“I Am Praying for Them”

We’re going to read this morning from not the Gospel of John, although we’ll be turning there, but to the first letter of John—1 John and the opening chapter and the first six verses of chapter 2.

First John 1:1:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that [your] joy may be complete.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

Amen.

We thank God for his Word and for the fact that we have it in our hands and we have the privilege to read it not only Sunday by Sunday but day by day.

And now let me invite you to turn to the Gospel of John and to chapter 17, and let’s just read from verse 6 to verse 11 or follow along as I read from there. Jesus is praying—has prayed for himself, we might say—and now, in turn, he’s praying for his disciples, for those who follow him and, in turn, who would follow him:

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I[’m] praying for them. I[’m] not praying 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. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”

Our Father, we thank you for the Bible. We thank you that as we turn to its pages, the work of the Spirit of God is to bring it home to our hearts. So give us ears to hear, we pray. And we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, during the week, as I was thinking always of these verses to which we return in John chapter 17, I don’t, any more than you do, read the verses in a vacuum. In other words, everything else that is going on in life around us, that is coming to us, that is flowing from us is all somehow or another part and parcel of the framework.

And so, as I was thinking, pondering the wonder of God’s keeping, saving power and of the very clear way in which Jesus speaks concerning his disciples and their ultimate security because of who they are, I was sent by one of my friends an article from USA Today of last Monday. I didn’t see it until it was sent to me. And as I read this article through, I found myself saying, “How in the world do people ever end up in that kind of situation?”

The article… And I don’t think you should go looking for it. It won’t edify you. Hopefully, what I have to say to you now will more than settle your thinking as I’ve tried to settle my own thinking. But the article was written by one of their staff reporters concerning the millions who are leaving organized religion and pointing out that the greatest decline and the largest exodus from the framework of religion in America has been from those who are in evangelical churches. And the article then went on to give to us chapter and verse of a number of these situations. It’s fairly extensive, and I want you just to get a flavor of it by mentioning perhaps two.

I’m not going to mention the names of these men. I don’t think it’s a good thing for them to be identified in this way, and I certainly wouldn’t want to encourage them in what they’re doing. So we’ll call it Mr. X.

Mr. X was described as stepping away from his church and from his faith to Jesus and finding himself in an inclusive Sunday collective that describes itself not as a church but as a home for the spiritually homeless, dedicated to pondering existential questions and living out shared values. So I said, “That’s quite remarkable.” I wonder how many people are going. I don’t think there are too many. But nevertheless, that’s it: stepping away, if you like, from the revealed Word of God and stepping into a world of speculation.

Elsewhere—this is down in Florida—we can find an interfaith community which tells that they have great speakers, including Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist leaders as well as representatives of various Christian denominations. The Sunday gatherings and meditations are supplemented with Christian yoga or therapeutic sound healing sessions as well as the pastor’s own teachings, which incorporate Sufi, Hindu, or Zen Buddhist texts or even psychology or science.

Incidentally, the context that I have just described began as a church plant from the Southern Baptist Convention in 2015, where a young man, set apart in the way that we send out fellows to our church plants, presumably began with a conviction—some kind of conviction, but a waning conviction—and a faltering hold on the gospel itself, so much so that that church is no more, and what is in its place is not remotely like what we are finding when Jesus prays for his disciples here.

Remember, when we studied in Jude, sometimes we felt, “Wow, maybe this is overstating things a little bit.” But we remember how we considered the words “Beloved, … I [find] it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once … delivered [for] the saints.”[1] And we said on that occasion that the notion of “the faith … delivered to the saints” is not some kind of smorgasbord that you can pick and choose from, but it is actually the very gospel of God as it is delineated for us in the Scriptures from Genesis all the way to Revelation.

As we make our journey, our pilgrimage through life, the Scripture provides us with warnings that are to be heeded.

And as I finished reading that article, I immediately turned to 1 John. You say, “Well, don’t go there again, because you read it to us.” No, no. I didn’t read to you what I’m now about to read to you. I’m going to read to you now from 1 John and chapter 2. And you may like to see what is there: “I write to you children…” This is about verse 14 or so:

I write to you, children,
 because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
 because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
 because you[’re] strong,
 and the word of God abides in you,
 and you have overcome the evil one.

Then comes his exhortation:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might [be] plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.[2]

So, there you have it: the clear encouragement and exhortation of John—a reminder to us that as we make our journey, our pilgrimage through life, the Scripture provides us with warnings that are to be heeded. So, for example, in Hebrews chapter 3: “See to it, brethren,” he says, “see to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has an unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, but instead, make sure that you abide in the Word and that you encourage one another to do the same”[3]—so that the very singular notion of our being included in Christ, as we’ve tried to say always, is that it is communal, that it is in the safety of the company first of the Holy Spirit and then of one another that we are able to make progress.

The warnings are clear, and the promises are equally clear. Remember Paul to the Philippians—Philippians 1:6. This is our confidence: “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” You see the tension? “Make sure that you are abiding in the Word. As you abide in the Word, you reveal the fact that you belong to Jesus. And make sure that you continue in this way.”

Now, with all of that by a long introduction, let me come to the verses that are before us, which is 9, 10, and 11 in 17, and let us just simply notice what the text is telling us here.

Jesus Is Praying for His Disciples

First of all, we discover that Jesus is praying for his disciples. Actually, he takes quite a while before he makes his first request. But in speaking to his Father, in addressing his Father, he is praying for them. “I am praying for them,” he says again and again. And at the risk of undue repetition, let us just remind ourselves of these disciples. What is true of them?

Number one: They belong to God. A disciple belongs to God. Why? Because God gave that disciple to Jesus as a gift, and Jesus in turn gave the gift of faith to the disciple. “You,” he says… “Yours they were”—verse 6. Verse 6 again: “You gave them to me.” He’s speaking to his Father: “They were yours.” From when? From all of eternity. Does God then from all of eternity reach out into time, draw us to himself in order that we might then be lost, in order that we might end up in one of these situations here? Not for a moment he doesn’t! There’s only two explanations of what is happening in the context that I’ve just described to you. One is that these individuals are wholesale turning their backs on God—they are backslidden to the nth degree, and we pray that they might return—or that they are apostate, and since they have no interest whatsoever in returning again to God, to his Word, to Jesus, they’re lost. That’s what the Bible says. But not his disciples! They belong to God.

Secondly, “They have kept your name,” he says, “Father.” “They have kept your name.” And we said last week that the name of God represents the totality of who he is: a loving, saving, keeping God. “And as you have kept them, they’ve kept your name. They’re not doing things in their own name. They’re not starting their own congregations. They’re not devaluing that which is truth and supplementing it with ideas of their own. They’re not doing that, because they’re your disciples.”

Thirdly, not only do they belong to God, they have “kept your name,” but they know the truth. If your Bible is open, you can see it there in verse 8: “And they … have come to know in truth that I came from you.” “They … have come to know in truth that I came from you.”

The link—which we referred to just in passing last time—between belief and knowledge is a clear link. The words are different, but it’s emphasized in the reality that is a shared reality. So, for example, in John chapter 1, in the opening prologue of the Gospel, concerning how Jesus has come to his own, and they haven’t been receiving him—but it says, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”[4]

And that believing and receiving and knowing is part of our birthright as Christians—that we know. You see, we live in a world where now, it is trendy to be spiritually searching. You can be searching; you just can’t be finding. You can say you’ve got ideas. You can say you’ve got questions. You can say you’ve got theories. You can say you’ve got doubts. But you can’t say, “I know.” In fact, in that article, one of the individuals, these non-church-leaders, point out that the reason they walked away from their evangelical roots was because they didn’t want to know. They didn’t want to be told that they knew what they knew. They wanted freedom to make it up as they went along. And so many of them stumbled over obvious things, and others of them have stumbled over the pressing challenges of twenty-first-century Western culture.

But that’s not true. Remember chapter 6? You say, “Well, I know there is a chapter 6.” But in John chapter 6—and again, here is Jesus—Jesus has been explaining that whoever feeds on him has eternal life. And then, in John chapter 6:

When many of his disciples heard [this], they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, [he] said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

So they had got caught up in the excitement. They’ve begun to follow along. They are hearing what he’s saying. It begins to dawn. They change their tune. So as this crowd walks away, “Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ [And] Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’”—now, here’s the juxtaposition between believed and know—“‘and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’”[5]

That is the testimony of a disciple of Jesus. The testimony of a disciple of Jesus is not “I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf and clean up my act. I’ve decided to get involved in church. I want to get involved in a community.” The issue in all these things is all about community, as if community is the answer. It’s what kind of community that you’re in is the question. So the community groups at Parkside are not about getting together and singing “Kumbaya” and scratching each other’s backs, but they’re actually about getting together and seeing what the Word of God has to say, because we want to abide in the Word of God. “Who else would you go to?” they say to him. “There’s nobody else we could go to, because this is what has happened to us.”

If you’re a disciple, you belong—you were chosen from eternity—you believe what the Bible says, and you behave in line with your believing.

The certainty that they express, that the disciples express, is no mere emotional fancy. The Bible is clear. Jesus told the story:[6] The Word of God is sown, and the response to the Word of God is various. In some cases, it is instant bloom followed by instant fade, a surge of emotion and then followed by immediate collapse: “Oh, I must have had a pizza the night before. I don’t know what I was thinking about, that I would ever have got myself into that position.” Then others, when they hear the Word of God, they can’t wait to get out at final hymn, because there is a scratching at their ears, and they fear it might be God himself calling them to himself, and the devil says, “Get out while you can. Get out fast!” Those are those amongst the stones, where the seed fell. It had a little bit of a movement, but it was gone. And then the others, who along the journey of life choked—choked by riches and by selfish preoccupations and so on.

The Bible is very, very clear. Do you believe? Would you tell your friend at work that you have come to know that God is the living, loving, seeking, saving God?

You see, if you’re a disciple, you belong—you were chosen from eternity—you believe what the Bible says, and you behave in line with your believing. That is why, you see, the lordship of Christ is stumbled over by many of these congregations in that article, because what they decided was the influence of our culture in relationship, for example, to LGBTQ—they decided that they would succumb to that notion rather than believe the clarity of the Word of Jesus, that they would readjust their notions of marriage rather than believe what Jesus has said about marriage. And as soon as that is opened up as a point of departure, it’s just a wholesale collapse from that point out.

So, Jesus is praying for his disciples.

Jesus Is Not Praying for the World

Secondly, you will notice—and we’ve only made it to verse 9, the beginning: “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world.” It’s interesting that he says that, isn’t it? “I am not praying for the world. I am praying for them.”

Now, we need to understand a lot more than we’re going to understand in what I’m just about to share with you. But we need to understand the way in which “the world” is described.

First of all, the world that God made in its perfection is a world that is in rebellion against God. The world is in rebellion against God. It has turned its back on God—Romans chapter 1.[7] It knows by conscience and by creation that there is an amazing God, but it says, “No, no, we don’t want to believe that.”

One of you gave me a wonderful article this week about ants, because I had mentioned ants last week. What I know about ants could have been written on a postage stamp. But nevertheless, you thought you would help me, and you did help me. And you gave me this amazing article that some of you may have seen in the Plain Dealer about how ants are capable of conducting amputations in their own species. They amputate legs, okay? Which is staggering! But, no surprise, whoever wrote the article had to say, “Isn’t evolution quite amazing?”[8] Why do you say that? “Well, because I don’t believe that God made the world. I don’t believe it.” Why don’t you believe it? “Because I’m a rebel.”

And that’s why the story of conversion… For example, we could go to lots of verses, but let’s just… For example, Ephesians 2, when Paul is describing what has happened to these people in coming to Christ, he says, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”[9] “That was the world you lived in!” And some of you could stand up right now, if we had this kind of operation, and stand up and say, “I agree with that entirely. I did live in that world. I was committed to that world. But now I have believed and have come to know.”

So when Jesus says he is not praying for the world, clearly, the world can only be prayed for only to the end that some who now belong to the world might be awakened and abandon the

world and find themselves included with those who’ve been chosen out of the world.

Now, I read 1 John 2, and I’m going back to it again. I do apologize for so many cross-references, but if you take notes, you can just make a note and go back and see if it’s actually there in the Bible when I say. It’s always exciting. Yes, it’s actually there. When I turn it up, I say, “Oh, I hope what I wrote in my notes is true.” Well, there we go: “Do not love the world.”[10] Don’t love it.

Well, what is Jesus saying, that he doesn’t pray for the world? We know that from the cross, Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”[11] We know in John 3:16 that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son”—so we know that God loves the world. We know that Jesus says in John chapter 12 that he didn’t come to judge the world; he didn’t come to blame. The only reason that he came was to save—to seek and to save what was lost.[12]

And indeed, as we read on in chapter 17, as we continue in our study, we’re going to see that Jesus in his prayer anticipates that the world will be reached through those for whom he prays. So if you’re in 17, you can just look down, for example, at verse 21 or so—maybe 23 (I’ve got to get my eyes tested again):

[I pray] 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 [might] believe that you have sent me. … I in them and you in 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.

But the distinction is absolutely clear. The world is to be reached through those for whom Jesus prays. And what we need to understand is this: that the idea—which is a prevalent idea—that the notion of God as a kind of vague, benign deity who wants everything to go really well for everybody in the world is not an unfamiliar notion, but it’s to be found nowhere in the Bible. Because what Jesus is realizing in his prayer is that there is a particular relationship of intimacy with those for whom Jesus prays.

And the Father’s intimate relationship with you as a disciple this morning is an intimate relationship. I’ve always loved John chapter 14 since I found it. I don’t know where I was when I found it. But John 14:21: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he…” Incidentally, we’re not kept by our obedience. Our obedience proves that we’re being kept.

Whoever has my [commands] and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. …

These things I have spoken to you while I[’m] still with you. [And] the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and [he will make his home with you].[13]

Jesus Is Glorified in His Disciples

Well, let’s go to our third observation. Jesus is praying for his disciples. He’s not praying for the world. Jesus is glorified in his disciples. He’s glorified in his disciples. “I[’m] praying for them. I[’m] not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they [belong to you].” Now listen: “All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.”

Lenski, the Lutheran commentator, says, “In words of utmost simplicity yet profound beyond human thought…”[14] It’s a good line! “In words of utmost simplicity yet profound beyond human thought,” Jesus declares that everything in the universe belongs to him and to the Father. Everything! Whatever belongs to one belongs to the other. Look at what he says: “All mine is yours.” Well, we understand that. We would say that: “All that we have belongs to you.” “All mine is yours.” But then he says, “And yours are mine.”

I’m not going to go to John chapter 5. I’m not going to give you another cross-reference. But I’ll just tell you: You might want to look there. For Jesus to declare that “glory has come to me through the disciples” is absolutely amazing. It’s as profound a notion as the idea that everything that belongs to the Father belongs to Jesus. It’s one thing to say “All I have is yours,” but to say “All that is yours is mine”—no creature can say that with reference to God. No creature. No mere man. Everybody could say to God, “All that I have is yours,” but who can say to God, “All that [yours] is, is [mine] too”? Bruce Milne says that it is “a christological claim of extraordinary reach.”[15] And it is. But it’s equally amazing that Jesus says of these disciples, “I am glorified in them.”

Now, you know we’ve been talking about speaking proleptically and Jesus—and he’s going to do it again in a moment when he says, “I am no longer in the world.” He’s still in the world. He’s speaking proleptically. And it may be that when he says, “I am glorified in them,” again, he speaks proleptically. It’s not really now, but it will be then, in all of its fullness. I don’t think we have to go there. I think we leave it just exactly as it is.

“I am glorified in them.” Well, they haven’t exactly distinguished themselves to this point, have they? We saw that last time. They stuttered. They stumbled. They struggled to understand what Jesus was saying. But they were still following him. Let’s be honest: That might be the average week for some of this this past week. It wasn’t a strong march towards the finish. There was a little stuttering, a little stumbling along the way. But we still know. We still believe. We still trust. We still have the compass set north. They stuttered, stumbled. They didn’t distinguish themselves. But maybe that’s the actual point. Maybe that’s the point.

You remember in the Old Testament, where Gideon is threshing in a winepress—whatever that really looks like? He was—well, he was doing something that should be a big event in a very small way, because of the surrounding nations that were opposing him. The world around him was not conducive to his personal pilgrimage. And then the angel of the Lord appears to him and says to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”[16] Now, Gideon, if we could see this in video, would have gone looking for somebody else in the room. Because he responds to the angel of the Lord by saying, “I am involved in the weakest of clans, and I am the least in all of my father’s house, and you show up and announce to me that I am apparently a mighty man of valor.”[17] But in himself he isn’t, and neither am I, and neither are you.

God doesn’t share his glory. If you or I set out to be glorified, we are in immense danger.

When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he’s very clear about himself. He came, he says… His preaching wasn’t what you would call stellar. He came “in weakness and in fear and [a little bit of] trembling.”[18] If people had seen him, they would have said, “Well, he writes really good stuff, but I’m not sure that I want to listen to him for a long time.” And then, having been dismissive of his own position, he then goes on to take on the congregation. You remember what he says. “Think about yourselves,” he said. “Not many of you were from noble families. Not many of you were wise by worldly standards. Not many of you were powerful. But God chose foolish people to shame the wise, weak people to shame the strong, low and despised people to be able to bring to nothing the things that are.” Why? “So that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”[19]

He doesn’t share his glory. If you or I set out to be glorified, we are in immense danger. But Jesus, in his masterful kindness, in the provision of his Spirit, is able to look down on this congregation this morning and say, “Father, I am glorified in them”—because of his work within us so that we might live to the praise of his glory.

Jesus Asks the Father to Keep Them

Finally, and just very finally, notice that Jesus then asks the Father to keep them in his name. Jesus is about to leave. That means they’re no longer going to be enjoying his physical presence, and they’re no longer going to be in his company. They’re no longer going to be able to seek his counsel in the way that they’ve done for these past three years. And so he says, “Holy Father…” It’s the only time, actually, that this designation is used of the Father in all of the Gospels. Perhaps it is because he’s speaking about how they are not of the world, and they’re out from the world: “the world in its wickedness, but you, Father, in all of your holiness”; the transcendence of who God is in his holiness, and yet “Father”—the intimacy of him in his love for us. “Holy Father, keep them in your name.”

That’s why we sang a couple of songs this morning in this way: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it, and they’re safe.”[20] “Father,” he essentially says, in the words of the old farmer’s prayer from Scotland, “Father, keep them kept.” “I’m no longer in the world. I’m out of here. But they’re here. I’m leaving; they’re staying. I’m coming to you, Father. Keep them in your name, the name that you’ve given me”—aware of the activity of the Evil One, which he’s going to mention down in verse 15. “Keep them, Father, loyal to the truth, as embodied in the name that you’ve given me. Fill their minds. Shape their understanding. Direct their conduct.” And we hear that, and we realize that it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

When Paul writes to Timothy at the end of, I think, chapter 4, he says to Timothy, he says, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on … your hearers.”[21] “A close watch.” You see, there is a sense… And you get it in Jude. Remember that? Where in Jude it says, “Keep yoursel[f] in the love of God.”[22] Well, that’s something I’m supposed to do. But how does it finish with the doxology? “Now [unto] him who is able to keep you…”[23] But he doesn’t keep us in a vacuum. We don’t read our Bibles to get points. We go to the map in order to find our way through life. We don’t read our Bibles to satisfy our curiosity. We read our Bibles because it is food for our souls. Those who are his disciples, for whom he prays, keep his Word.

Now, we’ll come back to this, but you will notice that his desire for their protection is in order that they might be united—“that they [might] be one,” he says, “even as we are one.” I just need to say a word about that, and we will come back to it. But what Jesus is praying here is not a request for something to be created but rather to be cultivated, to be displayed, to be enjoyed.

“How can you say that?” Because all believers are already one in Christ, chosen from the foundation of the world, entrusted to Jesus, brought to living faith. We are united in Christ—we might say whether you like it or not! This is your brother sitting next to you, this is your sister, and so on. And so he says, “I want you to make sure.”

And incidentally, in the Apostles’ Creed, we talk about this. We affirm this—the una sancta, the communion of the saints. We said it last week: “We believe in the communion of the saints.” In other words, we believe that all God’s people throughout the entire world, no matter where they live, no matter what language they speak, we are all invisibly one in Christ. Now, should that find visible expression? Of course, in various ways—and to that we’ll come. But: “Keep them. They’re already one. May they live out their oneness,” so that others will come to find who Jesus is, why Jesus came, what Jesus does, so that others might come to belong, to believe, to behave.

Back to that thing that I started with: the Sunday Assembly USA—which, fascinatingly, came from London—the person representing that said, “We have a steady stream of folks constantly coming to give us a try because we’re offering something novel that many have lost.” Novelty.

I love to tell the story
Of unseen things above. …

And when in scenes of glory
[We] sing the new, new song.
[It’ll] be the [same] old story
That [we] have loved so long.[24]

No novelty. Security. Kept in Christ. Safe. Safe.

Do you remember when your dad said, “Go on, you can jump; I’ve got you”? Or when your mom said, “No, I won’t drown you in the bath; I’ll hold your head”? Maybe you don’t remember that. I didn’t think my mother would drown me, but I didn’t want my head under the water. She just put her hand under my head and kept me. What a kind of intimacy, that the Father knows the end from the beginning—all the details, all the steps and stumbles. If you’re not a disciple today, today would be a great day to respond to Jesus’ invitation to come to him.

Let’s pray:

Our Father, we thank you for the Bible. We pray that the truth of your Word may find a settled place in our lives, that those of us who are seeking after Christ may find in him a friend, a Savior, a Lord, a King. We pray that our sense of belonging in Jesus may become increasingly precious to us and that the things that we believe, despite the challenges that come on a daily basis from all kinds of quarters, may simply secure us, not because of our initiative but because of yours—that you found us even when some of us weren’t looking for you, and you promise to keep us. And in this promise we rest, and in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

[1] Jude 3 (ESV).

[2] 1 John 2:13–25 (ESV).

[3] Hebrews 3:12–13 (paraphrased).

[4] John 1:12 (ESV).

[5] John 6:60–69 (ESV).

[6] See Matthew 13:1–23; Mark 4:1–20; Luke 8:4–15.

[7] See Romans 1:18–25.

[8] Nell Greenfieldboyce, “Ants Treat Certain Leg Injuries with Lifesaving Amputations,” NPR, July 2, 2024, https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/07/02/nx-s1-5025130/ants-treat-certain-leg-injuries-with-life-saving-amputations. Paraphrased.

[9] Ephesians 2:1–2 (ESV).

[10] 1 John 2:15 (ESV).

[11] Luke 23:34 (ESV).

[12] See John 12:47.

[13] John 14:21, 25–26. See also John 14:23.

[14] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel (Columbus, OH: Lutheran Book Concern, 1942), 1133.

[15] Bruce Milne, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” in Learning Together as God’s Royal Family: Keswick 2002, ed. Ali Hull (Carlisle, UK: Authentic Lifestyle, 2002), 11.

[16] Judges 6:12 (ESV).

[17] Judges 6:15 (paraphrased).

[18] 1 Corinthians 2:3 (ESV).

[19] 1 Corinthians 1:26–31 (paraphrased).

[20] Proverbs 18:10 (paraphrased).

[21] 1 Timothy 4:16 (ESV).

[22] Jude 21 (ESV).

[23] Jude 24 (ESV).

[24] Arabella Katherine Hankey, “I Love to Tell the Story” (1866).