If you’re like me, one of the most frustrating aspects of my spiritual life is my prayer life. I don’t ever feel like I am praying enough. I feel like my mind wanders too often in prayer. I feel like my prayers are too repetitive at times. I don’t know why my appetite for prayer isn’t higher than it is. I’m a pastor for goodness sake…why is this area of my spiritual life so frustrating?
If this describes you, let me quickly give you two principals that may be helpful. The first is a quote I read recently: There is nothing the flesh resists more than prayer. Our prideful flesh always wants us to believe that we have the resources to accomplish any task in front of us apart from God. The natural drift of our prideful hearts is towards self-sufficiency. Contrast that with the fact that prayer is an open acknowledgment of I CAN’T and that I need God’s help. And so I want to encourage you, that you are not alone, and that all long as we live in this flesh, there will always be a battle between the flesh and the spirit regarding prayer.
The second principle is this simple strategy that one of our pastors once suggested to me. If you want to pray more consistently, just take your worries and turn them into prayers. I have to DISCIPLINE my flesh for prayer…but I don’t have to work hard at worrying! It comes natural to all of us. And the things we worry about the most are things in the future. Regrets live in the rear view mirror…but worry is right there in front of us…can I get an Amen? And by turning your worries into prayers, many of your prayers are going to be future-oriented. Now, sometimes we may ask this question: If God is sovereign over the future, why even pray about it? Two reasons: 1) Scripture tells us to; 2) Jesus models it for us…and I happen to think those are two pretty good reason have our future bathed in prayer.
Turn with me to John 17 as we continue our Red Letter Prayers series by taking a second look at this chapter known as The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. Last week, we looked at the first part of The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus as Jesus prayed that he would be glorified with the sole motive of wanting to transfer that glory back onto the Father. We were also reminded that we are fully equipped to fulfill the Great Commission because Jesus is making intercession for us AND he has given us his Word to transform our hearts on the inside while we are engaged in Great Commission work on the outside. This week, we want finish out The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus by noticing that he’s praying, like we do, for things to happen in the future. And I don’t know about you, but this is rather fascinating to me and here’s why—Jesus is fully God, so he KNOWS the future…and yet he still prays for the things to come.
John 17:20-26
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just 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 have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
It’s clear from these verses, that Jesus is praying for future believers. And guess what? That means that he was praying for every believer in this room this morning. So if you ever wonder what Jesus would pray for on your behalf, wonder no more. If you wonder why it’s necessary to pray for the future (if God is sovereign), wonder no more.
In a future-bathed prayer, we pray for…
1. PEOPLE WHO HAVE YET TO BELIEVE – vs 20
I only want to spend a little bit of time here, because this is not the primary point of the passage. The primary point of the passage is about unity in verses 20-23 and the blessings of knowing Christ in verses 24-26. But, I don’t want you to completely gloss over this detail. At the beginning of verse 20, Jesus says, “I do not ask for these only…” That’s a reference back to verses 1-19 where he was praying for those who already are believers. But now he is praying that God would be glorified in the lives of the people who do not yet know God personally and experientially. I’m not gonna lie – this puzzled me for a minute. But as I looked close, what we see is that Jesus is praying that God would be glorified through the lives of people that were not yet Christians? In other words, God is still saving people and some of those non-Christians that he’s praying for will one day be Christians.
Sometimes I think there is a tendency to reduce our prayers for non-Christians down to only “Jesus save them.” And hear me clearly, evangelistic prayer is the most important (and probably least practiced) aspect of the Great Commission. Now listen – prayer takes the things that are on God’s heart and puts them on our hearts. And the thing that is on God’s heart is people. And when we spend time praying for people, we become more aware that we are to live our lives on mission. In fact, praying Great Commission, evangelistic prayers, should help guard us from being completely consumed with the stress of living in the here-and-now. And so we show faith, knowing that even in his sovereignty, he has somehow chosen to respond to believing prayer.
Listen to the first part of verse 20 again: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word…” There is a lot of debate about the mystery of election. But don’t get bogged down in the verses that aren’t clear to the point that you disregard the verses that are clear. Listen to 1 Timothy 2:3-6: "This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for ALL, which is the testimony given at the proper time."
2 Peter 3:9: "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance." To quote an old Bible professor, “All means all, that’s all all means.” So in praying for “those who would believe in me,” we see that we should align our prayer with God’s desire…and God’s desire is that ALL people would come to repentance and faith because Christ died for the sins of ALL men. His death was sufficient for all men, even though it is only efficient for those who believe.
So evangelistic prayer is both neglected and needed. But in the context of these verses, Jesus is not just praying for the future salvation of non-believers, he is praying that they would live in such a way that would glorify the Father. That’s why he is already praying for their unity as Christians before they even know Christ.
What this means is that is it completely appropriate to pray for the non-Christians in your circle of influence to live in such a way that glorifies Jesus…and we pray this for them even before they know Jesus. And here are two reasons why – 1) Jesus is modeling this here; 2) the purpose of our salvation is not simply to get us into heaven.
Think about this question – why did God save us? You see, if eternity spent in heaven was the sole purpose of our salvation, then once we were saved, God would immediately call us into his presence. Rather, the purpose of our salvation is to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ…so that we might bring glory to the Father.
This means praying for bosses who don’t know Jesus to love Jesus and to learn how to be a servant leader like Jesus. This means praying for non-Christian kids and grandkids to come to know Jesus, but also to meet and marry someone who loves Jesus and will partner with them to train their future kids to do the same. This means praying for children who are not old enough to understand salvation, not just to get saved, but that God would place them into a career where they work as a way to display his glory…and not just achieve money and status. We said that we don’t want to spend a lot of time here, but I also don’t want to gloss over the reality that praying for people who do not know Christ should not be less than praying for their salvation, but it certainly should be more. We pray not JUST that they would come to know Jesus, but that they would be changed by spending the rest of their life looking more and more like Christ…and thus bringing glory to the Father.
So that’s what our future-thinking prayers should look like. But like I said, that’s not the main thrust of this passage. The main point is not that he prays for people to BECOME believers, it’s what he THEN prays for on their behalf. The first thing that he prays for is that these future believers would NOT be actin’ a fool in church. If you think I’m teasing, look at verses 21-23: "that they may all be one, just 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 have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."
So the second future thing that Jesus prays for us is that….
2. WE WOULD GROW IN WISDOM AND HUMILITY – vs 21-23
I took a class in college about how to study the Bible. And one of the ways we learned to make observations within a passage is to look for something that gets repeated for the sake of emphasis. So when you go back and read this passage, you’ll notice that three times in three verses there is an appeal to unity. Verse 21, “that they all be one…” Verse 22, “that they may be one even as we are one.” Verse 23, “that they may become perfectly one…”
Clearly, unity is the moral will of God that Jesus desires for future believers. The moral will of God is revealed in the Word of God. And clearly, by repetition, we see that unity is the focus of this passage. Now my guess is that for those of you who have ever spent any amount of time reading and studying Scripture, you have read this passage before. Surely this is not the first time you have heard the importance of unity within the church. And so disunity – or the lack of unity – does not stem from a lack of understanding of the importance of unity. You don’t even have to be a Christian to know that people having conflict in a church is a bad thing.
And so we see Jesus praying for our unity…but in order to attain unity, let’s be reminded where our unity comes from. In fact, as a church that is spread out over several geographical locations, this is so important to understand. Our unity (both with each other and with believers all over the world) comes from a common salvation, a common purpose (to glorify God), and a common mission (to make disciples). A common salvation, a common purpose, and a common mission.
So why then is there still a lack of unity within Christ’s church? It’s because the issues that lead to disunity in a church are most often rooted in a lack of wisdom and a lack of humility. Disunity is not caused because we didn’t know that it was bad, and somehow it snuck up on us. It happens because of the habits and affections of our hearts are not in-line with what Jesus was actually praying for us in this passage.
While the text doesn’t say that Jesus specifically prayed for our pursuit of wisdom and humility, this passage does infer that Jesus desires these things for us in our pursuit of unity. In fact, let’s start with wisdom and let me give you some examples of how our lack of wisdom and discernment can lead to disunity:
When we lack wisdom, we lack the ability to…
• discern the difference between truth and tradition
• discern the difference between first, second, and third tier theological issues
• discern the difference between a preference and a conviction
• discern the difference between Biblical values and cultural values
• discern whether it is our faith or our politics that are driving our positions on issues
And so we seek wisdom – not as something to have in my spiritual arsenal that you don’t have, but rather as a God-supplied tool to live in fellowship with each other as Jesus prayed we would. We could call this searching after wisdom…or even better, cultivating a heart of wisdom. And this isn’t wisdom for the sake of knowledge. The Bible says that if we seek knowledge, we run the risk of getting “puffed up”…because knowledge, in and of itself, can lead to pride. But wisdom is when we have discernment to see issues through the eyes of Christ. And this is so important, because a lack of wisdom in any one of these areas can lead to incredible disunity in a local church.
And here’s something important to understand about wisdom…there’s an element of humility that comes with it.
Knowledge can lead to pride, while wisdom and discernment are wrapped in humility. And Christ-like humility says that sometimes I can’t see things clearly because my heart is working overtime to deceive me into believing something that is not true. And because this is true (Jer. 17:9), the natural drift of my deceitful and desperately wicked heart is that I want to be right, even at the expense of being reconciled. Let me repeat that. The natural drift of my sinful heart is to want to be right even at the expense of being reconciled. In other words, I’d rather live in disunity and be right.
Here’s what’s so fascinating to me – God has equipped each of us to do different things in the body of Christ. But because of our fallen condition, it’s really easy to get tunnel vision. For example, the people who love to worship God by singing hymns don’t understand why others don’t (and vice-versa). People who are obsessed with prophecy can’t understand why no one else is watching world events as closely as they are. The people who want to serve the poor cannot fathom why others aren’t as compassionate when Jesus spoke so clearly about ministry to the marginalized. And here’s my favorite – people who love pickles can’t understand why I’m so confident that there won’t be pickles in heaven (and the reason is because pickles are nothing more than cucumbers soaked in evil, Amen?). As a side note, and for the sake of unity, no pickles at the picnic tonight.
But do you see my point? Our gifts and experiences often lead to passions…and passions left unchecked can produce spiritual tunnel vision. And that tunnel vision (which can be a nice word for stubbornness) can be a source of disunity in the local church. So we need to be diligent to cultivate a heart of humility if we want to align our lives with Jesus’s prayer that his future church (US right here) would experience unity.
One of the things we noted last week is that there’s a danger of reading such a theological rich passage and missing the applicational aspects of what Jesus is praying for on our behalf. And so we want to equip you in your journey of cultivating a heart of humility by giving you some warning signs of pride…because remember, humility says that we count others more significant than ourselves (Philippians 2:3) while pride says I’m more interested in being right than living in living in reconciled, relational community.
So let me just list some warning signs of pride that often serves as the catalyst for conflict. This list is seven subtle signs of pride taken directly from an essay written by the Puritan author and theologian Jonathan Edwards:
1. Fault-Finding – While pride causes us to filter out the evil we see in ourselves, it also causes us to filter out God’s goodness in others. We sift them, letting only their faults fall into our perception of them.
2. A Harsh Spirit – Those who have the sickness of pride in their hearts speak of others’ actions with contempt, irritation, frustration, or judgment.
3. Superficiality – When pride lives in our hearts, we’re far more concerned with others’ perceptions of us than the reality of our hearts.
4. Defensiveness – Pride causes us to be knocked off balance and thrown into a defensive posture by challenge or rebuke.
5. Presumption Before God (lack of reverence) – Humility approaches God with humble assurance in Christ Jesus. If either the “humble” or the “assurance” are missing in that equation, our hearts very well might be infected with pride.
6. Desperation for Attention – Pride is hungry for attention, respect, and worship in all its forms.
7. Neglecting Others – Pride prefers some people over others. It honors those who the world deems worthy of honor, giving more weight to their words, their wants, and their needs. There’s a thrill that goes through me when people with “power” acknowledge me.
When I came across this list this week, I was like, “Really God? Couldn’t you just once let me preach on something that I’m good at?” Ouch. But here’s the good news – there is hope for prideful people like me. And confession puts me on the path to receive the grace I need to overcome the blinding pride in my life. Let me confess something else – pursuing wisdom, cultivating humility, confessing pride – this is all incredibly hard work on the heart level in my pursuit of unity. So what is the motivation to pursue this type of unity? The answer to this question is where the answer always is…in the text.
Why did Jesus pray for our unity? So that the world may believe that you have sent me (vs 21). Why did Jesus pray for our unity? So that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me (vs 23). Part the of the beauty of God saving people from every tribe and tongue and nation is that it would befuddle the world…that the world would sit back and say, “How in the world are those people united? How in the world are they singing together, working together, hanging out in one another’s houses? What is going on?”
Part of what OUR unity accomplishes is a witness to the world! As we continue to be unified AND DISPLAY that unity, the world will believe that Jesus has been sent by God to redeem them, and to love them. If you’re listening, smack your neighbor and tell them, “We’re almost done.” Part of our strategy to reach the world is our unity. If you want your unbelieving friends to be drawn to Christ, practice unity amongst yourselves. And we are in a season where there is so much disunity, there may never be a greater opportunity for Jesus to be showcased by the unity we display as Christians. In this cultural moment, unity may be the most powerful way we can demonstrate the gospel to give credibility when we declare the gospel.
And church, the one thing we cannot afford to be in this cultural moment when there is so much institutional distrust, is to be hypocrites. To paraphrase the Apostle Chris, this is no time to be actin’ a fool in church. And according to John 17, when we avoid disunity as the church, we are literally an answer to Jesus’ prayer. Let me close with the powerful reminder that is so simple that it is easy to forget. John 13:35: "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
