John 17:20-21 (A Prayer For Us)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you

Studying the Bible is hard Because it's unlike any other book that you've ever read

It's difficult. It takes hard work And that happens for a variety of reasons number one.

I'd say that It's hard because it's an ancient book. It was written a long time ago.

The earliest text that we have was written 1950 years ago and the oldest text that we have which there's debate whether it was

Genesis or Job Because both books were very old 3 ,500 years ago

So we're reading a book that is very Disconnected from our world with ancient writers who have ancient worldviews who have things on their heart that they want to say to ancient audiences that maybe we're not privy to Then where they live in a completely different culture than what we live in and you know, what probably a good thing

Also, another reason that makes the Bible so hard to understand is that it's not just written by a human author

Yes, it is written by a human author and it bears the personality and the and the fingerprint of the human author

But it overall bigger than that It is God who breathes life into his word and and it's

God who writes scripture It is God who gives the scriptures not just to people in the time period that was written

God somehow Miraculously takes ancient text and makes them relevant to all people at all time and in all ways

Read any other ancient text and you will see the fundamental difference

Read the Epic of Gilgamesh and then read the scriptures. They are different and Because we have two authors

God and the human author Sometimes we can make mistakes in our interpretation

Sometimes We can miss apply or miss Understand and represent what

God is saying and this is where many people fail when they come to the scriptures You see there's two context in Scripture There's our context where we stand and there's the biblical context where they stand and if you get one of those wrong you're gonna misunderstand the text and the

Evangelicals have done this a lot in our day Because what they've done is instead of saying what does the

Bible mean to the original audience? What did the original author say to the original audience? And what does it mean? They skip that part which you can't and they sit down and they say what does this mean to me?

Well before you can even know what it means to you. You've got to know what it means And you can't know what it means if you don't know what the original author was intending to say to the original audience

So when we get to passages like Matthew 24 and we say immediately this applies to me

This was postmarked to me. This is Jesus looking past the men who asked him the question and he wasn't answering them he was answering me and When and when we look at it that way we get all kinds of sideways

Like a southerner trying to drive into England in the winter when we see

Jesus talking about tribulation We saw that must be it must be about me When we see him talking about that will be handed over to the authorities we imagine jail cells in the modern world

We're gonna be handed over where there's gonna be wars and rumors of wars and we think oh my goodness there There's wars right now Ukraine and Russia must be a sign of the times

There's always been wars and rumors of wars by the way So is that really what

Jesus was talking about Earthquakes and famines you look on the news that guarantee you there will be one this week somewhere in some

Country somewhere in your life sign of the times and we live if we do that if we make ourself the point of scripture that It was handwritten to us and not to the original audience if we do that We will live one

Antichrist away from being zapped out of here and we will not be involved in the mission of Christ We will be looking past life to exit out

That's one example of the evangelical error Ignoring the ancient context and saying it's all about me that happens all the time today in Bible study

But the secular error is is similar But it's the opposite the secular error says this has no relevance to me in my life

And it's the ancient context alone that matters. This is what it meant to them. This is what they said

This is what their community believed But we're so enlightened now. It doesn't mean anything to me

So we get to passages like homosexuality we say yeah, the Bible talks about homosexuality, but we've moved past that Our culture now knows that there's nothing wrong with with two men getting married or whatever or or a man

Changing his gender or a woman killing her baby. We've moved past that haven't mean that's what the seculars do they ignore the relevance that these passages have to our life and they say that was cultural and Our culture has evolved so well that now we are in no need of these texts so the evangelicals will minimize the context of Scripture to maximize the application and The secularists will maximize the context and ignore the application

Now I think evangelicals have created less error in Their approach but nonetheless it does leave us in a flawed hermeneutic

Hermeneutic is not my uncle hermeneutic. It is the science of interpreting the

Bible Now Recently I want to address this today because it's relevant recently the church has experienced a great error in interpretation and It's from the evangelical group and it's from the evangelical

Way of seeing that the context is more about me in my life and and how we feel

There's a man named Alistair Begg Who I absolutely have great respect for I've learned a lot from his ministry over the years.

He's reformed. He's reformed Baptist So he's not quite perfect I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding He's a wonderful teacher. He's been doing this for 40 years and Recently on a radio show he was asked by a sweet little grandma who called in and she said my grandson

I believe I'm getting the details, right? My grandson is getting married to a transgendered person.

What am I supposed to do? and his advice Was that do they know that you cannot support this wedding?

That you don't believe that the Bible that the Bible allows for do they know what you believe about Jesus and the old and the lady

He said yes, they know and he said do they know that you can in no way ever countenance this marriage?

meaning that you can't look upon it with favor and actually call it a marriage and She said yes, and he said well my advice to you then is to go to the wedding and take a gift

And he missed it all weddings are done before the face of Almighty God This is not about whether we we talked about this in the law of God earlier when we try to take the honey of God's Word the truthfulness of it and turn it into pond water to make it more palatable so That pagan people won't get offended by our actions.

We do hate to them We do not show them love and this was surprising to me because this was not

Joel Osteen This was not Stephen Furtick This was not Creflo dollar or any of the others who who charlatans who sacrifice the word every week for ear -tickling people

This was Alistair Begg This is a faithful man of 40 years and I'm not saying that this man is

A false teacher and that you should avoid him. He has a long faithful ministry. I'm saying he got it wrong here that the

Church of Jesus Christ has only one message for what a wedding is and it is in the presence of God between a

Man and a woman and that's it to show up to it is To countenance it and what he did out of love

Out of pastoral concern out of care he elevated our context above the context of Scripture and he in kindness delivered hate

I Don't think he did it on purpose. I think we're all tempted. I think we're all tempted

To misread the Bible to preserve someone else's feelings So as we start

I give you that example because I want to I want to share with you that Alistair Begg is is not a heretic

Alistair Begg just needs our prayer Pray that the Holy Spirit would help him see these things clearly because we know that he would not tell that grandmother to go to his grandson's abortion party

We know that he would not tell that grandson to go to a sex party He's clear enough and it's thinking to know that you don't celebrate sin and yet he's missed it on this issue

So pray for our brother but I bring up this situation again because I want to show the fact that Interpreting the

Bible is difficult if we do not have a foot in both worlds as John Stott said We have a foot in the ancient world to know what

God meant to the original author to the original audience What he meant then we cannot understand what it means for us today the

Bible Exegesis Understanding exegesis means drawing the meaning out of the text that happens in the original context

Application is what you and I are looking for and we have to hold both tightly or we lose it all and then we become one of the many people who just make the

Bible mean whatever we want it to mean and That certainly does not honor Christ now today's passage

I Bring up this example also because in today's passage both worlds intersect you've got the world of the ancient and you've got the world of the modern and they both intersect in a way that that is

Rare in Scripture in a way that's beautiful in a way that Jesus is connecting us with the ancient context

It is beautiful and it's striking So today we're gonna see very clearly how the worlds connect where our world meets their world where Jesus what he's saying applies not just to them, but Absolutely to us

So it's if you will Go ahead and thumb mark John 17 as we as we talk about what we talked about last week

Last week we talked about there's two kinds of sanctification. This is summary so that we can get into the text There's positional sanctification where God positions us in relationship with Christ and we are sanctified

That work is finished. That work is done. You don't have to improve upon it It is God who has done it by the blood of Jesus Christ the

Lamb. He has made you sanctified in Christ and yet there's an ongoing progressive sanctification that we all need to grow in grace and when both of those

Sanctifications are at work the result of that text that we saw last week is that we will be a sent

People we will be a people who go into the world and who declare the gospel the same gospel that the people in Deuteronomy 4 marveled at and said what kind of a people is this people whose

God is the Lord when when you are positionally sanctified by Christ Progressively sanctified by the

Holy Spirit. You will be a going people declaring the good news of God and that is background

For our passage today because it's not just for the disciples that Jesus is saying these things a lot of Christians maybe will treat these passages as irrelevant

As is what Jesus prayed for his disciples. No, no, don't do that because he says very clearly

That these things are for us that the world that we live in can be turned upside down in the same way that their world was turned upside down when they

Did these same things? I'm convinced and we'll see this later the reason our world isn't being flipped upside down right now is because We're cowering and hiding as the church and We're not joyfully declaring the gospel.

All things are under the providence and sovereignty of God. Yes, and amen But brothers and sisters if we lived like the book of Acts things would get crazy in a hurry and God would use it for his glory

So today I want to do three things. I want to see how John 17 all of it is Not just about the original disciples.

I want to see secondly how it's about us and I want to see that there's two ways How if you will obey

John 17 and what Jesus prays for you and your life You'll see the world flipped upside down again for his glory

So if you will, let's read John 17 20 through 21 Jesus says this this is in prayer that he prays this

I Do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in me through their word

That they may also Be one even as you father are in me and I and you and they also may be in us

So that the world may believe that you sent me. Let's pray Lord, we thank you that so clearly here you have showed us that these are not just ancient passages delivered to ancient people

That have no relevance to our life We thank you that you showed us here that that the truths contained in these scriptures did not end in the first century

But echoed on into the second and the third and the fourth all the way down to us who are recipients of the

Word of God through someone who came and told us and if you look at the person who told us and the person who told them and you keep going back you'll get all the way to the twelve a

Faithful steady stream of witnessing has happened since the first century where you have included us in the family of God Through the proclaiming of the gospel.

You've raised us to life in Christ by this wonderful gospel and Lord, I pray that our world

Like theirs would be flipped upside down when we take these things to heart and we see the power of God moves through these

Ordinary and humble means it's in Christ's name. We pray. Amen Now John 17 is clearly talking to them.

Jesus is not looking past his disciples He's not you know looking at them.

They fall on asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane at this point. He's not looking over them It's in pathetic I'm gonna look forward to some real great people in the 20th century and I'm gonna pray for them.

That's not what he's done Clearly he's praying for them His whole ministry has been about them from the very beginning when he called them to be his people and he does this three -year

Ministry tour back and forth between Jerusalem and Galilee. He's with them all the time He raised the

Lazarus at the very end of his ministry in front of them He entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday with them

He cleansed the fruitless temple with them went toe -to -toe with the Jewish elite while they watched He pronounced seven covenantal woes upon the city of Jerusalem and said this city will

Fall and it will undergo all the wrath of God and they were watching as he walks out He gives to all of that discourse that we gave earlier

He went to the upper room with them and he ate with them and he sang with him and he had Passover with them And he then he led them out of the city to the

Garden of Gethsemane and he told them stay awake They didn't but he's been with them the whole time

Every part of Jesus's life has been with them So obviously

Jesus was praying for them He's praying for Peter He's praying for Bartholomew and Andrew and Simon he's praying for John and Mark and all of the disciples that would come eventually like Paul and Yet what we also see is that he had more than just those disciples on his mind.

He also had us verse 20 again,

Jesus says I do not ask on behalf of these alone what a Wonderful statement that that is

I Don't ask for these alone. I ask for all who believe in me through their word that includes us

Shepherds Church We are part of the all who believe in Jesus's word 2 ,000 years removed.

Praise God for this verse again last week we saw that a

Sanctified disciple will be a sent disciple and he will send out his human witnesses and that those human witnesses will

Pass along his word. That's how we got here Is that some point somebody told us and we just happen to live in a very blessed

Culture where we can sometimes watch someone tell us on YouTube instead of in person but at some point the

Word of God intersected with your life like a greyhound and a jaywalker and you it was shocking when it happened and Then you stood up new

We've heard the word because it's been passed down through the centuries by faithful witnesses We're here today because of that missions is not about helping people go to heaven

That's a consequence of missions Missions is about connecting lost sheep to the Messiah who prayed for them and who prayed blessings over them

It's connecting them to the blessings of Christ for all who he calls his own So as we re -examine the high priestly prayer, we're gonna do something that we don't normally do here

You know, you've heard the phrase two steps forward one step back We're gonna do one step forward than two steps or no one steps back than two steps forward.

We're gonna reverse that We're gonna go back to John 17 1 and we're gonna look at all of the things we've already looked at But now with a focus on how they apply to us

God's people So it says he doesn't pray for them alone. I do not ask him behalf of them alone everything in this prayer

Therefore applies to us that means the eternal life That he is talking about is not just to a first century church.

It's to us He prayed that we would have eternal life and that we would be called out of the world.

God gave us Jesus for that purpose That we will be saved from our sin

And what I love about this is in the Garden of Gethsemane When Jesus is praying he said I don't pray for them alone. I pray for all those who believe

I believe he knew you I Believe he knew you by name. I believe he knew your face.

I believe when he was praying He was saying that one and that one and that one I am gonna save them and I'm gonna bring them eternal life

And I drop them out of the world how glorious and awesome and omniscient is our

God? John 17 2 says all whom you have given to him.

He will give eternal life this means that All whom the father gave to Jesus are secure

The question is not whether you raised your hand or filled out a paper or Ran up to the front for an altar call.

I'm not saying that you can't do those things I'm saying that those things don't save you

What saves you here is? That you've been given before your birth to Christ by God.

You've been hand -picked out of the cemetery Raised to life and handed over to Jesus who's now your

Lord and that happened before you were even born Because Jesus said

I prayed for them and Also for all those who came later, so you were saved brothers and sisters before you said

Lord save me Because you were already hand selected by God you got ran over by the

Greyhound in space and time You figured it out you were like look at me,

I'm saved and Jesus with a smile on his face says I prayed for you 2 ,000 years ago.

You were already mine We are the spoils of Jesus's victory

Jesus went through everything. He went through all the pain all the blood all the tears all the

Maligning and beatings he went through all of them and the gift that God gave him was you

That you are his To shepherd to care for it's almost like if you look back in the

Old Testament the story of Jacob and and Rachel Jacob you'll remember he

Negotiated with Laban the price on how many how many years he was gonna work it turned out

He worked a little more than what the original price was But he says he worked with a smile on his face.

It said that that he was so joyful the time flew by and Then Rachel Eventually became his own through all of his labor all of his sweat all of his tears and he brought her into his home and he made her his own and Jacob was not a perfect man, but Jesus Christ was the one who left his homeland and negotiated the bride price for you and Went through his whole ministry died a horrific death to purchase you and to bring you into his home

Brothers and sisters you have eternal life Because of the wonder working of Jesus Christ and not by your own works

We'd said last week it's like a worm turning into a butterfly I don't think the worm in the cocoon had a schematic out on how to weave together wings

Something was happening upon him that was or her I'm not a I'm not a zoologist

Something was happening upon that creature that caused it to become a new creation Something if you were in Christ has happened upon you and it wasn't you

Wasn't your power that raised you and changed you and made you a new creation All this happened because the

Lord prayed for you 2 ,000 years ago The most powerful prayer that has ever been prayed.

I Don't know how many people are have been Christians throughout history. Let's say a hundred billion his prayer claimed for his own

Every believer who's ever existed in every age What a part what a prayer the second thing is that?

We will know God while we're in the world You see we often get this idea that now that I'm a Christian I'm gonna do something else for 40 50 years until I go to heaven actually

That's not the case Christianity your salvation. It's not the finish line of your faith.

It's the starting point Now that you're in Christ great get your water it's time to race

He doesn't say that I'm gonna take you out of the world. That's it You are gonna be taken out of the world. You do have eternal life.

It is going to abound into eternity But while you're here He says that you will know God and that word knowing there is you will increasingly come under the knowledge of God You will not be stagnant

You will not be complacent You'll be the kind of person who drinks from the knowledge of God in Scripture so that you can grow

Everything in nature grows when it is healthy when you are healthy in Christ You will grow in the knowledge of God and it's not just intellectual knowledge or ascent

It's not I have memorized facts We were in Sunday school earlier talking about the aseity of God and if we're not careful using words like that we can become puffed up Do you

Our goal in understanding the knowledge of God is to understand him and to get to know him and To be in a better relationship with him so that we can praise him and worship him

Our goal is to be like a child who knows their father When I was a kid,

I had no idea what the technical term for my dad's job was I knew that he cut down trees and he did something else

But he was like an arborist and and he like oversaw job sites. I didn't know that I was like I really wish my dad was here right now

So he could see this I and when my dad would come home I would run to the door and be like I love you so much I didn't

I didn't care about all of the fancy titles that my dad had. I just wanted to know him That's the kind of knowledge that God has brought us into the same kind of knowledge that makes your kid beat the door down when you

Come home to see you and to wrap their arms around your leg as you walk through the house Looking like your leg is broken because you've got one toddler on this leg and one toddler on that That's the kind of knowledge that David had when he ran after God Jesus describes it as a husband and a wife because it's intimate knowledge

It's it's it's not scientific in the sense of I Know how many hairs are on Shannon's head or I know every factor is to know but I don't care about those things

I love her That's the kind of knowledge if you don't have that if you don't have that intimacy if you don't have that desire to know him

Pray the Lord would give you that because that's what it's about Jesus did not pray 2 ,000 years ago the most powerful prayer that's ever been prayed for you to eke out your salvation with grumbling

For 40 years before you're taken home He wants you while you're here to know

God thrillingly so He wants you to know God in such a way that your toes curl and the nation scream

How do you do that you pray that the Holy Spirit would help you with that because You need help

How else do you do that? I? Think one thing you do is you read your word You spend time with God in the scriptures you pray

Come to church Jesus said when two or three are gathered in my name and in the context of that passage.

He's talking about the church He said I am with you. I'll be in your presence If you want to know the king come to where the king hangs out and he's here.

He's at his table When you come and feast at the table of Christ, you're being nourished by Jesus himself

The king has now prepared you a meal Why would you miss it? all these things are means of grace for you so that you can get to know him and love him and enjoy him and what

Is the purpose of life? Purpose of life is not your job. What a shallow purpose. The purpose of life is not even your family

And a thousand years from now you will be forgotten and I will be forgotten There's a handful of people on earth who've been remembered and mostly for bad things

The purpose of life is not those things the purpose of life is to know and enjoy God That's what redounds into eternity

That's the second thing that we would know him while we're here Also that we would come under his lordship while we're here that he has authority over every aspect of our life

That we don't get to do whatever we want as a Christian. Did you know the Bible calls you a slave? The Bible doesn't call you a free man

The Bible doesn't say that the Bible doesn't say you're in slavery, but it doesn't say that you were delivered unto Libertine freedom. It says that you were a slave of sin and now you're a slave of Christ That means that there's an authority structure in your life

That means that what Jesus says goes that means that you really don't have the authority to offer up a peep

Jesus says I want you to do this. I don't really feel like it. I don't care what you feel like Because the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth has called you

Jesus bought and paid for us with his life in something you could not pay for you could not work

You could not do Every aspect of your life is pure unadulterated grace.

Why is it that? That we so reluctantly and begrudgingly

Submit to him He gave us everything and how little we would give him in return

And it's not One of us here brothers and sisters. It's all of us our flesh hates

To submit to Jesus Christ The thing that would make us well the thing that would make us joyful the thing that would that would alleviate our suffering and pain

Even if we're going through the worst possible torture that's ever been delivered to a human being we would have joy if we would just Submit to Christ and his vision for our life and yet how reluctantly

We do it We sort of look like burger king, which is gross. We want to have it our way

We invite Jesus into what we're doing Instead of being reminded that he's called us into what he's doing

He called us to leave everything behind. He called us to pick up our electric chair and to follow him Um You're saying it's cross you're right, but the cross doesn't really strike you

After you've been in the church for a while you look at it as a t at the front of the building He called you to pick up your death

To die and to follow him to die to your will your opinion And to become his slave

Christianity is not a democracy Brothers and sisters, even though we live in a democracy.

You don't get a vote He is king And you know what?

We're obliged and blessed when we submit to this good king's rule That's the third thing the fourth thing is that he's called us not just to know him in the world

And not just to submit to him in the world because those are two different things He's called us to also be faithful to him in the world.

He says I ask on their behalf I do not ask behalf on the world But for those whom you have given me for they are yours

And I am no longer in the world and yet they themselves are in the world And I come to you holy father

Keep them in your name the name which you have given me that they may be one even as we are one

That's john 17 9 and 11 Jesus is saying i've pulled them out of the world for a purpose not so they would be faithless

But so they would be faithful why? so that the nations Who hate god would see the faithfulness of his people and they would repent

The reason that he did not Save you and zap you out of here

In that instant is because he has a purpose for you and your purpose is nothing

Short of that the nations would cry out to the glory of god based off of the faithfulness of You and the church

That's why he's left you he's left you because he's got more people to save And he's left you because he's left you to be his witnesses

And not begrudgingly I remember the first time that I shared my faith I remember the lord laid it on my heart.

I was in alabama Honestly, like of all the places it's not a threatening place

Everybody's really nice there Everybody is at least culturally a christian in alabama

And I remember how much I fought god on that how much I I walked up to that person

I was just I was just I think the lord told me to share my faith And I walked away I was faithful I guess

To what the lord called me to do, but the lord didn't call us to begrudging obedience. He called us to joyful Obedience, that's the fifth thing.

He called us to have joy while we're here because there is joy in obedience There is joy in faithfulness

We tend to think about our slavery as something that I have to do Something that that the task master of egypt is just like jesus and he's going to be whipping me across the back and it's going

To hurt it's going to be painful. No Slavery to sin in the world is misery slavery to christ is joy

Slavery to the world is a lack of freedom slavery to christ is where you finally and utterly get true freedom back

He prayed not for a portion of joy not for a Micro Nano particle of joy, but for full joy

He says but now I come to you father and these things I speak in the world so that they may have my joy

Made full on themselves. He's not even asking you to muster up your Very trifle joy

He's not asking you to fake it before you make it He's not asking you to put on a smiley face and an instagram little thing and and and pretend like you're happy That's no.

He's saying I want you to have my joy And where does christ joy most fully show up?

For the joy set before him. He walked up the hill of calvary and gave himself for us

Jesus wants you to have his joy while you are here Jesus did not die and he did not pray this prayer for you to have a joyless faith

He not only prayed that we would have joy brothers and sisters. He prayed that we would fill the earth with his joy

That the nations would be glad because of the gladness of the church He also prayed that our standards would not be informed or conformed by the world he said in verse 14

I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world even as I am not of the World jesus assumed that the world was going to hate you and he assumed in that you would have joy

He did not assume that you would say but god, you don't know how hard it is Yes, he does as he hung upon the cross and took the agony and the brutality of the physical punishment and The punishment you and I can't even conceive of of having the world's sins

Or all of his elect people's sins poured out on him the wrath of god poured out on him

The face of god turned from him what you and I can't even imagine it says he had joy

We are not to be conformed To the world the world is not to look at us

And say that they believe in that religion called christianity. They are supposed to look at us and say my gosh

Whatever it is that they believe has made them different You can't keep them down you you talk bad about them and they'll bless you

You fire them and they'll go start a business Whatever manner of evil you do against them they'll bless and they will not curse

You cut them off in traffic and they'll give you signs of the cross instead of other signs Because i'm praying for you

Remember in the first century Paul was arrested. What did he do? He sang songs James and john beaten what they do they ran away or they walked away singing and they counted themselves worthy of being

Of suffering for the gospel remember what paul said in philippians 1 he said it's a great blessing that you suffer for the sake of christ

James says count on all joy when you suffer trials of various kinds Why is it that the bible is so specific that joy can happen even in a joyless world?

Because god is redeeming the nations And the most powerful apologetic of the reality of christ in you

Is that you would be joyful and suffering? It's the only thing that humans can't fake

Every other religion Does not do this When they suffer they whine about it.

That is what humans do Only christians praise god and worship him in the midst of awful suffering and it is an apologetic to the nations

Of the reality of who christ is He prayed

That you and I would not be safe He did not pray that you and I would be comfortable he prayed that you and I would have joy

He did pray that we'd be protected from the enemy praise god for that prayer He said I do not ask you to take them out of the world

But to keep them from the evil one praise god for that's john 17 15 He also prayed that we would be sanctified in the world

That was last week that we would be sanctified in the truth His word is truth and that we would grow in that sanctification of the truth

Why so that we'd be sent out into the world you realize that all of this every single bit of this is about God praying blessings over you so that the world would see and come to know him

All of it. He gave you eternal life so that the world would see that you're not you don't belong here

He called you to know god while you're in the world to come under his lordship in the world So they would see that to be faithful in the world to have joy in the world to have his standards not their standards

To be protected while you're in the world to cling to the truth while in the world and guess what after he sanctifies you

He sent you back into the world And why does he want us to engage the world

Because contrary to popular christian beliefs God is going to win the entire world for himself

He is not going to cause this earth to crash in a blaze of glory. He is going to use his church

To win the nations that is what he says over and over again and listen church history proves it

Year one, how many were there 70? Year 100 a couple hundred thousand

Year 200 about a million King I can keep going all the way through church history to now where there's 2 billion or so Why do we think that all of a sudden that christ's victory is going to end?

Why do we all of a sudden believe that that he's not going to use us to win the nations God's plan from the very beginning and adam was to Fill the world full of worshiping people who are fruitful and multiplied to the ends of the earth.

That's his plan And brothers and sisters through you through you

He is going to flip the world upside down again Again you weren't made for your work

You weren't weren't you weren't made for big houses and vacations you were made for christ And guess what

We don't come here today for you to listen to derek and I do ministry that's not what the bible says

The bible says that the pastors and the elders equip the saints for the work of ministry So where's the ministry?

It's not in here It's in the world And you've been called according to a purpose to declare the glories of jesus christ so that the nations would come home to christ

And jesus talks about this in the passage for today He said I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in me through their word

That they may also be one even as you father are in me and I in you and they also may be in us so that The world may believe that you sent me

You want a two -step plan on how to turn the world upside down for christ? Here it is number one

The church needs to have unity again all the infighting the backbiting the gossiping the

Hammering everyone else over the head because they don't exactly agree with us theologically has got to stop

Now that does not mean That we unite in error and it doesn't mean that we embrace people's heresies

We don't welcome unitarian universalist into the fold. We don't welcome mormons into the fold.

We have standards My only point is is as we're growing in theological purity.

Are we growing in unity? It's an important question because jesus says that if we grow in unity

It is our unity that the world sees It is our unity that brings the world to faith in christ they see that jesus said so that The world will know that you sent me

The evidence brothers and sisters that christ has been sent into the world and rescued you

Is the fact that we love each other and the world can't stop that The example i've used many times before in the coliseum when they were feeding the christians to lions

Do you know why people in the stands were getting saved? It wasn't because they did a five minute message with a hand raise at the end

The reason people in the in the coliseum who were formerly cheering to see blood and death

Were crying out in profession of faith to christ as it said is because the christians down in the coliseum

Loved each other so much That they cling to one another unto death and the pagans looked and said look at how they love one another

And they were blown away This is exactly what jesus says because we don't live in a world where people love each other

Not really people use each other people abuse each other and people aren't used to seeing true love among People and why don't they see it among the church?

Because as jesus said when they see that Their eyes will be open to say god really must have sent his son.

Look at these people They love each other No matter what That's the first thing

The second thing is that the world would believe Jesus did not say

In order to get the world to believe that we need to put on church circuses every single week with light shows and Game of throne chairs in the background and swimming pools and every other ridiculous thing

I've seen in the megachurch movement. We don't do that The world's not going to believe because of our stuffy theology when they come in here and they see how erudite we are

The world is going to believe in the reality of jesus christ when he sees the church living out what christ said

So brothers and sisters Let's do that Let us repent for all the ways that we've brought disunity in our families and in our churches

Let us repent of all the ways that we've lived in cowardice or in fear Let us repent of all the ways that we've not done what jesus prayed that we would do and let us turn to him with great joy

And let us leave here with great joy a kind of joy that that is addictive So that the nations may see christ amen

Let's pray Lord jesus. We thank you so much that you

Were sent by god To purchase your bride

Lord, we thank you that all throughout the scriptures You tell us how you loved us.

You purchased us. You redeemed us. You saved us. You justified us. You sanctified us So that we would be new people new creations

Lord, I pray that we would not waste our lives here Lord I pray that we would not be new people new creations in name only

Lord, I pray that everything jesus prayed for his church would be true of this church Lord, I pray that a revival

Of word repentance and joy Would take over this congregation lord

So that the nations would have to turn their heads sideways with a sort of taco neck syndrome and have to Reckon with what in the world is going on with those people