SERIES: The Gospel of John
The Real Lord’s Prayer, Part 3: Jesus Prays for the Whole Family
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: Young painters or musicians or sculptors have always been anxious to study under the great masters. The rationale is that they will more readily attain to excellence if they enter the schools of eminent artists. In the past, fathers have paid large sums of money that their children might be apprenticed to those who best understood the arts.
If any of us would learn the sacred art and mystery of prayer, it is well that we study under the great masters of that art, and it is best that we study under the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the greatest example of devotion to prayer. In John 13-16 Jesus delivers the Upper Room Discourse to His eleven Apostles—teaching them, admonishing them, warning them, but most of all encouraging them. In chapter 17 He concludes that greatest of all sermons with the greatest of all prayers.
For three weeks now we have been eavesdropping as Jesus communes with His Father within the hearing of His men. He first prays for Himself that He might be glorified, then for His disciples that they might be protected and sanctified, and now He prays for us and all members of His church that we might be unified.
So that we might see these divisions clearly, let me point them out to you in the text:
Verse 1: “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son.”
Verse 9: “I pray for them (i.e., the disciples). I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.”
Verse 20: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.”
Let’s read John 17:20-26:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
When Jesus says, “My prayer is not for them alone; I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message,” the prayer takes a sweep into the distant future. The focus is not on a single country, but on the entire world. It doesn’t cover a few years or even a few decades, but the entire age, from the first coming of Christ to the second coming. It doesn’t involve a few local churches or denominations but gathers in the whole family of God—every true Christian who has ever lived, or will live, throughout all of time.
In a very real sense, therefore, these verses contain the blueprint of God’s program for this age. It is the plan for a campaign designed to capture this rebellious planet for God. The final victory won’t be realized until Jesus comes again, but a lot of strategic successes are possible in the meantime ifwe understand and follow His blueprint.
What Jesus offers us here, in the form of a prayer, is both the objective and the strategy for this campaign.
The profound objective of God’s plan for the ages: that the world might believe. (21-23)
Twice in this portion of His prayer Jesus verbalizes the objective that was constantly before Him during His life on earth: “that the world may believe” (verse 21), and “to let the world know” (verse 23). That is God’s great purpose in this age: the redemption of the lost people of the world. It is the same purpose stated so clearly in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” We sometimes forget that God has such a noble and far-reaching objective; we become so absorbed in His work inus that we forget that He is still aiming beyond us.
God has a heart for the lost; we have a mission to the lost. Jesus mentioned it in verse 18 when He prayed to the Father, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” Our mission is not to improve the world; it certainly is not to govern the world; it is not even to judge the world. Our mission is to penetrate the world with the truth of the Gospel so that the people of the world will have the opportunity to believe and know that Jesus Christ is the only way to God.
This mission is a difficult one. And it is a dangerous one. We have an enemy bent on our destruction, and that is why Jesus prays for our protection, as we saw last Sunday. He also prays that God would make us different (that’s what sanctification essentially means). He doesn’t want me to be a man of the world, or the company’s man. He wants me to be God’s man, not isolated from the world, but insulated from it by the truth.
Now if the objective of God’s plan for the ages is that the world might believe, what then is His strategy? One might think that to accomplish such a profound objective a very complicated and costly strategy would be necessary. And if you read the voluminous writings of the church-growth experts, you would conclude that a Ph.D. in strategy is essential for anyone desiring to impact the world for Christ. But no, the strategy Jesus mentions three different times in His prayer is very basic.
The simple strategy of God’s plan for the ages: that believers might experience unity. (21-23)
Unity forms the strategy by which God intends to accomplish His objective.
Verse 21: “That all of them may be one.”
Verse 22: “That they may be one as we are one.”
Verse 23: “May they be brought to complete unity.”
Now all of us have an idea what unity means, but I fear many of those notions are wrong, or at least incomplete. So, to understand it fully I want us to examine first what unity is not.
What Christian unity is not:
1. It is not organizational identity. The great mistake of the ecumenical movement of the last half of the 20th century was the notion that unity can be achieved organizationally. The United Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, the Presbyterian Church, USA, and most other mainline denominations have been pursuing a course of ecumenical dialogue and merger for the past 50 years that they hope will eventually produce Christian unity. I fear that what they will end up with is one nationwide (perhaps even worldwide) religious organization that has so little in common with genuine Christianity that Jesus wouldn’t even recognize it.
That is because on the altar of unity almost everything of substance is sacrificed. Doctrinal distinctives are considered expendable because they divide. Moral absolutes are expendable because of a desire to be relevant to society as it is. Even the great slogans of the liberal church—the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man—are no longer acceptable because they are deemed sexist.
I’m going to share an opinion that won’t be universally appreciated, but here it is anyway. I doubt if the entire ecumenical movement over the past 50 years has resulted in so much as one person entering the Kingdom of God. But please don’t misunderstand. I do not question that there are many Christians in these denominations, but I believe they are Christian in spite of, not because of, their enormous expenditure of resources to achieve organizational unity. Alliances, mergers, and denominational compacts have no impact on the world. That is not what Jesus is talking about.
2. It is not philosophical uniformity. Frankly, too many Christians think that other believers should be just like them—all reading the same books, educating their children in the same way, thinking alike politically. But unity is not loving the same things; it is possessing the same love. It disturbs me when you can automatically spot the members of a certain Christian organization or the graduates of a certain Christian college or those who have attended a certain seminar because they all look alike or share the Gospel alike or have the same viewpoint on even the most difficult issues of life.
Uniformity is dull! There should be the greatest diversity among Christians—diversity of personality, interests, lifestyle, music appreciation, methods of evangelism, forms of church government, and worship styles. Now it may not always be best to have all those differences in the same congregation, but that’s the beauty of having several hundred believing churches in a city our size. Everyone ought to be able to find at least one that fits his own needs and personality.
But even within a particular local church, variety is more helpful than harmful. As we discuss and debate the issues, we find that iron sharpens iron, and when we finally reach consensus, we are generally a lot closer to the truth. You know, if two people agree on everything, one of them isn’t necessary.
One of the best ways to comprehend that Christian unity is not to be equated with philosophical uniformity is to visit believers in another culture who have virtually nothing in common with our western ways of thinking and doing. In 1978 I had the privilege of spending two weeks on a work project among the Chol Indians of the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico along the Guatemala border. (The Chols have been much in the news lately as the Mexican government seeks to put down an armed rebellion there). From the closest jungle airstrip we had a five-hour mule trip up steep trails until we reached the little mountain village of Naranjos. There was no electricity, no phones, no plumbing, no modern conveniences whatever. Yet every night in the little dirt-floor church we met for three hours or more with a group of Indian Christians. We did not understand their language or their culture or their thought processes, but there was one thing we could recognize immediately—they had the Spirit of God in them. We enjoyed spiritual unity.
3. It is not doctrinal unanimity. I happen to be a lover of theology. I taught it on the college level for five years and I would rather read a good theology book than watch a movie. But there is a danger in evangelical circles of defining unity as simply doctrinal agreement. Certainly, there is a core of truth that one must accept in order to be considered a Christian in any meaningful sense of that term. Jesus alludes to that in verse 20: “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.“ I would say the Apostles’ message is well summed up in the Apostles Creed, a simple yet profound second century document that describes what the early church believed.
But beyond that core we may disagree, sometimes vigorously, on a wide range of subjects—prophecy, baptism, eternal security, election, predestination, free will, church government, creationism, divorce and remarriage—you name it. One pastor wrote,
Some of you are Calvinists, some of you are Arminians, some of you are Premillennialists, others are Amillennialists. Some of you are Dispensationalists, while some of you are Covenant people. Some of you don’t even know what you believe. You wandered in here and you don’t know up from down. I’m with you! Yet we are all one because we love the Lord Jesus, and we are counting on him for our salvation. Amen.
Friends, there are certainly doctrinal issues that need to be debated and discussed. And we are called to challenge error. I will never knowingly teach or allow someone else to teach something contrary to God’s Word from this pulpit. Yet Scripture also commands: “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph. 4:3-6)
Richard John Neuhaus puts it eloquently when he says that one should engage in “the most vigorous advocacy of what one believes to be right, but at the same time make a mutual pledge of allegiance to reverence one with another within the mystery of our being a people led by God toward that time in which we shall ‘know even as we are known’.” [i]
Well, if Christian unity is not organizational identity, or philosophical uniformity, or doctrinal unanimity, what is it?
What Christian unity is.
I believe Christian unity is a sense of oneness of heart and purpose that comes from the possession of a common life in Christ. Let me repeat that: Christian unity is a sense of oneness of heart and purpose that comes from the possession of a common life in Christ. It is a supernatural reality such that would have allowed Paul the Apostle, Augustine the Catholic, Wyclif the early Protestant, Luther the Lutheran, Calvin the Presbyterian, Wesley the Methodist, and Moody the independent to sit down and enjoy deep fellowship with one another had they lived at the same time. Three words describe Christian unity pretty well: it is spiritual, it is powerful, and it is practical.
1. It is spiritual. By that I mean its source is the Holy Spirit, who enables believers to view one another as brothers and sisters in the same family despite their differences in personality, gifts, backgrounds, education, interests, and opinions. You know, we are never commanded in Scripture to create unity; we are just urged to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Unity is a supernatural reality. In fact, the model for Christian unity that Jesus employs is the Trinity. Look at verse 21: “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” Again, in verse 22 we read, “That they may be one as we are one.”
Christians believe there is only one God; yet in the unity of the godhead there are three persons, the same in nature but distinct in their actions and personalities. Jesus is God but He is not a clone of the Father. The Holy Spirit is also God, but He is distinct from both the Father and the Son. There is much, of course, that we do not and cannot understand about the relationships within the Godhead, but what we do know is that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have fellowship with one another, and we know that unity and diversity coexist among them. They should likewise coexist in the Church.
2. It is powerful. Christian unity is powerful in its impact on the world. It is not our personality or our theology that attracts people to Christ. It is not our buildings; it is not our radio and TV broadcasts; it is not our efforts to influence legislation or our books or our schools (though God may use any of these things). It is the life of God in us, demonstrated by our love and unity.
But the lack of unity among believers is also powerful, only in the opposite direction. The greatest barriers to effective evangelism are not outdated methods or inadequate presentations of the gospel, but the insensitivity of Christians, their gossip, jealousy, backbiting, their unforgiving spirits, roots of bitterness, self-absorption, and greed. “Show me your redeemed life,” a philosopher once said, “and I will be more inclined to believe in your Redeemer.”
Two years ago Charles Colson wrote a profound book about the church, entitled The Body. One chapter is called, “Extending the Right Fist of Fellowship.” Unfortunately, that’s not far off the mark in a lot of denominations and local churches. Allow me to quote a few paragraphs.
“Take my own denomination, the Southern Baptists. Over a decade ago conservatives mounted a needed effort to restore orthodox balance to the denomination, but this quickly deteriorated into angry rhetoric and name calling. Throughout the 1980’s Southern Baptists made headlines. Not for their outstanding mission work or the wonderful pastoral care provided to millions, but for the knock-down-drag-out battle for denominational power.
Over an 18-month period, ending in early 1989, more than 2100 Southern Baptist pastors were forced out of churches. For doctrinal reasons? No. According to one survey, 58% cited personality differences, 46%, failure to live up to expectations, and 42%, leadership style too autocratic (obviously some listed more than one reason). All that church strife in one year in just one denomination. But Southern Baptists aren’t alone, and the consequences of this for the church are tragic. Pick any community at random and odds are at least one local church is in the midst of a bloodletting.
In view of all this, it is not difficult to understand the two most frequent reasons people give for avoiding church: ‘All Christians are hypocrites,’ and ‘Christians are always fighting with each other.’ To the first I invariably reply, ‘Sure, probably so. Come on and join us. You’ll feel right at home.’ But I haven’t come up with a very good answer to the second.”
On the other hand, when the people of God, united in His name, proclaim the Word of God, they can turn their world upside down. That happened in first-century Jerusalem. It can happen in St. Louis today. Christian unity is spiritual and powerful.
3. It is practical. It is not just theoretical; rather it works itself out in visible ways in the lives of real people. I am reminded of the story of a man who was walking by a used bookstore and a certain book in the window caught his attention. It was entitled “How to Hug.” Feeling a bit lonely, and being of a romantic nature, he thought to himself, “That’s what I need.” So he went inside to look further. To his dismay, he discovered that the book was the 11th volume of an encyclopedia covering the subjects beginning with the letters HOW to HUG. It just happened to spell, “How to Hug.”
Many local churches are like that aren’t they? People come with deep needs; they are lonely and discouraged, feeling guilty and confused. They are hoping to find help, but often they are treated to an encyclopedic, academic, theoretical kind of love which means very little in real life. The Christianity they encounter looks more like a philosophy than a personal relationship with God.
We often seem to have the inadequate notion that reaching the lost for Christ is fundamentally a matter of proclamation. But the Gospel is not only verbal; it is also visible. It is not only audible; it is relational. St. Francis of Assisi famously put it this way: “Preach the Gospel all the time; if necessary, use words.” Well, there definitely is a place for words, but there is also a place for action. Remember what Jesus said earlier this same night? “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
We have seen what Christian unity is not and we have examined what it is. A third issue I want us to think about is how Christian unity plays itself out in the Body of Christ.
How Christian unity impacts the Body of Christ. Exactly how would Christian unity make us different if it were practiced biblically? How would it change the Church of Jesus Christ here in the city of St. Louis? How would it change us here at First Free?
1. Unity means we work hard to avoid division in the Church. If necessary, we give up our rights for our brothers and sisters. We accept decisions we don’t agree with so long as they don’t compromise the essential truths of our faith. We sacrifice our time and our resources for the sake of the family. Church leaders avoid division by communicating openly, admitting when they make mistakes, seeking consensus from the Body, including as many people as possible in the decision-making process. Pastors avoid division by following the example of Christ, who refused to hold on to His position at all costs but humbled Himself. We have a code of ethics for pastors in the Free Church which forbids a pastor from starting a new church within 50 miles of his former church without the full approval and support of the Elders of the former church. It’s a good rule that prevents many church splits.
So serious is this issue of division in the Church that Paul addressed it with this strong warning in 1 Cor. 3:16-17: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” Many Christians think Paul is talking about the individual’s body here, but he is not—he is talking about the local church. In 1 Cor. 6:19-20 his similar instructions are speaking of our bodies, but the context here in 1 Cor. 3 makes it clear that he is warning against division in the church.
2. Unity means we reject the view that our church or denomination is the sole repository of truth. I love the Free Church. It has been a great home to me, and I can’t imagine serving anywhere else. But it is essential that I recognize the work of God in other churches and in other denominations. Steve Brown, an evangelical Presbyterian pastor, recently wrote, “Fresh winds are blowing everywhere among Catholics and Protestants…. Because everybody who belongs to Jesus belongs to everybody who belongs to Jesus, I’ve decided to turn my polemical guns on the enemy—not so much on my family.”
That doesn’t mean we ignore our differences or quit speaking the truth for fear it will offend someone, but it does recognize that the categories are not so clear as they once were. A good argument could be made today that conservative Catholics have more in common biblically with conservative Baptists than they have with liberal Catholics.
Friends, the time is coming, I believe, when Christians in this country may not have the luxury of fighting other Christians. If we don’t work together against the common enemies of secularism and humanism, we may find ourselves overwhelmed by the spirit of the age.
3. Unity means we refuse to show partiality towards, or discriminate against, other believers. That includes discrimination regarding race, social status, education, looks, gender, age, or any other factor non-sinful factor. Let’s face it, most of the people in this congregation are white, middle class, and professional, because that’s primarily what West County is. And likes attract likes. I don’t think we need to feel guilty about that, but God forbid that a person of color or a blue-collar person should feel unwelcome in our church. When the Church experiences real unity, it will never exclude any person who is Jesus’ disciple.
Sometimes, however, partiality is not overt, but quite subtle and unintentional. We are a family-oriented church, but we must not forget that not everyone whom God has brought to our church is part of a nuclear family. There are the widowed, divorced people, singles—all of whom desire and deserve the full fellowship of the Body, but not all of whom experience it. The problem isn’t that these individuals are being snubbed or treated prejudicially so much as it is perhaps that the rest of us are sometimes too busy to include them.
I’ve been impressed in this regard with Promise Keepers, the fine men’s movement started by Bill McCartney, in which many of our men have gotten involved. They have a strong emphasis on bridging gaps between Christians. They encourage men to visit other churches—black churches, charismatic churches, holiness churches—so they will begin to see that God is bigger than any of them or all of them.
4. Unity means everyone seeks his or her unique area of service so that no function of the Body is lacking. Paul talks in 1 Cor. 12 about the fact that the eye needs the hand, and the hand needs the foot, etc. In other words, if any member is lacking the whole body suffers. The point is this: unity is more than just not causing trouble. There are a lot of people in any given church who don’t cause any trouble. But they don’t do anything else either. They don’t contribute to the unity of the Body by serving in their God-given capacity. And the Body suffers because of it.
Quickly we move to our last point. We have seen the profound objective and the simple strategy. Thirdly, let’s consider …
The glorious destiny of God’s plan for the ages: that we might be with Jesus and see His glory. (24)
Verse 24: “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” There’s something just a little strange about this part of Jesus’ prayer. We have already been assured in John’s Gospel that those who have been given to Jesus will come to Him and that those who come He will in no wise cast out. In other words, believers are promised and guaranteed eternal life with Christ.
Why then does Jesus pray that we might be with Him? Why pray for something that is certain? When Jesus prayed for our unity, that was not certain, for Christians have had a great tendency toward disunity, but our destiny of being absent from the body but present with the Lord is certain. So why pray for it? I think the answer lies in the very nature of prayer.
Prayer does not consist in simply laying requests before God. It also consists in expressing our wills and our desires to God. God delights in hearing us verbalize our hopes, our aspirations, our intentions, and our agreements with Him. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed “not my will but thine be done.” Wasn’t it certain that God’s will would be done? Yes, but what Jesus was doing was expressing His own agreement and desire that God’s will be done. So too, here in verse 24 Jesus’ request regarding our destiny does not imply that that destiny is unsure but rather simply informs us that the Father and the Son are both in agreement that believers should be with the Savior for all eternity.
And for what? To see the pearly gates open? To walk the streets of gold? To inspect the mansion just over the hilltop? I suppose, but there is a far greater motive than these. It is to see His glory: “to be with me where I am, and to see my glory.” And this time I believe the Shekinah glory is in view. You see, Heaven is not nearly so much a place as it is a presence. Oh, I believe Heaven is a literal place, but wherever it is, it is Heaven only because Jesus is there.
I close with these words from the 5th chapter of the Revelation:
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. And they sang a new song:
You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.
Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang:
Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!
The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
Friends, we can have a unified church because we have a crucified Savior, risen and exalted, seated at the right hand of the Father, and daily praying for us.
DATE: February 13, 1994
Tags:
Unity
Uniformity
Unanimity
Ecumenism
Glory
[i] Citation lost.