John 17:20–26

[Music] [Music] so hey welcome to coffee and devotions this tuesday morning this is december 22nd that's where every weekday morning at 9am and on the weekends when i get a spare moment for my kids you and i we get together we have some coffee we get into god's word and we grow in our love for the lord together and this year 2020 we'll make it through all the gospels well this morning we are at john chapter 17 verses 20 through 26 it's a short passage and so i'd like you to stay tuned because at the end you're going to help me choose what we're going to do in 2021 so stick through the end of the video we have a shorter passage today and you'll actually get to interact and and let me know what are you interested in doing in 2021 as we do coffee and devotions next year let me go ahead and have some coffee now and pray let's pray father we thank you so much for this day and we thank you for your word it is your word it is true every word written in it is perfect father we pray now that as we read your word you would bless us that you would care for us that you would teach us that our eyes might be fixed upon jesus and you would build us up in our faith in jesus name we pray amen all right here we go john chapter 17 verses 20 through 26 i do not pray for those for these alone but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they may that they all may be one as you father are in me and i in you that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that you sent me and the glory which you gave me i have given them that they may be one just as we are one i in them and you and me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me father i desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where i am that they may behold my glory which you have given me for you loved me before the foundation of the world o righteous father the world has not known you but i have known you and these have known that you sent me and i have declared to them your name and will declare it that the love which you loved me may be in them and i in them oh what a great passage we have as jesus continues to pray his high priestly prayer we need to ask ourselves a what is this section of the prayer about b what are we called or be what's the best verse in this and see what are we called to do in response to these words so a what is this about well as we look at these words let me get them up i'm sorry i didn't pull that up for you earlier as we look at these words here on the screen we see this first paragraph is jesus praying for unity in the church psalm 133 says blessed are they when brothers dwell in unity right there's a there's a blessing that we have when we are one because we realize that we are in christ when we fix our eyes on jesus so jesus is praying here that we would be of one accord of one mind one spirit even as jesus is one with the father so you and i should be one with each other so in the margin of my bible here if i was to write something down i would probably write jesus prays for us to be one this is why in the apostles creed they confessed in one holy universal church are we one next he says in verses 20 through 26 he prays that they might be where he is and that they might see his glory right jesus is praying he's just gone through this whole discourse about where i'm going you cannot come and where i go you will come right and they're confused about this and he knows that he's going to the grave but then he's going up to heaven and he knows that they will be with him eventually but they won't follow him to the grave that won't follow him to the cross but here he's saying show them the glory which i have had and he talks about how he has been loved by the righteous father from before the foundations of the world so in the margin of my bible what would i write there well i would probably write jesus prays that christians might see him in his glory that we might see jesus in his glory what's the best verse to summarize this section uh well there you can go a number of different ways with this i think in my bible i think i'm going to highlight verse 21 that they also may be one as you father are in me and i and you that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that you sent me right our unity speaks to the world as well i also think in my bible i am going to underline verse 24. that's what i'm going to highlight in my bible but maybe maybe you would highlight something else would would you highlight something else in your bible as what gets at the heart of these passages well lastly we need to ask ourselves see calling what are we called to do in response to these words what are we called to do in response to these words do you dwell in unity do you long for do you pray for your brothers and sisters in the saints in the in in the faith it's amazing how often if you pick up paul's letters how he speaks of always making mention of you in all of our prayers thanking god for the saints there it's almost every single epistle you open it up and it starts with a prayer do you pray for others do you carry one another's burdens i know life is busy i know life is hard but do you love one another do you show that unity that is marked by being in jesus christ also do you long to see jesus glory do you believe in jesus christ and does your love for jesus christ in your own heart play out in loving those who are christians in the church and does that your love for jesus and does your love for those who are in the church speak as a testimony to the rest of the world i'm going to let you know satan would like to do nothing more than to cause division in the church there's a whole bunch of opinions and stuff a whole bunch of ways in which people can get really worked up church people can get really really petty about things can get really worked up about stuff stuff that's not even gospel centered what color is the carpet are we going to do this and that what times church gonna start should we do sunday school before after worship do you seek for unity are you speaking only words that might impart grace to build others up according to the need are you being generous with those who are in need are you caring for the orphan and for the widow for those who cannot repay you for the poor and for the hungry there's so much here do we long to see jesus glory and do we display his work and our lives that others outside might lift their eyes up to him why don't we go ahead and pray lord we thank you so much for this day what a wonderful blessing it is to know that jesus has prayed for us to be with him lord we pray that we might fix our eyes upon jesus and that your holy spirit might press these truths down into our hearts and might embolden us empower us to live them out in our lives in jesus name we pray amen okay so we've come to a point where we need to ask ourselves well it's december 22nd what are we going to do next year right 2021 oh boy is right here with us what are we going to do well we need to go ahead and not this screen the web screen i'm going to show you guys something on our website that i hope is helpful to you i've mentioned it a couple days ago so if you go up here and you just type in sharon rpc dot sharon rpc.org you'll see our website and when you come on our website let me let me pull this down a little bit so you can see better when you come on our website up here in the navigation bar there's a tab that says 2021 bible plans if you click on that there's a whole web page here with with different tools for bible reading plans and so right away there's a whole bunch of them so there's uh reading through the whole bible in a year that's probably too much for this format if copying devotions would get really long but if there's things there that you would see helpful you could do those but what i think might be helpful for us is either going through the bible in three years that would be fine we could do that or we could do a couple deep dives would you like to look at the torah would you like to study the law next year would you like to read the historical books together would you like to go through the poetry and the wisdom that's in the scriptures maybe you would like to go through the prophets either the major prophets the minor prophets or do you want us in coffin devotions and do all of them we could do the gospels again if you'd like us to do the gospels or we could do the gospels and revelation that'd make the plan a little bit longer but we could do that together if you wanted to we could do jesus and paul and we could again this would probably be a pretty difficult to pull off together each morning but we might be able to do it we could do paul's letters and we can do all of his epistles no not everybody thinks paul wrote hebrews that's fine that's i put it in there but or we can do hebrews to revelation these are the general epistles so uh you know hebrews james first and second peter first second and third john jude maybe you'd like to do those ones let me know down in the comments what do you want to do for 2021 for coffee and devotions as you and i we get together we have some coffee we get into god's word what part of god's word do you want to study next year i'm really excited to to hear from you this is for your benefit let me know what reading plan would you like to do put it down in the comments just type that up feel free to go to the website sharon rpc.org and find it there and all of this is i pray a blessing to you i really hope that through this year of looking through the gospels you've been able to fix your eyes upon jesus and be and been growing in your faith but for today i pray that you go forth in the grace and peace of jesus christ walking confidently in his love bye [Music] [Music] you