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Sign up at harvest.org. What a powerful witness it is to a lost world when Christians are unified, when they're loving one another. The Bible says the world will know we're Christians by our love.
Pastor Greg Laurie points out now's the perfect time for it. Our country's so divided right now. Along racial lines, along political lines, along social economic lines. And here we can see unity as followers of Christ who would say, well, we don't agree on everything, but we love one another. Have you noticed how social media seems to break out in a virtual fistfight at the drop of a hat?
No matter the topic, it seems like some people are just ready to rumble. Well, that's the time when believers should be ready to be humble. We're here as representatives of the Lord.
We're here to show the world what Christians look like. And today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie urges us to display that Christ-like attitude at all times. Insight from our study of the Lord's prayer for us. What does Jesus pray when He intercedes for us?
And that is revealed to us here in John chapter 17. Jesus said, They have known all things which You have given Me are from You. For I have given to them the words You have given Me, and they have received them, and they have surely known that I came forth from You, and they have believed that You sent Me.
I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. 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. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I've kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled. So we'll stop there. And so here's what Jesus prays for us. If you're taking notes, you might want to write this down. First He prays for our preservation.
Point number one. He prays for our preservation. Look at verse 11. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as we are. So Jesus is praying that we would be safe. Just like you pray for your family. Oh, Lord, keep my family safe, right? That's His heart toward you. The Jewish priests were told to pronounce this blessing over the people of Israel repeatedly.
You know it. Number 624. The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. The Lord bless you and keep you. Then in the New Testament, 1 Peter 1 says we're kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Jude 1 says to those who are called sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ. Listen. You are kept.
You are safe. Point number two. Jesus prays for our consecration. He prays for our consecration. Now look at John 17 verse 13. Now I come to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I've given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of this world just as I'm not of this world.
This is interesting. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of this world just as I'm not of this world.
Sanctify them through your truth. Your word is truth. We live in the world.
What does that mean? I think Christians get confused sometimes. There is an earth and there is a world.
Alright. The earth is made by the Lord. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. It is not talking about planet earth. When the Bible talks about the world it is talking about a mentality. It is talking about a culture.
It is talking about a way of thinking. It is talking about the whole planet or system under the control of Satan. That is why the Bible calls the devil the God of this world. And that is why 1 John 2 16 says all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world. The New Living Translation puts it this way. The world offers only lust for physical pleasure and lust for everything we see. In pride in our possessions these are not from the Father. They are from this evil world. So Jesus says look the world is going to hate you. And I find it fascinating that He says I am not going to take them out of the world. You know if Jesus wanted to He could have raptured you on the day of your conversion.
That would have been kind of cool. Just pray this prayer. Lord Jesus I know I am a sinner. I commit my life to You. I choose to follow You from this moment forward in Jesus' name. Whoa.
Wow. But that doesn't happen does it? He leaves us here to live in this world. Why does He leave us here? Why doesn't He just take us home? Because He wants to reach this world through us.
I don't know why. But God has chosen to primarily reach non-believing people through believing people. He has chosen to communicate His love and spread the gospel through us doing it. And specifically through our verbal communication of it. So we have a number of choices how we can live in this world. One is isolation. Isolation where we have little to no contact with non-believers. That's a mistake because the Bible says how will they hear unless someone tell them.
Number two it's insulation. Turn a blind eye to them. Well I don't care that they're not Christians. That's their problem.
I've got my salvation. Why should I bother with theirs? Another is imitation where I become like the world and not the Lord. But the best one is permeation and infiltration. So it's not isolation. It's not insulation. It's not imitation.
It's permeation and infiltration. So without compromising my values I go into their world and I shine the light of Jesus Christ to them. That's what we're supposed to do.
Yes. So one of the ways we do this in addition obviously to our verbal communication is by living a godly life. Look at verse 17. Sanctify them by their truth.
Your word is truth. Now we hear the word sanctify. We don't know what that means. There are words that the Bible uses. Justify. What does justify? Well justified is what God does for you when you come to Christ.
To be justified means that positionally you are made right with God coming back to being saved. It's done for you. It's not a process. It's a done deal.
It's a done deal. So you can live in that wonderful work that God has done where He's put His righteousness into your account and forgiven you of all of your sins. Now being sanctified is different.
It's a word that speaks of the process of just seeking to become a more godly man or woman. So in one way I'm positionally sanctified. I'm made right with God. I stand before you tonight as a holy saint.
He's saying Greg you're delusional. I've seen the way you drive. You ain't no saint. I didn't say I was perfect. I said positionally I'm a holy saint and you are too.
We all are. Now do I always live as a holy saint? Oh no I do not. That's sanctification. That's where I'm living out these things in day-to-day living. And so Jesus is saying that we're sanctified by His truth. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. Hey I don't know if you know about this but we have a weekend service called Harvest at Home exclusively for people that are tuning in literally from around the world.
Listen to this. We even have Harvest groups where you can get into a small group with folks from all around this planet of ours and study the Word of God. So join us this weekend Saturday and Sunday for Harvest at Home at Harvest.org. Well Pastor Greg has pointed out so far that in Jesus' prayer for us He prayed for our preservation and our consecration. He continues now.
Point number three. Here's what Jesus wants for us. He wants us to be unified.
Final point. He wants us to be unified. Look at verse 20. I do not pray for these alone but also for those that will believe in me through their words.
He's already thinking of people that will come later. That they all may be one as you Father are in me and I in you. That they may be one in us and that the world may believe that you sent me and the glory which you gave me I have given them. What a powerful witness it is to a lost world when Christians are unified.
When they're loving one another. Really you know what won me over to Christ before I heard a message? It was the love that the Christians had for each other. I looked at. I watched them. I thought hmm is this for real or are they making this up?
Is this an act? These people really love each other. Because I was used to you know I was just a kid when I came to Christ I was used to hanging around with people that I liked right. So certain kids hang around certain kids and certain people hang around certain people and I saw Christians who from every kind of background imaginable and they had something in common. And I think that's one of the reasons the devil wants to divide us. And we should seek to live in unity. To love one another as Christ has loved us. I'm not calling for unity at any cost because the most important thing is truth.
But sometimes Christians divide over the stupidest things. You know I'm leaving this church. Why? I don't like that music.
Okay. Yeah I just don't like the way they do. I don't like this. And they'll strain it a gnat.
You know they'll like get upset over some minor thing and now they're going to leave the church altogether. I heard about a guy that was stranded on a desert island for years. Finally someone came to rescue him and he had three little huts built. They said wow these what are these huts?
He goes I built these huts myself. They said what is this hut? That's my house.
Wow. What's this next hut? That's my church. Oh your church. That's fantastic.
What's the third hut? He said well that's a church I used to go to. Right. It's been said in essentials unity and non-essentials liberty and all things charity.
And the essentials there's unity. We cannot deviate from truth as revealed in Scripture. If you come to me and say well I don't believe in the Bible anymore but we have a problem. I can't be in unity with you. Now if you have a different interpretation of a passage that's not an essential Christian belief than I do.
Uh that's not a deal breaker. You're still my brother or my sister in the Lord. So in essentials unity. But then that saying says in non-essentials liberty but in all things charity or love. And why is unity important? Because it's a powerful witness to non-believers.
I think that's one of the great things about our crusade you know. People walk into a Southern California crusade an angel stadium or wherever and there's every kind of person there. Every age. Every race.
Everything you can think of. Here we all are setting our minor differences aside and worshiping the Lord. Our country's so divided right now. Along racial lines. Along political lines.
Along social economic lines. And here we can see unity as followers of Christ who we say well we don't agree on everything but we love one another. That's what Jesus is praying. He's praying that we will do just that. And then he prays not only for us but the ones we will reach. Look at verse 20. I do not pray for these alone but for those who believe in me through their word. So he's saying one day we're going to do our job and we're going to reach out to non-believers and seek to win them to Christ.
So let's review and close. Jesus prays for our preservation in verse 11. Our preservation. He wants us safe in him. Number two he prays for our consecration that we would be sanctified and set apart to him. Thirdly he prays that we would be unified and be loving one another.
Now let me say this in closing. If you're not a believer yet he prays for you. Jesus prayed for non-believers. Remember when he hung on the cross?
I already said this but let me repeat it. His first words from the cross. And by the way it was very hard to speak from the cross.
You say why? Well not to mention his spikes through his hands and his feet. The way one dies on the cross is death by suffocation.
The tongue is swollen. He was radically dehydrated. His back was torn open with a Roman whip and at the base of the cross was a little step. And one would push themselves up to ease the pain in the hands and to get a gulp of air. But on the sake of Jesus he had to pull his rip back up off that cross.
So to speak was incredibly difficult. Yet Jesus uttered seven statements from the cross. And the first statement was God destroy them all.
Right? Would would it have made sense if he said that? Did they deserve to be destroyed? Of course they did. Now his first words were father forgive them for they know not what they do. Lord these guys have no idea the enormity of their sin.
But I pray that you'll forgive them. He cares about people that don't believe. And then what does he say to the thief next to him on the cross who believes? He says today you will be with me in paradise. You see a long time ago when Jesus walked this earth he was praying for those that would believe. And there are some people tonight that are going to be an answer to that prayer. There are some people tonight that are going to believe in Jesus for the first time. Maybe you've never been to church before and someone brought you.
I'm so glad you're here. Maybe you've been to church before but for the first time you're realizing you need Jesus. See I told you I'm holy and I'm a saint but that has nothing to do with what I've done because I'm the worst sinner around.
Trust me. But I have a great savior who forgave me of all of my sin. And he'll do the same for you. You say well Greg you don't know what I've done. No I don't but God does.
Check this out. He watched you do it. He knows all about it. But he'll forgive you.
You say but why? I don't deserve forgiveness. No you don't. But he took the punishment for your forgiveness on himself when he died on the cross in your place. And if you'll say Lord I'm sorry for my sin and turn from it he'll forgive that sin. Listen to this. He'll forget that sin and he'll remove that sin.
One way that you can translate the word justified that I mentioned earlier is just as if it never had happened. God will forgive you in such a way it'll be like you never even did that bad thing you did. It's removed from the record. He can do that for you. If you will say Lord I know I've sinned. I know I've broken your commandments but I know you love me and I know Jesus died for me and I want to be forgiven.
See Jesus who died on that cross died on that cross then he rose from the dead. And now he's here with us right now in this place knocking at the door of every heart and he's saying if you hear my voice and open the door I will come in. Have you asked Jesus to come into your life yet?
If not would you like to? And are there some of you here that maybe have fallen away? I talked about people who are relaxing their grit. It wasn't overnight but it's happened.
But here's the good news. That recommitment you make can happen just like that. You can say okay I'm recommitting myself to you Lord.
Do you need to do that? If so respond to this opportunity as we pray together. Let's all bow our heads and pray. Father thank you for loving us so much that you sent Jesus to die on the cross.
Lord Jesus thank you for coming and laying your life down for us and rising again. Now I pray for every person here or someone who might be listening who does not yet know you. Lord would you help them to see their need for you.
Help them to come to you and believe in you or come back to you. Whatever their need may be we commit them to you now. In Jesus name.
Amen. Pastor Greg Laurie with an important prayer. And if you'd like to make a change today in your relationship with the Lord, Pastor Greg will help you do that in just a moment before today's edition of A New Beginning concludes. Now Pastor Greg's message today was titled Jesus Prayer for You.
If you missed any part of today's presentation or the previous two installments you can get caught up by going online to harvest.org. Well we're speaking with New York Times best-selling author Lee Strobel today about his brand new book called The Case for Heaven. Let me ask you, we would expect non-Christians to have alternate views of the afterlife, but what percentage of Christians have an accurate biblical view of heaven and the afterlife?
Yeah that's a great question. I can't give you a specific number but I can tell you that there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of misinformation, and part of it is that you know we have to understand, you know the Bible says no eye is seen, no ear is heard, no mind is even conceived of what God has in store for those who love him. We can't understand the beauty, the wonder of heaven yet, and so the Bible uses figurative language to try to suggest to us and in an accurate way, but to kind of give us a little bit of a foretaste or an appetizer to try to understand what heaven's going to be like. But the truth is we can't comprehend it yet. In fact, you know in this world we see a color spectrum and it's based on the light from the sun. In heaven the color spectrum would be based on the light of God, and so we're going to see colors in heaven we've never seen. And how do you describe that to someone?
You can't. And so the Bible can't say, well here's a color you're going to see. You can't describe that. So the Bible gives us suggestive language and so forth, and sometimes that can lead to a bit of confusion if you don't interpret it properly. But I think the confusion about heaven is true, as you say, not just among non-believers but among many Christians. I hope this book gives people a sense of encouragement, a sense of wonder, a sense of anticipation, a sense of joy. I mean, when you think, consider this, you've seen pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope of the incredible galaxies and, you know, billions of light years width of the universe and so forth, and the beauty and the wonder of it. God called that into existence. And when you look under a microscope and you see the complexity of a cell and you see the beauty of flowers and the wonder of the animal kingdom, you say this is the creativity of God. And they say that this God is going to create an afterlife, a heaven, that is going to be an expression of his creativity and love for us, a place designed for us to maximize our sense of pleasure and joy and adventure and wonder. You think about that and you go, okay, I may not understand yet exactly what heaven is going to be like, but I'll tell you this, I can't wait to experience it because it's going to be awesome.
It's just going to be awesome. That's right. So if you want to clear up your confusion about heaven, the afterlife, you want to get a copy of this brand new book from Lee Strobel. It's called The Case for Heaven. We'll send it to you for your gift of any size to us here at A New Beginning, and we'll use those resources to reach more people with the gospel and the teaching of the Word of God. And as our way of saying thanks, we'll send you your own copy of The Case for Heaven by apologist, prolific author, and my friend, Lee Strobel. You owe it to yourself to dig into Lee's strong insights.
There's so much to learn here. So get in touch today with your investment in this Bible teaching program, and we'll be happy to send you The Case for Heaven. You can make the arrangements by phone by calling 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime. That's 1-800-821-3300.
Or just go online to harvest.org. And then, Pastor Greg, just before we go, would you mind praying with the person listening who wants to make a change today in their relationship with the Lord? I'd be happy to, Dave. You know, as you've been listening to this today, maybe you've heard another voice. By that I mean, yeah, you heard me say a few things, but you heard God's voice speak to you deep in the recesses of your heart, and it suddenly dawned on you, this is what I need. Or to state it more accurately, this is who I need. I need Jesus, and I want Jesus.
But maybe you don't know how to make that connection. Let me help you. Pray this after me right now if you want Jesus Christ to come into your life. Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I am sorry for my sin, and I need your forgiveness right now. Would you come into my heart and my life as Savior, as God, as friend?
I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Thank you for calling me, and accepting me, and forgiving me. In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen. I know that was a relatively short prayer. Maybe you felt something as you prayed it.
Maybe you felt nothing. That doesn't really matter, because God's word says, these things we write to you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. It doesn't say, so you may think you have it, or you may hope you have it, if God's in a good mood.
No, that you can know it. And I want you to know, if you pray that prayer in a minute, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come into your life. So congratulations. You're now a Christian. Now continue to follow the Lord. And to help you as you follow the Lord, we'd like to send you some materials we call our New Believers Growth Packet.
It'll answer many of the questions you might have, and get you started off right in your new relationship with the Lord. So get in touch and ask for it. We'll send it to you free of charge. Call 1-800-821-3300. We're here to take your call around the clock.
Again, that's 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org and click on Know God. Well, next time, Pastor Gray continues his study in the Gospel of John with insights on how to face our times of crisis and calamity. We'll learn some important lessons from the night before Jesus' crucifixion in the Garden of Gethsemane. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher, Greg Laurie. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to A New Beginning. This is a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners. So for more content that can help you know God and equip you to make Him known to others, or to learn more about how you can become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org.
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