The Real Lord’s Prayer
John 17:20-26
March 24, 2013
They say no 2 snowflakes are alike. They’re all unique. So, just think about it, with all of the snow we’re supposed to get, 6"-10"worth — — all of the snowflakes beautifully falling to the ground, will all be unique. That’s great news for the first Sunday of Spring.
And I’m sure you know that those delicate swirls, ridges, and patterns that lie at the tips of our fingers are also unique. Which is why they have long been recognized as a form of personal identification.
As far back as the reign of the great Babylonian King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE), those arrested for crimes were fingerprinted. In China as early as 246 BCE, fingerprints were used to “sign” legal contracts. In 1788 a German anatomist, Johann Christoph Andreas Mayer, proved and published that fingerprints are unique to each individual. And by the middle of the 19th century, data banks of fingerprints were being collected all over the world for identification purposes.
Ever watch CSI? Or any crime show, and you know we have super computers which can run at breakneck speed through millions of fingerprints in order to catch the bad guys or exonerate the good guys.
Science has revealed other ways we are unique. Our DNA is our own. Each cell in our body is genetically coded just for us. High tech gadgetry has made it possible for us to now open doors just by looking at them. Okay, more accurately just by looking through a retinal scanner, because the shape, diameter, and surface bumps of your eyes are totally unique to you.
God made us in so many ways totally different from one another. Yet as Jesus prays to the Father, He closes by praying for “oneness” among all those who follow Him as His disciples. Does this mean Jesus prays for us all to be the same? To be a body of “same believers?” Is this a call for “cloned Christians with the same faith, looks and mannerisms?” Is every follower of Jesus expected to keep the same pace, have the same stride, move to the same rhythm?
This week we’re ending our 4 week journey through what we are calling The Real Lord’s Prayer. Jesus has prayed for Himself, the disciples and in this final section, He’s praying for those who were yet to come, that’s you and me. So, let’s take a look at the final 7 verses of Jesus’ prayer ~
20 “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 prayed for “oneness” He wasn’t just looking at 11 individuals, but He was talking to 11 men who had come together. A group of men who had struggles, but were called to be one body. But this prayer wasn’t just for them, it was for those who would come to faith because of the words and witness of those first disciples. And Jesus was praying for future Christ followers — until the end of time.
Jesus had already prayed for the unity of the disciples. He prayed ~ 11 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. This was no easy task, and Jesus knew it!
We sometimes forget the disciples had their issues. In that original group there were incredible tensions. For example, in Matthew 20:20, with James and John at her side, their mother fell to her knees and asked Jesus to place her boys at His right and left hand in heaven. This led the disciples to become very angry which created tension, with James and John, and probably their mother.
Earlier on that last evening, during the Passover supper, in Luke 22:24, the disciples were having an argument over which one of them would be the greatest. That would have been fun to listen to.
There were probably other tensions as well, since in that group, there was Matthew the tax collector, a Jew who had sold out to Rome and Simon Peter the Zealot who had pledged to kill people like Matthew. No wonder Jesus prayed for that original eleven, "Lord, protect them from the evil one, and themselves, and make them one."
Jesus asked God to give us unity. I sense that to mean unity is not our normal way to live life. We’re all different, we all have different likes and dislikes. It’s not easy to humble ourselves for the sake of the whole group. We want our way, our method, our decision. So, to get a group of people together and ask them to become ONE is difficult. But Jesus, and you’ve got to love this part . . . He just does not want us to be one, that’s tough enough, but Jesus is going big time on us, He wants us to be ONE just as He and the Father are ONE. In fact He wants us to have complete unity (Verses 22-23).
We need to receive unity not just from our hard work, but from God’s Spirit. Unity can never be organized by the church it must be powered by the Spirit.
The pattern for the unity of believers is unlike anything else on earth. It’s nothing less than the unity of the Father and Son. It is not merely a unity of an organization, it’s not just a feeling; it’s not just agreeing with a mission statement or by-laws.
It’s about what Jesus said in verse 21 and 23 ~ 21 May they also be in us. 23 I in them and You in me. You see, it occurs when we are in Jesus and He is in us. It’s that great verse from John 15:5 ~ I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If we aren’t in Christ, we can’t do much, and that includes being a unified body.
You see, it’s not about the music, what we wear, or what Bible version we use. It’s about a common, shared belief in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. If we can’t do that we will be totally ineffectual. We will have no power, no giftedness, no strength. We will have nothing and be nothing. That’s not what the church is supposed to be.
So, we come together as a group of very different people, because we’re drawn to a common center, Jesus Christ. It’s the Spirit of God which empowers us to do more than we’ve ever imagined. We do it individually, but we’re so much more powerful, when we do it as a unified body, striving to accomplish the same goal.
The impact of a unified church is that the world believes God the Father sent Christ the Son. When the world sees the visible unity of believers they will see Jesus. The sight of united disciples will convince the world of the truth of Jesus’ message and mission. John 13:35 says: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
We live in a world of disunity. We find disunity everywhere from our homes, our families, our work places, in local, state and national government, etc. and in the church as well.
Some believe if we could just get a united theology we would compel the world to believe. But united theology was never promised to compel the world to believe. Human eloquence will not compel the world to believe, the size of our churches will never compel the world to believe. No denominational program, or slogan or goal will compel the world to believe.
One thing which will compel the world to believe . . . a supernatural oneness in the family of God, through the Spirit of God.
A truly unified community of people is a supernatural fact that must have a supernatural cause. The world is so disunited that a perfectly unified church compels the world to confess that God is at work among us. On the other hand, a disunited church reverses all the work of Christ and renders our witness to Him powerless.
The unleashed power of Jesus Christ can impact our world in this way. Do we take this gift of unity seriously at First Baptist Church? Just because it’s a gift doesn’t mean we’re to be passive. We should always be ready to act on God’s call
This must be a primary event within the church, because when you think about it, it was the last thing Jesus prayed about before His arrest. So the church being one is important.
Where do I do it? . . . Inside the church and outside the church. In the church, we must act as a unifying personality, seeking common ground, seeking to be a unifier. The blunt truth about any church is that there may be dozens of opinions at any one time about the dozens of things the church is trying to do. But every believer must make a decision to be a unifier in the midst of God’s people . . . or they give satan an opportunity to bring division.
It’s like a box of crayons – the crayons are different in color … different in use … but they all go back into the box together.
As Christians, we may be like different colors … different experiences, different worship styles, different approaches, etc. Some are newer and some are older … some are spiritually more experienced than others … some are new in the faith. The paper wrapper is peeling off of some crayons: like some believers show the evidence of suffering and pain and others are young in the faith with all the paper still in tact.
Yet, with all the differences … all of the crayons fit right back into the box. We can see they are all together and unified in their task of being crayons.
The need for this kind of unity is not only needed "in" the church but also "outside" the church. Do you realize that every Sunday, all over our area, there are people at home because on Monday morning they’ve heard Christians go to offices, plants and stores and criticize their church and other believers, and it’s made them cynical and has deafened their ears to hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wherever we go outside the walls of this church, when people know we are Christ followers, they will look at us and watch us. What will we show them about Jesus by the way we live our lives. My hope and prayer is that we show them our fingerprints, they see the real you, the real me, and in that process of seeing who we uniquely are, they see the cross.
