Services | Jesus Prayers for Todays’ Disciples

FBCWest 601 | Jesus Prayers for Todays’ Disciples

Jesus Prayers for Todays’ Disciples | Poster

Recorded On: 04/07/2024

Bulletin

Scritpures

Transcript of Service

We're going to continue looking at how Jesus was praying for His disciples that were present with Him. He's going to continue to do that, but He's going to make a surprising prayer request for future disciples, which means He's going to pray for you and me. Come and see what His prayer requests are for you and me.

And the Gospel of John, Chapter 17, we're going to be picking up from Verse 13, where we left off Jesus, has been praying for His disciples who are with Him, and He's been making requests of the Father for them. And He's going to continue on, and then He's going to do something surprising.

But what gets me is, if we were going to be in that same situation, you would think that most of our prayers would be about us, as Jesus was going through what He was going to be going through. But instead, He's praying for His disciples.

And then, like I said, after He continues praying for His disciples, we're going to see what I consider a really unique aspect. So it says, "Continue on with His prayer. But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, so that they may have my joy made full in themselves." So Jesus is continuing to say, "Lord, I want You to take these that I've been teaching, and they've been following You to the best of their understanding, and I want You to make their joy, my joy, made full in themselves." So Jesus doesn't want them just to have joy. He wants them to have His joy.

The world seems to always want happiness.

Jesus is looking for us to have not just joy, but His joy. Because happiness depends on happenings. Joy depends on the blessings of God. And so, He's asking the Father to have His disciples have that joy. "I've given them Your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." So Jesus is going to say, "I gave them Your word, which changed them from being a part of the world, from being not of this world, just as Jesus is not of this world." His word changes who we are, which is probably why very few of us read the Bible consistently, because we don't like the uncomfortableness of being changed.

And so He's saying, "I've been giving them Your word, and it has transformed them, but because they've been transformed, the world hates them."

And yet, we seem to be surprised most of the time, because in our country, we used to be what was known as a Christian nation, and that may or may not have been true. But most of the world has not been Christian.

But even if you take a place like America, who is supposedly a Christian nation, you can have any philosophy, any religion, any pseudo-belief system, and you can have it, except following Jesus.

And now, you're too radical. You're too, you know, we need to... Now, you can have your faith, just keep it to yourselves.

They don't tell anybody else to keep their mouth shut, but for us. And so it's just a little inkling how the world is hostile to us, because we're not of this world.

Just as Jesus was not of this world. He says, "I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one."

Now, if I were there listening to Jesus, I might have said, "You know, Lord, maybe You should ask to have us take it out of the world, because the world doesn't deserve You, let alone deserve us. Why are we going to put up with all this stuff?"

But Jesus understands, He's not asking for them to be removed. He's just saying, "I want Satan not to affect them, so to keep them from the evil one." This prayer very much reflects the model of prayer that He gave His disciples, that He wanted us to be protected from the evil one.

They are not of this world, even as I am not of the world. When Jesus keeps repeating this, it's not like the Father is forgetting that they're not of this world. It's an important aspect that He understands that there is a difference.

The world will love us if we are of the world, but because we're not. So He keeps honing that in so that His prayer continues on. And there's nothing wrong with repeating prayer requests.

Because let's face it, the more you're concerned about something, the more you'll pray for it.

Let's face it, if you had a prayer request and you said, "Pastor Joe, I want you to pray for X." And I go, "Okay." And we pray for X.

And then I ask you, maybe a week later, "Well, what happened about X?" You're going, "I don't recall. It must have not have been all that important to you." But the next week you say, "The Lord didn't answer that question. Could you pray for X?"

And then you keep saying, "Could you pray for X and pray for X?" And I know you are serious that you want God to intervene.

Jesus is serious He wants God to intervene because we are not of this world.

Sanctify them in the truth.

Your Word is truth.

Now He's saying basic sanctify. Sanctify is the process of making something holy.

Now we usually have the idea of holiness of being some godly thing and holiness is some godly thing. But holiness simply means to be separated.

So to give you an idea, if you have a set of china, it's expensive.

You have it in your china hutch.

And you never use it until there's an important event. Every thanksgiving celebration or your family who's out of town comes and you pull out the china, that's holy. You only use it for certain special occasions. So that china has been sanctified for the use for those particular things.

Now sometimes in our sense it's the china, it's the paper plates because, "Yeah, we're glad you're there but I don't want to wash dishes."

So again He's saying, "So I want you to separate them."

And God is a God of separation.

When He said, "Let there be light," He separated the darkness of the light. He separated the oceans of the land. He separated many things. He is a holy God who does separation. And one of the most miraculous things that He does is take people like you and me and sanctifies us and makes us holy.

How does He do that?

Sanctify them in truth, the truth. Not a truth, not somebody's truth. And again that's where the world...

I just got off the deep end because your truth may not be my truth and whatever. And it bugs me when the world's philosophy bleeds into Christian thought.

There's a song, I don't care if you know it or not know it, it bugs me because the singer sings about God's truth. Now God's truth is the truth.

God's not one form of truth and there's some other form of truth. God is truth. And He's saying, "Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth." That is where we find truth. That is where we find sanctification.

You've probably heard it said by other pastors, "The word of God will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the word of God."

Because when we read it we go, "Uh oh, I messed up there."

Perfect example.

And some of you will repeat and tell me so. It's like we're told by Jesus to tell that somebody's a fool is like murdering them.

When we drive out on Monday going to work and all these idiots get in our way and we're whatever, and I go, "Lord, I already murdered 18 people on my way to work."

And then because I'm a lawyer I found a way out of it. Just say, "You're being foolish." As opposed to, "You're a fool." So I'm not a Philadelphia lawyer but try to find a way around it. But again we see, but then the word of God magnifies where we've made growth in our walk with Him and where we need still a little more help.

So His word is truth. "As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world."

Jesus is saying, "You sent me on a mission to declare that I am from you and that if they believe in me they will have eternal life because now I'm going to be leaving because I'm going to be crucified and buried in the ground and then I'm going to rise again because then I'm going to leave.

So I'm going to give them my message and my purpose.

Everybody's always saying, "Well, what's your purpose?" Your purpose is to do the will of God.

That's your purpose.

But I want to be the best basketball player that ever lived. That's wonderful because that's not necessarily your purpose.

Being a basketball player may allow you to have access to people that you would ordinarily have access to. But your purpose is to be sent by God to them so that they might come to faith.

So He goes, "So I'm sending them."

And here's the deal. How they treat Jesus.

The same people who said, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord," yelled all the more loudly, "Crucify Him. Crucify Him."

For their sakes I have sanctified myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. So Jesus is saying, "I have done what you've sent me to do. I made it a separation. I sanctified myself so that they would see that when I came here on earth to minister, it was for a particular purpose. It wasn't for my purposes, it was for the purposes of the Father. And I only did that. I didn't do other things.

I didn't take a trip to Rome to see how things are. I came to preach the gospel to your people."

He separated Himself so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

So He wants us to be like Him.

Then here is something that's amazing.

I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their Word.

Jesus is praying for you and me.

He is facing in a few hours persecution like you couldn't believe, and crucifixion, and the shame of that.

And He's praying for you and me some 2,000 years later.

In our denomination, I'm sure there are other denominations who do the same thing, they send out a little brochures and things, and they will list the birthdays of various missionaries.

And we're supposed to pray for the missionaries on their birthdays.

And oftentimes they'll say like, "Phil Jones and Argentina, and it's his birthday so you pray for him."

I became friends with a pastor in Riverside, Bob and Cindy Haar, who were good people.

And they became missionaries to Brazil.

And they sent me a letter after being there for a while saying, "I've been praying for you and Libby."

I want you to see the impact. We're supposed to be praying for them, and they're praying for me.

The God of the universe, the God of heaven and earth, the God who stretched out His arms to be sacrificed, the Lamb of God, prayed for me.

I don't want to be egotistical, but can you see how He prayed for me and He prayed for you.

He took time from the fact that He was going to suffer and die.

He goes, "You know the people who came to faith because they've been reading John?

I'm praying for them.

Those who came to faith because they read Matthew, I'm praying for them.

For those who came to faith because they read Luke or Mark or read some of the letters of Paul or the letters of Peter or all the others of the writer of the Hebrews, those people who came to faith by hearing of me by them, I'm praying for them."

This is what He's going to pray for. That they may all be one even as you, Father, are in me and I in you. That they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me.

I want you to see that. What's He praying for us?

That we really be one.

He's told us as a new commandment that we're to love one another as He's loved us. But He's asking that we do more than that. That we would be one, not just in that ethereal, kind of philosophical idea, but that we would be one just as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one.

They are so one we can't figure out what the Trinity is.

That's how one they are.

And we are to be one in that unity that you can't distinguish one from the other.

That I rejoice when you rejoice. And I weep when you weep. And I encourage you when you're about ready to give it up. And you encourage me. And we do this together. We're together.

But we're not together in the sense of saying kumbaya.

For one in the sense of like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Why?

So that the other people who come in contact with us will do just what Jesus did. That they might believe that the Father sent Him.

The Father sent Jesus so that people might believe that the Father sent Him.

We are to be one so that we might convince people that Jesus was sent by the Father.

We have the very same mission as Jesus does.

I just saved you about $300 in books.

You want to know what you're supposed to do? Do what Jesus did.

I hated that we've stopped now, but that got the rule of bracelets. What would Jesus do?

I'm going to tell you, I don't think we should be wandering. We should know.

And if you don't know, here's one of them. Be one so that we might communicate that Jesus was sent by the Father.

The glory which you have given me, I have given to them,

that they may be one just as we are one.

He has saved us by His sacrifice. He has sanctified us through His word. And He is going to glorify us.

It's an awesome package.

You know, Jesus just saved us and wandered off. He sanctifies us so that we might be more like Him. And then He will glorify us so that we'll be more like Him.

And He's praying for our glory while He's ready to be tried and convicted as an innocent person.

So that He's glorifying us so that we may be one just as He and the Father are one. Again, this is obviously important to Jesus that He keeps repeating it. And again, the Father doesn't have any memory problems.

But it's so important to Him that He repeats Himself. I and them and you and me, that they may be perfected in unity.

That they may be made complete in unity.

How sad.

So many Baptist churches are formed because people couldn't get along with each other. And they got mad at us.

And they got mad at Ms. Smith or Deacon Jones or the pastor. They went out and formed a new church.

Now I'm not saying Ms. Smith or Deacon Jones or idiots and whatever, but hopefully we would become unified.

That we might be made complete.

Again, so that the world may know, not suspect, not have an inkling, but the world may know that you sent Jesus and love them.

Even as you have loved me.

We love to say, and it is true, Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so. But the fact of the matter is the Father loves you just the way He loved Jesus.

And the amazing thing is Jesus is easy to love because He's perfect.

You ain't.

I'm hoping to be a little closer.

But He loves us.

Just as we are, but not leaving us that way, saving us, sanctifying us and glorifying us because He, the Father loves us the way Jesus and He loved one another.

Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am so that they may see my glory, but you have given me for you love me for the foundations of the world.

A little strange in the sense of basically, even though they're going to be scattered and He's going to be on a cross alone.

They're going to get a glimpse of His glory.

And that they're going to see and that they except for John,

all die of pretty violent death.

And John will be exiled.

And many of the second generation believers will be burned at the stake.

Beheaded. Beaten. That we might be a part of His glory.

All too often we think, well, God loves us when everything is perfect.

Maybe God loves us more because we see His glory when we suffer.

Because we can appreciate exactly what He did for us. You may see my glory, which you have given me for you love me before the foundations of the world.

Jesus was always gone. The Father and the Son and Holy Spirit were always together before He ever said, let there be life.

That's why when people said, well, God needed to have somebody to love. So He made us.

Well, if it needed us, He made a really big big difference. Well, if it needed us, He made a really big mistake.

But in truth is there's enough love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They don't need us.

But they loved us anyway.

O righteous Father, all the world has not known you, yet I have known you. And these have known that you sent me. They don't have all perfect knowledge. They're still struggling. They're having to figure it out. And when Jesus rises from the dead, they're going to find out a lot more quickly than they are now.

But they have confessed that they know that Jesus was sent by the Father and that they know that.

And I have made your name known to them and will make it known. You see it as a process.

He's going to be sacrificed. He's going to die on a cross. That death on a cross is going to teach them about the love of the Father and the name of the Father.

The Holy Spirit is going to continue to teach them.

It's not a process.

I always love it when people say, well, I read the Bible once.

Wonderful. Wonderful.

There's so much richness and depth there.

It's a continuing process of knowing and making known so that the love with which you love me may be in them and I in them.

The love of the Father is in us and Jesus is in us.

So here's the thing.

I can risk loving you and you reject me utterly.

Because he loves me.

I can love you and you can persecute me because the Father loves me.

I can try my best to do whatever good there may be and you reject it. Father loves me.

I am secure in that.

All too often we have too many, too, too many insecure Christians.

God loves me. It's not a phrase. It's a reality.

When people love you, genuinely love you and you're not a complete idiot,

you'll want to please them.

Because you sense that love.

It used to be that a child would want to please its parents.

I don't know how long that'll go, but that used to be kind of the thing.

And so we would want to do things to please.

We don't do what Jesus says because we get brownie points.

We do it because in response to his love, I want to show that I love him.

It's going to use a word that was probably inappropriate. So I'm going to say this.

Maybe, just maybe.

The love that's in you shouldn't be, I'm going to use the word constipated.

Maybe I'll flow out.

So the more love comes in, so it flows out. So more love comes in, so it flows out. Rather than saying, well, Jesus loves me.

I'm cool. No, no, I'm supposed to love you the way he loved you so that he may love me so that I may love you so that he may love me so that I may love you.

This is the Lord's Prayer.

I know we call the other one the Lord's Prayer. This is it.

And when you're feeling down and depressed and all alone, I want you to remember.

The Lord's Prayer said, he prayed for you.

And all God's people said.

Services | Jesus Prayers for Todays’ Disciples

FBCWest 601 | Jesus Prayers for Todays’ Disciples

Recorded On: 04/07/2024

Bulletin

Scritpures

Transcript of Service

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