Jesus Prayed For Unbelievers
Pastor Zach Pummill • October 11, 2020
Sermon Overview
JOHN 17:20–23
In his High Priestly Prayer, Jesus prayed for unbelievers – this means he prayed for us. We were yet unbelievers, yet he prayed for us. We too are called to pray for unbelievers around us and to have a prayer life that desires the kingdom of God to extend into the lives of our neighbors.
Sermon Transcript
Good morning, it's good to be with you. I was out of town last week and I missed, and so it's good to be back home and with all of you. And as we get started, if the end of today's sermon is really powerful, it's because I woke up today and realized that my daughter took it upon herself to make some edits to the last couple of pages to the sermon, so if it really tugs at your heart, you'll know why and who to thank.
We have four weeks left in this sermon series, and it's in these last four sermons that we want to speak directly into our plans to engage our community, to reach out into our community in the coming weeks and even beyond. And so we have plans in the coming weeks to engage our community, but to begin by doing a prayer walk and hit the streets in the surrounding neighborhoods, in the surrounding streets and pray for our neighbors, to pray for our community, to pray that God would open doors to us, to pray that God would use us to extend his kingdom into the lives of our neighbors around us. And then a couple of weeks after that, we're going to go door to door to say hello to our neighbors, to greet them, to ask how they're doing, to check on them.
It seems daunting in a world in which we live to do such a thing like that, but we want to put ourselves in a position where the Spirit promises to work, where we take the message of the good news of Jesus Christ in the form of love and embody that into our community. But also when we go door to door, we want to invite them into a Thanksgiving meal here at Rockwall Pres. Just a way to reach out and to make ourselves available to serve our neighbors. Maybe for people that don't have a place to go, they don't have family to celebrate with. Maybe this is a year where they've fallen on hard times and they can't have a Thanksgiving the way they did in the past. We can just put ourselves in a position and see what God does. And all of that begins in the next couple of weeks as we gather our community groups together to begin that process by praying and walking through our streets, and ask that God would use us for his kingdom.
And today, as we look this passage, what Jesus prays for in this passage speaks directly to us as we look to reach out into our community, because in this passage, Jesus prays for unbelievers. Jesus prays for those who will believe. That seems a little abstract, so let me put that in more personal terms. Jesus prayed for you. Jesus prayed for you in John 17. What's it say? It says in verse 20, says, "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word."
Now, that's quite the thought that Jesus would pray for you. And some of you are struggling to believe that's even true right now 'cause you're thinking, well, he's just kind of praying for those who might believe in the future at some point, right? That he's just praying for some massive nameless blob of future believers that will come to trust in the name of Jesus Christ through the witness and testimony of the gospel. He's not really thinking of anyone in particular, but nowhere in the scriptures is that true, because the Father and the Son do not work in generalities. They don't throw something out to see if anyone takes a bite. No, they work in particularities. They work personally. Jesus says that his sheep know his voice, that he calls them by name, that you were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. No, Jesus very much prayed for you. And you're here this morning because the Father answered his prayer.
Now, it's not just that Jesus prayed for you. It's also when he prayed for you. He prayed for you the night before he died. It was a moment when he had all the reason in the world to be concerned with his own welfare. And yet he prayed for yours. A moment in which he had all the reason in the world to turn inward and worried about himself, but instead he turns outward. He turns outward towards the Father, he turns outward towards the disciples, and he turns outward towards you as he prays for his people. Why, because once again we see he's the self-emptying, self-giving God that desires us to know him. And if we take Jesus's prayer in John 17 with any degree of seriousness or sincerity, we have to recognize that Jesus prays that we, as his people, would do the exact same thing. That as followers of Jesus, we together would have the same outward-facing, others-oriented concern for one another and for the world around us. And so when Jesus prays for unbelievers in this passage he prays for a radical transformation to occur, because it says in verse 20, he says that I pray for who “will believe in me through their word."
And when he talks about through their word, he's talking about the word of the apostles, the witness, the testimony that was first entrusted to the apostles of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that has now been handed down throughout history and has come to you and to me, that we have trusted and believed in that testimony. But notice that Jesus doesn't end his prayer there. He doesn't say, I just pray that they believe, period, and then the prayer ends. He prays for so much more. In fact, he actually, in these verses that follow this prayer for those who will believe, he says some of the most extraordinary things that you will find in the entire scriptures, because he prays that there would be a radical transformation in the life of those that would come to believe. He prays that we would move from being witness-hearers to witness-bearers, that we would move from being a people that hear the witness of Jesus Christ, and we would become those that bear witness to Jesus Christ to the world around us.
So what does that transformation even look like? As we seek to step into our community, what does Jesus's prayer here have to teach us about bearing witness, and how might we be encouraged in that task? Well, the first thing that Jesus prays for when he prays for those that would believe is that he prays that we would be one. He says in verse 21, he says that "they may all be one just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." Now, this topic of oneness has come up a lot in John 17.
We've already preached a couple of sermons on oneness, but it comes up again and again and again, and it comes up again here in Jesus's prayer. And when we've talked about it in the past we've said that when Jesus talks about oneness, he's talking about more than just an institutional oneness. He's talking about more than just the church being one denomination, one denomination to rule them all, right? He's talking about more than just agreement at the surface level. He's talking about a much deeper oneness. And this oneness that Jesus desires for his people, it has to be more than just simply everybody getting along and everybody agreeing on the same priorities. Why? Because of what we see at the end of verse 21.
Look at the result of the oneness that Jesus prays for, it's "that the world may believe that you have sent me." I pray that they would be one so that the world would know that you have sent me. Therefore, this oneness that Jesus is talking about has to be more than just simply agreeing with each other, because there's all sorts of things that a church could agree upon and be unified in that in the end, don't result in anyone in the world coming to know Jesus Christ. A church could be unified, that could be the theological church. They're gonna protect their doctrine. They're gonna batten down the hatches, they're gonna be unified in doctrine, and that's their focus. You could have a liturgical church where they're unified in how they worship. There's a purity to their worship because of the traditions that they feel have been handed down and how they want to go about it. And that's their focus, that's what they agree upon. You can have a church that's unified in their experience that they want to have, that they want God to come and give them a fresh experience of the Spirit and treat them in some ways differently than he treats the rest of the church. A radical ravishing experience of God's presence.
A church can be unified in all sorts of different things, but it doesn't mean that they will automatically experience the oneness that Jesus talks about, because the church can be unified in all of those things and they could be completely content with shutting off and closing themselves off to the rest of the world. And anytime we talk about oneness that doesn't end up in people coming to know the name of Jesus Christ, then we are not talking about the oneness that Jesus talked about, because Jesus prayed for so much more for his people. He doesn't pray for people that are satisfied being closed off from the world and treat his mission and the knowledge of his name as negotiable, as something that we can pick and choose to do, because the result of the oneness that he prays for here is that the world would believe, that the world would come to know that he was sent by the Father. That's salvation language. It's the language of salvation.
And then Jesus's prayer for oneness, it assumes that his church will come in contact with the world around it. It assumes that the world will hear the claims of the church, it will see the character of the church, it will see the way the church loves one another and loves the world around it. And to miss that point is to miss the oneness that Jesus talks about entirely. And so this oneness that Jesus is praying for is a missional oneness, where his people are unified together and bearing witness to the world around it about the name of Jesus Christ. And if we look at verse 21, we see it more clearly, if we take a closer look. He says, "I pray that they may all be one just as you, Father, are in me, and I and you, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." So he's praying that we would be one in the same way that the Father and the Son are one, and that we also would be in the Father and the Son. We would be one with the Father and the Son.
But in order for us to say that we are one with the Father and the Son, doesn't that also mean that we should be one and share in their purposes? We should share in their mission, share in their desires. And so what Jesus is praying for is that in the same way that the Father and the Son were unified in bringing salvation to the world, the church, too, is to be unified and bearing witness to that salvation in Jesus Christ. So the oneness the Jesus desires for us is a missional oneness, where we are unified and bearing witness to the world around us. Now there's something about this passage that is also, there's a deep mystery to what Jesus is talking about. It's incredibly mysterious. And what I mean by that is this, is that one of the most powerful ways that a church can become one and become a unified and grow in the depth of relationship and fellowship and communion is it by serving together. It's by laboring together for the kingdom.
And why is that? There's a deep mystery to it. It's because we see what Jesus is praying here is playing out in the life of the church, that as we serve together, we are joining the mission of the Father and the Son, and it's the Spirit that comes down that we have been given and begins to fill that space mysteriously between us and begins to draw us closer one with another. So we need to keep in mind that as we move towards our community in some mysterious way we are also being moved towards one another. It's one of reasons I'm excited about reaching out into our community not just to see the impact that we would have on the community around us, but the ways that we ourselves would be impacted. The ways that we would be brought closer together. The ways that we would grow in depth and richness as the body of Christ, as one people, devoted to the witness of Jesus Christ.
Now all of that can sound beautiful and powerful, and who wouldn't want to be a part of a church like that, right? Who wouldn't want to be a part of a church where there's a tremendous unity, there's a mission of oneness that's on display, where the name of Jesus Christ is being witnessed to in the surrounding world. It sounds great on paper, but we start to think differently about it whenever we think about being a part of it, it's because it's also daunting. It's scary. It's intimidating to think about reaching out into the world around us. And as I've talked with our community group leaders, and just even people in our church, about moving into our community and going door to door, it's been interesting because everyone I've talked to has said essentially the same thing, that there's sense of excitement. There's a sense of anticipation, but there's also a sense of hesitation.
There's a sense of nervousness, even fear, about what might happen, because, why? Well, this is, especially, this is 2020, right? Moving out into our world as crazy as it is right now. And so when we think about a missional oneness and bearing witness and Jesus bringing us closer together as a community, there's something that's beautiful about that, but when we start to think about what that looks like for us, as we move into doing those very things, we start to think other thoughts. When we begin to realize that we are a part of that, other thoughts and doubts begin to creep in to our head. And it's in the next two verses in Jesus's prayer that he says some of the most extraordinary things that you will find, and honestly, you will struggle your entire life to believe that they are true, because the next two things that he says well, they push back against our misconceptions. They push back against who we think we are and who we think God is and what we're a part of. It pushes back against our wrong expectations and what we think is occurring when we bear witness. And so I'd say, as we look at this, be encouraged by what Jesus has to say to us as a people that desire to bear witness.
He says the first thing in verse 22. He says, "The glory that you have given me, I have given to them." "The glory that you have given to me, I have given to them." "The glory that you have given to me, I have given to them." Remember in the beginning of John 17 where we talk about glory, is that glory is weight. Glory is a weight that has a profound impact on everything around it. And Jesus says "the glory that you have given me, I have given to them." And Jesus, isn't talking about the glory of his deity and his divinity. He laid that aside when he took on flesh and emptied himself. When he talks about glory, he's talking about the glory of his ministry. He's talking about the weight of his ministry and the weight of his message of revealing God to the world. That is the glory that he has given to us.
The same exact weight, the same exact glory that he possessed, he gave to us. The weight that the Father gave to the Son to accomplish his ministry is the very weight that the Son gives to us. And when you think about that, that should encourage us to some degree and challenge us, because what happens when we think about reaching out into a community, knocking on a door, beginning a conversation? Well, we start to think about, what? We start to think about ourselves. We start to think about our own ability. We start to think about what we can do. We start to think about our own sense of giftedness and what we have to offer. So we start to think things like, well, I don't really know what to say. I'm not good with words. I'm not good at conversation. I'm not good at getting to know people. And then if that's true, then we start thinking about all the outcomes of that.
And we start thinking about everything that we have to offer. And yet, what is Jesus saying? I think he's saying this. You would not be any more successful or any less successful if Jesus was standing right next to you when you bear witness to the world around you. You wouldn't be any more or any less successful if Jesus was standing right next to you. Why? Because he's with you, he's in you. He's not distant watching you, giving you grades. He sends us out and he sends us out with the same glory that the Father gave to him, which means that he will give weight to our meaningless words in our own minds, right? Now what do I have to offer? He gives weight to our inability. He gives meaning to the words that we feel are so imperfect and so incapable of bringing about any change in the life of another. Jesus gives us the glory that he himself possessed. We've seen that weight amongst us.
We've seen the power of what happens when God's people bear witness to what God has done. And I've said this story before, but it's too good to pass up again. A couple of years ago, or every year after we come back from India, I always ask one or two people to share with the church in a service about what God did in their life. What God did when they were there and they were serving and just to share and to bear witness. And two years ago I asked Jennifer Carlson if she would share. And it just so happened on that same weekend she also, that previous Saturday, had an opportunity to share with the women's brunch. And so I had texted her to ask her how it went on that Saturday, and she said, "I was so nervous beforehand I couldn't even put on my makeup because my hands were shaking so bad." She said, "I was so afraid to even share, even knowing what I was even gonna say." But she said, she went in there and she felt a peace. And she went in, she shared, and she felt incredible. After she shared, she got a great response and was encouraged.
But then she had to share the next day. So I texted her again before the service, and she said, "Actually, I'm just as nervous again." So now she's gotta stand in front of all of you, so she gets up here and she shares again. Fast forward a year. We're at our first team meeting for our next trip, with a brand new team. And with every new team, the very first thing we do at the very first meeting is I ask a question, why are you here? Why do you want to go? And the first person to share was David Kravitz. And David Kravitz said, "I'm here because Jennifer Carlson. When she shared, I knew I was supposed to go. That's why I'm here." And then David himself had an opportunity to bear witness, because before he ever even went on the trip, he had a lunch with a business partner, and that business partner was a practicing devout Hindu, so he was interested in why David would be going to India, and he asked him to learn a little bit more about why. So David bore witness, and he started telling him about what it is that he was being a part of. And that business partner said, "Well, I'd like to contribute. Is there a way that I could help?" And so David gave him the link. And later that night, David realized that that business partner had given him $9,000. $9,000. And it paid for a water well for a village. And when those water wells go in, they change hundreds of lives, not just that village, but all the surrounding villages, and it's an incredible evangelistic tool.
Now let me slam all of this together, and imagine that Sunday morning before Jennifer shared, I said this to her, "Jennifer, if you bear witness, hundreds of lives will be changed." She wouldn't believe it. Right? And yet it's true. Why? Because Jesus gives weight to the witness of his people, because he has shared the glory of his ministry with his people. Now imagine what happens when a church is filled with people that will bear witness and we received that glory, and we know that it's the glory of our Savior that goes with us. So as we move towards our community, we can rest knowing that it's not about what we have to give, and it never was. It's always about realizing what we have been given in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus says that we have been given the glory of the Son, but he also says in verse 23 that we have been given the love of the Father, because he says beginning in verse 22, he says, "The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and you and me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and loved them even as you have loved me, so that the world will know that you sent me and," what? And they will know that you loved them, even as you loved me."
What's he saying? He's saying that the Father loves you just as much as he loves Jesus. He doesn't love you any less than he loves his own Son. You are his son. You are his daughter in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we often want to take a verse like that and think, oh, you know, we want put quotes around loved them as though it's a different kind of love or a lesser form of love. We want to put an asterisk or a footnote or a disclaimer next to that love, and we distanced ourselves from a kind of unbelievable love that Jesus would talk about. We think we don't deserve it, or we think about ways in which we can distance ourselves from it, that you know, of course the Father loves us because Jesus died for us, because he loves us, and so he's kind of obligated to love us, because we believe, and we come up with all sorts of things and it's hard to believe that the Father would love you in the same exact way that he loves the Lord Jesus Christ. And I hope that in some way that that speaks to your heart this morning, that the eternal love that the Father had for the Son is the same exact love that he has for you.
D.A. Carson has a great sentence in his commentary on this. He says, "This thought is just breathtakingly extravagant” that the Father would love you in the same way that he loves the Son." But notice that Jesus says that knowing this love is a product of this mission of oneness of his people, so that the world may know that he was sent by the Father, but also so that we would know that we are loved even as the Father loved the Son. And so what it's saying to us is very simple is that knowing this love is a product of this mission of oneness that Jesus prays for, which means that we come to know more of this love as we share that love with the world around us and the good news of the message of Jesus Christ. And I hope that that gives us some hope as we think about reaching out into our community. Why? Well, one, like I said, we focus on what we have to offer, but we also think about outcomes also focus easily on results. We focus on our expectations of what we think should happen, of what goes into reaching out to a community, and we think that maybe this should happen or it should happen this way. And then we just set ourselves up for being disappointed if it doesn't go that way, or anytime we experience rejection we think that the whole thing's falling apart or it's not working.
And yet what does this tell us? It's that we come to know the love of the Father as we share that love with the world, which makes all of this, in some ways, very simple. We're not going out to pass a tract. We're not going out to get a commitment of faith right there on the front porch. We're going out to befriend our community. We're going out to greet them and befriend them in the name of Christ. We're going out to seek an opportunity to love them in the same way that we have been loved, which means we don't have to worry about the outcomes and all of this and all of that. It's that we can recognize we have the joy of participation and that we have the joy of participation which opens us up to understanding the love that the Father has for us.
And we can just be simply freed and satisfied to offer that to the world. And we can let the results be the Lord Jesus's results and not ours. It's in this prayer that Jesus prays for unbelievers, which means he prayed for us, but it also means he prayed for unbelievers in our community, people just down the street, people next door, and we too will pray for them and ask that Jesus would help us find them.
Let's pray.
