Jesus' Prayer: Unity, Mission, and God's Transformative Love

Jesus prayed a long prayer through John 16-1 17 he's prayed it publicly even told his disciples I'm saying this out loud it's a prayer between me and the father but I want you to hear it because the things I'm saying are very important for you to know and he's finishing this prayer up he's he's gone through different movements of this prayer but finally he's getting to the end of this prayer and then he's about to go to the Cross. [00:03:01]

Some profound things that if we believe them would change change the way we live would change our life change the way we feel about ourselves the way we understand how God feels about us the way we understand our purpose in this world. [00:04:54]

Jesus has just finished what we studied last week praying for believers praying for me and you he prayed for people who already believe in him he prayed some things for us essentially he prayed that we would really love each other that we would learn how to forgive each other that we would stay committed to each other that we would give each other a lot of Grace that we would really meet each other's needs we'd help each other grow in our faith all the things the scripture talks about Jesus says I want you to be one and now he shifted from praying for the Church Believers he shifted to pray for unbelievers and he says I'm praying for the people who believe in me now and then I'm praying for the people who will believe in me later through their message through the message of the Believers. [00:05:20]

Jesus is praying for people who don't know Jesus there are different words for to describe people who don't know Jesus the world is often used sometimes it's used to describe like uh creation but usually it's used to describe the world like all the people in the world who were separated from God sometimes a word is used to describe people who don't know Jesus as lost like people who are lost sometimes it would be unsaved these are all words that the Bible uses so we'll keep using them to describe people who are disconnected who are not reconciled back to God and Jesus said I'm praying for them the people who one day will believe through their message through the message that we as Believers share with them that's how they'll believe. [00:06:05]

If you're a Believer a follower of Jesus Jesus is saying I've given you the message to carry and there are going to be people who believe through your message Romans chapter 1 Paul said I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the Salvation of everyone who believes the gospel what's the the gospel it's God saving the world by his grace. [00:07:08]

The message that God wants to send to the world through us it's not that God hates the world that God condemns you, the message is that God wants to reconcile you to himself God wants to take your sins that you committed against him and he wants to not count them against you he wants to remove them from you he wants to put them on Jesus instead this is the message of the Gospel that you've been given because you believed in it and it affected you it affected your entire eternity and it started to change your life. [00:08:14]

When you came into Christ you also came into this Mission and the mission is the message like you have a purpose some people are saying I I don't really know why I continue to live here over the past several weeks and even a couple of months talking to another friend of mine this week who pastor's a large Church in Houston he was saying the same thing is happening in his church it seems to be that way all the time I mean there's been elevated uh deaths and diagnosis and conversations about divorce I mean it just seems like there's a swell of things right now happening and you know why are we here, yeah there's Beauty and there's Brokenness but Jesus is saying no there's a message that you've been given and this is your ministry. [00:08:25]

I don't think God's going to give you a Ministry until you first start doing the ministry that you already know he gave you and that Ministry is reconciling people to God through this message helping people who are far from God get close to God CU most people don't wake up thinking God loves them but most people wake up knowing look at what I've done I am guilty how could God love me but when people hear from somebody who's already believed this message and receive this message when people hear wow God wants to not count my sins against me God wants to give me his grace and his love that's a good message. [00:09:14]

It's been assigned to you if you're a follower of Jesus it's not that you say okay I'll do it it's been given to you he didn't ask he didn't say do you want to be a part of my mission it's part of the package I come into Christ I come into his mission of sharing his message with the world you have a mission to share his message with the world and some of us will be like I know I'm not good at it I I know I need to get better you're missing out on living you're missing out on Joy you're missing out on purpose you're missing out on life. [00:10:22]

Statistically overwhelmingly most of us who call ourselves Christians we never talk to people about Jesus who don't know Jesus that's why here we have this thing called good God gospel we're just trying to help you over and over learn how to have good conversations with people that at some point will turn into a god conversation like you can't have a god conversation with somebody if you can't first have a good one so we just start loving people and caring about people talking to them about their life and at some point we bring God into it and if we've had a good conversation with them they may trust us to have a god conversation if they're willing to talk about God we bring the gospel into it good God gospel. [00:10:59]

Jesus is praying for you and for me he's praying for the people who are going to believe in him through our message there's no other way it's not going to happen you go to places I'll never go to You're going to be somewhere today and tomorrow and the next day with people who don't know me and they don't the know the people sitting around you in front of you or behind you but you're in an office and you're in an airplane and you're in a neighborhood and you're in a place where people need to know Jesus and that's why you're there so Jesus is praying for the people who are going to believe in him through the message that he gave you. [00:12:15]

All of this now is Under the Umbrella of our mission like somehow the mission of evangelism and US carrying this message is tied to our Unity together like us being united to one another somehow affects our ability to share the message you know we we've grown in a dark cave of unity you know the great philosophers would talk about how somebody would be born in a cave and then they'll come out and there's things about the world that don't make sense to them so they've never seen it for us we've grown up in places that we don't really understand the gravity of unity. [00:14:36]

When the early church was started the idea of being disconnected from Community was so big that they would give up sin to stay into the community that's where church discipline was able to happen there's no way I'd rather get put out of this community so I'd rather put sin out of my life than get put out out of this community but so many of us are so casually connected to the church and look if you come sometimes and sit in a seat sometimes on a Sunday and sing some songs and listen to a sermon I am really really glad you're here but I will also tell you I think it's affecting your mission I think it's affecting your ability to share the message and it's affecting a church somewhere. [00:16:12]

Jesus here over and over says, they are in us and we are in them. I was in college and um I was in Wilson dorm room 311 it's not there anymore they tore it down they should have torn it down before I lived in it was horrible uh you could never get the lolium tole floors uh clean it was nasty my roommate when I believe I didn't know anybody at the school and so uh I spent a lot of time reading my Bible and I remember I was reading through Romans and I got to this verse Romans 5:11 the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you I just stop I thought I I think theologically I get that but practically actually do I do I really think that the spirit of the spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead is living in me and I started pursuing understanding this more believing it more living as if it were true more more and start changing my life the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you. [00:18:29]

As we grow in our relationship with Jesus something starts to change in our heart we start to love him more and we would rather be with him than be here now sometimes we want to be with Jesus more because we want to be away from the Brokenness more I mean the more pain you've endured the more broken this year around the more you see that this world will never fully satisfy you it leads us it connects to something in our heart that there's more than this world can offer me I'll never be fully satisfied here but there's something more than just wanting to be away from the world that causes us to want to be with Jesus like our love for him grows and we more than we want to be away from here we want to be with him. [00:20:41]

I often forget that Jesus actually wants to be with me more than I can ever want to be with him I mean the Bible says that he's like a bridegroom like a groom who's betro to a bride and he can't wait for his wedding day so he can go get his bride so Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the father and he's waiting for the father to say son go get your bride that's the imagery that the Bible uses to let you know and let me know that Jesus wants to be with us. [00:21:44]

When Jesus is praying to his father it's like a son talking to his dad about his greatest love in this life and he says to the father I mean this is about us we're getting to read this love letter like this private prayer conversation getting to hear what the son thinks about us he's sharing with his father he says father I want those that you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory the glory that you've given me because you love me before the creation of the world like I can't wait to be with them there have so much to show them so many more glorious things than they'll ever see in the creation of this world I can't wait for them to be with me that's how Jesus thinks about you. [00:23:20]

The only reason you live the way you live for Jesus is by his grace there there was some point in your life where Jesus stepped in and he interrupted the path you were on and some of us were like I was really young I didn't do a lot of bad stuff you would have if Jesus hadn't stepped in and saved you you would have you weren't good enough you weren't born with a tilt toward God you weren't B born with a tilt toward submitting yourself to God no your nature was elevating s over God but God by his grace stepped in and saved you and he made our hearts submit to him and now we have a new nature in Jesus and now we naturally want to follow Jesus and so when we sin we step outside of his will we're not doing things his ways his Spirit convicts us that's a sign that we are followers of Jesus. [00:26:40]

The only way that we can have love is Jesus said look I mean he said in this verse in order that the love that you have for them may be in them like God's love would be in us now we would start loving God now we would start loving other people and now really we would start loving self we even distort the view of loving oursel we think that loving self means I got to be beautiful I got to be wealthy I got to be powerful I got to be popular we think that loving self means all these things but that's not what loving oursel is and so we've even distorted loving oursel until we get to a point to where we realize no I I know how much God loves me and his love is in me so now I can love God I was his enemy now I can love other people I was against them I'm for them now I care about people now. [00:28:55]