Jesus Prays for You!
John 17:20-26
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes, Pastor
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Greeley, Colorado
June 11, 2021
John 17:20-26
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. 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 in 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.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you[a] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
We live in what is called the United States of America but we have become the divided states. Everywhere you look there is division—there is political division with each elected person promising to the unite the nation. We’ve seen an ugly surge of racial division. There are divisions in homes and families.
In 1858 Abraham Lincoln was running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois against the incumbent, Stephen Douglas. In one of the seven debates, Lincoln quoted the words of Jesus from Luke 3:25. He said, “A house divided by itself cannot stand.” Lincoln lost the Senate race to Douglas, but his speeches made him famous, and he was elected as President just two years later. And indeed, he presided over a divided nation until an assassin shot him in 1865.
And we are a divided nation today. In many ways we are a divided city. The old devil may not be smart in every field of mathematics, but he excels at long division. Satan is the great divider.
God wants people to be united. That’s why on the night before the crucifixion, Jesus prayed for His church to be unified. A few weeks ago we began studying this prayer which is the longest and most beautiful recorded prayer of Jesus in the Bible.
But this is more than just a prayer. As we are allowed to listen to words of Jesus that He spoke to His Father, there is powerful theology in this prayer. For instance, consider these two claims. In His prayer, Jesus taught us the definition of eternal life. In John 17:3 He says, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent —Jesus Christ.”
Then in John 17:17 Jesus reveals to us the source of truth. He prayed, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” In a culture that says that truth is relative, Jesus pronounced that God’s Word is truth.
Many Bible scholars agree that this high priestly prayer of Jesus is so holy that when we approach it we should remove our shoes because we are standing on holy ground. Let’s eavesdrop again on the prayer Jesus prayed on the night before the cross.
In the first five verses of John 17, Jesus prayed for Himself to be glorified. In the next fourteen verses Jesus prayed for His disciples to be sanctified.
In these last seven verses, Jesus prayed for us, the Church. He prayed for all of us who would believe because of the testimony of the original disciples. And Jesus made three prayer requests for us: 1) that we keep the unity of the Spirit, 2) that we be with him to see his glory, and 3) that we be filled with his love. Isn’t it exciting to know that you and I can be the answer to Jesus’ prayer?
This morning we’ll reflect on the first request Jesus made to our Father: that we keep the unity of the Spirit.
In this prayer, Jesus prayed four times that we would be ONE even as He and the Father are one. In John 17: 22 He prayed, “I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me.”
If you are going to understand what unity is, you need to know what it’s not.
(1) Unity is not uniformity (sameness).
Some organizations need uniformity, that’s why they have uniforms. The military creates uniformity. But there are some churches that mistake uniformity with unity. They think every Christian should dress a certain way, worship a certain way, and use only one translation of the Bible. Several months ago, I was invited to preach at a memorial service of a pharmacist. The pastor of that church insisted that I preach only from the King James version of the Bible. I acquiesced, even though I prefer the International version, but I was taken aback by the uniformity of that church.
I heard that there is a church that has a barbershop so that when a man gets saved, they give him a Christian haircut. I don’t know what that looked like, maybe they all received a flat-top haircut. No, there is great diversity in unity. I love the fact that we have different kinds of people in our church. We have long hairs, short hairs, and no hairs. We have people wearing clothes from a high-end store sitting next to people in casual attire. Perhaps individuals with white collars, blue collars, and no collars. Unity isn’t uniformity.
(2) Unity is not unification (human effort).
There have always been man-made efforts to bring together all the different religions. There is a Bahia Temple in Chicago with nine doors, eight represent the major religions of the world, and the ninth is a DYI, a “do-it-yourself” door. This movement teaches that there are many pathways to God.
Now, please understand that I respect world religions. In fact, as a hospital chaplain I served in a pluralistic setting. I was called to provide spiritual care for Christian, non-Christian, and atheists. I have preached at Catholic churches, Mormon Church, Bahai Faith, Nazarene, Assemblies of God, Methodist, Adventist, Baptist, Non-denominational, Pentecostal, Unitarian Universalists, and for the last twenty years I have served as keynote speaker at the Beth Israel Synagogue in town for the Holocaust Memorial.
Maybe you seen the bumper sticker that says, COEXIST. I don’t really have anything against it. The characters represent the crescent of Islam, the peace symbol for pacificism, the symbol for sexual rights, the star of David for Judaism, the Wiccan or witchcraft symbol of the pentagram that dots the eye, and then finally, the cross for Christianity.
It’s ironic if you study the history of this image, those who have used it have had a hard time co-existing with each other. It was first created in the year 2000 by a Polish artist for an art show in Jerusalem. A couple of years later some students at the University of Indiana stole it and claimed the copyright. Later Bono and U2 started wearing it. Several fashion lines sued to obtain the copyright. And the poor Polish artist wasn’t getting a penny. None of these fighting parties could even coexist with each other.
Finally, after years of contentious lawsuits and millions of dollars of legal bills, the Polish artist finally got the credit he deserved.
While I believe we should show respect to all religions, the idea of mixing them all together isn’t unity. It’s unification. Jesus isn’t one of the ways to heaven. He claimed to be the only way to Heaven.
(3) Unity is our shared connection in Christ.
There are two expressions of the Church. There is the Church which is comprised of all believers in every nation. He prayed for there to be unity in the global church. And He prayed for there to be unity in the local church. We don’t have a lot of control over global unity, but we can all participate in the unity of our local church. The first thing we must understand about Christian unity is that it is an act of the Holy Spirit. We cannot create unity—we can only keep it or kill it. That’s why Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:2-6: “Bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”
Our call is to KEEP the unity that the Spirit creates. We can’t create it, we can only corrupt it.
When traveling to another state or another country I’ve always discovered an immediate bond with a believer. Now I’m proud to be from Colorado and live in this great country. I wasn’t born here but as I read a message on a coffee mug, “I got here as fast as I could.”
When I was in seminary each year, I signed up to preach at a small church in our country that could not afford a preacher. Ms. Humphries of Amarillo, Texas, created an endowment of 50 million dollars with the stipulation that the interest on the money be used to pay for airfare for seminary students to travel anywhere in the country to preach in a small church. The host church was responsible for housing and feeding the preacher and they were not obligated to give him a love offering or pay for his travel. About 250 of hungry seminary students like me signed up every year. I traveled to Belvidere, Illinois, Bonita Springs, Florida and Brighton, Colorado. When I visited Colorado I said, “I would love to live and minister in this great state.”
But I’ve got to admit that I get along a lot better with a Brazilian Christian than with a Colorado native or resident who doesn’t know Jesus. I’ve been to several states in our nation and other countries and I have an immediate bond with my Christian brothers and sisters than I do with a neighbor down the street who doesn’t know Jesus. It’s the unity of the Spirit.
And I don’t know if there’s life on other planets, a couple billionaires are traveling to space and soon will begin a space tourism program, but if there is life on other planets, our God created them, and if there is a Christian Kingdom, I would get along better with them than with a person from Colorado who doesn’t know Jesus. That’s what the unity of the Spirit is all about.
But churches can argue over the most minor issues. I’ve heard of churches splitting over the color of the carpet. Christian comedian Jerry Clower used to tell the story about his home church having a business meeting to buy a new chandelier. There was a motion and a second.
But uncle Versey Leadbetter stood up and said, “I’m against it for three reasons. First, I don’t think we need to install anything that none of us can spell. Second, if we got us one of them chandeliers, nobody would know how to play it. And third, what we really need in this room is more light.
When churches argue it destroys the testimony of that church. I heard about a city in Alabama named Harmony Christian Church. But they didn’t have much harmony because they were always fussing and fighting. So, a group broke away and built a new church just down the road. They named it New Harmony Christian Church. But they had problems too, so a group left that church and built a new church. Guess what they named it? Greater New Harmony Christian Church.
It takes more than a name on a church for harmony; it requires the work of the Holy Spirit to create that harmony and it takes each one of us to maintain the unity of the church. And when we demonstrate unity Jesus said that’s when the world will realize God sent Jesus.
Several years ago the Our Daily Bread devotional featured an article on Christian Unity. During World War II, Hitler commanded all religious groups to unite so that he could control them. Among the Brethren assemblies, half complied and half refused. Those who went along with the order had a much easier time. Those who did not, faced harsh persecution. In almost every family of those who resisted, someone died in a concentration camp.
When the war was over, feelings of bitterness ran deep between the groups and there was much tension. Finally they decided that the situation had to be healed. Leaders from each group met at a quiet retreat. For several days, each person spent time in prayer, examining his own heart in the light of Christ's commands. Then they came together. Francis Schaeffer, who told of the incident, asked a friend who was there, "What did you do then?" "We were just one," he replied. As they confessed their hostility and bitterness to God and yielded to His control, the Holy Spirit created a spirit of unity among them. Love filled their hearts and dissolved their hatred.
When love prevails among believers, especially in times of strong disagreement, it presents to the world an indisputable mark of a true follower of Jesus Christ.
Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together.