I really love this prayer of Jesus that we've been looking at here in John 17.
I hope that you love it at least half as much as I do because we're going to be listening
in to Jesus here for two more weeks.
I know it's been a few already, but we've already noticed that even as Jesus is heading to the
cross, we are on His heart.
He's praying for us, as Derek reminded us earlier.
Isn't that an amazing comfort?
I think I say that every week.
But today we're getting to the verse that clarifies that reality most explicitly.
Where Jesus says, I pray for those who will believe in me through the word of my disciples.
You, me, Southwood Church, our family on His heart.
Our names on His hands.
Our needs on His lips.
Talking to His Father about us.
Every week we've been marveling at a different aspect of Jesus praying for us.
Today I want to remind you that He not only prayed for you then, 2,000 years ago, but He still
prays for you today.
He always lives to intercede for us, Hebrews 7.25.
Has someone ever said to you, or maybe you've said to someone else,
thank you so much for praying for me.
When I hear you praying for me, it's such a great encouragement and comfort to me that
you're praying for me.
When your grace group gathers around you as you hurt and someone is praying for you, what
do you feel?
Don't you feel cared for and valued?
Doesn't that lift your spirits?
Imagine the comfort, the joy of hearing Jesus pray for you.
He is.
You can even hear some of what's on His heart here in John 17.
So we talk a lot about being the hands and the feet of Jesus to show His love to our neighbors.
And to use that same analogy, you can be the lips of Jesus when you pray for someone.
Because He loves them like that too.
He prays for them.
When your grace group gathers to pray, you are being the lips, even the heart of Jesus to one
another.
You're helping each other remember that He still prays for us.
Even as you use His words to actually hear Him praying.
Prayers we know His Father hears.
Prayers we know His Father answers.
And as Jesus, the most righteous man ever, His prayers availeth much.
What a great Savior we have to be praying for us.
What a privilege it is to be His, right?
And then to be His hands and feet and lips to one another and to this world.
I hope you'll hear Jesus praying for you today and that you'll help others to hear Him as
you pray with them.
Let's pray together and then we'll listen in to Jesus praying again.
Jesus, we are so grateful that you pray for us.
Jesus, I am very grateful right now.
I need you.
I need to hear your word.
I need to know your voice.
I need to embrace its hope and life and love.
We need that.
We need you every hour.
We need you.
And right now especially, thank you for your word.
Lord, that we will hear your voice.
Would you speak it to our hearts by your Spirit?
We ask in your name.
Amen.
John 17 at verse 20.
Jesus continues talking to His Father.
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
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.
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.
Thus far, God's holy word for which we give Him thanks.
Last week, we heard Jesus praying to the Father to keep us safe, set apart for Himself,
and then to send us into the world.
Now, you may have noticed in those verses, Jesus is praying for our unity.
Unity.
Some see unity as the theme of this entire prayer.
And while I don't necessarily agree with that, Jesus does pray for it three times.
Unity is a buzzword these days, isn't it?
Perhaps because people are so divided these days that unity seems unattainable and enviable.
We want it in families, in communities, in churches, in nations.
But where does unity come from?
As Jesus prays for it, He's going to point us to its source.
Does unity just happen when we quit caring?
We don't care about anything else but unity.
We just try to get along with everybody.
We lower the bar where there's no truth, no real passion for anything except for unity itself.
Is that the source of unity?
You'll hear that in some churches.
But Jesus says it's actually the opposite.
And this is true on a team or in a company, but it's especially true among the people of God.
See, the source of Christian unity is a shared relationship, a shared passion for God, for His truth, for His mission.
Notice this back in verse 11.
It's the first time in this prayer Jesus prays for our unity, for us to be one.
It's unity that results from being kept in relationship with the one true God.
Protect them, keep them faithful, connected to You, Father, that they may be one, even as we are one.
The image of this that has always helped me is the image of an orchestra.
Imagine that we had this morning on stage a 100-piece orchestra, right?
And they all showed up and wanted to get their instruments in tune to get started.
If each of them was personally passionate about unity and turned to the person next to them and said,
hey, let's start playing our instruments and get in tune, you would have a cacophony of French horns and violins and tubas and whatever else was up here.
They would all be very loud and probably for quite some time very out of tune with one another across the stage.
Instead, how do you get a unified pitch in a group like that?
You musicians know how you do it.
One clarion note is played and each instrument tunes to that note.
Soon, as each does that, what do you have?
You don't have a hundred different notes.
You now have all of them unified on one pitch together in beautiful harmony because they were attuned to the one note.
That's what Jesus is talking about here as the source of our unity.
It's this special relationship that He shares with His Father that, remember, He's inviting us into it.
Verse 21, they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you that they also may be in us.
In other words, we're different in so many ways, but the essence of life for us is knowing Jesus.
Our shared passion is relationship with Jesus.
Our common mission is the glory of Jesus.
And the more that that becomes true of each one of us individually, the more perfectly we become one.
The more on pitch we are together, the more we rejoice in the glorious Savior than anything else in the world.
See, what Jesus is praying for is more than just friendship, where we share lots in common.
That happens, that's a good thing, but this is the unity of the Trinity.
He longs for us to share that spiritual unity because the most important thing about me is the relationship with God that I have because His Spirit dwells in me.
This, by the way, has always been how God's people find unity.
It comes not from our efforts at unity, looking around at one another.
Not there first, but from our relationship with God, looking up to Him.
Psalm 133 is a hymn in praise of unity about how good unity is, how pleasant it is when we live like that, connected, united to one another.
It has two images in this short psalm.
The first is the oil flowing down the head to set the priest apart, and then it's down to his beard, and then down to his robes.
See, unity in relationship with God that then flows down to unite us with one another as those set apart as His people.
The second image has a very similar point.
The dew on Mount Hermon, that's the highest point in all of Israel, flows down to Mount Zion below to all God's people.
As we are more deeply and passionately united to God Himself, see, then unity flows down to where we share it with one another.
So that when we are distracted from God and His glory, when we're not looking up together, we feel very much that we are divided.
When that's not what's so important to us, we're easily divided from one another.
But that's so that when we do see God clearly, we begin to notice one another, to welcome one another, to honor one another in very practical ways.
It looks like something in our relationships.
Ephesians 4 talks about the unity of God's people this way.
Verse 3, if we're eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, that's what He calls us to.
And here's why.
There's one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Do you see there the personal nature of our unity?
It doesn't say one language, one nation, one social class, one personality type.
All of you get it together.
That's not what it says.
It says one Father.
Unity comes from being defined by His adopting love.
It says one Lord.
Unity comes from being united to Jesus in baptism, knowing Him as life's greatest treasure.
It says one Spirit.
Unity comes from being united as part of the body of Christ, gifted for your special place in it.
That same heart's in 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul talks about us being many members with lots of unique and different gifts,
but we're one body.
Verse 13, for in one Spirit we became one body.
No longer separated by ethnic or religious background.
No longer separated by social class.
No, we're one.
This is what the gospel of Jesus, the salvation God brings to us, the faith that we have in Him does to us.
It achieves unity from otherwise very different people because even if there's nothing else that we share,
we share the thing at the top.
Number one, the most important reality in life is the same for us.
When have you experienced that kind of unity?
As you've delighted in Jesus, as you've seen Him most clearly, as your great treasure.
I felt it in India with people that I struggle to communicate with in words,
but when we start doing things like singing praises to Jesus, like praying for someone together,
like sharing the good news of Jesus from a passage in the Bible that I know what we must be talking about,
my heart soars.
This is Pastor Venu.
Venu and I have gotten to be good friends.
I met him seven years ago, the first time I went to India.
He's traveled with me each time I've gone.
We've shared Jesus in homes and cars and schools and churches.
We've prayed with people who were hurting.
We shared with each other about the challenges of life with Jesus and marriage and ministry and parenting and whatever else.
And after just a few days of that, our hearts were so united that we still, from across the globe,
share and pray for one another several years later now.
At the end of our trip, he introduced me at one Bible school as,
this is my brother, Pastor Will.
And one of the students there who knew Venu well and loved him said,
your brother?
And we looked at each other like, are you kidding me?
Have you seen us?
Do we look like brothers?
Brothers?
And we talked later that outwardly we may not look like brothers,
but we shared so much inwardly.
The same spirit.
The same Savior.
The same Father.
Truly, he was right.
Brothers from across the globe.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a great British preacher of the last century,
preached actually 80-some sermons on this passage, John 17.
So you do the math.
I am less than 10% the preacher that he is.
I'm stopping at five.
Sermons are so helpful.
One of the things he shares in them is his own experience
of Christian unity across class boundaries.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones was raised in the upper crust of English aristocratic society.
Think estates and drawing rooms.
And for those of you who this means something to,
Downton Abbey, that's where you are, okay?
And it was just understood that many of the working classes were beneath you.
He never related with them.
It wasn't part of his life.
He was a very successful medical doctor when later in life he met Jesus.
Several years after that he became a pastor
and was called to a small rural church in Wales
where many of his parishioners were illiterate.
And he found, much to his surprise, he acknowledges,
an immediate affection for them.
And even more surprisingly than that, that he learned from them.
He was told that would never happen.
That he would never have that kind of experience with people like this.
But something had changed.
Now because of his connection with Jesus,
he had a connection with people that he never would have cared about before.
Who is that for you?
Maybe you felt this in a grace group.
With people that you now treasure, that you look and think,
I never would have ever met or hung out with this person.
Ever.
We wouldn't have given each other the time of day.
And now we meet and pray for one another
and we encourage one another in Christ
because we share nothing else.
We never get distracted on any other topic.
There's nothing else that we would both want to talk about.
I love connecting with people with shared interests.
I love connecting other people who have shared interests.
But some of my most spiritually encouraging relationships
come with those that I share little else with
but Jesus.
Young people, you can experience this too.
You also live in a world where everyone is desperate to belong.
How do I fit in?
He wants to find his group.
She wants to find her people.
The ones you know that we're just like.
But I got to tell you, it's beautiful when the kids from the drama club
and the guy from the football team
and the band kid and the academic team member
and the cheerleader and the special ed student,
when they all welcome one another into real friendship.
And that's hard, y'all.
I'm not pretending that's easy.
But when you all love Jesus, you can actually love beyond those differences.
You can love in those differences.
You can even become a safe group for other people who don't seem to fit.
They belong with you.
That's where they belong.
I hope you've tasted that Christian unity before, all of you, no matter how old you are.
It's not to be taken for granted.
Jesus prays for it multiple times, I think partly because we struggle to live in this.
Even though Jesus has made it a reality by adopting us into his family,
it is true that we are united, young people and adults and kids and senior citizens.
But church people have been good at parties for a long time,
all the way since back in Corinth.
And I don't mean the kind of parties with cake and streamers.
Those are good parties.
I'll come to those.
I mean, I follow Paul and I follow Apollos.
I follow Luther and I follow Calvin.
I follow hymns and I follow praise songs.
For some of you, this may have been what turned you off to the church before.
Many of you have told me this.
That you felt like it was a place where you were unwelcome,
like you didn't fit or belong in that group,
like you would actually have to agree with them on everything
and like all of the same things that they did
and feel the same way about everything to belong.
And y'all, that is awful because it excludes people.
And that hurts people.
But it is even worse because it is preaching
that something else is more important than Jesus.
Do you see that?
When we say you don't belong here until you like everything I like,
until you do things the way we do them,
until you look and dress and act the same way we do,
it says that's more important than Jesus.
I can't be united to you until you are like me.
And Jesus says you are united to them because of me,
not because of what you look like or what they do.
What's the solution?
What's the solution in Corinth and for us
when we get divided in non-gospel party spirit like that?
It's the one clear note of Jesus.
I follow Christ, right?
It's why the great creeds that are shared by Christians
throughout the centuries focus on the person of God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit over and over again.
I'm not saying the other conversations don't have their place.
They do.
They're fun to talk about after we're clear that we're united in Christ,
that it's a family conversation.
That's why we cheer for other churches in town.
We're not competing against them.
That's why we speak the truth in love,
why we forgive one another,
why we serve one another.
See, the more we find life in relationship with Jesus,
not in any of the secondary things that we define ourselves by,
then the more passionately we move forward together in unity.
Let me make one more application of this just briefly
about our Christian unity on Tuesday.
By the way, I'm glad that my talking about this makes many of you nervous.
That way I'm not alone.
I hope it is not lost on you that same Father, same Savior, same Spirit
does not say same political party.
It's not in there.
The unity of God's people is not organizational.
Jesus wasn't Democrat or Republican or third party.
In fact, among his 12 disciples were political opponents.
Matthew, the tax collector who had so cozied up to the idea of Rome being there
that he worked for them.
Simon the zealot on the other end of the spectrum
who wanted Rome out of there as fast and as strong as possible.
Right there among Jesus' disciples.
So we must guard against speaking
as though a Christian must vote a particular way
in order to be following Jesus.
See, when we speak that way,
it leads people to those faulty conclusions
I was just talking about.
Faulty conclusions about the person of Jesus,
the mission of his church,
the nature of his kingdom.
Now, certainly, God's Word and his Spirit
guide us in engaging
in all of life, including politics.
And those are good conversations.
We can talk about those.
But we are united
by something way more important than politics.
By someone way more powerful
than any human leader.
God's people are united
not even by a constitution,
but by a crucifixion, right?
That's what we're about together.
Don't forget that.
That's what unites us to one another
today and Wednesday and next Sunday
and well beyond that.
I hope you have brothers and sisters
with whom you disagree politically.
Not just so you can change one another's minds
before Tuesday.
That's pretty unlikely.
But so you can keep one another focused
on the main thing.
Where our life,
our eternal life is found.
Our hope and confidence this week,
like every other week,
maybe especially this week,
is found in the King of Kings.
In the joy of being united
to a God who loves us
and prays for us.
That is something to be excited about.
It's something to be passionate about.
You can know you can wake up excited
on Wednesday because that will be true
and you'll be on His mission
for His glory
no matter whatever other circumstances
are going on.
Back to John 17.
Aren't you glad?
I am.
If being passionately connected to Jesus
is the source of Christian unity,
if that's how we get connected,
being passionately involved in His mission
is the result.
Perhaps better said,
Jesus accomplishing His mission
of connecting others to Him
is the result of our unity in Him.
Look at verse 21.
You may have noticed this
when we read it the first time.
That they all may be one
so that the world may believe
that you have sent me.
Verse 23.
That they may become perfectly one
so that the world may know
that you sent me
and loved them
even as you loved me.
What's the result
of otherwise different people
being united in Christ?
It's that people looking on
realize that something otherworldly
is going on.
We live in a divided world,
don't we?
Watch how most of the United States
feel on Tuesday
and how united they seem.
We hate the division, don't we?
We hate feeling that
we don't like it inside of ourselves,
we don't like it around us,
and a divided church
cannot heal the wounds
of a divided world.
We'll just make it worse.
We'll just bring some more division
along with us.
That's not what God has called us to.
He's called us to something distinct
that's going to impact the world.
When otherwise divided people
become unified,
we want to know how.
How did that happen?
How did that Auburn guy
marry that Bama girl?
What?
How did that Jew and Gentile
share in life and worship
all the time?
How did they figure out?
How did they figure out where to go?
How did they figure out what day?
How did they walk around
loving each other like that?
They used to hate each other.
How did that retired
finance exec
Kamala fan
grandmother
and that unemployed
20-something high school
dropout MAGA single mom
love one another so much?
Why do they hang out
all the time?
How come they seem
to really enjoy it?
That's the power
of Jesus' cross.
We don't know how to explain
that in human terms.
We have to say there's something
else beyond us
that brought us together
because it's nothing about us.
I've read and wrestled this week
over what Jesus is praying
will happen.
This idea that
the world is impacted.
How exactly does that happen?
How does our unity
produce an impact
on the world?
Maybe you've thought that before.
We're like,
cool,
so we could all be unified
and I'm not sure
anybody would notice
you may think.
What's he saying?
Jesus says it twice
that this is
what he's praying for
and it's not
as I figured
that if all of us Christians
just get in one
global denomination
I don't even know
what to call it
but if we just did that
the world will all of a sudden
convert to Christianity.
That's not what
Jesus is saying.
Remember,
it's not an organizational unity.
The source is that personal
spiritual relationship
with the Trinity.
Jesus is also not saying
that if all Christians
just worked together better
we would evangelize the world.
No.
It certainly helps
when we labor together
for the kingdom
rather than against one another
but best I can tell
what Jesus is saying
in his prayer
is that when all Christians
are united
in dependence on Jesus
for their relationship
with the Father
for the relationship
they were made for
for their life
reflecting the image
of God
the way he created them to
the world sees
the message of Jesus
clearly
and the love of the Father
truly.
They see the gospel
the good news
that Jesus claims
that he alone
connects us to our maker
and we're all wondering
is God there
and how do I know him
and if he's real
what would it look like
for me to have a relationship
and Jesus says
I am the way
and the truth
and the life
and for that relationship
you were made for.
Secondly
that God loves us
not because of how
we perform
but because of how
Jesus has performed.
In fact
Jesus claims here
did you notice
at the end
that God loves us
as he loves him.
Good stuff for next week
okay
we're coming back.
love
that God would love
us like that.
See whether the world
embraces Jesus
or not
Christian unity
sounds that
clear note
the one clear note
that clear
gospel message
of hope
and joy
and life
that is sounded
so clearly
in the pages of scripture
it is in scripture
alone
that we find out
that hope
and that life
is found by grace alone
through faith alone
in Christ alone
and that message
sounded so clearly
when we're all
desperately needing him
when we unite
around our need
for him
and his meeting
our need
and Jesus longs
to see that happen
he prays for our unity
and that our unity
will spread his glory
and grace
to the whole world
so that the world
will know
not how great
our organizational skills are
and that we all got together
on the same page
not how great
the entertainment
we produce is
and this is the best show
in town
on Sunday morning
no
how great
our savior
is
that's what they
see
when we're united
in this way
around that
savior
and that relationship
the beauty
of Christian unity
is that it can actually
be a joy
for you to experience
and to live in
not a burden
that you have to go
achieve
that's one of the
beautiful things
about this passage
Jesus
still
unifies us
not only is he still
praying for our unity
but listen to verse 22
Jesus isn't saying
go out there
and be more unified
you can do it
what does verse 22 say
Jesus is sharing
divine glory
with us
he's giving it to us
in order that we may be
one
to bring us
to perfect unity
that we may be
one bride
purified by him
for him
it's the glory
of that Trinitarian
relationship
that he is inviting us into
he's inviting you
this morning
to see that relationship
and that savior
as the most wonderful
the most important part
of your whole life
what most delights you
what most unites you
to anyone else
makes you most eager
to be in relationship
with them
and Christian unity
flows down
as a byproduct
of that gracious gift
that we're united
to him
and so we get that gift
and we get to keep
opening it together
and enjoying it
together
as we feed the hungry
as we pray for one another
in our grace groups
as we share the good news
and take it to the world
and around the world
till his glory
is known everywhere
by everyone
that's his heart for us
let's pray
and ask for his help
Jesus would you indeed
make us one
we believe God
is answering
that prayer
and continues to
even in a culture
of division
that he's exalting you
and we're seeing you
as more needful
and we're seeing you
as more beautiful
and we're seeing you
as our life
more and more
and we pray
that that would
impact the world
in ways beyond
what we could plan for
don't take our strategies
work beyond us
do exceeding abundantly
beyond all we would ask
or imagine
because of your power
that is at work
within us
because your spirit
is uniting us
and is convincing
the world
that you sent Jesus
because you love them
as much as you love him
we thank you
for your love
and we pray
that we would find
joy in life in it
even today
in Jesus name
amen
for more information
visit us online
at southwood.org
on keep going
on court
and we see you
in life
there
we can't
that was
at us
we'd like to say
you
we
I sei