Power To Succeed

Text: John 17:6-19

Focus: Our Position in Christ

Function: To help people realize what God can do with them

Form: Storytelling

Intro:

My eldest brother fell off of a slide when he was 2 years old.

He suffered a pretty big concussion and for the next few years, my parents were told to wake him up during the middle of the night to keep him from slipping into a coma.

My mother and father did everything they could to protect him from the scrapes and bruises that happen in life.

I was at the kinder parade in Holland Michigan last week. It was my first alone excursion into everything that Michigan has to offer.

With fond memory, I watched a mother argue with her young teenage daughter about just how much freedom her child was to be allowed during the parade.

It is the inevitable conversation that is based on the love and protection that our parents gave us.

The rule that I had growing up that most other kids did not have was about riding a bicycle.

I wasn't allowed to own a bike until I was 10 years old.

And for good reason. My mom lost her only sister and her youngest brother to a car/bus and a car/bicycle accident. My mom was the oldest and these tragedies happened to two of her siblings at different times, but both while they were in the first grade.

Having lost two siblings, and then having this major accident happen to my eldest brother meant that my mom was somewhat protective of me.

All the other kids got bikes when they were younger, not me.

But I never resented it, not even today.

The difference to me was this: “my mom loved me enough to keep me safe.”

Do I think it was perhaps an overreaction? Maybe, but it was based on love.

Watching children grow is the most rewarding and maybe the most scary things that parents go through.

I remember when my eldest son got his license and took his three younger siblings on a car ride. Everything that Kathy and I treasured went off into with that car.

The trust that I had to put in him was terrifying.

I thought, if he does half of what I did with a car, I'll just have to ground him until he is 21.

Parents can over react, under react or do it just right.

I am convinced that God's reaction to us as Children is very appropriate.

And it turns out, God places a lot of confidence in us.

God entrusts us with this huge message.

And God, knowing the difficulty we will have in fulfilling this great commandment, has made a provision for us.

One of the things I love about being a pastor is the chances that I get to pray for people. I have seen God do some pretty amazing things in prayer.

I think, I suspect, that people ask me to pray because as pastor, they believe that I have a special relationship with God in prayer.

Now, in our theology, we believe in the Priesthood of all believers.

In other words, any one of us -every one of us- has the same rights and privileged of being a part of God's family as anyone else.

And yet, there has always been something comforting to me when someone I love, trust and respect prays for me.

However, we are human.

Do we know God's will?

Not always!

And so, whenever I pray, I make sure that in the prayer, almost always, that I leave room for God's plan and not my own.

We were taught to pray by Jesus' “God's will be done.!” And the emphasis that I make on this is “God's will, not my will.”

Thank God that my will isn't done.

I only see a small part of the picture.

So, there can be, and sometimes is, a doubt whenever someone prays as to whether or not it is God's will.

So, we can ask ourselves a question about this prayer.

In the 16^th Century, a Lutheran Preacher dubbed this prayer in the gospel of John as Jesus' “High Priestly Prayer.”

It is the prayer given by Jesus on behalf of us, the Church.

And Jesus, as our great High Priest makes this prayer on behalf of us to God.

And we ask ourselves this question: “if Jesus prayed it, then was the prayer in accordance with God's will?” Is the answer to this prayer always going to be, “Yes?”

(ASK)

Like me, you believe it to be true as well.

So, just what does Jesus pray for for us in this prayer?

Jesus prays for our unity.

Jesus prays for our safety.

Jesus prays for our protection.

Jesus prays for discernment about when evil forces are using us.

Did this prayer get answered? Is this prayer still be answered?

Yes!

I believe it.

And I find it wonderful.

Jesus does not pray to protect us from all problems.

Jesus does not pray for us to be rich, healthy and wise.

Jesus does not pray for us to live a life without problems.

Nope.

The opposite is true.

Jesus tells God the Father in the prayer that we will be hated by people because of our faith and difference.

I can see that.

We have all experienced it.

We have been told to sit down and shut up when speaking up against violence, especially the systemic violence that is still happening around racism in this country.

When we talk about turning the other cheek, I often hear people say: “that is just crazy and irresponsible.”

When I talk about giving to the poor, I hear things like: “they are lazy and we need to stop the Nanny State from helping them.”

When we speak out against the war culture and the money spent for military spending that could be building a better infrastructure that could lift even the weakest of us out of poverty, we are accused of being socialists.

And all of that assumes that the greed and consumerist nature of our culture is somehow inherently better than other cultures.

But when we speak truth to power by reminding people of the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, we can be called fanatic.

And it can come to us by other Christians who are caught up in worldly values instead of living their lives by the teaching of Jesus.

We can feel alone.

We can feel persecuted.

We can feel despair.

We can be tempted to give up hope.

But Jesus has seen it all. He saw it happening to us before the cross.

And I believe that He is still in heaven making intercession for us, the saints.

When my child went to the prom with a young person whose dress seemed entirely inappropriate to me, that same idea in prayer came back to me.

Lord, deliver him from the temptation of evil. Lord, give him sound judgment. Lord, forgive him if he fails. Lord, let him know t hat you and him together can do anything.

I love this prayer because this is the prayer of Jesus hope in the disciples.

This prayer is Jesus Himself laying His hands on His disciples and commissioning them, and us for this great service in the Kingdom of God.

So, the conclusion is that Jesus is wanting to use us.

And He is ready to use us, no matter what.

This is the power of His Spirit at work in us.

Yesterday, I got to spend my last time with the prisoners at Warren Correctional Institute.

We had what is called an “instructional day.”

It was for the men who decided after our weekend that they want to journey on with this new kind of Church in the prison.

I say new kind of Church because it is basically run by the residents, the prisoner, inside the institution.

They are still living in a tough environment and there are things that go on inside of there that do not happen in normal Churches. Or at least they shouldn't.

There are men who are barely Christian. They are brand new disciples of Christ.

They don't know the bible very well. They can't preach a series of sermons. They certainly don't know all the Christianese that we speak in the Church.

They are raw, but they are willing.

Yesterday we spent more time listening to them and encouraging them.

One man in my group said to that he had never been to Church before in his life. No one took him there when he was a kid.

Now, most of the men there have some sort of church experience in their background.

But this guy was simple enough in his faith to actually believe without feeling intimated by the Spiritual giants that were in that room.

One man told me that he could be released already, but between Kairos, and the Stephen Ministry, a program started by one of the Kairos volunteers, he decided to wait until he finished his training so that when he got back into the world, he would be more prepared.

His statement to me was actually this: God saved my life here in prison and it was worth it for me to come here because I got off the heroin and found Christ.

So, there are spiritual giants in the room but this guy, without any real knowledge of how to pray, how to study and how to share his faith did some amazing things.

We asked the guys if there was a chance to share Jesus, and it was framed with the simple phrase: Love, because God is love, with others.

He told us a few stories of how all of a sudden, he said, although he is very shy, all of a sudden, God used him to share encouragement on several occasions.

God doesn't need tired old saints, God needs willing people who will take the chance to believe.

So, let me bring this around.

We started out talking about how Jesus probably gets all of His prayers answered with a yes because He knows the will of God.

So, as soon as Jesus gets done with asking for God's Spirit to help us, He then makes a bold statement on behalf of the Church. Look at the last verse: I dedicate myself to you in order...

He is committed to our success and makes this declaration on our behalf forever.