"Still In The World"

John 17:6-19

“Still in the World”

By Rev. Ken Sauer,

Parkview UMC

Newport News, VA

www.parkview-umc.org

In our Gospel Lesson for this morning we find Jesus praying.

And in this prayer Jesus prays for Himself, He prays for His disciples and He prays for all believers.

After this prayer Jesus was going straight out to be betrayed.

Then would come the trial and the Cross.

Jesus wasn’t going to speak to His disciples again until after He was Resurrected.

Early on in this prayer Jesus gives us a short bio on what He has done.

He says to God: “I have revealed you.”

Which means that through Jesus we are able to see what God is like.

Remember in John 14:9 where Jesus proclaims: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”?

In Jesus Christ we see the mind, the character and the heart of God!

And what a tremendous difference this makes in the lives of those who believe.

Because this world can be extremely scary, angry and mean.

Life can appear to be so terribly meaningless, and so terribly cruel and non-comforting!

What is the point of it all?

Well, in Jesus Christ this life does have a point.

In Jesus Christ this life does have meaning…

…supreme and glorious meaning…

…because in Jesus Christ it has been revealed to us that the God Who is in control of all things…

…the God Who is living and active…

…the God Who created us is Love and Loves us more than we can even begin to imagine!!!!

The more we come to know what Jesus is like, the more we come to know what God is like…

…For Jesus and God are One!

Jesus is our Bridge over these Troubled Waters…

…He brings life meaning, happiness and joy!!!

People in primitive societies have in the past and in some places still do believe in a whole horde of many gods.

Every tree, brook, hill, mountain, river and stone has its gods and its spirit; and all these spirits are hostile to people.

People in these primitive societies have been and still are haunted by their many gods.

They live in perpetual fear of making one of them mad at them.

Missionaries have reported that it’s almost impossible to understand or to convey the sheer wave of relief that washes over these folks when they discover that there is only One God and that this One God is not some stern and cruel deity Who is looking to do them in…

…No. It’s just the opposite really…

…this One God is Love!!!

Now, to those of us who have a relationship with God…

…we already know these things, but we could never have known what God is like if it hadn’t been for Jesus coming and telling us and showing us!!!

In Psalm 20:7, the psalmist declares: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”

And the name of the Lord our God is Jesus Christ!

In this world, where we are surrounded by materialism it can become so easy to blindly trust only in what our money can buy.

But money runs out does it not?

And the things we can buy with money—these things are not eternal.

If we live only for material wealth…

…if we live only for fleeting pleasures…

…if we work only for those things which perish with use…

…we will one day wake up with a terrible hang-over and a truly sick feeling that this life is very hollow…

…devoid of true meaning, real love and security.

If we live our lives trying to keep up with the Jones’…

…not only will we never feel that we have truly succeeded…

…but we will also live lives which are filled with bitterness, envy, anxiety and desolation.

But, if we trust in Jesus, we will find the Way, the Truth and the Life.

We will know more joy than we could have ever imagined!

In this passage of Scripture for this morning Jesus is praying for His disciples, and disciples are essentially people who have realized that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, that in Jesus’ Words we can hear God’s voice, in Jesus’ deeds we can see God in action…

…and in Jesus we have placed our trust and our obedience!

Disciples are those who accept Jesus Christ as the Master of their lives and this is something that has been destined for all of us!

In His prayer Jesus prays to God the Father: “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world.”

In God’s plan the disciples were destined for discipleship, but that doesn’t mean that God destined some people to be disciples and some to refuse to be disciples.