus praying for here?
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When Jesus said, "Father, I'm praying that they may all be one." And you're like, "Not me, I'm a lone wolf Christian." Oh, then you're not in the group that Jesus is praying for here then, right?
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You want to disqualify yourself from the group that Jesus is praying for.
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That's a terrible idea, by the way.
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Alright? Because Jesus is praying that they may be one.
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And isn't it ironic that you can't be one by yourself?
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Because oneness here is unity.
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Every part of the body of Christ going after the same thing, the same thing that Jesus and the Father went after, seeing lost people saved through a testimony of oneness.
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So listen, if you're truly saved, if you are truly in Christ, you can't separate yourself from Jesus, and you can't separate yourself from one another.
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So church, can we agree with Jesus in prayer for unity and oneness?
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that we would be united with God, and as a result be united with one another.
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Shouldn't we be praying for that?
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One more.
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One more. Number two, or number five, you really should have been here last week.
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He wants you to be with Him.
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He wants you to be with Him.
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Okay, now, this is one of those really hard times that I can't possibly communicate with any words that I try to string together.
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I can't communicate the impact of this statement.
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That doesn't mean I'm not going to try.
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I'm just saying I feel already inadequate going into this.
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Okay, this was Jesus' last extended prayer time before betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, Right? So we've seen Jesus is praying for some pretty significant things.
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And what we're about to look at, verse 24, is the very last petition Jesus makes to God, the Father, before the cross.
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This is the last thing, the last petition, the last thing I'm asking.
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This is His, "Okay, Father, just one more thing.
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Just one more thing, Father." And you're like, "Okay, the last thing Jesus asked the Father for before the cross." It has to have huge significance and impact, right?
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This has to be something major, right?
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This has to be more than, "Father, give me traveling mercies on my way." It has to be something so much bigger than that, right?
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Well, here it is.
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Look at verse 24.
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Jesus said, "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 love Me before the foundation of the world." Did you see that?
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The very last thing that Jesus Christ prays for, did you see it?
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He's like, "I'm about to die, but God, I'm going to ask You for one more thing.
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I want these people to be with Me." He wants you to be with Him.
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Alright, I see that it's not landing here.
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I'm going to take another run at this.
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He wants you to be with Him.
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Okay, I'm going to take another run at it.
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Maybe I'm just not emphasizing t he right words.
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Okay, He wants you to be with Him.
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Yes! Yes!
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This for sure, okay?
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He wants you to be with Him.
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He wants you to be what?
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He wants you to be with Him!
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Maybe this is like a theological grenade that will go off later in your head.
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And that's what I'm hoping for.
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Because it will here in a second, because I'm going to show you something else that will absolutely blow your mind.
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But you know, the president's never asked me to come to the White House.
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And you're like, "I don't think the president would want you at the White House." the last president didn't either. But what I see here is the God of the universe is praying that I'd be with him. And look, if that truth doesn't move you, if the truth doesn't move you that Jesus Christ wants you with him, then you are too attached to this world. And spoiler alert, you aren't going to be here forever.
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Like, "What? You're not going to be here forever." Okay, that was mind-blowing to me, but there's...
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It's even deeper than that.
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You're like, "Well, why does He want us there?" Why does He want us there?
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That's a really good question, why He wants us there.
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You know, because I've never had anybody really important, like want me to be somewhere.
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I've had a lot of really important people ask me to not be certain places, but why does He want us there?
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Look at the verse again.
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He says, "I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am." Okay, why Jesus? Why do you want me there? Look at this.
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Next phrase, "To see my glory." "To see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world." He wants us there to see his glory.
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Now the disciples, when they walked with Jesus, Jesus' glory was veiled in the human flesh, right?
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Except for that transfiguration.
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They got a peak, right?
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Kind of like Superman opening the shirt.
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That's what the disciples got with the Transfiguration.
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"We got to see His glory, but just for a minute, but we saw it." And most of the time, Jesus veiled in flesh they didn't see.
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And we've never seen Him, right?
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But the day is coming when Jesus Christ is going to put His full glory on display for all of us to see.
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And I know what you're thinking.
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Some of you are thinking, "So why does He want us to be there for that?" "Why does He want us to be there for that?" I mean, does Jesus need affirmation from me?
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Like, Jesus is glorious because, you know what?
25:52-26:19
I really need you there to be patting me on the back and saying, "Oh boy, Jesus, pretty glorious today. Does Jesus need my affirmation? That is not it at all. And you know I thought I thought about this all week like okay Jesus wants me there which is mind-blowingly awesome for whatever reason that might be but the fact that Jesus wants me there to see his glory all week I've been like why does he want me there to see his glory? Why does he want me there to see his glory?
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Like why?
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And then it hit me.
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You know, when little kids play soccer, you know, a lot of you have kids that play on little soccer teams and stuff.
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When kids play soccer, they want their parents to be there, right?
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Why?
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The parents aren't playing, right?
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At least I hope not.
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Why does the kid want the parents there when they're playing soccer?
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Mommy, I scored a goal, did you see?
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Why is that such a big deal?
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Or like when somebody graduates and they want grandma there.
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Like I'm graduating grandma, I really want you to be there.
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Like why?
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Grandma ain't graduating.
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Grandma graduated decades ago.
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Like why does grandma need to be there?
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Now I thought you know when somebody gets married, one of the first things they do is they put that guest list together.
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And they're like, I want my BFF to be there.
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Like why do you want your BFF to be there?
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Your BFF ain't getting married.
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Why do you want them there?
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Do you see a common thread?
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In every one of those instances, it's this.
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I love you.
27:29-27:32
And I want to share this glorious experience with you.
27:33-27:39
Scoring that goal, getting that diploma, saying those vows, these are glorious things.
27:40-28:45
And it means a lot to me to have people that I love to be there to share that experience me. So what Jesus is praying for here is that times infinity to say, "God, I love them so much and I realize I'm about to be glorified with the name above all names and I want them there for that. I want to make sure they're on the guest list so they can share the most glorious experience in all of the universe with me. Please God, that's what I'm praying for. But it's even deeper than that. Because understand that this isn't just looking at Him. Okay? This isn't just, you know, you get to heaven and it's like, okay, everybody sit down, Jesus is about to come on the stage, to put His glory on display, make sure you watch. It's even more than that. Because the Bible says that we will be just like Him, sharing in that glory.
28:45-28:48
Look at 1 John 3.2.
28:48-28:48
Look at this.
28:48-28:54
John says, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.
28:55-29:07
But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him." We talked about that back in our 1 Corinthians 15 series, I believe, that we're going to get a glorified body exactly like Jesus' glorified body.
29:07-29:09
He says, "We shall be like Him." Why?
29:10-29:12
Do you see that next phrase?
29:12-29:14
Because we shall see Him as He is.
29:14-29:22
So do you understand when Jesus is talking about, "I want them to see My glory," it's so much more than just eyeballing it.
29:22-29:25
It's about experiencing the glory with Him.
29:26-29:28
That we actually become part of His glory.
29:29-29:39
That in heaven, everything we do, everything we say, ultimately has to do with beholding and sharing and experiencing the glory of the Son of God.
29:39-29:54
So I would just ask, "Who's excited for heaven?" But you know, when I read this prayer, it sounds to me like heaven is a bigger deal to Jesus than it is to us.
29:55-30:06
You know, so often we talk about, "Can't wait for heaven, can't wait to go to heaven, can't wait to go to heaven," and it sounds to me like Jesus, even more than us, can't wait for us to be in heaven.
30:07-30:08
Now you wrap your brain around that.
30:09-30:09
He's worthy.
30:10-30:18
He's worthy to have us see His glory, and it is going to be our privilege to share that glory with Him.
30:18-30:23
It is going to be our privilege to worship Him in that glory forever.
30:24-30:28
So can we agree with Jesus in prayer for a desire to be with Him?
30:29-30:30
Alright, two more verses here.
30:31-30:33
Verses 25 and 26.
30:33-30:39
Jesus says, "O righteous Father, even though the world does not know You, I know You, and these know that You have sent Me.
30:40-30:51
I made 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." So He's not asking for anything.
30:51-30:53
This is the end of the prayer.
30:53-30:54
This is the amen.
30:55-30:57
This is the "You are loved" part of the prayer.
30:58-31:03
And in this, Jesus doesn't ask for anything, but He declares something.
31:03-31:20
Do you see that? He says, "I'm going to continue to make your name known." And I would say Jesus certainly kept His word, because as I look around this room, I see that He's continuing to make the Father's name known, because His love is certainly in you, and Jesus is certainly in you.
31:20-31:22
So Jesus is certainly keeping His word.
31:23-31:27
Jesus prayed for you to be unified and ultimately to be in His presence.
31:28-31:41
Father in heaven, I've been thinking about this all week, and I still just feel like I don't have the capacity to absorb everything that this is saying.
31:41-31:48
That Jesus Christ loves us so much that He wants to share His glory with us.
31:49-31:58
And that until that day comes, Father, He wants us to be unified in holy oneness, to glorify your name and empowered by your spirit.
31:58-32:17
Father, as we come to your table today, I pray for unity for this church, that we would be people who believe we are sanctified, we are set apart by your word, and we are passionately authentic in pursuing a relationship with you, that you provided through your Son, Jesus Christ.
32:18-32:24
Father, we thank you for the very deep and personal love that you've demonstrated for us.
32:25-32:31
We got to witness through a sneak peek at what Jesus was praying before he suffered for us.
32:32-32:40
We come around your table, Father, now in the glorious name of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior forever. Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 17:20-26
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
As specific as you can – describe what Jesus meant by “being one”. How did Jesus demonstrate that with His relationship with the Father?
What are some obstacles to “one-ness” in the church?
Why does Jesus want us to “see His glory” (John 17:24)? How would you respond to someone who responds to this, “That sounds arrogant!”?
Breakout
Pray for one another, that we would grow in the reality of one-ness with Christ.