What we know

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

John 17:25

We know

that the world does not know You

the world is ignorant of a holy God

the world needs a loving God

the world rejects the Son of God

We know that the world does not know You

We know

that the Father knows the Son

and has revealed Jesus as the Holy One

Who can save a fallen world

Who offers us the righteousness of God

We know that the Father loves the Son

We know

that Jesus was sent from God

that He is the world’s only Savior

that He is our Lord and our Master

that faith calls us to follow as His disciples

and live by His truth, word, and principles

We know that Jesus was sent from God

Can we even be what Jesus prayed for?

And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

John 17:11

The great prayer of Jesus as He prepared to go to Calvary to fulfill His great purpose was for God the Father to keep His followers together in unity. He prayed this specifically for His earthly disciples (John 17:9). He would repeat this same request not only for His immediate eleven disciples, but also for the generations of Christians to follow (John 17:20-21). That means Jesus wants current Christians to demonstrate unity. Twice Jesus asked the Father to unify His followers. He wanted His people to experience the kind of perfect agreement, love, and submission He knew with the Father.

Why did Jesus want this for us? An answer is clear later in the prayer: “so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as You loved me.” (John 17:23) Unity in the Body of Christ is meant to show a lost world the incredible reconciling love of God. We are to be together to show God’s love. We are to be one in the Father’s love to draw others to repent of sins, follow Jesus, and be one in the Father’s love.

Sadly, Christians lose this perspective and have to be reminded all the time. The immediate disciples scattered in fear when Jesus was tried and crucified. It took a resurrection to unite them. And today we need to get a sense of the power of our Lord and STOP FIGHTING. I see us lose this perspective profoundly every 24 months here in America. We look to the world, not to Jesus, and we fight with one another. The worthless reason we sacrifice the passionate desire Jesus begged the Father to give us? Petty human politics. Yep… every election cycle, like clockwork, we decide human power is more immediately important than the sovereign love of the Father to unite us. Fights erupt. It is ugly.

This week I was saddened on social media to see Christians I love fighting and dividing and saying the nastiest, most self-righteous things. They were dividing over a brief cultural moment known as a governor’s election in the state of Kansas. Think about how insignificant that is in the light of the gospel! Jesus offers us a focus on the eternal unity of the Godhead for ETERNITY! Instead we focus on the next 48 months of an insignificant midwestern’s state occupant of an office in minuscule Topeka, Kansas. Really? C’mon people! Get it together. Jesus is asking us to unify around Him, not a political party! Jesus has to be shaking His head! God help us to be one!

the prayer at the beginning of redemption

“Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.“

John 17:1b-2

The seventeenth chapter of the gospel of John is a mountain peak of scripture. It is Jesus’ extended high priestly prayer that beats with a heart for all of those He was headed to the cross to save. I’ve always been amazed by this prayer. It read it several times throughout each year, often every Passion Week reflection, and am just blown away every time by the love of Christ. Nobody can say that the death of Christ was a tragic misunderstanding. Jesus did not blindly stumble to the cross. He knew what He was doing.

From the very beginning of this prayer, Jesus commits to the “hour” that “has come”. God’s sovereign plan to redeem all who will trust in the death and resurrection of His only Son had begun. Jesus was poised to redeem and save. He was destined to suffer, die, bear the sin of the world, and thus glorify God the Father Who will give eternal life to all who will believe and follow the Son.

Jesus was going to bring glory to God by providing the sacrifice once for all on the cross. God the Father was going to glorify God the Son by raising Him from the dead as proof that He has given Jesus all authority in heaven and earth. All those who trust in Jesus forever will possess eternal life in His salvation. And from this prayer, a commitment to our salvation brings the fresh change of the gospel to the world. All we do as Christians centers on and perpetuates this good news! God has saved us! The Father has been glorified by the complete sacrifice of His only Son! The Son has all authority and has been glorified by the Father as King of Kings and Lord of Lords! And we shall rule with Him forever. Nothing is more exciting than this.

The Father loves you.

…for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

John 16:7

Will you believe that this is true:

your Heavenly Father loves you?!

Because of what Jesus has done

when you believe Jesus is the One

Who saves and rules you from above

You can know the Father’s love.

Will you live under His care

spreading the gospel everywhere?

God loves the world by His Son

and wants His message heard by everyone.

Will the world know this salvation

spread abroad to every nation?

The Father loves you.

This is always true.

Jesus will save you.

Faith will grow you too.

Encouraging words for me and you:

in Jesus Christ the Father loves you!

praying in the name of Jesus

Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

John 16:24

Praying “in Jesus’ name” is more than just some Christian formulaic way to get what we want. When I was a kid, I used to think that ending prayers with “in Jesus’ name, Amen” was some sort of formal way to tell God you were done praying. It was like a soldier on a walkie-talkie saying “over and out”. But there is much to what Jesus meant when He personally instructed His disciples to ask of the Father in His name (see John 14:13).

What does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? It means to ask of God in a way consistent with the character and the will of Jesus. This gets lost a bit culturally on us, but in biblical times a person’s name represented who they were as a person. If they were a person of authority, it represented their power. Much like an ambassador acts in the name of the leadership of their country, so praying “in Jesus’ name” represents that we want our prayers to represent what Jesus wants in our world. So we really cannot pray selfishly in Jesus’ name.

And just as Jesus submitted to the will of the Father, so do our prayers in His name do the same. Praying “in Jesus’ name” is an act of submission. We acknowledge God will move, will care for us, will bring answers to our prayers as we submit to His sovereign work in our lives. We cannot be demanding when praying in Jesus’ name. We never pray to tell God what He must do from our viewpoint. We instead ASK Him to act as Jesus acts, but we surrender and submit to His wisdom, His mercy, His grace, His timing, and His ways. And He will probably change our expectations as He works. Praying in the name of Jesus humbles us, empowers us, helps us, heals us, and exalts our Lord and Savior.

Advantage: Holy Spirit

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

John 16:7

Jesus warned His disciples that after He left them to return to the Father, they would experience rejection in the world. This would be because the world would treat them with the same contempt. He even warns them that death would await some who would dare to follow Him (John 16:2). All in all, it did not seem like a very good thing for Jesus to leave this world.

But there was something God would do that would give Christians and Christ’s church an advantage… even with Jesus gone and the world against them. Just as the Father had sent His Son into the world, so Jesus would send His Holy Spirit to His followers. When this occurred, His followers had the advantage. They would be kept, empowered, and assisted by the comforting, teaching, strengthening Holy Spirit of God.

What’s more, God’s Holy Spirit does a great work in the world at large. The world is moved by the gospel and the convicting work of God’s Holy Spirit.

The Spirit now convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Sin will be apparent in those who do not, as yet, believe in Jesus. Righteousness will be known in the absence of Jesus. His life will still present a holy standard that the Spirit uses to convince of the difference. And judgment will come as the work of the devil will be exposed by the greater work of God’s Spirit.

I may be tempted to wish I could see Jesus physically in the world, under a false belief the world would accept Him that way.  But the fact is, the world rejected Jesus when He was in it, and God is active by His Holy Spirit right now. And Jesus Himself said we have the Spirit as an advantage even as the world hates us. I believe that with a grateful heart.

These statements explain a lot…

Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.

John 15:20-21

These words from Jesus explain a lot of what we see around us. Jesus Himself told us that since even He was rejected, how much more should we expect to be rejected by those who hate Him. We should expect the gospel to be opposed. We preach it anyway. We should expect to be hated by those who reject Jesus. We love the world anyway. When we are experiencing rejection in the world, it is happening because of the name of Jesus, on account of the name of Jesus, for the sake of Jesus, to bring glory to Jesus. Rejection is a sign that the world does not know Jesus, nor know the Father Who sent Him. The world always hates Jesus in us when we are hated. And that is ultimately an encouragement. It means we are faithfully modeling our Savior.

This is why political solutions for spiritual issues are always a wrong direction for Christians to go when feeling rejected. We should instead preach Jesus and want His gospel to change hearts. Any attempts to enforce a Christian morality by human force are evil and gospel-rejections.  The gospel is hated by world powers and always will be until Jesus returns to judge this earth. We can’t end worldly rejection by worldly means. We can only advance the kingdom one way right now: making disciples of Jesus, baptizing them in the name of a Triune God, and teaching them to obey all that Jesus teaches. That is what our world needs, even as many in power hate what Jesus brings and oppose who Jesus is.

Loving Jesus means obeying Jesus.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

John 15:10

Loving Jesus is what being a Christian is all about. How can I not love the One Who has given all to love me supremely? Jesus left a perfect love at the Father’s side, was born on this earth to live a simple, hard-working life, speaking the truth to reveal God’s love and His judgment, dying to pay the penalty sin-debt owed by all sinners everywhere for all time, and then rose again the third day to bring me and all who will believe Him eternal life! How can I not love Him most for that?

Jesus Himself expects His followers will not only believe Him, but also love and obey Him. And they show this love supremely by obeying Him, just like Jesus loved His Father by obeying Him, submitting to saving the world. Those who love Christ obey Him. And that obedience is what forges a strong link of abiding in Christ. I am obligated in my love for Jesus to keep His commands.

Lord Jesus,

I love You and seek to live in You by obeying You. And by the power of Your Holy Spirit and the clear direction of the Word of God I have every means to do so. I praise You for this love and for this day to obey and follow You!

Amen