Keeping It Together

Associational Annual Meeting • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

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The work of Jesus was to correct, by his own sacrifice, the brokenness in which we live and then to pass that on to us to enjoy and proclaim through our lives until he returns. In Jn 17:21 He Prayed that we would remain one so that the world would know that God sent Him. His Love for us binds us to him and it is that love between us that will keep us one so that the world will believe in Him.

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John 17 HCSB

1 Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said: Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You, 2 for You gave Him authority over all flesh; so He may give eternal life to all You have given Him. 3 This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent —Jesus Christ. 4 I have glorified You on the earth by completing the work You gave Me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with that glory I had with You before the world existed. 6 I have revealed Your name to the men You gave Me from the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 Now they know that all things You have given to Me are from You, 8 because the words that You gave Me, I have given them. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from You. They have believed that You sent Me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those You have given Me, because they are Yours. 10 Everything I have is Yours, and everything You have is Mine, and I have been glorified in them. 11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, protect them by Your name that You have given Me, so that they may be one as We are one. 12 While I was with them, I was protecting them by Your name that You have given Me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled. 13 Now I am coming to You, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have My joy completed in them. 14 I have given them Your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world. 15 I am not praying that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 I sanctify Myself for them, so they also may be sanctified by the truth. 20 I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in Me through their message. 21 May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me. 22 I have given them the glory You have given Me. May they be one as We are one. 23 I am in them and You are in Me. May they be made completely one, so the world may know You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me. 24 Father, I desire those You have given Me to be with Me where I am. Then they will see My glory, which You have given Me because You loved Me before the world’s foundation. 25 Righteous Father! The world has not known You. However, I have known You, and these have known that You sent Me. 26 I made Your name known to them and will make it known, so the love You have loved Me with may be in them and I may be in them.

Introduction:

Maybe read then pray and Pause to start? or start with......

John 17:21 HCSB

21 May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me.

I was asked to bring a message from this text today and as I thought about it I could not help but be drawn back to a single simple phrase that got fixed in my mind a few weeks ago in my regular quiet time

Introduction:

On Wednesday when I was taking My Daughter to the Airport, She told me that this passage was her favorite part of the bible. She said sometimes she has it read to her and it moves her to tears because of the idea that jesus is praying for her.

A while back I was reading in and this phrase stood out to me.

Colossians 3:14 HCSB

14 Above all, put on love—the perfect bond of unity.

PRAYER

In the beginning God created the world. It was a whole creation. It was a community. It was a good creation. Nothing was fractured, nothing in nature, nothing in human relationships, nothing between God and man. Everything was as it was intended.

But then, that bond was broken.

When we look around we we do not see anything resembling a whole environment. Everything has holes in it, fractures, brokenness. And we find that we, as christians are not alone in clearly seeing the problem.

The Glue that holds everything in place is missing? It’s Gone! We find hat we live in a world asking the question? How did we get here? How do we fix this? Wy can’t we hold it together? Many have theories about the answer to that question. But all people everywhere agree that we are here in a broken place and that something went terribly wrong to get us here.

Many have theories about the answer to that question. But all people everywhere agree that we are here in a broken place and that something went terribly wrong to get us here.

As people, we all naturally yearn for the return to recover from the broken fellowship. It is a shadow in our hearts, that we know once existed, and Hope will, one day, exist again.

Paul, in that statement asserts, what we all know. Love is missing in the world and we only have shadows and definitions without truly knowing what love is

In leading up to the prayer Where Jesus prays our focus for today Jesus almost, Well Lovingly chides is disciples when they assert that they have figured it out and have “got this” In John16:21

31 Jesus responded to them, “Do you now believe? 32 Look: An hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave Me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. 33 I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

1. Jesus tells us The shape of Love

17 Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said:

Father, the hour has come.

Glorify Your Son

so that the Son may glorify You,

2 for You gave Him authority

over all flesh; so He may give eternal life

to all You have given Him.

3 This is eternal life:

that they may know You, the only true God,

and the One You have sent —Jesus Christ.

4 I have glorified You on the earth

by completing the work You gave Me to do.

5 Now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence

with that glory I had with You

before the world existed. [1]

Love Gives Life

Life is in experiencing God in His Fullness that we might know the fellowship

His Gift is Eternal Life Defined as Being with God; Knowing God/Experiencing God.

His Gift is to be together with his family again in Glory

Eternal belonging being in God and He in Us.

Eternal Life is not Timeline. It is KNOWING GOD. He does not live in the realm of our understanding.

2. The Scope of Love

Concerned about the right things

His Requests

Jesus Knew that we were frail and would fail initially. () He Mocked the disciples a bit in their certainty of what the thought they knew. So…

A. What was on Jesus Mind in the end?

Jesus makes several requests in the end but a few things stood out to me…

i. Finishing Well (His Work) Giving Eternal Life

John 17:1 HCSB

1 Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said: Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You,

ii. Protecting and Preserving the Work Began (His Disciples Work)

John 17:11 HCSB

11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, protect them by Your name that You have given Me, so that they may be one as We are one.

1. Protect their unity (internal destruction)

2. Protect them From The Evil One (external destruction) v. 15

3. Protect their Hunger for Truth (Spiritual Famine) complacency v 17-19

iii. Propagating the work forward (His Disciples, Disciples Work)

1. That they be one /Protect the Unity (internal and external destruction)

2. so others will believe.

B. So others will believe? What do you mean by that?

Jesus connects to the Father as the witness and relationship to the truth he hold

22 11

· The Disciples could believe in Jesus because they knew him and experienced him physically and in teaching.

· The Ones who come after the Disciples have the connection to the Disciples as first gen folk. And with each passing Generation there is one thing that preserves and allows for the witness to endure. The ones who come after only have the testimony of the word we pass on and the verification of that is found primarily in our lives melding together in unity as we know God together. Those who are looking at Christian leaders today do not have that recent memory of Jesus in the same way the disciples in the generation right after them dead. Today, They only have the witness of our unity.

C. So what do we show them? Unity? Yes, but to what? To what are we calling them to rally around?

i. There are lots of people who are unified around us every day. Unified for social justice, for black lives, for political control, and for women’s rights, for children’s rights. The right to decent cinema. The right to not be offended in traffic. Right to this or that. There are many things to which we can rally around but what is it that Jesus is calling us to? What is he praying for?

D. Jesus defines it for us in verse 26. Jesus calls for us to be restored to love as he initially intended

Jesus Calls out for that in verse 26 when he longs for us to be with him that we might share in “the love You have loved Me with may be in them and I may be in them.” [2]

Jesus is calling us to return to the wholeness of our relationship. To be a complete people, a whole people, the people at peace who are restored to him, encompassed in him, and bound together and his love.

You see, we need to be very careful about what we unify around. We need to be careful not to be so concerned about what is right such that we forget who is loved.

It’s not until you know who is loved, that you can begin to even look at defining what is right.

SO WHAT IS…

Shape, Scope, Span

3. The Span of love

Our Role Going Forward?

Jesus makes it clear that we are to engage the world with a unified purpose to love one another so that the world will see and believe that he is the one sent by God. We are all the world’s got as a witness to that truth. What do we need to do to guard it?

Let’s look a little closer at what love does for us.

A. We must Choose Love

Paul expands on the idea a bit in “PUT ON”. It is the only same choice. It is what moves towards the wholeness we need.

B. We must Trust Him to Hold us together.

14 Above all, put on love—the perfect bond of unity.[3]

i. Bound? = Immovable, to make fixed.

ii. Our Unity is Bound up in Love

A Loving Relationship is what it is all about. Being United is what comes as a result of love for one another. It’s easy to bind yourself to one you love.

C. Trust it to keeping:

Love KEEPS (binds to ) the command.

Judas asks for some clarification and Jesus repeats it again here.

“he will KEEP my word.”

D. Check our attitudes

Check the Burden Love is not a burden:

Is it hard? Not if it’s Rooted in Love.

1 John 5:3 HCSB

3 For this is what love for God is: to keep His commands. Now His commands are not a burden,

E. If there is a problem with unity in the church it’s a love problem at its core. Not a unity problem. Disunity is a symptom not the problem.

Conclusion:

A. Jesus love for us had him clearly prayerful about

i. ... his disciples would not be destroyed by internal or external conflict resulting in a disruption of unity. A breaking apart of their oneness in him.

ii. ..... his disciples would not grow complacent but instead hunger for truth that they might be fully sanctified by it.

iii.... that everyone from generation to generation would see a loving community bound together/unified/such that they would be convinced that someone supernatural. Jesus himself would be validated in the eyes of a watching world because of the constant obvious witness of his followers.

B. Our role going forward is to be bound together in love.

To love one another the way Jesus loves us. To avoid internal destruction through that love, that we might see where evil is trying to attack us from. Because Jesus desires us to share with him in the relationship he designed us for. To live the “Eternal life” which “is to know God, and to experience him.” Love is the bond that holds us fixed together.

What Paul spells out in and beyond details about how we should look when unified together, the entire passage hinges on verse 14.

Looking at that passage in this light some of these characteristics become blatantly clear and simple.

If we put on love we’re going to have heartfelt compassion for one another.

If we put on love: We are going to be humble with each other.

If we put on love: We’re going to be gentle and patient with one another. We’re going to accept one another and forgive one another.

If we put on love: We’re going to see ourselves as forgiven and want to forgive others. If we put on love: We’re going to be thankful and have our hearts in control towards one another.

If we put on love: We’re going to continue to passionately desire Jesus and learn and help one another learn about how to do it together.

If we put on love: We’re going to sing and we are going to thank God for each other.

Because a loving wife would never shame her husband by embarrassing him

A Loving husband would never have a bad taste in his mouth towards his wife

A loving Father would never embitter his child but instead make him feel valuable

A Loving Child would never dishonor his parents by this trusting their wisdom

A Loving Employee would never undercut the importance of but his boss but seek to honor God through His or her labor.

When we truly are in love WHATEVER we do it will be done with enthusiasm and the knowledge and excitement of being in the fellowship and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we truly want to be a unified church. If we truly want to be a witness that causes others to want to come to Jesus. We will not grow complacent in our pursuit of the truth. In our pursuit of Jesus. We will seek his sanctification. We will work it out with each other.

If we put on LOVE…

We will do whatever we must to nurture the love of God in our hearts and we We will astound the world with the display of unity that only Jesus followers can know.

And then Jesus’ Prayer will find fruit and the world too will know that Jesus is the one they have been longing for. And they will come to us to know more of what we know.

That friends, is our role going forward.

[1] The Holy Bible: Holman Christian standard version. (2009). (). Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers.

[2] The Holy Bible: Holman Christian standard version. (2009). (). Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers.

[3] The Holy Bible: Holman Christian standard version. (2009). (). Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers.

Love does not consider the activity of the person over the being of the person. Just because one is not doing what one is created to do does not mean one is worthless, Worth is determined by the creator and Jesus determined that we are worth his life.

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 HCSB

4 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, 5 does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for languages, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

1 cor 13:4-8

And since that time we all naturally yearn for the return to recover the broken fellowship. It is a shadow in our hearts, that we know once existed, and Hope will, one day, exist again.

1 Corinthians 13 HCSB

1 If I speak human or angelic languages but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, 5 does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for languages, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10 But when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. 12 For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. 13 Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Cor

His Gift is Eternal Life Defined as Being with God; Knowing God/Experiencing God.

His Gift is to be together with his family again in Glory

Eternal belonging being in God and He in Us.

Eternal Life is not Timeline. It is KNOWING GOD. He does not live in the realm of our understanding.

2. His Requests

Jesus Knew that we were frail and would fail initially. () He Mocked the disciples a bit in their certainty of what the thought they knew. So…

A. What was on Jesus Mind in the end?

Jesus makes several requests in the end but a few things stood out to me…

i. Finishing Well (His Work) Giving Eternal Life

ii. Protecting and Preserving the Work Began (His Disciples Work)

1. Protect their unity (internal destruction)

2. Protect them From The Evil One (external destruction)

3. Protect their Hunger for Truth (Spiritual Famine) complacency

iii. Propagating the work forward (His Disciples, Disciples Work)

1. That they be one /Protect the Unity (internal and external destruction)

2. so others will believe.

B. So others will believe? What do you mean by that?

i. Jesus connects to the Father as the witness and relationship to the truth he holds to.

22 11

ii. The Disciples could believe in Jesus because they knew him and experienced him physically and in teaching.

iii. The Ones who come after the Disciples have the connection to the Disciples as first gen folk. And with each passing Generation there is one thing that preserves and allows for the witness to endure. The ones who come after only have the testimony of the word we pass on and the verification of that is found primarily in our lives melding together in unity as we know God together. Those who are looking at Christian leaders today do not have that recent memory of Jesus in the same way the disciples in the generation right after them dead. Today, They only have the witness of our unity.

C. So what do we show them? Unity? Yes, but to what? To what are we calling them to rally around?

i. There are lots of people who are unified around us every day. Unified for social justice, for black lives, for political control, and for women’s rights, for children’s rights. The right to decent cinema. The right to not be offended in traffic. Right to this or that. There are many things to which we can rally around but what is it that Jesus is calling us to? What is he praying for?

D. Jesus defines it for us in verse 26. Jesus calls for us to be restored to love as he initially intended

Jesus Calls out for that in verse 26 when he longs for us to be with him that we might share in “the love You have loved Me with may be in them and I may be in them.” [1]

Jesus is calling us to return to the wholeness of our relationship. To be a complete people, a whole people, the people at peace who are restored to him, encompassed in him, and bound together and his love.

You see, we need to be very careful about what we unify around. We need to be careful not to be so concerned about what is right such that we forget who is loved.

It’s not until you know who is loved, that you can begin to even look at defining what is right.

SO WHAT IS…

3. Our Role Going Forward?

Let’s look a little closer at what love does for us.

A. Love is chosen

Paul expands on the idea a bit in “PUT ON”. It is the only same choice. It is what moves towards the wholeness we need.

B. Love is binding.

14 Above all, put on love—the perfect bond of unity.[2]

i. Bound? = Immovable, to make fixed.

ii. Our Unity is Bound up in Love

A Loving Relationship is what it is all about. Being United is what comes as a result of love for one another. It’s easy to bind yourself to one you love.

C. Love is keeping:

Love KEEPS (binds to ) the command.

Judas asks for some clarification and Jesus repeats it again here.

“he will KEEP my word.”

D. Love is not a burden:

Is it hard? Not if it’s Rooted in Love. For this is what love for God is: to keep His commands. Now His commands are not a burden..

E. If there is a problem with unity in the church it’s a love problem at its core. Not a unity problem. Disunity is a symptom not the problem.

Conclusion:

A. Jesus was clearly concerned about a few things.

i. He was concerned that all his disciples would not be destroyed by internal or external conflict resulting in a disruption of unity. A breaking apart of their oneness in him.

ii. He was concerned that his disciples would not grow complacent but instead hunger for truth that they might be fully sanctified by it.

iii. He was concerned that everyone from generation to generation would see a loving community bound together/unified/such that they would be convinced that someone supernatural. Jesus himself would be validated in the eyes of a watching world because of the constant obvious witness of his followers.