Top 10 Prayers of the New Testament #3

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Speaker 1: Jesus prayed, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you and me, so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Wow, the so called high priestly prayer is breathtaking. It's larger than our expectations. It's deeper than our usual prayers. You know, we often ask what's God's will? Well, the full answer is complex and multifaceted. But here we are handed two crystal clear desires straight from Jesus's lips. That's got to count. First, that we spiritfilled followers of Jesus would be one even as the Father and the sutter onecond that we would know, really know that the Father loves us even as he loves the son. This is not a theologian's aspiration or a prophet's wish list. These were among the final requests Jesus made before the cross for us, and he explicitly praised them. For those who will believe in me through your message, that's us, that's you, that's me. Surely that alone makes us a fitting candidate for one of the great prayers of the New Testament, maybe even the whole Bible, and it should fill our hearts with almost dizzying hope. But honesty presses in. How's it going well? Welcome to Gospel Rant Podcasts and Doctor Bill Sinord YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Sinard. We're free wherever you get podcasts. Of course, we're on YouTube as well, so please subscribe as always below and make comments. One of the fastest ways you can help us is by leaving comments below on you tube and contacting me Bill at gospeldesh app dot com and let me know what you think. Yep. Thanks for making Gospel Rant podcast We're on the top ten percent of the world. Thank you for listening every week. We try to do series as much as possible so you can track us. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love for the unlovable, love the unlovely, the unworthy, the unlikely, and the hurting. And that's all of us on any going to day. If we were just a little bit honest, well, I want to get right back into it after this brief word from our sponsors. Right, We'll be right back well. According to research from the Center of the Study of Global Christianity, there are tens of thousands of Christian denominations worldwide. I mean, the exact numbers debated, but the reality is plain. We're fragmented, and it can feel as though we define ourselves more by our distinctions than by the gospel Jesus purchase for us at such cost. Not a call to stop serious theological reflection and dialogue. Debate. Truth matters, orthodoxy matters. There are real differences that demand thoughtful, vigorous conversation and actions. Yet in John seventeen, I hear a tone, a spirit that rises above boundary making. Jesus's prayer is not fueled by anxiety over being wrong, but by longing for sheared life, for unity. Our wider culture runs on the US versus them, and I think the Church picks that up. You disagree with me, and you quickly risk becoming of them, And once labeled, distance grows. Caricatures follow condemnation. Is it far behind? Right? We're swimming in that well? Jesus envisioned something different for his followers, He asks the Father to tune our hearts to another rhythm. In Christ, animated by the Spirit and the Spirit's power, were invited into a oneness that does not demand uniformity. It's astonishingly possible to love and fellowship with believers who differ from us on matters we consider important, while humbly admitting that one of us may be mistaken, and likely both of us are. At some points. I sometimes joke that I disagree with myself regularly. You know. It's more confession than humor. Look, this is not relativism. Right or wrong. Remain sound doctrine matters. But Jesus's prayer hints that our instinct to divide isn't driven by zeal for truth. It's fed by insecurities, by fear of being exposed as wrong, or fear of judgment, or fear that God's approval hangs by a doctrinal thin thread. Complete unity, he says, is something we are being brought toward. It has an s catalogical horizon. The Kingdom will one day consummate what we now taste in part, and in the meantime, the invitation is clear. Draw on the Spirit's power in our inner being, so we might begin to grasp the vastness of Christ's love for us even when we air, and for others even when they err when they differ from us. True unity would be uncomfortable. It means worshiping beside those whose secondary convictions might diverge sharply from mind, and means sharing the Lord's table with people we once filed under them that in Christ they are beloved no less than we are. And we cannot manufacture this by sheer effort. Teeth gritted unity only deepens fractures. Our mid brain reflexes defend, protect, and react faster than our reason. Prejudices surface before we can argue them down. So we turn to prayer. We ask the Spirit. We plead with the spit. We beg the Spirit to fill us with Christ's love for the very people he died to redeem, people with whom He surely has disagreements too. If Jesus can love the imperfect disciples, perhaps we can too. Jesus ties unity directly in a mission, then the world will know that you sit me, so did you hear it? Our fracture becomes an obstacle. Our polarization muddles the signal of God's love. Conversely, when disparate people, different tribes, temperaments, infancies gather at one table to rejoice over one savior, the sight is so unlikely that it points beyond us to Heaven's fingerprints. More than we more than the things we say. Probably left to ourselves, we could never pull it off. Just look around, multiple denominations, each claiming to reflect the one triune God. The irony is thick, and Jesus prayed. His prayers are not casual wishes, they are petitions in divine intention. Maybe unity is not naive idealism. Maybe it is the heartbeat of the kingdom and we're only beginning to listen. The second thing Jesus asks is about God's love. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Wow, this line deserves its own pass breathe read it again. Let the familiarity which sometimes blinds us just fall away. God's will, Jesus's will, and the spirit's passion. By the way see Ephesians three fourteen to twenty one, is that you and I would experience the same love to like and even like that the Father said, and spirits share with one another, unless you assume Jesus wasn't talking about you, or that God will only let you feel that love if you achieve some undefined level of worthiness. But that's all lies, right, None of that is in John seventeen. Jesus publicly asked his father to make us experience that love so clearly that the world notices and recognizes its source. See Heaven's strategy is simple and unsettling. You experience divine love, You're changed, and people around you are drawn to ask what happened to you? That's it? Hey, you seem different, more peaceful, less defensive. You seem more secure, more comfortable with yourself. What changed? The love Jesus prays for would be obvious to you to others, spectacular, inexplicable by natural beings, and not reserved for the super saints, but poured upon the flawed, the unlovable, love the unlovely, the unworthy, the unlikely, and the hurting. Do you believe that God is answering Jesus's prayer in you right now or recently? Or do you imagine that the father quietly disagrees with his son, particularly about you. That's unlikely. The real question is how can we begin to feel this love more than we do? Yeah, well, what does this prayer tell us about God? God longs for visible unity. God wants his love to be experienced, not just believed. God stakes his reputation on his people. God is not stingy with affection. God's eagerness to pour out love. God's answer involves the spirit's inner work, unity and felt love or spiritpower dot self manufactured. What does this prayer say about us? We're more fractured than we admit. Our fear and insecurity fuel division. We often settle for intellectual assent, and we need supernatural help to love them. So, people of God, we're invited to an astonishing role. Our unity and joy become living billboards for the for the Gospel. Here's a John seventeen prayer kind of a version of Jesus's prayer that you can say and say often just listen, God, Father, Son, Spirit, I'm missing something important. I know I'm saved by grace and destined for heaven, but I often feel cut off from the present power of Christ's blood, the power to feel one with other believers, especially those I've quietly labeled them, and to be a wash and the same love you share among yourself. I've tasted that love here and there, but I see Jesus meant far more for me, So I ask make me experience it now. Strengthen me with power and my inner being, so that I can grasp my wide, long and high and deepest is Christ's love for me and for the people around me. Tear down my fears of being wrong, my need to be superior, my instinct to divide. Let your love become visible in me before I misrepresent you again to the unlovable, loved and lovely and worthy and unlikely others you cherish. Make it so evident that they see it and ask what happened that meant? Oh? I hope that helps. Here's one of the discussion questions in my upcoming book, Good Enough Prayer. Jesus prays for our oneness as we are not uniformity but shared life amid differences. Where do fear and insecurity fuel your us versus them divides, right, denomination convictions? How might spirit power if Jesus three tune your heart to love them as Jesus does. What's next? You know, after a brief word from our sponsors, So what's next. You know, I'm going to admit that I struggled with this next prayer. I mean, earlier on I put it squarely at number one. No prayer exhibits more of the heart of Jesus than this prayer in the Garden of Gethsemity. The short utterance should get the glorious label of the Lord's prayer in my opinion, I'm interested to see what you think. As I mentioned, I'm finishing up a book that will include all top twenty prayers hold a New Testament sometime later this year. Good Enough Prayer. Email me at Bill at gospeldashat dot com if you want to know when it was going to be published and released. Great for devotions or groups, discussion questions. And also we'll be beginning a news series for the summer on the Book of Judges. I'm calling it Breaking Bad. I think you'll find it very, very very interesting. It's an important book, and I think we missed some of the the things that the spirit wants to tell us in that old tested book. So that'll be coming soon in two weeks, actually in three weeks, sorry, in three weeks, so check that out, all right, we'll see you next time. Take heart, child of God.