Jesus Prays for Our Oneness

Amen.

All right, well, we're in John 17 and we're wrapping up 20 through 26.

But let's talk for a minute about prayer.

How many of you love to pray?

So I thought, now don't be like that, you know, super Christian.

But a lot of us struggle with prayer, right?

If we're honest, praying isn't something we necessarily love to do.

We probably love to try and fix things in our own strength and might rather than pray and seek the Lord.

And then when we do pray, uh, how many of us go into it with like this confidence that the Lord is going to move, that the Lord is going to hear you and move?

Most of us probably pray something like this.

Um, all right, let's see if this works, right?

Let's I'm gonna go in, let's just see if this works.

Okay, uh, Daddy God, no, I'm joking.

If you one, if you do pray that way, the Lord does not hear you.

No, I'm joking.

There's grace, there's grace for daddy God prayers.

We love you, you're in a safe place.

Uh, you can pray those prayers here, just not from the stage.

But uh we go into it with probably not a lot of confidence, if we're honest.

Well, it's kind of like, hey, let's see if this works.

For most of us, it's kind of a Hail Mary.

Let's see if God's listening, let's see if he's not too busy, let's see if he's actually going to answer the prayer, and we're gonna try this out.

Well, that's not how prayer works, and that's definitely not how prayer works for Jesus.

If we if we look at the prayers of Jesus, we have to realize Jesus didn't go into these prayers with this kind of Hail Mary mindset.

Okay, let's just see if this works.

Father, I'm gonna got no other options but to just pray and see if this happens.

That's nowhere near the kind of posture that Jesus took when it came to prayer.

And if we read this passage in such a way of which we understand prayer, we might struggle to understand the effectiveness and the reality of the accomplishments of Christ's prayer for us.

Right?

What we want to look at is the efficacious nature of the prayers of Christ.

Efficacious just means effective.

How effective was Jesus' prayers?

Have you ever contemplated that?

Have you ever pondered?

How effective really is Jesus' prayers?

Well, they're insanely effective.

Or else he wouldn't have done them.

Right?

Imagine Jesus praying with such holy confidence in his Father of who he was praying to, that what he was praying was going to come to pass.

It says in the scriptures that if we doubt even one bit that this will not come to pass, that it actually negatively affects the outcome of our prayers.

Jesus never entered into prayer with doubt, disbelief, wonder, mystery.

He went into the Father and he prayed.

And so Jesus' prayers are efficacious in nature.

They accomplish what they set forth to do.

Let's look at this awesome example of the power and might and effectiveness of Jesus' prayers we find in Luke chapter 21.

Luke 21 · chapter mention

So they're in the upper room.

John 17, that we've been praying, uh, that we've been reading through Jesus' prayer.

This is happening in the other room.

This is another upper room experience just in a different gospel.

And he's addressing Simon, who we understand as Peter, Simon Peter.

He's addressing him in this situation.

Luke 21, 31 through 32, he says this, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail.

And then look at the confidence of Jesus' prayer.

And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.

What does Peter do in response to this?

Oh no, Jesus, I'll go to jail for you.

I'll go to I'll go to the sword, I'll die for you, whatever it is.

Simon's getting ready to put his confidence in his own strength, his confidence in his own bravery and courage.

And he says, Jesus, I'll I'll die for you.

Jesus says, Let me tell you this.

You won't.

In fact, you'll deny me three times before the rooster crows.

You'll abandon me.

But when you return, strengthen your brothers.

What does Peter come to be?

One of the most prominent disciples and apostles that we've known in church history.

He writes uh New Testament letters.

He he is uh leading the charge in the gospel ministry to the Jews.

Uh Peter becomes this strength and pillar of the New Testament church.

Now let me ask you this: was it because of Peter or was it because of Jesus' prayer?

It's because of Jesus' prayer.

That's how efficacious in nature Jesus' prayers is.

No, Simon, you don't understand.

You think you're strong, you think you're brave, you think you're courageous, you're weak and you're cowardice, and you're gonna deny me three times.

But I prayed for you.

So when we look at this John 17 prayer, we have to look through it through the lens of effectiveness of Jesus' prayers for us, and that they accomplish fully what he prays for, what he petitions the Father to have.

When we look at 20 through 23, what we see is this that Jesus prays for us to be one in him.

One in him.

So Jesus has just got done actually praying for his disciples.

Pastor Jordan did an awesome job last week talking about Jesus' prayer for the eleven, right?

There's 12 disciples, but we talked about how he includes in his prayer the son of perdition, Judas of Iscariot, who actually uh was according to the scriptures uh given over uh to his sin and hard heart and rebellion so that the scriptures might be fulfilled in Jesus' betrayal and ultimate crucifixion.

So the eleven were kept by the keeping power of God.

So, but now he's gonna turn his attention.

He's getting ready to go to the cross to face his uh subsequent suffering, death, burial, and resurrection.

But he turns his attention to this broadening reality of you and me.

He's praying for us.

He's praying for us here.

He says this to those who will believe in me through their word.

He's praying for us and all who would believe in what?

The apostolic message.

When he says their word, he's referring back to the apostles of which he just finished praying for and his followers.

There's this word, there's this gospel message, there's this apostolic proclamation that is made about who Jesus is and what he's accomplished for us so that we might have salvation in him and him alone.

And he's praying for all of those who will believe in their word.

This message about who Jesus is.

You see, the the crux of our religion, of Christianity, it is hinged upon faith in a word, faith in a statement, in a message that has been given to us.

The gospel itself is this good news proclamation, and it's been heralded throughout the ages, from the time of the apostles, and those who have come to know Christ have done what?

They've put their faith in that word.

That's what our whole faith and understanding about Christianity is about.

The righteousness that we have, the reconciliation with God that we have is only through one means faith in their word.

Their word, the apostolic message, his prayers for those who would believe in him through the message of the apostles that they would be one.

That they would be one.

Now, this oneness can seem to be really confusing to us, right?

We we picture this unity, we picture this functional unity within the church that we all just get along and everybody's uh really happy to be together, and there's no division or splintering or anything of that nature.

It's just oneness.

But this oneness that Jesus is praying about, first and foremost, supersedes human experience.

It's bigger than yours and mine interaction with one another or relationship that we have together.

It's more transcendent than that.

This oneness is a supernatural reality that is certainly accomplished through faith in Jesus.

But it's also a functional reality to be lived out in response to the supernatural one.

Here's what I mean by that.

The oneness comes through what?

Faith in the Word.

Jesus accomplishes the oneness of the church through faith and the gospel message.

It's a supernatural reality that is transcendent upon yours and mine human experience.

We don't dictate the oneness of the Church of Jesus Christ.

He dictates that.

And he has accomplished that through his suffering, death, and glorious resurrection.

What we are called to do is live in a functional oneness that responds to the truth of the supernatural one he has acquired for us.

You see, we are supposed to live this out.

We are supposed to actually function in this oneness reality, but our inability or ability to function well within it does not dictate how effective it is.

You see, Jesus brings us into the oneness he and the Father has through the saving faith that unites us to him.

In the New Testament writings, we find literally hundreds of references to believers' union with Christ.

We see this.

We see that believers are created in Christ, according to Ephesians 2.10.

We see that we are crucified with him, in accordance with Galatians 2.20.

We are buried with him, Colossians 2.12 says.

We are united with him in his resurrection, Romans 6.5, seated with him in the heavenly places, Ephesians 2.6.

Christ is formed in believers, according to Galatians 4.19.

He dwells in our hearts, Ephesians 3.17 says.

The church is the body of Christ, 1 Corinthians 6, 15 and 12.27.

Christ is in us, 2 Corinthians 13, 5.

We are in him, 1 Corinthians 1.30.

Church is one flesh with Christ, Ephesians 5, 31 and 32.

Believers gain Christ and are found in him, Philippians 3, 8 through 9.

The oneness is in Christ, not in yours and mine ability to live out the functional oneness that he's accomplished through his suffering, death, and resurrection.

It's faith in the message of what Christ has done and who he is that creates the oneness of the church.

Yo and mine's stiff-neckedness does not dictate the accomplishments of Christ.

You see, the oneness Jesus is praying for here in this passage is not some hoped-for reality.

When we talked about the efficacious nature of his prayers, Jesus wasn't saying, All right, Daddy God, let's see if this works.

It wasn't some hoped-for reality in the distant future.

It was something that was sure.

It was something that was accomplished through his finished work.

It's a certain and guaranteed accomplishment by grace through faith in him.

You see, the reality of salvation in Jesus and the reality of the church are in fact one and the same reality.

But we like to try to divide this with inside the church today.

Our salvation in Jesus and then the church as these two separate things that we get to choose and pick of how we function within them.

But that's a man-made fabrication of a weak and anemic theology that actually has no power for you.

Because your salvation in Christ and your oneness in the church are inseparable in their very nature.

You see, to be united to Christ is what it means to be saved.

And at the same time, to be united to Christ is what it means to be the church.

The church, after all, is the body and the bride of Christ.

Any distinction between a doctrine of salvation and a doctrine of the church can only be but artificial and out of step with God's word.

When we are united to Christ, we are united to his body, his body is the church.

You cannot have Jesus and not have the church.

You cannot say that you love him and then not love those of whom he also died for.

You see, when we are brought into Christ, we are brought in not only to reconciliation with him and the Father through Jesus' finished work, but we are brought into reconciliation with one another.

And we are also brought into reconciliation with the mission of God, of which he calls us into.

That you don't get to have this buffet theology where you pick and choose what Christ's work accomplishes in and through you.

You see, we are first and foremost one in a supernatural reality, and then expected to live out that reality functionally in our lives.

Why is this critical?

Why is this prayer Jesus is praying that we would be one, those who would believe in their word would be one, even as you and I are one.

He says this, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Jesus is going to say this a lot throughout this whole prayer.

And even if you look all the way back to John 14, he starts off talking to his disciples about he's going away and where he's going.

They cannot go, but surely he will come back for them.

Right?

And then he talks, they ask, Well, where are you going?

And he you kind of sense this frustration in the dialogue.

Do you not get it yet?

Do you not understand where I came from and where I'm going to?

I came from the Father.

The Father is the one who has sent me.

He really puts emphasis on this reality because it is about what we believe about him that dictates our salvation, our relationship with him.

It's not about what we do or how we act or how we behave.

It's about our faith.

Do we believe that he is who he says he is?

Do we believe the claims that he has made about himself?

Do we believe that he is the Messiah, the Savior, the Christ, Emmanuel, God with us?

Do we believe those things?

That's what dictates mine and your relationship with the Father, not how we act or behave.

And this is supposed to display for the world that message, that truth that the Father has sent me.

Our oneness is created through the Word.

We believe to show the world what we believe.

This oneness, even in its functional state in our lives, is both created by and for the purpose of the message of who Jesus is and what he has done for us.

So how is this oneness created?

Faith in the message.

Why is this oneness created?

Faith in the message.

It's all about are we putting our faith in the gospel message?

That Jesus is who he says he is, and that he's accomplished for us what he said he would do.

Jesus then reiterates his previous sentiments and desires.

So if we look through the rest of 20 through 23, he kind of reiterates himself.

He kind of doubles down on the oneness that he prays for, that just as you and I, Father, are one in one another, that they would be one in us.

But he adds something behind the purpose this time.

So the first time he says this in 20 and 21, he says, so that the world might know that you have sent me.

He repeats that at the end of 23, but he adds this statement as well.

And loved them as you loved me.

You hear that beautiful gospel truth?

God the Father loves you.

He loves you as he has loved Jesus, his own son.

The gospel message produces oneness in Jesus so that both the individual, you and I, and the world around them might know how much God loves us.

Imagine that love.

The Father, the God of all creation, eternally existing in glory and splendor and majesty, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, the God of all things.

Imagine with what love he loves his son.

Now stop disbelieving he loves you any less.

That's what Jesus' prayer was for.

So that the world may know that you love them as you have loved me.

In 24 through 26, Jesus prays for us to be one with him.

So if in 20 through 23 he prayed for us to be one in him, in 24 through 26, he's going to pray for us to be one with him.

This is about dwelling in his presence.

He says, 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.

Jesus' desires for us, for those whom the Father has given him, to be with him.

So we see this limited reality, this thing in this prayer that we just can't glance over, that the Father has given to Jesus those whom would be saved, and they are saved through Jesus' finished work.

His faithfulness is what saves them, is what accomplishes or purchases their salvation.

He's very effective at his work.

We kind of treat Jesus' work on the cross like we do our prayer life.

It's some hoped-for possible reality.

No, Jesus came and he purchased for himself a bride of those who the Father has given him.

And he is effective to that end.

But he's praying this, that they would be with him so that we would see his glory.

Anytime within the scriptures, there's this glory being revealed of God to man.

It's this reality of intimacy, of knowledge of him.

When God chooses to reveal his glory to man, it is so that man might know him more intimately.

This is what God did for Moses on Mount Sinai when he uh told Moses, I'm gonna have to hide you in the cleft, I'm gonna pass by you.

You're only gonna be able to see the back of me, basically.

And it was so that Moses might know and grow in the intimacy of the Lord.

When Jesus transfigured before some of his disciples, uh, and Moses and Elijah popped up next to him, and he was shining like this white brilliance around them.

Uh, what happened there?

He was letting them see parts of him that no one else had seen.

What does that mean?

That's intimacy.

Think about you and your spouse.

There should be aspects of you and your spouse's knowledge of one another that no one has ever seen before, right?

You've revealed yourself.

You see this action?

Yeah.

You have revealed yourself to your spouse so that intimacy might be fostered within one another.

That's when Jesus says, so that my glory might be seen to them, so that they might see my glory.

It's literally Jesus unveiling, revealing himself so that intimacy might be fostered within us in him.

That's what Jesus' desire is for his people.

To pull back the veil that we may see him, to know him.

So this is in this passage, this is an eschatological statement in nature.

When we say eschatological or eschatology, it really just means understanding of the in times.

When you study eschatology, you're studying the end times.

So this statement that they may see my glory, in some regard, is eschatological.

We won't see the fullness of the glory of the Lamb until we are caught up in glory with Him, right?

That when the fullness of the Lamb, when the fullness of Christ is revealed to us for all eternity to worship him and to declare him as holy, and to lay at his feet of his throne.

That's when the fullness of Christ will be revealed to us in glory.

But this is also a realized eschatology.

What that means is.

That we are stuck in this function of what we call the already, not yet.

And you and I get to taste morsels and crumbs of what is hoped for to come in the future.

And so we can and should grow in seeing the glory revealed to us of who Christ is and what he has done for us.

This is us growing in the gospel.

This is us understanding the beauty of what he has accomplished in his suffering, death, and resurrection.

This is us being able to look forward and see the Lamb who was slain, who conquers his foes with the sword that comes out of his mouth, that will defeat all of our enemies, that sin will be trampled underfoot, the dragon tossed into the lake of fire, there will be no more tears or sickness.

We get to see, taste, and know crumbs and morsels of that here and now.

So you and I get to grow in this realized eschatology, this intimacy of who Jesus is.

We don't just have to wait for something to come, we get to have it now.

This is why we pray for healing.

Yes, healing will be fully known and the atonement in glory, but we get to taste now sometimes.

God is so good.

I love that song that we sing.

Your goodness.

There's opportunity for us to taste and see what the Psalm says.

That He is good.

We sit down at His table and we eat.

And it's like honey on our lips.

It is the fattest of meat.

It is the fairest of feast?

Something, man, that was going good.

And then my whole mind just slipped.

But we get to taste the goodness of God.

And what that is, is that is his glory being shown and revealed to us that we might grow in intimacy with him.

So this is realized eschatology because Jesus says, I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known.

This is what he says in his prayers.

I have made known, I have revealed, I will continue to make known, I will continue to reveal.

And so we get to actually flow and function within this intimacy that Jesus desires to foster with us.

Why?

Because Jesus desires for us to be with him.

With him.

We are both with Jesus and we will be with Jesus.

As believers, we can practice the mystery of his presence here and now.

To be with him is not just a distant reality, but it's a true and present one, church.

But let's step back and focus in on what creates this oneness.

As we've been saying throughout this sermon, it is the message.

It is the message.

Here's what he says near the middle of this section.

He says, O righteous father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know what?

That you have sent me.

Do you understand that this is a theological matter at the core of it?

Who Jesus is, we you and you and I don't get to dictate.

We don't get to make up our own Jesus and worship him.

We don't get to fabricate out of our own imagination who the Jesus we want to serve and worship gets to be.

No, our job is to submit to the truth.

That's our responsibility.

And this is what Jesus was laboring over in his disciples.

No, you still don't get it.

I'm not the king that you think that I am.

I'm not gonna overthrow this oppressive power of Rome and restore physical, literal nation of Israel to its former glory.

That's not who I am.

You have to get it through your head who I am.

I'm not that, I'm this.

I'm the one the Father has sent.

I'm the Christ, the Messiah.

And all throughout the Old Testament, prophets, psalms and the uh uh law declares that I must come and suffer and die, but be raised again so that you might have right standing with the Father.

Our responsibility is not to fabricate who Jesus is, but to submit to who he has revealed himself to be.

Faith in the message creates the oneness of Jesus and his church.

This is the critical nature of doctrine and theology.

This is why the question isn't, are you a theologian?

The question is, are you even a good one?

All of us are theologians.

All of us think about God in different ways.

All of us try to understand about God in different ways.

But if we're honest with ourselves, there's a lot of our understanding about God that we just created out of good feelings and little sentiments and statements we've heard throughout our lives.

God only helps those who helps Himself.

Show me anywhere within the scriptures that that's a true statement.

You can't.

I'll just help you.

That's a big book you'll be digging through.

We have to submit to who he is.

So the question isn't, are we theologians?

The question is, are we good ones?

And when we are good ones, we will seek to have one end goal.

Submit to what is in this book.

It's through knowing that the love of the Father fills us, he concludes.

Look at the end of this prayer.

I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known.

What?

That the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.

Faith in the message allows us to be in Jesus and he in us, and subsequently for the Father's love to fill us, that we might love the Father, the Son, and one another.

This is the power of the transformative nature of the gospel.

You have no ability or desire to love God on your own.

You may love a God, but love the God of all creation you cannot do, nor do you desire to do in your own strength.

So what does God do?

He fills you so that he can love himself through you.

It is his power, it is his love that fills you so that your heart is both able and now desires to love him in return.

It is the spirit that indwells and fills you so that he can worship the Godhead through you.

He empowers your intimacy, he empowers your faith, he empowers your affections, he empowers your worship so that you might rightly position yourself with him in the way you were created to, to love and worship him for all your life and into eternity.

This is the power, the transformation that God has in his people through the vehicle of faith in the message.

So, what do we understand primarily this morning?

It's that the revelation of Jesus is displayed in the oneness of the church.

The revelation of Jesus is displayed in the oneness of the church.

Here's what I mean by that.

He says, so that they might be one, so that the world might know you have sent me.

So that knowledge of the world sending Jesus is the revelation of who he is, right?

Jesus came as incarnate.

When we're gonna ready to celebrate Advent, right?

Jesus coming and being a baby and being born in human flesh, the incarnational reality of Christ.

But Advent actually isn't looking back to baby Jesus, it's looking forward to warrior King Jesus who uh uh slays his foes, right?

That's who we're looking forward to come back again.

Uh but it's cool to look back at baby Jesus too.

The the songs are wonderful and the decorations and the lights.

Uh, but um who he is is supposed to be revealed, shown, displayed in the oneness of the church.

This is why theology is so critical.

Jesus is not saying they will know that you have sent me by the way that you love one another, by how kind and nice you are to strangers, by how uh hospitable you are to the outsider.

No, no, no, no.

It's faith in the message that creates the oneness, which puts on display for the world that the Father has sent the Son.

It's about theology, not about behavior.

Now, behavior is a natural implication of theology rightly believed, and we're gonna get into that.

But we often put the cart before the horse.

Jesus, the revelation of who he is, is displayed in the oneness of the church.

And so the oneness of the church is fundamentally theological.

Why is Jesus praying for the church to be one as he and the Father are one?

So that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, the church, even as you loved me.

Ultimately, it's to know.

It's to know.

It's knowledge, it's information, it's a word, it's a message.

To have who Jesus is and what he has done for us revealed, it's to know.

This oneness isn't rooted in the action of love, it is rooted in the knowledge of the one who loves us.

Our oneness is ultimately fixed in the message.

We don't have the freedom to believe whatever we want to about God and who he is.

We don't have the freedom to believe about Jesus whatever we want to.

That isn't up to us.

That's up to God.

Our job that this is the beauty of the Bible, right?

We don't serve a God who concealed himself in mystery and left us to speculation.

We don't just have to take our best guess at who we think God might be.

Well, I think he's this, or I think he's this.

Ultimately, what you're trying to do is create a God out of your own image and worship yourself.

What we have to do is realize that we serve a God who revealed himself, not concealed himself, so we're not left in speculation, we're left in wonder, in awe.

We're left in the beauty that he has what?

Unveiled himself to foster intimacy with you and I.

And how does he primarily do that?

It's through his word.

Our oneness is fixed in the message, not in what we do.

Yet we so easily lose sight of this truth.

And we are tempted to elevate other things to be what creates the oneness Jesus has accomplished for us.

You see, some of us, we believe our oneness is rooted in what we do.

We actually believe this, we function in this reality.

We believe our oneness is rooted in what we do.

Ultimately, this becomes a pursuit of self-righteousness, where we elevate what we do to obtain for us the salvation only Jesus offers.

We elevate the act of love over the message of Jesus.

And this is common within our society and culture today, and it's and it's flooded within the church.

The church got rid of the primary message of the kingdom.

What is the primary message of the kingdom?

Is it love or is it repent and believe?

The primary message of the kingdom is repent and believe.

It is not love.

John the Baptist made paved the way for the Lord.

He came out of the wilderness looking like a wild man, eating locusts and honey.

And when he came to proclaim the kingdom is at hand, he said this: repent and believe, because the axe is laid to the root of the tree, and anything that does not produce fruit is gonna get cut down.

That's the message of the kingdom.

Repent and believe, not love.

But we've elevated the act of love over the message of Jesus.

And the church has dropped repent and believe, and they've substituted it with just be nice and love one another.

And what's happened?

The world has adopted the message and they've taken it from us.

The world has adopted the message, taken it within, distorted it, and then pushed it back out into market.

So that now they get to define what love actually looks like instead of the scriptures.

And we have to submit to that because we actually believe in function and reality that our way we love one another dictates our salvation.

That's anti-gospel.

That's anti-Christ in its spirit because what you're saying is how you treat one another obtains the salvation that only Jesus offers through his death and resurrection.

That's self-righteousness.

God calls that filthy rags.

Unable to obtain or cure for yourself what you seek.

We have to remember, church, that love is the fruit, not the cause.

Love is the fruit, not the cause.

You see, we've been reading through Matthew with my family in the mornings, and uh we read through this very simple teaching that we've all probably heard if we've been in the church for any period of time, but we forget it so easily.

Jesus says this a tree produces its fruit.

A good tree produces good fruit.

A bad tree produces bad fruit.

He says this a good tree cannot produce bad fruit.

A bad tree cannot produce good fruit.

Here's what we believe in the church.

We believe the fruit makes the tree.

We believe the actions of what you and I facilitate within our lives produce whether the tree is good or bad.

What is that?

That's self-righteous, works-based salvation.

That has no power to save you whatsoever.

Jesus says, you'll know the tree by the fruits.

And often we get really confused because we see brothers and sisters within the church producing bad fruit and we wonder what's going on.

Jesus made it very clear.

The root's bad.

What's supposed to actually be producing the fruit isn't right.

This is evidence, it's not a creative power.

And so we have to get back to what Jesus taught us.

He has to make the tree good so that the fruit will be good.

How is the tree made good?

By repenting and believing in the message of which his apostles have proclaimed that he has been sent from the Father and that he suffered and died and occur for us the righteousness that we could not obtain in our own strength and might.

Love is the fruit, not the cause.

Any expression of love not flowing from faith in the message is a work of self-righteousness.

Our love for God and one another puts forth evidence to the world that we have believed in the message.

You see, the world's message is to love, God's message is repent and believe.

Love is a fruit of true faith.

It absolutely is.

If we look at the fruit of the Spirit, which, if you are Christian, should be produced within yourself.

Love is a fruit.

It is a necessary fruit if you claim to be a Christian.

Also, we can look at loving God and loving your neighbor.

The whole law can be summed up in just those two things.

It is actually the greatest command, it says of God.

We don't want to misplace love.

We don't want to dismiss love.

We just want to put it in its proper function within the life of the Christian and the church.

Let's not forget the first part of this command, though.

The first part of this command is to love God.

To love God and to love your neighbor fulfills the whole law.

We cannot truly love him if we have not known his son, whom he has sent.

That's what Jesus says.

He says, No one can know the Father unless they know me.

If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

You have to believe the Word of the Father.

What's the Word of the Father?

That He sent me.

You see, what we believe about Jesus, what we put our faith in about Him as Savior, God, and King, dictates if we can even ever truly love God.

We can't even fulfill these commands without theological understanding, knowledge, and faith first.

Who is Jesus?

He's the Son of the living God.

Who is Jesus?

He was sent by the Father.

Who is Jesus?

He lived a perfect life of obedience and righteousness unto the law.

Who is Jesus?

He suffered and died under the hand of Pontius Pilate.

Who is Jesus?

He was buried in a borrowed tomb.

Who is Jesus?

He rose on the third day, conquering death, hell, and the grave.

Who is Jesus?

He ascended to the right hand of the Father and he is seated there waiting for his return.

Who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus?

It is faith in that which actually enables and empowers us to be able to love God in the first place.

But we want to put love first, not faith first.

But the problem is the world can adopt that same message: loving first.

And they're failing at it.

Not only are they failing at it, but they're convincing the church that we have to actually love the way they believe love should look.

So they've taken something that's God's and they've hijacked it to make it their own, and then they distorted it and says, no, this is actually how it has to be.

Now you have to submit to it.

And if you don't, we are going to end you.

Man.

John 17 3 says this.

We read this already in the passage of the prayer.

And this is eternal life.

What is eternal life?

That they know you.

That they know you.

What?

The only true God.

And he reiterates it in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Eternal life is rooted not in action, but in knowledge.

Some of us, though, we believe our oneness is rooted in non-essentials.

We believe our oneness is rooted in non-essentials.

Ultimately, inside the church, what this tries to accomplish is tribalism, if we're really honest.

We try to create tribalism where we gather around this homogenous group of people who think exactly like we do about matters that really aren't essential.

We can take this to all kinds of different extremes.

It could be style of music, the way we dress, what kind of uh uh uh uh translation of the Bible that we use, uh, whether you're in a um a home, which is for some reason a house church, is not like an institutional church that has the four walls.

I'm like, you understand homes have four walls.

I've never understood that, but nonetheless, that's redundant rabbit trail.

Uh we get on these non-essentials and we try to fabricate a man-made oneness where ultimately all we're trying to do is establish tribalism.

We want to fabricate a oneness that extends beyond the oneness Jesus has secured for us.

We make matters of doctrine, church style, culture, all distinct necessities of the oneness that we ourselves are manufacturing.

And so ultimately what we do is we do harm to the testimony of Jesus, to the world, when we elevate non-essentials to the place of essentials.

We talked about this a couple weeks ago.

How would we understand essentials versus non-essentials?

Maybe an easy sifting question for you to ask yourself is would you die for that?

Right?

Would you die for that?

Brother, I ain't gonna die for whether we have electric instruments or not.

Like, you put a gun to my head, all right, deny the Les Paul.

All right, it's gone.

I don't even know it existed.

Let's let me go home, right?

Deny that women can wear pants.

That's cool, that's fine.

I don't care.

I'm going home.

Deny Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Nope, baby, I'll see you in glory.

Right?

What will we die over?

These are these essential things.

But oftentimes we create this tribalism, this division, and we're really trying to create manufactured oneness that has no depth to it at all by making non-essentials essential matters, these distinct necessities for us to understand what oneness actually looks like.

But what have we done?

We've created so much division.

I love theology, I love reform theology, I love the doctrines of grace.

But you know what?

A brother who doesn't, I'm not gonna divide over that.

That's foolishness.

I'm not gonna divide over those things.

Look at the thief on the cross.

What did he know?

You're coming into your kingdom.

I want to be there.

That's all he knew.

That's all he confessed.

Now, that's there's there's so much theology packed into that statement.

We have to understand, right?

There's so much theology.

This dude's dying on a cross, looking at another dude dying on a cross.

When you come into your kingdom, remember me.

Today you're gonna be.

Me in paradise.

The simplicity of that theological statement is so uh uh complex at the same time.

But we don't need to be dividing over these things that are non-essentials, we don't need to put so much effort in creating tribes any longer.

You and I need to put energy and effort into actually functioning in the oneness Jesus has accomplished for us.

I'm not saying there aren't times and reasons to divide.

I'll divide.

I have a history of dividing.

In fact, uh I was at a pastor's lunch this last week, and uh this uh guy, he's a private small, he's a business owner in the city, and he tries to get all these pastors together once every six weeks.

And I was super hesitant to come because I have a really hard time making friends, especially with other pastors.

And um I'm getting better at it, and I told him that when we were leaving.

He was like, Man, it's been really good having you a part of these lunches.

I'm like, thank goodness.

I said I don't push back, I try not to speak because in the past I just have had a really hard time making friends.

But I like to fight, I like to debate, I like to argue, right?

Uh uh this is just a part of my nature, which I am learning to put under the discipline of the Holy Spirit and fight when I need to, not fight all the time.

Not everything's a fight.

I have put, unfortunately, more time in creating division than oneness.

I have fostered division more than I have fostered unity in my ministry.

And I hate that.

I don't want to do that anymore.

I want to be confident in who we are and what we believe.

I want to stand firm on our distinctives of theology.

I want us to be very aware of who we are, but not hold everything in this white-knuckled tight fist.

I want to be able to walk with a little bit more of an open hand and say, hey, brother, these aren't essentials.

We might not see eye to eye on certain things, but you're a brother and we are one in Christ.

That's the posture I want us to take more as the church.

Now, I want us to be able to call out heresy.

I want us to be able to call out anti-gospel uh uh messages, I want us to call out when the church is trying to become friends with the world, I want us to call out all of those things.

But there's a lot of the time where we're fighting over non-essentials, but it's just because our tribe has made that thing an essential, if we're honest.

Our tribe made that essential, so we made it an essential, and we're willing to fight over it.

I don't want to do that.

I don't want to do that.

Maybe one day we'll come in here and we won't even have instruments.

How many would love to hear Pastor Jordan sing an a cappella version of no, nah.

Rick's like, nah.

I would love it.

You have such a smooth voice.

I would just love that.

But often, if we're honest, we do harm in the testimony of Jesus to the world.

Why was our oneness created so that the world may know, knowledge, that you have sent me?

In our pursuits, we make the oneness of Jesus look more like a division than we do a unity.

But the beauty of the gospel for us is that Jesus was sent by the Father to secure one church.

Jesus was sent.

He was sent by the Father to secure, to guarantee, to purchase one church.

He was sent.

This is the message for us to believe.

The message stressed throughout the whole Gospel of John and reiterated time and time again in this single prayer.

He was sent.

He is Emmanuel, he is God with us, he is the promised one of old.

When God said in Genesis 3:15, woman, I tell you this, that our serpent, I tell you this, the woman is gonna produce a seed and you will bruise his heel, but he will crush your head.

Genesis 3:15

This is the Messiah that God Himself was declaring.

The first gospel, the proto-evangelion, that there was gonna be a head crusher who would come.

And then he told Abraham, Abraham, you pagan idol worshiping uh fool, I'm gonna bring you out of all that idolatry, and I'm gonna make you my own person, and through you I'm gonna make my people, and I'm a seed is gonna come forth from you, and he is gonna be the Messiah, the savior of the world.

When he spoke to Mary, Mary, you're a virgin, you're betrothed to be married.

But guess what?

I'm gonna put a baby inside of you.

The sent one, the son is gonna come.

Jesus is that one, he has been sent, sent by the Father.

This is for us to believe.

It's the advent of the Messiah, the Christ, the only Son of God.

And it is in this sending that He comes to secure one church.

And how does he secure it?

Through his sinless life, his substitutionary death, and his glorious resurrection.

Guess what?

His prayers are efficacious in nature, but his finished work is also efficacious in nature.

Christ did not finish that work for some hoped-for distant possibility.

When he said it is a finished, he meant that everything that you sent me to do has been accomplished, has been uh purchased, and has been secured through the spilling of my blood.

Ephesians 4, 4 through 5 says this there is one body and one spirit.

Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

There is only one, one church, because ultimately there is only one Savior.

That church is saved by and united to Jesus through faith and the message that the Father has sent him.

Our oneness is more real and sure than any amount of action would be able to ever communicate.

The oneness that we experience with him and with one another isn't rooted in us, in our actions and behaviors.

It is rooted in him.

So, church, we are one.

Whether we act like it or not, we are one.

It's like a marriage.

You might act like you're not married, but you're married.

It doesn't negate the covenant that you've made with one another.

Christ made a covenant with us.

That covenant was ratified by his blood.

There is nothing that can break that covenant, no matter how foolish you and I want to act, no matter how much we want to allow our sin to create and foster more division than it does unity.

No matter what our experiences are inside of this human existence within the church, our oneness is more real.

Why?

Because it's not about us.

Jesus prays effective prayers.

So what can we do?

First thing is this we can practice the oneness of his presence.

Jesus wants to be with us.

Jesus wants us to be with him.

We need to be practicing the oneness of his presence.

Yes, through prayer, through reading of his word, through gathering with his people to worship, all of these disciplines are real realities for us to practice the oneness of his presence.

But let me kind of caveat it with this reality.

Do you believe that the presence of Jesus can be with you?

Many times we approach these disciplines within our life as just something that we have to check off so that everybody, including ourselves, understands that we're Christians.

God will love me.

Do you believe that when you're entering into that time of prayer, Jesus' presence is going to be with you?

Do you believe when you open his word that his presence is going to be with you?

When you believe you step into this building to worship with the church gather, that his presence will be with us?

Man, I remember times within my uh charismatic Pentecostal days that the presence of God would be so thick that it was almost unable to stand under.

And you know what?

The only thing different between us, us reformed fuddy duds, and um and the charismatic church that I came out of, they believed when they gathered to sing those songs that the presence was gonna fill that room.

That's really the only difference.

The expectation.

The expectation of what?

That Jesus was gonna do what he said he was gonna do.

You see, Jesus' presence actually desires to be with us.

He desires us to be in his presence.

Do we operate in our lives to that truth and reality?

I want us to think through that.

When we're singing these next three songs, are you singing to some God way off in the distance that hopefully we sing loud enough to where the reverberation and echo of our hymns reach his ears?

Or are we singing to a God who is with us, who's here, who's filling us and filling this place with his presence.

Number two, we have to live in functional oneness.

Live in functional oneness.

Ask yourself about your life.

How much does your life reflect the oneness that Jesus prayed for?

The oneness with him, but also the oneness with his church.

We cannot be dismembered from the church.

There is no theology of salvation without a theology of your unity with his body also.

Do we live in a functional oneness or do we live in a functional disunity, dismemberment, fracturism?

We really have to kind of contemplate those things and ask ourselves, how much are you living out this functional oneness?

Because it's not creating the oneness, it's responding to the oneness that Jesus has already created.

That's all of our lives.

Our lives is not creating righteousness, our lives are responding to the righteousness that Jesus gives us.

Our lives are not creating a reconciliation with the Father.

Our lives are responding to the reconciliation of the Father that Jesus has accomplished for us.

Is our life living in response to the reality that Jesus has made us one with Him and with one another?

When you look at your brothers and sisters in this room, do you count them as brothers and sisters or people that you really wish went to a different church?

Or maybe people you don't really want to get to know, or people you don't really want to be vulnerable around, or people that you really don't want to have know you.

You see, we are so intimate.

The Godhead, the Godhead is so intimate that there's almost, almost no distinction.

They are in one another.

Jesus in the Father, the Father in Jesus.

Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

I'm the exact imprint and radiance of his glory.

I'm the image of the invisible God.

This is the almost indistinguishable reality.

But yet they are distinct in persons.

We believe one God in three persons.

I don't need to go through Trinitarianism, but we believe that.

But they're almost indistinguishable.

That's our relationship with Jesus, how it should be.

That's how it should be with one another.

We should be so one with one another.

That I know you and you know me.

I know your failures, your shortcomings, and you know mine.

I'm not here to be some rock star pastor.

I'm not even that good.

I'm here to be a Christian who labors with you, who loves you, who serves you, who's known by you.

We have to live in functional oneness.

Lastly, let our oneness be a witness.

The so that statement of Jesus is so critical to this prayer.

Father, let them be one, as you and I are one.

So that the world may know you've sent me and that you love them the way that you've loved me.

Our oneness has to be a testimony to the world.

That's where that functional reality of the oneness happens.

The world's not gonna be able to look in and see the theological, supernatural reality of our oneness.

They're blinded to the truth of the word, they're blinded to the truth of the gospel.

What they are gonna be able to see is how you and I live.

What they are gonna be able to see is how we treat one another.

What they are gonna be able to see is our efforts of functionally living out the oneness.

And that should be a testimony to the world that God has sent his son and that he loves us the same way that he loved him.

So, church, let us practice the oneness of his presence.

Let us live in functional oneness and let our oneness be a witness.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray.