Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

 What Jesus Most Wants For You

by Dave Wilkinson

John 17:21-26, 1 John 4:17

March 10, 2002

President William Howard Taft's great granddaughter was asked to write her autobiography when she was in the third grade. The young lady responded: "My great-grandfather was President of the United Sates. My grandfather was a United States Senator. My father is an ambassador, and I am a Brownie."

We all take glory where we can find it. That's good. Because glory plays a prominent role in God's word to us this morning.

There are times in life when we want to communicate what is most on our hearts and what we most want for those we love. There are pivotal times when we focus on core things. When we do this, it's good to get it written down so it can be carried into the future.

Just a week ago I was looking through my files at home. I found two letters that I had written to my sons Ryan and Kevin when they were little boys. They have never been opened. These were written before Carol and I went to Israel for the first time.

Now we didn't really expect anything to happen to us. Nothing did happen except a great trip. But travel to some regions always has some element of risk however small, So I decided to leave my sons letters with words about our hopes for their lives and their walk with the Lord.

I'm not going to read these letters to you. If Ryan and Kevin want to read them, that is fine. The letters are meant for them.

But there is a similar message that is intended for all of us. This message is found in seventeenth chapter of John's gospel -- the chapter that is sometimes called Jesus' high priestly prayer.

You have to understand when Jesus prays this prayer. Jesus has just shared the Last Supper with His disciples. After praying this prayer He will go to the agony in the Garden of Gesthamane. He is going to be arrested this night and crucified the next day.

Jesus doesn't fear this. He knows this. So He prays a prayer in which He talks about those things which are at the core what He most wants for us in our walk with Him and with each other.

In the first part of the prayer Jesus talks about our joy and our protection in the world. Then, in verses 21- 26, we find what Jesus wants for our future. I enourrage you to read the whole chapter but we'll verses 21-26 both this morning and in our small groups.

Jesus has told us in John 16 that "As the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me." He tells us that abiding in Him is essential to bearing fruit! And then He tells us that bearing fruit is essential to our Christian walk. Now He prays that this essential relationship will be a fact in our lives that we will be in Him. In verse 21, He prays that we may be in both the Father and the Son.

Then Jesus prays for a second part of our future not only that we be in Him in this life but also that we be with Him for eternity. Verse 24: "Father, I desire that they also whom You have given me may be with Me where I am." Earlier, in Chapter 14, He gave us a promise: "In My Father's house," He says, "Are many dwelling places. If it were not so I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you. And when I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may also be."

You see, Jesus is determined that we be with Him for eternity. And here's why. In verse 24, Jesus prays: "I desire that they whom You have given to me, may be with me in order that they may behold My glory which You have given me."

Jesus wants us to be with Him, because He wants us to see Him as he is. And along with this, He wants us to be with us so that, for the first time, we will also be able to see ourselves and each other as we really are. We talked about this in February 10th when we looked at the meaning of Jesus' transfiguration. Now, in verse 22 Jesus says: "The glory which You have given me, I have given them."

C.S. Lewis, in Miracles, paints a picture of what Jesus says here: "One may think," he writes "of a diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in mid-air, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay; then up again, back to color and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks surface again, holding in his hand the dripping precious thing that he went down to recover. He and it are both colored now that they have come up into the light. Down below, where it lay colorless in the dark, He lost his color too."

In Lewis's analogy, Jesus Christ is the diver. In the words of Paul in Philippians 2, He emptied Himself. He stripped Himself of His divine attributes of being all- powerful, all knowing, everywhere present and dove down into the dark.

While on earth Jesus was without His color, His glory. He was the baby laid in a manger the humblest of all possible births. He was the boy learning His lessons in the school and in the carpenter shop. He was the man who was rejected because He lacked formal learning. He was the one on the cross dying the agonized death of a criminal between two thieves. All of this was for the purpose of recovering a treasure, which was sunk in the dark our lives. To bring us out of the dark, He entered the dark. When He leaves the dark for the world of light, then we will be with Him and for the first time we will have our color restored as well. We will shine as we were originally created to shine.

You may look at yourself sometimes and feel pretty drab. But that is because you have never seen yourself as you really are. Even gold looks drab and colorless in the depths. Jesus wants you to be with Him so you can see Him as He is and also, so you can see yourself and others, for the first time, in the true light of day.

Do you remember that depressing Country Western song: "Is That All There Is?" I never liked the depressing song and I don't buy into Peggy Lee's depressing answer. I do hope that she found more when she died last January.

For Jesus says: "No, this isn't all there is." And He tells us that even the greatest joy we have now is only a faint foretaste of the joy that is to come. Colossians 3 tells us: "For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory."

It is the Christian conviction that we will share all of the experiences of Christ. We've talked about sharing His suffering. Now we are talking about sharing His glory. For if we share His cross, we will share His resurrection. 2 Timothy 2 says: "If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign with Him."

A third great element of the future Jesus wants for us is found is verse 26. Jesus wants us to have a confident security in our relationship with God: "And I have made My name known to them, and I will make it known, that the love with which you love me may be in them and I in them."

What does this love do for us?

Let me answer this question by turning your focus to some amazing words from John is his first letter I John 4:17. It contains only nine power packed monosyllables. Listen to them: "As He (Jesus) is, so are we in the world."

If you only get one message out of this sermon -- if you only get one thing out of this whole Lenten study this is the one to get. If you hear it and take it to heart, it will help you live with tremendous confidence before God.

Let me say that again.

A Bible teacher named Henry Ironsides writes of the impact of these nine monosyllables in his own life. Listen to his exploration of what John tells us.

"As He is." I could not make that out. I wondered if that were the correct translation. Might it not mean, "As He is, so ought we to be in this world"? I read the context and looked it up in the original. No; that was not it! Could it be that this is to be carried into the future? Could it mean, "As He is, so will we be when we get through this world"? No; that was not it. "As He is, so are we in this world." But I am not pure in thought and word and deed as He is. I am not considerate of the feelings of others as He. I do not love God as He does.

There must be something wrong. Then my attention was directed to the fact that John has just been talking about the Day of Judgment. I used to be afraid of the Day of Judgment. How terrible it would be after many years of service to come to the judgment and find I had failed and might be lost after all! But I read, "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment; because as He is so are we in this world." It began to open up to me. My relationship to the coming judgment is the same as Jesus Christ's. Is He coming into judgment for sin? No. Then what about me? "As He is, so are we in this world."

Ironsides continues: "John says, "Perfect love casts out fear." I had been looking for perfect love in myself, trying to pump it up looking for perfect love but never finding it. Then, through this verse, the Lord led me to look for perfect love in Jesus Christ. I found it there the love that brought Him to the cross. Perfect love is there and only there. It casts out all fear. Paul wrote: "There is no condemnation to them which are in Jesus Christ." Jesus said: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he that hears my word and believes in Him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but has already passed from death to life." There is no room for fear. "As He is, so are we in this world."

Jesus prays for our future. He prays that we may be in Him and that He may be in us. And this brings us to one final major facet of this prayer the theme of unity that we may also be in each other.

Of all the things Jesus tells us, I believe this is the most important. Just look at how often Jesus says this.

Verse 11: "Keep them in Your name, the name which You have given me, that they may be one, even as We are."

Verses 20 and 21: "I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You."

Verse 22: "And the glory which You have given me I have given to them; that they may be one just as We are one."

Verse 23: "That they may be perfected in unity."

Just based on the number of times He says it, this is the most important thing Jesus wants us to know.

Here's how Earl Palmer of University Presbyterian n Seattle summarizes Jesus' oft-repeated prayer for unity: "The mission of the Christian in the world" he writes, "is here given its first theological explanation. The Christian strategy is not portrayed in terms of rugged individualism. There are no apostolic heroes who will be so brave and strong that they will be able to go it alone in the world. As they supremely need Jesus Christ, they will also need each other. As Christ gives to each of them the gift of the Holy Spirit to be in them and with them on the journey, so now He gives them each other. This means that Jesus' strategy for us in the world is to be a people a holy colony real people in a real place set in the midst of the turmoil of history.

"In this prayer Jesus gives a very important clue concerning the nature of the Christian Church. It's Jesus who creates the oneness, which is the church. That's what verse 20 teaches. The true basis for the solidarity of believers, is the Lord who makes us one. Christians have tried to build solidarity on the basis of other great facts, but such a basis for oneness is false.

"For example, the mission of the church is not the basis of our solidarity. It is our task but not our motivation. Too much task orientation in the church results in believers relating to each other on the basis of each other's abilities. Gradually the worth of the brother or sister is shifted to false ground. The true basis of our relating to each other ought to be Christ in us. Christ in you and in me.

"Our mutual interests are, likewise, not the source of the oneness Christ is praying for. Mutual interests are the basis of clubs, societies and trade unions -- but not the church. We are brought together because of Christ's invitation. We did not choose each other." God chose us for each other. This means that I continue in the church not at my discretion but at his insistence.

Some enthusiasts of the ecumenical movement believe that Jesus' prayer will be answered if all of the churches get together into one super-church with one form of government one great organization. But unified organization is no guarantee of a unity of spirit any more that union means unity if you tie two cats together by the tail and hang them over a clothesline not that I do that or suggest doing that.

I believe that different denominations are okay -- but only just as long as we know that they are like surface cracks on a dry lake bed. They're obvious but shallow, and mask the very real unity that lies just beneath the surface.

And what will be the effect of this unity when it is demonstrated? Jesus says that by our oneness, the world will know that Jesus was sent by the Father. Unity is basic to our witness. If the world sees a group of people here who love each other despite the differences between them differences of race, age, sex, education, economic status, political belief, ability then the world will have to take notice and see that something is happening here that falls outside of the usual pattern of human society.

This is what Jesus most wants for us. It's what He calls us to be. It's what we need to do.

In this prayer given the night of His arrest, Jesus has revealed what He wants for you -- joy, protection, eternal life and unity. And the greatest gift we can give Him in return is to accept the gifts He gives to us.