Jesus' Final Wishes

Summit church at all of our campuses. If you remain standing here for just a minute, I want us to begin this morning with just a time of prayer together across nine campuses of the Summit Church as one body in Christ. I do not know if you have heard, but there is going to be a pretty big election here happening in a few weeks, and a lot of people want to know if we have a stance as a church or we give recommendations on how to vote, and the short answer is no.

As a matter of policy, we do not recommend who you vote for in any election. That is not, of course, because I don't have opinions or because other pastors don't have opinions. It's because I am a pastor, and I do not want an indication of what I plan to do to become the litmus test for what spiritual maturity or fellowship looks like at the Summit Church, because I think that Christians can, in good conscience, come to different conclusions on some of these issues and remain in close fellowship together, and so I think it's very important in this season that we do, as a friend of mine says, we need to learn to give space and to show grace. I don't know about you all, but after watching the first couple of debates, I was not encouraged in the Lord. In fact, after the first debate, I was downright depressed, and the next day our Summit Bible reading plan just happened to be in Acts chapter 4, and it was like just like a like a like a fountain of refreshment to my soul as the early church is in the midst of their own kind of political turmoil. They got together and they prayed, and this is what they said, Acts 4 24, when they heard these things, they lifted their voices together to God, and they said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our Father David your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why do the Republicans rage? Why do the Democrats flood in vain? The kings of the earth, the candidates of both parties, set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed, for truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, who you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever it was that your hand and your plan have predestined to take place.

He's fully in charge. He's working history, not for the sake of the United States of America, it's for the church. And now Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

That's our job. While you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed to the name of your holy servant Jesus. And when they prayed like this, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they continued to speak the Word of God with boldness. Brothers and sisters, when we are shaken by the authority of Jesus, we're not going to be shaken by the chaos of politics. So I know that you know this, I know that you know this, but let me just say it to you very clearly as a word of reminder, the church does not depend on what happens in Washington DC. Salvation does not come in riding on the back of a donkey or an elephant.

I know technically Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, but I do not think that was a political metaphor. The hope of the world, whether in the first century or the 21st century, is not found in our political decisions, it's found in the power of Christ through his people. God is not building his kingdom in Washington DC, he is building it in the church. And so yes, the Republicans may rage and the Democrats may plot in vain, but whoever becomes our president in January of 2017, one thing is certain, Jesus will remain seated on the throne.

As John Piper says, one day America and all of its presidents are going to be an obscure footnote in human history, but the kingdom of Jesus will never end, so that's the kingdom that I'm living for. Amen? Amen. Amen. Well people say, people say, but pastor, you got to tell us, you know, who are you for?

I have publicly called for both of them to step down. That is about all that I will tell you, okay? I'm wondering, I'm wondering if we can just go with nobody in November, stay single for the next four years, you know, find ourselves, that might be the right course of action. But we come together this morning as one body in Jesus. We have people that are registered with different political parties, we have people that are gonna see things rather differently, but we have something in Jesus that is greater than anything that might divide us. And so I don't often do this because, to be honest with you, I don't like it when we do it a whole lot because I'm kind of got, you know, germaphobia and stranger danger fear and all that kind of stuff, but I want us just as one body if we could in a very special moment. Could we just join hands with the people to our right and to our left? You just kind of stretch out there across the aisles.

I know you don't know him, I know it might be another dude, and you're like, I just creased me out, but you know what? I feel like there are some times in some places that we need to say we're a body of people who love Jesus more than anything that divides us. So like the early church in Acts 4, could we just lift our eyes to heaven and let's pray together at all campuses. Father, we come together seeking the fullness of the Holy Spirit that you might open up a new door for us in the chaos of politics to pursue our kingdom and to preach our gospel with more boldness. That we like the Apostles would be visited with an unusual outpouring of your power, miracles and signs and wonders, God, that would show people that salvation is not found in Washington DC, it's found in the name of Jesus. I pray God that you would give us a unity that goes far beyond any political turmoil that might threaten to divide us. God, I pray that we would love our brothers and sisters, I pray that we would stand together unified around our love for Jesus in a way that shows the world that you are real. We pray and ask that God in Jesus name, in Jesus name and all God's people said, amen, amen.

You may be seated at all of our campuses. Well, I'm probably most thrilled to tell you that today's message has nothing to do with politics, although if you understand it, it's actually going to help you think about politics much better. John chapter 17, if you have your Bibles, as we work our way through our Bibles this year, this is the passage that we come to. We had to cancel church last week here at the broadcast campus because the power was out due to a hurricane and so the campus pastors at the other campuses besides the Briar Creek campus, they all had power so they did an abbreviated version of this chapter last week and we spent the time praying together as a church and I honestly thought about just leaving it there after we went through the passage one time but y'all there is just so much in this passage that is so timely for our church right now that I really thought we ought to take a deeper look. When I first read it, I was just overwhelmed at how relevant it was to where we are right now. I mean even now I feel like the proverbial mosquito at the nudist colony.

Where to begin? I have no idea. This is the last recorded prayer that Jesus prayed. He prayed it on the night right before he died. Now I've personally never been with somebody in the last night of their life when they knew it was the last night of their life.

Maybe you have. I've never heard some Saint pray a final prayer knowing that this was their final prayer but I would imagine that that if you knew that somebody you were about to die, whatever you prayed would have a great amount of clarity to it. Just ask yourself, if you knew that you were going to die and you had chance for one prayer, what would you pray? This is what Jesus prayed in the last prayer he made publicly before he died.

It's what he asked for you and let me just say this as we get into it. There are some things that Jesus prays in this prayer that belong uniquely to him. He was the Son of God. He was the second member of the Trinity and so not everything he says in this prayer is going to apply to us but a pastor named Louie Giglio down in Atlanta points out that there are three major things that Jesus prays for in this prayer that ought to serve as a pattern for how we should pray. These are the things that Jesus prayed on the last night of his life which means that we ought to pray them on every night of our lives. I have lamented to some of you before how trite the average Christian's prayers usually sound. We fill up our prayers with cliches and platitudes and spend most of our time asking God for things that he's already promised to give us. I always hear, oh God be with us and God says I promised you I would never leave you or forsake you. Hebrews 13 5, read your Bible ask me for something else.

Or we spend the whole time asking God for things that are okay but things that are really not supposed to be our main focus. Lord help me do well on this test. And then the Holy Spirit says well did you study? That's the question.

I'd rather you use the brain I gave you to study than for you to ask me to magically transmogrify the information out of your textbook into your lazy mind. Or we'll say Lord bless this food and he's like you know you're eating a half pound hamburger topped with three strips of bacon and onion straws I can't bless that. Go get some broccoli they got a pre built-in blessing you don't even have to ask for it's just right there. Give us traveling mercies.

What the heck are those? I have a PhD in theology I don't have the foggiest idea I think God's probably like put on your seat belt and drive the speed limit stop texting when you drive there's your traveling mercy. I'm not saying that there's never a place to ask for any of those things but I hope you understand my point. What is supposed to be the core of our prayer? What's our prayer supposed to sound like? Well this passage can show you how you can pray like Jesus. How you can pray what Jesus prays.

Our prayers ought to sound like his. So here we go the first thing that he prays for of the three. Number one in his final prayer Jesus prays for himself.

Look at verse 1. Father the hour has come glorify your son that your son may glorify you. Now it might strike you as strange that Jesus opens up this prayer praying for himself but the key is an understanding why Jesus is asking God to glorify him. You see this glorify me so that I can glorify you. We often have a wrong view of Christian humility. We think Christian humility means that you don't seek prosperity but clearly here Jesus asked God to bless him and glorify him and raise him up.

Let me introduce you to a phrase that pastor Louie uses. The phrase is me for you. God I'm asking you to bless me so that I can glorify you.

I'm not saying me for me I'm saying me for you. Humility is not not seeking prosperity. Humility is using whatever prosperity that God sends you to direct people's attention back toward God. I pray all the time for God to raise up the Summit Church but not for the sake of the Summit Church.

I ask that he raise up the Summit Church for his glory. You can ask that same thing about your own life. You say well that sounds convenient you and God both getting glory. How can you know that when you say that it's not really all about you?

That's a great question. Here are a couple of ways you can know when you're asking this of whether it's about you or it's about God. Way number one when God gets glory for himself by exalting somebody else besides you you can tell by the jealousy in your heart whether you're more concerned about God's glory than your own. Now I've told you where God revealed this to me as pastor of this church many years ago I was praying for God to raise this church up bless our ministries. I was like God would you do something in the triangle area that will transform the area the kind of thing they'll write about in history books a hundred years from now of the great gospel awakening in the triangle. And it was one of those times where God the Holy Spirit spoke to me not audibly but in a voice that was every bit as clear as if it had been audible the Holy Spirit said okay what if I say yes to this prayer and what if I just transform the triangle for the gospel but what if I don't use your church what if I don't use the Summit Church to do it what if I use the church down the street and they're the one that gets famous and they're the ones everybody talks about your church stays the same.

Now y'all I knew I knew the right answer oh Lord you you must increase and I must decrease I knew that was the right answer and that may have been the right answer but it wasn't the real answer. I was not okay with God bringing glory to himself if it didn't involve me in our church and that just showed me that all this time I've been saying thy kingdom come what I really meant is my kingdom come. So yes you can see by the jealousy in your heart when God chooses to exalt somebody else whether you're in this for you or for him here's a second way you can know it's about God's glory is what you do when he sends suffering to you like he did Jesus. What he's do when he sends suffering to you like he did Jesus. You see sometimes God brings glory to himself by how joyously a believer suffers by how confident you remain in pain how happy you remain in poverty. It is true yes that God gets glory when sick Christians miraculously get well but it's also true that he gets glory when sick Christians die well also when you and I are able to say even in the midst of great pain I got a treasure that's greater than health I got a treasure that's sweeter than earthly benefits when you and I are able to say in the midst of confusion and disappointment I trust God even in the midst of this confusion for his loving purposes in my life and people say why why would you why would you say that because your life is clearly falling apart and you say because he proved it at the cross that brings glory to God in his final prayer Jesus prays first for himself but his prayer was me for you glorify me so that I can glorify you and when you send the cross I'm gonna glorify you through that also you know listen most of us pray as if the point of prayer was to get God on our side Oh God bless me Oh God do that hate news flash he already is on your side that's what the gospel tells you you are his child he is for you he has promised a price for you the question is no longer whether he is for you that's been settled the question is whether you are for him so when you ask God is it me for me or is it me for you that's the question here's number two in his final prayer Jesus prays for his disciples first six I've revealed to you to those whom you gave me out of the world they were yours you gave them to me and they've obeyed your word Holy Father protect them by the power of your name the bulk of Jesus's prayer he spends right here he is thinking specifically about the twelve disciples of his minus Judas you can see in verse 12 that he excludes Judas because he knows that Judas is about to betray him the best correspondence to this group that Jesus prays for I think is probably your your small group or let's say those four to six people in your life that you pray intimately and daily for unlike Jesus I don't think you should feel pressure to identify who out of your group is Judas and exclude him or her from your prayers that's probably taking it a little far before we look at what he prayed for these guys by the way could I just really quickly say something about the importance of Christian friendship Christian friendship is probably the greatest earthly gift that God gives to us and on the last night of his life Jesus is spending this time with the people that he has made his friends everybody should have two or three really close friends who know you and love you enough that they pray for you daily now this is a bold statement what I'm about to make but listen I have yet to see a healthy vibrant Christian who did not have two or three really close Christian friends like this no matter how spherously mature they were and I'll tell you why this is on my mind a lot right now is because there's been a slate of high-profile pastors who in the last few months have fallen out of ministry and they all had this in common all of them they were isolated things that grow in a secret garden always grow mutant you show me an isolated man Proverbs 8 24 and I'll show you a man that seeks his own desire you need close Christian friends you're like well okay well great how do I form those I got two really easy quick action steps right here at the Summit Church number one join a volunteer team on the weekend the single best way for you to get to know people here at the Summit Church is joining a volunteer weekend team I don't say that because we need the help I'm saying it because you need the friendship here is number two the second thing is join a small group those are the two forums that we create for you to form relationships now back to the point here's what he prays for these guys verse 11 Holy Father protect them by the power of your name verse 13 15 my prayer is not that you take them out of the world my prayers that you protect them from the evil one in the world he prays not that we would be taken out of the world but that they would be kept by the power of God in the world I point this out because there is a warped version of Christianity that seeks to remove itself from the world because it believes that isolation is only the only way to avoid corruption in high school I went to a private Christian school whose sole goal seemed to be to keep us as isolated from the world as humanly possible so we weren't supposed to go see movies at the theater because you might while you're there actually you know see an r-rated movie and even if you hadn't gone to see an r-rated movie maybe you were there to see fireproof or something rated G others might not know that you were there to see that and they would think you were there to see an r-rated movie and then they would be influenced to see an r-rated movie and you would be responsible we weren't allowed to dance because dancing would make you want to you know so we weren't allowed to listen to rock music because rock music had a beat in it and make you want it even Christian rock music you shouldn't listen to that because that might make you want to dance when I got married Veronica my wife loosened me up quite a bit because she grew up Presbyterian and you know how they are they're free in Christ all over the place and so in fact I always say that we got married I baptized her made her quit drinking and consented it was all predestined to happen that was our compromise she even got me to start dancing and then she made me quit again so anyway but the point the way the high school I was going to their goal was a good one the goal was to keep us from being corrupted by the world but it's not Jesus's vision of how you stay uncorrupted true discipleship is not isolation from the world true discipleship is living like Jesus within the world our friend David Platt and it says it like this our mission is not to disinfect Christians and put them on a shelf our mission is to disciple them and put them into service because what happens when you remove yourself from the world you lose your evangelistic witness which is the very reason that God leaves you in the world instead you become part of this inbred subculture that has its shepherd's guides and it's Christian radio stations that only knows how to talk with each other and nobody on the outside do you know people outside the church are you actively engaged in their lives could you pull out your phone right now and pull up the numbers of three people who are not believers and text any of them and say let's go get coffee after this and it wouldn't be weird can you speak the language of culture because a holiness that is disconnected from the world is no holiness at all which leads to verse 17 sanctify them sanctify means make them holy set them apart sanctify them how by removing them no sanctify them by the truth your word is truth your word is truth Jesus wanted us in the world but he didn't want us to be shaped by the world so how do we develop a holy heart and holy life within the world short answer a really simple answer by knowing God's Word because the greatest way to avoid a lie is to know the truth your success in the world spiritually and the success of your kids is not going to be based on how well you isolate them from the lies it's going to be based on how much they know the truth now just go ahead and tell you many of you in this political season on both sides demonstrate that what you think about politics is shaped more by your culture than it is the Word of God do you want your life to be a success do you want it to be founded upon a rock do you want to be wise and avoid the deceptions of the enemy do you want your kids lives to be a success let me let me let me speak to you as a dad to other parents our our family takes this so seriously we memorize scripture together as a family in fact I pay my kids to memorize scripture you may think that that but I'm like I gotta give them money for something I'm gonna give them money to memorize scripture I pay them in the summers to read books about Christian heroes we do devotions together as a family I have them involved in programs at the church that help take them deeper in God's Word my kids love sports my kids love extracurricular stuff but we as a family have made a decision that we just will not do things that negatively impact their opportunity to learn God's Word here's why it is unlikely that my kids will ever play a professional sport or dance for a living it is a hundred percent likely that they're gonna go to heaven or hell right and so I'm gonna make sure that they're prepared for that I'm also 100% sure that God has a plan for their lives so we are going to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness which means making sure they know scripture and let extracurricular be added in on the margins all right now notice specifically he's concerned about two things in regard to the truth the first thing is that they recognize that these words have divine origin see verse seven now they know that everything you've given me comes from you I want you according to the prayer of Jesus I want you to have the confidence that this book that we learn from every week is from God this is not practical life lessons from Uncle JD and this concept is always under attack in the culture and sadly even in the church right people like well that Jesus seems legit I'd certainly want to be close to God but not everything in the Bible is true I mean it's written by men after all and so it's full of errors that's not true it's like I showed you a couple of weeks ago Jesus always equates his teachings with what the Apostles right because he promised his spirit would preserve the Apostles and the accurate recording of his words in this prayer he wants his disciples and those of us who received their testimony to know that these words come from God it's not just a collection of enlightened thoughts about Jesus it's not even a reliable guide to God it is the very words of God his second concern was that they internalize these words verse 8 for I gave them the words that you gave me and they accepted them I can teach these things to you you see and Jesus could teach them but you're the only one that can actually take them into your heart it's why we're always pushing you here to do what we call a quiet time which is a terrible name I hate that phrase because it sounds like I'm being punished in the corner somewhere but quiet time just means a time every day where I open up God's Word I read it and I begin to see the lit to the lens of the gospel the things that are going on in my life and I apply the promises of Scripture to my problems it's a time when I meet with God not pray I do it every single morning first thing when I get up and I do it often before I go to sleep at night why because I need to internalize God's Word and so do you it's why we also push you to be a part of a small group because we realize that there are certain dimensions of God's Word that you can learn better when you're seated in circles talking about God's Word then when you're seated in rows just listening to God's Word so you need to internalize it here's number three in Jesus's final prayer he prays for his church look at verse 20 my prayer is not for them alone I pray for those who will believe in me through their message and by the way that that was me and you he was praying for right there as well as people all over the world who have yet to hear I pray that all of them may be one father just as you're in me and I'm in you that may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me a couple of observations here first notice that Jesus does not pray for the world not one time in John 17 does Jesus pray for the lost world what he prays for listen our believers in the world in fact he says quite plainly verse 9 I'm not praying for the world I'm not praying for the world I'm praying for those you've given me is that because Jesus didn't care about the world hardly John chapter 3 I came into the world to save the world for God so loved the world that he gave his only son whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life no he cared for the world it's because he knew that the hope for the world the hope for any community is found in the believers in that community and what that means is that if you really want to pray for some group you want to pray for a nation a city a group of people you want to pray for a school campus the best strategy is to pray for God to raise up and strengthen the believers within that group so yep some at church we pray for America and we pray for the triangle but we should mostly pray for the health of the churches in the triangle you say well that kind of feels selfish the best analogy I could come up with is this you know when you're traveling on an airplane they do a little safety demonstration at the front they're always telling you that if the oxygen mask drops out and you got kids they used to put yours on first before you put it on them right I've never had that happen in an airplane by the way except for one time when there was a short circuit they all dropped out and we freaked out but I've never actually had the cabin pressure drop but I imagine that if I were seated with my four kids I would be very difficult if I saw them struggling for air to actually put mine on first but if I really cared about them that's what I would do because I cannot help them if I'm alert if I'm not alert what Jesus tells them is the hope for people in your community is for believers to be healthy and vibrant so that they can testify to the salvation that's in Jesus the church you see is God's plan a for working in the world therefore it is the main thing that Jesus prayed for on the last night of his life and by the way if you happen to be one of those people who are like you know I'm just kind of fed up with the church a bunch of hypocrites I just want to reach people for Jesus and it's better to do that apart from the church you are totally out of step with Jesus Jesus more than anybody knew how messed up the church would be right I mean Judas is in this group and he was an outright liar thief and betrayer he probably pulled for Alabama football he had the whole just everything was wrong Peter Peter would turn out to be a coward who folds under pressure ten years after being appointed head of the church Galatians 2 will show us that he's still partially racist and like we saw last week Jesus even called him Satan one time James and John were constantly concerned about whether or not they were being viewed as the number one to the Apostle Thomas wasn't even really sure if he believed that's like half the disciples I just named that's a messed up group he knew the church was messed up yet he prayed for this church as the greatest and only hope for the world to know the truth so quit trying to be holier than Jesus yeah the church has got problems news flash so do you quit being so self-righteous I owe the church has so many hypocrites you ought to thank God for that because that means there's a room for you also right this is a hospital for sinners it's not a spa for saved people which means that when you come in here and you start looking close you're gonna find that we're not perfect people we're messed up starting with the pastor when I meet people are like man you're just like the model Christian I'm like don't get close don't get close because what you guys we don't tolerate outright sin here but what it means is that when you get close to us you're gonna see that we're a group of people that are often inconsistent and we're messed up and what we want to do is point you to Jesus and yeah the church is messed up but this is the bride of Christ and I feel like it's axiomatic that you can't love somebody and hate their bride at the same time right I mean I mean my wife's name is Veronica if you invited me over for dinner and said I need you to come alone don't bring Veronica and I get over to your house you're like hey we want to have you for dinner cuz we like you we think you're funny we just really want to be friends with you but that Veronica that's a piece of work right there don't you ever bring her over here you and I are gonna have problems because you can't love me and hate my bride you can't love Jesus and hate his bride so if you don't love the church you don't really love Jesus right that love where am I I hate it when I get going um so here we go back to the main point when we pray for our world the main thing we ought to pray for is the spiritual vitality of believers in the world so yes in this season pray for the election pray for the candidates salvation but pray mostly for the church pray that the church will be healthy and bold during this time that will be focused and clear about the gospel now second observation the one dominant thing from this section that Jesus prays for is that we would internalize God's love see verse 26 I pray that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them so he's praying look at this he was praying first that we would love Jesus the way that God loves Jesus the love that you've loved me and they also be in them and that we would also love others like Jesus loves us and that I would be in them also because when we do that he says listen to this people will know that he's real see verse 23 I am them and you and me that they may become perfectly one because then then the world will know that you sent me how does the world know that God is real is it by how well I preach is it the cogent and watertight arguments that I make for the existence of God is that how they know he's real is it by how loud do you worship oh that's got to be it how loud do you worship they can to see that God is real by how loud do you worship how about miraculous answers to prayer is that how they know he's real by how we all vote if we all vote the same way then they'll know that he's real no he says very clearly as by how you love each other in the church here's how I see it you remember that the show I'm the invisible man remember this the one superhero they haven't brought back yet Marvel hadn't pulled back out as the invisible man and I'm kind of excited when they do because that was my favorite one as a kid I love superheroes I love to dress up like superheroes truth be told I still do but it creeps the neighbors out when I go running around the neighborhood dress like spider-man but so the one superhero whose costume I could never really quite master was the invisible man fair enough I mean the best I could do is to sneak in my sister's room and mess all her stuff up and say the invisible man did it but I never could master this costume so if you remember the show the way if you were near the invisible man the only way to to make invisible was to do what it threw dust on him but they're dust on him pour paint on top of him and then you could see the outline of the invisible man well the local church love in the local church is supposed to be like the paint that makes the invisible Christ visible and that love shows itself in primarily two ways in this chapter it shows first of all and how we serve people on the outside the love that Jesus has for us just spills out like a waterfall like it gushes into us and then threw us into the streets several years ago if you've been around the church for a while you know some of these stories but let me remind those of you who haven't been several years ago our our church got very convicted about the fact that we just weren't loving our community and so we just said all right how is it that we can bless the broken places in our community in the first place the Holy Spirit led us to was a string of underprivileged schools and one particular school we got really involved in it and we renovated the classrooms and we adopted teachers there and said hey whatever your supplies you need let us be the first line of defense dozens of our people scores of our people I tutored kids there in fact we had it was a refugee family in the school that had lost their house to a fire and we had an engaged couple that said hey we got a wedding shower instead of giving all the stuff to us for our house why don't we redirect this to this refugee family well at a breakfast that we put on for the teachers before the school year the next year one of the teachers stood up and she says she says you know I'm not a Christian I'm not a Christian but I've always known that you Christians believed you were supposed to love your neighbor I just never knew what it looked like until now what happened is you made the invisible Jesus visible to the way that you loved those on the outside that can't necessarily pay you back because that looks like Jesus love the world loves people who can love them back Jesus loved people who couldn't pay him back and that's how you make the invisible Jesus visible one of my proudest moments as your pastor I've told you this one of my proudest moments as a pastor was November a few years later a November I got a call from the mayor's office in Durham and the mayor his representative not him the mayor's representative said I'm extending an invitation to you to speak at the city's annual Martin Luther King jr. rally in January it's a big deal it's televised on public television all the city council government officials have to be there and we want you to be the keynote speaker I said now I'm not the typical candidate for a Martin Luther King jr. speech can we agree on that and I said well sure why are why are you asking me she said her exact words were man I don't know I'm just the representative so can you do it or not and I said um I said she said we want you to speak for 20 minutes I was like what do they want me to talk about she said you can talk about whatever you want just don't be controversial and I said can I talk about Jesus she said oh yeah I don't think he's controversial and I said I don't think you and I are talking about the same guy so day comes now y'all know that I do I speak in front of groups and now that I really don't get nervous anymore when I'm standing in front of a group but I was nervous for this one I'm not gonna lie to you I was nervous we're talking Donald Trump about to go on The View nervous that's how I felt and and and I guess it was written all over my face because one of the county manager the county manager comes up and he'd been our church few times and he was like you really look nervous I'm not used to see you this way I said yes sir I am he said do you know why you've been asked to speak it's like no I don't nobody would tell me he said I'll tell you why he says because um he says everywhere in our little council meeting that we were having he said everywhere in our city that something is broken there's somebody there from the Summit Church that's trying to fix it he said now I'm not even saying y'all are always doing a good job but you're there you're there and we couldn't think of a spirit we would rather see honored on a day like today than the spirit that is embodied in your church what you did is you made see the invisible Jesus suddenly became visible for the way that you served it's when we take in foster children and love prisoners and serve refugees and befriend political enemies that's when we make the invisible Jesus visible here's the second way his love inside of us shows itself through a unity in Jesus stronger than anything that could divide us watch this verse 23 I am them and you and me that they may be become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me when we lose our unity in the church it is because something has become more important to us than Jesus I've pointed this out to you before when when the Gospels list out the names of Jesus's 12 disciples it includes a couple of little interesting and seemingly irrelevant details with them one of them is described as Simon the zealot now zealot was a political platform back then they believed that Rome had coming in and stolen all their property and so they wanted to kick Rome out that was a political movement in Israel in the first century so shortly after him you have Matthew the tax collector Matthew his political position was the best thing is to work with Rome you could not get more opposite politically than these two guys one of them's like tea party and one of them's like a Bernie Sanders supporter and yet they're here in the same group of disciples you know they had to have some incendiary discussions around the campfire right and I just kind of get bemused thinking about Jesus listening to them go back and forth on what's the best strategy yet somehow they found in Jesus something that unified them that was greater than the things politically that divide that that disunited them or whatever divided them it's just they what was in Jesus was greater than the disunity in politics all right listen let me just speak as your pastor for a minute some of you by the tone of what you put on your Facebook wall during this season demonstrate that you care more about politics than you do about Jesus I know Christians I know Christians good of pure-hearted Christians who cannot fathom how a believer could ever vote for Trump because of the terrible and repulsive character he displays and the endless amounts of just idiotic things that he says and there's some aspects of Clinton's platform that they like so they're gonna vote for her there are others who say yeah but how could you vote for Clinton in light of her position on abortion and who we know she'll appoint to the Supreme Court and the disastrous implications that that's gonna have for religious liberty maybe the best way to stop her is just a hold my nose and vote for Trump and then there are others who cannot fathom how a true Christian would vote for either one so they're gonna vote third party and others are like I'm just gonna write down in my ballot Lord Jesus please come back soon right which maybe that's the best option now my point and not today not in the week the forum that we did my point is not to adjudicate between those my point is not to tell you that those discussions don't matter and my point is not to say that we shouldn't discuss them my point is to tell you that when we do discuss them we do so with the spirit of love and unity that declares that what we have in Jesus is greater than any opinions we have about secondary or tertiary matters which is as high as politics can ever get that we give space and show grace because of what we have together in Christ and even our tone in how we talk communicates that some at church as best I can as best I can I refuse to let secondary opinion let any opinion on a secondary issue separate me from those who love Jesus or to let something like that inhibit my ability to talk about the gospel it's like I've often told you I might be wrong in my perspective on global warming but I am not wrong about the gospel therefore I will not let my opinions on the former keep people from hearing me on the ladder this unity in the church happens not because we care about politics too much it happens because we care about Jesus and his church too little some of you understand if we live this way you know when you're talking with somebody and you find out they're kind of politically aligned with you you know that sense of like relax that you kind of suddenly feel you could have just met them you're like okay we're on the same page we ought to fill that times a hundred with Jesus in a way that just outweighed anything that we disagreed with in a secondary matter some at church if we live this way and loving unity with the Spirit of Jesus our evangelism efforts would get a whole lot more effective do you see what Jesus said if they do this if they do this then the world is gonna know that you sent me write this down love on display in the church is the church's most powerful apologetic apologetic means how we defend our faith love on display in the church is the church's most powerful defense of its faith that's not me trying to be cute that's John 13 35 where Jesus says it in the in his explanation before this prayer he tells them he says by this will all men know that you were my disciples by how loudly you praise about how you pray it's about how you preach no they're gonna know that you're my disciples by how you love each other how you love and forgive and for bear with and serve each other and how you refuse to be divided from each other some that if we did this we would not have to invite people to come to our church they would be beating down the doors to come and see what is going on who is this powerful invisible superhero that fills and empowers your church and then we would say we're talking about Jesus and we tell them about him it's always interesting to me in church surveys that we do the number one answer when people get asked why do you come back to a church after having visited it's not the music that's always number three it's not the preaching that's number two it's whether or not they felt loved let me wrap this up by saying this what I said at the beginning if Jesus was praying for these three things on the last night of his life for God to raise him up so that he could glorify God praying for his close friends that they'd be preserved in their faith in the world and then praying for his church if he prayed for these on the last night of his life we ought to pray for these three things every night of our lives and here is why listen to this here's why we can pray these things with confidence this is an awesome thought do you think Jesus quit praying these things after John 17 you think that was his it and then he was done hardly he went from there to a cross where he was gonna die to make those things possible and then Hebrews tells us that when he was resurrected he was resurrected to sit down at the right hand of God where he what makes intercession for us intercession means he prays for us what do you think he's praying he's praying John 17 that's why it's in there he's one to show you what he was gonna pray for us right now Jesus is praying John 17 over you right now which means that when we pray we're listen we're not so much praying to him as we are praying with him and that makes a huge difference in how you pray you want to have an explosive prayer life you quit praying to him and you start praying with him my pastor when I was some six years old I remember I remember him when people will come up to him say pastor would you pray for me this made an impression on me at six people do this to me all the time pastor would you pray for me he would say it's a yes I'll be happy to pray for you but more importantly Jesus is praying for you and so I'm gonna join him and praying for you and when I stop he'll continue and later if I forget he'll actually never forget so when we pray we have a chance to come to Jesus and we can just say God you're praying these things and I want to see them happen in my life and I want to see them happen in my family's life so that's how we're gonna end this service that's what we're gonna do again this week on the last night of Jesus life when he prayed this prayer here's what he did they took the Lord's table together the bread and the cup right and then Judas left right then and then Jesus prayed John 17 for them and then they sang a hymn together and then they went out that's what we're gonna do at all of our campuses our campus teams are gonna come they're gonna distribute the bread and the cup and and then we're gonna pray by the way I would not leave this service early because that would make you Judas and everyone is gonna know it okay so this is not the week for you to get a head start to your car all right there he goes there is the betrayer all right so you stay all the way the end we're gonna take communion together we're going to pray and then we're gonna sing a hymn and then we're gonna be sent out that's what we're gonna do as our teams come and as they begin to distribute the elements the bread and the cup let me just remind you if you're not a believer these are not for you they're not for you Jesus made very clear they were only for his followers that were walking with him but please don't hear that as me being exclusive because see what's what's for you is the greatest gift that's behind these things the symbols not for you any more than you should wear my wedding ring but what's being offered to you is a Jesus Christ who has died for your sin so that he could forgive you and give you the assurance of salvation and take you to heaven and right now as others around you are taking the bread and the cup and they're holding it you could open up your heart right there in your seat at one of our campuses and say Jesus save me I receive you right now as my Savior so as others are taking the bread and the cup why don't you do that why don't you do that you take the bread and the cup as our team passes it and if you're a believer here at the Summit Church and you hold on to these things and just meditate on the grace of the Lord Jesus and in just a minute one of our campus pastors and our worship team will come and they'll lead us in the taking of these elements