Jesus Prays For Us John 17:20-26
In Yakima, Washington, sometime back a dying man made a strange request. On his deathbed, Grant Flory said to his family: "Get me to the Mustangs' playoffs. No matter what." He was referring to his old high school team, The Prosser Mustangs. In early December, when the Mustangs played in Seattle's Kingdome, Flory's cremated remains were in attendance. His son Dwight approached the stadium gate wearing a camera bag that contained his father's urn. He was stopped by a guard who asked what was in the bag. "It's my dad," he replied. The guard looked puzzled but allowed the ashes inside. Family members said anyone who knew Grant Flory wouldn't be surprised by his request. He was a real football fan.
It is the dream of every pastor to have a congregation filled with people who are that determined to be in worship every Sunday. Back at the end of April was the NFL Draft. I got watching it because I had a high school friend whose son was a possible draft pick. (He was not drafted, but he did sign a guaranteed $175,000.00 contract with the Indianapolis, Colts.) The draft took place in Las Vegas and there were thousands of fans there cheering their teams when they made their selections. Many probably didn’t even know who these picks were, but they were cheering on anyway. They were dressed in their team colors or had a flag or something indicating they were there to root on their team regardless.
I need not even say to you that there are church members who are much more dedicated to their favorite sports team than they are to God. They give more money to their team. I looked up the price of Season tickets for the Tampa Bay Bucs at Raymond James Stadium start at just $350 per seat for corner seats in the 300-level and range up to $1,500 per seat for the seating sections located on the 50-yard line behind the team’s bench. Club seating options for the Hyundai Club Level start at $1,600 and go up to $3,500 while the East Stadium Club sections cost between $1,350 and $2,100 per seat.
They know more about the players on the roster than they ever will about the heroes of the Bible. And I will not live to see the days when people in the average congregation will sit in a cold, miserable rain to worship God like many will do to cheer on their favorite team. Perhaps that's because we don't understand the essential nature of the church. I believe if we could see the church as Christ sees the church, we would not take attendance as casually as we do. Jesus, in his prayer for the church recorded in John's gospel, helps us see the church as he means for it to be.
FIRST OF ALL, JESUS PRAYS FOR OUR UNITY. He prays "that they all may be one." (RSV) Christ desires his church to be a close knit family! He desires us to be unified. I suspect many of us underestimate how much we need one another how much we crave contact how much we hunger for true Christian fellowship.
Studies have been done on depressed people. Depressed people want to be alone. Should we let them be? Not if we want them to improve. There is something about being with others that lifts our spirits. We need genuine fellowship.
The church serves two vital functions in the world, and the first is to put us in touch with one another. We need one another particularly when life caves in on us.
We need people who can speak the language of the heart. We do not need people who speak the language of the world, of hate, hurt, anger. We need persons within the community of Christ to whom we feel especially close. There will come a time when we will need to reach out to them for comfort. There will be times they will need to reach out to us. Jesus' first prayer is for our unity with one another.
HIS SECOND PRAYER IS FOR OUR UNITY WITH GOD. He prays to the Father "that they may also be in us...." There is more than a horizontal plane to the church. There is also a vertical plane. That's what separates us from the average social club. We are here to get in touch with each other, but we are also here to get in touch with God.
Private clubs and organizations can be particular in whom they allow or disallow in their organizations. The church cannot and should not do that. There are some who believe that if people do not fit into their own criteria then they are not good for the church. This is not Biblical. When Christ died He died for EVERYONE not just a few. So the church needs to be should stand as a beacon of hope for all repentant believers. This is not to say that we need to accept every person who is persisting in sinful behavior. Without repentance there can be no forgiveness. The church stands ready to be that conduit of God’s Grace, Mercy and Forgiveness. NO ONE should stand in the way of an individual desiring to seek God out in our world today.
There is a certain variety of plant the kind that grow under porches and other places where the sun doesn't penetrate. Botanists call these plants Heliotropic, meaning that as they grow, they bend in the direction of the sun.
If I might build on that analogy, you and I are here because we are Theo tropic that is, we are drawn irresistibly in the direction of God. In God is our help and our strength. We gather here each Lord’s Day to acknowledge that He is our hope and the foundation of our lives.
During a frightful storm in the Georgian Bay of Canada years ago, a ship was wrecked. Many perished. The mate, with six strong men and one timid girl, escaped in a boat, but the waves were high and the craft turned over and over until, one by one the strong men lost their hold and disappeared beneath the angry billows.
The mate, however, lashed the girl to the boat, and thus she drifted to the shore where she was found, safe and unharmed. When the stalwart men went down with shrieks of despair, she alone was saved. She didn't escape by her skill or wisdom. She escaped because she was fastened firmly to that which would not sink.
Here in this house of worship we fasten ourselves firmly to that which will not sink. We find it in our unity with one another, but even more so, in our unity with God.
But Jesus has one more prayer for us. HE PRAYS FOR OUR FINAL UNITY WITH HIM IN GLORY. Listen to his prayer: "Father, I desire that they may also...may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me...." I take that to be in Heaven.
We don't talk about Heaven much in the church anymore except perhaps at funerals. We don't talk much about Heaven. And I suspect one reason is that Christ gave us so few details as to what it will be like. Some of the popular images of Heaven do it a disservice, I am certain. I was amused to read something former Prime Minister Lloyd George once said about the celestial realm. He said, "When I was a boy the thought of heaven used to frighten me more than the thought of hell. I pictured heaven as a place where time would be perpetual Sundays, with perpetual services from which there would be no break. It was a horrible nightmare and made me an atheist for ten years."
None of our language about Heaven can possibly do it justice. Our minds are too small to get around the concept of eternity. There is only one thing we can say about Heaven. We will be united with Christ and with those we love. The unity we have here is but a poor reflection of a more perfect unity there.
Jesus wants us to have unity with one another. He wants us also to have unity with God. God is our refuge and strength. He also wants us to know that the bonds that join us to one another and to God are eternal. Nothing will ever break them. Not even death will snatch us from Him or from those we love.