Life has its many peculiarities, especially as your age changes and life takes its many leaps. Moving from high school to the real world, having a baby, menopause, your children leaving home, moving where you live, and many more life changing events occur. Amy and I are finally getting into a pretty good routine with baby Mayah. Unfortunately, that routine is guaranteed to fail sooner or later and we will again have to adapt to another way of living. Mayah has so many grandmothers in this church. She even has a bunch of surrogate mothers in many ways. She will even have little friends too. Life has its peculiarities, especially the cycle it takes. Each of us had a beginning as a little helpless baby and many of us have had babies of our own. Soon enough I will no longer be a parent of a baby but a grandparent of a grandbaby. Before I know it my time will be up and a new generation will need to lead the church and the world. However, this cycle does have some purpose for it. The design is actually quite amazing really.
I was once talking to an elderly friend of mine, in her mid 70s. She said to me, “I don’t understand why they call it the Golden Years. I don’t feel like gold. I feel more like lead. Unless they mean that I pay money out like I have gold or maybe the medical companies think I am made of gold. There are benefits however, one being that you get to see your children grow and raise their children and if you are lucky you may even see the third generation down the line. It is actually quite amazing! Some of you can probably say much the same thing. It is wonderful to see others grow, learn, and become who they will be for the rest of their lives. I can only see glimpses of this by seeing people change spiritually but I can say it is wonderful too see.
Now, we have a chance to contribute to the lives of the young people not only in our church but also in our community. Today we have been celebrating the beginning of camp season. The chance for some of our fine young ones to head off to a week of fun and learning about the savior we love. Now is our chance to fulfill our part of the cycle of life. When we were younger, someone sent us to camp and watched over us. Now we can send our children to camp and watch over them. Jesus fulfilled his role on earth in much the same way. In John 17, we find Jesus praying to God the Father on behalf of his fledgling disciples. He knows that he will soon send them into the world and he will no longer be able to protect them. He has given them the “camp of Jesus” experience. He prays for the disciples in four ways: 1) He prays for them to know Him, 2) He prays for them to find eternal life in Him, 3) He prays that God would keep them in His arms, and 4) Jesus prays that God would be glorified. We may not all be going to camp because our time for that has passed but there is much we can do. We can be Jesus for these young people. We can pray for them and support them. Let’s look at each area in which we can pray for them.
They Need to Know Jesus – (6-8)
“"I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.”
God gave Jesus 12 men to work with knowing fully well that any of them could have quit or even betrayed Jesus. Now Jesus, in this prayer, commends them back to God. He knows that these men were God the Father’s the entire time. I can think of plenty of mistakes the disciples had made up to that point in their “career.” Yet, Jesus says, “they have obeyed your word.” as well as “For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.” According to Jesus’ prayer, the disciples had accepted that Jesus was the Son of God. They at least understood that Jesus was sent by God and that God instructed Jesus on what to do. “They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.” Sometimes I wonder about how well they knew Jesus but never-the-less they knew where he came from and that was the most important issue.
Our youngsters that are going to camp have a great opportunity to get to know Jesus a little bit better than they knew Him before. They may even have the chance to get to know who he is and where he came from for the first time. Most people really didn’t understand who Jesus was. He finally asks his disciples, “Who do people say I am?” Peter answers and says, “Some say Elijah. Some say a great prophet. Some say this and that.” People didn’t even recognize Jesus when he stood right in front of them. However, Maybe our youngsters will be able to see Jesus in a Christ-filled camp environment. Maybe this is the opportunity they need to know Jesus!
However, this doesn’t leave us high and dry either. Just because they go doesn’t mean anything will come out of it. They can go and come back and go right back to the way they were living. They need some support from our teachers, ministers, and parents to ensure that they know Jesus. Our classrooms have to bolster their confidence in the Truth of God. We also have to live it out in front of them. We also need to continue the cycle of life by praying for them. Pray for these young men and women when they go to camp. Pray that they would get to know Jesus!
They Need to Find Eternal Life in Him – (1-3)
“After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
Just knowing about Jesus isn’t enough. Many people have known about Jesus throughout the last two millennia and yet just as many have failed to do anything with that information. Information does just what the word says, “It informs.” It lets you know something but unless you do something with it, it will be practically worthless. Jesus was granted authority over all things and yet chooses death so that everyone could have eternal life. He died to give that to everyone in that age all the way to ours. He then defines how to obtain eternal life; “they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” This is not the same “knowledge” as before. “The word know here, as in other places, expresses more than a mere speculative acquaintance with the character and perfections of God. It includes all the impressions on the mind and life which a just view of God and of the Saviour is fitted to produce. It includes, of course, love, reverence, obedience, honour, gratitude, supreme affection. To know God as he is is to know and regard him as a lawgiver, a sovereign, a parent, a friend. It is to yield the whole soul to him, and strive to obey his law.” Barnes, Albert. "Commentary on John 17". "Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament".
If nothing else, letting the kids know who Jesus is would be a nice start. However, what we would really like to see is each child accepting Christ into their lives and being baptized into Him. Jesus begins his prayer to God for the disciples with this part about knowing intimately God the Father and Christ to obtain eternal life. When we send our kids over to the camp for a week of fun and learning, we had better be praying that God moves their hearts to accept Him as their Lord and Savior.
“Lord Kenneth Clark, internationally know for his television series Civilization, lived and died without faith in Jesus Christ. He admitted in his autobiography that while visiting a beautiful church he had what he believed to be an overwhelming religious experience. "My whole being," Clark wrote, "was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy far more intense than anything I had known before." But the "gloom of grace," as he described it, created a problem. If he allowed himself to be influenced by it, he knew he would have to change, his family might think he had lost his mind, and maybe that intense joy would prove to be an illusion. So he concluded, "I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course."” – Our Daily Bread, February 15, 1994
We should pray that our kids don’t get too imbedded into the world. Hopefully they will find and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Then, they will have everlasting life.
They Need God to Protect them from the World – (9-12)
“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.”
Jesus continues his prayer for the disciples by asking God to watch over them as He sends them out into the world. He even speaks of protecting the disciples himself while he was with them on the earth. Unfortunately one chose on His own to leave and work for Satan; Judas Iscariot. Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 shekels, the price of a slave. He fell out of faith. He gave himself over to his desires and quit Jesus Christ. Whatever worldly value (greed, pride, lust) that pushed him to leave and betray Jesus must have been mighty strong. God himself can protect them from Satan’s attacks. Romans 8:38-39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us from the Love of God except ourselves. The only thing left in creation that isn’t named is me. I can choose to leave God. I can choose not to accept Him. So could the disciples.
God can protect us against everything in the universe if he so chooses but since He gave us freewill to think and act on our own, we can choose to ignore Him. You know what the kids get bombarded with each and every day on T.V. and at school. Whether it is the T.V. teaching them to be greedy and want too much junk or its school trying to teach them to have pre-mature sex, drinking, violence. You name it, its happening. You know what goes on around our kids. So why don’t we pray for God to protect them? We had better pray for them, especially if they have accepted Christ because they have a tough uphill battle.
That God may be Glorified through His Work (1, 4-5)
“I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”
Lastly, we should cover how Jesus prayed for God to be glorified during the whole event. Of everything that we as Christians do, our whole goal should be for God to be glorified through us and through those we spend our time with. Jesus spent His entire life reaching out for one single goal. He wanted nothing more than to complete the task God the Father had set before Him. His hearts desire was to see God the Father glorified for all that he had done. Camp is about seeing kids come to Christ. Hopefully that in itself will glorify God. How about if the kids come back praising God? That would glorify God wouldn’t it. How about if we make sure to support those kids by praying and even sending them letters? That would glorify God.
Camp has a greater encompassing purpose than just to see children won to Christ. Camp also wants to see you involved in the children’s lives, teaching them about Christ, and showing them how to live. Camp is not just a place to ship your kid for a week so that they don’t drive you nuts. Camp really is a genuine place where kids can grow and learn. Camp didn’t have a massive effect on me but something else did. Before we all left for camp that summer all the members of the church pick up names and prayed for us. We didn’t know until we got back that they had been praying for us. They really love me enough to pray for me all week. Remember, back then I didn’t feel like anyone loved me. I felt alone and hated the world and yet these people had prayed for me. I remember one lady specifically. Her name is Vicki. I’ll never forget her. I guarantee that she glorified God and because of her efforts I believe she had an effect on me becoming a minister. Now I can glorify God with my life too. Jesus prayed for God to be glorified.
Keep this in mind when the kids get ready to go to camp. Once we have a camp list of all the kids going and when compiled. We will have a way in which you can pick a child to pray for during the weeks of camp. You could seriously change a child’s life. It had a profound impact on me. Knowing someone loved me enough to pray every day for me. The life-cycle God put on this earth is amazing, even if sin did bring in death. We start young and get older. You golden age folks have an awesome opportunity to model Christ for us under 50. You middle aged folks have a lot to off these kids going to camp. Regardless of age however, we can all pray for those kids going to camp! Jesus prayed for his disciples. You be prepared to pray for our kids.
