Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: So we're going to continue our series, pray like Jesus, and we're going to be opening up the word in John, chapter 17 today. A prayer for unity. Jesus prayer for unity. Could we pray like Jesus and pray for a unity like Jesus experienced and longs for us to have? We're going to read from John 1720 through to 26.
Jesus says, 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 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. 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 love me from the beginning, 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've made you 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. What a beautiful promise. A prayer from the heart of Jesus himself, longing that we would be one with him. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. Your word changes us, God, when we read it, and we are impacted by the truth and the revelation of your word, it changes who we are. It changes the way we think. It changes our perceptions. God. And so, Father, I pray that we would be impacted by your word today, that you would speak to each individual. Lord, each of us with different needs and desires and things that are on our heart today.
Lord, I pray that these words would settle in our hearts, that it would impact us, that we would be changed by your word today. In Jesus name, amen.
Amen.
A man was running late for work and couldn't find a park. He knew he'd be in trouble if he was late again. Didn't believe in God, didn't normally pray. But in this moment he says, God, if you're real, get me a parking space immediately. Five cars in the parking lot just.
Just disappear. They're gone. To which he says, never mind, I found one.
Sorry.
Have you ever prayed a selfish prayer?
Yeah. A prayer that would improve your circumstance and probably.
It's a selfish prayer, if we're honest. I've prayed a few too many of those now. I'm also a fan of just pray any prayer.
If you're feeling something, sensing something, you want to connect with God over a thought, pray that prayer anyway. I don't think any prayer is a bad prayer, but I think there are prayers that truly capture the heart of God and capture his attention.
Prayers prayed in faith, something that God has stirred within us to pray for. But I remember once one of my selfish prayers, we went away on holiday, so we'd been. I was 30. We just started the church. Rosie was a. Was a newborn. We probably weren't getting a lot of sleep. And we'd been offered this house to stay in, overlooking the beach. It was a beautiful home. And so we arrived at this place, and then we saw the owner of the house. It was their holiday home. And he was standing there in the driveway as we arrived. We didn't expect him to be there, but the look on his face told me something wasn't right.
And he says, my wife and I have just broken up, and I've got nowhere to go. Is it okay if I stay with you for the week?
So my wife is in the background.
I know we need a holiday.
I know that we need some time together, and I'm hoping I might play a little bit of golf.
And I'm saying, of course, it's your house.
So that week, I'm spending more time with him than I probably am with Amy. Counseling and praying and sharing with him and listening and helping him as best I can, while getting increasingly frustrated and upset and even a little bit mad at God because I wanted to have a holiday. And so I finally get out to play some golf. And how many people know when you're tense and you're playing golf, it doesn't get a. I mean, even if you can play golf, if your mind's not in it, a good day goes to a really bad day really quickly. So I'm on the 9th tee. I probably lost six balls already. The wind is blowing everywhere. It is a horrible day of golf. A horrible day. It's the worst day for me. And so I mishit the tee off, and it's kind of down in the. Made the fear way one of the few that actually did. And I'm standing there about 135 yards from the pin, and I'm like, God, if you really love me, would you just get this one on the green for me?
I know no one's ever prayed that prayer on the golf course. Come on.
A few honest people. And so I light it up and I swing and I completely mishit it.
And rather than this beautiful lofted shot that bounces and rolls towards the hole, I completely shank it. It hits the bottom of it or the edge of the club and it goes about a foot high, like just flies a foot high, hits the pin, pops up in the air and drops in the hole.
It was such a bad golf shot that I couldn't even celebrate it.
And I always felt God say, and then what?
I didn't hear an audible voice, but it was like in my spirit. I've been complaining all week to God.
God. My life was horrible, and yet God needed me in that moment to be ministering to this man in a devastating moment in his life. And here I was praying the selfish prayer, if you really love me, Goddesse, I think we can all be guilty of that.
That sometimes our prayer life is so focused on us and our outcome that sometimes we can miss the heart of God. And what prayer is for this prayer that Jesus is praying? He's saying, I pray that people would be one, as we are one. And as we look through this passage, you're going to see the heart of Jesus and his love for his disciples.
In this prayer. It begins in chapter 17. We see Jesus first prays for himself.
There is an awareness. Remember Jesus fully. God was also fully human, fully divine, and yet also took on the struggles and the fleshly weaknesses that we would also struggle with. And yet he never sinned. That's what made him divine. That's what made him worthy of being the sacrifice that would pay for the sins that we deserve to die for.
But he prays for himself. He prays that in his sacrifice that God would be glorified in the ministry that he was called to do, that God would be glorified, the father would be glorified. So he prays for himself, then he goes on and he begins to pray for the disciples.
And we're talking the apostles, those that walk with Jesus, experienced the ministry, walked alongside him, ministered with him, prayed with him. He prays for them, that there would be a unity, that they would be strengthened, that they would be equipped for the ministry. And then he turns to the prayer for us, his church.
Jesus said he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. 2000 years on from that prayer, you look at the church right now, look at this. And this is just one gathering of millions across the globe where people are coming in the name of Jesus, because he said he would build his church.
He would build his church.
Jesus prays that his followers would be one, united in spirit to show the world how much the father loves us.
Can you see a community with that kind of unity? Can you imagine what that looks like and feels like?
I think we're a part of it. I watch and I see what God is doing. I hear the stories, I hear the testimonies, I hear the faith. As you share the stories of what God has been doing in your week, I say God is amongst us. He is with us. He is moving in our midst.
We see in the book of acts, we see moments of unity. Now, we don't want to recreate the book of acts.
We want our own stories, we want our own miracles. But there are some principles that we see. In acts 242 to 47, it says they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had needed. Every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
For those who were at the prayer meeting on Monday, you would have heard mark kind of have an imagine this kind of a moment. Imagine what would happen if we went out into the streets and there's praise and worship music playing, and as you walk down the street, you're singing these praises, shout, Jesus on the mountains.
Imagine if out of every school there's this song of praise. Imagine what would happen if in the sports clubs, the kids are just kicking a ball around and they just start singing a song of praise to God.
Imagine what that would be like.
I've done a little bit of ministry in Bangladesh, working with some of the kids and youth leaders over the last 15 years. And it's a fascinating environment to minister within, because five times a day, on cue to the minute, the sirens and the loudspeakers that are placed all over the city of Dakar, one of the most densely populated communities in the whole world, is this call to prayer, a cry to Allah, this united approach to prayer. Five times religiously, they would stop and they would pray.
But you know, what has a greater and a more powerful sound than that?
A sound that truly breaks into an environment and changes it's a church that walks in unity.
A church with a sound that sounds like God's heart for unity.
It's a generosity that comes out of a church and says, what we have is yours and you can come and you can be a part of this.
You know, the football team that I'm helping to coach, they don't have a venue for one of the nights. And so I'm like, well, you can use our church building. Come, we can go out into the youth centre and we can use that space. Really? How much is it going to cost? Nothing. Because we want to serve you. We're here for our community.
Imagine what that looks like. Could we continue to press into those spaces in Plymouth, Newton, Abbott, Cranbrook, the expressions in Exeter. Would we believe that God is going to move in and through us? A unity that feels like if I hit rock bottom, I know where I could go.
I know that this would be a safe place. I know that I could go into a cafe with people who love Jesus and say, I don't know what to do. But I think you might know that's the unity that Jesus was speaking of.
And we hear this in the heart of a prayer from the son who dearly loves his father.
So let's walk through this prayer together as we continue our 21 days of prayer.
Verse 20, it says, my prayer is not for them alone.
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.
Jesus is saying here, I'm not just praying for my disciples, the ones who will who have walked with me, my tight group, the twelve that I've walked with, I'm not just praying for them. I'm praying for those who are still to hear the message, those that don't know me yet. What we see in this prayer is a reminder of Jesus heart is that he loves the lost. Those that haven't yet heard the message. These are the ones I'm praying for. I'm praying that they would know him. I'm praying that they would know the joy of salvation, the forgiveness of our sins.
Jesus heart, when it comes to unity, is for the lost, those that don't yet know him.
Jesus is saying, as much as I want my followers to walk in unity, I have a deep desire for those who don't know me to come to me.
Can I chat to us, those who have been in church maybe for a little while?
Church is familiar to you? The practice of church is quite familiar. You come on a Sunday and you kind of know roughly what's going to happen. And there's always a little bit of variety and things change a little bit, but it can become very familiar too, can't it?
And every now and then I like to go to a place that I don't know. I was invited to a muslim mosque.
A few people said, you shouldn't go. I said, you know what? I think I will.
And I walked in and I was greeted at the door and I was offered a glass of water and some food to eat.
I was offered a seat of honour in their place.
They didn't leave me alone. They just wanted to be there and sit beside me. I felt an incredible welcome in a muslim mosque.
Now, obviously that's not a faith that I'm professing to believe, but there were some wonderful, kind people.
But what we have is set apart from that because we have a God who has the power above every other deity, every other thought or belief. We have a God that loves us and desires us to be that as well, and our heart. And this is a welcoming church. I can tell you from the day we arrived, we have felt such a welcome. The warmth that you have extended to us as a family and the offers of help and prayer has just been overwhelming. And I hope and I pray that that would be for every person that walks in through these doors, that that would be our heart, that we would never let somebody sit alone unless they said, please leave me alone, but that we would. We would be a church, that we would look out from that conversation that we have. Because I come to church and I see my friends and I see those people that I love and I built relationship with and I want to spend time, time with them, right? And I want to get into that conversation and I want to say, hey, how's your week been? And I can get so deep into this conversation with my friend that I miss somebody who's standing there by themselves and I've been brave enough to come to church and yet no one's speaking to them. I don't want that. I don't want that to be the case.
I want us to be so aware when we are in this place that, yes, we are building relationship and building strength in those spaces. But come on, let's widen our circle and say, hey, come on in.
Come and join us as we have a coffee together. Come and have a conversation. Tell me about your journey.
Just before we left New Zealand, I did some football coaching as a part of, with Josiah's football and a couple of the coaches that were there whang ere with us were actually from Exeter. So quite an amazing little connection. One of the little bits of God's story. And so they've actually moved from Exeter over to New Zealand and they're coaching and had been coaching Josiah's football team out of Exeter City Football Club. And so I built a really good relationship with these guys. We traveled to tournaments, I coached as a volunteer alongside them and I was kind of there as a manager and a coach. And so I would often invite them to church and it never really worked because a lot of the football was happening on a Sunday. But on the Sunday we left, these two coaches said, we want to come and support you. We just want to honour you and thank you for what you've done. Can we come to church? Are we allowed to come to church? So the question was, is it okay that I come to church? It's like, this is why we open our doors. Our doors are open for that very reason. And I got a text like the night before, hey, just check in to see is it still okay that we come. I'm like, yes, it is. But when they came in, it's the, what do I do? Where do I go?
What does church feel like? Because when we're used to it, we all come in and I could probably close my eyes and already tell you where some people are probably sitting because this is where you sit all the time and there's nothing wrong with that, right.
But when you're sitting in that space that you always go to have a look around, is there anyone else who doesn't normally sit in this space? There's a good chance they might be new here today.
Welcome them, greet them, say, hey, let's have a coffee, let's have a catch up afterwards.
Because there's something that we also have that could totally change somebody's life and that's the power of prayer.
Because we're not just a social club.
We don't just come here and sing some songs and feel good and happy about ourselves. We believe in the power of prayer. We believe in the miraculous to take place.
In fact, right now I'm going to get Norman. Norman, are you about.
He doesn't know I'm doing this, but it's right and it's appropriate to do this. Do you want to tell us what's happened? And we're going to pray together as a church family.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. You all know that Alison and I are involved in a church plant, an expression of church in Cranbrook. And Ken and Amy, who work with us, live right in the center of Cranbrook.
Yesterday evening, a 15 year old boy was cycling past. He pulled a wheelie, took it too far and smashed his head on the pavement behind him.
He was immediately knocked unconscious. It happened to be right outside Ken and Amy's house. I don't believe that was an accident. I believe that God was in that. Ken and Amy were able to go out and assist chat with his mum and dad who came down. The boy was taken into Ard hospital and was then overnight he was taken to Bristol.
To the best of our knowledge, he hasn't yet regained consciousness and we don't know where he is in that phase of life. Will he live? Will he not, will he recover? Will his brain recover? We do not know, but we trust God. And I believe this is a moment when we as guys from Cranbrook and we as the church family here can pray and believe that God will work a miracle. I'm gonna cry, but I believe that God can work a miracle in this boy's life, in this family, and can bring them to know him. Just as the scriptures you've shared today, you know. Can I lead us in prayer? I've already messaged the Cranbook guys to say we'll meet in this corner after the service to pray together. But can I just lead us in prayer?
[00:20:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you, Jesus. Come on, stretch out your hands. Why don't you stand? Come on, let's stand in unity together for this miracle. Thank you, Jesus.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Father God, we just come before you now in faith. Lord God, we believe that you are a loving, caring heavenly Father. Father, we believe that you made us so actually to mend. This is not difficult. Father God, please. We believe in healing, in the miracle of healing. And Father God, we pray for this young lad now, Father, we just cry out to you, Lord God, that you would heal. Father God, we would pray against death, Father, we would pray against mental, any brain injury following this, Father God, I would pray now for complete healing in this lad's life, Lord God, that you would come, come through Lord God and bring healing. We pray. We pray for his family, Lord God, would you work in their lives, in their hearts now, Lord God, first of all, Lord God, give them peace, give them faith, Lord God, to trust in you, Lord God, to know that there's a God in heaven who loves them and cares for them. Father God, bring healing, we pray. Father God, would you bring salvation through this, Lord God, that these guys would come to know you, the living God who is active and cares and loves them in this situation. So, Father God, be with them. We pray and be with your church, Lord God, as we pray and seek to serve them. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Amazing. Thank you, Norman.
Let's continue to pray for him. I believe his name is Max. Is that right? Yeah. So let's pray for Max and we will give an update as to how things are going there. Yeah.
You know, in this verse, verse 20, Jesus is speaking of the message of the apostles, ordinary, everyday men. And there were women who joined as a part of that discipleship group.
They simply said yes to Jesus.
Does it sound familiar?
You know, often we can look at the heroes of the Bible and we talked about it last week, and we can look at these amazing men and women with a faults and flaws and didn't trust God enough and kind of stepped out on their own, and yet these men and women just simply said yes to following Jesus. Peter, Simon, Andrew, James, John, Thaddeus.
The message is the same. Come, follow me. That's the invitation that is given. And we're believing this season that we will see many people come to faith. We believe that we will see many people saved.
But here's my concern, and here's our concern is what if they do?
What happens when they do? What happens if somebody today says, I don't know everything about this person you're talking about, about Jesus, but something has to change in my life and I know I need him.
Who's going to help them?
Whos going to walk alongside them?
Whos going to give maybe an hour a week to pray and read the Bible? And teach them how to read the Bible?
See, if we had 100 people saved in the next month, would we really be able to care for them?
Would we be able to get alongside them and help them in their walk with Jesus?
So part of this being one is us owning the vision of this church, which is that we want to see people come to know Jesus.
And maybe there's a stirring even within you saying, I want to talk with someone. I want to help them in their journey. But then there's also going to be all those other questions, but I don't think I know enough. I don't think I know the Bible well enough. I don't think I've got all the answers that they might have. It's like, it's okay. I only have five sixths of a Bible college diploma. I didn't even complete it.
Sorry. I don't know if that changes things, but maybe I shouldn't have admitted that on camera.
But you know what? If you love Jesus and you love people.
That's all we need for now because we have incredible resources that we can put into your hands and into their hands to walk through the Bible together.
And I would hope that we would go more than, oh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, Mike, to actually a conversation maybe with Richard and Sarah afterwards that they run our first steps program saying, you know what? If there's somebody that comes in and they're the right person?
Can I have their number? Can I reach out to them? Can I help? Can I be a part of that? Maybe you can grab a connect card and just write that down on the card saying, I want to help disciple somebody.
I want to be a part of somebody's journey of faith. We would love for you to join us on that journey. Imagine what that would look like if every single one of us committed to one person this year to say, we'll help you get to church. We'll invite you over for meals. We'll talk about our faith. We'll share our story with you. Imagine how vibrant church would be. Imagine what kind of a place this would be if we could all do that now. Some of you might say, I don't know if I could do it on my own. Great, grab a friend, do it. Two or three of you together and grab somebody. It doesn't have to be something you do alone.
But I really believe God is really wanting us to step into this place of saying, I'm going to disciple. I'm going to be a disciple who makes disciples.
And it's that heart of the prayer that says we would be one so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
Verse 21. It goes on, and 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. Jesus prays that we would be one, just as the father and Jesus were one. I want to explore this just for a moment because in John five we have this dialogue of Jesus speaking about his relationship with the father.
And we see a couple of things. And there's probably about ten things I could draw out of that passage, but two that jumped out at me this week as I was studying this. The first one is that Jesus imitates his father and is dependent on him.
Jesus imitates his father and is dependent on him. Jesus works as he sees his father working. Jesus imitates his father. He sees what his father is doing and he does. It also, isn't that such an incredible picture when you think of our own parenthood.
I did what I saw my father doing.
I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I'm not sure if it's good that my children would do what I'm doing. I hope that is a good thing. But in loving heavenly Father, to see what my father is doing and to follow after him, that is what Jesus did. Verse 19 and 20 of John, chapter five. Jesus gave them this answer very truly. I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He can only do what he sees his father doing, because whatever the father does, the son does also. For the father loves the Son and shows him all he does.
This is the relationship Jesus is talking about.
This is the oneness that Jesus was talking about, of a father who models the way and a son who says, I'll follow that, I'll follow you, I'll follow that heart. And remember, Jesus, equal in deity. Father, son, Holy Spirit, are one, I one.
And yet each had specific roles and there was a deep honour and respect that Jesus spoke of within.
And we read in scripture the unity of the spirit, the Son, the Father.
The second thing we see in these verses in John five is, Jesus lives for his father's will. He lives for his father's will.
Verse 30. By myself I can do nothing. I judge only as I hear and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself, but for him who sent me.
Jesus never performed a miracle on his own behalf.
Jesus never got angry for himself when he fired up in the temple and he started turning tables.
He was speaking of the Father's heart, that this would be a house of prayer.
He never operated outside of his father's will, even at the tomb of Lazarus, as he's praying, as he's about to raise this man from the dead, his prayer is to the Father.
Father, I do this so that they will see that you have sent me and that you would be glorified.
Jesus existed. His ministry existed to bring glory to the Father.
So we see the deep nature of a relationship between a father and son and the moving of the Holy Spirit within that relationship. Let's carry on. In verse 22, 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.
It's possible sometimes we can look at the statement and think that we want to be one like God is one.
And sometimes we can equate that to a unity of a gathering, a united prayer meeting where we come and we come together.
But there is a depth of unity that we see within this.
There is a love that exists within the Trinity. And the best way to describe it is a holy love and a love of holiness.
A holy love and a love of holiness.
I was talking with someone the other day, and we were talking about the love a guy can have for another guy, a deep, intimate love with another Mandev. And even as I'm saying, I'm seeing some heads pop up. It's like, what?
But actually I need that.
I need men in my life that will cry on my shoulder and I can cry on theirs. And I know this is radical, I know we don't like to talk about this kind of stuff, but this actually really matters.
We need friends that will go to the hardest places with us and embrace and pray.
I don't need friends just to talk about the football. And though I love that and I enjoy it, I want friends who are going to say, can we pray? Can we pray together? Can we come together? You know, the friends that we choose, it really does matter.
And maybe in some of our friendships we need to even just change the rules a little bit.
Maybe we need to say, you know what? I haven't been very good at this. Will you forgive me?
But when we get together, could we pray more?
Could we bring some of these things to God in prayer? I love talking with you. I love having a coffee, girls with girls, guys, whatever. And I love that. And that's wonderful. But could we go for a deeper level of unity around this holy love and a love of holiness, that we would get to the place where the things, you know, and our conversations, they actually just become a little bit frivolous. It's just like, eh, do we really even need to talk about that? Probably we don't. Let's talk about what God's doing.
Imagine if our conversation shifted towards that. God, what are you doing? What are you doing around us? What's happening in my life and in my marriage and in my relationship with my children? Imagine those conversations and praying for one another.
I've already found a couple of friends here that I know I can say, hey, would you pray with me?
So we're walking through some stuff. I've got these friends that I know, they're bringing me before God, and I'm doing the same for them. A unity with a holy love and a love for holiness.
As Christians, our responsibility is to be salt and light.
We're supposed to stand out, supposed to look different.
We had one of our youth sharing it, youth on a Friday night, saying in the early years of his faith, he kind of thought that it was cool to be a Christian, that people didn't go, oh, I didn't realize you were a Christian.
And then he realized that he wasn't actually living the life of a Christian. So that wasn't a compliment.
Now, I'm not talking that we stand out as a hypocrite or judgmental.
I say that we stand out because of the grace and the mercy that we extend, the truth, that we deliver in love to the people around us, that the ones that would, that people would say, there's something different about you. And Jesus spoke of that.
The way you treat that person, the way you speak of that person with such honour. It's almost as though you might be one of Jesus disciples.
That's a paraphrase of what Jesus said.
There would be such a love that people would look at you and say, you must be one of his.
That's the disciple I want to be. That's a community I want to be a part of. And I see, and trust me, I see it in this, in this church.
This church is full of people like that.
Here's my challenge to all of us. Before you go home today, grab someone and pray with them. Find someone, a friend, the person you came with. Or even better still, go find a complete stranger and say, hey, can I bless you this week? That whatever you are going through, God would be with you. You would know his presence. And maybe, just maybe, as in faith, you step into that conversation, God might give you a word of knowledge, a prophecy might stir something in you that might be an encouragement to that person.
Come on. Anyone bold enough to do that, this. 345-6789 okay. This is not a coercing or forcing of hands. This is an invitation.
Can we be bold enough to say, hey, before we go, I want to pray with you? Can I pray with you? Come on. This is a church that believes in the body ministry.
We all have the power of God because we have the spirit of God within us.
We can do no miracles on our own, but God can and he will and he does. If and when we step out in faith, we say, God, lead my conversation, lead my prayers.
Holy Spirit will fill us, empower us, strengthen us, will also convict us of the righteous way to live so that we would have a holy love and a love of holiness.
