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May 22, 2016

Prayer 202-The Butterfly Effect

Prayer 202-The Butterfly Effect

Passage: John 17:6-19

Preacher: John Repsold

Category: Prayer

Keywords: filled with the spirit, jesus, prayer, secure, shepherding, revealing christ, accepting god's word

Summary:

This message looks at the second section of Jesus' prayer in John 17. It focuses on embracing the people God has given each of us to shepherd, God's keeping work and name in that all, and how we as God's kids, imperfect as we are, are still bringing glory to Him.

Detail:

Prayer’s Butterfly Effect

Prayer 202: John 17:6-19

Series: Praying with Jesus—May 22, 2016

 

INTRO:  How many of you know what is meant by “the butterfly effect”?  I didn’t either…until Eric enlightened me this week.  So let me enlighten you with a 3 minute video about this theory. 

See:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZLbhxvlQmA

While chaos theory isn’t adequate to explain what has been happening in the lives of millions of people throughout the last 20 centuries who have been transformed by encounters with Jesus Christ, the truth does remain:  the words and actions of Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago in a little place called Israel have had dramatic, unimaginable consequences in the lives of billions of people…and still do. 

            We’re in a short series on “Praying with Jesus” in which we are seeking to have our own experiences with God and each other changed...deepened...improved through this thing we call prayer.  More specifically, we're trying to experience prayer with Jesus by studying his recorded prayers and changing our praying to conform more with His praying. 

            So today we pick up the 2nd section of The REAL Lord’s Prayer found in John 17:6-19.  But before we dive into this text, let’s PRAY!

If you were with us last week, you will hopefully remember that the first part of this prayer sort of parallels what is commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6 that we looked at 4 weeks ago.  In both that and this John 17 prayer, Jesus directs our attention before doing anything else to the greatness, the glory, the sovereignty and the power of God.  In John 17 he did that during what was undoubtedly THE worst day in his own life—the day of his betrayal, arrest, torture and crucifixion.  Jesus wanted to remind himself and us that embracing the great and majestic sovereignty of the Father is absolutely vital if we are to endure, survive and triumph in the darkest hours of life. 

            So after focusing on the glory of the Father, Jesus now turns his prayer to the condition and needs of his closest friends, his disciples.  We pick it up in vs. 6.

            “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world.”

Q1:  WHO did you reveal to those around you this week?  You’re probably thinking, “Well, ME, of course!” And depending on just how much like Jesus you were or weren’t, that may have been a really good thing…or a really unfortunate thing for the people around you.  

            This word “revealed” here was not found in the Greek language much at all before the N.T. writers picked it up.  It means “to make plain, to disclose, to reveal or make manifest” something.  It’s interestingly never used reflexively, meaning it’s not used to talk about oneself.  It’s all about showing off someone or something else. 

            Jesus’ objective in life was to reveal the Father.  While being God in human flesh himself, he still was all about demonstrating to people…showing off…revealing…God the Father.  That’s why there has never nor ever will be anyone like Jesus.  No one else will ever give such a clear, living-color demonstration of the nature and heart of God as Jesus did.  Just as the Holy Spirit’s calling in this world is to point us to Jesus and help us know Christ (John 15:26-- 26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.), so Jesus’ calling was to show off the Father.

APP:   It might seem a little strange, but when we’re talking with God in prayer, here’s a good question to ask the Father:  “How did I do today at revealing Jesus Christ?”  In fact, let’s do that right now and see what the Holy Spirit whispers to you. 

            “Dear Father, how well did I do at revealing Jesus this week to the people you put around me?  Where did I fail to do that?  What do you want me to do about that?  Amen.”

APP: 

  • This should be one of our daily prayers—“Father, please make Jesus known through me. Please take control of my words, my actions, my thoughts…everything…so that someone/everyone will see Jesus revealed in this world through me.”
  • This is why we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit continually—to be able to reveal Jesus to a lost world. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is not some mysterious, hard-to-experience thing. But like filling the pitcher I use to water all my plants around the house every few days, it takes some time.  It takes eyes to see what is happing in and through you. 

ILL:  I have about 20 different plants around the house, some plain green and 8 feet tall, trying to push the ceiling out above them.  Others are just 2 inches tall yet full of colorful flowers.  THE most important thing I must do for all of them is give them water on a regular basis.  Some can be watered too much so they maybe get water every 3 weeks.  Others can’t seem to get enough.  They get water every day. 

      As someone who feels responsible to care for them, I can walk in the room and, in less than 3 seconds, know whether they need water or not. 

      On the other hand, pretty much the rest of the family can come into the same room, be working or sitting in that room by the hour, and never see that this or that plant is dying of thirst!  I, on the other hand, can’t even sit down until I rescue my plant!  And all it takes is about 3 minutes filling a pitcher, sometimes adding a little fertilizer from a bottle I have next to the sink…and a few seconds to water each plant. 

      Being filled with the Spirit takes the same things—noticing when our spiritual connection and life in Christ is wilting, being attuned to reality, going to the “faucet” of God’s word and presence, turning it on by praying, and being patient enough to wait as God pours His life into my empty soul by pointing out sin, convicting of wrong, giving new focus and faith and taking charge afresh of my life. 

APP:  So, in whom did we see Jesus revealed/made clear? visible/manifest this week?  And what did he look like?  (Group responses.)

Now onto the next concern of Jesus’ prayer.  Vs. 6—“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world.  They were yours; you gave them to me….”

God gives people to each of His children to shepherd. Five times in His prayer (17:2, 6 [twice], 9, 24), Jesus refers to believers as those whom the Father has given Him.  This business of shepherding people in Christ is first and foremost the Father’s business.  He does the “giving” because He knows his own and he sovereignly gave them to Jesus and gives them to us.

Q2: Who has God given to you to shepherd spiritually?

            The very first year I met Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord, that first year I gave my life to Him, God began giving me people to shepherd.  Oh, I wouldn’t have called it that then.  But looking back, it was. 

  • I remember beginning to pray for the salvation of my only brother, Chris. He was in college at the time.  I prayed for two years.  He joined the Army when he finished college.  It was during the Vietnam War.  He got sent to Vietnam for a tour of duty.  I kept praying.  He came back for a short leave and then re-upped for a 2nd  I kept praying.  After 2 years in Vietnam, he came home one Christmas.  I kept praying.  He was discharged from the Army and began to experience reentry and reverse culture shock coming back to America.  One day in there my Dad invited him to go with him to hear an African-American evangelist, Sam Dalton, speak at a Chr. Business Men’s Committee (CBMC) dinner at the Ridpath several blocks from here.  That night he gave his life to Christ and became the final member of my immediate family to believe in Christ. 
  • That is one of hundreds of people God has “given me” to shepherd through the years. There were classmates through junior high, high school and college.  There have been neighbors in the dozens of places I’ve lived since meeting Christ.  There were fellow musicians, language helpers, teachers and professors, Bible camp kids, Vacation Bible School, Junior Church and Back Yard Bible Club children.  There have been doctors and dope addicts, judges and junkies, new believers and senior saints. There are my wife, our children, and now our grandchildren. 

APP:  WHO is in your life right now whom God has given to you to, in some way, shepherd?  I didn’t say “Win to Christ.”  That’s God’s job.  Our job is to “make disciples” of those God gives to us as we walk through life.  So start with those closest to you and work out from there. Write down their names…NOW!

  • Family members 1st.
  • Fellow work associates/students
  • Friends (both followers of Jesus and those without Jesus)
  • Neighbors

How different might our city look if each of us prayed daily for the people God has given to us—family, friends, work/school and neighborhoods?  What might happen if we just asked God regularly and continually, “Father, please equip me today to reveal You to these people you have given me in life.” 

Vs. 6b—“They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.”

In John’s gospel, when Jesus refers to His “words” (plural), He is talking about His commands, but when He refers to His “word” (singular) He is talking about His gospel. Thus, Jesus is indicating that the disciples have responded to the gospel.

APP:  Can you say, without a shadow of a doubt, that you have done just that?  Have you “obeyed God’s word” by embracing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?  Have you put your faith in Him—his death on the cross for you, his work of reconciling you to God the Father by paying for your sinful rebellion and offering you his perfect record/righteousness instead?  (Call to faith in Jesus.)

Vs. 7—Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.  For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.  They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 

In the case of Jesus, being sinless, how much of what He displayed to his disciples was good, godly and righteous?  100%.  Jesus knew how to draw 100% from the Father so that everything he passed on to His disciples, from words to actions, was good and godly. 

            That’s significantly different from us.  Not everything I pass on to you…or my family…or the driver in front of me on the highway J, is “from the Father.” 

Which leads me to ask, “What do we have that God has NOT given us?”   

How about anything that is not godly or good: sin…selfish human thoughts, actions, words, behaviors. 

So, what does God give us?  According to James 1:17—“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” 

Though Jesus could have taken credit for all the good, godly blessings he passed on to his disciples, he apparently kept demonstrating in word and deed that the good they were experiencing through Him was really “from the Father.” 

            WHY was that so important?  I think partly because he knew that if He could show them in His humanity what it looked like to live a life in fellowship with the Father, not just out of his own deity, then He knew they would grasp what it meant to live life as redeemed sinners in fellowship with Him. 

ILL:  The difference between carrying a “Platinum God Card” that was His divine nature and pulling it out every time it was handy to do so verses going to the Father, asking for “cash” from Him through a unified, dependent, moment-by-moment relationship and spending that “cash” (healing, words, love, rebukes, power) on others.  

APP:  This is what we are called to do in reminding those around us constantly that “everything” good in our lives has come to us from God, not our own effort.  Life as “saints” in Christ comes to us by “accepting…the words [God] gave [Jesus],” in other words, by embracing Jesus’ words to us as the very words of God to us. 

            I can’t emphasize this enough.  This is why God’s word is SO important to our growth.  Someone may genuinely think they have “received a word from God” for this person or that…and maybe they have. But you will never know that if you don’t first and always test everything through the filter of God’s words.  These are the words the apostles and the early church oriented their lives around. It wasn’t spectacular visions or dreams or supernatural experiences that Jesus called his followers to orient life around.  It was simply God’s words, particularly as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Q:  Have you really “accepted…the words” God gave us?  Are we really orienting our lives around that word…or other concerns, other priorities, other fears or values or messages of our culture?  That’s why THIS Word is so important…daily…to hide in our hearts and minds. 

Jesus keeps praying, reinforcing just what we’ve seen.

Vs. 9—“I pray for them.  I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 

It’s not that Jesus didn’t pray for lost sinners.  I think he did.  But that wasn’t the primary focus of this most important prayer.  Those the Father has given to the Son were…and probably continue to be (see Jn. 17:20-26; Hebrews 7:25-- He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.)

APP:  While praying for people to come to Christ is certainly appropriate, the bulk of our praying ought to be, I think, for those we know have already believed in Jesus.  Those are the people who have the greatest potential and hopefully are the most responsive to the Holy Spirit to bring glory to God.  This is why we pray for each other here week after week.  And our prayers are about far more than physical healing, though that is good and should be included.  When we join Jesus in his prayer for his own, we do well to focus on what he focused on in His praying for His own.  Clearly, here that includes the measure and degree of reception any one of us gives to the words of Jesus…the Word of God. 

ILL:  Conversation with our son, David, who is in Alabama training with the military.  We were all talking about how sad it is to be living in a nation that has so turned its back on God that now a clear majority of Americans no longer hold to God’s truth, to righteous living or to belief that God should determine and direct every part of their lives.  Those days are gone!  And it is simply sad and vexing to the soul to be living in a culture that is so rapidly descending into abject paganism. 

            BUT, in the midst of that, Sandy and I keep praying that our children will be bold warriors for the Kingdom of Christ, unashamed to speak of Jesus, to tell their friends and acquaintances that they are believing a lie when, for instance, those people parrot the cultural relativity of the day with a line like, “It doesn’t really matter what you believe or practice about human sexuality or sexual fidelity in marriage.  In fact, the only thing that matters is that you don’t judge others and let them do whatever they think is right for them to do with sex and sexuality.” 

It was SO encouraging to see the fruit of these prayers taking deep root in David in the midst of a very pagan, secular, military environment.  And it is a great blessing for us to watch him count the cost, grapple with what this will probably cost him personally and professionally someday, and see him declare at age 23, “This may cost me my career and perhaps my life but that is what life is for because Christ and heaven are what matter, not this world and this life!” 

Vs. 10—“All I have is yours, and all you have is mine.  And glory has come to me through them.”

Only God the Son can say that ALL that God the Father has is His as well.  We have many things of God that are ours when we become his children.  But not ALL things.  We share some of His moral characteristics…but not ALL.  We have everything we need for life and godliness in the knowledge of Jesus (2 Peter 1:3) but we don’t have God’s omnipotence (all power) or omniscience (knowing everything there is to know) or omnipresence (being everywhere, equally at all times). 

            But what a vital affirmation to make in prayer to God every day—“God, everything…everyone…every moment left in my life… it ALL is yours!  And since you own ALL of it, please use ANY of it this day for your purpose—my friendships, family, money, stuff, health, etc….ALL belongs to you.”  And then don’t get all bent out of shape when God actually decides to use some of it differently than you would have chosen!

            The other side of that is that anything God can and morally should share with us, he will.  And the wonderful part about it is that God not only shares his “stuff”; more importantly He shares HIMSELF! God doesn’t withhold a part of himself from us like we sometimes should but more often than not do with each other more than we should.  We’re finite beings who should maintain appropriate, loving boundaries between us and others.  But marriage, meant to be the closest human bond, is the one human relationship God chose to represent our relationship to Christ as His Bride. God desires to share more of himself with us by exponential proportions than any person on earth can share with us for a whole lifetime. 

            Reminds me of the old chorus, “I am my beloved’s and he is mine; his banner over me is love.”  (Song of Solomon 6:3). 

            Then the biggest surprise of all:  “And glory has come to me [Jesus] through them.” 

Knowing all the past and future failures of His disciples, Jesus reveals to them that their belief in and surrender to Him actually revealed his greatness…brought him glory.  Despite their imperfections, their trust in Christ and receiving of Him brought glory to Christ…just as yours and mine does in the 21st century… and will through all eternity. 

            When I look at each of you here whose life story I know, and when I see Jesus’ life and nature being displayed through you, what Jesus said makes perfect sense.  You don’t have to be perfect for me to be moved to thank God for you.  You don’t have to be perfect for me to see the life of Christ coming through you and for me to be drawn more to God because of that. When children display the admirable characteristics of their parents, they bring honor to their parents.  The same is true of each of us in this world.  When we mirror the life of Jesus, it brings glory to God. 

Let’s finish up this paragraph.  Vss. 11 & 12—“ 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.”

Besides affirming the unity of the Father and the Son here (vs. 11--“…the power of your name, the name you gave me…”), Jesus is also focusing on the work God the Father and God the Son do.  It is a protecting work…a keeping work.  (12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me.)

ILL: This week, Sandy and I were over celebrating our friend Carol’s birthday.  She and her husband were Wycliffe missionaries for 35+ years in Papua New Guinea.  They worked in a very isolated tribe in a very isolated place. 

            We got to asking them about if the people they worked with celebrated birthdays.  Until recently, no one kept track of when a child was born.  So birthdays weren’t a celebration.  But now that their pastor is keeping track of when a child is born, they have started celebrating birthdays.  And THE most important birthday is…1 year old!  In fact, parents often won’t name their child until they complete that one year mark. 

            Any idea why that is?  Because if they lived through their 1st year, they were probably going to survive.  So many babies didn’t survive that first year before missionaries with modern medicine arrived. 

            But there was another reason why they didn’t give them or use their names that first year.  The Fotaba people believed that if you used a name too early, too much, it would attract the attention of the evil spirits which might lead to a child’s illness and death. 

APP:  While this passage is not teaching some sort of Christian magic, it is telling us that there is power in the name of Jesus Christ.  It’s not because that name has spiritistic magic associated with it.  It’s because, in biblical times, the name of a person was associated with the character or nature of a person.

            God’s nature is to protect, in the deepest and most important sense of the word, those who belong to His family. He protects us from the Enemy of our souls… just as my nature is to protect my family.  I’ll do whatever it takes, even if that means putting myself between my family and harm, in order to protect them.  Sadly that’s not every husband or father’s nature.  I can’t take credit for that.  I had a father like that.  He never used his strength to harm us…never.  His name, which was backed up by his good character, opened door after door for me.  It wasn’t because people knew me or thought I was a great guy.  It was because they knew my father and knew what a great man he was. And they hoped I would be the same kind of man.  

            So, just what did Jesus protect his disciples from? And what, therefore, was he asking the Father to keep protecting them from?

 Obviously the kind of protection Jesus is referring to is not protection from trouble or persecution or even death.  That kind of trouble, Jesus said, would visit anyone who really followed Him (Jn. 16:33—“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”).  God is in the business of protecting our souls and keeping us safe from the Enemy of our soul who seeks to steal our hearts, kill our desire for God and destroy our eternal relationship with God.  That, friends, will never happen to those whose lives are protected by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

  • I Corinthians 1:8--8 He [our Lord Jesus Christ] will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blamelesson the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
  • I Thessalonians 5:23, 24-- 23 May God himself, the God of peace,sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
  • 2 Thessalonians 3:3--3 But the Lord is faithful,and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.
  • Jude 25 & 25--24 To him who is ableto keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! 

But here is the really stunning part about God’s protection of us.  Listen to one of the reasons Jesus gives for WHY he protected his disciples. 

Vs. 11b--Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 

Next week we’re going to take a longer look at this statement and the amazing significance it has to every one of us.  I actually think Jesus has in mind here a unity we’re going to experience in heaven with Him that will be the ultimate “unity” of the people of God.  It’s not going to be the Buddhist concept of Nirvana where everyone’s unique personality is melded and melted into one great big cosmic consciousness.  That’s unity at the price of individuality and personal uniqueness.  The unity Jesus refers to is according to the unity God the Father and Son share.  They are both distinct persons of the Trinity but one God.  They have different tasks and roles but one shared, united, undivided nature. 

            Jesus had this in mind when he chose these 12 men.  This very text tells us that he knew Judas Iscariot would never truly follow him, never put his faith in him or become part of his divine family.  If nothing else, Judas’s presence among the 12 men closest to Christ for 3 ½ years confirms the genuine freedom every individual has to accept or reject Christ.  Judas ultimately rejected Jesus…and lost his soul to an eternity separated from the One he betrayed. 

            But the other 11—how did they experience Jesus protection from turning away from Him and thus turning away from each other…or perhaps destroying each other?  Without giving away the surprise in store next week, let me simply suggest that there could not have been a more unlikely group of men on which to build the success or failure of the greatest spiritual enterprise in human history—the Church.  The degree of diversity was astounding!  The potential for absolute failure was astronomical!  The chances of the kind of success the world has seen over the last 20 centuries was virtually zero! 

APP:   Which is one of the reasons I’m so excited about Mosaic.  Isn’t that us?  Aren’t we the least likely group of people to shake the heart of Spokane?  Aren’t the odds of us failing astronomical?  Aren’t we the strangest bunch of people to be thrown together to do something miraculous at one of the most difficult times in human history and in the history of this city? 

            That’s why we need to pray for protection as people.  God isn’t interested in projects or programs or buildings.  It’s PEOPLE that He goes to the mat…better yet, to the cross…for.  It’s the unity God longs to see us experience despite our impossible diversity that will bring glory to our God. 

            So let’s pray for just that…and the PEOPLE God has entrusted to US!