"I Pray Also for Those Who Will Believe” | John 17:13–26

Show Notes

Episode 740: 
In this episode, we dive into a discussion about Jesus' prayer for his disciples and future believers, as found in John 17:13-26. We explore the significance of Jesus praying for unity among believers and the importance of being set apart through God's truth. We emphasize that holiness is not about being perfect but about being dedicated to God and living a life that reflects His teachings.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. O, good. Morning, everybody. Welcome to the Bible. And we're thankful. We're so incredibly thankus. We don't deserve your presence with us today on this podcast. Well that's actually partly true. But you know what I forgot to do. I forgot to celebrate that you're back with us. This week you were gone. Oh you guys record when I was gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just kind of had a detox of the bizarre ball thing for a while. Yeah yeah, yeah. People are like who and we needed that and we had we had Wesley with us last week. So it was platinum edition. Yeah yeah, yeah, Well we told everybody every day it was a platinum edition. Yeah. But you're back with us, and we missed you, like we thank you. Grieved over the fact that you weren't with us. We're grateful for I missed you. And you know, one of the things we didn't have the benefit of the blessing. Of the blessed. What's for you to share with us? What made Chris mad this week? It was you weren't even here to tell I wasn't even here to tell us. So we figured, now you got two weeks worth pent up inside. Yeah, well today is Friday. Yeah yeah, well. Two weeks worth. But I'm only going to tell. You one thing, only one thing. You got plenty because it said you have plenty. Yeah, but this week. It took it took me all the ten seconds. I think I might know what this one is. Yeah, I think you do too, Yeah, so and so away, Chris, there was a there was a specific incident that happened. But to be honest, it connects to the world because, after all, Jeff, remember. Yeah, you're only mad on behalf vicariously for the war. For the rest of the world. Yeah, I get mad for others, Yes, because I don't think of just me, Jeff, thank you, I think of everybody. Thank you. You're more than good. So I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you what makes me mad for the world first, okay, and then I'll tell you what made me mad specifically and what caused me to feel this. Okay, this week in particular, for the last like seven days, I've been very mad at this type of people, the type of people who have the ability to work and earn a good living, but instead choose to be freeloaders and live or it sounds like a political statement. Yeah, well I know where you're going with this one. I know, but that's really what it is. I was. I was literally angry at that entire group of people because I'm like, I'm thinking, these guys have the ability to do really anything they want. They're sharp guys, and yet they choose to inconvenience the rest of the world, right because they decide to be pickpocketing thiefs. Yes, so tell us, tell us what happened. I was in the Dominican Republic and I was pickpocketed. So, for our listeners, you were in the Dominican Republic, not a vacation. Transform one. Transform one, Yeah, organization that rescues miners from sex trafficking. And I actually was there having meetings and of course some of it was R and R, but most of it was meetings. And then I took my son, Yes, Steven, who listens every day by the way, Yeah, and so anyway, he was there with us, and he got to see a little bit of that and we got to do a little bit of serving with a community, a poor, poor community of Punchaminto. But anyway, the point is is that I was coming at what we had visited, a piece of property that we're looking into possibly purchasing, and we were coming back and we stopped in this city that was a We sort of knew it was a rough area, right, we knew. And I took my passport from my back pocket and I intentionally put it in my front pocket. And in retrospect, it would probably been better in my back pocket. But you know, they always say front pockets better, but probably only if you walk with your hands in your pockets. And better yet, like. You said, or keep people away from keep it zipped up, keep it zipped up. Yeah, you need pockets zip uplish you're traveling and I have shorts. I have shorts that zip, and I did not have these pockets. So I had this. And by the way, I have my phone in my hand, Thank goodness, I didn't have my wallet. That's what they were looking for. They certainly weren't looking for a for a passport. Maybe there's a lot of identity opportunities with the passports. Okay, anyway, so I have my phone in my hand, my wallet's in the car because I forgot it and uh, and then all of a sudden, I get this passport in my hand, and we're walking into this ice cream shop and you know, it's called bond bo n or Bone, whatever it's called, and they're really popular in the Dominican Republic. And as we're walking in, these four guys are walking out and they're pretending like they've been drinking, I think, but in retrospect, I don't think they were drinking at all, and they were pretending like they're having a good time. And one guy pushes another guy like he's like pushing, like horsing around, and this guy flies into me and falls into my waist and literally grabs my waist like he's trying not to fall. And meanwhile, it's soon the second he does that, this guy who pushed me runs up and it puts his face within one foot to my face and starts talking to me in Spanish, you know, and he goes, oh, oh, so sorry, so sorry, excuse me, excuse me, And so I have no choice but to engage with this guy who's in my face, who's so incredibly apologetic. Meanwhile, I'm trying to hold up this guy who's you know, trying to trying not to fall, but meanwhile he's just grabbing stuff in my pockets. Right, So anyway, then then all of a sudden, I say, hey, no problem, and then they get up and they then they vanish, and all of a sudden, I just realize they stole my passport. So anyway, I have no passport. I feel completely violated. So I guess I just live here now. I guess I just live in the Republic. And by the way, I was very worried. You know. I called my wife and she's like, what are you gonna do. I'm like, well, you can't leave the country without a passport, and you know, you're googling everything, and then you're talking to people and they're like, sometimes I could take up to three business days, but my plane left in forty eight hours, right, all these different things. And then then I had the privilege, nay, the pleasure of calling our executive pastor, Chad, who takes care of all things like this. Chad is also a regular listener. Way to Go, Chad, Way to Go, Chad. He focused all of his powers. Yes, I'm giving you the best step by step and listen exit plan. I often praised Chad for some things often often often, Yeah, you're here and there right all the time. But I got to tell you, in this moment, I was just really upset. I was emotional, I was I was worried, I was these things. And he goes, he goes, listen, he goes, I'm telling you right now. And the way he made it sound, he goes, I'm very confident. I'm ninety something percent confident. He goes, if you do these things, you will have your passport by the end of this day. And I didn't know. Chad's an operator man, so just how to get done. And so he says do this. I'm like, well, I wouldn't have done that. And he's like, and you need to do this. You need to make sure of this. And I'm like, oh, I wouldn't have done it that way. But sure enough, everything he said was right. So we so we did those things and then and then here's the best part of the conversation. So he could see I'm a little bit emotional, right, I'm sort of worried, I'm sort of violated. I'm like I felt violated. Yeah, and and and he goes, okay, Chris, he goes, now, get off the phone with me, and you call Liz back and let her know everything's going to be okay. That's what we said. And because he cares enough and knows Liz enough to know that she's at home worry. Everybody needs a Chad. Ye, it's like a rock yep. Yes. So I call Liz and I tell Liz that Chad said that, and she just starts bawling and she's like, tell him thank you. And so she's listening right now too. So anyway, all that to say, then I got mad. I got upset at these men, at these four guys. They're so clever, they're so smart, they have all these skills. Can you imagine if they open up a little business or if they started yes, yeah. Tell insurance for crying out, Like open up a. Car wash man, yeah, something, you're hustling and doing a good job. Do something instead their pickpockets. Right, their pickpockets and so and so here I am. You know. The next two and a half days, I missed all these other meetings that I had inconvenienced everybody else who had to help me, So everybody's schedule was all messed up, even the people that we were supposed to meet with was like totally inconvenienced. And then uh, and then I'm driving down six and a half hours, spending the night in the city, spending so much more money on a return flight and hotels and gas and rental car, all these extended things. I mean, it was just so inconvenient and I and I got mad at this group of people. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, these are four sharp, young, able guys who could do anything right, but instead they decide that they're special and they're gonna benefit off of everybody else's hard work. I got mad. Yeah, a lot of times it happens that they make a little bit more money doing that than they would if they took a job somewhere and started building a career. Sure, easy money, right, it's easy money, but it's a debt. It's a dead end stry discount. Yeah, but it's a dead end street because if you begin to build a business, you build a career there, you're your only ceiling, right you can you can keep growing that thing and turn it into something meaningful where you're providing resources and money and jobs for other people while you're increasing your own potential. All those kind of things. But when you're just a pickpocket, the ceiling is the risk you're willing to take on spending significant amounts of time in jail, right, And eventually that's the path you go down. Is that and so on? Today you might make a little bit more money, but over the course of your life without going into deeper and deeper and deeper life of crime, there's a significant ceiling on the kind of lifestyle you can live. So you're wasting so much your time using skills that you could be building a life. And it's just it's a lack of patience, it's a lack of being willing to put in the time. Well, I have to tell you I have multiple, multiple times I prayed for those four guys, and you know who else prayed for others? Ooh Jesus. Oh, because today's topic is his phrase, is I pray also for those who will believe? Wow, Chris, what a transition. Yeah, well, actually that was a real. But I don't think Jesus was like, God, kill those people, help them get caught by the cops. Is that how you were praying? No, I'm saying Jesus, No, I was just questioning how you prayed oh, you prayed multiple times. I did not send the cops and bust those guys. It's like that song I prayed here, right, I prayed your breaks go down, running down a hill, I pray they go out. I pray a flower falls from a windowsill and knocks you in the head, like I'd like to know. That's not the way I pray. No, I prayed for them specifically. Okay, in a good way. So this is a kind of a neat passage in John chapter seventeen, because Jesus prays for us, yes, which is kind of neat. Yes, right, that he thought to pray for us. He says, he's this whole thing has been praying, and he goes, I am praying not only for these disciples, talking about the twelve and then the seventy two and all the others. I'm praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. That's you and me, what everse are you? Starting with verse twenty, it. Says thirteen through twenty six. Oh well, I'm even more excited to read verse thirteen. Just wait, that was the preview. Yeah, that was the preview. We'll watch this. This is what Jesus says. Now, I am coming to you. I told them many things while I was with them. He's talking to his father and he's talking about them. Is the Disciples. I told them many things while I was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy. I've given them your word, and the world hates them because they do not belong to this world, just as I do not belong to the world. World. I'm not asking you to take them out of this world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth. Teach them your word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world, and I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth. Now Here it is I am praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who are ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one. As you are in me, Father, and I am in you, and may they be in us, so that the world will believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father. I want these whom you have given me to be with me I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began. Well, righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do. And these disciples you sent me. I have revealed you to them and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them and I will be in them. Yeah. So this is Jesus praying for his disciples and for us. Well, I got to tell you, I love absolutely love love, love love that he said. I am praying not only I love that right there. I'm praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. Yeah. So very clearly. I mean, this isn't just like a far fetched to connect the dots kind of an idea. This is a very clear and direct application to you and to me today where Jesus is praying. Hey, he's almost predicting in a way of saying, like, there are going to be so many others that will hear and believe in this message, and I'm praying for all of them. And then he prays for you know what, his followers, which later on he calls the church right right, So the church is going to be established in the church. By the way, it's not a building, it's not brick and mortar. The church is literally I call that group of people. It is the people. We are the church. So if he's praying for those who are going to believe in his message, what he is praying for is the church. That's what he's praying for future believers. And so I just love that, and I love that he says, I pray that they'll be one. And so I love the idea of unity. Paul talks about that in the book of What Is It Philippians right, unity and harmony and helpfulness within the church. And I think that this is one of the most inspiring things for me that God on the earth, Jesus himself looks forward to the future and says, this is what I pray that they will be. Because if you look at it, look at it. There's a lot of ways that we're not one, are we, right? Right, there's a lot of disunity in the church at times, right, and certainly corporately across the globe. There's a lot of disunity. And anyway, I think that's great. Yeah. So when he says in verse twenty, I'm praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. All the things he just prayed for his disciples, he's also praying for us, that's right. And then he adds to it the unity and love. Right, So then he's also praying for us that we would be wholly through his word. Right, He's praying that we would be able to be safe from evil. Right. The world hates us, He's reminding them, reminding God, they don't belong to this world anymore than I do. Yeah, which is also great, right, Right, So we're in the world, but not of the world. Right. Well, So a lot of Christians feel frustrated because what they thought was that Jesus was just gonna make everything way better. All of their goals, all of their plans were going to be even better because of Jesus, and Jesus is going. This world is not even your home, right, you're in it, but not of it, and this world you're not of the world. So of course there's gonna be times when the world hates you. They're gonna hate what you have to say, they're gonna hate what you believe. And don't be afraid. I think for a lot of people Christians spent some time there a few years ago really afraid of cancel culture, and Jesus is like, of course they're gonna hate you. They thank goodness, that's going away. That's passing away. Hey, it'll it'll go back and forth, swing back and forth. Cancel culture normally isn't a thing until we slip into this idea where we're afraid of the people who threaten to cancel us. But if you don't read the comments, you don't care what they're saying. A budget, right, that's the thing. So they don't belong to this world anymore than I do. Love that phrase. And then he says, make them holy by your truth, and teach them your word, which is truth. So the importance of God's word in our daily lives. We're getting ready to do a series is fall on the disciplines spiritual disciplines of life, and one of those is spending daily time in God's Word is a spiritual discipline. There's a lot of different benefits of it, you know, wisdom for daily life and all these things. But Jesus said holiness is his goal with regard to God's Word, that we would be holy people. And I would say this, people that are living like the rest of the world and aren't living a holy life. When you dig in, you also find they're really not spending much time in God's Word. But it is interesting the people who spend more and more and more time in God's Word, you can just see this holiness kind of growing in their life. And it's not holier than thou. It's not a judgmental holiness. It's just a cleanness of living that begins to grow and grow and grow and grow because they're they're extracting their daily priorities out of the things of the world, and they're because that's what holy means. Holy doesn't mean we think holy means perfect. We think holy means deserving a being put in a shrine or cathedral. Right, that's what we think holiness means. A holy person is somebody they make a statue of If you're in some religions, you pray to those saints, right, that are holy. That's what we think holy means. And it doesn't. Yeah, some people think holy is sinless. Yes, and it doesn't mean that. It just means set apart, that's right. So it's interesting when he says being holy, set apart for what For God? That's what means. So he says, they're not of this world, so make them holy through your word. I gave them your word. Now make them holy through your word. The more you remember when Jesus said, you're my friends, and so obey me. Right, it's the same thing. It's the same idea, only now he's talking to God, his father, saying, make them holy through the words that I taught them. If we choose to obey what we learn, we will be wise, we will have a better life. But we also should be becoming more and more and more holy. The opposite of holy is carnal in the Bible. Fleshly right those words, and so we should become less about our flesh and less about the carnal things of this world, and more and more extracted from the priorities of this world. Even while we're on mission in it. Yeah, yeah, And I love how Jesus reiterates the concept that we are in him and he says, you know, they were one with one another, just as I am one with you and you and me and I am with you. And it's like this idea all the way through the New Testament. What does Paul say over and over again? He says, we are in Christ, right and and you know, and in Christ is such a great phrase because it's really saying, you know, we are connected to and have the power of God. And the weird part about that phrase is that technically the Holy Spirit is within us us, right, So so we are so God is in us and we are in Him. And so he's saying, I pray that that that there are one just as I'm in you and you're in me, and that is the picture of us. We are in Christ. Christ is in us. And so it's just it's a great word picture, you know when you think about it that way. Yeah, and then ultimately yeah versus. So there's this principle in in Middle Eastern teaching. It's called the kaism. One of my friends, you know, Stan uh Stan loves kaism in the in the Middle Eastern UH teaching. Oftentimes the middle idea is the main idea, and then there's usually an equal number of ideas that spread out on both sides of it. That kind of sometimes we'll repeat each other, right, this one and this one, this one, and this one, this one and this one. So the center idea here is, uh, just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. Right. They're on mission. So they need love, they need unity, they need to be holy, they need you to protect them. Right, Holiness protects us all these things. It's kind of interesting, But the center is they're on mission. Which we've already talked about this before in Matthew Shepard twenty eight. In Mark it says the same thing, but he's got this mission for us. So Oneness isn't just so you and I can have a nice time and not have so many grumpy people, right, right, ons. Love isn't just so we can all have warm fuzzies about each other and have fondness for each other. Holiness isn't just so we can be better than other people. Right. All of the things that Jesus is praying for is because of the mission you got to understand Jesus came on a mission. He didn't come just to heal people and feed people and say nice words. He said, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. Everything I did was on mission, he says, I did what you told me to do. Father. Now I'm sending them to go do what I did. And so the whole thing is the mission. So we're supposed to love so that the world sees that we have love. Hereby we'll all men know that your my disciples, if you have love one for another. Jesus said, it's a mission thing. It's not just a warm fuzzy thing. Well yeah, I mean because they can't see emotion, right, right, and so. They can't see your belief. So three weeks from now, we're going to be wrapping up this series Mission Possible that we're in currently, and the statement for that day three weeks from now is the whole statement for the day. So we're going to give it to you before you hear it on the weekends. All right, is love is fundamentally more action than emotion. Yeah, that's the statement for the day. Right, fundamentally more action than emotion. Love is fundamentally more action than emotion. Yeah right, So love is a verb, love is an action word. So when he says love one another, he's not just meaning, oh, feel good about one another. Somebody's that's somebody's necessarily implying, right, because he says, this is how the world will know that your my disciples, if you love one another, not how you emotionally feel internally and secretly about one another. It is how you love by helping the poor or you know, not pickpocketing you know, strangers. That's right, right, that's right. But but but treating them with honor, you know, to to you know, take care of the elderly, or to be kind or to assist or to pray for or you know, or encourage or whatever it is. It is the action of word indeed that come together that let people know that we show love. Yes, And this is how people know that we are His disciples if we love each other in word, indeed, yes, and word and indeed. Yeah. Yeah, I think all of these are indicators of the mission and of the fact that we're His disciples. That's right. Yeah, So that's great. Well, hey, it looks like that is a good place to wrap up. And we appreciate you tuning into the Bibble Guys this week and you have a break on Saturday, but you can go back and listen to previous episodes. Almost nine hundred of them. How many do we have? What is it? Let's see, let's see how many we have? It says right on the thing, this is seven forty here, and we did two hundred or one hundred and eighty something on the other one, the another one, yeah yeah, on the HC Daily, Yeah yeah. Plus not to mention, you can go to the Heritage Church dot com slash media. Man another week and a half, Chris, and we're going to hit episode seven fifty. Yeah, that's great, seven fifty. Wow, it's gonna be a party that day. That's right. Okay, Well, we'll see you next time, hopefully on the Bible Guys,