Oneness, God's Prayer for His People

I greet you all in Christ's name. I say that, and every time I say that, I think about what you're actually saying. In essence, I'm saying that I am here in Christ's place. I am here in Christ's dead.

And as I think about sharing, it puts a real serious light on it because I want my words to be the things that Christ would speak if He were here. And so it relates a little bit to what I have to speak about here this morning.

When Brother David asked me to preach this morning, I had shared this at Shippensburg, and he said, "Could you share here at Chambersburg as well?" And it's God's prayer for His people. John chapter 17 is what we're going to be looking at. And this message, I might add one word to the title now. It's oneness, God's prayer for His people. And this message came about. I was at Faith Mission Home visiting in Virginia probably about a year ago. And the young brother that was sharing there was being sent off to Kenya to work there at a mission. And he preached the message there that morning. And he mentioned he was talking about reaching out. How do we reach out to the world around us?

And he mentioned John 17 chapter or John chapter 17, verse 21. He says that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

And then in verse 23, he says something very similar, "I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that thou hast sent me." So one of the methods of reaching out is this oneness. But the question that came to me, and this is the thing that I pondered for quite a while after that message, what does this look like?

If we are to be one as the Father and the Son are one, then we should know what this is so that we can do that. And as I looked down across this chapter, all of a sudden, I started to see little glimpses of where Christ is saying, "Hey, this is how I'm one. This is how I'm one." And so that's what I want to look at this morning. Let's read John chapter 17. "These words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, 'Father, the hour has come.

Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.' As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee, for I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me. And they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine.

And all mine are thine, and thine are mine. And I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world. And I come to thee, Holy Father. Keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me, I have kept. And none of them is lost, but the Son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. That they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee. That they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one.

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedest me before the foundation of the world.

O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love whereast thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." So what is oneness?

This oneness that we're going to look at this morning. And I started just asking myself questions. Some of these are very obvious questions. But is it all looking the same? Is that what produces oneness? If we all look like each other.

How about all doing the same thing? If we're all doing the same thing, is that oneness?

Shared experiences. Maybe if we've all went through similar things, that produces oneness. The same ministry. If we're focused on this ministry here, we're all doing this, is that what produces oneness? And you can keep on going with some of those questions for same dislike, same hatred of things.

And you see these around us, but it doesn't really produce oneness.

Where I grew up, the fishing game club was just down the road, just a ways from us. There, you have a common interest. But if you were to take those people out of away from their fishing and hunting, you would find out that they're not one.

You have different clubs. You have veterans coming back from wars that have things in common. They shared experiences. And yeah, they have that in common. But once you get them away from that, the oneness is gone.

So I'm going to submit to you this morning. First and foremost, before we can have oneness, we have to have the same mind. And that is the mind of Christ.

If you go to Romans chapter 12, verse 2, he says this, "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good, that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." In order for us to have any to ever strive for this oneness, we're going to have to have the mind of Christ. That's first and foremost. And then after that, we can learn. We can grasp more of what Christ's mind is, become more like Christ. And then that produces a oneness that we can experience.

He says here in John, and this is life eternal. And he kind of starts out this passage with this, "That they might know thee." There's that knowing again, knowing the mind of Christ. "That they might know thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." So first and foremost, we must allow Christ to make that supernatural change in our life to where we have a transformed mind. And then we get to know him. We spend time with him. We develop a relationship with him. And then we can get a further knowledge of Christ. And we can begin our journey to oneness.

The first thing I noticed as I look through here in what is one of the things that he mentions is a oneness in glory. And I never really thought about us sharing in the glory of God quite to the extent that I did as I looked at this passage. But through this passage, he keeps talking about this glory that he and the Father share.

It's in verse 1. It's in verse 4. It's in verse 5. It's in verse 10, verse 22. He talks about this glory of God. And so the question came to my mind, what is the glory of God? What is it that people are seeing? And if you I think Brother John Dee has mentioned it already, the glow of God. You have that little part in there that mentions the first three letters are the same. The glow of God. That aura that emanates from somebody who has experienced that transformed mind. Or the greatness of God. And we see this as people looked at Jesus' life numerous times. It says they looked on and were amazed. They seen something there.

They seen the power of God. They seen the greatness of God coming through his life. And they mentioned it. In Mark chapter 2, verse 12, it says, "And they were all amazed and glorified God saying, 'We never saw it on this fashion.'" They were seeing something. They were seeing that glory that Christ had. Luke 4:36, Luke 5:26, and Luke 9:34. "And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God." They were seeing that power of God being demonstrated in his life. And there was a glory that came out of that. And they said, "Wow, look at this."

But that glory, the thing that struck me is that glory Christ did not take to himself. Here he was, God, on earth as man. And he could have taken that glory to himself. And in a sense, he would have had all rights to it. But what does he do? Verse 1, "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also might glorify thee." He returned that glory to the Father. And that's what we are called to do. As God puts his glory on us, which he does, and I think it's what the world sees as they look at the Christians' life, they see that power, that glory that emanates from them, and they say, "What is that?" And it gives us opportunity to point out them to the Father and say, "Look, here is where the glory goes."

John 8:50 says or John, excuse me, John 7, verse 18, "Christ says this, 'He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory. But he that seeketh his glory, that send him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.'" And then in John 8, verse 50, "And I seek not mine own glory. There is one that seeketh and judges." So we see God was or Christ was here. Jesus was here. And he wasn't pursuing his own glory. He instead was pushing that glory or transferring that glory to the Father.

And that is what we are called to do. I look at people's lives. I look at churches. And sometimes you see these individuals or see a church that starts out really great.

They are alive. They have great teaching, great outreach, great ministry. They're growing. But 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years later, you see their lives. You see the church, and you say, "What happened? What happened?" It's in shambles.

And I think sometimes we have tried to take that glory to ourselves. We start to say, "Look at what we are doing. We're reaching out here. Look at our ministry." And we don't realize that the glory goes to the Father. And God will not share his glory with another. And I believe he will bring it to naught. So it's just a warning to myself to make sure that as God puts his stamp of his image, that glory that he gives us, that we point that back to where it really, truly belongs to God.

Second thing I noticed as I studied this was Christ and God were one in his works. Verse 4, "I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." So we see this oneness in their works, the things that they were doing.

Luke 2:49, Jesus says, "As a little boy there in the temple, when his parents couldn't find him, he said, 'Wish ye not. I must be about my Father's business. I have a work to do. It's my Father's work. And that's my job. That's what I'm going to be doing. And I need to be doing that work.'" John 4:34, "My meet is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work."

And you could go on. John 5:36, "For the work which the Father has given me to finish, the same works that I do, they bear witness of me that the Father has sent me." John 9:4, "Thy must work the works of him that sent me." 14:12, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me," and this is where it goes to us now. "I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also.

And greater works than these shall he do because they go unto my Father." So the question came to me then, what are these works that we are to be doing? If we are to be doing the same works that Christ did as he was here, then we ought to know what they are. And there were two that really stood out to me. And I'm sure you could probably think of others.

But number one is Christ came to restore relationships. That relationship that was broken in the garden with God, he came to restore that. That was one of God's or one of Christ's works that he did. He came to restore a relationship with God. And then as that happens, then it restores relationships to each other. And that's what we're called to as well. We're called to point people to where they can have their relationship restored with God. We point them to Christ. We point them to the Father to where that relationship can be back to where it needs to be.

And I think it's our job to reach out to where there are broken relationships and try to bring the reconciliation, try to bring them back together to where there is a right relationship again. And we see that somewhat in the Great Commission. He says, "Go out. Teach. Show to the people." But he also says something else in there. And that is, "Teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always, even unto the end of the world." What was one of Christ's main avenues of teaching? Was it not by his example?

Living out the life. He showed us how to live. And I believe that as Christians today, that is one of the main ways that we show the world, those around us, how to truly live by giving them an example.

Showing others how to have relationships, showing others how to just handle yourself, to live in this world. And I think about that. Are we truly showing forth that example? Are we one with Christ so much that when they see us, they say, "He's doing the same thing"?

The two are one. Are we being an example to them? The next one I see is one in words. Verse 8, "For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me."

Excuse me. "Which thou gavest me. And they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me." So here we have a oneness in our words.

We're glad to have Brother David at our church last week, and he preached a message on gossip. That's one of those things that is not one of Christ's words as he lived here. But more importantly than that, I'm not sure it's more important, but one of the other things I was thinking about is, as we say our words, are they the same words that Christ would speak?

John 7, verse 16 to 18, he says, "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory. But he that seeketh his glory, that send him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him."

We have the teachings of Christ, the teachings that Christ came and shared and manifested here on earth. We have those teachings this morning. And I'm amazed how many times people, churches, Christians will start looking at the teachings of Christ and they say, "Well, I don't think he meant it quite that way." And we start to play this little game. And after a while, the teachings, the words that we are saying are not the words of Christ.

And it's a serious thing because we are professing that this is Christ's words. I think of things like, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth." And I have heard numerous Christians go around it, trying to figure out a way where Christ did not mean what he said.

And you start to hear all the reasoning. Loving your enemy.

Well, that shooter that was down there in the school, he was shot as well. But could we love that man after what he has done?

Society says, "No, you can't love an individual like that. That man is." But we are called to do that. That's Christ's words. But we have seen people take that, "You mean I have to forgive my enemy to love them?" Marriage. It's another one that we see.

One man, one woman for life. And people have done, yeah. They've gone to all lengths to try to say, "God didn't quite mean what he said. Christ did not mean what he said." And you could go on and on. People do it. Wherever it hits that area in our lives, we say, "I don't really want to do that." If Christ said it, then we, as God's people, need to be saying it as well.

That is the only way that we are going to be one if we want this oneness. And I think about it as a parent. I'm sure all of you who have children that are of any age at all, it isn't long. They try to come around and they say, "Can I have, Dad, can I have a piece of licorice?" And you say, "Well, just wait. Not right now." And what do they do? They sneak off to Mom. They say, "Mom, can I have licorice?" And it isn't long you say, "Well, what did Mom say? What did Dad say?" Because you know they're going to work that thing against you. And I wonder sometimes if the church at large, if God's people were all saying the same thing, how powerful that would be.

Because if we were all saying the same thing, and we can apply this as an individual, as individual Christians, we can apply it as the church. If we went down here to the local church here and we got the same answer there as we did to the next church down here, the power, the influence of that would be amazing. But instead, we get down here and we hear something different. And so we can just go over here and we can get the answer that we want.

We are to be one in our words. As God's people, we are called to oneness.

Do we rely on our own wisdom?

And I had to think of the verse. It's a little bit of a different vein. But in Matthew 10:18 to 20, he says, "When you are brought before governors and kings for my sake, for testimony against them and the Gentiles.

But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak. For it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you."

And you could go into what all that means. But there's one thing I want us to think about. I believe he's telling us, "Don't rely on your own wisdom. When you are before them, you speak my words, the words that I want you to speak." And does that mean that it will get you out of that before the governors? I don't know. There has been a lot who have lost their lives speaking the words of Christ. But we do not change our words. Try to use our own wisdom, our own reasoning to get us out of it.

The next one I see here is oneness in possessions. Verse 10, "And all mine are thine, and thine are mine. And I am glorified in them." Now, I know it's speaking here of the people, those that God gave, probably of the disciples.

But I think we can enlarge it because it follows in the life of Christ that God, what was God's was the Father's. What was the Father's, excuse me, was the Son's. And what's the Son's was, was the Father's. And we have a huge section of the Sermon on the Mount was focused on that. He said, "Listen, don't worry about this stuff here.

It's all mine. I will give it to you if you need it." And we see Christ living his whole entire life that way. He gave. He gave. He gave. Even his own life was not his. He gave that. And that is what we are called to. And it's interesting that what happened after Pentecost came and the church received the Spirit and that the 3,000, 5,000 came to the Lord, it says that they held all things in common. What they held was not their own.

I don't necessarily believe that that meant they all went and lived in the same house. Because we know they went from house to house breaking bread. So they had various houses. But I do think what it meant was that when there was a need here, they gave. When there was a need here, it came this way. And there was a sharing. There was an openness. There was a oneness in possessions. And that's what we are called to do.

These things are not mine to hang on to. What is mine is thine. And the nice thing about this is our God says, "You do that, then I will supply all your needs according to my riches and glory," which is far beyond anything that we could even want.

He is there. He has it all. He's willing to share it this way. But we somehow like to grab hold of it and say, "Nope, this is mine. And we're going to hang on to it."

Well, that's oneness in possessions. Then I wanted to look at verse 16. Oneness in our view of the world, or maybe the world's view of us. He says this, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."

And verse 14 is the one that really stood out to me. "I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."

In John 8, verse 23, Christ said this, "Ye are from beneath, I am from above. Ye are of this world, I am not of this world." But like I said, it's verse 14 that really spoke to me. The world hates Christ. The world hates Jesus.

And as God's people, they are going to hate us as well. There are opposing forces. If you were to go over to Ukraine right now, there are two forces there. And I'm sure there's a lot of hatred between the two of them.

The interesting thing as Christians, it's hatred one way. The other way is love shown back to them. But the question came to me is, why would I want to associate with them? We're opposing forces. And you could say, "Well, what is the world?" And I'm going to make it pretty simple this morning. I'm going to say that it's what excites them. The evil that comes out is what excites the world. I was at a customer's place. I do appliance repair. Sometime ago, I was at a customer's place. And I get there, and this man has kind of, I don't know, longish hair, kind of little ringlets kind of thing.

When I met him, that's kind of interesting. I kind of recognized that hair from something, but I'm not sure where. So I was working on his dishwasher, and you have conversation. I think the cat was what came around. But somehow he got to talking about his cats. He has two of them.

And you Canadians will like this. One was Bobby Orr, and one was Gretzky. And all of a sudden, I was like, "Okay. For you that don't know who they are, they're famous hockey players." And all of a sudden, I was like, "I know where that hair came from. There's a certain look that hockey players have. And yeah, it's that style of haircut. And yeah." Well, then I come to find out that he is Coco, the mascot for the Hershey Bears. So he is really into hockey.

That's his thing. But you could tell it consumed his life. His cats are named that. That's the world. Those kind of things are the world where it becomes a direction, a passion of their lives. And if it's not God, then it's of the world.

I was also at another lady's house about the same time. I think I was working on the dishwasher there as well. And in the course of conversation, she said something about ties. And she's like, "Oh, I have 300, I think it was 386 solid ties here." And she said, "I have about that many in striped ties." And then she explained to me that at their church, in their attic, she has a wardrobe put up for drama.

And she said, "Oh, I have costume after costume after costume." And she said, "All these people come to our place or come to our church to get the costumes for their plays they want to put on." And the plays run the gamut of whatever, from the local theater to the church that's putting on the drama.

And she went on and on and on and on about this, how all these costumes and the dramas that she's put in and how her daughter is now acting. And yeah, just that's the world. They're boring. And sad to say, here it is in a church. And it's consuming that lady's life. And I'm afraid that that is not their opposing forces.

How can this be?

You know, Eleanor, my daughter, this year was doing a research paper. And she was doing it on music. And she said, "Some of the groups look so evil." And she's right. They are evil. They're devilish. And they delight in that. But you know, here sometime ago, we have the Upper Rise Festival in Shippensburg. And we drove by it. So it's supposed to be a Christian group or Christian groups.

We went by. The lights are flashing. There's smoke pouring out of the

stage. Thank you. And I'm like, "Where is this coming from? This is borrowing from that." And I think these are opposing forces. How can we be blending these two together? It shouldn't be. The world hates God. And that was a good reminder for myself. Because we say that's pretty far out there. But do I want to borrow the world's dress, the world's hair, the world's cars, the world's clothes, the world's houses? And you could keep on going.

They're opposing forces, brothers and sisters. And we need to realize that let's not go borrowing from that. We should look like God's people. We should be doing the things that God's people would. But to be different just for difference's sake is not enough.

He goes on to say, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth." And that word "sanctify" there means to be set apart for a special purpose. We don't be different just for difference's sake. We be different because we are different because we are set apart for a different purpose.

We are called to be verse 21, that they all may be one as thou Father art in me. We are called to be that they may be perfectly one, that the world may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me. And that brings me to my last oneness in verse 26. Oneness in love.

And as I read this verse, I was overwhelmed. He says, "And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love where thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them."

When I think of the love that God the Father had toward his son, his desire is for us to have his love toward us is exactly the same. He said, "That same love that you have given me, you have also given to them." And we know because God gave the very best that he had, his son.

Christ gave the very best that he had, his life. What more can you give? That's the kind of love that our Father, that Jesus has toward us. Is our love for him the same? Are we willing to give the very best that we have? Are we willing to give our own self back to him? That's the love that the Father and the Son has. And it's the love we are called to as well.

And so I've talked this morning a good bit about our relationship, our love, or our oneness with God, our oneness with God and the Son. But it also goes this way. We're called to be one as a church, as a congregation.

And so the question I have, are we oneness this way? Or do we have oneness in the glory of God's people? Do we prefer others above ourselves, or do we seek our own glory?

Do we pursue our own work, our own agenda, or do we work together and pursue God's agenda? That's oneness as a group. Do we speak with one voice as a congregation when they ask this brother, are they going to get the same answer as when they ask this brother?

Or do we give mixed messages?

It's a question I have. Do we hold tight to the things we have, or are we constantly sharing with our brothers and sisters? Is what is mine thine and thine mine? Is Christ and the Father our? Do we join together, join forces to fight against the world, realizing the world is out to destroy us?

Or are we allowing the world to dictate our lives?

And then lastly, do we demonstrate God's love to each other and show to the world the power of oneness?

So I guess I'd say in closing, let's together as one, even as the Father and Son are one, demonstrate the power and glory of God to the world around us and help them to see that they too can change allegiances and become part of God's kingdom, the kingdom of love.