Believing in Jesus
March 10, 2013
John 17:6-10
Last week we began looking at the real Lord’s Prayer. It’s Jesus’ prayer on the night He was arrested. It’s found in John 17 and we looked at the first 5 verses, Jesus’ prayer to the God, the Father.
During that prayer, Jesus basically said, “the meaning of life is this: that you have a relationship with God, and me his Son, Jesus Christ.” And that’s the long and short of it! But, Jesus understood just how difficult it was going to be not only for his disciples but for all of us to come to this very simple realization in life.
We looked at just how simple this sounds on paper, yet how difficult it is when we try to put it into practice. Ultimately, it’s believing in Jesus, and seeking to live the life He offers us, a life filled with abundant living.
Today we’re going to start to look at the next section of His prayer. It’s the longest section. It’s 13 verses and it’s a prayer for Jesus’ disciples. I read over those verses a number of times in the past two weeks, and have broken them into 2 parts, one leading to the other. I want to read John 17:6-10, and we’ll take a look at what that means in our lives. As Jesus prayed to the Father, He said ~~
6 “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.
7 Now they know that everything You have given me comes from You.
8 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.
9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those You have given me, for they are Yours.
10 All I have is Yours, and all You have is mine. And glory has come to me through them.
I believe there is a common denominator in this passage. Let me ask you this ~ Have you ever wished you had more faith? Or maybe you’ve wondered if you even really have faith? Life hasn’t gone the way you think it should, and you start questioning your own belief in God. Maybe your prayers haven’t been answered the way you think they should. Your prayers, your wishes, your desires are good and noble and God honoring, but nothing, zippo, no answers the way you expect God to answer.
To one degree or another, we’ve all been down that path. The disciples had their issues, they struggled at understanding who Jesus was, what He was supposed to accomplish, how it would look, where they would fit in, and more.
So, Jesus prays for them. He prays in a way in which He affirms their faith. When you saw the screen, you saw certain words were in all CAPS. I believe those are the key words in this section. Look at these words Jesus used to describe the disciples ~
REVEALED
OBEYED
KNOW
ACCEPTED
KNEW WITH CERTAINTY
BELIEVED
Those are key words to describe the disciples and hopefully to describe us as well. Now, I want to look at a problem I think we’re having in our faith relationship with Christ, and a thought about how to possibly move us closer to Christ.
Let me share a short story by Edward Hays from his book, In Pursuit of the Great White Rabbit.
One day, a young disciple of Christ who wants to grow in his relationship with Jesus, visits a holy older Christian. The young man heard that this old man had never lost his first love for Christ over all the years.
The elderly man was sitting on the porch with his dog, relaxing as the sun was setting. The young man explained his problem ~
"Why is it, sir that most Christians eagerly chase after God during the first year or two after their conversion, but then fall into a complacent ritual of church once or twice a week and they end up not looking any different than the rest of the world who don’t believe? I have heard you are not like that. You are always striving to know Christ in deeper ways.
The old man smiled and replied, “Let me tell you a story: One day I was sitting here quietly in the sun with my dog. Suddenly a large white rabbit ran across in front of us. Well, my dog jumped up, and took off after that big rabbit. He chased the rabbit over the hills with a passion.
Soon, other dogs joined him, attracted by his barking. What a sight it was, as the pack of dogs ran barking across the creeks, up stony embankments and through thickets and thorns!
Gradually, however, one by one, the other dogs dropped out of the pursuit, discouraged by the course and frustrated by the chase. Only my dog continued to hotly pursue the white rabbit.
In that story, young man, lies the answer to your question.”
The young man sat in confused silence. Finally, he said, “Sir, I don’t understand. What is the connection between the rabbit chase and the quest for God?”
The wise older man explained, “You fail to understand, because you failed to ask the obvious question. Why didn’t the other dogs continue on the chase? And the answer to that question is that they had not seen the rabbit” — — —
He concluded, “unless you see your prey, the chase is just too difficult. You will lack the passion and determination necessary to perform all the hard work required.”
So, what’s the point? Sometimes I think we’re like those barking dogs, who have not seen the white rabbit. We get caught up and excited for a time, and then we hear the dog barking and we go out and bark and chase and get all excited, all passionate, but the fire, the spark, it dies. Because, we’ve never really seen the rabbit.
Oh, it doesn’t stop us from complaining about things we don’t like, but we don’t do anything about anything. It’s not just the church world, it’s home, it’s work, it’s the school. We may feel powerless, but we’re really not. So, we chase after the invisible white rabbit.
You see the disciples saw the rabbit. They saw Jesus. They spoke to Jesus, they ate with Jesus, they touched Jesus and they ate with Jesus. They intimately knew Him. They knew the King of kings and Lord of lords.
We think, ‘If I could only have that type of an encounter, it would change me for life.’ Would it? Really change you? You see, the disciples still didn’t understand Jesus. In some ways, they were totally clueless. Finally after the resurrection it sank in about who Jesus was.
We have history on our side, but what we don’t have is that experience. And sometimes I wonder if we’re looking in all the wrong places. Maybe we should stop trying to make Jesus into who we want Him to be, and allow Him to be who He is; and allow Him to shape us into the person He wants us to be.
Too many of us don’t have a real faith experience with Christ. We’re not open to His ways, only to our preconceived ways. We need to put away all of our preconditions of what that’s going to look like and simply allow Jesus to come into our lives. When we open ourselves up to the spiritual, and by that I mean Christ centered spiritual, not the worlds spiritual – – we start to meet Christ in new ways, which helps us continue in the chase.
Do you remember those puzzles which had pictures hidden within them? Sometimes, maybe always, that’s how we need to seek Christ. Remember in those puzzles we had to find all kinds of pictures. Sometimes they just drove you crazy trying to find those last couple of items.
Maybe that’s a clue for us. Maybe we need to look for the rabbit in the ordinary things of life. And when we do, I really think we’ll begin to see the rabbit more often, and when we see the rabbit and start our barking, then we will go in hot pursuit, and we will know what we are chasing.
Sometimes the extraordinary is masked as the ordinary; and what is ordinary is really what is extraordinary.
We tend to give up on the chase too quickly. Because unlike the disciples, we haven’t really met Jesus. Remember how Jesus described the disciples ~
OBEYED
KNOW
ACCEPTED
KNEW WITH CERTAINTY
BELIEVED
Faith was the bottom line for the disciples. Jesus knew this. That’s why He could pray this prayer to the Father. He knew the disciples got it, even when they didn’t get it. They believed in Jesus, they knew who He was, even when they didn’t. It’s a divine mystery, it’s mystical, it’s God. He’s above all, yet He’s in all. He’s so amazingly awesome.
The call, friends, is that we look to experience Jesus in whatever way works for us. Let me tell you, it’s not sticking your nose in the air, thinking you’re better than anyone else. It’s not holding grudges, it’s not bitterness and an unforgiving spirit and heart. It’s not isolating yourself, it’s not thinking you’ve made it on your own. It’s not sticking your hand in the sand.
Now let me tell you, for some it’s reading deep theology, for others it’s in art, or music, or in nature. For some it’s entertaining, or serving, or leading a group, for some it’s caring for others, for some it’s sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening. It’s reading the Bible, it’s talking / praying to God. It’s asking, requesting, demanding to experience God’s presence. It’s not seeking to hang out with other followers of Christ.
When I read these verses in John 17:6-10, I hear Jesus praying to the Father, for a group of guys who were totally lost on their own, yet were totally found by Christ.
Sounds a lot like us. Simple question to end our time together . . .
Do you see the rabbit? Are you the dog which is chasing the rabbit?
Or are you the dog who is just chasing? Running, but having no purpose.
