Jn 17:1-19
Sermon:
I was once sent this story by e-mail:
A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed.
As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation.
They talked about so many things and various subjects.
When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't believe that God exists."
"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.
"Well, you just have to go out in the street to see that God doesn't exist.
Tell me, if God exists, why are there sick people?
If God exists why are there abandoned children?
If God exists, there would be neither suffering nor pain.
I can't imagine a loving a God who would allow all of these things."
The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond - because he didn't want to start an argument.
The barber finished his job and the
customer paid left the shop.
Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, greasy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard.
The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber:
"You know what? I don’t believe barbers exist."
"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!"
"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with long greasy dirty hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."
"Ah, but barbers DO exist! What the problem is - is that people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards don’t come to me."
"Exactly" affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God DOES exist!
The reason why there is so much pain and suffering is not that He doesn’t exist.
Rather it is because people don't come to Him nor do they look for Him.”
But is believing in the existence of God enough to make you a Christian?
And James in his epistle sums up the weakness of simply giving intellectual assent to the proposition that God exists.
He says this:
19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. (Jas 2:19)
In our Gospel reading this morning, I think Jesus also clearly says it isn’t.
There were many Jews in Jerusalem who clearly believed in God but rejected Jesus – as would be proved just a few days later – when they called for his crucifixion
In Jewish thought, believing in a teacher didn’t just mean giving intellectual assent to his ideas. Rather it meant more.
If you believed in a Rabbi or a teacher, it meant putting his teachings into effect in your life
Being a follower of Jesus didn’t just mean believing in God (as we use the term belief) it meant much more
That belief must affect your life.
Our Gospel reading today is a part of the famous High Priestly Prayer of Jesus - one of the mountain peaks of revelation in John’s Gospel.
William Temple, the former Archbishop of Canterbury has described it as “perhaps the most sacred passage on the four Gospels”
The prayer reveals many things.
In it, Jesus shows us that the rationale for his ministry here on earth - which is to give eternal life to all those who are his true disciples – those whom God the Father had given to Him.
Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life is all about finding your purpose by finding God’s purpose for you and plugging into it. It’s all about God.
It starts out with the opening sentence: “It’s not about you.” He goes on to say, “The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.”
The High Priestly Prayer is all about God’s purpose for us
I have just picked up a few ideas from the passage this morning
1. Prayer
The first idea that came to me was the importance of prayer in Jesus’ life - and as Christians we need to follow his example.
Jesus doesn’t speak of some sort of distant deity – but he uses the word Abba – which we might more colloquially translate as “Daddy” when speaking with God
And as his followers, Jesus encourages us to get to know his heavenly Father more.
As Christians, we can easily get sidetracked into “doing things for God ” rather than “spending time with God”.
You may recall the story of the two sisters Martha and Mary .
Martha was the busy sister doing things FOR Jesus and Mary was the sister who spent time WITH Jesus.
Who was commended by Jesus - Mary
2. Eternal Life
The second idea that came to me as I was preparing was that, in this prayer, Jesus reveals the whole rationale for his ministry here on earth.
And that was to give his disciples eternal life.
Jesus put it like this
"Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.
And how is that life achieved?
Jesus’ answer is simple – by knowing God the Father and Jesus his son.
As Jesus himself put it in Jn 14:6 – “no one comes to the Father except through me”
3. The simplicity of Jesus’ mission
The third idea that came to me was the simplicity (and concomitantly the absolute depth) of Jesus’ mission.
Jesus came simply to reveal his heavenly Father and himself to this disciples – and I am not just speaking here of the first Century disciples to whom Jesus was speaking – I am speaking of all his disciples down the centuries
In Jn 17:3 Jesus says this: And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn 17:3)
That is breath taking in its simplicity and depth.
We can KNOW God personally– that is have a relationship with him (Jn 17:3).
It’s not about us – it is all about HIM – God the Father and His Son Jesus
4. Changed lifestyles
And the final idea that I had was simply this
Being a Christian is all about changed lifestyle.
Jesus asks his heavenly Father to “sanctify them in the truth” (Jn 17:17)
The word “sanctify”, like the word “holy” comes from a Hebrew root meaning “separate”. (The Message of John” – Bruce Milne p.246)
We are called to live a different lifestyle, because we are called to live not only for God but in a close relationship with God.
When someone becomes a Christian, God’s Holy Spirit comes and lives in him.
And the Holy Spirit transforms that person from within. As St Paul tells us is:
22… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
For encountering God is a life changing experience.
Are we willing to allow God to change us because if you do it will make ALL THE DIFFERENCE
Let me leave yopu with a final thought
It was Jim Eliot, an American missionary who was killed on 8th January 1956 taking the Gospel to the Waodani people in Ecuador - once famously wrote in his diary on 28th October 1949:
“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep
To gain that which he cannot lose”
