That The World May believe | John - Prepared | Neil Crouse | October 4, 2026

And now, everyone, please stand as one of our elders comes to read today's scripture from the book of John.

Good morning, everybody.

Our scripture reading today is at the very end of John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

I'm going to start at verse 20.

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may 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've sent me.

The glory that you've given me, I've given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfectly one, so the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me.

Father, I desire that they also, whom you've given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory that you've given me, because you've loved me before the foundation of the world.

O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

I've 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.

This is the word of the Lord, and may he add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his holy word.

You can have a seat.

Thank you, Vince.

Appreciate you reading that for us.

Welcome to Forward Church.

We're glad that you are here today.

We have been walking verse by verse since January through the Gospel of John.

And Vince just read the end of John chapter 17, which is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus.

John 17 · chapter mention

So Jesus is praying, and um, he has been focusing on his disciples that are with him, and he's also now at the end of the prayer transitioning to pray for us.

So Jesus and his 11 disciples are following him.

At this point, remember, Judas has gone away to betray Jesus.

So it's just the eleven disciples left with him.

They've left the upper room, they're walking towards the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus is continuing to teach them, and then he begins to say this prayer over them.

And I believe this prayer would have stuck in their minds because there are some of the final words of Jesus right here.

And um, these men would have remembered his final words just before he had been arrested, because pretty soon they would all be recalling those final moments that they had had with Jesus, and they would be remembering how he washed their feet.

They would remember how he took bread and the wine, and he broke the bread and said, This is my body, and he drank the wine and said, Take this cup and remember my blood.

And he established communion with them in that upper room.

And that wouldn't make sense to them completely at the time, but later it would make sense after his death, burial, and resurrection.

But they would also remember this prayer over them as they headed to the Garden of Gethsemane, because that's what happens when someone we love dies.

We remember those final moments that we had with them.

We recall the final words that they spoke, and the disciples would have remembered vividly what Jesus had prayed over them.

You know, I still remember my last conversation I had with my dad before he passed, and I treasure that moment because we remember those moments right before losing a loved one.

And in this passage, we're getting a look into the final words of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

And these words should be etched into all of our memories.

We should know John chapter 17 really well because it's the last words of Jesus, the last prayer of Jesus.

John 17 · chapter mention

Sure, he'll say some more words on the cross, but this is his teaching and his prayer over the disciples.

So Jesus started this prayer focusing on his relationship to God the Father.

We looked at that a couple weeks ago.

Then he transitioned to praying for his eleven disciples, and we looked at that last week.

We talked about how those words of prayer, they um apply generally to us today.

They were for his 11 disciples, but they apply generally to us.

And then now, as we get to these final seven verses of the prayer, they are for every single believer throughout the ages.

So these apply specifically to us.

We look at verse 20, he says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

So Jesus makes the transition from his focus on the eleven disciples.

He says, I'm not praying for these only, meaning these 11 disciples, these 11 men standing with me in this prayer circle, I'm not just praying for them, but also for those who will believe.

And he then applies his prayer to us.

You see, Jesus will be sending his disciples to reach the world with the gospel.

And we know that some of them write down the scripture, they're inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, and they write books of the Bible, and it is really not their words, but it's God's word being spoken through the disciples as they are carried by the Holy Spirit to write down what he had said.

So as we study through the Gospel of John, it's a prime example.

We know that John was written by John, the disciple of Jesus.

You go to the Gospel of Matthew, it was written by his disciple Matthew, the former tax collector.

Mark is believed to have been written by John Mark, as the disciple Peter narrated and gave him the words to put on paper.

And then the other disciples, they would go on to preach the word.

They would start churches and start this movement that would spread the gospel throughout the world.

So these disciples, they basically had no clue how Jesus was about to use them.

They didn't realize that they were going to be world changers because they would share the words of Jesus and that would grow continually throughout time.

You know, there are now more Christians in the world today than there were even people in the day of Jesus.

The latest statistics claim that there are 2.5 billion Christians in the world, which is incredible.

And that all began with 11 disciples beginning to preach the word and share the truth and share the words of Jesus.

And this prayer of Jesus applies to every single one of us.

Now, I know we could argue that many of those 2.5 billion people that claim Christianity might not be true Christians.

Maybe they're just professing with their lips, but not truly surrendered and following God.

So we really don't know how many Christians there are in the world today.

But the point is that throughout the generations, throughout the years, God's word has spread, beginning with the words of Jesus, and then through his 11 disciples that he prayed with, and now through us.

You see, we are here at Forward Church today because some disciple of Jesus shared the gospel with us.

I'm standing up here on the platform preaching the very word of God because a disciple of Jesus discipled me.

You're here because someone cares about you and has discipled you, or maybe you haven't received Christ as your Savior yet.

Someone invited you so that you could become a disciple of Jesus and begin sharing the good news about Jesus.

And the good news is the story, the truth of God's grace through his son Jesus and his death, burial, and resurrection on our behalf that we might be saved.

And I know you might be sitting there thinking that you sharing the gospel of Jesus in your limited circle of influence, how could that possibly make a big difference in the world?

Well, we go back to this and we say those eleven probably thought the same thing.

This is overwhelming.

How are we going to share the good news with everybody?

Well, it's one person at a time.

They began sharing the word of Jesus, and now two and a half billion people on the planet claim Christianity.

I know you're probably saying, yeah, but you don't know me.

I'm kind of shy.

I don't know.

I can't, I can't really share the gospel.

But God is calling you to, within your circle of influence, to share the gospel with the people he puts in your life so that his word can continue to expand.

And if you still doubt, I want you to listen to this one example.

I think I got all the facts right.

I wrote it down so that I could get it right.

But um, this this is an example of how the word of God can work through a simple ordinary person and then impact millions without that person ever even knowing it.

So in 1856, there was a man named Edward Kimball.

He was just a regular Sunday school teacher.

He was at a small local church, he shared the gospel.

He felt God impressing him to share the gospel with a shoe salesman.

He went into a store, he was going to buy some shoes, and he began sharing the gospel with this shoe salesman.

Well, the shoe salesman's name was Dwight L.

Moody.

Dwight L.

Moody became a Christian and went on to pastor an incredible church in Chicago.

And we now know the Moody Bible Institute that is named after D.

L.

Moody.

D.

L.

Moody was preaching once, and in the audience was a young man named Frederick B.

Meyer.

F.

B.

Meyer gave his life to Christ.

He became a preacher and began sharing the Word of God.

One day, F.

B.

Meyer was preaching, and in the audience was a young man named Wilbur Chapman.

Wilbur Chapman became a follower of Jesus, and through his job at the YMCA, Young Men's Christian Association has changed a lot over the years.

But back then it was a Christian association that they would bring in speakers to share the gospel, to preach to the young men that were at this workout facility.

So he hired a young preacher to come and preach the gospel at the YMCA, and that preacher's name was Billy Sunday.

Billy Sunday began preaching the word and he would go on to lead evangelistic crusades.

And some years later, he went to Charlotte, North Carolina, and he encouraged a man named Mordecai Ham to lead an evangelical crusade.

Mordecai Ham led an evangelical crusade.

At that crusade, he gave an altar call, and a young, tall, blonde-haired man came forward and gave his life to Christ.

That young, tall, blonde-haired man from California, or I'm sorry, North Carolina that came forward.

His name was Billy Graham.

Billy Graham, who would go on to preach the gospel to more people than any evangelist ever.

Millions have heard the gospel because of Billy Graham.

And it all began with a local church Sunday school teacher who nervously shared the gospel with a shoe salesman.

You see how God can do amazing things with just our little bit of obedience?

That conversation that you have today could impact millions for eternity.

And you might think it's not that big of a deal.

I just shared with the attendant at the gas station, or I just shared with my coworker at work, and they um so that they might receive the gospel, but you don't know what that person will go on to do to the, and then the next person and the next person in millions could be receiving the gospel because of your moment of faithfulness in sharing the word of Jesus.

You see, the disciples, they had no way of understanding the scale of this prayer.

But that's what it is, that everyone who hears will hear the words of Jesus and be able to believe them and receive them.

So as we dig into this prayer, we see that Jesus is praying for two main things as he prays these last seven verses.

He's praying for unity today, and he's praying for glory in the future.

We look at verses 21 through 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.

The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one.

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.

A whole lot of oneness in those verses, that we may be one, as Jesus and the Father are one.

Jesus is praying that kind of unity that we will have with each other is the same kind of unity that the Father and the Son have.

That our unity would be modeled after the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

And all throughout Scripture, as we've been reading through the Gospel of John, all in Scripture, but as we've specifically been in the Gospel of John, we can read through it to up to chapter 17 where he's praying, and we can see that Jesus and the Father were locked.

They were locked in.

When the Father said to do something, Jesus did it.

Whatever the Father said to do, Jesus did it.

What the Father said to say, Jesus said it.

When the Father told Jesus whom to choose for his twelve disciples, Jesus chose them.

Everything that Jesus did was not the will of Jesus the man, it was the will of his father in heaven.

And Jesus prays that you and I will live in that same way.

That whatever the Father says, we will do it.

That whatever God says in his word, we will apply that to our life.

So ask yourself, are you doing whatever the Father says?

Or do you have a tendency to do things and then try to justify the things that you do and think, well, surely the Father would approve because he loves me, therefore this has to be okay.

See, that's how we tend to do things, is we tend to think, you know, well, this is this is what I love, what I enjoy, what I think I should do.

Therefore, surely God will be pleased with that.

But God has something to say about that because in his word, he tells us how to live.

So we have to get into the point of saying, Am I doing what the Father's will is, or am I doing my will?

And Jesus prays for you that you would be one with the Father, just as He is one with the Father, and you will proclaim not my will, but yours be done, O Father.

Jesus prayed it that we would have that kind of unity like he has with the Father.

Therefore it has to be possible, right?

Why would Jesus pray it for you if you could not do it?

But by the power of the Holy Spirit, you can have that unity with God the Father.

But I think we can look around and we can ask, well, why aren't all Christians unified then?

I would submit it's one little word that has huge implications.

Sin.

We get in the way.

We do what we want to do instead of what God wants us to do.

Instead of looking to the Father and being unified with His will and His Word and His way, we tend to get in the way.

You can look throughout Scripture.

After Jesus establishes the church, the church had to have a council meeting.

In the book of Acts, we see that they had a council because they were arguing over salvation by circumcision, which would be a work of the flesh, versus salvation by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus.

So they had to have a big council meeting with all of the elders and the apostles there to settle the matter.

You can look throughout scripture, you can see that Paul and Peter had a disagreement recorded in the book of Galatians.

Paul and Barnabas went separate ways because they couldn't agree on a certain issue.

So these guys had obvious differences, and we see tons of differences among Christian denominations and churches today.

So when we look at this prayer of Jesus, how do we understand this prayer that Jesus prays for unity?

Well, first, I think we have to understand that unity does not mean that we're all exactly the same.

Paul and Barnabas disagreed and went different ways, but they both were unified in Christ.

They both were unified in their mission to share the Word of God with the world.

So they weren't the same.

They they they kind of had some disagreements, but they still were unified in their purpose.

You see, we can be very diverse yet unified as a church.

I was thinking about some of the best sports teams throughout history, and they have athletes with diverse personalities, they have athletes with diverse backgrounds, you have athletes with diverse skill sets on a team, yet they all come together around a common goal with a common team spirit, and they compete as unified team.

Very similar in the church, in the family of God.

We come together from diverse backgrounds, we have diverse economic status, we have diverse skill sets, we have diverse personalities, yet we come together with the same goal of glorifying God, and we have the very same spirit, the Holy Spirit, as believers living inside of us that brings us together unified.

And we can be one as Jesus and the Father are one because we are locked in on the essentials of our faith.

So you see, our personalities can be different, our likes and wants and desires in this world can be different.

But when I am locked in with the Father and I'm doing his will, and you're locked in with the Father and you're doing his will, while we have different personalities and different things we are focusing on, we are still unified in Christ through the Father by the power of his Holy Spirit.

And that's what he's praying for, is that his church would be unified in Christ.

You see, Jesus is not speaking on organizational unity because organizations can be very unique in their secondary beliefs, yet remain unified in the faith because of our essential beliefs.

I was listening to a sermon as I was preparing for this, and I liked what the guy had to say.

I added a few names to this list, but he gave a list of people throughout history, and he said, if you put all of these people in one room to talk about the Bible and theological things, um, some things might happen.

And then he started naming.

He said, if you grabbed um Augustine, and then you got George Whitfield, and then you you grab Charles Spurgeon, and then you go ask John Calvin, and then Jacobus Arminius, let's bring him into the group, and John Wesley and C.S.

Lewis and A.W.

Tozer and Billy Graham, and you bring all those great men of the faith together in one room, some sparks are gonna fly.

They're gonna argue over secondary things.

They're gonna disagree on certain things that are secondary, that are not salvific.

Those guys are gonna get into a lot of discussion over those secondary things.

However, we can be confident that every one of them is in the presence of the Lord now because of their undying, unwavering, unifying faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

They had differences on secondary things, they would argue over secondary things, yet they would be unified in Christ.

So why is there so much focus on the differences?

Well, I think it's because the enemy's tactic is to divide what Christ once unified.

You think about it, Jesus prayed for it, so Satan's going to attack it.

We also have to recognize that what Jesus prayed for has in one sense already been granted.

So we have this unity available to us.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Galatia because they were in a very divisive world.

They were in a divisive culture where there was division between slave and free, male and female, Jew and Gentile.

You look at Galatians chapter 3, verse 26, he says, For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

Galatians 3:26

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Now he's not saying that there's no more men and women.

There's still men and women.

In that culture, he's not saying that slavery was completely done away with.

And we are saved by the same sacrifice on the very same cross, filled with the very same Holy Spirit by faith in the very same Jesus of Nazareth.

And we are saved by his finished work.

You see, his work is accomplished.

The unifier is available to all who believe in him.

We just have to believe it and receive it.

Look at Ephesians 4, 4 through 7.

It says there is one body and one spirit.

Just as you were called to the one hope, it 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.

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Love that passage.

He says there's one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism in Jesus, one God, one Father of all.

And that is given to each one who believes and receives Jesus.

So, in one sense, what Jesus prayed for is already accomplished and it's ready for us to receive.

And we can have that oneness in Christ.

But it's also something that we have to choose to take part in.

Because right before that beautiful passage about one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism in Jesus, one God, one Father, right before that in Ephesians 4:3, Paul says, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:3

So the unity is given to us by faith in Jesus.

We then have to maintain it.

So to maintain something takes some work, right?

If you're going to maintain, you have to work at it.

I think of it like a marriage.

When a husband and a wife come together in marriage, they are made one by God.

Every marriage ceremony I've done, we talk about that.

You are made one in Christ as you join together in marriage.

But you know what?

Stand above Before a crowd of witnesses, exchanging rings, sharing vows with each other, signing the document, the covenant to be married, that that makes you one in one sense, but it doesn't mean you're gonna walk away from that ceremony and you're just unified for life.

We know that's not true because divorce is rampant.

Why is that?

It's because it takes work.

You have to maintain that unity.

You have to maintain that relationship.

It's gonna take a ton of lifetime of communication.

It's gonna take a sacrificial kind of love for the other.

It's gonna take submitting myself to my spouse out of reverence for Christ.

It's gonna take a ton of humility and forgiveness and patience.

It's gonna take me putting my sin to death so I can be the best spouse I can be for my wife to have a truly unified marriage.

It takes work.

You have to maintain it.

Just like he says here, you have to maintain the unity in the body.

That same type of work, that same type of passion, that same type of humility, that same type of sacrifice is what it takes to maintain unity among believers.

And when we are unified in the church, look what Jesus does, he grows his church.

Look at the end of verse 21 again, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

So Jesus prays for unity, so that, circle those two words, so that, circle them, because what comes after them is the point of unity.

We are to be unified and maintain that unity so that the world may believe in Jesus.

So listen to this.

Once you proclaim to follow Jesus, the world around you is watching you.

If you claim to be a Christ follower, the world around you is watching you.

Why?

Because they want to see if following Jesus is worth it.

The world wants to see if following Jesus actually makes a difference.

The world wants to see if Jesus really does bring peace and joy and new life into an old life.

Does he really resurrect us and make us new?

So the question now is: what do the people around you see?

Do they see a new and resurrected life?

Do they see a life that is unified with God the Father and the Son, empowered by the Holy Spirit?

Or do they just see someone that still looks like the world?

Do they just see someone that still looks like the old you?

We are called to be different.

We are called to be made new.

We are called to be transformed by the power of the gospel.

And Jesus says if you are unified with the Father through the Son, and you are following God's way, not your way or the world's way, you're empowered by the Spirit to do that.

The world will take notice and believe that God truly sent Jesus.

What we proclaim is really true.

If we're living by it, then the world will believe that really does work.

And Jesus says that will bring more people into the presence of God and his glory.

Look at verse 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.

I think this is such a beautiful verse because we often claim that, boy, we just can't wait to be in heaven and see the glory of God.

It's going to be awesome to get there and to witness Jesus at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and he's going to be in glory.

And Jesus is saying, Father, I'm praying that you bring all those who believe in me right to where I am.

You see, we don't get to just go to heaven and be witnesses of Jesus and God the Father in their glory.

We get to be there and be enveloped in his glory.

Jesus is praying that we come and spend time with him in the presence of God the Father, in all of that glory, with him, experiencing everything that he has is what we get to have at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

And if we as Christians can put our differences aside and look to heaven and the beauty of being in God's presence for eternity with Jesus, along with Augustine and George Whitfield and Charles Spurgeon and John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius and John Wesley and C.S.

Lewis and Billy Graham and all of the saints that have gone before everyone who has ever believed will be there unified in the presence of God.

And we won't even remember any of those secondary differences anymore.

We won't even think about any of those secondary differences anymore because we will be in the very glory of our God.

And that's what Jesus is praying for.

He's praying that we would be unified and stop arguing over the things that are not of salvation issue.

Yes, we'll have differences.

The staff of the church just went to a retreat this past week and we were at a conference and we heard several speakers speak, the preachers and people that spoke.

Some of them I didn't like.

Some of them I liked a lot.

But one thing I know is we are unified because we all have Christ in common.

Some of them I disagreed with their method, even of teaching the Word of God.

But I'm unified why?

Because we are in Christ.

We are unified with God the Father.

And I know one day we'll be in heaven together, and the differences won't even matter anymore because we're unified in Christ.

Now we do have to make sure people that we're listening to that they are staying true to doctrine on all of the primary things.

But if we have differences, we can listen and then say, well, I differ with them in that, but it's not going to become a point of argumentation.

It's just I differ with them in that.

One of my best friends in this world differs with me on some secondary doctrines.

And that doesn't divide us in our relationship.

He's still one of my best friends in the world.

We love each other and we'll rejoice together in heaven one day, and I'll be able to tell him, see, I was right.

But in reality, every one of us is going to get to heaven and we're going to be like, man, I thought I had that figured out, but I was way off on that part.

You see, we have to be humble and understand that, you know what, there's things that I believe and I stand firm in, but it's secondary, so I understand that I might be wrong.

I might not fully understand that.

And we have to be open to that and understand that.

And that's how we bring unity in the body of Christ is when we're humble and we put God first and we just we follow what God says and we keep the primary thing, the primary thing, and we understand that in secondary and tertiary things we might disagree.

Maybe that means we're in a different fellowship, but we know that we're still gonna be unified and we're going to be in heaven together one day.

You see, I think we would have much more unity while here on earth if we kept that perspective.

And I think what a glorious day it's gonna be when in the presence of God all division will be gone, and we will know and be fully known, and we'll be in the presence of God, experiencing his glory, and some of the differences and the division that we see now will all be gone.

Look at verse 25.

O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

Jesus proclaims once again that the world does not know God the Father.

Speaking of the worldly system.

But followers of Jesus know God the Father because we know Jesus the Son.

We know the truth.

We know God because we know Jesus.

And we know Jesus because we have his word.

And because of all of that, he closes out his prayer and how he desires for us to live as Christians.

Verse 26 I made known to them in 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.

When you know Jesus, you know the Father.

And you are unified with the Father and the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And the result of your life is this you will show God's love because you are unifying instead of divisive.

If divisiveness starts to happen within a body of believers, that's a tool of the enemy to try to mess up God's church.

Jesus prays for us to be unified because he knows the enemy will attack.

And when you know the truth and you know God, you know God's love, then you experience his love, then you are able to love as he loves, and you begin to display that love.

You love God the Father, you love his truth, you love his word, you love God's children, therefore you love his church, and you love the world because your heart is for the world to hear the truth of God so that they may be saved as well.

For them to know that Jesus died for them, and he desires for them to be in his presence at the right hand of God.

So Jesus is concluding his prayer by focusing on us, his followers, throughout all of history.

As he's praying that prayer with his eleven disciples, he's praying and he can see the early church that they would start and he's praying for them.

He sees the generations of believers for the next 2,000 years and he prays for them.

He sees people who haven't even been born yet and he's praying for them.

He's praying and he sees forward church and he's praying for us.

And he says, I do not ask for these only.

This isn't just for my ten disciples, my my 11 disciples that are here, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

You see, you need to know that Jesus was praying for you.

And if you placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you're part of the answer to his prayer.

Two thousand years ago, on the night before the cross, Jesus was praying for his church and he prayed that we would be one.

And again, he's not praying that we would all look alike.

He's praying for something way deeper than that.

That our relationship with him would be greater than the things that could divide us.

Because there is something powerful about a multi-ethnic, multi-generational, multi-socioeconomic, diverse church.

That's what God wants.

He wants us in all of our differences to come together and be unified in the Father so that we can love one another well, serve one another well, forgive one another well, carry one another's burdens, pray for one another, and keep Jesus at the center of everything.

And Jesus tells us why this matters in verse 21, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

You see, our unity as believers is part of our witness.

People should be able to look at the church and see something they don't see everywhere else.

If people look at the church and they see stuff that they could just see in the world, then the church isn't doing its job.

They should look at the church and see something that they can't experience anywhere else.

That people from every background are coming together and we love one another.

That people who have been forgiven are forgiving others much because we know how much we've been forgiven.

That people who have received grace are offering and giving grace.

That we are truly connected to the Father and following what he says, not what the world says.

And Jesus says when you have that kind of unity, then his church will grow because people will look at it and they will say there's something real about what's going on there, and they'll want to know, and we'll have the opportunity to share Jesus with them.

And the thing is, Christianity is not just about me and my relationship with Jesus.

If you've thought that, I want to encourage you that your faith is not a private thing.

Your faith is not to be just between you and Jesus.

Nowhere in Scripture do we see that.

Our faith is to be shared, our faith is to be put on display.

Our faith is not a private thing, it is meant to be public.

Following Jesus is about his local church, because the local church is his plan for reaching the world.

Jesus is building a family, and the way we love one another becomes part of our testimony to the world.

Because Jesus desires that many of us will join him in his presence to experience the glory of God.

So as we wrap up, I want to ask you: are you willing to live like someone who belongs to Jesus?

That's what we're striving for here at Forward.

Maybe there's somebody that you need to forgive today.

Maybe you need to come to the altar and just forgive them.

Maybe there's a relationship that you've allowed to become divided and you've realized, you know what, those are some things that aren't of eternal value, and I need to mend that relationship.

Maybe you've been holding on to some kind of bitterness over something that happened years ago or even just a week ago, and you're holding this bitterness and you need to lay it down and recognize that I need to be unified.

God forgave me much, therefore I need to forgive much as well.

Maybe you've allowed a disagreement over something secondary to hurt your relationship with another believer.

Maybe you've been trying to live out Christianity alone.

Do it yourself.

It was never meant to be done that way.

We need one another.

Maybe you never truly surrendered your life to Christ.

And today the gospel's become real to you.

We invite you to come to the altar, take a knee before the Lord, surrender to Him, allow Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, and to draw you near to God so that you can be unified with God the Father.

Maybe we need to be praying today, Lord, make us one with the Father as you are one with him.

Show me how to do that.

Empower me by your Spirit.

Make us one in truth, one in love, one in purpose, one in mission.

And let our lives together become a testimony to the world that Jesus really is who he said he is.

Because ultimately it's not about us, it's all about Jesus.

And Jesus, in his prayer, prayed that the world would see him through us.

So, church, let's give the world something beautiful to see.

Let's be the church that Jesus is calling us to be.

Let's love one another, forgive one another, serve one another, pray for one another, pursue those things that are of God and line our lives up with God, keep Jesus at the center, and let's live in such a way that when people see forward church, they see a picture of unity with God the Father and the love of Jesus on display.

That's what Jesus prayed for his church.

And my hope is that we would be an example of the answer to his prayer.

Let's stand together.

We're going to close out.

Maybe some of you need to make that decision today to just come before the Lord and surrender your life to him.

That's the best decision you'll ever make.

Maybe others of you recognize that there's some disunity in your life, and you need to just lay something at the altar.

We invite you to do that now as we're going to worship our God.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we come before you, and Lord, your word is so good and so powerful.

This prayer of Jesus in John 17 is so beautiful because it's his final words, and we see his heart.

We see his heart to be in line with you in all things.

We see his heart to empower his disciples to go and share the gospel with the world.

We see his heart to reach more and more, to be in your presence in glory for eternity.

We see his heart for us to be unified with God the Father through him.

God, we see his heart for us to be unified and to love one another even among our differences.

God, you created us with that diversity.

You created us with so many differences, but you call us to be one as you are one within your Holy Trinity.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

So, God, may we be unified with you in that way.

We thank you that your spirit brings us into that unity with you.

Lord, may we be unified with others.

Our prayers that the world would look at Forward Church and would see that, wow, there's something different there, and we want to be part of that.

May they recognize grace and love and forgiveness and patience, long-suffering.

May we look like Jesus in the way we live our lives.

So, Lord, as we worship you now, we just open up the altar and we know there's some that just need to respond, whether that's for salvation, whether that's for forgiveness, whether that's to lay something at your feet.

Maybe it's to pray for that strength to be a unifying presence.

Maybe we've been judgmental of other believers.

May we recognize that we can have differences yet be unified.

So, God, we lay all of this at your feet as we worship you in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.