John Chapter 17:8-12

Anybody have any unopened Christmas gifts left over from Christmas?

No, I mean you still probably got that fruitcake, but other than that, I mean you, you know, you don't have unopened gifts. Why? Because you opened them. Why? Because they were a gift from somebody.

Exactly. You should open this book because it's a gift. It's a gift from God. Now, what does the Word of God have to say about itself?

Second Timothy chapter 3 16 and 17 says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina, and today we're on part three of his six-part teaching, The Real Lord's Prayer. One of David McGee's associate pastors, D.A.

Brown, is with us today. Welcome to the program, brother. Bob, I'm excited about this teaching. I'm excited for everyone to hear it. The world may see the Bible as simply a rule book to be followed.

That's not it at all. The Word of God is a gift from Him to us. Today, Pastor David explains this gift as he continues in the Gospel of John chapter 17.

Well, let's listen in as David McGee goes into part three of his teaching, The Real Lord's Prayer. John 17 verse 8. For I have given to them the words which you have given me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from you, and they have believed that you sent me. They have received these words.

Now, understand, in your hand right now is an incredible treasure. There's places in parts of the world where they don't have Bibles. They can't get Bibles. As a matter of fact, what they will do is each person takes a couple of sheets, a couple of pages, and they keep those couple of pages for a week or two, and then when they come back to the meeting, they exchange pages so that they can be in the Word of God. And yet the typical American family has what, one, two, three, four, five, six Bibles? Many of them sitting there gathering dust, not being read. This book does not work through osmosis.

What I mean by that is just because you have one in your home, it's not gonna help you. You actually have to pick it up, open it, and read it, and then it begins to help you. Then it begins to direct your path and help you in life. We place here a high value on the Bible, a high value on the Bible. See, what we do here is verse by verse, chapter by chapter. I'm convinced there's no better way to learn or to teach the Word of God.

I'm convinced of that. Paul said in Acts 20, verse 27, says, for I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. I've not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. I look forward to the day, should the Lord tarry, that we have gotten all the way through the Bible. Because I know at that point that you guys will have such a deep knowledge of the Word of God. It won't just be that you know it.

It'll be that you know it. It's not that I think topicals are evil. The difference, what we're doing is called expository teaching. It's not just verse by verse, but it's trying to understand what God has said, not what you can get God to say. Topicals grab a topic. A pastor comes up with a topic, and then he finds verses to reinforce his topic. If it's a questionable topic, he makes sure that he avoids the ones that might not agree with his topic. There's just a different philosophy.

Again, I don't think they're evil. I've learned a lot from topical teachings, but in the study of God's Word, I don't think there's a better way than doing what we're doing. The life lesson here is the Word of God is a gift from God for us. It's a gift from God for us. Now, again, I bet you, does anybody have any unopened Christmas gifts left over from Christmas?

No. I mean, you still probably got that fruitcake. But other than that, you don't have unopened gifts. Why? Because you opened them. Why? Because they were a gift from somebody.

Exactly. You should open this book because it's a gift. It's a gift from God. Now, what does the Word of God have to say about itself? 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17 says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. I love that verse. I love those verses. Now, the word there in the Greek, the inspiration, you may have heard this before if you've been here very long, is the Greek word theos-nostos. That means God breathed.

Theo, God, nostos, starts with a P like pneumatic or pneumonia, has to do with air. God breathed these words. These are not the words of a man. These are the words of God.

And we need to understand that. Hebrews 4.12 says, for the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Again, in the New Living Translation, it says, for the Word of God is full of living power and is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires.

It exposes us for what we really are. Jesus himself said, I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword to bring division. And the Bible speaks of a sword. It speaks of a sword in Genesis, that a sword will keep the way to the tree of life. It speaks of a sword in the book of Revelation, that the sword will proceed out of the mouth of God. The Word of God is a powerful weapon.

That's why since the garden, the enemy has attacked it. How did God really say that? And so the attack continues on the Word of God. And what's interesting is over 2,000 years, all the intellectuals and the liberal scholars have been unable to disprove anything in the Bible.

Think about that. That's astounding. Men have wasted tragically their entire lives trying to shoot down the Word of God. As a matter of fact, story after story exists of people who wanted to shoot it down, but ended up being converted in the process.

That's kind of interesting. Do you know your sword? See, because if you don't know your sword, you can be a little dangerous. A good example is when you first get saved, and you're trying to convert all your family and your friends, and you don't really know the Word of God, you don't understand the Word of God, and you go into the next family meeting, and you're like, and you walk out of the room, and everybody's bleeding and dying in the room, and you think you did God some kind of service. And your Lord's like, man, you need to learn to use that thing.

You need to learn that there's also love and mercy and forgiveness in that book. Get to know your sword. Do you know your sword?

I had some interesting conversations this week just going up, and, man, I regretted that it made people feel really a little bit uneasy in asking them questions. Hey, where'd the Bible come from? Do you know how we got the translation that we have? I'm going to get into that in just a minute, but you need to understand the sword.

You need to get comfortable with the sword. And in this day, we see something that was prophesied in the book of Amos. Amos 8, verse 11 says, behold the days are coming, says the Lord God, that I will send the famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

I think we're in that time of famine. I think you see churches that are now encouraging other churches not to teach the Bible, to get away from the Bible, because it can make people feel uncomfortable. I'm so glad that at one point in my life, the word of God made me feel very uncomfortable, as I knew that I fell far short of God's standard of perfection. Psalm 119, Psalm 119, verse 162 says, I rejoice at your word as one who finds great treasure, joy, treasure, the word of God, make the connection of those things. Verse nine, Jesus says, I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. Jesus, again, is not praying for everybody. He's praying for his followers. Now, what's awesome is if you're following Jesus, you're included in this prayer. You're included in this prayer. And Jesus is making a distinction here between the rest of the world and those that he calls his own. There's a special place in his heart. There's a special place in his prayer life for those who are called his own. And this concept of those who are following Jesus and the rest of the world goes through the Gospel of John, goes through the epistles.

It's, there's a separation. See, even the word repentance means to change your mind, literally. To change your mind about God, to change your mind about the Bible, to change your mind about life and death. And you begin to think differently.

And with that different sort of thinking, it introduces friction with the rest of the world. It's there. You don't create it.

It's already there. We are his own if you're following him. Verse 10, and all mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them. God wants to be glorified in our actions. Now, the wonder of it all is that you understand that God can even take our mistakes and be glorified in our actions.

Only God can do that. He did that in the Bible. You look at Moses, who wandered around the desert for so long before he went back to Egypt and was used to deliver the people.

You understand God actually even redeemed that time? See, because years later as he led the children of Israel out of Egypt through the desert, I can't help but think he knew that place. He knew those hills. He knew where the place to feed the livestock was. He knew where those springs were and where water could be found. And God even redeemed those times in the desert. If you find yourself in a spiritual desert, be encouraged in that.

God will even use this. And so often in our lives, we think, let's so-and-so going to think, well, what's a family member? What's a friend?

What's a spouse? And those are all valid considerations. But the most valid consideration is what is God gonna think? What is God gonna think of this action or that action or this behavior or those words? You better believe as a pastor, that's a very sobering thought to me.

And it should be a sobering thought to you. 1 Peter 2.9 says, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, a peculiar people. This is what we're called, we're called out. And our ultimate purpose of being saved is to bring glory to God. It's not just fire insurance to avoid hell, a place of destruction, but to bring glory to God.

See, think about it. If it was just about us getting saved, then we would see a really peculiar thing every Sunday. As people come forward to get saved, they come and they pray a prayer and forgive me and help me live for you in Jesus' name, amen. Gone. God said, I got them saved.

That's it. They're out of here. That's not what happens. That's not what happened with you. That's not what happened with you. That's not what happened with me.

What happened? God said, I'm gonna keep you there so you can glorify my name. So the question is not just are you saved, are you going, but if you are saved, what are you doing with it?

How are you living? Are you content with just getting in by the skin of your teeth? Oh man, you're too cheaply satisfied. God wants to be glorified through us. Now we think, oh, but how can God be glorified through my life? Oh, trust me, he can.

Trust me, he can. We're called earthen vessels. You know what? Some of us, and I include myself in this, have some cracks. We're crackpots, amen.

But I like what Oswald Chambers said. He said, but the more our earthen vessels are cracked, the more it shows the glory of the Lord and the light within. And how true it is, how true it is. And maybe even as I said this, you thought, well, you know, my life isn't bringing much glory to the Lord. It can change today.

It can change today. It starts with, Lord, give me a fresh start and a new beginning. And from here on out, I want to glorify your name. And what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, we're really excited that you've tuned in today. And if you're listening right now, we're taking a few moments in the program to pray for cities in our listening audience. So if you're listening right now, we're praying for you and specifically these cities in Missouri, Springfield, St. Joseph, and St. Louis, and in Montana, Arleigh, Belt, Billings, and Culbertson. Lord, thank you for the people listening in these cities. Thank you for the work that you're doing in their life.

Them listening is evidence that you're at work. Father, I pray that you would fill them with the faith to believe in what you're doing. Lord, help them to say yes to everything that you're wanting to do in their life. We pray for the city leaders, the mayor, the police chief, the fire chiefs. Lord, we pray that you would give them wisdom, the town council, and Lord, we pray for your Holy Spirit to pour out in these cities. Give the pastors wisdom.

Help people to get plugged into churches. And Lord, we thank you that we can ask for your help and expect you to move. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 11 says, Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are. Do you understand why unity is so important to the body of Christ? Because division is destructive.

It's destructive. Psalm 133 verse 1 says, Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It's a sweet thing to God to see us dwelling in unity. In Ephesians 4, 3, it says, Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Notice it says to keep the unity.

You know what it tells me? We've already been given the unity. We need to keep it.

Don't give it away. Don't destroy it. What destroys the unity in the body of Christ more than anything else?

Our wagging tongues. That's what destroys. That's why gossip is so destructive. That's why things that you can say can be so divisive. And you know what happens is we get what we think is righteous indignation. We think we're correct in our motives about speaking against leadership. The Bible's real clear that we're to pray for our leaders and support them and not speak against them. And it's also very clear that if you have issue with a brother, you go directly to him. Not your friend, not your neighbor, not somebody you work with, but you go to that person.

Let me encourage you in that. The unity is so important. Now, when God did such a work in the apostles, if you remember at the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 verse 1, it says, and when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. They were all in unity. And that's important as God works through us to maintain this unity. Now, does that mean unity at any price? Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. There's some churches, there's some pastors in this area I can't fellowship with because there is such a difference in the basics and the foundation of my faith. I can't do it. But there's other churches, other pastors that have, maybe the people dress differently than us, or maybe the music's different than us, but you know what, we can agree on Jesus. We can agree on how you get saved, and we can have unity there. The body of Christ spends too much time arguing about the little details and too much time not arguing about the important stuff. And I don't want to be guilty of that. I don't want to be guilty of that.

Unity, unity. We're going to talk about that because more next week because Jesus continues with that theme, but let's move on. Verse 12. It says, while I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled.

Now, this is interesting. The son of perdition. Who do we think that is? Judas. Judas, the son of perdition. Now, he was the only one lost, and I want you to notice this. He was the only one that wanted to be lost.

He didn't want to follow Jesus. The Lord is a keeping God. Do you understand in that prayer of Aaron, that Aaronic blessing is what is referred to that I close every server with?

The Lord bless you and keep you. Do you understand he's able to do that? He's able to keep you. Jude 23 says that he's able to keep you from falling, to present you faultless before the throne of his glory. Now, perhaps you're saying, you go, he's able to keep me faultless, but I stumble and I fall.

Yeah, you do, and you know that's when you're in charge. When you're allowing God to lead you and God to be in charge, you don't fall. So theoretically, it's possible to never fall, but none of us fall.

But none of us walk in that, do we? We stumble, we fall, and yet still the Lord is going to one day, if you're following him and asking him to forgive you, he's going to present you faultless before the throne of his glory. Let me mention something. The Gospel of Judas, the so-called Gospel of Judas. So a few peculiar things about this. It came from the, it's called the Nag Hammadi Library in Egypt, and it's not a new discovery, but there's some peculiarities. They placed the original writing of this, the earliest people say 175 AD, some people say as late as 400 AD, but it's called a gospel.

That's kind of interesting, isn't it? When you consider that all the other four gospels were written somewhere between 45 and 90 AD by the actual eyewitnesses. So we know that this gospel was not written by Judas. So that's another warning sign. Oh, it was written by somebody under a pseudonym, under a pen name, if you will.

Well, that's another dangerous thing. And then it says that Judas was actually a hero, that Jesus asked him to help him set this whole thing up and into motion. Well, that's in direct contradiction to the Bible that we have today. And it was written by the Gnostics.

The Gnostics, I'm not going to get all into that, but they basically were heretics. They disputed all sorts of things in this book, including the deity of Christ. So, and even scholars know that this was not written by Judas. It was not written by eyewitness. So, and again, the earliest manuscript that they have is in Coptic. It's not even in Aramaic or in Greek from 220 to 340 AD. Again, compare that to the word of God. We got the gospel of John going back to 125 AD and what's called the Ryland's fragment. It doesn't compare.

I mean, the two things here, let me cover it, sum it up. Number one, it was not written by Judas or even by an eyewitness or even by an interview with an eyewitness. And the second thing, it is heretical or in direct conflict with other biblical teachings. See, whenever something contradicts this Bible, whether it's the Apocrypha or the Pearl of Great Price or the Book of Mormon or Watchtower or whatever, go to the book.

If something contradicts this book, question it, question it. Now, Jesus spoke about Judas in this verse and there's other verses. Psalm 41, 9 says, even my own familiar friend and whom I trusted who ate my bread has lifted up his heel against me. This is prophetically speaking of Judas. And this is the verse that Jesus quotes in John 13, 18. And he says, I do not speak concerning all of you.

I know whom I've chosen, but that the scripture may be fulfilled. He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me. You could sense Jesus, his disappointment and the betrayal. And yet he kept giving Judas every opportunity, even so in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas was leading the soldiers up to him. Jesus said, friend, why have you come?

And Jesus knows everything. He wasn't asking, what's going on with all the soldiers and stuff? He knew, but he's asking him, why are you betraying me?

Why have you done this thing? Even stronger words in Mark 14, 19 through 21, it says, and they began to be sorrowful and they say to him one by one, is it I? And another said, is it I?

And he answered and said to them, it is one of the 12 who dips with me in the dish. And the son of man indeed goes just as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he had never been born. Now these are strong words. These aren't words of, hey, you know, Judas is this unsung hero that's going to work the will of God out.

So you have to make a decision between believing the Bible and believe in a document that even the secular historians say is questionable. But back to this part of keeping, I have kept them in your name. Understand, God can keep you. You understand that? Some of you think you got to keep yourselves.

And to some degree, there's some truth in that. You got to watch what you do, watch the places you go, watch the positions you place yourself in, but God is the one who keeps you. Our God is a keeping God. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. And friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood, through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.